Top 2022 Series and Season Finales

Series Finales:

1. Women of the Movement

2. Black Bird

3. Better Call Saul

4. Inside Man

5. Ozark

6. The Walking Dead

7. Batwoman

8. Blade Runner: Black Lotus

9. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

10. Man vs. Bee

Honorable Mentions:

Let the World See

The Book of Boba Fett

Five Days at Memorial

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Gaslit

Kevin Can F**k Himself

The First Lady

The Patient

Theodore Roosevelt

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Under the Banner of Heaven

Grace and Frankie

Legends of Tomorrow

Fear the Walking Dead: Dead in the Water

Made for Love

Moon Knight

A Friend of the Family

The Flight Attendant

The Boys Presents: Diabolical

Pam & Tommy

Ms. Marvel

Stargirl

Baymax!

Inside Job

The Offer

Candy

Keep Breathing

The Girl from Plainville

Locke & Key

The Staircase

The Essex Serpent

Inventing Anna

This Is Us

The Cuphead Show!

A League of Their Own

The English

Joe vs. Carole

1899

Blumhouse's Compendium of Horror

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

I Love That for You

The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl

The Peripheral

The Midnight Club

One of Us Is Lying

Fleishman Is in Trouble

Space Force

Season Finales:

1. Stranger Things fourth season finale-Chapter Nine: The Piggyback

2. The Righteous Gemstones second season finale-I Will Tell of All Your Deeds

3. The Sandman first season finale-Dream of a Thousand Cats/Calliope

4. American Horror Story: NYC finale-Requiem 1981/1987

5. The Ghost and Molly McGee first season finale-The Jig is Up/Molly vs. The Ghost World

6. Barry third season finale-starting now

7. Around the World in 80 Days first season finale-Episode 8

8. Peacemaker first season finale-It's Cow or Never

9. Euphoria second season finale-All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned for a Thing I Cannot Name

10. Severance first season finale-The We We Are

Honorable Mentions:

9-1-1: Lone Star third season finale-A Bright and Cloudless Morning

Fear the Walking Dead seventh season finale-Gone

Andor first season finale-Rix Road

Dexter: New Blood first season finale-Sins of the Father

Superman & Lois second season finale-Waiting for Superman

The Umbrella Academy third season finale-Oblivion

Rick and Morty sixth season finale-Ricktional Mortpoon's Rickmas Mortcation

What We Do in the Shadows fourth season finale-Sunrise, Sunset

The White Lotus second season finale-Arrivederci

The Devil's Hour first season finale-Amor Fati

Only Murders in the Building second season finale-I Know Who Did It

The Flash 2014 eighth season finale-Negative, Part Two

The Boys third season finale-The Instant White-Hot Wild

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power first season finale-Alloyed

Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin first season finale-Chapter Ten: Final Girls

High School Musical: The Musical: The Series third season finale-Let It Go

Human Resources first season finale-Shitstorm

The Cuphead Show! second season finale-The Devil's Pitchfork (Part 2)

The Rookie fourth season finale-Day In The Hole

Chucky second season finale-Chucky Actually

Our Flag Means Death first season finale-Wherever You Go, There You Are

NCIS 19th season finale-Birds of a Feather

The Watcher first season finale-Haunting

The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder first season finale-Old Towne Road Part 1

Slow Horses first season premiere-Follies

Dark Winds first season finale-HózhóoNaasháa

Wednesday first season finale-A Murder of Woes

Secrets of Sulphur Springs second season finale-Time Is Not On Our Side

Power Rangers Dino Fury finale-The Nemesis

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel fourth season finale-How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?

Shining Vale first season finale-Chapter Eight-We Are Phelps

American Horror Stories second season finale-Lake

The Afterparty first season finale-Maggie

Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story finale-God of Forgiveness, God of Vengeance

Killing It first season finale-The Storm

The Old Man first season finale-VII

Resident Alien second season finale-I Believe in Aliens

Snowpiercer third season finale-The Original Sinners

Upload second season finale-Download

The Crown fifth season finale-Decommissioned

Solar Opposites third season finale-The Fog of Pupa

Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty first season finale-Promised Land

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities first season finale-The Murmuring

