The action ends with a lingering shot of the ranking member of the Arellanos now that Benjamín is on the run—not Ramón, not Francisco, but their sister Enedina. The Narcos franchise has seen its fair share of would-be women crime bosses, but few if any of them were given the resources and the blessing of their predecessors that Enedina now enjoys. Along with the matter of whether Amado Carrillo Fuentes’s grand plans for the Juárez cartel will work out (a matter deferred entirelyl for this episode), the question of Enedina’s leadership is one of the show’s more intriguing storylines at this point. For her sake, and for the sake of the story, let’s hope her own merger of crime and business goes better than her brothers’. After all, there’s a lot more Narcos: Mexico left to come.

I reviewed the fifth episode of Narcos: Mexico Season 3 for Decider.

To me, the Narcos franchise is only rarely a series that offers up thought-provoking imagery, though when it does, it tends to connect in a major way. I mean, I still think regularly of the signature shot associated with Pablo Escobar, a semicircular spin around the druglord as he gazes off into the distance, plotting his next move, and the last one of those happened four seasons ago. So the episode-closing closeup on Amado, quiet and confident, is lingering with me. Amado’s a killer, no doubt—but so is, like, every president America has ever had. Could it be possible that there’s a kinder, gentler way to profit off the cocaine trade? And could Amado hold the key?

I reviewed the fourth episode of Narcos: Mexico Season 3 for Decider.

You can file this episode of Narcos: Mexico in the “boys will be boys” department. Entitled “Los Juniors” (and directed by none other than Wagner “Pablo Escobar” Moura himself), this ep of the long-running crime franchise officially introduces us to the clique of rich kids who’ve formed a mutually beneficial relationship with the Arellano Félix brothers in Tijuana—the “narcojuniors,” as our narrator, dogged reporter Andréa Nunez, dubs them. These pampered princes of the city get to taste the life of a gangster, while the narcoseniors gain access to their rich parents. When her newspaper editor asks her why the parents would get in bed with cartel bosses when they’re already rich, Andréa cheekily replies “Rich people always want more money—that’s why they’re rich.” Truer words, Andréa, truer words.

I reviewed episode three of Narcos: Mexico Season 3 for Decider.

I love it when Narcos goes Casino mode. Remember how Martin Scorsese’s mob epic opens with a full first act explaining the ins and outs of the mafia’s Las Vegas operation in general and Ace Rothstein’s casino in particular? The Narcos franchise became a Netflix stalwart, I believe, in large part because of how well it apes that format, right down to the voiceover narration. 

We’re not quite at that point in Narcos: Mexico Season 3 Episode 2—there’s not some new method of coke distribution to detail, or some brand-new faction whose rise needs chronicling, at least not yet. But in this episode (“Como La Flor”) we’re treated to a narrated who’s-who of the cartel world. And though the cast of characters is a bit dizzying to keep track of—lots of familiar faces returning, several new ones emerging—the plot is simplicity itself. 

I reviewed episode two of Narcos: Mexico Season 3 for Decider.

That’s kind of the thing about the Narcos franchise: It’s an aggressively mixed bag. At times, specifically the opening two seasons of the original Narcos, centered on actor Wagner Moura’s portrayal of Pablo Escobar, it’s been as good as anything Netflix has aired. It also maintains a bitterly cynical view of the War on Drugs, a view that this misbegotten and murderous policy has well and truly earned over the decades since its launch. There really aren’t any good guys on this show; even the noble DEA agents who’ve anchored it since its inception are complicit in ruining lives, and sometimes ending them outright. This is a welcome departure from your average cops-and-robbers show, even if it still has cops and robbers as its beating heart.

And to be sure, this episode has a handful of impressive cinematic moments. The opening car chase, the raid on the drug house, and the murder of Aguilar are all shot in single takes, alternately immersing us in the action and giving us a god’s-eye view of the violence. I could get used to a show that’s this thoughtful in its deployment of “oners,” in industry parlance.

