RECAP: The Newsroom 2x05 "News Night With Will McAvoy"

Given all the focus on women's rights during the last election season, I figured we were in for an episode that advocated feminism, and tonight we got it, as both Sloan and Maggie face the "slut" label and have to defend themselves to varying degrees. This along with quite a few lectures on a whole host of recent news topics- several characters get their own Sorkin-infused passionate speech tonight, addressing the Trayvon Martin shooting, the Sandra Fluke/Rush Limbaugh dust up, and the ethics of coming out on television.

We start off with a massive time jump- I'd been wondering when that was going to happen and sure enough, it turns out to have been a whopping six months since the last episode, when Maggie was scarred by the Ugandan incident. We're now all the way up to March 2012, it's the Illinois primaries, and Will is hosting the show as usual, but this ep takes place all in one night, during one show (hence the title), and there are a myriad of storylines intersecting throughout the hour involving the various characters. We'll just take them one by one, starting with Will, who gets a rare call from his father in the middle of the show. As you'll remember from last season, we were told that Will's father was a drunk who beat his wife and kids, so their relationship is not exactly friendly. Nonetheless, the call turns out to be from the hospital where his dad has just been admitted, and Will spends the hour in a dazed funk, with Mac bugging him to call and leave his dad a voicemail in case the worst happens, while he's reluctant to do so. He prefers to distract himself with Neal's updates about a female journalist he supposedly snubbed in a restaurant, who's now tweeting about him in real time, and insinuating he's chauvinist (to keep things related to our "war on women" theme throughout the night). Mac doesn't like Neal for bringing this up (and I don't think Aaron Sorkin likes Twitter from the sound of it), but she's more frazzled by an upcoming segment in which a kid who will be interviewed about the suicide of Tyler Clementi, plans to use the opportunity to come out to his parents on the show. This gives her a chance to lecture him about his spotlight stealing narcissism, and rails against turning the news into an entertainment medium (which of course it is, especially cable news).

As for Maggie this week, it's been six months since Africa (and no red spiky hair yet), but she has now become a depressed and cynical partier, apparently going out all night and drinking, sleeping with various men, etc. Jim is concerned about this and tries to warn her, but Maggie goes on a tirade about the sexism against so-called sluts, claiming the real question in this debate should have been what's wrong with liking sex, anyway- while also calling out some phony outrage over the Sandra Fluke controversy, pointing out how often articles about her accompanied links to bikini bodied women and hot celebrities on the internet. Jim is pretty much silenced during these rants, as his job in this episode was to listen to her make her point in several heated speeches, but Maggie also gets to weigh in on the Trayvon Martin story, when she cuts down the 911 tape to exclude the operator asking Zimmerman about Martin's ethnicity. Maggie has brushed Jim off on his worry about her behavior as long as it has not affected her work, but she admits in the end that part of her felt the need to see "justice done" in editing the tape and also confesses that she's afraid to sleep alone at night.

In Sloan's biggest storyline of the year so far, we find out that she'd been dating a guy from AIG since Christmas (again, this is all new and happened offscreen due to the time jump) and has just dumped him, when he decided to get back at her by releasing nude pictures she'd posed for while they were together. Sloan is of course appropriately outraged and horrified by this, as she's forced to admit the pictures are really her to Charlie and Reese, and she confides in Don that she knows she'll now only be known as a "slut and a whore." Don and Sloan spend the episode shut in his office, talking it out, and they continue to be pretty great together- both Olivia Munn and Thomas Sadoski have the light comedic touch that works to play the romantic comedy angle Aaron Sorkin originally wanted this show to possess (too much with some of the other couples in the first season, but it works with these two- they have the right chemistry for it). Don helps her to go from "humiliation" to "rage" on the emotional spectrum, so she can then get revenge on the sleazy ex in kick-ass fashion (a punch to the face and a kick in the groin), and she helps him out of a jam he got into by accidentally leaking a joke to the nutty conservative website World Net Daily- and his call to the "editor" of the site to yell at him to remove the story is pretty funny, I have to admit.

Finally, Charlie gets a visit from an old friend (whom he fondly calls a "secret agent") who defends the hypothetical prospect of the military having used chemical weapons under certain circumstances, because, despite all the progress we saw happening over the last few weeks on this story, it all apparently hit a dead end, as Operation Genoa is once again just a rumor they've been chasing for the past 6 months. But Charlie ends the episode officially convinced it happened, so the story looks to progress quickly now after all that non-action (awfully convenient, but whatever). By the end of the show, Will has gotten the news that his father has passed away, and goes on the air a bit shell-shocked for a moment, but then recovers as he embraces his relationship with the audience as being the one rock solid connection in his life.

