But when we get to that final sequence, where she Saltburns her whole family while dressed like a post-apocalyptic Oscar statuette, most of my complaints fell by the wayside. What we’re looking at, of course, is a gothic, updated for the 2020s — a New Lurid tale of twisted family secrets erupting forth and unmaking the rich and powerful who built their empires upon them. Sofia Falcone is The Penguin’s Poe homage — Madeleine Usher risen from the tomb, the tell-tale heart beating out a reminder of murder, the Masque of the Red Death visiting diseased vengeance on Prince Prospero and his revelers. Spooky Season has come to Gotham City.

I reviewed this week’s episode of The Penguin for Decider.

It’s funny: The Old Man, along with The Americans and Better Call Saul, are three of the best shows to ever do it when it comes to the craft of espionage and sabotage. But they’re also three of the quietest shows ever when it comes to the people doing the spycraft. Dan and Zoe and Carson barely raise their voices in this episode. Mike Ehrmantraut and Gus Fring and Nacho Varga rarely spoke above a low purr. Philip and Elizabeth Jennings could be explosively angry, but their jobs involved nearly as much quiet, wordless drudgery as it did honeytrapping; their unintentional Ahab, FBI Agent Stan Beeman, his partne Dennis Aderholt, and his KGB counterpart Oleg Burov talked like they worked in a library. 

Every single actor involved in the above roles (deep breath: Jeff Bridges, Amy Brenneman, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Jonathan Banks, Giancarlo Esposito, Michael Mando, Matthew Rhys, Keri Russell, Noah Emmerich, Brandon J. Dirden, and Costa Ronin) deserves kudos for shying away from the high-decibel, demonstrative acting style we associate with action and adventure. Sure, the spies keep quiet when they don’t wanna get caught, but otherwise they live for the excitement, right? 

Not these guys. Whatever compels them to keep doing what they’re doing has not translated into a bonanza of excess energy for them to spend. It’s rendered them thoughtful, quiet, cautious, careful. As Zoe puts it at one point, doing this means having to be okay with never trusting anybody again. She also says that while she’s always been a person who breaks things, her experiences with Chase and Bote, the things she’s learned how to do, mean she’s now “armed.” You speak softly when every word is a weapon.

I reviewed the latest episode of The Old Man for Decider.

Displaying many of the visual and storytelling strengths brought to his acclaimed and (it’s fair to say) beloved films across an array of genres — coming-of-age, fantasy, autofiction, science fiction, literary adaptation — creator/writer/director Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer grabs your attention right from the outset. I don’t mean because it opens with a sex scene, although yes, that too. I mean that each of these opening scenes is a thing worthwhile in itself — the variety in the tone of the performances and color palettes and emotional tone across the three storylines, all of them executed to a nicety. 

I’m covering the new show Disclaimer on Apple TV+ for Decider, starting with my review of the first episode.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Gotham. Or a little, anyway. The big question The Penguin has yet to answer — besides “Why is Colin Farrell playing this character when there are dozens of actors who wouldn’t have required Carmine Laguzio levels of prosthetics and padding?” — is why a Batman supervillain is involved in this straightforward gangster story at all. But now things are seeming a little less straightforward, no? 

I reviewed episode three of The Penguin for Decider.

It’s an exciting show now, is what I’m saying. It’s a show to get excited about, too. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a surprise and a success.

I reviewed the fine season finale of The Rings of Power for Decider.

But there’s a deeper reason to believe that their moments of untrustworthiness are not ultimately to be trusted, one that goes beyond even the testimony of the friends, family, teachers, and coaches who back them up and are ignored. Even in relatively mundane circumstances it can be hard to recall moments of great pain in exact detail, or tempting to strengthen your case by stretching or hiding the truth to back it up. Imagine if you’d had your brain repeatedly pulped against a wall of cruelty and abuse your entire life. 

If Lyle and Erik are liars, if they are weird, if they embellish and prevaricate and try to cover their tracks and their bases, if they are unsympathetic and unpredictable and hard to love, if they are killers, it’s because José and Kitty Menéndez made them that way. They lived in a monster factory, the end-product of which was two young men on a boat with their parents, sharing shotgun secrets, saying “Let’s fucking do it.” The monsters turned on their creators.

I reviewed the finale of the very impressive Monsters for Decider.

