Modern Culture: When to Stop

The spoilers are here...

The Very Last Evil

It's over. It's strange because until my mate Jay put a picture of this TV series up on his Facebook page about 18 months ago I was barely aware of its existence and yet since that discovery it has become one of our favourite TV series and I think we both feel like it ended far too soon.

That said, the finale of Evil was nothing like what I expected it to be, but, to be fair, I have no idea what I expected. However, I wasn't disappointed. I just felt it wasn't the finale that people may have anticipated. It did leave everything open for the show to be picked up by a streaming service like Netflix or HBO, but if that was to happen then the Evil as we know it may well be in the form of a different beast. I don't want to spoil anything but as conclusions go this didn't have much of one. The main antagonist - Leland Townsend - suffers his final humiliation and sister Andrea proved to be far better than all of the agents in the Vatican's secret organisation, but there were loads of loose ends that remained loose ends; lots of things that were never resolved or remained unanswered and there were things that were just forgotten about...

The finale was not the apocalypse; in fact that may well have been a red herring to ensure the Vatican was wrong footed into making a fatal mistake. The recurring theme of technology and VR was returned to in a big way, but oddly enough that proved to be something of a joke - in a series that remained dedicated to having a laugh every so often - and the last episode spent a lot of time pottering about, infuriating any dedicated viewer to the point of wondering how it was going to be wrapped up. In the end there was a few knowing nods and winks; a change of scenery for two of our heroes and the knowledge that the fight between good and evil will continue with or without David Acosta, Kristen Bouchard and Ben Shakir; but they might be around if anyone wants to carry on telling their story in the future...

I will say that I would highly recommend this series to anyone looking for something interesting and at times quite creepy. Evil has been a favourite in this house since we discovered it and while we had nearly 40 episodes to binge on before this final season, we probably could have done with 40 more, especially as there ends up being a lot that needs unpacking that remained in the suitcase. Michael Emerson was a fantastic villain; very much the Wile E Coyote of supernatural TV shows; a man driven by his beliefs but constantly ending up with egg or a sidewalk on his face. I've always regarded Emerson as a Marmite actor; some people love him and others loathe him; I used to be on the loathe side; from his horrendous Ben character in Lost to him becoming the go to guy to play untrustworthy shits and nasty bastards; but in this he was fantastic. Mike Colter as Father David was possibly one of the most unlikely actors to play a priest and he wasn't always convincing, but perhaps that's the whole point and then the gorgeous Katja Herbers as Kristen; if a woman in her 40s with four annoying children could ever be sexy then she pulls it off brilliantly; she was the star of the show in the end - a flawed and anything but perfect heroine; a kind of Roadrunner with some annoying habits and the perfect foil for Leland Townsend. I'm going to miss this show, but perhaps only because of the gaps in the story...

Fletch Lives

On the recommendation of my mate Chris, we decided to give the reboot of the 1980s Chevy Chase films a try, this time starring Jon Hamm as the eponymous detective/journalist Irwin Maurice Fletcher or Fletch as some of us will remember him.

Confess, Fletch is a mildly amusing movie about what appears to be an art heist that has happened because of a kidnapping of a rich Italian. Fletch is employed to try and track down nine expensive paintings owned by the victim of the kidnapping, because it appears that the daughter and new wife are more interested in these than they are in retrieving their loved one. This takes Fletch to Boston where he ends up being a murder suspect very quickly when a woman turns up dead in the house he's renting. It's all very gentle and light, even if there's this underlying feeling that someone is being given the run around. The police detectives seem to think Fletch is responsible, while he is doing everything in his power to try and uncover the person who stole the paintings and who murdered the woman in his expensive Air BnB. Like Chevy Chase's version, Hamm's Fletch feels a little silly at times, but in general it's less slapstick and more detective. It's an enjoyable little romp with lots of twists and turns and the general feeling that everything you're watching is not as it should be. It is not a classic, which is a shame because I kind of get the feeling that Hamm would have been good in a series of Fletch films, but I suspect this will be the only one.

