Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 13

Dexter: Original Sin 1.1: Activation of the Code

The Dexter series is back with a prequel -- Dexter: Original Sin on Paramount+Showtime -- and here's a review with plenty of spoilers:

The debut episode starts off right where Dexter: New Blood ended, with Dexter killed.  Except, turns out he survived, and the ensuing Dexter: Original Sin is described by the recovering Dexter as "seeing your life flash by your eyes," as you're lying, almost dead, on your nearly death bed.  Now, this was a great beginning, but Dexter's survival didn't come as a surprise to me.  I already knew Dexter survived his son's bullet because I'd seen all the announcement of Dexter coming back in the flesh, not only with Michael C. Hall's voice, but Michael C. Hall on the screen, this coming summer.  Advice to Paramount+Showtime:  you should have kept your announcement that Dexter was coming back not only as his younger self but himself per se under wraps until this first episode of Original Sin had already aired/streamed.

And it was an excellent episode.  Patrick Gibson was right on as young Dexter, Molly Brown as young Debra, and you can't go wrong with Christian Slater as the Dexters' famous (in Dexter-lore) father Harry, who taught his son the code: you can give vent to your urge to kill by killing killers who deserved to die.  In this case, it's a nurse in a hospital where Harry goes to have his heart condition treated but instead is being slowly poisoned to death by the nurse. The nurse is no newbee, and her age gives young Dexter material for one of his fine patented wisecracks said to himself: my first was an older woman.

Significantly, Harry not only gives his son permission to kill Harry's would-be killer, but explicitly tells Dexter to do just that.  Thus, Harry is clearly as responsible for Dexter going on this deadly course as is Dexter, and we see Harry brought to tears with this realization.  Harry not only seeks and sought to protect his son, but he activated his son on his deadly way of life.  Harry did this to save own his life, which is understandable, but he knows that now he'll have to live with the results.

It was also fun in this first episode to see younger versions of Batista and Masuka, looking in Batista's case and acting in Masuka's case just like their older counterparts whom we've come to love.  Some new characters are also sprinkled in, and, all in all, Dexter: Original Sin looks to be one really enjoyable addition to the Dexter library on television.

And I'll see you back here next week with my review of the next episode.

See also Dexter: New Blood 1.1: Back with a Vengeance ... Dexter: New Blood 1.2: Dark Tendencies ... Dexter: New Blood 1.3: Fathers and Sons ... Dexter: New Blood 1.4: Harrison and Kurt ... Dexter New Blood: 1.5: No Satisfaction for Serial Killers ... Dexter: New Blood 1.6: Breaks and Arm Breaks ... Dexter: New Blood: 1.7: Dexter vs. Kurt ...Dexter: New Blood 1.8: The Hug in the Car ... Dexter: New Blood 1.9 One Down, One To Go ... Dexter: New Blood Finale: Superb, and I Didn't Like It All
And see also Dexter Season 8 Premiere: Mercury in Retrograde, Dexter Incandescent ... Dexter 8.2: The Gift ... Dexter 8.3: The Question and the Confession ... Dexter 8.4: The "Lab Rat" and Harry's Daughter ... Dexter 8.5: Just Like Family ... Dexter 8.6: The Protege ... Dexter 8.7: Two Different Codes? ... Dexter 8.8: "A Great Future" ... Dexter 8.9: The Psycho Son ... Dexter 8.10: Watch Out, Buenos Aires ... Dexter 8.11: "Not the Old Dexter" ... Dexter Series Finale: Solitude, Style, and a Modicum of Hope


And see also Dexter Season 7.1-3: Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 7.4: The Lesson in Speltzer's Smoke ... Dexter 7.5: Terminator Isaac ... Dexter 7.6: "Breaking and Entering" ... Dexter 7.7: Shakespearean Serial Killer Story ... Dexter 7.8: Love and Its Demands ... Dexter 7.9: Two Memorable Scenes and the Ascension of Isaac ... Dexter 7.11: The "Accident" ... Dexter Season 7 Finale: The Surviving Triangle

