An ignorant villain-lover's guide to Marvel – Phase Two

"The sooner you're into it, the sooner you're out of it", was Mary Poppins's advice in Mary Poppins Returns when her sidekick was worried about recounting a rather long anecdote in song form. So I'll just push on with my Marvel movie overview (for the background, see previous post), where I've reached phase two. This was a rather mixed bag, and there was little to cheer villain-wise, but the general entertainment level was high enough, with a movie or two which stood out among the rest.

Iron Man 3

Third time Loki lucky? Nope, still no Loki in standalone Iron Man movies. Use this as a rule of thumb: if there is no hope of seeing Thor, then there is also no Loki.

Any other interesting villains, then? Not really. As with the other Iron Man films, the main antagonist is someone who is personally connected to Tony Stark in some way – this time around, a guy he slighted at a work function way back. It's not so much a question of the villain getting revenge, more that Stark's snub spurred him on to become successful whatever it took. That's an OK motive, but there are no real villain fireworks here. As for The Mandarin... Not having read the comics, I was in a better position to guess a twist connected with this character. Let's just say, I'm pretty sure he's not like in the comics (but Ben Kingsley has fun).

Overall impression: This is pretty much a standard Iron Man movie. If you liked the other two, you'll like this one. If you're not that much of a fan of them, there are still things to enjoy. Tony is witty, his interaction with a kid manages not to be too cloying (the boy tries to guilt-trip him into taking him along on an adventure at one time, and when Tony doesn't fall for it mumbles "it was worth a try") and it's heartwarming to see that Tony's lumpish bodyguard loves Downton Abbey because it's "classy".

Thor: The Dark World  

Loki time! Yes indeed. Loki isn't the main threat this time around: instead he's the classic villain wild card, sometimes working with Thor, sometimes against him, and all the time looking out for himself. The sibling banter is easily the most enjoyable part of the movie, and it's exciting to see which way Loki will jump.

So who is the main villain? Any good? Alas! He's a missed opportunity. A Dark Elf with a nicely sinister look played by none other than Christopher Eccleston, he has no discernible personality and no motivation besides... unleashing darkness. Because he's a Dark Elf. With a little more effort put into this character by the writers, this could have been really good. Instead, we just see flashes of what might have been from Eccleston.

Overall impression: I quite liked watching this, but I can see why it is considered to be the weakest of the Thor movies. It doesn't quite gel, and some of the humour doesn't land – I thought Jane Foster's intern Darcy was charming in the first Thor movie, but she gets on my nerves here, especially as she acquires an intern of her own, which makes no sense whatsoever. Jane's and Thor's romance is built up like a really big thing, so it's a pity there isn't any follow-through on this in later films (maybe in Endgame – I haven't watched it yet).

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I'll not even pretend I believe Loki's in this one. So what else have we got on the villain front? The Winter Soldier isn't really a villain: he's Steve's best friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan) who has been brainwashed and frozen down, only to be thawed up at regular intervals and used as an expert assassin by Hydra. Hydra has survived Nazi Germany to become a classic evil organisation that wants to Take Over The World. That may sound tired, but it is remarkable – in this and other Marvel movies – how much loyalty Hydra inspires in its followers. Even the self-serving scientist sidekick of the first Captain America movie is shown to have been more committed than one would have thought, uploading his consciousness into old-style computers and everything, all to further Hydra's goals, which are to... erm... rule more efficiently than those democratic clowns? I don't know.

Come on! We can't just have a collective villainous entity. There must be a leader or someone who stands out! Was there? Oh yes. Now I remember. The friendly-seeming authority figure who says he wants to help Cap & Co. get to the bottom of it all. It's as standard as it sounds, even with some star quality behind the part.

Overall impression: I must be one of the very few people who prefer the first Captain America movie. But this one has good action, and likeable leads in Steve and Natasha aka Black Widow who really starts to come into her own here. Plus you really want Steve to get through to Bucky – especially if, like me, you know Sebastian Stan as the Mad Hatter from Once Upon A Time. There, as here, he is in continual need of a break.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Galaxy? So they're in space? Where Asgard is, somewhere? Loki doesn't show up, no.

All right, then... are there any other memorable villains? Again, there is wasted potential. We see glimpses of how Ronan, the main antagonist, prepares his ash-on-blue-skin look, and I oooh-ed a bit. But after that, he's more of a villain place holder, if a cool-looking one. It's a little interesting that his motive isn't gain: he believes he is fighting a righteous war against the enemies of his father and grandfather. Taken together with Hydra and later Thanos, we do get quite a lot of idea-inspired villainy in the MCU, which gives me some satisfaction. (I can't abide it when people equate good old selfishness with evil: it's not at all the same thing.) But it's not as if we ever dive deep into Ronan's psyche: he's a space terrorist, mostly. Nebula the disaffected daughter of Thanos is fun, though.

Overall impression: They've reeled us in with MCU movies that aren't that crazy compared to normal action films. Time to get a little more comic-booky: by now, even we regular viewers can take it. This isn't action as much as outlandish sci-fi. Still, somehow they get away with it all – including the talking raccoon and the living tree. The start of the film is really depressing: we see a flashback to the later leader of the gang Peter Quill's aka Star-Lord's childhood, when he loses his mother to cancer and then promptly gets kidnapped by aliens. This morose beginning pays off well when it comes to understanding Peter both in this and later movies, though. Stick with it and you'll soon get to the light-hearted part and (hopefully) have a good time. But if you generally have difficulty getting into the spirit of wacky sci-fi, this will probably not convert you.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

So I can't help noticing by the poster picture that Thor is in this one. But not Loki, I'm afraid.

