Explaining What Happened in The American

I saw The American last night, a fine assassin movie starring George Clooney (as Jack), who was excellent.  Clara, the prostitute who falls in love with Jack (and he with her), is gorgeous (Violante Placido, the Italian actress who played Clara, is also a singer/songwriter - I'm going to look for her music).

The plot - more particularly, the climax - is complicated.   I'll sketch it out here, and then give my analysis (based on just one viewing of the movie).   Spoilers obviously follow.

Jack, hunted by his would-be assassins, goes to Italy to hide out and take on an assignment from Pavel, his boss.   The assignment entails making a rifle to specifications for Mathilde (played by another beauty, Thekla Reuten).  Shortly before his assignment is completed, Jack makes it clear to Pavel that this will be his last (his affair with Clara has awakened all kinds of feelings).  Pavel calls Mathilde on her way to her concluding meeting with Jack - to pick up the rifle and give him the payment - and Pavel tells Mathilde to "listen very carefully".   At this point, we need to watch very carefully, because this is where the best, complex fun starts.

Mathilde is set to kill Jack after he gives her the gun, but a busload of kids and Jack's alertness prevent that.   Later, Jack and Clara are in a town celebration, and vow to go away together.   Mathilde, who was told by Pavel to find away to kill Jack, after her initial failure, has Jack (and Clara) in the sites of the very rifle Jack designed.   In the climatic scene, she pulls the trigger - but the rifle appears to blow off part of her face, and we also see a gun or some sort of viewing mechanism pointed at her.   Jack gives Clara the money he received from Mathilde, tells Clara to go to their secret place by the water, and runs up the stairs to find Mathilde, dying on the ground.  Which she does.  But then Pavel gets the drop on Jack, who wheels around and kills Pavel.  Jack drives to Clara, but discovers he's been shot, apparently/likely mortally.  He makes it to Clara, and the movie ends.   A powerful 15 minutes of cinema indeed.

But what, exactly, happened?  Here's my take:

Jack built the rifle to explode in Mathilde's face in the first place - but was that his assignment or his own innovation?  Likely his assignment - that is, that's what Pavel wanted (the only reason Jack would want to kill a client was if he wanted to cover his tracks).   Meanwhile, Pavel - when he learned that Jack was definitely leaving the business - instructed Mathilde to kill Jack, expecting that Mathilde would later die on her own mission when the rifle exploded.  When Jack confounded Mathilde's first attempt to kill him, Pavel waited with a gun on Mathilde, as she took aim at Jack with the rifle.   Why was Pavel doing this?  My guess is he couldn't be sure that Mathilde would take the shot, and/or wanted to finish her off in case the exploding rifle didn't get her.  As it was, he got to his revolver on Jack...

A riveting, original plot, reminiscent of some of John le Carré's work.  I'd enjoy seeing a sequel, but Jack probably didn't make it out of the car by the water ...

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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

Episodes: Sneak Preview Review

Hey, I caught the delightful complete debut season - seven 30-minute episodes - of Episodes, to start on Showtime, Sunday, January 9, courtesy of a Showtime advance screener.   If you're in the mood for a deft, daft mix of classic droll British humor and California fine ass funny - which, come to think of it, I always am - you'll love Episodes.

The basic story: the creators/writers of a successful comedy show in the UK are brought over and out to California to recreate their series right here in the USA.   The creators are a young, happily married, breezily and often profoundly witty couple.   You know that they won't be in for smooth sailing over here, just by looking at the opening credits (one of the best I've seen in a while), which feature a manuscript picked up in the wind in England, winging its way to California, only to be shot down right over the big white Hollywood sign.

Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greg, two relative little knowns here in the States, play the "lucky" British couple Sean and Beverly Lincoln, and they're excellent.   Trouble starts pretty much as soon as they're told that the British actor who played the lead in their comedy will be replaced by an American - none other than Matt LeBlanc, who plays himself, and delivers a performance every bit as a good or better than Joey from Friends.  Indeed, the script makes satisfying, explicit reference to all manner of Joeyisms, including at least one on which the somewhat surprise ending hinges.  (I saw it coming, but still loved it.)

Even the secondary characters are striking - Daisy Haggard as Myra Licht doesn't say much but makes some of the best blond faces you'll ever see, and Mircea Monroe as Morning is luscious (well, maybe more a primary than secondary character).

But really nothing about this comedy is secondary.   If you like laughs a minute, sarcasm to the max about both American and British popular culture, Episodes will be just your cup of tea - or coffee.

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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

Inception: Brilliant

Given that this blog is Infinite Regress, I thought it was long since time that I reviewed Inception.  It had one scene literally of mirrors on mirrors, which is infinite regress par excellence.  And the rest of movie was just great as well - Christopher Nolan's best movie since Memento, which is high praise indeed.

The people part of the story is good.  Cobb (played Leonardo DiCaprio) is mostly in the business of stealing information from marks of clients by tapping into their dreams.   Introducing an idea into someone's mind - which if it takes root can change a person's life (and sometimes therein the world) - is called "inception," and is a much more difficult undertaking.   (Here the story picks up on Richard Dawkins' notion of the "meme" as an ideational virus.)    Cobb, we learn near the end of the movie, has done this only once before - to his wife, to get her to leave the deep dream state both were in.  It had disastrous ultimate consequences for her.

Cobb and team are hired to plant an idea into the new head of a company.  The team is a fine assemblage of memorable actors and performances, including especially Tom Hardy (good to see him back from Meadowlands),  Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Ellen Page (meshing well with her Cisco commercials).  The action is superb, with car chases and scalings of snowy mountains almost James Bondian in their sweep and power.

