Idiot Boxing: Preacher, season 4 (2019)

And so the tale of the Preacher, adapted from the 1990s comic book to which I had almost religious devotion, comes to a close. For me, it ended about the same way it began - compelling enough and with appropriate respect for the source material, but never quite living up to its potential.

This fourth and final season brings everything to its insane conclusion. Jesse Custer has been tapped and trapped into being the world's Messiah by the ultra-powerful, mostly secretive organization The Grail. The Grail is now headed by the cold, psychotic, and vengeance-obsessed Herr Starr. After being jilted by Custer, Starr brokers a truce between a resurrected duo of Adolf Hitler and Jesus of Nazareth (yes, you read that right). While this ultimate odd couple tries to figure out how to jump-start the Apocalypse in order to save and remold the world into The Grail's vision, Jesse dies and is offered a seat as the new God, to replace the deity who has long since abandoned his post as omniscient overseer of the universe. Tulip and Cassidy, Jesse's ex-girlfriend and his best friend, stay involved and on the run from the long reach of The Grail, while also trying to foil their planned Apocalypse.

The finale season doesn't really offer anything new or drastically different from the first three seasons, in terms of tone or direction. It's wildly irreverent, packed with cartoonish ultra-violence, and is rather difficult to anticipate, even for those of us who know the source materials very well. The casting is spot-on, the acting is really strong, and the anything-goes attitude and tone are faithfully maintained right through the entire season.

For its strengths, though, this series underwhelmed me. So much so that working through the final two seasons felt like more of an obligation than something I looked forward to. This is probably why it took me a year to finally get through the final season, going back to it on and off.

I've explained the elements which have bothered me about the show in my earlier posts reviewing seasons one, two, and three. Those issues came into even sharper relief in this final season. The original comic, written by Garth Ennis, was always a wild ride, but it was one that did have its own logic. Even in terms of what some of the immensely powerful characters could or could not do, it maintained a nice amount of internal consistency. The same could not be said of the TV show. It was almost never clear exactly what laws or rules governed the fantastic powers that characters like Genesis, Cassidy, The Saint of Killers, the angels, the demons, or even God. I've always found that tales like this - which rely on their own mythology - are best when that mythology has been carefully considered and has a certain cohesion. Without it, continuity and any sense that you can get a grip on the world is weakened. This was a problem with the TV adaptation of Preacher for me.

Yes, ladies and gentelmen. That is, indeed, Der Fuhrer
working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Lord and Savior, Jesus
of Nazareth. And if this doesn't give you some sense of the
irreverence of this show, then maybe the fistfight they get
into later will make it more abundantly clear.

Related to this is the "anything goes" attitude being taken too far, at the cost of an organic narrative much of the time. I always had the feeling that the writers were a bit more interested in shocking us with irreverent situations and over-the-top actions sequences than in building meaningful, plausible motivations for the characters' actions and interactions with each other. As it is, the approach feels much more like a "throw them all in a blender and let crazy stuff happen - we'll figure out the exact motivations later." This is less effective that Ennis's original story, which - though having a few digressions here or there - always had a very clear sense of where it was going, exactly what was driving the main characters, and precisely where they would end up.

Again, I give the TV show runners, Sam Catlin, Evan Goldberg, and Seth Rogan, plenty of credit for trying their best to bring this story to TV life. They very clearly are fans of the source material and respected it a ton. And I was glad to see that they had the guts to take the story and characters into directions different from the comic, rather than just give a live-action rendering of Ennis's exact tale. That's always a gamble, especially with material that had such a devoted fanbase. For me, though, the end result was something that fell just a bit short of being satisfying.

In looking over the general critical and fan reception, I may be in the minority on this one. Looking at scores on Metacritic, the show received mostly positive reviews, all around. This suggests that someone looking for a pretty crazy, no-hold-barred, horror fantasy TV show may want to give this one a shot. Believe me - you'll be able to tell within the first ten minutes whether it's your bag or not. 

Idiot Boxing: Preacher, season 3 (2018); GLOW, season 3 (2019)

The wild and deranged crew of season 3. A good number of
them are done justice, in terms of the spirits of their renditions
in the source comic. Others are slight misfires.

Preacher, season 3 (2018)

As the fourth season of AMC's Preacher was just kicking off this August, I finally caught up and worked through the third season. Like the two before it, it's been just good enough and shown just enough creativity relative to the source material to keep me watching. It's never been a sure thing, though.

As I've explained in my reviews of season 1 and season 2, my history with Preacher runs pretty deep. The short version is that I was an absolutely rabid fan of the comic book series through the mid- and late-1990s, not only buying and reading each of the 70-plus monthly issues the moment they came out, but even writing fan letters and going to comic book conventions to see and listen to the creator and writer, Garth Ennis. So it's always been impossible for me to come to the TV adaptation with any sort of unbiased views. I must admit, though, that the series, despite some obvious weaknesses, has done a nice job in some surprising areas.

