Lanterns on HBO Max is built for viewers with minimal Green Lantern knowledge, and the first episode lays out its worldbuilding cleanly. The mentor-mentee relationship becomes the delivery system: older, seasoned Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and his eventual successor and trainee John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), with Jordan’s lessons to Stewart doubling as the show’s lessons to us. It characterizes them fast, too. Within the opening scene you get a sharp sense of who these two are, just from how they interact. How they respond to each other tells you who they are, both together and apart.

Some things do get hammered in. Characters keep asking John what he really thinks of Hal. But he answers before he speaks; it’s the quiet moments that tell you, the flashes of annoyance, admiration, and amusement crossing Pierre’s face as he reacts to the chaos Chandler brings. The character is all stoic intensity, but Pierre doesn’t play him as a blank. Chandler’s Jordan is a joy too, brash and arrogant, with a deep-rooted place of care underneath. 

Stewart is guarded because he’s biding his time and wants to prove himself. Jordan is reckless because of how long he’s been doing this. He’s paid his dues, he knows the ropes, and he’s teetering on burnout. We’ve seen the reckless mentor and the tight-strung mentee before. What makes this one land is the energy both actors bring. For a newcomer, the two performances are the anchor. You don’t need to know the lore to understand who these two are.

The ensemble around them carries the show’s core sense of mystery. When the duo heads to Rushville, Nebraska to investigate possible alien activity, they land in a town full of secretive figures, especially the Macon family, who the two keep getting entangled with. The dynamics raise question after question. Who does William Macon work for? What’s the deal with Zoe? The Macons are going out of their way to insert themselves with the Lanterns, and their motive is one of the biggest mysteries the show plants.

The standout moment of the pilot, however, has little to do with them. It’s Hal Jordan’s interrogation of alien suspect Waylon Sanders, the scene the whole episode has been building toward. Chris McCoy is excellent as Sanders in the hot seat, and it’s the audience’s first look at Hal in his element, at how he handles extraterrestrial life. This one scene sets the stakes and shows the forces at play as Hal exposes and contains an alien threat.

It also pays off a choice the show makes all the way through. The ring mostly appears in small, trivial ways, and full use is saved for the moments that matter most: the open, the interrogation, the close. Holding that power back gives it weight when it lands, and it keeps you on edge waiting for it. The final scene jumps ahead rather than resolving, so you don’t get closure yet. The nonlinear structure is the smartest thing about the episode. It raises several mysteries at once while sketching the bigger picture, and it’s what will bring you back each week.

This is a slow bake. The pilot leaves you itching for more, and it drags in the middle, but the drag is the cost of being thorough for a new audience. It never babies you. It wants to be careful with characters and lore it knows are lesser known, and every piece of that lore arrives through a framing device that feels native to the story. Lanterns takes its time. Going in blind, I never once felt locked out.

Lanterns is now streaming on HBO Max.

The post Lanterns Bet on Two Guys in a Room. It Pays Off. appeared first on Goggler.

Produced by Toho with Netflix, Human Vapor is an eight-episode reimagining of Ishirō Honda’s 1960 tokusatsu film. When a professor is blown apart on live television by a misty cloud, Japan is gripped by fear and fascination as the killer works his way through Tokyo’s elite. Detective Kenji Okamoto (Shun Oguri) and reporter Kyoko Kono (Yu Aoi) trace him to the White Centre, a government-backed programme that quietly sacrificed the country’s poorest citizens twenty-seven years ago.

What held me was neither the supernatural premise nor the procedural mystery, both of which unfold along familiar lines. It was how precisely the series illustrates sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s idea of disposable people. In Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts, Bauman argues that modern capitalist societies inevitably produce “human waste”: citizens rendered socially redundant once they stop being economically useful.

Hyper-capitalist Japan is that argument made flesh. When the asset bubble burst in the early 1990s, so did the country’s image of itself as an unstoppable economic titan. Young people entering the workforce could no longer count on the lifetime employment their parents had. Unable to reach conventional markers of security, they became the Lost Generation, and many still carry the damage. Japan went on projecting prosperity while its citizens’ lives wasted away.

Kenji and Kyoko eventually uncover what the White Centre was for. In 1999, a meteor strike threatened to derail the Children’s Expo, an event the nation needed to go smoothly to protect its global image. The government colluded with the White Centre to recruit the poor, the unemployed, and the desperate as a cleanup crew for the contaminated site. Lured by promises of life-changing money, they were sent into an environment officials knew was toxic, equipped with little more than face masks.

