Stranger Things Season 5, Eps 1-4
I watched very little this week, but did manage to see the first four released episodes of Stranger Things Thursday after Thanksgiving dinner.
I love the chapter titles for these:
The Crawl
The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler
The Turnbow Trap
Sorceror
The episodes managed to give screen time to all of the main characters so we can see who they are now, after four harrowing seasons. The kids are mostly grown up, but ya, they're still kids in how they respond and react.
The actual grownups get some fine moments too, particularly Karen Wheeler. She's still tipping the wine glass, but she can use it as a weapon if she needs to. Joyce Byers is all in on saving the world, but her kids still come first. Hopper isn't the gruff fuzzy bear he usually is, so far. He's just gruff.
Quite a bit of time is spent in the upside down. Everyone, including the military, seem rather at home there, taking some of its edge away. The scary stuff comes in a more human appearing form in the guise of Henry Creel. He's gathering the children of Hawkins who are shy and vulnerable.
Looking forward to Christmas and the next set of episodes.
Homeland Pilot Episode
This is new to Netflix, and has gotten a lot of publicity, though it ran initially from 2011 to 2020. I remember it getting high praise and lots of awards nominations over time. So, give it a try, I said.
Claire Danes is a CIA operative named Carrie Mathison who uses any means necessary to prove she's right about whatever she's currently working on. She has bi-polar disorder she's masking from her superiors. She's so intense, though, and prone to going over the top, that I don't see why she isn't regularly in more trouble.
Part of this may be the efforts of her mentor Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) who tries to help her navigate without getting in trouble.
The story line of the pilot involves Carrie promising a man in prison about to be executed that she will help his family if he gives her key information. The information is, a prisoner of war has been "turned". I don't know if she ever helped his family as promised, but that really bugged me. She doesn't seem like a person to honor promises.
Soon after, a prisoner of war who has been thought dead, but has been held for eight years is released. Carrie is immediately obsessed with him and sets up unauthorized surveillance equipment in his home. She has him followed everywhere, all off the books.
It's set up that this man, Brody, is an agent of al-Qaida, according to Carrie. He's hailed as a hero returning home, and there are plans to have him run for congress.
While the episode was intense, and Danes really an interesting character, there was far too much torture for me. Also, if the Brody character really is a bad guy and he just floats through, that's depressing.
Not for me.
