Jessica Naftaly - Page 2

All is finally revealed on the sixth episode of AMERICAN HORROR STORY Season 6; and it's safe to say, most of us aren't surprised. The big twist that creator Ryan Murphy is finally out and while it isn't completely surprising, elements of it certainly are while the show finally delivered on what we've been wanting and became the horror and suspense drama it promises to be. We find out immediately, just as many predicted, that the sixth episode would turn the docu-drama series that was My Roanoke Nightmare on its head; integrating both the subjects and the actors portraying them in the reenactments. In what was a brilliantly directed episode by Angela Bassett, making her behind the camera debut, Episode 6 really brought a new flavor, feel, and urgency to the series that elevated it above what we've seen the rest of the season, turning in on itself to make commentary on the industry and culture AMERICAN HORROR STORY itself is so ingrained in while upping the stakes for the story. 

The third episode of WESTWORLD, entitled “The Stray,” sheds light on both the past and future of the park and its inhabitants. While we are allowed a closer look at the history of the creation of the hosts, we begin to realize just how much that history is responsible for what they are quickly becoming. Sentience, as always, as well as consciousness, is the ultimate question, for understanding and awakening are traits we attribute to life and the human experience. While we, as an audience, automatically begin to personify the hosts and connect with them from a story perspective, as they are most of our eyes into this world, the guests and those that run Westworld must combat their want for ignorance with their indifference to the truth about the hosts and what said indifference says about them. 

The fifth and final episode of AMERICAN HORROR STORY (before the big “twist” creator Ryan Murphy revealed would be happening in the sixth episode of the sixth season) just aired and if anything, it was horrifying, bloody, and emotional.

Episode 2 of Westworld just aired on HBO and, along with tonight's presidential debate, leaves us questioning humanity. In what is an even further step above its pilot and its ability to explore these complex questions and cultural infrastructures through it's narrative, Westworld continues to shine as creatively intelligent and mindfully captivating. This episode, entitled “Chesnut” explores the hosts and their humanity. What is humanity? What is it to remember? What is it to think or to feel? What is morality and how does it define us? As the hosts start recalling their past lives, the paths the guests choose to take in Westworld will be of dire consequence. 

With us almost halfway through American Horror Story: Roanoke, the series is getting to a point where it feels like it is spinning its wheels until it reaches the much awaited sixth episode where, as creator Ryan Murphy has promised, the show will reveal a big twist. Most fans have theorized what that twist could be, debating on whether or not it will tie all of the seasons together or if it will explain why AHS chose the docudrama format for this season other than just for aesthetic purposes. The anticipation for the reveal, however, overwhelms any anticipation for the episodes preceding it.

“Every hero has a choice.” That's not exactly the tagline of HBO's new drama Westworld, but it should be. Westworld explores mankind at it's core and what our choices say about us. It explores the depths and depravity of humanity, our culture, and our pleasures. What do our choices and our desires say? What is entertainment and why is it so often riddled with sex, violence, and most frequently sexual violence? While we constantly hide behind the separation between fiction and reality, the perverted, exploitative, and gratuitous demand for inclusion of what we generally condemn as morally wrong in our society to be present and pronounced in our media is undoubtable and HBO as a network is frequently one of our biggest culprits. But, perhaps that is why Westworld works so brilliantly.

Three weeks into American Horror Story's sixth season and just three more weeks until the all too anticipated twist that creator Ryan Murphy confirmed in episode 6. “Chapter Three” brought us death, gore, and some trademark disturbing fornication. It also didn't light up on the horror, which has been what “My Roanoke Nightmare” has been most undoubtably praised for. 

This weeks episode of American Horror Story came with the series' subtitle “Roanoke”. Thus, the possibility that this will be several anthologies or hauntings captured in a faux- documentary episodic format is pretty much debunked; however, that doesn't mean that this season will be in anyway straightforward. This is American Horror Story after all! 

The sixth season of FX's American Horror Story premiered last night, and after taking a completely different approach in marketing, we also learned that the season was formatted quite different than we are used. With the excitement for future seasons always stemming from the announcement of the theme, something that AHS has become known for and what makes it so exciting and refreshing each year, the knowledge that the team were choosing to keep this years theme closely under wraps and in much guarded secrecy until the series premiere (so successfully that the team on Thrones could probably take a few pointers!) was a shock and interesting choice. Last night, however, all was revealed…or was it? 

Last night was the finale of Season 6 of HBO's Game of Thrones and after a riveting epic episode of battles, we got something rather different this week. It had your standard Thrones finale elements; death, shocks, violence, and twists. However, most of it didn't really make much sense. We got plot development, but Thrones just seems like it's on a high speed train, eager to get to the final stop, without caring about the journey along the way. We had to say goodbye to a great many cast members this season, but this episode alone wiped out so many that it was hard to take a moment to even feel the impact of their character's death. The show has really embraced the 'efficiency is coming' methodology and it can surely be felt in this packed, fast-paced, and rather convoluted episode built on shocks but devoid of logic. 

