Category Archives: TV-G[eek]

Squid Game S2 E2

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“Halloween Party”

I have really enjoyed the start of season two as the show has not even made it to the games yet. They have taken some time to dive into more of the story of the characters, and not just Gi-hun.

We have spent time over the first two episodes with Kang No-eul, who was a refugee from North Korea who is continuing to try and get her daughter back from the North as well. She worked at an amusement park as a mascot and we saw her relating to a little sick girl. We thought she was going to join the games, but, instead, she turns out to be one of the pink guards instead, which was a cool surprise.

Gi-hun and Jun-ho meet up after the Russian Roulette game and have the initial misunderstanding as you would expect. They team up to try and stop the games. We get to see how much Gi-hun has been preparing for this over the last couple of years.

The scene where Gi-hun is having one of his teeth pulled in order to put a tracker in a fake tooth is a wild one and showed you what Gi-hun has become. The scene with Gi-hun showing all of his money piled up on his bed was shocking and again gave us an insight into the character of Gi-hun and what was important to him.

Gi-hun is back in the games and they will most likely get started next episode.

Squid Game S2 E1

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“Bread and Lottery”

After season one was a massive, worldwide success on Netflix, Squid Game returned with season two dropping on the streamer. The initial season of Squid Game was designed to be a one-off season and there were no intentions on bringing a second season to screen. Then, it became one of the biggest shows on Netflix and the demand for more games became too overpowering.

So, I watched episode one of Squid Game and it was full of tension and drama, but a little different than what we had become used to in the first season.

Seong Gi-hun returned to the show after winning the games last season. It is three years later and Seong has become obsessed with finding the games once again. He hired an army of men to scour train stations in search of the man who recruited him into the games.

Meanwhile, Hwang Jun-ho had survived his gunshot wound and fall from the cliff and he was struggling with his own obsessions. He remembered being shot by his brother and he is trying to find the island where he had fallen.

Both men feel as if they are co-leads in this first episode as things are slowly working to bring them together.

The whole Russian Roulette scenes were really tense and difficult to watch. The mood these scenes built really give us an idea of what this season is going to be like, even if we have not yet arrived in the games. I think it is smart to focus on Seong and Jun-ho as the main protagonists of the season so far.

What If…? S3 E6

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“What If…1872?”

What If in the Old West.

Shang Chi and Kate Bishop make their returns to the MCU in this cool Western story as they chase after The Hood, a character that the MCU has not yet introduced (although he is coming in Ironheart next year).

The pairing of Shang Chi and Kate Bishop worked for me as they pursued the Hood for their own reasons. The show did keep the characters at a surface level, depending on your enjoyment of the previous uses of the character to pull you in. For me, that worked.

The action of the episode was top notch with some awesome animated martial arts fights. The opening scene featuring John Walker, voiced once again by Wyatt Russell, was a neat set up for what we were going to get.

Shang Chi in search of his sister, who he had believed had been taken by the Hood works as well. Having her be the Hood in the end was a nice twist that I did not expect.

Walter Goggins reprised his role as Sonny Burch from Ant Man and the Wasp. Here he was a very sinister second hand man to the Hood. To be honest, he was much more memorable here in What If that he was in Ant Man and the Wasp. I like that they brought him in for this role.

1872 was a limited Marvel Comics series that placed Marvel characters in the Old West. Steve Rogers was the sheriff of the town and Wilson Fisk was the big, bad businessman. Fisk wound up feeding Steve Rogers to the pigs in a scene that stuck with me since I read it. I do not remember much else about 1872, except for that moment. This What If…? episode did not include those characters but I could see it being something going on in another location in this world.

There are only two more What If…? episodes left. With the final scene being the other Watchers confronting Uatu, and his interference will be a major arc to wrap up the series. The Watchers have sworn an oath to only watch and to not interfere, but we have seen our Watcher interfere several times over the three seasons. I am curious to see how this will all wrap up. I know the trailer had Captain Carter and Kahhori in it, so I expect to see them during some kind of conflict with the Watchers.

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier

E6 What If 1872?

E5 What If the Emergence Destroyed the Earth?

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

E4 What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched?

