House and Wilson take a road trip.
©2012 Fox Broadcasting Co.

Down to the final three, and things aren’t looking so good. The episode ends with House performing the scan to check Wilson’s tumor, and he doesn’t look happy. Chase decides he needs to step out of House’s shadow and leave. It’s a dark, death-haunted episode all around, with as many corpses as live bodies. As least Thirteen will be back next week.

Did I mention all the death? We open with the final moments of a female patient elsewhere in the hospital, and watch the transition from person to corpse boxed up and wheeled down to the morgue. There, pathologist Peter Treiber slices into her with gusto. Sorry, it’s the only way to describe it; we get quite a nasty side view (CGI, I think) of what was once her torso. Treiber’s a somewhat OCD type obsessed with catching all the other doctors’ mistakes, converting their performances into statistics with the thoroughness of a baseball aficionado. Who roots for people to lose. Not that Treiber is having the best day himself, as mid-autopsy he goes into some kind of fugue state and slices his own scalp open.

House rides into the parking garage on his motorcycle, and is immediately outshone by Wilson, who drives up in his shiny new red Corvette and pulls into a handicapped spot. He informs House that after a lifetime of caring and searching for meaning, he’s decided to embrace selfishness, shallowness, and indifference. He’s planning a road trip to Cleveland to get the autograph of his boyhood crush. “The years have not been kind to David Cassidy,” opines House. No, it was Julie Christie. (For most of the episode I just thought Wilson had really good taste; then it turns out his real crush was a girl in his class who looked like Julie Christie, and who liked Wilson enough to ask him if it was OK for her to go to prom with the hot guy who asked her – Wilson, of course, said it was.)

The team is discussing why Dr. Treiber might have wanted to cut his head open. They’re also talking about the fact that he really seems to hate Chase. They go to examine him and boy, he really does hate Chase. Also, he won’t allow any procedure not directly ordered by House.

Taub and Park go to check out the morgue – these two haven’t had much to do lately; I hope we see more of them in the final two weeks. Park is impressed by Treiber’s scorekeeping; Taub is creeped out, first calling it Orwellian, then evoking the meticulous number crunchers who attended the Wannsee conference. Even Taub’s asides are morbid tonight.

House and Wilson drive out of town, into that countryside that never looks like New Jersey, or anywhere else in the Mid Atlantic region, leaving the team to pretend to the patient that he’s still in town. Wilson announces that his new devil-may-care persona has a name, Kyle Calloway. Sure enough, when they stop at a roadside diner, and Wilson decides to order the 80-oz steak (eat it within an hour and it’s free, plus you get your name on the Wall of Pain), he’s soon surrounded by patrons chanting “KYLE! KYLE!” I won’t say what happens, but soon after earning his place on the Wall of Pain, Wilson finds he has room for dessert after all.

Meanwhile, back at PPTH, the patient needs (demands?) surgery to look for a bowel obstruction, and he wants Chase to do it because, statistically, Chase is the best surgeon in the hospital. It turns out that at the root of Treiber’s resentment is the fact that he was up for the position on House’s team all those years ago, when Chase’s dad picked up the phone and jumped Chase to the head of the line. He lists the great things he would have accomplished by now if he had Chase’s talent and opportunities.

Out on the road, Wilson wants a threesome – not with House, with two women. House carefully fits him with a prosthetic shaved scalp (Wilson won’t actually shave) to improve his chances of cancer-patient pity-sex. It works with the waitress, and House treats Wilson to a hooker to make three. Next morning, House wakes up in the car as Wilson leaves the motel, chunks of hair sticking out of his torn prosthetic scalp. It was, he says, confusing, perfunctory, sad, and somehow just what he needed. Also, one of them stole his wallet. After they’ve hit the road again, House explains the drill – hide your wallet in the mini bar; if there’s no mini bar, hide it in the toilet.

Meanwhile, the patient’s had a crisis and the team’s had to admit they don’t actually know where House is. Foreman says they’re lucky if he doesn’t press charges. Chase, who’s arguing for brain biopsy to look for prion disease, is not allowed to interact with the patient any more, but he’s not off the case. We next see him down in the morgue, “borrowing” one of the brains Treiber has stored in jars.

Wilson and House are on the home stretch into Cleveland, when their route is suddenly blocked by a highly symbolic but nevertheless unsettling funeral cortege, black hearse in the lead. It’s a little much for Wilson to take, and after a few long moments, Wilson guns the Corvette’s engines and proceeds to outrace the funeral. This would work better if Wilson actually knew how to drive a stick shift – he loses control of the car, crashes through a fence, and the two end up stranded in the middle of a field in rural Ohio.

Park finds Chase slicing the brain into neat pieces, the better to test for prion disease. Hearses, sliced brains – I said there were a lot of corpses in this episode. Chase announces he’s quitting after this case.

Wilson and House have found a country bus stop, where an elderly woman named Enid is patiently awaiting the bus. Based on the way the scene unfolds, I’d say that Wilson hasn’t seen Ghost World, but that House and the writers have. The bus stops there every fifteen minutes, insists Enid. On its way to Naples, Florida, where her husband is waiting for her to cook him dinner. Miraculously, a cab comes along, but Wilson can’t leave Enid. “Goodbye, Kyle,” says House.

Chase is holed up in the morgue, scribbling away on his very own big-boy whiteboard (Sorry, was that mean? It’s his week for Oedipal conflict, though). Park and Taub announce that the patient has slipped into coma, and Chase is about to wash his hands of the whole thing – literally – when he has his own House moment. It’s the soap. He soon has the rare pleasure of bending over his nemesis as he awakes from the coma, and announcing that Treiber’s the one who screwed up this time. The anti-microbial agent in his industrial-strength liquid soap triggered his symptoms.

On the bus back to Princeton, Wilson tells House that Julie Christie — whom they missed – was just a stand-in for his real crush. Kyle Calloway was the guy she went to prom with. Kyle had a car, a band, and a mustache. Wilson does not want to be the guy heading home to the brain scan that will tell him whether he lives or dies. He just wants to be Kyle. House notes that Kyle would probably have ditched him (House) as easily as he would have ditched Enid. He can live without Kyle. It’s small and subtle, but that’s possibly the sanest and nicest moment we’ve ever had from House.

Foreman can’t persuade Chase to stay, and the two share a manly hug. Then we end on that ominous brain scan.

So is House achieving emotional balance, just in time to lose his best (only) friend? Is leaving the only way for Chase to become his own man? Why is it so hard to watch them leave when they’ll be disappearing from our screens anyway? When House says he hides his wallet in the toilet, does he mean in the tank? If so, how does he keep it from getting ruined?

Comments: 2 Comments »

Can you believe we’re already two-thirds through season five? As Pete’s high school crush said a few episodes ago, “Time feels like it’s speeding up.” In last night’s “Lady Lazarus,” Mad Men‘s cast of characters was forced to visit some unappetizing truths. Pete Campbell developed an unfortunate obsession with a pretty, discontented housewife. Peggy snarked and sniped at everyone – including Don. Megan had some ground-shaking news that was a surprise to few but forces Don to reevaluate. Abundant references to death make this yet another strange trip of an episode.

Rory Gilmore! In a bouffant! Photo credit Michael Yarish/AMC.

Pete Campbell has begun to spread his metaphorical wings – he comes home on the later train, spends time talking with the other commuters, and has become almost complacent in his self-imposed misery. But when Howard Dawes (Jeff Clarke) mentions he has a “spectacular new side dish in the city,” Pete makes a mental note. “What does your wife think?” he asks Howard. “She’s happy knowing I’m providing for her!” Howard answers. (How little he knows, or wants to know.) When Pete debarks from the train by himself a few nights later, he encounters a very pretty young woman in a headscarf and bouffant. Beth Dawes, Howard’s wife, accidentally locked her keys in the car and knows Howard’s up to no good. Pete drives her home, and their mutual misery, their corresponding angst, drives them together in a sudden, disheveled, “reckless” mess. Mrs. Dawes (played with aplomb by Alexis Bledel, better known as Rory Gilmore) is preoccupied with all the sadness in the world, and compares Pete’s blue irises to the “tragic” photos of the earth from space. “This can’t happen again,” she says.

Meanwhile, Ginsberg pitches a “Hard Day’s Night” concept to Chevalier Blanc (the British Invasion is now so far under way that even the “Olds” know who the Beatles are). Since the Fab Four are quite literally impossible to get for commercials (and remained that way until Michael Jackson bought the rights to most of their material in 1984), Ginsberg spouts a list of bands that sound similar to the mop tops. Don dismisses him, running to ask Megan: “She’ll know” what band to pick, he says, which causes Stan and Ginsberg to trade an exasperated glance.

“Hey! Megan’s talking to you!” Photo courtesy AMC.

Speaking of the new Mrs. Draper, she’s been sneaking around, accepting secret phone calls for “Megan Calvet,” surreptitiously sneaking out, making Peggy lie to Don for her. It says something interesting about her character that I didn’t immediately assume she was cheating on Don – after all, everyone else on this show is a cheating cheater. After Emile’s harsh words last episode, Megan is rethinking her goals. She got a callback for a role in a play, and felt she couldn’t tell Don about it. “Oh right, because he’s the easiest person in the world to talk to,” she murmurs sarcastically after Peggy rips her a new one for forcing Peggy to lie. Megan wakes Don in the middle of the night to tell him she wants to quit SCDP to return to acting – and this is a tougher blow to Don than anything else she could’ve done, though he’s putting on a calm face. Read more…

Comments: No Comments »

Never question his street cred

- Photo by Carole Segal

On tonight’s episode of The Killing, Holder takes offense to Jasper’s comment last week about him being white so he Holders it up. Big Time. From the opening scene in the apartment where he goes on about habanero jelly to the end when he’s getting beaten by casino thugs, Kinnaman really plays up the embarrassing slang/“is he trying to act drunk?” performance that really drags the character down.