This season is almost exclusively in Louisiana, mostly in the fictional Annville, a family compound where Jesse grew up. In order to save Tulip, who was killed at the end of the previous season, Jesse makes a deal with his grandmother, Marie L'Angelle. "Miss Marie" is a powerful but ultimately evil witch who bargains for and consumes souls of desperate people, using them to prolong her life. While she does resurrect Tulip for Jesse, it comes at a great cost which Jesse wrestles with through the season. All the while, Herr Starr continues to keep his sights on Jesse as the "Messiah" whom he hopes to use to kick off an apocalypse. And the vampire Cassidy is also around, though at odds with Jesse for various reasons, so finds himself in New Orleans and making a rather surprising friend.

While there were no grand improvements for me this season compared to the first two, I did find the plotting to be a bit tighter. Not great, mind you, but a bit more streamlined than the looseness of the previous ones. Keeping things mostly focused on Jesse's place of origin and the bizarre and dangerous characters within it allowed a bit more coherence to the tale, allowing for more impact once Starr and his Grail goons show up towards the end of the season. The acting is as good as ever, and the casting of characters newly introduced to the TV series - primarily Jodie and T.C. - was spot-on. Actually, the T.C. character was a perfect example of what, for me, is a great strength of the TV adaptation. Since the very beginning, it has been very clear than the show-runners would not be doing a totally faithful retelling of Garth Ennis's and Steve Dillon's graphic novel. They have made many changes, omissions, and additions - some minor and some major - which gives the show a feeling quite its own. This is most apparent in the narrative, but it is also evident with characters like T.C., played brilliantly by Colin Cunningham. In the comics, T.C. is merely a nasty little redneck with a propensity for bestiality. In the TV series, though, there is more to him, as twisted as it all is. The result is a far more entertaining character than the comic offered, memorable as he was. While I may not have loved all of the changes, I tip my cap to the creators for trying plenty of different things, rather than simply leaning on the popular source material.

My primary issue with the show still remains, however, and that is the lack of a fully logical mythology. I'm all on board with the horror and the wild flights of fancy that are part-and-parcel to the entire story. Vampires? Cool. God, the Devil, and a Saint of Killers? Count me in. A doomsday shadow organization conspiring to trigger the Apocalypse? Right on. But I still need to see some consistent logic behind what these amazing and fantastic characters can and cannot do. Whether it is Jesse's "Voice of God" powers, Cassidy's vampirism, or the supernatural voo-doo of Miss Marie, the writers seem to play very fast and loose with the parameters put in place. One moment, the Saint of Killers is an unstoppable killing machine; the other, he gets knocked over by a car. One moment, Jodie can literally walk bare-handed into a compound guarded by two dozen armed killers and murder them all, and later he loses a relatively simpler fist-fight to a lone, smaller Jesse. The show is bananas anyway, so these things don't hurt the proceedings all that much, but they are little details that irk me a bit.

Word is that the fourth season - about halfway through airing as I write this - will be the final season, as planned by the creators. It's good to see another solid show have the guts to call it quits in the name of the narrative, rather than drag it out. I may or may not ever go back to watch the entire series again, but as a tremendous fan of the comic series, I feel that the show has done it a fair amount of justice.

The Gorgeous Ladies bring their act to Vegas. Some handle
the temptations well. Others? Not so much.

GLOW, season 3 (2019)

This show started off strong two years ago, and it just keeps getting better.

At the end of season 2, the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling (GLOW), along with producer Bash and show director Sam, head to Las Vegas. After being cancelled by their network in Los Angeles, they seek to keep their jobs and the show alive with a limited engagement of performances at an old-school casino in Sin City.

Season 3 of GLOW picks up shortly after these events, and we see the gang immerse themselves in Vegas. The show, while not a massive success, certainly does well enough to entertain Vegas tourists, and continues to be a decent gig for everyone involved. Of course, it doesn’t take long before various wrestlers, Bash, and Sam begin to experience tensions and issues of varying types. Some are relationship-related, others professional, and others business-related.

As good as the previous two season were, the third is the best thus far. I suppose that viewers who are more interested in the pro wrestling aspects of the show will disagree, as this season focuses far less on what happens in the ring. That was very much a strength of the show’s first season. That was only ever going to take this show so far, however, and the writers seem to have realized that very early on. The personal struggles and drama feel very real in this season, and we get to dig into several minor characters’ personalities and deeper motivations. Some of these are tackled with humor, while others are more dramatic. In nearly every case, the time spent looking past the garish costumed and into the characters’ inner-workings only adds richness to the series.

There were several engaging individual character developments in this season, including Tamme “Welfare Queen” Dawson’s fight against physical injury and Cherry’s break up with her man Frank. For my part, I was most impressed by the development of Shiela the She-Wolf, as she tries to expand into doing serious dramatic acting. From the very first episodes of the show’s first season, Shiela was immediately the most eccentric and enigmatic character, but this season ensures that she isn’t relegated to simply “humorous weirdo” status. Far from it. Hers and others’ stories are given some serious attention, and the show is all the better for it.

