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Lost episodes 2.03 "Orientation", 2.21 "?", and 2.24 "Live Together, Die Alone Part 2"

Despite having the worst title sequence I’ve ever seen in my whole entire life, Lost is really very special. It’s affirmed how much I love things that are bizarre and spiritual with a sprawling yet intimate ensemble cast. The amount of people they managed to cram on this island is truly crazy, as is its incredibly rich, decades-long history. I love everything about Lost, but what I love most is the hatch, which really had its moment to shine in season two, although of course the implications of what happened there reverberate throughout the series.

John Locke and Boone spend much of season one excavating the underground metal bunker that they and everyone else comes to refer to as ‘the hatch’. First of all, the way this show normalized its own verbiage and experimental plotlines is incredible to me. The amount of times I heard “I gotta go back to the hatch” without ever thinking anything of it, but then realized I couldn’t even begin to explain what was going on to someone who hadn’t been along for the ride. Lost was so itself.

John got pretty obsessed with the hatch as he and Boone tried and failed to get it open. It was only when Rousseau came to the beach and warned the camp of an impending attack from the Others that more people got involved with attempting to get the hatch open- namely Jack, Kate, and Hurley. The group got some dynamite from The Black Rock to blow it open, but at the moment of truth Hurley noticed the numbers embossed on the metal- his numbers, his cursed, evil numbers. He frantically tries to stop John from blowing the hatch open, which only proceeds to make John hurry the fuck up. I was John’s biggest fan in season one, but this was where I first started to see some cracks in his philosophy and motives. You’d think a man of faith would want to hear about these evil numbers, so that begs the question, what is it that he has faith in, exactly?

What’s actually in the hatch proves to be even more interesting than the shrouded mystery of an unknown underground structure. Desmond Hume is down there, on the fringes of sanity from three years of isolation and getting no more than two uninterrupted hours of sleep. Desmond, who, it turns out, has met Jack in LA (in another life), shipwrecked on the island while attempting to sail around the world. After coming ashore, he was brought into the hatch by a representative of the Dharma Initiative, who has since died. Desmond has since assumed the representative’s task of entering those fateful numbers into an ancient looking computer every 108 minutes. If he doesn’t, the world will end. Or something to that effect. He’s not exactly sure.

In episode 2.03, “Orientation”, Jack and John discover and view the Dharma Initiative orientation film that gives them all the same information that Desmond has, which really isn’t much. The film has clearly been spliced in places, with sections missing, but the ominous gist is this:

“Welcome. I’m Dr. Marvin Candle, and this is the orientation film for Station Three of the Dharma Initiative. The Dharma Initiative was created in 1970. Following in the footsteps of BF Skinner… imagined a large-scale communal research compound where scientists and free thinkers from around the globe could pursue research in psychology, parapsychology, electromagnetism, and utopian social… whose financial backing made their dream of a multipurpose social science research facility a reality. You and your partner are currently located in Station Three, ‘The Swan’…

“Not long after the experiments began, however, there was… an incident. Since that time, the following protocol has been observed. Every 108 minutes, the button must be pushed. From the moment the alarm sounds, you will have four minutes to enter the code into the microcomputer processor… Do not attempt to use the computer for anything… Congratulations!”

Matthew Fox and Terry O'Quinn in "Orientation". Image courtesy of IMDb.

John wins me back for a moment here by voicing my exact thought: “We’re gonna need to watch that again”. Jack, on the other hand, surprises me by how viscerally he rejects everything he just saw. The two men are incredulous at each other’s reaction to the film, and in this moment, I’m on John’s side. And ultimately, as much as he fights it, Jack is too.

The question that Jack furiously insists be answered isn’t even if the button is real, but why Desmond and John so readily believe that it is. When Jack first asks if Desmond really believes this is happening, he replies, “Why wouldn’t it be?” Sayid, who was brought down to the hatch to fix the broken computer that is still counting down, feels similarly: “All I need to know is that that timer is counting down to something, and that this computer needs to be repaired.” Jack is mystified by everyone else’s participation and pushes on:

“It says ‘Quarantine’ on the inside of the hatch to keep you down here, keep you scared. But you know what? We’ve been up there for over 40 days, and no one’s gotten sick. You think this is the only part of it that’s true? Did you ever think that they put you down here to push a button every 100 minutes, just to see if you would? That the computer, the button, it’s just a mind game? An experiment?”

While Desmond and Sayid fulfill what they see as an odd but important duty, John eats this whole thing up with a soup ladle in a different way. Desmond answers Jack’s question by admitting that he thinks about this possibility every single day, and even hopes that it’s true, but won’t risk blowing up the island. But just as John’s desire to open the hatch was clearly not rooted in saving the group, so too does he not push the button to save lives, but rather because he is confident that his pushing the button is part of his walk on a predestined divine path for which he will ultimately be rewarded.

Where Desmond and Sayid give the loyal, but reality-based responses of “I dunno about you, brother, but every time I walk past that wall out there, my fillings hurt,” and “I’m sure you’ll tell me why once I’ve [fixed the computer]”, John practically joins the Dharma Initiative right then and there:

JOHN: You saw the film, Jack. This is a two-person job, at least. It’s a leap of faith, Jack.

JACK: Some man takes you down here, shows you a movie, and you push a button on faith alone? Nothing is going to happen!

François Chau in Lost. Image courtesy of IMDb.

This is John’s worst quality, but I think at this moment it has a positive impact. Whatever John decides to do, the whole group has to do it. If he wants to push the button, everybody has the push the button. If he wants to stop, everyone has to stop. If he wants to stay on the island, he blows up the submarine so nobody can leave.

But at this moment in time, Jack needed to be put on the spot… and with seconds to spare, he pushes the button. Little does anybody know, Jack is actually the one on a divine path, and this is his first step on a journey that will end with him being the one adamant about destiny and what he’s “supposed” to do.

John seems like a man of conviction, but his belief system is actually incredibly fragile. I honestly just feel kind of sad for him, but my sympathies only go so far as he continues to make the same mistake over and over again. He puts all of his beliefs, faith, and livelihood into things outside of himself and is repeatedly left utterly lost when those things don’t care about him as much as he cared about them. On the mainland it was his father and the marijuana grow house community, on the island it was the hatch, the button, and then the nebulous character of “the island” itself.  He’s the definition of a servant, and I appreciate what his ultimate fate suggests about living a life without independent thought.

In line with this behavioral pattern, John’s belief in the button, and subsequently his belief in himself, is shattered in 2.21, “?” (sick episode title also). In this episode, John begrudgingly helps a born-again Mr. Eko follow his dreams (literal dreams) to something he believes the island wants to show him. John’s impatience for anyone else’s faith-based escapades is another trait that annoys me, but it aligns perfectly with who he is- no one but him should be receiving any special treatment from the universe.

John and Eko discover yet another hatch (there are a few, it turns out), and yet another orientation film, not to mention a wall of screens that reveal that their hatch is under surveillance.

Terry O'Quinn and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje in "?". Image courtesy of IMDb.

“Station 5, or The Pearl, is a monitoring station where the activities of participants in Dharma Initiative projects can be observed and recorded… your tour of duty in The Pearl will last three weeks, and during this time you will observe a psychological experiment in progress. Your duty is to observe team members in another station on the island. These team members are not aware they are under surveillance or that they are subjects of an experiment. What is the nature of the experiment, you might ask? What do these subjects believe they are accomplishing? All you need to know is the subjects believe their job is of the utmost importance. Each time a notebook is filled with the fruits of your diligent observation, roll it up and place it in one of the containers provided. Then simply place the container in the pneumatic tube and presto, it will be transported directly to us.”

This time, when Eko asks John if he’d like to see the film again, he most certainly does not. He’s completed deflated. Eko, interestingly, is invigorated, feeling more called to push the button now than ever. The possibility is raised that there’s no way to know how deep the layers of experimentation go- maybe the observers are in fact the ones being duped into a useless task. John doesn’t care anymore:

JOHN: I’m sorry, weren’t you just watching the same thing I was?

EKO: Yes, John, and I believe the work you have been doing is more important now than ever.

JOHN: What work?

EKO: Pushing the button.

JOHN: That’s not work. That’s a joke. Rats in a maze with no cheese.

EKO: It is work, John. We are being tested. The reason to do it, to push the button, is not because we are told to do so in a film.

JOHN: Oh, well, then, what is the reason, Mr. Eko?

EKO: We do it because we believe we are meant to. Isn’t that the reason you pushed it, John?

JOHN: I was never meant to do anything. Every second of my pathetic little life is as useless as that button. You think it’s important? You think it’s necessary? It’s nothing. It’s nothing. It’s meaningless. And who are you to tell me that it’s not?

This should have been an eye-opening moment for John. While I agree with Eko, John was also right about himself and had some important realizations- but not quite enough. He has had a pathetic little life, but that’s exactly because he is happy to be a rat, so long as there is cheese. While Desmond accepted his bleak life’s purpose of pushing a button forever to thanklessly save the world over and over with no expectation of getting anything in reward, John was only doing it because he believed some unknown entity would be pleased with him.  

Terry O'Quinn in "Orientation". Image courtesy of IMDb.

I don’t blame John for wanting to stop pushing the button here, but instead of refocusing his energy on finding what he is meant to do, he rededicates himself to making everyone else stop pushing the button. Where Jack had the attitude of “push it yourself”, John is full of spiteful rage and wants to let the timer run out to stick it to… the seemingly extinct Dharma Initiative? It’s unclear. But the group, particularly Eko, has now committed to pushing the button. They’ve started taking shifts, they’ve built a routine around it. “Live Together, Die Alone Part 2” is all about John and Eko’s battle over the button- and the looming question of it it's real.

As much as John’s behavior bothers me here, I absolutely love that we get a concrete answer to if the button is real- and we wouldn’t have had they never stopped pushing it. In “Live Together, Die Alone Part 2”, John barricades himself in the room with the button, bringing impenetrable walls down around him to ensure no one stops him from letting the timer run out. Eko, determined to push the button, gets more dynamite from The Black Rock (this becomes a common errand) to blow the doors open. He detonates the dynamite as the timer counts down, but it doesn’t have the desired effect and he doesn’t make it to the button.

The hatch starts to shake, metal flies across the room as electromagnetic energy escalates. They didn’t push the button, and something happened. The exact something that Desmond predicted. Now poring over the reports Eko brought back from the Pearl, Desmond frantically realizes that the one time he ever failed to push the button was the same day Oceanic 815 crashed on the island. While we’re warned throughout this show not to mistake coincidence for fate, everything happening in this moment confirms: not pushing the button crashed their plane. The button is real.

Desmond, who has a fail-safe key from his old Dharma companion, crawls through some tunnels to turn it, a self-sacrificing mission that sends the full release of electromagnetic energy inwards. The impact reverberates throughout the island, but only the hatch implodes. The presence of electromagnetism on the island and Desmond’s fateful missing of the button/inadvertent crashing of the plane will continue to be a driving force of Lost’s action, but this is the end of the hatch as we know it.

And perhaps most interestingly of all, no one really cares. The hatch had a shower, a washer/dryer, and multiple beds, all of which seemed to be rarely used. In fact, it seems that many of the survivors of Oceanic 815 never even went in it. The food stockpile Desmond was living off of was freely distributed to the camp with no attempt to ration it. No one bemoans returning to sleeping on a tarp and doing laundry in the waterfall. This attitude is telling. As much as some characters are adamant about getting off the island, the happenings here are much more significant than mere survival, and on some level, everybody knows that.

I love all of Lost, but the story of the hatch is easily the most compelling, and the ideas batted around in season two hold many of the show’s key takeaways, which are revealed more bluntly in season six.

On that note, I wish I had more to say about the show’s ultimate conclusion. I liked it!

I was compelled to watch this show because I found all the discourse surrounding the series’ controversial ending so interesting, but as I was promised by a friend, I found it emotionally fulfilling and sound. The finale is comparable to those of Six Feet Under, The Leftovers, and The Good Place, which is great company to be in, but I do think those other shows’ conclusions are a little stronger.

However, I think that has more to do with Lost’s middle than it does its end. Lost never lost me (haha), but I’ll admit the end of season four and beginning of season five was a little manic. For the show’s ultimate message to be something so ancient, spiritual, and utterly simple, they sure spent a lot of time filling my head with quantum physics and generations worth of interpersonal alliances and rivalries. I was still working out what exactly Ben Linus and Charles Widmore were fighting about when the show told me that they don’t really matter at all.

I love Lost’s finale more and more the longer I sit with it, but in the moment my head was so cluttered with timelines and science and the momentum of the mission in the that it was hard to really feel the full extent of its serenity. I’ll defend it vigorously today, but I wasn’t as stunned, mouth open while the credits rolled as I was with Six Feet Under, The Leftovers, and The Good Place.

All this to say, talk to me about Lost! I think it’s the most interesting thing in the world at the moment.

#lost #desmond hume #john locke #jack shephard #mr eko #matthew fox #terry o'quinn #adewale akinnuoye-agbaje #sawyer #james ford #tv review #tv criticism #tv #henry ian cusick #damon lindelof

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The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: Is Katniss Lucy Gray's Granddaughter?

The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is chock full of easter eggs and homages to the original trilogy. So much so that many folks are wondering if the District 12 survivor from years past has any relation to the Girl on Fire.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes follows young performer Lucy Gray Baird as she is reaped for the 10th annual Hunger Games, becoming the female tribute from District 12. Her path crosses with the ambitious yet penniless teenaged Coriolanus Snow, whose curriculum at the Capitol’s Academy causes him to take a vested interest in Lucy Gray’s performance in the Games.

Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Image courtesy of IMDb.

Similar in some ways, but different in even more, Katniss Everdeen and Lucy Gray Baird both played to their strengths to survive the brutal Hunger Games. Here are the reasons some people got the idea that these two protagonists could be related.

The Timeline Checks Out

In The Hunger Games trilogy, the white-haired President Snow has a granddaughter just a couple years younger than Katniss and her sister Prim. Given that his younger self was two years older than Lucy Gray, it’s perfectly feasible that Katniss and Prim could be her descendants.

“The Hanging Tree”

Now, Lucy Gray isn’t the only one who knew this song- certainly not after performing it for a vivacious crowd of dancers at a District 12 pub. But Katniss is no performer. She gritted her teeth through any performative act she had to take to ensure her own survival, yet “The Hanging Tree” is a song she occasionally sang willingly, one she found peaceful. It must have had a special place in her heart to bring her that comfort. And why might that be? 

Jennifer Lawrence and Amandla Stenberg in The Hunger Games. Image courtesy of IMDb.

Their Strategies in the Games

Lucy Gray and Katniss handled the Games- and the mind games leading up to the Games- very differently. Yet at their core, they played the same way. Both girls played smart, rather than violent; they both waited out the initial bloodbath and took as little life as was possible, given the circumstances. When finally forced to play their hand, Lucy Gray and Katniss both did the wholly unexpected, somehow finding a third option for themselves besides kill or be killed. Their strength in not succumbing to the animal-like behavior that the Capitol so eagerly wanted to televise is an outlier that draws a connection between the two of them.

Rachel Zegler in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Image courtesy of IMDb.

Katniss

Lucy Gray had a fondness for Katniss- the plant. It’s a swamp potato that the Covey would eat on their travels. Not everyone called the plant Katniss, but Lucy Gray liked to. Did she like it enough for a child of hers to pass the name along in her honor?

Despite all these easter eggs in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes that can’t help but draw the mind to Katniss Everdeen, no relation between the two District 12 victors is ever confirmed. A strong argument can be made for one, but there are also some reasons this theory is just that- a theory.

The Covey

 Lucy Gray Baird is a member of the Covey, a traveling performance troupe that happened to be settled in District 12 at the time of the 10th annual Hunger Games. Her Covey identity is so important to her that she is reluctant to call herself a resident of District 12, despite being reaped as the district’s female tribute. Yet, there is no mention of the Covey in The Hunger Games. The group is a new addition to The Hunger Games world with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. If Katniss was related to Lucy Gray, they would only be two generations removed, and Lucy Gray’s Covey identity would likely play a role in Katniss’s sense of self as well. The complete absence of the Covey in Katniss’s story casts some doubt on the possibility of a connection between the two girls.

Rachel Zegler in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Image courtesy of IMDb.

District 12 

The Covey complicates things even further. Given that they are a traveling group, to the extent that Lucy Gray refused to call District 12 home, it seems unlikely that she spent the rest of her life there. When you add in the fact that, at the end of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, she and Coriolanus had set out to leave the districts and never return, the thought of her establishing a family in District 12 feels even more far-fetched. The prequel ends on an ambiguous note, with Lucy Gray deliberately losing Coriolanus in the forest, so it’s hard to say if she ever saw 12 again, much less made meaningful connections there.

