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The Leftovers “The Prodigal Son Returns” Review (1×10)

8 Sep

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“We made them remember.”

The Leftovers paints a picture of a broken world. It’s broken because its people are broken, and its people are broken because of their search for concrete answers in a post-Departure world. As humans, we tend to want to think in terms of black and white, of good and bad, of us and them, and it simply winds up being detrimental to the people who lost their loved ones on October 14th.  “There’s a reason for everything,” we think, and we crumble when we can’t pinpoint that reason in the sea of darkness.

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Boardwalk Empire “Golden Days for Boys and Girls” Review (5×01)

7 Sep

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The season premiere of the final season of Boardwalk Empire is framed by two acts of attempted reinvention, two stories about the same person in two different time periods. We have young Nucky and present-day Nucky, the former getting into the business and the latter attempting to change the business, and through flashbacks, we see just how our main character’s roots developed and why he’s at where he’s at right now.

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The Bridge “Rakshasa” Review (2×09)

3 Sep

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We’re now back at the beginning of the season.

The extent of the massacre at Red Ridge View is finally seen: we end the episode with Charlotte, the DEA agents, Jamie, and a few of Galvan’s men dead, and both Hank and Cesar are wounded in one way or another; in fact, the main target of the attack, Eleanor Nacht, ends up being the one who puts the final bullets into Galvan’s man as the episode closes.

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The Strain “Creatures of the Night” Review (2×08)

31 Aug

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“I need the rules.”

“Creatures of the Night” narrows the focus of the show, and everything’s better off for it: the entertainment value, the action, the directing, the acting, and even the character development. It’s a tightly plotted, sixty minute thrill ride that, for once, doesn’t attempt to try to tackle the situation from a larger scale. The show’s certainly attempting to convey a sense of widespread destruction and chaos, but sometimes, confining the characters to one space ramps up the tension more so than anything else does.

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The Bridge “Goliath” Review (2×08)

28 Aug

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“I don’t trust you anymore.”

The series began with two cops on opposite sides of the El Paso-Juarez border coming together to work on a case, and it’s now taken multiple turns, ending up in a place in which the actions of one come into serious conflict with the morality of another. Now, Sonya’s retreating from those around her, pushing away both Hank and Marco after she finds out just how caught up they are in the cycle of violence of the world they live in (the Jim Dobbs realization followed up by the David Tate realization is awful for her). And, with every passing day, each character–not just Sonya–is experiencing a similar decision: there are two sides here with muddled states of morality, but how do you make it so that you yourself don’t end up a victim?

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66th Primetime Emmy Awards Live Blog

25 Aug

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All times central.

7:05-Sheldon is not worth one penny, but you get a point for calling out the idiocy that was the How I Met Your Mother finale.

7:09-And the monologue is over. How many HBO jokes was that? 99? Coincidentally, that’s also the number of nominations HBO garnered.

7:11-I’m so, so sorry, Andre Braugher. Also, this Ty Burrell speech reminds me of Steve Carell’s Golden Globe speech about his wife. By the way, Steve Carell never won an Emmy.

7:17-Well deserved, Louis CK. If I could choose, you’d win every award.

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True Blood “Thank You” Review (7×10)

25 Aug

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Thank you, True Blood, for finally limping off the air after seven seasons, and thank you for doing it in quite possibly the worst way possible. Seriously, what is this? Does this show enjoy making its audience lower expectations so far that we can see the pile of shit that is the Dexter finale staring accusingly at us? Are the writers deliberately trolling the entire fan base, or are they legitimately horrible writers? I pick the latter. I have multiple seasons of evidence, after all.

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The Leftovers “The Garveys at Their Best” Review (1×09)

25 Aug

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“A man said to the universe, ‘Sir, I exist'”. 

“However,” the universe replied, “that fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”

“The Garveys at Their Best” makes its point known from the irony inherent in the title. Prior to the Sudden Departure, the Garveys were already a broken family, a group of people apparently fine from the outside but straining when you looked closer, and what resulted from October 14th was an extension off of what already existed. That, fittingly, is why people throughout this episode seem to sense that something terrible is about to happen.

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Rectify “Unhinged” Review (2×10)

21 Aug

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Finales are supposed to provide endings. Court cases are supposed to go one way or the other. When we leave, we’re supposed to start a new life and close off our old one. However, life simply doesn’t work like that; it’s a constant barrage of revolving doors, of perceived endings and desired outcomes backfiring on you. It’s not to say that you should have a cynical worldview, but rather that you shouldn’t be surprised when an outlined resolution of yours ends up holding no weight. This is what happens to the characters in “Unhinged”, the season’s moving finale about the difficulty of moving forward.

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The Bridge “Lamia” Review (2×07)

20 Aug

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“Sometimes I think it wouldn’t be so bad for it to be over.”

Fausto Galvan is the most important player in the show right now, but he’s the one most removed from the action; he’s still in that speedboat warehouse, suddenly overcome with a desire to see Norway and seemingly at his most vulnerable. Perhaps that’s a comment on the endless cycle of violence here and what happens when you cease participation for a while: you’re left with yourself and your past to mull over, and that cycle never relinquishes its grasp on your psyche. The violence is what keeps him going because it’s what he knows.

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