Andor: Rix Road

" Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that."

This is, if not unexpected in what happens, a tense and taut finale with lots of intense character moments as everyone gathers round for Maarva's funeral- with her fiery death speech inspiring the people of Fennix to rise against the empire. Hope may, indeed, lie in the proles.The riot is glorious.

Other sruff happens; Mon Mothma lays the ground of a cover story for her financial doings, but nevertheless introduces her daughter to that dodgy bloke's son in a possible forced marriage, Ouch. But it's mostly focused on and around the funeral, with Andor rescuing poor Bix and getting his friends a way off the planet. Interesting that Syril Kane should save Dedra from certain death. He clearly has not only ambition but a huge crush on her. To be continued, I've no doubt.

The ending is something of a cliffhanger; will Luthen, who will do anything for the cause, murder Andor to keep him quiet? Cassian calling his bluff is an extraordinary piece of acting from Diego Luna. And this is an extraordinary finale.

Andor: Narkina 5

 "You think the Empire stops to catch its breath?"

The episode begins like the Space Fall episode of Blake's 7 as a pseudonymous Andor and others are transported to a  prison planet, but soon takesa darker turn as we are forced to see the shher awful grind of life in an Imperial factory prison.

Yet the prison works also as metaphor for totalitarianism under Empire, with all civil liberties and natural justces eroding into utter tyranny. Yet, like a boiled frog, much of the populace, particularly privileged senators on Coruscant who, unlike a Mon Mothma desperately trying to hide her illicit funds, come out with statements like "If you're doing Nothing wrong, what is there to fear?" 

Yet all prison sentences are doubled. Arrests and imprisonment are, as we've seen, arbitrary. One is reminded of the vile, disgusting, tyrannical leaders of Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, Belarus, Saudi Arabia and others. Palpatine is no different, but there is hope despite the oppression. As Luthen says, tyranny begets rebellion. And I suspect we're seeing that in the person of Kassian. Even Bix is arrested...

Absolutely first class.

Andor: Announcement

 "Watch your back..."

And so we have the aftermath. Luthen got what he wanted: the Empire has been rattled. On the one hand, some are inspired to resistance, such as Maarva. She refuses to leave with Kassian, inspired to work with the Resistance against the Empire.On the other hand, we have a crackdown. Hence Andor returns home briefly home to find Stormtroopers everywhere. And then, as an anonymous rich tourist, he is arrestedand sentenced to six years on trumped up charges.

Such is totalitarianism. And that's the side of the Empire that Andor shows so well. No Jedis. No magical thinking, just the hard moral choices one must face while living under tyranny. Some, like Mon Mothma, try and undermine it from within, but take enormous risks. The stakes are high. 

I see many parallels with Iran today- death to the dictator. Women, life, freedom! And with Russia- may Putin die horribly. Living under tyranny, it iseasy to conform, as Maarva kindly admits to Kassian; she makes no mora judgement. Why rebel if it means your kids will suffer? Such is the harsh reality. Yet brutality begets resistance. And glorious revolution.

I love the secret service intrigue on Coruscant, too, with Dedra this time getting the upper hand. But this is all very much Gestapo on Trantor. And I'm loving this very political approach to the Star Wars universe.

Andor: Reckoning

 "What have you done?"

The series is hotting up now, with this episode beting the finest so far. Syril Karn, Sergeant Mosk and their other soldiers arrive on the planet, and Cassian's future looks bleak as his home is ransacked, his adoptive family threatened, and poor Bix loses her lover, despite realising earlier that it was Timm who sold out Andor.

The episode is crammed with both tension and action. We can almost smell Andor's desperation. Meanwhile, the dynamic between Mosk- the person really in charge- and Karn, a young officer deeply out of his depth and ultimately humiliated, is extremely well done.

 So is the meeting between Kassian and the mysterious yet charismatic Luthen- Stellan Skarsgard is superb- as it becomes cleare that Luthen wants not merely Andor's goods but Andor himself; his talents for sneaking about have not gone unrecognised.