Ren Tsutsumida, the Human Vapor, was one of them. The other workers’ bodies were disposed of; Ren survived, vaporised, and woke with a power that was also a curse. His victims were all complicit: the professor, the crime boss, the police chief. Their crimes stayed buried for twenty-seven years. Human Vapor, both the series and the man, forces open a deeply uncomfortable tendency in Japanese culture, the impulse to bury a shameful history.

Truth surfaces anyway. One of the strongest subplots follows former White Centre director Hiroki Obata, who kept a journal documenting the cover-up. When Kyoko urges him to come forward, he stalls, caught between guilt and self-preservation. His conscience is pricked by a boy in his care who sees a schoolmate stealing and says nothing. Obata has to reckon with asking a child for honesty he will not offer himself.

Japanese villains tend to carry their meaning close to the surface. Godzilla-as-kaiju speaks of atomic hubris and the natural world taking its revenge; the Human Vapor’s gaseous state speaks just as loudly. Gas is a slippery category, neither solid nor liquid, possessing mass while remaining impossible to hold. Horror thrives when boundaries get violated, and Ren is nothing but violated boundaries. He was powerless and now destroys the powerful. Victim, villain, vigilante? Where does a man who floats stand, morally?

On paper this is ridiculous, the kind of campy 1960s premise that invites a laugh. I love science fiction and I had still never heard of the original. But Human Vapor earned its runtime and left me with more to think about than I expected. It is also well timed, arriving when the powerful behave with impunity and pay nothing for it. What could be more frightening to a man without accountability than the thought that the air itself might expose him?

Human Vapor is now streaming on Netflix.

The post Human Vapor Turns Japan’s Disposable People Into a Monster appeared first on Goggler.

Could it be, as media expert Marshall McLuhan said, because the medium is the message? Are some stories inherently better suited to animation? It’s certainly not the fault of the visuals. Netflix clearly splurged. The effects for the bending and fight scenes are spectacular, the firebending especially. Yes, the moments when Aang wraps himself in rock-armour look eye-roll worthy. But honestly, he doesn’t look much different from The Thing.

So it isn’t the special effects. And it definitely isn’t the mise-en-scène. The live action is a feast for the eyes. The costumes are exquisite, the sets immersive. Aang and his friends spend a lot of time in Ba Sing Se, and the Earth city looks like it’s been lifted from a Chinese period drama. This is a genuine celebration of Asian cultures, the very thing Shyamalan’s film so blatantly ignored.

Could the problem be the acting, then? Many of the characters don’t quite feel like themselves. Aang and Uncle Iroh aren’t as whimsical as their animated counterparts. But Gordon Cormier and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee still capture the deep wisdom and reverence for life that both characters share. Elizabeth Yu plays Azula with less maniacal glee and a more measured calm that I actually rather like. And newcomer Miyako is superb as Toph.

I instinctively wanted to blame poor Sokka (Ian Ousley), on both the acting and writing fronts. He was fine in season 1, but across the seven episodes of season 2 I developed a Pavlovian response to him. Every time Ousley appeared, I cringed in anticipation of whatever lame joke was about to fall out of his mouth and the inevitable explain-the-joke follow-up.

The more I thought about it, though, the less convinced I was that the fault lay with the acting. Ousley is spot-on in his delivery; he’s mastered Sokka’s mannerisms, quirks and physical humour. With my eyes closed, I’d be hard pressed to tell the live action and animated Sokkas apart. So how is it that the animated Sokka was genuinely hilarious while Ousley’s is a strange blend of bland and cringe?

My theory is that the live action Sokka’s problems stem from Netflix not trusting its viewers with complex, uncomfortable things. The animated Sokka was a touch sexist at the start. He held firm beliefs about what girls were good for and struggled to accept that the Kyoshi warriors, an all-girl clan, could best him. Netflix obviously worried that Sokka’s mild misogyny would offend modern audiences. So they made him PC. And that, I believe, is why he’s a pale shade of himself.

Sokka’s sexism isn’t just essential to his humour. It’s a fundamental part of who he is and how he grows. Sokka grew up as the eldest male in the Southern Water Tribe. The weight of his people rested on him. With his father and uncles away at war, he had no male role models. He wasn’t a misogynist so much as a teenaged boy learning how to relate to women – and to himself. His journey towards maturity was beautiful to watch.

Netflix essentially neutered Sokka. And he’s symptomatic of the larger problems dragging the live action down. The animation never let its status as a ‘kids’ show’ stop it from exploring deep, often dark themes. Sokka proves that. I’m genuinely impressed how deep Ousley’s portrayal of Sokka’s trauma over losing Princess Yue was. But when live action Sokka isn’t mooning over Yue, he’s the butt of jokes. It’s one or the other.

