I want to be clear – I didn’t hate every film that is listed below. In fact a number of them I have decidedly mixed feelings about. My goal this year was to share thoughts about all the films that seemed worthy of comment. In the past I have tried to keep things positive. This year the number of films that frustrated and angered me was too large to ignore. This was a truly difficult year of watching and I have found writing about it to be immensely helpful.

I try and avoid spoilers when I can but I am discussing films I’ve seen so if you want to go into any of these films or shows fresh I would suggest not reading what I have written until you have watched them.

The Green Knight

Where to start with The Green Knight? I am going to paste a review that sums up what I think about it better than I believe I can – https://thefilmstage.com/the-green-knight-review-david-lowerys-adaptation-fails-to-capture-the-greatness-of-its-source-material/

And we’re done.

Another confession, when I saw the film I had not yet read the poem it is based on. That’s on me. But I saw the trailer for this film which excited me greatly. I am pasting it below.

Here’s the thing, even if you aren’t overly familiar with the story of Gawain most likely you know he was a knight of the Round Table and he was known for his virtue. Or maybe you didn’t know that in which case perhaps this movie is for you. The director claims to have studied the text closely but then chose to ignore nearly all of the important aspects and events of the text which leads me to question why he bothered to make the film at all.

First and foremost, in this telling Gawain is not a knight. He’s the cousin of Arthur and wants to be part of the court. Any standing he has comes from his mother as he is a drunk and spends most of his time in brothels. Okay, fine. The Green Knight appears and issues his challenge. No one wants to take him up on it. Gawain moves to, is warned not to, does it anyway. Okay. He then spends the next year carrying on as he had, drinking and fornicating. And then it is time to go on his journey to find the Green Knight.

The bulk of the film is concerned with this journey where Gawain is beset by problems he is not able to overcome. He is not virtuous or brave or kind. He is certainly not capable. When he finds hospitality with a landowner who lives near the Green Knight he then proceeds to have a sexual encounter with his wife (played by the same actress who plays his favorite prostitute for no apparent reason) and to take the green sash (which will save him from death) no questions asked.

I mention all of this because these are major plot points in the poem (except the prostitute existing and him engaging in sexual activities with the wife) – only the director has altered them so that they are now devoid of meaning. He is meant to resist the advances of the wife but eventually accept the sash. The landowner has asked his wife to test Gawain and is pleased when Gawain passes – despite accepting the sash.

We also are treated to a fantasy of Gawain not being beheaded so that he can watch his life play out and end terribly. So he does the “noble” thing and chooses death. Which, again, is the opposite of what happens in the poem. In the poem the Green Knight is the landowner in disguise, all of this has been an elaborate test and he does not kill Gawain.

To say that this film misses the mark is like saying that the Titanic sinks. It’s one thing to rework a text and insert new themes that would not have been possible when it was written – psychology for one. It is another to drastically alter the story in such a manner that the result is now the antithesis of the original.

The New Pope

I don’t know what to say about this show. Somehow I knew the big event (spoilers now, so stop reading if you don’t want them) about Jude Law returning and it tainted the experience. This season (and the one before) are painfully uneven. Such moving, wonderful sections and others that drag on with no purpose or focus. I gave up at one point and took a month off, coming back to finish the show because I usually do. I think this was probably the tipping point for me this year, where I realized it doesn’t really matter. If you know something isn’t working for you why waste time?

Raised By Wolves – Season Two

I’m going to be brief. I watched season one because Ridley Scott made this show and directed the pilot. I didn’t love it, he gets too weird about space and robots, but it was interesting and I watched it. This season is considerably less interesting, less rewarding and less worth watching. I wish I hadn’t wasted my time with this nonsense because I derived absolutely no pleasure from it.

Shining Girls

Okay, the gloves are now off – I hate this show. The trailer made it look like a complicated mystery with supernatural elements that would ultimately….do something. This show is all about women who have been murdered by a guy who uses a magic house to travel through time and kill them. He cuts them open, puts an object from his time inside of them and then skedaddles. Only…one of the women he attacked doesn’t die.

