The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (The Play): WhoDunnit in the Roaring 20s

My wife and I saw a preview performance last evening of Agatha Christie's 1926 novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, written, directed, and adapted by Mark Shanahan to the stage of the Westport Country Playhouse (in Westport, Connecticut), and we loved it.  The cast was nimble, the setting including the music and sound effects was fetching, and you can't go wrong with an early Hercule Poirot story.  As John Lennon might have said, "a splendid time is guaranteed for all".

A few words about Mark Shanahan:   He was my student in Fordham University's MA in Media Studies Program, where we first met in 2002.  I soon learned he was not only a brilliant student, but a gifted actor and playwright.   Indeed, his adaptation of my novelette, "The Chronology Protection Case," was a finalist for the Edgar Award in 2002, and you'll find Mark's audiobook adaptations of that, along with my novels, The Consciousness Plague and The Plot to Save Socrates over on Audible. 

You of course all know about Agatha Christie and her character Hercules Poirot.  I consider her the whodunnit equivalent of science fiction author Isaac Asimov.   His character Hari Seldon maps out the future, just as Poirot maps out the past, in particular, who murdered whatever suitable victim.  More than 50 movies and 70 television episodes feature the fastidious, deductive detective, some in the time in which the novels were first published, others in the present day.  One of the joys of Shanahan's adaptation is its zestful presence in the 1920s -- when the novel was first published -- down to the stick-like telephones and the dictaphone, which indeed plays a role in the ending (Mark learned his media well :)

Anthony Cochrane is a fine, emotive, justifiably pompous Poirot, and I especially enjoyed how he and a few of the actors talked not only among themselves but to the audience.  (Just about everyone on stage is a suspect, so I'm not going to say anything more about anyone else's acting, except it all was delightful.)  The story is of course a homicide mystery, but if you'd like a breath of fresh theatrical air in this hot, smokey summer,  I highly recommend The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which will be on stage at the Westport Country Playhouse July 14 through August 1, 2026.

Black Bag: Pick It Up

Just saw Black Bag, which popped up on Peacock on May 2, after debuting in theaters here in the U. S. on March 14.  It has a lot to commend itself,  including a top-notch cast, with Michael Fassbender (whom I just saw in The Agency, the CIA in London series which I reviewed the first three episodes of here), Cate Blanchett (who starred in lots of great movies and series, including recently Disclaimer, a brilliant literary psychological drama which I reviewed here), and Pierce Brosnan (formerly Remington Steele and James Bond, of course, currently starring in Mobland (giving a tour-de-force performance as a gang boss; I'll be reviewing it after its finale next week, but I can tell you now that it has one of the best theme songs I've heard in many a year).

Black Bag actually has some music running through it, too.  It has some action, but most of the time it's more a chess-piece cosy that Agatha Christie would have appreciated.  It also, like The Agency, flaunts the very best of current and possibly imagined AI and digital media in the spy-craft it details.  But its best feature is Fassbender's George and Blanchette's Kathryn as a loving couple who are likely good guys, and the rest of George's team, evenly matched between men and women who are also romantically involved in one way or another.

If I had a complaint, it probably would be that the narrative resolved itself a little too quickly, and may have played better as a limited series of three or four episodes.  Also, the villain was not as ingenuously concealed as in Agatha Christie's work, and maybe more time for that story to spool out would have been helpful too.

But the mix of espionage and romance worked well, and one advantage of a movie over a TV series is that you're not investing as much time in watching a movie as you would a series, so the movie's lack of perfection is less objectionable.

The Perfect Couple: The Perfect Series

So, the family and I spend a lot of time on Cape Cod, and have been loving it for decades.  The Perfect Couple takes place in nearby Nantucket, and the shots of the water and the sand and those wind-blown weathered wooden fences look so much like those on the Cape I felt like I was back there again, and it was still the summer.  Hey, for all I know, those scenes were shot on the Cape.  How could I not love this series?

And the lead actors, Nicole Kidman as Greer and Liev Schreiber as her husband Tag, top-notch any time, were especially outstanding in this scenic murder mystery adapted from Elin Hilderbrand's novel (which I haven't read), so well plotted, with so many nearly convincing suspects, that this novel could have been written by Agatha Christie.

The supporting actors, most of who I haven't seen on the screen before, were excellent as well.  Here are some of my favorite scenes and characters:

[And there may be spoilers ahead ...]