Bother... So what else have we got? Who is this Ultron? He's a sophisticated artificial life form created by Tony Stark in order to protect the Earth. But something goes wrong, and he ends up believing the best way to ensure peace is to get rid of all the people.

I see, an evil robot. Fun. He is actually quite funny. He's got some of Tony's wisecracking personality, much to the irritation of both of them (Tony ironically calls him "Junior" at one point). It's not the same as a complex, human villain, true, but aside from Loki, I believe Ultron was the phase two villain I had the best time with.

Overall impression: This is pretty much what you can expect from an ensemble-Avengers movie. It's mostly action, but there are some quieter moments too, and they work well. If you liked the first Avengers movie, chances are you'll like this one, even if there is no Loki present. It also introduces some new characters, so if you want to get what's going on in later MCU films you had better not skip it.

Ant-Man

Sorry, what? Ant-Man?! Don't you want to ask about the villains in this one?

Should I bother? I mean, Ant-Man! No way are they going to make it work. Actually, they do.

All right, then. What about the villains? No Loki, but the villainous businessman (yes, it's time for one of those) is above average. He has a decent personal reason to resent his old mentor Hank Pym (a cranky inventor played by Michael Douglas) as well as a hefty profit motive, and I like his style. "They're not what they once were... they do a lot of good", he quips when it turns out Hydra is his prospective client, as if they were a mildly scandalous political party that's cleaned up its act.

Overall impression: I use the word charm a lot when it comes to the MCU and its characters, and here it is in evidence again. This is a charming heist movie, with many well-known ingredients, but served with some verve. Ex-con Scott Lang is another hero it's easy to like, nicely self-deprecating and a good father. You can skip this film and still follow what happens in the greater MCU saga, but I'm not sorry I saw it. 

An ignorant villain-lover's guide to Marvel - Phase One

All right, if you can't beat'em, join'em. As I've already touched upon, I'm not generally a fan of the superhero genre. For years and years, I've stubbornly refused to get involved with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which means that a lot of pop culture references in other media have passed me by. I have also had to bear, with irritating regularity, that my favourite geeky YouTube channels dedicated time not to interesting analyses and theories about Disney, Pixar, Doctor Who or Star Wars, but – Marvel. Fricking Marvel, again and again. It became really bad when the series WandaVision first aired on Disney +. I wanted some theories about Raya and the Last Dragon about then, over-analysing of the trailers and so forth, but no – it was all WandaVision, WandaVision, WandaVision. Still I didn't consider giving in and discovering what the fuss was about. Not until now.

Disney found a way to maximise the brand I couldn't resist. They announced a whole TV series about Loki. I know I've been a bit sniffy about Tom Hiddleston in The Night Manager, but that doesn't mean he isn't seriously foxy as the mischievous Asgardian. And I mean, it's Loki! I may not know much about comic books, but I know what I like mythologically. Plus, the series was hailed in some quarters as Doctor Who done right. As a villain-lover with a geeky streak, clearly I had to check this out. But I haven't yet done so, as I figured I needed to see the Marvel movies (or films, but they are American, so...) first. At least most of them. And there are... quite a lot.

The good news is, they're actually good. It didn't take long before I stopped thinking of my Marvel movie of the week plan as homework and started enjoying them. And since I'm watching them, I may as well milk them for blogging content. Get ready for the pig-ignorance of a casual viewer with next to no knowledge of the original comic book stories. At least I can give other villain-lovers some pointers. The list of Marvel movies I'm watching is the one available on Disney + in Sweden, so there will be some omissions (The Incredible Hulk and the Spiderman movies). Let's start with what the powers that be on Marvel/Disney call "phase one":

Iron Man

So is Loki in this one? Not likely – this is the origin story of Iron Man i.e. Tony Stark, not Thor. They're not going to hit us with mystical realms in space/another dimension or something and their inhabitants yet.

Any other interesting villains, then? What can I say? They're not bad. They're... functional. You understand why they do what they do. There's nothing here for a villain-lover to get very excited about, but the grounded motives of the villains match the almost-realistic feel of the movie. Of course a terrorist would want extra powerful weapons, and it makes sense that he wouldn't have a lot of comic-booky eccentric traits but simply be a very tough and intimidating guy. And I can really understand Tony Stark's business partner being none too pleased when Tony, severely shocked after a stint as a hostage, announces that Stark Industries will stop making weapons, as it's impossible to make sure that they're only used by the US. (The US using them is fine – Stark's no pacifist.) What the hey? Stark Industries are primarily arms manufacturers. How are they going to keep making money then? Clearly, judging by Tony's lifestyle, they find a way, but even now, many movies later, I don't know how.

A terrorist villain and a business villain, then, who do what's expected of them. Their names? Sorry, no idea.

Overall impression: The wisecracking, arrogant Tony Stark as played by Robert Downey Jr. is an endearingly flawed hero, and the film doesn't feel very "out there" at all. If anything, it was a bit too gritty for my taste. It's like a tough action movie where the protagonist happens to invent a super-powerful iron suit. Possibly something for Die Hard fans.

Iron Man 2

So is Loki... He's not, is he? Nope.

Any other interesting villains, then? I did think Whiplash aka the Russian guy aka Ivan Vanko had potential (at least enough for me to bother to look up the name on IMDB). He has a good motive: his father, an inventor who worked with Tony's dad Howard Stark, got exiled because of Stark and died in misery while the inventions he worked on at Stark Industries kept generating money for little Tone. It's almost refreshing that Tony doesn't feel the least bit bad about this: it's all "Well, Vanko's dad was a spy, so...". On the other hand, this leads to the theme of the hero's and villain's dad working together not being properly explored, and the potential of Whiplash, in spite of a cool performance from Mickey Rourke, remained pretty much wasted. And we never found out what the deal was with that bird.

