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Category Archives: Television
Breaking Bad’s 10 Most Brilliant Schemes
Andrew joins Michael Roffman and Alex Huntsberger to celebrate the ingenuity of Vince Gilligan’s series by revisiting its greatest schemes.
Posted in Other Prestige Dramas, Television
Tagged Breaking Bad, Jesse Pinkman, Vince Gilligan, Walter White
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The Forgotten Arc of Breaking Bad’s Jesse Pinkman
The mild-mannered, middle-aged dad becomes a cold, remorseless killer. The put-upon chemistry teacher evolves into a vicious drug lord. As series creator Vince Gilligan famously put it, Mr. Chips turns into Scarface.
That transformation is the backbone of Breaking Bad and one of the most convincing and compelling character shifts in television history. With that, Walter White understandably takes up a lot of oxygen in discussions of the show. And yet, focusing on the slow, disquieting arrival of Heisenberg within the broader trajectory of the show ignores how it’s only one half of the grand irony and reversal at the core of the series.
Posted in Other Prestige Dramas, Television
Tagged Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad, Essays, Jesse Pinkman, Vince Gilligan, Walter White
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It’s Always Sunny Keeps Us Guessing In Its Record-Tying 14th Season
The Gang is back in action after one of their best and most ambitious seasons. As It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia ties The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet’s record for longest-running live action sitcom, it’s remarkable that the show is not only this good as it begins its fourteenth season, but how it’s managed to evolve and stay relevant. Season 14 doesn’t have the same cliffhanger to resolve or Dennis-shaped hole to fill like the last one did, but it does have to follow up last season’s jaw-dropping finale, which set a new bar for what It’s Always Sunny is capable of.
The Simpsons Is Born Again in “She of Little Faith”
Season 13 was a time of transition for The Simpsons. The show would burn off the last handful of episodes overseen by superfan punching bag, Mike Scully. Al Jean (who’d supervised seasons 3 and 4 with writing partner Mike Reiss) would return to take the reins after almost a decade away. And the show gradually shifted from its manic decline to its comfortable persistence. The result, as I’ve discussed before, was a season of television that called back to the classic era Jean had been a part of, that still found itself subject to some of the worst habits of the Scully administration, and that previewed the steady anodyne march of years that would possess the show for the next [gulp] two decades.
But as I discussed on The Simpsons Show Podcast, the opening episode of Jean’s second tour of duty, “She of Little Faith”, gave fans a glimmer of hope. Make no mistake, the episode still has some of the telltale signs of the prior regime’s failings. The pacing is a little nuts. There are some overly cartoony gags. And at times, there is still the undercurrent of meanness that hurried along the show’s fall from grace.
Veronica Mars Shows No Rust on Its Mystery Machine in Season 4
Veronica Mars is back and up to her old tricks! Five years after the events of the movie, Veronica’s settled in and made a new life for herself in Neptune. She’s working with her dad, living with Logan, and as the season’s cold open firmly establishes, she still knows her way around a locked door and a listening device.
But those skills are put to the test when a bomb at a seaside motel takes out a unique mix of libertine Spring Breakers and the exasperated people who serve them. The explosion’s victims include a standard party girl and a humble hotel owner, a lecherous douchebro and a nerd with dangerous family ties, as well as a true crime-loving pizza delivery man and the younger brother of a US congressman. From there, the season spins out its clues, connections, and potential motives with more than enough possibilities to fuel its central mystery.
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut Continues to Give and Point the Finger
Blame TV. Blame your parents. Blame movies. Blame society. Hell, blame Canada. But whatever you do, blame something, and quickly, before someone thinks of blaming you.
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut turns 20 this weekend, and for as much as the movie’s Saddam Hussein-heavy, Celine Dion-referencing take on the world is very much of its time, the film nevertheless captures the ways in which American culture would continue to take deeply entrenched, complex cultural problems, and hunt for convenient scapegoats and easy answers in the years to come. There is no issue too inflammatory, no societal malady too multifaceted, that it cannot be oversimplified and laid at the feet of a readily-available boogeyman.
Posted in Animated Films, Movies, Other Animated Shows
Tagged Film Reviews, Matt Stone, South Park, Trey Parker
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Veep’s Series Finale and the Hollowness of Getting What You Want
“What did it cost you?” “Everything.”
It’s undoubtedly silly to try to draw too sharp a line between Veep’s series finale and Avengers: Infinity War, But for those of us steeped in both, it’s also awfully hard to disaggregate them. Selina Meyer is not Thanos, despite their parallel, all-consuming quests and shared status as snappy dressers. Selina’s goal is much more one of direct personal ambition, in contrast to Thanos’s faux-altruistic aims (and hers has a much lower body count to boot). And yet the costs, at least in a spiritual sense, are the same.
Posted in Other Sitcoms, Television
Tagged Episode Reviews, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Politics, Veep
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Deadwood: The Movie Returns and Finally Forms a Fucking Government
It’s 1889, and South Dakota is soon to become the nation’s newest state. With that, the onetime hardscrabble camp of prospectors and cutthroats in Deadwood is being ushered into the future, grumbling but prepared. Picking up ten years after the television series left off, Deadwood: The Movie sees local luminaries like the saloon-owning power broker Al Swearengen and the now-Marshall Seth Bullock having settled into their roles in the town on the cusp of the dreaded-but-long-awaited arrival of law, civilization, and progress.
Game of Thrones Melts “The Iron Throne” and Viewers’ Hopes in Its Series Finale
King’s Landing is in cinders. Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, and Daenerys Targaryen survey their work, responding with shock, horror, and triumph as befits where each of them stands. Now the three of them, in their own way, must decide what the future looks like, and what part they might play in it. In its final hour, Game of Thrones wallows in the aftermath of its fullest and final culling of those who stood between “The Iron Throne” and its biggest contenders.
Game of Thrones Proves that War Is Hell But Endings Are Even Harder in “The Bells”
The prelude to the final battle simmers at Dragonstone. Daenerys Targaryen bears the weight of her grief, having lost everyone close to her and sensing betrayal in everyone left. She’s ready to take King’s Landing, to rule by fear where love falters, and to accomplish all of this by any means necessary. But before the march to war, Tyrion tries to quell his queen’s rage, hoping to allow her to enact her long-awaited conquest while urging her to let the innocent go free when the day is won.
