What If... Strange Supreme Intervened?

 "Right.So you're here to narrate."

"It's my job".

Nice little bit of forth wall breaking in the quote there. It's one of many witty little lines in this perfect, epic season finale starring Peggy from last episode plus a few episodesearlier; Kahhori from a couple of episodes ago; and Strange Supreme from last season. Yep, What If? is doing a tangled web of sequels. It really shouldn't work, but it does.

This is truly epic. Spoilers: there's a bit of misdirection early on, but of course Strange is the baddie. We get action, loads of cameos from the likes of Surtur, Hela, Killmonger, Thanos... and, briefly, the Two Gun Kid. Oh yes. But that's not what this is really about. It'sabout Strange wanting to destroy untold multiverses to bring back Christine, whereas Peggy knows Steve would never want her to do that for him. Both are denied love, but they deal with it very differently. That, as much as anything- and the scene where she resists temptation- is what makes her a hero.

This is an epic,perfect gfinale, with characters- even cameos, like Hela- whom we've really got to know, and that makes all the difference. Roll on next season... but Echo first. One I've finished a certain movie serial from the Distinguished Competition...

Gen V: Jumanji

 "I fart the star spangled banner!"

I haven't seen the titular film, so no doubt there are all sorts of pop culture references I'm not getting here. Nevertheless... 

The B plot here is so, so sweet. Sex is often played for gross in Gen V and The Boys, but this episode has one of the loveliest sex scenes I've ever seen, as Emma and Sam make love. It's his first time, but Emma is so very understanding and makes it clear that there's no pressure. Bless her.

The rest of the episode, though.... oooh, it's dark. Also structurally clever, of course. How can we get the rest of the gang to give Cate the time of day ever again? By getting trapped in her traumatised psyche and get to understand, if not condone, what she did. Cate has a lot of work to do to even begin to earn back their trust... but it's a start.

We know what Cate did to her brother, but not how her mother proceeded to hide her away, unloved, for nine years, easy prey for Shetty and her bottle of pills. And there are parallels with Jordan who, we now see, made some dodgy decisions in going along with brink, and with Andre, who started sleeping with Cate while Luke was still alive. And then there's the parallels with Marie: her sister's rewaction is utterly heartbreaking.

But Shetty, the doctor, and that supe-killing virus... ouch. We've had two intense and character-based episodes, two superb bits of telly, but I get the feeling a lot is going to happen in these last two episodes.

Gen V: God U.

 "It's like a big, fiery cucumber..."

I had no idea what to expect from this university-themed spin-off from The Boys, full of very uoung actors who make me feel old, sort of, as their young people music sounds awfully... conservative? It seems as though this exists to tide us over during the long delay until the next season of the parent show.I have to admit, though, this first episode is bloody good. And absolutely as hilarious and dark in equal measure as is said parent show.

It's a good idea to have Marie as audience identification character, and Jaz Sinclair is superb. Not only is her backstory as tragically dark as hell, but her blood superpowers are the grossest thing ever. Then we have nice seeming Andre, whose powers are unclear; Cate, with her "these aren't the droids you're looking for" powers"; and Emma, who can shrink and is burdened, beneath the surface cheer, with low self esteem that leads her to be used, bless her. Then there's Jordan who, well, it's laudable to have a trans character, and I like the concept that being trans is heroic, nicely done... but is switching gender really a power that can be used to fight crime?

The question is perhaps not all that pivotal; it's made very clear that 90% of alumni are destined for showbiz rather than crimefighting, and even crimefighting classes are half about branding... and all bery much controlled by Vought. But the ending is shocking... Luke, Golden Boy, our pampered little Johnny Storm, ends up killing the superstar prof and then exploding himself. Wow. At least this means poor Marie isn't expelled in order to save the reputations of others further up the pecking order.

Why does Luke do this? What is "The Woods", where kids are seemingly sent? I'm sure we'll find out. I'm very much hooked.

Ahsoka: Part One- Master and Apprentice

 "Sometimes even the right reasons have the wrong consequences."

I'm familiar with the Star Wars movies, all of them, plus all of the live action Disney Plus stuff. I've even seen thse two '80s Ewok TV movies. But I've never seen the Clone Wars animation, or at least not yet. This had a minor effect on The Mandalorian as I had no prior knowledge of Bo-Katan. For this series, I fear, my ignorance is likely to look larger. Fortunately, we have what appears to me to be exposition for those such as my poor self. I've no way of knowing how much I say below will be familiar to those of you who have seen Clone Wars.