Justin Hammer, Tony's business rival, is another villain with a grounded, believable motive. Of course he's envious of Tony Stark both on a professional level and a personal one: Tony isn't what one would call a gracious winner. But a character who's set up to be a pale copy of the hero can't pull a lot of villain weight. Hammer gets effortlessly played by Whiplash, who in many ways remains a mystery.

Overall impression: The standalone Iron Man movies aren't really my cup of tea, in spite of Robert Downey Jr.'s undeniable charm and the funny quips. As an action movie, the first one is better. On the villain front, Iron Man 2 is slightly more interesting, though.

Thor

So is Loki in this one? You bet! He's the main villain.

Wow, finally! So does he live up to the hype? I'd say yes. He's funny and clever in a so-sharp-he'll-cut-himself way which is actually slightly reminiscent of his mythological counterpart, and I love the slight and pasty look. Don't expect the Thor movies to follow Viking mythology, though, because they don't – not at all. In this story, Loki is Thor's (as it turns out adopted) brother, and is resentful of standing in his heroic but dim beefcake sibling's shadow. And then he finds out the dice were loaded against him from the start and gets really mad.

OK, promising. Any other villains around? There are some Frost Giants who make their presence felt. They and their king look satisfyingly Dark Horde-ish, but as with the other Thor movies any villain not belonging to the Odinson clan has little to do except to look mythically intimidating and occasionally destroy stuff.

Overall impression: This film is a little unexpected, as there aren't nearly as much in the way of fantasy-style shenanigans as one would have thought. (Asgard is a place in outer space somewhere, plus possibly in another dimension, but the inhabitants aren't actually gods.) For a fair space of the time Thor, who has been banished to Earth, is simply getting his bearings and confusing a team of scientists, including his love interest Jane Foster. Story-wise, it's not the most thrilling Marvel movie, but it does set up the characters of Thor and Loki nicely for future adventures. I don't usually like dim-witted beefcakes much, but Chris Hemsworth's Thor is unexpectedly charming, so I could bear his presence well.

Captain America: The First Avenger

So, is Loki in this one? That would be a no.

Any other interesting villains, then? Not on paper. The main villain is literally a mad Nazi – in fact his secret organisation Hydra (it's never "Little Butterfly", is it?), dedicated to questionable research experiments, is so extreme even the other Nazis are shaking their heads and thinking the whole thing's a bit rum. But I do like the way he's set up. He's introduced as plain Johann Schmidt, but it's clear from the start there's more to him than just scientific knowledge. He can easily shove aside a tomb stone a band of soldiers couldn't budge. He's been through some kind of terrible ordeal. There seems to be something wrong with his face. His Nazi masters call him "Red Skull" for some reason... It's a really effective bit-by-bit villain reveal. Hugo Weaving, whom I dimly remember as a standoffish elf in the Ring trilogy (it's a long time since I saw it) is a good choice to play Schmidt. Personality-wise, however, Toby Jones's self-serving scientist sidekick makes more of an impression.   

Overall impression: I didn't expect to like this movie, but I really enjoyed it! This was when Marvel prep started to be fun in earnest for me. The building up of the villain is only one example of how well-constructed the story is. As for the hero, the movie addresses all the things superhero sceptics could ask themselves – why the ridiculous name, why a special suit, what's so great with that shield anyway? – as well as making Steve Rogers a sweet-natured and surprisingly engaging hero, for all that he's a bit of a boy scout.

The Avengers

I expect Loki isn't in this one? Yes, he is. He's the main villain again.

Really? Yay! So the whole ensemble of heroes is fighting Loki? Yep, that sort of sums up the movie, to be honest.

Any other villains? Nah, an anonymous army of alien soldiers. But Loki's enough.

Overall impression: This movie is a good test, if you're considering catching up with Marvel's stuff but not quite sure if it's for you. If you enjoy it, push on. If not, then you probably won't like most of the Marvel movies to come, either. I liked the banter between the characters better than the grand action set pieces. You can just about follow what happens without having seen the others films – I'd say it's the last Marvel movie, at least the last one starring an ensemble of heroes, where you can "go in blind" – but it does help to have seen the others, because you'll be more invested. The movies have made a good job of setting the heroes up as likeable in their separate ways, and it's fun to see how they learn to work together in spite of their wildly different personalities. This isn't a deep film – it's the quintessential "popcorn movie". But it's entertaining, and there's no humourless, pompous justice warrior with a "secret identity" (the kind of superhero I really don't care for) in sight. Though there may be the odd cape.

The birth of Cosmo (as we know it): Is this really modern feminism talking?

It's been a while since I've seen Cosmopolitan in the news stands, but I remember eyeing the covers of it when I was younger and, time and time again, deciding not to buy it. Buying a woman's magazine was an act of pure self-indulgence (and still is), which would have made it natural for me to go for the most garish and unashamedly shallow of the bunch. But some particularly lurid headline would always put me off. The magazine made sex seem like a competitive sport, and the sultry glamour pusses on the cover signalled that awkward bookish girls weren't exactly Cosmopolitan's target readership. In short, I was never a Cosmo girl.

