Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 344

Ray Donovan 1.2: His Assistants and His Family

My favorite scene in Ray Donovan 1.2 last night was Avi talking Ray down from storming off and likely shooting his father.   Just the way Avi was standing says a lot - holding Ray's gun, but not pointing it at Ray, just standing in front of Ray, with the gun pointing to the side, and reasoning with Ray.   The scene shows the loyalty and intelligence of Ray's assistants, in this case Avi.

Lena also played a significant role last night, as the deliverer of Ray's generosity, to the transvestite blackmailing Ray's client - for a cool million - so she can pay for an operation to make her completely a woman.   Ray of course protects his client - he won't have his client pay out a million - but he has Lena deliver a packet of money sufficient to pay for the operation.   Amidst all of his troubles and toughness, Ray has a heart of gold.

The big story continues to be Ray's father Mickey, who much to Ray's distress easily charms Ray's wife and kids.  Still not clear is why Ray hates his father so much.  When Ray's wife Abby (played by Paula Malcomson of Caprica fame) asks Mickey why Ray hates him, Mickey gives a vague (if heartfelt) answer about being a bad father.   But there must be something more - enough to leave Ray's hatred unslaked even when he smiles at the picture of the priest (who at very least molested Ray's younger brother) and the knowledge that Mickey killed him.

Whatever that source of hatred, another piece of its puzzle is why Ray's brothers - especially his older brother Terry - are so much more forgiving of their father than is Ray.   Did Mickey do something that only Ray knows about?   Possibly - but Terry doesn't give the impression of missing much.   Given that Terry has been functioning as the de facto father of the family, seeing to his brothers (including Darryl) much more than has Ray - at least on an emotional basis - Terry might well have reason to resent Mickey.  But he doesn't.

The tables are still being set for this powerful new drama, and I'm in.

See also Ray Donovan Debuts with Originality and Flair


                                                        


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Falling Skies 3.6: The Masons

A great last scene in Falling Skies 3.6, which resonated with The Magnificent Seven and lots of classic Westerns.  As indeed a pivotal scene in Falling Skies or Revolution or any post-apocalyptic television series should, where horses are once again the most common form of transport.

Except in this case, we get just four - Tom Mason and his three boys - but it's a noble game-changing scene indeed.   The Masons are riding off to rescue Anne and the hybrid baby.  Is it wise for the President of the New United States to ride off on a such a mission?  Tom thinks not, so he's resigned from that new office and left it to Marina.

Not only that, but young Matt is one of the four.  This is because Matt is not so young any more, and his accompanying his brothers and father on this mission says he's come of age in this savage, desperate new world.   Even a few weeks ago, Tom would have never allowed this.   It's good to see.

Hal is also one of the four, and the main story in last night's episode was how Hal has finally been rid of the ibug that Karen gave him.  This episode could have been titled "Hal vs. Hal," as Hal fought to all-but-a-draw for control with his alien self.   It took the combined efforts of Tom, Matt, Ben, and Margaret to free Tom and disarm Hal, and then a special hunter-seeker into Hal which could either kill the ibug or Hal, if he was telling the truth about being no longer infected.  All of which made for some riveting, edge-of-your-seat television.

Those who didn't go on the mission to save Anne and baby also says a lot.   Weaver would have been a logical candidate to go.  He stays back because someone has to keep an eye on the compound, and there's also his daughter, he says.   But my guess is there's a bit of his attraction to Marina at play here, which is also good to see.   Margaret would also have been a sensible addition, and it's unclear why she didn't join the Masons.  Maybe for the poetry of seeing just the four Masons ride out.

The big mystery unaddressed is still how Tom and Anne have a baby with alien DNA.  I've been saying all along that Tom was given the alien DNA when he was captive on the alien ship.  But it's fun to think of other possibilities.

Could Anne have slept with an alien at some point?  Not when she was awake or of her own volition.  But maybe an alien drugged her, when Tom wasn't around?

