Dead Boy Detectives, A Review

The afterlife’s finest are here.

Dead Boy Detectives follows our titular sleuthing duo Edwin (George Rexstrew) and Charles (Jayden Revri) as they spend their own afterlife solving the various crimes and dilemmas of the recently departed, all the while running from Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Cruella) herself so that they can stay together and not be separated in Hell. Their most recent case then introduces them to Crystal Palace (Kassius Nelson, White Lines), a young psychic who is having trouble with Demonic possession when her toxic ex David (David Iacono, The Flight Attendant) refuses to leave her head.

The trio manage to vanquish David temporarily and then flee to Port Townsend, Washington in the hopes of solving another case with Crystal volunteering to help out along the way. In town the trio are befriended by Jenny the Butcher (Brianna Cuoco) and fellow lodger Niko (Yuyu Kitamura), also making enemies with local witch Esther (Jenn Lyon) as well as the Cat-King (Lukas Gage, You) who strands the group in town after Edwin insults one of his cats. Now stuck with no way out the newly formed agency set up shop once again, this time helping out a whole new clientele in a whole new country. Death however catches up with everyone in the end and soon enough the boys will be running from more than just errant clients and dodgy witches.

Dead Boy Detectives was such a fun show and I really loved the agency setup and monster of the week format, seeing the team stuck in this little town and helping the various spirits and ghosts out whilst also trying to escape themselves made for such a fun watch. I never did watch the recent Sandman series (although maybe now I should) and wasn’t all too familiar with the comics but I was still able to dive headfirst into this series and have such a fun time watching.

Edwin and Charles as our leads were such brilliant characters and I really loved their friendship and chemistry throughout, it was really believable that these two had been stuck together for so many years. The fun-loving Charles and more buttoned up Edwin made for the perfect opposites attract kind of duo and their friendship really shined through, this was a pair that would quite literally go to hell for each other and their bond was just so special. Supporting cast wise I also loved Crystal and Niko and their own relationships with the duo, I imagine it was nice for Charles and Edwin to finally have friends their own age who could actually see them and the Charles/Crystal and Edwin/Niko bonds especially made for some really nice scenes, this really is a wonderful group of characters.

I really liked how this show was able to explore character trauma in both the living and the dead and how these characters had gone through some seriously disturbing stuff and were then able to lean on each other in order to get through. Charles and Edwin were obviously mourning the loss of their own lives but we also got some backstory on Charles’ abusive homelife and Edwin’s own struggles with his sexuality as well as Crystal’s demon issues, Niko’s issues with her family and even some of Jenny’s later trauma after her stalker debacle. This was definitely a show that wasn’t afraid to shy away from some serious issues and I liked the very open way it discussed it and how we got to explore how our trauma doesn’t just go away even after hundreds of years of avoiding it.

Overall I absolutely loved watching Dead Boy Detectives and hope to God this show gets a second season, Edwin and Charles’ story is far from over. The characters, team dynamic and Port Townsend setting all made for such a fun vibe and I really loved the monster of the week setup whilst also exploring each characters own personal histories and trauma. This show has been so much fun for me to watch and I really hope we get to see more from Edwin, Charles, Crystal and Niko- I love their group friendship and just want to keep watching them solve crimes for all of eternity.

Blood & Water- Season 4, A Review

New year, new mystery.

Season 1 2 3 Review.

The fourth season of Blood & Water follows Puleng (Ama Qamata) and the rest of Parkhurst High as they attempt to move on from their recent trauma and the events of the baby-napping ring, with the crime having gone to trial and all those involved arrested. The group hope that a new year at Parkhurst will be a fresh start for everyone but soon enough an anonymous texter begin causing drama, hoping to shine light on a past crime and bring those responsible to justice. Both Puleng and Fiks (Khosi Ngema) find themselves targets after a sex tape featuring Puleng and Iván (André Lamoglia, Elite) (side note: I really loved this character crossover) is leaked and Fiks herself is forced to look back on her actions.

Meanwhile KB’s (Thabang Molaba) music career takes off with Chris (Arno Greeff, Recipes for Love and Murder) as his manager but a sampling error puts the pair in danger once more with the wrong sort of people. Wendy (Natasha Thahane) also returns from Spain but finds her relationship with Chris difficult to maintain, especially with her own grades failing. Tahira (Mekaila Mathys) faces similar issues and chooses to take drastic measures to improve her scholarship chances, putting her entire future in jeopardy. With so much going on in their lives will the students even make it to graduation or will secrets and lies threaten them once more and make this a last year they’re sure to never forget?

