Bob's Burgers - "Mother Daughter Laser Razor" - Review

Few shows can manage to be weird, funny, and sentimental all at once; Bob’s Burgers does it successfully in almost every single episode.

The series embraces its characters, and their quirks. It shows them at their worse, but never presumes to judge them. In fact, the crazier, weirder, less sympathetic places it takes the Belcher family, somehow the better the, funnier, and more emotionally resonant the show is capable of being.

"Mother Daughter Laser Razor" is all about parent’s relationships with their kids. The two storylines highlight the relationships between Linda and Louise, as well as Bob and Tina. And it explores the love we have for our family and the lengths will go to either make eachother happy or get something from them. Ultimately the Belchers underneath all the quirkiness are one of the most realistically drawn families on television. Their relations with eachother, their dynamics with one another, and their love in spite of all the crap they put eachother through fuel many of the series best episodes. 

When Linda feels as though Louise doesn’t like her, she becomes increasingly desperate to win her over. Louise being her manic self isn’t making it any easier for her. She refuses to hang up the collage poster her mother made for her. She won’t listen to the bed time story, hiding her head under the pillow. Linda keeps turning to “Phenomena Ma”; a website that gives suggestions on how to be a good mother, but it’s only proving to strain Louise and Linda’s relationship even more. Linda “kidnaps” Louise and takes her to a mother-daughter seminar run by the “Phenomena Ma” (who as it turns out is a man who seems weirdly into women empowerment). Louise is unsurprisingly uncooperative, but buys into the whole ordeal after getting bribed by her mother (who’s competitiveness comes out when the Phenomena Ma notes there’s a “Most Valuable Mother” award to be had). When Linda’s bribing becomes apparent, Louise and Logan (the kid from the biker episode “Ear-sy Rider”) are thrown into the “Utero-Room” (where Freaky Friday is played on loop and rather amusingly starts to get to Logan) in order to learn a lesson. While Louise is scheming to get out, Linda becomes obsessively competitive with Logan’s mom for the best mother award. Eventually Louise uses a fake belly ache to lure the parents into the room before turning the tables on them and locking them in there. The kids head over to the next door laser tag building, and  soon after the parents catch up to them. At which point Bob’s Burgers shines, the parents and kids are fighting eachother in laser tag, Phenomena Ma is freaking out at his failures, and Louise and Linda make up in hilarious, heartwarming fashion. “That’s for taking me to the momgina monologues” Louise yells as she shoots her with the laser tag gun. Linda breaks down and tells her that she feels as if Louise doesn’t like her. The combination of Kristen Schaal and John Roberts’s voice acting and the animation sell this emotional moment where Louise lets her mother know that of course she likes her. The Belchers may get upset with one another, but it’s doubtful they could ever not like one another. 

In fact, as the B-plot demonstrates, the Belchers are willing to go to great lengths for one another. Tina, cornered by peer pressure, decides to shave her legs for the first time. However, with her mom to busy being crazy over her relationship with Louise, it’s up to Bob to help her confront her hairy legs. But Bob refuses to shave them himself, and so he takes her to get her legs waxed. Tina becomes really scared at the prospect once there, and Bob for the love of his daughter agrees to get his legs waxed with her. It’s moments like this and the one described earlier between Linda and Louise that truly sell the show. It’s never really doubted that these characters love eachother. They’re weird; they’re crazy; they’re unorthodox. But with a Simpsons-like emotional, character heart beating underneath all the quirk on the surface (as well as sharing a similar type and amount of humor as early seasons of The Simpsons), the series continually elevates itself above other shows. So Bob gets his legs shaved and oddly enough loves the new freedom it provides his legs; while Tina freaks out and misses her “hairy little friends” (there’s even a weirdly awesome Terminator 2 apocalypse dream sequence where her leg hairs talk to her before going up in flames). But Bob comforts her and lets her know its okay.  

It’s all very funny, and emotionally touching. There’s not a character moment out of place, and once again the series proves itself to be one of the best series on television. 

