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Petty No More
Ladies, gentlemen, and gender non-conforming everybodies! Welcome, once again, to the Petty Olympics! *cue Olympics theme * Blood of Zeus is back for its final season, and it’s leaving it all on the floor. Under the hands-on guidance of creators/writers/producers Charles and Vlad Parlapanides, does it reclaim the glory of the last two seasons? Can the Parlapanides’ pursuit of perfection provide the peak petty we’ve come to expect? (I can’t resist alliteration sometimes, forgive me.)
Grand Opening, Grand Closing
Some shows don’t know where to close their story. You can peruse streaming platforms and find seasons five and six of something that might have wrapped up nicely in three or four. Blood of Zeus feels as though it has a mythos that could span so many seasons. The Greco-Roman pantheon is full and vast, with so many interconnected relationships across the gods, the demigods, and mortals. But that would be unfocused and as confusing as someone joining the MCU at phase four. Blood of Zeus is focused and has a story to tell. In 2025, three seasons of a hit show is a ‘hit and quit it’. And at every point, it appears that Blood of Zeus knew what it wanted to say, how it wanted it said, and understood the importance of good timing, which includes knowing when not to overstay. This creative team is focused, man!
Passing the Torch
After three seasons of reviews, there isn’t much more to say about the sleeper hit this show is. What can’t be said enough is how culture leads the way. Right out of the gate in the first season, they introduced the idea that this story is not just a reference to Greek mythology, but that what we call ‘myth’ was a religion. There were/are rituals, sayings, art, food, all associated with the things we see animated. Bringing culture to the table for the last two seasons has kept Blood of Zeus a grounded and focused fan favorite in adult animation.
Season one gave us the petty nature of these complacent gods and the mortals they mess with. Season two drove the emotional layer of the underworld, the pillar that keeps the status quo of Olympus in place. And the mortals they mess with. This third and final season is about legacy. About who has one, who deserves to leave one behind, and who gets to choose.
Architects & Archetypes
Blood of Zeus is just as pretty as it’s ever been. International collaboration at a high enough efficacy to make the UN jealous. Netflix fan favorite Powerhouse Animation, the studio behind Masters of the Universe, Seis Manos, and Castlevania teamed up with two Korean animation studios; Mua Film and Hanho Meung-Up (aka: the studio that animated my entire freaking childhood). The result is a cool animation style that delivers complexity, effects, and weight without blowing out the budget. That doesn’t mean Blood of Zeus doesn’t bring out the heavy weaponry when needed.
This third season arrives with a more philosophical feel. Gone are the minor squabbles that brought us here. Now, the focus is on ‘the path’. Blood of Zeus uses the hero’s journey to retell the origin of the hero’s journey. *puts on scholar hat * Even though the hero’s journey is as old as the first story told, it wasn’t coined until 1949, when Joseph Campbell noted and explained the ‘monomyth’. A revelation that found most stories have the same beats. Someone hears the call to action, goes and meets a mentor who teaches them to do something special. The main character screws up the first time, almost dies, comes back from being down bad, learns the special skill, kicks ass, and goes home built different. Boom. The end. Roll credits. Then mid-credit scene, “The end??” Every popular story you know has these beats. What’s dope is that many of these beats were first recorded in Greek stories and fables. So when we follow Heron and Seraphim this season, these beats are exaggerated.
Greek philosophy is one of the pillars of modern human thought. So many of those philosophers laid the groundwork for advanced thought, and that is the bit of culture that differentiates this season from the last two. Despite the high stakes, there is way less fighting this season and a lot more thinking. Blood of Zeus is giving away some free game. This is an animated philosophy class on the hero’s journey disguised as an animated series. Yeah, the visuals are fantastic, but this is also high-level narrative development. Don’t sleep on this, you’ll regret it.
The Good
Fred Tatasciore’s turn as Hades is a shining light; he so often voices grunting, angry soldier-type characters that hearing him voice with this much nuance is refreshing. We’ve seen hundreds of takes on Hades in media, but this one is the blueprint from here on. His walk on the hero’s journey is as complete as Heron’s. In three seasons, we’ve watched him evolve from a god set on petty retribution to a sad, resentful family man, to a dedicated father, husband, and son-in-law. The whole time, Tatasciore is giving us the range of a veteran voice actor.