Radically Different Personalities

 Lucy Gray’s reaping consisted of her dropping a snake down another girl’s dress and then bursting into song. Katniss’s reaping found her intensely and tearfully volunteering in her sister’s place. The contrast between Lucy Gray’s levity and Katniss’s seriousness is a constant in their personalities. Lucy Gray, a performer for a living and a performer for survival, won Capitol hearts with her charm and voice. Katniss, on the other hand, had to be begged to grin and bear it, to give a single twirl, to save not just herself but Peeta- whose affability was an essential counterpart to her stone-faced persona. If the two girls are related, a similar demeanor is not one of the clues.

Jennifer Lawrence and Stanley Tucci in The Hunger Games. Image courtesy of IMDb.

Ultimately, though, we’ll never know for sure. It’s possible that The Ballad of Songbirds and Snake’s homages to Katniss served more as an explanation as to why the Girl on Fire bothered President Snow so much. Maybe she just got under his skin because she reminded him a little too much of the girl who bested him and broke his heart all those years ago- related or not.

What's your gut telling you? Do you think these two share blood? Or just that powerful fighting spirit?

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #lucy gray baird #coriolanus snow #tom blyth #rachel zegler #the hunger games #katniss everdeen #jennifer lawrence #amandla stenberg #movie review #movie criticism

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True Detective episode 1.08 "Form and Void"

I love anthologies. I love the endless potential, and the early seasons of American Horror Story really prove the extent of that potential. It’s also so much cleaner than having a bunch of spinoffs (tell me why American Horror Stories is a thing? Anthologies by definition don’t need a spinoff. Just do it next year). But the later seasons of AHS also embody the downfall of anthologies: if they do too good a job, it can be hard to get excited about the next season because you know that everything you liked about it will be different next time around.

I’ve only seen season one of True Detective, and I’m really trying to talk myself into pressing on, not because I didn’t like it, but because I liked it so much. The people behind this show built themselves some massive shoes to fill, and I’m skeptical that it can be done. Everything about this first season was incredibly deliberate; it was gripping and compelling at every turn, and it all served a larger theme. It even managed to come around to an uplifting final message, which I was pleasantly surprised by as this was one of the darkest things I’ve ever watched.

I tend to cover finales, and that’s because endings are so important to me. It absolutely makes or breaks my entire impression of a show (I reminisce sometimes with “remember when I liked Ozark?”), and True Detective’s season one finale drew a powerful underscore on everything I’ve loved throughout this entire journey. This is a story with purpose, that knew exactly what it was about. As a whole, it had the power of its own Rust Cohle who said things like “I know who I am. After all these years, there’s a victory in that.” and “Given how long it’s taken me to reconcile my nature, I don’t think I’ll forego it on your account”.

Matthew McConaughey in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

“Form and Void” finds Rust and Marty on a boat, holding Steve Geraci at gunpoint, a former sheriff who holds key insight into the Marie Fontenot case. Cohle forces Geraci to handle the tape he stole from Tuttle and watch it, eyes glued to the TV. Geraci watches, screaming as he does, reacting even more strongly than Marty. Some people seem to find it cheesy that rather than showing us the tape, they show us these ‘hard, seasoned men’ struggling to watch it, but I think that’s exactly the point.

A crucial thing this show is about is the difference between bad and evil. Marty’s a pretty bad guy I’d say- lies, cheats, beats people up, calls his daughter and wife whores- but he’s also a human being with emotions and limits and can function in our society. The crimes of this case are on the fringes of humanity. This show does a great job displaying the depths of these atrocities without forcing us to look at something unspeakable. Making the characters do it for us not only shows us the nature of the crimes, but the nature of the people. Errol Williams Childress, the man with the face like spaghetti, the undocumented Louisiana man who committed these crimes, is as evil as a person can be while still being a human being (“he’s worse than anybody”). And fighting him with such force makes Marty a ‘good’ man in the biblical sense, despite being so flawed that he’s hard for regular folks like you and me to really get behind.

Marty struggles a lot with his conscience over the course of this story, and Maggie ultimately acknowledges that he “didn’t know who he was, so he didn’t know what to want”. Rust, who, of course, knows exactly who he is, doesn’t have patience for Marty’s hemming and hawing. When Marty asks if Rust ever wonders if he’s a bad man, Rust doesn’t hesitate to say that “the world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door”. The idea that bad men can do good- by protecting the world from worse men- is a major takeaway, and one that I really like.

Woody Harrelson in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

And Rust may have been stewing in a storage unit obsessing over this for years, but it’s ultimately Marty who finds the key clue that brings everything to a head. He recognizes a fresh coat of green paint on a house in Erath, drawing the connection to the green ears in the description of their subject. Adrenaline pumping from the new discovery, Marty and Rust head out to find out who painted the house.

An interview with the old woman who lived in the house in ’95 confirmed that she had her house painted by men who worked for her parish- the Tuttle church community. Rust and Marty were able to track her husband’s payment for the job to Childress and Son Maintenance, which yielded an address to the Childress property. They head over. This is it. This is the place. Rust can tell by the taste of the air.

“That taste. Aluminum, ash. I’ve tasted it before”. Marty, used to his partner saying weird shit, but ever the human being who’s realizing they’re walking into a life-threatening situation, simply says, “you still see things ever?”. Rust replies, “It never stops, not really. What happened to my head, it’s not something that gets better”. Not a reassuring answer to Marty, but Rust’s proximity to insanity is the very thing that keeps him safe amongst actual psychopaths. Similarly, Marty’s ability to read people is a skill the show makes sure we’re aware of despite his gruff, bumbling personality.

That skill is what made Marty feel comfortable calling Papania, one of the two interrogating officers when they arrived on the scene. But alas, there’s no service. That’s typically a frustrating and unnecessary roadblock in suspense stories, but it just feels realistic out here in bumfuck Louisiana. So, Marty forces his way into the home in search of a landline while Rust secures the perimeter. Marty overpowers Childress’s girlfriend (wife?), but not before she can say some truly haunting shit about the man they’re here for.

Ann Dowd and Glenn Fleshler in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Rust, meanwhile, has encountered him face to face. He has his gun pointed squarely at Childress and tells him to get on his knees, but Childress simply says “no” and runs off. Why Rust didn’t just shoot him, like Marty did to LeDeux’s crony 17 years ago, is a valid question. I think at this point in time, Rust has a lot less stamina for bureaucratic coverups, paperwork, and debriefs and a much greater willingness to die. Not to mention, they don’t really have any legal standing to be here in the first place this time around. He’s going to see it through, all the way through, in the beating heart of this operation.

Which turns out to be an absolutely terrifying maze of tunnels lined with stick-work much like those found at the crime scenes. Rust winds his way through, but every corner he rounds with his gun drawn just makes the dire situation all the more evident. He is at every disadvantage, no idea where he’s going, while Childress clearly has eyes on him. His voice carries through the maze, somehow coming from somewhere, taunting Rust, guiding him right where he wants him. “Come on inside, little priest. To your right, little priest. This is Carcosa. You know what they did to me? What I will do to all the sons and daughters of man? I am not ashamed. Come die with me, little priest.”

Woody Harrelson in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

I’m obsessed with Childress calling Rust little priest. In addition to the obvious irony of this being a church-based cult- and Rust looking down at organized religion altogether- he is super preachy in his way. He says some stuff throughout this whole season that really grinds you to a halt. My favorite is one of his earliest revelations of his personality, one that stuns Marty into regretting having asked him anything at all: “I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, an accretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming, stop reproducing, and walk hand in hand into extinction. One last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.”

It may not be Jesus, but it’s a hell of a response to the simple question of “are you a Christian?”. And when it comes down to it, isn’t sharing your opinion on humanity and what we should do with it all that preaching really is?

Anyway, Rust enters the offshoot of the tunnels that Childress directs him to. It turns out Marty was right to be worried about those hallucinations of Rust’s. He looks up at the sky, visible several feet up into the air, and a spiraling galaxy fills his field of vision. Rust is distracted by it when Childress charges him with a knife. If that hadn’t happened, I think Rust would’ve gotten him in one. But Childress stabs him deep in the stomach and twists, holding him up in the air by the blade.

Matthew McConaughey in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Marty bursts in behind them, prompting Childress to drop the deeply wounded Rust to the ground. Marty doesn’t hesitate to fire three shots into Childress that hit him in the shoulders and chest, seemingly to no effect. Childress charges Marty, hurling an axe head-over-handle until it buries itself in Marty’s chest. Marty dislodges the axe and uses it and all his strength to hold Childress at bay.

When it comes to scary things, I’m usually most affected by the occult. Things like demons, ghosts, possession etc. are terrifying to me. Things you can always see, that die for good in ways we can measure and understand typically don’t bother me as much. But Childress is so fucking scary. The ideology and staging of the killings was eerie every step of the way, but this final confrontation is so well executed. Childress is as powerful and able to withstand as much as I can reasonably believe possible in a human being, and Marty and Rust suffer the most serious of injuries that they can plausibly walk away from. Rust’s managing to get to his gun and shoot Childress in the skull is, in a way, scary in and of itself because it confirms that this really was an actual person who walked among us.

Matthew McConaughey and Glenn Fleshler in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Marty and Rust have had a bond all along, but their recovery together in the hospital is a wholesome confirmation of that. Despite everything that happened between them and the rage Marty felt towards him when they parted ways years ago, Marty and Maggie both refused to entertain the idea that Rust had done something evil. In fact, they took offense to the thought, putting an abrupt end to any conversation that started to go that way.

After Childress is dead, Marty crawls to Rust and puts pressure to his stab wound while they wait for help to arrive. Recounting it later, Marty says he sat there “with his friend’s head in my lap”. Once both of them are lucid in the hospital, Marty, less seriously injured, wheels himself to Rust’s hospital room. Rust is himself, that is to say, not warm and cuddly, instead preoccupied with the fact that he had come across Childress in their original investigation and failed to put the pieces together. But Marty takes him in stride, telling him not to ever change, and he’ll “be back tomorrow, buddy”. They send each other off with a flip of the middle finger.

Marty proves himself the most at the very end. I was impressed with him for understanding his faults and truly giving Maggie the space to move on. And I was impressed with him for staying by Rust’s side even as he continued to heal faster than him. Despite Rust’s resistance to the idea, Marty insists on seeing to Rust having a place to stay when he’s released- that things are “already arranged”.

In the rawest- and most optimistic moment of the whole show- Marty wheels Rust out under the stars for a non-sanctioned smoke break. Rust breaks down, in itself a true sign of his bond with Marty, and opens up through his tears: “There was a moment… I know when I was under in the dark, that something… whatever I’d been reduced to, you know, not even consciousness… it was a vague awareness in the dark, and I could… I could feel my definitions fading. And beneath that darkness, there was another kind. It was deeper, it was warm, you know? Like a substance. I could feel, man, and I knew, I knew my daughter waited for me there. It was so clear. I could feel her. I could feel… I could feel a piece of my pop too. It was like I was a part of everything I ever loved, and we were all… the three of us… just fadin’ out. All I had to do was let go. And I did. I said ‘darkness, yeah, yeah’. And I disappeared. But I could… I could still feel her love there, even more than before. There was nothing but that love. Then I woke up.”

Still from "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

We’ve heard from Marty, from the Tuttle parish, and various believers along the way, that there is more beyond. More after. But hearing Rust say it makes me believe it. He was wrong about there being nothing and us being no one. It’s a beautiful moment. But there’s more.

Rust breaks down after this, and Marty shows a soft side of his own. He tries to bring Rust back by asking him about something he’d mentioned years ago- that he used to make up stories about the stars when he lived in Alaska. Either Rust humors him or the invitation to talk about that really does anchor him, at least enough to ponder some more; either way, he finishes Marty’s prompt.

RUST: I tell you, Marty, I’ve been up in that room looking out those windows every night here and just thinking… It’s just one story. The oldest. Light versus dark.

MARTY: Well, I know we ain’t in Alaska, but… appears to me the dark has a lot more territory.

RUST: Yeah. You’re right about that.

They ponder the night sky a little longer. Rust asks Marty to take him to the car. He’s had enough of hospitals. Marty knows Rust well enough to look out for him, but not to argue with him. He obliges. As they’re about to part ways:

RUST: You know you’re lookin’ at it all wrong. The sky thing.

MARTY: How’s that?

RUST: Well, once, there was only dark. If you ask me, the light’s winning.

Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

On that honestly beautiful note, we fade out. It’s an incredibly more positive answer to Marty’s question long ago of why Rust hasn’t just killed himself if he sees humanity in this awful way. His answer at the time was that it must just be his programming. But he’s always seen the potential in the light. Never delusional about how much darkness there was, hence his perpetual melancholy, but always aware of the possibility of the good. That’s the real reason he’s kept fighting. Someone like Rust Cohle seeing that potential makes me believe it’s really there.

So, here’s the biggest question: should I watch season two? Will it hold up to the real beauty I found here? Drop me your thoughts on Marty, Rust, and all things True Detective.

#true detective #rustin cohle #marty hart #matthew mcconaughey #woody harrelson #tv review #tv criticism #tv

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

The Morning Show episode 3.10 "The Overview Effect"

The season of Alex Levy! It’s been awhile since I really felt proud of a character the way I feel proud of her. It’s also not too often in shows that you get to see a character grow and actually implement that growth. Typically, a character ‘learning their lesson’ marks the end of the story, but The Morning Show has a really unique pacing that does wonders for character development. They all contain multitudes and nuance and flaws and strengths, and that complexity of every individual is the exact thing that fuels the chaos behind this show.

I also think this show is slept on for some reason? I never hear anyone talk about it which confuses me with this kind of cast. From what I gather, it does too good a job capturing all the problems in our society and that’s a downer. I’ve always been impressed by that quality about it, the whole thing would feel silly if it didn’t feel authentic. But for anyone who feels that The Morning Show is just a stressful and sad reminder of the state of US capitalism and media- this season surprised me by building to an incredibly hopeful and empowering conclusion. One all about growth and accountability. I honestly feel like I have a better understanding of what the phrase “doing the work” actually looks like in the context of social justice and power after watching this.

Jennifer Aniston in "The Overview Effect". Image courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter.

Before this season’s finale, my opinion was leaning the complete other way. Bradley, who I’ve always identified with and loved, covered up her brother’s involvement January 6th. Hal wasn’t just there; he attacked a cop- and people were looking for him. Bradley didn’t just discretely ignore it, she doctored him out of footage, lied to the FBI, and continued reporting on the event. To me, she lost all her ethical standing with this, and she continued doing the news for a long time before anyone found out. As Laura Peterson told her, “It’s obscene”.

But then again, Laura only found out about it by scouring all of Bradley’s leaked emails and texts in search of evidence of Bradley sleeping with Cory. Before Alex got involved during “The Overview Effect”, I was rolling my eyes at the both of them. It was screaming ‘liberals who can’t get off their high horse but also aren’t ethical in their own lives when it really comes down to it’. Laura being so insecure about Bradley sleeping with someone when they weren’t even together to the point that she would violate her privacy like that felt incredibly low for Laura. Almost out of character. Her finding out about the Hal situation and her subsequent breakup with Bradley is what catalyzed the climax of this season, but I really wish she had found out some other way.

Nonetheless, I saw a glimmer of hope for Bradley when she resigned on-air. It was dramatic, as she and Alex both often are, but it was a step towards accountability. Losing her girlfriend, her job, and potentially the rest of her career made me feel like she is, indeed, paying the price for her choices.

Something else also happens here that manages to put Bradley’s transgressions in perspective. Paul Marks stops by Bradley’s green room right before what would be her final broadcast, blackmailing her with his knowledge of how the January 6th cover up could blowback on Laura, and telling Bradley to stop digging into Hyperion. “The Overview Effect” opens with Paul blatantly (to us) lying to Alex about that conversation, telling her instead about the support he offered Bradley in that moment.

Paul Marks was a great character addition this season. They planted the seed well that he was ‘not what he seemed’ and had something going on with Hyperion, his independent space company that was working with NASA. Stella had an old friend who tried to blow the whistle, but Stella really straddles the line between empowering from the top down, as she claims to do, and simply playing the game. She scared the friend away, and so enlisted Bradley and Chip to help her get to the bottom of whatever it was that she now regretted ignoring. All we knew for most of this season was that he didn’t assault anyone- he was “too smart” for that- but he sure did something, and absolutely no one would come forward.