Or - could Anne herself be part alien?   Not likely - but I can't quite recall her DNA being thoroughly tested ....

Anyway - looks like some good story lines ahead for Falling Skies, which has been a lot more fast-moving and surprising this year than in the first two seasons.

See also Falling Skies 3.1-2: It's the Acting ... Falling Skies 3.3: The Smile ... Falling Skies 3.4: Hal vs. Ben

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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The Killing 3.7: "Opiate of the Masses"

"Religion is the opiate of the masses" is an observation frequently attributed to Karl Marx.  Actually he said it a little differently, and others include Heinrich Heine said it before Marx.  Holder says "opium of the masses" in tonight's episode 3.7 of The Killing about Pastor Mike - an expression of contempt - and Holder is entirely right.  But is Pastor Mike the killer?

He's an abuser of girls, and Mike isn't his name.  He not only lies to Holder and Linden, but kidnaps Linden at knifepoint at the end of the episode.  Holder's opinion of "Mike" is thus entirely justified.  But when it comes to The Killing, we already learned in the first two seasons to expect a surfeit of suspects, some of whom are genuine bad guys, but only one of whom is the killer.

Who is the killer this season?

Linden is convinced it's not Ray Seward, the guy on death row, and he's certainly not the killer of this season's victim, whose circumstances of death are similar to the killing that led to Seward's death sentence.  In one of the best scenes of the season so far, Skinner tells Linden he believes her about Seward's innocence, which almost reignites the passion they felt for each other when they worked Seward's case in the first place.   (It's likely this feeling more than any else which is driving Linden not to want to have anything more to do with her former boyfriend on the island.)

One thing this season's The Killing lacks is the profundity of the impact of the killing on Rosie's family in the first two seasons.   But Seward's death row story almost makes up for that, and the persistent sense that we're not seeing the killer even when all evidence seems to point that way is in good supply this year.  Maybe there'll be an additional twist in which Pastor Mike turns out to be indeed be the killer.  And he's obviously a creep and prime example of opium of the masses in any case.  But I'm still putting my money on it's not him.

See also The Killing 3.1-2: Poe Poetic Po-po ... The Killing 3.3: Hitchcockian Scene and More

See also The Killing Season Two Premiere ... The Killing 2.2: Holder ... The Killing 2.11: Circling Back ... The Killing Season 2 Finale

And see also The Killing on AMC and The Killing 1.3: Early Suspects ... The Killing 1.5: Memorable Moments ... The Killing 1.6: The Teacher ... The Killing 1.8: The Teacher, Again ...The Killing 1.9: The Teacher as Victim, Again ... The Killing 1.10: Running Out of Suspects ... The Killing 1.11: Rosie's Missing - from the Story ... The Killing 1.12: Is Orpheus the Killer? ... The Killing 1.13: Stretching Television

                                                      

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Dexter 8.2: The Gift

The notion of "gift" figured in two profound, interlocking ways in the superb Dexter 8.2 tonight.

First, Vogel - shaping up as one of the best characters in the series - tells Dexter she thinks psychopaths and Dexter in particular are "gifts" to humanity - "alpha" wolves who do the killing necessary to move humanity forward.  The killings can be figurative - as in CEOs and politicians - but the killer instinct is the same as in psycho serial killers.

Not only that, Vogel clearly loves Dexter - presumably as a mother, as the Dr. Frankenstein (Dex's term) who helped create Dexter, by guiding Harry in creating Harry's code.  This therefore means that Harry's code is not just or even really Harry's - at very least, it's also Dr. Evelyn Vogel's - who rejects Dex's ironic remark that she's a Dr. Frankenstein, because she obviously doesn't think Dexter is a monster.

