Brad Bulger – Eyes of Potatoe

The Path – Season 1 – Episodes 1-2 Don't forget your lightscreen.

Sure you’ve got your zombies, your demons, your headless horsemen, your lawyers in suits that cost more than you make in a year, but for real horror, nothing beats that interminable grace-ish moment of twee before the group home meal on The Path. Holy cow, so to speak. The meal itself is almost as bad – not the food (probably) but the “conversation” around the table. So much passive agressive false enthusiasm and bullshit, they should have collapsed the crust of the Earth and plunged into the fiery depths. But no. It’s never that easy.

And I’ve seen few things more frightening than when Aaron Paul makes some mild comment about how everybody makes mistakes, and Michelle Monaghan snaps back “I don’t.” and she is not even slightly kidding. The show is pushing Hugh Dancy as the too-tightly-wound Evil Cult Dude but it’s Monaghan’s Sarah that strikes me as the real engine of destruction waiting to engage. That kind of absolute certainty that one is in the right, always, it never ends well.

So the setup of the show goes well. We’ll see whether they drive it off a cliff or not. Already there are some weak spots in the logic – hey lady, if your husband was killed, maybe go to, I dunno, the police? the FBI? But no.

The Catch – Season 1 – Episode 3 You call them corn, we call them "assholes"

There is a thing that is all too prevalent in movies and TV, the “Talking in the Theater” scene. Characters wind up in the audience for some event – a movie, a lecture, a concert, or the like – and still talk to each other like they’re at a ball game or something. Sometimes one of the NPCs around them will Ssssh! them, but only to demonstrate how cool and important the characters are compared to the stuffy/nerdy/square/whatever NPCs. It shows that either the creators are self-absorbed narcissists who cannot even conceive of why this would be problematic in any way, or that they are lazy mechanics who don’t think of their characters as real people in real situations: theater shmeater, whatever, we need this exposition, or we need to highlight this relationship, or advance the plot to here. Probably, as usual, it’s a bit of both. People already have enough difficulty these days distinguishing being in their homes and being in public, modeling this kind of unacceptable behavior is an automatic red card. The worst thing I can say about The Catch is that this scene was like the whole show writ small.

Otherwise this episode was stupid and bad, and it makes me sad that there are people who’ve been sold on the idea that this is what “witty” and “sharp” is like. Stylish, maybe, what do I know from stylish, but it’s stylish in the same way as those godawful huge gold and jewel laden watches they like to hang on people like diving weights: ugly and shallow and yet extremely useful as a flag saying, “Avoid Me!” I’ll take that advice.

10 Cloverfield Lane But the chain, Howard, you never explain the chain.

10 Cloverfield Lane is another good example of how much better a story is that recognizes that for most “Is it this or that?” questions, the answer is “Yes.” Especially about people. It’s true and crazy, good and bad, sweet and sour. Awareness of that doesn’t just make it more realistic and complete, it expands your opportunities to make your audience anxious if that’s what you’re trying to do. And oh I do think they had that on their minds here. Yes.

At the same time, what I particularly appreciated, personally, was what they didn’t do. They generally don’t go for the easy Boo! moves, despite being perfectly set up for them over and over. No simple startles here, just the ongoing increase in ohcrapness. I didn’t recognize the cast*, apart from John Goodman (I’ll never think of shaving the same way again), but they do a fine job. And though I know that really it has nothing to do with Cloverfield, it still makes me want to watch that again.

* I should have recognized Mary Elizabeth Winstead though! Ramona Flowers! Bad popculter. Plus an album with Dan the Automator!

American Crime Story – Season 1 – Episodes 8-10 "I'm not afraid to point to him."

Of course we know how it turned out. But what I didn’t know is that the prosecution thought that they might have actually pulled it out in the end, despite the mistakes and the circus and the bullshit. So it’s gutting to watch them as the verdicts are read, and see them realize that the evidence never really mattered.

