Category Archives: TV-G[eek]

Spider-Noir S1 E1, E2, E3

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“Step Into My Office”

“Tread Lightly”

“Double Cross”

Amazon Prime’s new series, Spider-Noir, starring Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly, aka The Spider.

The Spider was a character from Marvel Comics, a version of Spider-Man from the 1930s. It became even more popular when the character appeared in the Sony animated film Into the Spider-Verse, voiced by Nic Cage.

In a brilliant piece of business, the episodes of this series are available in both color and black & white. I, of course, chose the black & white version.

This was such a great first three episodes. Ben Reilly was a private detective, struggling, and no longer the Spider, since his girlfriend was killed by drowning.

Our main antagonist is Silvermane, played by Brendan Gleason. Other characters we get are Cat Hardy, played by Li Jun Li, Robbie Robertson, played by Lamorne Morris, Flint Marko (Sandman), played by Jack Huston, and Janet, played by Karen Rodriguez.

This had a real noir tone. We got the Sandman, and also Tombstone. I get a feeling we are getting more too.

The end of the third episode was a solid cliffhanger. I have really enjoyed the story we are starting here, and Nic Cage was in all his glory.

I loved the secretary, Janet. I hope there will be more with her.

The music is great. I actually immediately purchased the theme song, “Saving Grace” by Kirby, on Apple Music.

The dialogue is wonderful. The Nic Cage performance as Ben Reilly is really witty and funny. It is beautiful to watch in the black & white. There are so many awesome shots.

After three episodes, I am a big fan of the series. The whole series was dropped on Prime today.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #70

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Hulk Hogan: Real American

Episode 2: Hulkamania

The second episode of the Netflix documentary Hulk Hogan: Real American featured the time frame from when Hogan returned to the, at the time, WWF through his winning of the championship all the way to reclaiming the title from Sgt. Slaughter at Wrestlemania 7.

There was so much covered during this hour episode. In his career, it looked at Wrestlemania I, Wrestlemania III, Wrestlemania VI and VII. In his family, it looked at his marriage to Linda and the birth of his two children Brooke and Nick. All with Hogan doing voice overs and narration.

We got an interview from President Donald Trump speaking about what a great guy Hulk Hogan was.

Much like last week, the negative things about Hogan during these years (Richard Beltzer, Road Schedule, drug use) were addressed but just surface. There was interesting part about Hogan’s brother showing up, asking for money, only to wind up overdosing. There were some real emotions coming from Hogan in this section of the doc, but he did not want to go into depth on it either. It clearly still affected him even after this many years.

The doc seemed to go back to the time when everyone would bash the Ultimate Warrior. There was a time when the Warrior was back in the good graces of the WWE but the section on the Warrior and Wrestlemania VI felt more like the Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior, a WWE produced doc that bad mouthed Warrior the whole time.

Next week’s Sunday Morning Sidewalk sounded as if it was progressing into the negative time of the steroid trial. I am interested to see how this doc, which has been very heavily positive toward Hogan (even long time critics such as Jess Ventura and Bret Hart were recorded saying positive things about him), deals with this time of Hogan’s life.

Widow’s Bay S1 E5

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“What to Expect on Your Trip”

After finding the body of Reverend Bryce hanging in his office, Tom, Wyck and Patricia find a mysterious phone number in Bryce’s phone that he called multiple times. It turned out that this was one of Patricia’s old classmates who supplied drugs to people.

Specifically, there was a drug called the “True sight” drug that Todd, Patricia’s old classmate who, when Tom calls him a drug dealer, responded with “I’m a shaman.” And yes… that’s cocaine.

This was a drug trip episode for Mayor Tom and it was hilarious. Matthew Rhys does a wonderful job as playing this incredibly stoned individual, bouncing around to different places in the city, trying to mitigate the chaos of the town being mad about the curfew ruining the night of the fireworks.

We also get Evan sneaking out with his friends yet again and heading to the serial killer’s house, nearly heading inside.

We get flashbacks to when Tom’s wife died in childbirth… after they had attempted to leave the island for the first time.

