Big-network dramas are effectively going the way of the dinosaur when it comes to top-notch programming, but last fall, when we heard that This is Us was about to kick off and that it was drawing a lot of comparisons to Parenthood (which we really liked), we figured we had to at least give it a try.
Now, it's a year later and the second season of This Is Us is about to start, so it's a pretty weird time for us to be wrapping up Season One. We actually watched everything except the final three episodes as they were released and then just put the finishing touches on the season this past week. A big reason for the delay is that This is Us has a serious knack for dropping sad-bombs, and with two of the saddest bombs possible hovering over the season's final episodes, we had a hard time working up the desire to watch something that was inevitably going to bum us out. That's excluding the fact that This Is Us had to compete for our attention with our rampage through The Sopranos. Hardly a fair fight.
By now, I've pretty much conceded that I can't truly write what I'd consider a good review of TV without dropping some spoilers, so feel free to check out here if you truly don't want anything ruined.
This Is Us centers on the Pearson family, which consists of triplets Kevin, Kate, and the adopted Randall, Randall's immediate family, his sick biological father William, and a married couple, Jack and Rebecca. In the fantastic first episode, the stories of the various characters seem unrelated until it's finally revealed that scenes with Jack and Rebecca are actually taking place in the distant past and that they're the parents of the triplets. The show jumps back and forth between the present and past, often with storylines intertwining and events of the triplets' childhood proving relevant to what's going on in their lives.
The structure of the show largely works, because even if the triplets aren't around one another in the present, they're linked by the scenes involving themselves as 80s/90s kids, so it never feels like the show's telling three different, completely unrelated stories. As far as plot-driven drama is concerned, This is Us does a great job of sucking you in with dramatic twists. Talent-wise, the cast is pretty deep and they make the big moments feel earned, even if the underlying character work is occasionally lacking. Scenes like Dr. K trying to help Jack cope with the death of his child, Jack's saving of Thanksgiving with his 'Pilgrim Rick' spiel, and the good-bye between William and Randall make for unforgettable moments that will always pop back into my head first whenever anyone brings up this show.
The characters on This is Us are somewhat hit or miss. Randall (played by a wonderful Sterling K. Brown) is easily the best character on the show, as he's often the dramatic heart of the present day scenes and adds some sneaky-good comedy as well at the right moments. His relationship with William (an also-great Ron Cephas Jones), who abandoned Randall at the hospital at birth, is consistently the best feature of the show and the writers get a lot of mileage out of Randall meeting such an important figure in his life with very little time left to truly get to know the man.
Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) is also very compelling throughout the struggles of raising his three kids and the ups-and-downs of his relationship with Rebecca (Mandy Moore). It's really easy to like Jack, and that helps us forgive the fact that for most of the season, he's essentially written as the father and husband that's meant to make the rest of us look like shit. The show explores SuperDad's flaws later on in the season, but it feels sort of disingenuous that This is Us shows him as nearly perfect for so long before we start to see that. It's not like the events of the earlier episodes shouldn't have tested his character. Even if she's written to be less likable, Rebecca winds up being the stronger, more relatable character and Moore delivers some great scenes, particularly in the later episodes.
Where the show fails is with Kevin and Kate, two people who've failed at every turn to justify the amount of screen time they're given. Kevin is an entitled man-child who skates through life on his looks, the help of Kate, and the fact that he landed a gig on a highly-rated big-network sitcom, "The Manny", a show that's apparently just as creatively lacking as you'd think it is. Throughout the season, he gets opportunities and privileges simply because people recognize him as "The Manny". He initially struggles to succeed as a "real" theater actor and we're supposed to care, but can't. He's in a relationship with a co-worker played by Lily from the AT&T commercials (just Google that), and isn't satisfied with her, ostensibly because he thinks that she's not as attractive as another co-worker that seems to have few other redeeming qualities. Kevin's "big moment" of the season involved actually leaving the theater minutes before his opening night performance to be with Randall, apparently because he sensed something was wrong. He abandoned a theater filled with people who payed for tickets, critics from The New York Times, his aforementioned friend/love interest, and everyone else who worked on his show to run to console his brother. Randall actually was having a breakdown and really did wind up needing consoling, but what Kevin did was arguably not a "hero" move at all given the other stakeholders. Also: it's fucking ridiculous.
Kate is a woman who struggles with her weight, and I bluntly point this out up front because the show has no time or desire to delve into any other aspect of her life. With the exception of the end of the season, in which she reveals that she's either responsible for, or blames herself for, her father's death, she's lacking in storylines that are not weight-centric. She has a mostly awesome boyfriend, Toby, who's a great combination of funny and genuinely sweet. In return, Kate behaves standoffish, often rude, and confusing towards Toby. The show doesn't bother to treat Kate like a fully formed person, so it's unclear why Toby does.
Despite two of the major characters being so weak, This Is Us pulled off a successful first season. If I have one concern about the show going forward, it's that they're overly dependent on the aforementioned huge twists and "very special" moments. Shows like that tend to find themselves reaching for plot moves to hold interest unless they have a very strong character base, and with William deceased, the ratio of strong characters to weak ones takes a hit. Had they dealt with Jack's death in the season finale, as would have been natural, I could have pretty easily considered the story of these characters complete. Instead, they kicked that can down the road and tacked on some potential future plot lines (Kate pursuing a singing career, Kevin moving to work with Ron Howard and the associated fallout with his oldest/newest love interest, Randall wanting to adopt a baby) that all feel somewhat contrived. Despite the weak finale, we're excited to see what Season Two will have in store.
Season Grade: B+
Monday, August 28, 2017
Thursday, August 3, 2017
Billions (Season Two)
The single biggest issue with Season One of Billions was that all of the characters except Bobby Axelrod were either underdeveloped, thoroughly hateable, or both. That problem dropped the stakes of what was an oft-exciting plot. For Season Two to be a success, that problem absolutely had to be fixed. Did they succeed?
Um, kinda.
[SPOILERS BELOW]
Chuck Rhoades was probably the character that needed the most work due to his prominence and he actually got fleshed out quite a bit more. His couples therapy sessions with Wendy brought out some deep insecurities within him (I particularly enjoyed the scene where he explained why he always wears his suit to social occasions) and it did quite a bit to humanize him. The rare scenes involving Chuck and Wendy's children gave Chuck the chance to stick up for his wife when she wasn't around. In all, he came across as slightly more likable in spite of some horrible stuff he does. We'll get to that.
The results were mixed for the rest of the ensemble. Connerty, for one, got a little more attention as his relationship to Rhoades was tested and we got to follow his personal life for a little bit. I don't know that I'll go so far as to call him compelling, but at the very least he's a little more noticeable than he was in Season One. They did a little better job with the general employees at Axe Capital, particularly Dollar Bill and Mafee, but it's still a largely blah group of people.
I think where Billions lets us down are the female characters, who are essentially still either a go-between and point of conflict for the male leads (Wendy), crazy (Lara, more on that later), or nondescript (Sacker). I think the writers failed most with Wendy. Like Sacker, it seems like they were too hesitant to write Wendy with significant flaws or side distractions (in contrast to someone like Axe, who's more interesting because he's far from perfect and has plenty of interests outside of his job and a pseudo-love-triangle) and she therefore becomes difficult to relate to. This is another Suits comparison, but I liken her to a less entertaining version of Donna Paulsen. Wendy's portrayed as an indispensable asset to Axe Capital, which rings hallow given the additional legal attention she brings to Axe and just how implausible it seems that no one else could do that job (Wags' goon notwithstanding).
