Tell me if this sounds familiar: Pop/rock group makes a hit, gets unjustly labeled as a “one-hit wonder,” releases a dark and emotional masterpiece that witnesses the band crumbling, breaks up soon afterwards, disappears for years despite some generous re-appraisals of their later work, finally re-appears.

Trick question! I described (at least) two bands. Weezer famously vanished after Pinkerton. Eve 6, less famously, disappeared after It’s All In Your Head. The differences? First, Weezer disappeared for a mere five years. Eat your heart out, Rivers. Eve 6 is returning nine-plus years after It’s All In Your Head hit. Tomorrow, the lead single for their fourth album will be released. (You can already stream it here.)

Another difference, of course, is Eve 6 never made an impact the way that Weezer did. Eve 6′s fanbase, I’m sure, has remained devoted. But the band never gained traction the way Weezer did before their 2001 comeback.

Perhaps the biggest difference of all between Weezer’s much-talked-about return a decade ago and Eve 6′s imminent return is that Weezer’s comeback was… well… a decade ago. The music scene has changed drastically since then. Rock — especially rock by slick pop-rockers with a number in their band name — is out, way out.

So, why come back? What’s waiting for Eve 6?

Colton and I are waiting for Eve 6.

Of course, Colton — a good friend and fellow Earn This writer — has proven his allegiance to his beloved bands from late nineties and early aughts with his thoughtful consideration of the significance of Third Eye Blind’s Ursa Major. Many critics would have argued a comeback album from a band that many didn’t really miss didn’t even warrant that type of thought.

But comebacks are fascinating. They’re important to fans. They raise important questions about why we love music, and what is loyalty, and how much is it worth. I will have something to say when the day comes and Eve 6′s fourth CD hits shelves. Colton might, too. We did see an Eve 6 concert together, after all.

I had happily ignored all buzz about Eve 6′s return, but some details have leaked the past few weeks. It’s starting to seem like this return was made specifically for me, or at least people like me: we are the people who bought Eve 6 singles and albums long after the band disappeared, people who remembered the tiny band that could. To us, Eve 6 is a team of three men who helped us realize how quickly an unchecked life can sink to depression and emptiness. That’s the cycle of their three albums: guy feels lonley, guy has sex, guy feels lonely again.

And, occasionally, they reminded us that there’s something elusive and something meaningful that can be gleaned from all the toil. What were the last words they said to us before they confusingly disappeared, seemingly forever? “Pick yourself up off the ground.”

That final beat is a clever little wink, but it reminds me of a great line from another band I love, Relient K: “Nourished back to life by life alone.” Eve 6 didn’t really give us a reason to aim for a higher contentment. They just asked us to assume there was a reason, and pointed out what might happen if we didn’t make that assumption. Maybe they could teach us this because they were there themselves, “still here waiting” for that transient happiness.

All signs point to this long-delayed comeback being one for the fans, a follow-up to the career trajectory they rapidly fulfilled (rise-fall) a decade ago. Maybe they’ll crystallize some ideas that have brewing in our minds since they disappeared and give us a broad perspective of our lives. Or maybe they’ll just ask us to remember what we were when they said goodbye, to live in those past moments that Eve 6 has accompanied us.

If the lead single is to be trusted, Eve 6 will ask us to re-discover the complex, hurting aimlessness that they depicted so effectively in the early 2000s. It’s not that they want us to pretend we’re suffering the same ways we did ten years ago — just that they want us relate that suffering to the trials we tackle now. I’m okay with that. I’m excited to hear where Eve 6 takes me, what they make me feel and think. It’ll be an immensely personal journey, one that won’t make a major splash on the pop culture radar the way Weezer once did.

But it’s a comeback for me. It’s almost ten years in the making, and it’s one I’ll gladly share with the readers of this site when the time comes.

The best thing about The Descendants?

In The Descendants, George Clooney plays Matt King, a lawyer whose family has lived in Hawaii for generations.  Right away, we learn a) that he has to decide whether to sell off a large parcel of land owned by his family; b) that his wife has just suffered a terrible boating accident that put her into a coma, forcing him to take care of their two daughters; and c) that said wife was cheating on him before she became unresponsive.

