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Reviews
Wednesday: A Murder of Woes (2022)
**Spoiler** is a bad villain
Crackstone is an inconsistent and illogical villain. He's supposedly a Puritan who hates Outcasts for using sorcery and witchcraft, yet uses a magic staff and happily accepts resurrection in order to fulfill his aims. Also, he alludes to Goody causing his death but this is never expanded on. It feels like they rushed this villain and left out some critical plot stuff. And really, that's what the whole season felt like: rushed, discombobulated, and missing critical plot components. The internal logic of the show doesn't really hold up.
Also, each and every use of the word "normie" by a character who otherwise wouldn't be expected to use 2010s internet slang completely pulls me out of the show. The writers should have come up with a better and more unique word.
The Bible: Exodus (2013)
Do not care for Houston's take on Moses
I do not care at all for how Moses was played by William Houston. Moses comes across as possessed and unnervingly intense, compared to Gary Oliver's Abraham, who was kind, fatherly, and full of faith. Worse, this take on Moses seems to be strangely arrogant. The way Moses responds after his encounter with the burning bush ("By God's power, *I* will free my people") seems to put emphasis on Moses's actions rather than God's action through Moses, and it's not at all how this episode went in the Bible.
I have a few small squabbles about production choices - cutting out important plot material like explaining how the Hebrews ended up in Egypt via Joseph, or how the 600,000 Hebrews are depicted as like 100 extras, but these are minor can be forgiven. The screenwriters have limited time and limited budget to tell the story of a very long book, and they're going to have to cut some stuff that I'll think is important. But this version of Moses and this telling of the Exodus feels like it completely missed the point and gets too much stuff wrong.
Downton Abbey (2019)
Beloved characters turned into unjustified schemers
I'm not going to be that person who gives a movie a 1/10 because I didn't like something about it. It's a competently-made movie and deserves a moderate score for that alone.
But there are many problems that irk me. The biggest issue for me is the way the writers utilize some of the show's beloved characters. A major plot point involves the Downton staff being slighted by the incoming royal staff; the Downton staff trick the usurpers, even trapping them in their rooms, in order to get a chance to serve the royal family. The staff are openly petty and vindictive, yet we are meant to cheer them on. The problem is that this scheming doesn't feel justified - sure, the incoming staff was rude, but to lock them in their bedrooms feels borderline illegal and certainly out of proportion. When Barrow and O'Brien did their scheming in the show, we were supposed to root against them. I found myself doing the same in this movie, but against Ana, Carson, Daisy, and the others, whom the writers clearly wanted me to root for.
I have a few other minor squabbles - why did Mary's and Cora's voices sound different? - but that's my main issue. It just felt mishandled. Is it a garbage movie? No. But it's a step down from the show, when it should have been a step up given its feature film budget.