"Hamnet" is a Heartbreaker

I have a few major biases when it comes to film.  I get more invested in stories about children and motherhood.  I'm partial to Shakespeare adaptations.  And when it comes to romances and tearjerkers, the more earnest and uncynical, the better.  Chloe Zhao's "Hamnet," which she directed and co-wrote with Maggie O'Farrell, based on O'Farrell's book, is all of these things.

The approach of the book and the film is to treat William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) like a human being instead of a genius, following him and his beloved Agnes (Jessie Buckley) through their initial encounters, courtship, marriage, parenthood, separation, and then terrible tragedy.  The film never plays coy with the identities of its leads, but neither is William's playwriting presented as anything of particular importance until the last act, when it becomes a way for him to process his grief and despair.  Instead, the focus of the film is on the family - William and Agnes battling their parents to be allowed to marry, the dramatic births of their children, Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breahtnach), and twins Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) and Judith (Olivia Lynes), William relocating to London for work, and then the arrival of the devastating plague.  

Most of the film is a lovely, intimate domestic drama about love and loss from Agnes' point of view.  She is rumored to be the daughter of a witch, and deeply connected with the forest and nature, so we get a very naturalistic, immersive view of Stratford, England and its inhabitants through her eyes.  However, she's also guided by visions and haunted by portents of doom that follow her all her life.  Lukasz Zal's cinematography captures lush greenery, lively family scenes, a few hints of the supernatural, and all the emotional highs and lows of the performances.  However, I was struck by how evocative some of the simplest shots of trees or quiet interiors were, despite no action or dialogue at all.  I have to point out that a lot of the heavy lifting is also done by Max Richter's score, which does exactly what you expect a Max Richter score to do in a tragedy.

I expect that some Shakespeare fans will take issue with the portrayal of the Bard and his family, as "Hamnet" plays up the relationship of the stage play to the real-life tragedy considerably, even inventing a few additional connections.  It's also clear that nobody was too concerned about the historical accuracy of the period dress and mannerisms.  However, as a piece of pure, cathartic cinema, nothing hit me as hard as "Hamnet" did this year, and I was warned well in advance what kind of movie this was.  The execution is just that good, on every level.  Jessie Buckley's raw, uninhibited performance is extraordinary, as has been widely reported, but the whole cast is  excellent - Paul Mescal, Emily Watson as Agnes' mother-in law, Joe Alwyn as her brother, Noah Jupe as one of the players, and especially the kids for getting us to love them, and really make the big losses hurt.    

It's also one of those rare, ambitious films where everything is building up to the emotional crescendo of the last ten minutes, and about twenty things pay off one after another, which has a tendency to go wrong in less experienced hands.  Considering how the film is structured, it feels positively miraculous that the third act came together as well as it did.  I never expected Chloe Zhao to tackle Shakespeare, but her approach is so refreshing, and her instincts are dead-on.  I expect "Hamnet" works better if you already know Shakespeare's "Hamlet," and I do know Shakespeare's "Hamlet" pretty well, but I'm very curious what newcomers to Shakespeare will think of the movie.  

I know I want to watch this again, but I'll also approach with caution, as the film is very emotionally intense.  And frankly, I'm a little afraid that the magic of that last scene might not work as well the second time around.  This is one trick where I'm not keep on peeking behind the curtain or looking for the seams.

---

"Hazbin Hotel," Year Two

Spoilers for the first season ahead.

The second season of "Hazbin Hotel" gets right down to business, showing the aftermath of the big extermination battle from season one.  The Hotel is full of sinners who are all there for the wrong reasons, including newcomers Cherri Bomb (Krystina Alabado) and Baxter (Kevin Del Aguila).  Sir Pentious is causing an existential crisis in Heaven, with angels Sera (Patina Miller), Emily (Shoba Narayan), and Lute (Jessica Vosk) in disagreement about what his redemption means for their relations with Hell.  However, the central character of this year is really Vox (Christian Borle), the TV-headed overlord, who with fellow baddies Velvette (LIlli Cooper) and Valentino (Joel Perez) form a villain triumvirate known as the Vees.  As the head of Hell's major telecommunications company, VoxTek, Vox controls the airwaves and social media.  And he sees the chance to consolidate power and take the fight to Heaven.  

