Burn Notice: Question And Answer

Michael Westen meets a new recurring foe this week, Detective Paxson, a cop with her eye on Michael in the worst sense-a “stalker with a badge.” I guess she’s noticed that since Michael returned to Miami, things have been blowing up more than usual. She hauls him down to police headquarters-where Michael already had a lovely stay last week-and asks him the usual probing questions with a sultry tone that only bombshell tv cops have. It seems she will serve a similar function to last season’s Jason Bly. She’s particularly interested in a storage unit that she saw Michael stashing stuff in via surveillance video.

That stuff is actually a little stockpile of C-4, which Michael now has to smuggle out before Paxson gets a warrant to search the unit. I don’t quite get what her deal is. Yes, Michael’s name is back on file now that the people who burned him have stopped blocking it. But wouldn’t it just come up that Michael was once in the employ of the CIA? And wouldn’t most of the details still be blocked from cops unless they got some kind of high clearance? Michael has been doing nothing but helping people while trying to figure out who burned him and why. Is he really someone the cops should be going after?

Anyway, after his stint in the slammer, Fiona picks Michael up and asks him to help her with a gig that was referred to her through one of her bounty hunter cronies. It seems some woman has an estranged husband who has been hiding their young son from her. Michael reluctantly agrees after being persuaded by Fiona and her throwing knives.

Michael and Fiona head over to the deadbeat dad’s house and find him sneaking out. Michael flags him down with the car. Here the plot thickens, as they say. It turns out that Howard, the dad, has been avoiding his estranged wife so that she wouldn’t call the cops because the kid has been kidnapped. I hate it when that happens.

The kidnapper is an angry dude named Santora, who is using the kid as leverage against Howard. Howard works for a diamond wholesaler and Santora wants information about an upcoming shipment that he intends to rip off.  He meets with Howard and starts beating the crap out of him. Michael and Fiona don’t make a move because they know that Santora is testing them, making sure Howard didn’t bring anyone to come to his rescue. Their priority is to discover the location where Howard is stashing the kid. When asked why they didn’t torture Santora to get the information, Michael explained that if you torture someone, they’ll say anything just to make it stop. They might not tell the truth. So Michael suggests a tactic I never heard of called reverse interrogation.

That involves giving yourself up to the enemy and being interrogated yourself, the theory being that you can learn a great deal by paying attention to what questions your enemy asks of you and what he’s worried about. Michael agrees to be the guinea pig in this particular scenario, pretending to be a criminal. Sam poses as a crooked cop and goes to Santora saying that he heard that Michael’s criminal plans to rip Santora off, and for a couple of thousand bucks, he’ll let Santora interrogate him before he brings him into the station. It works. The downside is that Michael has to be tied to a chair while Sam beats him up to preserve the cover while Santora asks his questions.

The highlight of the episode is watching this whole bit unfold, as Michael and Sam work this guy to figure out where the kid is stashed and turn his own people against him. From there we get a little car chase, some gunplay, and a darkly satisfying street justice ending to Santora. Of course that still leaves Michael’s storage unit problem. Oh yeah, and it’s his birthday, and Madeline has guilted him into coming over to the house for a little party. And she’s cooking…yikes.

Burn Notice is never less than fun and almost effortlessly entertaining, but I haven’t been wowed by either of these first two episodes of the third season. It has felt a little tame, a little too routine. I’m sure though that the season will kick into high gear soon enough, and the cast is still as appealing as ever.

Season 3, Episode 2: Question And Answer (originally aired June 11, 2009)

For more on Burn Notice, click here.

Thursdays at 10/9c on USA

Photographs courtesy of Glenn Watson, NBC Universal, and USA

Rescue Me: Dirty Little Secrets

This week on Rescue Me, more of the same! Not much happens, and individual stories make little progress. It’s a good thing these characters are so entertaining, otherwise I’d be bored out of my skull by now. The writers of Lost should really pay attention.

And so! Tommy’s still drinking, but instead of trying to hide it from the crew, Sheila convinces him to fess up – the boys will stay on him and keep him sober while on the job. However, obviously, not everyone should know. What follows is a mostly funny scene between Tommy and his team, where Tommy tries to make it clear who should know about his “I can control my alcoholism” alcoholism (Shelia, Janet, the crew minus Needles) and who shouldn’t know (Damien, Derek, cousin Mickey and Colleen). It’s a nice “Who’s on first?” riff, except that Sean Garrity’s supposed to be the airhead, and he’s not in this scene. So I don’t quite buy that these guys a) aren’t smart enough to understand the concept of selective lying; and b) don’t know how to lie. Because a short while later, Mike and Black Shawn turn into deer-in-the-headlight idiots, can’t fib very well, and tip off a visiting Mickey that Tommy’s drinking again. Funny, but not very plausible.

On the Damien front, Tommy softens up on his nephew while again telling Mike to drop Damien from the band (as of now, still called Hot Lunch). I feel there should be a movie reference here about parents who don’t let their kids join a garage band because it wastes their time and their minds, but music is all the kids can think about and they’ll just die if they can’t play. And then at the end, after the final performance at the prom or battle of the bands, when a random concert promoter shows up and offers the kids a record deal, the parents realize, after all, that singing and being in a band isn’t so bad, and all they ever wanted was for their kid to be happy.

