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Newark, Newark (2022)
Brilliantly Written, Cast, Directed, and Acted
Newark Newark brilliantly balances humour and heart while keeping snappy dialogue, unpolished characters, and authenticity at its core.
Each actor is so perfectly cast and directed that it's hard to remember you're watching actors playing roles and not locals being filmed while going about their daily lives (sticklers may harp on accents, but pay them no mind). Nathan Foad's pitch-perfect dialogue captures each character's unique voice as he populates this fictional version of his hometown with a host of recognisable yet hyperbolic personalities.
Also of note is the the unique original score and selection of 90s/early 2000s pop hits, both of which help ground this farcical romp in reality.
All in all, if you enjoy absurdist characters, uncurbed authenticity, and unpretentious comedy, "Newark Newark" is a must-watch!
Our Flag Means Death (2022)
Season 2 Loses Its Way and Ship Wrecks What Could Have Been An Iconic Show
The first season of Our Flag Means Death is funny, quotable, and endlessly re-watchable. While the first 3 episodes tend to drag without much defined direction, by episode 4 the show finds its groove and settles into the storyline that solidified it as a queer fan favourite. There are still occasional issues, such as ongoing fatphobic jokes/attitudes and a mish mosh of tones that threatened to derail it, but overall season 1 scratched an itch that many queer fans had been wrestling with for decades. Season 1 sets up a strong ensemble show with a host of unique queer personalities, all of whom are focused on strong themes of kindness, talking things through, facing your past trauma, and a finding redemption no matter what you may have done.
However, these aspects that made the first season strong seem to have been entirely abandoned in Season 2. Gone are the snappy quotable one liners of S1; I'd be hard pressed to quote more than 3 memorable lines from Season 2 despite watching each episode 5 times. Gone is the notion of talking things through or facing your trauma; Characters are instead told to lock their trauma away or simply move on. And, most disappointingly, gone are the nuances of the queer ensemble characters that elevated this show from "two straight men playing gay" to an actual authentic representation of queerness.
It's alarmingly evident in Season Two that the real magic of this show was not the writing team or even the 2 lead actors, but the ensemble cast members who not only created their characters during the audition process, but also improvised many of their most iconic lines. There are no memorable crew moments or B- and C-plots to be found in Season 2. Instead, the ensemble cast is treated as an accessory to the main couple, only receiving as much attention or plot as is required to nudge the leads along their bumbling, ill-gotten path. If the crew might have feelings that are inconvenient to the progress of the main couple, they either told to move on or, worse, they appear to magically no longer harbour these feelings at all.
And speaking of the "progress of the main couple," many fans will find themselves asking "what progress?" The two leads only accomplishments of Season 2 seem to be becoming worse, less likeable versions of themselves. Their selfishness and arrogance, played for laughs in Season 1 due to one's naivety and the other's insecurity, are not resolved or outgrown but instead magnified 10-fold without the naivety or insecurity to soften their blow. Fans will find themselves at the end of Season 2 wondering why they ever cared about these two selfish unlikeable men to begin with.
There are many, many other problems for Season 2, such as the rampant ableism of both the dialogue and plot towards a former antagonist, but all of these problems seem to stem from the same core issue.
Overall, Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death reads like a classic case of writers asserting their will onto the characters, themes, and plots instead of following their characters' motivations and leaning into the themes that naturally emerged in their work. What could have been an excellent show about queer community, healing through communication, and redemption no matter your trespasses devolved into a show about shutting up, abandoning community whenever it suits you, and redemption that's only available for some. In other words, just another run-of-the-mill queer show that delivers disappointing dividends for queer fans.