Hulu's Letterkenny & Netflix's The Last Czars

Did you ever wonder what you would get if you tossed It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Trailer Park Boys, and the word play of Seinfeld and Larry David Show in a blender and hit puree? You’d get Letterkenny! Apparently not all is well in this town of 5000 inhabitants. Thank god Wayne and his crew are here to help them solve it.

Roster-o-characters

The Hicks:

Wayne (main character)- the toughest guy in Letterkenny with a brain to boot

Katy - Smart, snarky, girl next door

Daryl - Dim witted, oddly bright and lovable fool

Squarely Dan - I’s don’ts knows hows this mans talks likes this all’s the’s times

The Skids- hopped up meth dealers who dance in front of convenience store.

The Jocks - two dumbass hockey players with their own slang and barely a brain cell between them. Oh and by the way they are both dating Katy. Yes, both of them.

Townsfolk- Sex starved bartender who talks like she’s like a porno, a closeted pastor who lusts after Wayne, the auctioneer who only talks like an auctioneer and more!

This show is full of constant surprises. It turns on a dime between deadpan humor, silly dick and fart jokes, rib-tickling wordplay and finishes with some good old fashioned fisticuffs. No episode is the same as we stumble and get back up with each of these characters. MY GOD ARE THEY ALL HILARIOUS.

Example! At the end of the previous episode Wayne, currently holding the title of toughest guy in Letterkenny was knocked out cold. Get this guy a puppers!

So this is going to be a weird one. For once I am going to recommend that you watch something because it looks good, has great cinematography and can provide a very, very light look into what happened in Russia right before their revolutionary days.

The Last Czars: Season 1 is specifically about Tsar Nicholas the Second who was the Emperor of Russia after his father’s untimely death, and his family. Nicholas or “Nicky” as his family calls him is a ruler who doesn’t have much luck with ruling. Historically, Nicholas took over Russia at a time where the world was starting to fight each other in the first war and starting to reject the idea of single rule.

The Last Czars spends most of its time pretending to be a period piece, dedicated to retelling the story of of the Romanovs without any regard for historical accuracy or regard for acting talent. Sure they get the basics right, Nicholas the Second was Tsar, The Bolshevik revolution did happen and the entire was brutally murdered by the Bolsheviks in the basement in a house in the countryside. Oh and Rasputin.

But the series is sloppy, full of mistakes. Unlike other series from our serious friends att HBO and sometimes Netflix, Czars doesn’t try to get anything historically accurate. There are bottles of Vodka in the series labeled Vodka (#Awkard because it Russia so it would not be in English), Lenin’s tomb makes an appearance 20 years before it’s supposed to exist in real life, and even the title of the show is weird. Tsar is more appropriate for a show based on Eastern characters. Duh.

It turns out Russians are actually laughing at this show in their spare time, which at least makes a great drinking game.

But what you do get is brilliant camera work and absolutely beautiful costume design. Take a look around Nicholas’ Russia and you’ll see something television cannot show you. We are used to seeing the grainy black and white of the Emperor’s Russia, Revolution Russia and eventually Soviet Russia, but rarely have we seen the beauty of the entire country.