Michael Stephenson's Blog, page 3
November 15, 2017
It’s Finally Come! Best Comic Book Movie Of The Year! #ThorRagnarok #recap #review #Marvel
It’s Finally Come! Best Comic Book Movie Of The Year! #ThorRagnarok #recap #review #Marvel
All pictures courtesy of Marvel/Disney Studios
OK, before people start throwing rocks, let me, once again, reiterate, as I have in practically every other movie and/or Marvel-themed piece of entertainment that has come out this year, I wasn’t able to see Logan yet, so I don’t know if I would’ve liked it or not. But I did see Guardians of the Galaxy, Wonder Woman and Spider-man: Homecoming and can tell you that they were all overrated an—well... OK, I guess Guardians was closer to being properly rated, but it had many flaws that brought the movie down for me. And while, yes, Wonder Woman was great as a statement film for feminism and just having the first female-led superheroine (if we’re forgetting Supergirl, Elektra, and Catwoman) it was hardly worth its 90%+ Rotten Tomatoes score. It showcased some of the same flaws that we so vehemently called out Batman v. Superman, Suicide Squad and Man of Steel for and still somehow managed to feature some sexism in it against both women and men. And Spider-man: Homecoming was just... Ugh! I wasn’t even looking forward to the movie and still wound up disappointed.
So, with Justice League only a few days away, and my predictions about DC films so far holding true—I called that Batman v. Superman was a mess before it came out, also said that Suicide Squad wasn’t going to be any good, and that people would praise Wonder Woman as being the “savior” of the DCEU and almost literally quoted article headlines a near year before the film came out about how they would read “Wonder Woman Shows The Boys How To Do It” or “A Wonder Woman’s Work Is Never Done,” and I also said in the same post calling all of these things out that while WW would be a shining beacon for fans even though it would still not be very good in hindsight, the DCEU would return to mediocrity with Justice League and lead to headlines like “Wonder Woman Still Rules, Aquaman No Longer A Joke” or “Is The DCEU Better Without Batman And Superman”—I’d have to declare Thor: Ragnarok as the best superhero/heroine comic book film of 2017. With all that said, let’s dig into the recap review and let me note that outside of the plot of Thor being cast off of Asgard by the evil villain Hela and having to fight his way back, there will be spoilers. There will be spoilers galore.
SPOILERS!
I’d first say that the trailers really don’t tell you much of anything about the plot so much as they show you all of the cool scenes from the film. With my year of “first trailers” coming to an end, I can say that I didn’t see much after watching just the one trailer from a few weeks ago, so I was fairly clean going into it. However, even in that trailer (I think it was technically trailer 2) there was still a lot of stuff that made it into the movie.
As stated, the plot is simple. Thor, after Age of Ultron, set out on a cosmic journey to explore the nine realms and beyond to find this demon, devil-looking thing called Surtur. As was sorta alluded to in Age of Ultron with Scarlet Witch playing in Thor’s mind, there is an ancient prophecy on Asgard that says that one day Surtur will come and bring Ragnarok to the land. Ragnarok, for those not in the know, is essentially the Norse equivalence of the apocalypse. Everything gets destroyed and is rebuilt anew. In fact, I believe the very word Ragnarok means rebirth or restart or something like that. Just know that there’s a ton of destruction that must go on before the restarting part.
Obviously Thor doesn’t want the destruction of Asgard. Who the heck would want that? All that gold would just be... burned and turned to rubble and all sorts of terribleness. So, in the opening scene we find our hero actually captured in some kind of underground fiery lair of Surtur, because he wants to ask him about the evil demon/devil’s plan to destroy Asgard. Surtur tells him something about how much he hates Odin and how the guy is a total liar and an all-around douche. And Thor’s like, what? Dude, chill, that’s my dad. There’s some comedic elements in there where Thor is swiveling around on a hanging chain and at first I thought, oh God this is going to be like Guardians where the jokes were misplaced. But then I actually thought the chain joke sorta worked and I didn’t know if I had adjusted my expectations or the writers just didn’t overdo it like they tend to so often do in comedies as of late.
Anyway, Thor beats the crap out of this dude and takes his skull/crown, which Surtur said he was going to put into the eternal flame on Asgard that is in Odin’s treasure room, which was supposed to turn him into a giant, indestructible demon thingy. Thor then tries for a quick planetary escape but that’s when we realize that Heimdall (Idris Elba’s character) is not there at the bifrost gate anymore. Instead, there is a new dude there exploiting the hell out of his position. He lollygags about getting Thor back home and only after a few attempts does Thor finally escape.
The first thing Thor realizes is that something isn’t right about Asgard. Again, it’s assumed that he hasn’t been back at least since Age of Ultron, and probably not since The Dark World because he, in all of this time, didn’t realize that his brother Loki was ruling in their dad’s place, magically disguised as Odin, sitting on the throne—something we saw at the end of The Dark World. As he gets to the palace, he sees a bevy of beautiful broads feeding his hedonistic father lounging on a golden divan as he watches a play based on the “heroism” of Loki, who is said to have sacrificed his life to save the kingdom of Asgard. We get a few cameos here by Sam Neil playing Odin, Chris’s older brother Luke playing Thor and Matt Damon playing Loki. It’s mildly humorous.
Thor immediately realizes what’s going on and forces his brother to reveal himself in front of everyone and to show that he exiled Odin to New York City. Together, Thor and Loki go to Shady Acres old-folk’s home only to find it being torn down. We then see a strange magic being used that makes Loki disappear into the ground and leaves a card for Thor. At this point, I was actually surprised but shouldn’t have been. I don’t know if it was the stress of this year with politics and work and all, but it seemed like Doctor Strange came out so long ago that when he made a cameo I was totally surprised by everything. I had forgotten how he did his little magical portals and all of that. Well, he gives Loki back, and shows them where to find their father. He’s in Norway and we’re all supposed to be like, Oh! Duh! Ha!
They step through Strange’s portal to Norway and find Odin sitting on a rock near a cliff, ready to die and talking about how he failed to prevent Ragnarok, even though Thor is convinced he stopped Surtur. He then tells the two boys about how Hela is coming and that she is not only the goddess of death, but she is their older sister (Thor’s blood sister) and she is far more powerful. He dies and disintegrates into orange fairy dust and Hela arrives directly after that, ready to battle on earth. Thor throws his hammer and that’s when we get the trailer scene where she breaks his hammer and Thor is stuck without it for the rest of the movie. In that instance, Loki turns full coward and calls upon the bifrost to open, even though Thor knows this is bad because he thinks Hela will follow them into the bifrost. She does. They battle inside and she first flings Loki out of the rainbow bridge, then she does the same to Thor. She alone arrives in Asgard and kills Thor’s two soldiers of fortune from the first movie (or whatever the hell their names were; also should mention that Lady Sif is neither in this nor mentioned at all. I know Jaimie Alexander is busy with Blindspot, but it’s strange not to even spare a few seconds screentime to mention where she was, dead or alive), then recruits, as a minion, the other idiot bifrost operator who nearly got Thor killed at the beginning of the movie.
Finally home after years of being gone (she’s been gone so long that she never even met her brother Thor, unless, I’m guessing, she met him as a baby), she rips through the palace walls, murals and paintings to show the real stories of how Asgard got to be the “capital” of the nine realms. As opposed to the pictures and stories of Odin in which he brokered peace through treaties and governance, she shows how they ruled with iron fists, slaughtering millions of people across all the realms. But she got greedy and wanted to rule more realms than Odin did and once she overpowered him, he kicked her out and locked her away somewhere, where she remained until today.
Meanwhile, as she’s doing her evil thing and destroying the people while trying to galvanize some of them behind her, Thor lands on a junk planet where tons of stuff falls out of the bifrost and, I’m guessing other mystical cosmic pathways. Here, he meets Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie who serves as a scrap collector under the rule of Jeff Goldblum’s The Grandmaster. She collects the hammerless Thor, sells him to The Grandmaster who has plans to pit him against his greatest champion, and shows herself to be a true lush. As her story goes, she’s been on the junkyard planet since before Thor was born. She and the rest of the Valkyrie group of women (remember that Valkyrie were both the group all-female warriors of which she was part and is how she is referred to) went against Hela under orders of Odin. They were all defeated that day which then caused Odin to use all of his might to banish Hela. Valkyrie barely escaped with her life and wound up on this planet.
It bares mentioning that this junkyard planet has no concept of time. So even though Hela’s defeat was years ago, and Loki fell out of the bifrost just a few seconds before Thor did, Valkyrie looks the same age as Thor and Loki has been getting chummy with The Grandmaster for weeks by the time Thor arrives.
Ladies and gentlemen, uh... uh... Jeff Goldblum
And here’s where things get tricky and sticky, because Jeff Goldblum is gonna Jeff Goldblum, and he totally Jeff Goldblums here. And it’s actually quite good. The entire planet is over-the-top madness. Think of a mix of The Gladiator with Mad Max: Fury Road but with a Monty Python-esque humor behind it all. With most other actors, this could play out as entirely cheesy and stupid, but Jeff Goldblum brings so much Jeff Goldbluminess into not just his role but the entirety of this world that it doesn’t come off as a parody of a comic book. He geniunely made me laugh with his quirkiness, his facade of some kind of 80s/new-age DJ that’s in love with dubstep and strange crunchy, video game-sounding music. He felt like a slightly younger, hipper Hugh Hefner if Hef was more into fighting and music and Daft Punk cover bands rather than softcore porn. The eclecticness of his character fit in perfectly with the electicness of the junkyard world. Even the line where he explains how time doesn’t work there and talks about his age without ever giving a number is so bizarre, so eccentric and so fundamentally Jeff Goldblum that it made me laugh. It felt akin to those moments on SNL where one of the cast breaks due to something another cast member did, and the other cast member doing the funny thing just keeps making more and more jokes because they want to see their fellow SNL member crack up with laughter. Yes, that’s a long explanation but totally apt.
Anyway, as you can guess, the grand champion is the Incredible Hulk like in the commercials and they fight. There’s some pretty good comedy with Loki finally seeing this grand champion and realizing who it is, and then Hulk doing to Thor what he did to Loki at the end of the first Avengers film. There’s a bit of lull time in the movie in which they are trying and actually succeeding to build plot, character and tension to lead into the final act. It’s some pretty solid screenwriting, even if it’s a bit uninspired.
After some back and forth, Banner finally emerges from his Hulk cocoon and realizes that he’s been the Hulk for two years, ever since leaving earth in the Quinnjet. He went high into space and somehow jumped through a wormhole and ended up on the junk planet. He’s since, as Hulk, learned to talk a lot more than what we’ve seen in the other movies. The people on the planet love him as their champion. We also get Valkyrie’s story and how she felt ashamed that everyone else in her group died fighting Hela, save for her. They get Loki back on their side even after he tricks his brother one last time. It seems almost like he has to make a decision once and for all to be good or bad and he chooses good (I reserve the right to withhold final judgment until Infinity War because it looks like he’ll be right back to his treacherous ways again).
Thor, Hulk, Loki, Valkyrie and a prison full of other misfits escape back to Asgard where they discover that Hela has raised an army of the dead to either slaughter or bring to heel the rest of the Asgardians that have been hiding, and eventually conquer the rest of the realms. These rebels, led by Heimdall who has the sword to control the bifrost gate, plan to escape from Asgard but are bridge-blocked by Hela’s direwolf. And Thor and his team come in the nick of time to save the day.
While the rest of the team fights off the undead army on the bridge and get the Asgardian peoples onto this new huge spaceship, Thor fights Hela to try to defeat her or at least stall her long enough to empty the city. He has a come-to-Odin moment and realizes that he never needed the hammer but that the electricity, the power is within him. He channels it to strike Hela with a huge lightning bolt which wounds her but is still unable to defeat her. So he finally realizes that his father’s prediction was right and so was the prophecy, but it wasn’t a prophecy of doom but of salvation. Asgard was never the city but the people that lived there. The city is just a structure that could be rebuilt somewhere.
So, he instructs Loki to go and throw the Surtur skull/crown into the eternal flame and resurrect the hellbeast. Dude comes back ten times bigger and badder, and destroys Asgard with Hela on it, who fights to the very bitter end because she derives most of her power from Asgard and doesn’t want to see it destroyed. The place is destroyed as Thor, Loki, Hulk, Valkyrie and the other Asgardians stand on the spaceship looking out to the destruction. Now, they must find a new home on earth. Norway, maybe?
What’s my grade? I give it a solid B+. OK, so one of the things that we have learned this year is that yes, there is such a thing as comic book movie/tv oversaturation. At least I’ve learned that. It comes when you start seeing plots constantly recycled and very seldom improved upon, rather than something new and inventive or innovative. If we’re being honest, FOX’s The Gifted TV show is quite the same as every other X-men film: mutants are hated for being different, they run, they get caught, they break free, they run some more, they eventually end up doing something heroic. But what is worse is that The Gifted is practically the same as ABC’s Marvel’s Inhumans which saw Inhumans (the non-copyright-infringing mutants of the MCU) be stripped of their cool costumes, run around in a world they don’t know but where they are hated for existing, get caught by some bad guys, get caught by some other bad Inhumans, break free, run some more, then eventually do some hero stuff. It’s practically the same plot, just with different powers. Again, The Gifted is/was better (Inhumans is off now) because it showed more use of powers even if we’ve seen those powers a thousand times. But the worst is when you just end one of your shows only to have a movie premiere which is a carbon copy of that failed show.
In Thor we have a kingdom in peril from a jilted sibling who thinks they should be the rightful heir to the throne and rule it all themselves. They somehow get the current ruling sibling off of the entire world, let alone out of the city. That hero sibling ends up in a strange land they don’t know where they are forced to fight semi-familiar enemies only for some of those enemies to become allies later. They must then depend on the kindness of some locals to help them escape back to their planet where they then must defeat their sibling only to realize that the place they hold so dear, the city they lived in their whole lives, is not actually all that important. To be a hero they must let it be destroyed and then migrate to earth.
I started that last paragraph by saying “In Thor” only because most fans actually watched that movie as opposed to Inhumans. The problem is that it is an exact carbon copy of the entire first season’s plot of Inhumans. Maximus, Black Bolt’s younger brother, tried to overthrow him. Maximus and a few other Inhumans of the royal family were cast down to earth (hell, they even had Gorgon, the black guy, as one of the royal guards. What is Valkyrie, the black woman, if not some aspect of a royal guard to Odin?) where Black Bolt ended up in a prison for a while. They are forced to fight some locals (Karnak and the drug farmers), forced to fight some old familiars (Maximus loyalists sent after them), manage to team up and get back to the moon, only to realize that it is time to let the city of Attlan be destroyed with Maximus inside while they all escape back to earth. It’s the same exact plot. THE. SAME. EXACT. PLOT! Hell, they didn’t even bother to change the names enough to at least start one city’s name with a different letter. Attlan? Asgard? One of these cities couldn’t start with a B?
Granted, I know, almost nobody watched Inhumans, but the fact that this show and the Thor movie came from the same studio and that this show, which is an ABC show, is supposed to be connected to the broader MCU (unlike the Netflix stuff) is troubling because it shows that either no one saw these similarities in story or they did and really didn’t care. If you have fatigue at an executive level, that’s when you know that saturation has set in and that apathy will soon follow.
As far as dislikes, I also didn’t like how Thor had almost no bite. It’s strange the way a lot of these films are made today. I remember going to the movies really down and depressed last year thinking, man, maybe I’ve gotten too old to enjoy movies anymore because none of them really give me that spark of magic where I feel it deeper than just the back of my eyeballs. The dialogue seems cheap and yadda, yadda, yadda. I was actually nearly ready to give up on most films and then I saw La La Land and I actually felt something again. Was it a new plot? Hell no. It’s as old and played as every other plot in Hollywood, but the way it was made had an effect on me, stayed with me, inspired me.
Here, while Thor was a really good movie, it was actually difficult to talk about the movie three hours after it. There weren’t these parts that really had me emotionally invested. Even as Odin died I didn’t quite get to that feeling of, “Oh man, this character that I’ve been seeing since, 2011 is finally going to be no more.” I saw another reviewer say it was a fun, wholly forgettable ride and that’s so true. For me, it was like Chinese takeout: good while you’re eating it but hardly fulfilling and memorable. In the end, even with the good acting, the mostly well-timed jokes and the serviceable plot not full of holes, it couldn’t push into that realm of greatness. I think this is partially because this movie had little expectations, and thus little buildup like, say, Wonder Woman, Black Panther or Spider-man: Homecoming do/did. It was easier to either love or hate those films and feel passion about the projects because of the long waits for them and debates and excitement that surrounded them. Here, I just had the feeling of, “Oh, yeah! That was pretty enjoyable.”
Let’s see, uh... the directing was pretty good. With some of the scenes in the trailer like Valkyrie storming Hela, I thought it would look too polished and, thus, too comic bookish like the Justice League film looks, but I was pleasantly surprised that the film was filled with inhabitable environments rather than celluloid comic panels. Here’s a strange note: I actually really enjoyed the music. Outside of Immigrant Song (love that song), I thought the original music was actually good this time and, if not memorable, at least wasn’t as cookie-cutter as most of Marvel’s music is. Yes, some fans have argued that Marvel and the Avengers have great music but they either don’t have great taste in music or just don’t like music. Lift one track of the original score from any of the other movies (exception of Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America: Winter Soldier) and put it onto any of the other films and you’ll hardly be able to tell any difference. Each superhero, to me, should have his or her own unique music that is identifiable by ear. If you used some of this crunchy, video-game-esque music in the next Avengers film to herald Thor’s and/or Valkyrie’s arrival, you would make the scene two times better at least, I guarantee you. It fit perfectly with this film and with the character’s laughably strong video-game-esque invincibility.
Going forward, what do I predict? Hm? OK, now that we’ve covered most of the movie and revealed tons of spoilers, we can also talk about the fact that Thor no longer has both of his eyes. This could stick and we have the character look like a younger Odin for the rest of his time in the Avengers. Or it could be quickly healed by Dr. Strange once Thor gets back to earth. We know that the huge ship we saw in the first post-credits scene is actually Thanos’ ship, so we could be in for a huge opening battle scene between Thor and his posse, and Thanos and his goons, with an assist from the Guardians of the Galaxy in there somewhere. A big brawl is how both of the Avengers films have started so far.
Then there is the question of the hammer. Is it possible for Thor to get his hammer back? I think the better question is does he need a hammer? I think maybe he could get a new one on earth possibly from some spell by Dr. Strange or some forging of vibranium by Black Panther or Tony Stark, but who knows if he will do that or if the character will even be around long enough to do that. Remember, as contracts are ending for all of the first Avengers and all of their movie franchises have come to their trilogy conclusions, we could see some big deaths in Infinity War; in fact, I’m hoping for some big deaths.
Ragnarok or “reset” could be alluding to more than just this one film but could spill over into Infinity War where the entire team is reset and Thor is dead. Also, we don’t now if Loki is actually good for... well, good, or if he will betray Thor yet again. We saw him stop and gaze at the tesseract briefly before he threw that skull/crown into the eternal flame. Does that mean he stole it? If he didn’t take it with him, then how would Thanos get it to complete his infinity gauntlet because Asgard is destroyed. And also, this is for those who have tried to watch as much Marvel MCU stuff as they could, but will we see the shows finally re-blend into the films? With Agents of SHIELD off-world for their next season, will we see remnants of Asgard or the beginnings of a fight between Thor and Thanos or the Guardians? What of the fact that we now have two peoples in the moon-Inhumans and the Asgardians now displaced and seeking home and asylum on earth? We know that Inhumans are part of the movies and not just the TV shows, so will there be some mention of them somewhere in Infinity War?
My prediction is that Infinity War will feature the death of Loki within the opening minutes of the film to bring his Avengers and Thor movie arcs all the way full circle. I also think that we’ll get a brief cameo appearance from Hela, goddess of death, only this time she may or may not be played by Cate Blanchett because I think she will come back as a skeletal being similar to the Mistress of Death’s design in the comics. That will be courtesy of her face having been burned off by Surtur during Asgard’s destruction. I think that somehow Thanos will use one of the stones to bring her back (he seemed to be near that general area of the galaxy because he ran into Thor’s ship so fast) but will only be able to bring her back to a certain extent, which is why she won’t have skin. Together, the two of them will be able to control dead superheroes and crush tons of enemies—as if Thanos wasn’t already enough. And I also think that Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD will finally join the movie team in some capacity and either make it back to earth at the same time as the Guardians and Thor, or help in the initial space battle with Thanos or something like that. I think this because the premiere date for the next season—December 1st—is such a strange time to premiere a season of something on a Friday unless they have some kind of timing element that needs to happen before Black Panther and/or Infinity War. Otherwise, why not just start the new season in the new year where you won’t get disruptions from holiday specials? Makes no sense unless they plan some kind of tie-in. And that especially goes for if one of the big three (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America) are to die in the film because I can’t see them getting rid of any of them without first letting Coulson fanboy over them again.
As far as the character melee goes, I think that there will be even more characters in Infinity War than we expect and that are listed on the cast sheet. So, who from Thor’s film do you expect to be in Infinity War? Because they did see Thanos’ ship right there at the end, it does make me think there’s going to be a little bit of a slaughter of some characters that we maybe just started to love. But I also find it an interesting concept to have Valkyrie and Heimdall make it to earth and end up in Wakanda in the next Black Panther film. Both are warriors and seem like they would fit well into that society. Granted, I haven’t seen the film yet, but from the trailers it looks like they could fit.
Should you go see it? Yes. I mean... if you’re over the entire comic book movies-thing, then don’t go see it. And if you’re only a DC fan, then I guess you shouldn’t see this. But know that I am not a super fanboy for either (although, I’ve always dreamed of writing a Justice League/Superfriends movie and am hugely disappointed by the entirety of the DCEU) but I think that this is an outright good movie regardless of its comic book source material. It’s good. Go see it.
What do you think? Have you seen Thor: Ragnarok? If you haven’t, are you planning on seeing it? If you have, did you like it as the end of a trilogy? What do you expect from Infinity War? Do you have comic book movie fatigue yet, or no? Were you satisfied with the rendition of Planet Hulk they did, or do you still want more? And which characters from this film would you like to see stay around longer in the MCU in some capacity? Let me know in the comments below.
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P.S. Yes, I have made plenty of scathing reviews about DCEU films but I’m honestly not trying to hate. I grew up watching and reading DC comics and cartoons that have filled our airwaves back since TV became popular. I hate this whole taking sides thing. I’m not diehard Marvel and actually didn’t like either of the Avengers films, but like the individual hero movies. As films, most of the DC films are not that good. But even more to the point, I feel like the one that was good was overrated in Wonder Woman. I guess it comes down to what you want out of a comic book film. Everyone throws around the word fun, but how about we have it be more than just fun? Because fun doesn’t always translated to good. To me Return of the Living Dead is fun, but that doesn’t make it good. So I hope that Justice League will be both fun and good even if it doesn’t rise to the level I know it could be. I want to write a Superman and Justice League trilogy so bad that maybe a little of that sorrow that I haven’t done it yet is spilling into my reviews, but still, these films can be better. Let’s hope I’m wrong on my previous predictions.
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All pictures courtesy of Marvel/Disney Studios OK, before people start throwing rocks, let me, once again, reiterate, as I have in practically every other movie and/or Marvel-themed piece of entertainment that has come out this year, I wasn’t able to see Logan yet, so I don’t know if I would’ve liked it or not. But I did see Guardians of the Galaxy, Wonder Woman and Spider-man: Homecoming and can tell you that they were all overrated an—well... OK, I guess Guardians was closer to being properly rated, but it had many flaws that brought the movie down for me. And while, yes, Wonder Woman was great as a statement film for feminism and just having the first female-led superheroine (if we’re forgetting Supergirl, Elektra, and Catwoman) it was hardly worth its 90%+ Rotten Tomatoes score. It showcased some of the same flaws that we so vehemently called out Batman v. Superman, Suicide Squad and Man of Steel for and still somehow managed to feature some sexism in it against both women and men. And Spider-man: Homecoming was just... Ugh! I wasn’t even looking forward to the movie and still wound up disappointed.
So, with Justice League only a few days away, and my predictions about DC films so far holding true—I called that Batman v. Superman was a mess before it came out, also said that Suicide Squad wasn’t going to be any good, and that people would praise Wonder Woman as being the “savior” of the DCEU and almost literally quoted article headlines a near year before the film came out about how they would read “Wonder Woman Shows The Boys How To Do It” or “A Wonder Woman’s Work Is Never Done,” and I also said in the same post calling all of these things out that while WW would be a shining beacon for fans even though it would still not be very good in hindsight, the DCEU would return to mediocrity with Justice League and lead to headlines like “Wonder Woman Still Rules, Aquaman No Longer A Joke” or “Is The DCEU Better Without Batman And Superman”—I’d have to declare Thor: Ragnarok as the best superhero/heroine comic book film of 2017. With all that said, let’s dig into the recap review and let me note that outside of the plot of Thor being cast off of Asgard by the evil villain Hela and having to fight his way back, there will be spoilers. There will be spoilers galore. SPOILERS!
I’d first say that the trailers really don’t tell you much of anything about the plot so much as they show you all of the cool scenes from the film. With my year of “first trailers” coming to an end, I can say that I didn’t see much after watching just the one trailer from a few weeks ago, so I was fairly clean going into it. However, even in that trailer (I think it was technically trailer 2) there was still a lot of stuff that made it into the movie.
As stated, the plot is simple. Thor, after Age of Ultron, set out on a cosmic journey to explore the nine realms and beyond to find this demon, devil-looking thing called Surtur. As was sorta alluded to in Age of Ultron with Scarlet Witch playing in Thor’s mind, there is an ancient prophecy on Asgard that says that one day Surtur will come and bring Ragnarok to the land. Ragnarok, for those not in the know, is essentially the Norse equivalence of the apocalypse. Everything gets destroyed and is rebuilt anew. In fact, I believe the very word Ragnarok means rebirth or restart or something like that. Just know that there’s a ton of destruction that must go on before the restarting part.
Obviously Thor doesn’t want the destruction of Asgard. Who the heck would want that? All that gold would just be... burned and turned to rubble and all sorts of terribleness. So, in the opening scene we find our hero actually captured in some kind of underground fiery lair of Surtur, because he wants to ask him about the evil demon/devil’s plan to destroy Asgard. Surtur tells him something about how much he hates Odin and how the guy is a total liar and an all-around douche. And Thor’s like, what? Dude, chill, that’s my dad. There’s some comedic elements in there where Thor is swiveling around on a hanging chain and at first I thought, oh God this is going to be like Guardians where the jokes were misplaced. But then I actually thought the chain joke sorta worked and I didn’t know if I had adjusted my expectations or the writers just didn’t overdo it like they tend to so often do in comedies as of late.
Anyway, Thor beats the crap out of this dude and takes his skull/crown, which Surtur said he was going to put into the eternal flame on Asgard that is in Odin’s treasure room, which was supposed to turn him into a giant, indestructible demon thingy. Thor then tries for a quick planetary escape but that’s when we realize that Heimdall (Idris Elba’s character) is not there at the bifrost gate anymore. Instead, there is a new dude there exploiting the hell out of his position. He lollygags about getting Thor back home and only after a few attempts does Thor finally escape.
The first thing Thor realizes is that something isn’t right about Asgard. Again, it’s assumed that he hasn’t been back at least since Age of Ultron, and probably not since The Dark World because he, in all of this time, didn’t realize that his brother Loki was ruling in their dad’s place, magically disguised as Odin, sitting on the throne—something we saw at the end of The Dark World. As he gets to the palace, he sees a bevy of beautiful broads feeding his hedonistic father lounging on a golden divan as he watches a play based on the “heroism” of Loki, who is said to have sacrificed his life to save the kingdom of Asgard. We get a few cameos here by Sam Neil playing Odin, Chris’s older brother Luke playing Thor and Matt Damon playing Loki. It’s mildly humorous.
Thor immediately realizes what’s going on and forces his brother to reveal himself in front of everyone and to show that he exiled Odin to New York City. Together, Thor and Loki go to Shady Acres old-folk’s home only to find it being torn down. We then see a strange magic being used that makes Loki disappear into the ground and leaves a card for Thor. At this point, I was actually surprised but shouldn’t have been. I don’t know if it was the stress of this year with politics and work and all, but it seemed like Doctor Strange came out so long ago that when he made a cameo I was totally surprised by everything. I had forgotten how he did his little magical portals and all of that. Well, he gives Loki back, and shows them where to find their father. He’s in Norway and we’re all supposed to be like, Oh! Duh! Ha!
They step through Strange’s portal to Norway and find Odin sitting on a rock near a cliff, ready to die and talking about how he failed to prevent Ragnarok, even though Thor is convinced he stopped Surtur. He then tells the two boys about how Hela is coming and that she is not only the goddess of death, but she is their older sister (Thor’s blood sister) and she is far more powerful. He dies and disintegrates into orange fairy dust and Hela arrives directly after that, ready to battle on earth. Thor throws his hammer and that’s when we get the trailer scene where she breaks his hammer and Thor is stuck without it for the rest of the movie. In that instance, Loki turns full coward and calls upon the bifrost to open, even though Thor knows this is bad because he thinks Hela will follow them into the bifrost. She does. They battle inside and she first flings Loki out of the rainbow bridge, then she does the same to Thor. She alone arrives in Asgard and kills Thor’s two soldiers of fortune from the first movie (or whatever the hell their names were; also should mention that Lady Sif is neither in this nor mentioned at all. I know Jaimie Alexander is busy with Blindspot, but it’s strange not to even spare a few seconds screentime to mention where she was, dead or alive), then recruits, as a minion, the other idiot bifrost operator who nearly got Thor killed at the beginning of the movie.
Finally home after years of being gone (she’s been gone so long that she never even met her brother Thor, unless, I’m guessing, she met him as a baby), she rips through the palace walls, murals and paintings to show the real stories of how Asgard got to be the “capital” of the nine realms. As opposed to the pictures and stories of Odin in which he brokered peace through treaties and governance, she shows how they ruled with iron fists, slaughtering millions of people across all the realms. But she got greedy and wanted to rule more realms than Odin did and once she overpowered him, he kicked her out and locked her away somewhere, where she remained until today.
Meanwhile, as she’s doing her evil thing and destroying the people while trying to galvanize some of them behind her, Thor lands on a junk planet where tons of stuff falls out of the bifrost and, I’m guessing other mystical cosmic pathways. Here, he meets Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie who serves as a scrap collector under the rule of Jeff Goldblum’s The Grandmaster. She collects the hammerless Thor, sells him to The Grandmaster who has plans to pit him against his greatest champion, and shows herself to be a true lush. As her story goes, she’s been on the junkyard planet since before Thor was born. She and the rest of the Valkyrie group of women (remember that Valkyrie were both the group all-female warriors of which she was part and is how she is referred to) went against Hela under orders of Odin. They were all defeated that day which then caused Odin to use all of his might to banish Hela. Valkyrie barely escaped with her life and wound up on this planet. It bares mentioning that this junkyard planet has no concept of time. So even though Hela’s defeat was years ago, and Loki fell out of the bifrost just a few seconds before Thor did, Valkyrie looks the same age as Thor and Loki has been getting chummy with The Grandmaster for weeks by the time Thor arrives.
Ladies and gentlemen, uh... uh... Jeff GoldblumAnd here’s where things get tricky and sticky, because Jeff Goldblum is gonna Jeff Goldblum, and he totally Jeff Goldblums here. And it’s actually quite good. The entire planet is over-the-top madness. Think of a mix of The Gladiator with Mad Max: Fury Road but with a Monty Python-esque humor behind it all. With most other actors, this could play out as entirely cheesy and stupid, but Jeff Goldblum brings so much Jeff Goldbluminess into not just his role but the entirety of this world that it doesn’t come off as a parody of a comic book. He geniunely made me laugh with his quirkiness, his facade of some kind of 80s/new-age DJ that’s in love with dubstep and strange crunchy, video game-sounding music. He felt like a slightly younger, hipper Hugh Hefner if Hef was more into fighting and music and Daft Punk cover bands rather than softcore porn. The eclecticness of his character fit in perfectly with the electicness of the junkyard world. Even the line where he explains how time doesn’t work there and talks about his age without ever giving a number is so bizarre, so eccentric and so fundamentally Jeff Goldblum that it made me laugh. It felt akin to those moments on SNL where one of the cast breaks due to something another cast member did, and the other cast member doing the funny thing just keeps making more and more jokes because they want to see their fellow SNL member crack up with laughter. Yes, that’s a long explanation but totally apt.
Anyway, as you can guess, the grand champion is the Incredible Hulk like in the commercials and they fight. There’s some pretty good comedy with Loki finally seeing this grand champion and realizing who it is, and then Hulk doing to Thor what he did to Loki at the end of the first Avengers film. There’s a bit of lull time in the movie in which they are trying and actually succeeding to build plot, character and tension to lead into the final act. It’s some pretty solid screenwriting, even if it’s a bit uninspired.
After some back and forth, Banner finally emerges from his Hulk cocoon and realizes that he’s been the Hulk for two years, ever since leaving earth in the Quinnjet. He went high into space and somehow jumped through a wormhole and ended up on the junk planet. He’s since, as Hulk, learned to talk a lot more than what we’ve seen in the other movies. The people on the planet love him as their champion. We also get Valkyrie’s story and how she felt ashamed that everyone else in her group died fighting Hela, save for her. They get Loki back on their side even after he tricks his brother one last time. It seems almost like he has to make a decision once and for all to be good or bad and he chooses good (I reserve the right to withhold final judgment until Infinity War because it looks like he’ll be right back to his treacherous ways again).
Thor, Hulk, Loki, Valkyrie and a prison full of other misfits escape back to Asgard where they discover that Hela has raised an army of the dead to either slaughter or bring to heel the rest of the Asgardians that have been hiding, and eventually conquer the rest of the realms. These rebels, led by Heimdall who has the sword to control the bifrost gate, plan to escape from Asgard but are bridge-blocked by Hela’s direwolf. And Thor and his team come in the nick of time to save the day.
While the rest of the team fights off the undead army on the bridge and get the Asgardian peoples onto this new huge spaceship, Thor fights Hela to try to defeat her or at least stall her long enough to empty the city. He has a come-to-Odin moment and realizes that he never needed the hammer but that the electricity, the power is within him. He channels it to strike Hela with a huge lightning bolt which wounds her but is still unable to defeat her. So he finally realizes that his father’s prediction was right and so was the prophecy, but it wasn’t a prophecy of doom but of salvation. Asgard was never the city but the people that lived there. The city is just a structure that could be rebuilt somewhere.
So, he instructs Loki to go and throw the Surtur skull/crown into the eternal flame and resurrect the hellbeast. Dude comes back ten times bigger and badder, and destroys Asgard with Hela on it, who fights to the very bitter end because she derives most of her power from Asgard and doesn’t want to see it destroyed. The place is destroyed as Thor, Loki, Hulk, Valkyrie and the other Asgardians stand on the spaceship looking out to the destruction. Now, they must find a new home on earth. Norway, maybe?
What’s my grade? I give it a solid B+. OK, so one of the things that we have learned this year is that yes, there is such a thing as comic book movie/tv oversaturation. At least I’ve learned that. It comes when you start seeing plots constantly recycled and very seldom improved upon, rather than something new and inventive or innovative. If we’re being honest, FOX’s The Gifted TV show is quite the same as every other X-men film: mutants are hated for being different, they run, they get caught, they break free, they run some more, they eventually end up doing something heroic. But what is worse is that The Gifted is practically the same as ABC’s Marvel’s Inhumans which saw Inhumans (the non-copyright-infringing mutants of the MCU) be stripped of their cool costumes, run around in a world they don’t know but where they are hated for existing, get caught by some bad guys, get caught by some other bad Inhumans, break free, run some more, then eventually do some hero stuff. It’s practically the same plot, just with different powers. Again, The Gifted is/was better (Inhumans is off now) because it showed more use of powers even if we’ve seen those powers a thousand times. But the worst is when you just end one of your shows only to have a movie premiere which is a carbon copy of that failed show.
In Thor we have a kingdom in peril from a jilted sibling who thinks they should be the rightful heir to the throne and rule it all themselves. They somehow get the current ruling sibling off of the entire world, let alone out of the city. That hero sibling ends up in a strange land they don’t know where they are forced to fight semi-familiar enemies only for some of those enemies to become allies later. They must then depend on the kindness of some locals to help them escape back to their planet where they then must defeat their sibling only to realize that the place they hold so dear, the city they lived in their whole lives, is not actually all that important. To be a hero they must let it be destroyed and then migrate to earth.
I started that last paragraph by saying “In Thor” only because most fans actually watched that movie as opposed to Inhumans. The problem is that it is an exact carbon copy of the entire first season’s plot of Inhumans. Maximus, Black Bolt’s younger brother, tried to overthrow him. Maximus and a few other Inhumans of the royal family were cast down to earth (hell, they even had Gorgon, the black guy, as one of the royal guards. What is Valkyrie, the black woman, if not some aspect of a royal guard to Odin?) where Black Bolt ended up in a prison for a while. They are forced to fight some locals (Karnak and the drug farmers), forced to fight some old familiars (Maximus loyalists sent after them), manage to team up and get back to the moon, only to realize that it is time to let the city of Attlan be destroyed with Maximus inside while they all escape back to earth. It’s the same exact plot. THE. SAME. EXACT. PLOT! Hell, they didn’t even bother to change the names enough to at least start one city’s name with a different letter. Attlan? Asgard? One of these cities couldn’t start with a B?
Granted, I know, almost nobody watched Inhumans, but the fact that this show and the Thor movie came from the same studio and that this show, which is an ABC show, is supposed to be connected to the broader MCU (unlike the Netflix stuff) is troubling because it shows that either no one saw these similarities in story or they did and really didn’t care. If you have fatigue at an executive level, that’s when you know that saturation has set in and that apathy will soon follow.
As far as dislikes, I also didn’t like how Thor had almost no bite. It’s strange the way a lot of these films are made today. I remember going to the movies really down and depressed last year thinking, man, maybe I’ve gotten too old to enjoy movies anymore because none of them really give me that spark of magic where I feel it deeper than just the back of my eyeballs. The dialogue seems cheap and yadda, yadda, yadda. I was actually nearly ready to give up on most films and then I saw La La Land and I actually felt something again. Was it a new plot? Hell no. It’s as old and played as every other plot in Hollywood, but the way it was made had an effect on me, stayed with me, inspired me.
Here, while Thor was a really good movie, it was actually difficult to talk about the movie three hours after it. There weren’t these parts that really had me emotionally invested. Even as Odin died I didn’t quite get to that feeling of, “Oh man, this character that I’ve been seeing since, 2011 is finally going to be no more.” I saw another reviewer say it was a fun, wholly forgettable ride and that’s so true. For me, it was like Chinese takeout: good while you’re eating it but hardly fulfilling and memorable. In the end, even with the good acting, the mostly well-timed jokes and the serviceable plot not full of holes, it couldn’t push into that realm of greatness. I think this is partially because this movie had little expectations, and thus little buildup like, say, Wonder Woman, Black Panther or Spider-man: Homecoming do/did. It was easier to either love or hate those films and feel passion about the projects because of the long waits for them and debates and excitement that surrounded them. Here, I just had the feeling of, “Oh, yeah! That was pretty enjoyable.” Let’s see, uh... the directing was pretty good. With some of the scenes in the trailer like Valkyrie storming Hela, I thought it would look too polished and, thus, too comic bookish like the Justice League film looks, but I was pleasantly surprised that the film was filled with inhabitable environments rather than celluloid comic panels. Here’s a strange note: I actually really enjoyed the music. Outside of Immigrant Song (love that song), I thought the original music was actually good this time and, if not memorable, at least wasn’t as cookie-cutter as most of Marvel’s music is. Yes, some fans have argued that Marvel and the Avengers have great music but they either don’t have great taste in music or just don’t like music. Lift one track of the original score from any of the other movies (exception of Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America: Winter Soldier) and put it onto any of the other films and you’ll hardly be able to tell any difference. Each superhero, to me, should have his or her own unique music that is identifiable by ear. If you used some of this crunchy, video-game-esque music in the next Avengers film to herald Thor’s and/or Valkyrie’s arrival, you would make the scene two times better at least, I guarantee you. It fit perfectly with this film and with the character’s laughably strong video-game-esque invincibility.
Going forward, what do I predict? Hm? OK, now that we’ve covered most of the movie and revealed tons of spoilers, we can also talk about the fact that Thor no longer has both of his eyes. This could stick and we have the character look like a younger Odin for the rest of his time in the Avengers. Or it could be quickly healed by Dr. Strange once Thor gets back to earth. We know that the huge ship we saw in the first post-credits scene is actually Thanos’ ship, so we could be in for a huge opening battle scene between Thor and his posse, and Thanos and his goons, with an assist from the Guardians of the Galaxy in there somewhere. A big brawl is how both of the Avengers films have started so far.
Then there is the question of the hammer. Is it possible for Thor to get his hammer back? I think the better question is does he need a hammer? I think maybe he could get a new one on earth possibly from some spell by Dr. Strange or some forging of vibranium by Black Panther or Tony Stark, but who knows if he will do that or if the character will even be around long enough to do that. Remember, as contracts are ending for all of the first Avengers and all of their movie franchises have come to their trilogy conclusions, we could see some big deaths in Infinity War; in fact, I’m hoping for some big deaths. Ragnarok or “reset” could be alluding to more than just this one film but could spill over into Infinity War where the entire team is reset and Thor is dead. Also, we don’t now if Loki is actually good for... well, good, or if he will betray Thor yet again. We saw him stop and gaze at the tesseract briefly before he threw that skull/crown into the eternal flame. Does that mean he stole it? If he didn’t take it with him, then how would Thanos get it to complete his infinity gauntlet because Asgard is destroyed. And also, this is for those who have tried to watch as much Marvel MCU stuff as they could, but will we see the shows finally re-blend into the films? With Agents of SHIELD off-world for their next season, will we see remnants of Asgard or the beginnings of a fight between Thor and Thanos or the Guardians? What of the fact that we now have two peoples in the moon-Inhumans and the Asgardians now displaced and seeking home and asylum on earth? We know that Inhumans are part of the movies and not just the TV shows, so will there be some mention of them somewhere in Infinity War?
My prediction is that Infinity War will feature the death of Loki within the opening minutes of the film to bring his Avengers and Thor movie arcs all the way full circle. I also think that we’ll get a brief cameo appearance from Hela, goddess of death, only this time she may or may not be played by Cate Blanchett because I think she will come back as a skeletal being similar to the Mistress of Death’s design in the comics. That will be courtesy of her face having been burned off by Surtur during Asgard’s destruction. I think that somehow Thanos will use one of the stones to bring her back (he seemed to be near that general area of the galaxy because he ran into Thor’s ship so fast) but will only be able to bring her back to a certain extent, which is why she won’t have skin. Together, the two of them will be able to control dead superheroes and crush tons of enemies—as if Thanos wasn’t already enough. And I also think that Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD will finally join the movie team in some capacity and either make it back to earth at the same time as the Guardians and Thor, or help in the initial space battle with Thanos or something like that. I think this because the premiere date for the next season—December 1st—is such a strange time to premiere a season of something on a Friday unless they have some kind of timing element that needs to happen before Black Panther and/or Infinity War. Otherwise, why not just start the new season in the new year where you won’t get disruptions from holiday specials? Makes no sense unless they plan some kind of tie-in. And that especially goes for if one of the big three (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America) are to die in the film because I can’t see them getting rid of any of them without first letting Coulson fanboy over them again.
As far as the character melee goes, I think that there will be even more characters in Infinity War than we expect and that are listed on the cast sheet. So, who from Thor’s film do you expect to be in Infinity War? Because they did see Thanos’ ship right there at the end, it does make me think there’s going to be a little bit of a slaughter of some characters that we maybe just started to love. But I also find it an interesting concept to have Valkyrie and Heimdall make it to earth and end up in Wakanda in the next Black Panther film. Both are warriors and seem like they would fit well into that society. Granted, I haven’t seen the film yet, but from the trailers it looks like they could fit.
Should you go see it? Yes. I mean... if you’re over the entire comic book movies-thing, then don’t go see it. And if you’re only a DC fan, then I guess you shouldn’t see this. But know that I am not a super fanboy for either (although, I’ve always dreamed of writing a Justice League/Superfriends movie and am hugely disappointed by the entirety of the DCEU) but I think that this is an outright good movie regardless of its comic book source material. It’s good. Go see it.
What do you think? Have you seen Thor: Ragnarok? If you haven’t, are you planning on seeing it? If you have, did you like it as the end of a trilogy? What do you expect from Infinity War? Do you have comic book movie fatigue yet, or no? Were you satisfied with the rendition of Planet Hulk they did, or do you still want more? And which characters from this film would you like to see stay around longer in the MCU in some capacity? Let me know in the comments below.
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. #AhStalkingIf you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.Until next time, “I’m not gonna say that I’m winning, I’m just saying that if we were keeping score and handing out trophies, I’d get the big gold one and you’d get the participation trophy.”
P.S. Yes, I have made plenty of scathing reviews about DCEU films but I’m honestly not trying to hate. I grew up watching and reading DC comics and cartoons that have filled our airwaves back since TV became popular. I hate this whole taking sides thing. I’m not diehard Marvel and actually didn’t like either of the Avengers films, but like the individual hero movies. As films, most of the DC films are not that good. But even more to the point, I feel like the one that was good was overrated in Wonder Woman. I guess it comes down to what you want out of a comic book film. Everyone throws around the word fun, but how about we have it be more than just fun? Because fun doesn’t always translated to good. To me Return of the Living Dead is fun, but that doesn’t make it good. So I hope that Justice League will be both fun and good even if it doesn’t rise to the level I know it could be. I want to write a Superman and Justice League trilogy so bad that maybe a little of that sorrow that I haven’t done it yet is spilling into my reviews, but still, these films can be better. Let’s hope I’m wrong on my previous predictions.
