Cloak & Dagger: Season 2 Finale

Hand in Hand at the End


Well, the moment has arrived. Ty and Tandy must face more than just a unique formidable foe in Andre but they must also battle their own personal demons. We’ve reached the end of Season 2 of Cloak & Dagger and as we reflect on the season as a whole, you could sense that the entire episode was more about interpersonal battles and dynamics. This past season was also more about the growing bond that was developing between Tandy and Tyrone. It was done in a more stealthy manner punctuated by certain dialogue between our two main characters. Whatever personal demons that they faced, they never lost focus on the fact that it was and is about them being and becoming more than just the divine pairing. They themselves may not be fully aware of what they are becoming.

Right now, it is about defeating a foe who exist on a whole different plain of reality and what they could do to retrieve the souls that he has captured. With Evita’s assistance, Tandy and Tyrone enter into his dark cloud and into the existential world of Andre. His body was killed in the previous episode but his spirit now resides in this dark world where he has mastered the role of soul stealing. Aided by his instrument, Andre wales on his trumpet that enables him to gather souls up with relative ease. He no longer needs to be in close proximity to them as evidence when he took Mina Hess out of her lab when she was examining Bridget/Mayhem and when he took the cop and the bank robber.

Unlike other opponents Ty and Tandy have faced in the past where brute force and weapons were the choices of combat form, Andre was psychological. He got into your head. When he confronts Ty and Tandy, he sends them off to battle their own personal demons. With Tandy, she is confronted with the one person that she loved and looked up to, her father. Her whole world was shattered by the truth that he was an abusive husband. How does she confront this as we see the reducing of the admiration of a man in the eyes of his daughter? She must find the strength to remove this man from the pedestal she had placed him on as a child and held him there even after when the truth was discovered while looking into the subconscious of her mother.

Tyrone must face himself in his own reflection. Tyrone’s worst enemy is himself as he had placed everything on his shoulders in trying to live up to unrealistic expectations. He’s dealing with survivor’s guilt. He’s still with being a perfect son. He’s dealing with being a perfect student. His own world is suffocating him to the point of a mental collapse. He’s on the losing in as he fights himself.

But it is this bond between Tyrone and Tandy that becomes more and more evident for us as the viewer but perhaps not so obvious for them. They come back to each other after hearing one another but Andre is also there as he brings back their personal demons. But Tyrone figures out that they must face the other one’s personal demon in order to conquer them.

In the meantime, Evita is guarding the candle and is trying to keep it lit as this is the gateway key for Tandy and Tyrone. Bridget/Mayhem is with her as she battles Andre’s helmeted minions who are battling to put out the candle that will trap Tandy and Tyrone. One of the minions battling Bridget/Mayhem is her murdered boyfriend cop. Even on the earthy plain, Andre is tapped into everyone’s subconscious.

Back in the underworld, Tyrone tells Tandy that she carries the hope in her light. Tandy, at one point, seems to falter some but it is Tyrone that helps her get through to build back her confidence. Tandy defeats Tyrone’s alter ego and Tyrone defeats Tandy’s father. With their new found self-assurance and confidence, the confront Andre one final time. Andre’s power resided in him playing his trumpet. Tyrone gains control over in and he and Tandy both touch Andre and enters his world. There they discover Andre’s demon. They find his life-album and Tandy plays it. She takes her dagger and scratches it causing it to skip in perpetuity and locking Andre’s state on consciousness in his own prison.

Tandy and Tyrone leave the underworld as victors. Evita blows out the candle and does not say a word. She gathered her things and quietly walks away as Tyrone just watch as she walks away. Somewhere in Evita’s realm, she knows that she and Tyrone were never meant to be and that the divine pairing holds more adventures as a couple in more ways than one. Watching this unfold in silence spoke volumes on its own.

We see Tyrone’s mom, Adina, at home with her husband as they watch the news. The report she gave to the father has been released and the people involved in the cover-up of her son’s murder and the framing of Tyrone for murder is out. Tyrone looks through a window seeing his parents are back together. The falling cop, Connors, is hanging by a rope inside the police station very bloody.

Tandy is at home packing her things. She is on a bus heading away from her hometown. Tyrone pops in and claims for an aisle seat. Tandy moves over and he sits next to her. For their own reasons, they’ve decided to move off from New Orleans. We have no idea where they are heading. We do see, however, their bond being more solidified. Tyrone holds out his hand and Tandy laces her fingers between his. Not combustible effects are seen unlike the first season when they tried to touch. This time, there is reciprocation as they close the curtain on another season. Can we wait a full year for the Season 3?

