Tag Archives: reviews

Hadestown: The Musical

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I have been a big proponent of filming stage plays and releasing them as movies, like they did with Hamilton and Good Night and Good Luck: Live from Broadway. I believe this would be such an awesome thing, allowing those who may not have easy access to Broadway plays and the such to see the magic of a stage presentation, not just a movie with the story adapted into a movie script.

So when I saw that there would be a Tony Award winner was doing this, I wanted to make sure that I made my way to the theater to see it, even though it was a play that I had never heard of before.

Hadestown: The Musical was filmed in London and tells an updated story about the classic Greek myth with Orpheus and Eurydice. It kind of mixed that story in with the Hades and Persephone myth as well. and it is placed within the present day.

I did not recognize any of the actors involved, but they were spectacular, as was the overall presentation of the show. I loved the way they presented this story. The circular moving stage, much like they had in Hamilton, was such a fabulous tool to tell this story, especially when Orpheus was walking out of Hades, unsure if Eurydice was behind him. I heard some people in my theater gasp when Orpheus turned around.

The music is amazing. I had never heard any of the songs from this musical, but the music was fabulous.

The performances that stood out the most were André De Shields, who played Hermes and heavily a narrator of the film, and Patrick Page who played Hades. Patrick Page’s voice was absolutely tremendous as the God of the Underworld. Most of the time he would speak through the songs and it worked so well for him. He was amazing in this role. In fact, he was wearing a boot during the show and I came to find out that he had ruptured his Achilles tendon before the filming. He was able to do his performance with the boot and, apparently, a few adjustments. That speaks a lot to Patrick Page’s dedication to the show.

Reeve Carney was Orpheus and Eva Noblezada was Eurydice. Amber Grey played Persephone. They were all great. Nobody had a bad performance.

I had goosebumps after the opening number and some tears running down my face at the finale. It was able to present a classic tale in an emotional, powerhouse film.

I want more like this.

4.5 stars

Rick and Morty Season 3

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Spoilers

I watched season three of Rick and Morty on HBO Max throughout the day today. I have not watched many episodes of Rick and Morty over the years, but I have seen some. This season included a few of the episodes that I had seen before.

Specifically, I have seen “Pickle Rick,” “Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender,” and, I believe, the season premiere “The Rickshank Rickdemption.” These were very strong episodes, but I remember the reason I did not consistently watch the show when it was originally on was because of the time it was on TV (Late night Sunday night).

The season long storyline of Jerry and Beth’s marriage falling apart saw the two of them planning a divorce, though they wind up back together at the end of the season. The last couple of episodes questioned whether or not Rick had cloned Beth and let her wander the universe to find herself. At the end of the finale, Rick claimed that Beth was not a clone. I am not sure I believe him. It feels like a storyline that could carry over the next several seasons even.

In “The Ricklantis Mixup” starts with Rick and Morty heading to Atlantis, but the episode did not follow them there as the show went to the new Citadel of Ricks and saw the struggles and conflicts between the Ricks and the Mortys. We see a new Morty elected president. It is another potential future arc for the show.

The “Morty’s Mind Blowers” episode was batshit crazy, using some old memories that Morty had erased from his mind. It was done as a replacement for the typically annual Interdimensional Cable episode that they had in both of the first two seasons.

One of the most iconic episode was “Pickle Rick.” I did not think that this episode, the one where Rick turned himself into a pickle in order to avoid family therapy, was this early in the overall series. I love this episode.

I did enjoy the battle between Rick and the President of the USA in “The Rickchurian Mortydate.” It was also funny how the conflict was resolved.

Overall, season three was tremendous. My favorite episode is “Pickle Rick” and my least favorite was “The ABC’s of Beth.”

The Muppet Show S1 E20, E21, E22, E23, E24

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Spoilers

Guest: Valerie Harper

Guest: Twiggy

Guest: Ethel Merman

Guest: Kaye Ballard

Guest: The Mummenschanz

I finished the first season of The Muppet Show with the final five episodes. It was an interesting group of guest stars including Valerie Harper, Twiggy, Kay Ballard, The Mummenschanz and EYG Hall of Famer Ethel Merman.

There was an extra guest star on the Ethel Merman episode. Richard Bradshaw, who did not appear on the actual show, was a puppeteer who worked with shadows. That was fun as it was kind of Muppet-ish.

