The best ingredient in The Bear is tenderness.
Tag: television
Media of the moment
The Arcadian Wild. Heard about this folk/bluegrass trio recently and got immediately obsessed with “Big Sky, MT”.
Scream. Somehow I’d never seen this, though I was familiar enough with it based on its cultural ubiquity. Kinda wish the conclusion was a little tighter so it could be a perfect 90 minutes, but campy fun overall.
White Savior. This 3-part docuseries on Max is a rich text for those of us who grew up in a conservative Christian milieu and went on international missions/service trips.
The Witch. I like this Robert Eggers lite-horror joint for the same reason I liked Darren Aronofsky’s Noah: it takes its Old Testament inspiration and sensibility seriously, fully committing to a weird and very metal religiosity that too often gets sanded down for popular palatability.
Oppenheimer. “Men talking in rooms” is a common theme in a lot of the history books I’ve read, but I didn’t expect it to also work as a big-screen epic from Christopher Nolan. I’ll take it!
The Wager by David Grann. This new book from the Killers of the Flower Moon author makes me very glad I’m not an 18th-century sailor.
Emergency NYC. Stumbled upon this fascinating Netflix docuseries that follows surgeons, ER staff, flight nurses, and other emergency responders as they treat patients and balance their work with their personal lives.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. A great coming of age story, family dramedy, exploration of religion, female-centric story, and year-in-the-life movie all in one.
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. Surprisingly funny and a nice pairing with Are You There, God?
Quarterback
Didn’t think I’d actually watch Netflix’s new 8-part Quarterback miniseries, but I got sucked in. The series follows Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota throughout the 2022 season both on and off the field. I haven’t seen Hard Knocks so I don’t know how it compares in terms of tone or content, but this felt like a comprehensive and revelatory look at the many challenges of being an NFL quarterback.
Being able to follow these men into their personal lives let us see the human side of their commodified, cloistered personas. Fighting through injury. Getting benched. Reckoning with losses and legacy. Subjecting themselves to a brutally physical game then going right home to do bedtime with their young kids. It’s stuff we know happens but don’t see when they’re on a fantasy football roster.
It also provided a stark contrast with another quarterback-centric Netflix documentary I watched while in the midst of it. Johnny Football charts the rise and fall of Johnny Manziel from a high school phenom to high-drafted NFL bust. Manziel’s sudden college stardom masked a lot of problems with his behavior and work ethic—things Manziel now rather candidly owns up to.
Watching his process (or lack thereof) compared to the other Netflix QBs revealed just how rarified the air is for successful NFL players. Mariota and Cousins are statistically rather middling compared to their peers, but compared to Manziel they’re like elite, MVP-level performers. (Like… Patrick Mahomes.)
My relationship to football has changed a lot over the years. I’ve gone from dutiful Packers follower and fantasy league commissioner to barely having watched the playoffs. I enjoy a good game as much as any other sports fan, but I’ve moved past them having any influence on my life. Quarterback scratched the itch of appreciating the game while also learning more about its participants. Whether a second season will remain as illuminating now that the novelty has worn off is TBD.
Media of the moment
Reality. Riveting recreation of the arrest of whistleblower Reality Winner, played by Sydney Sweeney. This was my first encounter of Sweeney and was thoroughly impressed. Just released on (HBO) Max.
Queer Eye season 7. A quality hang as usual.
Ted Lasso season 3. Hard to top season 1 but have enjoyed watching this story play out. Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca
Prey. I’ve never seen Predator so this was my first foray into the franchise. Found it to be a riveting, admirably lo-fi thriller, combining the violence of a western with the constant peril of Gravity.
The Art and Science of Arrival by Tanya Lapointe. Gorgeous coffee-table book about Denis Villeneuve’s masterpiece.
The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham by Ron Shelton. Got to talk with Shelton about this book and his career.
Confess, Fletch. This was a damn fun time.
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie. Really creative use of Fox’s memoirs, his TV and movie appearances, and reenactments to tell his life story. He’s also still funny as hell despite the effects of Parkinson’s.
A ‘Bluey’ song exploder
One of my Christmas presents was Bluey: The Album on vinyl. My wife got it as a joint present with my son since we’re both big Bluey fans.
The first song on it is an extended version of the theme song I’d never heard before called “Bluey Theme Tune (Instrument Parade)”:
After the standard opening, it continues the theme but gives solo breaks to the different component instruments: first violin, then trumpet, guitar, saxophone, and finally all of them back together before concluding with a reprise of the standard theme.
I love this on many levels. First, it’s just a great song. The part when all the elements recombine (“Everyone!”) is a joy explosion. Kudos to Joff Bush and the other composers involved for their high-level musicianship, which reminds me of Fred Rogers’ insistence on not just doing “kiddie” music for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood because kids deserved great music too.
