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Reviews
The Flash: The Fire Next Time (2022)
Recovery?
After the atrocity that was Armageddon (where the best part was really that it wasn't spread over four other series that run on different networks) and that annoying Barf & the Nag episode that was just full of holes, this one stands out purely because it's "classic Flash": a bit of mystery, an investigation, some side plots with a moral to them, a bit of suspense and a tad of emotion. Sure, no love story left to tell but otherwise, wholesome TV for a nice evening. Missed the humor of season 4 when Ralph saved the series for a while after the Cringesis event.
Also, not five damn therapy sessions that squeeze some plot in between. What little screen time Iris got, she made sure to make worse. Allegra gained a degree of personality while walking amidst a bunch of gaping holes, but good on her. Katie & Frost have all but left the show in terms of character or relevance so it's a bit lopsided.
La casa de papel: KO técnico (2020)
When you just don't know how
In a series that likes to use suspension of disbelief to the extreme, but always stays just inside the "slightly plausible" area, this episode is a real slap in the face.
Setting up an absurdly likable character for the ultimate ending is a classic tragedy. Front load with a new romance, tell us her name and then let her die. There's something to it. The problem is the delivery. The enemy is out of this world. The entire episode is Konrad Curze vs. A the regiment of stormtroopers that just failed target practice again. I think you get the point: several thousand bullets from automatic weapons, from multiple angles, can't hit a guy who can fire both ways with pistols? You needed this tragedy but couldn't figure out how. That's the sad part. Sure, killing her didn't help with the mood, the series always had light-hearted moments so this is a punch, but the kick in the nuts is the insult that delivers it. Gandia is a caricature in a setting that can't hold it. This is where the walls fell and believing wasn't in it anymore.
Not to mention: a bloodthirsty maniac changes careers to someone waiting around in a suit for a living, but the place is full of guns in case he needs to stare down an entire army? Come on.
Chuck: Chuck Versus the Goodbye (2012)
A smile and a tear
So after I was wondering why there was a season after what would have been the picture perfect finale with the wedding and all, I kept wondering because the final season starts rather lame. Still entertaining, but absolutely not on par.
The final episodes, littered with plot devices, almost feels like it should have been a full season, not this half thing.
What really grinds my gears however is so many reviews moaning so much about not being quite literally toured through the perfect life of Chuck & Sarah in retirement. I get it, yes, I would have loved the Happy Ending™, but leaving this to a little imagination (why would she ever agree to try out Morgan's "Disney" method? Think, seriously. Think.) This way, you get something that leaves you with a little heartache and some room to fill with joy as you think about them tying loose ends, taking their time and her memory slowly coming back (plus, they kept coming up with devices, even weird cards etc, so you really think there's not a single option left?) while she falls in love with him all over again and maybe a year later, they got their dream house and the toes in the sand and everything.
It's like you people are trying to make yourselves miserable. It's one of the best light hearted love stories on TV in the past two decades and it's precisely because they know very well how to play your heart strings. This is a part of it and it's memorable like none other.
NCIS: Los Angeles: Knock Down (2020)
All the things
Vacation recap, breast pumping, woman post-pregnancy problems,baby photos, bureaucracy, a weird bromance and a lot of talk about whoever's feelings, this episode has it all. What it doesn't have is a criminal investigation or any measurable degree of action. Or an actual conclusion. I've seen Baywatch episodes that were a better fit for any crime drama, action or whatever series than this one. Now the constant changes in actors or roles just being unfilled doesn't add anything, it just takes any meaning away so this is just something for background noise and I hope they get back on track at some point.
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019)
An attempt was made
Somehow, Smith managed to try and cash in on nostalgia while scripting references, parody and fourth wall breaking into comedy. Nothing felt natural or credible, the film tried to make fun of itself and the viewer but that was the most realistic part, can't be self-ironic and still make a good product. What came out of it was cringe. Still not sure if the whole Millennial stuff was meant to be a parody or if his daughter wrote most of the script and that's the result.