So, is the medium the message? Is this just a story that lives and dies in animation? I don’t think so. Everything Netflix needed was on screen: the budget, the effects, the costumes, a cast that genuinely understands these characters. The magic of the original was never trapped inside its animation cells. It lived in a willingness to hand children a war, a genocide, real grief, and a boy fumbling his way towards being a decent man – and to trust that young viewers could hold all of it at once. That’s not a property of the medium. It’s a choice. And it’s the one choice this adaptation keeps refusing to make. Season 3 doesn’t need better firebending. It needs more nerve.

Season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender is now streaming on Netflix.

The post Season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender Is Better. It’s Still Too Polite. appeared first on Goggler.

To be honest, I was a little underwhelmed by the line-up when I saw it. Paris, New York, and London are meccas for every travel show going — they’ve hogged the spotlight for decades, if not centuries. What could Nat Geo possibly unearth that hasn’t already been picked over by every listicle and Insta influencer to boot? So it wasn’t a surprise that the episode I enjoyed most was Mexico City.

Even for Antoni, Mexico City was a first, and each place he visited felt like a genuine discovery. And what a city. Over fifty minutes we go from El Nido de Quetzalcóatl — a serpent-shaped architectural marvel you can actually stay in — to the Arena México, to watch an artform of a different kind: female lucha libre fighters going at it in the ring. Along the way we hear how young Mexicans are reshaping their city and country, breaking away from the tired perception of Mexico as the land of Narcos and nachos.

Something I loved about Antoni’s other travel show, No Taste Like Home, is his interest in immigrant stories. As he reminds us in just about every episode, he’s the child of Polish immigrants, and on that show, he took celebrities like Awkwafina and Henry Golding on journeys to trace how their family histories are bound up with food, memory and migration.

He carries that same interest into Best of the World. Nearly every restaurant, bar, and bakery he visits is run by immigrants, from The Tamil Crown in London serving roti and roast, to the Taiwanese-born bartenders of NYC’s Double Chicken Please. Antoni spotlights how immigrants enrich the places they come to call home, and their stories of remaking themselves somewhere new are universal and quietly stirring.

The other thing that sets the show apart is Antoni himself. Think of the mainstays of the genre: Joanna Lumley, Michael Portillo, Eugene Levy, Griff Rhys Jones. Spritely though they all are, their average age is pushing seventy-plus, and no matter how many times Joanna Lumley declares everything “absolutely fabulous,” watching can feel a little like your grandparents recommending holiday spots.

Antoni is much younger, and a good deal fitter, than the average travel host, which lets the show be more adventurous. He joins a cycling club and power-pedals through Montmartre, then goes open-water swimming in the icy waters of London’s Canary Wharf. And no matter how much Griff or Michael Portillo might secretly fancy it, no producer alive would let either get body-slammed by a luchadora at the Arena México. Antoni does, though, he’s got health insurance.

Ultimately, Best of the World is no stretch the best travel show ever made, but it’s a pleasant escape for a few hours. Antoni is an affable host, genuinely curious and open-hearted about connecting with the people he meets.

If Nat Geo renews it, I hope they ditch the well-worn North America–Europe circuit. The Mexico City episode is the proof: the further off the beaten path, the better the show gets. The world’s a big place, and most of its best cities are still waiting their turn in the spotlight.

Best of the World with Antoni Porowski is now streaming on Disney+

The post Best of the World Is at Its Best When It Leaves the Beaten Path appeared first on Goggler.

In The Boroughs, Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina) moves to the titular retirement village after his wife’s sudden death. The Boroughs is the ultimate lifestyle enclave for seniors, a desert suburbia offering residents plenty of sunshine, Pilates, and easy living. Although Sam starts off determined to hate everything, he quickly bonds with his neighbours.

And then Sam discovers the residents are being preyed upon each night in their sleep by alien creatures. 

The reason this reminded me so much of Gibson’s article “Disneyland With the Death Penalty” is the Boroughs itself. Gibson wrote that when he visited Singapore in 1993, he was horrified by how perfectly ordered and pristine the place was. He found the city-state soulless, a nation without originality or any real substance beyond capitalism – essentially, a world built as artificially as a theme park like Disneyland, except without the fun. 

Similarly, French sociologist Jean Baudrillard claimed that Disneyland is the perfect example of a hyper-real place. Disneyland’s Main Street offers a picture-perfect, small-town Americana, condensing the nostalgia of childhood fantasy. The retirement community in The Boroughs does the same. It’s an idealised place engineered for seniors – a playland with swimming, afternoon drinks, and Dog Day Afternoon screenings. The homes are single-storey and the lawns manicured. The streets are wide and human-scale. There’s no traffic except for the golf carts. It’s a place without stress or crowds. But also without children or families. 