On the other hand, it can sometimes feel that, like Amado’s crashing plane, the franchise is coasting on fumes. Narcos’ third season, focused on the Cali cartel in Colombia, never reached the heights of the Escobar material; Narcos: Mexico’s first two seasons focused on Diego Luna’s Guadalajara cartel founder Félix Gallardo, a character who never amounted to much more than the sum of his suit-wearing, chainmoking, unsmiling parts. 

But Félix is gone now, powerless and imprisoned, while his former capos like Amado are free to make their moves (and plunge Mexico into bloodshed). If the original Narcos suffered when the charismatic crime boss at its center was removed from the playing field, there’s an equally good chance that Narcos: Mexico will benefit from Gallardo’s exit, as power grows diffuse and more interesting bosses emerge. Here’s hoping that a more powerful show emerges as well.

I reviewed the season premiere of Narcos: Mexico, which I’ll be covering all season, for Decider.

Still, it’s Monica’s ordeal that centers the episode. It’s the enumeration of every encounter she had with the president, the details of every sexual liaison, the painstaking descriptions of who touched which body part with which body part or outside implement, the idea of who did what to whom with the intent to arouse and gratify. After spending an entire season largely hiding the actual sexual connection between Bill and Monica from view, ACS Impeachment suddenly rubs our faces in it, making us a party to Monica’s protracted public humiliation. It’s an excruciating choice on the part of showrunner and writer Sarah Burgess—and a smart one. An entire nation hungered for the salacious details of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. Impeachment serves them to us until we can’t stand it any longer, then serves us more, and more, and more, until choking it down becomes all but unbearable. And even then, Monica is still human and humane, asking her interrogator if she’s expecting a boy or a girl. What did we do to this woman? And what does it say about ourselves that we did it?

I reviewed last night’s episode of ACS Impeachment for Decider.

Well now, that was certainly an episode, wasn’t it!

Despite a generic-sounding title, “Mysteries and Martyrs,” that initially had me dreading a bunch of equally generic sci-fi goings-on, Foundation Episode 7 turned out to be an absurdly jam-packed installment. With fully four engaging storylines, striking outer-space visuals, and startling deaths and resurrections, I don’t know if it’s the best episode of Foundation yet per se, but it’s certainly the most fun to watch.

I reviewed last week’s episode of Foundation for Decider.

If you’re to the right of the Clintons politically, I assume you have no sympathy for these people. If you’re to their left, as I am personally, I’m guessing your sympathies ran dry a long time ago—when Hillary lost a layup election against a game-show fascist at the latest. But again, it comes down to the question of whether you can frame a guilty man—whether the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” accurately labeled as such by Hillary, has a point.

In his address to the American people, Clinton ultimately argues that this is a private matter, between his daughter, his wife, “and our God.” Is he correct in stating that these are the people to whom he owes answers, rather than a prosecutorial office initially conceived of to investigate what Hillary calls a failed land deal? Does his lawyerly bullshit—“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” that sort of shit—neutralize the allegations against him? Was his attempt to kill Osama bin Laden a “wag the dog” situation, or a legit attempt to defend the nation? Is that a distinction without a difference, in terms of the president’s virtually unfettered ability to call down death upon his enemies? Can you sympathize with the devil? About the best thing I can say regarding this episode of Impeachment, and the entire series in general, is that it asks these questions without providing any easy answers.

I reviewed last night’s fascinating episode of ACS Impeachment for Decider.

And I get it. You know? I get it. To become an adult under capitalism, as you and I have done, as Sang-woo and Gi-hun have done, is to learn just how alone you are, how powerless against the mighty forces that move the world, forces that would strip you and yours for parts at the slightest opportunity if there were any money in it for anyone. Play whatever game you want in an attempt to outfox the game masters—hell, maybe you’ll get lucky and win, as Gi-hun does—but the bottom line is that no one calls you anymore. No one calls you home, where you’re safe, where you’re loved. No one can call off the game you’ve been forced to play. No one at all.

I reviewed the season finale of Squid Game for Decider.

Lee Pace shirtless. That’s it. That’s the review.

I kid, of course. If that were the review, I’d be out of a job real quick. But I do think opening with an Emperor Cleon shower scene tells us something important about Foundation: It understands that the Emperors are the most vibrant and appealing aspect of the story so far. Their sex appeal may not be the whole reason why, but it’s a part of it. Why not emphasize it?

