The Observer.

Finishing off some shows, watching movies and wondering how to fit in more.

If you’ve been around here much then you know how weirdly delighted I get when I’m able to finish a series, something that was always difficult, jaggedly separated from continuity and sometimes mired in forgetfulness when I was doing this full time for The Hollywood Reporter and San Francisco Chronicle.

Reviewing is always about the front end — the first four, if you’re lucky, half a season if it’s streaming and, occasionally, more episodes than you wanted.

Actually completing a series, as I’ve mentioned, isn’t so rare when seemingly everyone in the world is watching — the popular shows, the critics darlings, the ones you’ll never miss — but it’s shockingly common to never circle back to many series that you reviewed on launch.

That’s not a problem now, mostly because I’m only watching what I want and bailing instead of hate-watching (okay, fine, like 98 percent of the time but not always) and because I’m not on a pointless review treadmill I can be more selective and take more deep dives. It doesn’t always mean there’s more time or variance.

For example, I (we; you readers and me), rolled from the weekly Box Set deconstructions of “Silo” right into the weekly Box Set deconstructions of “Severance,” so that is taking up more of my time. Sometimes I’ll peek at the Bastard Machine home page here on Substack and it looks like I’m watching two shows and napping a lot.

Sometimes that’s because I’m doing freelance work (I watched a lot of episodes of upcoming series between December and early January). Sometimes I’m reading or watching movies or (like today/Tuesday, going way, way down a rabbit hole on some band I’m just discovering).

I know what you’re thinking:

But recently I did finish not only the second season of “Kingdom,” but the one-off movie length “special episode,” called “Kingdom: Ashin Of the North.”

I wrote a little bit about the first season of “Kingdom” (and other series in the last installment of The Observer, here:

The Observer.

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When you’re in the middle of something — and despite the first season of “Kingdom” coming out in 2019 and the second in 2020, yes, I was in the thicket with those episodes — a summation isn’t really available until you finish. So, ta-da!, yes, you should absolutely watch both S1 and S2 of the “Kingdom,” a Korean series that meshes “Game of Thrones” palace intrigue with “Train to Busan” zombies.

I want to be taken by a story and fall down into the deep with it (a glorious benefit when you find such a series and you’re coming to it after all the episodes have aired), and “Kingdom” absolutely filled that need.

It’s a sprawling story and it has numerous characters who grow and change and take you on their personal journeys and reward the investment. It has a ridiculous/hilarious amount of running — running like you’ve never seen by actors, full out, in full sprint, and I enjoyed every second of such scenes — and the series fulfilled that international itch where you get to discover more about different cultures (and in this context, historically; I mean, just the costumes alone were stunning).

A secondary effect of “Kingdom” seen from my recent past was to understand so much of what likely/might have happened to the series, created and written by Kim Eun-hee. As a Bastard Machine reader familiar with Korean series has pointed out, many of them are created for one season only (maybe that’s why the brilliant “Moving” only had one 20-episode season and, very much delayed after being an international success, will get a second season).

So when “Kingdom” — Netflix’s first Korean original series — finished S1 on a cliffhanger, it was suggested that it was probably split like that by Netflix. And, right on schedule, I finished S2 and it picked up exactly where the first ended and, key point here, concluded the story mostly well, as endings go, but it’s clear to me that Kim expected a third season — she talked about it in the press several times like it was going to happen.

It didn’t.

Not a spoiler here (and can I really spoil something that came out in 2020?), but “Kingdom” ends almost with what feels like an added-on scene, which was meant to lead into “Kingdom: Ashin Of the North.”

“Kingdom: Ashin Of the North.”

It left me thinking:

• I’d rather have S2 end differently, but I enjoyed the trip there.

• Kim (and Netflix?) might have been talking about a spin-off series, since “Ashin Of the North” is related but separate from the two “Kindgom” seasons.

• I would have liked a third season of “Kingdom” instead.

As you may have figured, “Ashin Of the North” was not the kingdom we were promised and it did not end up as a series but a one-and-done feature length episode. It was solid — the Koreans love nothing more than revenge stories (okay, maybe romantic comedies, but this is not that); it also feels incomplete as a story and adds really nothing to the “Kingdom” legend other than Ashin knows (all too well) how the zombies started. It’s not, however, a series that seems urgent or necessary.

Ultimately this all felt like a Korean writer (who had already amassed quite a resume and continues to) dealing with an American streamer and one of them was more optimistic that the stories would be ongoing. (Kim, even recently, has talked in a kind of optimistic “if we do season three in the future” kind of tone, even though we’re almost five years removed from S2 and in 2023 she wrote a 12-episode series, “Revenant,” that ran on Disney+.