So Ahsoka trained as a Jedi, has a lightsabre and everything, and was once Anakin's apprentice until she walked away. She isn't quite a Jedi as such, although she has to work with her own former apprentice, the well-meaning but rebellious Sabine Wren. There was a Jedi called Ezra Bridger who went missing when the Empire fell, along with the mysterious General Thrawn, the big bad for whom all, goodies and baddies, are looking. Hopefully I have that right.

This is, however, a very promising beginning. This is very "trad" Star Wars, beginning with something very close to the scrolling texts from the films, the camera then panning to a large spaceship. We also have a lot of the movie serial homage stuff from the original Star Wars film- there's a secret map, we meet Ahsoka in a very Indiana Jones set piece- plus a nicely promising couple of Jedi baddies, Baylan Skoll and his young apprentice, whose name I didn't catch. The cliffhanger is superb, as the apprentice attacks Sabine and seems to stab her in the heart... surely they wouldn't kill her now? Also, David Tennant as a very Jedi-adjacent droid. Cool.

This is good stuff, purposefully avoiding characters from the films but absolutely evoking a very trad feel. More please. Oh, look. A second episode.

Daredevil: The Dark at the End of the Tunnel

 "Matty, I'm proud of you."

Wow. That's how to do a penultimate episode.

I especially love how there are two parallel narratives, with both Matt and Karen cast very clearly as equally heroic. Karen gets a further sequence, despite her very human exhaustion and despair, of journalistic awesomeness as she interviews the Colonel from Castle's trial... only for the rather brilliant revelation to hit her that he is, in fact, the Blacksmith. Even more of a shock is to see how she's saved by Frank. This whole sequence is full of shocks, yes, but also with superb acting from Deborah Ann Woll, John Bernthal and Clancy Brown who, I should have realised, is not the sort of actor you get in for a bit part.

Then we have the sequences of Elektra's childhood with Stick, the relevance of which hits us towards the end. But first we have Stick Kidnapped and tortured by the Hand, with both Matt and Elektra on their trail, but there's still time for a poignant scene between Matt and Foggy, who can't seem to resurrect their friendship.

There's lots of cool, well-directed action as Matt fights loads of ninjas until we get to the really big revelation... the Hand's big scary weapon, the Black Sky... is Elektra! And we end with a flurry of activity and confused motives leading us into a much-anticipated finale.

If that's not enough, you have to admire the parallel revelation, Black Star and the Blacksmith, and with the long-buried past coming back, gothic-style, to horrify everyone...

Wow. Just wow.

Daredevil: Guilty as Sin

 "This is who I am."

I think it's probably fair to say that this is an eventful episode. Matt and Karen breaking up and Matt and Elektra ending up together in more ways than one; Matt and Foggy ending up on bad terms; and the trial suddenly ending in disaster as Frank Castle pleads guilty out of the blue.

Oh, and Stick's back. With some semi-mythological exposition about the baddies- the Hand- in which he himself may have a starring role. And Frank, in prison, meets none other than a certain Mr Fisk...

It's a massive change to the status quo, but it works. The characters ring true, from the unddrdog Foggy- more competent than he knows- to the conflicted Matt, the severely damaged Frank and, most of all, the truly amazing Karen. And there are set pieces which showcase superb acting, from Jon Bermnthal's exceptional final speech as the Punisher to a standout guest appearance from Clancy Brown.

Yet the plot is also deeply intricate and engaging, with cool Hand ninjas threatening New York and police corruption seemingly manipulating the trial in ways that seem to be connected with Wilson Fisk. And Matt's realisation that he loves Elektra after all, after nearly seeing her die, is believable.

The season is really shaping up into a coherent whole know, with the Punisher, Elektra, Matt's complex personal life, the Hand and the Kingpin. This episode is an incredible bit of telly.

Highlander (1986)

 "There can be only one!"

Everybody has really big films they haven't seen, even those of us who have blogged over five hundred. For me, Highlander was one of them until tonight, despite the fact that the '80s were the decade of my childhood.

