The Magnus Protocol Reviews: “Hostile Workplace”
Jul 14, 2025
Friday Fiction: Hiding In Plain Sight (Part 1)
Jul 11, 2025
Continuing Impressions of Revival Ep3: “Reality Check”
Jul 9, 2025
The Magnus Protocol Reviews: “Internal Investigation”
Jul 7, 2025
Friday Fiction: That Old Drum
Jul 4, 2025
Daredevil: Born Again Episodic Coverage: “Straight to Hell”
Jul 2, 2025
Ironheart Episodic Coverage: “Will the Real Natalie Please Stand Up?”
Jun 30, 2025
Friday Fiction: The Many Spaceships Of The Biggest City
Jun 27, 2025
Ironheart Episodic Coverage: “Take Me Home”
Jun 25, 2025
Continuing Impressions of Revival Ep2: “Keeping Up Appearances”
Jun 23, 2025
Friday Fiction: Ceiling Men’s Managers
Jun 20, 2025
First Impressions Of Revival Ep1: “Don’t Tell Dad”
Jun 18, 2025
Hello Tomorrow! Doesn’t Need Its Gimmick
Jun 16, 2025
Friday Fiction: The Grasshopper
Jun 13, 2025
Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld: Part 2 – Cad Bane
Jun 11, 2025
Why wasn’t “Hostile Workplace” the episode we got when the series returned from a hiatus? It’s much, much better than “Internal Investigation,” and reveals a ton of plot information without giving the game away. A single speculation from Sam about how alchemy works was honestly enough to make my mind go whirring. Not to mention the statement.
Some worlds have monsters. This is one of them—but they’d done a very good job of containing them. They are objects of study, as much as horrible dangers.
When they get out, though, they are only one of those things.
“Reality Check” is—drum roll please—a great episode of Revival. Perhaps the first even good episode of Revival. It actually flowed properly and felt like it was utilizing the interesting questions at the heart of its premise while maintaining solid, cohesive plotlines. I wasn’t frustrated; I wasn’t thrown off. The episodic and the serialized nature of this story are finally working in harmony.
The wait is over, but “Internal Investigation” was not worth that wait. The hiatus made me think that we would get a bombshell of an episode once we returned to The Magnus Protocol. I was wrong. Not only is this episode not scary, it barely gives us any new information for any of the ongoing mysteries.
We’ve done a lot of high-concept stories on Friday Fiction. Ones where the technology or magic is very obvious, and part of the story in big ways.
But not every fantasy story has to have such flashy moments. Sometimes, it’s nice to settle into a more personal, quieter tale.
“Straight to Hell” is exactly the kind of finale I would want from this show if I had speculated one from the beginning. All the pieces of the puzzle slam together in a violent, intense, dramatic crescendo. And—amazingly—without absolutely ruining the storyline’s gravitas by wrapping things up too fast or forcing everything back into the status quo. I’ll say it again in the final paragraph, but this is quite the way to get people hyped for the next season. I am hyped for the next season. I cannot imagine how they’ll continue this storyline—or what it might do to the broader MCU canon.
“Will the Real Natalie Please Stand Up?” is a terrible continuation of Ironheart. It has a lot of fun moments. It highlights both the fun science fiction concepts it’s playing with—and, to a lesser extent, magical concepts—while giving us an action-packed, CGI-packed heist scene. But it also, jarringly, has the same “convenience” factor to its narrative that plagued “Bring Me Home,” but to a much, much, much worse degree.
Possibly, this is the furthest in the future we’ve ever done for a Friday Fiction. The technology in “The Many Spaceships Of The Biggest City” seems possible, eventually, but it could be hundreds, if not thousands, of years before it would be on this level.
Ironheart’s first episode, “Take Me Home,” is one of the best opening Marvel episodes I can recall in terms of engagement. You get basically everything you need to attach to the story and get excited to see where it goes. Unlike Daredevil: Born Again, the plot is starting right away, no slightly non-sequitur hook required. There’s superhero-type stuff happening from the jump.
“Keeping Up Appearances” Is Extremely Bleak TV Let’s go back into the powder keg of possible issues that is Revival with the next episode, “Keeping Up Appearances.” And I am happy to say that this episode doesn’t turn into what I expected. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have issues; it’s just not the episodic structure…
Just because we said the next story—this week’s story—would be even weirder than our last, doesn’t mean that it’s going to also be a funny story.
Because this is not. “Ceiling Men’s Managers” is very much not.
Revival has kind of a bad first episode in a lot of ways, but does reveal how a good premise can carry an audience through the initial setup. And that one big, showy premise can give rise to several core questions/concepts that are so intriguing, and open so many doors for seasons of storytelling that it’s hard not to want to see what could happen next.
