Month: September 2021

After a season of madness and shenanigans, Murphy finally found Jess.

It’s been a rough season of In the Dark, but In the Dark Season 3 Episode 12 finally delivered on the 11-episode mystery surrounding the status of Jessica, and it was something else. What? You can decide.

Here are the highlights, lowlights, and WTF-lights of the hour.

Murphy Mason P.I., Outpolicing the Police

Begrudging kudos to the series for dragging out this Jennifer Walker situation. By golly, we got invested.

At this rate, can we get Murphy Mason a P.I. license since she’s already running circles around law enforcement when it comes to solving cases? She’s a one-woman show with Pretzel in tow.

Despite the preposterous nature of this case, it wasn’t surprising that Murphy would stumble right into finding out Jennifer’s creepy uncle was an incestuous pedophile who has been keeping his niece in the basement this entire time.

Murphy resorted to using her feminine wiles, manipulating sweet ladies in the grocery store, and the usual Murphy antics to get close to Creepy Uncle, sneak back into his home, and discover Jennifer.

Jennifer was who we saw in that flash. The poor girl is suffering from some serious Stockholm Syndrome and under the impression that sleeping in the locked basement room, not seeing the light of day, and having her uncle deliver her tampons on the regular is synonymous with love.

Murphy is too good of a person to leave Jennifer there despite the deal she struck with Creepy Uncle, so hopefully, a rescue mission is in the works.

Lesley Bell is that B*tch (No, but really, in both ways)

The Millennial Mod Squad got a lead on that little pink gun that belonged to Lesley, and naturally, they used that to muscle their way into her home with a warrant, searching for Murphy.

Is Lesley the worst? Absolutely, but she’s badass when she gets into lawyer mode, and when she let Gene and Josh have it, it was a fist-pump moment. Enough of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle Dumber running roughshod around multiple states as if the laws and rules don’t matter.

However, Lesley lying and gaslighting her brother about kicking Murphy out was some certified bullcrap. Lesley’s stances don’t make sense no matter how you slice it.

She’s fine harboring Max, a fugitive, as long as he’s slipping her the D. Lesley begrudgingly has decided that she’s the best sister in the world and wants to protect Felix. But she’s put everything under the sun on Murphy as the guilty party.

To refresh your memories, Max laundered money and maybe slung dope for Nia before he met Murphy. Felix and Jess stole Nia’s money and kickstarted a great deal of this. Murphy was … trying to find out who murdered her friend.

It was beyond satisfying when both Felix and Max went off on Lesley. Regardless of how she attempted to clean it up later and resorted to the same emotional manipulation that she accused Murphy of (game recognizes game), her motivations for turning a blind woman away in the middle of the night, during a snowstorm, with only $20 were clear.

She doesn’t like that Max still has feelings for her, and she’s harboring some grudge against Murphy because of the guilt she had as a crappy sister to Felix, but you know, while still being a crappy sister. Make it make sense.

Poor, Pathetic Felix

They’ve doubled down on this narrative that Felix is this poor and pathetic puppy who keeps getting kicked.

It’s uncomfortable, and it’s gotten old, and can we please get off of this ride now?

As if the 1000 other things they’ve done to Felix this season weren’t enough, we got this. He finally shared that he did sleep with Murphy to defend himself against Lesley’s claims that he’s unf*ckable, only to have Max dismiss what happened because Murphy will sleep with anything with a penis.

Felix gets no respect.

But then Lesley shares that Felix is always the poor, pathetic sap who got sucked into saving women if they so much as paid him an ounce of attention.

She credits their mother for screwing Felix up and making him this emasculated man with no scruples, but Lesley also has treated her brother like crap all season, so, I mean, she’s not exempt?

Can Felix ever get a win? It’s not funny, cute, endearing, or anything else. It’s all-around uncomfortable to watch.

And then Felix proved Lesley’s point to her (though I maintain that Murphy is his best friend and that matters for something here) by confessing to murdering Nia so that they could leave Murphy alone.

