Like Guy Ritchie’s recent Netflix surprise The Gentlemen, this is (so far) good solid genre storytelling in an over-the-top mode. with no pretensions of profundity beyond its welcome, intelligent mean streak. Let’s hope the streak continues.
“Fallout” thoughts, Season One, Episode Two: “The Target”
“Fallout” thoughts, Season One, Episode One: “The End”
Let’s get this out of the way right up front: I’ve never played a Fallout game. Other than recognizing its ubiquitous blond-haired mascot man and understanding it takes place after some kind of nuclear apocalypse, I knew nothing about the franchise at all prior to pressing play on the television adaptation’s first episode.
But co-writers/co-creators Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, along with director Jonathan Nolan and his creative partner Lisa Joy, got me firmly on Fallout’s side in two easy steps. First, they opened with one of the most frightening nuclear attacks I’ve ever seen in film or television. Second, they made some funny incest jokes.
Seriously! It’s kind of a yin and yang thing. Adapted from the video game series created by Tim Cain, Fallout makes the argument that when it comes to doing a broad sci-fi satire, you can have your cake and eat it, too — you can depict the horrors of the devastation as honestly as possible, and still crack some sick jokes along the way.
I’m covering Fallout for Decider, starting with my review of the premiere.
“Shōgun” thoughts, Episode Eight: “The Abyss of Life”
The ritual of seppuku has been described and threatened by multiple characters since episode 1, but it isn’t until this point that “Shogun” finally depicts the act in graphic, agonizing detail. Indeed, Hiromatsu’s death scene functions as a microcosm of the whole series: teasing us with the taboo thrill of violence, then really making it hurt when it sinks the knife in.
The good-hearted Hiromatsu is the canvas on which the sound and effects team paint a grotesque portrait of metal tearing through flesh and muscle and viscera, until the sword of his son Buntaro, who Hiromatsu has asked to “second” the act, severs his head. It rolls directly toward Toranaga, like a grotesque accusation.
Here’s your code of honor, the show seems to say. Choke on it.
“The Regime” thoughts, Episode Six: “Don’t Yet Rejoice”
When I sat down to watch the finale of The Regime I had no idea what to expect. That’s not hyperbole, that’s not a figure of speech, that’s legit. Time and again I’d failed to predict the show’s wild changes of direction. What would it do for an encore?
Elena Vernham and Herbert Zubak were last seen trapped on the roof of the palace, rebels everywhere. The way this show goes, the finale could start six months later when they’re already in a labor camp somewhere. They could wind up getting killed. They could wind up back in charge none the worse for wear. They could flee to another country and do the talk-show circuit. They could somehow trigger a world-devouring nuclear holocaust. Anything could happen.
I like what we got a lot.
“Sugar” thoughts, Season One, Episode Two: “These People, This Place”
COP VS. COP. MERCILESS. MR. MAYHEM. There’s an art to coming up with good fake names for pop culture trash. Seinfeld had it, with bogus titles that nailed genre after 1990s film genre: Chunnel, Checkmate, Rochelle Rochelle, Prognosis Negative. The comics writer Grant Morrison exquisitely spoofed the compound-word and common-noun names of XXXTREME!!! grunge-era superheroes like Venom, Deadpool, and Cable in their and Keith Giffen’s parody comic Doom Force: Gridlock, Timesheet, Campfire, Spatula. And with the three titles listed at the top of this paragraph — movies produced by squirrelly sleazeball Bernie Siegel, played by Dennis Boutsikaris, a welcome face anywhere he shows up — Sugar shows it has that juice.
“Sugar” thoughts, Season One, Episode One: “Olivia”
Private investigator John Sugar is OP. “Overpowered,” to the non-gamers out there. His skills have been maxed out, to the point where almost nothing can faze him. He’s handsome. He’s wealthy. He’s successful. He’s good at his job. He speaks fluent English, Spanish, Arabic, and Japanese. He wears beautiful suits and drives an incredible car. His partner may be even smarter and better looking than he is. He’s a skilled hand-to-hand fighter, but he hates violence. He catches a fly with chopsticks. He can metabolize alcohol at a frankly unbelievable fifty times the rate of normal men. He may be Wolverine.