Despite those failures, Billions came through big time with the introduction of Taylor, a gender non-binary intern whose acumen is quickly picked up on by Axe. The show handles Taylor's backstory well and executes what felt like a mostly realistic portrayal of the spectrum of reactions to their presence. You have the people who are immediately accepting (Axe, Mafee) and others who are well-intentioned but sometimes slip while trying their best to get used to the unfamiliar (Connerty). Then, you have the bigots (Dollar Bill, Krakow) who are prone to saying hurtful things. People like Dollar Bill are plentiful in this world, no doubt about it, but Billions disappointed me with one hilariously bad telling-not-showing line he dropped to Axe when the latter passed him over for Taylor to participate in a poker tournament: "Everything I measure myself by has been called into question." It was a pretty unnatural thing to say out loud and would have been easy to express via a couple subtle facial expressions or gestures over the remaining of the episode. You know, "acting".
Back to Taylor. Probably my favorite subplot of the entire season was Taylor being asked to choose someone to fire in the season's penultimate episode. The rapid increase in authoritative responsibility would have been difficult for anyone to handle and it even rattles the typically composed Taylor a little bit. Further still, it had to be difficult for the remainder of the employees to watch someone -- even a person as deserving and qualified as Taylor -- rise from an intern to their direct superior in a very small amount of time. The interview scenes actually got me to feel for some otherwise uninteresting characters (Ben Kim tearing up at Taylor's questioning without a word was a particularly powerful moment). Taylor's handling of the emotional experiences and developing ability to look beyond the numbers made for a great moment for the character.
I want to jump back to that poker tournament I mentioned above, which was a personal highlight of mine for the season. I used to play poker a great deal during the post-Moneymaker boom. One thing that's always bothered me is its portrayal in TV shows and movies. Poker subplots typically pander to the crowd that is only casually familiar with the game. As a result, there's problems such as nonsensical dialogue, dumb bet amounts (e.g. "raise to $200" / "re-raise, all-in for $10,000"), and uncommon monster hand vs. monster hand situations that are portrayed as either misplays or products of skill, when anyone who's played a million poker hands could tell you that they're actually just inevitable situations that aren't all that interesting (The final hand in Casino Royale being a prime example).
By contrast, in Billions, they spoke the language of serious players and the writing seemed to grasp the history of online play, modern terminology, and proper game flow. In particular, the final hand between Taylor and Krakow was a showdown between ten-nine and four-five in which neither player hit anything on the board, but both players still found themselves all-in. The hand was pretty well-constructed* and entertaining to watch and think about. Phil Hellmuth made a guest appearance in the episode, and I imagine his hands were probably all over the design of that scene.
*For those who have seen it, I feel like trips make up a decent portion of Krakow's range there, unless we're to take his agonizing over what to do on the river as genuine. Given Taylor's ability to read people throughout the season, maybe that's how we rule out Krakow coming from a position of strength.
From a plot standpoint, Billions reaches beyond the Axelrod/Rhoades conflict for awhile and doesn't really circle back to it until close to the end of the season. That gives them time to focus on the relationship between Chuck and Wendy, Taylor's ascent, the ambitions of Chuck's underlings, and finally, the relationship between Bobby and Lara. Wendy returns to Axe Capital with the condition that she and Bobby won't have any sessions together. Bobby lets Lara believe that it's his condition, not Wendy's. When Lara finds out that Wendy set the boundary -- even though Bobby has respected it -- she up and runs out on him for a long period of time and takes the kids without so much as discussing the problem first. Did that strike anyone else as batshit insane? I get that Wendy is a major sticking point for Lara, but damn, that reaction was too extreme for even a TV relationship.
That conflict leads right up to the climax of the season, which involved one of the most thrilling plot lines that I've ever seen. Bobby's rigged tanking of the Ice Juice stock was a power play against the Rhoades family that, in one of the best twists I've ever seen on TV, turned out to be completely orchestrated by Chuck. I was absolutely stunned watching the season's penultimate episode. Where I became disappointed was the finale, which really made the viewer understand what Chuck had done. He ruined his father, best friend, and his eight-figure trust fund just to trap Bobby and see him in a jail cell. When I thought about it in that light, it just seemed so far-fetched. Why does Chuck hate Bobby so much that he's willing to go to THAT length to see him brought down? Aside from possible jealousy over how close his wife has been with him throughout the years (which doesn't even seem like a major problem anymore), what has Bobby done to Chuck to make him this angry? Giamatti's "Worth it" line at the conclusion of their face-to-face conflict rings false just because to a rational person, it's very obviously not. In the absence of a well-developed explanation from the show's events, there's no other conclusion to draw here besides "Chuck's a psychopath", which isn't all that interesting.
I imagine we'll be watching Season Three when it comes out, because Season Two had a boost in quality and the writers are flat out good at putting out engrossing plot lines. The issue, however, with a show that's over-dependent on big reveals and dramatic story events is that they tend to jump the shark at some point as they reach to keep things interesting. Billions is always going to be at risk of becoming cartoonish without an ensemble of deep, believable characters. I'll continue to have fun watching it, but I'll never confuse it with a great television show.
Season Grade: B
Um, kinda.
[SPOILERS BELOW]
Chuck Rhoades was probably the character that needed the most work due to his prominence and he actually got fleshed out quite a bit more. His couples therapy sessions with Wendy brought out some deep insecurities within him (I particularly enjoyed the scene where he explained why he always wears his suit to social occasions) and it did quite a bit to humanize him. The rare scenes involving Chuck and Wendy's children gave Chuck the chance to stick up for his wife when she wasn't around. In all, he came across as slightly more likable in spite of some horrible stuff he does. We'll get to that.
The results were mixed for the rest of the ensemble. Connerty, for one, got a little more attention as his relationship to Rhoades was tested and we got to follow his personal life for a little bit. I don't know that I'll go so far as to call him compelling, but at the very least he's a little more noticeable than he was in Season One. They did a little better job with the general employees at Axe Capital, particularly Dollar Bill and Mafee, but it's still a largely blah group of people.
I think where Billions lets us down are the female characters, who are essentially still either a go-between and point of conflict for the male leads (Wendy), crazy (Lara, more on that later), or nondescript (Sacker). I think the writers failed most with Wendy. Like Sacker, it seems like they were too hesitant to write Wendy with significant flaws or side distractions (in contrast to someone like Axe, who's more interesting because he's far from perfect and has plenty of interests outside of his job and a pseudo-love-triangle) and she therefore becomes difficult to relate to. This is another Suits comparison, but I liken her to a less entertaining version of Donna Paulsen. Wendy's portrayed as an indispensable asset to Axe Capital, which rings hallow given the additional legal attention she brings to Axe and just how implausible it seems that no one else could do that job (Wags' goon notwithstanding).
