Category: tv

This might be the best season of The Righteous Gemstones yet. It feels like what the show should have been from the start, with the overarching story being the three Gemstones kids trying to run the church in their father’s shadow. Granted, the sibling bickering is cranked up to 11 this season, to the point where they barely act like believable adults. I get that these are supposed to be spoiled brats who never grew up, but it’s especially egregious this time around. (Relevant side note: it is amazing how well the child actors in the flashback episode capture the adults’ mannerisms.) It also feels like past lessons learned have been forgotten, like the beautiful way Season 1 ended. I’ve read that the creators hope the show lasts for many years, but if that comes at the expense of resetting everyone’s personal growth season to season, I don’t know if it’s worth it.

That said, I really like how they treated secondary characters in Season 3. BJ and Keefe are a lot more sympathetic, with the latter finally establishing a real relationship with Kelvin beyond just “jokey gay undertones.” Frankly, it was long overdue. I also liked that the main conflict boiled down to repairing relationships with the estranged Montgomery cousins, where neither the Montgomerys nor the Gemstones are totally in the right. I will say, though, that it’s a bit ridiculous the season finale had not one but two fake-out explosion deaths. For a show that’s not afraid to punch you in the gut, I’m surprised they didn’t commit to at least one of these deaths. On the other hand, I’m kind of glad the Montgomerys survived, as they add an interesting dynamic to the Gemstones saga that will be interesting to watch… if they stick around for Season 4.

I don’t know how I got started on this show. It’s not normally something I’d go for. But the first season was about a place I hold near and dear (Hawaii) and began with a “who died” mystery that acted as a great hook. Season 2 has a similar opening, though we know this time around that the “surprise” death is ultimately not important. The White Lotus is more a character study on insufferable, wealthy tourists than it is a murder mystery. However, I think it nailed that aspect better in Season 1, where we got to see just how miserable the resort staff was in the wake of their guests. In Season 2, we only get to know the hotel manager, Valentina, and she isn’t miserable because of the guests but miserable because she’s still in the closet and has feelings for one of her employees. Um, weird that they would reuse the “gay manager lusts over employee” plot from Season 1, but at least it doesn’t get rapey in Season 2.

Speaking of (bad transition, I know), the real theme of Season 2 is sex and power. There’s a lot of transactional sex, the most obvious being the literal sex workers who hang out at the hotel all day. I found it amusing that a father and son both “partook” of the same lady friend, and only the father realizes this, but that conflict really doesn’t go anywhere. The whole Di Grasso family thread has the most disappointing resolution, even though I laughed when all three Di Grasso men turned around to ogle the same woman at the airport. It was a fitting end to their otherwise lackluster story. The character with the best conclusion was actually Tanya. I didn’t like her for most of the season, as she was a bit too air-headed, but damn, that finale was great. Her final moments were hilarious, heartbreaking, and intense. The White Lotus can be such a slow burn at times, but it’s always entertaining to see how everything culminates in the end.

Well, this marks the end of The Other Two. I’m sad to see the show go, because it never did course-correct after an outstanding first season. Subsequent seasons have been progressively less funny, partly because the jokes haven’t been as strong and, in Season 3’s case, the story has simply become too dramatic. The fight between Brooke and Lance, for instance, was kinda devastating. I love Lance as a character, so it was painful to watch Brooke be such an asshole to him this season. I have similar feelings about Cary and how he treated his BFF, Curtis. I understand that one of the show’s main themes is how show biz ruins relationships, but turning your protagonists into such unlikable and irredeemable monsters is maybe not the best choice. Sure, Cary and Brooke both come around in the end, but the change of heart feels hollow given everything we saw prior in the season.

And, oh boy, this season was all over the place. While it’s true that the story has very serious beats, the humor has gotten way sillier. There were a couple of episodes in particular that were honestly too much. Like, Brooke attends an industry party where non-industry people are literally invisible? I mean, it’s kind of funny, but the sudden shift into cartoony hijinks really took me out of it. Same with the episode that spoofed Pleasantville (and, come on, is Pleasantville that relevant to pop culture?). The only gag that really landed for me was the pretentious theater play that went on for days, and people started showing up in their pajamas or bringing their laptops as they lost interest in the play but felt obligated to still go. That’s the perfect balance of being outlandish enough to be funny but not so outlandish that it breaks reality. Unfortunately, The Other Two forgot how to walk that line as of late, and now the show’s over…

I haven’t played the Last of Us games, which has made following discussions about the show difficult. Every thread is full of comments like, “The actors on the show blink, and the characters in the game blink. They thought of everything!” To be fair, it does sound like the show is a faithful adaptation of the game, but that doesn’t mean much to me. So when viewed as a show first, it’s… okay. The Last of Us is basically what The Walking Dead was like during its post Season 1 peaks. The Walking Dead was never an amazing show, though, and I don’t think The Last of Us is amazing, either. Sure, all of the pieces are there. Great acting (save for one freedom fighter leader who falls a bit flat). Believable apocalyptic set pieces and backdrops. Scary zombies. Tense action moments. And, of course, the classic message that “humans are the real monsters.” Oh, that message is hammered in so hard, you’ll end the show not really knowing who to root for.