Stray Observations:

-“Dad’s the witch … but just pretend … right, Dad?” –So much of Tina’s humor is sold by Dan Mintz’s brilliant voice acting, which is so wonderfully understated and subtle that often Tina’s jokes are blink and you miss them.

-Linda going into Louise’s bedroom to wake her up and read the kid’s book is wonderful for how quickly it devolves into the two of them yelling at eachother.

-“Gene hide my legs!” and Gene spider monkey clings to them. Great sight gag.

-I love how Gene is in the bathroom when Linda was attempting to shave Tina’s legs. The Belcher’s are so comfortable with one another and who they are that it’s not strange at all that Gene is there for it.

-“I’ve been kidnapped!” Louise tells a passing stranger once she finds out that her mother has brought her to a mother-daughter seminar. The woman looks hilariously very seriously concerned.

-“This is gonna be the hardest money I’ve ever earned” ”Unless you become a hooker”

-The moms are yelling “estrogen” at Phenomena Ma’s request. Louise’s reaction: “Oh, dear”.

-The beer funnels with the gas masks used as “umbilical cords” was another great sight gag. And they’re giving them milk through is. (Louise obviously refuses; Linda: “Open that fetus mouth!”). How crazy is that? I don’t even get what that’s trying to teach.

-The person at the massage parlor is really happy that she has to wax Tina’s legs and not any part of really hairy Bob.

-Tina’s progressive “Uh huh”s showing her increased hesitation at getting her legs waxed was so funny.

-“Role playing is gonna cost ya” “Not until I see some results”

-“Did you just fart on my seminar?”

-Logan on Freaky Friday: “The logic of this movie is very unsettling”

-Linda sings: “Where is the hair? There is the hair. Where is Harry Truman” – The series has mined Linda’s love of singing (and pretty badly) beautifully.

-“I killed my friendly leg hairs”

-“I’m a sheep. A hairless sheep”

-Logan’s full name: Logan Berry Bush. “We didn’t think it through”
-Gene feels left out not getting his legs waxed, and so they end up doubling back.
-The intercut between Louise and Logan screaming at Freaky Friday, and Bob and Tina screaming getting their legs waxed was great.

Grade: A

What did everyone else think?

Happy Endings - "Fowl Play/ Date" - Review

Happy Endings is back once again with its cartoonishly fast pace and rapid fire jokes. Seriously, it’s truly not until you’re taking notes on a show like this and try to get down as many of the great jokes as you can that you realize just how much of an extra mile Happy Endings goes to cram jokes (and really funny ones at that) into every episode. The series is usually at its best when it’s thin on plot, and packs in joke after joke. It’s to the credit of the writers and the commitment of the actors that even at its worse, the series is still one of the funniest shows on tv. There are definitely more heartwarming shows, more ambitious shows, and even more clever ones, but few that try to make you laugh as often as Happy Endings. If it doesn’t always get so touchy feely or if its relies too much on formulaic sitcom situations to justify and get away with the amount of jokes, well, that’s okay because these characters are so great and the series so very funny.

In the A-plot, Penny and Brad accidentally kill Alex’s racist parrot Tyler with industrial glue fumes (Alex is off at “Rom Com Con” which sidelines the usually brilliant Elisha Cuthbert who doesn’t appear except at the start and end of the episode). Casey Wilson plays Penny’s enthusiasm for covering up the accident a-mah-zing… ly. Daman Wayans Jr.’s nervous freakout contrasts perfectly with her (I don’t believe we’ve had too many storylines with just the two of them, which is a shame because they’re really good together). Brad and Penny eventually stage it to look like the bird flew out the window (but not before rascistly pooping on a magazine cover featuring Obama). However, they dispose of the body poorly and it ends up being discovered and getting an autopsy. Brad and Penny (but particularly Brad) become increasingly nervous, especially after a funeral is held for the bird where his other rascist bird friends show up. An in memorium video made by Alex puts them over the edge, and Penny admits to the whole thing. But then we learn that Tyler had liver problems; Alex apparently gave him alcohol. And everyone is absolved of guilt in a way perhaps only possible on this show. 

