'Transparent' Goes Out With a Musical Finale

So, this looks weird. I loved Transparent in general, but everyone pretty much knew the show was over after Jeffrey Tambor’s firing. I guess Jill Soloway just decided to hell with it and is now going to end the show with one musical movie length wrap-up. I’m cool with the movie length wrap-up, but a musical? And it’s centered on Shelly, really? This sounds like it could be horribly annoying, to be honest. But it’s just one episode and I gotta finish it. September 27th it is.

REVIEW: "Fleabag" Seasons 1 & 2

When I first started Fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s BBC comedy series (now streaming on Amazon) about a damaged single woman in her thirties, I quickly became wary of it being a slightly older version of Girls, a show that I hated about self-absorbed, toxic narcissists who are unbearable to spend time with. But luckily, Fleabag may feel familiar at first, but then it sneaks up on you with the vividness of its writing and characters who start to feel real. Damaged, yes, but in a very poignant, empathetic way. By its second season it then transcends into poetic brilliance, and I’m so glad that I stuck with it.

Waller-Bridge herself plays Fleabag (never referred to by name in either season) a single woman who runs a cafe with her best friend, sleeps around, has strained relationships with her family and is struggling with herself and her tendency to self-destruct. Her frequent asides to the camera relay her perspective on life and the people surrounding her, and the barbed wit is funny but tinged with constant episodes of real bleakness as it’s revealed that Fleabag’s emotional state suffers under the weight of the recent deaths of her mother and best friend. The first season (each is just six episodes), establishes Fleabag, her stressed out sister Claire (a very funny Sian Clifford), her brother-in-law Martin (Brett Gelman playing yet another douchebag), her father (Bill Paterson) and her father’s girlfriend (Olivia Colman, doing her dry, two-faced politeness bit to perfection). The issue I had at first is Fleabag herself being so purposely and nonchalantly self-destructive that it’s hard to root for or identify with her, especially as her many bad decisions are laid out in such an obvious pattern. But the show does a good job of characterizing her pain as it goes along, even if the downish nature of the show tends to overshadow the humor in a season that I would consider far more of a drama than a comedy.

Looks like the old seducing a priest trope still has some life in it after all

But then comes the second season, and as time has passed on the dark ending of the first, the series adds Andrew Scott as the priest who will be marrying Fleabag’s dad and future stepmother. He’s a “cool, sweary priest,” as Fleabag soon discovers, and now that she’s committed herself to being a better person she immediately falls in love with him. The Thorn Birds storyline has been done before (see also: Leon Morin, Priest), but there’s nothing sexier than trying to seduce a man sworn off from sex, and as Fleabag swoons over the charming, extremely likable Scott, so do we. Waller-Bridge manages to find something new in the old romantic trope and this storyline provides a heart and humanity to the acidic humor that was missing from the first season, while building again on Fleabag’s grief for her mother, and bringing the frantic Claire to a peak of joyous final triumph over the worthless lout Martin. Showing the characters grow rather than remaining in place replaces the bleakness with a willingness to fight and overcome, which makes the funny stuff all the more hilarious as we can root for Fleabag fully this time around. I loved the second season of this show, and the joy of making it was clearly not lost on its performers, all of whom are having a great time and displaying a genuine rapport with each other, especially Waller-Bridge and Scott. The show will apparently end now after two seasons, to which I say, good. It goes out on such a high note it would be a shame to spoil it.

