Overthinking the Office Part 2.5: Love and War (mostly love)

When I need background noise while writing, more often than not I turn to The Office. And rewatching a show as often as I have means you have thoughts and opinions.

These are mine.

Romance is in the air

We’ve covered how Jim and Pam are the central couple of The Office, certainly in its early seasons. But in season two, they’re not the only ones. The ensemble is too big for only two people to have a love story, and besides… Jim and Pam are the swoon-worthy couple from the word go. Their relationship is played for “Awwwws” rather than laughs, and that means that there are places they couldn’t take that relationship. Lines they couldn’t cross and gags they couldn’t do. And that’s where these other couples introduced in season two come in handy. Let’s meet them, while looking at the key episodes that shape their arcs.

Michael & Jan: Michael and Jan’s working relationship changes forever, and not entirely for the better, in season two’s The Client, which is a key episode on three fronts. When Michael and Jan have an off-site meeting trying to sell to the local county government, Pam finds Michael’s screenplay, “Threat Level Midnight,” featuring a superspy version of Michael Scott and his assistant/would-be-lover, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Yup. It’s not subtle. So we have three important things in this episode: 1) Jim and Pam bond during a staff reading of Threat Level Midnight and an impromptu rooftop dinner picnic; 2) despite going against Jan’s wishes at every step (moving the meeting to Chili’s, opening with a joke, playing truth or dare over drinks, an Awesome Blossom, and baby back ribs), Michael makes the sale, demonstrating how exactly he got promoted in the first place and his worth to the company; 3) having learned about Jan’s divorce, and dragged the story out of her during truth or dare, after the sale Michael and Jan share a celebratory kiss in the parking lot, and a night in a hotel room (mostly conversation, mild making out). Michael being Michael, he assumes Jan is now his girlfriend, and when Jan calls the next day with morning-after remorse, he’s completely blindsided. To the point of trying to hide under his desk from the cameras, which provide no escape.

But he does not take this rejection well, easily, or sanely. It’s the self-delusion that propels Michael through most of the series. Despite all the, frankly, overwhelming evidence that this relationship is a non-starter, Michael is unable to let go of the idea that she and he are meant to be. Michael’s pursuit of Jan approaches uncomfortable to the point of scary. He manages one positive act on her behalf on Valentine’s Day, though to be fair it’s just making up for his own nigh-catastrophic mistake.

There are points when being with Jan is supposed to be a victory for Michael. A Pyrrhic victory to a point, because the Jan-related prize usually comes after something bad on his end, but a victory just the same. But even when things between them become good, there is always something… off about them. So if Michael’s pursuit seems uncomfortable, it’s okay, folks… when we reach season three, we find out that the punishment fits the crime. The punishment for his horribly awkward courtship of Jan is, ultimately, successfully wooing Jan.

Kelly & Ryan: In the beginning, The Office doesn’t really know what to do with Kelly Kapoor. They also didn’t 100% know what to do with Ryan but that came later and is another story. She’s mostly there to be one more minority to suffer Michael’s knee-jerk reflex to profile (her Dundie is the Spicy Curry award, a title he is unable to explain, given the obvious answer; at Halloween, he thinks Bend It Like Beckham would be a better costume than Dorothy). But fortunately for the show, Kelly is played by writer/producer Mindy Kaling, who in the back half of the season finds Kelly’s character. Her sometimes vapid, celebrity gossip obsessed, rom-com loving, drama queen character. Which made her an entertaining fit for the more casual, easy-going, one-foot-out-the-door Ryan Howard of the early seasons. Their early relationship is best defined by Valentine’s Day… Kelly excitedly tells Jim that she and Ryan finally got together the previous night (Jim having become Kelly’s confidant during an earlier episode), and is thrilled to have a boyfriend for V-Day. Ryan has a talking head moment in which he runs his hands through his hair, voice calm but a look of terror and sad acceptance in eyes, and says “I hooked up with her on February 13th.” From there, it’s Ryan’s low-key, non-committal attitude versus Kelly’s rom-com-fueled, high-maintenance quest for a husband and babies.

But that is just the beginning. There are amazing depths of dysfunction these two have yet to plumb. And that is what makes Kelly and Ryan one of the show’s most memorable couplings. Very rarely has a show managed to make a relationship so very wrong and so very right at the same time. In season two, there’s just Ryan’s limp acceptance that “Just having fun” has become “long-term relationship” faster than he was in any way braced for. But they evolve into a truly, weirdly hilarious portrait of mutual abuse as Ryan’s character shifts in the later seasons. They’re the couple who are absolutely wrong for each other but at the exact same time weirdly perfect for each other. We’ll check in with Kelly and Ryan as we go.

Angela & Dwight: There are reviewers out there who feel that Jim and Pam are not the true central couple of The Office. That that title belongs instead to the Frank Burns and Hot Lips Houlihan of Dunder Mifflin, Dwight K. Schrute and Angela Martin.

Dwight and Angela would be impossible to like in real life. Both are abrasive, judgmental, and attempt to hold their co-workers to insane standards of behavior that play out like a Victorian England Taliban. And yet… as time goes on, Dwight wins you over. The sheer absurdity of Dwight, and the passion he devotes to everything he does, gradually becomes endearing. And one of Dwight’s greatest passions is uptight accountant Angela.

Their relationship is largely defined by secrecy, which becomes part of the fun. Angela is devoted to maintaining her (completely inaccurate… remember that self-deception is the key theme of this show) self-image as a perfect Christian, which means keeping her affair with a co-worker as secret as possible. Secret enough that despite a few dropped hints, you’d never guess they were together until Email Surveillance, when Pam enlists the Documentarians to help uncover proof that Dwight and Angela are together… a quest she walks away from after Phyllis assumes the “secret office affair” she’s talking about is actually her and Jim.

But it’s too late. The Documentarians know all, and from there, we’re all in on the spycraft-laced relationship of Angela and Dwight. So why would this relationship between, on paper, the two least likeable characters on the show eclipse Jim and Pam? Well, part of it is the same “These two must be right for each other because they can not be right for anyone else” energy that Ryan and Kelly end up having, but a bigger part is that Angela and Dwight are free from the fear of disruption that surrounded Jim and Pam.

See, Jim and Pam’s budding, inevitable romance was treated with such devotion that once it finally happens, the writers are unwilling to throw any real tension at it. Dwight and Angela do not suffer from that, and thus their story can be more epic. Spanning years, blood lost and lives ruined. They’re together, they’re apart, they see other people but cannot resist each other. Their love is filled with ups and downs, twists and turns, it’s a story that lasts all nine seasons, whereas Jim and Pam peak early and stay there.

Plus, there’s a lot more comedy in a weirdly adorable train wreck than a relationship that’s obviously perfect and why can’t they just see that, which is what Jim and Pam are giving us this year.

Anyway, those are the main plot threads in season two. Jim and Pam inch towards to each other, Ryan finds himself in over his head with Kelly, Michael wins, loses, and almost but not quite wins back Jan before moving on to his realtor, Carol… a rare Normal that ends up dating one of the cast.

New Characters

Season two introduces us to some other key people at Dunder Mifflin. Valentine’s Day introduces the new CFO, David Wallace. Wallace becomes the face of Dunder Mifflin’s corporate HQ for the next five years, the straight man who must deal with Michael’s shenanigans. The same episode introduces Josh Porter, manager of the Stamford Connecticut branch, which will be highly important once season three kicks off.

Also of note… Christmas Party introduces us to Phyllis’ boyfriend, Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration. They become to office park’s weirdly and uncomfortably passionate middle-aged power couple.

And I mentioned Carol, right? Michael’s realtor, introduced in Office Olympics, and played by Steve Carell’s fellow Daily Show alumnus/real-life wife Nancy Carell (née Walls)? She turns up three times, and goes from one-time guest star to person of interest.

Key Episodes

God, so, so many. That’s what makes season two the golden year, every episode feels like a new delight. Office Olympics. Booze Cruise. Take Your Daughter to Work Day. The Injury. The Carpet. And the climax, Casino Night, one of two episodes written by Steve Carrell, in which everything comes to a head.

But if I had to choose one. (Other than The Dundies, which we discussed last time)

Dwight’s Speech, in which, as the company’s top salesman, Dwight has to deliver a speech to a sales conference (something Michael did twice, as he’s swift to remind people), represents a turning point. There have been, for lack of better words, wackiness and hijinks in the show, but they’ve been relatively grounded. Dwight’s Speech, in which Jim pranks Dwight by handing him a speech culled from quotes from famous dictators, is when we begin to cross the line into larger, broader comedy. Dwight’s transition from almost realistically eccentric and power hungry peon to legit supervillain, along with Creed’s breakout lunacy, begin a transition into an Office where the rest of the staff don’t just roll their eyes at Michael or Dwight’s craziness, but contribute their own. Everything gets pushed further and further. Kevin gets dumber. Meredith gets trashier. Creed gets crazier. Kelly’s quest for attention gets bigger. Ryan’s relative normalcy gets chipped away. Even quiet, low-key Stanley and Phyllis get their quirks.

Skippables

None. They’re all great. Have I not made that clear?

Notable Guest Stars?

Amy Adams is back as Jim’s girlfriend, Katy, for two episodes before the whole “He’s only dating her to distract himself from being in love with Pam” thing wears him down. Tim Meadows is the titular client in The Client, and apparently Melora Hardin (Jan) had a terrible time keeping a straight face (let alone a perpetual scowl) playing opposite him and Steve Carell. Our fourth Daily Show veteran (I totes forgot about Larry Wilmore in season one, that’s on me), Rob Riggle, is the captain of the Booze Cruise.

And most notably, David Koechner makes his first appearances as Michael’s ultra-obnoxious best friend, travelling salesman Todd Packer, in Sexual Harassment… perfect timing, because as inappropriate as Michael can be, Todd Packer makes him look like mild-mannered Toby in comparison. Packer made his first appearance over the phone in the pilot, but season two is when Koechner brings him to full, horrifying life. And provides another layer of Michael’s self-delusion: despite what Michael thinks, Packer isn’t as funny, awesome, or nearly as good a friend as Michael (or Kevin) thinks.

Next time… season three gives season two a run for its money, and the last central character arrives.

 

Overthinking the Office Part 2: The Golden Year

When I need background noise while writing, more often than not I turn to The Office. And rewatching a show as often as I have means you have thoughts and opinions.

These are mine.

The Best of Times

Seasons two and three are very much The Office at its apex. There is a joy of discovery happening, as the writers shape and explore the ensemble and the larger world of Dunder/Mifflin. The jokes hit so well and so frequently that there’s typically 40 minutes of material for each 22 minute episode, leading to a wealth of hilarious deleted scenes for those with access to the DVDs. Many episodes involve finding the sweet spot between cringe and heart, as they find ways to make us love these paper-selling misfits while still making us glad we don’t work alongside them.

Three important things happened between the first and second seasons of The Office. First, iTunes sales of individual episodes made up for the initial season’s low ratings. (Honestly, when are we going to move past Nielson ratings? As Last Week Tonight would say, how is this still a thing?) Second, The 40 Year Old Virgin transformed Steve Carell from “ex-Daily Show correspondent” to “Legit movie star,” which helped bring more attention to the show. And third, they adjusted the tone of the show a little.

To the credit of both the producers and Steve Carell himself, this did not involve a major shift to Michael Scott. His worst habits are still there. Still casually racist, still filled with self-delusion, still prone to cringe-inducing attempts at humour or flirting. There are just two differences… first, they give him a more flattering haircut, and second, he is granted the occasional moment of redemption. Because US audiences need the grim, gloomy tone of the UK version to be cut with moments with hope and levity. So beginning in season two, we get a lighter atmosphere to contain all of the cringe and dread.

Now… they don’t always nail it. Sometimes the lighter, redemptive moments can come across as unearned. The best example of this comes in Christmas Party.

Some reviewers have said that The Office shines at Christmas. And it does. Out of nine seasons, only two don’t have a Christmas episode (one and four, when the show didn’t air in December), and they’re typically key episodes. And Michael is not always his best self when Christmas rolls around. But Christmas Party is the year when Michael goes from “terrible and selfish” to “forgiven and everything’s great” so fast it gives you whiplash.

When Michael’s gift in the office Secret Santa isn’t to his liking, he hijacks the entire party, turning Secret Santa into Yankee Swap (you know, the game of many names where you either open a new gift or steal something that’s been opened), in a transparent attempt to relieve himself of a homemade oven mitt while reveling in how much the staff covets the iPod he bought Ryan in a flagrant violation of the 20 dollar limit. The problem is, people bought gifts for specific people, making Yankee Swap awkward for many, and especially for Jim… whose gift to Pam is filled with inside jokes and card containing his true feelings. (Which she won’t read for over seven years, but that’s another thing entirely.) Once Michael’s selfishness has thoroughly spoiled the party to a point where even Michael can’t convince himself otherwise, he rushes out and uses his Christmas bonus to buy a lot of vodka to get the party back on track.

Yep. That’s it. He buys vodka. In the end, he even gets invited out for post-party drinks with everyone, something his improv class invented an unlikely excuse to avoid just one episode earlier.

Sometimes Michael’s redemptive moments are touching. Sometimes he makes a gesture that shows his professed love for his employees isn’t all talk. But sometimes they’re just not willing to settle for a downer ending, and perform narrative gymnastics to get around it. What seems like an insufficient gesture makes up for his misdeeds in Christmas Party. When the improv class (rightfully) shuns him in Email Surveillance, an episode that shows his desperate need to be the center of attention doesn’t end when he leaves the building, he finds acceptance from Jim mostly out of pity on Jim’s end. In Performance Review, Jan lists everything about Michael that’s distasteful, but seeing the hurt in his eyes, backs off and, in an attempt to be kind, accidentally gives him a ray of hope. When season six reveals the Worst Thing Michael Ever Did, a sympathetic voice still points out the silver lining, rather than let him stew in his mistakes. They so seldom let him stew in his mistakes.

But not all redemptive moments go down this way. And there is a more positive example right off the bat.

The show in one episode

You know what? The second season premiere has everything you need to know. You just need to watch it closely.

The Dundies. Not unlike a second pilot, albeit only six episodes after the first one. We witness what seems to be Michael’s proudest achievement as regional manager: the Dundie Awards, an annual attempt at recognizing the staff through trophies with award names he finds amusing. In the course of prepping for and attending the awards, we get subtly recapped on everything introduced in season one, plus introduced to our lighter tone for seasons two and beyond.

Michael’s delusions: Michael truly believes that the Dundie Awards are a beloved institution amongst his underlings, whereas everyone else sees it as a yearly obligation that they tolerate for Michael’s sake. Michael thinks giving Pam “Longest engagement” every year just gets funnier and funnier, whereas Pam sees it as a reminder that another year has passed without her engagement being fulfilled.

Michael’s redemption: This is an instance when Michael’s redemptive moment is earned. After getting heckled by outsiders mid-show, Michael almost shuts the whole thing down. Broken and defeated, he hands one last gag award to Kevin and surrenders. But Pam and Jim lead the rest of the staff into a spirit-boosting round of applause. Because he may be a self-deluded obnoxious jerk at times, but damn it, he is their self-deluded obnoxious jerk, and no outsider gets to take the Dundies away from him.