Other than that, Keylela is more-or-less what we expect from The Killing- plodding, ineffective, decent ambiance. But we actually do get insight into a group that might be connected to Rosie Larsen’s murder- the Wapi Eagle Casino. Unfortunately, the bad guys overplay their hand to the point where they seem as clumsy as the detectives chasing them.

While characters like security chief Roberta Drays (who was the person watching Holder’s apartment from the last episode) and Chief Nicole Jackson have clearly been hiding something since the first season, they seemed more intimidating when they acted more subtly and professionally. Tonight, they lose their cool, and in doing so, seem amateurish. When you’re dealing with police officers who have already shown their unwillingness to drop the case, the best thing you can probably do is not bring unwanted attention to or evidence upon yourself. Like last season, which was only about a week ago, keep things moving slowly.

Chief Jackson from Season 1

- Photo by Carole Segal

Instead, Jackson tells Linden a story about a girl being slain on tribal lands and tells her “anything can happen on this land detective, you’ve been warned.” In the final scene, a gang of casino toughs beat up Holder as Linden listens over the phone. Obviously I don’t expect the Wapi Eagle Casino to have complete psychological profiles on the two detectives, but they should know that violence and blatant threads are probably not the best ways to handle the situation.

But this air of incompetence spreads throughout the episode, if not the series as a whole. One of the police department’s tech guys calls Linden and tells her that even though he’s not supposed to spend any time on the case, he still did some work on it. You’d think that with Rosie Larsen being a high profile murder investigation that led to a politician being shot, other cops would start wondering why they brass decided to drop it. Similarly, this season especially, the show has done a poor job at showing how the press relates to the investigation and how much pressure is being put on the force to solve a crime that would be the top story on Nancy Grace since the news broke. Linden, as usual, is an incompetent mother whose idea of keeping Jack safe is checking him into another hotel, but one with cameras in the hallway. That should ensure his security.

Stan is bemused by the Richmond campaign’s “offer”

Photo Credit: Carole Segal/AMC

The City Council campaign is also subject to this problem, and Gwen bears the brunt of it in this episode. Tonight, she attempts to get Stan Larsen to endorse Darren Richmond. For starters, would he really be the best person to vouch for Richmond? I know he lost his daughter, but his attack on Bennet Ahmed would probably make some people hesitant about trusting him. Gwen’s scheme was to promise that she’d get the ADA to lessen the charges against him in exchange for his support, even though she knew the ADA would never go for it. I was under the impression that Gwen was supposed to be some political dynamo, but the scene where she attempts to bluff Stan makes her seem like such a novice that it calls into question all the good things we’ve heard about her ability to politic. Kathryn Hahn’s character from Parks and Recreation would destroy her.

Nevertheless, Larsen comes to Richmond’s press conference where he makes an impassioned plea on behalf of his daughter and yells at everybody for forgetting about Rosie and the media for taking advantage of the tragedy to sell papers and get ratings. Even though Larsen saying to the camera “somebody’s going to pay for taking my daughter away!” probably isn’t the wisest thing considering his and Belko’s histories and records, it’s the type of uncouth speech that would make Stan a media sensation and reluctant hero overnight in bad fictional TV land.

Additional Thoughts:
• I was debating whether to include the maid asking Holder if the Larsens liked getting Rosie’s backpack back as a sign of villainous incompetence, but she might be working against the casino so I wanted to hold off.
• I still feel as though Richmond’s storyline is too divorced from the actual investigation, but I’ve accepted that I need to accept it. It’s not the worst subplot this show has ever had, even if it’s still somewhat forced.
• Child Protective Services arrives at the hotel to investigate Jack’s conditions, and one of their problems was that the room was messy. Linden says that she told Jack not to let the maid in, which raises CPS’ eyebrows. Here’s my issue. They’ve been in the hotel for less than one day. Since hotel maids usually only clean in the morning, why would they expect the maid to have tidied up before then?
• I wouldn’t lose sleep if Linden lost Jack.
• Linden’s attempt at “ghost whispering” Rosie makes her realize that Rosie felt trapped because she covered her walls in butterflies. Apparently she studied psychology at Greendale.
• We are now more than half way through this season.

Comments: 11 Comments »

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes
Copyright: BBC Pictures

This was not an uncontroversial episode of Sherlock. But I’m going to leave the elephant over in that corner until we’re ready to attend to its full-trunkèd pachyderm wail of fail. In the meantime… The great thing about watching – and reviewing – Sherlock is it doesn’t trigger any of the usual questions about adaptation. We don’t have to deal with the translation of highly revered nineteenth century prose into the idiom of Doctor Who and that show where the giant boxing gloves knock people into the swimming pool. This is the match of early twenty-first century TV and Arthur Conan Doyle: trash calling to trash across the echoing century which divides them. Geek culture hasn’t so much appropriated Sherlock Holmes as taken back what rightfully belonged to them, thank you very much. It may well turn out that the entirety of steampunk was an expedition of geeks into the Victorian period in search of where they had left Sherlock, and trying to blend in whilst they were there.

This is why the atmosphere of Sherlock so often feels so right. It’s brilliantly balanced between frantic action and deep analysis, which is to say there’s no discernible analysis and plenty of action. One of Conan Doyle’s best tricks was to give the reader the impression they were glimpsing the hidden web of logical connections which hold the world together, when in fact they were watching a coke addict chase a luminous dog across Yorkshire. With a gun. (I’d point out which of them had the gun, but y’know we’re very careful about SPOILERS round here, so that grammatical ambiguity is all part of the service.)

The BBC Sherlock splendidly captures the tingling sense that everything around us is brimming over with secrets if we could only see them. And of course in this version we can actually see them. Sherlock sits humming at the intersection between our sulky obsession with the Victorians, our fascination with the idea that information is in the very air we’re breathing, and our fear that other people could use that information to harm us. There’s a lot to be beguiled by in this series.

Unfortunately beguiled would be a lousy state where this episode is concerned. I’m not the first to take a swing at A Scandal in Belgravia. Amongst others, the blogger Stavvers has done a number on it, pointing out that it’s quite something when the gender politics of a TV adaptation are more regressive and sexist than the 120 year-old source. The whole episode reeked of the worst kind of sniggering self-congratulation. Adler was the one woman whom Holmes respected and admired, who humbled him by beating him at the game and then handing his stake back. In this version she developed an embarrassing crush on him and descended to the digital equivalent of doodling “Mrs. Irene Holmes” on her exercise book. A Scandal in Belgravia was incapable of imagining female power as anything but sexual manipulation (“I know what he likes” ad nauseam), unable to conceive of female violence as anything but kink or groin shot. Adler seemed to be invoked in order to silence, humiliate and exorcise her from the series.

Conan Doyle’s work can justly be accused of being a boys’ club, and there are plenty of young men in nice suits and posh accents in Sherlock. Indeed the show seems worryingly convinced that everything will be OK so long as such men are in charge. But it’s harder to stomach the other kind of boys’ club which peeps out of this show – the resentful postfeminist backlash which yearns to humiliate women and put them “back in their place”. If this is the Revenge of the Nerds I’ve heard so much about, it’s a lousy cause and it’s going to find a lot more angry women where the likes of Stavvers came from. And Sherlock needs to sort itself out in a hurry.

Comments: 8 Comments »

© 2012 Lions Gate Entertainment

Here it is, bloodhounds! Lionsgate has finally released a full-grown trailer for The Expendables 2, the sequel to Sylvester Stallone’s shameless and already beloved action team-up, and perhaps the most comprehensive genre ensemble piece since It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Watch first, and then we can talk.

Given the familiar ground we are treading here, this trailer lends itself to economical dissection.

1) Here there be ziplines! And jungles even more reminiscent of Predator.

2) Stallone and Statham are sticking with their trademark “standoff” banter. Fair enough.

3) This is a big year for the Hemsworth family. While Chris hoards Comic-Con prestige in The Avengers and the long-delayed Cabin In The Woods, little brother Liam is making equally titanic strides in the major franchise market as Gale in The Hunger Games movies and the young Turk sniper presumably under Sly Stallone’s wing in the freshly tweaked Expendables posse.

4) Dolph Lundgren really is back! It wasn’t all just a wonderful dream.

5) Jason Statham gets the costumed set piece, along with a ludicrous one-liner, that until this point in history always went by default to Arnold Schwarzenegger. What gives? The mainstream acceptance he has enjoyed since the previous film has apparently prompted Statham to lighten up on the straight man act. Right on.

6) Jet Li abides.

7) Multi-vehicle confrontations in all three dimensions. Dangerous rumblings of Rambo III. Spicy!

8) Jean-Claude van Damme: Supervillain. Res ipsa loquitur.

9) To star in a film, Chuck Norris only requires one split-second appearance in the trailer. The second will be given to him as a tribute.

10) Jason Statham and airboats? Wait, time out! How did I miss that Simon West of The Mechanic is directing in Stallone’s stead? Sweet! Capable hands! I’m no longer worried about this movie at all. I’m also choosing not to remember Con Air.

11) Oh, that explains it! In return for giving up the “man and knife” quip, Schwarzenegger gets to yell “I’m back!” and tear the door off a Smartcar.

12) There goes that darned aeroplane again.

THE DOWNSIDE: Still no discernible traces of Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, or Kurt Russell. Not even Peter Weller, for crying out loud! And couldn’t they have sublet Tom Hardy from Christopher Nolan for one day of shooting? The optimist in me views it as room for the hypothetical Expendables trilogy to grow yet more astounding. Hopefully one or more of these guys will appear early on in an Executive Decision-style prank. You know what I’m talking about. If you’re still reading this, you do.