Meanwhile, (on what I would argue is the lesser of the two storylines) Dave and Jane (in anoother underused pairing for the series, though one less successful than Brad and Penny) try to set up Max with friends of theirs. The only problem is that they’re both exactly like Dave and Jane (and Max definitely doesn’t need any more people like that in his life). Max rejects them, but Dave and Jane are crazy and will have none of that. They crash Max’s date with a guy he met on his second date, and quickly wreck all of Max’s chances with him. Max reconciles with them, letting them know that he doesn’t need to date those guys they set him up with because he’s already got a douchebag and a type-A as friends in them, and, honestly, who needs more than one of those in their life. 

Often times the plot of the series is purposely inconsequential. By aiming for jokes over plot, the plot gets lost in the shuffle. And usually Happy Ending goes right to the edge of too much level of inconsequentialness; but “Fowl Play/Date” often crosses this line at times. Sure, the A-Plot is probably even more inconsequential than the B-Plot but it’s given time to go from point A to point B, and Wilson and Wayans are so good that it makes up for how stupid of a scenario accidentally killing the bird is.
While the B-plot is so short and obvious that it feels pointless, even for a series that does a lot of inconsequential things like this to begin with. Now like I said before, Happy Endings is best when it’s crammed with jokes, but it’s even better when those jokes emanate from stories focused on the characters. The B-plot focuses on Max (and Adam Pally admittedly gets the best lines of this story), but doesn’t do enough development to justify itself. 

These plots aren’t particularly stand out. A bit too much time is spent on Penny and Brad’s story which gets strangely cartoonish even for this series. The Max/Jane/Dave storyline is almost too short, and resolves itself too quickly for my liking (although avoiding particular, clichéd sitcom situations is its bread and butter; the show does familiar storylines but refuses to play by their rules). And Alex (who has become one of the series’s surprisingly strongest assets) is pretty much not in the episode. Happy Endings (like a lot of shows) is at its best when every cast member has something to do (and relatively equally). This is a funny half hour of television, but it’s not the best work the series has done.

Stray Observations:

-“I realized he had no other interests other than being rascist. So I got him into baseball … He’s into the White Sox”

-The gang rattles off different kind’s ‘Cons’ (I should have written them down), which displeases another restaurant patron: “I’ve got one: shut the fuck up” (The gang's reply, "Oh, that's a good one: "Shut the Fuck Up Con")

-“Yes, I wrote an original screenplay because I have all the alone time in the world. Thanks for rubbing it in Dave”

-“I’ve brokered 3 marriages. One against his will” –Why does this not surprise me about Jane?

-Alex eats birthday cake every night off her hand imprinted plate. She also had REALLY big hands when she was 5.

-“He says he does it to forget the past. Three school bus crashes”

-“You can’t just poke him with pencils and yell clear” - Nervous Brad is the best.
-“What would Carry Washington do in Scandal?” “Demand to see the president then almost make out with him” –I’ve never seen Scandal and still find this very funny.

-“Up is down. Left is right. Acoustic is bad. People are over Mayer” – They totally are Dave.

-“I’m dead, but a black guy would have done it better” – Brad imagines the parrot mocking him from the grave.

-“I didn’t know you were here” “We spend half our lives here”

-Dave and his doppleganger friend take Max’s comment as a compliment: “Jack Johnson 1 and Jack Johnson 2 over here.”

-Max makes up with Dave and Jane in typically absurd Happy Endings fashion: “My pantry is already stocked with a kickass Jane and a kickass Dave. And a rat who’s eating through my aluminum cans that I’m going to kill with my bare hands”
-“We got into an argument about who made the better Celebrity Apprentice All Star. I said Melissa Rivers. He said Joseph Goebbels. I thought he committed suicide” – Oh, how I missed you this episode Alex.

Grade: B

What did everyone else think?

