True Blood 3.11: Here Comes the Sun

Well, we all know what sunlight does to vampires, including those on True Blood.  The most vivid, touching, wrenching example came last year, when Godric used the sun at dawn to commit a noble suicide.    We've seen Bill brave the death of the sun to save Sookie.   But this year we've seen something a little different.

Bill seems immune to the sun's death rays, at least for a minute or two, after he gorges on Sookie's blood, which turns out not only to be sweetest blood he's ever tasted, but also conveys some powerful properties.  This is because Sookie has fairy or alien blood in her veins, being a human-fairy hybrid.

This gives Eric a brilliant idea which he seeks to implement in episode 3.11.   If he can make the King think that the sun-resistant effect of Sookie's blood is permanent, then the King will be tempted to see if he can attain the age-old vampire dream of walking in the sun, or being a "dew walker," as he poetically puts it.  But the King is a crafty vampire.   He'll only try this if Eric demonstrates the Sookie sun tonic's effect first.

And so the final scene shows Eric and the King, handcuffed by Eric's hand, steaming, dying in the sun.   It's a powerful end to the penultimate episode of this season.

Other goodies include Tara and rough-tough Sam together at last, Jason and the were-panther, and Jessica and Hoyt back together.  But the big story is what will happen to Eric and the King, and I'm guessing - having read none of the books and seen no spoilers - that only the King will die a true, much deserved death.


5-min podcast review of True Blood


See also: True Blood 3.1: Oxygen vs. Phone ... True Blood 3.2: King and Wolves ... True Blood 3.3: Rolling Eyes and Spinning Heads ... True Blood 3.4: Running Hot, Winning Names ... True Blood 3.5: Square, Love, Crown, Power ... True Blood 3.6: True Life and Death ... True Blood 3.7: Lorena and the Magister ... True Blood 3.8: Break Up to Make Up ... True Blood 3.9: The King and the VRA ... True Blood 3.10: "Medieval on TV"
 
See also from Season 2  True Blood Pours Back In and  Love and True Blood in the Air and Likes Coming Together in True Blood and True Blood Boiling and Godric, Eric, and Sookie on the Roof and Maryann vs. the Good in True Blood and Illusion, Eisenhower, and Texting and True Blood Season 2 Finale

See also from Season 1  True Blood Calling ... Penultimate True Blood ... Last Bite of the Season

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

Mad Men 4.6: Emmys, Clio, Blackout, Flashback

In a sweet feat of timing, Mad Men won a much deserved Emmy for best dramatic series tonight - against great competition - as AMC aired episode 4.6, in which Don wins a Clio award for his Glo-Coat ad.   And that was almost the least of this superb episode, firing on all cylinders.

One thread centers around Roger's memories, in flashbacks, of how he first met and came to hire Don.   The two looked just right younger, along with Joan.   Don is clearly as ambitious as he is now, but, unsurprisingly less hard-bitten.

In the present, Roger has sent Jane's not very talented cousin to Don for a job.   Don practically laughs him out of the office, but not before the cousin unfurls his one advertising idea, "[whatever specific brand]  - the cure for the common [general product].   When Don comes back pretty drunk from the Clio's to meet with the Life Cereal client - after the blond psychologist rebuffs his advance - he rapid fires a whole bunch of slogans to Life, including, "Life - the cure for the common cereal."  The client loves it.

Peggy, who was at both the initial Jane's cousin meeting and the Life meeting, wants to tell Don that he got the slogan from the cousin, in case he was too drunk to realize it.  But the weekend is at hand, and it will take Don and Peggy on two wild paths.

Don, still drinking, brings back a brunette Clio-winner to his apartment.   He wakes up two mornings later, with a blond in bed with him.   She calls him Dick, which suggests that in his stone drunkenness, Don thought of himself as Dick Whitman, or reverted to his true, original identity.  Don's memory is gone, at least as far back as Friday afternoon and the sell to Life.

Peggy has adjourned to a hotel room with a nudist ad writer.  His biggest accomplishment is a KKK anti-Goldwater ad which Johnson didn't use (the guy is aptly jealous of Tony Schwartz's masterpiece daisy-atom-bomb ad, which was used by the Johnson campaign, just once, and was already on its way to becoming a classic).   The guy taunts Peggy for her prudishness, extolling nudity.  Peggy eventually steps up, takes off her clothes, dares the guy to do the same.  Which he does, but she has now clearly reversed the power relationship, and dominates the room.

Peggy eventually shows up at Don's apartment, and tells him about the Life ad, and who was its author.  Don finally hires the cousin - you can always count on him to do the right thing in business, even if it is under duress.

And the best line in this episode?   It's in none of the above scenes, and comes from Joan, who takes her leave of Roger at the bar after Don wins the Clio, and tells Roger he's "crossed the border from lubricated to morose".

Now that's what I call fine writing - Matthew Weiner also won a much-deserved Emmy for best writing tonight - and just one of the many reasons why Mad Men is such a compelling cure for common television.