Jon Hamm and Jennifer Aniston in "The Overview Effect". Image courtesy of TV Line.

The chemistry between Jon Hamm and Jennifer Aniston is really the thing that made him- and her- compelling. It was so genuine, and his affection for Alex is the one thing about him that I do still believe to be true. I’ll say it, he had great charisma and calming DILF energy. Without knowing what exactly he had done, the smitten part of me wanted to believe that it was nothing. Seeing that side of him, understanding what Alex saw in him, makes what she does in this episode all the more impressive.

Ever since her live resignation, Alex has been texting and calling Bradley to no avail. After her conversation with Paul, the one where he lies through his teeth, Alex decides to go check on her. When she shows up at her apartment, Bradley looks unhinged. Disheveled and manic, Bradley tells Alex she can come in if she leaves her purse and phone in the hall. Alex obliges, and when Bradley gets talking, it all makes horrifying sense.

Bradley admits to everything about January 6th, but then says something else- Paul knew about it too, and in their conversation, he referenced things he could only know if he had been listening to her fight with Laura. Alex is shocked, but, to her immense credit, not disbelieving. Bradley says she’s going home to West Virginia for awhile to take care of things with her family. Alex leaves, wrapping her head around the possibility that Paul is surveilling Bradley- and who knows who else. On the way home, she texts Bradley that getting away for a bit is a good idea, and that she should go back to West Virginia. After a moment of thought, she changes West Virginia to Hanover, a place they didn’t discuss, and hits send.

Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston in "The Overview Effect". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Alex’s little experiment proves fruitful. She gets back to her apartment and tells Paul that she went to visit Bradley. They chat about it, Paul playing a supportive boyfriend. So supportive that he wraps Alex in a hug and says Alex is right, Bradley should get away for a bit, go back to Hanover and recoup. Alex freezes. She doesn’t give herself away though. She agrees, hugs him back, and spends the night sharing a bed with someone that we and she now all know is very scary.

Then she pays a visit to Laura. A plan is formed, but we don’t find out about until the Hyperion-UBA deal is minutes away from going through. Right about as people are ready to start pouring champagne, Alex says there’s just enough time to put a counteroffer on the table. Laura has worked some magic at her network, NBN, and she and Alex are proposing a merger. They will share resources to save costs and form a true journalistic partnership.

Paul is caught completely off guard. He asks to speak to Alex in private, where they round a corner to come face to face with Stella and Kate- the original Hyperion whistleblower. They give Paul an ultimatum- walk away from the deal and come clean to NASA about sending them falsified reports on his rockets- or they will report on everything. Oh also- the transmission break when Bradley and Cory went to space? Not a broadcast issue, Paul cut the feed because the ship’s navigation system malfunctioned. Alex was absolutely right not to get on that thing. Also did this plot line remind anyone else of a certain submersible?

Paul, of course, accepts these terms because the alternative is life-ending, but he’s still flabbergasted at Alex’s turning on him. It’s a little sad, he really did love her and didn’t see it coming whatsoever, but not that sad because he was doing some fucked up shit.

For all of Cory’s heart attack-inducing running around this season, it was Alex single-handedly saving UBA multiple times over. She brought Paul Marks to the table, and she kicked him back away from it. And none of it was selfish. She was so thoughtful this season it blows me away. While Paul and Cory were both leaking scandals like chess pieces, Alex was processing them all with poise.

Billy Crudup in "The Overview Effect". Image courtesy of IMDb.

The idea that all the things that consume a news cycle, that prompt a notes app apology on Instagram and cost people their careers, are, at their source, a meaningless power play by executives with zero genuine interest, is the saddest thought posed this season. It was demoralizing to see Cory drop a bombshell and pretend to care about it when really all it meant to him was a successful board meeting. Knowing that origin of all these scandals, watching Alex, Chris, Mia, and Yanko put so much heart into thinking through these issues of race and pay inequality is just sad in some ways. The people at the top were preying on these ethics, on the outrage, on the news cycles, and people’s careful attempts to do the right thing were the very things executing Cory’s delicately laid plans.

Cory’s last-ditch attempt to reconcile with Cybil to save UBA really cements that all these issues of inequity meant nothing to him. He’ll go whichever way the wind blows. Alex, meanwhile, rejected Cybil’s pleas for allyship and engaged with her just enough to hold her accountable (“It isn’t just an email. You paid a black person less than a white person for the same job.”) She also knew when to take action and when to step back. She interviewed Paul on her own show and I truly don’t think their relationship ever clouded her work, but when Cybil was going to be interviewed, she was the one who arranged for it to be Chris doing the interviewing.

And in the end, Alex didn’t let a trail of injustices cloud her perspective. She was able to put what Bradley had done on the backburner for a moment, and get Laura to do the same, to tackle the wrongdoing of all wrongdoings. She did what Paul was relying on our society not being able to do- seeing through a scandal to its source. And she didn’t do it to save her own job- she was about to get the rebrand of a lifetime- she did it simply because it was the right thing to do.

But she didn’t forget about everything else. Before the credits rolled, Alex was holding Bradley’s hand as she and Hal stood outside an FBI office. Alex tells her it’s going to be okay, that she’ll be there for her, but that she has to do this. Bradley knows she does. This is what friendship should look like. Both unconditional support and accountability. I love this example proving that you don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. That someone can have room for growth, and they can do it by your side, with your support. That’s how we all get better.

Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston in "The Overview Effect". Image courtesy of IMDb.

I’m just so thrilled to see The Morning Show go this way. If you know me, you know I love a happy ending, and this may not be that, but it is hopeful, empowering, and motivating. And that’s what it’s all about, I think.

#the morning show #jennifer aniston #alex levy #reese witherspoon #bradley jackson #jon hamm #paul marks #billy crudup #cory ellison #tv #tv review #tv criticism #laura peterson #julianna margulies

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Friends episode 1.11 "The One With Mrs. Bing"

A quality I’ve been noticing a lot lately in content that I enjoy is an intimacy between artist and audience. The illusion that we really truly know these people with a certain amount of depth is what hooks us. It’s the thing that creates fandoms and births groupies, but it’s also the reason we buy concert tickets and make a standing appointment with our favorite shows. And I’d even go so far as to say that that intimacy isn’t an illusion. If someone really is pouring themselves into their work, and they’re good at it, I think anyone who’s there to see it will probably have an important understanding of that person. So, your favorite artists may not know you, but you do know them.

I think that’s why Chandler resonated with people so strongly. I may be biased, but I also spent a lot of time in the Friends fandom, and he really was the fan favorite. The entire cast was of course a strong ensemble who made their characters their own, but I don’t think any of them identified with their role as much as Matthew Perry. He says in his memoir that he was Chandler and Chandler was him, but I think we knew that already. Everything from his clothes to the cadence of his speech is instantly identifiable, funny, endearing, and real.

Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc in "The One With Mrs. Bing".

My favorite episodes of Friends (and of most comedies) are the ones that get as close to drama as a sitcom can get, and I’ve noticed that Chandler is almost always at the center of the show’s most emotional moments. When Chandler kisses Joey’s sister, his repentance is so sincere. When Chandler finally admits his love for Monica, tears of laughter turn to tears of endearment in a literal split second; Ross and Rachel make you say, “oh my God”, Monica and Chandler make you say “awwww”.

And as early as season one, a sole episode featuring Chandler’s mom carries more depth and character development than a decade with the Gellers. Chandler’s mother, Nora Bing, is a bestselling erotica novelist. She’s introduced in this episode as the gang forces a begrudging Chandler to watch Nora’s appearance on Jay Leno. Two episodes prior, we heard Chandler’s first recounting of his Thanksgiving horrors (we’ll come to be very familiar with the tale): at nine years old, Chandler’s parents sat him down at the end of Thanksgiving dinner and told him they were getting a divorce- his father is having an affair with the pool boy.

Right after admitting on national TV that sex makes her crave Kung Pao Chicken, Nora excitedly tells Leno that she’s heading to New York tomorrow and will get to see her son. Chandler declares, without surprise, “And this is how I find out. Most moms use the phone.” Seconds later, Nora is explaining the depths of her love for her son by stating that she bought him his first condoms. Summing up how every parent makes their kid feel, though probably not to this extent, Chandler says: “And then he burst into flames.”

Matthew Perry, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, and Jennifer Aniston in "The One With Mrs. Bing".

In one short, funny scene we understand a surprising number of layers to Chandler’s character. Nora was sincere when stating her love and excitement about seeing her son. Ross- the only one who knows her- declared that he loves Chandler’s mom. Rachel gushed that she is a huge fan of Nora’s books. Despite their bizarre dynamic, Chandler has to endure everyone else loving his mom and telling him to relax, something he really does try to do.

He brings the whole gang out to dinner with his mom- including Paolo, which is generous of Nora.

NORA: I am famished… what do I want?

CHANDLER: Please God don’t let it be Kung Pao Chicken.

NORA: Oh, you watched the show! What’d you think?

CHANDLER: Well, I think you need to come out of your shell juuuust a little.

But he says it all with a smile, dropping a kiss on his mom’s cheek. And then hops right on board as she orders tequila shots for the whole table. It’s a strange dynamic, and a comical one, but also one that now feels real. Matthew Perry’s performance turns this punchline of a premise into something more: what would a person with this upbringing really be like?

Matthew Perry and Morgan Fairchild in "The One With Mrs. Bing".

Towards the end of dinner, Ross has gotten good and drunk on Nora’s tab. Rachel and Paolo are driving him up the wall. He runs into Nora after coming out of the bathroom- the women’s bathroom, he realizes, when a woman steps out a few seconds after him. He’s down, out of it, and Nora knows it’s about Rachel. She comforts him, promising that Paolo isn’t the kind of character that sticks around. Rachel will be turning to him in no time.

This seems to help, but suddenly the two are leaning into each other, kissing a real kiss. And who’s headed for the bathroom now but Joey, who sees them and stammers in shock that he’s gonna go pee in the street. Ross and Nora separate and sigh that sigh that’s old sitcom speak for “fuck”.

David Schwimmer and Morgan Fairchild in "The One With Mrs. Bing".

The next day, Ross tries to get away with never telling Chandler what happened. Joey hasn’t told him, but he tells Ross that he has to- and takes offense to the suggestion that his own mom isn’t as tempting as Nora Bing (“I’ll have you know that Gloria Tribbiani was a very handsome woman in her day, alright? You think it’s easy giving birth to seven children?”).

Ross at first tries to claim that Paolo kissed his mom, which has Chandler in enough shock already, but finally Ross exclaims that it was him, getting real anger out of Chandler. “You know, of all my friends, no one knows the crap I go through with my mom more than you.” Ross tries to apologize, but Chandler leaves, slamming the door.

Later, at Central Perk, Ross tries again:

ROSS: Chandler, can I just say something? I know you’re still mad at me, I just wanna say that there were two people there that night. Okay? Two sets of lips.

CHANDLER: Yes, well, I expect this from her. She’s always been a Freudian nightmare.

ROSS: Okay, well, if she always behaves like this, why don’t you say something?

CHANDLER: Because it’s complicated. It’s complex- hey, you kissed my mom!

Other coffee drinkers turn to look. Ross declares to the coffee house that they’re rehearsing a Greek play. Typically the kind of joke Chandler himself would make, he doesn’t even crack a smile.

CHANDLER: That’s very funny. We done now?

ROSS: No! You mean you’re not gonna talk to her? You’re not gonna tell her how you feel?

CHANDLER: That would be a no. Look, just because you played tonsil tennis with my mom doesn’t mean you know her. Alright? Trust me, you can’t talk to her.

Chandler then comes close to breaking Ross’s finger, but even if he’s not admitting it now, Ross has said something significant. While it’s the biggest betrayal coming from Ross, this isn’t an isolated incident on Nora’s part. It’s a not-so-funny symptom of the overarching mother/son dynamic that has been comically displayed until now.

Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer in "The One With Mrs. Bing".

Back up at the apartment, Chandler is saying his goodbyes to Nora. She brought copies of her book for the rest of the gang and asks if Chandler wants anything from Lisbon. On the surface, they have a playful banter, and he takes things in stride. But finally, as she’s walking out the door, he stops holding it in: “You kissed my best Ross! … or something to that effect.”

She knows it’s not good. She steps back inside and gently closes the door. She apologizes, they agree that it was stupid, and she promises it’ll never happen again. And when she asks if they’re okay now, he starts to say yes… but then he says no. The kiss got his attention, but it’s the tip of the iceberg.

In the hallway, Ross approaches to find Joey listening at the door. We can hear Chandler and Nora’s muted yelling. Excitedly, Joey says “He did it! He told her off, and not just about the kiss, about everything!” They’re good friends, honestly. They give him grief and find Nora fun, but clearly Ross isn’t the only one who knows there’s more to the story.

Then, the screaming match is over and Chandler walks Nora down the hall. She asks if he’s okay and he says yes. She kisses his cheek, and after a formal “Mrs. Bing”, “Mr. Geller” between her and Ross, she’s gone. And Chandler and Ross are alone.

CHANDLER: Hey.

ROSS: You mean that?

CHANDLER: Yeah, why not. I told her.

ROSS: Yeah? How’d it go?

CHANDLER: Awful. Awful. Couldn’t have gone worse.

ROSS: Well, how do you feel?

CHANDLER: Pretty good! I told her.

The two shake hands, and Chandler smiles big, throwing an arm over Ross’s shoulder.

Chandler has the zaniest backstory of the group (except for maybe Phoebe), yet he’s somehow the most whole, the most down to earth. You can connect the dots between the life story that exists off screen and the choices he makes in front of us. And could you even fathom anyone else playing Chandler Bing?

Matthew Perry in "The One With Mrs. Bing".

There was just something special there. Matthew Perry had that “x factor”, as they say, although I think that x factor really is the ability to make strangers feel like they know you. He did it everywhere, and I think we all really liked the guy we got to know. If, like me, you’re looking to watch the best of Chandler Bing in the wake of Matthew’s passing, here are some others to add to your queue: episode 2.03 “The One Where Heckles Dies”, episode 4.08 “The One With Chandler in a Box”, and episode 5.14 “The One Where Everybody Finds Out”.

Among many other things, I also highly recommend his book Friends, Lovers, and the Big, Terrible Thing, his movie The Whole Nine Yards, and his show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which I’ll be back here with sometime soon. And if you’re having any Matthew Perry related thoughts or feelings, I’d love to hear about them! This one is very close to my heart.

#matthew perry #chandler bing #friends #ross geller #david schwimmer #monica geller #courteney cox #joey tribbiani #matt leblanc #phoebe buffay #lisa kudrow #jennifer aniston #rachel green #nora bing #morgan fairchild #tv review #tv criticism #tv

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Only Murders in the Building Season 3 and the Power of a Musical Number

Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez in Only Murders in the Building. Image courtesy of IMDb.

This should’ve been a two season show. Every new murder in this building makes the show less plausible. As far as I’m concerned, foreshadowing Bunny’s murder in the pilot episode is the only reason they even got away with a second one. Plus, you never see any deliberate two season shows, wouldn’t that be cool?

Now, after three, it’s gotten silly- but I don’t entirely mean that in a bad way. Even from its compelling start, I don’t think it was ever a show to be taken too seriously. It’s cozy. It’s comfort food. It’s the perfect hangover show. And it might embrace cutesy self-awareness more successfully than anything else I’ve ever seen.

Season three delivered another pretty solid mystery, but it recognized that at this point, we’re here for the antics just as much as we’re here for the plot. Death Rattle Dazzle is a hilarious device that carried this season on its back. Martin Short directing Steve Martin, Paul Rudd, and Meryl Streep in a dramatic musical mystery about which infant triplet killed their mother in a premeditated homicide is a swing that doesn’t miss. They got like three whole episodes worth of plot out of the patter song, “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?”, and I’m here to say that I have no problem with that. The stars are having fun, but they aren’t selling out.

I love a musical number in a tv show. Jessica Lange’s “Life on Mars” and “The Name Game” (American Horror Story), Hugh Laurie and Lisa Edelstein’s “Get Happy” (House), Sam Claflin and Riley Keough’s “Look at Us Now” (Daisy Jones and the Six), and Justin Theroux’s “Homeward Bound” (The Leftovers) cross my mind often as reminders that a little song and dance can have a significant place in any genre.

Charles being at first incapable of singing “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” without sacrificing his sanity, followed by Matthew Broderick dropping in to rattle it off under his breath, finally resolving with Charles redeeming himself with a pitch-perfect performance that parallels their own murder investigation puts this song on the map for me.

