HBO’s Girls returns for its sixth and final season on Sunday night, quickly setting aside any nerves for waning quality in this quietly great series.
Fear not lovers of Season 5 of Girls.
It’s been widely acknowledged that the quality of the fifth season of Girls was a surprise. The show has always had its devoted fans. After the first season, it felt like Lena Dunham’s comedy struggled to find its identity as much as its central female foursome. The writing and performances of the latest season of Girls allowed us to watch these women mature before our eyes. It became insanely watchable and a great swan song.
I admit that I was nervous for the season premiere of the sixth and final season. Would it be a letdown since its previous season was so strong? Fear not. These ladies seem to be on a steady and solid track, so we can hope that the quality sustains until we say goodbye.
(Photo: HBO)Some of the best episodes of the entire series occur when the main cast isolate themselves from one another. People took notice when Dunham had a dalliance with Patrick Wilson, and, more recently, when Allison Williams’ Marnie reconnected with her ex-boyfriend in Season 5. While Girls doesn’t solely focus on Hannah (we do meet up with the other ladies), her story line with Riz Ahmed highlights the premiere.
After Hannah finally gets an article published in The New York Times, she takes an assignments in The Hamptons to observe a surf camp. They want her to sort of be a fish out of water and make (presumably) mean commentary on the women who go to the beach and trade yoga for surfing with younger men. In true Hannah fashion, she gives up mid-way through her first lesson but attracts instructor Paul-Louis. They drink a lot (“I can without becoming an alcoholic,” he tells her) and spending the night together. He seems happy with his life, but Hannah has always been looking to move–or at least appear that she’s ambitious.
While the premiere succeeds with providing great chemistry for Dunham and Ahmed (there’s also a great sight gag with Jemima Kirke naked on a couch in front of a horrified Alex Karpovsky), the second episode sort of settles melodramatic hipster hysterics. The marriage of Desi and Marnie rears its ugly head when Hannah accompanies the pair on an inevitably disastrous trip. I mean, come on, who ever thought that’d be a good idea. As Desi, Ebon Moss-Bachrach looks like the result of a Shia LaBeouf performance piece. There’s enough to love in these first two episodes. Andrew Rannells (my personal MVP from last season) is somehow bitchier and more aggressive.
Final Verdict
It appears that the drama surrounding this broken foursome might be on the rise. These characters always create good drama before the eventual healing. It’s reassuring that we’re able to so smoothly slip into the final season. This initial taste of Season 6, minor quibbles aside, feels comfortingly assured. I suspect we may not realize how much we’ll miss the show until it’s gone. Life often works that way, doesn’t it?
Girls Season 6 premieres Sunday at 10pm ET at HBO.
Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey fame excels in Legion, FX’s first Marvel adaptation. Does the series itself have the X-factor?
Noah Hawley attempted the inconceivable with FX’s Emmy-winning limited series Fargo. How could he attempt to orchestrate a spin-off series within the seemingly hermetically sealed Coen Brothers universe? To a very few Coen devotees, the verdict remains a negative one on Fargo‘s two seasons. But the finished product, while casually referring to the Coen’s classic film, remains uniquely a Hawley vision. With Legion, Hawley returns to FX in a series spinning off from the X-Men comic lore. Here, Hawley works his mad-genius direction to great effect with a lesser-known product. Viewers most assuredly get the feeling that Hawley and his cast are cracking their knuckles, warming up for the big show.
Legion hails from the X-Men universe, yes, but the connections to the original material or to the feature films remain tentative. The property stars Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) as David Haller, a schizophrenic mutant with incredibly powerful psychic abilities. In the comics, Haller is the son of Professor Charles Xavier, but the connection remains unspoken thus far in the series. Haller spends much of the pilot in a mental institution where he meets Sydney Barrett (Rachel Keller) who also possesses mutant abilities – physical touch allows her to switch bodies with whomever she comes in contact. A single kiss provides the catalyst for much of the action within the pilot. Let’s just say things go poorly.
Don’t worry if the plot fails to resonate with you. You don’t have to be a comic book devotee to appreciate this material. Hawley directs the pilot with confidence and an exciting sense of visual flair. He renders David’s tenuous grasp on sanity and reality through extravagant camerawork, garish colors, jump-cut edits, and unsettling music by Jeff Russo. If the split screens of Fargo Season 2 felt superfluous to you, wait ’till you get a load of Legion‘s kinetic marvels.
