Mayans M.C. 1x01 Perro/Oc

I have a confession to make: I’ve only ever seen the first five episodes of Sons of Anarchy. It’s not that I didn’t like it – although the part where a dude’s full back tattoo was literally fried off his back had lasting impressions on me, and not in a good way – I guess I was just never in the mood for it ever again. That sounds weird, I know, but it’s the truth. For this reason, I wasn’t interested in its spinoff at all either. Then I found out that Sarah Bolger was going to be in it, and as a one-time OUAT guest star I liked, I felt obligated to check out her newest role. But am I really going to get into a show I potentially won’t even understand or like just because of a single actor? … Well yeah, of course I am, it wouldn’t be the first time. So yesterday as I was bracing myself for the episode, I did one last IMDb check, and it turns out she’s not the only one I know in it! Danny Pino, aka Scotty Valens from Cold Case (remember Cold Case? It was such a good series) also stars, and so does Maurice Compte, who played one of my favourite characters in Narcos, Colonel Carrillo. What’s more, apparently not a single member of the main cast ever appeared on Sons on Anarchy, like… not even once. That’s probably not good news for SoA fans who were hoping to see some of their favourites appear here full-time (if they’re still alive, that is), but it was what finally sold me on the series. I’m aware that I’ll probably miss a bunch of in-jokes and easter eggs and the like, but from the premiere I got the feeling that it will mostly be an independent story only tangentially related to SoA, and I’m more than fine with that.

2018-19 Fall TV Season Preview

After a seemingly very short but sometimes excrutiatingly hot summer, fall is now upon us. Days are getting shorter, leaves are turning beautiful colours, and people in Western countries are getting ready for Halloween while us in Hungary brace ourselves for the annual awakening of smartasses crying „Halloween is a dumb American holiday, TRUE Hungarians celebrate All Saints’ Day!” That’s always so much fun.

But more importantly, fall means most of our favourite TV series are coming back, with proper, long, beautiful seasons, instead of that ten episode summer nonsense. If you’re a big-time TV addict like me, you probably have a good idea of your seasonal schedule by now, and I figured since it’s going to be one of the main concerns of this blog, I’ll go into a bit of detail about mine. Yay!

The Purge 1x01 What Is America?

 

I’ve never seen any of The Purge movies but I know enough about them to have come to the conclusion that they’re essentially a questionably executed pretty interesting idea, done over and over again. A 12 hour period when every and all crime is legal, and for some reason all anybody can think about is murder? Please. I have more faith in people than that. Most of us would probably do stuff that would be actually beneficial for us in the long run, like rescue animals from kill shelters, or loot a bookstore. Am I just really naive? Maybe. Probably. The point is, I don’t know anything about the bigger mythology of the franchise, if such a thing even exists, which means I’ll probably miss tons of references and such in the TV series, at least until I finally bring myself to watch the movies.

One Dollar 1x01-02

Literally the only thing I knew about One Dollar when I decided to watch its first episode was that it features several characters who at one point each possess the titular one dollar bill, and who all end up being connected to a murder committed in their small town. This was enough for me to be interested – I like it when a series tries to distinguish itself from the thousands of other murder investigation shows in some way, and the one dollar method seemed like a particularly clever idea.

Melmoth - Sarah Perry (2018)

Traitor's Blade - Sebastien de Castell (2014)

„We’re going to get a terrible reputation if we just keep travelling across the countryside crying all the time.”

The Tattooist of Auschwitz - Heather Morris (2018)

The Serpent - Sarah Fine (2018)

 "I've never been in a duel where my opponent's first play was to throw a giant dildo at me."

Queen Victoria's Matchmaking - Deborah Cadbury (2017)

 „His studious grandfather, as a young nineteen-year-old, had ventured to correct no less an authority than the pope on the finer points of Egyptian influences on Greek art.”

The Affair 4x08 Episode 8

  

 

If you feel as dumbfounded, devastated even, by the latest episode of The Affair, as I do, you might as well go ahead and blame me because didn’t I fervently wish for something like this to happen? Not exactly this, mind you. But watching the last two or tree episodes, while there were certainly things I enjoyed, I came to the realization that the show just doesn’t intrigue me anymore as much as it used to, and there’s a simple reason for that: The Affair, for all its complicated characters and ever-evolving relationships, became predictable in its outrageousness. Literally all the supposed-to-be-shocking moments in the last episodes could have been seen from a mile away: Cole deciding he wants to get back with Alison, Noah getting involved with his boss, Vik sleeping with Sierra, even Helen sleeping with Sierra (because God forbid we have one last remaining main character who’s not a cheater)– all were obvious from the beginning of their respective episodes, if not earlier. I’ve gotten to the point where I felt nothing could actually surprise me anymore. And then episode 8 happened, and it was a gut punch, there’s no other way to frame it. When it ended, and I had a little time to compose my feelings, I had to let a loud „wow” to my empty room, because I just had to say something, anything, and unfortunately that was all I could manage.