5-min podcast review of Mad Men

See also Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes." ... 4.3: Both Coasts ... 4.4: "The following program contains brief nudity ..."  4.5: Fake Out and Neurosis ...

And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World

And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons ... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men

And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ... Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ... Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes

20-minute interview with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) at Light On Light Through

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The Plot to Save Socrates





"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Covert Affairs 1.7: Amtrak Split

Keeping an eye on Covert Affairs, the stylish, James Bondian, Aliasesque new spy series on the USA Network.   Episode 1.7, on last night, struck a chord with me - I'm always on the lookout for a good story whose resolution hinges on a train (probably because of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train or North by Northwest, who knows).

Last night's story featured Auggie (good work by Christopher Gorham) - blind, cool, accomplished colleague of Annie at the CIA - though there was plenty of attractive Annie, and Jai (Sendhil Ramamurthy - from Heroes!), too!   Auggie has to reconnect with a former lover, another beauty, who's a master hacker.  She's attracted everyone's attention by bringing down the power grid for a brief period of time in Washington.   Everyone means not only ours but the Russian spy agency - Natasha is Russian - and throw in our own organized crime guys as well.

Lots of good scenes and action, but, to get back to my love of trains in fiction (I also love riding Amtrak in real life, too), the best part of the night had Auggie and Natasha undertaking an escape from New York to the north via Amtrak.  (Auggie has fallen back in love with Natasha.)  He fakes out most of the pursuing spies and bad guys by taking advantage of the Albany, NY station, where trains to the north can split and go due north to Montreal, or north by northwest to Toronto.   I can't recall the last time I saw a show on television utilize such good knowledge of the train system.

Hey, I like the Amtrak northern routes so much that I had my forensic detective, Dr. Phil D'Amato, take the Lake Shore Limited in my 2002 novel, The Consciousness Plague.   There's something about trains - the way they move, the fleeting community of people aboard - that makes them ideal vehicles for fiction.

Like Covert Affairs, they're smooth, fast, and chock full of atmosphere.

See also Covert Affairs on USA Network



5-min podcast review of Covert Affairs

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Lie to Me 2.20: Dr. Burns

Well, we finally learn the fate of Dr. Dave Burns and Dr. Gillian Foster in Lie to Me 2.20, in another strong episode that pits Dr. Cal Lightman and his talents against Gillian's lover, and thus to some extent against Gillian and her talents, too.  A tale of three doctors.

Dave Burns works for the DEA - which we learned at the end of an episode a few weeks ago, when Gillian discovered that Burns wasn't telling the truth about himself.  Now Burns get taken hostage by the son of a drug boss who has been killed, apparently by a DEA agent.

The question Lightman - and the kidnapper - must answer is: who killed the father (Moon).  Was it Burns or his female partner?   All that Lightman knows for sure is that Burns is once again lying about something big.

Turns out that Burns' partner was made pregnant by Moon, when she was obliged to go deeply undercover.  Does this make her more or less likely to have killed Moon, and what does it say about Burns and his motives?   Lightman also raises suspicion that the killer was actually one of Moon's men ...

I won't tell you the ending, but let's just say that it leads to Burns being sent into witness protection, which means he and Gillian are effectively over (good arc by Max Martini aka Mac from The Unit).   Since Lightman and beautiful Clara as a possible romantic interest also ended a few weeks ago, the field is now open for Lightman and Foster to finally get together.

I'm told by fans that this has about as much likelihood as House and Cuddy - but, wait, didn't they finally get together at the end of last season?

See also my reviews of Lie to Me and Bill O'Reilly, Saddam Hussein, and Ben Reynolds in Lie to Me 2.6 and Lie to Me 2.7: The Redeeming of Loker and Lie to Me 2.8 in Afghanistan and Viva Lightman and Las Vegas in Lie to Me 2.9 ... Lie to Me 2.11: Double Feature ... Lie to Me 2.12:  The One Prevarication ... Lie to Me 2.13: The Whole Truth and Rep Joe Wilson ... Lie to Me 2.14: Paranoids Can Have Real Enemies ... Lie to Me 2.15: Melissa George and Shawn Ryan ... Lie to Me 2.16: Ria's Sister ... Lie to Me 2.17: 'Poling on the Campaign Trail' ... Lie to Me 2.18: Lightman on the Darkside ... Lie to Me 2.19: The Shield Reunion

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Mad Men 4.5: Fake Out and Neurosis

An at times scalding, playful episode of Mad Men 4.5 tonight, my favorite in this season so far.

First, a character I just can't stand anymore - certainly not my favorite, but powerfully played and sadly fascinating - pours the most scalding water into show.   Betty first slaps Sally because she cut her hair, and then insists that Sally start seeing a child shrink (the shrink is only 6 years old  - no, only kidding) because Sally is caught by a neighbor "playing with herself" (as the neighbor and Betty say).  Sally is 10 years old at this point in the story, and I know attitudes were somewhat more puritanical and embarrassed by any sexuality back then, but the former Betty Draper now Betty Francis has got to be one of the worst, neurotically repressed mothers ever depicted on television.  She's almost becoming Mad Men's equivalent to Livia Soprano, at least psychologically.