Final Verdict
Hawley’s direction is integral to the material, but Legion would suffer from the “all style and little substance” syndrome without a tremendous central performance. Keeping off the 30 pounds he lost post-Abbey, Stevens’s gaunt, angular face and ice-blue eyes serve him well here. He dives into the character with a focused, yet manic, energy, giving the audience a properly sympathetic protagonist. Stevens’s performance recalls the tremendous work of Mr. Robot‘s Emmy-winning Rami Malek. Both actors hail from modest beginnings but are able to illustrate mental illness in new and intriguing ways. Stevens’s ability to surprise here seems endless, and here’s hoping the Television Academy considers this brave and unique performance.
Legion (along with Taboo) proves that FX isn’t afraid to take chances with pulpy material. Unlike Taboo, Legion pays off in spaces based on the evidence available in the pilot. Here’s hoping Hawley and Stevens sustain the momentum for the 8-episode series run.
Netflix released a teaser and date for Season 5 of Orange Is the New Black. The Litchfield ladies will return June 9, 2017.
In case you were missing the Orange ladies of Litchfield, Netflix can soothe you by giving you a tease.
On Wednesday, Orange is the New Black‘s Instagram page released a small glimpse of the actors from the show in the form of a short teaser. The release date, set for early June, will only excite fans (like yours truly). The last image of the teaser is of the final moments of season 4–Daya Diaz brandishing an officer’s weapon at the start of a prison riot. It’s one of the best cliffhangers the show has ever had.
The Emmy-winning series, now in its fifth season, was recently awarded the Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy Series trophy at last weekend’s Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Composer Jeff Russo continues his successful partnership with Noah Hawley in the Marvel adaptation Legion, premiering tonight on FX.
When you watch the opening credits to a show scored by composer Jeff Russo, you know exactly what you are getting into. He sets the mood just right. The opening to FX’s Fargo is ominous yet nimble. The score to The Night Of bleeds dread into every scene. Legion, Russo’s latest project with Fargo creator Noah Hawley, is the highly anticipated X-Men spin-off that focuses on a young mutant who is diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age. Superhero dramas are making the leap from film to television more and more as of late, and FX and Hawley seem to have another hit on its hands.
I originally thought Russo might have a massive comic book collection stowed away in his basement. For some reason, I wrongfully assumed that everyone who boards a comic book or hero vehicle is a massive fan. Surprisingly, Russo didn’t follow a particular franchise.
“As a kid, I was kind of into comic books, but I wasn’t what you’d call a comic book geek—I wasn’t a collector. I read a lot of Archie,” Russo said. “That definitely appealed to me more. I wasn’t really into X-Men, but when I got older I got into the comics. It didn’t last very long—maybe 2 years.”
Composers are oftentimes given filmed material, and they must provide the underscore for the entire project. Russo continued his close collaboration with creator Noah Hawley. Working from scripts and extensive knowledge of Fargo‘s two seasons, Russo married his Emmy-nominated music from the ground up. He repeated this process on Legion.
“Noah sends 2 or 3 scripts and I sketch out themes, vibe, and feel. He’s a very visual writer. Very evocative and he puts you right there. We had conversations about how to set the tone, and we did the same thing with Legion. I originally wrote 3 different themes for David (Dan Stevens’ central character). Legion, at the core, is a love story, and that lends itself to musical moments. It allows it to underscore the character. Then when the picture comes in, we have to adapt to it or change it here and there. There needs to be some added finesses to make it really work. With The Night Of Steven Zaillian sent me the script and said, ‘Tell me what you think.’ Mind you, I wasn’t hired yet, but I immediately wrote the theme. He said it was exactly what they were thinking about. It all really depends on how I’m struck by something. The narrative really drives me. Certain elements of a script really drive different parts of my brain.”
Russo’s last two projects garnered him Emmy nominations, and it’s easy to see why. Both scores are very specific to their narratives, and they compliment the stories very well. Legion is another animal. The Marvel universe allows artists to spread their wings in ways they might not have been able to do before, and the television adaptations easily take more risks and explore darker themes.
“It afforded me the opportunity to anything. It was sort of like ‘Here’s a sandbox—let’s play.’ It allowed me to mix some stuff up. There are big orchestral pieces and then there are atonal quartets, and they don’t have any real musical relation. It’s so much fun! It’s such a joy to write. A lot of the time the character doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not, so it’s fun to play around with that. Why can’t the viewer feel the same way?”
The score isn’t just big orchestral pieces. Russo incorporated a lot of different sounds to achieve an “interesting sound design.” When you have an otherworldly and mysterious show that deals with repression and possible mental illness, an unconventional sound design proves exciting. You can hear intriguing sounds in the trailers alone.
“ ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ is one of my favorite albums—it’s the music of my youth. Noah shares the same love of music. I actually went out and bought an esoteric synthesizer to mold the music into it. It was a really big watershed moment. I plugged it in, and I was like, ‘Holy shit!’ ”
Sure, Legion features huge blockbuster action under the umbrella a very famous brand, but one of the things that attracted and grounded Russo to the material was the human connection between the characters. While you have things blowing up around everyone, the most important aspect–the one that drives the heart of the show–is emotional honesty.
“I live best creatively in an emotional point of view–whether the narrative is driven by drama or it’s a thriller or sci-fi or whatever. I do my best work if I can really delve into it. If comedy has an emotional beat, I can have a connection with it, and I’ve seen drama s that don’t have an emotional center. I respond to a true narrative based in emotional truth. With Fargo it was the case of good versus evil, and The Night Of was about the relationship between Naz and Stone. With Legion the through-line is about David and Syd. Everything ties together with an emotional core”
RuPaul’s Drag Race unveils the first guest judge for Season 9’s premiere episode. Rally the Monsters, kids. It’s Lady GaGa time!
RuPaul’s Drag Race has served us some amazing guest judges. Vanessa Williams, Bob Mackie, Debbie Reynolds, Lily Tomlin, and Kelly Osbourne all graced the runway. Hell, even Cher’s mother has appeared on the drag queen competition series (AKA the best show ever). RuPaul has never had one of the current gay icons come onto the show…until now.
It was announced on Tuesday that Mother Monster, yes Lady Gaga herself, will serve as the guest judge on Season 9’s first episode. I literally fell out of my chair. First she makes the Super Bowl watchable and now she’s going to join RuPaul in judging these bitches??? If I were them, I’d be shaking in my stilettos.
Wouldn’t be be great if she walked through the Werk Room doors as a contestant and she fooled everyone?
Oscar-nominee Jude Law plays Pope Pius XIII, the American young pope. The pope-tasctic insanity only starts there with this acclaimed limited series.
HBO’s incredible limited series The Young Pope stars Jude Law as the first and youngest American pope – Pope Pius XIII. Elected to the position by scheming Vatican cardinals, Law’s Pius ascends to the position without the slightest hint of decorum or respect for the post. The series, directed and co-written by Paolo Sorrentino (Youth), explores faith, tradition, modern Catholicism, and the politics of the Catholic Church in a remarkably fresh and urgent manner. In fact, it feels a little (a lot) like another political situation of note. More on that later…
I am neither Catholic nor a remotely religious person. I’ve been to the Vatican, and it’s incredibly difficult not to feel insignificant amidst the pageantry of the institution. So, while I do have respect for the Catholic faith, it wasn’t something that particularly resonated with me. The greatest asset of The Young Pope is its ability to inspire deep conversations about topics on which you’ve already formed solid opinions. Like religion itself, everyone takes away different things from the series. If you’re looking for a discussion of those themes, you’ve come to the wrong place.
Reading this piece, you’ll likely accuse me of having the most superficial reaction to The Young Pope possible. And maybe that’s true. Well, it probably is. Just because I want to focus on the craziest aspects of the series doesn’t mean I don’t ruminate on the deeper topics. It’s just much more fun to talk about shock value. So here are 7 crazy things I found memorable over all 10 episodes. The series wraps Monday, February 13, at 9pm ET. Be warned, spoilers follow for those uninitiated.
Forgive me father, for I have sinned…
7. The 3-way sex scene.
Given my pubescent obsession with sex on TV, you’d think this ranked higher on the list. However, given a show starring Jude Law as a young pope, you’d think the titular pope would be getting SOMETHING on the side. Turns out, he’s completely dedicated to the task of celibacy. It’s not for lack of opportunity – many woman and men have cast a longing look at this pope. No, one of the biggest surprises of the series is that Jude Law remains clothed and chaste for nearly all 10 hours. Well, except the gratuitous ass shot in the first five minutes.
The same cannot be said for his best friend Cardinal Andrew Dussolier (Scott Shepherd). As Chapter 6 begins, Dussolier returned to his flock in Hondouras after accepting a Vatican post. How does he say goodbye? An extremely active 3-way with a very attractive married woman and a young stud. And there’s little doubt as to who’s a top, bottom, sideways, voyeur… You get the picture.
So, while this feels kind of shocking and crazy, it doesn’t achieve the same sense of insanity we’d anticipated. Way to play it chaste, The Young Pope.