From here it gets weird(er) but never fully explained. Aspects of the heroines life (appearance, pets, job, etc) begin to change at random intervals and she’s the only one who notices. Before one of these changes she was about to be a reporter so she uses her skills, gets a currently employed reporter to help her and they track down other cases like hers…to discover the time traveling guy that she ultimately defeats by taking over his magical house. 

I hate this show. I hate that I wasted my time watching it. I hate that the payoff is murky and lousy an unfulfilling. I hate that I love Elizabeth Moss so much that if they make another season I will consider watching it. Grr.

Outer Range – Season 1

Keeping in this vein of complicated time travel shows that have endings that are unsatisfying I give you Outer Range. A show that starts off great and slowly devolves into a big mess. The pilot is such a good episode that I would recommend watching it and stopping there. Or something. I don’t know. This show made sense for a long time and ended with Buffalo traveling through time and wreaking havoc in present day Wyoming. 

The conceit is there is a hole that can access other points in space-time. Only the ending makes clear that the hole is not the only means of doing this. And that our hero, in fact, traveled though the hole (and time) as a boy. He does it again at the end of the pilot and goes to the future. He then returns to the present where things are going wrong. The show ends with buffalo and a character who from the first meeting you know was important and not telling the truth being important to the story (and she has secrets!). Watch this show if you would like a prime example of having a good idea and giving up on your ending.

Killing Eve – Season 4

Dear Lord. If you were on the Internet at all in May you surely saw something about this. Four seasons of “What is up with Eve and Villenelle” to have it conclude with Eve deciding she wants to be with Villenelle and Villanelle being killed by Caroline at the very end. I just…why? This is the definition of sophomoric. Of all the things they could have done with this show, the crazy ways they could of ended it they essentially said to their rabid fanbase – here, we are giving you the thing you want and then taking it away at the last second. The end.

May was a rough month in my household for television watching.

Moon Knight – Season 1

I watched this in May as well. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it. The idea being – guy who has multiple personalities does not know he has multiple personalities – coupled with the technique of – let’s put the audience in the same clueless state as the character – was bad.

Let’s ignore the fact that the main character of this show is not the personality we, the audience spend time with. The way they structure the “blind spots” or “missing time” was lazy and done to hide the fact they didn’t have the budget or means to properly do the big action sequences that *wink* clearly happened. Okay, fine.

I saw a lot bad stuff in May and it may have clouded my judgment but what I would have loved to see with this show was a God’s-eye view of everything. Nothing cute and clever just a guy with serious emotional trauma trying to navigate being the avatar for an Egytian god. That’s enough for a story, I promise.

Frankly most of the Marvel shows have been a letdown, in part, because they haven’t tried to do much. Oscar Issac is fantastic in this show and gives a powerful performance. There just isn’t anything else being explored or put forth. After seeing The Falcon and The Winter Soldier it’s hard to settle for anything less ambitious from these incredibly well-funded and supported shows.

Stranger Things – Season 4

Anyone else remember when Netflix “saved” Arrested Development and made season four but didn’t wait until the actors could work together? Anyone? I’ll sum up then. Because they were impatient and didn’t wait until the cast of an ensemble comedy could be reunited as an ensemble they broke everyone off into little groups or pairings and made a season like that. The result being terrible and ruining the show. Got it?

I don’t think part one is terrible but I do think it is the worst (season/part) of Stranger Things by far (season two episode seven is an outstanding episode and furthers Eleven’s character development). I usually watch a season of this show, see a couple of other things and come back and watch the season again. Typically it is good enough to warrant this and I find it enjoyable. I almost did not make it through part one. So many of the wonderful dynamics of this show come from having all of these lovable goofballs together doing their thing. This season, not so much.

