Tag Archives: television

Silo S3 E5

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“Memory”

This was a big episode, focusing heavily on the shocking cliffhanger that they gave us last week, the very much alive Bernard.

The biggest part of the episode was the flashbacks to show us how Bernard survived the fire and how he wound up not being incinerated. Of course, the man behind Bernard’s survival was Sims.

This is the first time in three seasons that I did not see Sims as the villain. Same with Bernard. Both men were given material to show how much they were forced to do what they did. That did not excuse their choices, but it helps to understand the levels that they were at.

And, as the episode’s title implies, the show was also about memory and the reclaiming of the memory by Juliette. By the end of the episode, Juliette had gotten her memories back of the other silo and the information she learned about the Safeguard. Thanks to the Pez Dispenser.

Rebecca Ferguson continues to be excellent as Juliette, playing her confusion and the slow return of her memory beautifully.

Meanwhile, a new danger is uncovered by Sheriff Billings, and it sounds really bad. Light bulbs are being stolen and they are down to just about two years supply remaining, which means, soon, they will be unable to grow their food.

We only get a little time at the very end of the episode for a flashback to the before times, but it is a big one as Daniel and Helen are driving and the car suddenly takes control and is driving itself.

Great episode this week that really built on the shock from the last scene last week. Silo has been a touch slow at times this year, struggling to get its story going. That is not a factor any more.

Rick and Morty Season 6

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Season six had two of my absolutely favorite episodes from the entire six seasons.

“Full Meta Jackrick” is my favorite episode of the series. The full embrace of the 4th Wall breaking with the return of Story Lord and new characters such as Miss Lead, Flash Back, Protago Nick, Connie Tinuityerror, and Mr. Twist. There was another character called Rhett Caan that made me laugh out loud. It was such a clever episode that it really stood out for me.

Following that episode was “Analyze Piss” which saw Pissmaster come to challenge Ric. However, Rick had decided, through therapy, that he would try to ignore the supervillains that come to challenge him. This led to Jerry stepping up and defeating Pissmaster. This episode had a trigger warning at the beginning about suicide because Pissmaster takes his own life. meanwhile, Rick takes his place to help give Pissmaster a happy ending for his daughter.

Both of these were just fully engaging and entertaining.

The first half of the season saw Rick lose the ability to form the portals. There was a running joke that Rick kept saying that he could fix the portal gun, but he hadn’t gotten around to it. Funny too was the fact that the dinosaurs were the ones to fix the portals.

We also got a season long arc with Rick Prime, the Rick who killed our Rick’s wife, free and searching for Rick to kill. Rick Prime killed off Jerry Prime, who we met again after “Mortynight Run” in season two.

The end of the season sees Rick, who had built a robot to replace himself, without the family knowing, so he could continue his search for Rick Prime. The Rick-Bot was programmed to give more support to Morty (22% more…) and soon became a beloved family member to the whole Smith clan.

Space Beth was around a lot this season, even though there were not too many major events with her. Of course, she did have an affair with married Beth in “Bethic Twinstinct.”

“Rick: A Mort Well Lived” had Summer at the heart of a Die Hard parody. Maybe parody isn’t the right word, since they openly talked about Die Hard and how this episode was like the movie. I do love Die Hard so the use of the allusion was awesome for me.

“Night Family” was not one of the best episodes of the year, but I did like the attempt at the horror genre. There were some imagery that worked well, but the story did not appeal to me as much.

Perhaps my least favorite episode of the season was “Final DeSmithation” which had Jerry get a fortune cookie that said that he would have sex with his mother. This only got stupider from there.

Sounds as if Season 7 is going to be Rick and Morty hunting down Rick Prime. I’m in.

Rick and Morty Season Five

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I watched the fifth season of Rick and Morty on HBO Max this morning, moving my way through the series.

The last two episodes of the season, “Forgetting Sarick Mortshall” and “Rickmurai Jack,” really flipped the show on its head with a break-up of Rick and Morty, and the revenge of Evil Morty, aka the President of the Citadel.

