June 2024 update-Criminal Minds: Evolution, The Boys, Interview with a Vampire, and Reginald the Vampire

 

GOOD GRAVY!

 

Sometimes, TV can be shockingly great.

 

CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION, now being touted as CRIMINAL MINDS season 16 and now 17 is shockingly great. I gave up on the original about five or six seasons in when things were just too gruesome towards women and children. It was the scariest show in TV, no one was safe, and…it was far too much. It was also the same almost every week and that went on for 15 years.

 

It’s back. Well, yes for EVOLUTION season two aka season 17 after last year’s fantastic EVOLUTION season one.

 

What can I say? Watch it. It’s very human and very much about relationships. Penelope is a hoot, and the rest of the cast and characters shine. They all have a great rapport with each other and the villains have never been as nasty or as scary. The guest starring roles have meaning, too, rather than just being victims. Many feel like real people. Watching this while viewing its direct ancestor MILLENNIUM is eye opening. Both have merit but be warned, they are not for everyone and are disturbing. Yet, missing either is a shame as these last two seasons (the current on and season 16 aka season one of CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION) are top notch horror crime drama. Everyone here should win an emmy and while I miss Shemar Moore, he’s doing quite all right on the excellent SWAT which is in something like season 7!?

 

THE BOYS season four is on. I mean…this show was always inappropriate and…you might ask for who is it inappropriate? I’d answer: for everyone. It’s always been totally outrageous and dangerous and violent and vile and gross.

 

Yet, somehow seasons one and two and even three were…less a parody of itself than this season is. Don’t get me wrong, there’s only been three episodes so far (all in one day!) but it feels more like a laugh at or laugh out loud comedy sitcom with tinges of serious horror than out and out horror.

 

Homelander is dangerously jealous of his son. He’s such a sociopath, Homelander that everything has to be about him, even everything about his son. I’m very scared for Ryan so Butcher does need to save him before Butcher himself croaks. Homelander even makes a sort of joke about his 12 year old son Ryan being able to knock out some goo.

 

This show is out of its mind. And more so than even last season with the superhero orgy of outrageousness, the likes of which TV never saw before and never will again. That was out there.

 

This season feels even more out there and sick. And it’s the most interesting, eye opening thing you’ll ever see on TV and will surprise you every time. There are also tinges of realism in there with the long time gone mother of one of the “heroes” Hughie returning. And of course there’s death. And how it affects Ryan. Short of making him another Homelander, the show, brilliantly opts to go the other way, which makes life difficult for Ryan actually. Will Homelander kill his own son? Bet on it? I don’t know. With this show, one never does know which makes it refreshing and startlingly unpredictable, even after four seasons.

 

Frenchie may have killed so many people but he’s likable. Hughie is even likable this season. Starlight is a bit…irritating for the first time ever as she wants to shed the name that made her famous to be Annie (really?) and also seems to have a background as a bully (is this a retcon?).

 

The newest villain is the smartest girl (correct: person) on the planet (though I’d love to see her brought down a notch by having someone smarter than she is and that be a man or even a boy) on the planet. Sister Sage is a brilliant new addition to the show and decidedly how smart can she be to be so very evil? Pretty smart but hopefully this snide, evil girl will be put in her place and soon. I also like that she’s made the Deep a bit more tough (love to see him somehow bring down Homelander a notch or two).

 

A Team is finally…well, doing something good despite still being a dick, too.

 

The one guy this year so far that I despise is Mother’s Milk (MM) who is a know all, judgmental prick who can’t lead a horse to water and almost gets everyone killed three times (Butcher is right about MM not being a good leader). He’s lost weight and while he looks good, he acts like a stupid moron entitled to be followed. He doesn’t know what he is doing. While he was more likable in the past, I can’t see where this might go but it’s part of the thrill of the show.

 

The actress playing Neumann, now the president, is wonderful, too. A villain teeming with evil and self concern, she’s dangerous in every scene she’s in and sometimes funny, too, at the same time.

