the butcher is cancelled
that freaking nutjob
I am on holiday at the moment, which means (a this clearly shows my powerful dedication to this newsletter and its officially redacted number of subscribers and (b I may actually hit the word count target this week, not including this preface. Thanks.
You know the Butcher? That freaking nutjob who goes around just chopping people up? Well, the feds heard he was going to be here, today, so they set up a newsletter for him.
M. Night Shyamalan makes people go crazy, doesn’t he? For all the talk of his third-act career comeback after the Last Airbender years, it feels like his second honeymoon only really lasted for two movies. In a post-Glass world, the knives have spun back round on Night, and now a not-unreasonable portion of the Internet spends a couple of weeks every 18 months absolutely steaming off their nuts about unrealistic dialogue or something.
Not me, reader. I am, above all things, a fan of mischief, and late-style Shyamalan has steered hard (with the exception of Knock at the Cabin, which I loved, but was a lot) into tomfoolery. Glass is one big narrative prank on superhero (and narrative resolution) fans. Old, which I don’t even like that much, literally introduces Night’s cameo as the director peaks out from behind a camera with which he’s been filming the movie.
Trap? Oh boy, Trap. When people on TikTok talk about the need to bring back silly movies, they do not realise that the silly movies have already come back. Come on! Lady Raven! Have you seen the facial expressions Josh Harnett makes? Did you see the bit where he yoinks a poor murder victim into his car? Did you see anything that Kid Cudi is doing in this? Tremendous fun. Hitchcock for dumb little boys. I lapped it all up.
![Industry' Season 3 Premiere — Ken Leung Talks [Spoiler]'s Firing](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eph!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F15bea42e-4132-49a1-9a11-9f2b2060b26a_600x400.jpeg "Industry' Season 3 Premiere — Ken Leung Talks [Spoiler]'s Firing")
Hooray for actor Ken Leung, who has had to suffer such indignities as playing a guy with spikes on his face in the cursed Inhumans series, and - for some reason - recently played the main villain in Netflix’s deepfake Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation (okay, it’s not a deepfake situation, but did you believe me for a moment?).
He is a man who deserves better, and thankfully the return of HBO’s Industry is delivering that for him. Last week’s third season premiere was pretty overwhelming with its incident, from Kit Harington playing dark handball in a basement to a supporting character’s surprise heart attack, but at its centre was Ken Leung’s Eric going on a cocaine bender and forgetting his kids at work. It makes me so happy to see a show trust him like this. He is a man, and he is relentless.
Plus, isn’t it nice to have a non-IP show with a normal viewer base in that HBO Sunday slot? Just something nice and calm and original that everyone watches sensibly. Now, let me take a big sip of coffee and check when they’re putting out new episodes of The Penguin.
This is a promise for next week, not this one, but it needs to be made. I had been saving Apple TV’s Presumed Innocent for my holiday because it felt like silly summer stuff, and boy was I right in that intuition. We will be discussing Jake Gyllenhaal’s poor life choices. It is not a want, it is a need.
516 words! The closest we’ve ever gotten. Incredible work from me, personally.
See you next week.