Ray Donovan 2.1: Back in Business

The key to understanding Ray Donovan is that he can handle more crises in a day than most mortals could deal with a week or a month.   In last night's season two premiere, he puts out or contains fires regarding each of his kids, gets a client in a position to win a major television talent contest after she's been wounded by a bullet, and manages to find his irrepressible father in Mexico.   Ray usually does this with only a scratch or three to show for it, and as long as he can get his hands on a new shirt to replace the one he has which has blood on it - usually not his - he's in business.

Last season - two weeks ago in narrative time - Mickey killed Sully, the White Bulger-like character brilliantly played by James Woods, and to get out of being nabbed by the law for this now, Ray has to pin it on his father. Actually, all of the roles are brilliantly played in this series, including the tour-de-force performance of Liev Schreiber as Ray, and especially Jon Voight as Ray's father Mickey, which may be the best acting of Voight's career, with the possible exception of Midnight Cowboy.  In Ray Donovan, Voight pulls off a remarkable performance of a character who is both lovable and despicable at almost the same time.   Indeed, in 2.1, we see these traits in evidence at precisely the same time, as Mickey supports his son Darryl in the ring (having previously welcomed him with open arms as a son), roots his heart out for him, and then collects money he made on betting against him.  A father from hell and heaven at the same time.

Ray has been much more in touch with the hell than the heaven part of Mickey, and their unresolved -to say the last - relationship is at the heart of the series.   Ray has actually been moved a tiny way towards the positive side of this ledger, apparently not wanting to kill Mickey just now, and needing him to take the fall - again - for Ray.   Everyone else in the family - Ray's wife and two kids, as well as his three brothers - are in Mickey's corner, more or less, though Darryl is now moving into an alliance with Ray contra Mickey after seeing his father raking in money for Darryl's loss as he's on the floor of the ring.

This is not only Irish family narrative but television at its best, and it's good indeed to see Ray Donovan back on the air.

See also Ray Donovan Debuts with Originality and Flair ... Ray Donovan 1.2: His Assistants and his Family ... Ray Donovan 1.3: Mickey ... Ray Donovan 1.7 and Whitey Bulger ... Ray Donovan 1.8: Poetry and Death ... Ray Donovan Season 1 Finale: The Beginning of Redemption

 


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The Civil Rights of Robots

Hey, if you're in the New York City area, I'll be on a panel tomorrow at New York Comic Con, 5:15-6:15pm , talking about the civil rights of robots. The panel will be previewing The Science Channel's new FUTURESCAPE series, with James Woods hosting like a 21st-century Rod Serling.  More details here.

I first wrote about the civil rights of robots in a little article for Shift Magazine - the Canadian Wired - back in 1998.  An expanded version of the article was published in my Bestseller anthology in 1999.

A succinct version of the almost paradoxical situation our increasing perfection of robots brings us to: We invent robots to be our servants -- to do dangerous or tedious jobs that we would rather not do. We try to make them more and more intelligent, so they do their jobs better. What happens when we make our robots so intelligent that they are sentient beings? Are we morally entitled to continue treating them as slaves? Or will our future robots be entitled to civil rights?

Robots as citizens will be one of the episodes of FUTURESCAPE, which will debut on The Science Channel on November 19, 2013.  I've seen clips from the episodes, and they're excellent!  You'll be able to see some of them tomorrow.







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Ray Donovan Season 1 Finale: The Beginning of Redemption

An altogether fine and satisfying season 1 finale of Ray Donovan last night, wrapping up lots of loose ends in this strange, twisted, compellingly human yarn.

Ray finally confronts Mickey about what we guessed before and knew for a fact last week:  Ray was molested by Fr. O'Connor, and his rage at Mickey derived from Mickey's beating Ray when Ray the 10-year old told Mickey, and received a beating in response.  That plus Mickey doing nothing when O'Connor did the same to Bunch.   That sort of anger could not be assuaged even when Mickey spent years in prison.  It all made sense.

But neither did Jon Voight's leaving the show with his stunning portrayal of Mickey.  Though everyone acted superbly in this series, it was the oldsters - Voight, Elliot Gould, and recently James Woods - who really stole the show.  And Mickey's shot at redemption with Ray became clear as soon we saw him walking with Sully.

In itself, Mickey's killing of Sully - his saving of Ray's life, especially in jeopardy since Avi was down - won't immediately change much.  Ray's hatred of his father is real and remains.  But the killing of Sully is the first thing that Mickey did which can begin to tip the balance the other way.   It will be a difficult joy but a big joy nonetheless next season to see just how this progresses.

The last scene on the beach could have been out of a movie rather than television, because it was that good.   Ray, finally able to respond to Abby's loving request to come home, asleep on the beach chair, the kids in chairs right there, Abby moving to Ray's chair, lying beside him ... and Ray putting his arm around her.  It was a piece of pure poetry, in a series with blood more prominent than poetry, but with the poetry always there and now at last out in the open - at least for this day.

See also Ray Donovan Debuts with Originality and Flair ... Ray Donovan 1.2: His Assistants and his Family ... Ray Donovan 1.3: Mickey ... Ray Donovan 1.7 and Whitey Bulger ... Ray Donovan 1.8: Poetry and Death

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Ray Donovan 1.7 and Whitey Bulger

Just as Showtime's Ray Donovan is really picking up steam, the Whitey Bulger trial in Boston comes to a head with a verdict.   Showtime must be delighted with the coincidence - it almost makes up for the Showtime (Viacom-CBS) dispute with Time Warner which has deprived New York City viewers of Ray Donovan, Dexter, and much more.  On that issue, I say a pox on both your houses - Viacom and Time Warner, you both are worth billions, give the viewers a break, one or both of you accept a little less, and get on with it.  (See my comments on this in The Christian Science Monitor.)  But I digress--

The oldsters on Ray Donovan have been stealing the show from the beginning, even though Liev Schreiber as Ray has been superb, and the rest of the cast has been outstanding, too.  But Elliot Gould as Ezra dominates every scene he's in with his old Jewish delivery, and Jon Voight as Mickey lights up the series with one of the best performances of his long career.

I've long been a James Woods fan, and have not been disappointed with his characteristically quirky, powerful performance as Sully.  Usually Woods plays a somewhat good guy with a big edge of evil - think of his riveting performance in The Specialist (1994 movie) or his Roy Cohn role Citizen Cohn (1992 movie) - but as Sully he reverses that with a dollop of good amidst a fundamentally evil man.

Just as dogs played a role in Bulger and his girlfriend's relationship, so does a dog figure in Sully and his wife's daily life - as she points out, only Sully can get their pooch to go.  But this same Sully who has a way with animals is Ray's go-to man for the murder of Mickey.  Bulger is said to have been the template for the Frank Costello character (played by Jack Nicholson) in The Departed, but he surely was the inspiration for Sully, too, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Woods play that out.

And where does this leave us regarding Ray?  Abby says for the first time that Ray hates Mickey because Mickey killed Ray's girlfriend - that would be why Ray was happy to have Mickey take the fall for the killing that Sean Stevens did - but it's hard to believe that Ray didn't kill Mickey immediately after Mickey killed Ray's girlfriend (if indeed Mickey did).  This leaves Ray's ultimate motivation and hated of Mickey still in question, and we may well not find out much more about that this season.

But that's ok.  Ray Donovan, whatever exactly that show is, is clearly a series that bears many years of viewing.

See also Ray Donovan Debuts with Originality and Flair ... Ray Donovan 1.2: His Assistants and his Family ... Ray Donovan 1.3: Mickey

 


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