reviewing 3 Body Problem; Black Doves; Bosch; Criminal Minds; Dark Matter; Dexter: Original Sin; Dune: Prophecy; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outlander; Presumed Innocent; Prime Target; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Last of Us, Way Home; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics
George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.
22 December 2024: The three latest written interviews of me are here, here and here.
With all the promotion of Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, set to debut in U.S. theaters in the next few days, I thought it was high time to see Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, released in 2023, and which is actually Part 1 of the two-part story which will conclude with The Final Recognition.
So I saw Dead Reckoning on Paramount+ last night. And I was struck by several things, all of which have been inexorably building over this eight-movie run, which, as we all know, began as one of the best television series in history:
1. Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt has been getting more and more like the best secret agent in movie history, i.e., James Bond. Hunt is a far better fighter than anyone ever was in the Mission Impossible TV team. In fact, the strength of that team resided in its group prowess, and while Hunt has an impressive group behind him, he clearly has powers not only equal to Bond's but sometimes approach Superman's. I mean, he leaps more than tall buildings, and in Dead Reckoning he jumps off a jagged mountainside, high above a fast-moving train he's attempting to intercept.
2. Cruise's Hunt shares another Bondian characteristic: a penchant for beautiful women. In Dead Reckoning there are at least a handful. My favorite is Ilsa Faust, played by Rebecca Ferguson, most recently in a crucially starring role in Silo. Much like Bond's women, Hunt's are not only beautiful but keenly intelligent and resourceful, and they're central to events in which the narrative turns.
3. Whereas the MI team on television were invited to lend a hand in reducing or stopping significant challenges to US security, Hunt and his crew are called upon to stop challenges to the world order that verge on jeopardizing humanity itself. In it that sense, Hunt may be even a little more than Bondian, and in Dead Reckoning he approached Terminator territory, fighting an AI menace that -- in the opinion of at least some so-called experts -- has become since 2023 the greatest threat our species has faced, and in this case engendered.
I don't share that view, but I do look very much forward to see how it all turns out on the screen in The Final Reckoning very soon.
A superb, emotionally wrenching flashback episode 2.6 of The Last of Us on Max tonight -- actually a series of flashbacks -- in which we learn why Ellie and Joel were so estranged in the opening episode of this second season.
[And I suppose there are spoilers ahead ... ]
The reason, in a nutshell, is that Joel swears to Ellie that he won't kill Eugene, who was bitten, but Ellie estimates has enough time see his beloved wife, Claire (played by Catherine O'Hara), the town's psychologist, but Joel kills Eugene anyway, then lies to Claire, saying Eugene killed himself, in front of a horrified Ellie.
Before this, we see Joel and Ellie at some of Ellie's earlier birthdays, as the two grow closer and closer together as father and daughter. Flashbacks, if done well, can really make a series soar, as was demonstrated so brilliantly in Lost. And this a standout episode in the second season of The Last of Us, where we already have seen the seen the immediate future to this father-and-daughter narrative: after the two sort of reconcile as the last flashback in 2.6, Joel is tortured and killed in 2.1 by Abby, and her gang and a worse-than-horrified (too weak a word) Ellie, unable to do anything, look on.
Pedro Pascal puts in a masterful performance as Joel, as does Bella Ramsey as Ellie. It was also great to see Joe Pantoliano back on the screen as Eugene, and Claire reading George R. Stewart's Earth Abides (made into a TV series that's pretty high up on my list of science fiction series to see). And I really liked Ellie in the space exploration museum in the flashback that preceded the one in which Joel kills Eugene. Getting out beyond this planet is arguably the greatest accomplishment of our species. And it was potent indeed to see this astonishing accomplishment laid low by the fungus that has wiped most of our species.
And on that pessimistic note, I'll try to lighten the atmosphere by wishing Ellie a happy birthday. I have a daughter, but I'm no expert on father-daughter relationships, because every one is different, not to mention that Ellie has been celebrating her birthdays in an apocalyptic nightmare of a world. Ours certainly is no bargain these days, but we're nonetheless a lot better off on the other side of the screen than are Ellie and her cohorts.
Law & Order on NBC -- the original Law & Order -- has pretty much since the day it debuted in 1990 excelled in confronting some of the toughest ethical issues in the prosecution of crime. Its focus on DAs, ADAs, and their assistants in the courtroom part of bringing criminals to justice could amount to a veritable MA in the ethics of criminal justice, and I'd wager that specific programs in this TV series have found their way into many a class in the John Jay College of Criminal Justice here in midtown Manhattan, a few blocks away from the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University, where I've been a Professor (at the Bronx Rose Hill Campus) about the same number of years that Law & Order has been on the air, taking into account its eleven-year hiatus from 2010-2021.
[There will be spoilers ahead ...]
And the Season 22 finale of Law & Order that aired last night provided a fine example of that ethical probing, in this case the problem of (a) if you know for a fact that someone committed multiple brutal murders over the years, but (b) the evidence via which you know this is ruled non-admissible by the judge (either thick-headed, or brilliant, or anywhere in between), is it (c) right to bend the rules, to the point of doing whatever it takes to get the guilty party off the street and behind bars or worse?