Chicago PD, Our Arse! Can Josh Kick Rocks Now?! I’m BEGGING!

Why do they keep giving Josh all of the authority of a police officer when he is not in law enforcement?!

Josh’s rushing onto scenes first, speaking to witnesses ahead of Gene, and interrogating people as if he’s been on the force for a decade — all of it is absurd.

Did anyone hear Josh shouting out Chicago PD when they barged into Lesley’s home? Sir, you are not! Stop impersonating an officer, you vindictive twat!

Once again, Josh threw hissy fits that he didn’t have Murphy in his clutches, and somehow he’s getting away with seething so much he’s practically frothing at the mouth about wanting Murphy in jail and how he’s going to make sure she gets all the things she has coming to her.

Does due process not matter in this universe?

Josh’s vendetta blinds him (pardon the pun), and it all stems from Murphy breaking his heart. Go to therapy and resolve your issues with women, good sir. Also, is he not going blind anymore?!

Justice for Sarah!

Let’s rewind this a bit. Josh and Gene are responsible for Murphy slipping through their fingers multiple times. They were the ones who let a handcuffed blind woman waltz out of the police station.

Gene is letting some Desk Jockey from the IRS go on a rampage under his control. They haven’t properly investigated all avenues of the case, and Gene drinks after hours and makes moves on subordinates in his office alone.

But Sarah screws up once by not telling them what happened to her, and Dick and Dicker kick her to the curb?! Or maybe Gene is upset that Sarah slept with Darnell, which makes two butthurt men doing the most.

But Sarah standing there and watching them catch her in the act was dumb as hell!

The Hardy Boys’ Utter Failure

All of the above are reasons why Gene and Josh are handling this entire case poorly.

But now we learn that Lesley and Max had to get footage from the Guiding Hope Gang’s hangout (a place that should’ve been in the police files) to get footage of that night.

If it was there all along, then why didn’t Gene get it yet? And upon watching footage and audio of Max and Felix tied up on the floor and Nia, gun in hand, stating she was going to kill Murphy, these two idiots only used that to discredit Felix’s confession.

It’s circumstantial evidence that supports that Nia was the aggressor, and Josh is still foaming at the mouth and claiming that Murphy deserves life in prison for her misdeeds.

Also, Sarah rightly pointed out that they never looked into Jessica’s disappearance nor investigated her supposed death in that fire, even though it was the key to catching Murphy in the first place.

Protect and Serve who and what?!

A Pet Store, Jessica?! How Rude!

The good news is Creepy Uncle didn’t kidnap Murphy and take her out in the woods to kill her and bury her body.

The better news is that he took her to a pet store where apparently Jess has been working since she got out of the hospital.

The WTF news is that Jess has been here all of this time, and she hasn’t told anyone anything!

WTF, Jess?!

Murphy and Jessica’s plan was to be together in Canada. They weren’t the ones that were ever supposed to split up, so there’s no reason for Jessica to enact the “no communication for a year” plan.

And if Jessica wanted a break from Murphy, she more than deserved it.

However, it’s out of character and crappy of her to not once communicate with Murphy.

Someone at the hospital had to tell her before she checked out that Darnell was up there and visited her. She didn’t think to tell him anything?

Josiah kidnapped her because of everything that went on, and she didn’t think to send an emergency text to the burner phones to warn Felix and Murphy on the off chance that Josiah tracked them down, too?

We’ve spent all season under the impression that Jessica could be dead, and she’s in a pet store, stateside rather than Canada, which is risky as hell!

At this point, all of the characters are proving to be awful, so can we really only focus on Murphy’s faults anymore?

Jess will never live this one down.

Over to you, In the Dark Fanatics. We finally got to Jess, but at what cost? Hit the comments.

You can watch In the Dark online here via TV Fanatic. 

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Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.

Weebles wobble, but they don’t stay down, and neither does Kim Burgess.