It's a;so a nice touch, in the flashback scenes, to see how Cassian came to be adopted by the Andors, and their departure by starship is paralleled in the present day.

This, I suspect, is where the prologue ends...

Andor: That Would Be Me

 "I messed up..."

I have to confess that, while this is an improvement, I'm still not really feeling this series. That's not to say there isn't a lot to like about it, of course. The whole episode consists of deepening paranoia as Kassian comes under suspicion and the net tightens and tightens. Suddenly, Kassian is in an awful lot of danger, and at this point he's still young and inexperienced.

There's more backstory; we learn that Kenarii is a polluted and abandoned world, and there are more childhood flashbacks. The mined out terracing vista is an awesome bit of CGI.

Then there's the characterisation. Andor and his mother. Lovers Bix and Tim casually lying to each other and failing to communicate. And Deputy Chief Inspector Kyle Soller falling deeper into the rabbit hole as a naive young officer who, like many a dim young officer, finds a grizzled old sergeant to manipulate him. The awkwardly bad speevh scene is brilliantly acted.

There's real potential here. But I'm waiting for it to really take off.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Series 1- The Crooked Man

"Whoever heard of a dog running up a curtain?"

Another excellent episode, and the debut of yet another Sherlock Holmes trope; the bitter and betrayed military man, back from India for revenge. It's a superbly done piece of telly, based on one of Conan Doyle's more memorable short stories; not strictly a whodunit, but making up for that with spectacle, a mongoose and dramatic pacing. There isn't even any real detective work from Holmes, but it's all so well done you don't notice.

It's also the debut of another trope, the extended flashback from the Indian Mutiny on a television budget, and somewhat startling to see a young Fiona Shaw so soon after her turn in Tru Blood. It's incredible to reflect at this point that we're only five episodes in. The format, the look of the series, and the performances of the two leads (Brett especially) feel as though they've been in place for years.

This is the first episode, though, that doesn't quite feel as though it's from a very different time, as it may have done in 1984. Wars in south Asia are, alas, a thing of recent memory to us too.

Pixels (2015)

"Don't tell anyone I killed a smurf..."

I am, to put it mildly, far from an Adam Sandler fan. Worse, this film seems to have left the critics unimpressed. But, perhaps because I'm very old school when it comes to computer games (I was born in 1977 and pretty much stopped buying new games in the early '90s as albums by rock bands replaced games in my limited teenage budget), I found this film pleasantly and nostalgically entertaining. I'll admit, though, that I'm still not particularly enamoured with Sandler as such.

The film looks great, and it's huge fun seeing Space Invaders, Centipede, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong recreated in real life. And Ludlow is an enjoyable piss-take of conspiracy nuts ("JFK shot first!"),  so insane that he actually uses 4chan. The film also makes a good point; those 8-bit games from the '80s relied on recognising the pattern, not something that applies these days.

I love the scenes in London- Hollywood certainly seems to love our visually arresting national capital, and Fiona Shaw gets a great cameo as the prime minister. There's a lot to love. But I'm a little disturbed by the treatment of Fox News as a legitimate news source and the troubling idea that it's ok for  a US president not to know big words. But there's no denying how much I enjoyed this film.

True Blood: And When I Die

"Dude! I'm dead, you're a medium; I'll always be with you."

An ominous finale; we know someone is going to die and by the iron laws of drama it has to be Jesus. Still, his name is an obvious Christ metaphor and it seems, in a sense, he will always be with Lafayette.

Nelsan Ellis is superb playing a Lafayette possessed by Marnie- something foreshadowed by Mavis earlier in the season. Clever. Jason confesses to Hoyt about him and Jessica, thereby destroying their friendship. Terry is visited by his old sergeant from Iraq- something for next season- and Marnie is going to burn Bill and Eric at the stake, which is nice. 

