Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 292

Why I'm Not Too Upset about the Sony Hack

Aaron Sorkin, among others, has been attacking the media for their reporting of the content of the Sony hacks - including, among other things, "an inappropriate and racially charged exchange" in private email between Sony producer Scott Rudin and Sony exec Amy Pascal.   To be clear, I think hacking is wrong, and release of private financial and medical information even worse.   But "racially charged" email, though understandably embarrassing to the emailers, surely falls under a newsworthy event that the public might want to know.  And, therefore, contra Sorkin,  the media are only doing their job in reporting on these emails.

Further, the people who wrote the emails should have known better - or known what anyone who has been online, going back to the 1980s, should always keep firmly in mind: anything you put online, anywhere, anyplace, in private email or on Twitter, can in principle be seen by everyone in the world a few seconds later.  Anthony Weiner obviously discovered this to his chagrin.   The principle is inexorable: if it's digital in any place other than your own computer, laptop, phone, or tablet, you might as well put it up in lights over Times Square.   An even when it's on your own device, you need to take care these days that your app isn't automatically set to put your content up in a cloud - from where it could wind up over the equivalent of Times Square.

This might sound like it's blaming the victims - the Sony execs who were hacked.  But aren't the real victims, not to put too fine a point on it, the object of the racism that was expressed in these Sony emails?  It mystifies me that Sorkin is more upset about what the media are doing than the racism that inhabits at least part of Sony.   I'm surprised that Sorkin has given in to the all-too common instinct in our society to blame the media - in this case, for reporting about admittedly just a tinge of racism, but racism nonetheless.    An executive and a producer at a media giant like Sony bantering about Barack Obama's taste in movies -  "Should I ask him if he liked DJANGO?” ... "I bet he likes Kevin Hart" - is indeed worthy of the reporting it's received from the news media.

Again, I think the hacking and release of financial and medical records is terrible, and should be condemned and opposed.   But regarding the racist bantering:  the emailers should either keep their opinions to themselves, certainly not email them, and better yet don't have them in the first place.




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Michael Burstein's review of "Loose Ends"

The special one-day sale for "Loose Ends" has concluded.   As indicated in this little screenshot, the novella did quite well, and I thank everyone who downloaded it.



But it's still selling for a reasonable price, and I thought, for those who might be interested, I would post Michael Burstein's Summer 1997 review of "Loose Ends" that appeared in Tangent magazine's SF by Starlight column.   Michael and I hadn't known each other all that long back then, but we went on to become good friends, and admirer's of each other's writing, and Michael served as Secretary when I was President of the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1999.   The review was never posted anywhere online, and Michael was good enough to send it to me just yesterday for its posting here.

SF by Starlight: Michael A. Burstein
"Loose Ends" by Paul Levinson (ANALOG, May 1997) For my generation, the event is not the assasination of John F. Kennedy but the explosion of the *Challenger*; and the date is not November 22, 1963, but January 28, 1986.  I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the news: in my high school library, near the end of lunch.  I can still see my classmate Tina Sormani (now a professor of mathematics at Johns Hopkins) tell me the news; and I can still remember my face dripping with tears. Paul Levinson has taken the brilliant step of combining the emotional impact of these two tragic American events into his excellent novella "Loose Ends."  Time traveler Jeff Harris comes from a miserable future, one in which the *Challenger* explosion has been identified as the pivotal event that made things go from bad to worse.  Sent back in time to prevent it, he finds himself instead in 1963, a day before the Kennedy assassination, too early to prevent the later tragedy and effectively too late to prevent the earlier one.  Trapped in the past, he carves out a life for himself as a professor of philosophy, wondering all the while how he can manage to complete his original mission. Throughout the story, Levinson creates a nostalgic mood, one that even those of us born after the end of the sixties can appreciate.  Historical themes are developed through parallelism with the music of the time, especially that of the Beatles.  Levinson answers the question of why the sixties were such a turbulent time by postulating that that time period became polluted with freethinkers from the future, who ended up affecting history in ways they never intended.  It all ties in with the Kennedy assassination.  It may be true that preventing the assassination of JFK has become a cliche' for time travel stories, but Levinson manages to make it fresh again, with an explanation that could almost be used to explain why so many people write time travel stories about Kennedy in the first place. But Levinson does much more.  He creates a love story set against an evocative portrait of New York City, all the while never losing track of the main themes of his novella.  Harris continues to regret his missed opportunity in Dallas, and wonders how he can complete his original mission while almost a quarter-century before the disaster he needs to avert.  His explorations of the past are wistful and charming, even when the story must face up to some of the horrors of the time. Finally, Levinson ends the story with a logical surprise, and one that leaves the reader hopeful for the future.  The message for the reader is that one person can, in fact, make a difference. Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train?