Back at the office, Roger pours some of his own scalding coffee into the show, doing his best to sabotage the deal that our gang is desperately trying to land with Honda.  Roger can't forgive the Japanese for World War II.   But our company needs the business, and as Pete correctly says, the war has been over almost 20 years.

Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce have competition from another ad firm, and Don pulls one of his best moves - faking out the competitor, getting them to believe that SCDP is making an expensive television ad as part of its pitch to Honda, which would violate Honda' rules of engagement (don't spend more than three grand on the presentation, and no finished products).  We see all kinds of wool pulled over lots of people's eyes, including Peggy doing her part, riding around on a Honda behind closed doors, to simulate production of any expensive ad which is in fact not being made.

The competitor takes the bait and submits it own expensive commercial.  This leads to Honda holding the competitor in far lower esteem than SCDP, who withdraw their bid rather than compete with an ad agency that breaks the rules.   The Honda honchos are sufficiently impressed, and though our team does not get the motorcycle account, they're given a shot at a nascent campaign for Honda's car (from our vantage point in 2010, we know that's going to be a very lucrative account).

Corporate wheeling and dealing at its best, and family life at its worst, make for one strong episode of Mad Men indeed.

See also Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes." ... 4.3: Both Coasts ... 4.4: "The following program contains brief nudity ..."
And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World

And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons ... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men

And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ... Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ... Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes

20-minute interview with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) at Light On Light Through

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                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, eHarmony, eMusic, Mozy, Zazzle

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

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 And  check out Natasha Vargas-Cooper's new book ....

Rubicon 1.5: Bloom

Ed advises Will to "connect the dots," find the "narrative," in Rubicon 1.5, and Ed gives Will a significant dot or name:  Donald Bloom.

But the narrative is not easy to find or even fathom in Rubicon, much like Joyce's Ulysses, where Bloom also plays a major role.   In Rubicon, where the spy games are much more life and death than the figurative polarities of Ulysses, the key is matching the code to physical realities at home and abroad.

Will soon runs into Bloom in the real - at a table in a restaurant - but Will's boss Kale (played with quiet deadpan potential deadliness by Arliss Howard, last seen to good effect on television in Medium) is sitting right across from Bloom.   Kale sees Will, who "scurries away," as Kale later says to Will, and the chess game is on.

Will finds enough to know that looking into Bloom can be dangerous.   When Ed proudly shows him that he's connected a lot of dots, producing summaries of summaries, Will tells him that they both should forget about Bloom - he wasn't a spy at all.   Will wants to protect himself as well as his new old friend Ed.

But the intricacies wind higher.   Turns out Will's meeting with Ed was recorded, and it winds up in the hands of Spangler - Kale's boss - who also now seems disinclined to pursue Will on this matter.   Is that because Tanya, the nervous but brilliant new kid on the block on Will's team, dazzled Spangler by identifying a major Al Qaeda operative - one George Beck - before he even fully became one?

Hard to say - as is the case with just about every theory on or about Rubicon.  But that's part of the strange appeal of the show, and tonight's episode did have the major step forward of Will finally meeting Katherine Rhumor (the widow of the guy who blew his brains out at the beginning of series) in person.   And that was real, no rumor, and enough to keep me in good humor that show's making some real progress.


5-min podcast review of Rubicon


See also Rubicon on AMC ...

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

True Blood 3.10: "Medieval on TV"

Well, as we know,  HBO's  True Blood  is not only medieval, but ancient, modern, post-modern, and on occasion even futuristic on TV (these vampires are by no means allergic to technological progress).  But "medieval on TV" was one of the best lines in tonight's episode 3.10 of True Blood, as Bill remarks about the King's ripping out a news anchor's spine right there on live TV last week (that is, last week on HBO, not that long ago on the live TV within the story).

This episode was actually just chock full of good stories lines and spoken lines.  Sam had one of his best lines - two rules in his bar, "no dancing and no religion" (I get the religion but what is his problem with dancing - dogs don't dance? - my daughter says maybe it's a response to the crazed Maenad dancing last year) - and we also get some fine back story on Sam.  Back in 2003, he's almost swindled by a couple - the woman seduces him to give her real guy access to steal Sam's money.  But he gets it back - by going more or less medieval on them.   This and last week shows the stern stuff this dog is made of.

Jason also has a good story night.  He and Tara kiss, which gets him to tell Tara that he killed Eggs.  I'm guessing Tara will eventually forgive him - especially since Jason also truly killed Mott - but that won't be tonight.

But the biggest plot points involve Sookie, Bill, and Eric.  Bill tells Sookie she has fairy blood - which accounts for her powers, and her attractiveness to vampires.   But soon after Sookie lets Eric kiss her - this time for real, not just in a dream.   Eric plans to use Sookie as bait to help him get some leverage in his looming battle with the King.    But I'm thinking Eric wants Sookie to live almost as much as does Bill.

