Pasckie Pascua's Nerdy Squirrel Reviews: TV Series.

“A Thousand Blows” (Hulu) Season 2. British historical drama about the Forty Elephants , an all-female crime syndicate who clash with the world of illegal bare-knuckle boxing in 1880s London.        Season 2 follows Hezekiah Moscow, Sugar Goodson, and Mary Carr through a bleaker, more brutal 1880s East End, roughly one year after season one. The plot features Hezekiah seeking revenge and returning to boxing, a broken Sugar seeking redemption and sobriety, and Mary reassembling the Forty Elephants for a massive art heist.        The storytelling remains crafty and tight, and the acting, topnotch. The grit and grime of 17th century London is textured and nuanced, heightened by the stellar performance of leads Erin Doherty as the spunky Mary Carr, Malachi Kirby as the cool and calculating Hezekiah Moscow, and Stephen Graham as the torn and troubled Sugar Goodson. 🎥💻📽 “The Lady” (Britbox) British drama. Partly ficti...

“The Capture” (Amazon Prime) Season 1. British mystery thriller . Deals with the terrifying, modern-day dangers of AI, deepfakes, and manipulated surveillance footage.         Storyline: After his conviction for a war crime in Afghanistan is overturned on appeal, former British army Lance Corporal Shaun Emery finds himself accused of kidnapping and murdering his barrister Hannah Roberts, backed by CCTV evidence. Whilst Emery works to clear his name, fast-tracked Detective Inspector (DI) Rachel Carey of Homicide and Serious Crime Command begins to uncover a complex conspiracy surrounding Emery, calling into question the validity of the footage.        The timely subject offers a binge-watch allure and it didn’t disappoint. Although the characters are pretty much cliches, Holliday Grainger as lead cop Rachel Carey and Lia Williams as cool villainous DSU Gemma Garland manage to inject their individual charm ...

“Dark Winds” (Netflix) Season 3. Crime thriller based on the Leaphorn & Chee novel series by Tony Hillerman . The series follows three Navajo Tribal Police officers, Joe Leaphorn , Bernadette Manuelito, and Jim Chee , in the 1970s Four Corners area of the American Southwest .         With George R. R. Martin and Robert Redford as co-Executive Producers, this engaging series banks on the lead anchor of Zahn McClarnon as Joe Leaphorn . Cool, composed and sans the macho bravado of most starring roles, Zahn keeps the story alive and thrills low-key but nevertheless, engaging.         Season 3 follows Joe, Jim, and Bernadette in 1971, six months after Season 2. The plot centers on the search for two missing Navajo boys, a conspiracy involving border patrol, and a drug-smuggling operation that threatens to destroy the community, while Leaphorn battles personal grief and haunting, almost supernatural, t...

“Happy Valley” (Britbox) British crime drama , focusing on Catherine Cawood, a dedicated police sergeant in West Yorkshire dealing with personal trauma while fighting local crime.        This series won the 2015 BAFTA Award for Best Drama Series , and won another BAFTA for Best Drama for the second series.        Drawn from the astonishing script by Sally Wainwright and Sarah Lancashire's magnificent performance, this 3-season series could be in the Top 5 of my Best TV Series of all time. Some critics saw the opposite as in “cliché-ridden” and “blokey police procedurals" but that'd be their frigid “correctness” talking. The wicked realness of “Happy Valley” is unquestionable to men 🎥👍📽 “Karen Pirie” (Amazon Prime) British crime drama , based on the Inspector Karen Pirie series of novels by Val McDermid .         In the first series, a young detective sergeant , Karen Pirie, ...