Cloak & Dagger, Season 2, Ep. 9

Blue Note Review

On the eve of Cloak & Dagger’s season finale, Blue Note builds on the intense ultimate showdown between Tandy, Tyrone, and their nemesis, Andre. I must say, Andre, is a good villain, a different kind of villain, a more steady non-typical villain. He is smooth and detached but it was not necessarily by design and more from circumstances. We get to see Andre’s back story in this episode. We come to discover that Andre had gained abilities like Tyrone and Tandy following the Roxxon explosion on that fateful night. Andre was preparing to kill himself by jumping off a high structure at the moment of the explosion. He had been suffering from intense debilitating migraine headaches and wanted the suffering to end. After the explosion, he evolved into something and someone by choice. A sinister and diabolical despot who manipulates the very emotions of a person.

When Tandy and Tyrone manifested their powers, they didn’t take advantage of the situation by robbing and killing people. They chose to use their powers for good. Andre’s decision to be evil is a matter of free will. Let’s go back at the time of the explosion and Andre’s reincarnation into evil. At the hospital, Andre meets Lia who was a doctor. As he complains about his migraine, he touches her hand and he is transported to an empty record store. This symbolizes as this weigh station for people’s subconscious. The record bins are empty until he sees Lia’s life album. He takes it out and plays it. He soon realizes that the power that he has eases the pain of the migraine. But Andre wasn’t done by any stretch of the imagination. He discovered that the more women he encounters the more he basically minds rapes their very existence from them, he could later have them as emotional sex slaves and as physical sex slaves but it was that emotional channel that had served him well.

In the meantime, Andre has left Lia lying by the side of the road after he has mind raped her into a coma. Mayhem and Tandy recover her shell. With Tyrone by her side, Tandy and he goes into Lia’s subconscious to find only a lit basement door. They enter it and walks into Lia’s life at the hospital where she is talking to Andre. They think that Andre is a part of her subconscious but Andre interacts with Tandy and Tyrone much to their surprise. You can call this a pissing ground moment as Tyrone flex his game with Andre. Tandy and Tyrone move on and find another basement door and in it is Lia’s childhood as a musician. Tandy takes her sheet music and only alludes to it being a solution.

We begin to realize that Lia had been a victim to Andre. Somewhere in this unhealthy arrangement, Lia was put in charge of trafficking the girls. Now a debate came to be made as to where her culpability lies in the kidnapping and drugging the girls into sex slavery. Was she conditioned by Andre to partake in this practice? Why would he leave her on the side of the road if she reached the point where she was no longer a benefit for him? Andre has reached the point where he is going to ascend in his power to what he perceived as God-like status.

Tyrone flexes his powers to a couple of gang members to find where Andre will be. He basically scares them into telling him by popping each one in and out and on top of roofs and falling down off said roofs to the point where they become willing subjects and offer up where Andre might be. Tandy and Ty go to the location where they find Andre is playing his horn among a throng of victims. You come to realize that Lia and Andre had this common bond and that was music. Andre uses this to give him domination over the women including Tandy’s mother who is in the crowd under Andre’s spell. She attempts to wake her up but to no avail. Tyrone tells Tandy to throw a glowing knife at him but she is emotional and hesitates. Finally, she throws one and it goes into his cloud where he pops on stage with Andre and the glowing knife enters Andre where he collapses. But it may have been too late. Andre is by himself and as he gets up and walks to the door, there is applause and a bright light on the other side of the door. Andre walks through. Has he ascended to God-like status?

With each passing episode, the level of intensity increases. We want to fill in the blanks because this is a normal function that’s a given to the fans of the show. I don’t think that the next episode will have enough time to settle with what if going on this season. The Bridget/Mayhem dynamic is nowhere being reached to any sort of compromise or solutions, Adina apparently is a murderer of Detective Connors, Evita is a married woman to Voodon, and Tandy and Tyrone have yet to go full on with their powers. In Cloak & Daggers season ender, I see cliffhangers aplenty so says, Auntie Chantelle.

The Batwoman Controversy

Is It Riding The Feminist Train to Troubled Waters?

There is a new comic book superhero incarnation coming to the CW Network. While one has called it a day after announcing that next season will be it's last (Arrow), a new show will be coming this fall to join the so-called Arrowverse. Batwoman, played by Ruby Rose, made her debut in a crossover event earlier this past season. Now the crossover event involves the combined story arc of three of the four main shows in the Arrowverse, Arrow, the Flash, and Supergirl. The Legends of Tomorrow chose to opt out this past season. Black Lighting isn’t in the club for some reason. Batwoman’s debut was met with a so-so passing grade. She didn’t bring anything new to the table and she didn’t make herself look campy. In short, no harm, no foul.