I really shouldn't be watching "Hazbin Hotel" for the plot, because despite some significant improvements in the pacing and overall story flow this year, most of the characters are stuck in a holding pattern.  Charlie naively tries to make the case for the Hotel to the rest of Hell, but Vox and his minions keep warping and twisting her message at every turn, causing her to repeatedly spiral.  Angel Dust is said to be the sinner closest to redemption, except he hasn't addressed any of his personal issues, his past, or the whole involuntary servitude thing.  We do start getting pieces of people's backstories, including flashbacks to when characters like Sir Pentious and Alastor were alive on Earth.  These do help a lot to flesh out characters and relationships.  However, most of the big revelations are either severely anticlimactic, or just keep punting the juiciest stuff further down the road, to be addressed later.  The show also has the terrible habit of nerfing its most powerful characters until they need to be badasses for the big finale.         

I know Season Three and Four are coming, and we're going to get answers to some of the remaining mysteries, but I wanted  more out of Season Two.  Everything to do with Vox is great, especially Christian Borle's committed scenery-chewing.  Everything else feels like it's repeating parts of Season One, or maneuvering characters to where they'll need to be for future episodes.  There are a lot of subplots that have yet to be resolved and there are a lot of balls in the air, but when it comes down to it, most of our heroes don't have a whole lot to do beyond singing about their feelings.  The only one of the leads who actually accomplishes something significant is Alastor, and he literally spends three episodes tied up on an office chair.

Still, this is a musical program and we're here for the songs.  There are some bangers this season, including "Gravity" for Lute, "Easy" for Vaggie and Charlie, and "Brighter" for Vox, and "Love in a Bottle" for Husk.  Probably the funniest moment in the whole season is when Niffty gets her own anime OP out of nowhere.  There's really no attempt to hide that this is an earnest musical anymore, with a big, cheesy, uplifting ending clearly designed to get as many cast members on the soundtrack as possible.  The quality of the music remains variable, but about on par with last year.  However, there's a lot more of it, with multiple episodes featuring three full numbers.  My biggest peeve is that Alastor's best song is the "Season 1 Recap Song" that you have to go watch on Youtube.

Production-wise, "Hazbin" looks and sounds great this year.  The crew feel a lot more comfortable in this universe now, and willing to get more ambitious.  The action scenes in particular have improved, with major fights showing off more of the characters' powers.  Husk in action, using magician-themed attacks is especially fun to watch.  Some of the character designs, especially for minor  background demons, still feel goofy and overworked, but I've gotten used to the style.      

Until next time, I'll be enjoying the soundtrack and looking forward to more.

---

The End of "The Late Show"

"The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" wrapped up its last episode on Thursday, after what felt like months of goodbyes.  Colbert didn't manage to land that interview with the Pope he was hoping for, but plenty of others dropped by for cameos and performances.  If you didn't like the final show, which featured Paul McCartney playing the Ed Sullivan theater again, the return of Jon Baptise, and a silly science-fiction storyline, that's fine.  Colbert and company made plenty of others that could stand in for a finale that you might like better - Colbert taking his own Colbert Questionert on Wednesday, the "Worst of the Late Show" program on Monday that spotlighted the contributions of members of the "Late Show" staff, the big President Obama interview from the week before, or the "Strike Force Five" reunion of all the current late night television hosts the week before that.  

My favorite was easily last Friday's return of David Letterman, the previous "Late Show" host, who Colbert took over from in 2015.  Letterman, always the anti-establishment figure, was one of the only final guests who really displayed any sign of being upset about the whole situation.  He dressed down CBS several times during the interview, and then made them the literal target of a resurrected bit from his own version of the show - dropping random stuff off the roof of the Ed Sullivan theater to smash on the asphalt below.  In this case, Letterman and Colbert dropped chairs from the set - including Colbert's desk chair - trying to hit a giant CBS eye logo on the ground.  A few watermelons and a multi-tiered cake were also hurled over for good measure.  The clip  was later released on Youtube as a video titled "Wanton Destruction of CBS Property."  

Stephen Colbert has also been doing a good amount of press to promote these final programs - interviews with Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Tonight, the Today Show, People Magazine, and others.  He's clearly got mixed feelings about the end of the show, but he's leaving on a high note, despite the fact that he's being pushed out by the network.  What's more, he's at the height of his popularity and everybody in town seems to be on his side.  His fellow hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon ran reruns on Thursday in solidarity, while his old colleagues at "The Daily Show" and "Last Week Tonight" have delivered shoutouts and encouragement.  The outpouring of support and good wishes is wonderful to see, and I suppose it's better to focus on that than the grim reality of why "The Late Show" was cancelled - the Paramount Skydance merger and the pettiness of the Trump administration.  Say what you want about Disney, but they only pulled "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" for a week. 

