Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing 3 Body Problem; Black Doves; Bosch; Criminal Minds; Dark Matter; Dexter: Original Sin; Dune: Prophecy; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outlander; Presumed Innocent; Prime Target; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Last of Us, Way Home; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Friday, February 28, 2025

Severance 2.7: Gemma and the Dentist

One of the best things about this season of Severance -- I don't think the first season quite had this -- is that each episode is like a little movie in itself. There is a progression, of course, from one episode to the next. But each episode not only has its own story, related to the other episodes, but an ambience, a cinematography, all its own.

[Spoilers, of course, ahead ... ]

In the case of Severance 2.7, we finally get the back story of Mark and Gemma. Not only is Mark really happy, but the cinematography is really happy, too. And I was happy to see that, too. The episode had plenty of unhappiness -- it wouldn't be Severance if it didn't. But the splashes of normal love and joy were a tonic, especially welcome in the world we're all living in now, offscreen.

Not that this episode made anything very much clear. The episode, again, couldn't and wouldn't be part of this series, if it did. That's why I put the the dentist in the title of this review (also because Gemma and dentist almost rhyme). The dentist -- who likely a little later was also a doctor -- does something to make Gemma's mouth hurt. This is presumably part of an overall probe of Gemma by Lumon to find out ... what? We get nothing from the dentist. Getting information out of him, out of Lumon, out of Severance the series itself is, well, like pulling teeth. (I'm going to resist the temptation to apologize. I like puns. I'll therefore also give in to the urge to point out that sometimes things get so quiet on Severance, you can hear a pun drop.)

Anyway, back to the story: I see a big conflict looming. Both Helly and her outie Helena really want Mark. His outie still deeply loves Gemma, though. And if and when his innie and outie are integrated enough, Mark's innie, who's very attracted to Helly, will have to choose between her and Gemma/Ms. Casey. For that matter, Mark's outie isn't exactly averse to Helly/Helena, either.

So we'll likely have some good refracted triangles ahead in Severance. And I'll be back with my review of the next episode next week.

And see also Severance 1.1-1.2: Erving Goffman Meets The Prisoner ... Severance 1.3: The History and the Neighbor ... Severance 1.4: Deadly Ambiguity ... Severance 1.5: Second Lives ... Severance 1.6: Lumon on the Outside ... Severance 1.7: Overtime Contingency ... Severance 1.8: Fired, Kissed, Almost Fired ... Severance: Season One Finale: Stunning Revelations

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Video of Unique Dramatic Reading from It's Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles at Big Red Books

This reading took place on 23 February 2025 at Big Red Books in Nyack, NY, and features Anthony Marinelli and Amanda Greer -- real life characters from the novel who voiced what they say in the novel -- as well Denise Reed, Frank LoBuono, and me.

More about the novel here.

Anthony Marinelli, Amanda Greer, Paul Levinson, Denise Reed,

Frank LoBuono, and Richie Fulco (owner of Big Red Books)

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Severance 2.6: Tables

Another breathtakingly complex, actually beautiful episode -- 2.6 -- of Severance. Tables sum it all up for me. Let me explain.

I thought all the key moments happen at tables. Here are some examples:

[Yes, there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

1. The empty, now three-person table of our innies on the severance floor. Empty because innie Dylan was with his outie wife, and they were kissing. (Apparently, as we learn later, this led to Dylan's innie privileges with his outie wife being suspended, maybe terminated.) Also not at that table were Mark's innie and Hellie, in a great series of scenes that end with them making love. As I've said, I'm always rooting for them as a couple. (Unfortunately, as we see a little later, Mark has a bloody nose. We might well think at the time that the nose was the result of the lovemaking. But we learn later that it almost definitely was the result of the more intense treatment he's being given to unite his innie and outie.)

2. There's a very different kind of table, in a Chinese restaurant, where Helena just happens to be seated as Mark (outie) is gobbling down a ton of food. She comes over to talk to him. I can't quite figure out what's going on with her -- is she really attracted to Mark (I guess she should be, if her innie is), or is she doing this for Lumon, or maybe both? I'm pretty sure -- at least at this point -- that Mark the outie has no knowledge of his innie making love with Helena or Helly. Do I have that right?

3. And third table features Irving, Burt, and Cecil (played by Fringe's John Noble -- great to see him again!) at the dinner table with the ham. Like everything else in Severance, this dinner is no pleasure -- or maybe there's a bit of pleasure, mixed in with lots of angst, born of Cecil's jealousy over Irving and Burt. Unless I'm wrong, this is the first dinner we've seen with two outies and someone (Cecil) who's not really an outie, since he (presumably) doesn't have an innie. That's an obvious but I think important point: one might think everyone in the world -- our world, and in Severance, most people in the world -- are outies. But I think that's not quite correct. Because I think that in order to be an outie, you have to have an innie.