An interesting episode tonight, lots of things happening all around- but the excessive leap forward really does create an awkward gap that we've just passed by in terms of character development. I know it has to happen in order to end the season with the election, but they kinda just threw out a lot of the stuff they'd been building the season around- I mean, they skipped over the major relevant time period that Occupy Wall Street had in the fall of 2011, and after dumping on it so hard before it had even really taken off in the timeline, it seems kinda unfair to just pass right over it. This show might actually be one of the few that would be better served by a normal 20-25 episode season, where you can really take us through a year if that's what you want to do. And Maggie seems like a completely different person now, which I suppose makes sense after Africa, but those Sorkin monologues have always sounded especially unconvincing coming from her- it just doesn't fit her faintly goofy personality. I hate to keep harping on her every week, but I really don't think any incarnation of that character has worked. Which is too bad because the rest of them have actually grown on me. See you next week!

RECAP: Breaking Bad 5x09 "Blood Money"

The long awaited return of the second half of the final season of Breaking Bad has finally arrived. So let's not waste any time, people. Here we go...

We open with a classic Breaking Bad shot of something we cannot at first decipher, but which turns out to be kids skateboarding in the empty swimming pool that was once filled behind Walter White's house. And then a bearded and disheveled Walt pulls up beside the driveway (which we can now see is abandoned and gated), pulls out a crowbar and heads in, where the inside is no less ruinous than the outside. It's been trashed, emptied and the word "Heisenberg" spray painted across a living room wall. Walt takes his time perusing through the place before finally pulling out the wall outlet where he's hidden the infamous ricin cigarette, which he then pockets and heads back out to the car. It's there that he turns around to face Carol the neighbor lady, who looks shocked and horrified to see him, but Walt just hilariously deadpans "Hello, Carol," as she drops her bag full of fruit all over the concrete.

This was a return to the flashforwards from last season, where obviously something dramatic has gone down, leaving Walt alone and a mess, and in the middle of events that are taking place a year (now 6 months) in the future. When we get back to the episode, we're in present day, as Hank has just exited from the bathroom where he has experienced his brutal awakening and realized that his brother-in-law is in fact Heisenberg. It's a pretty terrific performance from Dean Norris, as this revelation has disoriented, confused and angered him past all reason, and we see him rapidly speeding through these emotions as he figures out what to do next. He and Marie quickly leave the White's house with him feigning a stomach bug, and Hank is so upset that he crashes their car into a neighbor's yard. He brushes off Marie's concern as he barrels toward the garage to compare the handwriting in the Walt Whitman book he's taken to Gale's on the evidence he had stowed away.

At the car wash, Walt and Skyler seem to be trying to head up a normal business, and Walt tells Skyler he thinks they ought to buy another car wash in order to keep laundering all the money they've got (everyone remember that massive room of cash Skyler had stored last season?). She seems to agree but then Lydia shows up (Laura Fraser), complaining about problems with the operation Walt left her, but he blows her off, leaving Skyler to confront and fiercely order her off the premises. Skyler has apparently accepted Walt now that he's newly retired, but she may still be calmly awaiting his impending death (and close to getting her wish, as we see later).

Meanwhile, Hank's barricading himself in the garage with all the Heisenberg research, poring over every detail all over again, in a musical montage scene that's become another trademark of the show. Familiar faces pop up, such as the late Gus Fring, Gale Boetticher, and Drew Sharpe (the boy who was killed last season) in a collection of all the lives Walt's destroyed in his quest for power. Finally, Jesse makes his appearance in a hilarious few minutes where he's tuning out as Badger and Skinny Pete go over the details of Badger's as yet unwritten Star Trek script, and then he heads down to Saul's office, hauling along the two bags of cash Walt handed over to him in the last episode. Jesse wants to give the money to Mike's granddaughter and the parents of Drew Sharpe, an act of charity Saul strongly objects to in typical Saul fashion ("this still makes you two miracles short of a Sainthood, kid"), but Jesse is totally depressed and dejected, wrecked by the death of the boy and his growing disillusionment and fear of Walt.

