Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 144

His Dark Materials 1.5: Sleepers and Questions

His Dark Materials 1.5 on HBO earlier tonight upped the evil of the villains, making them, well, the equivalent of Nazis.

They're doing some kind of experiments on the kids they've kidnapped.  Billy was separated from his daemon, and he dies.  Lyra is kidnapped, and ends up in some kind of research facility with a nurse speaking in a Germanic or Scandinavian accent.  The episode ends with Lyra realizing that Billy was wearing the same kind of smock that the nurse is now asking Lyra to wear.

Lyra will get out of this alive, with her daemon, for sure.  But I'm wondering why it was so easy to kidnap her.  Yeah, the kidnappers killed some of the guards.  But what was the bear doing?  Sleeping?  I guess bears are sound sleepers in His Dark Materials, too.

But lots of other players were asleep on the job, too.  Where were Lee, Farder Coram, John Faa,  etc?  All asleep, too?  I'm just saying that Lyra, especially with her truth-telling device, which might've spoken up about the danger to Lyra, i.e., given her some indication of the impending peril, was too easy to kidnap (again, I haven't read the novels, so I have no idea if that's better explained in the printed pages).

I liked the introduction of the young man whose life, we're told, will be crucially intertwined with Lyra's.   It's clear now that, with all the assets that Lyra has on her side, she's still in grave danger.  More than clear:  Lyra's now in the villains' custody.   But the one thing we don't yet know is exactly where and how Mrs. Coulter fits into to all of this.  Is that facility that does the experiments under her supervision?   Will she be ok with those kinds of experiments - which killed Billy, since they didn't get it "right" - being done on Lyra, who may be her daughter?   Are the experiments all being done on Coulter's behalf?  And about whoever is directing them, why, for what ends?

Looking forward to some answers in the concluding three episodes of this first season of this excellent new series.

See also His Dark Materials 1.1: Radiation Punk ...  His Dark Materials 1.3: Coulter's Daemons ... His Dark Materials 1.4: The Bears



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Prodigal Son 1.10: The Reward

Prodigal Son 1.10 - the Fall finale - just on Fox TV tonight was good and atmospheric, with a potent mix of Christmas cheer and horror, even though it didn't move the story forward very much.

Probably the biggest piece of news, in the long run, is that Bright's mother Jessica is offering the public a big reward for anyone who can find out more about her husband's final victim.  When the series returns in January, that offering should lead to all kinds of provocative stories as people who want to claim the reward come out of the woodwork and do their own sleuthing or lying.

The other step forward is a little more information about the Junkyard Killer.  He has a psycho grandmother.  Ok.  He also looks a lot like Martin Whitley.  Is Whitley indeed the Junkyard Killer?  No, he's in shackles behind bars.  So why does he look like his mentor?  I guess he grew similar facial hair to emulate Dr. Whitley.   Whatever is going on, whatever the Junkyard Killer's true identity, there's a lot more connection between him and Dr. Whitley than we now know.

I was glad to see the FBI brought into this episode.  Do we know if any of Martin Whitly's victims were from out of state?  If  so, then the FBI would have a vested interest in this case.   We know that it's already on their radar.   In fact, they were involved in tonight's episode because they're already hunting for the Junkyard Killer.

So, as head into the Christmas break, there are a lot of ingredients on the kitchen table for this odd and pretty interesting, often compelling network drama.  I'll definitely be back in January with reports on how it goes.

See also: Prodigal Son: A New Serial Killer ... Prodigal Son 1.2: Dreams or Memories? ... Prodigal Son 1.3: LSD and Chloroform ... Prodigal Son 1.4: Ainsley ... Prodigal Son 1.6: Bad Boy ... Prodigal Son 1.7: Apprentices ... Prodigal Son 1.8: The Mentee ... Prodigal Son 1.9: Freud and Eve


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The Report: The Not-So-Good Old Days

My wife and I saw The Report last night on Amazon Prime.  Even more so than its superb star-studded cast - Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Michael C. Hall, Maura Tierney, Ted Levine, you get the picture - the story of  how our government, before Trump, lied and otherwise did its utmost to keep the public from knowing that we tortured prisoners via water-bordering after September 11, makes The Report an absolute necessity for anyone who cares about democracy and human decency to see.

I say the government, but Senator Diane Feinstein, brilliantly portrayed by Bening, sticks with Daniel Jones (powerfully played by Driver) and is ultimately instrumental in seeing his report published.  Not so much just about everyone else, other than a few of Feinstein's colleagues on her Senate committee.

That George W. Bush would have wanted to keep this secret is not surprising - the torture took place on his watch.  But Obama was in no hurry to make it publicly known, either.   And since the government was regularly denying that it ever took place, including when Obama was in office, well, he doesn't come across the greatest in this narrative, either.

