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Showing posts with label The Following. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Following. Show all posts

Monday, November 11, 2019

Prodigal Son 1.7: Apprentices



An outstanding, even pivotal episode 1.7 of Pivotal Son last week, in which all kinds of alliances are revealed and created.

The big one features Bright handing over a scalpel - aka knife, weapon - to his father, the Surgeon, unshackled in his prison cell.  He does this at the insistence of his sister, Ainsley, who has come with her cameraman to interview her father.  The cameraman gets stabbed by a psycho on the loose in the prison.  It's a serious wound, and only Dr. Whitly's expertise can save him.

Which he does, and then returns the weapon to Bright, which instantly turns Ainsley from a staunch critic to a devoted fan.  It was no surprise that the Surgeon somehow set all of this up.  The fun was seeing it unfold and learning how that happened.

The key is that the Surgeon has apprentices, students, in and out of prison.  This has suddenly thrown Prodigal Son into The Following territory, and that's exciting and desperate terrain.  A group of psychos following a sinister master can do a lot more damage than the master himself, especially when he's locked up for life in prison.

One question, though, is the how the prison stabber could have had precisely enough prowess with the scalpel to wound the cameraman exactly the way the Surgeon wanted it.   But that's a small quibble to a generally eye-opening episode that really moved the series along,

Tonight's episode will be on in less than an hour, and I'll be back with a more timely review.

See also: Prodigal Son: A New Serial Killer ... Prodigal Son 1.2: Dreams or Memories? ... Prodigal Son 1.3: LSD and Chloroform ... Prodigal Son 1.4: Ainsley ... Prodigal Son 1.6: Bad Boy

 

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Minority Report, Blindspot, and Limitless: Similar Scenarios

I've been watching, enjoying, and reviewing three new network series this Fall:

Minority Report on Fox, Blindspot on NBC, and Limitless on CBS (I also love Nashville on ABC - just so that network shouldn't feel excluded - but it's not pertinent to this post).   Anyway, I realized last night that the three series have very similar setups.

Minority Report and Limitless are the closest: Both feature a guy with science fictional powers (Dash on Minority Report can see the future, Brian on Limitless becomes the smartest person in the world when he takes the fictional drug NZT).  Both team with hot female cops (Dash with Lara, Brian with FBI-agent Rebecca), and have to contend with superiors and co-workers who don't appreciate or fully comprehend what the pairs are doing.

Blindspot reverses the genders - Jane is the point-of-view character (she's also hot), teamed with Kurt at the FBI - and she doesn't have science-fictional powers.   But she has super training as a SEAL, and, like Dash and Brian, is a victim as well as hero.   And she and Kurt have to contend with colleagues and superiors who oppose, distrust and otherwise don't believe in them.

What are the source of these similarities?   Minority Report and Limitless both derive from movies, which in turn were adaptations of a short story ("The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick) and a novel (The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn). The FBI played no role in the previous Limitless versions, but does in its TV series and in Blindspot, which had no previous incarnation.

Well, the FBI is good to bring into any television series, even though it doesn't guarantee massive success, as witness what happened to The Following.   Maybe the similarity is the result of some kind of corporate espionage, which raises the interesting question of which series came up with these similar scenarios first?

Calling Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. to get on the case and figure this out.  (Or maybe Cie McCullough, a reader on Facebook who caught a possible error in an earlier version of this post.)

See Minority Report 1.1: Boding Well ... Blindspot 1.1: Good to See, Or, Coronet Blue meets The Illustrated Man ... Limitless 1.2: Genghis Khan Gene

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Saturday, June 6, 2015

Bones 10.21: Ten Years Isn't Enough

Angela's mantra in Bones 10.21 was ten years is enough - she wants to do new things in life.  No one agrees with her - not even Hodgins, who buys the apartment in Paris not because he is tired of the Jeffersonian, but because he loves Angela and will do anything for her.  Certainly Bones doesn't agree with this.

I don't either - with the logic, that is.  Intrinsic in a job such as Angela's is the newness of each forensic mystery, and, in Angela's case, applying a new digital technology to its solving, which she's so good at.  A more plausible reason, which Angela did mention at the beginning of this cycle, was that dealing with death day in and day out was beginning to get to her.  Ok, that I can understand.