And he’s kind, too. Superhumanly so. None of the above attributes have gone to his head at all. He does not appear to be a bully, an egotist, a womanizer, or any of the other shortcomings you might expect of someone so blessed. He’s not arrogant about his gifts, nor is he apologetic; he simply uses them to the best of his abilities. He’s friendly to everyone, and sincerely interested in them, knowing the names and family lives of the workers at the hotel where he lives in a well-appointed bungalow. He’s a helper, constantly going out of his way to get people out of jams — a yakuza boss client with a kidnapped child, a limousine driver he overhears talking about his sick daughter, a homeless guy with a dog who happens to be outside a bar Sugar has to visit for work. He is Agent Dale Cooper levels of tall, dark, handsome, and decent. He’s the white private dick that’s a nice machine to all the chicks.
I’m covering Sugar for Decider, starting with my review of the series premiere.
“Tokyo Vice” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Ten: “Endgame”
Could they keep it going? Sure, I don’t see why not. Jake always has other stories to work. Katagiri could get pulled back in — or not, if Ken Watanabe’s contract is up. Jake and Trendy’s falling out feels like something set up with a story in mind. So does Mrs. Tozawa’s warning to Jake that she won’t forget how he failed to take Tozawa down with the surveillance tape, which it turns out she sent him. Boss Sato opens up a whole new world of storytelling possibilities. We don’t know where Sam’s headed, what she’ll do when she gets there, or what she’ll be like when she gets back. Emi unchained seems interesting to me. There’s plenty left to explore.
But if that doesn’t happen, that’s fine! Then there’s plenty left to imagine, the way we daydream futures for all kinds of characters in our favorite stories. I like the sense that the world of Tokyo Vice will keep on turning even if we’re not there to see it. Crime will still be committed, and cops and reporters will still investigate it. There will always be people eating and drinking and working and fucking behind those big glass windows. The lights of Tokyo will always stay on.
“Shōgun” thoughts, Episode Seven: “A Stick of Time”
“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Few cinematic genres have had as fruitful a conversation with one another as the samurai film and the western, so it’s only fitting to use an epigraph from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” to sum up the central conflict in this week’s episode.
I reviewed this week’s episode of Shōgun for the New York Times.
“The Regime” thoughts, Episode Five: “All Ye Faithful”
Ah, The Regime! A delightful satire about a flighty mad tyrant and the sad salt-of-the-earth soldier who falls under her contr— no.
Ah, The Regime! A surprising satire about a power-mad Rasputin who takes advantage of his unexpected elevation to power to slowly take over the sta— no.
Ah, The Regime! An unpredictable satire in which the dictator’s callous behavior drives her imprisoned svengali into the arms of the one man who presents a political threat to her reig— no.
Ah, The Regime! A wild satire in which a dictator and a thug fiddle (with each other) while Rome burns until the flames finally come for them. Yes?
I dunno, man. There’s been five episodes of this thing and each one has revised the show’s underlying premise as presented by the last. This time around the leap was more shocking to me than ever. Not because it was impossible to predict that Elena Vernham and Herbert Zubak would run Unnamed Central European State right into the ground — the only other option would be some satire-genre contrivance in which they get away with it all scott-free, which I still wouldn’t rule out since it’s so irresistible to satirists. No, this was shocking because of how goddamned unpleasant it was to watch, and to listen to.
That last point is really important. Throughout the early going of this episode (“All Ye Faithful”), every conversation and meal and speech to the staff is soundtracked by the sound of distant explosions. They’re our first sign that things have gone disastrously wrong for the regime. Occasionally the explosions can even be seen through a window in the background. So as Elena prattles on about this or that inane thing, or as Agnes gives a stiff-upper-lip speech to the kitchen, or as little Oskar helps with yuletide traditions like selecting the Christmas Carp (??), there’s just a constant sound of death at a military scale thrumming in the background. It’s The Zone of Interest of cringe comedy.
“Tokyo Vice” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Nine: “Consequences”
To paraphrase Cosmo Kramer and Elaine Benes, it may well be unbridled enthusiasm that leads to Shinzo Tozawa’s downfall. In this penultimate episode of Tokyo Vice’s bitchin’ second season, the last yakuza boss standing seems to have it all under control, but the more he tightens his grip, the more seems to slip through his fingers. (That was a Princess Leia paraphrase, not a Seinfeld paraphrase.)
3 Body Problem Made Rosalind Chao a Braver Performer
The need for empathy’s an interesting point. As I watched the show, I’d think of the anti-alien characters as the good guys and the pro-alien characters as the bad guys. But the pro-alien characters aren’t necessarily evil at all.
Yes, exactly. I’ve been around people who are, for lack of a better word, enthusiasts. When you understand their background, you can understand why they were drawn to a cult mentality like Ye was.I don’t know what it was about me, but when I was young, I used to get approached by cults. I remember walking through a mall when I was still in my teens and a person approached me and handed me a pamphlet. I remember thinking, Wow, if I didn’t have a family or friends, or if I felt isolated, I could see how this would be attractive. They seem so nice and warm and loving. One would be drawn to that if you feel that everything has fallen apart for you.