The Boroughs is as hyper-real as Disneyland’s Mainstreet and as soulless as Gibson’s dystopian Singapore. It’s a town without history, without soul, willed into existence from the desert through sheer capitalism and crafted as a perfect replica of southwestern USA suburbia. Heck, even Gibson’s comment that Singapore is “…like an entire country run by Jeffrey Katzenberg…under the motto ‘Be happy or I’ll kill you,’” applies to this place. The Borough’s founder, Blaine Shaw, pretty much tells Sam and his friends to be happy…or else.

And the hyper-real goes even deeper. Residents of the Boroughs tend to develop severe dementia after living in the community over time. Those residents are then sent to live at The Manor. There, the residents (or inmates) are kept in an indoor neighbourhood of fake front porches, artificial streets, and a painted sky. These memory-triggering streetscapes, suburban décor, and faux coffee are part of The Manor’s dementia therapeutics, and based on the principals of compassionate care. 

But as Sam discovers when he gets forcibly trapped there, The Manor is an even more insidious level of the hyper-real. If the Boroughs is a hyper-real copy of small-town America, then The Manor is a hyper-real copy of the Boroughs. What’s troubling is that the residents can sense, but never fully understand, why everything around them lacks reality. How can they, when The Manor is an emptier copy of an already empty copy of reality?

The horrors of this series are multiple. There’s the obvious body horror of the alien creatures feeding on the residents. But there’s also the horror of aging – not aging itself, but what comes with it – the powerlessness, infantilising, and gaslighting that Sam and his friends experience every day. At the Boroughs, seniors are removed from public life, sequestered in a perfectly curated ‘lifestyle’ town. At The Manor, the elderly are removed and kept apart from even the other elderly, their decline and eventual deaths disguised behind the promise of care.

But it isn’t all doom and gloom. In this youth-obsessed media world where teenagers are always the chosen ones saving the world, it’s nice to have a series that celebrates senior power. As Sam and his friends struggle to free themselves and their neighbours from the Boroughs, they prove that seniors can be as smart, badass, sexy, and morally grey as any action hero – all while smoking weed, eating good camembert, and comparing their latest surgeries and medication. Give me more of this Grey Rebellion.

The Boroughs is now streaming on Netflix.

The post In The Boroughs, It’s Suburbia All the Way Down appeared first on Goggler.

For me, Beef was great art, a tragicomedy of misunderstanding, pettiness, and revenge that was genuinely Shakespearean in this age of streaming. So I was looking forward to what Season 2 would bring. And the new season makes clear that Lee Sung Jin is determined both to catch lightning in a bottle and prove that he’s no one-trick pony. Season 2 keeps the beef fresh while offering viewers a decidedly subtler form of anger.

The main beef this season is between Josh (Oscar Isaac) and his wife, Lindsay (Carey Mulligan), against another, younger couple, Ashley (Cailee Spaeny) and Austin (Charles Melton). When Ashley and Austin catch Josh, their employer, in the middle of a blazing row with his wife, they do what any Gen Z would: record it. Austin initially wants to help save Lindsay from what they believe is an abusive relationship, but Ashley sees a golden opportunity to milk the video.

The brilliance of Beef is how the series gets us to empathise with both sides. No matter how badly behaved everyone is, we understand that their anger comes from similar yearnings and loneliness. Just like how Danny and Amy from Season 1 were dark mirrors reflecting the worst (and best) of each other, Season 2 positions the two warring couples as symmetries. Josh and Lindsay may be outwardly perfectly polished, but they’re not so different from Austin and Ashley’s young love. Everyone’s equally messed up.

If you were expecting the same kind of bare-knuckled, bloody inferno as Season 1, you might be sorely disappointed. The anger this season is more restrained and diffused, as each side wages tactical destruction on the other, on their partner, and ultimately, on themselves. This is the kind of beef that’s trimmed and manicured, fitting because much of it unfolds in a wellness and country club. Even if it’s not a powder keg ready to blow, the psychodrama is just as deep. 

While Season 2 was strong in many ways, not least the performances, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this season felt neutered. See, Season 1 was spectacularly, unapologetically Asian. Yuen’s Danny was an all-American guy, but his Korean heritage and immigrant family were integral to his lived experiences. The road rage between Danny and Amy, a Vietnamese-American, wasn’t just between a man and a woman – it tore open the tensions between two people who, on the surface, look the same to White America. 