Also – I know that most people are catching on to this but let’s be clear, introducing new, lovable characters to only just kill them off is not cool. It’s not clever and it is not rewarding.

So despite all of this the show continues to look amazing and the performances are fantastic. All of us became infected by Kate Bush for a spell and I believe a whole lot of young people became aware that early Metallica is amazing. These are huge wins.

Part two is much better than part one but Netflix became guilty of my biggest gripe of 2022 – making me wait to see streaming content. This nonsense of parcelling out episodes needs to end. Just wait until they are ready and put them on your site. Time in-between decreases the quality of the experience.

They also made this season more upsetting than previous ones (I am sure because the kids are older) and I didn’t care for that as much. Hopper’s story in the prison felt pitch perfect to me whereas a lot with Eleven was off. Hopefully they are able to readjust for season five (the big hint here is to lean more on Winona Ryder) and do more of what makes this show so special.

The Gray Man

I am conflicted about this film. It doesn’t fail but it doesn’t really succeed. It exists. This film, with it’s talented, likable cast and massive budget doesn’t wow and it doesn’t excite. I wish it did. I wanted to like this movie more than I did. There are too many moments, like a fight scene on an airplane, where the material is handled so poorly that it yanks the viewer from the film (or this one at least) and makes you start thinking about why it looks so bad. This should not happen on a blockbuster film with action stars.

This could be forgiven if, perhaps, the filmmakers had gone too far in a dramatic direction and instead of making a great action film made a great drama. They did not. I can’t say why this film doesn’t work other than to say it is uninspired. I get the sense that the Russo brothers made this movie because they could, not because they passionately wanted to.

Lamb

Noomi. My love for her is known. I tell you, she is a gift. Lamb is…pushing it. I watched it. I enjoyed many parts of it. I’m not sure I would recommend it to anyone. It’s meant to be a fable, I think? I’m not sure what the point of the film is.

The premise being that an Icelandic childless couple (their own died) discover a half-sheep half-human among their flock of sheep (little did they know that a gigantic half-human half-sheep creature impregnated their ewe to bring this about). So in their grief and goodness they take the creature, Ada, into their home and raise her as their child. All is well until Noomi’s bother-in-law, a ne’er do well (in a leather jacket no less) shows up. He’s not okay with Ada and tries to to get them to see what they are doing is unnatural. Eventually he is won over by Ada and recants his position.

My memory of the ending is fuzzy, the brother-in-law has left, the husband is killed by Ada’s father (giant half-man half-sheep creature) and Ada is taken away. Noomi is alone and heartbroken amidst the unforgiving landscape? This feels right. It’s a long, quiet film that ends and makes you scratch your head wondering why you watched it. You may not be able to answer that question but I can. Noomi. I’m not sure it was worth the time.

After Yang

I am going to lump this in with Lamb. It’s A24, the company that found its niche and refuses to leave it. This is another understated, somewhat pointless film that has an incredible title sequence. The rest is a forgettable story (sorry, I’m being harsh but the story has no emotional resonance) about a family, a robot and valuing the little moments? Clones are people, too? Tea can have meaning and add purpose to one’s life? I honestly don’t know.  

Westworld – Season 4

I loved season three of this show. I may have been the only person who did. This impressive, ambitious show that boasted an unparalleled cast (Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Thandie Newton, Jeffery Wright and the rest) was stellar for the first two seasons. Rich, complex, epic in scale – you could not ask for anything more. And then they changed everything and gave a radically different season that was less dour and repetitious than what came before. That change was bold and it was brave and it was very good (although, as always, it could have used more Maeve, the true star of this show).

Season four is very much like “Maxtrix: Resurrections” – a “meta” reboot wrapped up in pretentious explanations for an implausible concept no one wants. Ideas don’t always come when you want them to and I can’t help but think that season four needed to be made on a schedule, regardless or whether it was ready. This feels like making the best of a bad situation – which is unfortunate as season three was so incredibly good.