And then, just to make a dramatic finale, the dead rise, including Antonia and, shockingly, Adele. Sookie is, obviously, emotional. More sinisterly, Rene (as Rene, with a Cajun accent) returns to Arlene to warn her of "that man", Terry. More foreshadowing.

Most unexpected is the outcome of Sookie's love triangle; after much tension, she dumps both Bill and Eric. Blimey. It's a downbeat episode, with a seemingly downbeat take on a Buddhist theme that life is suffering and that true death, oblivion, is the only release. Cheerful stuff.

Marnie ultimately dies, as she herself predicts, and we get to wrap up. Jadon has sex with a Jessica dressed like Red Riding Hood, and the cliffhangers end the season: Steve Newlin is at Jason's door- and he's a vampire! Alcide finds out that Russell Edgington is loose again! And, in the final shot, Debbie shoots Tara. It looks as though she's dead...?

True Blood: Soul of Fire

"Why are you on top of me?"

"Because you're handsome."

This penultimate episode starts from Jessica's POV, as the cavalry starts their assault on Marnie and her hostages. Unfortunately Marnie's binding spell, plus Sookie being inside, throws a spanner into the works and delays the final confrontation until the season finale. Who'd have thunk it?

Jesus, however, has a plan. It better work, because Marnie is increasingly revealing herself as the psychopath that always lurked beneath the diffident outsider; hers is a deep and complex character realised superbly by Fiona Shaw.

In other plot lines Sam and Luna find Emma and fight Marcus, and Andy has random sex with a fairy called Maurella, an act which is bound to have consequences. Meanwhile Alcide, seeing Debbie with Marcus, abjures her, but all of this is a fascinating sideshow. We return to the main event as Jesus' spell works. But there's an episode to go...

This is an intense, action-packed episode with relatively little timely stop and breathe, but that's all part of the True Blood tapestry. Brilliant.

True Blood: Burning Down the House

"You were the best part of my life..."

A lot of things are upended in an episode which sees Tommy's tragic ebbing away with Sam at his side while everything starts to gear up for the season finale.

But first we have all the chaos and confusion as Antonia/Marcie attacks Bill's reconciliation event. One early consequence is Sookie zapping Eric with her powers, causing his memories to come back; that's goodbye to the innocent Eric of recent episodes. The question of whether he loves her as much hangs in the air. It's a nicely simmering will-they-won't-they dynamic.

Jessica is having a hard time of it; she dumped Hoyt for him but Jason is not only siding with his friend but wants her to glamour away his feelings for her. Ouch. It's not a good day for Nan Flanagan either as Bill tells her flatly that she's no longer in charge. Politics again.

Eric insists he still loves Sookie, but she's unsure. He's less reassuring to Pam, his own offspring, which seems ominous. So does Bill's determination to confront Antonia, even if this means the death of Tara and all other hostages. Bill is slowly becoming less and less likeable and I think this is deliberate. He's no longer the romantic lead, a brave move.

There's hope, though, as Terry helps Andy to kick his V addiction. There's also shock, as Antonia and Marcie clash: Marnie is horrified by what they've done. It's Marnie who's the true monster. 

Things are at fever pitch as we end the episode about to start the final confrontation. This excellent season is nearing its end...

True Blood: Let's Get Out of Here

"Blame the witches. America's had no problem doing it in the past." 

We begin with both Alcide and Bill desperately trying to save Sookie; Eric is Antonia's bitch. Antonia is determined to wage all out war on vampires, and to do it at Bill's long-planned tolerance event; according to Nan Flanagan, cancelling is not an option.

But much of this episode consists of a possessed Lafayette, and the hostage situation with Arlene's baby, whose Damian-line tendencies were all to do with the ghost, Mavis. Meanwhile, Andy is taking V, Sookie is dreaming of Eric, pondering the fact she loves both him and Eric. What to do? She points out the gender double standards with polyamory, but where is this going?

