Idiot Boxing: Orphan Black, season 5 (2017); Ash vs Evil Dead, season 2 (2016)

Orphan Black, season 5 (2017)

And so the story of the many clones ends. I have to admit that this season was a little more of a chore than I had hoped or expected it to be.

The previous season finally saw some trimming of the fat that was added during the third season. By the end of season four, the clones were essentially all focused on resisting the mysterious goals of the Neolution group. While the ultimate goal of this secretive society were still unclear, it was obviously connected to eugenics and trying to genetically engineer a superior human. After a few seasons of splinter groups, false leads, and all other sorts of craziness popping up and then getting bashed down, the remaining Lida clones (Sarah and her "sisters") have essentially discovered the whereabouts of the man behind it all - one Dr. J.P. Westmoreland. This Doctor Moreau of sorts is supposedly over 150 years old, thanks to his breakthroughs in genetic engineering, and he hopes to crack the ultimate code for regeneration and healing. The problem is that he needs Sarah's daughter Kyra to do it. Leading the effort is Lida clone Rachel Duncan, the cold-as-ice, literal corporate creation who has bought into Westmoreland's dream of a genetically superior and nigh-immortal race of humans.

And so begins season 5, with several Lida clones still scattered around in various places but all finally in contact with each other and mostly coordinating their effort to take down the eugenics-obsessed Westmoreland and his devoted Evolution cult. The final ten-episode season includes its fair share of deaths, bloodshed, and emotional rending - all pretty par for the course for this show. Truth be told, though, this final season never quite hit a stride that completely satisfied me. I did find the resolution to the many plot elements fairly satisfying, and the general story was just engaging enough for me to tune in for each episode. Still, I never felt compelled to watch the next episode as much as I was watching out of an obligation born of having seen the previous forty episodes, which themselves went through a few hit-and-miss cycles.

A calm, easy-going sequence serves as an epilogue for the
entire series. This was quite welcome, and I only wish the
show runners and writers had seen fit to find more space
for such slower moments through the course of the show.

In terms of what bothered me, it comes down to a few aspects. One was that the pacing was sometimes out of whack. While I found that the fourth season had mostly gotten back on track after a wildly sprawling and sometimes-fragmented third season, the fifth season was rather herky-jerky. Several early episodes jump around between locales at a blinding pace, as do the emotional plot threads. So much so, in fact, that I found that most of my concern for the characters had dissipated. When certain mainstay characters get killed, I honestly felt little to nothing for them. It didn't help that the show used some rather ham-fisted attempts at sentimentality - something which it has never been good at, even during its best moments. Admittedly, this was also due to a general weakness with the character development on this primarily plot-driven show, but the scattershot rhythms didn't help. Perhaps the most egregious example is when, in the third-to-final episode of the entire series, with several extremely tense plot points coming to a dangerous head, the writers decided to dedicate nearly the entire episode to a bafflingly flippant and light-hearted art show party for Felix (which seemed, by the way, a pretty horrible depiction of a "successful" art show). This was just the most obvious in a handful of strangely out-of-sync segments of this final season. I will say, however, that I was pleased with the slow come-down in the final episode, when all of the dangers are dealt with early on and the remaining clones and their loved ones are processing everything some time later. I was glad that the show runners got this right, washing some of the questionable tastes out of my mouth.

Orphan Black was a solid series that had some fairly obvious flaws, some of which only grew more frustrating towards the end. For all of them, though, it is a unique speculative science-fiction TV series that featured some solid suspense, futurist ideas, and truly virtuoso acting by star Tatiana Maslany. I doubt that I'll ever go back and watch again, but it is an easy one to recommend to those into some disturbingly possible science fiction and are not turned off by some rather graphic violence and depictions of some intense physical suffering.

Great tagline for this season.

Ash vs Evil Dead, season 2

A very strong sophomore season, which I felt was even better than the solid first one (see my review for it here).

Season one of the long-time-coming continuation of the adventures of Ash Williams saw the chainsaw-handed, shotgun-wielding, wise-cracking braggart track down and dispatch a new gaggle of Deadites. Along the way, he had teamed up with former coworkers Pablo and Kelly, and the trio reluctantly accepted the aid of the half-demon immortal Ruby (Lucy Lawless). By season's end, Ash had cut a deal whereby the Deadites and his team of slayers would all leave each other in relative peace.

Of course, that wasn't likely to remain the case. At the beginning of this second season, Ash, Pablo, and Kelly are "retired" in Jacksonville, Florida, where Ash in particular is enjoying himself immensely. This all comes to a screaming, bloody halt when some Deadites turn up and ruin the party. All of this sends the trio back on the road, to Ash's hometown in Michigan and even back to the cabin in the woods where everything began. It turns out that Ruby has lost control of her own demon spawn, who are attempting to use the Necronomicon to summon Baal, a powerful demon of deception. So Ash and his little team have to clean up the mess while dealing with the fact that everyone in Ash's hometown has long assumed he's an insane mass murderer.

Ash in the sanitarium, with his therapy puppet (complete with
little plush chainsaw hand!). Yes, these scenes are pretty much
as funny you think they might be.

This season goes even more over-the-top with the violence and gore, and it's so much the better for it. Sure, there is more violence in TV shows nowadays, but I don't know of any that are willing to concoct the gonzo scenarios and throw literally buckets of fake blood, viscera, and body parts around the sets and at the camera as Ash vs Evil Dead. It truly is a return of the outrageous, which makes it truly hilarious. It reminds me on an old adage that one of the Monty Python members realized when making Holy Grail: if you use too little blood in a scene, it's just disturbing. But if you use a ridiculous amount of blood, it's comedy gold. Sam Raimi and the show runners have taken this idea and run with it. Just to cite on example, one scene has Ash in a morgue, where he is assaulted by a corpse's colon which has been animated by a demonic spirit. The battle goes on for quite a while, growing ever more profane and ever more hysterical. And there's plenty more where that came from.

In addition to nigh-criminal amount of gore, the other calling cards of the Evil Dead shows have been Ash's swagger and the one-liners. Season one did a nice job with these elements, but season two gets it right even more often. I found myself laughing out loud more than once at nearly every episode, or at the very least chuckling at Bruce Campbell's delivery of Ash's signature soundbites. In this season, Dana DeLorenzo, who plays Kelly, also gets a few solid, "in your face, Deadites" zingers.

The entire show is not the novel, quirky masterpiece like it's source films, but I have to admire the dedication to the originals' tone and moxie. It makes me regret not having the Starz channel, in order to watch new episodes as they air. A third season has been announced, and I'm totally on board.