So I learned lots of things from those tables in Severance 2.6, and I'll see you back here next week with my review of Severance 2.7.

Zero Day: Thrilling Enough, But Not That Much Like Today

I binged the six-episode Zero Day that went up on Netflix. Herewith my thoughts, with no major spoilers to warn you about [except in the very last paragraph].

First and foremost, the acting was outstanding. I mean, with Robert De Niro, Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Plemons, and Connie Britton in major roles -- not to mention Matthew Modine and Angela Bassett with slightly less screen -- how can you go wrong. From the point of view of the acting, every scene was a real pleasure to watch.

As to the story ... well, I've heard this limited series touted, in more than one place, as strikingly similar to what we've been seeing and hearing on our cable news stations, laptops, and social media these days. Of course, any plot about a terrorist attack that kills lots of people, and the government veering towards fascist tactics to find the culprits, and stop this from happening again, resembles our times. But actually, it resembles what George W. Bush and the Congress did with the Patriot Act after September 11 (mentioned in Zero Day) far more than it resembles today. And that's because our current swerve towards fascism has nothing to do with a terrorist attack. It stems from the voters of the United States electing to office a President whose every other pronouncement is out of Joseph Goebbels's handbook. So yes, although high-tech digital prowess and at least one billionaire are part of the action in Zero Day, the heart of the story is something else.

And that heart, which we've also seen in other movies and TV series on various screens, is a pretty good narrative, with affairs, difficult family relationships, politics reminiscent of what Jack Bauer had to deal with in 24 and prevalent in House of Cards, all done up nicely with a few real newscasters, a house on the Hudson, and of course the nation's capital. So, if you're looking for a thriller brought to you by flat-out great acting and a decent-enough storyline, I'd recommend Zero Day. But don't expect anything searingly relevant to what's actually going on today. De Niro's character is named Mullen, and he gives a report to Congress in the last scene. A nod to Mueller and the report he gave to Congress in Trump's first administration, right? But that was long long time ago, in terms of the speed with we've slid and are still sliding into fascism right now.

Monday, February 17, 2025

Paul Levinson interviews Lance Strate about 'Not A, Not Be &C'

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 408, and my in-depth interview with Lance Strare about his new book, Not A, Not Be &C.

Relevant links:

Get a copy of Not A, Not Be &C
Come see Lance, Tom Gencarelli, and me talking about Lance's book at The Players in Manhattan on 19 February 2025 at 6pm. More information about this book launch, including FREE registration, here
Frank LoBuono's Facebook page -- where he will be live streaming the dramatic reading from my novel, It's Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles, taking place at Big Red Books in Nyack, NY, 23 February 2025.

Check out this episode!

Saturday, February 15, 2025

Severance 2.5: Watermelon Man

Well, it was a great semi-instrumental by Mongo Santamaria in the late 1950s -- "Watermelon Man" -- and it was the best part of Severance 2.5. I'm talking about the watermelon carving of Irving's head that was the high-point of his funeral, i.e., at least, a funeral Severance innie style. I mean, the watermelon head really looked like Irving. I don't know if somebody really carved it, or it was the product of some kind of AI. But it was impressive. Even the creator of the series, Dan Erickson, said in the afterwords about this episode that, as soon as that juicy red head was wheeled in, he knew this episode would work. (The phrase "juicy red" is mine.) Even the green rind worked well. It looked like some kind of yarmulke aka skullcap.

Of course, as Mark (of course) points out, Irv is not really dead. He's just no longer at work with the innies -- meaning, his innie is gone. And the other best part of this episode is seeing Burt for more than a split-second shadow that could have been Irving's imagination -- more specifically, Irv's outie's imagination, where Irv is definitely not dead. Hey, it's always good to hear Christopher Walken talk, the way he talks, but it was especially good to hear him in episode 2.5, given that we haven't heard him for so long.

Helly is also back on the severed floor as herself -- that is, the innie Helly not the outie Helena -- and we also get some clarity on how long it was really her outie we were seeing down there. But I'm still not clear if it was her innie or her outie who kissed Mark's innie last season? I think it was her outie, given the way her innie is acting now, but I wouldn't bet on it. (That could be a good tagline for the entire series, "I wouldn't bet on it".)

And speaking of Mark, and definitely last but not least, we seem to have a least of a touch of progress, or something, of Mark moving towards integration. There's no way that won't be a major thread of this season as it progresses to the end, and I'm looking forward to that.

Dexter: Original Sin: Season 1 Finale: Satisfying

A thoroughly satisfying ending to the first season of the blockbuster prequel to Dexter: Dexter Original Sin.

[And there will be spoilers ahead ...]