Season four saw us going down the classic teen drama route of anonymous texting, with ‘Pool Boy’ targeting both Puleng and Fiks and blackmailing them over a previous incident at Parkhurst. Whilst the mystery within the rest of the narrative felt a bit weird (more on that later) I did enjoy the actual execution and getting to see this new form of danger for the students through blackmail. Anonymous texting is pretty much a teen drama staple at this point (PLL, One of us is Lying) and I do always enjoy the mystery of it all. It was a bit annoying that the culprit was somebody we’d never even met (how very PLL) but in terms of entertainment I did enjoy from this perspective.

I liked how season four addressed the severe trauma several of the characters have went through these past four years and how they aren’t going to just magically move on from everything, especially considering how so many family members were involved in the baby-napping ring. We saw both Puleng and Fiks seeking therapy as well as Sam’s (Leroy Siyafa) own PTSD after his kidnaping and later intimacy issues as a result. So many of these teen dramas have their character’s involved in daring and dangerous activities but so rarely do we actually see the aftermath and here especially it can’t have been easy to realise that your parents/friend’s parents aren’t necessarily good people.

Whilst I definitely enjoyed this fourth season of Blood & Water it also felt kind of random and honestly the show could have ended at season three and nothing really would have changed. The overall storyline here had little to do with the baby kidnapping ring, moving on completely and focussing on a whole new mystery that just did not feel as genuine. So much of the backstory was pre Puleng even joining Parkhurst and so I don’t really know why she became involved other than trying to save Fik’s life. It just felt weird being introduced to these completely new characters who were apparently hellbent on revenge, all for an incident we’d never even hear of in the three years the show had been running. After such a well built up arc across the first three seasons this final mystery just felt a bit too random and it’s definitely one of the show’s weaker seasons in this regard.

Although there’s been no official news yet I am going to assume that this was the final season of Blood & Water, especially since we saw the main cast all graduate and leave the school. Unless the show tries to introduce us to a whole new set of characters I do think this is the last time we’re going to see Puleng, Fiks and the others and on the whole I have really enjoyed this show for the past four years. On the surface this was just another teen mystery drama but I think that the missing sibling and baby-napping angle gave it a really unique perspective and I really loved following Puleng on her journey to get to the truth. The show’s side characters have also all been really enjoyable and this is definitely one of those rare shows where even the comedic side plots can be just as engaging as the main mystery.

Overall I enjoyed this fourth (and potentially final?) season of Blood & Water and whilst the main mystery felt a little bit random I still liked seeing the characters again and getting to say a final goodbye to Parkhurst as a whole. Blood & Water as a show had been massively entertaining and I really loved the private school setting and the initial baby-napping setup, it felt fresh and different from your other teen dramas. Puleng, Fiks, Chris and more have all been so great over the years and this is definitely one of my higher ranking teen dramas, it never got too crazy and I think it also ended right when it needed to.

Killer Book Club, A Review

Fanfiction gone wild can be deadly.

Not to be confused with The Book Club.

Killer Book Club follows Ángela (Veki Velilla), a young writer and university student who is part of a group book club with several other literature students as well as her boyfriend Nando (Iván Pellicer). Ángela once published a semi-successful novel when she was younger but has since gained major writer’s block, attending classes in the hopes of regaining her spark. The club’s current read is a clown-filled horror and when Ángela’s professor (Daniel Grao) tries to assault her the group get the idea to scare him all donned in ‘killer clown’ costumes. The prank goes wrong however when Cruzado falls from the school’s building and is impaled, scaring the group who all reluctantly agree to keep quiet rather than going to the cops. The next however an anonymous source begins uploading chapters detailing the murder online, promising that he group will all be killed off one by one. With time now running out Ángela and her friends must fight to survive and unmask the killer amongst them, all before they become the latest in a long line of fictional bloody kills.

I really enjoyed this film and loved its classic slasher vibes tied with the more literary themes and how it was able to combine the two in a very clever way (more on that later). The film took your basic masked killer trope and really played around with it, having the killer write out his own murders and publish them online in a chapter by chapter style. The physical look of the killer was also fun and I loved the clown costume and how it again connected to the book the club were reading, exploring some fun themes of coulrophobia. Ángela made for a pretty standard final girl and whilst some of the side characters were certainly more interesting I did like the final motive behind the murders and how it all connected back to her.

Killer Book club was very Scream coded (especially Scream 2 with the campus setting) and I liked how the film explored the horror genre and how this can effect its audiences, this time in books rather than movies and TV. Like the Scream franchise the film gave us a masked killer targeting fans of the genre, even going so far as to insert himself into the narrative and give everybody nicknames based on your classic horror tropes (eg nerd, brat, emo etc). I do wish we’d gotten to explore some more horror novels within the film (mostly for reading inspiration for me!) but I did like the meta feel of it all and definitely hope we get to see more in the future.