My Twitter friend and Bones fan Linda Geraghty mentioned to me that Michaela Conlin and T. J. Thyne  have re-signed along with the rest of the cast for an 11th season, so there's really nothing to worry about.  She's right - here's the announcement - so that leaves us with the enjoyable puzzle of how the apartment in Paris will reconcile with Angela and Hodgins continuing on the show.

Here are some possible solutions -

1. Events next week, in the season finale, get the two to change their minds.  The serial killer striking from beyond the grave, which we've seen in the coming attractions, could somehow provide such a reason.  Certainly the two would be safer in Washington than in Paris - could be better protected by the FBI - and they could lend a better hand in bringing to bay whatever evil has been leveled against them.

2. Angela and Hodgins do move to Paris, but help out in every case via Skype.  This would also enable us to see them, off of Skype, in Paris, and could be the foundation of a Bones spinoff in Paris. (Hey, that could be a good show!  I'm still thinking Hodgins and Angela could swing their own series.)

3. Angela and Hodgins disappear from Bones, but come back to Washington in an unexpected twist in the middle of next season, after we're no longer thinking about them.  That could work, but I'd miss them in the beginning.  (It was done with Joe Carroll in The Following this season, but that ended badly for everyone in the series, which was cancelled.)

In any case, I'm very much looking forward to both the 11th season and the 10th season finale next week, especially with Booth back in the fold, and the tantalizing hint that he may be giving up working on cases - which would be an intriguing path for the series to explore.   Booth could well be thinking that it's his job that drives him to gambling ...

See also Bones 10.1: The Fulcrum Changes ... Bones 10.2: J. Edgar and the DNA Confession ... Bones 10.3: Meets Rush and a Dominatrix ... Bones 10.4: Brennan and Angela on a Bench in the Playground ... Bones 10.5: Two Jokes and Three Times ... Bones 10.6: A Thousand Cuts ... Bones 10.7: The A-Word and Quarks ... Bones 10.8: Daisy's Doula ... Bones 10.9: The Milgram Experiment and the Birds ... Bones 200: 10.10: Just like Bogey and Bacall ... Bones 10.11: Life after Death, and Sweets in Wonderland ...Bones 10.12: The Digital Revolution ... Bones 10.13: The Almost-Serial Killer ...Bones 10.14: meets La Parure ... Bones 10.15: Cards in Hand ...Bones 10.16: Hodgins' Money ... Bones 10.17-18: Bullies and Capital Punishment ... Bones 10.19: Do You Buy Booth's Gambling Addiction? ... Bones 10.20: Intimations of a New Jeffersonian

And see also Bones 9.1: The Sweet Misery of Love ... Bones 9.2: Bobcat, Identity Theft, and Sweets ... Bones 9.3 and NCIS 11.2: Sweets and Ziva ... Bones 9.4: Metaphysics of Death in a Television Series ... Bones 9.5: Val and Deep Blue ... Bones 9.6: The Wedding ... Bones 9.7: Watch Out, Buenos Aires ...Bones 9.8: The Bug in the Neck ... Bones 9.9: Friday Night Bones in the Courtroom ... Bones 9.10: Horse Pucky ... Bones 9.11: Angels in Equations ... Bones 9.12: Fingernails ... Bones 9.13: Meets Nashville, and Wendell ... Bones 9.14: "You Cannot Drink Your Glass Away" ... Bones 9.15: Hodgins' Brother and the Ripped Off Toe ... Bones 9.16: Lampreys, Professors, and Insurance Companies ... Bones 9.17: Spartacus in the Kitchen ... Bones 9.18: Meets Day of the Triffids ... Bones 9.19: The Cornucopic Urn ... Bones 9.20: Above the Law ... Bones 9.21: Freezing and Thawing ... Bones 9.22: Promotion ... Bones 9.23: The New Intern ... Bones Season 9 Finale: Upping the Ante

