Mailman 

A gentle coming of age story, Water Lilies takes its time in exploring what it’s like to be a young girl trying to make sense of her sexuality in a heteronormative world.

As a huge fan of Sean Baker’s Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket, I’ve wanted to watch Anora since before it even was released. But life got in the way, my watchlist grew, and honestly, the fact that it was marketed as a romantic comedy put me off. Even with all the critical praise and the five Academy Awards it won last year, I just kept postponing it indefinitely.

The makings of a great midseason filler episode that would connect in many different directions. This is a police drama filler with a guest director.

A direct fall into the white savior narrative

After the untimely death of his brother by way of an ambush in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the protagonist, ‘81’(Alan Ritchson) unsuccessfully makes several attempts to become an Army Ranger. On his last mission to complete the Ranger selection process he and his squad encounter an otherworldly ‘soldier’.