I can’t place the movie, but it probably came out in the ’80s, and the best I can do is Footloose. Because how can you not let kids dance?

Anyway. Mike tells Tommy he won’t drop Damien (even though Mike’s a little miffed when Damien comes up with better musical ideas than he does), and invites Tommy to practice so he can see just how great they all are. The band’s pretty good, Damien’s even better, and color Tommy impressed. He gives them his blessing.

Also handing out blessings is little Damien, because he’s no fool and realizes that Sheila and Tommy are sleeping together. And good for them, he says! Tommy and Sheila deny it, until Damien catches them in bed together (ew). Sheila also gives Tommy her blessing to drink during their conjugal visits, but just to clarify, he’s not allowed to get drunk. Oooooooooh. So she’s not really an enabler, right? She’s helping with his control?

In other news, Uncle Teddy helps a dying vet – he once again refuses to kill the man, but offers to find the dying vet’s son. The two haven’t spoken in twenty-five years, because the son married an Asian woman. Instead of the teary-eyed, heartfelt reunion Teddy thought he arranged, the dying vet lets loose some racist comments about his son’s wife, and the younger man departs in anger. But at least the vet is happy, and that’s what volunteering at a VA hospital is all about, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, Franco steps into the ring for a friendly and knocks out his opponent within minutes. When an old man takes you out, you need to step up your game quick. The good news: maybe this storyline will lead somewhere now. Also, the well-developed (and I don’t mean character-wise) women of Rescue Me turn it up a notch with the return of Candy, the hooker who stole Lou’s money way back when. She’s a new person and has come to beg for forgiveness. Or something. Lou rattles off a few very nice insults (I was impressed) and doesn’t give her the time of day. Even in her high heels and low cut yellow dress.

Finally, we have cancer-stricken Sean Garrity, whose mother and brother have arrived to provide comfort during his surgery. Well, his mom, anyway, because brother Terrence thinks cancer is no worse than a chest cold. Sean, though not the best son, just wants his mother near him. And that I can understand. I had a tooth pulled and my mom traveled across three states to take care of me. Don’t judge me, America. I’m just saying, I can relate. After several arguments/exchanges amongst Sean, Mom, and Terrence, we see clearly that Mom babies Terrence (probably enjoying that he needs her so much) and Terrence is likely jealous of Sean’s play for attention. Sean finally finds his mother alone and confesses how much her presence means to him, and how scared he is. She in turn confesses, casually, that she once had breast cancer, but her surgery was successful, and so shall his be. It’s a nice moment that brings them closer, even with Terrence not far away. When this show gets things right, it really gets things right.

Like this episode’s close. Tommy leaves the aforementioned band practice after having one drink. Just one, so that he can prove to Mike and Damien that he controls his drinking, not the other way around. However, on the way home, he can’t resist stopping at a bar for another. And when he’s home, he tries to sleep, but the allure of the bottle proves too strong, and he has one more. But that’s it. Except now he can’t sleep, because he knows the bottle is there.

It’s a well-done moment, where you can actually feel an alcoholic’s need.

As for the rest of this episode, it’s going to pain us all if I keep mentioning how often this show reminds me of other movies and television programs. At least here, they make the borrowed storylines and characterizations entertaining, but the bit with Uncle Teddy and the eventual resolution between Sean and his mother were extremely predictable, and therefore, a little tiring. Still, I’m interested to see where the greater story arcs head, so the writers have that strength going for them. However, I’m not holding out hope that the women on the show turn into anything other than sexpots.

Next week: Sex, AA and cancer!

Season 5, Episode 10: Control (originally aired June 9, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Cameron Cubbison’s review here.

Listen to The J Factor with J.B. and Jaimie here or on iTunes.

For more on Rescue Me, click here.

Tuesdays at 10pm on FX

Photographs courtesy of FX and IMDbPro

Rescue Me: Control

I suppose the title of this week’s episode is meant to be more than a little ironic. Tommy has started drinking again, and he’s in control about as much as a rabid monkey driving a tanker trunk backwards down a one-way street. Janet, Sheila, Lou and Mike already know about it. Tommy has to keep it under wraps before it becomes a problem. Toward that end, he takes a curious tactic: he openly tells all of the guys that he has started drinking again. He insists he is in control, and while the move was ballsy, it’s not necessarily stupid. Everyone probably would have found out anyway, so if he’s the one to tell them and make it seem like it’s not a big deal, maybe it won’t be. But then again, knowing Tommy, the whole thing will probably explode like the fire that begins the episode.

The boys are working a scene, and Mike and Tommy are forced to work together. Neither one of them is very excited about this because, as you’ll recall, last week they tried to beat the crap out of each other. Life has a perverse way of bringing people together unexpectedly at bad times. Or at least life on Rescue Me does. Either way, Mike and Tommy get trapped in the basement of the blazing apartment building they’re working when an 8000 lb. safe a resident has falls through the floor four stories down and blocks the door. And there is smoke. And fire. And Mike forgot to change their oxygen tanks on the last job so they have no air. I guess if you’re going to die, you might as well die with someone you love. Or not. Luckily, Lou and the guys come to the rescue just in time.