I've been watching Stephen Colbert since his appearances on "The Daily Show," and I'll be very sad if he decides to stop performing.  Colbert has been one of our most reliable satirists, and even though helming a big network show softened his edge, he proved far more watchable than his competitors.  His keen intelligence, steady faith, and winning wholesomeness never clashed with his killer sense of humor or willingness to be ribald and ridiculous.  Then again, if writing "Lord of the Rings" movies and sleeping in late will make Colbert happy, all the best to him.  I'm more worried about the staff of "The Late Show," who are all now unemployed.  CBS is ending their late night talk programs entirely, opting to replace "The Late Show" with a program called "Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen."  Allen has already made it clear he will be avoiding political commentary.  

Of all the finales and cancellations this year, "The Late Show" is the toughest to reckon with, because it shouldn't have happened, and the fact that it did indicates that things are very wrong at CBS and Paramount right now.  I know the end of "The Late Show" was an inevitability, considering the decline of network television, but Colbert easily could have gone on many more years as host.  He might make a return to late night on another show, the way Jon Stewart did, but it won't be the same.  This is the end of an era, not just for Colbert, but for television.  And as wonderful as these last weeks of "The Late Show" have been, there is nothing that is going to make this ending sit right.

---

"Roofman" and "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You"

Minor spoilers ahead.

"Roofman" is Derek Cianfrance's latest film, telling the stranger-than-fiction story of the criminal career of Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum), an ex-soldier who turns to burglary in the late '90s to make ends meet.  He picks up the moniker "Roofman" because he robs fast food restaurants by cutting his way through the ceilings.  Manchester is eventually incarcerated, escapes in 2004, and manages to secretly live in a Toys "R" Us while waiting for his friend Steve (La Keith Stanfield) to arrange a way out of the country.  There, he falls in love with one of the employees, a single mother named Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), while doing his best to steer clear of her jerk of a manager, Mitch (Peter Dinklage).

I don't think this is the best movie that Channing Tatum has appeared in, but this is the best Channing Tatum movie.  It's very easy to root for Jeffrey Manchester, because Tatum is so charming and so wholesome in the part.  Manchester prioritizes making his loved ones happy, and does his best to make sure no one gets hurt during his robberies.  He's also got a mind for figuring out systems and schedules that makes him an expert infiltrator.  The trouble is that he's a big kid at heart, someone who doesn't really appreciate the deeper repercussions of his actions, or the harms that he can cause long term.  His antics in the  Toys "R" Us are a lot of fun, but there's deeper thematic stuff going on there.  Living in a toy store sounds fun, but the reality of it hits Manchester pretty hard.  And ultimately, "Roofman" is about him figuring out far, far too late that he doesn't have the temperament or the need for criminality, even though he's so good at it.  

The movie runs a little long, but it's sweet and fairly heartwarming.  "Roofman" is easily Derek Cianfrance's most accessible film - it's still got a very un-Hollywood ending, but it offers a lot of fun on the way there.  The romance works, which surprised me, though I do wish that we could have gotten more of Kristen Dunst's side of the story.  And special kudos go to Peter Dinklage, who I feel like I've been seeing everywhere this year, doing solid work playing that petty manager that everyone hates.   However, the one thing that kept taking me out of the movie was some of the other casting choices.  It was distracting how many of the actors I recognized in the minor roles, like Ben Mendelsohn as the local pastor, Uzo Aduba as his wife, Juno Temple as Steve's girlfriend, and Jimmy O. Yang showing up to sell Manchester a used car.  

On to "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You."  This one really caught me off guard, because all the marketing has been about Conan O'Brien having a supporting part, his first significant dramatic role.  He's fine in the movie, but definitely not what "If I Had Legs" should be remembered for.  This is the second film from director Mary Bronstein, about an overstressed, anxiety-riddled mother named Linda (Rose Byrne) who is taking care of a medically fragile young daughter (Delaney Quinn) with an eating disorder.  Her husband (Christian Slater) is away for an extended period for work.  The ceiling of their apartment has caved in, forcing Linda to relocate to a seedy hotel, run by a friendly superintendent, James (A$AP Rocky). 

