I had heard about this show on HBO Max from a few places, but I was not sure if a show about an apocalypse brought on by an out-of-control flu was exactly the type of content I wanted to watch at this moment in time.
So I gave it a chance. It was good.
You are immediately grasped by the strange relationship between Jeevan Chaudhary and the young actress Kirsten Raymonde. Kirsten was in a play where her mentor died of a heart attack and Jeevan helped out the stranded girl. However, a dangerous flu outbreak was sweeping the nation and Jeevan’s sister, who was a nurse, told him to go to their brother Frank’s and barricade them in Frank’s apartment.
Kirsten’s parents were not home and Jeevan could not leave her alone so he took her with him to Frank’s place.
There was a dramatic plane crash scene that cemented how serious the situation had become. It then ended with a couple of time jumps that shook the status that the show had started was now completely out the window.
The first episode was pretty good. Good enough for me to continue to watch the show for now. I do not plan on binging the whole 10-episodes that are available. That feels like more than I want to do right now, but I can see myself setting up a viewing schedule to complete Station Eleven.
The third episode of James Gunn’s Peacemaker series, which dropped episodes 1, 2, & 3 this week, sent our crew into the field after a family connected to the Project Butterfly, opening up a moral dilemma for Peacemaker.
It appears that Peacemaker may have an issue with the potential murder of kids. Despite what he said about murdering anybody for peace, Peacemaker found himself freezing up when he had the perfect shot to take out a family that were Butterflies, something that we got a bit of a hint about at the end of the show this week.
If it was not for Vigilante following Peacemaker and the others, the mission would have been a failure. However, Vigilante did not seem to share the moral objections of Peacemaker as he happily shot three of the family members. However, this led to the arrival of Judomaster.
Judomaster proceeded to kick the butt of everyone there, capturing Peacemaker and Vigilante and taking them for interrogation. This left Harcourt, Leota, and Clemson Murn to try and rescue them and finish the job.
Leota also showed that she may not be quite the chip off the old block as she may like. As the daughter of Amanda Waller, Leota did not have the killer instinct either, not wanting to kill one of the guards for the Goff family when they had the drop on him. Harcourt did it without any issue.
This episode had some pretty solid character development and was a tad slower over all. Poor Vigilante had to suffer the consequences because Goff saw Peacemaker as the Alpha who would want to keep his friend from being tortured. However, Peacemaker continued to refuse to give him any information (not that he had any to give).
When Goff had his head blown off by Peacemaker, we got a glimpse at what could be the key behind Project Butterfly.
Episode four comes out next Thursday and I would expect some questions from Peacemaker about what he saw. We also saw a world map with tons of Butterflies identified worldwide.
“Can’t house train an eagle, dud, without stealing its soul.” -Peacemaker, while in the back seat of a car with Eagley and being told that the eagle had better not shit back there.
It really is poetry.
However, there is an absolute correlation between Eagley and Peacemaker and the words of Chris Smith could easily be taken as a comment about himself.
Peacemaker found himself trapped at the hotel where he had the huge fight with the Butterfly at the end of episode one (although he still does not know what a Butterfly is). Thanks to Harcourt and Leota, he was able to escape, but not after he stole several things, including the record albums that he was impressed by last episode.
However, the team meeting that followed was not the most positive one. After this, Chris went back to his home and had a good cry.
John Cena is great here. You can see into the soul of Peacemaker, someone who definitely wants to do something different with his life, but is not sure what that is. Plus, nobody likes him because he is a dick.
Vigilante showed up this episode.
Yes, the lower level DC character makes a perfect foil for Peacemaker and the two bonded over the use of some guns, arrows, explosives in the woods.
Because Peacemaker had left his car at the scene of the murder of the Butterfly he had had sex with, the team, specifically John Economos (Steve Agee), had to change the name on the car registration. He switches it to Auggie Smith, Peacemaker’s father. The comedy in this is just hilarious, but it also leads to a huge reveal in the episode. And that is that Auggie Smith, Peacemaker’s father, holds the mantel of the White Dragon, a white supremacist with a crew ready to follow him along. So when he was brought to jail because the team’s frame job, he was shown to be more powerful than we imagined.