And yes, I know, that’s the whole point. I don’t think you are necessarily supposed to like Joel, just understand his motivations given the state of the world. I guess what holds the show back for me is that a lot of the character development we should have gotten with him (and Ellie) is instead given to side characters who often only show up for one episode. You could approach this as more of an anthology series, where Joel and Ellie are merely the connective thread, and that’d be fine. But then the moments with Joel and Ellie that are supposed to pack a lot of weight… don’t. For instance, Episode 3 is definitely a standout episode that follows two dudes finding love at the end of the world. These two only had a passing relationship with Joel, though, and they never meet Ellie, so their story feels abruptly placed and inconsequential. Don’t get me wrong, I liked that episode, and I like a lot of the show’s other “pieces.” I just wish it all fit together better.

I’ve followed all of the MCU movies so far, but this is the only Disney+ TV show I’ve had any interest in. I just really like Hulk as a character and feel he constantly gets done dirty in the movies. So a TV show centered around a different Hulk sounded promising, especially with all of the other subtexts it has going for it. She-Hulk not only has to live in her cousin’s shadow but has to navigate life as 1) a woman hounded by incels, 2) a superhero whose identity is not a secret, and 3) a superhero living in a world that, frankly, has as much superhero fatigue as we have MCU fatigue. I also appreciate the show’s attempts to give us a more lighthearted side of the MCU. And not lighthearted in a “Thor + screaming goats” sort of way but lighthearted in that Jen/She-Hulk doesn’t have to save the world every week.

Alas, She-Hulk sometimes suffers from the same critiques I threw at Ted Lasso. If the stakes are too low, it’s hard to stay engaged. Like, there’s an episode where Jen goes to a wedding, and that’s… it. That’s the conflict. These weaker episodes also highlight just how pointless and dumb the B stories are. I really don’t care what Jen’s co-workers are up to when they aren’t interacting with Jen. The best parts of the show are when Jen still has to do her normal job (lawyering) but in a superhero-driven world. It’s fun to see her take on super clients and try to rein in their ridiculousness even as she, herself, is seen as a ridiculous “monster.” Speaking of, the episode where she loses her temper and “Hulks out” to stop a sex tape from playing highlights the kind of stakes this show can and should do.

Of course, there’s a lot that doesn’t work. The CGI is distracting, which is not good for a show where your main character frequently has to be CG. A lot of the humor falls flat, too. I understand the She-Hulk comic frequently broke the fourth wall, but the show doesn’t do it enough for it to feel natural. I think some episodes only had one quick aside to the audience and that was it. So it felt particularly silly when—major spoiler, by the way—the finale sees She-Hulk literally climb out of the Disney+ menu screen and into another thumbnail, where she berates the writers of She-Hulk. It’s funny once you get onboard with what’s happening. The self-digs at the state of the MCU are cute, after all. But we needed to be eased into this over-the-topness, much like how Jen needed to ease into her new alter ego.

I’ve never been a huge fan of this show, but I thought the first two seasons were fairly amusing and the third season rocky but still funny at times. Season 4, however, felt like a huge misstep. The only stuff that worked for me was the relationship between Baby Colin Robinson and Laszlo, which was oddly sweet to watch unfold. But I don’t think rebooting the Colin Robinson character as a rapidly growing child was the right trade off. Regular Colin Robinson brought so much more comedy to the table in how his dry vampire lifestyle clashed with the others’. When the real Colin Robinson returned in the finale, it was immediately obvious how much better he works in adult form. So, hey, at least he’ll be back in Season 5, though I don’t think I will bother tuning in after such a disaster of a season.

The bigger problem I have with the show is just how ridiculous it’s gotten. These are not vampires that “do things in the shadows” anymore. Like, yeah, of course you have to suspend disbelief to enjoy a show such as this, but they’re not even trying to keep a low profile at this point and rely on hypnosis too often to fix their mistakes. I mean, these are characters who murder celebrities with impunity and openly advertise a night club for vampires, and the world is none the wiser. Nadja’s sudden obsession with having a night club was pretty obnoxious, by the way. Every joke with her this season was basically, “LOOK HOW LOUD I CAN YELL.” And Nandor bringing his previous wife back from the dead and then slowly wishing away her personality was a little too icky, even for what is supposed to be a dark comedy. Alas, What We Do in the Shadows has totally forgotten how to do the comedy part right.