God, this is the first time I’ve thought of that. I guess people thought I seemed vulnerable to that.
Were you?
No. I mean, I had a really close family. I think I appeared to be very naïve, and I used to spend a lot of time alone. I was very shy, a solitary person, and I think that emanated from me. Look at me blaming myself.
I interviewed 3 Body Problem actor Rosalind Chao for Vulture.
I’m Glad ‘Supersex’ Triggered Me
To see so much of myself on screen screen made me hurt, yes. It also made me feel less weird, less perverse, less alone. Other men experienced this? Other men felt this? Other men continue to feel it decades later? The sense of validation was indescribable. I would not want to be warned against it.
Now I’ve actually experienced being triggered, a phenomenon I’d only ever really viewed from a remove, almost academically. I’ve really gone through it, felt truly awful, felt like I wanted to shrivel up and blow away, felt like I wanted to puke my whole insides out. And while I can only speak for myself of course, I now really do believe that trigger warnings do more harm than good.
What would have happened had I seen “TW: child abuse” before watching that episode of Supersex? Well, not much in my case, as it was a paying gig I was obligated to do, and I’d have watched it anyway. Moreover, without knowing beforehandhow similar it was to what I’d gone through, I probably wouldn’t have given the warning much thought. I’ve been at this for a while, and I’ve seen plenty of rough stuff.
But had I seen a trigger warning, I’d have steeled myself for it. I’d have braced for impact, and thus the impact would have been lessened or even lost. The catharsis I experienced, that feeling that something inside me that was festering and poisonous was being violently forcibly expelled — so much for that. So much for that sense of validation, the gift of the knowledge that I’m not the only one. So much for the tremendous, miraculous privilege of being that moved by a work of art, of having a work of art speak directly to things inside myself I couldn’t even bring up on my own. This brought them up alright, pretty literally. I’ll never forget that. I wouldn’t want to go back.
“Shōgun” thoughts, Episode Six: “Ladies of the Willow World”
But this excellent episode has more going on than crucial back stories and thrilling war councils. It also contains the show’s sexiest, most romantic material to date. The writer Maegan Houang realizes that the concept of the eightfold fence, retaining hidden spaces for your true emotions while erecting barriers to obscure them, as emphasized in feudal Japan, is a gigantic gift for developing romantic tension between two characters.
Blackthorne’s visit to the brothel known as the Willow World, with Mariko acting as his translator, is presaged by an earlier scene. Passing through his house, Blackthorne overhears Mariko praying in Latin. He kneels down on the other side of the thin wall and begins reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Each can hear the other. Each understands that the other is communing with God, an incredibly intimate act. They share intimacy without impropriety.
Things get even more achingly romantic at the brothel. The pair are there on the orders of Lord Toranaga, who wants to reward Blackthorne for saving his life, and to compensate him for having endured the uncivil behavior of Mariko’s husband, Buntaro. Toranaga is also wise to the fact that there’s something going on between the Anjin and the Lady. Commanding her to serve as Blackthorne’s translator in a brothel may simply be a way to give them license to get naked in a private location together — although “private” is a relative term when even the sex workers are spies.
The lucky lady at the Willow World is Kiku. Girlfriend of the ambitious, jealous young Lord Omi, nephew of Yabushige, who is none too thrilled she will ply her trade with a barbarian. Kiku is acclaimed as the best courtesan in the region, and turns out to be a hell of a wing woman, too. Her erotic words about the pleasure and escape she can provide with her body are relayed to Blackthorne in Mariko’s voice, and the desire in that voice, as well as Blackthorne’s desire in hearing it, is unmistakable.
Though Kiku all but invites the two of them to make love, they know their every word and gesture are being scrutinized. Blackthorne follows Kiku to their bedchamber while Mariko insists on staying behind — but not before he brushes her hand with his own. I’m surprised no one’s kimono caught fire from the sparks that flew with that touch.
“The Regime” thoughts, Episode Four: “Midnight Feast”
I like the jokes. The giant triangular video screen that descends from the ceiling of the conference room while displaying the image of Elena taking an ice bath. Elena describing the smell of the impoverished area as “like a hog’s urethra.” Singer believing “given the China of it all” is a convincingly childlike thing for one of the kids to say. Elena and Nicky dipping fondue in a photo op. The final sex scene, which is both hilarious and, let’s be honest here, hot. (Imagine being the head of government and having everyone including your advisors and spouse clear the room so your crush can fuck you.) This is how this kind of wealth-and-power satire is supposed to be done.