My memory was that the Phantom of the Muppet Show came with Alice Cooper, but that was not the case. He was on the Twiggy episode. By the way, the Twiggy episode had a classic moment with the AA Milne poem “The King’s Breakfast” where the king just wanted some butter for his bread. It also had Twiggy singing a Beatles song. Really? She sang “My Life” which filled me with surprise and hatred at the same time.

Another classic was “Tit-willow” from the Gilbert and Sullivan’s show The Mikado, as done by Rowlf and Sam the Eagle (who did the “tit-willow” line). It’s another example of how the show took non-kids songs and such and made them for the Muppet Show. The show did Broadway show songs such as “Broadway Baby” done by Valerie Harper and a medley of Ethel Merman’s songs such as “Friendship,” “Anything You Can Do,” and “You’re the Top”, all with other Muppets.

The Kaye Ballard episode was fun as Floyd Pepper and the rest of the band wanted to quit because they were tired of playing the theme song (BLASPHEMY!). It was such a running gag that at the end of the episode, only Rowlf was playing the theme on the piano. How awesome that gag was.

Another running joke that was a hoot was Statler wanting to meet Valerie Harper, and brought her a special plant that, when watered, grew uncontrollably. Obviously that happened.

Gonzo the Great tried to get it on with Miss Piggy. That was kind of weird, and Kermit’s non-reaction was quite funny.

The Mummenschanz were awesome too as they have a lot in common with the Muppets. They way this group of theater performers who perform in a surreal mask- and prop-oriented style. I remember them clearly from the first time I saw them on the show. They were so memorable even though I do not think I have seen them in anything since.

The first season is now down and I will be heading to season two soon. I think that it is in season two when the opening theme song changed a bit. I think it was when Fozzie was removed and they went to Statler and Waldorf.

Agents of Shield S7 E10, E11, E12, E13

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Spoilers

“Stolen”

“Brand New Day”

“The End is at Hand”

“What We’re Fighting For”

The Agents of Shield completed their final mission together and I wrapped up the rewatch of the Marvel show this afternoon. Agents of Shield was my favorite TV show for quite a few years after LOST left the air and I was always mad that they were so disrespected among the MCU. Agents of Shield was a consistently entertaining and exciting hour of TV with some of the best characters you would find.

The whole timeline mess was handled very smoothly with the use of the Quantum Realm to travel between the timelines. Fitz’s return to the show in episode 12 was amazing and gave us that one thing that was missing in this season, which was otherwise near perfect.

The Daisy and Sousa relationship developed beautifully and made sense for both characters. Coulson’s LMD questions about himself led to his own path at the end. May becoming one with her own empathy, and then making that be the weapon that brings the conflict with the Chronicoms to a close, was a great arc for this character and she still gets to deliver the bad ass line, “The Calvary” in response to Sibyl’s question, “What comes next?” May crashing in through a glass ceiling was epic.

It was great that the finale was able to see all of the team working together to accomplish their plan.

I do love that the team ended up, supposedly, in the timeline of the 616 universe. They all could be brought back to the MCU if they wanted. Quake, Yo Yo, Coulson, May all could have roles in a new MCU.

It was also nice to see that the show did not just forget Piper and Flint. In fact, they placed them in an important moment in the finale.

The whole time travel element of this show was done extremely well, and Fitz explained it perfectly. The TVA’s absence was a thing (of course, the TVA does not get introduced until many years later), but one could imaging that time is at any point.

Bringing Kora to Daisy, as sisters, did not seem like it was going to work out, but, in the end, she was a nice addition to the team. Deke finally wound up with the respect that he deserved and, apparently, the new director of Shield in the timeline where he stayed to save the others.

I had forgotten about Fitz and Simmons little daughter and it was a fun surprise when we were introduced to the daughter, Alya.

The use of a young John Garrett was clever too, and the bullet to his head immediately after teleporting the team out of the Lighthouse was both funny and appropriate. James Paxton did an excellent job playing this unhinged version of John Garrett, who was originally played during season one & two by his father, Bill Paxton.

Watching Coulson fly away in Lola at the end of the final episode was both thrilling and perfectly designed as a conclusion.

This was such a fabulous series that does not get the appreciation that it deserved. The chemistry among the stars was one of the key components of the success and why this show worked. In seven seasons, the show went against Hydra, went to another planet, into the future, into the past, prevented an alien invasion, went into a fake world, met up with Asgardians, a Ghost Rider, and a bunch of Kree. Agents of Shield is one of my favorite shows of all time.