I had been hoping that they would have the courage to leave Dolores behind and explore the new and potentially fascinating characters like Dolores/Hale and whatever Host William was but it all fell a bit flat and still relied on Dolores, only, you know, trapped in a simulation and being manipulated to extract information. New ideas please! There will be no further episodes which is sad but most likely for the best, you have to walk away before you tarnish the entire enterprise (hi Matrix sequels!!).

Drive My Car

I don’t want to pick on the arty Japanese film that everyone loved. Except it’s not really a movie. This feels like a novel that a filmmaker decided to write as a sceenplay and then try and film. I have never had the sensation when watching a movie that the film should have been a book instead, but Drive My Car made me think this thought.

So many long silences that mean nothing (and would have been better as passages of interior monologues and thoughts). The performances where everyone speaks a different language and the text is displayed on a screen behind them. People just abruptly saying, “I feel that I must tell you the story of how I…”randomly throughout the movie because without this exposition you would have no idea what was happening or why.

I’m someone who enjoys world cinema and not everything I watch needs to be fast-paced and full of action but Drive My Car needs an editor and possibly a priest. I think a good movie might be hiding in this film but there is a whole lot of excess that should be removed and thought put into how to convey ideas and concepts visually.

Tehran – Season 2

Apple TV has problems. I don’t know why most of their shows don’t work but for some reason they do not. Season one of Slow Horses, Suspicion, For All Mankind (and season two as well), The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray and Tehran are all terribly uneven. I have no idea why this is. It is as though the people making these shows don’t know how to link episodes together when telling their stories. They seem to know how to make individual episodes but then connecting them to one another, or having a through-line when it comes to emotions and plot seems to escape them.

The second season of Tehran has many solid and interesting moments. The cast is great, the tension is palpable and for the most part it works. Then you reach the last five minutes of the season and it’s like someone’s angry teenager has gotten control of the plot and ruined everything just to spite you. The ending of the season is about as wrongheaded as anything I’ve ever seen and it defeated the purpose of watching the season. Let down isn’t the correct way to put it. The ending felt like the filmmakers saying “Sucker!”, while driving past me and throwing a slushie in my face. Why did I watch this thing?

The Investigation

I understand that this is based on a true story and that it happened recently. I can appreciate wanting to be sensitive to the feelings of the people who are still alive. What I cannot understand is making a show about a missing persons/murder case where you never see/hear from the perpetrator.

Somewhere around the third episode it became clear you would get secondhand reports about the enigmatic inventor who took a journalist out on his custom submarine, but we were not going to meet him. This is a bizarre move. Especially since the meat of this story, the quirky interesting parts, stem from the fact that this person continually changed his account of what happened in an effort to stymie the police’s efforts. Those would have be THE scenes of the show.

Without them it is this weird, empty thing where we watch the parents suffer, the investigator wring his hands and ask others to do their jobs and get a lot of explanations as to why you cannot do things in the Danish Judicial system. If you take all of the most frustrating parts of a courtroom thriller and make an entire show of those you would end up with something like The Investigation. I have no idea who this was made for but it certainly was not made for me.

She-Hulk: Attorney At Law

Speaking of frustrating we have season one of She-Hulk. A show that decided to follow the Deadpool formula in the hope of being successful. To start – I think Tatiana Maslany is amazing and I will watch almost anything with her in it (she and Noomi are clearly two sides of the same coin and should work together). The work she did on Orphan Black is the best acting I have ever seen. She deserves a better show.

The decision to make this show a half hour comedy with constant fourth wall breaks must have seemed like a great idea on paper. In reality it does not work. The show tries to rely on the charm of Ms. Maslany and the cleverness of it’s quips. Only there isn’t much of a story, the quality of the special effects is inconsistent and there is no payoff. There are a number of good moments and interesting ideas (in particular the notion that men connect with She-Hulk and not Jen, that she’s valued more for being super-powered than being a lawyer) that are immediately ignored and replaced by typical television nonsense.