It was clear that this episode would be morally gut-punching about 30 minutes into the story, the beginning of the "Order" part, when we learn that ADA Samantha ("Sam") Maroun's sister was years ago one of the victims of the killer who would be on trial. Executive ADA Nolan Price, who will be prosecuting the case in court, wants Sam to have a minimal role in this prosecution, but of course she doesn't, and in her zeal to see the killer brought to justice she coaches a witness to make sure he gives a conclusive ID of the suspect. Nolan struggles with whether to let the defence attorney know. The DA Nick Baxter subtly advises Nolan to forget that he knows what Sam did, but after agonizing over what to do, Nolan plays by rules. This in turn also of course results in the arrogant smirking killer being found not guilty.
And things only get worse from there. Not only is killer found not guilty, he's soon shot dead. Nolan pays Sam a visit. He knocks on her door. She opens it. "Please tell me you had on nothing to do with this," Nolan says to her. Sam, looking stricken (as she has for most of this episode), slams the door in his face.
Now the question of whether to take justice into your own hands is one which has arisen not only in crime fiction but science fiction, where the question of whether it would be right for a time traveler to kill Hitler as a baby has been considered in more than one narrative. It would be hard to ipso facto say that course of action is out of the question, and the same is true about Sam and the man she knows brutally murdered her sister. But I have to say I think there's a good chance that Sam didn't do it. The parents of the latest victim were in court when their daughter's sicko killer was declared "not guilty," and they looked none too happy. Sam's stricken look at the end of the episode (especially fine acting by
Odelya Halevi as Sam and Hugh Dancy as Nolan in this episode, by the way) could well have been not one of guilt for what she did, but one of anger at Nolan for thinking she might have murdered her sister's killer.
The good thing about season rather than series finales is we'll learn more in September, when Law & Order will return for its next season. Have a great summer!
Transcript of Complete Zoom Chat that Took Place During Interview
00:26:23PHILIP MORAIS:Hi Tom. Hi Paul. Good to see you both.
00:32:32Joe Kennedy:@#$%^&(!!
00:33:05Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Boa noite from São Paulo, Brazil! 🖖🌟
00:33:08Michael McLuhan:Greetings from the Estate of Marshall McLuhan in Canada NOT THE 51ST STATE!
00:33:17Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "@#$%^&(!!" with 😁
00:33:20Dr Greg Lewicki:Reacted to @#$%^&(!! with "😁"
00:33:23Robin Levenson:Reacted to "Greetings from the E…" with 😂
00:33:31Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Greetings from the E..." with 😁
00:33:32Dr Greg Lewicki:Reacted to Greetings from the E... with "😂"
00:35:01Renee Peterson:Greetings from Australia 🇦🇺
00:35:14jessicanicolet:Reacted to "Greetings from the E..." with ❤️
00:35:17Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Greetings from Austr..." with ❤️
00:35:51Dr. Mary Donohue:Reacted to "Greetings from the E…" with 😂
00:35:59Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Greetings from the E..." with ❤️
00:37:03Renee Peterson:Reacted to "Greetings from the E..." with ❤️
00:37:10Renee Peterson:Reacted to "Boa noite from São P..." with ❤️
00:37:13Thomas Klinkowstein:Greeting from Soho in Manhattan 🙂
00:37:17Renee Peterson:Reacted to "Greeting from Soho i..." with ❤️
00:37:33Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Greeting from Soho i..." with ❤️
00:38:03jessicanicolet:Reacted to "Boa noite from São P..." with ❤️
00:38:19jessicanicolet:Reacted to "Greeting from Soho i..." with ❤️
00:38:25jessicanicolet:Reacted to "Greetings from Austr..." with ❤️
00:38:52Dr Greg Lewicki:Reacted to Greetings from Austr... with "❤️"
00:38:53jessicanicolet:Howdy from Kansas
00:38:55Dr Greg Lewicki:Reacted to Greeting from Soho i... with "❤️"
00:39:00Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Howdy from Kansas" with ❤️
00:39:06Dr Greg Lewicki:Reacted to Howdy from Kansas with "🍻"
00:39:38Phoebe Loew 'student':Greetings from Los Angeles!
00:39:49Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Greetings from Los A..." with 🌟
00:39:53Renee Peterson:Reacted to "Greetings from Los A..." with ❤️
00:40:03jessicanicolet:Reacted to "Greetings from Los A..." with ❤️
00:41:08Dr Greg Lewicki:Reacted to Boa noite from São P... with "❤️"
00:41:45Dr Greg Lewicki:Reacted to Greetings from Los A... with "🌟"
00:43:44Thomas Klinkowstein:Reacted to "Greetings from Los A..." with ❤️
00:43:46Thomas Klinkowstein:Reacted to "Howdy from Kansas" with ❤️
00:43:47Thomas Klinkowstein:Reacted to "Greetings from Austr..." with ❤️
00:43:48Thomas Klinkowstein:Reacted to "Greetings from the E..." with ❤️
00:43:50Thomas Klinkowstein:Reacted to "Boa noite from São P..." with ❤️
00:43:54Thomas Klinkowstein:Reacted to "@#$%^&(!!" with 😁
00:45:21Howard:Greetings and salutations from Winnipeg, Manitoba where Marshall McLuhan grew up from ca. 1915 to 1934 upon graduating from the University of Manitoba to continue his studies at Cambridge University, England. Regards, Howard R. (J.) Engel, President & C.E.O. The Marshall McLuhan Initiative Inc.
