REVIEW: "GLOW" Season 2

Fans of GLOW can be delighted by the verdict that the second season is even better than the first, with the emotions focused in just the right places and the whole venture just as much fun (probably even more so) than the first season.

Unlike Season 1, which I thought took a couple of episodes to settle in, we pick up this time with all the women of the 1980’s TV wrestling series (GLOW aka The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) excited about their pilot and ready to film the first season, which will tape weekly in front of a live audience for twenty weeks, with the ladies still holed up in their hotel for training and seclusion. But Alison Brie’s Ruth can’t help but want to be a director as per usual, and with Sam (the fantastic Marc Maron) and producer Bash (Chris Lowell) distracted with network difficulties, she tries her hand at taping an opening credits sequence, risking (and experiencing) Sam’s wrath in a big way.

Elsewhere, Debbie (Betty Gilpin) is preoccupied with the emotional toll her divorce is taking on her, which leads her to take her anger out on continued frenemy Ruth, who gets it from all sides this season, causing what was once a vaguely unlikable character last year to take on more of an underdog status as a figure of pity and remorse this time around. Even though the three main characters (Ruth, Debbie and Sam) remain so this season and are given the meatiest storylines (Sam goes from grumpy malcontent to semi-perceptive and caring if unorthodox and occasionally inappropriate dad as he takes in his long lost teen daughter Justine), all the ladies get their chance to shine, which is really quite a feat for a ten episode season featuring a huge ensemble cast with roughly thirty minute episodes (the last few are stretched longer).

Debbie seizes her power and makes herself a producer this season

Every arc works though, whether seasonal or episodic, from the struggles to maintain the show on television, leading to an extremely timely but also sadly timeless #MeToo moment for Ruth with the network boss, to Bash’s latent struggles with his sexuality when he discovers the truth about his lifelong friend and butler Florian. Excellent singular episodes include the memorable and heartbreaking Tamme (real life wrestler Kia Stevens) dealing with her adult son discovering what kind of job pays her bills, and the show within a show that gives us what an episode of GLOW actually looks like (lots of sketch comedy and minimal wrestling, apparently).

Despite the hard-hitting emotional moments, the show is always funny and most importantly fun. It’s scored by a hair banging 80’s soundtrack that punctures the action at just the right moments, the misfits forming a makeshift family that warms your heart in their genuine love for and empowerment by what they’re creating. The parody GLOW episode makes you want to look up what the real life 1980’s series actually looked like, and the climactic season finale taping throws everything at the wall in an attempt to go out in style, from a green card marriage to a wild goat to a match with women fighting men in the ring as the girls give it everything they’ve got. It’s not absolute perfection, as I find myself wanting to screech at the writers not to go “there” with Ruth and Sam, especially given the kind of emotionally abusive nature of the relationship between the two, but when it gets to the point where I’m wanting to steer minor plot points in a different direction creatively, it’s a sign of how enthusiastic and invested I am in the storytelling. GLOW is pure joy.

Grade: A

Every woman gets a chance to shine this year

'Game of Thrones' Leads the 2018 Emmy Nominations

The Emmy nominations are here, which have the habit of reminding people that the eligibility period is from last summer to this spring (a longtime holdover from the days when the broadcast television season spanned fall to spring) and explaining how the most recent season of Game of Thrones (which feels like it aired years ago) can dominate these nominations today. But even though it's the likely frontrunner again, Netflix finally stole the crown from HBO in overall Emmy love, thanks to its domination of content. I suppose that was inevitable. Old favorites Modern Family and Orange is the New Black are finally gone from the running completely (way overdue in Modern Family's case at least), while The Americans comes back in for a final series nod in Drama, but probably won't win. I think the show's last best chance for recognition is one of the two leads, but they have some stiff competition in their categories, so that's a long shot.

