Reviews

The "Secret Invasion" comic event is one of Marvel's best and my personal favorite. Marvel Studios really wasted an opportunity with the approach they went with. Samuel L Jackson's performance is great but the writing tears down Fury's character built up over the last decade plus. The decision to make Rhodey a skrull feels forced, like he's the biggest named Avengers actor they could get to be in the show. It also creates huge plot holes for past projects on when he became a skrull. The finale feels so rushed and lacks any suspense. Immediately once Fury goes into radiation with no protection you know it's G'iah because Jackson is already confirmed for "The Marvels" so isn't dying so the reveal that it's her and not him brings no excitement. The final battle creates even more plot holes with the DNA that was in the harvest as a lot of the characters listed and whose powers were used were not in Endgame when the DNA was supposedly gathered. Gravik's death just feels like a huge disservice to how the character was built up as well. The show was marketed as "Winter Soldier" like and it only has that vibe for moments and in pure Disney fashion they force race discussions into it that just aren't needed. It should have been an Avengers movie and not a show. I'm a huge MCU fan but honestly the shows need to stop and they need to go back to focusing full efforts on the movies or make shows that are completely separate from the movies. Since the shows started it's very clear talent and ideas are spread too thinly and we are getting poorly written storylines because of it.

People that hate the ending would hate any ending. Dexter changed his code to save himself just like he did in the original series time and again. Shows that while he is highly intelligent he is not smarter than everyone which is why he was caught. His primitive instinct that put him in this position comes out again and when he is cornered fight or flight takes over. This ending gives closure to the series that the original ending did not and shows that while we glorified what Dexter did it was still wrong what he did. He did not just put an end to evil but he too was evil and he realized he needed to put an end to his evil as well. It also shows he was right to leave in the original series because he could not be in his son's life without sending him down the same dark path and the only way for Harrison to live his life or even live at all, is without his father. Angela lets Harrison go because she does not want his youth to be stolen away from him by evil like Kurt's victims who she dedicated her life to find. I thought is was a very worthy reboot, a great series and a much better ending than we got before. My only complaint is not getting to see Bautista confront Dexter.

People that hate the ending would hate any ending. Dexter changed his code to save himself just like he did in the original series time and again. Shows that he's human and when he's cornered fight or flight takes over. This ending gives closure to the series that the original ending didn't and shows that while we glorified what Dexter did it was still wrong what he did. He didn't just put an end to evil but he too was evil and he realized he needed to put an end to his evil as well. It also shows he was right to leave in the original series because he couldn't be in Harrison's life without sending him down the same dark path and the only way for Harrison to live his life is without his father. Angela lets Harrison go because she doesn't want his youth to be stolen away from him by evil like Kurt's victims who she dedicated her life to find. I thought is was a very worthy reboot, a great series and a much better ending than we got before.

I should start by saying "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is my favorite MCU film and maybe that's why I enjoyed "Black Widow" so much. It very much has a "Winter Soldier" vibe to it and gives a political thriller type origin story for Natasha. The entire cast gives a great performance and the film gives us some of the best action scenes in the MCU to date. Towards the third act it becomes less Natasha's story and more setting up the possible future Black Widow character arc. It's a stand alone film that doesn't provide a huge amount of fan service like previous MCU films. I personally would have liked to see more flashbacks about Budapest or more storytelling connecting the Black Widow and Winter Soldier programs. The film succeeds without diving too much into either besides short mentions. My only complaint is the use of Taskmaster feels like the use of The Mandarin in Iron Man 3. Taskmaster is an iconic comic book character that deserves better and I hope Marvel better uses the character in future installments. It be very easy for someone else to get their hands on the suit and redeem the character. It's a great film and the post credit scene sets us up nicely for the upcoming Hawkeye series. Keep up the great work Marvel!