The New Pope Episode 1 Review [Season Premiere]

There are a lot of things that drew me to The Young Pope when it premiered on HBO three years ago. Jude Law, first and foremost, but also how the show oozed with style (above just all the “this pope fucks” memes and whatnot), and how creator/director Paolo Sorrentino promised a sort of winking irony and satire with how he handled the papacy and themes of religion and power at large. But more than anything, Sorrentino seemed to have his finger directly on the pulse of current events. Despite the show being conceived years prior and airing in Europe in the fall of 2016, it seemed to be almost predictive of how that fall turned out for American politics. The idea of a populist, megalomaniacal narcissist and outsider infiltrating a sacrosanct institution and, on purpose or not, upending it and tearing it down from within may seem quaint after nearly an entire term of trump (and to be fair, Lenny Belardo is certainly no donald trump), but at the time it was brilliant and prescient. I’m still not even sure of Sorrentino did it on purpose, and yet it all over-delivered.

So, naturally, I couldn’t be more excited to see what Sorrentino had up his sleeve for the long-anticipated sequel series, The New Pope. A direct sequel to its predecessor, the premise of the show involves Jude Law’s Pope Pius XIII, born Lenny Belardo, interacting with the pope who replaced him, Pope John Paul III, played by John Malkovich. The trailers have been pretty vague and even after the premiere it seems unclear how that will play out, as Lenny starts the show in an induced coma and in need of a heart transplant. This unprecedented situation of a pope lying somewhere between life and death sets up the premise for this new miniseries, as the Cardinals must choose a new pope, one who will straighten things up and fix the perceived problems with Pius’s tenure and get things back to normal.

However this isn’t immediately thrust on the shoulders of Malkovich’s character, in fact he only shows up at the very end as a compromise between cardinals. In fact, the show decides to take an extended detour before landing on Cardinal John Brannox as the heir to Pius’s throne, and that detour winds up being a hell of a ride.

The first thing The New Pope does is to remind us that the show is just as much about Cardinal Angelo Voiello (Silvio Orlando) as it is about any of these popes. You’ll recall him from the first series as the Vatican’t secretary of state and manipulate string-puller who struggled to reel in the enigma that was Lenny Belardo after a lifetime of being used to getting his way as the  Vatican’s de facto leader. When Lenny falls into a coma, he decides it’s finally his time to come out of the shadows and submits himself for consideration as the new pope. But he doesn’t have the support he needs, as the conclave is hilariously split between him and Cardinal Hernandez, who for some reason looks exactly like him and is also played by Orlando (sans trademark mole on his cheek). I guess the joke here is that all machiavellian, Napoleanesque figures with delusions of grandeur kind of look alike, but the idea of having two Silvio Orlandos on this season is a pleasing notion.

In any case, up against the wall and facing an inevitable defeat, Voiello hatched a plan to elect Cardinal Viglietti (Marcello Romolo) as a puppet pope. You might remember him  from the first season as the confessor of the Vatican, which comes into play later when, in a massive miscalculation on Voiello’s part, Viglietti realizes he has untold power and uses it to make true the prophecies and teachings of his namesake saint Francis by opening the doors to the vatican to refugees, donating the church’s coffers to the poor and forcing his Cardinals to live modest lives by giving up their jewels and living in poverty. He even changes all the passwords on the Vatican’s bank accounts. What’s more, he’s sort of an extremist when it comes to homosexuality and sexual acts in general, as he suggests installing cameras in bathroom stalls to root out the masturbaters. He’s the antithesis of Lenny Belardo, but in the opposite ways for what Voiello wanted.

Putting aside the great storytelling here about a half-baked plan that blows up in Voiello’s face, there are great parallels here to the real life pope. It’s incredibly on the nose thanks to Sorrentino naming him Francis, but it’s also uncanny how Romolo manages to look more like Pope Francis than even Jonathan Pryce from Netflix’s The Two Popes.

Anyway, facing losing his job and even being defrocked, and threatened by Francis’ ultimate knowledge as the Vatican’s confessor (in his own words, he knows things no pope should know), Voiello has a fixer to whom we were introduced earlier in the episode murder the pope all while he and Hernandez agree to let choice #3 behind them in the conclave become pope. Enter the aforementioned John Brannox, who makes an appearance just in time for us to also see Lenny in bed, still in a coma, but moving his finger. The Francis II detour has been complete, and the show has dovetailed back to the premise we were promised.

Surely this won’t once again blow up in Voiello’s face.

It remains to be seen how the show winds up delivering on all of this show. Will Lenny wake up and play the Pope Benedict-style role of a former pope in absentia? Will he be some sort of omnipresent narrator to the audience, or will he manifest as a force ghost of sorts to Voiello and/or Brannox? The point of the premiere was to tell us that this is a show about Cardinal Voiello pulling the strings and how far he’s willing to go. But he still has a conscience. Will Lenny be there to scold him? Either way, this detour did an incredible job of making things more interesting as well as lightening the tone and reminding us that Sorrentino is here to have fun and tell an important story.

In fact, it’s utterly impressive how swiftly the show transitions from the style of The Young Pope to something different for this show. The opening sequence shows us a bunch of nuns behaving badly after lights out, smoking under a neon cross. It leans right into the memes established from the show’s first season. And we get the out-of-place music and over-the-top style all throughout the first act, but that slowly dissipates as everything kind of devolves into more or less a comedy of errors. Once Voiello props up Viglietti, the tone of the show completely shifts. Ironically, it becomes less self-serious as it begins to center around the more serious character of Voiello. Voiello tries to distance himself from the mockery that he considered to the be Pius XIII papacy, but only ventures out further into ridiculousness as he installs a near literal caricature of the real-life current pope.

Of course, by the end of the episode, Sorrentino very clearly tells us that this isn’t what The New Pope will be about. Pope Francis II is dispensed of (although the lasting nature of his short yet disruptive papacy remains to be seen), Voiello is seemingly back in control, possibly alongside his doppelganger, and a new pope is once again chosen, this time, based on the trailers, of a mild-mannered but very distinct personality. What kind of pope John Brannox will be is anyone’s guess.

