Lockwood & Co, Somebody I Used to Know, and big red boots

Living through and looking back on youth, plus MSCHF's latest troll

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Feb 14

Hello!

On this week’s episode of Criticism Is Dead, we discuss Lockwood & Co and Somebody I Used to Know, a TV series and a film about owning your agency, whether you’re a teen ghost killer or a documentary filmmaker.

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02:54 Lockwood & Co, streaming on Netflix, takes a good idea (teen detective supernatural thriller) and builds out an appealing world with it.

Fans of Wednesday (previously discussed on CID here), the Charlie Bone books, and other YA works about teens using special powers to fight off spooky menaces are in for a treat. Lockwood & Co is a satisfying representative of the genre, featuring great world building, an intriguing central mystery beneath all the episodic mysteries, and a banging theme song. Yes, some aspects can be corny or clichéd or tired — but if we just switch off our griping adult grumpiness, the series does just fine.

18:50 Somebody I Used to Know, streaming on Amazon Prime Video, is a pleasant and self-aware surprise of a rom-com.

If you made it through the first third of Somebody I Used to Know and then turned it off because it was giving a little too much Hallmark, here’s us telling you to pick up the remote and keep going. This film follows the rom-com playbook, only to attempt to subvert it in a way that’s actually pretty refreshing. Some of the details could be improved — the chemistry between its two leads; leaning into their villainy and attaching real consequences to their fuck-ups — but the heart of it is there, and it’s a good time.