Overall I enjoyed watching Killer Book Club and loved the set up of the killer using the online fanfiction to kill off the members one by one as well as the running commentary on the horror genre and its fanbase, it was very Scream coded. The university campus setting was also a nice touch and I liked how each character was relegated to a teen drama trope, furthering the meta feel of the movie. An overall fun and exciting slasher, I’d definitely be down for the hinted sequel or any more works of this similar style.

The Lincoln Lawyer- Season 2, A Review

LA’s hottest defense attorney just found a new gear.

The Lincoln Lawyer Season 1 Review.

The second season of The Lincoln Lawyer follows Mickey Haller (Manuel García-Rulfo) who has since gained a lot of media attention because of the events of the first season, massively increasing his caseload as a result. His latest trial takes a personal stake however when Lisa Trammell (Lana Parrilla, Why Women Kill), a woman he has recently began seeing, is accused of murdering real estate developer Mitchell Bondurant. Lisa is a chef and owner of a small restaurant which Bondurant had been attempting to tear down in the name of gentrification, leading to protests and an eventual restraining order against Lisa as a result. Taking on her case, Lisa is adamant she didn’t murder anybody but an eye witness places her at the scene and blood and DNA is found in her home, leading to an immediate arrest. Facing off in the trial against DA Andy Freemann (Yaya DaCosta), Mickey will have his work cut out for him if he wants to prove Lisa’s innocence and once again come out on top. But with a mountain of evidence against him can Mickey pull out all the stops and win or will his short lived fame end in tears for everyone involved?

This time around for season two I did actually read the correct novel and so it was fun to be able to contrast and compare the original text with the TV adaptation. I think aside from some changes with Lisa’s character most of the trial process remained intact but this is one of the very few times I do actually prefer the TV show to the novel. I just think on the whole legal thrillers in book form aren’t really for me, I find them a bit long-winded and these books especially like to throw around their complicated legal jargon. I do enjoy the characters here (an impressive feat considering they’re all lawyers) and I will still read the next book to be adapted but on the whole this isn’t a book series I will go out of my way to read, I’m just not a massive fan of the genre overall.

I do however really love The Lincoln Lawyer as a TV show, mostly I think because legal dramas are a lot more exciting in the visual medium but also because the characters here feel a lot more fleshed out and I’ve really come to love the office group dynamic. Mickey feels mostly the same from book to TV and I really enjoy García-Rulfo’s performance but the show manages to elevate characters like Lorna (Becki Newton, Tell Me a Story) and Cisco (Angus Sampson) (who are pretty minor in the books) to much more real feeling people and I really loved seeing the wedding planning this season as well as Lorna’s journey to becoming a fully fledged lawyer. The show also brings Izzy (Jazz Raycole) into the mix, another character I love, and on the whole here the team feels a lot more like a family rather than just legal co-workers.

Like I said above one of the only major changes between the book and series was the character of Lisa and I have to say apart from the book’s ending I much preferred the role here, definitely helped along by my love of Lana Parrilla. I liked the initial chemistry between Mickey and Lisa and how the trial then progressed although I will say I was surprised the opposition never tried to use the romantic relationship against Mickey (especially since they weren’t involved like this in the novel). Regardless Parrilla gave an impressive performance, balancing the vulnerability of Lisa with her moments of anger that made you question her guilt. I was never quite sure if the series was going to have the same ending and whilst the do vary slightly I did like TV Lisa’s ending, especially that final reveal.

Overall I really enjoyed this second season of The Lincoln Lawyer and I continue to love this show even if I’m not the biggest fan of the books. Season two saw Mickey defending Lisa Trammell against murder charges and I loved the dynamic between the pair as well as the trial process and mounting tension throughout. I do think legal dramas work much better in TV form and so it was exciting to see the evidence built against Lisa (even though the two did have slightly different endings and end results).

Fool Me Once, A Review

Death follows you.

The Stranger Review. The Woods Review. The Innocent Review. Safe Review. Stay Close Review. Shelter Review.

Fool me Once follows Maya Stern (Michelle Keegan), a former solider whose life is forever changed when she witnesses her husband Joe’s (Richard Armitage) murder right in front of her during a robbery gone wrong in the park. Since then she has tried to move on with her life and look after Daughter Lily but when Joe then reappears on the nanny-cam she begins to question everything about his death. Speaking to DS Sami Kierce (Adeel Akhtar, Murder Mystery) who is still actively investigating the case, it is discovered that the gun used to kill Joe was also used to kill Maya’s own Sister Claire (Natalie Anderson) only a few months prior to Joe’s shooting. Claire was also seemingly killed in a robbery gone wrong but now Maya begins to think there is more to the story and something connecting the two murders. Reaching out to her in-laws and Joe’s Mother Judith (Joanna Lumely, Motherland), Maya hopes to get more information but is coldly shut down, making her realise how little she knows about the family. Realising there is something much bigger going on here Maya must investigate both Joe’s past and her own if she wants answers, plunging her into a world of uncertainty that she may not return from.

