What I'm Watching: Our Flag Means Death, The Fall of the House of Usher, Joy Ride, and More

Taika Waititi, Our Flag Means Death, (HBO) Max

Here’s a quick rundown of everything I watched, read, and wrote about this week:

The shows:

• Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Hill House mastermind Mike Flanagan is back this month with 🎃 The Fall of the House of Usher, a deliciously messed-up modern spin on the works of Edgar Allen Poe. This show is funnier and nastier than his typically super-heartfelt works, with some creatively gruesome death scenes and a strong political edge. It has as much Succession in its DNA as it does Poe, and frankly, I adored it. Stay tuned: the show will be on Netflix on the 12th.
• I truly felt like the second season of Max’s pirate rom-com Our Flag Means Death would never arrive, and even after watching 7 episodes, I still can’t believe it’s here. My expectations for the sophomore season were sky high, but somehow, the cast and crew exceeded them. Incredibly funny, surprisingly deep and dark, and thoughtful in its depictions of all types of love, this show is definitely a keeper. Here’s my review of season 2.
• I really have no idea where I land on Prime Video’s Dead Ringers remake, a show that’s deeply off-putting by design and one that perhaps loses some emotional payoff by focusing too hard on its own eerie motifs. All of that sounds negative, but there’s some great stuff in this disturbing thriller about crazed twin gynecologists too – like two all-in performances from Rachel Weisz.

The movies:

• If you’ve ever been a bookworm or a pre-teen (so, everyone), you’re the target audience for 🎥 Judy Blume Forever, a celebratory documentary about the life and works of one of the most influential childrens’ authors of all time. Come for the nostalgia factor, stay for discussions of the cyclical nature of censorship – and a whole lot more. Fair warning: if you’re anything like me, you will go out and put a bunch of Blume books on hold at the library after this one.
• I finally caught up on Joy Ride, this summer’s raunchy comedy about a group of girlfriends taking a disaster-filled “business” trip to China, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. Stephanie Hsu (who definitely should’ve won an Oscar this year for Everything Everywhere All At Once, but that’s neither here nor there) is funny as hell, but Sabrina Wu is the movie’s secret weapon. Plus, there’s a surprisingly heartfelt adoption plotline.
• If you’re in the mood for a documentary that will make you say “What?!” a half-dozen times out loud, keep an eye out for 🎥 The Thief Collector. The roller coaster of a doc starts with the discovery of a $160 million stolen painting in the estate of a sweet old couple and only gets more intriguing from there.
• I watched the 2015 horror comedy 🎃 Bloodsucking Bastards for work this week, and it’s, well, basically Office Space with vampires. Your mileage may vary, but it also has two things Office Space doesn’t have (besides vampires): Pedro Pascal playing an evil boss and the ever-underrated Fran Kranz in the lead role.

The books:

• I recently came across a copy of Angela Davis’ seminal book about abolition, Are Prisons Obsolete?, after my own copy got lost in the mail a while back. It took me a couple weeks to work my way through this text as it’s in an academic writing style that I love but am not very used to these days. Still, it’s a thoroughly informative text. If you’re already interested in criminal justice reform, this is surely already on your reading list. If you’ve ever heard people talking about ending the for-profit prison system and wondered why or how that would even work, Professor Davis has got you covered here.
• Switching gears completely, I continued my horror comic read-through with a fairly middling batch of books this week. My favorite of the three was Cullen Bunn’s 🎃 Blossom 666, a spinoff of the Archie comics horror reimagining that preceded the CW show. It’s not quite as artful or ambitious as Afterlife With Archie, but you still can’t go wrong with a Blossom twins antichrist plot.
• 🎃 Harrow County (also by Cullen Bunn) seems to be a pretty popular series, but the first volume didn’t exactly hook me. The story about a girl who might be the reincarnation of an infamous witch might just be too similar to other books I’ve read lately, but I will say, the illustrations by Tyler Crook were captivating.
• Finally, Joy San’s 🎃 Sugar and Other Stories is a fine if slight collection of doodle-like graphic short stories, including some fun ones with creepy teeth.

Odds and ends:

• I was totally delighted by this ScreenCrush piece from Matt Singer, in which he interviewed his seven-year-old daughter to get all her hot takes on the new Paw Patrol movie.
• My own work this week has fallen mostly under the “Val stumbles down a research rabbit hole and returns with fun facts about old shows” umbrella. To that end, here’s a piece I wrote about the influences behind one of my favorite Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes, “Fool For Love,”
• –another about the many reasons Gary Burghoff left M*A*S*H in season 8,
• –and, finally, a piece about some points of connection between Star Trek and The Beatles.

I’m off to trip down another rabbit hole now, but I’d love to hear what y’all are watching if you get the chance to drop a line. Several people have reached out with positive comments about the newsletter these past few weeks, and it’s meant a lot to me! Happy Monday and happy spooky season, y’all.