 

The kid playing Ryan is wonderful, too. And he’s in some difficult scenes with hard hitting cast members and he holds his own and better them in almost every scene.

 

What a great, different show but again, NOT for everyone.

 

 

Which is also the same to be said for INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE. WOW! How to explain this show? Don’t miss it!

 

The last episode was a complete character study of three characters: Louie, Armand, and Daniel (both young Daniel, who’s super hot and older Daniel). As ever Lestate’s ghost looms over all of them. But is he a ghost?

 

 

I was tough on Bailey Bass’s Claudia in the first few episodes she was in but she made Claudia her own and I would terribly miss her if not for the fact that…OMG…the replacement for Bass being Delainey Hayles.

 

Hayles is so comfortable as Claudia and so natural and so very, very good, that I almost believe she IS a vampire and immortal and a an ancient girl stuck in a little girl’s body…she’s that good. Any scene she’s not in, I wonder where she is and every episode she’s not a major part of I wonder where she went. Her character is as messed up as all the others, maybe more so but this actress is FANTASTIC. I almost cannot remember Bass’ Claudia at all, which is not to knock Bass, she was good; Hayless is excellent.

 

If you like horror but hate vampires, watch this show.

 

If you like vampires, don’t miss this show.

 

If you hate horror, watch this show

 

Just watch it. It’s a masterpiece and should win numerous Emmys for its cast, its sets, its locations, its writing and well, everything. So far, so great.

 

 

REGINALD THE VAMPIRE is on the other end of the spectrum but no less fun, no less a character study or studies and no less a show. The first season I have to admit to not fully watching. The ones I saw, I liked but kept forgetting when it was on or if I even saved it or cared to see it. THIS season, the second, everything has been amped up: the relationships which is what this show is TOTALLY about rather than vampire blood and gore (though some of that is here). Like THE BOYS there are unexpected things (one major character guest is a vampire witch and seems set to be a major ally or a major villain or both but what happens to her is totally unexpected).

 

There’s a grimoire that’s amazingly fun.

 

There’s a deadline that a major angel will destroy all vampires in a few weeks.

 

A lot of female heroes and vampires but each of them feels like their own person and engages with the main core of heroes well and with the audience. It all works, unlike a lot of other shows that squeeze females into unlikely roles (hello ALEX RIDER, you POS show from a great book series and hello sadly declining DOCTOR WHO).

 

Reginald himself is awesomely funny, the actor so well as delivery in every line, from tough guy truths to soft guy love romance things and everything in between. He’s just a fantastic and unlikely lead but he works in every scene.

 

Mario Van Peebles (of the wonderful show SUPERSTATION, which should have lasted and of the weird werewolf cop movie FULL ECLIPSE)’s son Mandela Van Peebles is excellent as the “cool” vampire who is now placed into the role he never wanted: king of the vampires and he proves why he is now king and a great one by ridding the vampires of yet another loose cannon killer.

 

This season they added angels in a major way. One is a half angel, half vampire with a secret. It’s no secret he likes to have swinging parties with hot men and women strutting their abs. Can he help against the angel who wants to kill all vampires? Can a little girl’s father who abandoned her and her mother?

 

The only character that’s unlikable is Ashly though they recently made her less judgmental of her assassin girlfriend who saved their other friend (the almost clueless, now not clueless Sarah) by killing an angel. Ashly was mad because she killed. Boo hoo: your girlfriend killed to save another friend. Get over it.

 

Suprising. Twists and turns. Character growth (love all of them really including the two bad ass girls that they’ve almost reformed) and loyalty. New beings and races. This show is amazingly fun.

 

Max Montessi as Uriel is one to watch. As an ally, he works; as an enemy he’s already destroyed one of the main character’s loves in a shocking sequence that…was also ironic in that he killed for no real good reason other than jealousy and a wrong sense of righteousness and confusion.

 

Amazing.  

 

Oh and the vampire "quiz game" to get into Abraham's is hilarious. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_(TV_series)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Eclipse