Another excellent episode of the Apple TV + show. I laughed multiple times while the show is still able to create tension and anxiety about the mysterious island and the curse that it has succumbed to.

The Boys S5 E8

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“Blood and Bone”

Extremely satisfying conclusion for this series.

The characters of The Boys were all served very well in this conclusion. They all feel like they have taken this full circle, back to the beginning. As I said, this was so satisfying of an ending. It is hard to make a finale that really hits all the right notes, and I believe this one was special.

Hughie stepped it up big time in this episode as he really came through. Apparently, much of the ending matched up with what happened in the comics (which I have not read). The end of the episode with Hughie and Butcher facing off over the virus, with Butcher wanting to kill all the supes and Hughie killing him. It was wonderful that Hughie got be be a leader again.

I have had a difficult relationship with Butcher over the five seasons

Homelander’s fall in the White House’s Oval Office was fabulous. The battle between Butcher and Homelander was brutal and the use of Kimiko and Ryan in the battle was great. The final death of Homelander with the crowbar was perfect and gross at the same time. The use of Frenchie’s memory for Kimiko was beautiful, reminding her that rage was not what she did best, that herpower came from her heart .

Annie getting to be the one who finally brings down The Deep is a full circle moment, and the way they paid off the sea creatures getting their revenge on “Kevin” is great. There has not been a character in this show more despicable (except for Homelander) than Deep.

I did not expect that Soldier Boy had been killed last week. I thought Homelander only choked him out, but, apparently, he did kill him. Homelander made a comment about dropping him in the Thames, so I guess that was the end of Soldier Boy.

Sister Sage had her powers taken away with the Kimiko blast and she is happy about it. She does not have to lobotomize herself to enough Taco Bell and reality TV. Sage heading off to Harry Potter land in Orlando is a great end for that character.

MM is reunited with Monique and they get remarried. It also seemed as if MM is taking Ryan in too. It was one of the happier ends of the characters.

Of course, Annie pregnant at the end and involved with Hughie’s “start-up business” was cool too. It felt like another pay off for this relationship that had endured for so long through so much tragedy and turmoil. With Annie being pregnant after aborting the child in a previous season, I think that throwback is another strong character beat.

Terror RIP.

The performances of this show were all outstanding. From Karl Urban and Jack Quaid to Antony Starr and Chace Crawford, from  Karen Fukuhara and Tomer Capone to Daveed Diggs and Colby Minifie, from Erin Moriarty and Cameron Crovetti to Laz Alonso and Jensen Ackles, the cast brought it every episode and made these characters pop (sometimes even literally as head were exploding in moments).

The Boys finished off a strong season and a top-notch super hero satire.

Agents of Shield S4 E13, E14, E15

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“BOOM”

“The Man Behind the Shield”

“Self Control”

In season four, Agents of Shield was divided into three separate story arcs. The first arc was the “ghost Rider” arc, which incorporated the first 8 episodes. The next 7, which included these final three episodes, were under the “LMD” arc.

This arc was not my most favorite of the Agents of Shield show. Still, it was quite an enjoyable three episodes to end off this storyline and it lead perfectly into the next arc “Agents of Hydra”, which sees the Agents of Shield living their lives in the Framework, an AI-type world where their minds are inside this fake world.

The final of this arc was extremely suspenseful, especially as Simmons discovered that Fitz had also been replaced with an LMD. Not only Fitz, but Coulson, Mace and Mack were already LMDs and in the Framework. Watching Simmons stab LMD Fitz was so rough. Iain De Caestecker was great in this scene.

The scenes with Daisy and Simmons was very tense as well. This highlighted the strength of Elizabeth Henstridge as a performer.

Quake continues to be such a kick ass character. She is so great that you have to keep putting her in jeopardy to try and give some stakes for her.

Ada is becoming a sinister enemy who is programmed to protect the Framework. She killed Radcliffe and put his mind into the Framework, believing she could protect both the Framework and Radcliffe that way. Perfect thoughts from an android.

The Framework story goes into full gear next episode.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #69

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Hulk Hogan: Real American

“The Rise”

This week, I start the next Sunday Morning Sidewalk show on Netflix, the documentary featuring the professional wrestler Hulk Hogan.