Conan O'Brien plays Linda's therapist, who is also a colleague, because Linda is also a therapist.  So, it turns out that on top of all of Linda's problems, her job is to listen to other stressed out, anxious people  all day and try to help them with their problems.  It's no wonder that Linda starts to crack under the pressure.  "If I Had Legs" feels similar to other paranoid thrillers like "Uncut Gems," but with a more heightened, subjective POV.  Linda occasionally disassociates, staring into holes and voids where the blackness seems to temporarily mute all the chaos around her.  "If I Had Legs" never gets to the level of surrealism of something like "Beau is Afraid," but there's definitely the same willingness to make the viewer viscerally uncomfortable by focusing on the most nerve-grating moments of the protagonist's life. There's also plenty of black humor.

What really stands out is the performance of Rose Byrne as a woman who is in the throes of failure and can't seem to stop making things worse.  Maternal regret has become a more common subject in recent films like "The Lost Daughter," and Byrne embodies it wonderfully, layering on the reactive hostility, self-flagellating guilt, and endless frustration.  Bronstein shows the world from Linda's POV as an endless series of escalating irritants and disruptions that simultaneously enrage her and deepen her self-loathing.  It's difficult to watch, especially the subplot with one of Linda's patients, a new mother named Caroline (Danielle Macdonald), but I found it rewarding.  I especially like the ending, which is a series of rug-pulls that finally bring us to an inevitable conclusion.  I hope to see more from Bronstein soon.  

---

"The Boys," Year Four

Spoilers for the first three seasons ahead.

I nearly dropped "The Boys" after a third season that felt repetitive and stalled out.  It was only because I knew that the show was ending with the fifth season that I decided to catch up on the fourth one, and then I debated whether to just write up the last two seasons together.  However, I think the fourth season has enough for me to talk about in its own post.

There's still a lot about the fourth season of "The Boys" that is repetitive and feels like it's stalling for time.  We don't appear any closer to the show's final goal of either killing Homelander or watching everybody die trying.  However, there are some different goals and side-quests this year that play out in interesting ways, as well as a few new characters and old characters in new roles.  Right off the bat, the best new addition to the show is Susan Heyward as the superintelligent Sister Sage, who is absolutely fascinating to watch because she is working toward her own unstated goals the whole time, which don't match the goals of anyone else in the show.  She also has a habit of temporarily lobotomizing herself to enjoy sex and junk food binges, which gets funnier every time it happens.  

I also like Valorie Curry as Firecracker, a right wing influencer and conspiracy theory peddler, who spearheads the media misinformation campaign against Starlight.  I didn't think it was possible, but "The Boys" becomes even more blatant about tying Homelander's supporters to the alt-right this season, with Firecracker as a cutting caricature of the new breed of MAGA-era white nationalist zealot.  The show apparently got a little too close to current events for comfort, prompting the finale to change its official title from "Assassonation Run" to "Season Four Finale," due to some of the depicted events.  I found the Firecracker storyline the most difficult to watch due to how grating her schtick is, but I'm also very appreciative of it, because the satire is so spot-on.

Easily the most improved performer is Cameron Crovetti as Ryan, who is given much more to do as he gains more autonomy and starts asking more difficult questions of his two father figures.  "The Boys" is better about balancing its dark humor with more sincere storylines this year, and Ryan experiencing some growing pains was one of the better ones.  I also want to highlight Claudia Doumit as politician Victoria Neuman, who is one of this year's major villains.  Like Sister Sage, she's a villain with some shades of gray, and it was genuinely hard to predict where her loyalties were ultimately going to land.  I also want to acknowledge that Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Rosemarie DeWitt, Will Ferrell, and Tilda Swinton appear in this season in roles I will not spoil. 

As for the main characters, the showrunners did a decent job of giving everyone new things to do, while not making it too obvious that nobody was making much progress.  A-Train and Ashley got some of the funnier interactions as they toyed with dumping Vought.  Deep and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) are pretty much pure comic relief at this point.  Homelander gets points for never getting any less disturbing every time he shows up.  On the other team, Hughie and Annie had a good season, weathering a lot of ups and downs.  I wasn't sure why Frenchie and Kimiko were seemingly on a break at the beginning of the season, or how Frenchie ended up in a deeply problematic relationship with a guy named Colin (Elliot Knight), but at least that one wrapped up well.  Butcher had a very big, meaningful arc this year, but it wasn't executed too well, regrettably.

