People need to stop watching fictional television as if it's a Reddit thread on a true crime podcast. They are generally terrible at figuring out what's going on, they ignore established facts within the narrative, it becomes a competition to guess the craziest thing just to have bragging rights if their long-shot guess turns out to be correct.
Alan I've been following you since the earliest of Star Ledger days (when I was a teenager in my memory so you also must have been ?!?). Even as I moved to Brooklyn (for barely a year) and then to wilds of central jersey I kept my Ledger subscription for two reasons (you and the best comics page). Well the comics page shrunk and you departed and so did my subscription. But I followed you on Twitter and into other formats. Those old Star Ledger pics brought back some core memories!
I know you called this week's Barry episode a departure episode in your season preview. But now that I've actually seen it, I'm not sure that term exactly works for me. To me a departure episode, like the one in The Last of Us or the flashbacks in Mythic Quest, is almost incidental to the central plot of the show. It's a true departure in location, timeline, theme, character perspective, and perhaps could be cut and not drastically impact the season's arc, albeit probably lower the show's overall artistic merit.
But in this case, the two main characters were still largely present, and it clearly sets up the action in the back half. Yes there's a time jump, but presumably the rest of the series takes place eight years later. Even if we never return to this Midwest/Southwestern location (personally I've interpreted it as Oklahoma where Hader is from), it still served an important part of the plot.
I guess put another way, I view it as akin to the New Hampshire scenes of "Granite State," which I wouldn't call a departure. Admittedly that episode still featured Albuquerque scenes so it's not the best comparison.
I agree with your point here, the show isn't doing a brief aside; this ep fundamentally changed the narrative and altered the storylines of every character. But then at the same time, by the end of the episode Barry is ready to walk away from whatever his life has become and goes right back to his original self: using violence to solve his problems. So in a sense, it was a brief departure from Barry the show that we know.
I remain baffled as to what Ted Lasso is trying to accomplish this season. It feels like so many subplots have been set up and they are in no rush to conclude any of them before the season ends. Instead we keep getting these Very Special Episode formats where we get trite solutions to nuanced issues.
Like you said, the show hasn't put in the work to earn Nate being presented in a sympathetic light. Isaac's reaction to Colin felt forced to me as well. I don't know who first compared Jack to Poochie from the Simpsons, but I can't get that out of my head now.
Rebecca and Roy's scenes were very strong. More of that, please.
This is the first I've heard that season 3 of The Great is imminent, which means someone in Hulu's marketing department should be fired. Or, the way things have gone recently, it probably means someone was fired a month ago and their tasks didn't get reassigned.
I admit to following their social media accounts and the algorithm has apparently worked. I have been told nonstop in the last 2 weeks that it’s coming. Plus a critic I follow has tweeted her review multiple times (positive).
Richmond are now on a 9 game winning streak after starting the season with 2 or 3 wins (can’t remember exactly) before the West Ham game and following 5 or 6 (can’t remember exactly) game losing streak, meaning they’re a minimum of 33 points, safety in the Premier League is usually about 38 points so with half a season to go there isn’t gonna be a relegation subplot but in the Man City era you can’t be winning the league with 15 dropped points in a row
This is to say that I’m both an idiot for caring about this and any finale tension is gonna be off the pitch not on it
Love the headshots! It's funny you are going back in time in the newsletter this week, because I was reading an old issue of Astro City this week, and whose name should I see on the letters page but one Alan Sepinwall! Maybe someday we'll actually get that Astro City show and you can recap it.
At this point, I would be happy to just get more Astro City comics. There was a new issue a while back — maybe even at last year's Free Comic Book Day? — that was supposed to kick off a new run. But as far as I know, it hasn't happened since, whether it's Busiek's health issues kicking up again, or just some other behind-the-scenes issues.
It's possible they're waiting for Image to catch up on the Metrobook collections before putting out new Astro City material? They're about halfway through now.
Reddit is a cesspool for television watching. Just the worst of all fan theorizing. I actually saw a post today that Frank is Ken’s real father. I’m still hoping it was a joke but the fact that I’m not sure is a sign of how bad it’s gotten.
