This series concluded with a powerful episode that saw testimony in a trial of the people facing the blame for what happened on April 26, 1986.
Boris, Legasov and Ulana would all testify about the events of the night and the way that Anatoly Dyatlov ignored protocol in his attempt to complete a required test. However, when Legasov took the microphone, he explained out the process of the way a power plant worked. But it was not only that, but Legasov, putting his own life on the line, talked about how the flaw in the AZ-5 system led to the failure of the shutdown procedure, and thus it being a failure of the Soviet Union for the devastation.
The court scenes were full of tension and made for a dramatic way to wrap up this fantastic five-episode series. The acting in the series was on display in this episode even more than before. Stellan Skarsgård and Jared Harris really stood out among this wonderful ensemble. Neither of them were shown as heroes. Both characters knew that they were not heroes, yet they were doing what they knew was right.
I can see why Legasov made the decision to kill himself after hearing the way he was going to be treated as he slowly got sick from the radiation. It is a powerful piece of entertainment with an amazing result.
Chernobyl has been just an amazing show so far. Four tragic episodes that showed the horrible events that happened in the Soviet Union and the Soviet’s attempts to fix the problem without admitting to any problems.
We got a new arc here too as Barry Keoghan appeared as a soldier who joined a couple of others to shoot the animals of the infected area This was very tough as they were killing several pets, dogs, cats and a painful scene with puppies, and then taking the bodies to bury beneath cement. Keoghan’s character had never done something like this and the anguish of the situation was obvious. This was a rough part of the episode, but provided some amazing character moments.
Then Boris went to town on the phone.
I called the line that he would say afterwards, “We need another phone.” Boris was angry with the Kremlin because they were not being helpful. The explosion of frustration made for a brilliant scene.
Then, when the robots could not do what they needed, they recruited people to do it. Oh goodness.
This has been unbelievable and I wonder how accurate the series is to the truth.
This has been such a compelling story of such a horrific tragedy. The drama is so tense and suspenseful and every moment brings more shocking revelations. So many people wound up sick or dead because of their efforts to stop the exposure from spreading into the land or the water, it truly speaks to the heroic nature of the human spirit, no matter the country.
The group of miners they recruited to dig beneath the core to prevent the contamination of the water supply have become my favorite characters immediately. Their no nonsense approach to the initial order was awesome, as was their patting of the coal minister (messing up his suit and his face with coal dust). Their response to not being allowed to have fans in the tunnels they dug was unexpected and a great bit of humor inside a serious moment.
Seeing some of the first people who had been exposed and the fates that they faced was difficult. The firefighter whose wife told him she was pregnant was heart-breaking. The final scene of the episode where they placed a series of metal coffins in a large grave and covered it with concrete was a brutal blow. It was truly a difficult scene to watch.
Valery Legasov presenting the plan for what had to happen next to Gorbachev was a tense scene. When Valery approached the KGB Director, I had everything clenched. I know he survived because of the opening scene of the show, but it still did not make this easier to watch.
This has been such a powerful show with so much amazing acting. I find this very emotional and I am glad that I have gotten around to seeing it.
With the rewatches of Twin Peaks and Moonlighting finishing, the end of the Fallout first season, and the nearing of the completion of Man from Atlantis, I was ready for a new watch, whether it be a rewatch or a new show. I had made a list and one that jumped out at me was a five-episode mini-series that had aired on HBO in 2019 based on the story of the disaster that occurred at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union.
I had heard amazing things about this mini-series and so I wanted to get this into the rotation. I have to say, after watching the first two episodes, I had to really stress myself into not continuing and binging the entire series. It was that good.
About two-thirds of the way through the second episode, I was thinking that everyone that I saw in the first episode was now dead or in the process of dying, which was a dramatic thought.
Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgård we meet, mostly, in the second episode, and they bring some of the best acting I have seen in a long time. The realization of what their jobs will cost them is absolutely screaming beneath their performances.
This historical recreation (which does have its share of discrepancies) is extremely stressful and intense. It had me yelling at my screen for characters to get out of there, in reference to the power plant. How the radiation affected these men was an unbelievable example of the power of nuclear energy.
