This post is brought to you by the news that Henry Cavill is leaving the Witcher after season 3. Liam Hemsworth will take over. Right.

There are many factors that make a successful series. Casting is a huge part of it, where the actors need to demonstrate both chemistry between the characters and be able to deliver their own character. We’ve seen ample examples of great actors who don’t like the role for a set of reasons. Writing is also a big part, where the larger storyline and then individual components fit together with some sense of logic. Jumping the shark is a real thing. And we can’t forget the overall leadership of the series, where there’s a vision and structure to help tell a storyline. Budget is the last piece – unless you’re looking for a B-movie view, you need to invest in some regard. When all 4 are missing, you get something like Jupiter’s Legacy.

Comic books were next to impossible to adapt until CGI/effects were able to catch up to reality. We’re talking complex and integrated storylines that span decades, a veritable treasure trove of ideas. And over the years we’ve had varying levels of success in these spaces – Teen Titans Go is one of my favorite examples of setting being used for parody. Things like Smallville lead us to Green Arrow and the Flash. Agents of SHIELD is a result of the Avengers movie. Gotham hit some solid notes. The Boys is just an insane series that was already insane in comic book form.

Where that was successful, series based on books has been less so. Books are rarely based on dialogue, and the context is the real driver. For every HBO Dune series, we get something like The Sword of Truth that follows. They are notoriously hard to adapt into a visual format, because they never were visual to start with. I mean, Superman in yellow, with a hat, just doesn’t work. There’s no effective reference point. Heck, the Rings of Power series had to apply Peter Jackson’s visual style because there’s just no other visual reference point. And the stories themselves are told over hundreds if not thousands of pages. A character may only have minor progress in a book, but TV series need something, and they need it NOW.

Game of Thrones is a really good example of this, for a multitude of reasons. The initial launch was based on a solid set of novels, with great casting and writing with direction. When they moved beyond the books, the overall vision was lost, and the ending was clearly rushed, with the actors having stopped caring in the end.

The Witcher is slightly different in that it’s both a series of stories in books AND a video game series. Both have the same foundation and concepts, though there are certainly more liberties taken in the games. Fundamentally, it’s a retelling of Frankenstein, where the real monsters are the humans.

Henry Cavill is a self-avowed geek. He nearly lost out on Superman due to a WoW addiction. He’s built his own gaming PCs. And he’s a HUGE advocate for the Witcher being made in visual form. And it helps that the guy actually looks like Geralt.

As the story goes, he put in a lot of effort to convince execs that a Witcher series could work. The first season was a bit over the map, with Geralt being more of a grunter than a speaker… where in the books/games here’s certainly more talkative. Season 2 was really weird, with some excellent stories and then baffling choices. And during this time Henry was in the media explaining how he was trying to defend the books while ensuring the writing team put out good content. That is a conflict of interest if ever, and certainly can’t make for a good work environment.

So here we are now. The greatest advocate for the series is moving on. With rumors that the disagreements on direction of the series as the cause. And with respect to Liam Hemsworth set to replace, there’s not much hope that this will get past season 4, if that season even comes to pass.

What a strange set of events.

I’ve watched this in fits and spurts over the last while, the last 2 episodes back to back. I will continue to look back at the Peter Jackson trilogy being a near masterpiece, in both the art of filmmaking but in making the material accessible. It’s not possible to read Lord of the Rings once and understand what’s going on, it’s just too dense. The supplementary material to expand the lore is borderline the foundation to all fantasy that has come since.

LotR works because it’s a complex story that starts as a unified adventure, splits in the middle, and ties loose ends back together at the end, with both A and B plots being of near equal weight. This is my main gripe with Stranger Things as compared to The Boys, and ironically, the main issue with the Hobbit trilogy – the storylines are extremely weak and generally circular/meaningless. While not every story needs to have character growth, the A plot certain needs it.

Rings of Power has some big pacing issues, and most stem from a fundamental issue with the fact that elves are immortal. Now immortal is a word that we cannot comprehend in itself, it needs to be compared. In the lore, most of the elves are 10,000 years+ old. Dwarves live around 250 years. Humans rarely exceed 70, unless they are Numenorean (and then it’s weird). A year for us is the equivalent of 1 day for someone that’s 10,000 years old. Now, how many of us have undergone tremendous transformation in a day? It’s like comparing a human to a fruit fly.