At least, that's what she tells Dexter.  And, at this point, I'm with Dexter in still not knowing enough about Vogel to fully trust her.   Is she somehow behind the very killings that she's presenting as the reason she needs Dexter's help?  Is she some sort of psycho killer herself?  Unclear, but Dexter, more in need of some kind of deep love now than ever, with Debra saying she hates him, can't resist accepting her motherly arms around him at the end of the episode.

Meanwhile, Deb also talks of a "gift" tonight - the gift that Dexter left her, turning her into the self-described hell that she is now.   Deb has now killed not only LaGuerta to save Dexter, but the hitman who just beat her and took the jewels she had recovered.   She's in touch with who she once was - she remembers that she loved Dexter, as more than a sister - but she and Dex agree that that Debra Morgan is gone.

Deb's killing of the hitman has one nice silver lining for us fans:  In last week's coming attractions, we see Deb saying she wants to confess.   The assumption then was that the confession was about LaGuerta.   But in view of the hitman, Deb might well be confessing to that.

One thing looks certain about this final season of Dexter:  every episode looks to be a riveting triumph of televised narrative.

See also Dexter Season 8 Premiere: Mercury in Retrograde, Dexter Incandescent

And see also Dexter Season 7.1-3: Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 7.4: The Lesson in Speltzer's Smoke ... Dexter 7.5: Terminator Isaac ... Dexter 7.6: "Breaking and Entering" ... Dexter 7.7: Shakespearean Serial Killer Story ... Dexter 7.8: Love and Its Demands ... Dexter 7.9: Two Memorable Scenes and the Ascension of Isaac ... Dexter 7.11: The "Accident" ... Dexter Season 7 Finale: The Surviving Triangle
And see also Dexter Season 6 Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 6.4: Two Numbers and Two Killers Equals? ... Dexter 6.5 and 6.6: Decisive Sam ... Dexter 6.7: The State of Nebraska ... Dexter 6.8: Is Gellar Really Real? .... Dexter 6.9: And Gellar Is ... ... Dexter's Take on Videogames in 6.10 ...Dexter and Debra:  Dexter 6.11 ... Dexter Season 6 Finale: Through the Eyes of a Different Love

And see also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ...Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers  ... Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain
And see also Dexter Season 4: Sneak Preview Review ... The Family Man on Dexter 4.5 ...Dexter on the Couch in 4.6 ... Dexter 4.7: 'He Can't Kill Bambi' ... Dexter 4.8: Great Mistakes ...4.9: Trinity's Surprising Daughter ... 4.10: More than Trinity ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

And see also reviews of Season 3: Season's Happy Endings? ... Double Surprise ... Psychotic Law vs. Sociopath Science ... The Bright, Elusive Butterfly of Dexter ... The True Nature of Miguel ...Si Se Puede on Dexter ... and Dexter 3: Sneak Preview Review

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter 

                               

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Under the Dome 1.2: Adrenalin and Seepage

Here's what we learn in Under the Dome 1.2:
A little water can seep into the dome, as through a sieve - this will no doubt play some lifesaving or life-threatening role as the series continues.The radio station inside the dome can sometimes pick up what's being said about the dome on the outside.  This tells the people in the dome that they're indeed in a dome - and, as journalist Julia realizes, that the military are not responsible for the dome.  Well, at least not the military right outside the dome, anyway.Dale not only buried Julia's husband but killed him.  But we still don't know why.Otherwise, everything continues to ratchet up, as a good story should.  Julia wisecracks to Dale, when he suggests that she strip naked to attract the attention of people outside the dome, that that's just what she did an hour before, to no avail.   He looks regretful not only that it didn't work, but that he wasn't there to see the attempt - assuming Julia wasn't joking.