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November 3, 2017
This Has Not Been Marvel’s Year #Inhumans #3weekroundup #recap #review #ABC
This Has Not Been Marvel’s Year #Inhumans #3weekroundup #recap #review #ABC
All pictures courtesy of ABC and Marvel
Let me start this review by saying that I haven’t seen Logan still to this day, so don’t lump that movie in with the title of this article. This is mainly focused on Marvel Studios properties as produced or co-produced by Disney. Having already covered my disdain for this summer’s Spider-man: Homecoming and contented disappointment in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (it was OK, but could’ve been better), I now turn to TV. As noted earlier, I didn’t see The Defenders and didn’t particularly care to. I don’t have Netflix and only occasionally catch some of their shows on Youtube. That leaves me with the network shows. And while I have yet to see The Gifted (again, that would count more as FOX studios for me rather than Marvel), I have seen the first few episodes of Inhumans. So, has Marvel transformed what could’ve been a theatrical blockbuster into a serialized mega-hit, or is this show begging for Marvel to do the humane thing and put it out of its misery? Let’s find out together.
Before I begin, I should warn readers going forward that I actually enjoyed ABC’s Agent Carter that followed Peggy. You should be able to find a review of it somewhere on this blog. Was it great? Heck no. I thought it had a rather rocky start but that it got its footing about halfway through the first season and delivered a pretty good second season that linked well into the films. I should also say that I’ve been a day-one fan of Agents of SHIELD even when Marvel fans hated on it and even before Captain America: Winter Soldier switched the game up, which I still hope will happen again with this next Thor or with the Black Panther film. Yes, I’ve liked what I’ve seen of Daredevil as well, so you know where my baseline for fandom is. With all of that said, this Inhumans show is worse than that first cake that your boyfriend tried to make you on that one birthday you had where he was trying to go above and beyond to impress you knowing damn well he can’t cook for nothin’. Yer garbage, Inhumans! Gah-bage!
Left to Right: Gorgon, Karnak, Black Bolt, Medusa, Crystal, Maximus the human
Inhumans follows the boring exploits of the titular race of people. Inhumans, as explained in Agents of SHIELD, are humans who have undergone a transformation after having been exposed to Terrigen crystal mist. Think mutants but with an alien twist. And to think that I was actually worried about this show when I started plotting my Extraordinary episodic serial novel (out now). Anyway, like mutants (which we all know Marvel can’t have because they sold all of them to FOX), Inhumans are hated beings that are hunted down, captured and often jailed or killed. The world is not really ready for them but they are in it regardless. Only in the show Inhumans do we learn that these types of people have existed for years, eons. Currently, to avoid all of the harshness on earth, the Inhumans live in an old-school monarchy kingdom on the moon, beneath an invisible dome. They live in a city that is divided into a strange caste system that almost seems to exist for no reason save but to create needless drama. In the comics I thought that they lived on a floating, invisible island above New York, but I haven’t actually read the comics.
The city, as said, is ruled by an archaic form of monarchy in which there is a royal family and no kind of parliament. There is a king and queen. The king is Black Bolt, played by Anson Mount. Throughout the first episode (which is smashed together with the second episode to make them movie-length. More on that later) we see Black Bolt using his hands to speak. At first, without knowing much about the character, one might think he was deaf or dumb (couldn’t speak). We later find out that he is actually imbued with such great power that simply by speaking he can launch cars, destroy people and even wipe away entire cities with the booming sound of his voice. This, I suppose, is why they call him Black Bolt, though, I would’ve expected his powers to be more thunderous than just sound, but I digress. Let me also say here that from what I’ve heard on the show so far, no one has a legit name AND a superhero name. For instance, Black Bolt isn’t his work name like Spider-man or Iron Man. It’s his actual name, or at least what everyone calls him. Just keep that in mind as we walk through the characters.
Next, we have his wife and queen Medusa played by Serinda Swan. Medusa, as one could guess, is Marvel’s play on the mythical she-devil of the same name that was said to be able to turn a man to stone simply by him looking straight on at her face or, in some twists of the story, directly into her eyes. While she doesn’t have that power here, she does have another intersecting aspect of the Greek myth’s powers: sentient hair. The mythical Medusa was said to have a thicket of snakes for her hair, where as Inhumans’ Medusa has long red hair that she can control and use as snakes. We see this in her introductory scene with Black Bolt. As they are making love, he reaches for his communicator only for her hair to restrain him and keep him bed-pinned. Similar to the Bible’s Samson, in her hair lies all of her strength. Here’s a funny factoid: the actress Serinda Swan who plays Medusa was also in the Percy Jackson film series where she played the role of Aphrodite, but only after auditioning for the role of Medusa.
Keeping this going, we next have Maximus played by Game of Thrones alum Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton). He is the younger brother of Black Bolt and thus a member of the royal family. But the most interesting thing about him is that he is human. Apparently, as we learn in the melded-together first and second episode, when he was introduced to the terrigen crystals as is every person in the moon kingdom, while it gave his brother immense power, it changed his Inhuman genetics to make him perfectly human. Yes, he is bitter about it. Yes, he is our heel.
Then we have Crystal. Crystal rounds out the royal family as she technically qualifies by proxy. She is the sister of Medusa. While Black Bolt and Maximus were born into the royal family, Medusa and Crystal, as we learn in episode three were born into what can only be assumed as a noble family that tried to revolt against the royal family and the system under which the kingdom operates. We’ll talk about the system in a bit, but let me round out the cast.
Crystal has a massive dog named Lockjaw and even he is inhuman—er, I mean in-dog-an? Anyway, this huge bear-dog of a thing (he’s a really big dog. Think four Donald Trumps all smashed together except a lot cuter) has the ability to teleport to anywhere in the galaxy I’m guessing as he easily goes between earth and the moon. All he needs are the instructions. The one problem is that his teleporting skills are not an exact science. Either that or the instructions given to him aren’t specific enough for him to properly understand. But in the end, he’s a good boy. He’s a very good boy.
We round out the main cast with Gorgon played by Eme Ikwaukor. Our black guy of the group, he is half man, half minotaur or centaur. The point is that he has hooves and is part of the royal guard and is the distant cousin of the royals. Then we have Karnak played by Ken Leung, our Asian guy. He seems to be council to the king and queen. His power, as I understand it, is that he can either rewind time or rehearse a scenario completely in his head and course-correct to get the best outcome before he ever makes a move. Or something in-between that. If you’ve ever seen the Nicolas Cage film NEXT where he can see the future, think of him in that sense. And finally we have Auron who seems to be the personal... guard or maybe just a minion/henchwoman of Maximus. She can fight but I can’t remember what her Inhuman power was. It’s inconsequential for the first three episodes.
So, we start out by witnessing an Inhuman on earth being tracked down by a group of what looks like black-ops military men. We first assume that this is one of the many government bodies tracking down Inhumans. The Inhuman girl is young and she runs into an older man who is also inhuman and looks like a green alien. He tells her that there is a place for her and that she isn’t a freak like she thinks and tries to save her. But before they can escape the black ops team shoots her and shoots the Inhuman guy too. Next, we jump up to the moon city and see that some private tech company has rovers up there to map out the surface so that they can build things like a hotel and whatnot up there. As they are mapping it out, the rover-drone hits against the invisible force field that hides the city from prying eyes. Before the drone pilot can explore this phenomenon further, a hoof stomps the drone.
We then jump to the King and Queen in counsel with Karnak who is talking about the drone. Gorgon defends his decision to kill-stomp the drone and Maximus is all gung-ho on this idea that they need to go and invade the earth before the earth invades them. Black Bolt keeps his calm as always and allows for Medusa to speak for him when she says that they must do nothing for now. Revealing themselves will only cause harm.
Anyway, they must all go to what I called a Misting Ceremony which every person in the city must go through at some point in time. This is where, as teenagers, people are exposed to the terrigen mist and their powers are revealed. From what I can see, usually teen siblings do it together, meaning that there’s no set age where everyone does it. Apparently the entire royal court must be there to witness every one of these ceremonies because they have to run and get Crystal as she stands out in the city looking at boys and playing with Lockjaw.
We see a brother and sister enter this terrigen chamber and breathe in the crystals’ mist. While the girl becomes a flier with butterfly wings, the boy comes out and looks no different. It is not until Maximus touches him that he feels a power course through him. He sees some kind of imaginative vision of Maximus’ future. The strange thing about this scene is that the boy tells Maximus in front of everyone that Max will be pinned by snakes and whatnot, yet no one reacts to this as maybe being some kind of mental power. You would think that Karnak, who, arguably has a mental power that wouldn’t have been perceptible to the outside onlooker at first, would have said something about this, but it is almost as if no one else hears him. Again, it just stuck out as strange to me.
Moving on, we finally get to this caste system in which they live. There seem to be three levels of hierarchy here: the royals, the middle or noble class and the bottom dwellers. The noble or middle class have powers that are elegant and or extremely useful. Flight is a noble class power, for instance. Well, the lower class seem to have powers that are not that elegant or are hard to define or find a use for. Strength seems to be a lower-class power as it is only good for one thing. Speaking of that one thing, the lower class is made to work in some sort of moon mine. What is in the mine? Why do they have a mine? What the heck are they mining? Why does everyone in the lower class have to work there? These are all good questions, none of which are answered by the show within the first three episodes. But what we know is that while the butterfly-winged girl gets to stay with her parents in the middle class, her brother who hasn’t been seen to have powers by anyone save Maximus, is sent to work in the mines. There is some talk about how Maximus himself should be in the mines as he is a mere mortal but he turns this objection into a cry for revolution. Supposedly, they have this rigid caste system because of how limited their moon resources are. This forces them to put people in their place and ration out what little they have to those who can actually use it. Frankly, I didn’t fully get this part, but I will save that criticism until the end.
Moving on, we now know that Maximus wants to rule over the kingdom so that he can move all of their people back to earth where they left from thousands of years ago. The assumption is that he wants to rule there too.
Shortly after the misting ceremony, the royal court learns of the disappearance of the green Inhuman guy from the beginning. As it turns out, the guy was sent on a secret mission to retrieve the girl and hasn’t been in contact with the person who sent him since. So, Black Bolt and Medusa decide to send Gorgon down there to hopefully find the missing Inhuman and the girl. Crystal gets Lockjaw to take him down to the Hawaiian island on which the girl was lost, but it doesn’t appear to be the exact same island but another one of the smaller islands that is unmarked.
As soon as the head of the royal guard is gone, all hell breaks loose. Here, I again must note that the first two episodes of this were smushed together to make one long two-hour premiere so I can’t fully divide them from each other quite like you might want. So just follow me here until we get to episode three.
So, with the royal guard gone we soon learn that Maximus is a sneaky, conniving little fella. For starters, he, Black Bolt and Medusa have all known each other since they were children with her parents being high-order nobles and all. As it turns out, he and Medusa used to get into some trouble and he formed an undying crush on her. But after Black Bolt received his power and would never talk again, the would-be king was put into a room of solitary and told by his parents that he must both deal with his newfound power/handicap while also ruling as king—his brother Maximus could never rule because he was no longer Inhuman. Well, all of this pressure got to him which made him ask but one question to his parents as they stood in front of him: “Why?” The very ask disintegrated his parents in front of him, making him the instant king at a very young age. It was for this reason that Medusa felt pity for him and snuck away into his cell of a room to start their romance that would continue on into adulthood, leaving Maximus behind.
Well, Maximus brings up a what-if scenario that implies he is plotting to become king but maintain the same queen, and Medusa uses her “snake” hair to pin him to the wall, just as the boy saw in his vision when Maximus touched him. Now only Maximus knows of the boy’s true foresight powers. He goes back to him to ask a few more questions and the boy basically ensures him that his evil plan to take over the kingdom will go well. And so it begins.
We learn that Maximus was the one who hired those black ops guys to go and kill the girl and the Inhuman who was trying to save her. He did this on purpose knowing that Gorgon would have to leave the palace to go off-world, which would leave the royal court open for attack. He has his men, led by Auron, swarm the palace and take out the royal court one by one, but of course they fight back as best they can. He embarrasses Medusa by chopping off all of her hair in a reverse Samson and Delilah, sends his men to kill and be beat down by Karnak who replays every scenario over and over until he can win the fight, and even goes to get Black Bolt to surrender and bow to him as the new king, thinking that the man couldn’t possibly speak or attack him because the guilt of killing both parents and then his brother would weigh on him too great. But the crazy part is that as this takeover is happening, Crystal gets word that Maximus is a traitor and hops into quick action. She orders lockjaw to find all of the royal members and transport them to “the same place as Gorgon.” Remember, however, that Lockjaw isn’t that great at this or those instructions are too vague, so he finds each person and transports them somewhere slightly different. Karnak ends up at the top of a jungle mountain; Medusa ends up in the middle of a huge crater; and Black Bolt, on the brink of parting his lips to say something and destroy his brother, is taken to the middle of a city (Oahu) in the middle of a street full of traffic. Lockjaw, having never seen such busyness and honking and calamity from the traffic gets cutely anxious and teleports back to the moon in a panic, leaving his king to survive on his own.
Before Lockjaw can get to Crystal, Maximus has already found her and is ready to attack. The dog arrives and while she is giving it instructions, Auron comes and zaps the dog unconscious. Not only is the royal court all dispersed across Oahu and its surrounding isles, but they currently have no way of getting back to each other and very little way of communicating to each other. And only at the end of episode two do you realize that this is probably not the show that you were anticipating.
This sentiment is cemented even more on episode three. See at the end of episode two we see Karnak fall off of the cliff while climbing down, resulting in a bad hit to the head. On episode three he realizes that he no longer has his powers like he usually does. They’re probably not gone forever, but he cannot see how a situation will unfold and correct it to his advantage every time. He haphazardly wanders onto a secret jungle plantation of marijuana, which isn’t all that bad in and of itself but when the workers there hold him at gunpoint, he can’t defeat them.
Meanwhile, as Karnak is imprisoned in the jungle drug cartel, Black Bolt tries to fit into his environment to keep clandestine. He goes to a store and gets a suit and tie but walks out without paying as he has no concept of such an idea of cash-money or credit. He lets out a tiny yelp when the police pursue him and sends a squad car tumbling through the air with gusto. Jail for you my friend, although it looks a lot more like prison, but I digress. Anyway, far away there is some scientist guy who knows of the Inhuman stronghold on the moon and seeks to protect Black Bolt, so he contracts an inmate to help break the man out of prison. Yes, this man is also an Inhuman but I’m not sure the guards knew that.
Gorgon is still on the island and has learned of the treachery of Maximus. Armed with a locator beacon and communicator that links back to the moon city, he tells Maximus that he is going to leave his communicator/locator on for the traitor and his minions to come and find him. He wants the fight so he can end it all now. Well, Max only half takes the bait by sending Auron instead of going himself.
Upon her arrival on earth Auron first runs into Medusa who, though she doesn’t have her hair powers anymore, is still a fierce ass kicker. She stabs Auron and leaves her to die. Here, it was unclear for me if Auron actually did die or not but she gets up after a few hours of laying on top of a car hood, and heals herself. I’m not sure that is her power, though. She calls back to Maximus and says that she needs help so he sends this really evil big-bad who is supposedly so vile that they have him locked away in a solitary prison behind a thick wall up in the moon city. His name is Mordis and he looks like he’s wearing a toned-down version of that iron mask Leo DiCaprio wore in that movie where he played a Man in an Iron Mask. Gosh, what was that movie called? Hmm? Don’t know. Mordis, to boot, is not scary nor intimidating and plays more like the most disappointing, comical parts of Ultron in that Avengers 2 movie, or some comedic interpretation of classic villains in a Robot Chicken skit. It’s rather sad, frankly.
So Gorgon, who can’t swim, is rescued from the water by these surfers (this happened in episode 2 but I didn’t mention it because it didn’t feel necessary at the time) who now want to help him fight whatever force is supposedly coming for him. Well, he warns that they could die but they’re like, whatever, dude. Auron, Mordis and a crew of other red-shirt nobodies come to fight Gorgon and the surfers. A few get their butts kicked, one chick with cool gardening powers (totally want those) makes trees do her bidding and Gorgon decides to flee with the surfers because they are outmatched. But dude, you were all big and bad not turning your locator beacon off.
Meanwhile, Medusa was able to contact Bolt and listen to his heartbeat to know he was safe and still alive (this was before he got arrested). Now, she is on a Kill Bill-esque journey to find him. She sneaks into some rich person’s home and Goldilocks-es about trying on their clothes, eating their food and all sorts of stuff. When she leaves she hops on different buses and public transportation, sees a story about a guy who is a suspected Inhuman who did some stuff to some police cars, and somehow finds the jail and is there to rescue him when Black Bolt and the other guy break out of the jail and fly off in a helicopter. As luck would have it, that drone pilot from the first episode is trying to investigate what happened to the drone and has somehow been led to the prison also. Medusa kidnaps her and tells her to follow that copter.
Back on the moon, Maximus is trying to make moves to either get Crystal to be his queen instead of Medusa or get her to support him in front of the high council to take over the throne as king. Or both. One thing is for sure: he has lied to the people about Medusa and Black Bolt abandoning them. He’s doing everything he can to sully the royal court’s name. But he needs the high council to assume full power and push for this move down to earth. Crystal won’t do it but he keeps working on her, tepidly seducing her by reminding her how her parents rebelled against the kingdom for this very reason and how combining their powers can only help the people. She’s young but smart and does what she must to keep everything from imploding.
What’s my grade? I give it a D. Look, there are so many things that are wrong with this show that it’s hard for me to pinpoint one thing that doesn’t work. For starters, I hate the fact that for whatever reason ABC, Disney and Marvel all believed that this show was good enough to merit a theatrical release of its first two episodes. When I heard they were doing that, I actually got excited, especially considering that this is a limited series that is, I believe, only supposed to have eight episodes. To me, I thought, “Wow, they can spend a good grip of money on each episode to make it absolutely amazing.” Wrong! If you’re going to release the first two episodes of a show as a movie, then make sure that it sorta plays like a movie. Even ignoring the so-so costume work, the uninspired acting and the TV-focused cinematography, the plot itself played more like a television show with little direction. The first two episodes didn’t even have a proper climax. I know that it is a show, but still, it would be better to focus on writing the show as a film than to have it flounder in both aspects.
Going back to the acting, I just don’t know what went wrong. With the exception of the black guy who plays Gorgon, I’ve seen all of the main characters in other stuff where they were much better. I’ve been a fan of Anson Mount ever since I saw that Jason Statham film Safe, which a lot of people didn’t like but I thoroughly enjoyed. I think he’s good. Yet, here, with the absence of dialogue for him to speak, he is no more interesting than a mannequin. No, this is not a criticism of the character and I’m not asking for them to give him more lines, I’m asking for them to better direct him in expressing the character’s underlying emotion. I remember watching the movie Quiet starring Camilla Belle as a girl who doesn’t speak, thinking, “Wow! She’s amazing.” Granted, I was already crushing pretty hard on Belle at the time but still. She brought a certain charm and characterization to the silence of the character that didn’t require her to speak for you to feel. Here, Mount often wears only one look on his face the entire time: “Son, we need to talk.” Even during the opening love scene, I kept thinking that he needed to sit his teenage son down for a talk about responsibility, and how driving is a privilege and how he better not get one of those loose Bronte girls pregnant. Its so stern all the time that it is bordering on satirical. Show us pain, anguish, love, hate, something other than sternness.
Medusa is pretty good and oozes both sex appeal and intelligence, especially because she is the mouthpiece of the king. She seems most capable, oddly enough, even over Karnak. Speaking of, Ken Leung had a great gig on The Night Shift and I don’t know whose idea it was for him to part from that show but I wish he was still on there (Edit: that show has recently been canceled). While he is doing a decent job here, he could be doing so much better. I’ve seen his better. The Crystal character is OK as a young, teenage princess who must hold her own against the would-be usurper but she is certainly no Sansa Stark. Speaking of, Mr. Ramsay Bolton himself Maximus is also just OK here. It is as if the directors told Iwan to be a toned-down version of Bolton. You know, the one that they can show on broadcast network TV. With the plot similarities between his yearning for power, holding a young queen/princess hostage and forcing her and her people to bend to his will, it might’ve been a better idea to have him playing in a different role so as not to draw any comparisons. Here, he just doesn’t quite seem evil enough.
What’s worse about Maximus, and this speaks to the plot, is that the way this show is written and the brief exploration of the caste system makes it feel an awful lot like he’s technically right. For me, someone who hasn’t read the comics and doesn’t want to bother to do all the research like I have for other comic book characters, the caste system makes little sense when paired with the mines and whatnot, and their refusal to move to earth even after the Inhumans have long been a part of the earthly society. Yes, I know, if you’re only watching the movies you might not have realized this, but on Agents of SHIELD one of their main cast members is an Inhuman and has been since season two. Why the heck are they still up there on the moon and for god’s sake, what the hell are they mining?
Finally, my last big complaint is geared around how the show was packaged and sold as opposed to what it actually is. Again, as someone who wasn’t a fan of the comics, I didn’t get all of the hate for the costumes at the time of the poster coming out. I thought that they looked alright for TV and that their looks sorta fit into a real-world representation or at least into the MCU representation of characters. But now having watched the show, I find a completely different complaint cropping up which only now piggybacks off the costume complaint and that is that these don’t seem to be Inhumans. Think about this, at the end of the two-hour season premiere we have the coolest character in Lockjaw unconscious, we have Black Bolt unable to ever really use his powers for fear of decimating the entirety of the moon city, we have Medusa no longer with her hair powers (is she really even Medusa now?), we have Karnak unable to use his fix-o-dent powers, Gorgon is trapped on a small secluded island, and we have yet to see what Crystal’s powers are. Between Yo-Yo, Quake and her last boyfriend when he was still alive and on the show, we’ve gotten far more Inhumans using superpowers on Agents of SHIELD than we get on this show. Really only the bad guys have the powers. So this basically is a bunch of regular people running from some superpowered ones, which is not a bad twist on the genre but is hardly done well enough to make any statement.
In the end, the costume complaints are fairly unwarranted too because not only do they abandon their powers but they also abandon their costumes. Sure, Gorgon and Karnak are still in their get-ups but I’m sure that the latter is going to change into something more human-like within the coming episode. He’ll be wearing a breezy Hawaiian tee in no time (Note: He did change into a bohemian chic style).
Should you be watching? No, not unless you’re a die-hard comic book fan and/or you have eight to ten hours of your life to kill. Look, I wanted this to be good because I wanted another series that could crossover and complement Agents of SHIELD, and that could tie into the movies in a big way. Hell, we’re going off world for the next Thor and the next season of SHIELD, it only makes since to see Inhumans as a stepping stone for both of those things or to maybe see them show up in Black Panther or reference those events somehow. Give us another Winter Soldier twist for all of the properties. But no. This is simply not worthy of any of that. It needs to be completely retooled, maybe recast and definitely written and directed by others. Give it a bigger budget or just release a film version like originally planned, because this is going nowhere fast.
What do you think? Have you heard of Marvel’s Inhumans? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll watch now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Do you like it? Where do you think it could improve or is it doing a great job at interpreting these characters. And do you know what the hell they’re mining for on the moon? And how cool is Lockjaw? Let me know in the comments below.
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. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.
Until next time, “We’ve got to stop these disgusting mutants and—” ‘Uh, no-no! They’re Inhumans. Inhumans, sir.’ “What? They’re not mutants?” ‘No. We couldn’t get the copyright license back.’
P.S. This seems to be the season of the copy because, for some reason, it looks like every new show has a doppelganger that is either another new show on another network or is a returning show. I sure do hope that FOX’s The Gifted isn’t just a mutants on the run show like Inhumans pretty much is. I’ll try to come up with a better, more original sign-off next time, but no promises.
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Let me start this review by saying that I haven’t seen Logan still to this day, so don’t lump that movie in with the title of this article. This is mainly focused on Marvel Studios properties as produced or co-produced by Disney. Having already covered my disdain for this summer’s Spider-man: Homecoming and contented disappointment in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (it was OK, but could’ve been better), I now turn to TV. As noted earlier, I didn’t see The Defenders and didn’t particularly care to. I don’t have Netflix and only occasionally catch some of their shows on Youtube. That leaves me with the network shows. And while I have yet to see The Gifted (again, that would count more as FOX studios for me rather than Marvel), I have seen the first few episodes of Inhumans. So, has Marvel transformed what could’ve been a theatrical blockbuster into a serialized mega-hit, or is this show begging for Marvel to do the humane thing and put it out of its misery? Let’s find out together.
Before I begin, I should warn readers going forward that I actually enjoyed ABC’s Agent Carter that followed Peggy. You should be able to find a review of it somewhere on this blog. Was it great? Heck no. I thought it had a rather rocky start but that it got its footing about halfway through the first season and delivered a pretty good second season that linked well into the films. I should also say that I’ve been a day-one fan of Agents of SHIELD even when Marvel fans hated on it and even before Captain America: Winter Soldier switched the game up, which I still hope will happen again with this next Thor or with the Black Panther film. Yes, I’ve liked what I’ve seen of Daredevil as well, so you know where my baseline for fandom is. With all of that said, this Inhumans show is worse than that first cake that your boyfriend tried to make you on that one birthday you had where he was trying to go above and beyond to impress you knowing damn well he can’t cook for nothin’. Yer garbage, Inhumans! Gah-bage!
Left to Right: Gorgon, Karnak, Black Bolt, Medusa, Crystal, Maximus the humanInhumans follows the boring exploits of the titular race of people. Inhumans, as explained in Agents of SHIELD, are humans who have undergone a transformation after having been exposed to Terrigen crystal mist. Think mutants but with an alien twist. And to think that I was actually worried about this show when I started plotting my Extraordinary episodic serial novel (out now). Anyway, like mutants (which we all know Marvel can’t have because they sold all of them to FOX), Inhumans are hated beings that are hunted down, captured and often jailed or killed. The world is not really ready for them but they are in it regardless. Only in the show Inhumans do we learn that these types of people have existed for years, eons. Currently, to avoid all of the harshness on earth, the Inhumans live in an old-school monarchy kingdom on the moon, beneath an invisible dome. They live in a city that is divided into a strange caste system that almost seems to exist for no reason save but to create needless drama. In the comics I thought that they lived on a floating, invisible island above New York, but I haven’t actually read the comics.
The city, as said, is ruled by an archaic form of monarchy in which there is a royal family and no kind of parliament. There is a king and queen. The king is Black Bolt, played by Anson Mount. Throughout the first episode (which is smashed together with the second episode to make them movie-length. More on that later) we see Black Bolt using his hands to speak. At first, without knowing much about the character, one might think he was deaf or dumb (couldn’t speak). We later find out that he is actually imbued with such great power that simply by speaking he can launch cars, destroy people and even wipe away entire cities with the booming sound of his voice. This, I suppose, is why they call him Black Bolt, though, I would’ve expected his powers to be more thunderous than just sound, but I digress. Let me also say here that from what I’ve heard on the show so far, no one has a legit name AND a superhero name. For instance, Black Bolt isn’t his work name like Spider-man or Iron Man. It’s his actual name, or at least what everyone calls him. Just keep that in mind as we walk through the characters.
Next, we have his wife and queen Medusa played by Serinda Swan. Medusa, as one could guess, is Marvel’s play on the mythical she-devil of the same name that was said to be able to turn a man to stone simply by him looking straight on at her face or, in some twists of the story, directly into her eyes. While she doesn’t have that power here, she does have another intersecting aspect of the Greek myth’s powers: sentient hair. The mythical Medusa was said to have a thicket of snakes for her hair, where as Inhumans’ Medusa has long red hair that she can control and use as snakes. We see this in her introductory scene with Black Bolt. As they are making love, he reaches for his communicator only for her hair to restrain him and keep him bed-pinned. Similar to the Bible’s Samson, in her hair lies all of her strength. Here’s a funny factoid: the actress Serinda Swan who plays Medusa was also in the Percy Jackson film series where she played the role of Aphrodite, but only after auditioning for the role of Medusa. Keeping this going, we next have Maximus played by Game of Thrones alum Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton). He is the younger brother of Black Bolt and thus a member of the royal family. But the most interesting thing about him is that he is human. Apparently, as we learn in the melded-together first and second episode, when he was introduced to the terrigen crystals as is every person in the moon kingdom, while it gave his brother immense power, it changed his Inhuman genetics to make him perfectly human. Yes, he is bitter about it. Yes, he is our heel.
Then we have Crystal. Crystal rounds out the royal family as she technically qualifies by proxy. She is the sister of Medusa. While Black Bolt and Maximus were born into the royal family, Medusa and Crystal, as we learn in episode three were born into what can only be assumed as a noble family that tried to revolt against the royal family and the system under which the kingdom operates. We’ll talk about the system in a bit, but let me round out the cast.
Crystal has a massive dog named Lockjaw and even he is inhuman—er, I mean in-dog-an? Anyway, this huge bear-dog of a thing (he’s a really big dog. Think four Donald Trumps all smashed together except a lot cuter) has the ability to teleport to anywhere in the galaxy I’m guessing as he easily goes between earth and the moon. All he needs are the instructions. The one problem is that his teleporting skills are not an exact science. Either that or the instructions given to him aren’t specific enough for him to properly understand. But in the end, he’s a good boy. He’s a very good boy. We round out the main cast with Gorgon played by Eme Ikwaukor. Our black guy of the group, he is half man, half minotaur or centaur. The point is that he has hooves and is part of the royal guard and is the distant cousin of the royals. Then we have Karnak played by Ken Leung, our Asian guy. He seems to be council to the king and queen. His power, as I understand it, is that he can either rewind time or rehearse a scenario completely in his head and course-correct to get the best outcome before he ever makes a move. Or something in-between that. If you’ve ever seen the Nicolas Cage film NEXT where he can see the future, think of him in that sense. And finally we have Auron who seems to be the personal... guard or maybe just a minion/henchwoman of Maximus. She can fight but I can’t remember what her Inhuman power was. It’s inconsequential for the first three episodes.
So, we start out by witnessing an Inhuman on earth being tracked down by a group of what looks like black-ops military men. We first assume that this is one of the many government bodies tracking down Inhumans. The Inhuman girl is young and she runs into an older man who is also inhuman and looks like a green alien. He tells her that there is a place for her and that she isn’t a freak like she thinks and tries to save her. But before they can escape the black ops team shoots her and shoots the Inhuman guy too. Next, we jump up to the moon city and see that some private tech company has rovers up there to map out the surface so that they can build things like a hotel and whatnot up there. As they are mapping it out, the rover-drone hits against the invisible force field that hides the city from prying eyes. Before the drone pilot can explore this phenomenon further, a hoof stomps the drone.
We then jump to the King and Queen in counsel with Karnak who is talking about the drone. Gorgon defends his decision to kill-stomp the drone and Maximus is all gung-ho on this idea that they need to go and invade the earth before the earth invades them. Black Bolt keeps his calm as always and allows for Medusa to speak for him when she says that they must do nothing for now. Revealing themselves will only cause harm.
Anyway, they must all go to what I called a Misting Ceremony which every person in the city must go through at some point in time. This is where, as teenagers, people are exposed to the terrigen mist and their powers are revealed. From what I can see, usually teen siblings do it together, meaning that there’s no set age where everyone does it. Apparently the entire royal court must be there to witness every one of these ceremonies because they have to run and get Crystal as she stands out in the city looking at boys and playing with Lockjaw.
We see a brother and sister enter this terrigen chamber and breathe in the crystals’ mist. While the girl becomes a flier with butterfly wings, the boy comes out and looks no different. It is not until Maximus touches him that he feels a power course through him. He sees some kind of imaginative vision of Maximus’ future. The strange thing about this scene is that the boy tells Maximus in front of everyone that Max will be pinned by snakes and whatnot, yet no one reacts to this as maybe being some kind of mental power. You would think that Karnak, who, arguably has a mental power that wouldn’t have been perceptible to the outside onlooker at first, would have said something about this, but it is almost as if no one else hears him. Again, it just stuck out as strange to me.
Moving on, we finally get to this caste system in which they live. There seem to be three levels of hierarchy here: the royals, the middle or noble class and the bottom dwellers. The noble or middle class have powers that are elegant and or extremely useful. Flight is a noble class power, for instance. Well, the lower class seem to have powers that are not that elegant or are hard to define or find a use for. Strength seems to be a lower-class power as it is only good for one thing. Speaking of that one thing, the lower class is made to work in some sort of moon mine. What is in the mine? Why do they have a mine? What the heck are they mining? Why does everyone in the lower class have to work there? These are all good questions, none of which are answered by the show within the first three episodes. But what we know is that while the butterfly-winged girl gets to stay with her parents in the middle class, her brother who hasn’t been seen to have powers by anyone save Maximus, is sent to work in the mines. There is some talk about how Maximus himself should be in the mines as he is a mere mortal but he turns this objection into a cry for revolution. Supposedly, they have this rigid caste system because of how limited their moon resources are. This forces them to put people in their place and ration out what little they have to those who can actually use it. Frankly, I didn’t fully get this part, but I will save that criticism until the end.
Moving on, we now know that Maximus wants to rule over the kingdom so that he can move all of their people back to earth where they left from thousands of years ago. The assumption is that he wants to rule there too.
Shortly after the misting ceremony, the royal court learns of the disappearance of the green Inhuman guy from the beginning. As it turns out, the guy was sent on a secret mission to retrieve the girl and hasn’t been in contact with the person who sent him since. So, Black Bolt and Medusa decide to send Gorgon down there to hopefully find the missing Inhuman and the girl. Crystal gets Lockjaw to take him down to the Hawaiian island on which the girl was lost, but it doesn’t appear to be the exact same island but another one of the smaller islands that is unmarked.
As soon as the head of the royal guard is gone, all hell breaks loose. Here, I again must note that the first two episodes of this were smushed together to make one long two-hour premiere so I can’t fully divide them from each other quite like you might want. So just follow me here until we get to episode three.
So, with the royal guard gone we soon learn that Maximus is a sneaky, conniving little fella. For starters, he, Black Bolt and Medusa have all known each other since they were children with her parents being high-order nobles and all. As it turns out, he and Medusa used to get into some trouble and he formed an undying crush on her. But after Black Bolt received his power and would never talk again, the would-be king was put into a room of solitary and told by his parents that he must both deal with his newfound power/handicap while also ruling as king—his brother Maximus could never rule because he was no longer Inhuman. Well, all of this pressure got to him which made him ask but one question to his parents as they stood in front of him: “Why?” The very ask disintegrated his parents in front of him, making him the instant king at a very young age. It was for this reason that Medusa felt pity for him and snuck away into his cell of a room to start their romance that would continue on into adulthood, leaving Maximus behind.
Well, Maximus brings up a what-if scenario that implies he is plotting to become king but maintain the same queen, and Medusa uses her “snake” hair to pin him to the wall, just as the boy saw in his vision when Maximus touched him. Now only Maximus knows of the boy’s true foresight powers. He goes back to him to ask a few more questions and the boy basically ensures him that his evil plan to take over the kingdom will go well. And so it begins.
We learn that Maximus was the one who hired those black ops guys to go and kill the girl and the Inhuman who was trying to save her. He did this on purpose knowing that Gorgon would have to leave the palace to go off-world, which would leave the royal court open for attack. He has his men, led by Auron, swarm the palace and take out the royal court one by one, but of course they fight back as best they can. He embarrasses Medusa by chopping off all of her hair in a reverse Samson and Delilah, sends his men to kill and be beat down by Karnak who replays every scenario over and over until he can win the fight, and even goes to get Black Bolt to surrender and bow to him as the new king, thinking that the man couldn’t possibly speak or attack him because the guilt of killing both parents and then his brother would weigh on him too great. But the crazy part is that as this takeover is happening, Crystal gets word that Maximus is a traitor and hops into quick action. She orders lockjaw to find all of the royal members and transport them to “the same place as Gorgon.” Remember, however, that Lockjaw isn’t that great at this or those instructions are too vague, so he finds each person and transports them somewhere slightly different. Karnak ends up at the top of a jungle mountain; Medusa ends up in the middle of a huge crater; and Black Bolt, on the brink of parting his lips to say something and destroy his brother, is taken to the middle of a city (Oahu) in the middle of a street full of traffic. Lockjaw, having never seen such busyness and honking and calamity from the traffic gets cutely anxious and teleports back to the moon in a panic, leaving his king to survive on his own.
Before Lockjaw can get to Crystal, Maximus has already found her and is ready to attack. The dog arrives and while she is giving it instructions, Auron comes and zaps the dog unconscious. Not only is the royal court all dispersed across Oahu and its surrounding isles, but they currently have no way of getting back to each other and very little way of communicating to each other. And only at the end of episode two do you realize that this is probably not the show that you were anticipating.
This sentiment is cemented even more on episode three. See at the end of episode two we see Karnak fall off of the cliff while climbing down, resulting in a bad hit to the head. On episode three he realizes that he no longer has his powers like he usually does. They’re probably not gone forever, but he cannot see how a situation will unfold and correct it to his advantage every time. He haphazardly wanders onto a secret jungle plantation of marijuana, which isn’t all that bad in and of itself but when the workers there hold him at gunpoint, he can’t defeat them.
Meanwhile, as Karnak is imprisoned in the jungle drug cartel, Black Bolt tries to fit into his environment to keep clandestine. He goes to a store and gets a suit and tie but walks out without paying as he has no concept of such an idea of cash-money or credit. He lets out a tiny yelp when the police pursue him and sends a squad car tumbling through the air with gusto. Jail for you my friend, although it looks a lot more like prison, but I digress. Anyway, far away there is some scientist guy who knows of the Inhuman stronghold on the moon and seeks to protect Black Bolt, so he contracts an inmate to help break the man out of prison. Yes, this man is also an Inhuman but I’m not sure the guards knew that.
Gorgon is still on the island and has learned of the treachery of Maximus. Armed with a locator beacon and communicator that links back to the moon city, he tells Maximus that he is going to leave his communicator/locator on for the traitor and his minions to come and find him. He wants the fight so he can end it all now. Well, Max only half takes the bait by sending Auron instead of going himself.
Upon her arrival on earth Auron first runs into Medusa who, though she doesn’t have her hair powers anymore, is still a fierce ass kicker. She stabs Auron and leaves her to die. Here, it was unclear for me if Auron actually did die or not but she gets up after a few hours of laying on top of a car hood, and heals herself. I’m not sure that is her power, though. She calls back to Maximus and says that she needs help so he sends this really evil big-bad who is supposedly so vile that they have him locked away in a solitary prison behind a thick wall up in the moon city. His name is Mordis and he looks like he’s wearing a toned-down version of that iron mask Leo DiCaprio wore in that movie where he played a Man in an Iron Mask. Gosh, what was that movie called? Hmm? Don’t know. Mordis, to boot, is not scary nor intimidating and plays more like the most disappointing, comical parts of Ultron in that Avengers 2 movie, or some comedic interpretation of classic villains in a Robot Chicken skit. It’s rather sad, frankly.
So Gorgon, who can’t swim, is rescued from the water by these surfers (this happened in episode 2 but I didn’t mention it because it didn’t feel necessary at the time) who now want to help him fight whatever force is supposedly coming for him. Well, he warns that they could die but they’re like, whatever, dude. Auron, Mordis and a crew of other red-shirt nobodies come to fight Gorgon and the surfers. A few get their butts kicked, one chick with cool gardening powers (totally want those) makes trees do her bidding and Gorgon decides to flee with the surfers because they are outmatched. But dude, you were all big and bad not turning your locator beacon off.
Meanwhile, Medusa was able to contact Bolt and listen to his heartbeat to know he was safe and still alive (this was before he got arrested). Now, she is on a Kill Bill-esque journey to find him. She sneaks into some rich person’s home and Goldilocks-es about trying on their clothes, eating their food and all sorts of stuff. When she leaves she hops on different buses and public transportation, sees a story about a guy who is a suspected Inhuman who did some stuff to some police cars, and somehow finds the jail and is there to rescue him when Black Bolt and the other guy break out of the jail and fly off in a helicopter. As luck would have it, that drone pilot from the first episode is trying to investigate what happened to the drone and has somehow been led to the prison also. Medusa kidnaps her and tells her to follow that copter.
Back on the moon, Maximus is trying to make moves to either get Crystal to be his queen instead of Medusa or get her to support him in front of the high council to take over the throne as king. Or both. One thing is for sure: he has lied to the people about Medusa and Black Bolt abandoning them. He’s doing everything he can to sully the royal court’s name. But he needs the high council to assume full power and push for this move down to earth. Crystal won’t do it but he keeps working on her, tepidly seducing her by reminding her how her parents rebelled against the kingdom for this very reason and how combining their powers can only help the people. She’s young but smart and does what she must to keep everything from imploding.
What’s my grade? I give it a D. Look, there are so many things that are wrong with this show that it’s hard for me to pinpoint one thing that doesn’t work. For starters, I hate the fact that for whatever reason ABC, Disney and Marvel all believed that this show was good enough to merit a theatrical release of its first two episodes. When I heard they were doing that, I actually got excited, especially considering that this is a limited series that is, I believe, only supposed to have eight episodes. To me, I thought, “Wow, they can spend a good grip of money on each episode to make it absolutely amazing.” Wrong! If you’re going to release the first two episodes of a show as a movie, then make sure that it sorta plays like a movie. Even ignoring the so-so costume work, the uninspired acting and the TV-focused cinematography, the plot itself played more like a television show with little direction. The first two episodes didn’t even have a proper climax. I know that it is a show, but still, it would be better to focus on writing the show as a film than to have it flounder in both aspects.
Going back to the acting, I just don’t know what went wrong. With the exception of the black guy who plays Gorgon, I’ve seen all of the main characters in other stuff where they were much better. I’ve been a fan of Anson Mount ever since I saw that Jason Statham film Safe, which a lot of people didn’t like but I thoroughly enjoyed. I think he’s good. Yet, here, with the absence of dialogue for him to speak, he is no more interesting than a mannequin. No, this is not a criticism of the character and I’m not asking for them to give him more lines, I’m asking for them to better direct him in expressing the character’s underlying emotion. I remember watching the movie Quiet starring Camilla Belle as a girl who doesn’t speak, thinking, “Wow! She’s amazing.” Granted, I was already crushing pretty hard on Belle at the time but still. She brought a certain charm and characterization to the silence of the character that didn’t require her to speak for you to feel. Here, Mount often wears only one look on his face the entire time: “Son, we need to talk.” Even during the opening love scene, I kept thinking that he needed to sit his teenage son down for a talk about responsibility, and how driving is a privilege and how he better not get one of those loose Bronte girls pregnant. Its so stern all the time that it is bordering on satirical. Show us pain, anguish, love, hate, something other than sternness.
Medusa is pretty good and oozes both sex appeal and intelligence, especially because she is the mouthpiece of the king. She seems most capable, oddly enough, even over Karnak. Speaking of, Ken Leung had a great gig on The Night Shift and I don’t know whose idea it was for him to part from that show but I wish he was still on there (Edit: that show has recently been canceled). While he is doing a decent job here, he could be doing so much better. I’ve seen his better. The Crystal character is OK as a young, teenage princess who must hold her own against the would-be usurper but she is certainly no Sansa Stark. Speaking of, Mr. Ramsay Bolton himself Maximus is also just OK here. It is as if the directors told Iwan to be a toned-down version of Bolton. You know, the one that they can show on broadcast network TV. With the plot similarities between his yearning for power, holding a young queen/princess hostage and forcing her and her people to bend to his will, it might’ve been a better idea to have him playing in a different role so as not to draw any comparisons. Here, he just doesn’t quite seem evil enough.
What’s worse about Maximus, and this speaks to the plot, is that the way this show is written and the brief exploration of the caste system makes it feel an awful lot like he’s technically right. For me, someone who hasn’t read the comics and doesn’t want to bother to do all the research like I have for other comic book characters, the caste system makes little sense when paired with the mines and whatnot, and their refusal to move to earth even after the Inhumans have long been a part of the earthly society. Yes, I know, if you’re only watching the movies you might not have realized this, but on Agents of SHIELD one of their main cast members is an Inhuman and has been since season two. Why the heck are they still up there on the moon and for god’s sake, what the hell are they mining?
Finally, my last big complaint is geared around how the show was packaged and sold as opposed to what it actually is. Again, as someone who wasn’t a fan of the comics, I didn’t get all of the hate for the costumes at the time of the poster coming out. I thought that they looked alright for TV and that their looks sorta fit into a real-world representation or at least into the MCU representation of characters. But now having watched the show, I find a completely different complaint cropping up which only now piggybacks off the costume complaint and that is that these don’t seem to be Inhumans. Think about this, at the end of the two-hour season premiere we have the coolest character in Lockjaw unconscious, we have Black Bolt unable to ever really use his powers for fear of decimating the entirety of the moon city, we have Medusa no longer with her hair powers (is she really even Medusa now?), we have Karnak unable to use his fix-o-dent powers, Gorgon is trapped on a small secluded island, and we have yet to see what Crystal’s powers are. Between Yo-Yo, Quake and her last boyfriend when he was still alive and on the show, we’ve gotten far more Inhumans using superpowers on Agents of SHIELD than we get on this show. Really only the bad guys have the powers. So this basically is a bunch of regular people running from some superpowered ones, which is not a bad twist on the genre but is hardly done well enough to make any statement.
In the end, the costume complaints are fairly unwarranted too because not only do they abandon their powers but they also abandon their costumes. Sure, Gorgon and Karnak are still in their get-ups but I’m sure that the latter is going to change into something more human-like within the coming episode. He’ll be wearing a breezy Hawaiian tee in no time (Note: He did change into a bohemian chic style).
Should you be watching? No, not unless you’re a die-hard comic book fan and/or you have eight to ten hours of your life to kill. Look, I wanted this to be good because I wanted another series that could crossover and complement Agents of SHIELD, and that could tie into the movies in a big way. Hell, we’re going off world for the next Thor and the next season of SHIELD, it only makes since to see Inhumans as a stepping stone for both of those things or to maybe see them show up in Black Panther or reference those events somehow. Give us another Winter Soldier twist for all of the properties. But no. This is simply not worthy of any of that. It needs to be completely retooled, maybe recast and definitely written and directed by others. Give it a bigger budget or just release a film version like originally planned, because this is going nowhere fast.
What do you think? Have you heard of Marvel’s Inhumans? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll watch now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Do you like it? Where do you think it could improve or is it doing a great job at interpreting these characters. And do you know what the hell they’re mining for on the moon? And how cool is Lockjaw? Let me know in the comments below.
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Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.Until next time, “We’ve got to stop these disgusting mutants and—” ‘Uh, no-no! They’re Inhumans. Inhumans, sir.’ “What? They’re not mutants?” ‘No. We couldn’t get the copyright license back.’
