Aubrey Plaza

Black Bear

  • Title: Black Bear
  • IMDb: link

Black Bear movie reviewA filmmaker (Aubrey Plaza) facing writer’s block travels to a remote house in the Adirondack Mountains hoping for inspiration to strike. What happens next is subject to debate as any or all of the events could be nothing more than the actress turned director’s dark musings and may or may not have any connection to reality. Written and directed by Lawrence Michael Levine, Black Bear is primarily a vehicle to showcase Aubrey Plaza who owns the screen playing two different versions of the same character each trapped in a situation spiraling out of control.

In one version, Allison (Plaza) is greeted by the house’s owners (Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon) who are stuck in a failing marriage with a baby on the way. Allison’s arrival only further exacerbates the couple’s problems by introducing an attractive unknown variable into their lives. In the second storyline, Allison is an actress starring in her husband’s (Abbott) small independent film. With shooting nearly complete, he uses Allison’s jealousy towards her co-star (Gadon) to force the best possible performance no matter what his psychological games to do her emotional state.

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Legion – Chapter 24

  • Title: Legion – Chapter 24
  • wiki: link

“I am Legion!”

Legion - Chapter 24 television review

As Legion moves one-step closer to its series finale the show dispenses with several supporting characters. Once again, several members of David‘s (Dan Stevens) flower child army are used as canon fodder but the episode is also notable for several other deaths including Lenny (Aubrey Plaza) and Clark (Hamish Linklater). The former, distraught over recent events, takes her own life while Clark becomes one of many casualties when David attacks Division 3’s air ship in search of Switch (Lauren Tsai). During the attack Syd (Rachel Keller) also manages to use her powers and take control of David’s body, although she’s unprepared for the numerous other split personalities still walking around his head as the show’s title is uttered by the left-over shards of David’s conciousness.

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Legion – Chapter 20

  • Title: Legion – Chapter 20
  • wiki: link

“Why don’t we have a time traveler?”

Legion - Chapter 20 television review

Legion opens its Third Season not with David (Dan Stevens) but with the introduction of a time traveler who we will come to know as Switch (Lauren Tsai). Going even more psychedelic and strange in the first 20 minutes, “Chapter 20” oddly becomes more linear once its storyline becomes less so as Switch travels back in time to save David’s life and the singular point-of-view splits from her to several other characters. Most of the first-half of the episode involves Switch following clues which lead to a hippie commune and an eventual meeting with David, a man she never completely trusts. The sudden attack by Division 3 on David’s compound not only leads to Switch traveling back in time in an attempt to save his life but also forces her to chose a side in a war that, until now, she didn’t even know existed.

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Legion – Chapter 17

  • Title: Legion – Chapter 17
  • wiki: link

Legion - Chapter 17 television review

Without showing us what she did with Clark (Hamish Linklater), “Chapter 17” fills in on how the Shadow King (Navid Negahban) won over Melanie (Jean Smart). Frankly, it wasn’t that difficult (and pretty much unfolded exactly how you would expect). Despite preventing Clark from fulfilling his part in David‘s (Dan Stevens) plan, the rest of his time-delayed chess peices are all able to perform their actions which end in Lenny (Aubrey Plaza) the desert with the monks and a weapon David believes should be powerful enough to destroy the Shadow King. How crucial was Clark’s role, and will it be large enough to derail David’s plans?

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Legion – Chapter 13

  • Title: Legion – Chapter 13
  • wiki: link

Legion - Chapter 13 television review

“Chapter 13” features two storylines that will eventually merge to the horror of our series protagonist, who doesn’t make his first appearance until more than halfway through the episode. While Oliver (Jemaine Clement) and the Shadow King (Navid Negahban) go on a road trip in search of a body, Division 3 deals with the sudden appearance of Lenny (Aubrey Plaza) who has no answers for Clark (Hamish Linklater) as to how she’s walking around again. Despite David‘s truce with the evil mutant, it appears the Shadow King can’t help but fuck with David who eventually sits down and talks with Lenny, slowly working out the truth of what happened to her and just whose body she’s now walking around in.

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