Hulk Hogan: Real American started off with images from Hulk Hogan’s funeral. Imagine working on your documentary, with plenty of access to Hulk Hogan himself, and have the subject die. It certainly gives the documentary series a beginning and an end.

The first episode was about the rise of Hulk Hogan, from a kid growing up in Tampa, Florida to the arrival of the biggest star the industry of Pro Wrestling ever saw.

There were plenty of interviews during the doc from not only Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan’s real name), but also people he met and dealt with during the time such as Jerry Lawler, Bret Hart, Jimmy Hart, Brian Blair, and even Jesse Ventura.

The thing is that there was not much negative mentioned. They did not hear the negatives that you usually hear from Hart or Ventura about Hogan. They talked about him being green in the ring, which he clearly was. They mentioned Verna Gagne, but had no video of his opinion of Hogan.

The only negative was the time Vince McMahon Sr. fired Hogan for going to shoot Rocky III. The rest of this episode was basically the typical story of a wrestler making his way through the Indies to make it big.

They did make some references to some controversies surrounding Hogan, so I am interested to see exactly how they deal with the second part of his life. The early days are easy to show him as a “superhero” as his persona, but later on, things got tougher. Will they just touch on this or will this be a major aspect of the doc? I have my suspicions.

This was an intriguing start, but I want to see more in depth from this doc over the next three weeks.

Widow’s Bay S1 E4

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“Beach Reads”

At the end of the last episode, we got a distress call over the police radio that was hectic and sounded like all hell was breaking loose. It came out of nowhere, but it really put a button on last week’s wild episode.

This week, we learn what was going on.

The episode was a Patricia-centric episode, which flashbacked four days and showed her getting ready for a party. The show does a great job of creating suspense through the struggles of Patricia and her anxieties of the party. It also snuck in a surprise… a special book that seemingly was a self-help book, but instead turned out to be a witches’ spellbook.

The scene where Sheriff Bechir comes into the restaurant to find Patricia, and the audience, for the first time, sees Patricia in the true light… with a crown of antlers and rodents’ hair, mixing punch that included blood from dead animals.

I actually gasped when they revealed this sight, as I just did not expect it to be as shocking as it was. We discovered that the punch sent the party guests to the water, looking to drown themselves. It took Patricia burning the book to break the spell.

This was quite the departure from what this series had been building up with the Mayor and his own problems dealing with acceptance of supernatural truths on the island. We barely saw him at all this episode. And yet it worked completely well. On LOST, they would have episodes focused on different characters, and this was just like that.

Then, the episode ended with Mayor Tom, Patricia and Wyck finding the dead body of Reverend Bryce hanging on the door.

Widow’s Bay has been excellent with the cliffhanger/final scene shock so far. This one keeps me wondering what exactly is next among this wild show.

The Boys S5 E7

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“The Frenchman, the Female, and the Man Called Mother’s Milk”

Penultimate episode. Heart crushing end.

I really hoped that Frenchie and Kimiko would end up together at the end. I should have realized that when Frenchie told Kimiko he wanted to settle down and have the three kids she wanted, someone was doomed. Frenchie was the heart of this season and with him gone, I am not sure what levels the show will go to.

Frenchie sacrificing himself to Homelander to save Kimiko and Sage was so beautiful and so tragic. Kimiko’s screams crushed me. I never saw his demise coming. Once he closed Kimiko and Sage in that zinc place, I knew he was going to die.

Even still, when Frenchie actually died, I was so sad. I have never cried while watching the Boys… but this one got me.

There are a lot of things this episode that were incredible. Some examples:

  • The Deep backing away from helping someone who was drowning because he was afraid to go into the water. Samuel L. Jackson voiced a hammerhead shark.
  • Mother’s Milk gave a speech that was amazing.
  • Starlight and MM saved a focus group from being assassinated.
  • Ashley’s mental powers let her read the president’s mind- leading to Homelander killing him.
  • Butcher and Hughie have a great scene with a mind controller.
  • Homelander choked Soldier Boy out when Soldier Boy tried to leave him. I doubt he killed him, but Homelander wants him to stay.
  • Jeffrey Dean Morgan returned for a fabulous scene.
  • Jesus made a cameo.

