Category: Television

Let’s get the record straight immediately: I am all about this episode of Scandal.

“Baby Made a Mess” feels like a direct response to my biggest criticism of the season (and the series) to date, which is that the show has leaned too heavily on Olivia’s romantic life at the expense of her professional life. Well, in short order this episode takes that criticism, ingests it, and throws it right back at the audience.

Most obviously, the episode does this by pitting Olivia directly against her father, allowing her (or anyone, really) to for once outsmart Rowan. That the narrative reaches this point through Olivia’s own agency, through her co-opting of her father’s tactics, and through her successful attempt at bringing the two dumb men in her life into the same room, is really tremendous. Olivia Pope is on point this week, and the result is by far the best, most exciting episode of Scandal so far this season. This is an episode that demonstrates in turn each of the show’s best qualities, one after the other. The “case of the week” is Susan Ross’s campaign for Virginia’s Senate seat, which Olivia quite literally marches into and takes over. Everything to do with Ross is funny and witty, but not at the expense of showcasing Olivia’s skills as a political operative, often spoken about but not of late seen. The campaign ad she devises featuring Ross’s daughter is brilliant, a simple, elegant, and effective solution to the problem of Ross’s ill-suitedness for the camera. In other words it is quintessential Olivia Pope.

And of course there is the scene that Kerry Washington shares this week with Joe Morton, which is easily their best dramatic encounter to date. Morton’s monologues are fantastic regardless of their context, but here, the speech serves doubly as a much-needed wake-up call for Olivia. In fact, that wake-up call may come even earlier, in her conversation with Tom, who by this point is little more than Rowan’s proxy. Upon first watch, my reaction to Olivia’s interrogation with Tom was not kind—it instantly becomes about Fitz and Jake, about positioning Olivia as an object of desire between them. It’s not until the episode ends that we realize the show isn’t positioning Olivia as an object at all; it’s allowing her to break free. He remarks on her beauty. He calls her “Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships,” and while it’s super overwrought (even if in an appropriately Scandalesque way), it also succeeds in turning what until now has been a shortcoming of the season into a strength. Tearing a page out of Rowan’s playbook, she forces Tom to confess, and uses the truth as a weapon to finally get Fitz and Jake into the same room, and onto the same page as she is. No more who-will-she-choose? No more Team Fitz and Team Jake. Just Olivia Pope, kicking ass and taking names. Finally.

The rest of the episode supports this newly rediscovered feminist streak, as well. There’s a meaty B-plot for Abby, as her ex-husband Chip Putney turns up in the Virginia race as well, as Fitz’s favored candidate. Putney himself is a bit of a cartoon—the scene in the parking garage is extremely over the top, like a Lifetime movie rendition of domestic abuse—but Darby Stanchfield turns in a hell of a performance, ranging from physical comedy to outright drama, even embracing the melodrama of that parking garage bit as she levels a gun at Putney. While it would be justifiable to take issue with the notion that, at the end of the day, the problem is solved not through Abby’s own action but by Leo, there’s still plenty of agency in Abby’s decision to tell Leo the truth. Further, Olivia takes on the Ross campaign solely as a way to defeat Putney for Abby’s sake. I’m not sure if the show got enough mileage out of Olivia and Abby being at odds, and in fact they used it mainly as an excuse for the characters to snipe at each other in full-on Mean Girls fashion, and so in this episode especially, it’s great to see them friends again, supporting each other not just romantically but professionally, even if the two are still pretty deeply entwined.

And then there is Mellie Grant. Her long mourning has ended, and it’s astonishing and revealing to see just how quickly Fitz changes his tune as a result. What, exactly, did he think he was asking for when he bemoaned Drunk Mellie and Smelly Mellie and all the other forms that Mellie’s grief took on, and asked for the “real” Mellie to come back? Because the real Mellie is back now, in full force, and that Mellie is a woman who is not content to curate china patterns and play housewife to the most powerful man in the world. Real Mellie wants that power, too, and, emboldened by Bitsy Cooper as well as by Lizzie Thompson, she’s going to grab at it posthaste. Bellamy Young is never anything short of amazing, and in just a few scenes here, she completely turns around the character, selling the audience fully on this transformation, and the reasons for it. When she answers Fitz’s phone and lets him know that it’s Olivia calling for him, there’s a spark in her eyes and an edge to her voice, not the shrill jealousy of a few episodes ago, but the knowledge that her husband is weak, and she is strong. That’s the kind of development I want to see more of on this show.