00:45:32Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Greetings and saluta..." with 😲
00:50:42Robin Levenson:Media Ecology was NEIL POSTMAN
00:51:40Michael McLuhan, Estate of Marshall McLuhan:Regarding Gutenberg Galaxy, the contract was signed in that name in early '61 and the book was in progress from at least 1959.
00:52:04williambuxton:Didn’t MM use a phrasing similar to media ecology somewhere?
00:52:36Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Media Ecology was NE..." with 🤔
00:53:17Renee Peterson:Thank you for discussion on ‘media ecology’ I am currently finishing my final edits of my literature review for my PhD thesis featuring media ecology + celebrity + social media influencers + traditional media personality. I am now thinking about my chapter on media ecology.
00:53:42Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Thank you for discus..." with 👏
00:55:00Michael Grabowski’s iPhone:Our brains fill in the gaps from incomplete perceptions
00:56:33Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Replying to "Thank you for discus..."
How great Renee! I'd like to read your PhD thesis as soon as it's ready. fabiolachechetto@gmail.com
00:56:57Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Our brains fill in t..." with 👍
00:57:11Renee Peterson:Reacted to "How great Renee! I'd..." with ❤️
00:57:56Renee Peterson:Replying to "Thank you for discus..."
Thank you! Fingers crossed submitted this year and finalised. Can you please connect with me via LinkedIn? https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-peterson/
00:58:46Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Thank you! Fingers c..." with ❤️
00:59:28Robin Levenson:Neil was my teacher & head of my dissertation committee & I believe he said he came up with Media Ecology to name our Dept.
00:59:49Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Replying to "Thank you for discus..."
I don't have any social networks (I'm from the 19th century), but I'll save this link of yours. Thanks :)
01:00:10Renee Peterson:Replying to "Thank you for discus..."
no worries - here is my email: renee.peterson@me.com please connect
01:00:20Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Neil was my teacher ..." with 😲
01:00:30Dr Greg Lewicki:Reacted to Thank you for discus... with "👍"
01:00:38Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "no worries - here is..." with ❤️
01:01:15Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Replying to "Thank you for discus..."
Got it! I finished my PhD last year and it will be a pleasure to talk to you!
01:01:15Howard:AI is " A-1" according the U.S. Secretary of Education because we have so much stake in it. -- HR(J)E
01:01:50Renee Peterson:Reacted to "Got it! I finished m..." with ❤️
01:01:59Renee Peterson:Replying to "Thank you for discus..."
Congratulations! Amazing!
01:02:27Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "AI is " A-1" accordi..." with 🤖
01:02:28Dr Greg Lewicki:Replying to "AI is " A-1" accordi..."
Absolutely. I work with military forecasters on that issue and it will be - already is - a multiplier of state power
01:03:36Robin Levenson:Replying to "Thank you for discus…"
Yes, I finished mine in 2007 but feels like yesterday…..
01:03:51Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Congratulations! Ama..." with ❤️
01:03:55Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Yes, I finished mine..." with ❤️
01:04:14Dr Greg Lewicki:Reacted to AI is " A-1" accordi... with "🤖"
01:05:30Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Replying to "Thank you for discus..."
(The truth is: it ‘never’ ends, because we keep wanting to learn... the research bug is contagious...)
01:05:39Renee Peterson:Reacted to "(The truth is: it ‘n..." with 😂
01:06:08Robin Levenson:Reacted to "(The truth is: it ‘n…" with 😂
01:08:21John Donovan:Reacted to "(The truth is: it ‘n..." with 😂
01:13:25Gabriel Kennedy:Replying to "Thank you for discus..."
How much of an influence was Joyce on McLuhan?
01:14:24Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "How much of an influ..." with 📚
01:16:25williambuxton:Replying to "Thank you for discus..."
big! particularly Finnegans Wake.
01:17:01Michael McLuhan, Estate of Marshall McLuhan:Reacted to "big! particularly Fi..." with 🎉
01:17:56williambuxton:Replying to "Thank you for discus..."
Innis gave MM’s Mechanical Bride as an Xmas present to his son.
01:18:22Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Innis gave MM’s Mech..." with 😲
01:18:28Tripp Whetsell:Replying to "Thank you for discus..."
What was your biggest surprise about McLuhan in terms of new discoveries while writing this book and were there any particularly formidable hurdles you had to overcome in writing it?
01:18:38Dr Greg Lewicki:Quantum computing will boost AI. No opposition between the two here :)
01:20:30williambuxton:Did you have much contact with A.J. Watson when doing your PhD?
01:27:44Laura Trujillo:Congratulations to both!! This interview was great!!
01:28:16Dr Greg Lewicki:Thank you for the invitation and insightful interview! I have to succumb to 3AM momentum in Europe. My utmost pleasure, let's stay in touch via LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grzegorzlewicki
best regards, Greg
01:29:11Prof. Paul Levinson:Thanks for attending this event, Greg!
01:29:18Dr Greg Lewicki:Reacted to Thanks for attending... with "❤️"
01:30:04Renee Peterson:Congratulations @tomcooper - this was amazing! Very insightful and inspiring! Thank you @Prof. Paul Levinson for the invitation - I look forward to watching the recording of the questions. I am off to teach at The University of Melbourne. It was great to see familiar faces and new faces! Please feel free to connect with me via LinkedIn. Have a great day or evening!
