The Great Day That Dawns... And Sets Before I Leave the Sofa
Treme - Season 2 (2011)
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
watched on HBO GO
I read a review of the second season of Treme that generously called the music in the show - and the people who play it, and the plots that come out of it - "controversial." My own take is that no show on television feels more indulged (spoiled, really) than this, but that doesn't explain why I persist in watching it. On a list of offenses that includes Anthony Bourdain's credited story participation and Janette's inexplicable tenure in New York City, Ladonna's rape epitomized the ways in which all the directionless nonsense that comprises Treme's "milieu" - or "atmosphere" - is a listless stunt. When David Simon and Eric Overmyer need to get your attention again, no gimmick is too cheap to employ.
Davis' red-haired buddy in some ways suggests that the show is aware of its pretenses and faults, except that the characters we wink at (like Davis) remain the characters we follow. I suppose I find comfort in the ways that men and women deal with grief through a communal experience. There's Sofia, of course, riding the ferry where her father committed suicide, but also a funeral service for someone we never met, and kids talking - not unkindly, but distantly - about a deceased classmate at school. In my heart, the meandering pace of Treme feels most like Simon simply doesn't know where he wants to go, but it allows for the occasional moment of clarity.
Syl sent me a copy of Les Blank's Always for Pleasure this February, and the documentary says more about New Orleans in less than an hour than even the gentlest second-line footage here. Blank films the musician Irma Thomas in her living room, but she doesn't sing. Blank doesn't even mention that she's a singer. Instead, she talks about her gumbo and jokes with her husband, who got an ingredient wrong that morning. People aren't defined by what they do, even when they enjoy their jobs. Lives are more interesting than that, and Les Blank is confident enough in that belief to let characters speak for themselves.
Game of Thrones - Season 1 (2011)
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
watched on HBO GO
Game of Thrones is an odd phenomenon, and reactions to it are inevitably framed by whether or not someone is up to date with A Song of Ice and Fire. Not even The New Yorker could resist throwing its hat into the fantasy ring to offer up a non-opinion on whether or not HBO will need to finish the series without its author. I guess it's all beside the point, except that even the most casual reaction comes up against a wall of online opinion that articulates nearly anything I could think to say long before I've said it.
As adaptation, the show suffers from - but does its best with - a limited budget. There weren't many moments when Game of Thrones stood clear of the text enough to look like its own beast (unlike, say, True Blood, which - to its credit - can't resemble its source much at all by this stage). But that's okay. I'm always interested in how other folks might interpret material I've imagined in my head, and ten hours once a year is little enough time to spend to satisfy my curiosity. Is there anything in Game of Thrones that HBO handled better than George Martin? No, but "Baelor" at least allowed for a fresh perspective: Ned's.
Eastbound & Down - Season 2 (2010)
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
watched on HBO GO
I was never more excited about Season 2 of Eastbound & Down than on the afternoon of September 23, 2010, when I happened to be at Syl's place in time for the premiere. Expectations weren't met, and in the nine months since (a wasteland where these flowers of subscription television were not allowed to grow), I lost the will to even look forward to the arrival of said second season on DVD. Some fan! But it turned out okay, for Kenny and for me.
After all, what did I want? Another round with Ashley Schaeffer? More cocaine with Clegg? I looked forward to Kenny in Mexico; I loved the odd teaser trailers as he made his way through the night streets of his adopted city in slow motion and silence. The premiere fell flat. "Harsh" was never Kenny's vibe, and how could the dwarf compare to a minor character like the old college recruiter? Blame for the show's downfall cycled through my mind before I ever saw the next six episodes. Shawn Harwell, college friend? Jodie Hill?