This is going to be a major storyline this season, clearly. It is another way to take the humor of the series and turn it on its ear, making a much more serious situation.
We have one more episode to go this week before we have to wait until next Thursday to see the next one. Peacemaker has been tremendous so far and James Gunn is clearly having a blast.
James Gunn is at it again and he may have found a character that works perfectly for his brand of humor and storytelling. John Cena has always embraced the cheese and he has found a role that allows him to do so with a wild abandon. Peacemaker debuted with the first three episodes dropped on HBO Max with a new episode every week to follow.
To begin with, the opening credits are absolutely off the charts. A dance routine with the whole cast involved, especially with John Cena leading the way. It was truly a James Gunn master stroke to kick off the series. I wonder if it will be the opening credits for every episode and if that joke will get old? Either way, it was fantastic at this moment.
And They introduced what is sure to become the most popular character on the show, if not in the entire DC Universe, Peacemaker’s erstwhile sidekick, Eagley. The scene where Peacemaker, aka Chris Smith, returned from his near death in The Suicide Squad and five years in prison to his father’s house where Eagley was at and the eagle hugged him was maybe one of the best moments in super hero shows ever.
I was under the impression that this series was intended to be a prequel to The Suicide Squad, but perhaps that was done just to make people think that he could have died in the movie.
Peacemaker gets approached by a group of people who were working for Amanda Waller in the film, and who were involved in the revolt to help stop Starro, against Waller’s wishes. Amanda Waller, still played by the exquisite Viola Davis, has planted a mole on the team to keep an eye on everyone, a mole who just happened to be her daughter, played by Danielle Brooks from Orange is the New Black.
Another part of the team was Harcourt, played by Jennifer Holland, and she is there to handle the situations. She showed that she was very capable of dealing with threats during a scene in the bar. Peacemaker wanted to talk with her, but Harcourt was anything but interested.
Instead, Peacemaker picked up another woman at the bar, which led to a rousing night of sex, singing and knife fighting.
The scene where John Cena sang along in his tighty-whiteys with the song by The Quireboys called “I Don’t Love You Anymore.” Apparently, this was shot on day one of filming and it is completely off the wall.
So was the vicious fight that followed this dance/singing scene. It was so brutal that Peacemaker barely survived.
Another standout is Robert Patrick appearing as Auggie Smith, Peacemaker’s mean, racist, cruel father. You can see where Chris gained some of his attitude from, but Auggie did not seem to care much for his son, calling him terrible names and wondering how his own semen could create someone like Chris. Auggie has a bigger role to play here as he was referenced by the government workers too.
This was a great pilot episode and I am really looking forward to continuing this as we go. And I love Eagley!.
Everything is set up for our big time conclusion. Thankfully, Miguel did not re-break his back as they implied in episode 9. But he had a half hour to return to the match or forfeit, flashing back to how Daniel had the same situation in The Karate Kid. However, Miguel figured out that Johnny was encouraging him to get back out there and was more concerned with the match than with him. (That may not be the case, but that is what Miguel thought).
Miguel failed to answer the time limit and forfeited, sending Eli into the finals against Robby.
Of course, the girls final was Sam vs. Tory. The problem with the set up was that the boys went first and the show spoiled the outcome because they stated that Cobra Kai would win the overall dojo championship by winning just one of the two remaining matches and that Miyagi-do had to win both. Clearly, Miyagi-do was going to win the first one to keep the tension up. Still, Eli won in sudden death, a major upset, but completing his redemption arc of the season.
Kenny completed his turn to Cobra Kai as he viciously attacked Anthony, who had come to the locker room to apologize for his actions during the series. Kenny is now a villain, unlike the first couple of episodes of the season.
Of course, everything was going to be determined by Tory vs. Sam. In order to do what was best for her, Daniel approached Johnny and asked for his help. In a wonderful scene between the two senseis, Johnny and Daniel agreed to work together to stop Kreese and Silver.
The battle between Sam and Tory has been building since Tory arrived in season 2. As Sam was blending the two style of karate, the battle raged. And since we know that there is to be a final 5th season of this show, Tory got the win, giving Cobra Kai the final victory of the dojos and making it so that Daniel and Johnny had to give up their own dojos.
