I was able to watch the new crime mini-series on HBO Max starring Mark Ruffalo. I had been pretty interested in this since I heard about it.
Ruffalo played Tom Brandis, an FBI agent and former priest. Brandis was on leave because of a family tragedy. He was brought in to lead a task force to try and stop a group of violent thieves.
Tom Pelphrey played Robbie Prendergast, who was one of the thieves in the group Brandis is chasing.
The initial part of the episode was a little slow as we are introduced to all the characters. The second half of the episode was much better and was very intense and anxiety-ridden.
I am interested to see the next episode. I do love Mark Ruffalo but this episode was a little slow for my taste. I will be watching on Sunday night for now.
Episode three brought us some awesome stuff and a couple of surprises.
Surprise number one kicked off the episode as Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag, who Peacemaker killed in The Suicide Squad film, made his return in a flashback, showing that he had a relationship with Harcourt before his death, and he appeared in the alternate universe where Chris found himself.
Then, unexpectedly, there was Michael Rooker, dressed like an outdoorsman (that really looked Native American) named Red St Wild. St. Wild is an expert eagle killer and he has been recruited by ARGUS to kill Eagly. I do not know if Red St Wild is a DC character or an original character created by James Gunn. Ihave never heard of him but I am not the expert in DC Comics.
John Cena got a chance to show off his skill set here. Not only does he have some really solid acting scenes, in particular opposite Jennifer Holland’s Harcourt, but he got to go full hardcore as Chris goes into a tense situation to prevent a massive bomb. Without his helmet or his outfit, Chris brutally kills a bunch of the Sons of Liberty terrorists who were setting up this bomb.
And Chris messes them up.
That sequence was awesome and it showed Peacemaker’s strength. While he is sometimes portrayed as a buffoon, there is no doubt that he was a killing machine in this scene and it was a welcomed moment for both the character and the audience.
The rest of the ensemble had some great moments this week too. The show felt as if it may have kicked into high gear with the temptation of the alternate universe calling to Chris. Could he actually go to that universe and take the place of the Chris he killed.
That Chris, by the way, sure looked to be a hot mess. While the Peacemaker identity was beloved and held as a hero, Chris Smith was shown to be a drunk with a drug problem. That universe’s Chris did not seem to be having a positive life outside of his alter ego. It is clearly the path this season’s story is taking.
Finally, what is up with Vigilante? Taking the pants off a drunken Economos with a tender kiss on his forehead was bizarre.
The episode flew by and felt shorter than the first two weeks. I love how the season is setting up characters with their personal relationships. I expect things to get crazy, but the show had better not kill off Eagly!
Peacemaker dropped its second episode last night on HBO Max. Last week’s premiere left Chris in a terrible state of mind as he accidentally killed an alternate universe version of himself.
This week, we follow up on that cliffhanger last week with Chris getting help from Vigilante to chop of the body with a handsaw. What a horrendous scene with the John Cena head rolling around on the ground.
I thought John Cena did a great job with his acting in this episode. He played Peacemaker in a real depressed state and you could completely understand why. His comment about looking into the eyes of yourself as he dies was really powerful. I thought this might have been Cena’s best performance as Peacemaker yet.
Then Tim Meadows joined the cast as ARGUS agent Langston Fleury. I have to say that I did not like this character even a little bit. Bird blindness? Hated it.
Eagly kicked some serious butt in this episode and it is awesome. Eagly went after some of these ARGUS agents with a gusto not seen by the eagle lately.
The Peacemaker crew party on the roof was amazing. The writing was perfect. The dialogue, especially between Chris and Harcourt was exceptional.
Another good episode and great progression of the story.
I watched the first episode of Peacemaker season two last night, but, to be honest, I was really tired and I dozed through a bunch of the show. It is not a criticism of the episode as much as it was how tired I was after all day at school and the open house that night.