And lest you think that the show has become far more dramatic, rest assured that there is still plenty of humor to go around.  Perhaps not as much as the wilder, unpredictable first season, but my wife and I still had plenty of great laughs throughout the season. All of the actors have excellent comic timing, and once again comedy veteran Marc Maron stands out. His character Sam Silvia doesn’t have as much screen time as in previous seasons, but he makes the most of it.

A fourth and final season has already been confirmed and will release later in 2020, which is great since the show has really hit an amazing stride.

Idiot Boxing, FX Edition: Legion, season 3 (2019); Archer, season 10 (2019)

No Spoilers for either show. Read away!!

Two great shows, one which seems to be nearing its long run, and the other coming to the pre-determined end of its short but amazing run.

The season poster gives you some idea of just how trippy this
show, and particularly this season, can be. 

Legion, season 3 (2019)

One of the most amazing TV shows I've seen in years, and easily the very best show or movie inspired by comic book "superhero" characters.

At this point, virtually every human on earth is aware of Marvel Studio's total domination of the box office, via the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and, until recently, the X-Men series. Even smaller properties like Deadpool have raked in cash. When it's come to their TV shows, however, there hasn't been nearly as much success. The handful of shows on Netflix, such as Daredevil and Jessica Jones, have been mixed bags. They've also focused a few shows on even lesser-known characters, such as Cloak and Dagger and Runaways. But no greater leap was taken than when they greenlit a show about a somewhat obscure character from the X-Men comic books of the 1980s and '90s: David Haller. David, also known as "Legion," was the son of immensely powerful telepath Charles "Professor X" Xavier. David was also an incredibly powerful telepath, as well as being a telekinetic of such strength that he could essentially alter nearly all of reality. The terrifying part of all of this is that, in addition to his awesome powers, David was also wildly schizophrenic.

David Haller is hardly the type of character around whom Marvel Studios had built commercial success, so it seemed like an odd longshot to be any sort of winning show. But when the show was given to Noah Hawley and the FX network, magic happened. Hawley, who had won over my massive skepticism with the dazzling work on the TV show Fargo, has done something with Legion that will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for other "comic book" shows to equal or top. He has utilized so many aspects of the audio-visual medium of television and crafted a dazzling, poetic, and often beautifully artistic story that is as touching as it is fantastic.

Amahl "The Shadow King" Farouk returns, though whether
he is an ally or arch-enemy to humanity remains unclear
right up until the final moments of the entire series.

With this third and final season of Legion, we get the completion of the bold and emotionally powerful tale of David, as imagined by Hawley. Through the first two seasons, we see David learn of his immense powers, as well as the fact that he has been harboring the psychic manifestation of Amal Farhouk, an entity known as "The Shadow King" - another mutant with abilities on par with David's. We have also seen Farhouk's "exorcism" from David, and their race for Farhouk's long-buried body. This final season follows David's erratic and reality-bending attempts to undo the damage which he and Farhouk's battles have caused, all while Farhouk constantly turns the tables and plays multiple sides against each other to aims uncertain to everyone, including us viewers. The primary addition to this season was that of the character Switch - a time traveler whom David recruits to help him in his quest to right past wrongs. As you can imagine, this begins to further complicate matters, and it all comes to a complex resolution.

This being a spoiler-free review, I will not get into any details. It would be a great disservice to this show to give anything away, as I felt that one of the great joys of it was waiting to see how its many enigmas and knots revealed and untangled themselves. And make no mistake - this show demands patience and close attention; probably more than nearly any prime-time show out there, and definitely far more than any comic book show has every dared. Certain images appear and actions take place which will leave one baffled; that is, until one, two, or several episodes later when the connections are made clear. And there are more than a few visual and cinematic flights of fancy that are part of the proceedings. These include vibrant, psychedelic dream sequences and even a couple of song-and-dance numbers. I'm normally not one for the latter, but my musical sensibilities seem to align with Noah Hawley well enough, so I was happy to drink in these sequences.

Like previous seasons, this one shows dazzling creativity in terms of narrative structure and horror concepts. Without giving anything away, I can simply say that the Time Eaters are some of the most visually creative, terrifying things I've seen on a TV show in ages. And while using time travel is a tired sci-fi plot device in nearly every case at this point, Legion actually does more than a few wonderfully novel things with it. Things that actually make artistic use of the audio-visual medium of television in ways that I've never seen before.

But the thing that put the show completely over the top for me - the thing that had me getting choked up multiple times during the final episode - is the resolution and how daring it was. Again, no spoilers here, but I cannot think of any comic book-inspired film or TV show, or many TV dramas for that matter, which have shown the guts and heart that Legion did in its finale. Far too many shows take the easy route of offering resolutions that don't challenge us viewers with something different and thought-provoking. Legion does just that, and it is an infinitely greater show for it.

And so ends what may go down as the very best comic book show in history. If any show or movie manages to top it, I only hope that I'm around to see it.

Archer, season 10 (2019)

Another amusing "fantasy" season of Archer, though one that I'm happy to say seems to be the last in the "Archer Coma Dream" arc of seasons.