Harlan Coben has absolutely done it again with his brilliant storytelling and I really loved Fool Me Once, it’s definitely one of his better shows. The main mystery really hooked me in and as the series went on it only became more and more intriguing, resulting in a well-crafted mystery with one hell of a twist at the end. It seems as well that I’m not alone in this opinion and I’ve really enjoyed seeing everybody else’s reactions on social media, especially the numerous impressions of Maya throughout. This has definitely been an entertaining kind of watch and Coben has really cemented himself as a campy, guilty pleasure kind of watch, his mysteries are just so much fun.

Harlan Coben has proved himself to be such a master of the domestic thriller genre and I love how he takes these very ordinary people and puts them into life-changing situations. Now onto his seventh series with Netflix (as well as Shelter which was on Prime) I love the usual set up of these people discovering secrets within the communities they live in and realising that everybody has something to hide. Here Maya realises that people keep dying around her and everything is connected one way or another. We then get the dual storylines of both Maya and the police investigating and I loved how everything was woven together, it was so clever.

I really liked how Fool Me Once was able to play around with the perceptions of its characters, exploring the ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ arc so to speak and showing how sometimes we have to make the worst of choices in the best of situations. Despite being our protagonist and the show’s ‘hero’ Maya herself had made some choices in the past that could definitely be taken in the wrong context and a lot of her character arc was trying to fix past mistakes. In the same way Joe was seen as this really good thing in Maya’s life and the thing she was searching for but then as we dug a little deeper his true form revealed itself and then everything changed. Fool Me Once was definitely a series about tough choices and how people aren’t always what they seem and I really liked some of the slow reveals here, they completely changed how you saw some of the characters overall.

Overall I really enjoyed Fool Me Once and it’s definitely one of my favourite of Coben’s many series with Netflix. The first episode set up a really interesting mystery and this only got more and more intriguing and the episodes went on and Maya tried to unravel everything. A multi-layered story with one hell of a twist at the end, Fool Me Once was yet another of Coben’s greats and I can’t wait to see which of his books get adapted next.

The Midnight Club, A Review

Death is a rite of passage.

The Haunting of Hill House Review. The Haunting of Bly Manor Review. Midnight Mass Review. The Fall of the House of Usher Review. Hush Review.

The Midnight Club follows Ilonka (Iman Benson) a young teen whose life plans are derailed after she is diagnosed with thyroid cancer, putting her on a series of extensive treatments before she eventually decides to move into the Brightcliffe Home hospice to spend out the rest of her days. At Brightcliffe Ilonka meets seven other cancer sufferers as well as Dr. Georgina Stanton (Heather Langenkamp) and Nurse Mark (Zach Gilford, Good Girls) who both work at the clinic, where the patients are all given relative freedom and encouraged to talk openly about their illnesses. Ilonka also becomes part of the titular Midnight Club, where the eight patients all gather at Midnight to tell scary stories in the building’s library, also promising that the first to pass must send out a sign to the others that there truly is life beyond the grave.

Settling into a new routine, Ilonka continues to explore her home, meeting Shasta (Samantha Sloyan) who lives on a nearby commune and also becoming aware of a secret society that once operated from within the building. As strange things begin to happen within the group Ilonka and the others become convinced that there’s more going on than meets the eye and they become determined to get to the truth and then use the answers to hopefully all get better again. Brightcliffe however is not necessarily the haven it seems and there is so much going on that Ilonka remains unaware of. Can the group get the bottom of everything before it’s too late or will Brightcliffe become their final resting place in more ways than one?

Having just come off of watching the recent Fall of the House of Usher, Mike Flanagan was certainly on my mind and everybody online seemed to be hailing his work from Hill House to Bly Manor. Ranking lists were a plenty but for some reason The Midnight Club was dead last in every single one, being curious I wanted to find out why. I can’t actually remember why I didn’t watch this one when it first came out it seemed to fly under the radar of pretty much everyone (hence its cancellation). After watching the only thing I’m now confused on is why everybody slept on this series because I absolutely loved it. Yes, I’ll admit it isn’t scary in the slightest (especially compared to Flanagan’s other works) but it still managed to be good in a different way and I loved the mix of storytelling, group bonding and of course mystery and intrigue. The Midnight Club genuinely surprised me because honestly I was expecting the absolute worst but this show is truly a hidden gem and I urge anyone to watch, I think you’ll end up surprising yourself.