COMEDY

In the absence of Veep, the frontrunner in Comedy is probably Atlanta or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but I'm most happy about the noms for Barry, which include both Bill Hader and Henry Winkler (his first Emmy nom!), and GLOW, which got into series but only landed one acting nod for Betty Gilpin (more will come next year I bet). Other pleasant surprise nods were for Secure's Issa Rae, The Good Place's Ted Danson and SNL's Kenan Thompson

BEST COMEDY SERIES
“Atlanta”
“Barry”
“Black-ish”
“Curb Your Enthusiasm”
“GLOW”
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”
“Silicon Valley”
“The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”

BEST COMEDY ACTOR
Anthony Anderson (“black-ish”)
Ted Danson (“The Good Place”)
Larry David (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”)
Donald Glover (“Atlanta”)
Bill Hader (“Barry”)
William H. Macy (“Shameless”)

BEST COMEDY ACTRESS
Pamela Adlon (“Better Things”)
Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Allison Janney (“Mom)
Issa Rae (“Insecure”)
Tracee Ellis Ross (“black-ish”)
Lily Tomlin (“Grace & Frankie”)

BEST COMEDY SUPPORTING ACTOR
Louie Anderson (“Baskets”)
Alec Baldwin (“Saturday Night Live”)
Tituss Burgess (“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”)
Tony Shalhoub (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Kenan Thompson (“Saturday Night Live”)
Henry Winkler (“Barry”)

BEST COMEDY SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Zazie Beetz (“Atlanta”)
Alex Borstein (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Aidy Bryant (“Saturday Night Live”)
Betty Gilpin (“GLOW”)
Leslie Jones (“Saturday Night Live”)
Kate McKinnon (“Saturday Night Live”)
Laurie Metcalf (“Roseanne”)
Megan Mullally (“Will & Grace”)

BEST COMEDY GUEST ACTOR
Sterling K. Brown (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”)
Bryan Cranston (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”)
Donald Glover (“Saturday Night Live”)
Bill Hader (“Saturday Night Live”)
Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”)
Katt Williams (“Atlanta”)

BEST COMEDY GUEST ACTRESS
Tina Fey (“Saturday Night Live”)
Tiffany Haddish (“Saturday Night Live”)
Jane Lynch (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Maya Rudolph (“The Good Place”)
Molly Shannon (“Will & Grace”)
Wanda Sykes (“Black-ish”)

DRAMA

Sandra Oh becomes the first ever Asian woman to be nominated for lead actress in a drama for Killing Eve (I need to check that show out), while Handmaid's Tale lands eight (!) acting nods, and The Crown's supporting players Vanessa Kirby and Matt Smith get nominated along with Claire Foy. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is finally in for GOT, which is the frontrunner for series on a list with no real surprises on it

BEST DRAMA SERIES
“The Handmaid’s Tale”
“Game of Thrones”
“This Is Us”
“The Crown”
“The Americans”
“Stranger Things”
“Westworld”

BEST DRAMA ACTOR
Jason Bateman (“Ozark”)
Sterling K. Brown (“This Is Us”)
Ed Harris (“Westworld”)
Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”)
Milo Ventimiglia (“This Is Us”)
Jeffrey Wright (“Westworld”)

BEST DRAMA ACTRESS
Claire Foy (“The Crown”)
Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”)
Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)
Sandra Oh (“Killing Eve”)
Keri Russell (“The Americans”)
Evan Rachel Wood (“Westworld”)

BEST DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTOR
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (“Game of Thrones”)
Peter Dinklage (“Game of Thrones”)
Joseph Fiennes (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)
David Harbour (“Stranger Things”)
Mandy Patinkin (“Homeland”)
Matt Smith (“The Crown”)

BEST DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Alexis Bledel (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)
Millie Bobby Brown (“Stranger Things”)
Ann Dowd (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)
Lena Headey (“Game of Thrones”)
Thandie Newton (“Westworld”)
Yvonne Strahovski (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)

BEST DRAMA GUEST ACTOR
F. Murray Abraham (“Homeland”)
Cameron Britton (“Mindhunter”)
Matthew Goode (“The Crown”)
Ron Cephas Jones (“This Is Us”)
Gerald McRaney (“This Is Us”)
Jimmi Simpson (“Westworld”)

