Essays on TV and film — exploring stories, characters, and the choices behind them.
Sara wants to save something in Boyd that she no longer believes she can save in herself. In FROM’s Season 3 finale, she tortures Elgin to learn where he has hidden Fatima, taking over after Boyd has already attacked him. Her intervention gets the information they need. Sara, rather than Boyd, inflicts the further injury. … Read more
John Castle has a reason to knock on Mrs. Caldwell’s door that goes beyond telling her how he survived. In Lucky Strike, she helped build the radio that kept him connected to his unit behind enemy lines. He comes to thank her and help resolve the pension dispute her former employer has left her fighting. … Read more
Leaving the yacht ought to be the easiest decision Wirpul makes in Surviving Hurricane Otis. From the safety of shore, it certainly sounds that way. But he has only just become captain, and his employer is telling him to stay. The job gives him something he wants to be proud of, which makes the order … Read more
There is something uncomfortable about asking the final piano duet in The Invite to tell us whether Joe and Angela should stay married. Their tenderness makes a reunion possible, but the film leaves their future unresolved. What interests me is how readily a loving gesture can become an argument for staying: if they can still … Read more
Pamela Voorhees laughs at the end of Crystal Lake because Jason is alive and, to her, finally beyond anyone’s power to hurt him. His attack on her does not cancel that joy. The reunion gives her something she has desperately wanted, even though the son who returns can threaten her as well as his enemies. … Read more
Sasha turns Morgan down in Nobody Wants This Season 3 because her departure from New York makes a relationship with her feel too risky. They have finally slept together; she leaves him a note and goes home without him. When she later asks to try being a couple, he cannot meet her enthusiasm. His separation … Read more
Katie Buranek finishes her book about former Navy SEAL James Reece in The Terminal List Season 2, then decides against sending it to her publisher. She gives it to Reece instead. The journalist played by Constance Wu has found a more immediate use for her work: helping a man frightened of losing his memories hold … Read more
Lucius spares General Acacius in Gladiator II because he comes to recognize that the man he blames for his wife’s death is also trying to protect him and oppose Rome’s emperors. Acacius’s refusal to kill him in the arena makes that contradiction impossible to ignore. For Lucius, played by Paul Mescal, revenge has supplied a … Read more
River Cartwright lets his father, Frank Harkness, walk away in the Slow Horses season six finale after a rescue and a conversation complicate his attempt to arrest him. Frank has just saved his life, and their conversation briefly allows River to imagine a different relationship. But neither man is in good physical shape, and River's … Read more
Blake loses the ability to understand his family in Wolf Man because the infection changes how he perceives human speech. His wife and daughter can still speak to him, but their words become unintelligible as his transformation progresses. That distinction gives Leigh Whannell’s 2025 film a particular kind of horror: someone can be close enough … Read more