Month: June 2024

Walker’s Penultimate Episode Is All About “Letting Go”

Walker’s Penultimate Episode Is All About “Letting Go”

spnfans

The title of the penultimate episode of Walker seems eerily fitting, even though at the time they filmed it, they weren’t sure if the show would be renewed or if this would be its final season. “Letting go” is something that’s hard for fans to do when they’re invested in a show and in the community of fans that grows up around it. Especially with a show as successful as Walker has been, few of us were prepared for it to be ending. I guess that’s to say I’m going into watching this one with a bit of trepidation and anticipatory grief – but also determined to enjoy the ride until the very end. Letting to is hard, as all the characters also find out in this episode.

The episode spools out mostly coherently, in real time. We pick up as Luna has been shot and Cordell rescued. Trey tries to comfort Cassie, who begs him to help Luna, but it’s too late.

Trey and James go after the Jackal, giving Cassie something to do by taking care of a trembling and shaking Walker, but you can’t miss the glare she sends his way either.

It’s not rational really, he didn’t kill Luna, he was trying to save people just like David was. But he’s also alive and rescued and Luna is dead, and it makes sense that Cassie would really be struggling with that in the immediate aftermath.

A gunfight ensues in the woods (with music) and James gets shot (luckily with a vest on). Trey and the Jackal fight, and the Jackal almost gets the jump on him before they finally manage to take him down.

Coby Bell really conveyed all the pent-up hatred and resentment that James must have for this killer who nearly destroyed his marriage – twice! He looks like it’s all he can do just to rein in the impulse to pull that trigger.

This episode has some interesting things to say about emotions and how we can or can’t control them. It’s one of the main struggles that bring people in for help (with my psychologist hat on for a minute), and something that nobody is born knowing how to do. This episode shows just how difficult it can be to regulate our emotions when what we’re feeling is this intense – both with James in this scene and with Cassie later.

Later, the whole family gathers around Cordell’s hospital bed, Bonham squeezing his hand.

Liam is freaked out because Cordi was buried alive and it brings back horrible memories of when he almost was forced to bury his brother’s body when they were kidnapped.

It’s a Wizard of Oz situation, with Cordi telling them “I have so much to tell you – all of you. I dreamt you were all with me.”

Read more →

‘The Boys’ Delivers a Gut Punch Episode with ‘Wisdom of the Ages’

‘The Boys’ Delivers a Gut Punch Episode with ‘Wisdom of the Ages’

spnfans

Before we get into the fourth episode of Season 4 of The Boys, arguably one of the best episodes of the series, there’s other exciting news for the show – Jared Padalecki, who Eric Kripke cast as Sam in Supernatural, has finally said yes to hopefully joining The Boys in Season 5. If, as we suspect, Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy will also be back in Season 5, the entire Supernatural fandom will be sat and waiting impatiently (not that many of us aren’t already doing that this season, thoroughly enjoying SPN alums Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Rob Benedict (RIP Splinter) along with the entire stellar cast of The Boys).

I’ve been hoping Jared joined The Boys when his schedule allowed for a long time, so I’m thrilled to hear that might well be happening soon!

(You can catch up on all things ‘The Boys’, including deep dives into the characters and everything that makes the show special – plus exclusive interviews with Jensen Ackles on Soldier Boy and other cast – with that book Jensen’s holding, Supes Ain’t Always Heroes. Links at the end of the article fyi).

So, where are we now in Season 4?  The fourth episode of Season 4 of The Boys takes a dark dark turn – as in, things go very wrong for a lot of people.

It’s been more than a week, so I’m assuming you’ve caught up with all the insanity of the first three episodes (Spoilers for those episodes ahead). To recap:

The Insanity so Far: 4.01 to 4.03 Recap

Homelander and company have a plan for taking out poor Robert Singer and putting in fellow supe Victoria Neuman. On a personal note, Homelander is so obsessed with aging that he’s collecting gray hairs in a jar – gray hairs from anywhere he finds ‘em. He’s also sick of being surrounded by sycophants and imbeciles, proving it by demanding that The Deep give A Train a blow job and having them stand up and start getting to it (much to Ashley’s obvious excitement which was a touch I loved!).