Creature Commandos S1 E5

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“The Iron Pot”

The Creature Commandos focused on Frankenstein this week, seeing some back story on him that turned out as tragic as one might expect.

This series has been up and down for me. This episode was good, but it really felt too quick, as if it rushed through. I would have said inconsequential, but Rick Flag Sr. sure looks like he is dead. I have a hard time believing that, but he sure seemed dead, and that would be clearly consequential.

However, the word was that Rick Flag Sr, as played by Frank Grillo, was playing a part in future DCU projects, and that the animation was all cannon, so I can not believe that I just saw him killed by this Clayface-looking monster.

Perhaps this is my own personal taste too, but the animated blood that is done so much here is overkill. I think the blood loses its impact when it is used as much as it is. It is the same way I feel about Invincible. I would rather keep the bloodshed to a minimum to keep it feeling special. When you just see bloody kill after bloody kill, it desensitizes the viewer and minimizes the effect. That is my opinion, but I thought the blood use in X-Men ’97 was much more effective than it has been in Creature Commandos.

Twenty-two minutes feels less than this show should have. At the very least, it should be 30 minutes, but this just felt like it was over and it had just started.

What If…? S3 E5

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“What If the Emergence Destroyed the Earth”

Mysterio is Emperor Palpatine?

Who watches the Watcher? I guess we know now.

The Watcher breaks his vow once again… his vow to never interfere… and three other Watchers were paying attention. Obviously, this is what will be heading to the finale of the show.

This was a cool episode with some characters that we do not usually see much about. Ironheart, Wong, Valkyrie, Okoye, and Ying Nan(voiced by Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh) made an intriguing group of characters.

I have never been a great fan of post apocalyptic stories. I mean, they are okay, but it is not my preferential choice, so this episode started off at a disadvantage. However, I did think that the use of the Emergence from the Eternals movie was a neat way to set it up. The show is clearly also trying to set up Riri Williams for the upcoming Ironheart show by featuring her here.

I did like the idea of Mysterio taking control of what remained of the world after the Emergence. It made sense and, in Marvel, there have been plenty of futuristic books where Mysterio played a huge role.

I did love the ending salvo of the show, with the Watcher tired of seeing the same tragedy every time and getting involved, ever so slightly. Looking forward to where this will go.

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E5 What If the Emergence Destroyed the Earth?

E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

E4 What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched?

Skeleton Crew S1 E5

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“You Have a lot to Learn about Pirates”

With Christmas in the middle of the week and no school because of Christmas break, my mind gets mixed up. I was focused on a lot of different things, and I did not think about Skeleton Crew having a new episode last night. In fact, with Doctor Who coming up and a list of other things I wanted to watch, I would not have thought about Skeleton Crew had I not seen mktoon (aka Michael Vogel of the Geek Buddies) post a message on X about how Skeleton Crew is always great.

Once I saw this Tweet (or whatever they are called now), this show jumped to the head of the list for the day.

What a great episode. Things are really moving forward quickly, including the ultimate betrayal of Jod.

This show does a great job of keeping these characters kids and showing us that they are still kids. The scene of the pillow fight on the bed was a perfect example of showing these characters as children. Many times children characters do not act like children characters. In Skeleton Crew, these kids are kids.

Jod taking over the captain’s role was a huge betrayal to the kids, who were as brave as they could be, but were in way over their heads. When Wim stepped up with a lightsaber, I believed that we were going to get something magical, but with him holding the lightsaber in the wrong direction, things did not go well. I guess Wim was lucky he did not cut off part of his body.

Jod and SM-33 are together now, as the kids escaped from Jod through a specific tunnel. This scene was right out of Goonies, with the kids finding the treasure of One-Eyed Willy. There are also booty traps (Boobie traps… that’s what I said, booty traps).

Skeleton Crew is one of the most entertaining Star Wars shows in a long time and it really had that Star Wars vibe to it this week. With the two groups now separated, and people chasing after Jod, who continues to be called by different names, the show is flying into the second half of the season in a positive way.

What If…? S3 E4

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“What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched”

Tell us this is the final season without saying it is the final season.

What If gives us a Howard the Duck/Darcy episode. They’re married and she gave birth to an egg.

What?