This show feels as though it exists to build a bridge between MCU projects and little else. I wish they had figured out something better before they made this, it is a missed opportunity.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

I was incredibly excited to watch this film after seeing the trailer. What I thought I was getting – Nicholas Cage let off the chain and going wild for an hour and forty minutes. What I got – Nicholas Cage and Pedro Pascal becoming buddies in the middle of a messy movie that forgets what it was meant to be. 

This is the kind of film that starts with a solid premise and then morphs into a weird meta-dream thing that feels like an excuse for the writers to insert themselves into the story. There are numerous characters who feel unimportant who come to matter and several who seem important and matter not at all. It’s not that the film doesn’t try and deliver on the conceit – Nicholas Cage is drawn into a CIA sting of a mob family and must help the CIA while protecting his friend – it does do this, but it also fails at it.

I don’t think it’s a bad movie it’s just not a great one. If I have one theme from the things I watched this year it’s that I wish people put more effort into what they are making. A lot of the shows and films I watched in 2022 felt half-baked. More time, more thought and more care could have helped these projects be something more than mediocre.

See – Season 3

Jason Momoa’s television shows, so far, are heartbreaking. Red Road was upsetting and difficult and his character was mistreated but also kinda awful. Frontier was lackluster for the first season with a better second and excellent third at which point Netflix decided enough was enough and cancelled it. The heartbreak being once the filmmakers figured out how to make that show properly it was cancelled.

See was always uneven but the show had an interesting premise, a unique execution and solid performances from most of the cast. The ending of this show, however, is just dreadful. I watched seasons one and two with my wife. She was busy when the third aired and I watched it alone. When it ended she asked me, “How was it?” And all I could say was, “What’s the one thing this show could not do?”.  She knew immediately what I meant.

If you haven’t watched See I have no words of wisdom. It never occurred to me that they would end the show the way they did, largely negating the point of the entire experience. There was a fantastic alternative staring them in the face and they chose to ignore it. I cannot imagine why. I would love to see Jason Momoa work on projects that get things right, he keeps getting better as an actor and deserves to be a part of excellence.

The Peripheral

Until the final episode I loved this show. So well done. They improved upon many aspects of the book and made an interesting show that fleshed out many hinted at ideas from the novel. I think the actors do a great job of bringing the characters to life. Watching the finale it became apparent that they are not finishing the story with a single season and instead got clever with the plot. Now I feel sad and empty. It’s a lousy non-ending to an otherwise wonderful show.

Peaky Blinders – Season 6

Peaky Blinders, possibly more than any other television show of recent memory, won me over with it’s singular vision. It’s not a nice show. It’s not a happy show. It isn’t the kind of show that you watch and think, “You know who this is perfect for?” Unless you know some truly dark and masochistic people. It’s a dark show. It’s a mean show. The first two seasons had a beating heart buried in the coal and grime and that made it worth watching.

Then season three happened and that light was extinguished and ever since we’ve been wandering around in the darkness wondering if we are walking toward something good or about to plummet to our doom.

Season six answers this question – it’s all bad. There is absolutely nothing rewarding or good about this season. If Peaky Blinders had a secret sauce, that magical ingredient tying everything together and made that pain and suffering worthwhile, it’s gone. The hero is diminished, his life is loveless and the supporting cast has been reduced to simplistic cardboard cut-outs of characters they used to inhabit and explore.

I couldn’t finish the season, I’m halfway through episode five, and enough is enough. It’s possible that they redeem the show. It’s possible that some sense is made of the nonsense that is this season’s storyline. It doesn’t really matter. What made this show worth watching was that Tommy and Grace found one another and that despite everything else terrible in Birmingham, you had their love. Yep, that’s sentiment and it’s romantic and it was the heart of the show. Tommy wasn’t really a monster and Grace wasn’t stone cold. He didn’t need to be a gangster and she could move past the great loss of her life. When this relationship went away you simply had others floundering (looking at you Arthur) or being ignored by the storytellers (Finn? Who is Finn?) or killed off in the hope that it might mean something (farewell John, we hardly knew you).