At the end of season 7, Archer was sent into a coma, thus kicking off a series of seasons which take place completely inside Sterling Archer's coma-imprisoned brain. Season 8 saw all of the characters placed in a world of film and literature noir of the 1940s and '50s, and season 9 took its setting and plot elements from the exotic action/adventure tales popular in the 1920s and '30s. In this season, the gang is sent into a completely different genre - that of science-fiction. Dubbed "Archer 1999," it uses many of the elements seen in popular sci-fi action movies, most obviously Alien, but also including tons from other well-known and lesser-well-known sci-fi TV shows and films such as Battlestar Galactica, The Herculoids, Forbidden Planet, and tons of others. A bit more in keeping with the earlier, "real" seasons, this season doesn't have a single plot thread that runs through all episodes, being rather a collection of self-contained episodes.

This season was pretty fun. Moreso, I found, than the previous "Danger Island" or "Dreamland" seasons. Those was were amusing, to be sure, but I found 1999 to be a bit more consistently funny and even more creative from episode to episode. These "coma" seasons have always had fun in taking regular cast members and thrusting them into new roles of varying zaniness, but 1999 probably had the most entertaining and spot-on re-imaginings of everyone, whether it was Ray Gillette taking on the "courtesan" role as inspired by Firefly or the mad scientist Krieger as an android obviously inspired by Ian Holmes's deranged synthetic in Alien, the writers set themselves up to have a blast.

Mr. Deadly - the title character from my favorite episode. With
a combination of great comedy writing and hilarious voice
acting by Matt Berry, this was one of the best Archer episodes
I had seen in several seasons.

The individual stories, while rarely living up to the best episodes of the first several seasons of the show, are solid. My particular favorite was episode 5, "Mr. Deadly Goes to Town," in which the crew discover a robot which is actually a walking, talking doomsday device voiced brilliantly by Matt Berry, whom I know and love from the What We Do in the Shadows TV series. This was the standout episode for me, but nearly all of the others gave me some good laughs, even if some of the standard gags in the Archer series have long since been a tad played out.

The show has been renewed for an 11th season, beginning this September, which I'm glad to see. But not as glad as knowing that it is finally, after over three years, returning to the "reality" of having Sterling and his cohorts back in the real world, being humans and presumably getting back to their cartoonish approach to being some sort of spy organization. 

Idiot Boxing, MCU TV shows edition: Cloak & Dagger, season 2 (2019); Jessica Jones, season 3 (2019) Agents of SHIELD, season 6 (2019)

Cloak & Dagger, season 2

I’m growing more wary of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s TV shows, and season two of Cloak & Dagger illustrates most of the reasons why.

The first season of Cloak & Dagger introduced two fairly compelling characters, in a novel setting for the MCU, and threw them into a story with more than a little potential. Tandy Bowen (“Dagger”) and Tyrone Johnson (“Cloak”) had been granted bizarre, connected powers after a freak accident which took the lives of both Tandy’s father and Tyrone’s older brother. By that initial season’s end, they had discovered each other and the basic natures of their powers, although there were still plenty of questions to be answered.

Season two sees Tyrone hiding from the law after being framed for murder in season one, with Tandy helping him while also trying to help her mother and others recover from abuses of various kinds, including self-inflicted. While these two deal with their issues, frightening character Andre Deschaine emerges. Deschaine is a formerly-great jazz trumpeter who mysteriously lost his ability to play while trying to tap into a sort of metaphysical “zone” while playing one night. This event also caused Deschaine to start experiencing head-splitting headaches, but it also gave him the ability to seek out and find relief in the pain of others. The sinister part is that in order to find the relief from his own pain, Deschaine must force other people to maintain and sometimes relive their own pain.

I give the show credit for trying different elements and tackling some very uncomfortable subjects, from personal loss to abuse of some very disturbing types. And the very nature of the super powers in the show is more enigmatic than any other MCU film or TV show out there. The abilities to tap into other people’s hopes, fears, and pain lend themselves to more emotional stories, which is a rather bold move for a genre predicated on muscled-up characters usually hitting each other very hard in order to get their points across. By going a different route, Cloak & Dagger walks along its own path in the ever-expanding MCU.

Just one of many "minimalist" sets that would indicate that
the budget of the show is incredibly limited. While it works
at times, eventually it becomes a visual bore.

That said, my enthusiasm in watching the show never rose much above being moderately engaged. Part of this is the rather bland visuals of the show. Like all other MCU shows outside of Agents of SHIELD and Runaways, Cloak & Dagger is often dark, dull, and just plain monotonous in its aesthetic. I don’t need all of my shows to be flashy, but a bit of variety in the color palette and settings would be nice. I chalk this up to what I assume is a rather limited budget, which is somewhat shocking considering how much money the MCU as a whole rakes in these days.

My other issues stem from something not as connected to budget – the writing and pacing. Though the show will have some decent verbal exchanges and deal with some compelling topics, it never feels very crisp or engaging. This is even more obvious when the pace is unnecessarily drawn out over more episodes than the script can fill. Like the more mediocre MCU offerings on Netflix like Luke Cage and Iron Fist, Cloak & Dagger was using at least 25% more air time than the story or characters required. The result of all this is that I often found myself multi-taking on my phone or laptop while the episodes played in the background. This is something I’ve almost never done when watching consistently stronger shows like Daredevil or Agents of SHIELD.