• Eve Hewson as Amelia Sacks, half of the imperfect couple, was perfectly convincing in her combination of almost sultry and deeply vulnerable.
• Schreiber as Tag, when he tells Merritt (pregnant with his baby) that having a baby is the most beautiful thing a man and woman can do, as prelude to his telling her he doesn't want her to have it, is a truly memorable scene of repulsive personal betrayal.  Schreiber as Tag is also noteworthy when he bursts in and deconstructs Greer's book launch.  (Greer being an author is something else I identified with -- here's a video of my most recent event. Note a bit of the tribulations at the end of the introduction.)
• I also got a kick out of Donna Lynne Champlin's gruff, Rosie O'Donnell kind of police detective, and her interaction with Michael Beach (whom I have seen a lot of over the years) as her de facto partner in the murder investigation was a fine piece of police repartee.
• Ishaan Khatter as Shooter Dival was the most tempting of the false leads (he wasn't the shooter and indeed the murder victim wasn't shot), and his relationship with Amelia gave rise to one of the best lines in the series, "the girl on the B train," which come to think of it would make a good title for any novel, short story, movie, or TV series (Irwin Shaw certainly would've liked it).
  
• Back to Dan Carter, my favorite relationship in the series -- maybe the closest to the perfect couple -- was Carter's daughter Chloe (not Zoey!) and her shared feelings with Will, the youngest Winbury. After she's told by her father to stay away from Will -- Dan's understandably worried that the Winbury family is connected to the murder -- she leaves Will a note on a napkin, "you're cute". Hey, a little sweetness goes a long way in a story like this. (Will is also key to figuring out who the killer is, but I'm not going to drop any more spoilers.)

Anyway, I defy anyone who hasn't read the book to identify the killer before the ending, and I highly recommend this Netflix short series, especially if you've just returned from Cape Cod to the big city and its B train.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery: Hercule Poirot and Elon Musk

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was even funnier and more fun than Knives Out, which was plenty funny and fun.  Plus, Glass Onion was just brimming with social relevance, extending its satire of Agatha Christie to our real world at large.  All to the good -- given what our real world is like, we could use all the satire we can get our eyes and ears on.

[Spoilers ahead ...]

COVID is the first real calamity to receive this treatment.  I certainly wouldn't want to see an entire movie lampooning anything about the pandemic -- it's no laughing matter -- but the start-up of Glass Onion with the masks and the protective blast to the throat was just right.

Elon Musk, on the other hand, deserves all the satire anyone can lob at him.  And Miles Bron, who turns out to be the villain of the story, surely has elements of Musk, hawking a scientific miracle energy breakthrough, flaunting his billionaire wealth, and all the rest.  Social media in general get a good ribbing in this movie, too,

The acting was great.  Daniel Craig (as sleuth Benoit Black) and Ed Norton (as Miles Bron) have never given anything less than a top performance, at least as far as I know.  And the supporting cast were in fine form, too.  For some reason, my favorite was Madelyn Cline as Whiskey (hey, she was excellent in Outer Banks, too).

Of course, in a satire whodunnit, the mystery plot has to be tight and well resolved.  I won't give everything away, on the slim chance that you're reading this and haven't already seen Glass Onion.  But I will say Hercule Poirot would've approved.

Oh, and the music was good, too!  "Glass Onion" is always a pleasure to hear.  And it sounded fantastic at the end of this movie.  I'm thinking the producers of the movie did to the sound what Peter Jackson did for the Beatles in Get Back -- the Beatles never sounded better!

And while we're on the subject of music in this movie, Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa" gets that same -- let's call it Peter Jackson -- treatment. Cole's uniquely warm voice, like "chestnuts roasting on an open fire," sounds like it's in the same room with us. Mona Lisa -- the Leonardo da Vinci painting -- makes a major appearance in the movie, a symbol of Bron's boastful greed -- as does an acoustic guitar alleged to be Paul McCartney's, which Bron strums for "Blackbird" to impress his guests. 

Okay, this review is about a movie, not its music, but as long as I'm into it, the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" sounded crystal clear beautiful, too, as did David Bowie's "Starman" (his "Star" is in Glass Onion, too, but I always liked "Starman" much more). And one last point, promise, about this music: it was fun to hear Toots and the Maytals sing "Take Me Home, Country Roads," but yeah, it made me wish I was hearing John Denver singing his song with co-writers Taffy Nivert and Bill Danoffin this supersonic mix. 

