Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 377
January 16, 2012
The Good Wife 3.13 meets Murder on the Orient Express
A good Good Wife 3.13 last night, in which the standalone part of the story concerns the Feds - in the person of Bob Balaban's well-played taxman - go after the creator of Bitcoin, on account of its being an allegedly illegal currency.
Bitcoin, in our real world (i.e., off the television drama), is a real online currency - much like the Linden dollar in Second Life, except that people can use Bitcoin money to buy real things anywhere online (not just in-world with the Linden dollar in Second Life), if the seller is willing to accept that kind of payment. Still in our real reality, we think we know who created Bitcoin, but there may be some pseudonymity involved.
Back on The Good Wife, Alicia and the firm are defending Bitcoin's lawyer, who may or may not be the creator about whom he the lawyer is prevented from discussing, owing to attorney-client privilege. There are two other suspects for creator, and some typically brilliant investigation by Kalinda uncovers the truth: all three have in fact created/marketed Bitcoin. Reminded me of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, where the murderer turns out to be everyone of the train with a motive.
Moving over to the continuing story, it turns out that Will may be a little vulnerable - though not really guilty of any wrongdoing - after all. He lets Kalinda take charge of the touchy paperwork, to do what - destroy it? All we know if she hands something that looks like those files over to Assistant DA Dana Lodge (played by Lie to Me's Monica Raymund), who's in possession of the document unknowingly signed by Alicia last week, when she was set up by David Lee in the alienation of affection case. It could be enough to get Alicia disbarred. Dana's happy to use this to blackmail Kalinda.
It's certainly enough for me to look more forward than ever to the next episode.
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
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
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Bitcoin, in our real world (i.e., off the television drama), is a real online currency - much like the Linden dollar in Second Life, except that people can use Bitcoin money to buy real things anywhere online (not just in-world with the Linden dollar in Second Life), if the seller is willing to accept that kind of payment. Still in our real reality, we think we know who created Bitcoin, but there may be some pseudonymity involved.
Back on The Good Wife, Alicia and the firm are defending Bitcoin's lawyer, who may or may not be the creator about whom he the lawyer is prevented from discussing, owing to attorney-client privilege. There are two other suspects for creator, and some typically brilliant investigation by Kalinda uncovers the truth: all three have in fact created/marketed Bitcoin. Reminded me of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, where the murderer turns out to be everyone of the train with a motive.
Moving over to the continuing story, it turns out that Will may be a little vulnerable - though not really guilty of any wrongdoing - after all. He lets Kalinda take charge of the touchy paperwork, to do what - destroy it? All we know if she hands something that looks like those files over to Assistant DA Dana Lodge (played by Lie to Me's Monica Raymund), who's in possession of the document unknowingly signed by Alicia last week, when she was set up by David Lee in the alienation of affection case. It could be enough to get Alicia disbarred. Dana's happy to use this to blackmail Kalinda.
It's certainly enough for me to look more forward than ever to the next episode.
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
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
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Hell on Wheels Season One Finale: Greek Tragedy, Western-Style
Hell on Wheels pulled in to its first season finale last night with a Greek tragedy of a story, one that is as old and heart-rending as human story-telling itself ... killing the wrong the man.
The episode open with the scene that has motivated Bohannan's life since the scene and just about everything we've seen of his life this season - he comes home to find his wife in a noose. He lovingly cradles her body, buries her and their son (also killed by the Union marauders), and rides off to begin his journey of revenge.
The only dent in his quest - the only time he even considers for a moment abandoning it, and moving on with life - is when Lily in a tender scene puts her hand on his chest and implores him not to destroy the man his wife and his son loved, not to consume that man in his hate. Bohannan says nothing to Lily, walks out, but her words had enough impact on him that he goes to see Rev. Cole for advice. Follow your hate, Cole advises, with the head of the Union guy he severed last week nearby, and an impromptu homily about God existing, but with arms and legs severed, and only able to hear us, and not able to do anything to help us. Not, in other words, what Bohannan needed to hear.
