Happy holidays!
Hope you guys have had a happy and safe holidays. Here are some thoughts I had regarding the Succession finale, Hawkeye Disney+ TV series, Matrix Resurrections, and about Omicron.
(Photo: Screenrant, via HBO)
Succession’s Season 3 Finale
It turns out that Kendall Roy didn’t drown after all. He was saved by Comfrey, and so he lives to take part in another season. Season 3 was a very interesting and entertaining nail biter. Kendall gains the sympathy of his siblings, and together, Kendall, Shiv, and Roman team up to try to stop and block their father Logan Roy from selling WayStar RoyCo to Lukas Matsson that would prevent the kids from having any sort of power or meaningful position in the company.
Unfortunately for them, they are both unable to talk their father out of selling their media empire, and their father effectively cuts them off from having a future stake in their company. The most heart wrenching aspect of knowing that the siblings would fail in their dealings with Logan Roy was the interaction between Roman and Logan, where Roman pleads to his father with love, and his father emphatically rejects it and dismisses his kids' behavior as poor business planning and disloyal behavior. That the Roy kids would lose to Logan was probably inevitable since it seems that the ruthless Logan Roy always wins, but to me, it was a pretty sad end to Season 3, nevertheless.
Over the course of the season and in terms of gamesmanship, the big winner turns out to be Tom, who goes from being jail bound to being in Logan's good graces and in a position to be in his inner circle. It seems that the mistake the Roy kids made was that Shiv told her husband Tom Wambsgans about their plans to block their father’s impending sale of the company to Lukas Matsson, and Tom is implied to have relayed the information to Logan Roy so that he could call up his ex-wife to change things around so that their kids don’t get any leverage or power to block their business dealings. What makes Logan a bad father makes him a good businessman, at least on the show of Succession. Logan makes a cold business decision to both sell off the company and also decides that he will not want to deal with his children’s behavior any longer after they teamed up to try to unsuccessfully block the sale. For Kendall, Shiv, and Roman, it seems that they will have to start up their own company and use their own funds and means to do so, all while Tom and cousin Greg move up the ladder to gain more power within WayStar RoyCo.
Overall, I liked the finale, and it was both gripping and intense. The characters didn’t fully get everything they wanted on the show, but that is also what makes this show interesting, and it will provide a nice jump off point for the start of Season 4, to see how things unfold from the end of season 3 and onwards.
(Photo: Indian Express, via Marvel Studios)
Hawkeye TV series
I also watched all of the episodes of Hawkeye. Kate Bishop (played by Hailee Steinfeld) is a young woman who ends up at her mom’s holiday party, and she poses as a waitress at an underground, black market auction in which they sell off Avengers and Ronin gear. When a truck comes crashing into the auction, Kate makes a decision to put on the Ronin uniform that was once worn by the original Hawkeye, Clint Barton (played by Jeremy Renner).
Meanwhile, Kate runs into all sort of problems, as she has to fend off the Tracksuit Mafia, and suspects her mom’s boyfriend Jack (played by Tony Dalton of Better Call Saul fame) of murdering Armand, a rich elderly gentleman who was also an acquaintance of their family. Moreover, Jack seems to be too suave for his own good and is exceptionally skilled with the sword, and is also Kate’s mom’s mystery boyfriend and fiancée, so Kate immediately is suspicious of him. In addition, Kate has to deal with the Tracksuit Mafia, who had their previous run-ins with Clint Barton when he was Ronin during his time where he lost his family and was grieving them due to the Snap (also known as the Blip), and so Kate gets entangled in this affair because the Tracksuit Mafia think Kate was the Ronin that they had faced off against years ago.
For Clint, he must deal with the trauma of his past, as he has to help Kate fend off the Tracksuit Mafia, and he also is tasked to find out who murdered Armand. Echo, Yelena Belova, and Kingpin all play pivotal roles in the 6-episode first season, and we also get treated to good moments with the LARPers and Lucky the Pizza Dog, as we get treated to a nice mixture of action, fun, humor, and grippingly intense drama that keeps you engaged and interested in the series. I enjoyed watching Hawkeye’s Disney Plus show season 1, and for those of you who already have or get to access Disney Plus, I recommend giving Hawkeye a viewing.
The Matrix Resurrections
I also saw Matrix Resurrections starring Keanu Reaves as Neo/Thomas Anderson, Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity/Tiffany, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Morpheus, and I was pleasantly surprised at how good this movie was.
It was not only refreshing to see that they continued the storyline from the previous Matrix trilogy, but it also served as essentially a fun and intriguing reboot. Neo comes back into the Matrix as a successful video game programmer, and he is credited with having created the Matrix video game that was essentially based heavily on his life. He has recurring bouts of depression, loneliness, and trauma, and he dreams of Trinity, but he doesn’t know why. In this world, he doesn’t really know Trinity, and he has to piece together moments of his old life and figure out that he actually lived that life.
Neil Patrick Harris was really good in a villainous role as Neo’s therapist and as the Analyst, and he really plays a smart, witty, smarmy antagonist character to perfection. That was a really good addition to this series, and Jonathan Groff also embodied the character of Agent Smith and gives him newfound depth that makes him seem both like a credible business partner and Neo’s old enemy from the past.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II gave a refreshing swagger to playing Morpheus, and he’s basically channeling Morpheus from the very first Matrix movie. Jessica Henwick also played an important role as Bugs, who helps explain to Neo his importance in paving the way for the future, all while explaining to him that they need him in the present. As for Jada Pinkett-Smith playing old Niobe, I thought that was a bit of a disappointment. She essentially was playing an old, wise veteran character that started up a new city called Io after the collapse of Zion, but she comes off as overly protective to the point where she doesn’t seem to want her citizens to take risks.
For the fans that love the Matrix trilogy, especially the first movie, you guys should tune in to watch Matrix Resurrections. For those that didn’t really care for any of those movies though, maybe you don’t have to watch this, and you can elect to sit this one out. I liked Matrix Resurrections. It wasn’t perfect, but it was an entertaining and thoughtful movie that serves as a nice modern update.
Thoughts on COVID-19 and Omicron, and Other Things
Lastly, I wish you all to be happy, safe, and to be healthy. These are some tough times as the world is dealing with the Omicron outbreak, but make sure you take precautions to be safe and healthy in the meantime.
Anyways, those are my thoughts for now, and have a happy and safe holidays! Thank you for reading.
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