Whatever you felt about the The Expendables, you are meant to feel ten times over about the sequel. That is about the most substantial analysis this trailer can stand. I know I will be at the front of the line when the film arrives to batter audiences senseless on August 17, 2012.

P.S. – Here’s the theatrical teaser, for those who came in late.

Comments: No Comments »

The possible savior of Dunder Mifflin; NBC still needs a hero

Photo by: NBC

I feel foolish for not foreseeing tonight’s big development last week. To be fair, this season hasn’t exactly been competent at handling, remembering, or setting up ongoing plotlines. I saw David Wallace’s reveal that the government bought him out for $20 million more like Charlie Sheen’s horrible cameo in Oliver Stone’s horrible Wall Street II: Money Never Sleeps, a throwaway joke. He got lucky, nothing more to it. I didn’t expect it to be the genesis of a game-changing story arc. But apparently it is, and I guess it’s good that at least something is happening this season. Even if it’s one episode before the season finale, better late than never.

I’ll go more in depth below, but the gist is that Andy wins The Big Client and tries to use that to convince Robert to give him his job back. Robert understandably says no, so Andy pitches David Wallace on buying Dunder Mifflin by claiming that it could be very profitable with good management.

Ignoring my favoritism for Robert and my admitted dislike for Andy, this entire set up seems iffy, even if it was predictable from the first episode this season that Andy would eventually out-business Robert (good guys must win!). A major problem comes down to this concept of management. Who would be the good management? I never got the sense that David Wallace was great at his job. He was competent, I’ll give him that, but I always saw him as representative of the shortsighted executive unable to adjust to modern times. That sounds too harsh. Maybe he was a bit better than that, as he somewhat understood how to deal with Michael and Jan, but he certainly wasn’t exceptional. I’ve criticized Andy throughout the season for his “leadership” abilities, but to his credit, he finally showed that he could be a salesman tonight.

Andy Makes A Sale

Photo by: Danny Feld/NBC

This scenario also fails to take into account that part of the reason why Dunder Mifflin always seems to be dying is that it is a regional paper company that has to compete with national chains. The use and need of paper has died down tremendously over the past decade or so, and paper businesses suffer simply by being paper businesses. It’s an idea the show brought up regularly in its early seasons, and paper was used as a metaphor for the characters themselves- bland and practically obsolete. When Sabre purchased Dunder Mifflin, it wanted to use its salespeople to push its other wares such as exploding printers. Could Dunder Mifflin ever be a worthwhile investment?

These are just some of the actual business issues that Turf War brings up tonight in a way that highlights just how little attention the show has paid to these matters throughout the season. The multitude of examples of this blindness/ignorance add up to one of this year’s biggest issues: the show never decided who was in the “right” and who was in the “wrong.” Is Robert a quirky business genius or a huckster? According to a comment made tonight it seems like the latter, but for most of the year, the show seemed to go the opposite route. Was Jo the better boss? After all, Robert talked her out of her job, and she approved the Sabre Store as well as its dangerous products. Or is Sabre just messed up from top to bottom? If so, at least Dunder Mifflin’s incompetence seemed realistic. And the Scranton branch, itself a mere pawn in the world of high stakes business, has spent most of this season floundering, rudderless, and difficult to root for. At least Turf War makes it seem as though the show is ready to acknowledge these problems.

Trading war stories

Photo by: Danny Feld/NBC

Ignoring my questions about the overall concept of The Office, tonight’s episode worked for the most part thanks to the ever reliable Robert California and the usually reliable Jim and Dwight: Partners.

While I think the purpose of the episode was to show Robert as some sort of pig by really going overboard with his negative qualities, he’s just too entertaining, offbeat, and different to hate. No matter how “low” he goes, his uniqueness, especially when compared to the tiredness of most of the other characters, gives him an immediate edge. The episode begins with Robert coming into the office after a memory-erasing bender fueled by “Australian reds” and “Colombian whites” (Creed knows what I’m talking about!). During Robert California’s The Hangover, he ended up closing the Binghamton branch without a transition plan leaving many clients up for grabs and the remaining Dunder Mifflin branches hungrily picking over the scraps. Harry Jannerone, a New York salesman played by The Wire and True Blood‘s Chris Bauer, angry over a Pennsylvania group encroaching into his state, even drives down to Scranton to yell at them. Rather than settling this dispute, Robert focuses on a vague comment made by Nellie regarding a voicemail he placed during his dark period and commissions Pam to discover the truth. It leads nowhere except to show Nellie as a sad, pathetic shopaholic unable to adopt a foreign baby.

In Jim and Dwight vs. Frank Sobotka (or Andy Bellefleur, if you’d prefer), the three of them- well a team of two vs. one- compete for Prestige, The Big Client run by Homer Simpson’s voice Dan Castellaneta. Although Andy gets the client, Jim and Dwight are a decent comedy team, and the episode closes with a good scene of Jim, Dwight, and Harry talking shop around a tree. It is here where we learn that Robert is driving Dunder Mifflin and/or Saber (the show doesn’t make it clear which) into the ground, which sets us up for next week’s season finale.

Additional Thoughts:

• The string of good, relatable cold opens ends tonight as Dwight and Gabe engage in a manliest man contest, but I was glad to see the return of Dwight’s Gym For Muscles. About halfway through the segment, my screen turned pure white for a couple of seconds, and I wanted to see if anyone else got that or if it was just my service.
• Andy apparently hangs out at the office regularly. It’s just another reason for me to dislike him. When Robert says “Andrew, what do we have to do to get rid of you?” you have to side with the CEO. I also have to imagine setting up a cooking station right by the secretary’s desk is a fire hazard.
• Speaking of weak, I guess we’re supposed to laugh at Nellie being a loser now. I’m okay with that, but it will require more than another not-quite-sad story to make us feel sympathetic towards her. The show also seems to be heading dangerously towards making her into Female Michael Scott.
• Another good element of tonight’s Jim and Dwight storyline was the revelation that they got around the sales quota by developing a fake salesman named Lloyd Gross. One of my favorite elements of their relationship is that, despite their antagonism, they clearly hold themselves above all the other salespeople in the office. In one of his better scenes this season, Toby gets to play Lloyd.
• Runner-Up Moment of the Night: The scene where Robert enlists Pam to find out what he said on Nellie’s voice mail.
• Moment of the Night: Robert’s laugh after hearing Nellie’s mother’s voicemail telling her to keep her chin up, it can’t be as bad as she describes.

Comments: 4 Comments »

Photos courtesy of ©NBCUniversal, Inc.

After last week’s brilliant Law & Order-inspired episode, Community has taken a much more somber turn this week with “Course Listing Unavailable.” Near the end of “Basic Lupine Urology,” we found out that Starburns (or “Alex” as he liked to be called) died when his mobile meth lab exploded. This week, we find the students of Greendale dealing with (or not dealing with) Starburns’ passing.

As it turns out, Starburns made a video of himself before he died in which he bequeaths his belongings. Troy, Abed and Annie are gathered in their apartment watching the video which is slightly disturbing for many reasons. First of all, he left his ashes (and those of his iguana) to Abed. This makes Troy incredibly uncomfortable. He also expects Abed to make a video commemorating his life, even going so far as to give Abed some good B-roll to get him started.

Gathered at the library, the group struggles with their emotions. Britta, always eager to showcase her complete lack of knowledge about psychological issues, says that they must confront their emotions head on, even going so far as to slap a couple of stars on each side of her face so the group can imagine that she is Starburns. (It’s unclear how exactly this is supposed to be helpful.)

In his office, Dean Pelton is composing a little workday tune when Chang arrives, requesting additional authority in order to keep peace on Greendale’s campus. He presents the dean with a colorful, hand-written (in crayon) directive which will allow him, among other things, to enforce martial law, sentence students to indefinite detention and do away with soft serve ice cream. The dean will not stand for such tyranny, so he refuses to sign. Chang warns the dean that he will regret it.

Back in the library, the study group is discussing plans to hold a memorial for Starburns. Dean Pelton comes in, wearing one of his more ostentatious costumes to date, and informs that group that after Starburns’ death, Professor Kane has resigned and the class will receive a grade of “Incomplete” for the Biology class. Good news: they can re-take the course in the summer. Jeff, who has been rather blasé about Starburns, is devastated about the loss of his summer and breaks down in tears.

Later in the cafeteria, a small memorial is held for Starburns, but before Dean Pelton knows what is happening, Jeff is making a speech about how awful Greendale is and how it has ruined their lives. Annie jumps on stage and echoes Jeff’s sentiment. At this point, there are more than a few nodding heads in the crowd. Hoping for some Christian inspiration, the dean asks Shirley to come up and speak, but instead of delivering a positive message, she launches into an attack on the dean about how her dream of running a sandwich shop in the cafeteria was sold to Subway. When the crowd is already on the edge of action, Pierce shouts “Let’s burn this mother down!” And then all Hell breaks loose.

The dean pleads for Chang’s help and agrees to sign his contract. Chang retrieves his minions (again, all of them between the ages of 12 and 14) and storms the cafeteria, his mini-Army wearing full riot gear. With the help of some powerful pepper spray, Chang and his team are able to establish order, though some students are sent to the student health center.

While the study group is getting medical attention, the dean tells them that he will have no choice but to blame them (the newly anointed “Greendale Seven”) for the riot. Instead, the group suggests blaming Chang since, you know, he’s crazy. When Chang gets wind of the plan, he visits the dean to investigate. When Dean Pelton says he has no choice but to blame him, Chang knocks him out and brings in a replacement dean.

In front of the school board, the study group pleads its case against Chang, but he’s way ahead of them. He begins schmoozing with the board, supplies them with a very nice basket of goodies and even has the “dean” come by to vouch for how good of job he is doing. With no one else to blame, the board decides that the Greendale Seven will be expelled.

