The Morning Show season two finale, like the rest of the season, was a shambles. Linda Holmes’ NPR assessment captured why a season that appeared full of potential never quite delivered, owing to the fact that it couldn’t figure out what it wanted to be. However, the most recent season of Succession has yet to guide me wrong (and we learned this week that there is a fun Verge-related Succession backstory).
This week’s roundup has a lot of science fiction, which was unintentional but provides for some lovely symmetry.
The sci-fi drama’s sixth and last season is on the way, and it’ll be a frustratingly short six episodes. Holden and the crew of the Rocinante fight alongside the Combined Fleet of Earth and Mars to protect the Inner Planets from Marco Inaros and his Free Navy’s campaign of death and destruction, according to the official synopsis: “Holden and the crew of the Rocinante fight alongside the Combined Fleet of Earth and Mars to protect the Inner Planets from Marco Inaros and his Free Navy’s campaign of death and destruction.” Meanwhile, a new power rises on a faraway planet beyond the Rings.” Oooh. The Expanse will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on December 10th, with new episodes released every week.
I’m roughly a season behind on the Byrde family tale, so I’ll have to catch up before the fourth season premieres. This entire trailer plays backwards, starting with a tragic automobile accident and progressing through the highlights (lowlights?) of all three seasons of Ozark to the show’s debut. “Human beings make judgments, commit acts, and things happen as a result. It has a cascading effect, causing others to make decisions. In a voiceover, Marty Byrde says, “The cycle continues, and the snowball keeps rolling.”
This concert is as inspiring as ever. The words “no ending is achieved by accident” appear over scenes of explosions, shootings, and other forms of violence until the camera zooms in on the Byrde family driving along in their minivan, smiling. We all know that won’t last long. On January 22nd, 2022, Netflix will release Ozark season 4.
According to the official description, Riz Ahmed is a “decorated Marine [who] goes on a rescue operation to save his two young boys from an unhuman menace.” There’s something strange swimming around in one dude’s eyeball that freaks out Ahmed’s character, there’s bugs crawling and buzzing about everywhere that worry him out, and all signs point to an extraterrestrial invasion (probably). Encounter, starring Octavia Spencer, Ahmed, Lucian-River Chauhan, and Aditya Geddada, will be released in cinemas on December 3rd and on Amazon Prime Video on December 10th.
In September, we received a trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s new film, but now we get a complete look at Bradley Cooper’s strange and slightly terrifying carny who can supposedly read minds (or believes he can) under the appropriate conditions. Nightmare Alley, starring Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, and David Straithairn, is based on the 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham and will be released in theaters on December 17th.
This star-studded sci-fi dark comedy (it’s a thing) stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as two relatively unknown astronomers who discover a planet-killing comet is heading toward Earth but are ignored by everyone they try to warn—the president (Meryl Streep), her adviser (Jonah Hill), morning show hosts (Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett), and pretty much everyone else. Don’t Look Up also stars Timothee Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Rob Morgan, Ron Perlman, and Mark Rylance, and will be available on Netflix on December 24th following a limited theatrical release.