Michael and Jan: Season one only gave us a few glimpses at Michael’s working relationship with his boss, Jan Levinson-Gould. Here we have it laid out for us that Michael’s unorthodox style is not appreciated by corporate, something he didn’t anticipate, as Jan’s refusal to cover the bill for the Dundies takes him by complete surprise (leading to one of the few attempts on Michael’s part to escape the camera crew. We’ll talk more about Michael and Jan in a minute.

Michael and Ryan: Season one offered glimpses of Michael’s odd relationship with temp Ryan Howard. Michael sees Ryan as his super-handsome best friend/protégé/surrogate son, whereas Ryan sees Michael as his weird boss with an uncomfortable crush on him. It’s all summed up in Ryan being awarded “Hottest in the office.” As Ryan says to the cameras… “What am I going to do with it? That’s… the least of my worries right now.”

Jim and Pam and Roy: They don’t need to recap the Jim/Pam/Roy triangle directly. Everything you need to know you get watching the three of them at the Dundies.

The Documentarians: After a fun and eventful night together, Pam has a question for Jim… but spotting the ever-present camera crew changes her mind. The Documentarians might usually avoid getting involved in the story, but sometimes they can’t help but influence it, as intimate moments are not typically enhanced by the presence of a cameraman and boom mic operator. Well, maybe for Meredith.

The rest of the cast

Most of the Dunder Mifflin staff was briefly glimpsed in season one, but this is where they begin to take shape, as the writers cast their eye beyond the five leads. In the sales department with Jim and Dwight are grumpy, crossword obsessed Stanley and quiet, matronly Phyllis; in accounting are bookish Oscar, slow-witted Kevin, and uptight, judgmental, hyper-Christian (in word if not deed) Angela; behind them, sexually adventurous single mom Meredith and Creed Bratton, who… cannot be described simply; in the annex, on the far side of the kitchen and break room, customer service rep Kelly Kapoor and HR representative Toby Flenderson, Michael’s nemesis. In the warehouse, Pam’s fiancé Roy reports to Darrell, whose importance to the show only grows. Each of these characters gets built over the course of the season, and each has their moment to shine, though I’d like to talk about two in particular.

Toby is an ideal nemesis for Michael. Played by writer/producer/eighth season showrunner Paul Lieberstein, Toby is the low-key, low energy barrier to Michael’s more outlandish ideas. This alone might be enough to make Michael resent him, and that’s certainly why he claims to hate Toby, but there’s more under the surface. When Michael wants to insult, belittle, or devalue Toby, one of his go-to moves is to bring up the fact that Toby’s divorced. They never spell out why, but… Michael wants to be married. Michael desperately wants to be part of a family, enough that he tries to make his office a family through sheer force of will. Toby had it all, and gave it away (save for partial custody of his daughter), and it’s not hard to theorize that that actively offends Michael.

And it cannot help that the employees of Dunder Mifflin actually find Toby funny and likeable in a way they never do Michael. That one goes all the way back to Diversity Day, when Michael kicks Toby out of a meeting in theory because of the content of his joke, but more likely because his joke got a laugh.

Now Creed… where to start. At the beginning, he’s in quality assurance, and manages to duck getting fired by arguing with Michael until he changes his mind and fires another little-seen employee instead. By the end of the season, he’s freely admitting to habitually stealing (“I stopped caring a long time ago. I just love stealing”). By the next, his detachment from our shared reality has become his defining trait. Basically, Creed becomes the repository for any action, idea, or thought process that’s too “out there” for Dwight. How you react to Creed will help determine whether second or third season is your favourite, for reasons I’ll get into.

There’s a lot to say about season two. When every second or third episode feels like a series highlight, that’s bound to happen. So we’ll have to pick this up next time, as romance extends beyond Jim and Pam’s will-they-won’t-they.

Three graphic novels that should be movies by now

Funny how a disappointing theatrical tour, three script projects, and some anxiety about turning f… four… thirty-ten can really make you forget you have a blog, huh? Mostly those first two things. I meant to blog about the tour but what creative energies I had in the humid Ontario summer were devoted to that pantomime play I was supposed to be writing… then to the new webseries I want to film… then to a stage play, because damn it that’s still a thing I do. Add that to the script for our Fringe show, and you get quite the full year, writing-wise.

But hey, this still exists, and I still have thoughts on stuff, so, in the words of John Wick, yeah, I’m thinking I’m back.

To my topic for today, then.

I think we all know that comic book movies are the hot ticket at the box office and on the varying things we call “television” these days (streaming services are pretty different from the way TV worked for its first half-century, you must admit). Superhero movies are popular enough that in a year where nearly everything got clobbered at the box office, from cartoon adaptations to long-delayed sequels to popular 90s movies (hey, that worked like gangbusters last year) to the few actually, legitimately fun summer flicks (that admittedly were a sequel and an ill-advised reboot that still worked out okay), only two types of movies seemed to be golden tickets: Disney/Pixar cartoons (or adaptations thereof), and superheroes. Not just Civil War and Deadpool, either. Even superhero movies met with hatred from critics and… um… all of my friends, apparently… did huge box office numbers. (For the record, yes I am planning to get the extended cut of Suicide Squad, I’m hoping its closer to David Ayers’ vision and further from the vision of the editing firm that made a good trailer and then somehow got asked to do the final cut of the movie based on that.)

(Okay there was one mild exception, and it remains to be seen how Dr. Strange will fare, but still.)

As a result, studios are scrambling to find comic book stories to get onto the screen. Marvel scraped most of the underwritten suck off of their popular but narratively weak event book, Civil War, keeping only the basic premise (people want superheros to stop running around all willy-nilly, Captain America says “Nuh uh,” Iron Man says “Yuh huh,” they fight) and spinning it into one of their better movies. Though one I want to talk about later. On the TV side, The Flash did their own spin on the universe-rewriting book Flashpoint (“How much can we use? Flash going back in time and there being consequences? That’s literally it? Okay, well, let’s go for it.”), Jessica Jones jumped straight to the climax of her debut book, Alias, and Agents of SHIELD is mixing things up by introducing the least cool, least interesting, least popular character ever to use the name Ghost Rider.

He doesn’t even ride a motorcycle, for gods’ sake. How am I supposed to get excited about this.

But there is a dark side to this story mining. Batman V Superman leaned a little heavily on Frank Miller’s work with the character, something he’s spent the last 15 years warning people not to do by morphing into a depressing parody of himself. And the internet will just not stop throwing around speculation that Marvel’s moving towards a Planet Hulk movie, something I really, really wish people would give up on, not because of dislike for Planet Hulk specifically (although why do a Hulk movie in with that little non-CGI Mark Ruffalo), since I didn’t read it, but because Planet Hulk led to World War Hulk, and World War Hulk was a garbage fire. Seriously, you’d have trouble filling 20 minutes with what they laughably called a “plot” in that book.

So here’s some graphic novels that should be movies but somehow aren’t. No, not all of them are superhero stories. A comic book movie doesn’t need capes to be the best thing ever.

1. Queen and Country

Art by Tim Sale
Art by Tim Sale

Greg Rucka’s Queen and Country comics (and three novels) tell the stories of Tara Chace, operative for the Special Operations Section of MI6. In short, she’s a spy and sometimes assassin for the British government. The series blended the intense spy action of an operative on a mission in hostile territory with the more real-world bureaucracy intelligence agencies face: red tape from above, inter-agency tensions, the favours that need to be traded to get the better-funded Americans to give up intel. And Rucka managed to make both sides work as engaging stories.

Why a movie?

Look at what Sam Mendes did with the opening sequences of the last two Bond movies and tell me you couldn’t great an excellent sequence out of the first issue of Q&C: in London, the Operations staff wait for confirmation a Russian general turned operative for the Russian mob is in the country they heard he’d be in so that half a world away, Tara can pull the trigger on her first assassination. She takes the shot, gets clipped by his security, and must get away from her pursuers and across the border with a purloined burqa, a well-used car, fake identity papers, and in a clever move to keep the border guard from looking too closely at her forged passport, an “accidentally” dropped nude photo and an embarrassed smile. Try to pull that one off, Jason Bourne.

This all leads to her being used as bait by MI5 (the FBI to MI6’s CIA) when her target’s people come to London for payback… while being forbidden to use a gun because MI6 operatives can’t carry within the UK. Maybe you don’t quite have a movie there, but you are on your way to at least a Sicario’s worth.

The push continues for female led action movies, within the comic genre and without. Look at the undying fandom for Agent Carter. Tara Chace is a female James Bond, more grounded and with less style but more swagger, and freed of the “But is he still relevant outside of the Cold War” think pieces that plague Bond, as she and her supporting cast were designed for the post-9-11 world.

So why isn’t it one?

Development hell. Apparently they’ve been trying for a while. Ellen Page was even attached to play Tara back in 2013. Maybe if Wonder Woman does Deadpool numbers they’ll make some progress…

So who would you cast?

Tara Chace: Ophelia Lovibond

Photo:  Jeff Neumann/CBS ©2014 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Photo: Jeff Neumann/CBS ©2014 

Okay, so, if you haven’t been watching Elementary, this one’s a little obscure. You’d probably know her best as the Collector’s assistant who tries to steal the Power Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy, and that’s… not helpful to my cause here. If you have, then you recognize her as Kitty Winter, particularly clever survivor of a brutal serial killer who finds a path to recovery as Sherlock’s new apprentice. She brought the exact right mix of tough and capable with an undeniable layer of pain at her center that I’m looking for in Tara Chace. Tara is forced to survive a hit by running at the man with the gun and counting on that throwing off his aim, then comes into work the next day. Kitty survived her ordeal, and with the scars still fresh, started trying to solve crimes (even before Sherlock took an interest). Maybe she’s on the obscure side, but this is my dream cast so shut up.

Paul Crocker: Mark Strong

Mark Strong as Blackwood - Sherlock Holmes movie

Not really much to say about this one. You need someone to play the head of the department, the one who orders the kills but also has to play the politics game to keep the operation moving and his operatives alive? You want Mark Strong.

Tom Wallace: Johnny Lee Miller
miller
Tom Wallace is Tara’s immediate superior and probably closest friend. He’s been in the department just long enough to get promoted to Head of Special Section and out of the field. Ten years ago this would have been a gimme for Colin Firth (even without having seen him go full badass in Kingsmen), but the age gap doesn’t quite… okay, fine, I just want to see Sherlock and Kitty back together, but it would still work.

2. The Sixth Gun

Art by Brian Hurtt
Art by Brian Hurtt

An Apocalyptic western fantasy set after the Civil War, the Sixth Gun is the story of six pistols, each with their own power, that combined have the potential to destroy and remake the world. When Becky Montcrief inherits the Sixth Gun from her father, she reluctantly joins forces with ethically grey gunfighter Drake Sinclair to protect the world from those looking to unleash the guns’ true purpose, including supposedly dead Civil War general and part-time dark sorcerer Oliander Bedford Hume, his crazy wife, and his, well, call a spade a spade, four horsemen.

Why a movie?

Because the lush and terrifying magical old west dreamed up by writer Cullen Bunn and artist Brian Hutt cries out for a live-action adaptation. Because it’s a great (recently completed) story that more people should know about. And sure, like Preacher, it’s way too long a story to be told in one installment, but the first six issues work as a great standalone adventure of four people trying to stop the end of the world, ending in an epic battle at a fort called the Maw. And if the first movie sells, you have material for one of those ongoing franchises studios are addicted to. Even just hitting the highlights, you could manage at least five movies and three spinoffs.

So why isn’t it one?

They tried to adapt for TV recently (a better fit, if you want to pick nits), but the pilot didn’t get picked up, and there’s been little interest since then. Because people are stupid and hate fun.

So who’d you cast?

You know what, here’s a cast photo from the unaired pilot, featuring Game of Thrones/Narcos’ Pedro Pascal as Drake and Leverage’s Aldis Hodge as, I assume, Gord, a key ally they pick up at the Maw, and that’s… that’s about perfect. Only two more to add, I reckon.

General Hume: Clancy Brown

A big guy with a bigger voice, Clancy Brown proved his world-ender bonafides a few times by now, most relevantly in Carnivale, where he played a preacher with dark occult powers out to rebuild the world in his own image. I mean cross out “preacher” and write in “general” and you’re there.

The Widow Hume: Eva Green

The Widow Hume possesses the Fifth Gun, which can heal any injury, even death. The gun restores her youth, at the cost of her sanity, something that is clear in the way Hurtt draws her eyes. Eva Green, an MVP in anything she appears in lately, does crazy and scheming very well, and has some of the most expressive eyes in Hollywood. Perfect fit.

3. Atomic Robo

robo

Built by Nikola Tesla in the early 20th century (in a world where Tesla became a wealthy inventor and Edison is remembered as a demented supervillain… a better, stranger world, in other words), Robo (who’s atomic powered) earned his citizenship covertly fighting Nazi super scientist Baron von Helsingard during World War 2, and has since used his position as owner/operator of his father’s company, Tesladyne, to advance science and fight off the villains, kaijus, Lovecraftian horrors, and highly improbable giant ants that turn up when science goes wrong.

Why a movie?

Because creator Brian Clevenger (who also created the similarly hilarious 8-Bit Theater) has created a whole world and alternate history filled with action packed weird science adventures. Robo alone fought Nazis, trained with Bruce Lee, and got stuck in the old west after a temporal incident with his least favourite and least probable nemesis, Doctor Dinosaur.

mammalrobot

A meeting with Lovecraft unleashed a formless horror that fought Robo in four different time periods simultaneously, one of which involved his employees accidentally building an evil supercomputer.

atomic-robo-shadow-5

Tesla was part of a secret government group including Annie Oakley and a young Harry Houdini, among others. Atomic Robo has fought sci-fi villains up one side of the 20th century and down the other, plus ongoing adventures in the modern day. There is no end to the ridiculous fun the Atomic Robo team have dreamed up, and all of it would look amazing filmed for IMAX.

So why isn’t it one?

Because Atomic Robo’s an indie comic and studios like brands. Every now and then someone comes sniffing, and Clevenger tries to aim them towards Volume Five, The Deadly Art of Science, in which a young Robo ventures out of his father’s lab to work with pulp vigilante Jack Tarot and his daughter Helen, aka the Nightingale, to foil a plot by Thomas Edison. Tesla eventually has to lend a hand as well.

So who would you cast?

Robo: Joel McHale

Robo’s either going to be CG or a giant suit, but his voice is important. Much of the humour of Atomic Robo comes from how ridiculous or annoying Robo finds his adversaries, be they physically impossible like the giant ants attacking Vegas, infuriatingly nonsensical like Dr. Dinosaur, or just jerks like the Nazis. And Dr. Dinosaur. You need someone with a good dry wit who can also nail an angry rant, and to me that’s a job for Community’s Jeff Winger.

So come on, studios… nearly everything the CW superhero shows do prove that you love catering to my tastes. Get catering!