Back at Troy, Abed and Annie’s apartment, the group is quiet. When the doorbell rings, Abed says it’s the pizza. Jeff suggests rolling a dye to see who has to go get it. Suddenly, we’re back in “Remedial Chaos Theory,” the alternate time line episode from earlier this season. Abed wonders out loud what would have happened if he wouldn’t have let Jeff roll the dye that night. Are they, in fact, in the darkest time line? Even though things haven’t worked out the way they would have wanted, this couldn’t be the darkest time line since they’re all together and somehow it feels like everything will be okay.

While this was one of the most serious episodes Communityhas ever done, it is still quite clever. Bringing the “darkest time line” back into play was brilliant since “Remedial Chaos Theory” happened so long ago (way before the show’s hiatus). So what will happen to the group now? If they aren’t students at Greendale, what will the show be about? Is this signaling the end of Community? The future is anyone’s guess, but based on this episode alone, it is clear that whatever time line plays out, it won’t be the darkest.

Comments: No Comments »

Walter Matthau tries to stay one step ahead of the Mafia in Charley Varrick (1973-PG)

Few filmgoers noticed Charley Varrick when it came out in 1973. After all, The Godfather, that ultimate game-changing gangster film, had been released a year earlier. So who was going to fuss over this nugget about a small-time bank robber fleeing with the mob’s money?

Plus, 1973 happened to be an amazing movie year. The Sting. The Exorcist. American Graffiti. Serpico. Mean Streets. High Plains Drifter. More than a dozen terrific films debuted in one of the deepest eras ever in American film.

So this little gem arrived in theaters that October and disappeared within three weeks, drawing less than $6 million at the box office. It was quickly forgotten.

Now, thanks to Universal Studios rummaging through the attic and releasing the DVD in 2010, Charley Varrick can be enjoyed by new generations of movie fans. This time, we advise you not to miss it. It may not have the breadth of the Top 25 finishers on our list, but it’s a gritty sleeper of a crime story, cleverly cast and sufficiently nasty and bleak.

The story centers on the title character played by Walter Matthau, who strays a long way from his usual grump-with-a-heart-of-gold acting persona. Charley and his crew hold up a bank at a desolate New Mexico crossroads. But things go awry when a sheriff’s deputy gets too curious, and before you know it a pair of cops, the bank guard and two of Charley’s accomplices—including his wife—get gunned down in the ensuing shootout.

Charley and his lone surviving accomplice, Harman (Andrew Robinson), escape with a saddlebag they expect to contain a few thousand bucks. To their amazement, the tiny bank has just coughed up $765,000. Harman is elated. Charley, older and wiser, knows better.

Harman: “We lucked out.”

Charley: “More like crapped out. It’s 10-to-1 this stuff belongs to the Mafia. This is gambling money, skimmed off the top. Whore money. Dope money.”

Harman: “What’s the difference?”

Charley: “The difference is that the Mafia kills, you moron. No trial, no judge. They never stop looking for you until you’re dead. I’d rather have 10 FBIs looking after me.”

Charley’s instincts are correct. The mob hires an icy, pipe-smoking hit man named Molly (Joe Don Baker). His assignment (delivered in a Mission: Impossible-style tape-recorded message) is to hunt down the thieves, kill them and bring back the money.

A tense cat-and-mouse game ensues, with Molly tracking the duo. Charley keeps conniving ways to evade the paid killer and Harman keeps undermining those schemes by blowing his cool or climbing into a bottle of whiskey. We won’t give away the double-crosses and triple-crosses that make this movie work except to say that whenever you think you’ve got it figured out . . . well, assume you probably don’t.

Give credit to the film’s producer/director—Don Siegel (Dirty Harry, Hell is for Heroes, Escape From Alcatraz), who knew how to craft a dark action story and how to create a morally ambivalent hero you end up rooting for. Siegel typically worked with macho leading men like Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen and Lee Marvin. Casting the droll, hangdog Matthau—better known for his comic roles in films like The Odd Couple—in the lead was a risky move. It works because the great actor was smart enough to play the character as a serious, calculating and subdued man—the anti-Oscar Madison, as it were.

You may recall Andrew Robinson—the actor playing Charley Varrick’s cohort Harman—as the maniacal Scorpio Killer from Dirty Harry. In that classic, he hires a hood to punch his face into hamburger, hoping to make it appear like he’s the victim of police brutality. In this movie, he endures another brutal face mashing. Hey, unlike Matthau, some actors can’t escape typecasting.

HIT: Joe Don Baker is downright scary in his role as mob hit man—slapping women, pushing over old men in wheelchairs, stalking his prey with a sneer and a puff of his pipe. It’s his most intimidating role this side of Buford Pusser in Walking Tall.

MISS: The original movie was filmed in Panavision and boasts beautiful New Mexican vistas. Cropping it to fit the TV screen creates too many pan-and-scan moments and occasional claustrophobia.

CASTING CALL: The script was written with Clint Eastwood in mind for the lead, following Eastwood’s collaboration with Siegel in Dirty Harry. Eastwood reportedly turned down the role because he could find no redeeming qualities in the film’s protagonist.

WHAT THEY WROTE AT THE TIME: “The casting of Matthau in this key role helps tremendously. Though Charley is tough enough to walk away from his wife’s death without showing much emotion, the character is inhabited—maybe even transformed—by Matthau’s wit and sensitivity as an actor. If the role were played by someone else, Charley Varrick would be something else entirely.”—Vincent Canby, New York Times

BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW: Siegel claimed Matthau contributed to the movie’s box office failure by telling everyone that he neither liked it nor comprehended it. One note Matthau sent to the director said, “I have seen it three times, and am of slightly better than average intelligence (120 IQ), but I still don’t quite understand what’s going on. Is there a device we can use to explain to people what they’re seeing?”

We would disagree with Matthau on that one.

GOOF: Because the movie was shot out of sequence, the length of Charley’s sideburns varies from scene to scene.

VIOLENCE LEVEL: Not high, although there’s more brutality aimed at women than we’re used to. One bleeds to death after getting shot. Another gets slapped in the face and, somehow, finds that a turn-on to have sex with a stranger.

BODY COUNT: Nine—six by gunshot (including one suicide), one by off-screen beating, one by detonation and one by getting run over with a car.

“I KNOW THAT GUY”: Corrupt bank chairman Maynard Boyle is played by Canadian stage actor John Vernon. You may recognize him from his role as San Francisco’s mayor in Dirty Harry or as rebel officer Fletcher in The Outlaw Josey Wales. We’ll almost guarantee you’ll spot him as the bullying Dean Wormer from 1978’s frathouse comedy classic Animal House.

BEST LINE: Maynard Boyle, warning wimpy branch manager Harold Young (Woodrow Parfrey) that the mob will suspect him of being an insider in the heist of his own bank: “They’re going to try to make you tell where the money is. They’re going to strip you naked and go to work with a pair of pliers and blow torch.”

The quote was paraphrased 20 years later in Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino, who said he found Charley Varrick to be “inspiring.” Indeed, Tarantino even borrowed the name Maynard for one of Pulp’s subterranean characters—the guy who, along with motorcycle cop Zed, gets promised that same “medieval” pliers-and-blow-torch treatment.

REPEATED WATCHING QUOTIENT: Neither exciting nor inspiring enough to put into your Netflix queue more than once a decade.

DON’T FAIL TO NOTICE: The bank secretary that Varrick seduces and beds is played by actress Felicia Farr. She was the longtime, real-life wife of actor Jack Lemmon, who costarred with Matthau in 10 movies. We can’t imagine that Lemmon enjoyed watching that scene.

IF YOU LIKED THIS, YOU’LL LIKE: No Country for Old Men, the 2009 Oscar winner for Best Motion Picture, which also centers on a guy reluctantly in possession of mob money and trying to stay one step ahead of an intractable killer. You can decide for yourself who’s the more frightening hit man, Javier Bardem or Joe Don Baker. It’s close.

***

Join us as we count down the greatest gangster movies of all time — a new entry every Thursday! Click here to see what you’ve missed so far.

[Reprinted from The Ultimate Book of Gangster Movies by George Anastasia and Glen Macnow. Available from Running Press, a member of The Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2011.]

Comments: No Comments »

Sunday’s Mad Men was a bit of a doozie, and I’m late to the ball due to a crazy weekend. So here we go.

The women of Mad Men are what make the show worthwhile for me – and this was a very lady-centered episode. Particularly, the focus was on mothers and daughters, on seeking mama’s approval while struggling against the parameters your parents set for you. Sally, Megan, and Peggy are having mommy issues – which, knowing their respective mothers, is not a surprise.

Remember what phones used to look like? Photo credit Michael Yarish/AMC.

The episode opens on a grungy dorm hallway, in which two kids play some semblance of lacrosse as a toweled boy sidles past. Who should come to pick up the hall phone, but Glen, Betty’s former nemesis and Sally’s “former” friend? He asks Sally if she’s bought the new “Spoonful album,” and she says, “It’s all over the radio,” which tells us this song has hit the top 40 (the airwaves are now firmly entrenched in that scary rock’n'roll of the 60s). Sally has stretched the phone cord across the hallway, and Pauline immediately trips over it. As “Bluto” rolls around on the floor moaning about her ankle, Sally bosses Bobby into getting her water and keeping her calm. She later tells everyone Pauline tripped over one of Gene’s toys – a lie designed, even years later, to keep Betty from knowing what was really happening with Glen. Of course, since Pauline broke her ankle, Bobby and Sally yet again migrate to Manhattan to Don and Megan’s apartment.

(Speaking of Betty, her obvious absence in this episode could be considered either a major flaw, or a very purposeful move from the writers – she’s no mother to Sally.)

Marie Calvet: Unhappiness personified. Photo credit Michael Yarish/AMC.