Well, The Affair 1.9 was near as perfect as a story with two different perspectives can get, sometimes mirroring, sometimes opposing, and tonight converging literally at the end as Noah arrives at the train station in time to see Alison and Cole the second we left them at the end of her half hour, which in this episode - as once before - started first.

The last time Alison started first - in episode 1.5 -  I said I especially liked the flow of that episode with the one that came the week before it, because that in effect gave Alison a complete hour, starting the previous week and ending with the current week's episode.   That worked well again this time, from Alison's arriving in Brooklyn, happier than we've ever seen her, in bed with Noah, until she discovers Whitney's pregnancy test and thinks it's Helen's.   Her mistake epitomizes both her and Noah's problem: with the at best partial evidence they have of each other's lives, in their pounding carnival of illicit love, it's almost impossible for there not to be some misunderstanding.

What happens next with Alison is heart wrenching, and Ruth Wilson's best acting to date on this powerful series, as we finally find out what happened to Gabriel and why Alison feels so guilty about it.   And that guilt is what leads her to the train station.

Noah gets to that place in a very different way, for other reasons.  Probably the tipping point for him is seeing the guy jump off the building to his death, because it signals to Noah what he's in effect doing with his own life if he doesn't leave Helen to be with Alison.  Significantly, Noah leaves even though knows that the best thing he can do for Whitney as a father is stay with his family.   Yeah, Helen throws him out after he tells her about his feelings for Alison, but the reason Noah does this is he wants to leave.  Love like this conquers all is the message, even a conflicting requirement of parenthood.

So the question now is, back on the station at the end, is Alison going on the train (a) expecting Cole to follow, (b) expecting Noah to follow, or (c) expecting/hoping that no one follows, so she can go off on her own?    There are arguments in favor of each of these - though I'd expect (b) -  but we'll have to wait until next week to find out, unless Alison walks right back out of the train.

One of other thing: I don't think Noah killed Scott - that would be too obvious after what happened this week.  I have a slight feeling that Cole killed his brother.  But - hey, maybe it's that lying detective?  Nah - I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's neither Oscar nor Noah, but Cole.

ee 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"
a different kind of love story 

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Homeland 4.11: The Twist

Homeland this season has been looking more like 24 at its best, which in my book is strong indeed. Important people being killed, people like Max therefore moving up into more prominent positions, characters from the almost-past coming back in pivotal roles - all of that keeps the story a little dangerously off-balance, never quite allowing us to get our bearings as viewers, which makes for fine television indeed.

Consider, for example, Dar Adal.  He seemed something of a snake last season, ostensibly supporting Saul but also always on the verge of knifing him in the back, or so it seemed.  In tonight's episode he resurfaces at the very end.   But as what?

At very least, he's the reason Carrie doesn't take a shot at Haqqani, after she stops Quinn from killing Haqqani to save Quinn's life (we just knew Quinn couldn't succeed, because he never quite does, however well he plans), and after that Pakistani military guy who seems not that bad but somehow never or rarely does the right thing gets in Carrie's face right there in the street with Haqqini's car driving slowly by, slowly enough for Carrie to shoot. But what stops Carrie is the sight of Dar Adal in the backseat of the car - the car with Haqqani.

Doing what?   Is Dar the new CIA chief, or on his way to becoming that, and the U.S. is now negotiating with Haqqani?   Hard to believe.  Or was Dar in league with Haqqani all along, that is, working with a terrorist, against US and even some Pakistani interests?   That's a little easier to believe, but also doesn't seem quite right.