So Bohannan goes after Harper, the Sgt who Bohannan believes joined in the rape and murder of his wife. We already know Harper was not the man who did this - he shows his Army discharge paper to the Swede, which proves that Harper could not have been in Bohannan's home at the time of the murder. Harper tries to tell this to Bohannan, tries to show him the paper, but to no avail. Bohannan kills Harper, only to find the discharge paper in Harper's dead hand.
Bohannan not only killed the wrong man, but if there is a Sgt out there who was part of the group who killed his wife, Bohannan now has to find him. He looks at Lily, dancing perfunctorily with Durant. She sees him and is glad. But when she looks for him after the next spin in the dance, he's gone.
Gone with the wind, but now there are wanted posters out there with his name and likeness. Bohannan's no longer under the radar, to throw in an anachronism. But should I see one on some lamppost in 2012 New York City, it'll only remind me how much I'm looking forward to Season 2.
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
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
The episode open with the scene that has motivated Bohannan's life since the scene and just about everything we've seen of his life this season - he comes home to find his wife in a noose. He lovingly cradles her body, buries her and their son (also killed by the Union marauders), and rides off to begin his journey of revenge.
The only dent in his quest - the only time he even considers for a moment abandoning it, and moving on with life - is when Lily in a tender scene puts her hand on his chest and implores him not to destroy the man his wife and his son loved, not to consume that man in his hate. Bohannan says nothing to Lily, walks out, but her words had enough impact on him that he goes to see Rev. Cole for advice. Follow your hate, Cole advises, with the head of the Union guy he severed last week nearby, and an impromptu homily about God existing, but with arms and legs severed, and only able to hear us, and not able to do anything to help us. Not, in other words, what Bohannan needed to hear.
So Bohannan goes after Harper, the Sgt who Bohannan believes joined in the rape and murder of his wife. We already know Harper was not the man who did this - he shows his Army discharge paper to the Swede, which proves that Harper could not have been in Bohannan's home at the time of the murder. Harper tries to tell this to Bohannan, tries to show him the paper, but to no avail. Bohannan kills Harper, only to find the discharge paper in Harper's dead hand.
Bohannan not only killed the wrong man, but if there is a Sgt out there who was part of the group who killed his wife, Bohannan now has to find him. He looks at Lily, dancing perfunctorily with Durant. She sees him and is glad. But when she looks for him after the next spin in the dance, he's gone.
Gone with the wind, but now there are wanted posters out there with his name and likeness. Bohannan's no longer under the radar, to throw in an anachronism. But should I see one on some lamppost in 2012 New York City, it'll only remind me how much I'm looking forward to Season 2.
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
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
January 14, 2012
Fringe 4.8: The Ramifications of Transformed Alternate Realites
Fringe's first episode of the new year - 4.8 - continued the careful, brilliant multiple-reality building that has been the glimmering, slithering spine of this 4th season.
First, I think we need to be clear - i.e., here is what I think is the case - with the multiple realities we've been seeing this year. They came into being, in their current form, when the Eternal Bald Observers not only whipped Peter out of existence at the end of last season but, in doing so, also made him never having existed in the first place. And what this therefore did is significantly alter both our reality (with Walter, Olivia, etc) and the alternate reality (with Walternate, Fauxlivia, etc), so that characters who died in either of the original realities could now be alive in the new sans-Peter realities, characters we didn't know before in one of the original realities could be now be on center stage, etc. Lincoln Lee would be an example of an excellent character who now has a role in our reality as well as the alternate.
Peter - if this analysis is correct - does not quite have it right when he says he wants to go home to a third reality. Because this implies that there are three or more co-realities - Walter now with no Peter in the past (both Peters died), Walternate now with no Peter in the past (both Peters died), and the reality of the first three seasons (alternate Peter taken by Walter, and Peter lives and grows up in our reality). I would say that third reality does not exist in the same way that the first two do. The only way Peter can get back to that reality is if the Eternal Bald Observers or someone somehow reverses his being yanked out of existence and memories, or at very least Walter, Olivia (and perhaps Walternate and Fauxlivia) get back their original memories.