6. Sister Mary’s Nighttime Gear
Diane Keaton playing a nun is almost as surprising as Jude Law playing a pope. Almost. She gives (likely was directed to give) a very subdued performance as Sister Mary. In several scenes, she just stands in the background, placed here and there for emphasis on the foreground or to reference pieces of art. But her most memorable scenes take place out of her habit and in her nighty. It’s not the lacy nighty variety of course. What did you think this was, Black Habit Diaries? No, she sports a well-worn t-shirt with an amusing, did-I-just-read-that catchphrase. See for yourself below.
(Photo: HBO)
5. Cardinal Voiello And The Booby Statue
You know something’s up in the pilot episode when Cardinal Angelo Voiello (Silvio Orlando) stares longingly at a statue in Pope Pius XIII’s office. It’s not a tiny little Virgin Mary, which would seem setting appropriate. Instead, do you remember The Witches of Eastwick? Do you remember Cher making all those tiny little booby statues with tiny little vulvas? Well, The Young Pope recycled some props because the booby doll makes a grand return right here. They just glammed it up with a fancy little rope hat, as one does. And Cardinal Voiello harbors impure thoughts for it. Openly. Like, there’s definitely cardinal wood springing up under that robe. Which is sort of reassuring given how much time he spends at night with a mentally handicapped boy.
4. Pope Pius’s Crazy Ass First Homily
Remember Pope Benedict XVI? Nazi ties aside, poor fella couldn’t take a picture without looking like the Emperor from Star Wars. Homeboy ain’t got shit on Lenny Belardo, better known as Pope Pius XIII. After postponing his first homily for days (two episodes), he finally delivers the utterly insane, completely batshit address we always wanted. “I don’t know if you deserve me,” he proclaims a crowd of increasingly disenchanted followers in St. Peter’s Square. He rants and raves while dramatically backlit to enhance the terror. My favorite part? Someone, some dumb ass kid probably, has a laser pointer and shines it on Lenny’s shrouded face. And like a feral cat in heat, Lenny becomes enraged, all but flipping his congregation the bird.
3. Even Being Married To God Himself Cannot Help Sister Mary’s Free Throw
Sister Mary/Diane Keaton – sometimes it’s hard to separate the two – does not excel at basketball. It’s often shown but never fully explored exactly why she loves the sport so much. She seems to understand the object of the game – put the round ball in the circular hoop. It’s just that she’s completely devoid of skill. If ever there were a nun’s league, poor Sister Mary would be consigned to the bench, warming it with her lovely black habit and presumably high-top Converses up under there. Not even all the holy water in all the Vatican could deliver us from this shitty form.
2. The Goddamn Kangaroo
In Episode 2, Pope Pius XIII pays a visit to his gift barn, the building dedicated to housing all his swag. Here, he finds and frees an actual, real-live kangaroo. Now, this kangaroo was given to him as a gift, of course, but it was stashed in the gift barn with a giant cloth draped over it. Like it was a bird. Like someone had no idea what the hell to do with an actual, real-live kangaroo and decided it would go to sleep if they draped a giant cloth over it.
Lenny, sorry Pope Pius XIII, frees the kangaroo and commands him to run in the Papal Gardens. And run he does. He pops up every so often, day or night. No one seems to be feeding this poor creature, but it just majestically hops around. Well, except when Pius tried to Force command the mammal to jump. This bitch was having none of that.
1. And This Came Before Trump?
I kid you not, The Young Pope aired in Europe in October 2016. This was, of course, well before Donald Trump would become our 45th President. But the allusions are uncanny. So uncanny, in fact, that you’d be wise to snag Lotto numbers from Paolo Sorrentino. Pope Pius XIII ascends to the papacy as the pawn of scheming cardinals who foolishly thought they could control him. Pius then initiates his legacy with the promise of Making Catholicism Great Again.
How is this achieved? By reversing every single socially liberal policy the church tentatively enacted, including imitating a witch hunt for non-practicing (save Dussolier) homosexual priests and kicking them out of the church. Pius effectively closes the church and the image of the Pope off to the world in attempts to govern with fear. He threatens world leaders with ridicule. He brings in unqualified toadies to serve as his underlings, and he tortures those who know what they’re doing.
Granted, it’s not an exact match: Trump is obsessed with his public image and popularity while Pius gets pissed when there are more than 17 people in St. Peter’s Square at any given time. By the end of the series (perhaps its most crazy feat), Pius learns to put aside his insecurities and embrace a doctrine of love, making him incredibly popular and beloved. Is this Trump’s fate? Ask Paolo Sorrentino. I swear he knows.
But Wait There’s More!