I think of the main reasons a lot of people regard this series so low compared to Flanagan’s other wok is because of its real lack of scare factor and whilst that’s definitely true the series manages to impress in other ways, particularly that of how we process grief. At its centre The Midnight Club is an incredibly morbid series because it’s basically about a group of teens all waiting to see who will die first but despite that it isn’t all doom and gloom and instead we get some real emotional moments through the character building and group bonding. The show itself isn’t your typical horror in the same way as Hill House or Bly Manor but we still get a well build storyline, reasonably compelling mystery and of course the added fun of these in-world horror stories. Like I said above I was really expecting something else here but The Midnight Club is a genuinely emotional take on grief and dying and how we persevere through that and come together and remain strong in our final days, it was an incredibly emotional watch.

I really loved the story within a story effect here and how each episode featured one of the Midnight Club telling their tales, giving us this second narrative which often allowed for some fun scares amidst the more morbid cancer stuff. I think in the same way that the stories were a cathartic release for the characters they acted for us as a break between the heavier stuff and I enjoyed popping in and out of reality, getting this fun mix of emotional trauma and campfire esque ghost-story. The stories also meant the actors themselves got to play out multiple roles and I especially loved Langenkamp as the devil and Rigney as his teenage serial killer, it’s always fun to see actors taking on such a variety in character. Some of the tales themselves were also so genuinely brilliant that I forgot about the ‘real world’ so to speak because of how hooked I was. Storytelling has been around for generations and I really loved how it was used here, giving us these little pieces of each character as they bonded through their trauma and attempted to get through their last of days.

The Brightcliffe Home made for a wonderfully magical setting and I really loved how it managed to feel both safe and dangerous all at the same time. Acting as a safe place for these kids (and for most their final resting place), Brightcliffe was fun and exciting and I loved exploring the halls at night and telling scary stories in the library at midnight. In the same way the hidden basement, frequent hauntings and somewhat shady staff members played into the horror theme and there was a real feeling of something not quite right about the place. Across the ten episodes we really got to explore this place up and down (and yet there’s still so much we don’t know) and I really loved the constant feeling of both safe harbour and unease, it made for a really fun watch.

Overall I really loved watching The Midnight Club and kind of regret not watching it when it first came out, I feel like a lot of people slept on this show resulting in it’s untimely cancellation. Despite the critics though I loved this show for what it was and whilst it was necessarily scary I loved the chemistry between the main group, the storytelling element and most importantly the constant and overwhelming feeling of hope through tough times. This was a real emotional watch at times, knowing these kids were all destined to die and not really being able to do anything about it. Still we prevailed and I loved the group energy and love as they all got together to tell these stories. Yet another Flanagan success story, I really loved this one and only wish it’d been better appreciated to earn a second season.

Elite- Season 7, A Review

Family can screw up your life.

Elite Seasons 1 2 3 4 5 6 Review. Class Review.

The seventh season of Elite follows on from the previous season and the aftermath of the school shooting, revealed to have been caused by Dídac’s (Álvaro de Juana) criminal family. As a result many parents petition to have him expelled, putting Isadora () in a difficult position who chooses to distance herself. Iván (André Lamoglia) also attempts to piece together his own accident, with many believing the since vanished Patrick to be responsible, when it was in fact Sara (Carmen Arrufat) whose abusive boyfriend Raúl (Alex Pastrana) uses this to blackmail into staying with her.

Feeling miserable, Iván offers money and scholarship to pizza delivery boy Joel (Fernando Líndez) who is then revealed to be former student Omar’s (Omar Ayuso) new boyfriend, bringing him back to Las Encinas whether he likes it or not. Meanwhile Nico’s (Ander Puig) Cousin Eric (Gleb Abrosimov) comes back home and begins causing trouble and new student Chloe (Mirela Balic) gets off to a rocky start when a sex tape of her begins leaking around the school. As usual the drama in plentiful and Las Encinas and soon enough somebody else will be dead. But who will it be this time and how far will those responsible go to cover up their crimes?

For me season seven felt a bit lost, with most of the storylines sort of floating around each other but never interacting, having little to do with each other or the school itself. Everybody kind of had their own thing going on and in some cases two or three episodes would go by before we circled back again, meaning there didn’t really feel like there was a central character or conflict. Not to mention this was the first season of Elite without any flashforwards, which I found strange especially because this was the first season in a while to have an actual murder and the body found in the courtyard would have been perfect flashforward material. Instead we got seven episodes of kind of nothing and then a murder jammed into the finale, which albeit made for a great episode, but still could have been utilised a lot more.

