Yo! It's time for the Tuesday TV Touchbase! We got a lot of ground to cover so let's go!
Killing Eve
Season 3 begins with Villanelle getting married. The wedding doesn't get far when an appearance by Dasha, a Russian woman who trained Villanelle to be an assassin, triggers a violent and psychotic reaction from Villanelle which leaves her bride to be in tears.
Dasha is there to get Villanelle back to work for The Twelve. They've let her slide after what went down in Rome at the end of season 2. Villanelle wants a promotion, to be a Keeper, to be a guide and mentor to her own up and coming assassin.
Well, it's a deal which scores Villanelle a too good to be true apartment in Barcelona. Her first charge is a 19 year old named Felix. Villanelle's eyes almost fall out of her head from all the eye rolling when she gets a look at who she is supposed to train to be an assassin. Their first mission involves Villanelle and Felix dressing as clowns to infiltrate a child's birthday party to get close to their target. The operation goes off the rails and Villanelle has to kill both the target and Felix as she realizes that "management sucks".
Back at her apartment, Konstantin is there with news that Eve is not dead.
Eve is spending her days working the kitchen of a London Korean restaurant. Her spy craft days at MI6 behind her. Her husband Mikos is slowly trying to regather his marbles in a mental hospital after the horrifying events of last season. Eve is a virtual ghost, haunting her own life.
Kenny is no longer for working his mother Carolyn at MI6. He's working for an online news site. But Kenny hasn't quite given up the fight as he's still poking around looking for dirt to expose The Twelve. It is a search that gets him killed.
Fine. I'll say it.
"They killed Kenny! The bastards!"
Carolyn's efforts to maintain a cold facade and do her job at MI6 is taking a beating. She's already dealing with renewed and omnipresent oversight of her work after the debacle in Rome and as much as she tries to hide it, Kenny's death has hurt her.
It looks like only Eve can solve the mystery of Kenny's death. Which will bring her back into the cross hairs of The Twelve.
And inevitably, once more, into Villanelle's psychotic attentions.
Killing Eve remains a uniquely quirky show, upending conventions of your typical crime/spy procedural. Two episodes into season 3, I personally remain interested in what's going on and what is going to happen next.
Objectively speaking, however, it does seem like we've been here before. And the convolutions of bringing Eve and Villanelle back together are showing the strain. The story of Eve and Villanelle is not meant to be a ongoing story as demanded by the constraints of episodic television.
As as much as Killing Eve defies the conventions of your typical crime/spy procedural, the show is not above applying some of the worst tropes. Like Bill in Season 1, Kenny is "fridged" in Season 3 as a plot device to motivate Eve out of her stupor and get her back into the spy game once more.
Still, I am interested to see what happens next. What secrets was Kenny close to in order warrant being killed by The Twelve? How will Carolyn react if she finds (and I'm just spit balling here) that Konstantin threw Kenny off the roof? (I mean, how exactly has Konstantin been spending his time in London?) What will Eve's reaction be when she finds herself face to face with Villanelle for the first time since Rome?
Outlander
Well, I'll be damned. That WAS Roger under that hood, hanging from a tree.
Roger got a hand free just in time to get it under his noose. He's still alive (barely) when Jamie cuts him down.
Roger's near death from hanging is a traumatic experience. Even after the physical injuries to his throat from the noose have healed, he still cannot bring himself to speak. It takes a long while to work through this trauma with the help of a good talking to by Young Ian.
Ian (and his faithful canine companion Rollo) has returned from the Mohawk. Ian is very recalcitrant to talk about it but it appears some tragedy has befallen the Native American tribe that became Ian's home for the last year. Ian tells us that his wife is gone. Not dead but lost to him.
Meanwhile, almost lost is Jamie. While out hunting, Jamie gets bitten by a poisonous snake. Even if the venom doesn't kill him, the damage done will necessitate the amputation of his leg. Unless Bree's 20th century engineering skills can somehow save the day.
OK, I'm not sure what I missed but I did not know that Brianna's 20th century education was in the field of engineering.
As touch and go as the whole snake bite crisis was for Jamie, it seems we're in a placeholder mode, stalling for time until we can finally get revenge on Stephen Bonnett and send his psychotic, torturing, raping murdering ass to the deepest pit of hell where it belongs. And we've got an American Revolution to get to.
New Girl
I finished up my binge watch of season 1. I have to admit I did not watch every episode in full. Watching episodes in succession, I became acutely aware of how much shouting happens in this show. When an argument between some configuration of Jess, Nick, Schmidt and/or Winston descended into shouting, I began fast forwarding through those parts.
Overall, I'm still enjoying the show and I will move on to season 2. I could do with less shouting.
Tokyo Girl
OK, this one is an odd choice. This a series streaming on Amazon Prime. It's about a small town girl who goes off to find love and fulfillment as a woman in the big city.
It's in Japanese. Thankfully there are subtitles as my Japanese is
Aya, from Akita, Japan, dreams of a glamorous life of sophistication that comes with living in a big city like she's seen in magazine, TV shows and movies.
Akita is a dreary place where the skies are always grey and so is Aya's mood. She thinks her beauty entitles her to have a better life than in Akita. She gets to Tokyo and finds her beauty just makes her one of millions of other young women. The logistics of actually living a glamorous life of sophistication in the big city are not easy to navigate. Turns out it's expensive to live in Tokyo.
It's like Friends but in Japanese and the characters are forced to actually work their jobs to afford their lifestyle.
Also we will not have to wait 11 seasons to see how Aya may grow and develop as a character. The series' 11 episodes span Aya's life from age 18 to age 45. Each episode shows a snapshot of her life.
You may wonder why I found this show. Well, I was flipping around Amazon Prime and this got my attention.
Don't judge me!
Good Omens
The fam and I have begun a slow re-watch of this show. Last summer, we burned through the 6 episodes over three days. Now, we're taking our time, watching an episode every week or so.
This series is too damn funny and inventive to not warrant a 2nd look.
OK, that's that for today's Tuesday TV Touchbase.
Until next time, stay safe and remember to be good to one another.
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