The Good Place Season 1.1 - 1.2 Review: 'Everything Is Fine' & 'Flying'

Eleanor Shellshrop (Kristen Bell) opens her eyes to discover that she is dead and has entered the afterlife, and is now in 'The Good Place'. Michael (Ted Denson), the first-time architect of this particular neighbourhood, explains that there are 'distinct neighbourhoods within the good place each containing exactly 322 who have been perfectly selected to blend together into a blissful harmonic balance.' At their first orientation session Michael explains that the reason they are all in the good place is because during their time on Earth every one of their actions had a positive or negative value - and only those with the highest score get into the good place. Eleanor is shown into her new home, a quaint and bright cottage of the Icelandic-primitive style that perfectly matches her essence and features many clown paintings, and is introduced to her soulmate, Chidi (William Jackson), who was an ethics professor when he was alive. But as Eleanor explains to Chidi in confidence, there's a major problem - the 'Eleanor' to which Michael thinks he is referring too (who spent her life as a lawyer getting innocent people of death row) is not her, just another woman with the same name. This Eleanor is a saleswoman that made a living by tricking old and sick people into buying fake medicine. Obviously, she becomes pretty concerned that when Michael finds out she'll be sent to 'the bad place'.

The pilot episode, also titled 'Everything is Fine' was very exposition heavy, as you can tell from above, as it tried to quickly accommodate Eleanor and the audience to 'the good place'. It was handled well, but such a large exposition dump leads to further questions. Just as Eleanor and Chidi tried to ask Janet (D'Arcy Carden, the neighbourhood's informational assistant) about 'the bad place' I had similar questions. Why do they need to eat and sleep as if they were still functioning humans? Wouldn't a lot of these people have found a soulmate while alive, and wouldn't it be weird for them to immediately start a new relationship with a new person in the afterlife? Who works at all those yoghurt shops, surely not other good deceased people? If Eleanor and Chidi are soulmates why do they live in separate houses while Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Jianyu (Manny Jacinto), another pair of soulmates who are Eleanor's neighbours, live together? It was nitpicking, yes, but that's the sort of scrutiny a high-concept series invokes. Thankfully the series was able to start to balance itself a bit more in its second episode, 'Flying', after a bizarre ending to the first in which giant ladybugs and flying shrimp started to cause havoc in the neighbourhood.

Chidi realises that Eleanor's presence is the cause of the mayhem, but she asks him if he will help her learn to be good in order to prevent her from eternal damnation in the bad place. Chidi struggles with what to do for the episode as Eleanor tries to prove herself good by helping to clean up the neighbourhood, only for her to ditch her duties in order to go flying with the others for their Day 2 Orientation. Naturally Eleanor feels bad and eventually cleans up the entire neighbourhood when her bad deed resulted in a rubbish storm prompting Chidi to give her a chance.

The series could very much become too heavy-handed with its metaphors and lessons of the week, as well as it's orientation into the good place, but for me personally the most exciting part of The Good Place is its potential for future discussions of morals and ethical philosophy. Most sitcoms will aim for being funny over its characters being good (see the success of a series like It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia), so it's refreshing that at least for now The Good Place looks as if its primary focus will be Eleanor's attempts to learn to become a better person. So for now, I'm willing to forgive its predictability. And who knows, maybe there's a lesson or two the series could teach the audience in the process.

Rating: 3.5/5

Favourite quote/ scene of the episode: When Tahani, after seeing how her silent soulmate Jianyu has helped Michael says, 'Maybe I should be silent too.' She's silent for two seconds before saying, 'Oh, that was wonderful! So cleansing!'

Unreal 2.8 Review: Fugitive

The end of last week's episode posed the question as to what Rachel and Quinn would do without one another, but wasn't really a question that Fugitive was all too concerned about deleting into. Rachel's stay at the psychiatric facility was simultaneously surprising at and not so. I would have thought the series would have wanted to play up this situation, but at the same time a prolonged stay there would have seemed out of focus for the series so understandably Rachel was quickly brought back onto the set of Everlasting. Coleman confronts Quinn about letting Rachel's mother take her to the facility but Quinn reminds him that Rachel called her - so things must be really bad and perhaps she needs some time off. Coleman insists that he is in love with her and goes to get her, but not before he catches Yael in his office looking up the footage of Romeo's shooting and she reveals that *GASP* she's actually an undercover reporter writing a book called 'Reality TV Kills' and wants Coleman to help her get the dirt about what really goes on behind the scenes at Everlasting. I like the idea that we don't really know Coleman's intentions with Rachel even after he gets her out of the psychiatric facility, does he really love her, or is he in it for himself and to get revenge on the series? I think his character is still conflicted about this, which makes for good viewing. Adding the Yael reveal is just too much though, and it is an unnecessarily soapy trope for Unreal to go down when when know it's capable of so much more.

Another somewhat soapy reveal was the true nature of Rachel and her mother's dysfunctional relationship - she was raped at their home by one of her mother's patients when she was  12. I do like they are are trying to explore what makes Rachel such a fascinating character but I'm not sure that I like the simplification that all her problems stem from the fact that she had been raped as a girl. Having been easily coerced (thanks to the drugs she was on from the hospital) by Coleman to record all the unethical things she knows that Everlasting has done over the years I guess Rachel felt compelled to tell him about that too. It was probably the wrong decision, her mother seems to have always told her that no one wants to deal with damage like that (although she was likely just protecting herself and her practice), and she's partially right. An already torn Coleman is going to have a lot more to think about. He lays awake staring at Rachel before meeting with Yael, seemingly willing to help her in exposing Everlasting and theoretically also ruining Rachel in the process.

The other parts of the Fugitive focused on the making Everlasting and as usual that weren't nearly as entertaining as the character insight into Rachel and Coleman. Darius was still missing after the shooting so the producers had to keep coming up with Survivor-esque challenges in which the ladies had to know all the answers to questions about Darius to avoid elimination, and then vote each other off. Jay eventually finds Darius thanks to eliminated contestant Ruby who lets him know when Darius contacts her and asks to meet. He tells her that he wants to quit the show and be with her and now that he's had his back surgery he can't play football and can focus on being abetter person. But she's not interested after being dumped on live-television, believing he practically told the world that she's too demanding. Jay tries to comfort an agitated Darius and tells him that without his football career his best chance to get anywhere with his life is to finish off Everlasting and marry the entitled Tiffany to set himself up. Back on set the other girls have turned against Tiffany though, and despite Quinn, Chet, and Jay's attempts to manipulate the situation they decide to vote her off. Until Darius appears at the last second and votes off Jameson. It sort of annoys me that after all the set-up they did with this boring producing of an episode of Everlasting that Darius can just come in and get whatever he wants. I'm sure that it wouldn't actually work since everything they filmed prior lead to a different conclusion, but anyway. Darius makes it clear he doesn't want Rachel anywhere near him and that he only talks to Jay and from now on he does the series his way. Quinn seems to think that it will makes things interesting, but I can't imagine anything more boring if he's already chosen Tiffany with two weeks left (although of course we all know her make-out session with Chet is going to come back to haunt her, so there's that at least).