The Muppet Show S1 E15, E16, E17, E18

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Spoilers

Guest: Candice Bergen

Guest: Avery Schreiber

Guest: Ben Vereen

Guest: Phyllis Diller

Another strong run of four episodes of the Muppet Show consistently amaze me. I mentioned this earlier, but the material on the Muppet Show is so far advanced for a kids program that it goes to show you that you do not have to play down to kids.

In these four episodes, we got a song from Ben Vereen, Mister Cellophane, out of the Broadway play Chicago. Rowlf played a classical piano piece by Beethoven called Für Elise. The classic song Tenderly was performed in a distinctly rock format by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

Crazy Harry was all over these episodes. He was the running gag in the Ben Vereen episode, constantly blowing things up when someone made a comment connected to explosions.

Veterinarian’s Hospital was on all these episodes. This is a classic bit that the Muppet Show made famous with Rowlf, Miss Piggy and Janice. They told some terrible jokes and laughed at them all.

The Candice Bergen episode featured some of the songs I remember on here including “Put Another Log on the Fire” and Piggy’s “What Now My Love.” Candice Bergen was not singing, and I was thinking, “Oh so she is not a singer so they are not making her sing” and then she did “You’ve Got to Have Friends.”

Piggy tried to make Kermit jealous by pretending to have a relationship with Avery Schreiber, which seemed to work until Scooter let the cat out of the bag. During this, we learn Miss Piggy’s true name, Pigathias- which means “River of Passion.” Other running jokes included Fozzie trapped in a box, Fozzie doing the “I’ve got a ____ for Kermit the Frog” bit, and Hilda worried about her age and appearance.

Sweetums made several appearances in this block of episodes including where he ate Candice Bergen’s camera and had an insult-off with Sir Avery (Schreiber).

Moana (2026)

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Disney has been doing live-action remakes of their animated movies for decades now, but the most recent push of this trend started with Alice in Wonderland in 2010. Since then, we have gotten Maleficent, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, The Lion King (although it is technically all animated), Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Mulan, Snow White, and Lilo & Stitch. This weekend, the most recent of the animated movies to receive this treatment debuted in theaters.

Moana, the animated series was released in 2016, and just under ten years later, the live-action film was made and released.

I did not watch the original animated Moana before going to see the new live-action film, which was probably a good idea. I believe if I had watched the animation, I would have not enjoyed the live action version at all. Fact is that the Moana live action is a complete recreation of the 2016 animated version with almost nothing new, and it would have stood out even more had I watched the animated movie in preparation for the new film.

Another problem with the film is that the look of the new film is nowhere near as vibrant and magical as the animated film. This looked like they had a lot of the live action actors filming in front of a green screen or an animated background, which you can see easily. The best section of the film was in the middle of Dwayne Johnson’s song “You’re Welcome” when they animated everything.

Catherine Laga’aia as Moana was probably my favorite part of the film as I thought she was lovely and I could not take my eyes off her. Her performance was solid, and I believe she has potential to be much better in future projects. Laga’aia had a presence on screen that really worked for me.

Dwayne Johnson, who I love so much, felt much more underwhelming than he did in the animated movie. There were times when he was noticeably more thick in the waist and torso area than he was in other moments of the film making me think they did some CGI with him, or perhaps put a muscle suit on him. It was noticeable, and not in a good way.

The songs were all decent, except for “Shiny” by Jemaine Clement as Tamatoa. I thought that sounded terrible, so bad that I wondered if it was the theater’s sound system that was causing the problem. The other songs sounded fine so I am not sure why this standout song sounded so poor to me.

I did enjoy the live action dance sequences showing off Polynesian culture, especially in the opening scenes. I wish the backgrounds would have helped amplify the beauty of the dance, but it did not help it at all.

While it sounds like I did not enjoy this movie, I did like it. It is the same movie as 2016’s Moana, and I loved that movie. It does feel like the same movie, but with less of that Disney magic. If you have never seen the animated movie, this would be a sufficient remake, but if you have Disney + and have never seen the animated movie, watch that version.

2.9 stars

Scary Movie (2026)

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I was going to see The Invite at 4 PM today at Cinemark, but I wanted to do a movie in the afternoon to watch to waste the time. The movie that fit into that window the best was a movie that has been out for several weeks, but I had not seen. It was the new film from the Wayans Brothers, Scary Movie.

