Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 318

The Good Wife 5.13: NSA on Television

The Good Wife roared back with episode 5.13 last night, pulling back into play the NSA and stories ranging from Peter's campaign to Alicia's drug king client.  The NSA connection couldn't have been more apt, given Julian Assange's Skype talk to SXSW a few days ago and Edward Snowden's Skype talk to the same today.

On The Good Wife, our happy duo at the NSA are tapping into Alicia's conversations and everyone she is connected to.  Alicia pretty quickly realizes her conversations are being overheard, but it's not until near the end of the episode that Cary puts some of the pieces together and realizes the bugging goes beyond the DEA.   Alicia and Cary are able to use this info to get their client off, but their troubles - and those of most of the other central characters - are just beginning.

Peter looks as if he's in the hottest water for the next episode.  The NSA has been sharing its wiretaps not only with the DEA, but with a Department of Justice force looking at integrity in government.  The DOJ group got its hands on the videotape of ballot boxes being moved on Election Day in Illinois. Now they're putting the pressure on Will to tell what he knows.   The time he was Peter's lawyer shields him, but only partially.   If anything untoward happened after Peter was Will's client - and we know that it did - Will could be brought up on obstruction charges for not cooperating.

The episode ends with Will refusing to cooperate, and putting himself at risk for someone he doesn't particularly like, to say the least.  But he still loves Alicia - that's been clear in his anger at her for leaving the firm - and this makes for one of the most volatile situations in the history of this volatile series.  Alicia would want Will to protect Peter, if possible - but to the point of Will going to prison himself?  Tough to call, but I just don't think so.

About the only way out of this for Alicia and all concerned is for the NSA to stop the DOJ in its tracks in this investigation - prevent DOJ from using anything related to what the NSA provided.  Will they do that?   We'll know more in the next two weeks.   But what we've seen already should be a wake-up call to what NSA can do not just on a television show but in our real lives, as well.

See also 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 ... I Dreamt I Called Will Gardner Last Night ... The Good Wife 5.11: Bowling Bowls and Bogdanovich

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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True Detective Season One Finale: Light Above Darkness

Well, the ending of the ending of the first season of True Detective on HBO - by which I mean, starting at the moment that Rust and the psycho are in that room, right up to moment that Marty takes Rust towards the car outside the hospital - is about the best, longest extended ending of anything I've seen in a long while if ever on television.

The ending does but a few things, but the things are profound indeed, and the ending does them extraordinarily well.

Rust and Marty's relationship is at last repaired.   In retrospect, it could never have been repaired with their sicko quarry still at large.  Even coming to terms with Rust's sleeping with Marty's wife, which Marty and Rust sort of do earlier in the episode, would't have been enough.  They had to get their monster.  And they did with a crucial assist from Marty in recognizing the house in the photograph.

And their conversation, from the front of the hospital to the world beyond, was a thing of wisdom and beauty.   Rust confessing the attraction of leaving this world for him, to asking Marty to take him away from the hospital where he might have died, was a little masterpiece in itself.   Rust need not die now, because, again, death was not a proper reward for the life he had brought to the world with his putting down of  the monster.

And the conversation about the proportions of darkness and light - in the world and in the sky - was a fine, poetic piece of work as well.  Marty tries to put in a note of optimism, to cheer Rust up, about stars bringing light to the sky.  Rust of course corrects him - the darkness still vastly outweighs the flickering light - but he's energized, anyway, and goes off to whatever the future holds for him.   Rust is too deep to recover easily.  But he's too deep to die, easily, either.  So he'll live.

And so one of the strangest, indelibly memorable detective stories concludes. True Detective will be back next season, they say, with a totally new story and presumably totally new set of major characters. Which is as it should be.  Rust and Marty - played to perfection by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson - have done more than enough, and have earned a true place in television history.

See also True Detective: Socrates in Louisiana

 
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Black Sails 1.7: Fictions and History

A good Black Sails 1.7 last night, setting the deck well for the season finale next week.