She had a rough go of it trying to work herself back into the job with the likes of Ruzek, Voight, and Trudy worried about her. But on Chicago PD Season 9 Episode 2  an hour that felt ripped from an installment of Law & Order: SVU, she was the key to capturing or killing a rapist and abuser.

It’s safe to say that Burgess won’t be taking that desk duty job after all.

The case-centric hours are usually when this series is at its best. And this one was brutal because of the violence involved. The title of the hour was apt for the circumstances surrounding Franklin abusing his power and taking out his rage on the women he’s supposed to be helping.

Unsurprisingly, the hour had Kim recovering from another bout of brutalization at the hands of a man while working another case about violent crimes unleashed on women.

It’s become a Kim Burgess staple, and while there are some issues with her more centric hours always consisting of the same types of storylines and subject matter, there’s no denying that Kim is always at her best during them.

Marina Squerciati kills it every single time, and this was no exception.

She had more reason than ever to reconsider her job and whether or not she wanted to partake in it again after what she endured. It’s one thing if she was still a single woman, but she’s a mother now, and that’s given her a different perspective on matters.

Ruzek took one errant comment and ran with it, kickstarting a chain of events where both Trudy and Voight wondered if Kim was serious about stepping back from the unit.

Burgess: I’m not ready.
Ruzek: You sure?
Burgess: Yeah, who knows if I’ll ever be ready.

And it was something that bothered both of them. The one thing the hour missed was Trudy having a heart-to-heart with Kim. Her relationship with Trudy is one of the most underrated dynamics of the series.

Trudy is someone of whom Kim could’ve bounced her feelings off without dealing with too much prodding. But to his credit, Ruzek is nothing but supportive of everything that Kim wants and needs.

Their arrangement where they’re co-parenting Makayla works for them, and it’s nice to know that he’s stepping up in a big way with the young girl with Kim still in a fragile state.

They’re a family in the truest sense of the word, so Ruzek’s intentions were well and good when he asked about that desk job so Kim could have options just in case.

Voight’s advice to her was sound. He wasn’t trying to push her back into the job per se, but he did want her to see if she was capable of doing what she loved before she made a life-altering decision.

She needed to know that if she chose to take a desk job, it was because of her inability to face the job after her traumatic experience, but it was a choice.

He didn’t want her fear or anything else to take what should be a choice away from her. Otherwise, it would’ve haunted her.

And they gave her things to get her back out there. As brutal as this case was, it was a good one to re-implement Kim. It was no way she wouldn’t hear the details of it without wanting to get involved.

It’s something she would’ve had a vested interest in for a plethora of reasons, and in the end, it was the connection she was able to forge with Sarah that broke the case open for them.

Kim coming off of a brutal attack of her own put her in a unique position to commiserate with Sarah in a way that the others couldn’t, and it was probably comforting, in some twisted way, that Sarah met a cop who struggled with similar things as a victim.

The case was gut-wrenching. One’s heart broke for the young Ava when Ruzek and Atwater found her.

The second Ruzek met up with her for their first meeting — it was evident that things would go awry. She had such a naivete to her, and she was earnest to make the arrangement work and get money for the information she provided.

Before you make any decisions, any decisions, you got to give yourself a chance to see if you can do the job again, if you want to, you gotta make sure it’s a choice.

Voight

Ruzek warning her about not setting off suspicion was forboding. But it was a heck of a twist learning that nothing Ava did tip off anyone.

What happened to her wasn’t a result of the information she was sharing. Franklin always had the upper hand, and he would’ve killed her regardless.

It seemed to be his modus operandi. He brutalized Casey in unspeakable ways — and the personal nature of stabbing and shooting someone 20 times gave insight into how twisted he was and the relationships he had with these women.

He took advantage of his authority and that people wouldn’t believe parolees. What was worse was how sincere he sounded when Atwater and Ruzek first talked to him.

You’d have never guessed he was the person behind Ava’s killing.

Sarah was crucial to the unit finding out that Franklin was behind everything, especially when her ex tipped Kim off. But pointing the finger at a parole officer with as much power as Franklin was a risk, and for a bit, it didn’t seem as if they could hold him down.