So I woke up early this morning and rewatched the episode, and I am so glad that I did. I realized that I actually dozed through the entire bit with Chris (Peacemaker) and his father and his brother Keith in the alternate universe, which is a major piece of the episode.
Before we go on, let’s talk the most important part… the dance routine on the opening credits. I have to say, my first thoughts were that I did not love it as much as I did last year. While I did enjoy it, and the dancing of the cast was as corny and over-the-top as ever, I feel as if the song this season, “Oh Lord” by Foxy Shazam, does not reach the level of awesomeness as “Do Ya Wanna Taste It?” by Wig Wam. That is just a personal preference, and I will say that I found it more entertaining the second time, so perhaps this will be a song that will grow on me as the season progresses whereas last season’s song grabbed me immediately.
Moving on, I thought this episode was really strong and highlighted more of the character aspects of the cast, especially Chris, Economos, and Harcourt. Chris’s entire storyline with the alternate world Peacemaker was amazing. The scene where Chris sat silently as his dad and Keith talked was powerful and a bit sad. I wonder if, in this universe, his dad is not the racist piece of garbage that was displayed last season. They do seem to be working together as a trio.
There was less about Adebayo and Adrian Chase (Vigilante) though they do appear in good scenes complimenting the other performances. I expect more from both before the season ends.
Also, shout out to the Bludhaven reference made during the episode. Bludhaven is the city outsie of Gotham where Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing, resides.
Another major switch came in the “Previously on” section at the beginning of the episode where they made a couple of adjustments to scenes from seaosn one. Specifically, we hear Adebayo make mention of the “Justice Gang” instead of the “Justice League.” Another switch was the iconinc scene at the end of season 1 where the Justice League shows up and we see Flash and Aquaman from their movie sides. Here we get the Justice Gang with Guy Gardner and Hawkgirl making comments instead. None of these adjustments bother me any and it makes me wonder if the plan is not to have Chris move into a different world, but to have Chris’s world be the actual DCU.
I know everyone was making the guess that Peacemaker would jump universes, but I think that is not going to be the way they go. With these few retcons, I think the story will be Chris goes to the happier universe with his cool dad and living brother, but he needed to return to his home world which is the DCU. I could be wrong on that, but I am calling it right now.
Peacemaker season two episodes drop every Thursday on HBO Max.
Okay, the finale of season one of Duster rocked really hard.
It was probably the best episode of the season as everything came to a close and they set up some unbelievably compelling storylines for a season two.
Major points this episode:
We find out what happened to Joey. (Hint he was not killed by Saxton)
I did not see Saxton’s death coming but his sacrifice for his son fit well for this character
I did not realize that Corbin Bernsen was playing Jimmy’s dad. He had some tense scenes with Genesis.
Good seeing Billy get his, especially after his brutality with Jimmy and Nina.
The Agent Grant-Nina showdown was intense too. Thanks to Awan for his awesome timing.
Jimmy is just a hero. He drove his car right into the hornet’s nest to try and save Nina.
Of course, he had his dad set up to shoot Genesis as a way to get Saxton to change his plans. That was the old 66 Reno Split.
Izzy tells Jimmy that she had cancer to convince him not to leave town. She told him that Luna would need him.
Turned out that the mysterious Xavier is Joey, Jimmy’s brother who is not dead (Saxton helped him get away).
The Nixon tape found its way into other hands. It had Nixon preparing to sow racial divide.
Jimmy and Nina are teaming up again to try and find Joey/Xavier.
This was a really fun episode and a great end to the season. I hope we get to continue on. Josh Holloway is a tremendously charismatic actor and his presence in every scene is perfect.
Duster has taken a wild swing into the world of political thriller, connecting the story they have been telling to, of all things, the Watergate tapes.
Howard Hughes made a guest star appearance and told Jim that Joey was killed by the CIA. Is that the truth or just the ramblings of a crazy man?
Sgt Groomes awakened and gave his info on Jim to Billy, all the while then ousting Nina from her Russian interpreter role. Billy snatched Nina at the end of the episode, which technically saved her from Agent Chad who had received orders to take Nina out.