But the deepest thrill of Inception resides in the sheer intellectual audacity of its puzzles and their pursuit.   The mission requires the team to take their target not just through a dream state, but a dream within a dream within a dream.  Time moves more slowly - drastically so - the deeper the dream state, or the further away it is from our normal time in our waking reality.   And though death in the first level of dreams just awakens you in our reality, death in the deepest, or third state, can sentence you to limbo forever.    When you add these high stakes to the speed and impact of the action, with stunning visuals including the folding of streets and the crumbling of cities, you get one breathless rollercoaster ride of a movie.

As is always the case in which dreams mix with reality, a central underlying question haunts the proceedings: is what we are seeing reality, or some dream of which we're not aware.

Cobb explains that there are ways in which we can tell.   One of them, a token that we can rely on as an indication of reality, provides a somewhat ambiguous ending.    But there's another way - whether we know how we got to where we are in our current experience.    And, on that score, I think the ending is clear.

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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

Unseen Caprica: A Review of the Rest and the Best

Well, the rest of Caprica - also by far the best - has been unseen on the SyFy Channel in America, in any case.  It was shown on the Space channel in Canada, will be broadcast on SyFy shortly after New Year's,  and I just saw it on DVD via Netflix.   And, as I just said, the last few episodes are the best in the series.

The multiple plots, which made the series a bit scattered in the beginning, all weave and come together beautifully in the end, in a powerful mesh of multiple chess games reminiscent of Dune, high praise in my book.  I'm talking about the Greystones and Zoe, Clarice and the Monads, the Gemenon denizens, the Cylons, the Taurons, not to mention the police on Caprica.

There are surprises - I especially was taken with what happens with Will Adama - heart-in-your-mouth close calls, and all kinds of fast action.   The future that we saw in our past in Battlestar Galactica is amply set up, with angels, skin jobs, and even a mention of Dr. Cottle (who must be a young version of Cottle from Galactica - a newly minted doctor).

The one shame of all this is that we likely won't ever have the pleasure of seeing how this all played out and came to be.  Instead, we're treated to a quick epilogue which is a lot better than nothing, but nowhere nearly as good as another season or two.

But Ron Moore and company can hold their heads up high.  The produced a compelling, highly intelligent science fiction story, which our future will say both works beautifully on its own and rolls towards the Battlestar Galactica future most memorably.


See also:  Battlestar Galactica Caprica: Exquisite, Flawed Copies ... 1.2:  Dawn of a Different Machine ... 1.3:  Daughters, Missing and Present ... 1.5: Adama's Daughter ... 1.6: The Chip and its Roots
... 1.7: The Cylon and the Dog ... 1.8: The Metaphysics of Flesh ... 1.9: Zoe at Large ... Caprica Back 1.10-1.12: Cleaner, More Powerful Lines

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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

The Social Network: A Few Thoughts about the Movie

I've been meaning to post a few thoughts about The Social Network - an excellent movie that deserves all the praise and award nominations it's been receiving.

First, I think it's important to assess the movie as not a literal documentary, but rather the fictionalized account - in terms of conversations, etc - that it is, and in fact indicates in the closing credits.  Indeed, since the actual micro details regarding the birth and early growth of Facebook are not generally known, there is no way the average viewer can even judge the authenticity of given fine points in the movie.   As I indicated in my 2009 book New New Media, I've been on Facebook since 2004 - my son was a student at Harvard then (in the same year as Mark Zuckerberg), and he let me know that my faculty account at Fordham university (a .edu account) would be enough to get me on Facebook.   But that gives me no more knowledge than anyone else about the early days of Facebook.

To the movie then ... its best parts were actually the details and the conversations, ranging from the way Sean Parker first came upon The Facebook (as it was then named - it was Parker, the creator of the original Napster, who suggested losing the "The") to Zuckerberg's zestful contempt for all levels of authority, especially his opponents' lawyers, which I found very appealing.   The truth is I didn't find the Zuckerberg in this movie to be much of an asshole at all, but rather a genius who doesn't suffer gladly the fools that beset him.

The one weakness of the movie, I thought, was the ham-handed romantic angle which was presented as the underlying motivation of Zuckerberg's Facebook endeavors.  Girl breaks up with him.  This sets Zuckerberg to create Facemash, the predecessor to Facebook.   Zuckerberg tries to speak to her a few months later, when Facebook is starting to take off.  She rebuffs him.  And the movie ends with Zuckberg trying to Friend her on Facebook, now a huge success.   More important than this not being factually accurate - Zuckerberg had a girlfriend all along (but as I indicated above, the movie is better evaluated not as to its truthfulness as a documentary) - but more important than that, the storyline of a genius moved by a hurt heart is trite, simplistic, and distracting from the more complex factors that motivate genius.

Still, the acting was superb - especially Justin Timberlake's spot-on performance as Sean Parker (Timberlake was reminiscent in this role of a young Sean Penn) - and the movie provides a satisfying snapshot of a painting still not dry, indeed, still being painted, which in itself is a rare and awesome accomplishment in movie-making where such subjects are usually decades or further in the past.

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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 

How Californication Ends

Well, I'm not going to tell you exactly or specifically how this season (4) of Californication ends - I don't want to spoil it for you - but continuing my sneak preview review yesterday of the first half of the new season, I thought I should tell you that I've now seen the entire season (courtesy of a Showtime screener) and ... I loved it!  In fact, I think Season 4 is flat out the best season of Californication, including the excellent first.