So, then, what “Baby Made a Mess” is more than anything else is a re-statement of this show’s feminist objective, one that in the wake of the past several episodes was sorely needed, and is extremely welcome. The episode is not without its flaws: Huck’s story, for instance, is still too isolated to carry much weight, and yet, if more time was spent on it, it would only draw more attention to how very creepy it is for Huck to be catfishing his son. The melodrama is amped up just slightly too much at times, as well. That “Helen of Troy” metaphor loses its luster after being repeated seventeen times, and the episode’s closing sequence, with the pounding music and the montage full of smash cuts (hey, that’s the name of the site!) is a bit much. I haven’t mentioned the Winslow conspiracy, either, mainly because it’s still bubbling, not very interestingly, in the background, and like Huck’s plotline, it feels appended on, rather than an integral part of the show. But these are small concerns—what is integral to the show is its central women, and this episode both reaffirms Olivia and Mellie’s feminism in that regard, and fully adds Abby to their ranks as well. That it does this while also running on high-octane excitement is an achievement, and a promising sign of things to come. More of this, please.

 

Stray Observations:

• Despite whatever problems the resolution to Abby’s story may carry, I like the idea of her and Leo, and their scene in the pressroom is a nice contrast to the horrors of Abby’s previous romantic engagement with Putney. The actors have good chemistry, and, on Scandal especially, a non-toxic romance is a breath of fresh air.
• Speaking of toxic romances, Cyrus plants a trap for Michael, and at first he seems to confirm that Michael is not the leak, before, at the worst possible moment, confirming that he in fact is. The other shoe, I can see it dropping even now.
• The notable event of the Winslow conspiracy this week is that Winslow shoots himself in the head in front of Quinn. It’s nice to see she can still be rattled by something. Quinn and Huck also finally bring Olivia in the loop on the photos of her that Winslow was keeping, but nothing more amounts from that yet.
• “The woman could sell a dual ticket of Hitler and Bin Laden.” Pretty much, yeah.
• Susan Ross is played by Artemis Pebdani of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, in case you, like me, were going crazy trying to figure out where you knew her from. It’s more than a little odd to see her playing such a “normal” role, given how batshit insane the character of Artemis is.

Reviewing Parenthood is always an interesting prospect for me. Coming up with a score can honestly feel a bit like alchemy. I love this show because it perfectly nails such significant minutiae of family life, like that little shrug Camille gives Julia after Kristina brings Joel on board at the school. You know they are about to talk shit on Kristina, because she does this shit all the time. The show so fully portrays all of life’s small moments, and so gracefully, in such a way that we are instantly reminded of our own families. Suddenly I am not watching Zeke; I’m watching my own grandfather, or seeing some future vision of my father. I see not Kristina and Sarah and Julia, but my mother and aunts. Certain dynamics are more familiar than others. Parenthood achieves this effect even in its lesser episodes, but when it marries this effect with genuinely great craftsmanship, it is one of the best shows on television. Tonight, it does just that.

“Vegas” is an excellent way to kick off this last season. It draws upon the show’s deep, rich history, and in doing so pushes many of the characters in new, challenging directions (and sets the rest up for a later payoff). Zeke must now come to terms with his mortality. Amber is pregnant. Hank and Sarah are dating, finally. Julia seems on track to replace Joel, just when Joel decides to forgive her. We are engaged in each of these stories because we are intimately familiar with these characters, and with this family.

The episode revolves around Zeke’s surprise birthday trip to Vegas, courtesy of Sarah. It’s a blast, until he collapses. The sustained sequence where he is in the hospital is riveting, showing the siblings’ various reactions and playing them against each other, so that every reaction reveals character in some way or another. Julia responds to Joel’s kiss by agreeing to see her law firm hookup. Adam immediately decides Sarah is not mature enough to handle the situation, and spends his time remotely trying to wrest control from her, until finally he and Crosby just show up in Vegas themselves. Zeke himself doesn’t even want to be in the hospital—after he’s discharged, he sneaks back out onto the casino floor, and soon his kids are out there with him, having a good time.

In other words this week’s episode covers the full array of Parenthood’s strong points, putting Adam up against his less-responsible siblings and his cantankerous father for laughs, but not before letting us feel each siblings’ panic upon hearing the news. Meanwhile, the rest of the cast helps out with the opening of Chambers Academy, and while it’s still a little farfetched that Adam and Kristina now run a school, it provides this week a good central gathering point for the various Bravermans. The show relies upon the chemistry among its large web of characters, and so the more Bravemans per capita, the better. Plus, the fact that the school is run by Max’s parents puts an effectively dramatic, personal spin on Max’s already heart wrenching struggle with returning to school.

We’re robbed of an Amber heart-to-heart with Sarah until next week, but she does share a lovely scene with Haddie, who appears to be sticking around on at least a semi-regular basis. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the character, but she’s a pleasure to have back. Mae Whitman plays Amber’s nervous trepidation with a perfect jittery edge, and when she finally comes clean to Haddie, she and Sarah Ramos have a really great exchange that’s a perfect example of the show’s effective use of its own history.

So much goes on in any given episode that it’s hard not to just start summarizing the plot. But at its best, Parenthood is less about what actually happens, and much more about how the individual scenes make you feel. What the best episodes of Parenthood do is construct a plot that showcases these character moments; it’s a show that excels in the in-between of life’s biggest moments. Zeke’s hospital stay is not as important as his reaction to it. The reason for Julia’s divorce matters less than its aftermath. The joy of Parenthood is that we watch life happen, and find ourselves satisfied.