I reviewed the sixth episode of Foundation for Decider.

Whatever the case, we’re left with two players, who are forcibly held apart by the pink guards. This time it’s for real: If one of them kills the other, there can’t be a final game. And wouldn’t that disappoint the VIPs? We can’t have that, now, can we?

It’s here, really, that the emptiness of the games’ promise of an egalitarian world, an antidote to the unfairness of the real world, is revealed as empty. Gi-hun and Sang-woo are being kept alive for the entertainment of the rich, to whom they are nothing more than toys to be used and discarded. Remind me again how this is different than the status quo that sent them to the games to begin with?

I reviewed the penultimate episode of Squid Game Season One for Decider.

One thing is for certain: Squid Game‘s power is additive in nature. Every episode compounds the tension and ratchets up the pressure on the main characters. Even a relatively straightforward outing like this one feels grandiose in the terror the characters experience. I’m almost afraid to see what the show will do for an encore. And that’s a good feeling.

I reviewed Squid Game episode seven for Decider.

There’s a cheerful sadism in the way the games are constructed—seriously, can you even stand one more ironically colorful set, one more chipper announcement that the game is about to begin over the strains of “The Blue Danube”—that belies the Front Man’s insistence that their goal is to construct a fair world in opposition to the unfair one outside the complex’s walls. About the best thing I can say about Squid Game is that, for all its brutality, it does not seem to share the games’ sadism itself. The scenarios it rolls out for us are awful to contemplate, to be sure, but the awfulness is the point. Creator/writer/director Hwang Dong-hyuk values the interpersonal connections he’s creating, even as he destroys them. It’s an exploration of violence, not an exploitation of violence. He’s making sure that when he kills people you care about, you know their names.

I reviewed Squid Game‘s brutal sixth episode for Decider.

My God, where to begin.

ACS Impeachment Episode 7, “The Assassination of Monica Lewinsky,” is primarily about just that—the character assassination of the young woman at the heart of the whole network of Bill Clinton scandals. It’s about the way a hungry press, an overeager right-wing prosecutor, and a gleeful entertainment industry took a vulnerable young woman and tore her to shreds, hour after hour, day after day, for month after month. It’s also about how a president lied to almost everyone he knew about the nature of his relationship with that woman. It’s also about how the friend who exposed and betrayed her was ridiculed in turn, nearly as badly as Monica Lewinsky herself.

It’s difficult to watch. It’s riveting to watch.

I reviewed this week’s episode of ACS Impeachment for Decider.

There’s a moment early on in Squid Game Episode 5 (“A Fair World”) where Gi-hun looks directly into the eyes of a man he’s about to murder. He has little choice, of course. Once he, and everyone else involved in the games, accepted their invitation to play, they were effectively strapped into a murder machine, and the only way out is through. Still, in that moment, as Gi-hun and his tug-of-war team struggle mightily to save their own lives at the expense of their rivals’, you can see Gi-hun process the terror, desperation, and ultimately despair written all over the face of the opposite team’s captain. He knows he’s going to die, he knows Gi-hun is one of the people who will be killing him, and neither person can do anything about it.

I wrote about the fifth episode of Squid Game for Decider.

We’re five episodes deep into Foundation, and from Salvor Hardin to Gaal Dornick, our heroes face what could be an insurmountable task. No, it’s not the attack by Anacrean forces that Salvor tries and fails to fend off. Nor is it Gaal’s need to figure out where the ship on which she has been stranded is going when the ship itself won’t tell her. The big challenge is this: Can the rest of the Foundation cast hold things down without the presence of Lee Pace’s beautiful, beautiful Emperor Cleon? I’d say that after this ep (“Upon Awakening”), the answer is a qualified yes. (Lee Pace hive, feel free to roast me when you link to this review.)

I reviewed the fifth episode of Foundation for Decider.