Odd that you found this weeks Ted Lasso somewhat improved. It’s reached full cringe levels for me. I kept giving it the benefit of the doubt. Now I’m fully confused as to how these writers/show runners got so hopelessly lost. So disappointing and sad
I agree. I just picked up Ted Lasso recently because I ended up with an appletv subscription that I never really wanted. I’d never been interested in the show before because of its wholesome reputation and my preference for cynicism, but I actually enjoyed the first season. The second season felt like it was getting a little too sappy, but the jokes were still there. This season is just exhausting, between following characters who are no longer part of the team and the heavy handed wholesomeness and total lack of conflict or stakes... ugh. I’m a completist so I’ll watch the last episode but I kinda wish I hadn’t started.
On the stakes or lack thereof, see my below (mildly ridiculous) reply about the number of points Richmond have gained/lost and how that basically guarantees no on-pitch stakes going forward (unless there’s a cup run)
I haven’t had the same issues with Lasso as you this season. Keeley’s chunk has been a little off putting but Nate has made sense to me. The idea that he did a heel turn at the end of season two because his ambition got the best of him and was suddenly a villain didn’t make sense to me. His confidence came from Ted, who was the opposite of his berating parents/Rupert. To suddenly find himself in that world and realize he doesn’t like being there is an acknowledgement of who he really is.
This whole season has definitely spread itself a little thin, but it seems like the main theme is characters taking the lessons they’ve learned since Ted’s arrival and, rather than fixing their relationships, fixing themselves. The alternative would have been to create false tension between our core when we just spent two seasons solidifying these relationships. These characters are now applying those lessons to better their choices. It’s an interesting an unexpected take but a logical one. It creates many singular stories which spreads it thin, but I have enjoyed the payoffs.
Even if you think Nate's heel turn didn't make sense — and, having recently rewatched the entire series with my wife, I have seen that there were many, many clues along the way that he was not actually the gentle soul we took him for — it still happened. He still did those things. He still leaked Ted's private medical information to a journalist out of spite. He still was incredibly abusive to Will and Colin and others. He still tore the Believe sign because he's petty, still kissed Keeley because he felt he had earned her, etc. For the show to essentially act like none of that happened, and that is still the same lovable, wide-eyed innocent he seemed to be at the start of the series — and/or to act like him getting to date a woman who has no personality, or inner life whatsoever, has fixed all that was wrong with him in season two — is terrible, bad faith writing.
I'm glad you're enjoying the season. I think parts of it — notably the redemption of Jamie Tartt, which the show HAS put in the work on — have been very good. But the Nate story is the worst case of dissonance between how a show views a character and how I do in a very long time.
The Nate romcom storyline is wretched and takes too much time away from the main cast. It's also deeply cliche that Nate just needs the love of a good woman. Meanwhile Ted is now sort of a boring character with a boring storyline- the show keeps telling us that Ted wants to go home to see his son. Got it. Seriously, got it, don't need four more episodes of Ted wanting out.
I can’t argue with your points on what Nate did. I think the reasons behind why he did it (feeling like a failure to his parents etc) colliding with the confidence he gained from Ted, gave him the allusion that he had to take what he wanted in order to get to the next level. To be respected meant to be feared. He couldn’t be a Rupert without acting like Rupert.
The misstep may be that they never showed enough conflict in his decisions in season two. It was played very calculated and I think that missing conflict is what they are trying to make up for now. If he hesitated before contacting the press, if he showed some regret at snapping at Will and Colin, more testing the waters and “succeeding” rather than just being a jerk, this reflection on his choices now would make more sense. I guess I relied a bit on the Nate from season one still being a part of him when ambition and a whiff of success derailed his perspective in season two. Now he’s found himself surrounded by the people he thought he wanted to be and he realizes it isn’t him.
To your point, probably not earned. The seeds were there but probably could have portrayed him a little more conflicted in season two. In my opinion, anyway.
Like you said, the dinner party episode of “Lucky Hank” was great. Another Emmy nomination for Odenkirk? Mireille Enos has the greatest uncomfortable smile.
The rest was solid. But it works fine as a limited series. No need for season 2.
I thought the show was just a pile of college cliches and failed attempts to be quirky. The dinner party was pretty good, but the rest of it---tenure arguments, annoying students, even an evil dean!---was mostly pretentious junk. I never cared about any of the characters. Sure, Odenkirk and Enos were fine, but their daughter? The goose fight? The endless flat voiceover? It felt like very-late-period Woody Allen, where occasionally there is a good line but it's mostly an approximation of how actual human beings might talk and act.
As far as the father storyline, while that might be how life turns out, spending so much of eight episodes on the buildup only to have it end that way was an, um, interesting choice of time. Again, maybe "realistic" but dramatically inert.