So why would the makers of Batwoman put out a trailer that just torches any goodwill it may have fostered. The trailer in questioned sticks its fingers in the eye of the very people who they need to keep the ratings going, 18–45-year-old males, especially white males who are the significant purchasers of comic books. The Batwoman trailer isn’t anything extraordinary. It has way too many fast cut fight scenes, it has music in the background and it seems like the only expression on everyone’s faces is the, “I’m smelling your stinky bean and cabbage farts”, face. It has also pissed off a lot of people, both male, and female, because of the tone it set with dialogue attributed to Ruby Rose. As of this writing, it sits at 65K of likes and 245K of dislikes.

So let’s delve into this trailer, shall we? The leading actor in this telling is Ruby Rose. She gained a lot of attention on the show, Orange Is The New Black. I don’t know what a sexual leanings are and I really don’t care but for some people, this is something they need to know. In Hollywood, you must declare what your sexual preference is. I don’t know if she is bisexual or lesbian and again, I really don’t care. But in Hollywood, I guess being gay is a talent. I’ve seen people get TV series just on the fact that they were gay. They had no other talent only just being gay is the ticket. So Ruby Rose being gay got her other film roles. I’ve seen her in xXx: Return of Xander Cage, John Wick 2, Pitch Perfect 3, and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. In a majority of these films, her characters are one dimensional and she’s playing the same role with the same fart face expression. That same fart face expression is evident in Batwoman along with her acting that’s paper bag thin. When she is in the Batman stolen costume, she makes an entrance that was mocked by Deadpool where he made fun of superheroes who come in and land in that crouching/kneeling fashion to show how bad-ass they are. When she came in and landed like that, it was a hackneyed superhero 1–0–1 move. Deadpool was right.  She also has a girlfriend and they show them kissing each other so I guess this is supposed to be titillating cause I'm twelve years old.  Please, this is boring and passe.   

There is some female villain in this trailer. She too is a bad actor. She has bad hair as well. I don’t know if that mop on her head is real or if it’s fake? I do know that whoever decided to dress her made some wrong choices. None of what she is wearing is flattering or makes her look diabolical.

The trailer is also an insult to the iconic Batman. Batman has left Gotham and disappeared? Is that what they are going with? You’re Gotham, well, you’re not. This Gotham looks like it’s a college campus. Gotham, the recently ended TV series, was a gray and dark place. It was a character just like the actors who played on it. That Gotham became an extension to the Joker, to Penguin, to the Riddler as we felt that strong connection throughout the duration of the show. Batwoman’s Gotham showed this building at the beginning that looked like a library with its bright lights. You got no sense that you were in this Gotham.

Let’s continue. So Kate Kane, aka Batwoman, shows up on the doorstep of Wayne Manor and makes the claim that she’s Bruce’s cousin and proceeds to invade the private quarters of Wayne Manor and its’ inner workings. Just because you are a cousin doesn’t give you the right to snoop around in their place. And what are you, first, second, the third cousin? By Ancestry.com data records, I have a bunch of second cousins that I don’t know from Adam. And yet you, Kate Kane, comes strolling through his place and discover his secrets. You appropriate his costume and makes it yours as well as everything in the cave. You’re a squatter. You hear that the suit is “literal perfection” but you make this insulting statement with “It will be once it fits a woman”. Why don’t you make your own suit and not use a man’s suit? Why don’t you use another cave instead of a man’s cave? Why don’t you find some other helper instead of Bruce’s assistant?

Ah, but that wasn’t enough. Ruby Rose steps further across the line when she says, “I’m not about to let a man take credit for a woman’s work.” So stop dressing like Batman. You could have been any incarnation other than Batman if you wanted to fight crime. If you’re into the black theme, how about Raven or Black Mamba? And it’s not just guys who are ticked off with this show, it’s women as well, especially those who are into comics. These women don’t understand to slights directed at Batman and what he has done in the comics and in several film adaptations. The Batwoman show depicts Batman as some “deadbeat dad” situation who has just abandoned his children and ran off to Mexico.

Let’s also not forget about the Captain Marvel fiasco that’s connected to Batwoman. As you may recall in the Captain Marvel trailer, the graphics in that presentation had HER and HERO fade in and out to let us know it is female driven. In the Batwoman trailer, the same thing happened and EVERYBODY caught it and knew the meaning behind it and were just annoyed by the content. The music bed was just as worse with whoever was singing “I’m a Woman!”