Second, it sneaks some music theory into a fun and danceable tune by breaking itself down, Song Exploder-style, to show how a song can be comprised of several different instruments.
Which, in a way, represents Bluey in musical miniature. By that I mean the show, like this particular song, isn’t meant to overtly teach anything: it’s just trying to convey the best version of itself and whatever idea it has in each episode. But along the way it manages to communicate sophisticated lessons and everyday truths, all wrapped up in small yet beautiful vessels.
(Yes, even Unicorse.)
Media of the moment
Athena. Come for the gangbusters opening 10 minutes—stay for the tense, heart-pounding drama of Children of Men-meets-The Battle of Algiers in a French apartment complex. (Streaming on Netflix.)
The End of Education by Neil Postman. My third Postman book after Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly. Would probably rank it below those two but still a barnburner.
The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone by Edward Dolnick. The story of discovering the Rosetta Stone (thanks Napoleon!) and the decades it took to decipher it, thus unlocking the secrets of ancient Egypt to modernity.
The Hunt for Red October. Finally got around to see this. Enjoyed it but still have to give the ’90s submarine action thriller edge to Crimson Tide.
Kiki’s Delivery Service. Been going through the Miyazaki oeuvre with the 3 year old and some, like this one, are first watches for both of us. Love being able to show him animated movies with a completely different pace and style than what he’s used to with Bluey/Curious George/Disney, etc.
The World’s Worst Assistant by Sona Movsessian. Sona is a key part of the success of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast so I’m glad she’s able to cash in on it.
Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Story of Life by Lulu Miller. A remarkable memoir/biography hybrid that reminded me of The Feather Thief with its nature/animals obsessives at the center and the ethical dilemmas they encounter (and create).
Media of the moment
Barbarian. Despite being a big baby about horror films, I went to see this opening weekend when I came into some unexpected free time. To say it’s surprising in many ways is a gross understatement.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Thus far it’s managing to strike the right balance of serving a global audience, LOTR trilogy fans, and Tolkien nerds. I quit on House of the Dragon after one episode because I’ve had my fill of Game of Thrones content, but I’m all in on this one.
Bluey season 3. Every season of this show (the best on TV) has a handful of episodes that are stone-cold masterpieces, and thus far “Rain” is holding the championship belt.
Nope. With this and Barbarian, it’s been a delightfully horrific summer at the movies.
The Last Movie Stars. A documentary miniseries about fame, love, art, and work.
Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women by Alissa Wilkinson. A delectable book about food, activism, art, and work.
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon. Just straight-up funny for any age. They don’t talk the whole time and my 3 year old loved it!
Our Art, Our Lives: On ‘Salty’ and ‘The Last Movie Stars’
When we make our art, we are also making our lives. And I’m sure that the reverse is equally true.
That line is from Look & See, the beautiful documentary about the life and work of Wendell Berry.
I think about it often, and I thought about it again recently as I feasted on two pieces of art simultaneously: the limited documentary series The Last Movie Stars on HBO Max and Alissa Wilkinson’s new book Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women.
In sync
Whenever I notice disparate works of art speaking to each other, I call it synchronicity. It’s one of my favorite things to write about because discovering new connections feels both satisfying and alluring.
The Last Movie Stars, which chronicles the lives, careers, and decades-long romance of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, offered a way into this synchronicity not through the series’ content but through its form. As director Ethan Hawke tells the stories of the two subjects, through clever editing he intercuts scenes from Newman’s or Woodward’s movies that speak directly or obliquely to whatever they were going through at the time in their lives.
Examples include contrasting Woodward’s real-life misgivings about being a mother with her performance in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds as an abusive, resentful mother (acting with her real-life daughter!). Or reckoning with Newman’s own struggle with alcoholism using boozy scenes from The Verdict—a performance inspired by director Sidney Lumet imploring Newman to reveal more of himself in it.
Newman touches on this paradigm explicitly during one archival interview used in the series:
Our characters rub off onto the actor. Probably one of the areas of great discontent is that they probably feel, as human beings, they are merely a series of, a collection of old characters that they played. I sometimes get that feeling about myself, that I have become a series of connectives between the parts of the characters that I really like. And I’ve strung them together into kind of a human being.
A salty symbiosis
That idea of one’s work and life feeding each other while building a kind of accretive self echoed in my mind as I read Salty, Wilkinson’s collection of biographical essays spotlighting nine notable 20th century women who comprise her ideal (if hypothetical) dinner party.