We discover some interesting tidbits at the end of the season, all setting up for season 5.
Silver had bought off the ref. That was why the ref made a controversial call about Tory being out of bounds instead of taking a winning point.
Tory heard Silver thank the ref so she knows that the fix was in.
Miguel took off to find his real father. Johnny promised Carmine he would find him.
We saw a flashback to when Silver was beating Raymond and he said that he would stop beating him and let him into Cobra Kai, but he had to do something for him.
What Silver wanted Raymond to do was to tell the police that Kreese was the one who attacked him.
This led to Kreese being arrested for assault and attempted murder, leaving Silver in charge of Cobra Kai.
Daniel was at Miyagi’s grave, promising to stop Cobra Kai… as long as he had the help of Chozen, who was in the graveyard with Daniel.
This was a great season, and it sets up some real drama in season 5. I still think we see some pay off for Silver being sick and our heroes are heading in different directions. They will eventually come together in the end.
With special guest star, Carrie Underwood to live sing a montage.
The All-Valley added skills competitions this year just so they could add some cool shots with weapons and break some wood. It really did not feel as if it were anything more than that.
Then there was a bunch of early round matches. We narrowed the numbers down knocking out the rd shirts and the secondary characters. Eli was doing well. So was Dmitri. Kenny took one to the face from Robby. And so on.
And in the battle between Miguel and Eli, something went wrong.
I was both thrilled and horrified at the return of Paul Walter Hauser as Raymond, aka Stingray to Cobra Kai. Thrilled because he was a funny and engaging character that won me over when he was on the last time.
Horrified because Terry Silver kicked the living crap out of him.
That good guy Terry Silver who apologized to Daniel and tried to get the Cobra Kai kids to focus on the tournament only seems to be gone new. In his place is this complete psycho. I just hope he leaves poor Raymond alive, because I am not sure about that.
While Silver is freaking out, Sam continues to show what a disrespectful brat she is. She takes Miguel to prom and then she gets mad when Robbie and Tory show up together. Yes, they showed up to throw Miguel and Sam off balance, but Sam started a fight and played right into the hands of Tory.
By the way, there were some ultra cool fight moves blended into the dance choreography.
I’m not sure the message that the show is sending when Anthony started to straight up his act but only after Daniel broke his iPad in half. That response in anger was what apparently worked for the boy.
Oh, and there was a remarkable scene with Johnny and Miguel. After Johnny got the crap beaten out of him by Silver (who was incredibly busy this episode), he got drunk and Miguel found him on his apartment floor in a puddle of his own … whatever. Miguel took him to his room and Johnny told him that he wanted to be a father to him but he was failing. Miguel said he was doing fine and that he loved him. Johnny responded that he loved him too, Robbie. Oh, right to the heart. That was a crushing moment for poor Miguel.
We finally got back to Anthony and maybe, finally, Daniel and Amanda can open their eyes to what a punk their son has been. Kenny sets him and his group of bully friends up to get them isolated in the library. They get caught just as Kenny is about to deliver some justice to Anthony.
This whole thing happened after Anthony let his father believe that he was being bullied by a kid from Cobra Kai. This was exactly the opposite of course as Anthony had just stolen Kenny’s clothes during PE and lured him into the hall for everyone to laugh at him. One wonders where the teachers are in this school. Maybe they are just all hiding out to avoid the karate fights.
Anthony was not the only one who was facing the music. Miguel discovered Johnny’s bandanna in his mom’s room and they finally had to tell him that they were “dating” ( or as Johnny said, hooked up). Johnny is remarkably awkward during this scene, which was very funny.
Eagle Fang Karate still needed a female competitor for the upcoming tournament and they have apparently found one in Devon, who watched all the karate fighting movies, which seemed to impress Johnny and he took this opportunity to build up immunity to the dirty tricks that Cobra Kai may pull at the tournament and so he had Devon kick all the other boys in their balls.
She enjoyed that too much.
Then, it appeared that Kreese felt the need to reestablish his power over Terry Silver, as he had an unbelievably awkward conversation with Terry to remind him who was boss. Are these cracks that are beginning to show among the Cobra Kai crew?