And there's one other thing.  Apparently there's an additional secret that Bill and Eric know about Sookie ... Just two more episodes to find out - and to find out if Eric or the King survive.  Sentimentalist that I am,  I'd say it's got to be Eric ....

See also: True Blood 3.1: Oxygen vs. Phone ... True Blood 3.2: King and Wolves ... True Blood 3.3: Rolling Eyes and Spinning Heads ... True Blood 3.4: Running Hot, Winning Names ... True Blood 3.5: Square, Love, Crown, Power ... True Blood 3.6: True Life and Death ... True Blood 3.7: Lorena and the Magister ... True Blood 3.8: Break Up to Make Up ... True Blood 3.9: The King and the VRA
 
See also from Season 2  True Blood Pours Back In and  Love and True Blood in the Air and Likes Coming Together in True Blood and True Blood Boiling and Godric, Eric, and Sookie on the Roof and Maryann vs. the Good in True Blood and Illusion, Eisenhower, and Texting and True Blood Season 2 Finale

See also from Season 1  True Blood Calling ... Penultimate True Blood ... Last Bite of the Season

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

Blagojevich and Fair Trial 1, Fitzgerald 0

I noted with satisfaction that the jury in Illinois convicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich of only 1 of 24 counts against him, and the least dire count at that.  I said at the time Patrick Fitzgerald announced his intention to seek indictments for Blagojevich that people are innocent until proven guilty in this country, and that includes hard-ball, even unsavory, politicians, who should not be run out of office just on a prosecutor's say so.

I knew Fitzgerald and his record all too well, having spoken out in USA Today (see last paragraph) and elsewhere about his getting a Federal judge to throw New York Times reporter Judith Miller in jail for refusing to reveal her sources in stories Fitzgerald deemed pertinent to the Valerie Plame affair.   Any prosecutor who seeks to put a reporter in jail for not revealing her or his sources is in my book an enemy of democracy.   The First Amendment may in literal law allow that, but tossing reporters in jail, taking away their liberty, for failing to cooperate with the prosecution is deeply offensive to the spirit of the First Amendment*, and the jobs of reporters it seeks to protect - the job of bringing crucial information to the American people.   Lack of a Federal shield law, and a judge tone-deaf to freedom of information, is what enabled Fitzgerald to do his dirty work, but he still deserves the lion's share of the blame for bringing his request to a judge in the first place.

Just as Fitzgerald now deserves the lion's share of the blame for wasting millions of tax-payer dollars and years of time in an unsuccessful prosecution of Blagojevich.   Fitzgerald says he intends to press on with a second trial on the same charges.   Clearly they don't have much merit, if a jury presented all of the evidence collected by Fitzgerald over the years failed to convict.

I know nothing directly about Blagojevich's actions.   But it seems clear that the jury, under enormous public pressure, did mostly the right thing in this case.

*Restriction of communication by non-governmental public agents such TV networks that censor language or universities that prohibit certain speakers would be a different kind of violation of the First Amendment.

Rubicon on AMC

Checking in with a few words about Rubicon on AMC, a leisurely, intelligent, rubric's cube of a spy show.

Will Travers - played by James Badge Dale (Chase on 24) - plays a code-cracking operative who works for API, a (fictional) Federal spy agency that's a bit above the CIA and the all the lettered agencies we know about.   His wife and daughter were killed in one of the towers on 9/11 - and his immediate boss at API is his father-in-law.  The big shocker in the opener - read no more if you have not seen it - is the father-in-law gets killed in a commuter train crash, definitely presumably not an accident.  Travers is offered a promotion to his father-in-law's job, and he takes it.

Part of the fun of this show, if that's the right word, are the word puzzles that appear in various written media.   Part of the fun is seeing how Travers' team operates - in the episode this week, we see them truly struggling with whether to authorize a surgical strike on a terrorist that may kill innocent people.  And part of the fun is seeing how the API maintains its shakily superior position over other spy agencies.

With all the spy stories in books, the movies, and on television, I've somehow never seen a show quite like Rubicon.   It has a little less action than you'd expect, but that's to the good, because the time freed up is devoted to more cerebral issues of the spy business - sort of like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

I'll be back here from time to time as the spirit moves me for review of an episode - I'll definitely be watching every one.

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The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

Lie to Me 2.19: The Shield Reunion

Lie to Me 2.19 last night - a Shawn Ryan production - was a special treat for devotees of Ryan's masterpiece, The Shield.   Lightman encountered a cast of characters whose actors and actresses added up to a veritable Shield reunion.


Lightman and Zoe are witnessing an execution - of the first criminal Lightman helped convict (Zoe was the DA) - when Lightman realizes that the murderer's last words, that he didn't take the victim, the "Pied Piper" did, were no lie!   A great set-up for an episode of Lie to Me - and the convicted guy, who is executed despite Lightman's protests, is played by David Marciano (The  Shield's Detective Billings and more).