Heady stuff, and worthy fodder for a flick.  Unfortunately, it wastes the opportunity.  It’s a small point, but the first problem comes right away, with the opening voice-over.  Seriously, something needs to be done about voice-overs in movies lately.  In Time either believed that its audience was idiotic, or it was just too lazy to convey the characters’ situation without Justin Timberlake explicitly laying it out. (Did Children of Men need opening V.O. to tell us that people no longer had kids?) Similarly, Clooney’s V.O. here does not show, but rather tells us:  ‘This is my wife.  She is hurt.  I have kids.  I need to change.’  This writing is the worst form of laziness.  Inserting exposition into a film while still being entertaining is one of screenwriting’s biggest challenges, something that writers usually spend endless days slaving over, but this is one of the worst cop-outs I’ve seen.  (Note that I’m not saying voice-over should never exist; American Beauty, quite possibly the best script of our lifetime, used it, as did The Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby, and a host of other great movies.  But not like this.)

The V.O. is a minor flaw, but The Descendants errs, much more critically, by minimizing the conflict in its story—a death knell.  It’s difficult to imagine any scenario in which you want to reduce a film’s conflict.  Here, Matt has to take care of 10-year old daughter Scottie and 17-year old Alex.  The latter makes for the film’s biggest relationship, but, as she tells us, there’s nothing wrong with her.  She does fine in school.  She’s not a drug addict or pregnant.  Her boyfriend is harmless enough.  She cares for her sister.  She does think her dad is a bit of a sap, and drinks occasionally, but so what?  What does Matt need to do with her?  The answer is ‘Not a whole lot,’ and that’s devastating for this movie.

The Descendants acts as though it’s going to imply rebelliousness by providing a boyfriend that Matt doesn’t like, but he’s perfectly fine to her, and the edgiest thing the screenplay can have him do is laugh at an elderly person’s Alzheimer’s.  Nothing against that scene, but, really?  That’s all we’ve got?

Likewise, Matt’s decision about whether to sell his family’s land to developers is not mined for maximum tension and conflict.  At one point, he learns that his wife’s lover would benefit from the proposed sale—a revelation that could have been interesting, could have forced a difficult choice, except that you already assumed he wasn’t going to sell.  Therefore, learning this information makes the decision easier, not harder—and that’s boring.

I also think the story would have greatly benefitted from excising the younger daughter entirely.  Firstly, it would aid from a convenience standpoint, as she’s constantly having to be watched or dealt with while the adults go off and do their thing.  But more importantly, giving Matt just one daughter to reconcile with might have made that relationship sparkle more.  (Recall the expression that a single death is a tragedy, while a million is a statistic.  Focus on specific, individual relationships in order to move people.) Furthermore, the potential dynamic of Matt-Alex-Alex’s boyfriend would have felt imbalanced (that’s a good thing) and would have highlighted the mother’s absence.

Finally, the film suffers from hitting the same emotional beat over…and over…and over again.  Almost all of the best movies take you through a roller-coaster ride of different emotions.  The Descendants projects the same melancholy tone throughout.  Clooney, in a rather wooden performance, walks around with essentially the same expression for two hours.  That dreary music accompanies nearly every scene break.  There’s little to no humor.  No fewer than three people deliver angry monologues to Matt’s bed-ridden wife.  It all blurs together, it all feels the same, and it stops us from truly feeling it.  There’s a reason philosophers say that uninterrupted happiness would cease to satisfy humans after a while.  In cinematic form, any uninterrupted emotion stops resonating.

None of this is to say the movie is awful.  Once we got past the painful voice-over, and I came to grips with the fact that there wasn’t sufficient conflict, I was able to go along with the second half without checking my watch.  The scene where Clooney goes to ask his wife’s friends how much they knew about her affair was well done, and his father-in-law was a strong character.  Wisely, the film builds the anticipation before allowing Clooney to meet his wife’s lover.  And, as mentioned, I know that plenty of people have responded positively to it.  But, in my view, it’s a huge waste of potential.