And see also Dexter Season 6 Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 6.4: Two Numbers and Two Killers Equals? ... Dexter 6.5 and 6.6: Decisive Sam ... Dexter 6.7: The State of Nebraska ... Dexter 6.8: Is Gellar Really Real? .... Dexter 6.9: And Geller Is ... ... Dexter's Take on Videogames in 6.10 ...Dexter and Debra:  Dexter 6.11 ... Dexter Season 6 Finale: Through the Eyes of a Different Love

And see also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ...Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers  ... Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain

And see also Dexter Season 4: Sneak Preview Review ... The Family Man on Dexter 4.5 ...Dexter on the Couch in 4.6 ... Dexter 4.7: 'He Can't Kill Bambi' ... Dexter 4.8: Great Mistakes ...4.9: Trinity's Surprising Daughter ... 4.10: More than Trinity ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

And see also reviews of Season 3: Season's Happy Endings? ... Double Surprise ... Psychotic Law vs. Sociopath Science ... The Bright, Elusive Butterfly of Dexter ... The True Nature of Miguel ...Si Se Puede on Dexter ... and Dexter 3: Sneak Preview Review

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter 

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The Day of the Jackal: Riveting Intellect and Adrenalin

Well, 2024 has two weeks and a few days left, so I can tell you with confidence that, amidst stiff competition, The Day of the Jackal on Peacock was the best TV series I saw this year.

Here are some of the reasons why (with no spoilers, hence "some of"):

The series, adopted from Frederick Forsyth's 1971 novel, has almost nothing in common with the 1973 movie, also adapted from the novel (which I never read).  All three, as you no doubt already know, are about a master assassin (that's about all the movie and the TV series share).  I thought the movie was really excellent.  I liked the TV series -- the last two episodes of its ten episodes up just yesterday -- at lot more.Eddie Redmayne's performance as the Jackal was out-of-the-ballpark fabulous.  (If we're talking about Yankee Stadium, somewhere down Jerome Avenue.)The story will keep you guessing in every episode, and sometimes many more times than once.There are all manner of police.  Some good, some bad. Some get killed, some don't.There are all manner of villains.  Some bad, some really bad. Some get killed, some don't.There's a James Bondian aspect to the Jackal -- like a Bond and all his assets, turned bad.  And he doesn't need a Q. Other than the fact that he's an assassin, I wanna be just like the Jackal when I grow up.On a more general level, I just wrote, in my review of The Agency, that 2024 has been a year for superb spy thrillers.   The Jackal isn't a spy, but MI-6 in London is the agency most after him, so this makes The Day of the Jackal indeed another example of a superb spy thriller streaming this past year.  A windfall of edge-of-your-seat excitement.  Hats off to creator/show-runner Ronan Bennett.

I know you'd like me to tell you more, but I don't want to spoil even one of the many jolts you'll have when you see this series.  Trust me, you'll be glad you did.
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The Agency 1.1-1.3: Sharp American British Spy Mix

I saw the first three episodes of The Agency on Showtime last night.  It's a spy-thriller narrative, with John le Carré feel to it -- that is, a complex story, with several layers of characters, and a central character who, for whatever reason, is operating and living not completely in synch with his/her superiors in the agency.

And The Agency does have this particular twist: the "Agency" is actually our American agency, aka the CIA, in its critically important London bureau.  This affords The Agency the best of both worlds -- the easy rudeness or at least bluntness of Americans, working in the streets, and flats, and eateries of London.  In that mix, The Agency has connections with both the Americans in Sheraton Taylor's Lioness (here's my review of the first season, and I'll be reviewing the second season in the next day or so) and the Brits in Joe Barton's Black Doves and Debora Cahn's The Diplomat.   If this gives you the impression that spy thrillers are very much in the air these days -- or, more precisely, in the stream -- you'd be completely right.

All of these series also have top-notch famous acting, and The Agency is no exception.  Richard Gere plays the bureau chief, Jeffrey Wright is right below him, and Dominic West is right above him as the CIA Director (I'll just note that the first time I saw West in an American role was in The Wire, and his American accent was so good I was surprised to find out he was British).  Michael Fassbender plays the beleaguered  agent-hero, and does a good job of it, as does Jodi Turner-Smith as his girlfriend.