With this background, I felt torn when reading the novel Park Avenue Summer by Renée Rosen. Its focus point is the transformation of Cosmopolitan in the Sixties, from failing if respected magazine to what it still is today, at the hands of its new editor Helen Gurley Brown, author of Sex and the Single Girl. The events are seen from the point of view of a fictional character, Alice Weiss, who becomes Helen's secretary and is very loyal to her. In a novel, it's often a good wheeze to view a significant character from the sidelines like this – novels told directly from the point of view of some fascinating figure we want to know more about, even a great villain, tend to disappoint. The trick works well here too – Alice is sympathetic to Helen but doesn't always agree with her and can see her flaws. Nevertheless, we are clearly meant to root for Helen and wish her success in her endeavour.

Which is where my feeling torn comes in. On the one hand, Helen Gurley Brown did turn Cosmopolitan around from a newspaper about to fold any day to a success story. On the other, she turned a middlebrow magazine with a good reputation (which actually sounds like the kind of publication I wouldn't mind buying now and again) into a sex-obsessed rag.

As with the TV mini-series The English Game, Park Avenue Summer got me thinking about the advantages and drawbacks of a "based on actual events" drama. Julian Fellowes and his co-writers tried to frame the events described in The English Game as the triumph of the underdog – so it was a little embarrassing for them when the working-class heroes of the tale decided to switch teams because of the better pay. Rosen frames Park Avenue Summer as a tale of female empowerment, but as with Fellowes and Co., the real events don't quite gel with the narrative. On the upside, the grit in the fictional machinery makes the story told less predictable and in many ways more interesting. The downside is you're less inclined to be led where the author wants you to go. 

Helen Gurley Brown is a fascinating character, in many ways resembling an eccentric teacher: quirky, strong-willed and convinced she is fighting not just for herself but for "her girls" (the expected new readership of Cosmo). Seeing as she is based on a real person, she is allowed to do things that a fictional counterpart probably wouldn't, such as burst into tears (secretly) when she has been attacked and use feminine cooing as a way to get ahead. It's also intriguing to see that as early as 1965, when the sexual revolution hadn't even properly got underway, she apparently turned Cosmopolitan to exactly the kind of magazine I saw in the news stands as a young girl a couple of decades later. She certainly had a vision, whether you agree with it or not, and plenty of personality – and personality is what I have been wanting to see in female characters of modern fiction.

At the same time, I did find it hard to root for her, as she dismisses any too-ambitious content as "dull" and "boring", not even seeing fit to use it as filler in an issue of the magazine she's already giving up on, cutting out short stories by Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe and instead accepting things like an article about crash diets which reads "like a child wrote it". She pushes for sexy, sultry cover girls, as she thinks women will buy the magazine in order to learn how to become more like them. And her ideas for magazine features are often cringeworthy. At one time, an internal memo from Helen to female staff asking them to share how they like their "bosoms" to be fondled during foreplay is leaked to a rival magazine which makes fun of it. Helen is furious about the betrayal and realises how bad it looks – but if you don't want your rivals to slate you for writing bosom memos, don't write bosom memos! It was all going to be a part of a feature anyway, so the reaction would have come then if not sooner – though one of the bigwigs of Hearst (owner of Cosmo) points out that they would never have greenlighted such an article. In fact, I couldn't fault the Hearst bigwigs at all for being sceptical of Helen's approach.

Alice, the fictional heroine, is pleasant enough and acts as a good foil to her boss, and parts of her story were really affecting. It is a more streamlined story than the one based on real events, though, especially where her love life is concerned. If anything surprised me about it, it's that Erik Masterson, a guy at the office (hostile to Helen) with whom she has a fling and who is clearly Mr Wrong, accepts being pushed around by her as much as he does. Their affair is supposed to be no-strings, yet she forbids him to see other women, and he accepts (though if he really keeps his promise in this regard is open for question). But is that really what's meant by no-strings? We're supposed to wonder why Alice sticks it out with Erik for so long, but I was kind of wondering why he sticks it out too.

Park Avenue Summer is what I hoped it would be when I impulse-bought it: a light read set in a glamorous work environment in New York. But as to the Cosmopolitan make-over, I remain unconvinced that it was really such a great win for the sisterhood. There was obviously a readership for the new Cosmo, and the magazine was going to fold anyway, so it feels perfectly OK that things panned out the way they did. But when it comes to the magazine's content, I can't help thinking of a song from Mean Girls: The Musical where daft hot chick Karen praises Halloween because then she can change her look and disguise herself "as someone else who isn't me but is still hot". "I can be who I want to be and se-e-e-e-xy" is the refrain. This, Karen claims, is "modern feminism talking".

I also come to think of a scene from the TV adaptation of Judith Krantz's I'll Take Manhattan. Judith Krantz actually wrote for Cosmopolitan, which adds interest (Nora Ephron was another Helen Gurley Brown hire, so yes, she had some good writers at her disposal at least). In I'll Take Manhattan, Krantz's heroine Maxi bemoans the state of the women's magazine market: the magazines are a depressing read, always extolling their readers to change in order to become slimmer, prettier etc. In contrast, Maxi aims to make her magazine one that makes women feel good about themselves the way they are.

I can't know for certain, but I have a feeling that Cosmopolitan under Helen Gurley Brown was not a magazine that made women feel good about themselves, unless they were already confident and attractive. The Cosmo girl could be who she wanted to be – as long as she was sexy.                        

Grown-up thrillers and unsatisfying endings

Yes, I do occasionally watch stuff on TV that isn't meant for kids and/or nerds. Mostly, though, I have to say, these trips into grown-up land remind me why I usually prefer TV shows for kids and nerds. The slowness and portentousness of "mature" TV can be a trial, and the payoffs resulting from the slow build-ups aren't always worth the wait.