Quinn also spent the episode fielding questions about having children from John Booth and while I'm not particularly adverse to Quinn having a love interest that's not Chet, I always hate how series' think it's okay to have an older couple talk about children so soon in their relationship because they are old and their biological clock is ticking. They've still only been dating for a couple of weeks, writers! Baby talk is too soon. Apparently not for Quinn though who agrees to keep dating John because she doesn't completely hate the idea of starting a family with him. Perhaps this is because of Rachel? It was made clear to her that Rachel is not her family in this episode, so whiteout her she doesn't have one at the moment. Perhaps another bad decision that will come back to haunt her.

Rating: 3/5

Preacher 1.9 Review: Finish The Song

Emily is called to Tulip's house where Tulip explains Cassidy's true nature to her - that he's a vampire - so that she can continue to feed him small animals until be gets better after being left to burn by Jesse outside the front of the church. Tulip, having waited long Jesse and seeing what he did to Cassidy, has finally decided to travel to Albuquerque to kill the man she has wanted revenge on for so long. After feeding him a hamster she calls Miles, who she now considers her boyfriend and lures him into Cassidy's room before shutting the door. Saying it like that makes it come across as a drastic decision on Emily's part, but the series did so well into building up to this all season with their relationship. So when Emily starts to talk about Mile's to Tulip at the beginning of the episode you know that Emily feels like she has gotten herself in too deep with Miles (and possibly even Jesse as well) and with the knowledge that Cassidy is a vampire decides to do something that'll at least give her some sense of control in her life that is becoming increasingly crazy.

Having escaped from the back of Sheriff Hugo's police car, Jesse was on the run and still planning to bring God to church the following Sunday to prove to Quinncanon and the rest of the town of his existence. After stealing Fiore and DeBlanc's direct phone to heaven he shows up at Tulip and Emily quickly leaves telling him that she has to pick up her kids without a word about Miles. Inside he finds a better-healed Cassidy and he apologises for letting him burn for so long, the pair then get started on deposing of Miles' body (and collecting a hand of God to use the telephone). Jesse also calls Tulip and leaves a voicemail apoligising to her, although it's potentially too late, with her having arrived at Albuquerque and looking ready to kill her man.

After failing to retrieve Genesis from Jesse, Fiore and DeBlanc organise plans to go to hell via a travel agent - unable to return to heaven for fear of God's wrath (and because, thanks to Jesse, they have no phone to contact him). They take a shuttle to hell and find 'The Cowboy', who after all this time watching his seemingly unrelated journey we realise has been eternally repeating his own personal hell in Ratwater. He shoots DeBlanc and asks Fiore what job they have for him and Fiore tells The Cowboy that they want him to kill a Preacher.

Rating 3.5/5

BoJack Horseman 3.3 Review: BoJack Kills

Still on his Oscar campaign BoJack is endlessly making appearances at the plays of Oscar voters' children, barmtitzvah's, and old-folks homes all to ensure that he gets good buzz. This is made a little more difficult when his old friend Jill Pill rings and reminds him that she asked him to check on her ex-lover Cuddlywhiskers, which BoJack had forgotten to do. She asked him to go to his house and get a private letter she sent to Cuddlywhiskers some years ago and wants back. BoJack and a begrudging Diane (she's trying to keep her relationship with him purely professional) go to his house only to find a dead whale in the pool before Officer Meow Meow Fuzzyface shows up with two other police officers and take them back to the police station. After Diane sneakily looks up their rights on her phone and tells Meow Meow Fuzzyface that he can't hold them at the station without arresting them her and BoJack leave. Diane reveals that she has Nadia's (the dead whale's) phone and that her last text was 'BoJack is going to kill me'. The pair think that BoJack is being framed for Nadia's murder and when another friend of her's leaves a voicemail they trace it back to Whale World, an erotic dancing venue for the whole family. The establishment is run by Goober, who once was a child-actor on BoJack's show Horsin' Around. BoJack and Diane come back later that night after getting a tip from Nadia's whale friend Skinny Gina. When they return they discover that the 'BoJack' to which Nadia was referring to in her text is actually a brand of heroin that Goober in peddling through the club. After he's arrested Bojack and Diane go back to Cuddlywhiskers house to retrieve Jill's letter when he reveals that after the cancellation of The BoJack Horseman Show Cuddlywhiskers retreated to hi Ojai property. They find him there and he reveals he turned his LA property into a halfway house for drug addicts - explaining Nadia's death.

While Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter's relationship troubles (Princess Carolyn spent the entire episode trying to clean out the skunk smell out of their house for Diane's benefit), as well of the brief discussions of happiness and how to achieve it, provide some pathos that we're used to from BoJack Horseman, tonally this was an odd episode. The series is no stranger to being dark, but having an episode revolve around a dead whale and someone assumedly framing Bojack for her murder, even if in the even it turned out to only be a heroin overdose definitely took away from the series usual sense of eccentric Hollywood-centred wackiness.

Rating: 2.5/5

BoJack Horseman 3.2 Review: The BoJack Horseman Show

In 2007 Princess Carolyn has just slept with BoJack for the first time. She's still an agent's assistant to Marv Sbarbori, the man that represents BoJack, and she's trying desperately to book him an acting job - although he's adamant he's still trying to recuperate after his time on Horsin' Around. She convinces BoJack to talk to veteran sitcom writer named Cuddlywhiskers about a part on a new show after she reads his script, Mitch's Life, at work. BoJack thinks the show sounds incredible but doesn't want to do it because he's afraid that he is not, to which she replies by telling him that he's an idiot if he doesn't realise how talented he is. BoJack agrees to do it, but of course starts to self-sabotage himself immediately. The network executives love the table read, but BoJack convinces Cuddlywhiskers that if they liked the script that they're playing it too and they they need to re-write it - with ideas like opening with BoJack's character literally taking a massive dump on a VHS tape of Horsin' Around and his character's catch-phrase being 'Wassup bitches!'. He realises too late, thanks to Princess Carolyn (who Marv has finally appointed as an agent), that people liked the horse from Horsin' Around and he doesn't need to be afraid of doing something to step out of its shadow, but shouldn't be too scared to try, either.

The episode also showed what the lives of the other characters were like in 2007. Diane worked at Starbucks under the name 'Blarn' - ironically as a joke - and was getting her open letter to open letters rejected by The New Yorker. Mr. Peanutbutter was as easily distracted as ever going from being a spokesperson for Seaborn's Seahorse Milk to hosting a John Edwards fundraiser, all the while being married to his second wife, Jessica Biel. And Todd was getting intimate with a girl for the first time, and unwittingly ruining the end of The Sopranos. While Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter meeting for the first time was a big moment, these subplots of the episode were mainly used to hilariously highlight the fact that they were in 2007. I could easily see people getting bored of the repetitive joke - but I loved it. According to phone calls Marv was having, 'she kissed a girl and she liked it? This I got to see' and 'There's a panic? At the disco?'. There was flipphones and MySpace mentions. The movie Bearspray and television series Eel or No Eel were big at the time. You could eat at David Hasselhoff's Floor Burgers. It was all glorious, but was ultimately the backdrop in an episode trying to highlight something more.

