Demented and Sad but Social

For the four years that spanned the early mid- to late mid-eighties, John Hughes defined me. I was always a little younger than his characters—when Samantha Baker turned 16 in the spring of ’84, I was 11. By the time Keith and Watts graduated in ’87, I was just about to begin my own high school years. For those of us who waited in line outside the local theater to see the R-rated Breakfast Club at 12-years old with our moms or squatted on the floor in front of the front row to see Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—twice, I give you this gushy revisiting of the movies that defined a genre as well as a generation.

Sixteen Candles (1984)

The first of JH’s teen films also defines his affect on the zeitgeist—a direct response to the silly plotless comedies (think Porky’s) that characterized teens as punchlines, but not quite as brutal as Amy Heckerling’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). Samantha Baker was Every Girl—a sophomore enamored with the hottest senior in school, a dorky, braced freshman puppy-dogging her every move—she was the insider/outsider that we all could identify with. While other films gave us distinct types (the brain, the athelete, the criminal), Sixteen Candles gave us pedestrian. Sam was, like most 16-year olds: completely regular. And her conquest of Jake Ryan (even despite the unfortunate panties incident) gave the rest of us regular girls a little hope that we could be noticed, too. We just had to live with being a little less funny than the teens in Sam’s world.

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Definitely the most serious of Hughes’s teen films, The Breakfast Club is in some ways his most indelible. While Samantha Baker was perfectly normal, the five teens in this movie were the ultimate outsiders—spending the Saturday at detention with a bitter principle who had lost all ability to identify with the students who were his charges. Even the insiders—the jock and the princess—were outsiders, cultivating a simulated identity in order to appeal to their peers and parents. The five teens in The Breakfast Club were types that became individuals over the course of a day trapped at school, and, for those of us who saw types in our own schools (even if those types were slightly different or blurred), we began to understand how similar we all were to each other.

Interesting side note: at my high school, there had been a crew of asshole jock guys called the Rat Pack. They actually did things like tape nerds’ buns together. The group was in its death throes my freshman year, and, by 1988, they were pretty much gone, leaving our high school with less-defined group demarcations (there were still cliques and still assholes—they were just less organized, more rogue groups). I contend that The Breakfast Club had something to do with this permanent shift at many schools.

Weird Science (1985)

Hughes loved nerds. He was one, after all. The bra-headed adventures of Gary and Wyatt gave us Hughes’s most gonzo and light teen movie, a welcome break from all the angst we had to face in his previous outing. In his third film with Anthony Michael Hall, he clearly trusted his young protégé with broader comedy, and he rewarded the nerd with the girl. However, the movie’s most memorable character is Bill Paxton’s Chet, Wyatt’s military dillhole of a brother. Torture from an older sibling (this is Hughes’s only film that goes this route—most of his characters have younger sibs) is most definitely an unforgettable teen trope, and the broad ridiculousness of Weird Science allows for Chet to get his comeuppance in the form of transition into an alien blob—now if that’s not an obvious metaphor, I don’t know what is.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

The last teen film directed by Hughes is also in some ways his most successful. Equal parts teen disillusionment and high-concept comedy, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off does not dwell on external teen politics; its focus is existentialism. Adults, some sympathetic and some not, have no clue how complex and intelligent the teens that surround them really are. But, despite the grandeur of its intentions, the movie never gets mired down in the philosophy it espouses. Instead, it has fun. And as viewers we enjoy the ride—particularly the parts in which obsessed principal Ed Rooney is tortured for his juvenile behavior while our teens behave as semi-thoughtful adults.

Pretty in Pink (1986)

Hughes handed over the directing reigns to Howard Deutch with this outing, and the effect is obvious. While Pretty in Pink explores all the traditional teen themes, it is more a collection of fantastic moments and songs than it is a successful film. However, Duckie serves as the first crush-worthy nerd (so much so that Hughes had to write another film where the loser wins romance to rectify the mistake of giving Blane—Blane!—the girl), and there are, as always, a slew of quotables. It’s amazing to watch this film now and think that we all wanted to dress like Ringwald’s Andie, who resembles a grandparent’s couch cover. But Pretty in Pink is like that—it is a collage of indelible memories set to, let’s face it, the most awesome soundtrack ever. If The Breakfast Club inflenced high school politics around the country, this movie changed the music we identified with, giving the loser punk types the leverage we would use to take over (and quickly help corporatize and ruin) radio in the early 90’s.

Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

Also directed by Deutch, this movie is a total mess—bad editing, bizarre story gaffes and other rookie stuff. It feels like it was rushed through the pipeline and slapped together with duct tape. It is also the Hughes film I have watched the most, warping two VHS copies before DVD ever existed. This is Hughes’s most punk rock script—where the typical high school assholes are footnotes in celebration of outsiders. Even the object of Keith’s affection (there’s no limit to the love I felt for Eric Stoltz as a teen), Amanda Jones, is an outsider, posing with the rich kids in a vain attempt to make it through high school with as few bruises as possible, getting seriously bruised in the process. While Hardy Jenns, Amanda’s popular boyfriend, remains unchanged throughout the movie, his counterpart, the punk Duncan, gets to grow and change, proving that he’s a standup guy under his tough exterior. However, there was nothing more dear to a young punk girl-in-training than Mary Stuart Masterson’s Watts, the tomboy drummer that, after all the heartbreak and pain, gets her man. This movie, for all its demonstrable faults, proves that a strong friendship between freaks is a much better foundation for true love than raw attraction to a great pair of legs.

Though such awesome Hughesian films as Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Christmas Vacation, and Uncle Buck deserve attention all to themselves (particularly Uncle Buck, which is as good as Hughes’s best teen films), it is the above six movies that became a coming of age mantra for Generation X as it birthed its way from adolescence to adulthood. When we were, in our heyday, described as alternative, slacker losers who would never do as well as our parents (raised in the 50’s on poodle skirts and perfection) had, we could look at these movies and grin, knowing we—whether The Criminal, The Princess, The Brain, The Athlete or The Basket Case—did the best we could with what we were given.

Ten Actors Whose Names You Should Know

10. Enver Gjokaj
Gjokaj is one of the many actors on Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse with an unpronounceable name. Dollhouse is a unique opportunity for the actors who get to play “dolls,” people who have their identities wiped clean and replaced with various personas, because they play a diverse stash of characters. Playing the doll Victor has been the perfect milieu for Gjokaj’s talents—a promising look at what this young actor can do.

9. Andrea Anders
I bet Anders hopes you don’t hold Joey against her. But now that she’s on Better off Ted, her comic chops really shine. She’s funny, odd, quirky, and adorably mid-western.

8. Aziz Ansari
You probably know him best from his angry Twitter message, but this young comedian has recently taken off as the resident asshole, Tom, on Parks and Recreation and as the unwatchable comedian Randy on Funny People. It’s hard to get a sense of where the comedy ends and the person who Ansari is begins—and that’s a good thing for funny.

7. Carla Gallo
Judd Apatow has made stars of his in-group of boys from his television days; however, the women have struggled a bit more to break into his mega-hit comedies. Still, you can find Undeclared‘s Gallo getting kicked in the face by Steve Carell or crotch-bleeding on Jonah Hill in the Apatow oeuvre. Keep your eye on her as a young porn star on Californication. And maybe Apatow will write her a role that matches her promise.

6. Kat Dennings
Also a graduate of 40-Year Old Virgin, Dennings cut her teeth screeching about teen sex from behind a bathroom door. Equal parts adorable, quirky, and every-girl, Dennings also starred as Michael Cera’s romantic partner in Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist.

5. Demián Bichir
The Mexican actor who plays Esteban Reyes, the proud papa of Nancy Botwin’s newest progeny, can only be described as sexy/scary. He’s beyond handsome—the kind of guy who talks to thermostats just to turn up the heat. And he somehow pulls off being equal parts sympathetic and psychotic, a perfect match for a woman who is as repellent as she is irresistible.

4. Rosemarie DeWitt
DeWitt has had a big couple of years, playing the uber-enlightened Midge on Mad Men, the title character in Rachel Getting Married, and Charmaine, Toni Collette’s selfish sister on The United States of Tara. She has made a career of playing second fiddle to big, enigmatic characters, and she still manages to get noticed.

