Kayley’s Catch-Up (August 2022)

Thanks to the hecticness of studying and trying to become an adult in this post-covid, post-graduate world, it’s been a long while since I’ve been able to properly take my time to evaluate how I feel about all the shows and movies I’ve watched. But there are so many shows and so little time! So, instead of making individual long-form reviews of each of the shows I caught up on, I’m going to be writing up some thoughts and three of my favourite things on everything I’ve been watching this past month. Note: there will be spoilers!

What We Do In The Shadows (2019 — Present)

I started season one of WWDITS back in my university flat with my RemoteWatch co-host Julia, way before the idea of a podcast ever came to us — safe to say I have many funny, positive, associations with this show about vampires living their day-to-day in Staten Island. Although, I did go on a bit of a hiatus since season one because of how inaccessible this show is to watch when you don’t have the right streaming service. But since some of it is now on Disney Plus UK, I was able to catch up.

Binging seasons two and three back to back has been an emotional roller-coaster, full of hilarious wacky adventures. Back-to-back witnessing Laszlo’s Jackie Daytona chronicles, the adorable addition of Nadja Doll to our Staten Island residence, and how the show somehow got me so attached to Colin Robinson, only to the horrific kill and rebirth him all at once; it’s safe to say it’s been quite a lot going on for everyone. I loved seeing Guillermo grapple with his vampire-killer instincts as he still tries his hardest to turn into a vampire. This show has been such over my lunch break as I stress over my school papers.

My favourite bits:

• Any moment we interact with the documentary crew — when Nadja flippantly asks how old the camera guy is; when Guillermo hides behind the camera guy and Nandor tells him to “Stop hiding behind Greg!” I loved these little nuggets and I hope to have more of them in the coming seasons.
• The return of the werewolves. I remember the werewolf episode in season one being one Julia and I laughed the hardest at, so bringing that gang back was a delightful treat. The icing on top was really the twilight-inspired kick-ball fight. It had me in stitches when the guitar strings of Supermassive Black Hole started playing
• I’ve loved Kristen Schaal since Gravity Falls. Having the Guide be a bigger role in the later seasons is such a fun incorporation of “the larger vampire world” to break away whenever our Staten Island gang feel too centric in their world.

Currently, as I write this, the finale episode for season four is yet to air, but episode 4x09 “Freddie” has led to quite divisive discourse over the ongoing, multi-season journey of Nandor’s depression and self-loathing. If I’m honest, with the building and execution of it so far, it’s quite difficult to be on Nandor’s side in this, especially when I look at it with Guillermo in mind, who I believe at this point deserves so much better.

Depending on the execution of the finale, no matter how much I’ve enjoyed season 4, I feel the “Freddie” arc would still leave a sour taste in my enjoyment of this season, which is a shame since apart from Nandor’s self-destructiveness, everyone else’s journeys have been so fun and engaging to follow. At this rate, I am getting a little tired of Nandor’s self-destruction bringing the people around him down too. But to be honest, I’ll still continue watching and enjoying this insane show.

Only Murders In The Building (2021 — Present)

Only Murders In The Building was such a charming binge after a stressful period of my life. Following these budding crime-mystery podcasters was such a fun ride. As the ensemble we followed unravelled this convoluted messy murder in their building, each of the main characters had such a distinct voice, motivation, and cute quirk. I just couldn’t stop watching them. It’s fun, hilarious, and a quick pick-me-up.

As a growing podcast host, watching everyone navigate and produce their way through the twist and turns of events, I was very thoroughly amused throughout watching the entire show. Especially with Oliver, sticking to his showman/producer roots, while Mabel and Charles just roll their eyes at him. Protect these three at all costs.

What I loved:

• Mabel is my fall fashion icon. The fur coat, the sweaters — it’s perfection.
• [SPOILERS] I totally called Holly from The Office as someone to look out for. Albeit, I had no idea about what her role was going to be — and this was likely intentional on their part — with the way information was given to us, it didn’t necessarily set her up to be someone to look out for, but I love that I intuitively just felt that she was sus.
• This show does not help my obsession with New York in the fall. The vibes of this show truly are Nora Ephron Energy.

I have yet to catch up on the new mystery for season two, so no spoilers, please!

Roman Holiday (1953)

Despite being known among my friends as the “person who watches a lot of movies”, my knowledge catalogue of old Hollywood is horrifically lacking to be actually worthy of that title. So for the rest of the year, I’m making it my mission to watch as many old movies as I can, and I’m starting it off with Roman Holiday.