Start Spreading The News highlighted BoJack's discontent with having finally made his dream come true in The Secretariat and not knowing what to do afterwards, and The BoJack Horseman Show was a timely reminder of just how far his character has come since the beginning of the series. It showed him ruining a perfect chance to revive his career in comparison to were he is in current time -having revived his career by making his dream film. But a lot of that has to do with Princess Carolyn, who told Bojack at the end of the episode that she didn't want to spend the next seven years falling in and out of love with him. As we've seen though, this is exactly what has happened, and while BoJack keeps getting everything he wanted and being unimpressed by it Princess Carolyn is still struggling to make it as an agent. Here's hoping when we return to the return timeline on the series that things will start to progress for this character that has always been behind and helped our antihero.

Rating: 3.5/5

BoJack Horseman 3.1 Review: Start Spreading The News

The season starts off with BoJack doing a press tour for The Secretariat in New York and as with most things in life BoJack tells reporters constantly that 'it's a dream come true', but it's also a nightmare having to repeatedly answer the same questions and be teased about his previous work like Horsin' Around. The press are also constantly asking him, 'what's next for BoJack?'. He wants an Oscar for his role, sure, but after that who knows? BoJack reveals to his publicist Anna at the end of the episode (after having accidentally revealed to a Matinee Fair that his performance in The Secretariat is a digital construct), that he was almost relieved that the farce of having to act at a certain way and say certain things for so long just for one night of happiness to get an Oscar wasn't worth it. She seems to think is it, however, telling him that this has been his dream and that he's worked so hard already that he deserves that one night and that together they'll get it for him. Knowing BoJack Horseman, I very much doubt he'll actually win an Oscar for his role, because that's life.

Back in LA, J.D. Salinger announces that he no longer wants to keep making 'Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: Do They Know Things? What Do They Know? Let's Find Out' stating, 'I told the story I wanted to tell. To prolong it for commercial reasons would be crass and inorganic'. This puts Mr. Peanutbutter out of a job, and Princess Caroline decides to focus all her agency's attention on the small amount of clients it has rather than trying to attract big name celebrities like J.D. Salinger again. This prompts Mr. Peanutbutter to put P.B. Livin back in business and his accountant unwillingly gives him one of his worst ideas to date while impersonating Todd (who had been accidentally packed into BoJack's luggage and was in New York) - 'A Spaghetti Strainer That's Also A Hat: The TV Show.' Naturally Mr. Peanutbutter tells him that he wants to put all his money into the series. I personally could see it running as long as Horsin' Around.

Rating 3/5

Difficult People 2.3 Review: Italian Piñata

On their way to attend the launch of Kevin Smith Jorts Emporium in Hoboken, Julie and Billy decide to kill time in an Italian restaurant. Much to Julie's surprise there is a group of women there that laugh out loud at her meat jokes and just seem to get her, after she was earlier wondering why women her age didn't like her as her and her mother Marilyn got free (and disastrous) student hair cuts. They mistake her for being Italian, thanks to the aforementioned 'little orphan Weird Al Yankovich' perm, and invite her and Billy out to a gay bar for Coming Out Day. To take advantage of the drinks special, naturally Billy pretends that he has just come out, which also attracts Joey, the brother of one of Julie's new friends.

Elsewhere, Arthur was tasked with organising PBS' staff birthday celebrations for the next month, but after accidentally spending the entire budget on one birthday Julie helps him by combining the birthday's of their neighbours son and Arthur's boss which results in the latter's clown phobia resurfacing. After the incident Marilyn shows up at his office after having a particularly stressful day as work as well (her stupid haircut was making it difficult to concentrate). Her client, who's daughter had joined a cult, made her fear for Julie's newfound identity conversion to Italian and together the pair set about going to get Julie back form Hoboken.

They needn't have worried though, as a seasoned watcher of Difficult People would expect, both Julie and Billy kept up their charade of being Italian and recently out, respectively, until they were caught out at the end of the episode, by characterising a Frank Sintara song as more of a 'Liza Minnelli song'.
The pair mourned the loss of New Jersey as they left to catch the train back to New York. Julie had finally felt accepted for who she was amongst the Italian women, earlier telling Billy, 'Everything that made me unacceptable as a New York Jew is celebrated as a New Jersey Italian'. Meanwhile, Billy had a difficult time playing a recently out straight guy in an attempt to get into Joey pants - who seemed to be aroused by the idea. Particularly hard when Joey offered to give him a crash-course in being gay. 'Lying about who we are made us accept who we really are - after we changed it', he responded to Julie, pretty much a classic line to some-up the pair as characters. Deep down, they will never change. They are who they are and they love themselves for it, but that doesn't mean that they'll   ever stop trying to validate themselves by trying to get other people to like them.

Rating: 3/5

Unreal S02E07 Review: Ambush

Deciding that she needed to get rid of Coleman in order to reclaim her title as show-runner of Everlasting Quinn called in last season's suitor Adam in an attempt to drive Rachel away from her new lover. Initially, his return didn't seem do too much - Rachel was adamant that she had moved on and wanted nothing to do with Adam (despite a steamy bathroom make-out session) and neither Rachel or Coleman took the bait when network owner John Booth approached Coleman solo about some of their ideas at Quinn's behest. Quinn had tried and failed to manipulate them, although potentially that it not how she sees it. As she posed to Coleman, 'I keep her in line here, do you really want to be on a full-time bomb squad?'. She thinks she's doing what's best for Rachel, in an obvious self-serving way, and as Coleman tells her, 'Rachel's fine Quinn. Turns out her big problem is working for a controlling manipulative bitch.' This is not a new conversation on Unreal, and the question has been raised for a while, what are Rachel and Quinn to one another? Can one survive without the other? The series is at it's best, for me, when it focuses on its dynamic and dysfunctional leading ladies so I don't mind it being repeated, but unless the series goes about trying to give us some sort of answer it'll become tedious. 

For a while it looked like this episode, Ambush, was going to do this. While behind the scenes Quinn tried to store up trouble with Adam on the cameras of Everlasting Adam helped Darius choose a date hosted by one of the ladies, which ended up being a romantic gondola ride with Chantal - until she tried to prove her love to him by throwing her dead-finance's ashes and through the magic of television ended up going all over Darius. It was all pretty boring until Darius - fed up with the way Rachel has been treating him - went for a joyride with his recently returned cousin and manager Romeo, as well as a drunken Yael and Tiffany. Seeing it as an opportunity to make the show she's being wanting to make (and no doubt as a way to get back at both Quinn and Adam who have been telling her that she's delusionsal) Rachel calls the police and reports the car as stolen. In an unexpected turn of events Darius gets pulled over, but when the situation quickly escaletes Rachel tries to stop it, only for one of the officer's to shoot Romeo. It was a surprising end to an otherwise uneventful episode but what made it truly enjoyable was the irony of the outcome.

Quinn was right - Coleman let Rachel run with her idea and someone ended up shot. Quinn wasn't on the set of Everlasting to stop her because of an earlier scene in which Rachel told her that she needs to stop being so obsessed with her and to get a life. So when Gary, the president of the network, interrupts her romantic date with John to tell her what has happened she has achieved what she wanted - Coleman is no longer show-runner of Everlasting. Accept that she hasn't. An emotionally distraught Rachel kicks Adam out of her trailer and calls her mother, who promptly takes her to a psychiatric facility and drugs her. Despite Quinn's aforementioned self-serving behaviour the series has also previously shown that at least she's treated Rachel better than her own mother has - who seems to think the only way to deal with such a difficult person as Rachel is to drug her. Quinn wanted Coleman gone to keep the Everlasting family together. And now it's daughter is gone. So can one survive without the other? 