Ok, so, with that in mind, we had a fabulous, action-packed episode last night, with Peter and Lincoln Lee (our Lincoln) going over to the alternate reality. Peter hopes Walternate can get Peter back to the reality where the people he loves (Walter and Olivia) know and love him. Lincoln's hoping he can learn more about how Waltnernate is responsible for the new scourge of shape shifters in our reality.
They of course get neither - and we can get something much better. Peter meets his mother - his real, alternate reality mother - on the other side. She's alive in this alternate (with no memory of Peter) version of reality. Powerful, satisfying scenes. (By the way, alternate-Broyles is alive here, too.)
And as for the shape shifters? Well, Walternate's apparently not responsible for them. The man behind them is no other than David Robert Jones, he of teleporting from Germany to the US and other scientific wonders fame from Fringe long ago. He's almost in Walter's and Bell's league as far as sheer scientific brilliance and chutzpah. He played a major role in earlier Fringe, dying as he tried to cross the portal to the alternate reality and Walter closed it - slicing Jones in half in the process. But Jones had not been sliced in the new realities our characters are now inhabiting and contesting. Should be some good times ahead with Jones back in play.
And that's the not all. In a stunning last scene, an Eternal Bald Observer - September, the main one we've seen over the years - comes to see Olivia, on our side of the portal, where she's waiting for Peter and our Lincoln Lee to return. He's gasping, and tells Olivia with regret that she will die in all realities. And he's gasping because he's shot in the chest. And he disappears.
Just on the last point - he disappears because he dies? Nah. I'd say he disappears because someone did something somewhere down the line to trigger an alternate world in which this EBO never existed at all. Maybe that's part of the process Peter getting back to the people he loves.
But who shot him and in what circumstances? And surely Olivia has some option for life that even the EBO doesn't know (though, I suppose we could have a Fringe in which only Fauxlivia lives, and she and Peter get together - again). Should be good viewing indeed for the rest of this season.
Hey, check out my essay The Return of 1950s Science Fiction in Fringe in this new anthology
See also Fringe Returns for Season 4: Almost with Peter ... Fringe 4.2: Better and Worse Selves ... Fringe 4.3: Sanity and Son ... Fringe 4.4: Peter's Back, Ectoplasm, and McLuhan ... Fringe 4.5: Double Return ... Fringe 4.6: Time Slips ... Fringe 4.7: The Invisible Man
See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia ... Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko ... Fringe 3.17: Bell, Olivia, Lee, and the Cow ... Fringe 3.18: Clever Walternate ... Fringe 3.19 meets Inception, The Walking Dead, Tron ... Fringe 3.20: Countdown to Season 3 Finale 1 of 3 ... Fringe 3.21: Ben Frankin, Rimbaldi, and the Future ... Fringe Season 3 Finale: Here's What Happened ... Death Not Death in Fringe
See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ... New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22: Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch
See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
First, I think we need to be clear - i.e., here is what I think is the case - with the multiple realities we've been seeing this year. They came into being, in their current form, when the Eternal Bald Observers not only whipped Peter out of existence at the end of last season but, in doing so, also made him never having existed in the first place. And what this therefore did is significantly alter both our reality (with Walter, Olivia, etc) and the alternate reality (with Walternate, Fauxlivia, etc), so that characters who died in either of the original realities could now be alive in the new sans-Peter realities, characters we didn't know before in one of the original realities could be now be on center stage, etc. Lincoln Lee would be an example of an excellent character who now has a role in our reality as well as the alternate.
Peter - if this analysis is correct - does not quite have it right when he says he wants to go home to a third reality. Because this implies that there are three or more co-realities - Walter now with no Peter in the past (both Peters died), Walternate now with no Peter in the past (both Peters died), and the reality of the first three seasons (alternate Peter taken by Walter, and Peter lives and grows up in our reality). I would say that third reality does not exist in the same way that the first two do. The only way Peter can get back to that reality is if the Eternal Bald Observers or someone somehow reverses his being yanked out of existence and memories, or at very least Walter, Olivia (and perhaps Walternate and Fauxlivia) get back their original memories.