Meanwhile, the victim's parents - he was an 8-year-old boy - are played by Benito Martinez (The Shield's Captain Aceveda and more) and Catherine Dent (Officer Sofer on The Shield).   Kenneth Johnson (Lem!) plays a pornographer on Lie to Me who's not guilty of the crime in question,  Cathy Cahlin Ryan (Mackey's wife Corrine) a nutcase interviewed by Lightman under cover as a nutcase in a mental institution (a fine scene, and she provides key information),  and David Rees Snell (Ronnie from The Shield) plays none other than the co-killer.   I couldn't help thinking that's the path that Ronnie took after Mackie left him high and dry ....

Speaking of which - I missed Michael Chiklis and Walter Goggins on this episode of Lie to Me, but, hey, you can't have everything.   I'd love to see a movie that tells us where Mackie went, though...

As for Lie to Me, Shawn Ryan has turned it into an often exceptional show, and I'm sorry he won't be co-running it next season.   But he's left us a really fine foundation for excellent television.

See also The Shield in Perspective (no spoilers)  and  The Shield: Thoughts on What Might Happen after the Final Scene

And see also my reviews of Lie to Me and Bill O'Reilly, Saddam Hussein, and Ben Reynolds in Lie to Me 2.6 and Lie to Me 2.7: The Redeeming of Loker and Lie to Me 2.8 in Afghanistan and Viva Lightman and Las Vegas in Lie to Me 2.9 ... Lie to Me 2.11: Double Feature ... Lie to Me 2.12:  The One Prevarication ... Lie to Me 2.13: The Whole Truth and Rep Joe Wilson ... Lie to Me 2.14: Paranoids Can Have Real Enemies ... Lie to Me 2.15: Melissa George and Shawn Ryan ... Lie to Me 2.16: Ria's Sister ... Lie to Me 2.17: 'Poling on the Campaign Trail' ... Lie to Me 2.18: Lightman on the Darkside





The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book  

True Blood 3.9: The King and the VRA

True Blood 3.9 started off with some nice tender lovemaking - by True Blood standards - between Bill and Sookie in the shower, and then--

The King is grieved to the very millennial depths of his vampiric soul at the death of his Talbot.  This sets him on a course that will--

But first, Eric is questioned by the Authority's Gestapo - the Authority for whom the Magister was working, the Authority which draws the contempt of the King - after all, it is only hundreds of years old, in contrast to the King's thousands.   Nowadays the Authority's biggest goal is passage of the Vampire Rights Amendment to our Constitution, which has come close to gaining approval in the required number of states.   More concerned with getting the VRA enacted than with dispensing justice to sellers of V or vampire true killers of other vampires, the Authority lets Eric off the hook, and instructs him to take care of his ancient business with the King quietly.

But there's nothing quiet about the King's next move.   He shows up on a newscast in Oregon, which is about to approve the VRA.   The King actually breaks into the newscast, and rips the spine right out of the newscaster, right in front of Oregon and America on camera.   It's almost a comic-bookish scene, but it did have the element of lurid surprise.

Meanwhile, Bill and Sookie are closing in on who she really is, Hoyt's aching for Jessica, Sam finally acts like a junkyard dog in human form, and Jason kills Mott with wooden bullets from a shotgun - right, I knew he couldn't be dead from Tara pulverizing his head, it's not one of the ways that vampires can be truly killed.   Which still leaves the question of what happens if a vampire is blown to bits by some huge bomb,  but ok....

See also: True Blood 3.1: Oxygen vs. Phone ... True Blood 3.2: King and Wolves ... True Blood 3.3: Rolling Eyes and Spinning Heads ... True Blood 3.4: Running Hot, Winning Names ... True Blood 3.5: Square, Love, Crown, Power ... True Blood 3.6: True Life and Death ... True Blood 3.7: Lorena and the Magister ... True Blood 3.8: Break Up to Make Up
 
See also from Season 2  True Blood Pours Back In and  Love and True Blood in the Air and Likes Coming Together in True Blood and True Blood Boiling and Godric, Eric, and Sookie on the Roof and Maryann vs. the Good in True Blood and Illusion, Eisenhower, and Texting and True Blood Season 2 Finale

See also from Season 1  True Blood Calling ... Penultimate True Blood ... Last Bite of the Season

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                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, eHarmony, eMusic, Mozy, Zazzle

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Mad Men 4.4: "The following program contains brief nudity"

That was the best line in Mad Men 4.4 - "The following program contains brief nudity" - in a fine episode that had many a good line, and this line wasn't even uttered during the show.  It appeared before the show began, as an advisory to viewers, which is very instructive, if you think about it.

AMC is of course cable, and thus beyond the FCC's unconstitutional power to fine (at least, at present), so the warning about the nudity was not for the FCC's sake.   Indeed, the FCC could and no doubt would have fined a broadcast over the public airways network if it showed any nudity these days, up front warning or not.

