Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 338

The Bridge 1.9: Trade-Off

The Bridge has really moved into high gear with its game-changing episode last week, and delivered the best episode of of the season so far with 1.9 last night.

Tate is a top-notch bad guy - meaning, he's smart, manipulative, brutal, and supremely unpredictable. Most of the episode is devoted to the harrowing ordeal he draws Alma into.   Why she would go off with the kids with someone she doesn't know that well - even though she's romantically attracted to him - still seems like a bit of a stretch, but it was necessary to set up what follows: she's left in a shack in the middle of the dessert, with the girls playing with a hamster, and her hand on a grenade that will blow everything up if she moves her finger.   It's just a matter of time until she tires and her finger moves, and she's so overwhelmed that she can't even immediately bring herself to tell the kids to get out of the house.

Fortunately, Gus has unknowingly been texting with Tate, and good police work by Sonya, Hank, and Marco (with an at first inexplicable assist from Tate) get the good guys to the house in the dessert just in time to save Alma and the girls.  What the episode is really about is the emotional re-uniting of Marco and his family.  Working with Gus to find Alma creates a new bond between Marco and his son, and Alma, grateful to say the least that Marco has saved her and the girls finally hugs him.

But Tate is still at large, and the way that Hank and Marco were able to locate the house in the dessert provides us with a clue about what is to come.   After Tate eludes Hank and Marco in their attempt to nab him near a cafe, Tate delivers the GPS coordinates to the house in the dessert to Marco.

Why?  I at first thought that Tate wanted Marco to see his wife and children die.  And maybe that was one of his reasons.  But it turns out Tate had another reason: he wanted to get Marco out of town so he could kidnap Gus.   Tate clearly wants Marco's psychological destruction to be comprehensive.   And if Tate's attempt to kill Alma only backfired, and drew Marco and Alma back together, Tate now has another shot at what he wants, with Gus under his control.   The episode ends not with victory for Marco but this agonizing trade-off.

Meanwhile, the show had some memorable lines - in particular, Sonya's reaction to Gus referring to her as a "MILF," and just about everything that Linder said to Bob.   Speaking of which, is it only me, or does Linder sound eerily similar to Hank?

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 1.9: Some Dark Poetic Justice




#SFWApro

download The Bridge season 1 on Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music

Luther 3.3: The Perils of Being an Enemy

A stunningly powerful Luther 3.3 that connected on all sorts of levels, like a kick in the solar plexus.

The new villain is Tom, a classic vigilante killer who gets the drop on Luther, but lets him go, because he doesn't want to kill him.  After all, as Tom tells Luther, they're on the same side, both hunting bad guys.  But Luther can't accept that, because he's just a cop, he says, not judge and jury.

Now actually, as we know from the past two seasons, and even this one, that's not completely true. When sufficiently enraged, Luther's always ready to mete out severe corporal punishment.  In that sense, Luther is a British Jack Bauer, though his quarry are less apocalyptic, and Luther hasn't (yet) killed his boss for the greater good.

But Luther is an idealist, which leads to his sometimes going overboard in trying to bring the wrongdoers to justice, and also causes him to sometimes have too much faith in good people responding to their better angels.  His attempt, tonight, to get a woman who was raped as a girl by Tom's hostage  - to get Tom to free the rapist rather than kill him - was bound to fail.  Put on television to plead with Tom from afar for the rapist's life, she instead implores Tom to kill her rapist.  Who can blame her?

And, so, when Luther and Ripley - who have now thoroughly reconciled - come to the scene to stop Tom from hanging the rapist, you just know it's not going to turn out well.  But it turns out far worse than that.

Luther literally saves the rapist from hanging by holding him so the rope that Tom has left the rapist hanging from doesn't take its toll.  He does this in an act of extraordinary courage, battling off the crowd who are punching him and kicking him in an attempt to dislodge him from the rapist.