What is clear is that Carrie's fate is to some extent, and against most odds, more in Dar's hands now than anyone else's.   Whatever Dar's ultimate motives, his presence in this pit severely restricts Carrie's range of action - that is, unless Dar is somehow, and after all of this, a good guy.

You just never know with Homeland, especially this season, which is a large part of what is making this season so good.

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
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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  different kind of espionage

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Farewell Newsroom

Well, The Newsroom gave itself just the kind of send-off we've come to expect: brilliant, touching, touching all kinds of bases including some we didn't know existed, including a great performance of Bobby Bare's "That's How I Got to Memphis," with Will and Jim definitely singing and likely definitely playing guitar (you never know one-hundred percent on television).   But it sure sounded nice, and being in a garage right by Charlie's funeral, it was bound to bring not just a smile but a tear to the eye.

A lot of the show was about Charlie, back in the flesh in the prequel before the very episode of the series, which took up about half of this farewell episode.  The other half is what happens to our team in the aftermath of Charlie's death.

Everyone lands on their feet, some even promoted.  Is that realistic?   I don't know - I've never been part of a news team - but it felt right for this series.   As far as personal relationships go, everyone also landed on their feet, and, given the frustrated love that animated so much of the series until now, these happy endings seemed realistic, too, part of the universe righting the balance in favor of some happiness.

Jim and Maggie will stay together with a long-distance relationship - but not that long-distance, given the proximity of New York and Washington - while Jim's promoted to MacKenzie's job and Maggie may be on her way to the job of her dreams.   Don and Sloan are finally happily together also, with neither getting a promotion.   And Will and MacKenzie are having a baby, as MacKenzie is getting  promoted to Charlie's position.

Too much happiness?  Hey, these characters are entitled to it, not only after all the unrequited love they've endured, but the often gruesome nature of the news they were daily obliged to cover.   And we the audience deserve it, too, as a remembrance of a show the likes of which have never been seen on television before, and not likely to be any time soon, again.


analysis of the first two seasons

See also The Newsroom 3.1: Media on Media ... The Newsroom 3.2: Ethics in High Relief ... The Newsroom 3.3: Journalism at the Barricades ... The Newsroom 3.4: McLuhanesque "Books Are Like the New Art"... The Newsroom 3.5: Penultimate Prescient

And see also The Newsroom Season 2 Debuts on Occupy Wall Street and More ... and (about Trayvon Martin) If Only There Was a Video Recording ... The Newsroom 2.2: The Power of Video ... The Newsroom 2.7: Autopsy of a Bad Decision ... The Newsroom 2.8: The Course of True Love ... The Newsroom Season 2 Finale: Love, Triumph, and Wikipedia

And see also The Newsroom and McLuhan ... The Newsroom and The Hour ...The Newsroom Season 1 Finale: The Lost Voice Mail

 
a little news in this story too

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

Marco Polo: Evocative History

I just finished watching the remarkable television tableau that is Marco Polo.  It was said by some to be Netflix's answer to Game of Thrones, but it's really nothing like that high fantasy of knight and dragon, because Marco Polo is about a real man who lived in and changed history.   In that sense, it's more like Rome, but not so much like that HBO masterpiece either, peopled as it was by not one but many real characters from history, whom we know pretty well, ranging from Julius Caesar to Cicero to Antony and Cleopatra.  Maybe The Vikings would be the closest fit, a history with hardly anyone we know.  But in truth Marco Polo not only has a story but a feel and presentation all its wondrous own.

The action after the beginning of the first episode all takes place in China, though the Europe of 1273 and The Silk Road that connected them are in everyone's thoughts and speech.   Marco Polo, who in our real history was a pathbreaking merchant who spent much time in the court of Kubla Khan, bringing marvels of the Orient back to Italy, is here much more than that, almost a Leonardo in his understanding of science and invention, and a poet with words as well.  This painting with words is what first gets him into Kubla's good graces, but Marco's facility for machines of war proves crucial in the battles the Mongols are fighting with the Song Dynasty (which I grew up seeing rendered as the Sung Dynasty).