As an opening to the final season, “Vegas” accomplishes all it needs to and then some. This is a long-overdue and very, very welcome reunion with the Braverman clan, one that celebrates where the show has been while pointing the direction for its final episodes. It’s by far the most sure of itself the show has been in quite some time. If this is a sign of things to come, then we’re in for a rewarding closing stretch here.

 

Stray Observations:

– The premiere does a pretty good job of servicing most of the main characters, but Drew essentially cameos, and Crosby is strictly on comic relief duty.

– Pretty much the entire Internet called it that Zeke would be having some health woes this season, but the prospect of it still feels momentous.

– Betsy Brandt guest stars as Hank’s ex-wife. She fits this show perfectly, doesn’t she?

“What a Piece of Work Is Man,” indeed.

This week’s episode is still over-stuffed, and the pacing is drawn out at times, but it at least features periodic jolts of excitement in most of the ongoing stories. It at least raises stakes, and at least bothers to feign forward momentum on the season’s major arc.

The current tango with Marks comes to a bloody end, as he executes Bobby in front of Jax as repayment for Jax’s war on the Chinese. The fact that it took three episodes and several beatings sort of deflates the moment’s tension, as Bobby’s death is as predictable as it is inevitable. But that doesn’t mean that the last few episodes haven’t been a nice final showcase for Mark Boone, Jr., and it doesn’t make the loss of Bobby any less significant. Along with Chibs, Bobby has been the most frequent voice of reason at the table, and so that he should be a casualty of the club’s descent into darkness is appropriately tragic.

What’s even more promising is that Marks remains the “big bad” of the season at episode’s end—at least, to the extent that Jax doesn’t fill that role himself. Jax doubles down on his war following Bobby’s death, seemingly learning nothing from the actions he’s taken so far, but the show is no longer making any bones about this. The pastor’s wife claims to see that Jax is “fundamentally decent,” but even Jax isn’t claiming that anymore. Instead the show goes to great lengths to isolate Jax and SAMCRO from the world around them.

The Indian Hills charter is summoning a forum of all Sons charters, with the implicit threat that they wish to disband SAMCRO. More even than last week, they function as audience surrogates, which at this stage is hugely important to the show’s narrative. Even Marks brings Jax to task, placing all the spilt blood at his feet. “Is this what you wanted?” he asks as they negotiate. “Piles of bodies?” And when he actually does murder Bobby, he puts a gun to Jax’s head as well: “This is on you, Jackson.” That’s a powerful statement to have the show’s ostensible villain make, especially since it’s a true one. Of course it’s no big revelation that Jax and the club have long lost any hope at redemption or forgiveness, but by bringing in the other charters’ viewpoints as well, the show at least has the means to challenge and vilify the club’s actions.

Unser’s investigation into Tara’s murder turns up new developments, as well, as Jarry learns that the Chinese man Gemma pinned the murder on was in jail in a different state the night of Tara’s murder. They’re playing dumb for now, but while this is only a baby step, it is at least some progress in this story. Plus, Abel spies on Gemma as she confesses to yet another inanimate object, this time Bobby’s boy. This is hardly necessary, and in fact just feels silly, especially since it’s not like Abel’s gonna piece together this whole complicated conspiracy. He already knows the one important detail; anything else until he tells someone else (my money’s on Wendy) is just redundant filler. It’s also another lazy (and unnecessary) way to emphasize the dangers of the SAMCRO life. Everyone is pretty much straight up ignoring what is clearly a severely damaged child, which is perhaps the most egregious example yet of just how much these people have normalized and rationalized their destructive lives. Neither they nor the show treat Abel like a real person, and if there’s going to be no commitment on that level, well, then who cares?

Let’s be honest: the episode doesn’t really shake anything up. It’s a workman-like installment of Sons, advancing the pieces it needs to, and while some of the moves are more interesting than they’ve been at times, they’re the expected moves. Where the show succeeds as always is in its acting, and if nothing else, “What a Piece of Work Is Man” gives its actors the material to deliver some good performances. There’s still too much filler, and not enough genuinely gripping material to justify the bloated run-times. But if you treat like a primetime soap and approach it with a generous fast-forward button trigger finger, you can do worse.

 

Stray Observations:

• What a beautiful shot of Gemma smoking in the cabin kitchen, with everything behind her swallowed in pitch darkness. Major kudos to Peter Weller for that one alone, but really, there are a lot of beautiful compositions this week. Even Chibs fucking Jarry in a parking garage is almost well-shot enough to excuse how stupid the scene itself is.
• Juice’s story is on a mega-slow burn this week, as he enacts Jax’s plan to have Lin killed, only to have Jarry toss him back into solitary at the last minute. If that’s not a perfect microcosm of bullshit Sons plotting, I don’t know what is.
• Did Theo Rossi show his ass? Did he ever.