Kicking the series off with a scene of Valery Legasov, played by Jared Harris, hanging himself after recording memoirs of the events of Chernobyl really started things off with a desperation that the series maintained. Legasov had said to Skarsgård’s Boris Shcherbina in episode two that they would both be dead in five years. Perhaps this was his way of taking control of his life. Or maybe, he knew he would be killed for putting his words on tape. Either way, it made for quite an impact at the beginning of this show.
The fourth season of True Detective came to its conclusion tonight on HBO Max with an extra long episode that wrapped up the storylines well and left some ambiguity in what happened with Navarro.
The show moved at a rapid pace throughout. They had a lot to cover.
The story of what happened to the frozen naked people was something else. I never would have guessed about what the answer was to the mystery. I am not sure if this felt like a cheat or a clever way to keep it unexpected.
Top notch performances tonight from Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as they were stranded together in the blizzard with Raymond Clark, who was able to provide us with some answers (sort of).
The case was a nice mixture of real world and supernatural as everything made sense, but the mysteriousness of the setting remained in tact.
Was that Navarro’s spirit or real live body visiting Danvers at the end? I know what I think, but we will never know for sure.
A really enjoyable season with a very strong finale. I was really pleased with True Detective: Night Country.
I had forgotten that True Detective: Night Country was releasing its penultimate episode on Friday night instead of its typical Sunday night because of the inevitable competition of the Super Bowl. I did not think of it until tonight as I was watching American Nightmare on Netflix. After that was over, I pulled up Max and loaded up episode 5.
What an episode.
The confrontation at Danvers’ home between Hank Prior, Danvers, Otis and Peter was just shocking. Watching Peter put a bullet into his father’s head to protect Danvers after his father had shot and killed Otis was an unbelievable scene.
The scene between Peter and Danvers at the police station was compelling as hell and really set up what was to come.
It was a tough episode for Peter, ending with one of the most tragic things that he had to do. He could not stand there and watch his father execute Danvers and so his hand was forced.
Hank did confess that he did not kill Annie, but he did move the body. I guess you can scratch him off the suspects list. With Navarro and Danvers on their way to the cave where Annie was killed, I expect all kinds of drama coming next week in the finale.
By the way, the Tsalal deaths have been deemed an accident by way of an avalanche by the medical examiners in Anchorage. This, of course, is fairly coincidental as Pete had just found evidence linking Silver Sky Mining with Tsalal. Silver Sky Mining’s exec Kate McKittrick is clearly crooked and had ordered Hank to make sure Otis could not take Liz and Navarro to the caves.
Something is in those caves and the reveal next week could be epic.
Night Country continues to be a creepy and, at times, devastating look at both mental illness and the effects of isolation and the lack of daylight.
This week, Navarro’s sister, diagnosed with several mental illnesses, leaves the clinic and walks into the water, drowning herself. To say that Navarro does not respond positively to the news is an understatement. She flies off the handle at the clinic and then picks a fight with a group of men who leave her bloodied and battered.
Meanwhile, things aren’t great for Danvers. Her step-daughter leaves, Danvers spends Christmas Eve alone and drunk.
Navarro is seeing some horrors and she is afraid that the mental illness ran through her family. Ghosts are everywhere here apparently.
The supernatural element of this show has really started kicking into high gear. When Otis Heiss said that they were in the “night country” now, it really felt like something creepy.
And I really feel for Navarro.
The show has been firing on all cylinders for me and, with just two episodes left, I’m excited to see the mystery of the Tsalal murder solved.
Okay, I was thinking that this episode was slow and there was not too much going down. I mean there was some minimal advancement on the case and there was some good character development, especially for Navarro.
Then, the last fifteen minutes or so, shit went crazy.
So much so that when the episode went to black, I was feeling uneasy and downright disturbed from the video on Annie’s phone and the unnatural warning from the injured Dr. Anders Lundt, with his legs amputated. This supernatural twist was creepy as all hell and really punctuated the scene, with him making a comment about Navarro’s mom. Coincidentally, we found out earlier this episode what had happened to her.
We also discovered the fact that the six dead, frozen bodies most likely had not died of being frozen, that they were dead before they were frozen.
I also found out that the season is now half over, which was shocking to me. There is so much going on right now that I hope they are able to nail the landing on this series because it is truly compelling at this point.
