The final Grantchester flashes back to the initial post-war encounter between Sidney and Amanda that began their current relationship; and it ends with Sidney and Geordie, two slightly battered heroes, walking through a sunny afternoon into the future. Between those two extremes, the crime of the week recalls the horrors of the War and asks … >
The season finale opens to sunny skies over Downton as everyone above and below stairs prepares for the wedding of Lady Rose and Atticus Aldridge. Lady Rose is showing off her trousseau to the women (sans her chronically unhappy mother, Susan Flintshire), Donk is playing board games on the floor with granddaughter Sybbie, and Mr. … >
It’s not hard to ‘say something nice’ about ‘Death in Heaven’. It’s that rare episode under Moffat’s tenure: a Part 2 (this is the first since May 2011). It’s also that even rarer thing in 21st century Who: a finale as exciting as it is satisfying. Satisfying not simply in terms of the immediate plot, … >
Well, we probably could have seen it coming that it wasn’t going to end well. Our heroes meet at last, and oh irony of ironies, they find themselves duking it out, each delivering a fatal blow to the other just as the war’s end is announced. It doesn’t get much more senseless a death than … >
Well, here it is. And, woah. Let’s start with the headlines, shall we? It’s good. Actually, it’s very good. In order to say anything else, we have to invoke what’s quickly becoming a cliché even in spoiler-free reviews: if you really don’t want to know anything – stop reading now. Seriously. In this past week, … >
In this final episode of The Great Fire we have potentially the show’s finest hour, with strong performances from all the main cast that help to provide a sense of closure both to the historical events and to the characters, with a focus on emotion rather than action and a sharp script that reaches out … >
‘My name is Thomas Shelby, and today I’m going to kill a man’. No ‘Red Right Hand’ opener this week. Oh no, things are far too serious for that. Epsom Derby Day gallops towards us, and one way or another Tommy Shelby has to meet his fate with a gun. Like a man aware that … >
Our heroes sit, exhausted and broken, saying nothing. The years have not worn well on them, and it shows. Thomas works at a rain-soaked drawing, shakily attempting the same line over and over again, not out of the joy of creating, but of the need to think about something other than the mud and the … >
It’s 1916, and Michael and Thomas sit in opposite trenches, trying not to get their hopes up about whether or not the war is actually drawing to a close. (And you’re really getting frustrated by seeing them get their hopes up, because you know that there’s a good two episodes’ worth of war yet to … >
And just like that, between the end of the first episode of The Passing Bells to the beginning of the second, things have gone from sweet and sad to unsettlingly gruesome, from idealistic and innocent youth to the grim realities of armed combat. The quiet horror of the mustard gas attack, and its aftermath, is … >