Season 1 blew up the model minority mystique surrounding Asian Americans. Sure, as stereotypes go, being widely considered super-smart, hardworking, and successful doesn’t sound too bad. But the insidiousness of the model minority belief is that these traits aren’t universal or even true. Yet Asians in America are held to impossible standards while their real social and economic struggles are glossed over. And many feel they can never vent about it because that’s just not what model citizens do.

Beef’s genius was that it took the cultural particulars of Asian-Americans, like their struggles against white tokenism, and the humorous absurdities and anxieties of Asian immigrant families, and made it universally appealing. Danny and Amy’s personal challenges, which were grounded in their experiences in America as Asians, could resonate with anyone. Beef allowed its Asians to mess up, do outrageous things, be funny, angry, and sexy. In other words, to be full human beings. Model minority be damned. 

Season 2, while solid, extensively whitewashed the cast and thus, the narrative. Sure, Charles Melton’s Austin was half-Asian. And they had the legendary Youn Yuh-jung playing Chairwoman Park. And yeah, they went to Seoul. Also, I’ve no problems with Isacc or Mulligan’s inclusion. But I mourn the dilution of what made the first season so unique. Beef rode the wave of critically and commercially successful Asian-centric shows like Parasite and Minari. It was proof that the world could celebrate Asian-led stories and casts. So why whitewash itself? That’s my only beef with this season.

Season 2 of Beef is now streaming on Netflix.

The post Beef, Season 2: Rare, Medium, Complicated appeared first on Goggler.

Theroux, a celebrated documentarian of hard-hitting topics, interviewed some big names from the manosphere. There was HSTikkyTokky (HS), Sneako, Justin Waller, and Myron Gaines. Compared to these muscle-bound “alphas,” Theroux’s skinny frame and glasses scream “nerd!” And that’s his superpower. These boys didn’t stand a chance against Theroux’s signature style. He asks them hard questions and gives his subjects the space (and the silence) to explain themselves.

Behind their muscles, flashy cars, and (purportedly) insane body count, these influencers open up on fame, women, sex, conspiracies – and most importantly, themselves. Trying to follow their pretzel logic would require some impressive Double Think gymnastics. Heck, they even admit they don’t believe some of the trash they spout – it’s all for engagement and likes. 

Theroux’s gift is getting these boys (for boys they are) to show their inner selves. Unused to having an actual adult hold them accountable, as opposed to speaking to unseen fans behind a screen, they blab to Theroux. In so doing, they betray their hypocrisy and smallness. HS admitted his mum would slap him if she heard him talk. And it was pathetic seeing how quickly Myron Gains cracked. Seconds after declaring he wanted multiple wives, he backpedalled when his girlfriend Angie entered the room. 

What surprised me most was how deeply entrenched these influencers are in neoliberalism. For a bunch of guys who boast that they’ve taken the red pill, woken up from the Matrix, and now want to help other men “liberate” themselves from a corrupt system sucking them dry, they sure are huge proponents of a capitalist society. They all embody hustle culture; their entire online shtick is about monetising the attention economy, branding themselves, and getting rich. How hyper-capitalist is that?

I honestly wonder how people like Sneako and HS would react if someone pointed out that all their reference points for masculine liberation come from the Wachowski sisters, two transgender women. The fact that the Wachowskis left behind their privileged position of manhood to embrace their trans identities would probably make these guys sick. They’d have to do some serious Double Thinking to justify continuing to believe in anything from the Matrix franchise.

One thing I wished Theroux had done was take more time to ask these boys about their pasts. Considering that he was granted such rare access to these mainstream, media-shy influencers, it was a waste that he didn’t mine their psychological depths more. I was curious about their formative years. How did these guys become this way? Who were the men in their lives? What were their relationships like with their families? What do their parents think of them? And for Sneako, who converted to Islam recently, I would’ve liked to hear how his new faith holds with his worldview. 

HS was the only one whose parent got involved in the documentary. His mum appeared when Theroux visited him at home. Seeing her telling off HS (or Harrison, as she insisted) about his primitive views on women, was a revelation. It was so funny hearing him whining about “not wanting a juice, mummy!”, before his mum forced him to wipe a spill on the floor, in front of all his adoring viewers. Too bad she doesn’t make him clean the mess he’s made online.

After watching Inside the Manosphere, I thought about how Greg Jenner, a historian of celebrity culture, defined fame. One of Jenner’s criteria is that a truly famous person must saturate the cultural consciousness – basically, if your mum doesn’t recognise them, they’re not actually famous. The guys Theroux interviewed might not be known outside their demographic of young boys and men, but their power over that sphere is huge – as is their potential to cause damage by peddling poison.

