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Category Archives: Television
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Hive, Daisy, and the Show Itself Are Beautiful Accidents in “Failed Experiments”
Once they’ve been on the air long enough, most television shows start to become a little more reflective, a little more aware of their own histories, a little more apt to try to look back and tie everything together. With the release of Captain America: Civil War around the corner, and the increased viewership Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is likely to attract because of it, the folks behind the show are more inclined to try to make a statement, pull out all the stops, and demonstrate that their work stands equal with its cinematic brethren. So “Failed Experiments” presents the audience with a referendum on its protagonist, a referendum on S.H.I.E.L.D., and in some ways, a referendum on the series itself.
Game of Thrones: The Grand, if Scattershot Reintroduction of “The Red Woman”
Game of Thrones might be too familiar, too expansive, to have the same force it once did. When a show’s been on the air for five years, it’s harder for it to surprise you. The characters are well-established; you know most of the series’s tricks, and you also know a great deal about what the show’s good and bad at. Game of Thrones is good at a lot of things–humorous asides, daring rescues, and moving character moments–so that even when it’s simply chugging along, it’s still a very enjoyable show. But for a season premiere, “The Red Woman” was a bit underwhelming.
It wasn’t bad, mind you. There were plenty of exciting moments, surprising twists, and interesting developments. But there was little to make you sit up and take notice of a series at the height of its powers moving toward its end game, save for perhaps one scene.
Posted in Game of Thrones, Television
Tagged Alliser Thorne, Brienne of Tarth, Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, Davos Seaworth, Episode Reviews, Game of Thrones S06E01, Game of Thrones Season 6, Jamie Lannister, Melisandre, Podrick Payne, Sansa Stark, The Sand Snakes, Theon Greyjoy, Tyrion Lannister, Varys
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Bob’s Burgers: Bob Helps Tina Stay True to Herself in “The Hormone-iums”
There’s a scene in The Simpsons episode “Lisa’s Substitute” that I’ve always loved. In it, Lisa is smarting from the unexpected loss of her mentor, Homer had acted boorishly insensitive about it, and the two of them try to make peace after Lisa is clearly devastated at losing one male figure in her life who inspired her and not terribly pleased with the one she’s been left with.
Despite Homer’s clumsy attempts to start the conversation, a funny thing happens as the two of them find their groove. Homer admits, in a roundabout way, that he doesn’t really get Lisa. He admits, in a surprising bit of self-awareness from the Simpsons patriarch, that he is a pretty provincial guy. Homer realizes that his daughter is different and bright and has a future ahead of her that will take her to places he can’t even imagine. Despite that, he loves her, he supports her, and he wants that future for her, even if he’s not sure what he can do to help her get there. It gives the two of them a connection at an emotional level, even if Homer and Lisa may never connect on an intellectual level. There’s support even when there’s not understanding, and that means a great deal to a young woman struggling with what to do.
There’s a similar scene between Bob and Tina in “The Hormone-iums,” that stands out in a show that’s proved to be one of The Simpsons’s great inheritors. When Tina is struggling with whether to follow her dreams of becoming a soloist in the Hormone-iums (Wagstaff School’s preteen issues-based music group), despite the fact that it would cement her as the poster child for an idea she doesn’t believe in–that kissing is wrong and dangerous–Bob is there to listen. And like Homer, one of Bob’s trademark qualities (and the one that makes him a good dad even if he occasionally, by dint of narrative necessity, brings his kids along on some pretty dangerous adventures) is that he loves and supports his kids, even when he doesn’t really understand them.
Game of Thrones: The Different Sides of Empathy and Vengeance in the Season 5 Finale
Empathy can pull us in strange directions. When we see someone who has been wronged, we want justice for them. We want the people who have perpetrated that wrong to pay for their crimes. We share in the victim’s anger and root for their revenge. But show us someone suffering and we will empathize with them just as strongly. We pity the person in pain, and want their suffering to end.
What makes these impulses peculiar is that sometimes they conflict. Sometimes the person suffering is the same perpetrator of the original wrong, and yet we still feel for them in their anguish. Show us someone being broken, physically, mentally, or spiritually, and we cannot help but feel sorry for them, even if the ills they’re enduring are wholly deserved and well-earned.
Better Call Saul: The Greater Good and the Lines Crossed in “Klick”
Sometimes you have to cross a line. Sometimes you do everything right; you do everything exactly the way you think it ought to be done, and despite all that, you still lose. Your discipline, your good deeds, your extra effort to do the right thing even when it isn’t necessarily easy, only enabled the bad guys, only let them profit from their bad behavior. So you have to make compromises. You have to break some of those same rules. You have to sully yourself by playing their game. You have to be like the bad guys to beat the bad guys, for the greater good.
These are the thoughts that motivate Mike Ehrmantraut as he wraps his hands around the rifle he’d previously shied away from. But they’re the same thoughts going through Chuck McGill’s head as he tricks his brother into incriminating himself on tape.