Of course, since Mike almost got the two of them killed thanks to  sheer stupidity, now Tommy has leverage on Mike to cancel out the leverage Mike got last week when he found out Tommy was drinking. Of course, like I said, Tommy chooses to demolish that leverage by telling all the guys about his drinking anyway. He tells them though that they can’t tell Colleen or Needles or Feinberg or his cousin/AA sponsor Mickey. How long do you think it will be before Mike and Black Shawn mess that up? You’re right, not long.

And it’s a giant week for Lou this week, because Candy comes back! That’s right, Candy, the prostitute who Lou fell in love with in season two. He loved her so much that he even gave her all of his life savings so she could pay off her pimp and get out of the sex racket. Except then he realized that she was scamming him out of his money, along with a whole line of other poor saps. My jaw dropped when I saw her return.

For years I had dreamed of Lou somehow tracking her down and knocking the bejesus out of her. Hey look, I know it’s a big taboo to hit women, but when you’re dealing with an evil, impossibly cruel succubus from hell, I think you ought to be able to make an exception. The same thing goes for Ellen DeGeneres. But regardless, Lou just manages to hold onto his control (there’s that title again!) when she shows up at the firehouse out of the clear blue looking for some kind of forgiveness. He doesn’t kill her, but he does refuse to see her. I don’t know if she’s going to play a continuing role throughout the season, but it sure was a shock to see her again.

Sean continues to secretly battle his kidney cancer, and his obnoxious family. We only see him at home in this episode, not at work, which I thought was a little weird. It’s not like he would have asked for time off, because he doesn’t want anyone to know about it in the first place. There’s no Janet this week (woo hoo!), or Feinberg. We get to see a little more of Sheila using sex as a weapon to protect Damian, Franco has his first match in the ring, and Teddy and Maggie continue to work their rounds at the VA hospitals. And no ghosts. That’s about it for now. The latter half of the episode doesn’t quite have the wallop of the first half, but then again, Rescue Me has more quality material in half an episode than many shows do in a whole season.

Season 5, Episode 10: Control (originally aired June 9, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Dirty Little Secrets by Jaimie Campos.

For more on Rescue Me, click here.

Tuesdays at 10pm on FX

Photographs courtesy of FX and IMDbPro

Nurse Jackie: Torn Up From the Floor Up

In this premiere episode of Nurse Jackie, we meet Edie Falco as titular Nurse Jackie.  Jackie is a no nonsense type of gal around the hospital.  She calls out hot shot new doctors like Dr. Fitch Cooper (Peter Facinelli), who have a nervous tick of grabbing breasts and letting a bike messenger die over Jackie’s sound medical judgment.  She’s also a prescription drug abuser and has an ongoing sexual fling with the hospital pharmacist, Eddie, in exchange for drugs, MoonPies, and Dr. Pepper.  She’s facially apathetic but, thanks to her regular drug use, is high strung and cares deeply about her patients (i.e., a drug whore with a heart of gold).

We see this empathy in her flushing down the toilet the severed ear of a patient with diplomatic immunity, who attacked a more sympathetic patient.  She then steals money from the diplomat and gives it to the baby mama of the bike messenger.  That’s Jackie’s justice, and that’s how she rolls.

When she’s not doing all of the above, she unwinds on a church pew wondering what side dish goes with John the Baptist’s head.  Now here I thought everyone knew that, just like waffles, there are to be no side dishes to that meal.  Oh well!  After a stressful day, Jackie heads home to her two daughters and her . . . husband, who she keeps as a secret from everyone at work.

So I was bored to tears watching this episode.  The only interesting part came at the end when we learned of Jackie’s sort-of double life between work and home.  Of course this only became interesting because of the lengthy previews for the rest of the season.  If only everything in the previous 30 minutes had been that seamless and well-written.  Unfortunately, the best the dialogue could achieve was gratuitous profanity.  On the plus side, though, the cinematography of Jackie snorting drugs is pretty cool.  So they’ve got that going for them.

At this point and only because of the previews, I’d recommend giving this show one more week.  Otherwise, let’s spend our time lobbying to get Ms. Falco back on 30 Rock.

Season 1, Episode 1: Pilot (originally aired June 8, 2009)

Listen to The J Factor with J.B. and Jaimie here or on iTunes.

For more on Nurse Jackie, click here.

Mondays at 10:30pm ET/PT on Showtime

Photograph courtesy of Showtime, Ken Regan

The Fashion Show: Shape Shifters

Gather round, my friends.  It’s time for The Fashion Show.  I have to give minor props because last week was almost passably entertaining.  Let’s hope that it was the start of a trend.

Reco starts off saying that Lidia should have gone home over Andrew because “her craftsmanship was the absolute fool!”  I sort of enjoy that statement, and I think I will begin incorporating it into my everyday life.  “That opening statement was the absolute fool!”  “These babyback ribs are the absolute fool!”  Look for it!

Laura Brown comes out for the Harper’s Bazaar mini challenge, and Isaac rambles on about attention to detail.  He talks about this hella pleated dress he showed at fashion week for Fall 2009, but – surprise! – the contestants have to sketch the dress that Kelly is wearing, not Isaac’s Fall 2009 gown.  How freaking dumb.  DUMB!  I don’t even care.  The winner – it ended up being Daniella – will get a big time advantage for the elimination challenge.  Why?  Why does this challenge warrant a big time advantage?  The big time advantage ends up being that Daniella gets to select one of the bottom three in the elimination challenge.  Ok, this reinforces my initial frustration with this challenge.  Why is such a giant advantage provided to such a non-design related mini challenge?  This show is so dumb.  I hate it.