(But seriously, Marvel, I know you love to milk whatever seems popular for all its worth, but ignore the Planet Hulk chatter. That way lies madness.)

 

Dan at the Movies: Suicide Squad

And I’m back. I meant to blog more over the summer… journal my Fringe tour, for instance… but as I’ve mentioned in the past, it can be hard to keep on a blog when other writing projects are sucking up your creative energies. Or when the unfamiliar heat and humidity of Ontario in the middle of summer and other personal issues are making it hard to have creative energy. But the first draft of my second pantomime is done, and I’ve traded humidity for record-setting rainfall, so I am back.

So let’s talk about Suicide Squad.

suicide-squad-movie-characters-calendar

The basics

There are a lot of really histrionic headlines out there. Shouting things like “Worst movie of the summer” or “Worse than Fantastic Four.”

So first of all, no. None of that. People claiming this are either lying for traffic or just wrong. I’m not saying they’re wrong because they’re stupid, since I don’t know any of them personally, but we can’t rule it out.

That’s not to say it’s perfect, or the best superhero movie of the year, or anything approaching that. It’s not without jokes and one-liners, but the laughs that exist fall short of Deadpool or the airport fight from Civil War, which remains the best and most fun sequence from any blockbuster film I’ve seen this year, comic book or otherwise. It’s good for what it is, which is a simple, flashy in places men-on-a-mission movie with a comic book coating. And for that, it works pretty well. Honestly I don’t get what the naysayers are complaining about in most cases.

In most cases. In one case I do.

The Joker

Jared Leto’s Joker has dominated the conversation around this movie, so let’s get him out of the way.

It doesn’t work.

To elaborate. Leto’s Joker voice is pretty good, but he’s not using it to do anything really Joker-ish. He’s like a mobster mixed with a B- Hannibal serial killer. We could argue about the tattoos, which frankly don’t bother me… well, with one major exception…

With one major exception
I mean come on.

…but the real issue is that he mostly just snarls and giggles and mopes about having lost Harley. Joker caring about a person, even Harley, is un-Jokerish enough but there’s a deeper problem here.

Where’s the joke?

I’m not saying that Joker should be funny. That’s not the point. The point is that Joker’s best crimes/stories revolve around a joke that only he sees, a joke of humanity’s futility. He does horrible things and he thinks they’re funny, and that’s not the Joker we’ve been shown here. This is just a moody pyscho who kills people for eyeballing his woman. Which is the worst scene of the movie, by the by, but fortunately it’s early, and then everyone can move on.

Maybe Ben Affleck could do something more or better with this version of the Joker in a Batman solo movie. I don’t know. In this case, he is not used super well. But he doesn’t super need to be, since he’s not the main villain. Which brings us to…

Villains

(One minor spoiler coming up, if you don’t know or want to know who the villain is)

There was a time when having a great villain was key to a comic book movie. As important as the hero, if not more so. Doctor Octopus and Spider-man 2, Joker and Dark Knight, and while it had highs and lows, Magneto sold the X-Men franchise. But the importance of the villain has not been the case as of late.

Okay, scream “DC bias” all you like, but I’m pointing a finger at Marvel. Though not necessarily in a bad way. While the Burton/Schumacher Batman movies put more effort into their villains than Batman himself (to mixed results), Marvel has managed great success while shifting the focus to the heroes. In short, Marvel villains tend towards bland and formulaic, and they make scads of money anyway, because if the Guardians of the Galaxy are fun enough to watch audiences will apparently forgive Ronan the Accuser being two-dimensional.

Hey, it’s not just me saying this. People have been talking about Marvel’s villain problem for years now. But this is really just a long lead-up to saying that, like a Marvel movie, Suicide Squad is not putting a ton of effort into their primary villains.

In short… and here’s the spoiler… Amanda Waller has successfully controlled a millennia-old witch called the Enchantress, who was awoken when an archaeologist named June Mune (Cara Delevingne, more effective as the evil witch than the archaeologist) wanders into the wrong cave and gets possessed. See, Enchantress and her un-awoken brother Incubus used to rule the world and be worshiped as gods back before they got stuck in statues. Now Enchantress finds herself in the modern world, enslaved by Amanda Waller. She doesn’t care for any of it. But while she can’t fully break Waller’s control, she can wake up her brother so that he can shield her from Waller’s retribution, allowing them to re-conquer the world. So that’s what she sets out to do.

Short version, Enchantress escapes Waller, teams up with Incubus, and begins a ritual to rule the world. And there we leave her until the climax. Sure, we check in once or twice, but that’s basically all she does.

Not exactly Heath Ledger’s Joker, I know. I mean, I could easily name ten worse comic book movie villains…

Or whip up a rough collage

…but she doesn’t exactly blow the doors off the place.

I think this might have more to do with writer/director David Ayers’ style. Look at Fury, his movie closest to Suicide Squad. He doesn’t spend a lot of time on the villains because we as an audience don’t need a lot of reasons to understand that the Nazis, and the SS in particular, were worth fighting. So he spent his time on the men in the tank. So, too, does Suicide Squad spend more time with the Squad than with Enchantress and Incubus. They’re doing something bad, it needs to be stopped, that’s as much detail as they feel we require.

Because getting this particular group of people to work together against a common foe… a common foe that isn’t their “employers…” isn’t an easy task.

The (Non-Joker) Cast

Let’s run through them, shall we?

Deadshot/Will Smith: I’m not saying that Will Smith doesn’t dip into his “Big Willy Style” bag a little in this role. There’s still a noticeable amount of Fresh Prince in Deadshot. But that’s okay, because it’s well used. He’s got edge and heart, making him highly effective as one of the film’s two central characters. Which brings us to…

Harley Quinn/Margot Robbie: One of the two biggest highlights of the film’s cast. After a rocky start weighed down by extra crazy and some weird shooting choices Ayers makes during Joker scenes, Margot Robbie is incredible as Harley Quinn. Everything you’d want from the character. Well… except one thing. They could’ve given her pants. Wouldn’t have hurt anything to give her pants. I’m just saying.

Amanda Waller/Viola Davis: Also awesome. She’s tough, she’s ruthless, she can stare down five deadly killers and come out on top. Is she one of the villains of the movie? That’s debatable. She walks the line very well. Why doesn’t she have a cameo in Justice League, exactly?

Captain Boomerang/Jai Courtney: Here’s a sentence that is almost never uttered: Jai Courtney crushes it. Captain Boomerang is selfish, manipulative, and consistently fun to watch. This movie nails the character in a way his appearance on Arrow just didn’t, and Courtney, normally known as one of those bland white action leads that you forget about when the movie’s over, kills it.

Rick Flagg/Joel Kinnaman: Another actor I didn’t expect much from, having (and I had to look this up) not exactly set the world on fire as reboot Robocop. As the Squad leader, he does well crossing from tough and resentful to be working with psychopaths to vulnerability when he needs to ask those psychopaths for help stopping a disaster… which will likely involve killing the only woman he’s ever loved.

El Diablo/Jay Hernandez: The heart of the Squad. Probably has the deepest backstory of anyone. Some people call him a stereotype, and the way he’s talked to can be a little on the racist side, though I would counter “Supervillains, abusive/corrupt prison guards, and black ops soldiers aren’t known for their racial sensitivity,” but maybe this isn’t a good argument for a white dude to pick. But according to some, it could have been worse

Killer Croc/Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: For the second time in a comic book movie, Adewale gets buried under so much makeup that there’s only so much he can do. He had the occasional decent line but was mostly there to be big and menacing.

Katana/Karen Fukuhara: Somehow given less to do than Killer Croc. She’s pretty much just there to look badass in a samurai fashion and kill things with a sword. I appreciate you trying to add another woman and some more POC to the Squad, but you don’t get points for someone two-dimensional and fairly stereotypical. Better on Arrow.

Slipknot/Adam Beach: I mean what the hell. I get that you needed to kill someone to prove that the neck bombs weren’t a bluff but did it have to be someone you just introduced? And one of the POC characters? Seriously, right as the Squad (most of whom got their own splashy intro flashbacks) gets ready to leave, a car pulls up and they’re all “Oh right, and here’s Slipknot.” Then he’s dead in under five minutes Come on, man.

Wrap-up

Here are some points that seem too short for entire entries.

  • I was really impressed with the visuals, especially in 3D. Some of the Enchantress effects seemed super cool to me.
  • Cool to have cameos from Ben Affleck and Ezra Miller. Now that I’m seeing the movie Flash suit in action, it’s growing on me.
  • I don’t see how people are complaining about the plot not making sense. Okay, sure, we don’t know right away why the Squad are dispatched to Midway City, since they aren’t being sent after the villains until the climax, but they don’t know either, so why should we? And once you get past that, it makes perfect sense. If you pay attention, anyway.
  • It’s weird how many moments from the trailers aren’t in the movie. There’s disagreement between Ayer and press rumours about how extensive the reshoots were, so I won’t comment on if that’s responsible, but it’s a little weird. Harley pouring everyone drinks? Why leave that out? Although, I guess it would have less impact since we saw the whole sequence in the second trailer…

Ultimately I enjoyed it. I got swept up in more than one moment. It’s not a masterpiece and doesn’t redefine the genre, but it’s enjoyable if you can get on its level.

Except for some of the Joker stuff. Damn but I wish that weren’t true.

Comic TV 2016 Part Four: The Top Five

And we come to the end. What are, in my estimation, the top five comic book shows on TV last season, and why. You know the drill, let’s get into it.

5. Daredevil

daredevil-season-2-faq-pic

Premise: Matt Murdock’s war to protect the people of Hell’s Kitchen is complicated not only by a DA out to round up New York’s vigilantes (at least the ones who don’t appear in movies), but by the arrival to the Kitchen of lethal vigilante Frank Castle, and Matt’s dangerous ex, Elektra Natchios.

So we’ve talked about the Punisher. Repeatedly. And for a reason. As long as the Punisher was happening, Daredevil was every bit as good, if not better, than its freshman outing. So why, you might ask, has it slipped from first place to fifth since last year? Because the parts not dealing with the Punisher ended up more lacklustre. We’ll cover that down below. But despite all of the flaws I’m about to list, there’s still enough of the first season in there to make it above average. And what they did well, they did well enough to push Daredevil above Arrow for a second year. Although it was close.

Strengths: All things Punisher. The fight scenes, when you can see them. Deborah Ann Woll is doing amazing work, even if Karen Page’s story gets weird towards the back half. Breaking the season into mini-arcs.

Weaknesses: Okay, we’re gonna need a speed round for all of these plot holes and problems…

  • Elektra’s one of Daredevil’s strongest female characters in the comics. Here she has to decide which male figure is going to determine how she lives her life. That’s… weak.
  • Why did the Hand dig a giant hole? What was that accomplishing?
  • No, wait, the Hand’s big goal, this Black Sky they’ve been hinting at since last year, is just a person who’s good at killing? That’s it? How does that help them rule the world? How does that even help them rule New York, let alone a world filled with Avengers and Inhumans and magic space rocks?
  • The producers are so committed to Matt’s martyrdom that there’s never a fight he wins easily. He has to struggle each time. So the army of ninjas loses some bite when they give Matt exactly as much trouble as the biker gang from episode three.
  • They put a lot of effort into their fight scenes. Maybe if they’d lit a few more of them…
  • Elden Henson seriously whiffs a few of Foggy Nelson’s big emotional moments. He was a better actor last year.
  • How does a legal assistant get a job as an investigative reporter? There have to be dozens of journalism majors for every open newspaper job.
  • How does someone not get fired for spending weeks, maybe longer on a story only to write a junior high essay about heroes?
  • How is the DA targeting New York vigilantes and her number two target (after the Punisher) is licensed private detective and only part-time-at-best vigilante Jessica Jones? Not Spider-man? No Inhumans? No mention of Sokovia, even? I mean, Jesus Christ, Marvel, be a unified universe or don’t.
  • Daredevil sure gets blasé about fighting next to people who are killing people by the end.
  • Every Asian on this show is in a sinister ninja cult. That’s… not great.
  • And how does the season start in a summer heat wave and end at Christmas? Everything seems to happen in a matter of weeks at most, not months.

Feels like a lot, doesn’t it. See, Arrow, if you’d dial back the Felicity drama even a little you’d make the top five easily.

High point: New York’s Finest/Penny and Dime. The best fight, the best Punisher/Daredevil confrontations, Daredevil at its best.

Low point: The Dark at the End of the Tunnel. Poorly lit fights and the Elektra/Hand plot takes a turn for the stupid. Seriously, that’s your endgame? Your Black Sky would have their hands full against freaking Ant-Man, let alone the Vision.

Tips for next season: Turn on some damned lights. Have a better Big Bad, ’cause the Hand flopped hard. Focus on New York if you want but either try to remember that the larger MCU exists, or officially secede. I mean, we’ve seen how multiverses can work…

4. The Flash

The-Flash-Season-2-Premiere-Review

Premise: After the events of last year’s finale, Flash learns that he has opened breaches to an alternate Earth, and drawn the attention of evil speedster Zoom.

Few shows on this list embrace the wacky and weird world of comic books like The Flash. After introducing super powers, time travel, and giant telepathic gorillas in season one, in season two they plunged right into one of DC’s on-again off-again favourite devices since the seminal The Flash of Two Worlds, the multiverse. This helped to propel their early episodes to fun heights. They still manage the best blend of action, humour, and heart. Even if they didn’t quite stick the landing.

Strengths: I haven’t really found a place in these blogs to talk about what an asset to the show Tom Cavanaugh is, but he’s great. Even when the finale handed him one of the most ridiculous comic book nonsense lines of any show this year. Also, new characters Wally West, Jesse Wells, and in particular Patty Spivot ranged from good to delightful. Grant Gustin remains delightful even when Barry is pissing me off. Cisco and Caitlin might not make the supporting character podium, but they did some good work this year. Not only did they bring back the telepathic gorilla, they upped themselves with a giant man-shark.

Weaknesses: First off, Earth Two has the Justice Society, Earth Three has all the evil doppelgangers, come on guys, you know this. That said. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Barry Allen really did wear thin over the back third. More problematic, when we hit peak Bad Barry Choices, we also ran out of plotline for Zoom. For the last five episodes, there was no nuance, no subtlety, no real surprises. One of the best aspects of Reverse Flash’s plot in season one was that his motivation turned out to be incredibly simple. Zoom’s motivation was also simple, but worse: it boiled down to “Zoom just likes killing.” That’s fine for a one-off villain or Krombopulos Michael, but a season-long villain needs more than that. Ultimately Zoom was a horrible waste of a far better comic villain. A weak ending was enough to knock Flash all the way down to number four. Also, like Arrow, they had to spend some time setting up Legends of Tomorrow, but other than the “Well, need a new Firestorm, I guess” episode, it was low impact.

And man… why’d they have to write Patty out… she was great…

High point: Welcome to/Escape From Earth 2. A high-paced trek through the much-mentioned, until-then-little-seen Earth-2 filled with Easter Eggs (including our first glimpses of Jonah Hex and Connor Hawke, who would later pop up on Legends), fun evil versions of multiple characters, and a big hint towards a coming twist. Not even the first Poor Decision of Barry Allen could sink this two-parter.