I don’t disagree with this! Outside of the dinner party episode, the show didn’t leave the biggest impression. Unfortunately. But sort of like “Last Thing He Told Me”, it was an easy enough show to have on. To use a cliche, it probably should have been and would have been a movie at a different time.
i have loved reading your great writing in the Star Ledger, and happy to read now this way now that i left N.J. I appreciate your thoughts on shows..reading about series episodes is a love of mine
I agree that most of the time the online theorizing is over-thinking (and in this case likely too) and certainly a twist like that is not what “Succession” really does as a show, but for me it speaks to the spilling of the beans about India feeling way too convenient and just there to drive the plot. It felt more like the writers needed the info to spill to move the plot forward rather than it feeling all that believable that it would happen like that even from these arrogant and messed up characters. At least for me personally. So I can see people trying to find an alternative explanation.
I had a similar issue recently with “Beef” where Danny attends a party at someone’s home that felt more plot driven than in character. You could dig deep to make it fit the self-destructive nature of the character. Maybe. But seemed more about moving the plot. Loved it otherwise (except the crows. Big swing that didn’t work for this viewer!)
So glad you enjoyed Lucky Hank enough to warrant a writeup, Alan. It's the best TV I've seen this year. Having never read Straight Man, I was shocked to learn that Lily (Mireille Enos) is hardly in the book. Super kudos to the writers.
As far as a second season goes, a part of me wants it and yet a part of me does not. No question Lily's reaction at the end of the final episode warrants a followup -- but this season was so perfect. In my mind, Hank and Lily will continue to live and love and struggle in their lives together...and I don't need to see it. At the same time, Enos was a revelation. Having only seen her in Big Love and The Killing, I had no idea she could be so dynamically charming. Couldn't agree more -- more Mireille!
People need to stop watching fictional television as if it's a Reddit thread on a true crime podcast. They are generally terrible at figuring out what's going on, they ignore established facts within the narrative, it becomes a competition to guess the craziest thing just to have bragging rights if their long-shot guess turns out to be correct.
Yes, yes, and yes. It is exasperating. In those rare instances where a show is actually pulling a David Mamet on you, just let yourself be surprised!
Too many "it was just a dream" episodes?
Alan I've been following you since the earliest of Star Ledger days (when I was a teenager in my memory so you also must have been ?!?). Even as I moved to Brooklyn (for barely a year) and then to wilds of central jersey I kept my Ledger subscription for two reasons (you and the best comics page). Well the comics page shrunk and you departed and so did my subscription. But I followed you on Twitter and into other formats. Those old Star Ledger pics brought back some core memories!
I know you called this week's Barry episode a departure episode in your season preview. But now that I've actually seen it, I'm not sure that term exactly works for me. To me a departure episode, like the one in The Last of Us or the flashbacks in Mythic Quest, is almost incidental to the central plot of the show. It's a true departure in location, timeline, theme, character perspective, and perhaps could be cut and not drastically impact the season's arc, albeit probably lower the show's overall artistic merit.
But in this case, the two main characters were still largely present, and it clearly sets up the action in the back half. Yes there's a time jump, but presumably the rest of the series takes place eight years later. Even if we never return to this Midwest/Southwestern location (personally I've interpreted it as Oklahoma where Hader is from), it still served an important part of the plot.
I guess put another way, I view it as akin to the New Hampshire scenes of "Granite State," which I wouldn't call a departure. Admittedly that episode still featured Albuquerque scenes so it's not the best comparison.
Anyway, just my two cents.
I agree with your point here, the show isn't doing a brief aside; this ep fundamentally changed the narrative and altered the storylines of every character. But then at the same time, by the end of the episode Barry is ready to walk away from whatever his life has become and goes right back to his original self: using violence to solve his problems. So in a sense, it was a brief departure from Barry the show that we know.
I remain baffled as to what Ted Lasso is trying to accomplish this season. It feels like so many subplots have been set up and they are in no rush to conclude any of them before the season ends. Instead we keep getting these Very Special Episode formats where we get trite solutions to nuanced issues.
Like you said, the show hasn't put in the work to earn Nate being presented in a sympathetic light. Isaac's reaction to Colin felt forced to me as well. I don't know who first compared Jack to Poochie from the Simpsons, but I can't get that out of my head now.
Rebecca and Roy's scenes were very strong. More of that, please.
This is the first I've heard that season 3 of The Great is imminent, which means someone in Hulu's marketing department should be fired. Or, the way things have gone recently, it probably means someone was fired a month ago and their tasks didn't get reassigned.
