What Does the Disney Downturn Mean?

"Wish" bombed.  "The Marvels" crashed.  The less said about "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," the better.  The studio that was the first to have five $1 billion movies in one year, back in 2019, was supposed to be celebrating its centenary in 2023.  Instead, its box office fortunes have been so poor that Disney is estimated to have lost over a $1 billion on its 2023 movie slate.

Before I get any further into this, I want to point out that the entertainment business is cyclical and Disney has been in this position several times before - in the 40s, the 80s, and the mid 2000s.  You could almost say that the studio is right on time for another stint in the wilderness.  However, Disney's never experienced such a steep fall from such lofty heights before.  The 2010s were dominated by Disney blockbusters from its Marvel, "Star Wars," PIXAR, and Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS) brands.  This year, with the exception of one Marvel movie and one PIXAR movie, everything underperformed - sometimes outright bombing.      

The severe downturn in Disney's fortunes across all of its filmmaking units was due to the convergence of a lot of different factors.  There was the overspending, the oversaturation, the overconfidence in franchises and Disney branding, behind the scenes leadership difficulties, and an unfortunate mindset of quantity over quality.  When you look at why so many of the 2023 films failed to impress, it almost always came down to rushed productions and corner cutting.  Pumping out content for Disney+ was a massive misstep that changed consumer behavior in unpredictable ways.  COVID was an absolute wrecking ball and the dual strikes last year piled on the pain.  Every Hollywood studio has been suffering from similar blows, and Disney is far from being the one in the most trouble right now.  Things could get much worse - I'm worried about Nelson Peltz worming his way onto the board of Disney and potentially becoming another David Zaslav.  

One element I've been chewing over is that the alt-right has declared war on Disney over some of their DEI measures, and has been taking credit for their bad year.  There was also the whole tiff between Disney and Florida governor Ron DeSantis that got so much press in 2022.  A paranoid part of me is worried that this might be indicative of the whole American culture taking a hard turn to the right, the way it tends to after major national crises.  However, despite a few outliers like "The Sound of Freedom," the beneficiaries of Disney's misfortune have been movies like "Barbie," "Super Mario Bros.," "Wonka," and the latest "Hunger Games" movie - all just as progressive as any Disney product that came out in the last year.  Anti-Disney campaigns are nothing new, and while the latest ones may have had some impact, clearly it was only to exacerbate the deeper underlying issues that were already in play.  

Frankly, people are exhausted of the MCU.  The most recent animated films look lackluster next to the competition.  The live action remakes of the animated films have worn out their welcome. "Star Wars" has spent several years floundering, and doesn't look to right itself anytime soon.  All of this is perfectly normal and foreseeable, especially considering how hit-or-miss these movies have been since 2020.  The bad luck was that multiple Disney franchises and brands hit their low points in the same year.  "The Marvels" and "Wish" bombed in the same month.  After years of successes, people forget Disney's long history of box office disasters like "John Carter" and "Prince of Persia" and "The Lone Ranger."     

But if Hollywood history tells us anything, it's that Disney will be back on top eventually.  They're not even doing all that badly right now.  The superhero boom may be over, but it doesn't mean that Marvel films are all going away - just that they can't be counted on to be bulletproof anymore.  I expect that we'll see Marvel refocus on its "X-men" and "Fantastic Four" characters over the next few years.  PIXAR actually broke its streak of box office duds with "Elemental," and I expect both PIXAR and WDAS will reorient and adjust with the times.  The animation slate is currently sequels as far as the eye can see, which I'm not happy about, but it'll buy them some time. Somebody will get "Star Wars" right again, eventually, even if Jon Favreau's "Mandalorian" movie is a bust.     

This is a dip, not a nosedive, and recovery is very possible.  There will be fights (proxy and succession) behind the scenes, restructuring, reorganization, and possibly regime change.  It's probably going to get pretty ugly, and there's going to be way too much "Moana." However, in the end the Mouse isn't going anywhere.

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"Maestro" and "Society of the Snow"

I could probably write a full post for both of these movies, but I'm keen to get through the Oscar contender glut, and there are a lot more titles coming.

Bradley Cooper's biopic of Leonard Berstein - well, it's not the movie that I was hoping for.  It's certainly not a bad attempt.  There's some wonderful cinematography and lovely bits of dialogue, and Carey Mulligan is just impeccable.  However, I went into this movie not knowing very much about the great American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, and I came out not knowing much more.  I'm starting to feel tired of biopics like "Maestro" and "The Theory of Everything" that decide the best way to tell the story of a famous man's life is to tell the story of that man's marriage, while haphazardly jamming his better known accomplishments around the margins.