About two thirds of the way through this week’s Parenthood, Jabbar asks Crosby a deceptively simple question: “How old is Grandpa?”

And yet, it’s a question that gets to the heart of this final season. The show is called Parenthood. Confronting the reality that your parents get old is the perfect way to bring everything to whatever conclusion it is that Jason Katims has in store. In fully committing to the question of Zeek’s health, as well as to the various Bravermans’ reactions to it, the show creates a strong emotional center around which everything else can orbit. When “Happy Birthday, Zeek” features the titular character, then, it’s a quietly powerful episode of television.

Take your pick of scenes: Adam’s confrontation with Zeke at the birthday party, particularly, is powerful. A 72^nd birthday celebration is tinged with a notion of mortality anyway, and here it’s even more so, since it’s all anyone will talk about. Zeke takes offense at the healthy food, Kristina’s offhand comment that he’s “not in the best of health,” Julia’s gift of a pedometer; but it’s Adam’s tearful, fearful plea for his father to not die that finally hits home for the audience. Peter Krause nails the desperation of the moment, the plaintive cry of a man who, though grown, is still a child coming to grips for the first time with the fact that his father will die. Each man demonstrates his own, unique brand of stubbornness, and the way the conversation stops without any real resolution is both true to life and dramatically effective.

But in the end, it’s Amber’s revelation that she’s pregnant that finally convinces Zeek that he might actually need the open-heart surgery his doctor recommends. Mae Whitman is a superstar even on this show’s deep bench, but any scene pairing her with Craig T. Nelson is always a pleasure to watch. There’s no denying she gives good cry, but she also keeps Amber’s pregnancy from becoming too maudlin or sentimental. In truth, the whole party sequence is wonderful; I love how deftly it turns on a dime from fraught with drama and tension to a light-hearted celebration of this family’s love for each other, complete with a soundtrack that sounds like Fauxsplosions in the Sky. Such moments were a regular occurrence on Friday Night Lights, and have been on Parenthood as well, and when used to the effect they are here, they can be the lifeblood of the show.

In the same vein, this episode features several small scenes between Sarah and Amber, another potent dramatic pairing. Their discussions throughout the episode are lovely, small and dramatic in the very best way. Sarah is watching Amber go through the same struggle she did at Amber’s age, and her greatest fear is that Amber will also make the same mistakes. It’s another story where the stakes are rather higher than the execution, and it’s that discordance that Parenthood excels at. This is a show that makes even the small moments seem epic—and isn’t that what life is, at the end of the day?

I’m making such a fuss out of these storylines because the episode’s third major storyline features Kristina’s attempts to run Chambers Academy, and it is absurd. On the one hand, I’m happy to see the show address actual difficulties in the process of opening and running a charter school over the course of one summer. On the other hand, it’s presented as such a goddamn cartoon that it’s impossible to take with a straight face. This woman’s quest to find a food vendor who will make individual meals for over forty kids is absolutely insane, and Adam’s determination to appease her just makes him seem ridiculous. Parenthood can get laughs out of almost any character combination on this show, so detailed is the writing and so nuanced the acting. When they put various characters in these wacky sitcom situations, it’s not only dumb, it’s completely unnecessary and avoidable. The scene at the end of the episode with Adam and Kristina is actually quite sweet, but the way we get there is, well, I can’t think of a better word than silly.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Sydney’s woes at schools, which force Joel and Julia to come to terms with the impact their separation has had on the daughter. The most interesting thing here is the way the show equates Julia with Sydney; they both have the same deflecting approach to challenges in their lives, the same quickness to blame others, and while Julia has grown of that a little, she certainly hasn’t as much as she’d like to believe. I’d be concerned I seem to remember Julia being more complicit in the separation than she herself does, if I didn’t the show wants me to think exactly that. As ever, the aftermath of her conflict with Joel last year is infinitely more interesting than the actual happening of it was, and the show finds continued new twists on the post-separation, pre-divorce dance.

As far as Parenthood goes, 3 for 4 on Braverman storylines isn’t a bad deal. Certainly there have been episodes that struck out way worse than that. “Happy Birthday, Zeek” isn’t firing on all cylinders to the extent that last week was, and it does also repeat a lot of the same conflicts. But there are some tremendously strong scenes, almost vignettes here, that demonstrate some of the best that the show has to offer. Saying goodbye to the Bravermans was never going to be easy, especially not if our last go around with them is this engaging.

 

Stray Observations:

– I was typing it “Zeek” for a while but spell check kept suggesting “Zeke” instead and eventually I just gave in. Apparently I was right the whole time!

– Kristina gave out the house number to every single parent and invited them to call at any hour. Kristina is a fucking idiot.

– “Why did we found this school?” “To be a fascist institution.” Max is perfect.

– Jasmine lives! But Haddie disappears overnight, never to be heard from again (until the finale, maybe).

– I see we will be treated to another season of insanely overwrought episode previews. There’s a very fast-paced drinking game to be had here.