Ripley, on Luther's instruction, is off in pursuit of Tom.  British police aren't usually armed, so Tom gets the drop on Ripley, as he previously had on Luther.  Tom pleads with Ripley to walk away. Ripley says he can't.  And Tom responds by shooting Ripley dead.   He's not as lucky as Luther, though luck is the last thing you could say Luther had in this story tonight.

And there this dynamite of a television episode might have ended, with Tom running away, and Luther left grieving by Ripley's body.  But there's one more kick in the stomach left.  Mary the blonde, waiting for Luther in his flat, sees a man standing out in the street outside Luther's window.  It's Tom, come to exact some further retribution from Luther, for not accepting Tom's request not to make Tom his enemy.   And as a grace note to this peril, we hear a few bars of Robert Plante's "Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down" ... that hauntingly evocative song from Boss.   (This is apparently the season for series borrowing songs from other series, with Dexter playing "Make Your Own Kind of Music" of Lost fame.)  To the sicko murdering vigilante Tom, Luther has become Satan.

We'll learn how this plays out tomorrow night in the concluding episode of this short wallop of third season.

See also Luther: Between the Wire and the Shield ... Luther 3.1: Into the Blender ... Luther 3.2: Success




#SFWApro

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

Broadchurch 1.5: Good Loving and Almost Loving

One thing becomes even more crystal clear in Broadchurch 1.5: things are not what they seem.

As a prime case in point:  The gent whose presumed pedophiliac past made him too obvious to be a real suspect in Danny's killing turns out to have a big reveal - which makes him obviously not a suspect in this case.  He served a year in jail because, when he was in his late 30s, he slept with a girl just a few weeks short of her 16th birthday, or the legal age in England.  When this gets screamed across the headlines, he commits suicide - the first casualty in this case after Danny - though, I wouldn't be stunned if he was thrown to his death rather than jumped.

The search for Danny's killer continues without much apparent progress, but because we don't even have motive yet for his murder.   Even pedophilia isn't completely removed - some other male adult could have killed Danny out of perverted lust.  But the most likely motive for Danny murder is that he saw, heard, or knew something that someone didn't want Danny to know, and he was silenced.  What makes this series so good is that this killer is no doubt hiding in plain sight, right before our eyes, on our screen.

There's some good loving and almost loving in episode 1.5, too.   The young reporter sleeps with the hot-shot reporter from the big city, and even gets off a good line when she tells him in the morning to go through the "back door".   And, Hardy at least asks Becca to sleep with him - asking her, after she comes into his room, if she would like to "relax" with him - and although she demurs, it's a satisfying scene, because it shows a welcome humanity in Hardy that we haven't seen before.  And although Beth and Mark aren't exactly sleeping together again as yet, it's good to see them reach a bit of emotional rapprochement as they look at pictures of Danny.

As for the prime suspects: my current thinking is maybe Chloe's boyfriend - with or without Chloe - but that's a wild guess, based on no real evidence, which leaves Broadchurch an increasingly intriguing blank book.

See also Broadchurch: Powerful Viewing ... Broadchurch 1.2: Brooding Excellence ... Broadchurch 1.3: The Spy ... The Broadchurch 1.4: The Unusual Suspects



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

Luther 3.2: Success

Luther 3.2 was even better than 3.1 - because Luther was against all odds successful, on at least three fronts. And yet somehow we know he hasn't faced the worst of what he will be facing.  In part because there are two episodes left, in part because it's in the DNA of Luther that he can never be at peace, never be really or totally successful.

He gave it a good try tonight.  The serial killer who's bald walked right past Luther.  He was wearing a wig, but was recognizable to the audience.  And something about him was recognizable to Luther, who pursues the killer - Paul Ellis - but can't quite get him this time.  That's for next time, later that evening, when Luther has figured it out, and uses the last of the three nurses to get Ellis - who already has two of the nurses subdued and ready to be killed.  Score a big one for Luther.

