Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 305

Ray Donovan 2.1: Back in Business

The key to understanding Ray Donovan is that he can handle more crises in a day than most mortals could deal with a week or a month.   In last night's season two premiere, he puts out or contains fires regarding each of his kids, gets a client in a position to win a major television talent contest after she's been wounded by a bullet, and manages to find his irrepressible father in Mexico.   Ray usually does this with only a scratch or three to show for it, and as long as he can get his hands on a new shirt to replace the one he has which has blood on it - usually not his - he's in business.

Last season - two weeks ago in narrative time - Mickey killed Sully, the White Bulger-like character brilliantly played by James Woods, and to get out of being nabbed by the law for this now, Ray has to pin it on his father. Actually, all of the roles are brilliantly played in this series, including the tour-de-force performance of Liev Schreiber as Ray, and especially Jon Voight as Ray's father Mickey, which may be the best acting of Voight's career, with the possible exception of Midnight Cowboy.  In Ray Donovan, Voight pulls off a remarkable performance of a character who is both lovable and despicable at almost the same time.   Indeed, in 2.1, we see these traits in evidence at precisely the same time, as Mickey supports his son Darryl in the ring (having previously welcomed him with open arms as a son), roots his heart out for him, and then collects money he made on betting against him.  A father from hell and heaven at the same time.

Ray has been much more in touch with the hell than the heaven part of Mickey, and their unresolved -to say the last - relationship is at the heart of the series.   Ray has actually been moved a tiny way towards the positive side of this ledger, apparently not wanting to kill Mickey just now, and needing him to take the fall - again - for Ray.   Everyone else in the family - Ray's wife and two kids, as well as his three brothers - are in Mickey's corner, more or less, though Darryl is now moving into an alliance with Ray contra Mickey after seeing his father raking in money for Darryl's loss as he's on the floor of the ring.

This is not only Irish family narrative but television at its best, and it's good indeed to see Ray Donovan back on the air.

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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Rectify 2.4: Jekyll and Hyde

Jekyll and Hyde - from "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," the novella by Robert Louis Stevenson published in 1886, which has become a shorthand in our lexicon for good and consummate evil as alternate personalities of one person - has always been at the center of Daniel Holden's story in Rectify.  But in episode 2.4 last night, it took center stage in a delicate and magnificent performance.

The Jekyll or Daniel-as-good part of the story starts with a brief Odyssey-like trip he takes to Atlanta, and a group of women he encounters and charms with his intellect at an art exhibition.   He discourses with them like a critic for The New Yorker not only about art but music and books, including how reading Tobias Wolff's brutally powerful short story, "Bullet in the Brain," calmed him by "bending time" or his perception of time, which we but the ladies don't know was on death row.  He also tells the women that his name is Donald and he owns a small bookstore, adding to the unreal quality of this whole encounter.  But his gentleness, as it is whenever he displays it in this series, is as real as can be.

Indeed, it is even more in evidence in the second stop in this journey, when Daniel pays a call on the mother and brother of Kerwin, his friend and supporter on death row, who unlike Daniel was executed. Kerwin never wavered in his belief in Daniel's innocence, but as with everything else in Rectify, that question pertains not to what Daniel may have become in prison, but what he was beforehand.  When Daniel talks to Kerwin's family, it is as if they have been visited by an angel.   Daniel maintains his gentle side even in a later scene, when he is accosted by a nuisance in a diner, and tells him he's heard enough of his "boring stories".   And in the final scene in this journey, as Daniel rips apart his kitchen, he's doing this on the side of the good as well, because that's what his mother wants and his stepfather does not - to build a new kitchen.

But the implied aggression in tearing down a kitchen is a good place to segue to the Hyde part of this episode, which in fact is not in the episode at all in real time, but is called into focus when Teddy decides to tell the Sheriff about Daniel's close-to-depraved choking out of Teddy last year (last week in narrative time), pulling his pants down, and giving his ass a plastering of symbolic coffee grounds.   Why Teddy decided to now tell the Sheriff is not clear, but at this point is less important than its reminder that Daniel is capable of doing this.  And lest we thought that that plastering was a result of what Daniel experienced in prison - which I still think is pretty much the case - the Sheriff reminds us that he knew what Daniel "was capable of" 20 years ago.  This is an important statement, because it shows us that the Sheriff, who last week (yesterday in narrative time) was so disappointed that he couldn't get Bobby Dean for beating Daniel, has no illusions about Daniel, and thinks that Daniel was certainly involved in some kind of violent, evil activity 20 years ago, which we may or may not have seen, and presumably having some connection to Hanna's murder.