The ending was so satisfying, that it could work as the conclusion not just of this upcoming season, but the entire series.   But I hope that's not the case.

Along the way, we have real surprises and turns in the plot, and some of the best writing in the series, coming not only from Hank's mouth but the Runkles.  As I said in my preview review yesterday, this season has a kinship with Entourage, and Curb Your Enthusiasm as well.   Although Hank was always a writer and Runkle his agent, the business part of that relationship is well presented in Season 4.   There are also some superb courtroom scenes - funny and serious - like a Law and Order on crack.

I know - you'd like to know if Hank and Karen stay together.   All that I'll tell you is that the ending seemed right, deeply so.  Hank, despite his self-admitted flaw, always had a good heart.

You're in for a treat starting January 9.

See also Californication Season 4: Sneak Preview Review (No Big Spoilers)

See also (Season 2): Sneak Preview of Californication Anew ... Comes ... To an End, Laughing

and reviews of Season One: 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ... 8 ... 9 ... 10 ... 11: Pivitol Mia ... Californication Comes ... To a Season's End

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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

Californication Season 4: Sneak Preview Review (No Big Spoilers)

So I've watched about half of the new season (4) of Californication - courtesy of  a Showtime screener. I'll be watching the rest tonight, but thought I check in here first were a few tantalizing tidbits about what I've seen (no real spoilers, but if you don't want to know anything at all about this fine new season, don't read on).

First, I'm enjoying Season 4 more than Season 3.   Hank is tougher, leaner, meaner than he was in the last season - comes, I guess, of being in jail rather than a classroom (but not to worry, he's not in prison that long, and still gets plenty).   And the issues that Hank must navigate and struggle with are much more life and death.

Here are some nuggets -

• Mia plays a major role.   So does an actress that looks a lot like her.  I'll leave it to you to pick whom Hank sleeps with.
• There's hope for Charlie and Marcy - a least, a little - and the key is it's more than psychological.
• There's a hot lawyer.
• Hank's writing again.
• Hank throws more punches than in any other season, some of them to cops.
• There's a movie in the making - making this season of Californication reminiscent in good ways of Entourage.
• I was laughing out loud over a scene with Runkle and a monkey - one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen on television.

The premiere of the new season is January 9 - you'll love it!

See also How Californication Ends


See also (Season 2): Sneak Preview of Californication Anew ... Comes ... To an End, Laughing

and reviews of Season One: 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ... 8 ... 9 ... 10 ... 11: Pivitol Mia ... Californication Comes ... To a Season's End

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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 

Twice Upon a Rhyme playing in its entirety on Way Off the Grid Radio

Starting at 2pm Eastern today (December 18, 2010),  repeated tonight at 10pm Eastern, and every afternoon and evening between now and January 1, 2011, Twice Upon a Rhyme will be playing in its entirety - all 13 tracks - on Way Off the Grid Radio.

You'll be able to hear the whole album totally FREE.   You'll also have the option of VIP membership on the radio station - improved audio quality, no commercials, and other perks.  This is more airplay than Twice Upon a Rhyme ever received since its original release in 1972 on HappySad Records, and since its release in remastered vinyl by Whiplash/Sound of Salvation Records last week.

Enjoy!

And if you'd like to hear a track or two from the album any other time, try these other radio stations - JackMix.FM ... RockOn365 ... Garage Lombus ...  BeautyRadio.com ... mjc Radio ... Progulus Radio ... fatBuzz - or check out my MySpace music page.

The Good Wife 2.9 Takes on Capital Punlishment

I've been a steadfast opponent of capital punishment all of my life.  Not that I think the monsters of the world do not deserve to be executed - indeed, I have no problem with that treatment for any one who maliciously takes a human life - but the problem is our legal system has not been up to the task of discovering the truly guilty.  Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, to use one of the prominent examples in our history, were put to death in 1927, and historians are still arguing over whether they were guilty of the charges.

I was thus glad to see The Good Wife take on capital punishment full throttle in episode 2.9.   Carter Wright (played by Chad L. Coleman - superb as Cutty on The Wire, and superb on The Good Wife) has just hours left before his death sentence is carried out.  Alicia gets a call from the clerk of a judge who can stop the execution, and may be inclined to.  But what, exactly, does the judge need?

What follows was one of the best hours on television in 2010.   Every character in the case was firing on all cylinders as the clock ticks down.    Even Cary is called in to help (by Barry Scheck, playing himself!) - Cary went to school with the law clerk who called Alicia.   Every lead and avenue is pursued, as Will quarterbacks and Diane does what she can at the prison.  Blake does what he can, but Kalinder saves the day with a heart-in-your-mouth scene at an airport, where she confronts a recalcitrant expert witness for the prosecution on the verge of boarding.  And Alicia brings it home with a conversation with the judge - Kalinder coaching and conveying advise from Josh.

The story was so good that it eclipsed almost completely Peter's story - a TV appearance in which he curses out a questioner who wants to know if Alicia has forgiven him.   But that's the sign of great television - characters so strong and stories so good that you never know, until you start watching the episode, just where it will take and leave you.