Ok, so, with that in mind, we had a fabulous, action-packed episode last night, with Peter and Lincoln Lee (our Lincoln) going over to the alternate reality. Peter hopes Walternate can get Peter back to the reality where the people he loves (Walter and Olivia) know and love him. Lincoln's hoping he can learn more about how Waltnernate is responsible for the new scourge of shape shifters in our reality.
They of course get neither - and we can get something much better. Peter meets his mother - his real, alternate reality mother - on the other side. She's alive in this alternate (with no memory of Peter) version of reality. Powerful, satisfying scenes. (By the way, alternate-Broyles is alive here, too.)
And as for the shape shifters? Well, Walternate's apparently not responsible for them. The man behind them is no other than David Robert Jones, he of teleporting from Germany to the US and other scientific wonders fame from Fringe long ago. He's almost in Walter's and Bell's league as far as sheer scientific brilliance and chutzpah. He played a major role in earlier Fringe, dying as he tried to cross the portal to the alternate reality and Walter closed it - slicing Jones in half in the process. But Jones had not been sliced in the new realities our characters are now inhabiting and contesting. Should be some good times ahead with Jones back in play.
And that's the not all. In a stunning last scene, an Eternal Bald Observer - September, the main one we've seen over the years - comes to see Olivia, on our side of the portal, where she's waiting for Peter and our Lincoln Lee to return. He's gasping, and tells Olivia with regret that she will die in all realities. And he's gasping because he's shot in the chest. And he disappears.
Just on the last point - he disappears because he dies? Nah. I'd say he disappears because someone did something somewhere down the line to trigger an alternate world in which this EBO never existed at all. Maybe that's part of the process Peter getting back to the people he loves.
But who shot him and in what circumstances? And surely Olivia has some option for life that even the EBO doesn't know (though, I suppose we could have a Fringe in which only Fauxlivia lives, and she and Peter get together - again). Should be good viewing indeed for the rest of this season.
Hey, check out my essay The Return of 1950s Science Fiction in Fringe in this new anthology
See also Fringe Returns for Season 4: Almost with Peter ... Fringe 4.2: Better and Worse Selves ... Fringe 4.3: Sanity and Son ... Fringe 4.4: Peter's Back, Ectoplasm, and McLuhan ... Fringe 4.5: Double Return ... Fringe 4.6: Time Slips ... Fringe 4.7: The Invisible Man
See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia ... Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko ... Fringe 3.17: Bell, Olivia, Lee, and the Cow ... Fringe 3.18: Clever Walternate ... Fringe 3.19 meets Inception, The Walking Dead, Tron ... Fringe 3.20: Countdown to Season 3 Finale 1 of 3 ... Fringe 3.21: Ben Frankin, Rimbaldi, and the Future ... Fringe Season 3 Finale: Here's What Happened ... Death Not Death in Fringe
See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ... New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22: Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch
See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
January 12, 2012
Bones 7.6: The Reassembler
Yay! Finally a villain in Bones 7.6 worthy of the brilliance of our team! Meaning, although I think and have often said that the new Bones-Booth relationship is a wonderful transformation of the series, the actual cases this year have lacked the intensity of the Zack Addy and other tension-tingling shows and stories of Bones past.
And tonight we finally got both. Booth and Bones decide on a house, and the baby is just six weeks away, and it's balm for the soul to see them still so happy together.
But they're faced with a sociopathic killer who rearranges the vertebrae of the victim to deliver a code, inscribes another code for a worm (the computer kind) on the end of a bone which, when scanned, shuts down the lab's massive computer, and, like that. Booth says the killer MacGyvered it, Jack and Angela can do little more than break the code and admire it, and Angela's the first to say the guy's a genius.
He has a great alibi. He has a security bracelet around his ankle which tells his monitors where he is, at 30 second intervals, but he's managed to beat that system and commit his murders. Further, he's not only brutally dismembered his victims, but has Booth and Bones in his sights. Bones can't believe she's encountered someone who's smarter than her ...
And there this story ends. With Bones, you never know if the reassembler will be back when the series first comes back in the second half of this season, or it he'll jump back into play later this season or even next. I'll be glad to see him again, either way - though I just hope he hasn't in some way bugged or rigged the new home that Booth and Bones are so happy in ...
