Disappoinment from Avatar, questions for True Detective, and more from the week in TV

Which Love Is Blind season 6 couples will actually make it?

Break out your golden goblets and 98 Degrees CDs, folks, a new season of Love Is Blind has commenced. The pods are officially open, as the sixth edition of the Netflix dating experiment dropped its first six episodes on the streamer on February 14 (duh). As is reality TV tradition, season six follows a fresh set of Charlotte-based singles as they meet cute, make love connections and ultimately get engaged under the guidance of co-hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey—all before they meet in person. Read More

5 unanswered questions from the True Detective: Night Country finale

For a series that makes a big deal out of asking the right questions, the finale of True Detective: Night Country sure left us with a lot of open-ended ones. Or maybe, as Jodie Foster’s Liz Danvers puts it, “Some questions just don’t have answers.” That’s not going to keep us from asking them, though. While season four’s two big murder cases were solved in the 75-minute episode, there are still some lingering mysteries that left us feeling less than satisfied. That’s not unusual for a show like True Detective, which always leaves some room for ambiguity and speculation. In fact, that’s part of the fun of it. So now that the final credits have rolled, let’s pull on some of those dangling threads and puzzle over the enigmas left behind at the end of the season. Read More

Avatar: The Last Airbender review: Latest adaptation lacks the original’s magic

Hollywood loves nothing more than gnawing on the bones of preexisting IPs. Whether a reboot is good or not, it will almost certainly be lucrative. When it comes to Avatar: The Last Airbender, the industry powers that be should’ve learned their lesson the first time. In 2010, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko’s Nickelodeon show, widely considered one of the greatest animated series of the 21st century, was adapted by M. Night Shyamalan in The Last Airbender. That film is widely considered one of the worst movies of the 21st century. (We’re talking a 5 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating). Unfortunately, it didn’t stop Netflix from making its flesh-and-blood-and CGI adaptation. The best thing to say about it is at least they did a better job than Shyamalan. Read More

Curb Your Enthusiasm recap: Balls get Larry into (and out of) trouble

So last week on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry made himself quite the popular guy. After making a lot of people very mad for lugging a racist lawn jockey around in his car to replace the one he broke at his Airbnb, even bringing it to a Black church barbecue, he pled non-guilty to breaking that water bottle law and won everyone back. As Larry and pals stroll through LAX, having flown back in from Atlanta, they’re welcomed by all sorts of new and exuberant L.D. fans who have followed the news coverage surrounding his legal stuff—even the actress Sienna Miller is impressed. “Thank you on behalf of everybody who has a heart,” she says to Larry, and throws in that running into him was “bashert” (“destined” or “fated” in Yiddish, which definitely pushes a button or two for old Larr). She says “keep in touch,” and bumps into something like a dork as she walks away, clearly crushing a little—but he can’t make a move. (There’s a quick a bagel thing that’s worth mentioning, too: Larry tosses one he doesn’t want to a homeless guy rather than allow him to approach the car—it’s fine this time, but this comes back later.) Read More

Monsieur Spade is Clive Owen at his most Clive Owen

I recently rewatched Croupier, director Mike Hodges’ grimy look at London casino culture that’s led by a babyfaced, 35-year-old Clive Owen as a writer moonlighting as a croupier, the French word for someone who runs gaming tables. Everything that made Owen a star is in this dark little morality tale: his intensity, intelligence, and haunted eyes make him a good-lucking pipe bomb that never goes off. But he comes close. Read More

The Ones Who Live review: Please, let The Walking Dead franchise die already

A decade ago, The Walking Dead wasn’t a mere TV show, it was an impossible-to-escape cultural phenomenon. Crafted with precision, powerful performances, and prosthetics, early TWD rose above regular zombie fare upon its 2010 premiere—that pilot remains flawless even today. In its first few seasons, the AMC series transcended its genre, presenting a gripping post-apocalyptic survival tale by diving into terrifyingly real human emotions. It also successfully brought the comic book storylines and character dynamics to life with distinct twists. Regretfully, the show lost sight of those things as it dragged on. Read More

Marry My Husband is this winter’s best romance melodrama

The first 20 minutes of the South Korean drama Marry My Husband contain more plot than most melodrama newbies can handle. Brace yourself: Kang Ji-won (played by rom-com legend Park Min-young) is receiving treatment for stomach cancer. Her stress is further induced by her deadbeat husband Min-hwan (Lee Yi-kyung) and her mother-in-law—their selfishness is shown in mortifying flashbacks. Her only comfort is her lifelong best friend Jeong Su-min (Song Ha-yoon), or so she thought. Ji-won returns home to find her BFF and her husband in bed as they discuss her life insurance policy and joke about killing Ji-won. When she confronts them, her husband pushes her into a glass table and she dies. Except, she wakes up 10 years in the past, and is now terrified of her then-boyfriend and bestie, who, by the way, are both also her co-workers. So, yeah, it’s a doozy. Read More

The Second Best Hospital In The Galaxy review: A Futurama for go-getters

Alright, we see what’s going on here. Prime Video’s new series, The Second Best Hospital In The Galaxy, a brainchild of Russian Doll writer Cirocco Dunlap, is marketed to millennials—femme and queer ones. A Lisa Frank color palette? Two baddies slicing and stitching up patients to save lives, all while wearing their attachment issues on the sleeves of their white lab coats? Of course, it is. If there’s a comparison to be made to another animated comedy set in space, it’s Futurama. TSBHITG, premiering on February 23, doesn’t feature two slacker boys bonded by their love of not doing much. What we get are two highly ambitious doctors whose dedication to their patients, and commitment to finding novel treatments for them, sets the stage for all sorts of adventures. Read More

How True Detective: Night Country nailed its eerie, icy environment

True Detective: Night Country’s vibes are immaculate. Immaculately desolate, icy, and hostile that is, which is just what season four showrunner Issa Lopez and production designer Daniel Taylor set out to achieve with their inky, azure palette. Taylor tells The A.V. Club they wanted the audience to be instantly immersed in the misty, remote world of a small Alaskan town. As seen throughout six episodes, the fictional burgh of Ennis is full of harsh truths, mysteries, tragedies, and weather. The gloominess transcends the screen; it’s hard not to feel a chill down your spine as the dark crimes unfold under a blue tinge. This melancholia also defines Night Country’s central partnership between two detectives who can’t get along, yet they’re each other’s only hope. Read More

The only primer you need before Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender

“Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.” So begins the iconic opening narration of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the 2005 Nickelodeon series that’s been hailed by fans and critics alike as one of the greatest animated shows of the 21st century—if not of all time. Read More