The Undoing on HBO is a case in point. In some ways it reminded me of another six-part thriller relying heavily on relationship dynamics, Behind Her Eyes on Netflix. Admittedly, the ways they tackled the ending of the drama were very different. In Behind Her Eyes, there was a big twist based on a wacky premise, whereas in The Undoing, there - wasn't. But in both cases, the pace was glacial, and I was close to quitting at times. Perhaps writers of thriller series should consider putting a three-episode restraint on themselves. They'd have one episode for the set-up, one for the build-up and creating of tension and atmosphere, and one for the conclusion. That is quite enough. Now, in The Undoing, we basically get a whole episode about the female protagonist Grace Fraser freaking out because she can't reach her husband after a mother of a kid at their son's school is brutally murdered. I liked Nicole Kidman in Big Little Lies, but a little of her neurotic Grace goes a long way. It's no wonder the cops find both her husband and herself suspicious; she claims she hardly knew the victim while at the same time acting like a nervous wreck.

Much of the time spent on Grace's anxiety could have been cut without harming the tense atmosphere. And yet, it's not the build-up of this series that has been criticised as much as the ending. And yeah - it's not great. But then, thrillers like these have a tough job when it comes to pulling off the ending. Their viewers are mostly seasoned consumers of crime drama and fiction and very hard to surprise, let alone in a good way. The ending of Behind Her Eyes was surprising, but it did rely on that wacky premise I mentioned. The Undoing sticks to more realistic scenarios, but that means that whatever you come up with, some of the viewers (or readers - the series is based on a novel) will already have thought of it. There are only a handful of people that could have killed the luckless Elena Alves - I make it four or five at a pinch - if you discount roping in a stranger or a bit player like Grace's best friend as the killer. Like Ariadne Oliver in Agatha Christie's Cards on the Table, we in the audience can cheerfully suspect all of them, one after the other, thinking up the most likely scenario for the murder in each case, so when the truth is revealed we are unlikely to be blown away.

When disappointed viewers say that "any other ending" of The Undoing would have been better than the one we got, I'm not so sure. It wasn't satisfying as the solution of a mystery, certainly, but I can think of at least one ending that would have felt equally "meh", and in terms of fall-out for the characters that were not guilty of murder it could have been a lot worse. Not that you care desperately about them (and this is another problem with a lot of "grown-up" TV dramas). The ending, to my mind, felt flat, but it didn't feel insulting.

What bothered me rather more was a plot point where a tragedy in a character's past - and said character's reaction to it - is given undue weight when the reveal draws near. That the character in question shows "neither grief nor guilt" over what happened is seen as a grave point in their disfavour. But the tragedy wasn't the character's fault, and they still got blamed for it - in such circumstances, I would also have been wary of expressing any grief freely. 

But the series has points in its favour too. Hugh Grant acts his socks off as Grace's husband Jonathan, who thinks he can charm his way out of any scrape (I preferred his disarmingly flippant moments to his emoting, but maybe that's partly the point). Donald Sutherland is badass as Grace's father, who as a bonus likes to hang out in front of the appealing paintings in the Frick Collection; Noah Jupe is affecting as the Frasers' precocious son, who has to watch his world fall apart; Mendoza the cop was cute, and I enjoyed the scenes with public defender Robert Adelman and super-expensive private lawyer Haley Fitzgerald respectively ("not feeling the vibe here, team" quips the latter when things are going especially poorly). It's to be expected: David E. Kelley, the script-writer, is an expert on courtroom drama.

All the same, if you're looking for a thriller that will have you murmuring "wow, that was clever", this isn't it. But then, how many thrillers are?                                    

The well-structured fantasy world of Netflix's Shadow and Bone

Now this is more like it. A little more than a year ago, I was hate-watching and groaning over the Netflix series Cursed. This year, Netflix provided a much more solid fantasy offering in the shape of Shadow and Bone (a second season has been confirmed, whereas I believe that Cursed has been cancelled). 

This series seems to have benefited hugely from being based on a string of novels written by Leigh Bardugo, which are neither graphic novels nor Young Adult. Without being as dark and brutal as Game of Thrones, the series felt more grown-up than most of the graphic novel- or YA-based stuff I've seen (though it's still fantasy - in terms of grown-up-ness, it'll never be Middlemarch). The characters were more complex and interesting, and the dialogue was funny and sharp, which leads one to believe that the source material must be well written too.

Book adaptations have their own problems, and Shadow and Bone doesn't avoid them altogether. The first season did feel a bit over-stuffed. There's a whole side plot about a girl called Nina which has no bearing on the rest of the story until the second season is set up in the end. I'm sure that in Bardugo's novels, the reader is given plenty of reasons to care what happens to her, but in the series so far, her scenes are more of a distraction. The two main plots - about a girl who is discovered to have magic powers and a gang of doubtful characters who are tasked to abduct her from a heavily guarded castle and bring her to their city for a life-changing amount of cash - don't gel as well as one would have liked. Barely are the protagonists from both story lines united, than they are separated again, and the stories run parallel most of the time instead of becoming fully integrated with each other. Nevertheless, what the series has is promise: you feel that there is a solid foundation in terms of the characters and the world they inhabit which can be further built on in future seasons.

Now, the show's not a new Once Upon A Time. I don't think I'll ever become obsessed by it or care desperately about what happens to anyone in the series. But I didn't care overmuch for the characters in Game of Thrones either, and I still had a good time with it (mostly). If you like fantasy which is fairly light-hearted without being downright daft or ridiculously formulaic (as in Cursed), it's well worth a watch.