 All credit goes to Rian Johnson, who not only selected the songs, but wrote and directed this gem of a movie.

not the least bit funny ... well, maybe a little

alternate reality about The Beatles on Amazon, and  FREE on Vocal

The Pale Horse: The Rational Twist

Good to see the versatile Rufus Sewell in The Pale Horse, a two-episode mini-series adaption of Agatha Christie's 1961 novel of the same name.

Agatha Christie is of course known for her cosy British detective stories, and The Pale Horse at first and even continuing glance seems something else.  Mark Easterbrook (played by Sewell) finds himself on a list of people who died, and who, apparently are due to die, after he wakes up next to a dead redhead he slept with.   It seems, at first, that a witches coven is responsible for this lethal mischief.

But, have no fear, Christie is a rational being, just as Easterbrook professes to be, and provides a perfectly logical, non-supernatural explanation for what happened and what is going on, at the end.  Sewell provides a great performance of Easterbrook's tormented evolution along the way, and the end, like conclusions of all excellent mysteries, provides culprits and villains who were hiding in plain sight but seem perfectly plausible in retrospect.

I do wonder, though, why this Pale Horse was presented as a two-part mini-series?  Why not just a one-part movie, or stretch out the story to make it a three- or four-part little series?  But, hey, those kinds of divisional choices have no impact on the plot and performances (also good to see Kaya Scodelario, from the unfortunately not renewed Spinning Out, as Easterbrook's second wife Hermia) and The Pale Horse, especially with its twist that it's all-too-natural murder not supernatural witchcraft that moves the pieces, is wholeheartedly welcome viewing.

Unforgotten Seasons 1 and 2: Memorable

Tina and I just finished binging the first two seasons of Unforgotten on Amazon Prime - via ITV in the UK, where it originated, and PBS in America, earlier this year.  The first season was good.  The second was superb - a police investigation of a complicated case with even more complex moral terrain that offers ethics at its best as an ending.

The premise of the series is something we've seen a lot of on UK television - cold cases, that is, crimes, usually murders, that are re-opened, usually due to discovery of some human bones in a construction site or some other likely or unlikely place.  Indeed, Trevor Eve, who did such a great job in Waking the Dead (2000-2011) as DS Peter Boyd in investigating long dead cases, does a fine job in a very different role the first season of Unforgotten.

The star of both seasons, though, is is Nicola Walker.  We first noticed her in MI-5 (Spooks in the UK), where she was a perfect partner for Harry Pearce in more than one way.  Walker projects a keen intelligence, deep compassion, and moral intensity in both of her characters.   But in Unforgotten, she's in a more-or-less commanding position as DCI Cassie Stuart, or in a position to make her moral choices count.  Meanwhile, she lives with her father and teenage son, both of whom have minds of their own.

Sanjeev Bhaskar is her partner, DS Sunny Kahn.  Despite his name, he can be a little too serious at times, but that makes his smiles and his own humanity even more appealing.   In the second series,  Cassie cracks a baffling case - she no doubt read Agatha Christie (I'll say no more) - but the real payoff comes when she, with Sunny's concurrence, decide what to do about it.

Kudos to Chris Lang who wrote this.  There's been a third series in the UK that has not yet made it across the Atlantic, and a fourth series green lit.  My advice: see them all.

Big Little Lies as of 1.5: Multivalent WhoDunnit

Big Little Lies, as of its fifth episode on HBO this past Sunday evening, continues to be one of the most unusual, provocative, appealing, and original shows on television - continuing to demonstrate that HBO has a unique beat on television, that you find nowhere else.

At this point, we still don't who the killer or the victim is.   In fact, just about everyone has a motive for killing someone, not just Jane, whom we saw in close enough proximity to the man who raped her and fathered her child that she might well have killed him, off camera at this point.  The multiplicity of suspects makes Big Little Lies somewhat akin to a classic Agatha Christie story, except the suspects are suspect for different potential victims, and, again, we don't yet even know who the victim is.

Perry and Celeste, for example, could each easily be the killer of the other - Perry because he's a keg of violence on a short fuse, Celeste to defend herself against one of Perry's assaults.   And, while we're on anger, Renata has plenty of it - justified insofar as her daughter is being bullied and bitten - but likely directed at the wrong person, Jane, which gives Renata a motive and again Jane in defense of herself or her boy.

Madeline and Ed seem to be most peaceful, but even they have the potential to murder.  Ed is already suspicious that Madeline has been having an affair, and there's no telling what he might do if he sees and finds out more.  And Madeline - well, in some ways, she's the most fascinating character on the show.  Superficially, she's the most by-the-book and conventional of the women.  But she has a wild side, and a propensity to express it, as whens she admits to grabbing Joseph's "ass" - prelude, in effect, to their car crash.