We're just one episode away from the final episode of Season 6 of Game of Thrones and the penultimate episode entitled “The Battle of the Bastards” premiered last night. Despite what the promos had us believe, we got not one, but two battles this episode, and it was certainly an episode jam packed with death, gore, and violence. All three things we're quite used to on Thrones! Episode 9 of this show has become known amongst its viewers and creators as the big one. It's usually the episode where everything comes to fruition, the climax of the series that has everyone cheering and applauding the show immediately after for its genius and shock. Last year we had “Hardhome,” which was a direct departure from the books and gave us death and destruction, only to have the Night King lift his arms and raised the dead. However, this episode, despite being totally epic in scale and stunning visually, lacked a certain complexity, integrity, and dimensionality that made episodes like “Blackwater” back in Season 2 so rich and exciting. “The Battle of the Bastards” was entertaining and a feat of direction, cinematography, and scale, for sure, but its predictability, cluttered circumstance, and ever so confusing character choices and motivations made the episode suffer as a whole. 

As this season of Game of Thrones draws to a close, Episode 8 gave us the required death count, male nudity (was that far away shot of Sandor pissing what you wanted when you called for equal nudity Emilia Clarke?) and debunked a lot of fan theories and book plot lines that have been building up since the first installment, further confirming the show's insistence that it's truly straying away from it's source material.

This season of Game of Thrones is flying by. Last night's episode entitled “The Broken Man,” brought along a lot of shocks, surprises, and questions as it led us into the final three episodes of the season. We saw old faces return, new faces realized, faces that were not actually faces, and many current faces battling with their great inner struggles. We checked in with a lot of plot lines, but focus of this episode revolved around the new character portrayed by Ian “[It's] just tits and dragons” McShane, of whom the episode title was based upon.

We're over halfway done with this season of Game of Thrones, and last night's episode entitled “Blood of My Blood” should have probably been called “Home” (the title of Episode 2), considering more characters were reconnected with their past, began to discern who they are at the core versus who they are expected to be, as well as some literally returning home. However, we did get our mandatory dragon shot! Finally we found out where Summer's CGI budget went! Subsequently, we did get a lot of general plot development this week! Yay! Things happened! Arya was able to move past her stick training, Sam and Gilly got to their destination, we saw the return of two long gone uncles, and Jaime was forced out of the Kingsguard and into his book location!

This weeks episode of GAME OF THRONES entitled 'The Door,' revealed a lot of information and answers to some of the biggest questions of the series, as well answered some questions that don't necessarily need answering. In a show riddled with plot holes, some of which were highlighted this episode, their ability to carry out reveals and give us answers isn't always up to task. If your biggest concern watching GAME OF THRONES was finding out the origin of Hodor's name, then this was the episode for you! If the importance of finding out the origin of the White Walkers, the biggest threat that endangers the lives of all of our characters, is highest on the scale for you, you'll get answer, but the attention and care given to revealing said answer may disappoint you. It's all apparent just looking at the recaps and reactions. The most used phrase from an episode in which we learn where the White Walkers came from, another direwolf dies, a mythic race goes extinct, and the Starks make a battle plan, is 'Hold the door!' That says quite a lot.

This week's episode of Game of Thrones just aired, entitled “Book of the Stranger,” a title that had little to do with the episode besides a not so subtle namedrop halfway through. This episode delivered more of what Thrones is seemingly becoming more about; shocks, deaths, quips and nudity, and less of what it originally was; a human and complex drama. Despite Game of Thrones insistence that this year, women will be “on top,” we were once again force fed faux-feminism doubling as “empowerment,” while it double downed on it's misogyny, racism, and plain nonsensical storytelling.

This week's episode of Game of Thrones aired on Mother's Day, perhaps as an ironic detail of seeding spread throughout the episode in the same vein that Tyrion killed Tywin in season 4 on Father's Day. The episode, entitled “Oathbreaker,” had it's share of deaths and gore, but seemingly shed light on three of our characters whom can be considered “oathbreakers” of sorts.

Episode two of Game of Thrones just aired tonight and with it, we got a lot of what we had last week, shocking deaths and violence, but we also got the answer to everyone's burning question. Is Jon Snow really dead? The episode, entitled “Home” not only was named so because of the word being dropped quite often in dialogue, but several of our primary characters dealt with their families, identities and “homes”. I would say this is one of the closes instances we've gotten on this show of having the title actually play a key role in the total events of the narrative, but alas, it still struggled to remain thematically relevant, despite it's frequent usage. 

One of the biggest shows in the world is back on television after a season full of shocks, surprises, and a lot of criticism. The premiere episode picked up right where we left off, answered a few questions, but mostly succeeded in creating many more. All that being said, it flew by and certainly didn't feel like an hour of television. 

Here we are, at the end. It's a bittersweet moment to say goodbye to a show as brilliant as BOARDWALK, but it must be done. So raise your glasses 'to the lost' one last time, waving off an exceptionally superb show that we loved with all our hearts! This ultimate episode, entitled 'Eldorado', meaning a land of weath and opportunity, opened in a parallel scene to what we are used to seeing in our opening credits. Nucky, on the shores of Atlantic City. It's different this time however. It's darker, Nucky removes all of his items of wealth and stature, and dives head first into the raging tides of the water, a truly incredibly metaphor for the door to Hell and darkness Nucky walked through and never came back out of.