When Netflix and Amazon started offering The Wonder Years to stream, I decided to give the classic series a try. Immediately, I fell in love with the show: At its peak, it’s sentimental, poignant, and hilarious. Since then, I’ve been going through the series, episode by episode, writing a recap/review/analysis of each episode. I’ve posted every one here.

I’ll continue writing these as long as I enjoy the series and have something to say about it. I hope you enjoy!

(Read with this is as your soundtrack)

Season 1

1. Pilot
2. Swingers
3. My Father’s Office
4. Angel
5. The Phone Call
6. Dance With Me

I wrote full recaps and analyses of the The Wonder Years, seasons 1-3, but I stopped writing them when I started watching the beginning of season 4. Why? There are really two reasons: First, the beginning of the fourth season didn’t really give me much to write about. It was less that there was a tremendous dip in quality, and more that I felt like I had less to say about each episode.

But the bigger reason was that I had really been sucked into the show and I hated having to wait until I wrote a recap to watch the next episode. So I decided to put off writing the recaps, perhaps to return to the task after I’d completed the series. I would like to some day finish writing them.

So I apologize to anyone who was curious to hear what I thought about those later episodes.

For the record: I thought the ratio of successful episodes to unsuccessful ones was about 1 to 2 in the fourth season, 1 to 1 in the fifth, and 3 to 1 in the sixth. Honestly, the second half of the sixth season rivals the best the show ever did. I wish the show could have reached its logical conclusion one year later at Kevin’s high school graduation, but the ending they gave us is tremendously satisfying, so I’m not too bummed about it.

Hopefully I will some day finish up writing about the series. In the mean time, here’s a music video for the song “Winnie Cooper is a Goddamned Whore” (foul language warning).

There are, in essence, two goals for season finales: One is to conclude the season that just finished, and one is to focus on setting up the next season. The best season finales do both well. Cliffhangers can be fun, but the most satisfying finales are the ones that organically and methodically set up future arcs, not ones that spring a plot twist on you.

It’s a tough balance to pull — consider one of my favorite season finales, The Job from the third season of The Office. Though it had some twists that could be described as cliffhangers — Jim asking Pam out, Ryan getting the corporate job — it was equal parts conclusion and set-up. Jim finally realized that only Pam can make him truly happy, and Ryan’s two years of putting up with Dunder Mifflin hell while studying at night turned into a major promotion. The episode excited me for the future of the characters while making me feel like they’d actually come a long way.

One barometer I use to evaluate the quality of season finales is to ask — how would I feel if the series ended here? Many of my favorite season finales can also serve as “de-facto series finales” as I call them. In other words, if the series is spontaneously cancelled (or the storytelling goes to hell and I want to pretend it was), at least I’ll always have this moderately complete, satisfying arc.

It can be tempting for shows, I’m sure, to focus on keeping us buzzed about where the plot is headed. Cliffhangers do this by only increasing, never releasing, the tension. But the wisest showrunners of all will tell you that good storytelling is what keeps viewers coming back, not artificially heightened drama.

I preface this recap with these thoughts on finales, because Moving does just about everything right. It balances closing old plots and opening new ones. It has some vaguely cliffhanger-esque twists, but it never feels overly dramatic. It also serves as a nice thematic capper to everything that’s happened to date. If seasons 4-6 of The Wonder Years suck, then I can just pretend that it all ended here and be satisfied with how it turned out.

Kevin thinks he might be moving, even though it ends up being Winnie who does. Either way, the episode is less about the move itself and more about what the move represents — the world getting bigger and the distance between Kevin and his youthful ideals growing. Kevin and Winnie share some nice moments in the episode, the best of which was a long embrace right before she left that seemed less about being a romantic couple, more about going through the bittersweet process of growing up together.