And the acting that animates this complex story is, as I said in my previous review, just all around superb.  Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Shailene Woodley could and should each get Emmys for their performances, and Laura Dern, too, for supporting actress.  And the men are putting in memorable performances, as well, with the less time they have on screen.

Speaking of less, my only regret, as I often say about these short series on HBO and elsewhere, is that they're short.   Let's hope there's at very least a second season.

See also Big Little Lies: Big Good, Truly

The Hateful Eight: Reservoir Dogs meet Agatha Christie Out West

I saw The Hateful Eight in New York at my son's invitation tonight, completely different from The Magnificent Seven, as the name suggests, and like all Quentin Tarantino movies, not without flaws, but deeply memorable - and highly enjoyable.

Indeed, The Hateful Eight comes closest to recapturing some of the pattern of Reservoir Dogs, which I still consider Tarantino's masterpiece and best movie.   An ensemble of characters with quirks and patter written by a Shakespeare of the clever line, which is what Tarantino is.   And the plot is pretty good, too.   Since I'll keep this review spoiler free, I won't say much about the whodunit, except that the solution is analogous to the misdirection and ensemble cast we find in some of Agatha Christie's best works.

We saw the movie in 70 mm (wide-screen high-resolution format) - a "special roadshow engagement," as the glossy program which was handed out tells us.   This is a bygone kind of movie making with long screens - employed in Ben Hur, for example - and especially suitable for a stage coach trying to outrun an impending blizzard in the beautifully desolate Wyoming landscape a few years after the Civil War.  Except - well, there was maybe about 10 minutes of the stage coach, total, in the three-hour movie (with an intermission), the rest of which mostly takes place in a single room (which was wide, however, with important characters at the edges).   Indeed, The Hateful Eight could easily have been a play on a stage, and maybe someday it will.   It would certainly work on television, even the old square-screen kind, and at one point in the movie Tarantino even seems to make this very point, by giving us a scene seen through an open barn door, a square image on the wide screen.

Ennio Morricone wrote the score - he's 87 now, and has all the talent he had when he wrote the score for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly released in 1966, except there wasn't much good, but plenty of bad-ass and ugly in The Hateful Eight.   Tarantino, in an especially cool touch, begins the movie with a three-minute overture from Morricone.

The actors and characters are all vintage Tarantino, which is to say excellent and welcome.   Some of the acting talent - such as Tim Roth and Michael Madsen - reaches back to Reservoir Dogs.   Samuel Jackson who was so iconic in Pulp Fiction plays a major role (the last chapter of The Hateful Eight - yeah, it has chapters - is entitled "Black Man, White Hell").  Kurt Russell, who in addition to an award-winning career appeared in a few less-renown Tarantino movies a few years ago,  puts in a suitably stalwart performance. And Walton Goggins, unforgettable in his television roles in The Shield and Justify, and a Django alumnus, is on hand with his patented delivery, too.  Tarantino newbies Bruce Dern, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Demián Bichir (who was so effective in Weeds and The Bridge on television) complete the hateful eight nicely (well, "nice" might not be the best word here, especially for Leigh's character, who barely has a scene without blood on her face).

There are inevitable plot holes, characters realizing things a little too quickly, but that's a small quibble about a fine movie - the "8th Film by Quentin Tarantino," as he bills The Hateful Eight - but not hateful at all, except for maybe one or two scenes, and among the best we've seen from Tarantino in the past few decades.

===
Here is my brief list of things I wasn't thrilled about in the movie - with spoilers.

The Affair Season 2 Finale: No One's Fault

A stunningly good finale to season 2 of The Affair on Showtime tonight, in which we finally find out who killed Scotty and--  [big spoilers ahead]

Like in an Agatha Christie novel - such as Murder on the Orient Express - it turns out that Scotty died from more than one hand.  But unlike in Agatha Christie, none of perpetrators intended to hurt Scotty, and his death was really none of their faults.

Alison pushes Scotty out into the road, where he's hit by the car.  But she's doing this to fight Scotty off, as he's trying have unconsensual sex with her, i.e., rape her.

Helen, drunk, is the driver.  But she didn't want to be driving in that condition - she was driving only because Noah, also drunk, gave her no choice.  And even if she had been cold sober, there was no likely way she could have swerved out of the way and not hit Scotty, given that he was pushed right in front of the car.

