Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 301

Hell on Wheels 4.6: Bear and Sanity

Another outstanding Hell on Wheels tonight - 2.7, the second great standalone episode in a row - in which we see what happened to Elam after his battle with the bear.

First, he survives.  No surprise - Common is too excellent an actor and Elam too important and powerful a character to die.  In many ways, he's been the soul of the show.

But the way in which Elam survives was a sight and a story to behold.  Taken in, nearly dead, by the Comanches, a powerful Southern Plains tribe, Elam is nursed back to physical but not quite mental health by people who see his killing of the bear as endowing him with the bear's powers. The presentation of this part of the story was an anthropological tour-de-force, with the only language being spoken throughout most of it being Comanche, giving us the same total immersion in this situation as Elam.

His lack of touch with reality soon becomes clear.  He kills the kindly old trapper who tries to tell Elam who he really is.  He joins the Comanches in a raid on an advance U.S. cavalry party, only to kill one of the main Comanche warriors when they return to their main camp.

Elam's motive represents his one beacon of sanity - getting back to Eva. He first sees a white woman captive of the Comanches as his - in effect, his new Eva - but concludes that her suggestion that he take her back to civilization as the best way of re-uniting with Eva makes sense.   And so the episode ends with Elam, the white woman, and two Indian women Elam has also taken along with him looking at the train tracks.

Next week, we should be in for another superb episode as Elam finally gets back into contact with Cullen and all of our people in Cheyenne.   How long it will take them to be his people again should be another story to behold.   In the meantime, we were treated to one of the best Native American hours of television to come down the track in quite some time.

See also Hell on Wheels 4.1-2: Rolling Again ... Hell on Wheels 2.5: New Blood

And see also Hell on Wheels 3.1-2: Bohannan in Command ... Hell on Wheels 3.3: Talking and Walking ... Hell on Wheels 3.4: Extreme Lacrosse ... Hell on Wheels 3.5: The Glove ... Hell on Wheels 3.6: The Man in Charge ...Hell on Wheels 3.7: Water, Water ... Hell on Wheels 3.8: Canterbury Tales ...Hell on Wheels 3.9: Shoot-Out and Truths ... Hell on Wheels Season 3 finale: Train Calling in the Distance

And see also  Hell on Wheels: Blood, Sweat, and Tears on the Track, and the Telegraph ... Hell on Wheels 1.6: Horse vs. Rail ... Hell on Wheels 1.8: Multiple Tracks ... Hell on Wheels 1.9: Historical Inevitable and Unknown ... Hell on Wheels Season One Finale: Greek Tragedy, Western Style

 
deeper history

#SFWApro



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

Hell on Wheels 2.6: Bear and Sanity

Another outstanding Hell on Wheels tonight - 2.7, the second great standalone episode in a row - in which we see what happened to Elam after his battle with the bear.

First, he survives.  No surprise - Common is too excellent an actor and Elam too important and powerful a character to die.  In many ways, he's been the soul of the show.

But the way in which Elam survives was a sight and a story to behold.  Taken in, nearly dead, by the Comanches, a powerful Southern Plains tribe, Elam is nursed back to physical but not quite mental health by people who see his killing of the bear as endowing him with the bear's powers. The presentation of this part of the story was an anthropological tour-de-force, with the only language being spoken throughout most of it being Comanche, giving us the same total immersion in this situation as Elam.

His lack of touch with reality soon becomes clear.  He kills the kindly old trapper who tries to tell Elam who he really is.  He joins the Comanches in a raid on an advance U.S. cavalry party, only to kill one of the main Comanche warriors when they return to their main camp.

Elam's motive represents his one beacon of sanity - getting back to Eva. He first sees a white woman captive of the Comanches as his - in effect, his new Eva - but concludes that her suggestion that he take her back to civilization as the best way of re-uniting with Eva makes sense.   And so the episode ends with Elam, the white woman, and two Indian women Elam has also taken along with him looking at the train tracks.

Next week, we should be in for another superb episode as Elam finally gets back into contact with Cullen and all of our people in Cheyenne.   How long it will take them to be his people again should be another story to behold.   In the meantime, we were treated to one of the best Native American hours of television to come down the track in quite some time.