Winnie’s life hasn’t really been the same since her brother died in the pilot. In those two years, she’s gone through a lot more drama than Kevin has — the death of Brian and her parents nearly divorcing stick out. Because of this, she’s also always seemed more traumatized by the process of growing up. She consistently makes defiant acts of innocence, from her invitation to go swinging in S01E02, to playing hide-and-seek as a farewell to Harper’s Woods (S02E16), to bailing out of the make-out room (S03E17). And Kevin has almost always been there, whether as a friend or a boyfriend.

There’s some cheese here — Kevin’s grab for her hand as he realizes she recovered the ring, Winnie’s override of the narrator when she says “you” — but most of the Winnie-Kevin development lines up with the themes of the show and the characters’ previous behavior very organically.

I do have two complaints with the episode, one of them bigger than the other. My smaller complaint is that the episode hinges too much on a sneaky plot twist of Winnie being the one who has to move. The writers do a good job laying groundwork for it — Jack mentions he got the number for a realtor from the Coopers — and I loved the way the show convinced us that Jack was actually going to follow through on leaving the house. But it seemed just a bit out of left field, a bit too coincidental.

My second complaint with the episode is that Danica McKellar is not a very good actress. I really, really want to like her. I keep looking for little bits of subtlety. But the truth is she just carries herself like she barely memorized a script and is just reading directions. When she has the long scene in the moving truck with Fred Savage, it’s almost comical how much more convincing and expressive and nuanced Savage is. I kept watching scenes — even little moments like Winnie’s reaction to Kevin learning that she’s moving — and thinking how much more effective they could have been if McKellar gave us anything to work with. She’s gotten a bit better over the series, now and then shining, and her chemistry with Savage is decent, but she’s not quite there yet.

The end of the episode hints at some future themes about the world getting bigger and Kevin and Winnie facing more adversity in their relationship. I like the idea of the show broadening its scope at this point before it starts repeating itself thematically. I’m really excited to see where it goes, but even if it stumbles from here, we have three great seasons (more like two seasons, given how short the first season was) that paint a rather complete and very convincing portrait of both the characters and the culture growing up, losing their innocence, and dealing with complex modernity.

Clearly the MVP of the the third season of The Wonder Years is Dan Lauria as Jack. He’s already had some great showcases: The Family Car, Faith, The Powers That Be, and The Tree House come to mind. Daddy’s Little Girl is one of his best showcase episodes yet. It also echoes the most resonant theme of the series — growing up is a loss of innocence. The plot works especially well given the setting, early 1970 in the midst of a cultural upheaval.

Karen’s getting ready for the next phase of her life. To her, that means a nontraditional education, whether at a progressive college or a trip across Europe. To Jack, that means the end of her hippie phase and attendance at a state university. The question of who is ultimately in charge of her life is the central question of the episode, and, to its credit, it doesn’t fully take one side or the other.

Not a lot actually happens in Daddy’s Little Girl — a lot of push and shove between characters and some planning for Karen’s birthday party, really. The focus is instead on character interaction. Kevin asks Karen to go easy on their dad, and gets a brief glimpse of just how alone, scared, yet stubborn she is. There’s an air of fear for Jack as well — of losing his little girl.

The bubbling, complex emotions underneath the characters are subtly played by Lauria and Olivia D’Abo. I wouldn’t call D’Abo a weak link on the show, buy t she’s the least used of the regulars. This episode is her best showcase yet, and it gives her a lot more to do than play know-it-all teen, which is what she’s usually asked to do. Her best moment of the episode is her response to Kevin’s blunt cut to the chase — the whole family knows she’s going to be gone next year, and both she and Jack are having trouble really coming to grips with this.

Lauria has earned my repeated praise, and he deserves it again here. His take on Jack’s thinly veiled sadness at losing his daughter drives the episode. Jack’s both impatient and a little hurt that she’s rejecting his plans and suggestions for her, so he takes it out on the people who still have to follow his orders, Kevin and Wayne.

The episode builds to the tremendously moving conclusion of the episode — Jack finding the perfect gift for his little girl, allowing her to move forward while still holding on to him. Meanwhile, the porch light is always on. Even if she makes mistakes in her life (she already has and she certainly will) there’s forever a spot for her at home.

