This looks kinda interesting. Some kind of Dr. Strangelove- style comedy, maybe? From the co-creator of Weeds, it's a show about bumbling public officials dealing with various foreign crises, so it may be something more like Dr. Strangelove meets Veep, but the cast could be reason enough to check it out. It starts June 21st, after True Detective on HBO.
RECAP: Mad Men 7x09 "New Business"
So, I have to admit I was somewhat underwhelmed by the episode this week, which spent an awful lot of focus on a character I was so sure wouldn't be back I didn't even bother to learn her name. At this point in the series, with five episodes left, I didn't think I'd need to know any details about yet another Don girlfriend, but here we are, being forced to care about the sad demeanor of Diana, the waitress from the diner. Not a lot of meaning there, at least for me. On the bright side, there was some more humor tonight than usual.
Let's get the Don stuff over with. He and Megan (she's back this week) are getting divorced, he's still sending her "allowance," and even though they had seemed to part on good terms last season, that's all over with now, because Megan is disappointed with how her own life's going, and very ready to blame Don for everything. Roger warns Don she'll do this (Jane did the same to him), but Don doesn't believe it. He will by the end of the hour. Megan brings her mother Marie and sister (never before seen) back with her to New York to take her furniture out of the apartment, and the three spend lots of time badmouthing Don in French for what he's done to Megan, and Marie decides to get back at him by stealing all of his furniture from the apartment while Megan meets Harry for lunch. Marie then calls Roger to come bail her out of giving the movers more money, and the two resume their on/off affair, but Megan walks in on them after her mood has been worsened from being propositioned by the disgusting Harry, who won't help her find a new agent unless she sleeps with him. Megan then takes her anger out on Don when they meet the divorce lawyer, blaming him for ruining her life, just like Roger said she would. Don reacts by handing her a check for a million dollars, which Megan reluctantly decides to take as she gives back his engagement ring. You'd think this would all be a final sendoff for Megan, but I get the bad feeling it's not. I've got to say though, although we've seen Marie in the past, I don't care about her that much, and I care even less about this never before seen sister of Megan's, especially when there's other characters I'd prefer to be spending time with in the closing hours of Mad Men as a whole.
Meanwhile, Don tracks down Diana, who's now working at a new restaurant, finds out she's divorced and running away from a bad situation, they sleep together, and then he finds out the truth, which is that she has a daughter who died and came to New York to wallow in her grief. By episode's end she confesses she has another daughter who's alive, but wants to spend no more time with Don because he makes her forget her misery which she doesn't want to do. So I guess that's the beginning and the end of Diana, but...who cares? Seriously, I was sick of Sylvia in season six (whom they have an awkward encounter with in the elevator this week), the last thing I wanted was another sad Don mistress who reminds him of the others. Back at the office, Peggy and Stan deal with a new woman photographer on their account, who calls herself Pima and is played by Mimi Rogers. Stan wants her to approve his work, but she seduces him in the darkroom instead, while Peggy also wants her approval and she herself is nearly seduced by the older woman, but stops herself. When Peggy finds out Stan slept with her she reacts in a slightly jealous manner (although I couldn't actually tell if she was jealous of Stan or Pima), and remarks that Stan's nurse girlfriend Elaine (also never seen before this episode) probably wouldn't like it. So, there's probably more focus on Stan tonight than there has ever been, and as much as I've always liked him, again, why the attention on him in these final episodes? Unless they're hinting at a Stan/Peggy final pairing? Could it be possible? Hmm.
Notes:
-We see Betty tonight for all of about three minutes, as Don drops the boys off at the Francis home and she mentions she's now pursuing a master's degree in psychology. She seems uncharacteristically happy about it too, but I'm sure that will change before season's end. She's also wearing a very groovy, Mrs. Brady/Partridge style long and flow-y dress that reminds me this particular era is absolutely wack when it comes to fashion.
-Pete's also in this episode just long enough to be forced to wear an embarrassing golf outfit and commiserate with Don about the annoyance of divorce where the wife blames you for everything (although in all of Don, Roger and Pete's cases, he's right of course).
-No Joan, no Ken, and still no Sally tonight. I'd prefer any of them show up in place of Diana the sad waitress and Megan's bitchy French-speaking sister. Seriously, why the waste of screentime on people no one cares about? This is it people, the final stretch and we're still introducing new characters? For what purpose except to upend expectations, but frankly, this was in a bad way. Not my favorite episode.
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?