That was a weirdly fitting counterpoint to Season 1 when The Deep forces Starlight to give him a blow job – and actually does go through with it. I love that the show remembers its own history.

Butcher’s having a crisis of conscience as he contemplates how much he’s willing to do to Ryan to “get him on our side”, personified in visions of Becca. Butcher’s new buddy Joe Kessler is not only played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan but has also traumatized the Supernatural fandom by channeling John Winchester (the character he played on that show) by insisting to Butcher that yes, he’d train his son up to be a killer. (Which is just what John Winchester did to both his sons).

Read more →

Will Supernatural’s Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles Both Be On ‘The Boys’?

Will Supernatural’s Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles Both Be On ‘The Boys’?

spnfans

Will Supernatural’s Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles both end up on the final season of The Boys??

It’s a question that has already set the internet on fire even though Season 4 of The Boys is airing now and Season 5 hasn’t started filming yet. As a huge fan of both Supernatural and The Boys (and anything Eric Kripke does, actually), nothing would make me happier. Over the past year, I’ve talked to all three of them about the possibility – which it looks like might actually happen!

I was hopeful that Jensen Ackles would join ‘The Boys’ long before the news came out that he would indeed play Soldier Boy in Season 3 of the series – I had been watching the show since Season 1 and so had he, and we’d had several conversations about how much we both loved it. So I was thrilled when it happened (and he was too).

Ackles, of course, had worked with showrunner Eric Kripke before on Supernatural, portraying a character that Kripke created who is one of the most popular fictional characters ever, the beloved Dean Winchester. (Long time Supernatural fans like me will never stop loving the Winchesters). The two had remained close, along with the other Winchester brother, Jared Padalecki. So both were thrilled to work together again.

When I spoke to Jensen for an exclusive interview chapter in the new book on The Boys, ‘Supes Ain’t Always Heroes’, he told me there was only one person whose opinion of his portrayal of Soldier Boy he cared about very much, and that was Kripke.

When I spoke to Kripke, he had only glowing reviews, so I’d say mission accomplished – you can also read Eric’s insights in Supes, along with Jensen’s.

Here’s a little tidbit from my chat with Kripke:

Me: I just knew that Jensen would be so damn good at portraying Soldier Boy, in that he can make you understand every emotion his character is feeling, so I think alot of us were just uncomfortably blown away – in a good way – because people loved Soldier Boy and knew they should hate him!

Kripke: What’s funny in regard to Jensen playing Soldier Boy is, you know, he’s fucking fantastic, and he’s just so good at bringing the audience. It’s almost like, what I laugh about is like he was probably like a little too good at his job! I could have gone for the audience being like oh, I hate that guy, but so many people took his side in the finale like, we’re on his side, he’s the guy, fuck everyone! And you’re like, but he’s the bad guy and he’s trying to kill a ten year old…

I love their mutual appreciation that has stayed strong all these years.

As a huge fan (obviously) of both The Boys and Supernatural, I’ve also been thrilled every time an SPN alum makes an appearance. Christian Keyes crossed over to play A Train’s brother. Alex Calvert memorably played a character on Gen V. This season, Jeffrey Dean Morgan joined the fun and Rob Benedict made an appearance that no one will ever forget. Even if they want to.

I spoke to Eric Kripke after Season 3 had aired to ask him about where the series was headed, and I asked about the possibility of Jared Padalecki taking a turn on The Boys. I mean, he’s definitely a fan of the show – and of Soldier Boy! (Who we know is not dead…)

Turns out they had already chatted about it.

Me: Soooooo any possibility that the other Winchester brother might turn up on The Boys? I’d love to see Jared on the show.

Kripke: I told him, I’m like, you have an open door, man, so whenever you’re free from Walker, let’s talk about it. We’d have to pull it off with scheduling but yeah, ideally that would be great.