Yup, they have successfully made me dislike Sam LaRusso. I did not think that was possible, but she has turned herself into a spiteful and mean-spirited person.
The confrontation at the end of the episode as Tory returned to school for the first time since the fight, thanks to the LaRusso family’s help, as Sam laid down the law in no uncertain terns by saying, “I’m coming for you, bitch” showed how Sam has become the worst type of person.
I can understand why she feels this way, but you would think that being raised by Daniel and Amanda would have had some of those lessons passed on to her. Or maybe not since we also saw her bully brother earlier in the season. Maybe the LaRussos need to work on their parenting skills.
Then we have Hawk… or should I call him Eli now? This feels like his own personal journey has reached its apex. When he turned to join Miyagi-do last year at the end of the season, that did not feel earned. It felt too quick. Now, he has spent most of the season paying for his choices to the point that he was ready to give up karate completely (which might be a sound decision in the long run). He was convinced to remain by his friend, Demetri, and he showed up at Miyagi-do to complete his path back.
This show is really about there not being any specific villain. They are al in shades of gray. Daniel sure felt like the bad guy when Silver confronted him at the store. Daniel is allowing his past experiences to prevent moving forward, something he wanted Sam to do. He does not really lead by example, sadly. Maybe Silver is the real bad guy, but he does not seem as if he is. Also, maybe I misread the clues from earlier because there is not implications that Silver is sick.
Surprise return: Aisha
Not sure the purpose behind this since she did not really do anything and Sam seemed to toss her advice aside.
The show is building toward the tournament with the new rules that will make things more inclusive. Johnny can explain it to you…
Terry Silver showed up at Miyagi-do to apologize to Daniel for his behavior during Karate Kid 3. Daniel was having nothing of it, despite the fact that it truly did feel sincere. This show continues to paint Terry Silver as a repentant man who realized his past mistakes. He has been a voice of reason among the Cobra Kai and with Kreese. I’m not sure where this is going, but he did not appreciate Daniel’s dismissal of his apology.
Silver’s arrival spooked the heck out of Daniel and he immediately wanted to take full control of the training of the students. Of course, Johnny wanted no part of that and, after a lot of alcohol, they wound up with a rematch from the All-Valley Tournament set for the next day.
Although Silver placed a no fighting restriction on the Cobra Kai students, they found a way around it. They caught Hawk, held him down and shaved off his mohawk. That was a vicious shot at Hawk, since that hairstyle had become such a symbol of who he was.
Meanwhile, Daniel was recovering from his hangover, we got a Johnny Lawrence training montage. Johnny slipped right back into his bully persona as he was shoving people out of his way and causing destruction such as karate kicking a mailbox. The montage was in tune with Survivor’s Burning Heart from the Rocky movies.
Despite the understanding of what it might do to the uneasy alliance that has been in place this season, the match between Johnny and Daniel proceeded with Sam and Miguel in position as judges.
Johnny scored first. Daniel got the next two points. Johnny tied it up despite Daniel pulling out the old arm numbing trick he learned last season. Then, it a beautifully choreographed point, Daniel and Johnny struck the final blow at the same time.
This of course was when Hawk arrived and showed off his new hairdo and the alliance fell apart. Eagle Fang and Miyagi-do Karate split apart. Perhaps this is what Terry Silver was trying to do in the first place.
This was my favorite episode so far in season 4. Not sure where they go from here.
I think the show is going out of its way to make me dislike all of the students in Miyagi-do karate. Not only Hawk and his little minions, but even Sam LaRusso was acting like a bully this episode. For no reason. Sam went out of her way to try and humiliate Tory while Tory was just trying to do her job. And Hawk went out of his way to try and bully Kenny at the drive in.
I think the show has to be careful that they aren’t creating a bunch of characters that I do not want to root for. I am all for creating three-dimensional characters who are not just good or bad, but there has to be some redeeming qualities or else I am not going to care who wins or loses.
Johnny continues his jealousy over how much time Miguel is spending with the LaRussos and it is threatening to rip apart the tentative treaty between Miyagi-do and Eagle Fang. Johnny also is nervous about telling Miguel about him and his mom, Carmen…so much so that it is causing performance issues. Sorry Carmen.
