A few days ago I published my Top 12 list of what I considered to be the best of television in 2016. It was very difficult trying to narrow down all the great TV I watched this year into a Top 12, but after a lot of thought and effort put into the list, I'm happy with the 12 I landed on. However because there was a lot of great TV that aired this year and my list wasn't ranked anyways, I decided to make a second list of the 15 shows that almost made my Best Of list only to get cut for some reason or another. "The Best Of The Rest Of TV List" as I call it. Could I have just added these 15 shows to my original list and went for a Top 27? Sure but where's the fun in that? Should I have posted this list before my actual Best Of list to avoid confusion? Maybe, but it's too late to do anything about that now. Just a reminder before we get to it that the list isn't ranked, and it is completely subjective so if my opinions don't match your own, that's totally cool. Alright without further ado, you've seen the "Best Of", now meet the "Rest Of".
American Crime (ABC): The second season of John Ridley's anthology drama American Crime (not to be confused with American Crime Story) was one of the most fascinating shows of the year, a sweeping, nuanced look at sexuality, rape, race, gender, class, school violence, and cyber-vigilantism among other things. The season told the story of two schools and a community thrown into disarray when a basketball player at an elite private school accuses a teammate of raping him at a party, an incident that turns out to be more complex than it initially seemed, Connor Jessup and Joey Pollari are terrific as the two boys at the centre of the season, and they're surrounded by an all-star group of performances from the likes of Felicity Huffman, Regina King, Lili Taylor, Timothy Sutton and more. A series of twists and turns throughout the season keep things interesting. The season also utilized several interesting and daring storytelling techniques throughout the season, including a stunning mid-season interpretive dance sequence that highlights the many themes of the story and an episode that intercuts the action with interviews of Columbine survivors, LGBT victims of bullying and the mother of a gay son who committed suicide to devastating effect. The willingness to be bold with the story it told makes the second season of American Crime a must-watch for sure.
Better Things (FX): The show that came the closest to making the "Best Of " list, Better Things was one of my favourite new comedies of the year. Co-created by Louis C.K. and Pamela Adlon, Adlon stars as Sam Fox, a divorced actress balancing looking for work with raising her three daughters Max (Mikey Madison), Frankie (Hannah Allgood) and Duke (Olivia Edward). The show is an honest, unflinching look at the ups and downs of motherhood and being a woman through a series of Louie-esque vignettes. Max, Frankie and Duke (particularly Max, who is the oldest daughter) all cause Sam a lot of grief and anger and hurt but at the end of the day, there is a genuine believable love between them. The kids are believable and can be irritating, but in ways that feel true to life. Sam's relationship with her own mother Phyl (Celia Imrie) is also on display, adding another dimension to the show. Of course Better Things is very funny too, with all kinds of great moments and insights in every episode. The show feels like a spiritual successor to Louie, but it's also very much its own thing and I'm excited for more of it.
Black Mirror (Netflix): An episodic anthology show like Black Mirror where every episode is a new story in a new world is always going to be something of a mixed bag. That's just the nature of anthology shows. That being said, I greatly enjoyed the majority of the 3rd season (The first one produced specifically for Netflix) with only one episode that outright didn't work for me (The mind-melting VR madness of Playtest). From the "Social Media Popularity as caste system" world of Nosedive to the "Twitter abuse meets X-Files" thrills of Hated In The Nation, there was always something interesting to latch onto about the ways we use and are used by technology. Black Mirror also almost made my "Best Of" list for one episode alone, San Junipero. What starts as a simple love story between two women in the 80's turns into one of the most emotionally profound and beautiful things I've seen all year, plus it's one of the rare Black Mirror entries that offers something close to hope. It's astounding, and though the rest of the season never matches it, it's still well worth a watch.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox): It's easy to overlook Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The ensemble clicked so quickly and the show got so good, so fast that it's easy to take it's consistency for granted. Even if it's not the most daring or creative show on the block though it's still a show I look forward to spending time with every week. Sure, Andre Braugher snapping from monotone stoicism to unbridled rage/excitement isn't as rare or fresh as it use to be but it's still consistently funny every time (A 4th season moment of him yelling "BONEEE!" is one of his finest line deliveries ever). We know the characters so well at this point that we can guess how they'll react in most situations, but the show still finds moments to surprise us too. The show is also trying new things too as it gets older. It dabbled in heavy serialization in the back half of season 3/first bit of season 4 with exciting and funny results, adding some actual stakes to the show while still keeping it mostly light. Brooklyn Nine-Nine has been around for a while at this point, but it's in no danger of growing stale anytime soon.
Game of Thrones (HBO): The 6th season of Game of Thrones was it's most thrilling yet for one simple reason: for the first time ever book readers and show watchers were on mostly equal footing. With the majority of material from the released books covered, season 6 began diving in earnest into uncharted territory, revealing things both expected/suspected (A couple of major twists concerning Jon Snow) and surprising (A Hodor reveal I honestly never saw coming that wrecked me). The show still had it's flaws, mainly concerning the unrelenting terribleness of Ramsay Bolton and the dullness of most Greyjoy-related material that doesn't involve Yara, but a bunch of strong moments throughout the last two incredibly great episodes in particular helped to show why Game of Thrones became so popular in the first place. Bring on season seven!
Galavant (ABC): Galavant, a medieval musical comedy created by Tangled writer Dan Fogelman with music from Alan Menkin and Glenn Slater was a weird little gem of a January burn-off show that shouldn't have got a second season but somehow pulled it off. The first season about a heroic knight Galavant (Joshua Sasse) trying to get his groove back after his love Madalena (Mallory Jansen) chooses the bumbling put powerful King Richard (Timothy Omundson) was flawed, but charming and brilliant in spots (Particularly with it's sympathetic portrayal of Richard) and the second season found the show zeroing in on what worked and hitting it's stride. Richard is betrayed by Madalena and his right-hand man Gareth (Vinnie Jones) and decides to pal up with Galavant, setting up an incredibly rewarding redemptive arc for Richard as he becomes a true hero over the course of the season. Meanwhile as Galavant tries to get back to his true love Isabella (Karen David), the show throws in a bunch of amusing and inventive obstacles that subvert and play with medieval tropes. From an evil sorcerer who's also a wedding planner to a kingdom that's found a primitive version of democracy to a bunch of giants and elves who are all the same size to a soft-shoeing personification of Death, Galavant is loaded with creativity, great jokes, and a bunch of catchy and occasionally affecting songs. The show didn't make it to a third season, but the second season tells a complete compelling story that's great enough to ease the pain of cancellation a little.
The Good Place (NBC): The Good Place started out as a simple fish out of water story, albeit told on a cosmic level. Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) dies and is sent to the good place, a paradise reserved for the cream of the cream of the crop. The only problem is there was a mix-up and Eleanor isn't actually the perfect person neighborhood Architect Michael (Ted Danson) and her fellow residents think she is and doesn't belong there. So Eleanor enlists her ethics professor "soulmate" Chidi (William Jackson-Harper) to try and learn how to be a better person before she's caught and sent to the bad place. The Good Place has greater ambitions than that initial promise though and has grown into a story about unfair systems and what makes someone a "good person". There's plenty of jokes to go along with the ethics and examinations of morality though and the cast is full of stand-outs particularly Danson's Michael, who loves humanity but doesn't understand it. With four episodes left in the first (and hopefully not last) season, The Good Place is a warm, winning delight that grows better and more inventive by the week.
The Grinder (Fox): The Grinder was too good, too clever, and too creative to last, joining the ranks of many a great show cancelled only after a season. The first part of the season established the show's premise and template nicely. Dean Sanderson (Rob Lowe) starred for many years as Mitchard Grinder in the hit legal drama "The Grinder". When his show ends, a visit to his brother Stewart's (Fred Savage) family in Boise, Idaho becomes permanent when he decides to become a real lawyer and join the family law firm despite having no actual experience, much to the bemusement of Stewart and the delight of their father Dean Sr. (William Devine). These first episodes show Stewart adjusting to Dean as he gives terrible advice to Stewart's children, casually abuses his celebrity and tries to use TV logic (Like winning arguments with the phrase "But what if it wasn't?") in real world situations with amusing results. In 2016 however, the show really hit it's stride thanks to a very serialized arc about a TV-esque conspiracy hitting the firm just as Dean gives up being The Grinder which deconstructs the show's own premise in amusing ways. Meanwhile the show was chalked full of insider meta jokes about how TV and the TV business works. For all the loopiness though, the show never lost sight of the heart of the story: the relationship between Dean and Stewart. Even as ratings dropped and cancellation seemed nigh, The Grinder refused to simplify it's storytelling or dumb things down for the audience (Save for an episode where they made fun of doing something like that by indulging in a classical farce plot). It might have doomed the show, but nothing can take away from the greatness of the one season we did get. The Grinder rests.
Man Seeking Woman (FXX): Man Seeking Woman is possibly the most surreal show on television. The characters and how they react to situations are grounded in reality (With the occasional exception of Eric Andre's Mike) and the basic story (Josh Greenberg tries to find love with the help of ultra bro best friend Mike and sensible-ish sister Liz (Britt Lower) but the world and the context of the situations are anything but. In one episode Josh tries to bond with his girlfriend's friends but can't relate to their shared experience of being stalked by a slasher movie villain in a cursed cabin they insist on revisiting. In another Liz has a fling with a married man: Santa Claus. In one of my favourite episodes of 2016, Josh is rejected by a girl he's been nice to and so makes a literal law that you have to date anyone who's nice to you. The rules of the world around Josh, Mike, and Liz vary from segment to segment (For the most part, each episode is a series of loosely connected sketches) but they remain the same in any situation, which helps give you something to connect to, even when the sketches aren't landing. The result is a very funny show with a lot of fresh insight about dating and trying to define yourself in your late 20's.
The Night Of (HBO): I'll be honest. I totally forgot about The Night Of until I saw it on a different Best Of List. Which is why it didn't make my Best Of List. That's not to say it was bad or forgettable or anything. It was terrific, a tense, atmospheric crime drama that carefully followed a murder case and accused killer Nasir "Naz" Khan (Riz Ahmed) through every step of the legal system, showing how stacked it can be against someone without a lot of means to defend themselves. John Turturro was also terrific as John Stone, the ambulance chasing lawyer who stumbles into the case of a lifetime. The show stumbled a bit when it got to the ending which felt a bit too clean in a few parts, but was engaging all the way through. In the end there was just too much good TV for The Night Of to stick in my memory, but now that I've remembered it, I'm definitely planning a rewatch soon.
South Park (Comedy Central): The 20th season was certainly it's most ambitious as it went all in on serialization to tell a 10-episode story about Kyle's unassuming dad Gerald becoming a notorious internet troll, Denmark developing a tool that would make everyone's internet history public in retaliation to trolling, how we treat each other online, a brewing civil war between boys and girls, and the U.S. Presidential Election which was being manipulated by member berries, nostalgia-obsessed fruit trying to bring things back to the good old days. Unfortunately the story got thrown for a loop when Donald Trump was elected president, forcing Matt Stone and Trey Parker to retool things to a degree. As a result, the member berries disappeared from the narrative after episode 8 and the boys/girls clash got mostly downplayed leaving the trolling storyline to carry the brunt of the narrative weight. The results were a bit underwhelming and hurt the season as a whole, but there was still a lot of great moments and clever satire (Particularly with the Member Berries) to make it an overall great season for South Park.
Speechless (ABC): Speechless could have been a treacly and overly-saccharine show about an inspiring lower-class family coping with their oldest son's cerebral palsy as best as they can. Instead it's a smart, irreverent, honest and very funny show that's well on its way to becoming one of TV's best (It mainly missed the main list because of how early in it's run it is.). Micah Fowler is a revelation as J.J. who doesn't let small things like being wheel-chair bound and unable to verbally communicate keep him from being a typical girl-obsessed, popularity-chasing, snarky teenager. The rest of the DiMeo family- Minnie Driver fierce yet careless in most non-J.J. matters matriarch Maya, John Ross Bowie's laid-back, fine with being an idiot Jimmy, Mason Cook's soulful, earnest and geeky Ray and Kyla Kennedy's very intense, very competitive Dylan- are equally well-defined, as is J.J.'s full-time aide Kenneth (A delightful Cedric Yarbrough). Speechless definitely goes for heart-warming sentiment when it tries, but is also happily content to undercut the sappiness with a clever plot turn. Also the ongoing shambles of the DiMeo house is one of the best running gags of the year (A list written on the wall during the Halloween episode can still be seen there 5 episodes later).