Each new season of Elite comes with the arrivals and departures of new cast members and I will say season seven had some of the best new characters we’ve seen in a while. I really loved Chloe and her Mother Carmen (Maribel Verdú) and the somewhat messy relationship between them, with Chloe potentially acting out for attention and Carmen hellbent on reconnecting with her long lost son Ivan. The pair were massively entertaining and ended up having quite a lot to do with this season’s mystery, making for a potentially interesting season eight for the pair of them. Joel was also a nice addition to the cast, bringing Omar back into the fold and then in typical Elite messiness becoming involved in several school scandals. Eric was probably the weakest of the new cast, probably because his storyline didn’t really effect the show as a whole but I did still like his relationships with Nico and Rocío (Ana Bokesa) and I’ll be interested to see what happens next with him. We also seemingly said goodbye to Ivan this season (with him apparently moving to South Africa with Blood & Water’s Fiks- an unexpected cameo which I loved) and I’ll definitely be said to see him go, his storyline this past three seasons and relationship with Father Cruz have both been series highs.

One of the biggest draws of season seven (and perhaps the reason I did decide to tune in) was Omar’s return after a year away from Las Encinas and seeing him back definitely made me miss the show’s original days. As one of the og cast members it was obviously great to see him again, and whilst Omar was never my favourite character I will admit I liked what they did with his storyline. Traumatised by Samuel’s murder and the school in general, we now see Omar in therapy and attempting to rectify his past and move forward. His relationship with Joel however send him right back to the one place he never wanted to go back to and in doing so we finally address Omar’s own issues, particularly with relationships. Season seven really addresses Omar’s co-dependency issues and how his relationships aren’t always healthy for him, something which I have always disliked about Oma as a character. Something I’ll discuss more down below but Omar never seems to get a happy ending romance wise and I’m glad the show finally is taking a step in the right direction and finally putting him in therapy!

Like I said above Omar never exactly has the best luck romance wise and I this this can extend to most if not all of the characters in Elite as a whole. Watching seven seasons of this show has made me realise that these kids never seem to get a happy ending and as a whole the situation really kind of sucks for them. All of the couples on the show- from Omar and Ander to Guzman and Nadia- have ended up breaking up and I can’t think of a single relationship past or present that has actually ended happily. Even the characters who have left the show got dumped when new love interests were introduced and it’s all just made me realise how depressing it must be to live in the world, especially if you’re dating.

Despite my initial reluctance to watch this season and carry on with the show overall I will admit I did enjoy season seven despite its issues and am obviously going to watch the upcoming final season. I think it’s obvious Elite’s glory days were in its first three years and I have been constantly comparing when I should have just accepted the show had moved on past those characters and there was no going back. Season seven was enjoyable for what it was and I definitely have to see the show through to the end, I’ve come too far to stop watching now. Season eight already promises the return of Nadia and Lu (apparently confirmed by both actors) and I’d easily watch for that reason alone, whatever Elite cooks up for its ending I’m sure it’s going to be great.

Overall I enjoyed this seventh season of Elite and despite some floating storylines I will admit that these new set of characters have probably been the best since maybe season three. The show is never going to be as good as the original three seasons but the continued high drama and constant messiness of the show remains strong and despite a somewhat decline in quality I am excited for the final season and some potential returning faces. I do wish we’d gotten some typical Elite flashforwards this season (I’m still confused why we didn’t), especially since the actual murder felt so rushed but overall this was a pretty solid season and I’m interested to see what happens next.

Accused, A Review

Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong man.

Accused follows Harri Bhavsar (Chaneil Kular, Sex Education), a young man whose life is turned upside down after he is mistakenly identified as a terrorist on twitter following a train station bomb threat. On his way home to dog-sit for his parents whilst they go on holiday, Harri narrowly misses being caught in the blast, which in itself causes media outrage and public fear. On twitter an old classmate of Harri’s then tweets that he shares a resemblance to the blurry suspect photo and suddenly his name is trending for all the wrong reasons.

Without any form of proof the entire world suddenly become convinced that Harri was responsible for the bombing, resulting in countless online and even telephone threats. Harri calls the police for help but is unable to receive any immediate action, leaving him on his own to face the media storm. Now stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no company but his family dog, can Harri make it through the night and clear this entire mess up or will those online make good on their threats and come and find him, putting him in a whole world of danger.

Accused was a brilliant take on how the spreading of false information can be deadly and how one rumour gone wrong can completely ruin someone’s life. From a single tweet in a single second Harri’s life completely changed and people instantly started going after him, all from something that wasn’t even true. The internet, social media especially, can be a breeding ground for false information and it really united this whole group of people in their hatred (however misplaced it was). A very modern feeling thriller, the online world was the real danger here and I liked how we touched on rumours spreading but also how easily accessible information can be and how quickly people tracked Harri down. It was a terrifying reality and the fear factor was very real here.