We still don't know if Flint was in any way responsible for Billy's death - assuming Billy's indeed dead - and or at very least not going back to find him when he fell off the ship, but Gates doesn't like it, whatever actually happened.   In one of the best conversations of the series, he airs his concerns with Flint, and the two are surprisingly equally matched in this exchange.   The later revelation that Gates will go along with the killing of Flint after the pirates finish their business adds the requisite amount of tension for the finale, but when push comes to shove, I think Gates will stand with the Captain, whatever Gates may now think or say.

Speaking of conversations and altered relationships, it was good to see Flint confront Miranda about her "helpful" letter, and, later in the episode, see Flint this close to kissing and then likely bedding Eleanor. Flint elected to kiss her on the forehead rather than the lips - this time - and it will fun to see what more develops between these two next season if not in this season's finale.  Eleanor clearly wanted the kiss.

The other big development that sets up the finale next week is Vane's coming back from the dead - or from being beaten and buried, to be more precise - and his consequent amassing of a cohort to join the fight.   Charles Vane was a real person and pirate, so, depending upon how carefully Black Sails followed history, he couldn't have died in last night's episode.   Flint, of course, is a Robert Louis Stevenson creation, so there's no way of knowing what will happen between Flint and Vane in the season finale - other than Vane not dying, because, again, he didn't die that way in history, and Flint not dying, either, because ... well, there's the second season of Black Sails, and Robert Louis Stevenson's Flint has his adventures two decades after Black Sails, if that counts.

All of which adds up to: the season one finale should be fit to watch, indeed.

See also Black Sails: Literate and Raunchy Piracy ... Black Sails 1.3: John Milton and Marcus Aurelius ... Black Sails 1.4: The Masts of Wall Street ... Black Sails 1.6: Rising Up

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The Blacklist 1.15: The Husband's Other Shoe

Well, The Blacklist 1.15 finally let the other shoe drop on Elizabeth's patently no-good husband - or maybe it was one of his shoes that dropped - in a revelation which was so obvious from the outset as to be the biggest anti-climax of the television season.

The script and the direction of the series has shown us there was something wrong with Tom Keen from the beginning.   Good acting by Ryan Eggold - his subtle facial expressions - as well as what he said and did made this nearly apparent.   Red has been warning Elizabeth about Tom from the start.   Only Elizabeth didn't see this.

Why?  It's not as if she's been portrayed as so deeply in love with her husband as to be blind to his secret agent treachery.   And she's certainly not stupid.   But unless some other reason is revealed - Tom was secretly drugging her? - her acceptance of Tom for so long certainly weakens her character.

We'll see what happens with this couple next week - at this point, only the audience knows the truth, and likely Red, or most of it, anyway.

Which raises another, obvious question: who sent Tom to spy on Elizabeth, to the point of accomplishing this by marrying her?  I wouldn't put it past Red to be behind this, with his criticism of Tom to Elizabeth just proffered to make sure she wasn't too much in love with Tom, and certainly not adopting a baby to raise with him.

And this, in turn, focuses the spotlight once again on the biggest question is this series: is Red in fact Elizabeth's father?  He sure seems to be - his fatherhood of Elizabeth being more obvious than Tom's deceit - but then why is the series at the same time telling us that Red is something else?

If The Blacklist is nothing else - and the individual episodes including 1.15 are quite good in their own own right - the nature of Red's relationship with Elizabeth makes this series one of the most intriguing hide-in-plain-sight stories I've ever seen.

See also The Blacklist Debuts: Alias Meets Jay Z ... The Blacklist 1.2: Mysteries ... The Blacklist 1.3: Construction Site Heights ... The Blacklist 1.6: Truth and Enigma ... The Blacklist 1.7: Natural Immunity ... The Blacklist 1.8: The Father and the Husband ... The Blacklist 1.9: Field Transfusion ... The Blacklist 1.10: Those Words ... The Blacklist 1.11: Red's Retribution ... The Blacklist 1.12: The DNA Meister ...  The Blacklist 1.13: Red Writ Large

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Helix 1.10: The Curse of Immortality

More answers in Helix 1.10 last night - most from the mouth of Gunnar (I think that was his name) found chained in yet another subterranean place a little away from the main base, looking like an escape Observer from Fringe, but with silver eyes, no less.