BEST DRAMA GUEST ACTRESS
Viola Davis (“Scandal”)
Kelly Jenrette (The Handmaid’s Tale”)
Cherry Jones (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)
Diana Rigg (“Game of Thrones”)
Cicely Tyson (“How to Get Away With Murder”)
Samira Wiley (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)

MOVIE/MINI

Benedict Cumberbach really should be the frontrunner for Actor in this category, and as a former winner and multiple nominee for Sherlock, I'm guessing he'll pull it off again. ACS is a contender for series against Patrick Melrose though, while Black Mirror's best episode is sure to win the TV Movie category (although it's obviously NOT a TV movie, so that's cheating). It's also very cool to see John Legend and Sara Bareilles nominated for Jesus Christ Superstar, but these movie/mini noms anger me the most, due to the total snubbing of both Howards End and The Terror (watch them, people!)

BEST LIMITED SERIES
“The Alienist”
“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”
“Genius: Picasso”
“Godless”
“Patrick Melrose”

BEST TV MOVIE
“Fahrenheit 451”
“Flint”
“Paterno”
“The Tale”
“USS Callister: Black Mirror”

BEST MOVIE/MINI ACTOR
Antonio Banderas (“Genius: Picasso”)
Darren Criss (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”)
Benedict Cumberbatch (“Patrick Melrose”)
Jeff Daniels (“The Looming Tower”)
John Legend (“Jesus Christ Superstar”)
Jesse Plemons (“USS Callister: Black Mirror”)

BEST MOVIE/MINI ACTRESS
Laura Dern (“The Tale”)
Jessica Biel (“The Sinner”)
Michelle Dockery (“Godless”)
Edie Falco (“The Menendez Murders”)
Regina King (“Seven Seconds”)
Sarah Paulson (“American Horror Story: Cult”)

BEST MOVIE/MINI SUPPORTING ACTOR
Jeff Daniels (“Godless”)
Brandon Victor Dixon (“Jesus Christ Superstar”)
John Leguizamo (“Waco”)
Ricky Martin (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”)
Edgar Ramirez (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”)
Michael Stuhlbarg (“The Looming Tower”)
Finn Wittrock (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”)

BEST MOVIE/MINI SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Sara Bareilles (“Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert”)
Penelope Cruz (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”)
Judith Light (“The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”)
Adina Porter (“American Horror Story: Cult”)
Merritt Wever (“Godless”)
Letitia Wright (“Black Museum: Black Mirror”)

REALITY/VARIETY

The Daily Show returns to the Emmys for the first time since Jon Stewart left, but Last Week Tonight is still the likely winner in talk show, while SNL landed the second most nominations overall today, making it sure to repeat in the sketch series category

BEST VARIETY SKETCH SERIES
“At Home with Amy Sedaris”
“Drunk History”
“I Love You, America”
“Portlandia”
“Saturday Night Live”
“Tracey Ullman’s Show”

BEST VARIETY TALK SERIES
“The Daily Show With Trevor Noah”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live”
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
“Late Late Show with James Corden"

"Full Frontal With Samantha Bee"

"Late Show with Stephen Colbert”

BEST REALITY COMPETITION SERIES
“The Amazing Race”
“American Ninja Warrior”
“Project Runway”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race”
“Top Chef”
“The Voice”

BEST REALITY HOST
W. Kamau Bell (“United Shades of America With W. Kamau Bell”)
Ellen DeGeneres (“Ellen’s Game of Games”)
RuPaul Charles (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”)
Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn (“Project Runway”)
Jane Lynch (“Hollywood Game Night”)

BEST STRUCTURED REALITY PROGRAM
“Antiques Roadshow” (PBS)
“Fixer Upper” (HGTV)
“Lip Sync Battle” (Paramount)
“Queer Eye” (Netflix)
“Shark Tank” (ABC)
“Who Do You Think You Are?” (TLC)

BEST UNSTRUCTURED REALITY PROGRAM
“Born This Way” (A&E)
“Deadliest Catch” (Discovery)
“Intervention” (A&E)
“Naked and Afraid” (Discovery Channel)
“RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked” (VH1)
“United Shades of America With W. Kamau Bell” (CNN)

New Prison Settings in 'Orange is the New Black' Season 6

Finally, the trailer for the new season (dropping July 27th) is here. Orange is the New Black may seem like old news these days, especially in light of the recent success of GLOW (which does have similarities to it and is also produced by Jenji Kohan) and the adverse reaction from fans to the last season, but moving most of the main cast over to a new prison should give it some fresh material for this year. It may be on its last legs, with perhaps one more season to go, but I still like it and will stick with it til the end.