The first episode of The New Pope does a lot of place-setting, but there are still many exciting questions left to be answered. And despite all of that setup, despite how it dovetails right back to where we started, it still offers a very satisfying, highly entertaining and entirely surprising story, as it lifts a side character from the first season up to the forefront and satirically mocks what might happen if we got an actual intellectual extremist in the pope’s office. Sorrentino takes things to one extreme in order to slingshot us back to the “normal” of the show, and immediately shows us that this show, this premise hasn’t lost a step and still has a relevant story left to tell. I shouldn’t be surprised that The New Pope is already my most anticipated weekly watch, but somehow the premiere still managed to do just that in a delightful way.

The Most Brutal Lines from Veep S07E02: ‘Discovery Weekend’

Last week’s season premiere of Veep was all about proving that the long-running HBO satire still had a place in the discourse on American politics. Could it be as biting and brutal as it was for its first six seasons, especially after nearly two years off the air?

The answer was an unsurprising and resounding yes, but it was nice to get confirmation that the show wouldn’t spend its final episodes on some sort of tame farewell tour. And while the season’s second episode, “Discovery Weekend”, was probably a little laid back in comparison, the show and its cavalcade of assholes were still firing on most cylinders this week, delivering vicious lines and takedowns on topics including but not limited to the #MeToo movement, women in presidential politics, the (gay) money behind said presidential politics, somehow bulimia, and a lot more.

The episode sees Selina and the campaign visit a major political donor’s weekend getaway where he is set to announce his backing of a single Democratic candidate. That donor is Felix Wade (played by the great William Fitchner), a political power player whose sexual preferences are the worst kept secret in politics (which doesn’t stop Selina from putting her foot in her mouth and accidentally outing him to an unwitting Mike; whose habitual and often forgotten presence now that he’s no longer in the campaign is quickly becoming one of my favourite things about this season) and who has decided to back Selina. Problem is that Tom James (Hugh Laurie) decides to stick his apparently gigantic penis where it doesn’t belong, renewing one of the show’s best will-they-won’t-they love/hate dynamics between him ans Selina. Tom complicates matters by telling Selina he legitimately loves her right before she’s set to deliver a speech that would guarantee her Felix’s money, causing her to stumble and lose ground. He also gets caught by Amy fooling around with his new Amy (the brilliantly cast Rhea Seahorn, who may as well be a clone of Anna Chlumsky’s).

So Selina and the gang spend most of the episode trying to stop Felix from falling too far in love with Tom, all while trying to do something “disruptive” to get his attention, which incidentally leaves them in the dust when Selina introduces Felix to a multiracial senator who Felix winds up back and who Selina describes as her protege (and therefore a perfect candidate to stab her in the back), leaving us in Veep’s favourite territory; right back where we started.

Meanwhile, the Jonah Ryan campaign is going just as well, as his repeated lies about all the women he’s clearly never gone out with come back to haunt him. While Teddy and the rest of his staff ponder what he could have done to offend a number of women, it turns out they’ve all banded together to create the wittingly labeled “#NotMe” movement to out Jonah as a liar and prove they’ve never slept with him. It’s a nice play on words with regards to the #MeToo movement and also bad news for Jonah, seeing as the trump card (I hate myself for that, don’t worry) of his campaign is his misplaced braggadocio.

All of this keeps the wheels moving on the show, but it’s interesting to see things move rather slowly two weeks into this final season. I wonder if we’re going to spend the entire season in the primaries, in order to mimic real life, or if a time jump is in the show’s near future. In any case, that doesn’t stop “Discovery Weekend” from being another great episode, so let’s not waste any more time. Below you’ll find all the great, brutal lines from this week’s episode:

• Jonah Ryan Dunk of the Week: “Dead-eyed lanterned-jawed one-and-done congresstard” (Jonah: “That could be anyone.”)
• Furlong: “I would have invited my wife but she’s a squirter and that dress doesn’t look scotch guarded.”
• Selina/Gary/Selina: “Come on that is idiotic. Is he really that insecure?” “Come on that is idiotic. Is he really that insecure?” “Gary gets it.”
• Gary/Selina: “Amy’s bulimic.” “It’s about time. And I’ll tell you something, she might want to consider more purging, less binging.”
• Kent to Amy: “You’ve got some vomit on your mustache.”
• Selina to Tom, upon meeting his new Amy: “What’s up with Frigid Von Pole-up-her-ass?”
• Selina/Kent: “He cannot spend another second with Felix without me jammed in between them like the cross piece in an Eiffel Tower threesome.” “MMF, the devil’s threesome.”
• Selina: “An all female ticket? I don’t think so. The American people work hard for a living, they don’t need that kind of bullshit.”
• Tom: “I believe the word you’re fumbling for is mansplaining.”
• Teddy: “Jonah who have you traumatized? Start with the doctor that delivered you.”
• Teddy: “If anyone asks, tell them you’ve been chemically castrated. It’s very easy to lie about and trust me, nobody checks.”
• Kent: “In current gay parlance Dan represents somewhere between a wolf and an otter. Some would say a frost otter.”
• Selina: “Dan fucked YOU? What were you wearing, a full length mirror?”
• Selina: “I did not spend my entire life defending a woman’s right to choose for you to choose this.”
• Jonah: “I split the bill on all my dates. Why would I pay for a woman to get fatter?”
• Selina/Gary and his bath bomb: “Is it gonna explode between my legs and make me cum until I cry?” “I think it’s peppermint.”
• Ben: “You’re going to be drowning in money so dark it would get shot entering its own apartment.”
• Selina: “How dare that smooth shitsack cheat on his wife and risk his political future with someone that’s not me.”
• Jonah/Richard: “I have scoliosis?” “Yes, clearly.”

