RECAP: SNL 5/07 "Brie Larson"

Well, apparently SNL wants to finish out its season with the most truly dismal run of episodes that it can. Brie Larson was a lackluster host who couldn't elevate any of the terrible material she was given tonight, and it made for one of the worst episodes of the season...but I feel like I've been saying that for a while now. Sigh.

COLD OPEN: I guess this is the one bright spot of the night, as Dana Carvey triumphantly returns as the Church Lady to mock Trump, the Met Gala and Ted Cruz. It goes on for a while, and he hasn't missed a beat with the character, but Taran's Cruz and Darrell's Trump impressions seem tired. It's not really that funny overall, but it's nice to see the Church Lady again.

MONOLOGUE: Brie Larson takes the stage to give thanks to her mom, who's in the audience for the Mother's Day show, and let some of the cast dole out Mother's Day messages to their moms, but this is the beginning of what I feared she'd be, which is someone who plays the straight man supporting character because they don't think she's funny enough to do any jokes.

PRESIDENT BARBIE: This is an ad for dull, boring "president" Barbie, that little girls hate and don't want to play with, instead preferring an old broom to the toy that won't "smile enough." Okay, so it's a Hillary analogy. It's alright, I get the point. (Methinks the female SNL cast members are getting irritated with the over the top HIllary hate lately).

UFO STORIES: Kate's sketch where she plays the unimpressed alien abductee reutrns, and even though this one was very funny the first time, this time the dialogue just isn't as good. Kate does her best, but there's nothing really clever for her to say in this one. It's a miss.

BABY SHOWER: An extra long sketch where Brie is a pregnant woman told by all her friends that she will eventually succumb to the "mom" spiky, short haircut that forces all moms to do weird Stepford-type shit. This goes on way too long and just isn't at all funny. Episode's becoming dreadful.

UPDATE: Jost and Che do a ton of Trump jokes in the wake of him securing the actual Republican nomination, and then Vanessa comes on as the perky kid who reads the news- she's okay, but has been funnier in this. Sasheer of all people shows up as a correspondent trying to defend Larry Wilmore for using the n-word at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and man is this bad. She seems totally unrehearsed and actually tries to interact with the audience at times, breaking character completely. Finally she says it's her birthday and I half wonder if that's why she was allowed to do this bit. Last guest is Pete doing his mom schtick, and he gets a couple good jabs in there at the tweets his mom put out in his defense, so that's kinda cute.

GAME OF THRONES: Yet another GoT parody, this time poking fun at how slow and predictable the resurrection of Jon Snow was on last week's episode (spoiler alert). This isn't sharp or clever, and it seriously should have been. All they do is have Cecily and Brie stand off to the side as hecklers to the scene, basically. Man, the writing is awful in this episode.

QUIZ WHIZ: An abominably bad sketch that takes place in 2018 and the joke is that contestants forgot who came in second to Trump in the 2016 primary. Wuh? Why on earth? There's NOTHING funny about this, I don't even really understand what the joke is supposed to be. People forgot who Ted Cruz is and...what's the joke? I don't get this at all. At the end there's a "Hail President Trump" bit, but I still don't get what the angle of this was.

DISCREET ANNIHILATION: A lame Kyle/Back video that is the 50th variation on the same stupid skit they do over and over again. I'm not even gonna bother explaining it.

DEAD BOPZ: A hologram of Beck as Bing Crosby introduces a CD of famous dead people singing modern hits- everyone's impressions are really bad on this except a quick few seconds of Jay's Tupac, but that's it.

Whew. That was HORRIBLE. Ugh, a really painful episode to sit through tonight, and Brie Larson was a blink and you'll miss her host who amounted to nothing more than vapor in these skits. Ugh. I give it a D-, saved (if you can call it that) only by the Church Lady's appearance at the beginning. Drake comes back next week, and even though he was one of the surprise fantastic hosts in the last few years, I'm going in with low expectations, simply because of how dire the show's been lately. See you guys next week if you can bear to finish out the season. Wouldn't blame if you if you couldn't.

Lifetime Unveils Two New Teasers for Season 2 of 'UnREAL'

My favorite summer show of last year is back for Season 2 starting June 2nd- and anybody who still hasn't heard of it, 'cause I know it had a pretty tiny audience, really needs to catch up. Deliciously scandalous and starring two unapologetically devious antiheroines in Shiri Appleby and Constance Zimmer. Definitely my kind of show, and the only version of The Bachelor I'd ever watch. The second season premieres June 2nd.