What If took one of the worst episodes from season one and gave it a sequel and made it one of the strangest, weirdest episodes of the entire run.

What If, the comic book, would have issues that were really bizarre because they could do anything they wanted, and this is a perfect example of that.

I do love Howard the Duck and I would be all for a Howard the Duck series, live action or animated. This did feel a bit much.

There were a bunch of surprising cameos from the people chasing after this egg including Zeus, Thanos and the Black Order, Nick Fury and Agent Coulson, Dark Elves, the Grandmaster …all in pursuit of this egg.

I will say that I found this to be too silly at times and that a lot of the humor did not work for me, and I am a person whose Marvel’s humor almost always works. This might be an episode that I like more on second watch, but for now, this episode was down my list.

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

E4 What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched?

Shrinking S2 E12

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“The Last Thanksgiving”

What a wonderful final episode of Shrinking.

However, I really thought this was going to end with a tragedy and I just did not want to see it happen. Thankfully, Jimmy arrived at the train station just as Louis, who had been rebuked by his friend who said that he “got drunk and murdered someone”, was about to step out in front of an oncoming train. I really thought this was going to happen and I could not handle the season coming to an end with such a horrible tragedy.

So many great things happened:

  • Derek forgave Gaby and brought her mother to Thanksgiving.
  • Brian and Charlie hired a nanny, and had Liz do two days a week. It was Derek’s idea at first.
  • Julie kidnapped Paul again… this time to go to Gaby’s Thanksgiving. He kept saying he was under duress.
  • Paul stood up and gave a beautiful speech about the people at the party being people that he did not have to hide his tremors from. It was an amazing scene and Harrison Ford knocked it out of the park.
  • Sean had a nice scene with his father *finger poke*
  • Summer called for help from Jimmy when she was shoplifting abortion medicine.
  • Jimmy worked with Paul to try and get better after admitting that he was not okay.

The scene with Jimmy and Louis at the train station was legendary as they sat and tried to guess what other people’s jobs were. It echoed back to the past when Louis and his wife used to do that.

This was a wonderful episode to wrap up a pretty solid season overall. Shrinking will be returning for a season three on Apple TV +.

What If…? S3 E3

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“What If The Red Guardian Stopped The Winter Soldier”

One of the strength of the What If show is taking characters who would not usually work together or you may not expect to be together. Episode one had Sam Wilson and Bruce Banner. Episode two was Agatha and Kingo. Now, we get Red Guardian and Winter Soldier.

David Harbour is a gem. His work as the Red Guardian is so silly and over the top that it works, especially when paired with the stoic, more quiet Winter Soldier. This is clearly a “buddy cop” style of episode with the two main protagonists being pursued by Bill Foster, aka Goliath, once again voiced by Laurence Fishburne.

The pairing kicks off when Red Guardian prevents the Winter Soldier from killing Howard Stark and his wife as we see in Captain America: Civil War, and then they wind up thrust together into Las Vegas.

This was the episode from where they dropped a clip after last year’s season two, hinting to us that season three was closer than we thought.

They had some nice moments between Red Guardian and Bucky too, as the episode was more than just a bunch of action strung together. The scene where Red Guardian helps Bucky remember about Coney Island was very sweet, and it was obviously important to Bucky.

I found it odd that Oscar nominated America Ferrara did a voice of a secondary side character, Ranger Morales who teamed up with Bill Foster to chase after Red Guardian and Winter Soldier. That seemed to be a huge casting for such a minor character who, as far as I know, has no connection in Marvel Comics (After some research, I discovered there was an Agent Morales who worked for SHIELD that perhaps this character was based upon).

I love how What If…? has been using different styles to tell their stories. First episode was a Kaiju/monster story, episode two was Old Hollywood and this is a buddy cop tale. It shows the variety that the show can present effectively.

Season Three Episodes So Far

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E3 What If The Red Guardian Stopped The Winter Soldier

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

What If…? S3 E2

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“What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?”

Now that’s more like it.

While I liked the previous What If…? episode of season three, I did not love it. Season two I ADORED just about everything about this one.

Agatha Harkness and Kingo? Who knew that I needed that in my life?