The Sunny Always Shines

The eight episode of Sunny did something the previous five were incapable of doing; it reignited the spark of why we started watching it in the first place. It was the best episode in terms of actual story since the second one and oddly enough it hardly had any Sunny or Suzie in it; it was, in fact, a flashback episode that pretty much explained why Sunny is Sunny and all we really need to know now is why any of this happened.

Masa, Suzie's 'missing' husband is or rather has been the key to this series from the off, the problem the viewer has had is we've had to go through a lot of shite to get to the crux of the matter and this episode went a long way to explaining why we're here. It starts with Masa as a young boy, living in the middle of a seeming loveless marriage between his mother Noriko and his father, a cold, disinterested man. We quickly find out why Masa's relationship with the man he called 'father' was the way it was and eventually we revisit the period that Noriko told Suzie about way back in the third part - when her son locked himself away for over two years. Eventually someone offers Masa the opportunity to be alone somewhere else - somewhere that might be more help than being in a room at his mother's and through a home bot designed to clean up rubbish, Masa learns to program and understand how robots work.

It is the best episode so far not only because it moved the story along but because we discover that he is able to program robots to think like humans, to question things and to understand and empathise with their human masters. This is why Sunny is the way she is and presumably Sunny holds the key that Himé (played by You) is obviously after, because she wants to turn the Yakuza into a modern organisation because she thinks it is stuck in the past. There is also the suggestion - possibly more than a suggestion - that Zen is alive and well, which might mean that Masa is not dead. The ending was... very odd and for once I'm keen to see the penultimate episode to find out what I watched at the end.

Rollover

Against my better judgement I decided to watch Jackpot! Despite saying I wouldn't (just last week, I think), I changed my mind and it seems that while many people in the world have a problem with John Cena comedy films, I'm not one of them.

Awkwafina's Katie is the winner of the lottery - $3.2billion - in futuristic LA, where things are so shit that the winner becomes fair game for about eight hours after winning. This means that if you kill the lottery winner you get to keep the winner's money and the organisers of the lottery make it easy for potential killers to find the winner. This is all a bit The Purge and it's probably hard to see where the fun is when it's simply a relentless car chase of violence and mayhem. However, there are some genuine funny moments, a couple of quite tender ones and a bucket load of really stupid and dislikeable characters - this is a movie about everything that's bad about people and the lure of money in the USA; so you can imagine that I went into it with little hope.

John Cena is the too-good-to-be-true 'helper' who turns up just as Katie is about to be killed and offers his services for just 10% of her winnings; he's a good guy, but it takes 2/3rds of the film for Awkwafina to truly understand this; the problem is she doesn't trust anyone, so in many ways she's the best person to win the lottery because she won't necessarily be easy to hunt down and kill off. Cena's Noel does his best to save her, but eventually his old friend and rival played by Simu Liu steps in to help out, except is Louis Lewis really a good guy? With the exception of a three minute lull in proceedings, this is a full-on, in-yer-face film that has balletic fight scenes, mindless violence and some mildly amusing stuff; the funniest things being the occasional quip by Cena and the sharp and witty observational humour of Awkwafina. It won't be for everybody and probably deserves its 5.8 rating on IMDB, but for a mindless Saturday night piece of junk food, it served its purpose well.

Gangster's Parakeet 

We've had the Michael Mann film Public Enemies on the FDoD for a number of months and I've always been a wee bit reluctant to watch it. I don't know why, I just had this feeling I wouldn't enjoy it. Maybe it was because Michael Mann's Heat wasn't the 1990s classic everyone told me it was.

Johnny Depp played John Dillinger and Christian Bale was Melvin Purvis - the FBI agent charged with bringing Dillinger as well as Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd to justice - at least that's what the premise of the film is. Floyd played by Channing Tatum lasts about two minutes; his only scene is running through an orchard before he's shot by Purvis with what looks like an elephant gun. Nelson, played by Stephen Graham, eventually hooks up with Dillinger, but the bank robber nor any of his men don't like the man, because he's essentially a psychopath. This is because Dillinger is portrayed almost like some kind of Robin Hood character who only robs banks not people.