REVIEW: "Black Mirror" Season 4

The best way to dissect a season of Black Mirror (which is my generation’s Twilight Zone) is to simply go over each episode and rank them, so even though this is a pretty late review (the season dropped last New Year’s Eve), here’s what I thought of the latest batch of mindbending tales from the mind of Charlie Brooker:

USS CALLISTER

A premiere for the ages

An instant series classic kicks off the fourth season, as a resentful gaming company co-founder (Jesse Plemons) traps the consciousness of his co-workers inside his virtual simulation of a Star Trek-esque spaceship, where he torments them every night to assuage his own ego as the greatest of all captains. When Nanette (Cristin Miliot) comes into the game she rallies the others to get revenge and escape his scenario. The Star Trek parallels and misogynist, bullying tendencies of guys like Plemons make the episode relevant to real world parallels and unlike most Black Mirror episodes, this one has a great mix of comedy and adventure, as well as horror and despair. It’s not hard to see why fans clamored for a spinoff series based on the premise of this episode alone. 

Grade: A

ARKANGEL

Parental monitoring taken to the extreme

Jodie Foster unfortunately directs one of the show’s worst episodes, as a mom (Rosemarie DeWitt) consents to implant a chip in her daughter’s head in order to monitor her awareness of any violence or “adult content” she might come across in her actual life, akin to parental controls on television or computers, but for the mind. As the girl grows up she falls in with some bad influences as her mother attempts to use the chip to control her life even into her teenage years. The premise isn’t bad here, but I think since nothing the daughter gets into is quite as shocking as Black Mirror can sometimes get (anyone remember “Shut Up and Dance” from last season?) everything that actually happens to her feels a little anticlimactic, as does the ending.

Grade: C

CROCODILE

Andrea Riseborough slowly loses it

This is another one with an interesting concept (an insurance investigator tracks down witnesses to an accident and peers into their real memories of events using a scanner on the brain) but a terrible main character ruins the episode. Andrea Riseborough plays a woman who committed one crime in the past, which leads her to commit more and more to save herself, and then to get rid of anyone who might have seen her do it, but her completely passive, almost bored performance leaves you mystified by her inexplicable actions, rather than intrigued by them. Maybe if she had chewed the scenery a little more or grown to sadistically enjoy her evil deeds, this would have been more entertaining to sit through.

Grade: C-

HANG THE DJ

The perfect blind date

Right up there with the best of the series again, this episode sees two people using what appears at first to be a dating app to meet someone, but then turns out to be part of a system in the society they live in that mandates calculated “relationships” with different people in order to find your statistical match. Frank and Amy want to buck the system when they realize they actually like and want to be with each other instead of who their actual match might be, but there’s a couple of plot twists yet to unfold. I loved this episode, in its way a kind of companion to the classic “San Junipero” from last season and one of the more romantic and satisfying episodes of the entire series.

Grade: A

METALHEAD

Surviving the killer pups

Set in a black and white, seemingly post-apocalyptic hellscape where tiny robot dogs have taken over the world and destroyed most of humankind, this is one of the simpler premises Brooker’s come up with. There’s no backstory on the dogs or the protagonist in this one, as Bella (Maxine Peaks) simply tries to outrun the metal dog that’s spotted her, which will not rest until it destroys its target. Filmed in a brisk, punkish fashion, director David Slade renders the inherently silly concept (the dog looks like Terminator’s puppy) brutally effective.