I have to say, one of the things I love about Rick and Morty is how they use continuity and return to dangling plot lines from previous episodes, even previous seasons. When in episode “Rickdependence Spray” they sent the Giant Incest Baby into space, I knew it was coming back around sooner or later.

It makes sense that they need to shake up the status quo on Rick and Morty as they have gone for five seasons. You have to keep it fresh and much of this season did a decent job of that. There were several episodes that seemed to me to be very complex, maybe even overly complex. The whole “decoy families” in the episode “Mortyplicity” and the whole “Amortycan Grickfitti” episode felt too much.

Lots of obvious parodies of the season including Planetina (Captain Planet), the GoTron ferrets (Power Rangers/Voltron), and Changeformers (Transformers).

The rivalry between Rick and President Curtis is revisited in a weird episode where Rick tries to get the President to pardon him by turning himself into a turkey. They also mentioned that this is not the first thing that Rick pulled this trick. It was weird because during the course of the episode, Morty accidentally opens up the giant robot hidden in the Statue of Liberty. That was a story bit that really was never fully touched on.

I did like Mr. Nimbus, who seemed to be a parody of Prince Namor, the Sub Mariner. This was the first episode, which had a weird storyline with Morty going into a dimension in search of wine and how that affected the creatures of that dimension.

Overall, I liked this season more than I liked season four. I have seen some hints that Space Beth is going to be used in a storyline which is interesting. Maybe she can do something with Giant Incest Baby, which would be her grandson.

The Muppet Show S2 E4, E5, E6, E7, E8

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Guest: Rich Little

Guest: Judy Collins

Guest: Nancy Walker

Guest: Edgar Bergen with Charlie McCarthy

Guest: Steve Martin

Some fun episodes from the second season highlighted the Muppet Show rewatch today.

Starting with the Rich Little episode. Honestly, his imitations of the Muppets were fairly weak. I have heard many better over the years. I did enjoy the final number where Rich Little sang as famous celebrities songs from musicals including “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Did You Ever?,” and “I Remember It Well.”

That first episode also started Gonzo’s affection for chickens, as he was auditioning them for a dancing act. Of course, these were live chickens.

Judy Collins came next and she sang a whole bunch of songs. I guess when you have someone with her voice, you try and use it as much as possible. The performance of “Send in the Clowns” is one of the most iconic guest songs of the show. I enjoyed her version of “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” too. It was neat seeing her do a piano duet with Rowlf with “Do-Re-Mi.”

We get the backstage storyline with Scooter’s uncle J. P. Grosse, who is ready to tear down the theater to put in a parking lot.

The Nancy Walker episode saw Kermit at home sick and Fozzie trying to run the show. Things do not go well for our favorite furry funnyman. My favorite bit was the accidental mixing of Veterinarian’s Hospital and At the Dance. They worked very well together.

Edgar Bergen brought his ventriloquism act to the Muppet Show, which fit in beautifully. Charlie McCarthy was very smart mouthed when it came to the Muppets. It was a lot of fun.

My favorite number on that episode was the “Time in a Bottle” song where the old scientist was making a formula to turn him younger.

Then, the best episode of this chunk was with Steve Martin. They took the typical Muppet formula and flipped it around as Kermit cancels the show for the night because they accidentally scheduled it on a night when they were supposed to be having auditions. Kermit sent the audience home and they spent the time auditioning new acts.

Steve Martin stuck around to “entertain the boys” and did a bunch of fun things from his act, including balloon animals, banjo playing, doing “Ramblin’ Guy.”

Some of the new acts we saw audition included Statler & Waldorf singing/dancing to “Varsity Rag,” a little girl named Carrie Louise and friend (who was a frog, and she would sing while the frog added the word ‘ribbit’ to the songs), Baskerville the Hound and his comedy act that reminded us all of Fozzie Bear and Marvin Suggs and his All Food Glee Club.

The show had removed the laugh track since the audience was gone and we would hear just a few guffaws from, apparently, the Muppeteers.