Dale's motives for being in town continue to be unclear.  But he's with Julia as one of the most effective dome denizens in saving lives, rallying the people, and the like.  Big Jim also is an ethically complex character.  He runs away from a burning house with the reverend inside - I thought because he wanted the reverend to perish to keep secrets safe - but he comes back with a bulldozer to save the day.  This moral ambiguity of the two major male characters makes for a tense and provocative story.
The action is also continuing at a breakneck pace - literally breakneck, as in death of important characters - which also keeps us on the edge of our seats.   The sheriff, played by Jeff Fahey - who managed to outwit death so long as the irascible pilot on Lost - dies at the beginning of this episode.   As does one of his deputies at the end.   This kind of character deletion is adrenaline for story telling, because it tells us no one is safe.
Lots of other good subplots under the dome, and we still don't much about outside the dome, though I know I'll be watching from that vantage point next week.
See also Under the Dome: Superior Summer Science Fiction



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Ray Donovan Debuts with Originality and Flair

You can only watch so many police dramas, regardless of how good they are.   And even post-apocalyptic science fiction -  be the agent of apocalypse disease, aliens, power failure - can satiate, though for me that limit is much higher than for police drama.  But even so, it's refreshing to see a series that has little to do with either television genre.

Well, Ray Donovan does have more than a bit of crime.  But its idiosyncratic hero is a fixer - that is, a guy who gets his clients out of difficult straits which can just as likely include cops as well as criminals as the source of the difficulty.   He's cool and calm, but is also ferociously protective of his family and those he loves, to the point of beating someone perhaps to death for failing to stay away from Ashley, whom Donovan is both professionally protecting and having sex with, after Donovan has given the stalker more than fair warning.

Not that Donovan loves Ashley, but he cares about her.   And he was hired not to protect Ashley but to see who else she's been sleeping with - who else other than the Hollywood producer was is also sleeping with Ashley and hires Donovan.  But that's the point.   Donovan's best moments come from the heart, regardless how they may contradict a rational course of action.  Donovan knows he's playing with fire with Ashley, including angering not only his client but his wife and risking his marriage, but he's not about to resist the impulse.

The show comes loaded with complications that keep it on the edge of tragi-comedy.  On the verge of making love to Ashley against the wall, she has an epileptic seizure.  His two brothers have something to tell him - he and they have another brother - literally, a brother who's a brother, an African-American brother.  In such moments, the series almost resonates in different ways with Curb Your Enthusiasm and Californication.  Meanwhile,  Ray find this new brother hard believe, given that his father was out there screaming against busing in Boston.

Ray's father Mickey is played by Jon Voight, and you can't get much better than that.  (Liev Schreiber is tour-de-force as Ray.)  And Mickey also has a fascinating, complicated story.  Ray did something to put his father in prison in Boston for 20 years - we don't yet know what that is - and the first thing Mickey does when he's released is kill the priest who molested his boys.   And then he's off to California, much to Ray's displeasure - verging on fury.

It looks as if we're in for a highly original series in Ray Donovan, bursting with emotion and characters pushed to their limits in a feisty, mercilous world.


                                                        


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Dexter Season 8 Premiere: Mercury in Retrograde, Dexter Incandescent

The Dexter Season 8 premiere - first of the final twelve episodes in the series  - was so powerful it could almost have been the series finale itself.   But it wasn't, and with eleven more episodes to go, we can get an idea of what a searingly incandescent send-off of this unique series (one of the very best ever on television) we're in for.

Unsurprisingly, Deb doesn't want anything to do with Dexter, and Dexter's starting to crack under the strain.  Deb's going off the deep end as some kind of bounty hunter, and Dexter's wracked with guilt and wants to save her.  All of that is unsurprising because of what happened to Laguerta last season.  It's the only thing unsurprising about this season's story.

First, there's the extent to which Dexter is beginning to fall apart over Deb.  He not only screams at Harrison, uncharacteristic for the pure love he feels for Harrison as a father, but even more uncharacteristically takes Harrison to a dangerous place - because he believes Deb's life is in danger - and even more amazingly leaves Harrison alone in the car.  Fortunately nothing happened to Harrison, but it was a very close call.