The designers all go to New York Model Management, and they find out that the office staff will be the “real women” working at the desks.  Then it starts.  Big Bertha complains.  James-Paul says that this will be the death of him; he says, “it’s like asking Jesus Christ to work with Satan.”  He says that the women are all “normal,” and so he “shuns” them.  Really?  REALLY?  It’s that bad?!?!?  THESE WOMEN ARE NOWHERE CLOSE TO OBESE!  They are better-than-average women who are all uniformly beautiful.  These mofo contestants are the WORST.  James-Paul has horrible skin, a speech impediment, and a pathetic attempt at a soul patch.  He looks like a homeless person.  And he shuns these women?!?!?  I hate every single one of their worthless asses.  Except Reco because he didn’t make such a fuss because he designs for both his aunt and sister who are plus sized.

The first question Merlin asks his model, a beautiful curvy Middle Eastern woman, is, “What is the thing that bothers you most about your body?”  Because, as a real woman, she has so many that you lose count.  He is no longer my favorite.

Daniella says that she is not inspired by her model.  She says that even her personality is uninspiring.  Probably because she’s a big fat slob, right Daniella?  Fatties are repulsive in every possible way, including personality, right Daniella?  Her model is so not even fat.  NOT FAT AT ALL.

Back in the workroom, Haven and Daniella (again) are arguing about whose model has the biggest ass.  Then, Daniella starts crying – CRYING – because she has to design for a real woman.  I loathe these people.  I’m wearing out my thesaurus looking for synonyms for hate.

Kelly and Isaac come into the room for their meet and greet.  Keith is going to make his flat chested model look curvy by cinching in the waist.  Other people are doing things that I could not care less about.  Daniella says that it is difficult to work with her model because she’s bigger all over than anyone Daniella has ever worked with.  I hate her with the fire of ten thousand suns.  Isaac accuses her of being “size-ist” with her approach.  That’s about the nicest thing anyone could say to her.

Later, Daniella does an impression of Merlin that might be amusing were she not such a reprehensible and repulsive human being.

Let’s just fast forward to the actual fashion show.  The audience has some people in it that I never heard of.  When the models are getting dressed, we see that Keith’s dress has a huge bust that does not fit his flat chested model, and Merlin’s model’s ass almost did not fit in the dress.   Off we go!

Keith has done a red strapless cocktail dress with a black sash around the middle.  The fit of the bust is atrocious, like there is a cavernous gap between her gown and her flesh.  And because the fit is so bad up top, it ends up emphasizing the flatness of her chest instead of disguising it.  There’s also something strange going on with the front of the dress, like it was intended to be a wrap dress, but it’s more of a crap dress.

Big Bertha has designed a drag queen dress for his model.  It is basically a little black dress with a colored insert in the middle in an hourglass shape.  It is something Rebecca Glasscock would have worn on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Anna did a short black dress as well, but hers has a blue cross in the center with radiating darker shades that fade into black.  It’s a pretty smart idea because it keeps your eyes focused on the center, distracting you from her width.  Her shoulders look really wide, though, because Anna put some epaulettes on them.  Not digging those.

Daniella has dressed her model to look like Mamie Eisenhower.

Haven’s model is wearing a hot pink dress with black and white striped accents, most noticeably an enormous belt.  All in all, it ain’t bad.

James-Paul’s model comes out, and he is such a jackass for doing this to her.  Her problem was large shoulders, and he has done nothing but exaggerate it all.  She has on an ivory wrap top with a black skirt.  The top has GINORMOUS shoulders to it, along with a large collar.  Awful.  In the voiceover, he manages to say that it’s her fault that he did a crappy job.  Shameful.

Lidia’s model is wearing a black, halter neck dress with a pink underlay.  Fern Mallis likes it, but I think it’s boring.

Merlin’s model comes out in the most hideous thing ever.  It is a red and tan satin dress with a double-breasted houndstooth coat over it.  The coat is ENORMOUSLY wide, making her look like she plays for the D.C. Divas. The dress underneath is incredibly tight over her stomach.  It could not be less flattering, especially in profile.

Angel’s model is in a purple gown.  The shoulders are kind of askew – one on and one off.  The fit of it is gross, like a purple sausage.

Reco’s model looks great.  She has on a grey matching skirt and vest with piping over the seams.  The piping makes her look so trim and cute.  Underneath, she has on a ruffled blouse.  A+ for Reco.

(I still cannot believe that there are ten contestants left.  This show will never end.)

In judging, Isaac tells the designers that they appeared not to understand what they were doing.  The top two designs are Reco’s and Daniella’s.  DANIELLA’S?!  Give me a break.  This is such bull.  Have I mentioned that I hate this show?  My hate grows exponentially when Daniella is selected as the winner.

