“Left Behind” Recap: The Last of Us

Last Sunday’s episode of The Last of Us titled “Left Behind” served mainly to give the viewer insight into Ellie’s mysterious past. The viewer knows Ellie is different, not just because of the antibodies coursing through her blood, but because of her ability to find joy amidst the surrounding shrapnel. “Left Behind” takes us to the quarantine zone, where some normal aspects of life like school take place — albeit more militantly than normal — even with the threat of impending infection. The viewer finds Ellie to be almost as bold in the past as she is in the show’s main timeline. 

Her classmate Bethany learns this when she berates Ellie for her slow running pace and reminds her that her missing best friend Riley (Storm Reid) is no longer around to fight for her. Upon mention of her bestie, Ellie clocks Bethany squarely in the face without much thought.

“Emily in Paris” Season 3: Tedious, Repetitive and a Tad Ridiculous

As a student from France, I am often asked to comment on Emily in Paris. For the first two seasons, I gladly defended the series and its eponymous protagonist, a twenty-something Midwesterner sent to Paris by her PR company to provide an American perspective to its newly acquired French office. 

As I wrote in The Sun last year, I found Emily in Paris to be light-hearted and awfully predictable, but also quite funny and often on the mark when it came to comparing French and American cultures. I dismissed the critics who attacked the show’s depiction of Paris as a city where it never rains, where people never take the métro and where you can live for months without speaking a word of French. Not all television has to be realistic, I would say. Emily in Paris was what you binged when you wanted to escape, to decompress and to watch attractive people adorned in glamorously over-the-top clothing.

‘The Rings of Power:’ Forged in Controversy

For me, pacing is the main issue. Slow burn, exposition-driven elements are productive; it is rather that the writers seek a deeper narrative haste without taking much time to build the wheeling scale of epic. Númenor in particular falls victim to this, where we see only inklings of the all-consuming desire for eternal life that will eventually drown them. But where the Númenor storyline falters, it is rescued by the gravity of Elendil (Lloyd Owen) and Queen-regent Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), as well as their trials of faith. 

Never Have I Ever… Been a Chill Girl

“You’re never too much, and you’re always enough,” Devi’s mother tells her in the penultimate episode of Never Have I Ever Season Three. The show’s new season is an ode to the intense girl, a love poem to the teenager who feels things a little too strongly.

“Second of His Name” Recap

Since Alicent’s betrothal to the King, Rhaenyra and Alicent’s relationship has, um, deteriorated. Rhaenyra resists deferring to her ex-bestie, the now Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and Alicent tries, and fails, to reconcile things between them.

“Better Call Saul”: The End of an Era

The sixth and final season of Better Call Saul, which premiered on April 18th and culminated in a monumental finale on Aug. 15th, demonstrates the consistency of this heartrending realism pervading the sister series.