But Frenchie is easily the most emotional and haunting moment of the show.

One more episode in the series.

Punisher: One Last Kill

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I love the Marvel Special Presentations.

After eight episodes of Daredevil, we get a special presentation featuring a character who was notably absent from Daredevil: Born Again season two: Frank Castle aka Punisher.

Jon Bernthal is an amazing actor and his take on Frank Castle is both heartbreaking and beautiful.

The special presentation shows us how much Frank Castle is still suffering the PTSD from his family’s death. It got to a point where he was sitting by his daughter’s tombstone with a gun pointed at his head. It was really heavy and hard to watch.

Frank’s outburst is horrific. He is so full of pain.

The show transitioned into a Judge Dredd/John Wick/The Raid type of violence with some of the most brutal scenes we have seen in the MCU.

The opening scene really put us into the mindset for this show as a punk killed a puppy. No better way to get yourself ready for some retribution.

Then, in the building, Frank jumps into the action, killing people, still on fire from the flames. They then ran through a series of brutality, while still doing what he could to save people.

And in the end, Frank made the choice to come back and help the people of the neighborhood instead of pursuing Ma Gnucci (played by Judith Light).

There were some remarkable shots in this special including a shot of Frank falling backwards off a roof that was just tremendous.

And it ended with Frank back in the Skull outfit, ready to keep doing damage.

Frank Castle will return in Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Something Very Bad is Going to Happen E7, E8

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“Something Living, Something Dead, Something Stolen, Something Red”

“I Do”

I love the synopsis on Netflix for episode eight. It simply says “Something very bad happens.”

These last two episodes of this Netflix limited series were simply batshit crazy.

Holy cow. This went in a manner that I never thought it would. I mean, I never saw Nicky backing out of the wedding at the altar, basically dooming his entire bloodline.

Nicky never believed in the curse that Rachel was so desperately trying to avoid. She went to the extreme by having Jules cut off Rachel’s pinky toe. She had to put all this stuff into a drink. Part of it was the bone of the bride. She needed the seed of the groom.

Honestly, the creation of this cocktail mixture was making me want to puke. It was so gross.

Rachel does not end up drinking it, as she has convinced herself that Nicky is, in fact, her soulmate.

So when Nicky stops the wedding, the sun goes down and the whole group of their bloodline started bleeding from their eyes and mouth.

The Witness arrived at the wedding too. I had forgotten about him. I also forgot that if Rachel called off the wedding, she would replace him as witness. All this because she accepted a proposal that she did not really want to in the first place.

It is difficult to go over these two episodes because of all the craziness that went down. I thought after episode six that Victoria had died. Seems that I overexaggerated that as she was only suffering a certain attack. Victoria was played by Jennifer Jason Leigh and she was amazing. Ted Levine, from Silence of the Lambs and Captain Leland Stottlemeyer from Monk, was the father of Nicky, which I had not realized until episode six. These two are great actors and really solidified the cast.

I hadn’t considered why Jules did not die when the curse switched to the family, but it was because he was married to his true soulmate in Nell. That makes total sense. It was also why Nicky and his father did not die. Of course, when Victoria died, that said that she did not truly believe that Boris was her soulmate, which would be a tragic thing to live with.

This was a great eight episodes with tons of tension and exciting family shenanigans. The supernatural was used heavily, but it the perfect amount and the ending was so shocking that I never would ghave thought it would have been filmed. A lot of bloody fun.

Something Very Bad is Going to Happen E6

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“Last Night of Freedom”

Things are really happening.

So Rachel and Nell are out to investigate any relatives of Rachel who may not have died on their wedding day. They found a long line of family members who died on the same day they got married. It did not sound like a coincidence.

Meanwhile Nicky, Jules and their father go out on a fox hunter for a “bachelor party.” The tension between the three of them could clearly be felt, especially after the event from last episode. Truths came out about relationships.

When Rachel and Nell found one of her relatives who did survive her marriage, they went to Portia and they held some kind of seance. We got a Ouija board and everything. However, they are able to summon her and her arrival was unbelievably creepy.