Because she won the mini challenge, Daniella now gets to make her pick for worst design of the week.  She surprises everyone by not choosing Merlin; instead, she selects Angel.  She says that she picked Angel because the construction was so poor and because the dress did not disguise the areas that the model was most concerned about.  The other two in the bottom three are Keith and Merlin.  Merlin’s model can barely walk out because the dress is so tight, and the judges point out her pooch.  During the interviews, it is clear that Keith’s model despises her dress, even though she tries to be diplomatic about it.

The judges end up eliminating Keith.  His dress was lame.  I understand why they did it.  I just wish he would take four others with him.  This show is also lame.  It would be so much better with Isaac mentoring a group of up and coming designers instead of this garbage.

I really cannot believe how insulting this episode was.  I cannot believe that these fame-whoring idiots sit around and moan about being repulsed to work with “real women,” real women who were all uniformly the antithesis of repulsive.  Pathetic.

Season 1, Episode 5: Shape Shifters (originally aired June 4, 2009)

For more on The Fashion Show, click here.

Thursdays at 10/9c on Bravo

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Virginia Sherwood

Pushing Daisies: Dumbstruck By Love

In this the penultimate episode of Pushing Daisies, we learn more about Emerson’s involuntary estranged relationship with his daughter, Penny, when his baby mama, Lila Robinson (played by the always-ass-kicking Gina Torres of Alias and Firefly), shows up in town and is accused of murdering Rollie Stingwell, owner of the Papen County Water Company.  The facts were these:

Lila Robinson returned to town to return money to Stingwell she received years ago so she’d leave town.  Formerly a con-artist, Lila turned a new leaf.  She enlists the help of her ex-lover, Emerson, to help clear her name.  In exchange, he wants to see Penny after all of these years.  With the help of Ned and Chuck (and some misdirection from Mennonite lawyers and a conspiracy-obsessed secretary), Emerson figures out that the real culprit is flower farmer, Michael Brunt, who stood to lose a lot of money by the pipe replacement system Stingwell was installing under Brunt’s property.  So Brunt killed Stingwell and framed Lila, who he knew had visited Stingwell earlier that day.

In the end, Lila pulls a fast one on Emerson and he does not get to stay with his daughter, learning once again that love (and Emerson’s big heart) makes you do stupid things.  On that note, Olive is on again-off again with Randy Mann throughout the episode; after an intense kiss she realizes she wants more from him than just a quick fling to help get over Ned.  Go Olive!

Again we experience the brilliant storytelling and emotional development of our characters.  And again I am reminded that they will be gone (at least from my television in one week).  Sad.

Next week: The series finale focuses on Vivian and Lily Charles.

Season 2, Episode 12: Water & Power (originally aired June 6, 2009)

Listen to The J Factor with J.B. and Jaimie here or on iTunes.

For more on Pushing Daisies, click here.

Saturdays at 10/9c on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC and IMDbPro

Kings: In Memoriam

Technically, Kings has not been cancelled, per se. NBC simply declined to order a second season.

But there’s no need to stand on principle here. We all know how it works. Kings has been dead in the water ever since they stopped airing it on Saturdays. Or maybe it was the move from Sunday to Saturday in the first place that did it. Although, to be totally honest, Kings hasn’t stood a chance ever since those awful series premiere ratings came in. Which was itself probably due to NBC’s failure to adequately promote the show. Or it might have been because the show was too unusual conceptually to make it easy to promote. These things, they go in circles.

But regardless of where the blame lies, it’s very sad that Kings will soon be no more, because it was (and still is) an excellent show. And, perhaps more importantly, it was a show that wanted so badly to succeed. It was the Hillary Clinton of network dramas, capping off that multi-million-dollar two-hour pilot with its title character striding across that metaphorical-on-at-least-three-levels battlefield, a blood-stained sheet in his hand, crying out (to paraphrase) “Look at me! Vote for me! I might not be everything you want right now but gosh darn it I WILL DO ANYTHING IT TAKES TO MAKE YOU LOVE ME.”

And it worked. On me, if no one else. I was hooked from the opening scenes. From the premise, really.

Kings, created by Heroes writer Michael Green, is set in an alternate universe, in the New York-like capital of a United States-like nation, where the biblical story of Kings Saul and David is currently being played out. And maybe that was the problem right there. How many of us really know King David’s story well enough to follow a retelling? I logged countless hours in Sunday school over the years, but even so, aside from the Goliath thing and the are-they-or-aren’t-they deal with David and Jonathan (which was never mentioned in my Sunday school classes, oddly enough), I found myself having to spend quite a bit of time scrolling through verses from 1 Samuel on my favorite online Bible site in order to really follow Kings’ allegory. And I realize that not everyone is into having to reread the King James in order to properly enjoy their primetime soaps. Plus, apparently, the NBC promo people didn’t want anyone to know that the show was about the biblical King David. Which is interesting, since the show is called Kings, the protagonist is named David, and the pilot episode is titled “Goliath.” You don’t have to be up on your Bible Studies coursework to get that particular reference.

And now, for whatever reason, the show’s no more. It was moved from Thursday to Sunday, then from Sunday to Saturday, then from Saturdays in spring to Saturdays in summer. The burnoff of the seven remaining episodes will commence this weekend. Pickup by another network seems highly unlikely, so we can only hope that Kings will have a long life on DVD – and that there are promising new writers out there watching Kings and taking notes for their own conceptually groundbreaking pilots.

Or we could just give up and watch Southland.