And that's not the biggest kicker on this show.   Charlotte Rampling as Dr. Evelyn Vogel is called in by Matthews to help on a case.   She's more interested in Dexter than she should be in a "blood guy," as Dexter realizes and tells her.   Turns out she knows all about Dexter - or, at least, Dexter's origins as a brutally traumatized little boy.

Is she another expert in serial killers - a female Frank Lundy - who may be just a little better than Lundy and manage to bring Dexter down?  That could have been a possibility based just on tonight's episode.  But, in the coming attractions, we see that she wants Dexter's help in nabbing a serial killer - someone, Vogel's afraid, who may be one of her former patients.   Of course, she could still bring Dexter down, whatever her initial motives, or after her initial motives are satisfied.

Is ok it to talk about coming attractions in reviews?  How should I know - I just write reviews, I don't consult rules, Harry's or otherwise, about how to write the reviews.   So I also couldn't help notice in the coming attractions for this final season that Deb is walking into the Miami police station, saying she wants to confess.

So we have a quite a ride ahead.   Matthews sarcastically mentioned "Mercury in retrograde" tonight - which it is, both in our reality and on the show.  It's characterized by plans gone awry.  We can count on that for Dexter Morgan.   As for us, the plan for a memorably fabulous final season of Dexter seems right on course.

See also Dexter Season 7.1-3: Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 7.4: The Lesson in Speltzer's Smoke ... Dexter 7.5: Terminator Isaac ... Dexter 7.6: "Breaking and Entering" ... Dexter 7.7: Shakespearean Serial Killer Story ... Dexter 7.8: Love and Its Demands ... Dexter 7.9: Two Memorable Scenes and the Ascension of Isaac ... Dexter 7.11: The "Accident" ... Dexter Season 7 Finale: The Surviving Triangle
And see also Dexter Season 6 Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 6.4: Two Numbers and Two Killers Equals? ... Dexter 6.5 and 6.6: Decisive Sam ... Dexter 6.7: The State of Nebraska ... Dexter 6.8: Is Gellar Really Real? .... Dexter 6.9: And Gellar Is ... ... Dexter's Take on Videogames in 6.10 ...Dexter and Debra:  Dexter 6.11 ... Dexter Season 6 Finale: Through the Eyes of a Different Love

And see also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ...Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers  ... Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain
And see also Dexter Season 4: Sneak Preview Review ... The Family Man on Dexter 4.5 ...Dexter on the Couch in 4.6 ... Dexter 4.7: 'He Can't Kill Bambi' ... Dexter 4.8: Great Mistakes ...4.9: Trinity's Surprising Daughter ... 4.10: More than Trinity ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

And see also reviews of Season 3: Season's Happy Endings? ... Double Surprise ... Psychotic Law vs. Sociopath Science ... The Bright, Elusive Butterfly of Dexter ... The True Nature of Miguel ...Si Se Puede on Dexter ... and Dexter 3: Sneak Preview Review

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter 

                               


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Under the Dome: Superior Summer Science Fiction

I caught the premiere of  CBS's Under the Dome on demand last night.  Having just returned from a month's vacation in a small New England town, I was especially receptive.  I liked everything about show - fast moving, daring main plot, good subplots, altogether superior science fiction which is not over the top, which is say, Under the Dome has that perfect mix of plausibility and out-of-this-world event which is the hallmark of all fine science fiction.  It should be - it's from the Stephen King novel, which I haven't read.  And that's probably good, because otherwise I'd be unhappy about every divergence of the television series from the novel.

The main plot is a force field which descends around the town with no warning.  It's tall enough that a plane flying above crashes right into it.   In one of the most effective scenes, though, we see a single cow sheared in half by the force field descending like a slick swift invisible razor.   The setup - so far - is that people inside the dome can't communicate with people outside the time, except by holding up signs and the like.