Posted in Better Call Saul, Television
Tagged Better Call Saul Season 2, Chuck McGill, Episode Reviews, Mike Ehrmantraut, Saul Goodman
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Better Call Saul: The Thematic Connection Between Jimmy and Mike in “Nailed”
I’ve heard gripes from some people who like Better Call Saul, but think that it can sometimes feel like two different shows hot-glued together. There’s something to the thought. Season 2 has featured one storyline focused on Jimmy’s trials and travails with Kim and Chuck as he struggles to fit into his new surroundings, and another centered on Mike getting mixed up with Salamancas. While the leads of those stories may bump into one another from time to time, there’s not a strong plot-based connection between the two arcs.
Despite that, in episodes like “Nailed,” there’s a strong thematic connection between them that helps to solidify Better Call Saul as one unified show. In the episode, both Jimmy and Mike have pulled a con of sorts, in the hopes of protecting someone they care about, in a way that also directly benefits them. Jimmy’s adventures at the copy center in “Fifi” leads to Kim winning Mesa Verde back as a client, but it also helps ensure that Jimmy doesn’t have to carry her half of their shared expenses. By the same token, Mike’s makeshift road hazard is intended to draw the cops’ attention to Hector Salamanca, thus keeping him too otherwise occupied to threaten Mike’s family again, but it also leads to Mike pocketing a nice quarter-mil for his troubles.
Better Call Saul: What’s Motivating Jimmy McGill in “Fifi”?
Better Call Saul, like its forebear, is full of impressive, creative sequences. Whether it’s last week’s inflatable-man montage, or Kim’s cold-calling routine in “Rebecca”, or the breadstick snaps that convey Jimmy’s unease after his run-in with Tuco, the show isn’t shy about using the various tricks in its visual toolbox to propel the show’s narrative forward. “Fifi” offers two of these sequences, and the two serve distinct, but no less important, purposes.
Posted in Better Call Saul, Television
Tagged Better Call Saul Season 2, Episode Reviews, Kim Wexler, Mike Ehrmantraut, Saul Goodman
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The Walking Dead: An Endless Series of Middles in “Last Day on Earth”
One of the interesting things about The Walking Dead under showrunner Scott Gimple’s influence is that it has, more or less, eschewed the traditional narrative structure for a season of television. The storyline of the prison and The Governor seemed to be building to a finale at the end of Season 3, but then it didn’t really end until several episodes into Season 4. Afterward, the show embarked on its Wandering in the Wilderness/Terminus storyline that stretched from roughly the midpoint of Season 4 until the beginning of the Alexandria storyline in Season 5. Then that plotline, about our heroes discovering a new community and gradually integrating into it, reached its natural conclusion with this year’s mid-season premiere, where the Rick’s group and the town came together to defeat the zombies at the gates as a whole. Only then, did the current arc begin in earnest.
Which is to say that as Season 6 draws to a close, we’re not at either the end or the beginning of the Negan storyline; we’re in the middle. That’s admittedly a little strange. It’s a departure from the annual Big Bad structure that Buffy the Vampire Slayer established and many other shows adopted. And it’s even distinct from the trend started by The Wire and The Sopranos, where the real fireworks happen in the penultimate episode of a season, with the finale reserved for aftermath and reflection.
Better Call Saul: The Little Touches that Make a Big Difference in “Inflatable”
What I love about Better Call Saul are the little things, the subtle touches that communicate something powerful about who a character is or what they’re thinking in a clear but artful way. When Jimmy returns to his nail salon beginnings and goes to record his voicemail, he starts off with his faux-British secretary routine. Then he stops and tries it again in his regular speaking voice, not as James M. McGill Esquire, but as Jimmy McGill, attorney at law. It’s a small distinction, but a big difference, and that’s the quiet ethos of the show on display in “Inflatable”.
The Walking Dead: The Circle of Life and Death in “East”
“East” is about cycles, about chain reactions, and the way that decisions big and small come back to us in one form or another. Morgan says it himself — it’s all a circle. But whether that circle is good or bad, whether you get out of it what you put into it, remains to be seen in the world of The Walking Dead.
To Morgan’s mind, that reciprocity or karma or whatever you want to call it, can be a force for good. He decides to spare The Wolf, and to Morgan, that decision not only leads to The Wolf deciding to help to save Denise (which allowed her to save Carl), but it also led to Morgan’s philosophy trickling down to Carol, making Alexandria’s most hardened warrior so uncomfortable with the act of killing that she leaves the community so that she need not risk having to hurt anyone else.
And yet Daryl faces the mirror image of that series of events and sees a very different result. He chooses to spare Dwight, and to Daryl, that makes him responsible both for Denise’s death at Dwight’s hands, and also for the message that it sent to Carol, who had to help him bury yet another innocent person in these harsh environs, and possibly served as the final straw that drove his dear friend away. Both men made the same kind of choice, but interpret the consequences of those choices very differently.