To this point, I’ve been a rabid MCU completionist. I’ve made a point of watching every MCU film and TV show. I even forced myself to sit through the entire, insufferably poor Inhumans series, if that gives you an idea of my dedication. But I think I’m at a crossroads. Now that we’ve had more than a few middle-of-the road MCU TV shows released, and with more and more new shows in the works, I may have to give up the ghost and start getting more selective. If I do, Cloak & Dagger may end up on the scrap heap of my watch list. It’s not a bad TV show; but these days, there’s simply too much excellent television out there and too little time for a person to bother with anything but shows with they feel compelled, rather than obliged, to watch.


Jessica Jones, season 3 (2019)

And so ends the MCU's partnership with Netflix. It was actually a decent ending, if not one that ended on an especially spectacular note.

Trish and Jessica's relationship becomes even more focal and
strained in this, the final season of not only this series, but the
entire MCU's set of shows on Netflix.

At the end of the second season, we had seen Jessica's recently-discovered mother killed by Jessica's adopted sister Trish. It was a twisted tale, as Jessica's mother was super-powered but also murderously unhinged, all leaving a severe wedge between the two sisters.

This final season sees Jessica and Trish alternately working with and against each other, now that Trish has discovered that, thanks to subjecting herself to an experiment, she has supernatural speed and agility. She begins to use these powers to enact vigilante justice in the area - something that Jessica sees as a horrible mistake. These become secondary considerations, however, when they both become the target of an unusually intelligent serial killer who has a special sort of hatred for super-powered individuals, seeing them as "cheaters" who have circumvented the hard work of normal humans.

This season was decent enough. I actually found it stronger than season two, which was a bit more meandering. Season three brought back a bit more of the noir detective elements and the creepy tension seen in the first season, when Jones squared off against Kilgrave. This season also has some fairly creative twists in plot and character development, most notably with how Trish evolves (or devolves, one could argue).

This season's nemesis, Sallinger. He carries through the self-
important, homicidal psychopath role well enough, even if his
overall logic doesn't completely hold up to close scrutiny.

But still, the show follows in the footsteps of many of its MCU Netflix brethren in feeling under-funded, a bit dull at times, and lacking in any really game-changing elements. Even before this season, I had long grown tired of Jeri Hogarth and her "self-absorbed, controlling" lawyer routine. I felt that way too much of this season's time was spent on her and her selfish, utterly predictable machinations. Sure, they did tie into the main plot, but I think that this was more contrived and forced than because the plot actually demanded it. The character has never really changed from the moment they introduced her years ago, aside from her getting a crippling disease, and predictable characters are just boring. Neighbor Malcolm's story is a bit more interesting, as he does go through some actual development, but it's only so engaging.

The villain, Sallinger, certainly feels menacing and despicable enough, thanks to a strong performance by Jeremy Bobb. But I don't know that his entire "your powers make you a cheater" motivation completely stands up, especially for such an intelligent character. Still, there is a certain cat-and-mouse game reminiscent of the early seasons of Dexter that keeps things compelling. It helps that the show doesn't pull any punches when it comes to getting pitch dark in terms of tone, and having some unexpected consequences for a couple of regular characters.

This finale of Jessica Jones and the MCU's foray on Netflix wasn't as grand as one would hope. Among all of the seasons of all of the shows, it is certainly among the better half. But it didn't leave me feeling as if I'm going to be missing much. Perhaps the characters will be picked up and get another chance on Hulu or some other streaming service. If so, I hope they make some positive tweaks to a set of shows that often had several strong elements but very rarely pulled everything together to make the best shows that they could.


Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 6 (2019)

Another fun season from the very first, and easily most consistent, MCU TV show out there.

This season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (AoS) picks up with Daisy "Quake" Johnson and a small unit searching space for Fitz, who was left adrift at the end of the previous season. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Mack and the rest of the team face down a mysterious group who materialize from out of nowhere and begin tracking down and killing humans, seemingly at random. The real kicker is that their leader, a man who goes only by "Sarge," looks exactly like the now-deceased Phil Coulson.

The crew is back, with many of them still traipsing through
deep space, still picking up the pieces of last season. 

As always, AoS remains a heavily plot-driven show, and season 6 is no different. It keeps viewers off-balance with some fun narrative curve-balls, and this season in particular does a great job of tying plot elements together, not just within this season but even going back to some of the show's earliest seasons. For fans like me, who prize continuity as the glue that holds a fantasy universe together, I've always appreciated AoS's efforts in this department. And the story itself is another rollicking adventure, with a few solid cliff-hangers and revelations. My one gripe is that the show flirted just a tad too closely to reusing its favorite overall plot device - the "enemy among us" trope, whereby the team discovers that one of its members is actually an impostor or a traitor of some sort. It was done a tad differently this season, and only in a couple of the final few episodes, but it smacked just a bit of being a worn-out idea. On the plus side, this season was a shortened 13 episodes, which suits it well. While it had done a good job in seasons two through five of using the full 22-episode format, it's nice to get a tighter, leaner viewing schedule, which keeps things moving along.