I’m not going to lie, that “three months later” title card pretty much blew my mind the first time I watched this episode.

Not because anything particularly shocking happens as a result of it, but because it’s the sort of thing that Parenthood wouldn’t typically do in previous seasons. Between seasons, maybe you would see something like this, but here, this is a purposeful attempt to accelerate the storylines to cover the necessary narrative ground before the series ends. It’s audacious, and it can be very useful; in fact, most of the storylines this season could benefit hugely from such a time jump. The only one that it wouldn’t and doesn’t really have an effect on is Adam, Kristina and Max, and it’s no coincidence that, in their scenes, it’s not even altogether clear that three months has passed.

But then scheduling and budgetary issues rear their heads in the worst way possible: Joel and Julia, as well as Zeek and Camille, the two segments of the show apart from Amber who would benefit most from a time jump, are completely absent from this episode. Considering where we left these stories, a lot could have changed in this time, and it’s frustrating at best to have the two strongest stories of the season hit a wall so forcefully.

Rather that lament what we’re missing, though, let’s try to enjoy what we have. “Too Big to Fail” is a functional, frequently solid episode of Parenthood, even if it’s a bit of a structural mess. Plus, though I’d still rather have seen what’s up with Julia or Zeek, their absence does allow for more time spent with characters there would otherwise not be room for, like Drew and the long-suffering Jasmine.

The impact of the three-month time jump is most obvious on Amber, who is suddenly much more pregnant than she was when last we saw her. Her growing realization of the difficulties of raising an infant (as well as the fact that it costs a lot of money) leads her to ask Adam and Crosby for a raise at the Luncheonette. The only problem is, the Luncheonette isn’t making any money. Money woes are at the root of many of the stories this week, as Amber worries about how she’ll provide for her baby, Crosby worries about how he can provide for his own family, Adam worries about his own income (which is also gutted by Chambers Academy, another shockingly unprofitable Braverman business venture), and even Drew gets in on the worrying action, fretting about which major he should choose to be able to provide for a hypothetical family that is years from existing.

Frankly, the idea of any of the Bravermans having financial trouble is a tough pill to swallow, given the way that Parenthood treats money as no object most of the time. It makes at least some sense with Amber, at least, and even as far as Crosby goes I’ll buy it. But Adam and Kristina have never been portrayed as anything less than comfortable, and usually much more than that. Parenthood is an upper middle class fantasy most of the time, and given that approach, it feels somewhat disingenuous to suddenly decide now that money is a serious issue, and even more so to do so after a three month time jump that skips over any of the events that led to this point.

On the bright side, at least the focus on finance gives some focus to Crosby’s story, which until this point has been a sort of aimless malaise; now, at least, we have some sense of his dissatisfaction that goes beyond the show’s desire to portray him as a mirror to Zeek. And as the youngest, most reckless Braverman sibling (well, perhaps not as reckless as Sarah), it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that he’d find himself in dire financial straits.

While I usually appreciate when Parenthood episodes revolve around a theme, this week the most successful stories are the ones that abandon the ideas of money and responsibility. Unfortunately, these are also the stories that make the least use of the time jump; in fact, they basically ignore it. For Max’s part, his continued courtship of Dylan is sweetly touching—it certainly got dusty in my living room when he tells Adam, “She said I nice eyes.” I also love how the show has inverted the initial dynamic of Kristina and Dylan’s relationship—it’s clear Kristina is warming up to the girl, even if it’s in her own, awkward, almost disbelieving way. It’s easy to see even now how Dylan’s presence will lead Kristina and Adam to see Max in a new light, as a person and growing young man rather than a problem to be solved or a victim in need of protection. In their own quirky way, Dylan and Max are more normal than many of us can manage most days.

Hank’s story with Sarah and Ruby is also touching, and even manages to draw Amber in for the game night Sarah plans. The story doesn’t cover much new ground—Ruby and Hank have tension, the combination of Sarah and Amber begins to soften her cruel, hard teenage heart—but it does introduce the idea that Hank’s difficulty with her owes just as much to his Asperger’s as it does to her pubescent brattiness. In that sense, the episode gives some dimension both to Ruby’s character and her relationship with Hank, and as we spend even more time with them, that’s a great thing.

It won’t go down as one of the all-time great Parenthood episodes, and it wastes a lot of the opportunity that that “three months later” card suggests, but “Too Big to Fail” is by no means bad, and its component parts range from good to great, even if they never come together into a very cohesive whole. Ultimately, though, even the individual parts aren’t great enough to forgive what the episode squanders.