Many of Monica’s concerns are hard to listen to, because they ring so true as something a young woman in her position would be concerned about. “My grandma’s going to be so disappointed in me,” she tells Emmick in a Crate & Barrel. In what looks like a TGI Friday’s, she continues: “I’ll never have kids. No one’s ever gonna marry me.” In this, at least, her prediction has been borne out. All her life plans, tossed out the window because a man in power abused his authority and a woman who was supposed to be her friend sold her out to feed her own delusions of grandeur. In the end, she’s left sobbing in her shower, as her mother crumples to the floor outside the bathroom, brought low by the sounds of her daughter’s pain. It’s brutal stuff.

I reviewed episode six of ACS Impeachment for Decider.

With over half a season left, Squid Game still feels like it’s entered the lightning round. Its fourth episode (“Stick to the Team”) is not only its most viscerally violent—in terms of savagery, if not body count—but also its most plot-heavy. New characters emerge, new alliances form and dissolve, new cracks in the facade of the game-masters’ united front begin to show, and, ultimately, a new moral burden is forced upon even the biggest babyfaces (that’s wrestling jargon for “good guys”) in the game. It’s tense, terrific filmmaking from start to finish.

I reviewed the fourth episode of Squid Game for Decider.

The show’s ability to make you care about the players it singles out for attention is impressive as well. Gi-hun and Ali and the old man come across like big sweethearts. The pickpocket’s survival instincts make her easy to root for. The mother’s scheming is funny and perversely endearing. Even the cop, Jun-ho, is sympathetic as a guy in way over his head, trying desperately to stay afloat. 

The big exception at the moment, other than the gangster, is Sang-woo. Why is he so reluctant to share his knowledge with his alleged comrades? In particular, why didn’t he warn Gi-hun against selecting the difficult umbrella shape? For all Sang-woo knew, he was handing his old friend a death sentence. Is he secretly trying to winnow down the competition in order to increase the jackpot at the end of the games? Does he resent Gi-hun personally for reasons we’re not privy to yet? Is he simply a secretive type, paranoid and self-interested, perhaps due to the years he’s spent one step ahead of the law?

It speaks well of Squid Game‘s success rate that I’m finding these kinds of questions as compelling to contemplate as the games themselves, or the mystery of how they can muster so many hundreds of henchmen for a clandestine enterprise this sadistic. (I briefly entertained the idea that the pink guys were all either aliens or robots, until Jun-ho dumped the obviously human guy he replaced off that barge.) I’m not sure any of these characters are gonna wind up being as complex and nuanced as, like, Tony Soprano, but they don’t need to be. A good action-thriller need only create convincing sketches of people, giving you just enough to latch onto so that their misadventures mean something to you. In that particular contest, Squid Game has already won.

I reviewed episode three of Squid Game for Decider.

From where I’m sitting, Squid Game episode two scores major points (sorry) in two different ways. First, there’s the matter of the vote. The instant the square-faced pink guy announced that a majority vote would decide whether or not the games would continue, I figured “Well, obviously they’re going to vote to keep going—otherwise there’d be no more show!” When he announced further that the vote would be tallied in reverse numerical order, I was like “Oh, okay, it’s gonna come to a tie, and the old guy with the brain tumor will cast the deciding vote in favor of staying because he has nothing to lose.”

Imagine my surprise—or maybe you don’t have to imagine, maybe it was your surprise too—when the elderly man voted to leave, and the pink crew dutifully dumped everyone back on the streets! This is as pure an example of a show zigging where I expected it to zag as I can think of in a long, long time. That kind of move earns a lot of trust, from me anyway; it demonstrates that this is a show that won’t always take the easy way out.

The second major structural thing this episode has going for it is the way it doles out the characters’ backstories. Rather than front-load the season by having us get to know all the major players in episode one, Squid Game kept its premiere’s focus squarely on Gi-hun, only introducing us to the rest of the main cast (with the exception of the pickpocket’s brief cameo when she stole Gi-hun’s money) when they’d already accepted the invitation to the game. This second episode backfills information on the gangster, the pickpocket, the immigrant, and Sang-woo, as well as giving us additional info on Gi-hun and his family, only after the show has already hooked us on its deadly-game aspect. Reverse that running order, and the show would feel much slower than it does as-is. It’s shrewd storytelling. And more games await.

I reviewed episode two of Squid Game for Decider.