Jack is the one who finally ends the standoff, successfully coming to grips with the fact that he can’t make her do what he wants. For such a hard, stubborn man, it’s a pretty big move.

Those last few minutes choked me up, and it’s hard to look at Daddy’s Little Girl as anything less than one of the best, most moving episodes of the season.

In character-based, episodic shows like The Wonder Years, one of the oldest tricks in the book is to select two characters who don’t often interact and center a plot around them. Figure out the ways they’re similar, the ways they’re different, and construct a situation in which the two play off of each other. Cocoa and Sympathy is a textbook example of this technique.

We’ve seen lots of Norma, even more of Paul, but rarely more than an occasional line of them interacting. Cocoa and Sympathy considers mostly how they’re similar: both are disenfranchised in their own lives to a certain extent. Paul is judged as the brainiest eighth grade boy by Lisa Berlini in her annual poll of all the boys in the grade. Of course, anyone with a reasonable sense of scope would be able to tell you that “brainiest” is a rare bit of praise that could have actual application in life; yet, Paul is distraught that he didn’t win something more pleasant like Kevin’s Best Smile.

Kevin isn’t particularly worked up about the poll, in part because he’s a hair wiser than the average eighth grader and in part because he was handed a nice label. So Paul finds an unlikely source of sympathy in Norma. Norma’s facing her own crisis, albeit a much larger, slower-building crisis: Her life is a product of routine and monotony. Her children and husband don’t really care to open up to her. She’s largely taken for granted by her own family.

Most of the episode focuses on Kevin’s growing discomfort at the building bond between Paul and Norma, particularly from Paul’s end. Paul starts noting and sharing things about Norma that would put any son in a slightly uncomfortable position. Kevin doesn’t want to think of his mom as a woman. Just as a parent.

This culminates in a night out — no one would take Norma up on her idea to go see a concert, so Paul agrees to go. At the end of the night, Norma turns down a rose from Paul, thereby ending his attempt at a misguided courtship. But she gives him something bigger — a greater sense of self-confidence. Jack sees the kind way that she reaches out to Paul, and makes his own gesture of kindness by offering to see the next concert with her. Kevin comes to further appreciate his complex, deeply caring mother.

I liked the conclusion of the episode and appreciate the different sides of the characters that we get to see here, but large sections of the plot didn’t work for me. I could almost feel the writers trying to come up with a full plot to build around the pairing. The best episodes of The Wonder Years come from the top down, with a great theme leading to a great conflict leading to great character development and situations. Cocoa and Sympathy felt like it came from the bottom up — a situation (Norma and Paul connecting) led to the writers writing a conflict which led to them trying to add a good theme.

Again, it’s not a bad episode. It’s just one that doesn’t stick out as particularly special or memorable among a batch of truly phenomenal episodes during the second half of this season.

Fred Savage was nominated for an Emmy after only the six-episode first season of The Wonder Years aired. But his work here in Good-Bye is the most award-worthy yet. Those heartbreaking forty seconds, an extended shot of Kevin’s expression as he learns that Mr. Collins passed away, show Savage working with an emotional articulation and subtlety that isn’t just fantastic acting for a thirteen year-old; it’s fantastic acting, period.

Good-bye (which should have been named Math Class Cubed) could have been nothing more than an act-off between Savage and the always-excellent Steven Gilborn and it would have been memorable. But the plot brought back the reliable conflict of Kevin’s lack of natural math talent and gave it yet another spin: Kevin is satisfied with his C, but Mr. Collins doesn’t express any satisfaction with Kevin’s performance.

Kevin eventually starts up after-school lessons with Mr. Collins, who we don’t know is very sick, and the two develop their bond. The episode’s depiction of that strange relationship between a teacher and student — the ultimate paradox of personal and impersonal — is one of its greatest strengths. Kevin advances in the material, but also develops an emotional attachment to the journey that Mr. Collins always pushes him further through.