See also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ... Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle
And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7: Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ... Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ... Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful
And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ... Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ... Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
And tonight we finally got both. Booth and Bones decide on a house, and the baby is just six weeks away, and it's balm for the soul to see them still so happy together.
But they're faced with a sociopathic killer who rearranges the vertebrae of the victim to deliver a code, inscribes another code for a worm (the computer kind) on the end of a bone which, when scanned, shuts down the lab's massive computer, and, like that. Booth says the killer MacGyvered it, Jack and Angela can do little more than break the code and admire it, and Angela's the first to say the guy's a genius.
He has a great alibi. He has a security bracelet around his ankle which tells his monitors where he is, at 30 second intervals, but he's managed to beat that system and commit his murders. Further, he's not only brutally dismembered his victims, but has Booth and Bones in his sights. Bones can't believe she's encountered someone who's smarter than her ...
And there this story ends. With Bones, you never know if the reassembler will be back when the series first comes back in the second half of this season, or it he'll jump back into play later this season or even next. I'll be glad to see him again, either way - though I just hope he hasn't in some way bugged or rigged the new home that Booth and Bones are so happy in ...
See also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ... Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle
And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7: Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ... Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ... Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful
And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ... Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ... Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution
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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Bones 7.6: The Reassember
Yay! Finally a villain in Bones 7.6 worthy of the brilliance of our team! Meaning, although I think and have often said that the new Bones-Booth relationship is a wonderful transformation of the series, the actual cases this year have lacked the intensity of the Zack Addy and other tension-tingling shows and stories of Bones past.
And tonight we finally got both. Booth and Bones decide on a house, and the baby is just six weeks away, and it's balm for the soul to see them still so happy together.
But they're faced with a sociopathic killer who rearranges the vertebrae of the victim to deliver a code, inscribes another code for a worm (the computer kind) on the end of a bone which, when scanned, shuts down the lab's massive computer, and, like that. Booth says the killer MacGyvered it, Jack and Angela can do little more than break the code and admire it, and Angela's the first to say the guy's a genius.
He has a great alibi. He has a security bracelet around his ankle which tells his monitors where he is, at 30 second intervals, but he's managed to beat that system and commit his murders. Further, he's not only brutally dismembered his victims, but has Booth and Bones in his sights. Bones can't believe she's encountered someone who's smarter than her ...
And there this story ends. With Bones, you never know if the reassembler will be back when the series first comes back in the second half of this season, or it he'll jump back into play later this season or even next. I'll be glad to see him again, either way - though I just hope he hasn't in some way bugged or rigged the new home that Booth and Bones are so happy in ...
See also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ... Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle
And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7: Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ... Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ... Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful
And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ... Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ... Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution
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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
And tonight we finally got both. Booth and Bones decide on a house, and the baby is just six weeks away, and it's balm for the soul to see them still so happy together.
But they're faced with a sociopathic killer who rearranges the vertebrae of the victim to deliver a code, inscribes another code for a worm (the computer kind) on the end of a bone which, when scanned, shuts down the lab's massive computer, and, like that. Booth says the killer MacGyvered it, Jack and Angela can do little more than break the code and admire it, and Angela's the first to say the guy's a genius.
He has a great alibi. He has a security bracelet around his ankle which tells his monitors where he is, at 30 second intervals, but he's managed to beat that system and commit his murders. Further, he's not only brutally dismembered his victims, but has Booth and Bones in his sights. Bones can't believe she's encountered someone who's smarter than her ...
And there this story ends. With Bones, you never know if the reassembler will be back when the series first comes back in the second half of this season, or it he'll jump back into play later this season or even next. I'll be glad to see him again, either way - though I just hope he hasn't in some way bugged or rigged the new home that Booth and Bones are so happy in ...
See also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ... Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle
And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7: Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ... Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ... Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful
And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ... Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ... Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Rick Tyler's Good Defense of Anti-Romney Ads and Movie
I just saw Rick Tyler (on Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC show) give a spirited, excellent defense of the Gingrich PAC-group attacks ads and movie directed against Mitt Romney. You've no doubt seen them - "When Romney Came to Town" - a scathing portrayal of what Romney did at Bain Capital, destroying rather than creating jobs in the companies Bain acquired.
