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.
A recent film from 2024, Alien: Romulus, reinvigorated a franchise that had seen better days. Alien and Aliens are two of the great movies of all time, but many of the films that have followed them did not build the franchise well. Some of them were even bad.
As I said, Alien: Romulus brought a new energy to the Alien franchise and, from that, we get a new series on FX/Hulu/Disney + called Alien: Earth.
Alien: Earth served as a prequel to the 1979 film Alien, starring Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the year 2120. It focuses on Wendy, who was a hybrid, a human child whose consciousness was transferred into a synthetic body because she was sick and dying, and her human brother CJ “Hermit” who was a soldier and medic.
A space ship, piloted by a cyborg named Babou, crashed into the planet, causing its “specimens” to be freed.
It is not just the Facehuggers and Xenomorphs involved in this show. There are some other alien species on this ship that are now free and causing chaos. These new alien creatures are really scary. There is a leech-like monster that inserts something into your neck and, apparently, drained the blood from the victim. There was another one that we met after it came out of a cat’s head, pulling the eyeball from the cat. There were giant pods hanging from the ceiling and the characters on screen would not listen to me as I yelled at them to get away from it.
The second episode was really tense. While the first episode was strong and did a decent job of setting things up, episode two had me yelling at the screen. I was tense and anxious as I watched Wendy trying to find CJ, who was desperately trying to stay alive. CJ also did not listen to me as I yelled at him to get out of there.
I don’t know what Babou’s plans are, but he was not someone I found myself rooting for. His reactions were horrible and seemed to be the reason why the ship crashed in the first place.
The Xenomorph looked frightening. It felt like the same kind of special effects you would see in a big time feature film. The show looked great.
I am excited to see where the rest of this series will go. Episode two ended in a huge cliffhanger and I hope the series continues with this level of intensity.
David Dastmalchian has an awesome twist in this episode of Dexter: Resurrection.
Dastmalchian’s serial killer, The Gemini Killer aka Gareth, showed up at Dexter’s place as the Blessing family above were having a wake for the dearly departed mother. Dexter took advantage of the situation and killed him.
However as Prater had organized a helicopter trip for the serial killer’s club, Dexter was worried that they would figure out that he was responsible as the new guy for the sudden disappearances of the group.
And then, The Gemini Killer showed up to get in the helicopter. Twins. Gemini Killers, plural.
What an awesome shock that I did not see coming.
This episode was packed full too. Mia wound up dead, hanging in her cell. It looked as if Charley had paid off a guard to take care of business. This happened coincidentally just as Batista, Wallace and Olivia had arrived at the prison to show Mia a photo of Dexter to see if she recognized him as the Bay Harbor Butcher. Of course, that would have been a big time reveal as she believed he was the Dark Passenger.
There were several great scenes here too. There were some wonderful moments with Dexter and Harrison. Harrison attended Blessing’s mother’s funeral. Harrison helped Dexter out after Dexter called his son and asked him if a hoody was proper attire for a funeral.
There was also a fantastic scene between Dexter and Blessing, who had came to apologize for being snippy about some ice. The scene was also very tense since Gareth was dead in the shower/tub.
Dexter is doing a wonderful job of being a part of Harrison’s life. Harrison told his dad that he had an image of killing the landlord, but Dexter talked him down, easing the anxiety that Harrison was clearly entertaining in his head.
I really enjoyed this episode. It felt like it was adding so many awesome moments that I kept waiting for it to end. The end with the reveal of the Gemini Killer was absolutely a masterfully campy end.
Immediately, I was surprised with how quickly things are wrapped up in this season. They mentioned Wednesday’s stalker in episode one and we learned who that was in episode two. We found out who the Avian was in episode four. The biggest mystery still active is the potential vision of Enid’s death, so that must be the overarching storyline.
There were so many people killed in this show, specifically episode four. Characters that I never would have guessed would die. Christina Ricci returned for a one episode arc to try and save Tyler and it cost her. Christina Ricci felt very much like Misty from Yellowjackets.
Tyler’s escape in episode four clearly sets things up for the second half of the season.
