The Way We Were

I don't know why I don't watch HBO shows when they are actually running (I mean, aside from the fact that I don't have HBO). During the summer of 2008, I watched the entirety of Six Feet Under, 3 years after it ended, and enjoyed it immensely. The Sopranos and The Wire have been hailed as two of the best series of all time, and based on other things I like, I should love Curb Your Enthusiasm (though I've seen 2 episodes and was not won over, though I may try again, if only to see the Seinfeld "reunion").

I also saw Deadwood that summer, 2 years after it ended, and was once again blown away by the depth of the show, as well as what the writers were able to do without the constraints of network standards and practices. I am currently watching Rome, after it was heavily recommended by some friends, and so far it is incredible. So my next series of posts will be on Deadwood and Rome (hopefully by the time I get to that series, I will have nearly completed it), examining their views on society, politics, and life in general.

Deadwood was about the creation of a society, following a town in a part of the North American continent that was destined to become, but was not yet, part of the United States. The inhabitants initially lived without actual laws, but had to conform to some kind of system in order to avoid pure chaos. Rome starts at the twilight of the Roman republic, a decade or two before the rise of the empire. So far, the class struggle has been a central aspect of the series, and it examines the lives of various types of people in the ancient democracy.

Up next: The wild west...

Glee: We Are The Champions

It's been many weeks since I've covered Glee, meaning that I haven't been able to talk about "Proud Mary" in the wheelchairs, Artie and Tina's romance, the drug-infused mash-up songs, the mattress commercial, or Suzie Pepper. To make a long story short, Glee remains a very fun show to watch, and although I will definitely be sticking with it, it continues to do some things that I find very off-putting. These things can take me out of the episode because they are so jarring. The end of the episode "Hairography" was nearly unwatchable due to forced dialogue, and plot points still come up for about one episode only to be neatly resolved by the end. The mid-season finale, "Sectionals," had some of these issues, but all-in-all, I was able to look past them for the most part because of how fun the episode was. Right now, the show's biggest sin isn't its fault: not coming back until April?! What the hell, FOX!?

"Sectionals" was written to be a potential (open-ended) series finale if it did not become the phenomenon that it has become, so many plotlines were essentially wrapped up (thankfully, the fake pregnancy story was one of them). All hell broke loose for the club because, in addition to Mr. Schuster not being able to attend the Sectionals meet due to accidentally and unknowingly accepting consideration for professional work, Rachel told Finn that Puck was the father of Quinn's baby. Finn's reaction and flight from the club was good, but Quinn's reaction was pretty unbelievable. Her rival for Finn's attention ratted her out (how did she figure it out... aside from her "psychic" powers, because her only evidence was Puck's devotion to Quinn), and she not only let Rachel off the hook, she told Rachel she was glad Finn knew. Which makes no sense because prior episodes have definitively shown us that she would rather have Finn as the father figure than Puck. I do like that Finn and Puck did not make up at the end; when Puck asked if they were cool, having Finn say no was very satisfying.

My other huge gripe with the episode was the way New Directions was able to come up with TWO new routines, which helped them win the competition, in about 20 minutes. Granted, one of them was pretty much a solo number by Rachel, which she claims she had been working on since she was 4 (note: I had no idea Barbara Streisand was the original singer of "Don't Rain On My Parade"; I have only ever heard the amazing Bobby Darrin version). But for them to choreograph "You Can't Always Get What You Want" so quickly is pretty unbelievable. Their final song was "Somebody To Love," so they didn't show it again.

However, in spite of the suspension of disbelief requirement, the episode was incredibly fun and rewarding. Emma took charge and represented New Directions at Sectionals, and showed some backbone by standing up to the cheating heads of the other two glee clubs (who received the set list for New Directions from Sue). Speaking of Emma, I'm really happy her wedding plotline ended; I like Ken, but the quickie wedding was almost as unbelievable as Terry's fake pregnancy, especially because of all the conditions Emma placed on their relationship and Ken's awareness that the whole thing was a sham. Things are going to be awkward between him, Emma, and Will when the show starts up again. The two new numbers used for Sectionals were great, and the final song was a great way to end this stretch of episodes (or series had it come to that). Too bad we won't get more Glee until April.

Up next: HBO presents a history lesson...

