Tag: TV

Only Murders in the Building (S5, 2025, Hulu)

Note: this is commentary on all of Season 5, so there are Spoilers!

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This is my wife’s favorite show on television, and we’ve been watching since we tried Hulu at season one mainly to see the show.  I was unsure how the gimmick was going to hold up, but here we are with a season six announced and no real downgrade in the quality of the show. But do I have things to say? Yes!

They tried to give Steve Martin’s character some kind of “b” story for growth but the testosterone thing was very hit-or-miss.  Martin Short is a loveable cringe to watch but I wonder if things are on the horizon for his marriage to Meryl Streep to be dissolved. There just seemed to be notes of unhappiness there for him. Selena Gomez did a fine job this season but I worried about her health as she really slimmed down. I read she’s recently married so I hope it was from a good place as she is beautiful either way.

Guest stars this year were a mixed bag.  Dianne Wiest seemed out of place even given the character. Tea Leone was given a scattered character and gave a scattered performance. (Her character’s adult sons were one of the bright spots of the season.) The billionaires were funny impressions, most of all Renee Zellweger’s not-Martha.  Keegan-Michael Key was another without a lot to do, but he did prove important to the season.

They seem locked into a ten-episode format which is just long enough to develop a good murder mystery with some twists, but not so long that it needs padded episodes.  The standout of the season for me was episode two, “After You.”  It really gave Lester a showcase episode while moving the plot significantly along.

The main thing that bothered me at the end of the season was showing Dianne Wiest’s character as having achieved the dream of living in the Arconia, but it looked to me like Mabel’s squatter apartment.  Does this mean that Mabel has a new place? I hope this is quickly addressed.  The biggest bright spot was one of the sons dating Howard–I hope there’s a fun way to keep seeing this develop.

It’s always a tricky thing when a hit show travels, so we will see what happens to the gang in London (and how long they are there) for season six.

How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014)

NOTE: The show’s been finished for over ten years, but if you are watching it for the first time, don’t read this as it spoils some parts of the last season.

I had this to say after the series finale:

March 31, 2014
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OMG HIMYM. Strangely satisfying. Will say more later out of respect for those who couldn’t watch it tonight.

Only, I never went back and said more.  Lately, YouTube has been showing me short clips of HIMYM and I was reminded that Cristin Milioti played the Mother well before her Emmy-winning performance on The Penguin. (And, wow, two very different characters!)

I was invested in the show as it aired, and after watching a few of those clips I went back and found that the series was on Hulu, and watched four episodes of season 9, their last.

I was bowled over by Milioti’s performance, and the way that she and Ted were perfect together was a joy to watch, especially recalling all of the near misses before they met on the train platform in Milioti’s standout episode 16, “How Your Mother Met Me.”

Watching their near-misses and meet-cute encapsulated reminds me a bit of the opening of Up, when we witness one of the greatest love stories ever, and then we get the rest of the movie.  That’s more appropriate than I first realized, as in HIMYM we see years of loving moments with Ted and Tracy only to find out she died of an unspecified illness.

The show’s creators always intended the ending they left us with (even filming the kids’ parts years before).  I don’t know if I would still call the ending “satisfying.”  I do know that Ted was incredibly lucky to have found his true love.  In my fifties, having watched many relationships around me, I realize that the kind of do-over Ted and Robin get is something incredibly rare and precious.  Maybe I’d be happier with the ending if that came through just a little more.

Peacemaker Season 2 (2025, HBO Max)

I have not been a huge fan of the character of Peacemaker in the comics.  Like Harley Quinn, I really didn’t see the fuss until there were some changes and growth in the character.  I didn’t like Peacemaker in the movie Suicide Squad and I only watched about an episode and a half of season one of the show.

With James Gunn now the lord and master of DC TV & movies, I figured I would give S2 a look as I was reading that events would tie into future storytelling.  I’m glad I did.  I think John Cena has done a really good acting job with the character, and like Harleen Quinzel, Christopher Smith is actually pretty interesting.  The supporting characters each have something compelling or interesting about them as well.

There are a couple of elements from DC storytelling that get set up in S2, so I am glad I watched.  While I’ve read most everything of the big storylines from DC in the last 40 years, most times when watching a show it just gives me a ‘ping’ that something is coming from comics source material. Thank goodness for the internet to help refresh my memory!

One warning about this series is that the language, situations, and visuals (nudity, sex, violence) can be extreme and it’s definitely not a show for most kids younger than late teens.

The internet already tells me James Gunn has said there are no plans for a season three but that the characters and setups matter to other projects. It’s going to be quite the ride to see what Gunn picks from to make his DC Universe.