Four also featured Uncle Fester in a big role and he is easily the best of the characters. Played by Fred Armisen, Fester is certainly standout as he is plotting to get sent to the asylum to help investigate.
The whole camping trip in episode three felt such a rushed plot point that was involved in this season for no apparent reason. It seemed that the entire purpose for the camping trip was to get a proper meal for Slurp the zombie. Sure Wednesday is kick ass and her winning the game was awesome, but the everything else felt lackluster.
The second part of season 4 drops in September on Netflix.
I really enjoyed episode one last week for the Sunday Morning Sidewalk featuring Lovecraft Country. Unfortunately, this week’s episode felt like I was watching the show in fast forward. So much happened and there was a super ton of exposition and it felt like the flow of this was way off whack.
I am not sure exactly was was real and what had happened. There is a secret society based on Adam from the Garden of Eden. Leti died, but comes back. Atticus turned out to be a descendent of the founder of this secret society. Leti and George forgot everything about the night before and then a little bit later, remembered everything that had happened. They all had weird delusions in their rooms with people from their past although Leti’s delusion was having sex with Atticus who turned out to have a snake as his penis. Tony Goldwyn showed up having what looked like parts of his liver removed to serve for dinner. Then he turned to stone and got crushed in the last act of the episode. The castle collapsed into the ground. They found Montrose but the episode ended with George succumbing to his gunshot wound he got from Tony Goldwyn.
As I said, this was insane.
It all felt so rushed that it diluted what should have been a powerful moment at the end of the episode… the death of George. I am not sure if this is a final death or if he will be coming back like Leti did. Montrose’s arrival was also bizarre as he just dragged himself out of the ground in handcuffs.
Oh and it kicked off with the theme song from The Jeffersons.
I found this episodes too packed with stuff that could have been spread out over several episodes. I am not sure what is coming next, but the pacing was just such a problem for me. I do like the characters and the setting, but everything was just flying at such a pace that I was not able to engage as much as I would have liked.
I have found the second season of Wednesday on Netflix to be a bit of a mixed bag so far. Anything dealing directly with Wednesday and her orbit has been great. Episode two revealed her stalker, an invisible girl who is Wednesday’s #1 fan.
There was also a great scene between Wednesday and Tyler at the insane asylum. Tyler’s psychiatrist makes me suspicious. There is more to this character than the few fleeting moments we get with her.
It was Prank Day at Nevermore, which feels like a horrible idea. Barry Dort is another of the new characters this year that clearly has more to his story than what we know. Will the principal of Nevermore now be like the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts?
Donovan Galpin, a major character of season one, was found dead by Wednesday, his eyes pecked out by crows. “Murdered by a murder of crows” as Wednesday said. Donovan’s eye found its way to Wednesday and Enid’s dorm room.
All this is fun and I expect will mix together before the end of season two. What I have not enjoyed at all so far has been Pugsley Addams and his storyline. There is just something about Pugsley that is off-putting. I am also not fond of Eugene this season. I loved that character last year, but I am just not feeling him in season two so far. These two together have been dragging these episodes down.
Catherine Zeta-Jones is great as Morticia and seeing her more this season is only a good thing. She has some storyline that requires her to bring in her mother. It ties into Barry Dort’s desire as he blackmailed Bianca to use her siren song on Morticia.
There are two more episodes in the part one of season two.
The long awaited season two of the hit series Wednesday dropped on Netflix today. Featuring characters from the Addams Family, Wednesday sees Wednesday Addams return to school at the mysterious Nevermore.
The show does not miss a step in jumping right back into the mysteries of Nevermore as Wednesday has to deal with her sudden popularity over her saving the school in season one, Pugsley coming to Nevermore with her, a stalker, black tears, as well as a new cabal of characters.
One of those characters is the new principal, Barry Dort, played by Steve Buscemi in a strangely familiar wig and black mustache.
The first episode certainly threw a lot of different things into the fire (some actually literally) setting up what looks to be a jam-packed season two.
Jenna Ortega reminded us immediately that she was the perfect casting for Wednesday Addams. Her dialogue and character play is wonderful. Seeing her spend her summer vacation hunting down and scalping a serial killer made for a great cold open.