Low point: Back to Normal. After a disastrous decision on Barry’s end, Barry learns to adjust to life without powers. Again. Second time in as many seasons. Waiting for Barry to get his speed back slowed the season to a crawl right when it should have been accelerating–that was a lot of speed references in a thing about The Flash, it just happens.

Tips for next season: Okay. I saw what you did at the end of the finale. So let me say this… if you’re doing what we all think you’re doing… don’t drag it out. I’ve been promised a four-show crossover for episode eight, and I do not want it to be a week-long wrap up to TV Flashpoint.

…Actually I want a Flashpoint story featuring characters from all four shows incredibly bad, but I’d rather the other three not to have to put their own stories on pause to make it happen. So maybe try to keep it to four episodes, tops? And then once you’re done, write a better villain. I know you know how.

3. Supergirl

supergirl-social_6

Premise: Kara Zor-El, strange visitor from another planet, decides she’s tired of living in secret as Kara Danvers, and sets out to protect the world as Supergirl. Just like her more famous cousin.

Remember what I said about embracing comic booky-ness? About 630 words ago? Well, there’s one other show doing it as well as the Flash. And it’s also surpassed its brother show in terms of cheer and hopefulness. Supergirl’s first season delivers all the geeky fun of the Flash’s, plus better blends of combat and special effects, and some delightful surprises for long-term fans and newbies alike. It can be a little cheesy at times, but if you can get past that, there’s a lot to love.

Strengths: Melissa Benoist. Chyler Leigh. The evolution of Hank Henshaw’s relationship to Supergirl. Calista Flockhart takes Cat Grant from stereotypical “mean boss” to a surprisingly effective mentor for Kara’s civilian and super identities. Jeremy Jordan as Winn. Top notch special effects for TV. Max Lord worked well as a recurring antagonist.

Weaknesses: Sometimes the feminism can be a little on-the-nose. And sometimes the dialogue can be a little cheesy or clunky. And Kara and James Olsen could have better chemistry if we’re supposed to be invested in them as a thing.

High point: Worlds Finest. The Flash comes to National City, and it is Ah. Maze. Zing.

Low point: Red Faced. Where to start. The episode has four villain characters, meaning it doesn’t have time to do any of them well; the “women can’t be mad in public” issue is a little ham-fisted (and they mentioned but kind of skimmed past “neither can black men”); what did they spend on that Red Tornado costume, fifteen dollars, maybe sixteen; why is Justice League stalwart Red Tornado a villain at all, shouldn’t he have become good after becoming self-aware; killing Red Tornado and his creator was a waste not only of Red Tornado but of T.O. Morrow, one of DC’s bigger and better mad scientists, and that’s saying something since DC has enough mad scientists that they once formed their own sovereign country

Tips for next season: Well, this one’s hard. Their budget’s getting slashed, so it may be enough of a challenge to keep up what they’ve been doing thus far. We’ll probably get less CG, maybe less Cat, and it may be a challenge finding external locations that look like the California desert hillsides that define the outskirts of National City. Kelowna, maybe. The important thing is to maintain and build on the things you’ve done well that don’t cost megabucks to pull off. Flash and Legends of Tomorrow do okay effects-wise on a CW budget, so can Supergirl. And how excited am I at the possibility of Winn meeting Cisco and Felicity? And Superman’s making a proper appearance? Interesting.

2. iZombie

Izombie

Premise: Promising doctor-turned-zombie Liv Moore works with Seattle PD detective Clive Babineaux to solve murders, by using the visions she gains eating the victims’ brains to feign psychic abilities. Meanwhile, her boss/friend Ravi Chakrabarti finds that even if he can recreate his cure for zombiism, it has unfortunate side effects.

iZombie came back for second season firing on all cylinders. They cut some plotlines that weren’t working (Liv’s family), gave Major a much better story now that’s he’s learned the truth about Liv, Blaine’s way more fun this year now that he’s not the big villain, the big villains they do have are great… sure it’s still a crime procedural based around psychic visions caused through zombie brain consumption, but all in all, iZombie remains thoroughly delightful.

Strengths: With improved stories for Major, the cast doesn’t really have a weak link. We dive deeper into the Seattle zombie population that Blaine created in season one, and the issues Blaine’s having keeping them happy, and how that’s complicated by Vaughn du Clark trying to wipe them out. Personal relationships are allowed to grow and evolve. Really, just about everything works.

Weaknesses: If murder-of-the-week crime procedurals aren’t your thing you might struggle a little with this one.

High point: Max Wager, in which Mr. Boss makes his debut, or Abra Cadaver, in which Liv eats magician brains and it’s the best day for Ravi, but it’s probably Dead Beat/Salvation Army, the two-part finale in which the launch of Max Rager’s newest drink threatens to become a full-blown zombie apocalypse, while Ravi and Blaine must join forces against Boss’ men. And Liv discovers a new player that promises to make season three a whole new thing.

Low point: The Hurt Stalker. Liv eats Stalker brains, and subsequently destroys her life. By the next episode, even Ravi’s desperate to move on from that brain.

Tips for next season: So… that thing that happened in the last few minutes? Let’s just see how that goes.

1. Jessica Jones

Ritter

Premise: Super-powered private detective Jessica Jones fights to expose and defeat Kilgrave, the mind-controlling psychopath who once kept her prisoner for weeks on end, out of a twisted sense of love.

Sometimes “bright,” “hopeful,” and “comic-booky” aren’t what you need. Sometimes you want to go the other direction. And if that’s the case, Jessica Jones has you covered. It’s dark, it presents an unlikeable heroine facing a villain that makes your skin crawl, it has streaks of nihilism… it’s also pretty brilliant.

Strengths: The whole cast is top-notch. The series is incredibly bingeable. They never pretend that all of Jessica’s problems have one source or an easy solution. Kilgrave has more depth than most Marvel villains put together. A great introduction to Luke Cage. Best exchange of origin stories ever: “Accident. You?” “Experiment.”

Weaknesses: Agents of SHIELD struggles to be connected to the MCU. Daredevil doesn’t bother much. Jessica Jones seems actively embarrassed to be part of it. When the Avengers are mentioned it’s never by name, merely as “the green guy” and “the flag-waver.” That’s worse than the Supergirl pilot, which seemed full-on allergic to saying “Superman” out loud. Plus I still don’t see Stark/Avengers Tower in the New York skyline, and the whole plot hinges on needing to prove that mind control isn’t impossible in a city where an actual alien invasion was fought off in part by the literal Norse god of thunder. That’s a lot of time I just spent explaining what is, I admit, a minor quibble re: larger franchise continuity. If you don’t care about that, then I’ve got nothing.

High point: AKA WWJD? Jessica and Kilgrave play house as Kilgrave attempts to win over Jessica, and Jessica wonders if she can find a way to redeem the irredeemable. Along the way, they have it out over what, exactly, their past relationship truly was.

Low point: AKA 99 Friends. It’s not bad, per se, but it’s a filler episode, it does end on an awkwardly shot action beat (really more of a tantrum), and you know his name is Captain America, Jessica. “The flag-waver.” Swear to god, if I rewatch this show and catch her namedropping reality TV stars…

Tips for next season: Maybe try mini-arcs, like Daredevil did. Stretching one plotline over 13 episodes can get exhausting. Well, I imagine it might. For people who somehow don’t watch the entire season in two sittings. Whoever they are. Just avoid Daredevil’s mistake and don’t make the last mini-arc poorly-lit garbage.

And that’s the list. Thanks for joining me, those who did, and feel free to leave comments claiming I’m a fool for under/over-valuing something. I’ll just be over here, sulking about having to wait a week for another taste of Preacher.

Comic TV 2016 Part Three: Beginning the wrap-up

I would do another Beyond the Capes section but there’s a lot to cover already and it mostly just would’ve been about Limitless. I liked Limitless and there aren’t a lot of venues to talk about it. But anyway… let’s begin the rankings.

11. Gotham

Gotham

I just… I can’t. I hit a point back in October where I just couldn’t be bothered. Limitless is canceled but this one just keeps going… how is that justice…

10. Lucifer

Lucifer2016 TV seriesSeason 1Series 1handout ...

Premise: Lucifer Morningstar, having abandoned his post in Hell, helps LAPD detective Chloe Decker solve murders (to her chagrin) while angel Amenadiel tries to get him back to Hell.

I only read one issue of the comic this is based on, but I don’t think there’s any way to hear “A spinoff of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman is reimagined as a Castle knock-off” and not think it’s a terrible idea. And yet… there is something there. Most of the appeal is in Tom Ellis’ performance, but there’s a cleverness to the writing at times, and Lucifer’s relationship with his sterner brother Amenadiel is entertaining. Especially in the last two episodes.

Strengths: Tom Ellis. The mysteries-of-the-week aren’t 100% predictable. Lucifer and Amenadiel’s weird sibling rivalry.

Weaknesses: One more time for the kids in the bleachers… it is a knock-off of Castle in which the Devil helps the LAPD solve crimes. Nothing I say can change that.

High Point: #TeamLucifer/Take Me Back to Hell. The two-part finale blows the doors off. Finally, the Amenadiel/Lucifer fight and buddy cop movie we deserved. And a potentially interesting (possibly terrible) twist for next year.

Low Point: Manly Whatnots. Lucifer decides the best way to get over his fascination with his partner Chloe Decker is to double his efforts to bang her. It gets uncomfortable and embraces the weaker aspects of Lucifer’s character.

Tips for next season: More mythology. And less running in circles where “Why does Lucifer’s invulnerability wear off when Chloe’s around.” Also, could one of the human characters figure out he’s not just pretending to be the Devil? Just one? That has to happen eventually, doesn’t it?

9. Agent Carter

agent-carterd

Premise: Peggy Carter transfers to the LA branch of the Strategic Scientific Reserve to investigate a new case… one her superiors don’t want her investigating.

I get that this is still an important show to a lot of people. Agent Carter was proudly feminist and examined the institutional sexism of a period of time conservatives love to call a golden age. But none of that changes the fact that the show lost a few steps this year. The “woman in a man’s world” angle got moved to the villain, so that “woman succeeding in a male-driven group” becomes something to root against. More problematic? “Peggy Carter goes rogue from the SSR because, as a woman, they don’t take her seriously” worked like gangbusters. “Peggy Carter goes rogue from the SSR because they’re being manipulated by the Arena Club (what Agents of SHIELD viewers recognize as a branch of Hydra)” is a lesser copy of that. And it weakens Carter as a character, because if she already lived through the SSR being manipulated by the Arena Club (Hydra’s most successful branch, they seem to already run the US), how on Earth did she miss SHIELD being infiltrated by Hydra Proper? But we know she did. We saw Winter Soldier. Also… it’s a little odd that after a season based around establishing Peggy’s worth beyond being Captain America’s girlfriend, so much of this season revolved around her love life.

Strengths: Peggy’s relationship with Edwin Jarvis. Their oh-so-British banter remained wonderful. The newly revealed and delightful Ana Jarvis. The continued employment of Enver Gjokaj. Chief Thompson’s turn back to the light in the final episodes.

Weaknesses: The Arena Club. Never managing to call Whitney Frost “Madame Masque.” Having ratings that low but still ending on a cliffhanger. Forcing a female lead into a romantic triangle. Spending one whole episode on race relations in the 50s then forgetting about it.

High Point: The Atomic Job. For one episode, Agent Carter became a comic heist flick.

Low Point: A Little Song and Dance. Despite a fun opening musical number, this episode ends with Peggy Carter becoming an “acting tough” version of the simpering girlfriend. Shortly after chastising her ally/would-be suitor Agent Sousa for letting his feelings for her compromise a mission, she allows her feelings for scientist Jason Wilkes to compromise an even more vital mission, risking basically the whole world to protect a man who asked her to let him die. She is not shown the irony.

Tips for next season: At the time of writing there is no next season, but we live in an era of unexpected revivals, the fan campaign to save it is passionate, and frankly, Agent Carter always belonged on Netflix anyway. Short seasons, one plotline, it’s a better fit there than on broadcast. So if the miracle comes… don’t waste it. Found SHIELD. Get it done. You can’t blow this on a third “Peggy Carter goes rogue from the SSR” plot. Two was clearly too many. Imagine a season arc where Peggy reassembles the team from the now-disbanded SSR to solve the cliffhanger from season two, and in the process they become SHIELD. Now that would work.

8. Legends of Tomorrow

legendsheader

Premise: Rogue Time Master Rip Hunter unites a team of heroes and villains to bring down immortal villain Vandal Savage before he can conquer the world… and kill Rip’s wife and son.

I’ll admit… this one took some time to find its groove. But it was a team adventure featuring some of the best recurring characters of Flash and Arrow, featuring Arthur Darville as a time traveler and Victor Garber as… don’t even care. Love him in everything. That said, Vandal Savage (one of DC’s upper B-list villains who they blended with uninspiring 2000s era Hawkman/Hawkgirl villain Hath-Set) never really clicked as a great villain. And not all of the cast are on Victor Garber’s level. But in the back half, the show really took off. And they managed some impressive twists.

Strengths: Everything/anything Captain Cold. Arthur Darville and Victor Garber. Jonah Hex. The final arc. Wentworth Miller managing to out-badass James Spader with the line “There are no strings on me.”

Weaknesses: Reddit made a running gag out of how often Ray Palmer screwed up. Their habitual abuse of the timeline. Vandal Savage being a lovelorn Egyptian rather than a conquest-hungry caveman. Kendra/Hawkgirl and her frequent reminders of having just been a barista.

High Point: Destiny/Legendary. Legends wraps strong with a strike against the Time Masters, an impressive fight against Savage (in three time periods at once), and a name-drop that has me at the very least excited for another round.

Tips for next season: The last two minutes have my attention. Don’t screw it up. Also maybe make the next female Legend a little stronger than Hawkgirl ended up being.

7. Agents of SHIELD

agents_of_shield_season_3-1920x1200

Premise: The Agents of SHIELD work with (sometimes against) the government to deal with the rising number of Inhumans caused by a leak of Terrigen, while a branch of Hydra schemes to bring back the One Inhuman to Rule Them All from his exile on a distant planet.

Agents of SHIELD still has two problems. They still burn through plot a little too fast, especially right before the fall finale. A lot of interesting stories got wrapped up in manners too fast and unsatisfying in order to clear the deck before the hiatus. But that’s still better than season one, in which they waited for 16 episodes to even have an interesting plot. Second… they still try to connect themselves to the movies when the movies don’t care about them. They’ve had four movie tie-in episodes in three years and only one of them is good.

Strengths: After three seasons and five radical changes to his character, they finally made a decent villain out of Grant Ward, even if it did involve killing him first. Fitz and Simmons coming together was adorable. Their fight scenes remain impressive.

