The Sympathizer
SimilarA Fortunate Life, A Little Princess,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Anna Karenina, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Blackeyes, Dexter, Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl, Jack the Ripper, Jewels, M*A*S*H, Moeder, waarom leven wij?, Monarch of the Glen, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,
Planet of the Apes Pope John Paul II, Scully,
Sherlock Holmes Son of the Morning Star, The Lost World, The Phantom of the Opera, The Shining, The Sun Also Rises, The Wimbledon Poisoner, Troubles, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Viso d'angelo, Witchcraft, Wycliffe,
"All wars are fought twice. The first on the battlefield. The second time in memory." This line, emblazed in Vietnamese and English in the opening moments of The Sympathizer, is taken right from Vietnamese-American author Viet Thanh Nguyen's bestselling novel of the same name. Fittingly, it also serves as the thesis statement for Max's adaptation of the sprawling work, a fleet-of-foot miniseries that explores the malleability of identity and perception through the lens of the Vietnam War, and the dynamic lenses through which our lives and conflicts can be viewed.
That duality is encapsulated in the titular character, a French-Vietnamese biracial protagonist known only as The Captain (Hoa Xuande). From his childhood in Vietnam, he was always ostracized for being neither white nor Asian enough; his only solace came from his two friends, Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan) and Man (Duy Nguyen), who instead frame his heritage as being "twice of everything." Cut to Vietnam in the '70s, in the days leading up to the Fall of Saigon: He works for the Vietnamese Secret Police, interrogating Viet Cong prisoners at the behest of his arrogant martinet of a boss, The General (Toan Le). But he's also a communist mole, feeding information back to Man, who's now his North Vietnamese Army handler, and his daily life is a struggle to reconcile all of these varying identities.
That struggle is further compounded after the Fall of Saigon (an escape attempt rendered in the first episode as an exciting, terrifying barrage of booming explosions and a foot race to a fleeing cargo plane). The Captain and Bon make it to America, though not without some heartbreaking losses for the latter; now, the two are alone, the Captain still required to report on the General's activities while laying low for both his CIA handlers and the LA cultural figures who treat him as an object of curiosity. Continue Reading →
Star Trek: Prodigy
SimilarStar Trek Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,
StarringDee Bradley Baker,
Can you have Starfleet without Starfleet? That’s the essential question Star Trek: Prodigy asks in the back half of its first season. As the villainous Diviner (John Noble) told his daughter last time, the advanced vessel ferrying the series’ young heroes contains a weapon that could decimate the Federation. If that weren’t enough, the flesh-and-blood Vice Admiral Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) has reason to think whoever’s piloting the Protostar stole the ship and marooned her dear friend, Chakotay. So despite how badly the show’s main characters want to join Starfleet, there’s a plethora of reasons to stay far, far away for the time being. Continue Reading →
Star Trek: Lower Decks
When Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) began this season, she harbored nothing but mistrust for Starfleet and resolved to rescue her mother all by herself, even as it turned out Mom didn’t need saving. Now, at season’s end, Mariner returns, ready to fight for both the people and the idea of Starfleet, and she enlists the help of her comrades and colleagues to rescue Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) in a moment where she could really use the save. Continue Reading →
愛のむきだし 最長版 THE TV-SHOW
Created bySion Sono,
StarringAtsuro Watabe, Hikari Mitsushima, Makiko Watanabe, Sakura Ando, Takahiro Nishijima,
Directed bySion Sono,
StudioOmega Project,
Just when you think we’ve reached peak saturation in true crime adaptations, well…here’s one more. However, though Hulu’s Candy is the first of two takes on the same 40 year-old murder to come out this year (HBO Max’s Love and Death, starring Elizabeth Olsen and Lily Rabe, is the other, release date TBA), for the first few episodes at least it treats its gruesome, sobering subject with respect and seriousness, and the individuals involved as real people as opposed to caricatures and archetypes. It also goes beyond the crime itself, depicting a not-too-distant past when women admitting that they were bored and unhappy was treated as a grievous personal failing. Continue Reading →
