Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 266

The Affair 2.11: Alison and Cole in Business

An unexpected development in The Affair 2.11 last night - Alison and Cole are going into business together, as joint owners of The Lobster Roll.

I get Cole's motivation, sort of.   He wants to stay in Montauk, is happy with Luisa, sees no threat from Alison.  But Alison's, I don't get so much.  Surely she sees that Noah will be threatened by this, as indeed he is, and all but tells her. And how could she be comfortable partnering in business with Cole?

At this point, she surely knows Joanie is Cole's not Noah's.   Is her motive for going into business with Cole that she's hoping they will also reunited as a couple, and raise Joanie together?  That's certainly possible, but Alison doesn't overtly seem to want this - at least, not as yet - either.

Of course, what we saw of Alison was from Noah's point of view, which has always been insecure about how much Alison really wants him, and the two of them as a couple.  Since we didn't see Alison's point of view last night, we can't be sure what she was really thinking and feeling.  Indeed, the glow she had about going into business with Cole was from Cole's point of view, and may not necessarily be hers, either.

Back to the killing of Scotty: as I said last week, I think Luisa now has to be considered a prime suspect.   Scotty has come close to telling Cole what he knows.   Should Luisa find out what Scotty knows, she would have a powerful motive to get rid of Scotty before he tells Cole that he's Joanie's father.

On the other hand, we may see Scotty spill the beans to Cole in the very next scene, as he opens his eyes and talks in the car.  We'll find out more next week - and my only regret is I wish that episode was on tonight.

See also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize ...And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

podcast review of every 1st season episode


the Sierra Waters time-travel trilogy
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The Good Wife 7.10: Selfish Eli

Well, The Good Wife wrapped up the first part of Season 7 - 7.10 - with an episode which could blast everything apart.   Actually, not the episode as a whole, but just the last few minutes - which, if you're going to put in a bombshell, is always the best place.

Eli, despondent over losing his nascent love, unburdens to Alicia and tells her he erased Will's confession of love to Alicia, lodged on her cell phone a few years back, before she had a chance to hear it.  Alicia is justifiably beyond furious.

Make no mistake about it.  This is not a magnanimous act by Eli.  His confession can do Alicia no real good, seeing as how Will is dead.  Yes, it should gladden her heart that Will did love her, but she already knew this.  So the gist of what this will bring to Alicia is heartbreak, over what could have been, what we/she really wanted, and now it turns out Will wanted as well.

Eli's confession helps him, in unburdening his conscience.  But his relationship with Alicia, rocky already, will never be the same.   And up in the air now is what Alicia will be willing to do for Peter in his campaign for the Presidency (hey, I wouldn't mind seeing him take some shots at Donald Trump).

Kudos to Alan Cumming for a tour-de-force performance as Eli.  He's always excellent.  But the expressions on his face, the almost tears in eyes, were just perfect as he made his guilty declaration to Alicia.

Looking forward to the continuing story, back on the air in early January.


See also The Good Wife 7.1: Shake-Up ... The Good Wife 7.6: Hillary, Trump, and Alicia

And see also The Good Wife 6.4: Run-up to Running ... The Good Wife 6.10: Cary's Fate ... The Good Wife 6.11: Kalinda for Cary

See also I Dreamt I Called Will Gardner Last Night

And The Good Wife 5.1: Capital Punishment and Politicians' Daughters ... The Good Wife 5.5: The Villain in this Story ... The Good Wife 5.9: Reddit, Crowd Sourcing, and the First Amendment on Trial ... The Good Wife 5.11: Bowling Bowls and Bogdanovich ... The Good Wife 5.13: NSA on Television ... The Good Wife: 5.15: Stunner! ... The Good Wife 5.19: Tying Up Loose Ends ... The Good Wife Season 5 Finale: Musical Chairs

And see also The Good Wife 4.1 Meets Occupy Wall Street ...  The Good Wife 4.2: Reunited ... The Good Wife 4.3: "Template-Based Link Analysis Algorithm" ... The Good Wife 4.5 Meets The Sopranos ... The Good Wife 4.20: Anonymous ... The Good Wife Season 4 Finale: Good Twist!
And see also The Good Wife 3.1: Recusal and Rosh Hashanah ... The Good Wife: 3.2: Periwigs and Skype ... The Good Wife 3.7: Peter v. Will ...  Dexter's Sister on The Good Wife 3.10  ... The Good Wife 3.12: Two Suits  ... The Good Wife 3.13 Meets Murder on the Orient Express ... The Good Wife 3.15: Will and Baseball

And see also  The Good Wife Starts Second Season on CBS ... The Good Wife 2.2: Lou Dobbs, Joe Trippi, and Obama Girl ... The Good Wife 2.4: Surprise Candidate, Intimate Interpsonal Distance ... The Good Wife 2.9 Takes on Capital Punishment ... The Good Wife 2.16: Information Wars 
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The Affair 2.10: Meets In Treatment

Another fine episode of The Affair tonight - 2.10 - which ends in a cliffhanger, about the results of the paternity test for Joanie, even though it's got to be that the baby is Cole's.

Which leads again to the big question of who ran down Scotty?  Given the ambivalence that Noah has to being a father in a marriage with Alison - and being the "good" not the "great" guy as he put  it (for more of which, see below) - it occurred to me that he now has about the least motive for permanently shutting Scotty up.  If Scotty revealed that Cole not Noah was Joanie's father, that might well give Noah precisely the license to leave Alison that a part of him so much wants.

Alison and Cole still remain the main suspects with Noah out of the scenario.  But there also could be another:  Louisa now also a big motive.  She would be very threatened by the knowledge that Cole is Joanie's father, given that she can't have a baby, and she knows how much Cole wants one.   Would she kill Scotty to keep him quiet?   It's hard to say, because we don't yet know her well enough, but either she or someone else looking out for her interests can't be ruled out.

Noah's segment with Marilyn the shrink was excellent, a case of The Affair meeting In Treatment (which makes sense, since Sarah Treem and Hagai Levi are producers of both).  Noah's wanting to be a good family man, but not at the expense of being a great man - in his case, a great author - but which (on his analysis, at least) comes with the trimmings of "bending" an attractive graduate student over his desk - makes one of the best set-pieces of the series, as Noah comes to realize this and spell it out in Marilyn's office.   The twenty or so minutes provides about as good a probing as you'll get anywhere on television, or in the movies, about what it might personally take to make a big difference in the world. Significantly, Noah thinks it's either good or great, in contrast to Marilyn, who suggests that maybe you can have both, or maybe the two lifestyles have no intrinsic connection to greatness at all.

On thing is certain: Just two episodes left of this great season.

See also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize ... And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

podcast review of every 1st season episode


the Sierra Waters time-travel trilogy

Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

Homeland 5.10: Homeland and Homeland

As my wife aptly pointed out earlier this evening, we were going to see two Homelands tonight. That would be Homeland for real, with Obama's 8pm address to the nation, and Homeland on Showtime, at 9pm tonight.

Here's my review of the first:  Obama's speech was ok, but could have been stronger and with more specifics, in the first part, about what we would do to fight terrorism.  It was excellent in the second part, about what we shouldn't be doing, and who were as Americans.

Here's my review of Homeland on Showtime - dynamite, easily the best in this season, which has so far been not the greatest.

But kudos to the show for having Allison actually saying we don't want "another Paris" - her back was to the camera, so that was dubbed in.   I have to hand it to Showtime and the producers of Homeland for having the guts to put that into tonight's show.

The rest was outstanding too.  Claire Danes gave one of the strongest performances in the series - finally reminiscent of what we saw in the first few seasons - as Carrie reacting to what she thought was Quinn's death.   And Miranda Otto as Allison was excellent, too.

The plot was suitably tense with some nice twists - the best being the guy who saved Quinn being saved, surprisingly, by his cousin.  This gives the forces of good a continued possible hand on the inside, and it looks as if we'll need all the help we can get.

And that's true in real Homeland as well, where the convergence of what we see in drama on our screens and what we in news on that same screen is all too close.  Indeed, Homeland on Showtime had an especially frightening clout tonight because, so far, in our real world, an attack by chemical weapons is about the one thing we have not been subject to in the past few months.


See also Homeland 5.1: Moving into the Age of Snowden ... Homeland 5.2: Who Wants to Kill Carrie ... Homeland 5.3: Carrie and Kerry ... Homeland 5.5: All Quinn ... Homeland 5.6: Saul Wises Up ... Homeland 5.7: Tough to Watch ... Homeland 5.9: Finally!
And see also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie ... Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart ... Homeland 4.5: Righteous Seduction ... Homeland 4.6: The Biggest Reveal ... Homeland 4.7: The Manifestation ... Homeland 4.8: Saving Someone's Life ... Homeland 4.9: Hitchcock Would've Loved It ... Homeland 4.10: The List ... Homeland 4.12: Out of this Together
And see also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal
And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality
And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

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The Front-Page Editorial in The New York Times

I was just interviewed on "Breakfast," New Zealand's top morning radio program, about the context and impact of The New York Times' front-page editorial - first since 1920 - urging gun control.

Marshall McLuhan, as his work does so often in our age, captured the importance of the front page of a newspaper when he observed, in The Mechanical Bride in 1951, that you can get a sense of the world just by looking at the front page, as if it were a picture, before and without even reading any of the content.  The front page in effect is a figurative landscape of what's going on, which can be grasped in a glance.