Sheriff Daggett is in fact at the dead center of this whole story, being the only character I can think of who apparently is not biased for or against Daniel, but only goes on the facts as he knows them.   It will be interesting to see what further of those facts there are, as this unique and riveting story unfolds.


See also Rectify 2.1: Indelible ... Rectify 2.2: True Real Time ... Rectify 2.3: Daniel's Motives

And see also Rectify: Sheer and Shattering Poetry ... Rectify 1.5: Balloon Man ... Rectify Season 1 Finale: Searingly Anti-Climactic

 
another kind of time bending

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The Bridge 2.1: What Motivates Sonya?

The Bridge was back for its second season last night, replete with Demian Beschir's just perfect song under the opening credits, and as moody and compelling and nearly weird throughout as it was last time.

What interested me most in this second season debut is Sonya - and, in her particular, her sleeping with the brother of her sister's killer.   The brother understandably feels increasingly uncomfortable in this situation, but Sonya's charms are unsurprisingly more than enough to win him over.   Still, he leaves as soon as he can after the act.

But what is ultimately motivating Sonya?  Her Aspergers always makes her sexual encounters awkward - which translates to interesting, funny, moving, heart-rending, even profound at some points - but this was something different and more.   As by-the-book as she is, I couldn't help feeling that at some point she might produce a knife or a gun and kill her lover, in retribution for what his brother did to her sister. But, ironically, that's what a more normal person might do in a fit of illogical rage in this situation, and Sonya is if nothing else refreshingly not normal.   Indeed, in the scenes last night with Sonya and the guy, the most normal aspect of Sonya's behavior is her beautiful smile (thanks to Diane Kruger) - which more than anything else is what ultimately gets him in bed.

Marco, on the other hand, is normal from head to toe, which makes him more predictable, but therefore far more dangerous that Sonya, since Marco is out to settle scores without Sonya's complex overlay.   In a series peopled with some of the most serious nut cases to come down the road - headed by Linder, whom I still can't figure out, including his connection to the main plot lines - Marco, along with Hank (who, as I mentioned last year, has ample cross-series experience working with good police with troubled mentalities, given actor Tad Levine's work on Monk), serve as the necessary bedrocks of sanity in this dark and darker but realistic world.

Good to be back on The Bridge!

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

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Tyrant 1.3: A New Leaf?

I thought the first two episodes of Tyrant were excellent indeed.  Not so episode 1.3 last night, in which not much progress was made in the lives of any of the characters.

The scenes were still visually evocative.  But Barry, for all his efforts to do some good, ends up pretty much as he had begun in the episode, reluctantly but increasingly unalterably staying with his brother and his country.   His realization that  he couldn't do this alone, that he needed his wife, was nice, but his wanting to send his wife and kids home in the first place wasn't very believable.

Meanwhile, though Jamal is speaking more humanely, his actions show little change.  Though Barry gets the better of the General in Jamal's presence, Jamal is certainly not doing anything to remove the General or even curtail his powers.  Leila seems pretty sincere in her attempt to live as a wife in all ways with Jamal, but as he points out, he can't (yet) be a man, and surely she knows this, so why is she tempting him?  Possibly because she hopes this might coax him to full health and function, but, if so, that wasn't made very clear.

Sammy's gay encounter was a step forward for him,  if predictable, but so far his sister Emma has had no role at all.   We're obliged to guess why Ahmed was rebuffed by his new wife - the key, I guess, resides in her promising that it's for just "one night"- but knowing works better than guessing when the characters are in their first stages of getting known by the audience.

The best of the episode belonged to Jamal, as it did last week.  There was something very human when he says, well, his first day as President has ended, and his country is still intact.   He's so far the most interesting character on the show, with an occasionally disarming honestly that makes us think that it just might be true that he's trying to turn over a new leaf, as he says at the end to his brother.

See also: Tyrant: Compelling Debut ... Tyrant 1.2: The Brother's Speech and His Wife

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Under the Dome 2.2: Whodunnit

A pretty good second episode of the new second season of Under the Dome on Monday night.   We were treated to more of a murder mystery than anything science fictional or fantastical, but that's ok.

And it was the kind of murder story in which we already know the murderer. As we saw last week, that girl who came out of the river and was presumably doing the dome's bidding killed Angie.  But she's so sweet and vulnerable and likely doesn't remember what she did, that Julia, for one, and contrary to her lover Barbie,  thinks she's innocent even though a bloody footprint was found near the murder scene, and the footprint was the girl's size.

