Will has discovered how he is connected to Vecna and the Upside Down.
There was a great final scene of episode four and an unbelievable cliffhanger. It is clear that the Duffers had planned on this being the break between chunks of episodes. That throwdown with Vecna and the demogorgons destroying the military was brutal and intense.
We get a bunch of exposition from Max, convincing Holly that they were in a prison. Holly has become a major player in this first part of the final season, and I do like this actor they have playing her.
Speaking of the acting, it is really nice to see some of these actors be provided some solid individual scenes to show off their abilities. In particular, Finn Wolfhard’s Mike, who has not had much to do over the last couple of seasons, feels like he has been rejuvenated in this season so far.
Vecna has the kids that he wanted. The military took some serious damage. Eleven and Hopper confronted Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton) and the weird tentacle. And what was behind that special door? Eleven’s sister from season two.
Next set of episodes are out at Christmas and it will be awesome.
Major pair of episodes. The crew still is attempting to find Vecna. Meanwhile, Vecna has Holly, Mike’s little sister, and is readying a plan to continue to grab other kids.
It seems as if Will has been having some insights on Vecna, but truthfully, I wonder if Vecna is seeing though Will’s eyes just like Will believes that he is seeing what Vecna is seeing.
Hopper and Eleven are trapped in the Upside Down, and they found a giant wall. The army had a weapon that affected Eleven… seemed like a sonic weapon of some sort.
I love how the kids are working together, setting up plans and doing what they can. Their plans have not been incredibly successful, but that is beside the point. The idea is that they are together. In past seasons, the group has been split apart multiple times. I like that they are basically together.
I am not sure if the town has been isolated or not. The town seems to be in denial about what is going on in Hawkins.
Max showing up with Holly is wild. It was great to see Sadie Sink out and about and not just stuck in a hospital bed.
I loved the scene of Eleven inside the mind of the soldier, and the mystery behind the door.
We have been waiting for the final season of Stranger Things for what has seemed like forever. Season four was shown in 2022, and we are just now beginning to prepare for the last season of shows for the Netflix hit.
Four episodes dropped on Thanksgiving eve on Netflix. Episode One was 71 minutes.
It was intense.
The town of Hawkins, Indiana is under quarantine by the military because of the events at the end of season four. The gang is using the military (unbeknownst to them) to carry out their own covert searches of the Upside Down in an attempt to find Vecna and finally put an end to it.
Things do not go well.
Holy cow. What a final few scenes.
Plus, Dustin gets the crap kicked out of him by the basketball punks. Dustin was bringing the Hellfire back around in honor of Eddie. Dustin was having some real problems, poking the bear.
The episode started slowly, but man did it kick into gear.
We have now officially seen Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the sewers of Derry. He is as frightening as ever.
I have to say, that I immediately really wanted that to be Matty… but I knew it wasn’t. Actor Miles Ekhardt looked amazing with his long hair and his white complexion. It was obviously a trap, but, man, I was hoping that Matty somehow defied logic and survived.
Of course, he did not.
When Matty changed into Pennywise, that was just terrifying. For a moment, too, I thought Lilly was a goner. I did not have any idea how she was getting out of that sewer. The magical rod (which was the piece of his cage that Daniel had brought in to the sewers and lost) stopping Pennywise in his place… awesome.
Of course, as soon as I saw Pennywise take the form of Charlotte and confront Leroy, I knew the kids, who were real and in the sewer, were in danger of being shot. I am glad they weren’t and I think Pauly needs more credit than he received for saving those kids lives. He took that bullet to stop Leroy from shooting Will.
We discovered the white woman that Hank was having his affair with… it was Mrs. Kersh. After the prison bus to Shawshank is attacked, Hank escapes and went to Mrs. Kersh for help.
Oh.. and Dick Hallorann … poor Dick Hallorann. He went through it…and he does not seem to be in his right mind yet.
Great episode. Very excited to see Bill Skarsgård in his clown attire.