Weaknesses: Apparently nobody told them that the Civil War movie wasn’t about registering powered people. Guess they wrote their tie-in based on the comics. Like I said, they tossed out too many interesting plots at the fall break. The much-ballyhooed Secret Warriors we’d been promised since the end of season two took forever to show up and were seriously underwhelming. Lincoln the electric Inhuman was never interesting as a character, although they found a way to make his powers interesting to watch in the end. They wrote out two of their best characters way too early for a spinoff that didn’t happen. Although, that said… their cast did need some pruning.

High Point: 4,722 Hours. The show breaks from their format to tell us about how Simmons stayed alive on a hostile planet for… well, it’s right there in the name.

Low Point: Emancipation. The aforementioned Civil War tie-in episode written by people who clearly weren’t shown the Civil War script, ending in a fight between Inhuman heavyweights Hive and Lash that should have been epic but was ultimately disappointing.

Tips for next season: The movie division doesn’t care about you, so stop caring about them. You likely can’t tie-in to Guardians of the Galaxy, so don’t bother trying to tie-in to Dr. Strange. Do like the DCWverse, find a branch of Marvel Kevin Feige doesn’t want (he is still hoarding all the big name Inhumans), and go to town. And do the right thing… bring back Bobbi and Hunter.

6. Arrow

arrow-season-4-poster_0

Premise: After giving up life as the Arrow, Oliver Queen finds himself drawn back to Starling City (now renamed Star City) to join again with his old team behind a new name: the Green Arrow. Just in time to try and prevent magic-powered Damien Darhk and his friends in HIVE from destroying what’s left of the city.

Arrow’s fourth season had its highs and lows. Was it as good as second season? No. Was it still an improvement on season three? Yes. Could they have toned down the Oliver/Felicity drama? Sure. Was it as bad as the malcontents in the Arrow subreddit claim? No. Is anything as bad as that toxic wad of Felicity-hating shitposters claims? No. Screw those guys. There are no actual Arrow fans on r/arrow anymore. The show managed to bounce back from a muddled and emo third season with a more focused (eventually) villain plot, better use of most of its cast, and while Curtis Holt is not quite Ray Palmer (and may never be Mr. Terrific, who by the way is named Michael Holt, why do they do that), he was a solid addition to the cast.

Strengths: Damien Darhk. Curtis. The fight sequences. Oliver beginning to work his head out of his own ass. Finally making good use of Thea as a character. Managing to still have an impact with their fourth major death in four years. And of course, John Constantine.

Weaknesses: While I stand by my dismissal of r/arrow and those who lurk there… I will admit that the Oliver/Felicity drama became a little much this year. Also, the flashbacks are beginning to struggle for relevance. Isn’t a little weird that everything that happens to Oliver in the present mirrors something that happened to him precisely five years ago? And a non-trivial portion of their run-time up until the fall finale was gobbled up in prepping characters for Legends of Tomorrow. But then, the main villain plot never really comes into focus until the fall finale. Hell, we spent the first nine episodes of season two thinking Brother Blood was the main villain…

High point: Haunted. John Constantine fit right into the ensemble. More of that, please.

Low point: Broken Hearts. “Olicity” drama hits its peak as they fake a wedding to lure out a villain targeting happy couples. I’m pretty sure Lois and Clark did this plot better back in the 90s, and that is not something I want to say again.

Tips for next season: Pick a side, people. Oliver and Felicity are together or they’re not. Make a choice, stick to it, and find your drama somewhere other than Felicity’s issues with Oliver’s secrets. Also, consider it a red flag when your episode summaries open with “Felicity and friends,” not “Oliver and the team.” And maybe we can wrap up the flashbacks? I feel you trying to stretch out Oliver’s five years in Hell/on the island beyond five seasons’ worth of flashbacks, and I ask you to reconsider. And please, please, please… we need to see Diggle react to Supergirl, given that he still hasn’t wrapped his head around the Flash.

Soon… a look at the top five.

Comic TV 2016 Part 2: Blood, Words, and Tears

And we continue. We’ve talked about the best characters, now let’s look at who did the best things with said characters.

That was kind of a thin intro. But let’s face it, these get long. Enough jibber-jabber! Somebody hit something!

Best fight!

Thankfully, we are well past the days of spending an entire season building up a fight between Clark Kent and Doomsday only to have it last thirty seconds and involve Clark tackling Doomsday into a hole offscreen. Even effects-heavy shows like Flash and Supergirl know they need decent fight choreo. Which means this isn’t an easy call to make. But I’m gonna give it a whirl anyway.

(Honourable mention: Hive vs. Daisy in Agents of SHIELD for the blend of fight and power use, the one thing I said they were missing last year)

Bronze: Team Waverider vs Vandal Savage, Legends of Tomorrow, “Legendary”

After a full(ish) season of trying and failing to defeat world-conquerer Vandal Savage, the crew of the Waverider finally have a shot at taking him out: which involves fighting him in three different time periods at once.

For a certain definition of “at once.” Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, speedforce, it just works, okay?

(Obviously it’s a little spoilery, it’s the climax of the entire season.)

Silver: Team Arrow vs. the Ghosts, Arrow, “Brotherhood”

Whatever faults Arrow may or may not have had in its fourth season, they still surely know how to put together an action scene. In season four, Green Arrow and his team have been battling Damien Darhk and his mercenaries, known as the Ghosts. One of those limitless armies of faceless minions I’m often complaining about. But one of them turned out to be less faceless than the others, and Team Arrow hits one of their strongholds in order to extract him. Single-take fights, a single-take fight involving a moving elevator, some of the badder-assed moments for Speedy and the Black Canary, and even the Atom gets in on the fun. Hell of a fight.

Gold: Daredevil vs. an entire biker gang, Daredevil, “New York’s Finest”

Look, everything about the third episode of Daredevil’s second season is pretty great. “New York’s Finest” is Daredevil at its best. In the end, Punisher kicks a hornets’ nest full of angry bikers (no, your metaphor is strained!), and Daredevil is forced to fight his way through them after they threaten the building’s super. It’s the season two answer to season one’s infamous hallway fight. It may not actually be a single take like its predecessor, but it makes up for it by being extra badass. And one of the few season two fight scenes that’s properly lit. Enjoy!

Biggest heartbreak!

You’d think it’d be enough to have people in costumes with powers fight each other in awesome ways. But it is not. They also go and create lovable characters, make you feel for them, and then hurt them in terrible ways. Here’s what I’d call the most heartbreaking examples.

There are some mild spoilers. I mean I’ll do my best but they’re gonna happen. Skip to the next section if you’d rather.

Bronze: A Spy’s Goodbye, Agents of SHIELD, “Parting Shot”

At the beginning of season two, we were introduced to freelancer Lance Hunter and undercover operative Bobbi Morse, known to comics fans as Mockingbird. At first, I wasn’t sure why we were bothering with Hunter (Adrienne Palicki as Bobbi made perfect sense). But before long, ex-spouse spies Hunter and Bobbi became two of the show’s strongest characters.

Halfway through season three, a mission to stop the villainous Gideon Malick from extending Hydra/Hive influence into Russia through a coup d’etat goes wrong, when the general Malick is appealing to turns out to be an Inhuman capable of creating a shadow-self to kill people. In order to save Hunter from the shadow, Bobbi does the only thing she can… she kills the general in front of a half-dozen Russian troops. Leading to her and Hunter’s arrest. Coulson does his best to get them out of custody, but to protect SHIELD, they volunteer to be disavowed, cut off from the agency forever.

At the episode’s end, Bobbi and Hunter try to figure out their next move at a bar, when several shots are delivered to them, one at a time, from the rest of the team. They can’t say anything to Bobbi or Hunter, or have any contact whatsoever, lest the Russians get wind of it and re-connect them to American spy agencies, so they give Bobbi and Hunter “A spy’s goodbye.” A final drink (a parting shot, if you will, hence the episode title) and a silent farewell from each team member in turn, ending with Bobbi and Hunter’s oldest friend, gentle giant Mac, tears brimming in his eyes. His probable last goodbye to the people he’s closest with, and he can’t even say anything due to who could be listening. It’s pretty sad, and made all the sadder by the fact that it turns out they won’t be sailing into their own spinoff this fall.

Silver: Alex confesses, Supergirl, “Solitude”

Alex Danvers was forced to do a bad, bad thing, one she knew that Kara wouldn’t be happy about. To save Alex from Kara’s reaction, her boss Hank Henshaw, director of the DEO, takes the blame. This strains Kara/Supergirl’s working relationship with the DEO in general and Hank in specific, and keeping the secret takes a toll on Alex. Eventually, the toll becomes too much, and even as Kara is begrudgingly agreeing to work with Hank again, Alex breaks. Her voice shaking, she tells Kara exactly what happened, then begins to break down as she admits that she let Hank take the fall because she was afraid of losing her sister.

Kara almost walks out, but love overtakes anger, and she gives a comforting hug to Alex, who then truly breaks down. And when Hank tries to leave, Kara shoots an arm out, stopping him, and taking his hand in a silent moment of… thanks? Apology? Or maybe just respect and acknowledgement. It’s a touching moment only slightly undermined by the fact that in the final wide shot, it looks like Hank really doesn’t want to be there.

Gold: The Big Death, Arrow, [episode redacted]

Right from the end of the season premiere, Arrow was warning us that someone was gonna die this year. Someone major. And when it finally comes, towards the end of the season… they made us feel it. Arrow’s known for big deaths, having offed a major character once per year, but between the character’s final moments and the rest of the cast’s reactions, this one hurt. It hurt a lot. And kept hurting for a while, as the aftershocks hit Flash and Legends of Tomorrow.

That’s really all I can/should say.

Worst recurring tropes!

Taking a break from “Best of” for a second, before I get into “best storyline,” because there have been a few recurring story tropes that are starting to bug me. Not my usual go-to trope complaint, Infinite Respawn, it’s really only Damien Darhk that manages a seemingly infinite army of faceless but expendable soldiers. No, there’s some other things.

Bronze: Abandoned plot points

Now, I’m not talking about plot twists here. Those I’m fine with. They keep things interesting. No, this is something else. I’m talking about episodes that open the door for a potentially interesting storyline, but then the writers just say “Nah, fam,” and keep walking. The plot isn’t twisted, it’s just dropped completely. And it happened more than I’d like.

Prime offenders:

  • The Flash: Two characters are given a clear Origin Moment, but as of the finale, the show has actively rejected the notion that they have powers. Look, if you didn’t want her to be Jesse Quick, you didn’t have to keep calling her that.
  • Agents of SHIELD: Simmons is placed in an awkward position: before she’d been swept away to a far-off planet, she and her lifetime friend Fitz had been planning their first date. But on said planet, things very much heated up between her and Will, the handsome astronaut who helped her stay alive. Fitz vows to save Will… but if he does, who will she choose? Well, don’t worry about it. Will’s dead and Fitz gets to have the catharsis of burning the thing that’s wearing his corpse. Simmons doesn’t have to make choices at all.
  • Also, Coulson’s romance with the head of a rival agency sure ended in a goddamn rush but we’ll get back to that.

Silver: “It’s a trap! But what choice do we have?”

Here’s the scenario. The villain has abducted someone close to the hero. They make their demand. Everyone, literally everyoneespecially us in the audience, senses that this is a) a trap, and b) a terrible idea. But the hero tearfully asks what choice they have, and walks right into the goddamn trap. I mean, at least try. At least try, even a little bit, to outsmart the villain. You know they’re going to betray you, and it’s never a desperate person pulling their last job before retiring, it’s always someone truly dangerous, and you’re just, what, falling for it. You couldn’t make a token effort to betray them first?

Prime offenders:

  • The Flash again: Zoom threatens to kill someone close to Barry’s adoptive dad if Barry doesn’t give Zoom his speed. But, see, Barry… if you do give Zoom your speed, he’s going to use it to kill or torments thousands… no, millions of people that you know about, and you won’t be able to stop him. And Barry does it. Zoom even gave up his hostage first! You didn’t even try to double-cross him, and it got a dozen CCPD officers killed and led to the season’s low point.
  • Lucifer: When the season’s only true recurring villain, a corrupt cop saved from Hell to target Lucifer, kidnaps Detective Chloe Decker’s daughter, she’s determined to do whatever he wants. Even though Lucifer makes clear what we all know… he’ll kill them both anyway. There is no way in which Chloe goes alone and walks out alive, but she refuses to even try to think her way out of it. Fortunately, Lucifer ignores her wants and shows up anyway. Unfortunately, since Chloe’s there, he’s not bulletproof, which causes some issues.
  • Arrow: Damien Darhk kidnaps someone close to Oliver to make him drop out of the mayoral race. To his credit, Oliver at least tries to mount a rescue. Sadly, they blow it, Oliver caves, and a supervillain becomes mayor. But at least he tried.

Gold: Women in refrigerators

Named for the time rookie Green Lantern Kyle Rayner came home to find his girlfriend had been murdered and shoved into the fridge, “Women in refrigerators” refers to the unfortunate trope of female characters being killed to service the plotline of a male character. Superman turns evil because Lois Lane was killed, Vesper dying helps shape James Bond into the man he becomes, that sort of thing. We had a few this year. More than I’d prefer.

Obviously spoilers.

Prime offenders:

  • Agents of SHIELD: RIP Rosalind Price, head of SHIELD’s rival agency the ATCU, whose relationship with Director Coulson went from adversarial to adversarial yet flirtatious to authentically flirtatious to blossoming into a kind of adorable over-40 power couple, which is not something network television embraces often… and then it’s over because she’s dead so that Coulson has the necessary motivation to kill traitor Grant Ward. Because agent Hunter being determined to murder Ward at any cost wasn’t sufficient.
  • Agent Carter: Yes, feminist-loved Agent Carter went to the “Women in refrigerators” place. And not a gender-swapped version, because sorry, MRA crowd, “Men in refrigerators” isn’t a thing since it lacks decades upon decades of gender marginalization to back it up. No, Agent Carter did something else… Ana Jarvis, adorable and supportive wife to Peggy’s partner-in-crime Edwin Jarvis, is shot to cover villainous Whitney Frost’s escape. She lives, but we learn her injuries left her unable to have children. We never see her reaction to this news. Only her husband’s. Ana Jarvis’ potentially life-changing sterilization is a story about how it affects Edwin. We sort of expect better than that from Agent Carter.
  • Arrow: No, not what happened to Felicity. Her story is far too dominant in the back half, sometimes eclipsing Oliver’s, to count for this trope. In fact, this one’s kind of fudging the rules… see, they didn’t kill Argus boss and Suicide Squad engineer Amanda Waller to advance Oliver’s storyline. No, they abruptly killed off Amanda Waller for a far stupider reason: because the Suicide Squad movie’s coming up, and DC Films doesn’t like to share. Weak. Sauce.
  • Legends of Tomorrow: I guess since I’m on this subject, the entire plotline is about Rip Hunter’s wife and child being killed, causing him to go rogue from the Time Masters and do everything he does in the first season. So, you know… there that is.

Enough of that. What did storytellers do right this year?

Best Storyline!

It’s kind of all there in the header. So let’s make this quick.