01:31:06Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Congratulations @tom..." with ❤️
01:31:36Prof. Paul Levinson:Thanks for coming by, Renee!
01:33:01David Nostbakken:A mater class, Tom! Would loved to have been your student. Looking forward to your full book. Good on you. Unfortunately I have another session at 9:00 and must step away.
01:33:11Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "A mater class, Tom! ..." with ❤️
01:36:33Joe Kennedy:For anyone looking for the Raise Hand, Click Reactions on the bottom and there's an option.
01:36:52williambuxton:Innis’s daughter Anne often remarked on her fathers
01:36:53Joe Kennedy:Not very intuitive IMO.
01:36:55Prof. Paul Levinson:Thanks for coming to our interview, Laura — and thanks for all the promotion!
01:37:07Laura Trujillo:Reacted to "Thanks for coming to…" with 👌
01:38:40williambuxton:Fathers good sense of humour. This comes across in his correspondence
01:39:57Michael Grabowski’s iPhone:Reacted to "Our brains fill in t…" with 👍
01:44:01williambuxton:Very enjoyable! I look forward to seeing the book. I have to go.
01:45:45Gabriel Kennedy:Thank you for hosting this great conversation Paul. Best of luck with the book, Tom. It sounds like a great read.
01:46:28Prof. Paul Levinson:Thanks for coming by, Gabriel!
01:49:41Howard:As McLuhan said "There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew."
01:51:07franklobuono@optonline.net LoBuono:It's tough enough for me!! LOL
01:52:00Prof. Paul Levinson:Reacted to "As McLuhan said "The..." with 👍
01:52:36Morgan Stone:I have to head out, but thank you so much for the talk! It was very insightful, and has been a fascinating conversation. Have a great evening!
01:52:36Michael McLuhan, Estate of Marshall McLuhan:There is a McLuhan for young adults: Marshall McLuhan Wise Guy by Judith Fitzgerald . It is very good.
01:53:04Prof. Paul Levinson:Thanks for coming to our interview, Morgan!
01:53:50Prof. Paul Levinson:Replying to "There is a McLuhan f..."
Thanks — good to know!
01:54:46Michael McLuhan, Estate of Marshall McLuhan:Replying to "There is a McLuhan f..."
Great job here Paul. Great book Tom! I must check out though.....
01:55:35Howard:Another good title along these lines is W. Terrence Gordon's "McLuhan for Beginners" (2012)
01:56:28Four Arrows, aka Don Jacobs:I think it would be useful to have Marshall here today. He did not hire me after my making it to his top three candidates in Marin County. He told me there was only on reason that was full of many possible reasons (or words to that effect.) He had asked me how many hours I slept each night and I told him, as an athlete, I sleep an average of 8 hours. He said he did not think I would work out. I thought at first it was about work hours, but do you think it was that it’s also possible he saw 8 hours of sleep as a sign of being too "normal" or perhaps not radically committed enough. He surrounded himself with people who were intensely driven—sometimes to a fault, perhaps, but, I wish he were part of our team today!
01:57:59franklobuono@optonline.net LoBuono:This was terrific!! So nice to meet everyone!! :)
01:58:32Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "This was terrific!! ..." with 😎
01:58:38Kathy Merlock Jackson:Thanks for an enlightening interview and discussion.
01:58:51Prof. Paul Levinson:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DM4GZ99J/ref=nosim/?tag=dexter2a-20
01:59:10Matthew Lindia:Thanks! Great interview and insights!
01:59:42Thomas Klinkowstein:Thank you Tom and Paul. A wonderful 90 minutes!
01:59:49franklobuono@optonline.net LoBuono:Reacted to "Thank you Tom and Pa..." with 👍
01:59:52Four Arrows, aka Don Jacobs:Thanks Tom , fourarrows73@gmail.com or fourarrowsbooks.com
01:59:52Prof. Paul Levinson:Thanks Tom!
01:59:58tomcooper:Replying to "Thank you Tom and Pa..."
twcooper@comcast.net
02:00:08Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "twcooper@comcast.net" with 🖖
02:00:29tomcooper:Tom Cooper twcooper@comcast.net
02:00:45PHILIP MORAIS:Replying to "Thank you Tom and Pa..."
Great talk.
02:00:46Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Muito agradecida! Grazie!!! Thanks 🙂 Great conversation. 📚
02:01:19Fabiola Ballarati Chechetto:Reacted to "Perfetto!!!!" with 😎
02:01:34Michael Helm:Thanks so much for doing this and hope for more!
02:01:36Howard:Many thanks fo a most enlightening and engaging evening. Congratulations to Tom for a total de force of a book on two of Canada's world class thinkers! -- HR(J)E
At the Gary Gumpert memorial organized by Lance Strate at The Players in Manhattan late last night: yours truly, Joshua Meyrowitz, Lance, Ed Wachtel, Susan Drucker, Thom Gencarelli (with Mark Twain and others in the back); photo by Michael Grabowski
I saw Gary Gumpert's 1960 Gutenberg Galaxy last night (April 29) at the Memorial Event for Gumpert (who left us late last year at the age of 91) organized by Lance Strate (sponsored by the Institute of General Semantics) at The Players in Manhattan. The 30-minute black-and-white discussion between Marshall McLuhan, Harley Parker, and Robert Shafer of course is primitive -- but, hey, it had no AI, which should make some people happy (sorry, had to throw that in) -- and is easy enough to laugh at. A TV on a stand is made to roll in, apparently of its own accord. A single overburdened camera is made to do all the work. But the conversation, particularly the things Marshall had to say, the comments he continually made ... well, they were more than enough for me to say this recondite bit of television is an outright, not to be missed, masterpiece.