Emma Myers returned as Enid, Wednesday’s colorful werewolf roommate and bestie. The easy chemistry between these two is one reason this show had such an amazing season one. Enid feels as if she will be at the center of another psychic vision mystery as we see Wednesday at the end of episode one have a vision where Enid grabbed her and told her that she was dead because of her.
There are a bunch of new mysteries in the air around Nevermore and I will be working on completing the first part of season two over the next week or so. Four episodes dropped today and the second part of four episodes drop at the beginning of September.
I was able to catch up with the new season/series of Dexter: Resurrection this morning. New episodes come out on Fridays on Showtime, so I can follow it along as the season progresses for however long it will last.
I was very excited to see episode four as I knew it had some kind of serial killer dinner party at the center of it. I did not know that the guest list would be as sparkling as it was. The party was thrown by Peter Dinklage was something that I knew. He played serial killer fan Leon Prater. He was the employer of problem-solver Charley, who is played by Uma Thurman. We had seen her before.
Having Prater show Dexter (whom he believed was the Dark Passenger) around his trophy room of serial killers was creepy. Especially when he showed Dexter the hammer of the Trinity Killer and the slides of the Bay Harbor Butcher.
Then, shocks kept coming as the rest of the guests arrived. This list included Krysten Ritter as Mia, Lady Vengeance, Eric Stonestreet as family man Al, David Dastmalchian as Gareth and Neil Patrick Harris as slimy Lowell, the tattoo killer. I did not expect such a Who’s Who of actors taking these roles, and it was even more amazing when NPH wound up on Dexter’s table at the end of the episode.
The show also teased a relationship between Dexter (still pretending to be Red, the Dark Passenger) and Mia. Dexter entertained the idea of working with her until he discovered that she was not exclusively killing sexual predators as the press had assumed. He framed her for the murder of the man that Harrison had killed in the hotel. That had a lot of holes to it (including Mia telling her intended victim that he would be her first kill in New York) but the media seemed to grab the idea quickly.
Batista was not as happy about the results. He had gone to see Detective Wallace with a plan to share ideas on the case that, he said, sounded similar to the bay Harbor Butcher.
The fifth episode ended with a promising connection between Dexter and Harrison, after Harrison learned that his father had taken care of the problem with his own murder. Harrison showed Dexter signs that he was not like him, which made Dexter happy.
Today I finished the final season of What We Do in the Shadows on Disney +. Season six had eleven episodes, one more than any of the other seasons. I have to say… I thought this season was the worst of the six. Not that it was bad overall, but it just did not feel like it was scattered all over the place.
These were a few of the highlights for me:
Laszlo’s ghost father arriving was a funny bit. His father trying to take over Laszlo’s body was a fun scene.
I enjoyed the Monster, created by Laszlo and Colin Robinson, but that joke ran out of steam during the season.
The big night for the Baron led to the vampires looking to kill the group. This felt familiar (no pun intended), but I thought it was one of the better episodes of the season.
I did like the concept of Nandor and Guillermo forming a crime fighting duo. I would have liked more of this during the season instead of a joke at the end.
The Finale. I’ll talk about that in a little while.
Low lights:
Jerry. Though it was funny that they forgot to awaken another vampire who used to live with them as he entered “super slumber,” the character of Jerry was hardly worth the time and turned out to be a throw away as the season progressed.
Guillermo working at the office. It had some funny moments, but it did not work well for me. It was lackluster.
They repeated a couple of beats from the series, including how Nandor was ready to go to war with the TV show filming outside.
Sleep hypnosis. Nandor as Richard Nixon was funny, but overall the idea was barely enough for an episode.
Nandor’s Army? That felt like a waste.
Let’s talk about the finale. I loved this. It was easily the best episode of season 6. It was so meta that I found it highly entertaining. The documentary filming was coming to an end and Guillermo was having trouble accepting it. They had so many fun meta lines which were referring to the documentary, but in reality were designed toward the actual show itself. My favorite was Nadja, who, when talking about how the documentary should end, mentioned how the doc should have ended last year after Guillermo was turned back to human after being a vampire. This line basically said the fifth season finale would have made a better ending to the show than anything done during season 6. She was 100% accurate.