Carol goes on the offensive in an attempt to discover what chance she has on finding a way to reverse the Joining. She comes up with a plan to inject Zosia with a truth serum (via heroin) but Zosia goes into cardiac arrest, which is where the episode ended.
This gives Carol the start of her investigation into what exactly is going on with the earthlings and their new hive mind.
Carol lists the things she knows on the board:
Eager to please—would give me A BOMB?!
Can’t kill, not a fly
Don’t play faves, like all jerks same
***Trying to change me!***
Weirdly honest?
Very funny. A little creepy.
The cold open of the episode returned us to the phone call Carol made on the airplane to the man in Paraguay. His name is Manousos and we get the conversation from his POV this time. I figured that character would return to the show and he is back just a couple of episodes later. He is fairly bizarre as he was licking the lids of pet food cans for remnants of remaining food. The cold open was mostly dialogue free and was just wild. He wrote down Carol’s name at the end of the scene so he is clearly on his way, one way or another.
This was a fun episode, though Carol’s desperation really has placed Zosia in jeopardy a couple of times.
More creepy things are going on with the Crain family as they have the funeral for Nell, and we spend a focused episode on Hugh.
Hugh has a major secret about what happened on the night when Olivia died, and we are slowly coming around to the answer to it. Of course, there are just three episodes remaining so those answers should be coming soon.
Hugh is shown being questioned by the sheriff and he was not overly forthcoming. We know that something weird happened that night that he felt the need to protect his kids from, but this does not shine any light on that.
We do learn for sure that Hugh has been talking to Olivia, as we suspected last week. He told Luke, who saw the Bent-Neck Lady and a scary Olivia at the funeral, that he had been talking to Olivia since the death, and that it was a coping mechanism that had been given an okay by his therapist. It feels like there is more to that than what he said.
Some of the scenes involving the dead and decaying corpse of Olivia, whether it be in Nell’s grave, grabbing Luke’s arm, or crawling along the floor in front of Hugh and Theo, are truly frightening and well done. The story of what happened on that night has been drawn out slowly over the first 7 episodes and I expect big things over the final three.
Hazbin Hotel’s second season ends with two massive episodes that are absolute BANGERS!
The two songs at the end of each of these final episodes are just the best of the entire series. The major ensemble songs were so brilliantly written and kept the mood absolutely amazing.
Alastor is playing the long game. He is awesome. He is not on anyone’s side… only his. I still think he has a respect for Charlie that shines through. He manipulated Vox every second of these episodes. Plus, bringing back the favor from the first season that Charlie owed
Sir Pentious had a big job to do and he had a fabulous song with Seraphim. I was concerned with his place in Heaven when he first got there, but he came through big time these final two episodes.
Angel Dust’s story is clearly not finished as he returned to Valentino after the big final song.
These two episodes were as good as any this season. The show felt a little disjointed at times in season two, but these brought them home in ways that were so satisfying that it made everything worthwhile.
We did not get Lilith this season outside of a few cameos. I really expected her to arrive in this finale, but she did not. That story will also continue into season three I am sure.
“The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet’s Function”
Hm.
We got the origin of Pennywise, or the Galloo, what the Native American people called it. I’m not sure that I understood how everything happened. I guess the town of Derry was built inside the circle that they trapped it in.
I like Charlotte a lot. She went to the police in order to try and talk with Hank, Ronnie’s father. She is able to get in to see him, and we find out why he is lying about his alibi, and it was not connected to Pennywise. It was the racism of the time as he was having an affair with a married white woman.
The most horrific moment of the week was when Marge tried to use a table saw to cut out her extended eyeballs, thanks to her fear of her glasses making her eyes look like they bulge out. We heard about that in episode one or two and now it pays itself off. It was a scene where I was literally screaming for Marge to not do what she was going to do.
Of course, poor Lilly, who saved Marge’s life, is made to look like she had attacked her, as the entire lunchroom came to see the events. Not a good look for Lilly.
Dick used his shining to get inside the head of Daniel to find out about the pillars, which apparently are in the IT house where we know the well is located.