Most of the time the danger and threats in this film came from behind a screen and I liked how we got to explore the faceless villain and how people are able to talk a big game online with little to no consequences. This entire film kickstarted with one mistimed tweet and from that Harri was viciously attacked both online and then later in person. All of Harri’s attackers were able to use social media as this breeding ground that only got worse and worse as more people joined it but despite this nobody really faced any consequences. Aside from the two men who actually went to attack Harri in person everybody else presumably got off scot free, deleting their tweets and probably pretending it all never happened. I liked the added touch that we never actually saw the people tweeting at Harri, only hands typing, because once their tweets had been erased and the whole ordeal has ended they were basically forgotten, it was a nice touch.

Overall I enjoyed watching Accused and loved the way the film used social media in this very modern feeling thriller. With his whole life changed in seconds because of a single tweet, Harri must face his anonymous attackers head on and fight for survival in a deadly case of mistaken identity. A fast paced and exciting watch, Accused was an interesting take on cancel culture, social media and racism and I enjoyed watching thoroughly.

Bodies, A Review

One Body. Four Decades. A whole lot of questions.

Not to be confused with Bodies Bodies Bodies.

Bodies follows four detectives, each living decades apart, who all find the exact same body in the exact same location, launching a murder investigation that transcends all logic and sense. Beginning in 1890 with DI Hillinghead and ending in 2053 with DC Iris Maplewood, the series follows these four different timelines as each detective tries to make sense of what is going on, each uncovering their own evidence that once put together will finally uncover the big picture. In each timeline however a force is at hand trying to stop the truth from coming out, growing in size until its power is near unstoppable in 2053. How are the same people carrying out their plans for nearly 200 years and more importantly how does the body play into it all? Together these four detectives set out to uncover the truth, unable to actually work together but still bonded by their sense of duty and justice. In the end will the truth come out or will it all remain forever a mystery?

Bodies had a brilliant premise and I loved the blending together of sci-fi with your typical police procedural. The body being discovered in the four different timelines immediately opened up so many questions and I loved following the four very different detectives as they each worked on their own investigations. Being several decades apart meant that some timelines were a lot more advanced than others technology wise and so I found it interesting to see how far each got in terms of getting to the truth. The latter two timelines also became aware of the body popping up in multiple places and so that was a great perspective too, getting to really delve into the puzzle with Hasan and Maplewood and seeing how everything would turn out.

The 1890 timeline following DI Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller) was probably the one with the least amount of detecting, partly because of the lack of modern technology but also because a lot of Hillinghead’s story was about his own sexuality and relationship with journalist Henry Ashe (George Parker). The pair begin working together after finding the body but again because this was the 1800s they obviously didn’t get as far as their modern counterparts. Instead most of this timeline saw Hillinghead coming to term with his own queerness and battling between being with Ashe or staying with his family. It’s not to say I didn’t enjoy this aspect of the show because I did really like the chemistry between Hillinghead and Ashe but I do think the 1890 timeline sort of stalled after a while and towards the end of the series we seemed to be returning to Hillinghead less and less.

The 1941 timeline following Detective Charles Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, The Queen’s Gambit) was definitely the most different out of the four, initially seeing Whiteman, who was a dirty cop, trying to instead hide the titular body and his own involvement in shady goings on instead of actually investigating. Whiteman communicated mostly with an unknown telephone caller who forced him to do their business and we saw him really struggling to evade being found out and then having a crisis of conscience when the younger Esther became involved. Although initially only out for himself Whiteman did eventually come around and ended up being a crucial piece in the rest of the story, really saving the day in the end and becoming a much better person.

The 2023 timeline following DS Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor) was I think the one I gravitated towards the most, being able to connect a lot more with the characters because it was my own time. We kicked off everything with Hasan and probably spend the most time with her as she tried to carry out her own investigation into the body, also being the first to learn of the time travel. Hasan was also the only detective we saw in multiple timelines (not counting Iris travelling around) and so she definitely felt the most fleshed out of the four. I really enjoyed Hasan and a character and her timeline definitely felt the most action-packed, featuring the bombing as well as the younger Elias (Gabriel Howell), leaving a lot of the legwork up to her as she tried to stop a complete disaster.