The best part of this episode was the arrival and reveal of Kreese and Terry Silver to Daniel. That was a great cliffhanger and sets up episode 5 extremely well. Nothing more about any possible illness Silver may have that I thought they were alluding to last episode. Silver is clearly healthy enough to kick Robbie’s butt as we saw here.
It is really odd that they show seems to be trying to pull a double turn and make the Cobra Kai guys the heroes, at least Robby, Tory and Kenny.
I really love what they are doing with Terry Silver. He is not just jumping into the fray with his old war buddy. He is weighing options and remembering what Kreese did for him.
But there is more.
When I heard the line said by his aid/servant/chef early in the episode, I perked up. When Terry was having flashbacks to Vietnam, he said he was going to skip breakfast and his valet said “Should I call the doctor?” Wait…what? That is not a normal response to someone deciding to skip breakfast. Then later we see Terry with medication just before he does his cool ponytail thing. There is something wrong with Terry and we are diving into it.
I love how this is different than what we have seen before.
Unlike the Johnny stuff. I was disappointed at the end of the episode when it was clear that Johnny was starting to feel jealous over Daniel’s burgeoning connection to Miguel. Didn’t we already go through this storyline with Robby earlier in the series? I hope I am wrong, but this feels like a retread of a conflict that they feel like they need to throw in the path of the senseis.
Especially since I enjoyed the bonding that Daniel and Johnny were doing. The dinner they had with each other was great, and had a funny interaction with Johnny and “the Boy” aka Anthony. Growth spurt? Ha ha.
Kenny returned to find his place in Cobra Kai, thanks to a little coaching by Robbie. He is a interesting character that I am intrigued with seeing where exactly this season takes him. He is certainly worth rooting for and the fact that he is now in the villains hands, who knows where this will go. No matter what, the show is definitely pointing at Anthony LaRusso as the reason Kenny is where he is.
Episode two brought us an important thing… somebody new for Cobra Kai. Inside the dojo led by John Kreese, we have basically two main characters, Robby and Tory, but the rest are no name red shirts. They needed some more interesting characters to fill out the ranks of the opposition or nobody is going to believe that Cobra Kai has a chance against our heroes.
So we get the introduction of the new kid at school, Kenny. And what sends him to the dark side? Why it is Anthony LaRusso, Daniel’s own little bully of a son. Placing Anthony squarely in the Johnny Lawrence role of tormenting bully is some awesome storytelling that I hope carries out throughout the season. The show sets up Kenny as being extremely likable and relatable and then ties him to the prisoner that Robby fought with in season 3.
Meanwhile, Daniel and Johnny are teaching each other their respective brand of karate in hopes of creating a better understanding of the other’s philosophy. Daniel makes Johnny do the iconic “wax-on, wax-of” and “paint the fence” routines while Johnny takes Daniel to a warehouse and eventually a hockey game.
Johnny manipulates one of the hockey players into attacking Daniel so Daniel could learn to be more aggressive. It was funny cause all I was thinking about when that hockey player was taunting Daniel, was that Daniel was going to kick his ass.
Season 4 is setting up conflicts that I assume will be paying off in the future. The one between Tory and Amanda, Daniel’s wife, is fascinating and I hope it bears fruit. Maybe honeycrisp.
It’s New Years Eve Day and Netflix has dropped the long awaited season 4 of Cobra Kai. We’ll be binging it today and, maybe tomorrow depending on how things go, and doing a write up for each episode.
I watched season 1 back when this was on YouTube Red. It was a main reason why I purchased that streaming version of YouTube. I enjoyed season 1 but I did not return for season 2. When it came to Netflix, I still did not watch. When season 3 came out and everyone was talking about it, I decided to binge these two seasons at once. I was very pleased that I decided to so that. I really enjoyed those two seasons and I am looking forward to season 4.
At the end of season 3, having Johnny and Daniel come together with a common enemy was an epic way to leave off the season. However, I guess the idea that the long-standing rivalry would just go away was a pipe dream as Johnny and Daniel immediately clash over the differing styles. Maybe this was necessary, but it felt as if this was what the first three seasons were building towards and that it might have been a step back. It makes sense that we should see this conflict.
