What I'm Watching: Salem's Lot, Agatha All Along, The Penguin, and More

Here’s a quick rundown on everything I’ve been watching, reading, and writing about lately. As a quick note, this week’s piece was scheduled as subscriber-only, but I’ve left the paywall off since it includes resources related to Hurricane Helene that I'd like everyone to see. The next edition will be all yours, paid subscribers!

The shows:

• I’m having a great time with Agatha All Along, the campy, witchy offshoot of WandaVision starring Kathryn Hahn. I’ve found that Marvel TV is much more interesting to me than Marvel movies these days for the same reason other people feel the opposite: the shows get to try new things, be less broad, and play around with genre, tone, and performance in ways that don’t necessarily have much to do with the larger MCU's zillion-year-plan. Agatha does that well, and it also just has the delightful, not-that-scary seasonal vibes of something like the Halloweentown DCOM franchise. I’ve written a few pieces about the show so far over at Slashfilm, but my favorite is this deep dive into Aubrey Plaza’s wild performance, which I think is a perfect complement to her role on Marvel’s weirdest show to date, Legion.
• I’m tentatively on board with The Penguin so far, having seen an episode or two more than audiences have at this point. For a long time I wasn’t convinced the HBO offshoot of Matt Reeves’ The Batman needed to exist, but the show is proving itself a compelling if imperfect mob story. The first episode borrows way too much from The Sopranos (although my coworker Devin Meenan smartly pointed out that paying homage to pop culture mobsters has long-since been a part of Batman comic tradition), but the show manages to differentiate itself fairly quickly thanks in large part to Cristin Milioti’s excellent performance. Milioti plays her villainous underworld heir apparent with more shades and layers than I’d ever expect from a novelty show like this one, and every second she’s on screen is captivating. Farrell’s quite good, too.
• Apologies to the dozen different people who told me to watch Hell-set adult animated show Hazbin Hotel this year: it’s not for me. It takes a lot to get me on board with the type of casually violent humor the show uses, and I unfortunately just never found my foothold with this one. That being said, the character designs are very fun and I love the emo/pop-punk flavor the show brings to to many of its big musical numbers.
• I’ve watched tons of other shows lately, from 1978’s WKRP in Cincinnati to 1955’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents to this year’s English Teacher to 2016’s The Exorcist, but since I haven’t finished full seasons of most of them, I’ll return at a later date with more complete opinions on each.

The movies:

• I recently got a book of scratch-off date ideas, and the first one I scratched involved going to a movie theater and seeing the next movie that’s playing. James and I went (after an already long day), only to discover that no movies were starting for another 40 minutes, so we decided to go home and instead watch the first movie that popped up on cable. Reader, this is how I ended up watching Babe for the first time in 20+ years and discovering, as many of you have before me, that it is a perfect movie. Amazing special effects, a sweet and sincere coming-of-age story, and several moments that are so cute you could cry (and I did!). Do yourself a favor and rewatch Babe – it’s good for the soul. 
• I had a great time with the long-delayed new Salem’s Lot movie, which dropped on (HBO) Max this week after spending a couple years buried on Warner Bros Discovery’s shelves. Fans of Stephen King’s book will understandably groan at the ways the movie simplifies and skips over many of its intricacies, but it still succeeds as a good-old fashioned vampire story. The action clips along quickly, and it strikes the right balance between the type of now-retro adventure saga King and Steven Spielberg made famous and something just a little bit deeper and darker. A side note: it’s incredible how much his role on Lessons in Chemistry did for Lewis Pullman. I didn’t recognize him here, but felt myself instantly love him, and I gasped when I checked his IMDb and realized it was because that show’s incredibly effective speedrun love story had incepted me.

The reads:

• My friend Catt is in the North Carolina county that was hit hardest by Hurricane Helene, and she posted a powerful and painful update about what it’s like to be there – technically safe but without power, reliable forms of communication, or other basic necessities – as the scope of the devastation slowly becomes clear. If you haven’t already heard, officials are calling the storm that region’s Hurricane Katrina, which means that what happens in the aftermath – who helps, and how fast and effectively – matters as much to the future of these communities as the storm damage itself. If you’re able to donate, here’s a list of organizations providing direct, life-saving aid to the region, where many communities are still cut off from major roads. I’d also add Sister Kitten Animal Rescue, which is rescuing and feeding cats in the area, to the list of helpers worth supporting.
• Ryan Murphy sucks so bad. Sometimes I forget this, and then he reminds me in a more impressively sucky way than ever before. Here’s why I’m not watching Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, courtesy of Kayleigh Donaldson at The Wrap.
• I recently ranked the worst episodes of Breaking Bad, and in the process of doing so, realized how little I’d reckoned with the show’s portrayal of sexual violence (because the show itself also didn’t reckon with it!). I thought this Cracked piece on the drama’s handling of marital rape was illuminating and appropriately horrifying.
• Sorry, y'all, this is all really heavy. Here’s a picture of the tiniest dog I’ve ever seen (spotted on Melrose Ave. circa 2022) to even things out:

Odds and ends:

• I listened to the Oregon Public Broadcasting podcast Hush over the course of a few rainy days this week, and was impressed by its rigorous approach to a story about a man who, after maintaining his innocence on a murder charge for decades, was quietly released from death row. His release was a bit too quiet, which made journalists think the case against him must have had some major flaws that Salem police or other institutions wanted kept quiet. Needless to say, the investigators behind this podcast skillfully put them all on blast. This story of alleged incompetence, corruption, and bias is unfortunately a familiar one, but the pod stands out in part thanks to the deep dive it takes in its final episode, which taught me a lot about Oregon’s legacy of institutional racism. The whole thing is worth a listen, but if you live in Oregon, you especially can’t miss episode 9.
• I’m not as sure about Criminal Attorney, a flashy Wondery podcast that’s taking a circuitous (and at times, as when it relies largely on the testimony of one FBI agent, questionable) route to tell a story about a criminal defense attorney with alleged gang ties. I’ll keep listening because I want to see where this one’s going, but I’m not convinced it needs to take so much time to get there.
• I’m pretty proud of this super-in-depth breakdown of the decades-long feud between William Shatner and George Takei that I wrote for Slashfilm. I’m sure it somehow made Shatner mad.
• My year of Stephen King love-hate continues: I wrote a list of the most fucked-up, unfilmable moments featured in his expansive bibliography.
• If you’re hungry for more Agatha All Along, here are my quick takes on all the witchy pop culture references in the show’s end credits.

I’m off to the library now to print out my course reading list; I’m taking a class on Scottish Gothic fiction at the local university and seriously geeking out about it. It’s been extremely fun so far, but if you have any tips for feeling less awkward on big group Zoom meetings, let me know. 

Otherwise, here’s a question for the comments section: what big movie or show from this year do you still need to see? What do you feel like you missed, and what are you hoping to catch up on next? My own list is endless, but I’d love to hear about yours.