Grade: B+

BLACK MUSEUM

Museum tour of nightmares

The finale of Season 4 is sort of a combination of mini-sketches, ideas for Black Mirror that never made it to full length episodes. Letitia Wright leads this one as a girl who stops at the famous “Black Museum” in Utah and is given a tour by the creepy manager, whose history of scientific experiments on people has rendered some very dark, disturbing results. Wright’s given the full play by play of these experiments and shown the remnants of them before turning the tables on the manager to give him the ultimate taste of his own medicine. If you prefer the darker, more twisted Black Mirror episodes, this one’s more in that vein. A satisfying, grim revenge story (but very grim indeed).

Grade: B+

Full Ranking:

1. USS Callister
2. Hang the DJ
3. Metalhead
4. Black Museum
5. Crocodile
6. Arkangel

REVIEW: "iZombie" Season 4 / "Supergirl" Season 3

IZOMBIE Season 4

Another miscalculation: Liv spent a lot of the season in plainclothes, outside of her normal zombie look- who wants to see that?

Ooof. Not since Orphan Black’s third season has a show I once loved fallen so low. And yet, here we are. iZombie was such a fun show, with a great cast and some of the cleverest dialogue on TV for its first three seasons. What the hell happened here? Well, I guess it starts with the audacious ending to Season 3, which launched a new status quo in turning half of Seattle’s populace into zombies and outing the secret to the whole world. In universe, it seemed like a way to reboot the series and try some new things, but in practice? That didn’t go so well. First of all, the inherent setup of the show is nearly procedural, with Liv (Rose McIver) eating the brains of human murder victims, inhabiting their personalities and memories, and using her gift to solve murders with partner Clive (Malcolm Goodwin). With zombies outed, you’d think Seattle PD would have bigger fish to fry now, but the show did not want to jettison its basic premise, so Liv and Clive are still solving human murders, but now it all seems particularly irrelevant, and the cases get sillier and sillier, as the well seems to have just about run dry in terms of funny personalities for Liv to possess. This is the first season I’ve found McIver’s performance bordering on grating. The show has always had intersecting subplots running throughout the season, and now that all has to do with Fillmore Graves, the private contractor army set up last year that runs Seattle, and just about every scene involving them is unbearable. Jason Dohring (once so good on Veronica Mars) is saddled with a terrible, dull character in Chase Graves, the sleepiest villain in history, while Major is highly irritating in his role as Fillmore Graves foot soldier/ true believer, and the endless scenes involving these soldiers feel pointless and stupid. Then there’s Blaine and Don E (the latter of whom was such a scene stealer in past seasons that he’s now implausibly become Blaine’s BFF), whose shenanigans on the side are also boring and stupid (Blaine inexplicably reconciles with his father this season, who even more inexplicably has become a crazy preacher man- wtf, indeed). The season was so terrible that I can’t think of a single subplot or arc that worked at all. Liv’s new boyfriend Levon? A dud. The human smuggling ring she becomes involved in? Terrible and uninteresting. Ravi and Peyton’s romantic reconciliation? I never cared about them in the first place. The dying teen Ravi and Liv befriend? Don’t care. Clive and Dale’s struggle with human/zombie relations? I thought they were cute before, in fact they were the only romance on this show I’ve ever liked. But Dale became a complete non-entity this season (she basically disappeared) while every obstacle they face is one experienced and told to the audience through Clive only, so how are we supposed to invest? For a show I loved so much to fall off a cliff this badly, this late in its run (next season will be the last) is quite an achievement of a certain kind. But it’s so far underwater that I question whether the ship can even be righted at this point. What a mess. 