Me: I’m crossing my fingers. And if whoever Jared is playing ends up on screen with Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy, I don’t know what will happen to the Supernatural fandom. An implosion maybe? An awesome one?

Kripke agreed.

I also, of course, chatted with Jared. He’d been too busy with filming and EPing Walker until recently, but that didn’t stop me from asking him about being on The Boys a few months ago. He most definitely did not say no, and he and Jensen both had some ideas about roles he could play that I won’t spoil, but let’s just say it seemed like a possibility.

So I wasn’t surprised to see Deadline break the story that Kripke and Padalecki have been texting and talking about it, and in fact had spoken about it yesterday – and it looks like a go!

Jared said in the Deadline article: We talked today…I only want to work on projects that I really care about or with people I really care about, and obviously Eric and I are indelibly connected forever… I adore Kripke’s storytelling, I will be ready when he makes the phone call. The answer is yes!

Looks like this might actually be happening – and I am so ready!!

What sort of role do you hope Jared would be playing? An ally of The Boys (and an antagonist to Soldier Boy)? A supe villain? A Vought corporate villain? So many possibilities!

You can read more of my exclusive interview with Jensen Ackles all about Soldier Boy (have I mentioned that we know he’s not dead?), plus insights from many of the other actors and some deep dives into all the characters and what makes the show so intriguing in ‘Supes Ain’t Always Heroes’.  Catch up now and get ready for more of the wild ride that is ‘The Boys’!

Info at:

Supes Ain’t Always Heroes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Walker’ Hits A Home Run with Let’s Go, Let’s Go!

‘Walker’ Hits A Home Run with Let’s Go, Let’s Go!

spnfans

This is such a fascinating episode, one of the best ones of the entire series. From the moment Cordell wakes up (thinks he wakes up) in an alternate reality where Emily is alive and it’s Augie’s graduation day, everything is weird. Even the way those scenes are filmed is weird, blurry around the edges as reality bleeds in and out. I love the look of it, the visual reminders that this is not real. Jared Padalecki does an amazing job portraying Cordi’s complex mix of emotions – confusion, a lingering sense of ‘wrongness’, but also so much joy and relief at having the people he loved and lost back in his life.

Even the title card is ghostly perfect!

The dialogue is brilliantly vague – Emily could be talking about all kinds of things. We’re here. Roads. Life. Never thought we’d get this far. She’s laying out his outfit, jacket, boots. Tie.

“Your mom would want that.”

I get a bad feeling right from the start – which, of course it’s bad, we know where he really is and what’s really happening – but I’m fascinated by how his drugged mind and dying body are making sense of this. It is surreal but somehow rings so true.

It’s emotional too, Cordi touching Emily with such reverence, astounded that she’s “real”, that “we’re here… it’s here.”

The use of “it” and vague words like that are perfect, especially when you think back over the episode once its conclusion is known. IT is here. But what is “it”? An important day for sure, a pivotal day, a day that portends lots of changes. That could describe a graduation day, but it could also describe many other huge life changes.

Jared Padaelcki shows off his acting chops by registering Cordi’s alternate confusion and gratitude, trying to just take it in and drink it up as they make the “long trip” to his parents’ house through “bad traffic” but the feeling of something being off nagging at him.

Read more →

The Wild Ride Continues: Season 4 of ‘The Boys’ Kicks Off and I’m Here For It!

The Wild Ride Continues: Season 4 of ‘The Boys’ Kicks Off and I’m Here For It!

spnfans

(Includes events in the first three episodes of The Boys Season 4 but we’ve left some of the biggest spoilers for you to experience yourself…)

The first three episodes of The Boys dropped in the wee hours of the morning yesterday, much to the delight of fans who’ve been waiting for almost two years for more of their favorite show. While we were waiting, Dr. Matt Snyder and I put together a book of essays and interviews from the cast of the show and psychologists and media experts who love it, dissecting the complicated characters and what makes them tick – Supes Ain’t Always Heroes. I was hoping to see some of the themes in the book picked up in the new season – which they were. So let’s dig in! What’s happening with all our favorites?

