Archive for category Series Issues
Series Issues: Preacher gives up his soul in Sokosha
Posted by The Editor in Preacher, Series Issues on July 25, 2017
Spoilers might be willing to make a deal.
The fact that Preacher can still surprise the audience with an episode such as Sokosha speaks volumes about its writing. This one was so good it almost felt like a season finale. We get an introduction to the soul selling and buying business. It seems that’s just for us because as we learn later on, Jesse not only knows about it but mentions it was the family business. L’Angelles? Did Jesse’s Dad change his last name to Custer because he was escaping his past?
The Saint of Killers has caught up with Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy. They barely manage to give him the slip, but unfortunately Dennis gets caught. The trio has been researching the cowboy’s backstory – apparently also recorded in audio books for our listening convenience. This is enough for Jesse to try to make a deal with the Saint. The reason why the Saint can’t ever get to heaven is he lacks a soul. Now Jesse has an hour to get him one, or the Saint is going to make his friends about a head shorter in height.
Even with Jesse’s secret family background, which will need to be explored in a future episode, he finds himself left out in the cold. All his business contacts have been pushed out by a brand new Japanese venture, incorporated. The show has no qualms shining a light on foreign corporations pushing out local companies. It takes some out of the box thinking, but Jesse finally manages to get them to weight something that belongs to the Saint – a bullet he fished out of a yogurt – with the soul fragments they carry around. Nothing matches, which of course points to one solution: he’s going to end up using a percentage of his own soul.
When the deal is finally completed, the Saint gets 1% of Jesse’s soul. There is a twist, however. Now that the cowboy has a soul, he becomes vulnerable to the Word – to Genesis. That was a nice plot twist. Now Jesse gets to seal the Saint inside an armoured truck and sink said truck into a swamp. Nicely done, but chances are he won’t stay down there for long.
Highs/Lows/ISoldMySoulToTheCompanyStore:
- The Indian casino is running a tribute to Ganesh called: “The Day the Dying Died!”
- Dennis is Cassidy’s son. Or Cassidy is lying. It still seems he cares about him, although he doesn’t remember to warn him before leaving. He only tells Tulip after they’ve managed to get the deal. I would expect he’d be a tad more worried, but I guess being immortal must come with memory issues or he’s made the whole thing up.
- Jesse L’Angelle. So the Custers took on a new name to fit better in Texas. What exactly went down in New Orleans, and are we laying foundation for more backstory later?
- Cassidy non-casually mentions Lara the lounge singer to get Jesse in trouble with Tulip.
- We’ve literally transplanted the show from Texas to New Orleans. With all the seeding for stories of the Grail and the soul-selling business, it would seem like a fertile ground for more episodes.
- You know that the Saint of Killers is going to get out of that truck and get his guns back.
That will do for now.
Series Issues: GoT stalls in Stormborn
Posted by The Editor in Game of Thrones, Series Issues on July 24, 2017
Let’s give them something they want to see.
(Source: HBO)
That’s the general feeling I got last week and even more from Game of Thrones’ Stormborn this week. A number of premises were thrown in the air, but it doesn’t feel like nothing has landed. It almost feels like we’ve stepped out of the books completely (yes, I know we have, bear with me) and have lost all direction so we’re rushing in for a confrontation.
First, Jon Snow still knows nothing. He’s got Sam’s raven (we remind you there’s a no-raven-ing-and-riding campaign in Westeros) and he’s also got an invitation from Tyrion to visit Daenerys’ court. So, naturally he’s going because… Goddamit, Jon Snow. You have to take decisions that will NOT leave your house, your sister and all the damn North exposed. Send a freaking emissary. Fuck. Jon is putting way too much trust on his luck. Don’t get cocky because your name is in the credits. Get back to Winterfell.
This literally is happening because fans want to see Daenerys and Jon meet and have some sort of whatever. The show is still doing fan servicing and I was way too lenient last week about it. People need to wake up and that means killing someone.
Daenerys is listening to Tyrion, who wants to reunite the houses. The problem is not as simple since Daenerys army is seen as a foreign power. Tyrion is suggesting to lay siege to King’s Landing using the native Westerosi armies of Tyrell, Dorne and Greyjoy. Mind you, Greyjoy is a divided house right now. Olenna is there, and she no longer yearns for a peaceful resolution. She’s here for revenge. She’s got very valid points to make.
Arya runs into Hot Pie. Another fan wish, but she does get something out of it. Arya learns Jon Snow has reclaimed Winterfell and the Boltons are dead. Now it’s time to rejoin civilization. So when she runs into Nymeria leading a pack of wolves and the direwolf just runs away, it feels like the Gods letting Arya know she will always have a wild side to herself. Will Arya fit in again with the crowd at Winterfell? Anyhow, I think Nymeria is bound to appear again one day.
Samwell Tarly has read some controversial manuscript and is going for the Hail Mary pass approach to curing Jorah Mormont. Again, this feels like another fan-induced story line, but I guess we’re just rushing in so he can still be relevant.
