Screen Time

WITH MARISA PATWA

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Netflix serves up scary monsters and delicate matters of the heart this month

STRANGER THINGS - SSN 4/VOL 2

Stranger Things has been setting the bar high for time-traveling back to the 80's but volume one of season 4 elevated it to the galaxy. We were given so many memorable moments - from Max’s run through Vecna’s hellscape trying to escape her own depression and save her life to the Dungeons & Dragons side-by-side scene with Lucas playing basketball then the kids riding bicycles on both ends of each world trying to get back to each other. The biggest revelations were how big, bad Vecna - played by the wickedlytalented Jamie Campbell Bower - came to be and our mind-bending heroine Millie Bobby Brown’s El origin story. We were left with a juicy cliffhanger at the end of the first volume and now all of our questions will be answered and then some as the kids - now teens - face-off for the last time in Hawkins, Indiana. I’m not ready for the magic to end. Netflix 7/1

RESIDENT EVIL

The popular video game has been made into seven movies, but never has it been fleshed out into a television show. Netflix is giving fans of the action-packed, monster-filled terror a chance to bask in the beautiful horrors of this wasteland. The show is pieced together from the past and the future, taking place three decades after the discovery of the Umbrella Corporation’s T-Virus, which jump-started the apocalypse in 2022. Charlie’s Angels breakout star Ella Balinska is taking the reins in the new iteration and she's totally up for the physical and emotional challenges of this role. The British beauty plays Jade Wesker, who's fighting for her life in a world seething with bloodthirsty zombies in London 2036, all while being haunted by the demons of her past. She must reckon with the sins of her father, virologist Albert, who is touted as the most dangerous villain in Resident Evil lore and figure out what happened to her sister Billie. Netflix 7/14

PERSUASION

Get ready for a fresh take on Jane Austen's 1817 novel Persuasion. Dakota Johnson stars as Anne Elliot, a young woman who is faced once again with the handsome and dashing man who got away, Frederick Wentworth, played by Cosmo Jarvis. Like many of Austen’s heroines, Anne, the middle daughter of a wealthy family on the brink of bankruptcy, is clever and at odds with modern society’s standards and sensibilities. Throw an old flame into the mix and this show is going to be fire. Pretty Rich Asians’ Henry Golding also adds flavor to the cast as one of her relatives. This is the modern twist on a classic tale of romance, in the vein of the gorgeous diversity of Bridgerton which featured a black leading man in season one and Indian leading woman in season two. I love that we are continuing to break barriers in these matters of the heart. Netflix 7/15