Next, Luther confronts Ripley with Erin and Stark - of the Judas squad - just as Ripley seems on the verge of giving Stark whatever evidence he needs to get Luther.   The interview is stopped cold, Luther takes the tape, and tells Stark that if he tries to take Luther down, Luther will take him down even further.  A few minutes later, Luther listens to the tape and discovers that Ripley said only good things about Luther.  Excellent fake-out on the audience - though I found it hard to believe that Ripley would go against Luther, and said so in my review yesterday.   Still, I was pretty convinced about Ripley's perfidy. Score another big win for Luther.

And, just for sweet dessert, Luther gets together with the blonde he ran into in the first episode. Success again!

So what's left to go wrong for Luther?  Go ask Alice - she's due to appear any time now.  And Stark and Erin are not likely to fold up and go away.  And the U.K. must be crawling with other killers.

And I heard somewhere that things start picking up in episode 3.

See also Luther: Between the Wire and the Shield ... Luther 3.1: Into the Blender




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

Luther 3.1: Into the Blender

Idris Elba is back in his second best role on television as Luther - his best was Stringer Bell on The Wire, so you can see how highly I regard Luther.  Its first season was scalding, pull-no-punches, brilliant guts-in-your-face British detective work, with twists and turns that kept your heart in your mouth and your seat on the edge, and the second season was almost as good.

The third season - a short one, just four episodes on four nights this week - is off to a great start.  Luther is typically not only hunting psychos and vicious killers but is the target of what we here in the US would call an Internal Affairs investigation himself.  Not only that, but the cops investigating Luther have enlisted his loyal partner DS Ripley - not completely believable at first, but making a depressing, infuriating sense by the end of this first episode.

And not only that, but Luther's opponents are no dummies or cartoon-stupid police.  When Ripley realizes that Luther might be suspicious of Ripley being in a car with DSI Erin Gray, the high level inspector who is one of the two leading the investigation against Luther, Erin starts snogging (one of my favorite British expressions) with Ripley.  A smart move.

And, typically and excruciatingly, the investigation into Luther not only endangers him, but the people he's trying to save - that is, the victims of the stone cold killer Luther is investigating.  Luther manages to put a call into a couple who are about to be attacked, to warn them - but he's interrupted by Ripley's badgering and his phone is left hanging.  A few minutes later, we see the devastating results.

What makes Luther stand out, in addition to Idris Elba's deftly powerful performance, is the way almost no one bars any holds.   So the most memorable scene in tonight's episode probably goes to another suspect, another killer, but not a bad person, who, receiving a call from Luther asking him to come in the next day so the police can get his fingerprints, put his fingers into a blender.  One way of not worrying about any fingerprints you may have left at the scene.

Not for the faint of heart, but for anyone who likes a story unafraid to confront human nature in all of its depths.

See also Luther: Between the Wire and the Shield




#SFWApro



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

Under the Dome 1.11: Benefactor

Finally an episode - 1.11 - of Under the Dome that moves the story along - somewhat.

Julia is shot by Maxine, and may even have died for a moment - medically - but Barbie brings her back with his military medical prowess.   But was it really Barbie, as Joe thinks?  Or is it actually the dome, bestowing some goodness on Chester's Mill, after throwing a fit, in the form of an angry storm, because Junior left the circle of four?

I'll just note that I can't blame Junior completely.   Even though Angie's justified in being so cold to him - after all, he did keep her hostage through a bunch of episodes - she could have least been a little nicer to him when he told her that the two of them were connected.   Because they are connected, as part of the four, which means that the four are all also connected as twosomes and trios, despite what Angie said.  Just sayin'.

But back to the story moving forward.  Maxine lived by gun, and died by the gun, which was a good thing for the story, because her addition didn't really add much, certainly to not the metaphysics of the dome.  I'm not completely clear, though, if Maxine's mother died - I thought I saw maybe a spark of life in her when Maxine fished her out of the water.   How could that be?  Maybe more of the dome as benefactor?

But one way in which the story is moving unambiguously forward is what's happening to Barbie and Big Jim.   After adding another two murders to his belt - these ones at least somewhat justified, Maxine and her henchman - Big Jim is able to pin them and Julia's shooting on poor Barbie, who is now on the run.   He's able to outrun Sheriff Linda's gun, who's not only not very quick with her reasoning but not a very good shot, either.