See also Hell on Wheels 4.1-2: Rolling Again ... Hell on Wheels 2.5: New Blood

And see also Hell on Wheels 3.1-2: Bohannan in Command ... Hell on Wheels 3.3: Talking and Walking ... Hell on Wheels 3.4: Extreme Lacrosse ... Hell on Wheels 3.5: The Glove ... Hell on Wheels 3.6: The Man in Charge ...Hell on Wheels 3.7: Water, Water ... Hell on Wheels 3.8: Canterbury Tales ...Hell on Wheels 3.9: Shoot-Out and Truths ... Hell on Wheels Season 3 finale: Train Calling in the Distance

And see also  Hell on Wheels: Blood, Sweat, and Tears on the Track, and the Telegraph ... Hell on Wheels 1.6: Horse vs. Rail ... Hell on Wheels 1.8: Multiple Tracks ... Hell on Wheels 1.9: Historical Inevitable and Unknown ... Hell on Wheels Season One Finale: Greek Tragedy, Western Style

 
deeper history

#SFWApro



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

Falling Skies Season 4 Finale: Self-Sacrifice and Redemption

Well, although the two-hour Falling Skies Season 4 finale contained an all-too-obvious long dream sequence in the first hour, it nonetheless concluded with a pretty effective and emotionally moving series of events.

Tom struggles to forgive and trust Lexi for much of the finale, which makes her self-sacrificial destruction of the Espheni moonbase especially effective. His spinning out into space after the moonbase explodes - a needle in an ocean, as one of our heroes back on Earth observes - is a good way to conclude that part of this season's story, with the dessert of Tom finding some kind of alien breathtakingly beautiful a nice touch, too.

But, actually, I thought the best part of the finale was the paralyzing vapor with serpent attack back on Earth, and how our people coped with it.  Well, most of that, anyway.  Pope, unfortunately, has been reduced to comic relief, which makes him far less interesting than when he was something of a genuine threat.

But Weaver and Matt were good, as they've been most of the season, and Anne put in a good couple of flaming moments, too.   It was also encouraging to see Ben and Maggie using their superior powers and connection to save Hal, and the three of them then working together.  Tom would have been proud.

But Tom is apparently the furthest he's been from Earth and his family, and it will be interesting in the next and final season to see how he gets back.   It looks pretty definite, though you never know with science fiction television, that Lexi will be gone.  And that's kind of ironic.  She spent most of the season being one of the most irritating characters on the show, only to become a pretty convincing heroine in the end, to the point of sacrificing her life for the greater cause, and making all of us miss her.

And I'll be back with reviews of the final season of Falling Skies in 2015.

See also Falling Skies 4.1: Weak Start ... Falling Skies 4.2: Enemy of my Enemy ... Falling Skies 4.3: Still Falling ... Falling Skies 4.5: Cloudy ...Falling Skies 4.7: Massacre Indeed ... Falling Skies 4.8: Spike ... Falling Skies Espheni: How to Pronounce? ... Falling Skies 4.9: To the Moon, Anne, To the Moon ... Falling Skies 4.10: Lexi

And see also Falling Skies 3.1-2: It's the Acting ... Falling Skies 3.3: The Smile ... Falling Skies 3.4: Hal vs. Ben ... Falling Skies 3.6: The Masons ...Falling Skies 3.7: The Mole and a Likely Answer ... Falling Skies 3.8: Back Cracked Home ... Falling Skies Season 3 Finale: Dust in Hand

And see also Falling Skies Returns  ... Falling Skies 2.6: Ben's Motives ... Falling Skies Second Season Finale

And see also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story ... Falling Skies Concludes First Season

#SFWApro


no moon, no aliens, but other strange stuff


get Season 4 of Falling Skies on Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

Hell on Wheels 4.5: New Blood!

Hell on Wheels checked in with a great episode last night, mostly because it introduced one of the best new characters in the whole series, former Confederate brother-in-arms, Syd Snow.

Indeed, the opener, in which Snow barely escapes with his life from a hanging, could have come right out of a classic Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western, or at least a Robert Rodriguez movie.  Snow represents everything that Cullen was. We learn later that two two shot up and killed everyone on a Yankee medical train, including badly wounded soldiers and doctors.

But whereas Cullen has mostly put the past behind him, including the murder of his family - a soul-rending event that presumably Snow never went through - Snow is still very much living his wild and free Confederate days with abandon.   Not that Snow's shooting Yankees on sight any more, but he's ready to kill anyone who gets in his way.

Cullen likes Snow and his style and sense of humor, but not when Snow tells Cullen's wife about the Yankee train massacre, and even less when Snow may be on the verge of killing Cullen's wife, after Snow indeed sort of accidentally killed an innocent boy (Snow probably didn't know he was a boy) - a bystander to another great Western shoot-out - and then deliberately kills the store-owner who saw Snow kill the boy and calls him on it.   Cullen coming upon all of this as Snow has a gun pointed in Naomi's direction is the final straw.