McLuhan was 49 years old. Much younger than I am now, just a few years older than my son is now. His hair was jet black and his tongue was golden. He had most of the pieces already in place that would populate every book and essay he would soon be writing. He talked a lot about the global village. And this was 1960, two years before the launch of the Telstar telecom satellite in 1962 that some people thought gave him the idea for his mini-essay on the global village that would appear in one of his two breakthrough books, entitled The Gutenberg Galaxy, that would appear that same year, in 1962, and would become (along with "the medium is the message" in Understanding Media in 1964) one of his two best-known "probes" (as he liked to call the brilliant insights that poured out of his mind), and indeed was recognized by scholars like me (see my Digital McLuhan in 1999) as nearly literally prescient about the Internet age. He talked about ear-man vs. eye-man, a lesser-known but key probe he would come to call "acoustic space". I recall walking down the street with him near the University of Toronto, must have been around 1978, when a glitzy car drove by with 1950s-style fins -- might have been a Chevy Impala -- and he looked at me with that trademark twinkle in his eyes and said, "you know, the automobile retrieves the knight in shining armor". He didn't say that in Gutenberg Galaxy, the show Gary Gumpert directed, or in The Gutenberg Galaxy, the book McLuhan wrote, but the 30-minute televised conversation teemed with that kind of nonchalant genius that Marshall McLuhan was justly known for. (I say "justly," because many self-appointed media "experts" who either were too jealous or lazy, or maybe just too creaky in their thinking, professed to not understand a single phrase that McLuhan so seemingly effortlessly produced.)
There does remain the question of who came up with the "Gutenberg Galaxy" phrase, Gumpert or McLuhan? Gary Gumpert once told me point blank that he not Mcluhan had come up with that title. I actually got to know McLuhan in person in the late 1970s a lot better than I ever knew Gumpert, and I regret that I never put the question to McLuhan in our many New York and Toronto meetings. Thus, my final judgement on that question right now is: I don't know.
But I do know that I hope the world, our 2025 world, gets to see Gumpert's Gutenberg Galaxy as soon as possible. It's already been digitized. Let's see it up on YouTube ASAP.
I just finished binging the final season of You. Some thoughts:
[No spoilers ahead, until I warn you about them.]
For some reason in this final (5th) season of this series about the deeply complex serial killer Joe Goldberg (though I guess most or even all serial killers are complex), I began thinking a lot about its comparisons to Dexter and its spin-offs (my all-time favorite serial killer series, and one of my all-time favorite TV series, period -- in the Top 5 all-time, I'd say). Now, I may have made comparisons of You to Dexter in my reviews of the first four seasons of You, but I'd rather write this review right now than read over those earlier reviews, which of course you are welcome to, if you like (see the links at the end of this review).
Now Dexter Morgan, as we know, has a code -- he kills only monsters, including other serial killers, that for whatever reasons the police can't touch. Dexter almost definitely would've killed Joe, even though Joe occasionally kills people who deserved to die, too. Joe didn't have much if any of a code, but he does have something of a redeeming characteristic in his literacy. Not that his way with words, spoken and written, in any way justified his killings, but they certainly made Joe much more worthy of a story than the kind of serial killers you encounter just about every week in Criminal Minds.
And Joe is refreshingly hipt. His inner voice tells him -- inner voices are another thing Dexter and Joe have in common -- and Joe's voice observes at some point, when he's annoyed at the press coverage his deeds or people he's involved with are receiving, "no wonder journalism is dying". Good for Joe! He (or actually his writers) must have read Andre Mir's masterful Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers (which I highly recommend).
[And now I'll warn you about some very general spoilers ahead ... ]
I thought this finale season did a great job tying in major characters from previous seasons, including ones we thought were no longer with us, including a central character who is in fact gone, and another who in fact is not. I also thought Joe grappled with this in a suitably entertaining way for a story like this, with an intriguing mix of unpredictability and predictability. When a TV final season brings in so many different characters, it runs the risk of coming off like everything and the kitchen sink. This concluding season of You by and large avoided that pitfall.
But here's what I didn't much care for in this last season. When the first season debuted back before COVID in 2018, a lot of reviewers said they felt "conflicted" about enjoying so much a series about well, a cold-blooded psycho, however literate he might have been. I entitled my review of that first season "Review from an Unconflicted Fan". I thought the first season was brilliant, not because there's anything I admire about real-life serial killers, but because You did an excellent job of telling a unique story about a fictional serial killer. In the final episode of this final season, Bronte/Louise tells us that falling in love with a fictional serial killer is a good way to learn more about how to apprehend or recognize and stop a serial killer in real life. I thought that was a very keen and apt observation. But for that reason, I didn't much care for the heavy-handed way in which Joe got his due at the end. It was almost as if the show's creators felt the need to shout from the rooftops that they were no fans of real-life serial killers, something that didn't need to be shouted because it should be obvious, and of course in fact manifestly is.
