Books:
Soulstar (Kingston Cycle Book 3) by C.L. Polk
I'm bummed to say that I found this final book in a fantasy trilogy I’ve really enjoyed so far (first and second) to be DNFably boring. Plot summary in a nutshell: in a small country mimicking England (or maybe Denmark) in a not post-WWI where magic is limited to the elite and others have to hide it or be locked away in asylums - and without spoilering here - whereas the first two books were about two family members using the system to fight the system and were a blend of politics, mystery, and adventure (meaning lots of machinations, an unraveling of plot details, and taking action, magic or otherwise, in the service of righting wrongs), this final book kind of acts as if the previous two weren't fantasy, didn't involve magic, and in some ways, other than setting up the current situation, didn't even exist and instead what you're left with is a fantasy book where the sole fantasy is that of the enactment of socially conscious liberal policies (and given the current state of worldwide politics, talk about fantasy!). In other words, it's a book of the non-binary, power-dynamic-outsiders trying to get restitution for the wrongs done to them and overturn a system - monarchy - in favor of democracy and, unfortunately, the book is about as tedious, wish-fulfillment-y, and speechy as that description sounds. To be clear, this critique has nothing to do with the particulars of the politics but rather with the fact that books 1 and 2 were, sure, driven in part by the politics but they weren’t about the politics; they were about the characters and some magic and romance and, additionally, an entire foreign race of magical beings and all of that gets swept away in this third novel which is entirely about the disenfranchised standing up for themselves and the bummer here is that the author, whom I think is talented given his/her/their/zie’s prior books, didn't give those disenfranchised the same magical adventure-y plotty fun book s/t/he/y gave to the other two. The first two books were told from the POV of the some of the wealthy fighting the system and it's as if the minute the disenfranchised got involved, the author felt compelled to sweep away all humor and magic and replace it with nonstop polemics, which is essentially all this book is. It's a bummer the author chose not to treat disenfranchised rebels fighting for their place with the same narrative qualities zie gave to zie’s wealthy characters perhaps because, I don't know, the author felt these were important issues and that putting them into the same light, magical world as the other two books would diminish their importance in some way? I really don't know; all I know is the author wrote two fun books and one super boring plotless stinker. I will absolutely continue to look out for his/her/their/zie’s other work and hope he/she/they/zie figures out a way to treat substantive current political issues with the same sense of plotty fun h/s/t/z brought to h/s/t/z’s other work.
TV/Streaming:
Snowpiercer (Season 2):
I continue to absolutely love this series version of a movie I’ve never seen and found it to be as entertaining as Season 1 if not even more so. The basic setup is some globally-frozen near future where the only human survivors are stuck together on a train specifically designed to keep circling - the entire world somehow I think maybe - and serve as humanity’s ark. Season 1 was a class war between the wealthy who bought their way onto the train and the service people (more or less) with an enormous amount that I’m not going to mention due to spoiler reasons. Suffice to say, there was a lot of plotting and action and some twists along the way. This second season picks up in the aftermath of a big plot twist that changed everything at the end of season 1 and results in people being forced into uncomfortable alliances in order to deal with a larger problem. Yes that’s all very vague but, ya know, spoilers. What I love about this show is that it’s action packed, takes itself very seriously, has some devious plots, plus some really great acting (Jennifer Connelly - I think she’s really good in this, this season especially - and Martha from The Americans) and truly atrocious acting (Daveed Diggs) both of which are equally entertaining. It’s a survival story where society has to keep reconfiguring, and it manages to generate a surprising amount of tension and plot from a bunch of people stuck on a train in bad weather and I’ve got no complaints about any of it. Bring on season 3, please!
