nemesis-88

So in this episode we're shown some workers at the airport replacing a GLASS sign right over the heads of the passing passengers. OF COURSE the sign breaks and OF COURSE there's a little boy standing right under it. You believe that? They evacuate half of Chicago every time a Southwest plane skates off the runway in O'Hare... again. But not this airport!

Next, we see a father who repeatedly slaps his autistic son for... being autistic. The poor mother is trying to intervene by shouting "You're hurting him!" In the process of slapping his son the father throws his pet rabbit against the wall thus killing it. The boy and his brother take the rabbit to a doctor and openly discuss how they're not going back home and will be living on their own. The good doctor (pun intended) just looks away in pity. This must be 1930s? Maybe 1950s? 1970s at the latest!? Nope. It's mid-2000s. Child Protection Services don't exist. The doctor is not obligated to report domestic abuse. Everything's peachy.

Next, we're transcended roughly 12-15 years ahead. The advisory board of a clinic in San Jose. You know what they're doing? They are openly discussing how they won't hire a person because he's autistic. Unlike EVERY other institution in the United States, this hospital doesn't have the Code of Conduct that clearly forbids discriminating against people based on their disbilities.

It sure looks like the script was written for a different time and was adapted "as best as we could". Let's see where this goes.

This Adelstein person must have some serious carpal syndrome with all the embroidery he put in his story. Some of the things are just funny. SURE, he knows all the hottest hostesses in Tokyo and uses them as his confidential sources. And OF COURSE, he slept with the mafia boss's wife. She then had to go back to Canada so they broke up.

BY ALL MEANS, the entire american writing community is following his articles about Tokyo motorcycle thieves and generously pats him on the shoulder and offers him a desk in their unworthy publications.

But some things are outright ridiculous. Do you SERIOUSLY expect me to believe Tokyo police is SO helpless and clueless that their most hardened detective is BEGGING a 24-year-old yank over the phone to come back from his daddy's birthday in St. Louis to help them fight yakuza? REALLY?

All-in-all, a well made show that could use a better based-on story.

American desire to glitterize and fetishisize crime continues unabated. First was the "Godfather" that had not even the slightest similarity to how the criminal underworld works. Then there were Sopranos where merciless criminal families were presented as some cozy homes with family dinners, soccer practices and skyping with friends. The trend continued with varying success all over the 2000-2010s.

Now, in the 2020s, we have a character that is absolutely not worthy of even mentioning let alone dramatization. WHY they picked that woman? She wasn't pretty as Sofia Vergara. Check out her page on Wikipedia. She was an old, ugly, unbelievably cruel animal with no molecule of morality, compassion or... anything that can be considered good. She was raised in and promoted the world where violence solves any problem from money share in drug deals to what to eat for dinner.

Griselda Blanco lived a miserable life of drugs, murder, violence and death. And she wasn't the victim. She was the eager dispencer thereof. Three out of her four sons were killed while working for her. She murdered half of her four husbands, one over child custody dispute. And finally she was gunned down in the street like a mad dog she was.

Why do they want me to watch this "biopic"? Am I supposed to admire her for her entrepreneurial skills? Or maybe sympathize with how hard it is for a murderous broad to make her way in the frilly world of Colombian cocaine trade? Somebody tell me, WHY?

For Sofia Vergara it's a huge step... sideways. She wanted to rip out of her dye of comically oversexual characters. It didn't really work because all she did was just turn off her usual set of screen tricks but added little to her act. Gilian Anderson she is NOT. Let's see if this escapade leads to a new facet of her acting.

This is one the most anticlimactic episodes of the whole show. The entire episode leads to some sort of Super Password Finch has to type or say that will activate some Super Virus that will destroy both machines. But the numerous plot holes really spoil the fun.

First, if Finch knew it would kill the Machine why not just install an anti-virus into it and save it. Or better yet, why didn't the Machine that knew about this virus didn't patch itself against it. And why didn't Samaritan? Second, didn't he "use a programming language that isn't used anywher else"? So why would the Machine die from executing a Windows file?