"Your Sister's Sister" - Film Review

Sometimes films need time to breathe. To linger on a shot; to allow quieter moments; to let actors act without interruption. To simply refuse to allow the plot to rear its ugly head into the picture and hijack the movie. Often times films fail to do this and it leads to disappointment.

On the other hand, you have films like Your Sister’s Sister, which allows itself to breathe, and man is it rewarding. 

As Bryan Cranston mentioned about Breaking Bad, “The little moments are the things that really make this work. And makes it work to the point that it's in the right medium. If it's in a film, that would be the first thing that's cut.” And Cranston is right. Movies have to often get through a lot of plot with not a lot of time to allow for “smaller moments” that may be interesting but don’t move forward the master plot. Frequently this leads to films leaving very good scenes on the cutting room floor because, despite how good they are; films need to tell their story efficiently. Unlike tv shows, they don’t have 10 to 20 hour to tell their story. They may be have three if they’re really doing some hefty narrative lifting.Your Sister's Sister, on the other hand, keeps these "smaller moment" (and has them in abundance), and this for me is why the film is a treat.

It quickly establishes the plot: Mark Duplass’s Jack has had a shitty year and it’s left him really unstable. His friend Iris (played by Emily Blunt) suggests spending a couple of days in her family’s cabin in order to set himself straight. Realizing how badly he needs an isolated respite, Jack agrees and goes to the cabin. There he finds Iris’s sister Hannah (played by Rosmarie DeWitt), who has recently had a bad break up with her girlfriend of seven years. They drunkenly hook up, and unsurprisingly Iris shows up the next day to make things awkward and complicated.   

This plot in of itself isn’t majorly interesting or original, but the film allows for scene after scene where nothing happens but well-acted, understated, personal moments between characters. Having set itself up so swiftly from the start, the film dives into these moments with a feeling of authenticity, honesty, and heart (many of them feel improvised, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were). These scenes are so nicely observed and carried so strongly by the three leads that it engrosses you into the movie. 

My main beef with the film is a reveal at the start of the third act that threatens to derail the film. Yet somehow the film manages to play this to its advantage, allowing for still more “small”, well-observed, character specific moments. The reveal also leads to a nice, touching, and unexpected ending that may frustrate some, but I find appropriately open-ended. 

Your Sister’s Sister is the type of storytelling independent films often do so well. Intimate, personal, low key, but in many ways more meaningful than a big budget blockbuster. 

Grade: B+

"ParaNorman" - Film Review

Man is it a good time to be a kid right now. The amount of content being produced that’s directed at kids (and often also at a broader or adult audience) is plentiful and really good. Cartoon Network is producing great series such as Adventure Time and Regular Show. The Disney Channel is making Phineas and Ferb and Gravity Falls (Disney also now has in its hand the valuable properties of Marvel and Lucas Films, which are likely to prove incredibly fruitful in the near future). Pixar is popping out a high quality animated film almost every year.

One such quality work in the kid content pantheon is the recently released ParaNorman. Boasting impressive stop-motion animation, some really great voice acting (including Casey Affleck, Anna Kendrick, John Goodman, Bernard Hill, Leslie Mann, Christopher Mintz-Passe, and Jeff Garlin) and a good dose of humor, the film tells the short, sweet tale about an outcast boy named Norman (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee) who can see and talk to ghosts. Norman is forced to use his powers to save the day when a witch’s curse placed on his town is activated.

Like many recent films directed at kids, there's plenty of humor and content that will please an older audience, and the film is likely to engage and amuse adults much more than they may expect (It's become kind of cliched to say this about recent children and family films because they're made with such great craftsmanship, and by adults nonetheless, that it's really shouldn't be a surprise by now that the better ones win over individuals of all ages).

What sets the film apart from other family friendly fare is how much nuance and depth the story has. At each turn the film refuses to take the easy way out with explanations of the supernatural that threaten the town. Instead, it opens up old wounds the town has brought upon itself and a number of its townspeople through an unwillingness to understand others. When Norman saves the day, it’s not just due to his powers; it’s also because of how big a heart he has in spite of his terrible mistreatment by everyone around him over the years.