Rings of Power focuses almost exclusively on the creation of the 3 rings of elvish power (A), with some setup of Numenor (B) and the first steps of Mordor (C). There’s a D storyline, but if you skipped the entirety of it, you wouldn’t even notice (and may be saner for it). The concept of time is difficult to manage in this storyline. GoT had more than enough example of people zooming across vast distances in hours, where for practical purposes it would be weeks if not months. For those timeframes to make sense, each of the A/B/C storylines has substantially different timeframes. A seemingly takes place over years, B over months, and C over perhaps a week. A never intersects with C, and B is used to bridge the other two.

The challenge here is that A is mostly a meaningless storyline, aside from exposition. The line is pitched as a Moby Dick approach to hunting Sauron, and the final 15 minutes are about that reveal and then completely ignoring it. Wow.

The B storyline also has no real progress or exploration as to why Numenor is the way it is. The books treat it as an Atlantis, where greed of the gods came with punishment. In this story, it’s about xenophobia, without any justification. And then a character turn which makes little sense.

The C storyline is the most interesting, in the elvish oversight of a human settlement in the southlands. There’s a weird love story here that doesn’t really work, but the human resistance and origins of the orcs is relatively well done. This is also the only storyline that has any true character development, where the decisions don’t appear driven by plot. Further than the smaller events that occur at the start are related to the final outcome.

Overall, if you’re a LotR fan, then you’re likely to get something out of the series, if only in the various call outs and interpretations. For the rest of people, I don’t see how this will work long term without some better writing and editing. Which is truly a shame, because this setting is an absolutely fascinating one.

Or the gap between critics and audiences.

Marvel movies are pure cookie cutter. You know exactly what you’re going to get when you see it start. The recipe has certainly evolved since Iron Man first came about, but it’s a clear and consistent experience. It’s a recipe that works (not withstanding how insanely intertwined the stories are now).

DC is not like that. The Batman Nolan trilogy is I guess the kick-off, but some would argue Man of Steel. Either works. Now think about the movies we’ve seen so far and how different they are. Justice League, Aquaman, Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn, The Batman… all of them share a common universe, but that’s pretty much it. This has produced some very different movies, with some impressive highs (The Batman is a joy) and some terrible lows (Justice League). You never quite know what you’re going to get when you sit down to watch one.

Black Adam is a weird movie, for numerous reasons. Which continues the DCU trend.

Black Adam, as a character, has been positioned as an anti-hero for years. He is fiercely protective of his country, going to extreme means to keep them safe from harm, making him their champion. Think Doctor Doom and Latvia. His methods are anathema to the golden age of superheroes, where the ends justify the means. In his mind, criminals have made their choice and the consequences are severe. In a sense, it’s Superman if he decided to be the arm of justice – ironically, the Injustice series is all about this. DCU has tried multiple times to present nuanced heroes… that has rarely worked out. They come off as goofy rather than gray.

The film also unveils the Justice Society (I know…) with Hawkman, Dr Fate, Cyclone, and Atom Smasher all trying to stop Black Adam for “reasons” and commanded by Waller. I’d like to say that this somehow makes sense, but it truly does not. The film’s entire setup is that Black Adam is a hero, and then this squad comes out of nowhere to attack him. It’s like the important part was edited out. Also, Cyclone and Atom Smasher are woefully underused. Hawkman is solid. Dr Fate is a weird one… but given his comics background understandable. I still think it works.

Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam is just a wall of muscle. Holy cripes. It’s insane how physically dominating he is on screen. As a character, he doesn’t develop in any meaningful sense, but he’s also not just “The Rock in a superhero suit”. I am glad to report that he doesn’t smile and has quite a few sarcastic quips throughout. Minus a few head scratching scenes, his character checks all the boxes and is fun to watch. Like stupidly fun to watch. His throne scene at the end is a nice touch.

I won’t talk about the villain aside to say that it’s really not good. Like Ares not-good.

This won’t be popular, but my largest gripe here is the young actor put in a position to be the heart of the film. He’s meant to be the grounding part, where we can relate to the larger stakes and storyline. It is a critical role and for whatever reason, it just doesn’t work like it should. One scene in particular near the end feels like a B movie, completely un-earned. I am not sure if this is the writing or the editing. Maybe it should have been split between multiple characters, or the character had some vested interest in the stakes. They just end up being a plot device.

The end result is a mechanically challenging film, but a fun popcorn flick. The sum greatly exceeds the parts, and there is no denying the sheer joy of watching a human the size of Dwayne Johnson be a superhero. As much fun here as watching Arnold in Conan. It helps tremendously that the movie slate right now is a hot mess of nothing, giving this film time to make an impact. It’s a fun watch, and right at this moment, I think we can all appreciate that distraction.