REVIEW: "Jessica Jones" Season 1

With its second original Netflix series, Marvel has again proven that the allowances it's making in the television medium are providing for far more interesting content than the assembly line, formula films it releases in theaters every year. With Jessica Jones, it goes darker, more noir, more sexual and far more challenging than anything it has yet to attach its name to, and even if the show isn't perfect in execution over these episodes, the cumulative effect and power of the show stays with you long after you've stopped thinking about the potentially wobbly plotting in the second half.

Jessica Jones is based on the comic book Alias, by Brian Michael Bendis, about a female ex-superhero turned private eye, who's taken herself out of the hero game due to a horrific personal experience. Krysten Ritter plays that heroine on this show, and her portrayal of the rather prickly, hard-drinking cynic Jessica Jones has a lot more in common with the private eyes of film noir, like Bogart or Mitchum or even Veronica Mars (there's a little bit of influence from that cult series here) than she does any of the Avengers. Set in the same Hell's Kitchen of Daredevil, Jessica spends her days tracking down cheating spouses while drowning her emotions in alcohol and casual sex, mostly to avoid dwelling on her traumatic history that gradually reveals itself over the course of the series. Ritter is a unique presence that grows on you, as does the show, which doesn't give away its mysteries all at once, but asks you to stick with it as it unravels. She's sarcastic, gruff, sometimes rude and yet her toughness is striking in its unusual depiction of female aggression. Despite her penchant for using sex as a means of avoidance and escape, there's no attempt to sexualize her through the typical objectification of women seen on far too much television. Jessica doesn't wear skirts, dresses and high heels every day, and even that tiny detail is attention-grabbing, forcing you to realize how often women are constantly dolled up for the viewer's pleasure, even in shows that target a predominantly female audience.

Jessica Jones is an overtly feminist show that is utterly unafraid to tackle themes of rape and sexual trauma, which is in fact what the series is literally about, metaphors be damned. In fact, I'd go so far as to say there are underlying messages condemning the violence and entitlement of white male privilege specifically. Every important, key character in the series is female, from Jessica to her best friend Trish (Rachael Taylor), and her boss Hogarth (Carrie Anne Moss), whose identity was actually changed from male to female from the comics, and all are written as fully fleshed out, three dimensional characters with both dark sides and good, and complex relationships with each other. There are men on the show, and good men at that, but they are distinctly non-white, from Luke Cage (Mike Colter), Jessica's iconic comic book love interest and fellow superpowered hero, to her good deed doing neighbor Malcolm (Eka Darville).

Even though some of these characters have superpowers, no one is wearing costumes in this dark and violent universe, and the troubles they are facing are decidedly not on such an apocalyptic level as those of their distinctly cartoony counterparts in the Avengers movies. This is another one that feels off when it makes an occasional reference to what's going on in that world, and Marvel's TV universe may actually benefit from simply being allowed to exist separately, which it essentially does at a 90% rate anyway. Jessica's trauma stems from a year held captive by the illusive Purple Man, also known as Kilgrave, played by David Tennant as a sociopathic sadist with the ability to mind control anyone he meets with any sentence spoken in the form of an order, or even a statement. He can take over anyone at any time, even fellow superpowered beings, and he uses his abilities for exactly the kinds of disturbing ends you'd think he would. His victims include countless innocent women and girls, and his obsession with Jessica is due to her own "gifts" of super strength and near flight (never shown onscreen but alluded to in a couple of cool moments), and Jessica's season long battle to ultimately reclaim herself from him and defeat Kilgrave is a dark, twisted and captivating saga that holds your attention even through the draggy moments, mostly because Tennant's performance is so arresting. He takes this horrifying character and runs with it, making him at turns scary, darkly comic, and always compellingly watchable from the moment he shows up, which, like Daredevil's Kingpin, isn't until a few episodes in.

It's Tennant who turns Kilgrave into the Marvel universe's best villain, next to Kingpin himself, and it's amazing that the two great villains to be depicted so far in the visual realm have been done on TV, not film. Can anyone name a Marvel villain from the movies that's the least bit memorable so far? Since Marvel Studios has existed, that is (Doc Ock is still pretty good from Spider-Man 2). I guess some would say Thor's Loki (Tom Hiddleston), but let's be honest, he's not that threatening or sinister. Kilgrave and Kingpin on the other hand, are the real deal, so much so that you also cannot imagine either of them showing up in the cinematic universe. If you want real threats, real fights, and real challenges, you have to turn to the shows.