See also  The Good Wife Starts Second Season on CBS ... The Good Wife 2.2: Lou Dobbs, Joe Trippi, and Obama Girl ... The Good Wife 2.4: Surprise Candidate, Intimate Interpsonal Distance

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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

WikiLeaks: Separating the Truth from the Irrelevant and the Fiction

I saw VP Biden say on MSNBC earlier today that the WikiLeaks release of US diplomatic communications which were supposed to stay out of public view was "embarrassing" but posed no threat to national security.    That's what our Secretary of Defense had stated clearly a few weeks ago, and it has been my impression from the outset.  So here is where I think we now stand on this controversial - to say the least - issue.

First, I think we need to separate three facets of the WikiLeaks controversy which are not really relevant to whether the release of US documents was/will be helpful, damaging, or of not much effect at all to America and our democracy.

1.  The most serious of the rape charges reported against Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Director, are worthy of his arrest if true (these charges are that he had non-consensual, unprotected sex with a sleeping woman).  But it's not at all clear that those charges are justified.   Michael Moore and others who have come to Assange's defense say the authorities think that all he did is have sex with a condom that broke, and he refused to later submit to being checked for HIV, etc.  Moore also said that he wouldn't be surprised if the governments involved overseas trumped up the charges against Assange as a way of smearing him after the release of the documents.    Recalling Nixon's "dirty tricks" brigade, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the charges were an attempt of one of more governments to bring Assange down.  But most important:  even if the worst of the charges were true, that would have no relevance to whether the release of the documents will ultimately help or hurt our democracy.

2.  Businesses and corporations - I'm talking about Amazon, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and whoever else ended their relationships with WikiLeaks and Assange - have every right to do business with whomever they please  (as they're not discriminating against a class of people).   But if any of those businesses were in the least bit pressured by our government to cut their services to WikiLeaks, then that would be an underhanded kind of censorship, and a violation of the First Amendment.  I'd like to see a little investigation into that.   But, again, this is not relevant to the question of whether the release of the documents was helpful or damaging.

3.  Denial of services to the general public, brought on cyber attacks, is morally wrong, because innocent people are hurt.   I therefore cannot support the cyber attacks on Mastercard and Visa, even if they were made in the name of free speech.  And, again, this has no relevance as to whether the release of the documents were in the interests of our democracy, or against.

So where does that leave us?

a - If the Vice President and Secretary of Defense of the United States say no national security interests were jeopardized, and the only impact was "embarrassment," that's good enough for me.  Clearly, that also means that no lives of people in the military - or people anywhere - were jeopardized, for no sane person would use the word "embarrassment" if any lives were jeopardized.

b - The lies and errors that led to our unleashing of the Vietnam and the Iraqi Wars - lies about what happened in the Gulf of Tonkin, errors (at the very least) in reporting the presence of WMDs in Iraq - show that, in the past, our democracy would have been better served by more not less information about what our government is doing and claiming.

c - The Internet, as I pointed out at length in my book New New Media in 2009, has changed forever the way everything in the world, including governmental diplomatic operations, are conducted.  An individual or organization with information can instantly get that out to the world, with no one else's permission.   Since I've always agreed with Thomas Jefferson that the first defense people have against dangerous governments is maximum information,  I've got to think that this Internet revolution in general, and this WikiLeaks release of documents in particular, is helpful to our democracy.

NCIS 8.10: DiNozzo, Out and In

Imagine an NCIS with a serious, straight-laced, by the book DiNozzo - no practical jokes, no delighted eye for the ladies, and (most egregiously, in my view) no quick connection of a case at hand to a great scene in a movie.   Well, NCIS 8.10 gave us just such a draconian scenario, as DiNozzo turns over a new, mature leaf, and it wasn't much fun, right?

Well, not quite.  It was great fun seeing McGee try to finish DiNozzo's analyses of the case with a movie reference, Ziva being concerned about the new DiNozzo, and even Gibbs wondering what's going on.  It takes Ziva to snap DiNozzo out of it, telling him his quintessential essence is class clown, and the team loves him for it.   The episode ends with a reassuring DiNozzo prank.

The other good humor in this holiday season episode is Abby doing a great turkey dance - I'd like to see her on Dancing with the Stars - and the case was pretty good too, featuring Annie Wersching, last seen on 24.

Meanwhile, while all this good stuff was going on on entertainment television, the news in New York brought the report that the bodies of four women were found washed up or buried on the shore.   I couldn't help thinking - what would be the best investigative team on television to take over this case?   Criminal Minds would be the obvious, excellent choice.   But the bodies were on the shore, and that could mean some Navy involvement, so ... hey, I'll take Criminal Minds and NCIS both!

See also NCIS Back in Season 8 Action ... NCIS 8.2: Interns! ... NCIS 8.3: Tiff! ... NCIS 8.4: Gary Cooper not John Wayne ... NCIS 8.5: Dead DJ, DiNozzo Hoarse, and Baseball ... NCIS 8.6: The Written Woman ... NCIS 8.7: "James Bond Movie Directed by Fellini" ... NCIS 8.8: Ziva's Father 
... NCIS 8.9: Leon's Story

And see also NCIS  ... NCIS 7.16: Gibbs' Mother-in-Law Dilemma ... NCIS 7.17: Ducky's Ties ... NCIS 7.18: Bogus Treasure and Real Locker ... NCIS 7.21: NCIS Meets Laura ... NCIS Season 7 Finale: Retribution

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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 

Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain

Tina and I just got back from a special screening of the Dexter Season 5 finale at the Sheraton in New York City - courtesy of Showtime.   Jennifer Carpenter, David Zayas, and Lauren Vélez were there, but I'll tell you about that later. First, here's what I thought about the finale.