Stranger Things (Netflix): Stranger Things took some of the best parts and themes of 80's cinema (Particularly classic Spielberg and John Carpenter) and mixed them all together to make an incredibly fun, incredibly entertaining story that payed homage to the greats, while standing on it's own quite nicely. Winona Ryder and David Harbour both gave great performances as the main adult characters in the story but the real stars were the kids at the heart of things. Talented child actors are hard to find but Stranger Things struck gold with Finn Wolfhard (Mike), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), Caleb MacLaughlin (Lucas), Noah Schnapp (Will) and especially Millie Bobbie Brown as the ET-esque Eleven, who all came across as believable and were able to step up to the plate acting-wise whenever needed. Stranger Things was the most unexpected treat of the summer and I'm definitely stoked for whatever the Duffer Brothers have in store for Stranger Things 2.
Superstore (NBC): I had no expectations for Superstore when it debuted. Comedy had been mostly flailing at NBC for a few years now and even the alright stuff wasn't lasting long. But I checked out the first couple episodes and found myself quickly won over by it's interesting characters, compelling setting and funny stories. The show grew better and more confident by the episode and the second season has been a real treat so far. I finally started to feel like I had found a worthy successor to The Office, one of my favourite shows of all time (Though we still got a ways to go before Superstore gets to that level). If the rest of season 2 (and hopefully season 3) is as strong as it's been so far, Superstore is a shoe-in for a spot on next year's best of list.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix): Another show that came incredibly close to making the "Best Of List", the second season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (And the first one actually written and produced for Netflix) was deeper, weirder, and even more joke-packed than the first. If the first season was about Kimmy learning to confront and move beyond her bunker experience, the second is about her learning to deal with the deeper traumas and resentments that are keeping her from truly moving on. Meanwhile Titus finds himself in a committed relationship, Jacqueline tries to reintegrate herself into rich life to help her family and Lillian fights gentrification. Their stories all weave together and take unexpected turns throughout the season leading to an emotionally cathartic conclusion that sets the stage for season 3 nicely, while still feeling satisfying on it's own. Guest Stars like Fred Armisen, Anna Camp, and Tina Fey all fit into the world perfectly and enrich the story. There's also such a wealth of great jokes, quips, songs, visuals and background gags that each episode demands to be watched at least five times to catch them all.
And with that, Kenny Sage Talks TV, Yo! is officially done with list-making for 2016. Thank God.
Friday 16 December 2016
Tuesday 13 December 2016
I Got Thoughts on Timeless: The Capture Of Benedict Arnold
-The Capture Of Benedict Arnold was the mid-season finale of Timeless. So naturally George Washington stopped by, the stakes got driven up a lot and we ended on a big cliffhanger.
-So David Rittenhouse was an actual person who was a member (and eventually President) of the American Philisophical Society and first director of the United States mint. He was a clockmaker, though he probably didn't found any kind of nefarious shadow government. Reading up about him though, you can kind of see why Timeless chose him to be the founder of their sinister conspiracy group. His interest in things like astronomy and invention, plus his history with people like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams makes him the perfect candidate for a Historical Sci-Fi show like this.
-Midway through the season and I'm honestly still not that interested in Rittenhouse. We know more or less what they are now (A shadow government who has manipulated history to their interest and wants control) and understand the threat we pose, but it's still hard to be very interested in them, Shadow group wants to control the world isn't exactly the most original or compelling thing out there, though the whole "tyranny disguised as democracy" thing has a lot of potential if they start digging into that philosophy. Hopefully the second half of the season will dig more into modern day Rittenhouse and what they're actually trying to achieve with all the time machines they're so interested in. The best villains are those where you can understand what they want and where they're coming from and Rittenhouse is lacking that right now.
-Garcia Flynn meanwhile has become a much more compelling antagonist then he initially seemed. Forcing our heroes into a team-up with him is a great way to show the ultimate reason why Flynn is different from our team and needs to be stopped. Yes our team knows Rittenhouse is a threat and yes they want to stop them but our team believes in helping and protecting innocent people and Flynn doesn't. His confession to Lucy that he plans to leave his family after he saves them because of how much he's changed in his quest to destroy Rittenhouse is powerful and provides some key shading to his actions. He knows what he's doing is wrong on some level but he decided a long time ago that the ends justified the means so if he has to shoot a child so be it.
-The scene with John Rittenhouse was a solid "creepy kid says creepy things" scene but the character really becomes interesting now that Lucy has stopped Flynn from killing him. If Timeless is about anything beyond romping through time, it seems to be about the choice and free will. Lucy won't let John die even if his survival does mean Rittenhouse continues because he's still an innocent kid who could very well make a different choice. Flynn doesn't have to alienate himself from his family but he makes that choice every time he relies on extreme methods to carry out his mission. Connor Mason had good intentions but chose to get in bed with Rittenhouse and is now forced to threaten someone he greatly admires for them. I'm hoping we return to John Rittenhouse at some point down the road because I'd like to see Lucy's instinct to protect him pay off, but even if he does follow in his fathers footsteps, it'd still be interesting.
-Also it's a shame that David Rittenhouse got killed so soon because he made a massive impression with his short amount of screentime. The idea that Rittenhouse was the brainchild of one man becomes much more plausible after you meet David and see his sinister charisma in action. The way he marvels at the modern-day gun and quietly decides to reverse engineer it hints at an incredibly fascinating character that we'll probably never get to explore further. Even though I knew he was probably going to die, he oozed such menace that at various points I thought maybe he would kill Flynn.
-Flynn knows the identity of Jessica's killer. This is a smart storytelling decision because it makes Flynn's survival valuable for Wyatt. They've also built up Wyatt's pain over his wife's death so well that it's believable that he would agree to team up with Flynn if it meant figuring out who killed her.
-Rittenhouse knows Rufus has been messing with the recordings, which is good because it was straining both credibility and the narrative purpose of the tape recorder for him to just turn it on and off whenever. It also creates a handy dilemma for the mission this episode, which looks pretty terrible for Rufus whether or not he messes with the recording.
-The scene where Wyatt gets Lucy to go along with the plan to team up with Flynn was mostly good but the math seemed off when Wyatt predicted they'd save hundreds of people. Wiping out a nefarious group that's been manipulating history for over 200 years would save more like thousands, right? Eh, small quibble.
-Bigger quibble: Are they really going to handwave away Flynn randomly murdering Cornwallis like that?! I hope not.
-Kudos to Timeless for immediately revealing what was in the letter the Rittenhouse Key opened. Got to love quick pay-offs.
-The Benedict Arnold stuff was fine. I enjoyed how they just let him be a casual asshole about everything, but also did try to humanize him a little and dig a bit into why he'd ally with Rittenhouse. I'm sure his death was cathartic to anyone who was bugged that the real Benedict Arnold basically got away consequence-free as the show points out. Also it'd be a shame if we never got to see George Washington again. He made a strong impression in his three minutes of screentime.
-Agent Christopher survived the mid-season finale, but I'm still concerned for her long-term survival, especially now that we've been introduced to her wife (LGBT characters, especially women don't exactly have the best survival rate on TV dramas.) and have more reason to care about her as a person. I loved that dinner scene with her, her wife and Lucy though which did more for Denise as a character than the previous nine episodes combined. The scene where we learn Agent Christopher is terrified that she could lose the people she loves without even knowing it like Amy's mom was also great and is a nice way to show that someone besides Lucy is worried about the smaller scale potential ramifications to history that these missions seem to cause.
-Flynn kidnapping Lucy is something I assume will be resolved by the end of next episode but it does make for a good cliffhanger. Flynn has spent most of this season convinced that Lucy was going to come around to his side at some point and now it looks like that definitely isn't happening. So that should complicate their dynamic a ton. Also we might finally get to see things like the inside of the Mothership and where Flynn gets his endless supply of goons.
-Solid episode from a show that's been a pleasant surprise this season. Can't wait to see where we're going when we come back in January.
-So David Rittenhouse was an actual person who was a member (and eventually President) of the American Philisophical Society and first director of the United States mint. He was a clockmaker, though he probably didn't found any kind of nefarious shadow government. Reading up about him though, you can kind of see why Timeless chose him to be the founder of their sinister conspiracy group. His interest in things like astronomy and invention, plus his history with people like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams makes him the perfect candidate for a Historical Sci-Fi show like this.
-Midway through the season and I'm honestly still not that interested in Rittenhouse. We know more or less what they are now (A shadow government who has manipulated history to their interest and wants control) and understand the threat we pose, but it's still hard to be very interested in them, Shadow group wants to control the world isn't exactly the most original or compelling thing out there, though the whole "tyranny disguised as democracy" thing has a lot of potential if they start digging into that philosophy. Hopefully the second half of the season will dig more into modern day Rittenhouse and what they're actually trying to achieve with all the time machines they're so interested in. The best villains are those where you can understand what they want and where they're coming from and Rittenhouse is lacking that right now.
-Garcia Flynn meanwhile has become a much more compelling antagonist then he initially seemed. Forcing our heroes into a team-up with him is a great way to show the ultimate reason why Flynn is different from our team and needs to be stopped. Yes our team knows Rittenhouse is a threat and yes they want to stop them but our team believes in helping and protecting innocent people and Flynn doesn't. His confession to Lucy that he plans to leave his family after he saves them because of how much he's changed in his quest to destroy Rittenhouse is powerful and provides some key shading to his actions. He knows what he's doing is wrong on some level but he decided a long time ago that the ends justified the means so if he has to shoot a child so be it.
-The scene with John Rittenhouse was a solid "creepy kid says creepy things" scene but the character really becomes interesting now that Lucy has stopped Flynn from killing him. If Timeless is about anything beyond romping through time, it seems to be about the choice and free will. Lucy won't let John die even if his survival does mean Rittenhouse continues because he's still an innocent kid who could very well make a different choice. Flynn doesn't have to alienate himself from his family but he makes that choice every time he relies on extreme methods to carry out his mission. Connor Mason had good intentions but chose to get in bed with Rittenhouse and is now forced to threaten someone he greatly admires for them. I'm hoping we return to John Rittenhouse at some point down the road because I'd like to see Lucy's instinct to protect him pay off, but even if he does follow in his fathers footsteps, it'd still be interesting.
-Also it's a shame that David Rittenhouse got killed so soon because he made a massive impression with his short amount of screentime. The idea that Rittenhouse was the brainchild of one man becomes much more plausible after you meet David and see his sinister charisma in action. The way he marvels at the modern-day gun and quietly decides to reverse engineer it hints at an incredibly fascinating character that we'll probably never get to explore further. Even though I knew he was probably going to die, he oozed such menace that at various points I thought maybe he would kill Flynn.
-Flynn knows the identity of Jessica's killer. This is a smart storytelling decision because it makes Flynn's survival valuable for Wyatt. They've also built up Wyatt's pain over his wife's death so well that it's believable that he would agree to team up with Flynn if it meant figuring out who killed her.
-Rittenhouse knows Rufus has been messing with the recordings, which is good because it was straining both credibility and the narrative purpose of the tape recorder for him to just turn it on and off whenever. It also creates a handy dilemma for the mission this episode, which looks pretty terrible for Rufus whether or not he messes with the recording.
-The scene where Wyatt gets Lucy to go along with the plan to team up with Flynn was mostly good but the math seemed off when Wyatt predicted they'd save hundreds of people. Wiping out a nefarious group that's been manipulating history for over 200 years would save more like thousands, right? Eh, small quibble.
-Bigger quibble: Are they really going to handwave away Flynn randomly murdering Cornwallis like that?! I hope not.
-Kudos to Timeless for immediately revealing what was in the letter the Rittenhouse Key opened. Got to love quick pay-offs.
-The Benedict Arnold stuff was fine. I enjoyed how they just let him be a casual asshole about everything, but also did try to humanize him a little and dig a bit into why he'd ally with Rittenhouse. I'm sure his death was cathartic to anyone who was bugged that the real Benedict Arnold basically got away consequence-free as the show points out. Also it'd be a shame if we never got to see George Washington again. He made a strong impression in his three minutes of screentime.
-Agent Christopher survived the mid-season finale, but I'm still concerned for her long-term survival, especially now that we've been introduced to her wife (LGBT characters, especially women don't exactly have the best survival rate on TV dramas.) and have more reason to care about her as a person. I loved that dinner scene with her, her wife and Lucy though which did more for Denise as a character than the previous nine episodes combined. The scene where we learn Agent Christopher is terrified that she could lose the people she loves without even knowing it like Amy's mom was also great and is a nice way to show that someone besides Lucy is worried about the smaller scale potential ramifications to history that these missions seem to cause.