Rating: 4/5

Preacher 1.8 Review: El Valero

With Odin Quinncannon coming to collect on his bet, a drunken Jesse finds himself trapped in his church as the businessman attempts to bulldoze it to make way for a bigger and better Quinncannon Meat & Power.

This should have been an interesting showdown but Jesse being the marksmen that he is and assumedly the power of Genesis on his side he easily bests Quinncannon's men not one, not two, but three times throughout the episode as they try to charge the church - and it all happened off-screen as well avoiding any potentially exciting action sequences as well. Not only that, but the oddly-timed attacks ensured that is was made painfully obvious in this episode that the writers were stalling. There was no reason for Quinncannon and his men to sit around and wait to attack Jesse again but they did so twice, obvious that the writers were trying to give time to Jesse's going-ons in the church.

Eugene's return was a welcome surprise but Jesse soon realised that it wasn't actually Eugene that had crawled his way back from hell, but rather an hallucination. His presence was odd, sure Jesse felt guilty about what he had done but the hallucination didn't seem represent of Jesse's conscious at all but rather the spirit of Eugene himself - which also randomly departed at the end of the episode and very much felt like they just needed to put actor in the episode for contractual reasons. It also seemed like that was happening with Tulip for majority of the episode as her few short scenes showed her adopting a dog - only for her to later push it into a dark room assumedly feeding a severely injured Cassidy.

Fiore and DeBlanc's visit to the church, as least, was somewhat more interesting. Realising his inability to control Genesis - with Quinncannon on his doorstep with a bulldozer and a hallucination of Eugene messed with his head while the real one was in hell - Jesse called upon the angels to finally remove it from him with their song. While they were annoyingly tight-lipped with information this episode they revealed that Eugene could in fact come back from hell. Jesse wanted them to bring him back in return for giving back Genesis - but it had other ideas - popping straight back into his body before the angles left in a huff (maybe to get their chainsaws?).

The church siege ended due to yet another loophole with Jesse's powers. Donny, desperate not to be coerced by Genesis again, but also desperate to to prove himself to his wife and Quinncannon shot himself in the ear enabling him to go into the church and pistol-whip Jesse without a problem. He awoke with Quinncannon and go serving him with the papers to sign over the church. Jesse didn't understand how Odin hadn't followed God - yet he had. Again with those loopholes, as the flashback at the beginning of the episode told us in which Quinncannon lost his entire family in a skiing accident - he has only followed the God of Meat for a long time. Jesse asked Quinncannon for one more week to prove that God was tangible, and that he could bring him to Texas. Assumably Odin refused to listen to Jesse anymore as the episode ended with him been taken away in a police car by Sheriff Root.

Rating: 3/5

Music Review: Delta Goodrem - Wings of the Wild

One look at the cover of Delta Goodrem's fifth album makes it clear of the record's primal nature. Titled 'Wings of the Wild', Delta, garbed in a cheetah-print dress runs bare-footed alongside a tiger on a desert plain. The allusion to that theme of what it means to be a human being and exploring a  person's animal nature is clear all throughout the album, from song titles 'Feline', 'Wings', 'Only Human', to the lyrics with lines like, 'I broke the bars that kept me caged inside, yeah it's my time, to be be the fearless queen out in the wild' and ''There's power in the madness, there is presence in the truth of letting go' (I'm Not Giving Up).

But does the exploration of these ideas make for good listening? Sort of. The better songs on the album are those that are a lot louder and busier than the soft yet powerful ballads that defined her earlier career. Unfortunately there are also more than a few that delve far too into presenting songs that you'd imagine complementing the cover and they just don't work very well. 'Feline', is a good song that builds to the chorus, but lyrically, as you can probably tell from the title, falls short, and the same can be said for 'Encore'. 'Just Call' as a background of what can best be described as jungle-drumming, and again, is lyrically painful: 'And my love said, Ay ay ay ay ay ya, Ay ay ay ay ay ya, I will be here just call my name'.

Delta does manage to successfully capture what one presumes Wings of the Wild was trying to accomplish as an album though at some points. Faster-paced, more-produced and just more brash and confident tracks include 'Wings', 'The River' and 'In the Name of Love'. The biggest surprise of the moment is 'Enough' which features rapper Gizzle who performs the verses of the track and is a drastic change in tone, but still fits perfectly within the themes of the album. Which I suppose is the best way to describe the album. Not all of the tracks are memorable, like 'Only Human', 'Hold On' and 'I'm Not Giving Up', but Delta does enough to try and differentiate them, 'Heavy' being a prime example, in which, again, the last minute and a half of the song drastically changes in tone that it at least makes it for an interesting listen. While the uplifting ballad and second single 'Dear Life' was presumably meant to entice longtime fans the standout song truest to Delta's old music is left for the very end of the album in 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love', which highlights the allure of her as a vocalist and artist, which often got drowned out by the business of everything else the album tried to do.

Goodrem literally and metaphorically threw caution to the wind with 'Wings of the Wild' and while it didn't entirely work it did provide her most enjoyable album since 2004's Mistaken Identity, which is not something too many longtime artists can say about their work.

Rating: 3/5

The Jungle Book Review

A 'man cub' named Mowgli has been raised in the jungle by wolves and trained in their ways. Not all of the animals in the jungle accept his presence, however, and a tiger named Shere Khan vows to kill Mowgli and anyone that stands in his way. The wolf pack argue about whether or not they should protect Mowgli, so for their safety he offers to leave the jungle. A panther named Bagheera offers to return him to the man village, but on there trek out of the jungle Shere Khan attacks and they are separated. Mowgli if then left to fend for himself in the jungle where many friends and foes await. him.

The voice cast is superb. Bill Murray is perfectly cast as the lazy bear Baloo, while Ben Kingsley for once has a more restrained role as the protective panther Bagheera, and Lupita Nyong'o is used much better here as the wold mother Raksha than her voice role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Christopher Walken is fine as the monkey King Louie, although his character suffers from attempts to re-enact the original role; if only Scarlett Johansson's Kaa, the seductive snake, suffered the same problem, as she is miscast and underused here. The standout though is Idris Elba as the menacing tiger, Shere Khan, and he easily brings to life one of Disney's scariest villains of recent history. Not to be forgotten is Neel Sethi as Mowgli, who despite having to act alongside presumably nothing but green-screens does a convincing job and is undeniably likeable.

As with their voices, the animals look stunning, but direction choices like the inclusion of animation at the beginning and the end of the film, as well as constant action sequences often makes the scenery blur throughout the film and it becomes evident the 3D market was definitely thought about while making it.

Storywise, the film improves on the original Disney classic in almost every way. Mowgli's introduction to the jungle is integrated nicely throughout a flashback by Kaa, also enabling an interesting backstory and motivation for the central villain in Shere Khan - aspects the original never bothered to develop. A lot more time is also spent with Mowgli's wolf family giving the film a much needed sense of emotion, which helps improve both the lighter, and the darker aspects of the films territory. The only disappointing, and bizarre, part was the decision to not have the elephants and monkeys (other than King Louie) talk, when every other animal in the jungle can. Although it is potentially a bit long it moves very briskly for a film that as so much going on. The ending is also very curious as Mowgli, despite becoming aware that he is a boy and will grow into a man, decides to stay with the wolf pack, although ultimately this differentiation is inconsequential to how good a film The Jungle Book is.