P.S. This seems to be the season of the copy because, for some reason, it looks like every new show has a doppelganger that is either another new show on another network or is a returning show. I sure do hope that FOX’s The Gifted isn’t just a mutants on the run show like Inhumans pretty much is. I’ll try to come up with a better, more original sign-off next time, but no promises.
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Not Gonna Be No Clay Wheels And Patrick Swayze #Ghosted #FOX #3weekroundup #review #recap
Not Gonna Be No Clay Wheels And Patrick Swayze #Ghosted #FOX #3weekroundup #review #recap
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So a lot of the TV season premieres have been a little staggered this year, which I actually hate because then something new is always coming on every single month. I’m not gonna go on a rant here, but I think that things get canceled so quickly and nothing is ever given the chance to stick and stay or build up a fanbase because of both this culture to binge-watch everything, and because of this releasing of shows at any old time across all platforms and networks. I think a great many networks would really be able to see what they had if they released all of their fall shows at once, then let them run for three weeks before making any snap judgments, because you know that some of this stuff is just going to get switched around by date and time, and the worst thing to do is to switch its day or time after a few weeks of existence. Dang it! I said I wasn’t gonna go on a rant. Why didn’t you stop me, reader? Anyway, for today’s review we have Ghosted. Does it scare up a good TV-watching time or is this show as good as gone? Let’s find out together.
FOX’s Ghosted (#Ghosted) stars Craig Robinson as Leroy Wright and Adam Scott as Max Jennifer—an unlikely, totally odd couple drawn together to stop crazy paranormal, supernatural and just plain ol’ bizarre happenings. Basically, this is the half-hour comedy version of FOX’s defunct Sleepy Hollow mixed with a little X-Files. OK, so we start with Scott’s character Max Jennifer in a book store talking to a random customer-lady. He reveals to her that he used to be this quasi-famous big-shot science professor at an Ivy League tech school (MIT) on the East coast. It should be pointed out that this show is supposed to be happening in California (LA, I think. Don’t quote me on that). He reveals this because he tries to get the customer-woman to believe that he is not crazy after he said that he was going through a rough time in his marriage not because his wife left but because she was abducted by aliens. Yeah, he’s, essentially, that crazy-haired, big-noggin’d dude on the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens show. Or any teacher/scholar off of that show, really. And out of nowhere, he receives a bop on the head and is kidnapped.
We cut to Robinson’s character Leroy Wright who is working as a security guard in a local mall. In some quick character building, we learn that he is actually an ex-LAPD Missing Persons detective who was recently fired. His former partner is dead, but his partner’s family—a wife and son—are still around and Leroy, being the good guy he is, tries to help out and be a friend to the boy, sticking to the cop’s code of family. He has to go to a janitor’s closet in the mall and is also bonked on the head.
Wait, So... What?
The two of them awake in the same room, sitting on chairs with a stern white woman in front of them. Ava Lufrey (played by Ally Walker) has ordered their kidnapping because she needs their help. She is in charge of a secret government agency called the Bureau Underground, which is pretty much like the MIB, save for paranormal and supernatural stuff... And aliens. From what I’ve seen, the agency basically covers everything under the sun, yet is so unbelievably small that it almost qualifies as being quaint. One of Ava’s top field agents just went missing and he left a cryptic message before he was disappeared. The message: get Dr. Max Jennifer (yeah, dude’s a doctor-professor) and Detective Leroy Walker. Have they ever met the guy? Nope. But Ava cuts crap smooth and quick and offers them restoration of their respective careers and positions if they help the Bureau figure out what happened to their agent. With a little bit of massaging, Leroy is convinced by Max and the adventure begins.
Also working for the Bureau and seeking to help them in this pursuit are scientist Barry Shaw (played by Adeel Akhtar) and tech-girl/resident ass-kicker Annie (played by Amber Stevens West of The Carmichael Show). As you can guess, the scientist, while brilliant in the things he produces for Leroy and Max to use on their little adventures, is also a bit of a dimwit and is yet another character played for comic relief on the show. Annie seems to have more of a straight-man role which could (read: definitely will) morph into a love-interest role for one of the two guys.
Not but a few blocks into this trip do we see how this show will play out. Leroy does not want to be paired with Max in any way, which is sad for him because they had to come as a packaged deal for the mission or else no perksies. He tries to kick Max out of the car so that he can be left to do his detective work alone, but Max pleads with him in a heartfelt little speech about how this is all he has after his wife was abducted and how after being called crazy for believing what he did, this is the first chance ever for him to be proven right about something.
They continue their detective-ing through the city to get to the disappeared-agent’s storage unit. In it, they don’t find much of anything but they do find a copy of Max’s book. See, not only is our good friend Max a doctor, but he wrote the book on Multiverse theory and how there are multiple -verses as opposed to one and how each one has its own replicas of the same people and oh my god, why am I explaining this? If you’ve seen a comic book TV show or read them or just about any sci-fi, then you know the principle.
The team uses some clues to discover that the agent was working undercover at a nuclear power plant but the Bureau has no idea why. As it turns out, someone or something in the plant is diverting power to another tower in some sorta sender-receiver coil hookup. Well, before they can figure out where the power is going and why, they encounter some goblin-eyed skinhead who looks like WWE’s The Big Show. They manage to escape but only by their teeth’s skin. Back in the lab, the team figures out where the power is going, then go to what looks like an abandoned building. But because Leroy doesn’t trust Max, he handcuffs him to the car’s steering wheel while he goes and investigates. But suddenly some sorta purple/fuchsia/pink tractor beam grabs the entire car and starts to abduct him.
Leroy returns to the car and doesn’t see the beam but does let Max out. Only now does he confess that the reason he was fired from the force is because he made the judgment call to raid some room/building without backup, his partner followed and was then shot. He feels guilty for getting his partner killed and actually wanted to protect Max by leaving him in the car. Together, they breach the building only to find the missing agent dude in a room on what looks like a surgical table or morgue table. And guess who’s there? That same The Big Show-lookin’ son of a gun. Well, big and bald does somethin’ crazy: he plucks his head off like a Lego-man’s head and sets it on the surgical-tools table. This is the first paranormal/abnormal/WTF thing that Leroy sees with his own eyes and now believes a little somethin’, somethin’. But what, not even he fully knows.
They try to get the agent to safety but end up running from the headless big man. They play keep-away with his head for a little while before he finds them and yanks his head back. A very quick mover, the big man somehow gets the unconscious agent up onto the roof before Max and Leroy can regroup. Max gets to the roof slightly earlier than Leroy and sees a spaceship tractor-beam the agent inside, then zip off. It also returned the green-eyed Big Show goblin to a normal human and Max is tripping. Leroy is still ready to dismiss the alien story, though.
They get back to the Bureau and sit with the boss lady to tell her what happened. She gives them the old, “well, you’ve tried your best,” and thanks them. She’s gonna try to do what she can about her promise, even though they didn’t actually rescue the agent. But then Max and Leroy stand for what they believe and each commit to joining the Bureau and fighting for what is right. They want to see this mission all the way through and if they can somehow get the agent back, then they will. Ava tells them that she can’t wait and even says that they can talk to the other people with abduction stories similar to what Max reports happened to the agent. And what do ya know, Max sees the different people that have come in and realizes that one of them is his wife.
Episode two sees the two men starting on their first official day as part of the bureau. A fairly lax recruitment and field agent training, they go through not a lick of basic Bureau Underground protocol or training of any kind. They are just out on the job immediately. This episode delves deeper into Leroy’s personal life. While Max is told that his wife must be prepped to meet with him and it will take a little while longer before he sees her, Leroy asks for the night of Halloween off so that he can take his dead partner’s kid out trick-’r-treating. Ain’t that just like a black dude: get a job and on the first day ask if you can have the day off. Anyway, the kid tricked his mom and is hoping that it is alright if Leroy drops him off at some young girl’s haunted Halloween house party. At first Leroy is against it, but Max plays the cool non-uncle uncle and convinces him to let the boy live (we’re talking 12-year-olds here).
Before they can drop him off, they get a call about a “creature” with “fangs and glowing eyes.” Ava is all freaked and tells them to get over there now. Well, the “creature” turns out to be a cat, but something is strange about this cat. It bites the boy. The boy subsequently becomes like some sorta strange rabid zombie like in the move Quarantine (or Rec). He flees from the car and runs all the way to the house party. Dressed as a vampire, the young white girl at the door thinks that it’s cool and she’s into this cool funny black boy at her school. Then he gets on the floor, growls and bites the hell outta her.
By the time Leroy and Max show up to the house, every kid inside is infected with whatever this is. Back at HQ, they concoct a plan to create some kind of antivirus/cure but they will need to get the kids to stop trying to bite everyone in order to administer it. So, Leroy and Max go into the house with tranq guns and take out every kid inside, including his dead partner’s son after video-calling with his mom and showing the kid vamping on his back trying to bite his neck. She’s none the wiser. It does play slightly funny.
With the kids out, the day is saved until Leroy realizes that he’s been bitten and starts to bite Max who he had duct-taped to the passenger’s seat. Leroy is injected by Annie in the nick of time. Back at the Bureau, the kids receive the cure and the day is saved. And the kid awakes to thank his play uncle AKA Bee Mo (Beast Mode in babyspeak) and realizes that the guy is not trying to replace his dad but be there to support him.
Episode three sees the team dealing with a rash of strange deaths. Some guy was found in a resort hotel dead from no apparent cause. There are no puncture marks, no cuts, no bruises and tox report is clean. But the strangest thing, and what is surely the reason he’s dead: got no heart. How the heck does a human heart just disappear? Who knows, but while they’re trying to figure that out, Max is trying to dig deep into Leroy’s life. After learning that he will finally get to see his once alien-abducted wife, Max wants to know if Leroy had somebody. Leroy at first doesn’t reveal it but finally relents and says that his last girl he proposed to on the jumbotron at Dodgers’ stadium and she said no, and it was very hilarious. Sad for him, but hilariously awkward for everyone else. He’s been off relationships since.
Leroy and Max go to the hotel to follow the one suspect they have: a past doctor turned photographer who was caught on surveillance cameras at both heartless murders—oh yeah, there’s been others. Some of the firsts were in Florida and now they’re here. Undercover as a Bachelor Party weekend with just two guys (saddest party ever), they try questioning the photographer and circumventing the fine-ass lady detective working the death case. Things get complicated when the photographer dude dies in the same way as the other heartless fella.
Back at HQ we finally see Annie and Barry get something to do to develop their characters more. Ava gives them daughter duty: spy on her daughter and figure out who and what Doug-o’clock is—something she saw on her daughter’s social network page. As it turns out, her daughter figures out this plan and winds up in her mother’s office. She’s about to really complain when Annie stops her and tells her that she had a horrible mother who hardly ever noticed her while she was growing up. The little girl should be thankful for her overprotective mother. And we get a nice “Awwww” moment.
Back with Leroy and Max, as they keep detective-ing away, Max tries to set Leroy up with the black detective. He succeeds and is free to go do some of his own sleuthing while Leroy is trying to get his own middle-aged-man groove back. Max sneaks into the dark room of the photographer/once-doctor (he lost his medical license) only to find that the doctor was also Scooby-Dooing. He was at the sight of both murders not because he did them but because he was stalking the person who did them, trying to capture her. With an assist from Barry back at the office, Max learns that the real killer has tattoos on her arm and that she is a succubus who yanks out men’s hearts with a seductive love. Yes, it’s the cop.
There’s a fight between Max and Leroy about how Max is totally killing the vibe by interrupting his soon-to-be booty call and how he should get out. Max is proven right and kicks the crazy succubus out of the balcony window. She disappears and the day is half-saved.
They get back to HQ and find that Max’s wife is ready to meet. He visits her in some makeshift cell somewhere but she escapes, does that creepy MIB-style vertical blinking thing, and tells him not to look for her. And this is one of the many parts where you as a viewer and fan of weird stuff are totally wondering, “Hm? You know, why the hell isn’t there a live-action MIB show on TV? That woulda been way better than the last movie. Will Smith, you don’t have to star in it, but get to producing that show, man!”
What’s my grade? I give it a solid B+. This show is goofy comedy, so it isn’t going to challenge you in any meaningfully deep way, but it will entertain for a little while. Craig Robinson and Adam Scott seem totally in their element and comfortable with their roles. They have a very good chemistry, albeit not historically good (they’re no Abbott and Costello). But if you’re looking for something close to Parks and Recreation or The Office (their previous shows), then you might be out of luck. I will, however, say that this comedy, while slapstick, is very much-so more mature than FOX’s other big comedy/sci-fi add The Orville. This show might actually have some laughable moments whereas The Orville, in my opinion, really doesn’t.
There really isn’t much I can say about this show. It moves at a good pace as it assumes that you already know the concept so you should be able to slide right into this show. It also doesn’t try to be something it isn’t. It doesn’t straddle the line between comedy or drama. And it has at least two overarching mysteries for the entire season: what really happened to Max’s wife, and where the heck did that flying saucer take the agent guy. It’s a solid comedy addition to the sci-fi genre. Will it break any barriers or tread new ground? No.
Should you be watching? Yes. If you liked shows like The X-Files or Supernatural or Warehouse 13, then you should probably enjoy this if you also like a heavy dose of comedy with your “the truth is out there” adventures. Ghosted airs on FOX Sundays at 8:30pm EST. Check for it on demand to catch up.
What do you think? Have you heard of Ghosted? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll tune in for a peek? If you have heard of the show, have you seen it? Did you like it? Where do you think they can improve on the show? Which character is your favorite? Do you wish that they would give Annie something more to do like I do? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.
Until next time, “The truth is... wait a minute, we’ve looked everywhere for the truth but one place.” ‘Where?’ “Inside ourselves.” ‘Say whaaaaa!’ (mind blown!)
P.S. Come up, now that’s definitely a good sign-off. Heck, it can even be a good all-around sign-off for the first time finally, like... ever. I could put that at the end of every post because it’s so Kantian and deep and philosophical and—what? You don’t like that? It’s nothing like the writings of the great philosopher I. Kant? Fine. But just let the record show that I thought it was pretty good. I’ll think of a better sign-off next time.
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All pictures courtesy of FOXSo a lot of the TV season premieres have been a little staggered this year, which I actually hate because then something new is always coming on every single month. I’m not gonna go on a rant here, but I think that things get canceled so quickly and nothing is ever given the chance to stick and stay or build up a fanbase because of both this culture to binge-watch everything, and because of this releasing of shows at any old time across all platforms and networks. I think a great many networks would really be able to see what they had if they released all of their fall shows at once, then let them run for three weeks before making any snap judgments, because you know that some of this stuff is just going to get switched around by date and time, and the worst thing to do is to switch its day or time after a few weeks of existence. Dang it! I said I wasn’t gonna go on a rant. Why didn’t you stop me, reader? Anyway, for today’s review we have Ghosted. Does it scare up a good TV-watching time or is this show as good as gone? Let’s find out together.
FOX’s Ghosted (#Ghosted) stars Craig Robinson as Leroy Wright and Adam Scott as Max Jennifer—an unlikely, totally odd couple drawn together to stop crazy paranormal, supernatural and just plain ol’ bizarre happenings. Basically, this is the half-hour comedy version of FOX’s defunct Sleepy Hollow mixed with a little X-Files. OK, so we start with Scott’s character Max Jennifer in a book store talking to a random customer-lady. He reveals to her that he used to be this quasi-famous big-shot science professor at an Ivy League tech school (MIT) on the East coast. It should be pointed out that this show is supposed to be happening in California (LA, I think. Don’t quote me on that). He reveals this because he tries to get the customer-woman to believe that he is not crazy after he said that he was going through a rough time in his marriage not because his wife left but because she was abducted by aliens. Yeah, he’s, essentially, that crazy-haired, big-noggin’d dude on the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens show. Or any teacher/scholar off of that show, really. And out of nowhere, he receives a bop on the head and is kidnapped.
We cut to Robinson’s character Leroy Wright who is working as a security guard in a local mall. In some quick character building, we learn that he is actually an ex-LAPD Missing Persons detective who was recently fired. His former partner is dead, but his partner’s family—a wife and son—are still around and Leroy, being the good guy he is, tries to help out and be a friend to the boy, sticking to the cop’s code of family. He has to go to a janitor’s closet in the mall and is also bonked on the head.
Wait, So... What?The two of them awake in the same room, sitting on chairs with a stern white woman in front of them. Ava Lufrey (played by Ally Walker) has ordered their kidnapping because she needs their help. She is in charge of a secret government agency called the Bureau Underground, which is pretty much like the MIB, save for paranormal and supernatural stuff... And aliens. From what I’ve seen, the agency basically covers everything under the sun, yet is so unbelievably small that it almost qualifies as being quaint. One of Ava’s top field agents just went missing and he left a cryptic message before he was disappeared. The message: get Dr. Max Jennifer (yeah, dude’s a doctor-professor) and Detective Leroy Walker. Have they ever met the guy? Nope. But Ava cuts crap smooth and quick and offers them restoration of their respective careers and positions if they help the Bureau figure out what happened to their agent. With a little bit of massaging, Leroy is convinced by Max and the adventure begins.
Also working for the Bureau and seeking to help them in this pursuit are scientist Barry Shaw (played by Adeel Akhtar) and tech-girl/resident ass-kicker Annie (played by Amber Stevens West of The Carmichael Show). As you can guess, the scientist, while brilliant in the things he produces for Leroy and Max to use on their little adventures, is also a bit of a dimwit and is yet another character played for comic relief on the show. Annie seems to have more of a straight-man role which could (read: definitely will) morph into a love-interest role for one of the two guys. Not but a few blocks into this trip do we see how this show will play out. Leroy does not want to be paired with Max in any way, which is sad for him because they had to come as a packaged deal for the mission or else no perksies. He tries to kick Max out of the car so that he can be left to do his detective work alone, but Max pleads with him in a heartfelt little speech about how this is all he has after his wife was abducted and how after being called crazy for believing what he did, this is the first chance ever for him to be proven right about something.
They continue their detective-ing through the city to get to the disappeared-agent’s storage unit. In it, they don’t find much of anything but they do find a copy of Max’s book. See, not only is our good friend Max a doctor, but he wrote the book on Multiverse theory and how there are multiple -verses as opposed to one and how each one has its own replicas of the same people and oh my god, why am I explaining this? If you’ve seen a comic book TV show or read them or just about any sci-fi, then you know the principle.
The team uses some clues to discover that the agent was working undercover at a nuclear power plant but the Bureau has no idea why. As it turns out, someone or something in the plant is diverting power to another tower in some sorta sender-receiver coil hookup. Well, before they can figure out where the power is going and why, they encounter some goblin-eyed skinhead who looks like WWE’s The Big Show. They manage to escape but only by their teeth’s skin. Back in the lab, the team figures out where the power is going, then go to what looks like an abandoned building. But because Leroy doesn’t trust Max, he handcuffs him to the car’s steering wheel while he goes and investigates. But suddenly some sorta purple/fuchsia/pink tractor beam grabs the entire car and starts to abduct him.
Leroy returns to the car and doesn’t see the beam but does let Max out. Only now does he confess that the reason he was fired from the force is because he made the judgment call to raid some room/building without backup, his partner followed and was then shot. He feels guilty for getting his partner killed and actually wanted to protect Max by leaving him in the car. Together, they breach the building only to find the missing agent dude in a room on what looks like a surgical table or morgue table. And guess who’s there? That same The Big Show-lookin’ son of a gun. Well, big and bald does somethin’ crazy: he plucks his head off like a Lego-man’s head and sets it on the surgical-tools table. This is the first paranormal/abnormal/WTF thing that Leroy sees with his own eyes and now believes a little somethin’, somethin’. But what, not even he fully knows.
They try to get the agent to safety but end up running from the headless big man. They play keep-away with his head for a little while before he finds them and yanks his head back. A very quick mover, the big man somehow gets the unconscious agent up onto the roof before Max and Leroy can regroup. Max gets to the roof slightly earlier than Leroy and sees a spaceship tractor-beam the agent inside, then zip off. It also returned the green-eyed Big Show goblin to a normal human and Max is tripping. Leroy is still ready to dismiss the alien story, though.
They get back to the Bureau and sit with the boss lady to tell her what happened. She gives them the old, “well, you’ve tried your best,” and thanks them. She’s gonna try to do what she can about her promise, even though they didn’t actually rescue the agent. But then Max and Leroy stand for what they believe and each commit to joining the Bureau and fighting for what is right. They want to see this mission all the way through and if they can somehow get the agent back, then they will. Ava tells them that she can’t wait and even says that they can talk to the other people with abduction stories similar to what Max reports happened to the agent. And what do ya know, Max sees the different people that have come in and realizes that one of them is his wife. Episode two sees the two men starting on their first official day as part of the bureau. A fairly lax recruitment and field agent training, they go through not a lick of basic Bureau Underground protocol or training of any kind. They are just out on the job immediately. This episode delves deeper into Leroy’s personal life. While Max is told that his wife must be prepped to meet with him and it will take a little while longer before he sees her, Leroy asks for the night of Halloween off so that he can take his dead partner’s kid out trick-’r-treating. Ain’t that just like a black dude: get a job and on the first day ask if you can have the day off. Anyway, the kid tricked his mom and is hoping that it is alright if Leroy drops him off at some young girl’s haunted Halloween house party. At first Leroy is against it, but Max plays the cool non-uncle uncle and convinces him to let the boy live (we’re talking 12-year-olds here).
Before they can drop him off, they get a call about a “creature” with “fangs and glowing eyes.” Ava is all freaked and tells them to get over there now. Well, the “creature” turns out to be a cat, but something is strange about this cat. It bites the boy. The boy subsequently becomes like some sorta strange rabid zombie like in the move Quarantine (or Rec). He flees from the car and runs all the way to the house party. Dressed as a vampire, the young white girl at the door thinks that it’s cool and she’s into this cool funny black boy at her school. Then he gets on the floor, growls and bites the hell outta her.
By the time Leroy and Max show up to the house, every kid inside is infected with whatever this is. Back at HQ, they concoct a plan to create some kind of antivirus/cure but they will need to get the kids to stop trying to bite everyone in order to administer it. So, Leroy and Max go into the house with tranq guns and take out every kid inside, including his dead partner’s son after video-calling with his mom and showing the kid vamping on his back trying to bite his neck. She’s none the wiser. It does play slightly funny.
With the kids out, the day is saved until Leroy realizes that he’s been bitten and starts to bite Max who he had duct-taped to the passenger’s seat. Leroy is injected by Annie in the nick of time. Back at the Bureau, the kids receive the cure and the day is saved. And the kid awakes to thank his play uncle AKA Bee Mo (Beast Mode in babyspeak) and realizes that the guy is not trying to replace his dad but be there to support him.
Episode three sees the team dealing with a rash of strange deaths. Some guy was found in a resort hotel dead from no apparent cause. There are no puncture marks, no cuts, no bruises and tox report is clean. But the strangest thing, and what is surely the reason he’s dead: got no heart. How the heck does a human heart just disappear? Who knows, but while they’re trying to figure that out, Max is trying to dig deep into Leroy’s life. After learning that he will finally get to see his once alien-abducted wife, Max wants to know if Leroy had somebody. Leroy at first doesn’t reveal it but finally relents and says that his last girl he proposed to on the jumbotron at Dodgers’ stadium and she said no, and it was very hilarious. Sad for him, but hilariously awkward for everyone else. He’s been off relationships since.
Leroy and Max go to the hotel to follow the one suspect they have: a past doctor turned photographer who was caught on surveillance cameras at both heartless murders—oh yeah, there’s been others. Some of the firsts were in Florida and now they’re here. Undercover as a Bachelor Party weekend with just two guys (saddest party ever), they try questioning the photographer and circumventing the fine-ass lady detective working the death case. Things get complicated when the photographer dude dies in the same way as the other heartless fella.
Back at HQ we finally see Annie and Barry get something to do to develop their characters more. Ava gives them daughter duty: spy on her daughter and figure out who and what Doug-o’clock is—something she saw on her daughter’s social network page. As it turns out, her daughter figures out this plan and winds up in her mother’s office. She’s about to really complain when Annie stops her and tells her that she had a horrible mother who hardly ever noticed her while she was growing up. The little girl should be thankful for her overprotective mother. And we get a nice “Awwww” moment. Back with Leroy and Max, as they keep detective-ing away, Max tries to set Leroy up with the black detective. He succeeds and is free to go do some of his own sleuthing while Leroy is trying to get his own middle-aged-man groove back. Max sneaks into the dark room of the photographer/once-doctor (he lost his medical license) only to find that the doctor was also Scooby-Dooing. He was at the sight of both murders not because he did them but because he was stalking the person who did them, trying to capture her. With an assist from Barry back at the office, Max learns that the real killer has tattoos on her arm and that she is a succubus who yanks out men’s hearts with a seductive love. Yes, it’s the cop.
There’s a fight between Max and Leroy about how Max is totally killing the vibe by interrupting his soon-to-be booty call and how he should get out. Max is proven right and kicks the crazy succubus out of the balcony window. She disappears and the day is half-saved.
They get back to HQ and find that Max’s wife is ready to meet. He visits her in some makeshift cell somewhere but she escapes, does that creepy MIB-style vertical blinking thing, and tells him not to look for her. And this is one of the many parts where you as a viewer and fan of weird stuff are totally wondering, “Hm? You know, why the hell isn’t there a live-action MIB show on TV? That woulda been way better than the last movie. Will Smith, you don’t have to star in it, but get to producing that show, man!”
What’s my grade? I give it a solid B+. This show is goofy comedy, so it isn’t going to challenge you in any meaningfully deep way, but it will entertain for a little while. Craig Robinson and Adam Scott seem totally in their element and comfortable with their roles. They have a very good chemistry, albeit not historically good (they’re no Abbott and Costello). But if you’re looking for something close to Parks and Recreation or The Office (their previous shows), then you might be out of luck. I will, however, say that this comedy, while slapstick, is very much-so more mature than FOX’s other big comedy/sci-fi add The Orville. This show might actually have some laughable moments whereas The Orville, in my opinion, really doesn’t.
There really isn’t much I can say about this show. It moves at a good pace as it assumes that you already know the concept so you should be able to slide right into this show. It also doesn’t try to be something it isn’t. It doesn’t straddle the line between comedy or drama. And it has at least two overarching mysteries for the entire season: what really happened to Max’s wife, and where the heck did that flying saucer take the agent guy. It’s a solid comedy addition to the sci-fi genre. Will it break any barriers or tread new ground? No.
Should you be watching? Yes. If you liked shows like The X-Files or Supernatural or Warehouse 13, then you should probably enjoy this if you also like a heavy dose of comedy with your “the truth is out there” adventures. Ghosted airs on FOX Sundays at 8:30pm EST. Check for it on demand to catch up.
What do you think? Have you heard of Ghosted? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll tune in for a peek? If you have heard of the show, have you seen it? Did you like it? Where do you think they can improve on the show? Which character is your favorite? Do you wish that they would give Annie something more to do like I do? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.Until next time, “The truth is... wait a minute, we’ve looked everywhere for the truth but one place.” ‘Where?’ “Inside ourselves.” ‘Say whaaaaa!’ (mind blown!)
P.S. Come up, now that’s definitely a good sign-off. Heck, it can even be a good all-around sign-off for the first time finally, like... ever. I could put that at the end of every post because it’s so Kantian and deep and philosophical and—what? You don’t like that? It’s nothing like the writings of the great philosopher I. Kant? Fine. But just let the record show that I thought it was pretty good. I’ll think of a better sign-off next time.
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Twitter@filmbooksbball
November 2, 2017
Not Bravery, Nor Boldness But #Valor #3weekroundup #recap #review #CW
Not Bravery, Nor Boldness But #Valor #3weekroundup #recap #review #CW
Annnnnndddd we’re back. Welcome ladies and gentlemen to another grand new series three-week roundup review. At this point you know the rules: I wait to give a show three weeks to impress me before I review it because most pilot episodes are clunky and overly hyped anyway, so give a series time to settle in and see how it’s doing. Today, we’re looking at one of the CW’s new offerings Valor, the last of the three major military-themed new series offerings for this year (some might point out that Martha Raddatz’s book The Long Road Home, which I haven’t read, is coming on TV too, but that is just a miniseries and not a full series). We’ve already taken a look at both NBC’s The Brave and CBS’s SEAL Team, so does Valor have the right stuff to measure up or is it not worthy enough to wear its fatigues? Let’s find out together.
CW’s Valor stars Christina Ochoa as Nora Madani, an officer and Black Hawk chopper pilot in the US Army. Score one point for casting a Latina female as the lead for the show (CBS was called out for not having a single female leading a new show, even though they really didn’t have that many new shows this fall). Christina, even though she is a classified missions operator who flies black-ops mission specialists to secret locations to conduct secret missions, seems to be fairly new at her piloting when we first meet her. I say new in that she is simply not as experienced in in-field combat scenarios as her co-pilot is. Her co-pilot Leland Gallo played by Matt Barr, is a free-wheelin’ hotshot who has had tons of in-field experience and loves the ladies. And the ladies love him. He’s about business when he needs to be but doesn’t seem to shy away from fun. And already the show was winning some more points because, unlike on The Brave, we got actual character development for some of our main characters.
Nora and Leland are joined by a slew of other players in this story that quickly gets complicated, but I should first start with the inciting incident of the show and go from there. OK, so we open with Leland and Nora flying a secret mission into somewhere in Somalia. We learn later that the Somalian government knew nothing about this mission and the details are highly classified even within the Army rankings. While the team is technically bifurcated into the flyboys and girls and the ground troops, as a whole, the team is supposed to fly into Somalia and secure an HVT or High-Value Somalian Target who is supposedly some kind of insurgent. Well, they land, the ground crew loads out, they run into some shack where some militants are keeping this supposed Somalian insurgent, take on more enemy fire than they expected to, run back, hop into the copter and try to escape, but something goes terribly wrong when an RPG fires off and hits the tail of the copter. They have to make a daring crash-landing close by in some lake or pond and escape enemy territory. At some point their HVT escapes and everything goes to hell. Nora gets shot through the leg and panics and things go a little blurry for her.
And we zoom to one month later back in the states. Here is where I jump back and possibly confuse you a little by telling you about the people on the helicopter transport. So, rounding out the crew in that transport were Jimmy Kam (who looked like he was a gunner of some sort. I really couldn’t keep up with the ranks and the back and forth chatting about people that weren’t shown was a little confusing to my aging brain) the black guy, Crank Hendrix one of the ground guys, two others, and the actual hooded Somalian. This is important for the overarching season mystery.
OK, back to one month later and we catch up with Nora who is greeted in the morning by her boyfriend and fellow Army officer Lieutenant Ian Porter. He works in Intelligence and is all over Nora in their kitchen. They appear to live on base, though I don’t know if they live together. Anyway, he is concerned that her one month of leg rehab to get over the gunshot was hardly enough time for her to heal mentally from what happened. He thinks she’s still having trouble dealing with the fact that they crash-landed and that only she and Leland returned. Well, she insists she’s fine and can’t wait to start her first day back on the job in months.
We jump over to see Leland in bed with some random white woman who enjoys handcuffs and good times. He charms his way back into his pants as he has to leave quickly to also get back to work after his one-month forced vacation. While he wasn’t injured, his leave was mandated. He, too, seems to live on the base as his girl is also in the Army in some capacity.
We finally jump over to the wife of Jimmy who is getting their son ready for school. There’s some back and forth about him singing and how dad used to sing with him. He then asks about his dad and we get this band-aiding of what’s really going on. She insists that her husband is just not back yet from his mission which happens to be one of the longest that his son can remember (again, they’re special ops, so they don’t do regular tours of deployment like other soldiers). While it’s sorta hinted at here, it isn’t outright said until after Leland and Nora step back into their platoon and are awarded some medals for their valor in the field that Jimmy and Hendrix are not classified as dead, but are MIA and suspected to have been captured as POWs. They’re alive.
We then switch over to Jimmy and Hendrix and pause for a minute when we finally realize what the writers did with the names there, and we aren’t quite sure how to react. Seriously, how should we react to those two being together like that? What’s the point of the music reference? I digress. We find Jimmy and Hendrix sitting in some dirt cell still somewhere in Somalia, supposedly being held captive by a local warlord. And here we finally get a feel for the show’s language. It should be noted that the show not only jumps between what’s happening on the base back in America and the jail cell in Somalia, but it also jumps back and forth in time, constantly going back to reference the night of the crash similar to the show Lost. The boys look a little beaten, but fair considering they’ve been there for a month. This pretty much sums up every jump to their storyline. Oh, and they’re constantly plotting to escape.
Back on the base, after receiving the commendation in front of her other officers, Nora is told by her CO that she is being pulled from actual flights and given a desk position for the next few months because some of the higher-up men are worried about having women in combat positions like hers. She stands up for herself and says she’s fine physically and mentally and should be in a helicopter just like Leland because they both went down in that crash. Leland had more combat experience is the excuse given. But when orders for a possible mission to go back in and rescue Jimmy and Hendrix come from OGA, Nora fights to be one of the pilots to fly it, along with Leland. Now she must prove herself in a local below-the-tree-line field test.
Meanwhile, her boyfriend, who recommended that she not be put back into a chopper too soon, is dealing with his own bit of sexual harassment as the new OGA liaison comes in hot for him. This woman off-bat says that he is cute before she starts directing how things will go concerning the entirety of this case. See, OGA is an acronym/nickname that the Army uses for the CIA. The CIA only gets deeply involved with a military exercise when the case or whatever is happening is quite big and important. That coupled with what happened out in the field puts both Nora and Leland on high-alert to watch their backs because something super-sketch is going on here.
What happened in the field, you ask? Well, upon getting the HVT into the copter and being blasted with the RPG, they ripped the sack off the target’s head only to realize that he wasn’t some African or Middle-Eastern brown man but a white Army guy. They were lied to, but why? And why would this Army guy be out in the middle of nowhere, Somalia? The mystery only thickens when, after forcing Jimmy, Hendrix and the rest of the squad off the helicopter early before having to crash-land with the target still on board, Nora and Leland are confronted by some all-black special ops/CIA guy who orders them to hand over the rescued Army dude. The Army dude says that the guy in black is the enemy and is the reason he was in Somalia and we’re all just as confused as our two leads. Well, the guy in black threatens to kill both Nora and Leland but Nora fires first. In the hubbub, the other Army guy escapes.
Back one month later, Nora confronts her man about recommending her grounding, practices to pass this flight test with Leland, nearly crashes the helicopter with Leland in it, quite quizzically almost jumps Leland’s bones after they have a few hours of trying to figure out the mystery behind the rescue mission, then passes her flight test. I know, that explanation for just one episode was hell-a long, but there was a lot going on. Oh, and we learned at the very end that Nora is apparently snorting her crushed-up pain pills like they’re cut coke.
Episode two starts with the squad being told that they must somehow impress some higher-up politicians who are supposed to find the funds for and determine if they can officially go on this rescue mission to save Jimmy and Hendrix. But as I said earlier, the Somalian government just found out about their little mission the first time and is pissed. They shut down any air traffic to Americans, making the mission all the more difficult. Meanwhile, the CIA woman not only keeps sexually harassing the hell out of Nora’s boyfriend (she is totally jealous of Nora so it seems, and Ian has no idea that his girlfriend nearly cheated on him with Leland), she also keeps lying about the target.
Meanwhile, Leland and Nora continue their investigation into who the HVT was, as well as who the guy in black that tried to shoot them was. They find that the guy in black was listed as KIA because he supposedly died during a HALO jump years ago, but has now assumed an off-books blacklisted identity. But he was supposedly an officer. It’s quite confusing. We discover that back in the field they had decided to keep the secret about the HVT and the man in black.
Across the pond, the POWs stage their getaway but are confronted by the warlord and his minions. He unceremoniously executes one of his own men and recaptures the prisoners.
Back at home, Leland learns that Ian is the son of a politician. Even more, his politician mother then asks to fly with Nora and Leland in the copter to be impressed on a tactical chopper-attack exercise. She’s impressed but their CO, who is also riding along, is pissed because they disobeyed the rules. But even still, they get on the rescue mission officially. Leland opens up about a past love to Nora and they start to believe that the CIA is watching their every move. They talk about this domino that the Army guy dropped while escaping in the woods. Funny enough, the warlord who has Jimmy and Hendrix sends a video in which he demands a ransom and also holds a domino and they are like, that can’t be a coincidence, right? Strange from a guy who was supposed to be a Somalian insurgent but ended up being a reported KIA white American.
Episode three starts with them planning the rescue effort. Nora is getting close with Jimmy’s wife Jess but still can’t tell her that she’s going on the mission to go and get Jimmy. And Nora keeps having flashbacks to the previous mission while continuing to do more detective work about who they picked up. She also finally opens up to her bf about the doubts she’s having about flying. She goes and finds the sister of the HVT and tries to talk to her but first gets nothing. But she does realize that she is actively being followed by someone, she just doesn’t know who.
Back a month prior, Nora and Leland walk through the jungle and circle back around to the tiny hut where they supposedly rescued the Army guy/Somalia insurgent. They learn that not only was the entire firefight/threat staged from that night, but that this was a complete CIA setup from jump. There probably never was anyone in that shack, just Americans shooting other Americans. They then have to move out when they realize that their own rescue is coming soon.
We finally get to a mission in which they must first get medicine to a small village. This is like some sorta precursor mission before the rescue mission and Nora freezes up on this mission before making her second kill in the field when the copter lands and is ambushed. They succeed and escape but Nora confides in Leland again about her struggles to get back whole mentally. The good news is that they’ve decided to go forward with a hostage exchange to get back Jimmy and Hendrix. But that’s nothing because that sister-woman that Nora talked to earlier calls Nora back and tells her that the Army-guy/HVT they let escape in the first mission may have been radicalized at some point. He might’ve been a bad guy after all. Oh, and that sexually harassing CIA woman is, apparently, gay.
Jimmy's wife on the right
What’s my grade? I give it a C. Look, I read some of the reviews of Valor and all of the military-themed shows before ever reviewing them. Out of all of not just the military shows this year, but all new series, Valor topped the list as the worst rated or second worst rated behind only Marvel’s Inhumans. Regardless of what my rating says as compared to the other shows, I don’t understand this critic’s rating. First, even though I rated it a C, I actually liked this show slightly better than The Brave. So why did I rate it lower? I took a full grade off and not just a plus or minus strictly because of the show’s apparent inauthenticity, which is something that I know was burning the uniformed britches of tons of past and active military personnel. Yes, there are uniform goofs, rules and regulations flaunting (they continue to let Leland keep his facial hair), and there are a few age discrepancies here because most of these operators and people would be slightly older in real life, however, those inaccuracies do not and should not scuttle the show completely. I get it, plenty of fans and people out there love to nitpick but I think that there is something to also be said for plot, storytelling, intrigue, et cetera. And as far as that goes, if you can get through the inaccuracies of costume and what have you during the first episode, then you might be able to enjoy the show.
Again, I don’t get the hate for this show. I guess I have to chalk some of it up to the fact that the networks and even the streaming services have all scaled back on new series this year while they continue to figure out the new landscape of TV-viewing in this country, and how to adjust for the future. Fox only had three new high-profile shows, ABC had four (Ten Days in the Valley is more of a miniseries that wasn’t supposed to have a second season, so I’m not counting that), NBC had two big new adds and one shouldn’t even count because it’s another Law and Order and CBS had/will have the most with four current ones and two additions in Young Sheldon and SWAT coming soon (Star Trek isn’t counted because its on their streaming service). With the CW’s two new shows, that barely scratches a baker’s dozen of new shows for all the major networks. Even Netflix has scaled down and canceled some of its recurring shows in order to eliminate that huge debt they have. So I guess some show has to be low-rated but I would say that given a normal season in which we get most new shows all at once and get near two dozen, this show would probably be in the middle of the pack as far as ratings. It’s just not bad enough for me to trash it. But then again I also liked last season’s No Tomorrow for its cheery disposition in the face of impending doom, something which the critics absolutely hated. So what do I know?
With all of that said, Valor, for me, lays somewhere between The Brave and SEAL Team. Again, this show plays into the expected groove of other CW shows. It focuses on character development of young (they are all over thirty just for military people who were complaining about seeing twenty-somethings in high ranks), hot leads, is super diverse, helps to ably empower women, and focuses on the personal lives of the characters and not just what they do. As I said in my review of The Brave, that show focused too much on the mission and not enough on the characters. It took four or five episodes before I truly felt anything for Heche’s character who had lost her son in action. There was no emotional connection with the characters and they played like cardboard. SEAL Team went more personal with it and exposed us to the lives of the SEALs when not on a mission, giving the soldiers depth and multidimensional sides that deal with family and regular life.
Valor doesn’t focus so much on the mission, which might be missed by some die-hard military fans still lingering around after the inaccuracies. In the first three episodes, you only get two missions. It also isn’t a military procedural where you get one goal/mission a week and that mission is solved by the end of the episode. They do stuff, sure. But there aren’t big accomplishments each episode.
However, where Valor shines above both SEAL Team and The Brave is in the overarching story for the full season. The Brave didn’t have a secondary story at all to latch on to when the team was not in an active mission. SEAL Team had the training of Clay, whether the main guy and his wife would get back together, and if the dead team member cheated on his wife or not as overarching stories. While those are all nice, Valor’s intrigue about inter-agency malfeasance and missions gone wrong or governmental bodies/agencies lying is far more intriguing, and speaks to the heart of one of the four archetypes of soldiers.
OK, this might be offensive to some, but from what I’ve seen in soldiers that return from active duty in war-torn places, you have four types: soldiers more committed to loving their country than ever before, the ones who did their job and are glad to be out now because their service was just a job, the ones who are mentally scarred with PTSD or some other form of mental or physical disability, and finally, the ones who are disillusioned with patriotism and this country as a whole. While the last two often overlap, many soldiers don’t have to be mentally or physically disabled to be disillusioned. The Brave deals with almost none of these archetypes, which is why it felt hollow. SEAL Team at least tries to deal with the PTSD thing as well as the just-a-job sentiment. Valor deals with the disillusioned soldier idea, which is probably most prevalent in reality. The idea that the government or mass media lies constantly either to soldiers or the people, or both about what is going on overseas is a sentiment shared on the show and discussed in a meaningful way. It drives the main plot of the show and has you wondering what kind of danger these men and women are really in. There are lies, and spies and people looking behind their back and all sorts of possible twists to be played here. It could get very intriguing
Ultimately, the thing that pulls the show down the most, outside of the military protocol inaccuracies, are the acting and the writing. While the plotting is good, the written dialogue is rather bad. It sometimes tries to overfeed you the plot and thoughts of the characters and rings as clunky as that “training” line at the beginning of Wonder Woman (if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about). The acting is also not exceptional but that is partially because of the bad dialogue. But I’d say that ABC’s The Mayor has worse dialogue. And so does Dynasty and Inhumans. But I digress. To me, the show is not bad, it’s just not exceptional.
Should you be watching? Shrug! If you were in the military and/or you have family in the military, chances are that you will be irked by the inaccuracies of things like ponytails in uniform and whatnot, so this might not be for you. If you are older and don’t usually watch CW shows like Riverdale, or any of the superhero shows, then this also isn’t for you. But if you want to see something that will be plot-intriguing similar to last year’s Frequency, or you enjoy spy thrillers where you and the characters must constantly question who you can trust, then you might like this. A big disclaimer, though, because this is not 24-level spy stuff. This is like spy-lite, hold the mayo. I’d choose to watch this over The Brave but not over SEAL Team, if that helps. Valor airs on CW Mondays at 9pm. Catch up with past episodes on theCW.com.
What do you think? Have you heard of Valor? If not, do you think you’ll tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Do you like it? Was I too rough or too lenient on it? Does the plot intrigue you? And what do you think is really going on with the CIA? Do you think the Army guy really is a terrorist? And will Nora and Leland hookup at some point in the season? Let me know in the comments below.
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. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.
Until next time, “Be all that you can be in the army of one that always stays faithful. Oohrah!”
P.S. Let’s be fair here and say that all military shows will have some stuff that just isn’t by-the-book exactly the way that military branch does it. And yes having good consultants will quail some of the inaccuracies, but that shouldn’t disqualify the show for you off bat. Surprise, surprise, all shows have something like this, whether they be law shows, cop shows, hospital/doctor shows or anything job-related. They take liberties with rules and regulations to make the series look appealing and playful. If you were pissed by these inaccuracies in all three shows, I’d say calm down and give each show another chance and you might like it. Good plot and great characters go a long way in healing TV transgressions. I’ll come up with a better sign-off next time.
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Annnnnndddd we’re back. Welcome ladies and gentlemen to another grand new series three-week roundup review. At this point you know the rules: I wait to give a show three weeks to impress me before I review it because most pilot episodes are clunky and overly hyped anyway, so give a series time to settle in and see how it’s doing. Today, we’re looking at one of the CW’s new offerings Valor, the last of the three major military-themed new series offerings for this year (some might point out that Martha Raddatz’s book The Long Road Home, which I haven’t read, is coming on TV too, but that is just a miniseries and not a full series). We’ve already taken a look at both NBC’s The Brave and CBS’s SEAL Team, so does Valor have the right stuff to measure up or is it not worthy enough to wear its fatigues? Let’s find out together.
CW’s Valor stars Christina Ochoa as Nora Madani, an officer and Black Hawk chopper pilot in the US Army. Score one point for casting a Latina female as the lead for the show (CBS was called out for not having a single female leading a new show, even though they really didn’t have that many new shows this fall). Christina, even though she is a classified missions operator who flies black-ops mission specialists to secret locations to conduct secret missions, seems to be fairly new at her piloting when we first meet her. I say new in that she is simply not as experienced in in-field combat scenarios as her co-pilot is. Her co-pilot Leland Gallo played by Matt Barr, is a free-wheelin’ hotshot who has had tons of in-field experience and loves the ladies. And the ladies love him. He’s about business when he needs to be but doesn’t seem to shy away from fun. And already the show was winning some more points because, unlike on The Brave, we got actual character development for some of our main characters.