-Flynn kidnapping Lucy is something I assume will be resolved by the end of next episode but it does make for a good cliffhanger. Flynn has spent most of this season convinced that Lucy was going to come around to his side at some point and now it looks like that definitely isn't happening. So that should complicate their dynamic a ton. Also we might finally get to see things like the inside of the Mothership and where Flynn gets his endless supply of goons.
-Solid episode from a show that's been a pleasant surprise this season. Can't wait to see where we're going when we come back in January.
Sunday 11 December 2016
Kenny Sage's Official Best TV of 2016 List, Yo!
It's that time of year where all the respected television critics and other assorted randos put together their lists celebrating the best TV of the year, and for the first time ever, I'm joining those randos. That's right, I'm jumping into the "Best Of List" game with my own list on what I believe to be the best TV of 2016. So a couple things to note before we jump in:
-This list is not ranked because I feel rankings are irrelevant and distract from the purpose of a "Best Of" list. Also it was hard enough narrowing my list down. I didn't want to add to that by ranking what I did have. All shows are listed alphabetically. For what it's worth, if it was a ranked list, The Americans would be at the top (The fact that the alphabetical format puts it at the top anyhow is a happy coincidence).
-This list is Top 12 instead of 10 because I've always found 10 to be an arbitrary number for ranking things. Plus once I settled on the Top 12 I couldn't bring myself to cut anything else and it's not a ranked list anyways so I figured why not 12?
-This list, like every "Best Of" list ever is entirely subjective, informed by my opinions and what I watched. I watched a lot of television this year but I didn't come close to watching everything out there. If I had gotten around to watching stuff like say Halt and Catch Fire, Queen of Sugar or Horace and Pete (The top three things I wish I had gotten around to watching this year), there's a strong chance this list would be different. So if you don't agree with my list, then that's cool. I'm just a guy with a blog. My word is hardly the final one. Feel free to make your own list.
-There were a lot of shows I wanted to put on the final list that didn't make a cut. Those shows will be featured on a "Best Of The Rest Of" list that will be published a few days from now (fingers crossed). So look forward to that.
-Anyways, enough pre-amble. Let's get to the list already!
The Americans (FX): The Americans is both the best show on television barely anyone watches and the best show on television period. A stunner of a period drama about two deep cover Soviet agents (Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell doing some of the best work of their careers) in 80's Washington who find the marriage and family they made as part of the cover has become very real, the 4th season (Of what was announced this year to be a six season run) may have been the best yet. As the weight and human cost of the work they do begins to seriously take it's toll on both Philip (Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Russell), the first half of the season builds an increasing amount of dread both from the threat of their secrets being revealed and the deadly biological weapons they're tasked with obtaining before a second half that brings down the threat of exposure without losing the sense that the end is approaching. A number of long-simmering storylines come to inevitable yet still devastating conclusions and multiple long-time regulars die or leave but none of it feels like shock value. Beyond the greatness of Rhys and Russell, there is also constantly great work from the likes of Noah Emmerich (As Stan, the Jennings FBI Agent neighbor), Allison Wright (As Martha, The FBI secretary Philip married as part of an assignment), Costa Ronin (As Oleg, a KGB embassy officer who is starting to waver in his belief to the cause) and many more. As Paige, the teenage daughter who's struggling to come to terms with the truth about her family she learned last year and trying to manage the fallout of an impulsive decision she made to tell her pastor, Holly Taylor is giving one of the best Prestige Show Teenager performances on TV. Dylan Baker is also present this season to bring some welcome levity as William, another Soviet agent who resents how much he's sacrificed for the cause and his presence adds a lot to the story. Ultimately it seems like The Americans is destined to be one of those shows whose greatness isn't truly appreciated until years from now when it's long over, but it's not too late to start watching now and let the methodical dread-filled thrill ride overtake you.
American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson (FX): I'll be honest. When it was announced that the first season of American Crime Story would be tackling O.J. I thought the whole thing would be a glorious disaster. Ryan Murphy (creator of such often self-indulgent messes as Glee and American Horror Story) tackling O.J.? Even with Murphy and frequent collaborator Brad Falchuck taking a backseat to show developers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszweski, my expectations were low (Although I was still going to watch it). So I was stunned by how good the series wound up being. Using Jeffrey Toobin's The Run Of His Life as a jumping-off point, Alexander and Karaszweski wove a complex tale about race, class, gender, celebrity, and the rise of the 24-hour news cycle among other things. Each episode is anchored around a key moment from the case like the Bronco chase or Marcia Clark's perm or the Mark Fuhrman Tapes, providing a clear focus for all the ideas on display to swirl around. The series is full of strong performances (with the exception of whatever John Travolta was trying to do with Robert Shapiro), with Sara Paulson, Sterling K. Brown and Courtney B. Vance in particular standing out as Marcia Clark, Christopher Darden, and Johnnie Cochran, bringing much needed humanity and insight to figures that have become fairly caricatured over the years. Even the odd tangents like the scenes of the young Kardashian sisters getting their first taste of fame work in the context of the greater story going on. Ultimately American Crime Story brought new life to a story that seemed like there was nothing left to tell (It wasn't even the only great TV project about O.J. released this year!) and that's truly remarkable.
Atlanta (FX): Is there anything Donald Glover can't do? He's funny, he can act, he can write, he can definitely rap, and he can create and star in a pretty damn good television series too. Atlanta is unlike any TV show in recent memory. The show has no set structure or template and doesn't follow any typical TV comedy rhythms (If it follows any rhythms at all). Donald Glover stars as Earn, a basically homeless Princeton dropout trying to make money and provide for his ex-girlfriend Vanessa (Zazie Beetz) and their infant daughter, while managing his cousin Alfred "Paper Boi" Miles, a local rapper trying to make a name for himself. This basic premise is used to support what's essentially a series of fascinating, unpredictable and often hilarious (though the show feels no need to constantly be spouting jokes) short stories about being black, poverty, the Hip-hop world, and life in Atlanta. Fire up an episode of Atlanta and there's no telling what you might find within. You might see Paper Boi facing off with a very black Justin Bieber or Earn trying to take Van for a nice dinner with no money or Paper Boi's right-hand man Darius (Keith Stanfield) getting in trouble for bringing a dog-shaped target to a shooting range or a whole episode of a fake talk show on a fake BET-network. Through it all, the well-defined characters keep the whole thing grounded and believable, even with ridiculous gags like an invisible car or a punk kid in whiteface popping up when you least expect them. The result is a viewing experience that sticks with you long after the season has ended. TV could use more shows like Atlanta.
Better Call Saul (AMC): Breaking Bad, one of the best TV dramas of all time was in many ways a horror story. An ordinary man turns out to be a monster but doesn't realize what a monster he is until he's ruined the lives of everyone around him. Better Call Saul, a spin-off/prequel focused on the early days of amoral attorney Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) and seasoned enforcer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) is more of a tragedy and that tragedy helps set itself apart from it's predecessor for a show that's really come into it's own this year. Jimmy McGill is a lawyer whose efforts to be a good person and do the right thing are blocked at every turn by forces ranging from Jimmy's brother Chuck (Michael McKean), an accomplished lawyer who suffers from a psychosomatic sensitivity to electromagnetism and a deep-seated resentment of Jimmy to Jimmy's own instincts to take ethical shortcuts and play fast and loose with the truth. We know eventually he'll become the sleazy Saul Goodman and wind up in exile to Omaha following the events of Breaking Bad, but Jimmy doesn't and the knowledge of the destination makes the journey that more heartbreaking. Odenkirk brings depth and dimension to Jimmy that Breaking Bad only ever hinted at and Rhea Seehorn stands out as Kim Wexler, Jimmy's friend and love interest who finds her professional life tied to Jimmy's for better and for worse. For people who loved Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul gives plenty of focus to Mike too as he finds himself drawn into the orbit of the Salamenca's and on a road that will lead to a certain chicken man. Jimmy's stuff is just as compelling though and Better Call Saul excels at making potentially boring sequences like Jimmy acting out at work, or spending hours at a copy shop for a scheme into brilliant setpieces. The show has also maintained Breaking Bad's sense of humour, which it uses for great effect. The second season builds to a climax similar to the second season of Breaking Bad, but with a much different conclusion that highlights the difference between Jimmy McGill and Walter White. Better Call Saul may never reach the heights of Breaking Bad, but it's a must-watch experience all the same.
Bojack Horseman (Netflix): One of the most emotionally rich, surprisingly dark and existential shows on TV is also an uproarious satirical animated comedy about a washed-up 90's sitcom actor who is also a horse (Well horse/human hybrid but same diff.). If you've never seen Bojack Horseman or stopped watching during the rockier early episodes before it coalesced into something special, the above sentence probably sounds absurd, but it's absolutely true and the third season proved to be the darkest and funniest season yet. If the second season of Bojack made it seem like he had finally hit rock bottom, Season 3 proved there was a lot more bottom to go as Bojack's quest for an Oscar nomination/happiness led to him finally alienating the people closest to him. This season contained maybe the best episode of television this year in Fish Out Of Water, an almost completely silent episode that sent Bojack to an under the sea film festival best described as "Lost In Translation Meets Looney Tunes" in the best way possible. Other highlights included a period piece set in the good ol' days of 2007, a nuanced and sensitive take on abortion issues, an episode-long phone conversation with guest star Candice Bergen trying to talk Bojack out of canceling his newspaper subscription, Todd starting an Uber-esque service targeted at women that quickly goes awry, the return of Character Actress and Fugitive Margo Martindale and a season-long joke about Mr. Peanutbutter buying hundreds of spaghetti strainers and waiting for them to pay off that has the best pay-off imaginable. Through it all, Will Arnett, Aaron Paul, Amy Sedaris, Allison Brie, and Paul F. Tompkins bring their characters to life with expert precision and the beautiful animation ensures that every scene is crammed with more jokes than you'll ever manage to find. Bojack Horseman can seem offputting at first glance, but under the surface is a treasure trove of narrative and comedic riches just waiting to be discovered.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW): When it debuted last fall, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (One of the two shows on the list I constantly talk about on this blog) was pleasant and charming, but didn't seem that essential or sustainable. A quirky musical comedy about a successful lawyer who drops everything to move from New York City to West Covina, California after a chance encounter with her ex-boyfriend from camp 10 years ago who's moving back there? OK sure. I enjoyed it but figured it would run out of steam fairly fast. In 2016 though, Creators Rachel Bloom (Who also stars) and Aline Brosh McKenna began to dig deep into ideas of addiction, depression, mental health, feminism, self-worth, personal happiness, creating narrative and the complete fabrication of Rom-Coms and showed just how deep and rewarding the show could be. Rebecca Bunch (Bloom) is a self-obsessed anti-hero but we root for her anyways because we understand where she's coming from. She's surrounded by people who are equally easy to root for, even when they're being despicable. The show can veer from comedy to tragedy back to comedy in an instant without skipping a beat. It's lovingly crafted and the world is built out in such a way that even the smallest character like the local bar owner or the grocery store checkout clerk feels like a unique individual. The songs are also brilliant and dabble in every genre and style of music imaginable from Broadway to Country to Beyonce to Spice Girls to 80's Power Ballads to 90's Pop Punk and everything in between. With ratings consistently low and the premise as ridiculous as it is, it seems unlikely that the show will last past season 2, but no matter how long it's run Bloom and McKenna have truly created something special and 2016 was when it got to fully show off how special it was.
Jane The Virgin (CW): The other show I constantly talk about on this blog, Jane The Virgin might be the most consistently great network show on television, which is remarkable considering how small a target it has to hit every week. A comical family show that's a spoof of the telenovella formula, but also an actual telenovella with tons of crazy plot twists including criminal family members, secret twins, stolen identities, and egregious product placement? It's a hard needle to thread but somehow "Jane" pulls it off week in and week out. As Jane (Gina Rodriguez) navigates her way through motherhood, co-parenting, grad school, criminal masterminds, famous fathers, marriage, brushes with tragedy, family secrets, and the lost of her virginity, the show always keeps the focus on the characters, which manages to anchor the show in reality, even if that reality is heightened. Three seasons in and the show still has plenty of narrative tricks up it's sleeve. They don't always work (Last season featured a multi-episode plot where Jane's father was kidnapped by a stalker that was a little too ridiculous) but the show hits way more than it misses, which is impressive this deep into it's run. It's also a very optimistic and joyful show, which is something you don't see enough of on TV these days. There's always a chance that eventually this show will go totally off the rails, but I have a feeling that as long as it runs, "Jane" will continue to be a fixture on my "Best Of" list.