These are hardly the most insane moments of the series, and I’m holding some back from the finale because you need to discover them for yourself. But the thing I love most about The Young Pope is its willingness to balance deeply felt theology with utterly batshit side notes. Leaving the audience half marveling at the brilliance and half befuddled wondering if what they’d seen was some Lynchian fever dream. The “Sexy and I Know It” dressing sequence. The thrusting of Cardinal Voiello onto Pius’s shoe for kissing. Pius dropping a baby on its head. Pius and Dussolier sneaking out for cigs in track suits. And the Cherry Coke. The papal diva’s Cherry Coke. I won’t revisit The Young Pope for a while, but I’ll never look at a Cherry Coke the same way again.
Episode 115: The Water Cooler Gang talks about the DGA winners, Saturday Night Live, and a flesh-eating Drew Barrymore.
Drew Barrymore may be the most magical zombie ever to grace the small screen, but Melissa McCarthy is a golden goddess. This week at the Water Cooler, we again broach the subject of the politics of comedy in our TV Tidbit segment. First, since the inauguration of Donald Trump, NBC’s veteran sketch show Saturday Night Live already feels more vital than it did during all of the Obama era. Is there an unfair advantage in portraying a president unpopular to the liberal-leaning show? And how amazing was Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer? Then, we’ll talk about a recent interview in The Huffington Post where South Park creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone reveal they’re backing off Trump and why. Then, we’ll close TV Tidbits with a chat about HBO’s awards season track with The Young Pope. Where does this critically acclaimed series fall in the 2017 Emmy race?
(Photo: Will Heath/NBC)After that, we discuss this weekend’s DGA Award winners in both film and TV (spoiler alert: Stranger Things didn’t win). We also take a look at Netflix’s gross-out zombie comedy Santa Clarita Diet starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant. Finally, we close with the Flash Forward to the television we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
Next week, the Water Cooler Podcast kicks off our 2-week coverage of Big Little Lies. First up, our Water Cooler Podcast Book Club dives into the pulpy novel by Liane Moriarity. Then, on our February 20 episode, we’re planning a long, slow, luxuriating soak in the HBO limited series’s first four episodes.
Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for remembering to rate us on iTunes!
10:31 – TV Tidbits
35:29 – DGA Award winners, plus Oscar and Emmy
51:03 – Santa Clarita Diet
01:05:14 – Flash Forward
Stranger Things 2 isn’t the only heavily buzzed series coming in 2017. Here is the first full trailer, plus Feud and The Handmaid’s Tale.
First, a few teasers for new 2017 television dropped tonight on or around Super Bowl 51. And then there’s the seismic atomic bomb of the first official look at footage from Netflix’s Stranger Things 2. Everything looks bigger, more intense – exactly as sequels should. Plus, there’s an hilarious shout-out to Eggo. ‘Member “Leggo my Eggo?” Season 2 will premiere Halloween 2017 outside of Season 1’s Emmy window. So, if Season 2 sucks, then it won’t damage Season 1’s Emmy prospects.
FX’s Feud offers only a single scene from the upcoming Susan Sarandon / Jessica Lange series from Ryan Murphy. The Handmaid’s Tale may be the one to rule them all. Look out for that one on Hulu.
Here are your winners in the television categories at the 2017 DGA Awards.
The 2017 DGA Awards TV winners were announced tonight. Here are your winners in the television categories. For winners in the film categories, click on over to Awards Daily main.
Drama Series
Miguel Sapochnick, Game of Thrones, “Battle of the Bastards”
Comedy Series
Becky Martin, Veep
Movies for Television and Mini-Series
Steven Zaillian, The Night Of, “The Beach”
Commercials
Derek Cianfrance
Chase, Nike Golf – Wieden + Kennedy Portland
· First Assistant Director: Rick Lange
· Second Assistant Director: Ethan Ross
Doubts, Powerade – Wieden + Kennedy Portland
· First Assistant Director: Mariela Comitini
· Second Assistant Director: Brad Robinson
Carol Burnett may be returning to television in an ABC-purchased pilot executive produced by Amy Poehler.
Carol Burnett. Emmy winner Carol Burnett. Carol. Fucking. Burnett.
Multiple outlets report tonight that the iconic television star will star in an ABC comedy called Household Name. Executive produced by Amy Poehler (Parks & Recreation) and Michael Saltzman (Halt and Catch Fire), the comedy received a pilot order from the network. Burnett also serves as executive producer in addition to starring. The setup reads as such: a family wants to buy the house of their dreams, but they must live with the previous owner, a brassy actress played by Burnett.
Burnett received 22 Emmy nominations over her career, winning 6. She’s most famous for The Carol Burnett Show which ran 11 years. That show won best variety-comedy series Emmys three times. She excels for her tremendous take on Gone With the Wind. She also does a mean Gloria Swanson. Both skits are included below.