Now, you'll notice I haven't warned you about spoilers, because I don't intend to give you any.  But I will say that The Agency in its first three episodes offers a provocative blend of intellectual puzzling and life-and-death action.   I'll be back here with more when I see more of the series.  In the meantime, I highly recommend it.

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Subservience: Mounting the Paradox

Well, we've all seen movies and TV series like Subservience before, in which a beautiful female android ingratiates herself with a human family, and some kind of terror ensues.  I'm sure there were plot lines like that in Humans and lots of other films and series.  But I have to say, Subservience kept me interested, because I really wasn't sure just how it would end.

What it is has going for it, in addition to a somewhat original plot, was good acting by Madeline Zima as the human wife.  I've seen her before in Californication, Twin Peaks, You, and Bombshell.   Subservience is the biggest role I've seen her in so far, and she's up for the part.

Megan Fox plays the female android.  She's been in lots of movies that I haven't seen, and she does a good job in Subservience, too.  But she runs into a paradox of sorts, or something like a paradox, any time a human being plays an android -- she's very convincing in her mix of robotic stiffness and human emotions because, of course, she the actress is a human being herself.  I first actually noticed this decades ago with Brent Spiner's performance as Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation.  His character is an android who more than anything else yearns to be human, and in that yearning certainly seems human, precisely because Brent Spiner is also a human being himself.  I suppose the only way movie-makers will ever totally surmount this paradox is when we already have androids in our midst and some of them are actors.  The principle here would be: it takes a real android to really convincingly play an android -- and the reason why Brent Spiner and Megan Fox work so well in my estimation as androids is we don't yet have anything approaching real androids outside of science fiction and in our midst.  At least, as far as we know.

Back to Subservience, it's well situated in some Nordic, cold future, whether because of climate change or it's just winter, who knows.  (I guess not climate change because that would make things warmer.)  Little kids in the human family play a good role -- actually, a little girl, and a younger little boy who's a toddler -- and there are some nice touches of human laborers being put out of work and androids being helpful in hospitals.  Both of these we've seen before, too, but they're well done in Subservience.

There may be a sequel.  If so, I'll watch and review it.  In the meantime, it's a movie that also connects, at least now in North America, because it's getting pretty cold outside for real.

***

Hey, here's a little poem I just had poem I just had published: "I Fell in Love with a Robot"

***

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Dune: Prophecy 1.4: The Ambience

We learn a lot in every episode of Dune: Prophecy.   Before I tell what specifically I learned in episode 1.4, let me begin with an overall ambience I realized I was experiencing when I was watching this episode last night:  there's something about the pacing, the cinematography, the dialogue, the acting, I don't know, about Dune: Prophecy that makes me feel I'm in the original Frank Herbert Dune novel and its Dune Messiah sequel.  More so, much more so, than the original David Lynch movie, and the more recent efforts by Denis Villeneuve.  I have read the Sisterhood of Dune prequel by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert that is the basis of Dune: Prophecy and of this authenticity feeling I have about it -- whether it's in the Sisterhood of Dune, or just in Dune: Prophecy, or in both -- so I don't know who deserves credit and thanks for this.  I guess like the Dune saga itself, it's real and powerful, but its specific contours are blurry (cool, in Marshall McLuhan's sense), and it maybe, likely, adds to the charm of this narrative on HBO Max, or even is responsible for it.

Now on to some more specific things I learned last night, and here of course there will be a few spoilers in what follows:

It's confirmed that Desmond's fearsome ability to burn people from the inside out can indeed extend across the galaxy -- it's the case that Kasha's burning at the same time as Pruet was not somehow a reflection of Pruwet's burning.  He and Kasha were both burned by Desmond at the same time.Desmond's power to burn people extends to more than two at a time.A single Bene Gesserit is so far no match (for want of a better word) for a one-on-one with Desmond.  It will likely take some sort of group of Bene Gesserit to do him in.What other powers does Desmond possess?  Is he responsible for Lila's awakening?  Also, I said last week that I'm liking Tula more than Valya.  I'm also beginning to think that Tula not Valya may be the one to bring Desmond down (if anyone can do that).  There is something about Valya that is too ... obvious. She and her wiles are easier to spot than Tula's.  We'll see.

And I'll be back here next week with my review of the next episode.

