2.9 The Castle It was also gloriously absurd. Sheer, unadulterated Fargo. Indeed, there is a case to be made for The Castle being considered the exemplar episode of Fargo, every special component working at full pelt and contributing to a superbly entertaining whole, hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure. The narration that opened the episode and continued at key points in the narrative worked surprisingly well. Martin Freeman’s calm and dispassionate voiceover made a pleasant counterpoint to the highly emotive, partial action that took place on screen and created a slight distancing effect, as though the chaos that unfolded was simply a story from another time and from which the viewer was entirely safe (which, gentle reader, we all are)....

Fear The Walking Dead Season 4 Episode 12 Fear The Walking Dead viewers know Colman Domingo for his stellar work as Viktor Strand in front of the camera. For this week’s episode, however, Domingo takes the helm, marking the first time any actor in the Walking Dead universe has stepped behind the camera to direct an episode of either show. Domingo works well with the actors, as one might expect, drawing out great performances from the ensemble cast, with Jenna Elfman and Maggie Grace in particular delivering strong dramatic moments....

For a forty-five minute episode, this week’s instalment is as packed as JP’s satchel as he stalks the fresher’s fair for freebies. Howard is driven to discovering his new self after being snubbed by BP for an internship in favour of soul(patch) man Kingsley. JP is trying to dream up a future where tanks and helicopters are fused into the ultimate war machine. Oregon has some competition for funding her magazine in the shape of Derek who looks like he’s just stepped out of TOWIE....

The first couple of Fringe stories this year didn’t exactly light my fire, although story three did have some genuine charm. Momentum Deferred is possibly one of the best Fringe episodes yet, and hits exactly the right notes in precisely the right order. Why we’ve been forced to wait a month for Fringe to be kicked into high gear I’ve no idea, but I hope it can keep this momentum going....

Brad Pitt is the headline star, playing war-weary sergeant Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier, but it’s Logan Lerman’s fresh recruit who provides the eyes and ears in Ayer’s story. Lerman plays Ellison, a typing clerk pressed into service as the co-driver of Fury, a US Sherman tank trundling through the fields of Germany, its crew’s task: to finally break the enemy’s will, soldier by soldier and town by town. To Pitt’s Wardaddy, Norman and the rest of the crew (Shia LaBeouf’s Boyd, Michael Pena’s Garcia and Jon Bernthal’s Travis), the Fury is no less than their life support....

4.6 The Laws Of Gods And Men We’ve all seen a show have one or two good episodes, then kind of tail off into a status of eternal decentness. Never great, never bad, sometimes mediocre, and usually just kind of… pretty good. Game Of Thrones is not one of those shows. The first season was riveting, the second season became the showcase of Tyrion Lannister, the third season was the Red Wedding and the destruction of the Stark family....

There seems to be a contagious outbreak of web forum combativeness and general aura of discontent permeating geekdom discussions (and beyond), often in a very unpleasant way. Combine that with very real, often sad and rather uncertain times and it can be tempting to retreat to a platform of self-defensiveness and snark. Perhaps what we should be doing is looking at the core of what brings us together both in the physical world, and on sites such as this....

Welcome to Geeks Vs Loneliness. This is our regular spot where we talk about a mixture of issues affecting a few, some, or many of us. The hope is that we can find one or two words that’ll be of some use to you. Hopefully, this is an article that very few of you need. But in case you do, we’re going to hand over to Servalan, and send our warmest wishes, virtual hugs and good thoughts in your direction… Trying To Overcome Rape That definition tells you what the problem with rape is ��� it’s about one person taking what belongs to someone else....

Once or twice over the course of us running Geeks Vs Loneliness, we’ve stopped to consider one or two book recommendations. Books, for me personally, have always been a friend in times when I’m not at my best, and often, it’s passages in books, or stories that I’ve enjoyed, that I seek solace in. That, and Jason Statham movies, but let’s focus on the books for now. Certainly when I was growing up too, and trying to figure out difficulties I was having with my dad (since resolved, and nothing short of some early teenage angst on my part), I kept going back and back again to one of my favourite ever books, Danny The Champion Of The World....