The news that Hiroshi put him there is the least surprising of what he says.   The silver eyes are a sign of his immortality.  Further, he can go 4 minutes without oxygen, 4 days without water, and 40 days without food - not spectacularly better than what we humans can do, but definitely an improvement in our survival quotients.  There is also a limit of 500 on how many immortals there can be, presumably at any one time.

Most interesting and profound of what the immortal in the basement says is what a drag it is to be immortal.  The action of the genes which compels the continuation of life is no fun to feel.   His price for immortality is ten thousand or whatever deaths.   This part of Helix thus puts it in league with a splinter of a genre in science fiction, in which immortality proves to be a curse.  I recall a story I read years ago, in which the immortal just got gradually older, more and more decrepit, wasting away, but never dying.    In this context, what Gunnar wants most is to be put out of his immortality.

Other facts that come to light in Helix 1.10 is that the late Constance Sutton's group all have silver eyes - we already knew that Constance had them - and are far more than a greedy, ruthless corporation.  But still unknown is whether they are aliens, or humans who have evolved to a higher level (though not higher as far as the guy in the basement is concerned).

Meanwhile, back at the base, Sarah's cancer has progressed.  But, as was apparent and I've been saying since we saw Sarah's first tremor, some combination of the virus and bright eyes will save her.

Helix is still taking its time to reveal what's going on, but is now spiraling along quite well.


See also Helix 1.1-1.3: Zombies with Biology ... Helix 1.4: Cold DNA ...Helix 1.5: In the White Room ... Helix 1.6: Good New Clues, Nutcracker Not Sweet ... Helix 1.7: Bright Eyes ... Helix 1.8: Glacial Speed ... Helix 1.9: Brass Tacks


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Banshee Season 2 Finale: Sneak Preview Review

Continuing with my sneak preview reviews of Banshee - this time, episode 2.10, the season 2 finale, set to air March 14, 2014 - courtesy of a screener disk provided by Starpulse. As always, these reviews will deal in generalities and avoid specific spoilers.

As I've hinted at and even said point blank in previous reviews, this finale is fabulous, in terms of action, surprises, and changes that will affect all of Banshee that comes after.   In short, it is one best season finales of any series I've seen, and is well worth waiting for.

One way of telling you what the finale is about without giving away specific details is that there are at least five significant deaths.   There actually are far more deaths, but by "significant," I mean characters who have played some sort of major role on the show.     Here's more about these deaths -
none are by natural causes (sorry, couldn't resist, you already knew that)2 are heartbreaking, and 3 are very satisfyingthe 5 deaths take place in 3 different localesin 1 of the 3 satisfying deaths, we don't know until the point of death that this will happen, and in fact it looks up until that point that the killer will be killedall 5 deaths in retrospect are completely logical - but 2 are out of the blue, and in the case of another, we didn't see it coming at allBack to other memorable parts of this finale:  The episode contains the best flashback sequences we've seen so far in the series.   Romantic commitments of sorts are made.Family matters continue to evolve.There's a great kick, at the very end, into what we will be seeing in Season 3.Again, the sheer level of action including gun play and much more is outstanding.  And, with any luck, I'll be back here next year or sooner with sneak preview reviews of the third season of Banshee.

See also Banshee Season 2 Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.3 Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.4 Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.5: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.6: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.7: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.8: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.9 Sneak Preview Review



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Vikings 2.1-2: Upping the Ante of Conquest

Vikings is back on the History Channel, with an appealing mix of new and continuing characters - including new sons for Ragnor with his new wife - and tensions among Norse leaders which are never too far from erupting into outright killing and battle.