Megan’s parents Emile (Ronald Guttman) and Marie (Julia Ormond, in a gorgeous casting move) are in for a visit, bringing with them their myriad problems. One of the first things we hear from Emile is a tossed slur: “Have a drink,” he tells his wife, “become nice again.” Since Sally doesn’t like fish, Megan, ever the dutiful wife and nanny (though I wouldn’t go so far as to say “mother”) produces spaghetti for dinner. Marie remarks with a sad smile, “I used to make spaghetti for Megan.” Then the pretty, sexy, sad Frenchwoman imbibes enough to stagger away from the table and pass out with a lit cigarette. Removing the butt tenderly from her mother’s fingers, Megan finds herself blessed with a brilliant idea. Read more…

Comments: 4 Comments »

Six-year-old Nell is being treated as her physician-mother looks on.
©2012 Fox Broadcasting Co.

That wasn’t as bad as I feared. Wilson’s alive (for now) and it looks like next week he buys himself a shiny red corvette. The other patient of the week is a little girl with a genetic disorder that will eventually kill her, and while the team can’t fix that, they do cure her current illness, and her feuding parents are able to make at least a temporary peace. All in all, this was a sweet – at times almost saccharine – and fairly low-key episode, not the grim horror I feared. If you saw Wilson suffering in the previews, you’ve pretty much seen the worst.

The opening sequence made me worry that the show’s creators had declared all-out war on the audience’s heartstrings. Not only does it feature a cute 6-year-old girl with a fatal illness, it actually takes place on a merry-go-round. Dad and daughter are at the park, and he gives in to her pleas to ride the merry-go-round by herself, if she promises not to tell her mother. The over-protectiveness cues us in that not all is right; not only does Wilson have cancer, our patient of the week is Little Nell. As Dad films her on the merry-go-round, she develops a bloody nose, then disappears from sight.

OK, nobody’s watching (or reading about) this episode for the little girl and her screwed up genes. And as soon as the credits are over, we find Wilson waiting to meet with his oncologist. House joins him, explaining that since Wilson always showed up when House insisted on being left alone, he’s now doing the same for Wilson. He’s taken some time off to support Wilson, and the team will have to deal with the patient on their own. Wilson immediately sets about proving that doctors do, in fact, make the worst patients, interrupting and dominating the doctor, demanding the most aggressive course of treatment available, and walking out in search of “a doctor with balls” when the doctor hesitates.

The team’s having their own experience along these lines – the medical expert who is sitting in on the case is also the girl’s mother, apparently because she’s on “Eric” terms with Foreman. Mom is deeply freaked out that her daughter was allowed on a merry-go-round. She and the girl’s father have split up, largely due to tensions over the girl’s illness, as we learn when Mom blames the girl’s latest crisis on heavy-metal poisoning picked up in Dad’s run-down apartment. The little girl’s familiarity with hospitals shows when Adams lamely explains that MRI stands for “Magic Really-Cool Images,” and the girl promptly corrects her. Just how familiar the girl is with medical procedures is revealed when Chase decides to check out Mom’s home first – she has a medical lab in the basement with a fridge full of an experimental drug and play area for the girl nearby.

For what may be the last time, someone says it could be lupus.

Back to House and Wilson. House finds Wilson in his (Wilson’s) office, complaining of a headache. House says that they don’t have to have sex, sometimes it’s just nice to cuddle. And I think that line works because it’s not just a shout out to fans’ fantasies, but also the way House would actually talk about this relationship. (Note – the headache probably has something to do with the shots they did the night before.) Wilson is adamant about pursuing the most aggressive form of chemotherapy, even though House points out that it has about a one in three chance of killing him. This really freaks me out – while I am fortunate to have had very little experience of anything cancer-related, I’m actually as much or more afraid of the treatments as I am of the disease.

But Wilson is determined to destroy the village in order to save it, and he’s obtained the necessary drugs, and stockpiled supplies. He answers House’s arguments by showing him the souvenirs he’s kept to remind himself of patients he’s lost, while reciting the allegedly hopeful recovery statistics for each form of cancer. He’s determined not to die slowly in a hospital. House tells him he’s an idiot, but if he’s going to do this, they’ll do it at House’s place.

Before we get there, we see Adams and Chase with Foreman, confronting Mom with the experimental drug. She says she tested it on herself before dosing her daughter, and she’s kept up with all the research. Foreman points out that drug trials contain more than one person for a reason, and that the researcher who was about to publish has cancelled because it seemed the drug was causing renal failure in rats.

Which actually works quite well as a segue, raising the issues of home treatments born of desperation, and the dangers of even helpful drugs. Wilson and House toast Wilson’s chemotherapy with martinis, as jazz so vintage it may actually be ragtime plays on House’s stereo. He’s also made soup. Wilson has something to tell him. “If it’s that you’re secretly gay for me, everyone’s always assumed that,” replies House. No, Wilson is just grateful House is taking this risk while still on parole. House explains that he’s scouted out places to dump the body “if all this goes south.” “I’ve always enjoyed Trinity Park,” notes Wilson. And the gallows humor here works for me. Wilson notes he always expected it would be his wife or kids with him in a situation like this. House: “Are they holding the life support cord or thumbing through your will?” As the drugs kick in, House serves up a syringe full of morphine, and changes the jazz to a classic Afro-Cuban beat.

We spend some time back at the hospital watching the parents fight over the girl, then come back to Wilson waking up, sick and disoriented, to find a boy with a vaguely familiar face watching him intently. The robot in the boy’s hand identifies him as the thyroid cancer patient who died at eight after Wilson assured him and his family the disease had a 96% survival rate. It’s a classic little horror-movie sequence, ending with the boy turning into House as Wilson’s hallucination fades.

Back at the hospital, the mother finally excuses herself from the case, and everyone thinks it’s Lyme disease. If Mom was upset about the merry-go-round, wait until she hears about the trip into the woods.

House is out of morphine, but is willing to share his Vicodin. He claims to have plenty on hand, but out of sight of Wilson, he counts out the remaining capsules and switches to bourbon. In the depths of his pain and humiliation (adult diapers are mentioned, but I won’t go into that), Wilson starts raging against the universe. If he’d known this would happen to him, he’d have been like House – a misanthropic ass who brings pain into the lives of all around him. Wilson brings some pain into House’s life with that line, judging by his expression. It gets worse. If he’d been like House, he’d have known he deserved this. Ouch. But that’s one of things that I’ve loved about this show – its willingness to show the damage people do to each other unawares. House, at least, is aware of what he does.

At the hospital, Chase seems to have emerged as the team’s leader, and he gets this week’s lightbulb moment, realizing that the girl has a tumor in her heart. He even gets to explain it in voiceover as we get computer-animated corpuscles swooshing by for what may be the last time. Again, do we get the animated body-cam when the diagnosis is especially interesting, or when there’s time to fill?

In House’s apartment, the camera lingers on Wilson’s deathly-pale arm until we finally see his fingers twitching. House wakes up and gets him a glass of water. Wilson awkwardly raises the subject of things he may have said the night before. House tells him to “turn the bromance down a few notches” and assures Wilson he stopped listening after Wilson confessed his fear of dolphins. Wilson wonders if he’s now experienced the kind of pain House lives with all the time.

A short time later, we see them stepping off the elevator at Princeton-Plainsboro, looking fairly normal, parting with a vague promise to meet for lunch. But, alone in his office, Wilson opens his laptop and the strains of Journey’s “Any Way You Want It” fill the room. House has created a slideshow depicting the unconscious and/or delirious Wilson dressed in funny outfits (leis, sunglasses, a sombrero), posed with House and two hookers in bikinis. Which for once is really, really, sweet.

Nicely done, I thought. House’s deep concern for Wilson, and his willingness to act as his friend’s caretaker for once, came through without being over the top, or occasioning any massive transformation of House’s character. It showed he has it in him to be caring, but that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly going to be that way all the time. And morphine, jazz, and gallows humor are exactly what House would use to express that caring. I also always like seeing Wilson’s carefully hidden dark side. As someone who’s temperamentally more like House, I’m always intrigued to see what’s really going on in the minds of apparent saints.

Next week, a Corvette, and a guy who wants to cut his own head open.

Comments: 4 Comments »

Emperor Tiberius: “Has it ever occurred to you, mother, that it’s you they hate and not me?”
Livia: “There is nothing in this world that occurs to you that has not occurred to me first. That is the affliction I live with.”

Sejanus: “If he’s profoundly loved, he’s also profoundly dead. No harm in loving the dead. Everyone’s loved when he’s dead.”
Livia: “I wouldn’t count on that if I were you.

Caligula, on hearing of a plot against Tiberius: “People really are despicable.”

With dialogue like that, there’s no need for special effects, no need for CGI renditions of the Colosseum, or even for the “cast of thousands” beloved of movie directors. What keeps the landmark BBC series I, Claudius so fresh after 35 years is the savagely witty dialogue of scriptwriter Jack Pulman, performed with relish by the likes of Derek Jacobi, Brian Blessed, Margaret Tyzack, and Patrick Stewart (yes, Captain Picard). The series made Jacobi a star, but Siân Phillips, as the ruthless Livia, may give the most enjoyable performance of all.

The whip-smart dialogue, as fans of the series well know, forms a giddy counterpoint to an operatic plot featuring just about every permutation of sex and death imaginable. There’s also John Hurt as Caligula, in a gold bikini and makeup Hurt applied himself, because the BBC makeup girls couldn’t make it tasteless enough, dancing the role of goddess of the dawn in a ballet of Caligula’s own devising before a terrified audience who know they must applaud or die.

The twelve-episode series aired on Masterpiece Theater in 1977, becoming one of that series’ landmarks even as it pushed the bounds of what was acceptable on American television. Jacobi and Philips took home the BAFTA television awards for Best Actor and Best Actress the year it aired. A third BAFTA was won by Tim Harvey, for Best Design, and the newly released 35th anniversary DVD set shows just how intelligently the show’s creators made use of what now might seem limitations.