Lady Dynamite (Netflix): Lady Dynamite is the kind of show where it's hard to explain the appeal in mere words but I'll give it my best shot. Created by Mitch Hurwitz and Pam Brady, Lady Dynamite is a loosely-autobiographical comedy about Maria Bamford (Who stars as herself) trying to get her life and career back on track following six months being treated for bipolar disorder. The show jumps between the present, the past as we see the events that led to a major breakdown and an inbetween period as we see her living with her parents while attending recovery in Duluth. It's a hilarious, surrealist romp with no 4th wall, the kind of show where Patton Oswalt will keep breaking character to advise Maria against using stand-up as a storytelling device, John Ridley and the Lucas Brothers will debate if the episode about race actually made any compelling points and the theme song is an out-of-nowhere spoof of Blaxploitation films. It's the kind of show where Maria's pug Bert might casually talk to her and give advice, her well-meaning but completely ineffectual manager Bruce (A brilliant Fred Malamed) might write a song about a Seamen-loving shark or accidentally ship a ton of T-Shirts with her face to child soldiers in Sudan and every predatory force in Maria's life past and present happens to be named Karen Grisham. Through it all Bamford guides us with a manic smile, and though the show threatens to come apart at the seams sometimes it always manages to stay on track right to it's powerful conclusion. The result is a bold show that manages to stand out among the many great Netflix comedies.
Orange Is The New Black (Netflix): The 3rd season of OITNB was lighter and less-focused than the first two but ended on a foreboding note that led to it's best season yet as things got dark for the ladies of Litchfield. As the privatization of the prison led to both an influx of new inmates and a host of new, more brutal and malicious guards, the show continued to make excellent use of it's large ensemble to tell moving stories about trying to maintain your humanity in a system that constantly denies it. One-time lead Piper (Taylor Schilling) became as unlikeable as she's ever been as her attempts to maintain control of her "Prison Panty" empire led to serious consequences and the accidental creation of a white supremacist gang, but as always the best moments of the season belonged to the women around Piper. From Taystee becoming Caputo's assistant to Pennsatucky trying to deal with being around the guard who raped her last season to Maria and Blanca making a play for power to Yoga Jones falling under the sway of celebrity inmate Judy King and the privilege that comes with her to Poussey and Soso's adorable romance to Alex and Red trying to keep schizophrenic inmate Lolly in line after a traumatic event, there was plenty to latch onto this season. The show also continued it's attempt to create empathy for almost every character (Save for captain of the guard Piscatella and a couple of his more sadistic guards), which adds many layers to the building conflict. The season builds to a tragedy that's horrible on every level but feels like it was sadly inevitable and the season ends on a powerful note that will leave you begging for season 5.
Rectify (Sundance): As of this writing, there is still one episode of Rectify left to air and there's a chance the episode will be totally underwhelming and end the series on a bum note, but it's an incredibly small chance. Even if the finale winds up being a disappointment (And again, I doubt it), it would not be enough to knock Rectify's beautiful final season off my list. The last season of Rectify finds former death row resident Daniel Holden (Aden Young giving one of the best performances on TV) living in Nashville in a program designed to help former convicts reintegrate into the world. The trauma of all he's been through is still with him though and season 4 confronts the idea of he'll ever be able to move past this trauma head on. Meanwhile back in Paulie, as the truth of what really happened on the night Hannah Dean (the girl he was convicted of raping and murdering) died comes ever closer to finally being unraveled, Daniel's family find themselves confronting the idea of moving on and finding their own freedom. The show is methodically paced as ever, which allows you to really be drawn into the world of Paulie and find the beauty in the smallest moments. The cast includes such standouts as J. Smith-Cameron, Abigail Spencer, and Clayne Crawford, and really enough can't be said about Young's performance as Daniel (A sequence in the penultimate episode where he listens to a tape of himself describing being sexually assaulted in prison might be one of the best things to air on TV this year). No matter how Rectify wraps up, I'm definitely going to miss it.
Westworld (HBO): OK, if The Americans were at the top of a ranked version of this list, Westworld would be at the bottom. I've moved it on and off the list more times than I could count before ultimately deciding to put it on. Chances are I'll keep moving it on and off the list even after it gets published. Of all the shows on here, Westworld is certainly the most flawed. The first season introduced a complex, fascinating world and conceit (An amusement park populated by robot hosts who slowly become aware) but then seemed content to tease out endless mysteries and twists instead of fulling embracing it's premise, consistently keeping the audience at a distance and making it hard to figure out what exactly the show was trying to say until the very end. Many of the twists were also easily guessable, which made it kind of frustrating when they kept putting off the reveals It's a show that can't be really appreciated on more than a basic level until it's watched twice, which isn't ideal for any show. Despite that though, as I sat to watch the finale, I realized that I had become incredibly invested in what was going on. The show was messy and somewhat impenetrable but also ambitious and beautiful and daring in a way I could appreciate and even if the journey was occasionally tedious, the conclusion came together stunningly, setting the stage for what could be a brilliant season 2 as long as creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy stop playing games. As the park's oldest host, Delores, Evan Rachel Wood gave an incredibly complex and involved performance (The kind that will look even better on rewatch). Thandie Newton and Jeffrey Wright gave equally stunning performances as Westworld madam Maeve and head programmer Bernard, respectively. Again, Westworld wasn't perfect (The show somehow wasted Anthony Hopkins, despite giving him plenty of screentime), but it was fascinating and compelling in ways that are going to stick with me for a long time and that's why it ultimately made my "Best Of" list.
You're The Worst (FXX): The third season of You're The Worst had a tough act to follow to say the least. After a brilliant second season that provided an honest, stunning look at grappling with depression, season 3 with a broader, looser, shaggier story about family and looking for meaning and happiness in life couldn't help but suffer a bit in comparison. But even if it didn't frequently hit the heights of the second season (Though multiple episodes including one totally focused on Edgar and his struggles with quitting his PTSD meds cold turkey), the third season was still excellent, telling a darkly funny, frequently melancholic story with plenty of interesting twists and turns along the way. Even if the awful behavior of Jimmy (Chris Geere), Gretchen (Aya Cash), and Lindsay (Kether Donohue) plus the significantly less awful behavior of Edgar (Desmin Borges) isn't quite as fresh as it once was, the characters still manage to surprise us as Gretchen goes through therapy for her depression, Jimmy has an unconventional grieving process following the sudden death of his father, Lindsay struggles with a pregnancy and a husband she's starting to realize she might not want and Edgar goes off his meds and starts finding new ways to cope with PTSD. The show continues to be daring too with it's structure. Beyond the Edgar-focused one mentioned above, one episode focuses completely on side characters Paul and Vernon, while another utilizes a series of long single-takes and another completely focuses on three arguments between the three main couples. The show continues to be hilarious too from an out-of-nowhere Mad Men homage to Lindsay demonstrating her unique brand of mindfulness to Vernon's continued desire to be heckled. The ending of season 3 also ties the season together beautifully, ending on a devastating note that promises lots of possibilities for season 4. Wherever the show goes, I will be awaiting it eagerly because You're The Worst is simply the best.
And boom, that's my "Best Of List" for 2016. Thanks for reading it. It was hard to put together (There's just too much great television) but I'm glad I did it. It was a strong year for TV (As we'll see when my list of the shows that almost made this list comes out) and I have hopes that next year will be equally strong. Anyways I hope that this list might inspire you to check out some of the shows you might have missed this year. I know I'll be doing that. Anyways until my next post (whenever that is), keep watching TV and talking TV.
-This list is not ranked because I feel rankings are irrelevant and distract from the purpose of a "Best Of" list. Also it was hard enough narrowing my list down. I didn't want to add to that by ranking what I did have. All shows are listed alphabetically. For what it's worth, if it was a ranked list, The Americans would be at the top (The fact that the alphabetical format puts it at the top anyhow is a happy coincidence).
-This list is Top 12 instead of 10 because I've always found 10 to be an arbitrary number for ranking things. Plus once I settled on the Top 12 I couldn't bring myself to cut anything else and it's not a ranked list anyways so I figured why not 12?
-This list, like every "Best Of" list ever is entirely subjective, informed by my opinions and what I watched. I watched a lot of television this year but I didn't come close to watching everything out there. If I had gotten around to watching stuff like say Halt and Catch Fire, Queen of Sugar or Horace and Pete (The top three things I wish I had gotten around to watching this year), there's a strong chance this list would be different. So if you don't agree with my list, then that's cool. I'm just a guy with a blog. My word is hardly the final one. Feel free to make your own list.
-There were a lot of shows I wanted to put on the final list that didn't make a cut. Those shows will be featured on a "Best Of The Rest Of" list that will be published a few days from now (fingers crossed). So look forward to that.
-Anyways, enough pre-amble. Let's get to the list already!
The Americans (FX): The Americans is both the best show on television barely anyone watches and the best show on television period. A stunner of a period drama about two deep cover Soviet agents (Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell doing some of the best work of their careers) in 80's Washington who find the marriage and family they made as part of the cover has become very real, the 4th season (Of what was announced this year to be a six season run) may have been the best yet. As the weight and human cost of the work they do begins to seriously take it's toll on both Philip (Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Russell), the first half of the season builds an increasing amount of dread both from the threat of their secrets being revealed and the deadly biological weapons they're tasked with obtaining before a second half that brings down the threat of exposure without losing the sense that the end is approaching. A number of long-simmering storylines come to inevitable yet still devastating conclusions and multiple long-time regulars die or leave but none of it feels like shock value. Beyond the greatness of Rhys and Russell, there is also constantly great work from the likes of Noah Emmerich (As Stan, the Jennings FBI Agent neighbor), Allison Wright (As Martha, The FBI secretary Philip married as part of an assignment), Costa Ronin (As Oleg, a KGB embassy officer who is starting to waver in his belief to the cause) and many more. As Paige, the teenage daughter who's struggling to come to terms with the truth about her family she learned last year and trying to manage the fallout of an impulsive decision she made to tell her pastor, Holly Taylor is giving one of the best Prestige Show Teenager performances on TV. Dylan Baker is also present this season to bring some welcome levity as William, another Soviet agent who resents how much he's sacrificed for the cause and his presence adds a lot to the story. Ultimately it seems like The Americans is destined to be one of those shows whose greatness isn't truly appreciated until years from now when it's long over, but it's not too late to start watching now and let the methodical dread-filled thrill ride overtake you.
American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson (FX): I'll be honest. When it was announced that the first season of American Crime Story would be tackling O.J. I thought the whole thing would be a glorious disaster. Ryan Murphy (creator of such often self-indulgent messes as Glee and American Horror Story) tackling O.J.? Even with Murphy and frequent collaborator Brad Falchuck taking a backseat to show developers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszweski, my expectations were low (Although I was still going to watch it). So I was stunned by how good the series wound up being. Using Jeffrey Toobin's The Run Of His Life as a jumping-off point, Alexander and Karaszweski wove a complex tale about race, class, gender, celebrity, and the rise of the 24-hour news cycle among other things. Each episode is anchored around a key moment from the case like the Bronco chase or Marcia Clark's perm or the Mark Fuhrman Tapes, providing a clear focus for all the ideas on display to swirl around. The series is full of strong performances (with the exception of whatever John Travolta was trying to do with Robert Shapiro), with Sara Paulson, Sterling K. Brown and Courtney B. Vance in particular standing out as Marcia Clark, Christopher Darden, and Johnnie Cochran, bringing much needed humanity and insight to figures that have become fairly caricatured over the years. Even the odd tangents like the scenes of the young Kardashian sisters getting their first taste of fame work in the context of the greater story going on. Ultimately American Crime Story brought new life to a story that seemed like there was nothing left to tell (It wasn't even the only great TV project about O.J. released this year!) and that's truly remarkable.
