Cheezwiz

Agreed! I could use something trashy and fun to watch right now. I was shocked at how addictive this silly (and staged) show was!

Have you seen "Happy Valley" on Netflix @Milburn Stone? It's an excellent, very gritty series, and Siobhan Finneran plays a supporting role. She's a much different character in this show: a fragile and gentle recovering addict sister to the lead actress who is a hard-ass police sergeant. It's a very dark intense show, but I highly recommend! 2 seasons of 6 episodes each available for streaming on Netflix. It's the only other thing I've seen her in besides The Stranger & Downton Abbey, but I'll be on the lookout for more - LOVE her. A detective series of her own would be great.

Wow, that's a detail that was completely lost on me. So "Chris" was supposed to be a male to female trans character? I didn't pick up on that at all - I don't recall the Stephen Rea character ever referring to Chris as his son. When was this revealed?

It sounded like on the show they were fabricating an accomplice of Jack's, but I couldn't get a grip on the details. They concocted some sort of story in the book as well, but I can't remember the specifics of how it worked.

Yes, the book was much stronger in this regard, and they had a much better rapport. Same! Her character was much more consistent and level-headed in the book, so points to Stephen King for that one.

@General Days, my hypothetical plot twist probably didn't need to be spoilered, I was just being hyper-aware, as I've had other seemingly innocuous things put in spoiler tags by moderators in the past. : ) Sometimes I can't tell which things can be freely discussed so I'm erring on the side of caution.

I actually enjoyed the finale, but I agree with everyone else, that this should have been eight episodes max. I thought the shoot-out at the cave was quite gripping even though I kinda knew how it was going to play out from reading the book. And I agree, the conclusion where the creature is supposedly vanquished is a bit of a lame let-down, but the show pretty much stuck to how the book played out, and as anyone who is a Stephen King fan knows, Uncle Stevie can write hair-raising page-turning beginnings to his novels, but often has trouble sticking his landings. This book unfortunately was no different. Valiant performances by the actors though - especially from Mendelsohn. I actually thought the movie might do a twist at the end: I'm also not too horrified by the thought of a second season, especially if Price and Lehane are involved again as writers - I thought they made a lot of improvements to the original material from the novel, and they could potentially write something new and interesting. i thought the actor's performances were uniformly great, and felt like they were really starting to gel as a team in the finale. RIP Andy, I knew you were a goner, but you were a gud'un. I wasn't sure who those kids were supposed to be either, but that's a good guess. At first I thought they might be the two kids trapped in the old-timey cave-in, but their clothes were modern. I missed the bit about Holly getting a scratch, so I'm very glad for the eagle-eyed people on these forums!

Maybe Shakespeare was paraphrasing St. Augustine when he wrote the famous line from Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy (science)."

Agreed on all of the above! They really need to tone down the on-screen graphics so viewers can actually see the models walk. And can you imagine what the designers could have created with even a few more days? Is the show that strapped for cash? I'd love to see them get a FULL week (none of this half-day of fittings on show day nonsense) or two at least!

Although I was entertained by him in this movie, for me, his performance wasn't anything special. I think DiCaprio gave by far the best performance of the two (and I'm not particularly a fan of either). DiCaprio managed be hilariously self-involved yet sympathetic. I think any handsome slightly beat-up looking but still fit middle-aged actor could have played Brad's part. I admit, the roof-top scene made my jaw drop, but basically Brad got an Oscar simply for taking off his shirt.

I was a bit distracted at the very beginning and it actually took me about 2 thirds of the way through the episode to clue in to the fact that the two boys getting lost in the cave was a flashback. I thought the writers were just throwing additional vulnerable people into the mix of the finale. I got all confused by the period cars and clothing of the people in the search party! The conclusion appears to be adhering pretty closely to the book after all. It appears the DA has a major case of the guilties after new evidence was presented to him.

If you haven't seen "Bloodline" on Netflix yet, I highly recommend it - quite a contrast from his role in this series.