So many reactions to these episodes and The People vs O.J. Simpson as a whole. First, that Sarah Paulson damn well better be at least nominated for an Emmy for this performance. Sterling Brown and Courtney Vance too. The whole cast was outstanding, even Cartoon Johnny Travolta.

Secondly, it had a weird echo in this election year, on the pointlessness of argument in some situations. This was a case study in motivated reasoning, people convincing themselves that things were “true” because they wanted it to be so. Facts and evidence and reason don’t just fail to diminish that effect, they increase it. You probably could have polled the jury on the very first day and gotten the same result.

Then, Chris Darden, holy heck. In some ways I think that what was going on in that courtroom, as written here, was one of the few actual examples of “political correctness” I’ve ever seen. As in, pure cowardice. People just didn’t want to be seen saying things they felt uncomfortable about. So they left it to him. Brown shows so well the rage that has built up after months of this. If this was a Tarantino movie he would have Hulked out and smashed the whole place up then thrown OJ into the ocean.

What I appreciate about the script and the show is that they never make anything tidy. Cochran both descends into bullshit fantasia in that closing argument and is absolutely 100% correct about the larger picture with the LAPD. Clark is purely right to see this as a murder trial, full stop, and yet wrong too.

What I didn’t realize was that even in 1995, the idea of domestic violence hadn’t really sunk in: “Prosecutor Marcia Clark made a case that, at the time, was unique: Women who have been the victims of partner abuse are very likely to be killed by their spouses.” That seems obvious now (well, one hopes), and that this trial had much to do with making it obvious is at least some benefit. The show demonstrates how easily and lightly Nicole’s terror is waved off.

I would never have expected this show to be this good. Let’s hope they can avoid the sophomore curse in Season 2.

The Magicians – Season 1 – Episode 11 Feelings are bullshit.

One of the things I like most about The Magicians is how realistic it is. I mean, yes, they are going to Narnia to fight Satan, but putting that aside, this is all extremely familiar to anyone who went to a co-ed college in recent times. Let’s do dangerous things to our bodies and have hugely emotional overreactions and do stupid stuff that we later regret, involving lots of drugs and sex! It’s not as concretely complete as Buffy‘s highschool-is-hell but it’s up there.

I cannot remember if I have ever heard any of these characters use “TV Speke” – the lines that only people on TV shows say or hear seriously. Probably they have, because the writers are only human (or are they?), but even if they have it’s very rare. Which makes the show very rare.

Episode-specific-wise, the bottled emotion scenes are of course hilarious. As is that Penny – the one who has the most invested in denying that he has anything as stupid as emotions – is the one who immediately vows to never do that again when they drink them back. Differently from Alice, who I think sees it as cheating. Alice is a ball of deep, though, it’s hard to tell.

Nice to see Julia have a positive development for a change. It will all go hideously wrong soon, of course, but for now, nice.

Underground – Season 1 – Episode 2 Mmmm, that's good hooch.

In which our heroes prepare for the big heist by doing more stuff that is going to get them all killed goddamnit. Otherwise, life as usual, I guess? The slaves endure degradation to avoid worse fates, the “masters” enjoy their evil gains and wear way too much clothing in that heat. We get some nice father and son bonding over tracking and murdering a helpless, hopeless man who chose the wrong parents. Oh and the Northerner couple turns out to have a clue or two and be somewhat useful, that’s good.

If Aldis Hodge and Jurnee Smollett-Bell aren’t already big damn stars then Underground should sure as hell make them. I had to ice down the TV after their scenes, and they’re just getting started.

American Crime Story – Season 1 – Episodes 5-7 Are we not men?

It’s probably an essential example of privilege that until I saw the protest signs outside the courtroom, I’d totally forgotten the single biggest actual divide in opinion in my circles about the trial: the women vs the men. Now this is the boomtown San Francisco techy/goth/weirdo scene, but still. The women saw a wife-beating murderer, full stop, trying to change the subject. That story was so old, so common, there really wasn’t any need to overthink it. The men were into the theories and the details and the soap opera, because it wasn’t personal to them. Just TV.