We finally learn the meaning of what Noah has been seeing in his dreams or visions all season: he was been seeing Alison on the road, because he in fact saw her there on that fateful evening.

Noah's character is also handled exceedingly well.  For most of the season and most of tonight, he was a selfish, not very sympathetic character.  But in the last scene, forced to choose between Helen the mother of  his children and Alison not the mother of his daughter but someone he nonetheless truly loves, he chooses to save them both, and confess to a crime he didn't commit.

Earlier, in his 30-minute story, he's furious at Alison about her sleeping with Cole, the height of hypocrisy, given that he twice was on the verge of sleeping with his pretty publicist - and didn't only because she pulled back the first time and Noah encountered his daughter the second time.

But you couldn't ask for a better redemption than we saw at the end tonight, and I'm looking forward to season 3 next year, in this drama that is unique on television.

PS - One final point: Scotty deserves a big round applause for his rendition of "House of the Rising Sun," a powerful swan song for his character.

See also The Affair 2.1: Advances ... The Affair 2.2: Loving a Writer ... The Affair 2.3: The Half-Wolf ... The Affair 2.4: Helen at Distraction ... The Affair 2.5: Golden Cole ... The Affair 2.6: The End (of Noah's Novel) ... The Affair 2.7: Stunner ... The Affair 2.8: The Reading, the Review, the Prize ...The Affair 2.9: Nameless Hurricane ... The Affair 2.10: Meets In Treatment ... The Affair 2.11: Alison and Cole in Business

And see also The Affair Premiere: Sneak Preview Review ... The Affair 1.2: Time Travel! ... The Affair 1.3: The Agent and the Sleepers ... The Affair 1.4: Come Together ... The Affair 1.5: Alison's Episode ... The Affair 1.6: Drugs and Vision ... The Affair 1.7: True Confessions ... The Affair 1.8: "I Love You / I Love You, Too" ... The Affair 1.9: Who Else on the Train? ... The Affair Season 1 Finale: The Arrest and the Rest

podcast review of every 2nd season episode


podcast review of every 1st season episode

the Sierra Waters time-travel trilogy

Bones Season 9 Finale: Upping the Ante

Bones outdid itself in tonight's Season 9 finale, with an episode that indeed changes everything, as the producers promised, and was one of the most exciting hours in the history of the series, too.

Bones bursting in and saving Booth with her gun was one of the all-time best scenes in the series, period.  And Booth and Bones taken into custody in the hospital was one for the books, too.   More on that - and the government conspiracy - in a moment.

First, I'm wondering why Booth didn't even make an attempt to get some military buddies into his fight with the Delta Force commandos sent to kill him.  I get completely why he didn't want Bones there, and Sweets wouldn't have lasted a minute, but surely he had some people with military prowess in the Washington area that he trusted and could call upon.

As to the FBI and the conspiracy within our government, this is indeed a new and powerful tack for the series.   Hunting down brilliant serial killers, including even one who was their intern at the beginning of the series, is one thing.   Fighting against our government itself is quite another, and moves Bones into Bourne Conspiracy territory - or the show I'm going to watch right after I post this review, 24.

And I have sadly have little trouble believing that the FBI and our government could have within it some cowards, like Booth's superior, or people engaged in much worse.   As Occupy Wall Street and the police response to it demonstrated, our law enforcement all too often steps on the lawful activity of citizens.

Agatha Christie mined this theme very well in The Secret Adversary nearly a hundred years ago (1922), and it's great to see Bones go in that direction now.   I'll be back here in the Fall, when the premiere episode of the 10th season continues the story begun tonight.


See also Bones 9.1: The Sweet Misery of Love ... Bones 9.2: Bobcat, Identity Theft, and Sweets ... Bones 9.3 and NCIS 11.2: Sweets and Ziva ... Bones 9.4: Metaphysics of Death in a Television Series ... Bones 9.5: Val and Deep Blue ... Bones 9.6: The Wedding ... Bones 9.7: Watch Out, Buenos Aires ...Bones 9.8: The Bug in the Neck ... Bones 9.9: Friday Night Bones in the Courtroom ... Bones 9.10: Horse Pucky ... Bones 9.11: Angels in Equations ... Bones 9.12: Fingernails ... Bones 9.13: Meets Nashville, and Wendell ... Bones 9.14: "You Cannot Drink Your Glass Away" ... Bones 9.15: Hodgins' Brother and the Ripped Off Toe ... Bones 9.16: Lampreys, Professors, and Insurance Companies ... Bones 9.17: Spartacus in the Kitchen ... Bones 9.18: Meets Day of the Triffids ... Bones 9.19: The Cornucopic Urn ... Bones 9.20: Above the Law ... Bones 9.21: Freezing and Thawing ... Bones 9.22: Promotion ... Bones 9.23: The New Intern