In any case, congrats to everyone who created, wrote, directed, and acted in this very memorable series.
So, Episode 2.1 of The Last of Us, up on Max last week, was pretty quiet. We did learn some important things. There's a young woman, Abby, who is clearly a counterpart of Ellie -- the two even look somewhat alike -- who is intent on killing Joel. That intention, of course, will put her on a collision course with Ellie, who therefore also of course gets into a father-daughter type argument with Joel, who also, as we know, is Ellie's de facto father. We also see Ellie and Dina kiss at a dance in Jackson Hole, the center of the action so far in this second season.
As I say, pretty quiet. And in a narrative of this calibre, pretty quiet has to be a build-up to something pretty calamitous. But episode 2.2, just up of Max tonight, was a lot more than that. I'd say it was one of most exciting, all-hell-breaks-loose, explosive episodes of anything I ever seen on any TV or streaming screen. Right up there, in other words, with equivalent episodes of Game of Thrones. And if we add movies into the comparison, with equivalent scenes in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings.
I mean, the hordes of the infected attacking Jackson Hole are right up there -- or down there -- with the Orcs attacking wherever it was in Lord of The Rings. And in some ways even more powerful because it came on so suddenly. And, to add to the knock-down punch of this second episode, it wasn't even the more powerful scene in the near hour.
That would be the killing of Joel, which, although we learned the hard way in the first season that everyone was expendable, nonetheless came as a shockingly horrendously unwelcome stun. Like I'm sure everyone else who saw the episode, I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to believe it so much, I didn't really believe it until I saw the bag with his body being hauled through the snow. And even now there's a part of me that believes, yeah, if I was writing the story, maybe Joel would get frozen in the snow, so much so that his brain will get frozen before it dies, which means he could be resuscitated, right? (Actually, I think that sort of happened with Michael C. Hall's "Dexter".) Yeah, suddenly immense cold can do that. But, sadly, I'm not writing this series.
But speaking of the cold, it did get nice and warm in New York City the past few days, but the cold was such an impressive character tonight, I actually felt chilled watching this episode -- not just psychologically because of was happened to Joel, but almost physically because of the way in which the snow and the cold was so effectively depicted and played a role in this narrative.
And I'll see you back here with my continuing reviews of this chilling series.
As we discussed in the interview, I'll be interviewing Tom about his book via Zoom on the evening of Wisdom Weavers' publication -- 8pm (New York time), May 1. If you'd like to attend, email me at Levinson at Fordham dot edu and I'll be happy to send the Zoom URL to you.
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 410, in which I interview Kingsley Marin and Massimo Seriale, two freshmen at Fordham University, who have created and edit a new publication (independent of the University), The Polar.
So Severance ended its powerful Second Season with even more powerful finale. And has now become a thin two-season tradition, the finale leaves us more unanswered questions than when this season began. But Severance is a such a fresh and sharply original narrative, my guess is its tradition be increasingly less thin, as the years with new seasons roll by,
The above is the unspoiler part of my review. [Here, then, is the warning about spoilers ahead ... ]
The biggest question in this finale is why Mark chooses his budding innie Love Helly instead of his deeper and longer outie love, Gemma. Actually, we know why Mark made that choice -- his innie is falling in love with Helly -- which I've been entirely in favor of -- instead of the wife that his outie has been yearning for. We know the proximate cause -- or what Aristotle would the "efficient" cause -- of why that happened: Mark was his innie at the time he made that choice.
But, wait a minute. I thought Mark's outie had been undergoing some integration process which would unify his innie and outie. He was, and we've seen some evidence that this process was working, at least in several episodes that preceded the finale. And, indeed, the finale took some pains to indicate there was still some separation -- aka, lack of integration -- between Mark's innie and outie. In one of the best scenes in the series, we have Mark's two beings talking to each via recordings via a device that looks it was last used in maybe the 1980s. That scene ended in argument and frustration. Which of course was necessary to set up Mark's innie going his own way at the end. (By the way, they played "Windmills of Your Mind" at the end, which was an appropriate enough choice, but I would've preferred "You Can Go Your Own Way".) From a narrative point of view, I think the lack of integration should have shown itself in a more predominant fashion prior to this finale. As it was presented, it seemed like a little bit too much in one short hour, put in the hour to set up and justify the ending. Or, to stay with Aristotelian philosophy, the efficient cause -- Mark's innie -- was a little too patly set up to justify the final cause, which was Mark's innie of course choosing Helly.
But there were some elements that were especially gratifying to see. Mr. Drummond was an arch Lumon sadistic monster. It was good to see him die, and it was a nice touch that we don't know if the killer was Mark's innie or outie, because he shifted from one to another in that notorious elevator, and it's pretty likely that it was the finger on the trigger undergoing the shift and twitching that pulled the trigger. In other words, the efficient cause in the killing of Drummond is a question mark -- a question mark about which Mark pulled the trigger -- and, come to think about it, a question mark as to Mark, whether he was his innie or his outie -- deliberately pulled the trigger. Though whereas the innie or outie is a 50/50 proposition, the deliberate or accidental question seems much likely answered as accidental.