But the most disconcerting was CIA Director John Brennan (2013-2017, i.e,, under Obama) perfectly played by Ted Levine, whom I first noticed as a good guy in Monk.   Here, in The Report, Levine plays pretty much the complete antithesis of a good guy.  I've seen Brennan many times on MSNBC.  He's understandably a favorite critic of Trump to have on the air, seeing as how Trump took away his security clearance after Brennan dared to criticize Trump.  But the way he behaved in regard to Jones, coming this close to getting him thrown in prison for years for daring to uncover the truth, well, I'll never look at Brennan the same again.

The point here is the degradations of democracy and humane conduct on which we pride ourselves here in the United States were bipartisan, with many Democrats, at least in the Administration, more than willing to do whatever it took to cover up what the Bush Administration had done and denied doing.  All in the name of national security.

To be clear, I'm a New Yorker, and was terribly traumatized by what happened on September 11.  Although I wasn't in favor of torturing prisoners, I might have at least understood it though not supported it, if it had really worked.  But as The Report makes clear, it did not.  And the attempt to keep it from the public, to lie about its effectiveness, represents a low day for all Americans.

The only heroes here are Driver, Feinstein, and The New York Times for going public at a crucial time with what it knew of the story, which kept Jones from being ruined.   And now, this crucial movie is heroic for being made (written and directed) by Scott Z. Burns and shown on Amazon right now.  Kudos to all, and, once again, our First Amendment.


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Watchmen 1.6-7: Deaths and Liberations

I thought I'd review episodes 1.6 and 1.7 of Watchmen together, since they're both episodes of Nostalgia - the powerful drug that makes Angela relive her family's memories - and I thought two episodes might make a little more sense than the one.  Which they do.  I think (again, with the proviso that I never read the comics or saw any movie, and knew nothing at all of Watchmen before I started watching the HBO series).

A common denominator in these two series are that people aren't who they seem to be.  In episode 1.6, we find that Angela's grandfather (Will Reeves) killed Judd Crawford because Reeves thought Crawford was a white supremacist.   In episode 1.7, Angela kills or liberates her husband Cal, because she's sure he's Dr. Manhattan.  And, just for good measure, on a more minor note, Crawford's wife turns out to be pretty bad, getting the better of Laurie Blake and landing her in the basement via a trapdoor attached to a chair.  Yeah, Watchmen is that kind of story, which I guess makes sense, seeing as how it's derived from a comic book.

But there's a seriousness that belies the comic book, just as the alternate reality in Watchmen has some really brilliant aspects, such as the United States won the Vietnam War and made Vietnam our 51st state (it's not that far from Hawaii, when you think about it).  And in 1.7, Angela sees her parents blown up by a bomb, and her grandmother die - presumably of natural causes - just after she safely tucks Angela as a little girl into a cab which will take her from Vietnam back to America (presumably via a plane which the cab will drive her to).

There's a reason for Angela as a girl and now in her memories to visit those family tragedies again.  To harden her psyche, so she can wield the hammer on Cal when she escapes the futuristic facility she's housed in, and gets back home.  That facility, by the way, is in its own right a nice piece of science fictional work, with all kinds of gadgets we don't quite have, or have yet, in our reality.

All in all, Watchmen is a strange, one-of-a-kind brew of a story indeed.  I'm more keen than ever to see where it goes.

See also Watchmen 1.1: Promising Alternate History ... [Watchmen 1.2: don't look for my review, I didn't feel like reviewing it] ... Watchmen 1.3: The Falling Car ... Watchmen 1.4: What We Learned ... Watchmen 1.5: Some Enchanted Evening



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Prodigal Son 1.9: Freud and Eve

A hot and powerful Prodigal Son 1.9 last week, with lots of sex and death - or, as Freud, mentioned by Bright at the beginning of the episode, would have put it, libido and thanatos.

The libido comes in the form of a sex club, and in the budding relationship between Bright and Eve.  The thanatos comes in the form of the dead bodies that result from the sex club - which Bright and his team investigate - and what Bright almost does to Eve.

The first - the sex club and the investigation - are a good, standard, sex-oriented police story, which includes Bright almost in bondage to one of principals of the club.  The second is much more serious, with lasting consequences for Bright and Eve.

First, Bright, on his first date with Eve, profiles her, which results in her leaving in tears.  But she shows up later.  They have good sex together - presumably, we saw only the aftermath - but when Bright wakes up, with Eve sleeping on his shoulder in bed beside him, things take a turn for the worse.