We are now half way through the season and we have yet to see clown Pennywise. However, the previews for upcoming weeks had some horrible scenes featuring Pennywise, so he is coming.
I am going to be perfectly honest. I had heard so many amazing things about The Haunting of Hill House before I started it during the Sunday Morning Sidewalk, and it has been disappointing. Yes, I have enjoyed the show so far, but it was not the epic that I was expecting.
Then, there was episode six, “Two Storms.”
Now I see what everyone else was talking about.
What an episode. This one blew all of the previous episodes away. It had tension, it had character reveals, it had story beats and it had some of the best direction/shots of the show.
There were multiple, long one-shots of scenes as the camera follows the grieving Crain family around the funeral parlor. Technically, this is a master class of direction from series runner Mike Flanagan. Whenever the one-shot would end, the transitions were spectacular, and we would be back into another oner. The design of the plan for each shot is unbelievable and executed perfectly.
The surviving Crain kids and their father finally are all together in the present day as a thunderstorm raged outside the funeral parlor. The show gave us a flashback to another storm that occurred with the Crain family while they lived at Hill House and they paralleled the two storms with a narratively striking purpose. We got to see some major effects that the house had on both Nell and Olivia. Nell’s disappearance and Olivia’s encounter with the spirits were chilling.
Chilling is a good way to describe many of the moments from this episode, including the appearance of the bent-neck woman at the family visitation. There was no jump scares here. The scenes transcended jump scares. They were done so spectacularly that you couldn’t help but be disquieted.
The character development was wonderful too, as secrets came out. The alcohol flowed freely (which I thought was incredibly selfish by every kid, considering Luke was there, clean and sober, watching his siblings all slapping back vodka) and the tongues were sharp. Fueled by their loss and grief, the kids and Hugh said some dramatically hurtful things to each other as truth came to the surface. Hugh seemed to be talking to himself, convincing Steven about the mental illness he believed ran in his family, but I believe it was clear that he was talking to Olivia’s spirit.
The concept of Nell and Olivia NOT having killed themselves, and, instead, being killed by the house came up and it triggered the resentment of the others for Steven’s book. They shared moments that we had seen over the first five episodes in the kids individual focused episodes that showed how much these siblings were not as close as they may have thought.
This episode elevated the entire series to a new level, one that makes me understand the fervor over this show that had seemed good, but not exceptional before this. I can’t wait to see where the show goes from here.
Had a run of four episodes of Sha Na Na tonight and I have the same complaints that I always have. The laugh track/applause track is just terrible. Honestly, the first 10-15 seconds of every song is impossible to hear because of the fake clapping. Second, the humor is terrible. This show is so much better when they have a musical guest so they can sing with Sha Na Na instead of doing this cringe-level comedy bits.
These four episodes only had one guest star that sang. It was Della Reese and that episode was the best of the four. It did have a pretty racist comedy bit called House of Kyoto, but other than that, this was the one.
I read a tweet awhile ago from Jon Bausman who spoke about the early season comedy being less than they had wanted. He said he thought it got better in later seasons. I sure hope so.
Fact is, when Sha Na Na is singing, this show is sensational. These four episodes had some bangers in them, including Mr. Bass Man, All I Have to Do is Dream, and Why Do Fools Fall in Love, which I believe are done multiple times over the years on the show.
The strangest song of the four featured Pamela Myers singing with Frank Gorshin, who was doing impersonations of celebrities like Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman etc. Gorshin seemed really weird during this segment, but it was interesting to hear Pamela Myers sing the song. It was in the old parked car bit that they usually run.
Other celebrities on these four episodes included Adrianne Barbeau, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Kristy McNichols, Rosey Greer and Milton Berle. I think they had taped more bits with Milton Berle when he was on the show earlier in the year and they just inserted them into this episode because at the end of the show, Bowzer did not thank Milton Berle for being on the show. He only thanked Rosey Greer. Why was Rosey Greer booked for the show?
Looking ahead, Chubby Checker and Chuck Berry are coming up soon. Those are the type of guests I want to see on Sha Na Na. More music, less of all the other background jokes.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 