Bernstein (Cooper) is a bisexual man who we first see with a boyfriend, David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer), at the start of his career in the 1940s.  However, he's soon wooing the actress Felicia Montealegre (Mulligan), who he marries and has three children with.  As his fame grows, so do Bernstein's substance abuse problems and the risk of scandal due to his continuing infidelities.  The marriage becomes strained, but endures over the decades.  Cooper, who directed and co-wrote the movie, uses black and white for the older sections of the film and color for the more recent sections, with a brief documentary framing device.  It's a gorgeous film to look at, thanks to cinematographer Matthew Libatique, and the biggest thing I was worried about - Bradley Cooper's performance - is perfectly adequate.  Even the much discussed prosthetic nose plays.

Unfortunately, the movie never feels like it's about Leonard Bernstein.  I'm mostly only aware of Bernstein through his media appearances in the 1970s and '80s,and I wonder if the movie would have worked better for me if I knew more about his earlier work.  Cooper includes a few sequences of him conducting and teaching in "Maestro," and Bernstein's compositions appear on the film's soundtrack, but there's almost no depiction of Bernstein's relationship to music - not the creation, not the interpretation, nothing.  There are parts of the film meant to be understood in the context of Bernstein's career, but offer no commentary on the career itself.  So "Maestro" is a perfectly fine melodrama about a bisexual man navigating his intimate relationships in a specific cultural milieu, but I couldn't recognize that man as Leonard Bernstein, and his musical career seemed to be a totally arbitrary circumstance.  I hate to draw comparisons to "Tár," because these are very different movies, but I have to say it achieved a significantly better depiction of a composer and conductor than this one.  

Now on to "Society of the Snow," a dramatization of the 1972 Andes disaster where an Uruguayan plane carrying 40 passengers, including a rugby team, crashed in the snowbound, inaccessible Andes mountain range.  The survivors had to endure months of exposure and starvation until two of them managed to hike out of the mountains and find help.  The film is told from the perspective of a group of crash survivors, including Numa Turcatti (Enzo Vogrincic Roldán), Roberto Canessa (Matías Recalt), and Nando Parrado (Agustín Pardella), covering the entire ordeal from the doomed flight to the eventual rescue.  A great deal of emphasis is placed on the spiritual struggle of the survivors, many of them Catholic, especially their reluctance to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive.  

"Society of the Snow" was directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, who has some experience with disaster movies.  He made the excellent tsunami film, "The Impossible," in 2012.  "Society of the Snow" is a much larger and more ambitious project, one that hews much closer to historical fact.  There is a day by day accounting of events, including the rising tally of deaths - all identified by name onscreen.  I'm impressed with the grim realism that Bayona committed to, and that Netflix committed significant resources to making sure this was done right.  The plane crash alone is a difficult watch, with several deaths and grievous injuries shown onscreen.  The sound design is almost worse than the visuals, complete with terrified screams and snapping bones.  Subsequently there's a horrific avalanche that kills more people, other accidents and injuries, and close-up looks and the effects of frostbite, exposure, and starvation.  I have no idea how some of the effects work was achieved, and I'm a little afraid to find out.  It certainly looks like they shot the whole thing on the breathtakingly beautiful, frozen mountainside, where the accident took place, and recklessly endangered all the cast and crew involved.   

Roger Ebert famously remarked that he wasn't sure that there was any way to properly tell the story of the Andes disaster on film, after Hollywood tried in 1993 with "Alive."  I've never seen "Alive," but I feel that Bayona got about as close as anyone could have with "Society of the Snow."  The harrowing voiceover narration and the constant memorials to the dead set a somber tone, eschewing any sensationalism.  The actors are strong, but the focus is on the survival of the group rather than any individual.  There is heroism and triumph, especially at the end of the film, but it's mostly overshadowed by reverence and awe for the larger forces of nature and God.  Maybe it's simply that the disaster is now over half a century in the past, and the filmmakers' urge to preserve the memory of the event is that much stronger.  In any case, this is a rare disaster film from a rare director, and I'm very glad to have seen it.   

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The Nasty Delights of "Saltburn"

Let's get one thing straight from the start.  "Saltburn" can be categorized as part of the recent run of satires about the class divide, but this isn't the only thing on its mind.  No, "Saltburn" is also a torrid Gothic romance with an obsessive love story at its core.  The structure is very Hitchcock's "Rebecca," with the titular Saltburn standing in for Manderley, and an oddball Oxford student named Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) as our second Mrs. DeWinter.  Except, Saltburn and its residents are not too difficult to parse, while Oliver turns out to be much more of a mystery.

The first, pre-Saltburn part of "Saltburn" follows Oliver at Oxford, where he's a quiet, friendless nobody.  However, by lucky happenstance he comes into the orbit of the rich, popular Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi) and his more hostile cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe).  Oliver and Felix's friendship has some ups and downs, but the two are chummy enough by the holidays for Felix to invite Oliver to his family home, Saltburn, an outrageously opulent mansion.  The rest of the family includes Felix's parents (Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike) and his sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) - all privileged and terrible in their own ways.

Writer and director Emerald Fennell tries to do a lot in "Saltburn," and some of it really doesn't work.  Every time she tries to make "Saltburn" a thriller, it feels clumsy and tonally off.  She throws lobs at the narcissism and thoughtlessness of the upper (and upper middle) class, but there's nothing deeper to the criticism.  However, whenever the focus is on Oliver's increasingly lurid obsessions, or about luxuriating in the hedonism and excess of being so stinking rich, the film is mesmerizing.  I find myself absolutely willing to forgive all manner of cinematic sins because I'm so thrilled that Emerald Fennell went this hard being this aesthetically indulgent.  The fantasies on display are downright vulgar, but rendered so gorgeously that it all ends up being breathtaking.  The frequent exhortation in filmmaking is to "show, don't tell," and Fennell shows us everything, and then some.  

I also love what every single actor in the cast is doing.  Barry Keoghan has made a career playing creeps and oddballs, and he makes Oliver a total freak in every sense of the word.  It's a slow burn to the degeneracy, but worth the wait.  This may not be Keoghan's best performance, but it's the one he's likely going to be best remembered for.  Likewise, Jacob Elordi has established himself as the heartthrob of the year with "Priscilla," and as Felix he's utterly perfect at embodying effortless pulchritude.  Felix is such a scumbag, but you almost love him for it.  Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike as the elder Cattons are a pair of well-practiced villains, operating in such myopic terms with reality that they're as funny as they are horrible.  They're very thin caricatures, but endlessly entertaining ones. 

Then there's Saltburn itself.  The film takes place mostly in 2006, which informs the music and fashion choices, but there's a timelessness to the Cattons and their circle that eventually subsumes everything.  The house is stuffed with priceless antiquities and heirlooms, with a stone-faced butler (Paul Rhys) always hovering somewhere nearby.  There's some humor milked out of mundane household activities and detritus existing in contrast with such extravagant surroundings.  However, by the end of the film Oliver and the Cattons are throwing bacchanals and reenacting Greek tragedies, while playing out class warfare in very unsubtle terms.    

I'm not surprised that "Saltburn" has been very polarizing, or that there are viewers who think the film was a total failure.  I don't think that Fennell quite worked out the details of the finale well enough to pull off what she tried to pull off.  However, I think it's important to remember that the anti-hero is also an unreliable narrator, and I suspect that what some are taking at face value is actually his reframing of events to suit his own chosen narrative.  And I think Oliver was in love, really, the entire time.  But then, I'm a sucker for fancy cinematography and lonely outsiders.

And good grief, I love an old fashioned, deeply twisted love story.     

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"Fargo," Year Five

Noah Hawley took a few years off from the "Fargo" series, and has returned with one of the best seasons the show has had yet.  Set in 2019, the plot hews much closer to the original "Fargo" film than any of the others, with lots of references and homages to other Coen brothers projects too.  There's a kidnapping, followed by several murders.  Many of the memorable characters are wonderful decent people, while others are decidedly not.  However, there are also some novel twists and digressions, and parts of this year's story end up going in completely different directions from its progenitors.

The wife of a Minnesotan car dealership owner is kidnapped, but this time the husband, Wayne Lyon (David Rysdahl) had nothing to do with it.  It turns out that his wife Dot (Juno Temple) is hiding parts of her past, specifically that she was previously married to a North Dakota sheriff named Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm), who will do anything to get her back.  Other characters include local law enforcement, Deputy Olmstead (Richa Moorjani) and State Trooper Witt Farr (Lamorne Morris), Wayne's wealthy mother Lorraine (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her lawyer Danish Graves (Dave Foley), and Roy's son Gator (Joe Keery).  And it turns out that one of the kidnappers, Ole Munch (Sam Spruell) may be some kind of immortal supernatural sin eater.