Transplant (Season 1):
This show, apparently huge in Canada (which is maybe the review in and of itself), is essentially a cheap, poorly-written ER. It's literally the exact same hospital resident drama of that show only boring. Really how is it possible that they haven't managed to evolve this form (or opted not to)? Go watch ER; even though it was made in the '90s I can tell you from the seasons I've watched so far that it's operating (pun!) at a level this thing can't even approach. And given the fact that ER does it for multiple seasons, it shows you the level of writing talent on that show as opposed to this one. In a sense ER is the same show episode to episode and season to season, meaning what makes it all work are the story arcs and the acting. It's not enough just to have doctors on as consultants as some resident runs around trying to figure out why a kid isn't responding to some vaccine or whatever. It needs to be a story and characters and what ER did was the combine the two in the context of all the medical stuff. This show doesn't, but I thought it might because it seemed to have a unique component that, in my mind though not in reality, would make this an interesting drama, which is the lead being a Syrian asylum-seeker who was a doctor in Syria and is now forced to start over in Canada/New York (where the show is set). Unfortunately it's just a character trait that goes nowhere and is inhaled by all the medical "mysteries" seen in 50 billion other shows. The rest of the characters are all dull retreads - the wacky House-like doctor, the asshole resident, etc. etc. - as are the plots; what makes shows like this work are rich character lives and plots and drama that spins from character - if you've seen The Good Wife, you'll know what I mean in how that show (a law show for those who haven't seen) managed to combine legal as opposed to medical mysteries each week with long-term office, personal, and romantic drama into a big old absorbing potboiler with the legal cases adding to the drama rather than serving as a sidebar (another pun!) to it. Really this show should've lifted from a different show - M*A*S*H (don't ask me what the asterisks mean because I have no idea) - and taken a Syrian refugee medical resident and stuck him along with some other doctors in a present-day hot zone like in the Mideast and done a hospital show there which would've made for a, IJHO, much more interesting dramatic powderkeg than yet another ER ripoff.
Louie (Season 1-2):
I don't care who Louie jacked off in front or showed his dick to or whatever he did that got him cancelled, he's a friggin' comic genius period the end. This show is like a grimdark ultra realistic Seinfeld in that it has extended comic bits - especially in the opening and end segments - that deal in observational life minutiae intercut with episodic stories that are equally minute but deeply real. The plots are things like "Louie takes his kids trick or treating and meets some bad people" and this is the genius of the show: like that's a pretty grim plot and in fact the way that particular story played out was stressful yet also somehow hilarious in a deeply real way. I sometimes watch this show and am just kind of in awe of the writing staff as they are fearless about relentlessly pounding an issue over and over and focusing on it in such excruciating detail that it just feels more and more escalated across the episode in ways that seem totally natural but are also hilarious. Like the way in one's own life when one is faced with an annoying problem - the subway gets stuck somewhere, a family member makes an irritating demand, a neighbor does something inconsiderate - it can all seem to be very important and worse and worse and more and more the source of complaining until poof it's gone and you forget about it because it was an irritating few hours or days but nothing particularly meaningful. But when you're in it, it feels like that's all there is, and this show is just so great at immersing you in those moments and capturing all the ridiculous, selfish, and bad thought processes we all have as we sort our way out of them. If you were like me and missed this show when it was on the air and then ignored it during his real-life cancellation well all I can say is based on these first two seasons at least, it's great.
Movies:
Captain America: Civil War (Marvel Universe #13) - Finally Marvel realized what I've been saying the whole time: superheroes running around destroying everything and murdering a bunch of people in the name of chasing off whatever villain is currently messing with them is a BAD IDEA! Sure, it only took them 12 movies to catch up with moi, and that's just the start of this review being peppered with references to my genius! Also why this is a "Captain America" movie when basically every superhero is in it is beyond me but whevs. Onto the plot.
So apparently by which I mean apparently to everyone but me, the super soldier baddie who used to be MAGA's bestie in MAGA #1 is now a kinda-baddie, like in the good/bad middle or something? Anyway, there's a backstory where he was brainwashed to go into destructo-mode on a particular cue at which point we cut to the present tense where the Avengers, who've brainwashed themselves into thinking the world is better off with them in it, murder a shit-ton of people and destroy a huge swath of a city in the name of their mission, a deeply heartfelt one and they so would've rather been staying home catching up on Media Report but a baddie was out there and so they had to go murder a bunch of innocents and amass billions in property damage instead.