It is an extraordinarily dull and boring film with a lot of cameos from renowned actors and a pretty good turn by Marion Cotillard as JD's love interest. The wife picked up on it pretty quickly when she asked me if I thought the pacing of the film was right. I didn't think it was movie's pacing, just the entire feel about it, with its muted colours, juddering narrative and endless parade of new characters. It isn't a film that you'll like really and after over two hours I was glad to see the back of it. I'm not convinced that Mann is a good director (Collateral wasn't bad) and Depp has starred in some really dodgy movies over his career. This probably needed to be seen, I just wish I hadn't bothered.
There were no parrot-like birds in this film...

Termination Academy

The final season of The Umbrella Academy finally dropped a couple of weeks ago and I was grateful for the extended recap at the start, even if I couldn't remember that much about the ending of season three. The wife gave up on this halfway through S03E01, which meant I watched the rest of the season on my own and therefore I'm watching this final season also on my own. With just six episodes, it is shorter, more tightly wound and benefits from it.

The family have been locked in this new timeline for six years and they all eke out existences that they're not that happy with, even Five who now works for the CIA is unfulfilled with his lot. Meanwhile a couple of strange people are busy collecting artefacts from other timelines and moving towards something they call The Cleanse; which appears to be a way of returning this timeline to the original one; the one the Umbrella Academy originated from. The family, reunited for a birthday party, end up being duped into drinking Marigold - the substance responsible for their powers in the first place and this not only returns them but also makes them much more. After this happens they go in search of a girl called Jennifer; who through some retconning seems to be connected to the family and the original Ben's death. The thing is she is protected in a small town by agents working for their cruel and alien father Regie Hargreeves. There are some incongruous plot and script things, these don't amount to much on their own but they mount up as the series progresses - things like the knowledge of people not from the original timeline about people from it.

Without giving too much away, the series has an ending, whether you like it or not is immaterial because it's the ending you get. Much is tied up and there is one loose end in the grand scheme of things you can let that one go, even if it makes no sense. The journey to the end is typically odd and as usual Five is the main antagonist and protagonist - everything usually revolves around him, even if this time around it isn't his fault, but he is the one who arrives at the solution and ultimately all the solutions to all the problems. However, if you can remember that first season with Five working for what was essentially a Time Variant Authority making sure that things history says happened actually happened and working completely against and at odds with his six adopted siblings, what you get in this final season is as far removed from that as you can imagine. This ends up being solely about multiverses and timelines - a very popular thing in modern entertainment, even if it's been a trope in the genre known as comic books since the late 1950s - and almost completely disregarding the original series; but that would be my ultimate complaint about this series - a lack of consistent narrative.

The Umbrella Academy has an ending that belongs in the tragedy category, except it has an extremely happy ending - a fitting description for an uneven tale that wobbled more than it was static. Ultimately it has been an entertaining ride, even if some characters - Klaus for starters - seemed like they had no real place in the overarching story. At the end of the day, Lila, who started out as a villain is a key player and it's not a surprise that her involvement is tied into Five's. I think if you watched all four seasons back to back you might find it isn't a very linear story at all.  

Next Time...

After the quietest week for ages - football, family and friends for dinner - I expect the last week of summer (proper) will be so horrid - weather wise - that we'll make up for it by watching more telly... Heading our way this week, as well the last two episodes of Grimm season one, we have Mr Inbetween to try. This is an Aussie TV show about a man juggling being a hitman with looking after his pre-teen daughter; it has an 8.7 rating on IMDB. The penultimate episode of Sunny and probably something returning or new to try (or we might just start season two of Grimm).

I decided to try and expand the TV viewing by having a couple of classics or unseen shows (Mr Inbetween excepted) and I have the two (unseen) seasons of Marvel's Netflix series The Punisher to now watch. It took me years to bother with it and only because it is the only Marvel thing we haven't seen that we feel we should. I have also obtained The West Wing figuring it is nearly 20 years since we've watched it and there's a good chance much of it will feel like watching it for the first time. All or some of these new additions won't be watched next week, but are there in case.

We started to watch Longlegs last night, but company arrived (unexpectedly) so that's going to kick off next week's viewing. There is also a number of films of the FDoD (28) and almost as many on the TV Hard Drive, a few of which - on both drives - are quite recent. 

Whatever...