2. The Hunting Wives - This was recommended to me as a new trashy drama and it definitely HITS. It's like Desperate Housewives but gayer and with more guns. I wasn't actually going to watch it, but I saw that Brittany Snow was in it and I changed my mind! I adore her. And even though Malin Ackerman can't act if her life depended on it, I still like her too. I also like the woman from Scandal. And Jamie Ray Newman (most know her from Grimm, The Punisher, etc., but I know her as Kristina Cassadine from General Hospital!). I'm only a few episodes in, but I'm enjoying it. There's a little bit of mystery, it's very funny, and it's full-on batshit CRAZY! I miss crazy shows - these plotlines are a MESS and I love it. I am wondering why they make Malin wear this insanely bad wig? Is it going to be part of the plot? Is she going to rip it off ala Kimberly on Melrose Place? Also, are they going to give the black woman a plot? Because it's kind of weird that she's part of the group but all the others have side stories except her? It also feels a little immature at times - 40 year olds doing body shots? I don't think I've done a body shot since I was 22. Anyway, I'm looking forward to where this goes, and I can see it thriving for multiple seasons.
3. Monster: The Ed Gein Story - Okay, so I wrote a LOT of notes while watching this show - and that's both good and bad. I watched this on my flight home from my Australia/New Zealand/Fiji trip and I was exhausted (and sick), but it held my attention for sure. I like certain true crime stories, but I'm not someone who is obsessed with them like a large faction of the media watching culture. I don't really understand the appeal. But I love a good, solidly written story that has different perspectives that might change our own perspectives. And I think Ryan Murphy and team have done this well in the past - The People vs O.J. Simpson and The Assassination of Gianni Versace were both INCREDIBLE shows. But now the focus with this Monster series is on serial killers and I understand why some are offended by it, but I don't understand why everyone blames Murphy for sensationalizing violent crime when it's been happening for LITERAL decades, as shown in this series. I think it's interesting to show the connection between Ed Gein and the effect it had on multiple (very famous) movies. He was not only the inspiration behind Psycho's Norman Bates but also The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - which are two very different projects. I think the connections that this show make are very interesting, and I think it's Murphy's direct response to the criticism about exploiting victims of violent crime (Hitchcock started it!!). If you can get past Charlie Hunnam's Barney voice and awful American accent (he was on Sons of Anarchy for 8 seasons and still can't do an American accent HAHA!), his acting is actually really incredible. It took me a few episodes to get over my initial frustrations, but he definitely gives this role his whole body and mind and I respect it. Suzanna Son is also GREAT. My biggest problem with the show is the whole part that focuses on Hitch and Norman Bates. It connects threads that don't need to be connected - like I don't think Anthony Perkins being secretly gay has anything to do with this story. All of this is unnecessary. Although, on a side-note, this is how I learned that Osgood Perkins is Anthony Perkins son (I saw a headline of him denouncing the show and the portrayal of his father and was like WAIT WHAT???!!), and that google search led me to also learn that his mom died in the World Trade Center (I saw that her death was listed as 9/11/2001 and thought wow it would be weird to die on that date unrelated to the trade center and then saw that she actually did die in the terror attack). I also think the actor they got to play Perkins is wildly out of his depths (Andrew Garfield or bust!). And Tom Hollander as Hitchcock??? Fuck off with that nonsense. He was AWFUL. There's a lot more that I hated - the ending is pure trash. The old man makeup is terrible. The Mindhunter wannabe connection is laughable. Ditto for trying to connect Gein to Ted Bundy. But, overall, it's a very watchable - dare I say, thrilling series. It definitely got under my skin and I think it has a lot to say (almost too much).
4. Hostage - I liked this miniseries. It reminded me of The Diplomat but quicker and more dangerous. I usually love Julie Delpy, but I don't love her in this role, and I'm also not a fan of the other actress, but I like the rest of the cast - especially the Daisy Ridley lookalike and the guy that plays the kidnapped husband (sorry, don't feel like looking up names). It's a wildly implausible plot, but it moves really quickly and goes to unexpected places. *spoilers* He's rescued after 3 episodes and there's still 2 episodes left so when one of the characters says "This is NOT over", I yelled out "yeah, no shit!". But I definitely wasn't expecting the twist of a certain character, and I think they did a really great job setting up the explosion scene. I did NOT see it coming and I was surprised that they actually kill off main characters. It's one of those shows that you can't really think too much about - just turn your brain off and go along with it. It's definitely not as smart as it pretends to be. But, it was an easy watch on a long plane ride. And I laughed SO HARD at the end song lyrics "you messed with the wrong bitch". HAHAHAHA! Terrific stuff.
5. Black Rabbit - I LOVED this show. It's incredible. And Jude Law and Jason Bateman are a great unexpected acting duo as brothers who just keep digging themselves into bigger and bigger holes. They look absolutely nothing alike and they don't even have the same accent, but I like their chemistry. Actually Bateman steals most of the show - and I didn't expect that. Just INCREDIBLE acting; his best performance to date. And he directs some of the episodes too (at least the first one. I'm not sure if there were more, but I also noticed Laura Linney directed some episodes too! I love that they are still working together after Ozark). I'm rooting for him to get that Emmy (even if he'll possibly be up against Taron for Smoke. Bateman gives the better performance). The show is like if you took The Bear, set it in NY, and got the mob involved. But I feel like this show, as opposed to The Bear, actually earns the intensity because there are lives at stake and not just a restaurant. I like that every episode just goes from bad to worse. Like, just when you think, "well that's rock bottom, the only way to go is up" and the show is like "nope, we're going even lower". I saw some describe it as "slow burn", which makes sense because it's from the creators of other slow burn dramas like The Order, but I wouldn't describe this like that at all. Things happen in every episode. Shocking things! It has a fairly fast pace and there's also a lot of dark humor that keeps it moving quickly. And Jude Law is so fucking charming still! STILL! There's a great supporting cast too - Sope Dirisu, Odessa Young, Cleopatra Coleman, Chris Coy, Amaka Okafor, and the sneaky comedic relief, Forrest Weber. Also Troy Kotsur gives a bone-chilling performance as a mob boss. I kind of love that they wrote his deafness into the show and still made his character scary-as-fuck. It goes to show that casting should not have limitations - a great character depends on writing and performance, not that the actor checks off certain boxes.
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