This leads us to a great scene where Walt takes the money back to Jesse's and attempts to deal with him as he always has in the past, by putting on his "father" cap and reasoning with him in a faux- compassionate manner. Jesse says it's blood money that he doesn't want and says he knows Mike's dead and Walt probably killed him, but Walt firmly denies this outright, doing his best to reassure Jesse that Mike's not dead, and Jesse needs to move on from the child's death. This is where Bryan Cranston is so outstanding as the villainous Walt- Jesse responds to this kind of attitude and he knows it, so he lies straight to Jesse's face in such a sincere and reassuring way that we ourselves almost believe him, even though we all saw him kill Mike! Jesse seemingly accepts Walt's assurances, as he always has, but this time we see that he does not really believe it and his misplaced faith in Walt might have finally disappeared for good. His last scene in the episode shows him giving money to a homeless man and tossing the cash through his car window at random houses all over the neighborhood.

At the White family dinner table, we get a glimpse of Walter Jr., but just barely (I think earlier on we only the saw the back of his head, poor kid), and Walt leaves the table to go throw up in the bathroom- this following the reveal of Walt back at the chemo center confirms that his cancer has indeed returned. As Walt hovers over the toilet bowl he notices the Walt Whitman book missing, and after asking Skyler to explain Hank's mysterious illness again, the man smarter than everybody else in the room decides, on a whim, to check the bottom of his car in the middle of the night and lo and behold, he finds a tracking device. The show has now reached a turning point- Hank knows who Walt is, and Walt knows that he has caught on.

The final five minutes has Walt coming over to visit Hank in his garage, at first play acting concern over Hank's "stomach bug," but Hank isn't buying it and spends the whole chat ferociously glaring at Walt, unable to hide his feelings and pretend to be someone else, as is Walt's specialty. Walt starts to walk away, but then decides at the last minute to confront him over the tracker, and then comes a moment that I doubt anyone saw coming. Hank closes the garage door with the remote and belts Walt smack in the face, tosses him against the wall and accuses him of every nefarious action we've watched him commit over the past five seasons. Walt at first denies, then tacitly "confesses" (in a hypothetical sense of course), telling Hank he'd never be able to prove it or convince anyone, and then tells him his cancer's back anyway, he'll never end up in jail, and probably has just 6 months left to live. Hank orders him to give up Skyler and the kids and Walt flat out refuses. Hank then says he doesn't know who he is anymore and Walt responds with a line destined to become the new "I'm the one who knocks" quote, and it's a beaut. His final words before we fade to black: "If that's true...if you don't know who I am, then maybe your best course would be to tread lightly."

It's a stunner of a premiere, one of their best even, an expertly directed and shot episode, filled with the strange camera angles and lingering, quiet scenes of suspense that Breaking Bad has become famous for. One of the best features of the show is the anxiety you feel while watching it- through every hour it seems anything could happen at any time, and now that the scales have fallen from Hank's eyes, that sense is even more prominent, with the stakes even higher. I can't wait until next week, as we're now counting down to whatever the climax is going to be, and there's just 7 more hours to go.

Notes:

-I have to mention this, at the end of the hour AMC cheated us out of next week's previews by saying you have to stay tuned through the first commercial break of their new show Low Winter Sun to see them- and I'm telling you right now, this is NOT the way to get people to watch that show. If anything it's a major turn-off that creates resentment towards it. That first commercial did not occur by the way, for 25 MINUTES, and even then it wasn't the first thing up, you had to sit through a bunch of ads first. Un-fucking believable. Do this again AMC and we're going to have problems, Walter White style.

-It's utterly pointless to speculate about what's going to happen, especially since we only have 7 episodes left, but I can't help it and I'm going to allow myself one official Pointless Prediction per week. Here's my first: I think that Jesse will cut a deal with the DEA and turn on Walt, since he no longer trusts him and has lost all faith. I reserve the right to completely reverse myself on this of course, depending on what happens in the coming weeks, but for now, that's what I'm thinking. How about you?

REVIEW: Broadchurch Season 1

ITV's Broadchurch is the latest in a growing trend of shows about the impact of a child's death on an insular community (The Killing, Top of the Lake), not to mention yet another show about two mismatched cops paired up to find a killer. And yet, despite the familiar setup at work here, the way the story plays out over these 8 episodes leaves you with a stunning, heartbreaking, incredibly effective pay-off, arguably greater in impact than either of those other shows exploring similar themes.

It's fast-paced writing with wide ranging emotional depth from creator Chris Chibnall, and the fictional seaside town of Broadchurch, England is populated with fully developed and specific characters, all of whom harbor secrets of their own. The number of suspects is constantly shifting, and allegiances and plausible motives are lobbied back and forth like a birdie in game of Badminton- every episode leaves you with newly roused suspicions. When 11-year-old Danny Latimer is found dead on the beach in the first episode, the impact on the town is immediate as people wonder who in their close knit community where everyone either knows or is related to everyone else could have committed this crime.