Atlanta (FX): Is there anything Donald Glover can't do? He's funny, he can act, he can write, he can definitely rap, and he can create and star in a pretty damn good television series too. Atlanta is unlike any TV show in recent memory. The show has no set structure or template and doesn't follow any typical TV comedy rhythms (If it follows any rhythms at all). Donald Glover stars as Earn, a basically homeless Princeton dropout trying to make money and provide for his ex-girlfriend Vanessa (Zazie Beetz) and their infant daughter, while managing his cousin Alfred "Paper Boi" Miles, a local rapper trying to make a name for himself. This basic premise is used to support what's essentially a series of fascinating, unpredictable and often hilarious (though the show feels no need to constantly be spouting jokes) short stories about being black, poverty, the Hip-hop world, and life in Atlanta. Fire up an episode of Atlanta and there's no telling what you might find within. You might see Paper Boi facing off with a very black Justin Bieber or Earn trying to take Van for a nice dinner with no money or Paper Boi's right-hand man Darius (Keith Stanfield) getting in trouble for bringing a dog-shaped target to a shooting range or a whole episode of a fake talk show on a fake BET-network. Through it all, the well-defined characters keep the whole thing grounded and believable, even with ridiculous gags like an invisible car or a punk kid in whiteface popping up when you least expect them. The result is a viewing experience that sticks with you long after the season has ended. TV could use more shows like Atlanta.
Better Call Saul (AMC): Breaking Bad, one of the best TV dramas of all time was in many ways a horror story. An ordinary man turns out to be a monster but doesn't realize what a monster he is until he's ruined the lives of everyone around him. Better Call Saul, a spin-off/prequel focused on the early days of amoral attorney Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) and seasoned enforcer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) is more of a tragedy and that tragedy helps set itself apart from it's predecessor for a show that's really come into it's own this year. Jimmy McGill is a lawyer whose efforts to be a good person and do the right thing are blocked at every turn by forces ranging from Jimmy's brother Chuck (Michael McKean), an accomplished lawyer who suffers from a psychosomatic sensitivity to electromagnetism and a deep-seated resentment of Jimmy to Jimmy's own instincts to take ethical shortcuts and play fast and loose with the truth. We know eventually he'll become the sleazy Saul Goodman and wind up in exile to Omaha following the events of Breaking Bad, but Jimmy doesn't and the knowledge of the destination makes the journey that more heartbreaking. Odenkirk brings depth and dimension to Jimmy that Breaking Bad only ever hinted at and Rhea Seehorn stands out as Kim Wexler, Jimmy's friend and love interest who finds her professional life tied to Jimmy's for better and for worse. For people who loved Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul gives plenty of focus to Mike too as he finds himself drawn into the orbit of the Salamenca's and on a road that will lead to a certain chicken man. Jimmy's stuff is just as compelling though and Better Call Saul excels at making potentially boring sequences like Jimmy acting out at work, or spending hours at a copy shop for a scheme into brilliant setpieces. The show has also maintained Breaking Bad's sense of humour, which it uses for great effect. The second season builds to a climax similar to the second season of Breaking Bad, but with a much different conclusion that highlights the difference between Jimmy McGill and Walter White. Better Call Saul may never reach the heights of Breaking Bad, but it's a must-watch experience all the same.
Bojack Horseman (Netflix): One of the most emotionally rich, surprisingly dark and existential shows on TV is also an uproarious satirical animated comedy about a washed-up 90's sitcom actor who is also a horse (Well horse/human hybrid but same diff.). If you've never seen Bojack Horseman or stopped watching during the rockier early episodes before it coalesced into something special, the above sentence probably sounds absurd, but it's absolutely true and the third season proved to be the darkest and funniest season yet. If the second season of Bojack made it seem like he had finally hit rock bottom, Season 3 proved there was a lot more bottom to go as Bojack's quest for an Oscar nomination/happiness led to him finally alienating the people closest to him. This season contained maybe the best episode of television this year in Fish Out Of Water, an almost completely silent episode that sent Bojack to an under the sea film festival best described as "Lost In Translation Meets Looney Tunes" in the best way possible. Other highlights included a period piece set in the good ol' days of 2007, a nuanced and sensitive take on abortion issues, an episode-long phone conversation with guest star Candice Bergen trying to talk Bojack out of canceling his newspaper subscription, Todd starting an Uber-esque service targeted at women that quickly goes awry, the return of Character Actress and Fugitive Margo Martindale and a season-long joke about Mr. Peanutbutter buying hundreds of spaghetti strainers and waiting for them to pay off that has the best pay-off imaginable. Through it all, Will Arnett, Aaron Paul, Amy Sedaris, Allison Brie, and Paul F. Tompkins bring their characters to life with expert precision and the beautiful animation ensures that every scene is crammed with more jokes than you'll ever manage to find. Bojack Horseman can seem offputting at first glance, but under the surface is a treasure trove of narrative and comedic riches just waiting to be discovered.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW): When it debuted last fall, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (One of the two shows on the list I constantly talk about on this blog) was pleasant and charming, but didn't seem that essential or sustainable. A quirky musical comedy about a successful lawyer who drops everything to move from New York City to West Covina, California after a chance encounter with her ex-boyfriend from camp 10 years ago who's moving back there? OK sure. I enjoyed it but figured it would run out of steam fairly fast. In 2016 though, Creators Rachel Bloom (Who also stars) and Aline Brosh McKenna began to dig deep into ideas of addiction, depression, mental health, feminism, self-worth, personal happiness, creating narrative and the complete fabrication of Rom-Coms and showed just how deep and rewarding the show could be. Rebecca Bunch (Bloom) is a self-obsessed anti-hero but we root for her anyways because we understand where she's coming from. She's surrounded by people who are equally easy to root for, even when they're being despicable. The show can veer from comedy to tragedy back to comedy in an instant without skipping a beat. It's lovingly crafted and the world is built out in such a way that even the smallest character like the local bar owner or the grocery store checkout clerk feels like a unique individual. The songs are also brilliant and dabble in every genre and style of music imaginable from Broadway to Country to Beyonce to Spice Girls to 80's Power Ballads to 90's Pop Punk and everything in between. With ratings consistently low and the premise as ridiculous as it is, it seems unlikely that the show will last past season 2, but no matter how long it's run Bloom and McKenna have truly created something special and 2016 was when it got to fully show off how special it was.
Jane The Virgin (CW): The other show I constantly talk about on this blog, Jane The Virgin might be the most consistently great network show on television, which is remarkable considering how small a target it has to hit every week. A comical family show that's a spoof of the telenovella formula, but also an actual telenovella with tons of crazy plot twists including criminal family members, secret twins, stolen identities, and egregious product placement? It's a hard needle to thread but somehow "Jane" pulls it off week in and week out. As Jane (Gina Rodriguez) navigates her way through motherhood, co-parenting, grad school, criminal masterminds, famous fathers, marriage, brushes with tragedy, family secrets, and the lost of her virginity, the show always keeps the focus on the characters, which manages to anchor the show in reality, even if that reality is heightened. Three seasons in and the show still has plenty of narrative tricks up it's sleeve. They don't always work (Last season featured a multi-episode plot where Jane's father was kidnapped by a stalker that was a little too ridiculous) but the show hits way more than it misses, which is impressive this deep into it's run. It's also a very optimistic and joyful show, which is something you don't see enough of on TV these days. There's always a chance that eventually this show will go totally off the rails, but I have a feeling that as long as it runs, "Jane" will continue to be a fixture on my "Best Of" list.
Lady Dynamite (Netflix): Lady Dynamite is the kind of show where it's hard to explain the appeal in mere words but I'll give it my best shot. Created by Mitch Hurwitz and Pam Brady, Lady Dynamite is a loosely-autobiographical comedy about Maria Bamford (Who stars as herself) trying to get her life and career back on track following six months being treated for bipolar disorder. The show jumps between the present, the past as we see the events that led to a major breakdown and an inbetween period as we see her living with her parents while attending recovery in Duluth. It's a hilarious, surrealist romp with no 4th wall, the kind of show where Patton Oswalt will keep breaking character to advise Maria against using stand-up as a storytelling device, John Ridley and the Lucas Brothers will debate if the episode about race actually made any compelling points and the theme song is an out-of-nowhere spoof of Blaxploitation films. It's the kind of show where Maria's pug Bert might casually talk to her and give advice, her well-meaning but completely ineffectual manager Bruce (A brilliant Fred Malamed) might write a song about a Seamen-loving shark or accidentally ship a ton of T-Shirts with her face to child soldiers in Sudan and every predatory force in Maria's life past and present happens to be named Karen Grisham. Through it all Bamford guides us with a manic smile, and though the show threatens to come apart at the seams sometimes it always manages to stay on track right to it's powerful conclusion. The result is a bold show that manages to stand out among the many great Netflix comedies.
Orange Is The New Black (Netflix): The 3rd season of OITNB was lighter and less-focused than the first two but ended on a foreboding note that led to it's best season yet as things got dark for the ladies of Litchfield. As the privatization of the prison led to both an influx of new inmates and a host of new, more brutal and malicious guards, the show continued to make excellent use of it's large ensemble to tell moving stories about trying to maintain your humanity in a system that constantly denies it. One-time lead Piper (Taylor Schilling) became as unlikeable as she's ever been as her attempts to maintain control of her "Prison Panty" empire led to serious consequences and the accidental creation of a white supremacist gang, but as always the best moments of the season belonged to the women around Piper. From Taystee becoming Caputo's assistant to Pennsatucky trying to deal with being around the guard who raped her last season to Maria and Blanca making a play for power to Yoga Jones falling under the sway of celebrity inmate Judy King and the privilege that comes with her to Poussey and Soso's adorable romance to Alex and Red trying to keep schizophrenic inmate Lolly in line after a traumatic event, there was plenty to latch onto this season. The show also continued it's attempt to create empathy for almost every character (Save for captain of the guard Piscatella and a couple of his more sadistic guards), which adds many layers to the building conflict. The season builds to a tragedy that's horrible on every level but feels like it was sadly inevitable and the season ends on a powerful note that will leave you begging for season 5.
Rectify (Sundance): As of this writing, there is still one episode of Rectify left to air and there's a chance the episode will be totally underwhelming and end the series on a bum note, but it's an incredibly small chance. Even if the finale winds up being a disappointment (And again, I doubt it), it would not be enough to knock Rectify's beautiful final season off my list. The last season of Rectify finds former death row resident Daniel Holden (Aden Young giving one of the best performances on TV) living in Nashville in a program designed to help former convicts reintegrate into the world. The trauma of all he's been through is still with him though and season 4 confronts the idea of he'll ever be able to move past this trauma head on. Meanwhile back in Paulie, as the truth of what really happened on the night Hannah Dean (the girl he was convicted of raping and murdering) died comes ever closer to finally being unraveled, Daniel's family find themselves confronting the idea of moving on and finding their own freedom. The show is methodically paced as ever, which allows you to really be drawn into the world of Paulie and find the beauty in the smallest moments. The cast includes such standouts as J. Smith-Cameron, Abigail Spencer, and Clayne Crawford, and really enough can't be said about Young's performance as Daniel (A sequence in the penultimate episode where he listens to a tape of himself describing being sexually assaulted in prison might be one of the best things to air on TV this year). No matter how Rectify wraps up, I'm definitely going to miss it.
Westworld (HBO): OK, if The Americans were at the top of a ranked version of this list, Westworld would be at the bottom. I've moved it on and off the list more times than I could count before ultimately deciding to put it on. Chances are I'll keep moving it on and off the list even after it gets published. Of all the shows on here, Westworld is certainly the most flawed. The first season introduced a complex, fascinating world and conceit (An amusement park populated by robot hosts who slowly become aware) but then seemed content to tease out endless mysteries and twists instead of fulling embracing it's premise, consistently keeping the audience at a distance and making it hard to figure out what exactly the show was trying to say until the very end. Many of the twists were also easily guessable, which made it kind of frustrating when they kept putting off the reveals It's a show that can't be really appreciated on more than a basic level until it's watched twice, which isn't ideal for any show. Despite that though, as I sat to watch the finale, I realized that I had become incredibly invested in what was going on. The show was messy and somewhat impenetrable but also ambitious and beautiful and daring in a way I could appreciate and even if the journey was occasionally tedious, the conclusion came together stunningly, setting the stage for what could be a brilliant season 2 as long as creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy stop playing games. As the park's oldest host, Delores, Evan Rachel Wood gave an incredibly complex and involved performance (The kind that will look even better on rewatch). Thandie Newton and Jeffrey Wright gave equally stunning performances as Westworld madam Maeve and head programmer Bernard, respectively. Again, Westworld wasn't perfect (The show somehow wasted Anthony Hopkins, despite giving him plenty of screentime), but it was fascinating and compelling in ways that are going to stick with me for a long time and that's why it ultimately made my "Best Of" list.