3. Aaron Paul
Now that Paul is nominated for an Emmy, maybe you’ll remember his name as much as you remember his characters. Causing viewer schizophrenia playing sweet-hearted, upstanding Scott on Big Love and beyond-fucked-up-meth-head Jesse on Breaking Bad, Paul has become a must-see element of some seriously must-see shows.

2. Chris Pratt
You’re going to laugh, but I first noticed Pratt when he played Everwood‘s affable dumb stud, Bright. Now he’s Andy on Parks and Recreation, and, seriously, every word this guy says is gold. He’s surrounded by some big-time comic talent, and he’s the funniest damn thing on the show. I could watch him deliver lines all day long.

1. Callum Keith Rennie
There’s always that one actor you would watch tie his shoes. Rennie is that guy right now. He spooked the crap out of me as BSG’s Leoben and then romanced me within an inch of my life as Californication’s Lew Ashby, may he rest in Best Character Ever peace. He should be in everything. Preferably wearing a kilt.

To Die By Your Side Is Such a Heavenly Way to Die

Let me preface this by saying that I am not a fan of The Smiths. In fact, I’m notorious for this amongst my peers, as each of them carries Morrisey nostalgia in their tortured-youth-that-was satchels. I would never, however, imply that I am immune to similar musical nostalgia. My distaste for The Smiths belies my passion for The Pixies, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and, of course, The Cure.

So when I saw the preview for 500 Days of Summer, I was intrigued, but I was also concerned about the one scene with the two leads in the elevator bonding over the morosely romantic lyrics of “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.” I was concerned that the film would be too precious. After all, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a Gen Xer or Yer who extols the virtues of The Smiths. I was worried that, if the movie somehow treated this fetish as unique, it had a fucked up definition of unique.

Luckily, the movie is well aware that there’s nothing particularly special about being a 25-40 year old Smiths fan; in fact, it hangs its thesis on the knowledge that this is patently mundane. Just not to Tom, the film’s loveable-but-arrested hero, who is mumbled to life by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. And, though the audience is told flat out that it is not watching a love story, fans of the grumpy idealism of mid-80’s new wave may just find themselves falling for the film’s obvious misrepresentation early on. We are, like Tom, victims of our own nostalgia.

Not that Summer, played by the always lovely Zooey Deschanel, is not worth our affections. Her wide blues eyes, reflecting both child-like wonder and craziness, reflect Tom’s affections like the season for which she is named reflects the sun. She is a vehicle for years of indoctrination by music’s most confusing time, where we believed that love was both possible and painful, as epic as a coma and as sweet as a razor blade.

What is delightful—and all too recognizable—about 500 Days of Summer is that it doesn’t dwell unnecessarily on nostalgia (it’s there, we get it, and it’s only directly addressed once, and not by Noah Taylor during the world’s longest elevator ride), and it does not become precocious or hip in its references, costumes, or set design. It’s about two people who are, admittedly, a confused conglomerate of retro pastiche, but this does not turn them into caricatures; instead, it helps them to be complete and complex people. This underscores the film’s thesis, which is, again, that nothing is particularly extraordinary unless we imbue it with our perceptions, our senses, our over-developed love of things that are, most often, sound and fury signifying nothing.

Because, while Tom clearly believes that death by Summer’s side would suit him just fine, we understand that Summer is not meant for him because, as objective observers, we can clearly see that the lens through which he sees her is as much a mirage as the latent desire to be hit by a ten ton truck is ridiculous.

So It’s Been A While…

…And it’s not that I have nothing to say. Life gets in the way of this life-once-removed space. But there are some ideas a-brewing, and only a few of them have anything to do with hockey.

Sit tight. Clubsauce will return.

Dollhouse: T- 2 Days

Joss Whedon returns to television this Friday. Whet your appetite with this Salon interview.

And don’t forget to watch.

Reacting to Reactionary Television…An Exercise in Absurdity

In his recent Guardian inverview, Kiefer Sutherland defends the reactionary content of his hit show, 24.  Indeed, he should.  He’s right.  It’s fiction, and as such it should not be held responsible for the disgraceful actions of our military.  This is at best a case of misplacing the blame.  