See also Dune: Prophecy 1.1: Compelling Prequel ... 1.2: The Hart of The Matter ... 1.3: The Power of Voice

and Dune, Part One: Half the Movie, Twice the Power of Most Other Complete Films ... Dune, Part Two: Not As Good as Part One

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Outlander 7.11: The Rough Night

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Well, I told you last week that Jamie was alive -- almost always the case in a TV series in which there is no body, no scene in which the character's head is blown off, etc. But it was good to see Jamie walk back into Claire's life, anyway, and it was interesting to see how Claire faired, and what she did, when she thought the love of her life was really gone.  The wedding scene with John, where she could barely speak, was very well done.

But I was surprised, for more than one reason, that she spent a night in bed with John, in every sense of that phrase.  John's gay, and Claire is devastated.  I get that they both were drunk -- John less than Claire -- and they both were heartbroken and desperately lonely and in need of some comfort.  I could see them spending the night together in each other's way.  But actually having sex?  I don't know, I found that a little hard to believe.

I did like when Claire held John to account about his bigotry regarding his son's (actually, Jaime's son's) choice in marriage.  One of the most admirable things about Claire is she always speaks her mind.  And this exchange about Henry makes the revelation to Henry that he is really Jamie's son, at the end of the episode, even more momentous.

I also liked the time spent on young Ian and the Quaker love of his life.  I even learned something about the Quaker faith -- that they leave the belief that there is a heaven after death to individual choice, because, as Rachel explains, no one has come back here from heaven to attest to its existence.  Details like that are one of the joys of Outlander.

Meanwhile, back in the slightly more distant past, Roger's discovering things about his father, and in the present day, it looks like Brianna's having her hands full.  But she handles herself well, as always, and I'm looking forward to see more of their story, as well everyone else's, in this excellent second half of the seventh Outlander season.

See also Outlander 7.9: Powerful Separations ... Outlander 7:10: The Nature of Deaths on TV Series

And see also Outlander 7.1-2: The Return of the Split ... Outlander 7.3: Time Travel, The Old-Fashioned Way ... Outlander 7.7: A Good Argument for the Insanity of War ... Outlander 7.8: Benedict Arnold and Time Travel

And see also Outlander 6.1: Ether That Won't Put You to Sleep

And see also Outlander 5.1: Father of the Bride ... Outlander 5.2: Antibiotics and Time Travel ... Outlander 5.3: Misery ... Outlander 5.4: Accidental Information and the Future ... Outlander 5.5: Lessons in Penicillin and Locusts ... Outlander 5.6: Locusts, Jocasta, and Bonnet ... Outlander 5.7: The Paradoxical Spark ... Outlander 5.8: Breaking Out of the Silence ... Outlander 5.9: Buffalo, Snake, Tooth ... Outlander 5.10: Finally! ... Outlander 5.11: The Ballpoint Pen ... Outlander Season 5 Finale: The Cost of Stolen Time

And see also Outlander 4.1: The American Dream ... Outlander 4.2: Slavery ...Outlander 4.3: The Silver Filling ... Outlander 4.4: Bears and Worse and the Remedy ... Outlander 4.5: Chickens Coming Home to Roost ... Outlander 4.6: Jamie's Son ... Outlander 4.7: Brianna's Journey and Daddy ... Outlander 4.8: Ecstasy and Agony ... Outlander 4.9: Reunions ... Outlander 4.10: American Stone ... Outlander 4.11: Meets Pride and Prejudice ... Outlander 4.12: "Through Time and Space" ... Outlander Season 4 Finale:  Fair Trade

And see also Outlander Season 3 Debut: A Tale of Two Times and Places ...Outlander 3.2: Whole Lot of Loving, But ... Outlander 3.3: Free and Sad ... Outlander 3.4: Love Me Tender and Dylan ... Outlander 3.5: The 1960s and the Past ... Outlander 3.6: Reunion ... Outlander 3.7: The Other Wife ... Outlander 3.8: Pirates! ... Outlander 3.9: The Seas ...Outlander 3.10: Typhoid Story ... Outlander 3.11: Claire Crusoe ...Outlander 3.12: Geillis and Benjamin Button ... Outlander 3.13: Triple Ending