The other scene I really liked was that woman with the goat. She not only saved the goat, she saved Mark. If there was an Emmy Award for actor who saved both the star of the series and a goat, it would be this woman. (Ok, the character's name is Lorne, and actor's name is Gwendoline Christie). And the goat's performance was pretty impressive, too. It had a name, too -- Emile. Hey, how about an Emmy for Emile for best non-human actor in a series?
Back to what I thought could have been better: I'd say Milchick could have had a bigger role. I mean, locked in a bathroom only gives you so much room for exposition, and when he was out of the bathroom he really didn't do that much, either.
But, all in all, Severance established itself in this second season as an exceptionally original and remarkable science fiction series. I'll be back here with reviews of the third season as soon as it's up on Apple TV+.
It's been a while since I reviewed any "Law & Order" shows here*. It's even been a longer while that, as far as I can recall, that any "Law & Order" shows were "ripped from the headlines" -- what they used to proudly say in their ads back before the telephone was invented (well, not quite that long ago, either -- "Law & Order" debuted in 1990).
*Actually, not that long ago, I gave a rave review of Law & Order: SVU in January 2024.
But tonight's "Law & Order," just on last hour on NBC, more than made up for that, with an ethically scalding tale based on Luigi Mangione's murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in broad daylight in midtown Manhattan back in December. Of course, like all of "Law & Order" "ripped from the headline" shows, this one differs in many ways from the true story. If you're interested in what really happened, there are a myriad of factual accounts online. "Law & Order" was less interested in dramatizing all of those details than in getting at the crux of the life-and-death ethical problem that underlies both the true story and its adaptation on "Law & Order".
Which is: are health insurance companies which deny claims by people in life-threatening conditions guilty in some sense of cold-blooded murder? Now let me say here that I'm no friend of insurance companies. They do a great job collecting premiums and spending tons of money on idiotic commercials. But when it comes to paying out money for legitimate claims ... well, let's just say that's where they fall badly down on the job. And I say this after decades of fighting for justified claims for the cars that I drive and the home in which I live.
But does denial of such claims justify taking someone's life aka murder? I'd say obviously not. The ultimate proper course of action regarding those kinds of cases is to take the company to court -- civil court, where the penalty if the insurance company loses the case is money. But then what about a case in which a health insurance company denies a justified claim which leads to a person's death?
That's the thrust of episode 24.16 of "Law & Order". The hunt for the killer is obstructed by citizens who have their own, likely good, reasons for disliking the way they and their families have been treated by insurance companies. That part is fact. But, of course, the second half of "Law & Order" is the trial in the courtroom, which hasn't happened yet in the Mangione case.
I thought "Law & Order" handled that in a brilliant way. (And it was great to Benito Martinez, who played David Aceveda on The Shield, back on the screen as the judge in this profoundly important case.) But, my recommendation is ... see it for yourself.
I binged Long Bright River over the weekend. It's a police procedural thriller about a serial killer preying on the women on the "Ave" in Philadelphia, and it packs quite a punch. It's brilliantly acted -- especially by Amanda Seyfried, who first became known in Big Love, and then in Mamma Mia, and is now clearly a world-class, unique actor -- with a supporting case that includes Dash Mihok (one of Ray Donovan's brothers), Nicholas Pinnock (Counterpart), and John Doman (who has starred in everything).
But that's not what I liked most about this short series on Peacock, which had the good sense to put it all up at once, because that's the way it needs to be seen. [And here I'll say that there are no spoilers ahead, believe or not.]
But what I liked most about this series is the human side of its story. All serial killer stories -- true or fictitious (which I read is the story on Long Bright River) -- have an inescapable human side, if only in the impact that the killings have on the victims' families. But Long Bright River really goes into this in-depth, with a brilliant boy on the spectrum (Thomas, superbly played by Callum Vinson), his great-grandfather (John Doman's role), a former nun (played by Harriet Sansom Harris) who makes a simply wonderful babysitter, and all manner of tangled parent-child, and sister relationships.
And the story ain't bad, either. Why is this current Jack-the-Ripper going after drug-addicted women who work in the sex-trade to pay for their addiction? Is the killer really a cop, and, if so, which one? There are no shortage of cop suspects in this narrative.
Now, I actually guessed who the killer was in the very first episode of this eight-episode series. And I'm still raving about what an excellent series Long Bright River is, powerful on so many levels. That's an indication in itself of why I say don't miss this series, you'll be glad you watched it.
Well, the penultimate episode of the second season of Severance was powerful indeed, offering us an intoxicating bouquet of interlocking stories. ("Penultimate" means next-to-last. I give you this information -- in case you didn't already know it -- because Milchick standing up to Lumon and its ridiculous big-word compulsion is one of these stories ...)
[But I better first warn you about spoilers ... ]
Here are some of my favorite of the stories all percolating in episode 1.9:
The opening of this episode was even better than usual. I mean, as that camera panned out at the end of that beginning, I almost thought for a moment that we were seeing a flying saucer on the scene, and Lumon is part of some interstellar invasion. Who knows, it may be.
Helena and her sicko father was disconcerting to see (which, of course, is what Severance is and is supposed to be). He wants to see his daughter eat eggs raw -- what is he, some kind of cannibal? (No offence to people who like their eggs raw -- they're probably good for you, as long as they're not carrying bird flu.)
