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TV Review – Kevin Can F*** Himself Season Two

Kevin Can F**k Himself (2022)
Written by Valerie Armstrong, Craig DiGregorio, Sean Clements, Kate Loveless, Grace Edwards, and Jasmyne Peck
Directed by Anna Dokoza

There is a moment the audience should immediately expect after watching the first episode of this entire series. We get that moment in the series finale; it comes in the last 10 minutes. That was a perfect moment. It’s a shame that the journey that led us there was so bereft of interesting characters, captivating storylines, and a complete waste of a premise rich with potential to explore. Television has given us plenty of shows that play with genre & structure conventions, whether a series’ entire premise or one-off episodes that seek to explore a change in perspective. I was very excited about this with season one, but by the time it ended, I was contemplating whether to continue watching. There was only one more eight-episode season to go, so I thought, the hell with it, I’ll finish this thing. What a slog lay before me.

TV Review – Reservation Dogs Season Three

Reservation Dogs Season Three (FX)
Written by Sterlin Harjo, Dallas Goldtooth, Tazbah Chavez, Erica Tremblay, Tommy Pico, Bobby Wilson, Migizi Pensoneau, Ryan RedCorn, Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs, and Chad Charlie
Directed by Danis Goulet, Tazbah Chavez, Blackhorse Lowe, Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs, and Erica Tremblay

Reservation Dogs was one of those rare shows that presented the life of poor people without pitying them. It didn’t dull the edges of poverty or how it feels to come from a marginalized group, but it never wallowed in misery. American Indigenous communities are composed of survivors, those who have endured horrific abuse over generations. This final season of the series centered on the effects of white-run boarding schools on generations removed from them but never made the white perspective anything more than an afterthought. That is the correct way to tell these stories because the Indigenous people carry the trauma of that treatment with them. I can tell that series creator and showrunner Sterlin Harjo wanted to connect two seemingly distant generations to show how history resonates through to the present.

TV Review – My Brilliant Friend Season Two

My Brilliant Friend Season Two (HBO)
Written by Elena Ferrante, Francesco Piccolo, Laura Paolucci and Saverio Costanzo
Directed by Saverio Costanzo and Alice Rohrwacher

The subtitle of this season and its source material that the story is derived from is The Story of a New Name. This reflects the changes in Lila Cerullo’s (Gaia Girace) life and how one makes a name for oneself in transitioning from childhood into adulthood. Lila goes from being a Cerullo to a Carracci, and economically, she moves from poverty to comfortable working-middle class. For Lenu Greco (Margherita Mazzucco), she can leave their Neapolitan neighborhood but finds her roots as a child of poverty evident to her new acquaintances, causing others to view her as perpetually unrefined enough to ever achieve a higher status. Season Two is about the child’s transformation, whether having their dreams snatched away or transformed into something new.

TV Review – The Bear Season Two

The Bear Season Two (FX)
Written by Christopher Storer, Joanna Calo, Karen Joseph Adcock, Catherine Schetina, Stacy Osei-Kuffour, Alex Russell, Rene Gube, and Kelly Galuska
Directed by Christopher Storer, Joanna Calo, and Ramy Youssef

Ultimately, people don’t want to be in a state of conflict & antagonism. They want to learn, grow, and find ways to work together with others. So much of our world is informed by a media landscape that projects contrived, unnatural division. Reality television, so poorly named, delivers manufactured arguments & clashes intended for us to believe they are the truth. Even scripted narrative content is always about wars or personal contentions that go on and on and on. When do we get to see people heal genuinely or move past petty grievances in an authentic manner that isn’t cloying & artificial? The Bear is not a light show; its themes are weighty & dark. Yet, its characters are brilliantly full of life. They are capable of not living in the same rut their whole lives. Watching them struggle and grow is an absolute delight.

TV Review – My Brilliant Friend Season One

My Brilliant Friend Season One (HBO)
Written by Elena Ferrante, Francesco Piccolo, Laura Paolucci and Saverio Costanzo
Directed by Saverio Costanzo

We open with a phone call in the middle of the night. An older woman answers. Her friend has gone missing. The friend’s son is worried. The woman chastises him and ends the call. And then she remembers. This is the opening to My Brilliant Friend Season One, an adaptation of the first book in Italian author Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan trilogy. The entire series is couched in the search for meaning from past experiences, piecing together how the friendship of Elena & Lila came to be, mainly how their dreams of where their lives would go went so astray due to being women and growing up in the times that they did. That period is the post-war period in Italy, the universe consisting of a single tenement and the surrounding neighborhood. The result is a powerfully moving exploration of women coming of age and learning how little agency they are given by the society around them.