Brie Larson, in addition to the bad storytelling to Captain Marvel, made her the poster child to fan backlash to what is generally perceived as denigrating male bashing. The 40-year-old white dudes have had #EnoughwithTheManBashing rhetoric. Batwoman is implying the same. In the trailer, you only see one white dude and a token black dude. Yes, he’s a token in the way he’s presented as a weak secondary character who didn’t have the balls to keep a cousin out of his boss’s personal business. He’s no Morgan Freeman. Hell, he’s no Morgan Fairchild.

This show is supposed to follow Supergirl, another show that is female-centrist and is a male shrinkage show. I watched it when it was on CBS but soon tired of the male bashing and put-downs especially after Supergirl got mad when Superman helped her catch a bad guy and she didn’t offer up a single thank you even after this villain handed her ass to her and he didn’t have any superpowers, only a special suit. Batwoman has those same undercurrents of being female-centrist show. That’s fine, it’s just not an invite for me.

A lot of the mainstream media is referring to those who have been criticizing the trailer as trolls. This sort of characterization is further from the truth and just represents an easy attack on people who have a valid justification to voicing their opinions. At this stage of the game, it is criminal to express your voice without someone on the other side attacking you for your honest opinion. The same would be said for Batwoman as media outlets have referred to the critics as trolls. I would say that if that is the case, use your investigative prowess as a journalist and prove it. Otherwise, don’t call everyone a troll, just call them passionate observers.

Brightburn: A Film Review

A Very Intriguing Trailer to A Befuddling Film

Director: David Yarovesky

Writers: Brian Gunn, Mark Gunn

Cast:

Elizabeth Banks … Tori Breyer

Jackson A. Dunn … Brandon Breyer

David Denman … Kyle Breyer

Gregory Alan Williams… Chief Deputy Deever

What if, in some alternate universe, existed an Earth where an alien humanoid baby crash lands on this Earth in a rural part of the country and is found by a childless couple and they raise this baby as their own. Sounds familiar? Sure does except this isn’t Kansas and this isn’t Superman. This movie is called Brightburn, and I would describe it as the anti-superhero movie. The Breyers, Toni, and Kyle, played by Elizabeth Banks and David Denman respectively, are the childless couple who finds this infant alien child after it crashed lands outside of their farmland. In a page torn right out of the Martha and Jonathan Kent manual, they don’t report the finding to the authority and accept this as a divine calling for them to keep the child. Can anyone say privilege and arrogance and also dumber than a donkey playing bingo.

They take this alien baby home and they raise him as their own. We fast forward a few years. The kid, Brandon, is around 12 years old and is in school. He’s, by outward appearances, seems normal and exhibits normal traits for a kid his age. He’s smarter than some of his peers and he has a girl crush on one of his classmates. Again, nothing out of the ordinary but then he gets picked own by the hackneyed and derivative bullies that is a typical trope because writers box themselves in a corner and they don’t know what to write when it comes to prepubescent kids.

As the storytelling continues, Brandon is sleeping one night and without explanation, a spacecraft flies over him stealthily and as it does, Brandon begins to shake violently and we have to assume that he’s going through some metamorphic change. The spacecraft flies off in an unceremonious way. We get no explanation as to why the ship was there in the first place. No alien presented itself as to why they were there. No alien came to collect the kid. We are just left to our own reasons as we are abandoned by the writers for us to come up with our own explanation.

The next morning, there is a change with Brandon. He’s a degree or more aggressive. It seems as if, and again, since the writers abandon any explanation, let’s just say that Brandon is going through alien puberty. Brandon creeps over to his girl crush classmate’s house one night and peeps into her bedroom window. She catches him but her claims are dismissed because she’s on the second floor and the possibility of that happening in far fetched. Still, the next day she outs Brandon as a perv and that doesn’t go down well for a hormonal alien. In a class exercise dealing with trust in gym class, Brandon is in the circle being passed back and forth and one of his classmates don’t catch him and he falls flat on his ass. The girl crush is ordered to pick him up but she is hesitant because he peeped on her. She’s pressured to help him up and when she does, he crushes her hand.

Brandon becomes more and more aggressive to the point where Toni and Kyle are in arguments over him. Kyle sees the behavior for what it is and comes to the realization that the alien baby that they took from the field is now a problem child. He is quick to give up on the child and disavow the boy as his. Brandon’s new powers have manifested and he is killing those who oppose his maniacal tirades.

Kyle has come to the realization that Brandon is a threat and he must do what is necessary to make things safe for everyone. He convinces Brandon to go with him to hunt game. While out hunting, Kyle aims the rifle and shoots Brandon to the back of the head. No joy. Brandon turns and Kyle finds himself the target of Brandon’s wrath. In a horrific scene that was surprising, Brandon unleashes his laser eyes on Kyle and you see Kyle’s face turn into a hole that went straight to the back of his head. Was this to show the viciousness to what Brandon has become, a sociopath?

