Though based on a book of the same name, Orange is the New Black, Netflix’s prison-based breakout hit, didn’t come with an instruction manual. Its utterly fantastic first season built an entire ecosystem around the deep, unique, and loveable cast of misfits it chose to follow, not just some single all-encompassing narrative. The just released second season sees that ecosystem growing wildly off of the first season’s success, whether laying down stronger roots in established places, or venturing boldly into previously uncharted territory. Thanks to the fullest, best ensemble on TV, it’s a storytelling approach that’s just as engaging in its second year as it was in its first. But it’s also gotten looser too, expanding the boundaries the show had set for itself in ways that prove thought provoking, surprising, and sometimes frustrating.
Beautifully shot, well-acted, and respectful to a fault, Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas is often left inert by its weighty meditations.
After last week’s episode, “Third Party Insourcing,” gave us our first glimpse of what Silicon Valley plays like when it’s slightly off (in what was an off-week for these recaps as well, thanks to screener issues), “Proof of Concept” had a bit more riding on it than previous entries, seeing as it’s the second last episode of the season. Unfortunately, it’s expressly because it’s the second last episode of the season that it winds up being less of a rebound opportunity, and more a handoff for whatever’s in store for next week’s final episode.
“Signaling Risk” is the best episode of Silicon Valley so far, and the show’s first great one. I realize that’s a declaration that runs the risk of sounding both hyperbolic and inconsequential: the former because “Signaling Risk” doesn’t on its surface appear to be all that different from the four episodes that preceded it, and the latter because five possible nominees for GOAT status (that’s Greatest of All Time) doesn’t exactly leave you overwhelmed with choice. But this one is a subtle real game-changer: uproarious, precisely tuned, and surprisingly affecting, “Signaling Risk” does just the opposite of its title, and might well be hinting at what Silicon Valley looks like when operating at peak efficiency.
Greatness comes in pairs, or so it’s often meant to seem. Whether it’s Siskel and Ebert, peanut butter and chocolate, or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, two heads are often more memorable than one. But memory usually doesn’t speak to the actual facts: Siskel and Ebert were as contentious in real life as they were on film, peanut butter and chocolate get along perfectly fine without one another, and the two Steves needed an off-forgotten third member to found Apple. “Fiduciary Duties,” the most focused episode of Silicon Valley yet, buys into this myth that Pied Piper won’t go anywhere until Richard finds his missing half, and then swiftly takes the air out of that notion with a terrific last-minute reveal.
Watching “Articles of Incorporation” for the first time doesn't instil you with the same feeling of confidence Silicon Valley demonstrated with its previous two episodes. It settles the show down into a format instead of spending time on establishing the characters and world, and that gives it license to be the most purely comedic episode yet. The problem is that the sense of humor has settled down a bit too, with the storylines for the week covering well-trodden territory and jokes. And then there's the matter of one of those plotlines being devoted to paying the bills, which is a whole other BK bag of problems. On a second pass though (or if you’re just more attentiv
Most Game of Thrones fans have picked up a bit of the local dialect by now: khaleesi, dracarys, valar morghulis (if you're really looking to show off). The more important language that viewers have been learning for three seasons has been that of the show itself. Over the last 30 hours, Game of Thrones has worked hard to translate a written story into an audio-visual one, and the show is starting to reap the benefit of all that effort, as evidenced by Season 4 getting to start with the training wheels off.