Grade: A

Fleabag and Claire make amends

'Game of Thrones' Leads the Emmys With 32 Nominations

Wow. That’s a new record for any show in the history of the Emmys, so I’m guessing despite all the whining and complaining, that Game of Thrones will take one more Drama Series win for its final year. Almost the entire cast got nominated! (Sophie Turner? Alfie Allen? Gwendoline Christie, who had like four lines this season? Really?) In other news, Barry also got its entire cast nominated (even Sarah Goldberg! Awesome!), and I think it has a really good chance to win Comedy Series, even though Veep came back for its final season as well, but with less recognition this time. Chernobyl and When They See Us got a boatload of nominations each in that brutal Limited Series category, where Fosse/Verdon also got lots of (well-deserved) love. One of those first two is going to win there, but I don’t know which one. Fleabag (which is a great show, review coming this Friday) got honored with a bunch of nods in Comedy, and Jodie Comer got in for Killing Eve!!!! So excited about that, and with Best Drama Actress wide open, I’m honestly wondering if she could pull off a surprise win. I know most think it’s Sandra Oh, but honestly Comer was still a standout in the second season while Oh’s character had issues this time. We’ll see. I’m sad that GLOW wasn’t acknowledged more for its second season, but that’s close to my only disappointment (that and Andrew Scott not getting in for Fleabag, since they liked the show so much). Oh, and Bodyguard getting nominated for Drama but Richard Madden not getting a nomination for it is a bit odd. Still, these are some very good nominations overall.

2019 EMMY NOMINATIONS LIST

COMEDY

BEST COMEDY SERIES

• Barry

• Fleabag

• The Good Place

• The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

• Russian Doll

• Schitt’s Creek

• Veep

BEST COMEDY ACTOR

• Anthony Anderson, black-ish

• Don Cheadle, Black Monday

• Ted Danson, The Good Place

• Michael Douglas, The Kominsky Method

• Bill Hader, Barry

• Eugene Levy, Schitt’s Creek

BEST COMEDY ACTRESS

• Christina Applegate, Dead to Me

• Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

• Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep

• Natasha Lyonne, Russian Doll

• Catherine O’Hara, Schitt’s Creek

• Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag

Can Barry win Comedy Series? I think so, as it lands multiple nods for writing and directing, along with acting for Bill Hader, Anthony Carrigan (above), Stephen Root, Henry Winkler and Sarah Goldberg. The buzz is real.

BEST COMEDY SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Alan Arkin, The Kominsky Method

• Anthony Carrigan, Barry

• Tony Hale, Veep

• Stephen Root, Barry

• Tony Shalhoub, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

• Henry Winkler, Barry

BEST COMEDY SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Alex Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

• Anna Chlumsky, Veep

• Sian Clifford, Fleabag

• Olivia Colman, Fleabag

• Betty Gilpin, GLOW

• Sarah Goldberg, Barry

• Marin Hinkle, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

• Kate McKinnon, Saturday Night Live

DRAMA

BEST DRAMA SERIES

• Better Call Saul

• Bodyguard

• Game of Thrones

• Killing Eve

• Ozark

• Pose

• Succession

• This Is Us

BEST DRAMA ACTOR

• Jason Bateman, Ozark

• Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us

• Kit Harington, Game of Thrones

• Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul

• Billy Porter, Pose

• Milo Ventimiglia, This Is Us

BEST DRAMA ACTRESS

• Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones

• Jodie Comer, Killing Eve

• Viola Davis, How to Get Away With Murder

• Laura Linney, Ozark

• Mandy Moore, This Is Us

• Sandra Oh, Killing Eve

• Robin Wright, House of Cards

Jodie Comer is in! Killing Eve was nominated all over the place too, so I’m rooting for a surprise win for my favorite TV killer in Best Actress

BEST DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Alfie Allen, Game Of Thrones

• Jonathan Banks, Better Call Saul

• Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Game Of Thrones

• Peter Dinklage, Game Of Thrones

• Giancarlo Esposito, Better Call Saul

• Michael Kelly, House Of Cards

• Chris Sullivan, This Is Us

BEST DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Gwendoline Christie, Game of Thrones