I was not sure if this was a movie that I wanted to see, because it just did not feel like it was a film that was in my wheelhouse. I had nearly gone a different time, but it just did not work out. So today would be the day for me to see the film from a previous franchise, returned to the public’s eye.

I definitely found a movie to waste my time with.

I hated the newest Scary Movie. Truly hated it.

The film parodied a bunch of horror movies over the last few years, specifically Scream as they used the Ghostface killer from that franchise. However, they also poked fun at It Follows, K-Pop Demon Hunters, M3GAN, Nosferatu, White Chicks, Sinners, Get Out, Wednesday (TV show on Netflix), Smile, The Substance, Terrifier 3, and several more. The problem was that none of the parodies had any cleverness to it and the writing was just poor.

The film was just drug jokes, dropping the n-word, sex jokes, and killing a bunch of people. None of them were funny at all. The only pieces that made me smile a bit were the meta jokes or the breaking of the fourth wall. However, they overdid these too.

I did not laugh at this movie and that is a sin for a comedy, especially a spoof film that has all kinds of leeway to be ridiculous. I was hoping that I would enjoy this with the return of the Wayans, but it was clear that I was just not going to.

1 star

Agents of Shield S7 E9

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Spoilers

“As I Have Always Been”

Phlebotinum!

Absolute genius of an episode.

I wanted to give this episode its own post since my memory of it was that it was a great episode. I am underestimating it, because this is, by far, my favorite episode of Agents of Shield from the entire seven season run.

Season seven has been using some overall themes for the previous episodes. Their first trip into the past was played like an old school b-movie type sci-fi. We got the black and white noir episode. There was the 1970s action show (which had to have an influence on WandaVision) and the 1980s sci-fi type film including max Headroom (which Coulson hilariously namedrops in this episode).

This one was Groundhogs Day mixed with Doctor Who. The thing was, it was so much more than just re-using the trope of repeating the day over and again.

It took the situation and gave us remarkable humor, much of it coming from the exquisite Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, the LMD. It gave us a fantastic mystery about who was preventing the implant from being removed from Jemma Simmons’s head. It forwards the relationship between Daisy and Sousa. And it provided the most selfless self-sacrifice I have seen in ages with Enoch’s removal of a part from his own Chronicom body, leading to his death.

The episode is featured around Daisy, who was inside a healing pod at the beginning. She goes about the process of discovering that the Zephyr was trapped in a timestorm and was in danger of being wiped out of existence. The episode was wild, and then took another major step when she went to activate Couslon, who was recharging. He filled her in that this was not the first time that she had come to activate him and that she had died.

The frustration and annoyance of Coulson was extremely funny and delivered so perfectly by Gregg. It played right into the feelings that Coulson was having last episode where his predicament as an LMD was starting to get to him. The show added the character growth of Coulson into a list of amazing stuff this episode addressed.

Enoch was another standout of the episode. We discovered that he was the one killing the crew members to prevent the implant from being removed from Simmons’s head, and there were some of the best scenes of the episode as the team confronted Enoch and he fought back in the most amazing and hilarious ways. We did not see much, if any, of the actual fight, just the aftermath with the team scattered across the floor. They added the line “Deke’s dead” in one of them and it was such a gas.

Each time loop brought the Zephyr closer to the center of the timestorm, providing real jeopardy for the team and not just the trial and error until they figured it out. They did not have unlimited time. Time was ticking away.

There were two outstanding monologues during the episode. The first was Daniel Sousa’s explanation of why he stayed with Daisy as she slept. His explanation of wanting to be near “…people like Diasy” was such an awesome character moment and made allusions back to his time with Agent Carter, who he was clearly referencing. The second monologue was Enoch’s dying words, spoken to Coulson and Daisy, after he had pulled his electrochron displacement mechanism from out of his chest. I had tears during this moment. Who knew that I would have become so connected to this robot who was introduced in season five as a Chronicom sent to retrieve the team? Watching Enoch slowly succumb was heartbreaking and painful, while providing important healing for Coulson and Daisy. Joel Stoffer brought his amazing character to life here and you couldn’t have asked for a better heroic send off for Enoch than what he got.

Elizabeth Henstridge, who played Simmons, was the first time director of this episode, which was just a remarkable feat. She provided an exciting and energetic show despite many scenes needing to be repetitive because of the episode’s hook. Every time we got a repeat scene, something new was added. I have to shout out the entire cast as well as they had to repeat lines and adjust to the situation and they all did it wonderfully well.