So the advisory was for the benefit of the viewers.   But why would anyone watching Mad Men need such a heads-up?  It is, after all, an adult-themed show.  I think the warning was put there because it was far more appropriate to 1964 audiences, which is the time Mad Men is now portraying and inhabiting.  But, of course, in 1964, there was no cable, no way any nudity at all could have found its way on to any television.   So the warning is another example of the subtle blend of the present and the past, which typifies the entire series.  Not just a show about the 1960s, Mad Men is a show about the 1960s subversively portrayed by creators in the 21st century - subversive because our current values are ever on the edge of what we see in the past.  All of which gives Mad Men a special phantom-like power to provoke and engage us.

As to what the nudity was, therein hangs at least one nice tale.   We see classy nude photos someone has taken for Life Magazine, shown to Peggy and us in elevator,  by Joyce, who's attracted to Peggy.   Before the episode is over, Peggy's with Joyce in a village haunt, smoking a joint, but meeting Abe, whom she passionately kisses not Joyce.

Peggy also figures in Pete's story tonight.   Trudy's pregnant, which of course makes Peggy think of the result of the one night she spent with Pete at the end of the very first episode of the series.   Pete has other problems on his mind, including cutting loose his father-in-law's account.  Pete turns this "chicken shit into chicken liver," as he says (quoting the President - Johnson - as Pete says), getting his father-in-law to commit his whole portfolio to Draper et al, not just Clearasil.

And Pete also has a significant lunch with Ken (good to see him again) and "textbook" Harry Crane - "textbook," because, as Pete indicates, Harry always says bad things (we would today say talking trash) about people.  Pete can say this about Harry because he's called off to talk to those "gonifs" at CBS.   Pete doesn't know what gonif is, and I'm not going to tell ya ...

If all this wasn't enough, Don has a powerful episode, too.  The female researcher has a little study group with some of the secretaries, and this sets Allison crying.  She soon tells Don that it's best that she leaves the firm, and asks only that Don write her a letter of recommendation.  Don helpfully offers that she write the letter, which he'll be happy to sign.   Logically, this could result in just the letter of recommendation that Allison wants, but that's not all she wants from Don at this point.   She wants some indication from Don that he valued her - so Don's offer only makes her angrier.

So now Allison's gone from the company, and can join the cadre of women angry at Don, with Betty at the top of the list.    Good to his children, but not to his women - makes for a maddening character and a brilliant show.

See also Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes." ... 4.3: Both Coasts

And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World

And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons ... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men

And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ... Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ... Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes

20-minute interview with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) at Light On Light Through

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                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, eHarmony, eMusic, Mozy, Zazzle

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

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 And  check out Natasha Vargas-Cooper's new book ....

Hats Off to Larry Hagman for Superb Solar Commercials!

Hey, a shout out to Larry Hagman for retrieving his J. R. Ewing character from Dallas, on behalf of solar energy!   There's a superb core commercial - watch it below - being played all over MSNBC, and at least two other commericals up on YouTube.   In one, Larry tells Sue Ellen on the phone about solar.  In another, he enjoys hearing that his rival Cliff Barnes is still in the oil business.

Nothing like a masterful appeal to authority for a good cause - in this case, solar power.    It's fun to see old J. R. on any occasion after all these years.  But with a social conscience, and still interested in making a buck, you couldn't ask for more.   Even better than Pamela's season-long dream about Bobby.

Weeds Season 6 Sneak Preview Review (no real spoilers)

Well, I've seen the first episode of Weeds Season 6, courtesy of a Showtime screener disk.  It picks up right after Season 5 ends, with Esteban's lady political handler floating face down in the pool, dispatched there by Shane's mallot to her head.

What's Nancy to do?   The only move is to get the Botwins packed up and out of town, as soon as possible.    To where we do not yet know, and likely neither does she, for sure, but it's clear we're all going to have lots of fun getting there.

Shane's better than ever in this episode, a stone cold sweet psycho.   No longer a little boy, he in many ways has taken charge of the family.   Silas, as he's been for at least the past few years, is the closest the family has to a voice of reason, with Andy, who can run from brilliantly rational to way off the grid, as backup.

Nancy has come a long way over the years - from small town mom dealing weed, to semi-big time drug dealer, to someone who wanted to get out of the game but just couldn't.  Along the way she's loved and been threatened by a corrupt DEA  guy and a handsome Mexican politician who also runs a big drug cartel.   Given that the she has Esteban's baby - which saved her life from Esteban's execution - it won't be easy for her and her family to divest themselves of Esteban's control.   And she may not completely want to - though, she'll surely choose protecting her sons over anything else in the world.

It's good to see the Botwins moving on again, to who knows where, and it'll be laughs, thrills, and heartaches as always, seeing how it all turns out.