 

Stray Observations

• “We’ll go to Target or something.” Drew goes baby furniture shopping exactly the way
• Caring for drunken teenagers is in fact exactly like caring for an infant. Good call, show.
• Max is dating Dylan now. And of course Adam and Kristina walk by the room constantly.
• “We’ve been on two dates now. Would you like to stay the night?” It’s cool, Dylan still only likes Max at a two and a half.
• The Lowe’s commercial with Parenthood’s set designer is the sort of advertising I wouldn’t mind seeing more of.
• Oh hey Jasmine, how ya been? Nice to see she hasn’t completely vanished, and her Harry Potter party for Jabbar hits that perfectly Parenthood level of schmaltz, even if the song choice, with its repeated refrain “I’m trying the best that I can,” is too on the nose.
• Did Drew Holt get a haircut? Three months have not been kind, let’s put it that way.

It was an odd feeling watching this episode of Penny Dreadful.

Up until this point every moment and scene was done to build to the conclusion of the last episode, which saw the assembling of the “monster hunting” team. There was a clear trajectory of every storyline that built upon each other until the series was set up. Along that way the feeling of dread and darkness cast a shadow over the series and piqued our interest, but now that the set up is done, what now? Well, this episode answered that question. “Demimonde” had the distinction of being the halfway point of what has turned out to be a brilliant season of television so far. However, the episode was fairly stagnant in most of its storyline, which worked in some of the story lines and somewhat failed in others.

The episode found the team further studying their captive Fenton (in a lovely performance by Olly Alexander). This time, they focused on the blood, which revealed that the young creeper was involved in the drinking or eating of blood. This reveal proved little shock since we’ve had our suspicions that his master, and Mina’s keeper, was some form of Dracula. However, when Fenton escapes and calls his master to the house, we see it isn’t the tall, pale, and handsome that we are used to when we think of Dracula. It seems our adventurers are in over their heads.

However, the main course of the episode was served up in small moments that gave us (and held from us) insights on our characters. This is where my frustration with the show began. During the first three episodes I was allured to the mystery that was Penny Dreadful. It seemed that everyone had some sort of darkness hidden away in the shadows. I found the show’s ability to hid its cards refreshing in a time where so many shows feel the need to shock us and with twists and turns that we didn’t see coming. I found the slow build of some foreboding darkness to be part of the charm of the series. However, that charm has quickly faded away. I’m tired of waiting for something I didn’t know to be revealed. That first reveal of Dr. Frankenstein was marvelous and satisfying, but it seems the other characters are hesitant to do the same.

The center piece of the episode was the Grand Guignol performance where almost all of our characters converged. The anticipation of something going wrong, between the fast cuts to Caliban working backstage to Broma’s sheer joy at the performance to the seductive stares between Vanessa and Dorian, was painful. I was aching for something to happen, but it never did. It seemed that the cliche of some disaster happening in a theatre didn’t apply here. Instead, we got more mystery.

The beginning of the show started with Dorian in the middle of some convoluted orgy with multiple men and women performing acts that Dorian seemed unfazed by. However, when they were all gone and silence creeped through the picture room, he entered a dark hallway containing the famed portrait, which he stared at intently. We never got to see the picture, perhaps their saving that reveal for later, but again the mystery simply continues.

We do get some relief on the mystery in Broma’s storyline, when she reveals to Ethan that she went into prostitution because of an abusive relationship. However, the hairpin trigger of seeing Dorian again was a bit excessive and convenient for the writers.

Ethan constantly has small eater eggs to the Ripper case that continue to point to his guilt in the matter. My issue is that when it is revealed for sure that he is the ripper, that the shock is gone. There were one too many flashes to past events that troubled Ethan, that confused him. Some that even evaded him, such as the title of the play “The Transformed Beast.” His anger at the situation finally comes out at a sort of bar, but it never builds past that.

What it does build toward is Dorian’s seduction of Ethan. It’s not necessarily a sexual seduction, but rather a seduction of baggage. We are still unaware of the true darkness that trouble Ethan, no matter how many times it is hinted at. I think that he was attracted to the same darkness that trouble Dorian. Their night together simple revealed that these are two men who are tormented with themselves. The difference is that Dorian has a way to project that torment. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, brush up on your English gothic literature.

This week, Olivia Pope devotes her energy to proving the innocence of a man who stands accused of attempting to assassinate President Cooper, who is the Scandal universe’s analogue to Ronald Reagan. The notion of innocence is an elusive one in Olivia Pope’s Washington, and so it’s fitting that the case of the week here is paralleled so effectively by Jake’s continued detention. The innocence of various characters is called into serious question frequently throughout the series, but this episode takes a special interest in the idea, examining the way we define it, and the way we can will ourselves to believe it against all evidence to the contrary.

“You don’t know him the way you know me,” Fitz says of Jake to Olivia. He sees himself as her protector, sees Olivia as an innocent little girl, and himself as the chivalrous man who loves her. And sure, Fitz may know things that Olivia doesn’t. But Fitz is a murderer, and a liar. He’s possessive, manipulative, emotionally abusive. He loves her, but he is as bad for Olivia as Jake is, and they both, on some deeper level, know it. As much as I begin to tire of this love triangle, Tony Goldwyn and Kerry Washington are selling the hell out of Olivia and Fitz’s romance this season. Their conversation here is heated, passionate, with Fitz’s repeated, escalating shouts of “Are you saying there’s hope?” punctuating their argument, and then Olivia’s quiet confirmation and sudden departure abruptly corking the emotional outburst for another time. It’s impossible not to be captivated by performances like these.