In addition to what caused this - aliens, people from the future, a secret government project, take your pick - we have an ample number of percolating subplots inside the sheer teapot dome.   Local councilman Big Jim Rennie - played welcomely by Dean Norris of Breaking Bad fame - is up to some kind of hanky panky involving propane gas, which may or may not in some way have triggered the dome.  Plus, his son is a love-sick psycho, who accidentally knocks out then locks up in his family's fallout shelter the girl who jilted him just before the dome came down.  There's a smart-taking, hard-ass reporter with long curly hair played by Rachel Lefevre - from the Twilight Saga and White House Down - who may have a heart of gold, and lots of other game and appealing characters.

At this point, Under the Dome bears some resemblances to Flashforward, which also debuted with a stunning storyline and a fine set of characters.   To succeed, Under the Dome will need to keep its breathtaking pace and focus.





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Falling Skies 3.4: Hal vs. Ben

There were four good plot developments in Falling Skies 3.4 this week -
Hal's evil, alien side takes over - which all but confirms, at least to me, that he's the mole, the killer of the Terry O'Quinn character, and who knows what else.Ben and his likely girlfriend don't want their spikes thoroughly removed - he's grown to enjoy the power they give him.  This should make for some interesting developments down the road.Anne's on the run with her and Tom's baby girl.  This happens after the not-so-mad doc played by Robert Sean Leonard tells Anne and us what was clear already last week in the baby's smile: she has alien DNA.  The doc wonders how that could be.   But we already know - it must have come from Tom, who must have been embedded with some alien DNA when he was aboard the ship.  At this point, however, Anne doesn't seem to be thinking much about how that happened - she's more concerned with making sure her super-baby is beyond the reach of the other humans in the compound.  But where will she go?All three of the above developments become even more intense because Tom decides to go off to the see the real President of the United States.  Tom and the good alien who has come to the meeting just about manage to convince the President that cooperating with the good aliens is the only way we can win - when the bad aliens attack.  Who tipped them off, Hal?These interlocking developments are making for a good story line this year - in fact, better, I think, than in the previous two years.   Hal under alien control can dominate the compound and get it to do his bidding if he plays his cards right.   With Tom and Anne not there, for different reasons, who can successfully oppose him?   Even Pope is with Tom, away from the compound.   That leaves Margaret, who's no dummy, but she doesn't have Hal's alien strength.   So ... we may be down to Ben ... and an all-out Ben vs. Hall confrontation for control of the compound would be something worth watching.

See also Falling Skies 3.1-2: It's the Acting ... Falling Skies 3.3: The Smile

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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The Fraudulent Hunt for Snowden

The big story today is the hunt for Edward Snowden - and, in particular, the gall of Russia for not just turning Snowden over to the U.S.  After all, he has been charged with espionage, and that's a very serious crime.  Senator Schumer (D-NY) even sees Russia's failure to turn over Snowden as equivalent to Russia's lack of cooperation with our plans for Syria.

How, exactly, Snowden has committed espionage has never been made clear.  Did he gave valuable information to a country engaged in war with the U.S.?  No one has alleged that he did.   Apparently his "crime" was telling the American people the truth about our own government's spying upon us - a truth that our government has systematically lied about over the years in testimony to Congress.  In what warped reasoning is telling the truth about that an act of espionage?

But our government needs that charge brought against Snowden, so we can pressure foreign governments to turn him over to us.   And if a government sees through that, and decides not to give us Snowden - because he's a whistle blower not a traitor - then that government gets criticized not only by Schumer, with his absurd analogy between Snowden and Syria, but by Jay Carney, John Kerry, and the whole weight of the elected and appointed American government.

And this of course is exactly what the government most wants.  Redirect everyone's attention to the flight of a whistle blower labelled traitor, and the countries who might object to that label, rather than the illegal activity that the whistle was blown upon: the US government's illegal collection of communication information from the American people, and its repeated lying about that every chance it got.

See also: David Gregory vs. Glenn Greenwald: Lessons about So-Called Progressives

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