The Top 20 Best New Shows of 2018

I probably don’t need to remind you of the sheer ridiculousness that is the wealth of content we currently face on television and streaming platforms. It seems like we can barely ever go a week without something new and exciting dropping as Peak TV continues to miss reaching the actual peak we’ve been promised year after year. It’s gotten to the point where new shows are more exciting than most returning shows, not only because they keep attracting bigger and bigger stars both on and behind the camera, but also thanks to the talented writers and creators getting more and more out of the medium creatively. 2018 was no different, as 2018 saw big stars like Oscar winners Julia Roberts, Emma Stone and Sean Penn take their first starring roles on the small screen, competing with the creative apex of talented veteran TV actors and comedians like Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader and Sandra Oh. 2018 saw a surge in horror television like we’ve never seen before, creative original shows which you can barely even talk about without spoiling, expanding cinematic universes and gratifying miniseries. And that’s just the beginning.

You might be sick of hearing this year after year, but 2018 might seriously have been the best year for new shows yet. To the point where I felt I had to delay this list to get in as many shows as possible. And still, I’m missing a lot of shows which will probably get me in trouble with the people reading this. I’m ashamed to say that I still haven’t gotten around to shows like Cobra Kai, Corporate, The Haunting of Hill House, The Terror, Escape from Dannemora, DC’s Titans, and I’m sure that list is missing shows I haven’t even thought of that’s making someone very angry as they’re reading this.

In other words, you can’t make everyone happy, and this is your general disclaimer that this list is very subjective and tailored to my personal taste. So don’t @ me, but please @ me in the comments, and consider this a living list as I fill in the gaps mentioned above throughout 2019.

Still, I watched enough TV in 2018 to come up with a list of over 20 fantastic new shows, so let’s not waste any more time!

But first, a couple of Honourable Mentions to four Netflix talk shows that I really enjoyed: The Joel McHale Show, The Break With Michelle Wolf, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman and Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj all gave me a reason to tune in to Netflix weekly for large chunks of the year. And that’s something that I felt I couldn’t really say about Netflix a lot on 2018. While they released a record amount of content, not as much of it hit for me as in years past. They also started cancelling shows for the first time in any significant way (pouring one out for Joel and Michelle), so clearly these talk shows were a means for Netflix to try something new. With only a few of them renewed for more episodes this year, the jury on this experiment is still out, but I would definitely like to see more content like this, even if the algorithm may have told Netflix that this wasn’t really the case. Nevertheless, I’ll always have those dozen or so weeks with Joel!

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20. A.P. Bio – NBC: Glenn Howerton’s attempt to branch out from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia started off rocky but really came into its own as this NBC sitcom’s first season wore on. I’m glad this show is coming back for more as it has potential and a great cast.

19. The Looming Tower – Amazon: Amazon’s 9/11 miniseries featuring a great scenery-chewing performance from Jeff Daniels tells the story from the perspective of the FBI and CIA butting heads in the months leading up to the attack. This show earns its spot based largely on its premise, performances and early episodes, as things get kind of muddled, especially when they start reaching the finish line, which, as you may have guessed, depicts the events of 9/11 and ends the whole series on more of a downer than it probably earns.

18. The Kominski Method – Netflix: While I suppose I don’t know what all these awards shows are seeing in Chuck Lorre’s rather pedestrian foray into the world of Netflix sitcoms, portraying LA from the perspective of an over the hill actor/acting coach (Michael Douglas) and his even older agent (Alan Arkin), the two main performances from those aforementioned actors are so good that it lifts the show passed what you might figure is its potential.

17. New Amsterdam – NBC: I’m not really a fan of the current crop of network medical dramas, so NBC’s flashy new medical drama really filled a big gap on my viewing schedule this past fall. It’s over the top, preachy and often ridiculous, but it’s anchored by a charming lead (Ryan Eggold), a good cast and a lot of attention-grabbing tricks like its persistent percussion soundtrack and a good balance between cast drama and interesting medical cases. Let me be clear, this show is probably not good, per se, but it falls perfectly into that territory of dumb network shows you need once or twice a week.

16. Castle Rock – Hulu: I’m not sure I get what’s going on on Castle Rock most of the time. I’m not even sure what the show is supposed to be about, as it’s set in the world of Stephen King’s tales and often references them, but sort of does its own thing. Castle Rock earns most of its points on ambiance and tone, as well as great character actor performances (Sissy Spacek, Andre Holland, Bill Skarsgard, etc). This world feels lives in, and everything is confusing and creepy, and that’s probably what the show’s creators were going for, making me happy to be along for the ride.

15. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina – Netflix: I’ll be honest; I probably disliked as many thing about Sabrina as I liked. The casting is great, the characters are great, the world feels rich and lived-in and the show perennially feels like it’s going somewhere. But I also hate how slow it is, how much each episode drags  (Netflix needs to crack the whip with the editors that make their shows, every episode could be at least 15 minutes shorter), and how far it leans into the CW school of how to make teen dramas. But there’s one thing that sets Sabrina apart and keeps me coming back for more, and that’s the pitch perfect casting of Kiernan Shipka in the titular role. I just hope season 2 is a little more streamlined, a little tighter.

14. The Little Drummer Girl – AMC: Speaking of shows that overstay their welcome, I don’t understand how you can make a show out of a John Le Carre novel so well and yet so utterly boring at the same time. This thing is only six episodes, but it feels like twelve. If I’m being honest, this is a case of Peak TV going too far and making a show out of what probably should have been a movie. Nevertheless, TV is where Le Carre stories have decided to reside, so this is what we get, a show with great performances (Florence Pugh is a revelation, Alexander Skarsgard continues to make me wonder why he isn’t already a movie star, and Michael Shannon is, well, Michael Shannon), a compelling story and beautiful settings that doesn’t really know what to do to put all of it together. It’s almost a wonder that someone could make a show with all of that good stuff (good enough to earn a spot on this list) so boring. Then again I tend to be overly critical on the lower end of these lists…

13. Everything Sucks! – Netflix: The thing that sucks the most about Everything Sucks! is that Netflix didn’t have the confidence in this quiet little show about growing up in the 90s enough to renew it passed a second season. Maybe it was a tad too derivative or reliant on nostalgia, but I really like what they managed to do with a cast of unknowns and with the plot they had. It’s a shame more people didn’t see it, but with a relatively close-ended arc, I’d still highly recommend the one and only season.