Neuman & Singer: Winning Ticket

I can’t help but like Victoria Neuman. I know, I know, she’s exploded lots of people’s heads, but she’s been used her whole life and is more focused on protecting her own daughter than anything, which is one of those universally relatable motivations. (Okay, okay, so Zoe is now a tentacle-spewing supe herself, but still).  In the first three episodes of Season 4, we see that while once she was, I think, genuinely friends with Hughie, now they’re at odds. Actually that’s an understatement, but Neuman takes it in stride.

Neuman: You guys are actually getting worse at your jobs!

I love her running mate too, Presidential candidate Robert Singer. He’s a bit less enthusiastic about her, with good reason.

Singer: Everyone told me to pick Buttigieg instead…

(I happen to know how much Beaver relishes this show and that kind of dialogue. You can read all his thoughts on The Boys and his character in his exclusive interview in  Supes Ain’t Always Heroes: Inside The Complex Characters and Twisted Psychology of The Boys)

Homelander: Daddy Issues

I’ve read some reviews that question whether focusing on the same big bad for four seasons will have to get old, but honestly? This season brings a whole new batch of neuroses and Oedipal struggles for Homie to deal with, and I’m here for that. So much of Homelander’s life has been anything but ordinary, but one of the things he confronts in this season is something that’s as universal as breathing – aging. How do you think he’s going to handle that? Yep, you probably guessed right.

And then there’s parenting. It’s tough to put your progeny in the spotlight when your own narcissism is insisting it should be YOU there, even if you really do care (as much as you’re able). Soldier Boy was proof of just how hard it is to break the horrors of intergenerational trauma, and hoo boy, did Homelander ever have a lot of that. Trauma with a capital T. We learn more about John’s early upbringing in the first episodes of this season, as he goes back to visit his first “home”. With a Fudgie the Whale cake.

That’s a real Time Magazine cover, btw, as showrunner Eric Kripke tweeted. He’s right, this show’s marketing team is beyond amazing!

I will forever relish the character of Homelander for a) Antony Starr’s brilliance and b) the opportunities it offers for real life parallels that are so on the nose they’re almost painful. He emerges from his trial calmly telling everyone to “remain calm, you’re all very special people” and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The New Supes Drop Some Truth Bombs

New supe Sister Sage energizes Homelander – and the show itself. As Homelander’s supporters square off in a shouting match with Starlight supporters, she comes up with the plan to manipulate public opinion against the Starlighters. And she knows the value of a martyr. Much like Stormfront, Sage is introduced in a way that makes us think we’re going to like her. Her apartment is literally floor to ceiling books and not much else, befitting for the smartest person in the world.

Sage: That person is too smart to give a fuck about Pottery Barn.

She’s also refreshingly and brutally honest with Homelander, commenting on his enlarged prostate and his gray hairs and that he’s “going through some existential midlife stuff.”

Sage also easily manipulates The Deep (and hooks up with him over their mutual love of Outback’s bloomin’ onion, which, valid) and knows how they could pitch Ryan as the newest chosen-by-God hero.

Sage: The chosen one narrative only works if he stands alone. Hollywood trains people to fall in love with the white boy saviors.

Oof, she’s not wrong.

Firecracker, on the other hand, is sort of a mini Stormfront, in that she’s every offensive thing we hear proclaimed on the ‘news’ and in the media every single day. She’s transphobic, anti-vax, you name the thing and she’s saying it – on her “Truth Bomb” youtube channel usually.  Occasionally she says something that really is a truth bomb. “What are you selling?” Sage asks her at the TruthCon convention.

Firecracker: Purpose. These people have nothing, maybe just lost a job or a house. I tell them a story, give them a purpose.

This show hits you in the stomach just when you least expect it.

Read more →

New Season of ‘The Boys’ Drops Tomorrow – Five Favorite Things about Season 4!

New Season of ‘The Boys’ Drops Tomorrow – Five Favorite Things about Season 4!

spnfans

(No spoilers. This review is made possible by advance screeners of The Boys Season 4 for review purposes).