Did you hear the door close?

I have too many memories of series I loved and supported that died too soon (and often incomplete), so it was slightly frustrating to have to add “Kingdom” to that pile. That said, I definitely endorse watching both seasons (but “Ashin Of the North” only if you’re bored and curious).

Another series I was able to finish was the second season (6 episodes, like the first) of “Sherwood” on BritBox. I wrote about S1 of the highly acclaimed 2022 series here:

"Sherwood."

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“Sherwood” S2 came out in 2024 — also acclaimed — and it very deftly moves the series forward a handful of years and involves a new case that tangentially circles back into the case from the first season. It’s wonderful storytelling from writer and creator James Graham.

There’s some real bleakness in both series, so if you’re looking for escapist fare this isn’t it. But “Sherwood” is excellent television start to finish and it’s relatively easy, at 12 episodes total, to watch the entirety of both series and have a sense of accomplishment.

As far as I can tell, S1 had most British critics floored and that reverence made the ability for them, at least anecdotally, to give S2 its just due very difficult. The second season also was showered with accolades but it always had a shadowed effect, an asterisk, from being compared to S1.

To which I say: I actually liked S2 better.

Again, two countries divided by a common language and all that; plus, coming to the series late I had none of the overwhelming hype to deal with that S1 got through its run. As such, S2 had a peculiar appeal. Both seasons, as you can suss out, are worth your time regardless of the order you stack them.

Last Friday I wrote about Letterboxd and its “Japanuary” viewing challenge, highlighting the movie I ended up watching, “Tokyo Story.” I detailed that here:

"Japanuary."

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For those who can’t access the story or who just want the short story version, I ended up asking a friend (director and wine guru Dan Polsby) about what to watch and he put me onto “Tokyo Story.” Enthralled with it, I was then given a follow up assignment from him: Watch “Late Spring,” another Yasujirō Ozu film that came four years prior in 1949.

So I cued it up and then the strangest thing happened: “Late Spring” happened.

Or at least it started to, and Viewing Partner KB and I got the weirdest case of déjà vu.

“Late Spring” seemed, in the initial 10 plus minutes we watched, to be almost the same premise as “Tokyo Story,” with many of the same actors and some portraying the same character.

Wha? We barely had any wine, honest.

I went back to Dan with a WTF and got this: “He has a lot of movies that have crazily overlapping themes, characters and even actors playing the characters…I can’t think of anything/anyone else quite like it.”

It’s one thing to know that going in, quite another to go in cold and feel like you’re watching the rough draft of a later movie (although “Late Spring” is also rated among Ozu’s best). Upon further inspection, this from Wikipedia: “…It is the first installment of Ozu’s so-called “Noriko trilogy,” succeeded by “Early Summer” (1951) and “Tokyo Story” (1953); in each of which (Setsuko Hara) portrays a young woman named Noriko, though the three Norikos are distinct, unrelated characters, linked primarily by their status as single women in postwar Japan.”

We felt that was oddly David Lynchian, or pre-Lynchian, so we stopped watching “Late Spring” because it was making our heads spiral and instead we watched “Mulholland Drive.”

I would like a small present for that transition. And you were supposed to laugh.

No, I’m not going to try to explain the unexplainable fever dream that is “Mulholland Drive.” Everyone seems to have some wild theory of what transpires and many of the theories are good ones, if not always plausible ones. As if plausible is a Lynch concern.

I would just say I’m not sure the film is meant to be examined in the kind of passionate post-viewing irresistible/fantastical detail that it elicits.

I did love it, though.

And there’s a bonus element because Ann Miller is Viewing Partner KB’s cousin. On top of that, I had my own rather shocking reveal: Once Lynch died and we were talking about which films to rewatch, “Mulholland Drive” was at the top of my list. Why? Because I couldn’t remember it with the detail I was expecting. And now I know the reason:

I never finished it back in the day.

It’s true. Apparently I watched all the way through the scene where “Rita” is hiding in the apartment that Betty’s aunt is letting Betty stay in, then must have stopped for reasons unbeknownst to me (although I had an 11-month old baby when the film came out, so I suspect what might have eventually happened).

In any case, it was a little shocking that I never finished it — and it fits the theme from up at the top of this post — but it was also thrilling to get to watch it completely.

And oh my gods please no don’t I’m begging you put your “Mulholland Drive” interpretations in the comments. It’s Chinatown, Jake.

(Actually, it’s fine if you want to. Maybe you’ll convince me). All other comments are welcomed as usual.

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