12. The First – Hulu: Between this and First Man, space stories with “First” in the title wound up kind of under-performing, despite big budgets, star power and compelling stories. I think for similar reasons too. Both Hulu’s near-futuristic drama about the first manned mission to Mars and Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic relied a little too heavily on uninteresting character drama. The First is largely build around Sean Penn’s character’s relationship with his addict daughter and whether or not he can leave her behind to go to Mars. First Man centers around Armstrong’s difficulty overcoming the death of his daughter. It’s just unnecessary. I can get this kind of character drama from any show, and it feels shoehorned in in both cases, maybe because some executive didn’t feel confident in a show being capable of enticing audiences on the premise alone. But we’re talking about space, goddamnit. Going to Mars (or the moon) is cool. Center the drama around that. Get me interested in that. Thankfully, when The First isn’t bogged down in what this non-astronaut drug addict girl is doing, it’s actually pretty good.

11. Counterpart – Starz: Counterpart is probably a little too low key (and tucked away on a network nobody watches like Starz) to earn a spot much higher than this, but if this list was about new shows with coolest premises, it might have been a lot higher. Counterpart is a sci fi spy drama about a portal that opens between almost identitcal dimensions, and the spy shit that goes on in order to keep the existence of the other world secret and in control of nefarious higher powers. J.K. Simmons plays a master spy in one world, and a mild-mannered middle-management type in the other in a fantastic dual-role performance, as each character is forced to confront the failings of the other all as cool spy shit happens all around him (them). I think where this show thrives (and weirdly also why I didn’t deem it flashy enough to go higher on the list) is in how quiet and introspective it manages to be despite that crazy premise. In all honesty it probably needed a few more explosions to be truly great (as cynical as that might sound), but it does a lot with the real estate it’s given.

10. Collateral – Netflix: Probably the best and most repeated compliment that people like to give UK TV is how their shows are really good about not overstaying their welcome. Collateral may have been the poster child for those things this past year, as a police procedural about a murdered migrant pizza delivery guy  that somehow manages to weave in all sorts of very topical takes on current events in just four tight, measly episodes. If anything Collateral is probably too short, if you can believe it, as it most certainly leaves you wanting more about where these stories and its characters might go. At the very least, they could probably tell more stories with these characters, but that’s not how UK TV usually works, baby. I hope to someday see John Simms and Carey Mulligan go back to these characters, but if they don’t, Collateral holds up as the perfect little British miniseries.

9. Maniac – Netflix: I don’t know if this is fair to say, considering Netflix’s Maniac isn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill drama, but it sort of feels like this show came a year or two too late. On a list full of unique premises and weird shows that bend the limits of the medium, it feels really weird that Maniac doesn’t do enough to set itself apart. It’s auteur driver (created and directed entirely by Cari Fukunaga of True Detective fame), has two huge stars at the apex of their careers (Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, not to mention a great supporting cast including Justin Theroux and Sally Field), it does that thing I love where it’s a drama but isn’t bogged down by a run time, which most episodes hovering between 40 and 50 minutes, and it’s super weird and quirky with a great story that goes some really weird and interesting places. And yet it’s one of those deals where all of that couldn’t get me as excited about the show as I thought I might be. On paper, this should be my #1 new show based on all of the criteria I’ve set forth. So why is it insteat at #9? I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s good, it’s unique, it’s weird, it stars people I love… and yet it didn’t put all of that together as well as it probably could. But hey, don’t let my negativity stop you, because it is still a great show.

8. Kidding – Showtime: We were so overdue for Jim Carrey’s renaissance that none of us realized that it might happen on a half hour Showtime dramedy, of all places. But the fit is perfect, as shows about flawed people is what Showtime does best, and Carrey is really underrated when leaning dramatic. Throw in the penchant for the weird and absurd that both he and EP/director Michel Gondry have known to wade in and you have a really unique series in Kidding, a show about a Mr. Rogers-esque children’s figure facing the unbearable and cruelty of the real world persistently trying to push him down, testing his resolve., and Carrey is the perfect person to convey that. The show probably isn’t good enough to suggest that Mr. Pickles is anywhere near his best role, but it often comes close.

7. Sharp Objects – HBO: This might be a hot take, but I thought Netflix’s 2018 was kind of disappointing for new shows. Despite occupying 5 slots on this list, little on that platform really wowed me. And yet, for the first time in a while, HBO had like three new shows that blew me away, which, per capita, is much more impressive. The first of those shows was Sharp Objects, the latest in the network’s miniseries efforts, and, boy, do they ever knock it out of the park with this one. The idea of a character-driven murder-mystery drama might feel very on brand for HBO, but the writing (led by showrunner Marti Nixon and Gillian Flynn, who wrote the novel), directing (Jean-Marc Vallee) and acting (Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson, Eliza Scanlen) are so good that it really puts the show over the top. There are things Sharp Objects does with editing, cinematography and sound design that even the most creative and inventive streaming shows can struggle with. The production values are so high that there’s little I look forward to these days on TV over their yearly (or more often) dark, dramatic miniseries.

6. Killing Eve – BBC America: I hope you’re ready for the hottest take in this article, because while I really enjoyed Killing Eve (clearly, as it’s in my top ten), I think it probably can’t live up to its hype, especially as it goes into its second season in 2019. It’s this year’s The Handmaid’s Tale, as a show with a compelling and relevant story with great (notably female) performances at its core, managing to capture the attentions of a lot of people its first season before we all inevitably realize that the premise isn’t sustainable for as long as a show as successful needs it to be. If anything we probably got to that revelation much quicker than with Handmaid’s, as I’ve been struggling to find anything positive to say about how the first season of Killing Eve ends (no spoilers, obviously). Nevertheless, we’re here to celebrate the first season, which was fun, exciting, action-packed and anchored by two fantastic performances from Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer. Forgetting how they might easily flub this going forward, season 1 of Killing Eve easily stacks up as one of the best cat-and-mouse stories in a good long while.