You could understand why Sarah bolted.

Anytime Kim goes undercover, it’s a treat, especially when she gets in character and has a different aesthetic. She was rocking the eyeliner, and Franklin was convinced.

Franklin’s bloodthirst and power-tripping meant that he would make a move to take Kim no matter what. It’s probably the real reason he showed up when she claimed Sarah wanted hush money.

Killing his victims was getting too good to him, and he thought he was invincible.

Fortunately, the unit was able to adapt and give Kim the berth to trust her instincts and get what they needed to take Franklin down.

Kim catching Franklin was expected, but it was shocking that the case ended with her killing the man. It was a good shoot, thank goodness, but it wasn’t the outcome one would expect for Kim’s first day back on the job.

The awkwardest parts of the hour were when Hailey stood tight-lipped and listened to Kim talk about difficulties bouncing back from what happened to her and how it feels knowing that she hasn’t caught the man who shot her.

As expected, Roy getting away is eating away at Kim. She probably wouldn’t have caved and begrudgingly immersed herself in this case if not for her believing that Roy is still out there.

She doesn’t have the closure she needs and deserves, and she’s not at peace. She may never be, but she’s also determined to get justice.

Channeling all of that into getting justice for everyone she helps is sufficient for now, but it doesn’t seem like Kim is letting go of finding Roy.

It keeps changing on me, mymemory. It keeps playing tricks on me. It’s the fear I think. But the one thing I do know is that he’s still out there, and I would do anything to bring him in.

Kim

Hailey knows the truth, and it’s killing her to keep quiet. Hailey overhearing how vulnerable Kim is and how the unknown regarding Roy affects her PTSD must be hard.

The truth could give Kim the closure she needs and help her emotionally heal, but it could cost Hailey everything.

How long before Hailey breaks down and tells Kim the truth? It doesn’t look as if Hailey can manage all of the guilt she’s feeling. She looks like she’s ready to spill the beans any minute.

Over to you, Chicago PD Fanatics.

Are you happy Kim got back into the fold? How long before Hailey spills the beans to Kim or anyone? Hit the comments below!

You can watch Chicago PD online here via TV Fanatic.

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Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.

The Book of Boba Fett will finally see the light of day in December.

Disney+ announced today that the new Lucasfilm series teased in a surprise end-credit sequence following the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian will premiere on Wednesday, December 29, exclusively on the streaming service.

Disney+ also debuted the key art for the series.

The series is described as “a thrilling Star Wars adventure, finds legendary bounty hunter Boba Fett and mercenary Fennec Shand navigating the Galaxy’s underworld when they return to the sands of Tatooine to stake their claim on the territory once ruled by Jabba the Hutt and his crime syndicate.”

The series stars Temuera Morrison and Ming-Na Wen.

Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Robert Rodriguez, Kathleen Kennedy, and Colin Wilson are the executive producers.

Karen Gilchrist and Carrie Beck serve as co-executive producers, with John Bartnicki producing and John Hampian as co-producer.

In a surprising move, the series will launch ahead of The Mandalorian Season 3, now set for a 2022 bow on the streaming service.

Boba Fett had a pivotal role on The Mandalorian Season 2, so there’s a thirst for more content featuring the iconic character.

The good news is that The Mandalorian Season 3 production started right after Boba Fett’s first season wrapped filming, so at least fans know there will be more from Pedro Pascal’s dry-humored bounty hunter.

Ever since the arrival of Disney+, the streamer has branched out to expand a string of well-known IPs with their own series.

On the Star Wars front, we have an Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries and a Cassian Andor miniseries on the way, among others.

As for Marvel, we’ve had WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, What/If, Loki, and we have shows like Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, and more still on tap.

The rise of streaming has been good for fans of these properties because they’ve been given bigger looks into the franchises with new and exciting stories.

What are your thoughts on the key art?

Are you ready for more stories set in the Star Wars universe?

Hit the comments below.

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Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.