And see also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera ... Bones 8.10-11: Double Bones ...Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil ... Bones 8.13: Two for the Price of One ... Bones 8.14: Real Life ... Bones 8.15: The Magic Bullet and the Be-Spontaneous Paradox ... Bones 8.16: Bitter-Sweet Sweets and Honest Finn ... Bones 8.17: "Not Time Share, Time Travel" ... Bones 8.18: Couples ... Bones 8.19: The Head in the Toilet ... Bones 8.20: On Camera ... Bones 8.21: Christine, Hot Sauce, and the Judge ... Bones 8.22: Musical-Chair Parents ... Bones 8.23: The Bluff ... Bones Season 8 Finale: Can't Buy the Last Few Minutes

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

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Neanderthal bones



Wednesday, May 20, 2015

The Following Ends

The Following concluded its three-year run on Monday, and I gotta say I was sorry to see it go. Though it started off slowly this season, it ended on one of its most riveting notes, a lot better, in fact, than anything in the second season.

Michael Ealy as Theo was a great sociopathic brilliant villain, in many ways better than Joe, though James Purefoy's performance as Ryan Hardy's signature nemesis was unassailable.  Max really came into her own in the end, with her radiant smile and love for Mike, and it would have good to see them finally together for a while next season.   Kevin Bacon as Hardy was outstanding throughout.

So where did The Following go wrong this final season?   Too little Joe, too late in the story.  Too much Mark, who should either have been killed last season or very early in this.   And too many heads of the unit or whatever they're called in the FBI - just one or two would made for a more appealing character.

The ending of The Following was excellent.  Ryan himself now living in the shadows - to protect his new family - and, for all we know, Theo alive, too.   This seems like more than enough for a new season, and maybe there'll be one, if Netflix or Amazon or some other streaming service come to the rescue.

But with the death of Joe Carroll,  the story won't quite be about a following any more.  Theo is brilliant - but, as far we've seen, has inspired nothing like the following that worked so well under Joe's leadership in the first season.  Still, the Ryan, Max, and Mike characters are different from what we usually see on television, and compelling.   And Theo is clearly one of the most ruthless, ingenious villains we've yet seen on TV, running rings around the psychos of Criminal Minds and even The Blacklist.

Hey, I'll be back here for sure with more reviews if The Following's back somewhere, sometime.


And see also The Following Is Back for Its Second Season ... The Following 2.2: Rediscovering Oneself ... The Following 2.3: Coalescing ... The Following 2.4: Psycho Families and Trains ... The Following 2.5: Turning Tides ... The Following 2.8: Coalescing? ... The Following 2.9: The Book Signing ... The Following 2.11: Lily not Joe ... The Following 2.13: The Downfall of Mike ...The Following 2.14: Twists and Deaths ...  The Following Season 2 Finale: The Living

And see also The Following Begins ... The Following 1.2: Joe, Poe, and the Plan ... The Following 1.3: Bug in the Sun ... The Following 1.4: Off the Leash ... The Following 1.5:  The Lawyer and the Swap ... The Following 1.7: At Large ... The Following 1.9: All in a Name, Or, Metaphor in the Service of Murder ... The Following 1.13: At Last Something of a Day for the Good Guys ... The Following Season 1 Finale: Doing Dead

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Like a Neanderthal serial killer in the current world? Try The Silk Code
   


Wednesday, April 29, 2015

The Following 3.10: Joe and Theo

The Following has done a great job in the past few episodes playing off two related psychos, Joe and Theo, both students of the late, unkindly Professor Strauss.   Theo killed Strauss, and then sent someone to kill Joe - on death row - which enabled Joe to fashion a weapon from the would-be killer's glasses, which set up episode 3.10.

Joe does go down in a long blaze of sick glory, beginning with the weapon in hand as he's brought to the death chamber the first time.  He's doing all of this not because he thinks he has a chance of escaping - which would have been trite - but to bring Ryan to the prison, to establish for Joe that he and Ryan are indeed spiritual brothers.

And, against all odds, Joe succeeds.   Or maybe it wasn't against all odds, because, after all, we know that Ryan wasn't lying when he tells Joe that he, Ryan's, been dreaming of Joe.   And so, even though Joe is executed in the end - a realistic outcome of this part of the story - Joe gets his wish to continue on in Ryan's head.