ParaNorman features nice animation, good laughs, and well-earned sentiment (Norman's final confrontation with the "witch" is the highlight of the film, and, not to spoil anything, is a real tearjerker and sentimental and touching in all the right ways). The film is a tad tonally inconsistent, but it does fine whenever it sticks to any particular one (e.g. funny/serious/scary, etc.)

Grade: B

"Premium Rush" - Film Review

2012 has been a kind year to Joseph Gordon-Levitt star of Premium Rush. He’s starred in four box office successes, including big name films such as The Dark Knight Rises, Looper, and Lincoln. And that’s coming off last year where he starred in Inception and 50/50, two other very good movie. Levitt is sort of an “it guy” now, and why shouldn’t he be? He’s a really good actor. Premium Rush doesn’t ask much in the way of acting from him, but he totally sells every scene he’s in. An early scene where a corrupt cop tries to steal a letter from him and he totally puts him down by calling him a “douchebag” made me realize just how good Levitt is. This is such a simple film with such a straightforward plot, but it’s to the credit of everyone involved that it’s as enjoyable, stylish, and fun as it is.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat (I guess if you’re into that sort of bizarre thing). I discussed this before when I was talking about The Vampire Diaries. In a way, (to oversimplify) there’s a dividing line between high minded, serious entertainment and less rigorous, less serious entertainment. The more high minded stuff attempts to edify you; it often has you think complexly and take away something meaningful from the work. The less serious works, on the other hand, are all about pure, unadulterated fun. That’s not to say the high minded works aren’t fun or the less serious works aren’t intelligent, but that they often have different thematic and structural aims in mind. 

I would say that Premium Rush falls in the latter category, and I say that as a compliment. Premium Rush is so assured with its high octane action that it plows through one sequence after another without ever missing a beat. Each action sequence is shot and edited with such style and finesse that it’s hard not to enjoy yourself while watching it.

More importantly perhaps: the film makes bike riding a subject matter worth watching, a feat not done since the last Tour-de-France. While I personally care little for such a topic, it’s to the credit of director David Koepp, writers Koepp and John Kamps, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s typical charm at the heart of the film that turn this by the numbers action movie into such a well-crafted action thriller.

Grade: B

“Welcome to fucking Deadwood. Can be combative”: Thoughts on Season 2 of "Deadwood"

In which I talk A LOT  about the idea of "community" as depicted in Season 2 of Deadwood.

Spoilers on Season 2 of Deadwood Below:

“You can love your country but it can’t love you,” a professor of mine used to say. He was referring to modern nation states and their formation. Modern nation states are social, psychological constructs; in essence they’re (like the title of the first two episodes) “lies agreed upon”. The determined physical and abstract boundaries of the state and kinship and ties between people within the states aren’t real. They’re formations made out of self-interest, selfishness, and necessity. That might seem like an absolutely crazy thing to say, but it’s a point argued by a number of historians. And to me, it seems like Deadwood in its portrayal of the formation of societies (and a modern one at that) is depicting a fair amount of this truth. We lie to ourselves about how our nations are formed (through violence, deception, and more than a few evil deeds). We’re also oftentimes devout, to a fault, towards our nation when in all honesty the “nation” is an idea; an abstract concept that though we may fight for and fervently believe in, can’t love us.

However, it’s hard not to root for the denizens of Deadwood and the bonds they’ve formed. It’s also hard not to be nervous about Mr. Wolcott and Hearst’s encroachments on what Al and Seth and co. have created out of nothing. Watch in the 5^th episode as Bullock immediately sides with Al the moment he’s told that Wolcott and the Commissioner, along with Cy, have been stirring up trouble to threaten the community they’ve formed. Al and Seth have just had a fight that had them tumbling over the balcony of the Gem, but they put aside their differences for the greater good of Deadwood. The community may be merely an idea, but damn if it doesn’t feel like it’s one worth fighting for.  