"Fargo" has a lot on its mind, as usual.  There are allusions to recent politics culture wars swirling in the background, with various characters standing in for certain types that have become more familiar since the Trump administration.  Sheriff Tillman is clearly modeled after Joe Arpaio, with a dash of sovereign citizen thrown in.  Lorraine Lyon is an evil capitalist with deep political connections.  However, at its center the story is very simple.  It's about Dot doing everything she can to thwart the violent, misogynistic forces that keep trying to take her away from her family.  The early episodes are action-heavy, and feature some thrilling home invasions, shoot outs, escapes, and a lot of improvised security measures.  Dot's a one woman army with a range of combat skills that would seem over-the-top if we weren't operating in an allegory-heavy universe where curses and sins seem to be very real, palpable things.  Sure, the pacing's still very measured and there's a lot of ponderous discussion of the nature of good and evil, but this season of "Fargo" is more gosh-darn entertaining than it's been in years.

A big part of this is due to the performances, which are sensational across the board.  Juno Temple and Jon Hamm are the anchors, playing new variations on their established screen personas - the bubbly optimist and the suave alpha male.  Sam Spruell, however, ends up running away with the whole season as Ole Munch, this ancient folkloric figure that doesn't seem to quite fit into the story, until you realize he's the whole point of it.  There are so many characters this year, like Lorraine, Danish, Deputy Olmstead, and Gator, who initially come off like these ridiculous caricatures, and then reveal their more human inner depths as the season goes on.  The show hasn't always been able to pull that sort of thing off, but this year does so beautifully.      

Noah Hawley also seems far more sure-footed this year, maybe because his targets are much more straightforward - toxic masculinity and cutthroat capitalists - and maybe it's because the connections to the Coens' work are stronger.  Nearly every character in this season correlates to someone from the original film, and there are more direct dialogue and visual quotes here than in any season since the first one.  The humor seems like it's hitting the mark more often too, maybe because of the mix of actors (Dave Foley in an eyepatch!) and maybe because it's so necessary as a counterweight to the dark subject matter.  There's some particularly upsetting instances of domestic violence this season, so heed the content warnings. 

Finally, though I'm sure we'll see another season of "Fargo" somewhere down the line, if this is where Noah Hawley decides to shop, the season finale offers one of the best endings I've seen for any television show, ever.  It's uplifting, wholesome, deeply spiritual, and offers a lovely sentiment of hope and forgiveness.  And after ten years and five seasons, it feels very earned.

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"Priscilla" and "Past Lives"

It's difficult not to view Sofia Coppola's "Priscilla" as a response to Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis," in which Elvis Presley's wife barely appeared and was a totally inconsequential character.  "Priscilla" gives Priscilla Presley (Cailee Spaeny) a full narrative centered on her relationship and marriage to Elvis, and it's as compelling as any Elvis story I've ever seen. Where Luhrmann's film was full of spectacle and recreations of Elvis's famous performances, Coppola's is far more intimate, limited to the subjective view of Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny), who was always waiting in the wings.  

There's a very Southern Gothic vibe to the narrative, based on Priscilla Presley's memoirs.  She met Elvis (Jacob Elordi) when she was a sheltered fourteen year-old and he was already a famous singer ten years her senior.  The early parts of the film have a certain giddy romantic air, as Priscilla and Elvis carry on their romance through sporadic meetings and trips, and gradually shift Priscilla out of the care and supervision of her parents (Dagmara Domińczyk, Ari Cohen), and into Elvis's orbit full time.  Unfortunately, Graceland doesn't give Priscilla the freedom she expects, and marriage doesn't improve their relationship.  

This is one of my favorite Coppola films in some time, because of the way that it plays with the familiar Elvis Presley mythos.  There's so much attention paid to clothes and makeup and the little details of domestic life that are usually the window dressing of other biopics.  Here, they're used as major parts of the film's storytelling.  From Priscilla's POV, Graceland is suffocating despite the luxury, Colonel Parker is only a voice on the other end of the phone, and Elvis in private is very different from his public persona.  Jacob Elordi gives us an Elvis who is both tragic and the kind of nightmare domestic partner every girl is warned about.  However, he's also recognizably Elvis Presley, who no one can say no to.  Cailee Spaeny makes an excellent Priscilla, in part because she's able to look so young in those early scenes.  It gets across how unbalanced and how unhealthy the relationship is from the very beginning, and makes Priscilla's eventual empowerment very satisfying.  