The detectives assigned to the case are Alec Hardy and Ellie Miller, played by David Tennant and Olivia Colman, and at first the familiar tropes are out in force. He's an outsider, untrusting, grizzled, and socially awkward, having been discharged from his last case in disgrace after failing to catch a killer in similar circumstances. She's a local soccer mom, warm, friendly, and possibly too emotionally attached, her son having been the victim's best friend. They don't get along of course, but as they work together their fondness and understanding grows, and if it wasn't for the two performances this partnership wouldn't be anything special at all, but Tennant and Colman sell it completely by making each character into an understanding and sensitive human being with problems of their own, that we come to know and like over the course of the show. They have a great professional chemistry, and I'd like to see them back again for another season, but who knows how that can happen with the ending of this one- the story is entirely self-contained and leaves you with no loose ends, it's more like a miniseries than anything else.

Despite the skillfulness of the way the mystery is unfolded, the heavy weight of this material is not avoided, and we see the full impact the death of a child can leave on the family affected. The parents of the young boy are played by Jodie Whittaker and Andrew Buchan as Beth and Mark Latimer, a couple who's been together since they were teenagers, are having their own marital troubles and have spent their entire lives knowing everyone around them, never having conceived of something like this shattering their comfortable little world. Whittaker especially is heartbreaking as Beth- she shows how the sunny, cheery personality of a young mom is devastated and ripped apart by grief, never to be the same again. There are several moments that wring genuine tears from the viewer throughout the series, even before the reveal of the whodunit.

And what a reveal it is- unlike The Killing, which didn't know how to wrap up its central mystery, or Top of the Lake, whose priority was in purposely not giving you all the answers, Broadchurch lays bare the foundation, the suspects, the motives, and keeps you guessing until the final episode who killer is. When you finally find out, you realize  the clues were laid out all along for you to have solved it if you were really keeping track (I binge-watched and was therefore blindsided by the reveal, but maybe you'll be smarter than me). Nor does the show cheat you out of seeing the aftermath, the effect on the community, the family's reaction, everything you might want to know.

Broadchurch has already been commissioned for an American version sometime next year on Fox- but for now, the original is must-see television, currently airing on BBC America. Do yourself a favor and check this thing out- you won't regret it. It's as immersive as a great Agatha Christie novel come to life, and just as satisfying.

Grade: A

Trailer: 

RECAP: The Newsroom 2x04 "Unintended Consequences"

Well, tonight marks a Maggie-centered episode, in which we finally find out what happened in Africa that caused her to chop off her hair and dye it red, a look that properly horrified lawyer Marcia Gay Harden back in the season premiere.

It's Maggie's turn at the deposition table, and to trade barbs with lawyer MGH (that's my name for her from now on), who's clearly relishing the bitchy insults she gets to lob at the News Night crew, one by one. Maggie then relays her story about Uganda, where we see an extended flashback of her and Gary (Cooper) traveling to an orphanage and Maggie befriending a young African boy who admires her hair and asks her to read him a story 7 times. Gary has a camera with him and is filming, which causes the trouble- when we return to Maggie's deposition at the end of the episode, we see that after having been stranded at the orphanage for the night, gunshots and shouting wake up the kids, and the crew has to gather them up in a bus and head out fast. Maggie's new friend Daniel, though, has hidden under her bed and she has to go back for him. As they're heading out they hear yells, which apparently translated to "give us the camera," and as Maggie turns around with Daniel on her back, a shot rings out and hits the boy in the spine, killing him instantly. They make it onto the bus and manage an escape, but Maggie is traumatized, and reacts when they get back to New York by getting rid of her hair. She also relays to MGH that even though she was prescribed Paxil by a psychiatrist, she's not taking the meds because she's "fine." MGH doesn't believe this of course, and neither do we, but we'll have to find out in future episodes, because this one ends on this very dramatic note about Maggie's mental state. We also find out that the deposition is apparently taking place a year from the events we're seeing unfold in 2011, so the show is going to be making a major time jump in the near future.