5. Forever – Amazon: Forever is a show you can’t really talk about without spoiling the entire reason it’s so good, and that’s probably why it wound up being somewhat overlooked. So many people I recommended it to brushed me off because I couldn’t adequately explain why it’s so good, and those people will rue the day. But it shouldn’t be that difficult to sell you on this show, because it hails from Alan Yang, the Emmy-winning writer of some of your favourite Master of None episodes (as well as 30 Rock and Parks & Rec scribe Matt Hubbard) and stars two of the most talented comedic actors around in Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen. And while I get that Armisen might be offputting to some thanks to his unique comedic sensibilities, Rudolph is a delight and performs the entirety of Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It” at one point during the first season. So now you have to watch it.

4. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan – Amazon: The reason this post is (embarrassingly) late is because I was (embarrassingly) late in watching Amazon’s big budget Jack Ryan reboot. Even though it came out late in the summer, I kept putting it off, probably because Jack Ryan and Tom Clancy haven’t really been brands that are relevant to me these days, and as I’ve mentioned many times on this list, there are just way too many shows doing crazy, original things for me to get excited about another 24/Homeland clone about terrorist plots and CIA drama. And yet that’s apparently exactly what I needed as a reprieve from a sea of shows trying to reinvent the medium, as I loved Jack Ryan so much that it kept jumping up on this list with every episode I got through, as it’s smart, expertly produced comfort food that you’ll love if you liked those aforementioned shows, featuring a good terrorist plot full of twists, great action and a performance from John Kransinski that transcents those Jim Halpert labels he’s been trying to shake (mainly by showing off all the upper body work he did to prepare for the role, because let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, there are a lot of gratuitous topless scenes in this). With Homeland coming to an end in 2019 and 24 in the history books, probably for good, Jack Ryan is a very worthy replacement.

3. Homecoming – Amazon: If Mrs. Maisel, Jim Halpert fighting terrorists and my vague but heavy praise for Forever isn’t enough to sell you an Amazon Prime subscription (where’s my money Jeff Bezos? Or should I say Mackenzie now?), let me tell you about a weird, unique, tension-filled show called Homecoming. Hailing from Sam Esmail (the creator of Mr. Robot) and starring Julia Roberts in her small screen debut, Homecoming is filled to the brim with tension as, over two timelines, it unravels the mystery of what happened to the pharmaceutical program for returning army veterans run by Roberts’ character. This is a show that doesn’t hide its pretense or use for tactics that will probably only appeal to the nerdiest of viewers like me (including Esmail’s affinity for odd cinematography choices, or scene-chewing performances from a supporting cast which includes Bobby Cannavale and Shea Whigham), but unlike in Mr. Robot (no offense to fans of that show), I find it all much better here, and pays off in a fantastic way when the big reveal finally happens. Homecoming is a bizarre show that, much like a lot of what Amazon winds up putting out, is hard to sell, so maybe you should just take my word for it. Or maybe I can sell you on its half-hour episode run times?

2. Succession – HBO: A lot of what you can probably gather from my TV choices these days (at least what I might put forth in a list like this) is that I’m very much interested in meaningful, auteur-driven shows that have something to say. Especially ones with great performances. Homecoming, for example, has a lot to say about capitalism and the military-industrial complex. Killing Eve, much like some of my favourite new shows from last year (Mrs. Maisel, GLOW, Handmaid’s Tale) do not hide their feminist flags. Succession fits nicely into that mold as a show about a lot of things, but, as concisely and bluntly as I can put it, the destructive nature of the Baby Boomer generation on both younger folks and the system at large (more literally, about a media conglomerate and the family at its head thrust into a power vacuum when its patriarch, played by Brian Cox, has a stroke but eventually refuses to step aside and let his children take over) and yet I was shocked at how much I wound up loving it, as it doesn’t have any flashy names attached, its episodes are all standard hours and HBO aired it in the dead of summer. But seemingly by design, it manages to subvert every single one of your expectations by being unexpectedly poignant and funny and the perfect amount of twisty.  On a chart of shows this probably falls perfectly between House of Cards, The Crown, This Is Us, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Veep. I know that probably doesn’t make any sense, but Succession is a show that’s hard to label and that might be why it was such a hard sell for me. And yet here it is, #2 on the list, with the only reason it’s not in the top spot being a weird ending that I felt missed the mark in order to set up subsequent seasons. But otherwise it’s so unexpectedly good and so entertaining that I can’t praise it enough.

1. Barry – HBO: After droning on about how much I appreciated this year’s bounty of new shows that are topical, it might seem peculiar to put a show like Barry in the top spot. After all, nothing about this show is grounded in reality, nor does it have anything really pertinent to say about current events. Instead, it’s unabashedly a character study, about the ennui of a hitman (Bill Hader) so good at his job that he joins an acting class in an effort to change his life. But his old one just won’t let go, as his handler (Stephen Root) keeps pushing him into new jobs that keep escalating and interfering with his new life This show is am abject fantasy, with a main character who lacks the ability to feel empathy and very clearly a bad guy, akin to a Dexter or Breaking Bad. And yet it somehow manages to make you care about Barry better than Dexter ever did, and more impressively even than in Breaking Bad. Barry is a surprising and impressive show, and there’s no better example of what makes it great than its apotheosis in the penultimate episode of the season, where after a particularly difficult kill, Barry is driven to a very emotional moment in the midst of a scene he puts on with his fellow student and love interest (Sarah Goldberg), perhaps the first time Barry is able to communicate how he truly feels. It’s a moment which perfectly juxtaposes the real shit going on in Barry’s life with the absurdly low stakes of the acting class,and the way it’s capable of balancing those things is what makes Barry such a great show, such a unique show.