Despite those failures, Billions came through big time with the introduction of Taylor, a gender non-binary intern whose acumen is quickly picked up on by Axe. The show handles Taylor's backstory well and executes what felt like a mostly realistic portrayal of the spectrum of reactions to their presence. You have the people who are immediately accepting (Axe, Mafee) and others who are well-intentioned but sometimes slip while trying their best to get used to the unfamiliar (Connerty). Then, you have the bigots (Dollar Bill, Krakow) who are prone to saying hurtful things. People like Dollar Bill are plentiful in this world, no doubt about it, but Billions disappointed me with one hilariously bad telling-not-showing line he dropped to Axe when the latter passed him over for Taylor to participate in a poker tournament: "Everything I measure myself by has been called into question." It was a pretty unnatural thing to say out loud and would have been easy to express via a couple subtle facial expressions or gestures over the remaining of the episode. You know, "acting".
Back to Taylor. Probably my favorite subplot of the entire season was Taylor being asked to choose someone to fire in the season's penultimate episode. The rapid increase in authoritative responsibility would have been difficult for anyone to handle and it even rattles the typically composed Taylor a little bit. Further still, it had to be difficult for the remainder of the employees to watch someone -- even a person as deserving and qualified as Taylor -- rise from an intern to their direct superior in a very small amount of time. The interview scenes actually got me to feel for some otherwise uninteresting characters (Ben Kim tearing up at Taylor's questioning without a word was a particularly powerful moment). Taylor's handling of the emotional experiences and developing ability to look beyond the numbers made for a great moment for the character.
I want to jump back to that poker tournament I mentioned above, which was a personal highlight of mine for the season. I used to play poker a great deal during the post-Moneymaker boom. One thing that's always bothered me is its portrayal in TV shows and movies. Poker subplots typically pander to the crowd that is only casually familiar with the game. As a result, there's problems such as nonsensical dialogue, dumb bet amounts (e.g. "raise to $200" / "re-raise, all-in for $10,000"), and uncommon monster hand vs. monster hand situations that are portrayed as either misplays or products of skill, when anyone who's played a million poker hands could tell you that they're actually just inevitable situations that aren't all that interesting (The final hand in Casino Royale being a prime example).
By contrast, in Billions, they spoke the language of serious players and the writing seemed to grasp the history of online play, modern terminology, and proper game flow. In particular, the final hand between Taylor and Krakow was a showdown between ten-nine and four-five in which neither player hit anything on the board, but both players still found themselves all-in. The hand was pretty well-constructed* and entertaining to watch and think about. Phil Hellmuth made a guest appearance in the episode, and I imagine his hands were probably all over the design of that scene.
*For those who have seen it, I feel like trips make up a decent portion of Krakow's range there, unless we're to take his agonizing over what to do on the river as genuine. Given Taylor's ability to read people throughout the season, maybe that's how we rule out Krakow coming from a position of strength.
From a plot standpoint, Billions reaches beyond the Axelrod/Rhoades conflict for awhile and doesn't really circle back to it until close to the end of the season. That gives them time to focus on the relationship between Chuck and Wendy, Taylor's ascent, the ambitions of Chuck's underlings, and finally, the relationship between Bobby and Lara. Wendy returns to Axe Capital with the condition that she and Bobby won't have any sessions together. Bobby lets Lara believe that it's his condition, not Wendy's. When Lara finds out that Wendy set the boundary -- even though Bobby has respected it -- she up and runs out on him for a long period of time and takes the kids without so much as discussing the problem first. Did that strike anyone else as batshit insane? I get that Wendy is a major sticking point for Lara, but damn, that reaction was too extreme for even a TV relationship.
That conflict leads right up to the climax of the season, which involved one of the most thrilling plot lines that I've ever seen. Bobby's rigged tanking of the Ice Juice stock was a power play against the Rhoades family that, in one of the best twists I've ever seen on TV, turned out to be completely orchestrated by Chuck. I was absolutely stunned watching the season's penultimate episode. Where I became disappointed was the finale, which really made the viewer understand what Chuck had done. He ruined his father, best friend, and his eight-figure trust fund just to trap Bobby and see him in a jail cell. When I thought about it in that light, it just seemed so far-fetched. Why does Chuck hate Bobby so much that he's willing to go to THAT length to see him brought down? Aside from possible jealousy over how close his wife has been with him throughout the years (which doesn't even seem like a major problem anymore), what has Bobby done to Chuck to make him this angry? Giamatti's "Worth it" line at the conclusion of their face-to-face conflict rings false just because to a rational person, it's very obviously not. In the absence of a well-developed explanation from the show's events, there's no other conclusion to draw here besides "Chuck's a psychopath", which isn't all that interesting.
I imagine we'll be watching Season Three when it comes out, because Season Two had a boost in quality and the writers are flat out good at putting out engrossing plot lines. The issue, however, with a show that's over-dependent on big reveals and dramatic story events is that they tend to jump the shark at some point as they reach to keep things interesting. Billions is always going to be at risk of becoming cartoonish without an ensemble of deep, believable characters. I'll continue to have fun watching it, but I'll never confuse it with a great television show.
Season Grade: B
Thursday, July 6, 2017
Billions (Season One)
Billions is a show that has been raved about by many friends of mine as well as by quite a few people on Twitter, so it was only a matter of time before I found myself with little else to watch and dove into it. I finished up Season One last week and felt compelled to write something on this site for the first time in months. That's not necessarily because my review of the show is glowing; it's a show with a lot of strengths and a lot of problems.
First, let's start off with the good. The show's three leads are portrayed by Paul Giamatti, Damian Lewis, and Maggie Siff, and all three are fantastic. Giamatti in particular does great work with his voice, as his mannerisms and inflections are infectious. For lack of a better comparison, he's a poor man's Dark-Knight-Joker in that regard. Giamatti plays Chuck Rhoades, a U.S. District Attorney with an incredible 81-0 track record for putting away white collar criminals. He has his heart set on putting hedge fund kingpin Bobby Axelrod (Lewis) behind bars for insider trading, despite Axelrod's status as a beloved public figure for his philanthropy. Once Axelrod ("Axe") makes a PR slip-up, Chuck sees his chance to start an investigation against Axe that the public won't hate. That's complicated, because his wife Wendy (Siff) is also a psychologist and a prominent advisor of sorts to Axe at the latter's firm, Axe Capital.
The plot of the first season largely revolves around a chess match between Chuck and Axe as each tries to stay one step ahead of the other throughout the investigation. As one might expect, Wendy gets caught in the middle of that and is often cited as a potential conflict of interest for Chuck. Despite her insistence that she's not merely a go-between for the two male leads, that's frequently the situation in which she finds herself, particularly due to her close personal relationship with Axe. From a plot standpoint, the show is pretty engaging. I'd compare the plot devices as similar to (but better than) those used in House of Cards. While those in the know will be skeptical that any comparison I make to House of Cards resembles a compliment, that was actually one thing that House of Cards did quite well.
What makes the show less engaging than it could be is its narrow focus and generally weak characters. One watches Season One with the sense that Chuck can't ever really succeed in locking up Bobby, because without the central pissing match between two men with crazy egos, there's not much else going on. Other people are introduced throughout the season and don't resemble fleshed out characters as much as accessories to the ongoing spat between Axe and Rhoades. Chuck can't put Bobby in jail, because that would simply end the show. Therefore, when Bobby is on the ropes, it's not a question of if he'll wiggle out of trouble, but how. Similarly, Bobby can't get cleared of wrongdoing. This drastically lowers the stakes of the conflict.