Outie Dylan being furious that his wife is cheating on him by passionately kissing his innie is one great piece of Severance story. Only in Severance could we get such a story. Only in Severance could it make any sense. If someone were to ask me to explain Severance in less than a minute -- no easy task -- I would probably tell them about this storyline. (It also occurred to me, watching this whole Dylan innie and outie and their wife thread, that outies being made into innies is reminiscent of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.)
Milchick standing up to that hateful Lumon overlord was just excellent to see. And, it's significant that Milchick is not at all totally rebelling against Lumon. In the rest of this episode, he's his good-bad-old Lumon henchman self.
Irv and Burt was good to see, too. Although Burt insisted that they go their separate ways, I'm hoping anyway that we'll see them back together
Note that I have not said anything about Mark, including what we saw at the end of the episode. That's because I don't really understand it. But that's what finales are for, and I'll you here next week with my review.
I binged the third season of The Way Home the past few days on Peacock -- it started airing on the Hallmark Channel a couple of months ago, week by week, and I enjoy the series far too much watch it doled out like that.
Here's what I really liked about this third season [yeah, spoilers ahead]:
The music was fabulous. The scene with Kat and Eliot singing Sister Hazel's "All for You" in the first season was one of the highlights of that season, and the third season had lots of music highlights. But they weren't so much the songs as the top-notch performances. Young Cole (played by Jordan Doww) has a great voice, whatever he sings, and when he's joined by time-traveling Alice ( Sadie Laflamme-Snow) the resulting harmony is pure magic.
There was a lot more time-traveling to various years in the past, and it'll be no surprise that I really enjoyed that, because time travel (and the related alternate history genre) are my favorite kinds of stories to read, watch on a screen, write, and sing about. (But here I'll also say that the pool as the time travel vehicle is feeling a bit too magical for my taste, just as the stones are for Outlander.)
Kat's other love in past. Thomas Coyle (Kris Holden-Reid) has real charm, and I hope we see more of him next season.
It was really good to find out so much more about Del's back story, including a lot of focus of young Del (Julia Tomasone) falling in love with young Colton, who pretty quickly is head-over-heels in love with Del.
Here's what I didn't care for, all that much. Not too many things, because the narrative was pretty tightly woven. But the villains were a little too much comic-bookish, especially that guy in the past, Cyrus Gordon, who seems ready to kill at the drop of a hat. Not mention that he's so unpleasant and unpleasant-looking, that it's difficult to imagine why anyone would ever marry him for whatever reason, especially his beautiful wife.
But this third season has real heart, and, notwithstanding what I said about Thomas in the past, I'm really glad Kat and Elliot finally seem to getting together on a more permanent basis. The series in general always had a certain sweet and beautiful charm -- refreshing in this age of cynicism -- and that seems to be increasing with every new season. I'll see you back here when the fourth season is up someplace where I stream it to my heart's content.
“Paul Levinson’s It’s Real Life is an incredibly unique and captivating peek behind rock and roll’s mysterious curtain. The idea that the story delves into an alternate world adds to its page-turning intrigue. Highly recommended!”
-– Steven Manchester, #1 bestselling author, The Menu
"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history."
-- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History
get It's Real Life in paperback, hardcover, or on Kindle here
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 409, in which I interview Simon Vozick-Levinson, Deputy Editor of Rolling Stone, about the magazine's list of the 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time. We talk in particular about Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, and Sam Cooke, and also discuss the importance of publications like Rolling Stone standing up for democracy in these politically troubling times.
As a special treat, at the end of this interview, I play a song, "Dance with Destiny," from James Harris's new LP, The Moons of Jupiter. This is consistent with Phil Ochs' view that we needs works of beauty especially in troubled times.
So, Nordic Noir is one of my favorite genres. It usually takes place either in Scandinavia or Iceland (which I don't think is part of Iceland, but don't quote me on it). At its best, the genre combines crime with scenery so cold you want to put on an L. L. Bean winter coat indoors -- wait, I think anything (like the latest True Detective) that takes place in Alaska is also a kind of Nordic Noir -- but getting back to this eighth episode of the second season of Severance, which we're told in the creators' epilogue takes place in Newfoundland, it certainly delivers a deep Nordic Noir chill.
As for the story ... [here's the spoilers ahead advisory ...]
Well, as for the story, it pretty much delivers one thing, but that one thing is pretty important: Harmony Cobel is apparently the inventor of the severance process! I mean, it's not clear if she actually built it, but she came up with the designs for the process, including how to deal with its complications, and that's impressive. I guess this makes her the Charles Babbage of Severance. (Babbage came up with the design for our digital computers -- his analytical engine in 1837 -- which Turning liberated from paper into the ancestors of the digital computer more than a hundred years later, and we all have in our laptops and phones today, which my students tell me is in turn now in the process of being transformed again into astronomically-fast quantum computers, even as I'm writing and your reading this).
I doubt that Lumon will have much to do with quantum computing -- though, come to think of it, Cold Harbour could be some kind of code for quantum computing -- but as of now, Lumon seems very much rooted in the 19th century, almost literally so. On the other hand, in addition to Cold Harbour, since Severance is science fiction, anything that in retrospect is plausible could well be the way this season goes.