That’s why documentaries like Theroux’s, that expose the manosphere to a wider audience, are critical. Theroux closes with this call to action: The Matrix is really the algorithmic prison these influencers create for their followers; it’s up to us to free those trapped inside.

Inside the Manosphere is now streaming on Netflix.

The post Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere – Small Men, Big Screens appeared first on Goggler.

The answer, it turns out, is by going somewhere entirely darker. 

At the end of Season 3, Pierpoint has been bought over by Al-Miraj, who, in an attempt of “ethical investing,” furloughs the entire London trading floor. Gus is gone. Eric has been asked to retire. Rob has left for California. Yasmin leaves finance entirely and relishes life as the bride-to-be of aristocrat Henry Muck. Harper, hungry as ever, starts her own short only fund. So where does the show go from here?

Season 4 introduces us to Tender. A payment processing platform operating in the grey zones of gambling and pornography, now pivoting under the stewardship of its CFO Whitney Halberstram (played by the chilling Max Minghella), to reinvent itself as a legitimate bank. When Harper’s fund sets its sight on Tender, what begins as a short position unravels into something darker that threatens the trajectory of every character.

What’s impressive is how organically the returning cast has grown into their circumstances. Once known for sex, drugs, and hedonism, the electric colours and youthfulness of the show’s atmosphere in Seasons 1 and 2 are now mere afterthoughts. It would seem that the characters are aging with the show – and now, leaving their wild and free twenties behind. Eric, now retired on his Pierpoint severance, eventually finds his way back into his mentee’s orbit, with the two launching SternTao, a fund liberated from Otto Mostyn’s political (and aristocratic) will. Yasmin, pulling the strings of her husband’s floundering political career from behind the scenes, is on a trajectory toward something genuinely monstrous, launching the family into Halberstram’s web of deceit. Rishi, as usual, is always having the worst day of his life. 

It is the intrinsic nature of these characters, and who they have grown into that propels the season forward, not their circumstances. The contexts may have shifted. The people, however, have not. 

At the centre of it all, as it always has been, is the Harper-Yasmin relationship (or as I like to fondly call them, Yasharper). The duo have always had a rocky relationship – best friends turned rivals, fuelled by betrayals, and then sexual tension. And it is in Season 4 where that tension reaches its most punishing form. They are now on opposite sides of the Tender trade. Harper wants the company completely decimated. Yasmin, now stuck within it through Henry’s role as CEO, needs it to survive. And yet, somehow, none of this cancels out the magnetic intimacy that hums in the air between them. The season ends with an electrifying finale that completely recontextualises Yasmin’s character while feeling entirely probable for her arc. 

What Industry has always done better than most of its peers is trusting its own intelligence. No moment overstays its welcome. No messaging is hammered onto your face. Having lost its investment banking spine, the show (deftly) pivots into an examination of the technocracy that quietly governs democracies. It doesn’t flinch from real-life headlines, grounding it in a realism that makes the show feel more present than ever before. 

And nowhere is that realism sharper than in its politics. Season 4 is, beneath everything else, an intensely political show, and it isn’t afraid to wear that identity proudly. Otto Mostyn’s seat in the House of Lords, a new MP lobbying for Tender’s regulatory approvals, and the texture of a Labour government navigating the uncomfortable synthesis of old money and new tech – all of it lands with a distinct specificity that feels like a live dispatch rather than just a dramatic backdrop. Most prestige dramas mistake topicality for depth, but at a moment where the relationship between political institutions and new technologies is one of the most defining anxieties of British public life, Industry is entirely unafraid to map that terrain in real time. It may not have the bank setting to follow the markets, but it definitely has access to the politics that govern it.

The early episodes do ask for some patience as the show finds its footing in a new light. Longtime viewers will be sceptical, and the introduction of Tender and its entanglement with SternTao will initially read as a mishmash of ideas with no real place to go. But Industry has earned a degree of trust, and by Episode 3, the direction and shape of the season gets bludgeoned into focus. This is still a show about the industry, but now without the bank, Kay and Down are able to refract it through a wider, more sinister lens. 

The season is a corporate thriller that delivers on every front – heart pounding drama, corporate espionage, (many) quick trips to Accra, the aristocracy, forensic accounting, sex, drugs, Daft Punk’s Veridis Quo pulsing through a club, and also, glory holes. For a show that completely burned its house down, what it has rebuilt is sharper, darker, and entirely in a class of its own.

All four seasons of Industry are now streaming on HBO Max.