Nelsan Ellis is outstanding as the Macis stand-off is resolved by a heroic Jesus; these are superb and emotional scenes. 

Sookie, with help from Debbie of all people, discovers that Tara and the others are all being held hostage by Antonia. And we get juxtaposed scenes of sex and death in artily directed and cut scenes; Sam cums inside Luna while Tommy, in the shape of Sam, is fatally wounded in a "duel" with Marcus. This is symbolic of their divergent fates, and a reminder that not all people born into poverty can rise as Sam did.

There is also some apparently good Dec between Jessica and Jason, but we end with all Hell about to break loose as Marcie interrupts Bill's tolerance event. Chaos erupts. I'm loving the topsy-the Y unpredictability of this season.

True Blood: Spellbound

"Jesus, tits and God America, Jason!"

Now here's a tune I recognise- classic early period Siouxie and the Banshees!

Anyway... Jason saves Jessica- and she's very grateful. But vampires are still not safe until nightfall as the spell may happen again: they must chain themselves indoors with silver. How very kinky.

On the one hand, this brings Sookie erotically closer to amnesiac Eric. On the other, Jessica brutally dumps Hoyt, and he doesn't react well.

But this is a very romantic episode nonetheless, with extended erotic sequences of Sookie and Eric in bed together in the artily shot snow. But Antonia/Marcie are planning full vampire genocide. Tara seems quite happy with this. We know that Bill's offer of a parley cannot go well.

Meanwhile Lafayette again sees the ghostly Creole lady with little Mikey. We discover that she lived a few decades ago, and that she and her baby were killed by her white lover, afraid of being caught having fathered a mixed race child. It's a reminder that this sort of racist horror is never far from the surface in the Deep South.

Meanwhile, we and Sam discover that her menacing ex, and Emma's father, is local werewolf packmaster Marcus, whom we've got to know a little through Alcide and Debbie. It's the sort of shock revelation that True Blood does very well.

Cruelly, Jessica is rejected by Jason out of loyalty for his best friend, even though she left Hoyt for him. Even more cruel is Lafayette's possession by the Creole lady, and his swift seizing of baby Mikey. But we end with the parley, swiftly degenerating into fast and confusing scenes of fighting. It's all beautifully shot, but Sookie uses her powers and receives a bullet, there is much commotion and Antonia bewitches Eric...

Superb stuff.

True Blood: Cold Grey Light of Dawn

"I am not a zombie!"

The possessed Marnie escapes from Bill's helpless clutches as we get some light relief with Tara escaping from a hilariously annoyed Pam. The trippiness down in Mexico is leavened with a bit of family drama added to give it a bit of a plot purpose beyond establishing Lafayette's magical abilities, and Debbie and Alcide are initiated into their local pack. So far, so functional. But then we get to the real heartbreak; Tara feels she has to break up with her girlfriend to keep her safe. Will nothing ever go right for her?

Jason's position gets all the more awkward with his feelings towards Jessica and Hoyt confessing his relationship troubles, saying that "It'll kill me if I lose her". We all know where this is heading. We're well-informed on the Big Bad and her plans, too, as Bill uses Jessica to give us yet more exposition on who Antonia is. 

The father/daughter relationship between these two is genuinely lovely, though, especially given the abusive ways of her birth father. Also sweet is Andy's nervous approach to his date with Holly, his V addiction getting the better of him. It's an episode all about relationships but, in many cases, ominously. We get an ominous ending, too, as Marcie's spell has vampires running for the Sun, including Jessica...

Bloody brilliant.

True Blood: I Wish I Was the Moon

"But, ifyou turn into a panther, won't the cuffs just fall off...?

Bill is not at all happy to find that Sookie has been hiding the amnesiac Eric, but she has little reason to be truthful to him after recent events. Eric, in an interestingly philosophical mood, actively wants not to remember his past; he's appalled by his own past behaviour and wishes to be the good man that he now is- and always potentially was. He even submits to execution, glad that in his few days of life he has known true love with Sookie. A conscious-stricken Bill, of course, lets him live, diminished by him in Sookie's eyes and ours.

