Monthly Archives: October 2024

The Greatest Villain You’ve Never Rooted For

Marlo Stanfield

In the pantheon of television’s most chilling antagonists, one name rises above the rest like a cold wind off the Baltimore harbor: Marlo Stanfield.

While Breaking Bad’s Gus Fring simmers with controlled menace and Better Call Saul‘s Lalo Salamanca oozes charismatic danger, it’s The Wire‘s young drug kingpin who truly embodies the ruthless heart of American crime drama.

Marlo, played with icy precision by Jamie Hector, is a study in calculated brutality. He doesn’t seek your empathy or understanding. He doesn’t charm you with wit or swagger. Marlo simply is – a force of nature in a fitted cap and polo shirt, as implacable and merciless as winter itself.

What sets Marlo apart is his absolute disconnection from anything resembling conventional morality. Fring and Salamanca, for all their sins, operate within recognizable codes of conduct. They have associates, even friends.

Marlo has only pawns and prey. His casual order to execute a security guard for merely daring to speak to him chills the blood not because it’s shocking, but because to Marlo, it’s utterly mundane.

The Wire presents Marlo as the endpoint of a system that has failed its youth so completely that it has created a perfect predator. He is the American dream stripped of all pretense – accumulation of power and wealth as the only goal, unencumbered by compassion or doubt.

In one pivotal scene, Marlo is told that a rival has been insulting him behind his back. His response? “My name is my name.”

In those five words, we see the essence of Marlo Stanfield. His reputation – his brand, if you will – is all that matters. It’s capitalism distilled to its purest form, the marginal gains of the streets elevated to a governing philosophy.

What makes Marlo truly terrifying is not just what he does, but what he represents. He is the logical conclusion of a society that values profit over people, that discards its most vulnerable citizens.

In Marlo’s dead-eyed stare, we see the cost of our collective moral compromises reflected back at us.

Gus Fring and Lalo Salamanca may haunt our nightmares, but Marlo Stanfield forces us to confront the waking horrors we’ve allowed to fester in our cities.

He is a villain for our times – uncompromising, unrepentant, and unforgettable ​- whether we want him or not.

‘Hold Your Breath’ Too Formless

‘Hold Your Breath’ aims to explore the quiet terror of isolation and madness, but much like the dust storms that sweep through its 1930s Oklahoma setting, it ultimately feels more like a force of nature that never fully materializes.

Directors Karrie Crouse and Will Joines capture the desolate beauty of the Dust Bowl with stunning visuals, but the film often struggles to find its footing as it oscillates between supernatural horror and psychological drama.

Sarah Paulson’s performance is unquestionably the film’s saving grace. As Margaret Bellum, a mother left to fend for her children in a bleak and deteriorating world, Paulson embodies both the quiet resolve and fraying mental state of a woman slowly being undone by grief, fear, and isolation.

Her performance taps into the timeless horror of losing one’s grip on reality, and it’s in these moments where the film feels most grounded, even as dust clouds swirl and strange figures loom .

Unfortunately, Hold Your Breath never fully capitalizes on its potential. The film’s pacing feels sluggish, and its refusal to anchor the viewer in a coherent narrative begins to feel more like a lack of direction than a creative choice.

The tension builds without payoff, and scenes that could have been emotionally devastating or terrifying fall flat as the script veers into predictable jump scares and vague metaphors .

There are moments when the film hints at something deeper — the idea of a mother’s desperation driving her to the brink of madness is fertile ground for horror. Yet these moments are fleeting, buried under layers of ambiguity and a plot that seems unsure of where to go next.

The result is a film that feels simultaneously overstuffed and underdeveloped, a series of haunting images in search of a story to tell .

‘Hold Your Breath’ doesn’t quite manage to hold the audience’s attention. It’s a film with striking moments and a standout lead performance, but much like the dust that permeates its world, it eventually settles, leaving little behind but a faint memory of what could have been.

Trumpism vs. Wokism


The 2024 election is shaping up to be a clash between two extremes: Trumpism and Wokism.

But while they dominate headlines and airwaves, there’s a critical false equivalency being drawn between the two. Wokism, for all its excesses, is fundamentally an overreaction to real, historical wrongs.

Trumpism, by contrast, is an overreaction to an overreaction—a backlash without a real grievance, inflamed by a man who thrives on division.

Wokism is rooted in a genuine struggle for equality and justice. While its most radical voices can be rigid and self-righteous, its origins lie in the ongoing fight to address systemic racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. Yes, sometimes the movement overshoots the mark. The drive to right the wrongs of the past can lead to dogmatic positions and overzealous demands. Cancel culture is real.

But the underlying truth is hard to dispute: there are real wrongs that need to be corrected. Wokism, at its best, calls for society to live up to its own ideals of fairness and inclusion.

Trumpism, on the other hand, isn’t a response to oppression. It’s a reaction to the very idea of progress, a lashing out at the discomfort of change. It thrives on the perception that America is under siege—not by foreign powers or economic decline, but by cultural forces that challenge long-standing privileges.

Trumpism doesn’t seek to correct an injustice. Instead, it inflates grievances that don’t exist, weaponizing them into a rallying cry against an evolving world. It’s an overreaction to the overreach of political correctness, fueled by fear and stoked by a leader whose primary interest is self-promotion.

The problem is that the two are often framed as equivalent in media narratives, as if they represent equal and opposite reactions in the culture wars.

But that’s a dangerous simplification. Wokism, for all its flaws, has a foundation in the pursuit of justice. It may be imperfect, even maddening at times, but it’s rooted in the recognition that inequality and prejudice are real and need addressing. Trumpism, by contrast, is a retreat into grievance politics—a reactionary movement fueled by resentment and a nostalgia for an America that never truly existed.

Wokism can be abrasive, yes. But Trumpism thrives on misinformation, on demonizing opponents and undermining democratic norms. Where Wokism seeks to expand rights and redefine equality, Trumpism seeks to shore up power through exclusion and division. One aims to create a more inclusive society, even if imperfectly; the other exploits fear of that inclusion for political gain.

This election, then, isn’t just a fight between two extremes. It’s a choice between an overreaction to historical wrongs and an overreaction to progress itself. To equate the two is to miss the point.

We need to stop treating these movements as if they’re on the same moral plane. Wokism’s excesses can be reined in. Trumpism, by its very nature, thrives on destruction.

And if we’re not careful, it could burn down more than just the White House.