The Legend of Vox Machina first season finale-The Darkness Within

Yellowjackets first season finale-Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Reservation Dogs second season finale-I Still Believe

Jack Ryan third season finale-Star on the Wall

Riverdale sixth season finale-Chapter One Hundred and Seventeen: Night of the Comet

Interview with the Vampire first season finale-The Thing Lay Still

The Gilded Age first season finale-Let the Tournament Begin

9-1-1 fifth season finale-Starting Over

NCIS: Los Angeles thirteenth season finale-Come Together

The Good Doctor fifth season finale-Sons

Archie and Me #132

Archie and Me #132 is part of a series that ran from 1964 to 1987 wherein each issue depicted Archie's antics and interactions with a specific character from the franchise. In the case for this comic it's the school principal, Mr. Weatherbee. This issue has a few short stories focusing on them as well as one pagers with Sabrina, Li'l Jinx, and advertisements. Stories include Archie and Jughead tricking Weatherbee into closing the school with a snow maker, Archie's team being beaten by Weatherbee's faculty team in basketball, and Weatherbee being annoyed by Archie saying lousy. It's all rather simplistic, as one would expect from Archie, but it's entertaining with good writing and great artwork. Something that's surprising is that each of the stories are written, drawn, and colored by different people. It isn't too noticeable when it comes to the writing, though with the art and coloring there are a few small differences between them. On the surface, Archie and Me #132 isn't too remarkable but does manage to be a quick and easy read. Over all: 100%

Top list so far for 3rd set of comics:

1. Green Arrow Vol. 1 #1

2. Star Wars: Dark Empire #1

3. Deadman: Love After Death #1

4. Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: The Don Rosa Library Vol. 1

5. Hulk Vol. 5 #1

6. Avnegers: War Across Time #1

7. The Yellow Kid

8. Archie and Me #132

9. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1

10. Action Comics Vol. 1 #674

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Harrison Ford returns for the fifth and final time as the iconic bull whip using, fedora wearing archeologist in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The first few minutes are set in 1944, wherein a younger Indy and Basil Shaw, a friend of his played by Toby Jones, fight the Nazis to obtain half of an artifact created by Archimedes. The rest of the movie moves forward to 1969, right after the moon landing. Indy now lives alone as his marriage with Marion strained due to Mutt's death in Vietnam and is getting ready to retire from teaching. After he reunites with Helena Shaw, Basil's daughter and Indy's goddaughter played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, they both get entangled with Neo-Nazis who want to find the rest of Archimedes's device. The Neo-Nazis are led by Mads Mikkelsen's Voller, a former Nazi scientist whom Indy fought at the beginning, who plans to use the device to travel through time and ensure Nazi victory in the war. While Ford, John Rhys-Davies, and Karen Allen all come back from the previous films, this is the first time that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were not involved for the direction or story conceivement. They do serve as executive producers while James Mangold takes over directing, while cowriting with Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and David Koepp. The writing still has that great flare that the past four films had, getting the characters right, and doing the usual globetrotting and solving puzzles tropes. Although it does lead to really well done drama and beautiful character moments elevated by Ford's performance, the decision to kill of Mutt felt very forced and incredibly pandering just because he wasn't well liked by fans back in 2008. There's also the length, at over two and a half hours, making it the longest of the series and the writing really makes you feel it. Compared to the last four, there are really long scenes or scenes that really feel sluggish. The intro, for example, could have been a tad shorter. When it isn't because of the writing going on, another aspect to the length are the action scenes. Mangold is no stranger to incredible set pieces, but it's easy to tell how his style differs from Spielberg. The action scenes, while fun and inventive, rely on a lot of close ups and often are way too long. Though they use CG effects and Phedon Papamichael's cinematography to help make it compelling as much as they could. What made the action with Spielberg so great was knowing when to end and not overstaying their welcome. Even after all these decades, Ford has never lost his touch. Whether he portrays a younger Indy through de-aging or in his older state, Harrison shows his love for the character all the way until the end. Sure, younger Indy sounds like an old man with the face of a younger one, but one could easily say he had a cold. All the while the rest of the cast are all strong, with Waller-Bridge using her natural comedic chops to the full advantage, Boyd Holbrook making for a menacing henchman, and Mikkelsen being compelling. Besides three of the cast, someone else who returned to the series is regular composer John Williams as he perfectly mixes older tracks with newer stuff. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which while finishes off a franchise that first began in 1981 thanks to Spielberg and Lucas's love of adventure serials, is a great, though very flawed, finale and while not the absolute best of the series it's at least not Temple of Doom. Over all: 98%