When Kevin admits that the bond is something special to him — he viewed Mr. Collins as a friend — the teacher has to remind him of the dichotomy. Kevin may click with Mr. Collins, but they can’t really connect in any meaningful way other than through math and the passing of knowledge.

Mr. Collins response may have been initially too impersonal, but we know that’s the type of teacher he is: on the surface, calculated, passionless, and pragmatic. But Kevin responds in a way far too personal; to an extent that it actually penetrates through Mr. Collins’ unbetraying shell. Kevin acted in anger and knows by the end of the weekend that he’d gone too far.

The death of a minor character is a common ploy by drama shows to pull at the heart strings without having to fundamentally change the dynamic of the show. But that doesn’t cheapen too much what Mr. Collins’ unexpected death wreaks upon Kevin. “A private hell,” he calls it. If the show had elsewhere used the death tactic (other than the defining death of Brian Cooper in the pilot), I would probably fault the show more for the coincidental timing of Mr. Collins’ passing. Instead, it worked very well.

Kevin makes up with Mr. Collins beyond the grave; Mr. Collins gives him another shot as a stroke of both apology and forgiveness. And Kevin proceeds to ace it. It’s a slightly saccharine ending, the second one in a row for the show, but it’s executed well enough that I didn’t particularly mind. Fred Savage’s brilliant performance as Kevin and Steven Gilborn’s understated work as Mr. Collins ground the episode and make every emotion feel earned.

After the set-up of the episode — Paul struggles athletically; Kevin is marginally better; Paul has some jealousy — I was worried that The Unnatural would turn into a thematic clone of Loosiers: that competitiveness can divide friendships, that Paul’s ego is easily bruised when it comes to his athletic struggles, that Kevin is a natural rally point for some of the school’s losers. Then, it turned into something a lot more interesting: an exploration of inheriting success versus earning it yourself.

Kevin comes to tryouts to support Paul’s doomed attempt to try out and make the baseball team. His words catch the ear of Coach Ted, who gives Kevin a shot. With nothing to lose, Kevin steps up to the plate and hits the ball deep into centerfield, earning him an invitation back to tryouts while Paul gets cut. Kevin wants to turn the opportunity down, but Jack shows an unprecedented level of interest in this extracurricular, so Kevin decides to give tryouts a stab.

But then something strange starts to happen: Coach Ted pays more attention to Jack — who happened to save his life in Korea — than Kevin. Kevin plays his heart out, yet constantly struggles in try-outs. For some reason — that he begins to suspect has something to do with the coach’s allegiance to Jack rather than Kevin’s own achievement — Kevin continually avoids being cut even as he struggles out on the field.

Eventually, Coach Ted implies that he sees heart, effort, and spark in Kevin. But the way he says it and the way Jack presumes Kevin will make the team actually have the opposite of their expected effect — they convince Kevin even further that he’s being gifted a spot on the team rather than earning it himself. He accepts he’s getting a spot whether or not he deserves it, and his last tryout effort suffers because of it.

Then, he spots the coach’s list and sees he’s actually been cut, and Kevin makes a revelation. He looks around him — at the supportive friends and crowd — and remembers that he really hadn’t made it there himself; the support around him helps him succeed more than he ever could on his own. At the same time, he’s not being gifted anything; he has to earn it, and the realization that he hasn’t earned it has the ironic effect of motivating him more making the team would have.

It’s a small story, but it’s told well. The episode, particularly the last scene, captures the American mysticism of baseball and uses its simple metaphor of a pitcher vs. batter as a struggle to succeed and maintain a dream in the face of adversity. In fact, the episode almost goes too far with it; that last scene of Kevin hitting a home run is built up so much, I was briefly convinced the show was going to pull out the rug and lead us to one of its anti-climaxes, like the time Kevin tried to punch the bully.

But the episode works overall and it has a nice, unusually sweet ending to reinforce its themes of kids rising above what they’re given and earning their own way in the world.