The other plot in this episode was frankly rather repetitive and annoying, as Neal recruits his OWS friend Shelly for an interview with Will, who of course berates and humiliates her on the air. She leaves the building infuriated, which is a problem because she knows someone in her circle at Zucotti Park who has written an article about the phosphorus gas having been used on citizens in Pakistan, and could be the evidence News Night needs to confirm Operation Genoa. Shelly refuses to lead them to her guy unless she receives an on air apology from Will- which, as we all know, will never happen. So Mac sends Sloan to apologize, which doesn't work as they get into another haughty exchange which ends with Sloan insulting Shelly, and then Don, who ends up doing the same thing. Finally, Will comes through and goes to see her in person, not to apologize, but to get into a final obnoxious exchange, where he admits he used her to brandish his reputation as a moderate, but the final point of this whole subplot is revealed when Shelly (apparently charmed by Will's "wisdom") admits that she was the one who sucked on the air, and Will, as always is right in his point about Occupy being a joke due to its lack of leaders. What's funny is that this whole back and forth attempts to point out Will's "smugness" as being a problem (and a charge Aaron Sorkin has received on multiple occasions regarding this show's characters), yet Will still has to win out in the end, no matter how pompous and arrogant he is. Jeff Daniels is so good at playing this guy that you buy it, but at some point this is pushing a character to insane unlikeability levels. Shelly's no peach, but the way she backs down in the face of Will's mere presence is slightly nauseating.

In the C-plot this week, Jim, still covering the Romney campaign but now ostracized from the bus, manages to finally land an interview with the candidate when he pushes spokesperson Taylor (Constance Zimmer again) too far and she tells him to go fuck himself in exasperation. However, after hearing Hallie's boss berate and humiliate her (a common theme this episode) over the phone for not producing enough material, he gives up the interview for her. This, predictably, causes Mac to yank him off the campaign trail, and Hallie to yell at him for patronizing her, but it all works out in Jim's favor when Hallie shows up by his poolside sulk later that night to kiss him (again, predictably) and thank him for what he did. Well, at least in this little side plot the guy who did the yelling and humiliating was not portrayed to be the real stand up guy at the end. Probably because he used the word "bitch," which was just about the only rude thing Will himself did not say to the Occupy girl, which I guess lets him off the hook.

Despite my grumbles at this show letting Will pretty much get away with anything (I don't know how many times I wanted to shout "yes he IS" every time someone defended him as NOT being an asshole in this episode), the Operation Genoa storyline is still heating up, and Maggie was given something a bit more interesting to deal with (I'm starting to think it's just Alison Pill who rubs me the wrong way with that character now). But seriously, if Will's going to be that arrogant, at least have him and the staff ADMIT that he's an asshole and move on. But pretending that he's not? Yeah, not buying it, folks.

The New Doctor Who

Peter Capaldi is set to become the 12th doctor in the long running series, as the BBC announced during a live show where Capaldi appeared for the first time before screaming fans. I admit that I don't watch Doctor Who, but this kinda makes me want to start- as you know, I love Peter Capaldi, who played the inimitable Malcolm Tucker for years on The Thick of It and also in the film In the Loop- I'm probably one of the few Americans for whom this name means anything, but since Doctor Who is a cult hit in the U.S. too, this is going to make people more aware of Capaldi everywhere and that can only be a good thing.

TCA Award Winners

The Television Critics Association just handed out their awards tonight. Here are the results: 

  • Individual Achievement in Drama: Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) 
  • Individual Achievement in Comedy: Louis C.K. (Louie) 
  • Outstanding Achievement in News and Information: The Central Park Five  (PBS)
  • Outstanding Achievement in Reality Programming: Shark Tank (ABC)
  • Outstanding Achievement in Youth Programming: Bunheads (ABC Family) 
  • Outstanding New Program: The Americans (FX) 
  • Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries, and Specials: Behind the Candelabra (HBO) 
  • Outstanding Achievement in Drama: Game of Thrones (HBO) 
  • Outstanding Achievement in Comedy: (tie) The Big Bang Theory (CBS) and Parks and Recreation (NBC) 
  • Career Achievement Award: Barbara Walters
  • Heritage Award: All in the Family (CBS) 
  • Program of the Year: Breaking Bad (AMC) 

Not much of a surprise here. Continued critics love for Tatiana Maslany, even though she shamefully didn't receive an Emmy nod. I'm guessing that the "Program of the Year" award is different from the drama series achievement in that it's some kind of zeitgeist, cultural phenomenon recognition- and in that case, you can already see the anticipatory accolades for Breaking Bad beginning to take shape, just days away from its final season premiere (I sort of doubt that prize was for the season that aired almost a year ago now- Game of Thrones would have been more appropriate as far as current hype is concerned). And at least they recognized The Americans for something, which was also wrongfully snubbed by the TV Academy.