Steve Martin in Only Murders in the Building. Image courtesy of Exclaim!

And when we finally get to hear the song in its entirety, with full fanfare, the lyrics are laugh out loud funny. “Time for you or you or you to admit it!” is probably my favorite, but lines like “Which crib, which sib will be doing hard time?” really convey the humor in the entire premise of the musical without us having to watch the whole production. The song is on Spotify, I’ve been listening to it at the gym.

I don’t have many thoughts about the actual murder this season, although I will say that a good mystery is one of the most delicate things to pull off- and I think they do. I’m 0 for 3 guessing these killers, and I like it that way. If I see it coming from a mile away, I’m bored- and a little insulted. If the answer is out of left field, delivered at the eleventh hour by a crucial clue that I as an audience member had no way of knowing, I feel like I didn’t get a fair crack at it. The audience should be close enough on a story’s tail that they don’t beat it to the finish line, but they’re kicking themselves for it.

All that to say: the mystery holds up, but it’s the song that still has me bringing up Only Murders in conversation. I don’t hold this show to the same critical standard as some others because even though it’s not reinventing the wheel, I think it’s achieving its intention.

Still from Only Murders in the Building. Image courtesy of IMDb.

And I’m optimistic about season four! I find this trio endearing, and the obligatory season finale cliffhanger murder feels much less random than season two’s hail Mary with a brand-new cast member. I’ll really miss Sazz; Jane Lynch looking just like Steve Martin is a bit that’s funny every time. But I think we’ll get a good amount of flashbacks, and probably a deeper dive into Charles’s Brazzos era, which sounds like a great time to me.

Do you still watch this show? What are your speculations about next season? How many murders can there be in this building? Does asking that question within the show make it any less implausible? Have you noticed the print Charles has in his kitchen that just says “nice hot vegetables”?

#only murders in the building #steve martin #martin short #selena gomez #charles haden savage #oliver putnam #mabel mora #tv review #tv criticism #tv #jane lynch #sazz pataki #meryl streep #matthew broderick #paul rudd

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Hacks episode 1.10 "I Think She Will"

I should leave The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel alone… but I watched Hacks and thought, “now here is a show that understands and respects standup comedy”. Deborah and Ava are bitingly funny, both when working and not. But I chose this particular episode because it features one of the most impressive feats of both comedy and storytelling I’ve ever seen: standup at a funeral. And it works!! Midge could never.

This episode opens with Deborah being mystifyingly cold to Ava in the days leading up to her big show: the debut of her new set at her final show at the Palmetto. Her attitude is only a mystery to Ava, though; we know Marcus told her about Ava’s sneaking back to LA for a job interview. It’s unfortunate, because it’s one of the few times Ava actually didn’t do anything wrong, but when it all comes to a head perhaps it’s her rightness that makes Deborah think.

I’m actually not gonna talk about Marcus anymore though. I loved him in the beginning, but he turned into a kinda lonely, bitter sad sack and his meet-cute with the water guy quickly devolves in this episode into heavy-handed melodrama. But he snitched on Ava and that’s why Deborah’s acting like that.

The unfortunate timing continues when Ava gets a call from her mom- her dad had another stroke, and she needs to come home. Ava, distraught for her family but still aware of the significance of missing Deborah’s show, nervously enters Deborah’s dressing room with her opening night gift and explains the situation. Expecting her to put up a fight, she’s confused and hurt when Deborah stoically seems not to care. Of course, we know Deborah’s trust in her has already been broken.

Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder in Hacks. Image courtesy of Decider.

I appreciate that this show made Ava’s home life a part of this story. Her character needs it for us to sympathize with her- Ava rocks, except for when she does something inexplicably dumb, which is unfortunately often- but it also helps in this climactic moment to put things in perspective. One thing about Ava and Deborah, they care very, very much about their work. But comedy is not life and death, and Ava needs to go home. So, she walks out.

But! She passes Jimmy in the hallway, who asks her why Deborah isn’t doing her new set anymore. Well, this decision was clearly made in the last two minutes. So, Ava storms back into the dressing room, telling Deborah that anger at her is a ridiculous reason to throw away everything they’ve worked on.

Deborah has been incredibly rude to Ava in the past- she was genuinely brutal in the early episodes. The tear down on the bus tour? Actually not okay. But this is about to be the fight of all fights. As soon as Ava confronts her about abandoning the new material, Deborah admits that she knew Ava lied to go to the job interview. With everything that’s happened since, this is laughable to Ava. She did so right by Deborah in that interview, and she has a point when she replies, “this is why I had to lie to you about that job interview. Because your ego doesn’t allow you to take in information like a normal human being. No one’s allowed to communicate honestly. And if they do, you either shut them out or push them away or, I don’t know- hit them with your car”.

Deborah really is hiding right now. She shields herself with “I don’t really think about you… this isn’t about you. I just don’t want to do it. I know what works. The old stuff works, so that’s what I’m doing”. None of that is true. Sometimes, Deborah honestly makes me so sad. When she’s just grinning and bearing it while doing things like pizza ads and having a street named after her, letting people pretend to respect her in public while pulling her prized residency out from under her. It’s so sad. You can see it in her eyes.

And absolutely none of that is lost on Ava. “What a giant waste of time this all was… Oh I’m so sorry. What great opportunity did I keep you from? Does KFC want you to be the new Colonel Sanders? … You’re just scared to do the hard thing, so you’re jumping at the first possible chance to bail. You’re gonna do the same old tired shit you always do because I was right the day I met you. You are a fucking hack.”

And then Deborah slaps her in the face. Honestly, Ava says it best: “who slaps people?” This show is so good at organically displaying their generational differences. It doesn’t explain them or belabor them, but it’s the foundation of their base source of conflict. First of all, slapping someone across the face really is a boomer thing to do. And I won’t defend it, but we can understand where that well of emotion came from.

To Deborah’s standards of hard work and ethics, she’s the furthest thing from a hack. That integrity is so important to her. In fact, doing this new material poses a threat to everything she’s built the hard- and right- way. But to Ava, who measures integrity by authenticity and creativity, Deborah’s values are actively counterproductive.

In this instance, Ava’s right. Deborah, alone now, opens Ava’s gift. It’s Deborah’s Time Magazine cover, framed, with the title reading, “Will This Woman Make History?” In a note tucked into the frame, Ava’s written “I think she will”. Maybe this is what softens Deborah enough to see Ava’s point, but regardless, she does the new material.

Jean Smart in "I Think She Will". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Ava, meanwhile, is back home helping her mom deal with her dad’s arrangements. She wakes up early the next morning- before Kelly Ripa’s day is done (Deborah has rubbed off on her too)- and is immediately accosted by her mom being kind of nutty. She’s so realistic and funny in the “can you believe she just threw that into conversation” way that moms are:

“You know, you’ve chosen such an unstable career, and no mother wants to watch her child suffer. And now we’ll have to euthanize the cat.”

“What?”

“Yes! We have to euthanize Mr. Cream Pie because he’s going to have to leave this room when you move in, and it is just wrong to take a cat back to the shelter, Ava. It’s just wrong… For the service, you’re reading Lamentations.”

“Oh. Well, I wanted to read a eulogy. I just started working on it.”

“A eulogy? Ava, please. It’s your father’s funeral, I don’t need you saying anything crazy, like when you told your grandmother you were pro-choice.”

“But I am pro-choice.”

“Yeah, but you don’t need to say it.”

I wish I wrote that tbh. I’m still laughing. But of course, it’s good-natured laughter because we really feel for her mom at the same time. In the two, maybe three snapshots that we’ve seen of Ava’s parents before this, we’ve learned that she was an overworked and attentive caretaker to Ava’s dad, and Ava loves them both very much amidst all the layers to this dynamic.

So Ava doesn’t read a eulogy at the funeral, and when the room is asked if anyone would like to come up and say a few words about Dennis, it’s crickets. Until:

“Oh, God. This is so awkward. This is painful. Excuse me. This is not how you’re supposed to do this. Excuse me. Sorry- if you wouldn’t mind. Yeah, see you can’t just ask people to come up impromptu and not warmed up. Because it’s just too hard to do cold, you know. There’s just too much pressure. And these people are exhausted. It’s exhausting to lose a loved one. And now everybody’s uncomfortable because they think that no one has anything nice to say about this man. And I know that you do.”

Guess who! Ava’s words must have really stuck with Deborah, because not only did she do her new set, but she apparently did some digging and confirmed Ava’s story. And felt bad enough about it to show up. I love this scene so much because everything she’s saying feels so organic and so true. She cuts the tension as if she had a knife, and she does it by validating these people and the man they’re there to honor. It’s not these people making this awkward, it’s this circumstance. And if Deborah fancies herself anything, it’s a woman of the people, as we’ll see next season when she takes her show on the road. So, she starts doing some crowd work:

“So, let’s try this again. You, sir! How did you know Dennis?”

“Uh, he was my cousin.”

“Oh, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“What was the drunkest you ever saw him?”

She gets the crowd talking, and more importantly, laughing. They start telling stories, with everyone else chiming in with choruses of “Oh my God, I forgot about that!” and the like. It’s really sweet and reaffirms for me the idea that you can laugh with love.

After the services, Deborah sits on Ava’s bed. Ava thanks her for making her mom laugh, and Deborah apologizes- sincerely- for hitting her. Incorporating a literal slap out of anger into this show felt like a risky thing to do; would Ava- and the audience demographic that her character brings to this show- be able to get past something like that? But I think it’s neither overblown nor underblown. It was a great apology, and she put some action behind it as well, given that she’s in Ava’s childhood bedroom right now. Also, Ava’s done some dumb shit of her own, but Deborah doesn’t know about that yet.

Jean Smart in "I Think She Will". Image courtesy of IMDb.

In that conversation, Deborah also admits to doing the new material, to Ava’s delight, and bombing, to Ava’s disappointment (“did you come all the way here to bury me with my dad?”). But Deborah is buzzing. She bombed, but she sees the potential. She’s excited and challenged by her work for the first time in a very long time. She wants to take it on the road, and she wants Ava to come with her, because she’s “too good to quit”. A ‘tour’ would be too strong a word for the state fairs and open mic drop-ins she’s planning, but she’s not above anything.

It’s really energizing and endearing to see all these human sides of Deborah. In terms of their growth, they really are both learning from each other. And it’s so nice to see the act of improving a piece of work like this. To shatter the illusion that talent is this mystical thing one either has or doesn’t. The thing that’s actually hard to come by is the drive to work and work until it works. And that’s what Deborah and Ava both see in each other.

I don’t think Midge Maisel ever bombed. I don’t think her world ever made her take a good hard look at her material and acknowledge that it’s not there yet, but it can be. Ambition is the trait I’d like to romanticize when we talk about art, over an inexplicable “knack” someone has that can’t be harnessed or understood. And I really appreciate Hacks for doing that.

So, this season finale sends Deborah and Ava on the road, Ava with her dad’s ashes in a tennis ball container to see the world. Oh yeah, and in the time between their fight and Deborah’s showing up to the funeral, Ava called those job interview people and violated her NDA to give them all the dirt on Deborah she could think of. It’s the last stupid, self-made sticky situation Ava will find herself in, thank God, and season two is even stronger for having her learn from her mistakes.

Season three is in the works, and I, for one, am hoping to see a Deborah Vance comedy special in full. That would make a pretty unique episode, I think.

#hacks #jean smart #hannah einbinder #deborah vance #ava daniels #tv #tv review #tv criticism

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Heartstopper episode 2.03 "Promise"

Joe Locke and Kit Connor in Heartstopper. Image courtesy of IMDb.

This is the most I’ve looked forward to a new season of a show in a long time. I watched it all in a day and it filled my heart right up. To be a YA romance about two high school boys, it hits strikingly close to home. I was instantly enamored with season one, and my experience with it made me realize that I had actually never seen this part of myself on screen so completely before (I’ve been clinging to Olivia Wilde’s Thirteen on House for a decade). They’re high schoolers with high school problems, yet everything they go through feels significant without veering into melodrama. In fact, I think the reality of what they’re facing is so challenging, and all of these characters deserve so much credit for how they face them.

Especially Charlie. Charlie’s the unspoken protagonist of this story- when we watch this show we step into his shoes- and I think that sometimes leaves him overlooked. We empathize with all the characters on occasion- the show is really good at that- but Charlie was the one with the crush, the constant victim of unwanted attention; it’s easy to imagine ourselves in that position. But like no one’s favorite character is Harry Potter (except mine), I think Charlie can come across as two dimensional if we get too caught up in the self-insert nature of the story; like everything happens to him without him doing anything. But he’s a great dude, tbh.

And in this episode, he’s taking care of everybody else. The term is finally over- everyone in Nick’s year has just finished exams, and Charlie is ungrounded, just in time for a big party in the woods. Before leaving school, Tao declares his feelings for Elle with a new haircut and flowers, asking her on a date to the movies before the party. Elle accepts, and he takes her to see Moonrise Kingdom, a movie he hates but she loves. They both have nervous butterflies, but Elle is thrown off by the tension in the air and doesn’t like that Tao isn’t acting like himself.

They awkwardly agree to go to the party, where it’s revealed that Elle has invited her new friends, fellow prospective art students. Tao explodes, declaring that she’s forgotten all about him, and storms off (we’ll confirm later that Tao’s fear of abandonment stems from the death of his dad when he was 12; not everyone’s behavior is excused, but there is a reason that every character acts the way they act). Still reeling, Tao bumps into Charlie, who’s been separated from Nick in the chaos of the bonfire. Tao bursts into tears, declaring that he “tries too hard and talks too much and ruins everything”. Charlie wraps him in a fierce hug, and Tao sobs into his shoulder.

William Gao and Yasmin Finney in "Promise". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Nick, meanwhile, has been struggling with this night from the start. He’s plagued by the pressure he’s put on himself to come out, supplemented by Ben whispering in his ear all term that he’s treating Charlie the same way Ben used to. Nick’s taking his own promise to Charlie from season 1 very literally and feels increasingly guilty with each passing time he tries and fails to come out to someone in his life. Today, he’s promised again to come out to the rugby team, and Tori pulled a big sister move, threatening Nick if he didn’t look after Charlie tonight. The stakes are high, and he’s feeling them. He tells Charlie he just has a headache and can persevere.

But they quickly lose each other in the crowd, and while Charlie is comforting Tao, Nick is getting more and more distressed. While looking for Charlie he finds Tori instead, who skeptically points out that he’s not doing a very good job looking out for her brother. More broken promises… He finds his way into the center of the crowd, being jostled by a bunch of the rugby boys. Thoroughly disoriented, he’s endearingly still trying: “guys… there’s something… I need to tell you”. But suddenly Harry is next to him, throwing an arm around Nick and asking what they’re talking about.

Nick loses what’s left of his nerve at this point, but before he can find anything to say, Charlie appears and pulls Harry off of him: “Nick doesn’t want to talk to you, Harry, piss off!” Surprised, the other boys give them enough space for Charlie to ask Nick if he’s okay, and for Nick to say, “I feel really unwell”. Charlie declares that he’s taking him home and leads Nick out of the crowd. In the end, he’s not the one who needed looking after tonight. In the previous episode, Charlie apologized for not standing up for Nick when his brother started harassing him. In this episode, he proved that he actually learned from that moment and changed his behavior.

Joe Locke in Heartstopper. Image courtesy of IMDb.

I want to give Charlie so many points for the way he treats not only Nick, but never forgets about his friends while in the throes of his first real love. He gives Tao his full attention tonight, just like he will in Paris when he clips the Charlie + Tao lock onto the bridge, and just like he will at prom when he pulls Isaac into a group picture.

But with Nick especially, he is so genuinely supportive. Nick isn’t anything like Ben, and maybe it wouldn’t be fair for Charlie to express it, but there’s definitely something a little triggering for him about having another secret boyfriend. Nonetheless, Charlie not only takes Nick home and tucks him into bed with a cup of tea, but he makes the executive decision that they should stop trying to come out right now. He sees what it’s doing to Nick (and ignores what not doing it is doing to himself), and the relief in Nick is palpable.

But as selfless as it is, Charlie’s right: it is Nick’s coming out. He should be able to do it on his own terms. The tea is just that being gay is hard, and being in a relationship where one person is more out than the other is going to have painful moments for both people involved, and it isn’t either of their faults. And even though not everything is going according to plan, Nick is moving mountains himself. He really didn’t bat an eye before abandoning his entire friend group, not even caving for the more auxiliary members of the rugby team until they apologized and earned their way back into his life. Instead, he fully embraced Charlie’s friends, forming his own relationships with all of them.

