Pop Culture - Conclusions and Stuff

This week there probably will be a few more spoilers than I've been recently including...

Yellow Peril

The audience reaction to the second series of Yellowjackets was almost unanimous in its dislike of it. I've read a lot of reviews and literally none of them have praised it the way series one was. It really could end up being a one-season wonder because it needs to desperately up its game if it wants me and many others to stick with series three, when it happens.

This season, which was cut from nine to eight episodes, has struggled to maintain the impossibly high standards set in series one and one could argue that the creators shot their bolts in that and had little in reserve for this year. While the past stayed remarkably enthralling, despite the elephant in the room having been devoured, the present lost all of its focus and flopped around aimlessly in an exercise that felt more like needing to introduce new adult characters than move the story along.

The odd thing was in a series of strange juxtapositions, the boring present had a tumultuous event happen that lifted it above the very silly premise that caused it - the death of a major character by her best friend's hand - while in the past, which has been the main reason for sticking with it, things suddenly got a bit silly. That era ended in a cliffhanger, while in the present you have to wonder where this is going to go now because there doesn't appear to be much reason - apart from a funeral - to keep them all together until whatever they think lived and controlled them in the Wilderness comes back and asks them for more.

It's got a bit bollocks, to be honest. You could have made this current season just two episodes long and it would have struggled to include the plot without some filler. The introduction of Elijah Wood's character was possibly the tipping point, when the show jumped into a trebuchet and was catapulted over an ocean therefore jumping thousands of sharks. Actually, the show has been shit for the entire series; it's like the creators didn't think beyond their first season despite telling people they had a five season story. It has been renewed for a third season; it's yet another one I'm questioning whether I want to stick with, and I'm erring towards Juliette Lewis' decision to get out while she could.

Farther Ted

For starters, before I even get onto the final episode of this show, I want to mention how fucking cowardly and shit the newspaper The Guardian has become over recent years, especially with its coverage of film and TV. It's often deliberately contrary to popular opinion - almost as though it wanted to generate more comments than the thing it was reviewing. With it's 'review' of the final ever Ted Lasso they allowed a hater to have carte blanche and she tried to rip Ted a new A hole. She failed and the newspaper failed, yet again in it's attempt to look cutting edge or radical.

The really cowardly thing is this 'review' appeared on-line at roughly 2am BST and the comments were closed at 8am BST with less than 300 comments, 99% of which were dismissive and derisory of the reviewer and her complete lack of understanding about what the show is an allegory for and why it is funny, but it's not always supposed to be funny. Guardian journalistas basically often show the rest of the world what entitled twats they are.

So, let's get down to the meat of it. The final episode of Ted Lasso was by and large a load of sentimental old bollocks. There were some laughs, definitely at least one blub and a whole lot of everything that the Guardian review found so dislikeable about the show. Ted didn't die, Beard didn't go back to Kansas with him. The laws of football physics were stretched to breaking point one last time and Roy became Richmond's manager; everybody had a happy ending, except maybe for Ted.

He was back where he wanted to be with his son who he missed and his wife who does seem to be showing positive signs towards her ex-husband. He looks 'happy' teaching U13 football/soccer and it really does need to end here. It was rich in schmaltz, had a pantomime villain and didn't have a fairy tale ending, because Ted Lasso has never done fairy tales. 

It did however leave everyone who Ted touched in a better place because of him and that's what this show was all about, really. I'm not suggesting Ted was some kind of Christ figure, it was clear from his own mental health problems that he was far from that, but the idea of the show was to suggest that one person can have a profound effect on the lives of everyone they touch, if you just open up to it.

It will be missed, but for how long I'm not sure. As a Spurs supporter it was fun supporting AFC Richmond this season...

Shrunk

Episode seven of Shrinking was possibly the biggest LOLs I've had since the vomit episode of Family Guy. A lot happened in 30 minutes, no more so than Segel's Jimmy continuing to do the one thing he's excellent at - annoying people and fucking up.

