Samuel Breen runs a music column, Off Kilter, for Clash magazine, covering the weird and the wonderful. Since reviewing gigs in his teens for the Manchester Evening News, he has freelanced for a number of magazines and websites, currently including FACT, Fader, and Vice.
Fragility of life looms large over an episode that closes with the scarring on Julie’s stomach. While the barmaid is offscreen battling for her life in hospital, Camille is struggling to deal with the nature of her existence.
By Samuel Breen | Arts | Sunday, 16 June 2013 at 11:05 pm
I can’t remember the last series to offer such robust characters while still providing the viewer with such scope for interpretation. It’s been a pleasure to watch.
By Samuel Breen | Arts | Monday, 10 June 2013 at 11:09 pm
The opening episode of The Returned was found embattled by its own subtlety. Its most interesting features required prizing from a direction hellbent on raising suspicion.
By Samuel Breen | Arts | Monday, 10 June 2013 at 8:00 pm
There’s a sense, and I know this must read like a flippant about face, that the show is spiralling out of control, the references stretched and the direction lost. I would happily maintain this protest, were it not so very intentional.
By Samuel Breen | Arts | Tuesday, 4 June 2013 at 4:30 pm
There’s no point dwelling over the matter that we’re watching first class telly here. Impossibly well written, directed and acted, this has been the best episode yet and I only just feel like the chase for the murderer has started. So far we’ve had a lot of tone setting, frustration building, and plot groundwork so to see the show garner pace is a relief. Let’s crack on.
By Samuel Breen | Arts | Tuesday, 28 May 2013 at 4:45 pm
There are a good many moments in the second episode of this psychological thriller that deserve reflection. Indeed I can’t think of a weak passage. Such is the intensity of each scene, so heavily stylised and signposted, that the narrative slows down. Frustrating yes, but brilliant.
By Samuel Breen | Arts | Tuesday, 21 May 2013 at 6:10 pm
Sat in a hotel lobby amidst a music conference in Aarhus around 4am in is a great way to argue, and a terrible way to debate. I am trying to convey that good music would exist even if the music industry didn’t, and that there is no correlation between the music industry and good music.
By Samuel Breen | Music | Wednesday, 15 May 2013 at 6:15 pm
The last time writer Allan Cubitt was in Ireland, Donegal was on its knees with potato crops failing. Following the death if his predecessor the new English Land Agent observed how poor land management had caused a nutritional and economic dependency on spuds.
By Samuel Breen | Arts | Tuesday, 14 May 2013 at 5:23 pm
One of the moments of reflection in this episode allowed time for thoughts of the tone of power struggle. There has been bangs, shouting, gunshots, punching, ear severing, crying, and live burials, but when the axis is crossed it’s with a whisper. At the epicentre of all the trauma there’s a serenity.
By Samuel Breen | Arts | Friday, 10 May 2013 at 6:33 pm
This series began with a diagnosis. The nurse who administered it has gone AWOL. So here we greet the penultimate episode with another and this time, despite being purely political, turns up the same result, “If people think you’re dying Tom,” says his advisor Ezra Stone, “you’re as good as dead.”
By Samuel Breen | Arts | Friday, 3 May 2013 at 6:02 pm
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