I admit to following their social media accounts and the algorithm has apparently worked. I have been told nonstop in the last 2 weeks that it’s coming. Plus a critic I follow has tweeted her review multiple times (positive).
Criminally underwatched show. Justice for Nick Hoult!!
Irrelevant to your comment but about Hulu--some Disney+ content is now on Hulu including the excellent Letterman/Bono/The Edge special.
Richmond are now on a 9 game winning streak after starting the season with 2 or 3 wins (can’t remember exactly) before the West Ham game and following 5 or 6 (can’t remember exactly) game losing streak, meaning they’re a minimum of 33 points, safety in the Premier League is usually about 38 points so with half a season to go there isn’t gonna be a relegation subplot but in the Man City era you can’t be winning the league with 15 dropped points in a row
This is to say that I’m both an idiot for caring about this and any finale tension is gonna be off the pitch not on it
Love the headshots! It's funny you are going back in time in the newsletter this week, because I was reading an old issue of Astro City this week, and whose name should I see on the letters page but one Alan Sepinwall! Maybe someday we'll actually get that Astro City show and you can recap it.
At this point, I would be happy to just get more Astro City comics. There was a new issue a while back — maybe even at last year's Free Comic Book Day? — that was supposed to kick off a new run. But as far as I know, it hasn't happened since, whether it's Busiek's health issues kicking up again, or just some other behind-the-scenes issues.
Busiek and Anderson have a non-AC graphic novel coming out. Was supposed to be out this month, but pushed back to December: https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Sunday-Morning-Kurt-Busiek/dp/1534324917
It's possible they're waiting for Image to catch up on the Metrobook collections before putting out new Astro City material? They're about halfway through now.
Reddit is a cesspool for television watching. Just the worst of all fan theorizing. I actually saw a post today that Frank is Ken’s real father. I’m still hoping it was a joke but the fact that I’m not sure is a sign of how bad it’s gotten.
Odd that you found this weeks Ted Lasso somewhat improved. It’s reached full cringe levels for me. I kept giving it the benefit of the doubt. Now I’m fully confused as to how these writers/show runners got so hopelessly lost. So disappointing and sad
I agree. I just picked up Ted Lasso recently because I ended up with an appletv subscription that I never really wanted. I’d never been interested in the show before because of its wholesome reputation and my preference for cynicism, but I actually enjoyed the first season. The second season felt like it was getting a little too sappy, but the jokes were still there. This season is just exhausting, between following characters who are no longer part of the team and the heavy handed wholesomeness and total lack of conflict or stakes... ugh. I’m a completist so I’ll watch the last episode but I kinda wish I hadn’t started.
On the stakes or lack thereof, see my below (mildly ridiculous) reply about the number of points Richmond have gained/lost and how that basically guarantees no on-pitch stakes going forward (unless there’s a cup run)
I didn’t watch Lucky Hank. I didn’t know it was related to Straight Man, but I love that book! So now I’m looking forward to it.
This week’s episode of Ted Lasso was a particularly lovely and compassionate episode of television. Very well done.
I haven’t had the same issues with Lasso as you this season. Keeley’s chunk has been a little off putting but Nate has made sense to me. The idea that he did a heel turn at the end of season two because his ambition got the best of him and was suddenly a villain didn’t make sense to me. His confidence came from Ted, who was the opposite of his berating parents/Rupert. To suddenly find himself in that world and realize he doesn’t like being there is an acknowledgement of who he really is.
This whole season has definitely spread itself a little thin, but it seems like the main theme is characters taking the lessons they’ve learned since Ted’s arrival and, rather than fixing their relationships, fixing themselves. The alternative would have been to create false tension between our core when we just spent two seasons solidifying these relationships. These characters are now applying those lessons to better their choices. It’s an interesting an unexpected take but a logical one. It creates many singular stories which spreads it thin, but I have enjoyed the payoffs.
Even if you think Nate's heel turn didn't make sense — and, having recently rewatched the entire series with my wife, I have seen that there were many, many clues along the way that he was not actually the gentle soul we took him for — it still happened. He still did those things. He still leaked Ted's private medical information to a journalist out of spite. He still was incredibly abusive to Will and Colin and others. He still tore the Believe sign because he's petty, still kissed Keeley because he felt he had earned her, etc. For the show to essentially act like none of that happened, and that is still the same lovable, wide-eyed innocent he seemed to be at the start of the series — and/or to act like him getting to date a woman who has no personality, or inner life whatsoever, has fixed all that was wrong with him in season two — is terrible, bad faith writing.