Stevie Janowski is the unsung hero of Season 2. There isn't another show on television that would put a man like Stevie in a room with a prostitute in Laredo as a way of selling the sexual prowess of the show's protagonist. Once Stevie appears, minor conflicts and grievances give way to an ever-expanding group of confidants, teammates, and pals. Mr. Cisneros - the man with money and, one preemptively and incorrectly assumes, a hot Latin temper - is funny and encouraging, not threatening; the scenes with Catuey and Stevie talking up Stevie's hero through a megaphone mounted on Catuey's car are odd and endearing. Even the love interest, who I expected to ruin things for Kenny (given someone's icky track record with women) turned out to be a good old-fashioned heartbreaker.
I won't oversell it. Like Season 4 of The Wire or Larry's more recent bouts with Girl Scouts, Kenny is at his best surrounded by children. Lightning didn't strike just the way it used to. But John Hawkes is still a part of the two best shows on HBO.
True Blood - Season 3 (2010)
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
watched on HBO GO
True Blood gets all the details right, even as the bigger arcs and mysteries never really match small character interactions for closure or narrative satisfaction. Did Russell and Eric both wind up in the American South by coincidence? Is a 3,000-year old vampire three times as powerful as one who has lived for a mere millennium? If so, shouldn't Russell be a better fighter, less prone to trickery or speed?
But I don't really mind. It's a pleasure just to watch an actor like Denis O'Hare purr through a Mississippi vampire hunt on horseback. As ridiculous as scenarios get, everyone in the cast plays them straight down the line; it isn't operatic or theatrical, because both of those traditions imply something studied or self-aware. True Blood is crazy but it's free.
Season 3 finally let Sookie be Buffy in reverse: a strong, smart woman surrounded by monsters much more powerful than she is. As her universe expands, she is more and more its center - the woman with a true heart, pursued by fickle men and jealous monsters, open to the best interpretation of the gifts and promises each suitor brings. She is loved and betrayed in turn, but she does not forget the part of her that cares for each of them before he lets her down.
In True Blood (post-season 1, anyway) the physical act of living - the singing of the five senses - is paramount. Over a long enough period of time, a man's prejudices and fears are exhausted by experience, then replaced by something akin to wonder. Infinite hours are infinite possibilities, in matters of love especially. Say it with me, then: "I love True Blood."
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
watched on HBO GO
I read a review of the second season of Treme that generously called the music in the show - and the people who play it, and the plots that come out of it - "controversial." My own take is that no show on television feels more indulged (spoiled, really) than this, but that doesn't explain why I persist in watching it. On a list of offenses that includes Anthony Bourdain's credited story participation and Janette's inexplicable tenure in New York City, Ladonna's rape epitomized the ways in which all the directionless nonsense that comprises Treme's "milieu" - or "atmosphere" - is a listless stunt. When David Simon and Eric Overmyer need to get your attention again, no gimmick is too cheap to employ.
Davis' red-haired buddy in some ways suggests that the show is aware of its pretenses and faults, except that the characters we wink at (like Davis) remain the characters we follow. I suppose I find comfort in the ways that men and women deal with grief through a communal experience. There's Sofia, of course, riding the ferry where her father committed suicide, but also a funeral service for someone we never met, and kids talking - not unkindly, but distantly - about a deceased classmate at school. In my heart, the meandering pace of Treme feels most like Simon simply doesn't know where he wants to go, but it allows for the occasional moment of clarity.
Syl sent me a copy of Les Blank's Always for Pleasure this February, and the documentary says more about New Orleans in less than an hour than even the gentlest second-line footage here. Blank films the musician Irma Thomas in her living room, but she doesn't sing. Blank doesn't even mention that she's a singer. Instead, she talks about her gumbo and jokes with her husband, who got an ingredient wrong that morning. People aren't defined by what they do, even when they enjoy their jobs. Lives are more interesting than that, and Les Blank is confident enough in that belief to let characters speak for themselves.
Game of Thrones - Season 1 (2011)
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
watched on HBO GO
Game of Thrones is an odd phenomenon, and reactions to it are inevitably framed by whether or not someone is up to date with A Song of Ice and Fire. Not even The New Yorker could resist throwing its hat into the fantasy ring to offer up a non-opinion on whether or not HBO will need to finish the series without its author. I guess it's all beside the point, except that even the most casual reaction comes up against a wall of online opinion that articulates nearly anything I could think to say long before I've said it.
