Well the second season of the BBC hit Luther(which already aired in the UK) is set to premiere on BBC America tonight, and I can tell you – it’s excellent. If you aren’t familiar with the show, it stars Idris Elba (The Wire) as ‘John Luther’, an English Homicide Detective who often heads up the most gruesome of cases and is dealing with the end of his marriage.
Sounds pretty standard no? Well, it’s not. In fact, it’s extraordinary. The writing, how it’s shot, even the music are all brilliant. And season 1 is available streaming on Netflix. At only 6 episodes, the first season is a quick and easy watch, and it’s one I can’t recommend more highly. I watched it straight though.
So Season 2 makes its American debut tonight, and I meant to get this up sooner so people might have time to get caught up, but I’m a terrible person so here we are. Anyhow, here is some teasers for season 2…
In an expected come down from episode 10, Sunday’s Breaking Bad showed us Walt on the very edge. What was just an average episode for the 43 minutes, did more with just the last few moments than some shows will do in a whole hour. That last 2 minutes was chilling. And I loved it. But we’ll get back to that, first the buildup.
We start with the conclusion of last week’s excellentfest when Jessie delivers Gus and Mike to their doctor, and you realize Mike’s injury may have been more severe than previously thought.
Walt then learns, that while he’s been recouping, and Jessie has been out-of-town, someone else has been cooking in the lab. This, paired with Gus’ comment to Pinkman about running the lab solo have proven that Walt’s usefulness has run its course. That leads us to the next major event to play out – Walt’s trip to the desert.
And this is where things get weird, and I haven’t figured out why yet, but we hear Mike’s voice from Walt’s head.
Mike’s Voice – “If you could kill me…
Walt’s Voice – …I’d already be dead.”
Any theories on that are welcome as I don’t have a real guess. Sorry, my brain is only working at half speed right now.
The 2 other events that transpired before the end were Walt causing a car accident to keep Hank from seeing the Laundry, which seemed mildly ridiculous, but hey – better idea?
And secondly the Ted Beneke situation, which was hilarious. After Saul sent a couple of guys over the ensure Ted paid his IRS fees, ol’ Beneke makes a run for it. It doesn’t go well. He in fact gets defeated by a throw rug for the 2nd time in the episode.
Hahaha. Too good. The problem though is that this promises more Skyler over the next 2 episodes, but with any luck there will be enough Saul to balance it out.
Finally, the last scene. Holy crap. Walt’s mad scramble for the cash in the crawl space, learning that Skyler gave it away, Marie’s phone call – all with the background of the Joker’s Walt’s laughter. Chilling my friends.
The first 43 minutes get a 2/5 and the last 2 minutes get a 6/5 (Yeah – that’s right) so that evens out to about a 4/5.
Let the hypocrisy fly! Clay doesn’t want charters selling drugs, but it’s ok the mule them for the cartel? Bobby sees it, why can’t Clay? Anyhow, last night the Sons went on their first run for the Cartel and while things went relatively smooth, they did have some issues with their Tuscon charter, which draws some unfavorable comparisons to the Redwood. Despite their problems with the Irish, the Mexicans, the Russians, the Triads, and the law – this is just another example proving that the club’s biggest problem, is the club. And that’s what ‘Una Venta’ was all about.
While the whole episode was mostly just to further drive a wedge between Bobby and Clay, there is more. We see another parallel between the Tuscon Club and SAMCRO – Tuscon’s Reggie was sleeping with the old lady of another member, just like Bobby was sleeping with Luanne, who of course was married to Otto. Well Mr. State’s Attorney Potter, under the guise of a Sheriff’s Deputy, has let Otto know about the affair, and done his best to convince Otto that Bobby killed Luanne. The audience however knows that Luanne was killed by Georgie Caruso (Tom Arnold) way back in season 2.
The other major development is with Tara and Piney, discussing John Teller’s letters and then ultimately Piney’s health issues as he collapses in Tara’s office. Overall, Piney’s health and Bobby’s affair both hearken good news for Clay, as they will surely play out in his favor.
Last night I saw the newest Statham movie, and I have to say I was surprised. Not at all what I was expecting. In the trailer (which we talked about in June) we heard ’80s rock and got lots of punching and shooting and all around violent types of imagery. So naturally I expected your general type of Statham movie. However, we were rewarded with something even better (Well, depending on your mood), a real movie with an actual plot.