You're The Worst (FXX): The third season of You're The Worst had a tough act to follow to say the least. After a brilliant second season that provided an honest, stunning look at grappling with depression, season 3 with a broader, looser, shaggier story about family and looking for meaning and happiness in life couldn't help but suffer a bit in comparison. But even if it didn't frequently hit the heights of the second season (Though multiple episodes including one totally focused on Edgar and his struggles with quitting his PTSD meds cold turkey), the third season was still excellent, telling a darkly funny, frequently melancholic story with plenty of interesting twists and turns along the way. Even if the awful behavior of Jimmy (Chris Geere), Gretchen (Aya Cash), and Lindsay (Kether Donohue) plus the significantly less awful behavior of Edgar (Desmin Borges) isn't quite as fresh as it once was, the characters still manage to surprise us as Gretchen goes through therapy for her depression, Jimmy has an unconventional grieving process following the sudden death of his father, Lindsay struggles with a pregnancy and a husband she's starting to realize she might not want and Edgar goes off his meds and starts finding new ways to cope with PTSD. The show continues to be daring too with it's structure. Beyond the Edgar-focused one mentioned above, one episode focuses completely on side characters Paul and Vernon, while another utilizes a series of long single-takes and another completely focuses on three arguments between the three main couples. The show continues to be hilarious too from an out-of-nowhere Mad Men homage to Lindsay demonstrating her unique brand of mindfulness to Vernon's continued desire to be heckled. The ending of season 3 also ties the season together beautifully, ending on a devastating note that promises lots of possibilities for season 4. Wherever the show goes, I will be awaiting it eagerly because You're The Worst is simply the best.
And boom, that's my "Best Of List" for 2016. Thanks for reading it. It was hard to put together (There's just too much great television) but I'm glad I did it. It was a strong year for TV (As we'll see when my list of the shows that almost made this list comes out) and I have hopes that next year will be equally strong. Anyways I hope that this list might inspire you to check out some of the shows you might have missed this year. I know I'll be doing that. Anyways until my next post (whenever that is), keep watching TV and talking TV.
Saturday 10 December 2016
I Got Thoughts on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Who's The Cool Girl Josh Is Dating?
-So after last week sidelined the story of Rebecca trying to get over Josh to focus on her collapsing relationship with Paula, "Who's The Cool Girl Josh Is Dating?" brought it back full force when both Rebecca and Valencia found out about Josh's new relationship with Anna and decided to investigate her.
-Rebecca doing crazy things for Josh-related reasons is nothing new for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (It's actually the premise of the show), but bringing Valencia in as her partner and enabler helps freshen up the formula to a fair degree and deepens the story by making it about Valencia's complicated feelings about Josh moving on as well as Rebecca's. Josh was a significant force in both of their lives and even though they now feel free to talk about what they didn't like about him and claim they're better off without him, moving on is never that simple. It's also fun continuing to explore Rebecca and Valencia's new friendship dynamic and I'm glad the story never turns them against each other, even if Valencia is put off by the whole "Rebecca thought she was pregnant" incident.
-Between her stalking of Josh on Instagram, her willingness to go along to Silver Lake to scope Anna out and the way she secretly steals Anna's keys and expertly breaks into the eyebrow salon, it turns out Valencia is a lot more like Rebecca than it initially seemed.
-Moving on also can come at different times for different people as the end of the episode shows Valencia finally ready to move on (or at least get laid), while Rebecca isn't quite there yet, which seems right. Valencia has been broken up with Josh longer after all.
-As a huge cat lover, I'm glad that curiosity only managed to injure the cat instead of kill it.
-Anna didn't have a lot to do in her first appearance but we learn a lot about her here as she turns out to be Valencia's Valencia, impossibly cool, stylish and kind. She's also a Celebrity Eyebrow Stylist, a job that's absurd enough to provide a lot of comic mileage throughout the episode and also a job that I totally believe is a real thing.
-Even before Rebecca and Valencia see Josh on security footage going on and on about how much he likes Anna, his one big scene in the episode makes it obvious that he really likes her. I am curious about how much she likes him though. The episode establishes that she likes how simple and uncomplicated he is in comparison to the L.A. hipster crowd, but is she going to be satisfied with that simplicity forever? It feels like the show is making Anna be to Josh what Josh was to Rebecca and Valencia, where he is going to be much more serious about her than she is about him until she ends it and he becomes a crazy ex. Hmm, I guess we'll have to see how that plays out.
-I'm surprised the show let Rebecca and Valencia get away with both running over Anna's cat AND erasing the security camera footage of said incident before spending the night combing over footage. I assume the other shoe is going to drop with this eventually unless the show keeps Josh and Anna off in their own world for the rest of the season, but for now it was a bit of a relief. I'm not sure I could've handled it if the comeuppance came that fast (I was freaking out when the plot cut back to them STILL in that damn store the next morning.).
-Paula and Scott's marriage has been on much steadier ground this season, but it gets faced with some turmoil when Paula gets lost in her law studies and misses Scott's barbershop quartet playing in front of Scott's co-workers for the first time.
-The interesting thing about Paula's conflict with Scott is how it subtly mirrors her conflict with Rebecca. Paula has been throwing herself into law school and becoming obsessed the way Rebecca threw herself into her quest for Josh. Scott has been providing love and support the way Paula did, but also feels like his wants and needs are being neglected and is getting frustrated by that. Ultimately Paula fails to come through for Scott just like the many times Rebecca didn't come through for her and it hurts Scott in a way that can't be easily smoothed over. Importantly neither Scott or Paula is portrayed as the bad guy in this situation. Paula's allowed to be excited about her law school journey and Scott's allowed to be upset that his wife didn't come through for him on a night that was important to him. It's a complex situation and it's nice that the show doesn't try to flatten it.
-I have been waiting to see the "West Brovinas" perform since the first time Paula mentioned it last year so it was nice to see it finally happen, even if we only got a small taste of their performance.
-Scott works in a shipping warehouse apparently. That makes sense.
-I became a bit concerned that the episode was going to end with Rebecca and Paula making nice and becoming friends again so I'm glad their fight will be carrying on as we go into winter break. I'm not saying I want them to be fighting for the rest of the season, but after the ugliness of their big confrontation last week and the episodes of build-up to that confrontation, it would feel cheap if their falling out got resolved so quickly. It's clear that they both miss and need each other though, even if they're not ready to make nice yet.
-Brittany Snow got to sing a tiny bit in her last appearance, but this time out she gets a full-fledged number with the seductive "Research Me Obsessively", a song about the joy of internet stalking that I relate to more than I feel comfortable admitting. I mean I've never done it anywhere close to the level that the song suggests but trying to find public information about a person online definitely has an allure to it and can be a serious time suck (I have no idea if Rebecca and Valencia were literally at it for 3 days but I'd believe it if it were the case). Anyways it's a cute song and a good showcase for Snow's vocal chops.
-The best song tonight though was definitely "You Go First", a rocking 80's power ballad (complete with Rebecca and Paula both sporting mullets at one point that grew in glorious length) that gets to the heart of the problem between Rebecca and Paula. They both see the other persons point and are willing to accept fault in order to be part of each other's lives again but neither of them wants to be the first person to admit fault. Their whole fight has become about their pride and they would rather be alone in their sadness than be the person who makes the first move. The song is also notable for being the first Rebecca/Paula duet since their reprise of West Covina when they first became friends/soulmates in the pilot.
-If short samples of Period Sex becomes this season's version of the recurring "I left my wife for a prostitute" joke from season 1, I'm totally on board with that.
-Do people frequently visit Instagram with laptops instead of just using the mobile app? I know that is a thing and I assume the show used laptops for display reasons or something like that but it seemed odd.
-How popular is Anna's eyebrow salon? "I heard Mary-Kate Olsen had to pretend to be Elizabeth Olsen to get in".
-Sunil and Valencia have never seen The Wire, which is crazy. Also Rebecca as Avon and Paula as Stringer makes total sense.
-Rebecca knowing how to read lips because she once took a deaf lover also makes total sense.
-I thought the stinger was going to reveal that there was something sinister about Anna after all, but it wound up being a joke about how ludicrous and expensive her eyebrow grooming business really is.
-Crazy Ex-Girlfriend returns with two episodes on January 6th. It looks like we'll be following up on Heather being the face of Miss Douche AND Rebecca's babysitting Paula's younger son. That should end well.
-Rebecca doing crazy things for Josh-related reasons is nothing new for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (It's actually the premise of the show), but bringing Valencia in as her partner and enabler helps freshen up the formula to a fair degree and deepens the story by making it about Valencia's complicated feelings about Josh moving on as well as Rebecca's. Josh was a significant force in both of their lives and even though they now feel free to talk about what they didn't like about him and claim they're better off without him, moving on is never that simple. It's also fun continuing to explore Rebecca and Valencia's new friendship dynamic and I'm glad the story never turns them against each other, even if Valencia is put off by the whole "Rebecca thought she was pregnant" incident.
-Between her stalking of Josh on Instagram, her willingness to go along to Silver Lake to scope Anna out and the way she secretly steals Anna's keys and expertly breaks into the eyebrow salon, it turns out Valencia is a lot more like Rebecca than it initially seemed.
-Moving on also can come at different times for different people as the end of the episode shows Valencia finally ready to move on (or at least get laid), while Rebecca isn't quite there yet, which seems right. Valencia has been broken up with Josh longer after all.
-As a huge cat lover, I'm glad that curiosity only managed to injure the cat instead of kill it.
-Anna didn't have a lot to do in her first appearance but we learn a lot about her here as she turns out to be Valencia's Valencia, impossibly cool, stylish and kind. She's also a Celebrity Eyebrow Stylist, a job that's absurd enough to provide a lot of comic mileage throughout the episode and also a job that I totally believe is a real thing.
-Even before Rebecca and Valencia see Josh on security footage going on and on about how much he likes Anna, his one big scene in the episode makes it obvious that he really likes her. I am curious about how much she likes him though. The episode establishes that she likes how simple and uncomplicated he is in comparison to the L.A. hipster crowd, but is she going to be satisfied with that simplicity forever? It feels like the show is making Anna be to Josh what Josh was to Rebecca and Valencia, where he is going to be much more serious about her than she is about him until she ends it and he becomes a crazy ex. Hmm, I guess we'll have to see how that plays out.
-I'm surprised the show let Rebecca and Valencia get away with both running over Anna's cat AND erasing the security camera footage of said incident before spending the night combing over footage. I assume the other shoe is going to drop with this eventually unless the show keeps Josh and Anna off in their own world for the rest of the season, but for now it was a bit of a relief. I'm not sure I could've handled it if the comeuppance came that fast (I was freaking out when the plot cut back to them STILL in that damn store the next morning.).
-Paula and Scott's marriage has been on much steadier ground this season, but it gets faced with some turmoil when Paula gets lost in her law studies and misses Scott's barbershop quartet playing in front of Scott's co-workers for the first time.
-The interesting thing about Paula's conflict with Scott is how it subtly mirrors her conflict with Rebecca. Paula has been throwing herself into law school and becoming obsessed the way Rebecca threw herself into her quest for Josh. Scott has been providing love and support the way Paula did, but also feels like his wants and needs are being neglected and is getting frustrated by that. Ultimately Paula fails to come through for Scott just like the many times Rebecca didn't come through for her and it hurts Scott in a way that can't be easily smoothed over. Importantly neither Scott or Paula is portrayed as the bad guy in this situation. Paula's allowed to be excited about her law school journey and Scott's allowed to be upset that his wife didn't come through for him on a night that was important to him. It's a complex situation and it's nice that the show doesn't try to flatten it.
-I have been waiting to see the "West Brovinas" perform since the first time Paula mentioned it last year so it was nice to see it finally happen, even if we only got a small taste of their performance.
-Scott works in a shipping warehouse apparently. That makes sense.
-I became a bit concerned that the episode was going to end with Rebecca and Paula making nice and becoming friends again so I'm glad their fight will be carrying on as we go into winter break. I'm not saying I want them to be fighting for the rest of the season, but after the ugliness of their big confrontation last week and the episodes of build-up to that confrontation, it would feel cheap if their falling out got resolved so quickly. It's clear that they both miss and need each other though, even if they're not ready to make nice yet.
