Carol is trying to maintain herself, but with so much taken away, she is finding the way of life to be tough. She does not want the “convenience” of being able to ask for anything and have the Others provide it.
Like a live hand grenade.
Carol asked about how long she had before they turned her into a mindless drone too. Their response: they were not sure. They were working on it.
Carol did get on the phone with one of the non-English speaking survivors. There was a contemptuous conversation there that will clearly come back later in the series.
There was more humor in this episode than in the previous ones, but it felt like a pause between major events. The series has been renewed for a season two already, but Vince Gilligan believed he had a four season story, so things may be on the slow burn for awhile.
Episode three of the new IT series on HBO Max is a banger.
We get some more psychic “shining” from Dick Hallorann, who we know ages up to work at the Outlook Hotel (and get an axe in his chest from Jack). The scene of him in the helicopter, flying over Derry and having psychic images of Pennywise in his forms, was exciting. Admittedly, as he was opening the cargo door of the copter, I never thought he’d fall out or die from that because I knew he had to be a part of the Shining eventually. Still, it was a tense moment.
Shawshank was mentioned too, which is part of the Stephen King shared universe. I do love how there are Easter eggs from other films in Derry. I’m sure there are some other hints out there that I do not recognize.
Ronnie’s father has something he is not telling anyone. It feels as if it is something that could work as an alibi, but he does not want to let that info out. Curious.
The flashback to the 1908 incident with Pennywise was scary. Frank and Rose’s interactions with the creature in the woods, a lookalike for the slender man from the carnival, was intense. Frank running from the creature only to be saved by Rose, wielding the slingshot that Frank had given to her (and Frank’s father had given to him). It was an exciting cold open showing what this episode would bring.
It was not as intense as when Ronnie, Lilly, Will, and Rich went into a graveyard to try and summon the monster that had attacked our departed friends from episode one in order to get pictures of it. I am not sure they could have come up with a more dangerous plan if they had tried. They were really fortunate to escape that event with their lives.
We end the episode with a pic of Pennywise as Will said of the photo he took, “It’s… a clown.”
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it sure wasn’t this. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
Everybody in the world suddenly started spazzing out at the same time. Carol, one of the most miserable people in the world, was apparently immune, for some reason.
The entire planet, with the exception of 12 people, appeared to become of one mind, much like a hive mind. The transformation in episode one was creepy as can be.
Directed by Vince Gilligan who wrote, directed or produced episodes for The X-Files, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, this show is completely original and takes the idea of the dystopian future in a way that has never been seen before.
Apple TV + has been exceptional with the sci-fi genre. This is yet another fine option on the streamer. I have to say that these first two episodes have a great premise, some excellent execution of story and introduction of the characters with real issues.
Carol, an author, has a short fuse on her temper and that causes massive problems for the hive mind, which seems so far to be trying for nothing but happiness.
There are some conflicts in these two episodes that truly make you wonder what you would do if in their situations, but I do feel like something more is on its way. Gilligan has a history of complexities in his shows.
Charlie has trouble with the media after she foolhardily invited Vox to film a redemption at her hotel to try and make up for the trouble she had last episode.
Things did not go well for her.
These two episodes work well together as a desperate attempt from Charlie to fix the misinformation present that made her hotel look bad.
Hazbin Hotel focused fully in Hell this week and continued to set things up for the season’s story. I feel as if everything will be coming together over the next few episodes (especially since we are technically halfway through the season right now).
The songs are, once again, fantastic and highly entertaining. The lyrics are exceptional in each song, both funny and as clever as you can be. The animation is awesome as well.
Hazbin Hotel has been great so far, and it feels as if everything is working its way together.
This week’s focus is on Nell and the visions she would have seeing the Bent-Neck Lady.
In what I thought was a fun bit of casting, Nell was seeing a therapist named Dr. Montague and he was played by Russ Tamblyn. What makes that fun was that Russ Tamblyn played Dr. Lawrence Jacoby on Twin Peaks. Jacoby was a quirky and oddball psychiatrist involved with Laura Palmer, a tragic death of a young woman. Very much like the death of Nell in The Haunting of Hill House.
The episode saw the events that lead up to Nell returning to Hill House the night that she died. It made sense with the way the last episode ended with Luke blurting out that Nell did not kill herself.
The last part of Nell’s life was filled with torment. I can’t imagine what sleep paralysis would be like. It sounded horrific and made things all the worse as we see how she suffered during it. Of course, the show implied that it was not just a simple case of sleep paralysis and that it had to do with the visions that she would see.