And I’m really glad that the show doesn’t minimize the all-consuming fatigue involved with coming out. Nick doesn’t just want to do it for Charlie; he wants to be out, holding his boyfriend’s hand and kissing him whenever he wants. There are moments throughout the season where we see his own frustration with himself. But it just isn’t something that comes up naturally in conversation. It’s always awkward. It’s always at least a little bit scary. You have to bring the conversation to a stop and make an ‘announcement’, something that feels self-important and overdramatic, while doing nothing feels like keeping a cowardly secret. Struggling to come out doesn’t make Nick a bad person, and Heartstopper shows us exactly how and why.

Kit Connor in Heartstopper. Image courtesy of IMDb.

I love the way this show romanticizes all the right things, depicting both gay pride and gay struggle without one diminishing the other. Heartstopper is ultimately so full of love; this entire friend group is made up of really good people, and for everything that gives these kids a hard time, there’s something else propping them up. For every Ben Hope, there’s a Nick Nelson, for every overbearing brother there’s an overprotective sister, for every absent father there’s a perfect mother. It’s both guttingly relatable and rejuvenatingly hopeful, and while I personally will never get tired of a wholesome story, we still have far from enough queer content in this world that just makes you feel nice. If you love Heartstopper, please tell me everything you like about it and why :) <3

#heartstopper #joe locke #kit connor #charlie spring #nick nelson #william gao #yasmin finney #tao xu #elle argent #sebastian croft #ben hope #nick and charlie #tv review #tv criticism #tv #sorry for all the random pictures there aren't enough released for this episode yet but i thought they still looked nice

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Modern Family episode 8.18 "Five Minutes"

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet in "Five Minutes". Image courtesy of ABC.

I’m a little worried that I missed the era of long-running shows. I actually used to wish for this- it seemed that even my favorite 11 season shows didn’t get there without some lulls along the way, fading into the background of pop culture for a year or two before resurfacing, good again but a little different somehow. So, I wished for shows to not overstay their welcome; I thought a good story didn’t wander. I don’t necessarily think that’s true anymore, and I’ve come to find that the passage of time does something to a story that can’t be replicated any other way. Modern Family is a case in point.

I watched the whole show for the first time over the past nine months, and I honestly felt a little embarrassed. I wanted to talk about it but I didn’t want to admit that I was just now getting around to what feels like the world’s most popular show. Even if it wasn’t the most talked about, I’ve never encountered anyone who’s never heard of it.

Over the years it grew into a comfort show, not because it’s a guilty pleasure, but because it provides the warm familiarity of hanging out with your best friends, who happen to be really funny. As the show neared the end, it was effortlessly emotional because it really was a whole era that was coming to an end. Seeing glimpses of how little Manny, Haley, Alex, and Luke all used to be made me wish that that much of my own life had passed alongside them and I could look back on how much I’d accomplished as the Dunphy’s grew up. I imagine that’s really special for the people who really did get to spend 11 years with the Pritchett clan.

I want to talk about “Five Minutes” just because I think it’s a really good one. On the whole, I think Mitch and Cam are Modern Family’s weak spot- their stories are generally superficial and repetitive and they are actually awful to each other, lying and keeping score all the time. But in this episode, they’re a perfectly silly united front. They’ve just boarded a plane bound for Turks and Caicos and popped some sleeping pills, settling into vacation mode. Then, a technical issue forces them to deplane and wander around LAX in search of a new flight- now high as kites. Having recently taken an edible in the LAX security line just for my flight to immediately get delayed, it seemed to me like a very plausible and hilarious premise. In their altered state, Mitch and Cam are a dumb and dumber team as they try to make their way to their new flight, with a connection in Dallas, that leaves in five minutes:

Cam: I don’t want to go to Dallas.

Mitch: Yeah, we’re going to Turks and Caicos.

Desk Attendant: Dallas is just where you make your connection.

Cam: I’m having a very hard time processing information right now.

They walk away, then look down at their boarding passes.

“Wait, why do these say Dallas?”

“I have no idea.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, there’s been a horrible mistake.”

“We don’t want to go to Dallas.”

They meander, forgetting everything under the sun as they walk. They find themselves at a hat stand- a haberdashery, as Cam calls it. They try on hats, complimenting each other as they do.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet in "Five Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

“Oh, look, little girl’s hats.”

“Oooh we should get one for Linda.”

“Who?”

“Um. Our daughter.”

“No, that’s LILY.”

“Oh I love that name!”

Eventually, they’re rescued by an employee on one of those indoor vehicles they have at the airport. I don’t know how else to describe them, but you know the ones, right? They’re delivered to their gate and make it to Turks and Caicos, happily ever after. But the ending is less important to me here than the journey, that was full of silly yet genuine affection for each other and forming a united front against a problem that neither of them caused.

Meanwhile, Haley is at dinner with her boyfriend, weatherman Rainer Shine, celebrating his 45th birthday. Five minutes before the cake arrives, things take a turn for the significant when Rainer, entering a midlife crisis, proposes to Haley. She initially says yes and both are excited, but cracks in their compatibility quickly surface, punctuated by a thunderstorm that Rainer failed to predict. In what is, in my opinion, one of the funniest and most underrated moments of the show, Haley hides the fact that she has the Weather app because the idea of not being people’s sole weather source hurts Rainer’s feelings:

“If it helps, my weather app didn’t predict rain either.”

“Your what?”

“Nothing.”

Sarah Hyland in "Five Minutes". Image courtesy of ABC.

The rest of the characters are also occupied in this episode; Manny is trying to park at the movie theater five minutes before the movie starts, while Jay and Gloria bicker in the car. Phil and Claire, worried about Alex’s social life in college, pay her a surprise visit. They fear she is embarrassed when she tries to get rid of them, but it quickly comes to light that she’s not lonely or embarrassed- she’s just dating Claire’s weird assistant Ben.

Not to say I don’t care about those parts of this episode, but they aren’t the reason it continues to stand out to me as I progressed through three more seasons. Mitch and Cam’s wholesome silliness, and Haley’s genuine sincerity were both refreshing changes of pace for their characters that made this episode special.

Have you seen Modern Family? Who’s your favorite character? What do you think made it the household staple that it’s become? You have to date one character, who would it be?

#modern family #ty burrell #julie bowen #jesse tyler ferguson #eric stonestreet #sofia vergara #sarah hyland #tv review #tv criticism #tv #nathan fillion

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

The Bear episode 2.06 "Fishes"

This show is so special. It’s doing everything right- the soundtrack, the cast, the setting, the dialogue, the themes. But more than anything, its real charm lies in how deeply realistic these characters are. The Bear is both one of the most realistic and artistic shows I’ve ever seen, and that’s so exciting to me. In the 90s/2000s era of “quality TV” we had The Wire, hyper realistic, at times to the point of being monotonous, and 24, which readily sacrificed plausibility for relentless action. To me, The Bear represents all the best things that today’s tv is doing; first and foremost, it’s proving that gut-punching familiarity doesn’t have come at the cost of delivering a spectacle.

And nothing makes that point better than “Fishes”. Once again making no effort to be consistent in episode length, “Fishes” is an outlier of season 2 at over 40 minutes long, but it is worth every second. It’s a flashback from Christmas past as the entire Berzatto clan gathers for a very loud and eventful feast of the seven fishes.

Jeremy Allen White and Jon Bernthal in "Fishes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

First let’s talk about the elephant in the room- the amount of famous people in this episode. They just keep coming. I honestly consider the cast of this episode to be a spoiler- seeing and recognizing the stars as they arrived to Christmas dinner felt like a deliberate and important part of my experience as a viewer. Just like Carmy I got to smile and think “wow, it’s so good to see you, I didn’t know you were gonna be here!”- followed immediately by wondering what could possibly be in store with all these people together.

Jaime Lee Curtis takes it the fuck away as Donna in this episode. She called it the role of a lifetime and spent several minutes looking into Jeremy Allen White’s eyes before filming, and learning about the care that was taken in making this episode affirms for me that they knew exactly what they were doing. Before we see her, though, the episode opens on the three kids- Carmy, Sugar, Mikey- talking about her.

Sugar is begging Mikey to do something about their mom (“and here I am just fucking in the middle because you’re you and Carmy’s Carmy”), Mikey is begging her to resist the urge to ask Donna if she’s okay (“You ask somebody if they’re okay, they immediately start thinking they’re not acting okay… and that immediately makes them start not acting okay”), and Carmy is begging them both to come back inside so he’s not stranded with the rest of the family (“can you come inside and be you real quick? I don’t know how to deal with these people”).

Of course, it’s The Bear, so this exchange all happens quickly amidst some yelling from Fak, but nonetheless, there’s so much to this interaction if only there was time to unpack it. But things are moving right along and a beat later we’re in the kitchen with Carmy and Donna. Before this episode I often thought no environment looked less appealing than the back of house at The Beef. And then we cooked with Donna, and it made everything about these people make sense.

Jamie Lee Curtis in "Fishes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

It’s a nightmare kitchen, and not just because she’s cooking seven fishes in there. Carmy steps in like he’s entering a minefield, which he honestly is. Donna’s slamming things and throwing things and dropping things and setting an egg timer for God knows what. But through it all, we ride that fine line of chaos and rhythm, and there’s a musicality to the exchange that happens through all the noise:

“Carmen. I’m spilling shit everywhere. And I’m behind on the lobster. Carmen. I have a question. Cousin Michelle’s friend Steven, is he gay?”

“Is who gay? Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma. Why are you doing the seven fishes thing? Nobody ever eats this shit.”

“Steven. Is he gay? I mean, he seems kinda gay. You know, he’s arty and I mean I love him and everything but he’s gay. I think. And it’s tradition.”

“It’s tradition that he’s gay?’

“No. The seven fishes. What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing this since 4 o’clock this morning for?”

This seems like a good place to mention that cousin Michelle and her actually straight boyfriend Steven are none other than Sarah Paulson and John Mulaney. Even without us knowing Steven and Michelle, we’re able to recognize that they’re quirky yet endearing together and fit right in with the Berzatto clan.

For the first half of the episode Donna is wound pretty tight and everyone is treading very lightly around her (and making sure that Pete throws the tuna salad he brought the fuck away), but it has the endearing familiarity of any family gathering. She gently urges Richie’s pregnant wife to change clothes and lay down in her bed; she tells Carmy she loves him and she’s glad he’s home; she welcomes uncle Cicero into the kitchen with a kiss.

But soon, the relatively lighthearted family dysfunction transitions into a truly traumatic display that perfectly informs all the behavior we’ve seen from the Berzattos throughout the series. Something goes awry in Donna’s hell kitchen right as Sugar walks in, exploding with “It’s like I have to do everything for everyone. No one fucking lifts a finger to help me. Can you just go upstairs and get Dad’s gun out of my drawer, I think I’m just gonna blow my fuckin brains out, and then you guys can make dinner because I don’t think anyone would fuckin miss me.”

All the while, Carmy and Sugar reassure her that they are, in fact, actively helping her. When someone else walks in to offer a hand, Donna screams at them all to get out, out, “get the fuck out!!” In the hall, Sugar siphons a hug off cousin Steve, sharing an understanding of what they just walked into- and out of.

In the next room, Mikey and Richie are in the throes of recounting a tale from a wild time in their past. An unimpressed Uncle Lee, played by Bob Odenkirk, cuts them off, lamenting that he’s heard this story a thousand times. The conflict unearths what is clearly a deeper, longstanding beef (no pun intended) between Mikey and Lee. Lee doesn’t let up, spoiling the end of the story for the rest of the room and then declaring, for everyone to hear, that stories seem to be the only thing Mike is capable of finishing. Cicero enters the room and breaks the ice but doesn’t stop the tension from mounting between the two of them.

Bob Odenkirk in "Fishes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

As everyone sits at the table, Carmy makes good on his promise to handle Donna- he follows her upstairs after her explosion resulted in her storming out of the kitchen. Gently, with that faux nonchalance you use with volatile people, Carmy asks her what’s up. Donna releases that she can’t do this on her own anymore, but doesn’t think that anyone in this family cares about her at all. Like they’ve been doing this whole episode, Carmy lays reassurance on her that everyone is willing to help- to which she fires back that she had to beg him to come home. He insists that he is happy to be there and everyone downstairs appreciates her. She laments that she “makes beautiful things for them and no one makes beautiful things for me”.

Carmy doesn’t really know what to say to that- the self-imposed nature of the seven fishes hellscape is almost comically obvious to everyone but her. Instead, he offers to walk her downstairs and sit at the table together. She declines, and when he decides to wait until she’s ready she asks him why he’s treating her like a child. In the briefest moment that Carmy lets go unchecked, she also calls him Michael. But a moment later she full-name’s him with an icy “Carmen Anthony Berzatto do we have a problem?” He says no and the next moment she’s breaking down in tears, and on a note of relative peace and love Carmy leaves her to go sit.

He enters the dining room just in time to see tension resurface between Mikey and Uncle Lee. After some taunting from Uncle Lee, Mikey throws a fork at him. It gets a reaction from Lee, so he wants to throw another, but the consensus at the table is that Lee’s being a jagoff, but Michael is making everybody nervous. No one will give him their fork. Lee lays on honestly brutal onslaught of verbal abuse “this guy’s nothing and he’s nobody… you loser… you loser fuckin monster.”

We have to spend a minute on the horrendously mean things that have been said to both Mikey and Richie. It’s actually crazy how often they’re called losers, nothing etc. It would be enough to break anybody. If the rest of this gathering wasn’t such a fragile Jenga tower I would’ve been rooting for him to throw the second fork.

Alas, they’re interrupted by Donna finally gracing the table with her presence, eliciting a round of applause. For a second it looks like they might salvage this night. Steven says a grace that I’m pretty sure they let John Mulaney write himself and it’s very nice. So nice that it makes Donna start to cry again.

But if you forbid a question in act one, you can bet someone’s gonna ask it in act three. Sugar just can’t help herself. She asks her mom if she’s okay. It’s the straw that broke the camel’s back. “Oh, Natalie. Do you know how much I fucking hate that you ask me that. Do you ask the rest of these people if they’re okay? Do I not look okay, Natalie? Did I not just bust my ass all day for you motherfuckers? Am I okay- Are you motherfuckers okay?! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you, Natalie.” The whole time Sugar is so meek I could cry. Interjecting when she can that she didn’t mean it like that and can they go upstairs, but Donna just explodes and then storms out of the room alone.

Abby Elliott and Gillian Jacobs in "Fishes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

There’s a brief moment of a kind of relief, of the thing you were dreading finally happening, and the table lets out some nervous breaths and chuckles. Then Mikey throws the fork. It’s instant. Lee lunges at him, Mikey flips the table, everyone is on their feet keeping the two apart. The thing that stops it is maybe the only thing that could stop it. Donna drives her car through the wall. The episode fades out over Mikey banging on the car, repeating “Ma! Open the door! What did you do?! Open the door! Ma!!”

This is really just another love letter from me to The Bear, but there was a full house in this episode, and I obviously didn’t get to everyone! Did “Fishes” resonate with you? What were your favorite parts that I didn’t cover? Why is this show nominated for outstanding comedy? Did the academy see this one?

#tv review #tv #tv criticism #the bear #carmy berzatto #jeremy allen white #jon bernthal #bob odenkirk #jamie lee curtis #oliver platt #ebon moss bachrach

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Jury Duty episode 1.03 "Foreperson"

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen on tv in a really long time. I’m so happy for Ronald- literally no one else in the world has had this experience and he was such a champ. I was pulled in by the premise- a guy reports for jury duty and essentially walks into The Truman Show. Ronald Gladden was appointed to a jury that was sequestered for 17 days, without access to his phone, and without knowing that the case is fabricated and everyone he interacts with the entire time is an actor. It actually sounds crazy to describe, and I initially started it with morbid curiosity because I didn’t see how this could possibly be an okay thing to do to someone.

But Jury Duty is somehow an incredibly wholesome, heartwarming, and hysterical piece of work. I can’t get over how much they lucked out with Ronald- he was so genuine and present and really did his best with all these bizarre situations. Just down for anything. This could definitely have gone another way with a different type of person, but the acting feat involved with the rest of the cast staying in character for days on end is also almost shocking.

Ronald’s laid back and willing attitude put my concerns for his wellbeing to bed pretty much immediately, but this episode is where I got fully invested. Ronald had just been appointed foreperson of the jury, which seems to just mean that he has to handle it when everyone else does weird stuff during the case.