And whenever people act out of self-interest or for selfish reasons rather than for the good of the community that is when things go seriously amiss in Deadwood. Seth, in trying to deal with the consequences of his wife’s arrival and his affair with Alma, is forced to think of himself and his family and ignores the issues emerging in the camp. Al’s failure to acknowledge his ailments, and later treating and recovering from them, sidelines him for the better part of three episodes. With both of them confronting their own problems, they’re heedless to the trouble brewing that, had they been attentive to it, may have been nipped in the bud. Cy, Wolcott, Commissioner Jarry, and Hearst’s intentions and actions in the interest of profit and power, ultimately, continually breed complications in the camp that threaten to fracture it. Deadwood seems to argue (and quite optimistically) that good things come of individuals working together for greater causes beyond themselves. Season 1 saw the camp splintered with various people at odds over their beliefs; but by the end of the First Season, we saw characters put aside their differences and accept their roles as part of the community. Al accepted his position as pseudo-mayor of Deadwood, and Seth accepted the need to be sheriff. Lo and behold when the two of them fail to be the bigger man and forgo their selfish anger at one another, not only does it lead to a nasty fight between the two of them, but it in turn threatens the very foundation of community they’ve helped construct.  

When external incursions arise and when our leading citizens fail to consider the greater good of the community, it feels as if it’s only a matter of time before everything explodes. Hearst isn’t the only outside force. Miss Isringhausen, working for the Pinkertons, has manipulated Silas Adams, and set her sights on taking down Alma. And if Al weren’t as bright as he is, she may have twisted him to her will as well. Instead, Al sees right through her and her scheme; he realizes the threat the Pinkertons hold against him and the community, and tells Alma (who he’s oddly enough never had an interaction with before). Alma reminds Al that he’s responsible for the death of her late husband, and the death of the family of Sofia, who’s in her care. However, at the moment, there are bigger problems than rightfully held grudges.

The 2^nd season is partially about outside forces upsetting the balance in Deadwood. Many shows use their second seasons to do this. Once the characters and world have been built up, it’s interesting to provide a conflict to put against them. In Deadwood, it isn’t just one though, but several. Hearst and the Pinkertons are catalyzing forces, but these create a rippling effect that create more and more problems. Doc Cochran sees the poorly mistreated Asian prostitutes brought in by an agent of Hearst, and is infuriated. He even begs Cy to let him treat them “pro bono”. Mr. Wu is also in the lurch; Hearst’s agent is an Asian fluent in English who threatens to displace Wu and his enterprises in the Asian part of Deadwood. Poor Merrick refuses to post a notice in his paper written by Wolcott, instead posting it outside his door in protest. In retaliation, Cy wrecks his newspaper building, destroying the equipment and even leaving dog crap in the corner. Even goodhearted Charlie Utter, who at times feels as if he could hardly hurt a fly, goes off the handle and relentlessly beats up Wolcott for killing 3 prostitutes in Joanie’s brothel. Joanie survives the attack on the Chez Ami, sending away her remaining employees for fear of their lives, but she’s now become emotionally devastated and constantly fears for her life. Steve the Drunk, pissed off by Merrick’s posted notice, takes out his anger on one of the two members of Deadwood’s African American community, Sam. If it weren’t for a last minute intervention by Seth, Sam may very well have been tarred and feathered. 

The incursions are affecting nearly everyone in Deadwood. Most people, except  Alma, end up selling off their claims when Wolcott spreads rumors that titles may be taken away by the government (in a ploy to scoop up all the land claims for Hearst). Mose Manuel kills his brother when he refuses to sell over his share of their land claim, all for some money. When Mose gets a power trip off this, it ultimately leads to him getting shot in the following episode. 

Seth is also facing a newly arrived outside force on the homefront in the form of his wife Martha and son William. There’s little love between them, and the fact that Seth clearly had an affair with Alma only helps to make matters worse. The relationship strains to fall apart underneath all the feigned courtesies. There’s little love between them, and only a seemingly misplaced sense of obligation. Alma is also burdened by the consequences of her affair with Seth. Not only has the gossip been going around about their relationship, but now Alma finds herself pregnant with his child and uncertain as to whether she should get rid of it or not. This is made all the more tense when Mrs. Bullock seeks out Alma, and though they never speak of the affair, it’s clearly the subtext underwriting all the pleasantries.