• Julia Garner, Ozark

• Lena Headey, Game of Thrones

• Fiona Shaw, Killing Eve

• Sophie Turner, Game of Thrones

• Maisie Williams, Game of Thrones

LIMTED SERIES/TV MOVIE

BEST LIMITED SERIES

• Chernobyl

• Escape at Dannemora

• Fosse/Verdon

• Sharp Objects

• When They See Us

BEST TV MOVIE

• Bandersnatch: Black Mirror

• Brexit

• Deadwood: The Movie

• King Lear

• My Dinner With Hervé

BEST MOVIE/MINI ACTOR

• Mahershala Ali, True Detective

• Benicio del Toro, Escape at Dannemora

• Hugh Grant, A Very English Scandal

• Jared Harris, Chernobyl

• Jharell Jerome, When They See Us

• Sam Rockwell, Fosse/Verdon

Jharell Jerome HAS to win Best Actor in a Limited Series for When They See Us- his devastating performance in the final episode still haunts me

BEST MOVIE/MINI ACTRESS

• Amy Adams, Sharp Objects

• Patricia Arquette, Escape at Dannemora

• Aunjanue Ellis, When They See Us

• Joey King, The Act

• Niecy Nash, When They See Us

• Michelle Williams, Fosse/Verdon

BEST MOVIE/MINI SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Asante Blackk, When They See Us

• Paul Dano, Escape at Dannemora

• John Leguizamo, When They See Us

• Stellan Skarsgard, Chernobyl

• Ben Whishaw, A Very English Scandal

• Michael K Williams, When They See Us

BEST MOVIE/MINI SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Patricia Arquette, The Act

• Marsha Stephanie Blake, When They See Us

• Patricia Clarkson, Sharp Objects

• Vera Farmiga, When They See Us

• Margaret Qualley, Fosse/Verdon

• Emily Watson, Chernobyl

REALITY/VARIETY

BEST VARIETY SKETCH SERIES

• At Home With Amy Sedaris

• Documentary Now!

• Drunk History

• I Love You, America With Sarah Silverman

• Saturday Night Live

• Who Is America?

BEST VARIETY TALK SERIES

• The Daily Show With Trevor Noah

• Full Frontal With Samantha Bee

• Jimmy Kimmel Live

• Last Week Tonight With John Oliver

• The Late Late Show With James Corden

• The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

BEST REALITY COMPETITION SERIES

• The Amazing Race

• American Ninja Warrior

• Nailed It!

• RuPaul’s Drag Race

• Top Chef

• The Voice

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s excellent show Fleabag got much deserved attention and nods for all its women, but Andrew Scott (above) really should have been in there too- he was kind of the heart of this last season

REVIEW: "Stranger Things" Season 3

Stranger Things is back for its third season and overall, it’s pretty fun! The show is known for its references and homages to 1980’s movies and pop culture, but the first two seasons were limited to nods at the kids movies of that decade, stuff like E.T., The Goonies, Gremlins, Stand By Me, etc. This time they’re branching out with a whole Fast Times at Ridgemont High vibe going on. Makes sense. The young stars are getting older after all- by the time the show ends they might all be out of their teens as it is.

Season 3 is set in summer of 1985, which is a new feeling for it (previously always taking place in the fall), and with that comes summer romances and nods to those 80’s comedies, but also this time a bunch of 80’s action comes into play, with David Harbour’s Hopper essentially taking on the Rambo role as he’s hunted by a Terminator-like Russian assassin (yes, that’s right, the Russians are now antagonists on the show, as they’ve discovered the secret portal to the Upside Down, which I can’t imagine would benefit anyone much in terms of weaponry). But before all that, Eleven and Mike are still dating and now making out all the time, which Hopper can’t stand, and this season sees El spending much of her time learning how to be a simple teenage girl, as she becomes friends with Max (Sadie Sink), who tells her there’s more to life than boys.

The boys are obsessed with girls now too, except for Will (Noah Schnapp), who may be gay, but it’s not quite articulated yet, only hinted at. Meanwhile, Jonathan and Nancy are still together and inexplicably still on the show, now working at a local newspaper, and former high school jock Steve is employed at the ice cream shop in the Starcourt mall (the setting for much of the season) with co-worker Robin (new addition Maya Hawke). 

