Whereas I was a little own after last episode, “Meet Me in Daegu” was one of my favorite episodes of the series so far. We find ourselves in Korea in 1949.
I did not know what the character of Ji-Ah was involved in this story. I knew there was some kind of connection to Atticus, but I had no idea that Ji-Ah was possessed by a spirit known as a kumiho, a nine-tailed fox that can transform into a beautiful woman. To be fair, how could I have guessed?
The one issue I had was the subtitles for the Korean was written in a yellow color and it was difficult to read.
After that, I was enthralled by the relationship between Ji-Ah and Atticus. The complication of Atticus being involved in the torture and death of Ji-Ah’s best friend was an intriguing addition. Yet, I believed that they were able to overcome the hatred and the vengeance.
The idea of a kumiho is fascinating and the execution of the sex scenes and the kumiho was shocking and scary. When those tails go into the men’s eyes, I jumped a little.
I am curious to see how Ji-Ah fits into this story moving forward.
The first season of Dexter: Resurrection came to a close on Amazon Prime with an exceptional finale that was filled with tension and anxiousness and finished in an extremely satisfying way.
Dexter was trapped inside the serial killer vault at Prater’s home with the dead body of Batista on the floor. Prater trapped him inside and was going to leave him to die from lack of water. Dexter finds Batista’s phone in one of the episode’s contrivances. There were a few.
One that the episode kind of wrapped up was this. Dexter had seen the gun on the floor that Prater had used to kill Batista and he thought to himself that he must not get his fingerprints on the gun. However, it did not seem as if Dexter minded getting his fingerprints everywhere else in the room as he touched…. everything. At the end, it did show Dexter cleaning up after himself, but to think that he could get rid of every print is stretching it a bit. Still, at least he made the effort.
I like the fact that Charlie gets to leave with her ailing mother after basically making a deal with Dexter and Harrison (sort of).
Peter Dinklage is a superior actor and his performance as Leon Prater was top notch. He probably was the second best villain in Dexter history behind John Lithgow’s Trinity Killer. You could feel the desperation from Prater as he was wrapped up on Dexter’s table.
I think that we have finally put to bed the possibility that Blessing is the New York Ripper. That made me extra pleased. In fact, Dexter implied that Blessing is someone whom Dexter himself needs. Dexter took a turn to be more inclusive and less isolated. It sounded as if this was a new arc for everyone’s favorite serial killer.
I enjoyed every episode of the Dexter: Resurrection season and I hope that there will be another season down the road. I liked the tone and the intensity of the show and the budding relationship with Dexter and Harrison worked well.
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!
I stopped regularly watching Dexter after the Trinity Killer season and only saw some episodes after. I knew the finale of the show was universally despised and I knew that the show came back to try and get the finale right the second time. It had to be better than the first one. I comment on these as an outside observer having not watched any of these episodes.
I did watch Dexter: First Blood, and the prequel series was, at its best, inconsistent. The tone bounced around too much. It was watchable, but it made me question watching this new Dexter series.
I am so glad that I decided to give it a chance, because this season is fire!
One thing First Blood did do was introduce us to Angel Batista as a young cop. He felt like a great addition to the cast and it gave us even more background with the friendship between Dexter and Angel. A friendship that had been stretched by this season. A friendship that eventually snapped at the end of episode nine.
Seeing Batista’s death scene was tough, as he has been a character on Dexter since episode one, but this felt as if Angel Batista had taken things as far as he could take them. His obsession with proving that Dexter was the Bay Harbour Butcher had overtaken his life and led him to the final trap.
Leon Prater, as played by Peter Dinklage, is an absolutely spectacular villain for this season. His flunky Charlie, played by Uma Thurman, is unexpectedly deeper than she ever needed to be. Both of them are tremendous foils for Dexter and things really took off this last few episodes. Prater discovering that “Red” had a son, Charlie cornering and intimidating Harrison in a hotel room, Dexter responding by finding Charlie’s home and seeing her mother, Dexter’s confrontation with Charlie in the car, Batista’s spilling the beans about the truth behind Dexter Morgan to Prater and Charlie, and then the showdown inside the serial killer vault were all amazing moments moving the story along.