Julia
NetworkNBC,
SimilarRed Dwarf,
Stuck outside a closed door with her hands full, Julia Child sighs, “I have a cake. Would you mind?” Continue Reading →
The Sex Lives of College Girls
NetworkHBO Max,
SimilarStar and Sky: Star in My Mind,
Despite sounding like something one might hesitate to Google outside of a private browser, HBO Max's The Sex Lives of College Girls is a fairly wholesome dramedy about four young women starting off their adult lives as freshmen in college. Admittedly, yes, college freshmen who do have sex, but wholesome just the same. Created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble (who also write many of the episodes) TSLoCG quickly overcomes the gimmicky nature of its title. Continue Reading →
The Secret Circle
Netflix is back with the second season of The Circle, the social media reality game show where contestants compete to be influencers, wielding their power to block their rivals and win $100,000. Season one was a lovefest, with bro-y Joey Sasso winning by playing honestly (aka “The Sasso Way”) and befriending his competitors. The contestants of season two of The Circle are less interested in making friends and more interested in strategy, dialing up the drama, and building alliances within the first four episodes. Continue Reading →
The Stand
SimilarFrom, Sám vojak v poli,
This review was written jointly by Spool staff writers Beau North and Megan Sunday. Continue Reading →
72 Dangerous Animals: Asia
FX's true crime documentary examines one man's obsessive search for the truth about his birth father.
Is there more to belonging than being told you belong? Is there truly a feeling that we are out of place, out of sync, out of favor with those who surround us? Or is it a lie that gets repeated so often it becomes true? For Gary Stewart of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, these questions are what drive him beyond a simple desire to know and to belong. FX’s new four-part documentary miniseries, The Most Dangerous Animal of All, explores Stewart’s quest for understanding and the fallout of his obsession.
Told in a quiet, confessional style, Stewart stares directly into the camera, his voice occasionally choking with emotion. Abandoned as a baby, Stewart’s trust issues are understandably deep-rooted—and they’re as much a part of his identity as the color of his eyes. Despite being adopted at three months old into a loving family who raised him with strong values, he struggled with the feelings of being unloved, of not belonging anywhere and to anyone. He even has a string of broken marriages to prove it.
One thing that series creators Ross M. Dinerstein and Kief Davidson make clear from the beginning is that identity is a slippery concept. Do our genetics determine who we are or does our environment? Would Gary Stewart have been a more stable adult if he’d never discovered that his birth parents were once a sensational news story, or would the wound of not knowing where he comes from continue to fester? Continue Reading →
Star Trek: Picard
Patrick Stewart is still carrying much of the weight as "Star Trek: Picard" continues to pile on the lore & find its footing.
“Maps and Legends” improves on Star Trek: Picard’s series premiere. It’s filled to the brim with new lore and exposition and features another extended bout of table-setting. But it also features plenty of Patrick Stewart acting in one-on-one scenes, his forte, and puts him opposite performers who can hold their own. Making those conversations and confrontations a bigger focus here helps balance out the wobbly plot mechanics and less-exciting new faces the series strains to introduce.
That catch is that the series still dumps a ton of lore on the audience here. "Maps and Legends" is full of implausible and contradictory nonsense that constantly tries to top or overcomplicate (or both) whatever’s come before.
It’s not enough for the Tal Shiar, the Romulan secret police, to be involved in this conspiracy. There has to be an extra-double-secret force that’s even more hidden and even more deadly! Apparently the Romulans just hate androids and A.I. and any complex computing whatsoever, for reasons we’ve never been privy to before but which will assuredly be retconned down the line! Despite that, they still have fancy molecular reconstruction tools and can perfectly scrub a crime scene at the molecular level, but somehow not so well that Picard’s former Tal Shiar buddy can’t figure out what happened! And this new secret agency has also apparently infiltrated the highest ranks of Starfleet, where the latest corrupt commodore turns out to be a sleeper agent whose two goons are going after Dahj’s twin sister! Phew! Continue Reading →