Republicans ranging from Limbaugh to Giuliani have condemned the ad and the anti-Romney campaign, saying it plays right into Obama's hands. That would be enough to make me kindly disposed towards the ad - I can't recall the last time I agreed with anything Limbaugh and Giuliani have said - but Tyler made some good, objective points that make a lot of sense.
We're in a primary, not a general election, he said of the contest now going on among Republican contenders. This is a time when candidates are supposed to be vetted by the press, and then voters.
Some economists have joined the critique of the ads, saying that what Romney did at Bain embodies Schumpeter's notion of "creative destruction," as one of the necessary, healthy engines of capitalism. I'm Darwinian in my theory of media evolution - see my The Soft Edge - so I'm well aware of Joseph Schumpeter's work. But Tyler had a valid response to this, too: it doesn't matter whether you dress up what Romney did at Bain in sophisticated economic theory. Romney did preside over the dismantling of weak companies Bain had acquired, and profited from this.
And Romney apparently enjoyed it. Vultures may be part of the natural world, and play a role in evolution and survival of the fittest. But that doesn't mean we have to like them, or want one to be President.
Beyond that, as I said last week about Gingrich's handwringing about Romney Pac-group attack ads on Gingrich: people are not that influenced by them, anyway, people can separate truth from falsity, stop whining.
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Republicans ranging from Limbaugh to Giuliani have condemned the ad and the anti-Romney campaign, saying it plays right into Obama's hands. That would be enough to make me kindly disposed towards the ad - I can't recall the last time I agreed with anything Limbaugh and Giuliani have said - but Tyler made some good, objective points that make a lot of sense.
We're in a primary, not a general election, he said of the contest now going on among Republican contenders. This is a time when candidates are supposed to be vetted by the press, and then voters.
Some economists have joined the critique of the ads, saying that what Romney did at Bain embodies Schumpeter's notion of "creative destruction," as one of the necessary, healthy engines of capitalism. I'm Darwinian in my theory of media evolution - see my The Soft Edge - so I'm well aware of Joseph Schumpeter's work. But Tyler had a valid response to this, too: it doesn't matter whether you dress up what Romney did at Bain in sophisticated economic theory. Romney did preside over the dismantling of weak companies Bain had acquired, and profited from this. And Romney apparently enjoyed it. Vultures may be part of the natural world, and play a role in evolution and survival of the fittest. But that doesn't mean we have to like them, or want one to be President.
Beyond that, as I said last week about Gingrich's handwringing about Romney Pac-group attack ads on Gingrich: people are not that influenced by them, anyway, people can separate truth from falsity, stop whining.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
January 11, 2012
The Day After New Hampshire
I take Ron Paul's strong second-place in the Republican New Hampshire primary last night as a very good thing for people like me who want more government respect for the First Amendment and an end to unconstitutional wars.
Yes, there are positions that Ron Paul holds which I strongly oppose - notably his call for a Constitutional Amendment to ban abortion, which is inconsistent with libertarian philosophy and its view that the government should stay out of our lives. And I'm not at all happy about the racist observations that appeared under his name in his newsletter two decades ago.
But there's a lot to commend in Ron Paul. He not only opposes undeclared wars but the NDAA signed into law by Obama and SOPA now under consideration in Congress. He wants an end to the massive Federal anti-drug enforcement, which he correctly sees as an invasion of privacy, and which has especially targeted minority groups.
And his Republican rivals, who share none of his virtues, share all of his serious political defects. No Republican supports a woman's right to have complete control over her own body, and Gingrich and Santorum have both recently made racist statements.
Would I vote for Ron Paul over Barack Obama in a general election? Not very likely. But unlike in 2008, when I first supported Ron Paul for the GOP nomination and then withdrew that when I became aware of his 1990s newsletters, I think our country would be much better served by an Obama vs. Ron Paul election than it would by Obama facing any other GOP candidate.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Yes, there are positions that Ron Paul holds which I strongly oppose - notably his call for a Constitutional Amendment to ban abortion, which is inconsistent with libertarian philosophy and its view that the government should stay out of our lives. And I'm not at all happy about the racist observations that appeared under his name in his newsletter two decades ago.