Mad Men: Brave New World

Holy shit. I am so sad that I've had to wait this long before covering the rest of Mad Men's third season. The episode "Wee Small Hours" aired right after my last post in October, and when the episode aired, I had a really good analysis for the episode. It aired on October 11, 2009, which was the date of a large gay rights march on Washington. In the episode, numerous references were made to the Civil Rights movement, including the August, 1963 march on Washington. My favorite line regarding civil rights was when Betty told Carla that, even though she believes in equality, maybe the world isn't ready yet (a total cop-out that I hear too often today about gay rights). In addition, Sal was fired from Sterling Cooper because of his sexuality. Matthew Weiner and co. couldn't have picked a better date to air the episode. However, it didn't go down quite the way we'd expect; when the son of the owner of the tobacco company that owns Lucky Strike (SC's biggest account) tried to put the moves on Sal, he refused. In response, the client told Harry Crane to fire Sal, something Harry had no authority to do. Unfortunately, Harry didn't say anything, and things got out of hand, and Don was forced to fire Sal. Things were made all the more painful when Don accused Sal of being at fault because of the nature of gay men. Even sadder was that, after we saw Sal calling his wife from a phone booth in a seedy area of the city, we have not seen him since.

The next bomb was the Kennedy assassination. That was the event I had been waiting all season for, knowing that the season took place in 1963 and that Weiner couldn't avoid it because it had such an impact on the country. What I didn't notice was that, early in the season, Sterling's daughter made a passing reference to setting her wedding date on the weekend after the shooting (the only critic that I am aware of who did pick up on it was the AV Club's Keith Phipps). The season's penultimate episode showed how the various employees of SC and their families dealt with the death of Kennedy as well as the to the televised shooting of Oswald by Ruby. It was incredible, to say the least. Seeing people stay home from work, glued to their TVs reminded me of the days following 9/11 and how all people could do was watch the news, even though there were never any new developments.

But I wasn't prepared for what happened in "Shut the Door. Have a Seat," the season finale. After about 3/4 of the season under Putnam, Powell, and Lowell (or is it Lowe?), the British agency that bought out SC in Season 2, we learned that the Brits were putting SC back up for sale, despite sinking so many costs into to make it more "efficient." Lane Pryce, who had become used to his life in New York, learned that he was going to be shipped off to the next place PPL was looking to take over, while Don, Roger, and Bert wondered what would become of them. Don didn't like the prospect of having to restart his career, while Roger and Bert would be unlikely to do anything but retire. But, upon realizing that the four of them could make their own company if they were released from their contracts, and that Pryce had the power to fire all of them, they did just that. Pryce was later fired for his insolence (which is what he wanted), and they, along with Pete, Peggy, Joan, and Harry created Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce. After a good, old-fashioned office raid, of course.

So how will SCDP do? How will working in the same "office" affect the already shaky relationship between Pete and Peggy? Peggy is now sleeping with Duck Phillips, Don's nemesis, and I doubt that's going to go away any time soon. Where is Sal? And will Kinsey be on the show anymore? He and Cosgrove were left behind, and while I could care less about Cosgrove, I'm going to miss Kinsey's goofy pretentiousness if he's not around next year. I haven't even mentioned the Draper divorce; Betty is leaving Don after one indiscretion too many to go off with some jackass politician. That's going to end real well (but I have no sympathy for Betty any more). The tumultuousness of the 60s is just getting started, so how will that affect the already strained relationships between the members of this fledgling agency? Season 4 can't start soon enough.

Up next: Sectionals...

Garden State: Waking Up

The third and final indie film I saw in the summer of 2004 (mere days before I left for my freshman year of college) was Zach Braff's Garden State, which was actually my first exposure to the actor/writer/director. For whatever reason, I found this movie to be much funnier than it actually is the first time I saw it. The movie definitely has funny moments, but I now see it as a film about loneliness with brief moments of humor throughout.

Andrew "Large" Largeman is living the dream in the eyes of all of his friends in New Jersey. He left the Garden State nine years before the film started to become a famous movie actor. The reality is that he's just another person out in Hollywood; he's gotten a few bit parts here and there, but has not made it big yet. To get by, he works as a waiter in a trendy Vietnamese restaurant (even though he's, obviously, not Vietnamese), where he serves "hip" drinks (I hate Red Bull, by the way) to "hip" people who treat him like a slave. He gets called back to Jersey when his mother dies, and the movie follows him as he reconnects with the friends and family that he left behind.

But he also reconnects with himself. The very first thing we see in the film is Large's dream sequence in which he is on a crashing plane, but while all the other passengers scream in horror, Large is strangely calm. This disconnected feeling extends to his waking life; he moves through life hopped up on lithium and other mood stabilizers, barely perceiving the world around him. He doesn't feel anything and barely reacts to the world around him. From the very few scenes we see in Los Angeles, we are led to believe that he has few acquaintances, ambition, or money (his empty white apartment says a great deal). When he gets back to Jersey, he barely has any reaction to anything at his mother's funeral, and when he goes to a party with some of his friends from high school, he is still in a state of detachment, despite using various mind-altering (illicit) drugs.