Whether they were writers (Hannah Arendt, Octavia Butler, Maya Angelou), artists (Agnes Varda), activists (Ella Baker), or cooks (Enda Lewis, Elizabeth David, Laurie Colwin), all of them used what they learned in their work and lives to inform—and, ideally, improve—the other:
- Chef Edna Lewis bringing black Southern cooking to 1960s New York and then beyond with The Taste of Country Cooking
- Filmmaker Agnes Varda translating her fascination with the ordinary into cinematic curiosities
- Civil-rights activist Ella Baker practicing communal hospitality as a catalyst for social change and empowerment
These women weren’t movie stars like Newman and Woodward, but their lives were still reflected in their work. They too—to toss a metaphorical salad—were pulling from the strung-together assemblage of old characters they played throughout their lives, making meals with the ingredients available to them.
And that’s all we can do, really. Per Wendell Berry, we make our lives and art concurrently, whether we know it or not.
My compliments to Alissa Wilkinson and Ethan Hawke for the meals they’ve created in these works of art, which are infused with moments and lessons from their own lives that made them all the richer.
Media of the moment
Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan. An excellent oral history of one of the greatest films ever made. One of the many tidbits: George Miller’s first choice to play Max was Heath Ledger, which I now can’t stop thinking about.
The Northman. A brutal, heavy-metal fever dream from Robert Eggers.
A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester. Published thirty years ago, its scholarship is out of date and perspective rather flippant, but the writing remains spicy and illuminating.
We Own This City. A sequel of sorts to The Wire that was just as compelling with a much shorter runtime. Gotta hand it to HBO Max, which has accounted for pretty much all of my TV viewing over the last year or so between this, Winning Time, Minx, and Station Eleven.
Top Gun: Maverick. The first Top Gun is kinda bad. This one is not.
The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. I’ve listened to the Office Ladies podcast since the beginning—where much of the book’s content has been covered previously—but still found this enjoyable and informative.
How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith. This fits into a nonfiction genre I really enjoy, where the author visits various places/people that connect to the book’s central theme and explores their histories. Smith covers some stuff I was already familiar with but much I wasn’t—including that the Statue of Liberty has shackled feet.
My son’s media of the moment
A spinoff of an ongoing series
Bluey. A not-small number of times after watching an episode I’ve thought, “Was that one of the greatest episodes of TV ever?” Hot take: the only TV shows a kid needs, really, are this and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood—the yin and yang of instructive, high-quality children’s entertainment.
Picture books aplenty. A few he and I have enjoyed in equal measure lately: Creepy Carrots and Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds, Jazz for Lunch by Jarrett Dapier, and Up the Mountain Path by Marianne Dubuc.
Our Planet. Gave this Planet Earth spinoff on Netflix a whirl with him and he was mesmerized. Nature is so metal.
YouTube. An amazing learning tool. He learns about volcanoes in a book; check out this compilation of eruptions. He starts t-ball class but has never played baseball before; let’s pull up some highlights of a random game.
The Okee Dokee Brothers. Always and forever.
Long live the limited podcast series
My recent experience with the Band of Brothers podcast made me realized I’m very much a fan of the modern trend of “official” companion podcasts released alongside limited series by the show’s creators—Watchmen and Station Eleven being two recent examples I enjoyed and appreciated.
These are slightly different beasts from the popular post hoc recap podcasts of long-running sitcoms like Office Ladies and Parks and Recollection (two other favorites). Such pods return to their shows years after they ended and usually require a much bigger time investment, given the protracted length of traditional TV shows.
A notable and early hybrid of these approaches: the Official LOST Podcast, hosted by LOST showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. It ran concurrently with the show from 2005-2010 and was probably the first podcast I and many others ever followed. Listening to it meant subscribing via iTunes and then syncing new episodes to my good ol’ click-wheel iPod.
Regardless of the structure, all of these podcasts have the benefit of access to cast, crew, and behind-the-scenes insights you can’t get elsewhere. But you really have to love the original show and the podcast hosts to make them worth your while.
(In that way they’re like modern iterations of DVD commentaries. Which, though eclipsed by the rise of streaming and decline of physical media, are still alive. And long may they live.)
Courage & Camaraderie in ‘Band of Brothers’
Band of Brothers, the 2001 Tom Hanks-produced HBO miniseries that dramatized the history of Easy Company paratroopers throughout World War II, was a formative viewing experience for me, especially on the heels of Saving Private Ryan.
That was as a youngster interested in history and World War II, and as the grandson of a veteran who lived through similar combat experiences as Easy Company. But I’ve remained a fan of it due to its earned status as an exemplar of history come to life.
Pod of Brothers
Recently I listened to the official HBO podcast series released last fall in honor of the 20th anniversary of the show. With one episode dedicated to each of the original 10 Band of Brothers episodes, the podcast features interviews with crew—like military consultant Dale Dye—and cast, including Donnie Wahlberg (Lt. Carwood Lipton), Frank John Hughes (Sgt. Bill Guarnere), Damien Lewis (Maj. Dick Winters), Scott Grimes (Sgt. Don Malarkey), and Ron Livingston (Capt. Lewis Nixon).