These episodes of American Crime Story do a good job of showing what unites both sides in this case: bitches, man. The amount of crap that gets thrown at Marcia Clark, oy. And because this is back in the Elder Days, it’s all mediated. It’s what TV producers and news desks and tabloid editors think will sell, what they (mostly men) think is a good story or a good quote from “real people like you”. People talk shit about the internet but it’s nothing to the hellbeast that was television, believe me.

It’s also interesting to watch Chris Darden’s character move along his path in the story. It’s a trap! I was kind of glad to see him back off from Marcia’s hotel room but honestly there was no scenario that was going to end well at that point.

I have to add, about the gloves: obviously they shrank, yes? So why not go buy a new pair of the same model, confirm first that they are larger than the gloves in evidence, confirm that they fit the hands of someone of OJ’s build etc., and then have him try those new ones on? And then compare them to show how the old ones are smaller? But in a way, this is like inviting your co-prosecutor/boss to your friend’s birthday party for the weekend. You lost as soon as you got into it, because we are not rational beings.

The Catch – Season 1 – Episode 1 Sounds like dialog.

The Catch is my first Shondaland show, for no special reason beyond not getting in on any of the others at the start and then not being interested enough to catch up. So I’m just guessing, but I take it that this is a common style? It feels like that to me – one of those parts of America that just escapes me. The people, the fashions, those shoes, the money. So much money.

I watched this mostly for Mireille Enos, but much of what worked in The Killing came across here as a bit off. It’s hard to say. I was entirely too distracted by the eye makeup, because like I said, this is a strange land to me. They nearly lost me anyway within the first 20 minutes with that endless Pitbull-soundtracked scene. A bullshit simulation of some kind of “character setting”.

After that it got a bit better, but not much. They do the treat-obvious-stuff-as-difficult trick that makes people watching feel like “Me am smart!”. Not a plus. The ne’er-do-well husband is So Generic good gravy. Vat-grown cruelty-free casting.

The painting that’s one of the episode’s MacGuffins is gorgeous, though:

http://mariakreyn.com/alone-together

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice If you've seen the trailers, you can skip the movie. Seriously.

For me, the main thing about Batman v Superman is that it wasn’t about anything. You will only know and care about what you yourself bring into the theater. If you watched this film without already being soaked in American comic book lore, it would be … hmm well it would be crazy but maybe more enjoyable? Who is the guy in the blue leotard? He can fly? What the hell? And this other guy flies too? Oh that’s a dream? But there’s some kind of bat thing going here? If he’s rich why does he live in a ruin? Who’s the British guy? Why does everyone look so constipated?

Wonder Woman looks cool, I guess, but still, you’re who now? Let’s not even talk about Khal Drogo doing some kind of underwater hair conditioner commercial or whatever that was.

The B vs S fight was dumb, the way it was “resolved” was dumber. But then everything in this movie is dumb. You just cannot try and bring any kind of logic to anything that happens in it. It’s beyond reason or truth or reality. Now is the time in Syndertown when we say ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!! and show our back teeth.

The Magicians – Season 1 – Episode 10 "But you haven't touched your penis!"

I officially completely love The Magicians now. Penny is a dick but he’s not stupid or a plot-device stereotype and that combination is amazingly rare. Quentin and Alice are such complete nerds, and very believable to me; I’ve known that type, simultaneously super attractive and yet so personally damaged that they end up awkward as hell. Julia breaks my heart every episode somehow. Even Eliot and Margo, who teetered on the border of annoyingly “whimsical”, have unexpected depths.

The plot keeps veering off in ways I wouldn’t expect (an unbooker so far), and the not-strictly-plottish parts are just as interesting as anything else. Like, good grief Alice’s parents. The whole adult-child dynamic seems to have escaped them. Beyond creepy. And the library! And that librarian! The Sand People ish kids! The Margolem!

The cast should be grateful that we don’t know any real magic because I think we’d keep them making us an episode every week forever.