In addition to Barbie, Junior and Angie's brother Joe are sure the girl did it - based on the footprint. Actually, Barbie's not as sure as Junior and Joe, who want to take the law into their own hands and kill the girl themselves, right away, without even a trial.

Fortunately for the girl, the new guy from out in the woods - Joe's uncle, etc - has some medical experience, and finds evidence that Angie was literally manhandled when she was killed.  Given that we saw what actually happened last week, how can this be?

Several possible answers:

1. The dome turned the girl into a man, but I'm pretty sure we saw no evidence of that last week.

2. The dome just laid in the prints to save the girl, and this strategy apparently worked.

3. There's another man who wanted to get his hands on Angie - perhaps the medical guy himself from the woods - though, again, we saw what we saw last week.

Anyway, this murder of Angie has made the series at least a little more interesting than it was last season, and it'll be fun to see where that goes.

See also Under the Dome 2.1: The Lever
And see also Under the Dome: Superior Summer Science Fiction ... Under the Dome 1.2: Adrenaline and Seepage ... Under the Dome 1.3: Way Under ...Under the Dome 1.4: Good Night for Junior, Until ... Under the Dome 1.5: vs the Bomb ... Under the Dome 1.6: Sentient Biosphere ... Under the Dome 1.7: The Nucleus ... Under the Dome 1.8: The Monarch ... Under the Dome 1.9: The New Woman ... Under the Dome 1.10: The 4th Hand ... Under the Dome 1.11: Benefactor ... Under the Dome 1.12: Incommunicado ...Under the Dome 1.13: Here Comes the Sun
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Falling Skies 4.3: Still Falling

Falling Skies 4.3 on Sunday night had little to commend.   The main and best story had Tom, Weaver, Hal, and Pope getting the better of Skitters, with Pope showing some surprising bravery - but actually it wasn't surprising, because we've seen all of that before, and more than once.   That being the case, the only mild surprise was that Pope survived.

Anne is now together with Lexi, and that has some plot possibilities, but so far the most satisfying scene in that pseudo-paradise is Maggie telling Lourdes off for being so irritating, and, unfortunately, she's irritating to the audience, too.  Matt in the Nazi-youth camp is showing a few signs of life, but we've seen that story a hundred times before, most recently in the late lamented Revolution.

So, what happened to Falling Skies?  It was never a great series, but it started out pretty well, and had some very good moments in the early seasons, when the story was closer to the ground of reality and real people, and their struggle to survive in a stunned world nearly shattered and taken over by alien invaders.   At this point, the story has stalled and almost seems like a bad dream, which we've seen before as well.

I don't how much longer I'll watch and review Falling Skies.    I'm beginning to feel that the whole process of watching and writing about Falling Skies is itself some kind of minor disaster movie.   Boredom is closing in.  I can hear it pounding on the door.  The lights are flickering.   I'll keep blogging about this as long as I can . . .

See also Falling Skies 4.1: Weak Start ... Falling Skies 4.2: Enemy of my Enemy

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

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24 Season 9.11: Partial Redemption

The biggest news in terms of character development in 24 episode 9.11 is the partial redemption - not of Jack, who is always redeemed, 100%, as far as I'm concerned - but of Mark, who dug himself a pretty deep hole not only with the United States, but Audrey, if she ever found out what he tried to do with Jack.

But Mark showed some impressive smarts and bravery as he gets into the Russian compound and even gets the drop on Mr. Clean, aka the head of this Russian business, who is meaner than Mr. Clean and also has a mustache and may be a rogue Russian to boot.   Unfortunately, he dies in the struggle, which leaves Jack without a way finding out where Chang might be.

Jack deserves credit in this operation as well for seeing that Mark could still have value, and could do more good outside than inside a holding facility for traitors as President Heller wanted.  Which brings us to Audrey.

In another great, emotionally satisfying conversation with Jack - they've been several this fine season - Audrey tells Jack that she never hated him, and encouraged him to do whatever he needed to do to save the world.  You can almost believe that the two could work well together again.  After all, though Mark redeemed himself as an American operative, it's not likely that Audrey would ever forgive him for what he tried to have done to Jack.   So there's a path we can see for Jack and Audrey to get back together.  (Full disclosure: I still prefer Jack and Kate.)

Except now it looks as if Chang has her again - the very same Chang that made her catatonic in the first place.   So, for Jack and Audrey to get together, he has to not only rescue her, but make sure she's not too traumatized again by Chang.   Some high value personal resolutions ahead in the season finale next week, not to mention the state of world peace.  I'll be watching every ticking second.

