I Finally Watched the New "Ghostbusters"

Let's get a couple of the caveats out of the way first. Yes, I do have a good deal of nostalgia for the original "Ghostbuster" movies, but mostly for the second one, which was rerun far more often on television, and therefore the one that I am the most familiar with. Yes, I am a fan of Paul Feig's movies, and rooted for the success of the new version from the moment that I heard it was announced. If Bill Murray wouldn't agree to come back, going in a new direction with the franchise sounded like the next best thing.

So when I tell you that the new "Ghostbusters" movie is pretty bad, it comes from a place of disappointment rather than vitriol. However, the new "Ghostbusters" is not terrible, If Sony wants to continue the series, I think it's actually quite salvageable in the right hands. The movie isn't bad because the leads are all female. The four comediennes are the best thing about the new "Ghostbusters." Nor is the movie bad because the material no longer works in the present day, with the long shadow of the 1985 original hanging over its head. The 2016 "Ghostbusters" could have been a perfectly decent summer comedy if the filmmakers had been more confident about what they were doing.

First, let's start with the good. Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy play a pair of scientists, Erin and Abby. The two used to be friends, and wrote a book on the paranormal together, but drifted apart. When Abby starts selling the book on Amazon, Erin fears for her career as a physics professor. However, the discovery of actual hauntings going on in New York prompts the two of them to team up again, along with inventor Jillian Holtzmann and MTA worker Patty Tolan, to do some ghostbusting. So, what we have here is a total reboot of the franchise from the ground up. The original Ghostbusters do not exist in this universe, even though there are numerous callbacks, and nearly all the major cast members (and Ozzy Osbourne) make terrible cameos. That's the movie's biggest mistake: trying to pander to the old fans without actually giving them anything that they want.

The movie spends way too much time evoking the original film. It actually does just fine when it's laying out the basic relationships among the major characters and letting them test weapons and chase ghosts. However, everything keeps grinding to a halt to have another cameo or another callback. Pretty much everything iconic from the first movie gets referenced in one way or another, from ECTO-1 to the firehouse to the Stay-Puft marshmallow man. And the references are clumsy and terrible. The last act in particular starts feeling less like a plot and more like a delivery system for awkward nostalgia. If the filmmakers wanted to bring back all of these familiar faces, it would have been easy enough to make the film an actual sequel. By going to reboot route, but leaning so heavily on the older film, the 2016 "Ghostbusters" is far too transparently trying to mine existing goodwill from the existing fanbase.

This really impacts how much Paul Feig and his collaborators are able to do with the original elements in the movie. Frankly, the story is very half baked, and there are too many characters like the idiot beefcake secretary Kevin (Chris Hemsworth), whose dialogue needs fine tuning. I haven't heard this much technobabble outside of "Star Trek." However, the ensemble is excellent and consistently watchable. Nobody plays a sad sack like Kristen Wiig and I could watch Melissa McCarthy complain about her won ton soup all day. Kate McKinnon steals most of her scenes, playing Hotlzmann as an unrepentant weirdo. Leslie Jones, who I'm not familiar with, had me a little worried at the start because of her over-the-top brashness. She won me over quickly, though, once it became clear she existed to be a counterbalance to the science nerdiness of the other three. I would have loved to have gotten a little more character development, some better dialogue, some bigger stakes. I would have loved to see them all in a better film, period.

Alas, I suspect there was no time or budget for it. "Ghostbusters" feels remarkably slapdash and hurried, with no shortage of clever little moments, but very inconsistently. There are big action scenes and lots of fancy CGI ghosts, but the visuals are garish and largely derivative of the prior films. The Ghostbusters keep being put into scenarios that ought to generate some good humor, like a metal concert and a meeting with the mayor (Andy Garcia), but everything falls flat. Many of the jokes are clearly improvised where they should have been more tightly scripted. I can't even summon up the energy to talk about the mundane villain, the numerous missed opportunities, or Slimer. Frankly, I just don't think that Paul Feig was ready for a project of this size with so much cultural baggage attached.

I suspect that the less you know about the original "Ghostbusters," the more you'll like the new version. Frankly, I just hope the movie's failures don't wind up hurting the talent associated with it, because I know they're all capable of much better than this.

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"Train to Busan" and "The Purge: Election Year"

It's been a good year for horror films, so I figured I ought to catch up with some of the more prominent titles this year. I watched "Train to Busan" and "The Purge: Election Year" back to back, and there were some interesting contrasts that I want to talk about. So, I'll be reviewing these two together.

