Still Watching...
Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Villainess, A Shop For Killers, True Detective: Night Country, plus a couple of non-starters.
Maybe I should change this series to “Still Watching…Or Not.”
The thought continually runs through my mind. The initial idea was pretty simple and very common — most of the time anyone talks about a series, other than critics, they’re generally still watching it. “Oh, yeah, we’re a couple of episodes in.” Or, “We started it, but I can’t keep up with that one because now we’re watching a separate one together and my partner is gone a lot.”
Some combo or other.
People like a lot of shows and their day jobs are not as critics and so they fall behind on shows. Simple.
“Still Watching…” was meant to be that collegial joined society of unfinished television, our national shared culture. Little updates on myriad series. Maybe a show would be strung out for 10 episodes and pop up in two or three of these features.
But if you hit a rough patch, there’s a lot of bailing out. And since that’s happening more and more, don’t be surprised when one day I change all the titles in the archive and start fresh. “Still Watching…Or Not.”
OK, let’s get to this mixed bag of mine and start with with the Big Name Bail:
“True Detective: Night Country.”
I’m done with this annoying show after four episodes. Last week was the back breaker. It’s just…not good.
You know how Chief Danvers (Jodie Foster) just kind of annoyingly keeps making her deputy work what seem like 24 hour shifts — even on Christmas Eve and Christmas? Yeah, I feel like coming back to this story each week is a very big ask. And since she’s not my boss, I’m going to say no.
HBO doesn’t whiff that often, but whoosh.
While I’m tempted to keep watching just so I can laugh when Chief Danvers gets one of her 10-per-episode calls that yank her out of key scenes for no reason, I’m sure those of you who keep watching will tally them up for me in the comments.
I mean, last episode it was like they’d read my little riff on this annoyance and tripled down on it:
But at this point the faults are too great to overcome. This story is going nowhere slowly, but also badly, and the acting is a huge struggle (but I might lay the blame on the writing for that). It’s just that everything is…off. Too much dropping repetitive anvils on our heads about certain character behaviors and not enough of anything to keep me coming back. So, onward.
A Shop For Killers:
On Wednesday I watched the final two episodes that dropped for this Korean series on Hulu and it struck me that A) I had burned through the first six with more interest than I’ve had in a lot of series lately and B) I was actually excited to have caught up enough to wait anxiously for the final two episodes.
That’s all you ask for sometimes — great anticipation of entertainment. Or what we used to say was must-see TV.
And the last two episodes of “A Shop For Killers” didn’t disappoint (unless, of course, there’s not a second season). My guess is there definitely will be another season and, who knows, perhaps more after? I got to like a number of the characters and would watch the hell out of a second season with many of them in it. But to my point — a full, solid, creative, entertaining season of a show you probably aren’t watching is in the books/in the vault, ready for you to start.
No spoilers, just go watch. I wrote about it recently here:
Curb Your Enthusiasm:
Instead of waiting until midnight on Tuesday night for the last two episodes of “A Shop For Killers” to drop (I was already exhausted from lugging through “True Detective” to the point I wanted to take off all of my clothes and walk the length of the frozen Alaskan tundra until I fell in the sea), I instead opted for the first season of Larry David’s farewell.
At this point, “Curb” doesn’t need much explaining, if any. For me, I loved the series but eventually got to the point where if I missed a few episodes (or a season) I could loop back later and enjoy it. “Curb” has been around long enough where we know all the cringe moments as they start to build, so there’s a familiarity there — funny though it often is — that allows viewers at this stage to perhaps take that creativity for granted.
But the final season? Sure, I’ll tune in for that — just don’t make me read all the farewell stories.
Verdict on Ep. 1?
It was a good not great episode. I laughed where needed. I enjoyed it. I look forward to more. And my appreciation for what “Curb” has done for the medium remains steadfast. But I feel like maybe it’s the Klay Thompson of legendary comedies at this point and there’s a tinge of sadness when I see an episode like this fail to reach lift off. Here’s hoping the rest are better than good. And yes, I love Klay. But still.
Anyone who has read my stuff even for just a little while knows by now that my sweet spot/soft spot/weak spot is for there to be a long list of shows out there waiting for me in the ether that entertain me — smartly — and where Shit Blows Up (a lot) or there’s an outrageous amount of mayhem and carnage with bullets and blades etc.