Alas, I fear Andy is toast. He is the proverbial expendable character (aka Star Trek red-shirt). I've already heard (read) rumblings they want to do another season of this show, so Holly can't be distracted by trivial things like romance! I think the nervous Iraq War veteran who guilted himself into re-joining the investigative team at the last minute is also probably a goner. But I could be completely wrong of course!

I agree with this as well. I think this could have been compressed into 8 episodes and it would have been perfect. After watching a bunch of British cable series, it's become apparent to me that brevity can be much more effective. US shows are all about more is more. Or more for the bottom line? I don't know the reasoning.

Mendelsohn is a phenomenal actor. In Bloodline, he constantly walked a line between being somewhat sympathetic and skin-crawlingly creepy. I was very surprised to see him cast as a straight man in "The Outsider" because his forte seems to be skeevy villains, but he's totally working for me in this role as well. I also always forget that he's actually Australian.

I just binged Seasons 1 & 2, and have to say that I enjoyed both. This was like a nicer, gentler version of "Girls", and I happen to like Aidy Bryant a whole lot more than Lena Dunham. I liked most of the side-characters, including her parents, and especially her roommate who is usually the awesome voice of reason. I'm hoping the break-up with Doofus Ryan will be for good this time. He was not mean-spirited, but just a clueless man-child, and when Annie attended Gabe's salon, you could see that he would be holding her back big-time. It was clear that someone like the nice illustrator guy Annie met at the party would be a much better match for her (and he seemed to like her too). Wow, John Cameron Mitchell excels at playing snarky narcissistic dickheads. I love that they've written him as an "I was punk before punk was cool" dude. I had no idea the Gabe character was supposedly at least in part based on Dan Savage - I find that a juicy and hilarious tidbit. It was fun seeing Illeana Douglas as the Thorn's publisher - haven't seen her in anything in ages! Will definitely watch a Season 3 if there is one.

I agree with this - people who are trying to lure kids aren't necessarily obvious scuzzballs in trenchcoats waving candy and going "psst... hey kid come with me". When I was a kid, I thought I was pretty savvy about danger from strange adults, but my Dad was a cop, and he drilled potential scenarios into me that really gave me pause: someone needing help trying to find a lost pet for example, or someone coming up to you saying they were a parent's co-worker and that they'd been taken to emergency, and that you needed to come with them right away, etc. I definitely might have been dumb enough to fall for those ploys, even though we'd had stranger danger drilled into us as youngsters. The show did stretch credibility slightly regarding the boy's age - even if I was excited to venture into a dinosaur cave (which, nerd alert! I TOTALLY would have been!), I probably would have sought out my family for permission. But I could see a kid getting caught up in overexcitement and forgetting himself in busy surroundings. Eh, I was enjoying the episode and just went with it.

The book does not offer an explanation, but in both the book & show, it's implied that this creature (or perhaps there are multiple creatures around the globe) is eternal, and has been a part of human folklore all over the world since the beginning of time. Ancient child eating monsters are a favourite trope of Stephen King (see "IT"). Could be that only now our modern technology is able to catch people on camera, and allows people from far flung places to communicate quickly and compare notes.

Kudos to the show's sound design team, because man, those scenes where "The Thing" was feeding on poor unsuspecting victims his minion Jack Hoskins had procured were mighty convincing. You couldn't see a thing, but the audio was effin' disgusting and terrifying! There are vague similarities to how the novel begins its final wrap-up, but thus far, I'm liking the show version a lot better. Ralph's finally on the train with everyone else. Sablo is actually beginning to grow on me. Since he seems like a genuinely decent caring guy, I suspect poor Andy is probably toast (not a spoiler, just a hunch - his character doesn't exist in the novel).