The post Industry, Season 4: New Money, Same Devils appeared first on Goggler.

I was so upset by the second part of Bridgerton Season 3 that I didn’t even want to review it. What was a great build up in Part 1, just ended in utter chaos and dissatisfaction. An attempt at far too much with little payoff, and an ending that felt frayed in a distressing way.

By episode eight, I was almost glad for the season to be over. I had such high hopes, but the totally fumbled the endgame. Was this going to happen every time? Were we doomed to experience the highest of highs, and then a terrible crash with each new season?

Thankfully — with a careful heart and the patience to wait for both parts — Season 4 revived my hope in the series. Stripped back and contained, if a little winding, it refocuses on what matters most. Love. And not just romantic love, but all the love that surrounds us as people.

Bridgerton works best when it inclines less towards society (both at large and in the Regency sense) and more towards the connections between people. It was so focused on the scandal and the intricacies of Lady Whistledown in Season 3, that it loosened its focus on people; on human connection. Be it in joy, in grief, or even in the face of sacrifice.

Yerin Ha and Luke Thompson as the leads, Sophie Baek and Benedict Bridgerton, craft the sort of chemistry that’s hard to replicate. They carry the story so much that I felt it whenever they weren’t on screen, as I was eager to learn more about them individually and as a couple.

The relationship between them is a retelling of the classic Cinderella trope, but it’s also so much more. While understanding the divide between them, they can also see each other for who they truly are, which makes their love hard to fault. There’s an unwavering certainty that makes their story swoon worthy, even in the difficulties they have to endure to be together.

It’s why Episode 3 stands out. The chance for the pair to be together, away from society, at My Cottage, made it apparent why they’re so compelling as a couple and as individual characters. The push and pull of their magnetism felt hard to step away from, which was great to experience in some cinematographic choices as well. The voyeurism of the long shots when one of them is watching the other (often without noticing), or looking at each other from different sides of the same room, felt like we were yearning right along with them. And when they are together, the camera sits close — an electric collision between two people in love, unable to care for the outside world.

In exploring the life of the lower class through Sophie, Bridgerton also broadens its in-universe world. There’s life (almost literally) under the ton’s feet, and “the help” become less silent servants and more characters in their own right, able to have independent voices and deep connections. The clear divide between the classes puts into perspective the privilege the Bridgerton family are afforded, but also blurs it. The familial and platonic connections that they have show us how it’s their best asset, and it’s what makes them so compelling to watch. It also makes the biting performance from Katie Leung as Araminta Gun, Sophie’s stepmother, so delightfully jarring.

I do really like the more ostentatious styling; which is among the few things that Season 3 did right. It brings visual appeal when necessary, so when the shiny dresses and colourful ballrooms are toned down in certain scenes, it’s almost a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, even though I love the surrounding relationships in the show, they were also my main strife with the season. I appreciate that they all had connecting points to the main story, but the subplots somehow lacked conviction while also feeling far too drawn out — all of them could have done with a little condensing.

Some of them seemed to eat into time that could’ve been better afforded to Sophie and Benedict, to further explore their relationship. The parallel lines playing out were fun at times, but also tedious to go through when there there was so much on the line. Eloise’s arc was a tired rehash of seasons past, with some minor improvements in her growth. Francesca’s story in particular, while important, felt more like it was a heavy preamble for her season, even to the point of sidelining Benedict’s personal growth. All of which may be necessary in the big picture, but still a detriment to this particular narrative.

Ultimately, Season 4 stands out as one of the best since Season 2. It’s emotional, expansive, and so enjoyable to watch. Letting the relationships drive the show, with society as its backdrop, is where it thrives, instead of the other way around.

So, as a viewer and a fan, I’m glad that Bridgerton is picking itself up again. In opposition to how I felt at the end of Season 3, I felt a yearning at the conclusion of this one — much like Sophie and Benedict did towards each other throughout their run. I was left wanting to see the main pair and their love just that little bit more. I was left excited for the future.

(Also, since this is also something of a mini review of the previous installment, Season 3 of Bridgerton gets a limp 3/10 from me.)

Season 4 of Bridgerton is now streaming on Netflix.

The post Bridgerton Season 4 Resparked My Hope in Love (And in the Show) appeared first on Goggler.

That also means it can get tiring. Of course, seeing the same beats and themes is hard to avoid, but with about 15 direct screen adaptations of Sherlock Holmes since 2010, finding something fresh is difficult. How do you add another aspect to a widely beloved character? How do you continue to explore a dynamic as popular as Holmes and Watson?