Luna stowed away in the duster with Jim and Saxton, who were delivering the case (that contained the “smoking gun” tape of Nixon) to Hughes. When she was discovered, she dropped the fact that she was the daughter of the protestor that Saxton had been having so much trouble with, but Saxton did seem to be willing to listen to the little girl argue the case for the protest and for women’s rights.
Who, by the way, is Xavier?
There were a ton of storylines coming together and setting up for net episode’s finale of season one.
Duster has started each episode with the old flashforward cold open, setting up something that will eventually happen in the episode. Some have been more interesting than others. This one was excellent.
Bringing up “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” set the tone for the scene extremely well and highlighted the characterization of Jim and Nina perfectly.
The scene where Jim, Nina, Ezra, Royce and Billy meet with the Russians was a tense scene. It really showed the cleverness of both Nina and Jimmy. Jimmy stepping in to cover for Royce who was having a reaction to his heart medication and the vodka was utter genius. Josh Holloway does a sensational job delivering the improvisation to the Russians in a huge spot.
The firefight afterwards was also cool, although it may not have been as improbable as they made it out in the first scene.
I am not sure there will be enough time for all the dangling stories that are available making me think that several of these plot holes will not be finished in season one.
It is the Fourth of July on Duster and we have two separate storylines that are coming together well.
Jim has been fired for losing the Hughes car last week, so he go to see Saxton’s daughter Genesis. He discovered that her girlfriend is being forced into marriage by her criminal father for business purposes. Seeing a chance to get back into good graces of Saxton, Jim takes Genesis to help bust up the wedding.
Sadly, this comes at the cost of spending the 4th with Luna and giving David a chance to be the hero.
Meanwhile, Nina wants to go undercover inside Saxton’s organization as a Russian interpreter. She needs help to get an in with Saxton. When Jim tells her that he got canned, she decides that Jim’s father Wade is the way in.
The scene between Jim and Wade where Jim tells him his suspicions that Saxton had put the hit out on Joey is a good scene. Both men showed their level of pain at the potential betrayal, even if neither of them wanted to accept it.
There are scenes in Washington D.C., including a wild Richard Nixon appearance. There are a lot of things going on here and the last three episodes could be amazing.
Duster kicked off the episode with Jim picturing himself in a Looney Tunes cartoon, specifically the Road Runner cartoons.
No… really.
Jim was worried that he was being pursued by an assassin, and it translated perfectly into the world of Looney Tunes.
Meanwhile, Nina and Awan head into Navajo country, something that would hit close to home for Awan.
Duster also seems to have a thing for special items. Last week it was Elvis’s blue suede shoes. This week it is Howard Hughes’s car.
That car ends up being a huge piece in a confrontation between Jim and the assassin sent after him as Jim continues to show his creativity and his charm in dealing with people.
Of course, he has lost Hughes’s car and now has to go back to his boss with only an explanation.
Duster episode three was pretty good as we had progression of the two sides to the investigation.
Jim and Saxton head to a meeting and some road bonding takes place. Nothing better than a bar fight because of racial hatred, right? The chemistry between Josh Holloway and Keith David is exceptional. Jim is torn between his beliefs about his brother’s death. He went from one scene where he was sure Saxton did not have the c4 placed under his brother’s van and then to another scene where he believed he did.
Personally, I am hoping that Saxton was not responsible for Jim’s brother’s death and that it was someone inside his organization that was at fault. I’m not sure though as it sure seems like the show wants us to believe he did it.
Meanwhile, Nina and Awan went undercover and broke into an asylum to try and speak with Agent Breen about the report from the Saxton case. Things did not go well as Breen became violent and nearly killed her with a knife to the throat.
Overall, it feels as if the trip to the asylum, which went against direct orders, was a failure. However, Awan’s passionate defense of Superman was an episode highlight.