See also: Weeds Season 5 Sneak Preview Review and Baby Boy Botwin and the Bimah in Weeds

And: Showtime's Sassy Hour of Sin ... Weeds 4.3: Nancy by the Endless Sea ... Sitting Shiva on Weeds and Laughing: 4.4 ... Nancy Gets Spanked and Likes It: 4.8 ... Nancy Has Limits: 4.9 ... Shane and Two Girls: 4.10 ... Nancy Turns a Corner: 4.11 ... The Bitter Fruit of Telling Till: 4.12 ... Finale Beginning: 4.13

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                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, eHarmony, eMusic, Mozy, Zazzle

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The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

True Blood 3.8: Break Up to Make Up

Well, True Blood 3.7 ended last week with Sookie screaming in terror at the sight of Bill, as she comes to in a hospital bed.   That's just where True Blood 3.8 begins...

Bill had brought Sookie back from near death, but, as she explains to Bill in 3.8, his feasting on her blood as he was coming back from the brink of death in the back of the van was the worst hurt she had ever endured.   And the thought of that was enough to keep her from being with Bill.   For his part, Bill said all the right things - he wanted only the best for Sookie, including her smiling in the sun, and that could not include him.

But you know they'll get back together anyway, if  not quite as fast as it happened in 3.8, which was by the end of the episode.  The catalyst was Bill coming to save Sookie, after the King launches an all-out attack.   He's determined to deconstruct Sookie - that is, figure out what makes her tick.

Sookie's cousin is under the King's sway, but of course not Eric, who uses the time the King is away to seduce and then dispatch Talbot, the King's gay significant other.  Talbot was understandably not happy about the King marrying the Queen of Louisiana, but now Talbot is out of the picture.  Which reminded me again that we still have seen no final vampiric death of Mott, even though Tara still seems sure that she killed him.

Anyway ... the King's assault on Sookie draws Bill to her side, and soon enough the two are making passionate love - not as wild as what we've seen previously between Bill and Lorena - but pretty good in its own right.

After all, as the whole season has telling and showing us, Sookie is something far more powerful than mere human ....

See also: True Blood 3.1: Oxygen vs. Phone ... True Blood 3.2: King and Wolves ... True Blood 3.3: Rolling Eyes and Spinning Heads ... True Blood 3.4: Running Hot, Winning Names ... True Blood 3.5: Square, Love, Crown, Power ... True Blood 3.6: True Life and Death ... True Blood 3.7: Lorena and the Magister
 
See also from Season 2  True Blood Pours Back In and  Love and True Blood in the Air and Likes Coming Together in True Blood and True Blood Boiling and Godric, Eric, and Sookie on the Roof and Maryann vs. the Good in True Blood and Illusion, Eisenhower, and Texting and True Blood Season 2 Finale

See also from Season 1  True Blood Calling ... Penultimate True Blood ... Last Bite of the Season

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                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, eHarmony, eMusic, Mozy, Zazzle

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Mad Men 4.3: Both Coasts

Mad Men 4.3 brought us to New Year's 1964-1965, with Don on both coasts.

First, Don goes out to California to see Anna.   He's in classic Don cad mode, affectionate to Anna but all too quick to hit on her niece, a surfer-girl co-ed.   But she tells Don that Anna is dying of cancer, but doesn't know it, and this jump-starts Don into the caring, loving guy we see with him towards his children.   So we now have a somewhat bigger, more clear picture of Don: he is what he is, happy to sleep with any woman he can, whatever the consequences.  But he harbors a generous soul, which comes out for his children and when people he cares about are in grave danger.

Back in New York, it's Don and Lane on New Year's Eve.  Lane loves America.  He wife does not, and apparently doesn't care much for him either.   The result is she's in England and he's in New York, and in the office with Don the day before the New Year.

They two dine out, and Don offers Lane a night with a friend of Don's call girl, with whom Don will be ringing in the New Year.  Lane agrees, and the two couples spend a satisfying night at Don's place.  This is an important step both for Lane, and his relationship with Don.  The two now have a bond that Don likely has only with Roger at this point.

Meanwhile, Joan has an oddly compelling New Year's Eve with her surgeon husband, who mends the gash on her hand.  Unable to relate to each other in most other ways, this scene shows them about as close together as we've seen.   The two may have finally found an intense, common ground.  But the ground is small, and may not be enough.

The next work day finds Don, Lane, Joan, and the gang seated around the conference table that the firm did buy, at the office.  It's a great final scene.  I'm always been a sucker for scenes that show life and work go on as usual, with the participants having all kinds of secrets and knowledge that the others don't know about.

PS - Jan and Dean's "Sidewalk Surfin" playing when Don was out in California was my favorite music in last night's episode.  Here's a taste.

See also Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes."

And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World

And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons ... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men

And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ... Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ... Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes

20-minute interview with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) at Light On Light Through

---

                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, eHarmony, eMusic, Mozy, Zazzle

---

---

The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

---

 And  check out Natasha Vargas-Cooper's new book ....

The Illogical Defense of Net Neutrality

Just to be clear:  I'm in favor of net neutrality.  I want everything to be easily available on the Web.  I don't want to pay "tolls" for access to anything.  I don't know who, other than a short-sighted greedy business person, who would want otherwise.

