The Chair: Hilarious, Sage, and Close to the Truth

My wife and I saw The Chair last night -- six episodes, thirty minutes each, on Netflix -- and loved it.  It's billed as a comedy drama, and that's what it is -- a depiction of college professors, administrators, and students -- at a fictitious university, Pembroke, not quite Ivy League.  It's also close enough to the truth that it could have been a documentary of any university I've ever taught at, all these years.

Sandra Oh, always superb,  plays Ji-Yoon Kim, who has just become Chair of the English Department.  Her primary nemesis is Dean Paul Larson (that is, he's a Dean) perfectly played by David Morse.  He's interested in money.  Which means he's out to get -- as in get them to leave -- elderly professors who pull in high salaries and few students.  He's smart, articulate, and other than money his only other goal is to protect the image of the university.  If you're a professor, who has served time as Chair of your department, as I have, you'll instantly recognize Larson.  He, along with the university public relations hack -- another instantly recognizable character -- provide the drama that spices up the comedy.

Kim must also deal with another recognizable academic problem: the short shrift that women have been given over the decades in their professorial roles.  Holland Taylor plays sassy Joan Hambling, one of the oldsters Larson has on his hit list.  She's stymied by the university's computer technology -- who isn't -- but puts up a fight, and conducts it with style and bon-vivance

Social media are whipping boys for everything these days, and The Chair is no exception.  A professor explaining to his class how fascism arises gives a sieg heil to demonstrate a point.  That's captured by a student's phone, sent out to social media, and the professor soon finds himself condemned as a Nazi.  Larson of course wants to fire him, even though he has tenure, draws in lots of students, and is not that old.

Lots of other all-too familiar academic gambits just slightly exaggerated, if at all, in The Chair, which makes not only for continuous good laughs but a blueprint for change in academe.

discussion of The Chair begins at 12min 28secs in this interview

Killing Eve 2.1: Libido and Thanatos

As I mentioned in my review of Mrs. Wilson tonight, it was good to see Fiona Shaw play almost the same role in Mrs. Wilson and Killing Eve: a commanding role in MI5.   At this point, her Carolyn Martens in Killing Eve seems to have more integrity that her Coleman in Mrs. Wilson, but Mrs. Wilson ended on a highly ambiguous note, and the second season of Killing Eve is just getting started ....

So, let's get to that  Although Coleman in certainly an intriguing character, the real stars are Sandra Oh's Eve and Jodie Comer's Villanelle.  The latter takes the former's nearly stabbing her to death - in bed - as an expression of Eve's love for her, Villanelle.  It may be that, or something slightly else, but nonetheless potent and somewhat mutual.  On the other hand, if we believe in Freud's reaction formation, then what Villanelle thinks she senses in Eve may be mostly a reflection of what Villanelle herself feels for Eve.

I say "mostly," because Eve is clearly deeply affected by what happened in that bed in Paris.  But is that, at least in part, a deep attraction, a kind of love, or just trauma about having nearly killed someone?  The easy answer is it's likely a mix, but, that's an easy answer.

In any case, the hunter and the game are now reversed, with Villanelle now in England, driven to look up Eve, and do who knows what?  The options range from killing Eve to getting Eve to run away with her.   This first episode of the second season had a nice time getting Villanelle to London, with the high - or low - point being Villanelle killing Gabriel in this hospital.  This shows that, however much she may have been affected and even transformed by knowing Eve, Villanelle's sociopathic tendencies remain securely intact.

I reviewed all of season one in one post, after binge watching it last summer.  This Spring, you'll see me here with a review of each episode every week,

See also Killing Eve: Highly Recommended

Killing Eve: Highly Recommended

Highly recommended.  Not killing Eve - she's a great lead character - but the series, Killing Eve, which I just finished binge-watching the first season of on BBC America.

Killing Eve actually has two very memorable characters, rarely seen on television in terms of their mix of quirky intelligence, self-aware sarcastic humor, and utter devotion to their respective causes.  One is Eve, an MI5 officer who gets enthralled (by a combination of volunteering and recruitment) into an MI6 Russia assignment involving a SPECTRE-like group, the spearhead of which is Villanelle aka Oksana, a deft, gifted, peerless assassin who is all but impossible to beat.  The narrative arc continually surprises us with the way the two become obsessed with one another - obsessed not devoid of its positive elements all along the infatuation/love continuum - as Eve tries to stop and capture Villanelle and she tries to kill Eve.   To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, and just to reveal one of many brilliant exchanges, when Villanelle surprises Eve who asks if Villanelle is there to kill her, the assassin replies that all she wants to do is have dinner with Eve.

It doesn't hurt that these two already iconic characters are played by Sandra Oh (Grey's Anatomy) as Eve and Jodie Comer (The White Princess) as Villanelle, who are mutually perfect in their performances.  Indeed, so much so, that most of the other characters pale in comparison, even though theY'RE well acted and plotted.

As has been pointed out by more than one critic, most of these other characters are men, and the transcendence of Eve and Villanelle in Killing Eve could be interpreted as a paean to women and an attack on the male member (literally) in the world of spying, and, by extension, our world as a whole. Whatever interpretation you care to give it, Killing Eve is one high octane drama, as delightful as is thrilling, with surprises coming almost by the minute as the narrative unfolds.

After I caught my breath after the ending, I was glad to see there'll be a second season.  But I wouldn't bet on who will be doing what ....