The Outsider 1.8: Two Monsters

So, if I'm understanding The Outsider correctly - as of episode 1.8 on this Sunday - we now have two monsters at large.  I don't mean the evil spirit and the person whose identity he/it takes.  I mean, we have Jack and now Claude, who now both seem afflicted by the evil.

Claude looks ok, even though he doesn't feel that great and has been seeing shadows or whatever lurking around.  The evil has its hooks in him, and indeed is transforming into him, to the point of almost kidnapping another child, this time a boy, in a truly harrowing interlude.

And then there's Jack, the guy with the bad neck.  As far as I can tell, he has no doppelganger, at least not yet.  But something is, almost literally, eating him up.  What's going on with that?

Meanwhile, Ralph is finally almost there, in accepting Holly's position.  She's still frustrated with him, but in every episode, he's coming closer to seeing the light, or maybe the true darkness would be the better metaphor for this.

The Outsider continues to be a highly effective, stylish horror story.  As I said in my review, it's what you'd expect from Stephen King (who wrote the novel) and Richard Price, who brought the story to the screen.  Both, in their own ways, are known for their surprise endings, or at least the unexpected.  I'm wondering that will be in The Outsider.  I'm guessing it's something that's been right under our noses all this time.  But this story is so different, in its flow and intensity, that all bets may be off about how it will conclude in just two more episodes.  All the more reason to watch them.

See also The Outsider 1.1-2:  Two Places at the Same Time ... The Outsider 1.7: The Tear-Drinker ... The Outsider 1.7: The Guy with the Neck

The Outsider 1.1-2: Two Places at the Same Time

What do you get when Stephen King writes the novel and Richard Price the screenplay?  You get a television series as slap-in-the-face riveting as it comes.  The first two episodes of The Outsider on HBO tonight were that and more.

Here's what we have so far, in terms of narrative.  A boy is brutally murdered.  The suspect's blood is on the victim, and reliable witnesses put him near the scene.  But a video shows him at an academic conference many miles away, and his fingerprints on a book he handled at the hotel where the conference took place are confirmed as his.  Too.

The "too" is the key and paradoxical point here.  There's an old Yiddish saying, with one tuchas you can't dance at two weddings.  In the supernatural police story that is The Outsider, Detective Anderson (perfectly played by Ben Mendelsohn whom I last saw in Bloodline) realizes that, of course, one person cannot be in two places at the same time - the same person can't have committed a horrible murder at the same time he was video-recorded at at academic conference miles away.

As an academic, I can testify that I've been to some conferences that are so boring as to be maddening.   But not to the point of making someone commit murder, and certainly not at a place miles away from the conference at the very same time.

So, what's going on?  Since Stephen King wrote the novel (which I haven't read), there has to be some kind of supernatural element.  We do see a person with a hood, standing at the edges of some of the tragedies.  We don't yet know what his story - assuming it's a "his" - is.  Maybe some spirit or monster than assumes the shape of an innocent person and employs that shape to commit murders?

I'm looking to seeing how this plays out, against the grit and dialogue that is itself a fine example of a film noir police procedural.

"Working with Marshall McLuhan" and Marilyn Monroe on The Deuce 1.7!

Just caught up with The Deuce 1.7 tonight - it was on HBO on Sunday - and was delighted to find it joined the eminent ranks of The Sopranos and Mad Men, with a reference to Marshall McLuhan!

It happened liked this ...

Candy (Maggie Gyllenhaal) working on a porn film with Harvey (David Krumholtz, who is getting to look a lot like Ron Jeremy) - actually, I guess you could say Candy is Assistant Director, or Assistant to the Director, I could never make sense out of those titles - buys a red bed cover, to replace the green one, which is making her "sea-sick," and may or may not be the underlying reason for the listless sex acting.

Krumholtz left, porn filmmaker Ron Jeremy right,  see what I mean?



Harvey asks Candy how much she paid for the "schmata" (inexplicably slightly but distinctly mispronounced, with no emphasis on the "schma") - but my ears perked up immediately, as they do anytime I hear Yiddish on a television show.

"Red is a horny color," Candy replies.  "you ever see a car ad?"

And Harvey comes back with "What, I am working with Marshall McLuhan?"

Now, that's not the best reference to McLuhan I ever heard - nothing about hot and cool, which would've worked well here - but, then, the references to McLuhan on The Sopranos and Mad Men were no great shakes, either.  And then there's this: The Deuce takes place in 1971, which is a little after McLuhan's heyday in the 1960s, and before he came back with the now classic appearance in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977), so would a porn film director really have come up that reference at that time? But, hey, I'm not complaining, I'm happy.