The Chancellor of the Song is a brilliant adversary, who has beaten and may still be able to beat the Mongols.   On his side is an impenetrable wall and a secret new weapon, gunpowder.   What Kubla has is lethally good Mongol cavalry - who conquered more of the world than Alexander the Great or the Romans - and Marco.   Unless you know your history better than I do, you won't know who wins what battle until you see it on the screen.   (The winning weapon in the decisive battle is entirely true to recorded history.)

The personal duels are also excellent.  My favorite involved a blind monk, who is not only Marco's tutor in arms, but better than just about every fighter with sight, including more than one at the same time.   The ballet of Far Eastern interpersonal combat is excellent and a sight to behold.

Women play a major role in this story, with Kubla's wife smarter than he, and younger women not only good in bed but better in combat than many a man.   The cinematography is outstanding - looking like paintings I've seen in books and museums come to life - and the music is haunting, too, representing, I assume, real traditional Mongol music.

If I had to compare Marco Polo to other real historical drama on television, I'd say it's better than The Borgias, about as good as The Tudors and The Vikings, but not as good as Rome.  But that's high praise indeed in my book, and I highly recommend Marco Polo.





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Gracepoint Finale: Satisfying and More Realistic in the End

Well, I was having my doubts about Gracepoint - the American remake of the excellent British Broadchurch - all season, because there frankly were not enough differences between the two series to make the American Gracepoint worth watching.   I mean, well acted, for sure - David Tenant as the lead detective (now named Carver) was strong and sensitive, as he was as Hardy in Broadchurch, and Breaking Bad's Anna Gun was top-notch as his second in command Ellie Miller - but other than Carver not actually sleeping with the blonde inn keeper (a change for the worse), I can't recall any significant differences between the two series.

Until tonight's ending - which I've got to say, was better than the ending of Broadchurch.  Joe Miller as the killer was a stretch in Broadchurch, a wild enough twist, except that it was mostly unmotivated.   The same would have been true in Gracepoint, where we saw even less of Joe through the story than we did of Joe in Broadchurch - so Gracepoint went ahead and pulled out another rabbit from the narrative hat, and one which makes more sense.

Tom, furious at what he saw going on between his father and Danny, swings at his father with a hockey stick and hits Danny.   And then, to protect his son - and feeling guilty because it was his, Joe's, lust for Danny that put of all this in motion - Joe takes the rap for Danny when he can't keep this all to himself any longer.  That makes more sense.

And it also opens the story up to what happens after, as Carver, the brilliant detective, begins to realize what actually happened, and moves to confront Ellie about it.   And that's where Gracepoint ends - at least, for now.  A good place to end, I think, with Carver's brooding face on the screen.

So, I would say that Gracepoint was worth watching, if only for this new, more satisfying and realistic ending, which was effective indeed.  Broadchurch is returning with a second season, which I'll definitely watch.  Hey, I'd be up for a second season of Gracepoint at this point, too.

See also Gracepoint Debuts: Deja Vu with a Vengeance

and see also  Broadchurch: Powerful Viewing ... Broadchurch 1.2: Brooding Excellence ... Broadchurch 1.3: The Spy ... Broadchurch 1.4: The Unusual Suspects ... Broadchurch 1.5: Good Loving and Almost Loving ... Broadchurch 1.6: "A Break from Being Sad" ... Broadchurch 1.7: Missing Links ... Broadchurch Season 1 Finale: "Lying Next to the Murderer"



A different kind of police fiction



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

Bones 200: 10.10: Just Like Bogey and Bacall

A delightful Bones 200 tonight - the 200th episode, 10th episode of the 10th season - which serves up Booth and Bones and all kinds of familiar characters in an alternate 1950s universe in a movie on the big screen.

It's in technicolor, replete with 1950s cinematic grand-sweep music, somewhere in the vicinity of Hitchcock and Bogey and Bacall in vintage delicious delivery and style.   Booth is a jewel thief - ala Cary Grant - and Bones is a police detective, working in a unit under her father, the Chief, played of course by Ryan O'Neal.  Angela's in the department, too - as a secretary - but she manages to fall for Hodgins, a brilliant scientist, anyway, just as he falls for her.

The interns abound in various places and even Pilant puts in an appearance, but presumably not as a psycho serial killer.   There's a great scene on a plane, in which the villain - Cam - finally gets her just desert, due to her greed as well as Booth's expert exertions.  I was glad to see this - Cam as villain - since Cam in our reality of Bones has been such an officious character in the past year or two.  Nah, only kidding - I like our Cam - but it was fun to see her in this role, and render her lines with barely a straight face.

It's fun to think about how far Bones has come since its 100th episode - you can see my review in the links below, for Season 5 - ok, here's the link right here for that review - which was also Hitchcockian, but in a different way, playing on unreliable flashbacks.  That episode also showed Bones and Booth in a much earlier relationship, and started and ended with kisses, which took a few good years to blossom into their full-fledged relationship today.   Bones 200 is also sealed with a kiss - the first for them in this story - which was refreshing because it, too, showed our two main characters first falling in love with each other.

The 1950s were a good time for the movies.  Bones and Booth and everyone fit in just perfectly, which just goes to show, again, that Bones is a series for the ages.

See also Bones 10.1: The Fulcrum Changes ... Bones 10.2: J. Edgar and the DNA Confession ... Bones 10.3: Meets Rush and a Dominatrix ... Bones 10.4: Brennan and Angela on a Bench in the Playground ... Bones 10.5: Two Jokes and Three Times ... Bones 10.6: A Thousand Cuts ... Bones 10.7: The A-Word and Quarks ... Bones 10.8: Daisy's Doula ... Bones 10.9: The Milgram Experiment and the Birds
And see also Bones 9.1: The Sweet Misery of Love ... Bones 9.2: Bobcat, Identity Theft, and Sweets ... Bones 9.3 and NCIS 11.2: Sweets and Ziva ... Bones 9.4: Metaphysics of Death in a Television Series ... Bones 9.5: Val and Deep Blue ... Bones 9.6: The Wedding ... Bones 9.7: Watch Out, Buenos Aires ...Bones 9.8: The Bug in the Neck ... Bones 9.9: Friday Night Bones in the Courtroom ... Bones 9.10: Horse Pucky ... Bones 9.11: Angels in Equations ... Bones 9.12: Fingernails ... Bones 9.13: Meets Nashville, and Wendell ... Bones 9.14: "You Cannot Drink Your Glass Away" ... Bones 9.15: Hodgins' Brother and the Ripped Off Toe ... Bones 9.16: Lampreys, Professors, and Insurance Companies ... Bones 9.17: Spartacus in the Kitchen ... Bones 9.18: Meets Day of the Triffids ... Bones 9.19: The Cornucopic Urn ... Bones 9.20: Above the Law ... Bones 9.21: Freezing and Thawing ... Bones 9.22: Promotion ... Bones 9.23: The New Intern ... Bones Season 9 Finale: Upping the Ante

And see also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera ... Bones 8.10-11: Double Bones ...Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil ... Bones 8.13: Two for the Price of One ... Bones 8.14: Real Life ... Bones 8.15: The Magic Bullet and the Be-Spontaneous Paradox ... Bones 8.16: Bitter-Sweet Sweets and Honest Finn ... Bones 8.17: "Not Time Share, Time Travel" ... Bones 8.18: Couples ... Bones 8.19: The Head in the Toilet ... Bones 8.20: On Camera ... Bones 8.21: Christine, Hot Sauce, and the Judge ... Bones 8.22: Musical-Chair Parents ... Bones 8.23: The Bluff ... Bones Season 8 Finale: Can't Buy the Last Few Minutes

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

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A different kind of police fiction


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

The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too"

It was good to see The Affair 1.8 tonight - I missed it last week.   The episode could have been titled "Noah to the rescue," which was the way Alison sees Noah, in her attempt to deal with her self-possessed mother and her grandmother's impeding death and after.

Significantly, Cole is as always wrapped up in his business - selling the ranch - and gives Alison almost no support - the support she needs and wants from him - in her struggle to come to terms with her grandmother's fate.  Cole of all people should understand why this is so painful and important to Alison, putting her in touch, as it does, with how she felt and still feels about the loss of their son.  But Cole is what he is, and even being good and loving in bed doesn't make him what Alison so keenly requires at this point in her life.

But Noah is.  In contrast to Cole's unaware remoteness,  Noah in one of his best scenes in the series seeks to comfort Alison by telling her the crucial truth that the loss of a parent or grandparent, wounding as it might be, is not in league with the anguish of losing a child.   Noah never lost a child (as far as we know).  But he's just a more sensitive person than Cole, and because of that he is what Alison most needs at this moment.

Since all of this occurs in Alison's story, what we're seeing here is her good opinion of Noah, and how he came through for her.  They don't (yet) sleep together again, but this will be the foundation of why they soon will, even though Noah was the one who ended that affair of the summer and Alison thus has every reason not to want to ever see him again, let alone in bed. The crucial exchange here is where Noah softly tells Alison, "I love you," and she replies, "I love you, too."  That says it all.

Meanwhile, we get a long view of Helen tonight - that is, how Noah sees Helen in the aftermath of his confession.  She doesn't accept his gift, and in the psychologist's office - played by Blair Brown (of recent Fringe fame, along with Joshua Jackson) - we learn that she married Noah because she thought he was "safe" - something which he certainly can't be happy to hear.

The conversation between Noah and his father-in-law Bruce is also important, because, like in A Christmas Carol, it gives Noah a glimpse of his future, and what he might well feel if he lets Alison vanish from his life.

The police detective is in menacing presence at the ends of both half hours. As I've previously said, I find this part of the story usually the least compelling.  The great strength of The Affair is its profound human drama, and I'm looking forward to more of that next week.

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
a different kind of love story 

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The Newsroom 3.5: Penultimate Prescient

A mind-blowing, heart wrenching Newsroom 3.5 tonight.

It was, first of all, prescient, in its treatment of rape on college campuses. The news doesn't change as much we think in a year and a half.   Most of the major stories in our news today - Middle East turmoil, killer diseases, police killing of unarmed African-American men and boys - were sadly happening in June 2013, too.   And so was rape on campus.  But the parallel of the UVA story in our news and what ACN was investigating at Princeton - including the role of the media, social and traditional - was uncanny.  I just put up a blog post about this on Friday.

There was some good news, long desired, in tonight's episode, too.   Maggie and Jim are finally together, and that was a relief to see.   It took way too long.  The course of true love never did run smooth, especially when it involved two idiosyncratic people - but mainly a guy too shy - working in a newsroom no less.

The Will story was a piece of cinematic art all in itself.  He's in jail, supposedly in solitary confinement, except he has having a conversation with a wife beater (played, by the way, by the guy who plays the priest in Gracepoint).  I was suspicious of this all along, because, why would Will be locked up with a violent criminal - in a Fed prison for being held in contempt of court, a white collar crime if ever there was one.  Still, the coda to this little tale, when Will takes down the pix on the wall, and we see what his abusive father looked like, was a rich touch indeed.

The ACNGage story was also very much ripped from today's headlines, in which the tracking of celebrities has taken on a new and disturbing ubiquity in our age of citizen journalism, apps, and smart phones and tablets.  At least one student in the class on "Digital Media and Public Responsibility" I'm just finishing up teaching this term at Fordham did a report on this problem just last week.

And then there's Charlie.   There was no way he could have continued under Pruitt.  And what happened to him tonight was certainly more satisfying to the narrative requirement that he leave than his just quitting.  Even so, it was a sad, traumatic, kick-in-the-gut moment.

Much as fans of The Newsroom, including me, will feel when the show itself ends for good - or, in this case, for no good reason - next week.


analysis of the first two seasons

See also The Newsroom 3.1: Media on Media ... The Newsroom 3.2: Ethics in High Relief ... The Newsroom 3.3: Journalism at the Barricades ... The Newsroom 3.4: McLuhanesque "Books Are Like the New Art"

And see also The Newsroom Season 2 Debuts on Occupy Wall Street and More ... and (about Trayvon Martin) If Only There Was a Video Recording ... The Newsroom 2.2: The Power of Video ... The Newsroom 2.7: Autopsy of a Bad Decision ... The Newsroom 2.8: The Course of True Love ... The Newsroom Season 2 Finale: Love, Triumph, and Wikipedia

And see also The Newsroom and McLuhan ... The Newsroom and The Hour ...The Newsroom Season 1 Finale: The Lost Voice Mail

 
a little civil disobedience in this story too

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