The Petty
Listen y’all. With the stakes this high, things can only get petty. And every petty moment is a fight waiting to happen. The potential freeing of Cronos and the titan homies at the end of season two should be a harbinger of the madness to come. If your sons beat you and your homies ass and then locked you up for eternity, you might be feeling a tad bit froggy. Maybe even a bit petty.
The Hype
Without giving away too much, we finally get to see Hermes unleashed. It’s as satisfying as a Quicksilver moment in the X-Men movies and as grounded as Makkari’s scene in Eternals. There’s this beautiful aura that surrounds him in motion. Physics shouldn’t have to mean anything in fantasy worlds, but dammit, watching Hermes go straight up speedster was a thing to behold. Seeing Hermes barely slip away time after time after time kept me on the edge of my seat the entire scene. Hat’s off to the team, seriously. Unlike Black Adam, the hierarchy is actually shifting in the BoZ universe.
Closing Ceremony
Blood of Zeus seasons always come to us in times of need. Season one dropped during the COVID-19 quarantine. Season two gave us somewhere to escape after the 2024 election. As the world feels on the brink of forgetting how heroes are made, season three reminds us of the hero’s journey. And just like the real world, nothing is as it seems; everybody has a legitimate claim, and everyone is wrong as hell. It’s so messy, in a good way. Check out Blood of Zeus’ final season on Netflix right now!
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The post Petty No More: ‘Blood of Zeus’ Season Three Review appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Petty No More
Ladies, gentlemen, and gender non-conforming everybodies! Welcome, once again, to the Petty Olympics! *cue Olympics theme * Blood of Zeus is back for its final season, and it’s leaving it all on the floor. Under the hands-on guidance of creators/writers/producers Charles and Vlad Parlapanides, does it reclaim the glory of the last two seasons? Can the Parlapanides’ pursuit of perfection provide the peak petty we’ve come to expect? (I can’t resist alliteration sometimes, forgive me.)
Grand Opening, Grand Closing
Some shows don’t know where to close their story. You can peruse streaming platforms and find seasons five and six of something that might have wrapped up nicely in three or four. Blood of Zeus feels as though it has a mythos that could span so many seasons. The Greco-Roman pantheon is full and vast, with so many interconnected relationships across the gods, the demigods, and mortals. But that would be unfocused and as confusing as someone joining the MCU at phase four. Blood of Zeus is focused and has a story to tell. In 2025, three seasons of a hit show is a ‘hit and quit it’. And at every point, it appears that Blood of Zeus knew what it wanted to say, how it wanted it said, and understood the importance of good timing, which includes knowing when not to overstay. This creative team is focused, man!
Passing the Torch
After three seasons of reviews, there isn’t much more to say about the sleeper hit this show is. What can’t be said enough is how culture leads the way. Right out of the gate in the first season, they introduced the idea that this story is not just a reference to Greek mythology, but that what we call ‘myth’ was a religion. There were/are rituals, sayings, art, food, all associated with the things we see animated. Bringing culture to the table for the last two seasons has kept Blood of Zeus a grounded and focused fan favorite in adult animation.
Season one gave us the petty nature of these complacent gods and the mortals they mess with. Season two drove the emotional layer of the underworld, the pillar that keeps the status quo of Olympus in place. And the mortals they mess with. This third and final season is about legacy. About who has one, who deserves to leave one behind, and who gets to choose.
Architects & Archetypes
Blood of Zeus is just as pretty as it’s ever been. International collaboration at a high enough efficacy to make the UN jealous. Netflix fan favorite Powerhouse Animation, the studio behind Masters of the Universe, Seis Manos, and Castlevania teamed up with two Korean animation studios; Mua Film and Hanho Meung-Up (aka: the studio that animated my entire freaking childhood). The result is a cool animation style that delivers complexity, effects, and weight without blowing out the budget. That doesn’t mean Blood of Zeus doesn’t bring out the heavy weaponry when needed.