First, "Train to Busan," which is a South Korean zombie film that mostly revolves around the passengers on a bullet train travelling from Seoul to Busan. Gong Yoo plays Seok-woo, a busy hedge fund manager who is the classic overworked dad. He agrees to take his young daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an) to visit his estranged wife in Busan as a birthday gift. Alas, a zombie outbreak turns the trip into a harrowing fight for survival. Other passengers include a pregnant woman, Sung Kyung (Jung Yu-mi), and her husband Sang-hwa (Ma Dong-seok), a selfish businessman Yong-suk (Kim Eui-sung), and a homeless man (Choi Gwi-hwa).

Director Yeon Sang-ho has a resume full of animated films, which perhaps explains why his visual storytelling is so strong. "Train to Busan" is stuffed full of fun action sequences and compelling visuals. The characters are fairly flimsy, and the zombies are no different from the ones in "28 Days" and the recent remakes of the George Romero films. However, the execution is wonderful. It's hard to predict what's going to happen from moment to moment, and the zombies are a real threat throughout. We really get to look at the zombies, observe their behavior, and appreciate the full effect of their ghoulishness. Unlike in American films, we never see a single zombie killed onscreen, and the heroes never get their hands on any weapon more dangerous than a baseball bat. Ultimately, running is the only option.

Social commentary is an integral part of the best zombie movies, and this is where "Train to Busan" falls a bit flat. Aside from some heavy-handed moralizing about making time for family and not being selfish, there's not much here to really chew on. The cultural specifics of zombie fighting in South Korea are mildly diverting, and the outsized melodrama might be novel for those unfamiliar with Asian films, where this is more common. The characters aren't remotely well defined enough for anything to really resonate on an emotional level. Most of the performances are pretty flat, uninvolving stuff, and the evil businessman in particular is a painfully one-note cartoon character. On a visceral level, however, the movie is way more fun than any American zombie flick I've seen in ages.

Now on to "The Purge: Election Year." I've been curious about this franchise for a while, since it's got an intriguing premise, but the reviews of the earlier films have always been terrible. The third installment, however, looked more promising for having an election storyline, which at least suggested we might get some satire and social commentary. Well, no such luck. The main characters of "Election Year" are indeed a presidential candidate, Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Bennett), and her head of security, Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo), who want to do away with the yearly Purge, the night of no-holds-barred mayhem that is the centerpiece of this particular vision of American dystopia. However, the vast majority of the film is taken up with humdrum action scenes, with only a few brief scenes that illuminate the culture around the Purge.

Other characters include the owner of a deli, Joe (Mykelti Williamson) and his loyal immigrant employee, Marcos (Joseph Julian Soria) trying to protect their business from looters, and the driver of an unofficial ambulance service, Laney (Betty Gabriel), that operates during the Purge. The literal class warfare is pretty hard to miss, even when the movie makes it plain that the Purge is used by the elites to get rid of undesirables and lower the costs of social services. It's all handled very clumsily, however, and it is very obvious how limited the budget is. I've seen plenty of Blumhouse's microbudget horror films that have all managed at least a semblance of decent production quality. "Election Year" looks positively amateurish, with a couple of disturbing drive-by images the only part of the film that actually quality as horror. And the actress playing the main looter is clearly about ten years too old for her role.

What I found really discouraging, however, was how badly written the film is. All the characters are thin, but the minority characters in particular are awfully stereotyped. It might be because I watched "Keanu" recently, but it really grated that all the black characters talk the way that white people think black people talk. There are no emotional stakes whatsoever, no tension, and certainly not enough action scenes to justify Frank Grillo being around. I liked a couple of the tangential bits of worldbuilding, like the Purge "tourists" flying in to participate, and the Purge Mass where the elites reveal some elaborate justifications for their depravities, but there was far too little of this.

What I'd really like to see is a "Purge" movie with some proper talent and budget behind it. I wonder what Yeon Sang-ho is doing next.
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A Wildereview of "The Hunt for the Wilderpeople"

After the first trailers for "The Hunt for the Wilderpeople," I thought I had the movie all figured out. Cranky senior citizen is helped out of his misanthropic funk by bonding with a chubby young kid of a different culture and generation. It would be just like "Up," except set in New Zealand. I assumed the focus would stay on Sam Neil's character, like it had on Carl Frederickson. And I was wrong. The main character here is the kid, Ricky Baker, played by Julian Dennison. And he's fantastic.