But in a good last twist, the dome tells the four what they apparently must do to secure their future outside of the dome.  That would be: stabbing Big Jim to death.  Which I hope doesn't happen and expect won't, because he's one of the best characters on the show.

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



#SFWApro

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

Breaking Bad Final Episodes #4: Old Yeller

Well, not only Babylon 5, but, more significantly, Old Yeller got shout-outs in tonight's brilliant, taut, final episode #4 of Breaking Bad.

The reference is to that loyal dog - Old Yeller - who turned rabid and had to be put down, much to Walter Brennan's (wait - his song was "Old Rivers," never mind) and everyone in the audiences for that classic tear-jerking 1957 movie.

In tonight's Breaking Bad, Saul tells Walter that Jesse is like Old Yeller, a loyal dog of a partner who now has to be put down.  Walter won't have Saul's metaphor or its suggestion to kill Jesse.  But apropos the name and inevitable theme of the series, things now break from bad to worse.

Before the hour is over, Skylar - aptly being called Skeisenberg this season by many fans - is urging Walt to take care of Jesse - by which she clearly means and spells out, murder him.  Hank doesn't give a damn about Jesse's survival either - it would be just fine with Hank if Walter kills Jesse in cold blood, as long as Hank has it on his recorder.

In the end, ironically, it's Jesse's unwarranted paranoia - unwarranted, in this case - that gets Walter to start the ball rolling on what he wants to be Jesse's death.  Jesse wrongly thinks a tough guy - bald like Walter - was brought to their meeting by Walter to kill Jesse.  Turns out he's just a guy waiting for his kid.

But in some ways the most powerfully heartbreaking moment in tonight's episode comes when Walter, Jr. says goodnight to his father by the pool in the hotel.  First he hugs him.  Then Walt tells Walt, Jr "I'll be up in a minute."  And Walt Jr answers, "see you tomorrow."

Even Walt's loving son knows his father is lying - just about every time he opens his mouth.  But Walt did cough tonight - which suggests he may be telling the truth about his recurring cancer being bad. Though, hey, I'm still hoping maybe he'll beat it after all.

See also: Breaking Bad Final Episodes #1: Walt vs. Hank ... Breaking Bad Final Episodes #2: Skylar and Jesse ... Breaking Bad Final Episodes #3: The Ultimate Lie

And see also Breaking Bad Season 5 Premiere: Riveting Entropy ... Breaking Bad 5.3: Deal with the Devil ... Breaking Bad 5.7: Exit Mike ... Breaking Bad Final Half-Season Finale

And see also My Prediction about Breaking Bad ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Debuts ... Breaking Bad 4.2: Gun and Question ... Breaking Bad 4.11: Tightening Vice ... Breaking Bad 4.12: King vs. King ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Finale: Deceptive Flowers



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

Hell on Wheels 3.5: The Glove

Well, my favorite scene in tonight's altogether excellent Hell on Wheels 3.5 is when Elam feeds his baby girl - just recovered from the kidnappers - with a glove full of doe's milk, slain by Cullen for that purpose.  The scene almost had a biblical splendor, even though it was life in the wild, being civilized, a big ocean away in America.

The episode was full of powerful scenes.   Eva in the water, being consoled by Ruth, who had a story of her own ... Psalms trying to beat the truth out of the New York Irish copper who's in Hell on Wheels to get the baby that he's sure is his slain brother's daughter, but Psalms does not kill him in the end ... Elam, again, telling Cullen - just this once - that he knows the baby is white, not (genetically) his flesh and blood, but he's going to be her father anyway ...  Scenes like these are really lifting this season of Hell on Wheels into a major contender for one of the best series now on television.

And Durant is shaping up as an even better villain than in the first two seasons.  He was behind the kidnapping - that was pretty easy to guess, because he'd do anything to slow Cullen's progress with the railroad.  And Durant's indecent bet on Cullen's decency paid off.  Cullen was not about to let Elam ride off on his own into Indian territory in search of his daughter.

