RECAP: SNL 4/11 "Taraji P. Henson"

Well, the streak couldn't last forever. SNL concludes its decent run of episodes of late with a more typical, hit and miss, mostly miss affair tonight, even if Taraji P. Henson did a pretty good job as host. Eh- most of the material wasn't painful, so I'll shrug this one off and hope the show rejuvenates for its final three episodes in May.

COLD OPEN: This one is good however, with Kate as Hillary getting ready to announce her candidacy for tomorrow- boy, are we in for a great next few years with Kate's already legendary, egomaniacal Hillary locked and loaded, unlike the show was ever able to do for Obama. She tries to record a video of herself without saying the words "I" or "me" (unsuccessful of course), and then Darrell Hammond's classic Bill sneaks into the vid, excited to become "First Dude." It's great.

MONOLOGUE: Taraji comes out and sings about having finally made it in show business with her hit Empire, while a gospel choir and the rest of the cast sings behind her. Eh, it's okay. Kinda tired of the singing monologues.

ADULT DIAPERS: An ad for "depends legends"- adult diapers for old people with classic stars and historical figures on them. Again, inoffensive, but forgettable. I almost forgot this entire sketch for the recap.

HLN: Now this I hated. A spoof of HLN's coverage of the teacher student affair trial, in which the entire joke is the old idea that boys cannot possibly be taken advantage of by older women. I'm really, really sick of that notion- maybe they can't be physically forced into anything, but so what, that means the whole thing is a joke and the teacher isn't even in the wrong? Ugh. They'd never, ever do this same sketch about a female student with a male teacher, would they?

HOME 2: A lazy commercial for the Home sequel where everyone does their random celebrity impersonations, and it's so boring I can't even remember who did who.

QVC: Hmm- a Kate sketch where she's Claudette, the fashion designer who makes ridiculous clothes like a "three way poncho" she tries to sell on TV. Kate's great as always, but the sketch isn't all that funny, just weird.

SOUTH CENTROS: A Game of Thrones spoof that introduces a new kingdom with an all black cast- okay, this should have been a lot funnier, but the whole thing just falls flat for some reason. The writing is really off this week, because this seems like an easy target.

WEEKEND UPDATE: Happily, Update's pretty good tonight, with some solid jokes about Hillary, Game of Thrones, and Cuba (Colin and Michael do seem to have improved in delivery, if not chemistry recently), and then Kate comes on as the Spanish artist who botched the Jesus painting to talk the hideous Lucille Ball statue. She's good (she really is the most reliable SNL'er I've seen in many years), but then Vanessa's Jacob comes back (god, he needs to be retired), and he brings his dad Billy Crystal, who does nothing but repeat the same exact jokes she does. Wow, what a waste of Billy Crystal. He really just wanted to come on and do that?

HOLLYWOOD GAME NIGHT: Kate again delivers (boy she's on a roll) as the only funny part of this lazy game show skit, with her exasperated and over it Jane Lynch dissing the various celebs on the show. Again, no one stands out, except for maybe Taraji's Wanda Sykes, who she seems to have a spot on impression of. But no good lines or jokes here.

JANELLE: Whaa? Why'd they bring this one back, of all things? Sasheer is the dancing Youtube teen and Taraji shows up as her mom who wants in on the action. Taraji gives it her best moves, but again, nothing funny, although at least it's short.

SESAME STREET: Real Muppets are used here in this ad for Sesame Street with Cookie from Empire, doing her thing. It's all right I guess, not too bad. Maybe the Muppets made it tolerable just by showing up.

CINEMA CLASSICS: Another premise that falls flat, as PBS Classics looks at 'Their Own League'- an obvious League of Their Own parody that tries to mock the idea that the players don't want to have to use Taraji and Leslie and fight for black women's rights at the same time as white women's. I'm not sure what's supposed to be funny here exactly, it just kinda sits there. But it's another short one, so let's move on.

CONNECTATRON: This is either a Power Rangers or a Voltron spoof where Taraji tries to sabotage the robot by getting in a fight with the leader, her boyfriend Taran. Kind of amusing I guess.