This third season arrives with a more philosophical feel. Gone are the minor squabbles that brought us here. Now, the focus is on ‘the path’. Blood of Zeus uses the hero’s journey to retell the origin of the hero’s journey. *puts on scholar hat * Even though the hero’s journey is as old as the first story told, it wasn’t coined until 1949, when Joseph Campbell noted and explained the ‘monomyth’. A revelation that found most stories have the same beats. Someone hears the call to action, goes and meets a mentor who teaches them to do something special. The main character screws up the first time, almost dies, comes back from being down bad, learns the special skill, kicks ass, and goes home built different. Boom. The end. Roll credits. Then mid-credit scene, “The end??” Every popular story you know has these beats. What’s dope is that many of these beats were first recorded in Greek stories and fables. So when we follow Heron and Seraphim this season, these beats are exaggerated.
Greek philosophy is one of the pillars of modern human thought. So many of those philosophers laid the groundwork for advanced thought, and that is the bit of culture that differentiates this season from the last two. Despite the high stakes, there is way less fighting this season and a lot more thinking. Blood of Zeus is giving away some free game. This is an animated philosophy class on the hero’s journey disguised as an animated series. Yeah, the visuals are fantastic, but this is also high-level narrative development. Don’t sleep on this, you’ll regret it.
The Good
Fred Tatasciore’s turn as Hades is a shining light; he so often voices grunting, angry soldier-type characters that hearing him voice with this much nuance is refreshing. We’ve seen hundreds of takes on Hades in media, but this one is the blueprint from here on. His walk on the hero’s journey is as complete as Heron’s. In three seasons, we’ve watched him evolve from a god set on petty retribution to a sad, resentful family man, to a dedicated father, husband, and son-in-law. The whole time, Tatasciore is giving us the range of a veteran voice actor.
The Petty
Listen y’all. With the stakes this high, things can only get petty. And every petty moment is a fight waiting to happen. The potential freeing of Cronos and the titan homies at the end of season two should be a harbinger of the madness to come. If your sons beat you and your homies ass and then locked you up for eternity, you might be feeling a tad bit froggy. Maybe even a bit petty.
The Hype
Without giving away too much, we finally get to see Hermes unleashed. It’s as satisfying as a Quicksilver moment in the X-Men movies and as grounded as Makkari’s scene in Eternals. There’s this beautiful aura that surrounds him in motion. Physics shouldn’t have to mean anything in fantasy worlds, but dammit, watching Hermes go straight up speedster was a thing to behold. Seeing Hermes barely slip away time after time after time kept me on the edge of my seat the entire scene. Hat’s off to the team, seriously. Unlike Black Adam, the hierarchy is actually shifting in the BoZ universe.
Closing Ceremony
Blood of Zeus seasons always come to us in times of need. Season one dropped during the COVID-19 quarantine. Season two gave us somewhere to escape after the 2024 election. As the world feels on the brink of forgetting how heroes are made, season three reminds us of the hero’s journey. And just like the real world, nothing is as it seems; everybody has a legitimate claim, and everyone is wrong as hell. It’s so messy, in a good way. Check out Blood of Zeus’ final season on Netflix right now!
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The post Petty No More: ‘Blood of Zeus’ Season Three Review appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
The current political regime has only been in power for four months and already they’ve begun dismantling basic principles and constitutional rights provided by the U.S. government, with the spoils going to the benefit of the uber rich and at the expense of this country’s most vulnerable people. From erasing Black history, the LGBTQ+ community, women’s accomplishments, and so much on government websites to mass firings of critical agencies like the Federal Aviation Authority and USAID, the goal of the orange-tinged menace and his minions is clear: converting this democracy into a dictatorship run by oligarchs.
As our fellow citizens are being deported to concentration and torture camps abroad and disappeared on American soil if they happen to be a certain kind of brown — all while an ethnic cleansing takes place in Gaza funded by this very government — it feels strange to escape in stories. For those who’d like to experience imaginary extensions of our current sociopolitical moment, here are the 10 best dystopian films to revisit while the world burns.
Idiocracy (2006)
I first saw Mike Judge’s Idiocracy when I was living in Spain and my Spanish and non-USian comrades were flabbergasted when I told them this future could very easily happen in this country. It only took 19 years, but lo and behold, Idiocracy’s world is here. And ever so much worse than Idiocracy predicted. Because we might have a cartoonishly obtuse president akin to President Camacho (Terry Crewes), but his minions are smart as whips as they dismantle the US system of governance from the ground up and beyond.