So I’m not particularly interested in that aspect of the 24 discussion.  What does interest me is Joel Surnow’s conservative mania as it affects fiction.

I watched the first two seasons of this show.  The first was thrilling, the second ridiculous (Kim battles mountain lions–oy), and then I gave up a few episodes into season three, which was downright didactic and reactionary and, yes, a little too xenophobic for my taste.

But I’m watching this season because my friend Annie is on it and, hell, I can’t very well miss it, now can I?  And Annie has been a delight–all wide blue eyes and freckles and she got buried alive, so that was cool.  But I find myself drifting away from the central content when she’s not on screen.  I blame this on Surnow’s desire to debate those who would blame his show for glorifying torture.  It seems that Surnow himself has forgotten what Sutherland believes to be demonstrably clear: his show is fiction.  Instead, he uses it to engage in a dialogue with his detractors, and this dialogue is lead to what should be buoyant drama.  

Sure, I’m a liberal, so I find all this torture to lack in taste and subtlety, but I like a little torture in my TV.  I’m a fan of shows that LOVE torture: anything by Joss Whedon, Battlestar Galactica, 30 Rock (different kind of torture, but no less painful).  The reason these shows thrive where 24 fails is that they exist in a purely fictional world.  Any link to American politics is metaphorical–beautifully hidden within a Dali-esque mirror.  24 simply takes its message too seriously, and it’s seriously taking the fun out of the show by delivering its reactionary mumbo jumbo with such earnest didacticism that it’s incredible anyone would take its content to heart.

The Sum of Milk’s Parts

Last evening, curled up under blankets in the dim light of the non-denominational holiday tree, Chereth, J, and I watched a screener of Milk. 

Sometime in the whirlwind of the past few weeks (finals and shopping and visiting and sleeping), President-elect Obama, who I do believe will be a measured, thoughtful leader, chose Rick Warren to offer the invocation at his inauguration. 

Before I rail against this choice, it’s important to note that I’m fully aware that Rick Warren’s significance here is merely symbolic.  He’s not joining Obama’s cabinet or making policy decisions or doing much besides babbling a prayer and moving off stage to make way for the next speaker.  But I have a writer’s love of symbols, and this one, at this moment, is going to cast a darkened hue when history looks back upon this time.  Because I think gay equality is going to be the civil rights issue of our first black president’s career. 

When he began making films, I loved Gus Van Sant.  He appealed to my youthful love of all things quirky, and my friends and I would toss around inside jokes about hats on beds.  But over the last decade, Van Sant has made me gristle more than once; alternately due to self-conscious melodrama or self-conscious hatefulness, his work has lost any sense of authenticity. He began to make the movies he thought people wanted to see—gooey bigger budget crap, grainy indie crap. 

So the fact that I wanted to jump feet first into a Gus Van Sant film says a lot—about the incredible stable of actors, and about my willingness to believe that this was a story Van Sant could tell organically, without romanticizing it or defiling its simplicity. 

Less than two short months ago, on the very day California went blue for Obama, my state also voted to remove the rights of gays to marry.  November 5^th was one of the most exciting and heart-crushing days of my life as a political beast.  The long-term promises of the Civil Rights movement were both realized and dashed.  It was a paradox for the ages. 

But there was a silver lining: despite the crushing blow of inequality, there was also a sense of inevitable progression.  The states can only vote against the civil rights of a minority group for so long—eventually, the Constitution will catch up with them, and history will be far kinder to those on the progressive side of the fight—it will be less kind to Rick Warren, who, like those who supported Prop. 6 back in 1978, will be seen as hateful has-beens in the United States’ inevitable movement towards defending the rights of its citizens.