-Brittany Snow got to sing a tiny bit in her last appearance, but this time out she gets a full-fledged number with the seductive "Research Me Obsessively", a song about the joy of internet stalking that I relate to more than I feel comfortable admitting. I mean I've never done it anywhere close to the level that the song suggests but trying to find public information about a person online definitely has an allure to it and can be a serious time suck (I have no idea if Rebecca and Valencia were literally at it for 3 days but I'd believe it if it were the case). Anyways it's a cute song and a good showcase for Snow's vocal chops.
-The best song tonight though was definitely "You Go First", a rocking 80's power ballad (complete with Rebecca and Paula both sporting mullets at one point that grew in glorious length) that gets to the heart of the problem between Rebecca and Paula. They both see the other persons point and are willing to accept fault in order to be part of each other's lives again but neither of them wants to be the first person to admit fault. Their whole fight has become about their pride and they would rather be alone in their sadness than be the person who makes the first move. The song is also notable for being the first Rebecca/Paula duet since their reprise of West Covina when they first became friends/soulmates in the pilot.
-If short samples of Period Sex becomes this season's version of the recurring "I left my wife for a prostitute" joke from season 1, I'm totally on board with that.
-Do people frequently visit Instagram with laptops instead of just using the mobile app? I know that is a thing and I assume the show used laptops for display reasons or something like that but it seemed odd.
-How popular is Anna's eyebrow salon? "I heard Mary-Kate Olsen had to pretend to be Elizabeth Olsen to get in".
-Sunil and Valencia have never seen The Wire, which is crazy. Also Rebecca as Avon and Paula as Stringer makes total sense.
-Rebecca knowing how to read lips because she once took a deaf lover also makes total sense.
-I thought the stinger was going to reveal that there was something sinister about Anna after all, but it wound up being a joke about how ludicrous and expensive her eyebrow grooming business really is.
-Crazy Ex-Girlfriend returns with two episodes on January 6th. It looks like we'll be following up on Heather being the face of Miss Douche AND Rebecca's babysitting Paula's younger son. That should end well.
Tuesday 6 December 2016
I Got Thoughts on Timeless: The Last Ride of Bonnie and Clyde
-I didn't have the time to review last week's Timeless but honestly, it was a weaker entry. There was some interesting stuff in further fleshing out Flynn and the relationship between Rufus and Anthony, but the mission stuff wasn't that thrilling or dramatic and the changes to history (People thinking the Russians were behind the near-failure of the Moon mission, Flynn saving his brother) not really affecting the timeline in anyway was hard to believe given the magnitude of them. This episode was much better as Timeless threw itself into the story of Bonnie and Clyde.
-As far as plot devices go, the Rittenhouse Key is a pretty solid one. It gives the characters a clear objective and a strong reason to get tangled up in the last day of Bonnie and Clyde and helps tie the episode into the ongoing mythology stuff, without the mythology overwhelming the historical story like it did in the Watergate episode a few weeks back. The key's important but it doesn't get in the way of some quality time with Bonnie and Clyde.
-A big reason for the success of the episode is Jacqueline Byer's performance as Bonnie Parker. She brings a giddy, flirty life to Bonnie here and a genuine love for the life she leads and the man she leads that life with. When she makes her final stand at the end of the episode, you really feel the tragedy of it all. Sam Strike is also good as Clyde, but he's mostly there to glower and shoot his gun around. Bonnie is the real star here.
-This episode seems designed to get the Lucy and Wyatt shippers excited as the two of them pretend to be another couple of bank robbing love birds. They even kiss at one point. I'm not sure how I feel yet about a Lucy/Wyatt romance but Abigail Spencer and Matt Lanter have a lot of chemistry and it's fun to see it get put to use here.
-When Bonnie starts pressing for details about how Lucy and Wyatt got engaged, it was obvious Wyatt was going to use the story of his real engagement to Jessica. It was a sweet story though and Lanter's telling of it was one of his best moments yet on the show. Stories like this help make Wyatt's love and grief for Jessica feel like a real thing and make it easier to be invested in than just the vague concept of a dead wife.
-Rufus doesn't get a lot to do this week as he gets suddenly abandoned by Lucy and Wyatt and is forced to contend with racist police officers (again) and Flynn trying to keep him in the clutches of the racist police officers. Luckily, real-life Texas Ranger Frank Hamer has no interest in keeping Rufus in custody once he becomes convinced Rufus has nothing to do with his investigation.
-This week in pop culture aliases: Rufus' drivers license is registered to one Wesley Snipes.
-Lucy being a low-key (sort of) Bonnie and Clyde fangirl was very endearing.
-There's a bit of ambiguity around how Henry Methvin's actual involvement in killing Bonnie and Clyde (His father was used in the actual ambush, but whether he partook willingly or was beaten and tied up by law enforcement is a point of dispute), but having him as a clear villain worked well enough for what the episode wanted to achieve.
-So the Rittenhouse Key with the ominous Latin description about it being the key to the beginning and end of time opens.. an old clock contraption of some kind! The old clock contraption contains... a mysterious piece of paper! Whoa! In all seriousness, they better show us what was on that piece of paper sooner rather than later.
-Agent Christopher has a daughter! Now we actually know something about her. That's a start! I still suspect that she's going to get killed in the mid-season finale now that she knows about Rittenhouse, particularly since Rittenhouse Guy/Lucy's Dad literally told Mason that's what was going to happen but hopefully the show will surprise us.
-I also keep forgetting that she doesn't know anything about Rittenhouse so it's nice that Rufus is finally bringing her up to speed, especially because that scene between them initially made it seem like they'd be keeping her in the dark a bit longer. I also appreciate the fact that she had already pieced a lot of stuff together. She is supposed to be a government agent after all.
-Jiya gets 15 seconds of screentime this week so she can kiss Rufus before the mission and yeah, it's adorable but it'd be nice if the show could find more for Jiya to do. Maybe she's going to get killed off. That'd be frustrating.
-Timeless remembered that Lucy was still engaged to some guy who's apparently named Noah. He only popped up to remind us that that was still a storyline and to give Lucy a reason to be wearing her ring for when she and Wyatt ran into Bonnie and Clyde but at least they remembered him. I was expecting a scene at the end where Lucy was inspired by Bonnie and Clyde to break up with him but it never happened so I guess he still has a role to play in the narrative. Maybe he's with Rittenhouse? Hmm.
-So Henry Ford was part of Rittenhouse? That's an enticing bit of information. This better be setting up for a future episode where we go meet Henry Ford, agent of Rittenhouse.
-Solid episode overall, injecting some much needed life into Timeless after the letdown of Space Race. Next week: The Mid-Season Finale takes on George Washington and Benedict Arnold. Fun, fun!
-As far as plot devices go, the Rittenhouse Key is a pretty solid one. It gives the characters a clear objective and a strong reason to get tangled up in the last day of Bonnie and Clyde and helps tie the episode into the ongoing mythology stuff, without the mythology overwhelming the historical story like it did in the Watergate episode a few weeks back. The key's important but it doesn't get in the way of some quality time with Bonnie and Clyde.
-A big reason for the success of the episode is Jacqueline Byer's performance as Bonnie Parker. She brings a giddy, flirty life to Bonnie here and a genuine love for the life she leads and the man she leads that life with. When she makes her final stand at the end of the episode, you really feel the tragedy of it all. Sam Strike is also good as Clyde, but he's mostly there to glower and shoot his gun around. Bonnie is the real star here.
-This episode seems designed to get the Lucy and Wyatt shippers excited as the two of them pretend to be another couple of bank robbing love birds. They even kiss at one point. I'm not sure how I feel yet about a Lucy/Wyatt romance but Abigail Spencer and Matt Lanter have a lot of chemistry and it's fun to see it get put to use here.
-When Bonnie starts pressing for details about how Lucy and Wyatt got engaged, it was obvious Wyatt was going to use the story of his real engagement to Jessica. It was a sweet story though and Lanter's telling of it was one of his best moments yet on the show. Stories like this help make Wyatt's love and grief for Jessica feel like a real thing and make it easier to be invested in than just the vague concept of a dead wife.
-Rufus doesn't get a lot to do this week as he gets suddenly abandoned by Lucy and Wyatt and is forced to contend with racist police officers (again) and Flynn trying to keep him in the clutches of the racist police officers. Luckily, real-life Texas Ranger Frank Hamer has no interest in keeping Rufus in custody once he becomes convinced Rufus has nothing to do with his investigation.
-This week in pop culture aliases: Rufus' drivers license is registered to one Wesley Snipes.
-Lucy being a low-key (sort of) Bonnie and Clyde fangirl was very endearing.
-There's a bit of ambiguity around how Henry Methvin's actual involvement in killing Bonnie and Clyde (His father was used in the actual ambush, but whether he partook willingly or was beaten and tied up by law enforcement is a point of dispute), but having him as a clear villain worked well enough for what the episode wanted to achieve.
-So the Rittenhouse Key with the ominous Latin description about it being the key to the beginning and end of time opens.. an old clock contraption of some kind! The old clock contraption contains... a mysterious piece of paper! Whoa! In all seriousness, they better show us what was on that piece of paper sooner rather than later.
-Agent Christopher has a daughter! Now we actually know something about her. That's a start! I still suspect that she's going to get killed in the mid-season finale now that she knows about Rittenhouse, particularly since Rittenhouse Guy/Lucy's Dad literally told Mason that's what was going to happen but hopefully the show will surprise us.
-I also keep forgetting that she doesn't know anything about Rittenhouse so it's nice that Rufus is finally bringing her up to speed, especially because that scene between them initially made it seem like they'd be keeping her in the dark a bit longer. I also appreciate the fact that she had already pieced a lot of stuff together. She is supposed to be a government agent after all.
-Jiya gets 15 seconds of screentime this week so she can kiss Rufus before the mission and yeah, it's adorable but it'd be nice if the show could find more for Jiya to do. Maybe she's going to get killed off. That'd be frustrating.
-Timeless remembered that Lucy was still engaged to some guy who's apparently named Noah. He only popped up to remind us that that was still a storyline and to give Lucy a reason to be wearing her ring for when she and Wyatt ran into Bonnie and Clyde but at least they remembered him. I was expecting a scene at the end where Lucy was inspired by Bonnie and Clyde to break up with him but it never happened so I guess he still has a role to play in the narrative. Maybe he's with Rittenhouse? Hmm.
-So Henry Ford was part of Rittenhouse? That's an enticing bit of information. This better be setting up for a future episode where we go meet Henry Ford, agent of Rittenhouse.
-Solid episode overall, injecting some much needed life into Timeless after the letdown of Space Race. Next week: The Mid-Season Finale takes on George Washington and Benedict Arnold. Fun, fun!
Friday 2 December 2016
I Got Thoughts on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Who Needs Josh When You Have A Girl Group?
-First they blew up Rebecca and Josh's relationship. Then Rebecca and Greg's. Now Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has destroyed the most important relationship on the show: Rebecca and Paula's. And while they've flirted with doing this before, the friendship-ending fight they had tonight seems like it won't be smoothed over so easily.
-The Paula and Rebecca rift is something that's been developing since the moment Paula changed the terms of their friendship at the beginning of the season and it feels organic and earned for it to finally blow up now. The nice thing about this fight is neither of them are totally in the right. Paula is completely right about the one-sidedness of their relationship, Rebecca being a taker and about her whole scheme to integrate Paula into the #gurlgroup4ever being done not to include Paula but because Rebecca wanted to feel better about herself outgrowing her friendship with Paula. At the same time, even if her reasons were selfish, Rebecca was trying to make Paula feel included and Paula put zero effort into even trying to enjoy the evening, nor did she give Rebecca a chance to be there for her about the stuff in her life (mainly the abortion). Paula has judged Rebecca to be selfish, which is accurate but she never even tried to talk to Rebecca about it and give her the chance to examine her behavior. It's a complex situation and episode writer Jack Dolgen doesn't try to simplify it or vilify one of the two.
-This is the second episode in a row to end with Rebecca and Paula sadly looking at each other and tonight's ending was even more devastating than the last time.
-As hard as it was to watch the explosive dissolution of Paula and Rebecca's friendship, I'm all onboard with the Girltopia of Rebecca, Heather, and Valencia. The scenes of the three of them just hanging out and being friends were super fun and Heather's continual detachment from everything combined with Valencia's cluelessness of how girl friendships work made it all super endearing.
-The theme tonight in case you missed it was "You can't force a friendship". Crazy Ex-Girlfriend doesn't typically harp on it's theme over and over and over but it worked here with Rebecca, Trent, and Daryl all insisting that wasn't what they were doing before proceeding to do exactly that. There was also an unexpected "You can force construction" pay-off to the constant utterings of the mantra that was delightful.