True Detective S03E01&E02 Review: a return to form, or a shameless greatest hits playlist?

The biggest struggle that a third season of True Detective was ever going to have was in toeing the line between reattaining its previous glory and running the risk of becoming a legacy act, doomed to play out the greatest hits from its one good album in perpetuity. With three years having passed since the much maligned second season of the show, it’s been long enough for the wounds to heal and for people to genuinely get excited about what Nic Pizzolato can do by revisiting the show’s original stomping grounds, with an actor of the same caliber and stature as Matthew McConaughey, and a deference to the tone and themes that made us fall in love with the show in the first place. The question is whether or not viewers actually want more of the same, or if there’s no winning for Pizzolatto.

The reasons for season 2’s failures are too many to go into here, but in short, I always felt as if they were bred from the hindsight backlash to the first season. As much as season 1 was beloved by viewers and critics alike, that reverence also came with some well-intended criticism about Pizzolatto’s treatment of the show’s scarce female characters, or it’s faux spirituality and hand-waving of anything remotely supernatural that first season chose to tackle. Of course all about that is up for debate (a show can be about male lead characters, and it can choose not to explain in the inexplicable), but Pizzolatto seemed to take it way too hard, shoehorning commentary about that and other things that didn’t go his way into the second season’s choices. But one could argue that the quality of that second season was also due to lack of time or burnout (it barely took a year for HBO to produce the second season) or possibly the absence of the guiding hand of a visionary director such as Cari Fukunaga.

Season 3 directly tackles these mistakes, but one has to wonder if Pizzolatto swings the pendulum too far in the other direction. In fact, these first two episodes of season 3, “The Great War and Modern Memory” and “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye”, almost feel like an homage to the first season. It’s a character driven macabre crime story with hints of the supernatural led by an impeccable A-list performance, set in the moody, hazy deep south. There are multiple timelines, wisecracking buddy cop dynamics, comments about the fluid nature of time, dynamic overhead shots of Arkansas wilderness, unreliable narrators, recognizable character actors in supporting roles (in this case the likes of Stephen Dorf and Scoot McNairy), references to Lovecraft and other horror-tinged literature… all that’s really missing is an epic six-plus minute tracking shot, but the season is still young.

To be more specific, this third season of True Detective follows Wayne Hays (played, as mentioned, impeccably, by Mahershela Ali), an Arkansas detective haunted by the 1980 disappearance of two young siblings. By the end of the first episode, he discovers the boy dead, strewn out in ceremonial fashion in a cave. The second, a girl, is long presumed dead, until we find out ten years later while Hays is being deposed regarding the case and the potential false incarceration of the suspect he inevitably finds ten years prior, that she is indeed alive, after her fingerprints show up in a string of robberies. Twenty-five years later, Hays is old, slowly losing his memory and being interviewed about the case for a true crime reality show (cutely called “True Criminal”), still haunted by the case he never solved.

As expected, the show is littered with imagery and references borrowed from Lovecraft, Chambers and others, to the point where one has to wonder whether or not season 3 might actually be directly connected to season 1. The figurines left in the park where they find the boy are very reminiscent to the ones found in the first season. The story is also told from the perspective of an unreliable narrative, but in added twist, at two different times. In 1990, Hays, shown slightly older with a tighter haircut and having married and started a family with the school teacher he meets ten years prior (played by Carmen Ejogo), claims he still remembers all the details of the case and gets upset when he’s contradicted by those deposing him. In 2015, however, he’s older, needs audio and visual cues to remind him of things, as well as his now deceased wife’s first book on his case, and the second episode even ends on him waking up on the cross street of the children’s home, only to find it burnt to ashes.

Mahershela Ali sells this bill of goods in all three timelines with an impeccable, nuanced performance. You feel with his character when he finds the first child, you’re angry with him in the future, confused about what’s really going on 25 years later. It’s probably unfair to say that Pizzolatto is copying his own greatest hits because of how much Ali lives and breathes this character. And to boot, Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room) provides excellent direction in these two first episodes as first in line among this season’s new contributors (the others being David Milch, one of the only other credited writers for the season, and Daniel Sackheim, who is credited with directing every forthcoming episode that Pizzolatto didn’t do himself). It seems as if such a talented group of people would be remiss to repeat the mistakes that were made with season 2, or to veer the show too far into that dreaded greatest hits territory. Because as much as aspects of these episodes reminded me of the first season, I was at no point bored or offended by what I saw as a retread. In fact, I could see how that could slot into something bigger, akin to an extended cinematic universe, which would be a major step up from a second season that felt as if it didn’t belong.

All of this begs the question; did I like these two first episodes of the new True Detective because it was reminiscent of something I remember loving, because it was step up from a previous rock bottom, or because it stands as something good all on its own? Honestly, the answer is probably some combination of the three. It’s questionable whether that’s enough anymore in a 2019 television landscape that demands more than stories from the brooding male POV, but at a time of the year where not a lot of great TV is dropping, and in an environment where True Crime and its ilk still rules detective media, it’s certainly feels like it’s filling a need. But, again, that might be the True Detective season 1 fan in me talking. We’ll have to wait and see how it comes together, but for now, the premiere of True Detective season 3 gets 8 true crime novels out of 10.

The Best Shows of the First Half of 2018: Barry, GLOW, Atlanta, and More!

 

TV – there’s so much of it these days! How do you parse the hundreds of scripted shows on at any particular time and figure out what’s worth watching? Well, you have psychos like me, who watch way too much television and try to parlay what’s actually good and worth watching. If the exhaustive list of my favourite shows of 2018 so far is any indication, it’s not a job I’m particularly good at. But seeing as we’ve passed the midway point of 2018, and we’re only a couple of days removed from this year’s Emmy nominations, I thought it would be fun to check in on what I’ve been watching this year that may be worth your time. Some, like Barry, The Americans and Atlanta, you’ve probably seen on similar lists, and some shows like Killing Eve or The Terror I unfortunately haven’t gotten around to watching, but I hope you’ll also find some off-the-beaten path shows on here you might not expect to find

So without further adieu, where are my unsolicited thoughts on nearly 20 shows that have aired in the first half of 2018, presented in the best of orders, alphabetical!