Meanwhile, the fire at Arlene's and Terry seems to have been caused by a ghostly creole lady who wants to take baby Damian. Sam is rather busy as Arlene's landlady and leaves Tommy to run the bar... as Sam. So he proceeds to act like a douche, firing Sookie. This will have consequences. So will his sleeping with Luna and then throwing her out...

Meanwhile, Lafayette and Jesus experience more artist shot trip pines in Mexico while Tara faces the consequences for lying to her girlfriend about who she is. But much of the episode consists of poor, thick Jason bonding with his sister while learning that he has not, after all, been turned into a were-Panther. Those scenes are really rather sweet.

Other relationships are awkward- Jason and Jessica know they shouldn't be attracted to each other- but Tara and Naomi are a sweet couple, and we end a surprisingly slow-paced episode with Sookie and Eric making love in long shot, as if the director respects their privacy...

True Blood: Me and the Devil

"Insanity comes with the job."

Tommy isn't in the clutches of his awful parents for long; he kills them. Oops. Meanwhile, Marnie is increasingly friendless, Eric is still an innocent without a past and Terry suggests to Arlene that they get an exorcist in. Cool.

Lafayette and Jesus are off to Mexico to see the latter's magician grandad, a sort of Mexican Alan Moore, and to generally start their own plot line full of trippily directed arty sequences. Jason pours his heart out to Hoyt about his recent Viagra-assisted gang rape. And said exorcist turns out to be the Reverend Daniels with Lettie Mae, not from the sort of church Arlene prefers. 

Probably most pivotal is Sookie's meeting with Marnie for a bit of a seance where she hears her Gran's voice, telling her very clearly that Marnie is dangerous. If that isn't foreshadowing then I don't know what is.

And then Marnie is possessed, seemingly permanently, by the woman from those Spanish Inquisition flashbacks who probably has some rather unpleasant agenda. Again, oh dear.

Things don't get better for Arlene and Terry with a fire starting, while Jason is attracted to Jessica, his best friend's girlfriend, after having her blood. 

We end with Bill giving us some backstory: the Inquisition woman was Antonia, a necromancers whose dying act was to exterminate all vampires within twenty miles by burning them in daylight. At the time the Catholic Church was full of vampires, although "Today, as you know, it's Google and Fox News".

At last we get a clear idea of the real big bad in an eventful episode.True Blood just gets better and better.

True Blood: I'm Alive and on Fire

"Don't fuck this up. How many retired kings do you know?"

Eric has just killed and drunk from Claudine, a full-blooded fairy, and is therefore as pissed as a fart. It's all rather amusing, but also serves to underline how very real and unfeigned is his love for Sookie.

Less sweetly, Jason is gang-raped while Crystal, in the midst of raping him, is moved to tears by the joys of having (for her) truly consensual sex for the first time in her life. It's all very dark. Meanwhile Bill comes under pressure from Nan Flamagan while the source of Marnie's power is revealed as a poor woman burnt at the stake during the Spanish Inquisition.

Sam, meanwhile, visits Luna unexpectedly, and gets on well with Emma, her little girl. By the laws of television drama they are all doomed. This is the episode, I think, where we begin to get a sense of the shape of the season, and I like it. 

It's good to have a one-off bit of comedy, though, such as Bill discovering that his potential new girlfriend- a Bellefleur- is a descendent of his. Oops. That'll be him free to get back with Sookie at some point, then. How convenient.

Jason is finally rescued by Jessica and Hoyt, but is understandably traumatised- the light is juxtaposed with the dark. 

We end with Tommy trapped back into his parents' malevolent clutches, while Pam's attempt to stop Marnie results in her falling victim to a rather minging rotting spell...

True Blood: If You Love Me, Why Am I Dying?

"You just killed my fairy godmother!"