The 2053 timeline following DC Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas) was obviously the most unknown, featuring a time that no viewer could relate to or have history for because none of it had happened yet, meaning the show could really play around with its own interpretation of the future. Unlike other sci-fi shows however this version of the future was somewhat muted, featuring a lot of reasonable guesses for what 30 years ahead might look like, showcasing some high tech but at the same time not going overboard. Iris herself was an interesting character, initially aligning herself with Mannix (Stephen Graham, Line of Duty) and probably being the most rigid of the four because it was her job that gave her the ability to walk. Because of this Iris played a somewhat antagonistic role, not really trying to save the day and only then helping out because she felt guilty for her own role in everything. It’s not to say she was a straight up villain, I actually really liked her as a character, but I did like how different each of the four were and the significant roles each played.

Overall I really enjoyed Bodies and loved the set up, characters and blending of sci-fi and murder mystery. The four different timelines and investigations made for a compelling watch and I really loved following the separate storylines and how they eventually all came together. This was a brilliant spin of the police procedural and I loved the amount of detail and layers that went into telling this story, it was all very clever. A fun watch from start to finish, Bodies was definitely a really great watch.

The Fall of the House of Usher, A Review

Once Upon a Midnight Dreary…

The Haunting of Hill House Review. The Haunting of Bly Manor Review. Midnight Mass Review. Hush Review.

The Fall of the House of Usher follows the titular Usher family and their unexpected downfall as they all start dropping dead, resulting in the untimely murders of the six Usher siblings. Family Patriarch Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood/Zach Gilford), who had been on trial for medical fraud prior to the deaths, then agrees to sit down with Prosecuting Attorney C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly/Malcolm Goodwin) to tell his story, promising several murder charges by the end. Roderick begins his story when he and his sister Madeline (Mary McDonnell/Willa Fitzgerald) first met Dupin and through scheming, lying and treachery managed to rise to the top of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals which in the present day they now run.

A deal made in the past however has mass repercussions and Verna (Carla Gugino), a mysterious woman from the sibling’s past seemingly returns to strike vengeance and finally live up to her word. Soon enough each of Roderick’s children begin dying in mysterious ways with gains major media attention, especially in the midst of the trial. With time running out can Roderick and Madeline preserve their family name and make it out the other side or is fate coming for them one way or another?

Just before starting this series I did read a collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories, including the titular Fall of the House of Usher, both to prepare myself but also because I’ve wanted to read some of his stuff for a while now especially after he kept cropping up in series like Wednesday, The Nancy Drew games and the recent Pale Blue Eye film. He’s definitely a horror icon and whilst I didn’t love every single one of his stories (mostly because of the old style of English used) I did find a few I liked and can definitely see a lot of the inspirations here. The Fall of the House of Usher isn’t a direct adaptation by any means (but then again none of Flannagan’s shows have been) but Poe’s influence is definitely there throughout and I really liked how Flannagan modernised a lot of the themes to fit a 2023 audience and how a lot of the stories are used in connection with the sibling’s deaths. I think if I had to summarise I’d say this show is like a horror show set in Poe’s world, using characters and names from all over his work and using them in a way that sets up this one coherent storyline. It was all very clever and I had a lot of fun watching.

Like I said above this TV adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher was a far cry from the original story and instead focussed on this new version of the Usher family and how a deal made in the past brought about their untimely demises. We follow the family as they all start dying, with Roderick then explaining through flashbacks to Dupin how all of this came about and why it was all his fault. Through these two timelines we got a wonderfully gothic and spooky story and I loved how each episodes tracked a different sibling and their own murder. Through the eight episodes it felt like we were really building up to something big and I had such a fun time watching this, it felt like the perfect Halloween themed watch.

I really loved the ensemble cast here and always enjoy seeing the same actors return for Flannagan’s writing, he’s created a really nice group of diverse and well-rounded regulars and similar to other anthology series like AHS and Slasher it’s always nice to see people playing completely different roles from one project to the next. The titular Usher family made up the majority of the cast here and I really loved the shared sense of greed and power despite each sibling’s difference in personality, career path and relationships with each other. The Ushers were obviously a very powerful family and the scenes we got with them all together really reflected that raw sense of power and ‘aboveness’ to the rest of the world. Carla Gugino was also obviously incredibly as Verna and I loved her multiple characters as she encountered each member of the family and acted as their moral compass/death guide/whatever else you want to call it. As always the cast was seriously stacked here and I always love seeing the versatility of actors in these anthology type projects, it allows for a lot of fun.

Overall I really enjoyed The Fall of the House of Usher and once again Flannagan has hit it out of the park horror wise. I really loved how this series took inspiration from several of Poe’s original stories and blended them together with some modern twists and the ongoing narrative of each sibling’s death. The overarching storyline of the Usher line dying out did mean we got to know some characters a lot better than others and I do kind of wish some of the siblings hadn’t died as early as they did (especially Camille) but the increasing horror and tension throughout make for a great watch with some fantastic performances all around.