After last week’s emotion-packed episode, this week we take bit of a step back and lets Glee do what it does best: in this case over-the-top farce with some added Olivia Newton-John. Horrified by this, Figgins informs Will that, unless he finds who created the list, he will be forced to disband the club and suspend all the members. Miffed by this turn of events, Will assigns the club the task of finding songs with bad reputations and then rehabilitate them for the modern day....

Dave only have eight shows that they screen. They own far more, as they very, very occasionally pop up. But take any six hour block on the channel, and you can guarantee that at least five hours will be back-to-back Top Gear, QI, Buzzcocks and Have I Got News For You. They’re all good programmes in and of themselves, but they all have fundamental problems with them. But, in order, they: buy into a concept of enforced blokeiness that is inflated tenfold by being on a channel called ‘Dave’; exist as a not-quite-good-enough-for-Radio-4 parade of decontextualised trivia; make a sequence of cheap gags made at easy targets; and make a sequence of cheap gags made at easy targets....

Gotham Season 4 Episode 19 Boy oh boy, this week’s episode of Gotham is very lucky it ends with a strong third act because it was almost one of the worst episodes in the show’s four-year history. As always, there is a great deal going on this week with the struggle for the Demon’s Head escalating, layers of betrayal between Lee Thompkins, Riddler, and Penguin, and Bruce Wayne once again trying to kill Ra’s Al Ghul....

Creatively, this is a good way to allow Trubel to shine, and not be relegated to the role of sidekick this season. This possible subplot would allow the character more opportunities to hone her skills. Do we trust that Agent Chavez is telling the truth? Trubel needs to have a healthy dose of doubt and second-guessing. I vote that she tells Nick or at least Hank that she was kidnapped and interrogated despite Chavez’s warnings to the contrary....

5.5 The Rat King Grimm this week was really only about one thing: the return of Trubel. There was an ancillary plot involving a “20ft ratzilla” (in Monroe’s own words), but thankfully the better half of the episode was dedicated to Trubel, and the efforts by the Wesen group known as Occultus Liberare to capture her. So Nick and Hank are dispatched to investigate the slayings of the Klaustreich: Monroe supplies the puns, Rosalee the back-up and the creature is taken down by the end of the episode....

I quite like the Farrelly brothers, even so far as kind of enjoying their one film that nobody else seems to like, The Ringer. It’s as guilty as guilty pleasures come, but they’re more sensitive than most would be with the subject matter, and the film entertained me, even though it contained hazardous amounts of Katherine Heigl. So, to say that Hall Pass primarily concerns two guys who are determined to show they’ve still got it, makes it kind of easy to wonder if art will imitate life....

The cast and creators of the film were dowsed with intermittent rain and continuous praise during the evening, which was compered by Edith Bowman and Rick Edwards against a soundtrack of five hours of unrelenting screaming. First to greet the fans and form the vanguard of the Potter cast was a platoon of fully-costumed Death Eaters, who preceded to menace the crowd as much as is possible for grown men waving small sticks....

It does this via two main strategies. Firstly, it crams in as much narrative as it can, keen to leave as much of J K Rowling’s source material in place, before it skids to its half-time break. And secondly, it goes on for a good 20 minutes after your buttocks have waved the white flag. Let’s make no bones about this, then: the first segment of the film is utterly gripping....

I know — them’s fighting words, and yet, I stand by them. I was (as I’m sure many of you were) curious to see the fallout in a world where both Audrey and Mara exist. Although only morsels were planted and explored this week, they were every bit as juicy as I’d hoped would be the case. I kind of adore that Audrey is having a literal existential crisis. Now that she’s separated from Mara she’s got to figure out who — and what — she is…and if it’s anything other than the “husk” that transported Mara from age to age....

The second half of Haven’s body-switching adventure was infinitely more enjoyable than the first half. I’m not just saying that because of the gasp-worthy (and very naked) final few moments of the episode, either. Though you could make the argument that the last two weeks have all been a study in foreshadowing Audrey’s eventual return, I think that might be giving the show just a hint more credit than it deserves....

How do you keep a film about sex with strangers from becoming a smut-fest? Well, the answer is apparently that you strip the story of most of its inherent sensuality and emotion, resulting in a well-directed and star-studded filmic experiment in place of a coherent movie. Described as a ‘daisy chain’ of sexual encounters, the film is almost sung-through from beginning to end with only brief pauses in which the characters speak to each other non-musically....