Grade: F (yeah, I went harder on it than Riverdale because the bar was a lot higher to begin with)

SUPERGIRL Season 3

'Supergirl's third season is one of uneven fits and starts

Well, if shows are graded on a scale from "bad" to "decent" to "good" to "great," Supergirl hasn’t been able to make much upward progress. It was never bad, but it definitely started out shaky, proceeded to decent and then…stopped there. Not that it didn’t have potential. In fact, it still has it. Melissa Benoist’s Kara/Supergirl has always been a solid, lovable lead, and some characters, like David Harewood’s Jonn J’onze, aka Martian Manhunter, Jeremy Jordan’s tech sidekick Wynn, and Chyler Leigh as Kara’s sister Alex, have helped to bolster the supporting cast, but for some reason the show has never really made it to that next level. Possibly because it hasn’t had a great villain for any season so far, or maybe because the show struggles mightily with drawing out personal relationship plots for what seems like an endless amount of episodes. But I stick with it because I feel like the show is constantly circling around coming together for a really good season…only to not come through in the end. This year started off with Kara being mopey over the apparent death of the bland Mon-El (Christopher Wood) last season, only for him to make his dramatic reappearance as a Legionnaire from thousands years in the future. Oh, and he’s got a wife now. So the season is spent with endless angst over whether the two will get back together despite the Imra obstacle, but the show is too afraid to pull the trigger on the “a” word (affair) and the resolution is so fruitless as to make the entire storyline superfluous. Why did he even come back at all? The season’s villain is set up more painstakingly with the introduction of Lena's employee Sam and her daughter Ruby, but Sam’s split personality, the worldkiller Reign, simultaneously wears out her welcome and yet somehow isn’t used enough. The characters I mentioned as the good supporting characters are given little to do- Wynn is all but ignored entirely this year, Jonn is saddled with a dying father arc that seems to go on forever, and Alex at first gets a good breakup subplot with Maggie (Floriana Lima, who left the show early in the season), but again, her depression over it goes on way, way, way too long and doesn’t lead to anything concrete aside from her determination to become a mother. Katie McGrath’s Lena Luthor remains in a sort of grey area- once more, the show seems afraid to push her into villain territory, despite the fact that she’d make a great one (McGrath has a cold, intimidating presence that would work wonders as a manipulative villainess), so instead they give her a flat romance with James Olsen, who remains the show’s most useless and boring character. There are some cast shakeups and comic book hints in the season finale that point to some potentially intriguing new directions, but knowing this show, I’m left to wonder if that’s all it can ever really promise- potential. Will all these ingredients ever manage to leave the frying pan?

Grade: C

REVIEW: "Legion" Season 2

A lot of shows have disappointed me this year, but few more so than Legion, a series I recommended after its wild, surreal ride of a first season, but is now one that I’m sorry to say, devolved into utter nonsense for most of its second. 

Perhaps it was inevitable. Legion was praised in its first season for deviating wildly from any kind of superhero, action-adventure “formula,” and by taking place largely inside the mind of David (Dan Stevens) a mentally ill psychic who was often times possessed by the villainous entity of the “Shadow King” (who usually took the form of Aubrey Plaza), he could bend reality to his will and alternate between hero and villain inadvertently. This led to many thrilling, dreamlike, baffling yet impressive sequences that were meant to keep you guessing but intrigued. Since there was a definite underlying coherent narrative to the season that managed to reach a conclusion, despite all the visual trickery, I remained invested in the story.

Sydney has bad news for David's future

But this season (unnecessarily extended by three episodes over the last), creator Noah Hawley seemed to decide that the draw for this show was the surreal imagery itself and the sophomore run took a pretty hard nosedive into style over substance. To be fair, that’s a critique you may have been able to lob at the first season as well, but again, since there was a plot that managed to actually get somewhere, on top of all the Lynchian pyrotechnics, it wasn’t a problem for me. This time however, after setting up a seemingly simplistic goal in the first episode (David is warned by a future Sydney to help the Shadow King find his real body, since he’s been separated from the Aubrey Plaza version), every subsequent episode took stylistic digressions into total meaningless praddle. It’s such a blur that it’s difficult to even remember what happened over the entirety of the season. 