For those new to I,Claudius, the series dramatizes two historical novels by Robert Graves, I, Claudius and Claudius the God, purporting to be the secret memoirs of the Roman Emperor Claudius, who unexpectedly came to the throne in 41 AD after the assassination of his nephew Caligula. The real Claudius may have initially been kept from public office — and protected from political intrigue – by slight deafness and a limp.

The Claudius imagined by Graves is afflicted by a limp, a stammer (not a stutter – Jacobi explains the difference in the bonus documentary), and an uncontrollable twitching that lead his family to dismiss him as an idiot; his hobby of writing densely researched historical monographs merely adds weight to their conviction. In fact, Claudius is a keen observer who learns to use his infirmities as protective coloration, staying alive and even maintaining something of a moral compass, as his relatives fall victim to their own excesses.

The story unfolds as an extended flashback, as the aging emperor (Jacobi) sets out to write his family’s secret history. He returns us to the days when the first Emperor, Augustus (Brian Blessed) was consolidating his power and formalizing Rome’s shift from a republic to an imperial monarchy. Working sometimes with, sometimes against Augustus, is his wife Livia (Phillips). The period of civil war that preceded Augustus’s rule is to Livia what 9/11 was to Dick Cheney: justification for the maintenance and expansion of power by any means necessary. She has decided that the appropriate tool for her ambitions is her son by her first marriage, Tiberius (George Baker).

Soon, the death rate among Tiberius’s rivals becomes suspiciously high. But when Tiberius does at last succeed, it’s as an embittered old man. He withdraws to his villa at Capri, which is something like the Playboy Mansion, and something like the Manson Family ranch, and a whole lot like Clare Quilty’s Pavor Manor in Lolita (though Tiberius has to make do without movie cameras).

The ambitious general Sejanus (Patrick Stewart) makes a play for power, but it’s Rome’s fate to fall into the hands of Caligula (John Hurt), whose depravity more than matches that of his uncle Tiberius, and who has the added quirk of believing he’s a god. (Hurt, fresh from playing Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant, and soon to have the original alien burst out of his chest in Alien, adroitly balances camp with silken cruelty). After Caligula’s reign of terror, Claudius attempts to put things back on course, but his own wives, Messalina and Agrippinilla (mother of Nero, Claudius’s ultimate successor), just seem to offer more proof that the dynasty’s moral decline is irreversible.

The complex narrative moves with considerable speed, with no “previously on” segments to aid forgetful viewers – it makes as many or more demands on the viewer as the layered plots of contemporary cable series. Newcomers should be aware that the opening episodes cover decades of history at a fast clip, and the series really hits its stride in the later years of Augustus’s reign. Brian Blessed, in the first of his many, many turns as a booming-voiced leader of men, is appropriately larger than life as Augustus, a generous man whose vision and authority is undercut by a short temper and a fatal blindness to the flaws of his nearest and dearest.

In Siân Phillips’s hands, Livia becomes one of TV’s most memorable characters. Impossibly lean and elegant, there’s a snaky glamour to her every movement, and her devastatingly well-chosen words hum with sinister undertones. Yet the scenes in which, as a very old woman, she pleads with Claudius to promise she will be made a goddess after her death, so she can escape punishment in hell for her crimes, is strangely moving and perhaps the high point of the series.

This same scene exemplifies the distinctive way in which much of the series is staged – in long takes, more like live theater than film, enlivened by artfully choreographed camera movements. The style of the acting is likewise more theatrical than cinematic, particularly from a contemporary perspective, though with a cast of this caliber this is largely a strength. The action takes place almost entirely indoors, in sets built on sound stages, with the outside world largely reduced to light slanting in through the windows and the occasional roar of unseen crowds. This is appropriate, given that the characters mostly see the mass of Romans as background noise to be orchestrated for political effect. The few “crowd” scenes, according to the making-of documentary on the final disc, depended on artful staging of a handful of extras (only fifteen, according to actor George Baker).

I was happy to see that the sets, revealed in all their detail by digital remastering, are still impressive. Livia’s private chamber, with murals of trees and birds on a jade-green background, remains one of my favorite set designs ever. The credits, in which a viper slithers across a mosaic floor as weird, discordant music plays, are still eye catching.

The costumes keep their appeal, too – their flowing, vaguely art-nouveau lines and rich, off-key colors evoke the kind of thing Barbara Hulanicki was designing for her store Biba when the series first aired. Yet one of the minor fascinations of the series is seeing actors who’ve clearly spent more time rehearsing Shakespeare than at the gym or the cosmetic surgeon, or being styled by Rachel Zoe. I trust that Patrick Stewart fans won’t be disappointed that he didn’t go in for manscaping.

It’s interesting to think of the series as a product of its times – as a meditation on the decline and fall of Britain’s own empire, on the further reaches of the sexual revolution, on the cynicism and paranoia of the Watergate era. And the theme of increasing authoritarianism and surveillance in the name of national security has only gained in resonance.

Yet it also provides a look at an alien value system, in which auguries, omens, and prophecies inspire real belief, and gods are casually multiple. “It’s quite insufficient. You can have some of ours, you know,” is Augustus’s response to an explanation of Jewish monotheism. I wonder if in dropping mandatory Latin and Greek, which once made this wholly non-Judeo-Christian world view part of the mental furniture of any educated person, we’ve lost something.

The older characters, notably Claudius’s mother Antonia, pride themselves on adherence to values that exalt civic duty and stoic forbearance above all else. Suicide is an honorable choice, with its own etiquette. Upon learning of her daughter’s role in a planned coup, a mother locks her in her room to die. Death will be her daughter’s punishment; listening to the younger woman’s dying cries will be her own punishment, for bringing such a creature into the world.

If the series has a weakness, it is that the characters who dominate the later episodes don’t have quite the personality of Augustus and his immediate successors. The villainesses Messalina and Agrippinilla lack Livia’s grandeur and breadth of vision. Still, this sense of decline only makes the scene near the end, where the early characters appear to an aging Claudius, all the more poignant.

The DVD extras include a very watchable documentary on the making of the series, dominated by the actors themselves, an extended interview with Jacobi, and cast members and the director introducing their favorite scenes. Sadly, both Margaret Tyzack (Antonia) and George Baker (Tiberius) have passed away since making their contributions.

Of most interest to film buffs is the 70-minute documentary The Epic That Never Was. Made in 1965, and hosted by an almost unbelievably suave and handsome Dirk Bogarde, it tells the story of the 1937 film of I, Claudius, starring Charles Laughton (Claudius), Emlyn Williams (Caligula), and Merle Oberon (Messalina). Produced by Alexander Korda and directed by the legendary Josef von Sternberg, the already troubled production was abandoned after Oberon was nearly killed in a car accident.

The old-Hollywood staging of the interviews, especially von Sternberg, clad in a houndstooth jacket and smoking a pipe, holding forth in an empty auditorium at UCLA, provides a piquant contrast to the newer documentaries. There’s also a fascination in seeing Williams, a gay man, discussing a movie in which he’d co-starred with another gay man (Laughton) in a documentary hosted by a third gay man (Bogarde), describing the costumes he was to wear as Caligula as “two hostess gowns and a couple of short cocktail numbers.” Imitating von Sternberg’s German accent, he relates the director’s description of Caligula as “perhaps a little bit sissy, but not too much.”

The surviving scenes reflect a very different vision of Graves’s novel. Presented with six vestal virgins in chaste robes, von Sternberg demanded sixty, naked under translucent veils, in time for the next day’s shoot. It seems I, Claudius has always inspired the larger than life, however expressed.

Comments: No Comments »

Terry, desperate to prove that she and Michael Ames belong together forever.

Photo Credit: Carole Segal/AMC

On tonight’s episode of The Killing, our intrepid heroes actually begin to inch forward on their investigation into Rosie Larsen’s murder right as the conspiracy angle picks up again. These elements combine to create one of this season’s better efforts. It’s not so much that Openings is entertaining as that it is that it feels like a more professionally made, cohesive episode. Why, Holder and Linden actually come across as adequate crime solvers, not just a bored/pissy detective with her perpetually out-of-the-loop sidekick.

Among the work they get done tonight include trying to get evidence from the casino, getting Rosie’s phone records and learning that she tried to blackmail Super Muckety-Muck Michael Ames, questioning Jasper Ames, questioning Terry about her affair with Michael, questioning Jasper’s mother about her husband’s affairs, and trying to get Michael’s phone records. It’s a busy day for them, and one where they actually follow a trail rather than obsessing over one insignificant point for days on end. Jasper, who looks like a low rent version of Kyle Gallner, has such an over-the-top angst that it’s kind of amusing, and I think intentionally so. Though they do hit a pothole when their boss tells them to stop looking into Michael and the casino… because telling Holder and Linden to drop the case worked so well the last time.

At the end, Linden sees a drawing of trees magnetted to the refrigerator in her motel room. She asks Jack, who is completely over and doesn’t even mention his illness from yesterday, if it’s his … because Jack totally seems like the type to hang up an art class drawing on the fridge. But he says no, which makes her realize that someone broke into their place. They decide to bunk with Holder, who readily accepts them into his surprisingly nice apartment. As the episode ends, Holder and Jack are play wrestling as a person shrouded in darkness, wearing black gloves, and smoking a cigarette (we need to fit in all the evil clichés) watches them from his car below. That final moment, which is played too melodramatically to be truly affecting, is further hindered by the ridiculousness of Holder/Jack play wrestling. It’s the type of thing The Simpsons does when it wants to show how stupid and boorish Bart and Homer are, and Jack doesn’t have the excuse of being 10.

Michael Ames, the type of guy who’d have a backyard lawn chess set complete with human players.