And The Deuce 1.7 was excellent in other ways, too, with Candy really beginning to make her mark (I was going to say, come into her own, but thought the better of it) as a porn director, and a surprise shooting (of a gun) which changes a lot of things.  And, as icing on the cake, Marilyn Monroe was mentioned in the episode (icing on the cake certainly for me, since my Marilyn and Monet was just published last week).

This is an excellent series, not surprising with David Simon, Richard Price, and George Pelecanos in creative production roles, and I'd be enjoying it even without the nudity and mentions of McLuhan and Marilyn.



here's a panel we did about Marshall McLuhan just last week - I
actually sing a few lines from a Paul McCartney song at 1hr 3min 32 sec

 
And here's my novelette just published about Marilyn Monroe -
which starts in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn walks off the set
of The Misfits and begins to hear a haunting song in her head,
"Goodbye Norma Jean" ..


See also The Deuce: NYC 1971 By Way of The Wire and Mad Men 1.6. The Medium is the Message! -- and Max & Domino for more on Marilyn


and, ok, you twisted my arm - here's a recent little
book I wrote about McLuhan

The Deuce: NYC 1971 by way of The Wire

I thought, what's not to like about The Deuce, a new series,  now four episodes along, on HBO?  David Simon and George Pelecanos, best known for The Wire (unarguably one of the best series ever on television) are producers and writers, as is Richard Price (author of the superb Bronx novel, The Wanderers, as well as The Night Of, last year on HBO).  The Deuce even has two great actors from The Wire - Gbenga Akinnagbe and Lawrence Gilliard Jr. - and a riveting storyline about prostitutes and porn back in 1971, with lots of skin in the story.

So what's not to like about The Deuce?  Absolutely nothing - meaning, it's another example of outstanding and unique television, as only HBO and sometimes Showtime, have been able to deliver.  For HBO, The Deuce is very much in The Sopranos, The Wire, and Treme lineage -- meaning, memorable characters, searing narrative, served up with vivid color and style.

Richard Price and his way with words is in evidence all over.  Barely a conversation goes by without an apt phrase and a ringing line.  Simon and Pelecanos come across with their keen eye for detail, as a character mentions Penny Lane as a good song, and the songs playing the background are always bang-on right for the time.  I walked down or close to those New York streets, and nothing in The Deuce looked out of place.

And the characters and their vectors and actors are real and rewarding, too.   Gbenga Akinnagbe portrays a pimp with heart, Gary Carr with maybe a little less kindness but more than enough swagger to make up for it.  Maggie Gyllenhaal is just right as an older prostitute who wants to be in show business aka the porn industry; Margarita Levieva is very appealing as an NYU student who drops out (where I was student just a few years later - too bad I missed her) and into porn or prostitution or maybe not, it's still too to tell; and Emily Meade as the ingenue hooker under C. C.'s thumb (played by Gary Carr) and more, as they may be falling in love, or at least something, is just perfect.

Yeah, and I haven't even mentioned James Franco, who plays a bartender turned bar owner with a heart of gold - with money put up by the mob (with boss played by Michael Rispoli, who played nearly the same role years ago on The Sopranos, but doesn't look a day older) - as well as a gambler twin brother who's not quite as golden, with his typical sensitivity and splash.

The upshot: I'm looking forward to watching The Deuce for a long time.

The Night Of #8: Fine Finale

Well, I've been saying all summer long that The Night Of couldn't just pull a killer out of a hat - couldn't make the killer someone we didn't see or know of until the very last episode - but the short series did just that tonight, and, you know what, it worked, and worked really well, just like the entire series.

In a story in which everyone was flawed, just about everyone, including some surprising characters, played a role in Naz's release.  Box was surprisingly dogged in pursuing who else might have killed Andrea with so much evidence against Naz. But Box's obsession with finding the real killer made perfect sense, given that he was retiring.  And it looked for a while as if his discovery would go for naught, that the mistrial for which the good guys had carefully laid the groundwork wouldn't happen after all.  But then came the biggest surprise of all.

The DA (and memorable acting by Jeannie Berlin), apparently unconvinced by Box's evidence and argument that the state was putting the wrong person on trial, was apparently shaken up and convinced enough anyway, to elect not to retry the case, after the jury was hung 6 to 6 on conviction vs. acquittal.

And that hung jury, in turn, was the result of Jack's brilliant closing for the defense - presented by someone whose main work, as we see again at the very end, was talking his clients into plea bargaining for the fee of $250.   And why was Jack not Chandra giving the summation?  Because she was sidelined by the judge, whose response to the video of her kissing Naz in prison was not to declare a mistrial but reprimand Chandra.   So in that indirect way, Chandra came through for Naz after all.