High Potential does all of that and more. Based on the French-Belgian show HPI, it follows a cleaning lady who becomes a consultant to the LAPD due to her high IQ, analytical skills, and wide breadth of knowledge. Funny and heartfelt, High Potential is the kind of procedural that delivers more than it promises, using its format to weave an engaging, deep story without minimizing the crimes that surround it.

It also happens to have the best iteration of Sherlock Holmes in at least the last two decades.

The Sherlock Holmes of It All

Of course, there’s a reason why there are so many versions of this character. Sherlock Holmes is one of the first fictional detectives of his kind. Conan Doyle pretty much set up the trope for every detective that followed. Since his first appearance in 1887, Sherlock Holmes has gathered a following that has become the basis for superfandoms today.

His “brilliant-but-damaged” persona lends the perfect thing to latch onto in stories, a hook that adds to his charisma and depth, and stops him from becoming a “Gary Stu,” but still lends to his competency in his adventures. “He’s a genius, therefore he’s a bit strange,” as Mark Gatiss, co-creator of BBC’s Sherlock series, explains, becoming a force that works beside the main lines of justice due to his abilities.

Most adaptations follow this general characterization, as in the aforementioned BBC series, Robert Downey Jr. movies, or Elementary. Sherlock is a genius, but he’s socially inept. Often rude and struggling with his own issues, but continuously able to get down to the root of the mysteries he’s faced with.

In High Potential, Morgan Gillory (played by Kaitlin Olsen, best known for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) is the Sherlock character modified and made better. Of course, with an IQ of 160, she’s supremely intelligent, with a hyperfocused brain that’s a perfect asset to the major crimes department. She’s not a detective, though. Far from it. She gets her job at LAPD by happenstance after tampering with a crime board that she had access to only because she’s the cleaning lady.

Instead of being a functioning sociopath like most Holmesian characters, she’s deeply empathetic and kind. In nearly every episode, she shows a level of care for victims and their families that is direct and humanizing, using her power and abilities to help them because she wants the best for everyone. She can be abrasive and blunt, but ultimately, the coldness is replaced with a fun, almost quirky personality. And arguably, it makes her more interesting, and a clever way to reframe old tricks and explore things with a new lens.

Holmes-Watson Contemporaries

Sherlock is nothing without John Watson. The connection between the two (whether perceived as platonic or romantic) is in part why Holmes has stood the test of time, having a narrative foil and a confidant that steadies him. In fact, this parable is probably more directly adapted to the screen compared to the characters themselves. Shows like Bones, The Mentalist, and Castle (all three were airing around the same time, interestingly) depict the dynamic in their own way, but keep the “hot and cold” core of it steady.

Adam Karadec (Daniel Sunjata) is the lead detective of major crimes and Morgan’s Watson. The classic dynamic is twisted on its head with this duo — the detached, calculated character is Karadec, while the emotional, humanistic one is Morgan. They butt heads, especially in the beginning, with Karadec seeing Morgan’s lack of respect for authority as a hindrance. She’s much louder than him too, which takes him aback. In fact, rather than being socially inept, Morgan thrives with people and her connections, has three children, and ends up befriending some of the detectives in the police station. Often, she gets relevant information for cases by talking to ordinary people around the cases. So it’s not only her brilliance that makes her a good consultant, but also her humanity.

From London to Los Angeles and Beyond

All the major and minor inspirations High Potential takes from the British detective only emphasize how its differences make it better.

The gender switch plays into this especially. Sherlock Holmes was a man of privilege and class in Victorian England, which gave him the mobility to live a “bohemian” lifestyle outside social conventions. Morgan grounds the character type by being a working class single mom who, while aware of her abilities, has had it be more of a hindrance all her life until she gets hired by the LAPD. Because she didn’t colour inside the lines, she was vilified and didn’t get chances to show her potential, which is much more realistic, especially for modern audiences.

Morgan even visually contrasts with many Sherlock characters (as well as other characters in her show). Her eccentricities come out in her personality, of course, but they also show in her bright outfits, short skirts, and snazzy patterns, creating a different kind of image, not only for a Holmes iteration but also for a motherly character. She’s allowed to express herself loudly and unapologetically, which is a welcome change.

As a whole, High Potential injects something fresh into the already crowded “genius consultant” story. Morgan Gilloroy mixes the logical with heart; the order with chaos. Instead of making this about how opposing forces create friction, they work in parallel and almost blur the difference, turning its Sherlock Holmes character into a modern, maybe more believable figure. So, yes, undoubtedly the best version of it we’ve seen in a long while.

You can watch High Potential on Disney+.

The post High Potential Is the Best Version of Sherlock Holmes appeared first on Goggler.