Golden Age of Hollywood with Agatha making a gigantic, cosmic blockbuster with Howard Stark (and the ever quippy Jarvis) is amazing, but to tie that into Agatha’s latest plot to grab power for herself by way of stealing the power of the growing Celestial inside the earth, Tiamut, is on another level.

There is a dance battle, literally, between Agatha and Kingo. All the while Howard Stark is shouting out some of the funniest dialogue you are ever going to hear.

“I want Busby Berkeley to see this and contemplate being a realtor“

“Will they dance? They will!“

“That chemistry was hotter than the Hindenburg.“

“Is that some kind of euphonism? Are you two a thing now?”

Howard Stark and Jarvis made the perfect Old Hollywood director behind the scenes for this What If…? episode. The quips delivered wonderfully by both Dominic Cooper and James D’Arcy. Jarvis’s initial dry wit fit beautifully in the insanity that was going on around him in this episode.

The fact is this… Kathryn Hahn is a master. She ahs taken this secondary (maybe even tertiary) character of Agatha Harkness and made her something special. Kathryn Hahn’s aura is all over this episode and she just dominated every minute, and she had amazing chemistry with Kumail Nanjiani. These two characters worked so well with one another and who saw that coming?

The dance routine was brilliant. I loved it. The design of Celestial Agatha was beautifully perfect. Her battle with Arishem the Judge was a great call back to WandaVision. The end speech from Kingo targeted what was missing inside Agatha all along.

This episode is very meta with several behind the scenes comments and a reference to Cecil B. DeMille. For me, this all worked so well that I just sat on my couch with a big smile on my face the entire time.

I would put this episode of What If…? right at the top of the series along with the season one Dr. Strange episode, the season two Christmas and 1602 episodes. Certainly the best of season three so far and potentially one of the best of the entire run.

Season Order So Far

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

Silo S2 E6

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“Barricades”

Silo streamed its sixth episode the other day and things continue to be happening. This episode spent most of the time in our original silo, with only a few minutes at the end of the episode with Juliette and Solo.

Sheriff Billings takes a stand after finally getting to be able to talk to Shirley, Knox and Walker. He showed himself that he was willing to follow the law and not worry about whose side he is on. He also seemed to discover that his shakes from the Syndrome were gone despite not taking his herbs for days. What does this mean for the people of the silo? Is it just one more lie that has been used to maintain the status quo?

Bernard is feeling like he is losing control of things as the revolt below him in the silo has been picking up steam and his attempt to starve them out has failed. He realized that he has lost the sheriff, who is going to follow the law and not just blindly follow what he says.

Things are going to go crazy when Juliette is able to return to her original silo. It’s coming…

Dexter: Original Sin E1-3

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“And in the Beginning…”

“Kid in a Candy Store”

“Miami Vice”

I watched Dexter on and off when it was one. The season with John Lithgow was one of the best seasons of TV ever. But I did not watch much of the last few years of the show nor did I watch the return series from a few years ago. I liked Dexter, but I did not go out of my way for him.

When I spotted this new series, Dexter: Original Sin, on Prime, I was interested. Telling the story of how things started off with Dexter and his Dark Passenger seemed like a great story, and the use of Michael C. Hall as the narrator worked in a lot of different ways.

Of course, the casting of Dexter and Debra would be key to any series and I think this new show got them right with Dexter being played by Patrick Gibson and Debra was played by Molly Brown. Both seem to fit these characters without being just an imitation of the originals.

We have a living Harry Morgan here as well with the one and only Christian Slater taking that role of Dexter’s adoptive father. He is on the force, but we know that Dexter’s murders would eventually take their toll on Harry. Harry’s rules are a major part in the character of Dexter’s life and code, no matter how bizarre it was.

Sarah Michelle Geller is on this show too as Tanya Martin, Dexter’s first boss at the Miami Metro and is the CSI chief. It’s cool to see Buffy once again, but she is just listed as a “special guest star” so I do not know what that means.

Dexter is an excellent character, a heroic one who would feed his darker impulses by killing people who were bad. Yes, there is all kinds of morally grey area in here. Yes, Dexter is not really a hero. Yet, he does seem to be more than just another serial killer. The influence of Harry is clearly the reason for that.