Nora and Leland are joined by a slew of other players in this story that quickly gets complicated, but I should first start with the inciting incident of the show and go from there. OK, so we open with Leland and Nora flying a secret mission into somewhere in Somalia. We learn later that the Somalian government knew nothing about this mission and the details are highly classified even within the Army rankings. While the team is technically bifurcated into the flyboys and girls and the ground troops, as a whole, the team is supposed to fly into Somalia and secure an HVT or High-Value Somalian Target who is supposedly some kind of insurgent. Well, they land, the ground crew loads out, they run into some shack where some militants are keeping this supposed Somalian insurgent, take on more enemy fire than they expected to, run back, hop into the copter and try to escape, but something goes terribly wrong when an RPG fires off and hits the tail of the copter. They have to make a daring crash-landing close by in some lake or pond and escape enemy territory. At some point their HVT escapes and everything goes to hell. Nora gets shot through the leg and panics and things go a little blurry for her. And we zoom to one month later back in the states. Here is where I jump back and possibly confuse you a little by telling you about the people on the helicopter transport. So, rounding out the crew in that transport were Jimmy Kam (who looked like he was a gunner of some sort. I really couldn’t keep up with the ranks and the back and forth chatting about people that weren’t shown was a little confusing to my aging brain) the black guy, Crank Hendrix one of the ground guys, two others, and the actual hooded Somalian. This is important for the overarching season mystery.
OK, back to one month later and we catch up with Nora who is greeted in the morning by her boyfriend and fellow Army officer Lieutenant Ian Porter. He works in Intelligence and is all over Nora in their kitchen. They appear to live on base, though I don’t know if they live together. Anyway, he is concerned that her one month of leg rehab to get over the gunshot was hardly enough time for her to heal mentally from what happened. He thinks she’s still having trouble dealing with the fact that they crash-landed and that only she and Leland returned. Well, she insists she’s fine and can’t wait to start her first day back on the job in months.
We jump over to see Leland in bed with some random white woman who enjoys handcuffs and good times. He charms his way back into his pants as he has to leave quickly to also get back to work after his one-month forced vacation. While he wasn’t injured, his leave was mandated. He, too, seems to live on the base as his girl is also in the Army in some capacity.
We finally jump over to the wife of Jimmy who is getting their son ready for school. There’s some back and forth about him singing and how dad used to sing with him. He then asks about his dad and we get this band-aiding of what’s really going on. She insists that her husband is just not back yet from his mission which happens to be one of the longest that his son can remember (again, they’re special ops, so they don’t do regular tours of deployment like other soldiers). While it’s sorta hinted at here, it isn’t outright said until after Leland and Nora step back into their platoon and are awarded some medals for their valor in the field that Jimmy and Hendrix are not classified as dead, but are MIA and suspected to have been captured as POWs. They’re alive.
We then switch over to Jimmy and Hendrix and pause for a minute when we finally realize what the writers did with the names there, and we aren’t quite sure how to react. Seriously, how should we react to those two being together like that? What’s the point of the music reference? I digress. We find Jimmy and Hendrix sitting in some dirt cell still somewhere in Somalia, supposedly being held captive by a local warlord. And here we finally get a feel for the show’s language. It should be noted that the show not only jumps between what’s happening on the base back in America and the jail cell in Somalia, but it also jumps back and forth in time, constantly going back to reference the night of the crash similar to the show Lost. The boys look a little beaten, but fair considering they’ve been there for a month. This pretty much sums up every jump to their storyline. Oh, and they’re constantly plotting to escape.
Back on the base, after receiving the commendation in front of her other officers, Nora is told by her CO that she is being pulled from actual flights and given a desk position for the next few months because some of the higher-up men are worried about having women in combat positions like hers. She stands up for herself and says she’s fine physically and mentally and should be in a helicopter just like Leland because they both went down in that crash. Leland had more combat experience is the excuse given. But when orders for a possible mission to go back in and rescue Jimmy and Hendrix come from OGA, Nora fights to be one of the pilots to fly it, along with Leland. Now she must prove herself in a local below-the-tree-line field test.
Meanwhile, her boyfriend, who recommended that she not be put back into a chopper too soon, is dealing with his own bit of sexual harassment as the new OGA liaison comes in hot for him. This woman off-bat says that he is cute before she starts directing how things will go concerning the entirety of this case. See, OGA is an acronym/nickname that the Army uses for the CIA. The CIA only gets deeply involved with a military exercise when the case or whatever is happening is quite big and important. That coupled with what happened out in the field puts both Nora and Leland on high-alert to watch their backs because something super-sketch is going on here. What happened in the field, you ask? Well, upon getting the HVT into the copter and being blasted with the RPG, they ripped the sack off the target’s head only to realize that he wasn’t some African or Middle-Eastern brown man but a white Army guy. They were lied to, but why? And why would this Army guy be out in the middle of nowhere, Somalia? The mystery only thickens when, after forcing Jimmy, Hendrix and the rest of the squad off the helicopter early before having to crash-land with the target still on board, Nora and Leland are confronted by some all-black special ops/CIA guy who orders them to hand over the rescued Army dude. The Army dude says that the guy in black is the enemy and is the reason he was in Somalia and we’re all just as confused as our two leads. Well, the guy in black threatens to kill both Nora and Leland but Nora fires first. In the hubbub, the other Army guy escapes.
Back one month later, Nora confronts her man about recommending her grounding, practices to pass this flight test with Leland, nearly crashes the helicopter with Leland in it, quite quizzically almost jumps Leland’s bones after they have a few hours of trying to figure out the mystery behind the rescue mission, then passes her flight test. I know, that explanation for just one episode was hell-a long, but there was a lot going on. Oh, and we learned at the very end that Nora is apparently snorting her crushed-up pain pills like they’re cut coke.
Episode two starts with the squad being told that they must somehow impress some higher-up politicians who are supposed to find the funds for and determine if they can officially go on this rescue mission to save Jimmy and Hendrix. But as I said earlier, the Somalian government just found out about their little mission the first time and is pissed. They shut down any air traffic to Americans, making the mission all the more difficult. Meanwhile, the CIA woman not only keeps sexually harassing the hell out of Nora’s boyfriend (she is totally jealous of Nora so it seems, and Ian has no idea that his girlfriend nearly cheated on him with Leland), she also keeps lying about the target.
Meanwhile, Leland and Nora continue their investigation into who the HVT was, as well as who the guy in black that tried to shoot them was. They find that the guy in black was listed as KIA because he supposedly died during a HALO jump years ago, but has now assumed an off-books blacklisted identity. But he was supposedly an officer. It’s quite confusing. We discover that back in the field they had decided to keep the secret about the HVT and the man in black.
Across the pond, the POWs stage their getaway but are confronted by the warlord and his minions. He unceremoniously executes one of his own men and recaptures the prisoners.
Back at home, Leland learns that Ian is the son of a politician. Even more, his politician mother then asks to fly with Nora and Leland in the copter to be impressed on a tactical chopper-attack exercise. She’s impressed but their CO, who is also riding along, is pissed because they disobeyed the rules. But even still, they get on the rescue mission officially. Leland opens up about a past love to Nora and they start to believe that the CIA is watching their every move. They talk about this domino that the Army guy dropped while escaping in the woods. Funny enough, the warlord who has Jimmy and Hendrix sends a video in which he demands a ransom and also holds a domino and they are like, that can’t be a coincidence, right? Strange from a guy who was supposed to be a Somalian insurgent but ended up being a reported KIA white American.
Episode three starts with them planning the rescue effort. Nora is getting close with Jimmy’s wife Jess but still can’t tell her that she’s going on the mission to go and get Jimmy. And Nora keeps having flashbacks to the previous mission while continuing to do more detective work about who they picked up. She also finally opens up to her bf about the doubts she’s having about flying. She goes and finds the sister of the HVT and tries to talk to her but first gets nothing. But she does realize that she is actively being followed by someone, she just doesn’t know who.
Back a month prior, Nora and Leland walk through the jungle and circle back around to the tiny hut where they supposedly rescued the Army guy/Somalia insurgent. They learn that not only was the entire firefight/threat staged from that night, but that this was a complete CIA setup from jump. There probably never was anyone in that shack, just Americans shooting other Americans. They then have to move out when they realize that their own rescue is coming soon.
We finally get to a mission in which they must first get medicine to a small village. This is like some sorta precursor mission before the rescue mission and Nora freezes up on this mission before making her second kill in the field when the copter lands and is ambushed. They succeed and escape but Nora confides in Leland again about her struggles to get back whole mentally. The good news is that they’ve decided to go forward with a hostage exchange to get back Jimmy and Hendrix. But that’s nothing because that sister-woman that Nora talked to earlier calls Nora back and tells her that the Army-guy/HVT they let escape in the first mission may have been radicalized at some point. He might’ve been a bad guy after all. Oh, and that sexually harassing CIA woman is, apparently, gay.
Jimmy's wife on the rightWhat’s my grade? I give it a C. Look, I read some of the reviews of Valor and all of the military-themed shows before ever reviewing them. Out of all of not just the military shows this year, but all new series, Valor topped the list as the worst rated or second worst rated behind only Marvel’s Inhumans. Regardless of what my rating says as compared to the other shows, I don’t understand this critic’s rating. First, even though I rated it a C, I actually liked this show slightly better than The Brave. So why did I rate it lower? I took a full grade off and not just a plus or minus strictly because of the show’s apparent inauthenticity, which is something that I know was burning the uniformed britches of tons of past and active military personnel. Yes, there are uniform goofs, rules and regulations flaunting (they continue to let Leland keep his facial hair), and there are a few age discrepancies here because most of these operators and people would be slightly older in real life, however, those inaccuracies do not and should not scuttle the show completely. I get it, plenty of fans and people out there love to nitpick but I think that there is something to also be said for plot, storytelling, intrigue, et cetera. And as far as that goes, if you can get through the inaccuracies of costume and what have you during the first episode, then you might be able to enjoy the show.
Again, I don’t get the hate for this show. I guess I have to chalk some of it up to the fact that the networks and even the streaming services have all scaled back on new series this year while they continue to figure out the new landscape of TV-viewing in this country, and how to adjust for the future. Fox only had three new high-profile shows, ABC had four (Ten Days in the Valley is more of a miniseries that wasn’t supposed to have a second season, so I’m not counting that), NBC had two big new adds and one shouldn’t even count because it’s another Law and Order and CBS had/will have the most with four current ones and two additions in Young Sheldon and SWAT coming soon (Star Trek isn’t counted because its on their streaming service). With the CW’s two new shows, that barely scratches a baker’s dozen of new shows for all the major networks. Even Netflix has scaled down and canceled some of its recurring shows in order to eliminate that huge debt they have. So I guess some show has to be low-rated but I would say that given a normal season in which we get most new shows all at once and get near two dozen, this show would probably be in the middle of the pack as far as ratings. It’s just not bad enough for me to trash it. But then again I also liked last season’s No Tomorrow for its cheery disposition in the face of impending doom, something which the critics absolutely hated. So what do I know?
With all of that said, Valor, for me, lays somewhere between The Brave and SEAL Team. Again, this show plays into the expected groove of other CW shows. It focuses on character development of young (they are all over thirty just for military people who were complaining about seeing twenty-somethings in high ranks), hot leads, is super diverse, helps to ably empower women, and focuses on the personal lives of the characters and not just what they do. As I said in my review of The Brave, that show focused too much on the mission and not enough on the characters. It took four or five episodes before I truly felt anything for Heche’s character who had lost her son in action. There was no emotional connection with the characters and they played like cardboard. SEAL Team went more personal with it and exposed us to the lives of the SEALs when not on a mission, giving the soldiers depth and multidimensional sides that deal with family and regular life.
Valor doesn’t focus so much on the mission, which might be missed by some die-hard military fans still lingering around after the inaccuracies. In the first three episodes, you only get two missions. It also isn’t a military procedural where you get one goal/mission a week and that mission is solved by the end of the episode. They do stuff, sure. But there aren’t big accomplishments each episode.
However, where Valor shines above both SEAL Team and The Brave is in the overarching story for the full season. The Brave didn’t have a secondary story at all to latch on to when the team was not in an active mission. SEAL Team had the training of Clay, whether the main guy and his wife would get back together, and if the dead team member cheated on his wife or not as overarching stories. While those are all nice, Valor’s intrigue about inter-agency malfeasance and missions gone wrong or governmental bodies/agencies lying is far more intriguing, and speaks to the heart of one of the four archetypes of soldiers.
OK, this might be offensive to some, but from what I’ve seen in soldiers that return from active duty in war-torn places, you have four types: soldiers more committed to loving their country than ever before, the ones who did their job and are glad to be out now because their service was just a job, the ones who are mentally scarred with PTSD or some other form of mental or physical disability, and finally, the ones who are disillusioned with patriotism and this country as a whole. While the last two often overlap, many soldiers don’t have to be mentally or physically disabled to be disillusioned. The Brave deals with almost none of these archetypes, which is why it felt hollow. SEAL Team at least tries to deal with the PTSD thing as well as the just-a-job sentiment. Valor deals with the disillusioned soldier idea, which is probably most prevalent in reality. The idea that the government or mass media lies constantly either to soldiers or the people, or both about what is going on overseas is a sentiment shared on the show and discussed in a meaningful way. It drives the main plot of the show and has you wondering what kind of danger these men and women are really in. There are lies, and spies and people looking behind their back and all sorts of possible twists to be played here. It could get very intriguing
Ultimately, the thing that pulls the show down the most, outside of the military protocol inaccuracies, are the acting and the writing. While the plotting is good, the written dialogue is rather bad. It sometimes tries to overfeed you the plot and thoughts of the characters and rings as clunky as that “training” line at the beginning of Wonder Woman (if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about). The acting is also not exceptional but that is partially because of the bad dialogue. But I’d say that ABC’s The Mayor has worse dialogue. And so does Dynasty and Inhumans. But I digress. To me, the show is not bad, it’s just not exceptional.
Should you be watching? Shrug! If you were in the military and/or you have family in the military, chances are that you will be irked by the inaccuracies of things like ponytails in uniform and whatnot, so this might not be for you. If you are older and don’t usually watch CW shows like Riverdale, or any of the superhero shows, then this also isn’t for you. But if you want to see something that will be plot-intriguing similar to last year’s Frequency, or you enjoy spy thrillers where you and the characters must constantly question who you can trust, then you might like this. A big disclaimer, though, because this is not 24-level spy stuff. This is like spy-lite, hold the mayo. I’d choose to watch this over The Brave but not over SEAL Team, if that helps. Valor airs on CW Mondays at 9pm. Catch up with past episodes on theCW.com.
What do you think? Have you heard of Valor? If not, do you think you’ll tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Do you like it? Was I too rough or too lenient on it? Does the plot intrigue you? And what do you think is really going on with the CIA? Do you think the Army guy really is a terrorist? And will Nora and Leland hookup at some point in the season? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.Until next time, “Be all that you can be in the army of one that always stays faithful. Oohrah!”
P.S. Let’s be fair here and say that all military shows will have some stuff that just isn’t by-the-book exactly the way that military branch does it. And yes having good consultants will quail some of the inaccuracies, but that shouldn’t disqualify the show for you off bat. Surprise, surprise, all shows have something like this, whether they be law shows, cop shows, hospital/doctor shows or anything job-related. They take liberties with rules and regulations to make the series look appealing and playful. If you were pissed by these inaccuracies in all three shows, I’d say calm down and give each show another chance and you might like it. Good plot and great characters go a long way in healing TV transgressions. I’ll come up with a better sign-off next time.
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Well, It’s A Comedy With Letters #9JKL #3weekroundup #CBS #review #recap
Well, It’s A Comedy With Letters #9JKL #3weekroundup #CBS #review #recap
All pictures courtesy of CBS
Not a very creative title for a show based on a real-life experience (I believe of the main actor in the show), so maybe you can’t expect much from this review/recap. Eh! Dude, like, whatevs! As we zoom full-speed ahead toward holiday time, expect for the posts to tighten around me promoting my own work and books and serials and whatnot. OK? So, let’s get into this show and see if 9JKL is a ball of laughs or if it flounders amidst the myriad of voices. Let’s find out together.
CBS’s new half-hour comedy 9JKL stars Mark Feuerstein as Josh, a 40-something actor (I totally almost put actress and I have no idea why) who, after a recent divorce and his TV show getting canceled out in LA, has had to slump back to New York in shame. With very little money and few business/role prospects for him after playing a character called The Blind Cop (or Detective) for many years, he is forced to live pseudo-with his parents. See, as I understood it, his parents are quite wealthy—his father runs either an accounting or law firm—and they happen to live in a building where they own/rent out not one but two apartments at the end of a hallway. The third apartment in the little circle of rooms is owned by Josh’s brother and sister-in-law. So, basically the show is like him moving back home and living in his parents’ basement with his brother’s family living in the attic, but with apartments instead of a house. Get it? Good, because that is the basic thrust of the show and this review/recap can go pretty fast because you all can already assume nearly every beat of the first three episodes.
Josh, Josh's Mom Judy, Upstairs NeighborHis mother Judy (played by Linda Lavin) is the stereotypical overbearing Jewish mother whose life revolves around her favorite son’s life. And since Josh hasn’t been home in a while, she is naturally all up in his business. ALL. UP. IN IT! Most of the humor comes from the interactions between her and Josh and how she runs their very matriarchal family.
Next is Josh’s father Harry (played by Elliott Gould) who is the stereotypical Jewish dad who sorta wanders around aimlessly when not at work and follows every direction given to him by his wife in this matriarchal family. He’s the Peter Griffin of the family but with less lines and screen time. And yes, he’s slightly afraid of his wife even after so many years but it’s cute and funny (tries to be).
Then we have Josh’s brother Andrew (played by David Walton who last starred on NBC’s About a Boy TV series). Andrew is the taller, more successful brother who happens to be a surgeon, is happily married, way taller, more good-looking (if you ask him) and is a recent first-time father. And he’s taller. And yes, as you’ve already guessed, I listed all of his accomplishments to say that he is the one who seems to feel some brother envy because of how his brother Josh is treated as the golden child.
We also have Andrew’s wife Eve. Played by Liza Lapira, Eve is a fiesty Asian woman who thinks a lot like a dude and is supposed to be the embodiment of the modern woman—easygoing, not hung-up on her man, and clearly in control of the house as her husband moved from one matriarchy to another. They’re equals in their marriage, but she’s definitely more “equal” than he is. There’s huge potential for her to be an Asian Amy Dunne. Huge potential.
Rounding out the cast we have two side characters. First there is the lobby/front door man Nick who is the cool young therapist-type of dude that always talks to Josh and the family and makes jokes about Josh’s life. He is joined by the young Asian kid Ian who is always seen sitting in the lobby trying to avoid his own life and parents upstairs. Together, the two characters clown Josh about everything as he passes by, and they give him an outlet for jokes about his family.
Those are the characters and they play as such... Episode one is all about Josh moving back in and readjusting to life in an apartment that he gets to live in for free because his parents pay for it. He’s shockingly greeted by his mother and father hovering over his bed as they watch him sleep, realizes that his father doesn’t have any pants on but is in Josh’s apartment and not his own, then is greeted by his brother and Eve who both come over to greet him in the morning. The term close-knit was made for this family.
Throughout the episode, as he tries to adjust, he hears of a movie role in a Paul Feig comedy, a sequel to Bridesmaids called Groomies that he wants a part in but probably won’t get it. He also is trying to adjust to the comings and goings in his own schedule. Somehow, every time he leaves his apartment, when he comes back into the building, his mother always knows that he is coming home and stops him to invite him in for a visit. And he has to go because... you know, it’s his mom. While she is talking about him getting over the divorce and getting back on his feet, he is not trying to hear about any dating or any business setups.
And then he sees an old college friend who has also recently just gone through a very bad divorce in which her ex got their place and she’s out sleeping on a friend’s couch. But they had crushes on each other in college and they’re free now so why not go for it? Gag! Anyway, they have a decent date but when she asks to go back to his place, Josh panics because he doesn’t want to introduce her to his mother and knows that no matter what he does, she’ll know that he is in the building.
But when he enters the building and pushes his date onto the elevator, he hears Nick calling up to his mother to tell her that he’s coming up and realizes that Judy is paying the guy for forewarning about Josh’s comings and goings. Craziness. As you can guess, they get up to his apartment, comedic chaos ensues, he tries to seduce the woman while avoiding his overbearing mother who thinks that something is going on when he quickly flees her place after a one-minute sit-down, the lady ends up leaving and his family ends up arguing on the three balconies that are all next to each other. At this point, I was seriously trying to figure out how the hell this building worked because there was no way that the three balconies to three apartments that are at the end of a hallway—one on right, one on left and one at center—should be so close or even see each other. Architects, help me out here! And then his dad gets a call from his friend who knows a friend who knows Paul Feig, and somehow Josh gets down there to ask for a part in Groomies but is too late because the part’s gone to Steve Carrell. But that’s OK because Josh is back and fully adjusted to home.
Episode two is about the one night stand that Josh tries to accomplish. Always a relationship guy, he’s never had a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kinda night, so Eve and Andrew try to coach him through such an encounter. They take him to a club and point out a woman who looks down. Well, as Josh tries for a one-night conquest, Andrew realizes that Eve’s rules for said conquests are exactly how she treated him the morning after they first slept together. Now his feelings are a little hurt because he thought they had this deep connection that both of them felt immediately. Oh, and Josh’s parents are tripping over having a surplus of bananas after Harry bought a second stem of bananas.
Well, Josh’s one-nighter ends up leaving only for them to be caught by his mom at the elevator. Josh still says bye and counts it a job well done. But as he gets back later that evening, he sees who else but his one night stand sitting in his parents’ kitchen. Apparently, this woman and his mother spent the entire day together on accident. She didn’t mean to link with his mother and she apologizes, but now he’s gotta give her that tubesteak again, right? So, they try for another one-nighter and this time it goes successful. But while he is dismissing her, he agonizes over it because she seems like such a great girl. His mother just happens to have her number and gives it to him. Meanwhile, as Josh is calling the girl, Eve shows a keepsake box of the stuff that Andrew sent her after their first one night stand to prove that she did feel that magic he felt. All is well, until Josh gets back with that woman and realizes that she is too eager to get married and was play-acting being cool with one-nighters. Stage 5 Clinger Alert!
Episode three sees Josh try to get a new friend in the city who isn’t married because all of his old New York friends are married with children and want to get to bed by nine o’clock. He leaves his apartment one day with his bike to go on a long ride and bumps into another bike rider played by the recently busy Tone Bell. Let me say that if this show does survive, I hope that they make Tone part of the cast. And their biking adventures begin.
While Josh is forming a new friendship, his brother struggles to put together a baby crib to prove that he’s an everything man. Eve’s father can build anything and was a carpenter when she grew up and she loves her father very much. Andrew just wants her to love and admire him like that so he feels he has to live up to the standard her father set. But she hires Nick to put the thing together for them because she’s too busy and no way her husband can do that. Well, after a while of trying to put it together, Andrew caves and hires Nick back to construct the crib for him before Eve gets home from work so he could claim credit. But the crib gets stuck and they get caught and Andrew learns that his wife loves him just the way he is now and he doesn’t have to be Handy Andy.
Meanwhile, Josh and his black buddy are getting along swimmingly until he tells his parents the guy’s name. Apparently, the guy lives directly above their apartment and supposedly caused some water damage on the corner ceiling next to the shower in their bathroom (leaking or something). Well, he swears he didn’t do it, but Judy swears he did and tries to forbid and shame Josh into not being friends with the guy anymore. Josh bucks the matriarchal rule and continues his friendship until his mother devises a plan to get the man over to her place to admit he did the damage. But as the guy is unrelenting on his conviction, and Judy is unrelenting of her blaming, Harry finally confesses to doing the damage with the wand nozzle showerhead. He tried spraying a spider he thought he saw on the wallpaper just above the shower only to realize after he had saturated the wall that the spider was part of the wallpaper design. Everybody forgives everybody and life goes on.
What’s my grade? I give it a B-. Is this a comedy classic in the making? Probably not, but I will give it enough room for that. The chemistry across the show for all the characters is pretty good and you can believe that this would be a modern situation with so many people of all generations now living with family but there was just something missing for me that didn’t necessarily make me laugh all that much. The reason I gave it a B- is because I know that comedy is highly subjective and something funny to one is not always funny to another, and vice versa. While I find the old, over-bearing Jewish mother a well-worn and downright played trope, it clearly still works for many people. The show reminds me of (and don’t read too much into this) Seinfeld but without a definitive George Costanza or Kramer. The way Eve is written and acted reminds me a little of Elaine and if they played his brother up as the long-suffering brilliant doctor who seems like nothing more than a foil in his own life, then I could really get behind this show, but for now it’s just your average sitcom that’ll get you a few laughs before bed. Also, and I rarely point this out, but this is one of the only shows in recent memory where I felt that the laugh track really interrupted the show and interpreted some situations incorrectly. It felt like the laughs were too big at some points and forced at others. But again, the show was serviceable enough. Will it last the season? Probably, but I haven’t seen the ratings on it. I would say that if it lasts the season, it could last for five more seasons then either have to change or end.
Should you be watching? If you are a CBS viewer already, and like their other comedies, then chances are you’ll like this, too. It’s family-oriented, though not necessarily family viewing (the one night stand episode, remember) but it does try to use the most of the funny situation. I’d say that Will and Grace fans might get a few chucks from it as well. It’s old school comedy. If, however, you are into other comedies like single-cam comedies of ABC where there are no laugh tracks, then you might want to stay away. 9JKL airs on CBS Mondays at 8:30pm and you can also catch it on CBS on Demand and CBS All Access.
What do you think? Have you heard of 9JKL? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did you like it? Where do you think this show can improve? Who’s your favorite character? And if it gets to stay around, what actor/director/Hollywood type would you like to see guest star like Paul Feig did? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.
Until next time, “We’re lookin’ for someone with the specialty license plate I. C. Wee Ner. Is there an I. C. Wee Ner here? I. C.—oh! Damn it! Fooled again!’
P.S. Seriously, 9JKL was all they could come up with? I totally thought the show was about working at the DMV and that being a specialty license plate or something. Then I saw the plainer than beige commercials for it and got really weirded out by the strangeness of the advertisements and thought I might be in for something transcendent. Nope! Regular old comedy. I’ll think of a better sign-off next time.
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All pictures courtesy of CBS Not a very creative title for a show based on a real-life experience (I believe of the main actor in the show), so maybe you can’t expect much from this review/recap. Eh! Dude, like, whatevs! As we zoom full-speed ahead toward holiday time, expect for the posts to tighten around me promoting my own work and books and serials and whatnot. OK? So, let’s get into this show and see if 9JKL is a ball of laughs or if it flounders amidst the myriad of voices. Let’s find out together.
CBS’s new half-hour comedy 9JKL stars Mark Feuerstein as Josh, a 40-something actor (I totally almost put actress and I have no idea why) who, after a recent divorce and his TV show getting canceled out in LA, has had to slump back to New York in shame. With very little money and few business/role prospects for him after playing a character called The Blind Cop (or Detective) for many years, he is forced to live pseudo-with his parents. See, as I understood it, his parents are quite wealthy—his father runs either an accounting or law firm—and they happen to live in a building where they own/rent out not one but two apartments at the end of a hallway. The third apartment in the little circle of rooms is owned by Josh’s brother and sister-in-law. So, basically the show is like him moving back home and living in his parents’ basement with his brother’s family living in the attic, but with apartments instead of a house. Get it? Good, because that is the basic thrust of the show and this review/recap can go pretty fast because you all can already assume nearly every beat of the first three episodes.
Josh, Josh's Mom Judy, Upstairs NeighborHis mother Judy (played by Linda Lavin) is the stereotypical overbearing Jewish mother whose life revolves around her favorite son’s life. And since Josh hasn’t been home in a while, she is naturally all up in his business. ALL. UP. IN IT! Most of the humor comes from the interactions between her and Josh and how she runs their very matriarchal family. Next is Josh’s father Harry (played by Elliott Gould) who is the stereotypical Jewish dad who sorta wanders around aimlessly when not at work and follows every direction given to him by his wife in this matriarchal family. He’s the Peter Griffin of the family but with less lines and screen time. And yes, he’s slightly afraid of his wife even after so many years but it’s cute and funny (tries to be).
Then we have Josh’s brother Andrew (played by David Walton who last starred on NBC’s About a Boy TV series). Andrew is the taller, more successful brother who happens to be a surgeon, is happily married, way taller, more good-looking (if you ask him) and is a recent first-time father. And he’s taller. And yes, as you’ve already guessed, I listed all of his accomplishments to say that he is the one who seems to feel some brother envy because of how his brother Josh is treated as the golden child.
We also have Andrew’s wife Eve. Played by Liza Lapira, Eve is a fiesty Asian woman who thinks a lot like a dude and is supposed to be the embodiment of the modern woman—easygoing, not hung-up on her man, and clearly in control of the house as her husband moved from one matriarchy to another. They’re equals in their marriage, but she’s definitely more “equal” than he is. There’s huge potential for her to be an Asian Amy Dunne. Huge potential.
Rounding out the cast we have two side characters. First there is the lobby/front door man Nick who is the cool young therapist-type of dude that always talks to Josh and the family and makes jokes about Josh’s life. He is joined by the young Asian kid Ian who is always seen sitting in the lobby trying to avoid his own life and parents upstairs. Together, the two characters clown Josh about everything as he passes by, and they give him an outlet for jokes about his family. Those are the characters and they play as such... Episode one is all about Josh moving back in and readjusting to life in an apartment that he gets to live in for free because his parents pay for it. He’s shockingly greeted by his mother and father hovering over his bed as they watch him sleep, realizes that his father doesn’t have any pants on but is in Josh’s apartment and not his own, then is greeted by his brother and Eve who both come over to greet him in the morning. The term close-knit was made for this family.
Throughout the episode, as he tries to adjust, he hears of a movie role in a Paul Feig comedy, a sequel to Bridesmaids called Groomies that he wants a part in but probably won’t get it. He also is trying to adjust to the comings and goings in his own schedule. Somehow, every time he leaves his apartment, when he comes back into the building, his mother always knows that he is coming home and stops him to invite him in for a visit. And he has to go because... you know, it’s his mom. While she is talking about him getting over the divorce and getting back on his feet, he is not trying to hear about any dating or any business setups.
And then he sees an old college friend who has also recently just gone through a very bad divorce in which her ex got their place and she’s out sleeping on a friend’s couch. But they had crushes on each other in college and they’re free now so why not go for it? Gag! Anyway, they have a decent date but when she asks to go back to his place, Josh panics because he doesn’t want to introduce her to his mother and knows that no matter what he does, she’ll know that he is in the building.
But when he enters the building and pushes his date onto the elevator, he hears Nick calling up to his mother to tell her that he’s coming up and realizes that Judy is paying the guy for forewarning about Josh’s comings and goings. Craziness. As you can guess, they get up to his apartment, comedic chaos ensues, he tries to seduce the woman while avoiding his overbearing mother who thinks that something is going on when he quickly flees her place after a one-minute sit-down, the lady ends up leaving and his family ends up arguing on the three balconies that are all next to each other. At this point, I was seriously trying to figure out how the hell this building worked because there was no way that the three balconies to three apartments that are at the end of a hallway—one on right, one on left and one at center—should be so close or even see each other. Architects, help me out here! And then his dad gets a call from his friend who knows a friend who knows Paul Feig, and somehow Josh gets down there to ask for a part in Groomies but is too late because the part’s gone to Steve Carrell. But that’s OK because Josh is back and fully adjusted to home.
Episode two is about the one night stand that Josh tries to accomplish. Always a relationship guy, he’s never had a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kinda night, so Eve and Andrew try to coach him through such an encounter. They take him to a club and point out a woman who looks down. Well, as Josh tries for a one-night conquest, Andrew realizes that Eve’s rules for said conquests are exactly how she treated him the morning after they first slept together. Now his feelings are a little hurt because he thought they had this deep connection that both of them felt immediately. Oh, and Josh’s parents are tripping over having a surplus of bananas after Harry bought a second stem of bananas.
Well, Josh’s one-nighter ends up leaving only for them to be caught by his mom at the elevator. Josh still says bye and counts it a job well done. But as he gets back later that evening, he sees who else but his one night stand sitting in his parents’ kitchen. Apparently, this woman and his mother spent the entire day together on accident. She didn’t mean to link with his mother and she apologizes, but now he’s gotta give her that tubesteak again, right? So, they try for another one-nighter and this time it goes successful. But while he is dismissing her, he agonizes over it because she seems like such a great girl. His mother just happens to have her number and gives it to him. Meanwhile, as Josh is calling the girl, Eve shows a keepsake box of the stuff that Andrew sent her after their first one night stand to prove that she did feel that magic he felt. All is well, until Josh gets back with that woman and realizes that she is too eager to get married and was play-acting being cool with one-nighters. Stage 5 Clinger Alert!
Episode three sees Josh try to get a new friend in the city who isn’t married because all of his old New York friends are married with children and want to get to bed by nine o’clock. He leaves his apartment one day with his bike to go on a long ride and bumps into another bike rider played by the recently busy Tone Bell. Let me say that if this show does survive, I hope that they make Tone part of the cast. And their biking adventures begin.
While Josh is forming a new friendship, his brother struggles to put together a baby crib to prove that he’s an everything man. Eve’s father can build anything and was a carpenter when she grew up and she loves her father very much. Andrew just wants her to love and admire him like that so he feels he has to live up to the standard her father set. But she hires Nick to put the thing together for them because she’s too busy and no way her husband can do that. Well, after a while of trying to put it together, Andrew caves and hires Nick back to construct the crib for him before Eve gets home from work so he could claim credit. But the crib gets stuck and they get caught and Andrew learns that his wife loves him just the way he is now and he doesn’t have to be Handy Andy.
Meanwhile, Josh and his black buddy are getting along swimmingly until he tells his parents the guy’s name. Apparently, the guy lives directly above their apartment and supposedly caused some water damage on the corner ceiling next to the shower in their bathroom (leaking or something). Well, he swears he didn’t do it, but Judy swears he did and tries to forbid and shame Josh into not being friends with the guy anymore. Josh bucks the matriarchal rule and continues his friendship until his mother devises a plan to get the man over to her place to admit he did the damage. But as the guy is unrelenting on his conviction, and Judy is unrelenting of her blaming, Harry finally confesses to doing the damage with the wand nozzle showerhead. He tried spraying a spider he thought he saw on the wallpaper just above the shower only to realize after he had saturated the wall that the spider was part of the wallpaper design. Everybody forgives everybody and life goes on.
What’s my grade? I give it a B-. Is this a comedy classic in the making? Probably not, but I will give it enough room for that. The chemistry across the show for all the characters is pretty good and you can believe that this would be a modern situation with so many people of all generations now living with family but there was just something missing for me that didn’t necessarily make me laugh all that much. The reason I gave it a B- is because I know that comedy is highly subjective and something funny to one is not always funny to another, and vice versa. While I find the old, over-bearing Jewish mother a well-worn and downright played trope, it clearly still works for many people. The show reminds me of (and don’t read too much into this) Seinfeld but without a definitive George Costanza or Kramer. The way Eve is written and acted reminds me a little of Elaine and if they played his brother up as the long-suffering brilliant doctor who seems like nothing more than a foil in his own life, then I could really get behind this show, but for now it’s just your average sitcom that’ll get you a few laughs before bed. Also, and I rarely point this out, but this is one of the only shows in recent memory where I felt that the laugh track really interrupted the show and interpreted some situations incorrectly. It felt like the laughs were too big at some points and forced at others. But again, the show was serviceable enough. Will it last the season? Probably, but I haven’t seen the ratings on it. I would say that if it lasts the season, it could last for five more seasons then either have to change or end.
Should you be watching? If you are a CBS viewer already, and like their other comedies, then chances are you’ll like this, too. It’s family-oriented, though not necessarily family viewing (the one night stand episode, remember) but it does try to use the most of the funny situation. I’d say that Will and Grace fans might get a few chucks from it as well. It’s old school comedy. If, however, you are into other comedies like single-cam comedies of ABC where there are no laugh tracks, then you might want to stay away. 9JKL airs on CBS Mondays at 8:30pm and you can also catch it on CBS on Demand and CBS All Access.
What do you think? Have you heard of 9JKL? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did you like it? Where do you think this show can improve? Who’s your favorite character? And if it gets to stay around, what actor/director/Hollywood type would you like to see guest star like Paul Feig did? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.Until next time, “We’re lookin’ for someone with the specialty license plate I. C. Wee Ner. Is there an I. C. Wee Ner here? I. C.—oh! Damn it! Fooled again!’
P.S. Seriously, 9JKL was all they could come up with? I totally thought the show was about working at the DMV and that being a specialty license plate or something. Then I saw the plainer than beige commercials for it and got really weirded out by the strangeness of the advertisements and thought I might be in for something transcendent. Nope! Regular old comedy. I’ll think of a better sign-off next time.
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November 1, 2017
(Deep Breath) Whhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? #Dynasty #3weekroundup #recap #review #CW
(Deep Breath) Whhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? #Dynasty #3weekroundup #recap #review #CW
All pictures courtesy of the CW
Dear God, I think I’m a pretty decent human being. I haven’t purposefully killed anybody in a while. My name is not Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, Woody Allen or any other pervert/assaulter’s name. I don’t even take more than ten pennies from the take-a-penny leave-a-penny anymore. And I have not let my dog crap on Mrs. Strutherby’s lawn in, like, at least two months (that vomit from a month ago should totally not count). The point is that I’m a good person, so why then have I been assaulted with such a terrible remake of a classic show? Why have I even had the unforced punishment to have to sit through it just so I can review it for literally nobody who reads this blog? Why, on your great earth filled with green pastures and frothy seas, did this even get made? I know you won’t answer in time for me to finish this review, but I’m just sayin’ help a brotha out with a little bit of understanding. Amen!
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, we have come to what should totally be the end of the new shows for this season but inexplicably isn’t because networks are choosing to premiere shows in a scattershot pattern, and boy is it a doozy. Forewarning right now, I usually try my darnedest not to curse and fill this blog with vile and foul language (I do curse in a great many of my books for interested readers) but I am going to be breaking that rule on this post because, oh boy! I’ve completely buried the lede here, or maybe I’ve blown it too soon, so I shouldn’t really have to try to do the clever question about whether this series is worth watching or not, but I’ll try for you, faithful reader. Is the new rebooted Dynasty the start of a new empire, or will it quickly go the way of the Ming? Let’s find out together.
CW’s new show Dynasty is a reboot of the old show of the same name. It centers around a wealthy white family that has made their money in the oil industry but are now venturing off into other sections of energy. The show specifically deals with the trials and tribulations of who is sleeping with who and who is willing to backstab their family all to continue their part in maintaining the Carrington Dynasty. Blake Carrington (played by Grant Show) is the patriarch of the Carrington family. For review purposes I will hold back on my comparisons between this farce of a remake and the original until the end. So in this version, Blake seems to be a corporate businessman who is president and CEO of Carrington Atlanta. He doesn’t seem to have a domineering personality but is quite backstab-by. Honestly, in the first episode it was rather difficult to pin down who he is and what he was going to be. For now, he’s pretty much every old rich white man who likes younger women.
His eldest daughter’s name is Fallon Carrington (played by Elizabeth Gillies) who takes center stage on this series and gives off this Gossip Girl-esque vibe. She is the current head of Acquistions for Carrington Atlanta but wants to be COO of the company. She hopes that her father will one day pass the company to her as all dynasties get passed down to the children. She’s a millennial feminist who has no problem using sex as a weapon, and wielding her father’s love for her as a weapon. Next we have Steven Carrington who is the gay son of Blake (this is very important for my critique later) and sibling to Fallon. Blake is supposed to be traditional (doesn’t seem like it), so he hates that his son is gay, yet he has no qualms about using his son’s gayness to land business deals. It is for this hatred that Steven rebels against his father in any way he can, but most notably by protesting against his father’s oil-fracking efforts.
But the most important character on which the show is supposed to hinge is Cristal Flores (Carrington) played by Nathalie Kelley of Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift fame. On the first episode she is revealed to be Blake’s new fiance and quickly gets married to him after having worked for him for years but having only dated him for a few months. She’s super young and non-white, getting married to a billionaire. Naturally, Fallon sees this as disgusting and thinks Cristal is nothing more than a gold digger, and here is where this remake stakes its claim.
We start the first episode with Fallon narrating background about her life and Carrington Atlanta. Fans of the original would note the ode to the original music as played by a young Steven during one of Fallon’s explanatory flashbacks detailing her brother’s disdain for their birthright. She thinks that telling her father about a business that is ripe for the takeover will help her get that promotion to COO. The new company is a clean-energy company that has focused mostly on wind power but owns land that is rumored to be oil-rich and great for fracking. She rushes home in her private jet to tell her father.
Meanwhile, Cristal speaks with her boss about how his company is out of touch and needs to be more socially responsible and have more involvement with philanthropic efforts. Her boss is Blake. She goes to his Mansion (with a capital m) in the fancier part of Atlanta to discuss this more and they end up about to get it on right on his desk. And then Fallon and Steven walk in much to the protestations of the butler. It is in this shuffle to get dressed that he tells his children that he’s engaged. Surprise!
Fallon is pissed not only because she thought he called her home to promote her, but because Blake apparently swore he would never remarry after divorcing their mother Alexis (who is never seen). Well, he is getting married and Fallon isn’t getting the job. Steven is only half-pissed because he thought he came home to finally receive that long-awaited apology he never got for how his father mistreated him for being gay. But it’s fine that his father is getting remarried to him.
Fallon and Chauffeur
Between screw sessions with her dad’s black chauffeur Michael and seething family dinners, Fallon plots to both get that COO job and get Cristal out of their lives for good. She tries to carry favor with her father by securing him a joint win with one of his most hated enemies, Jeff Colby. Jeff Colby, who is black, was a young man who worked in the tech department at Carrington Atlanta. While on company time, he created some kind of app that blew up and made him a billionaire almost overnight. Blake tried to sue for company ownership because the app was created on his dime, but the judge ruled against that and now Jeff is Blake’s sworn enemy. Blake is trying to outbid Jeff for ownership of the Atlanta Braves baseball team if only to prevent Jeff from having it. Fallon sees they are both being outbid by a third bidder and says that if they combine their money, then Jeff can own the team, but Blake could own the stadium naming rights and it’s a win-win. This intrigues Jeff as he has a crush on Fallon.
Meanwhile, Cristal is basking in her engagement glow with her fellow girlfriends but knows that she must also tell her old lover about her new relationship before it hits tabloids. Her old lover Matthew Blaisdel is someone who works for Blake. He and Cristal had a brief affair but he has a wife Claudia who is very ill and has mental problems. Though he loves Cristal, he could never muster the courage to leave Claudia in her time of need. He and Cristal say their final goodbyes in a car and are caught kissing by Fallon’s boy-toy Michael, which she uses to try to get her father to detest Cristal.
Steven and FallonFallon’s plan backfires. While Blake does invite Matthew to his house, Cristal sees what he’s doing and doesn’t like it one bit. She stomps out pissed and goes back to her own place that she’s keeping because she has yet to move into the Mansion. Well, she and Blake forgive each other and decide to move their wedding up to the day of the engagement party and have a surprise ceremony instead.
Speaking of surprises, Blake uses the info Fallon told him about that other energy company to get Steven back on his side. He tells the boy that he and this other company’s CEO have a lot in common, and asks him to meet with the man. In turn Carrington Atlanta will be more environmentally friendly. Steven goes only to realize that his father meant that the CEO was gay and he wanted his son to sleep with the man to close the deal. Steven gets pissed and decides to instead sleep with some random bar guy.
We fast forward to the surprise nuptials and learn that Fallon is pissed that her father let Steven close the deal with the other company. She physically fights with Cristal who has been promoted to COO instead of her. Fallon then makes a deal with Jeff to open their own new energy company using the purchase of that other energy company she told her dad about as a start. Oh, and the guy Steven slept with was actually Sammy Joe Flores, Cristal’s nephew. And if that wasn’t enough, Blake sent Matthew to the new energy company’s current wind-farm site to do a land survey only for the truck to blow up and one of the windmills to collapse around him, killing him in the process. And Claudia comes to the Mansion talking about how Blake killed her husband. True fans of the original Dynasty should already be shaking their heads.
Episode two curiously starts with the house swamped in police and press treating Matthew’s death as a murder investigation which sends Cristal fainting at the accusations. And here is where you start to wonder if they not only remade this but took a regular prime time drama and made it into some kind of murder mystery similar to How To Get Away With Murder. Sigh. Dumb shit. Just dumb.
A Murder? What? Anyway, while the investigation continues, Blake makes the unilateral decision that he is going to try protecting all of his family. So he wants that picture of Cristal and Matthew kissing destroyed. The problem is that it was emailed from Michael to Fallon who forwarded it to her father, leaving a digital trail. So if their property is subpoenaed... Cristal is also doing a little Nancy Drewing after Matthew’s partner who was there to see him die, tells her that she needs to be leery of her new husband. He says that Blake is evil and rich and might have rigged the truck to blow, because he wanted Matthew gone, because he found out that Cristal was previously in love with him and might still be, because Cristal was still holding on to some of Matthew’s things from their affair because Matthew clearly was putting it on her like sizzle on steak because... Um... I ran out of becauses.
Blake tries to blame Jeff for the murder in some twisted rivals revenge plot. Blake pays for Matthew’s funeral, and his family goes just so that Cristal has the opportunity to push Fallon into an open grave. Yes, this show somehow manages to get worse and worse every episode. Blake invites press to the funeral reception so they will write favorable stories about him and Matthew’s friend gets really upset and storms out drunk. And somehow this turns Cristal on enough to screw Blake in his office during this funeral reception. And the main butler keeps coming around talking about how he knows about some dark past that Cristal has. Everyone is supposedly deceptive and conniving. And Steven gets arrested at the end of the episode.
Episode three starts with Fallon playing dress up with her boy-toy black chauffeur. She lies about how nothing is going on between her and Colby. Blake gets Steven out on bail and the gay son immediately runs to Sammy Jo to cement his alibi for where he was when Matthew was killed and you’re watching this thinking, “But if the truck was rigged to blow, he wouldn’t have had to be there to... Never mind.” The butler continues to be a dick to Cristal for no reason and warns her about being a gold digger (I think he and Fallon read the same playbook). But she doesn’t care because her family needs money back in Venezuela. Well, Sammy Jo offers to fence some of Cristal’s jewelry and we learn that apparently these billionaires have fake jewelry lying around to try on with clothes. Like... what? Anyway, we get a brief flashback of Cristal (not her real name) back in Venezuela 12 years ago stealing money from somewhere and using it to get to America.