Two themes emerged among all of the performers who were interviewed:
- They commiserated about the 10-day military boot camp they endured during pre-production, which, though not the equivalent of true military training, helped forge real camaraderie and ensured an authenticity that’s hard to find in Hollywood versions of warfare.
- They spoke in reverent terms about the real-life men they portrayed, and felt an immense responsibility to honor their true experiences within the larger story of Easy Company. Several of them got choked up when talking about the relationships they developed with their real-life counterparts, and all of them said they’d been personally changed for the better.
Getting the Band back together
Inspired by this listening experience, I did a Band of Brothers rewatch thanks to HBO Max.
Of its many marvels, I’m in awe of just how much is squeezed into 10 hours. Such a runtime sounds quite long, but not when you consider everything Easy Company went through on their journey from Georgia’s Camp Toccoa in 1942 to Germany’s Berchtesgaden in May 1945.
Written by a handful of writers—including Tom Hanks and future Boomtown creator Graham Yost (who used Band of Brothers as inspiration)—the series wisely modulates its storytelling pace within and between episodes, which allow for a dynamic range of experiences and perspectives.
So a single episode can span one day (Episode 2, “Day of Days”) or several months (Episode 5, “Crossroads”), and follow one primary perspective (Episode 6, “Bastogne”) or many (Episode 10, “Points”)—all without sacrificing clarity or emotional investment.
Indeed, our investment only grows as we get to know and grow attached to the huge and hugely talented ensemble cast. Winters and Nixon serve as the emotional core, but it’s the literally dozens of other actors who make the show sing.
(Not for nothing, four of the core cast went on to star or feature in my beloved Boomtown: the aforementioned Donnie Wahlberg and Frank John Hughes, plus Neal McDonough [Lt. Buck Compton] and Rick Gomez [Sgt. George Luz].)
Courage over combat
In the podcast interview with Richard Loncraine, director of Episode 2 (“Day of Days”), he reflected on the show’s legacy:
Band of Brothers should be shown to schoolkids, and they might realize [warfare] is not a glamorous, exciting world—it’s where you die. Hopefully when they watch it, what they’re not thinking is ‘Wow, I’d like to have been there.’ If they do, then we all failed.
In this they definitely succeeded, because the series manages to pull off the tricky tightrope act of valorizing the courage of the soldiers without glorifying combat itself.
The combat we do see is rightfully hellish: gruesome wounds, slain comrades, and haunting horrors no one deserves to witness. The nitty-gritty of the front lines in all its awful agony.
How did these men get through it? In Episode 3 (“Carentan”), Lt. Ronald Speirs, played with icy assurance by Matthew Settle, delivers to a frightened private what I imagine to be an essential insight into the psychology of warfare:
We’re all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there’s still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead.
I’m not sure if all soldiers would agree with this perspective. It’s certainly as fatalistic as you can get.
But when I watch even the dramatized versions of Speirs and Blithe and so many other brave GIs run through machine-gun fire and artillery and other horrible weaponry, when every single move they make could mean a sudden and grisly demise, I can only stand in awe before their resolve in the face of death—however they find it.
Company of heroes
But what ultimately makes Band of Brothers successful, I think, isn’t the verisimilitude of its battle scenes. It’s the emphasis on the titular brotherhood and their everyday heroism, both in and out of combat.
Sometimes that heroism looks like what Hollywood has conditioned us to expect from war movies: carrying a fallen comrade, charging through a storm of gunfire, capturing enemy fortifications.
But sometimes it looks different: caring for someone suffering a shell-shocked breakdown, risking execution to protest a superior’s professional malpractice, offering to take the place of a rundown veteran on a risky nighttime raid.
Though not as sensational as battle, these moments are just as important. And they validate what Tom Hanks said of the show: “This is not a celebration of nostalgia. This is an examination of the human condition.”
When you examine Band of Brothers closely, you’ll see talented craftsmen doing their best to honor the ordinary, real-life humans who were thrust into inhuman, extraordinary conditions. For that, it stands alone.
Media of the moment
Everything my son consumes. Obvs.
Love on the Spectrum. Just finished the second season of this heart-warming and instructive Australian reality dating show on Netflix featuring people on the autism spectrum. The delightful dynamic between Michael and his mom should be its own show.
Abbey Road. I previously wrote about encountering the super deluxe remastered edition of Sgt. Pepper’s and, by Jove, it happened again with my favorite Beatles record on a recent drive home. Luscious.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Finally read Miller’s debut novel after loving Circe, and she is now two for two in my book.
The Great British Baking Show. The current season is only the second we’ve seen, the first being last year’s COVID-bubble season. Mr. Almost-3 has started saying “Mmmmm, yummmm” every time the food drawings appear, which is (almost) always correct.