So, after the weird and supernatural feel of the first episode last week, this week’s True Detective is a lot of procedural investigations, questions (both the right and wrong questions) and interactions among characters.
At the end of last episode, a ghost had led his former wife to a group of bodies frozen in the ice. Turned out they were scientists working at a station out in the Alaskan night.
How they wound up in a frozen pile, naked, with their clothes folded neatly in piles nearby.
I must say that when the hand broke off and the body screams, I jumped. One of them survived!
And it looked as if the scientists have some kind of connection to the case of Annie’s murder from six years before. There is a spiral tattoo that plays a prominent part this the mystery. Danvers and Evangeline (and a throwback to season 1).
Raymond Clark was not among the mass of frozen bodies, indicating that he might still be alive and out there.
Another week and the mystery is becoming bigger as we go. I enjoyed the characters quite a bit and I look forward to seeing where this goes next.
True Detective season one was one of the best seasons of TV you are ever going to find. Season two was a huge step down. I did not watch season three.
Season four has debuted on Max. I did not know it had started until I saw it on Hulu. I knew it was coming out soon, and I wanted to give this new season a chance.
Jodie Foster is the star of this season which is taking place in Alaska. Foster is a fantastic actor who has a realness to her, a natural feel.
According to the opening text, this is set around December 17th, which was the last sunset of the year. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live at night for two weeks or more.
This first episode started building up these characters and there are some definitely intriguing people living in Alaska. It also began the new case, with a body found without a tongue that apparently has ties to a previous one. That case had some tie to Kali Reis, the boxer-turned-actor, playing the role of trooper Evangeline Navarro, an indigenous native with some spiritual connections.
There is something mystical going on too. It was not 100% clear what was happening. Ghosts maybe? There was a scene that reminded me of Killer Bob from Twin Peaks. Oh, and there was a polar bear.
I found this interesting and I love the supernatural stuff here. Jodie Foster is top notch and I think this season has started off strong.
The HBO show, The Last of Us completed its first season run Sunday night and I am going to say that I do not think they had a weak episode among the nine. This show was consistently powerful and emotional every episode and built brilliantly on the week prior in such clever and well developed ways. I am not exaggerating when I say that this is the best video game adaptation in any format of all time. That may not be the highest bar to exceed, but The Last of Us has now set that aforementioned bar at a remarkably high level.
Sunday’s episode saw Joel and Ellie arrive at the Fireflies (although they were not as nice about it as you would have thought). Prior to the Fireflies’ attack, Ellie was showing some definite problems from her battle for survival with David last episode. Joel and Ellie seemingly switched places in their roles. Ellie was brooding and withdrawn and Joel was talkative and wanting more bad puns.
I had wondered if when they arrived at the hospital that they were heading to, if Ellie was going to be in danger. I thought maybe they would be trying to dissect her, but that wasn’t quite right. They were going to go into her brain and remove the part that was making her immune and mass produce it. It would be Ellie’s sacrifice. She was not told about it.
Joel was told though and that was a bad mistake for the Fireflies.
Joel went into murder-mode, coldly and without emotion, shooting everybody in his way to save Ellie. Even those who were laying down their weapons and surrendering wound up with a bullet in their head. It was brutal. It only cemented my comment from last week. If Joel was on The Walking Dead, he would be the villain that the survivors would be trying to protect themselves from.
Pedro Pascal completed his season with yet another spectacular episode. He has been on point as Joel in every episode, bringing his best work of his career. How he lied to Ellie at the end, to protect her from making a different decision about sacrificing herself to save the world was amazing. Joel knew that Ellie would choose to sacrifice herself if she was given a choice and he could not lose her too. So his saving of Ellie was really a selfish move, but he could not lose another daughter.
And… giraffes.
The episode started off with a pregnant woman and I was totally confused. She kind of looked like Ellie so I wondered if this was supposed to be a flash forward to a time when Ellie was pregnant. That was not making me happy. I did not want to see Ellie as a mother later because it felt as if it would mean that she was safe in any future storytelling. I figured it out soon though. It wasn’t Ellie pregnant in the future. It was Ellie’s mom, pregnant with Ellie in the past, giving us some indication on how Ellie wound up immune. As soon as I figured that out, it changed my opinions. Ellie’s mom was played by Ashley Johnson.