They added some parody endings that came about when Nadja hypnotized the audience. The first one was a spoof of The Usual Suspects. The next two, which came as post credit scenes, were one like Newhart, with Nandor having a dream and telling Guillermo, who is in bed with him, about it. The third spoof was one of Rosemary’s Baby, with Nadja playing the role of Rosemary (and Colin Robinson back as a baby again). These were a lot of fun and an enjoyable way to end the series.
With the whole group (except Guillermo) singing “We’ll Meet Again” was a wonderful moment. Even better was when Laszlo exclaimed, “Now, everyone but the Guide!” because of how badly she was singing. I laughed out loud at that line, which was said off screen.
While this season would be my least favorite of the six, What We Do in the Shadows is one of my favorite comedies of all time. The stories were great. The characters were a hoot. It was very enjoyable. I do think it was time for the show to come to an end [although I would have loved more of the crime fighting Nandor (aka The Phantom…Menace) & Guillermo (aka The Cowboy Kid)].
What a kick off to the next show for the Sunday Morning Sidewalk. The only problem is I now have to wait until next Sunday to watch the next episode.
Lovecraft Country was a series that was on HBO, a horror, historical fantasy, drama that centered around the writings of author H.P. Lovecraft.
Starring Jurnee Smollett, Courtney B. Vance and Jonathan Majors, the show had one heck of a debut episode.
Majors played Atticus “Tic” Freeman, a young man who had served in the Korean War. He returned to his home in Chicago when he found out that his father had gone missing.
Going by his uncle George Freeman’s home, Atticus shared a letter that his father had sent him about Ardham, Massachusetts. With a little investiagtion, Atticus discovered this city was in the middle of Devon County, which was an area where H.P. Lovecraft had supposedly set many of his horror tales.
George writes for a black guide book (much like the movie Green Book) so Atticus, George and Letitia “Leti” Lewis, an old friend who was hitching a ride to her brother’s home, took off to this county.
They stopped for some food, only to be chased away by gun toting yokels who did not want black people eating in their diner. This was a tense and anxiety-filled scene as the locals shot at them with rifles. It is amazing that such hatred exists in the United States that there are people who think this kind of behavior was ever okay.
A mysterious silver sedan caused the yokel’s car to flip over and a enigmatic white woman came out from the car. Atticus had heard that his father had left Chicago in a silver sedan, so everything seemed to be tying together.
In Devon County, the trio was in the woods looking for an access road, when the racist sheriff came upon them. He told them that they were in a sundown county where any blacks out after sundown would be considered dangerous and he would have to do something about it. What followed was a real tense, horrific scene where Atticus desperately tried to get their car across the county line before the sun went down, unable to speed because the sheriff followed behind, waiting to pull them over for any infraction.
Making the county line, they came to a police roadblock, realizing that the race to the border was irrelevant. As they were face down and about to be lynched, monsters came from the woods and began attacking the cops. These creatures were shoggoths, monsters found in Lovecraft work.
In the end, Atticus, George and Leti found themselves at a mansion in the woods, where they are greeted kindly by a white at the door.
The scene with the shoggoths and the cops was really intense and bloody. You had no idea what was going to happen, although it was awesome to see that racist piece of crap sheriff get his during the scene.
The episode started with a dream Atticus was having involving UFOs, monsters and what looked like Cthulhu. Of course, there was also Jackie Robinson(?). I was in immediately. I love the air of mystery and the unexpected nature of the show. I can’t wait to see where this goes from here.
Building the horrors of segregation into a story with J.P. Lovecraft’s work at the center is ironic, considering Lovecraft was known to be a racist himself. Tying that all together creates a powerful dynamic that will help drive this story, hopefully through the rest of the series. There are plenty of secrets floating around (who was that that Atticus called in South Korea?) and these add such a great color to the plot.
Next Sunday can’t get here soon enough. I was a little nervous about committing to Lovecraft Country for the Sunday Morning Sidewalk as there were ten episodes, which will encompass over two months to finish. At this point, I am thrilled with the choice.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 