We first meet Ricky being dropped off at the remote farm of Hector (Neill) and Bella (Rima Te Wiata) by a stringent Child Services agent named Paula (Rachel House), who warns the couple that Ricky is a "bad egg." Because of recurring delinquent behavior, this is Ricky's last chance at a placement with a normal family before he's shipped off to juvie. Ricky isn't too keen on the situation at first, and gruff Hank doesn't seem to be either, but Bella turns out to be everything that anybody could want in a Mom, and Ricky warms up to her quickly. Alas, tragedy strikes, and Ricky makes a series of very poor decisions that result in him and Hector being stranded out in the wilds of the New Zealand bush. And then, due to a few misunderstandings, they end up the target of a national manhunt - led by Paula from Child Services.

I really enjoy Sam Neil in this movie, playing an old grump, but an old grump that we immediately know is soft-hearted enough to come around on the idea of a family. However, Julian Dennison is the main event. It's easy to underestimate Ricky, who barely says a word at first, and the way he looks invokes some negative stereotypes about preteen troublemakers. But when he opens up, his personality is unstoppable. He loves rap music and idolizes Tupak Shakur, but he's also an avid reader. He's adopted the badass "skux" lifestyle, but also composes therapeutic haikus to work out his feelings sometimes. He's argumentative, stubborn, and will run his mouth off without really thinking about what he's saying, but he's got such a puppydog earnestness about life, and turns out to be a real trooper. Even when he's way in over his head, he'll tough out the worst situations and is pretty handy in a crisis. Though Bella and Hector teach him survival skills, the dogged determination to thrive in the bush is all Ricky from the start.

And most importantly, because this is a Taika Waititi film, Ricky is funny. And in conjunction with Hector and Paula, he's really funny. Though "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" takes place in a slightly exaggerated, stylized world - think Wes Anderson on a much smaller budget - most of the humor is character based. It's perfectly in keeping with Waititi's run of small, offbeat, genially silly comedies. Ricky and Hector get themselves into some ridiculous situations, including hiding out with a conspiracy nut played by Rhys Darby, but their relationship remains wonderfully low key and well grounded. So when they do occasionally discuss the touchier parts of their past, the emotions feel genuine. And no matter how over-the-top the colorful side characters are, there's a likeability to everyone. Even Paula, who gets even more carried away with being a badass than Ricky does.

The visuals are a lot of fun. There are a lot of subtle gags everywhere, from the tchotchkes decorating Ricky's new room to the inspirational posters at the halfway house. The bush remains a dangerous place, full of hidden dangers, but Waititi also shows us its lovelier side. And framing things from Ricky's point of view is a joke that never gets old. The budget here was clearly very small, but the filmmakers do plenty with it, including the funniest car chase sequence I've seen since the last "Mad Max" movie.

Of all the superhero movies coming out next year, I'm looking forward to "Thor: Ragnarok" the most, thanks to Taika Waititi's involvement. However, I'm more excited about the prospect of the "What We Do in the Shadows" sequel and the smaller, more personal projects we might see from him next.
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The State of the Superhero, 2016

We've survived a year that saw the release of six superhero films - seven if you count the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" sequel, eight if you count "Max Steel," and nine if you count "The Killing Joke." And so far, so good, at first glance. Almost all the movies made money, though not as much as the studios would have liked. The adult-oriented "Deadpool" and "Suicide Squad" did far better than anyone was expecting. Also, the releases were spaced out well enough that there wasn't much cannibalization of each other's business. Maybe "Civil War" impacted "Apocalypse" a little.

From a critical standpoint, however, the picture isn't as rosy. The biggest offender was Warners with the DC movies. I've been hoping for years for Warners to get the DC superheroes to a place where they could compete on the same level as Disney's Marvel movies. Instead, they managed to royally bungle both "Batman v. Superman" and "Suicide Squad." Zack Snyder's take on the caped crusaders was plodding and dark when it wasn't incomprehensible, and all around just badly made. David Ayers' "Suicide Squad" was hamstrung by not being rated R or allowed to be as adult as it should have been. And it really worries me that the recent DC movies have been so kid-unfriendly, because it's going to seriously limit them in the long run. "The Killing Joke" just seemed to drive the point home that DC's aiming at a much older audience than Marvel.

