Mojo just posted a review of episode 9 of the Beatles' updated "Anthology" series, which begins streaming Nov. 26 on Disney+. The new episode will be available starting Nov. 28.
Via Mojo:
If Peter Jackson’s fan-thrilling Get Back allowed us to eavesdrop on The Beatles in their heyday, then the Anthology finale invites us to hang out with men in their fifties who no longer took their friendship for granted. We see the “Threetles” in acoustic mode, rattling through Bill Monroe’s Blue Moon of Kentucky and Thinking of Linking, which Paul wrote when he was just 15. They also appear cross-legged on a picnic blanket in the garden of Harrison’s Henley-on-Thames home, plucking the 1920s jazz standard Ain’t She Sweet on ukuleles. The nostalgia of reunion leads them back to the very start, before the name the Beatles meant anything.
In another poignant scene, the three are sat around a giant mixing desk as their former producer George Martin slides the faders to single out the separate tracks of Tomorrow Never Knows and they react as if they’re witnessing a delightful magic trick. When Martin isolates the exquisite harmonies from You Never Give Me Your Money, Paul seems sweetly amazed that this was his handiwork. Musicians who had spent 25 years refusing to wallow in their glorious past clearly enjoyed being given permission to do nothing else.
...When they joke about playing stadiums, but as mud-wrestlers rather than musicians, it occurs that had John still been around in 1995, a reunion tour would have been more than likely. What this episode does is highlight the lasting impact of that loss and the black hole in this reunion. At one point, Paul points to an empty chair and imagines that John has just popped out for lunch. Anthology, and the songs that came out of it, were the surviving trio’s opportunity to reconnect with their old friend and recreate, if only briefly, the four-cornered miracle that was The Beatles. “Even though John’s not here,” Paul says, “he’s here.”
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