I have been liking this HBO Max series so far. Josh Holloway is a powerful force in the show.
How meta is this when you have the actual Adrienne Barbeau playing a character in your show, while you have an actress playing Adrienne Barbeau in your show. And that actress, in the story, distracts an actor playing Colonel Tom Parker so Jim could steal Elvis Presley’s original blue suede shows.
Wild.
This turned into what felt like a Coen Brothers movie with plot twists and killers. Patrick Warburton played a hitman named Sunglasses that Jim hired to lean on the crooked cop that had seen him meeting with Nina at the end of episode one. That cop wanted a $10,000 pay off to not take that information to the interested parties.
Josh Holloway continues to be charismatic and entertaining in the main role. I felt a little less that this was just a Sawyer-lite character this week than I did the last time, which is a good thing. I think part of that was because of the bizarre storyline of Jim needing to steal Elvis’s blue suede shoes to pay off Sunglasses to take care of the crooked cop.
Of course, the crooked cop ended up shot (I guess not dead though). Jim and Sunglasses had a great fight in a bowling alley. Never knew the bowling alley was such a dangerous location.
What an end to the second season of The Last of Us. Abby comes face to face with Ellie and it sure seemed as if Abby shoots Ellie.
Ellie killed a couple of Abby’s group earlier, including Mel, a pregnant woman, and it was clear that it hit Ellie hard. Mel became collateral damage in this revenge and that shook Ellie to her core.
With the screen going to black when the shots are fired, we have no idea what happened to Ellie. Most series I would say that it was obvious that she would be fine, that it was someone else’s gun going off, but about a month ago, the show killed Joel so I would not put anything past it.
It did end the season with the idea that the show was going to switch POV to Abby as the episode ended with a chyron stating “Seattle Day One” on the screen after we saw Abby in the Wolves’ stadium. I do not know how excited I am in seeing the POV of Abby in this whole thing. I hate this character of Abby and I do not want to have my opinion changed on her. I am not interested in a redemption arc for her, seeing everything that she has been through. She killed Joel and she killed Jesse. I am sad for the loss of Jesse, by the way. I should have known earlier in the episode when Jesse said that he was not dying that it was just foreshadowing the end.
By the way, the short time that Ellie was on Scar Island with the Seraphites was utterly frightening. I was not sure how Ellie was getting out of that situation as the noose was around her neck and she was just about dangling off the ground. She was seconds away from being gutted like a deer by the Seraphites. Thankfully, an alarm goes off, preventing the scarred psychos from completing their ritual. Ellie has that luck roll working for her.
The shots of Ellie on the water in the thunderstorm was amazing scenes. The power of the storm was clear and the danger that Ellie was willing to put herself in to satisfy her own selfish vengeance is fully realized.
I was not sure that this was the finale of the season, and it left off at a horrible moment. Then, Abby seemingly the focus of the third season, at least at first does not make me anxious for the show to return. It is absolutely a quality show, but I worry that it may push some viewers, particularly those that are not the game players, away.
When Joel died in episode two, I knew that we would be getting a flashback at some point. There were just too many mysteries that we needed to see play out. In particular, what had happened with Eugene and why did Joel kill him? I saw that Joe Pantoliano was listed in the credits as Eugene so I expected we would see what happened.
I did not expect an entire episode of flashbacks. A whole episode of flashbacks that were amazing and heartbreaking at the same time.
Focusing in on Ellie’s birthdays during the years Joel and Ellie lived in Jackson, we saw how Joel tried to make each day something special for Ellie. Making her happy was a major goal for Joel. The guitar and song. The space shuttle. The dinosaur. All ways to try and make Ellie’s life a little better.
It also showed us how Joel and Ellie’s relationship was weakening. The whole situation stemmed from Joel’s lie at the end of season one involving the Fireflies. Deep down, even when Ellie was happy, she knew the truth. She just did not know the details. The scene on the porch where Ellie finally confronted Joel and he gave her the truth was tough, but had hope surrounding it as well, since Ellie said that she wanted to try to forgive Joel, even though she didn’t think she could.