I don't think folding pizza boxes was the family's end career goal. I think it was more of a temporary gig to bring in income while they continued to seek out other better-paying work. We see them trying to get wifi at the beginning of the film to look at job postings. Much like people in N. America work as office temps, or do delivery work while they job-hunt. It was a way to get income to at least put a bit of food on the table. And they probably thought that with the whole family doing it (many hands) they could bring in more money. As for the son & daughter, yes, they were skilled, but neither had been able to afford university to get official accreditation. This would have been a major barrier to finding full-time work. Official certification is the key to open the door in many professions. When the golden tutoring opportunity was presented by the son's friend, desperation prodded them to get creative and print up fake documents. The parents are a bit more of a mystery - we see in the film that they are not tech savvy. Their lack of education and working class background may have been more obvious to people doing hiring and may have resulted in fewer opportunities. It sounds like they had a string of failed small business attempts which may have decimated their savings, and perhaps their confidence.

Thanks for the recommendation! I'm a bit of a thriller/intrigue junkie so I need to look up more of Coben's work - had not heard of him at all before watching this, but it sounds like there's lots of other stuff to explore! Yes, that's the only explanation I could come up with - it wasn't explained very well in the show. And add me to the chorus of people who would LOVE to see Siobhan Finneran with her own Detective show - she was fantastic! Also it took me FOREVER to realize that she was O'Brien, the scheming lady's maid on Downton Abbey! I knew she was really familiar, but couldn't place her until the show wrapped.

I think one of the (many) points of the film was to show that crushing inequities of capitalism can make it hard even for resourceful clever people to establish themselves and have stable income. We're NOT supposed to sympathize with the Kim family - they've been reduced to snatching up scraps, and will do anything, even long-cons to try and get steady work. They are scammers who've pretty much tossed most of their morals out the window. The film shows how people at the top, even if not evil, are totally cosseted and insulated from any unpleasantness. They live in a bubble of obliviousness, while the lower classes fight each other for crumbs. I appreciated that Bong Joon-Ho did not follow the usual Western good guy/bad guy tropes, and made his characters a bit more shaded. Characters do not necessarily have to be likeable or sympathetic to be interesting in a film.

I'm not familiar with Richard Armitage at all, but now I feel like I need to seek out North & South which I've never seen. He really is Brit hotness! And I totally bought Anthony Head (hey, it's that coffee commercial guy!) as his asshole Dad as well. I doubt I would have been as conciliatory as he was with "Chris" even if she saved his life and was a half-sibling. She ruined so many lives (and caused a couple of deaths) on her shady quest for cash. Another plot-hole that confused me - didn't the Price's live in the old neighbourhood at the same time Killan was raising his "daughter" as a single Dad? Wouldn't they have recognized her? For me, the most irksome plot hole was the very end of the show. I don't understand why the Detective didn't just leave the gun at the scene and make up some sort of self-defense story for Price (a struggle for the gun). It made no sense to plant the gun in the loft and try to blame Katz. How would that even work? But otherwise I was amazed at how engrossed I got in the story! I'm finding harder and harder to find entertaining stuff on Netflix, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Wow, that was a really well choreographed fight scene with Jo & Katz. The actor playing Katz is doing a great job - he genuinely seems dangerously nuts! I wonder what's going to happen with his "business associate". I'm a bit confused by the reveal at the end about Killane's daughter (I figured she had to be related to SOMEBODY on the show) - hasn't the show established that the Prices and Killane all lived in the same (now demolished) neighbourhood at one time? And Killane raised his kid there alone? Wouldn't they have known and recognized his daughter even if she'd been estranged for a long time? It appears Daisy is the biggest jerk of all the teens. Poor Thomas is a nice kid with crappy friends. This has been a really unexpectedly fun roller-coaster ride of a show.

Good episode. Both Price and Lehane have made improvements to the story - very curious to see how they will wrap things up. One more episode left? I really like how clever and resourceful Holly is. That was a hair-raising escape! I didn't quite catch what the young couple said to Glory during the house showing that set her off. I hope she gets some dough from the city for what she and her kids have been through. I also enjoyed seeing both Jeannie and Sablo read the riot act to Ralph. Dude, get on board, 'cause there ain't no normal or rational anymore.