Superb, with one of the most momentous scenes in the entire series, and an amazingly mostly very happy ending, with Dexter's loss not arising from the death of anyone he loves (not a physical death, at any rate).

The scene gives us Deb, gun drawn on Dexter and Lumen, except she doesn't know it's them, since they're both behind a curtain.   They've just killed Chase, who almost killed them, but for Dexter keeping a knife to himself in hiding.  Deb figures, correctly, that the two are the vigilantes, consisting of Victim #13 and her partner in revenge.  She's a cop who mostly plays by the book.   She sees Chase's body.  But she gives Dexter and Lumen - not knowing it's them -  and the series as we know it a chance to escape.  A brilliant, well-motivated scene - since we've already seen how deeply Deb was affected by the videos of the brutal rapes of the barrel girls.   It wasn't 100% clear, at least to me, how Dex knew that Deb wouldn't call in the body, when she told the two behind the curtain that she would give them an hour to get away before she called in the police to the scene, but it was still a moment of Deb at her very best.

In the aftermath, Dex covers for Quinn (saying Liddy's blood on Quinn's shoe wasn't), Laguerta and Batista are back together, and the kids want to stay with Dexter for the summer.   This is about as good an ending as ever we gotten for Dexter.  But it's tempered by Lumen leaving:  her killing of Chase has satisfied her "dark passenger," who will need to take residence now along with Dexter's in Dexter's psyche for at least the near future.  As for the distant future, who knows ... But it would have been too much now for us to accept that Dexter was giving up his dark passenger - his life of righteous serial killing - just for Lumen.

It all adds up to a highly satisfying season finale, and a good balance to the gaping wound that was left open at the end of Season 4.

Now as to the screening:  I shook David Zayas' hand and told him how much I enjoyed his performance.  I only got a chance to smile at Jennifer Carpenter and Lauren Vélez.   The hors d'oevres were delicious.   And in some ways my favorite part:  The screening started a little late.   A few of the people in the audience were grumbling.  So I started singing the beginning of the Dexter theme.  And a woman sitting two seats over from us came in with those high violin lines ... Solidarity in Dexter theme music, you gotta love it...

And here's a great interview with Michael C. Hall in New York City, on the day of the finale!

See also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ... Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers

And see also Dexter Season 4: Sneak Preview Review ... The Family Man on Dexter 4.5 ... Dexter on the Couch in 4.6 ... Dexter 4.7: 'He Can't Kill Bambi' ... Dexter 4.8: Great Mistakes ... 4.9: Trinity's Surprising Daughter ... 4.10: More than Trinity ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

See also reviews of Season 3: Season's Happy Endings? ... Double Surprise ... Psychotic Law vs. Sociopath Science ... The Bright, Elusive Butterfly of Dexter ... The True Nature of Miguel ... Si Se Puede on Dexter ... and Dexter 3: Sneak Preview Review

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter

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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

Lombardi on HBO and at Fordham

My sports passions reside with baseball rather than football, but Vince Lombardi's accomplishments transcend any particular sport, and indeed transcend sports in general, which is one reason I enjoyed HBO's documentary on Lombardi, which premiered this evening.

The other reason is the crucial role of Fordham University in Lombardi's life and work, well shown in the documentary.  I see Lombardi's photo as one of the Seven Blocks of Granite - the Fordham Ram offensive line in 1936, of which Lombardi was a part - every time I walk through the Lombardi Center on my way to take a swim in Fordham's beautiful pool.   I often think, as I glance at the young Lombardi and his six team mates, if they could have had any idea that students and professors would be looking at their picture in 2010.

In Lombardi's case, I just bet he did.   Anyone with such an unquenchable thirst for winning had to have a sense of what winning did for your name in the future.   The HBO documentary reported that Lombardi came to regret his famous remark that "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing," but I rather like that remark and believe it conveys one of Lombardi's most admirable qualities.

Modesty would have us believe that winning isn't so important.  But the drive to win - or to be best in whatever your field - is what drives human beings to greatness, and propels our species forward.   I bet Socrates, Leonardo, Marie Curie, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jonas Salk, to name just a few,  all would have agreed with Vince Lombardi, in their heart of hearts.

Back here in the present, at Fordham, Lombardi continues to inspire students.  Jason Caldwell, team captain and wide receiver, did this series of videos about the current football team and season for our just concluded "Television and New Media" graduate course.

Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr.

Adelbert Ames, Jr. was the first psychologist I studied in my PhD program in Media Ecology at New York University back in the mid-late 1970s.  I sort of think of episode 6.9 of Bones tonight as inspired by Ames, the reasons for which will become clear in a few paragraphs.

But first, what an exquisite episode 6.9 was.   It had to be - it is the episode in which Bones finally comes to terms with her loss of Booth.  Emily Deschannel gave one of her finest performances in the series.  And the plot had touches of the Odyssey - yeah, I thought it was that good, seeing what it accomplished in a hour, and how it showed us Bones' journey.

The victim is a woman a lot like Bones - a top-notch MD, her work is her life, with few personal connections.  She turns down someone who loves her.   Sound familiar?  Bones soon starts not only seeing herself in the victim, but thinking the victim literally looks and sounds like Bones in the photos and recordings the victim's left behind.

These semi-delusions are of course all vehicles via which Bones can finally allow herself to realize what she lost when she turned Booth away.   As part of the process, she and we meet "Micah" - a figment of Booth's psyche, played by Enrico Colantoni from Flashpoint (good to see him!) - a night watchman at the Jeffersonian who speaks truth to her.  Micah, and the victim not only sounding just like Booth but talking to Booth through the recordings, are the sure proof that a large part of what we're seeing in this episode are Bones' semi-illusions and warped but highly instructive perceptions.