I'm glad you're enjoying the season. I think parts of it — notably the redemption of Jamie Tartt, which the show HAS put in the work on — have been very good. But the Nate story is the worst case of dissonance between how a show views a character and how I do in a very long time.
The Nate romcom storyline is wretched and takes too much time away from the main cast. It's also deeply cliche that Nate just needs the love of a good woman. Meanwhile Ted is now sort of a boring character with a boring storyline- the show keeps telling us that Ted wants to go home to see his son. Got it. Seriously, got it, don't need four more episodes of Ted wanting out.
I can’t argue with your points on what Nate did. I think the reasons behind why he did it (feeling like a failure to his parents etc) colliding with the confidence he gained from Ted, gave him the allusion that he had to take what he wanted in order to get to the next level. To be respected meant to be feared. He couldn’t be a Rupert without acting like Rupert.
The misstep may be that they never showed enough conflict in his decisions in season two. It was played very calculated and I think that missing conflict is what they are trying to make up for now. If he hesitated before contacting the press, if he showed some regret at snapping at Will and Colin, more testing the waters and “succeeding” rather than just being a jerk, this reflection on his choices now would make more sense. I guess I relied a bit on the Nate from season one still being a part of him when ambition and a whiff of success derailed his perspective in season two. Now he’s found himself surrounded by the people he thought he wanted to be and he realizes it isn’t him.
To your point, probably not earned. The seeds were there but probably could have portrayed him a little more conflicted in season two. In my opinion, anyway.
Like you said, the dinner party episode of “Lucky Hank” was great. Another Emmy nomination for Odenkirk? Mireille Enos has the greatest uncomfortable smile.
The rest was solid. But it works fine as a limited series. No need for season 2.
I thought the show was just a pile of college cliches and failed attempts to be quirky. The dinner party was pretty good, but the rest of it---tenure arguments, annoying students, even an evil dean!---was mostly pretentious junk. I never cared about any of the characters. Sure, Odenkirk and Enos were fine, but their daughter? The goose fight? The endless flat voiceover? It felt like very-late-period Woody Allen, where occasionally there is a good line but it's mostly an approximation of how actual human beings might talk and act.
As far as the father storyline, while that might be how life turns out, spending so much of eight episodes on the buildup only to have it end that way was an, um, interesting choice of time. Again, maybe "realistic" but dramatically inert.
I don’t disagree with this! Outside of the dinner party episode, the show didn’t leave the biggest impression. Unfortunately. But sort of like “Last Thing He Told Me”, it was an easy enough show to have on. To use a cliche, it probably should have been and would have been a movie at a different time.
The goose "fight" was such a big part of the book and it was barely a part of the show.
i have loved reading your great writing in the Star Ledger, and happy to read now this way now that i left N.J. I appreciate your thoughts on shows..reading about series episodes is a love of mine
I also love The Straight Man book. The show doesn’t really feel much of an adaptation but the two stars are excellent and I enjoyed the series
I agree that most of the time the online theorizing is over-thinking (and in this case likely too) and certainly a twist like that is not what “Succession” really does as a show, but for me it speaks to the spilling of the beans about India feeling way too convenient and just there to drive the plot. It felt more like the writers needed the info to spill to move the plot forward rather than it feeling all that believable that it would happen like that even from these arrogant and messed up characters. At least for me personally. So I can see people trying to find an alternative explanation.
I had a similar issue recently with “Beef” where Danny attends a party at someone’s home that felt more plot driven than in character. You could dig deep to make it fit the self-destructive nature of the character. Maybe. But seemed more about moving the plot. Loved it otherwise (except the crows. Big swing that didn’t work for this viewer!)
So glad you enjoyed Lucky Hank enough to warrant a writeup, Alan. It's the best TV I've seen this year. Having never read Straight Man, I was shocked to learn that Lily (Mireille Enos) is hardly in the book. Super kudos to the writers.
As far as a second season goes, a part of me wants it and yet a part of me does not. No question Lily's reaction at the end of the final episode warrants a followup -- but this season was so perfect. In my mind, Hank and Lily will continue to live and love and struggle in their lives together...and I don't need to see it. At the same time, Enos was a revelation. Having only seen her in Big Love and The Killing, I had no idea she could be so dynamically charming. Couldn't agree more -- more Mireille!