Brandon comes back home and targets Toni. She finds that her motherly instincts have failed her if she had any at all. No amount of platitudes to Brandon will dissuade his murderous intent. The local sheriff had suspected something with Brandon but had no proof. Brandon is not only violent but is sadistically cruel. The manner in which he kills his mother is disturbing and the way he covers up the crime by destroying a passing airline only adds to the sadistic levels. There is nobody to root for in this film. There are no redeeming values to have as well. There was a movie called The Bad Seed that came out in 1956 about a seemingly nice 8-year-old girl who pretended to be angelic but in truth, she was a killer. On some levels, these two kids share a personality disorder. The only difference is that one has superpowers and can’t be killed. I would describe this as an empty calorie film, you get filled up with nothing. The movie trailer for this film was interesting but the reality is that this is a flawed uneven movie.

Film Score: C minus

When we last left our dynamic duo, Tyrone had just found the motel where Tandy was being held against her will and Tandy had found her hope again that restored her power as she was cutting her way through walls that eventually led her way to her freedom and finally face to face with Tyrone. At that moment, you saw the bond between them starting to gain momentum. In those brief moments, Tandy was being more honest with her emotions that allowed Tyrone to reciprocate that wasn’t allowed for him to experience when you factor in the environment he was in living with his parents. Still, the two perhaps had no idea as to what they were feeling and the meaning it had. Unfortunately, Tyrone collapses leaving Tandy to struggle with the unconscious Tyrone. So, what does one half of the divine pairing is going to do?

Cloak & Dagger, Season 2, Ep. 8

Two Player Review

Tandy calls the one person who understands the dark magic, Evita. We hadn’t seen too much of Evita as she has been noticeably absent in these past episodes and I suspect it was by design because Tyrone and Tandy are heading into their own world considering the past events the duo has faced. Tandy calls Evita who doesn’t notice the lifeless body of her Aunt Chantelle lying on the floor. Evita, in the meantime, makes her way to the abandoned church of Tandy and Tyrone where she finds Tyrone still unconscious. Bridget had arrived earlier as they watch Evita go through her Vodou rituals. Whatever is going on with Tyrone is going on internally with his spirit. Tandy surmises that she needs to go back in and save Tyrone. Bridget also is coming along to see for herself and to experience this passage.

As Tandy and Bridget walk though Tyrone’s spirit, the spirit of Aunt Chantelle shows up to counsel Evita. Evita earlier had been disturbed by some readings she had divined through a couple of tosses. What she didn’t know was that those readings were true, Aunt Chantelle was dancing with her ancestors now. Aunt Chantelle goes on to say that in order to save Tyrone that she must marry Papa Legba. Evita has no plans for that, she has plans for college, for everything but what Auntie proposes but Auntie tells her that it was always part of her legacy that this would happen. The horror and reluctance are painted on Evita’s face as she soon realizes that she must do this in order to save Tyrone and the ramification that it holds.

Tandy and Bridget are back at the Roxxon service station meeting the spirit who looks at Bridget and says that her other half refused to pay. Mayhem is still trapped inside. Tandy pays her toll with candy and she’s off to see Tyrone who’s playing a video that looks like it’s a vintage game from the ’80s. It is a video game of Tandy and Tyrone battle bad guys that will lead them out of the darkness.

Bridget, on the other, is facing her doppelganger, Mayhem, at Andre’s record store. Mayhem informs her that Andre has been using his abilities to get the girls who Bridget deduce is playing tricks on their minds. Bridget comes to terms with Mayhem knowing that without Mayhem, she can’t effectively do her job because she is lacking her aggressive id any longer. She urges Mayhem to go along with the proposition but also to listen and not to attack everything in such a reckless manner. Mayhem agrees to the proposal.

Adina, Ty’s mother, has met with the former priest. She comes to him with the evidence Connors has passed on to her implicating the parties responsible for her son’s death and for Ty’s murder charges. The former priest tells her that he can’t take the documents unless it comes with a confession. In a makeshift confessional booth divider, Adina tells him what she had done where she reveals that after Connors had given her the information, she shot and killed him. Her confession wasn’t to relieve her soul but to help Tyrone’s wrongful accusation of murder. We continue to see this downward tortured spiral of Adina’s self-worth slowly disintegrate with no lifeline helping her.

Tandy and Tyrone are making their way from level to level until they find themselves back at the motel where they face Andre. Tandy suddenly disappears leaving Tyrone facing Andre alone. He soon pops back to where Tandy is where they started, at the arcade game room. In the course of this transition, Tandy states that she can only do what she is doing only if Tyrone is there by her side and Tyrone expresses that the reason why he came after her was that he couldn’t live without her.