Another issue is that Rhoades is a thoroughly detestable man. Sure, he's on the right side of the law, but he's such a fanatic for it that he's merciless (in a bad way) and tries to attain his own ends via truly horrible means. He's actually eerily similar to another Chuck -- Chuck McGill from Better Call Saul. However, where Saul puts a great deal of effort into developing Chuck McGill's backstory and gives us a lot of subtle character moments that make his story compelling, we really have no idea why Rhoades is such a prick. In one episode, he gets pissed at a guy on the street who doesn't pick up his dog's shit, so he bullies the guy into picking it up with his bare hands. It was a little funny, but the show does nothing to help us understand what motivates Rhoades to perform such random acts of assholery. It's remarkable that despite how well Giamatti plays Rhoades, the character still winds up one-dimensional and boring -- a pretty big failure on the part of the writers. His wife Wendy is similarly problematic -- we don't get to understand much of her besides her relationship to Axe and that she's an awesome psychologist. We probably learned more about the Chuck/Wendy marriage from one pretty great scene between Chuck and a dominatrix in a whore house than a full season's worth of their actual interaction.
Axe gets fleshed out far better, as we see what he's like outside of his professional capacity. At his job, I liken Axe to Suits' Harvey Specter in that he wins with gimmick-like frequency and his success earns him absurd lifestyle perks. However, in addition to Axe the investment world demigod, we also see Axe the father, Axe the husband, and Axe the friend. Despite being a criminal, Axe can be a good person sometimes and Rhoades being human garbage often makes Axe the more sympathetic figure in the central conflict. Without spoiling too much, though, he does pretty terrible things to some people around him besides trade on insider information. The writers deserve credit for giving Axe the depth the character deserves; it's just that some of his actions make him tough to root for. We watch these men claw at each other tooth and nail for twelve episodes while sort of wanting both to fail.
As mentioned above, the auxiliary characters are on the whole pretty bad. Wags, Bobby's COO, is an uninteresting ass-kissing drone who's mostly on screen to be mean to the employees, though he's genuinely funny when he cracks wise. Lara, Bobby's wife, is a little more interesting, particularly later in the season when she encounters adversity (the ruthless, intimidating, wolf-in-sheep's-clothing act wears thin pretty quick). Most of Bobby's employees might as well be the same person and the one who actually has some depth, Donnie, is ultimately just a tool used by Bobby and the show's writers (...to further develop Bobby). Rhoades' underlings are no better; I thought it was super cute that the show was trying to get us to care about a budding relationship between Connerty and Kate, two people who couldn't be more nondescript through this first season.
All that being said, Billions has proven to be clever enough at times that I'm going to stick with it for now. The action in the season's final episodes was very engrossing and they've laid enough groundwork with the characters to hopefully make the supporting cast more interesting going forward. I'm skeptical they're going to start treating all of these people like they're people and not plot tools. But for the time being, I'll just enjoy Giamatti's intensely-voiced analogy-laden monologues and Axe's frequent moments of badassery.
Season Grade: B-
First, let's start off with the good. The show's three leads are portrayed by Paul Giamatti, Damian Lewis, and Maggie Siff, and all three are fantastic. Giamatti in particular does great work with his voice, as his mannerisms and inflections are infectious. For lack of a better comparison, he's a poor man's Dark-Knight-Joker in that regard. Giamatti plays Chuck Rhoades, a U.S. District Attorney with an incredible 81-0 track record for putting away white collar criminals. He has his heart set on putting hedge fund kingpin Bobby Axelrod (Lewis) behind bars for insider trading, despite Axelrod's status as a beloved public figure for his philanthropy. Once Axelrod ("Axe") makes a PR slip-up, Chuck sees his chance to start an investigation against Axe that the public won't hate. That's complicated, because his wife Wendy (Siff) is also a psychologist and a prominent advisor of sorts to Axe at the latter's firm, Axe Capital.
The plot of the first season largely revolves around a chess match between Chuck and Axe as each tries to stay one step ahead of the other throughout the investigation. As one might expect, Wendy gets caught in the middle of that and is often cited as a potential conflict of interest for Chuck. Despite her insistence that she's not merely a go-between for the two male leads, that's frequently the situation in which she finds herself, particularly due to her close personal relationship with Axe. From a plot standpoint, the show is pretty engaging. I'd compare the plot devices as similar to (but better than) those used in House of Cards. While those in the know will be skeptical that any comparison I make to House of Cards resembles a compliment, that was actually one thing that House of Cards did quite well.
What makes the show less engaging than it could be is its narrow focus and generally weak characters. One watches Season One with the sense that Chuck can't ever really succeed in locking up Bobby, because without the central pissing match between two men with crazy egos, there's not much else going on. Other people are introduced throughout the season and don't resemble fleshed out characters as much as accessories to the ongoing spat between Axe and Rhoades. Chuck can't put Bobby in jail, because that would simply end the show. Therefore, when Bobby is on the ropes, it's not a question of if he'll wiggle out of trouble, but how. Similarly, Bobby can't get cleared of wrongdoing. This drastically lowers the stakes of the conflict.
Another issue is that Rhoades is a thoroughly detestable man. Sure, he's on the right side of the law, but he's such a fanatic for it that he's merciless (in a bad way) and tries to attain his own ends via truly horrible means. He's actually eerily similar to another Chuck -- Chuck McGill from Better Call Saul. However, where Saul puts a great deal of effort into developing Chuck McGill's backstory and gives us a lot of subtle character moments that make his story compelling, we really have no idea why Rhoades is such a prick. In one episode, he gets pissed at a guy on the street who doesn't pick up his dog's shit, so he bullies the guy into picking it up with his bare hands. It was a little funny, but the show does nothing to help us understand what motivates Rhoades to perform such random acts of assholery. It's remarkable that despite how well Giamatti plays Rhoades, the character still winds up one-dimensional and boring -- a pretty big failure on the part of the writers. His wife Wendy is similarly problematic -- we don't get to understand much of her besides her relationship to Axe and that she's an awesome psychologist. We probably learned more about the Chuck/Wendy marriage from one pretty great scene between Chuck and a dominatrix in a whore house than a full season's worth of their actual interaction.
Axe gets fleshed out far better, as we see what he's like outside of his professional capacity. At his job, I liken Axe to Suits' Harvey Specter in that he wins with gimmick-like frequency and his success earns him absurd lifestyle perks. However, in addition to Axe the investment world demigod, we also see Axe the father, Axe the husband, and Axe the friend. Despite being a criminal, Axe can be a good person sometimes and Rhoades being human garbage often makes Axe the more sympathetic figure in the central conflict. Without spoiling too much, though, he does pretty terrible things to some people around him besides trade on insider information. The writers deserve credit for giving Axe the depth the character deserves; it's just that some of his actions make him tough to root for. We watch these men claw at each other tooth and nail for twelve episodes while sort of wanting both to fail.