I loved how they took the format and tried something totally different and it really was a fresh episode.

Rick and Morty Season 3

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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.”

Rick and Morty Season Two

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I decided that I would start watching the Rick and Morty series as I did in the What We Do in the Shadows series. Since there are a limited number of episodes in each season and each were around 25 minutes, I decided that I would watch the whole season in one sitting.

Season two was the first season that I binged on HBO Max.

The first episode was “A Rickle in Time” where they picked up immediately when season one ended with Morty and Summer finished cleaning their house as time has been frozen. It winds up having multiple Ricks and Mortys and Summers since they were messing with time.

My favorite episode of the season was episode four, “Total Rickall” where an intergalactic parasite found its way into the Smith’s house and, by planting fake memories into the Smith’s heads, created people and creatures they believed were real. There was Mister Poopybutthole, Cousin Nicky, Sleepy Gary, Pencilvester, Tinkles the Fairy Lamb, Frankenstein’s Monster, Mr. Beauregard among others. It was such a funny episode.

Jerry and Beth’s marriage was a huge side story again. They even are taken to a planet for the most successful marriage counseling organization, which they destroy it with their toxicity. This was episode 7, entitled “Big Trouble in Little Sanchez.” The continue to be fighting and this marriage truly feels to be temporary.

Also in episode 7, we get “Little Rick!” Rick puts his mind into a younger clone of himself to help search out a vampire in Summer and Morty’s school (who was Coach Feratu). The vampire plot is mostly off-screen as it is the “Little Rick!” character that is focused. He shouted “Little Rick” very much like he would eventually yell out “Pickle Rick” in a later season.

“Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate” was a sequel to the interdimensional episode from season one. This one was funny, but it felt like it was not as strong as the first one.

There are several moments of breaking the fourth wall in this season as well. These all worked pretty well including the one where Rick called “Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate” a sequel, but he did not know why.

There were other parodies including an episode spoofing the movie The Purge.

There was a great cliffhanger at the end of season two with Rick turning himself in as an intergalactic terrorist in order to get Morty, Summer, Beth and Jerry freedom to return to the earth. The whole family had left earth to attend the wedding of Birdperson and Summer’s high school friend Tammy. Tammy turned out to be an agent of the Federation, killed Birdperson and arrested everyone. It was a cool twist and sets up the show for season three.

Agents of Shield S7 E9

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“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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“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 Muppet Show S1 E12, E13, E14

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Guest: Peter Ustinov

Guest: Bruce Forsythe

Guest: Sandy Duncan

Three more Muppet Show episodes and three guest stars. Looking at the three guest stars, Peter Ustinov would not be a guest star that you would expect on the Muppet Show. He was a two time Academy Award winner and had that high brow feel to him. However, he seemed to be fully engaged and willing to put himself out there. He was clearly having a good time with whatever silliness he was put in. Bruce Forsythe and Sandy Duncan make a much more understandable guest for the Muppets, but Ustinov was great.

It was on the Peter Ustinov episode where Kermit sang his iconic Sesame Street song, “(It’s Not Easy) Bein’ Green.” This was the song most connected to Kermit until the Rainbow Connection came along in the Muppet Movie.

The running storyline of the Peter Ustinov episode was that Kermit was feeling jealous of Ustinov, especially how everyone was fawning over him. We come to find out at the end that Peter Ustinov was jealous of Kermit because he always wanted to be a frog. Silly, but fun.

Bruce Forsythe helped Fozzie finish off Statler and Waldorf and their heckling. Forsythe was great because he was a comedian, a singer, a dancer, piano player and he showed all of these off during the show.

The Sandy Duncan episode found Fozzie at the heart of the backstage storyline as he was telling people that his writer was the legendary Gags Beasley. Fozzie then said he was going to do the famous Banana Sketch, which EVERYONE except Kermit knew. Kermit was getting frustrated when everyone would laugh about the Banana Sketch and would look down on Kermit when they discovered that Kermit was unaware about it. Even Sandy Duncan got into the act, barely able to contain her laughter with Fozzie when thinking about the Banana Sketch. There was no real pay off to this, outside of Kermit driving himself crazy. The bouquets of bananas her had Fozzie give Sandy Duncan at the end was a nice little punctuation to the storyline.