Meanwhile, Theo is following most of this.   The story could have taken a turn in which Theo somehow used his hacking skills yet again, this time to free Joe, but that would also have been a little anticlimactic, and inconsistent with what Theo tried to do last week.  So, instead, Theo tries to kill both Joe and Ryan - which would make the world a much better place for Theo.

But Joe is the one who is killed in the end, and Theo can at least have the satisfaction of the ultimate mantle of serial murder insanity now being worn solely by Theo.  Not the mantle of just insanity, because Ryan is a little crazy now, too.

The Following has done a good job of creating a plausibly demonic monster in Theo - who, in some ways, is worse than Joe.   Theo is certainly more effective, less cartoonish, than the other bad guys and woman in the field against Ryan and the FBI last year.  I hope he survives this year, with the chilling possibility of coming back next season or after, if there is a next season or more for the Following.

But, first, Ryan has to get over the monster that is now inside him - always there, to some extent, but now riding squirmingly high because of Joe.   Ryan's drinking again, and Gwen didn't get the opportunity in their tense phone conversation to tell him she's pregnant.   I'd say Gwen's pregnancy makes it much less likely that she's a follower of Joe, or associated with Mark, or anything like that. Instead, it has the better effect of upping the ante of what Ryan has to lose if he can't regain his mind and equilibrium.

Season 3 of The Following, as far as I'm concerned, is a lot better than Season 2, and as good or better than Season 1.   Let's hope there's a least a Season 4, with Ryan caught between Joe the psycho in his head and Theo the psycho out there in the world at large.


And see also The Following Is Back for Its Second Season ... The Following 2.2: Rediscovering Oneself ... The Following 2.3: Coalescing ... The Following 2.4: Psycho Families and Trains ... The Following 2.5: Turning Tides ... The Following 2.8: Coalescing? ... The Following 2.9: The Book Signing ... The Following 2.11: Lily not Joe ... The Following 2.13: The Downfall of Mike ...The Following 2.14: Twists and Deaths ...  The Following Season 2 Finale: The Living

And see also The Following Begins ... The Following 1.2: Joe, Poe, and the Plan ... The Following 1.3: Bug in the Sun ... The Following 1.4: Off the Leash ... The Following 1.5:  The Lawyer and the Swap ... The Following 1.7: At Large ... The Following 1.9: All in a Name, Or, Metaphor in the Service of Murder ... The Following 1.13: At Last Something of a Day for the Good Guys ... The Following Season 1 Finale: Doing Dead

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Like a Neanderthal serial killer in the current world? Try The Silk Code
   


Tuesday, April 14, 2015

The Following 3.8: Theo

The Following taken a great turn for the worse with the appearance of Theo, played by Michael Ealy, a psycho who's the best or most evil and dangerous we've seen on the series since Joe himself.  Theo really came into his own as a monster in episode 3.8.

He not only kills his nosy friends - or his wife's nosy friend and her husband - but driven by a keen logic and survival instinct, soon kills his own wife.   His "gift" to her, as he tells her as she's slipping into unconsciousness, is that she won't be aware when he's cutting her apart.   He tells her and us that he enjoyed "playing house" with her, but he needs to move on, as he has done so many times before.

Significantly, he spares his children, leaving them unconscious but fully alive and revivable.   Why? Well, he likely thinks that they have no information about him that can help Ryan.   But how can he be sure?   Possibly he has some scruples about not killing children, especially his own.   Maybe the thrill he gets from killing has to come from killing adults.

Meanwhile, Ryan has a good evening, insofar as he throws out the doctor at his dinner table when the doctor starts lecturing Ryan about capital punishment.   I actually agree with the doctor, but Ryan not having any tolerance for such a lecture at a time like this is very much in line with his character and good writing.   So is Gwen's frustration with Ryan, and his slowness in bringing down the wall of his thorny exterior.  Their relationship is one of the best aspects of the season.  (And I still can't help being a little suspicious that she might a someone's follower herself, obvious as that might be.)