So, yeah, a lot of stuff just fell really flat tonight, even with decent ideas or a premise for something that should have been funnier. But Kate was great once again, and Taraji tried pretty hard- nothing was overly awful, so I'm going to give it a C. Just kind of a middling, medicore outing, except for that opening Hillary sketch. I'm glad MVP Kate is on this show, because she makes even lame material worth watching, for the most part. The show's off for two weeks now, coming back on May 2nd with Scarlett Johansson hosting for the fourth time (coincidentally the day after Avengers opens), so I'll see you guys then!

Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin Reunite in Trailer for Netflix's 'Grace and Frankie'

I'm all for a reunion between these two legendary actresses (although 9 to 5 is not as good as you remember it, trust me, I saw it recently), but this does look a little broad and kinda hammy, even. Not surprised it's from Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman. Maybe that's a good thing for a lot of people, but comedy's evolved somewhat since the Friends heyday, right? It could be that I expect a little more sophistication from it being on Netflix. The show drops May 8th.

REVIEW: "Bloodline" Season 1

Netflix's new family drama Bloodline works as a kind of southern noir, set in the steamy Florida Keys and dripping with a dark and seedy atmosphere hidden beneath the guise of privilege and essential comfort. There's tension, bad memories, and murder dripping in the air for the Rayburns, a wealthy family with lots of secrets buried in their past. It includes one particularly bad one which drives the action of this first season, and the motivations of the central character Danny Rayburn, the eldest sibling played by Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn in a complex, darkly fascinating performance.

The series is created and run by the same team who ran Damages for five seasons (one of my favorite shows of the last decade), and like that show, this one employs the framing device of a narrator telling us a story that happened in the recent past from the point of view of the present day, with various flashforwards included throughout the season regarding Danny's ultimate fate. Unlike Damages, this series focuses a lot more heavily on its main characters rather than its central mystery, which has both drawbacks and benefits. The mystery that was the focus for each season of Damages was almost always compelling enough to warrant it, and it unveiled enough twists and surprises that you could never see its resolution coming- this one is a bit less mysterious once the impending conclusion is laid out on the table early on, and the heavy character focus during the bulk of the season only occasionally works.

That is to say, it works when we're focused on Danny, by far the most compelling and enigmatic presence on the show, mostly due to Mendelsohn, who carries the screen and manages difficult role with relative ease. He's a commanding figure, whose motivations and goals seem to switch so often you always wonder where he's headed next or what his endgame truly is. As the black sheep of the Rayburn clan, he was cast out by his parents after a tragedy tore the family apart during his childhood, and now his return to the family business and home threatens to ruin everything his siblings have managed to build for themselves. Fortunately, Mendelsohn demands a lot of screentime, but much of the show is centered around the other Rayburn siblings, who aren't even a quarter as interesting as he is. Frankly, the more you hang with out John, Meg or Kevin Rayburn, the more you end up sympathizing with bad seed Danny for having had such a lame family filled with self-righteous douchebags in the first place.

Not that the cast isn't up to it. This is a very well-acted show, and Kyle Chandler, Linda Cardellini and Norbert Leo Butz deliver as the Rayburn siblings, as well as Sissy Spacek as matriarch Sally (although she's kind of saddled with the thankless role of mother who looked the other way that nobody wants to upset, etc. One of these days I'd like to see another ruthless matriarch in the style of Justified's Mags Bennett for a change). But the personal lives and dilemmas of the siblings never hold any interest, you never develop any affection for any of them, and their hysterical and paranoid reactions toward their brother Danny, who while mildly sinister looking, never once poses so much as a physical threat toward them, seem wildly over the top, even when Danny's actions put himself and the family business in danger. I also have to mention that poor Kyle Chandler, who I'll always love from Friday Night Lights, is too saddled with a boring and hysterically overreacting wife played by Jacinda Barrett from The Real World, who is of the most distractingly bad actresses I've seen on TV since the early days of January Jones. Plunked right in the middle of such a great cast overall makes it that much worse.

Still, the family dynamics and secrets spilled manage to overcome a draggy middle to make for a pretty involving finish, especially in the last couple of episodes, in which Kyle Chandler and Ben Mendelsohn both turn in work worthy of competitive Emmy reels, if enough people end up watching this. As dramatic as the resolution ends up being, it's hard to see how a second season will continue the Rayburn saga minus what was essentially the reason to tune in for this one, but it was well done enough that I'm willing to give it a shot.