From Jon Hamm waxing philosophic at the beginning of every episode, to David living multiple realities of his life, to the rest of the cast (minus Rachel Keller’s Sydney and Aubrey Plaza resurrected as New Lenny) being essentially shafted, it’s the season of wheel spinning and pretentious drivel that leads nowhere. The new Shadow King, aka Amahl Farouk, is played by David Negahban, but he isn’t much of a presence, relegated to mild digressions of his own about life and death, blah blah blah, as David stews and mumbles, veering from troubled good guy to apparent villain. There’s virtually no direction gained over the season until the very last episode, which finally sets up a new dynamic that I hadn’t even realized it was building to, as David completes his journey to bad guy, this time all on his own, without a Farouk in his brain (although in an act that permanently undermines the David/Sydney love story, which was clearly intended to be the show's beating heart from the beginning, so that could be another problem). I was this close to quitting the show, but the finale jolted things just enough to make me want to at least see what happens from here, which is more than I can say for any other episode this season. I’ll be back next year, but this show is on serious parole.

Grade: D-

The new Shadow King is only mildly intimidating

The Ladies Are Back in 'GLOW' Season 2

Yes!!! One of my favorite shows of last year (which will hopefully be showered with Emmy nominations in a few weeks) is back for a second season on June 29th, and I can't wait. It was such a fun show, yet the kind of comedy that's set in the real world (albeit the one of ladies wrestling in the 1980's) much more than the nutty cartoon antics of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or Arrested Development. Hope the sophomore season lives up to the first.

REVIEW: "The Terror"

Many of the best shows of the year so far have been the old-fashioned miniseries, or “limited series,” as they’re now called, and AMC’s The Terror turned out to be no exception. This outstanding chamber piece set in the middle of the Arctic during the 1840’s was a master class in suspense, mood, subtle and precise acting from some terrific British veterans of the craft, and yet it’s just so harsh.

Not that that’s a bad thing necessarily, but this one may be tough to binge. Based on a novel by Dan Simmons, Ciaran Hinds leads a crew of explorers set to discover the notorious Northwest Passage, but winds up a victim of his own hubris as the doomed ships HMS Terror and Erebus ultimately meet a horrifying fate. The first two episodes of this ten episode series are a slow burn, with the various crew members introduced, and the origins of the expedition established, but we’re treated to some top notch acting from Hinds as Sir John, Jared Harris as Captain Francis Crozier and Tobias Menzies of Outlander fame as Commander James Fitzjames. It takes a while to set up the action, but the haunting quality of the atmosphere permeates quickly, and a permanent feeling of dread soon entrenches the proceedings.

Jared Harris is given the thankless role of the doomed leader of men

There’s a monster of some kind deep in the snow surrounding the frozen ships, but the nature of it is a mysterious entity that confounds even the natives of the area. The show is wise not to show too much of it, preferring to let the terror (so to speak) linger around the frame as crew members are picked off one by one in the neverending darkness of the frozen landscape. By the end of the shocking third episode, you’ll probably be hooked on the mystery and horror of it all, but this is a series that is rich in characterization and personal conflict as well. Jared Harris steals the show as the alcoholic yet highly capable captain as he’s faced with no good options and forced to make one ill fated decision after another, while the villainous ship’s mate Cornelius Hickey (deliciously played by Adam Nagaitis) proves man can be a greater evil than any physical beast in existence. 

There is one female presence in the series in Nive Nielsen as “Lady Silence,” the local Inuit who has some contact of her own with the beast and acts as a semi-guide in some episodes, but this is a story about the British Navy in the mid-nineteenth century, so an all male, Master and Commander-type environment is to be expected. The performances rise above though, as aside from Harris, I especially enjoyed Menzies and Paul Ready as one of the ship’s doctors. I can’t stress enough however, the unrelenting bleakness of the show’s tone. This a dark, pessimistic view of both human nature and the nature of survival, which makes the act of getting through it feel like something of an accomplishment in itself. Yet the skill with which it’s achieved is astonishing at times, both in its desolation and beauty. Highly recommended.

Grade: A

Unspeakable horrors await the crew of The Terror

Amy Adams Goes Home Again in 'Sharp Objects' Miniseries

I just read the Gillian Flynn book this is based on and liked it much better than Gone Girl, so I'm officially excited for this series. The story is super dark, gritty, grim and disturbing, and I can't wait to see how they do it. Amy Adams is just about perfect casting for the lead role and Patricia Clarkson as well, from what I can see. July 8th is the premiere of the eight episode series on HBO.