The Last of Us has been a spectacular series and I looked forward to it every Sunday night. I am going to miss it now that season one has come to a close. I will be looking forward to the second season when it arrives in the future.
The penultimate episode of the first season of HBO’s The Last of Us premiered on the streaming service tonight and it gave us an episode that could, quite possibly, change Ellie forever.
Joel is still recovering from his stab wound and Ellie is forced into surviving on her own while he is out. When she goes hunting for a deer, she comes across David and another man from a nearby community. Through a tense standoff, David agrees to give Ellie medicine in exchange for the deer.
Ellie is able to get away from them. She did not know that this was the group that included the man who had stabbed Joel and they were out for ‘justice.’
David was shown as a preacher, a leader, but I never believed that he was a just or kind man. As we find out, he had been serving his followers the cooked remains of their dead in a desperate attempt to stay alive.
David led a group to go back and find Ellie and Joel. He wanted Ellie brought back alive because he had intentions for her.
Ellie had been giving Joel some of the medicine and she decided to lead the men away from him. Unfortunately, this led to her being captured. However, Joel was able to capture a couple of the men who stayed to look for him and he tortured them to find out where they had taken Ellie.
This was the time in this episode that reminded me of The Walking Dead. Many times the humans of that show were the worst part of the show. I actually had Joel pictured as the dangerous man who would try and kill the heroes. Joel was anything but honorable in this situation, but you can’t help but understand why he killed those men.
Meanwhile, Ellie is fighting for her life as David has seemingly become obsessed with her. He is looking for a partner, someone who he can train as an equal and he is impressed with Ellie’s survival instincts and her darkness. He sees her as a worthy partner.
Ellie has to go through all kinds of struggles at David’s hands, including trying to avid being chopped into little pieces. The final showdown between Ellie and David inside a fiery building is tense and suspenseful. It shows Ellie with her violent side as she stabbed David repeatedly until he was dead (plenty dead too).
The reunion of Joel and Ellie was a nice moment as she seemed to be in shock over everything that had happened and did not realize that it was Joel at first. He had come up behind her and he was lucky that she did not have that cleaver still because I imagine that she would have just swung away. Joel’s referring to Ellie as ‘baby-girl’ was a powerful moment that was played very under-the-radar, but it meant a lot to the character of Joel.
Performances from Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey were outstanding this week. Bella Ramsey showed her wild side of the character of Ellie and Pedro Pascal was very understated this week. Both provide us with amazing work.
We have one more episode in season one next week. I know there are some people who are disappointed at the lack of infected in some of these episodes, but I find every week to be filled with drama and emotionally-charged energy. This has been one of the best shows in a long time and I will be anxious to see where they leave it next week.
Sunday night and it is time to have your heart ripped out again by watching HBO Max’s amazing series The Last of Us.
Never fails.
This episode picks up with Ellie frantically trying to help Joel, who was stabbed in episode 6, but Joel tells her to leave, go north and find Tommy.
This triggered a flashback episode with Ellie at her military school and we get to meet her friend Riley, who had run off and joined the Fireflies, leaving Ellie behind. Riley comes back to give Ellie a night of fun at the mall before Riley has to leave on assignment.
Of course, as soon as we saw this flashback and the timing of it, it was clear that we were going to see the first time that Ellie was bitten and infected.
As I watched this episode, I kept thinking to myself that I knew the actor playing Riley and I was not sure where I had seen her before. I was racking my brain, but it wasn’t until they mentioned her name on the “Inside the Episode” bit that follows each week’s episode that I heard the name Storm Reid.
That name rang a bell. She was the lead protagonist in the film Missing, which came out in January of this year. I remember thinking that Storm Reid was going to be a star after such an exceptional performance leading her film. She and Bella Ramsey were excellent together. As Ellie, Ramsey showed the utter joy and childlike glee over little things at this mall, such as an escalator (aka ‘moving stairs’) or a Mortal Kombat II video game.
You knew that the episode was too happy and that some tragic circumstances were going to happen at this mall. It’s that kind of show.
Both girls wind up being infected. We know that Ellie was going to be immune, but we also knew that Riley was going to come to her end. Riley’s words of positivity, taking every second life gives you and making them count instead of giving up, lead to Ellie refusing to give up on Joel at the end of the show.