“Unfilmable” is thrown around a fair chunk, in particular for written media that isn’t action-focused, or dialogue-driven. Cerebral material can be a true challenge to translate. Dune(1984) vs Dune (2021) is a good example of how different approaches can lead to vastly different results. With a good team, almost anything can be filmed now-days.

The Sandman is an older comic from the late 80s to mid 90s, covering 75 issues. Neil Gaiman is one of those authors where I just seem to click, and this series can be seen as foundational work to pretty much everything that he made since. Prose-driven, with anthropomorphic representations of states of mind, with a strong application of fantasy horror. I read a few of the comics when I was younger, and they were just enthralling because they were so different. This is when Infinity War was the big deal! Long-form comics are making a resurgence now, yet the stage was set back with The Sandman.

Netflix has recently launched their series on the first two storylines from the comics (of at least 12 main storylines, depending on your view). It is thick and slow, just like the comics. Some scenes are just disturbing in their construct (ep. 5 in particular) where humanity is laid bare. The protagonist is not exactly endearing, as he naturally lacks humanity, making for some interesting moral/ethical points of view. Empathy isn’t the point here, it’s the pure logical construct behind pure purpose, and then the means to achieve it.

The writing is solid, the art design fantastical, and the actors representing the Endless all do an admirable job. Boyd Holbrook is a standout, but not for the right reasons. He plays the same type of character here as he has in other media. It feels like a mis-cast as his character is by far the most nuanced and beyond the actor’s range – we need to sympathize and it just doesn’t work. It is important to note that the British/American divide is clear as day in this series, a staple of Gaiman’s work. It’s anti-bombastic and intellectual…

I enjoyed it, and I think it strikes the best possible balance of translating the comics to video format. I’d be more than interested in seeing more. Now, knowing Netflix, I am expecting a note about this series being cancelled sometime next week.

Comics, at their core, are serials. They are chapters of a larger story. In the golden and silver age, these chapters were usually self-contained within a given series (e.g. Fantastic 4 storyline was only in Fantastic 4 comics). This made it harder for new series to launch, as cross-overs were harder to coordinate. In the 80s this started to change, and there were large cross-over events, like the infinity saga. To understand all the bits and bobs, you needed to buy multiple comics series in a given month. Since these events were contained, it felt special.

Then the 90s, and the quest for more money. Cross-over events continued and came with an overall increase in sales. So what would any greedy person do? Make more cross-over events! Marvel was notorious for this, where it seemed impossible to read a Marvel comic without having to buy 4 other issues. And then they came up with the idea of special covers for the comics, meaning collectors had to buy 4 or more copies of the exact same issue to get all the covers.

This has multiple impacts.

• Cross-over storylines were getting near impossible to follow, more like a giant conspiracy theory to track.
• The storylines lacked focus/closure because the “good content” was being spread across 4+ issues a month.
• Some of the links in storylines were made after publication. You’d pick up a comic and be confused as it referenced something that happened in a different series
• Market saturation generated a “bubble” effect, where people bough comics for their resale value rather than their story. This made supply a challenge, and people couldn’t follow the story if their local store couldn’t stock shelves.
• All bubbles pop. The market crashed and Marvel took the biggest hit (Atari vibes here).

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is following this same pattern, and doubling down on it.

The original Iron Man and Avengers had a clear linear structure and you knew that something else was coming. To watch a sequel, it was good to watch the first one (e.g. Iron Man 2 was better if you watched Iron Man). This all came to a head with the Avengers saga with it having links, but not dependencies, on the other films in the MCU (Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, Dr Strange, Thor). Fine enough.

What happened next is the what I like to call the Disney effect, or as we know it, the quest for more money. Disney+ launched and with it the next phase of the MCU. Every piece of content released since then is directly tied to the Infinity Saga, either interstitially, or as a consequence. Wanda Vision was an amazing series (with a horrid ending), but it is also mandatory viewing to make any sense of the recent Doctor Strange film (Spider-Man 3 is more than useful too). What we have in this phase is non-stop cross over events, where superheroes in one series are impacting another.