I love this episode and I would put it at the top of the MCU TV show episodes along with Agatha All Along’s “Death’s Hand in Mine,” Moon Knight’s “Asylum,” WandaVision’s “We Interrupt This Program” and “Previously On,” and Loki’s “Journey Into Mystery” and “Glorious Purpose.”

Agents of Shield S7 E8

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“After, Before”

Episode eight of the final season of the Agents of Shield finds the team in major trouble aboard the Zephyr-1 as the time drive was not working properly. It was making jumps in time at a quicker and quicker intervals, leading to the potential of collapsing on them.

Yo Yo’s power becomes a key to fixing the time drive, so Yo Yo and May go on a trip of discovery to try and get Yo Yo’s Inhuman powers back… which meant going to Afterlife to ask for help from Daisy’s mom, Jiaying.

This episode becomes an internal story of Yo Yo, her doubts, her guilt and how she had been holding herself back. The episode uses both Yo Yo and May in a great interaction, but only the way that they could do it.

As Yo Yo was discovering her inner truth, other problems and tidbits popped up for the show.

  • Simmons provided Sousa with a new prosthetic leg.
  • Coulson was becoming somewhat down on his LMD-ness.
  • We find out that Enoch can keep the tempo on drums.
  • Daisy is slowly healing from her traumatic situation at Nathaniel’s hands.
  • Nathaniel arrived at Afterlife, coming to recruit Kora to his side.
  • Kora asked how Nathaniel knew about her and Nathaniel told her it was his new friend, Sibyl.
  • Nathaniel and Kora have the Inhumans at Afterlife captive.
  • Simmons sends a emotional message to Fitz.
  • Yo Yo’s efforts with the time drive did not work and the Zephyr jumped again at the end of the episode.

I chose to only do this one episode for a couple of reasons. The first one was the time available was short, but the main reason was that, in my memory, episode nine of this season may be my favorite episode of the entire seven years, and I wanted to make sure to give that episode its flowers. And since I went ahead and watched “The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D” with episodes 4,5 & 6, instead of pairing it with this one, that meant I needed to do one by itself.

With Nathaniel and Kora setting themselves up as some “big-bads” for the last few episodes, this was an important episode to connect the series to where it was going.

Agents of Shield S7 E4, E5, E6, E7

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Spoilers

“Out of the Past”

“A Trout in the Milk”

“Adapt or Die”

“The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D”

This continues to be my favorite season so far, and the show has been taking some gigantic swings.

How about a whole black and white, noir episode? Coulson with the monologue over the scenes (which is an internal monologue), the cool mystery and the saving of Sousa, sort of.

Daniel Sousa was supposed to die in 1955 after he delivered an object to Howard Stark. Coulson said that he was a hero and that he was taught in SHIELD history. The team decided to save Sousa, fake his death (by using Coulson) and bring him with them in the Zephyr.

All in black and white.

Turned out, the black and white came from a malfunction of the Coulson LMD.

The next episode was into the 1970s and the show had a seventies style opening theme, with voice over introducing the cast.

It was clear that the writers had a freedom to come up with remarkable situations over the time stream and that they were having a hoot. There is drama, comedic moments and some great action.

Mack goes through a lot as his parents are killed and replaced by Chronicoms. He gets left behind with Deke in 1982. He spends a year mourning in isolation as Deke tries unsuccessfully to help him. Deke created a cover band…as a cover. The Deke Squad was his covert Shield group filled with weirdos and losers. Deke shows some real character development during these episodes and Jeff Ward is just remarkably funny. His dialogue is some of the series’ best.

Coulson destroyed his body in an explosion that killed the Chronicoms. Coulson wound up a Max Headroom-type character in 1983 with Deke.

Sousa and Daisy are growing closer as Daisy was getting tortured and experimented on by Nathanial Malick, who wanted Daisy’s powers transferred to him. He was able to do it, but he could not handle the new power.

It was awesome to have General Rick Stoner, played by Patrick Warburton, in his real body in the 1970s. Warburton played Stoner as a hologram when the Lighthouse closed up a few seasons ago. That hologram was based on a past Shield executive, and now we got to meet him.

Again though, Shield and the Chronicoms were playing havoc with the Sacred Timeline and I wonder what the TVA was doing.

The Furious

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The Furious is a English-language Hing Kong martial arts action thriller that came out earlier this year in theaters. It did not stay in theaters very long, and I had wanted to see it there, but scheduling just did not work out. So when it appeared today on Fandango at Home, I rented it immediately to watch this afternoon.