Of the most memorable moments for me on these three episodes, (outside of Bein’ Green) I would say that it was the song “Never Smile at a Crocodile” which was a fun respite. I did not remember hearing “I’m My Own Grandpa” on the Muppet Show before, but it was there. I am most familiar with Ray Stevens’ version of the song.

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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“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.

Silo S3 E1

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“Who Are You?”

Apple TV +’s sci-fi series Silo has returned and started its third season. The show stars Rebecca Ferguson as Juliette, who has returned from her “cleaning” without her memory and, apparently, has been elected (appointed???) Mayor of Silo 18.

Juliette is being treated like a savior, a messiah, a hero by the others in the Silo.

We left season two with Juliette and Bernard trapped inside the incinerator. Juliette does not remember anything prior to the incinerator, and she was told that she was saved by the insulation in her suit. She is told Bernard was not as lucky and he died from the exposure to the flames and the poison.

However, we see a flashback of Sims actually smothering Bernard with plastic after he had survived the incinerator.

We get a bunch of things like this, certainly implying that Sims and his wife Camille are manipulating people, including Juliette.

Juliette found a capsule in her soup that contained a message. The message stated, “Want to know the truth? Leave your bowl upside down. Go to the marketplace.” 

We had learned that Juliette was being drugged by Camille and that The Algorithm is worried that Juliette’s real memories are returning.

The show had a series of flashbacks, connected to the pair of characters that we saw in Washington, D.C. at the end of season two. This was pre-collapse times and one of the characters was Congressman Daniel Keene, who is concerned about his sister Charlotte Keene, who is scheduled to fly a mission to bomb Iran in response to the “dirty bomb” mentioned last year.

Charlotte is shown in a plane that entered a cloud that was not supposed to be there which led to a bizarre crash. Charlotte is rescued but she has suffered a brain injury and she does not recognize Daniel when he comes to see her.

These flashbacks give me definitive LOST vibes, especially the vibes of season four when we saw the Oceanic Six in present day time.

Intriguing start with a whole bunch of new mysteries to sink your teeth into. This is released every Friday night on Apple TV +.

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

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“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.

Rick & Morty S1 E3, E4, E5

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Spoilers

“Anatomy Park”

“M. Night Shaym-Aliens!”

“Meeseeks and Destroy”

Rick & Morty continue along in their first season, showing how different it is than any other animated show. The humor is hilarious, even if it could tend towards sophomoric humor at times.

Rick sends Morty inside a body of an old man, dressed as Santa, to an amusement park he had constructed inside. This episode was a lot of fun, especially with the all-star cast of voice actors including John Oliver, Dana Carvey, Kari Wahlgren and Gary Anthony Williams.

This is a parody of both Jurassic Park and Fantastic Voyage.

Another example of Rick getting Morty into trouble comes in the next episode as he is inside a simulation as aliens are attempting to steal Rick’s recipe for the Concentrated Dark Matter. The girl with Morty tells him that he can put his fingers anywhere he wants as they makeout.

In the fifth episode, it is Morty’s turn to plan the adventure. This is an example of how the show pushes limits as Morty comes across a humanoid Jellybean in the restroom at a pub and the Jellybean attempts to rape Morty. Rick later murders Jellybean, who was revealed as the King of the village Rick and Morty were working for.

Meanwhile, Morty’s parents were using an invention of Rick’s called the Meeseeks Box. Meeseeks would po into existence and help you with a problems, only to then pop out of existence. However, taking two strokes off Jerry’s golf game. Finding it impossible, more Meeseeks are summoned until they go wild with their failure to improve the golf game, trying to murder Jerry.

Again, this is not your child’s animated show. The adult themes and jokes are all over the place, but they make Rick & Morty very funny to watch.