See also 24 Season 9 Hours 1 and 2: The Sheer Intelligent Adrenalin Is Back ... 24 Season 9.3: Shades of Disloyalties ... 24 Season 9.4: Brass Tacks and Strong Women ... 24 Season 9.5: Jack and Audrey .. 24 Season 9.6: Expendable In-Laws ... 24 Season 9.7: Silent Clock in President Heller's Future ... 24 Season 9.8: Clearing the Deck ... 24 Season 9.9: The Reason for No Silent Clock, Misleading Coming Attractions, and the New Villain ... 24 Season 9.10: Every Card on the Table

And see also Season 8 reviews: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5 ...Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hour 8 ... Hour 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hour 11 ... Hour 12... Hour 13 ... Hour 14 ... Hours 15-16 ... Hour 17 ... Hour 18 ... Hour 19... Hour 20 ... Hour 21 ... Hour 22 ... 24 Forever!

And see also Season 7 reviews: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5... Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hour 8 ... Hour 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hours 11-12 ...Hour 13 ... Hour 14 ... Hour 15 ... Hour 16 ... Hour 17 ... Hour 18 ... Hour 19 ... Hour 20 ... Hour 21 ... Hour 22  ... Hours 23-24  

And see also Season 6 reviews: Hours 1 and 2 ... Hours 3 and 4 ... Hour 5 ... Hour 6 ... Hour 7 ... Hours 8 and 9 ... Hour 10 ... Hour 11 ... Hour 12 ... Hour 13 ... Hour 14 ... Hour 15 ... Hour 16 ... Hour 17 ... Hour 18... Hour 19 ... Hour 20 ... Hour 21 ... Hour 22 ... Hours 23-24

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Rectify 2.3: Daniel's Motives

Why?   Why did Daniel lie to Sheriff Daggett in Rectify 2.3 and say he didn't recognize Bobby Dean as one of the people who nearly bear him to death, when we and Daniel know that Bobby Dean did it? Daggett is understandably nonplussed, Amantha is understandably livid, but let's look at this from Daniel's point of view and see if we can understand why he gave Bobby Dean a get-out-of-jail free card.

Daniel to say the least has seen the horror of prison.  Indeed, the episodes this year, especially the first, have gone out of their way to show how soul-crushing Daniel's time on death row was.   Could Daniel's refusal to implicate Bobby Dean derive from Daniel's unwillingness to be responsible for sending any other man to prison, even one who nearly savagely killed him?   Perhaps.

Let's look at the other end of the continuum.   When Amantha screams at Daniel about how could he just let Bobby Dean go with no retribution, Daniel mutters something to the effect that that's not necessarily the case. What was Daniel alluding to?  That he would punish Bobby Dean with his own hands?   Also, perhaps.   Or, could Daniel have been thinking that Bobby Dean will pay the price of living with the memory of his nearly killing someone, as maybe Daniel feels about his beating of Teddy, or maybe about something much worse?

Or, might Daniel have a completely different motive for keeping Bobby Dean out of jail?   If this were more of a high-puzzle murder mystery than a scathing and tender examination of the human psyche - Rectify of course is both, but it's more of the latter - than perhaps Daniel might want to keep Bobby Dean out of prison, as a way of ultimately proving that someone other than Daniel - maybe Bobby Dean? - was the murderer.

And then there's the other, worst side of this.   If there's any chance at all that Daniel indeed was responsible for killing Hanna, then he would not want to punish someone who was beating him for good reason. It's almost impossible to believe that someone with Daniel's gentleness could hurt anyone. But we did see him beat Teddy last season, and it's a measure of how superb this drama is that we can eve contemplate that question.

See also Rectify 2.1: Indelible ... Rectify 2.2: True Real Time

And see also Rectify: Sheer and Shattering Poetry ... Rectify 1.5: Balloon Man ... Rectify Season 1 Finale: Searingly Anti-Climactic

 
another kind of capital punishment story

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The City of Conversation at Lincoln Center

My wife and I saw "The City of Conversation" at Lincoln Center last night - beautifully staged in a small theater in the round, and telling a powerful political and personal story.

We see a family, already a bit dysfunctional but what family isn't, at three crucial points in American political history:  September 1979, October 1987, and January 2009.

The 1979 segment is about the final sunset on the progressive 1960s.   The heroine, Hester Ferris, has to defend her Kennedy-esque views against her son and his fiance, who surprisingly turn out to be Reagan conservatives.   Hester is still hoping that Teddy can save the day.   I thought so, too, in those days, but history said otherwise.