Two things change while he is in New Jersey: he decides that the time has come to stop taking his prescription drugs, and he meets Sam, a woman who is in every way his opposite. Sam tries to fully experience the world and will do anything that crosses her mind, regardless of how silly or potentially embarrassing it is. She and her mom have a great relationship, but she still lives at home (whereas Large has moved out, but can barely talk to his father, who is the reason he has been on lithium his entire life). The one trait they do share is loneliness; although Sam is outgoing on the surface, she is a very strange girl who has a problem with the truth (in that she can't tell it) and doesn't seem to be able to connect with most people on a long-term basis.

Sam helps Large to readjust back into life, easing the transition from sleepwalking to actual feeling, while Large takes her out of her bubble and introduces her to a darker side of life (although the film doesn't explicitly say this, Sam seems to have never ventured outside the safe, "everything-will-always-be-ok" world that kids are often told exists). It culminates with her showing him that some things are worth fully living for, while he ends by breaking her heart (only to quickly return and make everything better). A lot of people complain about the Hollywood ending that feels tacked on because of the preceding tone of the film. I too find the ending a bit jarring, but on the other hand, I can kind of see the ending as what Braff intended based on the above interpretation (he learned that there is more to life than himself and learned to appreciate that outside of himself).

Up next: SCDP...

Dollhouse: Burning Down the House

Holy crap, it's been a long time. I've been so busy with law school that I haven't had time to write here. I promise that I will do the post on Garden State, as well as a look at how the third season of Mad Men concluded (I really wanted to do a write-up of one episode because it serendipitously aired on the same day as a major event that complimented an event that occurred in the episode). But I had to get back here to discuss the latest, and some of the last, episodes of Dollhouse. While I was away, FOX announced that the show was canceled. They promised to air all of the purchased episodes, even the ones that had not yet been produced. The one, slight, upside is that, because not all episodes had been produced, Whedon and the writers were able to create an ending for the show. Small victories...

Anyway, in the two episodes tonight, the Senator Perrin story was brought to the forefront and took some very unexpected turns. Many people in the online community guessed that Perrin's wife was a sleeper doll, and the promos for the episode all but confirmed it. The truth was much more surprising: Perrin himself is the one with altered memories, but he isn't quite a doll. He was born Daniel Perrin, who came from a long line of politicians. But Perrin was a screw-up. He failed out of Yale, was drunken frat boy, and would never amount to anything. Rossum took note of the situation, knew that with his pedigree, they had someone who could easily get elected if he could clean himself up, and did the cleaning for him. His "wife" is really his handler. So why would Rossum create a politician who wants to bring Rossum down? The plan involves Perrin learning the "truth," that all of his tips about Rossum have come from its competitors in an effort to destroy them. Rossum looks like the victim of corporate espionage, and now Perrin is in their corner. A potential white knight for people like Echo, Victor, and Sierra has become a monster.

The path to this revelation was incredible, mainly because we got to meet Bennett, the D.C. Dollhouse programmer, played by Summer Glau. Bennett is kind of like a twisted River Tam; she is a slightly crazy genius with a somewhat stunted maturation and sadistic streak. She is somehow tied to Caroline, and blames her for an accident that left her with a dead arm (the flashbacks we saw don't completely mesh with what little we know about Caroline, so I don't know if what we know is misdirection or if what she believes is wrong, but we know she isn't a doll). We also saw Ray Wise as the head of the D.C. Dollhouse, which was good, but not as great as it could have been. Unfortunately, for as great as these episodes were, there were some line readings that were a bit clunky. I'm not sure if it was the writing or the acting, but every now and then, things felt off, which is strange because of the writers and actors involved. One actor who was awesome as usual was Enver Gjokaj. Adelle and Topher both went to D.C., and to cover for Topher while he was gone, Victor was imprinted with Topher's mind. Gjokaj was able to imitate Topher's voice, mannerisms, and expressions nearly perfectly, and it was a joy to watch. Now that this show is over, Gjokaj needs his own series. Seriously.

I am very sad that this series is going to end. It wasn't always as good as Whedon's other shows, but it is/was one of the better series in production and was consistently entertaining and humorous (not to mention heart-wrenching). Next week's episodes look to be great based on who will be returning. If you want to know more about the remaining episodes, check out this page from Ain't It Cool. I tried not to read too much, but I did see the name of the final episode, which, based on the name, should be very interesting.

Edit: Another great link. Hometown pride!

Up next: Jersey boy and girl (I hope)...