We’re in the storyline fatigue phase, where you need a Disney+ subscription to watch an 8 hour film (cut into 8 pieces) whose sole purpose is to prologue another film, which is a prologue for yet another film. For a Disney+ series, you can stop it, go and see what’s needed first, and then get back to it. A movie though, the experience is diminished because you’re confused. When the last Infinity film came out, Wanda was good and intelligent. Why is she “crazy” in Dr Strange? What actually happened in No Way Home aside from setting up the multiverse (and a confusing link to Venom)?

There’s market saturation, similar to the “dystopian teen sci-fi” crazy of the mid 00’s. MCU is making some really poor decisions if they want this to somehow be sustainable, repeating the same mistakes Marvel made in the 90s. Hopefully they can return to independent storylines, and keep the cross-over events as special occasions.

Good but too long. Some spoilers.

I had mentioned in my The Boys review that it’s important to treat each episode like it has value. Stranger Things has become a good example, with Episode 8 being 90 minutes and Episode 9 being 150 minutes of plenty of filler. We’re not in Dragon Ball Z territory here, but man…

Now, when the stuff actually happens, it’s as good as any 80s horror homage can be. There are plenty of great scenes to pick from, with Eddie’s guitar shredding masterpiece being a true standout. It just takes forever to get to these pieces, with dialogue that should have happened miles ago.

Episode 8 is called Papa, and well, it deals with the guy that has no empathy. It takes 90 minutes to reach a point of catharsis, and El’s helicopter attack/scream is impressive to behold. MBB is an impressive actress, though that’s mostly when she isn’t talking. But after 4 episodes of being in this mess, it reminds me too much of Lost’s season 3, where there was a writer’s strike and everyone was stuck in a cage for half the season.

Episode 9 was the final attack on Vecna. You know that horrible 80s horror trend where you would should at the TV “don’t go in there / do that” ? This episode is full of such moments, things that stand in stark contrast to the rest of the series. The total lack of urgency in anything here (except Eddie + Dustin) is infuriating. I won’t spoil much here, but the horror sports jock is there to stall for 10 minutes while having done nothing for hours, and then just gets wiped off screen. Sadie Sink (Max) still stands out here above all the others, in being able to convey actual emotion and character progress.

After an entire season, Mike had 3 minutes, Will spends the entire season afraid to say that he’s gay, Lucas finds out that being popular isn’t worth it, Hopper’s storyline didn’t go anywhere (but I will give a hand to Murray’s arc), Jonathan has a 2 minute scene, and Steve… well Steve is still the most interesting bro-dad on TV today.

Vecna, while a very interesting character, is a weird one as all the prior seasons had rather human antagonists, with a shadowy upside down as a threat. He’s impressively well acted, but spends an inordinate amount of time explaining things and gloating, just like a James Bond villain. That he still wins, feels kinda good in that regard, as it turns the tropes on their head.

This season had some standout moments, but it simply took way too long to get to them. Tighter scripts and better editing would have helped a ton to get a meaningful story across. 9 episodes, and 14 hours of content needs some work. Maybe we’ll see a fan edit of all this so that it comes down to a more respectable 45 minutes per episode (or less).

Season 5 is an interesting prospect. It’s clearly the end game of the larger arc. My guess says we’re going to fall into Stephen King honors next, with Hawkins turning into a replica of Derry, Maine. The whole multi-dimensional bit was explored at length, and The Dark Tower could use an on-screen analogy.

Stranger Things 4 is still a decent watch, and it won’t get cancelled by Netflix until it’s all wrapped up. And, there really isn’t much else out there that’s comparable. Backhanded praise, I know. It has so much good stuff in it, just a shame you have to get through the muck to get to it.

Well this was another level.

First, an important tangent. The Boys had a weekly episode launch, which means you need to wait if you want to binge. The positive side effect here is that you have more time to digest each episode, and each one therefore has more impact. The standout portion here is that this highlights episodes that are pure filler. The Boys has no filler, each episode is full of content. This is a high contrast to nearly everything on Netflix and most of Disney+(MCU in particular). This is not an 8 hour movie, which is refreshing to a point I forgot what it felt like.

The season itself is interesting for a multitude of reasons. The parallels to the Trump era of US politics is extremely pointed in its insanity. The fact that Soldier Boy is somehow worse than Homelander and Stormlight is impressive. The special effects and gore make some of the scenes stand out something fierce. Episode 6 in particular is a standout in “WTF did I just see?”. And cap this off with ridiculously strong performances by Karl Urban (Butcher) and Antony Starr (Homelander), give each scene a tremendous amount of nuance. Finally, the writing/pace of the storyline feels hectic, and time just seems to fly by in each episode.