Taking place in 1980, Killer Elite revolves around the desired redemption of the disgraced Sheikh Amr. For Amr to gain said redemption and lift his exile to return home, the men who murdered his 3 sons must confess and be killed themselves. That seems straight forward enough, but where the twist comes in, and what seemed to confuse others in the audience, was just how exactly Jason Statham gets sucked into this vendetta. And as it turns out, it’s all a result of multiple betrayals, as well as his own loyalty.
From the trailer it looks like a movie full of Statham vs. Owen, but in truth they are little more than pawns, neither really knowing the real reason they are there. And that reason is something I don’t really want to give away, because I’m gonna go ahead and recommend you see this movie, so I don’t want to ruin anything. I can say this though – the trailer is not the most accurate representation of a movie that I’ve seen.
The vague overview: De Niro takes the job from the Sheikh blindly, and then upon learning further details tries to back out. This doesn’t go over well with the powers that be, so old Bobby D is held captive. This forces his old friend (the Stath) to end his freshly begun retirement, and complete the job in exchange for De Niro’s release. Statham puts together a team and proceeds to hunt down the men responsible – all Ex-SAS officers that were under orders at the time of their crimes.
Enter Clive Owen, an ex-SAS soldier in his own right, acting out on the behalf of ‘The Feathermen’, a much older group of retired SAS. He’s looking to stop Statham, and in the background is all sorts of politicking our principles don’t know about.
Overall I found the movie quite enjoyable, though if I had to nitpick there is one thing that bugged me, which was the camera work during the fight scenes. So of Director Gary McKendry I might ask that next time – pan out. The super fast extreme closeup angles during the action scenes make it hard to see the action. But that’s really about it. I liked the movie more than expected. DeNiro had a scene so badass the audience cheered, ‘Mr. MFWIC’ – [Mother F–ker Whats In Charge] was amusing, and Dominic Purcell‘s mustache was too awesome to criticize. I went to see a mindless action movie and instead got an action movie that actually stimulated the brain as well…
I’ll give it a 4/5 Bears. Booyah.
Also, for the Chuck fans out there, I should mention that Statham’s girl is played by Yvonne Strahovski…
This week the gang gets out of Philly and heads to America’s most famous shoreline – Jersey. Inspired by talk of a childhood trip (sparked by Frank burning family photos) Dennis and Dee convince the gang to road trip it to the boardwalk and while they end up not having the greatest of times, Frank, Mac, and Charlie all manage to make the trip worthwhile.
For the rest of the year Kaiser and I will split up each week’s games and we’ll see who is smarter. We’ll split the games down the middle. And while we are simply picking winners, we’ll use the Vegas line determine the favorites. You get 1 point for picking the favorite correctly, and 2 points for an upset win. Our picks will be in BOLD and upset picks are denoted by a *
So, here are the scores headed into Week 3…
KaiserKronner 6 4
Well, that was embarrassing. Perhaps I’ll lay off the upsets this week…
And our picks for Week 3:
Rev. Kaiser
*San Fran @ Cincinnati (Vegas Line – Bengals by 2.5) Detroit @ Minnesota (Vegas Line – Lions by 3.5) *Miami @ Cleveland (Vegas Line – Browns by 2.5) *Houston @ New Orleans (Vegas Line – Saints by 4) Baltimore @ St. Louis (Vegas Line – Ravens by 3.5) KC @ San Diego (Vegas Line – Chargers by 14.5)
*Arizona @ Seattle (Vegas Line – Cardinals by 3.5) Pittsburgh @ Indy (Vegas Line – Steelers by 10.5)
The Road Warrior Kaiser can get up to 12 points this week.
Dr. Kronner
Jags @ Carolina(Vegas Line – Panthers by 3.5)
Denver @ Tennessee(Vegas Line – Titans by 7)
NY Giants @ Philly(Vegas Line – Eagles by 7) NewEngland @ Buffalo (Vegas Line – Pats by 8.5) *NY Jets @ Oakland(Vegas Line – Jets by 3.5) *Green Bay @ Chicago(Vegas Line – Pack by 3.5) *Atlanta @ Tampa Bay (Vegas Line – Bucs by 1.5)
Washington @ Dallas(Vegas Line – ‘boys by 5)
Kronner can get up to 11 points this week.
So there we have it, check back next week to see how the grudge match it working itself out…
Feel free to post your own picks in the comment section below…
Grizzly Bomb 