I continue to prefer the show's worldbuilding to any of its actual plot.  Season Four gives us a holiday ice show, an Avenue Q parody (complete with a song number about informing on your parents), superpowered farm animals, and the most depraved versions of Batman and Spiderman I have ever seen.  The shocks are still pretty inventive and disgusting, which I respect, even if this part of the show hasn't worked for me for the past few seasons.  And I'm looking forward to the finale, and seeing if "The Boys" can top itself one more time.  This feels like the right time for "The Boys" to be ending, and I'm glad it's going on its own terms.

---

"She Ra" With Spoilers

I finished "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power," (the 2018 Netflix series, not the one from the '80s) which was a thoroughly enjoyable action-adventure series aimed at girls.  In lieu of one of my usual top ten lists, I'm going to write up a spoilery wrap-up post to talk about some of the elements of the show that I thought were particularly novel and worthy of attention.  The best episode was "Princess Prom," by the way.

I don't think I've ever seen a kids' show where the villains aren't only well-rounded characters, but they have roughly equal narrative emphasis as the heroes.  I really enjoy Adora, Glimmer, and Bow, but all the standout characters in "She-Ra" are the ones who spend most of the series on the opposing side: Catra, Scorpia (Lauren Ash), Entrapta (Christine Woods), and Double Trouble (Jacob Tobia).  They do just as much growing and learning and maturing as any of the good guys.  Major baddie Hordak gets a redemption arc.  We even get a whole episode devoted to Lonnie (Dana Davis), Rogelio, and Kyle (Antony Del Rio), the three Horde soldiers who grew up with Adora and Catra, and mostly appear as background characters in the rest of the show.

The message is clear.  You can't write people off just because they do bad things or follow the wrong leaders.  A simple good/bad dichotomy doesn't account for the misguided, the confused, and the complicated.  Entrapta, for instance, is operating with an entirely different moral compass than the rest of the cast, valuing technology and information over human relationships.  With her prehensile hair and neurodivergent coded behavior, she's one of the show's most unique creations.  Muscle-with-a-heart-of-gold Scorpia is one of the sweetest characters and dearly values her friends, but all her friends are members of the Horde.  And of course there's Catra, who has made a habit of dealing with her trauma and expressing her insecurities in very destructive, unhealthy ways.  And it turns out that every single one of them can become a  friend and ally.  It just takes Adora a couple of extra seasons to win them over, or for them to make the decision to defect on their own.  There are also characters who stay firmly on the sidelines, only governed by their own self-interest throughout, who can still be appealed to and reasoned with. 

It's very impressive that the show manages to raise its stakes every season, to the point where the whole universe is at risk by season five.  While the violence is very mild and the relationships are kept PG, the show does go to some dark and upsetting places emotionally.  Catra spends most of the show working her way up the ranks of the Horde, and it's always ambiguous whether or not you should be rooting for her, because her villainy is so entertaining.  Then she finally finds an enemy who completely outclasses her, who she's not going to be able to manipulate, and it's time for reform.  N.D. Stephenson, who also created "Nimona," does a great job at exploring the fraught emotional lives of her characters, both bad and good, while putting on a rousing adventure show.  The only one I'm a little disappointed with is Glimmer, who becomes much more reckless and aggressive after her coronation, coming close to crossing some lines thanks to Shadoweaver's influence.  She self-corrects very quickly when the plot needs her to, and she and Bow feel a little shortchanged in the last seasons compared to Catra and Adora.

I've seen some comparisons to various anime series with similar fantasy settings, but "She-Ra" is very much a Western cartoon that is careful to serve its younger audience.  I appreciate that there's plenty of humor and fun, even in the more intense episodes, and the storytelling can provoke some big emotions without ever getting too traumatic .  For instance, while Adora and Catra are having one of their more desperate duels, Entrapa is off on a side quest, making friends with a Horde Prime (Keston John) clone she thoughtfully names "Wrong Hordak."  There are a couple of deaths that are handled very well, though this being a fantasy show, I suspect they may not be gone for good.  

This is one of the better transitional programs I've seen for middle grade kids and preteens, the ones who love cartoons but are ready for more substance to chew on.  There are not a lot of these shows, so I greatly value the ones that we've got.  And "She-Ra" is one of the best I've seen.  