The content of the editorial - which the layout calls such justifiably dramatic attention to - is crucial.   I would like to see, as starters, the government start a buy-out program of all semi-automatic weapons, paying twice their purchase price, after declaring these weapons illegal.  Yes, terrorists and psychopaths can still do plenty of damage with hand-guns and knives, but getting rid of a semi-automatics that spray bullets would be a good way to save some lives.

So the content of the editorial matters, big time.  But placing it on the front page was a masterstroke. Just glancing at the front page shows that there is a sombre, stark importance to what the words are saying.

Lots has been written, including by me, about how paper newspapers are fading away.  But anything on paper still has advantages not seen on any screen, especially the little ones on our phones. Newspapers left on tables and desks can be seen by anyone who passes by.  The editorial on the front page of a newspaper is thus an intrinsically powerful public statement.

It's good to see The New York Times leading the fight on finally getting something done to limit the deaths by guns which are the scourge of this country.

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Homeland 5.9: Finally!

Finally, Saul and Carrie wake up on Homeland 5.9, and do some things right.

Ok, Allison's no slouch, and she manages at the last minute to maybe figure out a way out of this, at very least slow down Carrie, Saul, and now Dar, but at least Saul and Carrie had her running for a while, and came pretty close to shutting her down.

Why it took so long for Carrie to figure it out, and for Saul to realize there was something off about Alison, is inexplicable, but at least they're on the same right page now.  And the scene of them hugging was good to see, as was Carrie's telling Saul that she knew all too well what was like to be emotionally involved with someone who might be an enemy of the United States.   In a sense, the twist this season, literally, is that Saul and Carrie have switched roles.

When Saul says that he was asleep for the past ten years, and Allison woke him up, he means it.   Given this importance that she has for him, it's good that her story is proceeding.

Meanwhile, Quinn is on the mission of a lifetime, one especially frightening given what's actually happening in the world today.  But, of course, that's the whole point of Homeland, isn't it - but the producers couldn't have known how in synch with the news this season of Homeland in Europe would be.

I have no idea, medically, if the shot Quinn was given will save him from the sarin.  But in terms of the overall narrative, he's too important a character to kill at his juncture.  He's actually too important to kill at any juncture, and I'm still hoping to see him and Carrie ultimately together as a couple.

But that's still a long way off, and, before then, I'm looking forward to the next three episodes.

See also Homeland 5.1: Moving into the Age of Snowden ... Homeland 5.2: Who Wants to Kill Carrie ... Homeland 5.3: Carrie and Kerry ... Homeland 5.5: All Quinn ... Homeland 5.6: Saul Wises Up ... Homeland 5.7: Tough to Watch
And see also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie ... Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart ... Homeland 4.5: Righteous Seduction ... Homeland 4.6: The Biggest Reveal ... Homeland 4.7: The Manifestation ... Homeland 4.8: Saving Someone's Life ... Homeland 4.9: Hitchcock Would've Loved It ... Homeland 4.10: The List ... Homeland 4.12: Out of this Together
And see also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal
And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality
And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

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The Affair 2.9: Nameless Hurricane

A wild, nameless episode 2.9 of The Affair tonight - with no segment named for Alison, Helen, Noah, or Cole, though they all got crucial screen time.   And there was indeed a hurricane, the kind that closes down subways and highways, though that didn't have a name in the episode, either*.

The happiest encounter was between Helen and the doctor who saved Martin.  It's good to see Helen finally beginning to get a little happiness, especially because she's becoming more of an admirable character.

Noah and Cole each had a terrible night in the storm, for different reasons.   Noah just can't get a break with Whitney, to the point of seeing her in a sex den, or a Playboy-like club, he stoned and high and waiting to have sex with his publicist, and Whitney, well, with another girl.   This happens right after Max interrupts Noah's promising negotiation with a Hollywood producer - now in New York - who loves Noah's book and wants to make a movie of it, albeit with a happy ending, which of course is the way Noah first wrote it.

The parallel angsts of Noah and Cole is an important part of the bigger story.  Cole's narrative tonight looks at the beginning as if he would be like Helen, even better than Helen, and find some lasting happiness with his girl friend.  But her revelation that she can't have children ends that, at least for the time being, and we leave Cole setting his house on fire.   We know, of course, that Cole will get out of the house before it burns totally down - we saw him the courtroom, subtly responding to Noah's predicament, in the future.   But the burning house in effect is the death of Cole's earlier life, including with Alison.

But this is significant, because the scene with Alison having her baby shifts repeatedly to shots of Cole - not Noah - which strongly implies, as if we didn't suspect it already, that Cole not Noah is the father of her baby girl.   This points to the shocker in the episode before last, with Scotty telling Alison that the baby is "ours" - and it will be good to see this resolved, I hope, in the next three remaining episodes of this season.

Powerful writing and acting continue to make The Affair an outstanding piece of television drama.

*Actually, @antwittie over on Twitter tells me the hurricane was named - on the radio, at the beginning - Hurricane Aly - appropriately named.  That's what I get for not paying the rapt attention I should be to every second of this show :)

See also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize
And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

podcast review of every 1st season episode


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Religion as a Necessary Engine of Space Travel

Our anthology, Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion, is being readied for publication as an ebook by Connected Editions in the next few weeks, and by Fordham University Press in paperback and hardcover in March 2016.  Contents are here.  The paper editions can be pre-ordered here.

In the meantime, here's a 15-minute talk I gave at the General Semantics Symposium in New York this past September in which I outline the raison d'ê·tre for the volume.

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The Man in the High Castle in Realty - Well, on NYC Subway Cars

Here I am again with another post about The Man in the Hight Castle television series - a masterpiece in many ways, which will likely merit more posts from me in the months ahead.  The series is currently streaming in its entirety on Amazon, but this is not about the streaming.   It's about the rhythmic motion on the rails of New York City subway cars - or,  to be more precise, what is inside some of those cars and is now being removed.

Amazon sought to advertise its series - an adaptation of the 1962 Philip K. Dick alternate history masterwork in which Nazi Germany and Japan beat the U.S. in World War II - by outfitting a few cars with seats adorned with Nazi swastikas and imperial Japanese suns.   Some riders objected. Some people in government agreed.  Amazon is removing the advertising - the story with pictures is here.

My first response to this was:  surely we need to see the difference between real swastikas, and swastikas put in subways to advertise a series which so effectively shows why the Nazis - and, by extension, current politicians who speak like Nazis - need to be opposed.   As I pointed out in my reviews - here (the pilot in January) and here (the rest of the series a few days ago) and here (comparison with the novel - this last review has big spoilers) - only someone with ice water in his or her veins could fail to be profoundly moved by the story of a 1962 America so similar to ours - except, for example, that people with disabilities are put to death (including even an SS-officer's son). A series like this needs to be seen - and, therefore, advertising which promotes its viewing is a good thing.  

Just to be clear, members of my grandparents' family died in the holocaust, so telling the story of the Nazis and the horrors of their ideology is especially important to me (I assume no one had much problem with the Japanese suns on the subway cars).   But thinking it over, I realized that advertising on a subway car is a very special kind of promotion - it's advertising to a literally captive audience, the passengers of a subway car in motion.   This, it seems to me, makes the difference on this issue. If someone is offended by the Statue of Liberty doing a sieg heil in an online photo advertising the series, that person can look away.   But other then getting out at the very next station - which would be an unfair inconvenience to impose on anyone - there's really no way you can look away from swastikas in a subway car.  (If the Nazi insignias were only in one car, then anyone offended could walk to another subway car, but even that would be an unnecessary annoyance.)  I therefore think that, in view of this captive audience principle, it's right to remove ads for The Man in the High Castle from NYC subway cars.

But see the television series.   I saw it a few days ago, and I still feel like I just finished watching it a few minutes ago.



What if the Soviet Union had survived into the 21st century and Eddie and Cruisers were a real band?


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More Thoughts about The Man in the High Castle: Upping the Metaphysical Ante

I reviewed the pilot of The Man in the High Castle here, and the rest of the series here, but refrained as much as possible from comparing the extraordinary television series to the extraordinary novel, and from putting any spoilers in the review.  But there are two very significant differences between the book and the TV series, which can't be discussed without giving away some important events in the television series, so I'll do that here with a spoiler warning.   Read on, if you're interested, and have seen the television series and read the novel, or know neither or just one, and are interested anyway.



The difference between a book within a book in the novel and newsreels in the television series as media of alternate history lead to another difference between the Philip K. Dick novel and the Frank Spotnitz television series that in many ways is the most profound difference of all: When Juliana and Frank see Joe as a Nazi killing Frank in the newsreel at the end of the 9th episode, there's no doubt that the people in the newsreel are indeed Frank and Joe.  The characters can't make much sense of this, but we the viewers understand that we're literally seeing either an alternate history or the future.   This literal look at an alternate history is much more powerful, metaphysically, than anything that can be described in a secret book.   Writing, is, after all, a description of people and events.   In contrast, visual media such as newsreels are literal recordings of those people and events.  Of course they can be distorted and manipulated, but at their very basis, literal images traffic with the truth in a way that written words cannot.  (See any of my books about media theory for more.)

Newsreels were of course around when Dick published the novel in 1962, but he chose, for whatever reason, to go with the book within the book as the alternate history medium (whether he didn't think of newsreels, or rejected them as a vehicle for some reason, we'll never know).   But brilliant of Spotnitz to make them the vehicle of the television series - starting with the newsreel at the beginning of every episode - and open up so many new and compelling possibilities.


What if the Soviet Union had survived into the 21st century and Eddie and Cruisers were a real band?


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