But my favorite parts of the series - last year and now this year as well - are the battles and general interactions Ragnar and his band have with the people living in the British Isles to the West.  Episode 2.2 gets Ragnar and his ships blown off-course.  Some are missing, but Ragnar and a handful of his ships land someplace they have not been before: in the civilized south of England, in the Kingdom of the West Saxons or Wessex.

Wessex has men in armor far more capable in battle than the priests in the monastery or the poorly organized fighters Ragnar encountered in the north last year.  In one of the best scenes in the series, the Wessex fighters surprise Ragnar's camp with a savage attack.  Outnumbered, Ragnar's men - and women - use brilliant defensive strategy to first withstand the attack, and then turn the tables into a rout of the Wessex attackers.

The Vikings, historically, were indeed more agile than the landed warriors of the places they invaded. That, and the initial element of shocked surprise, were the main reasons they did so well in their conquests.   But even the Vikings were not invulnerable to vastly superior numbers of fighters who had any prowess, and the Wessex warriors clearly have some prowess.

Add into this volatile environment the talents of Althestan, who not only speaks the olde English language but has become an effective wielder of an axe on behalf of Ragnar, and it looks like we have the makings of a very good season for Vikings indeed.

See also Vikings ... Vikings 1.2: Lindisfarne ... Vikings 1.3: The Priest ... Vikings 1.4:  Twist and Testudo ... Vikings 1.5: Freud and Family ... Vikings 1.7: Religion and Battle ... Vikings 1.8: Sacrifice
... Vikings Season 1 Finale: Below the Ash

   
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The Americans 2.1-2: The Paradox of the Spy's Children

Good to see The Americans back in swing for its second season -  off to the series' customarily excellent start of surprises, intrigue, and sudden death waiting around the corner, and one of the best openers in television.

The most brutal deaths actually took place in a hotel room in the first episode last week, and the execution of this family - father, mother, and daughter - provides a wake-up call not only for the Jennings but the audience.  The slain family is almost in every respect an alternate of the Jennings - Soviet spies in Washington, with a real son (who is not killed, because he's out of the room) and a real daughter, to cement their cover.    Their killer - who is still not known - could have done the same to the Jennings, who realize now that they wrongly assumed that, whatever might happen to the two of them, their kids would at least be physically safe.

One difference, of course, between the slain couple and the Jennings is that the Jennings are likely at least a little smarter, because they have so far managed not to get killed, though they have had some close calls.   But this difference could be erased at any time, and Phillip's involvement of Henry in the hand-off, against his better judgement and at the slain father's behest, provides palpable evidence of just how close not only he and Elizabeth but their kids are to the razor's edge.

The killings in the hotel room and the vulnerability of the Jennings kids sets up the whole second season very nicely - that is, in a nice harrowing way.   The kids are the essential illogical of these spies, so deep undercover that they have an actual family.   As the psychological William James pointed out back in the 19th century, sometimes going through a function or activity engenders very real feelings which are usually thought to lead to the activity in the first place.   It was clear all last year that, although the Jennings may have been pretending - a little - to truly love one another - there was no pretense at all regarding their kids.   The Jennings love their kids as would any other couple.

And yet ... would any other couple allow their kids to be in such constant danger?  This is the paradox of the perfect spy cover, which, if too perfect, tends to undermine itself.

This, in addition to the other lies and sex and life-and-death situations, is what makes The Americans such top-notch entertainment.

See also The Americans: True and Deep ... The Americans 1.4: Preventing World War III ... The Americans 1.11:  Elizabeth's Evolution ... The Americans Season 1 Finale: Excellent with One Exception

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Revolution 2.15: Not Time Travel

Well, it turns out in Revolution 2.15 that Aaron did not travel back to 2014.   He was dreaming, courtesy of the nanites, of being back in 2014 - which as Charlie in his dream tells him, is like The Matrix.   In other words, a much less impressive gambit than time travel - though I liked the first Matrix movie well enough - with a few clunkers and some good sequences mixed together.