I feel obligated to write something about "Past Lives," which is never a good mindset when reviewing anything.  However, "Past Lives" is a major awards contender and has a lot of buzz around it.  Like "Aftersun" last year, it's a very personal, intimate story about a relationship.  And like "Aftersun," I didn't get anything out of it at all.  Greta Lee stars as Nora Moon, a Korean immigrant who reconnects with her childhood friend Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) as an adult.  The two were on the path to romance until Nora left South Korea with her family to immigrate to the United States.  The movie follows them as twelve year-olds, twenty-four year-olds, and finally at thirty-six.

The performances are good, but the tone of the film is very casual and very sedate.  Initially the stakes don't seem too high, as Nora and Hae Sung are always tentatively circling around romance, and never fully committed to each other.  However, the film suggests that the two would have fallen in love in other circumstances, with much discussion of the Korean concept of "inyun" - the amount of which will affect fated connections.  In this life the two don't have enough inyun - they're separated by distance, by their personal ambitions, by lifestyle choices, and by Nora also falling in love with Arthur (John Magaro), who is consistently not jealous of the man his wife is possibly also in love with. 

In theory, I like the idea of a film with very little conflict, focused on navigating adult feelings and relationships in very intelligent terms.  In reality, "Past Lives" left me cold.  I like the actors and their choices fine.  The filmmaking is lovely and intimate, and has a wonderful sense of patience.  However, the story was just so slight, and the characters so quiet that it was difficult to care about them.  I don't think this has anything to do with the characters having Korean origins or the language barrier.  I guess the film just didn't ever convince me that Nora and Hae Sung's potential relationship was ever worth so much consideration.      

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Catching Up With "The Artful Dodger"

There are reimaginings, and then there are reimagings.  "The Artful Dodger" is a period medical dramedy, set in Australia in the 1850s, and the lead characters are a grown-up version of the Artful Dodger and an aged Fagin from Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist."  Dodger, now Dr. Jack Dawkins (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) is a brilliant young surgeon in the fictional town of Port Victory.  Unfortunately, in this era surgeons aren't paid and he has to survive off of tips from spectators when he performs his operations.  He also has a gambling problem.  In the first episode he finds himself in debt to dangerous people, and coincidentally his old mentor Fagin (David Thewlis) has just arrived as a transported convict from London.  

Dawkins isn't happy about this turn of events, because he and Fagin parted on bad terms fifteen years ago, and he's determined that his past as a thief should stay in the past.  However, as the situation grows more dire, he may not have a choice about returning to a life of crime.  Then there's the matter of the show's third lead, Lady Belle Fox (Maia Mitchell), the governor's headstrong daughter who is keen to escape her dreary life of feminine pursuits and become a surgeon herself.  However, she's not allowed to attend a surgery, let alone learn how to perform one.  A few chance encounters with Dawkins and some minor blackmail, however, give her an opportunity to start training.  She also introduces germ theory and anesthesia to the hospital, because this is that kind of show.

Fundamentally, "Artful Dodger" is built around capers, where every episode involves some kind of heist or scheme or bad situation that the characters have to finagle their way through.  The tone is very light and fun, despite the sometimes gruesome subject matter.  Port Victory is full of dangers from both the criminals and those who would civilize them.  The law is represented by the awful Captain Gaines (Damon Herriman), who quickly develops a grudge against Dawkins, and Belle's weak-willed father, Governor Fox (Damien Garvey), who is easily corrupted.  Our heroes have to outsmart both of them regularly.  There are also dangerous surgeries in most episodes.  We never see them up close, but there's a lot of black humor about amputations and practicing on corpses.  The pace of the show is so quick, and the mood so energetic, however, there's not much chance to dwell on the nasty bits.

"The Artful Dodger" boasts some of the best casting that I've ever seen for a series.  Thomas Brodie-Sangster, let's face it, could probably still get away with playing the kid version of Dodger despite being in his thirties.  It's difficult to imagine anyone better suited for the role, and he's clearly having a ball doing it.  Hopefully leading roles continue to come his way in the future.  Meanwhile, I kept forgetting that it was David Thewlis playing Fagin, a somewhat hardier version of the character who can get into scraps with the Australian locals, but is still the silver-tongued, sly old rascal we all remember.  Finally, bright-eyed Mitchell is well suited for all the bickering and flirting with Brodie-Sangster. Of course their characters are romantically entangled by the end of the season.