As mentioned above, the auxiliary characters are on the whole pretty bad. Wags, Bobby's COO, is an uninteresting ass-kissing drone who's mostly on screen to be mean to the employees, though he's genuinely funny when he cracks wise. Lara, Bobby's wife, is a little more interesting, particularly later in the season when she encounters adversity (the ruthless, intimidating, wolf-in-sheep's-clothing act wears thin pretty quick). Most of Bobby's employees might as well be the same person and the one who actually has some depth, Donnie, is ultimately just a tool used by Bobby and the show's writers (...to further develop Bobby). Rhoades' underlings are no better; I thought it was super cute that the show was trying to get us to care about a budding relationship between Connerty and Kate, two people who couldn't be more nondescript through this first season.
All that being said, Billions has proven to be clever enough at times that I'm going to stick with it for now. The action in the season's final episodes was very engrossing and they've laid enough groundwork with the characters to hopefully make the supporting cast more interesting going forward. I'm skeptical they're going to start treating all of these people like they're people and not plot tools. But for the time being, I'll just enjoy Giamatti's intensely-voiced analogy-laden monologues and Axe's frequent moments of badassery.
Season Grade: B-
Friday, March 3, 2017
The Pat Hatter Tries to Use Airbnb
I was looking into renting a house for my family over the summer for a nice long weekend of relaxation. It seems that Airbnb is the way to go these days to do something like this, so I went ahead and tried to book a house. I got to the step where payment was required, where they posted a link to a cancellation policy. Apparently this house has the "Super Strict 60 Days" policy, which means that there's a 50% refund up to 60 days prior to arrival. My wife's a lawyer and we've had issues with rental agreements for houses in the past, but there was no such rental agreement visible on the website. Actually putting in credit card information and clicking "Book" seemed like committing half the fees without being able to read and sign an agreement. This seemed wrong.
I then received the following via e-mail, respondent's name X'd out.
Damn it.
An inquiry into the process yielded this result:
Hi PatrickNaturally, this seemed disconcerting because this was the exact order-of-operations that we were trying to avoid. I replied back, trying to elaborate further
You can book this property on this site. The rental agreement will be sent after booking. Please refer to the house rules for additional info. Let us know if you have other questions!
Hello,After receiving an extremely confusing text message in reply that just said.....
We reached out yesterday because we would like to book this house, and this
morning we received a text message explaining that we could book on the
website and that the rental agreement would be provided after. We just
wanted to follow-up because we recently tried to book a house in Wisconsin,
and the owner's rental agreement contained an extremely overbroad
indemnification provision that they were unwilling to modify (my wife's an
attorney). We just want to make sure that in the event that the rental
agreement contains a provision that we are not comfortable with and so feel
that we cannot sign the rental agreement, that we would get the entire
booking amount back.
If you'd like to discuss over the phone, please let me know.
Thanks!
- Patrick
Hi Patrick
We are new to AirBnB, however, we have been in business for many years. I have attached the link to our current r...
I then received the following via e-mail, respondent's name X'd out.
Hi Patrick
We are new to AirBnB, however, we have been in business for many years. I have attached the link to our current rental agreement for you to review. We are in the process of working with AirBnB to update the rental agreement to comply with their regulations as well. (We do not for see any major changes). Please review and let us know if you still have questions.
XXXX
(URL HIDDEN)"URL HIDDEN"? Well that's not super useful, is it......
Hello,
I received this e-mail, but it appears that the link to the rental agreement was hidden.That note also contained a screenshot of what they sent me so that they could understand what was going on. They replied, and it was equally frustrating and comical.
I am assuming certain info is being protected by Airbnb website. I cannot access your email address or see the picture you sent. Give us a call here at (PHONE NUMBER HIDDEN).Oh for the love of....
Damn it.
Your message appears with "PHONE NUMBER HIDDEN". I can't see the phone
number. My e-mail address is xxxxxx@gmail.com Could you please try to
contact me without going through AirBnB to provide the rental agreement?
Thanks!I then recalled what they had said earlier about not being able to see my contact information. I then checked how my e-mail to them appeared on the messages on the Airbnb website...
- Patrick
Your message appears with "PHONE NUMBER HIDDEN". I can't see the phone
number. My e-mail address is (EMAIL HIDDEN) Could you please try to
contact me without going through AirBnB to provide the rental agreement?
Thanks!So this is horrible in both directions. Great. Let's give this another shot.
- Patrick
After typing that into the message to the host on the Airbnb website, everything looked fine. A minute or two later, I refreshed the page and....
Let me try this again. Contact xxxxxx AT gmail DOT com. Maybe that will allow the e-mail to be visible!
Let me try this again. Contact (EMAIL HIDDEN) Maybe that will allow the e-mail to be visible!On second thought, staycations are underrated.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
The Sopranos - Season Four
Season Four of The Sopranos was probably the weakest season to-date (ranking them 3-1-2-4 at the moment) thanks to a couple of problematic storylines and one weird episode (though its poor qualities are exaggerated by some). As always, though, there was still a lot to like.
SPOILER SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The biggest problem with this season was the will-they-won't-they mutual attraction between Carmela and Furio. That was always going to end one of two ways and neither one was happy. The certain negative outcome made the various scenes between them uncomfortable to watch. It was apparent that the show was setting up that action from the first episode and there were no real developments of note until the twelfth episode, when Furio stops himself short of killing a drunk Tony and then flees back to Italy.
The upside to that storyline, however, is that Carmela finally decides she's fed up and that she wants to split up with Tony. It took almost four full seasons of being walked on and being excessively passive about the way Tony treats her for Carmela to stand up for herself. It was a refreshing payoff that was almost worth watching her be such a frustrating character for the rest of the series' run so far. The viewer has been waiting so long for Tony and Carmela to have the fights in this episode that it's actually a relief to hear all of the grievances (Carmela stealing money, Tony's cheating, Carmela's nagging, the attraction to Furio, Tony's complete lack of attention to their relationship). aired.
During the arguments, both make very good points against the other, and while Tony's primarily in the wrong for all of this, the point I most took away from the fight was his comment that Carmela brings little to the table from a personality standpoint. Tony was attracted to Svetlana in large part because she had a compelling backstory and interesting things to say. Until he called out Carmela for having a dull personality, I never really thought about it. She really is something of a zilcheroo and I spent too much of my attention feeling bad for her because of Tony's cheating to realize that.
The other bad storyline from this season (though it's much lower-leverage and shorter) is Artie's attempt to make some quick cash by loaning money to Jean-Phillipe. We know the deal is going to go bad from the second it's proposed (otherwise, there'd be no reason to introduce it as a storyline). From the moment that's set up, we're just waiting for the inevitable and the inevitable is sad.
Regarding the strange "Christopher" episode, I didn't hate it all that much. There seems to be widespread agreement that it's the worst episode of the series and while I certainly agree that it was on the weaker side, after watching it I didn't think it deserved anywhere near the level of vitriol that it got. That was the episode that Bacala's wife died, and while that was really sad, it was compelling television. I can deal with the fact that Silvio and others had straightforward telling-not-showing lines about the history between Native Americans and Italians.
That about wraps up all I didn't like about Season Four. On the positive side, we got a lot of Bacala. We learn that he's the only one in the mob who was faithful to his wife, which makes his grieving genuine. The only downside to so much focus on Bobby is the fact that Janice (ugh) got heavily involved in his life, but even she had a few strong moments this season.