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AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D – SEASON 5 – ABC

Phil Coulson and his Agents of SHIELD had a hell of year. They traveled to a dystopian future where the planet has been destroyed, and what remains floats in space under the control of Kree warlords running genetic experiments on survivors in order to traffic Inhumans. The first half of the season was a huge departure from what the show had done in the past, and yet another welcome change for one of TV’s most dynamic superhero dramas. And if that wasn’t enough, the second half of the season transformed General Talbot, a beloved character played by Adrian Pasdar, until the comics supervillain Graviton. Unfortunately, the show didn’t tie into the events of Avengers: Infinity War, despite some generic teases, and ABC put us through the ringer before they finally renewed the show for a shortened sixth season, but that’s not enough to detract from how delightful Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continues to be.

THE AMERICANS – SEASON 6 – FX

If the plodding, overlong season 5 of The Americans is what it took to deliver one of the best final seasons in recent memory, including a pitch-perfect finale, then opinions on season 5 need to be retroactively adjusted. With season 6, Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields deliver 10 episodes that not only bring the tale of The Jennings (and all the characters around them, notably their lowly FBI agent neighbor Stan Beeman) arc to a satisfying conclusion, but they do it in a way that (without spoiling anything) no one could have possibly anticipated. Philip and Elizabeth, the villains in their own story from the very beginning, don’t get the kind of comeuppance that media has trained us to expect them to get, in a finale that could easily garner two of the top spots in the best TV moments of 2018 (that parking garage scene! With or Without You!).

ATLANTA – SEASON 2 – FX

What can be said about Atlanta that hasn’t been said already? Donald Glover’s opus (one of many, if we’re being honest) is a unique, creatively rich experience that transcends the traditional confines of what most expect TV to be, even in 2018, when it can be pretty much anything. Everyone points to “Teddy Perkins” at its fulcrum, but almost every episode this season has something to offer worthy of those same accolades. It would be easy to name them all, but my favourites (and each for very different reasons), would probably be “Barbershop”, “Woods”, “North of the Border” and “FUBU”.

BARRY – SEASON 1 – HBO

I’ve already spoken at length about all the things that made the first season of Barry special. It’s black comedy that can be gut-bustingly funny when it needs to be and uncomfortable or melodramatic in its more serious moments. Bill Hader is a revelation in the titular role, and everyone around him, notably the great Henry Winkler, are perfect in supporting roles. And maybe most importantly, the story goes places you wouldn’t expect it to, to the point where I’m having trouble conceiving what season 2 might look like. And that’s an exciting feeling to have for a show these days.

BROOKLYN NINE-NINE – SEASON 5 – FOX

You probably don’t need a full diatribe to understand why Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a special show that will wind up in the pantheon of single-cam comedies. It’s regularly hilarious, its cast is perfectly balanced between television vets, established comedians and relative unknowns (at least prior to the show), and it has a tendency to be able to get serious when it needs to. It also continues to get better with every passing season. And this past spring, it managed to rally the internet around its cancellation and subsequent resurrection at NBC with the kind of love you simply don’t see for a TV show anymore. B99 is television comfort food and I hope it never goes away.

COUNTERPART – SEASON 1 – STARZ

Competing with Barry for one of 2018’s best new shows is this sci fi drama about parallel earths and the spy shit that goes on between them. Counterpart feels like it’s drawn straight from a Cold War mystery novel. Its world(s) feel lived in and distict, interesting in the ways they subtly deviate from our own, its characters fully fledged (including a set of doppelgangers played expertly by J.K. Simmons, in dual roles so different from one another that may actually convince you that he has a twin brother who’s just as good at acting as he is). I want to see so much more in the world of Counterpart, and yet it is a show that’s really good at holding back until it absolutely needs to, leading to some very satisfying moments peppered throughout season 1.

GLOW – SEASON 2 – NETFLIX

Back on my old site, I proclaimed GLOW the best new show of 2017. It was a decision I was relatively comfortable with, but one I had to mull, as putting a sitcom about women’s wrestling in the 80s ahead of things like Mindhunter, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel and The Handmaid’s Tale in such a stacked year for frashmen shows, especially dramas, felt kind of odd. But I don’t regret it, because GLOW is such a feelgood, uplifting show that perfectly encapsulates its time period and projects it against some of the issues we face in society today, especially women’s rights. Season 2, which recently came out on Netflix, only reinforces my views on the show. It’s just as good, if not better, than the first season, and it’s transformative and different from the first season in the best possible way.

THE GOOD PLACE – SEASON 2 – NBC

This might be cheating, because The Good Place only aired five episodes in 2018, but those episodes were among the best of a second season most of us had no idea what to expect of, and introduced us to Maya Rudolph’s Judge Gen. Since we’re a couple days removed from the second season’s inevitable Emmy snubs, it seemed only fair to give it a shoutout here.

THE HANDMAID’S TALE – SEASON 2 – HULU

A lot of people have struggled with the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale, because it doesn’t hold anything back. It’s a tormenting, depressing, dark, drab show that you don’t feel good about while watching. But it’s an important show, serving as a somber warning about the kind of society we could be headed towards, and it’s expertly acted and made. The sort of existential conversation around this show is whether or not this is the kind of thing people want out of a television viewing experience, as being told that a show is important is a tough pill to swallow in a medium that’s mostly seen as entertaining, but, like, we don’t have a trouble with the idea of the importance of a movie (contrasted with whatever building The Rock is jumping out of this quarter), so why can’t we accept the importance of a TV show?