Significantly, Naomi would have preferred Cullen kill Snow right there, rather than turn him over to the law, and this shows the crucial role Naomi plays now in Cullen's life and thus the series.   She wants that part of Cullen's life - the part that Snow epitomizes - not only locked up inside him, but gone, completely - blown clean out of his life.

It's great to see Hell on Wheels travel so deeply into its Western roots.   And along those lines, the episode had other memorable story lines, including Mickey satisfying killing one of the provisional Governor's goons, and Gregg Henry (The Killing!) putting in a fine performance as Brigham Young.

Hell on Wheels has fine head of steam now - and next week, Elam returns to the story.

See also Hell on Wheels 4.1-2: Rolling Again

And see also Hell on Wheels 3.1-2: Bohannan in Command ... Hell on Wheels 3.3: Talking and Walking ... Hell on Wheels 3.4: Extreme Lacrosse ... Hell on Wheels 3.5: The Glove ... Hell on Wheels 3.6: The Man in Charge ...Hell on Wheels 3.7: Water, Water ... Hell on Wheels 3.8: Canterbury Tales ...Hell on Wheels 3.9: Shoot-Out and Truths ... Hell on Wheels Season 3 finale: Train Calling in the Distance

And see also  Hell on Wheels: Blood, Sweat, and Tears on the Track, and the Telegraph ... Hell on Wheels 1.6: Horse vs. Rail ... Hell on Wheels 1.8: Multiple Tracks ... Hell on Wheels 1.9: Historical Inevitable and Unknown ... Hell on Wheels Season One Finale: Greek Tragedy, Western Style

 
deeper history

#SFWApro

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

Murder in the First: A Review

Catching up at summer's end with a review of  a series that I watched and liked a lot, but didn't have time to write about, finishing my latest novel, swimming as much as possible, and everything else: Murder in the First.

In a way, all ten episodes were like a top-notch Law and Order story, with a murder, arrest, trial, and then police work again, except presented over ten hours rather than one.   Did it work?  Yes, it did. Murder in the First was always enjoyable, sometimes outstanding, and memorably surprising at times.

My favorite part was the lawyerly action, with superb work by James Cromwell as Defense Attorney Daniels and excellent work by Richard Schiff as Hertzeberg, the defendant's personal attorney. Meanwhile, Tom Felton - best known for his performance as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies - put in a chillingly effective performance as Erich Blunt, a character who could be described as Mark Zuckerberg, if he were a sociopath.

Taye Diggs and Kathleen Robertson (who was fabulous in the first season of Boss) did a serviceable job as the detective team, Terry and Hildy, investigating the murder.   This creates an interesting issue as far as renewal, with one of the best characters, Blunt, no longer on the show, and Hertzberg not likely to be around, either.

But if Daniels is back as defense attorney with another good murder mystery, a second season of the Murder in the First could be excellent.   Indeed, it could be better than the first, if Terry and Hildy are pushed to take more chances, not only professionally but personally.   Their kiss made some critics uncomfortable, but I would've liked to see them go all out with a continuing liaison nibbling at the edges.

I do hope the series is renewed - I promise to be a more diligent reviewer if it is.


 another kind of crime story

#SFWApro Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

The Bridge 2.8: Parallel Stories

More important developments on The Bridge 2.8 last night.

Most significant is the evolving relationship between Sonya and Marco.   Having been disappointed in Hank last week, Sonya now has reason to feel the same about Marco. Given her Asperger's affect, however, it's hard to tell just how upset she is.  She was able to go see Hank, for permission to work with the DEA, even though she still has not forgiven him.  And with Marco, she asks him to leave, after she confronts him after learning that he and Fausto have a history that goes back a very long way.

In a nice and dangerous plot set-up, Sonya will now need Marco and Hank more than ever.  Fausto has hired an American hit-man to take care of her in a "clean" way.  I first thought he was going to try to kill her with a sniper bullet.  But at the end of the episode, she's kidnapped - presumably to make her death look somehow like it was by natural causes?

Meanwhile, Fausto may be close to extinction in Mexico.  He no longer enjoys the support of the businessman mob boss.  The Mexican Marines - I still like the old-term Federales - are after him, and he narrowly escapes their attack on his hideout.   But, significantly, just as Sonya is in her greatest danger, Fausto who put there is in the worst shape he's been so far.

This sort of parallelism has always been one of the hallmarks of The Bridge.   Not only are there parallel as well as intersecting developments on both sides of the bridge, in Juarez and El Paso, but there are parallel stories on either side of the bridge as well.   One of the reasons I'm liking this season more than the first is that the parallel stories are also converging.  The two reporters are thoroughly integrated into the main story, and Eva and Linder - though we saw a story totally their own in 2.8 - are close by.