But there's a lot to commend in Ron Paul. He not only opposes undeclared wars but the NDAA signed into law by Obama and SOPA now under consideration in Congress. He wants an end to the massive Federal anti-drug enforcement, which he correctly sees as an invasion of privacy, and which has especially targeted minority groups.
And his Republican rivals, who share none of his virtues, share all of his serious political defects. No Republican supports a woman's right to have complete control over her own body, and Gingrich and Santorum have both recently made racist statements.
Would I vote for Ron Paul over Barack Obama in a general election? Not very likely. But unlike in 2008, when I first supported Ron Paul for the GOP nomination and then withdrew that when I became aware of his 1990s newsletters, I think our country would be much better served by an Obama vs. Ron Paul election than it would by Obama facing any other GOP candidate.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
January 9, 2012
Hell on Wheels 1.9: History Inevitable and Unknown
The thing about Hell on Wheels is that we know that Durant succeeded with the Union Pacific railroad. That's our unchangeable history, and the unchangeable foundation of the series, because it's historical drama not time travel. So it's a measure of how good a job the series has been doing of keeping us on the edge of our seats that it comes as a refreshing surprise when Durant pounds in the spike that completes his forty miles - winning him the right to continue building his east-west half of the first transcontinental railroad.
But, of course, there's no guarantee at all of happy endings for the other characters. Elam's finally doing fine, getting money (for the Indian scalps that he took), a better position from Durant, and the exclusive relationship he wants with Eva. Lily's doing fine, free from Durant and proving her surveyor acumen.
Well, not totally free, because as we see near the end of the episode, Durant still wants to keep her clear of Bohannan. Durant see Lily and Bohannan talking cosily in the bar, we see the flash of passion in their eyes which we knew was there all along, and this spurs Durant to speak to Bohannan privately and give him a "bonus" for his great work in getting the crew to complete the 40 miles. The bonus isn't money, which Bohannan doesn't want. It's the information that Federal marshals are coming to get Bohannan for the serial murders of his wife's killers he's been committing.
Bohannan realizes that Durant is doing this not really to help Bohannan, but to get get him out town (whether he realizes that this is to get him away from Lily is not yet completely clear). Durant says the Swede alerted the marshals. Whether the Swede did this on his own or with Durant's knowledge - or even on Durant's orders - is also not completely clear. Durant, as far as we've seen, values his railroad above all else. But the love of a woman - smart, strong, and beautiful - can be a pretty strong motivator to man like Durant, who would go far to have someone like Lily beside him.
We'll find out next week in the finale of this too-short season what becomes of this. I'll be back here with a review of that after the train finishes whistling.
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
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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
But, of course, there's no guarantee at all of happy endings for the other characters. Elam's finally doing fine, getting money (for the Indian scalps that he took), a better position from Durant, and the exclusive relationship he wants with Eva. Lily's doing fine, free from Durant and proving her surveyor acumen.
Well, not totally free, because as we see near the end of the episode, Durant still wants to keep her clear of Bohannan. Durant see Lily and Bohannan talking cosily in the bar, we see the flash of passion in their eyes which we knew was there all along, and this spurs Durant to speak to Bohannan privately and give him a "bonus" for his great work in getting the crew to complete the 40 miles. The bonus isn't money, which Bohannan doesn't want. It's the information that Federal marshals are coming to get Bohannan for the serial murders of his wife's killers he's been committing.
Bohannan realizes that Durant is doing this not really to help Bohannan, but to get get him out town (whether he realizes that this is to get him away from Lily is not yet completely clear). Durant says the Swede alerted the marshals. Whether the Swede did this on his own or with Durant's knowledge - or even on Durant's orders - is also not completely clear. Durant, as far as we've seen, values his railroad above all else. But the love of a woman - smart, strong, and beautiful - can be a pretty strong motivator to man like Durant, who would go far to have someone like Lily beside him.
We'll find out next week in the finale of this too-short season what becomes of this. I'll be back here with a review of that after the train finishes whistling.
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
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ... Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
The Good Wife 3.12: Two Suits
The Good Wife's first 2012 episode - 3.12 - brought us two suits. Not clothes, law suits. And against the Lockhart Gardner.