What we have here is another door is starting to open with Tandy and Tyrone and that this pairing is about to evolve. Baron Samedi, the proprietor of the dark word arcade is about to pass judgment on Tyrone until he spots a bouquet of weeds that signals to him that Tyrone’s debt has been paid. Evita has married Papa Legba unbeknownst to Tyrone.

They return to the real word along with mayhem but we do not see Bridget. Is she still inside? Tandy makes it back home to find her mother M.I.A. She finds empty liquor bottles which let her know that her mother has fallen off the wagon. Tyrone has found Evita distant and isolating, Tandy is on the floor crying when Tyrone pops in. Tandy doesn’t flinch when he materialized. He sits down next to her and places his arm around her. She looks at him and her world becomes a little better. With two episodes left, what’s next for these two?

John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum Film Review

An Adrenalin Ride While Sitting in Your Seat

Cast:
Keanu Reeves … John Wick
Halle Berry … Sofia
Ian McShane … Winston
Laurence Fishburne … Bowery King
Mark Dacascos … Zero
Asia Kate Dillon … The Adjudicator
Lance Reddick … Charon
Tobias Segal … Earl
Anjelica Huston … The Director
Robin Lord Taylor … Administrator
Susan Blommaert … Librarian
Jerome Flynn … Berrada

John Wick: Chapter 3 picks up immediately where John Wick 2 ended, with him and his dog running through the rain trying to escape his fate. So right away, you can honestly say that this unfolding does feel like you’re reading the next chapter in this story arc. You do get a sense of dread for the character played by Keanu Reeves as John Wick. You feel for him because he looks to be in pain while running down the street. You even get the sense of misery for the dog as he endures the downpour from the rain. We’re already invested in this man from the last time. It takes mere seconds to get an understanding of what he is going through. He’s isolated from everyone and the only true friend he has is his dog.

Tick Tock Mr. Wick said the homeless man as John takes a break from running while stopping to rest in an alleyway. But you know this isn’t just any homeless man preaching to John. As time ticks down before the $14 million dollar contract are released on John, he must get to the library to secure his tokens so as to improve his living arrangements against the powerful underworld. Once at the library, we see Susan Blommaert aka Mr. Kaplan from The Blacklist, as the librarian. Her familiar face is steady and calm as she assists John in what is more of a storage facility for people who want to stay off the grid. He retrieves his precious belongings but before he gets out of there, he is confronted by an early adversary who wants to jump the gun on the John Wick bounty. The much larger opponent battles John as John fights back with a book. I must say that it was surprising how John turned that book into a weapon in such magnificent and diabolical ways. Who knew a book could be used as a deadly weapon? In the hands of John Wick, that’s who.

The fight leaves him injured and as time clicks down, he heads to a fixer who rushes to stitch up the wound. He does as best as he can before time runs out and that is where John takes over and completes the task. The fixer knows that there will be retribution for helping John Wick, even just for giving him medicine so he prepares himself a get out of jail solution. With the level of seriousness you are watching, you wouldn’t expect too many moments of humor but in this scene, you get in unexpectedly twice and it’s worth the wait. You get it from perfect timing from Keanu’s deadpan style of what he did in this scene but I won’t spoil it for you.

In the first fifteen minutes, we see more action and punishment to John that’s on a level that even Avengers Endgame couldn’t muster. While Avengers Endgame had this penultimate battle scene at the end of the film, John Wick has several battle scenes that it truly does become a roller coaster of sequences that you wonder about the physical toll it’s starting to take on John Wick? I must say that there are some scary looking henchmen who are exceptional. Kudos for finding them whom I am assuming some are stuntmen. They definitely are earning their pay with this film. I know it’s CGI SFX but there is a fight sequence involving a horse that I can relate to. I’ve been around horses a lot and experienced being kicked by one and it’s scary. Watching a bad guy gets kicked in the head by these powerful animals gave me a little PTSD. At this stage of the game, John has yet to pick up a gun and he’s using a book and a horse to fend off the bounty hunters.

There is a cab scene where John and his dog are in the back of a cab trying to get to his destination. I looked at the shot as the camera panned up from the rear of the cab and looked down the road to a traffic jam. This shot looked like a Japanese anime by the way the lights hit the line of cars down the road. For a second, it looked like the anime, Ghost in The Shell. And in another exterior night scene, there was this hint of a homage to the original Bladerunner. I give a tip of the hat to the cinematography for doing an excellent job.