But the biggest disappointment comes from the password itself - Dashwood. The Internet says it's a character in "Sense and Sensibilities". How many viewers have read it outside of high-school literature program? And how many of them remember (or even know) the significance of the character? Personally, I don't. And neither do you, whoever you are reading this. Why pick such a vague book to derive such a detail from. I understand the writers' need to show off but in such an important episode on the verge of the Grand Finale, maybe it should've been put on the back burner.

This is quite possibly the second least believable episode in this whole series, after american invasion of China by Stanton and Reece. Yes, artificial intelligence is a given in this show. Yes, for some reason it has global control, even though the USA is the only country where intelligence services have full uncontrolled access to all private data. Let's write it off to the "artistic license".

But this episode reminds us that this is actually science fiction. Projecting an entire alternative universe into Shaw's head. Controlling her actions in it. AND watching it on a laptop screen. I'm sorry but this is just too much.

The sex scene was unnecessary. WHY? What did it bring into the show? That Root loves Shaw? We know that. It was such a charming subtext. Now it's all vulgarized and put on public display. I don't care if it's appropriate or moves it into PG13 category. My concern is that it is VERY primitive writing. And quite a cheap trick to attract bum-titty-weewee audience. Also, this episode is boring.

Truly brilliant show as many people here have already said. But still, not without cheap tricks. At the very beginning of the episode a person''s insulin pump injects too much insulin and he falls dead. That's not how it works. It is a very common misconception that too much insulin kills. It doesn't. The person won't die instantly... or ever.

Insulin is not a poison. It simply reduces the amount of glucose in blood. Glucose is the food for the brain and helps deliver oxygen. If too much insulin is administered, the person will lose consciousness, that part is true. But even in New York a person falling down in the middle of the street would induce a 911 call. The person's condition will be discovered, glucose administered and he will be taken to the hospital to have his malfunctioning pump removed.

And by the way, NO, insulin pumps are not "networked" as in some remote computer cannot take control of it. Only send some medical information. So another cheap (and very dangerous) trick on the writers' side.

EVERY time some shady people need to transfer money in an american TV show, the mysterious "one-time wire transfer" comes to life. Of course, it's always "untraceable" and always "anonymous".

First of all, contrary to american misconception, wire transfer is not some criminal or clandestine method of payment. It's simply an electronic transfer of money from one account to another. It's just NOT A CHECK that americans love so much. It's much faster and easier, but is not used in the US because americans and technological progress live on different planets.

And second, wire transfer cannot be anonymous or "one-time". To send a wire transfer you need two account numbers. The only way to make it anonymous or one-time is to open an account in some fantasy country with no records of bank accounts and then close it. And now that even the Caymans no longer have "number accounts", that is absolutely impossible.

This episode marks the appearance of the worst character and actress in this show - Cara Buono as Martine Rousseau. Her character is unrealistically robotic and inexplicably devoted. Mizz Buono herself obviously cannot master an enormously difficult role. She walks like a coat hanger, talks like an answering machine and really doesn't know what to do with the task at hand. The bloody DOG does a better acting job as Bear.

All throughout the series her character remains a badly designed crutch needed to show how ruthless Greer is who himself remains a cardboard cutout villain. WHY she was introduced is difficult to explain. They had the cutesy five-o'clock-shadow guy and "Zachary". Why not use those two. Other than a union-agreed quota for female characters, I cannot imagine why they needed "Martine". Why Sarah Shahi couldn't give Buono a few tips on how to play ruthless assassins is hard to tell but easy to imagine - who wants two Shaws in one show.

Harold's biography has evolved over the years as the writers dug deeper into his past. And there are quite a few discrepancies. At one point he says that he learned to swim after his brothers threw him in the water. However later when he is shown at his home with his father, there are no brothers in sight, nor are they ever mentioned again.

And this episode shows another discrepancy. Harold is always shown as some sophisticated person. He collects first edition books, likes "top shelf" drinks, haute cuisine, fine arts and opera. He also uses some very rich vocabulary and buys Italian suits with hand-sewn lapel buttons.