It's extraordinarily good, of course; really well made with lavish production values but, far more importantly, a masterfully paced and structured script that takes a simple idea (superpowered immortals who duel for the "Prize") and executes it well in a more than usually thoughtful blockbuster. Oddly, it matters not that Lambert doesn't really shine as MacLeod; he's as good as he needs to be. He's outshined, of course, by genuine Scotsman Sean Connery who plays... a Spaniard, or an Egyptian, but certainly not a native of Caledonia. Yet Connery is perfect as Ramirez, Roxanne Clark is excellent as leading lady Brenda (still a young woman's name in 1986, apparently) and it's awesome to see Alan Police Squad North as a detective inspector, or whatever they're called in America.

There's some thoughtful meditation on what it must be like to be immortal, and see your loved ones age and die, but there's a deeper subtext to this that is perhaps not intended. Like Flash Gordon, this film is splendidly soundtracked by Queen, and the use of the song "Who Wants To Live Forever" these days evokes the AIDS pandemic of the time, especially as I saw this film in the wake of It's a Sin.

There is, I understand, much more fiction set in the intriguing world of this film. It is, however, satisfying as a whole. A superb '80s classic that I should have watched well before my forties.

The Crown: Season 3, Episode 2- Margaretology

 "There was a young lady from Dallas, who used a dynamite stick as a phallus. They found her vagina in North Carolina, and her arsehole in Buckingham Palace."

It’s surprising, I suppose, that The Crown has focused so relatively heavily on Margaret. And yet it can’t be denied that they keep finding new and interesting angles to take on Bertie’s second born. This episode manages to be fascinating as a study not only of Margaret but of the contrast and rivalry between the two sisters.

Importantly, the episode begins and ends with a coda, a flashback in 1943, where Tommy Lascelles starts to prepare young Elizabeth for a role for which the more outgoing Margaret would seem to be more suited. Yet Elizabeth is very firmly told, in spite of the fact that both sisters are happy for Margaret to be queen, that that’s not how it works.

In the present day, we are introduced to a fun little turn from an excellent Clancy Brown, who may not resemble LBJ but manages to be damned convincing as the old Texan arm-twister. And the whole episode centres on the UK being in the desperate position of needing an economic ball out from the USA-but we are not LBJ’s favourite country because Wilson won’t touch Vietnam, quite rightly, with a bargepole.

Enter Margaret, to save the day with charm, emotional intelligence, bawdiness and limericks. Helena Bonham Carter is superb here, as Margaret achieves things the Queen could never achieve, in an episode constantly seething with sibling rivalry.

We also see the cracks in Margaret’s marriage getting deeper, and Elizabeth getting fonder of Wilson. But it all ends, nicely, with Philip channelling a theory of Lascelles from when they got drunk together last season- there are the dull Windsor’s and the dazzling ones, and they always come in pairs. For every Bertie there’s a David, for every Elizabeth, a Margaret.

It’s a masterfully crafted and paced piece of telly. I’m not sure it’s particularly deep but the craftsmanship is superb.

The Mandalorian: Chapter 6- The Prisoner

“A lady never tells...”

This is the third episode in a row which puts the plot to one side in favour of a story of the week. I’m sure we’re all getting rather impatient by now, but at least this episode is a cut above the previous two, and has Richard Ayoade as a rather arrogant droid and a rather complex double crossing heist plot which feels, again, like something out of a Western.

Our man Mando used to run away with a rather interesting gang, played here by a nice little variety of character actors. Perhaps the most interesting of these is Xian, a rather flirtatious Twi’lek (why do no other Twi’leks look quite like Bib Fortuna did, with two proper gnarly tentacles rather than straight pointy ones?), but you can tell from the start that there’s no honour amongst these thieves, which makes them very different from Mando. Things go entertainingly wrong throughout with some superb directing throughout, with this episode again being shot like a horror film.

Meanwhile the smarmy droid has his own agenda with baby Yoda, but it’s never a good idea to try and shoot a toddler who is strong in the ways of the Force. This is one tough childminding gig. Mando certainly has guts.

We get clever plot twists, flirting, X Wing fighters and a gripping story. Fine. But can we get back to the arc now, please?

Starship Troopers (1997)

“Fresh meat to the grinder, eh?”