I want to get away from thinking Deep Thoughts and Industry Trends and scene deconstructions on really great but involving series and just, you know, let go a bit.
But smart. Or at least smart adjacent.
Or smart enough to know what it is — which way more difficult than you might think — so that I can see the knowing winks and I’m willing to look the other way when believability seems to fade or logic is at risk of escape. I’m willing to overlook a lot for a show or movie that owns what it is.
And every time I mention the things I’ve watched recently, several readers (and even my own partner, as I was slightly surprised to find out) will shout out my need to watch the Korean movie, “The Villainess.”
I finally did.
Good gods, people.
I apologize to everyone for waiting this long to see it.
I’d heard that the first seven or so minutes were pretty legendary and THEY DID NOT DISAPPOINT. What utter madness that was and such relentlessly entertaining action. Watching that opening scene I felt like one of those nearly dead overdose cases in a movie who gets a syringe in the heart and shoots upright, saved from the dying of the light with a jolt of pure electricity.
Or narcon. Or adrenaline. Or whatever it is.
All I know is that in the future whenever I need a little dopamine hit I’m just going to cue up that opening scene from “The Villainess,” burn through it and then tackle the day.
On top of everything else, I loved the duality of intent that watching both “The Villainess” and “A Shop For Killers” gave me.
The first is a flawed movie that goes into the weeds when it’s not plunging a knife into someone’s collarbone or blasting away as if the world has no end to its amount of bullets.
It’s a movie that wants to be more well rounded and thoughtful than its biggest strength (killing people, swiftly and deftly), but repeatedly fails in search of that depth. I liked that it at least tried, but everything was over-complicated when trying to make a movie about a female killing machine, only this time she’s a killing machine with feelings because she has a daughter. Oh, sure, a lot of movies try that trick but so few succeed.
Better to leave that to a show like “A Shop For Killers” for example, where you have a lot of hours to dabble in empathy and comedy and sadness, which successfully offsets, at least to some degree, the stylized gun and sword/knife onslaught. A television series has time for that. Action movies don’t, which is why so few get the mixture of the recipe right.
Sometimes you just need to lean into your strength. For “The Villainess” that strength is ultra-violence, high speed car and motorcycle battles and the unending Asian devotion to knives and swords.
I liked both projects. I’m always going to vote TV over movie because of the time involved and the emphasis on character building — and on “A Shop For Killers,” even all the bad guys get fleshed out (you know, before they get fleshed out for good).
Korea continues to kill it, so to speak.
And then there was this:
I tried to start FX’s “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans” and I will say upfront that it’s likely I’ll try again. I just immediately wasn’t in the mood for even a well done Truman Capote and you really, really have to be in the mood for Capote to get anywhere in this series. It might come back to me. But I opted out pretty quick.
I tried also to do Amazon Prime’s “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” I said I wouldn’t, but then I thought why not, how bad could this movie remake be? And then I saw that it was a full-blown multiple episode series (which had somehow eluded me previously) and my reaction to that discovery was this:
And so it goes, sometimes.
Still Watching Brain Dump...
Astrid (PBS) - not rushing through it. Still good, very French.
Criminal Record (A+) - cop drama, but two good leads and gratuitous London
In The Know (Peacock) - Saw one, will see...but benefit of the doubt to Mike Judge/Zach Woods
Curb (Max) - Even lesser Curb is better than about anything else out there
Letterkenny (Hulu) - Not rushing through the last season of this either. Very good at what it is, which is what we appreciates about it.
Tokyo Vice (Max) - Cautiously optimistic
Luna + Sophie (PBS) - Entertaining German cop show (and I don't really like cop shows, but the international ones are interesting)
Halo (Paramount+) - Current BSU show, finished S1. Open to other BSU shows (going to check out the ones Tim mentions here.)
Finished Three-Body (Prime) - Enjoyed it. It's an investment and requires/rewards patience.
Selected coming up:
If you liked Vigil (we did), looks like S2 pops on Peacock on Wed.
Saw a release date for Ripley (Andrew Scott) - 4/4 on Netflix.
Will one day get to:
Fargo S5 (want to give it my complete attention)
Mr and Mrs Smith …I was all-in after one episode, and out after two.