Fallon and JeffSteven learns from Michael that Blake has Matthew’s phone and he and his sister plot to find the phone during the 80s-themed charity party held at the mansion. Oh god, make it stop! The party’s auction pits Blake and Jeff against each other in a bidding war for a necklace worn by Cristal. Jeff wins the bid with a high-priced $10 million bid only for Blake to rile him up enough for them to get into a physical altercation at the party. Jeff swears that he’s going to give the necklace to Fallon because he’s hot for her, but he goes off to do that only to find her screwing the chauffeur again after she just got done doing that earlier.
Well, a robber comes into the house during the party and is caught searching for stuff by Blake. Steven fights the burglar off and defends his father which gives Blake a little smile. The burglar supposedly steals Cristal’s ring. Of course Sammy set up the robbery to get some money for the Venezuelan family.
Blake tries to have a sweet moment with his daughter and it’s a very “eh!” moment. This comes after he tried to prevent the trademarked Carrington name from being used by Fallon in her brand new venture. And at the end of the episode, Blake realizes that Matthew’s phone was, in fact, stolen. They’ve got to get it back because old dude had some freak-nasty stuff on there involving Cristal.
What’s my grade? I give it a D-. Wow! That might be the lowest grade I’ve ever given something. I was gonna go for the full F, but I had to give it some credit for the diversity within the series as opposed to the lily-whiteness of the original. Dynasty this ain’t. Guys and gals, you all know just how much in the last few months (read: years) I have been trying my best to not go full-on nuclear at some of the current stuff coming out of the film and television industry. And if you’ve read anything of late you also know how much I have been blaming a particular group for this lack of creativity and good entertainment. For those new to the blog, no, the answer surprisingly isn’t Millennials but the one generation that should be getting blamed for a lot more stuff: Gen-Xers. I am trying my best not to just dismiss any generation but why do Xers keep doing this? I don’t get it. Breaking it down for people, Xers would be those born between 65 and 80 (though some would claim their generation goes all the way to 85, which is inaccurate as most generations before Baby Boomers never spanned more than 15 years but I digress). Even if you do count the inaccurate years and say that Gen-Xers go all the way to ‘85, you would still have to concede that they, for the most part are the ones in creative control for most stuff currently coming out. They are the stars, directors, most writers and a few are the producers (Baby Boomers still have most of the money but you get my point). This is the reason why we’ve seen so much stuff based in, referencing, or influenced by the 80s, because most Xers still would have been young then and this is a way of them re-living their glory days. Millennials would be the ones trying to do stuff that is 90s-influenced because that was their decade of memorable youth (case in point: Issa Rae is trying to produce a 90s-set drama with HBO. Yes, she would be a Millennial even by the strictest definition).
So with all that said, it only makes sense that the creatives behind this ill-conceived Dynasty remake would have to be Gen-Xers. Now, I haven’t looked up the producers but I would guess that these assholes were most likely born in the 70s, came of age watching Dynasty in their preteen and teen years and maybe now have teamed with one Millennial producer or showrunner/writer to try to make this series just as “cool” and “rad” as it was back then. And while the show was all of those things back then, this shit they’re shovelin’ at us now is none of that. Stop it, CW. Stop it, Xers. It’s one thing to try ruining your own fond childhood memories (and the legacy left behind by Traditionalists and Baby Boomers), but it is a completely different thing to try creating childhood memories for a new generation only to have this new generation growing up with corny servings of shit.
Now that my generational rant is done once again (I had to do the same rant too many times this year), let’s actually move on to the comparisons of this show to the original, then tackle why they would even use the name and end on how this show even fails as its own thing. We begin with comparing this to the original Dynasty. To me, though they got all the characters (save for Sammy Jo), name drops, lavishness and rich opulence right, they literally brought none of what made Dynasty so good to this series. I can see why this show was rated as the second worst new series of the season behind only the far superior Valor.
Armie Hammer (?)For starters, let me say that I am a huge fan of Dynasty. I have the entire series on DVD, all nine seasons. Not only that, but I have just recently been watching Dynasty all over again from the very first season. I’m currently on season eight, which I probably won’t get to finish until my winter break. So I know all about Blake, Krystle (with a K and not a C. I know this new version is from a different country and different ethnicity, but still don’t see the need for the subtle name change, but it’s inconsequential), Alexis, and the children. I know about Lil’ B and Cecil Colby, and the Krystle lookalike. I cherish the over-the-topness of Dr. Toscano, the complicated doeishness of Kirby, and the mental instability of Adam (or is it Michael? Dun dun dunnnn!). And while I definitely still think that John James is some kind of time traveler/vampire/never-aging Dorian Gray that has, in modern times, assumed the identity of Armie Hammer, I can appreciate the fact that pretty much every Carrington sibling was, at one point, switched out with another actor or actress. Yeah, it wasn’t just Fallon. We had, like, three or four Fallon’s, two Stevens and two Amandas. I say all of that so that you know I’m not just some uncouth imbecile who sat down and tried to watch a season of the original just so I could review the new one. I’m not a superfan either but I’ve seen the show and I can tell what made it so great, and how this new show missed the mark.
John James (?)
First off, where the fuck is the music? I invite you to go and read through some of the positive reviews of the original on IMDb. In at least 75% of them you will find people praising the soundtrack of the show. What may seem cheesy now, back then signaled the opulence of the show. The original music sounds WASPy and snooty, like something you’d hear if you were attending a dinner party at a billionaire’s “estate” where a butler came out to introduce the master and mistress of the house. You could feel the highfalutin golf-claps of the crowd as the billion-dollar couple walked the aisle to the front of their ballroom as if this were their wedding. The music was memorable and iconic. It is what helped to take the show from a plain TV series to an experience. Is it old? Yes, of course. But similar to the Superman music of the Donner films, it could’ve used a sprucing up instead of a full-on replacement. Unfortunately, while the new Man of Steel soundtrack, which I actually adore just as much as the Donner films’, has ably replaced the superhero’s theme, on the new Dynasty they hardly bothered to do that. At least with the Superman films they got one iconic composer in Hans Zimmer to replace another in John Williams.
Here, they didn’t even bother to have an opening theme for the first two episodes. Then on the third they had a sped-up, cheesy version of the original music. I don't even consider that kazoo-sampler of a farce real music. And the other, more prominent music they do have is so bargain-bin-of-beats that it’s hard for me to not believe that they heard the sample beat that came on their fancy new Garage Band app, added a few rhythmic claps and finger-snaps, and called it a day. It’s strange to me that out of all the music on CW shows, the new Dynasty has the most indistinct soundtrack. Even those few speedy string-section notes on The Flash help me to signify that, Oh crap, The Flash is coming. (If you’ve seen the show more than once, you know the notes I’m talking about because they play them before almost every commercial). On Dynasty? Some drums that sound like they could go in the background of nearly any Rap, R&B, New-Age Funk or Imagine Dragons song you’ve ever heard. It’s garbage.
Then we have the actual feel of the show. They set this steaming pile on Wednesday nights after Riverdale because they didn’t want to compete with the superior Empire. For this reason, I guess they felt they had to make it into a murder mystery? I don’t know, but what I do know is that the first three episodes try to play like that and I’m completely not here for it. “Oh, just sit down, Michael!” Bitch, I’m rantin’! Listen to me close and good as hard as you mickey fickey can: Dynasty was not a murder mystery. Dynasty was always a romance/drama. Did they have murder in it? Yes. Were there other mysteries to be solved? Of course. But both of those things played backseat passenger to the intricacies of the business as well as who was getting it on with who, and what happened to this person, and why everybody hates but respects Blake and why all of these women love and hate him so much. It was not some cheap How To Get Away With Murder ripoff.
Cristal and BlakeI’m running out of space, so I’ll try to speed up. Dynasty was always a romance sort of in the vein of all the romantic love-triangled parts of Scandal. It was about this one suave, OG lady’s man that all women wanted to be with and men wanted to be, who had fallen in love with a new woman and how their relationship impacts everyone around them and his business. I know, I’m leaving Alexis out, but I’m getting to her. This was in an era in which men were still men judging by both current men’s standards who like to say that younger men aren’t up to snuff, as well as current female standards who constantly bash men’s masculinity while also complaining about the lack of good men around to marry. Blake had all the moves of an old player: charm, charisma, determination, a belief in and knowledge of what he wants and supreme drive to get it. He dressed bespoke, talked in a smooth, domineering tone, yet showed kindness and understanding in times that he could. And even though he had more traditional values, he not only always tried to protect his family, but demonstrated, over time, a willingness to learn, to change, to grow and to accept things for what they were. He was honest and forthright in almost everything he did.
This new Dynasty shows almost none of that. While I give them plenty of leeway to show things like growth in the first three episodes—something which took the original Blake years to demonstrate—I don’t excuse the lack of suaveness, on-screen-captivation and all-around debonaireness that is missing from Grant Show’s performance. He looks good, yes. But he doesn’t have the same on-screen presence as John Forsythe did. I would defy people who have never seen the original to watch the first three episodes of this new show, then do the same for the original and see if Blake hasn’t talked you or your girl halfway out her drawls before she remembers it’s just a TV show. He was that smooth. He knew when to smile, how to play the repentant lover, how to romance with just his eyes, and there’s none of that in Grant’s performance. Unfortunately, he resembles most modern men who weepishly apologize to their woman after doing something bad. He seems ripe for female domination, something which Forsythe most certainly was not.
Even worse is that they also got Cristal/Krystle wrong. In the old version, Krystle was the epitome of the old-school, traditional woman. She was nurturing, caring, soft, in need of her man, eager to please others, and madly in love with Blake. While she may have played close to the classic damsel, she was also smart without being cutting or biting, and classy save for when absolutely pushed to a buildup of regrettable rage. It was important for her to be those things because it played off the show’s later dichotomy of Alexis who was supposed to be the representation of the modern woman: a businesswoman, not easily controlled, sexually free, goal-driven and motivated by power, strength, class and recognition. Alexis wanted the status that Krystle never really cared if she had. Krystle was a lot more shy and Alexis was a bull. That is why it made sense for them to clash in the ways they did.
Here, while Alexis is rightfully not on the series yet, this Cristal flounders all over the place with her character in the first three episodes. It’s like the writers and producers binged every season of the original and tried to write every complexity into the character that they could, rather than letting her develop over time. We start by seeing this headstrong businesswoman on episode one, see a woman who can handily put Blake in his place (Krystle hardly ever did that which made her so lovable and complex), watch as she takes the COO job motivated by revenge, see her get into a physical altercation with Fallon (again, what the F***?), and see her proudly prance down the aisle with a snide and condescending “I got you, bitch!” smile on her face toward her new step-daughter. No. This is not Krystle/Cristal.
And then we have Fallon and Steven, both of which they shitted on for no good reason. Fallon, while slightly more headstrong than Krystle on the original, was never the kind of hawkish businesswoman that this new Fallon is. She was also a softer character whose want for free-living you could empathize with, while also being a spoiled brat more in the vain (see what I did there) of our current first-daughter Ivanka Trump. She would more readily pout than spit venom to get her way. While the change might seem good to have her be stronger and surer of herself in this version, I find it gross because they also sexed her up more.
In the original, yes Fallon may have been rather loose with her gentlemen callers but she was not a smokey-eyed seductress who walked around with a puckered-lip of faux-fierceness like this new Fallon does. Yes, she rebelled with her suitors but it never felt like she was a hoe. Here, this Fallon is definitely a hoe who enjoys the game of putting her “men” in front of each other because she can. While this normally wouldn’t be all that bad, it’s made slightly uncomfortable just by the fact that she is white and her most prominent suitors are two black men in Atlanta, a city where black women have already said they are man-starved unless they choose someone who also sleeps with men himself. It’s like she’s treating them like her animals, expecting her two dogs or monkeys to attack each other and fight for her love. Where in the original this kind of stuff happened often by accident, here it seems like Fallon does this on purpose. Yuck!
And this whole thing where she is so pissed at Cristal that she feels she can put hands on this woman is so from left field. Did Fallon like Krystle at first? No, but she didn’t despise her like this. Not in the first season, not ever. I don’t get the reason for pitting those two against each other. It adds nothing to the show, and in fact, takes a huge chunk out of the show or will in the future. I will talk about that after I talk about Steven and how they royally screwed him up.
Speaking of, Steven is a complete farce. I rarely say this because it feels far too personal and like a diss to the actual person behind the character, but I don’t like the actor playing him. I don’t think he’s attractive and, at least here, I don’t think he can act. To compare, in the original Dynasty we got not one, but two Stevens. The first one was probably a bit rougher looking as far as his face went (still runway-model handsome) but I thought the guy could act his ass off. The second was some man-gorgeous high-fashion model for sure. The character was intriguing not just for his sexuality but he exuded a certain intelligence that also mingled with genuine sensitivity and a personality that, much to his dismay, was far closer to his father’s than he wanted to admit. Here, he doesn’t have that from what I can see. He’s less genuine, less likable and all around more badly acted.
As far as his sexuality—and this speaks to my hatred for what they did with Sammy Jo, too—they made him gay. Why? Just why? Right now, fans of the original are pointing out that Steven was gay on there too. I’d ask that you not de-complicate things so easily. Steven was really not gay, but more bisexual than anything, which is a big deal because he was the first major bisexual/bi-curious character on TV and his inner-conflict about is sexuality is one of the things that made him so unique and interesting. When the series starts, he’s trying to still hide his “gayness” from his father even though he had an affair with this guy in college. But in season two and three, we not only see Steven be fooled into a relationship with Krystle’s NIECE Sammie Jo, but we also see him have a baby and get married, and have a fling with Claudia only for him to go back and confront his conflicted mind and begin to sleep with men again. Because the character was so sexually complex to begin with, I can hardly applaud his inclusion here as being something new and trendy. No, the original Dynasty is what paved the way for all sorts of queer characters to be seen as something other than cartoonish, which is why it actually disappoints me that he seems to have been strictly categorized as gay. Not only is he gay, but the way he talks, walks and the over-the-top comedic gestures he gives codes him as an on-the-edge-of-flamboyant gay man who keeps such fabulousness simmering just below the surface at all times. But you can just tell he’s waiting for some Liza Minnelli or Cher to come on in the background somewhere so he can whip out his wig. This was not Steven.
Look, I don’t know much about this plight, but I do know that for a very long time a lot of gay men had grown tired of seeing portrayals of them as the fashion-conscious “honey-girl”-sidekicks to fag hags in entertainment. They all didn’t know fashion, weren’t all working for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, didn’t dress in drag, and weren’t all addicted to show tunes. Steven was the epitome of what I’ve seen a lot of gay men complain about representation for (awkwardly worded. Not fixin’ it). He not only kept all of his masculinity but was completely comfortable in it. And both actors showed this type of ease with one’s self while balancing the inner turmoil of liking women occasionally too. In stripping away his desire to also sometimes be with women (or at least not hinting at it in any way) they’ve made the character less complex and pretty much like every other gay character on TV right now. Even more to the point, looking at him, I can’t imagine this guy (both actor and character) ably seducing a woman or having one fall madly in love with him regardless of their mental state. He and Sammy Jo having a child figured quite big into later seasons and gave us more of Heather Locklear which, I mean... do you really get enough of young Heather Locklear?
Frankly, the whole thing with Steven is rather bizarre and regressive for the times. Where Steven’s back and forth about his sexuality in the 80s opened up a plethora of topics they could discuss (AIDS, casual sex, the growing gay community, queer rights, definition of sexuality, fluid sexuality), now it seems like they’ve taken a cutting edge, groundbreaking series and somehow made it PC for the modern TV viewer by including a gay character. Hmph! Think about that. That’s crazy. And while I can understand some past viewers’ complaint that they kept trying to make Steven straight and how sexuality doesn’t work like that, I think that those viewers’ nearsightedness to the issue is the main reason why they should have continued to make Steven seem confused. If they did that, then they could’ve been even more able to drive the conversation like Dynasty did, and have Steven fall in love with a transwoman or man. Now doesn’t that sound more interesting: to have a character stuck between figuring out if he’s gay or straight fall in love with a trans Sammy Jo? Especially since the show is set in Atlanta and you have tons of transwomen down there? You could’ve had a black transwoman play Sammy Jo and explore transsexuality and how they are not just sexual objects for confused or bi people to play with. I’m just saying it’s a big missed opportunity to me.
Speaking of Atlanta, the switch in setting was strange but I am more accepting of that than anything else because the original Dynasty, while set in Denver, rarely, if ever, filmed there as there was almost never any snow on the ground. But what I didn’t like was the fact that the relationships had been changed yet again with the children. In the original, Blake’s sworn enemy to start the show was Cecil Colby, another old fogy oil and energy tycoon stationed in Denver. That makes sense to have the old fighting the old. But here, they’ve not only aged everybody down, but they seem to have gotten rid of the Cecil character in order to make this some sort of generational warfare. In the original Blake loved Jeff as his own son and when Jeff and Fallon finally got married and gave him a grandchild, he was almost happier than he had ever been. Jeff, in Blake’s eyes, was not only the true hetero son that Blake couldn’t get in Steven, but he was the sub-in for Adam Carrington, the son that was kidnapped away from Blake and Alexis long ago. Making him black is great, but to make him an adversary as opposed to a much older uncle in Cecil seems to miss out on some key drama.
God, there’s so much, and I’m still going. Speaking of missing out on drama, Dynasty fans of the original will know that the first season of Dynasty was not about Alexis, hence why she isn’t on the current show (though something tells me they’ll try stuffing her in at some point in the season, especially if the ratings slip). Nor was it about some silly catfight between Krystle and Fallon. No, it was all about the jealousy and betrayal intertwined between Matthew Blaisdel, Krystle and Blake. If I’m remembering correctly, Alexis didn’t even make her grand entrance either until the beginning of the second season or the last episode of the first. There was a great build-up to her. But what was the buildup you ask? Like I said, it wasn’t fighting between two or three women. No, it was the buildup of Blake and Krystle’s relationship and love for each other which was juxtaposed with Matthew’s lust and love for Krystle and her flimsy resistance to it. Through the first season you got to see how Blake really loves a woman, what he’ll do for her, do to keep her, how wonderfully he’ll treat her and even how gentlemanly (or doggish) he’ll treat another man who is trying to love her too. Matthew, on the other hand, was always the humble roughneck who didn’t want to step on his boss’ toes but had a woman he wanted to love, and one that he had a commitment to in Claudia. This quadrangle of love, lust and power mingled to create some intense drama even for the first season.
How Blake and Krystle loved each other and weathered the storm of Blaisdel was important to know for when Alexis arrived. The spurned lover returned not only with jealousy in her heart but also still with very healthy dollops of love for Blake, the man that cast her out of high Denver society. You had the rose in Krystle, and the weed in Alexis. And because you watched Blake, in all of his faults as a man and a husband, still manage to treat Krystle like his equal and love her tenderly, you could instantly understand Alexis’ pain and hatred for Blake. Because not only does Krystle now sit where she once used to, but even her children are not pulled strongly against Krystle. They kinda like her. She’s a decent woman. On the flip side, you can also instantly understand why Blake wanted her gone from his and the kids’ lives because she is so vicious and vile. Even with all of the drama that had happened in the first season, Alexis came onto the show like the snake into Eden. None of the characters, including Blake, expected such a repugnance from her.
On the new Dynasty, not only do they steal Alexis’ story line of just how she gets back into high society—in the original, she married Cecil Colby right before he died, inheriting all of his wealth and his oil company—but we also get the viciousness that she displayed to the rest of the Carrington brood dispersed around in equal measures to all other characters. To me, there’s little difference between the current Fallon and the old Alexis. Joan Collins slayed the role of evil queen once removed. The girl playing Fallon seems to try some mock-up of that role. Even Blake seems more evil than he should. In fact, it almost seems like they defaulted back to the blame-the-white-guy narrative that’s been so popular lately. While I am usually always down for that narrative, Dynasty had way better writers and far superior plots than that. Blake was never supposed to be the villain, Alexis was. And her determination to destroy him or re-bed him, or both is what drove the plot from the second season onward and made everyone not just in the family, but in the city of Denver choose sides.
The strangest part? Steven went with his mother and Fallon went with her father, but on this show, it feels like they both hate their father enough to go with their mother at this point. Not only that, but Fallon is already bent on destroying her dad. And between Fallon already getting into a physical fight with Krystle, something which was built up over the course of an entire second season and truly shocked viewers when it happened (yes, Alexis and Krystle fought in the pond, and in the art studio; no, there weren’t fights every single week) and Fallon also already about to sleep with a Colby and destroy her dad, why the hell do you even need an Alexis later in the series? Even worse, you’ll have to cast an older actress (gasp!) which seems to not have been a problem when casting Cristal. Yeah, while the show followed the kids, it was very much-so always about the older people of Krystle, Blake and Alexis, and all of them were over 40 by the time the series really got going.
Rest Well, John Forsythe. The Original Is Still The Best
Should you be watching? Fuck no! This is garbage. The original was a great show. And while people now are looking back on it and calling it campy and soapy and all of that crap, ignore that shit because it was really a great drama which, if done right, would’ve fit right in with today’s modern programming. Think Game of Thrones with a lighter tone. I guarantee you that it didn’t have nearly as much “camp” as people like to think it does. Hell, the show Empire is modeled off of it and people aren’t calling that campy. Yet, here they decided to not only rip away everything that made the original great, but have gone with this strange over-the-top comedic take on it where they’re playing everything to either be “fierce” or Glee-dramatic. It reminds me of that show Scream Queens and not in a good way. The actors don’t seem very committed to doing a good job and making these people seem like real people in a real world, which speaks to the show as a standalone series.
As its own series, the show collapses under the weight of bad acting and bad writing. I don’t know which is worse as the lines sound like lines and they’re in that weird gray zone where you can’t tell if they’re badly written lines or just badly delivered. The acting is too flamboyant and trying to one-up each other and the characters are all over the place. Even without knowing all of what happened in the old Dynasty, the first episode feels like it was over-packed with them trying to do too much (they covered about a full season’s worth of drama in 60 minutes). Again, I tried to forgive that because most pilots are bad and feel rushed, but then so did the next two episodes, yet they somehow didn’t seem to have anything meaningful happening in them. The direction is bland and I would say it doesn’t even live up to some of the other shows on the CW, mainly the superhero shows and Supernatural. To help you realize how amazing Dynasty was both in its direction and overall production, I should mention that famed producer Aaron Spelling joined the series as a producer in the second season when it really took off. Yeah, the guy behind 90210 and a ba-thousand other hits. I mention 90210 because just like the remake of that, I am not sure that this will last for very long.
I wonder why the hell they even used the Dynasty name instead of trying to make something new, different and original. Because I only see this remake appealing to a very small percentage of the original fans who are now in their 50s and 60s, and the age group that trends on CW shows is too young to remember the original or care about it to make this appointment viewing. It’s decent enough to watch a few episodes, but when the holidays start to slow everything down and free time gets scarce as viewing schedules get tight, I can’t see younger generations (teens, or 20 and 30-somethings) tuning in for this. But if you like torture, then Dynasty airs on CW Wednesdays at 9pm.
What do you think? Have you heard of the new Dynasty? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did you like it? Where do you think they can improve? Have you ever seen the original? Who do you think will go down for Matthew’s murder? And when do you think Alexis will make her grand appearance? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalkingIf you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.
Until next time, “A dynasty, like my money, lasts three lifetimes.”
P.S. Empire did it much better in making an update to the mold of Dynasty. Yes, they pretty much eliminated the Krystle character and no Boo-Boo Kitty does not count, but it works. And yes Lucious is the devil and far darker than Blake, but he is alright. But seriously though, Jay-Z is almost a billionaire. That’s crazy. Crazy! A Jay-Z lyric is always a good idea as a final line, but I’ll try to think of a better, more original sign-off next time.
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All pictures courtesy of the CWDear God, I think I’m a pretty decent human being. I haven’t purposefully killed anybody in a while. My name is not Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, Woody Allen or any other pervert/assaulter’s name. I don’t even take more than ten pennies from the take-a-penny leave-a-penny anymore. And I have not let my dog crap on Mrs. Strutherby’s lawn in, like, at least two months (that vomit from a month ago should totally not count). The point is that I’m a good person, so why then have I been assaulted with such a terrible remake of a classic show? Why have I even had the unforced punishment to have to sit through it just so I can review it for literally nobody who reads this blog? Why, on your great earth filled with green pastures and frothy seas, did this even get made? I know you won’t answer in time for me to finish this review, but I’m just sayin’ help a brotha out with a little bit of understanding. Amen!
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, we have come to what should totally be the end of the new shows for this season but inexplicably isn’t because networks are choosing to premiere shows in a scattershot pattern, and boy is it a doozy. Forewarning right now, I usually try my darnedest not to curse and fill this blog with vile and foul language (I do curse in a great many of my books for interested readers) but I am going to be breaking that rule on this post because, oh boy! I’ve completely buried the lede here, or maybe I’ve blown it too soon, so I shouldn’t really have to try to do the clever question about whether this series is worth watching or not, but I’ll try for you, faithful reader. Is the new rebooted Dynasty the start of a new empire, or will it quickly go the way of the Ming? Let’s find out together.
CW’s new show Dynasty is a reboot of the old show of the same name. It centers around a wealthy white family that has made their money in the oil industry but are now venturing off into other sections of energy. The show specifically deals with the trials and tribulations of who is sleeping with who and who is willing to backstab their family all to continue their part in maintaining the Carrington Dynasty. Blake Carrington (played by Grant Show) is the patriarch of the Carrington family. For review purposes I will hold back on my comparisons between this farce of a remake and the original until the end. So in this version, Blake seems to be a corporate businessman who is president and CEO of Carrington Atlanta. He doesn’t seem to have a domineering personality but is quite backstab-by. Honestly, in the first episode it was rather difficult to pin down who he is and what he was going to be. For now, he’s pretty much every old rich white man who likes younger women.
His eldest daughter’s name is Fallon Carrington (played by Elizabeth Gillies) who takes center stage on this series and gives off this Gossip Girl-esque vibe. She is the current head of Acquistions for Carrington Atlanta but wants to be COO of the company. She hopes that her father will one day pass the company to her as all dynasties get passed down to the children. She’s a millennial feminist who has no problem using sex as a weapon, and wielding her father’s love for her as a weapon. Next we have Steven Carrington who is the gay son of Blake (this is very important for my critique later) and sibling to Fallon. Blake is supposed to be traditional (doesn’t seem like it), so he hates that his son is gay, yet he has no qualms about using his son’s gayness to land business deals. It is for this hatred that Steven rebels against his father in any way he can, but most notably by protesting against his father’s oil-fracking efforts.
But the most important character on which the show is supposed to hinge is Cristal Flores (Carrington) played by Nathalie Kelley of Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift fame. On the first episode she is revealed to be Blake’s new fiance and quickly gets married to him after having worked for him for years but having only dated him for a few months. She’s super young and non-white, getting married to a billionaire. Naturally, Fallon sees this as disgusting and thinks Cristal is nothing more than a gold digger, and here is where this remake stakes its claim.
We start the first episode with Fallon narrating background about her life and Carrington Atlanta. Fans of the original would note the ode to the original music as played by a young Steven during one of Fallon’s explanatory flashbacks detailing her brother’s disdain for their birthright. She thinks that telling her father about a business that is ripe for the takeover will help her get that promotion to COO. The new company is a clean-energy company that has focused mostly on wind power but owns land that is rumored to be oil-rich and great for fracking. She rushes home in her private jet to tell her father.
Meanwhile, Cristal speaks with her boss about how his company is out of touch and needs to be more socially responsible and have more involvement with philanthropic efforts. Her boss is Blake. She goes to his Mansion (with a capital m) in the fancier part of Atlanta to discuss this more and they end up about to get it on right on his desk. And then Fallon and Steven walk in much to the protestations of the butler. It is in this shuffle to get dressed that he tells his children that he’s engaged. Surprise!
Fallon is pissed not only because she thought he called her home to promote her, but because Blake apparently swore he would never remarry after divorcing their mother Alexis (who is never seen). Well, he is getting married and Fallon isn’t getting the job. Steven is only half-pissed because he thought he came home to finally receive that long-awaited apology he never got for how his father mistreated him for being gay. But it’s fine that his father is getting remarried to him.
Fallon and ChauffeurBetween screw sessions with her dad’s black chauffeur Michael and seething family dinners, Fallon plots to both get that COO job and get Cristal out of their lives for good. She tries to carry favor with her father by securing him a joint win with one of his most hated enemies, Jeff Colby. Jeff Colby, who is black, was a young man who worked in the tech department at Carrington Atlanta. While on company time, he created some kind of app that blew up and made him a billionaire almost overnight. Blake tried to sue for company ownership because the app was created on his dime, but the judge ruled against that and now Jeff is Blake’s sworn enemy. Blake is trying to outbid Jeff for ownership of the Atlanta Braves baseball team if only to prevent Jeff from having it. Fallon sees they are both being outbid by a third bidder and says that if they combine their money, then Jeff can own the team, but Blake could own the stadium naming rights and it’s a win-win. This intrigues Jeff as he has a crush on Fallon.
Meanwhile, Cristal is basking in her engagement glow with her fellow girlfriends but knows that she must also tell her old lover about her new relationship before it hits tabloids. Her old lover Matthew Blaisdel is someone who works for Blake. He and Cristal had a brief affair but he has a wife Claudia who is very ill and has mental problems. Though he loves Cristal, he could never muster the courage to leave Claudia in her time of need. He and Cristal say their final goodbyes in a car and are caught kissing by Fallon’s boy-toy Michael, which she uses to try to get her father to detest Cristal.
Steven and FallonFallon’s plan backfires. While Blake does invite Matthew to his house, Cristal sees what he’s doing and doesn’t like it one bit. She stomps out pissed and goes back to her own place that she’s keeping because she has yet to move into the Mansion. Well, she and Blake forgive each other and decide to move their wedding up to the day of the engagement party and have a surprise ceremony instead. Speaking of surprises, Blake uses the info Fallon told him about that other energy company to get Steven back on his side. He tells the boy that he and this other company’s CEO have a lot in common, and asks him to meet with the man. In turn Carrington Atlanta will be more environmentally friendly. Steven goes only to realize that his father meant that the CEO was gay and he wanted his son to sleep with the man to close the deal. Steven gets pissed and decides to instead sleep with some random bar guy.
We fast forward to the surprise nuptials and learn that Fallon is pissed that her father let Steven close the deal with the other company. She physically fights with Cristal who has been promoted to COO instead of her. Fallon then makes a deal with Jeff to open their own new energy company using the purchase of that other energy company she told her dad about as a start. Oh, and the guy Steven slept with was actually Sammy Joe Flores, Cristal’s nephew. And if that wasn’t enough, Blake sent Matthew to the new energy company’s current wind-farm site to do a land survey only for the truck to blow up and one of the windmills to collapse around him, killing him in the process. And Claudia comes to the Mansion talking about how Blake killed her husband. True fans of the original Dynasty should already be shaking their heads.
Episode two curiously starts with the house swamped in police and press treating Matthew’s death as a murder investigation which sends Cristal fainting at the accusations. And here is where you start to wonder if they not only remade this but took a regular prime time drama and made it into some kind of murder mystery similar to How To Get Away With Murder. Sigh. Dumb shit. Just dumb.
A Murder? What? Anyway, while the investigation continues, Blake makes the unilateral decision that he is going to try protecting all of his family. So he wants that picture of Cristal and Matthew kissing destroyed. The problem is that it was emailed from Michael to Fallon who forwarded it to her father, leaving a digital trail. So if their property is subpoenaed... Cristal is also doing a little Nancy Drewing after Matthew’s partner who was there to see him die, tells her that she needs to be leery of her new husband. He says that Blake is evil and rich and might have rigged the truck to blow, because he wanted Matthew gone, because he found out that Cristal was previously in love with him and might still be, because Cristal was still holding on to some of Matthew’s things from their affair because Matthew clearly was putting it on her like sizzle on steak because... Um... I ran out of becauses. Blake tries to blame Jeff for the murder in some twisted rivals revenge plot. Blake pays for Matthew’s funeral, and his family goes just so that Cristal has the opportunity to push Fallon into an open grave. Yes, this show somehow manages to get worse and worse every episode. Blake invites press to the funeral reception so they will write favorable stories about him and Matthew’s friend gets really upset and storms out drunk. And somehow this turns Cristal on enough to screw Blake in his office during this funeral reception. And the main butler keeps coming around talking about how he knows about some dark past that Cristal has. Everyone is supposedly deceptive and conniving. And Steven gets arrested at the end of the episode.
Episode three starts with Fallon playing dress up with her boy-toy black chauffeur. She lies about how nothing is going on between her and Colby. Blake gets Steven out on bail and the gay son immediately runs to Sammy Jo to cement his alibi for where he was when Matthew was killed and you’re watching this thinking, “But if the truck was rigged to blow, he wouldn’t have had to be there to... Never mind.” The butler continues to be a dick to Cristal for no reason and warns her about being a gold digger (I think he and Fallon read the same playbook). But she doesn’t care because her family needs money back in Venezuela. Well, Sammy Jo offers to fence some of Cristal’s jewelry and we learn that apparently these billionaires have fake jewelry lying around to try on with clothes. Like... what? Anyway, we get a brief flashback of Cristal (not her real name) back in Venezuela 12 years ago stealing money from somewhere and using it to get to America.
Fallon and JeffSteven learns from Michael that Blake has Matthew’s phone and he and his sister plot to find the phone during the 80s-themed charity party held at the mansion. Oh god, make it stop! The party’s auction pits Blake and Jeff against each other in a bidding war for a necklace worn by Cristal. Jeff wins the bid with a high-priced $10 million bid only for Blake to rile him up enough for them to get into a physical altercation at the party. Jeff swears that he’s going to give the necklace to Fallon because he’s hot for her, but he goes off to do that only to find her screwing the chauffeur again after she just got done doing that earlier. Well, a robber comes into the house during the party and is caught searching for stuff by Blake. Steven fights the burglar off and defends his father which gives Blake a little smile. The burglar supposedly steals Cristal’s ring. Of course Sammy set up the robbery to get some money for the Venezuelan family.
Blake tries to have a sweet moment with his daughter and it’s a very “eh!” moment. This comes after he tried to prevent the trademarked Carrington name from being used by Fallon in her brand new venture. And at the end of the episode, Blake realizes that Matthew’s phone was, in fact, stolen. They’ve got to get it back because old dude had some freak-nasty stuff on there involving Cristal.
What’s my grade? I give it a D-. Wow! That might be the lowest grade I’ve ever given something. I was gonna go for the full F, but I had to give it some credit for the diversity within the series as opposed to the lily-whiteness of the original. Dynasty this ain’t. Guys and gals, you all know just how much in the last few months (read: years) I have been trying my best to not go full-on nuclear at some of the current stuff coming out of the film and television industry. And if you’ve read anything of late you also know how much I have been blaming a particular group for this lack of creativity and good entertainment. For those new to the blog, no, the answer surprisingly isn’t Millennials but the one generation that should be getting blamed for a lot more stuff: Gen-Xers. I am trying my best not to just dismiss any generation but why do Xers keep doing this? I don’t get it. Breaking it down for people, Xers would be those born between 65 and 80 (though some would claim their generation goes all the way to 85, which is inaccurate as most generations before Baby Boomers never spanned more than 15 years but I digress). Even if you do count the inaccurate years and say that Gen-Xers go all the way to ‘85, you would still have to concede that they, for the most part are the ones in creative control for most stuff currently coming out. They are the stars, directors, most writers and a few are the producers (Baby Boomers still have most of the money but you get my point). This is the reason why we’ve seen so much stuff based in, referencing, or influenced by the 80s, because most Xers still would have been young then and this is a way of them re-living their glory days. Millennials would be the ones trying to do stuff that is 90s-influenced because that was their decade of memorable youth (case in point: Issa Rae is trying to produce a 90s-set drama with HBO. Yes, she would be a Millennial even by the strictest definition).
So with all that said, it only makes sense that the creatives behind this ill-conceived Dynasty remake would have to be Gen-Xers. Now, I haven’t looked up the producers but I would guess that these assholes were most likely born in the 70s, came of age watching Dynasty in their preteen and teen years and maybe now have teamed with one Millennial producer or showrunner/writer to try to make this series just as “cool” and “rad” as it was back then. And while the show was all of those things back then, this shit they’re shovelin’ at us now is none of that. Stop it, CW. Stop it, Xers. It’s one thing to try ruining your own fond childhood memories (and the legacy left behind by Traditionalists and Baby Boomers), but it is a completely different thing to try creating childhood memories for a new generation only to have this new generation growing up with corny servings of shit.
Now that my generational rant is done once again (I had to do the same rant too many times this year), let’s actually move on to the comparisons of this show to the original, then tackle why they would even use the name and end on how this show even fails as its own thing. We begin with comparing this to the original Dynasty. To me, though they got all the characters (save for Sammy Jo), name drops, lavishness and rich opulence right, they literally brought none of what made Dynasty so good to this series. I can see why this show was rated as the second worst new series of the season behind only the far superior Valor.
Armie Hammer (?)For starters, let me say that I am a huge fan of Dynasty. I have the entire series on DVD, all nine seasons. Not only that, but I have just recently been watching Dynasty all over again from the very first season. I’m currently on season eight, which I probably won’t get to finish until my winter break. So I know all about Blake, Krystle (with a K and not a C. I know this new version is from a different country and different ethnicity, but still don’t see the need for the subtle name change, but it’s inconsequential), Alexis, and the children. I know about Lil’ B and Cecil Colby, and the Krystle lookalike. I cherish the over-the-topness of Dr. Toscano, the complicated doeishness of Kirby, and the mental instability of Adam (or is it Michael? Dun dun dunnnn!). And while I definitely still think that John James is some kind of time traveler/vampire/never-aging Dorian Gray that has, in modern times, assumed the identity of Armie Hammer, I can appreciate the fact that pretty much every Carrington sibling was, at one point, switched out with another actor or actress. Yeah, it wasn’t just Fallon. We had, like, three or four Fallon’s, two Stevens and two Amandas. I say all of that so that you know I’m not just some uncouth imbecile who sat down and tried to watch a season of the original just so I could review the new one. I’m not a superfan either but I’ve seen the show and I can tell what made it so great, and how this new show missed the mark. 
John James (?)First off, where the fuck is the music? I invite you to go and read through some of the positive reviews of the original on IMDb. In at least 75% of them you will find people praising the soundtrack of the show. What may seem cheesy now, back then signaled the opulence of the show. The original music sounds WASPy and snooty, like something you’d hear if you were attending a dinner party at a billionaire’s “estate” where a butler came out to introduce the master and mistress of the house. You could feel the highfalutin golf-claps of the crowd as the billion-dollar couple walked the aisle to the front of their ballroom as if this were their wedding. The music was memorable and iconic. It is what helped to take the show from a plain TV series to an experience. Is it old? Yes, of course. But similar to the Superman music of the Donner films, it could’ve used a sprucing up instead of a full-on replacement. Unfortunately, while the new Man of Steel soundtrack, which I actually adore just as much as the Donner films’, has ably replaced the superhero’s theme, on the new Dynasty they hardly bothered to do that. At least with the Superman films they got one iconic composer in Hans Zimmer to replace another in John Williams.
Here, they didn’t even bother to have an opening theme for the first two episodes. Then on the third they had a sped-up, cheesy version of the original music. I don't even consider that kazoo-sampler of a farce real music. And the other, more prominent music they do have is so bargain-bin-of-beats that it’s hard for me to not believe that they heard the sample beat that came on their fancy new Garage Band app, added a few rhythmic claps and finger-snaps, and called it a day. It’s strange to me that out of all the music on CW shows, the new Dynasty has the most indistinct soundtrack. Even those few speedy string-section notes on The Flash help me to signify that, Oh crap, The Flash is coming. (If you’ve seen the show more than once, you know the notes I’m talking about because they play them before almost every commercial). On Dynasty? Some drums that sound like they could go in the background of nearly any Rap, R&B, New-Age Funk or Imagine Dragons song you’ve ever heard. It’s garbage.
Then we have the actual feel of the show. They set this steaming pile on Wednesday nights after Riverdale because they didn’t want to compete with the superior Empire. For this reason, I guess they felt they had to make it into a murder mystery? I don’t know, but what I do know is that the first three episodes try to play like that and I’m completely not here for it. “Oh, just sit down, Michael!” Bitch, I’m rantin’! Listen to me close and good as hard as you mickey fickey can: Dynasty was not a murder mystery. Dynasty was always a romance/drama. Did they have murder in it? Yes. Were there other mysteries to be solved? Of course. But both of those things played backseat passenger to the intricacies of the business as well as who was getting it on with who, and what happened to this person, and why everybody hates but respects Blake and why all of these women love and hate him so much. It was not some cheap How To Get Away With Murder ripoff.
Cristal and BlakeI’m running out of space, so I’ll try to speed up. Dynasty was always a romance sort of in the vein of all the romantic love-triangled parts of Scandal. It was about this one suave, OG lady’s man that all women wanted to be with and men wanted to be, who had fallen in love with a new woman and how their relationship impacts everyone around them and his business. I know, I’m leaving Alexis out, but I’m getting to her. This was in an era in which men were still men judging by both current men’s standards who like to say that younger men aren’t up to snuff, as well as current female standards who constantly bash men’s masculinity while also complaining about the lack of good men around to marry. Blake had all the moves of an old player: charm, charisma, determination, a belief in and knowledge of what he wants and supreme drive to get it. He dressed bespoke, talked in a smooth, domineering tone, yet showed kindness and understanding in times that he could. And even though he had more traditional values, he not only always tried to protect his family, but demonstrated, over time, a willingness to learn, to change, to grow and to accept things for what they were. He was honest and forthright in almost everything he did. This new Dynasty shows almost none of that. While I give them plenty of leeway to show things like growth in the first three episodes—something which took the original Blake years to demonstrate—I don’t excuse the lack of suaveness, on-screen-captivation and all-around debonaireness that is missing from Grant Show’s performance. He looks good, yes. But he doesn’t have the same on-screen presence as John Forsythe did. I would defy people who have never seen the original to watch the first three episodes of this new show, then do the same for the original and see if Blake hasn’t talked you or your girl halfway out her drawls before she remembers it’s just a TV show. He was that smooth. He knew when to smile, how to play the repentant lover, how to romance with just his eyes, and there’s none of that in Grant’s performance. Unfortunately, he resembles most modern men who weepishly apologize to their woman after doing something bad. He seems ripe for female domination, something which Forsythe most certainly was not.
Even worse is that they also got Cristal/Krystle wrong. In the old version, Krystle was the epitome of the old-school, traditional woman. She was nurturing, caring, soft, in need of her man, eager to please others, and madly in love with Blake. While she may have played close to the classic damsel, she was also smart without being cutting or biting, and classy save for when absolutely pushed to a buildup of regrettable rage. It was important for her to be those things because it played off the show’s later dichotomy of Alexis who was supposed to be the representation of the modern woman: a businesswoman, not easily controlled, sexually free, goal-driven and motivated by power, strength, class and recognition. Alexis wanted the status that Krystle never really cared if she had. Krystle was a lot more shy and Alexis was a bull. That is why it made sense for them to clash in the ways they did.
Here, while Alexis is rightfully not on the series yet, this Cristal flounders all over the place with her character in the first three episodes. It’s like the writers and producers binged every season of the original and tried to write every complexity into the character that they could, rather than letting her develop over time. We start by seeing this headstrong businesswoman on episode one, see a woman who can handily put Blake in his place (Krystle hardly ever did that which made her so lovable and complex), watch as she takes the COO job motivated by revenge, see her get into a physical altercation with Fallon (again, what the F***?), and see her proudly prance down the aisle with a snide and condescending “I got you, bitch!” smile on her face toward her new step-daughter. No. This is not Krystle/Cristal.
And then we have Fallon and Steven, both of which they shitted on for no good reason. Fallon, while slightly more headstrong than Krystle on the original, was never the kind of hawkish businesswoman that this new Fallon is. She was also a softer character whose want for free-living you could empathize with, while also being a spoiled brat more in the vain (see what I did there) of our current first-daughter Ivanka Trump. She would more readily pout than spit venom to get her way. While the change might seem good to have her be stronger and surer of herself in this version, I find it gross because they also sexed her up more.
In the original, yes Fallon may have been rather loose with her gentlemen callers but she was not a smokey-eyed seductress who walked around with a puckered-lip of faux-fierceness like this new Fallon does. Yes, she rebelled with her suitors but it never felt like she was a hoe. Here, this Fallon is definitely a hoe who enjoys the game of putting her “men” in front of each other because she can. While this normally wouldn’t be all that bad, it’s made slightly uncomfortable just by the fact that she is white and her most prominent suitors are two black men in Atlanta, a city where black women have already said they are man-starved unless they choose someone who also sleeps with men himself. It’s like she’s treating them like her animals, expecting her two dogs or monkeys to attack each other and fight for her love. Where in the original this kind of stuff happened often by accident, here it seems like Fallon does this on purpose. Yuck!
And this whole thing where she is so pissed at Cristal that she feels she can put hands on this woman is so from left field. Did Fallon like Krystle at first? No, but she didn’t despise her like this. Not in the first season, not ever. I don’t get the reason for pitting those two against each other. It adds nothing to the show, and in fact, takes a huge chunk out of the show or will in the future. I will talk about that after I talk about Steven and how they royally screwed him up. Speaking of, Steven is a complete farce. I rarely say this because it feels far too personal and like a diss to the actual person behind the character, but I don’t like the actor playing him. I don’t think he’s attractive and, at least here, I don’t think he can act. To compare, in the original Dynasty we got not one, but two Stevens. The first one was probably a bit rougher looking as far as his face went (still runway-model handsome) but I thought the guy could act his ass off. The second was some man-gorgeous high-fashion model for sure. The character was intriguing not just for his sexuality but he exuded a certain intelligence that also mingled with genuine sensitivity and a personality that, much to his dismay, was far closer to his father’s than he wanted to admit. Here, he doesn’t have that from what I can see. He’s less genuine, less likable and all around more badly acted.