The “scorched earth” approach here is certainly an interesting twist to the typical storyline, where there’s a much larger highlight that all superheros are essentially flawed humans without consequences. There’s a flaw in the MCU space where heroes are somehow idealistic, where in reality if there were no consequences for actions, then what’s really going to motivate people to be socially “good”?

I don’t want to spoil the storyline, as there are some interesting twists and turns that hit quite well. I will say that the Maeve storyline finally comes to a close, where it was clear that the team didn’t know what to do with her.

I can see where Season 4 would go, and ideally this will close out the larger chapter of the story. There’s a ticking clock on how this can keep going, but at the same time, The Boys is what the future of streaming should be.

I’m still digesting what I watched, and recommend that folks don’t binge the series, but take some time between episodes to find some sanity. Still trying to figure out what I just watched… and strongly recommend you do the same!

Stranger Things, The Boys, and Umbrella Academy… all launched within a couple weeks. They may not have identical markets, but there’s a pile of overlap. Seems a really weird decision… unless this is the point of the year that people unsubscribe? May be too cynical.

Anyhoot, I’ve watched the Umbrella Academy with an odd curiosity. The premise is somewhat simple, what if there was a dysfunctional superhero family? This is different from The Boys, where the supes are simply evil, here they are simply flawed. But flawed in a way that if they overreact, really bad things happen for other people. Maybe the premise is “what if immature kids had super powers”?

Season 1 was about dealing with their horrible father and their destiny of causing the end of the world. Season 2 had them time travel backwards and go through similar steps (though with a significant amount of cultural context). In both, there was a continual antagonist force of The Commission, a group that controlled the timeline.

Season 3 sees them pull a Back to the Future 2, back to the present but with changes. Their actions in the past (with their father) meant he didn’t adopt them, but others instead (Sparrows). And a similar set of actions has created a paradox that threatens to destroy the universe (though in this context, it’s still just Earth). The Commission is gone, and the antagonists are the Sparrows and themselves.

The net result is a significant amount of character bloat and the feeling of “the same” from prior seasons. The scenery is smaller (mostly within a hotel) and the episodes are shorter. It’s a weird mix, honestly, where there’s very little story progress at all, but tons of character development. The end of the season is the “cleanest” of all the endings so far, but still leaves room for more.

Some notes:

• The Elliot Page transition is handled in character, and handled in a way I’d hope most humans would
• Luther’s character arc here is a long time coming, and finally acts like the audience surrogate he was supposed to be.
• Victor’s arc remains extremely painful to go through. It’s finally called out with a statement like “you know what they call a superhero that doesn’t listen to anyone else? A villain”. Where all the siblings are childish (well not Five), Victor’s power levels are such that their outbursts are catastrophic.
• Diego’s arc is really quite solid. The relationship with Lila (strong chemistry) makes it a fascinating growth.
• Five is interesting, and still the strongest character in the series. A leader who wants to just enjoy life, but keeps getting pulled back in to clear up the mess. Aidan Gallagher does a fantastic job.
• Klaus finally comes into his own, which is both cool to see and frustrating that it took this long. While his character himself finally finds himself, his role in the larger context is pure deus ex machina. Still steals every scene he’s in.
• Allison… I am not a fan of the arc here. I won’t spoil it, but there’s a particular scene with her and Luther that is beyond the pale compared to the other insanity in the series. Allison has always been a selfish character, using her powers for her self-gratification. That continues here, but to another level. Given this purposeful usage of power, I consider her to be the true villain.
• Reginald Hargreeves has a weird arc here, where the first few episodes have him positioned as bumbling idiot who’s forced to pop pills. When the pills are removed, then he turns back into a puppet master. I dunno, it’s 2 different characters and feels like it comes out of left field.
• Sparrows – Ben is interesting, in that he’s no longer a selfless character but one continuously looking for external approval. It fits well with the rest of the siblings. The remainder of the Sparrows are window dressing with horrible character traits (what if superheroes have no villains to fight?).
• The music choices remain a strong highlight, in particular the Footloose battle in episode 1. The quirkiness of the series is the true highlight, and music choice is the best part.

Season 2 remains the standout in the larger context, and Season 3 loses a lot due to the lack of crazy and clear villain. I would be surprised if there was a Season 4 given the challenges present in this season and Netflix’s penchant to cancel as much as possible. It would be unfortunate, as the ideas here are quite solid. We can use more quirky bits, the world is serious enough.

Episode 4 remains the season (if not series) highlight, with very strong visuals on mental health and PTSD.