Grade: B

Teaser for New Season of 'True Detective'

HBO has announced that True Detective returns on June 21st, and given us this new teaser, which tells up nothing besides who's in it- Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughn, Colin Farrell and Taylor Kitsch. Eh- I don't know. I have strong doubts that this will be as good as the first season, mostly because the cast is what elevated the series (in my opinion) in the first place, and this one is going to be weaker. Maybe Colin Farrell will bring some intrigue, but these other guys don't interest me that much.

Trailer for "Orange is the New Black" Season 3

Orange is the New Black returns on June 12th for its third season, and Netflix has dropped the full trailer. Looks like Taylor Schilling will be getting a new love interest along with Laura Prepon's Alex coming back to the slammer, and even though the Emmys have officially classified this show as a drama now, I see nothing but more comedic darkness in this trailer, as I have always seen in the show itself. It's a black comedy and that's all there is to it. How anyone can watch this show and think oh yeah, this is as dramatic as perennial nominees Game of Thrones, Mad Men and House of Cards I will never understand.

Two New Trailers Show off the Dark Side of Netflix's "Daredevil"

I'm really excited about Daredevil, which is getting some very good early reviews, and drops this Friday on Netflix. Said to be everything I wanted it to be- dark, gritty, violent, even gruesome. Honestly, it was time for Marvel to try to at least change the tone of some of their properties, and Daredevil is kind of like Marvel's Batman, right? Or at least he can more easily go down that dark road. Looks pretty great from these clips.

RECAP: Mad Men 7x08 "Severance"

Yay, Mad Men's back! It's back for what's officially the second half of Season 7, but for all intents and purposes, last night's episode sure felt like another season premiere, heavy as always on the Don-in-existential crisis mode. Let's get right to it shall we?

Don is back at work, seemingly doing a good job again, and trying out women for a fur coat commercial (half-naked women of course) with only other men in the room, and he's even out on a double date with Roger, who has two young girls on his arm (Don just gets one). While they're a diner, Don seems to recognize the melancholy waitress serving them (played by Elizabeth Reaser) and can't get her out of his head. Later on, while in bed with his latest floozy, he has a dream that his old fling Rachel Menken tries out for the commercial, which causes him to schedule a meeting with her department store about a pantyhose product in order to see her. But of course, as Don always does when someone dies, he's experienced a surreal vision of the person in question, and Rachel turns out to have passed away, just the week before. That's too bad. She was always my favorite of Don's girlfriends- I was convinced for years she was his actual true love.

Don deals with the loss in his own Don-like way, which is to go back and see the waitress again, who ends up having sex with him in the alley behind the diner (but only because that's what she thinks he wants, after Roger had left her a $100 tip to make up for being rude earlier- ick), and then Don goes to Rachel's memorial service, where her family members are sitting shiva. He meets her sister there, who recognizes his name and is none too pleased he showed up, but she does tell him Rachel had leukemia, and lived a full life since he knew her. Don tears up as he sees her two young children and goes back once more to the diner to grieve over Rachel, and the woman who surreally reminds him of her.

Meanwhile, in office news, Peggy and Joan deal with a couple of sexist assholes from Topaz, the pantyhose company, who mock Joan to her face and tell her she should sell bras (because of her shape, ha-ha, get it?), and Peggy is kind of bitchy about it and tells Joan it's her fault because of the way she dresses. Joan snaps right back that Peggy doesn't dress like her because she doesn't look like her (ouch), and Peggy storms off in a huff. Those two are such great friends, aren't they? Peggy now feels undesired of course, and consents to be set up with Mathis's brother-in-law Stevie (who's Brian Krakow from My So-Called Life), and the two of them hit it off big time at dinner, leading a drunk Peggy to suggest they run off to Paris together. The next day she's embarrassed, but Stan tells her it's a good idea and she ought to go for it.

Finally, in what's got to be to the first time in at least five years, we get a Ken storyline, as his father-in-law's retiring and his wife tells him he should quit his job because he's never liked it much anyway and he could finally write his novel. Before Ken considers it though, Roger fires him over some personal insults he once griped about the McCann Erickson guys. Ken's pissed at having to hand over his accounts to Pete, who smarmily tells him he'd always recommend him for a new job somewhere, but then Ken turns the tables on everyone and replaces his father-in-law as head of advertizing at Dow, where he will now be a client of SC&P, and finally be able to drive his old co-workers nuts. Ha. Yay for Ken, in an episode that I'm betting was kind of like his sendoff, since the show never focuses on him at all.