To start with, Todd is wearing his chants (chair pants) to court today. No description can do them justice, you gotta see them, but they’re basically crutches with kneepads on top that attach around his waist so he can lean back into them and sit. He’s really proud of his invention, but he makes a scene everywhere they go because “the only part that is slightly inconvenient about these is interacting with other chairs while you’re wearing them”. When attempting to walk through the metal detector at the courthouse, the security guard just says “no”, and Todd then spends several minutes removing them inside the courtroom at the judge’s request. This all sounds too silly to believe, but I think David Brown’s performance is so realistic. And what would it take for you to start wondering if everyone and everything around you is fake?

Susan Berger, Ronald Gladden, Mekki Leeper, Ross Kimball, and Edy Modica in Jury Duty. Image courtesy of IMDb.

Todd is embarrassed after having to take off his chants in front of everybody, which makes Ronald feel bad- and admit that he may have given Todd the inspiration for chants when he showed him A Bug’s Life over the weekend. He thought that Todd might appreciate the nice tale “about the bug who’s making these inventions. He’s trying to introduce technology into their lives. That’s exactly what Todd is trying to do. You know, that’s what he’s passionate about. And I think it’s really cool. So I showed him that movie to kind of let him know that, you know, those people tend to be misunderstood in society, just like it’s portrayed in the movie. You know, he’s kind of an outcast. And all he’s trying to do is just help in his own way.”

This is both the funniest and sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s such a funny, silly thing that it’s amazing it wasn’t scripted. Ronald just decided to show this guy A Bug’s Life over the weekend. And David Brown hung out with him and watched it, in character.

Barbara, meanwhile, can’t stay awake during the depositions. Ronald taps her several times to wake her up, but the judge finally adjourns for a coffee break, telling Ronald to keep his jury in line. He understandingly pleads with Barbara to stay awake, and she reassures him that she just ate a cookie that has “sativa and Dexedrine in it”. Ronald was asked to keep her awake, not monitor her drug use, so he just laughs and says “as long as you don’t fall asleep”.

Barbara doesn’t fall asleep. Suddenly, she is very invested in the case, gasping and reacting to every twist in the testimony. Afterwards, Ronald gushes about how proud he is of her, innocently saying she must have taken a new interest in the case.

This stand-up behavior from Ronald continues throughout the case, even as the situations get weirder and weirder. The concept of Jury Duty seems like it’s opening new doors in comedy, but I can’t imagine this ever being replicated. It was a really involved, risky experiment that managed to turn out perfectly. Please watch it and tell me your favorite part.

#jury duty #ronald gladden #james marsden #todd #tv review #tv criticism #tv

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Barry episode 4.08 "Wow"

Bill Hader in "Wow". Image courtesy of IMDb.

There is really no better word to describe this show than unique. Which might sound like I’m sugarcoating a less than positive reception, but this time I mean unique in the very best way. I often say, in writing and in life, that it’s a good thing when there’s nothing else like you in the world. If someone’s already done what you want to do exactly the way you want to do it, then what’s left for you to do?

Barry is so itself. I generally categorize tv into either a drama or a comedy and don’t really break it down any more than that, but Barry forces the issue of nuance. It’s a true dramedy in the way it combines short form narrative with a gritty action/thriller plot to tell a story that is, at its core, a deeply ironic commentary on the entertainment industry. It’s not haha funny, but the juxtaposition of the hit man/Chechen mob world with that of Hollywood highlights the senselessness and silliness of each. And the way the series wraps up really hits the nail on the head of these comedic themes told through a dramatic lens. I said “wow” out loud as the final credits began to roll, and then couldn’t hold back a smile as I learned that was the title of the episode.

This is one of those shows that has a very different feel by the end, and I think it’s because rather than people changing, we learn with more and more certainty who they have been all along. I had a friend watch this show all the way through for the first time recently, which was a fun journey to see unfold because I’ve been watching Barry from the beginning. She fell in love with it at first but was given some pause when Barry killed Janice Moss.

It felt different from his other killings, less justifiable. I remember feeling the same way when I first saw it, but as the show progresses, we realize this event isn’t an outlier, but rather our first glimpse into who he is and always has been. So much of the show is catalyzed by Janice’s death because it isn’t a moral gray area. It was wrong. But how do people handle right and wrong and justice when a coveted acting role is on the line? Or a lot of money? Or love? Or the flex of having a boyfriend and looking like you have your life together?

After avoiding an attempt on his life and escaping from prison, some deep flash forwards in season 4 find Barry living an intensely strange and religious life in the middle of nowhere with Sally and their young son John. Their house looks like it’s in the middle of open desert, much like where a young Barry once first met Fuches. Barry and Sally’s son doesn’t even know their real names. It’s pretty bleak, but Barry seems deeply deluded while Sally and John are miserable.

At this point, we’re not even pretending that Barry is somewhat sane. In no way is he the good guy, or even the anti-hero of this story. He’s deeply childlike, his entire moral compass being driven by the father figure he’s latched on to- we’ve watched it shift from Fuches to Gene Cousineau after a phase of teen-like rebellion, and when he was rejected by both of them, we watched him spiral, absolutely lost with no sense of direction. It seems that after this he couldn’t make sense of the world without turning to the ultimate father figure- God.

The thing about God is you can put words into His mouth, and he can’t dispute them. We’ve seen his pious life with Sally and John but this episode especially had a very darkly religious underbelly as Barry returned to LA to kill Gene, listening all the while to a Christian radio station debating the ethics of murder.

When Sally and John are kidnapped by Noho Hank as a ploy to deliver Barry to Fuches (more on all of them in a minute), Fuches is deeply moved by Barry’s son. In an abrupt but sincere change of heart, he lets Barry, Sally, and John all go. In the previous episode, in one of the best depictions I’ve ever seen of a character ‘deciding’ to do something, she had tried unsuccessfully to give up Barry and turn herself in. The thought of continuing to live as they had been, with no end in sight, was unfathomable to her. That night, after escaping Noho Hank and Fuches, Sally urges Barry to turn himself in. Barry’s takeaway, though, is that he has been spared and redeemed by God. He tells Sally she must just be tired, and, in the morning, they’ll get out of LA and clear their heads.

Anthony Carrigan in "Wow". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Unsurprisingly, Barry wakes up the next morning with Sally and John nowhere to be found. In a panic, he rushes to Gene’s house, convinced they’re there. Instead, he only finds Gene’s lawyer, who also encourages Barry to turn himself in as Gene as somehow twisted himself into looking responsible for this whole thing. Barry was never going to do that, but the interaction is cut short by Gene entering the room with a gun and shooting Barry in the chest. Barry looks down at his wound, up at Gene, and says a genuinely earnest “oh wow” before Gene puts another bullet between his eyes.

One of my favorite things about Barry is the very realistic use of speed and sound. This is the kind of moment we’d expect to have a lot of buildup, a highly emotional scene, but it’s very abrupt. It all happens fast- as fast as it would in life, without ample time to reflect. And this also drives home the point that Barry is just a very tragic pawn. He was a pawn to Fuches and Hank, and even to Sally and Gene, though in their case a poorly used one that led to their downfall. He was also a pawn to the narrative, as all the thematic takeaways really have to do with everyone else and how they used Barry, rather than Barry himself.

So let’s talk about these other guys. To me, by the end, there are two important throughlines to this story, both of which involve Barry but neither of which are about him. First, there’s Gene Cousineau and his addiction to attention. When the flash forwards begin, he’s been off the grid, but he emerges when he hears that a movie is being made about Barry and his killing of Janice. Janice’s father is still intently investigating the murder and his suspicions of Gene are confirmed when Barry (in a childlike apology) inadvertently confesses to having given Gene $250,000.

Jim Moss is smart. Gene receives a call from an agent wanting to talk to Gene about someone playing him in the movie about Barry. He doesn’t want to hear it, that is until the agent admits that the actor is Daniel Day Lewis, wanting to come out of retirement to play Gene Cousineau. Gene’s tune changes on a dime. He agrees to meet with the agent, where he overindulges in his self-importance and clandestine admissions that he was like a father to Barry, that Barry is misunderstood and would have listened to anything Gene had to say. He even went so far as to try to humanize him so that Mark Wahlberg- up for the part of Barry- wouldn’t feel bad about playing a cop killer. The incident he is supposedly outraged over, that ruined his life, is actually not so bad if he’s going to be credited in its star-studded dramatization.

Charles Parnell, Robert Wisdom, and Gary Kraus in "Wow'. Image courtesy of IMDb.

Gene and the agent hurry back to the office to meet with Mark, where we learn that the ‘agent’ was an actor hired by Jim Moss, who now believes Gene to be complicit in Janice’s murder, if Barry loved him so much and was such a ‘sympathetic soul’. Gene’s dug himself a hole he can’t dig himself out of, which brings us to the moment Barry arrives at his house looking for Sally and John. Barry is the only one who could clear Gene’s name, but Gene kills him before he gets the chance.

In another decade’s long flash forward, John, now in his late teens, amicably parts ways with Sally. He goes home with a friend and steels himself to watch the movie that really did get made about Barry, Gene, and everything that happened. The movie ends with on-screen text revealing that Gene is serving life in prison for the murders of both Janice and Barry, while Barry is buried in Arlington memorial cemetery with honors.

Again, it’s not ha-ha funny, but it’s a grimly comical look at the extent to which Hollywood will twist tragedy for the spotlight, even to its own detriment. It’s a satire in which all of these bleak characters are the punchline. But what really gives this theme heart, is Noho Hank. The character who started out as the comic relief for this series ends up being the real emotional gut punch. It’s hard to sympathize with Gene, who brought all this on himself with his sleazy personality, but Hank was endearing and his love for Cristobal was real.

Hank and Cristobal were both the comedic and emotional light to this show in the last couple seasons. They were both fun and funny, and they were so entrenched in the violent realm of this story that their violence was more normalized than Barry’s- it was more reminiscent of an action comedy than a poignant ethical dilemma. You can’t help but root for them, especially as they embark on something as silly and harmless as selling sand.

But Hank didn’t want to settle for selling sand. He wanted a life with Cristobal, but he wanted that life to be an empire. So he made some plans behind Cristobal’s back, killing their partners in the sand venture and shaking hands with people Cristobal would never have agreed to. When Cristobal finds out, Hank begs him to get on board, knowing what will happen if he doesn’t. But Cristobal insists on walking out, promptly to get shot dead before he can reach his car.

Hank mourns this, but gets back to work, even partnering with Fuches to build his empire. But when Fuches toasts to Hank, and his willingness to sacrifice Cristobal to make this happen, Hank snaps. Hank refuses to admit to sacrificing Cristobal, and in fact, their deal is off for Fuches having even suggested it. The two quickly end up in a violent feud, trying to kill each other as everything else in this season progresses. Eventually, though, it’s clear that Hank is no match for Fuches, leading to his abduction of Sally and John. This was his white flag to Fuches, if he would come over to Hank’s compound he will use Barry’s family to lure Barry there and deliver him to Fuches.

This is where Fuches has his first human moment of maybe his entire life. He looks at John and admits to Hank that he is a bad person who does bad things- and he is ready to put all the weapons down if Hank will just admit the same thing. If he will say out loud that he is responsible for Cristobal’s death, they can put this all behind them. Hank and Fuches both have a small army with them, and the crowd is silent as Hank thinks and tears well up in his eyes. But he can’t do it. He can’t admit to himself what he and everyone in the room already know to be true. He opens fire, and everyone follows suit. Everyone dies, save for Fuches, Sally, and John.

Anthony Carrigan in "Wow". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Hank has his final moments sitting at the feet of a statue of Cristobal. Blood drips from his mouth as something in another plane makes him gasp and whimper in fear. His hand shoots up and grasps Cristobal’s bronze fingers. And then he dies.

I honestly don’t even have any guesses as to what he saw, but I think the takeaway is that it wasn’t good. To me, this is the real heart and heartbreak of Barry. The real consequences of denial, of being power-hungry, of refusing to take accountability. It adds stakes and emotion to Gene Cousineau’s silly little tale of the same pitfalls. I watch Gene and Sally and the whole Hollywood scene, and think “wow, entertainment really is like that. Our world today really is like that”. Then I watch the Shakespearean tragedy that is Hank’s story and think “wow that is so sad”. Together, they make Barry an on-point reflection of our society, and a cautionary tale of the consequences of all those traits. And it really just made me say wow.

Did you say wow? What do you make of Gene’s killing Barry, or of Sally letting him in to the extent that she did? Did the ending hit for you or were the flash forwards too much? Let me know!

#bill hader #barry #barry berkman #gene cousineau #henry winkler #noho hank #tv review #tv criticism #tv

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Why did you even watch Mrs. Maisel if you hated it so much? I read your long post about it and you look at every single thing that happened in like the worst possible light. you’re allowed to have your own opinion, I’m just confused about why you watch five seasons of the show when you didn’t even like the main character. I did like her. Yes, her stand-up made me laugh. Yes, she made a lot of bad choices, that’s what made her so interesting. She didn’t want to be with Joel but she didn’t want to be without him, either. Relationships in real life are more like that; not always able to be put in a box, not always easily defined. Anyway, I don’t have the energy to point every single point you put in your email. I loved the ending of the show, cried most of the way through the last episode, and I hadn’t seen anything about it on Tumblr so I decided to search the tag and I’m pretty bummed to find this post to be honest.

Hey thank you so much for asking! This is the first real engagement I've gotten on tumblr so far so I'm actually super excited to hear from you even though you didn't love what I had to say. I definitely did come down hard on the show, but I honestly didn't even realize how strongly I felt about a lot of those things until I started writing because, as I mentioned, I did feel entertained throughout the entire series and found it hilarious on the whole- just not Midge herself. The thing that frustrated me the most about Midge throughout the series was that there never seemed to be any lasting repercussions for any of her mistakes or acknowledgement from her or the show that her flaws are, in fact, flaws.

The way a show ends carries a lot of weight for me and I try to reserve judgement about a show until it's over because I want to give it the benefit of the doubt until then that it's heading toward a destination that will resolve the loose ends I've noticed along the way. Seeing Maisel end the way it did really affirmed all the reservations I'd had when I had really been holding out hope that her character would instead grow and develop in some way.

I totally agree with you about Joel, too! I mentioned that before this season I thought they had a really admirable and unique post-divorce friendship, I just thought this season veered into the possessive and toxic and it seemed clear that Joel was still in love with her. The things Midge does and doesn't tolerate from men throughout the series is, in my opinion, inconsistent and sending mixed messages about what treatment is appropriate toward women.

I'm also a huge Gilmore Girls fan and love so much about Amy Palladino's writing style that so much of the show was genuinely super enjoyable to me. It's how much potential it had that left me disappointed. Secondary characters can also absolutely save a show in my opinion- I thought Abe was absolutely incredible, and all the parents made me laugh hard every time they were on screen. This would certainly not be the only show that I was carried through in its entirety by side characters more likable than the main (you might not be thrilled about what I have to say about Frasier either).

Anyway, genuinely thank you for reading and responding, it means a lot! It is obviously just my opinion and I'm glad you had such a positive experience with the show :)

#tv review #tv criticism #tv #the marvelous mrs maisel

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel episode 5.09 "Four Minutes"

Rachel Brosnahan in "Four Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

I guess Amy Sherman-Palladino still hasn’t figured out how to end a show. I’ll admit that I’ve watched every episode and felt entertained, but I never fully embraced Maisel. I’m hard on it because it had so much potential and was always right there on the edge of being a landmark in tv- it just didn’t have that last little oomph. But even among the avid fans that I’ve talked to, I haven’t heard from anyone who appreciated the way this story ends.

Before I get to the wild things that happened in season 5, I just have to say- I never liked Midge. That’s really my only problem with the show, but it’s a big one. Maisel did so much telling rather than showing in that regard: they didn’t make her likable, they told me that people liked her. I’m supposed to be charmed by her the way everyone else is, but more often than not, I’m pulled out of the moment wondering how she’s suddenly somehow won people over. Most of all, though, I don’t think she’s that funny.

Rachel Brosnahan in "Four Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is hilarious. Sherman-Palladino knows how to make a beautiful, colorful, bustling setting full of quaint and funny people who talk back and forth very quickly. With those strengths, I have to wonder what inspired a premise centered around a career of stationary monologues. The show made me laugh out loud countless times, just never at one of Midge’s jokes. So frequently Midge would force her way onstage, royally pissing people off in the process, but suddenly everyone loves her act so much- or worse, just thinks she’s so pretty- that all is forgiven. An act that I didn’t even laugh at.