I saw this film once before, and loved it, twenty-odd years ago. But I only read Robert Heinlein’s original novel a couple of years ago, on the train, during my commute, where I do all my reading these days. And the novel is a different beast. It follows the story of Johnny Nico, yes, but doesn’t concern itself with just one war and is as much world-building as narrative. Most extraordinary, it seems to expound a worldview that is quite extraordinary, and which is assumed to be more playing with ideas than reflecting the supposedly libertarian views of its author.

These views are, to put it mildly, not remotely libertarian. I say that as a radical liberal, a devotee of Lilburne, Locke, John Stuart Mill, Keynes, Beveridge and Henry George. Personally I’m left of centre while avowedly not in any way socialist, seeing the need for the state to free people from poverty in terms of individual liberty; unlike right wing libertarians I don’t see this as a silly abstract opposition between the state and the private sector. I’m the kind of libertarian that would support, say, the state legislating to prevent private organisations from putting cameras in employee toilets. The point is, as a radical liberal I’m left of centre, very much unlike Heinlein, but although I prefer not to use the word “libertarian” (it has right-wing connotations these days), I certainly am one.

And, if the novel truly reflects Heinlein’s views, he most certainly was not one. The classroom scene in the film- expanded in the novel to “history and moral philosophy”- justifies its ideology that only soldiers or former soldiers deserve citizenship as being because voting is an exertion of power and this a violent act, and violence gets things done. I don’t agree, to put it mildly. I’m all in favour of the idea that freedom isn’t free, that free citizens must be prepared to fight and die for that freedom, as in 1939. But to make that freedom conditional would pervert such a noble gesture into cynical self-interest; we would be fighting for personal advancement, not to defend a freedom we would not have. Heinlein seems to support discipline and violence as ends unto themselves, whereas it is of course nonsense to fetishise then like this; discipline and force are morally neutral. It’s the ends they are used for that matter. And I firmly believe that a truly free society would fight better. We should be Athens, not Sparta. And yes; I’m aware that soldiers are free to leave at any time without their citizenship and that the society appears to be a true meritocracy. It still isn’t free.

Anyway, the film, which is awesome. Obviously, Hollywood can not possibly get away with espousing such views and the film wisely takes a more critical look. Paul Verhoeven is absolutely the right choice as director. The film is filled, from the start, with spoof military propaganda (and others, subtly expanding this world of psychic powers and summary rough justice) which satirises this kind of knee-jerk militarism. Yes, this kind of thing repeats the same trick from RoboCop but it is, I think, the right way to frame the film. It’s also the right decision, cinematically, to structure the film as more of a narrative focusing on Johnny, his friends, and the love rectangle with Carmen, poor Diz, and Zander. And the bugs look awesome in a way they would not have done a few years later with CGI development. I’m sure those expecting a straight ahead s I-do romp would be disappointed, but this is a film rightly focused on ideas and satirical humour as much as glorious violence and sex- it’s notable that military service is gender blind, society seems gender blind too, and that both sexes shower together.

This is a well-made, genuinely gripping film with no slow moments, yet one which is careful to present Heinlein’s ideas without endorsing them. An absolute triumph.

Pet Semetary II (1992)

"You bury your own."

This film is supposed to be awful. It is, or so I e found, perfectly adequate as a serviceable sequel to a quite good film which deals well with the fact that no actors recur from the first film by simply depicting further shenanigans with that Native American cemetery. It’s a perfectly ok film, and an interesting early starring role for an immediately post-Terminator 2: Judgement Day Edward Furlong.

If that sounds like faint praise then it sort of is, but the film is genuinely adequate rather than bad. I liked the bait and switch film-within-a-film opening, and the plot works well at least until the point where people start being resurrected, where things go a bit mad and we end up with a full three resurrected people. Still, it’s an entertaining watch, with Gus the sheriff being an entertaining cartoon baddie in a solid performance by character actor Clancy Brown, a familiar face from so many character roles.

It’s solid, but not really scary. There’s a nice little electrocution scene at the start (“Oh yummy, beef jerky” said Mrs Llamastrangler. She’s a somewhat twisted individual, but that’s why I married her.) but not much else in the way of set pieces, and perhaps a lot of that is down to the solid, competent but unexceptional directorial style. It’s a film that neither sparkles nor stinks, the epitome of averageness.