Hopper kind of turns into a crazy psychopath this season and I continue to believe he should not be dating Winona Ryder’s Joyce

This is the most overtly comedic season yet, and I’m not sure it’s remarked upon enough just how wacky and downright campy this show’s tone can be. The characters are well established by now, but the humor, especially in the early going, is so broad and over the top, with music cues on point for so many big 80’s radio hits that it can feel like a parody of the movies it’s referencing at times. It’s enjoyable, but in a slightly bizarre, goofy way. But then the horror stuff kicks in, this time with the Mind-Flayer they got rid of last season trapped on this side of the gate and shaping itself into goo that possesses people, namely the abusive Billy, who becomes even more of a villain this year (and a victim). The gang has to fight the goop monsters (well, Eleven fights them while the rest of them stand around and watch), and the season is broken into three teams- El/MIke/Max/Will/Lucas take on Billy and the pod people while Hopper and Joyce fight the Terminator and Steve/Dustin/Robin/Erica deal with the newly formed Russian underground base below the mall.

The Duffer Brothers tend to listen to fan and critical reaction, so no more mutants from Eleven’s solo episode last year (doubt we’ll ever see them again), and they repeat the fan favorite Steve/Dustin pairing to a second successful go round, this time adding in another fan favorite Erica (who to me is far more annoying than amusing, but whatever), and Maya Hawke’s Robin is a good addition too, also paired with Steve. In fact, I think Steve and Robin have the older teen roles locked down, so can we please get rid of Jonathan and Nancy now, Duffers? Really, their irrelevance is painful. Even split into groups, the teams are entertaining enough so that everyone gets something to do and no one feels pushed to the side or wasted. The finale presents a kind of cliffhanger involving Hopper, but it’s the sort of ending that has you wondering exactly how someone is returning rather than if (of the irrelevant characters on the show, Hopper is not one of them). All in all, it was a fun summer excursion for the Hawkins gang, and the show’s characters are now loved enough that the monster attacks they suffer have become secondary to simply seeing them again, which is how the series has managed to continue, maybe beyond its natural self life. And so I continue to enjoy them.

Grade: B+

The Dustin/Steve duo works once again, with new girl Robin joining in on the fun

Holly Hunter Joins New Season of HBO's 'Succession'

This is the best trailer yet for this new season and I’m actively looking forward to this show coming back now. Holly Hunter and Cherry Jones are always good additions to anything. I’m wondering if Succession will wrack up many Emmy nominations next week, as it kind of flew under the radar last summer, but hype increased towards the end of its run and in retrospect.

REVIEW: "Black Mirror" Season 5

After spending a lot of time on last year’s not entirely successful Bandersnatch interactive episode, Black Mirror is now back for its official fifth season, comprised of three episodes, none of which are much good, I’m sorry to say. Could Charlie Brooker simply be out of ideas? Maybe so.

Striking Vipers

Two friends fall for each other in VR

This is probably the best of the three, but it suffers from a problem that weaves itself through all of these episodes- it’s way too long and meandering. Oddly, I don’t remember this being an issue for most BM episodes in the past, so you have to wonder what happened this season. Anthony Mackie stars as a married man in a rut with his wife (Nicole Beharle), so he begins a sort-of affair with his best friend (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), but the catch is they’re only having sex as video game characters of the opposite gender in a new virtual reality game (different actors play them inside the game). The concept is amusing and it is kind of funny, but too much of the episode wanders from slow scenes of marital boredom that don’t go anywhere and leave little impact, feeling a tad directionless. The episode was an hour but it really didn’t need to be.