The Green Knight. Thought this was just OK for a large chunk of it, until the ending, which made me want to rewatch it immediately.
Witness for the Prosecution. Similar to The Green Knight, this was fine for a while until the end, when it became great. The acting was a bit over-the-top, even for the 1950s, but Charles Laughton was the tops throughout.
Shiva Baby. Nothing quite like seeing a writer-director absolutely nail the cringey-funny tone required to make this work.
Dune. Started watching as a Dune newbie and finished as a believer. Don’t think I’ll read the books though.
Media of the moment
An ongoing series of what I’ve read, seen, and heard lately
Schmigadoon. Though its story is a little loose at the edges throughout the show’s short six-episode run, the central conceit of a couple getting stuck inside the world of an old-timey musical was a fun journey. Watch out for “Corn Puddin’” because it’s an earworm. More TV musicals please!
Ted Lasso, season 2. Will be curious to see how this season fills out as a whole, but nothing can damper my love of the best show on TV. We really enjoyed the stretch of a couple weeks in July and August when we could watch the latest episodes of this and Schmigadoon as an uplifting and wholesome Friday night double feature.
Crimson Tide. So, this ruled. And made me really miss seeing Gene Hackman in movies.
In the Heights (movie and soundtrack). Seeing this was my first time back in the theater since February 2020, and I’ve had the soundtrack pretty much on repeat since. Favorite little moments: “damn, we only jokin’, stay broke then” and the It’s A Wonderful Life reference.
Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic by Steven Johnson. My favorite author strikes again.
A Quiet Place / A Quiet Place Part II. Being horror-averse I put off the first one for a while, basically until I saw the excellent reviews for Part II and realized they’re not actually horror but more of the “momentarily scary well-made thriller” variety, which I’m down with.
Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West by Cameron Blevins. Shoutout to the post office.
Showbiz Kids. Affecting documentary on HBO Max featuring former child actors talking about their past and present struggles.
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. I’ve never listened to the podcast this book is based on, but still enjoyed Green’s unique, earnest, and wry literary voice shining through this collection of essays.
Two favorite ‘Ted Lasso’ scenes
We rewatched season 1 of Ted Lasso in advance of season 2 coming out next month. Among the many wonderful scenes in this marvel of a show, two scenes stuck out this time around.
One is from episode 7 (“Make Rebecca Great Again”), when the shy groundskeeper Nate gives a (NSFW) pregame speech/roast with Ted’s support:
The other is from episode 8 (“The Diamond Dogs”), when Ted hustles Rupert in darts:
Both scenes find their leads emerging from low moments into precarious situations that could have ended in disaster, but instead resulted in satisfying catharsis. They work so well because they’re earned, based on the foundation of character development that’s been building throughout the season.
I’m eager to see where season two brings them and the rest of the cast. Believe!
Media of the moment
An ongoing series of what I’ve read, seen, and heard recently
The Good Lord Bird. The limited series really captures the book’s madcap and dramatic spirit. Ethan Hawke is so delightfully committed to the dead-serious absurdity of John Brown.
The Underground Railroad. Two of my main takeaways while watching this 10-episode limited series: 1. I can’t believe I get to watch essentially 10 new Barry Jenkins movies! And 2. That’s a few too many given the heavy subject matter!
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, A Night in Tunisia. Recently my wife asked me to “get some jazz” from the library, so right before I left I grabbed a few albums more or less at random. Struck gold with this one.
Benny Goodman, Mozart at Tanglewood. Wanted to find some good concertos and heard good things about this one. Those good things were right.
Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps: Designing Graphic Props for Filmmaking by Annie Atkins. A cool visual compendium and behind-the-scenes exploration of a film graphic prop designer’s impressive work, including lots from Wes Anderson movies.
My favorite ‘Boomtown’ moments
After writing my paean to Boomtown, the cry of the masses rang out from sea to shining sea with a resounding message: “More Boomtown content!!!”
I live to serve.
During my latest rewatch, I took note of the moments that have stuck with me in the almost 20 years since the series debuted. I considered including them in that post but figured I’d give them some space of their own.
This list is, of course, inexhaustive. Though I’d derive much pleasure from an episode-by-episode review of the show, I also want people to read this blog.
There will be spoilers. I include quotes from each moment, but they’re best experienced through the original show in the provided YouTube links.
“I don’t have any prayers, but I do have a story.”
(Episode 1, “Pilot”)
In a scene that bookends the episode, a man is dumping the ashes of his grandson into the Los Angeles River with detectives Joel and Bobby “Fearless” by his side. He asks if either of them have a prayer. “I’m fresh out,” says Joel, for reasons we’ll learn later. But Fearless offers a story—the first of many times he’s good for a wise and timely one—and tells what serves as a riverside eulogy:
There was this wave, way out on the ocean. And he was just racing along having a great time—and just sunlight glinting, spray just flying—until one day he looked ahead, and he saw wave after wave in front of him crashing on the beach, and he got scared. And this older wave in front of him said, “I know exactly what your problem is. You’ve been having so much fun being a wave, that you forgot you’re really just part of the ocean.”