TV Review – Mrs. Davis

Mrs. Davis (Peacock)
Written by Tara Hernandez, Damon Lindelof, Jason Lew, Alberto Roldán, Noelle Viñas, Jonny Sun, Jason Ning, and Chikira Bennett
Directed by Owen Harris, Alethea Jones, Nadra Widatalla, Frederick E.O. Toye

I can’t say that Mrs. Davis was my favorite TV series watch of 2023, but it was the most consistently surprising. From the opening sequence to the final episode, this has to be one of the most original pieces of streaming content ever made. You have Damon Lindelof bringing his mystery-centered storytelling, and Tara Hernandez adds comedy, resulting in something so hard to describe. If you have seen the trailers or even just production stills, you’re probably confused about what this show is. I will attempt to explain it without spoiling it, but it will be spoiled a bit. Going in blind is probably the best way to watch Mrs. Davis.

TV Review – The Bear Season One

The Bear Season One (FX)
Written by Christopher Storer, Sofya Levitsky-Weitz, Karen Joseph Adcock, Catherine Schetina & Rene Gube
Directed by Christopher Storer and Joanna Calo

I felt obligated to watch this one, but I knew it would be good. I can’t say The Bear was what I expected. I knew it was about a restaurant and starred Jeremy Allen White, but I was under the impression it was set at an upscale restaurant. Definitely not. And the first half of season one didn’t stand out as anything overly special. Ariana & I talked about how much the show used a premise akin to something like Cheers. If this had been made in the 1980s or 90s, it would have been a three-camera comedy-drama, probably with a “will they, won’t they” plot stringing the audience along for multiple seasons. We even have a Carla in the form of Tina, but even that character conflict is resolved relatively quickly, and the show moves on.

TV Review – The Venture Brothers Season Two

The Venture Brothers Season Two (Adult Swim)
Written by Jackson Publick & Doc Hammer with Bed Edlund
Directed by Jackson Publick

While the Venture Brothers was primarily focused on parodying children’s shows, from Johnny Quest to G.I. Joe, it could also be strangely poignant. Where season one was about the co-creators Jackson Publick & Doc Hammer finding their footing in this world, season two is about expanding that established universe and adding depth to its characters. The three characters I found to get the most development this season would be Brock Samson, The Monarch/Doctor Girlfriend, and Doctor Orpheus. The show also teases the lore behind Hank & Dean’s origins. Are they clones of Rusty and Brock? Do they have a real mother? Is Dr. Girlfriend their mother? (Of course not). It was all of this with continuous references to the absurdity of genre media & culture.

TV Review – Beef

Beef (Netflix)
Written by Lee Sung Jin, Alice Ju, Carrie Kemper, Alex Russell, Marie Hanhnhon Nguyen & Niko Gutierrez-Kovner, Joanna Calo, Kevin Rosen, Jean Kyoung Frazier
Directed by Hikari, Jake Schreier, and Lee Sung Jin

Even though we’re attempting to make a permanent life in the Netherlands, I still keep tabs on what is happening back in the States. There are people I love back there, so it’s important to know if violence escalates, the food supply chain is deteriorating, etc. One thing I’ve noted in the last year is a rapid increase in random violent acts, especially on the roadways. Driving in America has always been a particularly hazardous venture, but it appears things have gotten worse? In states where open carry laws have been relaxed, you can’t go a day without hearing about multiple road rage incidents that end in gunfire. The series Beef presented itself in its trailers and marketing as a show about how one of these conflicts escalates wildly out of control, and that was a pretty intriguing premise.

TV Review – I’m a Virgo

I’m a Virgo (Amazon Prime)
Written by Boots Riley, Tze Chun, Whitney White, Marcus Gardley, and Michael R. Jackson
Directed by Boots Riley

When I saw Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You years ago it didn’t click with me. That was weird because so much of the underlying themes of the film meshed with my own beliefs. On reflection, having watched and loved I’m a Virgo, I think this has to do with the conflicting structures of film vs. television. There was so much to the world Riley was creating in his film that never got the time it needed to breathe, so that the audience could fully feel the impact. I’m a Virgo, with seven episodes, is able to avoid that while still feeling like a cohesive seven part film. Ideas are introduced and allowed to be fleshed out. Characters don’t just linger in the background, the focus will shift away from our protagonist to spotlight important figures. And it’s a story of superheroes that doesn’t suck like all the Marvel stuff.