Those things cannot be an acquired taste, at least not to the point that a person casually listens to Verdi in his car. Those tastes form as the person grows up, sometimes even involuntarily as a young boy is dragged to an opera by his parents.

However Harold is of very humble origin. He grew up on a farm in Iowa. How many Iowa farmers did you see at the season opening at La Scala? How many of them know that books even HAVE first editions that are collectable? With all overdue respect for the hard working farmers, Harold should be favoring square dancing and Garth Brooks, and his proudest collection should be that of Johnny Cash's guitars.

A few people pointed out some goofs and plot holes of this episode. Yet the biggest one is still unsung. For some weirdest reason EVERY American "police drama" or "procedural" TV show for the past 15 years includes at least one episode where "Interpol agents" are involved. And every time those "Interpol agents" are flying to the US to do some good or bad things, catch or help bad guys, help or deceive good guys, whatever.

Problem with that is, INTERPOL DOESN'T HAVE AGENTS. At all. Interpol is 1,000 people sitting in their office (NOT in Paris, by the way) and collecting information. They can't "almost get her in Dubai", they can't "fly to New York". They do NOT work in the field. Interpol is a strictly information agency. Their official motto is "Connecting police for a safer world". So the closest "Monsieur Bouchard" could get to "catching an international thief" is by watching this episode on "Le Netflix".

It's a good suspenseful episode but they reallly overdid it in the corrupt cops department. Yes, NYPD is flush with corruption. New York's finest kill, steal and destroy and get away with it. But the scale of the organization they showed is WAY beyond any reason.

A gang that easily kills cops, attorneys and judges (!!!), raises up road blocks to and from Manhattan, can mobilize hundreds of corrupt cops is a bit of a fantasy. Such an organization would take decades to muster, and Alonso Quinn is only an advisor to a term-limited mayor. A very short cycle is over and he's out together with whatever influence he might have.

Another detail is the sheer cruelty of the corrupt cops. Yes, cops are sometimes sadists and degenerates, but first and foremost they are cowards! They are afraid their corruption will be revaled. They don't kill children just to annoy their rebel colleague whom they are also going to kill. Their ruthlessness in this episode is hugely exagerrated and hard to believe.

Otherwise a good episode.

It's a brilliant show and I like it. But this is quite possibly the worst episode of the whole show and its absolute low point. CIA sends a group of agents to the deep of China!!! Some of those agents wear military garbs and walk around CHINA (!!!) with assault rifles. And hope to get out by a "helo". So CIA can send a covert helicopter into Inner Mongolia? And after the mission is complete the US sends a fighter jet (!!!) to launch a missile onto a city in CHINA to liquidate the said agents. SERIOUSLY!? All TV-shows take some "creative liberties" but they have to be sure their viewers will eat this garbage. Do yanks really believe this?

This is a REALLY bad episode. Everyone here said that. Those who love this show and even those who don't... if there are any. Lots has been said about the logic and "temporal paradoxes". Yes, it'd be easier to just fly to the beach and land there. Yes, cars and bikes are abandonned for no particular reason. Yes, OH YES, why Carrie had to stop her huge pickup truck a METER away from the goon and stab him instead of running him over and driving on. Et cetera, et cetera.

But that's not the most annoying detail that REALLY ticked me off. That tiny detail belongs to Carrie's third (I think) attempt when she gets to the beach in time and with enough time for the team to hide BUT... MacLaren, the usually very calm, attentive and patient operative see a girl he just saw at the gas station, hears her screaming and suddenly interrupts her in the middle of the most important phrase just to yell back... "What are you doing here?". This is SUCH a pathetic cop-out for the writers. It's like one of those shows where a character calls with an important clue and just says "I know what it is, come see me" and is then found dead. Well, at least we now know what the WORST episode of this show looks like.

Have you ever wondered what Twin Peaks would look like with Benny Hill as a star? Have you ever thought what agent Molder would look like played by Mr. Bean? Star Wars produced by Thames Television... Leftenant Sebastian? Well, here's your chance! An american fantasy drama produced by the brits. YAY?