The show has also always been as much about the characters and their relationships as the plot, although I personally don't think that these have always been as strong or as compelling as they could be. Frankly, as much as I've loved the arc of Simmons and Fitz, I was really glad that the "pursue him/her across the galaxy" nerd romance finally reached its end (for now). Ever since Simmons got hurtled across the universe back at the end of season 4, the two were constantly separated by distance, making for the low-hanging fruit of "connected and driven by love" romance angle. With the end of the series coming soon, it was past time that all of that wrapped itself up. Regardless, Iain de Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge are still the best actors on the entire show, just as they have been since the beginning. Leave it to the Brits, eh?

As far as the other characters? They were mostly fine. Of the remaining primary team, Ming-Na Wen as Melinda May is the strongest and most interesting of the group, and Chloe Bennet has been solid as the ever-stronger Daisy "Quake" Johnson. But frankly, I've never completely bought into the relationship between Mack and Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez. I've always found Mack a relatively boring character (although he's had some of the best lines in the show's history), and I've never sensed any real chemistry between the two characters. Like the previous season, I was actually excited for a moment towards the end, as I thought that something immensely dramatic was going to happen to one or both of them, only to have the show take the safe route once again. There was also Deke, Fitz and Simmons's grandson from the apocalyptic future explored in the previous season. Deke is supposed to be a humorous goof, obviously, but I found him more annoying than any sort of charming. Alas, he seems to be here to stay through the bitter end.

Carry-over from last season, Deke. He's meant mostly as
comic relief, but I actually found the character annoying and
almost completely disposable.

It was announced that this season is to be the show's penultimate, which feels about right. As the MCU films only grow in size and scope, it raises a few too many questions about its smaller shows, especially one in the middle ground like AoS. The team has often dealt with global extinction-level crises, which more and more begs the question, "Why the hell aren't they calling the Avengers in on this? Or at least Scarlet Witch or someone who can lend a friggin' hand?" And if Daisy is powerful enough to annihilate massive swaths of land, perhaps even the entire planet, why isn't she an Avenger herself?

Rumor has it that MCU chief Kevin Feige will be overseeing a shift in how MCU TV shows are dealt with in terms of their connection to the films, which is needed. Regardless of what the moves are going forward, I expect a fun finale next year from a show that paved the way and weathered a few storms.

Idiot Boxing, FX Edition: Legion, season 2 (2018); Archer, season 9 (2018)

Legion, season 2 (2018)

If you watched season 1 of Legion and thought, "Wow, a superhero TV show can't get any trippier than that!", you were wrong. Season 2 brings it all to a whole new level.

Season 1 of Legion unfolded the tale of David Haller (Dan Stevens), an immensely powerful mutant with both telepathic and telekinetic abilities that give him nearly godlike powers. The problem was that David has severe mental distress, exacerbated by drug and alcohol use. As the season unfolds, however, we learn that much (or perhaps all) of David's schizophrenia is the result of a parasitic entity - Amahl "The Shadow King" Farouk (Navid Negahban) - an incredibly powerful psychic whose consciousness has entrenched itself into David's mind. By season's end, Farouk has been chased out of David's mind, but he latches onto another and begins to search for his long-lost physical body, with which he can completely regain his old, terrifying powers. Season two is essentially a race between Farouk, David, and David's friends and colleagues to get to The Shadow King's body first.

Admiral Fukuyama - one of the many bizarre and captivating
characters within the vibrant and disorienting world that
David and his friends inhabit.

Any viewer who prefers clear, straightforward narratives and visual storytelling styles needs to stay well away from this show. Even beyond the wonderfully creative and fantastic plot and character elements, the narrative absolutely refuses to go in a straight line. There are frequent uses of flashbacks, allusive flash forwards, and curious instructional breaks in which an unknown narrator teaches us about various forms of delusion and insanity. I get the sense that show runner and co-writer Noah Hawley (also behind the brilliant Fargo TV show) is having a blast in using unconventional storytelling, and the show is all the better for it. It can be baffling at times, but if you have some serious patience and faith in the tale-tellers, then it is highly rewarding.

At the center of everything is still David Haller, his fractured mind, and his effect on those around him. It's a bold story that reflects the perspective of a protagonist who: (A) is is schizophrenic, and (B) has supernatural powers that allow him to alter reality itself. These were illustrated brilliantly in the first season, and they are on even more vibrant display in season two, as the characters and scenes are whisked between imposing buildings in the U.S., wide open deserts in the Eastern Hemisphere, alternate realities, and various other wonderfully imaginative mindscapes. And beyond the large-scale settings, this a show that really rewards close, careful viewing of small details. Brief images, props, and even costume details go uncommented upon, but can offer even more depth to an already rich narrative landscape.

This review is very vague, I must admit, but Legion is a show which defies easy description. Even in a movie and TV show landscape which is ever more overloaded with superhero stories, Legion is head and shoulders above the others in nearly every way. It goes light years beyond the popcorn fantasy/adventure appeal of 99% of the other shows in its genre, and it exhibits many of the best features of the highest-quality imaginative, surreal fiction in any medium. Anyone who enjoys having their minds bent in fun and clever ways needs to give this show a serious try.