In a nutshell, one of the two killers who wreaked havoc on Miami got his just deserts in this finale, and the other is still at large and revving up for more slaughter. And that's the way it had to be.

Spencer wasn't really a serial killer. He was a police captain crazed by fury over what his wife had done. And the son that he tried to kill and the boy he did kill to cover his tracks deserved none of his fury, so the captain certainly deserved to die. And the fact that Dexter delayed giving into his impulses and first saved Nicky, shows that he had reached an ideal level to start his adult life, given his compulsions, as he and Harry realize.

Meanwhile, there was no way this first season finale could end other than with Brian looking at the happy family -- Harry, Dexter, Deb -- on the outside looking in, in a menacing way, menacing just by the very fact that he was there. Dexter: Original Sin is handcuffed in a way all sequels are, to tell a story that converges with what we know comes after. To diverge from that reality is possible only in alternate history and time travel stories. Those are science fiction. And Dexter in all episodes and now the third series is the antithesis of science fiction (much as I love that genre, as a reader, a viewer, and an author). Dexter is about reality, with a vengeance.

And since we know the role that Brian plays in our reality, in the original Dexter series on Showtime, there's was no way Brian could be anything other than menacing at the end of the first season of this prequel.

It was also good to see Deb settle on path that would get her to Miami Metro. But here I'll say that knowing what will happen to some of the characters in Original Sin in later Dexter stories makes me more than a little sad. But that also is unavoidable in prequels. They are, again, stories in which the future is already written.

I'm really looking forward to the continuing story of the older Dexter -- Dexter: Resurrection -- set to be on the air this summer. And I'm more eager than ever to see the next season of Original Sin. I look forward to seeing you back here, as I continue to review every episode. Well, I won't actually see you, but you know what I mean.

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

Friday, February 14, 2025

The Gorge: Hi-Tech Blast from the Past

Thought I'd take a brief break from reviewing science fiction like Severance, which will break your brain if you watch it too much and try to understand. The Gorge, though the story takes place in the present, harkens back to Creature from the Black Lagoon and Them -- simple stories with clear-cut heros and monstrous monsters, the pride and joy of the theaters in the boroughs in the 1950s, where in the case of The Allerton Theater on Allerton Avenue in The Bronx, you could get in for a double feature with a quarter. And if you somehow missed one of these movies and the popcorn and the candy, you had a good chance seeing it a few years later on Million Dollar Movie, I think on Channel 9 in New York City -- where they shoulda been if they weren't there.

the Allerton Theater in the 1950s

The Gorge's story actually goes back just a few years before the 1950s, and the horrors it reveals -- mutants ranging from everything, including human-and-tree combos -- are the result of science gone awry at the end of World War II, with Oppenheimer and the atom-bomb specifically mentioned as a parallel development.

[Ok, here's an advisory about some spoilers ahead ... ]

And The Gorge is also a love story, with a male and a female sharp-shooter on both sides of the gorge. When they're not fighting off villains of the worst kind, he writes poetry and she loves it. They start off communicating with pen-on-paper viewed through binoculars across the gorge, and, of course eventually get together and fight the monsters in all kinds of ways.

By the way, when I say villains of the worst kind, I'm referring not only to the monsters who are partially human, but the monsters who are completely human, and try to exterminate our heroes with the latest in drones and weaponry. Sigourney Weaver makes an appearance as one of the evil people, and Miles Teller (who looks familiar but I can't remember where I saw him) and Anya-Taylor Joy (who looks familiar because she starred in The Queen's Gambit) play our two loving commando heroes.

So, hey, if you're in the mood for a bit of adrenalin and true love in an insane life-and-death pressure cooker of a situation, you can't go wrong with The Gorge.

'DNA is the ultimate dossier.'

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Liaison: Crime and L' Amour

So I just binged Liaison, a six-episode French/British spy thriller that streamed on Apple TV+ two years ago. It's still up there -- one of the joys of streaming -- and I'm glad it is. I don't how I missed it when it first aired. I see that critics gave it mixed reviews, another example of the poor vision and/or hearing of some of the people who somehow continue to share their myopic assessments to hapless readers.

First, I should say that I'm not surprised Liaison was so good. The French have a knack for putting up excellent police series. They know when a couple running away from police, or in the police themselves, always find time when they're caught in tight spots, figuratively and literally, to hug, kiss, pull together even more, and do what comes naturally. This mix of crime and l'amour always hits the spot, if done right. It made Spiral, a French police drama, one of the best ever on screen. Thus a spy thriller with a French ambience, which after all is a kind of police drama, has big leg up in emotion.

