Archive | October, 2014

Arrow “The Magician” Review (3×04)

29 Oct

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“Apparently, we both handle grief differently.”

We saw this idea in “Sara” with regards to Felicity and Oliver, and we see it again–albeit in a different context–in “The Magician”. Oliver Queen is someone who always seems to be at a distance from those around him, someone who is intent on protecting those he loves, but also someone who dons a suit and plays the role of a vigilante. It may oftentimes place him on a different wavelength from the people populating his world, but it helps him just as much as it may hurt him.

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Person of Interest “Pretenders” Review (4×06)

29 Oct

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“Pretenders” slowly reveals itself as it progresses, developing from a standard case of the week into an essential piece in the overlying Samaritan storyline. The show’s always been great at balancing its two aspects, propelling its main stories while serving up cases that are not merely peripheral; rather, they all tie in with each other somehow, and the themes explored are very relevant throughout.

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Boardwalk Empire “Eldorado” Review (5×08)

27 Oct

episode-56-1024“A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.”

“Eldorado” is about the world moving on, about the world continuing to spin as former powerhouses like Nucky Thompson and Al Capone are left in the dust and newcomers like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky rise to take control. This changing of the guard is encapsulated by Nucky’s encounter with a “woman from the future” and a primitive television, and it’s a David Lynch-ian scene that represents how the past is becoming the future, how the world is perpetually changing and bringing new generations, how the earth remains forever, but the people don’t.

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The Affair “3” Review (1×03)

26 Oct

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“Don’t wake up.”

The following is said by both Noah and Alison while they’re having sex with Helen and Cole, respectively, and it nicely sums up what they’d like to be the norm with regards to the affair: they get to have it, but they also get to keep their spouses from waking up, from seeing the truth, from bringing a fantasy back down to Earth with a hard thud. This is, however, one of the few similarities in the two stories, as the show begins to widen the divide between Noah and Alison in the present while it’s bringing them closer in the past.

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Homeland “About a Boy” Review (4×05)

26 Oct

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“You’re the only family I have.”

The thing about Carrie Mathison is that for all her intelligence, for all her abilities to manipulate and extract the truth and expose who she wants to expose, she oftentimes gets in over her head emotionally. We saw it with Brody, and we’re now definitely seeing it with Aayan as well; she’s excellent when it comes to drawing him in, but at the same time, she may not realize that she’s drawing herself in, too.

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Whiplash Review

25 Oct

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“There are no two words in the English language more harmful than ‘good job’.”

The above encapsulates the mindset of Terence Fletcher, a sadistic, uncompromising, drill sergeant-like music instructor, an imposing presence laced with an increasingly appalling dark wit. The image of a simple black t-shirt around a muscular frame creates a physicality that is matched by very few, and Fletcher utilizes both that physical presence and his biting words to rip apart his students psychologically, to push them to the very limits of their abilities. This movie, as a result, becomes 1 hour and 45 minutes of sheer intensity that rivals the very best thrillers.

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Saturday Night Live “Jim Carrey/Iggy Azalea” Live Blog and Review” (40×04)

25 Oct

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EBOLA CZAR COLD OPEN: The sketch opens pretty weakly, but it gets better as it progresses. Taran Killam’s Ron Klain doesn’t truly bring the laughs until he starts talking about Latinos being immune to ebola and until he begins urging southern voters to stay away from polling booths. Thompson later gets in a good line with “All of New York is contaminated!” GRADE: B

MONOLOGUE: What the hell? (Ha). This is just weird, and not in a funny way. I think everyone was stoned when this was pitched. GRADE: D+

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Person of Interest “Prophets” Review (4×05)

21 Oct

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“Sometimes, it’s better not to know.”

The POI team, for the most part, spends this episode on the outskirts of the action, never directly interacting with the case of the week subject–Jason Ritter’s Simon Lee–until the end of the episode; rather, they resort to tactics such as crashing a random car in order to get him to turn a certain way, and this all serves to highlight the necessity of keeping a cover, of avoiding Samaritan’s watchful eye. However, this is also an episode that clearly delineates the mindsets of our main characters, forcing them to confront the idea of Samaritan, of the past, the present, and the future.

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The Affair “2” Review (1×02)

20 Oct

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“Marriage means different things to different people.”

“2” does a great job of shading in more of the nuances surrounding each of the characters and the environments they inhabit, and there is a common theme–aside from differing perceptions–that seems to tie everything together nicely: water. The first scene of the pilot was of Noah swimming, and from the opening credits on, I get the idea of two people floating in the middle of a large expanse of water, moving forward and backward and side to side, desperately searching for something around them.

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Homeland “Iron in the Fire” Review (4×04)

19 Oct

Episode 404

“What I need is your help, not your goddamn foot on the brake.”

We’ve seen time and time again that Carrie Mathison throws herself into her work, that she’ll oftentimes do anything it takes to come out on top and to complete her mission. She’s faced the consequences of her stubbornness before, but she’s also been able to get results, and this season places her in a position in which the main opposition she would face–Washington–is an ocean away. This is all, simply put, her element, and the question being asked is: How far will she go? Whether that question still interests the audience is left up to us.

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