The story is straightforward and fairly simple. A father fought against the people who snatched his daughter for their child trafficking ring. He teamed up with another man who was in search of his journalist wife who had been investigating the traffickers.

However, just because the film has a simple story, does make it a bad movie. In contrast, the film knows what it needed to be and what it needed as a story to get the film where they wanted it to go. Some films like this make the story needlessly convoluted with storylines that do not make sense or are just crammed into the movie in order to have it. The Furious did what it needed and gave us just enough to be engaged.

Our main character, Wang Wie (Xie Miao), was a mute handyman who clearly had some kind of a background that made this guy a real bad ass. Navin (Joe Taslim), the journalist, had some amazing training somewhere too. Those things are not necessary for this film, and it is very important to suspend your disbelief in this area.

The action is just unbelievable. The fighting is the standout of the film as the choreography of this film and its fight scenes are masterful. Words do not do justice for the action/fight scenes that they present in The Furious.

I was impressed with the young girl who played Wie’s daughter Rainy. Her name was Enyou Yang, and she was an awesome part of the film and helped give Wie the humanity he needed.

High energy action and non-stop tension made this a thrilling and completely entertaining movie that reached a level that we have not seen in a long time. It was one of the best films of the year so far.

4.8 stars

Agents of Shield S7 E1, E2, E3

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“The New Deal”

“Know Your Onions”

“Alien Commies from the Future”

I kicked off season seven of Agents of Shield today with episodes 1-3. I think it might have been my favorite season of the show because of the wild time travel aspects that they have, plus the addition of Daniel Sousa, from the Agent Carter series.

The time travel of this show is different than the greater MCU, which, I choose to believe, is where the Agents of Shield show went off the wire for the MCU. Up until a certain point, it maintained continuity with the movies, but that clearly changed. It might have been when the agents came back from the future, but there is no doubt that with the whole crew back in the past, they would have been creating branch timelines all over the place.

The TVA must have been extremely busy cleaning up the sacred timeline here.

First, we landed in 1931 and we got involved in an attempted assassination of FDR… or so we thought. Instead, the Chronicons were after Freddy Malick, who we know would become the father of future Hydra leader Gideon Malick.

We also met the first of the Koenig family involved, Ernest “Hazard” Koenig. He learned a bunch about the Shield group, which probably is what started his family’s involvement down the line. Enoch got left in the past as the Zephyr time jumped on its own. I remember the first time that I saw this episode being so sad about Enoch being left behind. He had become one of my favorites, and this rewatch has only helped solidify him as a personal favorite secondary character.

In 1955, they have Simmons pretend to be Peggy Carter, which was both inspired and crazy, to infiltrate Shield base at Area 51. Coincidentally, Peggy’s old partner Daniel Sousa showed up for the testing as well. I was not a big fan of Sousa on Peggy Carter, but when he came to jo0in Agents of Shield, I found him to be an exceptional addition.

Both May and Yo Yo are having problems. May was lacking emotions, even more than before, and Yo Yo has not been able to use her Inhuman power since the alien parasite had infected her.

The show continued to have that great action mixed with laugh out loud moments and created a different brand of sci-fi genre than it had had before.

Agents of Shield S6 E11, E12, E13

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Spoilers

“From the Ashes”

“The Sign”

“New Life”

The shorter season six finished off with some awesome action and a bunch of subverting of expectations.

The main expectation that is subverted is something that they teased throughout the season. The fact that Sarge was created as part of Coulson made everyone think that he would turn out to be saved by the team and we would get Coulson back yet again.

However, he turned out to be the villain after all.

I talked about Deke’s hero moment in the last block of episodes, and he has one here as well. He does disappoint his grandparents (Fitz & Simmons) with some of his motives, or at least they way the way they saw it. I loved how Mack appreciated him, he thanked Agent Shaw, for the sort of rescue. Deke is a great character with a lot of contradiction within him. He is one to show silliness on the outside, only to hide the pain inside.

The end episode sets up season 7 big time, including the time travel aspect, the Hunters chasing them, and LMD Coulson. It was an intriguing choice to do it this way and not just use Sarge, which would have been an easy choice. I like how they kept the character of Sarge in the manner in which he was.