But even when I find this romance is magnetic, and it really is here, it’s also now directly tied to the show’s other central conflict, Rowan’s manipulation of the president, of his daughter, of basically anyone and everyone around him. Pitting Olivia against her father promises to be a strong source of conflict, but that that conflict is equally about with whom Olivia is sleeping as it is about the misdeeds of Rowan Pope makes for some complicated gender politics. The episode opens with a nightmare Olivia has, seeing her father’s face intermingled with those of Fitz and Jake while she’s doing laps in the pool. I’m not sure to what degree the nightmare is meant to be funny, but it feels very off to me, especially as a way to set the stage for the episode. Luckily, everything that comes after redeems this awkward start, but the scene is stupid. I just want Olivia to stop worrying about boys for once.

Even her conversation with Jake, though it does spur her to action against Rowan, eventually boils down to “Olivia will pick Fitz over Jake,” when that should be the least important deciding factor she considers. Jake killed Cyrus’s husband, works for an organization that represents everything Olivia claims to detest and to work against. That’s more than enough justification for her to reject Jake, but she lets her love for him override her knowledge of this. Further the show treats this as zero-sum, either-or, Jake or Fitz, neither is not an option. This mentality pervades the show; Abby reunites with Olivia, and steps up for her in a major way with Fitz, but it’s still about boy trouble, and this show can and should be above that.

I suspect the writers are to an extent aware of these troublesome politics, however, since while all this is going on, Mellie Grant is getting her groove back in magnificent fashion. Former First Lady Bitsy Cooper is a reminder of what Mellie is capable, as well of a warning of what she might become. She lives in her husband’s shadow, with none of the credit for the major works of governance she achieved in the White House. Above all else that “An Innocent Man” achieves, I really love its examination of the role of First Lady, and how women are expected to perform in politics and government. It’s especially effective in contrast with Fitz, who at the beginning of this episode more resembles the Mellie of the past few weeks. She got him elected to office; he thinks with his dick ninety percent of the time. But it will be President Grant that goes down in history, the great man of great works. Bitsy herself is a delight, a Betty White-esque cantankerous old lady, just shy of a caricature of what Mellie might be like in her golden years, but on the right side of that comedic line.

In the end, Olivia’s client turns out to be guilty of President Cooper’s murder, despite her best efforts; so it goes with the men in her life, as well. Innocence eludes us all. Even Huck’s bonding with his son is done in secret, and would have ruinous consequence if discovered. Vermont is a myth. They’re familiar themes, but they’re handled well here, and advanced where they are in interesting fashion. All told “An Innocent Man” is a great episode of Scandal, and a promising sign of things to come. The dissolution of OPA had left the show somewhat formless, but now, with Abby back in Olivia’s corner, and with Olivia now poised to take Rowan head on, the various disparate threads are starting to come together. “Rebuilding seasons,” as they’re called, can be tedious, especially if there’s no clear sense of the structure you’re meant to be rebuilding. Scandal’s writers are definitely still figuring it out, but they’re closer than ever to doing that if this week is any indication.

 

Stray Observations:

• My memory’s not so great on how much of Scandal’s alternate history we’ve gotten before, but the death of President Cooper sheds a lot of light on the Cold War era in this world. The West Wing fans worked out a very detailed alternate history; I wonder if something similar exists for this show?
• Abby gets in a sick Cyrus burn, having discovered the source of the White House leak, but her “back door” comment immediately made me think of Slate’s recent article on bottom shaming, and, well, Bryan Lowder has a point.
• Joe Morton has another great, great monologue, this one about how “true power hides in plain sight.” Rowan himself is ultimately a dead end character, considering his association with B-613, but it’ll still suck to see him go.

With the second half of its Halloween two-parter, American Horror Story: Freak Show continues its exploration of its characters backstories, before arriving at a conclusion that seems to signal, at last, the “real” beginning of this season.

The major flashbacks this episode focus on Elsa and on Twisty the Clown. While these feel serve to add color and depth to the characters, much like Ethel’s conversation with Mordrake last week, the scenes bring the season’s overall narrative to a halt. It’s a shame that the season so far has been so stop and start in the story department, because the small vignettes that have thus far composed these episodes have been consistently entertaining, and occasionally fascinating. Elsa’s story is deeply unsettling, playing on the psychosexual body horror that is American Horror Story’s bread and butter. The big reveal: she worked as a dominatrix for hire back in the Thirties, until she lost her legs in the making of a snuff film. The images that accompany her narration are nothing short of insane—the scenes of her at work are a visual assault, and that toilet is still making me wince. This is great, twisted stuff, and it’s exactly the sort of story a show called Freak Show should be telling.

