All Her Fault: McLuhan and Poe Would've Loved It

My wife and I binged All Her Fault on Peacock the past two nights.  It's a riveting, powerful, different kind of kidnap drama, with all kinds surprises and twists and turns in family relationships.

Herewith some of the highlights, with no spoilers:

• The lead detective -- Detective Alcaras (very well played by Michael Peña) -- has real heart.  My wife said he reminded her of Brandis in Task, and she's right.  You know, it's hard to come up with a fresh take on a genre as well worn as the detective, which goes at least as far back as the 1840s with Poe, but All Her Fault (and Task) does that, and does that very well.  I hope we see more of this character (his partner, Det. Greco, played by Johnny Carr, is good, too).
• Most kidnap stories focus on the angst of getting the child back home, which All Her Fault does, too.  But it also delves deeply into who did the kidnapping, and how and why this came to happen. 
• The immediate family of the kidnap victim of course is always a central part of a kidnap drama.  In All Her Fault, that family is a little more than immediate, and they each have significant stories as well.
• Friends and business associates also have important stories, which intersect with the kidnapping story.
• Back to the kidnapper's story: there's quite a narrative there, too.  Indeed, All Her Fault is as much the kidnapper's story as the family whose child was kidnapped.
• Marshall McLuhan liked to talk about synesthesia, the rare blending of senses, that a few people have, in which hearing a sound can immediately generate an image, and more.   This plays a crucial role in All Her Fault.
• I guessed who the real villain was pretty early on in the eight-episode series, but it was exciting seeing that play out.

How's that for a review without spoilers?  I will say that the acting was excellent -- Sarah Snook, who was so good in Succession, is superb as the mother of the kidnapped child, Dakota Fanning was fine as friend Jenny, Jake Lacy was memorable as the father, and hats of to Duke McCloud who played Milo the victim.

Task: Love and Death

Task concluded its seven-episode first season on HBO Max tonight -- and I hope it is the first of more than one season, because the series is an unusual and ultimately winning combination of love and death.

I don't mean only romantic love, though Task has some of that, too.  But this series has a love of what is, for want of a better word, nature.  Every episode has birds, feeding and chirping.  Crucial characters swim and connect to something greater in lakes and ponds.  There's a lush greenery that comes from the Pennsylvania wild that I'm familiar with, because I've seen a lot of it in New York and Cape Cod.

But the show is an FBI story, and the FBI in this story is looking into drugs and interstate murders, not white collar crimes.   And death is meted out in all kinds of ways, usually in bullets.  Any life, FBI or criminal, is possibly forfeit at any time.  But even in crime and its policing, there is a tempering element.  The lead person in the narrative, agent Tom Brandis (perfectly played by Mark Ruffalo), used to be a priest.  He's experienced death in both his personal and both professional lives, priest and agent.   His ultimate problem is not to identify and bring to justice the criminals he pursues, but how to forgive. Indeed, forgiveness is such an underlying, undulating presence in Task, Don Henley’s “Heart of the Matter” could easily have been its theme song.

His counterpart is a criminal with many lovable aspects.  Robbie (perfectly played by another Tom -- Tom Pelphrey) is in effect a mirror-image, a counterpart, of Tom Brandis. The two even look somewhat alike.  Both are highly intelligent and empathetic, and seek to protect those around them, to the best of their flawed abilities.

And just about everyone in this story needs protection, because death is always close and at hand. Sometimes its killingly cold clutch is predictable, sometimes it's a shocking surprise.  Loose ends abound.  Most but not all are resolved in the end.

Hence my hope for a second season.  The birds are still chirping.  Nature never dies.