Micah tells Bones about an experiment he heard about in a lecture, in which a scientist gives a subject glasses that make the subject see upside down, but after three days, with the glasses still on, the world rights itself (and when the glasses are taken off, the world looks upside down again - for three days).    Bones realizes that is what had been happening to her, which in turn allows her to finally get in touch with what she realizes happened with her and Booth, because of her.   These un-rose colored glasses are painful for her, and for us to see, but they're just what she needs.

The scene between Bones and Booth in the car where she says she had her chance was one of the best scenes in the series.  Heart breaking and real.

And where does Adelbert Ames, Jr. come in?  Well, it was George Stratton, near the end of the 19th century, who did the world upside down glasses experiment.  But it was Ames in the 1930s who really broke it all out about the way the brain compensates for bizarre, unreal perceptions, which I actually think is a better tag for this superb episode.  That, and I wanted to give the first theorist I studied in  my doctoral program a little well-deserved shout-out.

See also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ... Bones 6.9: Melted Bones

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ... Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ... Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

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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

The Closer 6.11: Andy Flynn

The Closer is back in business - with episode 6.11 - a story that starts off with what happens to Lt. Andy Flynn.

He's knifed after leaving an AAA meeting, and soon turns into a suspect as well as a victim.  Well, not a suspect in anyone's else eyes except Captain Raydor's, and she doesn't really believe it, either.   Not to mention she's about the nicest she's ever been to Brenda and her team.  But there's still an allegation that Flynn tampered with a witness, which is in some way tied to the attempt on his life, and has to be cleared.

Fortunately, Brenda's investigation both nabs the bad guy and clears Flynn.  And we're treated to the same unique, delightful mix of crime drama and humor that has always commended this series.  The humor is often directed against Brenda, and tonight I thought the best line came from the bad guy Brenda's interrogating, when he asks her, "Has anyone ever explained to you the concept of ineffective repetition?"  But, of course, that's precisely what usually gets the perp to confess, sooner or later, one way or another, as it does tonight.

At the end of last summer, Brenda learned she was not getting the Chief of Police job which she really didn't want.  Tonight, Fritz - and Raydor by her niceness - tell Brenda she may be in line for another executive position - Pope's Assistant Chief job.   If I recall what happened in the summer, Pope indicated he would probably leave after being passed over in an early round for the Chief of Police position.

Brenda's made it clear that she loves exactly what she's doing - Deputy Chief of the Major Crimes Division, with precisely the team of lovable, tough-detecting characters she now has.   But as Fritz points out, how would Brenda feel working for a Pope replacement that she couldn't wrap around her finger?

Interesting, fun times ahead on The Closer.

See also:  The Closer 6.1: The New Building ... The Closer 6.2: Fun Bumps

And from last season  The Roots of Testimony on The Closer and Finding Killers vs. Hearts on The Closer and Brenda Leigh's Niece and Libby from Lost on The Closer and Tom Skerritt on The Closer and Det. Richard Tracy on The Closer and Pres. Laura Roslin vs. Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson  and The Closer Closes on a Fine Note for 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

Obama Was Right to Extend the Tax Cuts to Everyone, Given November 2

I support Obama's decision to compromise with the Repubicans, and continue the Bush tax cuts for everyone - including millionaires - for the next two years.  It's best course of action now, given the unfortunate results of the election on November 2.

Those results will put the Republicans in control of the House, and more Senators as well, in 2011-2012.  For those disappointed with Obama's compromise, they should look at their and our failure to convince Americans to vote for more progressives in the past election.   Why should the Republicans accept the Democratic approach of making the rich pay their just freight, when the populace has given the Republicans the whip hand?

Progressives who wanted to play hard ball, hang tough, and dare the Republicans to be responsible for tax increases for everyone, and no unemployment insurance for Americans whose benefits have run out, are likely doing fine financially, and have no need of unemployment insurance.  I can't image anyone else - Democrat or Republican - gambling with these issues at stake.

I've long said that I'd like to see a society with no taxes for anyone earning under a million dollars, and millionaires and above paying much more.   Whether this is closer or not to happening in light of today's compromise is not clear.   But what does seem undeniable is that this is the best way to go, given the circumstances.

The Walking Dead Ends First Season

The Walking Dead ended its first, too-short season tonight - I said the same about the Boardwalk Empire Season One finale - except The Walking Dead was even shorter.   By too short, I mean I'd have liked to see more.  Good that the series will return next year with more episodes.

Tonight gave us the scientific explanation of the Dead, provided by Dr. Edwin Jenner (nearly the same name as Edward Jenner, in our real history the creator of the small pox vaccine).  Jenner (Edwin - played by Noah Emmerich) is the last person alive at the CDC in Atlanta, which our band of survivors make it to.  Jenner shows what happens when the virus - or whatever triggers the zombies - gets hold of a human.  The human turned zombie subject of the mini-doc turns out to be Jenner's wife (I figured as much - or perhaps Jenner's son or daughter - when he told our people that the subject was someone very "close" to him.)

But there's no good news in this demo or anything else that Jenner has to reveal.  The French said they were on the verge of a breakthrough, until they got over-run.  This is the big extinction event for humanity, Jenner believe and avows.