(Whenever I start to think about this too much, it takes all my willpower to keep me from going off on a My So-Called Life rant. (Well, my willpower and the fact that what happened there was more likely Claire Danes’ fault. All those angry letters I sent off to ABC when I was 15, and for what? For the friggin’ Mod Squad? You hurt me, Danes, you really hurt me.) (And also, while Kings is undoubtedly an excellent show, MSCL it is not.))

Anyway. Warning: Spoilers for Kings‘ first six episodes follow.

As aforementioned, the show is allegorical, and most of the characters have direct biblical parallels. The main character in the first (and only) season is King Silas. He’s our biblical King Saul – you know, the guy God used to be behind before he decided he liked David better. Silas has a wife, a son, and a daughter, and the four of them are the royal family of our alternate reality nation of Gilboa. They’re an odd mix of biblical-style rulers (the crown prince is a military officer who’s actually sent into hardcore battle situations), mid-twentieth-century-style dictators (Silas will hear petitions from the common folk, if he feels like it and/or he thinks it’ll be good PR, but his decisions are law so don’t mess with him), and twenty-first-century-style British royalty (the paparazzi happily reports on every nightclub opening the prince and princess make their way to). Meanwhile, we have a prophet-type-dude, an African-American (uh, African-Gilboan?) pastor who parallels the prophet Samuel. And then of course we have David Shepherd (seriously, that’s the character’s name), a lowly soldier who’s been implicitly chosen by God and/or Reverend Samuels to succeed Silas in ruling the kingdom. About which Silas, and everyone else, has understandably mixed feelings.

The show stars a bunch of people no one’s ever heard of and Ian McShane, who starred on the “beloved and critically acclaimed HBO series Deadwood,”  as it has been referred to every time I have ever seen it mentioned, although I don’t know anyone who has ever seen an episode of Deadwood. The Kings cast is universally quite good, although I’ve never been particularly overwhelmed by any of them except McShane and occasionally Marlyne Afflack, who plays Thomasina, King Silas’ valet/bodyguard/all-around-kick-ass-chick-sidekick. But that’s partly because Kings is one of those shows where the writing and directing take center stage. It’s a show that has gorgeous sets and lots of symbolic CGI butterflies, and where divine intervention is a frequent plot device.

And really, I’m surprised that the alternate universe itself wasn’t enough to draw more people into the show. Gilboa has paparazzi, but it also has unilateral government censorship (the result: only the tabloid stories about the royal family that King Silas wants to get out there get published. So the gay Prince Jack is still successfully closeted, but when David hooks up with a girl who isn’t his biblically-intended Princess Michelle, the whole world sees it on the front page the next morning. And when the TV anchors refer to Silas as “a king beloved by his people,” you honestly don’t know if she’s telling the truth or if she’s reading from a script written by Silas himself. Or both.) In Gilboa, there are churches, and clergy, and much is made of God, but no religion is specifically named, and certainly no alternative religions are referenced. Race and gender aren’t discussed, but the country’s real leaders are all white men. And there are all these mysterious evil yet multi-dimensional corporate dudes lurking around in the background.

And yet, with all this going on, it’s still an effective soap opera. The characters are compelling enough, and the stories just over-the-top enough, to keep you hooked. There’s the heartbreaking saga of Silas and his mistress and illegitimate son, whom he abandoned after making a deal with God (or so he thinks). There’s the bizarre Jack-wants-to-rule-the-world-except-Jack-is-way-too-lame-to-pull-it-off-so-instead-he-just-drinks-a-lot subplot, which seems to settle the were-they-or-weren’t-they David/Jonathan question (David is apparently straight; Jack/Jonathan is gay, but not interested in David, at least not yet – and, since there are only seven episodes left, I’m guessing not ever). People keep telling Jack he can’t be king and be gay, too, so Jack responds by dumping his boyfriend and beating up some other dude, only to start hooking up with his driver, because hey, what do you do. And then in the last episode before the hiatus we found out that Jack and Michelle are twins, and she’s four minutes older, but she can’t have kids and/or is promised to someone else, and Jack is afraid David and Michelle will get married and become king and queen and Jack will be left crying into his appletini. Or something like that. And then there’s the intense love/hate/competition/respect/etc. thing between David and Silas (and between most of the characters, when you get down to it – Silas and Queen Rose, David and Jack, Jack and Michelle…)

Conceptually, Kings has been compared to Battlestar Galactica, which I never saw, and The Tudors, which I think is unfair and circumstantial. But it’s always made me think most of The West Wing.  And sometimes the parallels to King David feel less applicable than the parallels to Barack Obama.

It sucks, but it’s a fact of life that some “unusual” network shows succeed and others fail. Lost took off and became huge, and I’m still not sure why but I’d like to think it was Dominic Monaghan’s doing. Arrested Development hung on longer than seemed possible, and its successor 30 Rock was gasping for air until Sarah Palin, of all people, resuscitated it. Friday Night Lights just got renewed for two additional seasons for reasons that are unclear to me. Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared each had a single short season and was gone, even though Judd Apatow is now our universally acknowledged Comedy God. And Pushing Daisies made it for a while there, just barely, only to get killed by the writers’ strike. Meanwhile, they’re airing not one but two seasons of So You Think You Can Dance this year.