What helps to ground the series is that the author of the original books has clearly put some thought and work into the world building. In this world, magic is wielded by the grisha, which consist of different groups with different skill sets. There are those with traditional elemental magic skills like fire magic or wind magic, but there are also other kinds of specialities. There are healers, heart-renders - who can do anything from manipulating your feelings to downright killing you, but it's all connected with the heart - fabricators who have a magic skill for inventions etc. 

Though I have a weakness for fairy-tale-like magic where anything goes, this kind of specialised magic-wielding and the rules and limitations it imposes add some structure and are a safeguard against making any one character too powerful. With shows like Once, magic objects with wonderful properties can suddenly appear and be used to solve a problem (or raise one) in an episode or story arc, but then quickly be forgotten, which leads to plenty of plot holes ("but why didn't they use object X from episode Y?"). Also, if you have extremely powerful characters, new ways must constantly be found to temporarily divest them of their power or limit it so they can get into trouble when the story demands it. Here, the limits of the magic are built in: if you are a grisha who can wield shadows, then that's what you can do, but you can't, say, heal a loved one or control the wind. I was also relieved that the magic-making wasn't merely connected to the four elements (which is so often the case), because frankly, that concept has become a little old. Not only the magic, but the politics of the different countries and regions feels thought through. Here should be plenty of material which can be made use of in the future.

It's true that the central romance between the heroine Alina - who is discovered to have the legendary power of "sun summoning" which many believed to be just a myth - and her childhood friend Malyen (Mal for short) left me pretty cold. They are both orphans who have been friends forever, and when Alina's powers are discovered they are separated and long to be reunited. Their behaviour made me impatient - if they are so crazy about each other, how come they didn't manage to work themselves out of the friend zone long ago? Alina's pining makes her reluctant to embrace her new powers. There's a large, dangerous shadow-realm divide called the Fold dividing her country, which she is supposed to be able to consign to oblivion. Maybe she should focus a little more on that and a little less on Mal, who never had the guts to put their relationship on a less platonic footing? The Crows - the would-be abductors - are more colourful and bring more zest to the proceedings.

What of the villain, then, General Kirigan? (Yeah, I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that a shadow wielder called "The Black General" turns out to be the villain.) Well, he's pretty good, though for my part I wasn't blown away. He's built up so well that the first proper meeting the viewer has with him feels like a let-down. Kirigan is played by Ben Barnes, who also played Prince Caspian in the Narnia films. He's conventionally handsome, and for a villain-lover like me it's a disappointment when a villain looks too much like a traditional hero. It turns out his pretty-boy looks has its uses, however, and it has to be said Barnes can glower very convincingly when he needs to be menacing. Not in Rumple's league, then (which could hardly be expected), but preferable to most of the awful bad guys in Game of Thrones, and decidedly better than evil monks.      

Vindicating the Bennet sisters

My summer holiday (unusually long by the standards of most countries except Sweden, yet it feels too short for me) is drawing to a close. I have done quite a bit of reading, though - not very ambitious reading, mind you, but reading nonetheless. Two of my not-too-demanding summer reads have been "Austenuations", i.e. novels somehow connected to Jane Austen's fictional universe (prequels, sequels, retellings from another point of view - that kind of thing). In both cases, the novel they lean against is the ever-popular Pride and Prejudice, and one of the authors' goals has clearly been to give a satisfying ending to one of the Bennet sisters still unmarried at the end of P & P: Mary and Kitty Bennet respectively.

Now, this is not a new exercise. I'd guess one of the reasons Pride and Prejudice attracts so many sequel writers is that there are still two Bennet girls to marry off. Austen couldn't resist playing this game herself, apparently: she's supposed to have told her family that Mary married her Uncle Phillips's clerk and Kitty married a clergyman. Sequel writers tend to take different views on whether this should be considered "canon". For myself, I don't think they need to follow Austen's pronouncements to the letter: I've no idea in which context they were said, but I can just see her putting a worried niece's mind at rest ("Auntie Jane, didn't Mary and Kitty marry?""Yes, yes, Mary married her uncle's clerk and Kitty got really sensible with time and married a clergyman."). It is strange to imagine Kitty as a clergyman's wife - why couldn't she marry an officer, but a nicer one than Wickham? - and consequently, I've seen her paired with a couple of pretty unconvential clergymen in various sequels. Sometimes, I'd wish that the sequel writers would ignore Austen's marriage predictions rather than force them into being, but on the other hand I'd rather they follow them than write a sequel where Mary becomes an old maid or Kitty is killed off (this has happened). It's not too big a stretch to assume that Austen meant all the Bennet sisters to get husbands, and this is what most readers (including me) want too.

In the novels I've read - The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow and What Kitty Did Next by Carrie Kablean - the authors want to do more than simply marry the girls off, however. They want to vindicate and flesh out the characters of two sisters who, in different ways, were pretty hard done by in the original novel.

Hadlow's novel is the most ambitious, and maybe her task was also the hardest. I can't be the only one who's felt sorry for Mary Bennet, but sadly, the main characters' low opinion of her seems well-founded in Pride and Prejudice. As the plain and bookish sister, one could assume that she would be the clever one in the family, but she never says or does anything sensible and is in her priggish way almost as silly as her younger sisters. Austen was harsh here. You would expect an author to give a plain, studious girl good sense as a sort of compensation, but Austen would be familiar with enough luckless maidens who were neither good-looking nor clever and consequently really hard to marry off (this at a time when staying single and making your own living wasn't really an option for a middle-class woman, unless you could face the drudgery of becoming a governess). Mary is an example of this type of unfortunate girl. If we only go by what we learn from her in Pride and Prejudice, she's lucky to get a husband at all, even if he's "only" a lawyer's clerk.