We see how Nell and her husband Arthur met and his tragic death. Those years for Nell seemed to be so wonderful that seeing him drop dead from the aneurism was tough.
That was not the toughest scene of the episode though.
The ending, where we see the identity of the Bent-Neck Lady revealed as Nell’s future self after she hanged herself from the spiral staircase on the night she returned to Hill House, was unbelievably anguish-filled. Watching Nell see all of these moments of her life, but as the bent-neck lady was something that I did not expect.
Now that we have seen Nell’s tragic final day at Hill House, one wonders where the show goes from here. There are still plenty of feelings of guilt and grief to deal with as this entire family does not seem to deal with what happened to them at hill House.
We flash back to the kids era and we see their father bringing them to a hotel and then going back “for mom” he tells them. That night is clearly something that we need to see more of moving forward.
How will everyone continue to deal with the loss of Nell? Luke, in particular, is a character that I am intrigued to see moving ahead. I want to see more of their father too, as he played some major role that we have yet to see.
This show has picked up big time. Last week’s episode was my favorite of the series so far… that is until this week. I think this was a near perfect horror episode with an amazing payoff to a mystery that we have been wondering, while still leaving plenty of questions to be answered.
Jay and Adam, the boys from pReview’d, one of my favorite reaction channels on YouTube, have created a travel show. Produced and edited by Michael Millard, Jay and Adam narrate the show from their studio. They showed off their chemistry as they walked around Spain, this episode specifically in Cordoba.
The area is beautiful and Jay and Adam are hilarious. There are seven total episodes of Untraveled dropping on Tuesdays, and I look forward to the next episode.
You see the contrast between episodes here amazingly well.
Episode 11 featured the Lennon Sisters and episode 12 featured Zsa Zsa Gabor.
In episode 11, there was a limited amount of comedy bits, with the main one being what seemed to be similar to the Muppet Show’s At the Dance skit where members of Sha Na Na danced with the Lennon Sisters and the camera followed them to each couple to tell a bad joke. That was a decent little use of the comedy (though that laugh track is still just obnoxious).
Also in episode 11, they did multiple songs including Rockin’ Robin, Runaround Sue, Tonight You Belong to Me (with the Lennon Sisters on the stage), The Great Pretender and a tribute to Elvis (interestingly, they never used the word Presley. I wonder if it was a rights thing.) in that tribute they did three songs, Heartbreak Hotel, Love Me Tender and Hound Dog.
Honestly, episode 11 may have been my favorite one so far.
Then, episode 12 was an over-reliance on the comedy bits. Way too many of them because none of them were funny. Plus, the songs were limited to Sha-Boom and 16 Candles. They did a comedy bit featuring The Lion Sleeps Tonight with Sha Na Na dressed up as cannibals.
Episode 12 may have been my least favorite so far.
When the show focused on the music, it was outstanding. When they pushed the comedy, especially without the guys in the band, it flopped. The comedy bit with The Lion Sleeps Tonight was just too long and, again, not funny.
They have so many great singers in Sha Na Na, I want them to play more music and I believe it worked much better when the special guest star(s) were musical too. I have nothing against Zsa Zsa, but her bits were just not as entertaining as the Lennon Sisters singing.
That is what I figured since each episode so far has focused on one of the Crain children. I did not know that Luke and Nellie were actually twins.
Luke has been in the background a lot so far. We knew about him being in recovery for an addiction and stealing from his siblings, but that is about it.
I have to say, this was the first time I thought of Steve as a dick. But watching him at the dinner when Luke brought Joey to his brother’s.
I wasn’t sure of the time frame until we get the scene between Luke and Steve when Luke was stealing his brother’s camera.
I have found Luke to be my favorite character of the show so far. The final line of the episode gave me chills as Luke, because of a twin thing, says that it wasn’t suicide. He could feel it.
It was also very spooky with the bowler hat man following Luke into adulthood, and outside of Hill House. Is it a wonder that Luke became an addict? The scene where the bowler hat man came right up to Luke and it turned into Nellie’s face, leading into the car’s headlights was just amazing. The fact that Luke was so cold and that his legs and arms were stiffening up told us how connected he was to his sister.
I really liked this episode and I felt the most connection to Luke of all of the children so far. His scenes in the Hill House were some of the creepiest of the series so far, with that one where Luke was under the bed being right up there.
I am anxious to see what the show will give us now that Luke knows his twin committed suicide (or did she?).
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 