Perhaps the most obvious outside encroachment is the advancement of civilization. The telegraph poles are slowly creeping towards the camp (and telegraph operator Blazanov eventually arrives in the camp). Deadwood may very well soon become absorbed into the U.S. (by season’s end, it will in fact have). Hearst’s mere interest in the town suggests that the camp has made significant strides towards unifying and civilizing. The citizens of Deadwood aren’t always fighting these encroachments (although they often do), but rather they would like to see them happen on their own terms. Al uses Seth's previous standing with contacts in Montana to convince Yankton officials that Montana intends to annex Deadwood (in order to get a better offer from Dakota).    

It’s ultimately when Al and Seth (ostensibly the series’s protagonists) are confronting these external problems, Mrs. Bullock (and Alma for that matter as well) and Ms. Isringhausen (and they seem to finally be alleviating these issues), that tragedy strikes and Bullock’s son is trampled by a horse. Perhaps if Seth hadn’t let the affair go as far he did or perhaps if Al had admitted to himself that his illness needed to be dealt with right away, events would have transpired differently and young William would still be alive. When the community fails to act together, bad things happen. When they act for individual gain (unless it serves the dual purpose of bettering Deadwood as well), the community and in turn themselves are put at risk.

It’s no coincidence that Alma and Ellesworth’s marriage is intercut with shots of Al negotiating Deadwood’s annexation. They’re both odd and hesitant mergers, but entirely necessary ones. They’re both needed for the bettering of the community. They both bring together people who for a long time were at odds with one another but now see the value of coming together.

So yes, Deadwood as a community is an abstract, intangible notion, much as are modern nation states might be. But by coming together (the series is constantly creating connections between various characters either through camerawork or writing), the people of Deadwood tend to better themselves, eachother, and the community as a whole.

Deadwood’s second season alleviated many of my problems with the first season. Better plotting of storylines led to stories that carried out throughout the season and that reached satisfying conclusions in the last few episodes. Even as its cast deepened and its writing and narrative became denser, Deadwood pulled off one of the best seasons of television in recent memory. After fighting Wolcott, Hearst, and Commissioner Jarry’s advances all season, Al finally gets the upper hand in the finale. Wolcott has been disgraced and committed suicide; Wu’s Asian rival has been killed; Deadwood is soon to be annexed and hold elections. Seth and Martha have patched up their marriage as best they can (albeit mostly sadly due to William's death). Miss Isringhausen has fled the camp and Al has given proof of her intentions to Alma to use against her scheming family. Problems obviously still exist (Hearst is finally in town and will probably stir up more trouble next season), but for now, our foulmouthed Western town is at peace.   

"How about we try it my way now?": My Thoughts on Season 1 of "The Shield"

 Spoilers on Season 1 of The Shield Below:

“Good cop and bad cop have left for the day. I'm a different kind of cop.” –Vic Mackey

Antiheroism has rarely looked as good as it does on Michael Chiklis’s Vic Mackey in The Shield. The series’s surprisingly assured first season about a corrupt cop who’ll keep crime at bay by any means necessary is thoroughly compelling, and compulsively watchable television. Chiklas’s portrayal of Mackey and the writing for the character continually provide layers to the individual to the point where he’s not merely some loathsome brute. In fact, much of what Mackey does feels like it’s in the interest of the greater good of his precinct.* Or as CCH Pounder’s Det. Claudette Wyms puts it in the Pilot, people don’t care how crime is prevented so long as their streets feel safe. Though Mackey does a number of terribly egregious things (notably stealing drugs from a crime scene, to make money off of later), many of his illicit activities make him feel more noble or at least sympathetic. He helps out the prostitute Connie as she struggles with addiction; he turns a blind eye to certain drug trafficking in order to decrease gang violence. Vic is also a family man, and on a number of occasions is deeply disturbed by criminal activity related to the abuse or mistreatment of children. Vic Mackey isn’t always a good person (I haven’t even mentioned how he strayed from his marriage from his always loving and concerned wife Corinne), but he certainly is one of the most entertaining and fascinating television characters in recent memory.