And the fight against Prop. 6 has a significant place in Milk.  But Van Sant’s film is also the story of a man becoming a leader, a politician, a fighter for justice, and a tragic hero.  What works so flawlessly in this bio-pic is precisely what causes so many others to fail: it’s a snap shot of a an extended moment rather than the tale of an entire life.  Van Sant, perhaps because he’s gay, perhaps merely because he lives in the actual world and can smell the winds of inevitability, made this movie at the precisely perfect moment, cast it with the perfect group of talented (and straight) actors, and created a work of art that is somehow more than the sum of its parts.  Milk is a flawless bio-pic with clear narrative intentions; it’s wonderfully shot, weaving historical footage with his own in a way that does not feel didactic or Oliver Stone-esque.  His earnest love of the material, and perhaps even of Harvey Milk himself, allows him to eschew the false bravado that has tainted some of his films.  Van Sant sees the significance of the man, and the importance of him as a symbol for both the civil rights fight of his lifetime as well as the civil rights fight of ours.  In this symbolic moment of 2008—a watershed year that challenges, in some significant ways, 40 years of evangelical tyranny—Harvey Milk will once again come out on the right side of history, while Rick Warren will decidedly not. 

Milk is a great movie, but it is inseparable from its moment.  30 years after his death, the unrelenting battle for equality fought by Harvey Milk feels, in some ways, like it’s been bicycling in a vat of molasses.  But there are also signs of great progress for the LGBT community since 1978, and those, both real and symbolic, cannot be overlooked.  This whole process may be far too slow for those of us who believe in the promise of the US’s founding documents, but there has been progress since Milk’s tragic murder, and it will not stop for the bloated Twinkie defense that claims Rick Warren’s belief that gay marriage is comparable to statutory rape or polygamy is merely something upon which we must “agree to disagree.”   We all should have learned by now that this country has always rolled, however slowly, toward broadening equality, and, just like the community leaders and politicians from the 1970’s who now sound like bigoted lunatics ranting about the evils of homosexuality, Rick Warren will, too, become an obscure footnote in the more memorable tale—a plot point for conflict, nothing more significant.  I’m just sorry that Obama can’t see (or has chosen to ignore) what seems so abundantly clear—Rick Warren does not represent change, and this perfectly-timed release of Milk reminds us exactly what happens to such bit players in the compelling dramatization of a hero’s story—they become the passing symbols of outmoded hate.

There Remain No Witty Titles for End-of-Year Lists

It’s amazing, really, how far the mighty have fallen.  Just a few short years ago, we had no shortage of excellent scripted shows on TV; now, the new ones are, for the most part, the same old drudgery, and some of the older reliable ones have turned into dreck.  But there are a few shining stars this year, and, as is my annoyingly predictable habit, I’ve got a list.  As you know, I like the list.  It’s the cliché of all clichés, but, shit, I’m a huge fan of clichés—you should know this by now, reader.  So off we go!

10. Swingtown

Never heard of it?  That’s no surprise, and, due to this 70’s-era melodrama’s dismissal to the summer season’s usual roster of teen dramas and dance-offs, you will never see more than the 13 episodes that are now on DVD.  But for a few sweaty weeks, Swingtown amped up my summer viewing with its excellent performances (it’s impossible to pick a favorite, though Grant Show is a revelation in his mustache, tiny bathing suit, and manly chest hair), its edible designed-within-an-inch-of-its-nostalgic-life sets and costumes, and its heartfelt idealism.  This show is a “before the fall” tale that is so soaked with ironic innocence that it could only take place in the “me” decade to a soundtrack of pre-maybe-girlfriend-beater Jackson Browne tunes.  But these people are amazingly real for all their tokenism, and it’s hard to say goodbye, even after just barely getting to know them.

9. Breaking Bad

After the first episode of this lovely little show, Chereth and I immediately agreed that we were watching an Emmy-worthy performance by Bryan Cranston.  Despite this, we couldn’t have been more surprised when he was nominated for an award, a more still when he won the statuette.  This show is a tour-de-force, plain and simple, but it’s inaugural season also plays like a 6-hour movie.  Creator Vince Gilligan (ex X-Files), who wrote (oh my!) all six episodes creates a seamless experience from week to week, delivering a show that feels more like bare-bones British TV than Hollywood polish.  It doesn’t hurt that Breaking Bad is shot and takes place in unassuming Albuquerque, a place that, thankfully, eschews both polish and normalcy at every tumbleweed. I can only imagine what little gifts season two will bring.