In Mitch’s storyline, the runaway, who is named Tina, returns, and Mitch continues acting as a surrogate mother for her. I personally thought that this storyline worked well enough a couple episodes back and didn’t need to be revisited. Although I understood that it was meant to give some closure to Mitch and Rosie, even if Tina steals all of Mitch’s money at the end, I still think that it was better (and more powerful) as a one shot appearance. However, by rifling through Mitch’s stuff, she finds (and empties) a box of personal items that contains a letter written by Mitch to someone named David Ranier confirming his parentage of Rosie when she was two months pregnant. Presumably, Rosie contacted David Ranier so the question is… who on the show IS David Ranier? Odds are, The Killing is not going to bring a new guy into the fold to play this big a role at this point in the investigation/series. David Ranier…D.R…he shares the same initials as Darren Richmond. It is so obvious that I wouldn’t put it past The Killing to think that it’s fiendishly clever.

Stan doesn’t have much to do tonight. However, Linden, with her wonderful bedside manner, blindsides him with the “Rosie’s not your biological daughter” information. But he’s knows, and he seems at peace with it.

Darren Richmond (he has the same initials as David Ranier!) conducts his first TV interview since the shooting and explains his decision to stay in the race by telling Jamie’s story about his grandfather, much to Jamie’s impish delight. Gwen realizes that he’s going to need help separating himself from the murder accusations, so she asks for her job back. As expected, he gives it to her. How many times have high level people in the campaign jumped off of the U.S.S. Richmond only to jump back on?

Additional Thoughts:

• I liked the Gary Condit exchange as Gwen and her other political friends watched the interview.

• I didn’t think seeing the casino owner going to an event held by Michael was as shocking as the show made it out to be. They’re both business leaders in the same general region.

• I do know that we’ve seen the kitchen of the Lindens’ motel room in previous episodes, but tonight it struck me just how extensive it is. Would that type of motel have those accommodations? Same with the laundry room at where Mitch was staying at.

• One thing I found curious was how Jasper revealed to the detectives that Rosie’s a virgin. Ignoring the fact that just because she didn’t sleep with him doesn’t mean she’s a virgin, I have to wonder what the point would be in making her a virgin. Doe it play into some sort of puritanical mindset that her death is more tragic because she didn’t sacrifice her womanly virtue?

Comments: 7 Comments »

The author, in costume, on the set of Grimm.

When I walked into the audition on February 28, a little over eight weeks ago, I was absolutely sure I was not going to get this role. The character breakdown I’d received from my agent described Yannick as a “rotund but well-built man … reminiscent of the IRA … been through the wars, been in many fights, and should look like it.” Oh, sure, I thought; I’m the first actor people think of when they hear that!

Most of the time, I’ve been cast as trust figures and academics: doctors, lawyers, professors, psychologists — that sort of thing. This was the third Grimm role for which I’d auditioned. Last October, I went in for a tiny part as a lab tech in episode 10, “Organ Grinder” (which aired on Feb. 3). The second audition, on Jan. 23, was for the priest Captain Renard consults in the confessional booth in episode 12, “Last Grimm Standing” (which aired on Feb. 24). I really wanted that role, not least because it looked like a recurring character rather than a one-time-only appearance, but it went to a friend of mine in Portland. When I watched the episode, I knew everything that was going to come out of the priest’s mouth — I could even recite it with him — because I had auditioned for that scene, which was an odd feeling.

The email for this third audition came in from my agent on the evening of Feb. 24. It was a lucky break to get a weekend and more to prepare; usually, you’re notified about an audition for a TV show the afternoon or evening before the day you go in to read, so you have less than 24 hours to familiarize yourself with the scene and dialogue. I noticed that the “side” (the term for the page or two of script that actors read at the audition) said my character speaks “in French, subtitled,” though the lines were all typed in English.

Friends helped me translate the lines so I’d have the French in my back pocket. Still convinced I had no chance of landing the role, I wore a large khaki shirt and rolled the sleeves above my elbows to make my measly biceps look bigger, and carefully arranged my hair so it was unkempt, with loose strands hanging down either side of my forehead. And I put as much bass and gravel in my voice as I could muster.

Reader, I landed it. I was stunned. When I got to the shoot on Monday, March 12, I saw the two other Reapers were built like me — not “rotund” at all — so apparently the director, and perhaps even the creators, decided they wanted more of a mysterious European enforcer look. (That, and the fact that we could all speak French; maybe “rotund but well-built” actors who have studied that poofy language are thin on the ground.) My two scene partners were longtime Los Angeles actors who had flown up for the shoot, and appeared to be fluent in French … as if I didn’t already have enough to intimidate me on my first-ever network television shoot.

I didn’t get a trailer, but they gave me a room to myself, measuring about 5 by 15 feet and containing a sink, mirror, countertop, toilet, and padded couch, with my character’s name on the door — one of a series of such rooms in a big long trailer. A little thing that meant a lot was that Wardrobe had hung a large, padded jacket in my changing space that had nothing to do with my costume, but was simply mine to wear on a cold and rainy Oregon day whenever I was not on camera.

Portland’s Lotus Cardroom and Café

We shot my two scenes in a historic Portland bar called the Lotus Cardroom and Café, which dates back to 1924 and stands only ten blocks from my apartment. I was able to walk to work that morning. Aside from the terrific furniture (the 30-foot cherry-wood bar is at least a quarter-century older than the building and said to be worth $100,000), most of the stuffed animal heads that turned up on the walls in the episode were permanent fixtures. I noticed that set dressers had placed pictures of Mad Ludwig’s lovely Neuschwanstein castle (the one that plays a prominent role in the movie Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang) and other German scenes inside the picture frames on the wall, but none of those turned out to be visible on camera.

The interior of the Lotus Cardroom and Café, where David’s scenes were shot.

It took about two and a half hours to shoot my pair of scenes, which ended up amounting to a little over 90 seconds onscreen. If you’ve never been on a shoot, you might be unaware that for most of that “shooting” time, the actors aren’t necessarily on the actual set, never mind rehearsing or performing for the camera. We might be feverishly running through our lines in the next room, or relaxing and visiting with other actors and crew; but on the set where our performance will be recorded, the director, assistants, and crew spend most of that time planning the shot, adjusting lights, changing lenses, moving things in or out of frame for just the right balance of static visual context, and so on.

Other actors (or non-actors) stand, sit, or walk where your body eventually will be when the camera rolls so the cameraman and director(s) get an approximation of lighting and focus through the lens, but you — the actual performer in the scene — are at a nearby location, perhaps another room, for the duration of all that setup. This was the case here: after a couple of years of having acted and modeled in commercials, industrial videos, and indie shorts, this was the first time I had a stand-in, which gave me a certain silly pride. (He didn’t look anything like me, and was shorter.) On smaller film and commercial video projects, you tend to be your own stand-in.

Fellow Reapers: L.A. actors Henri Lubatti and Chino Binamo.

I was treated with graciousness and respect by the more experienced pros in the scene, Henri Lubatti (who was returning from episode 3, “Lonelyhearts,” as the Reaper whose ear Captain Renard cut off after berating him in a seedy apartment room in Portland) and Chino Binamo. Henri, a Seattle native who has worked in L.A. for many years, expressed pleasure that the show is hiring more local actors. Chino has a long resume of stunt work in various feature films. The director of my episode, Holly Dale, has a substantial record of shooting single TV episodes, from Steven King’s Dead Zone and Stargate: Atlantis to Castle and House M.D. She helmed multiple segments of Flashpoint and Cold Case, and had already directed episode 7 of Grimm, the creepy take on Rapunzel called “Let Your Hair Down” that originally aired on Dec. 16 and was re-broadcast on March 16. On set, Ms. Dale was pleasantly and unhurriedly businesslike.

A key moment for me came in the middle of shooting my second scene — the one that comes at the end of the show when I’m alone with my surprise package. The director came over between takes and said, “I like what you’re doing, I’m seeing plenty of emotion, but I want you to end with fierce rage; there was something you did in the audition…” and that is when I knew, for sure, that she really had chosen me. That was a lovely thing to hear, because even though I should have known better, I had still been laboring a little under the unfortunate notion that I’m not “rotund, but well-built….”

Four days later, NBC announced it was renewing Grimm for a second season of 22 episodes. Maybe you’ll see me there again.

Comments: 2 Comments »

Silas Weir Mitchell stars as Monroe, a “Wieder Blutbad,” in NBC’s Grimm.

I don’t think I’d ever fantasized about appearing on a national TV show. If I had, I doubt I pictured myself as a tough, French-speaking enforcer who (apparently) cuts off people’s heads. I might have imagined me with a glass of cognac or a tall beer. But on Friday, I turned up on the hit NBC fantasy series Grimm playing a guy of that description, with each of those drinks in front of him.

For those who haven’t seen the show, Grimm starts from the premise that all the supernatural beings in the tales by the Brothers Grimm were real creatures. In the pilot, young Portland (Oregon) homicide detective, Nick Burkhardt, learned from his dying aunt that he is a direct descendant of the Grimm Brothers. His forebears were not just storytellers, they were hunters. The Grimm bloodline enables Nick to perceive the many “wesen” (the German word for “creatures,” pronounced “vayzen”) among us through their human disguises, and he has a responsibility to protect the human race from the dangerous ones. His aunt bequeaths him her journals and reference works, special weapons, potions, and other tools for wesen control.

Nick acquires a “consultant” who has swiftly become the most universally beloved character on the show: a “Wieder Blutbad” (“veeder blootbod,” more or less), or wolf-like creature with a powerful sense of smell and great strength, named Monroe. A former meat eater who has “gone straight” as a human and a vegetarian, Monroe advises Nick about the tangle of strange critters who keep appearing on the streets of Portland. Increasingly, the wolf guy has helped Nick by running interference, conducting surveillance, or digging up information or evidence for him in places where the standard police don’t go.