2023 top list so far:

1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

3. Elemental

4. Air

5. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

6. Creed III

7. John Wick: Chapter 4

8. Scream VI

9. M3GAN

10. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

11. Cocaine Bear

12. Knock at the Cabin

13. The Flash

14. The Super Mario Bros. Movie

15. Renfield

16. Fast X

17. The Little Mermaid 2023

18. Shazam! Fury of the Gods

19. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

20. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Elemental

Who else but Pixar could give emotions to anthropomorphic elements of nature with Elemental and manage to mix a love story with themes of immigration, prejudice, and inheriting traditions. Set in Element City where people based on air, water, earth, and fire all reside, it centers on Ember Lumen, a young fire based girl whose family owns a convenience store that one day she'll inherit. After dealing with overbearing customers, Ember's anger causes a pipe to break and as water floods the basement, a water based city inspector named Wade falls out after he had been stuck in the city's pipes. Since Wade finds the plumbing to the store faulty and sends a report that may close the store, Ember tries to keep him from sending it. From there, the two go on an adventure where they find out that the wall protecting the fire based people from flooding is breaking, meet Wade's family, and learn how fire based people are often looked down upon by the other elements due to their seemingly destructive nature. What sets this apart from much of Pixar's work is that there isn't a villain to face or an antagonist who keeps the heroes from achieving their goals. There are characters who judge Ember and the other fire based characters, but they're not the main focus and by the end their prejudice does start to soften. For the most part it's a romantic comedy-drama inspired by Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and Moonstruck as well as director Peter Sohn's experience as the child of immigrants. The writing doesn't do anything too outstanding or new in terms of the genres and subject matters but how it handles those themes together as well as how the characters are all written really show how careful and understanding. You couldn't have this well rounded characters without the impeccable performances from the cast, most importantly Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie as the leads. Lewis makes Ember's anger and impatience feel believable, while Athie gives Wade such an endearing vulnerability, all while the two give off great chemistry. It should be no surprise that the animation from a Pixar movie is stunning, but you add that with the incredibly vibrant colors and how fluid the many elements are, you start to wonder what they could do next. Despite the initial belief that this movie would bomb despite just how incredible it is due to how Pixar's last few since COVID hit have either made under or went straight to Disney+, Elemental becoming a sleeper hit is one of the best success stories of recent times. Over all: 100%

2023 top list so far:

1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

3. Elemental

4. Air

5. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

6. Creed III

7. John Wick: Chapter 4

8. Scream VI

9. M3GAN

10. Cocaine Bear

11. Knock at the Cabin

12. The Flash

13. The Super Mario Bros. Movie

14. Renfield

15. Fast X

16. The Little Mermaid 2023

17. Shazam! Fury of the Gods

18. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

19. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Top 10 New Shows and Season Premieres of 2022

New Shows:

1. Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers

2. Women of the Movement

3. Around the World in 80 Days

4. Five Days at Memorial

5. The Devil's Hour

6. Let the World See

7. Andor

8. The Sandman

9. I Love That for You

10. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Honorable Mentions:

Dark Winds

Inside Man

The Old Man

Ms. Marvel

Our Flag Means Death

Under the Banner of Heaven

The Gilded Age

Theodore Roosevelt

Inventing Anna

Moon Knight

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Tales of the Jedi

Fear the Walking Dead: Dead in the Water

The Afterparty

Welcome to Flatch

The Offer

Severance

Tales of the Walking Dead

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

Wednesday

The Thing About Pam

Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin

The Girl from Plainville

Peacemaker

Walker: Independence

Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

Pam & Tommy

Black Bird

Gaslit

Man vs. Bee

I Am Groot

The 101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments of All Time

A Friend of the Family

Welcome to Chippendales

Blumhouse's Compendium of Horror

The Boys Presents: Diabolical

The Legend of Vox Machina

The Essex Serpent

Hamster & Gretel

Quantum Leap 2022

Shining Vale

Tulsa King

Fleishman Is in Trouble

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

The English

The Cuphead Show!