Fortunately there will be a LEGO Batman movie coming our way soon, which means there will be at least one movie featuring Batman next year that I'm likely to enjoy. At first I wasn't so sure about the spinoff, but compared to the doom and gloom at Warners, the return of Will Arnett's minifigure bat sounds absolutely delightful. The real question is what "Wonder Woman" is going to look like, and how it will be received. The introduction of the character went over very well, and I'm hopeful that Patty Jenkins will be able to wrangle a decently rousing adventure for her that doesn't trigger another culture crisis like "Ghostbusters" did last year. At this point, I have no idea if Zack Snyder's "Justice League" is even going to be watchable, but I sincerely hope that he manages to course correct, get a better editor, and lighten up. Warners can still fix the DC universe films at this point, but they are very quickly reaching the point of no return. If they don't shape up in 2017, they're going to be out of chances.

Fox fared considerably better with the unapologetically adult "Deadpool" reaping a February bonanza at the box office. "Deadpool" wasn't a great movie, but it was good enough to keep me optimistic about the franchise, and the prospects of adult-oriented superhero comedies in general. "X-men: Apocalypse," on the other hand, was a misfire. It didn't commit any particularly egregious cinematic sins, but it was altogether too obviously the sixth film in a series. Bloated, repetitive, and offering a pretty poor case for existing in the first place, all it ended up doing was wasting an awful lot of good talent. Reportedly there's yet another "X-men" film in the works that threatens to repeat the same mistake of "Apocalypse," which I'm not looking forward to. Things will be relatively quiet for Fox in 2017, with "Gambit" still in limbo. However the third Wolverine movie, "Logan," which is supposed to be Hugh Jackman's last time playing the character, may make some waves in March.

Finally, there's Marvel, which is still on top of the world. "Captain America: Civil War" and "Doctor Strange" were both very well received by both critics and audiences, and there's no sign that anyone is tiring of the MCU yet. The real test for them will be next year, when they're releasing three movies, the most that any studio has tried up to this point: "Guardians of the Galaxy 2," "Spider-man: Homecoming," and "Thor: Ragnarok." "Homecoming" may be technically Sony's show, but with Robert Downey Jr. putting in a cameo, and Marvel handling production, it's definitely part of the MCU. I'm looking forward to "Ragnarok" the most because it's a buddy comedy being handled by the right people.

All in all, I'm not feeling overwhelmed by the number of superhero movies, as some have predicted - historically this isn't even the peak. However, considering how dominant these movies have become at the box office, there's definitely a lot of building pressure to keep up the same level of performance, and I don't think that any of the studios are guaranteed to be able to do that in the long run, not even Marvel. Watching the genre change and evolve, however is fascinating. We're definitely going to be seeing more adult-oriented features after "Deadpool" and "Suicide Squad." But will the kids end up left behind, I wonder?
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A Bout of "The Fits"

"The Fits" presents a wonderfully immersive experience, putting us into the world of an eleven year-old African American girl named Toni (Royalty Hightower). She frequents the gym at her local community center with her older brother Jermaine (Da'Sean Minor) and his friends, where she trains in boxing. One day, Toni notices a girls' dance troupe practicing across the hall, and decides to join up. She makes friends with other newcomers Beezy (Alexis Neblett) and Maia (Lauren Gibson), and leaves the gym culture behind. The troupe is troubled, however, when some of the older girls start having uncontrollable shaking spells that everyone calls "the fits."

Written and directed by Anna Rose Holmer, Toni's growing pains are an engrossing study of gender roles, conformity, and the existential dread of impending maturation. The divide between the girls and the boys is laid out so neatly, with the two groups cordoned off in their own spaces in the community center, and the expectations of girlhood mirrored by the dance routines where all the performers are expected to synchronize their movements together. The "fits" initially seem shocking and sinister, but as more and more girls are afflicted, they become something like a rite of passage. At times Toni seems eager to embrace her feminine side, having fun with her friends and enjoying some aspects of the troupe. But at other times, it feels like the choice is out of her hands entirely, and her absorption by the group is a predetermined, inescapable fate.

