The Last Of Us
The big TV launch of the week was, at least for a certain audience, season two of The Last Of Us; perhaps you noticed it mentioned obliquely in the press? You’ll remember it from 2023, when the first season was praised as “the best video game adaptation ever” and it was indeed quite good – but as you watched it, didn’t you just get the faint suspicion that most episodes were the same: a walk through the post-apocalyptic America (the world having been destroyed by a parasitic fungus, Cordyceps), something dangerous rushing out from a dark doorway, a narrow escape?
Still, it stood out enough that it deserved its inevitable return, and here at last is season two, coming with a level of hype and gush that instinctively makes me suspicious. As we rejoin the weary Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a possible saviour for mankind, five years have passed since season one. They have found some kind of regular life, and even hope, in the ruined town of Jackson in Wyoming, but it’s far from perfect, or even safe. They each have their own issues, not to mention a fracturing relationship; other people continue to split off into violent factions rather than working together; and aside from all that, there’s still the fungus, still spreading, still evolving into new horrors.
The first episode sets the scene quite well, with a lived-in commune and some believable gripes between the main pair. And even though they’re mostly kept apart, other new characters are there to keep us interested, from Kaitlyn Dever’s vengeful Abby to Catherine O’Hara’s Gail…who is, for good or ill, a therapist, which allows Joel (and so the show itself) to become talkier than before, explaining thoughts and messages to us a little too directly. The quieter moments remain effective, though, and the bursts of action are well done (although the show has often had an uneven pace), and the performances are excellent. Apparently it makes some changes which might upset game players, but that won’t matter to most people – overall it’s a strong first episode and hopefully it can use its mere seven episodes to deliver something memorable.
Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer
A few years ago Liz Garbus made the superior true-crime series I’ll Be Gone In The Dark, which, years and dozens of similar shows later, is still one of the most memorable. It’s a good sign, than, that Garbus is also behind Netflix’s new true-crime series Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer, a three-parter that follows the years-long hunt for a murderer of young women on the island between the 1990s and 2011. Not that the hunt had begun in the 1990s, though – it began only in May 2010 with the disappearance of Shannan Gilbert, during which search the police kept unearthing body after body in the Gilgo Beach area. By the time ten bodies had been unearthed, none of which were Gilbert, it had become a major story, a case stretched between the island and NYC itself, with police corruption and lack of interest countered largely by the victims’ families (mainly Gilbert’s mother Mari) campaigning for justice.
It’s a typically horrible story, but it’s soberly told without sensationalism, and while we eventually get a better than usual look at the killer, the series is admirable for putting the girls and their families front and centre (in contradiction of the police’s apparent lack of interest, possibly own to the victims’ involvement in sex work). We learn about them, and about some strange habits and relationships inside the police force, and the trail that led them to the culprit is slow but clearly laid out here. One of the better, more satisfying and more respectful true crime murder stories we’ve had lately.
The Fire In Me Now
RTE1’s The Fire In Me Now was an unusually quiet and low-key profile of the actor Stephen Rea, but it was always interesting because Rea himself is interesting – and this despite the fact that he kicked it all off by saying “I don’t really like interviews.” He might not like them, but he was happy (well, at least willing) to engage, recounting his thoughts and experiences with his usual pleasingly hangdog demeanour: his early life in Northern Ireland, his striving for authenticity over his long acting career, his love for Donegal (some great shots of the county are included).
The occasion for the profile was his preparation for the Samuel Beckett play Krapp’s Last Tape in Dublin, which was, frankly a gift to the producers: not only do we get to see the actor at work behind the scenes (and he’s been recording himself for years for this play, so that he can play against his own younger voice), but the play’s retrospective nature invites the same from Rea at this stage in his life and career. He’s filmed here not only in sometimes cranky rehearsal, but in conversations with other colleagues and collaborators like Neil Jordan (of course) and Eamon McCann, and it’s an enjoyably unglossy, somewhat moody look at his life and work.
Rebuilding Notre-Dame
What? It’s been five years since Notre Dame Cathedral burned? Yes it has, but in fairness to the BBC, they’ve kept us well-informed about the rebuilding progress, offering occasional documentaries to tell us of the fresh discoveries made and restoration techniques used along the way. The Cathedral finally reopened in December 2024, so now they have given us Rebuilding Notre-Dame: The Last Chapter, a film account of the later stages of reconstruction; and they’ve even put Lucy Worsley into it to guide us through it.
You don’t expect something of this scale and complexity to be a simple reconstruction, of course, but there are so many things here that you would scarcely have thought of at all – it was a challenge even for the expert teams sent in to do the work as authentically as possible. A lot of the later focus, for example, was on the roof and spire, where they not only came across building techniques they did not expect, but had to source and process 2,000 perfect oak trees to rebuild it all. Not to mention 2500 tons of very particular, fossil- spotted stone, and a small ocean of lead. And it all had to be the same as before, right down to the carpenters’ markings on the wooden beams. And oh, the subsequent dusting of every nook and cranny.
It’s an unusual combination in a show: partly a close-up look at things like the Rose Window we don’t normally see, partly a bit of gritty engineering, and partly a delve into 850 years of history and art. Worsley is a good guide too, clearly fascinated by the building: a user-friendly guide to an immense project, the kind of fascinating glimpse we can enjoy even while hoping it doesn’t happen again.
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