Let the excitement begin! The new season of Prime Video’s hit streaming show ‘The Boys’ premieres tomorrow with the first three episodes after an almost two year wait. I’ll be back with episode reviews for this season, but overall I loved the entire season. Without any spoilers – because that would ruin all the fun – here are five reasons why. So you can look forward to the new season and enjoying it just as much as I did!

Number 5: Rob Benedict. I can’t spoil anything, but I just have to say that although his character is only in one scene in one episode, he really made an impression! Full disclosure, I love Rob. I loved his character Chuck aka God on Supernatural – he’s a talented actor and a talented musician and a talented writer too. But perhaps I had never seen the full extent of his talent until this role. So many facets of his character in one scene (it’s actually a fairly complicated series of scenes that all run together). Rob even made me feel a mix of emotions for his character – I laughed, I covered my eyes, I even felt a bit bad for him. I chatted with Rob on the weekend and told him my mixed reactions and he laughed. Let’s just say he can’t wait to hear everyone’s thoughts on what he brings to this portrayal…

Number 4: Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I can’t spoil anything about his character either, but suffice it to say that JDM and Karl Urban together eat up the screen like a couple of movie stars. They play off each other perfectly – in fact, I would bet money that the two had a blast working together. Butcher is, if anything, an even more fascinating character in Season 4, which is saying a lot because he’s been pretty fascinating all along. Urban and Morgan have the same sort of rough-hewn charm even when their characters are violent, like Butcher or Neegan on The Walking Dead often are, and the two in a scene together are doubly charming (and sometimes doubly disturbing).

Number 3: The continued parallels to real life, brilliantly interwoven into the plot. Sometimes it’s a throwaway line here and there that makes you go OOOF. Sometimes it’s a story arc that has so much to say about something that isn’t just fiction. There’s so much validation to knowing that someone else is seeing the insanity around us too, and then putting it on our screens in a slightly displaced fictionalized form so we can all look at it without cringing too much.

Number 2: The new supes! Sister Sage and Firecracker join the chaos and energize the Seven and the show. They each have parallels to real life that make them extra interesting, but it’s their dynamic with both the existing characters and with each other that really make this season pop. Susan Heyward and Valorie Curry sizzle when they’re onscreen together. Both are unlikely choices for the Seven and both have unexpected twists and turns to their story arcs that took me by surprise – I love when a show can surprise me! Both also have an interesting relationship with “the truth” which offered a lot of real life commentary options.

Number 1: The deep stuff. Not The Deep stuff, though his story arc in this season is part of it. Almost every character has an evolution over the eight episodes, going in vastly different directions. Much of that evolution is driven by something universal and ultimately very human – the need to figure out who we are and define ourselves in some coherent way. To discover our identity. To “go home” and figure out how and what and who shaped us, whether we wanted them to or not. Sometimes that means breaking away from an identity foisted upon us and remaking ourselves the way we want to be. Sometimes that means trying to break away from the constraints and traumas of the past to be free of them, only to be sucked right back into the chains that has left around us, keeping us from being someone different. Sometimes that means not being able to figure out who the real you is at all. You can follow each character’s journey, sometimes cheering for them and sometimes despairing when the journey is downhill not up. It’s quite a feat to afford each character that room to evolve and enough screen time to follow their journey when you have so many characters!

I was also thrilled to see that the show is continuing its exploration of many of the themes that are included in the new book ‘Supes Ain’t Always Heroes: Inside the Complex Characters and Twisted Psychology of The Boys’. Toxic masculinity, breaking the chains of generational trauma, personality disorders, PTSD, racism, sexism, social media. The book delves into all of those, and takes apart all the complicated characters to see what makes them tick, with exclusive interviews and insights from the actors as well as media experts and psychologists. If you haven’t checked it out yet, catch up on everything about the first three seasons with Supes wherever you buy books, and then get ready to dig into Season 4.