As she possessed Portia, she answered the question Rachel was asking: How did you survive your marriage?

The response… “Something living, something dead, something stolen, something red.“

But that was not even the worst part of the evening. Nicky confronted his mother over everything that she has been protecting him from his whole life and he wanted to know everything. However, his mother died right after he insisted on her telling him everything.

Two more to go on this awesome limitd series.

Widow’s Bay S1 E3

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“The Inaugural Swim”

After three episodes of the Apple TV + series Widow’s Bay, I have decided that I love it. This is absolutely my jam with the spooky stories and the superstitions of a little town. The shows such as Twin Peaks, Eerie, Indiana, LOST are all good examples of shows that I love.

This episode featured a local legend of the “Hag.” This show jumps back and forth from fun and silly to creepy and downright scary in tone and it does it expertly. This “Hag” was as creepy as it comes.

Mayor Tom was scratched by the Hag and it came after him. Tom has to be more open to the possibilities after the scary moments he faced in this episode. Wyck ended up saving Tom before the hag could sit on Tom’s head in the bathtub.

This episode ended with a strange message coming over the police radios about “evil coming”.. sounding like it was coming from Reverend Bryce. The ending was striking, especially after the whole hag shooting by Wyck.

This was the last of the episodes that were dropped already. The rest of the episodes will be dropped on Wednesdays.

Agents of Shield S4 E12

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“Hot Potato Soup”

We get a full family reunion of the Koenigs, Billy, Sam, Thurston and LT. They were whom Coulson trusted the Darkhold to in an attempt to keep it hidden.

Of course, Billy gets captured and Radcliffe heads into Billy’s mind to discover where it was hidden.

Patton Oswalt played three of the Koenig siblings… all except LT who was a sister.

The Darkhold winds up in Radcliffe’s possession at the end and the Shield agents finally figure out that May is also an LMD.

Radcliffe and Nadeer want the Darkhold to get rid of all the Inhumans.

Widow’s Bay S1 E2

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“Lodging”

We have a haunted house episode this week. The article came out comparing Widow’s Bay to Martha’s Vineyard and Mayor Tom is beginning preparation to the expectation of the increasing tourists.

So we get The Inn. Wyck is trying to nail a board across the Inn door, yelling about it being haunted.

So here is the hook for this episode.

We also got a bunch of lore from the town during this episode, including a Killer Clown from the 1950s.

Tom was bullied into staying overnight at the Inn when the townspeople were mad at him for calling Wyck a “Dumb hick.” They gave him a list of rumors and superstitions about the Inn for him to do. Tom finally agreed with them, on the condition that when he makes it through the night without any trouble, they needed to stop talking about it and causing trouble for potential tourists.

Of course, trouble was going to happen at the Inn.

Tom met another person at the Inn, which was clearly always going to be a ghost. Turned out the ghost was that of the Killer Clown and it led to a creepy scene in the crawlspace. Of course, the creepy clown was very much resembling Pennywise, especially the way it moved in that crawlspace.

Tom is still in denial about what is happening in the town, but he does seem to be slowly letting the doubts crawl into his head.

This was a really solid episode of the show and there are two more currently available. I read that there are ten total episodes to this first season and it is great. It had an It meets Northern Exposure meets Twin Peaks vibe this week that I dug.

Something Bad is Going to Happen E5

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Episode five feels like a huge turning point in this story.

The episode centered around the family pre-wedding dinner with the whole family getting a chance to meet Rachel.

Everyone keeps asking about how Rachel and Nicky met, and Rachel would tell the story. It was a romantic story about them meeting at an airport and how they decided to drive where they were going because Rachel had a premonition about the plane crashing. Nicky said to her that she “save his life.”

It made Rachel feel like someone listened to and believed her. Turned out, much of the story was a lie Nicky told. Jules heard the story and started picking out the lies.

This is the worst timing since Rachel received the news about her family curse last episode. The lies broke her spirit and she announced to everyone that she was going to die on her wedding day. Rachel then revealed everything about the curse to the whole family.

I do think it is going to be Jules who ends up saving her, as it is his destiny since her mother told him to save her on that fateful day.