In fact the entire show feels exactly how you imagined a joint production by Netflix and BBC would look like. Netflix provide cheap drama and tear-jerking plots, while BBC add "english humourgh". You have a distinct feeling that exactly half of every scene and dialogue was produced in Palo Alto, then packed into a tarred barrel and sent by a postal carriage and a tallship to Poofton-on-Spey to add the other half. The result is... well, truly english actually. And VERY truly Netflix. A vaguely interesting idea with some tragic twists overflowing with typical pointless english mockery and unfunny jokes.

The show is surprisingly enlightening though. After a couple of episodes, you suddenly take a very deep sobering look at yourself and an idea pops up in your head, "Do I really need a subscription to a streaming service that hasn't produced a single good show in the past 10 years?" And that is a REALLY GOOD QUESTION!

The series is crap from start to finish. If you like motion pictures that start nowhere and end with nothing, there you go! No logic, no thrill, no novelty. No, wait, there IS novelty. Mr. Soderberg opened Wikipedia looking for inspiration and found a new kind of law enforcement that nobody else did any movies about - US Postal Service police aka USPIS. Well, better than yet another FBI profiler... I guess. Then he accidentally stumbled upon a place he never heard of - Guyana - and was "fascinated by the culture". As in found a reason to demonize yet another country the yanks don't hate... yet.

The rest is properly weird. Some lady who wants to "remove the curse" that was spelled on her family 20 years ago. Why did she wait for 20 years? Some young people who go from working at a small shop in Guyana to murdering hobos in New York for life insurance money. Of course they are so overwhelmed by the life of crime that they immediately want to go back home. That's another novelty introduced by our adventurous director - people wanting to LEAVE the US. Brave!

Then they kidnap a 16-year-old boy (I'm SO sick of teens being played by 30-year-old actors. Aren't you?) who is actually a half-brother of the teenager they were sent to kidnap. And then it's... some kind of boring drivel for 5 more episodes, culminating in the kidnapped boy's mother wanting to go to jail for a crime she committed 20 years ago WITHOUT KNOWING IT. Happy end?

It's a good show. And it loves to tease the viewer. First you think, the air in the helmet is poisoned - voila, in the next episode he takes off the helmet. Then you think, don't clean, just walk over the hill, and voila - she tries to walk over the hill. The plot is artificially twisted and absolutely unrealistic. One residence, ten thousand people, 140 years... they are ALL brothers and sisters by now. Degeneration by design.

All characters are cardboard cutouts with predictable bevahior and not much development. Tim Robbins brings a jet of fresh air into it by suddenly becoming a villain... sort of. But even his character is predictably sure he's doing "the right thing" "for the common good". And it's true. Except in 140 years all those secrets would come out and become public knowledge. The "secret door" was only discovered by ONE person who is about 40 years old and nobody else? With two thousand overbored children running around? REALLY?

The finale is not only predictable (there are other silos... COME ON!) but also very badly shot. A widening circle with the top cut off to hide the surroundings as the CGI "camera" circles and floats higher and higher... blah. The production design is as predictable as it is annoying. Overdarkened scenes have become so commonplace that nobody even complains anymore. Barely audible dialogues interspersed with deafening synthetic crescendos. Do those ever-on-strike union members even remember how to work the camera and arrange the soundtrack?

But generally, it leaves a positive if a bit fatalistic aftertaste. Let's see what the second season brings.

Seriously? You want us to wait till September to watch the entire season? It's not enough that we had to wait TWO YEARS for it? Now we have to wait two more months for Tim Apple to upload all episodes?

Seriously? You want us to wait till September to watch the entire season? It's not enough that we had to wait TWO YEARS for it? Now we have to wait two more months for Tim Apple to upload all episodes?

Seriously? You want us to wait till September to watch the entire season? It's not enough that we had to wait TWO YEARS for it? Now we have to wait two more months for Tim Apple to upload all episodes?