I reviewed this weekend’s episode of The Regime for Decider.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Eight: “Wallfacer”
“3 Body Problem” started out as the television equivalent of a Hans Zimmer composition: a steady crescendo, growing ever more menacing and spectacular. By the time of its bloody, brilliant fifth episode, with its repulsive boat massacre and staggering eye in the sky, it felt like a show capable of going anywhere, doing anything.
Then things simmered down. People spent their time reacting to the crisis. They worked or played hooky, they hid or revealed their feelings, they participated or declined to participate in the war to come. Will spent an episode dying, his friends grieving. (Also inserting his brain into a jar to be fired at an alien fleet, but definitely grieving.) Even so, given the relentless ante-raising of the show’s first five hours, the whole thing screamed “the calm before the storm.”
Well, the season finale has come and gone, and there’s no storm in sight. It wasn’t the calm before the storm. It was all just … calm.
I reviewed the season finale of 3 Body Problem for the New York Times.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Seven: “Only Advance”
The problem is that compared to a Cyclopean eye in the sky or a boat getting sliced to pieces by an invisible web out of Stephen King’s “The Mist,” none of this is all that interesting. From the very first episode, it was apparent that ideas and images, not compelling characters and a novel plot, were the strength of “3 Body Problem.” Leaning into the characters makes the whole thing lopsided.
I reviewed the seventh episode of 3 Body Problem for the New York Times.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Six: “The Stars Our Destination”
It had to let up at some point. After five escalating episodes in which each ending was more spectacularly grim than the last, “3 Body Problem” took its foot off the gas for its sixth outing. It’s hard to begrudge an eight-episode literary adaptation a bit of breathing room.
I reviewed episode six of 3 Body Problem for the New York Times.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Five: “Judgment Day”
To Raj, it looks like the plan has failed. Using the experimental nanofibers developed by Auggie Salazar, finally free of that maddening alien countdown, now that the Shan-Ti have cut off contact with their faithful, they’ve constructed an invisible net that seems ready to catch the ship. Given how the team is talking about casualties, sinking seems the more likely outcome.
But to all appearances, the gigantic repurposed oil tanker is cruising right through the Panama Canal, passing by the support beams across which the nano-net has been stretched. Raj, who inherited his ends-justify-the-means attitude from his war-hero father, has long suspected Auggie’s heart isn’t in the project, since she’s pretty much told him so to his face. He suspects sabotage. He leans in toward her in the command center. “Why isn’t it working?” he asks her accusingly.
The camera shifts focus from his face to hers. “It is,” she says, never taking her eyes off the monitor showing her the ship.
It was at this point that I said, out loud, “Oh, this is going to be gnarly.”
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Four: “Our Lord”
Yet for all their apparent screw-ups, the San-Ti’s servants still appear to be on the winning side of Earth’s future history. Thanks to the script by Madhuri Shekar and the ghoulish confidence projected by Rosalind Chao as Wenjie, the arrival and triumph of the aliens is once again made to feel like a foregone conclusion — about as stoppable as a zombie outbreak in the opening minutes of a movie with the word “Dead” in the title.
If anything, I wonder if that’s the kind of story we find ourselves in. (For the record: I enjoyed “Game of Thrones” having already read George R.R. Martin’s source novels, and I’m enjoying “3 Body Problem” without having done so with Liu Cixin’s.) Unlike earlier apocalyptic series like “The Walking Dead,” which dispensed with the story’s prologue — the “uh-oh, something really bad is about to happen, in fact it’s already started” segment — in the first few minutes, “3 Body Problem” is taking a nice, leisurely approach to watching the blade fall on humanity’s collective neck. The tension is delightfully excruciating.
I reviewed the fourth episode of 3 Body Problem for the New York Times.
“3 Body Problem” thoughts, Season One, Episode Three: “Destroyer of Worlds”
More important, though, while the coming invasion feels unstoppable and fear-inducing, it is also a lot of fun. Invasion and apocalypse stories are just stories about slashers or vampires writ large, in which the monster is multiplicitous and the victim all of humanity instead of just a bunch of foolish teenagers or wan Englishwomen and their suitors. Much as we dread seeing people get what’s coming, there’s an undeniable allure to watching the worst-case scenario play out — as long as it’s happening safely onscreen.
I reviewed the third episode of 3 Body Problem for the New York Times.