Hadlow puts a lot of effort into vindicating Mary. The hefty novel takes place before, during and after the events of Pride and Prejudice. We learn of Mary's troubled childhood, despised as plain by her mother and ignored by her father, whom she is eager to impress. Hadlow skilfully doesn't deny that Mary's behaviour is priggish, but she makes a convincing case for why it's not unreasonable for her to behave in this way and gravitate towards ultra-serious books which denounce fripperies such as appearances. I did feel that too much time was spent on Mary's back story, but seeing Mr Collins's visit from Mary's viewpoint was fascinating. Many a reader have asked themselves why no attempt was made to match Mary to Mr Collins, seeing as they seem compatible. The answer is simple enough: Mr Collins, as Longbourn's heir, thinks he is entitled to the best the Bennet household has to offer him by way of wife material, and if Jane isn't available Elizabeth is the next-best thing. This, again, is realistic: what's remarkable is that Charlotte Lucas, no dazzling beauty, manages to catch him in the end. Mr Collins would probably not have much luck on a dating site in this day and age, but from the point of view of Regency England, he is highly eligible.

What I liked was that Hadlow's Mary isn't any more taken in by Mr Collins than the rest of the Bennet family: she sees his absurdities, but believes she would be able to live with them and makes an entirely unromantic play for him. It fails, and she is not given any credit for her pragmatic thinking by her mother.

Hadlow doesn't spend too much time on the events described in Pride and Prejudice, but only delves into them when they are important for Mary, which is a good call. I was more interested in what happens to her after P & P, and the slow build-up pays off when it comes to character development: I could believe that the self-aware and intelligent young woman at the end of the novel was the same person as the insecure teenager at the beginning of it who sought solace in Fordyce's sermons and thought she had to make an impression by quoting moral platitudes. There's a lot to enjoy for the Austen nerd: we get to see what it really means to be the unmarried sister in a family, and I appreciated how Mary unwittingly puts the Collinses' marriage on a better footing during a visit by forcing Charlotte to up her game. Avoiding your husband as much as possible really isn't much of a recipe for a happy marriage. When Mary's own chance for romance finally comes I found her love interest a little underwhelming, but I think Austen would have approved of him, for all that he's not Mr Phillips's clerk.

What Kitty Did Next isn't as substantial as The Other Bennet Sister - it's more of a classic Regency romp kind of Austen sequel. Like Hadlow, though, Kablean is a stern champion of "her" Bennet sister and keen to portray her as a young woman of character. Now, Kitty in the original novel is more of a blank slate than Mary. She copies her sister Lydia a lot, so what she becomes when she is free of Lydia's influence is really anyone's guess. In this respect, you could say that she's easier to vindicate than Mary. Like her sister, though, she is left in an unenviable position at the end of Pride and Prejudice. Mr Bennet, spooked by Lydia's fate, vows that he will become a much sterner parent and rattles off a number of restrictions which poor Kitty will bear the brunt of. He is mostly joking, but Kitty isn't to know that (I didn't get it myself as a teenager), and had he been serious, she would have had zero chance of meeting a suitor. Serious or not, Mr Bennet's new-found interest in his role as a father is likely to lead to a much duller life for Kitty.

In Kablean's novel, Kitty discovers talents both for writing and music, which I thought came a bit out of nowhere. But she is still suitably interested in the glamours of high society. The novel feels a little static at times: the blurb mentions a "fateful night" at Pemberley, but it doesn't take place until quite late, and before that there aren't that many events or conflicts. It has to be said, though, that I hadn't predicted the way in which Kitty gets into trouble: it's a little different to what one might think. Kablean is clearly familiar with Austen's marriage predicitions for Mary and Kitty, and mischievously introduces several young men who either are or might become ordained, which keeps one guessing, though Kitty's own preferences seem pretty marked. Or will her final choice not be a clergyman at all?

Of the two novels, I prefer Hadlow's, but I enjoyed Kablean's as well as an easy summer read. It's interesting to see that they have some things in common: for one thing, happily, they aren't written as Austen pastiches, and the prose flows well yet unanachronistically. In both novels, the sisters' parents are no help when it comes to the girls finding happiness (except in the end for Kitty when Mr Bennet steps up) and their father's contempt for their "silliness" wounds them both. Jane is kind but ineffectual when there's a real crisis brewing. Miss Bingley is a cow. The Gardiners offer a refuge and are very important in Hadlow's book especially. The Darcy household is somewhat criticised for being a self-contained unit: it's difficult to find a place in their happy bubble. Hadlow's Mary never quite fits in at Pemberley, whereas Kablean's Kitty thrives there at first, only to learn the hard way that her sister, her brother-in-law and her new friend Georgiana Darcy don't quite trust the "new" Kitty yet.

Another thing the novels have in common, then, is that the focus is not (as it so often is in P & P sequels) Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage, so they're not an excuse to dwell on love scenes between these fan favourites. Fine by me (I'm a little tired of this romance, I must confess), but might be useful to know: trust me, if you want Lizzy-Darcy smooching, there are plenty of alternatives. 

How to lose like a villain (and keep your dignity)

So, I finally got to the part in Star Wars Rebels with Grand Admiral Thrawn in it. Thrawn was actually one big reason (though not the only one) why I decided to really get into the two animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. When there was a mention of him in The Mandalorian, the fans were so delighted I realised that here was a Class A Imperial villain waiting to be discovered. I knew he was in Rebels, but I suspected I would get more out of this series if I saw Clone Wars first - a fair assumption. 