We also have no hero figure anywhere in sight to save us and stop the demolishing of democratic norms as those in power on the Democrat side performatively wring their hands in anguish and do nothing concrete to stop these horrors. I never thought I’d actually prefer the world of Idiocracy. Yet here we are.
Max Max: Fury Road (2015)
Whenever I have nowhere healthy to put my rage and frustration at the current political state of things, I put on Mad Max: Fury Road. The entire Mad Max franchise has been prescient in so many ways, but Fury Road is my favorite as is centers a group of badass women warriors who band together against a disgusting, despotic pervert who would have them chained up as breeding cows like our current kleptocrat in chief wishes in the growing American dystopian hellscape.
Throughout Fury Road the women ask, “Who killed the world?” and in our corresponding real-world nightmare we can safely say that the current administration is the culprit. This is a cathartic watch, especially if you take a break from the news for a couple days after to leave yourself with the feeling that the good guys won, even if for a moment.
The Road (2009)
On the flip side of Fury Road’s hopeful ending we have The Road, adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s bleak novel of the same name. Starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as unnamed father and son in the apocalypse, this brutal film pulls no punches as we follow the slowly starving pair through a wasteland that has been wrecked by environmental and social devastation. Cannibals roam the country, and this film is not for the squeamish as some of their victims aftermaths on screen might actually have you throwing up, like I did the first time I saw it.
This is a heartbreaking film, and one for the folks who would like to prepare for the emptiness that awaits should this kind of slow cataclysm unfold in real time.
28 Days Later (2002) and 28 Weeks Later (2007)
28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later are set in a world where a mutated virus escaped from a lab, turning its infected into zooming zombies whose feral natures stop at nothing to devour anything human left in their paths. Both films pose the question of what happens to survivors’ humanity when faced with the incomprehensible.
In 28 Days Later, this question is salient upon meeting a group of soldiers who have camped in a manor, and who have no qualms about using a pre-teen girl as their sex slave in an England where lawlessness is the rule of the land.
In 28 Weeks Later, family ties are put to the test after during the viral plague as a father is reunited with his two children and forced to face with what he did to their mother to survive. With news of a 28 Years Later in production, this is a good time to revisit Danny Boyle’s seminal zombie films.
Snowpiercer (2013)
A self-sustaining train that can never stop moving holds the final survivors of a new ice age in a socially stratified loop that reflects an old-world hierarchy still very much present in a supposedly frozen and uninhabitable Earth. While it seems a far-fetched plot and one that’s hard to imagine taking place on a train, this action horror unfolds some gnarly worldbuilding that in many ways reflects what’s been happening on Earth since 2013 when the movie came out. Like, we’ve seen several billionaires travel to space just because they can, as prices for regular folks continue to rise and housing costs are reaching unsustainable levels provoking housing crises across the USA.
Directed by Parasite’s Bong Joon Ho, this piece of social commentary just gets more and relevant.
Children of Men (2006)
The year is 2027, just two years from now; environmental devastation has caused sterility in the human population and governments around the world have resorted to totalitarianism as their method of social control. When a young Black woman Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) is discovered to be pregnant — the only known pregnant person in the world — a variety of underground groups work together to keep her safe and out of the tyrannical government’s hands.
Children of Men balances drama and action beautifully. Even though it’s a heavy burden to bear, it also reflects how vital Black women are and always have been to the future of free societies that are community-based and sustainable, not these proto-fascist capitalist-driven consumer states that destroy life on Earth for the profit of a greedy few.
The Hunger Games (2012)
In an America that’s been broken up into working class districts that all serve an elite capitol, every year the youngsters are drawn from lotteries and sent to the city to fight a gladiator match to the death for the amusement of the wealthy. Adapted from the bestselling series of novels by Suzanne Collins, the film versions remain faithful to the source materials in many ways — and for some the books might be easier to handle.
This YA installment of dystopian visions is for those with a strong enough stomach to handle not just extreme violence against children, but children themselves being forced into heinous acts of brutality for survival.
Fahrenheit 451 (2018)
Michael B. Jordan is so hot in Fahrenheit 451. Literally. He plays a fireman whose job it is to burn books deemed unsuitable for the public by an autocratic government.
Based on the chilling novel by Ray Bradbury, the HBO remake couldn’t be more timely as this current administration continues erasing history it finds inconvenient to their white nationalist narrative, including expanding banned books lists and cutting funding for writers and other artists whose jobs it is to call these injustices out.