But Rick and Shane neither believe nor accept it.   We finally see how it happened that Shane left Rick in the hospital - it wasn't his fault - and the two and most of the team manage to break out of the CDC, set to self-destruct, to live another day (or as long, at least, as the first episode of the second season).  Andrea and Jacqui (for different reasons) want to stay in the CDC and die along with Jenner, but Dale is able to talk Andrea out of this by threatening to stay in the building and die, too, if she doesn't leave with him.   This was one of the best scenes of a powerful hour.

And the hour left us with a tantalizing clue to something - Jenner whispers it in Rick's ear, and we can't hear it.   All kinds of theories are already abounding about the content of the whisper - some taken from the comic book series, which the TV series has already diverted from - but I'm guessing it's some sort of qualification that the future is not utterly hopeless, maybe the French communicated some information to Jenner that could be of value.

As I said in my review of the first three episodes, I'm not usually a big fan of zombie stories.   But The Walking Dead is a big cut above the rest, and I'm glad it's shambling proudly along to another season.

See also The Walking Dead 1.1-3:  Gone with the Wind, Zombie Style

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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

Season One Finale of Boardwalk Empire

The first season of Boardwalk Empire ended tonight as it has been proceeding all this too-short season - sweeping, grand, with touches of The Godfather, Goodfellas, The Gangster Chronicles (years ago on NBC) all whipped together in a stunningly appealing and historically accurate piece of 1920s history.

The year was 1920, to be exact.  Harding - backed by Nucky Thompson - is elected President.  We and the people in Atlantic City hear the results on live radio.  Harding promised a "return to normalcy" after World War I.   What we got was one of the most corrupt Presidents in American history - normal, maybe, by Nucky's standards.

Nucky's man also wins the mayoralty in Atlantic City.  This happens after Nucky strikes a deal with Arnold Rothstein - brokered by Johnny Torrio and Capone - in which Nucky agrees to use his political connections in Chicago to make Rothstein's indictment for fixing the World Series go away.  In return, Rothstein gives Nucky a cool million plus the locations of the rest of the D'Alessios.   Nucky has them eliminated - in scenes of near parallel killings evocative of The Godfather - and parlays their murders into a winning cleaning-up-crime political campaign point.

But all's not peaches and cream for Nucky.  In another scenic homage to The Godfather, we see Jimmy, the Commodore (Jimmy's father) and Nucky's brother Eli plotting in a smoke-filled den against Nucky.

Still, it's a big winning night for Nucky - who has a heart - in more ways than politics and crime.  Margaret comes back to him, and the final scene shows the two looking out at ocean, with Eddie Cantor and his goo-goo eyes singing in accompaniment.

A perfect way to end a perfect debut season, with superb writing, production, and acting all around, including relative newcomer Michael Pitt as Jimmy and old-hand Steve Buscemi as Nucky.  In fact, this may well be the best acting Buscemi has ever delivered in his exceptionally good career.

I'll see you here with reviews of life, crime, and politics on the boardwalk next year.



See also Boardwalk Emipre on HBO ... Boardwalk Empire 1.2: Lines and Centers Power ... Boardwalk Empire 1.10: Arnold Rothstein, Media Theorist

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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

In Treatment 3.5.1: "I would keep him In Treatment"

This is Paul's response to Julia about what Paul should do about Sunil, whose responses to Julia are now violent and on the edge of getting much worse.  "I would keep him in treatment," Paul says.   And although we can see the value of this in episode 3.5.1, it does seem like the response every therapist would give to his or her patient (I say this purely as a reviewer of television).

Sunil's fantasies about hurting Julia are putting Paul in a major dilemma.   Should he call the police, when Sunhil asks Paul to keep a cricket bat in his possession, lest Sunil use it on Julia.  That act - Paul's calling the police - would certainly strain or shatter his relationship with Sunhil - but can Paul live with Julia's blood on his hands?   And on the other hand, Julia is pulling the plug - funding - on Sunil's therapy.   Sunhil seems unwilling to accept Paul's pro bono offer.  So one way or another, the therapy seems unlikely to continue.  Not to mention that the next is the finale of this superb but short season.

Sunil also is distorting, motivating, heightening - take your pick - Paul's relationship as patient with Adele.  She calls him at 7:30 in the morning - to talk about Sunhil, she later tells Paul.  But we all know there's another relationship swirling around this - Paul's feelings for Adele, and possibly/likely her feelings for him.

Later, when the two try to talk about at least Paul's feelings, Paul's words are interrupted by Adele's ringing phone.   The mood is broken, the moment lost, at least for this thirty minutes.

I doubt they'll be any interruptions in any of the four final Season 3 episodes next week.

See also Back in Treatment 3.1.1-3: Bengali Candy, Twitter, and Superb ... In Treatment 3.4.4: Paul and Adele ... In Treatment 3.5.1: "Why Didn't Paul Kiss Adele?"

And Season Two reviews:  Back in Treatment on HBO ... Back in Treatment: Three More Fine Times ... 2.1-2: Fathers and Daughters ...2.3-5: A Senior, A First Love, A Boy and His Turtle ... Sleep and Ethics ... In Treatment, In Retrospect

And Season One reviews: In Treatment on HBO ... 2. Scalding ... 3. Triangle ... 4. Love and Death ... 6. Paul's Greatest Strength ... 6. Paul's Boat ... 7. Alex in the Sky with Diamonds ... 8. A Princely Performance ... In Treatment Concludes (For Now)

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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

The Third - Three Minutes - on the Third

A shout out or Tweet-sized review of Emon Hassan's new webseries, The Third, which premiered, appropriately enough, on the 3rd of December (yesterday), with a 3-minute episode.  Lots of powerful things come in three's - Hegel's dialectic, the 3 pyramids of Giza, and Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy to name three (ok, I'll add in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, either Star Wars trilogy, and the Godfather trilogy, now that The Third's got me going on this). 

