Essays on TV and film — exploring stories, characters, and the choices behind them.
Colors of Evil: Black, the Polish thriller that climbed into Netflix’s Top 10 within days of its June 10 release, is built like a missing-child mystery and ends as something much darker: a portrait of an entire town that chose to look away. If you have finished it and want the knots untangled, here is … Read more
All ten episodes of Sweet Magnolias Season 5 dropped on Netflix on June 11, and the show shot straight back into the Top 10, because this is the kind of series people do not just watch but check in on, like old friends. The finale gives the three Magnolias very different endings: one wedding, … Read more
The Marked Woman, Netflix’s Spanish original thriller that shot into the Top 10 within days of its June 5 release, runs on a single question: who is the woman found beaten half to death in a shipping container in Barcelona, with no memory of her own name? If you have reached the end and … Read more
There’s a moment near the end of The WONDERfools where everyone is gathered for Eun Chae-ni’s memorial. She teleported away with a blimp full of dangerous chemicals to save the city, and no one has seen her since. The people who love her have accepted that she’s gone. And then she walks in. I’ve … Read more