I owe Thrawn some gratitude, as I've had a good time with both series - eventually. I didn't think much of the first one-and-a-half season of Clone Wars (which I watched ages ago), and the first season of Rebels was a slog too. But they picked up, and though Clone Wars had some storylines that weren't too thrilling - I'll not be revisiting the "corruption on Mandalore" plot in a hurry - and the more kid-friendly Rebels can be annoyingly "hey wow, look how cool it is to be a rebel" at times (especially trying when you're not-so-secretly on the Empire's side), there's some really good stuff here for a Star Wars nerd to sink their teeth into. For instance, plenty of delightful villains. When I first heard that they brought Darth Maul back, I thought it sounded silly, seeing as he was - you know - cut in half in The Phantom Menace, but boy was it the right call.

But what about Thrawn, then? Did he live up to the hype? Well... he still might. It's only fair to say that Thrawn doesn't only appear in Star Wars Rebels but in a number of novels too, and may have acquired most of his fan base that way. In Rebels, he shows potential: he's clearly cleverer and more complex than your average Imperial officer. But I'm a good way into season three, which is when he first appears, and he hasn't had a substantial win over the rebels yet. His strategic genius is more talked-about than in evidence. Even with a high-ranking spy in his inner circle, how could he let those important new ship designs go?

It made me reflect on the well-known problem of recurring villains in long-running franchises - like, for instance, multi-season TV series. Fans want them and grow attached to them, but how can you as a villain keep losing to the good guys, as the genre demands, and still be seen as a threat to be taken seriously? Plenty of strategies are deployed which are more or less successful. Here are a handful, not all of them to be recommended:

Winning battles but losing the war: One of the very best options. If you want your long-running villain to be respected, give him (or her, but I'll use he/him here because of my personal preferences) some wins! You can still have the heroes triumph at the end when it really matters and the fate of the Earth/galaxy/universe/other is at stake. But showing that they are evenly matched by the villains - maybe even outmatched - adds tension to the final showdowns.

The close shave: This is the standard solution - the heroes defeat the villain, but it's not easy. There are some tense moments when it could all have gone in another direction. Works well once or twice, which is why this narrative device is what you usually see in feature-length films, but in a long-running series, you can't use it too often, or the villain will look incompetent no matter what. A player who keeps hitting the goal post is not a good goal scorer.

The cynical miscalculation: Sooner or later, the villain has to start making mistakes. It helps if these mistakes aren't simply dumb errors, but based on the limits of a villainous outlook. Of course it would be foolish to think a hero would be tempted from the straight and narrow by, say, greed, but there are other failings a hero might be prone to because of their self-righteousness, such as vindictiveness (masquerading as "serving justice") and a certain longing for power (for the greater good, of course). If a villain bases his strategy on an over-reliance on his opponents' weaknesses, then that doesn't come across as too idiotic. It only shows that there is a part of being a hero which a villain simply doesn't "get".

The bigger threat: As used in such different franchises as Doctor Who and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (achingly wholesome, but not too wholesome for some pleasingly twisted villain ships). In summary, the protagonist/s have to put their struggle against the main antagonist aside because even greater trouble is brewing - sometimes they get help from their enemy, sometimes not. The reason why it has become a bit of a cliché that the Doctor and the Master must join forces to defeat some universe-shaking threat is that it works so well. The Master can get something right for a change and prove his genius without it having world-burning consequences, and then once the alliance is done he (or she if it's Missy) can go back to being a total selfish bastard. Neat. A variation of this strategy is "the wild card", where the recurring villain has his own agenda, but is not set up as the heroes' main antagonist. The wild card's function can be summed up by quoting Rumple/Mr Gold and Emma from Once Upon a Time: "Are you suggesting I'm working for Regina or against her?" "I don't know... Maybe diagonally".

The problem is that viewers tend to crave a strong main antagonist. You can't put the main threat elsewhere indefinitely, and you can't get away with always upstaging the main villain with a "wild card". Except in Once.

"Ah, just as I anticipated": This is the opposite of winning the battles but losing the war: the villain takes smaller losses with equanimity, because he has a Master Plan, and even losses teach him something about his opponent, or will help him to win in the long run. Thrawn in Rebels is a good example of this narrative device so far. But much as I love Master Plans, they very rarely work out, and unless you can create some really impactful scenes where the heroes think they're properly screwed because of the villain's master planning, the viewer will catch on to the fact that the supposedly intelligent baddie ended up losing the battles and the war.

Blaming your underlings: Also known as "sitting on a throne and complaining". Unless you're Palpatine, don't do this. Making your minions seem incompetent won't make you seem cleverer. One, the success of a mission is the boss's responsibility. Once or twice, you can keep your master-villain reputation by blaming others: it might even come across as relateable (we've all been there, when we've done everything right, and then it all falls apart because of someone else's mistake). But ultimately you're responsible for your henchmen: if they're not up to scratch, fire them or kill them or something. Better still, do some of the work yourself. Because, two, even if your underlings miss a trick or two, if all you've done is sit on a throne (or similar), then they've probably done more for the villainous cause than you. Fantasy Palpatine - sorry, Galbatorix - in the film Eragon is a good example of how throne-complaining comes across. (If you wonder why I've watched this film when all fans of the book hate it - well, just look at the cast list.) Fantasy Darth Vader (Durza) may not have been able to kill off Fantasy Luke (Eragon), but he did for Fantasy Obi-Wan (Brom) and very nearly Fantasy Leia (Arya) too, plus he knows where the rebel base is. In fact, he's done all of the heavy lifting, while all Galbatorix does is whine about incompetence in the tones of John Malkovich seemingly on valium. Just topple the lazy sod and take over, Durza - I'm rooting for you.