Bright after awakening goes into his dream state, imagining the woman whom his father killed - the oft-mentioned girl in the box.  Bright breaks away, but she - the hallucination - comes after him.  Bright takes a knife and waves it at her--  but it's Eve, who has awoken, not the hallucination.

Not good for their relationship, to say the least.  Bright has shown himself to be more dangerous than damaged goods.   Bad news for the relationship, good news for the continuing narrative, which continues to get more compelling with every episode.

See also: Prodigal Son: A New Serial Killer ... Prodigal Son 1.2: Dreams or Memories? ... Prodigal Son 1.3: LSD and Chloroform ... Prodigal Son 1.4: Ainsley ... Prodigal Son 1.6: Bad Boy ... Prodigal Son 1.7: Apprentices ... Prodigal Son 1.8: The Mentee

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Ray Donovan 7.3: "The Air that I Breathe"

An excellent, even memorable Ray Donovan 7.3, seen a few hours early, courtesy of Showtime On Demand.

At least three major stories were wrapped up, or almost wrapped up, giving this episode the feeling of a season finale.  Lena's going to LA may well be permanent, or at least for the rest of this season (The L-Word, where  Katherine Moennig has a more major role than on Ray, is coming back on Showtime in 2020).  I'll miss her on Ray Donovan, where she was always a combination of the voice of reason and a woman of cool, effective action.  Mickey being sent off by Ray to the Maldives is likely less permanent.  My guess is he'll be out of the story for at least a few episodes.  But it looks as if the police investigation into the severed head is shutdown and over, despite the tenacity of the detective.

My favorite scene, by far, was Bridget singing the Hollies's "The Air that I Breathe".  Kerris Dorsey (or whoever it was who was singing - I hope it's Dorsey) has a really nice voice, and she delivered the first part of the song (all she sang) very effectively.  It served as a perfect prelude to her sleeping with Adam.   I think Smitty's a pretty good character, but I wouldn't mind Bridget moving on.  She after all did marry Smitty for the wrong reasons.

Storylines I didn't particularly like at all were Bunchy's and, even more so, Terry's.  I think Terry is too strong a character to waist on this new-age medical mystical business.   As for Bunch, I know that it's deeply written into his character that he's always the victim, but that's getting a little tedious already.  I'm hoping that he, with or without Ray's help, can turn this completely around - soon - and get into a newer kind of story.

As for Ray, his powerful opponent has now settled into the Mayor.  With any luck, he'll have Molly Sullivan by his side and in bed to give him support.

See also Ray Donovan 7.1: Getting Ahead of the Game ... Ray Donovan 7.2: Good Luck

See also Ray Donovan 6.1: The New Friend ... Ray Donovan 6.2: Father and Sons ... Ray Donovan 6.4: Politics in the Ray Style ... Ray Donovan 6.6: The Mayor Strikes Back ... Ray Donovan 6.7: Switching Sides ... Ray Donovan 6.8: Down ... Ray Donovan 6.9: Violence and Storyline ... Ray Donovan 6.10: Working Together ... Ray Donovan 6.11: Settled Scores and Open Questions ... Ray Donovan Season 6 Finale: Snowfall and Mick

See also Ray Donovan 5.1: Big Change  ... Ray Donovan 5.4: How To Sell A Script ... Ray Donovan 5.7: Reckonings ... Ray Donovan 5.8: Paging John Stuart Mill ... Ray Donovan 5.9: Congas ... Ray Donovan 5.10: Bunchy's Money ... Ray Donovan 5.11: I'm With Mickey ... Ray Donovan 5.12: New York

See also Ray Donovan 4.1: Good to Be Back ... Ray Donovan 4.2: Settling In ... Ray Donovan 4.4: Bob Seger ... Ray Donovan 4.7: Easybeats ... Ray Donovan 4.9: The Ultimate Fix ... Ray Donovan Season 4 Finale: Roses

And see also Ray Donovan 3.1: New, Cloudy Ray ... Ray Donovan 3.2: Beat-downs ... Ray Donovan 3.7: Excommunication!

And see also Ray Donovan 2.1: Back in Business ... Ray Donovan 2.4: The Bad Guy ... Ray Donovan 2.5: Wool Over Eyes ... Ray Donovan 2.7: The Party from Hell ... Ray Donovan 2.10: Scorching ... Ray Donovan 2.11: Out of Control ... Ray Donovan Season 2 Finale: Most Happy Ending


And see also Ray Donovan Debuts with Originality and Flair ... Ray Donovan 1.2: His Assistants and his Family ... Ray Donovan 1.3: Mickey ... Ray Donovan 1.7 and Whitey Bulger ... Ray Donovan 1.8: Poetry and Death ... Ray Donovan Season 1 Finale: The Beginning of Redemption


 

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Emergence 1.8: Spinning

I'm late in reviewing Emergence 1.8 because, well, it was a weak episode, which left me not in the mood to review it, but here goes:

I think the series is spinning its wheels, or choose your metaphor for a series that started out ok, got considerably better, and now seems to be going nowhere.  This in part is because there have been too many deaths of villains or conflicted characters - Kindred and then Wilkis.   And to make up for this, we keep getting new villains emerging on Emergence.