This show has been a revelation to me in many ways; I get the impression the wife likes it but nowhere near as much as I do, but I think it's the best comedy I've seen in many years (mainly because I don't actually think of Ted Lasso as an out-and-out comedy any more) and that's probably down to the fact that very few people in the show are actually sane; maybe Jimmy's daughter, possibly Sean - the veteran with anger issues - are 'normal' but someone has to be otherwise it would just be a load of people running around shouting and gibbering. For me the stand out actors were Jessica Williams as Gaby, who started off slightly annoying and became utterly surreal and so dirty... And Harrison Ford, who as an 80-year-old playing a 73-year-old with Parkinson's was a revelation and was probably the funniest person in the show based on actual screen time. 

I cannot recommend this enough, it has been one of my favourite shows of 2023.

Oh Cock in Van

Good news! James May dedicated the fourth instalment of his cooking series to vegans and it wasn't rubbish. In fact, he cooked quite a few things in 30 minutes that looked worth giving a go - or at least in a slightly amended way - and he liked what he cooked then ate.

This is an Amazon show so if you get the chance to see it you should give it a go because while May is one of the triumvirate of hated Top Gear presenters because of his association with Jeremy Clarkson, he's very much his own person (as witnessed by the number of arguments you see him have with Clarkson that are not staged because May isn't an actor) and as he's got older he's gotten funnier. There's a distinctly erudite feel to this cooking show, despite it's basic premise. Plus, I don't think this is a gimmick show, you would seriously give some of the things he makes a try.

Recalcitrant Alien

This isn't so much a review as a theory/observation.

We watched Alien Covenant again this week; it's been a few years since we last saw it and with TV drying up faster than an unattended ancient nymphomaniac we need to entertain ourselves somehow, this was probably not what the doctor ordered.

My theory is I think Ridley Scott harboured a real grudge about not being able to direct Aliens so he decided that he would a) try and remake that film as he would have wanted and b) make it a load of bollocks to piss off everybody. I know this film isn't really much like Aliens at all (and very much like Alien) but the point is it's an attempt at an action packed gun-toting recon mission with a load of plot holes and a really stupid disposition. It's not a good film and it features some pointless gratuitous nudity which felt more like it was there to titillate a director in his 80s than add to the film in any way at all.

However, while it's slow, poorly made, has a naff plot and an ending you can see coming long before the film even starts wanking, it's still a masterpiece compared to Prometheus. 

The Last of Baz

We now have the entire final season of Barry to watch and just the fact there's a final - fourth - series must be something of a surprise all round as it didn't really feel as though this bizarre show had anywhere else to go.

For those of you behind the rest of us, thanks to Fuches, Barry has been framed for a murder he did commit and his life has fallen to pieces as he faces the rest of it in prison. Fuches thinks it's really shitty of the authorities to put Barry in the same prison as him, but instead of helping the Feds pin crimes on him, they reconcile while the Chechens and Bolivians agree that after much back and forwards debate that Barry should die.

Meanwhile Sally - Barry's ex - has seen her own life fall apart after she has a meltdown on camera and is now being called 'cunt girl' and this is before people start factoring in the fact she might be sexually involved with either a contract or serial killer and Henry Winkler might inadvertently be giving the man he swore to bring down an alibi or, at least, a case for plausible denial.

This show is also no longer a comedy. It's more like a nightmare that won't stop. A brilliant nightmare, but a nightmare all the same. Quite extraordinary TV.

Bookish

I'm currently reading a book, the first one this year - which sounds terrible. Given that I'm going to be reviewing anything soon enough, I won't review it here as I will probably do a review in about three or four days when I finish it. What I will say is that it's about 650 pages long and I really enjoyed the opening 250 or so, but they weren't the story, just the preamble and that made me realise that this particular author, who I have many books by, is quite brilliant at painting complex landscapes full of interesting characters, but so often it's the journey and not the destination that is best about his books, because so many of his book's endings felt... insignificant, or possibly lacking in actual climax-like vibes.

Please Stop

This week's episode was 43 minutes and 37 seconds long. Geographically it made little or no sense (and yes you did read that correctly but no one will care enough to even ask). It appears they've discovered a cure for zombie bites. Woo and indeed hoo. Please stop now. It's beyond embarrassing.

Next Time...

The summer usually brings very little to get excited about; we're still three weeks from Secret Invasion and with the exception of that programme, I expect the next few Pop Cultures will be old movie round-ups and any old shit I can lever into a 'pop culture' heading.