But Kings on NBC? Not so much. Hey, Michael Green, maybe you can see if AMC is interested. Or, at the very least, I bet Matthew Weiner is hiring. Good luck. And in the meantime, please give us some cool DVD extras, okay?

Kings returns to NBC on June 13, 2009

For more television reviews, click here.

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Andrew Eccles, Eric Liebowitz

A Bustling, Bloomin’ Adventure

Newbie writer and director Rian Johnson made himself a bit of a cult legend with his debut film Brick, a fascinating film noir set in a high school. Following it up was going to be difficult. But his quirky, fun, delightful, entertaining, and clever The Brothers Bloom does such a good job of capturing the spirit of the zany heist that you might as well forget about the somewhat elusive Brick.

Rian has his cast partially to thank for that. Indie darling Mark Ruffalo hits all the right notes as the cocky conman and mastermind, Stephen Bloom, who plans out his intricate cons as a poet pens his verses always casting his brother as the hero. Playing the reluctant conman, anti-hero, and younger brother, known only as Bloom, is Adrien Brody whose quiet charm is always a treat.

Stephen has been writing Bloom’s life since childhood when they first conned the children in podunk town – a deliciously mischievous, precocious, and humorous scene that opens the film’s misadventures. When young Stephen Bloom (Max Records) calls the town children “playground bourgeoisie” you know you’re in for a treat.

Rounding out the conning trio is an assassin named Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi) who doesn’t speak, but hardly needs to. Ms. Kikuchi doesn’t require dialogue to steal a scene.

But the biggest scene stealer of them all is Rachel Weisz as the doe-eyed mark, Penelope, a rich New Jersey heiress whose spent her whole life sheltered. And when I say sheltered, I mean sheltered. She spent her entire childhood indoors, thanks to an unlucky mishap at the doctor’s when she was young, has very few social graces, knows a lot of useless and not so useless skills, and quite possibly has never been kissed. And best of all, she thinks a little danger might suit her and knows that Bloom will suit her even better.

So off the conmen, their mark, and their silent nuclear weapon expert go on a ship called the Fidele, to run into trouble across Europe and Mexico. As Stephen’s con hits some road bumps and Bloom and Penelope find love in a train car, the conmen disguised as smugglers disguised as antique dealers into The Curator, an accomplice of the Brothers Bloom played to pitch-perfect hilarity by Robbie Coltrane as well as the Brothers’ old Russian teacher, Diamond Dog (Maximilian Schell). Mayhem and hilarity ensues.

The film is chock full of laugh out loud moments, twists, turns, tricks, and big reveals. It’s got clever dialogue, witty one-liners, and mysterious escapes. It’s an adventure story in the ilk of The Italian Job (the original, not the Mark Walberg thing) and Ocean’s Eleven, a crime caper full of lush foreign landscapes, rail ride romance, exploding towers, and aces up your sleeve. It’s an inspired con – most of all because you won’t know whose being conned ‘til the end.

But more than a fun-filled adventure, where Johnson’s film succeeds is in its smarts. Rian certainly knows his films and pays loving homage to them, from the sun streaming through the windows on a thoughtful criminal in a tilted fedora to the Wes Anderson-like opening montage. It’s full of thoughtful foreshadowing and carefully-placed details. It’s also one big literary exercise. It’s a retelling of James Joyce’s iconic Ulysses with the crafty, intellectual writer Stephen (drop the Daedalus), the lost, lonely Bloom (drop the Leopold), and the adventure-seeking, ever-waiting Penelope (Bloom pending). Reimagining Ulysses is no easy task – hell, reading Ulysses is no easy task – but Rian Johnson jumps right in and never looks back, and it’s that kind of talent that makes a great movie.

What are you waiting for? Adventure beckons.

A Boring Trip Down Biblical Lane

I wasn’t a huge fan of The Da Vinci Code. The book was interesting enough, but the film was flat – making all that was provocative in the novel, neutral and unthreatening. The Da Vinci Code downplayed the scandalous, wild and completely unproven theories about Christ’s origins that made the book so riveting – even to Catholics like myself who didn’t buy its symbology conspiracies for a minute and who already knew about the Niceaen Counsel, thank you very much. Still it was interesting. However, if Dan Brown’s prequel, Angels and Demons was as provocative as its more popular Code – no, I didn’t read the prequel – there was no sign of it at all in Ron Howard’s snooze of a film.

Formulaic at best, there were very few surprises in Angels and Demons, and it took about an hour of Tom Hanks talking a lot – I mean, a lot a lot – before any action took place at all. I’ll give Howard a bit of a break here. Angels and Demons is a mystery that requires a lot of explanation, a lot of history and back story – something which works a lot better in a book than it does in a film. However, Ron Howard is usually very good at creating tension with language alone. I saw the verbal wrestling match that was Frost Nixon. I know what Howard’s capable of – this was hardly it.