Episode 5 continues that message with Hopper’s monologue on the karmic effects of his time in the military, and Eleven’s literal exposure to her memories in order to access her powers again. There are comedic bits with the kids tracking down Suzie, and Joyce/Murray with the Yuri airplane bit. I am not a fan of the editing in this episode because the themes swing so heavily from one end of the spectrum to the other, which reduces each other’s impact. Oh, an Vecna takes another victim.

Episode 6 feels like the other half of episode 5 if the editing was tighter. They are running 5 main story arcs at once, and that’s a herculean feat. There’s a reason this is avoided. It works here simply because Stranger Things released all these episodes in a batch. Weekly serials would not work. The episode feels like pure stalling to put the characters in the proper place for the next episode. This is the first episode where Vecna doesn’t attack someone.

Episode 7 is the payoff for the setup. Hopper and Joyce/Murray meet up. Eleven learns the truth about Vecna, which is both interesting to see but also mind bogglingly stupid when you think about the chain of events leading up to it. Stranger Things has always had a mystery box portion where you simply need to suspend logic and go along for the ride… *hand waving*… when they get to explaining some logical bits, it rarely works out (see Season 2, Ep 7 – The Lost Sister). Aside from Dark, I can’t really think of a recent mystery box that had a satisfying reveal. A season highlight for me is Eddie (Joseph Quinn), who is a surrogate for the audience geek. He has a completely rational view of all the crazy stuff going on, which is an offset to Robin’s let’s-see-how-far-this-goes approach. Eddie’s chat with Steve in this episode is solid.

There are 2 episodes left, coming out in a few days. I don’t see how these will be episodes as much as a single film split into 2 parts. And at an average of 1:15 per episode, this is a very long season. With one of them being called Papa, I’m hopeful they can finally close the Brenner mystery box. After 3 episodes of flashbacks, I’ve had enough.

Overall I’m surprised at what this season has delivered so far. It’s tonally much different than the 3 prior, with a significant focus on mental health and a monster than feeds off it. I’m not convinced the story understands why this is actually important, as compared to the 80s horror tropes it is emulating, but it’s still there. 2 more to go.

I thought I would bundle these more, but this particular episode merits it’s own post. Spoilers, obviously

Every so often, you find a particular episode that perfectly encapsulates a series. There’s a little piece of magic found, where the individual pieces fit just right and you get some magic. It requires impeccable timing, amazing acting, a tight story, and an appropriate score. Episode 4 somehow manages to do this, and more miraculously, does so after the doldrums of the first 3 episodes.

The long setup of the first few episodes comes to light here, on all the arcs. Jonathan finally stops being a stoner long enough to actually do something of merit. Will and Mike finally have a conversation that’s more than reacting to El’s behaviour. El is heading back to regain her powers. There’s a big action scene where the military comes to take the kids that pays off with some nice comedic bits from Argyle. A payoff for the stoner comedy is more than welcome.

Hopper escapes, right in line with most action films. Joyce and Murray meet Yuri and are double crossed, while Hopper gets sent to a worse prison. There’s something about a defeated hero that works here.

Robin and Nancy go full undercover to get into see Victor Creel, a source of the suspected murders. Again, Maya Hawke beats the tar out of the script focusing on how women are not even given a chance in a male dominated society. It’s a monologue that is so far ahead of anything else this series has produced, I was just stunned in the delivery. It also comes with a “poltergeist” subview of the start of the curse, which is framed in the typical just enough but not all context of most horror reveals.

The final thread deals with Max, and her acceptance of her inevitable death due to the continual trauma from her brother’s death. She experiences more trauma the episode, and tries to make some sort of amends through letters to those she cares about. She eventually does get captured by Vecna, set up for the kill, and then with the help of Kate Bush, visualizes all the positive memories and people she cares about, enough to escape and “run up that hill” (which is not what the song is about, but it fits). It’s an absolutely fascinating take on mental health, from depression and isolation, through acceptance, and recovery. One that Netflix sorely has lacked. It’s astonishing that a series based on an 80s homage is able to take any topic seriously enough to pump this quality out.

Plus, as always, Steve is the man. He continues to be a better parent than every other adult in the entire series. Which is a topic for a future post.

If Season 4 was a 15 minute summary of the first 3 episodes and then ended here, I would consider it a win. There’s zero filler, and plenty of spotlight for the actresses to shine. No wonder Kate Bush is all over the place right now… for sure this is sticking in people’s skulls.