The capital punishment discussion is occasioned by Joe, who has just a few days of life left on death row.   A part of me wouldn't mind if Joe's indeed executed, and Theo becomes the new continuing cross-season villain. But I have a feeling that won't happen.

In any case, Theo has breathed new nasty life into this season, the second part of which has been much better than the first, and I'm looking forward to more.


And see also The Following Is Back for Its Second Season ... The Following 2.2: Rediscovering Oneself ... The Following 2.3: Coalescing ... The Following 2.4: Psycho Families and Trains ... The Following 2.5: Turning Tides ... The Following 2.8: Coalescing? ... The Following 2.9: The Book Signing ... The Following 2.11: Lily not Joe ... The Following 2.13: The Downfall of Mike ...The Following 2.14: Twists and Deaths ...  The Following Season 2 Finale: The Living

And see also The Following Begins ... The Following 1.2: Joe, Poe, and the Plan ... The Following 1.3: Bug in the Sun ... The Following 1.4: Off the Leash ... The Following 1.5:  The Lawyer and the Swap ... The Following 1.7: At Large ... The Following 1.9: All in a Name, Or, Metaphor in the Service of Murder ... The Following 1.13: At Last Something of a Day for the Good Guys ... The Following Season 1 Finale: Doing Dead

#SFWApro


Like a Neanderthal serial killer in the current world? Try The Silk Code
   

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

The Following 3.3: The Mellowing of Ryan

A good episode - 3.3 - of The Following last night, with a confirmation of a change in Ryan's character which we saw in the first episode this season.  He's mellowing, insofar as he's not pushing people he loves - like Gwen - away from him.   This can have a profound impact later in the season, making Ryan both a better human being and more vulnerable.  Will be fun to see how that plays out.

The other aspect of this episode that really struck me - for mostly personal reasons, though - is that a crucial scene took place at what I'm pretty sure is Salinger's, an orchard and farm stand (founded in 1901), about a 25-minute drive from my house. I've been there with wife and family more than a dozen times - they have great apples and peaches and pies - and now I'm thinking, what if one of its customers had been part of some homicidal following?   (And, in breaking news, it looks as if the orchard is now up for sale - you can have it for a cool three mil.)

Who's following whom is the big question this season, anyway.   Clearly, Mark is not ultimately in charge of Daisy and Kyle - who delivers the best line of the night, also featured in the promos, remarking about Mark, "he never had it," after Daisy notes that Mark is "losing it".  The obvious missing psycho or sociopath here - I'm never sure exactly which word best describes him, probably both - is Joe.  But where is he?

The Following and Joe have progressed as follows:  he was in charge in the first season, he was initially out of it in the second but worked his way back, and now in the third season he's just out of it, with no sign that he's working his way back.  Of course, as already saw in the first season, Joe can easily be behind bars and inspire and command a following.   But so far, we've seen no sign of it, barely a shadow of what Joe is up to and may be planning and doing.

Mark likely has to be killed first and/or we discover Daisy and Kyle's ultimate boss.  Looking forward to more on this in the two-hour presentation next week.  In the meantime, I'm definitely not heading over to Salinger's.


And see also The Following Is Back for Its Second Season ... The Following 2.2: Rediscovering Oneself ... The Following 2.3: Coalescing ... The Following 2.4: Psycho Families and Trains ... The Following 2.5: Turning Tides ... The Following 2.8: Coalescing? ... The Following 2.9: The Book Signing ... The Following 2.11: Lily not Joe ... The Following 2.13: The Downfall of Mike ...The Following 2.14: Twists and Deaths ...  The Following Season 2 Finale: The Living

And see also The Following Begins ... The Following 1.2: Joe, Poe, and the Plan ... The Following 1.3: Bug in the Sun ... The Following 1.4: Off the Leash ... The Following 1.5:  The Lawyer and the Swap ... The Following 1.7: At Large ... The Following 1.9: All in a Name, Or, Metaphor in the Service of Murder ... The Following 1.13: At Last Something of a Day for the Good Guys ... The Following Season 1 Finale: Doing Dead

#SFWApro


Like a Neanderthal serial killer in the current world? Try The Silk Code
   




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