There are only two episodes remaining and it looks as if Joel is going to be in a bad way still next episode while Ellie is coming across some more humans.
The Last of Us is currently the best show on TV. Without fail. There have been six episodes of the show and each one has been rough, emotionally powerful and filled with character development.
There was a ton of things that happened in this episode. They kicked it off with an older couple that Joel has by gunpoint to try and find information. This older couple was just an awesome pair. They were funny and brought a feeling of cheerfulness. They were so perfect with each other and their inclusion is just so great.
They find Tommy in his little town, Jackson, with his new wife, who is pregnant. They find the location of the Fireflies at the University in Colorado only to find it deserted. Joel gets stabbed and the episode ends on a cliffhanger with the unconscious and bleeding Joel.
We did not see any infected, but I am not missing it because there are still a ton of tension. When the dog was approaching Ellie and Joel thought the dog would smell the infection in her was just a anxiety-driven moment.
Pedro Pascal has been such a great performer in the series, but this was a standout performance for him as there sere several moments where Joel was dealing with his PTSD and trying to talk Tommy into taking Ellie to Colorado in his place. The scene between Joel and Ellie when he was telling her they were splitting the next morning was exceptional. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are amazing together and they both bring a realness and a connection to Joel and Ellie.
Ellie finds out about Joel’s daughter Sarah and her fate. Joel admits that he cares for Ellie.
Perhaps the only criticism I may have for this show was that there were a lot of things that were sped over. There was a three month time jump and they make it to Jackson, make it to Colorado, make it out of the university, in no time and I think some of this could have been spaced out a little more. I understand there is only so much time available and they are hitting the big points.
I don’t know what could possibly happen next. I can only assume that Joel will not die, but how he is going to survive is anyone’s guess.
The Last of Us has consistently brought the quality to HBO Max every week. This week, the show arrived on a Friday night in order to avoid the scheduling conflict with the Super Bowl, which is airing during the shows normal release time frame. It was a very intelligent move and it brought something even more special for a Friday night.
This episode’s conclusion did not bring tears to my eyes. It was so far past that. I had an empty feeling, a hollow feeling in my gut. It was devastating.
Such an amazing roller coaster ride of emotions.
As I have mentioned before, I have not played The Last of Us video game so I am approaching this show without any prior knowledge of these characters and their eventual fates. So the introduction of Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Woodard), brothers who were on the run from the crazy Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) for a reason we did not know, at first, felt like the expansion of our group. Henry and Sam, the young boy Sam who was deaf and had to use ASL), seemed to fit beautifully with Joel and Ellie. Which only made it more heart-breaking when they met their fates.
That scene where Henry shoots the infected Sam, with the blood pooling upon the floor, and then, in shock, kills himself, was beyond much of anything I can remember. The last time I remember feeling that anguish in my gut over a TV show was when Negan killed Glenn on the Walking Dead.
These two actors who played Henry and Sam, Lamar Johnson and Keivonn Woodard, did an amazing job of making us care about their characters in a very short time. They had a natural charm about them and I know I was rooting for their continuation in the series. Alas, it was not to be.
But the horrible ending was not the only epic part of this episode. We also got an unbeleivable zombie reveal as a ton of the infected came running out of a sinkhole to attack and brutalize Kathleen’s forces just as she was about to kill Henry. The little girl clicker was unbelievably frightening and The Bloated was massive and dominant.
Oh and… damn Joel… who knew you were such a great shot with a sniper rifle? He was picking off infected mere steps away from Ellie. I would have to question every shot, afraid that I might accidentally shoot Ellie.
The show has done a sensational job of creating the tone of anxiousness and the feel that something is about to happen around every corner. It really does an excellent job of giving the audience an insight into what it would be like to live in this Hellscape world. However, we still are able to find those little moments of humanity and joy even in this world. For example, the laughs of Sam as Ellie showed him the stupid pun book from last episode. Even Henry commented about not hearing that laugh in a long time. Ellie’s very existence provides the show with something that was lacking with The Walking Dead, hope.
Every episode has been absolutely stunning so far and, in five scant episodes, has taken its place at the very top of the list of video game adaptations.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 