I’ve loved this show since its very first episode, and it hasn’t disappointed me yet. I love that its characters keep slogging it out, every kind of obstacle – physical, psychological, emotional, societal – thrown in their way. Beaten down, halfway to giving up, struggling to hang onto themselves, but they keep fighting. Along the way, there are some unlikely heroes, and some tugs at my heartstrings.  It’s an oddly hopeful commentary on humanity at a time when the struggle is more real than ever.

Eric Kripke confirmed this week that Season 5 will be the final season for The Boys, so my expectations for next season are even higher than they were before. He’s also talked about how much he’d love to have his good friend (and part of his Supernatural family) Jared Padalecki join in the fun. I spoke to Padalecki about how much I personally would love that a few weeks ago, so let’s hope he takes Kripke up on his invitation!

Fingers crossed!

Do yourself a favor and be sure to watch the first three episodes of Season 4 of The Boys on Prime Video tomorrow!!!!

Photos courtesy of Prime Video

–Lynn

You can read more about Supes Ain’t

Always Heroes, with insights from the

actors including an exclusive interview

with Jensen Ackles, and lots more at:

Supes Ain’t Always Heroes

 

 

 

Walker Gets Darker with ‘End This Way’ 

Walker Gets Darker with ‘End This Way’ 

spnfans

Multiple story lines come to a head, and one to a resolution, in last week’s episode of Walker. With three more to go, there’s a sense of urgency and foreboding about the Jackal case that is really adding to the tension – and I am here for it!

I’m also here for the dark turn this show is taking, with all the cast really stepping up to pull it off. So, this week…

Cassie and David and… Ed?

Cassie and Luna are the lightness to balance out all that dark. We get some more shirtless Luna with Cassie, and some nice banter. He wants her to meet his best friend Ed, saying she’ll like him, they both love to talk.

Spoiler alert: She does not like him.

Extra spoiler alert: Neither does anyone else. Except Luna, for some reason I can’t fathom yet at all.

The three meet up at the Side Step, Ed taking issue with how much Austin has changed and with the trendy drink Cassie orders (a Boulevardier, which many Supernatural fans immediately associated with Steve Carlson, a musician friend of Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles – that’s a line in a song of his.) Anyway, Ed and Cassie don’t exactly hit it off. He criticizes the SideStep too. Cassie defends it, saying they’re about to open another, in fact.

Ed: Where, at the airport?

He is NOT happy to hear that Luna is moving to Austin. Like not at all. Luna blurts out he’s moving “because I love her” and Cassie overhears.

He tells Cassie that Ed had a pretty rough relationship with his mom and can get defensive; that they were there for each other and he’s afraid to lose that.

He also admits that what she overheard is true.

Luna: I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but there’s no denying it. I love you.

Twisted Family History

We pick up Stella’s story with her taking off to find the necklace, while Liam confronts Augie about where she’s gone, pissed as hell that she kept lying to him about being okay and desperate to know where she might have gone. August, unfortunately, doesn’t really know. Bonham and Mawline hear all the yelling and August comes clean about the necklace and Joanna Rawlins’ threats.

Anybody who saw Mawline’s face when Joanna’s name was mentioned knew something interesting was about to happen.

Geri calls Cordell to tell him about his daughter being in danger, Liam warning he’s “not in the best headspace”.  Geri wants him to come home and help, but he says he’ll go check out a gazebo where she’s hid out before instead.

Read more →

Are You Ready for ‘The Boys’ Season 4? Catch Up Now!

Are You Ready for ‘The Boys’ Season 4? Catch Up Now!

spnfans

The new season of Prime Video’s Emmy winning series ‘The Boys’ drops THIS WEEK – are you ready?

There’s SO much to look forward to.

There will be new Supes…

Oedipal struggles…

Toxic masculinity exploration… (that is just so nice to look at…)

There will be so much more that I can’t talk about at all yet, but suffice it to say that this season will be one you can’t look away from! (Okay maybe I covered my eyes once or twice, but I also could not stop watching or exclaiming about just how fucking awesome the show is.) My standards were high after Season 3, but Kripke and company didn’t let me down.