As a bit of a side-note, I felt a combination of joy and sadness when learning that the currently-airing third season if Legion will be its last. This is, apparently, exactly as Noah Hawley has always wanted it, as he has a clear, complete vision for the entire primary story arc. While it will be unfortunate to lose such a great show, I applaud FX's willingness to tell a limited, compact tale of high quality, as opposed to milking a successful show well beyond its narrative limits.

In yet another "dream" season, the creative team decided to
thrust Sterling and his crew into a world that combines
elements of Casablanca, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and other
action/adventure movies from the 1930s and '40s.

Archer, season 9 (2018)

Continuing in the show's recent tradition of centering its seasons around particular themes, season 9 of Archer uses as its foundation the classic "Indiana Jones" style of 1930s action/adventure tales of North America. Sterling is an alcoholic pilot of a ramshackle seaplane, with Pam as his burly assistant; his mother runs a swanky hotel and casino, a la Rick's in Casablanca, on a remote island in the Pacific. Also inspired by the famous Bogart/Bergman classic, Ray Gillette is a corrupt and indolent French constable. Not as inspired by Casablanca are roles by other Archer regulars, such as Lana as a local power-grabbing princess, Cyril as a German Nazi treasure-hunter, and "Crackers" - a wise-cracking parrot whose voice sounds suspiciously like the warped Dr. Krieger from earlier seasons of the show.

I've read that many fans of Archer have been frustrated with these last couple of seasons of the show, given how they take place not in the "reality" of the show's long-running continuity but rather in Sterling Archer's mind, as the boorish superspy and man of action languishes in a coma since the end of season 7. While I understand the frustration, I've actually found these alternative "Archerverses" mostly fun, if not quite as consistently hilarious as the first several seasons of the show. If I were to gripe about anything, it's how the show has been trimmed down from the 13-episode seasons of its first five seasons to now being a rather brisk 8 episodes. I suppose that it does allow for a more streamlined, focused story, free of any tangential one-episode tales that populated earlier seasons. But those episodes were often some of the very best, typically focusing on one of the secondary characters like Ray or Pam, who could carry a single episode as well as Archer himself.

Though I enjoyed this season, I'm sensing that the show is running out of steam to an extent. Given the shorter seasons, the "alternate" universes, and the fact that the gags aren't quite as fresh as they were in the first several seasons, I wonder if the writing isn't on the wall for this classic adult cartoon series. Whatever the case, it still offers enough laughs for me to tune in, and it's always fun to accidentally surf across an episode on TV. 

Idiot Boxing: Preacher, season 2 (2017); Jessica Jones, season 2 (2018)

Tulip, Jesse, and Cassidy make New Orleans their home base
for most of season 2. You can never see where the show is
going, which is often fun, though tight plotting is sometimes
sacrificed for the "gonzo" unpredictability.

Preacher, season 2 (2017)

A wild comic book, adapted into an even wilder TV series, grows even more insane in its second season.

The first season saw the introduction of the three primary characters - Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy - as they fled the tiny town of Annville, Texas, after it was laid to waste in a Biblical-style smiting. Armed with the power to literally compel others to do whatever he says, Jesse and his companions set out to find God, who they have learned has abandoned Heaven. The quest leads them to Las Vegas and eventually New Orleans, with the narrative taking several trips back in time to see Tulip and Jesse's back stories. On their trail much of the time is the invincible Saint of Killers, a towering, undead cowboy from the 19th century who has been tasked with finding and killing Jesse so that the power within him can be recaptured and returned to Heaven.

To echo my review of the first season, it is impossible for me to have an unvarnished opinion about this show. I was a tremendous fan of the source comic book back when it was originally released through the 1990s, reading and re-reading it more times than I can remember. Thankfully, I am not a purist when it comes to adapatations of even previously-treasured books. The first season of Preacher showed that, while they were going to use much of the tone and even many details from the original stories, the show runners were going to tell the story very much their own way. I respect this, as a shot-for-shot telling of the original graphic novel would be rather uninspired and quite boring for those of us familiar with the source material. This second season continues that trend, with the story reworking some of the graphic novels' characters and plotlines, while adding some completely orginal ideas. It works quite well, most of the time,

A wonderful highlight of season two is
Pip Torrins's portrayal of the ruthless
Herr Starr. He pefectly captures the
comic version's balance of stone-cold
intensity and sarcasm.