The complicated realm of sexuality and consent may seem like odd material for a comic book show to confront, but that's exactly what makes Jessica Jones stand out so searingly. Not since the later seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer has the idea of sex and superheroes been explored like it is here. When Jessica and Luke have their marathon sex sessions the idea of not having to hold back with someone who is enhanced like you is directly explored, and let's face it, haven't you always wondered how characters with superhuman strength dealt with that issue anyway? Showrunner Melissa Rosenberg is totally up for diving into these ideas in a frank and candid manner, and the depth of Jessica's pain is clearly conveyed as we see how even someone as powerful as she is can be abused, manipulated and violated in ways that leave her controlled by a man both physically and mentally, and trapped in a permanent state of fear that sits right alongside her extraordinary strength. Many ordinary women will be able to relate.

I said the show wasn't perfect, and that in some ways relates to the staple of the Netflix model. The show is highly single-minded in its pursuit of Kilgrave, so much so that each episode feels more like the next chapter rather any kind of contained story, and this leads to some highly contrived plotting designed to keep Kilgrave on the loose for as long as possible to stretch these events out to thirteen episodes. The show might have been better served with ten hours with which to tell this story instead, or even some exploration of Jessica's job as a private investigator, which gets shafted pretty quickly in favor of the "all Kilgrave, all the time" setup. This might serve the needs of a binge-watching audience that doesn't want to be distracted by anything else, but I've always believed that the longform format is still best delivered with memorable episodic stories along the way, lest everything start to blend together, which is a bit what happens at times in this series, especially towards the end. The show is also slightly hindered by the restrictions Marvel did place on the content, which very obviously prohibits nudity (despite the heavy sex scenes) and the use of the f-word, which leaves us with an awful lot of noticeably placed "god damns" instead, which I think we all know is a less popular turn of phrase. I mean, who says "god damn" when a good old "fuck" will do, right? If we were using the ratings system, this show is a hard R in every instance, so to place obvious restrictions on only certain things just makes it stand out that such words/scenes are being held back.

Still, those caveats aside, the show is exciting, suspenseful and thought-provoking enough to make it worthwhile for anyone who's interested not only in comic books and superheroes, but especially for those who have been waiting for Marvel to focus one of its projects on a female heroine after all these years. This is the first to do so and because it was allowed to stray from the norms of formulaic action filmmaking, it is by far the most interesting, adult and provocative piece of entertainment that Marvel's ever produced.

Grade: A-

The Punisher Gets His Own Netflix Series

Well, that didn't take long. After Jon Bernthal's extremely well received portrayal of Frank Castle on Season 2 of Daredevil, Netflix has announced he will be the next Marvel character to get his own show. He was long thought to be a candidate for this from the very beginning of the Marvel Netflix shows, seeing how popular he is and how rabid the character's fanbase is already. But with Iron Fist set to premiere next spring and The Defenders miniseries next fall, the question becomes when will we actually see The Punisher show? Looks to me like 2018 at the earliest, unless Netflix decides to break with their routine of releasing two Marvel series a year. They may do it for this one though. We'll have to wait and see.

REVIEW: "iZombie" Season 2

The best show on the CW right now, and one of the best shows on TV period, is Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright's iZombie, which remained a relentlessly entertaining delight all throughout its second season due to fantastic character work, inventive and clever dialogue, fun performances and complex, overarching plots that while sometimes a bit confusing, nevertheless stayed un-bothersome due to the sheer amusement value of each and every episode.

The best examples of genre shows, especially ones on a network that demands over 20 episodes a season (in this case 19), combine a longer storyline that drives toward a conclusion with memorable standalone episodes that can entertain you even if it doesn't build on that over arching story. iZombie continued to follow Liv Moore, Seattle doctor turned zombie who works in the morgue and eats the brains of murder victims, which transfers personality traits and memories to her own mind as she helps to solve their murders. This setup rolled along all season in a kind of case-of-the-week procedural style, as Liv teams up with detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin), who still thinks she's a psychic, to solve these cases (yes, that means awful lot of people are getting very creatively murdered every single week in Seattle, but as always, you have to overlook tidbits like that in these kinds of procedurals).

The cases could be hit and miss, but what never was was the entertainment value derived from seeing the outstanding Rose McIver's Liv transform into whatever this week's personality demanded, and the endearing chemistry between her and Clive, whose familial interactions always worked in every scene. Add the spark of that duo to the daily confabs between Liv and fellow morgue doctor Ravi (the hilariously upbeat Rahul Kohli), and the frequent banter between all three of them, and it becomes a sparkling trio that could easily carry the show on that premise alone. All three are so quick and wonderful with that witty, snarky and particular Thomas/Ruggiero dialogue that it makes just about every scene sparkle with the fun, sometimes blackly comic humor involving murder victims and brain eating.

