Author: Metacrone

Lifelong film, television and theater enthusiast. Choose love.

Hulu’s Reprisal Season 1 Review

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

Reprisal

This is a review of the entire season. Recaps of individual episodes are posted HERE as I complete them.

Hulu’s new retro noir series Reprisal is a unique show filled with unique characters. As such, it deserves a spot in their pantheon of shows such as The Handmaid’s Tale and Runaways which highlight complicated characters in fictional worlds that just keep improving the more involved the viewer gets. Altered Carbon is on Netflix, not Hulu, but it’s another show with a similar viewing experience, where it takes several episodes for the characters and the world to click into place and the plot to really take off. Then the viewing experience just gets better and better, as we’re plunged into an immersive world, where everyone has an agenda and anything can happen.

Reprisal takes place in an alternate universe that’s not set in a particular time period, but isn’t the future. It’s set in a neon swingers’ punk gangster scene that combines the look of the late 1940s- early 60s Rat Pack with a few more modern conveniences like 2000s flip phones and 70s muscle cars. It’s gorgeous and lives by its own rules, as this show does in every way.

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Stumptown Season 1 Episode 7: November Surprise Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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This week, Dex is hired by the State Senate campaign of Llewellyn Slocombe, a wealthy rancher who was supported by her nemesis Randall Tapper, until Dex cost him so much money that he had to withdraw his donation. Slocombe’s campaign manager, Vanessa, hires Dex to dig up dirt on his gay, but squeaky clean, political opponent, beloved Councilman Dan Gibson. Vanessa gets a little intense about her need to destroy Dan and offers Dex $50k to compromise her morals. Dex decides she can stomach getting involved in politics for that price. Then the building is evacuated because of an anthrax scare.

Politics is a truly cutthroat business.

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Emergence Season 1 Episode 8: American Chestnut Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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In episode 8 of Emergence, American Chestnut, Agent Peggy Carter’s ex-boyfriend Enver Gjokaj stops by for a visit with Jo. He clearly has a thing for no nonsense female law enforcement agents. I can’t fault his taste. However, having first seen Enver as one of the Dolls on Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, I always doubt his true identity and motives just a teensy bit. In this episode, he’s an FBI agent who’s investigating the murder that occurred in the final moments of episode 7. Feds can still be bought and blackmailed, so he’s going to have to earn my trust before I consider him safe to be around Jo, Mia, Piper and the gang.

In this episode we learn a lot about how Piper’s mind works and what it feels like to be her. She and Alex take a road trip back to the place that Piper escaped from, where both gain insight into her powers and past.

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Emergence Season 1 Episode 7: Fatal Exception Recap

~ Metacrone

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In episode 7, Fatal Exception, Emily makes a move to take Jo’s place as Piper’s mom. She forces Alan Wilkis to help her as she slowly replaces Piper’s memories of Jo with memories of herself. Jo races to find Emily and Alan while protecting the people Emily threatens. Ed and Alex remain angry with Jo over the secrets she kept from them about Piper.

Jo is trying to avoid the Fatal Exception of having Piper learn that she’s an AI, since knowledge of the truth about what she is would set up a cascade failure in her brain. Or at least that’s the way she’s designed. The fact that Piper continuously moves beyond her programming and has already been gradually learning that she’s different suggests that she can evolve past the fatal exception.

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The Man in the High Castle Season 4 Episode 1: Hexagram 64 Recap

~ Metacrone

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Welcome back to the Japanese Pacific States, the American Reich and the Neutral Zone. In its final season, The Man in the High Castle focuses mainly on the Smith family, Chief Inspector Kido and a new West Coast resistance group, the Black Communist Rebellion. Juliana Crain, Wyatt Price, Robert Childan and Hawthorne Abendsen also have storylines that the show checks in on periodically. It’s still the same show, with a sweeping story that spans continents, worlds and the astral plane. Events shift between the existential difficulties of everyday people and the rivalries shared by world political powers, in an exploration of what makes us who we are and the war of good vs evil.

While there’s a lot to like about season 4, and some storylines and characters have satisfying conclusions, others are dropped with little or no explanation. Both the TV division of Amazon Prime and this show have had a major amount of staff turn over behind the scenes since the series began, and that shows in the final season, as it has since mid-season 2.

It’s still one of my favorite shows of all time. I’d give both season 4 and the complete series somewhere in the B+ to A- range if I had to give them grades. But it has to to go in the brilliant but flawed category, with so many other shows of the recent era. I can’t help but imagine what it could have been with a single showrunning team in charge for its entire run, instead of the fractured visions we have now.