And she came through for him directly, too, in presenting strong arguments for reasonable doubt regarding the three suspects other than Naz.   She and Jack made a great team in the end, and I wouldn't mind at all if there was another season with a completely new story with those two once again acting for the defense against almost impossible odds.

The Night Of was a rare piece of surprising legal drama - rare because it was original and surprising in a genre that's been mined on television just about every year since Perry Mason back in the 1950s.
Plaudits to everyone concerned, including John Turturro whose acting is more peerless than ever, Amara Karan and lots of fine acting from people we haven't seen before, and a letter-perfect script by Richard Price.

See also The Day After The Night Of on HBO ... The Night Of #3: The Schlep vs. the Star ... The Night Of #4: Chandra To The Rescue ... The Night Of #6: Three Suspects ... The Night Of #7: The Kiss

The Night Of #7: The Kiss

Not much that we didn't already know in last night's penultimate The Night Of episode 7 on HBO, but it was a very satisfying episode, anyway, mainly because of the kiss between Naz and Chandra.

I don't know realistic that was - a lawyer kissing her client like that in a jail-cell visit - but it felt right and told us something important:  Chandra believes in Naz's innocence.  In fact, her statement of that is what leads to the kiss.  Not many other people share that belief.  Naz's mother apparently does not. Even Jack has made it clear, many times, that this is not about Naz's guilt or innocence, but about giving him a fair hearing.

Though it's not clear if Jack's thoughts have changed on this, especially given what he's been uncovering about the retiring Dt. Sgt. Box.  And Jack doesn't know the half of it, at this point.  What was it that we saw at the very beginning of last night's episode, and we saw nothing more of in the hour? Wasn't that Box on the scene of another murder, with a knife-riven body cut up a lot like Andrea's?  And when exactly did that take place - before or after Andrea's murder?

Meanwhile, as The Night Of has been doing in almost every episode, we get another little shot against Naz - he committed not one but two violent acts while in school.  But you know what?  I have confidence in Chandra, and her kissing Naz has now 100% convinced me of his innocence.  I think she's a good judge of human nature.   And there's that intelligent testimony that that Michael Baden-like coroner Dr. Katz gave on Naz's behalf on the stand.

But that, then, leaves us with who else?  I went over the three prime, non-Naz suspects last week.  I guess I'm hoping that it's Duane Reade, not because he seems more guilty than the others, but because it would be great to see Richard Price's little joke made even more memorable by Reade being the killer.  Price must have thinking, when he came up with this little gambit, that, hey, how many times, like in The Usual Suspects, do we see someone under questioning come up with a name that was on a nearby coffee cup or sign, so why not make it the suspect's or whoever's real name after all?   I have nothing at all against the drug store chain, but it would be cool if Duane Reade were the killer, after all.

Looking forward to finding our more about that next week.

See also The Day After The Night Of on HBO ... The Night Of #3: The Schlep vs. the Star ... The Night Of #4: Chandra To The Rescue ... The Night Of #6: Three Suspects

The Day After "The Night Of" on HBO

HBO continues to come up with surprisingly powerful programming - which is high praise indeed, since HBO has been offering surprisingly powerful series and documentaries in various forms for years.   Only Netflix has recently given HBO a run for its money, as Showtime has for a while, but HBO is still far ahead of the competition.   Consider, for example, The Night Of, a short series based on a British show, which debuted on HBO last night.

Did Naz do it?  Well, we don't know, and he doesn't know, either, given that he passed out and can't recall anything of what happened between the time he had sex with the beautiful Andrea, after he reluctantly stabbed her in the hand as per the game she insisted on playing, and he woke up to find her stabbed multiple times to death.   We do know he took lots of drugs - at Andrea's behest - and perhaps could have turned maniacally violent under their influence. On the other hand, he seems on the surface like the last person who would do something like this, and is genuinely horrified by what he saw and what he's now accused of doing.

That in itself is a pretty compelling set-up.  But The Night Of wraps this in a package in which every conceivable witness and piece of evidence that links Naz to the murder falls inexorably into the hands of the police.   And yet Naz almost walks out of that police station, in a first episode in which the slow-moving clockwork of police work at the beginning of an investigation almost allows him to escape, at least temporarily.   That vignette is one of the most memorable of its kind I've ever seen on television.

But if Naz didn't do it, who did?   Usually it's one of the witnesses, one of the people we've already come to know.   So far, none jump out.  As a wild guess, I'm thinking someone like Naz's brother, or someone even more on the periphery at this point than the witnesses.    This would certainly be more noteworthy and chilling than the killer being someone we so far haven't seen at all.   On the other hand, we know nothing about Andrea's life, so there's lots of room here for a currently hidden story to emerge.

We'll just have to see, and I certainly will.  Kudos to Richard Price, who wrote The Wanderers and so many other brilliant New York stories, for putting most of this together.