The show has an obviously feminist premise, but its execution here too leaves me feeling like the only takeaway there is “women can do anything they want!! No matter how good they are at it or how they treat people along the way!! If they make a mess, a man will be possessively in love with her and toxically sacrifice himself to make it all okay. As long as she’s pretty.”

So this is already the headspace I went into season 5 with, and its ultimate conclusion really doubled down that sentiment for me. The setup for this season has Midge working as the only female writer on America’s number one talk show, the Gordon Ford show. Gordon is a new character, but I warmed up to him quickly. He’s chill, surprising, and funny- actually funny. Midge isn’t intimidated by him because has she ever been? She’s demeaned at having to be a writer and not “talent”, but she’s gonna grin and bear it. A job plenty of ladies (me included) would kill for, and that she’s breaking the glass ceiling by having. But she’s slumming it.

Midge’s privilege is another roadblock to her likability. Not necessarily the fact that she has it financially, which I am glad this season touched on, but it’s the attitude she has about it. All the Weissmans have lavish class privilege, and this season used Zelda’s quitting to gently poke fun at their helplessness, but Rose and Abe at least have an awareness and sense of gratitude for the help they receive. Abe’s journey of self-awareness throughout this season was incredibly moving and heartfelt, and the way he beat himself up over the most minute of mistakes at his newspaper job really highlights the lack of those qualities in Midge.

Let’s address the elephant in the room: the chronologically confusing time jumps revealing the demise of Midge and Susie’s friendship and business partnership. God, I feel so bad for Susie. There’s a Friends blooper where David Schwimmer just bursts out laughing and goes, “poor Ross”. I would be amazed if Alex Borstein hasn’t had a similar experience.

Alex Borstein and Rachel Brosnahan in "Four Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Here’s the quick version of what happened over these 9 episodes: Susie’s been in bed with the mob since before this season- I was honestly thrown for a loop when they became such an important part of this season, they’ve always been surprisingly sweet, funny, and helpful. Nonetheless, they asked Susie for the favor of having Midge star in a musical about the waste department. See? Sweet and funny. It was significant, though, because Susie thought this would make her square with Frank and Nicky. As in, no more getting a cut of her and Midge’s profits. But Midge looked down on the whole trash gig thing and phoned in her performance when the rest of her life wasn’t going the way she wanted. This sparked a conversation between Susie, Frank, and Nicky that Joel observed from afar. Susie tried to promise that Midge would step up her game so they could all part ways, causing Frank and Nicky to explain that there was no “getting even”. Susie always thought she owed them a favor that one day she would repay and wash her hands of the whole thing, but Midge’s poor attitude only revealed that even if they had done everything perfectly, there was no getting out from under them.

Joel didn’t hear the conversation, but somehow he put the whole thing together really quickly, getting in Susie’s face and saying that he won’t stand for Midge being caught up with guys like that, because he’s very familiar with them. I really don’t know when Joel became such a hard-ass or got all of this mob experience. Susie tells him that she’s got it all under control- maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t- we’ll never find out, because Joel takes it upon himself to meet with Frank and Nicky and fall on the sword to protect Midge. He lets the mob in on his club business, mixing their books as he begins to buy more clubs. Midge never has any idea until his eventual arrest, in Temple no less, where he’s put away for the entire mob operation. Midge doesn’t hesitate to cut Susie off and stay by Joel’s side, religiously visiting him in prison during decades worth of time jumps.

I hate all of this for a few reasons. It really just feels like Joel felt he had to find a way to keep himself relevant in this story and in Midge’s life, and it’s so disappointing to me that this works on Midge. Before all this, Midge and Joel had a really mature and endearing post-divorce friendship. It’s hard to say if Mei’s abrupt departure at the end of season 4 was a logistical hurdle for the show or a creative choice to free Joel up to do this, but regardless, this was an unwanted replacement for a fleshed-out relationship between Joel and Mei, whose story still feels unfinished. And his weirdly intense speech to Midge on the fire escape about not letting anyone hurt a hair on her head? I’ve never seen a not creepy use of that phrase, so I don’t know what to make of Midge eating it up. This all really undermines the respectful, minding-their-own-business nature of their progressive relationship. I think if someone had said at the end of season one that this show ends with Joel’s relentless love for Midge disseminating her friendship with Susie, we would have all thought that was very off-message.

Not to mention, as all of this unfolds, we’re also treated to a glimpse of everything Susie did for Midge over the years of their partnership. When Midge got cold feet the night before a destination wedding because he didn’t make her laugh, Susie tried to put her foot down and set some workplace boundaries- this has nothing to do with Midge’s career, Susie has no obligation to untangle the mess Midge has made of her own personal life. But Midge bursts into tears, and of course Susie makes it all okay.

But the biggest catalyst of emotions boiling under the surface comes from Gordon Ford’s wife. I don’t think Susie’s sexuality was a mystery to anyone, but we’d never talked about it before Hedy. Susie was clearly deeply wounded by her, and even though she’s not one to spill her life’s story, that much is clear. Nonetheless, when Midge finds out that Susie knows her personally, she aggressively pushes Susie to talk to her about getting Midge on the Gordon Ford show. Susie is extremely hesitant, leading Midge to say that whatever is holding her back, if Susie doesn’t do this for her, then Midge will know that her manager didn’t do everything she could for her.

With the context of everything Susie has ever done for Midge, this is such a slap in the face. Add in the heavy hinting that Susie is in love with Midge, and the whole thing just makes me sad for her. The lesbian sidekick being in love with the straight main character is so tired to me. But of course, Susie talks to Hedy, and of course she pulls it off. Once Susie’s done what she wanted her to do, Midge softens and convinces her to talk about what happened between her and Hedy. Then, Midge says if she had known she would never have pressured Susie to talk to her. As if there was no way of initiating this conversation sooner.

Alex Borstein in "Four Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

So for Midge to not even hesitate to turn on Susie after Joel’s arrest, something he brought entirely on himself against Susie’s wants and pleas, is so blatantly cruel that I almost wonder if Midge isn’t even supposed to be the hero of this story.

This brings us to the title of this episode and Midge’s tendency to act like- and be treated like- her showing up is God’s gift to whatever room she’s in. Susie talked to Hedy, Hedy talked to Gordon, Gordon begrudgingly broke his longstanding rule to not have staff members on the show. But, if he’s gonna do it, his frail ego is going to do it his way (remember when he started a bar fight with Hank Azaria for wanting Midge to work for him? He was being ‘noble’ because clearly Azaria’s Danny Stevens is just attracted to her. Gordon won’t let her be on the show but also won’t let her work anywhere else, how protective and helpful!).

It’s moments before the show when Midge and Susie learn that Midge will appear on the show, but not as a comic- rather, she will be interviewed by Gordon as a writer on the show, a human-interest piece. Midge is to sit on a stool, rather than the respectable couch the ‘real’ guests get to sit on. Even in this Gordon is seething and throws the show to commercial only seconds into the segment. There’s still “Four Minutes” to fill when they come back, tensions are high, and Gordon is as unhappy as someone can be on national TV.

I’ll give Midge credit for getting Susie’s blessing before she does this. I don’t even blame her for doing it, to be honest. The Gordon Ford show returns from commercial and Midge steps over Gordon’s return to the segment, walking up to the mic and doing four minutes of standup while Mike and Susie do everything they can off camera to keep Gordon in his chair.

I’m the petty bitch that counted, but if you’re literally gonna call the series finale “Four Minutes” I’d like to think it would actually be four minutes. She talked for almost ten. I believe in the universe of the show it really was just four minutes (even Midge Maisel can’t eat into somebody else’s primetime air), but to me this confirms Sherman-Palladino’s disconnectedness to standup itself as an art form. They call it a ‘tight five’ because it’s hard to do, and I was actually really interested to see what Midge could pull off in that amount of time.

I’ll admit that it was one of her better sets, but certainly not something of the caliber that warranted a complete 180 in Gordon Ford. He laughs out loud as she talks, and when she’s done, he invites her onto the couch, reintroducing her as a comic, the marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Why is she even still using Joel’s last name? I digress.

Reid Scott in "Four Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

With some comparable behavior, Midge and Susie do ultimately repair their friendship. Susie, later in life, is an ultra-successful talent manager, repping the biggest names in entertainment and becoming something of a celebrity herself. Her falling out with Midge, though, is the elephant in every room she’s in. There’s a roast for Susie in one of the bigger flash forwards, with everyone she cares about there to good-naturedly poke fun at her. Everyone except Midge, which all the guests speculate about throughout the event. Then, at the end, a screen descends from the ceiling, and a recorded video of Midge plays. It sounds like she’s ready to make amends with Susie and see her again, and Susie, of course, is tripping over herself to find her way to her. After everything Susie did for her, Midge is the bigger person? The hero? Just for showing up? Again, I digress.

The series closes on the two of them watching Jeopardy! together over the phone, chatting and laughing, hard, something that’s always been important to Midge in the people she keeps close. And this time, Midge really is funny. She’s at her best when she’s interacting with people. It’s a really sweet scene and I’m happy to see the show end this way. I just wasn’t able to enjoy it as much as I would’ve liked after everything that happened to get us there.

What did you think? Do you see a different side of Midge than I do? Was Susie more wrong and Joel more right than I think they are? Does Midge’s standup make you laugh? Let me know!

#the marvelous mrs maisel #midge maisel #joel maisel #susie myerson #alex borstein #rachel brosnahan #tony shalhoub #abe weissman #tv #tv review #tv criticism #amy sherman palladino

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Queer Eye episode 1.05 "Camp Rules"

When I first got into TV, I was pretty aggressively against anything considered reality TV. I wanted TV shows to ‘elevate the medium’ and be ‘a different kind of art that people put in their living rooms’. I still want that, as obnoxious as it sounds, but I’ve expanded my horizons and learned that reality TV isn’t necessarily the antithesis to those things. As I rewatch The Newsroom, I’m realizing Aaron Sorkin probably got in my head about that, but I bet he hasn’t seen Queer Eye.

I’m still working my way through this show- the 7 season Netflix series that’s currently available, not the OG Queer Eye for the Straight Guy- but so far, every single episode has gotten me choked up, if not fully crying. There’s no other way to put it, it’s just a really wonderful thing that they’re doing. The genuine love, care, and empathy these five gay guys bring to all these rural southern homes is, as they say, “more than a makeover”.

Jonathan Van Ness and Bobby Camp in "Camp Rules". Image courtesy of IMDb.

In the kinds of reality TV that made me write off reality TV, the heavy-handed manufacturing by producers and editors is blatant, but the Fab 5 (Antoni, Karamo, Jonathan, Tan, and Bobby) have rang genuine and true in every episode. I really see how what they do for these people can have a huge impact. In other messy-life home makeover shows like Hoarders and Clean House, the frustratingly obvious missing piece is what will keep these people from returning to their old ways the second the camera crew packs up and leaves.

Queer Eye meets people where they’re at, and their mission is to give people the tools to be their best selves for themselves. It’s not about looking hot; it’s about putting effort into yourself. It’s not about having a clean house; it’s about having a functional and peaceful space for yourself and your family. And ultimately, it’s about doing the soul searching into why you haven’t been doing that all along.

As a gay girl from the south, it is really just a warm spoonful of honey to watch these guys strut all around Georgia and Missouri and beyond, leaving people better than they found them, spreading love and being loved back. The show doesn’t water down the undeniable conflicting politics between who they are and where they are; it transcends them. There’s an episode where Bobby initially refuses to step into a church, and throughout the show we learn a lot about the religious trauma he experienced- going to church every day until being kicked out of his adoptive parents’ house as a teen. By the end of that episode, Bobby will have worked his magic and transformed the church community center into a beautiful local hub. Later, the Fab 5 help a young Black lesbian in very similar circumstances learn to trust her found family and thrive as who she is.

Those episodes are so important because this is simply the reality for so many minorities in the south. But just as important as thoroughly acknowledging this is moving forward, learning that what you’ve experienced isn’t all you will experience and the way you’ve been treated isn’t how you will always be treated. If you’re a regular reader, you know I love to talk about religion on TV, and the structure of Queer Eye makes it pretty unavoidable. One of my favorite episodes that I’ve seen so far is one that brings that topic out in the open with nothing but love and acceptance.

In “Camp Rules”, the Fab 5 visit Bobby Camp, a father of six working two jobs with less than two hours unaccounted for in his average 24-hour day. He and his wife are madly in love, but he dropped the ball on their wedding, and their home life hasn’t reached a peaceful place since starting their marriage on the wrong foot. The Fab 5 aren’t afraid to make executive decisions, immediately raiding the closet, bathroom, and kitchen, assessing the situation and throwing things away- but they do it with love, in the best interest of that specific person. When someone needs a kick in the ass, they’ll give them one, but what Camp needs is a break and a fresh start (since we’ve also got Bobby Berk of the Fab 5, I’ll call him Camp).

Tan France and Bobby Camp in "Camp Rules". Image courtesy of The Hot Corn.

The house is a trainwreck- it’s tiny and 8 people live there- but Bobby quickly recognizes a lack of discipline in the children as the culprit. With this in mind, Bobby designs a top to bottom renovation focused on organization, peacefulness, and functionality. He puts floor-to-ceiling shelves in the living room, with lower shelves dedicated to the kids, and the rest being used as adult space. He creates a chore board, with a section for each kid and magnets with chores that can be assigned and moved around when completed. Jonathan chips into the bathroom transformation, building toiletry kits for all six kids that are meant to live in the kids’ rooms, so Camp and his wife can get the most out of the shared space.

Meanwhile, Tan, Jonathan, and Antoni take Camp and his little girls to Target. This is the only time I’ve seen them go to Target so far on the show, another indicator of the way they tailor their experience to who they’re with. While it’s appropriate in other circumstances, it would have been tone deaf here to suggest that Camp ‘treat himself’ and ‘just spend time on himself’ when he doesn’t have the time or money to do so. They buy clothes, hair products, and groceries all in the same place and the Camps learn how they can maintain this new lifestyle in a way that’s affordable and quick.

Karamo, the culture specialist of the group, sits down with Camp and learns about the missteps at his wedding- among other things, their photographer flaked, and they have no pictures from the day. The episode always ends with some kind of event where people can show off their new selves; in this case, Karamo hears how much Camp wants to do something for his wife and organizes a fresh start wedding reception where Camp can surprise his wife and celebrate their love with everyone that they want to share it with.

All of that is so sweet (his wife loves it), but the thing I love most about this episode is a conversation Camp has with Bobby. Camp mentions that he’s not concerned about losing anything in the house except for his dining room table, which is made from the pews of the church he grew up in. Bobby has already begun respectfully honoring this request before he gets the chance to talk to him about it, but when he has some alone time with Camp, he asks him what his thoughts on homosexuality are.

Bobby Berk and Bobby Camp in "Camp Rules". Image courtesy of The Hot Corn.

Camp gives a great answer. He says religion is a personal thing because he got to a point with the church where he “only saw the rules, and none of the love”. He tells Bobby that he has nothing but acceptance for the gays and he’s so grateful for what the Fab 5 are doing for him. Before the crew leaves Camp to his wedding reception, he tells the Fab 5 that he wishes they didn’t have to go, that they are absolutely loved and welcome in his home. They all say they love him too and he cries, they cry, I cry, it’s a very nice moment.

I honestly think what this show is doing is huge. Seeing these people shake hands, truly embrace each other, and then go back into their communities talking about the amazing people they just met has so much power. I really believe that accepting people who are different from you, learning from them, teaching them, and becoming a community in the process, is the way we move forward with love in this world.

#queer eye #bobby berk #bobby camp #jonathan van ness #jvn #antoni porowski #karamo brown #tan france #tv #tv review #tv criticism #reality tv #fab 5

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Ted Lasso episode 3.09 "La Locker Room Aux Folles"

Still from "La Locker Room Aux Folles". Image courtesy of AppleTV+.

I was trying to wait for the series to end before I covered Ted, but this episode really stood out to me. There was so much in it that I found perfect and meticulously executed, and those parts are all the more impressive to me given the problems I have with its central premise.

There are multiple ways to read this episode, and ways that I can make it make sense for myself, but I still just have to say: what the fuck, Isaac? I give the episode some credit because literally everyone immediately said the same thing, and if this is what they were going to do with the episode they handled it as best they could, but something about it just didn’t quite sit right with me.