And see also Outlander 2.1: Split Hour ... Outlander 2.2: The King and the Forest ... Outlander 2.3: Mother and Dr. Dog ... Outlander 2.5: The Unappreciated Paradox ... Outlander 2.6: The Duel and the Offspring ...Outlander 2.7: Further into the Future ... Outlander 2.8: The Conversation ... Outlander 2.9: Flashbacks of the Future ... Outlander 2.10: One True Prediction and Counting ... Outlander 2.11: London Not Falling ... Outlander 2.12: Stubborn Fate and Scotland On and Off Screen ... Outlander Season 2 Finale: Decades

And see also Outlander 1.1-3: The Hope of Time Travel ... Outlander 1.6:  Outstanding ... Outlander 1.7: Tender Intertemporal Polygamy ...Outlander 1.8: The Other Side ... Outlander 1.9: Spanking Good ... Outlander 1.10: A Glimmer of Paradox ... Outlander 1.11: Vaccination and Time Travel ... Outlander 1.12: Black Jack's Progeny ...Outlander 1.13: Mother's Day ... Outlander 1.14: All That Jazz ... Outlander Season 1 Finale: Let's Change History

 
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Black Doves: Snow White Thriller

There hasn't been a James Bond movie since 2021, but the Brits are serving up some top-notch thriller TV series in the closing months of 2024, with a second season of The Diplomat, the first season of The Day of the Jackal (which I'll review after it concludes in the weeks ahead), and the first season of Black Doves, a six-episode Netflix mini-series which I just finished watching and I'm going to review right here.

First let me say that the review will be spoiler free, hence no usual warning, and I said first season for The Day of the Jackal and Black Doves because both have been renewed for second seasons.

Joe Barton is the creator of Black Doves.  I first encountered his work in the 16-episode Lazarus Project (2020-2023) which was mostly the best time-travel narrative I've ever seen on any screen, so I wasn't surprised that Black Doves is a uniquely memorable thriller.  It takes place during the Christmas season in current London and manages to inject life-and-death into nearly every scene of snowflakes and jingling bells.  And though it has no time travel, it plays off events and people meeting ten years ago in recollections that seamlessly slide in and out of hugs and bullets in 2024.

The Black Doves are an independent spy organization that thinks itself superior to MI-6, the CIA, and any government organization, and probably are.  The highest person we meet in the organization is Mrs. Reed, played by Sarah Lancashire, whom I can't help thinking is on sabbatical as the British Police Sergeant she played so well for so many years on Happy Valley.  Keira Knightley plays Black Dove Helen Webb, happily married to the British Defence Secretary, with two adorable kids, but fully capable of loving someone else passionately at the same time, and adeptly deadly with a gun or a knife.  The other big star, Ben Whishaw (Q in the Daniel Craig Bonds), plays Sam, a flat-out but sensitive assassin, with a long-standing friendship and professional relationship with Helen, called in to help with the dangerously escalating situation at hand.

How's that for no spoilers, right?  But I will say that the twisty plot has lots of surprises, lots of lethal action, leavened with the sarcastic humor we've come to expect and enjoy in these kinds of British thrillers.  I'll 100% be back with a review of the second season, whenever it's up, and kudos to Netflix for putting the first season all up at once just a few days ago.

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Audio Podcast: Paul Levinson interviews Dan Abella about The Psychedelic Film and Music Festival, NYC, 14 Dec 2024

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 401, in which I interview Dan Abella about The Psychedelic Film and Music Festival, NYC, 14 Dec 2024. (Kendall Brown, Operations Manager for the Festival, joins us in the interview.)

Relevant links:

The Psychedelic Film and Music Festival written interview with me by Evan Levine, in which I discuss Hegel's "spirit of an age" (see 10th question in the interview) Dan Abella's play, "Timothy X’s Journey from PTSD to Wholeness," to be performed live at the Festival [scroll down] McLuhan in an Age of Social Media Lioness (streaming on Paramount+)

Check out this episode!