The Winchesters

Let the Right One In

Killing It

Candy

Bel-Air

The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder

The Staircase

We Baby Bears

National Treasure: Edge of History

Loot

Slow Horses

The Baby

The Rookie: Feds

The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window

Tokyo Vice

Season Premieres:

1. My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman fourth season premiere-Billie Eilish

2. Stranger Things fourth season premiere-Chapter One: The Hellfire Club

3. The Cleaning Lady second season premiere-Sins of the Father

4. 9-1-1: Lone Star third season premiere-The Big Chill

5. The Righteous Gemstones second season premiere-I Speak in the Tounges of Men and Angels

6. The White Lotus: Sicily premiere-Ciao

7. Only Murders in the Building second season premiere-Persons of Interest

8. The Problem with Jon Stewart second season premiere-The War Over Gender

9. Rick and Morty sixth season premiere-Sola ricks

10. What We Do in the Shadows fourth season premiere-Reunited

Honorable Mentions:

The Boys third season premiere-Payback

Documentary Now! fourth season premiere-Soldier of Illusion

Who Do You Think You Are? 2010 eleventh season premiere-Billy Porter

Ozark fourth season premiere-The Beginning of the End

Resident Alien second season premiere-Old Friends

High School Musical: The Musical: The Series third season premiere-Happy Campers

Young Rock third season premiere-The People Need You

Better Call Saul sixth season premiere-Wine and Roses

Secrets of Sulphur Springs second season premiere-Only Time Will Tell

The Cuphead Show! third season premiere-The Devil's Revenge (Part 3)

9-1-1 sixth season premiere-Let The Games Begin

Made for Love second season premiere-I Have a Rotten Finger

The Umbrella Academy third season premiere-Meet the Family

Stargirl: Frenemies premiere-Chapter One: The Murder

Are You Afraid of the Dark?: Ghost Island premiere-The Tale of Room 213

The Orville: New Horizons premiere-Electric Sheep

Reservation Dogs second season premiere-The Curse

Barry third season premiere-forgiving jeff

Superman & Lois second season premiere-What Lies Beneath

The Crown fifth season premiere-Queen Victoria Syndrome

American Horror Story: NYC premiere-Something's Coming

The Flight Attendant second season premiere-Seeing Double

NCIS: Hawai'i second season premiere-Prisoner's Dilemma

The Mysterious Benedict Society second season premiere-A Perilous Journey

Avenue 5 second season premiere-No One Wants an Argument About Reality

American Horror Stories second season premiere-Dollhouse

Law & Order: Organized Crime third season premiere-Gimme Shelter - Part One

Jack Ryan third season premiere-Falcon

Rutherford Falls second season premiere-White Man in the Cupboard

The Good Doctor sixth season premiere-Afterparty

Physical second season premiere-Don't You Want Me

Euphoria second season premiere-Trying to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door

Snowpiercer third season premiere-The Tortoise and the Hare

Pretty Hard Cases second season premiere-Pencil Skirts

Raven's Home fifth season premiere-The Wrong Victor

This Is Us sixth season premiere-The Challenger

The Simpsons 34th season premiere-Habeas Tortoise

Carl's Date

Originally meant to be part of the Disney+ Dog Days series, Carl's Date was put before Elemental and is also the final entry related to 2009s Up after the death of Carl Fredricksen's voice actor Ed Asner in 2021. The Pixar short sees Carl decide to go on his first date since the death of his wife but not entirely sure how to prepare himself. With help from Dug, though many of his efforts start out as dog related, Carl eventually realizes that he doesn't have to go too extreme and something simple will be best. Before he goes out on his date, to which he brings Dug as backup, he assures a picture of his late wife, Ellie, that she will always be his girl and that it's the start of a new adventure. This final epilogue to the Up franchise not only serves as a wonderful way to say goodbye to Carl, but especially to the long and incredible life of Asner. Joining Asner is Bob Peterson coming back to not only voice Dug but getting to write the final story to the same franchise he cowrote in 2009. Even if this was not meant to be the last project related to Up, the performance from Asner and the writing for him definitely feels so well done. Dug, as always, is fun thanks to Peterson's performance and his interactions with Carl will always be sweet. His writing is just incredibly sweet, emotional, and manages to round out the key aspects to Carls' character since the original movie. It also helps that, this being from Pixar, the animation is perfect and when you combine it with the music from Andrea Datzman you get something quite tearful and complete and all just from a short film with very little settings. Ed Asner had a very long and incredible career that began in 1957, so to end with Carl's Date is a perfect sendoff.