Rating: 3.5/5

Deadpool Review

Deadpool follows Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), a former mercenary who spends his time in New York threatening unfavourable people for money. At the beginning of the film he is known as Deadpool, an antihero with accelerated healing powers and agility. He is also permanently scarred and therefore wears a red suit to hide his face (as well as the blood he is prone to stain his clothing with). He is desperate to find the man responsible for his disfigurement and acquisition of superhuman powers, Francis Freeman (Ed Skerin), in an attempt to regain his looks, and as he hunts the man down we are shown through flashbacks how Wade Wilson became Deadpool.

The film manages, for the most part, to skillfully weave in between the present and the past with ease without it becoming tedious. A lot of that has to do with the breaking of the fourth wall. Deadpool often turns to the audience and talks to them directly, a different and daring approach to the standard superhero movie. It's also very self-referential, with Deadpool discussing the movie, the Marvel franchise, and even Reynolds himself. It instantly disarms the audience in the best way, ensuring that wherever the story takes them that they're still in on the joke.

Speaking of jokes, Deadpool is funny. I'm not too much of a fan of the smart-ass superhero (I'm looking at you Tony Stark), but Deadpool does it so well to an unrelenting script and Ryan Reynolds who has never been more charismatic. He's not the only one though, the film is inundated with hilarious characters. Morena Baccarin is surprisingly effective as Vanessa Carlysle, Wade's girlfriend, and a lot of the enjoyment of the earlier part of the film and the flashbacks has to do with the chemistry and humour she shares with Reynolds (even if her character is underdeveloped and has little to do later on). There's also Weasel (T.J. Miller), a bar owner and Wade's best friend, Blind Al (Leslie Uggams) Deadpool's roommate in the later part of the film, and Dopinder (Karan Soni), a taxi driver, who all have varying degree of importance in the film but are all memorable and also exemplify  the film's humour.

Not every character does though. Francis and Angel Dust (Gina Carano) aren't compelling villains in the slightest, besides the fact that they run the Weapon X program that resulted in Wilson's transformation into Deadpool. Similarly, the writers decided that Deadpool needed some other mutant friends and subsequently inserted Colossus (Stefan Kapičić) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) into the film. Although the film is very self-aware in this regard it's still painfully jarring visiting Charles Xacier's School for gifted youngsters and only being privy to these two X-Men.

It's from the point where the aforementioned characters become prominent parts of the film, and after Wade's intriguing backstory has been fully divulged, where things start to unfortunately return to a stock-standard Marvel movie. Francis and Angel Dust kidnap Vanessa to lure out Deadpool, and he, along with Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead have to go save her. What makes matters worse for the traditional third act showdown is that the stakes are so very low. Sure, it's nice to have a more grounded and smaller Marvel film for once (a la Ant-Man), but with all the interesting plot out of the way the ending has nothing left to really on but the film's humour, which by that point surely would have grown old of majority of the more mature audience members.

It's a small price to pay though for an otherwise surprisingly enjoyable, often meta, and constantly funny film.

Rating: 3.5/5

The Big Bang Theory 9.15 Review: The Valentino Submergence

With Valentine's day approaching Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj discuss their romantic plans for the day. Sheldon and Amy are putting on a special live show of Fun with Flags, Leonard and Penny and dinner reservations at a fancy restaurant and Howard and Bernadette are going to break in the new hot tub. Raj tells them that he is spending it with Emily, although he is not too excited about it, having become interested in Claire after their coffee date. Raj, after getting some advice about from Penny, tells Emily that he wants to break up and she can't believe he has chosen to do this right before Valentine's day. He then calls Claire and asks her if she has plans, but she has just gotten back to together with her ex-boyfriend and Raj is left alone for the holiday. I'm glad that the writers have decided to move on from Emily but the problem I have with this is that they've basically wiped the slate clean and re-set his characters' relationship status (and any growth that comes with that) back to zero. They always seem to be trying things with Raj and when it doesn't work out it the end it turns out to be a huge waste of time.

Sheldon surprises Amy by putting her name in the title of Fun with Flags , it now being called 'Sheldon Cooper and Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler present Sheldon Cooper’s Fun with Flags'. During their live broadcast they ask people to call in with flag related questions. A depressed Raj rings asking them what is wrong with him beginning a prolonged discussion about relationships, in which Barry Kripke, another lonely watcher joins in (oh how I wish Stuart had joined them). While Sheldon is annoyed that Fun with Flags has resulted in minimal flag talk Amy reminds him that he knows how hard it is to break up with someone, and Sheldon admits that he was glad they broke up because he then realised how much he missed and needed Amy - a similar sentiment to what was attempted to be done at the end of the last week's episode 'The Meemaw Materiaization'. I personally think it worked better here because Sheldon wasn't coerced into saying something nice and genuine about Amy like he was last week my Leonard and Penny in front of his Meemaw.

Despite having dinner reservations Leonard and Penny's wait it still going to be an hour long. Penny convinces Leonard to try and bribe the maître d', but his attempt fails. She then tries to flirt with him, but when he calls her 'ma'am' she takes it as a reference to her old age and she decides that her and Leonard should leave. As they eat takeaway in their car (that sounds like a great Valentine's Day to me) Penny expresses her concerns that time has moved so fast since they've meet and they're getting old. Leonard suggests they do something to make them feel young. After being thankful they couldn't get tickets to a 12.00am Moulin Rouge sing-a-long, the pair burst into the apartment where Sheldon and Amy where filming Fun with Flags dressed as cupid and throwing confetti everywhere wishing them a Happy Valentine's Day. It's storylines like this in which it becomes glaringly obvious to me of Leonard and Penny's differences and why I don't like them together. Leonard is a optimitic romantic, appreciating the little things, while Penny is a self-absorbed cynic, at least when things don't go her way. I don't really understand why Penny would have a mini mid-life crisis on Valentine's Day, but it's hard to watch Leonard try and fix imaginary problems Penny has caused in her own head. And I wouldn't really clarify dressing up as cupid as making one feel young again, but you know, whatever works. At least Sheldon seemed to annoy it.

At Howard and Bernadette's they are about to take a spa when they find what they initially think is a rat in the water. They fish it out inly to realise it's a rabbit and they quickly look up on Howard's phone how to make sure it's okay. While nursing it back got health they name the rabbit Valentino (it may be cliched, but I loved that they did this) and it's bites Howard. Howard is concerned that it might have rabies, and despite it not showing any symptoms, he wants to go to the emergency room just in case. As he leaves the room Bernadette tells Valentino, 'we'll have to find another time to tell him I'm pregnant.' It's been a long time coming, but there it is, awkwardly revealed to the audience by Bernadette talking to a rabbit. It was just such as odd way to reveal it, you think that the writers would want to go for something bigger but I guess I should also commend their self-control on deciding for a more subtle reveal.