Grade: C

Smithereens

Andrew Scott loses it as a man on a mission

If the last one felt long, this one was a pointless epic, at a full 70 minutes. Andrew Scott plays a disillusioned man on a suicide quest to speak to Billy Bauer, a Mark Zuckerberg-esque CEO of a Facebook-type social media company called Smithereen. He takes a hostage and demands a call with the tech giant, who eventually turns out to be a perfectly cast Topher Grace in his best douchebag mode, the only amusing twist in this episode. But the point of this whole story and Scott’s tragic backstory is to relay the evils of social media and the monster it’s unleashed on society and how people relate to each other, which…is a point that’s been made a lot better in a lot of other mediums. Nothing new to see here. 

Grade: D

Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too

Shocking how awful this episode was

Hoo boy. This Miley Cyrus starring episode has the dubious claim to being the very worst Black Mirror entry I’ve ever seen. Suffering from the same issues of pacing and length (this one clocks in at 67 minutes), the twist finally arrives when the “Ashley Too” doll that resembles Eve from Wall-E comes to life in the arms of a fan of Cyrus’s unhappy pop star, complete with the full mind of her creator embedded inside of her. I think this was supposed to be funny, but it’s really, really not. The fan, Rachel, and her sister Jack, then have to go on a mission to save the real Ashley’s life when her controlling manager and aunt purposely places her in a coma to cement control of her career. This is kind of a like another Star is Born/Vox Lux, life of a tragic pop star tale, but every piece of this idea was catastrophically executed. It moves at a snail’s pace for the first 40 minutes, then turns into a teens-to-the-rescue mini-movie at the end, and the gimmick of the talking doll with Cyrus’s foulmouth is horrifically cringeworthy. What a disaster.

Grade: F

REVIEW: "When They See Us"

In 1989, five teenage boys were convicted of the rape and beating of Trisha Meili and each served 6-13 years in prison before being fully exonerated of the crime in 2002, after DNA evidence surfaced, along with a full confession from the actual rapist. This was known as the Central Park Jogger case, which turned into a highly publicized, racially charged trial that resulted in the human tragedy of five young lives being destroyed over a crime they did not commit. Ava Duvernay has now directed a four episode miniseries that recounts the events in uncompromising fashion, shining a new light on the men who can never get back what was taken from them.

The Central Park Jogger incident captured the media spotlight in the early 90s with a gripping urgency, as the crime committed against Trisha Meilly was so horrific as to demand immediate retribution from the public and the NYPD at the time, desperate to arrest literally anybody for the act. There was a Ken Burns documentary on the incident released in 2012 that unravels it in detail, but Duvernay’s miniseries is structured in four distinct parts- the arrests and confessions, the trial, the post-prison re-integration into society, and most harrowing of all, the final episode which presents unsparingly the prison sentence of Korey Wise, the only teenager of the five to have served in an adult maximum security prison at the age of 16.

Falsely accused with unimaginable consequences

Each episode is involving, absorbing and stunningly acted, but this is a show that will make you fiercely angry and you may find it hard to watch. The incompetent, haphazard investigation was led by Linda Fairstein (Felicity Huffman), who was determined to pin the crime on these young men who became known as the Central Park Five, and the NYPD coerced confessions from them by holding them in harsh conditions without adults for up to 48 hours. The case as presented in the trial had no physical or eyewitness evidence tying the boys to the assault and rested entirely on the confessions, which were on tape. The willful blindness, racial hatred and ignorance from those in power directed at those with none (four of the boys were black, one hispanic, all from working class families naive in how to navigate the legal system) makes for an infuriating sit as we witness the targeted corruption at work in every aspect of this flawed system. Duvernay doesn’t manipulate sentimentality and she doesn’t have to- the story and the events themselves, as they happened are enough to induce the kind of rage that few dramatizations can.

