My Favorite Things This Week #115

🖐 The Friday High Five

The Last of Us: Season 2

HBO

Vibe: Fungal zombies and humanity’s scattered remnant.

Deets: The second season of one of the best shows in recent memory is upon us. The Last of Us is an adaptation of a PlayStation series that far surpassed its incredible source material. Season 2 picks up 5 years after the shocking conclusion of the first season.

This season is uncharted territory for me. I played through the first game but never got around to the sequel because I lowkey hated the controls. It’s also a very heavy story. Usually I game to relax, not to feel a sort of listless dread.

Season 1 had the same vibe, but reality didn’t feel nearly so awful in 2023. I’m finding it hard to watch bleak television right now.

Streaming on HBO.

Wolfs

Apple TV

Vibe: Pitt and Clooney buoy a lo-fi action flick.

Deets: Wolfs is a film about two professional fixers forced to work together to clean up a murder. It doesn’t really give anything away to say the film is really about these two lone wolves discovering life is better with a good bro at your side. The Clooney/Pitt relationship is what we’re there for. Obviously, that dynamic has to be central to the story. Otherwise what are we even doing here.

Just don’t expect Ocean’s 11 style chemistry. Both Pitt and Clooney dial back their inborn charisma like 50%—still beyond the realm of mere mortals—but it makes the film feel a bit stilted. Like, you can tell these guys are holding back. Wolfs is also a bit of a genre mutt. It’s a little bit of everything and not enough of anything to pin it down.

Wolfs exists to let Pitt and Clooney be Hollywood movie stars together. It’s frankly entertaining just watching them.

Streaming on Apple TV.

Andor: Season 1

Vibe: Star Wars has never felt more real.

Deets: My rewatch of Andor left me feeling a certain kind of way:

Cord Organizers

Vibe: Blatant desk porn.

Deets: I seriously love the “clear desk space with a few carefully curated items” aesthetic. The problem is it’s so easy to see all that empty space and set something down “just for a second,” and then months later it’s still sitting there. Sometimes cleaning off my desk off just means moving the piles to the floor.

All the cords required by modern living was also killing my feng shui. I recently bought these cheap cord organizers to wrangle the mess. They keep the mess tidy and also the business ends of the cords handy. It’s the little things.

Trying: Season 4

Apple TV

Vibe: TV equivalent of a warm hug and a bit of chocolate.

Deets: This adorable show is Apple TV’s best-kept secret. How is nobody talking about it? It’s so good.

Trying is about two British 30-somethings who are trying to start a family, and the various twists and turns therein. I once said Trying is better than Ted Lasso. I don’t know if that’s true—I tend to trade in hyperbole in order to make my point. However, it’s close enough that you should basically drop everything to watch this show if you like Ted Lasso or if you enjoy TV that makes you feel good about being alive.

Fair warning: Some of the British accents are a bit hard to decipher. You get used to it, but the main character’s sister occasionally remains elusive. This may just be my American showing.

Streaming on Apple TV.

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Good Links

• New Fantastic Four Trailer: Looking pretty great, though I’m much more enthused about Thunderbolts. I am a Bucky Barnes apologist, what can I say.

• Star Wars Celebration: the annual Star Wars convention is underway in Japan. This handy link includes everything that’s been announced so far, and will be updated throughout the weekend. The thing I’m most excited about right now: the newly-announced film Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling. Details are scarce but it’s set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker and is an adventure in the mold of the original films. Sold!

• While My Guitar Gently Weeps | 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction: Every few years, I rewatch this performance from George Harrison’s induction. Prince enters midway through the song and completely eclipses a stageful of rock stars. At one point, he makes a face like, “are you seeing this shit I’m doing?” Like even he can’t believe it.

  

  This comment perfectly encapsulates the moment.

  Watching this reminded me of how it felt when you got together with friends to play Rock Band. It was nothing like this, of course, but it sure felt that way while it was happening. This video sent me down a Prince rabbit hole, including his Super Bowl halftime performance and ending, naturally, with Chappelle’s Show.