Rating: 3/5

The Big Bang Theory 9.14 Review: The Meemaw Materialisation

The longer a series runs, the more opportunity viewers have to gain insight into its characters and their histories. One of the major problems of The Big Bang Theory that I've had for a while now is the writers' inability to make the most of the show's longevity by introducing more members of the characters' families. I think the only real family member that has been used to great effect up until this point is Leonard's mother to be honest. So when it was announced that Sheldon's often mentioned 'Meemaw' would be making an appearance, and was being played by June Squibb, it was hard not to get excited. Unfortunately, because of the amount of time we've had to wait to meet her character and the expectations that come with that wait I think I was always going to be disappointed.

Sheldon's grandmother randomly decided to visit her grandson in Pasadena, but as we quickly learnt she was actually there to size Amy up and ensure that she's good enough for her 'Moonpie'. Sure, Sheldon's over-protective grandmother wants to size Amy up, that's fine as a plot, but as i've often thought about some of The Big Bang Theory's most recent episodic plots - it's something that could (and probably should) have occurred five seasons ago when they started dating, or even more recently when they broke up. The timing just seemed a little odd to me, although I guess it shouldn't be that surprising that the writers were desperate to introduce a new conflict into Sheldon and Amy's relationship since they've been so happy recently. Regardless, Meemaw's two-faced nature - being the sweetest old lady imaginable to everyone, yet being hard-nosed behind their backs to Amy - was a boring cliche of a character. Once it got out that the pair weren't very find of each other the drama was wrapped-up fairly quickly. While Sheldon's declaration to his Meemaw that he's been working on improving Amy throughout their relationship (just as his Meemaw had done with his Pop-pop) may have been good for a cheap laugh, I really would have preferred if he had uttered Amy's sentiment that they have both helped each other grow into better people. It's an idea the episode seemed to ignore about Sheldon as the appearance of his Meemaw reverted him to a frustrating man-child that the character has slowly been growing out of. Ultimately, though, him telling his Meemaw this convinced her to accept Amy if Sheldon felt so strongly about her and that she would let him give her her ring (which Amy now knows about!).

It's rare that I find an episode's B-plot more intriguing then the main one but Raj's internal struggle about meeting a woman he potentially has more chemistry with than Emily was fun to watch. Him and Howard met a woman named Claire at the comic book store and she, wanting to interview Raj for his astrophysicist knowledge for a scripts she was writing, gave him her number. It was fun watching Raj ask Howard and Bernadette for advice while quite obviously ignoring them and going off into his own tangents about how it would look to have a family with Claire. Who knows if anything will come of this, B-plots are rarely used for plot development in sitcoms and are more just there to be funny, but I really wish the series would focus some more time on Raj and his relationship (whoever that may be with).

Rating 2.5/5

The Big Bang Theory 9.13 Review: The Empathy Optimization

With Amy still away at her neurobiology conference Sheldon gets sick and, as usual, he makes it very painful for his friends with his constant demands his unappreciative behaviour at their attempts to help him. We've seen Sheldon sick before, so I'm glad that the episode skipped over his sickness via flashbacks because having a whole episode about him being sick would have been very repetitive. And I love how Amy explained to him to him that his unbearable behaviour makes his friends wants to stay a few extra days at a neurobiology conference.

Raj notes that Amy's relationship with Sheldon improved by having some time apart from him, and Leonard suggests that they should all do to Vegas for the weekend as him and Penny had been talking about it, and Raj suggests taking a party bus there. Sheldon overhears Leonard telling Penny about it and wants to come and Leonard tells him that everyone else is going but he's not invited so he'll have to resort to hanging put with Stuart. Did anyone else think it was unnecessary for Leonard to say that? When they said they were going to Vegas Sheldon didn't even want to go. Had Leonard not said anything else one would assume the whole situation would have been fine, but no, he had to specifically tell Sheldon that he wasn't invited. Just seemed a bit harsh to me.

Sheldon Skypes with Amy and tells her how mad he is at the others, and she suggest that he needs to apologise and she teaches him about empathy - that he should feel bad about the way he treated them while he was sick. Surprisingly, it works and he does feel remorse for his actions. While it's been a little weird confining Amy to Skype conversations the last two weeks, there's no denying that the scenes work wonderfully regardless.

Sheldon apologises to Leonard and he accepts, but he now expects to be invited to Vegas, and Leonard tells him it's not just him he has to apologise to, which arguably led to the highlight of the episode: Sheldon Cooper's apology tour. Trying to play the pan flute for Howard and Bernadette, trying to take a picture of Penny with is commemorative shirt while she's in the shower, and apologising to Stuart and telling him about the trip he's not invited to - it was all so hilarious.

When he tries to apologise to Raj and Emily, however, he once again gives Emily a backhanded compliment about how she must not be called a real doctor all the time because she's a dermatologist. She doesn't accept his apology, and she gets mad at Raj who doesn't stand up for himself or her.

Later Raj storms into the apartment and asks Sheldon what is wrong with him after he has gone to Emily's to try and apologise again, only to make her cry. She told Raj she's not going to Vegas if Sheldon is going. He suggests he go and try to apologise again, but everyone tells him no and he realises that perhaps by not going on the trip he'll prove his sincerity.

On the party bus just as Leonard is about to make a toast Sheldon pops out of the toilet, which Stuart in tow, no less. Sheldon successfully apologises to Emily by telling her that he always means well but his odd nature often makes that difficult. She accepts, and Sheldon says he'll leave (with Stuart) because they'll have a better time without him. Until, that is, they feel bad and invite him back onto the bus we're they're soon watching Raj dance on a stripper pole.

Ultimately this episode worked by having all the cast together (sans Amy) involved in a single storyline. It also greatly highlighted often ignored and underused characters like Emily, whose fierce energy is a welcome addition to the mostly passive group of characters, and Stuart, who, after last week's episode, I am glad got an appearance and a reprieve of sorts.

Rating: 3.5/5

American Horror Story Hotel 5.12 Review: Be Our Guest

At the end of last week's superb episode, 'Battle Royale, I wondered whether or not American Horror Story Hotel and any further story to tell. Unfortunately, 'Be Our Guest', made it abundantly clear it did not.

Iris and Liz (the only two left living), were desperately attempting to re-vamp the hotel to get more clients but those pesky ghosts kept murdering all their guests, particularly Sally and Will for some reason. Neither were willing to stop killing, wither, until March stepped in and told them all they needed to do was to ensure that the Hotel Cortez was still standing by 2026 (100 years after being built) so that it could qualify to be a world heritage sight, ensuring that they all lived forever. But first they had to convince them to stop murdering people. Cue twenty minutes wasted on two characters I didn't care about getting happy endings. Sally fell in love with the inter webs and became a social media star somehow, and Will entrusted Liz to be the spokesperson for his fashion label outside of the Cortez. And I guess that meant they were back to having avant-garde runway shows while a cover version of 'Nights in White Satin' was playing, so yay?