8. Battlestar Galactica

Was this even on this year?  I honestly have no idea, but season four (part une) brought so many surprises, so much character development and tension, that BSG is officially the anti-Heroes, tumbling into a quagmire of its own delicious making.  There’s nothing I love more than TV that gets messy—a controlled, focused mess, of course.  But Ron Moore and company know exactly what they have left to achieve, and each episode of this penultimate half-season was more gripping than the last. 

7. Pushing Daisies

People must not have room on their plates for lovely little fables anymore.  It must be Brian Fuller’s fate to create delightful shows that no one will ever see.  I’m so sad that we’ll have no more Daisies, because my life needs a little irony-packed magic.

6. Weeds

You thought Weeds would come back for season four its old reliable self, didn’t you?  Yeah, me, too, but we got so much more than we bargained for.   The show at once became both more serious and more ridiculous (almost Dali-esque) and delivered a season that was heads above the show’s previous stong efforts.  Nancy Botwin is no angel, indeed, but she’s also no devil, and for the first time I’m truly riveted by the prospect of where she’s going to go next. 

5.  The Rachel Maddow Show

Trapped in a boy’s club of angry screamers on both sides of the aisle, Maddow emerged as the singularly thoughtful and erudite spinster (in the sense that she does spin, not in the sense that she’s an old maid, which she’s demonstrably not) in the cable news juggernaut.  Just when there was literally nothing left to take seriously on cable news, along came Rachel, who deftly thinks before she speaks, and gives her viewers something more than vitriolic fat to chew on.  Viva la femme (with just a splash of butch)!

4. Dexter

Here’s a show I thought was pretty awesome as it was, but, in its third season, it delivered a flawless run of episodes.  Flawless.  Each week ended with me perched on the edge of the couch, and this tension and exacerbation was not due to nail-biting “who’s next” mystery—it was thanks to incredible character building.  The sociopathic game played between Michael C. Hall’s Dexter and Jimmy Smit’s maniacal ADA Miguel Prado is so riveting that this show, so often about bloody murders and dumping bodies, became a study in evil, and challenged the viewers’ basic definitions of that four-letter word. 

3.  Californication

A lot of people don’t have the stomach for Hank Moody.  I, on the other hand, could snuggle up with him in my house for days.  Both remarkably witty and dripping with pop-culture laden sap, Californication achieves what films like Vanilla Sky can only attack on the surface: Hank and his co-horts (Lew Ashby most notably) are slaves to the idea of love, shaped by movies and songs and books and the life of the once-removed, that they simply can’t sort the reality from the white noise.  Careful viewers are rewarded with sappy lines stolen from lyrics, a clear harbinger of certain failure for the show’s lovable but clueless crew of misfits.  Californication is enjoyable as pulp, but it’s even more rewarding when viewed as literature.

2.  Mad Men

Season two slowed to a snail’s pace, parsing out moments for each of the myriad characters.  We saw how truly broken both Don Draper and his bride are in their mundane, suburban existence, how desperate the seemingly unflappable Joan is for permanence in love, and how driven the once shy Peggy.  While everyone on Mad Men is as picture-perfect a character as the sets and costumes they inhabit, this was the year for the ladies, and the women of Mad Men skyrocket this little critical darling into the pantheon of TV’s greatest.

1. 30 Rock 

Everyone agrees this was Tina Fey’s year.  Sarah Palin, blah blah blah.  But it’s Liz Lemon that makes me shriek with joy week after week, and there’s no cast on TV that more reliably delivers bon mots that challenge the greatest comedies in history.  Equal parts Mary Tyler Moore, The Bob Newhart Show, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, 30 Rock is the most consistently finger-on-the-pulse relevant show on the boob tube.

Checking Out the Foil-iage

Somehow, the season’s two greatest shows have managed to up the ante on everything this year.  As they air back-to-back, it’s sort of awesome that their season’s design is thoroughly simpatico, these parallel universes of moral ambiguity in the face of moral absence.

Except, you know, one is about a womanizer and one is about a serial killer.