For those who are SJW’s, there are three good roles played by women who aren’t condescending or have identity politics on their agenda. Anjelica Houston as The Director, Asia Kate Dillon as the Adjudicator, and Halle Berry as Sophia is straight up prime beef. Nobody is using their gender as an object that needs to be used as a battering ram or as a cliché where it has become the usual hackneyed and derivative trope.

The Director is scary. She doesn’t do fool at all. As she directs a troupe of young ballerinas, they tremble in fear by her very whisper. The Adjudicator comes in to lay down the law for those who violated the agreement for helping John Wick. The Director doesn’t budge one inch as she accepts her punishment. I don’t think we have seen the last of the Director should there be a Chapter 4.

Sophia, on the other hand, is concrete tough, not steel tough but concrete tough. John comes to her to get to his next journey and we discover that they share a past. John pulls out this amulet that has here bloody fingerprint in it that signifies a blood oath was given. She is obligated. They go to s man named Berrada who’s only payment is one of Sophia’s dogs. She tells him no and he shoots the dog. Luckily, the dog is wearing a bulletproof vest and now all hell breaks loose. We get to see this symphony of gun violence and death unfold. The pair of dogs are in on the kills as well. Suffix it to say, Sophia and John are some serious dog lovers. This would be a whole different movie it John and Sophia were cat lovers. Between the dogs and the horse, the horse has two kills under his belt while the dogs have at least eleven to fourteen between them. These dogs were highly trained and exceptionally good. Sophia and John achieve victory in this dust-up and later John takes the amulet and presses his bloody thumbprint into the amulet and hands it to Sophia. This signals to the audience that yes, there will be a Chapter 4 in the offering and I bet it will be rescuing Sophia’s daughter.

John moves on to his next destination where he meets The Elder who, in order for John to live out his life, orders John to kill his friend, Winston. Back in New York, The Adjudicator is still punishing those who assisted John. She goes to Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King to punish him which he balks at but in the end, with the death of some of his crew, he accepts the inevitable. She then decommissions Winston’s hotel which makes it persona non grata with the people in charge. We then see in a cameo, Robin Lord Taylor aka Penguin from Gotham, as the Administrator decommissioning the hotel with his rubber stamp. John makes it back to the hotel and Winston knows he was tasked to kill him but John ignores that directive.

With Lance Reddick’s Charon by his side, John battle body armored men in this latest passage of death. Mark Dacascos’ Zero and his men are also battling against John. In one other humoresque scene, Zero fanboys out over having to finally meet John Wick. Charon and John prevail over the henchmen and the Adjudicator now wants a parlay to rectify the situation. It’s resolved in a brutal way suffices it to say that you wonder if it was a ruse or was it intentional justification? The Bowery King still lives even though he was cut seven times and John Wick lives even though he fell off a balcony and you can definitely see Chapter 4 will soon come.

Ratings: A

Lucifer Returns on Netflix

And it's Missing a Key Ingredient

Lucifer, the supernatural telling of the devil living a life in Los Angeles as a club owner and as a consultant for the Los Angeles Police Department, has made his fateful return on Netflix in a ten episode run. When we last saw Lucifer, it was on Fox television that ended in a cliffhanger where Lucifer had just killed Pierce that manifested him showing his true face. Unbeknownst to Lucifer, Chloe had run in and was behind him when he turned to reveal his true identity. The reaction on a shattered Chloe was met in frozen fear. Fade out. So as the story goes, the show ends on a high note but here comes the twist, Fox cancels it. What !!! Really!!! what is a fandom to do? Well, they mobilize and start a campaign to save Lucifer. A few weeks later, Netflix announces they will pick up Lucifer to the delight of cast, crew, and fandom. So, here we are. Lucifer continues in the telling on Netflix but it's not the same in some aspects. There are special elements that are missing that got lost in the transfer.

The first episode opens up with a time jump of a few weeks. Chloe has taken off with her daughter, Trixie, to get a handle on the revelation. Lucifer is moping around contemplating his role at LAPD, Dan has PTSD with Charlotte's death, Ella is struggling with her faith. We are hit with all of this but we don't get to see the aftermath of Lucifer's reveal to Chloe. This was an important element that for whatever reasons, was not addressed because the fandom wanted to see that played out in real time. Strike one.

We move on, crimes are still happening, Lucifer shows up at crime scenes hoping to see if Chloe is back until finally, she shows up in the most casual way. In their first pairing on screen together, something is missing. We wade through the awkwardness as you look at Chloe in a strange way. There is something about her look that's disturbing. She looks somewhat harder, especially around the eyes, I don't know if it's the makeup or the lighting or even if it was intentional but for the most time in this ten-episode run, she didn't have that warm glow as she had in past episode. With Netflix, you get to binge watch the entire season and at the conclusion of the run, you have a better understanding of the story arc.