Despite all their success Liz was still down about Tristan not turning up to have ghost sex with him after dying so Iris hired Billie Dean Howard (a television psychic) to communicate with him. Tristan didn't want to talk though, but Billie got in touch with Donovan instead who said that his heaven was Iris' pancakes. Cue Iris' happy ending. After being apart of the joy that is cutting the umbilical cord of your granddaughter, Liz announced to all her ghost pals at the Cortez some time later that she was ding from prostate cancer (now that was funny!) and wanted them to kill her so that she could eternally live in the hotel with her 'family'. It was all very touching, especially when The Countess, who no one had seen in years, showed up to kindly do the honours and kill her. With her corpse barely cold, Tristan showed up to welcome her to the afterlife. Cue Liz's happy ending.

Billie Dean's involvement in the hotel however, with her three television specials, have started to bring unwanted guests to the hotel (these ghosts are so picky!) so on one Devil's Night John tells Iris to invite Billie to speak with him as he has been of interest to her for sometime. John explains to her what happened to him and his family after the end of his Ten Commandments killings, explaining that he Alex and Holden moved into the hotel while Scarlett went away to boarding school (with Will's son no less), until John was shot dead by the police one day outside of the hotel. John brings Billie as a party favour to Devil's night where him, March, and the other serial killers tell her to never mention the Cortez to anyone ver again or she would be tracked down and killed by Romana. Later that night, an adult Scarlett comes and visits her undead family as they sleep. Cue a happy ending for the Lowe's!

March described the Ten Commandment killings as an epilogue to his years of murder early in the episode, and much like that storyline, Hotel's final episode ultimately came across as hazardous, and ultimately unnecessary. Did these specific characters need such final (happy, nonetheless) moments in audiences eyes? I think if I ever re-watch the series I'll think as last week as the finale.

Rating: 2.5/5

The Big Bang Theory 9.12 Review: The Sales Call Sublimation

It's always hard for large ensemble sitcoms to successfully navigate multiple plot-lines, but it's made even harder for The Big Bang Theory by the fact that Sheldon is the unspoken lead character in the series. This means, as exemplified by 'The Sales Call Sublimation', that even if his character is stuck with a particularly lifeless lot with no potential (sorry Raj), that that storyline will become the A plot regardless. This was really unfortunate in 'The Sales Call Sublimation' because it should have been all about Penny and Leonard and how Leonard's innocent trip to a psychiatrist (for Penny) brought up more than a few problems for them.

Since Amy was away at a neurobiology conference Sheldon was free to spend the weekend as he pleased, so as Sheldon does he agrees to help Raj go through data in the telescope lab. This resulted in them discovering a medium-sized asteroid, and apparently laughter was meant to ensue from them trying to agree on a name for it, with Sheldon trying to remove Raj from the equation all the while.

At the Wolowitzs', as Howard and Bernadette prepared for their house renovations (is this really a plot?) Stuart awkwardly announces that he's found a place of his own and is moving out. Stuart is unfortunately a character the writers of the series have never known what do do with and subsequently has become a cliche of running gags about a creepy middle-aged nerd (he watches them while they sleep!). I will be sad, because his departure probably means seeing less of him, but at the same time that's probably better for his character at this stage. Howard and Bernadette's parent-esque reaction to his departure could be seen coming a mile a away.

Penny enlists Leonard's help in trying to persuade a potential client, physiatrist Dr. Gallo (an underused Jane Kaczmarek), to purchase stress-relive pharmaceuticals on her behalf, but the plan backfires when Dr. Gallo tells Leonard that she's read his mother's book and disagreed with a lot of her theories. The fact that Penny would even ask Leonard to do such a thing is outrageous, but the fact that it delved into some of their character/ relationship problems is always welcome in my eyes. Dr. Gallo's observation that Leonard could potentially be trying to replace his mother with Penny as an unobtanable love interest is an interesting viewpoint on their relationship. The pair have never exactly 'worked' as a couple, but I've always been quick to blame Penny, but this idea goes someway to explaining why they might be together in the first place. Unfortunately, as is the problem with all sitcoms, assumedly all of this will be forgotten be next week's episode, which is a shame because it would be nice to see them try and do something (anything!) with the boringness that is Lenny, and perhaps try and do something better for Jane Kaczmarek.

Rating: 2/5

American Horror Story: Hotel 5.11 Review - Battle Royale

In a series like American Horror Story in which several characters can die and come back to life in the span of an episode it's always hard to build anticipation with life-threatening cliffhangers. So when, at the end 'She Gets Revenge', Iris and Liz burst into The Countess' room guns a-blazing an observant AHS viewer would probably have assumed that The Countess would survive. And she did (and miraculously managed to crawl out of the room somehow), but poor Donovan did not, and before he died from the bullet wounds his mother accidentally inflicted on him he asked her to drag him out of the Cortez before he would to live there eternally as a ghost. It was a tender moment for the pairs confusingly under-developed relationship considering the amount of drama it's caused over the season. Am I sad that Donovan died? Not really, no. Much like the relationship his mother, his character motivations changed drastically episode to episode, so he was very hard to like.

What worked so well for this episode though is that all it's characters seemed to have a singular goal -  albeit with varying motivations - that The Countess had to die, and it made for compelling viewing. So yes, with Sally's help, and the blood of her baby vampires The Countess was able to survive. Sally wanted her to lure John back to the hotel so that be could be killed and forced to stay there with her forever, and that was after telling her and giving us a painful flashback to 1933 where she sewed herself to a couple before they unfortunately overdosed. But much like us, The Countess was not very interested in Sally's problems. One of her favourite boyfriends (the only surviving one at this stage, so I guess he was important) had been murdered and she had to kill her own children to live. She was not in a good place, and props to Lady Gaga who has been great all season, but definitely brought it in 'Battle Royale'.

Iris (after briefly mourning her son by rolling around on the bed with his ashes) and Liz stayed in the hotel despite knowing that The Countess would come for them once she had healed, but I guess they thought they would be fine once they freed Ramona and got her to help them kill her. Unfortunately Ramona was very malnourished from being trapped in that cement hallway with only vampire children as food, and also wasn't very happy with Iris for helping putting her there, so her and Liz had to go out in search for food. But as tends to happen with the Hotel Cortez, guests seem to arrive just as someone decides they need to do some murdering, and this time the victim was none other than Coven's Queenie. Although overall this episode was great I could potentially go into great detail here about the writers tarnishing previous seasons of AHS by haphazardly inserting a major character from Coven and unceremoniously killing her off here, but I won't. After some forced exposition about witch bloodlines and her voodoo doll nature March is able to kill her (because he cannot be harmed) and Ramona gains insumountable strength for drinking her blood. It turns out Match too wants The Countess dead - so that they can finally be together instead of having dinner once a month.
Ramona confronts The Countess in her suite and flirtatious, yet threatening, banter ensued between the two until a mournful Countess apologised for all the horrible things she had done to Romana and offered the Hotel Cortez to her as compensation, which Ramona agreed to for some reason (SHE DIDN"T EVEN NEED WITCH POWERS AFTER ALL THAT! QUEEN DIDN'T HAVE TO DIE). All The Countess wanted to do was take her son and leave the Cortez behind.

Elsewhere, John and Alex's poor attempt to have a normal family by keeping their never-aging son aware from grandma's eyes and kidnapping randoms to bring home to eat was put on hold when John returned home to only a Hotel Cortez key waiting for him. He goes to the Hotel and Sally tells him March kidnapped his family for breaking his promise and not fulfilling his Twelve Commandment killings, he still needs a 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder' trophy, and it beautifully fitting act he guns down The Countess as she is about to leave the hotel. It's the sort of moment the season was rockingly building towards, The Countess being the final victim of the Twelve Commandments killer, and I don't think its a moment that'll be surpassed in the remaining episodes.