The show even acknowledged the problematic nature of Dr. Melfi and Tony's therapy sessions. The last time one of those scenes packed a punch was when Melfi declined to sic Tony and the mob on her rapist. Since then, they've been low-leverage scenes that could have been written out of the show with no dip in quality. Tony seems to recognize as much, saying late in the season that he doesn't need the therapy anymore and quitting the sessions.
I've heard Season Five and Season Six are outstanding, so I'm very optimistic about the journey ahead. There's many storylines to be excited about -- the potential fallout/resolution of Tony and Carmela splitting, Christopher's sobriety, Paulie's downward spiral, the tensions between Tony and Johnny Sack's bunch from New York, Adriana's service as an informant that's yet to have any sort of payoff...there's a lot to look forward to.
Are they really never going to tie up the fallout of the missing Russian guy from Season Three's "Pine Barrens"?
Season Grade: B+
SPOILER SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The biggest problem with this season was the will-they-won't-they mutual attraction between Carmela and Furio. That was always going to end one of two ways and neither one was happy. The certain negative outcome made the various scenes between them uncomfortable to watch. It was apparent that the show was setting up that action from the first episode and there were no real developments of note until the twelfth episode, when Furio stops himself short of killing a drunk Tony and then flees back to Italy.
The upside to that storyline, however, is that Carmela finally decides she's fed up and that she wants to split up with Tony. It took almost four full seasons of being walked on and being excessively passive about the way Tony treats her for Carmela to stand up for herself. It was a refreshing payoff that was almost worth watching her be such a frustrating character for the rest of the series' run so far. The viewer has been waiting so long for Tony and Carmela to have the fights in this episode that it's actually a relief to hear all of the grievances (Carmela stealing money, Tony's cheating, Carmela's nagging, the attraction to Furio, Tony's complete lack of attention to their relationship). aired.
During the arguments, both make very good points against the other, and while Tony's primarily in the wrong for all of this, the point I most took away from the fight was his comment that Carmela brings little to the table from a personality standpoint. Tony was attracted to Svetlana in large part because she had a compelling backstory and interesting things to say. Until he called out Carmela for having a dull personality, I never really thought about it. She really is something of a zilcheroo and I spent too much of my attention feeling bad for her because of Tony's cheating to realize that.
The other bad storyline from this season (though it's much lower-leverage and shorter) is Artie's attempt to make some quick cash by loaning money to Jean-Phillipe. We know the deal is going to go bad from the second it's proposed (otherwise, there'd be no reason to introduce it as a storyline). From the moment that's set up, we're just waiting for the inevitable and the inevitable is sad.
Regarding the strange "Christopher" episode, I didn't hate it all that much. There seems to be widespread agreement that it's the worst episode of the series and while I certainly agree that it was on the weaker side, after watching it I didn't think it deserved anywhere near the level of vitriol that it got. That was the episode that Bacala's wife died, and while that was really sad, it was compelling television. I can deal with the fact that Silvio and others had straightforward telling-not-showing lines about the history between Native Americans and Italians.
That about wraps up all I didn't like about Season Four. On the positive side, we got a lot of Bacala. We learn that he's the only one in the mob who was faithful to his wife, which makes his grieving genuine. The only downside to so much focus on Bobby is the fact that Janice (ugh) got heavily involved in his life, but even she had a few strong moments this season.
The show even acknowledged the problematic nature of Dr. Melfi and Tony's therapy sessions. The last time one of those scenes packed a punch was when Melfi declined to sic Tony and the mob on her rapist. Since then, they've been low-leverage scenes that could have been written out of the show with no dip in quality. Tony seems to recognize as much, saying late in the season that he doesn't need the therapy anymore and quitting the sessions.
I've heard Season Five and Season Six are outstanding, so I'm very optimistic about the journey ahead. There's many storylines to be excited about -- the potential fallout/resolution of Tony and Carmela splitting, Christopher's sobriety, Paulie's downward spiral, the tensions between Tony and Johnny Sack's bunch from New York, Adriana's service as an informant that's yet to have any sort of payoff...there's a lot to look forward to.
Are they really never going to tie up the fallout of the missing Russian guy from Season Three's "Pine Barrens"?
Season Grade: B+
Saturday, January 21, 2017
The Sopranos - Season Three
The first two seasons of The Sopranos were both excellent with some notable flaws. David Chase and company turned things up a notch, however, and executed a nearly flawless third season.
SPOILER SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!
Season Three contains the two best episodes of the series that I've watched thus far. The first was Employee of the Month, which involves the moral compass of the series, Dr. Melfi, facing the ultimate test of character. Her relationship with Tony has been up and down and riddled with outbursts from the latter, but they're close enough to the point where the viewer thinks of Tony as a possible solution to Melfi getting revenge on her rapist before it's implied in the show. Seeing Lorraine Bracco get furious in her shrink's office and deliver this line was a tremendous bit of acting:
I liked what the show did with Paulie this season. His growing resentment towards Tony filters down to the way he treats Christopher. Even though it's clear Paulie's a little unhinged, the show does a good job at slowly illustrating why he's having such issues with his boss. The climax of this is Tony's decision to force Ralphie to pay Paulie a sum of 12 thousand dollars when Paulie felt he was owed fifty. However, there's an even more successful plot line en route to that moment.
"Pine Barrens" is possibly the best episode of the first three seasons and does a great job illustrating Paulie's descent. First, he reacts far too violently to the Russian, Valery, when the latter makes a relatively benign request to put his remote control back on the shelf. Then, when he and Christopher go on an adventure, lost in the snowy forest of south New Jersey with the aforementioned Valery possibly on the loose and stalking them, it's the starving, usually-furious Christopher who seems like the one who has his faculties in control and the higher-ranking, typically more mature Paulie who's really losing it.
It's a great episode for Christopher as well, whom the show has put into a great deal of effort into developing. He used to be prone to dumbass outbursts and violence, but as the show has progressed, Christopher has used his head a lot more and doesn't seem to be anywhere near as prone to stupid mistakes. "Pine Barrens" illustrates that pretty well, but most importantly, when he becomes a "made" guy earlier in the season, it's a moment that feels earned.
As a side note, I'm still bothered that they didn't tie up anything with Slava or Valery. It seems fairly clear that Valery escaped somehow, but it's not confirmed by season's end if (or how) that happened. It seems like Tony would have faced some fairly immediate repercussions if Valery's story ever made it back to Slava. Maybe they're just deferring this to Season Four.
I don't have much to say about the season-long Ralphie storyline other than that it was effective and that Ralphie filled in nicely as the "villain" for Richie for much of the season. Ralphie's a better character than Richie, though, and even though he can be stupid and a loudmouth, it's clear that he is at least trying to improve himself once Tony's forced to promote him to captain.
Even the minor characters were used very effectively in Season Three. My personal favorite is Bobby Bacala, who mostly serves as the butt of jokes and as Junior's caretaker during the season, but he's a rare thoroughly likable character on this show and the conversation he and Tony had on the way to find Paulie and Christopher in "Pine Barrens" an excellent moment.
The one storyline that didn't really work that well was Jackie Jr.'s relationship with Meadow and subsequent descent into crime. It was always at least a little clear that Jackie was a piece of shit and his inability to stay out of mob business was essentially a given from the start. He drove a lot of the action late in the season, but he wasn't much of a compelling character and Jason Cerbone delivered one of the weaker performances thus far on the series. There was nothing to root for, nor anything to surprise us here (other than an appearance from Omar!).