That said, this show still hasn't quite found its footing as much as I had hoped after the first season. Yes, the wild irreverence and anything-goes spirit is fully intact, to be sure. And the gonzo action and thoroughly bizarre characters and scenarios abound, which is also as it should be. But I can't help but feel that the show runners and writers haven't fully discovered a unified, cohesive through-line for certain aspects of the series. There are a few ways that this manifests itself, but the primary one is exactly who Jesse Custer is as a person. In the comics, it is quite clear from early on that he is an old school, John Wayne "tough guy" at his core. Thanks to a brutally tough upbringing and a religious adoration for said movie Western hero, Custer has a backbone of steel and a punk-rock, "screw you" attitude that leads him on his hyper-focused quest for God. In the show, however, there is still a fair bit of hemming, hawing, and a few too many side-plots that get in the way of Jesse's goal, which wasn't even formed until the end of season one, and is consistently blurred or muddled into other plot elements in this second season. It is still there, to be sure, and it does all come back around by the season's final few episodes. But minor plot threads like Tulip's secret marriage and her PTSD after a horrible run-in with the Saint of Killers, along with the little story around Cassidy's son, Dennis, mostly seem to act as minor speed bumps in the greater tale, even if they do provide some decent entertainment. There is also an entire chunk of season two dedicated to Eugene "Arseface" Root attempting to escape Hell, where Jesse accidentally sent him in the previous season. This storyline is interesting for a while, as we figure out just how this particular version of Hell is constructed, but I felt weary of it about halfway through the 13-episode season.

On the whole, though, I still enjoy the show. One big reason is that the casting is excellent. I already lauded the main trio of actors - Cooper, Negga, and Gilgun, all still phenomenal - but this season introduces the primary villain from the comic series: Herr Starr, and he could not have been cast or played any better than Pip Torrens has done thus far. Starr is an icy-cold devotee of calculated order. In the comics, he is ruthless, murderous, and highly capable of seeing his goals through, while at the same time being a sort of running joke, as he is intermittently victimized in various bizarre ways. The TV show continued in this tradition, and Torrens plays the role with a spot-on, no-nonsense air that sells both the character's viciousness and the many darkly humorous moments that unfold around and to him. And though the Featherstone character was not quite as prominent in the comic series, she is given a larger, more varied role and played exceptionally well by Julie Ann Emery. And there are plenty of other lesser parts conceived, written, and performed to perfection throughout this sophomore season.

Despite its logical inconsistencies and some lack of attention to smaller details, I'm still on board with this show. There really isn't anything else quite like it that I've seen on TV, which is a valuable commodity in this "Platinum Age" of television. For one like me, who usually turns to TV for wild, imaginative escapism rather than pseudo-realistic drama, Preacher still fits the bill quite well.

Much of the main characters from season 1 return, though it
can sometimes feel as if the sub-plots focusing on a few of
them can water down the main narrative around Jessica and
the history behind her family and her powers.

Jessica Jones, season 2 (2018)

Another solid season of the Netflix series, if not exactly a masterpiece.

At the end of season one, which was released over two years ago, troubled private eye Jessica Jones had survived the immensely trying ordeal of tracking down and killing Kevin Kilgrave. The sociopathic and morally bankrupt Kilgrave, who possessed the power to force people to do his bidding by merely speaking to them, had focused his sights on Jessica but was ultimately laid low by his previous victim. We next saw Jones in the Netflix mini-series, The Defenders, in which she teamed up with Luke Cage, Danny Rand (a.k.a. "Iron Fist") and Matt Murdock (a.k.a. Daredevil), as the quartet fended off the shadowy group "The Hand" from plunging New York City into a realm of chaos and darkness.

Now, nearly a year after the events in The Defenders, Jones is back at her office working as a P.I. and trying to keep herself together. The trauma of having killed a man - even one as murderous and deserving as Kilgrave - haunts Jessica. Her plight isn't helped when other superpowered people begin turning up and dying around Jessica. She soon learns that these deaths are connected to her acquisition of her super strength when she was a young teenager. As she digs deeper into this, she begins to learn some shocking truths about her past. some of which she would clearly like to ignore.

This season was fairly strong and held my interest throughout, though I felt it was just a tad weaker than season one. Kristen Ritter is still excellent at playing the sneering, sarcastic, ultra-cynical Jones, and there is still great satisfaction in seeing her deal with the scum of Hell's Kitchen. And the show still does a great job in making her multi-dimensional. She may be the most obviously flawed "hero" in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and the show is all the more unique and engaging for it. And seeing the character have to face certain facts about herself - some within her control and several well beyond her control - only offers us more opportunity to see how she deals with various dilemma, as well as how those dilemmas further impact her search for meaning in her own life.

Janet Taylor does an excellent job as the imposing figure who
plays a major part in this season. While the season can drag
a bit, her story goes a long way towards keeping it engaging.

As with the first season, a decent amount of time is given over to the many secondary characters: Jessica's neighbor and now-aspiring business partner Malcolm, foster-sister and mid-level celebrity Trish Walker, power lawyer Jeri Hogarth, and several others have their own arcs that play out through the thirteen episodes of the season. Some are certainly more interesting than others, but most of them are engaging enough. It certainly helps that these characters are more grounded and complex than what one finds in the MCU's big screen fare. Still, this season does not break the streak of Netflix MCU shows not having enough good material to fill out all 13 episodes. This leads to a bit of watering down of what could be some excellent, shorter seasons.

When I rewatched the first season of Jessica Jones last year, I found that I still enjoyed it quite a lot. I'm currently not sure how excited I'll be to take in this second season again, but I'm certain that I will give it another go.