At this point, Dexter has been dumping his two kills in a swampy area with some alligators. Thing is … at the end of E3, an arm was left floating. Obviously, Dexter will develop a better manner of body disposal that he takes into the future with him. We will see how he avoids the trouble with the arm (because obviously he is getting away with it).

I liked these first three episodes. It did take a little while to remember about the characters from the original series and how they are used here, but it was fun getting through it. I will continue to watch this series and may even give a chance to the new Dexter series called Dexter: Resurrections coming in 2025.

What If … ? S3 E1

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“What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers”

I am very happy to have What If…? back once more over holiday break, releasing daily for my entertainment pleasure. I love this release schedule which they started last year. They are releasing the eight episodes daily, starting on December 22 and running through December 29. It gives me something to look forward to every day.

What If…? has been a fairly consistent show over the three seasons. It has been enjoyable, but perhaps not outstanding. It is typically really good, fun and entertaining. This first episode feels like it falls right into that category.

The What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers episode had a new team of Avengers with their giant mech technology, much like Voltron or the Power Rangers, and they took on some gamma beasts created in the Gamma War.

One of the best parts of What If…? is the use of the actual live action actors for voices in the animated shows. This episode included Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, Oscar Isaac as Moon Knight, Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, and David Harbour as Red Guardian.

The first half of this episode felt as if it had too much exposition and, despite having a series of cool animation styles during the period, I thought there was too much telling and not enough showing. This is one of the overall issues with What If…?. Episodes are kept around 30 minutes and sometimes feel as if it is too short. This one felt like it would have been more compelling if it had been an hour. Maybe we could have seen some of the Gamma War instead of just using it as set up.

However, the second half of the show was solid and included some awesome giant robot vs. Kaiju type action, including Bruce Banner transforming himself into a gigantic Godzilla-like creature, I dubbed Hulkzilla as soon as I saw the scene. This was fun and an enjoyable action piece with a decent theme working.

Admittedly, after seeing some of the outstanding animated TV shows this year such as X-Men ’97 and Batman: The Caped Crusader, What If…? feels like a step down. That may not be fair, but when the genre is elevating its game, you expect other shows to step up too. What If…? episode one of season three was fine, but probably not as memorable as it could have been.

Shrinking S2 E11

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“The Drugs Don’t Work”

A more emotional episode of Shrinking than we’ve had for awhile as both Jimmy and Paul had major events in their lives, causing each of them distress. Plus, Gaby’s personal demons began to throw a wrench into her relationship with Derek.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and problems are welling up for everyone. However, there was a great moment when Brian received word that the woman who had rejected Brian and Charlie as adoptive parents for her baby, changed her mind.

Sean is also having issues that he does not want Derek to help him with, even though Derek had an awesome fix for.

Jimmy is quickly on a downward spiral as he realized that he was not doing better dealing with his wife’s death and that he really needed help. His reaction to Alice being friends with Louis has triggered the episode and Jimmy called Paul for help.

Of course, Paul’s medication is starting to fail him, as he had noticed more tremors than he had before.

At one point, I was unsure what this show was going to do because it felt as if the storylines had all wrapped up sufficiently. However, Shrinking has amped everything back up for a “finale?” next week.

Creature Commandos S2 E4

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“Chasing Squirrels”

The fourth episode of Creature Commandos on MAX is uneven and I’m not sure how I feel about it. The mixture of the silly comedy and horrible tragedy felt at odds with each other and I am not sure how I feel about it.

The section about Weasel’s backstory was tragic and sad. Seeing eight children being killed in a fire is something that you do not expect to see in an animation. I did think that this backstory really presented us with the story that humanized the Weasel character.

I’m not sure how I felt about the Frankenstein part of this episode. The comedy surrounding Frankenstein did not hit well for me. The whole Frankenstein-Rick Flagg interaction did not work for me either.

Perhaps the dichotomy of the two storylines was what didn’t work for me. I did find the Weasel part of the story to be very compelling, but the humor of Frankenstein felt like it took away from the overall story. I am not someone who believes that you can’t have humor in a tragic story, but this felt too over the top for me.

Still love The Bride though. She is great. I have a much more positive feeling toward Weasel.