The first was essentially another David Lee boondoggle, an "alienation of affection" case arising out a divorce case that Lee handled for the firm a few years ago. The most important part of this suit - other than the humor - was the role that Cary unexpected plays. His testimony helps the firm - deliberately. And when Alicia, seeing him out, thanks and asks him what's going on, he says he's a different man now, happy with his job as Peter's deputy. It's good seeing a character grow like that.
The alienation of affection suit also may hold some unexpected affection for Diane, with a new character, played by Bryan Brown, a charming process server. Not only is there a little chemistry between the two, but Bryan Brown is a cool choice to bring in as an actor: he starred in the 1987 movie, The Good Wife, a completely different story, also starring Rachel Ward.
Back to our Good Wife, the second suit of night has been progressing for a while - it's the one against Will. Wendy Scott-Carr is tightening the vice. Her motive is still not completely clear - she presumably wants to get back at Peter, for getting the State Attorney job she wanted, but going after Will seems a little of a roundabout way to do this. Fortunately for Will, he's hired the quirkily brilliant Elsbeth Tascioni as his lawyer on Alicia's recommendation, and it will be fun seeing Elsbeth ultimately take down Wendy (I hope).
The Good Wife continues as one of the best lawyer shows in that oft-practiced genre on television.
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
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
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
The first was essentially another David Lee boondoggle, an "alienation of affection" case arising out a divorce case that Lee handled for the firm a few years ago. The most important part of this suit - other than the humor - was the role that Cary unexpected plays. His testimony helps the firm - deliberately. And when Alicia, seeing him out, thanks and asks him what's going on, he says he's a different man now, happy with his job as Peter's deputy. It's good seeing a character grow like that.
The alienation of affection suit also may hold some unexpected affection for Diane, with a new character, played by Bryan Brown, a charming process server. Not only is there a little chemistry between the two, but Bryan Brown is a cool choice to bring in as an actor: he starred in the 1987 movie, The Good Wife, a completely different story, also starring Rachel Ward.Back to our Good Wife, the second suit of night has been progressing for a while - it's the one against Will. Wendy Scott-Carr is tightening the vice. Her motive is still not completely clear - she presumably wants to get back at Peter, for getting the State Attorney job she wanted, but going after Will seems a little of a roundabout way to do this. Fortunately for Will, he's hired the quirkily brilliant Elsbeth Tascioni as his lawyer on Alicia's recommendation, and it will be fun seeing Elsbeth ultimately take down Wendy (I hope).
The Good Wife continues as one of the best lawyer shows in that oft-practiced genre on television.
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
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
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
January 8, 2012
LP's Into the Wild
Hey, you've all seen that Citibank commercial, with the woman climbing to the top of an awesome rock formation, and another woman belting out "Somebody left the gate open, Save us a runaway train". Jeanne Moos had a good piece about it on CNN this weekend.
I'm no fan of Citibank, and I've climbed no more than a few feet up in my life, but I was knocked out enough by the lyric, melody, and performance to seek out the full version of the song, and -
Wow, it's "Into the Wild" by LP, the most energizing, emotionally brilliant song and performance I've heard in years.
Here are two video versions - the recording with a picture, and LP's live performance. Laura Pergolizzi not only sings but whistles evocatively, that stand-up bass player in her group reminds me of The Seekers, retro-rocked-up and launched out of this world into more than the 21st century.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
I'm no fan of Citibank, and I've climbed no more than a few feet up in my life, but I was knocked out enough by the lyric, melody, and performance to seek out the full version of the song, and -
Wow, it's "Into the Wild" by LP, the most energizing, emotionally brilliant song and performance I've heard in years.
Here are two video versions - the recording with a picture, and LP's live performance. Laura Pergolizzi not only sings but whistles evocatively, that stand-up bass player in her group reminds me of The Seekers, retro-rocked-up and launched out of this world into more than the 21st century.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Levinson at Large
At present, I'll be automatically porting over blog posts from my main blog, Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress. These consist of literate (I hope) reviews of mostly television, with some reviews of mov
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