Thinking back, whatever happened to Flint? They created him with the Monoliths and then had Piper take him to get help for his broken leg, but we never see him again and they head back into the past right away. We also never see them rescue Benson from the pod that he was dropped in. I do not recall if these are threads that are picked up again in season seven or if these are just dangling threads never to be considered again.

I do think this was a strong season, but the final few episodes felt a little messy. There were still solid results from them and I love the set up for season 7.

The Muppet Show S1 E9, E10, E11

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Spoilers

Guest: Charles Aznavour

Guest: Harvey Korman

Guest: Lena Horne

I knew that there would be some huge moments of nostalgia for me by doing this Muppet Show rewatch because there are some clips that have stuck with me all these years. These three episodes of season one, nine, ten and eleven, included several of these.

In episode nine, guest starring Charles Aznavour, someone who I would have never recognized, did one of the numbers with lyrics I say all the time. “Two and two are four. Four and four are eight. Eight and eight are sixteen. Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two.” This is from the song Inchworm and I remember this since my youth.

Episode ten had a couple of iconic memories for me. First was the “Funniest joke of all time” from Fozzie Bear, who grabbed Kermit to help him and wanted Kermit to come on stage after he hears the word “Hear” and deliver the line “Good grief! The comedian’s a bear!” The homophones would be the joke of course, but this is a fabulous routine with Jim Henson and Frank Oz delivering their lines perfectly. This was on a record album of hits from the first season of the Muppet Show that I had owned.

The other amazing performance on this episode was from Robin the Frog, who sang A.A. Milne’s poem, “Halfway Down the Stairs.” I loved this growing up and it just triggers every memorberry that I have.

Most celebrities look as if they are having a great time on the Muppet Show. Some have joy and fun all over their faces. Lena Horne is a perfect example. She was so happy to be here. However, in episode eleven, it sure seemed as if Harvey Korman hated being here. He did not seem to be enjoying his time on the Muppet Show at all. Of course, he did dress in a giant chicken costume for half the show, so there is that.

This show, which was children’s show, was surprisingly high brow on many occasions. When Charles Aznavour did a dance number with Mildred as he sang “Old Fashioned Way,” there would be plenty of people who were introduced to that song for the first time here. I was surprised to see Mildred as his dance partner in this act. Later in the seasons, it would have been 100% Miss Piggy doing that. I even had to look up the name for the Muppet Mildred.

Lena Horne surprised me with a cover of “I Got a Name” by Jim Croce. I looked it up and Horne did, in fact, cover the song herself as a record. She also sang “Sing (Sing a Song)” from Sesame Street which included background singers Gonzo, Miss Piggy, George the Janitor among others. Both Kermit and Fozzie got to sing with Lena.

As I mentioned, the Muppet Show may have been targeted for children, but it did not talk down to them. It provided music and allusions to some of the greatest cultural items of all time. And, they put Harvey Korman in a chicken suit.

Agents of Shield S6 E5, E6, E7, E8, E9, E10

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Spoilers

“The Other Thing”

“Inescapable”

“Toldja”

“Collision Course (Part I)”

“Collision Course (Part II)”

“Leap”

We got a chunk of the sixth season watched on this Fourth of July. The mysteries of Sarge and crew and what they were doing on the earth. We learned the truth about Sarge during these episodes.

The Agents of Shield finally all got back together on earth. It has been like a season and a half since the entire group were back together in one point. Since the diner scene before they were abducted, they finally were all together. It may not have been for long, but it was nice to see.

The tense scenes on the semi as it rolled seemingly unstoppable toward the structure with a deadly bomb aboard. It was nice to see that Deke was shown to be capable and not just a talkative jerk.

RIP Davis. We did not know you well. I had little connection to Davis when I first watched this show, but I liked him much more this time through. Watching him killed by Izel was both brutal and frightening. She is a monstrous villain and felt as if she could not be touched.

The end of Collison Course (Part II) certainly felt like the end of the season, until May walked into Sarge’s cell and shot him to death… or at least for a bit. I liked how Mack and Yo Yo finally go back together.

The battle of machismo between Sarge and Mack was also some great stuff. Who was ahead of the other one? It always seemed that both Sarge and Mack were two steps ahead of each other.

“Inescapable” highlighted some great performances from Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge. The scenes where Elizabeth is told that Fitz was killed and when Fitz learned about his own death and the marriage were bangers. I loved this episode because it was a great character study about these two complex characters.

There are three remaining episodes of season six remaining for the team to prevent Izel from her evil plan.