REVIEW: "The Americans" Season 6

The Americans came to an end this week, at long last. Six years of spying, sex and murder (which is apparently all that spying really is) culminated in a low key ending that left me feeling frankly, unsatisfied, despite the tact with which it was pulled off. A longtime favorite of mine, I do believe the show peaked in Seasons 3 and 4, where I was fooled into thinking that it was building towards something much more consequential than what ended up happening.

Not that there weren’t signs before this. Actually, the fifth season, considered a disappointment from most fans, was where I started picking up on the signals that the show actually may not want to do away with either of its two antiheroes, much akin to shows like The Sopranos and Justified before it. No, I started realizing that each season’s slow build was more about the tension itself rather than that tension actually leading to something. In past seasons, when characters like Martha (Alison Wright) and Paige (Holly Taylor) found out the truth about Philip and Elizabeth, it changed the status quo and led to realizations that felt dangerous and authentic, and I was tricked into thinking that the two of them couldn’t continue to lead these lives indefinitely, that something would happen to them, especially with Philip’s increasing existential crisis.

But Philip’s personal crisis was simply that. Personal. Now when I look back on it, I realize that finding out the truth didn’t lead to Martha’s ruin, or Pastor Tim’s for that matter. No, when it felt like they were in the most jeopardy, something always let Philip and Elizabeth skate in the end. So perhaps it was me, reading the show wrong all these years. Maybe I was spoiled by the apocalyptic ending of Breaking Bad, where Walt had to get what he deserved eventually. 

Why has Paige become a complete moron this season?

The Americans was always about Phil and Elizabeth’s marriage, which was in as bad a place as it had ever been at the opening of this season. There was a time jump of three years since last season, and Philip had quit working for the KGB and was genuinely running the travel agency (which is a little weird, since I assume the KGB had set up that business as front to begin with, so how could Philip be having money problems?), while Elizabeth was working solo and sloppier than ever, having to murder someone new just about every week. There’s an absolutely idiotic subplot involving Elizabeth now training Paige to become a spy for the Soviet Union, which she inexplicably is into (has she grown stupider as she’s gotten older?), and then rogue KGB agents pull Elizabeth into their plot to take out Gorbachev before the 1987 summit in Washington, so Philip must get back in the game somewhat to prevent that from happening.

This could have been setup for a great final season and a permanent rift between the Jenningses, but as I began to suspect last year, the show never wanted to separate them in the first place. No matter how far apart they are, no matter how doomed their marriage seems to be, their connection is never severed completely. This could have been a terrific storyline for hapless Stan (the worst FBI agent in history, it turns out) to finally find out about his neighbors, trap Philip into turning on his wife in exchange for immunity for himself and the kids, and lead to a powerful, possibly fatal confrontation between husband and wife. At least, that’s what I would have done.

But obviously, I’m not the writer here. So what happens instead feels basically like another typical, not final, season of The Americans, with Elizabeth running her sources as usual and nothing coming to a head in any way until the last couple of episodes, where Philip is finally burned, Stan figures out the truth (after nothing more than one conversation with poor, clueless Henry) and our doomed couple must go on the run. Conveniently, true believer Elizabeth has a sudden change of heart in not wanting to follow the orders of the rogue KGB operatives, allowing Philip to stay allied with her, and Stan’s one confrontational scene with the family ends in a way that’s most unexpected, yet also totally anticlimactic. I couldn't help thinking, that’s it? After all this time? The series wraps up with the bare minimum of consequences for the Jenningses and very little payoff for their years of crimes, unless all you wanted was to see Stan find out, I guess. I wanted more. And there was so much story potential that I think it could have led to a lot more, unless creator Joe Weisberg really felt from the beginning that neither of them should have to pay for or even acknowledge their years of murdering innocent people (not even completely un-remorseful Elizabeth, apparently). Was I supposed to be on the side of the Soviet Union all along here? Silly me.

Grade: B-

Stan solidifies his status as the most duped FBI agent in history