As far as his sexuality—and this speaks to my hatred for what they did with Sammy Jo, too—they made him gay. Why? Just why? Right now, fans of the original are pointing out that Steven was gay on there too. I’d ask that you not de-complicate things so easily. Steven was really not gay, but more bisexual than anything, which is a big deal because he was the first major bisexual/bi-curious character on TV and his inner-conflict about is sexuality is one of the things that made him so unique and interesting. When the series starts, he’s trying to still hide his “gayness” from his father even though he had an affair with this guy in college. But in season two and three, we not only see Steven be fooled into a relationship with Krystle’s NIECE Sammie Jo, but we also see him have a baby and get married, and have a fling with Claudia only for him to go back and confront his conflicted mind and begin to sleep with men again. Because the character was so sexually complex to begin with, I can hardly applaud his inclusion here as being something new and trendy. No, the original Dynasty is what paved the way for all sorts of queer characters to be seen as something other than cartoonish, which is why it actually disappoints me that he seems to have been strictly categorized as gay. Not only is he gay, but the way he talks, walks and the over-the-top comedic gestures he gives codes him as an on-the-edge-of-flamboyant gay man who keeps such fabulousness simmering just below the surface at all times. But you can just tell he’s waiting for some Liza Minnelli or Cher to come on in the background somewhere so he can whip out his wig. This was not Steven. Look, I don’t know much about this plight, but I do know that for a very long time a lot of gay men had grown tired of seeing portrayals of them as the fashion-conscious “honey-girl”-sidekicks to fag hags in entertainment. They all didn’t know fashion, weren’t all working for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, didn’t dress in drag, and weren’t all addicted to show tunes. Steven was the epitome of what I’ve seen a lot of gay men complain about representation for (awkwardly worded. Not fixin’ it). He not only kept all of his masculinity but was completely comfortable in it. And both actors showed this type of ease with one’s self while balancing the inner turmoil of liking women occasionally too. In stripping away his desire to also sometimes be with women (or at least not hinting at it in any way) they’ve made the character less complex and pretty much like every other gay character on TV right now. Even more to the point, looking at him, I can’t imagine this guy (both actor and character) ably seducing a woman or having one fall madly in love with him regardless of their mental state. He and Sammy Jo having a child figured quite big into later seasons and gave us more of Heather Locklear which, I mean... do you really get enough of young Heather Locklear?
Frankly, the whole thing with Steven is rather bizarre and regressive for the times. Where Steven’s back and forth about his sexuality in the 80s opened up a plethora of topics they could discuss (AIDS, casual sex, the growing gay community, queer rights, definition of sexuality, fluid sexuality), now it seems like they’ve taken a cutting edge, groundbreaking series and somehow made it PC for the modern TV viewer by including a gay character. Hmph! Think about that. That’s crazy. And while I can understand some past viewers’ complaint that they kept trying to make Steven straight and how sexuality doesn’t work like that, I think that those viewers’ nearsightedness to the issue is the main reason why they should have continued to make Steven seem confused. If they did that, then they could’ve been even more able to drive the conversation like Dynasty did, and have Steven fall in love with a transwoman or man. Now doesn’t that sound more interesting: to have a character stuck between figuring out if he’s gay or straight fall in love with a trans Sammy Jo? Especially since the show is set in Atlanta and you have tons of transwomen down there? You could’ve had a black transwoman play Sammy Jo and explore transsexuality and how they are not just sexual objects for confused or bi people to play with. I’m just saying it’s a big missed opportunity to me.
Speaking of Atlanta, the switch in setting was strange but I am more accepting of that than anything else because the original Dynasty, while set in Denver, rarely, if ever, filmed there as there was almost never any snow on the ground. But what I didn’t like was the fact that the relationships had been changed yet again with the children. In the original, Blake’s sworn enemy to start the show was Cecil Colby, another old fogy oil and energy tycoon stationed in Denver. That makes sense to have the old fighting the old. But here, they’ve not only aged everybody down, but they seem to have gotten rid of the Cecil character in order to make this some sort of generational warfare. In the original Blake loved Jeff as his own son and when Jeff and Fallon finally got married and gave him a grandchild, he was almost happier than he had ever been. Jeff, in Blake’s eyes, was not only the true hetero son that Blake couldn’t get in Steven, but he was the sub-in for Adam Carrington, the son that was kidnapped away from Blake and Alexis long ago. Making him black is great, but to make him an adversary as opposed to a much older uncle in Cecil seems to miss out on some key drama.
God, there’s so much, and I’m still going. Speaking of missing out on drama, Dynasty fans of the original will know that the first season of Dynasty was not about Alexis, hence why she isn’t on the current show (though something tells me they’ll try stuffing her in at some point in the season, especially if the ratings slip). Nor was it about some silly catfight between Krystle and Fallon. No, it was all about the jealousy and betrayal intertwined between Matthew Blaisdel, Krystle and Blake. If I’m remembering correctly, Alexis didn’t even make her grand entrance either until the beginning of the second season or the last episode of the first. There was a great build-up to her. But what was the buildup you ask? Like I said, it wasn’t fighting between two or three women. No, it was the buildup of Blake and Krystle’s relationship and love for each other which was juxtaposed with Matthew’s lust and love for Krystle and her flimsy resistance to it. Through the first season you got to see how Blake really loves a woman, what he’ll do for her, do to keep her, how wonderfully he’ll treat her and even how gentlemanly (or doggish) he’ll treat another man who is trying to love her too. Matthew, on the other hand, was always the humble roughneck who didn’t want to step on his boss’ toes but had a woman he wanted to love, and one that he had a commitment to in Claudia. This quadrangle of love, lust and power mingled to create some intense drama even for the first season.
How Blake and Krystle loved each other and weathered the storm of Blaisdel was important to know for when Alexis arrived. The spurned lover returned not only with jealousy in her heart but also still with very healthy dollops of love for Blake, the man that cast her out of high Denver society. You had the rose in Krystle, and the weed in Alexis. And because you watched Blake, in all of his faults as a man and a husband, still manage to treat Krystle like his equal and love her tenderly, you could instantly understand Alexis’ pain and hatred for Blake. Because not only does Krystle now sit where she once used to, but even her children are not pulled strongly against Krystle. They kinda like her. She’s a decent woman. On the flip side, you can also instantly understand why Blake wanted her gone from his and the kids’ lives because she is so vicious and vile. Even with all of the drama that had happened in the first season, Alexis came onto the show like the snake into Eden. None of the characters, including Blake, expected such a repugnance from her.
On the new Dynasty, not only do they steal Alexis’ story line of just how she gets back into high society—in the original, she married Cecil Colby right before he died, inheriting all of his wealth and his oil company—but we also get the viciousness that she displayed to the rest of the Carrington brood dispersed around in equal measures to all other characters. To me, there’s little difference between the current Fallon and the old Alexis. Joan Collins slayed the role of evil queen once removed. The girl playing Fallon seems to try some mock-up of that role. Even Blake seems more evil than he should. In fact, it almost seems like they defaulted back to the blame-the-white-guy narrative that’s been so popular lately. While I am usually always down for that narrative, Dynasty had way better writers and far superior plots than that. Blake was never supposed to be the villain, Alexis was. And her determination to destroy him or re-bed him, or both is what drove the plot from the second season onward and made everyone not just in the family, but in the city of Denver choose sides.
The strangest part? Steven went with his mother and Fallon went with her father, but on this show, it feels like they both hate their father enough to go with their mother at this point. Not only that, but Fallon is already bent on destroying her dad. And between Fallon already getting into a physical fight with Krystle, something which was built up over the course of an entire second season and truly shocked viewers when it happened (yes, Alexis and Krystle fought in the pond, and in the art studio; no, there weren’t fights every single week) and Fallon also already about to sleep with a Colby and destroy her dad, why the hell do you even need an Alexis later in the series? Even worse, you’ll have to cast an older actress (gasp!) which seems to not have been a problem when casting Cristal. Yeah, while the show followed the kids, it was very much-so always about the older people of Krystle, Blake and Alexis, and all of them were over 40 by the time the series really got going.
Rest Well, John Forsythe. The Original Is Still The BestShould you be watching? Fuck no! This is garbage. The original was a great show. And while people now are looking back on it and calling it campy and soapy and all of that crap, ignore that shit because it was really a great drama which, if done right, would’ve fit right in with today’s modern programming. Think Game of Thrones with a lighter tone. I guarantee you that it didn’t have nearly as much “camp” as people like to think it does. Hell, the show Empire is modeled off of it and people aren’t calling that campy. Yet, here they decided to not only rip away everything that made the original great, but have gone with this strange over-the-top comedic take on it where they’re playing everything to either be “fierce” or Glee-dramatic. It reminds me of that show Scream Queens and not in a good way. The actors don’t seem very committed to doing a good job and making these people seem like real people in a real world, which speaks to the show as a standalone series.
As its own series, the show collapses under the weight of bad acting and bad writing. I don’t know which is worse as the lines sound like lines and they’re in that weird gray zone where you can’t tell if they’re badly written lines or just badly delivered. The acting is too flamboyant and trying to one-up each other and the characters are all over the place. Even without knowing all of what happened in the old Dynasty, the first episode feels like it was over-packed with them trying to do too much (they covered about a full season’s worth of drama in 60 minutes). Again, I tried to forgive that because most pilots are bad and feel rushed, but then so did the next two episodes, yet they somehow didn’t seem to have anything meaningful happening in them. The direction is bland and I would say it doesn’t even live up to some of the other shows on the CW, mainly the superhero shows and Supernatural. To help you realize how amazing Dynasty was both in its direction and overall production, I should mention that famed producer Aaron Spelling joined the series as a producer in the second season when it really took off. Yeah, the guy behind 90210 and a ba-thousand other hits. I mention 90210 because just like the remake of that, I am not sure that this will last for very long.
I wonder why the hell they even used the Dynasty name instead of trying to make something new, different and original. Because I only see this remake appealing to a very small percentage of the original fans who are now in their 50s and 60s, and the age group that trends on CW shows is too young to remember the original or care about it to make this appointment viewing. It’s decent enough to watch a few episodes, but when the holidays start to slow everything down and free time gets scarce as viewing schedules get tight, I can’t see younger generations (teens, or 20 and 30-somethings) tuning in for this. But if you like torture, then Dynasty airs on CW Wednesdays at 9pm.
What do you think? Have you heard of the new Dynasty? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did you like it? Where do you think they can improve? Have you ever seen the original? Who do you think will go down for Matthew’s murder? And when do you think Alexis will make her grand appearance? Let me know in the comments below.
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Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalkingIf you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.Until next time, “A dynasty, like my money, lasts three lifetimes.”
P.S. Empire did it much better in making an update to the mold of Dynasty. Yes, they pretty much eliminated the Krystle character and no Boo-Boo Kitty does not count, but it works. And yes Lucious is the devil and far darker than Blake, but he is alright. But seriously though, Jay-Z is almost a billionaire. That’s crazy. Crazy! A Jay-Z lyric is always a good idea as a final line, but I’ll try to think of a better, more original sign-off next time.
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Not Sure It’s Funnier When He’s Not The President But #TheMayor #3weekroundup #ABC #recap #review
Not Sure It’s Funnier When He’s Not The President But #TheMayor #3weekroundup #ABC #recap #review
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Y’all know what the heck I do on this blog, so don’t act like you don’t. What’s the next words outta my mouth/pen/fingers gonna be? Huh? That’s right, it’s time for another new series’ three-week roundup review/recap. On deck this week we have ABC’s new sitcom The Mayor. So will this new pseudo-political show get your vote for a full-season order or should it already be drafting its resignation speech? (Wow! That’s a much better play on words than I’ve made in weeks. Fantastic!) Let’s find out together.
ABC’s The Mayor stars Brandon Hall as a small town California rapper named Courtney Rose. The 27-year-old soon-to-be rap star is still waiting on his big break and has a dream of performing at the local hot club of the town (don’t worry kid, Jay-z didn’t really get going until 26). But hardly anybody knows his name and he has so far been reduced to doing free street shows in various town squares. Until he conjures a brilliant idea. He is going to run for Mayor.
That’s right, this rapper is going to drum up more publicity for his name by running for mayor of his small town in a bid that pretty much everyone in the political climate and even those closest to him knows is nothing more than a stunt, some “harmless” self-promotion. Is this a complete mocking of current President Pussy-grabber’s own run for election? You betcha! And it tries to make some smart and critical jokes about the political climate in this country now and how the people of the city would never waste their time or vote to actually elect this know-nothing showboat who is full of talk and blister but probably doesn’t know his hand from his butt as far as governing goes. But still, everyone indulges him.
Courtney is joined in his run by his mother Dina Rose (played by Yvette Nicole Brown), a single mother who we later learn had him at the age of 16. She is a hardworking and very nosy mail carrier who enjoys reading other people’s mail to create gossip. While she believes that he is God’s gift to the world, she knows that this whole thing is a farce but will support him in whatever he does, especially if it gets him closer to moving out of her house.
The Fam from Left to Right: Courtney, Dina, Jermaine, T.K.We also have Courtney’s buddies T.K. Clifton and Jermaine LeForge. These two are past high school friends with Courtney who have stayed with him all through his life so far and... OK, they’re really just hangers-on waiting for him to blow up and get really rich and famous so they can continue to do nothing in their own lives. They are supposedly helping to run Courtney’s campaign for mayor but have done little to nothing but pass out fliers and max out their credit cards which they never intended on paying off. They are literally the stereotypical mold of what white people think about most black people who live in subpar inner-city housing, and most black people in general. But I digress.
And finally, we have the last two characters of any importance: Ed Gunt played by comedy legend David Spade (he was on SNL in the second-era heyday of the 90s and has managed a long career, so yes, he’s a legend. Don’t roll your eyes), and Valentina Barella played by Lea Michele. Valentina is the campaign manager of Gunt at the time before the election. She is also a former high school classmate of Courtney and was always an overachiever who clearly has her eyes on a much bigger prize than helping some small-time politician win some small-time mayor position in some small town even if said town is her hometown. Her ambitions push everything about her character which is all you need to know about her for now.
Well, the show moves at a rather fast pace so that you can get to the title’s meaning fairly quickly and realize that after a rousing off-the-cuff speech in one of the only mayoral debates held, Courtney wins the election and is shocked by his sudden power. And as a viewer you’re panicking because, “Oh god, it’s Trump all over again, but this time it’s even worse. This time he’s black.” Well, as he and his boys brainstorm ways for him to slip out of his new mayoral duties, his mother pulls him aside and says that he is a conscious rapper who finally has the opportunity to effect real change in a way that he could only dream about—the same way that effects his raps. He mustn’t take this job lightly and shouldn’t carelessly throw it away because he’d only be disappointing all the people who voted for him. So now it’s on.
But the good news is that Courtney Rose is not without his own commitment to doing better. The first thing that he wants to do is to get the city commons park cleaned up and looking nice to how it used to be when he was young. Right now it is a field filled with garbage and rusty tetnus-inducing old furniture. Well, no sooner than the next day after his win does Valentina pop into his life. With campaigning over, she needs a job and since she is out of the job she thought she’d have as the chief of staff (or whatever they call it at the mayoral level) to Gunt, she comes to Courtney to assume her rightful position. She will be his chief of staff instead while the other guy languishes on city council. She and Courtney bump heads a little about the next step, then he decides to bring his boys in and brainstorm how to clean the city commons. And they come up with the greatest plan that a black person not named Obama has come up with since the late 80s early 90s: they decide to throw a HouseGarden Party. And you can almost feel the baggie pants, high-top fades, fly-girls and party hip hop start a-booming because “this is how we do it” is in full effect... sort of.
Courtney and his team organize a clean-and-party event in which a bunch of people come to the park/commons to clean up the place while also stopping every once in a while to chill, drink, eat, dance and listen to music. The one big drawback: They need to have a permit to do such a thing. Luckily Courtney gets the proper permit for the party and everything is cool. Even Valentina is impressed at how good the place looks and how quickly the commons has turned into a nice-looking place. But Courtney can’t bask in this success without getting distracted from his main goal: to become a big superstar rapper and improve his brand worldwide. So when he gets a call from that one favorite club he’s always wanted to perform in that says that they have an opening fit for the new mayor, he jumps at the chance like Kris Kross.
With Courtney gone from the party with the permit in-tow, the cleanup party gets shut down and his mother gets carted off to jail for being mouthy to the police. He bails her out and they have a heart to heart in a van where she tells him that every citizen in the town depends on every move that he makes, win or lose. Despite how inexperienced he is, this is his job now and he must take it seriously because people actually believed in him. He gets the message, realizes his mistake and goes back to the park the next day to finish cleaning up himself... well, with help from some little kid that had been playing in the garbage field before. His team and Valentina come back to him and forgive him for bailing and all is well. Not bad for his first few days on the job that will be four years long. “Wait, this job is four years?”
Episode two deals with filibustering and veto power. Courtney starts by going to an old elementary school music class in the same school he once attended. While there, he talks to the kids, makes them laugh a little, and makes them believe that no matter how small their role in something, they have importance. He then over-promises that the school will get new instruments, from pianos to flutes. The problem: he hasn’t checked the budget nor cleared it with the city council, two things that need to be done before he can pay for anything. When Valentina tells him of this, he gets perturbed and hates how the budget pie chart doesn’t allow for much squeeze room for anything new.
So while Courtney goes to a city council budget meeting to try and veto their budget (and promptly gets overruled, not understanding veto power), T.K. goes out on a mail delivery with Mama Rose to better understand his job of dealing with the everyday problems of constituents. There are shoes hanging across the wires of the lights at an intersection, a huge puddle where a pipe has busted and other concerns that are his job to listen to and help the mayor figure out a way to fix.
Back to Courtney, he impresses on Valentina how difficult it is to grow up like him and have a teacher actually believe in him for anything. The only time he ever heard a teacher say good job to him was in the music class. He learned how to commit himself to something in the music class, which is why he feels he needs to fund these kids with new instruments somehow. Valentina comes up with two ideas to go against her old boss Ed Gunt who is head of the city council. First, she plans a filibuster in which Courtney takes the floor to talk about anything and everything before the judgment on the final budget is made. But even after using that extra time to find places to cut the city’s budget, she can’t find enough money for the instruments. Then, she decides to bring all the kids from the class in and have them play music on their beatup old instruments and stream it live for the citizens to react. That plan works to galvanize more supporters of the idea of funding the music program and the day is saved.
Episode three sees Courtney’s approval rating sinking to historical lows even after he won in a double-digit landslide vote. People joke about how he is unfit and unqualified to be mayor and how even their children can be mayor come the next election cycle. So Courtney embarks on a journey to an easy win. When one of his non-home boy staff comes in soaking wet after having waited in the rain for the bus, he decides to go with trying to install covered bus stops across the entire city which currently has none.
But there’s one problem: he’s got to get the expense cleared by the city council, and we already know who runs that. Well, Valentina tries to warn Courtney of how tough her old boss Ed Gunt can be, but doesn’t stick up for him as much as Courtney would like for her to when Gunt shoots down the bus stop proposal. In fact, he is planning to block everything Courtney does if only to get into power himself in four years and implement all of those same really good ideas. So now with the block, and with Valentina’s less than enthusiastic defense of her boss, Courtney suspects Valentina of not being fully committed and needs a plan to circumvent Gunt’s obstructionism.
So Courtney goes on a local political show called The Grey Live where he plans to pitch his idea for the covered stops directly to the citizens. But the host isn’t trying to hear it and tries to direct against what Courtney wants to say. He then takes a call from Gunt himself who supposedly has the head of the transportation department who says that covered stops would pose a health and safety risk. Now he’s stuck and embarrassed.
Courtney goes back to his momma for another pick-me-up talk and realizes that he can’t play dirty and try to undercut Gunt. He’s not that kind of guy. Instead, he can compromise and find a way around what he sees as an obstacle. So he goes back the next day and reveals a large billboard to Gunt that features the both of them on it and them working together to help the city. He can finally get the bus stop covers like he wants and things are good again.
What’s my grade? I give it a C+. Don’t get me wrong, I like this show, but it screams “stereotypical black show not made by black people.” The show, in many ways, feels partially like a mock-play of something that white kids would write in a drama class if given the assignment to write something based on the inner city. It is very ghetto and while it gets plenty of current colloquialisms correct, some of the writing feels hollow and false, as if it doesn’t have an authentic voice behind it. The acting is decent, although sometimes you can see Lea regretting the foolishness that she signed up for. At least with Scream Queens there was an expectation of way over-the-top ridiculousness. Here, it seems like the show is trying to be subtle or at least as subtle as a sitcom can ever be. Some of the jokes truly are funny, and the afterschool-special vibe that the show occasionally sinks into during Mama Rose and Courtney’s talks actually helps to ground the show rather than throw off the tone. But something still seems to be missing.
Ultimately, I think that the political message it is trying to make, similar to this season’s American Horror Story, is muddled and a bit all over the place. As I said, this show is supposed to be a critique of our current President’s run and subsequent win for the highest elected office in the land. But where SNL tries to look at Trump’s body and way of governance in a critical light, this show undercuts any real criticism by making him so young, broke and full of actual goodness—the antithesis of Trump. It’s both hard to watch the show without thinking about and recognizing the partially veiled jabs at Trump, and yet respect the show for what it is trying to do. Ultimately, it treats Courtney Rose as a mere child just trying to navigate his new life. It’s somewhat of a coming-of-age tale but for adults. In that vein, it is hard to figure out whether we should root for the newly elected politician to succeed and thus boost his ego to astronomical heights, or if we should hope he fails so that, even though it effects people’s lives, we ward off others of his ilk from ever trying such a stunt and punish the voters for falling for such a terrible idea.
Should you be watching? Eh! As I said, I rather enjoyed the show and think that it is OK, but at the end of the day there are a few other shows I would pick to watch before this one, especially on a Tuesday night when the NBA normally shows a game of my team. If, however, you are looking for something that is funny, family-friendly, diverse and semi-educational about civics, then this might be the show for you. It’s harmless fun, albeit not very deep. But Black-ish does make a great lead-in for it. The Mayor airs on ABC Tuesdays at 9:30pm EST. Catch up on past episodes with ABC on Demand and on ABC.com.
What do you think? Have you heard of The Mayor? If you haven’t, do you think you will tune in now? If you have heard of the show, have you seen it? Did you like it? Where do you think they could improve? Do you think Courtney will ever have an episode where he fails to get something done? And do you ever see a romance evolving between Courtney and Valentina like I do? Why else make them supposedly the same age? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.
Until next time, “[Insert Dumb Trump Quote Here, Please]”
P.S. I know, reader. It’s lazy of me to expect you to come up with your own dumb Donald Trump quote to end this article as opposed to me going to find one and seeing if it could work as my ultimate sign-off line, but... well. It’s just that I really have other things to do. I haven’t worked on my golf swing in a long time. I’m supposed to feed my dang family but haven’t even gone grocery shopping so now they’re complaining about there being no food and water, and Lord knows I haven’t gotten any real work (book and screenplay writing) done since I finished the last season of the Writer. So... yeah. I’ll try to come up with a real sign-off next time.
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All pictures courtesy of ABCY’all know what the heck I do on this blog, so don’t act like you don’t. What’s the next words outta my mouth/pen/fingers gonna be? Huh? That’s right, it’s time for another new series’ three-week roundup review/recap. On deck this week we have ABC’s new sitcom The Mayor. So will this new pseudo-political show get your vote for a full-season order or should it already be drafting its resignation speech? (Wow! That’s a much better play on words than I’ve made in weeks. Fantastic!) Let’s find out together.
ABC’s The Mayor stars Brandon Hall as a small town California rapper named Courtney Rose. The 27-year-old soon-to-be rap star is still waiting on his big break and has a dream of performing at the local hot club of the town (don’t worry kid, Jay-z didn’t really get going until 26). But hardly anybody knows his name and he has so far been reduced to doing free street shows in various town squares. Until he conjures a brilliant idea. He is going to run for Mayor.
That’s right, this rapper is going to drum up more publicity for his name by running for mayor of his small town in a bid that pretty much everyone in the political climate and even those closest to him knows is nothing more than a stunt, some “harmless” self-promotion. Is this a complete mocking of current President Pussy-grabber’s own run for election? You betcha! And it tries to make some smart and critical jokes about the political climate in this country now and how the people of the city would never waste their time or vote to actually elect this know-nothing showboat who is full of talk and blister but probably doesn’t know his hand from his butt as far as governing goes. But still, everyone indulges him.
Courtney is joined in his run by his mother Dina Rose (played by Yvette Nicole Brown), a single mother who we later learn had him at the age of 16. She is a hardworking and very nosy mail carrier who enjoys reading other people’s mail to create gossip. While she believes that he is God’s gift to the world, she knows that this whole thing is a farce but will support him in whatever he does, especially if it gets him closer to moving out of her house.
The Fam from Left to Right: Courtney, Dina, Jermaine, T.K.We also have Courtney’s buddies T.K. Clifton and Jermaine LeForge. These two are past high school friends with Courtney who have stayed with him all through his life so far and... OK, they’re really just hangers-on waiting for him to blow up and get really rich and famous so they can continue to do nothing in their own lives. They are supposedly helping to run Courtney’s campaign for mayor but have done little to nothing but pass out fliers and max out their credit cards which they never intended on paying off. They are literally the stereotypical mold of what white people think about most black people who live in subpar inner-city housing, and most black people in general. But I digress. And finally, we have the last two characters of any importance: Ed Gunt played by comedy legend David Spade (he was on SNL in the second-era heyday of the 90s and has managed a long career, so yes, he’s a legend. Don’t roll your eyes), and Valentina Barella played by Lea Michele. Valentina is the campaign manager of Gunt at the time before the election. She is also a former high school classmate of Courtney and was always an overachiever who clearly has her eyes on a much bigger prize than helping some small-time politician win some small-time mayor position in some small town even if said town is her hometown. Her ambitions push everything about her character which is all you need to know about her for now.
Well, the show moves at a rather fast pace so that you can get to the title’s meaning fairly quickly and realize that after a rousing off-the-cuff speech in one of the only mayoral debates held, Courtney wins the election and is shocked by his sudden power. And as a viewer you’re panicking because, “Oh god, it’s Trump all over again, but this time it’s even worse. This time he’s black.” Well, as he and his boys brainstorm ways for him to slip out of his new mayoral duties, his mother pulls him aside and says that he is a conscious rapper who finally has the opportunity to effect real change in a way that he could only dream about—the same way that effects his raps. He mustn’t take this job lightly and shouldn’t carelessly throw it away because he’d only be disappointing all the people who voted for him. So now it’s on.
But the good news is that Courtney Rose is not without his own commitment to doing better. The first thing that he wants to do is to get the city commons park cleaned up and looking nice to how it used to be when he was young. Right now it is a field filled with garbage and rusty tetnus-inducing old furniture. Well, no sooner than the next day after his win does Valentina pop into his life. With campaigning over, she needs a job and since she is out of the job she thought she’d have as the chief of staff (or whatever they call it at the mayoral level) to Gunt, she comes to Courtney to assume her rightful position. She will be his chief of staff instead while the other guy languishes on city council. She and Courtney bump heads a little about the next step, then he decides to bring his boys in and brainstorm how to clean the city commons. And they come up with the greatest plan that a black person not named Obama has come up with since the late 80s early 90s: they decide to throw a HouseGarden Party. And you can almost feel the baggie pants, high-top fades, fly-girls and party hip hop start a-booming because “this is how we do it” is in full effect... sort of. Courtney and his team organize a clean-and-party event in which a bunch of people come to the park/commons to clean up the place while also stopping every once in a while to chill, drink, eat, dance and listen to music. The one big drawback: They need to have a permit to do such a thing. Luckily Courtney gets the proper permit for the party and everything is cool. Even Valentina is impressed at how good the place looks and how quickly the commons has turned into a nice-looking place. But Courtney can’t bask in this success without getting distracted from his main goal: to become a big superstar rapper and improve his brand worldwide. So when he gets a call from that one favorite club he’s always wanted to perform in that says that they have an opening fit for the new mayor, he jumps at the chance like Kris Kross.
With Courtney gone from the party with the permit in-tow, the cleanup party gets shut down and his mother gets carted off to jail for being mouthy to the police. He bails her out and they have a heart to heart in a van where she tells him that every citizen in the town depends on every move that he makes, win or lose. Despite how inexperienced he is, this is his job now and he must take it seriously because people actually believed in him. He gets the message, realizes his mistake and goes back to the park the next day to finish cleaning up himself... well, with help from some little kid that had been playing in the garbage field before. His team and Valentina come back to him and forgive him for bailing and all is well. Not bad for his first few days on the job that will be four years long. “Wait, this job is four years?”
Episode two deals with filibustering and veto power. Courtney starts by going to an old elementary school music class in the same school he once attended. While there, he talks to the kids, makes them laugh a little, and makes them believe that no matter how small their role in something, they have importance. He then over-promises that the school will get new instruments, from pianos to flutes. The problem: he hasn’t checked the budget nor cleared it with the city council, two things that need to be done before he can pay for anything. When Valentina tells him of this, he gets perturbed and hates how the budget pie chart doesn’t allow for much squeeze room for anything new.
So while Courtney goes to a city council budget meeting to try and veto their budget (and promptly gets overruled, not understanding veto power), T.K. goes out on a mail delivery with Mama Rose to better understand his job of dealing with the everyday problems of constituents. There are shoes hanging across the wires of the lights at an intersection, a huge puddle where a pipe has busted and other concerns that are his job to listen to and help the mayor figure out a way to fix.
Back to Courtney, he impresses on Valentina how difficult it is to grow up like him and have a teacher actually believe in him for anything. The only time he ever heard a teacher say good job to him was in the music class. He learned how to commit himself to something in the music class, which is why he feels he needs to fund these kids with new instruments somehow. Valentina comes up with two ideas to go against her old boss Ed Gunt who is head of the city council. First, she plans a filibuster in which Courtney takes the floor to talk about anything and everything before the judgment on the final budget is made. But even after using that extra time to find places to cut the city’s budget, she can’t find enough money for the instruments. Then, she decides to bring all the kids from the class in and have them play music on their beatup old instruments and stream it live for the citizens to react. That plan works to galvanize more supporters of the idea of funding the music program and the day is saved.
Episode three sees Courtney’s approval rating sinking to historical lows even after he won in a double-digit landslide vote. People joke about how he is unfit and unqualified to be mayor and how even their children can be mayor come the next election cycle. So Courtney embarks on a journey to an easy win. When one of his non-home boy staff comes in soaking wet after having waited in the rain for the bus, he decides to go with trying to install covered bus stops across the entire city which currently has none.
But there’s one problem: he’s got to get the expense cleared by the city council, and we already know who runs that. Well, Valentina tries to warn Courtney of how tough her old boss Ed Gunt can be, but doesn’t stick up for him as much as Courtney would like for her to when Gunt shoots down the bus stop proposal. In fact, he is planning to block everything Courtney does if only to get into power himself in four years and implement all of those same really good ideas. So now with the block, and with Valentina’s less than enthusiastic defense of her boss, Courtney suspects Valentina of not being fully committed and needs a plan to circumvent Gunt’s obstructionism.
So Courtney goes on a local political show called The Grey Live where he plans to pitch his idea for the covered stops directly to the citizens. But the host isn’t trying to hear it and tries to direct against what Courtney wants to say. He then takes a call from Gunt himself who supposedly has the head of the transportation department who says that covered stops would pose a health and safety risk. Now he’s stuck and embarrassed.
Courtney goes back to his momma for another pick-me-up talk and realizes that he can’t play dirty and try to undercut Gunt. He’s not that kind of guy. Instead, he can compromise and find a way around what he sees as an obstacle. So he goes back the next day and reveals a large billboard to Gunt that features the both of them on it and them working together to help the city. He can finally get the bus stop covers like he wants and things are good again.
What’s my grade? I give it a C+. Don’t get me wrong, I like this show, but it screams “stereotypical black show not made by black people.” The show, in many ways, feels partially like a mock-play of something that white kids would write in a drama class if given the assignment to write something based on the inner city. It is very ghetto and while it gets plenty of current colloquialisms correct, some of the writing feels hollow and false, as if it doesn’t have an authentic voice behind it. The acting is decent, although sometimes you can see Lea regretting the foolishness that she signed up for. At least with Scream Queens there was an expectation of way over-the-top ridiculousness. Here, it seems like the show is trying to be subtle or at least as subtle as a sitcom can ever be. Some of the jokes truly are funny, and the afterschool-special vibe that the show occasionally sinks into during Mama Rose and Courtney’s talks actually helps to ground the show rather than throw off the tone. But something still seems to be missing.
Ultimately, I think that the political message it is trying to make, similar to this season’s American Horror Story, is muddled and a bit all over the place. As I said, this show is supposed to be a critique of our current President’s run and subsequent win for the highest elected office in the land. But where SNL tries to look at Trump’s body and way of governance in a critical light, this show undercuts any real criticism by making him so young, broke and full of actual goodness—the antithesis of Trump. It’s both hard to watch the show without thinking about and recognizing the partially veiled jabs at Trump, and yet respect the show for what it is trying to do. Ultimately, it treats Courtney Rose as a mere child just trying to navigate his new life. It’s somewhat of a coming-of-age tale but for adults. In that vein, it is hard to figure out whether we should root for the newly elected politician to succeed and thus boost his ego to astronomical heights, or if we should hope he fails so that, even though it effects people’s lives, we ward off others of his ilk from ever trying such a stunt and punish the voters for falling for such a terrible idea.
Should you be watching? Eh! As I said, I rather enjoyed the show and think that it is OK, but at the end of the day there are a few other shows I would pick to watch before this one, especially on a Tuesday night when the NBA normally shows a game of my team. If, however, you are looking for something that is funny, family-friendly, diverse and semi-educational about civics, then this might be the show for you. It’s harmless fun, albeit not very deep. But Black-ish does make a great lead-in for it. The Mayor airs on ABC Tuesdays at 9:30pm EST. Catch up on past episodes with ABC on Demand and on ABC.com.
What do you think? Have you heard of The Mayor? If you haven’t, do you think you will tune in now? If you have heard of the show, have you seen it? Did you like it? Where do you think they could improve? Do you think Courtney will ever have an episode where he fails to get something done? And do you ever see a romance evolving between Courtney and Valentina like I do? Why else make them supposedly the same age? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.Until next time, “[Insert Dumb Trump Quote Here, Please]”
P.S. I know, reader. It’s lazy of me to expect you to come up with your own dumb Donald Trump quote to end this article as opposed to me going to find one and seeing if it could work as my ultimate sign-off line, but... well. It’s just that I really have other things to do. I haven’t worked on my golf swing in a long time. I’m supposed to feed my dang family but haven’t even gone grocery shopping so now they’re complaining about there being no food and water, and Lord knows I haven’t gotten any real work (book and screenplay writing) done since I finished the last season of the Writer. So... yeah. I’ll try to come up with a real sign-off next time.
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Nobody Ever Talks About The Sea Lion Team #SEALTeam #3weekroundup #review #recap #CBS
Nobody Ever Talks About The Sea Lion Team #SEALTeam #3weekroundup #review #recap #CBS
All pictures courtesy of CBS
Back again in this third week of primetime fall TV with yet another review of a brand new series. Can I just point out how strange it is that a lot of the streaming services aren’t premiering that many new series at this moment in time. In fact, I think that this 2017-2018 season will see the fewest new series to come to TV or streaming in over a decade. I’d have to fact-check that but... I don’t wanna. Today, we are looking at CBS’s new military-themed drama SEAL Team. So, does this show manage to sneak its way into that obsessed fandom part of your heart and head that will have you raving over how good it is or is it in need of a stealthy take down to get it off the airwaves? Let’s find out together.
CBS’s SEAL Team stars David Boreanaz as a special SEAL team leader who is going through a rough patch in his life. I can almost instantly tell you that this show is better than the other military-themed show on NBC. But let’s wait a little longer before I do a thorough comparison and analysis of the two shows. Back to this show, David plays Jason Hayes, a Navy SEAL who, at the start of the series, has just been ordered to mandated counseling/therapy sessions after a mission gone slightly wrong. In this mission, Hayes, who is the squad leader, made a call to go deeper onto a ship and look at the cargo and whatnot which ultimately led to a chaotic escape from the people who owned the ship and one of his good buddies and a fellow SEAL team member being Killed In Action. Now, he has to live with the subtle PTSD trauma and survivor’s remorse of having been the one to make an in-mission call to look further into this ship.
And if that’s not bad enough, we find out within minutes of him leaving the doctor’s office that he is also having marital problems. No, he is not divorced but he and his wife Alana are separated and he is currently not living in the house. Apparently, as we learn in episode three, the sex was always great between them but he was never quite mentally present even when he was home from missions. For those who don’t know, SEALs and special ops teams are different than regular soldiers in that they don’t go on full tours overseas but they are always on-call similar to a surgeon. They go on specialized missions when they are absolutely needed. This made his schedule hectic. So, we already have a very humanized character.
Next, we have the second-in-command Ray, who is either black, Latino, Hispanic or a mix of all three. The point is that he is a minority character (Thank God!) who is given a very high place on the show. He is more than just a best buddy in my opinion and has his own storyline. He is the expectant father—well, his wife is pregnant with their first child. A son. He is looking forward to the baby and living a long life and all of that. He is both the jovial jokester and the confidante on whom Hayes can lean. Together, they make a pretty good tandem as a lead character.
Then we have Mandy Ellis, played by the lovely Jessica Pare. She is essentially HQ-intelligence of the team. I don’t believe that she is an official part of the military but part of one of the many intelligence agencies that co-opt with the SEALs. The closest that she gets to the live action of the field is in the field’s command center that is usually tucked safely away miles from the more shoot-y aspects. Though she doesn’t hold as high of a rank as Anne Heche’s character on NBC’s The Brave, she is pretty much the same thing.
We also have Davis. She is part of the SEAL team but I haven’t seen her actually go on field missions yet, unless I just wasn’t paying close enough attention. Anyway, she helps a lot in strategizing how the team can get into the places that they are seeking to go, and she also does a lot of what seems like grunt work to me: she packs parachutes, makes sure that all the tech on the soldiers’ suits is working and relays communications back to the HQ and command centers. While they haven’t dwelt on her very much, she does intrigue me. Also, on episode three, this may just be me and my writer’s mind, but I kind of sense that both Davis and Mandy are gay, or at least one of them is and I think that it may be Davis. I find that also to be very intriguing as we will finally get to see an interracial, diverse relationship in the military.
And finally we have the jackass of the show, Clay Spenser. What to say, what to say. Clay is my most hated character in all of the new shows that I’ve seen so far this new TV season. As I mentioned in my Summer of Suck part 1 review when discussing the terrible movies of the summer, it feels like instead of getting actual Millennial writers into the writing room for movies, it feels like we are getting Gen-Xers who are trying to write what they think Millennials are actually like personally. But they seem to write-in a lot of their frustrations with how they perceive Millennials and not how this younger generation perceives itself. So, Clay is the epitome of a stereotyped Millennial, even though he is a soldier. Again, I will try to withhold my critique until later, but just know that I don’t like this.
Anyway, Clay is the son of a famous Navy SEAL who has long retired, and written a book about his military exploits. This puts Clay in a tricky position because he has the whole “he’s the son of so and so” onus on him while he is trying to prove himself on his own merits. But even worse, this guy is a total jerk and a jerk really for no reason. Again, I digress before I start to criticize the show. But I will get back to this point later.
After we see Clay in a training exercise (oh yeah, he’s not even officially on the SEAL team that Hayes is on and is, in fact, a newb) the team is called out on a mission where Clay gets to “strap” or assist in the field without actually being part of the team. They never quite explain why he specifically gets this privilege but the idea is that the team needs an extra man on this mission so they get someone from the trainees.
The mission is to take down a HVT or High-Value Target who is coming for some kind of mafia-dons-like meeting with some other lower-level terrorists. The orders are to capture him and take him back to the US for sustained interrogation as he knows a lot about many different terrorist organizations and potential attacks. Again, they want to keep him ALIVE. Well, as they are doing drone recon, after the desert dust clears (this is somewhere near the Sahara in Africa) they see that the terrorist and his men came to the party stacked. They have a white American female kidnap victim who had been snatched while on vacation in another country. The mission objectives then change from capturing the terrorist to rescuing the girl. At first, they believe that they can’t do both and that they have to choose one or the other because by rescuing the girl they will have tipped off the terrorist of their presence and that’s no good for terrorist-capturing business. As it so happens, Jessica Pare’s character really wants this guy. On a previous mission, she couldn’t save an asset who died from the orders of this big baddie.
Hayes, Ray and ClayThen, a twist of fate. As they decide to go wholesale for the rescue, while there, their bomb-squad dog leads them to an underground escape tunnel which they believe the terrorist has used to escape. The caravan that left out the back upon their arrival was a decoy. And they start to haul all through the tunnels. With the rest of the team checking the entirety of the rest of the building and getting the girl to safety, that leaves Hayes, Ray and Clay to check the tunnel. All Clay is supposed to do is stay near the tunnels’ fork and make sure they aren’t ambushed from the other side as Hayes and Ray follow the dog. Clay can’t follow orders. He does find another guy down the other side of the tunnel, but follows it all the way around to the room where the terrorist is—the same room the dog led Hayes and Ray to from the other side. Without hesitation, Clay shoots the terrorist upon seeing a bomb vest and they’ve only partially succeeded at the mission.
They get back and Hayes lies about it being a clean kill of the terrorist because he doesn’t want to get the boy in trouble, but is secretly pissed about Clay’s lack of good judgment. Jessica Pare’s character is totally cool with this guy being dead because he deserved it. They go back home and Hayes has to wind up in therapy again as the therapist thinks that he really needs to work something out inside his head.
Episode two sees the team suit up again, but this time without Clay as a mission strap. While Clay is left stateside to train more and flirt with privileged white women at a local military bar, the team goes to a foreign country to do some real work. The intelligence side of the team gathers up some surveillance on a potential chemical weapons lab out in the middle of the desert somewhere. Out in the war-torn country of Syria, passing satellite and drone photos have captured a collection of tire tracks surrounding what is supposed to be an abandoned science lab. They believe that some terrorist group or maybe the government (honestly, it’s hard for me to keep up with all the Middle Eastern names and who is and isn’t on our side on this show) is creating chemical weapons that can potentially wipe out an entire city, nation or the entire world, and that have a very high potency. Instead of shutting this place down or bombing it outright (can’t do that or risk letting all of these deadly chemicals out), the higher-ups want to gather intel on the building to make sure that their hypotheses aren’t full of dairy-farm fertilizer.
Only after they get to the building do they realize a few things: one the intelligence team was right, this place is filled with illegal chemicals, toxins, viruses and bacteria that can be weaponized and used to kill billions. But two, and more importantly, there are people in there that have already been affected. Mostly kids. Here I got a little confused because these bio-chemicals were sold to us as being so vile, so toxic that they automatically kill people within days, sometimes hours or minutes. Yet, they set it up that these kids were infected with these deadly toxins and were very sick, some dying. I guess the idea was that the scientists were infecting the children with tiny micro-doses to try to work out some sort of antivirus or vaccine before releasing the viruses/bacteria/toxins? I’m not sure, but I do know that Hayes sees innocent people in need of saving.
Well, he makes another dangerous call in the field (similar to the one that got his friend killed) to stay in that building and guard these kids until they could get a transport to get them all out or until the scientists and terrorists came back. He is looking to eradicate all the terrorists so that the kids would be safe then. He gives his team the option to leave, including the scientist who was this week’s strap who needed to come on the mission to test all of the various samples left in the lab. Everyone, including the scientist, says that they will stay if he stays. At the last minute, Hayes concocts a genius plan to lie and say that the empty viles left behind that once contained the viruses, bacteria and biochemicals are not sufficient to prove the existence of these bio-agents. They, therefore, need to take the children because they have clearly been infected with something and would have the lasting traces of these diseases in their blood. The day is saved and so are the children.
Back on the homefront, Ray’s wife goes into labor slightly early and gives birth with her husband standing beside Hayes halfway around the world. Hayes doesn’t tell Ray until after the mission and they have a total bro-moment about love and looking out for each other.
Episode three sees pirates, ahoy! Ha! No, but yes, seriously. Some pirates in the Southeast Asian sea territories have hijacked a research ship with a bunch of doctors and scientists. What were they studying? Unclear, but it’s a pimped-out yacht that, I assume the pirates all thought had rich people on it. Being NAVY SEALs, the team has to assemble to try to free the hostages held on the ship. But first they have to find it.
Intelligence has to figure out where the pirates would dock in these current weather conditions, and what ports would allow them to dock with a clearly stolen vessel. After the ship’s GPS is shut off, the intelligence team calculates where they might dock based on tides and illegal ports in the area. Once they have the coordinates, the ground team then decides to do a stealthy water infiltration of the dock and ship because parachuting on would be too dangerous. They are able to get onto the yacht, secure the hostages and get the heck outta there in little to no time at all, after ironing out a few bumps, chief among those being that a lot of the pesky pirates were still lingering on the dock when they thought they would’ve deboarded and gone to set up deals on the black market to sell some hostages to another terrorist group.
Meanwhile, back stateside, Clay, who is still in training, is going through a rough time of losing self-confidence when he is called out by his peers as being part of the bottom five soldiers in the SEAL training course. That white woman he was flirting with in the previous show he completely alienates as he mopes in his beer, only to course correct halfway through the episode and realize that the weight of the world really isn’t on his shoulders and it is not about being the top of the class but about getting on the team. He then goes back to the white girl and is all, “Oh, I’m sorry and here’s some stuff that’s charming that guys do when they apologize. Now like me again.” And of course she does because she wanted to give him those hot drawers since she first met him in the bar and they both had the most cringeworthy SJW conversation ever that, apparently all Gen-Xers believe Millennials have.
As a side story, Hayes and his wife are pseudo-snooping because his wife found some kind of evidence about his dead buddy that makes her believe that the man was cheating before he died. Hayes and Ray venture out to find more info to prove that their best bud wasn’t cheating. A phone is discovered. Hayes’ wife says that the phone was not the dead buddy’s main phone and that he only ever called one number on it, which is a few cities over. Hayes and Ray track down the house with said phone number and go to meet whoever is there. So now we have a potential cross-episodes mystery arc unfolding. Yay!