Bronze: Smile, Jessica Jones

While Daredevil broke its second season into multiple story beats, Jessica Jones was still doing the binge-friendly approach of one story spread over 13 episodes. The entire season, save for one filler episode near the start, is Jessica vs. Kilgrave. And sure it drags in places around the middle, but overall, it works.

Silver: The Secret History of Hank Henshaw, Supergirl

When I heard that the head of the Department of Extranormal Operations on Supergirl would be named Hank Henshaw, I was pretty sure I knew where this was going. You may or may not have noticed from all of the everything, but I’m a long-term DC aficionado. You say Ronnie Raymond, I brace for Firestorm. You say the new barista’s named Kendra Saunders, I know to expect wings and a mace. They said Hank Henshaw, and I thought I knew where we were going. I was wrong. The Berlanti And Friends Cape-based Action Fun Factory hoodwinked me, the way they like to do. And instead of what I expected, they did something pretty great.

Gold: Rise of the Punisher, Daredevil

Simply put, the best story on comic book TV, maybe on TV in general, of last year. Daredevil made some mistakes this year, but everything involving Frank Castle worked like gangbusters. Not much else needs to be said.

Next time, the rankings begin.

Comic TV 2016, part one: Characters!

With last night’s season finale of Arrow, I can now call what I believe to be the biggest season for comic book TV in history closed. Which means it’s time once again to rank the superhero/comic book shows, and take a look at who did what best.

Because it’s my blog and I do what I want.

(Gonna drop “Worst,” though, that’s less fun.)

We lost one show from last year, as Constantine went from leading his own show to only having a guest spot on Arrow (with hopefully more to come, said basically the entire internet), but gained three more as Supergirl, Jessica Jones, and the Legends of Tomorrow hit the small screen. Also, this year I’m dropping “beyond the capes” and just inviting Vertigo to the party, so we’ll throw in the improbably successful Lucifer and the sophomore season of iZombie.

(Sorry, no Walking Dead… still haven’t watched it since 2011.)

(And no Preacher. The pilot just aired, they can play next year.)

(Also I will NOT call them “Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD” or “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” I hate that trend, we know you’re from Marvel/DC already, there’s a better way to announce that.)

Let’s start by looking at the best characters.

Best Male Lead

This should be a harder category to judge, given how dude-heavy the superhero market is. And yet, a few male leads fell short, often through finding themselves under-written rather than a fault in the actor. These are the three who, through a blend of solid writing and great performances, pulled ahead of a crowded pack.

Bronze: Tom Ellis as Lucifer Morningstar, Lucifer (a-doy)

Lucifer 2016 TV series Season 1 Series 1 handout ...

Lucifer, a series about the Devil himself living in LA and helping the police solve murders, should be awful. And yet it isn’t, thanks largely to Tom Ellis in the lead role.

There’s an undeniable charm to his take on Lucifer, and the amount of fun he’s clearly having in the role is infectious. Okay, yes, in large doses, his amused surprise voice and general lustiness can get… samey, but he still kept me coming back for an entire season of, and really listen to how ridiculous this sounds, a Castle knock-off in which the Devil helps the LAPD solve murders.

The ridiculousness of the premise bears repeating. And yet thanks to its lead, the show works. If that’s not a testament to Ellis’ skills and the writing of his character, I don’t know what is.

Silver: Grant Gustin as Barry Allen, The Flash

Grant

I’m surprised he slipped a spot too. It’s not Grant Gustin’s fault, Grant is still the best in the biz in many ways. Still funny and heartbreaking. Grant/Barry helped deliver two of the best episodes of other series just through dropping by to lend a hand. But in the back end of the season, Barry Allen just made so. Many. Bad. Choices. Yes, I get it, EVERY character makes bad choices, it creates drama, but it just got overwhelming. Starting in episode 10, it may as well have been called “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Barry Allen.”

I don’t like being that angry at Barry so often. But when he wasn’t screwing up royal, he was still the most noble, most dependable, most lovable hero in a uniform. Sorry, no… in a costume.

Gold: Clark Gregg as Director Phil Coulson, Agents of SHIELD

Coulson

It’s like all of a sudden the writers of Agents of SHIELD remembered what an asset they have in Clark Gregg. Freed of the endless and slow-moving Tahiti/resurrection/space madness plot that dominated the first season and a half, they actually started finding more emotional and engaging things for Coulson to do. From his rivalry/flirtation with ATCU head Rosalind Price, to his unnervingly calm determination to end traitorous ex-agent Grant Ward, to how haunted he was by succeeding in it, to his awkward mismatched-buddy cop partnership with former nemesis General Talbot, Coulson had a lot of great levels and moments this year. And without all of that “Why is he alive” and “What is he hiding from the team” malarkey, he really came into focus as a leader.

This was the most fun Coulson’s been to watch since The Avengers, and it made this the season I remembered why I was glad he didn’t stay dead.

Best Female Lead

What a difference a year makes. From having so few female leads on TV that I had to stretch the definition just to have the category, to having enough that last year’s winners got knocked clean off the podium. Here are comic book TV’s top ladies.

Bronze: Rose McIver as Liv Moore (GET IT?), iZombie

Rose

Frankly last year I did “Beyond the capes” because I wanted to rave about Rose McIver’s performance on iZombie. When zombies on iZombie eat a brain, they take on aspects of the former owner’s personality. Which means every week we meet a new twist on Liv Moore: eternal optimist, magician, fighty stripper, caped superhero, and somehow they all stay Liv at their core. This year Liv found love, lost love, and lost hope as a promised cure to zombieism began to fail, and along the way Rose McIver will make you laugh and make your heart bleed for the pale mortician with a hunger for brains.

Silver: Melissa Benoist as Kara Danvers/Zor-El, Supergirl

benoist

Supergirl was a breath of fresh air for people tired of the darker tone of DC’s movies. Or, indeed, some of their TV. She’s bright, smiling, hopeful, colourful, and at the heart of the character is a ridiculously adorable performance from Melissa Benoist. When she smiles, you smile, and when she cries, you cry. It’s a knockout performance as a lovable character that could only be surpassed by, as it turns out, one thing…

Gold: Kristen Ritter as Jessica Jones, Jessica Jones (I reiterate… a-doy)

Ritter

…a knockout performance as a wonderfully UNlovable character that you end up liking all the same. Jessica Jones is hard-drinking, angry, confrontational, violent, and wonderful to watch. She is a great example of what someone more knowledgeable than me on feminist lead characters discussed in an article called “The Importance of the Unlikable Heroine.” For those who didn’t read, a) for shame, b) she talks about how female characters, unlike their male counterparts, are forced into boxes of likeable, ladylike behaviour. I could go on, but this would get long and stop being about Jessica, so… like her or not, you rooted for her. She was compelling to watch, and the first hero of any gender to turn surviving sexual assault into a super power.

There’s room on TV for Supergirl and Jessica Jones, but if forced to pick (and I guess technically I wasn’t but here we are anyway), Jessica has the edge. If only for how she nailed her line when accused of being paranoid… “Everyone keeps saying that. It’s like a conspiracy.” Black Widow wishes she did that well with the same set-up.

Best Male Supporting Character

There are too many great supporting characters on TV to limit them to just one category this year. Most of these shows are made by their ensembles. Flash wouldn’t be Flash without the geeky enthusiasm and wit of Cisco, Arrow finally clicked in its first season when Oliver partnered with Diggle, Karen Page remains the beating heart of Daredevil… It’ll be hard enough just to pick out three of each gender. But let’s give it a try, starting with the dudes.

Bronze: Rahul Kohli as Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti, iZombie

Ravi

As strong a lead as Rose McIver is, the heart and soul of iZombie is her partner/boss and confidant, Ravi Chakrabarti. Ravi provides backup at the morgue, searches tirelessly for a cure to zombieism, and is a best friend to Liv’s ex-fiance Major Lillywhite (yeah, I know, this show does like to be blunt with the naming). He’s also charming and effortlessly funny, such as when a barista tells him a quote is from Ghandi, and he points to himself saying “Clearly I know who Ghandi is. I’m British. He stole the crown jewel of our empire!” And he managed to sum up me watching any episode of Hannibal… after Liv whipped up that week’s brain-based meal, he leaned over her shoulder and let out a whimper of “God help me but that looks delicious…” And hey, a positive and non-stereotypical role for an Indian. And Aziz Ansari didn’t even have to write it himself.

Silver: Wentworth Miller as Leonard Snart, Flash/Legends of Tomorrow

Captain_Cold

Last year, Captain Cold had knocked it out of the park as the Flash’s second best villain (not entirely fair, he had four episodes to Reverse Flash’s entire season). Not only a delight to watch, he posed an actual challenge to the Flash, beating him three out of four times they crossed paths. So it’s no surprise he made the list of “great recurring characters we want to have their own show” that is the cast of Legends of Tomorrow. What I wouldn’t have necessarily guessed, given that his team includes Brandon Routh’s Ray Palmer, Victor Garber’s Martin Stein, and Arthur Darville back in a time machine, is that he’d become the show’s MVP. Just the right level of camp, and one of the best character arcs, as Snart goes from being out to steal across history to becoming a true believer in the mission… while his long-time partner Heat Wave did not, leading to a difficult choice. As much as I’d love to see Captain Cold back in Central City leading the Rogues, I’d be sad to see him leave the Waverider. But as it turns out, next year he’ll be doing both. Or neither. It’s really uncertain right now. I just know he’ll be around somehow.

Gold: Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, Daredevil

Castle

In one of the best scenes of Daredevil’s second season, in fact, of superhero TV this year, the main character just sits quietly for like five minutes while someone else gives a monologue. That’s all it took to deliver an amazing scene. Because that’s how good the Punisher was.

Jon Bernthal’s magnetic performance as Frank Castle was the single best thing about Daredevil’s second season. Frankly (sorry, that was an accident) it was one of the best things on TV this season. Daredevil had some faults this year, no getting around it, but the rise of the Punisher wasn’t one of them. No wonder he’s getting his own show, he basically stole this one out from under its lead.

Best Female Supporting Character

Remember that thing I said about ensembles? That again, only now we’re talking about women.

Bronze: Chloe Bennet as Daisy Johnson, Agents of SHIELD

Skye

This wasn’t a sure thing until a few weeks ago. Daisy, formerly known as Skye, soon to be known by her comic alias of Quake, has always been a central figure to Agents of SHIELD, even in the beginning when she wasn’t quite up to it. But season three wasn’t just when they figured out how to use Coulson. Daisy/Chloe finally found her niche, became a badass, and as the resident Inhuman in SHIELD, the voice of her people. But it was the final episodes of the season where she really shone. After having her mind influenced by would-be Inhuman messiah Hive, Daisy finds the belonging she’s always craved… but when her mind is freed, all she’s left with is a horrible slurry of PTSD, withdrawal, guilt for her actions, and crushing grief. And when she finds out she can never get that belonging back… powerful, powerful rage. And Chloe Bennet just nailed it, leading to an amazing fight scene blending some of the show’s better choreo and Daisy’s powers.

Silver: Chyler Leigh as Alex Danvers, Supergirl

Chyler

Kara may rely on her friends to help with her crime fighting, but the one person she counts on above all is her adoptive sister Alex. The love these two sisters-by-choice have powers the show more than any other relationship. Also, Alex kicks a certain amount of ass. And I’ve been a fan of Chyler Leigh’s since she and Captain America made fun of teen movies back in 2001.

Gold: Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker, “Jessica Jones”

Patsy

Speaking of sisters-by-choice… Jessica Jones makes every effort possible to shove everyone in her life away from her, but there’s one person who will not budge. Patricia “Trish” Walker, radio personality and former child star of “It’s Patsy,” stands by Jessica no matter what. One could argue that every positive impulse Jessica has is thanks to her friendship with Trish, who Rachael Taylor sells as a friend worth having, no matter what. And as a badass-in-progress. Even when trying to lure out Jessica’s mind-controlling nemesis almost gets her killed, Trish stays in the fight, and remains Jessica’s lifeline until the very end.

Best Villain

So, this is where I got some flak last year for naming Gotham’s Oswald Cobblepot and Agents of SHIELD’s Calvin Zabo instead of Vincent D’Onofrio’s excellent take on Wilson Fisk (Reverse Flash I stand behind). That’s on me, that’s my bad. Let’s see if I can do better this year. It’ll be a challenge, since this season saw a lot of great comic book villains hit the screen… Vandal Savage, Maxwell Lord, Killer Frost, Mr. Freeze… but these three stood out.

(Honourable mention to Agents of SHIELD’s Brett Dalton, who, as always, basically played two characters this year, both villains, one almost good enough for the podium. Six variations on Grant Ward in three seasons, at least three of them decent, that’s a little impressive.)

Bronze: Eddie Jemison as Stacy Boss/Steven Weber as Vaughn Du Clark, iZombie

Or vice versa

 

In season one, the big villain of iZombie was Blaine, formerly a low-level dealer of a drug called utopium, who infected Liv at the fateful boat party that began the zombie plague. But Blaine was too fun to kill off, and couldn’t be the main villain forever. So season two made Blaine a more necessary evil, and gave us larger roles for two of Seattle’s more nefarious businessmen. Each with their own connection to the cocktail that created zombies: a tainted batch of utopium combined with Max Rager energy drink.

Season one introduced Max Rager, its apparent connection to the zombie outbreak, and its possibly psychotic CEO, Vaughn Du Clark. In season two, Vaughn stepped up from simply pushing a product that caused outbursts of zombie-like rage in certain customers (and hiring an assassin to cover that up) to full-on supervillainy, running a secret lab studying zombies, all for the goal of successfully launching his new product Super Max, which was somewhere between Red Bull and Super Solider Serum. And he also lured one of Liv’s allies into hunting down Seattle’s zombie population to cover his tracks. Steven Weber is gleefully amoral in the role, relishing his devious acts, making Vaughn Du Clark one of those villains you love to hate.

And in this corner… season one dropped rumours and allegations about Blaine’s old employer, the kingpin of Seattle’s utopium trade, Mr. Boss (as I’ve said, they love their on-the-nose names). Season two had Liv’s best friend and Seattle ADA Peyton Charles begin putting together a case against Mr. Boss. Soon after, an unassuming man at a barber shop, played by Ocean’s 11’s Eddie Jemison, described a perfect murder that would send chills up your spine, and then later in the episode, strolled into Peyton’s office to update her board laying out Boss’ syndicate. And so did we meet Stacy Boss: mild-mannered accountant-slash-ruthless crime lord, past and future problem for Blaine’s brewing rival drug empire. Stacy Boss is a subtler, but no less dangerous evil than Vaughn, and in his own way is more monster than the zombies.

They’re both a delight, and add new layers of long-term villainy to what is still primarily a murder-of-the-week show.

Silver: Neal McDonough as Damien Darhk, Arrow

Damien_Darhk

Speaking of villains you love to hate.

Last year, Arrow got to use one of DC’s big guns as their Big Bad: Batman nemesis and leader of the League of Assassins, Ra’s Al Ghul. And they whiffed it a little. This year they went the opposite direction, a villain that even I couldn’t place when he was first name-dropped at the end of season three. I probably have every comic that Damien Darhk ever appeared in somewhere in my basement, but I still had to Google him.