And see also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera ... Bones 8.10-11: Double Bones ...Bones 8.12: Face of Enigmatic Evil ... Bones 8.13: Two for the Price of One ... Bones 8.14: Real Life ... Bones 8.15: The Magic Bullet and the Be-Spontaneous Paradox ... Bones 8.16: Bitter-Sweet Sweets and Honest Finn ... Bones 8.17: "Not Time Share, Time Travel" ... Bones 8.18: Couples ... Bones 8.19: The Head in the Toilet ... Bones 8.20: On Camera ... Bones 8.21: Christine, Hot Sauce, and the Judge ... Bones 8.22: Musical-Chair Parents ... Bones 8.23: The Bluff ... Bones Season 8 Finale: Can't Buy the Last Few Minutes

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And 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 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

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

#SFWApro



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The Good Wife 3.13 meets Murder on the Orient Express

A good Good Wife 3.13 last night, in which the standalone part of the story concerns the Feds - in the person of Bob Balaban's well-played taxman - go after the creator of Bitcoin, on account of its being an allegedly illegal currency.

Bitcoin, in our real world (i.e., off the television drama), is a real online currency - much like the Linden dollar in Second Life, except that people can use Bitcoin money to buy real things anywhere online (not just in-world with the Linden dollar in Second Life), if the seller is willing to accept that kind of payment.  Still in our real reality, we think we know who created Bitcoin, but there may be some pseudonymity involved.

Back on The Good Wife, Alicia and the firm are defending Bitcoin's lawyer, who may or may not be the creator about whom he the lawyer is prevented from discussing, owing to attorney-client privilege.  There are two other suspects for creator, and some typically brilliant investigation by Kalinda uncovers the truth:  all three have in fact created/marketed Bitcoin.  Reminded me of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, where the murderer turns out to be everyone of the train with a motive.

Moving over to the continuing story, it turns out that Will may be a little vulnerable - though not really guilty of any wrongdoing - after all.   He lets Kalinda take charge of the touchy paperwork, to do what - destroy it?   All we know if she hands something that looks like those files over to Assistant DA Dana Lodge (played by Lie to Me's Monica Raymund), who's in possession of the document unknowingly signed by Alicia last week, when she was set up by David Lee in the alienation of affection case.  It could be enough to get Alicia disbarred.  Dana's happy to use this to blackmail Kalinda.

It's certainly enough for me to look more forward than ever to the next episode.

See also The Good Wife 3.1: Recusal and Rosh Hashanah ... The Good Wife: 3.2: Periwigs and Skype ... The Good Wife 3.7: Peter v. Will ...  Dexter's Sister on The Good Wife 3.10  ... The Good Wife 3.12: Two Suits

And 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 ... The Good Wife 2.9 Takes on Capital Punishment ... The Good Wife 2.16: Information Wars

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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 L Word Meets Agatha Christie

Just two more upcoming episodes of The L Word - this week and next, on Showtime - so I thought I'd check in with another update.

The central story line in this last season is who killed Jenny - found floating in the pool, in classic hot 1940s Hollywood style, in the first scene of the first episode this year. As the season has unfolded, it's becoming clear that just about everyone and their grandmother has a reason to hate and kill Jenny. She shoots her mouth off to Helena's new love, and may have ruined it for her. She steals Alice's treatment, and sells it as a script for half a million dollars - I'll get back to that in a minute.

But, first, when you have a murder, and everyone has a motive, I can't help thinking like Agatha Christie that everyone's the murderer. That would be a satisfying ending - much as I can't quite see Tina and Bette joining in on any killing (but it's not impossible). The other possibility is Jenny killed herself. If I had to bet, I'd put my money on that...

But speaking of money, and back to Alice, I can't buy that Alice didn't go even more ballistic when she found out that Jenny stole and made a cool half mil on Alice's idea. Why didn't she call a lawyer? For that matter, how come Tina, who's in the business, didn't get a little more upset and involved in this, too? The same for Bette. Everyone reacts, a little, but no one goes really crazy, and no one does anything to help Alice.

I'll be looking forward to see how this all plays out in the final two episodes - and will miss The L Word when it's over.

See also The L-Word Returns for Final, Saucy Season