I was surprised at how much of a romance this turned out to be in the last few episodes, but it's handled very well.  I don't see many shows these days that really commit wholeheartedly to a full throated love story, with big emotions, big declarations, and the whole works, and it's refreshing to see.  By the time the dramatics really kicked in, the show had gotten me thoroughly attached to all the characters and invested in their problems.  The actors are able to switch from farcical attitudes to more serious ones without any trouble at all, and the writing is strong enough that I was genuinely delighted to discover that this is where we were headed the whole time.  It might feel like a bait-and-switch to some, but this is an approach I wish that more creators had the guts to try.  

 

"Dodger" is an Australian production, and the show pings as more Aussie than Dickensian.   Most of the characters are British, but there are a few Aboriginal Australian characters in the ensemble, including a robber named Red (Miranda Tapsell), who isn't shy about pointing out who she thinks the real criminals are in Port Victory.  I wish we could have spent more time with them, but there's a lot going on.  Maybe if there's a second season of "The Artful Dodger," we'll get out of Port Victory and see some of  the rest of Australia.  I hope that happens, because this is one of the few shows I've seen from 2023 where I immediately wanted another season after the finale.    

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"Extraordinary," Year Two

Spoilers for the first season ahead.

The second season of "Extraordinary" is better than the first, because it's more comfortable being a comedy about a group of friends first, and a comedy about people with superpowers second.  There's a lot going on this season.   Jen and Jizzlord have gotten together, while Kash and Carrie have come apart.  We learn a lot more about Jizzlord's pre-cat life, and meet his wife Nora (Rosa Robson) and son Alfie (Alfie Harrison).  Carrie develops a crush on a co-worker, Clark (Kwaku Mills).  Jen starts working with a therapist, George (Julian Barratt), to try and get a superpower.    

Many of the characters from the first season don't return, such as Jen's sister and ex-boyfriend.  However, many of them do, such as Kash's vigilante friend group, who get a little more time to register as individuals this year, and seem way more fun to hang out with than I'd first assumed.  Our leads are still in the process of figuring themselves out.  Carrie and Kash have to learn to be independent, though they have very different journeys.  Jen finally has to deal with some long-ignored personal issues.  Jizzlord has to face sudden fatherhood.  Everyone screws up constantly, but they also make a lot of progress.  

The budget this year goes less toward flashy superpowers (though there are still plenty), and more toward production design.  Jen spends a lot of time in a physical manifestation of her mind with George this season, which looks like a cluttered library.  There are a ton of sight gags here, with books on every subject from "Inappropriate Crushes" to "Weird Things You've Thought About While Masturbating."  "Lies" have their own section, available as audiobooks read by Derek Jacobi.  Nora is a hyper-perfectionist who writes self-help books, with a stifling home and wardrobe to match.  Then there's Kash's big project this year - an elaborate vigilante musical, complete with ridiculous costumes and pyrotechnics.  

With only eight episodes, and the status quo constantly changing, it feels like the season never slows down.  I like that "Extraordinary" pays off storylines that might have been dragged out in a more typical sitcom  fairly quickly.  Kash and Carrie are able to get over the breakup and stay friends, though not without some awkwardness and misunderstandings along the way.  Jen and Jizzlord's relationship actually progresses fairly maturely, though of course Jen ends up in a feud with Nora that results in a lot of shouting and chaos.  There's a shameless cliffhanger capping off another major arc, but that one also comes with a good amount of resolution too.  This is one of the few current comedies with serialized elements I can think of, where every episode is distinct enough that they don't all run together in my head, because the creators ensure fun ideas like Jizzlord-babysits-kittens don't outstay their welcome. 

"Extraordinary" continues its wonderful execution of all kinds of superpowered silliness, including a restaurant you have to shrink to get into, a swirling void that's being used as a convenient trash dump, and that creepy guy at work who knows too much about  all the women's menstrual cycles.  However, it's better at the character moments and absolutely great with the one liners.  It's genuinely touching when Kash and Carrie realize that they miss being together, but not as romantic partners, and when Jen has to say some important goodbyes.  And every time somebody announces that they've done something really stupid with a big grin on their face, I can't help laughing.  

So, enjoy the Halloween episode.  And the birthday party episode.  And the one where there's a gay panic subplot that gets subverted in probably the best way that I've ever seen.  I don't know how much longer this show is going to be around - it already feels like one of those cult television programs that blows up in popularity years after it's canceled.  I'm rooting for at least one more season, to resolve the shameless cliffhanger, but even if I don't get one, I'm happy to declare that "Extraordinary" lives up to its name.      

 

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