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The Man in the High Castle Season 1 Episode 6: Three Monkeys Recap

~ Metacrone

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Buckle up, Buttercups, it’s VA Day in the Reich and things are about to get crazy. ObergruppenfĂĽhrer John Smith has not just one, but two potential traitors over for dinner with the family, Joe Blake and Rudolph Wegener. He has ulterior motives with both, because when does he not? Juliana begins her job at the Nippon building and learns she’s working in the office of Trade Minister Tagomi.

Recap

It’s VA Day and every house in the neighborhood is proudly flying the swastika and stripes. Joe arrives at the Smith house with a bouquet of flowers for Helen and is introduced to the whole family, including the dog, Max. He mentions that he saw John in the parade earlier in the day. Thomas offers to show Joe around. It’s obvious that life couldn’t be better in the American Reich.

Over in the JPS, Juliana finishes dressing for her new job, just as Frank wakes up. She asks how the memorial service was and he says it was fake. She thinks they need to spend some time together, but he doesn’t want to make her late for the dojo, so she suggests they plan on dinner. Frank asks if he heard her on the phone earlier. As she’s walking out the door, Juliana says it was a wrong number.

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The Man in the High Castle Season 1 Episode 5: The New Normal Recap

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In episode 5, The New Normal, Juliana and Joe return to their home cities after their missions in the Neutral Zone. Each undergoes a debriefing and must try to navigate the tense atmosphere of their respective empires. Frank tries to put the pieces of his life back together after the deaths in his family and his aborted assassination attempt. Tagomi and Wegener try to complete their mission before getting Wegener out of San Francisco. Kido begins his investigation into the shooting of the crown prince, with the knowledge that, according to Japanese custom,  his life depends on bringing the shooter to justice.

Recap

The episode picks up with the ending of the previous episode, as shots ring out and the crown prince falls, desperately wounded. Tagomi and the princess rush to his side. Kido springs into action, shouting out orders to stop anyone from leaving, find the shooter and confiscate all cameras so that no one sees their beloved leader in his weakened state. Wegener is on the podium, watching the drama play out.

Frank has the gun in his hand, but hasn’t fired. The little Japanese boy standing next to him and the boy’s father both see the gun in Frank’s hand as all three scatter. Frank puts the gun in his coat pocket and at the same time the necklace he made for Juliana slips out of the pocket, onto the ground.

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Emergence Season 1 Episode 6: Mile Marker 14 Recap

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Mile Marker 14 is the 6th episode of Emergence’s 13 episode season, meaning we’re just shy of the halfway point. Fittingly, several more secrets are revealed in this episode. Most of Jo’s family discovers Piper’s secret this week, but some thrills are left for episode 7, the real tipping point in the season.

Recap

After watching Piper lift a truck in episode 5, Mia is a bit suspicious about what her new sister might be capable of doing on a regular basis. This week finds the girls practicing levitation on a plastic cupcake, but it’s about as motivating as you’d expect and Piper can’t get it off the ground.  However, when she really, really concentrates, a whole pile of toys that were on the floor behind her float into the air without Piper or Mia noticing, until they’re startled by Jo’s voice and the toys come crashing to the floor.

Just like their hopes and dreams of becoming superheroes together are doomed to do. Someone needs to send the adults on this show who aren’t Jo a copy of the Netflix show Raising Dion, so they can figure out how to support a kid who’s coming into their power. And by kids I’m referring to both Piper and Mia here.

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Stumptown Season 1 Episode 6: Dex, Drugs and Rock & Roll Recap

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Episode 6 of Stumptown is about ghosts. The characters work through their ghosts while the show tests out new character combinations and expands backstories.

After their falling out in episode 5, Dex and Grey both spend time with new love interests, causing other cast members to feel they’re being left behind. Ansel and Miles take steps to ensure their interests haven’t been forgotten. Dex takes a PI job that has her tracking down the stalker of an old flame.

Meanwhile, Tookie continues to have business issues with his food truck. This time he closes up and goes to visit the highest ranking member of the police force he knows, Lieutenant Cosgrove. This is a friendship I never knew I always wanted. They bond over their love of mole sauce  and experimental cuisine.

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Netflix’s Daybreak: Diversity Doesn’t Guarantee Heart or Equality

~ Metacrone
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Netflix’s series Daybreak is a post-apocalyptic story of tribalism, cannibalism and misogyny wrapped up in a pop culture bow. The tribalism and cannabalism are intended. I’m honestly never sure at this point how much of the vast ocean of misogyny coming from the entertainment industry is intended to keep us in our place and how much is subconscious. I do know that this level of stereotyping in today’s world can’t all be accidental.

In the Daybreak universe of Glendale, CA, following atomic and biological warfare, it’s made clear that white alphas rule and others are there to be sacrificed or serve. The white alpha males prefer consorts who are attractive, blonde women. The one gay male alpha has a secret, black, male consort.

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