By John Keegan
After a bit of a lackluster start, which honestly felt like Neil Jordan trying too hard to get the ball rolling again, “The Borgias” bounces back with a strong follow-up to events from the first season. While Lucretia continues to be the weakest link of the show, Juan Borgia finally comes into his own.
After a bit of a lackluster start, which honestly felt like Neil Jordan trying too hard to get the ball rolling again, “The Borgias” bounces back with a strong follow-up to events from the first season. While Lucretia continues to be the weakest link of the show, Juan Borgia finally comes into his own.
Apart from the ending, this is still a relatively low-key episode. Much of what we've seen so far has been the forebodings for the massive conflict that is soon to ensue in Westeros. War is here already, but the scope of the conflict expands with every episode, as one new player after another is introduced. And seemingly all of them want the Iron Throne for themselves, except for Robb Stark. His fight is one of vengeance and independence, which currently makes him the easiest one to root for, at least in my opinion. However, I'm sure that viewers all have their own favorite team. The pre-season marketing blitz cleverly capitalized on this team-based division of the characters, so I'm sure plenty of interesting viewer data resulted from that.
It's Powerful Monday tonight on Syfy with the return of Eureka for its fifth and final season, titled, "Lost."
As the season drives towards the season finale, the writers are definitely trying to improve on their game. While one of the core criticisms of the show is still left unresolved at the end of the episode, other factors balance that out and more, so the overall impression is that the show might finally be finding a solid direction.
This episode is an effective follow-up to the previous installment, ramping up the final endgame with David Robert Jones and pointing towards the identity of the true Big Bag for the season. It’s been hinted since the fourth season premiere, but now there is much more evidence that the Observers are up to no good.
Continuing with Michael's increasing mental breakdown, the show has ventured into auditory hallucinations. Listening to instructions from a drive-thru ordering machine may be unorthodox, but that's par for the course with a show like this. It leads to a subplot that doesn't really go anywhere, and exposes the weakest part of the plot (the conspiracy) as well.
In this episode, Jake tosses out a random number, demonstrating his superior otherworldly intelligence, while his father Martin is sent on a bizarre quest to determine the number’s meaning, strangers’ lives intersect in super-convenient ways, and foreigners who embrace Western values are saved by high speed internet. Sound familiar?
All of the focus this season on "Justified" has drifted from three main villains in Boyd, Limehouse, and Quarles. The ignored small-time criminals were Johnny Crowder and Arlo. Being loyal lackeys for Boyd through the season can do that. One figures very much in this episode and the other sets up things for future stories in the next season. For now, Raylan goes hunting for both Quarles, who is suspected of shooting and killing his State Trooper friend. It's an exciting, often tense, dangerous journey through many parts of Harlan. The episode pays off a lot of the little subplots that were presented through the season, some in rather shocking ways.
Eureka, which is currently Syfy's longest running scripted series, will be returning for its fifth and final season Monday, April 16 at 9:00 PM ET/PT.