But wait, there's more. The season's Big Bad was Steven Weber, brought on board as Vaughn du Clark, CEO of Max Rager, the energy drink company that distributed the ingredient that led to Seattle's zombie infestation, and who now needs to cover his own ass by blackmailing Major (Robert Buckley) into becoming his hired zombie assassin, essentially holding him hostage to his evil whims all year by threatening Liv's life if he didn't follow through. Weber had an absolute blast with this role as the egomaniacal Clark, and got to deliver some of the very best zingers the script had to offer, especially in the hugely satisfying, action-packed season finale. Buckley fared better this season as Major too- he's not on the level of the main three cast members when it comes to energy and rapid fire delivery, but breaking up him and Liv served to greatly enhance the appeal of his straight man character, who suffered from simply being not that interesting once relegated to the love interest role.

And no, that's not even all the plot this season had to offer. David Anders' Blaine is still in the mix, as the former drug dealing sleaze turned zombie turned human turned zombie (trust me, it makes sense onscreen), and he runs a funeral home as he sells the brains of corpses to feed Seattle's zombie population. He also gets into trouble with the other season long subplot involving mob boss "Mr. Boss" and his goons, which puts him into contact and potential romance with Liv's best friend Peyton (Aly Michalka), and mixes up his own henchmen in nefarious underworld dealings to be dealt with in future seasons. This might sound like one story too many, and the truth is it might be- sometimes it's hard to keep up with all the interlocking gang warfare (Clive and his FBI girlfriend Dale are also after Blaine and the mob guys) and who wants to do what to whom, but the reason for keeping Blaine around is obvious. David Anders is dynamite as the shady bad boy, and every bit on the level of our main trio and Weber when it comes to those knockout line readings. When he does get to interact with Liv and especially Ravi, those scenes crackle and are truly hilarious to behold (Blaine and Ravi's fight over stealing his undead cure set to The Cure's "Friday I'm In Love" is one of the season's most memorable moments).

The ensemble on this show as a whole is better than any put together by a Rob Thomas show in the past- they really struck gold with the casting, and even guest stars like Jessica Harmon's Dale Bozzio, Greg Finlay as Liv's new boyfriend Drake and former Veronica Mars alums Enrico Colantoni and Ken Marino come in and steal scenes from time to time when given the chance. Only Michalka and Buckley stand out as potential weak links, but even then it's only because the rest of the cast is so terrific that they look small in comparison. That's a good problem to have overall. When your actors are this fantastic and your dialogue this amusing, the show is always entertaining, no matter what wacky plots are moving in directions you may or may not quite be able to keep track of. You just want to keep watching week to week to hang out with these characters and see what they might say to each other next. Kudos to all involved for producing one of the funnest and most underrated shows on TV.

Grade: A

Liv on 'superhero'  brain — Liv on 'superhero' brain

Peabody Awards Winners Include 'Mr. Robot,' 'Black-ish,' 'Master of None'

Today's Peabody winners for 2015 were announced for television, and as usual, the selected shows were all excellent choices, as the Peabody group rarely makes a mistake on that score:

The Leftovers
Mr. Robot
black-ish
UnREAL
Master of None
Marvel's Jessica Jones
Beasts of No Nation
Transparent
Wolf Hall
Deutschland 83

As you can see, that is one diverse slate of honorees, and even though Beasts of No Nation is a film and not a television show, it being a Netflix production qualified it for consideration. I haven't seen Leftovers, black-ish or Master of None yet, but everything else I can certainly vouch for.

Stephen Colbert Shows Hillary his Best Bill Impression

So, I admit that I've tuned out of Colbert for the most part. He doesn't have nearly the edge that he once did on Comedy Central, and pleasantries on late night with celebrities just isn't enough bite for me. Give me Samantha Bee any day. But he's still funny of course, so every once in a while he'll do something worth watching, and I love this Hillary interview at the diner from the other day. Check it out.

Doris Roberts 1925-2016

Doris Roberts, best known for playing Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond, passed away at the age of 90 this afternoon. Her acting career began in the 1950's, with appearances in movies such as Barefoot in the Park, The Heartbreak Kid, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Her longtime television career included guest spots on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Baretta, All in the Family, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, The Streets of San Francisco, Rhoda, Soap, and Fantasy Island, before landing a supporting role on St. Elsewhere, for which she won an Emmy, Remington Steele, for which she was nominated, and finally, Everybody Love Raymond, which garnered her seven Emmy nominations and four wins, plus two SAG awards.