In giving Lucifer this post-analytic assessment, one of the most endearing aspects to Lucifer has been sacrificed or perhaps lost in this run. What is lost or missing is the sweet banter between Lucifer and Chloe. The heart of the show has been cut out. In all ten episodes, we get none of the humor and fun that made this couple so endearing. Instead, we are handed coldness and isolation. Trike two. Even Chloe's daughter, Trixie, is used sparingly during this run. Though she has a reunion with Maze, their camaraderie is removed when Maze moves in with the good Dr. Linda.

What Lucifer did do was give the supporting characters some in-at-bat runs some flexing. Dan's PTSD crisis was good the see portrayed as he dealt with the aftermath of Charlotte's death. Too often, shows don't reflect what a person is going through following a loved one's death in this detail. Dan's anger is misapplied on Lucifer. He blames Lucifer for her death even though it was Pierce who shot her going after Amenadiel. Dan slowly implodes to the point where he almost caused either death or injury to his own child after pointing the bad guys in the direction to Lucifer. Guilt doesn't wear well on Dan's already fragile psyche.

Amenadiel and Dr. Linda was a twist at the close of the series when it ran on Fox. You sort of rooting for this couple's unexpected union. It was interrupted due in part to Maze's jealousy with Amenadiel hooking up with her best friend and perhaps that women code of not dating your ex. Yeah, I don't get it either. But this time out, Dr. Linda drops an egg down the tubes and she is expecting Amenadiel's baby. The way she announces her pregnancy to Amenadiel at a club is priceless. We get to go along in this journey of unconventional parenthood of an angel and a human having a hybrid child. I can see the possibilities of this being explored in future episodes of Luther surrounding a Nephilim. The pace of her pregnancy goes from initial announcement to delivery in the ten-episode run. There is one glaring obstacle however that should be addressed and that is the baby itself. The union of an interracial couple should produce a much lighter baby. I don't know why they chose a baby with a much darker pigmentation that is clearly a baby from a black couple. The audience isn't stupid and when the baby was revealed, I'm sure there were lots of WTF moments. It's a controversial move on the showrunner's part to play this hand when there was no need to introduce it if they would have just cast a child from an interracial couple.

Maze is a much more compassionate character. She moves out from Chloe's place and into Dr. Linda's to help with her pregnancy. What I will miss most is that we will see any more exchange between her and Trixie. These were good moments between the two characters that cemented their bond where Maze was more of a big sister to Trixie. If there is a next season, I would prefer Maze moving back in with Chloe so that we can have that dynamic between the two. Maze is still a badass bounty hunter and I could see a storyline or two surrounding Trixie getting involved with Maze's profession and learning some fighting skills.

By far, each of the character engines is clearly defined and separate from the Lucifer tome that it almost seems as if we are looking through separate chapters, especially since we are introduced to the Eve character. This is a complete let down because now we are dauntingly consumed by this waste of precious territory of storytelling because this character brings about absolutely rehashed tropes to Lucifer. She takes up too much real estate in the Lucifer/Chloe dynamic and when you binge watch, you quickly become annoyed and tired of her antics. Who thought this was a good idea to bring Eve into the equation? What this did was take away any and all of the good moments we say with Lucifer and Chloe from the past. At some point, the only thing that Eve brought was that of an immature, petulant woman who brought nothing to the table. Her orgy scenes were boring and even her 'Eve' costume was a complete bore. If this was filmed in chapters, you could skip all of the Eve chapters and you wouldn't miss a thing with the story arc.

We do get to see Lucifer in full scary devil mode at the end, we get to see a rogue priest, some subterfuge, some lukewarm demons and an impalement that's getting a passing grade. Actually, there are two impalement's but the latter is most exceptional. We also get to see Lucifer's butt and Ella's butt or at least an Ella stunt double butt. Lucifer's self-absorbed hubris is still on display with each consult with Dr. Linda. Chloe and Lucifer are still solving crimes together but the sexual tension is gone, the special magic has disappeared. It's as if we are watching a marriage being disposed into a trash container. So what is the take away with Netflix's version of Lucifer? It took a left turn down a road and turned off its GPS locator as they went stumbling down a road replete with potholes. They finally reached their destination but the vehicle needs some major front end repair to the suspension system. The show got us to a cliffhanger that wasn't so much of a cliffhanger but an unsatisfying dry hump of an ending that did not serve us well. Will the show come back and can it be repaired after this rough ride? Only Netflix can tell and not tell us judging by the number of cancellation it performed with the likes of Luke Cage et. al.