JesseF5000

A fresh take on The Terminal List universe, shifting the spotlight to the original series' main bad guy Ben Edwards (Taylor Kitsch) and making him the protagonist. Who are we kidding, it's hard not to like Kitsch in anything, even when he's playing the bad guy.

Without giving away spoilers, Ben's story takes an unexpected turn after a SEAL mission goes sideways, forcing him into a more clandestine role that plays perfectly to his skillset. The first episode does a great job setting this up and establishes Dark Wolf as a completely different beast than Chris Pratt's Terminal List, which was an excellent series.

Performances and pacing are spot on. No filler, no dragged-out exposition, easy pitfalls for prequels and military ops thrillers. Tight storytelling from start to finish.

Bonus points for the soundtrack choice. I'm loving the use of metal band outros in sync with the final credits. Alien Earth is doing this too and I'm feeling amped as the credits roll. I'm liking this trend.

Looking forward to the rest of this series.

The show makes a powerful opening statement by delivering its first episodes entirely in Hawaiian. Then the British arrive and suddenly everyone is fluent in English. Forgivable. But when Hawaiians start speaking English to each other with no Brits around, it makes no sense and breaks the internal logic of the show. A disappointing crack in an otherwise carefully crafted show.

I'm enjoying all aspects of the show: authentic costumes, strong performances and character development, good story building, and great action. And yet Hawaiians speaking English to each other is a jarring flaw that breaks immersion. It is especially frustrating because, as Jason Momoa put it, "That was the deal-breaker for us. We wouldn't have been able to go home if we did this in English," underscoring how essential speaking in Olelo Hawaii was to the show's integrity.

I realized with this installment that the Mission: Impossible universe doesn't play by our rules of reality, and it never has. The laws of physics don't apply to Tom Cruise the way they do to anyone else jumping off a high-speed train, boat, or submarine. And that's the point. This isn't our world; it's a self-contained, high-stakes, over-the-top actionverse where everything is cranked to eleven.

Once you embrace that, the whole experience becomes far more enjoyable. The constant exposition, the flashbacks, the absurd action tropes like miraculously dodging endless machine-gun fire, and the larger-than-life villains aren't flaws. They're features. They're part of the charm that defines this franchise.

What really stands out in this final installment are the extended action sequences. They're tightly choreographed, shot with precision, and of course showcase Tom Cruise front and center, stealing the show as always.

In the end, reality never had a chance. This is Cruise's world, and it's glorious popcorn nonsense in the best possible way.