It’s a fitting preamble to a show that follows the perspective of several waves, so to speak, and watches how they blend into a narrative ocean.
“Don’t help the police.”
(Episode 2, “Possession”)
The husband of a dancer at a private club is dead and the cops are questioning the business owner, who refuses to reveal his clientele. Enter Neal McDonough as the razor-sharp deputy district attorney David McNorris in a two-minute scene that sets up so much about him: his charisma, his love of boxing, his tortured relationship with his father, his ruthless cunning. He begins on the ropes, lying to his wife on the phone about his whereabouts, but then comes out swinging—literally and figuratively:
*David punches a wall*
So the favor I’m gonna ask is really quite simple. Don’t help the police. Don’t tell them who was at your party last night. Don’t help them stop a guy from killing his wife. Just don’t. ‘Cause let me tell ya, I’m not in a good mood today, and there is nothing I’d rather do than beat that supercilious look off of your face. You get me?
Needless to say, he got him.
“I just don’t understand how you can let someone go.”
(Episode 11, “Monster’s Brawl”)
Sam Anderson (a.k.a. Bernard from LOST) shines in a guest spot as Scott Dawson, the father of a homeless addict named Bradley who’d been mistakenly considered killed. After talking about his wayward son’s struggles with sobriety and having to let him go emotionally, he overhears Joel wonder aloud how a parent could let their child go and confronts him in an exchange that touches on the joys and anguish of parenthood:
BERNARD: Do you have any children?
JOEL: A boy.
– How old?
– Eight.
– Magic age. You can play catch but you can still chase him and tickle him. You ever just watch him? Without him knowing—just watch him, the back of his head, his hair. You look at that and you just can’t believe it because you never thought you could love somebody so much, or be so loved. OK, now jump forward 20 years, and that same little perfect boy is now a hopeless drunk. You have tried everything you can think of to help him and nothing works. And every time the phone rings you think, This is it, he’s dead. And then one day the call does come, and you come down to a police station and you look at a jacket and you think, My boy died in that jacket. Can you imagine how that feels, detective?
– No sir, I can’t.
– Well, try. You go home to your wife and your little boy, and you try to imagine exactly that.
In another great moment at the end of the episode, Joel shares with Fearless that his wife Kelly, suffering from postpartum depression, had tried to kill herself after their baby died mysteriously (more on this later), which is why Scott’s words had struck him so deeply:
For Bradley’s dad, it’s coming home, hearing the phone ring, and thinking it’s going to be news that his son’s dead. But for me it’s coming home, finding a knife out in the kitchen, thinking I’m going to see Kelly in all that blood again.
Dark, for sure, but also a reminder that people’s motivations and inner battles are often unknowable.
“Will Andrea Little be covering this story?”
(Episode 15, “Storm Watch”)
Officer Ray Heckler is often portrayed as just an affable chatterbox, but he’s also sneakily smart and a reservoir of veteran savvy. That comes in handy during this riveting two-episode arc (along with Episode 14, “Execution”) where a dirty cop in the LAPD facilitates the killing of three fellow officers, and suspects abound. Ray is already tainted by a corruption investigation involving his ex-partner, and McNorris tries to use that as leverage against him to spill on his fellow cops. But Ray has some leverage of his own:
RAY: Oh, I’ll talk. I just gotta ask you a question first. Will Andrea Little be covering this story?
DAVID: How would I know that?
– If she is, I suppose she’ll be banging out the first draft over there at Fulham’s on Eighth. She’s got a back booth reserved there. She’s there all the time—it’s where she writes her stories. And sometimes she’s joined by this guy. Between swapping spit with him and knocking back the Jamesons, it’s a wonder she ever gets anything done. So you do what you gotta do.
– Nice try, Ray. FYI, though, in the future, if you’re going to blackmail someone, make sure you have a little leverage. My marriage is over.
– Oh no, I wouldn’t think of bringing up a tawdry little subject like sex. I’m talking politics! I’m talking about a deputy district attorney wrapping up with a crusading reporter who’s supposed to be covering his office. Not exactly going to help your credibility in certain circles, is it?
Not only does his maneuver keep McNorris at bay, he also got information earlier in the scene that he uses to identify the crooked cop. It’s one of many times in the show that Ray cracks a case, pleasantly surprising his colleagues and viewers.
“You knew it wasn’t my brother.”
(Episode 16, “Fearless”)
In a mirror version of the previous Joel/Fearless scene, Fearless is now the one confessing a secret shame to his partner in an episode that follows his personal reckoning with being a sexual abuse survivor. He was able to track down his abuser and get an opportunity to exact the vengeance he’s long sought, but decides against it. Then Joel arrives:
FEARLESS: I didn’t do it.
