Avengers: Endgame – The Unpacking

After Avengers: Endgame came out in theaters, I saw Marvel fans take to social media to say that now the series with the original characters has ended, they are finished with Marvel movies. I personally can’t understand that mindset – how can you have come this far, seen the stories of these amazing characters play out, and not care about how they move forward from here? Maybe Marvel has successfully brainwashed me, but short of a film on the same level of The Incredible Hulk, I can’t imagine just deciding to give it all up now. And Avengers: Endgame, with its crazy-long run-time, bouts of fan-service nostalgia, and occasional hurried misuse of the story we’ve come to know and love, never stoops to the lower levels of the Quality Spectrum. Though it never quite matches the intensity and magnitude of Avengers: Infinity War (despite being a good half hour longer), it still ends in a way that brings closure to an audience who’s followed it for almost ten years. Whether you’re happy or upset (should be more of the former, I think), Avengers: Endgame feels like the end of the story that the characters have built to, and it closes the book on a pretty great chapter in the MCU. While I have included a score at the end of this post (like always), I feel that this is less of a review and more of an unpacking of all of the elements that make up the film. You can understand my point of view and take that as a review if you wish, but it’s intended to look at the different pieces of this large movie and understand how they came together, as well as what did and didn’t work.

Galavant: Second Season Starts Flat

*Warning: Potential Spoilers for first two episodes*

The five-week medieval extravaganza known as Galavant returned to ABC last Sunday after the enthusiastic response to its first season, complete with a new opening song and quest for our hero Galavant (Joshua Sasse) to complete in ten episodes for the next few weeks. Sadly, however, the show is so focused on celebrating its return to the air (despite the criticism and uncertainty after last season) that they seem to have lost sight of why Galavant was enjoyable in the first place- it wasn’t all about playing with the fourth wall and using modern day terms, those were just minor notes in the fun and musical adventure. From what I’ve seen in the first two episodes of this season, however, those are going to be the details we get the most of this year.