I did like how Hawk had to take some punishment. The biggest issue I had last year was that his face turn came out of nowhere and did not feel earned. The resentment from some of the other students and the senseis is real and was a nice addition to the story.
I also enjoyed the fact that Terry Silver did not just come running back when John Kreese called. They gave us a scene where Silver reflected on his past from Karate Kid 3 and was not happy about it. It immediately made him more of a real character than he ever was in the movie. In fact, they actually did too good a job, because I now am not sure why he makes the choice to return to Cobra Kai.
The end of the episode with the students working together to “build a bridge” was a great moment and showed Daniel and Johnny, who were about to give in to their baser instincts about each other, that this could work even if it was not easy.
Good start, laying the groundwork for what is to come.
The Hawkeye finale had a lot of actions and the wrap of storylines (maybe too many), but it left me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because of one major moment… after a confrontation with Kate Bishop and being hit with a car driven by Eleanor, Kingpin ran into someone with a grudge.
Maya.
The show made it appear as though Maya, aka Echo, killed Kingpin by shooting him in the head. We did not see the actual shot, but we heard it off screen. Still, it made me unhappy that after so long waiting to see Vincent D’Onofrio reprise his role only to kill him off after the first episode.
The I saw this on Twitter. It was from the comic books.
This made me feel a lot better. I expect that Kingpin survived the attack and will be the main antagonist in the upcoming Echo series on Disney +.
So with that out of the way, I can look back over the rest of Hawkeye episode 6 with more open heart and less bitterness over the possible death of Kingpin.
There were a lot of great scenes in this episode, many of which included Florence Pugh as Yelena. Her initial reactions with Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop in the elevator and through the Christmas Eve party was great. Honestly, I would go for a whole series of Kate and Yelena together. The dialogue is crisp and the action is well designed.
But even more emotional was Yelena’s showdown with Clint on the ice outside 30 Rock. Yelena had every intention of killing him, but she wanted to know about her sister Natasha more. This was a powerful scene and fit beautifully with these two tremendous actors. Clint doing the whistle brought Yelena back to reality, finally accepting that what Clint was telling her about Natasha’s final moments was true.
We got a chance to see the new costumes and to see our LARPers in action as Clint and Kate’s “army.” This was a little iffy for me, but it worked in the long run. Gotta love Grills.
One of the issues I believe is the difference in directors. Episode six was directed by Rhys Thomas, who also directed episodes 1 & 2. Episodes 3-5, which are considered the best of the series by most critics and commenters, were directed by Bert and Bertie. I wonder how the series would have felt had Bert and Bertie directed episode 6 as well?
Then, thankfully, Clint was able to get back to his family for Christmas as he promised, with Kate and Lucky the Pizza Dog in tow. I could not have handled a tragic end for Clint Barton after these six episodes so I am thrilled that he made it home. Plus, he had a certain gold watch with him that he gave to his wife Laura. On the back of the gold watch, we see a symbol of SHIELD, confirming that Laura was, at one time, an agent of SHIELD. Was she Mockingbird? Maybe.
This episode ended with a post credit scene, the only episode of the series to do so. After wishing everyone a Happy Holidays from Marvel Studios …
The show gave us a full Broadway number from Rogers: The Musical. We got the full song of “I Can Do This All Day”!
This was a ton of fun and really put a nice button on the series.
Some other plot points wrapped up:
Eleanor killed Armond.
Jack was innocent and had been framed by Eleanor. Jack had a chance to show his sword skills helping Kate at the party.
Maya killed Kazi in an emotional struggle.
Eleanor was arrested for the murder of Armond but she did show that she loved Kate more than her partnership with Wilson Fisk.
More trick arrows including another Pym tech one that led to a problem for the Track Suit Mafia.
Eleanor using information to try and blackmail Kingpin shows that she has some balls.
Clint called Kate his partner.
Kingpin wore his Family Business outfit from the Marvel Comics.
Hawkeye has been a great season. My current Marvel Studios’ Disney + series ranking are as follows:
WandaVision
(very close) Loki
Hawkeye
What If…?
Falcon & Winter Soldier
They’ve all be excellent though. Not sure what is next…maybe Moon Knight? She-Hulk? Ms. Marvel. I’m sure it will continue the excellence the 2021 shows have begun.