This show is so well-made and pleasing to look at but has become an unbearable slog of misery and pain. It breaks my heart.

The Crown – Season 4

Speaking of misery and pain wrapped up in gorgeous images and impeccable filmmaking, we have season four of The Crown. Dear God. Look, I knew that once we reached all things Diana it was going to be bad but this show was already in the doldrums long before she entered the picture.

I had hoped, why I do not know, that once Olivia Coleman took over the role that things would be different. Gillian Anderson was going to play Margaret Thatcher and be important (she’s not). I have no idea what the filmmakers were thinking but what the viewers get is sadness and pain and monotony.

I knew five minutes into the first episode of season one that this show was not for me but I watched it with my wife so quitting was not an option. As the show went on I found many moments where it became incredible television that seemed to justify the misery and long bouts of nothingness.

It’s just that these bad moments so greatly outnumber the good ones. So often it’s drudgery and now with these later seasons it is repetition of previous drudgery to illustrate a point. It’s terrible. One thing of interest is comparing this show to The Investigation on HBO. Whereas that show seemed to show too much restraint out of respect for the family members and people involved The Crown seems to want to push things too far in the other direction. No one comes off looking good or decent. We wallow in everyone’s pain and misfortune. I am not quite sure I understand the point.

Street Food USA

This is a show I wanted to love. The problem with all of the food programming Netflix makes in this Chef’s Table universe is twofold. First, it is incredibly uneven. Second they try and give each subject the same amount of time and importance. The quality of the episodes of Street Food USA varies greatly. The Portland episode is one of the best food documentaries I have ever seen. Since watching it I have wanted to go to Portland every time I am hungry. I have started following Mama Dut on Instagram and telling my children about every post I see.

Nearly every person featured in the episode is making interesting food, has an interesting story and comes across as someone I want to support in every way I can. I love it. It is an amazing episode of food television and you should go watch it now.

Many other episodes and people featured don’t have much of a story. And what brings this home, painfully, is that each episode of Street Food has the same structure. Here are the experts of the city to try and give you a brief overview of what is interesting about this location. Here is our main subject for this episode – Thuy Pham for the Portland episode – whose story we are going to interweave throughout the other subjects of the episode. And then intercutting all of this together over about half and hour.

As you watch the episodes this formula becomes more apparent. Around the midway point you get to the tough times of the main subject, and when things were hardest for them. By the end we are back to happiness and making great food again and isn’t everything wonderful. If you watch several episodes in a row this is grating.

The unevenness of the episodes, I am sure, exacerbates this repetitive structure. I imagine the problem with Street Food USA is the same as it is with Chef’s Table – that the directors are assigned their subjects. I mentioned this in my food post and linked to this article where a director explained this issue at length. It makes sense. The person in charge of Portland clearly liked the people and the food and the city. By extension the viewer comes to like the city and the food and the people. Other locations, New York in particular, you get no sense of. Which brings me to my second point – that each episode and subject is given the same amount of time and importance.

I’m not trying to tell anyone how to do their job but Los Angeles and New York must, simply by the size of their populations, have considerably more street food options than Portland and New Orleans. Therefore, it would stand to reason, that when you make an episode in those cities you have a) longer episodes and b) feature more subjects. The number of cuisines excluded from each of these cities (despite Los Angeles being a pretty interesting and good episode) is massive. New York easily could have been double its length and still left out plenty.

I have this show in the bad category which feels mean. It’s not bad, it’s just a missed opportunity like so much of Chef’s Table now. They could be making such better shows! I do not mean to harp on New York City but allow me to put a link to a video from The New York Times below. I watched this in-between episodes of Street Food USA and I think Priya Krishna did a fantastic job capturing the story of Sonia Pérez and her tamale cart in Brooklyn. I think it’s better than most of what is in Street Food USA.