*(NOTE: I realize this is may perhaps an unpopular opinion. Yes, Vic is on one level a bad person. He does some awful things, especially at the end of the Pilot, which I'll get into later. But Vic is not merely the villain as protagonist. He's much less a one-note character than that. Vic, unlike other members of the strike team, particularly Walton Goggin's Shane Vendrell, doesn't purely beat up on people and plant drugs for the pure thrill of it. He takes little pleasure in killing Terry. But he knows there was probably no other way around Terry without jeopardizing the Strike Team.

Acevada is often times just as bad as Vic, but in a very different way. He's so thoroughly interested in political gain and appearances that it clouds all of his judgement. He doesn't even particularly care about taking Mackey down because he's corrupt, but because it will look good for him when he runs for political office. And he only sides with Vic against Gilroy due to him being a bigger fish to fry)

As tv critic Alan Sepinwall points out, “The Shield ended HBO’s monopoly on this kind of drama”. This is partially part of the reason why it’s a series worth discussing (although clearly not the only one). Prior to its debut in 2002, HBO had Oz and The Sopranos, and no other network was attempting this type of serialized, ensemble narrative. Like both Oz and The Sopranos before it, The Shield built a series around an antihero protagonist surrounded by a larger cast that in their own right were often just as fascinating as the lead. The Shield doesn’t have any major character I don’t find myself at least slightly interested in. Rookie police officer Julien Lowe’s (as played by Michael Jace) struggles between his Christian values and his budding homosexuality is incredibly heartbreaking and was often just as interesting and powerful to watch as Vic’s attempts to preserve the integrity of the Strike Team.

What’s perhaps even more astonishing than a series breaking HBO’s monopoly on this type of drama was that FX was the channel to succeed in achieving this. Early on its existence FX aired some forgettable original programming before turning to primarily airing reruns. The Shield came out of nowhere. To quote Sepinwall again, “it's one of the classic cases of a pilot changing everything you think about an actor, a genre, a network, etc., and forcing you to watch it every week.” The Pilot is a great piece of television that after watching I don’t know how you couldn’t be sold on the need to watch more of the series. While the episode is a solid hour of television, it’s the twist ending where Vic kills newly added Strike team member Terry Crowley (who we find out earlier in the episode was working with new Farmington police captain David Aceveda to take down Mackey) that truly elevates the episode and the series to a new level of storytelling that it would continue to excel at over the course of the 1^st Season. 

The series would often tell procedural stories (in many instances these cases would carry over across episodes), but the show had its officers and detectives handle cases that were incredibly gruesome and violent yet frighteningly plausible and realistic. Sure, Vic’s detainment of a professional basketball player so he misses a game or rappers leading a gang war stretch credulity. But the pedophile holding a kid hostage or a prostitution ring that makes child porn are cases that feel sickeningly believable. The series exposed the underbelly of LA in all its gritty, dark glory, and never once attempted to soften the picture. 

When stories came to a head in the penultimate and final episodes, the raised stakes had incrementally been raised over the course of the season so that it felt well-earned as well as highly intense. When Gilroy stepped foot in Vic’s home, I was supremely nervous about his family. Not just because I’ve come to like Vic, but because no matter the argument against him, his family has proven to be nice and completely innocent.  

More and more the show forced me to ask, “How is Vic going to get out of this one?” Just how deeply marred could Vic get himself and the Strike Team before he’d reach a point of no return? Every time he got out of a mess, the series never made me doubt for a second the plausibility of it. Vic Mackey lived to fight another day again and again. With multiple forces continually rallying against him and the brutality of the Strike Team, it was always great television to see him maneuver his way out of one tight spot after another.