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Dune: Prophecy 1.3: The Power of Voice

Lots of dramas on TV gives us flashbacks to the earlier lives of current characters, to give us a sense of who they are and their motives, but Dune: Prophecy is doing it better than most, and in episode 1.3 devotes most of an entire episode to the younger Valya and Tula sisters, at the time Reverend Mother Raquella, the first Reverend Mother and founder of the Bene Gesserit, was still alive and very much in charge.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

And this makes what Valya was able to do with her Voice -- stop Reverend Mother Raquella in her tracks -- and not do to Desmond Hart last week -- get Desmond to follow her order, given in Voice, to slit his own throat -- all the more impressive.  If the Bene Gesserit are the heroes in this story, and Desmond Hart the villain -- both vying for control of humanity -- it makes the outcome of their confrontation all the more difficult to predict. Valya's Voice stops Raquella and kills Dorotea, but has little effect on Hart.  (Of course, since this is a prequel to the Dune saga we already know, we already know the general outcome of this struggle.  But it will still be fun to see exactly how it all plays out, and what seeds it sows for all future stories in Dune.)

The other big part of this excellent episode is young Tula, who makes a habit of doing more than expected.  She kills Orry Atreides -- after they make love and he proposes to her -- to avenge the death of her beloved brother by the Atreides, because she loves her family more than the man she just made love to.  And in the future -- the present in our overall narrative -- she defies the Bene Gesserit policy and keeps Sister Lila alive by some forbidden means.   Although both Harkonnen sisters are very complex and therefore interesting characters, I think I find Tula a little more so.  I guess I'm a sucker for defiance and going your own way.   In a way, that difference between the two sisters reflects differences in the overall Sisterhood, and that's probably part of its strength.

I'm really enjoying this prequel series, and next week's episode promises even more, with a title -- "Twice Born" -- that suggests we may find out more about the origin of Hart's powers.

See also Dune: Prophecy 1.1: Compelling Prequel ... 1.2: The Hart of The Matter

and Dune, Part One: Half the Movie, Twice the Power of Most Other Complete Films ... Dune, Part Two: Not As Good as Part One

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The Madness: A Brilliantly Sane and Relevant Thriller

All eight episodes of The Madness went up on Netflix last week.  This is a good thing -- a savvy thriller like this deserves to be seen in just one or two sittings.  I saw it in two.

Here's its story (and I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum).  A rising star at CNN, currently doing guest anchoring, but on a path to get his own show, goes up to the Poconos for a few days of peace (he's doing his CNN gig from Philadelphia).  And, of course, he finds the complete antithesis of peace, getting caught up in a murder involving white supremacists and a billionaire whose company is all about data.  Sounds all too familiar to our real world off-screen, doesn't it.

But to make matters worse -- much worse, with life-and-death consequences -- the local police and the FBI are uninterested in gong after the white supremacists or the billionaire.  They'd both rather go after the rising CNN anchor, Muncie Daniels.  Hmmm ... that also seems pretty familiar to our reality off-screen, in which law-and-order like to take the easy way out.

Especially if they can pin the crime on a black man (in this case, played by Colman Domingo, whom I've seen in Fear the Walking Dead and a few other shows).   Muncie's family is difficult for him, too.  He's divorced, his teenage son is struggling to find his bearings, and Muncie also has a daughter whom he hasn't seen in far too long.  A large part of the story is Muncie's family, and how in their own ways they rally behind Muncie, while speaking much needed truth to him.

A great example comes near the end, when Muncie thinks that by denouncing the billionaire on CNN, Muncie can put an end to his baneful influence and deeds.  His son Demetrius (well played by Thaddeus Mixson) tells Muncie that television does not have the power to change the world for the better.  That right there is a profound lesson indeed -- one that we all should ponder -- especially needed in the world we're all living in right now.

As long as I'm talking about the acting, I'll tell you that I thought it was all excellent.  Marsha Blake as Muncie's ex-wife Elena Powell, Tamsin Topolski as a white supremacist's wife, and Alison Wright as Julia Jayne (I'm deliberately not revealing her role) were especially effective.  And the dialogue is top-notch, too -- at one point, Muncie's lawyer mentions Stringer Bell, one of the best characters ever to appear on television (and the first time I saw Idris Elba).  Hats off to Stephen Belber and the rest of the writing and production people for creating an edge-of-your-seat thriller that couldn't be more relevant to the time and planet we all inhabit.

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