But I've just seen two illogical defenses of net neutrality on Keith Olbermann's Countdown.   First, Josh Silver of the Free Press told Olbermann that net neutrality is crucial because, otherwise, the Internet will come under the control of big corporations, and look what big corporations did to banking, and oil (BP oil spill) in America.

Wrong on both counts.   Information is not the same as money (banking).  As every Intro to Comm and Media Studies student should know (mine do, because I teach this), there's a world of difference between between money and information.  If you take my money, I have less money.  If you take my information, I at very least still have that information, and may indeed end up with more information, as I get feedback from your use of my information.   The equation of oil and information is even more absurd.   Although leaks of information can cause damage, just as often they can be valuable in a democracy, as in the case of the Pentagon papers (and draw your own conclusions about the Wiki-leaks).   In contrasts, oil leaks only do damage.

Next, Senator Al Franken opined that, although the First Amendment has thus far attempted to protect us from government control of information, the issue of net neutrality will test the First Amendment on how well it can protect us from corporate control of information.

Really?   The history of the world is filled with tragic examples of what happens when government controls information.   Nazi Germany and The Soviet Union are the big examples in the 20th century.  Thomas Jefferson and James Madison correctly saw that government control of information is antithetical to democracy.   Ability to know about the government was precisely what the First Amendment was designed to protect, or prevent the goverment from blocking.

Appropriately, there is nothing in the First Amendment about corporations - Congress is the entity restricted from abridging freedoms of speech and press.   And that makes sense, given that corporate control of information and news has never led to totalitarian societies, as government control did in Nazi Germany and The Soviet Union.

A little logic, and some knowledge of history, would be helpful when considering these issues.  Empowering the FCC to exercise government control over the Internet is precisely the way we do not want to go in our democracy.   Thus far in the world, freedom of information and therefore freedom itself has been given a lot more to fear from governments than corporations.

Good that Fed Court Struck Down California Prop 8 Law!

The Federal courts have been doing a superb job of late.   In the past few months, the Court of Appeals in the New York told the FCC what they could do with their unconstitutional fines of broadcasters of "fleeting expletives," a District Fed court stripped out the worst parts of the Arizona Immigration law, and today a Federal District Court in California struck down California's notorious Proposition 8, which when it became law banned gay marriage.

The logic of the proposition was always absurd - that somehow gay marriage would undermine heterosexual marriage - as if I'm going to come home and say to my wife, hey, honey, now that gays are getting married, it looks like our marriage is over.   The law was discriminatory in the worst - telling human beings that, due to their sexual preferences, the government won't let them marry.

In a civilized democracy, the courts provide a check on the excesses of both the government and the people.   It is heartening to see our courts finally back on the right track of doing this.  Federal Judge Vaughn Walker gave a helping hand to both our democracy and our civilization in California today.  Let this be the beginning of much more.

Lie to Me 2.18: Lightman on the Dark Side

Lightman himself is the object of a police investigation in Lie to Me 2.18, as he visits the dark side of life in a fight club.  He tells everyone - as they find out about his visit - that he was there to study human faces on the scene.  But he and we and Gillian and Ria know better - or worse - that Lightman's at the fight because of his gambling addiction, which we saw in action earlier in the season when he was in Las Vegas.

The police are looking into this night because one of the fighters is shot dead as he's leaving the club, with Lightman close by.  Lightman tries to deny his presence, with the Fed in charge of the investigation being an old enemy.  Ria helps by clipping Lightman out of an amateur video taken of the fight - but Lightman can only keep himself out of this as a suspect for so long.

Meanwhile, Gillian and Dr. Dave Burns (Mac from The Unit) are going great guns in bed, but Gillian soon learns that he has an alternate identity (why do women always go through their lovers' papers?).   Turns out he's a secret agent himself - but really is a doctor - and in a fine last scene Gillian introduces her relationship with Dave to Lightman, who takes it pretty well. 

So it looks as if poor Lightman is out of luck (his choice) with Clara, and now the door is closing on Gillian.   Well, maybe he can use his face-reading powers to find someone who can love him with no complications .... Nah, not likely with Lightman, and that's part of the fun.

See also my reviews of Lie to Me and Bill O'Reilly, Saddam Hussein, and Ben Reynolds in Lie to Me 2.6 and Lie to Me 2.7: The Redeeming of Loker and Lie to Me 2.8 in Afghanistan and Viva Lightman and Las Vegas in Lie to Me 2.9 ... Lie to Me 2.11: Double Feature ... Lie to Me 2.12:  The One Prevarication ... Lie to Me 2.13: The Whole Truth and Rep Joe Wilson ... Lie to Me 2.14: Paranoids Can Have Real Enemies ... Lie to Me 2.15: Melissa George and Shawn Ryan ... Lie to Me 2.16: Ria's Sister ... Lie to Me 2.17: 'Poling on the Campaign Trail'

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                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, eHarmony, eMusic, Mozy, Zazzle

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book