And they nailed it.

The sheer glee Damien had in his sinister work radiated out of him. After three years of increasingly angry and/or angsty main villains on Arrow, to have a villain who so relished the role was a breath of fresh air. And more importantly, they had Neal McDonough. He owned every scene he appeared in, no matter which show. So much so that he caused problems for one of the other DCW series villains… comic book A-lister Vandal Savage’s debut in the Flash/Arrow crossover was completely overshadowed by a one-scene cameo by Damien Darhk. Early in the season, I would actually flinch a little when Damien turned up unexpectedly, because he managed to exude that level of grinning menace just by walking into a room.

Neal McDonough gave a masterful turn as a villain we loved to hate. What could be better? Well…

Gold: David Tennant as Kilgrave, Jessica Jones

Kilgrave

…A masterful turn as the villain we hate to love. The one who makes your skin crawl.

Oh man. Kilgrave. I knew, I knew from the second I heard who was cast, that Kilgrave would give us all the jibblies pretty hard. But I think I may have still underestimated it. David Tennant was horrifyingly spellbinding in the role. And how good was Kilgrave as a villain? He was able to create high stakes without putting the world at risk. Kilgrave didn’t want to destroy and/or rule the world, unlike the majority of this year’s Big Bads (six out of eleven, maybe seven, it’s hard to be sure with the Hand). He just wanted to make Jessica love him. But he was power without conscience, an immoral monster able to impose his will on anyone, and that was enough to make him a menace. Plus, thanks to a non-cheery Cracked article, I learned how incredibly effective he was as a powers-as-metaphor representation of abusive relationships and stalkers. Kilgrave rivals Wilson Fisk for Best Marvel Cinematic Universe villain ever, and he was head-and-shoulders above the pack on TV last year.

Next time… fights, stories, and tears.

Ranking the Best Pictures

Hello readers. I return, and apologize for my absence… although, one could argue that there is an amusing symmetry in going from writing about the adventures of Dominic Toretto’s Fast and Furious family to discussing the eight films that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has chosen to claim were the year’s best.

A claim that grows more dubious the more we look at their storied history of blown calls, and the entire genre of movies that’s sprung up whose sole purpose seems to be pandering to the Oscars, but… eh, what can you do.

Let’s look at this year’s nominees, in my personal order of preference. And because I’m me and that one scene of Birdman really stuck with me, I’ll also be tracking how many superhero/Star Wars actors are trying to do something of substance in between tentpole flicks.

(For even quicker descriptions, check out this list of honest Oscar posters)

8. National Lampoon’s Vengeance Vacation

AKA "This was SUPER uncomfortable, can I have my Oscar now?"
AKA “This was SUPER uncomfortable, can I have my Oscar now?”

In a nutshell: When a fellow trapper kills his son and leaves him for dead, Hugh Glass (Leonardo diCaprio) must overcome his horrific bear-related injuries, a harsh environment, and a band of natives on their own vengeance quest, in order to find and punish his betrayer.
Featuring: Bane, General Hux

A lot has been made of how this movie was shot. How Alejandro Iñárritu insisted on using only natural light to shoot (meaning some shoot days lasted an hour and a half), how Leonardo diCaprio actually did eat raw bison liver and swim in freezing rivers, and so on and so on. Here’s the thing about that, though… none of that is the narrative. It’s the meta-narrative. It’s fuel for the DVD special features, not relevant to a discussion of the film’s quality. Using exclusively natural light resulted in a lighting effect I would describe as “adequate, not exceptional.” Tell me “Leo actually did all of those things,” and I’m going to point you to his five stuntmen. He actually ate raw liver? He was lying two feet from a fire and had, in fact, eaten that day, so from a narrative perspective, nobody needed to eat raw anything, especially if doing so was just going to make them throw up.

Also, saying “When Glass throws up after eating the liver, that was Leo’s authentic reaction…” well, that isn’t acting. It’s reacting. If diCaprio deserves an Oscar for that, then Johnny Knoxville deserved an Oscar for Jackass.

That aside.

Ultimately? It’s a little dull. What few action sequences there are were well-shot, I’ll give it that, but they end up few and far between. The whole thing could be thirty minutes shorter and you wouldn’t miss anything. Watching Glass struggle across frozen tundra for two hours just… gets old.

But at least that’s the worst I can say about it. A little dull. Not “It shouldn’t even be considered a movie” like Tree of Life, not “desperately and annoyingly cloying” like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, not “actively evil” like American Sniper. When a character in The Revenant calls the natives (Cree, I think?) “savages,” it’s someone we’re rooting against, not the supposed hero of the movie (looking your way once again, American Sniper), and said natives’ rampage might be horribly misguided, but it’s for good reason. They’re trying to recover one of their women who was kidnapped by white men… sadly their strategy of “murder every white man we encounter and hope they’re the right ones” is just god-awful.

Still though… eight nominees, and the weakest one is just dull. Normally I’d be angrily questioning why certain films had been nominated for a while yet, but not this year. #OscarsSoWhite aside (and not having seen Tangerine, Beasts of No Nation, or Straight Out of Compton, I can’t really speak to  that)… not a bad crop.

7. SUCKER! You learned stuff!

The_Big_Short_teaser_poster
Don’t get too excited, only two of these people are in a scene together.

In a nutshell: Several finance industry outsiders see the impending collapse of the US housing market, and risk everything by betting against the American economy. And if you’re not careful, you just might learn something.
Featuring: Batman, and a cameo by Harley Quinn

Here’s what I respect about The Big Short. They are really trying very hard to hoodwink mainstream American audiences into learning how the 2008 economic collapse was caused through corruption and fraud on the part of the banks. They lure you in by telling you it’s a movie from the director of Anchorman and Ant-Man and a cast including Steve Carell in a wig that’s about a group of misfits finding a way to screw over the big banks.

That’s not what happens, by the way. If you recall, when the collapse did finally happen, the big banks (or at least their top executives) managed to be some of the only people not screwed over.

What this movie actually is, is the story of how a select few largely unconnected people managed to see that the housing market was a bubble, and that it was on the verge of bursting. Along the way, they walk us, the audience, through the steps involved in the housing market collapse. Whether it’s by having Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and his team investigate the actual houses involved in the mortgage-backed securities (many of which were given perfect ratings, but were clearly filled with mortgages on the verge of foreclosure), or by having frequent narrator Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) literally say “This is all really technical and kind of boring, so to explain, here’s Margot Robbie in a bubble bath.” And then yes, Margot Robbie explains sub-prime mortgages to you while sipping champagne in a bubble bath.

The result is a harrowing if still entertaining look at how corporate greed caused a global economic meltdown. The frequent fourth wall breaks, both celebrity cameos to explain the more technical issues and characters addressing the audience to explain how they’ve stuck to or deviated from actual events, help to keep the story engaging. And that’s good, because it’s a super important story that not enough people understand.

Honestly, it would be much higher on the list, except for one little thing. Christian Bale plays Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager who first identified the housing bubble, and was the first to bet against the housing market. He leans fairly heavily into playing Burry as somewhere on the autism spectrum (though not, like, Sheldon Cooper-level, just a certain amount of inability to interact with people or conform to societal norms), which makes him almost seem to be in a completely different movie than anyone else. And that would all be fine, but once his fund starts to lose money because he’s put everything into his bet against the banks, Burry’s plotline loses all momentum. There is nothing happening with him that isn’t also happening in a more engaging fashion with the rest of the cast, and every time they cut back to him (which is somewhat frequent), it’s dead air. Revenant aside, which was heavy on dead air, no other film on the list has that problem, so Big Short gets knocked down a few pegs.

6. No, not The Room, thank you

Please note the lack of Tommy Wiseau
Please note the lack of Tommy Wiseau

In a nutshell: Joy and her son Jack live in captivity, Joy having been kidnapped two years before Jack’s birth. When they finally manage to escape, both must adjust to life outside of the small shed known as Room, the only place Jack has ever known.
Featuring: The Shoveler

The opening of Room is a fairly successful blend of sweet and horrifying. Sweet from the bond between Joy and Jack, horrifying from the fact that they are imprisoned in a shed by Joy’s kidnapper/rapist/abuser, who… goddamn. Does that monster ever work as a perfect depiction of male entitlement’s worst case scenario. “I deserve love and sex, so I will keep a woman prisoner so that I can demand both of those things from her at my convenience.” Ugh. UGH.

Moving along.

After the highly tense sequence leading to Joy and Jack’s escape, we shift gears, watching Jack try to adjust to an alien world: so many people who are neither his mom nor the “imaginary” people he’d see on TV (yes, they had a TV, which their captor probably demanded all sorts of thanks for, I HATE HIM–sorry), buildings filled with rooms. With Jack as our POV character, every shot of an empty room becomes highly significant. It soon becomes clear, though, that it’s Joy who’s having the most trouble adjusting to life outside, as once she escapes Room, and the day-to-day life of simply trying to stay alive and provide any sort of happy life for her child, seven years of trauma refuse to be repressed.

It’s anchored by impressive performances from Brie Larson and nine-year old Smurfs 2 veteran Jacob Tremblay. It’s definitely worth watching once. Can’t say I’d go back for another round. Well, maybe, if I could… you know, skip to the part where the cops find Jack and figure out where he came from. I liked that part. Even if it involved less of their captor being hunted by Batman than I’d like. No, Daredevil. No, the goddamn Punisher.

5. Spielberg. Hanks. You know you want it, Oscars.

It's even a period piece.
It’s even a period piece.

In a nutshell: At the height of the Cold War, an insurance lawyer finds himself negotiating a prisoner exchange between the US, the USSR, and an East Germany eager for a seat at the table.
Featuring: This one’s clean. Two people from The Wire, though, that’s neat.

In 1957, New York attorney James Donovan is handed the least enviable case possible: publicly defending accused Russian spy Rudolf Abel in a country at the peak of anti-communist paranoia. And from there it only gets more complicated… after alienating his family and firm by going above and beyond defending Abel, when an American pilot flying a spy plane is captured by the Soviets, Donovan gets pulled into a prisoner exchange between two superpowers on the brink of war.

And it gets worse for him. An American student studying economics in Berlin waits one day too long to get his German girlfriend out of East Berlin, and gets grabbed on the wrong side of the newly-constructed Berlin Wall. The East Germans see this as a chance to gain formal recognition from the West, and try to hijack the prisoner exchange.

It’s Spielberg’s fourth collaboration with Tom Hanks. Is it their best work? Probably not, but I am awfully fond of Catch Me If You Can. Hanks goes with quiet strength over flashy dramatics, which is the right call, because it’s only that quiet strength that keeps Donovan in the game. And the fact is that at this point, Spielberg’s B-game is, in fact, still Oscar-worthy.

It’s that rare historical movie that not only has awards appeal but doesn’t feel too Oscar-baity. I can picture this movie existing for a reason besides attracting Oscars. Not something easy to say about, say, The King’s Speech, The Imitation Game, or The Reader.

4. NO! SLEEP! TIL–

Brooklyn
The struggle of being a white immigrant in America

In a nutshell: A shy girl from Ireland tries to build a better life in New York, only to have her home town try to lure her back.
Featuring:
General Hux (again, dude’s everywhere all of a sudden), Felicity Smoak

If you don’t come out of this movie a little bit in love with its lead character you’re some kind of robot.

Saoirse (pronounced “Sur-sha”) Ronan plays Eilis (pronounced AY-lish) Lacey in the biggest collision possible of aggressively Irish names lacking any sort of intuitive pronunciation. A timid, traditional girl working part-time in the shop of a horrible, horrible woman, Eilis is sponsored by the church to immigrate to New York in the 1950s. With an entire ocean separating her from her friends and family, she has to forge a new life.

What I appreciate is that they steer towards some of the stereotypes, but then veer away at the last second. Her new boss seems to be a “mean boss,” but turns out to be supportive when it counts. Yes, Ailis stays in one of those boarding houses for ladies that, yes, forbids men and encourages good Christian behaviour, but the landlady isn’t the cruel tyrant of, say, Agent Carter, but the nicest, most accepting, most helpful, still rigidly Christian landlady I’ve seen on TV or film in a while. And the Italian lad hanging around her church’s dances is a perfect gentleman, charming and romantic yet respectful. Probably helps that Italians are often just as Catholic as the Irish.

Now… the second half? I’m not sure I reacted to that the way I was supposed to. When a tragedy causes Eilis to return home for the first time in months, her home town is quick to offer up all the things her new life in Brooklyn had been offering, but in the comfortable familiarity of small-town Ireland. Her sister’s old bookeeping job (which is exactly what she’d been studying in Brooklyn), a charming and handsome fella to spend time with… actually, they’re weirdly quick to offer all these things up. Suspiciously quick. Almost aggressively quick. Quick enough that I didn’t think “Hey, you know, maybe there is no place like home,” but instead reacted to her hometown like we’d entered a horror movie. Every time some new thing made her rethink returning to Brooklyn, I thought “RUN, IT’S A TRAP!”

That said, I had a better time watching the less oppressively dark metaphorical prison of small-town Ireland than the literal and horrifying prison of Room. But that’s neither here nor there.

It’s a delightful, charming, and moving. Okay, sure, elephant in room, a movie about an immigrant of colour trying to adjust to life in the US would be very different, would be considered an “issue” movie from the word go, and would probably get shut out of the Oscars, but… this is still delightful. Also, I saw Domnhall “General Hux” Gleeson in three movies in a matter of weeks and if his nose were less distinctive, I’d have had no idea it was the same guy (let alone the same guy as the excellent sci-fi flick Ex Machina), so, nicely done, that man.

3. Saving Private Ryan… IN SPACE

Another fine mess Matt Damon got himself into
Another fine mess Matt Damon got himself into

In a nutshell: In the not-too-distant future, astronaut/botanist Mark Watley is accidentally stranded on Mars, and must find a way to stay alive long enough for NASA to send help.
Featuring: 
The Winter Soldier, Invisible Woman, Boromir, Ant-Man’s kinda offensively stereotypical Latino sidekick, Dr. Strange’s probable nemesis

It’s not The Martian’s fault that it will spend the next year or two serving as the poster child for Category Fraud (when a movie or TV show claims to be a comedy because the “best drama” category seems too hard to win). It isn’t, strictly speaking, a comedy, so the fact that it won “Best Comedy” at the Golden Globes feels hinky. That said… it doesn’t lack humour. For a movie about someone left stranded on a far-away planet, it’s got wit when it wants to, but it also impressively tense when it’s time to put Mark in increased danger.

Matt Damon is excellent. He could easily have carried this entire movie, Castaway-style, but he doesn’t even need to, thanks to equally great work from an all-star supporting cast. No other movie this year has made me think “Awesome, it’s that person” so many times. It’s delightfully pro-science (if, I hear, less so than the book, but that would happen), never dull, sometimes thrilling, and overall incredibly satisfying. It’s hard to think of more to say that wouldn’t just boil down to me reciting my favourite parts. You should probably just watch it if you haven’t already.