I really enjoyed the approach that Holmer took with the storytelling, which uses very little exposition. The first ten minutes are almost free of dialogue, simply following Toni through her normal routine at the gym. We're well situated in her little world of stoic masculine figures, before her gaze drifts to the girls waiting in the doorway and practicing their dancing across the hall. And once she notices the divide, it dominates her thoughts and the frame, until she's a lone figure in the hallway, trudging against a streaming tide of laughing, joyous femininity. Who could blame her for wanting to belong? The imagery is particularly strong, finding so many ways to emphasize Toni's feelings of being an outsider among the girls. She doesn't dress like them, move like them, or behave like them at first. Newcomer Royalty Hightower wonderfully embodies all the little social anxieties and episodes of preteen moodiness that Toni experiences. Since Toni says so little, most of her performance is in her body language. The other standout is Alexis Neblett as outspoken, energetic little Beezy, who immediately latches on to Toni as a new friend.

The use of the "fits" is particularly interesting, in that it evokes so much, from the specter of violence that Toni might face in the future as an African-American teenager to religious and spiritual awakening. The most obvious reading is that the shaking and spasms are visually similar to the dance movements of the troupe, and as Toni becomes more fully attuned to them, she becomes more susceptible to whatever is causing the "fits" to occur. Note that no one actually points to mass hysteria or offers any other explanation for why the "fits" are happening. Though based on true events, diagnosing and stopping the problem isn't part of the narrative. The fits don't really even enter into the story until about a third of the way through, and a final resolution is elusive. For Toni, they remain the product of a mysterious force, like so many other mysterious forces guiding the changes in her life.

"The Fits" runs barely over an hour in length, and is the product of several micro-budget and micro-timeline initiatives for young directors from the Venice and Sundance film festivals. It is the first film from Anna Rose Holmer, who shot the whole picture at an inner city Cincinnati community center with mostly non-professional actors. However, the film is so well conceived and executed, it doesn't feel even remotely truncated or compromised in any way. Rather, there's an invigorating energy to the film, especially in the physicality of the dance sequences and the hallucinatory finale. More importantly, there's an authenticity to its characters and their experiences, a sense of place and culture that is vital to the story's effectiveness.

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"Florence Foster Jenkins" Offers Great Performances

At first, I thought it was a little strange to be making a film about Florence Foster Jenkins, who gained her notoriety for being an enthusiastically awful would-be opera singer. She was a great lover and supporter of classical music who, alas, was completely deluded about her own talent. Jenkins attracted a loyal following and became a cult figure in her day, even making records and playing Carnegie Hall in 1944. However, the thought of a film biopic, starring Meryl Streep, made me itch with secondhand embarrassment. Rubbernecking an awful singer feels more appropriate as fodder for Youtube than a prestige pic.

I'm so glad to be proven wrong. The film, wisely, is not just about Florence Foster Jenkins, but also about two men who supported her endeavors in her later years. One is her husband, St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), who attends to Florence's every need, but goes home to another woman, Kathleen (Rebecca Ferguson), at the end of the night. The other, our POV character, is a young pianist named Cosmé McMoon (Simon Helberg), who is hired as an accompanist for Florence's lessons with famed vocal coach, Carlo Edwards (David Haig). Initially Cosmé thinks he's lucked into the well-paying gig, but finds out exactly how bad Florence's singing is at the same time the audience does, and is aghast when he learns that she intends to perform.

And little by little, as the mysteries of Florence's past and circumstances are revealed, the film also reveals itself to be not about mocking the figure of Florence Foster Jenkins, but empathizing with her, and appreciating her for who she was. Director Stephen Frears has orchestrated a remarkably funny, but also immensely touching, gentle film that gives Florence her due. With her ornate costumes, enthusiastic butchering of famous arias, and blissful unawareness, the recreated performances have to be seen (and heard) to be believed. But the best moments are the quieter, personal ones where she's enjoying music with Cosmé or being reassured for the millionth time by her ever-patient husband. Whatever can be said about Florence Foster Jenkins, it wasn't just her terrible singing that attracted so many admirers.

Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep, and fearlessly delivers all the off key warbling necessary to make Florence come alive, As someone who grew up around a lot of classical music, I got a real kick out of her murdering "Die Fledermaus" and "The Magic Flute." However, I think the best performance here is Hugh Grant's. In the beginning St. Clair comes off as so overeager to please that he's a little suspicious. Is he conning Florence to get her to fund his life with Kathleen? Is his overprotectiveness hiding something more sinister? Surely he doesn't actually think Florence is a good singer, does he? Grant keeps St. Clair utterly charming and sympathetic throughout, and I'm glad that he's finally nabbed another role worthy of his comic talents.

