“Nothing good can happen.”
It’s a cynical worldview, but in this line of work, it’s certainly hard to find much fault with that line of reasoning. Overall, the nation may benefit, but Homeland is oftentimes concerned with the ramifications of this type of work on individuals, on the people carrying out and participating in the fight. In the end, loyalties will be tested, lines will be crossed, and people will be lost, and people like Carrie Mathison will simply have to soldier on.
OBAMA/MCCONNELL DRINK: It’s another political cold open, but there’s a ton of comedy to be mined from Pharoah and Killam getting drunker and drunker. It doesn’t really build to anything, but I like the Hillary Clinton phone call and McConnell’s “You’re black!” GRADE: B-
MONOLOGUE: Hey, it’s Jennifer Lawrence (and Hutcherson and Hemsworth)! I’m not a huge fan of singing monologues, but this one is just full of charm, especially when Lawrence messes up her line and is her usually adorable self. Unpolished, but fun, monologue. GRADE: B+
“I heard you punched my son. Why?”
“He stole John Wick’s car.”
“…Oh.”
That’s John Wick for you: darkly humorous, full of action, and made with its own rules in mind. This is far from perfect, but it’s the type of action film that isn’t produced enough these days, one that employs an incredibly simplistic structure, but one that still succeeds aesthetically and violently and creatively. It’s loads of fun, and it looks gorgeous.
“How much wrong are we willing to do in the name of right?”
In the Person of Interest world, it’s becoming much more difficult to separate good from bad, friends from enemies, technology from life. Sure, there are teams and sides and various agendas, but the lines separating everything aren’t as clearly delineated as they were before. As Samaritan’s power grows, our characters have to grapple with a plethora of moral dilemmas, and the moral ambiguity inherent in the situation begins to reveal itself.
“It’s not the beginning of the third act. It’s the end of the first.”
As we head into the final, six-episode third season of The Newsroom, there seems to be a change in mood at ACN. No longer do we see the network that’s right up there in the competition for ratings, that’s telling the largest audience possible what should be told and doing so with aplomb. Yes, the “doing the news right” attitude has, for the most part, taken prevalence at ACN beforehand, but this is the first time everybody seems to be accepting of the fact that they’re losing.
“Go ahead, say it. I sent him to his death.”
“We all did.”
When Quinn and Carrie clashed earlier in the season about the necessities of the job and about whether the end justifies the means, the former was the one who began to go off the deep end. Now, however, it has all circled back around to Carrie Mathison, and the abrupt crumbling of her earlier plan brings with it a world of confusion and pain and desperation.
” Your words and your actions have consequences. When you do something mean because you’re angry or bored, it happens to someone else. It hurts them. You’re not the only person who’s real.”
Last week brought us an episode that separated Noah and Alison from those around them, that stripped away the potential familial conflicts and troubles and disagreements and showed us an idealistic image of two people engaged in an affair. Last week’s episode involved two people learning about each other, two people clashing at times, yet growing more comfortable with each other by the minute. In “5”, though, the reality of their environment comes back around and slams them right in their faces.
“Love is the one thing that transcends time and space.”
During the weeks leading up to the release of Interstellar, people saw the word “love” attached to it, then were alternately giddy because they had something new to mock and relentlessly negative because the science fiction film they were looking forward to was now ruined. Yes, the movie is about love, and yes, there are scenes during which that message is hammered over our heads, but ultimately, the idea of love is the emotional foundation for the film. Interstellar, as a result, is incredibly moving, intimate, and fascinating, and it’s the type of science fiction that is rarely made these days.
Every few lifetimes, you run into something that is simultaneously absurd and brilliant and perfect. Adult Swim’s “Too Many Cooks” is like nothing you will ever see and like nothing you have seen in the past. It is Oscar and Emmy and Golden Globe and Grammy worthy, and we might as well throw in a Tony because why not? This is the type of surreal comedy that you can only find on a channel like Adult Swim or in your head while you’re high out of your mind.
Well, it’s about time.
After two seasons of seeing Felicity develop into one of the most endearing characters on television, we finally delve into her backstory with “The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak”, a flawed, yet thoroughly entertaining, episode that features an average script elevated by excellent performances from Emily Bett Rickards and Charlotte Ross.
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