-The way Rebecca and Paula's fight while Paula was stuck in the bathroom kept being interrupted by comedic distractions like bad actor Sunil (who continues to be a fantastic addition to the show, even if he won't shut up about his theatre major), forthright Trent, and Daryl and Mia was masterful.
-I was so excited to see Paul Welsh return as Trent tonight (and judging by the ending of his plot tonight, he's going to be sticking around indefinitely which is terrific). In season 1, he was a terrific funhouse mirror version of Season 1 Rebecca, someone she barely knew years ago who was obsessed with her, would resort to great lengths to be with her and was even more desperate and creepy than she was (At least she had a bit of a relationship with Josh Chan. He was just a random person she knew at Harvard that fit the criteria for "fake boyfriend"). The parallels between him and season 1 Rebecca get turned up even more tonight as he tries to ingratiate himself in her "guy friend group", finds his own Paula in the surf shop girl who finds his efforts for love romantic and even gets his own version of The Sexy Getting Ready Song (Though his gets cut short when he cuts his back). He serves as a reminder that as bad as Rebecca can be, she's come along quite a bit since season 1 and even then could have been a lot worse.
-It is interesting that the Surf Shop Girl goes from being creeped out by Trent's plan to being totally on board when she finds out he's doing it for love. A nice way to demonstrate how society can overlook bad behavior if it's for a reason we deem noble and sweet.
-Trent trying to hard to be bros with Josh and friends never stopped being funny. From his constant awkward use of California Surfer Slang to his super awkward and creepy covers for why he knew Hector's name (He's a racist) and why his clients never showed up (They're all dead... to him). Trent's terrible at friendship, but he's apparently great at other things like getting people out of the bathroom and sex (He was a virgin apparently until tonight).
-The glaring plot hole in Trent's plan? If he knew that Rebecca was broken up with Josh, how would he think getting in with Josh and his friends could get him closer to Rebecca? It feels like a weird oversight but the story is funny enough that it's not that big a deal.
-Oh Rebecca. Sleeping with Trent to cheer yourself up a bit was a horrible decision. It'll be fun for the story because there's no way he's going to leave you alone now but it was a horrible decision.
-This was a good night for recurring minor characters on this show as Karen, ahem, I mean Angelique got her most exposure yet to horrifying effect as she hosted the most uncomfortable "Naughty Toys" party ever and Mia became the driving force in Daryl's subplot as the two tried to scheme their way into Rebecca's girl group.
-The co-worker who gets mocked for no good reason is a tried-and-true sitcom trope and Daryl's constant anger at Mia has been played for laughs since her introduction but it gets deconstructed hard tonight when Mia calls him on it, revealing the harmful effect his constant put-downs have had on her work output and health and rightfully pointing out that he's a bad boss creating a hostile work environment. It's an eye-opening moment that does a lot to flesh out someone who's been very one-note up to this point.
-Confession: Almost every person I've ever disliked, I've disliked because I see something I don't like about myself magnified in them. So I related hard to Daryl admitting that he sees himself in overeager trying-to-be-included Mia and that's why he dislikes her. Daryl's neediness has also been played as a joke for the duration of the show so it's nice to see him come to terms with it and build a new friendship (and a hot new dance craze that's apparently catching on) with Mia.
-Seriously though, after the incredible ugliness of that Rebecca/Paula fight, Daryl and Mia bursting in to debut their new dance (later called "The Mia") and then attempt to teach it to everyone was probably the best possible way to relieve the tension.
-OK, let's talk about the songs. "Girltopia" felt like a semi-sequel to Season 1's "Feeling Kinda Naughty" in how it took a typical pop song conceit (Here, a perfect Spice Girls-esque ode to girl friendship ruling the world) and brought it to incredibly creepy and psychotic extremes (Their talk of ruling the world is very literal and anyone who doesn't appreciate Hocus Pocus will be killed). It's delightful and it gives Gabrielle Ruiz and Vella Lowell a rare chance to show off their pipes.
-Of course Vella Lowell gets an even bigger musical spotlight tonight in "Stuck In The Bathroom", which takes Heather's habit of plainly laying out the situation as it unfolds and turns it into a spoof of "Trapped In The Closet". It isn't necessary to the story in any way but it does enhance what could have been a boring scene and moves the story along to the juicy part of Rebecca discovering Paula's "help me" text to Sunil.
-The weird thing about Stuck In The Bathroom is that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is only the second television show to do a song about being stuck in the bathroom this year. "Bad Stuff Happens In The Bathroom" is completely different of course but it is interesting. Also I really should start writing about Bob's Burgers again. That show is delightful.
-"You talk about pooping a lot". Valencia is finally getting to know Rebecca. Aww.
-Sunil's wife put her suicide note on Facebook before they added the new like options making it hard for people to know what to do. It's an incredibly dark joke and it made me laugh very hard.
-Rebecca and Heather's new house is poorly renovated and was a drug dealer murder house. Sounds about right. I'm hoping for new sordid details to be accidentally blurted out by people visiting it each week.
-Terrific little detail: After Trent cuts his back shaving in the "Trent Is Getting Ready Song", you can see a small blood stain on his sweatshirt in the same spot.
-Did Rebecca even says Josh's name once tonight? I don't think she did. That's a first. I appreciate the show actually taking the time to explore Rebecca building a life and friendships outside of her obsession with Josh Chan. Judging by next week's promo it won't last but it's nice.
-Next week: The mid-season finale and return of Brittany Snow!
-The Paula and Rebecca rift is something that's been developing since the moment Paula changed the terms of their friendship at the beginning of the season and it feels organic and earned for it to finally blow up now. The nice thing about this fight is neither of them are totally in the right. Paula is completely right about the one-sidedness of their relationship, Rebecca being a taker and about her whole scheme to integrate Paula into the #gurlgroup4ever being done not to include Paula but because Rebecca wanted to feel better about herself outgrowing her friendship with Paula. At the same time, even if her reasons were selfish, Rebecca was trying to make Paula feel included and Paula put zero effort into even trying to enjoy the evening, nor did she give Rebecca a chance to be there for her about the stuff in her life (mainly the abortion). Paula has judged Rebecca to be selfish, which is accurate but she never even tried to talk to Rebecca about it and give her the chance to examine her behavior. It's a complex situation and episode writer Jack Dolgen doesn't try to simplify it or vilify one of the two.
-This is the second episode in a row to end with Rebecca and Paula sadly looking at each other and tonight's ending was even more devastating than the last time.
-As hard as it was to watch the explosive dissolution of Paula and Rebecca's friendship, I'm all onboard with the Girltopia of Rebecca, Heather, and Valencia. The scenes of the three of them just hanging out and being friends were super fun and Heather's continual detachment from everything combined with Valencia's cluelessness of how girl friendships work made it all super endearing.
-The theme tonight in case you missed it was "You can't force a friendship". Crazy Ex-Girlfriend doesn't typically harp on it's theme over and over and over but it worked here with Rebecca, Trent, and Daryl all insisting that wasn't what they were doing before proceeding to do exactly that. There was also an unexpected "You can force construction" pay-off to the constant utterings of the mantra that was delightful.
-The way Rebecca and Paula's fight while Paula was stuck in the bathroom kept being interrupted by comedic distractions like bad actor Sunil (who continues to be a fantastic addition to the show, even if he won't shut up about his theatre major), forthright Trent, and Daryl and Mia was masterful.
-I was so excited to see Paul Welsh return as Trent tonight (and judging by the ending of his plot tonight, he's going to be sticking around indefinitely which is terrific). In season 1, he was a terrific funhouse mirror version of Season 1 Rebecca, someone she barely knew years ago who was obsessed with her, would resort to great lengths to be with her and was even more desperate and creepy than she was (At least she had a bit of a relationship with Josh Chan. He was just a random person she knew at Harvard that fit the criteria for "fake boyfriend"). The parallels between him and season 1 Rebecca get turned up even more tonight as he tries to ingratiate himself in her "guy friend group", finds his own Paula in the surf shop girl who finds his efforts for love romantic and even gets his own version of The Sexy Getting Ready Song (Though his gets cut short when he cuts his back). He serves as a reminder that as bad as Rebecca can be, she's come along quite a bit since season 1 and even then could have been a lot worse.
-It is interesting that the Surf Shop Girl goes from being creeped out by Trent's plan to being totally on board when she finds out he's doing it for love. A nice way to demonstrate how society can overlook bad behavior if it's for a reason we deem noble and sweet.
-Trent trying to hard to be bros with Josh and friends never stopped being funny. From his constant awkward use of California Surfer Slang to his super awkward and creepy covers for why he knew Hector's name (He's a racist) and why his clients never showed up (They're all dead... to him). Trent's terrible at friendship, but he's apparently great at other things like getting people out of the bathroom and sex (He was a virgin apparently until tonight).
-The glaring plot hole in Trent's plan? If he knew that Rebecca was broken up with Josh, how would he think getting in with Josh and his friends could get him closer to Rebecca? It feels like a weird oversight but the story is funny enough that it's not that big a deal.
-Oh Rebecca. Sleeping with Trent to cheer yourself up a bit was a horrible decision. It'll be fun for the story because there's no way he's going to leave you alone now but it was a horrible decision.
-This was a good night for recurring minor characters on this show as Karen, ahem, I mean Angelique got her most exposure yet to horrifying effect as she hosted the most uncomfortable "Naughty Toys" party ever and Mia became the driving force in Daryl's subplot as the two tried to scheme their way into Rebecca's girl group.
-The co-worker who gets mocked for no good reason is a tried-and-true sitcom trope and Daryl's constant anger at Mia has been played for laughs since her introduction but it gets deconstructed hard tonight when Mia calls him on it, revealing the harmful effect his constant put-downs have had on her work output and health and rightfully pointing out that he's a bad boss creating a hostile work environment. It's an eye-opening moment that does a lot to flesh out someone who's been very one-note up to this point.
-Confession: Almost every person I've ever disliked, I've disliked because I see something I don't like about myself magnified in them. So I related hard to Daryl admitting that he sees himself in overeager trying-to-be-included Mia and that's why he dislikes her. Daryl's neediness has also been played as a joke for the duration of the show so it's nice to see him come to terms with it and build a new friendship (and a hot new dance craze that's apparently catching on) with Mia.
-Seriously though, after the incredible ugliness of that Rebecca/Paula fight, Daryl and Mia bursting in to debut their new dance (later called "The Mia") and then attempt to teach it to everyone was probably the best possible way to relieve the tension.
-OK, let's talk about the songs. "Girltopia" felt like a semi-sequel to Season 1's "Feeling Kinda Naughty" in how it took a typical pop song conceit (Here, a perfect Spice Girls-esque ode to girl friendship ruling the world) and brought it to incredibly creepy and psychotic extremes (Their talk of ruling the world is very literal and anyone who doesn't appreciate Hocus Pocus will be killed). It's delightful and it gives Gabrielle Ruiz and Vella Lowell a rare chance to show off their pipes.
-Of course Vella Lowell gets an even bigger musical spotlight tonight in "Stuck In The Bathroom", which takes Heather's habit of plainly laying out the situation as it unfolds and turns it into a spoof of "Trapped In The Closet". It isn't necessary to the story in any way but it does enhance what could have been a boring scene and moves the story along to the juicy part of Rebecca discovering Paula's "help me" text to Sunil.
-The weird thing about Stuck In The Bathroom is that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is only the second television show to do a song about being stuck in the bathroom this year. "Bad Stuff Happens In The Bathroom" is completely different of course but it is interesting. Also I really should start writing about Bob's Burgers again. That show is delightful.
-"You talk about pooping a lot". Valencia is finally getting to know Rebecca. Aww.
-Sunil's wife put her suicide note on Facebook before they added the new like options making it hard for people to know what to do. It's an incredibly dark joke and it made me laugh very hard.
-Rebecca and Heather's new house is poorly renovated and was a drug dealer murder house. Sounds about right. I'm hoping for new sordid details to be accidentally blurted out by people visiting it each week.
-Terrific little detail: After Trent cuts his back shaving in the "Trent Is Getting Ready Song", you can see a small blood stain on his sweatshirt in the same spot.
-Did Rebecca even says Josh's name once tonight? I don't think she did. That's a first. I appreciate the show actually taking the time to explore Rebecca building a life and friendships outside of her obsession with Josh Chan. Judging by next week's promo it won't last but it's nice.
-Next week: The mid-season finale and return of Brittany Snow!
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