Seventeen months after the last episode I’m finally getting around to part four of Small Axe. Alex is in prison re-living his life in flashback, particularly the year he arrived in London, met a bunch of cool people and got really into reggae. Jerking back and forth in time, I only figured out Alex was a real person towards the end when he got out of jail. Most critics disliked this episode for its biopic nature or its wonky script, I liked it very much because it’s an hour long and full of cool music. Then I listened to disc one of The Trojan Dub Box and now I’m good for the rest of the year. Alex (Sheyi Cole) was later in Soderbergh’s Full Circle, which I’d forgotten all about.

Alex’s cellmate says the name of the next Small Axe movie:

Alex says the name of McQueen’s follow-up to Small Axe:

A house party movie without a talky main plot about some kid trying to score. Finally someone made a film where the slow-motion camera weaving through a hot dance floor isn’t a stylistic highlight in the middle of a narrative, but the whole point of the thing. Wasted dudes take over the dance floor later in the night – nothing great lasts. They still make time for a villain, and two near-wordless rescues from danger, and finally someone does score but it doesn’t feel contrived.

People whose names I figured out include lead girl Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, her friend who ditches early Shaniqua Okwok (of new 80’s-set miniseries It’s a Sin), love interest Micheal Ward (The Old Guard) and roundfro villain Francis Lovehall.

Frank (Shaun Parkes of the current Lost in Space reboot) is the restaurant owner and social center who gets all the soulful closeups, Altheia (Letitia Wright) is the requisite movie star, a pregnant Black Panther, Darcus (Malachi Kirby of the latest Roots reboot) is a self-representing defendant who gets all the best speeches, and Barbara (Rochenda Sandall, who used to play a character named McQueen) has the best hair, and a spiel about how the children are our future. That leaves whiteys Jack Lowden (Dunkirk) as their lawyer who looks like Austin Powers’ buttoned-up brother, and Sam Spruell (Russian baddie of Taken 3) as the racist pig leader.

Kirby:

First half is in the streets and the restaurant, figuring out how to make a life without getting hassled by the pigs (impossible), second half has real based-on-a-true-court-case energy, as indeed it was. The lines aren’t as head-smacking as they were in Widows, and McQueen finds some evocative visuals every so often, but mostly powering through this to get to Lovers Rock.