Now, nobody asked for my opinion, but this series could be saved via one of several ways.  The ultimate villains could be AIs that we haven't seen, who are behind all of this.   An important character could be an AI - like Officer Chris.  He's so likable that making him an AI would be a real surprise.  I'm sure there are other ways.

But since we've already learned about who/what Piper is, and why so many people, powerful and not so powerful, are out to get her or contain her, we now need something more.  It's significant that Emily made Piper in her own image.   Who else, among the characters we know, might have done something similar?  (It's also important, at this stage in the series, to stop introducing new characters.)

Back to the actual story in episode 1.8, I find the FBI guy annoying.  I wouldn't mind if an FBI along the lines of Dick Wolf's FBI (a superb series) got involved in this story.  But, as it is, this FBI guy is little more than a chess piece of some sort, alternately obstructing and then saving Jo.

Emergence still has promise.  In its own low-key Long Island way, it is refreshing and original as an AI story.  It just needs to get moving now.

See also: Emergence: May Just Make It ... Emergence 1.2: Cleaning Up ... Emergence 1.3: Robots and Androids ... Emergence 1.4: Android Child ... Emergence 1.5: Supergirl ... Emergence 1.6: The People Who Are Kindred ... Emergence 1.7: Piper's Real Mom





The androids are coming out into the open, for the first time in centuries ....


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The Crown seasons 1-3: A Podcast Review

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 121, in which I review all three seasons of The Crown. I thought they were superb.  If you'd like to read along, you can find links to my written reviews below, but I always put a little extra into the podcast.
Links to my written reviews of The Crown:  Season 1, Season 2, Season 3.
And here's a link to Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion, mentioned in the podcast.


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The Crown season 3: Outstanding Story, Worthy Chapters

The Crown is back on Netflix with a third season, and almost a completely new cast, with Olivia Colman as Elizabeth, Tobias Menzies as Philip, etc.  I liked the cast and the episodes even more than I did the first two seasons.

Among favorite storylines as episodes -

Prince Charles (very well played by Josh O'Connor) had at least two episodes devoted to his growing into full adulthood.  One finds him in Wales learning the Welsh language.  The other has him back in England, falling in love with Camilla Shand.  In both cases, we find Charles to be more thoughtful, almost philosophic and tender, than we might have thought.  And the second episode shows Elizabeth at first not against Charles marrying Camilla.  It's only when she learns that Camilla's other boyfriend, Parker Bowles, also slept with Princess Anne, that Elizabeth joins the rest of her family in opposing the marriage.  All in all, very sensitively portrayed.Speaking of philosophy, there's an outstanding episode portraying Philip's reaction to the Americans landing on the Moon in 1969.  This event is expertly woven into Philip's midlife crisis, more specifically into Philip's need to find some greater meaning in life.  His idea that the astronauts, having been off this planet, may have experienced some greater meaning, and could convey it to Philip, makes perfect sense, and was the motive for my own anthology, Touching the Face of the Cosmos.  And it also made a different kind of sense that Philip, disappointed with what the astronauts told him, found a spiritual satisfaction of sorts right here on Earth.The literally political stuff was also excellent, with Elizabeth adopting to and herding changes in Prime Ministers, from Churchill to Wilson to Heath to Wilson.  But where were the Beatles, and their "Uh oh, Mr. Wilson, Uh oh, Mr. Heath"?Margaret, played to the saucy hilt by Helena Bonham Carter in two episodes, one bonding with the coarse Lyndon Johnson, the other trying to divest herself of her philandering husband, was also top drawer.And, just good measure, let me throw in what a good job Charles Dance did as Mountbatten, first almost pulling off a coup, next steering Charles away from his true love.So The Crown season 3 was outstanding in all kinds of ways, moving Elizabeth's story along - I forgot to say how effectively she was portrayed in the Welsh mining disaster, finding her tears and heart, at long last - and telling individual stories about love, philosophy, and politics which are worthy on their own.  I heartily recommend it.

See also  The Crown season 1: Peerless ...  The Crown season 2: Standing Ovation
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The Irishman - A Podcast Review

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 120, in which I review The Irishman. I thought it was fabulous, perhaps Scorsese's best.  If you'd like to read along, you can find my written review here, but I always put something extra into the podcast.



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