1899 – Season 1

I watched this show for two reasons, it has a good trailer and it is made by the same people who made Dark. The problem with the second reason is that Dark went completely and totally off the rails by the end. When people lodge complaints against a film like Tenet they usually are along the lines that the storyline is too complicated or that the conceit of the film is bad but you can’t tell because the filmmaking is so intricate. I would argue that Dark ultimately fails as a show because it was so intent on being complicated and intricate that eventually no one, including the filmmakers, really understood where to go with it or why.

1899 suffers from a different problem, one I’ve already mentioned regarding Matrix: Resurrections and season four of Westworld – the notion of our characters being stuck in a simulation but having to discover that this is the case. It’s not an unusable concept but it is a familiar one at this point. So if you are going to use it – do something original and exciting with it. Whereas this is a component of the story in The Peripheral it is not the central story being told. Here you have nothing else. Episode after episode is spent getting to know the various characters on board this ship, each of them with their own past they are trying to escape as mysterious and strange events unfold around them.

Okay, that’s fine for a couple of episodes. But to drag this out until the last episode, where you discover that none of these other people matter (in this season at least) and in fact our heroine is stuck in a simulation that she must break free from…only to have the season conclude with her waking up and oh-ho is the real world different from the one we’ve been in – is a complete let down. We have done this many times before.

I knew around episode five that the show was going to be lackluster but I trudged along because this miserable year has taken away my show-watching hope. I’d say 60% of what I have seen this year has been mediocre or bad. It is depressing. If the big reveal of this show had been done at the end of episode two, or the beginning of episode three this could have been an interesting season of television. Instead so much time was wasted with characters who simply died or disappeared. This show feels very much like literary novels that take two hundred and fifty pages to begin their story. I don’t know who these people are that have absolute faith that viewers and readers will carry on despite no reasons to do so but I wish they would stop. Make an effort, give your audience a reason to stick around and care about what you have created.

Ted Lasso – Season 2

It’s amazing in a terrible way, to watch something that you loved and brought you joy self-destruct. I have no idea if the plan for Ted Lasso was always to have a first season be about positivity, joy and making your way through life like a goldfish – to then undermine everything you did and set it on fire. If it was, mission accomplished. I cannot imagine why you would want to do this but if it was the plan than everyone involved gets an A for execution.

I didn’t finish the season, I stopped watching during episode eleven – enough was enough. I tried reading many (and I mean many) reviews and columns and tweets as to whether I was the only person (excluding my wife) who took issue with the new direction of season two. After reading I don’t know how many things I found little comfort in some people feeling as I do. The first season was a gift dropped in the middle of a terrible time. The second season feels like a punishment.

I don’t want to spend more time trying to tear down the show or convince anyone to dislike it. If you found season two to be rewarding and a good time, I’m happy for you. I did not. The introduction of anxiety attacks, a counselor and a spiteful and mean Nate strikes me as terribly storytelling on an unprecedented level. That I made it to the middle of episode eleven speaks to my love of the first season. It felt like they had to, at some moment, course correct and undo all of the terrible things they were doing. From what I have read they did to some extent. Given that Nate is not redeemed and ends the season a villain clearly I was not entirely wrong.

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I don’t have a wonderful conclusion to this post. As I said I generally try and stay positive with my online writing. That being said this past year was absolutely horrid for watching movies and television. Ted Lasso being the best example I can offer. To say that it carried me through a month of 2020 is no exaggeration. Season one is joyous, healing television. I will be forever grateful for it.

I imagine that good deal of what I watched in 2021 was influenced by what we all went through in 2020, whether the filmmakers intended to do this or not. I understand the urge, in fact that might be why I am posting this, but you have to temper it. It can’t all be bad and bleak. I tried to find balance even on this page and I hope I did not bring any of you down.