Looking forward to more.

See also The Bridge 2.1: What Motivates Sonya? ... The Bridge 2.2: First-Class Serial Killer ... The Bridge 2.3: Marco's Dilemma ... The Bridge 2.4: Marco Redeemed and Mr. Writ Large ... The Bridge 2.5: The Soul of the Not-Killer ... The Bridge 2.7: Major Business

And see also The Bridge Opens Brooding and Valent ... The Bridge 1.2: A Tale of Two Beds ... The Bridge 1.6: Revelations ... The Bridge 1.7: A Killer and a Reluctant Professor ... The Bridge 1.8: Some Dark Poetic Justice ... The Bridge 1.9: Trade-Off ... The Bridge 1.10: Charlotte's Evolution ... The Bridge 1.11: Put to the Test ... The Bridge Season 1 Finale: Marco Joins Mackey and Agnew

 
another kind of crime story

#SFWApro


get The Bridge season 2 on Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

The Last Ship: The First Season

I thought I'd check in with a general review of The Last Ship, which finished its first season on TNT Sunday, and I've been watching and enjoying since I reviewed the first episode two months ago, back in June.

The Last Ship had a tough, well-tread row to hoe - or, in its case, sail.  We've seen the onset and aftermaths of deadly pandemics before, from Helix to The Walking Dead.   And the post-apocalypse scenario, with government tottering, breaking or broken down, has been on the television screen as recently as Revolution.

But The Last Ship did a good job of telling its plague and post-apocalypse story in an original, often exciting way.  The ports of call and the encounters of the crew were all good narratives.  The conflict with the Russian ship and commander was well played, and packed at least one big surprise.  And, best of all, the pursuit of a cure/vaccine proceeded in a believable way, which left room for success as well as disappointment.

It was also clear, at the end of the season finale, that The Last Ship caught the wave of impending apocalypse just right, and in most ways better than Revolution.   This is probably due to the proximity of our story to the onset of the plague, which allows all kinds of people in all kinds of positions and power to still be around as potential and actual characters.

What's most of interest, now, is whether the second season will take the ship back out to sea, or if we'll see more action in the U.S.A.   Intrinsic to the first season was the running of a ship - chain of command, loyalty to the commander, all the things we've come to expect and appreciate in these kinds of stories.   But I won't miss that, overly, if the story spends more time on solid ground, with the last ship as metaphor as well as reality.

See also: The Last Ship Debuts: Helix Meets Last Resort


 not quite apocalypse, yet

#SFWApro


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

Outlander 1.1-3: The Hope of Time Travel

I was drawn to the Outlander series on Starz, because, as all of you devoted and casual readers of this blog well know, time travel is one of my passions, as a viewer, reader, and author.  In addition, the retooled Battlestar Galactica on the SyFy Channel a few years, by Ronald D. Moore, is one of my favorite series ever on television, period, and Outlander, based on the novels by Diana Gabaldon, is Moore's baby on television.

The story certainly is firmly situated in time travel.  Claire, a newly married nurse in Britain in 1945, somehow slips through time and finds herself in the tumultuous Scotland of 1747.   But, so far, in the first three episodes at least, there's little more than a dash of time travel in this excellent historical narrative.

Indeed, we actually get a double historical narrative in Outlander, because 1945 is after all history to us, too.   But almost all the action after the first episode has been in 1747, where we meet a bow-legged Laird, and all kinds of colorful characters.   Claire's being a nurse makes her a good character for a time travel scenario, given that she brings to 1747 the greatly evolved medical knowledge of 1945.  But the main time travel in the story so far, other than her falling through time, is her interior monologues, interestingly consisting of her musing about how she can apply her future medical knowledge without arousing too much suspicion.

Instead of time travel, we get an immersion in the politics of the time, and a brewing flirtation between Claire and a handsome Scot soldier.  This creates a significant tension, since Claire's happily married in 1945 - but it's worth pointing out that someone who looks just like her husband is a no-good Brit in 1747, played by Tobias Menzies of Rome and all kinds of other fame.  If all of this were Claire's dream, her husband being a bad guy in 1747 would say something about her marriage in 1945 - but presumably, this is real not a dream.   So, what's someone who looks exactly like her husband doing back in 1747?   Surely not coincidence.  Did he time travel, too?   But, if so, how come he didn't recognize Claire?

I'll keep watching Outlander, but more for the historical romance than the time travel, which at this point is more of a hope than a reality.