But here’s the plot in a nutshell. A beloved pope has died and all the cardinals are gathering to elect a new one. However, the four most likely candidates have gone missing. Meanwhile someone has broken into a top-secret government lab and stolen something known as the “God Particle” – a possible source of all creation. That almost sounds sexy and interesting, except that it’s really an experiment by sexy super-scientist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer) who was working on creating new kinds of renewable energy sources. So this movie is really about green power! Except that the “God Particle” is really a bit of highly-combustible anti-matter that conveniently – or inconveniently if you’re the citizens of Rome – will combust and blow up the whole city at exactly midnight. And until midnight the rouge group of science-loving Catholic terrorists known as the Illuminati – who apparently date back to Galileo now (although they were really a 18^th century secret society that started in Bavaria) – are going to kill off one potential pope per hour to show that they’re really serious about science, or something.

Explaining that – that was the first hour – then it was time for the thrill ride that was potential-pope-ricide. To save the potential popes and the city of Rome, Tom and his sexy scientist sidekick had to follow the trail of the Illuminati with symbols of wind, earth, fire, water, and some mysterious fifth symbol. (It was Heart right? Captain Planet! I told you, this is really about green power!) However, while in The Da Vinci Code, Tom Hanks and team followed the trail to Mary Magdalene through lots of paintings, museums, and famous Da Vinci puzzles, this time around we follow angels that point. Yes, literally, they follow the general direction that the angel statues are pointing! This results in a lot of Tom Hanks yelling about directions. Is that North? Southwest? Could someone just give the guy a compass?

No better is what they find when they follow the fingers into forgotten churches and public squares, which are some truly brutal priest slaughtering. I’m not sure, but suspending a cardinal, who really did nothing wrong, by chains and burning him alive in a church is not something I enjoy seeing on film. It was gruesome and sometimes unnecessarily so. It was also implausible – how do they arrive one minute late every time! And how does college professor Tom Hanks live while all the guys with the guns die? Some mysteries shall never be solved.

Anyway, helping Tom Hanks and Dr. Vetra follow the angels’ pointing fingers were Stellan Skarsgard as Commander Richter, the head of the Swiss Guard that protects the Vatican, and Ewan McGregor as the former Pope’s favorite son and personal assistant, Camerlengo Patrick McKenna. Skarsgard’s Commander is smarmy, snarky, and no-nonsense while McGregor’s young Irish priest is earnest with a bid of a Messiah complex. Also thrown in for good measure were a creepy, possibly power-hungry Cardinal Strauss (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and a Lieutenant Valenti (Victor Alfieri) whose eyebrows were made for villainy. Seriously, if you don’t know who the bad guy is here within the first fifteen minutes, I don’t think you’ve ever seen a movie with a “twist ending” before.

Speaking of bad guys, boy were they boring. While The Da Vinci Code had an Albino monk who self-flagellated himself for his own sins, a conservative, controlling Cardinal, a faithful and honest cop who knew not what he did, and an old crippled man trying desperately to show the truth to the world, this film has a paid assassin and a psychologically-warped villain whose motives are never really all that clear. There’s nothing interesting about these villains – no ambiguity. They’re evil and that’s that.

On the upside, Italy was looking beautiful. I really must visit.

What Goes Up Never Comes Down

I’ve been known to get teary in a film or seven. I mean, My Girl is sad and touching, okay? But I have never cried in an animated film before. Not even Bambi or Dumbo could get me going, but all that changed on Saturday when I discovered a little, old man named Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner) and his wild-haired, wild-hearted love Ellie (voiced by Elie Docter).

To say that Pixar has done it again would be unsurprising – they have not yet failed to bring me the best films of the year and this is no different. Up is a treasure, with surprising characters, detailed beautiful animation, and the kind of story-telling that movies were made for. What surprised me was the maturity of the light-hearted film.

Still clearly a treat for children with its gentle humor, slapstick comedy, old man battles, and talking dogs (of the clever language-converting collar invention variety, not the shoot-me-please Chihuahua variety), the film revolved around a very adult theme: grief and regret. It’s about loss and how we deal with it. It’s about moving on. And for Carl Fredricksen moving on meant releasing balloons through his chimney and traveling poetically through the skies in a flying house, on his way to the one adventure he never had.

Joining him on his journey to self-healing and South America, is a round, adorably obnoxious wilderness scout named Russell (Jordan Nagai) who is trying to help the elderly in order to earn his final badge and become a senior wilderness scout. But there’s more to Russell than meets the eye, and together the grumpy old man and the annoying little scout form an unlikely friendship that will tug at your balloon strings.

The twosome make some other friends on their adventure to Paradise Falls including a bird named Kevin – who turns out to be a mommy trying to get back to her chicks – and a dumb, but lovable and loyal dog named Dug (Bob Peterson), who can talk thanks to the collar his master gave him. And then there’s his master, the film’s villain, voiced by Christopher Plummer, who’s out to capture Kevin with the help of his trained army of talking, cooking, dusting, plane-flying dogs.

I won’t reveal much more lest I ruin some of your fun, but Up is a charmer. It’s a simple feat of story-telling, with a sweet, sentimental and not nearly often enough told story about the people we sometimes overlook. It’s brilliantly drawn with the kind of detail only Pixar seems to capture – right down the growing whiskers on Carl’s chin. It’s also lovely to see in 3D – where you get your own Carl Fredricksen glasses – and the 3D animation never falls back on gimmicky shots of things flying toward you. Instead it provides you with a little depth – which seems so very appropriate.

It’s a gem, that’s for sure. From it’s opening moments, Up soars right into your heart and doesn’t let go. I dare you not to shed a tear.

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