Meanwhile, the Swede who is actually Norwegian is slowly building up some sort of sicko theme.  At this point, I'm thinking that the Swede will actually be doing some good, even loved by adopted family, when Cullen runs into him, which bound to happen by the end of this season.  And then Cullen will be faced with his ultimate trial by fire - kill the Swede, in cold bold, for what the Swede did to Lily last season?  This will indeed put Cullen's goodness to the test.

But, first, Cullen is due to be put on some kind of trial for one of the killings his already did, as Durant continues his campaign to get Cullen off of his railroad.

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

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



#SFWApro

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

The Bridge 1.8: Some Dark Poetic Justice

Well, I've been saying for a while that I thought the killer in The Bridge might be Hank, though an extremely outside long shot.   In episode 1.8, we learn that the killer was not Hank but is indeed law enforcement - a Federal agent by the name of David Tate.

But that's just a part of it, in the unfolding of a plot that now makes The Bridge the most tightly wound plot on television, with interconnections like synapses in an evil genius's brain.  I said last week that I thought Alma's new love interest Kenneth Hastings was a bit of a schmuck - by which I meant, something was not right about him.  Turns out there's a lot not right about him.   Kenneth Hastings is David Tate, in one of best twists of this television season (we'll see what Broadchurch serves up).

Not only that, but Marcos is even more involved than just his estranged, pregnant wife now driving away with a stone-cold savage killer, the very killer Marcos has been investigating with Sonya and the gang, though that could have been quite enough.  It turns out that Marcos, whose marriage to Alma was jeopardized by a romp in the hay with Charlotte "I'm not tired" Millwright, had a previous go with Tate's wife - who is killed by a driver who got drunk with the weirdo reporter Daniel Frye, someone whose ultimate relevance in this series is still not clear.

But Marcos's relevance is now super clear.  He's not only one of the lead investigators in the case that started this off, but his character is involved in a classic almost Shakespearean case of dark poetic justice. He slept with Tate's wife, which got her killed since the drunk driver hit her (after his drinking with Frye) on her way home from Marcos.   And now Tate has Marcos's wife just where he wants her - in a car and willingly under his control.

Oh what a tangled, enthralling web this series called The Bridge weaves ...

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




#SFWApro



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

Broadchuch 1.4: The Unusual Suspects

With a fine series like Broadchurch, you can usually tell who the killer is not by discounting who the killer most likely appears to be in the early episodes.  Here's where we stand as of episode 1.4 as far as likely killers who likely not to be revealed as the killer at the end:

The old guy who may have some history as a pedophile:  His denial seems sincere, and he's in any case too obvious a suspect at this point.The unpleasant woman who had some of Danny's stuff in her closet, and most recently threatened the editor of the local paper: She's a despicable piece of work, to be sure, and she may turn out in the end to have helped the killer, or know who the killer is, but she's just as likely to be killed by the killer because of her nasty attitude.The priest is just too obvious: The show is spending a good deal of time on him, but the priest as killer is just too trite for a story like this.So where does that leave us?   Someone in Danny's family is still a possibility, including the father who now seems exonerated.   Danny's sister seems an outside shot.  I'd say Danny's mother and grandmother are beyond the pale as possible suspects.

How about Ellie's family?  Her son obviously knows stuff he's not talking about, but he's not the killer.   There's something about Ellie's husband that makes me wonder about him - he's, I don't know, maybe too nice?   We have no reason at all to suspect him as the killer, which puts him higher on the list than those we have ample reason to suspect.

But if I had to pick someone now, I would say it was Danny's father's partner.   Another nice guy who seems to want to do nothing more than be of help, but there's an edge to him.  So I'd put my money on him at this juncture.

More after the next showing.

See also Broadchurch: Powerful Viewing ... Broadchurch 1.2: Brooding Excellence ... Broadchurch 1.3: The Spy



#SFWApro

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