That scene is made even more powerful as we know that this is the last words between the two of them ever. It is going to be the way that Ellie always remembers Joel.
The whole Eugene storyline was rough too. Joe Pantoliano delivered a great performance despite only being on screen for a few minutes. You really felt his devastation and his deep desire to see his wife one last time. Of course, it was a trigger for Ellie to solidify her thoughts about Joel. It was the look in his eyes when he lied to her.
Ellie was brutal when she outed Joel’s lies to Gail. It was a punishment for Joel by Ellie. She did not take Gail’s pain into consideration.
Next week is the season finale and I am not sure where this will go from here. For sure, the pain of losing Joel is only going to be worse now after we got the opportunity to spend a little bit more time with him and Ellie.
Josh Holloway returned to TV on HBO Max with a series called Duster. And I enjoyed it tremendously. Of course, I have a bit of a bias.
Josh Holloway was, of course, James “Sawyer” Ford on ABC’s LOST for the entire run of the series and LOST is my absolute favorite TV of all time. I have an unrequited love for the series and I have missed the characters.
So Holloway played Jim Ellis in this new show and, let’s say, he shares quite a bit of characteristics with Sawyer. When he called the little girl who was with him in the car “Peanut” I nearly lost it (no pun intended).
Perhaps I should be looking for the differences between these two characters instead of focusing on the ways that they are the same, but I have a major blind spot. Plus, they really are similar.
Jim seems to have some poor decision making skills, just like Sawyer. He had the same smart tongue. Jim just looked like an older version of Sawyer.
Jim is an expert driver obviously, and we never saw Sawyer show off much along the lines of his automotive skills (unless he did some driving in the Flash Sideways).
FBI agent Nina Hayes is a neat new character for Holloway to play off. Played by Rachel Hilson, Nina has so many obstacles to overcome. Placed right into the sexist/racist 1970s, Nina as a black woman in the FBI truly caused a stir just by walking into a police station. This dynamic is thrilling to watch.
I hope I can allow myself to see Jim Ellis as his own character and not just as an older Sawyer. However, episode one was very entertaining and I look forward to seeing more.
Another strong episode of the video game adaptation on MAX. The Last of Us gave us the brutality of Ellie as well as seeing the group who were called the Scars and how horrendous they are.
Jesse made his way to Seattle (apparently with Tommy, though we haven’t seen him yet) and came in clutch as Ellie was about to be ripped apart by the Stalkers, the intelligent infected. Ellie and Dina were making their way to the hospital, and their trip through the big warehouse led them to these smart infected. Dina was able to lock herself inside a cage and Ellie was nearly killed, but Jesse arrived at the perfect time.
Of course, Jesse was pissed at them for leaving Jackson, and they had to run to escape the Wolves. They ran into the forest where they came across the Scars, also know as the Seraphites. They watched them hang a man and disembowel him, as Ellie and Dina had come across earlier. Dina gets an arrow in her leg and Jesse takes her while Ellie distracts the Seraphites.
Ellie winds up in the hospital and she comes across Nora, who had been the one to hold Ellie down while Abby killed Joel. Ellie chased Nora through the hospital and into an elevator shaft. They wound up in a basement area where Ellie sees a group of people connected to the plants, breathing spores. Nora was infected from the spores but Nora realizes that Ellie is the rumored girl who was immune.
Nora asked Ellie if she knew what Joel had done and then proceeded to tell her the things he had done. Ellie said that she knew.
Ellie took it even further as she was beating Nora with a weapon, trying to get her to tell her where Abby was.
The episode ends with Ellie waking up and Joel walking in to see how she was. HUH?
That was an unexpected moment. I always thought that Joel would be back in some kind of flashback sooner rather than later, but this was the weirdest placement for such a moment. There are a bunch of questions from this show and I can’t wait to see what the answers are.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 