HOMELAND – SEASON 7 – SHOWTIME

This is probably the only place you’ll see Homeland on such a list. It seems as if critics and viewers have long abandoned Showtime’s once seminal drama, and that’s a real shame, because I truly believe that, with season 7, Claire Danes and co. delivered the Homeland season since its first. Season 7 tells a very pertinent story about the overreach of government, about fake news and media manipulation, about the danger of falling prey to conspiracy theories. It even ropes in the Russians in a very tangible and scary way, all while skirting the obvious places it could have gone in this post-Trump world. Season 7 of Homeland it the most relevant its ever been, and a more realistic and grounded version of 24, a show that’s often been drawn in comparison to Homeland but never previously embraced the way it had this year. Nu-Homeland is hyper-relevant, its storytelling and action is tight and gratifying, and the performances are as good as they’ve ever been. I urge people who were once fans of Homeland to jump on board this train, because season 7 is probably the best season of television in 2018 that you’re not watching.

LEGION – SEASON 2 – FX

Legion’s best quality is that it’s willing to go places most shows won’t ever want to come near. It’s TV’s high brow superhero drama, its most unique and interesting show about mental illness, and probably the least linear thing you’ll see on mainstream TV this year. But you already knew that after season 1. If anything changes with season 2, it’s probably that the storytelling is more coherent and the action is better, with “fight” scenes that are stylized and weird (ranging from cartoons fighting among the clouds to dance battles of the mind). Almost every episode of season 2 has mesmerizing, entrancing scenes unlike anything else on TV.

THE LOOMING TOWER – MINISERIES – HULU

I kind of don’t know why The Looming Tower exists. It’s a throwback miniseries that feels like it’s using standards abandoned by TV filmmakers years ago, telling a long-form story about the events leading up to 9/11 that don’t seem to be sure about whether they want to tell the story about what led to 9/11, or about the quirks of the people involved. The miniseries has a stacked cast led by Jeff Daniels and Peter Sarsgaard, both of whom act their asses off and bring life to a story that would be hard to tell without the baseline pizzazz that they try and offer. The Looming Tower isn’t perfect, but it’s probably the best narrative take on the most important event of the past 30 years that I’ve yet to see, managing to be entertaining and interesting despite its difficult subject matter.

LUKE CAGE – SEASON 2 – NETFLIX

After a string of disappointments from the ongoing partnership between Netflix and Marvel Studios, I truly felt as if they finally delivered something that, from beginning to end, felt coherent, worthwhile and not terribly overlong with Luke Cage season 2 (maybe for the first time since the first seasons of Daredevil and Jessica Jones). While most will probably continue to insist that these Marvel Netflix shows probably shouldn’t be 13 episodes long, this was the first time in a while that I didn’t find myself checking how many episodes I have left or complaining about how long they they were. This was the first time I wanted more from one of these shows, and that’s saying a lot. Could it have been 10 episodes instead of 13? Maybe, but it still didn’t feel as if it dragged. What’s more, they manage to stick the landing better than any of these shows, an ending which transforms the titular character, give him more depth than ever before and sets a completely different, interesting path forward. I suspect I need to do a rewatch of all these shows, but Luke Cage S2 might be gunning for the top spot in my ranking of Marvel Netflix seasons.

SILICON VALLEY – SEASON 5 – HBO

The writers on Silicon Valley took fan complains to heart and finally gave us a season of the show where the characters don’t fail upwards. Seeing a modicum of success in season 5 reinvigorated the HBO sitcom, allowing the show to go different places and do some different things. It wasn’t perfect, by any means, but it’s still one of the funniest shows on TV with one of the best ensemble casts.

SUPERSTORE – SEASON 3 – NBC

Speaking of one of the funniest shows on TV with one of the best ensemble casts, Superstore continues its quiet run as a reliable sitcom about the inner workings and relationships at a department store. I don’t have much to say about this one, but it perennially deserves a shoutout.

WESTWORLD – SEASON 2 – HBO

While I can certainly acknowledge that season 2 of Westworld had more than its fair share of issues with storytelling and pacing, I also can’t deny that it’s a show that’s a compelling, wildly entertaining visual feast. I think the backlash for the second season largely stems from the creators obvious and probably misguided attempts to subvert fan expectations and likely purposely mislead them after they so quickly figured out the “puzzle box” of the first season. And that’s fair. But there also isn’t any other show on television that can give me a downright perfect bottle episode like “Kiksuya”, the Akecheta background episode, or “Akane no Mai”, the long-awaited foray into Shogunworld. There is no other show on television that can simultaneously mistify and entertain, no other show that goes this hard on its sci-fi premises of artificial intelligence and the singularity. Season 2 of Westworld wasn’t perfect, but its peaks, and its potential are among the things that will keep me coming back and keep me hoping that it can get better.

THE X-FILES – (MOST OF) SEASON 11 – FOX

Just hear me out.

The likely final season of The X-Files ended in a terrible way that I’d extinguish from my memory if I could. It showed me that there is no saying this once revered Mythology. Seeing Chris Carter continuously besmirch his own oeuvre the way he has with these revival seasons has left me battered and broken. But there’s a silver lining. And there’s merit to the continuation of The X-Files, within its procedural Monster-of-the-Week episodes. The clunky season 10 gave us a pantheon-worthy episode in “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster”, and several episodes in season 11 proved that this was no fluke, that we deserve to see Mulder and Scully occasionally get together and solve an anthology of good old-fashioned paranormal mysteries, unencumbered by a Mythology that’s beyond saying. So if you haven’t seen season 11 yet, I’d recommend you forget the Cigarette Smoking Man or Mulder and Scully’s super-son or the impending end of the world. Ignore all the bad stuff from this past season, and instead watch the half-dozen or so episodes that don’t rely on the mythology and stand on their own. My two favourites this year were “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat”, in which we’re introduced to a third, previously unknown member of team X-Files played by Brian Huskey as the episode explores the Mandela Effect, and “Rm9sbG93ZXJz”, where Mulder and Scully are haunted by AI restaurant staff in search for a tip, an episode presented almost entirely devoid of dialog. These episodes are good enough to overcome Chris Carter’s malice and will hopefully stand the test of time for this show. They deserve to be watched, and deserved to be mentioned on this list.