Notes:

-No sign of Betty, Sally or Megan tonight. I'm sure they'll get their day though. Speaking of Megan, what's the over/under on how many more times we'll actually see her? Don mentions tonight that he's getting divorced again, which means it hasn't happened yet- come to think of it, it's hard to tell how much time has actually passed in between this episode and the last. Can't be more than a few weeks, right?

-What's going on with Roger's 'stache? Okay, so Ted has one too- it seems the Sgt. Pepper look has finally made it to the SC&P offices, but with Roger's all white hair, it makes him look like an 1860's Union Soldier in the Civil War. Seriously dude, not a good look.

TRAILER: "Bessie"

HBO's Bessie, the biopic about blues singer Bessie Smith starring Queen Latifah and Boardwalk Empire's Michael K. Williams, is set to air Saturday, May 16th, and since the Emmy race for TV Movie is so dire this year, I think it's safe to presume that a classy HBO production can and will walk away with every award it comes up for in this category- which will be quite a lot, based on this trailer. Once again, I hate, hate, hate that a movie telling a true story taking place in the past has to use modern music in its advertizing- would it be so out of place to hear maybe a Bessie Smith song in the trailer for a movie about her life, and not a Lupe Fiasco one? Would it?

RECAP: SNL 4/04 "Michael Keaton"

Michael Keaton proves a very amiable host tonight, as he appears to still have intact every bit of the weird, spontaneous humor that made him such a comedy star in the 1980's. The show's had such a good run lately that it's made me feel a little guilty for going so hard on it back in the fall, but the fact that I can pinpoint this exact turnaround to the 40th anniversary special seems a strange kind of coincidence, don't you think?

COLD OPEN: But this opening tonight isn't great- it's a CBS check-in on the NCAA tournament, and it kinda tries to address the controversial student athlete issue, but it pretty much fails entirely. Kenan's mumbling Charles Barkley is the only funny part of this bit and he gets about two lines tonight.

MONOLOGUE: Michael Keaton comes out onstage for the first time since 1982 (!) and is promptly serenaded by Batman and Beetlejuice fanboys Taran and Bobby, who beg him to play their favorite characters with them. It's not that funny, but it is kind of cute as a tribute to Michael (he was and still is my favorite Batman too), and it works as a skit to get all his 80's iconic characters out of the way up front.

CNN NEWSROOM: A spoof of CNN's "random nonsense" daytime coverage that spoofs their obsession with plane crashes and stupid technical gadgets- it's an easy target that The Daily Show has already mocked mercilessly over the last few years. Still pretty funny though, especially Michael dancing as part of a performance art troupe re-enacting Indiana's anti-gay law.

PROM KING: It's a Mike O'Brien video, so you know this is gonna be weird. This time he takes on the She's All That premise as a high schooler who bets to turn his teacher (Michael) into prom queen, but falls in love. It's as odd as it sounds, and like most of his videos, I don't know if this is good or not. His humor's an acquired taste, but Michael really goes for it (they may match up in that sense).

CALL YOUR GRANDPARENTS: Sasheer hosts an ad for calling your grandparents on Easter, and we get to see Cecily, Kate, Michael and Leslie as old folks in various states of doddering, forgetful annoyances. It's funny and pretty on the mark (I like the one about talking at the same time the entire phone call, lol).

MR. WALLACE: Okay, now this one is so kooky and practically all on Michael, so I'm convinced it was his idea. He's a weird advertizing CEO who keeps pitching crazy, increasingly perverted commercials to his employees- while also bleeding out more and more from a naval piercing. Yeah, it's off the wall, but his commitment to it is funny, and it just seems so him.

CHURCH OF NEUROTOLOGY: A direct mockery of the Scientology music video from 1989 that was seen in the Going Clear documentary that aired on HBO last week. Hilarious and really hits the church hard on all the missing people and defectors who left after signing "billion year" contracts. Really good.

