I generally try to avoid spoilers here, but this weeks episode of The Handmaids Tale is so epic, and so full of spoiler potential, I’m hitting you right away with a warning of sorts. It will be next to impossible to not reveal something about that episode that might make your jaw drop is you just go see it without knowing anything.
TV Shows Watched: The Handmaids Tale: S6E9 (Hulu) with audio description, Black Mirror: S1E3 (Netflix) with audio description, Motorheads: S1E1 (Amazon) with audio description, No Man’s Land: S1E2 (Hulu) with audio description, Love, Death, and Robots: S4E1 (Netflix) with audio description, Secrets We keep: S1E2 (Netflix) with audio description, The Daily Show: Monday (Paramount Plus) no audio description, and Elzabeth: S2E20 (Paramount Plus) with audio description.
Best Episode: The Handmaids Tale- Obviously. While it certainly had moments that I thought “they aren’t doing that”, it also still had the weight of many other moments where I thought they could do something else, and of course the few jaw dropping moments where they absolutely did do something they can’t take back. See? I’m trying my best to avoid spoilers.
Runner Up: Black Mirror- while I think the idea of having a chip in your brain that allows you to revisit memories is inherently interesting, part of me thinks the episode was almost limited in scope. I think there’s also something to be said for something being so good you want to see more, not because the story is incomplete, but because you could have lived with these characters in this world and explored it on a broader, deeper level without becoming bored.
New Show Alert!- Motorheads- I frequently add new shows that don’t rise to the occasion and never get mentioned, so in a brief summary of what this show is about, we follow two teens who go to live with their uncle in a show that is heavily into cars and building them and fixing them, as much as it is racing them. there’s a tidbit about our main brother and sister duo, and their father who was an excellent wheelman, who apparently disappeared with millions. it feels like a show for people who miss what The WB and the old CW were doing, and it does it well. The amount of needle drops in the first episode alone felt like just the pilot could have had its own soundtrack charting with a ton of recognizable pop/rock hits. The acting is fine, and Ryan Philippe (who plays the uncle) sounds a lot older and gruffer than previously ever before.I like it, it just couldn’t make the top two.
Best Audio Description: Love, death, and Robots- While the season premiere is only six minutes, it was a very interesting and weird music video thing for The Red Hot Chili Peppers that are playing a concert, and everyone is a marionette. Lots of strong visual choices for six minutes, and this AD track hit it out of the park.
Runner Up: The Handmaids Tale- the weight of this episode is felt in every single moment, and the description captures all these looks, which range from terrified, to deeply fraught, to scared, and every emotional choice possible. there are so many things unsaid, in moments where an actor just communicates in a look, and the description had to capture that, that it was brilliant. Very well done.
best Performance: Elizabeth Moss, Bradley Whitford, Ann Dowd, Josh Charles (The Handmaids Tale)- I’ve recognized three of the four throughout the season, but its about damn time to mention Josh Charles as commander Wharton. he’s freakishly terrifying, but also in a very different way than other commanders. He truly believes the bullshit, and doesn’t dabble in just the exertion of man’s power over women, but rather the zealotry that powers him through a series of disturbing and frightening (at times) choices. The other three, specific moments that would be far too caked in spoilers.
runner Up:Toby kebbell (Black Mirror)- His descent into madness was pretty terrific. An always consistent character actor who knocked this out of the park.
Best Moment Of Audio Description: it’s definitely in the Handmaids Tale. but I can’t even begin to communicate it in a way that isn’t a spoiler. But, there’s a moment with an actor, who communicates everything without saying anything, while another character also is doing that, and the weight is just so freaking heavy.
Best moment Of Audio Description not In Handmaids Tale: the use Of Socks (love Death and robots)- while I loved all of the little descriptions about the marionettes, and the whole setup, the weirdest thing I was happy they included was that for some reason the Red Hot Chili Peppers were performing with socks on their penises. LOL. Why? I’ve heard “rock out with your cock out” crudely used before, but I’m pretty sure they don’t mean also with a sock on it.
Worst of…- it would be things I’ve grumbled about before. Hulu should get in the habit of making the best audio description tracks for shows that require dubbing, and not have one person doing all the voices, even if it is a narrator I like. And, Netflix needs to work with human narrators for international shows, even if the voice used for this show is the best TTS voice I’ve ever heard and really want this to be my phone’s voice for Siri.