I'm not saying that The Third has anything in common with these other behemoth triads - certainly not in length -  but it does have something in the sparse, speechless, evocative 3-minutes of the premiere.   I can't say just what, as yet, except it conveys a sense of murky foreboding quite clearly.   Think, maybe, Primer, I don't know.

All right, this was a little longer than a Tweet.  But the premiere does follow below. 


The Third - Pilot from Emon Hassan on Vimeo.
Episode 1 of 4.

About The Third
New York City holds many mysteries and its inhabitants hide many secrets. Neil (Philip Willingham) is The Third. His job is to solve them.

Fringe 3.8: The Long Voyages Home

Whew,  Fringe 3.8 came through with all the goods tonight, in a superb episode that fired on all cylinders and was just brimming with great touches, large and small.

Great alternate universe strokes.  My favorite were Springsteen Station for our Penn Station, Newark - hey, we ought to change the name of ours to theirs - and, along with the music, a version of late Roy Orbison's "You Got It," sung by either a different Big O, or a different singer with a Big O-like voice.  Evocative to hear in either case.   There was also a picture of aged JFK on Walternate's desk - gives me chills every time I see it.

Last week, our Olivia got a message to Peter in our universe, in bed with their Olivia (but thinking she was ours) - "I'm trapped on the other side."  Peter acts on that message tonight, tracking their Olivia - who quickly realizes Peter is on to her - and she tries to make it back home, too.   Peter thinks she can help in getting our Olivia home.

But our Olivia, still trapped on the other side, and now on the verge of being sliced and diced for their science, cannot get back home without the help of someone on the other side.  That would be alt-Broyles, who in the most emotional moments of the show, decides to help Olivia (he's primed to do that Olivia' helping his son, last week).

It turns out, in the end, that only one Broyles will survive, and I'll miss alt-Broyles - he was a more appealing character than our Broyles in some ways.

But a scene takes place in the Bronx - yay! - in an old typewriter shop which the "quantum entangled telegraph" (as Walter calls it), that is, a typewriter that types between universe, and you can't get much better than that in cool retro-science fiction, too!

And here's a little taste of Roy Orbison's You Got It ...

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision

See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

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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

Bones 6.8: Melted Bones

Melted bones are what Bones and Booth and team were tasked with explaining tonight in episode 6.8 - or, the murder that led to bones being in the physically impossible condition.  And melting is what almost happened tonight to Bones, too.

The detective story was one of the better ones on Bones.  Lots of candidates for killer.   The hot high school teacher having an affair with one of her students (shades of Law and Order's "ripped right from the headlines"), the said student, and a few more.   But the real killer, introduced early, was something of a surprise.

Good side story, too, with Miss Daisy driving Lance to help her to the point of cheating on her crucial psych evaluation.  Lance commendably resists, for the most part.

But the most important story, as always, is Bones and Booth.  Bones had the best line on the show, in my opinion, recalling that "I was once put in detention for calling my science teacher a fool" - you gotta love that - but the most moving moment came on Bones' face, first in the car with Booth, then at the table with Booth, Hannah, and Parker at the end.   As Booth exudes love and delight for Hannah, Bones is finally beginning to realize what she lost.   We're on the verge of emotional dynamite.

That will come to a head next week,  as indicated in the powerful coming attractions.   It can't be that easy that Booth will just take her in his arms, tell Bones he loves her, and then break the bad news to Hannah.   But I'm believing that that's indeed what will happen eventually and inevitably.  It's just a matter of time - the only question being, how long?

See also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate"

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ... Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ... Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

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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

Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview Review with Slight Spoilers!

For those who can't wait to see what happens to Dexter this coming Sunday in the next to last episode of this season - 5.11 - here's a sneak preview review with slight spoilers (courtesy of the screener Showtime was good enough to give me).  Skip this if you don't want to know anything at all about 5.11:

1. Deb and Quinn's relationship deepens.

2. Liddy, Quinn, and Dexter come to a head.

3. Deb and Laguerta repair.

4. Chase kills another woman.

I won't tell you anything more about Chase.   The episode is chock full of action, life-and-death situations, overwhelming odds against Dexter, and surprises.   As I've been saying the last few weeks, I think Dex and Lumen are a great couple, and I hope they survive as a couple into next season.   For that, we'll have to wait about 10 days.   In the meantime, enjoy episode 5.11 this Sunday.   I'm thinking this is the best season of Dexter so far.    But, then again, that's pretty much what I said at the end of the last season, and, come to think of it, the season before last, as well ...

See also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ... Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better

And see also Dexter Season 4: Sneak Preview Review ... The Family Man on Dexter 4.5 ... Dexter on the Couch in 4.6 ... Dexter 4.7: 'He Can't Kill Bambi' ... Dexter 4.8: Great Mistakes ... 4.9: Trinity's Surprising Daughter ... 4.10: More than Trinity ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

See also reviews of Season 3: Season's Happy Endings? ... Double Surprise ... Psychotic Law vs. Sociopath Science ... The Bright, Elusive Butterfly of Dexter ... The True Nature of Miguel ... Si Se Puede on Dexter ... and Dexter 3: Sneak Preview Review

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter

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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