Then, with Batista’s final words to Dexter as he died from gunshot wounds inflicted on him by Prater being “F-you” showed, in no uncertain terms, that Batista knew how to hold a proper grudge. Poor Dexter, continues to lose people close to him. It’s why I really hope Blessing is not the New York Ripper as the rumor indicated.
This has been a great season and there is one more episode remaining in the season which will be released next Friday.
I’m not sure how I am feeling about Lovecraft Country after the first five episodes. We are half way through and I am not sure what this show’s overarching story is about.
This episode focused more on Ruby and Montrose than it did on anything else. I have to say that Ruby’s story was gross as it seemed to embrace some body horror (of which I am not a fan) as she gruesomely transforms between her natural self and that of a white woman. Blood and floppy skin everywhere.
Meanwhile, we learn that the hidden issue with Montrose is that he is gay and it is the 1950s where you simply cannot be out of the closet.
I started out confused as Atticus beat the crap out of Montrose at the beginning, because, fact is, I had not remembered the ending to episode four. I had to go back and re-read what I had written about it last week.
Another revelation fell into Ruby’s story this week as we discover William, who had taken Ruby last week for sex on the staircase, is actually Christiana, transformed into William just as Ruby had transformed into a white woman. Bizarre.
How does all this work together to further our story? Unclear at this point. Atticus, between sexual encounters with Leti, was working on a translation for some of the pages, and he deciphered one word at the end of the episode… “DIE.” This caused him to call his former flame, Ji-ah, and ask her how she knew. What does any of that mean?
The show continued to have scenes that were extremely uncomfortable to watch… and I am not just talking about the scenes of body horror or creatures. The scenes with the white people treating the blacks the way they did were just as difficult to watch as anything on the show. I do wish there was at least one white character that was not a total racist piece of garbage.
There are ten total episodes and we are currently half way through the one and only season. I hope things start to come together in the narrative soon. It does feel very disjointed.
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.
Being honest, episode four of Alien Earth was my least favorite of the series so far. It felt like an episode that is just there to build to things in the future. I wouldn’t call it a filler episode, but it just did not feel as if it had its own purpose outside of prepping for the future.
That does not mean that there were not a bunch of things that happened.
Wendy recreating that Alien language was creepy as hell. I found it very disturbing.
Then, at the episode’s end, we get the baby Xenomorph explode out of Hermit’s removed lung, but it sure seemed as if Wendy was treating this creature like a child of her own. That was another disturbing moment.
We hear about the “Five”- the corporations that were now the government of the world.
The sheep and the Eye-opus was yet another gross and disturbing image from the episode. Poor sheep.
Where as some of the previous episodes of this new series were tense and anxiety-filled, this was more of a disturbing episode that needed more than what was here. It was a slow burn episode with imagery that was designed to bother you.
I am sure things will pick up once again with the killer Xenomorphs.
Dexter is struggling with all of the outside forces coming into him.
Angel Batista’s obsession is making things difficult. Batista nearly caught Dexter in a kill room. Dexter found the ear pods Batista left behind in his car though.
Dexter failed to grab “Rapunzel” who did not like Hamilton. “Did you know they all rapped?” LOL.
Harrison asking for help with Elsa’s landlord.
Prater showed up at the site where Dexter was having dinner with Harrison. No good will come of that.
Blessing getting mad at Dexter when Dexter let it slip to Blessing’s daughter about her father’s past. Perhaps the rumors of Blessing being the New York Ripper, a twist that I would not be a fan of. However, his reaction to Dexter’s mistake made me think that there is more to Blessing than we thought.
However, it seemed as if Detective Wallace is filled with doubt about Batista and what he is doing. She did not respond to the story of the kill room very well, and she called down to Miami to ask about the Bay Harbor Butcher case only to find out that Batista was no longer an active police captain. Batista surely is looking shaky as his obsession with Dexter might be bringing him down.
Harrison had a night of sex with Gigi. I don’t know why but I just do not trust Gigi at this point. Maybe that is just the type of show Dexter is that I question anyone new, but I am just unsure about her at this point. I do hope she is not going to betray Harrison because I like seeing him happy for once.