 
Sierra Waters series, #1, time travel

#SFWApro Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

Tyrant Season 1 Finale: The Truest Tyrant

Well, the Tyrant season 1 finale was disappointing.   Here's why -

The whole story this season worked on the premise that Barry knew what he was doing.  Over and over again, he came out on top with his passion and savvy - including pushing the U.S. to continue supporting his coup when the U.S. wanted to pull out.  Given that Barry is such a shrewd and powerful political operator, despite his being a pediatrician, how could have failed so badly tonight?

That failure, though it was a nice twist, also shatters our suspension of disbelief about Barry - suspending the logic that an American, even if he is the son of Middle East dictator, could never really put together a successful coup against his brother.

Indeed, Jamal had shown himself crafty and even brilliant in his own right, too.  It makes perfect sense that he would be a little suspicious of his nervous in-law, who would then blurt out the whole truth. How could Barry not have seen this?

He's a neophyte at coups, ok.   But he was a neophyte at just about everything else on the series, and he succeeded at just about all of them.

I still enjoyed the season - very much, including most of tonight's episode - and I hope it comes back for another go.  Jamal, though a flawed leader, was given a stellar performance by Ashraf Barhom - who was indeed the best actor on the show, along with Moran Atias, who powerfully played his powerful wife.  Jamal and Barry's mother was given a winning performance by Alice Krige, too.   The brief scene in which she pleads with Jamal to spare Barry's life was one of the best this season.

So, yes, I want to see more of this story - including, most especially, what happens to Jamal - revealed tonight as the truest tyrant in Abuddin.

See also: Tyrant: Compelling Debut ... Tyrant 1.2: The Brother's Speech and His Wife ... Tyrant 1.3: A New Leaf? ... Tyrant 1.4: Close to the Bone ...Tyrant 1.6: Don't Mess with Jamal ... Tyrant 1.7-8: Coup ... Tyrant 1.9: Tariq

#SFWApro



get Tyrant season 1 on Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

Falling Skies 4.10: Lexi

One of the problems with Falling Skies this season has been the near-hopelessness of the human cause. Reduced to little more than a ragtag band, beset not only by the Espheni but by Lexi, who apparently was joining the Espheni cause and was waging something definitely not peace, our heroic few were driven to the shoot for the moon in last week's important episode.

But something just as or even more important happened in last night's 4.10:  Lexi is back with us!   She overhears her Espheni father and uncle planning on doing away with her - because the uncle, in particular, is concerned that she might be too loyal to her human side (just as our people are concerned about the slip side of that coin, that Lexi is too loyal to the Espheni) - and, just as her father is about to wring her neck, she uses her new found powers, that the father was training her to use, to kill the father. Good move for us.

It's still not clear, though, exactly who her parents are.   Anne's definitely her mother, ok.  But she calls Tom her father when she returns to our camp.  But if Tom's her father, where did the Espheni come in? As I've been saying since last season, probably Tom's reproductive DNA was fused with some Espheni genes when he was captive, before he slept with Anne, but it would nice if that were explained a little.

Nonetheless, Lexi with the humans definitely equals the odds and maybe more, which makes this a significant development for human-Espheni battles from now on.  She was able to kill not only her "father," but numerous Espheni air craft at the end of the episode.

Lots of good humor in this episode, too.  My favorite is Hal, talking to Ben about how they both want Maggi, opining that in a few years she'll likely marry Matt.

We won't likely see that, of course, the next season being the final one for Falling Skies, but it will be good nonetheless to see next week's Season 4 2-hour finale, and next season, too.

See also Falling Skies 4.1: Weak Start ... Falling Skies 4.2: Enemy of my Enemy ... Falling Skies 4.3: Still Falling ... Falling Skies 4.5: Cloudy ...Falling Skies 4.7: Massacre Indeed ... Falling Skies 4.8: Spike ...Falling Skies Espheni: How to Pronounce?

And see also Falling Skies 3.1-2: It's the Acting ... Falling Skies 3.3: The Smile ... Falling Skies 3.4: Hal vs. Ben ... Falling Skies 3.6: The Masons ...Falling Skies 3.7: The Mole and a Likely Answer ... Falling Skies 3.8: Back Cracked Home ... Falling Skies Season 3 Finale: Dust in Hand

And see also Falling Skies Returns  ... Falling Skies 2.6: Ben's Motives ... Falling Skies Second Season Finale

And see also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story ... Falling Skies Concludes First Season

#SFWApro


no moon, no aliens, but other strange stuff

get Season 4 of Falling Skies on Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music