The last episode in particular nearly destroyed me. Jharrel Jerome, from Moonlight, plays Korey Wise, and is the only one of the cast not to change actors as the boys grow into adults, giving him the chance to portray Korey as he experiences the harsh, devastating reality of his time in maximum security facilities. Jerome gives an astonishing, devastating performance in what’s by far the most difficult role, conveying the depths of Korey’s traumatic every day life devoid of sympathy and affection or recognition, save from a sole guard played by Logan Marshall-Green, of his youth. This system did not see these boys as boys, which they were, or hardly even as humans. It is a haunting, relentless, unsparing look at a tragedy, which is hardly mitigated by the eventual exoneration or settlement, as the men can never reclaim what was lost to them (and are still accused by fiends like Donald Trump, who called for their execution at the time and refuses to admit their innocence to this day, along with the NYPD and Fairstein herself, who is finally, rightfully served up on the platter she belongs to the condemnation of history).

I found this show harrowing to watch, but crucial to experience. You may want to look away, but this show makes it hard for you to do so, as it was impossible for these men, who could not. We owe it to them to hear their story.

Grade: A

Jharell Jerome tears your heart out in the final episode as Korey Wise

Piper Moves On in Final Season Trailer for 'Orange is the New Black'

The last season of one of Netflix’s flagship original shows, Orange is the New Black, comes out on July 26th. I’ve always loved the show, even through its uneven seasons- to me it’s always been consistently entertaining and provocative, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s going out on top. Excited for it.

REVIEW: "Chernobyl"

Two miniseries that aired this spring, HBO’s Chernobyl and Netflix’s When They See Us offered bleak, devastating accounts of real life tragedies and the permanent consequences on human lives that followed, and both were harrowing, brutal and absolutely necessary to sit through.

The first, Chernobyl, recounted the 1986 explosion at the infamous nuclear power plant located in northern Ukraine, part of the former Soviet Union. The disaster was a catastrophe of epic proportions, resulting in mass deaths from radiation, both immediate and then slowly as a result of cancer diagnoses, the destruction of countless plant and animal life and the utter inhabitation of the area surrounding Chernobyl in perpetuity. The Soviet government never publicly acknowledged the truth of the disaster and as we see at the time, refused to face it even then. The five episodes recall the explosion itself in painstaking, heart-pounding detail and the horrifying results of the aftermath, as first responders troop unknowingly to their deaths, and government officials maddeningly refuse to to face the truth as it stares them in the face.

Coal miners face an unimaginable task

The show is not filmed with Russian actors but rather an all British cast and in English, yet it never strays from the Soviet point of view, even for an instant. Of course, we would not have gotten this series from Russians themselves, even today, as the entire point of the show is to relay the oppressive power of the party to suppress the truth at all costs. Early in the series an old-time party member shuts down genuine fear from lower level officials that the air around Chernobyl is “glowing” and they’re not being told the truth about the amount of radiation millions of people are being exposed to. “The party is always right,” is the old man’s entire statement, not arguing with the truth but denying it altogether, deciding to accept certain death rather than stray from the party line that what you’re seeing and hearing is not what’s happening (sound at all familiar?).

Jared Harris stars as a Soviet scientist and an old party man himself, but one who knows the reality of the danger, how ill-equipped the government is to handle it and what must be done to attempt to contain the damage, but together with colleagues Stellan Skarsgard and Emily Watson (a composite of many different scientists who tried to clean up after the explosion and find out what happened), they are targeted by the KGB and their efforts constrained in the end by the systemic failure of the regime to protect its people, only the party. Chernobyl plays out like a horror movie, not least because of the effects of the disaster and the resulting gruesome deaths of thousands of innocent people, but because of the haunting echoes of the dangers of systematically denying reality, of promoting the “big lie” at all costs and incurring a debt to the truth, as Harris notes from beyond the grave, that will always, always be paid eventually. The parallels to today are striking, sobering and panic inducing.

Grade: A

Facing the horror or radioactive doom

Final Trailer for 'Stranger Things' Shows Off a New Villain

This is the trailer that shows all the supernatural stuff coming up in the new season, but you can’t really tell what it is. Same old mystical force from the other dimension I guess? I do like the idea that it will possess the abusive stepbrother though. Also, I don’t see Winona Ryder in this trailer. Wonder what that’s about. The new season is out on July 4th.