--

"Beef" Year Two

So, Netflix's "Beef" is going the anthology route.  The newest eight-episode season tells an original story about more desperate people in conflict, with no connections to the first season.  Showrunner Lee Sung Jin continues to explore themes of the Asian-American diaspora and misplaced rage, this time through a story about three couples in three different socioeconomic categories.

The Monte Vista Point Country Club is managed by Josh (Oscar Isaac) and his wife Lindsay (Carey Mulligan).  They have money troubles and their marriage is on the rocks, despite their lavish lifestyle and the lofty company they keep.  One of the employees of the club, Ashley (Cailee Spaeny), and her fiancée Austin (Charles Melton), catch Josh and Lindsay in the middle of a violent fight one night, and manage to film it.  This gives them the leverage to potentially escape their own stalled lives in low-income purgatory.  However, there's another wrinkle.  The club has a new Korean owner, Chairwoman Park (Youn Yuh-jung), a very rich and influential businesswoman who has a habit of playing favorites.  Her husband, plastic surgeon Dr. Kim (Song Kang-ho), is in the middle of a potential scandal, and Chairman Park is eyeing the club as a potential way out.   

Like the first season of the show, all the main characters are people who do terrible things.  Some are driven by money or ambition.  Some act badly due to being in relationships that enable their worst behavior.  Some are bad because their circumstances or upbringing seems to give them no other choice.  Nearly everyone turns out to be redeemable, but hardly any of them choose redemption in the end.  The show follows all the players as couples and as individuals, having some episodes focus only on one or two characters at a time.  A noticeable difference from the first season is that there isn't a simple inciting incident that pits two or more characters directly against each other.  The character dynamics are much more complicated, and the intra-couple hostilities are just as important as the ones between the different couples, especially when the lines start to get blurry.

The high level of acting talent involved means that there are all kinds of subtleties and shadings to the characters that are exposed as the show examines them from different angles.  This is very much a black comedy, so while there's some tugging at the heartstrings, the characters have a tendency to turn on a dime.   You might be rooting for someone in one episode, and rooting against them in the next.  For instance, Ashley starts out as the most vulnerable character with the least amount of power, and seems perfectly nice and sweet.  It's understandable that she decides to try the blackmail scheme when she discovers a medical issue and needs health insurance fast.  However, behavior that just seemed quirky and innocent when she was at the bottom of the ladder becomes more and more distasteful as she moves higher up, and starts getting used to wielding her privilege.  We see her at her best and her worst.  In one episode she's utterly sympathetic as the hapless victim of systemic forces arrayed against her.  In another, she's a nightmare of a selfish, social-climbing shrew, who doesn't hesitate to take advantage of Austin's tendency to be a doormat.  

Speaking of Austin, with the cast pretty well balanced between Korean and non-Korean actors, Austin is the lynchpin character narratively, a half-Korean, half-Caucasian former sports star who is an aspiring personal trainer.  He's gone for most of his life without much connection to his Korean heritage, and suddenly he's around all these Koreans, including the lovely interpreter Eunice (Seoyeon Jang), and his ethnicity is unexpectedly seen as an asset.  The new opportunities mean new temptations to avoid and new expectations that he struggles to meet.  I found one of the best moments in the whole season is the revelation of how fluent in Korean Austin actually is, during a pivotal moment.  Charles Melton was absolutely the highlight of the show for me, along with Youn Yuh-jung getting to be more of a villain for once.  

Isaac and Mulligan are probably the most familiar names in the cast, but Josh and Lindsay strike me as broader characters who aren't all that interesting, and their actors really have to do some heavy lifting to keep them engaging.  They're the characters who are the most caught up in schemes and stratagems against everyone else, and are done the most disservice by the twisty nature of the plotting and a relatively straightforward disintegrating marriage storyline.  There are class and race issues that could have been explored in their pairing that just never materialized, and the glimpses of their happier past together weren't enough to make it feel like there were real stakes to their conflicts.  Issac and Mulligan are two of my favorite working actors at the moment, so this was the major disappointment of this season of "Beef" for me.  

I'm still glad they're here, and I enjoyed the season overall, but this is a step down from the first season.  However, I'm still rooting for the show, and I'd be happy to watch a third installment of "Beef" somewhere down the line.    

---