Both Dexter and Californication added a new character this season—a foil to their central guy.  This is no new literary or filmic approach, but it is a tried and true way to show that your character, flawed as he may be, is not as flawed as he could be.

But not all foils are equal, and these particular shows with two of the best actors on television anchoring the action faced a tall challenge in getting the right guy.

Enter Jimmy Smits and Callum Keith Rennie. 

But first, let’s talk about the big guys, because there are few guys that loom larger than Dexter Morgan and Hank Moody.

My favorite thing about Dexter is that he doesn’t suffer fools.  If he likes someone, he fakes the rest.  But the fact that he finds something to like about them is not insignificant.  People who bother or annoy him fall into the background.  The only fools he does suffer are those he plans to kill, and they’re ultimately closer to him than his family and friends.  He may despise them, but he’s also thankful for them.  If they weren’t unrepentant murderers, his life would have no meaning.  But Dex would never go out of his way to manipulate an innocent person if that person were meaningless to him, and this creates a huge blind spot for him because his emotional development is…let’s say arrested.

Hank, on the other hand, suffers many fools…but not very well.  He’s Dexter’s opposite in so many ways—analytical where Dexter is literal.  But he also has a code.  He tries, at the best of his ability, to treat people with (some) respect.  His morality is more slippery than most, but he does have a barometer (he’ll sleep with a 16-year old when he thinks she’s legal, but then protects her vigilantly once he learns her real age, despite her horrible treatment of him).  Hank merely wants to do right by the people he loves.  He just usually fucks it up. 

The foils introduced on each of these shows are not without their charms.  Smits’s Miguel Prado is an Assistant District Attorney dedicated to putting away the bad guy.  He’s a bit off, however, taking an immediate interest in Dexter and displaying a serious amount of moral flexibility in service of what he perceives to be the greater good.  But what is so fascinating about him, what has made this season of Dexter so compelling, is that he is impossible to anticipate.  Each show ends with the incredibly tense feeling of “What the fuck will Miguel do now?”  And his character, like Dexter’s, is so well designed that none of these moments feel like empty, M. Night Shayamalan-esque twists.  Every shocking turn is anchored in a well-designed character.  And through this design, the viewer learns more and more about the titular character, what he’s willing to do to feel real camaraderie, and how he manages betrayal.  Miguel, an alarmingly compelling creation (this is an entirely new side of Jimmy Smits), makes Dexter loom even larger, and ups the stakes to give Showtime’s favorite serial killer his best season yet.

Hank’s foil, Lew Ashby, has had a similar effect.  Rennie is so all at once sexy, charming, and morally bereft that he makes the viewer desire a cold shower—and then a very very hot one.  He is every inch the lothario Hank is, but where Hank wears his self-loathing on his sleeve, Lew’s is buried beneath his anything-goes veneer, only to surface when he muses about the loss of his true lady love.  As Hank writes Lew’s biography—the story of a Hollywood music producing sensation, he learns that the heart of the man is tethered to a remarkably fetching woman.  And he realizes that his own salvation shares this source.  The difference, of course, is that Lew is less compelled to do the right thing—his woman is more remote, longer in the past, not as connected to him as Hank is to Karen.  What has become clearer and clearer to the viewer is that it is because of this central relationship that we love Hank–it defines his moral center–and we are grateful for it.  So the existence of Lew, who brings comedy as well as commentary, not only elevates the greatness of Hank; he gives us a deeper understanding of Karen. 

This season has been all over the place for my favorite shows; while Showtime has been hitting it out of the park (Weeds had its best season, as well), other nets and netlets have faltered.  Mad Men was great, Pushing Daisies is delightful but canceled, Heroes is an unwatchable mess—things are a little wild out there in TeeVeeland.  But one thing is for sure—we can count on the Boys of Sunday to entertain and shock, delight and despair.  TGIS.

Pushing Up Daisies

Dear ABC,

You suck.  Pushing Daisies is awesome.  So what if no one watches it (they suck, too)?  The mere fact that people watch Dancing With the Stars is not an indication that the horrid piece of dreck should be on 5 days a week.  

xoxo

Mr. F.

Next time: Dear Fox, you suck.