JOEL: I know.
– But what if I had?
– You wouldn’t do that.
– But what if I had?
– It’s not who you are.
– But what if I had?
– I brought a shovel. You’re my partner, Fearless. Of all the people I’ve met, I’ve never respected anyone as much as I respect you. If you’d have done it, then he’d have deserved it.
– You knew it wasn’t my brother.
– You knew my wife didn’t break our shower door.
This is an amazing exchange for several reasons. Joel shows up for Fearless in a crucial moment, ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of his colleague and brother-in-arms. Then they mutually confess to the fictions they’d perpetuated with each other out of fear (even for “Fearless”): that it was Fearless’s brother who was sexually abused and that Kelly’s arm cuts were from accidentally breaking the shower door.
Later on, Fearless talks to his lover about the triggering event that set him off on his painful journey:
It was in the store. There was a father walking with his son. And out of the blue he just bent over and kissed the top of his head. I knew it was innocent, but I couldn’t help but have a moment of suspicion. I mean, I’m cursing myself that I should even question this loving gesture. I guess I’m still a prisoner of something that happened a long time ago.
As someone who loves being affectionate with my son all day, every day, I can only grieve for the people whose instinctual response to such a loving gesture would be poisoned by their traumatic history.
“You don’t have to do this alone.”
(Episode 17, “Blackout”)
Andrea and David began the series in an affair, but by now they’ve drifted so far apart that Andrea is grasping at David while he descends toward rock bottom as a philandering, self-destructive, and reckless alcoholic. With experience as the daughter of an alcoholic and as a savvy reporter, Andrea cuts through David’s bullshit:
ANDREA: David, you don’t have to do this alone. There are people that can help.
DAVID: See, now therein lies the problem. The lie.
– What lie?
– That somehow we’re not alone, that we’ll be somehow there for each other.
– And what’s the truth, David?
– The truth is that we’re born alone and we’re gonna die alone. And sometimes there are these sweet little moments that we have this illusion that we’re connected.
– You just don’t get it, do you? It’s all right there in front of you and you can’t even reach for it. All we have is each other, David. That connection. All the rest—the careers, the homes, the cars, the money—that’s the illusion.
– Can you really see me unfolding chairs in a church basement singing “Kumbaya” with a bunch of drunks?
– No, you’re right. You’re so much better off going on like this…
Season 1 does find David in a better place, heading off to rehab with a newfound humility and gratefulness. (Again, haven’t seen season 2, so don’t know if that stuck…)
“You haven’t read this? You should have.”
(Episode 18, “Lost Child”)
This is the payoff the entire season was building toward, at least in Joel’s arc. He and Kelly are at their psychiatrist’s office after Joel gets tangled in an investigation on the mysterious death of their infant child Emma. They requested a second coroner’s report but haven’t read it, not wanting to confront the awful possibility that Kelly might have inadvertently caused the death while having a bad reaction to sleeping pills.
Joel and Kelly finally lay it out to each other: she thinks she somehow killed the baby; he knows she didn’t because he was watching her that night instead of the baby. Meanwhile, the psychiatrist has been reading the report and delivers the news:
You haven’t read this? You should have. According to this, Emma had a brain aneurysm. It was bound to go off—then, or in grade school, or as a young mother with three children herself. There was nothing you could have done, even if she was in your arms. Your little girl got dealt a bad card, and so did you.
This moment is so cathartic—for Joel and Kelly, but also the viewer, who’s been piecing together this story arc throughout the season. The fact that they’d avoided reading the report out of a fear for what it could reveal illustrates the power of guilt to forestall any attempts at healing and finding closure.
My son’s media of the moment
Based on the ongoing series, here are the books, movies, and music my two year old is into recently.
So. Many. Books. We have shelves stuffed with board and picture books in four different rooms of our house, plus a stash of library books, so he’s never lacking literature. Some current favorites: Sandra Boynton’s Pookie series, Tap Tap Bang Bang, There’s a Mouse About the House!, and really anything related to trucks.
So. Much. Music. He’s a big fan of the Super Simple Songs catalog, which introduces him to childhood staples like “BINGO” and “Old McDonald”. But it’s very important to me that he gets exposed to quality music for adults too. The last few weeks we’ve listened and/or danced to pop and rock (The Beatles, Paul Simon, HAIM), soul (Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Ben E. King), classical (Mozart, Haydn, Handel), country/folk (Willie Nelson, Uncle Earl, Joe Pug), hip hop (Jay Z, The Roots), and jazz (Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson). Cue The Onion.
Peppa Pig. Might be my favorite of his things to watch. It’s the go-to for when we (or he) need a break. The delightful British silliness has made me laugh a few times.
Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. Like its ancestor Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, it’s a sincere (often saccharine), educational, and wholesome vessel for social-emotional development. Bonus points for all the jingles that are helpful for kids and parents (e.g. “When you feel so mad that you want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four.”).
Caitie’s Classroom. Part of the aforementioned Super Simple universe, this YouTube show is also very Mister Rogers-esque, with the cheerful Caitie leading crafts, songs, and field trips that he’s learned a lot from already.
Boomtown, the one-season wonder
At least once a week something makes me think of Boomtown, one of my favorite TV shows of all time.
Not to be confused with the excellent book Boom Town (my favorite of 2018), Boomtown was a one-season wonder that aired on NBC from 2002-2003 when I was a freshman in high school.
(To be clear, there technically was a second season of six episodes before it was axed, but I’ve never seen it because of everything I heard about how bad it is, and I’d like to preserve the memory of its one beautiful, special season in my heart, thank you very much.)
The show was a Rashomon-esque crime drama set in Los Angeles that told the story of a crime each episode from multiple points of view—primarily the beat cops, detectives, the assistant district attorney, a reporter, and a paramedic. They all interact with the crime and with each other, and through each of their perspectives we learn more and more about the case.
I like how Christopher Orr described the show in The Atlantic:
If the Paul Thomas Anderson of Magnolia, the David O. Russell of Three Kings, and the Doug Liman of Go had gotten together to produce a weekly cop show, it would have looked something like this. Out-of-sequence storylines, vertiginous plot twists, imaginative camera effects, clever dialogue—Boomtown had it all, and sometimes too much of it. The best episodes were brilliant television; even the worst usually failed in interesting ways. Its audacity was refreshing, the kind of envelope-pushing we’ve come to expect from cable but is still rare on network TV.
It was written and produced by Graham Yost (Band of Brothers, Speed), who talked about his inspiration for Boomtown coming from researching a battle for Band of Brothers:
Each veteran I talked to described a different battle because that’s all they knew. One of them told me, ‘All you know is the 12 feet around you in battle.’ That’s where the divergent narratives thing came from.
That inspiration also relates to one of the show’s key themes, which is the fungibility of memory. Very often we watch a scene play out the first time, then see it again through another character’s point of view but slightly different than the first time—whether with a modified line reading or a change to sepia or black-and-white. Each iteration cleverly reveals new information for the viewer, in the way that viewpoint’s character learns of it.
The result is that Boomtown is more like a prism than a puzzle. There’s only one way to put together a puzzle, but a prism refracts light into many different colors and directions, changing its appearance as you move it.
To illustrate how a show like this got on network TV at all and why it didn’t last, it helps to understand the television landscape at the time, which Yost talked about:
NBC was the only place that would put that on the air. They were coming from a position of great strength, so they were willing to take a chance. They had kind of put out to the community, “If you’re thinking of taking something to HBO, bring it here first.” Boomtown was perhaps, in retrospect, better suited for HBO or FX. But at that time, HBO had The Wire, and FX had The Shield. So NBC was really the only place for it, and they embraced the Rashomon structure and were excited by that.
But then when the ratings weren’t spectacular, what happens is everyone questions everything. “Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe it’s the music. Maybe it’s this. Maybe it’s that.” And the doubt becomes corrosive.
I’m not a Law & Order junkie or crime show connoisseur, so I can’t tell you how Boomtown compares to its counterparts. But I was blown away by the richness of the characters and smart plot development, both within each episode and stretched across the entire season. And unlike the many shows that take a few episodes (or even a full season) to really hit their stride, Boomtown metaphorically busts down the door right away and keeps up the quality throughout.
This is a credit to Yost and the creative team, for sure, but also to the ensemble. The seven main actors (on the poster at top) were perfectly cast and really hit the sweet spot of being seasoned pros while not being too famous and thus too distracting in their roles. Many shows have a character arc that drags or feels skippable, but the Boomtown gang (mostly) doesn’t let that happen.
Finding the show at the age I did surely made a difference in my admiration for it. As a budding cinephile I strongly responded to its combination of intelligent storytelling and humanist affection for its characters. The occasional action and frequent humor were appealing too, but it’s the small yet profound moments that have stuck with me. The father of an addict lamenting the joys and anguish of parenthood. A riverside eulogy. The reading of an coroner’s report. Even the theme song gives me a warm feeling.
Though it’s not officially available for streaming, the whole series is unofficially available on YouTube for free. (I have the DVD set, of course.) Give the first episode a try, and then all 18 if it strikes you as it did me.
Further Reading
- Cancelled Too Soon: Boomtown, 25 Years Later
- The TV Review: Boomtown, The Atlantic
- Graham Yost interview, The AV Club
- Was Boomtown a Great TV Drama?, Critically Touched