You can catch up on all things The Boys and know just where we left off with all your favorite characters (whether they’re your favorites to love or hate or a little of both) with the book that takes a deep dive into the show and the characters and the talented actors who bring them to life – Supes Ain’t Always Heroes.

Just like the show, the book is also a wild ride. There are chapters dissecting the characters, from Homelander to Butcher, Starlight to Stormfront, Hughie to A Train and many more.

There are exclusive interviews with the actors who have so much insight into what makes their characters tick. (I love what Jensen Ackles has to say about Soldier Boy and why the role was so compelling. He knows it was…look at that expression).

There are deep dives into the themes the show tackles and how it reflects some things about real life even as there are also exploding penises and superhero orgies and flying hamsters.

Pick up your copy today and be ready for next week – it happens to be on sale on Amazon right now.

Amazon and bookstore links and info at: Supes Ain’t Always Heroes

Then hang on for another wild ride! Who knows what Season 5 will bring…

–Lynn

Walker gets Weird with ‘A History of Horrors and Other Tales’

Walker gets Weird with ‘A History of Horrors and Other Tales’

spnfans

As Walker heads into its final five episodes, the show is taking some innovative turns, which I’m really enjoying. I don’t like media to be too predictable, and while some things still are (Stella, I’m looking at you…), there’s plenty going on that’s not. In fact, some of it is downright confusing, which I actually don’t mind as long as there’s eventually an explanation.

Full disclosure, my good friend Alana King is the post production coordinator on this episode, but seriously, look at this episode!

I love the look of it, the innovative editing, the music, everything! Jared Padalecki’s portrayal of Cordell is fascinating right now – what’s going on in his head?? We can so clearly see that he is not okay, even as he keeps insisting he is, because of all the little nonverbal cues Padalecki uses to tell us in no uncertain terms that something is very wrong.

But what exactly is it? I love that I’m asking that question.

The “previously” ends with Cordell knocked out by the Jackal, which is….interesting. I had heard that this episode was kinda trippy and maybe a little unreal, so I was already looking for clues that things might not be as they seem, and that felt like it could be one. We’ll see…

Not On The Same Page at HQ

Cordell wakes up at 3 am in the dark, falling back to the mattress and looking like I do when I REALLY don’t wanna get up in the morning.

gifs jaredwalkersam

There’s a montage of the morning that’s beautifully cut together but also confusing, as Cordell goes back to his wall of weird and Captain James starts his morning out with the case too, while Cassie and Trey talk about their upcoming interviews for lieutenant.

Everything is weird right off the bat though, HQ nearly deserted other than Cassie and Trey. And Cordi and Geri sitting in the lounge area. Geri is back, excited to tell Cordell about her plans for the new Side Step, and a bit annoyed with him – as she puts it – “boy listening”. He’s distracted, twitchy, on edge. Geri talks about it as their business, the next step in their lives.

Cordi: I’m so happy for you.

Ouch.

She urges him to think about taking a break – a vacation even.

Both are themes of the episode, the tension between “us” and “you” and how decisions can be made that are one or the other and maybe not seen in the same way by two people. And also the theme of needing to step back and take a break, or risk getting tunnel vision and making some very bad decisions. I like that the show tackles a lot of those universal themes, that all of us can relate to. Communication between two people is hard, whether you’re partners or siblings, related by blood or otherwise. When are things about “us” and when is something just about “you”?

There’s also an underlying tension throughout the episode because of time pressure, and isn’t that realistic to just about all of our lives? James says they need to have a real breakthrough by the end of the day or the Jackal case will be turned over to the FBI, which nobody is happy to hear (though I can’t help but think that might be a good thing!)  As they go over the loose ends, Cordell has that pounding and ringing in his ears, as they talk about the one victim who got away. They all recall that victim said the digoxin made him feel like he was crazy, or on an acid trip, or having a lucid dream.

Hmmmmm. Lucid dream, huh? Hmmm.

Read more →