'Attack on Titan' Season 3, Episode 10: 'Friends'

 

This episode picks up where the last one left off, with Levi finding Kenny near death.  We do see a snippet of the prior being alerted to the latter being found, which helped mitigate one of my quibbles with the scene in the last episode.

With Kenny on the verge of death, it should come as no surprise that this is largely a flashback episode that tells us his story.  It's a little weird that he gets the most development just as he's dying, but it does still work out pretty well.

We come to see how he came to become in league with the Reiss family and what his reasons for doing so were.  We also see how he came to take Levi, who is actually his nephew, under his wing. Some of this was hinted at here and there, but we get a much fuller picture here than we had ever gotten before.

While Kenny takes center stage, the real show stealer is Uri Reiss, Rod's younger brother.  He is one of the wiser characters we've seen in the show.  He also has a pretty eerie introduction as he is able to go into a sort of quasi-titan form that gives him the monstrous power, but also allows him to maintain full control of his actions.  The style they use for his eyes really helps sell the weird effect.

Despite his creepy appearance, Uri is quite compassionate, even going so far as to bow and apologize to Kenny for the persecution his family has suffered. It's what allows Kenny to put aside his cruder impulses and begin to form a genuine friendship with the man.

Said friendship is what sets Kenny on his path to try and obtain the titan serum.  Interestingly, while he craves its power, it isn't so that he can unleash more bloodshed.  On the contrary, after seeing Uri, he wonders if compassion is a luxury for those who have power.  As such, he wants to see if him obtaining that power will give him the same sort of empathy that Uri has.  It's an interesting subversion of the usual tropes involving the acquisition of power.  It gave the episode a more layered approach to the story and allowed it to stand on its own rather than retread all too familiar territory.

There isn't too much forward progress in the overall plot.  Kenny hands Levi the serum and reveals their connection before he dies.  Historia takes her crown and is universally respected and admired.  We also see a quick stinger where the Beast titan looms over a beaten colossal titan and reveals that they will go through with his plan to obtain the coordinate rather than try to rescue Annie.  It would have been cool to see the fight, but the quick scene we get tells us all we need to know.  It was just good to see the Beast titan again after such a lengthy absence.  It seems like he's coming back to the forefront.

While I did like this episode quite a bit, this probably isn't an area where you want to take a lengthy hiatus.  Having the family mechanics and history fresh in your mind will help you enjoy and appreciate this episode a lot more.  I was able to get by on my broad strokes recollection of certain details, but it's looking like more regular viewing is going to be required if I'm going to move forward into the series.

'In the Tall Grass' Movie Review

 

This had been sitting on my Netflix list for some time now.  I figured it was time to start cleaning house and finally knock it out.  I read the original novella back when it was originally published in Esquire, but that was some time ago.  I did write about it, but those articles were lost when Examiner shut down.  I do remember not being particularly blown away by it.  That was probably one of the reasons why I kept this one on the backburner for as long as I did.

To the movie's credit, it actually is a stronger work than the source material.  Where the story felt pretty thin, the movie has time to flesh out certain elements and give the characters more time to shine.  While the characters are still daft for never thinking to use their car horns as a way try to help get others out, they do act more intelligently here than they did in the story.  One character attempts to leave himself a trail by tying some of the grass stems in knots and he later uses a child as a sort of periscope to try to keep them oriented while they try to make their way back to the main road.  Neither effort works, but still, credit for clever thinking.  Surprisingly, nobody tries to set the field ablaze.  We see one character smoking early on, I thought for sure that it was going to be a "Chekhov's Gun" situation, but nope.  Even when they're convinced that they're not getting out, nobody suggests taking the field with them.

Speaking of, the field itself gets more to do.  The disorientation and relocation are still present, but we see that the field can even distort time itself.  It adds to the eerie, alien element of the field and gives the movie some interesting "timey wimey ball" elements that end up playing a pretty critical role in the plot.  The rock also gets more detail and focus brought to it.  We're never told what it is exactly, but we get a lot more detail as to how it works and what its attempting to accomplish.

That being said, despite the movie being well under 2 hours (an hour, 40) it still drags quite a bit.  The director does get a little over-indulgent at certain points, especially as the movie gets closer to the climax.  It also gets tough to care when you see characters die repeatedly only to pop back in later.  It makes sense, as it's shown that the characters have gone through several loops and they're all intersecting at various points, but it does undercut the tension quite a bit.

The cast all do a good job.  Patrick Wilson is probably the stand out, as he gets to play both friendly and menacing, sometimes at the same time.

As far as King adaptations go, this one's solid.  It's faithful enough, but it also goes in its own direction.  It does have problems, so I don't know if I'd call it a must watch, but there's enough good stuff here to say that it doesn't warrant a hard pass either.

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