As adaptation, the show suffers from - but does its best with - a limited budget. There weren't many moments when Game of Thrones stood clear of the text enough to look like its own beast (unlike, say, True Blood, which - to its credit - can't resemble its source much at all by this stage). But that's okay. I'm always interested in how other folks might interpret material I've imagined in my head, and ten hours once a year is little enough time to spend to satisfy my curiosity. Is there anything in Game of Thrones that HBO handled better than George Martin? No, but "Baelor" at least allowed for a fresh perspective: Ned's.
Eastbound & Down - Season 2 (2010)
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
watched on HBO GO
I was never more excited about Season 2 of Eastbound & Down than on the afternoon of September 23, 2010, when I happened to be at Syl's place in time for the premiere. Expectations weren't met, and in the nine months since (a wasteland where these flowers of subscription television were not allowed to grow), I lost the will to even look forward to the arrival of said second season on DVD. Some fan! But it turned out okay, for Kenny and for me.
After all, what did I want? Another round with Ashley Schaeffer? More cocaine with Clegg? I looked forward to Kenny in Mexico; I loved the odd teaser trailers as he made his way through the night streets of his adopted city in slow motion and silence. The premiere fell flat. "Harsh" was never Kenny's vibe, and how could the dwarf compare to a minor character like the old college recruiter? Blame for the show's downfall cycled through my mind before I ever saw the next six episodes. Shawn Harwell, college friend? Jodie Hill?
Stevie Janowski is the unsung hero of Season 2. There isn't another show on television that would put a man like Stevie in a room with a prostitute in Laredo as a way of selling the sexual prowess of the show's protagonist. Once Stevie appears, minor conflicts and grievances give way to an ever-expanding group of confidants, teammates, and pals. Mr. Cisneros - the man with money and, one preemptively and incorrectly assumes, a hot Latin temper - is funny and encouraging, not threatening; the scenes with Catuey and Stevie talking up Stevie's hero through a megaphone mounted on Catuey's car are odd and endearing. Even the love interest, who I expected to ruin things for Kenny (given someone's icky track record with women) turned out to be a good old-fashioned heartbreaker.
I won't oversell it. Like Season 4 of The Wire or Larry's more recent bouts with Girl Scouts, Kenny is at his best surrounded by children. Lightning didn't strike just the way it used to. But John Hawkes is still a part of the two best shows on HBO.
True Blood - Season 3 (2010)
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
watched on HBO GO
True Blood gets all the details right, even as the bigger arcs and mysteries never really match small character interactions for closure or narrative satisfaction. Did Russell and Eric both wind up in the American South by coincidence? Is a 3,000-year old vampire three times as powerful as one who has lived for a mere millennium? If so, shouldn't Russell be a better fighter, less prone to trickery or speed?
But I don't really mind. It's a pleasure just to watch an actor like Denis O'Hare purr through a Mississippi vampire hunt on horseback. As ridiculous as scenarios get, everyone in the cast plays them straight down the line; it isn't operatic or theatrical, because both of those traditions imply something studied or self-aware. True Blood is crazy but it's free.
Season 3 finally let Sookie be Buffy in reverse: a strong, smart woman surrounded by monsters much more powerful than she is. As her universe expands, she is more and more its center - the woman with a true heart, pursued by fickle men and jealous monsters, open to the best interpretation of the gifts and promises each suitor brings. She is loved and betrayed in turn, but she does not forget the part of her that cares for each of them before he lets her down.
In True Blood (post-season 1, anyway) the physical act of living - the singing of the five senses - is paramount. Over a long enough period of time, a man's prejudices and fears are exhausted by experience, then replaced by something akin to wonder. Infinite hours are infinite possibilities, in matters of love especially. Say it with me, then: "I love True Blood."
posted by NPK at 6:13 AM
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