2. The Fast and The Furiosa

What a lovely day indeed.
What a lovely day indeed.

In a nutshell: In a post-apocalyptic future, Imperator Furiosa tries to escape warlord Immortan Joe, bringing along five women he kept as breeding slaves. A road warrior named Max and a Warboy named Nux get dragged along for one awesome, feature length car chase.
Featuring:
Bane, Beast

There’s a lot of talk about how out-of-touch the Oscars are. This is mostly aimed at that time they snubbed the Dark Knight in favour of the vastly inferior The Reader, then expanded the best picture category to avoid shunning popular films, but then kept doing it. So sure, it was a surprise when Mad Max: Fury Road started breaking the trend and attracting award buzz. So why this movie?

Because it’s freaking amazing, that’s why.

It’s masterfully shot and edited. It gets strong performances out of not just Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, but X-Man Nicholas Hoult and supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whitely of all damned people. The action is incredible. The story is above and beyond what a Hollywood blockbuster would go for, despite being so simple that it takes less time to describe than The Revenant. It’s a revival of a thirty-year-old franchise that isn’t weighed down by nostalgia, wink-nudge references, or franchise building.

Every element comes together to create an action movie far, far better than it has any right to be on paper, and that seems to have gotten Awards Season’s attention.

Also it pissed off MRAs, which I find delightful.

1. Extra extra, vows of celibacy screw with your head

Spotlight

In a nutshell: A period piece set in the long-forgotten time when print journalism made a difference (2001), the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe looks into child abuse accusations inside the Catholic church, and discovers a systemic cover-up bigger than they ever expected.
Featuring:
A different Batman, Bruce Banner, Sabretooth, Dr. Erskine, Dr. Manhattan, Old Howard Stark, Dr. Strange’s probable love interest.

Remember journalism, you guys? When men and women employed by newspapers would really dig into a story, doing months of research if necessary, to ensure that the news you were reading was not only important but true? Man those were the days.

Spotlight is the story about how one team of journalists uncovered the story that the heavily Catholic city of Boston did not want told: that priests had been molesting children. For years. Decades. The more they look into it, the more victims they find, and the more extensive the cover-up is revealed to be.

The cast is phenomenal. Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, and more, all doing some incredible work. The horror at the extent of the abuse and cover-up, the determination to put it right, and the gnawing realization that people inside the paper may have helped keep it all quiet once before.

It’s a gripping story, one that manages that trick of injecting suspense into a foregone conclusion. This is a movie I was determined to seek out the moment I saw the trailer, Oscars or no Oscars, and I’m glad I did. Highly recommended.

Fasts and Furiouses Six:

Last time: a previously mediocre car-based action franchise discovered they’d accidentally created the Ocean’s 11 of car-based heist crews, so they put everyone in the same movie and sent them to work in BRAZIIIL!

Sorry, it is just so hard to stop doing that...
Sorry, it is just so hard to stop doing that…

Han continued to cheat the death that we already saw two movies ago, and as the credits start, we learned that Michelle Rodriguez wants to buy a bigger house is about to return to the franchise. Let’s roll! (Damn it, these stupid movies just get in your head…)

Name a second American action franchise THIS successful with only one white guy on the poster.
Name a second American action franchise THIS successful with only one white guy on the poster.

This time around, the action moves to my favourite place in the world: London, England. Now, the streets in London are narrow, twisty, and congested, and it rains a lot, so surely this means the franchise will have to forgo the usual “illegal street race surrounded by scantily-clad women” scene, right?

No. Nothing ever means that.

Last we saw these furiously fast folks, Brian O’Connor and Dom Toretto were about to have a Rocky III-style private (and unfilmed) rematch race across their new, tropical, non-extraditing home. One might think that’s exactly where we pick up, but no: Dom and Brian are actually racing home to see Dom’s sister/Brian’s wife, Mia, as she gets well and truly sidelined from being an active player in the movie, just when she’d finally started getting interesting shit to do last time out. Sorry, I mean “as she goes into labour.” Autocorrect, am I right?

“As soon as you go through those doors, everything changes,” says Dom. “Our old life is done.” Also, he’s still with now-former Rio PD officer Elena, as long as I’m mentioning things that aren’t going to last past the first act.

The opening credits serve as a swift “previously on” montage, highlighting the major players and plot points from the previous movies… save for Tokyo Drift, which due to the Han issue still hasn’t happened yet. They also serve as a reminder of how much Paul Walker has aged since F&F1, but that’s old lady mortality for you.

Anyhoo, with all of that done, we rejoin Special Agent Hobbs, who pulls up (in a truly ridiculous pick-up truck/humvee… when you want an armoured car but might need to move a couch) to a crime scene in Moscow, where he meets his new partner Riley Hicks (MMA fighter/former American Gladiator Gina Carano), introducing her to us in the least graceful burst of exposition I’ve seen in ages. Hobbs is investigating a high-speed car-based crime, one we’re led to believe must have been Dom and company. But when Riley gets him five minutes with the only suspect the Russians caught, it’s not Dom at all, but a low-rent British Vin Diesel impersonator who Hobbs asks about his boss, Shaw. He asks him pretty hard, as Sin City’s Marv would say.

Okay, we’ll get back to Shaw and his evil-doing in a minute, but can we just talk about how ridiculous what’s happening is? Hobbs, an American agent, being allowed access to a Russian crime scene, allowed to interrogate a prisoner in Moscow, who he proceeds to toss around like a rag doll and nobody stops him?

F&F6 01

The way he hurls the 230 pound suspect into the ceiling hard enough to break it is the least improbable part of this entire sequence.

“You don’t just pick up Owen Shaw like he’s groceries,” announces Hobbs, having learned his quarry is in London. “You wanna catch wolves, you need wolves!” And once again, Dwayne Johnson’s delivery is so over-the-top-macho perfect that it makes me forgive the fact that the last thing any serious law-enforcement officer would do is recruit a team of international fugitives to hunt a different, similar team of international fugitives, but that, ladies and gents, is our plot.

Dom wakes up to another perfect morning of tropical sunshine, fresh air, and Elena’s tasteful sideboob to find Hobbs waiting for him on the porch. Despite Dom’s desire to stay retired, Hobbs informs him that he’ll soon be begging Hobbs to help catch Shaw and his crew, by giving him a file proving that Dom’s true love Letty is alive and working with Shaw. Right in front of Elena. Come on, Hobbs, there’s a way to be a person about this.

Time to call in the team! Roman has a private plane that’s flying him and five (we have to assume) prostitutes to his penthouse (and giant yacht) in Macau, which I guess means he either invested his $10 million from the last movie really well, or is having one last party before going flat broke.

Tej has left his dream garage (maybe because it was lamer than his pre-established garage in Miami) and is hacking ATMs somewhere in the Carribean. Because Tej, the mechanic-turned-safecracker, is a hacker now, I guess?

F&F6 02

Han and Gisele are interrupted from talk of settling down by the arrival of a squad of Chinese police… who seem to only be there to hand Han a phone so that he, Tej, and Roman can all receive the same phone call from Dom. And so they all drop what they’re doing (not hard, only Roman was doing anything difficult to interrupt) to meet up with Dom in jolly old England.

(The previously nameless Mexican henchmen are not present: they bet their entire Rio payoff on one spin of roulette in Monte Carlo at the end of Fast Five, and according to Brian were never seen again. Never were the brains of the crew.)

Brian’s the only one who needs convincing (the only one, which is weird for reasons I’ll explain in a sec), as he’s convinced Hobbs is lying, but if Dom’s going to be chasing Letty’s ghost, Brian’s in too. Brian’s wife and mother of his newborn son, Mia, swiftly agrees. Seriously. Right away. No question at all. Just bam, “Absolutely my husband should help you chase down an international thief and his dangerous crew. I’ll feel safer if my entire family is at risk.”

I mean, I guess she has a point, sort of? Dom and Brian protecting each other does add a level of safety that either running off on their own wouldn’t have. And I guess Letty is family to Mia as well. But it still feels odd that there wasn’t even a moment where Mia thought maybe this wasn’t the best idea. Or Elena! She gets on board with her new boyfriend trying to reunite with his great lost love super fast. I get that she understands what he’s feeling, but wow, she gave up her entire life for Dom, and has no qualms over what she will or could do when he inevitably dumps her for a not-dead Letty.

Moving on.

Hobbs explains to the crew that he wants them to capture Shaw, who has stolen a weapon that could cripple a country. Brian is the first to remember that only two people in this room have actually met or care about Letty, so he demands full pardons for everyone, something that worked so well in number four that Dom ended up sentenced to twenty years without parole.

The legality of this arrangement is suspect.
The legality of this arrangement is suspect.

Also Roman spent most of that scene begging change for the vending machine and ends it asking if they’re getting paid. I’m gonna go ahead and assume I was right about him blowing the last of his Rio heist money on that plane.

Shaw’s crew manages to outmanoeuvre team Toretto in their first encounter thanks to some car-hacking hockey pucks and bulletproof go-carts packing ramps capable of flipping cars twenty feet in the air.

Which is deemed... improbable
Which is deemed… improbable

And we learn that Letty may be alive, but she has… AMNESIA!

F&F6 04

Seriously, is anyone else really over amnesia as a plot point? I’ve hated it since the mid-90s and it has not improved.

The two crews begin sniffing around each other, as Roman identifies Shaw’s gang as their “evil twins” (only with triple the white folk). After a run in with their counterparts featuring a pretty badass fight between Letty and Riley, Han and Roman getting their asses kicked by Evil Han, and Gisele scoring the first kill with one impressively calm and precise bullet to Evil Roman, Gisele finds a solid lead: to find Shaw, they need to see returning villain Braga, the Mexican drug-runner Brian and Dom brought down two movies back. The one who supposedly had Letty killed.

(I mean, he did, but flashbacks reveal that the henchman in charge of doing it was just the worst assassin ever. That was not a hard gig but he fucked it up royally.)

As part of their newfound respect for interfilm continuity, Brian calls in an improbable favour from one of his former FBI colleagues from F&F4 to get him into Braga’s LA prison under an assumed name (to make it easier for wanted fugitive Brian O’Connor to get back out of the US after), so that he and Braga can have an awkward reunion. Meanwhile, Dom tracks down Letty at… you guessed it… an illegal street race filled with scantily clad women, the one thing all cities in the Fast/Furious universe have.

F&F6 06

It makes sense that Dom would try to win Letty back into the fold through a race. First, it’s neutral ground, and second, he’s been making women question their allegiances through smouldering looks and tragic memories of Letty since his return to the franchise. Why wouldn’t it work on actual (if amnesiac) Letty? Although it is a little odd that once they pass the starting line, there are no spectators. I guess British racers use the honour system. Seems British enough.

Skimming forward… Dom’s team catches Shaw after a car vs. tank chase/fight, Dom saves Letty’s life through a mid-air catch so physically improbable it made Daniel storm out of the room, and all seems well… but Shaw has captured Mia, so they have to let him out of custody.  Also, Letty’s switched sides, but Riley was working for Shaw the whole time, so it evens out. This leads to Team Toretto and Team Shaw having a fight on and alongside a cargo plane driving down the world’s longest runway. Everyone (but Mia) gets a moment to be badass, Shaw is thwarted… but Gisele doesn’t make it, giving her life to protect Han. Don’t worry, Gisele… you’re going to a better place.

Wonder Woman
Themyscira, or Paradise Island, to be precise.

Not only do the surviving crew get their full pardons (in the US, anyway, probably still wanted in Brazil over the death of half the Rio police department), Dom gets his old house back. The crew gathers for a Toretto family barbecue, Han announces he intention to follow through with Gisele’s earlier suggestion they move to Tokyo (“It’s just something I gotta do,” he says, acknowledging that they’ve stalled catching up to Tokyo Drift as long as possible), Elena pops by for a final farewell before leaving to work for Hobbs (and to pay deference to Letty as Dom’s One True Love Interest), and all is mostly well.

But wait! Before the credits roll, we flash back/forward to Han’s fatal crash in Tokyo Drift. Turns out it was no accident… Han was hunted down and killed… by Jason Statham.

Jason fucking Statham. Now our car-based action franchise is finally complete.

Reactions

It’s both better and worse than Fast Five, in different ways. Fast Five was an import car heist movie, whereas number six is trying to be an import car spy movie. And unless you actually are a James Bond flick, I find heist movies more entertaining than spy movies. There’s more satisfaction to the climax: it’s the culmination of all the pieces they put together, whereas here we just have a series of escalating car chases/action beats. Good ones, to be sure, but still.

Shaw is an effective villain, if kind of annoyingly smug. Actually most of the villains have been really smug. It does make it satisfying when they get knocked down a peg, though.

We probably have some of the franchise’s best fight work. They have Gina Carano and Dwayne Johnson in the cast, and know how to use them. Okay, Dom’s flying headbutt was ridiculous. No getting around that. But otherwise, the action beats are pretty impressive, if physics-defying.

However, it’s clear that following Fast Five, the ensemble got too big. Yes, it was already big, but they found stuff for everyone to do last time. This time out, with Hobbs already part of the crew, there wasn’t enough time for everyone, and it’s Elena and Mia who suffer. They’re sidelined almost immediately, with Mia only coming back to serve as a hostage in the climax. Elena I can live with, but after finally making Mia an active part of the team in Fast Five, it seems particularly sad to cut her role down so severely.

It’s not like the film wants to be a boys-only club… Gisele’s more kickass than ever, Riley and Letty get their moments to shine, but Mia (who even got to be part of the heist crew while pregnant) gets left out. It’s a shame that it’s the women who–

SHIT the no-name Mexicans. I keep forgetting about them. They’re just gone this time, which is a shame since they finally get both of their names spoken for the first time in three movies. Okay, fine, it’s not just the women who got cut back. Look, it’s a bit of a dick move to marginalize Mia, given she’s one of the original four. That’s all I’m saying.

And in terms of the overall series? It’s hard, when watching this, to recognize it as the same series as the first three movies. Yes, women in tiny skirts/shorts cavort around illegal street races, but the physics-nope action set pieces seem like an entirely different world than the simple drag races of F&F1.

Actually, if they WERE on a different world, that would explain a lot.
Actually, if they WERE on a different world, that would explain a lot.

It’s hard to follow a success. Fast Five was a breath of fresh air, a whole new twist on what these characters could be doing. Fast and Furious Six just kept running with that, and tried to crank the volume a little. It still works better than it has any right to… it’s just the novelty’s worn down a little.

I’ll say this, though. They made something happen that I would have thought impossible earlier in the week, when this all began as I watched Brian fail at undercover work… they made me eager to watch the next movie. God help me, when Jason Statham tells Dom “You don’t know me… but you’re about to,” I actively and unironically wanted to watch Furious Seven. I haven’t yet… but it’s coming.

And if the rumours are true, and Methusa-brah is taking Brian’s place in the crew in the eighth movie, which after “Fast Five” and “Furious Seven,” I assume will be called “And The Eight?” They will make me miss Paul Walker. That I never saw coming.

Fasts and Furiouses is over for now… next time, there is only The Smurfening.