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Vida, season 2 (Starz, 2019)
There's an inevitable falling off from the wild energy of the first season just because we already know these people and their environment now, and it meanders a little with the increased number of episodes, but I'm still really loving this. Just to continue with my strained analogy to comics from the previous review, I think something the show gains from its half-hour format is a willingness to compress story and character developments in ways that a typical dramatic series wouldn't do but a good cartoonist often would—choosing just a key moment to convey what's changed rather than playing it out in a whole scene, and letting you sort it out later. So for instance when Emma's lover, who had seemed like an interesting person who might help her loosen up a bit and get more comfortable in queer social circles, turns out to be kind of an asshole when she's with certain belligerent friends, it's a jarring turn... but it doesn't contradict anything we've seen and it doesn't require any justification, it's just one of those things where you realize you didn't know someone as well as you thought, and in hindsight you can see why she perceives Emma the way she does. Ser Anzoategui as Eddy continues to be the heart of the show, even though she's somewhat sidelined till things get hectic toward the end. Roberta Colindrez and Raúl Castillo are adorable and immediately seem like they belong here. This deserves to be way better known.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, season 3 (Netflix, 2019)
As I suspected, most of the stuff that was soft-pedaled in the previous mini-season is back with a vengeance now: there's a whole lot of action and cool SF/fantasy imagery, and a lot of stuff about Shadow Weaver and Entrapta, and the fate of the world and/or universe. Catra continues to become a worse person but there's still a lot of sympathy for the villains in general, surprisingly including Hordak who isn't by any means a nice guy but does have an understandable motivation. Also, Geena Davis plays a giant barbarian who is unapologetically super-butch, and she's great. I have no complaints except that they didn't repeat the full She-Ra transformation sequence even once.
The Boys, season 1 (Amazon, 2019)
Most of what I would have said about this was said much better by this guy. It's a super-violent cynical superhero satire where most of the superheroes are awful and a nebbishy guy becomes part of a plot against them, and that could be good, except the writing is so, so bad. Plot points and characterization are just made up and forgotten about for no particular reason except that they feel like it's time to do something gruesome now, or have someone freak out now, or throw in some spy/mercenary/assassin stuff because that's cool; the only thing that's surprising about the big plot twist toward the end (when we find out how all these super-people came to be) is that apparently no one was the least bit curious about it before. I defy anyone to explain why they keep sending nebbishy guy on secret missions when 90% of the enemies know who he is, or why an ultra-powerful evil corporation is somehow able to freeze all the heroes' assets as soon as their cover is blown and yet is unable to catch them when they go home to their families. There's a slight gesture toward saying something about superheroes, corporations, violence, sports, sexism, revenge, etc., but mostly in thuddingly obvious ways. It doesn't matter, the main point of this is just style, and it does have a lot of style: it looks great, the scary stuff is scary, the gore is gory, and the cast is way better than it deserves—especially Elisabeth Shue as the world's most reasonable and empathetic corporate villain, and Antony Starr as the evil Superman, although Starr gets less interesting once they make him into a total psycho instead of just an unethical guy who's kind of lazy and smarmy and immature. Karl Urban is badly wasted on a generic tough-guy role that illustrates everything I can't stand about Garth Ennis's writing. I did enjoy it from time to time, but then it kept pulling more stupid shit so I just hated myself for doing so.
There's an inevitable falling off from the wild energy of the first season just because we already know these people and their environment now, and it meanders a little with the increased number of episodes, but I'm still really loving this. Just to continue with my strained analogy to comics from the previous review, I think something the show gains from its half-hour format is a willingness to compress story and character developments in ways that a typical dramatic series wouldn't do but a good cartoonist often would—choosing just a key moment to convey what's changed rather than playing it out in a whole scene, and letting you sort it out later. So for instance when Emma's lover, who had seemed like an interesting person who might help her loosen up a bit and get more comfortable in queer social circles, turns out to be kind of an asshole when she's with certain belligerent friends, it's a jarring turn... but it doesn't contradict anything we've seen and it doesn't require any justification, it's just one of those things where you realize you didn't know someone as well as you thought, and in hindsight you can see why she perceives Emma the way she does. Ser Anzoategui as Eddy continues to be the heart of the show, even though she's somewhat sidelined till things get hectic toward the end. Roberta Colindrez and Raúl Castillo are adorable and immediately seem like they belong here. This deserves to be way better known.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, season 3 (Netflix, 2019)
As I suspected, most of the stuff that was soft-pedaled in the previous mini-season is back with a vengeance now: there's a whole lot of action and cool SF/fantasy imagery, and a lot of stuff about Shadow Weaver and Entrapta, and the fate of the world and/or universe. Catra continues to become a worse person but there's still a lot of sympathy for the villains in general, surprisingly including Hordak who isn't by any means a nice guy but does have an understandable motivation. Also, Geena Davis plays a giant barbarian who is unapologetically super-butch, and she's great. I have no complaints except that they didn't repeat the full She-Ra transformation sequence even once.
The Boys, season 1 (Amazon, 2019)
Most of what I would have said about this was said much better by this guy. It's a super-violent cynical superhero satire where most of the superheroes are awful and a nebbishy guy becomes part of a plot against them, and that could be good, except the writing is so, so bad. Plot points and characterization are just made up and forgotten about for no particular reason except that they feel like it's time to do something gruesome now, or have someone freak out now, or throw in some spy/mercenary/assassin stuff because that's cool; the only thing that's surprising about the big plot twist toward the end (when we find out how all these super-people came to be) is that apparently no one was the least bit curious about it before. I defy anyone to explain why they keep sending nebbishy guy on secret missions when 90% of the enemies know who he is, or why an ultra-powerful evil corporation is somehow able to freeze all the heroes' assets as soon as their cover is blown and yet is unable to catch them when they go home to their families. There's a slight gesture toward saying something about superheroes, corporations, violence, sports, sexism, revenge, etc., but mostly in thuddingly obvious ways. It doesn't matter, the main point of this is just style, and it does have a lot of style: it looks great, the scary stuff is scary, the gore is gory, and the cast is way better than it deserves—especially Elisabeth Shue as the world's most reasonable and empathetic corporate villain, and Antony Starr as the evil Superman, although Starr gets less interesting once they make him into a total psycho instead of just an unethical guy who's kind of lazy and smarmy and immature. Karl Urban is badly wasted on a generic tough-guy role that illustrates everything I can't stand about Garth Ennis's writing. I did enjoy it from time to time, but then it kept pulling more stupid shit so I just hated myself for doing so.