The Vietnam War and the damage it did to the American spirit was still very much in the air.   On that subject, my wife picked up this brief rendition about the Vietnam War from a gentleman explaining it to someone sitting in the row behind her.   "JFK started it, LBJ expanded it, and Nixon tried to get us out it." I guess two out of three ain't bad - Nixon's way of "trying" was to bomb North Vietnam and extend the bombing to Cambodia.  (If you'd like see to a truthful hour on the Vietnam War, watch the CNN episode of the "The Sixties".)

Back to the play on the stage, the other really powerful character is the son's fiance, Anna Fitzgerald, who provides an eloquent defense of Reagan and the hard-hat everyday American whom, she is sure, was bypassed in civil rights progress of the 1960s.   In the second era of the play, 1987, she has moved to an even more provocative position:  she prefers Republican men, she says, because they don't apologize for looking at her "ass".   What's at stake in this segment of the play is the end of Reagan era, as epitomized in the impending failure of his Bork nomination to the Supreme Court.

This part of the play was astonishingly relevant last night, given the Hobby Lobby decision, in which the swing voter Anthony Kennedy went with conservatives on the Court.  Kennedy was the nominee after Bork failed to attain Senate confirmation, and although he has been better than Bork on some decisions, his decisions on Bush v. Gore and now Hobby Lobby have been egregious.

In the play, Anna wants Hester to not publicly attack Bork, lest it hurt Hester's son, now working for a Republican Senator, and of course Anna, who is working for the Reagan Justice Department.   Anna eventually plays the ultimate card: she will not let Hester see her grandson, Ethan, if Hester continues with her plan to denounce Bork in the newspapers.   It's an exquisite moment in the play, as Hester refuses to be blackmailed by her daughter-in-law.

In the last segment, on the night of Obama's first inauguration, Ethan, now grown and gay, comes to visit his grandmother, with his partner - an African-American man who is a graduate student at Columbia. Ethan campaigned for Obama, and is going with his partner to the inaugural balls, so the tension we see with his grandmother is not political, but comes from his belief, stoked by his parents, that his grandmother didn't want to see him all of these years.   Their rapprochement was another emotional highpoint of this excellent play.

Written by Anthony Giardina (who has touches of Arthur Miller and David Mamet), well acted all around - with tour-de-force performances by Jan Maxwell as Hester and Kristen Bush as Anna - "The City of Conversation" was a perfect play to see in the eve of July 4, and indeed any time.




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Tyrant 1.2: The Brother's Speech and His Wife

A strong second episode of Tyrant on FX last night, featuring a superbly constructed and delivered speech to the people by, of all people, Jamal, who is sufficiently recovered to assume the leadership and give the speech.

But his speech tells us something very important about Jamal having nothing to do with his near death.   He is far more intelligent and erudite than we realized last week.  This should be no big surprise, given the keen intelligence and eloquence of the family, but it changes the picture significantly for Barry and our whole narrative.

Barry may be both stronger and more reflective than Jamal,  who welcomes Barry's advice and offer to stay in the country, but Jamal is much more Barry's equal than we previously supposed.  Barry's role as a second-in-command or whatever should be interesting indeed.

Meanwhile, we also found out a crucial piece of background in last night's episode, to wit, that Barry and Jamal's wife Leila have a romantic history, going back to when they were teenagers, apparently shortly before Barry left to America.   Sex was already sparse and troubled between Jamal and Leila before Barry arrived.   With a possible rekindling of Barry and Leila now, there's a huge minefield underneath whatever political arrangements Jamal and Barry may now make.

Leila, by the way, is a sharp cookie and a piece of tough work in her own right, threatening the presumably Israeli "Dr. Cohen" that she'll have her son Ari killed if any word of Jamal's condition shows up on "Twitter".   We saw last week that the rulers of Abbudin were social media savvy, and now we also learn that they're enlightened enough to retain an Israeli MD.   (Coincidentally, my own book, New New Media, is being prepared for Arabic translation and publication by Dar Al-Fajr Publishing out of Cairo even as we speak.   With any luck, maybe Leila will get a copy.)

But not all of the power structure of Abbudin is enlightened, as Barry's confrontation with his uncle General Tariq makes clear.   With Barry the voice of reason on one side, and Tariq and the old brutal guard on the other, it will be fun to see who wins the ultimate allegiance of Jamal.

Some good new series on television this summer, but, so far, Tyrant is far and away my favorite.

See also: Tyrant: Compelling Debut

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