The opening scene is amazing! We are thrown into a high-speed "improvised" dialogue that took at least 20 takes to film... per actor. Then we see Desmond Hume being nervous about being 3 million dollars short for Ukrainian kidnappers. They get the money and his hotsie companion get the "package" and are on their way to the... Office. We are transported into a posh room where Desmond Hume and Richard Castle's crazy ex-wife are eating something with chop sticks and discuss some serious things nonchalantly. By the way, the "package" was a baby who was SILENT all the way to the office and up until the moment his mommy took him and thanked them all in Polish... go figure.

BREEEEEATHE. EXHALE. We are introduced to the "team". The baby lawyer. (Someone teach Columbus Short how to wear suspenders with expensive suits.) Richard Castle's crazy ex is the "investigator". Desmond Hume is "the lawyer". Blah-blah-blah, we are THE TEAM. And they are led by a barely 30 bimbo with connections of an 80-year-old senator, who previously had "the muscle of the White House behind her". They are... GLADIATORS IN SUITS, can you believe that?! WOW!

Oh, and their "tech guy"... remember that shorty Mexican enforcer in Weeds? Yep, Guillermo Diaz. He's now A TECH GUY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There just isn't enough Ls and Os to desribe how I reacted to that. What, Vinnie Jones was too busy playing a gay neurosurgeon? Should've called Lenny McLean.

Now, the biggest question. Should I keep watching and laughing at this crap? Or should I try to find crap that is at least slightly believable. Stay tuned.

The writers of this show jump from one subject they don't know anything about to another. The way Phantom burns buildings (no casualties, condemned buildings, etc) is a class A misdemeanor in New York. Even if his case was heard by the worst jury and the most idiotic judge, he would MAYBE get three years in jail. Usually though he would walk free. Murder is potentially a death penalty crime. Why would he risk murdering the brave fireman who was "hunting" him to save himself from a wrist slap?

The way they portrait pyromaniacs is digusting and absolutely unbelievable. Those people don't stand there breathing heavily watching a fire. They climax for them is STARTING a fire, not watching it. So when one of the characters says the fireman "showed him some photos", that's just disgusting and stupid. Photos of fires do nothing for pyromaniacs.

All-in-all, typical tv-series in the sixth season. Didn't expect it to last this long, don't know what to do and where to go from here.

"Noone can pinpoint the exact moment when it all fell apart"!??! REALLY!? How about when you hired an anabolic idiot who didn't follow your orders during the diamond heist and started a shootout in which he was wounded and couldn't complete his role? Why you hired him? Because he was "attached" to a woman you wanted to hire? Or maybe when your main partner and fence bails out right before the heist and then suddenly returns as a mole after she set up an FBI agent? Or maybe when your "backdoor" closed and you had to induce a FLOOD from the subway to circumvent the sensors? Or maybe when you look at your "crew" and SHOULD realize that you got a bunch of uncontrollable amateurs that you wouldn't trust to steal a road sign in Wyoming?

I'm sorry, but this is a REALLY bad show. Writers, directors and producers obviously take me for an idiot who will swallow anything just on the USP of "you can watch episodes in any order". I would very much prefer a conventional sequence if only it was properly written.

The whole FBI agent saga is a total fantasy. Holes in every minute of the episode. If Abissa was caught abusing drugs, she would have to be arrested and be indicted for at least four felonies. Indictment makes it impossible to work for the FBI, whether a person was convicted or not. If she wasn't indicted or arrested, it means FBI is corrupt which doesn't correspond to her "stickler to the rules" image.

But it doesn't end there. During her "oh I had such a difficut life" monologue she says she "joined the FBI after 911". Niousha Noor is 36, her character must be somewhere in that time frame. 9/11 happened TWENTY TWO YEARS AGO. She was FOURTEEN. As much as they want to, FBI doesn't recruite 8-graders. One must have a bachelor degree and two years of work experience MINIMUM to work for the FBI. So it would be at least 10 years "after 9/11" when she could "go to mosques to root out radicals".

The whole "Te-Te" arrest and deportation is an unbelievable. Literally, I don't believe it. Arresting the nanny of a powerful New York attorney with connections they keep hinting at on a tip from a disgraced agent caught with drugs in her pocket... Even the FBI we know wouldn't do that. And no sane judge would deport an older woman with such a history. And then Abissa says she "has friends in ICE". And they would even pick up the phone after her drug arrest!? And those friends are more powerful than Mercer's connections? Not to mention Te-Te totally falls under Obama's DREAM executive order.

All-in-all, very "clickbait" writing with total disregard for facts, logic or common sense. This is my fourth episode, and this show is shaping up to be a total waste of time.

This heist is a total train wreck. And so is this series.

So they paid 50 grand to the manufacturer of safes for a backdoor to the temp sensors seven years in advance. Sure, very realistic considering a vault like that costs a few million. And the "backdoor" closed. They hired a complete anabolic moron for his safe cracking skills. And he injured his hand and can't open it. And they are led by a bank robber with shaking hands.

The murder of the blackmailer is the stupidest murder ever made on film. An able bodied man can't just tear up a plastic bag with his free hands which the assassin doesn't even try to restrain? A guy gets eye irritation from contact lenses and calls some doctor instead of just taking lenses out and washing his eyes? A gang robs the entire Diamond District just to get seed money for this fantasy robbery. They should've sold the idea to Disney.

The entire episode is based on a fetishicized idea of "noble thieves" that american police dramas are so fond of.

First, the jewels shown on the photos are worth A LOT more than the writers say. Someone mentions the thieves "got away with 250,000 dollars". Every single item Castle has on the photos is worth millions. Many millions.

Second, nobody keeps beautifications like that in a home safe, for that very reason - a home can be invaded, a home safe can be cracked, and all that value can be stolen. This kind of jewelery is insured "to replace" and insurance companies insist they are kept in bank vaults. Owners make legal copies and only wear those. There are a handful of events every year called "brilliant balls" where VERY rich people come to see and wear their jewelery for a couple of hours. The goodies are delivered by armored trucks and the whole thing is guarded so densely, the Secret Service gets green with envy.

Third, the "two minutes in and out", "disappearing like ghosts" and all that jazz hasn't been a fact of life since the invention of an electric alarm over 150 years ago. Bump keys are not "vulgar", they are useful and very quick tools. Thieves don't care if their method is "noble", they care about opening whatever they need to open.

This "oh in the olden times we used to be" fetish migrates from series to series with enviable consistency. Doesn't make any more true.

I didn't realize CIA spy movies were still a thing. Anyone still thinks CIA does anything but torture, drug trade and betrayal of everyone and everything. But okay, maybe there are still some people who want to see some good old saving America. To each his own.

But how it's done is absolutely horrendous in its own way. Every repetitive cliche TV-show makers ever had is in this show. The dialogue at the Panama beach bar AND the beach bar itself. "You look like you need company. - (stretches hand) Daniel. - Katherine. - You're not really Katherine..." and so on. And of course the piece of the news that the character needs to see starts EXACTLY when the TV remote button is pressed. MAGIC. And the code word for a phone conversation is the first line of a poem and the answer is the second line. And it goes on like that until yet another epic dialogue. "I heard you learned German the proper way. You grew up here". And then the German-learner in question says "Frankfurter Wurstchen Kirschtorte" (a name of the sausage... of course) with the WORST American accent I ever heard the German language spoken with. I don't think even an American will recognize this as "perfect German".

All-in-all, the usual patriotic BS wrapped in yet another pseudo-historic candy wrap "made with pride" in the "good old US of A". But alas, I don't have anything better to binge at this point.

"We need to fire up the engine", says the brave German captain and sends FOUR people to "fire up" a STEAM engine. Just for reference, Titanic had 176 (one hundred and seventy six!!!) stockers alone. And that's just the people who throw coal into the boilers. Then we need another three dozen coal trimmers, same number of greasers. Plus we need highly qualified engineers to make sure that enough but not too much water goes into the boiler. But sure, two crew and two priests will be JUST enough. I suppose that's how many people it takes for our renowned directors (Dark and all that) to start a yacht engine in the Mediterranean. After all, the whole ship is controlled by just two buttons, up and down.