The episode picks up where the last one left off, with Isaac icing Colin out after grabbing his phone and seeing some gay stuff on there. Just like Trent earlier this season, I never came close to suspecting the worst in Isaac, so I don’t really appreciate this show continuing to play the “is he a homophobe” game with Colin and me. And without really entertaining the question they want me to be asking, it’s just a little weird. What’s his deal?

It all comes to a head at halftime when Isaac’s inexplicable pent up anger leaves Richmond down 0-1 at the half. As they shuffle into the locker room, a belligerent fan shouts down that the team is playing like f**s, and that’s the straw that breaks the mysterious camel’s back. Colin and Sam both hear it too and avoid engaging, but Isaac leaps into the stands and starts pummeling the guy, with Roy of all people being the one to break it up.

Again, the thing that makes a character’s bizarre behavior work is when the show acknowledges that it is indeed bizarre. Isaac is rightfully red carded and Richmond is down a player for the rest of the game, and the dude comes in shaking. Everyone just looks at him, and finally Ted breaks the silence with “okay, no one’s gonna say anything? I’ll say somethin’. What just happened?” This just sends Isaac hurling his captain band across the room and storming off into a closet with an aggressive shout of “what if one of us was gay?!” But when Ted tries to go after him, Roy says he’s got it.

Kola Bokinni in "La Locker Room Aux Folles". Image courtesy of AppleTV+.

While Roy ambiguously talks him down, with little Will’s help, we’re not given much more insight into what’s really bothering him. Roy’s utter respect for people and willingness to mind his own business is a really great perspective to add to this episode’s conversation, and I really appreciate him here. Later, at the post-game press conference, I’ll appreciate him even more.

While he tells Isaac to handle whatever he’s “really mad about”, the rest of the team speculates on what in the world has gotten into him. Colin stays quiet, but Sam mentions that he heard what the fan said that got that reaction. The pacing in this locker room sequence is perfect. The comedic beats keep this from getting more serious than it needs to be (coming out is a big deal, but this isn’t a melodrama, nor does it need to be when it’s all love, as we know it will be). So Sam tells the team that the fan said the F-word, which is met with choruses of:

“Fuck?”

“No, the other F-word”

“ohh fuck…”

The team reaches the inevitable conclusion that Isaac must be gay. Finally, Colin admits that Isaac isn’t gay. He is. We don’t actually see him come out, though, which is an interesting choice that I actually think is really classy. I know Colin isn’t a real guy, but a big theme in this episode is giving people their privacy, and I like that the episode itself found a way to let him have this moment with the team in private without us feeling like we’re missing any plot points.

There’s a really nice moment after this that we do get to see, that adds to the impressive, thoughtful storytelling here. The team of course is quick to douse Colin in love, with Jamie saying, “you got us, we got you”, among some other choruses of “yeah bruv, we don’t care”. But something about that last part doesn’t sit right with Ted. He tells a little story about a friend of his who was a Denver Broncos’ fan in a place where that was not a popular team. He didn’t write off his friend the way everyone else in his town did, because he ‘didn’t care’, but he found out later that his friend spent two consecutive super bowls alone because Ted ‘didn’t care’, which also meant that he didn’t think that friend might need some special attention.

Jason Sudeikis in "La Locker Room Aux Folles". Image courtesy of AppleTV+.

During this really sweet monologue, Sam and Jamie have a silent conversation over who should wear Isaac’s captain band for the rest of the game. Sam caught it when Isaac flung it off, and Jamie is gesturing for Sam to give it to him. Sam instead flips him off and puts it on. It breaks up the moment without detracting from it, and it was perfectly on brand for the two of them.

When Ted’s story ends, Colin asks if he just compared being gay to being a Denver Broncos’ fan, and Jamie asks what the fuck a Denver Bronco is. Ted’s anecdote here is such a great choice for this episode in a few ways. First, as a viewer, I found that to be a powerful comparison, and the point Ted is trying to make is well taken. But that story is for us, the viewers, not the team. It reached us, but not his intended audience right in front of him, and his tripping over himself within the story continues to serve the scene. It’s another comedic break, and I appreciate the show’s acknowledgement that straight people don’t always nail it when people come out, despite their best intentions. But Ted sums it up for everyone: “the point is, Colin, we don’t ‘not care’. We care very much. We care about who you are and what you must’ve been going through”.

So ultimately, Ted did nail it. Colin flies back onto the field, weightless, telling Trent jokingly that the only way it could’ve gone better is if the entire team came out too. This was all so sweet, but there was nothing like Colin’s guttural, euphoric “YEESS!!!” on the field after carrying the team to victory. I’m tearing up a little just thinking about it.

Billy Harris in "La Locker Room Aux Folles". Image courtesy of AppleTV+.

That night, Isaac knocks on Colin’s door, wanting to know what about him made Colin feel like he needed to keep his sexuality a secret from him. To be honest, I’m getting a little tired of this being normalized as an ‘acceptable’ reason to react badly to people coming out. Isaac apologized, and Colin made the good point that he kept the secret his whole life and only lasted a month after Isaac knew. But the show had the option to have not made this a plot point at all. Everything else in this episode was so perfect, that I feel like I can tell that Isaac’s reaction was an unfortunately necessary vehicle to bring the story to this point.

Nonetheless, the two make up and play video games together and it’s all very nice, so I’m willing to let it go, especially with the rest of the episode’s events and themes in mind. I couldn’t help but think throughout this episode that Keeley’s coming out was not at all this belabored and serious, which I thought was normal and great. But now Jack is moving to Argentina for several months because Keeley was hacked and had her nudes leaked…? That revelation was a footnote of this episode at best, but combined with Isaac’s behavior, perhaps the takeaway to all this is just that sometimes people don’t always do the right thing.

I guess we’ll find out what to make of Jack later, but the culmination of everything this episode is trying to say has me leaving my heart open for her to redeem herself. Roy tells a great anecdote of his own at a press conference after the game that really sums up this takeaway- Rebecca had asked him to attend a press conference in Ted’s place earlier in the episode and he had sent Beard instead. Rebecca then laid into Roy, telling him to stop “ordering shit sandwiches and complaining about the portions”. This was a perfectly timed criticism because, especially with Brett Goldstein’s recent appearances on Sesame Street, Roy was starting to become a bit of a caricature of himself. It was very appropriate and self-aware of the show to show him being challenged and in the vulnerable position of having a boss.

So, Roy heeded her advice (or orders, depending on how you look at it) and went to the post-match press conference, despite Ted being available to do it himself. His commanding presence was the right choice, given that the press room was frothing at the mouth to ask what the hell had gotten into Isaac. The first question Roy takes is if Richmond condones Isaac’s behavior, to which Roy grunts “what a stupid fucking question. Course we don’t. What Isaac did was awful. He was lucky he only got a red card.” The natural follow up question is “then why’d he do it?”

Instead of answering, Roy tells an uncharacteristically vulnerable story from his past. When he was a young player, he had a teammate whose wife was expecting their first baby. One day at training, Roy made a joke that statistically, he was just as likely to be the father as his teammate. Not a great joke, but it didn’t warrant the guy breaking three of his ribs. The teammate was expelled from the team, and no other team wanted him after that. Roy ran into him at a pub months later, and took the opportunity to apologize for his joke. The teammate then told him that his wife had lost the baby a month before the incident, and never told anyone. “So for Isaac to do what he did today, even though it was wrong, I give him love. And as for why he did what he did, that’s none of my fucking business. Next question.”

Brett Goldstein in "La Locker Room Aux Folles". Image courtesy of AppleTV+.

If Isaac’s poor behavior was just a plot device to bring out the best in both Roy and Ted- and have them convince me to forgive Isaac in the process- I’ll allow it. Ted Lasso is love, and acceptance, and respect, even in moments that we don’t relate to or understand. I could watch Sam’s hands-in chant of “I love you guys so very much!” every day.

Finally, I would be remiss not to mention Nate. I hate to see him on the dark side, but I think he’s doing something uniquely challenging by choosing goodness in a space where it’s met with so much opposition. The last few episodes have convinced me that he really is cute and charming and I want so bad for him to reach his own potential. He said himself that he owes a lot to Rupert, so taking the initiative to leave the “guy’s night” that turned out to involve Rupert setting him up with hookers took courage (a guy’s night that Rupert never tried to initiate before finding out that Nate had a girlfriend). His showing up at Jade’s door and wrapping her in a big hug made me so proud. I know Richmond will be waiting for him with open arms when he’s ready to come back, and even though we all know it’s coming, I will love seeing it happen.

How do you guys think Ted Lasso is going to wrap up its final episodes? What’s going on with the now promiscuous and mysteriously absent Doc Shannon? Is Rebecca going to have babies or what (with Sam…?)? Do you really want to eat at Ola’s or is that just me? What do you make of this being a British show built for an American audience?

#ted lasso #jason sudeikis #trent crimm #colin hughes #sam obisanya #jamie tartt #nate shelley #tv review #tv criticism #tv #roy kent

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Yellowjackets episode 2.04 "Old Wounds"

Title sequences are so important. If it’s a good one, you shouldn’t have to look any further to get a sense of what the show is ‘about’, in the philosophical sense of the word. I’ve been so impressed with the Yellowjackets title sequence from the beginning, so when they played a different version of the theme song for this episode only, I knew there was a reason. The title sequence is off-putting, jarring, and jumping through time in every way possible from frame sizes to character ages- a fast paced dose of the overarching tone of the show. They really put a lot of work into it, so throwing in a new version of the theme song is certainly deliberate. And doing it for just one episode doesn’t mark the beginning of a new direction in the story, as I thought before watching the next episode; it means this one in particular is significant.

So what’s so special about this episode? I would argue that the confirmation of there being ‘something’ in those woods came and went in season one when pilot Laura Lee exploded moments after takeoff. Leonard the teddy bear ignited for no reason whatsoever, and that explosion is the first major event with no real logical explanation. While that was a blow, and things have certainly been pretty eerie since the shrooms doomcoming party, I think the events of this episode are the real turning point in the Yellowjackets’ time in the wilderness.

Liv Hewson and Jasmin Savoy Brown in "Old Wounds". Image courtesy of Showtime.

A few things happen, but most loaded is Natalie and Lottie’s duel to bring home the most food. The survivors have created such an emotional division into two camps of logic vs spirituality, with Lottie being the fearless leader of the latter, but I don’t think the situation- or Lottie- is that cut and dry. Natalie’s biggest gripe with Lottie is her perception that she and Travis are the only ones providing for the group, but I have to say that both Laura Lee and Lottie are very spiritual people who don’t overlook physical needs and their physical solutions. Laura Lee wasn’t waiting for divine intervention to rescue them; she read a technical manual and learned how to fly a plane. I don’t know yet what all Lottie is getting herself into (and I don’t think she does either), but she’s only ever tried to enable the group’s vital, practical chores. When Natalie scoffs at her pre-hunting ritual, she replies “you’ve come back alive every time, haven’t you?”.

But, like most cult leaders I suppose, teenage Lottie has found herself some followers more insistent than she is herself, and she agrees to this head-to-head between her and Natalie. The two part ways in the woods, Nat with the gun, Lottie with a little knife to perform a blood sacrifice. As they press on, they both make some pretty crazy discoveries. I’ll start with Lottie’s: the plane we all watched explode in midair, intact right where they found it. She gets inside and opens a hatch, revealing a ladder down into a well-lit, clean, cozy restaurant. She descends and joins her friends, including Laura Lee, at a table, but soon she’s shivering again, covered in snow, soaking wet, and seemingly in another world from her friends despite sitting right next to them. Finally, it’s Laura Lee who tells her she needs to go, or she’ll freeze to death. She pushes Lottie, who falls backwards into the snow, where there is no evidence of her experience in sight. Not even the plane. Whole thing was a hypothermia-induced hallucination from the start.

Courtney Eaton in "Old Wounds". Image courtesy of Showtime.

Nat, meanwhile, has been much more productive. She found a moose frozen into the surface of the lake- the same moose she saw for an instant while out hunting the other day, confirming that she is in her right mind, then and now. She rushes back to the cabin to enlist help breaking the ice and pulling it out. Some people (ahem, Misty) aren’t pleased with Nat getting help in what was supposed to be a one-on-one competition, but everyone else instantly puts the contest aside, as I’m confident Lottie would herself. The group is great at teamwork, honestly, and they’re a well-oiled machine working to break the ice, tie ropes to the moose’s antlers, and heave in unison. Yet despite a truly great effort, they lose their grip and the moose sinks down to the unreachable depths of the lake. Nat is devastated, contest or no contest, just sobbing “we need it” over and over.

This is a really emotional moment, and a huge blow for the group emotionally and physically. This was the first glimmer of hope they’ve had in so long, and now the question still remains: what are they going to eat? I don’t know exactly how things are going to progress, but we all know where this show is going, right? I really think this event is going to be the turning point that sends things in that direction. The thing that really puts into perspective that they are out of options. I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear Nat say at some point that none of the unspeakable things they did in those woods would have happened if they hadn’t dropped that moose.

After a demoralizing, empty handed return, the group returns to the cabin to find Lottie still isn’t back. Nat recovers in a warm bath while team Lottie goes looking for her. When they stumble back in, Lottie barely conscious, Nat jumps out and helps Lottie into the tub. The two hold hands, no hard feelings. The group has made them the symbols of two very different philosophies, but really, Nat and Lottie are both pro survival. They just have different skills.

The results of this competition seem to suggest that Nat, and everything she’s come to represent, are correct. The woods made a fool of Lottie, and even though they both came back empty handed I don’t think anyone can disagree that Nat came out on top. The pair’s present-day storyline also plays a big role in this episode, and I think the timelines really come together well to take us a solid step forward towards understanding what’s going on in the wilderness.

Present-day Natalie has found the cult of the purple people, and their leader Lottie. Clearly some bad blood has formed between the two of them since their good-natured competition because Nat is hell bent on exposing Lottie’s cult. But so far, Lottie seems bulletproof. Her followers know what they’re getting themselves into and honestly Lottie is so likable that I find myself rooting for her even though I’m sure the rest of the gang’s skepticism of her will be warranted in due time. A lot goes on within the cult in this episode, but the really significant part comes at the very end. Lottie is outside in the dark alone, slicing her hand open and dripping blood into an altar, just like she did in the woods, but this time she’s saying, “please let this be enough”.

Teenage Lottie has no idea what she’s praying to, and the events of their hunting competition suggest that the answer might be nothing. But this present-day development sheds a new light on those events: there is something in the woods, but it is not a friend.

But Van and Taissa already knew that. Taissa is staunchly team Natalie- I’d say because she doesn’t want to acknowledge what she already knows deep down- but she indulges Van by attending Lottie’s little spiritual groups. On a personal note, Van is the best character, and I am thrilled to see her join the present-day timeline- played by Six Feet Under’s Lauren Ambrose no less.

Lauren Ambrose in Yellowjackets. Image courtesy of Deadline.

I can’t ignore that major development, but while Taissa’s storyline is the most terrifying, it’s also maybe the least complex. The Leftovers comparisons abound with her character- the practical, good-natured bystander who’s been chosen by a force against their will and beyond their understanding. And the fallout gets worse the longer they ignore it.

So, after hiding from her nighttime escapades that have already left her son terrified of her, adult Taissa wakes up in her car with no gas and no cell phone battery. She deduces her alter ego’s destination and hitchhikes to Van’s place- something that will surely be reaching the press very soon. Whatever’s lying in the woods, Taissa will be the one really in the center of it. Her and Van’s discovery of Javi in the wilderness, in the exact spot that Van and Nighttime Taissa knew was significant, confirm that.

The really interesting thing about this show to me is that I really can’t figure out who to root for. Shauna, Natalie, and Taissa seem to be the heroes, but these ladies are all so nutty. Right now, we still have a lot to learn about what exactly goes down in these woods, but we have a pretty good idea and it’s safe to say that no one survived without getting their hands dirty.

But the best thing about this show is that literally anything goes! So what do you think is next for the Yellowjackets? Which characters are the kind of crazy you can get behind? What will become of poor coach Ben? And dare I even plant the seed that Shauna might eat her baby…

And I’ll end with a friendly reminder to support TV writers! The creators of Yellowjackets have closed the writer’s room for season 3 that had only just gotten started last week and are now picketing as I type. The Writer’s Guild strike means we might get an abridged season 3, as is the case for many current shows, but writers are getting shafted in this behemoth of an industry, and they’re fighting for the conditions that will let them both do their best work and live their best lives.

#yellowjackets #lottie matthews #van palmer #natalie scatorccio #lauren ambrose #juliette lewis #taissa turner #tawny cypress #tv review #tv #tv criticism