The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)
A fungal parasite has taken over the world and turned the infected into flesh-eating zombie creatures known as the Hungries. The Girl with All the Gifts is set on a military base’s medical wing where scientists and doctors are studying children who have been infected, but not turned into the feral creatures — at least not yet.
Young Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is one of these special children, whose bond with one of her captors/teachers Miss Justineau (Gemma Arterton) leads her to escape with Melanie instead of kill her after their camp is infiltrated by Hungries. Part sci-fi horror and part apocalypse drama, The Girl with All the Gifts is an extraordinary and moving story about all the different ways we adapt to survive.
A Quiet Place (2018)
In John Krasinski’s directorial debut, a family ekes out a quiet existence on a farm in a world that’s been taken over by bloodthirsty alien creatures who hunt by sound. Most of the film is “spoken” in sign language, featuring hearing impaired actor Millicent Simmonds as the sullen teenage daughter Regan, and Krasinski’s real-life wife Emily Watson as his on-screen partner. The performances here are moving.
Watching A Quiet Place in today’s context, I can’t help but wish for the aliens to take over our world. From genocide to concentration camps in El Salvador, I’d prefer their proliferation on our planet than the fascist forces that are gaining in power every day. Just saying.
The post Best Dystopian Films to Rewatch While the World Is Burning appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.
The Doctor once said, “We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?” And when it comes to a life full of stories to tell, this character has more than any living being in the Whoniverse. The concept of storytelling and its power take on a new meaning in Doctor Who’s “The Story & The Engine,” which takes us through a little previous incarnation trip through the Doctor’s past. We see many of his previous faces onscreen, but we get a surprise cameo from Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor.
In this episode, the Doctor and Belinda arrive in Lagos to fuel up the Vindicator. Before the Doctor goes off into the streets, he opens up to Belinda about his reality. He talks about what it is like to be an otherworldly being in a Black body. Fifteen admits that there are many places in the world where he’s not accepted. However, he feels at home in a small barbershop where he can engage with other men and tell stories.
It’s a reflection of many Black men’s lives, who often find community in the safe space of a barbershop. The Doctor specifically says it is his first time having THIS Black body and not A Black body because, well, that would be false. We know that the Fugitive Doctor presents as a Black woman with locs and the Doctor does remember meeting that incarnation.
The barbershop where the Doctor found peace turns out to be something much stranger. The Doctor’s friends are trapped there, thanks to a man they call the Barber. He owns the shop and forces them to tell stories while he cuts their hair. Their tales fuel his vessel, which looks like a giant spider and travels along the Nexus, which he formed as the real World Wide Web to weave together stories.
Thanks to a time space compressor, the barbershop is both in Lagos and traveling at the same time and will only let two people in and out. Besides the Barber, the other person is a woman, whom the Doctor knows from somewhere. She’s rather abrasive towards him and he doesn’t connect the dots. The Barber tries to like and say he is several gods from several cultures, including Anansi the spider man. But the Doctor and Belinda quickly call out (and laugh about) his lie.
The Doctor says he met all of the gods, noting that Anansi made him lose a bet to marry one of his daughters. Well, that daughter is the woman in the shop, whose real name is Abena. She’s upset that the Doctor left her behind and the frame moves, showing Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor in place of the Fifteenth Doctor. She explains that she was a fugitive and busy with a different story that might be finished one day. That checks out considering the Doctor’s work with the Division, with most of those memories stuck in that fob watch from Tecteun. Considering that Abena is a goddess herself, it makes sense that the Doctor’s new face is not shocking to her.
It is possible that the Doctor will start to peel back those layers of the past and uncover more secrets. This means we could see the Fugitive Doctor return again. Perhaps we will get more flashbacks as we discover what happened to the Doctor during that time.
Abena got in cahoots with the Barber, who admits that he was once human. He was the fuel behind telling the gods’ stories and printing them to strengthen their bond with humanity. However, he didn’t get credit for his stories, so that’s why he wants to ruin them all. In the end, Abena has a change of heart and decides to tell a story about braiding hair, giving the Doctor cornrows and a pathway towards escaping. It’s a story where everyone lives, which is always nice. But it was even better to learn a bit more about the Fugitive Doctor and see her once again.
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