“If this is a mafia show, why is the Penguin in it? If this is a Penguin show, why isn’t Batman in it?” Unless and until The Penguin provides a satisfactory answer to these questions — and no, Colin Farrell vanishing into prosthetics and Brooklynese is not sufficient — it’s going to remain a puzzling, even frustrating, show. But then, this is a franchise with a tendency to be embarrassed about what it is, as if changing the surnames of the Riddler and the Penguin from Nygma and Cobbleplot to Nashton and Cobb will make the idea of a billionaire who dresses up like a horror movie monster to beat up criminals any less whimsical at heart. Just be what you are!

But this is not to say some enjoyment can’t be had even on a show that feels the need to preemptively apologize for itself in that way. This week’s episode serves up a strong action sequence, a tense bit of murderous skullduggery, and a closer look at what kind of villain this version of the Penguin really is: A enjoyably awful one, as it turns out. 

I reviewed this week’s episode of The Penguin for Decider.

To borrow a phrase from George R.R. Martin, misogyny — like racism or transphobia or any other baseless hate — is a sword without a hilt. True, it’s a dangerous weapon, and you’re going to hurt your targets and hurt them bad. But there’s no safe way to swing a weapon like that without doing damage to yourself.

I reviewed the penultimate episode of Monsters for Decider.

But the real thing Dunne can’t wrap his mind around though is why they never told before, and why they lied after. There’s a simple reason for that, I think: Having not been sexually abused, he doesn’t understand the rancid cocktail of guilt, shame, doubt, and self-incrimination that results. He doesn’t get that people would rather lie to their friends, their therapist, and the cops than provide the excuse that could save them from the gas chamber until it was absolutely necessary to do so. 

I reviewed episode 7 of Monsters for Decider.

The question of whether Morgan Bote is Dan Chase’s father is interesting primarily insofar as it is, still, a question. Leaving the matter so up in the air, so much a question of interpretation of word choice and facial expressions and tone of voice and body language, never giving us a definitive answer or even asking the question in an explicit way…We know the truth is in there somewhere, but at the moment we have no way to get at it based on what director Ute Briesewitz, writers Jonathan E. Steinberg and Craig Silverstein, and actors Jeff Bridges, Joel Grey, Amy Brenneman, and John Lithgow (who has a reaction to it all that could be one of realization or exasperation) have chosen to show us. 

It’s like turning the Hellraiser puzzle box around in your hands, unable to figure out which panel to press to access the painful reality hidden within. It’s a lot more rewarding than the umpteenth “I am your father,” that’s for sure. The show has had two secret father reveals already; why not soft-pedal the third, if indeed it is the third at all?

I reviewed this week’s episode of The Old Man for Decider.

“What a great shot!” “Brilliant!” “Hahahahahaha!” “What a line!!!” “Looking cool, actually!” “Incredible banger line!” “Fuck yeah!” “Holy shit!” “Fuck yeah!” “Unreal, dawg!” These are all actual notes I took on this week’s episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. I think my overall feelings about it are pretty clear.

I reviewed this week’s Rings of Power for Decider.

Are José and Kitty monsters? Yes. But they weren’t born that way. They were turned, like vampires. To put it another way, they were healthy, until they were exposed to their families’ nuclear waste. José can cut the boys in and out of his will however often he wants: He has already passed on their true inheritance, and the sickness is in their bones.

I reviewed the sixth episode of Monsters for Decider.

Written by series co-creator Ian Brennan, filmed by director Michael Uppendahl and cinematographer Jason McCormick, acted by Ari Graynor and Cooper Koch like people’s lives depended on it, “The Hurt Man” is one of the best episodes of television I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot. Jesus Christ Almighty. Absolutely breathtaking work. Absolutely harrowing work. Absolutely vital work.

I reviewed the fifth episode of Monsters for Decider. One of the hardest things I’ve ever written.

Say hi to the bad guy. Created and written by Osamu Suzuki, Netflix’s new Japanese-language miniseries The Queen of Villains is about the life and (mostly) fictional crimes of infamous real-life women’s wrestler Dump Matsumoto. Dump was a pioneer whose intimidating face paint, bleached blonde hair, and penchant for bloody mayhem inspired male and female wrestlers alike across the globe to swaggerjack her, and made her a cultural phenomenon in her native land. Will a biopic series about her rise to the top thrill Netflix audiences in America the same way? 

I’m happy to recommend The Queen of Villains, which really captures something special about pro wrestling. I wrote about it for Decider.

There’s no point in burying the lede: This episode of Monsters is the most unflinching, and therefore the most respectful, treatment of the sexual abuse of boys I’ve ever seen on television. I say it’s respectful for good reason. Without belaboring it — I’ve done that elsewhere — I am a child sexual abuse survivor myself. Unfortunately, so much of the rhetoric surrounding the fictional handling of lives like mine seems designed to make us feel we suffered a fate worse than death, something so horrible that decent filmmakers should neither depict nor discuss it in detail. But personally I’d rather be alive than dead, and I refuse to treat my experience as verboten. So does Monsters, and I’m very grateful for that.

I reviewed episode four of Monsters for Decider.

When I was little, children’s media was really big on revealing that behind the guy you thought was the villain usually stood an even bigger, scarier villain. Darth Vader had the Emperor. Skeletor had Hordak. Gargamel had Balthazar. Cobra Commander had an immortal half-human, half-snake guy called Golobulus, voiced by Burgess Meredith. No mater how bad you thought a bad guy was, there was always someone worse.

Anyway, remember last week, when Eric exploded at Harper for taking advantage of a vulnerable friend to further her own career? That was the Emperor calling Darth Vader black. 

I reviewed this week’s episode of Industry for Decider.

You could call it comedy and tragedy. You could call it good cop, bad cop. You could call it the carrot and the stick. Whatever you call it, this double-barreled approach to storytelling is working sickeningly well for Monsters. Directed with verve by Paris Barclay from a script by co-creator Ian Brennan and David McMillan, this tremendous episode features some of the show’s funniest material yet, including an anxiety-spiking musical montage, a Zoolander-ish escape fantasy sequence, and a camp confrontation between a brassy broad and a blue blood in high dudgeon. And — here’s the real, real rough stuff, so be warned — it also explains that when you’re being molested, you can spike your abuser’s food with cinnamon to improve the taste of his ejaculate. You see what I’m saying? It lifts you up, and then knocks you to the concrete.

I reviewed the third episode of Monsters for Decider.

Reunited, and it feels so good. After spending the first two episodes of Season 2 apart, both sides of The Old Man’s story come together in this episode. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. Shot by director Steve Boyum with an eye for thoughtful closeups, intense action, and sweeping vistas of the wilderness alike, it’s a Central Asian neo-Western par excellence.

It really does have all the hallmarks of the genre. A remote village in a rugged desert land. A capable young woman in terrible peril. Two old gunslingers taking one last ride to find her. A powerful, dangerous man in control of valuable land. A brash young bandit come to take it all. A gunfight at the gates of town. A rescue by the cavalry. A white hat turning, if not black, then at least shades of grey. 

I reviewed this week’s episode of The Old Man for Decider.

Are we obligated to be grateful to our parents for all they have given us, even as we suffer from everything else they have given us?

I reviewed the second episode of Monsters for Decider.

Monsters has two chief weapons in its arsenal. The first is its suite of actors — Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny as the terrifying José and Kitty, Dallas Roberts as the nebbishy Dr. Oziel, Nicholas Alexander Chavez as the manic and obviously badly damaged Lyle, and especially Cooper Koch as Erik. Koch spends the entire episode on what feels like the verge not just of tears, but a full-fledged nervous breakdown. He holds his face drum taut, his eyes gush water seemingly involuntarily, he trembles as he talks, when he finally gets his confession out it comes in one quick gasp that compresses the words together. It’s his role to offset the American psychoness of Chavez’s Lyle — to be their bleeding heart, even as Lyle’s scheming mind whisks them from one failed attempt at creating an alibi to the next. Koch has to present us with the other side of the brothers; that’s a vital job, and he nails it.

Monsters’ other weapon is a familiar one in Murphy’s arsenal: excess. In the American Crime Story and Monster/s anthologies — all five seasons of which have focused on crimes that communicate some core, dark American values amid a 1990s media circus — he seems to have found the balance that has largely eluded him elsewhere, judiciously deploying moments of camp (Lyle making them play “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” in his mother’s honor at the memorial service; the homoeroticism of the brothers’ relationship) and horror-violence (the hideous massacre of the parents, each of whom took multiple shots, and in Kitty’s case multiple minutes, before dying; Erik’s harrowing dreams of suicide, puling the trigger in which is the only way he can actually sleep) instead of just slathering them all across the screen. 

I reviewed the debut of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s new true-crime drama Monsters for Decider.