RECAP: SNL 4/16 "Julia Louis-Dreyfus"

Well, it was another lackluster SNL episode, even though Julia did her best to liven things up with a real effort being put into some very bad writing, as usual. Sigh. Let's hope they do some kind of writer's intervention before the end of the season in May.

COLD OPEN: This opening though, isn't too bad, as Larry David of course returns as Bernie Sanders for the Democratic debate in New York, and they stage a Seinfeld reunion with Julia popping up as "real New Yorker" Elaine Benes (!) to ask him questions. Love it! Vanessa's Rachel Green cameos as well. Ok, this was cool and the best thing of the night, it turns out.

MONOLOGUE: Julia comes out to poke fun at her own brief SNL years back in the early 80's and her hugely unsuccessful film career, and then Tony Hale shows up to play the hapless Veep's hapless Gary again, as he mishandles the cue cards for her. It's alright I guess. Julia's always a good sport.

HEROIN AM: An ad for suburban parents to take heroin in pill form to help them function better. It's kinda funny, mostly due to Julia's efforts at acting high and loving it.

HUGE JEWELRY: Julia and Kate are Long Island housewives selling oversized jewelry you can "see from space" and using their daughters Cecily and Aidy to model them. Eh. It's just one joke (LI housewives are trashy) and it's actually kinda dull and goes on too long (despite an ending cameo from an all grown up Nick Jonas).

THE POOL BOY: A digital short where Julia is having an affair with Pete's pool boy, who couldn't care less while she tries to melodramatically break it off with him. It ends with her going after Nick Jonas as the new lawn mower guy. It's another kind of meh sketch, but again, I do credit Julia with giving this her all.

CINEMA CLASSICS: A look back at Julia as a '50's actress who can't say her lines unless they're "hidden" on set props. This one doesn't work and goes on way too long, but Julia is again the center of the joke and physically throws herself around the set- sadly, to no avail.

MERCEDES AA CLASS: A commercial for a Mercedes that runs strictly on AA batteries- oof. A total misfire that Julia is forced to shill for. Who thought this was funny?

UPDATE: Several Bernie jokes make way for Kenan and Jay as Charles Barkeley and Shaq to comment on this week's NBA games. They're usually funny here, but this time it falls kinda flat, with the continual mocking of Shaq's intelligence just pounded too hard by Kenan, as though the audience couldn't tell what the joke was themselves. Aidy then shows up as "Animal Annie," a character who mixes fun facts about animals with depressing facts about herself- it's not that funny, but she brings out a real iguana at the end, so...cool? Finally, Cecily comes on as her "one dimensional female character" from a movie. I've never loved any of Cecily's characters, to be honest, although I find this one the least grating. It's a mediocre Update tonight.

WHO WORKS HERE: A game show that asks people to guess who actually works at the CVS store. It's a knock on CVS employees, obviously, but it's a bleh skit that gets no real laughs.

MATCH BAR: Yikes. Kate and Julia show up at a bar as aliens looking for males to mate with and end up killing them by accident. This was horrid and man, I don't know what they were thinking with the concept on this one. Makes me feel sorry for the actors.

CHRISTIAN MOVIE TRAILER: The last sketch is a trailer for one of those recent faith-based films, with Vanessa as a "persecuted Christian" forced to bake a cake for a gay couple and admit in court that God is gay. She fights it by yelling that God's a "boob man!" This is actually good and should have been in the first half of the show. I don't know why they saved it for the end.

Okay, so this episode was not good, although it also wasn't as bad as the recent Russell Crowe and Peter Dinklage outings. It had the opening, the trailer and the heroin ad, so I guess that earns it a C-? Everything else was a bust, despite Julia being cool and trying her best. Hopefully, when the show comes back on May 7th with Brie Larson it brings the A-game material for the final run of the year. See you guys then!

Official Trailer for Cameron Crowe's 'Roadies' Drops

Looks like Crowe is going back to Almost Famous territory here, with a brand new series on Showtime chronicling the backstage lives of roadies. Hmm. To be honest, I'm skeptical about Cameron Crowe these days, since he really hasn't made a good movie in forever. Will coming to television bring back some of that heart and feeling his films have been missing in the last decade and a half? It's hard to tell from this. I guess we can only wait until reviews come out. I do like that the main character seems to be a girl though.