The first inkling we get that this is not time travel is when Aaron sees Chris Hayes on MSNBC on the morning of March 5, 2014.   In fact, not only was Hayes not on this very morning - today, in our reality, a nice touch - but he's not on any weekday morning.  He used to be on weekend mornings, but Steve Kornacki took over that spot when Hayes was promoted to weekday evenings on MSNBC.

So rather than our reality, Aaron is a victim of a nanite induced dream, for the purpose of getting him to fix their defective code.  It was fun seeing our characters in this nanite induced vision - also reminiscent of Star Trek's famous "Menagerie" episode - even if Charlie in the dream did get shot in the head.  But the various inducements that Aaron's own legitimate mind used to get him to snap out of it - like jumping off a roof to induce fear - we're a little obvious.

Good twist, though, in the way the nanites ultimately succeeded, first in getting Aaron to believe their induced dream that he escaped them, his then realizing that this was a dream, too, but ultimately fixing the defective code because he saw that the death of the nanites could result in the real death of his friends and loved ones.

So we're left with a pretty good standalone episode - which also has echoes of some of Fringe - and a world without electrical power (except in lightning) in which the nanites, at least for now, continue to hold sway.

At very least, this paves the way for some good subsequent episodes.

See also Revolution 2.1: "The Last Surviving Friend" ... Revolution 2.2: Reanimation ... Revolution 2.4: Nanites and ... Maybe Aliens? ... Revolution 2.7: Firestarter Aaron vs. the Creepster ... Revolution 2.9: The Boy and the Attitude ... Revolution 2.10: Mexico and More ... Revolution 2.11: Captives and Nanites ... Revolution 2.12: Eugenics and Lubbock ... Revolution 2.13: Steve Tyler, Mummy ... Revolution 2.14: Time Travel!

And see also Revolution: Preview Review  ... Revolution 1.2: Fast Changes ... Revolution 1.14: Nanites and Jack Bauer ... Revolution 1.15: Major Tom and More 24 ... Revolution 1.16: Feeling a Little Like the Hatch in Lost ... Revolution 1.17: Even Better Nanites ... Revolution 1.18: Whodunnit? ... Revolution 1.19: Cheney's Bunker ... Revolution Season 1 Finale: Good Pivot

 
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Banshee 2.9: Sneak Preview Review

Continuing with my sneak preview reviews of Banshee - this time, episode 2.9, set to air March 7, 2014 - courtesy of a screener disk provided by Starpulse. As always, these reviews will deal in generalities and avoid specific spoilers.

It is often observed - at least, by me - that the penultimate or next-to-last episode of a season is even better than the finale.   Having seen the season 2 finale of Banshee - which I'll sneak preview review for you after 2.9 airs this Friday - I can tell you the finale is mind-blowing and better than 2.9.   But 2.9 lays down and builds up the groundwork for the finale about as brilliantly as I've ever seen.  You'll be stunned by more than one development in the finale, which reverses some things we're seeing and think we're seeing in the next-to-last episode.

Here are some of the highlights of Banshee 2.9 -
Someone is hit by a car and hurt badly enough to end up in the hospital.  This eventually leads to a scene reminiscent of the hospital scene in Godfather I with Vito and Michael Corleone.  Except the Banshee scene has much more action and ends better.Things continue to improve between Carrie and Gordon - at lot - until ...Clay kills one person, but another alludes his garrote.Rebecca and her loyalties play a crucial role.  If you watch very closely, you'll be able to see where they reside.Two characters get complimented about being "good" men by somewhat surprising (but not really) sources.And that's all I'm going to say for now.   Except, again, this episode works so well as prelude to the finale that I wish the finale had just been a single two-hour episode.   And speaking of two, episode 2.9, like the finale, takes place in two locales - Banshee and New York City.

And I'll be back here between March 7 and 14th with my sneak preview review of episode 2.10.

See also Banshee Season 2 Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.3 Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.4 Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.5: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.6: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.7: Sneak Preview Review ... Banshee 2.8: Sneak Preview Review


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