The Waterfront: Emmy-Worthy Star Power and Hard-Hitting Story

Animal Kingdom, originally on TNT (now on Netflix), is easily in the Top 10 of all-time best television dramas.  Jake Weary as Deran was one of the reasons, and for that reason alone, my wife and I had to watch The Waterfront, also on Netflix and no doubt the reason that Animal Kingdom is now there as well.  But Holt McCallany from Lights Out and Topher Grace in anything were other good reasons, and the acting in The Waterfront is first class all the way.

[Spoilers ahead ...]

And the plot is compelling, often thrilling and surprising, too.  McCallany's Harlan Buckley is head of a North Carolina family fishing business that's declining, in part because because Harlan has pulled it away from the lucrative smuggling that the business used to abet, after his father who was deeply involved in the smuggling part of the fishery was murdered. Weary's Cane is Harlan's son, who has gotten the business back into smuggling, on a hopefully temporary basis, to get the business to make ends meet -- actually, to avoid a looming foreclosure -- until the fishing can get the company back on its feet.

Meanwhile, Topher Grace gives a tour-de-force performance as an au-currant, fast-talking, veering on demented new drug-smuggling lord.  He's the most potent danger to the Buckley hegemony, but they're also beset by other criminals, the DEA, and discord in the family, which includes Melissa Benoist as Cane's sister Bree, and Maria Bello as Harlan's wife, who is also trying to save the business.

After a relatively slow, talky start in the first episode (at least to me), The Waterfront takes off with a series of surprises and twists, which arrive like gut punches which leave you black and blue and wanting for more. Highly recommended, hats off to creator Kevin Williamson, and if you're ever in North Carolina visit the Fishy Fishy Cafe, which apparently was the template for the Buckley fish restaurant.

Mindhunter 2: Riveting Nonfiction vs. Fiction

My wife and I very much enjoyed the first season of Mindhunter, but, whew, the second season was much better - more compelling - in just about every way, except one.

Among the highlights were interviews with the Son of Sam and Charles Manson. Having seen Once Upon a Time in Hollywood a few weeks ago, the Manson interview, and a bit later, disciple Tex, one of the actual killers, was especially riveting.   And the long harrowing story of the Atlanta Child Murders, culminating with the arrest and conviction of Wayne Williams for just two out of most of 28+ which he likely committed, was a masterpiece in itself.

The one part I didn't care for was the story of Brian, Bill Tench's son, who witnesses the murder of a little child, tries to revive the child by placing him on a crucifix (at least, that's the best interpretation his parents can make of this), and is profoundly traumatized by all of this.  I guess the creators of Mindhunter thought that putting the senior FBI hunter in this situation - his son may be on the way to becoming a sicko killer - made for a powerful narrative.  I thought it was mostly distracting.

Mindhunter is based on real characters, but is not even docudrama-level true, given that, unlike the serial killers, the main BSU players were not actual people.  This in some ways was a good move, since it allows for intriguing developments of the characters that may or may not have actually happened at the FBI.  Dr. Wendy Carr's (Anna Torv) love life would be an example of this strategy working well.

But the time given to Brian's story, making it almost a counterpoint to the unfolding Atlanta story, was just too much.  Yes, it had the advantage of keeping Tench (brilliantly played by Holt McCallany), away from Atlanta much more than he wanted. but surely some other development could have done the same thing.   The problem with Brian's story is that its emotional intensity was so strong that it sapped energy from the intense Atlanta story.   In effect, what you have is complete fiction (Brian's story) competing with fact-based historical narrative (Atlanta).  Given that the strong suit of Mindhunter its reflection of the reality of the BSU and its revolutionary way of apprehending serial killers, to water that down with a big fictitious story makes not much sense.  (See The Wrap - which liked the Brian story - for research that it is fictitious.)

But ... the rest of Mindhunter was so outstanding that my wife and I will be sure to watch its season 3, which has yet to be announced.   It will be something to see Holden Ford's (Jonathan Groff) astonishing mind bring down the BTK killer and who knows who else.

See also Mindhunter: Best of Its Kind

 

Mindhunter: Best of its Kind

Imagine Criminal Minds - which my wife and I watched a lot of, but stopped, a year or two ago - as you might have wanted it to be: sharper intellectual focus, honest language, real serial killers, deeper character development, nudity when called for but actually no scenes of torture or murder - and you have Mindhunter, a 10-episode season (which I hope is the first) on Netflix.  In other words, a show about the BAU, but at its inception in the late 1970s, and unencumbered by the limitations and ticks of network TV.

Mindhunter is produced by House of Cards producer David Fincher, and unsurprisingly has such deft touches as subtitles when a couple are having a key conversation in a noisy bar, and the first mention I've ever heard (twice in Mindhunter) of Erving Goffman, a pathbreaking sociologist from the 1950s and 1960s who talked about the masks we all wear, and the difference between the front and back regions of our personas, or what we show to the world at large versus what we keep private to our families or closest relationships.

That high intellectual octane animates this whole series, and is brought to life by standout performances by Jonathan Groff as the young FBI agent Holden Ford trying to establish a science of understanding and even predicting psychos and sociopaths, and his older partner Bill Tench, played by Holt McCallany (Lights Out!), who pretty much supports what Holden is trying to do but is not entirely comfortable with his methods.   In this battle to establish a new, more effective, scientifically grounded method of identifying and stopping serial killers, Mindhunter also bears strong resemblances to the recently aired and excellent Manhunt: Unabomber series (and there's a lot of Jim Fitzgerald who in reality broke the Unabomber case in the fictional Holden Ford), and even a little of Masters of Sex, which I was sorry to see cancelled.

As a special treat, Mindhunter has Fringe's Anna Torv as a sociologist who joins the team.  She provides one of the Goffman references, and Holden's girlfriend, well-played by Hannah Gross, doing graduate work in sociology, offers the other.  The serial killers, ranging from Richard Speck to Edmund Kemper, are truly chilling, and we get all this with words, not scenes of their horrific actions.

An old friend, photographer Emon Hassan, strongly recommended this series.  I'm doing to same to all of you.

 

It all started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ...