What Have You Been Recently Watching

[Ben Staad]

Agreed. She was great in Saul from start to finish.

Pluribus is definitely worth a watch. Critically, the show is being lauded, but seems to be divisive with the general public. I'd suggest going in with tempered expectations and the mindset the show is more character study than sci-fi thriller. Rhea Seehorn is fantastic in it and deserves the recognition she is getting. How she didn't win an award for Better Call Saul is beyond me.

[Sock Monkey]

Finished two "new" seasons of shows. First up is Alien: Earth. I had started watching this a while back, but my wife tapped out after a few episodes and then my school schedule got in the way. I decided to restart it over the winter break and found it to be a mixed bag. I didn't find the kids-in-adult-bodies aspect to be as annoying on rewatch and the show does a good job expanding the world. However, there are a couple of things that I really did not like. I'll put these in spoilers to be safe.

Spoiler!

First up is the "good" Xenomorph storyline. I thought that Chris Pratt making friends with raptors in Jurassic World was stupid and I think Wendy's ability to communicate/control a Xenomorph is equally as dumb. I also really hate how powerful they make Wendy. When there is a reveal about a person being a synth and a possible fight was about to start between Wendy and that person, I was pretty excited...and then Wendy can just freeze them because "they're on the network." It just feels like lazy writing.

These things being said, I'm still willing to give the second season a shot. I think I would have enjoyed the show better if it followed the format of Noah Hawley's other series Fargo and was more of an anthology, but Hawley seems to have a long-term plan in the works and I'm willing to give him a little more rope.

The other show as the first season of Fallout. I originally tapped out after the first episode, but decided to give it another shot and wound up liking it quite a bit by the time the final episode of the season rolled around. I wish there was some more breathing room in some of the plot twists, but Walter Goggins absolutely kills it in his "dual" roles of The Ghoul and Cooper Howard. Looking forward to catching up with season two once it finishes up.