"Sorry."

This episode is largely about the amnesiac Eric, and how, vampire or not, he's so sweet, innocent and loving without memories to define who he is- a comment on human nature there, I feel.

Jason, meanwhile, is to be made a werepanther so the somewhat inbred tribe can survive another generation. It seems that panthers rules the Earth once, but were eventually eclipsed by what sound an awful lot like fairies. Jason is fed viagra, tied to a bed and... well, raped by Crystal and all the other women of child-bearing age. It's horrible. 

Jessica finally admits she's been unfaithful to Hoyt and he takes it badly... so she glamours him into forgetting. And so the relationship crosses the line into abuse. Again we have the theme, unusually, of women abusing vulnerable men. Tommy and Maxineare perhaps another example- her need for an obedient son figure is a little disturbing, but at least she's teaching him to read.

The episode ends with Marnie casting a big necromancy spell to raise the dead, with the process seeming very sexual. But Pam is after her. Meanwhile, Eric innocently murders Claudine at an awkward moment. Oops.

I'm loving this season and have no idea where it's going. Addictive as ever.

True Blood: You Smell Like Dinner

"It's Bon Temps, Sook. Not like I expected the red fucking carpet!"

So Eric bought the house because he wants to protect Sookie, a fairy, from other vampires. He's even made himself a little cubby hole. Hmm. Not stalkerish at all then.

Less creepy is Sam's relationship with fellow shifter Luna, which is developing nicely. And equally intriguing is the flashback to a punk rock Bill(!) in the London of 1982, looking very much like Sid Vicious and being seemingly recruited by Nan Flanagan into an assimilist conspiracy within the Authority. My, that Stephen Moyer does a rather good English accent.

Oh, and Louis Pasteur is a vampire. Cool. So is the way True Blood is like a gradually unpeeling onion of complex vampire political agendas.

Tara, meanwhile, finally comes back to visit Bon Temps, her girlfriend in New Orleans believing her to be another identity entirely. The plot thickens as Bill explains that Marnie's Wiccans are necromancers and therefore a threat which Eric is to neutralise. Unfortunately he loses his memory while doing so. Isn't that a bummer?

In other bombshells, Jessica is starting to cheat on Foyt- is monogamy for her?- while Felton and Crystal are back. It seems that Felton, with all that inbreeding, has nothing in the tank and he thus wants Jason to inpregnate his sister-wife. True Blood certainly knows how to do a good twist..!

This is shaping up to be good season. I'm addicted as ever...

True Blood: She's Not There

"I have a fairy godmother???!!!"

This is certainly the weirdest season opener so far as Sookie begins in the Land of Faerie hearing an awful lot of exposition- Claudine is her fairy godmother; her Grandad Earl is alive and with them in Fairyland; there's a hint of malevolence behind the surface sweetness... and they don't want her to leave. Especially that.

Most weird is how slowly time passes there- her grandad, absent for twenty years, thinks he only saw her last week, as a little girl- which makes me think of the capricious faeries of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. When she finally escapes back to Bon Temps, at the cost of her Grandad's life, she's been gone thirteen months. Oops. People are quite upset. And Jason's sold the house. To Eric.

Things have happened over that year. Jason, for example, has been hand waved into an actual cop. Andy is now a hopeless V addict. Jessica and Hoyt's relationship is showing cracks. Lafayette now has a cool Mohican, and he is persuaded by Jesus to attend a Wiccan event presided over by Marnie, who must be important because she's  portrayed by Fiona Shaw. Sam is now embracing his shifter side, hanging out with other shifters. Meanwhile, Arlene's baby Mikey is looking more and more as though he should have been called Damian. That's a lot of stuff to kick off a new season.

If this new status quo wasn't enough to ponder, Bill is now King of Louisiana, Marnie's group turns out to be capable of real magic of a very Alan Moore kind, and Crystal's family are locking Jason up in an ice box. I love True Blood.