David Giuntoli, a six-year veteran of mostly one-time TV series appearances, often bears a startling resemblance to the young Tom Cruise and plays his first starring role as Nick in a fairly low-key and almost bland manner. Silas Weir Mitchell, an oddly featured actor with a substantial resume of playing insane or frightening characters in shows like CSI, Dexter, Six Feet Under, Burn Notice, 24, and Law & Order: SVU, beautifully delivers the perky, upbeat, and charming Monroe. Mitchell gets most of the laugh lines.

The supporting cast includes our hero’s veteran partner on the force, Hank Griffin (Russell Hornsby); Nick’s live-in girlfriend, a veterinarian named Juliette Silverton (Bitsie Tulloch); and his boss, the mysterious Captain Renard (Sasha Roiz). Throughout the 19 episodes that have aired thus far, neither Hank nor Juliette has become aware of Nick’s status as a Grimm, or fully noticed that fantastical creatures keep popping up in each episode. Renard not only seems to know what Nick is, however, but also appears to be in league with other, ambiguous powers.

Like The X-Files, Grimm has tried to maintain a balance between “critter of the week” and a longer, more mysterious narrative arc. With the The X-Files, the cigarette man, aliens, and “are Mulder and Sculley ever gonna end up in the sack?” kept viewers coming back. In this show, fans have hung on for the steady unveiling of Nick’s Grimm powers and responsibilities, the odd but growing partnership of Nick and Monroe, and the ambiguous status and aims of Captain Renard (which is French for “fox,” of course).

Slotted on the traditionally weak night of Fridays at 9 p.m., Grimm’s premiere on Oct. 28, 2011 snagged 6.56 million viewers, a solid turnout opposite the seventh game of the World Series on Fox. This was less than a week after the debut of ABC’s more female-centered fantasy show, “Once Upon a Time.” For the rest of the season, Grimm has usually scored first or second in its time slot, bouncing between 4.79 and 5.3 million viewers (although CBS has put up some rough competition by running CSI: NY opposite our heroes on some Fridays in April). On March 16, NBC announced it had renewed the steady if not spectacular ratings puller for a second season of 22 episodes. Given its time slot and strong numbers in the vital 18-to-49 demographic, Grimm qualifies as a hit.

As happened three years ago with Leverage, Dean Devlin and Tim Hutton’s show on TNT, the State of Oregon lured the makers of Grimm to Portland with tax incentives. But co-creators David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf, previously involved with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, have also said Oregon’s evergreen stands are a perfect stand-in for Germany’s Black Forest. They reported that LA viewers of the pilot asked if all the trees were real, and whether greens crew had had to paint the moss on them. In their press release confirming the series’ renewal, Greenwalt and Kouf stated: “Rain or shine, Portland has been the ideal setting for fairy tales with its enchanting layout. It is its own character in our show with the perfect mix of urban and rural settings.”

Naturally, Portland has taken Grimm to its heart. The show has brought jobs and a solid flow of money (estimated at $2 million per episode) to the city, as well as given a further boost to our already-trendy image. In addition Leverage, which shot its second through fourth seasons here while pretending to be set in Boston, will explicitly identify Portland as its home base starting with the fifth season. Along with the Fred Armisen-Carrie Brownstein sketch comedy series on IFC, Portlandia, that makes three different television series that have permanently put down roots in Stumptown.

And if you were watching Friday night, you saw a longtime California Literary Review writer on Grimm. In my next piece, I’ll tell you more about the process of auditioning, shooting my scenes, and working with the LA actors who shared the “German bar” with me, plus I’ll have a few photos to show you from my day on set.

Comments: No Comments »

Angela with her kicky politician’s wife’s hairdo.

Photo by: Tyler Golden/NBC

I forgot to mention something about the last episode, but it’s been bothering me for the past week. We never got any indication from the rest of the office whom they’d prefer as their head- Nellie or Andy. Obviously, Robert wants Nellie because he likes to be an agent of chaos. Angela preferred Andy, but she’s not the most trustworthy source. And Dwight always worms his way into second in command. But what about everyone else? We never learn about Nellie’s leadership abilities. Did the welcome party make her less dreadful to the staff? While she might never be as much of a friend to everyone else as Andy, does she get similar or even better results? No one got Andy’s back when he returned from Florida, which may or may not mean something. I also didn’t think her “tragic” backstory from Welcome Party was tragic enough to warrant her being so awful. Her boyfriend left her; it wasn’t really a “forgive all her trespasses” tale. But, I do need to come up with an opinion about Nellie. Now that she’s apparently here to stay until at least the end of the season, I can’t just brush her off as a guest star who’ll be gone after three episodes.

But before I get to that, let’s talk about tonight’s episode- Fundraiser. The Office has regularly left the office before, more so in recent years. I’ve complained about it, but at the very least, all those stories, as pointless as they were, felt like they were directly connected to people in the office (Andy’s play was for Andy, Cici’s Christening was for Jim and Pam, the Glee viewing party was for Gabe, etc.), even if it made no sense why everyone (especially Stanley) was there. But tonight, the show took it to a new a new level by making the sojourn to State Senator Rob Lipton’s fundraiser for a local animal shelter. While Lipton is Angela’s husband and Robert California bought two tables so that everyone could come to the event, it seemed on the level of everyone going to Stanley’s daughter’s recital. And even though the episode was slightly better than most editions of The Office: Field Trips, it was hampered because of how weak the reason to get everyone out of the office was.

Andy Bernard, ever making awkwardness bland.

Photo by: Tyler Golden/NBC

Of the several plotlines running concurrently in this episode, the weakest was Andy Bernard’s. (Don’t worry, I get to Nellie.) As Erin is invited as part of the office, she takes the still-unemployed Andy along as her date, thus giving a semi-logical reason for Helms to show up tonight. Unemployment isn’t suiting him well, but he isn’t as ill composed as I think they intended for him to be. At least give the man stubble.

During his week without a job, Andy has started writing a rock opera featuring a villain named Thomas Oregon (clearly modeled after Robert California) who wants to kill music. Apparently, he’s also spent his week off watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall. While the rock opera would be fine as a throwaway line, I fear that it will come up again. It’s been awhile since they let Ed Helms indulge himself, and I wouldn’t put it past the producers to let the The Hangover star show off in an attempt to keep him on staff. To outdo Robert, he ends up adopting 12 dogs in need of constant care, but most of them end up re-adopted by fellow people from the office.

Most of the other stories are somewhat better. Oscar’s quest to prove that State Senator Lipton came onto him was okay. Kevin had some good moments, especially when he called everyone out on saying that Andy seemed fine. And Dwight confusing a silent auction for a guess the price game was silly, but worked well enough. More tiny plots like these could serve the show better, regardless of whether everyone’s at Dunder Mifflin or not. Speaking of the Dunder Mifflin crew, is Cathy off the show? I can’t remember the last time we even saw her. I’m glad she’s gone, but I can’t help but wonder what the point of that character was. A temptation plotline doesn’t work if the temptee isn’t tempted by the temptor.

Photo by: Tyler Golden/NBC

However, the second biggest storyline involved Nellie and Darryl, and it’s still difficult for me to form an actual opinion on her. I don’t hate her, I don’t like her, but mostly, I find her perplexing because I think the show is still struggling to get a handle on her character.

In her scenes tonight, Nellie has actually seemed to calm down from her initial appearances so maybe the welcome party did soften her rough edges. Or maybe the writers realized that if she was sticking around for the long haul, they needed make her meeker and less grating. Nevertheless, she still seems pretty naïve and stupid … and not in an entertaining way.

Her main goal tonight was to get Darryl to treat her with less disdain. I don’t know why she was so taken with Darryl. I didn’t see Darryl treating her with any more sly condescension than he does anyone else. And does that mean that everyone else in the office treats her well? Although the show didn’t say her thoughts about him were sexual (sometime a cigar …), I can’t be the only one who thought that Nellie was interested in him in that way.

To buddy up to him, Nellie expressed her desire to act more American by eating hamburgers or tacos instead of stuffy fancy affair food. So Darryl buys her tacos, and Nellie has no clue how to eat them. It’s not funny, and it’s just somewhat confusing. Are tacos really that exotic a food to non-Americans (and by Americans I mean continental America(s))? Was it trying to make Nellie more endearing? Was it supposed to be humorous? Was this a bit Tate did on her TV show? At the very least, Darryl does have more chemistry with her than he does with that warehouse worker whose name I already forgot.

Additional Thoughts:

• Again, I have to give the show credit for another strong cold open. Ryan, taken in by a death hoax regarding Smokey Robinson, pretends to be his biggest fan and’ “mourns” his death despite knowing very little about him. It was small, subtle, and somewhat realistic- everything the bulk of The Office stopped being.

• I seriously have to wonder if more time this season has been spent out of the office/industrial park than inside it.

• Jim and Pam watch Downtown Abbey. Of course they do.

• Moment of the Night (other than the cold open): Dwight taking his “gym bag” up to the roof after learning that Andy’s waiting in the parking lot.

• David Wallace made a surprising and not unwelcome return tonight. He’s doing well. The government bought the patent for his Suck It toy vacuum cleaner for $20 million.

• The ending bothered me. I guess it was nice that Kevin’s dog wasn’t dead, but it seemed weird filming inside his house. It was sacrificing the format of the show for a joke that wasn’t particularly good. Though I guess even documentary producers would like a happy ending. I was also very surprised at how clean his place seemed.

• After a quick Google search, I found several places in England that sell tacos. In 2010, Taco Bell opened its first “restaurant” there. While I know Taco Bell isn’t authentic, I’m just using it to show that some form of the taco does exist overseas.

Comments: 2 Comments »