I know now that there are two more episodes of Dexter: Resurrection remaining. Surely, there will be a confrontation between Dexter and Batista among those and I get a feeling that Blessing may have something in his past that we still need to face. I do hope that neither Batista or Angel wind up on Dexter’s table. Prater, however, I feel is destined for that table.
Lovecraft Country took a trip to Boston and found themselves in an Indiana Jones movie. Or perhaps The goonies instead. I mean, that sure could have been One Eyed Willy’s ship at the end.
This series has been fascinating so far as it seems to be shifting each week, between horror genre tropes and, this week, action/adventure movies.
It ended with a shocking moment too with Montrose’s apparent murder of the mysterious woman/siren that they found in One Eyed Willy’s location. I am not sure the purpose of any of this, but I am definitely intrigued to see where it goes next.
Another wild moment is the seduction of Ruby by the not-dead henchman of Christina Braithwhite, William. He had seemed to be killed when the mansion was destroyed in episode two, but William obviously made it out.
The whole, what I was calling the ‘Leap of Faith’ section of the episode was tense and had some pretty funny quips from our three adventurers trying to get across the gigantic cavern by walking a teeny tiny little board. This board tends to disintegrate as they are on it. It also has a swinging axe (‘Only the penitent man shall pass…’) and a locked door that they needed to open. These seemed to come straight from Last Crusade, if not directly, at least in honor.
Episode 4 was nicely paced and kept me on guard. I am not sure what is next, but I am excited to see where the next step takes me.
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.
The third episode of Alien: Earth continued its strong start.
Wendy and Hermit faced off with a Xenomorph, after they had been isolated at the end of episode two last week. They take a lot of damage, but Wendy is able to show how tough she is as she cuts the alien in half with a knife. They learned about the acid blood of the creature.
Boy Kavalier is one of the creepiest and interesting characters of the show. Samuel Blenkin does a great job with this role. Every time he was on screen this episode, I pictured Tom Baker’s Doctor from Doctor Who. The hair, the scarf, the facial expressions. I do not know if this was intentional or if this was just a coincidence, but he definitely had Doctor vibes.
All the science and operating on the creatures as well as Hermit was interesting. It gave a distinct anxiety feel to it because you were not sure what was going to happen. It becomes clear that Boy Kavalier is looking to create his own Xenomorph as they take a little tadpole looking thing out of the facehugger and placed it in a vat with Hermit’s lung, that had to be removed to help save his life.
Morrow is a intriguing character too as he is making a connection with Slightly, with the definite idea that he wanted to return the specimens to his boss.
Atticus, Leti and Montrose are back in Chicago after the death of George and things are stressed.
They have given a story about the cruel sheriff killing George, covering up the truth of his death.
Leti purchased a house that she wanted to fix up as a way to give a safe zone for other black people.
Atticus is trying to find purpose in his life, not sure what he should do.
The white neighbors are causing trouble, setting up their cars to honk their horns consistently.
This episode felt like a self-contained episode featuring a haunted house, and I enjoyed this one more than I did the crammed in feeling from last week. Plus, there were some really creepy moments with the ghosts in the cellar. And that elevator moment with the white neighbor… brutal.
This felt like a pause within the story and it is going to pick back up to the story as Christina Braithwhite is back and in Chicago, showing off her control of Atticus.
Good episode for week three of Lovecraft Country, the thirtieth installment of Sunday Morning Sidewalk.
Dexter: Original Sin had its moments, but there was nearly as many down moments as there were up ones. I did think about stop watching the show a few times. Even though I thought about ending it, I am happy that I did finish it.
I have not once thought about stopping Dexter: Resurrection.
This show is just fantastic.
The showdown between Dexter and Batista in the car was intense. The look Dexter gave Angel was sending those daggers through him. Even Angel was taken aback for a second before he regained his composure. It was a subtle moment, but definitely telling.
The serial killer summit is picking up steam as well as Dexter is able to kill off the Gemini Killer… again. The scenes with Michael C. Hall and Peter Dinklage gave the character Prater depth and helped explain the thought process for why he is hosting this serial killer party. I also believe that he had feelings for these killers, especially for “Red”.
There was also a great scene with Dexter and Harrison when Harrison went to apply at college and wound up in a class that was being lectured by Detective Claudette Wallace. The conversation between Dexter and Wallace afterwards was great.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 