What’s my grade? I give this a solid B. OK, there is a lot about this series that I like so let’s just get to what I don’t like which you all clearly already know and have seen, and that is the way they wrote Clay’s character. If he is going to be arrogant, then fine, but don’t write said arrogance as a generational-defining motif. It makes the writers sound old and craggy, and gives off that what-is-this-young-generation-good-for vibe yet again. If you want your show to actually last, then you need to be appealing to the Millennial demographic and not trying to alienate them by satirizing them in a serious drama. Remember, we’re dealing with soldiers here, and not just soldiers but ones that have been in the military long enough to be allowed to train to become a Navy SEAL special ops soldier. If he somehow got through basic training and is still this arrogant this early, then something tells me that maybe he does have reason to be that way.
And also what the hell was with that flirting with the bar chick that he did? If you really want to try to make this a real interpretation of what Millennial men are like, then you maybe need to legitimately talk to some and listen to them. Frankly, guys are not putting forth that kind of effort that Clay showed at the bar anymore. From the ones that I’ve talked to for research in books and whatnot, most of them really don’t care about proving themselves to women anymore. The whole “oh, you’re gonna be tough on me, you’re a tough feminist and I see you as a fun challenge” really is not reality for most young men, even the more traditional ones who fill the military ranks. If they want a challenge, most guys have video games. Bullet sponges, jarheads, squids and the like will spend all day honing their shooting and strategizing skills on those first before trying to go toe to toe with some women’s studies grad student.
But even more importantly, a lot of the young women will tell you virtually the same truth: that men don’t want to deal with them nearly as much as TV says they do. You might find it sad, but most of these men are not nearly as horny nor as pressed to get a piece of the almighty V as people might think they are. If this weren’t closer to the truth than the fiction that the show tries to pawn off as realisitc, then we wouldn’t have the deluge of articles, online videos and blogposts about young women not being able to find men, about how men are lazy and not getting married, about how the birth rates are dropping in almost all developed countries, or about how the marriage rate and even cohabitation rate (within the last five years) are steadily creeping down while the divorce rates are steadily creeping back up (they were highest during the baby boomers youth in the 80s when they got up to 60%; look it up on the census website).
Clay’s entire character is flawed not in purpose but in conception. It’s like they’ve literally taken every complaint about Gen-Yers and stuffed it into one person, then had him interact within that same paradigm of thought. Frankly, it was unnecessary for this show, is not excessively identifiable as a younger character, and would be much better if he was removed or his whole storyline toned way down. And worst of all, his character motivations are not fully flushed out. While I can excuse the fact that he is arrogant, there is no reason given for his arrogance. Yes, his dad is mentioned as being some big past hotshot SEAL who wrote a book, but never in the first three episodes do we know if Clay embraces being his dad’s son and living up to that legacy, or if he is a “prove myself, make my own way” kinda guy. He’s just a jerk for no real reason. Again, if you sit and talk to real Millennials, you will find that most of them aren’t arrogant or entitled for no reason. In fact, most of them seem pissed because a great majority of them did what the two previous generations told them they NEEDED to do: go to school, get a good education, really learn something. And while there were some people who went to school for art degrees, nowhere near as many as other generations think. They’re pissed because they got decent degrees and graduated into a system that was and still is very broken, and they have more debt (even if they worked through school) to carry post-graduation than any other generation. And even the military guys are pissed because half of them no longer believe in the American Dream, PTSD rates seem to be skyrocketing and unlike with Vietnam where the US finally decided to give up and go home, the new wars/conflicts the US starts go nowhere, accomplish nothing and continue forever with no end in sight. Whoa! I got waaayyy too political there.
OK, with that out of the way, I pretty much like everything else about the show. And here is where the comparisons and contrasts to NBC’s The Brave start. To me, this is the far superior show. The Brave, while it moves fast and dwells heavily on the mission aspect of the soldiers and the intelligence team trying to do the job, it has little to no emotional weight. I watched three episodes of the series. Three. That’s more than most of the paid critics and more than most regular viewers give a show to prove itself. And in that time, I don’t feel like I truly got to know a single character on that show. It’s all business, which isn’t good for a show like this because after a while it starts to make the players feel like easily-replaced robots. If Preach or that other guy died on that show in the fourth episode, I would hardly notice. Hell, I don’t even think I would be that impacted if Dalton, the team leader, died on that show.
But on SEAL team, with the exception of Clay, I would feel bad if just about any other major character died on episode four or five. You totally can’t kill Hayes and you definitely can’t get rid of Ray—they both have families and people that really care about them, and see how I’m already bargaining for them before anything has happened? The people on The Brave? I don’t know if they have families, haven’t seen them kissing and hugging on anyone or talking about basic things like kid’s choir concerts or doing dishes or anything like that. They are as cardboard as can be.
Then there is the structure of the show. Again, the Brave is all business, showing little to no downtime for the team as a whole. If intelligence back at HQ is not doing something, then that’s because the ground team is out in the field, and vice versa. I haven’t seen but one scene in which the team on The Brave were doing something that looked cheerful, light, human, and that was that weird beach scene at the end of the first episode—still can’t get over that damn bomb. What the hell was that? Whereas on SEAL Team, you can see that these people actually have lives outside of beating the bad guys.
The shows are filmed in similar ways, although the lighting and shading on The Brave are in a dusty yellow-orangeish—you’ll know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen it—and the SEAL team show is filmed in that strange CBS darker softglow of blue and green. For instance, you almost always see lights in the background when in an outside scene. It’s kinda weird if you notice it, but you tend not to notice it if you’re not a film student.
As far as the missions, they are virtually the same. The difference is that more time is spent on the technical detailed aspects of the field missions on The Brave whereas the mission may occupy half an hour of the full hour on SEAL Team and the rest of the show is character development. Oh, and unlike on The Brave, SEAL TEAM has a secondary over-arching storyline that you can follow. It has two, actually: whether or not the dead soldier cheated on his wife, and if Hayes and his wife will actually get back together and work things out from their current separation or will they get a full divorce. Even for the tough men and women of the military (but more men than women on this particular front) who are feelings- and emotions-averse, this is an emotional thruline that they most likely can relate to and feel comfortable watching with their respective spouses or families. The struggle for soldiers and people who face death on a daily basis (as well as seeing the human atrocities that evil commits) to open up to others or be fully present with their families is a real issue. This show addresses it, albeit in a slightly glossy way. But The Brave doesn’t address it at all, so I’d go with SEAL Team any day over The Brave on that aspect.
Should you be watching? Sure. Here’s some real truth, I try to stay as objective as I can when reviewing this stuff. Subjectively, neither of these shows are appointment viewing for me. I have never truly loved military stories and, for that matter, have long abandoned a lot of the cop shows and procedurals that flood our TV every year. Outside of something that is uniquely creative and generally has a sci-fi or fantastical bend to it while being a cop show (ie. Minority Report, Second Chance, Almost Human), I tend not to delve into very many of these shows on a weekly basis unless I am reviewing them. But with that said, I think that for people who love cop shows, military shows, crime-solving shows and the like, this would be a great show for you. Now, if you are a military fanatic and you’ve seen everything from JAG to Taken to Army Wives to whatever, then you most likely will check out both SEAL Team and The Brave and won’t mind spending time in both worlds. If, however, you can only choose one, I would recommend SEAL Team as it is the better overall show. I also hear that it has gotten a full-season order. Congrats! SEAL Team airs at 10pm on CBS Wednesdays. Check for it on demand and on CBS All Access, too.
What do you think? Have you heard of SEAL Team? If not, do you think you will check it out now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did you like it? Do you like how the missions are carried out? Do you think that they are authentic? And what do you think about Hayes and his wife? Do you really think they’ll divorce or are you pulling for them to get back together? Let me know in the comments below.
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Until next time, “Semper Fido-lis!”
P.S. Good Lord this has got to be the worst sign-off I’ve ever done, and yet I’m going through with it. I really should be embarrassed after this long post with hella-many run-on sentences and other grammatical errors littering what could have been a decent review of a decent show to finally end it like this. But with that said, did anybody see the article about the doggy bomb sniffer that didn’t get into the program for I think the CIA or something? That dog was so cute. Yes, it was. Yes, it was. OK, I’m stopping now. I’ll think of a better sign-off next time.
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All pictures courtesy of CBS Back again in this third week of primetime fall TV with yet another review of a brand new series. Can I just point out how strange it is that a lot of the streaming services aren’t premiering that many new series at this moment in time. In fact, I think that this 2017-2018 season will see the fewest new series to come to TV or streaming in over a decade. I’d have to fact-check that but... I don’t wanna. Today, we are looking at CBS’s new military-themed drama SEAL Team. So, does this show manage to sneak its way into that obsessed fandom part of your heart and head that will have you raving over how good it is or is it in need of a stealthy take down to get it off the airwaves? Let’s find out together.
CBS’s SEAL Team stars David Boreanaz as a special SEAL team leader who is going through a rough patch in his life. I can almost instantly tell you that this show is better than the other military-themed show on NBC. But let’s wait a little longer before I do a thorough comparison and analysis of the two shows. Back to this show, David plays Jason Hayes, a Navy SEAL who, at the start of the series, has just been ordered to mandated counseling/therapy sessions after a mission gone slightly wrong. In this mission, Hayes, who is the squad leader, made a call to go deeper onto a ship and look at the cargo and whatnot which ultimately led to a chaotic escape from the people who owned the ship and one of his good buddies and a fellow SEAL team member being Killed In Action. Now, he has to live with the subtle PTSD trauma and survivor’s remorse of having been the one to make an in-mission call to look further into this ship. And if that’s not bad enough, we find out within minutes of him leaving the doctor’s office that he is also having marital problems. No, he is not divorced but he and his wife Alana are separated and he is currently not living in the house. Apparently, as we learn in episode three, the sex was always great between them but he was never quite mentally present even when he was home from missions. For those who don’t know, SEALs and special ops teams are different than regular soldiers in that they don’t go on full tours overseas but they are always on-call similar to a surgeon. They go on specialized missions when they are absolutely needed. This made his schedule hectic. So, we already have a very humanized character.
Next, we have the second-in-command Ray, who is either black, Latino, Hispanic or a mix of all three. The point is that he is a minority character (Thank God!) who is given a very high place on the show. He is more than just a best buddy in my opinion and has his own storyline. He is the expectant father—well, his wife is pregnant with their first child. A son. He is looking forward to the baby and living a long life and all of that. He is both the jovial jokester and the confidante on whom Hayes can lean. Together, they make a pretty good tandem as a lead character.
Then we have Mandy Ellis, played by the lovely Jessica Pare. She is essentially HQ-intelligence of the team. I don’t believe that she is an official part of the military but part of one of the many intelligence agencies that co-opt with the SEALs. The closest that she gets to the live action of the field is in the field’s command center that is usually tucked safely away miles from the more shoot-y aspects. Though she doesn’t hold as high of a rank as Anne Heche’s character on NBC’s The Brave, she is pretty much the same thing. We also have Davis. She is part of the SEAL team but I haven’t seen her actually go on field missions yet, unless I just wasn’t paying close enough attention. Anyway, she helps a lot in strategizing how the team can get into the places that they are seeking to go, and she also does a lot of what seems like grunt work to me: she packs parachutes, makes sure that all the tech on the soldiers’ suits is working and relays communications back to the HQ and command centers. While they haven’t dwelt on her very much, she does intrigue me. Also, on episode three, this may just be me and my writer’s mind, but I kind of sense that both Davis and Mandy are gay, or at least one of them is and I think that it may be Davis. I find that also to be very intriguing as we will finally get to see an interracial, diverse relationship in the military.
And finally we have the jackass of the show, Clay Spenser. What to say, what to say. Clay is my most hated character in all of the new shows that I’ve seen so far this new TV season. As I mentioned in my Summer of Suck part 1 review when discussing the terrible movies of the summer, it feels like instead of getting actual Millennial writers into the writing room for movies, it feels like we are getting Gen-Xers who are trying to write what they think Millennials are actually like personally. But they seem to write-in a lot of their frustrations with how they perceive Millennials and not how this younger generation perceives itself. So, Clay is the epitome of a stereotyped Millennial, even though he is a soldier. Again, I will try to withhold my critique until later, but just know that I don’t like this.
Anyway, Clay is the son of a famous Navy SEAL who has long retired, and written a book about his military exploits. This puts Clay in a tricky position because he has the whole “he’s the son of so and so” onus on him while he is trying to prove himself on his own merits. But even worse, this guy is a total jerk and a jerk really for no reason. Again, I digress before I start to criticize the show. But I will get back to this point later.
After we see Clay in a training exercise (oh yeah, he’s not even officially on the SEAL team that Hayes is on and is, in fact, a newb) the team is called out on a mission where Clay gets to “strap” or assist in the field without actually being part of the team. They never quite explain why he specifically gets this privilege but the idea is that the team needs an extra man on this mission so they get someone from the trainees.
The mission is to take down a HVT or High-Value Target who is coming for some kind of mafia-dons-like meeting with some other lower-level terrorists. The orders are to capture him and take him back to the US for sustained interrogation as he knows a lot about many different terrorist organizations and potential attacks. Again, they want to keep him ALIVE. Well, as they are doing drone recon, after the desert dust clears (this is somewhere near the Sahara in Africa) they see that the terrorist and his men came to the party stacked. They have a white American female kidnap victim who had been snatched while on vacation in another country. The mission objectives then change from capturing the terrorist to rescuing the girl. At first, they believe that they can’t do both and that they have to choose one or the other because by rescuing the girl they will have tipped off the terrorist of their presence and that’s no good for terrorist-capturing business. As it so happens, Jessica Pare’s character really wants this guy. On a previous mission, she couldn’t save an asset who died from the orders of this big baddie.
Hayes, Ray and ClayThen, a twist of fate. As they decide to go wholesale for the rescue, while there, their bomb-squad dog leads them to an underground escape tunnel which they believe the terrorist has used to escape. The caravan that left out the back upon their arrival was a decoy. And they start to haul all through the tunnels. With the rest of the team checking the entirety of the rest of the building and getting the girl to safety, that leaves Hayes, Ray and Clay to check the tunnel. All Clay is supposed to do is stay near the tunnels’ fork and make sure they aren’t ambushed from the other side as Hayes and Ray follow the dog. Clay can’t follow orders. He does find another guy down the other side of the tunnel, but follows it all the way around to the room where the terrorist is—the same room the dog led Hayes and Ray to from the other side. Without hesitation, Clay shoots the terrorist upon seeing a bomb vest and they’ve only partially succeeded at the mission. They get back and Hayes lies about it being a clean kill of the terrorist because he doesn’t want to get the boy in trouble, but is secretly pissed about Clay’s lack of good judgment. Jessica Pare’s character is totally cool with this guy being dead because he deserved it. They go back home and Hayes has to wind up in therapy again as the therapist thinks that he really needs to work something out inside his head.
Episode two sees the team suit up again, but this time without Clay as a mission strap. While Clay is left stateside to train more and flirt with privileged white women at a local military bar, the team goes to a foreign country to do some real work. The intelligence side of the team gathers up some surveillance on a potential chemical weapons lab out in the middle of the desert somewhere. Out in the war-torn country of Syria, passing satellite and drone photos have captured a collection of tire tracks surrounding what is supposed to be an abandoned science lab. They believe that some terrorist group or maybe the government (honestly, it’s hard for me to keep up with all the Middle Eastern names and who is and isn’t on our side on this show) is creating chemical weapons that can potentially wipe out an entire city, nation or the entire world, and that have a very high potency. Instead of shutting this place down or bombing it outright (can’t do that or risk letting all of these deadly chemicals out), the higher-ups want to gather intel on the building to make sure that their hypotheses aren’t full of dairy-farm fertilizer.
Only after they get to the building do they realize a few things: one the intelligence team was right, this place is filled with illegal chemicals, toxins, viruses and bacteria that can be weaponized and used to kill billions. But two, and more importantly, there are people in there that have already been affected. Mostly kids. Here I got a little confused because these bio-chemicals were sold to us as being so vile, so toxic that they automatically kill people within days, sometimes hours or minutes. Yet, they set it up that these kids were infected with these deadly toxins and were very sick, some dying. I guess the idea was that the scientists were infecting the children with tiny micro-doses to try to work out some sort of antivirus or vaccine before releasing the viruses/bacteria/toxins? I’m not sure, but I do know that Hayes sees innocent people in need of saving.
Well, he makes another dangerous call in the field (similar to the one that got his friend killed) to stay in that building and guard these kids until they could get a transport to get them all out or until the scientists and terrorists came back. He is looking to eradicate all the terrorists so that the kids would be safe then. He gives his team the option to leave, including the scientist who was this week’s strap who needed to come on the mission to test all of the various samples left in the lab. Everyone, including the scientist, says that they will stay if he stays. At the last minute, Hayes concocts a genius plan to lie and say that the empty viles left behind that once contained the viruses, bacteria and biochemicals are not sufficient to prove the existence of these bio-agents. They, therefore, need to take the children because they have clearly been infected with something and would have the lasting traces of these diseases in their blood. The day is saved and so are the children.
Back on the homefront, Ray’s wife goes into labor slightly early and gives birth with her husband standing beside Hayes halfway around the world. Hayes doesn’t tell Ray until after the mission and they have a total bro-moment about love and looking out for each other. Episode three sees pirates, ahoy! Ha! No, but yes, seriously. Some pirates in the Southeast Asian sea territories have hijacked a research ship with a bunch of doctors and scientists. What were they studying? Unclear, but it’s a pimped-out yacht that, I assume the pirates all thought had rich people on it. Being NAVY SEALs, the team has to assemble to try to free the hostages held on the ship. But first they have to find it.
Intelligence has to figure out where the pirates would dock in these current weather conditions, and what ports would allow them to dock with a clearly stolen vessel. After the ship’s GPS is shut off, the intelligence team calculates where they might dock based on tides and illegal ports in the area. Once they have the coordinates, the ground team then decides to do a stealthy water infiltration of the dock and ship because parachuting on would be too dangerous. They are able to get onto the yacht, secure the hostages and get the heck outta there in little to no time at all, after ironing out a few bumps, chief among those being that a lot of the pesky pirates were still lingering on the dock when they thought they would’ve deboarded and gone to set up deals on the black market to sell some hostages to another terrorist group.
Meanwhile, back stateside, Clay, who is still in training, is going through a rough time of losing self-confidence when he is called out by his peers as being part of the bottom five soldiers in the SEAL training course. That white woman he was flirting with in the previous show he completely alienates as he mopes in his beer, only to course correct halfway through the episode and realize that the weight of the world really isn’t on his shoulders and it is not about being the top of the class but about getting on the team. He then goes back to the white girl and is all, “Oh, I’m sorry and here’s some stuff that’s charming that guys do when they apologize. Now like me again.” And of course she does because she wanted to give him those hot drawers since she first met him in the bar and they both had the most cringeworthy SJW conversation ever that, apparently all Gen-Xers believe Millennials have.
As a side story, Hayes and his wife are pseudo-snooping because his wife found some kind of evidence about his dead buddy that makes her believe that the man was cheating before he died. Hayes and Ray venture out to find more info to prove that their best bud wasn’t cheating. A phone is discovered. Hayes’ wife says that the phone was not the dead buddy’s main phone and that he only ever called one number on it, which is a few cities over. Hayes and Ray track down the house with said phone number and go to meet whoever is there. So now we have a potential cross-episodes mystery arc unfolding. Yay!
What’s my grade? I give this a solid B. OK, there is a lot about this series that I like so let’s just get to what I don’t like which you all clearly already know and have seen, and that is the way they wrote Clay’s character. If he is going to be arrogant, then fine, but don’t write said arrogance as a generational-defining motif. It makes the writers sound old and craggy, and gives off that what-is-this-young-generation-good-for vibe yet again. If you want your show to actually last, then you need to be appealing to the Millennial demographic and not trying to alienate them by satirizing them in a serious drama. Remember, we’re dealing with soldiers here, and not just soldiers but ones that have been in the military long enough to be allowed to train to become a Navy SEAL special ops soldier. If he somehow got through basic training and is still this arrogant this early, then something tells me that maybe he does have reason to be that way.
And also what the hell was with that flirting with the bar chick that he did? If you really want to try to make this a real interpretation of what Millennial men are like, then you maybe need to legitimately talk to some and listen to them. Frankly, guys are not putting forth that kind of effort that Clay showed at the bar anymore. From the ones that I’ve talked to for research in books and whatnot, most of them really don’t care about proving themselves to women anymore. The whole “oh, you’re gonna be tough on me, you’re a tough feminist and I see you as a fun challenge” really is not reality for most young men, even the more traditional ones who fill the military ranks. If they want a challenge, most guys have video games. Bullet sponges, jarheads, squids and the like will spend all day honing their shooting and strategizing skills on those first before trying to go toe to toe with some women’s studies grad student.
But even more importantly, a lot of the young women will tell you virtually the same truth: that men don’t want to deal with them nearly as much as TV says they do. You might find it sad, but most of these men are not nearly as horny nor as pressed to get a piece of the almighty V as people might think they are. If this weren’t closer to the truth than the fiction that the show tries to pawn off as realisitc, then we wouldn’t have the deluge of articles, online videos and blogposts about young women not being able to find men, about how men are lazy and not getting married, about how the birth rates are dropping in almost all developed countries, or about how the marriage rate and even cohabitation rate (within the last five years) are steadily creeping down while the divorce rates are steadily creeping back up (they were highest during the baby boomers youth in the 80s when they got up to 60%; look it up on the census website).
Clay’s entire character is flawed not in purpose but in conception. It’s like they’ve literally taken every complaint about Gen-Yers and stuffed it into one person, then had him interact within that same paradigm of thought. Frankly, it was unnecessary for this show, is not excessively identifiable as a younger character, and would be much better if he was removed or his whole storyline toned way down. And worst of all, his character motivations are not fully flushed out. While I can excuse the fact that he is arrogant, there is no reason given for his arrogance. Yes, his dad is mentioned as being some big past hotshot SEAL who wrote a book, but never in the first three episodes do we know if Clay embraces being his dad’s son and living up to that legacy, or if he is a “prove myself, make my own way” kinda guy. He’s just a jerk for no real reason. Again, if you sit and talk to real Millennials, you will find that most of them aren’t arrogant or entitled for no reason. In fact, most of them seem pissed because a great majority of them did what the two previous generations told them they NEEDED to do: go to school, get a good education, really learn something. And while there were some people who went to school for art degrees, nowhere near as many as other generations think. They’re pissed because they got decent degrees and graduated into a system that was and still is very broken, and they have more debt (even if they worked through school) to carry post-graduation than any other generation. And even the military guys are pissed because half of them no longer believe in the American Dream, PTSD rates seem to be skyrocketing and unlike with Vietnam where the US finally decided to give up and go home, the new wars/conflicts the US starts go nowhere, accomplish nothing and continue forever with no end in sight. Whoa! I got waaayyy too political there.
OK, with that out of the way, I pretty much like everything else about the show. And here is where the comparisons and contrasts to NBC’s The Brave start. To me, this is the far superior show. The Brave, while it moves fast and dwells heavily on the mission aspect of the soldiers and the intelligence team trying to do the job, it has little to no emotional weight. I watched three episodes of the series. Three. That’s more than most of the paid critics and more than most regular viewers give a show to prove itself. And in that time, I don’t feel like I truly got to know a single character on that show. It’s all business, which isn’t good for a show like this because after a while it starts to make the players feel like easily-replaced robots. If Preach or that other guy died on that show in the fourth episode, I would hardly notice. Hell, I don’t even think I would be that impacted if Dalton, the team leader, died on that show.
But on SEAL team, with the exception of Clay, I would feel bad if just about any other major character died on episode four or five. You totally can’t kill Hayes and you definitely can’t get rid of Ray—they both have families and people that really care about them, and see how I’m already bargaining for them before anything has happened? The people on The Brave? I don’t know if they have families, haven’t seen them kissing and hugging on anyone or talking about basic things like kid’s choir concerts or doing dishes or anything like that. They are as cardboard as can be.
Then there is the structure of the show. Again, the Brave is all business, showing little to no downtime for the team as a whole. If intelligence back at HQ is not doing something, then that’s because the ground team is out in the field, and vice versa. I haven’t seen but one scene in which the team on The Brave were doing something that looked cheerful, light, human, and that was that weird beach scene at the end of the first episode—still can’t get over that damn bomb. What the hell was that? Whereas on SEAL Team, you can see that these people actually have lives outside of beating the bad guys.
The shows are filmed in similar ways, although the lighting and shading on The Brave are in a dusty yellow-orangeish—you’ll know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen it—and the SEAL team show is filmed in that strange CBS darker softglow of blue and green. For instance, you almost always see lights in the background when in an outside scene. It’s kinda weird if you notice it, but you tend not to notice it if you’re not a film student.
As far as the missions, they are virtually the same. The difference is that more time is spent on the technical detailed aspects of the field missions on The Brave whereas the mission may occupy half an hour of the full hour on SEAL Team and the rest of the show is character development. Oh, and unlike on The Brave, SEAL TEAM has a secondary over-arching storyline that you can follow. It has two, actually: whether or not the dead soldier cheated on his wife, and if Hayes and his wife will actually get back together and work things out from their current separation or will they get a full divorce. Even for the tough men and women of the military (but more men than women on this particular front) who are feelings- and emotions-averse, this is an emotional thruline that they most likely can relate to and feel comfortable watching with their respective spouses or families. The struggle for soldiers and people who face death on a daily basis (as well as seeing the human atrocities that evil commits) to open up to others or be fully present with their families is a real issue. This show addresses it, albeit in a slightly glossy way. But The Brave doesn’t address it at all, so I’d go with SEAL Team any day over The Brave on that aspect.
Should you be watching? Sure. Here’s some real truth, I try to stay as objective as I can when reviewing this stuff. Subjectively, neither of these shows are appointment viewing for me. I have never truly loved military stories and, for that matter, have long abandoned a lot of the cop shows and procedurals that flood our TV every year. Outside of something that is uniquely creative and generally has a sci-fi or fantastical bend to it while being a cop show (ie. Minority Report, Second Chance, Almost Human), I tend not to delve into very many of these shows on a weekly basis unless I am reviewing them. But with that said, I think that for people who love cop shows, military shows, crime-solving shows and the like, this would be a great show for you. Now, if you are a military fanatic and you’ve seen everything from JAG to Taken to Army Wives to whatever, then you most likely will check out both SEAL Team and The Brave and won’t mind spending time in both worlds. If, however, you can only choose one, I would recommend SEAL Team as it is the better overall show. I also hear that it has gotten a full-season order. Congrats! SEAL Team airs at 10pm on CBS Wednesdays. Check for it on demand and on CBS All Access, too.
What do you think? Have you heard of SEAL Team? If not, do you think you will check it out now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did you like it? Do you like how the missions are carried out? Do you think that they are authentic? And what do you think about Hayes and his wife? Do you really think they’ll divorce or are you pulling for them to get back together? Let me know in the comments below.
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Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.Until next time, “Semper Fido-lis!”
P.S. Good Lord this has got to be the worst sign-off I’ve ever done, and yet I’m going through with it. I really should be embarrassed after this long post with hella-many run-on sentences and other grammatical errors littering what could have been a decent review of a decent show to finally end it like this. But with that said, did anybody see the article about the doggy bomb sniffer that didn’t get into the program for I think the CIA or something? That dog was so cute. Yes, it was. Yes, it was. OK, I’m stopping now. I’ll think of a better sign-off next time.
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October 31, 2017
Will He Or Won’t He? The Suspense Is Killin’ Me #KevinProbablySavesTheWorld #3weekroundup #recap #review #ABC
Will He Or Won’t He? The Suspense Is Killin’ Me #KevinProbablySavesTheWorld #3weekroundup #recap #review #ABC
All pictures courtesy of ABC
Back at it once again, ladies and gentlemen. This time I’m coming to you live and in words on a beautiful Ohio day. Today we will be looking at ABC’s new dramedy Kevin (Probably) Saves the World. So, is this show definitely going to end up in your must-see list or should it probably go quietly away? Let’s find out together.
Kevin (Probably) Saves The World is a long-titled show starring Jason Ritter (son of the late John Ritter) as the titular character Kevin. In a rather somber and sullen mood, Kevin has to move back to his Midwest hometown after some of life’s devastation hit him hard in New York (talk more on that later). With no job and minimal money, he moves in with his twin sister Amy (played by Joanna Garcia Swisher) who is dealing with her own recent life-shaking event. Her husband died not but 18 months ago, making her a single mother to her daughter Reese—an angsty teenager who is still deeply affected by her father’s untimely passing. Now, while Amy absolutely adores her twin brother and is happy to have him back home (especially now that he can be a man around the house and maybe she can stop missing her husband so much), Reese is hardly thrilled about her hardly-there uncle suddenly interrupting their lives after having not seen him since her dad’s funeral. He barely even calls his sister and he’s generally an all-around bad uncle/brother.
Well, Amy is a highly successful engineering professor at the local college, which I’m guessing is quite prestigious in its own right because of the reputation she has. One night, a government helicopter lands on her front lawn (this is the Midwest somewhere and she seems to have a farm so its a big stretch of empty land on all sides of the house) and beckons her come ala Amy Adams in The Arrival. She is then flown to a secretive meeting in which she meets with some of the top generals in the US government to help figure out what’s going on with this most recent astronomical phenomenon. As it so happens, 36 meteorites fell to earth all on the same day/night across the globe. Where this number could conceivably be expected in a full year, such a number for one day is unheard of. So the government wants answers and all she can say is what the falling objects are not: some pre-arranged attack by another country. They give her the coordinates of the last one to land and she freaks because they are the coordinates for her house.
While she is doing that, Kevin has to try to watch over and bond with his niece Reese. She doesn’t want to be bothered and throws the reason why he’s really there in his face. And then they see the light of the falling meteorite, have to go out to see it, and he subsequently touches it like an idiot. The shock of it literally sends him flipping and flying through the air. Then, in some hallucinogenic malfunction, he next finds himself in the car stopping back at the front of his sister’s place with Reese yapping about what he was going to do with the meteorite. He has no idea how they got back home though he’s been driving for the last few minutes, and didn’t realize that he was the one to pick up the meteorite (its about a boulder’s size) and put it into the car. They both go in to go night-night, and then as soon as Reese falls asleep, Kevin hears something strange outside from his car. As he goes to see what it is, he realizes that the meteor seems to have turned into a black woman who tells him that she is there to help him save the world. And he faints.
He awakes the next morning to the black woman making him some kind of juice smoothie which he at first starts to ignore the taste of, then is moved nearly to tears at how good it is. Yes, this is actually important to the plot. He discovers that the black woman, played by Kimberly Hebert Gregory, is named Yvette. Who is she? Well, it’s complicated. To understand who she is, she has to tell him who he is. See, the world, at any given time, is supposedly protected from destruction and complete moral decay by 36 righteous people. No, they’re not politicians or the Pope or anything like that but average people whose efforts somehow manage to impact the whole of humanity. Think of them as the small group of righteous in the story of Lot, Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham. For those that don’t know that Bible story, then go read it, but the refresher course is that God was going to destroy the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah but Abraham had his cousin Lot living there and didn’t want to see his family member killed. So Abraham, whom God loved, bargained with God in ever-decreasing numbers that if X number of righteous or good God-fearing people lived there, then God wouldn’t destroy the city. I think in the story he got down to ten and God agreed not to destroy the cities if he could find 10 righteous people. God had to destroy the cities.
Kevin and YvetteBack to Kevin, he has a special task because not only is he one of the righteous but he is the last of the righteous. Apparently, the other 35 have gone missing. Are they dead? Did someone take them? If they were taken, then who took them and who would know they were the righteous? And in this little mystery you find a glint of why the critics like this show so much. So Yvette’s job is simply to protect Kevin and help guide him on his journey to find the other new 35 righteous. Yes, she’s basically his guardian angel but doesn’t prefer the term because nobody likes to go by the label of what they are anymore. But I digress.
But Kevin sees this as a big problem. Outside of the fact that he doesn’t believe anything she’s saying and thinks she’s a dangerous home intruder, she acts almost as if she doesn’t know why he was back home in the first place. The reason he came back to live with his loving twin sister is because he tried to kill himself back in New York. As we learn over the course of three episodes, he lost his job, went pretty broke and broke up with his girlfriend all in the course of a very short time, not to mention he lost contact with his sister and, as her twin brother, felt really bad about that. So he decided to end it all with some pills, but survived. He sees himself as being far from righteous.
Yvette knows all of this but must convince him that he is one of the righteous and that she is real. They run through a few scenes of the regular “Dude, I’m totally an angel” shtick—only Kevin can see her, she does some cool magic to save him from disaster, et cetera. And he starts to believe her, but still doesn’t want the job. It’s even stranger to him when she tells him that once he finds another righteous person, he’s simply supposed to hug them which will maybe reveal their righteousness to themselves or something. But he can’t tell them that he’s one of the righteous. In fact, he can’t tell anyone that he’s this special person and every time he tries to tell his sister, he only blurts out an embarrassing truth like how he once tasted her birth control pills when they were teens.
For the most part he wanders through the first episode getting reacquainted with his old town and listening to Yvette about what he’s supposed to do. He sees his old girlfriend who is now a teacher at the high school—in fact, she is one of Reese’s teachers—and has an awkward exchange with her. In the end, he’s just trying to be a good twin brother and uncle as he tries to bond with the important women in his life. He makes a few confessions to his sister and apologizes for not being there enough after her husband’s death. Amy asks for his help with Reese because she anguishes over how her daughter has seemingly checked out of life since her father’s death. She doesn’t like doing any of the stuff she used to, including playing soccer. Well, Kevin discovers that the reason she doesn’t want to play soccer anymore is because that used to be something she did with her dad a lot and now that he’s gone, she doesn’t want to do it without him. But he convinces her to choose something else that can be her new thing all to herself and she chooses theater.
Reese and Kevin
Finally, as he is about to leave to go back to New York and get out of Reese and Amy’s lives thinking that coming back was a big mistake, he runs into this guy in the airport who he can’t help but think is one of these righteous he is supposed to meet. After a long speech about how he felt crappy as a person and a brother because he stopped talking to his sister after her husband’s death because he didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to burden her with his problems, he asks to hug the guy only to find that the guy has been deaf the whole time. But he’s selling pencils to fund his travel or something—I couldn’t read the banner on the pencil. Well, Kevin buys the pencil, then empties his pockets to give him hundreds of dollars. The guy, in turn, hugs him and there’s light and it all seems magical like he’s just accomplished 1/35th of his mission.
And then he gets back and Yvette tells him that the guy wasn’t one of the righteous. But Kevin does magically see some butterflies come out of his closet which Yvette can’t see and he knows that he’s on the right track. And his sister finally reveals that when he tried to commit suicide, it felt like he was leaving her and like she somehow failed as a sister. But all is not lost because Kevin is on a new path now.
Episode two is all about Kevin trying to figure out how to help people in order to make his righteousness power stronger so that he can ably find the other new righteous. Well, Yvette has to strip him of his love of earthly possessions and positions his car to be crushed by a monster farming truck so that he has to walk everywhere. She also has him doing remedial exercise out in the rain in order for him to feel as one with the beauty of God’s creation—yes, there is a God on this show. Her advice is to listen to the universe and what it wants for him. But Kevin tries to take a more proactive approach which you really can’t blame him for, even though it’s quite stupid. He puts out some of these hoe-like fliers that says he is willing to do “anything for free.” He and his sister get into a twin tiff when she confronts him on the fliers because she thinks that he’s throwing his life away and not taking things seriously and he thinks that she’s lollygagging on things too, like fixing up this old truck that he could really use to drive around.
To skip to the end of the truck storyline, the vehicle needed a carburetor which could’ve easily been gotten from some of the members in the town. Amy, however, didn’t want to get it because she didn’t really want to fix the truck because working on it was something that she and her husband did together. In the last 18 months since his death, she’d go out to tinker on it and talk to it as if her husband was still around. If she fixed the truck, she worried that might have to stop. Kevin convinces her that that won’t have to stop, he’s always in her memory and other heartwarming platitudes, and they fix the truck with a donated carburetor that the policeman who has a crush on Amy gifts her.
Back to the main story for the episode, Kevin passes out his fliers and tries to post them in his local friend’s bar but can’t seem to post one on this board with this other poster already there talking about a local brewery. It’s the universe’s sign. Well, Kevin goes to this brewery and asks the young guy working at the register if he needs help right now with anything and the guy keeps turning him down. The young guy went to the same high school as him and grew up in the town and now works at his father’s brewery and is about to take it over in a few years as his father is pretty old. The father calls the police on Kevin for being a general nuisance and it isn’t until Kevin meets the son again at the local bar that he realizes what he is supposed to do. See, the son is the only child of his parents which makes leaving a family business pretty difficult when your dad wants to pass it on to you. But the son hates beer, can’t stand it, doesn’t even drink it whereas his father’s passion is beer. He’s wanted to break away and pursue his own passion for years but hasn’t had the courage to tell his father. Kevin tells him that he’ll help him tell his father that he wants to do something else.
Well, before Kevin can come to the brewery the next day to help, the son has already told the father and the dad is cool with it. He even hopes his son finds his passion, too. And then the dad drops to the floor under a heart attack. Oh my god, Kevin has helped kill a man. But as it turns out, had he not had a mild heart attack then, he would’ve had a bigger one later that would’ve ended him. So the guy thanks Kevin in the hospital and says that a bigger beer-brewing company has wanted to buy his outfit for a while. All is well.
Episode three starts with Kevin sleepwalking his way from the house all the way to Amy’s college in a total Weekend at Bernie’s-style trampling. Stalking a balloon, he finally awakes in the early morning and finds that a crowd has gathered around him while he stands on the edge of the on-campus health services building. He grabs the balloon and comes off the building but only after his sister sees him standing up there and panics that he’s trying to kill himself again. She calls his shrink while Kevin sets out on another universe-led mission.
See, Kevin goes into the health services building where Amy has tried to set up a meeting for him with the on-campus therapist. But as he walks in with the balloon in hand, the woman working the front desk sees the message on the balloon and says, “Hey, Pookie is my nickname.” And I was like, “Whaaaa!” Totally expected for that nickname to be that of a black person’s, but I digress. As it happens, she’s planning a wedding and is so stressed about it that she probably needs some counseling herself. Well, Yvette tells Kevin the answers to three of the woman’s hypothetical, rhetorical questions and the lady is like, “wow, you’re right. You must be really good with this wedding stuff.” And now Kevin’s helping with a wedding.
While Kevin helps with a wedding, his shrink comes to town as he was on his way to some conference in the area. He stops to tell Amy that none of this was really her fault and she shouldn’t feel how most family members feel after someone tries to commit suicide: like they’ve failed. He also says that Reese is a normal teenager and she shouldn’t worry about her grieving process either. Speaking of, Reese has been doing some spying on her uncle and seems to be putting things together about him always talking to himself. From her looks, she suspects that his frequent convos with no one are not some mental break but something deeper, even though she can’t see Yvette.
And as far as Yvette, she is visited by another one of the non-angel angels. After she revealed to Kevin that coming to guard him is a one-way ticket out of paradise, we as viewers really feel for the other angels who are currently on earth. The mission of the other 35 is now lost because the other righteous are gone. But even worse, they’ve all lost hope in trying to figure out what happened to their righteous. They’ll, conceivably, just roam the earth forever or disappear out of existence. The network of support Yvette thought she’d have is nowhere to be found. And we see a slight twinge when her other angel friend suggests that it is great that she has Kevin. Yvette says that 36 righteous couldn’t have just disappeared and that is yet another clue or just a slip-up that deepens the mystery about where the righteous went and if Kevin even is one of the actual righteous.
Back to Kevin’s thing, as he goes through with helping plan the wedding, he learns that the woman is already married to a firefighter but they didn’t get a wedding the first time because the lady had cancer and it was a quickie thing where she thought she’d die in six months. Well, now that the cancer is in remission, she doesn’t want to be married anymore, even though she thinks she married a really great guy. Kevin now has to figure out a way to break up the marriage so they both can be happy. Well, the guy is still very much in love with his lady and is only dissuaded from that love when she lies instead of confessing the truth, and says that she’s having an affair with Kevin. Kevin catches a punch to the face in front of his therapist.
Kevin awakes and goes to find the woman standing on top of the same building he almost fell off of earlier and learns that this is where the firefighter husband proposed. Well, she confesses again that she didn’t feel like she could tell her husband how she didn’t want to be married anymore, but doesn’t know that Kevin invited the firefighter to come. The husband hears the whole conversation and they make amends and are satisfied to break off the marriage for now and get a good laugh in at how Kevin is so not the woman’s type—not enough muscles and she really likes the man-beef. Kevin has yet another small vision/experience that shows him on an island somewhere with tons of shaman-masked people dancing over him, and Yvette tells him that just like the butterflies and water before, this has something to do with him finding the other righteous. He must continue to build his spiritual powers.
What’s my grade? I give this a A-. Yes, this show is, at times, goofy, but it is also heart-warming without being overly sentimental, deals with suicide in a way that I have dealt with suicide in past comedies (none of those are published, by the way) and, despite the sometimes adult subject matter, is really a family show so far. I like that even though it is technically a case-of-the-week show, it is not a cop show and it has enough family drama as well as two overarching mysteries to keep any viewer’s attention. The questions of what happened to the other 35 righteous, what or to where are Kevin’s visions leading him, and if Kevin really is supposed to be one of the righteous or not are all not heavy on the plot, yet are so apparent and relevant to the series that they can entangle many viewers.
With that said, don’t expect the highest of writing techniques displayed here. Because of the spiritual element of the series there is always going to be a lot of convenient coincidence that drives the plot forward. So long as you keep it in mind that random things will happen just to benefit the plot and/or the characters, the show should be enjoyable. The acting is pretty good and the connections between characters is natural and fluid similar to what a small Midwest town would feel like. To me, this show is like eating a piece of warm apple pie on a cold fall day during the holidays. There’s something uniquely comforting about the raw truthfulness of the show.
I haven’t done this much this season but throwing on my TV programming-executive hat for a moment, I would have to say that I can’t understand why this show is not on ABC Sundays rather than the unfriendly, unpopular Tuesdays spot. Yes, I know that ABC is trying to gear up for American Idol to come on in the Spring block on Sundays for three hours, but Kevin Probably Saves The World is the most Sunday-oriented show that ABC has produced since Resurrection went defunct a few years back. It has the religious element, humor for the family, good values and plays for a full hour that takes you on an emotional journey into people’s lives. The stuff that they currently have on Sundays with Toy Box and Shark Tank, while nice unscripted shows, are hardly what will draw eyeballs when people are readying to go to work and want something wholesome for the kids. But you know what, I digress. We will see if anything shifts on the schedule and how well this and American Idol does over the coming season. But I would definitely hope that this stays around for the full season.
Should you be watching? Yes. This is not a This Is Us kind of drama that digs exceptionally deep into the emotional background of each character, but it does scratch a little deeper than the surface. It also isn’t on the level of Stranger Things as far as weirdness goes, but it does have a quirky charm to it in which the actors shine (especially Jason Ritter) and the plot moves forward in every episode. Kevin (Probably) Saves The World airs on ABC Tuesdays at 10pm. Also catch it on ABC On Demand and ABC.com.
What do you think? Have you heard of Kevin (Probably) Saves The World? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll tune in now? If you do tune in, make sure you catch the show from the first episode or else you will be lost. If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did you like it? What do you think they can improve on the show? Do you think that Kevin is really one of the righteous or is Yvette trying to pull a fast one? And on what episode do you think that Kevin will finally meet another righteous person? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalkingIf you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.
Until next time, “OK, I don’t know if I said this before but it is possible that I maybe could be, uh... a wealth African prince from a land of milk, honey, nectar and bounteous gifts untold. That’s not a dealbreaker is it?” ‘Uh... What?’
P.S. I don’t know if I should mention how they are still actively trying to write and produce another Coming To America or if I should totally ignore that and say something meta about the show like how is it that Kevin keeps moving farther into the island on every episode? First he only saw the butterflies, then he was out in the ocean, then he was on the island. Next, he’ll be deep in the jungle, then on the side of the volcano and we all know what happens on tiny islands with volcanoes. We’ve all seen that Tom Hanks movie and Hanks would never lie. He’s a white American angel!
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Back at it once again, ladies and gentlemen. This time I’m coming to you live and in words on a beautiful Ohio day. Today we will be looking at ABC’s new dramedy Kevin (Probably) Saves the World. So, is this show definitely going to end up in your must-see list or should it probably go quietly away? Let’s find out together.
Kevin (Probably) Saves The World is a long-titled show starring Jason Ritter (son of the late John Ritter) as the titular character Kevin. In a rather somber and sullen mood, Kevin has to move back to his Midwest hometown after some of life’s devastation hit him hard in New York (talk more on that later). With no job and minimal money, he moves in with his twin sister Amy (played by Joanna Garcia Swisher) who is dealing with her own recent life-shaking event. Her husband died not but 18 months ago, making her a single mother to her daughter Reese—an angsty teenager who is still deeply affected by her father’s untimely passing. Now, while Amy absolutely adores her twin brother and is happy to have him back home (especially now that he can be a man around the house and maybe she can stop missing her husband so much), Reese is hardly thrilled about her hardly-there uncle suddenly interrupting their lives after having not seen him since her dad’s funeral. He barely even calls his sister and he’s generally an all-around bad uncle/brother.
Well, Amy is a highly successful engineering professor at the local college, which I’m guessing is quite prestigious in its own right because of the reputation she has. One night, a government helicopter lands on her front lawn (this is the Midwest somewhere and she seems to have a farm so its a big stretch of empty land on all sides of the house) and beckons her come ala Amy Adams in The Arrival. She is then flown to a secretive meeting in which she meets with some of the top generals in the US government to help figure out what’s going on with this most recent astronomical phenomenon. As it so happens, 36 meteorites fell to earth all on the same day/night across the globe. Where this number could conceivably be expected in a full year, such a number for one day is unheard of. So the government wants answers and all she can say is what the falling objects are not: some pre-arranged attack by another country. They give her the coordinates of the last one to land and she freaks because they are the coordinates for her house. While she is doing that, Kevin has to try to watch over and bond with his niece Reese. She doesn’t want to be bothered and throws the reason why he’s really there in his face. And then they see the light of the falling meteorite, have to go out to see it, and he subsequently touches it like an idiot. The shock of it literally sends him flipping and flying through the air. Then, in some hallucinogenic malfunction, he next finds himself in the car stopping back at the front of his sister’s place with Reese yapping about what he was going to do with the meteorite. He has no idea how they got back home though he’s been driving for the last few minutes, and didn’t realize that he was the one to pick up the meteorite (its about a boulder’s size) and put it into the car. They both go in to go night-night, and then as soon as Reese falls asleep, Kevin hears something strange outside from his car. As he goes to see what it is, he realizes that the meteor seems to have turned into a black woman who tells him that she is there to help him save the world. And he faints.