Despite that blip, Season Three was a riveting experience because of a compelling plot and some outstanding character work. I've gotten to the point where watching this show feels like slipping into the universe of The Sopranos for an hour. Everything feels so real in this show, and that's a testament to the ensemble cast.
Season Grade: A
SPOILER SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!
Season Three contains the two best episodes of the series that I've watched thus far. The first was Employee of the Month, which involves the moral compass of the series, Dr. Melfi, facing the ultimate test of character. Her relationship with Tony has been up and down and riddled with outbursts from the latter, but they're close enough to the point where the viewer thinks of Tony as a possible solution to Melfi getting revenge on her rapist before it's implied in the show. Seeing Lorraine Bracco get furious in her shrink's office and deliver this line was a tremendous bit of acting:
Then, she sits in her office with Tony, clearly distraught. She's still not feeling normal because of her rape, sure, but it's clear that the entire time she's fighting herself over the urge to tell Tony what happened. She knows Tony would have the guy whacked and it'd be sweet justice for her. The episode cuts to credits right after Tony asks her if she has something to say and she replies "NO", a response equally strong and painful for Dr. Melfi.
"I'm not going to break the social compact. But that's not saying there's not a certain satisfaction in knowing that i could have that asshole squashed like a bug if i wanted."
I liked what the show did with Paulie this season. His growing resentment towards Tony filters down to the way he treats Christopher. Even though it's clear Paulie's a little unhinged, the show does a good job at slowly illustrating why he's having such issues with his boss. The climax of this is Tony's decision to force Ralphie to pay Paulie a sum of 12 thousand dollars when Paulie felt he was owed fifty. However, there's an even more successful plot line en route to that moment.
"Pine Barrens" is possibly the best episode of the first three seasons and does a great job illustrating Paulie's descent. First, he reacts far too violently to the Russian, Valery, when the latter makes a relatively benign request to put his remote control back on the shelf. Then, when he and Christopher go on an adventure, lost in the snowy forest of south New Jersey with the aforementioned Valery possibly on the loose and stalking them, it's the starving, usually-furious Christopher who seems like the one who has his faculties in control and the higher-ranking, typically more mature Paulie who's really losing it.
It's a great episode for Christopher as well, whom the show has put into a great deal of effort into developing. He used to be prone to dumbass outbursts and violence, but as the show has progressed, Christopher has used his head a lot more and doesn't seem to be anywhere near as prone to stupid mistakes. "Pine Barrens" illustrates that pretty well, but most importantly, when he becomes a "made" guy earlier in the season, it's a moment that feels earned.
As a side note, I'm still bothered that they didn't tie up anything with Slava or Valery. It seems fairly clear that Valery escaped somehow, but it's not confirmed by season's end if (or how) that happened. It seems like Tony would have faced some fairly immediate repercussions if Valery's story ever made it back to Slava. Maybe they're just deferring this to Season Four.
I don't have much to say about the season-long Ralphie storyline other than that it was effective and that Ralphie filled in nicely as the "villain" for Richie for much of the season. Ralphie's a better character than Richie, though, and even though he can be stupid and a loudmouth, it's clear that he is at least trying to improve himself once Tony's forced to promote him to captain.
Even the minor characters were used very effectively in Season Three. My personal favorite is Bobby Bacala, who mostly serves as the butt of jokes and as Junior's caretaker during the season, but he's a rare thoroughly likable character on this show and the conversation he and Tony had on the way to find Paulie and Christopher in "Pine Barrens" an excellent moment.
The one storyline that didn't really work that well was Jackie Jr.'s relationship with Meadow and subsequent descent into crime. It was always at least a little clear that Jackie was a piece of shit and his inability to stay out of mob business was essentially a given from the start. He drove a lot of the action late in the season, but he wasn't much of a compelling character and Jason Cerbone delivered one of the weaker performances thus far on the series. There was nothing to root for, nor anything to surprise us here (other than an appearance from Omar!).
Despite that blip, Season Three was a riveting experience because of a compelling plot and some outstanding character work. I've gotten to the point where watching this show feels like slipping into the universe of The Sopranos for an hour. Everything feels so real in this show, and that's a testament to the ensemble cast.
Season Grade: A
Sunday, January 15, 2017
The Sopranos - Season Two
The Sopranos has become the go-to show for my wife and I when we've got a free hour, so our DVR has been accumulating things like crazy. We've yet to watch a single episode of Top Chef this year, we're seven episodes behind on Modern Family (no big loss there), just one behind on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and we've all but punted on Mr. Robot (probably for the best). We'll squeeze in the new episode of This is Us when one comes out and the light commitment / attention span required for The Big Bang Theory usually means we can fit it in, but for the most part, The Sopranos is currently dominating our TV time.
I spent my year-end review post on The Sopranos explaining the basic premise and what it's all about, so I pretty much have nothing left to discuss except specifics of Season Two itself. Therefore, the remainder of this post will be a....a.....
SPOILER SPACE!!!!
There's two primary mob storylines in Season Two. The first involves Richie Aprile (brother of former boss Jackie Aprile) getting released from prison and his rough integration back into the DiMeo crime family. The second is essentially a season-long arc for Pussy as he's torn between spying on Tony's crew for the FBI to reduce his sentence for selling heroin and his lifelong friendship to Tony.
I have to admit, when it was revealed early on in Season Two that Pussy actually was a rat in addition to Jimmy getting capped, it definitely registered as a surprise. They had set it up well to let the audience believe that Vin Makazian's tip from Season One was flawed and that he'd fingered the wrong guy. I'm glad The Sopranos decided to go this route because there were some excellent character moments from Pussy during his season-long struggle. The episode in which Pussy serves as A.J.'s confirmation sponsor gave us a good glimpse into just how much his deal with the FBI is tearing him apart. He says all the right things to help A.J. along the path and doing so makes him break down, understanding just how much Tony's friendship meant to him over the years. Even the scene at season's end in which he gets shot by Tony, Paulie, and Silvio was made to feel sad. I really wanted there to be some other way for Tony and his gang to allow Pussy to live, but you knew that wasn't happening.
Richie served as a decent villain for the season as a vile human being with some serious anger problems. He was thoroughly hateable, perhaps excessively so. The only real nuance to his character was his relationship with Tony's sister, Janice, which seemed to be pretty genuine. Unfortunately, Janice was a pretty unlikable character as well, so even though it gave the character a softer touch, seeing Richie shack up with another detestable human being further validated everything we know about him. There was enough backstory between Richie and Janice for the relationship to ring genuine and not purely as a power play against Tony, so that was good. However, I wonder how that would have played out long-term had The Sopranos not killed Richie off. Just before his death, he's pretty awful to Janice and it's the first moment we see him as anything but good to her. That made Janice's decision to shoot him the most shocking moment on the show so far, both from a plot and fit standpoint.
One of the more interesting subplots of the season for me was Tony's relationship with the father of one of Meadow's friends at school. It's clear that Tony has something of a soft spot for him, but when he enters Tony's executive poker game (against Tony's advice) and runs up debt on Tony, the friendship seemingly instantly dies. Tony doesn't quite issue the ruthless beating that he does to other debtors that he can't pay, and he does the man a courtesy of roughing him up himself rather than handing the job to one of his violent flunkies. Though the beating is minor, the message is clear: don't mess with Tony's business. Meadow's friendship with the boy, Eric, is collateral damage.
