A confession: I’m an unrepentant Marcia Clark fan. As lead prosecutor in the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson, she showed uncommon class, intelligence, and poise in a circus-like atmosphere that encouraged grandiosity and egotism. After suffering a devastating defeat, Clark—who began her career as a criminal defense attorney—left the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office and…
Hello, and welcome back to my look at Season 2 of the Marvel/Netflix collaboration, Iron Fist. Since this season was (thankfully) shorter than the previous, I’ll bring this feature to a close today with an examination of Episode 8: “Citadel on the Edge of Vengeance”; Episode 9: “War Without End”; and Episode 10: “A Duel…
Despite its utter failure to provide stability for the German people between the wars, the late Weimar Republic has been fabulously successful in another regard: providing the perfect morally dubious backdrop for generations of spy, political, and crime thrillers. If noir ever lived anywhere, it was in Weimar Berlin—amidst political and economic upheaval, social unrest,…
Hello, and welcome back to my look at the sophomore season of the Marvel/Netflix show Iron Fist. Last time, we kicked things off with a look at episodes 1-4, which weren’t great but were still way better than anything from the train wreck that was Iron Fist Season 1. Can the show continue to get…
Hello, and welcome back to my reviews of the Netflix corner of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe! If you go back and look at my reviews of Iron Fist Season 1 for Criminal Element, you’ll see I really tried to give the show a chance—it was just an overwhelmingly bad show. However, the end of The Defenders…
As several philosophers will tell you, all things eventually transform into their opposites. To see the proof of that, we need look no further than the final three episodes of Luke Cage Season 2. Luke (Mike Colter), who has sought to avoid shifting from Harlem’s hero to just another destructive force hurting his neighbors, finds…
Criminals and their heinous acts are undoubtedly something that fascinates us all, especially fans of thrillers and true crime stories. We follow the sordid details when the bad guys are caught and put on trial, but it’s not the crime itself that draws us in. It’s that unanswerable question of why. Why would someone feel…
The only difference between the poor and the rich, according to a highly disputed piece of conventional wisdom, is hard work; conventional wisdom also says that the only difference between crime and legitimate enterprise is the law (this can also be disputed). So at what point does a criminal’s hard work result in legitimate success?…
One difference between a comic book story and a crime story is the amount of face time given to the villain. In the early days of comics, only the heroes had to make tough choices; villains rarely stayed around beyond a couple of issues. In contrast, a crime story gives its dangerous characters a chance…
Do any of us really have the free will to make our own choices? That’s the underlying theme for the finale of Season 2, and a line from Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) sums it up like this: in being free, one should be able to question fundamental drives and to override them. From the point…
