It’s the only explanation as to why he did not appear in the recently heel-turned John Cena’s final, and jarringly anticlimactic WrestleMania event.
Primed for Easter primetime on Peacock, April 20th’s main event went off as season 2, episode 2 of HBO’s foremost flagship program these days, "The Last of Us,” came to a gutpunching end.
In terms of entertainment value, there were more visceral twists and turns in the latter, as a major character death occurred in the post-apocalyptic, we-don’t-call-them-zombies action-drama. What started as "The Walking Dead" without filler episodes transformed into a "Game of Thrones"-outperforming winter warfare wonderland in the span of one walloping hour of WTF on Sunday night.
Fans of Neil Druckmann’s Naughty Dog video game of the same name upon which the TV show is based saw the nevertheless stunningly-produced moment coming, they just didn’t know when it would. What’s more: close viewers of scripted TV in the modern day knew something wild had to be cooking upon learning Mark Mylod would helm “Through the Valley.”
One of the best TV directors of his generation, Mylod’s "Succession" episodes regularly upped the ante from prestige TV to small-screen cinema. He famously swapped out TV camera lenses for film ones in the misdirectly-entitled, but directorially unbridled third episode of season 4: “Connor’s Wedding.” Fans remember what happened there.
It’s no different this go-around, the stakes and surprise factor raised even more so given how truly bold it is to kill off a series lead—checks IMDb—nine episodes into one of the most popular shows currently on-air.
However, trailers and the pedigree of its scribal showrunner, Craig Mazin–who helped to further the tides of contemporary television with the 2020 miniseries “Chernobyl”—indicate the series will continue to play outside the parameters of chronological storytelling.
With the five-year time jump between the events that conclude season 1 and where we pick up at the start of season 2, don’t expect to miss [redacted] too much. There is more to the story audiences have not learned yet, but will when the deft-in-defying traditional narrative team feels most necessary.
As for the WWE… What are we doing? Where was The Rock? Make it make sense.