Although it didn't really need it, 'Battle Royale's final scene was a revealing epilogue as March tries to ensure that Ms. Evers helps him accommodate The Countess, who is now a fully formed ghost. March tells The Countess he forgives her for turning her in all those years ago but its okay because they're together now. Ms. Evers cracks, telling The Countess she should have died outside of the hotel and telling March that it was her who tipped the police off about him all those years ago - knowing that he would kill himself rather then get caught. He is dumbfounded and banishes her from his sight, but returns to a cheerier mood as he toasts to his and The Countess her (after)life together while she cries.

It was a surpassingly fact-paced and emotional episode overall, but I'm worried that after this there is little for AHS Hotel to do. John is not that interesting a character, we don't really care what happens to his family, and I can't imagine March's plans for him are all that exciting. Iris, Liz, and Ramona have sort of been extraneous characters all season and they all lack motivation now that The Countess is technically dead. And everyone else is just resentful ghosts, surely there's not too much they can do? Although, as 'Battle Royale' expressed, AHS does still have the ability to surprise us.

Rating: 4/5

Galavant 2.1- 2 Review: A New Season aka Suck It Cancellation Bear & World's Best Kiss

Galavant was a wildly rambunctious surprise on our television screens early last year and it seemed set to be a short-lived one at that, receiving dismal ratings over its eight episode (four week) run. Miraculously though, the series survived, and boy, did it want you to know it in its premiere episode 'A New Season aka Suck It Cancellation Bear'. I mean, just read that title. There are very few series that are able, let alone willing, to be as daring to name an episode like that, but the joy of Galavant is that its existent as a series itself - a fantastical musical comedy - has little precedence which I guess lets the writers feel like they can do whatever they want, which makes for a great ride as viewers.

So after its possibly too self-aware opening song, 'A New Season', the first episode found Galavant and Richard shipwrecked while on the search for his kingdom and tangled up in 'The Enchanted Forest', which hilariously, was actually a gay bar. Writing about episodes sometimes it's easier to see points where writers use detours to fill up time, but like Sid said in the opening song, common sense dictates that we know where this season is headed so there's no reason why we can't have fun along the way. So having Kylie Minogue being the owner of said gay bar was absolutely the best regardless. Elsewhere Isabella was still trapped in Hortensia, waiting to be wed to her cousin and trying to escape, while back in Valencia both Gareth and Sid had difficulty without having properly defied roles within the kingdom.

The worst thing about Galavant is that with now three separate plot-threads, and musical numbers thrown in, there's very little room for significant plot/ character progression to occur. Thankfully, this is where ABC's decision to air two episodes back-to-back works quite well (where previously it just seemed like an attempt to get it off the air faster). The second episode 'World's Best Kiss' was nicely able to build on the energy of the first and create some needed plot/ character progression while still technically being an episode by itself, which is why I think it was probably better than the premiere. Thanks to a fortune teller Galavant is able to get in touch with Isabella by 'calling' the amulet she was bestowed with as a child. Unfortunately the connection is bad, and while this is potentially sloppy writing I suspect Isabella thinking Galavant is not in love with her is just another stalling tactic so that she has a legitimate reason not to escape Hortensia. Richard also receives news of Gareth's betrayal which provided a nice character moment for the pair, while Gareth and Queen Madalena also finally bonded over how annoying they find Sid.

And if the writer's didn't have enough to fit into an episode, they managed to put in a nice cliffhanger too - upon reaching his Kingdom Richard and Galavant discover that his castle is gone. Where could it be? Deviously self-aware, often hilarious,  and contagiously catchy are why you should give into the miracle that no one thought we'd get, and watch Galavant.

Best Musical Number: 'Off With His Shirt' could easily be a Kylie Minogue chart topper.
Best Quote: 'Die in a fart brown cow' - a distorted Galavant as heard by Isabella.
Rating: 3.5/5

Joy Review

Joy is a semi-biographical dramedy following the life of Joy Mangano, a woman who overcomes her dysfunctional family life as well as the difficulties of building a business from nothing, to invent the Wonder Mop in the 1990's.

The film starts off as a surprisingly funny one considering the potentially dry material. Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) is struggling to run a household which includes her bed-ridden mother, Terri (Virgina Madsen), her grandmother Mimi (Diane Ladd), her two children, and her ex-husband Anthony (Édgar Ramírez), who lives in their basement. Things become even more complicated when her father Rudy (Robert DeNiro) is dumped on her doorstep by his current partner, claiming she can no longer deal with him. It would be easy to evoke empathy with a set-up like this but O. Russell  gleefully paints this family with vivid strokes of outlandish humour, like Terri and her soap operas, or Rudy's inability to not be in love, that instead garner a greater sense of empathy through the familiarity of family. There are however, some more questionable writing choices, like that of having Joy's grandmother occasionally narrate the story, or it's odd use of flashbacks throughout different stages of the film.

Regardless of all this the film does have a plot though and eventually, after moping up glass on her fathers' new girlfriend Trudys' (Isabella Rossellini) boat, Joy is inspired, just as she was as a child, to invent a self-wringing mop. From here she must convince Rudy and Trudy to help her invest in her product after showing them a prototype so that she can manufacture them, but even after placing a second mortgage on her home she is unable to sell her product, when Anthony introduces her to Neil Walker (an underused Bradley Cooper), executive of the recently started cable network shopping channel QVC (Quality, Value, Convenience).

For me personally the film peaks at the end of the second act when Joy successfully markets the Miracle Mop on the QVC network after it had previously failed on the first attempt. By this point she has overcome an appropriate amount of obstacles to make this victory well-earned and inspiring. The writers, however, seem to disagree and the third act begins with the tonally jarring death of her grandmother, Mimi, and from there Joy's problems seem to unnecessarily multiply as once again the validity of her success and dreams are put into question. Her dysfunctional, yet previously endearing, family lose any semblance of kindness as her half-sister Peggy (an unrecognisable Elisabeth Rohm) makes a blunderous business decision behind her back, while her father and his girlfriend are revealed to have given her bad advice about her invention patent at the beginning of the film, and the father of her children stands idly by as all this happens and Joy is forced to declare bankruptcy. The scenes are potentially the most emotionally charged of the film, and Lawrence and DeNiro are given the best material to work with here, but to what end? After a western-esque standoff with a troublesome business partner in which Joy successful solves all her problems the end of the film shows Joy as the head of a multimillion dollar advertising agency in which she helps inventors like herself produce their products for television. It is a very odd ending. She's still taking care of her heartless family, a problem, it turns out, she was never to overcome. And while she's helping those like herself, she no longer comes across as herself, sitting at a big desk, dressed in a fancy suit (something she made a point about not doing before unveiling her Miracle Mop on QVC), no longer in touch with the woman that needed and made that mop. And that's not even mentioning that flashback to her time as girl is which she pronounced she didn't need a prince but seemed to be longing for one now.

Undoubtedly inspiring and surprisingly funny, although tonally problematic, Joy maintains itself to be an enjoyable enough film.

Rating: 3/5