He awakes the next morning to the black woman making him some kind of juice smoothie which he at first starts to ignore the taste of, then is moved nearly to tears at how good it is. Yes, this is actually important to the plot. He discovers that the black woman, played by Kimberly Hebert Gregory, is named Yvette. Who is she? Well, it’s complicated. To understand who she is, she has to tell him who he is. See, the world, at any given time, is supposedly protected from destruction and complete moral decay by 36 righteous people. No, they’re not politicians or the Pope or anything like that but average people whose efforts somehow manage to impact the whole of humanity. Think of them as the small group of righteous in the story of Lot, Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham. For those that don’t know that Bible story, then go read it, but the refresher course is that God was going to destroy the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah but Abraham had his cousin Lot living there and didn’t want to see his family member killed. So Abraham, whom God loved, bargained with God in ever-decreasing numbers that if X number of righteous or good God-fearing people lived there, then God wouldn’t destroy the city. I think in the story he got down to ten and God agreed not to destroy the cities if he could find 10 righteous people. God had to destroy the cities.
Kevin and YvetteBack to Kevin, he has a special task because not only is he one of the righteous but he is the last of the righteous. Apparently, the other 35 have gone missing. Are they dead? Did someone take them? If they were taken, then who took them and who would know they were the righteous? And in this little mystery you find a glint of why the critics like this show so much. So Yvette’s job is simply to protect Kevin and help guide him on his journey to find the other new 35 righteous. Yes, she’s basically his guardian angel but doesn’t prefer the term because nobody likes to go by the label of what they are anymore. But I digress. But Kevin sees this as a big problem. Outside of the fact that he doesn’t believe anything she’s saying and thinks she’s a dangerous home intruder, she acts almost as if she doesn’t know why he was back home in the first place. The reason he came back to live with his loving twin sister is because he tried to kill himself back in New York. As we learn over the course of three episodes, he lost his job, went pretty broke and broke up with his girlfriend all in the course of a very short time, not to mention he lost contact with his sister and, as her twin brother, felt really bad about that. So he decided to end it all with some pills, but survived. He sees himself as being far from righteous.
Yvette knows all of this but must convince him that he is one of the righteous and that she is real. They run through a few scenes of the regular “Dude, I’m totally an angel” shtick—only Kevin can see her, she does some cool magic to save him from disaster, et cetera. And he starts to believe her, but still doesn’t want the job. It’s even stranger to him when she tells him that once he finds another righteous person, he’s simply supposed to hug them which will maybe reveal their righteousness to themselves or something. But he can’t tell them that he’s one of the righteous. In fact, he can’t tell anyone that he’s this special person and every time he tries to tell his sister, he only blurts out an embarrassing truth like how he once tasted her birth control pills when they were teens.
For the most part he wanders through the first episode getting reacquainted with his old town and listening to Yvette about what he’s supposed to do. He sees his old girlfriend who is now a teacher at the high school—in fact, she is one of Reese’s teachers—and has an awkward exchange with her. In the end, he’s just trying to be a good twin brother and uncle as he tries to bond with the important women in his life. He makes a few confessions to his sister and apologizes for not being there enough after her husband’s death. Amy asks for his help with Reese because she anguishes over how her daughter has seemingly checked out of life since her father’s death. She doesn’t like doing any of the stuff she used to, including playing soccer. Well, Kevin discovers that the reason she doesn’t want to play soccer anymore is because that used to be something she did with her dad a lot and now that he’s gone, she doesn’t want to do it without him. But he convinces her to choose something else that can be her new thing all to herself and she chooses theater.
Reese and KevinFinally, as he is about to leave to go back to New York and get out of Reese and Amy’s lives thinking that coming back was a big mistake, he runs into this guy in the airport who he can’t help but think is one of these righteous he is supposed to meet. After a long speech about how he felt crappy as a person and a brother because he stopped talking to his sister after her husband’s death because he didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to burden her with his problems, he asks to hug the guy only to find that the guy has been deaf the whole time. But he’s selling pencils to fund his travel or something—I couldn’t read the banner on the pencil. Well, Kevin buys the pencil, then empties his pockets to give him hundreds of dollars. The guy, in turn, hugs him and there’s light and it all seems magical like he’s just accomplished 1/35th of his mission.
And then he gets back and Yvette tells him that the guy wasn’t one of the righteous. But Kevin does magically see some butterflies come out of his closet which Yvette can’t see and he knows that he’s on the right track. And his sister finally reveals that when he tried to commit suicide, it felt like he was leaving her and like she somehow failed as a sister. But all is not lost because Kevin is on a new path now.
Episode two is all about Kevin trying to figure out how to help people in order to make his righteousness power stronger so that he can ably find the other new righteous. Well, Yvette has to strip him of his love of earthly possessions and positions his car to be crushed by a monster farming truck so that he has to walk everywhere. She also has him doing remedial exercise out in the rain in order for him to feel as one with the beauty of God’s creation—yes, there is a God on this show. Her advice is to listen to the universe and what it wants for him. But Kevin tries to take a more proactive approach which you really can’t blame him for, even though it’s quite stupid. He puts out some of these hoe-like fliers that says he is willing to do “anything for free.” He and his sister get into a twin tiff when she confronts him on the fliers because she thinks that he’s throwing his life away and not taking things seriously and he thinks that she’s lollygagging on things too, like fixing up this old truck that he could really use to drive around.
To skip to the end of the truck storyline, the vehicle needed a carburetor which could’ve easily been gotten from some of the members in the town. Amy, however, didn’t want to get it because she didn’t really want to fix the truck because working on it was something that she and her husband did together. In the last 18 months since his death, she’d go out to tinker on it and talk to it as if her husband was still around. If she fixed the truck, she worried that might have to stop. Kevin convinces her that that won’t have to stop, he’s always in her memory and other heartwarming platitudes, and they fix the truck with a donated carburetor that the policeman who has a crush on Amy gifts her.
Back to the main story for the episode, Kevin passes out his fliers and tries to post them in his local friend’s bar but can’t seem to post one on this board with this other poster already there talking about a local brewery. It’s the universe’s sign. Well, Kevin goes to this brewery and asks the young guy working at the register if he needs help right now with anything and the guy keeps turning him down. The young guy went to the same high school as him and grew up in the town and now works at his father’s brewery and is about to take it over in a few years as his father is pretty old. The father calls the police on Kevin for being a general nuisance and it isn’t until Kevin meets the son again at the local bar that he realizes what he is supposed to do. See, the son is the only child of his parents which makes leaving a family business pretty difficult when your dad wants to pass it on to you. But the son hates beer, can’t stand it, doesn’t even drink it whereas his father’s passion is beer. He’s wanted to break away and pursue his own passion for years but hasn’t had the courage to tell his father. Kevin tells him that he’ll help him tell his father that he wants to do something else.
Well, before Kevin can come to the brewery the next day to help, the son has already told the father and the dad is cool with it. He even hopes his son finds his passion, too. And then the dad drops to the floor under a heart attack. Oh my god, Kevin has helped kill a man. But as it turns out, had he not had a mild heart attack then, he would’ve had a bigger one later that would’ve ended him. So the guy thanks Kevin in the hospital and says that a bigger beer-brewing company has wanted to buy his outfit for a while. All is well.
Episode three starts with Kevin sleepwalking his way from the house all the way to Amy’s college in a total Weekend at Bernie’s-style trampling. Stalking a balloon, he finally awakes in the early morning and finds that a crowd has gathered around him while he stands on the edge of the on-campus health services building. He grabs the balloon and comes off the building but only after his sister sees him standing up there and panics that he’s trying to kill himself again. She calls his shrink while Kevin sets out on another universe-led mission.
See, Kevin goes into the health services building where Amy has tried to set up a meeting for him with the on-campus therapist. But as he walks in with the balloon in hand, the woman working the front desk sees the message on the balloon and says, “Hey, Pookie is my nickname.” And I was like, “Whaaaa!” Totally expected for that nickname to be that of a black person’s, but I digress. As it happens, she’s planning a wedding and is so stressed about it that she probably needs some counseling herself. Well, Yvette tells Kevin the answers to three of the woman’s hypothetical, rhetorical questions and the lady is like, “wow, you’re right. You must be really good with this wedding stuff.” And now Kevin’s helping with a wedding.
While Kevin helps with a wedding, his shrink comes to town as he was on his way to some conference in the area. He stops to tell Amy that none of this was really her fault and she shouldn’t feel how most family members feel after someone tries to commit suicide: like they’ve failed. He also says that Reese is a normal teenager and she shouldn’t worry about her grieving process either. Speaking of, Reese has been doing some spying on her uncle and seems to be putting things together about him always talking to himself. From her looks, she suspects that his frequent convos with no one are not some mental break but something deeper, even though she can’t see Yvette.
And as far as Yvette, she is visited by another one of the non-angel angels. After she revealed to Kevin that coming to guard him is a one-way ticket out of paradise, we as viewers really feel for the other angels who are currently on earth. The mission of the other 35 is now lost because the other righteous are gone. But even worse, they’ve all lost hope in trying to figure out what happened to their righteous. They’ll, conceivably, just roam the earth forever or disappear out of existence. The network of support Yvette thought she’d have is nowhere to be found. And we see a slight twinge when her other angel friend suggests that it is great that she has Kevin. Yvette says that 36 righteous couldn’t have just disappeared and that is yet another clue or just a slip-up that deepens the mystery about where the righteous went and if Kevin even is one of the actual righteous.
Back to Kevin’s thing, as he goes through with helping plan the wedding, he learns that the woman is already married to a firefighter but they didn’t get a wedding the first time because the lady had cancer and it was a quickie thing where she thought she’d die in six months. Well, now that the cancer is in remission, she doesn’t want to be married anymore, even though she thinks she married a really great guy. Kevin now has to figure out a way to break up the marriage so they both can be happy. Well, the guy is still very much in love with his lady and is only dissuaded from that love when she lies instead of confessing the truth, and says that she’s having an affair with Kevin. Kevin catches a punch to the face in front of his therapist.
Kevin awakes and goes to find the woman standing on top of the same building he almost fell off of earlier and learns that this is where the firefighter husband proposed. Well, she confesses again that she didn’t feel like she could tell her husband how she didn’t want to be married anymore, but doesn’t know that Kevin invited the firefighter to come. The husband hears the whole conversation and they make amends and are satisfied to break off the marriage for now and get a good laugh in at how Kevin is so not the woman’s type—not enough muscles and she really likes the man-beef. Kevin has yet another small vision/experience that shows him on an island somewhere with tons of shaman-masked people dancing over him, and Yvette tells him that just like the butterflies and water before, this has something to do with him finding the other righteous. He must continue to build his spiritual powers.
What’s my grade? I give this a A-. Yes, this show is, at times, goofy, but it is also heart-warming without being overly sentimental, deals with suicide in a way that I have dealt with suicide in past comedies (none of those are published, by the way) and, despite the sometimes adult subject matter, is really a family show so far. I like that even though it is technically a case-of-the-week show, it is not a cop show and it has enough family drama as well as two overarching mysteries to keep any viewer’s attention. The questions of what happened to the other 35 righteous, what or to where are Kevin’s visions leading him, and if Kevin really is supposed to be one of the righteous or not are all not heavy on the plot, yet are so apparent and relevant to the series that they can entangle many viewers.
With that said, don’t expect the highest of writing techniques displayed here. Because of the spiritual element of the series there is always going to be a lot of convenient coincidence that drives the plot forward. So long as you keep it in mind that random things will happen just to benefit the plot and/or the characters, the show should be enjoyable. The acting is pretty good and the connections between characters is natural and fluid similar to what a small Midwest town would feel like. To me, this show is like eating a piece of warm apple pie on a cold fall day during the holidays. There’s something uniquely comforting about the raw truthfulness of the show.
I haven’t done this much this season but throwing on my TV programming-executive hat for a moment, I would have to say that I can’t understand why this show is not on ABC Sundays rather than the unfriendly, unpopular Tuesdays spot. Yes, I know that ABC is trying to gear up for American Idol to come on in the Spring block on Sundays for three hours, but Kevin Probably Saves The World is the most Sunday-oriented show that ABC has produced since Resurrection went defunct a few years back. It has the religious element, humor for the family, good values and plays for a full hour that takes you on an emotional journey into people’s lives. The stuff that they currently have on Sundays with Toy Box and Shark Tank, while nice unscripted shows, are hardly what will draw eyeballs when people are readying to go to work and want something wholesome for the kids. But you know what, I digress. We will see if anything shifts on the schedule and how well this and American Idol does over the coming season. But I would definitely hope that this stays around for the full season.
Should you be watching? Yes. This is not a This Is Us kind of drama that digs exceptionally deep into the emotional background of each character, but it does scratch a little deeper than the surface. It also isn’t on the level of Stranger Things as far as weirdness goes, but it does have a quirky charm to it in which the actors shine (especially Jason Ritter) and the plot moves forward in every episode. Kevin (Probably) Saves The World airs on ABC Tuesdays at 10pm. Also catch it on ABC On Demand and ABC.com.
What do you think? Have you heard of Kevin (Probably) Saves The World? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll tune in now? If you do tune in, make sure you catch the show from the first episode or else you will be lost. If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did you like it? What do you think they can improve on the show? Do you think that Kevin is really one of the righteous or is Yvette trying to pull a fast one? And on what episode do you think that Kevin will finally meet another righteous person? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalkingIf you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.Until next time, “OK, I don’t know if I said this before but it is possible that I maybe could be, uh... a wealth African prince from a land of milk, honey, nectar and bounteous gifts untold. That’s not a dealbreaker is it?” ‘Uh... What?’
P.S. I don’t know if I should mention how they are still actively trying to write and produce another Coming To America or if I should totally ignore that and say something meta about the show like how is it that Kevin keeps moving farther into the island on every episode? First he only saw the butterflies, then he was out in the ocean, then he was on the island. Next, he’ll be deep in the jungle, then on the side of the volcano and we all know what happens on tiny islands with volcanoes. We’ve all seen that Tom Hanks movie and Hanks would never lie. He’s a white American angel!
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Being Different Isn’t Always Bad #Gifted #FOX #3weekroundup #recap #review
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And the reviews for this season’s new shows just keep comin’. Today we are looking at FOX’s new comic book superhero show The Gifted. So, will this comic book drama send-up make us all feel blessed to be in its presents, or should this gift have come with a receipt for easy return? Let’s find out together.
FOX’s The Gifted is one of their first expansions of the X-men brand into the television realm. With last year’s Legion on FX a quasi-success, the execs over at FOX decided they needed to keep expanding their ever-growing X-men universe. But while Marvel Studios properties like Agents of SHIELD, Inhumans and the Defenders spin-offs are all definitely concretely connected to the more expansive cinematic universe and in very defined and deliberate ways (even if the fandom wants more connectivity), The Gifted waffles on where it wants to fit into the X-men film universe. And with the jumbling of the X-men timeline in the films and Hugh Jackman no longer playing Wolverine, maybe it’s a good thing that this show only timidly references the X-men and what happened to them. However, before I start this review in earnest, I would venture to say that the show takes place in some years before the events in the film Logan, meaning that it is not part of the official timeline of the other past X-men films, including the most recent Apocalypse. I know other articles and critics have stated what timeline the studio has implied it is or what they think, but I’m gonna go with the one in Logan. Note: I have not seen Logan but read plenty about it. OK?
LornaThe Gifted follows one family that meets up with a band of mutant renegades, for lack of a better word. We begin by showing the renegades. A lizard-eyed woman played by Jamie Chung, Blink is fleeing from a detention center where we can only assume that they kept mutants. As she tries escaping from a brigade of police down an alley, we see her powers of transportation. She jumps into a portal and jumps out across the city where the renegades are actively looking for her. Blink has never met these three before yet they know that she is a mutant and want to help her. The group consists of Eclipse the leader—he is a being of pure hot-white light with the skin-cloak of a human; John Proudstar who seems to have some sort of electric power and/or a tracking power that allows him to sense when other mutants are in the vicinity; and Lorna Dane who has a metallic power similar to Magneto’s where she can bend, push and manipulate any metals in her area (Note: After researching the show further, I learned that Lorna is supposed to be Magneto’s daughter). Lorna and Eclipse are dating and it is revealed early on that Lorna is pregnant with his light-goo baby, but this is only after she is captured. See, while trying to rescue Blink, the cops come and surround the place. The group manages to escape out the back but a cop shoots Eclipse to show all of his light about to pour out. Lorna goes all “don’tchu be messin’ wit my man” and tries to kill the cop and his backup. And in a devastating case of when keeping it real goes wrong, she is captured while the others are forced to get away.
Then, we finally catch up with the family. We learn from the offset that in this family of four, the son is being bullied at school. The bullying is so bad that his parents have had to get involved. His father Reed Strucker (played by Stephen Moyer of True Blood fame) is some high-powered attorney who has been dealing intimately with mutant cases for a few years now. Apparently, as we are to understand, something huge and destructive happened with the X-men. They are gone and there was some sort of mutant war that eradicated most of the mutants and killed tons of innocent people. Again, this could be referring to the fight between Magneto’s side and Professor X’s side in X-men: The Last Stand from the first trilogy or something to happen in a future movie, or something in the Days of Future Past timeline, but I’m going with the pre-Logan timeline. Anyway, now people are all rather freaked about mutants and there are a lot more stringent laws and protocols that dictate how mutants are supposed to be dealt with. He’s part of that enforcement but is hardly the bad guy that the trailers and commercials for this show make him out to be. Don’t be fooled!
Eclipse and Reed StruckerAnyway, Reed is married to Kate Strucker who, for all intents and purposes, is not shown to be much of anything. Even though it is revealed in the second episode that she is a nurse she plays very much like a housewife, and a characterless one at that. The only interaction or dialogue she ever has is concerning the children. She’s, essentially, a Care-bot 5000 who would cease to exist upon her children’s deaths. I would have liked it if we got to see and hear more about how she feels about mutants as a whole. Just the concept of mutants. But maybe this show is too focused to round out the characters as she isn’t the only one who plays a little flat.
Reed threatens the head school guy with a lawsuit if they don’t try doing something about the bullying, but quickly eases back into the caring, goofy dad—the model for what we all want as a father or the man we want to grow to be if we are already into adulthood. He’s stern but kind and tries to be fair. Yet he, like his wife, is fiercely protective of his brood. Such are Mr. and Mrs. Strucker.
Then we have the daughter who, I’m guessing, is the eldest though I’m very unsure about that as they look and play the exact same age to me (about 15). That’s neither here nor there. The daughter is Lauren Strucker who is shown as the assumed All-American girl-next-door type who has a modicum of popularity (people know her but she’s probably not this year’s prom queen) and a boyfriend which gives her added social capital. I’d like to tell you more about how she plays into the normal teen dynamic but they only spend about ten minutes of showtime (if that) in high school. Both she and her brother are thrust out of that world and into the full adult world before the end of the episode. Lauren is a mutant who has had her powers for at least three years (preteens, maybe longer) and never bothered to tell her parents. In the first episode, I’m not even sure she had told her brother before his incident. Her power has something to do with pushing and/or perception. I still couldn’t tell as she can make things move with her mind but she can also leave this weird bubble-glass looking anomaly in front of people so that they can’t walk forward any further. It’s very undefined.
Lauren’s brother Andy is the one being bullied. Your typical wiry, mop-headed wallflower, Andy fields the barbs of three large jock bullies at high school. While he seems to want to be protective of his sister as the brother, she is more protective of him. Wow! It’s strange that I’m actually struggling to write his bio as I thought it would flow easy like his sister’s did, but outside of him having been bullied there’s nothing all that amazing or noteworthy about his character. We don’t know if he’s a nerd, a gamer, a computer geek, or just a loser with no discernible talent before getting his powers. We do know that he isn’t as popular as his sister and that’s about it. He sneaks out with his sister (his sister is out legitimately) to go to the school dance. There, he sees the bullies who take him into the locker room shower and spray him with ice-cold water.
And then he starts to scream.
His screams nearly bring down the entire gym just a few feet away. The screams bend the metal showerheads, burst the tiles and send the bullies flying back into the lockers. His sister intuitively knows that it’s her brother and runs to him to calm him down. They escape back home but with the bullies having not been knocked unconscious and left able to see the whole bizarre event, it doesn’t take long for the police to show up at the Strucker family house. Those special guidelines for mutants kick in and the kids must go with them. Mama Strucker refuses, they push her to the ground and the kids get pissed. Lauren reveals her powers to her mother and they barely escape after the police get held up by Lauren’s weird bubble-glass power. They have to call Papa Strucker to tell him that the kids are mutants and he’s all like, “Lady-dude, whaaaaaat!” Mind blown.
Meanwhile, before the whole school incident, Reed was in the prison where they are keeping Lorna. The standard hard plastic case just like with Magneto, he informs her of her pregnancy as even she didn’t know and she loses it. On the other end, Blink tells her new homies at the Mutants Underground HQ that she can’t teleport into Eclipse’s girl’s cell because if she tried to use her powers to go somewhere that she hadn’t previously seen, it could be disastrous and end up slicing her in half or something like that. And then Eclipse gets a call from Reed. On the run with his family, Reed is willing to leave the country to go somewhere with laxer mutant laws like Mexico but needs help in figuring out how to hide, duck and dodge the cops until they can make it to the border. He is willing to trade whatever favors he can with the Mutants Underground leader to help get the guy’s baby mama (oh yeah, Reed reveals it to Eclipse) out of prison before she pops.
So papa Strucker and Eclipse have an agreement. His family is going to go with the Underground Mutants network to get them to safety while he stays behind and works whatever magic he can to get Lorna out of prison. But before they can get to the hideout, they are ambushed by a bunch of cops led by Jace Turner. I’m not really sure if he’s a detective or what, but I do know that he works on the special services mutant containment team and deals with these “freaks” on a regular basis. He and his people corner the family and here, both I and the show will jump back to mention that Eclipse left the mutant HQ without telling his bro that he was leaving, and forcing Blink to keep his departure a secret. Only after Blink tells Proudstar do they leave and, serendipitously meet the family and Eclipse right when the cops have both sides of the street blocked. Where’d they come from? Don’t know. How do they expect to escape the cops on foot? Also a mystery. But we let it go in favor of a cool action scene.
Instead of hopping out of their cars and giving chase, the cops undo this strange briefcase thing. In it, it has the tentacle robots from The Matrix, and I was like, “Wow! How the hell did FOX get permission to use the tentacle robots from The Matrix trilogy on their show?” These things puff their tentacles out into a ball and roll across the floor to chase after the family and mutants. And you’re thinkin’ “This seems like a job for Blink’s teleportation port-hole powers.” So, she creates a portal but struggles to keep it open and we are cemented with the idea that she is very new to her powers, which begs the question of how old she is supposed to be as, up until now, we’ve really only seen the majority of mutants realizing they had these powers in their teens, not generally well into adulthood, but I digress.
Blink opens a portal, everyone but Reed jumps through. Andy does his weird yelling smash-power thing and stays just long enough in the building with his father to see Reed get shot in the lower back.
Episode two starts with the end of the portal jump again. Everyone is freaking out for their own reason. The family is going crazy because they just saw Reed go down with a bullet and don’t know if he survived as he is still in that abandoned warehouse where the police would be coming to get him shortly. But Eclipse and Proudstar are freaking because Blink passes out and convulses a little as she can’t handle what just happened. She had never done a jump that far before. She traveled miles and held the portal for everyone to go through. They have to get her back to the HQ where they find that something more ailing is wrong with her as she has lost consciousness and is randomly creating portals. She creates a portal in the middle of the road somewhere that sees a truck try to swerve to hit it and the entire rear of the pickup cut off in the portal and came sliding through to the mutants and family’s side, nearly running a few of them over. Now, not only is Blink so sick that she needs to go to the hospital (and we learn that Mama Strucker is supposedly a nurse though we’ve seen none of her nursing) but a few of the others are injured too, but they’ll be alright. The portal opens again but Lauren is able to close this one with her powers.
Meanwhile, their father, who was taken down by the sentinels, ends up in an interrogation room with Jace who wants to know where the kids went. He ain’t sayin’ nothin’. So they try to charge him with colluding with terrorists because he went against protocol and showed Lorna her health report that said she was preggers. Speaking of, Lorna who has an X name of Polaris, adapts to the prison where a shock collar is put on all of the “muties” to discourage their power use. Some mean bee-otch that has control over the other mutants inside but is all human tries to make her do her bidding. When she threatens to beat the unborn baby out of her, Lorna powers through the shock collar to throw a metal table at her. Congratulations, you’ve won a trip to solitary.
Back with the group, Kate leaves with Eclipse to go steal some medicine for Blink. They use Kate’s supposed nurse’s rep to get the drugs. Eclipse reveals his taped-over gunshot wound from the first episode to get them into the back. The doctor patches him while Kate steals the drugs and they barely slip out the back to get back to the Underground HQ. They return to find Blink’s portal sickness has worsened to where portals are randomly generating all around the building and a SWAT team was trying to breach through the one where the truck came through. So Kate plays hero against all odds and runs in to give Blink the proper dose of meds. She has to jump through portals to get down to her as the stairs are gone and the building’s a mess. She gives her the meds and things immediately clear.
Back in the police station, Jace threatens Reed’s mother who he dragged in for questioning, too. Reed insists that he wants to make a deal in which he goes down for any and all crimes and his family are kept safe. But Jace wants the Mutant Underground as part of this deal. Reed must decide whether to give up the very people he just entrusted his family with or not, but he doesn’t take long to make that decision.
Episode three sees the family and the mutants at odds with how to best do things. Kate and the kids leave in the middle of the night to see if they can’t rescue Papa Strucker and use the system to get him free from wherever he is. The mutants are trying hard to train Blink and push her to learn how to use her powers so that she will be inclined to use them to help break into Lorna’s prison. But while Kate struggles with old friends not having any loyalty to let them stay at their houses for a while, another mutant named Dreamer (played by Elena Satine) proposes that they do a mind dive into Blink’s psyche to implant some dreams and memories that would spur her on to think that Lorna was her best friend. This way Blink would have someone and something to focus on when trying to control her powers.
Meanwhile, Reed gets rigged with some kind of high-tech bug that will help Jace track him back to the Mutants Underground. He goes to the same bar where he met Eclipse and gets the owner to take him toward the mutant safe house. But he isn’t the only one going. A mother and daughter are also going in search of a new life after the husband/father was taken by the special sentinel services police. The mother is able to take away the pain of Reed’s gunshot (an immobilization bullet, not a real one) and he changes his mind about doing this. He is thrown out of the transport and gets a talking from Jace.
Well, the rest of the Strucker family goes to Kate’s brother’s house and spends the night. But before they have breakfast in the morning a group of angry pitchforkers come to the house after seeing a picture of a trophy that Andy messed up real bad with his powers. They manage to get into the car but then they must escape. But to escape they need a portal, so Dreamer gives Blink a forced memory that makes her think she was once/still is in love with Proudstar. The memory is actually one of Dreamer’s real memories because she wants to jump Proudstar’s bones on the daily. Once again, the day is saved, but Proudstar is pissed and Kate learns that Reed is still alive and is determined to see him again.
What’s my grade? I give it a B. This series has the potential to be great but, like I’ve said so many times before about judging a show by one episode, the pilot for this show rather sucked. It seemed clunky, bounced along too quickly, gave minimal character development and never quite did the plot justice. Also, I’d say that the overplayed mutants and/or superheroes on the run has been done so many times before that it almost feels bland here. There’s nothing to distinguish this from pretty much every other X-men film ever in existence. Hell, in fact it goes so far as to be similar to the Man of Steel movie which was more of an X-Men/mutant film than a Superman film. When executing a motif, plot, storyline, cliché or whatever, you have to try to be inventive and innovative with making the idea feel new. This doesn’t make the idea feel new in any way. At least here, unlike on ABC Marvel’s Inhumans, you get to see cool powers getting used every episode. But they’re both on-the-run shows, which isn’t as drawing as the execs might think.
The acting is decent from all involved, though they haven’t really had to stretch themselves much. The series has been rather bland for the most part. Have they bothered to make the political stance of how people abnormally fear and hate that which is different? Yes, but not in any meaningful way that hasn’t been explored in all the other X-Men films. Wait... Now I know what it is about this show that bothers me: it’s essentially a watered-down version of an X-Men film, except without a wolverine and without a Professor X. I would give a strong nod to Andy and/or Lorna becoming the Magneto of the show (being just like her father. Damn that dude was laying a lot of magnetic pipe in his life, and he’s still mad as hell after getting all that free love. Sad). I also think the most likable character on the show is at a tie between Blink and Lauren. But outside of that, there’s almost no difference between this and one of the movies, save for the quality of the special effects and people not having costumes. The storyline isn’t exceptionally deep and hardly makes good commentary on refugees fleeing their own countries, but it’s a time-killer and it has the power to be something great. All the elements are there. Again, it’s just like every single X-Men movie ever made: the potential to be great but most don’t quite make it.
Should you be watching? If you like the X-Men films and what they’ve done for the last two decades, then chances are you will like this TV version even if it doesn’t have your favorite named characters. But if you were here looking for another Legion or something similar to the Marvel-Netflix shows, then look elsewhere. This is family fun with little substance, but does manage to keep your attention with a plethora of characters to like and identify with. The Gifted airs on FOX Mondays at 9pm EST. Catch up on FOX on Demand.
What do you think? Have you heard of The Gifted? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll check it out now? And if you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did you like it? What do you think they can improve? How do you think Blink’s new love interest in Proudstar will impact the team and the family? And will Andy finally lose it and kill someone at some point, causing his family to have to abandon him? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalkingIf you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.
Until next time, “We’re gonna go on the run. Only take the essentials.” ‘OK. Should we take our cats?’ “Yes to Mrs. Pettibone, but not Mr. Fluffykins. That cat’s been a real dick to me.’
P.S. That’s not even from a movie but I totally wish it was. Seriously, though, how many movies/shows are we going to see in which we have the X-men mutants trying to hide their powers or fight for equality? It’s getting tired and not adding anything new to the actual fight for equal rights and justice in this country or around the world.
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And the reviews for this season’s new shows just keep comin’. Today we are looking at FOX’s new comic book superhero show The Gifted. So, will this comic book drama send-up make us all feel blessed to be in its presents, or should this gift have come with a receipt for easy return? Let’s find out together.
FOX’s The Gifted is one of their first expansions of the X-men brand into the television realm. With last year’s Legion on FX a quasi-success, the execs over at FOX decided they needed to keep expanding their ever-growing X-men universe. But while Marvel Studios properties like Agents of SHIELD, Inhumans and the Defenders spin-offs are all definitely concretely connected to the more expansive cinematic universe and in very defined and deliberate ways (even if the fandom wants more connectivity), The Gifted waffles on where it wants to fit into the X-men film universe. And with the jumbling of the X-men timeline in the films and Hugh Jackman no longer playing Wolverine, maybe it’s a good thing that this show only timidly references the X-men and what happened to them. However, before I start this review in earnest, I would venture to say that the show takes place in some years before the events in the film Logan, meaning that it is not part of the official timeline of the other past X-men films, including the most recent Apocalypse. I know other articles and critics have stated what timeline the studio has implied it is or what they think, but I’m gonna go with the one in Logan. Note: I have not seen Logan but read plenty about it. OK?
LornaThe Gifted follows one family that meets up with a band of mutant renegades, for lack of a better word. We begin by showing the renegades. A lizard-eyed woman played by Jamie Chung, Blink is fleeing from a detention center where we can only assume that they kept mutants. As she tries escaping from a brigade of police down an alley, we see her powers of transportation. She jumps into a portal and jumps out across the city where the renegades are actively looking for her. Blink has never met these three before yet they know that she is a mutant and want to help her. The group consists of Eclipse the leader—he is a being of pure hot-white light with the skin-cloak of a human; John Proudstar who seems to have some sort of electric power and/or a tracking power that allows him to sense when other mutants are in the vicinity; and Lorna Dane who has a metallic power similar to Magneto’s where she can bend, push and manipulate any metals in her area (Note: After researching the show further, I learned that Lorna is supposed to be Magneto’s daughter). Lorna and Eclipse are dating and it is revealed early on that Lorna is pregnant with his light-goo baby, but this is only after she is captured. See, while trying to rescue Blink, the cops come and surround the place. The group manages to escape out the back but a cop shoots Eclipse to show all of his light about to pour out. Lorna goes all “don’tchu be messin’ wit my man” and tries to kill the cop and his backup. And in a devastating case of when keeping it real goes wrong, she is captured while the others are forced to get away. Then, we finally catch up with the family. We learn from the offset that in this family of four, the son is being bullied at school. The bullying is so bad that his parents have had to get involved. His father Reed Strucker (played by Stephen Moyer of True Blood fame) is some high-powered attorney who has been dealing intimately with mutant cases for a few years now. Apparently, as we are to understand, something huge and destructive happened with the X-men. They are gone and there was some sort of mutant war that eradicated most of the mutants and killed tons of innocent people. Again, this could be referring to the fight between Magneto’s side and Professor X’s side in X-men: The Last Stand from the first trilogy or something to happen in a future movie, or something in the Days of Future Past timeline, but I’m going with the pre-Logan timeline. Anyway, now people are all rather freaked about mutants and there are a lot more stringent laws and protocols that dictate how mutants are supposed to be dealt with. He’s part of that enforcement but is hardly the bad guy that the trailers and commercials for this show make him out to be. Don’t be fooled!
Eclipse and Reed StruckerAnyway, Reed is married to Kate Strucker who, for all intents and purposes, is not shown to be much of anything. Even though it is revealed in the second episode that she is a nurse she plays very much like a housewife, and a characterless one at that. The only interaction or dialogue she ever has is concerning the children. She’s, essentially, a Care-bot 5000 who would cease to exist upon her children’s deaths. I would have liked it if we got to see and hear more about how she feels about mutants as a whole. Just the concept of mutants. But maybe this show is too focused to round out the characters as she isn’t the only one who plays a little flat. Reed threatens the head school guy with a lawsuit if they don’t try doing something about the bullying, but quickly eases back into the caring, goofy dad—the model for what we all want as a father or the man we want to grow to be if we are already into adulthood. He’s stern but kind and tries to be fair. Yet he, like his wife, is fiercely protective of his brood. Such are Mr. and Mrs. Strucker.
Then we have the daughter who, I’m guessing, is the eldest though I’m very unsure about that as they look and play the exact same age to me (about 15). That’s neither here nor there. The daughter is Lauren Strucker who is shown as the assumed All-American girl-next-door type who has a modicum of popularity (people know her but she’s probably not this year’s prom queen) and a boyfriend which gives her added social capital. I’d like to tell you more about how she plays into the normal teen dynamic but they only spend about ten minutes of showtime (if that) in high school. Both she and her brother are thrust out of that world and into the full adult world before the end of the episode. Lauren is a mutant who has had her powers for at least three years (preteens, maybe longer) and never bothered to tell her parents. In the first episode, I’m not even sure she had told her brother before his incident. Her power has something to do with pushing and/or perception. I still couldn’t tell as she can make things move with her mind but she can also leave this weird bubble-glass looking anomaly in front of people so that they can’t walk forward any further. It’s very undefined.
Lauren’s brother Andy is the one being bullied. Your typical wiry, mop-headed wallflower, Andy fields the barbs of three large jock bullies at high school. While he seems to want to be protective of his sister as the brother, she is more protective of him. Wow! It’s strange that I’m actually struggling to write his bio as I thought it would flow easy like his sister’s did, but outside of him having been bullied there’s nothing all that amazing or noteworthy about his character. We don’t know if he’s a nerd, a gamer, a computer geek, or just a loser with no discernible talent before getting his powers. We do know that he isn’t as popular as his sister and that’s about it. He sneaks out with his sister (his sister is out legitimately) to go to the school dance. There, he sees the bullies who take him into the locker room shower and spray him with ice-cold water.
And then he starts to scream.
His screams nearly bring down the entire gym just a few feet away. The screams bend the metal showerheads, burst the tiles and send the bullies flying back into the lockers. His sister intuitively knows that it’s her brother and runs to him to calm him down. They escape back home but with the bullies having not been knocked unconscious and left able to see the whole bizarre event, it doesn’t take long for the police to show up at the Strucker family house. Those special guidelines for mutants kick in and the kids must go with them. Mama Strucker refuses, they push her to the ground and the kids get pissed. Lauren reveals her powers to her mother and they barely escape after the police get held up by Lauren’s weird bubble-glass power. They have to call Papa Strucker to tell him that the kids are mutants and he’s all like, “Lady-dude, whaaaaaat!” Mind blown.
Meanwhile, before the whole school incident, Reed was in the prison where they are keeping Lorna. The standard hard plastic case just like with Magneto, he informs her of her pregnancy as even she didn’t know and she loses it. On the other end, Blink tells her new homies at the Mutants Underground HQ that she can’t teleport into Eclipse’s girl’s cell because if she tried to use her powers to go somewhere that she hadn’t previously seen, it could be disastrous and end up slicing her in half or something like that. And then Eclipse gets a call from Reed. On the run with his family, Reed is willing to leave the country to go somewhere with laxer mutant laws like Mexico but needs help in figuring out how to hide, duck and dodge the cops until they can make it to the border. He is willing to trade whatever favors he can with the Mutants Underground leader to help get the guy’s baby mama (oh yeah, Reed reveals it to Eclipse) out of prison before she pops.
So papa Strucker and Eclipse have an agreement. His family is going to go with the Underground Mutants network to get them to safety while he stays behind and works whatever magic he can to get Lorna out of prison. But before they can get to the hideout, they are ambushed by a bunch of cops led by Jace Turner. I’m not really sure if he’s a detective or what, but I do know that he works on the special services mutant containment team and deals with these “freaks” on a regular basis. He and his people corner the family and here, both I and the show will jump back to mention that Eclipse left the mutant HQ without telling his bro that he was leaving, and forcing Blink to keep his departure a secret. Only after Blink tells Proudstar do they leave and, serendipitously meet the family and Eclipse right when the cops have both sides of the street blocked. Where’d they come from? Don’t know. How do they expect to escape the cops on foot? Also a mystery. But we let it go in favor of a cool action scene.
Instead of hopping out of their cars and giving chase, the cops undo this strange briefcase thing. In it, it has the tentacle robots from The Matrix, and I was like, “Wow! How the hell did FOX get permission to use the tentacle robots from The Matrix trilogy on their show?” These things puff their tentacles out into a ball and roll across the floor to chase after the family and mutants. And you’re thinkin’ “This seems like a job for Blink’s teleportation port-hole powers.” So, she creates a portal but struggles to keep it open and we are cemented with the idea that she is very new to her powers, which begs the question of how old she is supposed to be as, up until now, we’ve really only seen the majority of mutants realizing they had these powers in their teens, not generally well into adulthood, but I digress.
Blink opens a portal, everyone but Reed jumps through. Andy does his weird yelling smash-power thing and stays just long enough in the building with his father to see Reed get shot in the lower back.
Episode two starts with the end of the portal jump again. Everyone is freaking out for their own reason. The family is going crazy because they just saw Reed go down with a bullet and don’t know if he survived as he is still in that abandoned warehouse where the police would be coming to get him shortly. But Eclipse and Proudstar are freaking because Blink passes out and convulses a little as she can’t handle what just happened. She had never done a jump that far before. She traveled miles and held the portal for everyone to go through. They have to get her back to the HQ where they find that something more ailing is wrong with her as she has lost consciousness and is randomly creating portals. She creates a portal in the middle of the road somewhere that sees a truck try to swerve to hit it and the entire rear of the pickup cut off in the portal and came sliding through to the mutants and family’s side, nearly running a few of them over. Now, not only is Blink so sick that she needs to go to the hospital (and we learn that Mama Strucker is supposedly a nurse though we’ve seen none of her nursing) but a few of the others are injured too, but they’ll be alright. The portal opens again but Lauren is able to close this one with her powers. Meanwhile, their father, who was taken down by the sentinels, ends up in an interrogation room with Jace who wants to know where the kids went. He ain’t sayin’ nothin’. So they try to charge him with colluding with terrorists because he went against protocol and showed Lorna her health report that said she was preggers. Speaking of, Lorna who has an X name of Polaris, adapts to the prison where a shock collar is put on all of the “muties” to discourage their power use. Some mean bee-otch that has control over the other mutants inside but is all human tries to make her do her bidding. When she threatens to beat the unborn baby out of her, Lorna powers through the shock collar to throw a metal table at her. Congratulations, you’ve won a trip to solitary.
Back with the group, Kate leaves with Eclipse to go steal some medicine for Blink. They use Kate’s supposed nurse’s rep to get the drugs. Eclipse reveals his taped-over gunshot wound from the first episode to get them into the back. The doctor patches him while Kate steals the drugs and they barely slip out the back to get back to the Underground HQ. They return to find Blink’s portal sickness has worsened to where portals are randomly generating all around the building and a SWAT team was trying to breach through the one where the truck came through. So Kate plays hero against all odds and runs in to give Blink the proper dose of meds. She has to jump through portals to get down to her as the stairs are gone and the building’s a mess. She gives her the meds and things immediately clear.
Back in the police station, Jace threatens Reed’s mother who he dragged in for questioning, too. Reed insists that he wants to make a deal in which he goes down for any and all crimes and his family are kept safe. But Jace wants the Mutant Underground as part of this deal. Reed must decide whether to give up the very people he just entrusted his family with or not, but he doesn’t take long to make that decision. Episode three sees the family and the mutants at odds with how to best do things. Kate and the kids leave in the middle of the night to see if they can’t rescue Papa Strucker and use the system to get him free from wherever he is. The mutants are trying hard to train Blink and push her to learn how to use her powers so that she will be inclined to use them to help break into Lorna’s prison. But while Kate struggles with old friends not having any loyalty to let them stay at their houses for a while, another mutant named Dreamer (played by Elena Satine) proposes that they do a mind dive into Blink’s psyche to implant some dreams and memories that would spur her on to think that Lorna was her best friend. This way Blink would have someone and something to focus on when trying to control her powers.
Meanwhile, Reed gets rigged with some kind of high-tech bug that will help Jace track him back to the Mutants Underground. He goes to the same bar where he met Eclipse and gets the owner to take him toward the mutant safe house. But he isn’t the only one going. A mother and daughter are also going in search of a new life after the husband/father was taken by the special sentinel services police. The mother is able to take away the pain of Reed’s gunshot (an immobilization bullet, not a real one) and he changes his mind about doing this. He is thrown out of the transport and gets a talking from Jace.
Well, the rest of the Strucker family goes to Kate’s brother’s house and spends the night. But before they have breakfast in the morning a group of angry pitchforkers come to the house after seeing a picture of a trophy that Andy messed up real bad with his powers. They manage to get into the car but then they must escape. But to escape they need a portal, so Dreamer gives Blink a forced memory that makes her think she was once/still is in love with Proudstar. The memory is actually one of Dreamer’s real memories because she wants to jump Proudstar’s bones on the daily. Once again, the day is saved, but Proudstar is pissed and Kate learns that Reed is still alive and is determined to see him again.
What’s my grade? I give it a B. This series has the potential to be great but, like I’ve said so many times before about judging a show by one episode, the pilot for this show rather sucked. It seemed clunky, bounced along too quickly, gave minimal character development and never quite did the plot justice. Also, I’d say that the overplayed mutants and/or superheroes on the run has been done so many times before that it almost feels bland here. There’s nothing to distinguish this from pretty much every other X-men film ever in existence. Hell, in fact it goes so far as to be similar to the Man of Steel movie which was more of an X-Men/mutant film than a Superman film. When executing a motif, plot, storyline, cliché or whatever, you have to try to be inventive and innovative with making the idea feel new. This doesn’t make the idea feel new in any way. At least here, unlike on ABC Marvel’s Inhumans, you get to see cool powers getting used every episode. But they’re both on-the-run shows, which isn’t as drawing as the execs might think.
The acting is decent from all involved, though they haven’t really had to stretch themselves much. The series has been rather bland for the most part. Have they bothered to make the political stance of how people abnormally fear and hate that which is different? Yes, but not in any meaningful way that hasn’t been explored in all the other X-Men films. Wait... Now I know what it is about this show that bothers me: it’s essentially a watered-down version of an X-Men film, except without a wolverine and without a Professor X. I would give a strong nod to Andy and/or Lorna becoming the Magneto of the show (being just like her father. Damn that dude was laying a lot of magnetic pipe in his life, and he’s still mad as hell after getting all that free love. Sad). I also think the most likable character on the show is at a tie between Blink and Lauren. But outside of that, there’s almost no difference between this and one of the movies, save for the quality of the special effects and people not having costumes. The storyline isn’t exceptionally deep and hardly makes good commentary on refugees fleeing their own countries, but it’s a time-killer and it has the power to be something great. All the elements are there. Again, it’s just like every single X-Men movie ever made: the potential to be great but most don’t quite make it.
Should you be watching? If you like the X-Men films and what they’ve done for the last two decades, then chances are you will like this TV version even if it doesn’t have your favorite named characters. But if you were here looking for another Legion or something similar to the Marvel-Netflix shows, then look elsewhere. This is family fun with little substance, but does manage to keep your attention with a plethora of characters to like and identify with. The Gifted airs on FOX Mondays at 9pm EST. Catch up on FOX on Demand.
What do you think? Have you heard of The Gifted? If you haven’t, do you think you’ll check it out now? And if you have heard of it, have you seen it? Did you like it? What do you think they can improve? How do you think Blink’s new love interest in Proudstar will impact the team and the family? And will Andy finally lose it and kill someone at some point, causing his family to have to abandon him? Let me know in the comments below.
Check out my 5-star comedy novel,
Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend
. #AhStalkingIf you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinaryon Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.Until next time, “We’re gonna go on the run. Only take the essentials.” ‘OK. Should we take our cats?’ “Yes to Mrs. Pettibone, but not Mr. Fluffykins. That cat’s been a real dick to me.’
P.S. That’s not even from a movie but I totally wish it was. Seriously, though, how many movies/shows are we going to see in which we have the X-men mutants trying to hide their powers or fight for equality? It’s getting tired and not adding anything new to the actual fight for equal rights and justice in this country or around the world.
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