But finally, we’re back in Game of Thrones tradition with that last encounter as the Silence, Euron’s ship, splits Yara’s command ship in half. It’s Greyjoy versus Greyjoy. Euron kills two Sand Snakes, takes Ellaria Sand captive, takes Yara captive and his fleet burns down every other ship Yara had. He also captures Yara herself and taints Theon, who chooses to dive into the water.
Highs/Lows/Silence:
- The show is now granting fan service scenarios left and right. Yes, we’re going to see Dany meet Jon. Also, about Dany’s allies meeting – how did everyone get there so quickly?
- Daenerys has both Varys and Melisandre now. This is getting serious. And yet, after the last events, it does seem that she has lost support. The faction of the Greyjoys that followed her is in shambles. The remaining Dorne are now hostage to Euron’s fleet. I have to wonder where does that leave the Tyrells.
- I gotta admire how they have crafted Euron’s ship Silence into a scary haunted castle. The extra two sails make it look like a dragon’s wings. It has some sort of armored bow to crack another ship’s hull in half. The bowsprit comes down as a raiding bridge.
- Also, Euron’s axe has an octopus motif.
- Do we really have to talk to House Tarly? King’s Landing might need even less scenes than the ones we have.
- Jon Snow could’ve shown some restraint with Littlefinger. Petyr Baelish is planning something, and it’s best to stay neutral.
- Nymeria turns away from Arya. It’s just one last goodbye before Nymeria returns to save Arya when she’s in dire straits sometime later.
- Despite whether the show is rushing or not, Arya learning that Jon Snow is in Winterfell was definitely a moment. You can see the hope seep onto Arya’s face.
- Qyburn’s ideas are always sinister but never boring. That being said, I don’t think that crossbow is going to be as nimble as to pick a dragon in mid-air.
- And talking about a counter against dragons, I can’t believe a certain instrument has not made its way to the show from the books yet…
That will do for now.
Series Issues: Preacher does Dallas
Posted by The Editor in Preacher, Series Issues on July 18, 2017
Spoilers. Go watch some more TV.
(Source: AMC)
Sometimes a show goes full nuke the fridge so much that it suddenly paints itself into a corner. I think that’s what happened this week with Preacher and this week’s Dallas. We had Jesse go full Genesis on all of Viktor’s men. I thought he’d run into a wall after Tulip hit him with the full reveal. As it turns out, no such luck. Jesse’s still mad and he’s stringing up Viktor in the torture room. Viktor is not helping his case either.
So, obviously this can’t go further. The antidote is a little visit to Dallas, post the incident. Apparently Jesse and Tulip lived together for a bit, trying to make ends meet with bartending and real state. They were trying for a baby, but it wasn’t happening. Jesse later discovers Tulip has been doing jobs again for Dany. Dany being sort of their criminal “agent” that always has a job that needs to get done.
Back in the present, Tulip returns to the Dennis estate to confront Cassidy. She believes Cassidy sent Jesse on purpose because he knows what would happen. Cassidy plays it both ways, which is his modus operandi of late. He tells Tulip he will fix his own mess. Once he finds Jesse, he tells him that in his position he’d probably want to put the hurt on to the person real bad. Jesse of course doesn’t go full Vader and lets the man down. Literally undoes the previous episode, which is why the show needs to use some backstory to cover it. I just don’t want to see this happening over and over but a lot of shows do this.
This is the part in which Cassidy is an ambiguous character. Reverse psychology or is he trying to conspicuously separate Jesse and Tulip? I’ve read the comics, but I don’t think the answer is necessarily following the same lines. Remember what Cassidy was told. If he really had killed Viktor, Tulip will dump Jesse for good. It doesn’t have to play the same way though. I’m glad for it being inconclusive.
Highs/Lows/IsDennisDead:
- Viktor’s little girl is not Tulip’s daughter. She is, definitely, Viktor’s daughter though.
- The Saint of Killers takes out everyone in Viktor’s mansion, including Viktor. He seems to spare his daughter when she tells him she know where Jesse is.
- That means that the Saint of Killers might also come for Dennis, who’s going to speak him in French and then receive a bullet. Adieu, Dennis.
- Cassidy has feelings for Tulip. Is he being a good friend to Jesse, though? I tend to like ambiguous characters that walk the good and the evil line since they have to be really crafty to keep the audience guessing. I’m choosing to believe that the show will do its own thing here, and not necessarily follow the comics.
- However, you can feel Cassidy already telegraphing signals when he tells Jesse that people always forget the kind of person he is and suddenly expect him to be something he’s not. It feels like Cassidy telling Jesse not to trust him here.
- The whole Jesse going Sith on Viktor’s goons was done only to be undone. We literally could not have him kill a single father. He actually just kills one person, the torturer. It was lucky he kills the single non-redeemable person (I’m being sarcastic, it was written that way). The show literally has to show a backstory because it’s backtracking away.
- Jesse has always had a dark side, I wasn’t surprised in the least with the pure rage reaction he has in this episode.
- The whole thing about Jesse admiring John Wayne comes from the comics, where John Wayne is a Ben-Kenobi-like ghostly adviser.
That will do for now.
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