One of the weird tangents of Season Two is Christopher's side plot in which he tries to get into acting and promote his screenplay. I have to say, I never expected to see Jon Favreau playing himself on this show, but watching his discomfort grow as Christopher gets really play-aggressive with a gun in a hotel room was both tough to watch and a great, memorable scene. We spend a lot of time on this subplot in Season Two and while it's nice that the show continues to flesh out Christopher, I wonder whether they would have been better served to spread the love around. Among Tony's crew, Paulie and Silvio get slightly more development but they're still largely flunkies who are defined by their relationship to Tony. Furio was recently introduced, but there's not much known about him besides his country of origin and his capacity for violence. There's four seasons left of this show and I'm hopeful that The Sopranos will show greater interest in these supporting players down the road. While interesting, they spent way too much time on this subplot that didn't connect much to the story beyond a test of Christopher's commitment to the crime family.
Carmela's arc also continues to frustrate. She's obviously getting increasingly pissed with Tony's infidelity, the way his life of crime affects their family, and his persistent disinterest in her as a wife and sexual partner. She doesn't seem to ever do anything about it, though. I'd like to see her make a stand at some point, and maybe that's coming.
I also will voice a slight complaint about the stolen airline tickets. This is set up to be a big deal, as when Pussy actually drops a remotely useful nugget to the FBI, they make a point to say that Tony won't use the tickets himself and a connection needs to be made. The camera shot is detailed enough that when Tony gives Livia the plane tickets, observant viewers are quick to pick up on the possibility that this is going to be Tony's huge mistake that costs him his freedom. Livia gets caught at the airport, but the aftermath makes it feel like the whole affair wasn't much more than a speeding ticket for Tony. The plot device felt like a waste of time.
I'll criticize and nitpick until the cows come home, but few shows I've watched have been this consistently compelling. Tony constantly gets put into stressful predicaments and his responses to these situations are the perfect blend of anger and thoughtfulness. He's one of the best television characters I've ever seen, and I'll never tire of James Gandolfini issuing the trademark, "How you doin'" (which is sometimes friendly and sometimes chilling). There were weird subplots and way too much Janice, but overall, it was a great season of television.
Season Grade: A-
I spent my year-end review post on The Sopranos explaining the basic premise and what it's all about, so I pretty much have nothing left to discuss except specifics of Season Two itself. Therefore, the remainder of this post will be a....a.....
SPOILER SPACE!!!!
There's two primary mob storylines in Season Two. The first involves Richie Aprile (brother of former boss Jackie Aprile) getting released from prison and his rough integration back into the DiMeo crime family. The second is essentially a season-long arc for Pussy as he's torn between spying on Tony's crew for the FBI to reduce his sentence for selling heroin and his lifelong friendship to Tony.
I have to admit, when it was revealed early on in Season Two that Pussy actually was a rat in addition to Jimmy getting capped, it definitely registered as a surprise. They had set it up well to let the audience believe that Vin Makazian's tip from Season One was flawed and that he'd fingered the wrong guy. I'm glad The Sopranos decided to go this route because there were some excellent character moments from Pussy during his season-long struggle. The episode in which Pussy serves as A.J.'s confirmation sponsor gave us a good glimpse into just how much his deal with the FBI is tearing him apart. He says all the right things to help A.J. along the path and doing so makes him break down, understanding just how much Tony's friendship meant to him over the years. Even the scene at season's end in which he gets shot by Tony, Paulie, and Silvio was made to feel sad. I really wanted there to be some other way for Tony and his gang to allow Pussy to live, but you knew that wasn't happening.
Richie served as a decent villain for the season as a vile human being with some serious anger problems. He was thoroughly hateable, perhaps excessively so. The only real nuance to his character was his relationship with Tony's sister, Janice, which seemed to be pretty genuine. Unfortunately, Janice was a pretty unlikable character as well, so even though it gave the character a softer touch, seeing Richie shack up with another detestable human being further validated everything we know about him. There was enough backstory between Richie and Janice for the relationship to ring genuine and not purely as a power play against Tony, so that was good. However, I wonder how that would have played out long-term had The Sopranos not killed Richie off. Just before his death, he's pretty awful to Janice and it's the first moment we see him as anything but good to her. That made Janice's decision to shoot him the most shocking moment on the show so far, both from a plot and fit standpoint.
One of the more interesting subplots of the season for me was Tony's relationship with the father of one of Meadow's friends at school. It's clear that Tony has something of a soft spot for him, but when he enters Tony's executive poker game (against Tony's advice) and runs up debt on Tony, the friendship seemingly instantly dies. Tony doesn't quite issue the ruthless beating that he does to other debtors that he can't pay, and he does the man a courtesy of roughing him up himself rather than handing the job to one of his violent flunkies. Though the beating is minor, the message is clear: don't mess with Tony's business. Meadow's friendship with the boy, Eric, is collateral damage.
One of the weird tangents of Season Two is Christopher's side plot in which he tries to get into acting and promote his screenplay. I have to say, I never expected to see Jon Favreau playing himself on this show, but watching his discomfort grow as Christopher gets really play-aggressive with a gun in a hotel room was both tough to watch and a great, memorable scene. We spend a lot of time on this subplot in Season Two and while it's nice that the show continues to flesh out Christopher, I wonder whether they would have been better served to spread the love around. Among Tony's crew, Paulie and Silvio get slightly more development but they're still largely flunkies who are defined by their relationship to Tony. Furio was recently introduced, but there's not much known about him besides his country of origin and his capacity for violence. There's four seasons left of this show and I'm hopeful that The Sopranos will show greater interest in these supporting players down the road. While interesting, they spent way too much time on this subplot that didn't connect much to the story beyond a test of Christopher's commitment to the crime family.
Carmela's arc also continues to frustrate. She's obviously getting increasingly pissed with Tony's infidelity, the way his life of crime affects their family, and his persistent disinterest in her as a wife and sexual partner. She doesn't seem to ever do anything about it, though. I'd like to see her make a stand at some point, and maybe that's coming.
I also will voice a slight complaint about the stolen airline tickets. This is set up to be a big deal, as when Pussy actually drops a remotely useful nugget to the FBI, they make a point to say that Tony won't use the tickets himself and a connection needs to be made. The camera shot is detailed enough that when Tony gives Livia the plane tickets, observant viewers are quick to pick up on the possibility that this is going to be Tony's huge mistake that costs him his freedom. Livia gets caught at the airport, but the aftermath makes it feel like the whole affair wasn't much more than a speeding ticket for Tony. The plot device felt like a waste of time.
I'll criticize and nitpick until the cows come home, but few shows I've watched have been this consistently compelling. Tony constantly gets put into stressful predicaments and his responses to these situations are the perfect blend of anger and thoughtfulness. He's one of the best television characters I've ever seen, and I'll never tire of James Gandolfini issuing the trademark, "How you doin'" (which is sometimes friendly and sometimes chilling). There were weird subplots and way too much Janice, but overall, it was a great season of television.
Season Grade: A-
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