The Flash

With all the countless changes in preproduction over the years and various controversies surrounding the film, whether during the making of it or the people involved outside of it, The Flash certainly had a long road. While this does take place in the DCEU, the film is meant to use its time travel plot to restart the universe and lead to James Gunn's own take of the superhero universe. After Barry Allen, the title character, helps Batman in Gotham City, we learn that the two have been trying to find a way to prove that Barry's father did not murder his mother. After not finding any proof, and much to Bruce's warning, Barry uses his powers to go back in time and alter history so that his mother is still alive. After being attacked by an unknown force, Barry ends up in 2013 wherein his mother is alive, father isn't imprisoned, but a younger version of him is still around. Soon Barry realizes his altering of the past has caused things all over to go wrong as General Zod and his forces invade much like in Man of Steel but none of the other heroes, except an older version of Batman played by Michael Keaton and a less experienced Supergirl, exist. All four try their best but when the two Barrys constantly go back and try to fix whatever problems, it causes the multiverse to implode. The older Barry realizes that the only way to fix everything is to let his mother die, but by changing one small thing to get his father exonerated it puts him back into his own universe though with George Clooney as Bruce Wayne. One thing that this movie has going for it is it is definitely one of the most imaginative superhero films of recent times. However, it is let down by various factors in its execution and overuse of nostalgia as well as the activities outside the movie by its star Ezra Miller. Director Andy Muschietti has a very unique look that uses a good combination of the effects and Henry Braham's cinematography to give it a colorful and often strange feel similar to that of the comics. Of course there are many of the effects that really don't look that great, whether it's fake babies or how the costume looks on Ezra, that should have been given more time to polish. The writing from Christina Hodson does have a lot of good intentioned in it and the passion is there, but often staggers and slags just as much as it works. Most of the time a movie centering on the Flash feels more like a tribute towards Batman, particularly Keaton's take. Was it great to see his version again, sure, but a lot of the writing never made you feel like this was the same version from 1989 and '92 save for a few references that often feel empty. The best part of the writing, helped also by the performances, is anything to do with Barry's family especially in his decision to alter his original change. For all the big bombastic moments and epic fight scenes this movie has, it's the one when Barry meets his mother one last time that is highly impactful. Once again Ezra's whole thing outside the film is terrible and they should face consequences, but the performance is great especially in portraying multiple versions of Barry. Having three different versions of Batman gives us three distinct and well done takes from Ben Affleck, Michael Keaton, and George Clooney. Sasha Calle, who plays Supergirl, is a wonderful addition and makes you wish that she could appear in future projects. The most controversial aspect to this movie is of course when the multiverse is imploding and are given brief glimpses into other universes. Many of them being past versions of superhero portrayals, like Christopher Reeve and George Reeves as Superman and Adam West as Batman. It also has Nicolas Cage as the Superman he would have portrayed in the cancelled 90s movie fighting a giant spider. I admire the intention to pay ode to the many movies and shows based on DC Comics of the past, but between the really plastic looking CGI and feeling as though the moment itself just happens for fan service and not earned all that much, it is a rather empty moment that shows how over reliant we are with nostalgia. Warner Bros.'s decision to keep this movie going, as opposed to the less expensive Batgirl, and it failing incredibly will forever haunt it whether it's a future cult classic or not. This being the third time that The Flashpoint Paradox had been adapted for another medium, The Flash is unfortunately the weakest effort but at least it had really fun moments. Over all: 88%

2023 top list so far:

1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

3. Air

4. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

5. Creed III

6. John Wick: Chapter 4

7. Scream VI

8. M3GAN

9. Cocaine Bear

10. Knock at the Cabin

11. The Flash

12. The Super Mario Bros. Movie

13. Renfield

14. Fast X

15. The Little Mermaid 2023

16. Shazam! Fury of the Gods

17. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

18. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania