Bloodline (season 2)

It is quite fitting that Bloodline, a show about the influential Rayburn family being torn apart by its ostracised eldest son, also happens to be the black sheep of the Netflix original series. It might be rooted more in soap opera territory, but it’s not as bingeworthy as its more high profile counterparts like House of Cards or Orange is the New Black, nor does it boast their whip-smart writing and satirical streak.

Yet season 1 proved to be a slow burner – a family noir that crept under your skin, set against the lush backdrop of the Florida Keys. Giving said creeps in a mesmerising performance was Ben Mendelsohn as Danny Rayburn, the afore-mentioned runt, whose misdeeds and machinations led to the twisted finale that was heavily foreshadowed throughout the thirteen episode run.

However, the disposal of the series’ most vital player at the end of the first season means the second has a big void to fill. The show’s creators appear all too aware of this. In fact, the biggest criticism that can be levelled at Bloodline’s second run is that it still relies a little too heavily on Mendelsohn in the form of tenuous flashbacks. This is unfair on the rest of the cast, especially when there are enough talented actors playing characters that easily rival Danny in the screw-up stakes.

If “we’re not bad people, but we did a bad thing” was the first season’s tagline, then season 2 goes to substantial lengths to prove that the Rayburns are in fact very bad people. Sissy Spacek’s matriarch feebly tries to make up for past failures by bringing in more estranged family members (or are they?), Norbert Leo Butz’s aimless, coked-up Kevin is the last person who should be having kids right now, while Linda Cardellini’s Megan uses her legal acumen to ruthlessly take down external threats to the Rayburn well-being.

Top of the bunch is Kyle Chandler as John Rayburn, the erstwhile moral compass of the show, now hopelessly spinning out of control. Chandler makes John’s transition from straight-laced citizen to accidental criminal wholly believable and the season’s best scenes are the ones where he is visibly struggling to hold it all together.

The final episode’s rather abrupt ending hints at difficulties in the screenwriters’ room, but the renewal for a third season means there are hopes that all loose ends will be convincingly tied up. Black sheep? Scrappy underdog, more like.

3/5

Orange is the New Black (season 4)

Hardcore fans might argue that OITNB is a series that defies genre but truth be told, the team at Netflix have often struggled with finding the right balance between tragic comedy and tongue-in-cheek prison drama (just look at its list of Emmy awards and nominations for proof). Here’s to season 4 then, easily the show’s best so far and the one that finally manages to address the equilibrium.

Not many shows would put a humorous spin on a body dismemberment scene to the sound of a Papa Roach tune, but OITNB does just that in episode one. The laughable panty-smuggling storyline from season 3 gradually grows into a tense, more scarring subplot. And the bumbling guards from previous seasons are swiftly replaced with dangerously aggressive war veterans, who are responsible for the season’s darker developments.

But what OITNB excels at is fleshing out its large ensemble of vibrant characters. The show’s always been something of an equal opportunities employer, meaning that actors in walk-on roles eventually get the chance to shine in their own episode. Even Taylor Schilling’s Piper Chapman, usually the most tedious inmate of the bunch despite being the closest we get to a protagonist, goes through one hell of a narrative arc.

The latest residents at Lichfield also get a look in, especially Captain Piscatella, an imposing man-mountain that could’ve easily turned out to be a one note villain, but instead feels like a fully-rounded individual thanks to clever writing. In a rather more controversial move, the show dares us to buy into a renewed relationship between a one-time rapist and his victim – the fact that you never quite know whether you should be enamoured or disturbed by this is a testament to the creative talent involved.   

And then there’s the ending. To give away details would mean to deprive you from a viewing experience that ranges from distressing to bittersweet over the course of two impeccably paced episodes. By the time the season ends on a nail-biting cliffhanger, OITNB feels like it has finally become the complex dramedy it was always meant to be. Season 5 has a lot to live up to.

5/5

Ghostbusters

No one’s arguing that Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters needed a makeover. Hollywood is facing a serious shortage of creative ideas that shows no sign of stopping any time soon and Paul Feig’s attempt to remake a beloved ‘80s movie is yet further proof of this theory. Thank Zuul then that this oestrogen-driven vehicle is surprisingly good fun and far more entertaining than some of the male-dominated blockbusters we’ve had to endure of late. The gags are snappy, the bustin’ is zany, all while paying respectful homage to the original movie and even its animated series. It’s far from becoming a classic, but the four seriously funny leads have earned their jumpsuits and the keys to that all too familiar firehouse building.

 4/5

Vinyl (season 1)

If over the past year you’ve caught yourself lamenting the departure of Don Draper and Nucky Thompson from our small screens, then you’re in luck. On paper, Vinyl reads like Mad Men meets Boardwalk Empire. It has New York City, it has gangsters, it has a deeply flawed alpha male protagonist coming to terms with his personal demons… throw in the bombastic music industry of the 1970s as a setting, and you’ve got yourself a killer soundtrack to go with this funky venture.

Then why does the series fail to strike a chord? The main issue here is not so much that we’re faced with a bad show – there are at least two gems that stand out in this ten episode season – but one that feels less than the sum of its parts. With Boardwalk’s Terence Winter on showrunner duties and pop culture icons Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese producing, you’d expect Vinyl to be an instant classic. Instead, you’ve got a show that looks the part, but is erratic, unfocused and with no sense of direction (a bit like a coked up rock star, then).

It must also be said that, despite the rampant themes of sexism and gender inequality, Mad Men did a fine job at fleshing out its female characters from episode 1. In Vinyl, the women are underdeveloped and strictly on eye candy duties, the equivalent of a scantily-clad babe on a rock album’s front cover.

Thank goodness for Bobby Cannavale then, whose central performance as record executive Richie Finestra just about manages to hold the season together. He’s no imposing mob boss or suave womanising ad man, just a schmuck who makes one spectacularly bad decision after another, but whose unwavering love for music keeps us invested in his trials and tribulations. Hopefully the show, just like Richie, will be able to find itself in a second season.  

3/5

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

First of all, the good news: the titular smackdown is everything a fanboy would hope for in a Batman vs Superman film, as two pop culture icons exchange powerful blows and pummel each other through brick walls. The bad news is that everything leading up to said smackdown is a tedious drag. Somewhere in this incoherently structured script there’s an intriguing Superman flick and a deliciously dark Batman movie begging to be greenlit, but director Zack Snyder is too busy littering this big Warner Bros. project with references to a wider DC universe in the making. Still, a glorious last minute introduction to another DC character and a final battle that feels lifted from a Greek tragedy give BvS the adrenaline rush it so desperately needs. Scrapes a pass. Barely.

3/5

The Interview

It was never going to be The Great Dictator, was it? Come to think of it, The Interview doesn’t even come close to matching Team America’s satirical heights. What we have here is the kind of frat comedy we’ve come to expect from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, just transposed to a totalitarian state. They may have been funny back in 2007, but the sex and scatological gags are starting to wear thin, as is the foul-mouthed man child archetype played by James Franco. Business as usual then, although the portrayal of Kim Jong Un as a closet party animal with daddy issues does raise a few laughs.

2/5   

Inherent Vice

Whoever put together the trailer for Inherent Vice deserves a bloody huge medal, because only a magician in the editing room could've disguised one the most frustrating watches in recent memory as a slick, slacker whodunit in the same vein as The Big Lebowski. Instead what we get is a film that’s as impenetrable as a junkie's mind-set (“but that’s the point!”, say Thomas Pynchon enthusiasts; “piss off”, says me) and a host of cool-looking characters that fail to do or say anything remotely memorable. At 149 minutes long, it feels like being a sober person trapped in a crack house, surrounded by mumbling stoners that occasionally laugh at each other’s incoherent jokes.

1/5