For once, this doesn't fly as it turns out mass murder and wiping out entire cities isn't well met by the survivors, even if said killings/destruction was done in the most kind and caring planet-saving way, i.e. the “innocents had to die for the greater good” which is more or less the core political justification of every terrorist or authoritarian regime throughout history. Thus, an accord is passed by the UN (OMG I’ll be getting to that choice in one hot second) where half(ish - it's unclear) of the Avengers decide to let the UN be the boss of them and the other half don't. I'd just note that Iron Man, the most egregious offender when it comes to putting self-interest ahead of the survival of literally anyone he comes into contact with, is the first in line and the most diligent rah-rah supporter of being told what to do in the face of all prior films to the contrary. Lest we forget: in Iron Man, he rampaged/murdered in order to remain CEO of his company; in Iron Man 2, he rampaged/murdered to get a new power pack for his suit that someone else wanted; in Iron Man 3, he rampaged/murdered because other people - perhaps quite rightfully based on the prior two films - decided he was simply too dangerous so he killed them all while wiping out thousands of others in the process; let's not even go into his murder/rampage-by-proxy as a result of his poorly executed oopsie-I-maybe-accidentally-created-a-planet-destroying-robot-sorry idea in Avengers: Age of Ultron. On the one hand, I, and the rest of the planet, am really glad he's turned into one of those self-aware sociopaths who knows he can't control himself and needs to be locked up - ooh, sexy! - on the other, given that the only thing restraining Iron Man is Iron Man and, given his history of self-control, perhaps the Marvel writers might have wanted to consider literally any of the other Avengers than Iron Man for this particular character choice. Arguably Hulk, putty in the hands of lady man-tamer Scarjo (man-taming being her prime superpower as noted previously), would've been more likely to follow the rules or at least isn't able to fly so would have some limits on the locales he could destroy.
Though why the Marvel writers who managed to invent (lift from a comic book (sorry graphic novel)) a whole buncha people with superpowers plus two superhero-based government organizations - Hydra = bad guys, S.H.I.E.L.D = good guys though the difference between them is completely undefined - couldn't also invent a meaningful worldwide governing body beyond the UN is also beyond me. The UN! Really?!?! The UN is powerless because representative democracy barely works in a country of 300ish million (that would be the US) and, let’s see, 7 billion people on the planet, 193 UN countries according to Google, so who wants 0.000000003% of the world - really 0.000000001% (the five countries like the US that have permanent actual voting power) - having, basically, nuclear launch codes? Like how is the UN friggin' better than just the Avengers deciding based on their own individual morality? Oh, right, so they can blame the UN for a bunch of murders and destruction instead of bearing the blame for that themselves. We know the UN is useless and the way we know this is that it hasn't been taken over and suborned by the megawealthy and corporations - they're ignoring it QED it's powerless. Everyone jot yourself a note to wake up and panic about the UN if the bajillionaires start courting it.
So once again with the Avengers, we're left with the question of: who, if any, are the good guys? What's being posited in the film is the planet has 3 options: 1, a world dictated by the 0.000000001% above which, as we all know, really means the 1% in each of the respective countries, i.e. a world run by the megawealthy and backed by the unstoppable superpowers of the Avengers - does that sound good to anyone?; 2, a world dictated by the whims of the Avengers, i.e. a world in which they, with expressions of deep regret, murder millions and destroy untold volumes of property in their pursuit of whomever they deem to be the "enemy" - if the prior 12 movies have demonstrated anything, it’s that this also is not a good idea; 3, a world dictated by the whims of the "enemy" though why that's any worse than the other two is beyond me, like what’s Hydra up to that’s more horrible than what the Avengers have already done? And, no, I AM NOT SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME THINKING ABOUT THIS! Arguably these movies would’ve been better served had the screenwriters spent a tenth of the 3 minutes I just spent writing all this thinking about it themselves though, giving the writing skill evinced in the prior films, equally arguably not at all.
In any event, the prologue eventually pays off when the supersoldier is given his cue and half the Avengers want to go wipe him out (though how exactly are you, combative half of the Avengers, any better?) and the UN, for equally completely inexplicable reasons, tells their Avengers to stand down (and, again, what exactly is the moral authority of the UN and are we even really saying that it's possible for anything to be in the interests of the 7 billion earth inhabitants other than food, water, shelter, and opportunity and beyond that who can say what's best?), all of which results in the only possible outcome of them pitting themselves against each other in a megabattle which in turn results in the very thing that got them into this idiocy to begin with. They go at each other but I guess Iron Man is strongest or something because everyone else seems to be powerless before him (which really puts all prior movies into question I might add) but in the end, after an unbelievable amount of carnage, it all magically works, i.e. the Avengers ditch the UN and go back to being their normal self-absorbed we'll-destroy-anyone-and-anything-but-for-very-principled-reasons selves and head off as a gang to do exactly that.
So standing ovation we won! Or… they won? Hmm, are the Avengers part of “us” or “them”? It’s hard to tell because the outcome - mass murder and citywide destruction - seems to be the same regardless. Well I guess I’ll have to wait for the next one to find out, though I’m pretty sure, whatever power compromise was made in this movie, humanity and everything it’s built will be definitely be the losers.