Other thoughts:

• I was really glad to see Paul cheering for Kevin at the tryout. His struggles at the tryouts was the inciting event of the episode, but he managed to get over the grudge quickly enough.
• I’m always pleased to see Winnie further developed as Kevin’s girlfriend. Here, she not only appears for his majestic (perhaps fabricated) home run, but struggles to see through what’s really bothering him about tryouts. I will say, though, that it seemed slightly out of character for her to be giving generic baseball platitudes; she’s more the sensitive, emotionally perceptive type.
• This is two episodes in a row that give us a peek at Jack at his warmest. In Faith, he recreated tax receipts with his wife; here, he cheers his son on at baseball tryouts.

#8 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

At the end of last year, I wrote about the first half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when I crowned it my 25th favorite thing of 2011:By design unsatisfying, the seventh Harry Potter movie is still in many ways the best of the series to date.

Part 2 gives us the payoff of Part 1’s intricate, hard-working set-up. It’s an inherently satisfying film as a stunning conclusion to a saga that’s been 14 years in the works.

A lot has been written about the eighth film. Pretty much everyone loved it. I won’t try and rehash the arguments in favor of the movie that critics have put more eloquently than I could.

Yes, Deathly Hallows Part 2 is wonderfully acted, crafted, and paced. It’s exciting and scary and sad and extremely faithful to the original. These can be said, to a certain extent, of all eight Harry Potter films, which never sunk below “very good” but failed to ever achieve “transcendent.”

But for a moment, I’d like to focus on a single element that has been an underrated key to why Deathly Hallows Part 2 was my favorite movie I saw in 2011 and probably my favorite of the series: The time frame within the story.

Aside from a few opening scenes, Deathly Hallows Part 2 takes place over a continuous timeline of about 24 hours. Compare that to each of the other Harry Potter movies, which all spanned almost exactly a year.

Think especially of Deathly Hallows Part 1. While beautiful and dark and enjoyable, it spans almost an entire year with no conclusion. It’s basically an extended bit of exposition to prepare for the non-stop action of the grand conclusion.

The plot of the Part 1 is, simply, a bit inert, moreso than any half of a Harry Potter story. A lot of the tension comes from the angst Harry and Ron and Hermione feel wandering and waiting for something to happen.

Part 2 is the exact opposite. In fact — ironically — the two halves of Deathly Hallows might be the two most different Harry Potter films in many ways. Part 2 is the brilliant, kinetic payoff that feels completely earned and fully realized because of the buildup we powered through a year earlier.

This capstone also gives us a chance to reflect on a series that has been one of Hollywood’s most successful ever, in terms of box office and in terms of cinematic quality. This is why I suspect it will earn a Best Picture nomination; the Harry Potter films have been continually appreciated (if not adored) by critics, and they end the series with its highest acclaim ever. The Oscars love lifetime achievement awards.

I know I clash with general fan consensus when I say the fifth film was probably my favorite of the series (excluding this film, which is tough to include in the field because it’s so fresh and only half of a story) and the sixth was maybe my least favorite. It’s hard for me to separate the films from their origin material, but Order of the Phoenix refines what made that book one of the best in the series and Half-Blood Prince muddles much of what made that book one of the best.

I’m always hesitant to put my opinions on Harry Potter films into virtual stone. My mind changes all of the time on which iterations of these series I prefer. I’ve only seen the Deathly Hallow movies once each, so my takes on each could change pretty drastically. I’m really looking forward to seeing each one again.

But there’s one thing that’s for sure: Deathly Hallows Part 2 marks the final Harry Potter book or movie that will ever be released (barring some sort of expansion by Rowling). It’s kind of the end of an era for me that’s spanned my most formative years and more than half of my life.

The Harry Potter series helped me discover how stories and characters can help you better understand the complexities of right and wrong. It cultivated a love of storytelling and fantasy and youth-oriented fiction that persists to this day. I owe much to the series and I thank it for an unforgettable decade-plus of fandom that will certainly stretch into a lifetime.

Previously: Bruce Springsteen – Hammersmith Odeon, London ’75

Up next: A terribly named but endlessly addictive history simulator