This is a new series from HBO Max.
A victim of drug trafficking is brought back to life by a shaman and gains the powers of a coyote, becoming a were-coyote who fights against injustice. Located in northern Mexico, it shows the region’s fight against organized crime and the problems between Mexico and the United States.
Hard pass.
I’ll take even a harder pass on the nudity. This scene from episode 3 may be the biggest cop-out yet from an HBO series. The scene has been edited to minimize the exposure, but that wasn’t chickenshit enough. Just in case some nudity should sneak through, they added some digital obstructions (ala the censored version of Eyes Wide Shut). They may also have blurred her nipples, but I’m not sure of that. You can form your own opinions from the film clip.
This is a cryin’ shame because Paulina Gaitan is not averse to nudity. She has appeared naked in many films, even offering a brief full-frontal peek in Souvenir (2021):
And as you can see from the captures below from Eddie Reynolds y los Angeles de Acero (2014), she has all the necessary credentials to do good nude scenes.
It’s sad how HBO failed under gay CEO Casey Bloys. Warner Bros. is losing big money every quarter, they’re still in huge losses, but they still won’t make any changes. I’ve read reviews of the new season of Righteous Gemstones and there will be a lot of full frontal male scenes again, just as starting this Sunday there will be full frontal male in every episode of the new season of The White Lotus. There is no other platform that promotes male nudity as vulgarly as HBO.
You seem to really be into male nudity – are you “Mrs” Skin?
To waste Paulina Gaitan like this is borderline criminal. She made Diablo Guardian season 1 (a Spanish language show on Prime video) must watch television. I have never seen another show where there was such a perfect 1:1 correlation between my interest level and an actress’ willingness to go nude. Even Euphoria, with its godly level of Sydney Sweeney nudity, has other plot lines to recommend it. DG season 1 is all Paulina, all the time. The thin narrative means that she’s the only reason to watch it, yet she delivers. I couldn’t make it past a single episode of season 2 and its neutered scenes (a la Game of Thrones’ later seasons slide from tits, Tyrion and Tywin Lannister slick talk into mediocrity). HBO/Max modus operandi since inception has been draw us in with a little titillation to get the people invested. This is a huge move in the wrong direction.
I saw that season of Diablo Guardian too and she was amazing in it. I didn’t bother with season 2. The only logical conclusion I can come up with about HBO is that they’ve given up at the moment. Streaming is where all the growth is and MAX is near the bottom behind Tubi, Peacock and Paramount+ in streaming hours watched. They are only ahead of Pluto. To be behind Peacock is astonishing. Clearly, HBO does not give a fuck. You can see the same with their DC Universe where their fans have hated it for quite a while. When will they try again? Perhaps they are waiting for their stock to hit rock bottom so they can buy it on the cheap and then put on competitive programming again.
If they don’t care, why don’t they sell the platform to someone more competent? Warner Bros/HBO loses billions every quarter. Critics, reviewers do everything to help them, they give 10/10 to series that don’t deserve it, but it still doesn’t change the situation, HBO doesn’t attract viewers. People don’t want to watch series created according to the vision of Casey Bloys. People don’t want to see explicit male nudity and gay sex, they want old HBO with boobs and pussy on display.
Wow, what a waste. How annoying that they couldn’t even be artful about the nudity-dodging and instead pulled it off by putting random blurry objects in the foreground.
I think those were supposed to represent the towels that were hanging everywhere.
That doesn’t really make it better. Even if those objects really were the hanging towels (and I don’t think they were), why shoot from behind half a towel when a clear angle is available? They just made the poor cinematographer look inept.
I agree with your point. It was just clumsy and obvious.
Not to mention unnecessary.
What was the point, after all? Kubrick added those objects in EWS to get his film in theaters with an R rating. That I understand. But what did this series gain from such an awkward tactic? We know Gaitan has no issue with nudity. There’s no rating controversy that I know of. I just don’t get it at all.