As a self-proclaimed lover of romance, this was such a delight from beginning to end. I never knew where this movie was going to take me — of course, Rome, but it’s not just Rome. It’s Princess Anne’s being taken on the adventure of her life by Joe Bradley. It’s Joe Bradley arguing with himself about what’s more important to him: this girl or this story?

Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck shine in this movie. It’s a classic for a reason, and it checks so many boxes for me. A story about a princess? Sign me up. A jaded journalist who’s a little lost in his career? This is my cheese. It’s a fairytale of how these characters fell in love with each other and I fell in love with these characters navigating their little charming, and magical ride through Rome.

Not Okay (2022)

I’ve been following Zoey Deutch and Dylan O’Brien’s respective careers since way back in my 2013 tumblr days, so tuning into Not Okay was a no-brainer, especially with the satirical theme of “wanna-be-influencer-gets-life-handed-to-them”, I was sold on the entire premise, and it delivered just enough to keep me entertained the whole run.

What I liked:

• The building of Dani and Rowan's (Mia Isaac) sisterly relationship — Deutch and Isaac have such an interesting and complex dynamic of sisterly-but-more, it worked so well for this movie. Mia Isaac is gonna be a star.
• Second-hand cringe at Dani’s behaviour throughout the movie is so well done, this movie did exactly what it set out to do: make you uncomfortable with Dani’s actions.
• Dani not getting a traditional “redemption” arc after her life crumbles when the truth is revealed was such a good decision. Dani recognises that apologising to Rowan would only assuage her own guilt, and would not change the situation, thereby leaving is what cinches this movie as solid for me.

Obviously we chronically online people know the negative aspects of social media on people’s mental health very very well. To quote Timothée Chalamet, “societal collapse is in the air”. While this movie doesn’t necessarily change the world, it does keep conversations going.

Better Call Saul (2015–2022)

[SPOILERS FOR BETTER CALL SAUL]

The season finale of Better Call Saul, was everything it built up to be and more. The creators teased that it would “change the way we see ‘Breaking Bad’ forever” and it definitely does exactly that. The meth-lab that Walt and Jesse cooked in has more haunting origins than we realise; behind the persona of Saul Goodman is a very hollowed Jimmy McGill who hides in this identity because it’s the only thing good left in his life. It’s cherry on top of an already excellent cake.

There’s a little ironic parallel of Better Call Saul always having trouble taking off from the shadow of its big brother Breaking Bad, much like Jimmy being haunted by the shadows of his older brother, Chuck’s negative expectations of him. And yet, both Better Call Saul and Jimmy defy what was preconceived of them and come into their own distinct individuality: the show proved to audiences that it can stand alone on its feet and Jimmy, in the end, accepts his circumstances and consequences of his decisions instead of running.

It’s really difficult to put into words how much this show means to me. Better Call Saul came to me in such a formative time of my life and I have learned so much from this show about storytelling, choices, life, and love. I’ll have more to say about this show and its characters, but ultimately I’m very happy with the ending.

House of The Dragon (2022 — present)

I’m not going to lie, like everyone who came out of season eight of Game of Thrones season 8, I had a lot of trust issues going back to Westeros. But the record-breaking premiere episode hooked me right back in, with all the political intrigue, morally grey characters, complex world-building and of course, dragons.

So far, we’ve had a really strong start establishing our main players and the chessboard we will be navigating. There are some changes from the Westerosi History Book, Fire and Blood, I was on board with, such as Rhaenyra and Alicent’s age change. Showing us their tender closeness and friendship sets up our hearts to break when everything comes crashing down. Although the time hopping feels messy, it does service the narrative since we’re filling in the gaps of the source text and we’re allowing it enriches the experience of witnessing the Dance when it does come.

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve grown to like the casting of Matt Smith as Daemon. (I affectionately call him “Matt-Daemon”) He’s a complete wildcard and it’s difficult to describe him in comparison with characters from the previous show. From what I’ve seen and heard online, lots of viewers are compartmentalising our characters from this show to Game of Thrones, (ie. the parallels of Rhaenyra to Arya, Otto to Littlefinger) but I feel it’s doing a disservice to House of the Dragon if we keep piggy-backing and expecting it to be like GOT and not letting it grow to its own thing.

Safe to say I’ll be watching this weekly. If you’re interested, I have a twitter thread I will be updating weekly with some thoughts on the new episodes.

And that’s my August wrap-up! Let me know what other shows I should check out in September!