And then there's Simon Helberg, who is playing to type, but he's such a perfect audience surrogate. As the newcomer to Florence's circle, he's the only one not in on the game, and conveys exactly the right amount of incredulous disbelief and cognitive dissonance when Madame Florence opens her mouth. Outside of the central trio of characters, the cast is unusually sparse. Rebecca Hall is wasted as Kathleen, with little to do but be the typical worried girlfriend. Nina Arianda, however, nearly steals the picture a few times as a bombastic showgirl named Agnes. She's recently married to one of Florence's supporters, and threatens to be a disruption at her concerts.

"Florence Foster Jenkins" is ultimately a very modest picture, very small scale and heavily dependent on its main performances. And it's the right size for the story of Florence, who is only able to exist as she does in the carefully constructed and well-guarded bubble that St. Clair and her friends maintain for her. I found myself comparing the film to "Goodbye Lenin!" and "Lars and the Real Girl," other charming, low-key films about people going to extreme lengths to try and accommodate the delusions of their loved ones. And like those films, "Florence Foster Jenkins" is refreshingly good natured, where the real triumph is human kindness winning out over easy cynicism.
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"The Americans," Year Two

Minor spoilers ahead.

I found the first season of "The Americans" promising, but wasn't really all that impressed with it. The second season, however, was a significant improvement in almost every department. Storylines were tighter and more focused. The new characters and new storylines were excellent, and everything tied together well thematically. A big improvement is the shift away from Philip and Elizabeth's relationship troubles to their worries over Paige (Holly Taylor) and Henry (Keidrich Sellati). Paige in particular is quickly growing up and trying to strike out on her own. Meanwhile, Nina and Stan Beeman's relationship becomes more fraught, especially as Nina has to wrangle the attentions of a new officer at the embassy, Burov (Costa Ronin), and Stan becomes estranged from his wife Sandra (Susan Misner).

Mostly gone are the flashy action sequences with lots of gunplay and running around. And the scenes of seduction and recruitment involve a lot less salaciousness, and much more drama and tension. Now that Philip has married Martha (Alison Wright), the deception has become more complicated. Whether Nina and Stan are actually in love with each other is less interesting than what else is motivating them, and how far they're willing to go to maintain the relationship. The series feels like it's stopped trying to feel like a network show, relying on easy thrills, and has gotten down to the business of really getting into the characters' heads. In the very first episode, Philip is forced to kill an innocent bystander and comes home shaken. It's a reaction that I didn't see nearly enough in the previous season, and is indicative of a more thoughtful, more confident approach to the material.

The cast continues to be excellent. Matthew Rhys has fully won me over, as Philip keeps revealing more shades of gray. His undercover assignments also allow some more interesting nuances, and I'm really becoming fond of the funky disguises. Keri Russell and Noah Emmerich remain consistently strong. Annet Mahendru as Nina is also much more compelling now that her character has been allowed a greater degree of control over her situation. She and Costa Ronin pair particularly well. It's also nice to see Paige becoming a major player, giving Holly Taylor more to do. They're setting her up for much bigger storylines to come, but still easing her into things. Time will tell if Taylor can handle more, but I'm optimistic that she's going to be fine. The ever dependable Margo Martindale and John Carroll Lynch also make memorable appearances in smaller roles.

Big kudos go to the writers, who are responsible for many of the show's improvements. The plot maintains the bifurcated structure of the first season, but has put the danger of Stan discovering the identity of the Jennings on the back burner. Philip and Elizabeth operate independently of Nina and Stan, but are both involved in the same search for classified stealth technology. Philip and Stan have a few low key conversations together, but otherwise the two groupings of characters don't intersect. However, both storylines work so well that by this point that I doubt any viewer will care. The murder case that Philip and Elizabeth spend much of the season trying to solve is kept on a fantastic slow burn through multiple episodes, resolves in a very satisfactory fashion, and sets up bigger hurdles for the future. Nina and Stan find themselves exactly where neither of them want to be, after a whole season of struggling to escape.

There are a few bits and pieces that I had reservations about. The new handler Kate (Wrenn Schmidt) was fairly wasted and the Martha storyline still feels like it's treading water - though it does deliver some of the show's best moments of humor. Also, the execution of the few big action setpieces that we did get were a little lacking. The infiltration of a training camp in one of the later episodes, for instance, was shot so murkily that I couldn't tell what was going on. But as I mentioned earlier, "The Americans" is no longer a show where the quality of the action sequences really has much impact on the quality of the show.

I'll be barreling ahead to season three.
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