Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Schitt's Creek, Season Six:
The last season of Schitt's Creek goes out on top, with a positive, understated ending. The whole series is worth watching even if the first couple seasons lack momentum. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: B+

Mystery Road:
This movie about an aboriginal detective solving a murder in the Australian Outback feels simultaneously familiar and muted. All the beats are there, but there's no intensity or suspense to anything that happens. There are so many dialogue-less driving scenes that I had PTSD flashbacks to Broken Flowers and the whole slog culminates with a shootout full of poorly-planned decisions. It did not make me want to watch the TV series it spawned.

Final Grade: C-

His Dark Materials, Season Two:
Though short, at only 7 episodes, the 2nd season adaptation of the Philip Pullman books is engrossing and worth a watch. It's hard to capture the right tone with the sheer number of witches and talking animals everywhere, but this works more than it doesn't.

Final Grade: B

Fargo, Season Four:
Only one episode (episode 9) feels anything like an episode of the Fargo that we love. The other episodes feel a little like Fargo fan fiction, written by someone who received a list of adjectives like "quirky" and "whimsical" and tried to keep the magic going. The characters are fine and the plot is fine, but the overall package feels like every other mob show that's been done to death over the years. Timothy Olyphant steals every scene he's in by essentially playing Marshal Raylan Givens as a Mormon and the plot eventually peters out like a deflating balloon.

Final Grade: B-