WEEKEND UPDATE: Colin and Michael have their second week in a row of decent jokes about the nuclear deal with Iran, then Pete comes on as a the resident young person to talk his obsession with The Walking Dead finale, and with an appearance from Darryl Dickson no less. A little too long, but all's well when Jebediah comes back to roast current TV shows! He's awesome as always. I never get sick of nasty, rude Jebediah.

NEW NEIGHBORS: Another odd sketch with Cecily and Michael as people who invite their neighbors over for a look at their home inventions, including a pole that recognizes you from your inside when it's inserted in you-know-where. Creepy, but that seems to be Michael's character of choice this episode. It's okay.

EASTER MESSAGE: Yay, the skit with the creepy Christian is back! The all time best of this one was Steve Buscemi's Christmas 2013, but Michael does a pretty damn good job as he goes through the items in this year's Easter basket, including a marshmallow peep that he produced from his body whole (lol) and a stuffed monkey that we definitely did not "descend from." Kate replaces Kristen Wiig as Portia, the new girl off to the side. Love it!

So Michael's thing was offbeat and weird tonight, but he pretty much nailed it, and overall it was another solid episode with not a single dead weight sketch, actually (the closest was the lame cold open I guess). Interesting that there wasn't even a single mention of Birdman. I guess he's over that whole thing, huh? I give it a B+, and next week it's Taraji P. Henson, fresh off the Empire phenomenon, so tune in for that, because then it'll probably be two weeks off before SNL comes back for its final run this season in May. See you then!

REVIEW: "Agent Carter" Season 1

As long as it took ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to find its footing, the complete opposite was true of its mid-season replacement show, Agent Carter. Perhaps this is thanks to a simple eight episode mini-run, but Marvel's latest spinoff entity was a delightfully energetic, aggressively feminist show with a promising lead who carries the series with the force of a true 1940's screen siren. We don't yet know if there will be a second season, but I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more of the adventures of Agent Peggy Carter, especially now that she emerged from under the thumb of the men in the office and seems set to claim her rightful place as eventual founder of S.H.I.E.LD. itself.

Right off the bat, setting the series in immediate post-war New York City in 1945 gives it a refreshing look and feel for a comic book superhero show, much like the first Captain America movie did for the MCU. We now go back to this time period as Peggy Carter (played again by Hayley Atwell) battles sexism in the office and supervillains undercover, which occasionally gives it the feeling of a 1940's-set Alias (there's a lot of wigs and costume changes for quick deceptions before the roundabout kick in the face). But she's now paired with Mr. Jarvis (James D'Arcy, faring better here than he did on Season 2 of Broadchurch this year), Howard Stark's devoted butler, and the two have a magnanimous chemistry, bringing back a kind of 1960's Avengers tone in their frequent scenes together as they try to politely knock down rude and blunt Americans while operating as the efficient and slick British expatriates that they are.

I mentioned supervillains, and there are some towards the end of the season in the form of Russian hypnotist Ivchenko- this is the Cold War after all, and all things Russian and communist are the enemy in 1940's America, but the show stays surprisingly grounded in a lot of ways, more than I was expecting it to.  Aside from the occasional allusion to Captain Steve Rogers and his recent disappearance which left Peggy heartbroken, this is fairly rooted, old-fashioned spy stuff and it's mostly a lot of fun. Hayley Atwell is a strong, confident, supremely professional heroine, a perfect protagonist for a show which asks her to face down some very contentious, Mad Men-style sexism in the office, which is still the S.S.R. in the pre-S.H.I.E.L.D. days, and run by men who treat her as a secretary and shun her ability to do anything else. The show takes pains to showcase its feminist stance, which is an admirable one to take so openly (Agent Carter is run by two female producers, Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas), but also in a welcome touch, the men in charge are eventually developed as more than just pigheads from another era, with Chad Michael Murray and Shea Whigham exposing deeper layers to their characters than it seems upon first glance.

Most of the series is episodic in an old school, network TV show manner, but with enough connecting threads to lead to a big action showdown with Ivchenko and his Russian baddie sidekick (the result of the beginnings of the training program that will eventually produce Back Widow), and it arcs up to Peggy finally taking her rightful place as one of the agents in charge, should a second season come down the pipeline. With the show having been this enjoyable and confident in its period comic-book feel right out of the gate, I'd certainly be bummed if there wasn't.

Grade: B+