In the case of Liaison, the British, who also have the own appealing ways of presenting a spy story -- epitomized of course by James Bond -- meld with the French to make an once combustible, sarcastic, and devoted production. Eva Green (Penny Dreadful) and Vincent Cassel (Westworld the series) in the lead roles are in the middle of a high tech, terrorist tale of corruption and those who are struggling to stop it, and it's tough to tell, or supposed to be tough, to tell who is the hero and who is the villain. Although--

[And here's my warning about spoilers ahead .,.. ]

I said "supposed to be tough," because I never lost my faith for a moment in the these two appealing heroes. It was fun to see them driving from both sides of the front seat, as well as wielding knives and guns and avoiding their lethal result with a combination of prowess and sheer luck.

Now the short series ended in a way which leaves the tableau wide open for a second season. I have no idea if that will or won't happen. But if it does, rest assured I won't wait two years to watch it.

'DNA is the ultimate dossier.'

Saturday, February 8, 2025

Dexter: Original Sin 1.9: Brian's Story

Well, the blood-splattered ingenious story in Dexter: Original Sin 1.9 is not just about Dexter's older brother Brian -- the notorious Ice-Truck Killer who played such a crucial role in the very first season of the very first Dexter TV series that began on Showtime nearly 20 years ago -- it's also about Captain Spencer. But I didn't want to overload the title of this review.

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

The two stories are intertwined. Dexter thinks he has a serial killer on the table. We know that this serial killer is not Spencer. He is still a monster who has kidnapped his own son and cut off his finger -- to punish his former wife, the boy's mother, who left Spencer -- not to mention that he killed another boy, Jimmy Powell, to draw any attention away from anyone from Miami-Metro who might suspect he kidnapped his son. But he wasn't at all responsible for the various adults who've turned up murdered in the previous episodes of Original Sin.

That killer, we learn in 1.9, is Brian. Indeed, we see Brian take another victim with a chainsaw, with flashbacks that show him, as a boy, trying to suffocate baby Deb because she was making too much noise crying. With only one episode left to go in the first season of Original Sin -- and (if I remember correctly) with the older Dexter not starting out suspicious of his brother in the first season of the original Dexter series in 2006 -- it's likely we've seen the last of Dexter looking for the not-Spencer serial killer in Original Sin. But you never know.

Meanwhile, we're treated to another example of Dexter's wiley intelligence near the end of the episode. Spencer escapes after Dexter tells him he'll be back. Not because Dexter is still learning his craft as a killer. It's because Dexter realized he couldn't trust Spencer to tell him where his son Nicky was. So, although we don't actually quite see it, he must have cut some of that plastic that was holding Spencer down on the table, allowing Spencer to break loose, and when Spencer speeds away in his car -- he's still able to drive alright with nine fingers -- Dexter pulls out after him. The best way for Dexter to find out where Nicky is.

Not only was that a clever move, Dexter also manages with Spencer on the table to deliver one of his best lines of the season, musing, as he resists the thrill of killing Spencer, that Dexter now knows what "serial killer blue balls" feel like. A memorable line delivered by Michael C. Hall. (Hey, that would have been an even better title for this review than Brian's Story.)

See you back here next week with my review of the first season finale.

Severance 2.4: Innies Out in the Snow

Well, as I've been saying, Severance's outstanding second season on Apple TV+ seems to be getting better and better, with episode 2.4 delivering one of the wildest stories so far, with our innie team of four -- Mark, Helly, Dylan, and Irv -- now out in the snow, doing the furthest thing from frolicking, at least for everyone other than one couple.

[And here's the warning about spoilers ahead ... ]

I guess the most important revelation in this blinding story is that Helly's innie is really her outie Helena, a prime member of the Eagan family, daughter of Jame, CEO of Lumon. Irv pays the price of telling us this, by being banished from the severed floor by Milchick. Unclear how long he'll be banished from the show -- if at all -- but I hope he isn't.

Now all of the above was exciting enough, but the Helly/Helena story also delivers her finally making love with Mark. As I said last week, I thought the two of them should have kissed in episode 2.3, but in retrospect that was a good build-up to what they did in the winter wonderland in 2.4.

Helly/Helena's feelings for Mark also put in a different light what's happening on the severed floor with Ms. Casey, who was revealed at the end of season one as Mark's beloved wife Gemma. Depending upon how deep Helena's feelings for Mark are, she may want to keep him separated from his wife. And speaking of Mark, we saw him at the end episode 2.3 undergoing some kind of integration. We now know that the procedure didn't kill him. But did it work? And, if so, how entirely?

Helena notices something different in Mark after they sleep together -- is she sensing that Mark's innie is not quite the same? One thing about Severance that you can always to rely upon: no matter how many questions it seems to answer, it always also leaves some new ones on the table, whether on the severed floor or out in the north in the ice and the snow and the freezing ponds.

"challenging fun"
- Entertainment Weekly

e-mail received from a reader:
Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchildren. Thanks! Tom

I of course happily replied...

42 reviews of The Plot to Save Socrates!