He could have made a comedy with some fourth wall breaking and he could have made a parody of himself and his work. What he did was both in one and both failed because of it.
The rest is some reflection on the part of the dads who "starred" in this film which could have been some second "coming of age" movie in its own right, but that got drowned out by goofy jokes, most of which had to be explained in scene, apparently, to kill them right on the spot. The part where you went back to Chasing Amy, that could have been a movie in itself.
This thing failed, rightfully so. Not because there wasn't good source material to go with, but because they couldn't come up with enough funny or interesting material to make the separate themes what they should be: separate movies.
Hope he gets around to really sitting down and writing another movie that's either for the heart or for the laughs. He was good at that a while ago.
Kevin Smith is that one "indie" guy who really knows how to write from the heart, relatable dialog, even the characters are sometimes credible when they're supposed to be overdrawn. Get back there, to the time without the big budgets and names, just friends shooting stupid films, and figure out what it is that made you want to do this. I'm sure it wasn't to create something like this.
The Blacklist: Ruin (2018)
Joan of Wick
After the shoddy writing of the previous episode, this one stands out already for not being about any Blacklister in particular, as the title has it.
Of course there were going to be flashbacks and stuff to explain, maybe a tad too much.
I really hate the whole animals as vehicles thing because it's always the same and you just pretty much know it when you see them, not my favorite there.
But the whole traps, trees talking thing was really nice, a bit of a nod to John Wick, this episode, and finally, finally, less of that whiny, dreary stuff that's been going on with everything just being background noise as a justification to provide more room for squabbles.
This is what I wanted, this is what I got. More of it.
The Blacklist: Ian Garvey (No. 13) (2017)
Convenient
Generally, this was a faster episode, lots of action, lots of stuff going on. The "antagonist" who is just a super generic dwarf with absolutely nothing special about him and his bland henchmen add nothing, their methods are so over the top as if to make a point, a statement, but serve no purpose inside the scenes.
Then someone realized they'd run into a dead end and so they had to make a cut that made no sense, none at all, wherein neither the FBI who'd just before been driving at the speed of light, apparently, nor Reddington, who's always faster than everyone else, made it before the villain who was stuck in nowhere without any means of transportation and must clearly have been way behind, not to mention little intel to go on in comparison to the other parties. So now there's just a big fight going on where everyone else is too late for the sole reason of it having to be that way to read the conclusion that was needed to reach. This feels rushed, badly written. Then, convenient coma to just reset lots and lots of pieces on the board without having to consider credibility at all. I don't get how this is a series highlight with such a high rating when the writing for the typical parts is the same as always and two overly convenient holes in the story need to be there so it even fits together. This is like using clay to fill in for puzzle pieces you can't find.
NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service: Blarney (2020)
Those were not your writers
Being honest, NCIS isn't known for AAA writing. Likeable character, some more, some less. Okay stories, good metaplots make for a decent series.
Apparently, for this episode, they let some of those twitter bluechecked four year old geniuses take over, resulting in a scene where literally the whole diner claps. Yeah, it's true, I was there, I was the coffee. Einstein was the pancakes.
It's hard enough to get through an episode with more than a few minutes of Kasie because she's just an assortment of items on a checklist that feel tacked on, overly stereotypical. But add the whole "bullying is bad" (oh really, we're watching a crime series, in case you forgot) and sometimes outright reading off the script (you know, the part that describes characters' feelings and mental state at times to allow actors to get into the role) like "envelope-pushing silver fox renegade" or whatever - did the people who wrote this junk ever watch a movie or play in one? Because I don't think so. This was outsources to some social studies undergrads or whatever they do to waste other people's time. Certainly not professionals.
Plot coulda been three minutes long. Robbery, hostages, infighting, there, done. No investigation whatsoever happening, everything just laid out there for them to find, like the biggest mystery the writers ever saw was a board game.