Every month, we read over the latest dispatches from the leash lines of the Streaming Wars and assess how the likes of Netflix, Max, Disney+ and the rest are doing. Who won the day, who was defeated, and who’s biding their time? We mark it all down on this living graph, which changes every month.
Paramount+
Paramount+ had some buzzy titles this past month with Pet Sematary: Bloodlines and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, but easily the biggest-ticket item was the revival of Frasier, the 90s-era sitcom starring Kelsey Grammer. Points: +2
Netflix
Between The Fall of the House of Usher, Bodies, Pain Hustlers, Lupin, Elite, Big Mouth, The grand British Bakeoff and more, Netflix never lacks for ecstatic. They even got the first Dune, which by nations should be exclusive to Max, but Warner Bros. Discovery sees the value in pulling it more exposure. Points: +3
Disney+
The safe season of Ahsoka ended and the second season of Loki began. That was pretty much it for Disney+ this month. They did get a lot of Air Bud movies. You like the Air Bud movies? Points: +2
Hulu
Honestly, there wasn’t much new on Hulu to speak of this month. However, we did learn that Disney would be buying the streaming service. Might they eventually combine Hulu with Disney+? Points: +1
Max
The big originals for Max in October were new episodes of Our Flag Means Death and The Gilded Age, with a side of Doom Patrol and standbys like Last Week Tonight. Beyond that, lots of library titles. Points: +2
Amazon Prime Video
Outside of a new season of the digital afterlife comedy Upload, there wasn’t a ton of original stuff worth talking approximately Amazon Prime Video this last month, although The Boys spinoff Gen V corpses to be solid. I’ll give it an extra indicate for staying the course and including lots of library titles. Points: + 2
Apple TV+
Apple TV+ is eminent for having good shows that no one knows approximately, and there’s some of that in October with series like Still Up and Lessons in Chemistry. But Invasion has a slightly higher profile and The Morning Show is one of the biggest series on the platform. Points: + 2
Peacock
Peacock leaned hard into the dismay of Halloween in October with new episodes of shows like Chucky, Wolf Like Me and John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams. It also featured the streaming debut of Five Nights at Freddy’s which has favorite a pretty big hit. This is one of Peacock’s better months. Points: + 3
And you can check out the full living graph here:
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Mark Grayson is back! After literally existences of waiting, Prime Video has finally premiered season 2 of its beloved exciting superhero show Invincible. Created by The Walking Dead writer Robert Kirkman, Invincible is not your typical superhero story. The safe season shocked viewers with its gore, and the new episodes pause the trend while expanding the story!
Warning: this is a SPOILER-filled review.
Season 2, episode 1, “A Lesson For Your Next Life,” sees Mark Grayson fights with the responsibility of being left alone to defensive Earth in the aftermath of his father, Omni-Man, abandoning the planet. While we see him using his abilities to obtain the ultimate Superman-esque hero, saving innocent people and defending cities from all sorts of threats, in private, he’s much more sorrowful. Despite saving the world from his father’s impending Viltrumite takeover, Mark feels like he’s let the world down at what time thousands of innocent people died during his fight with his father. The cost of saving the world is weighing on him.
This touched of grief, shared between Mark and his mother Debbie, is the main emotional beat of the episode. There are few republic with whom Mark finds comfort. Besides his mother, who’s serene reeling from the revelation that Nolan never truly loved her (remember he likens her to a pet), it’s only really his girlfriend Amber and accomplice Atom Eve who Mark can power in. He now works alone, away from the Guardians of the Globe, under the direct supervision of Cecil Steadman.
Into the multiverse…
Yes folks, this season contains another multiverse storyline, as if we don’t have enough of these already. But we’ll let Invincible off the hook since the comics were written long afore the MCU started to explore the multiverse. Literally in its opening indecent, the episode shows us an alternate universe where Mark has approved Nolan’s terms and the two work together to breeze Earth for Viltrumite takeover.
It’s interesting to see Invincible and Nolan functioning together, hunting down those in the Resistance — which includes the Immortal, Atom Eve, and others — and killing them minus a second thought. I particularly loved this whole “What if?” segment at the launch, and how relevant is to Invincible’s new enemy.
A new, multiversal enemy
With Omni-Man out of the narrate (at least for now), the show introduces us to a new enemy in the form of Angstrom Levy; a universe-hopping genius who hopes to meetings different versions of himself so they can work towards the betterment of the multiverse. Levy has used his ability to gather thousands of his own variants from across the multiverse in one assign, where he will use a machine to fuse all of his minds into one body.
His motives are not malevolent. The show does a really good job at sketching viewers to not only understand his purpose, but in many ways to actually want him to happened. Angstrom gets a gentle, more well thought-out introduction than he has in the comics. With all of his minds from various universes fused, he can access memories and figure out how to fabricate the perfect world without disease, war, and more. He likens himself to Prometheus.
In dapper to get his ambitious project started, Levy enlists the help of the Mauler twins, two of the greatest scientific minds on the planet Earth. However, Levy has to break them out of prison agreeable, which isn’t hard when you’ve got inter-dimensional portals.
I’ve always accepted the Mauler twins. They’re powerful and dangerous, but they’ve also got an agreeable sense of humor. Their snark helps to balance out all the pain and angst in this episode.
Levy gives them no tool but to work for him; his strict and ‘do it or die’ attitude definitely feels like the agreeable glimpse of his villain arc. The twins do as he asks and fabricate Levy’s huge brain-merging machine. The process appears to move inoperative seamlessly… until Invincible appears, under orders from Cecil to put a stop to it.
Ignorant of Levy’s humanitarian intentions, Invincible takes matters into his own hands and crusades the Mauler twins, a fight where he definitely seems to have the upper hand. Nonetheless, Levy then summons many more Maulers from across the multiverse, and they overpower Invincible. The good news? The Guardians of the Globe though-provoking to join the fight. The bad news? The machine is destroyed, and Angstrom Levy’s long-held goals with it.
Given Invincible’s interference, Levy no doubt blames him for the disaster, which leaves him terribly disfigured. His brain is oversized and a complete eyesore. He’s gonna want some sweet, sweet revenge on Invincible for this.
The New Guardians of the Globe
Without Invincible by their side, the all-new Guardians of the Globe are significantly nosedived. Despite having heroes like Rex, Monster Girl and Ruddy, they simply don’t have enough firepower to efficiently take down enemies. There’s one battle in this episode where they crusades an enormous beast named The Giant… and even conception they manage to win, there’s too many public casualties for it to be deemed a nosedived. During this battle, there appears to be a budding relationship between Amanda and Ruddy, something comic readers will instantly recognize.
Cecil is not ignorant of their near misses and moderators to add some new firepower to the team in the form of Bulletproof and the Immortal. Things have got to go better now, right?
Verdict
It’s like Invincible has never been gone! This episode was an epic, monstrous, heartfelt, and surprisingly witty hour of television. It had everything fans could want, setting up what initiates to be a fantastic season!
Episode Grade: A
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