As for Twisty, the way the Mordrake business ultimately intersects with his arc is the first sign of the show telling an overarching story, and is a great way for these episodes to avoid superfluity. As we learn in his conversation with Mordrake, Twisty has some sort of mental disability. He either has molested children, or he’s been falsely accused of it, but either way Twisty isn’t handling this well. He tries to kill himself and fails, instead blowing the bottom half of his face off. For a character that had been sold thus far as the season’s major villain, it’s a surprisingly touching sequence, injecting the character and his story with a pathos that I wouldn’t have expected. It’s reminiscent of nothing so much as Asylum’s better moments, where even the heinous Dr. Arden had at least a shred of humanity.

What’s more, Twisty’s acceptance by Mordrake opens the door for the season’s real villain, the once annoying, and now suddenly scary, Dandy Mott. His interaction with Nora this week, after he dons Twisty’s mask (and surely along with it multiple infections), is an example of the show making good use of the two-part structure, creating a scene in parallel that underlines the transformation Dandy undergoes. Finn Wittrock has been a real standout this season, fitting right in among the rest of the cast and fully embracing a pretty challenging role. Dandy and his mother are super-stylized in their weirdness, and it would be easy for their scenes to seem forced or inauthentic, but not so with Wittrock (and of course Frances Conroy, but she sits this episode out). With Twisty out of the way, I’m actually intrigued to see where Dandy’s total commitment to the clown thing takes us.

Of course, the end of Twisty also means the freedom of those kids he kidnapped, and therefore the end of the town’s curfew and, somewhat unbelievably, their animosity toward Elsa’s freaks. They’re freed by Jimmy Darling, with an assist of Maggie Esmeralda, after they’re picked up by Twisty. Evan Peters and Emma Roberts have an easy, classic horror flick chemistry, and they make for exciting heroes in the mini-horror movie they star in this week. I’m much less convinced by the too-easy way that the town is so eager to adopt Jimmy as a kind of hero. We reach this conclusion out of plot necessity, rather than any logic on the part of the writing. It’s a resolution like you’d see on Glee, banal and cloying. While it’s a setup that could bear interesting fruit down the line, the means by which we’ve arrived at it are drawn out and overly sentimental.

Even though it shares the same flaws as “Part One”, “Edwark Mordrake, Part Two” is flawed to a much lesser degree, and it displays some of the series’ best strengths. Though the pace is still rather slow, there really is a lot that happens in this episode, and by the end the status quo is very different than how Freak Show began. Given the size of the cast, there might actually be some value in this extended prologue, which relieves later episodes of some character- and world-building burden. I’d like to see some more things happening in it, but the world of Freak Show is remarkably well illustrated, and there’s something to be said for that.

When watching the episode with my roommate, he commented that it started to feel like a season finale, and, well, he’s right. Twisty shuffles off this mortal coil and joins Edward Mordrake. Jimmy gets a hero’s welcome from what feels like the entire town of Jupiter. Elsa gets a big audience out of it, the curfew is lifted, all is well. The more I think about it, though, the more I think this is a beginning rather than an ending. Is it absurd that it’s taken four episodes to get here? Yes, absolutely. But now the introductions are made, the stage set. Certainly this episode amps up the weird horror quotient sufficiently. So I, for now, approach the remainder of Freak Show with cautious optimism.

 

Stray Observations:

– Patti LaBelle leaves without singing even one song. That’s some kind of crime.

– In fact there are no songs this week at all, for the first time, though technically this is the second half of one episode. I don’t want them to do songs for their own sake, but I’m also curious to see if the conceit has any life left in it.

– For an episode that’s named after him, Edward Mordrake himself doesn’t make much of an impression. The script treats him as a sounding board for the other characters and not much else, and Wes Bentley doesn’t really do a whole lot with what he’s given, either.

– I just want to remind everyone that probably the most glorious episode of this ridiculous series was Asylum’s two-part “I Am Anne Frank,” and you would do well to catch it on Netflix this Hallo-weekend. (Though you’re probably definitely reading this after Halloween.)

 

“Do you understand what an accident is?”

Technically speaking, ‘The Separation of Crows’ is better than last week’s “Greensleeves.” There is one genuinely great, tense dramatic centerpiece, and many of the scenes surrounding that are also good, creating mood, developing character—in other words, doing a lot of the work that, on occasion, Sons can forget to do.

But one centerpiece, even a genuinely great one, doesn’t speak for an entire episode of television, and the rest of “The Separation of Crows” is a solemn retread through beats we have covered tirelessly multiple times this season. The episode even ends in literally the exact same place that “Greensleeves” did, as the Sons receive Bobby’s hand in a box. I am dumbfounded. I cannot even begin to imagine the writer’s room conversation in which the episodes are blocked, and either 1) no one notices that these two episodes follow the same dramatic beats, or 2) someone does notice, and everyone decides it’s no big deal.

The episode is not totally devoid of development, at least. I especially enjoyed the emotional journey that Chibs and Jax go on in a set of scenes throughout the episode. Chibs is so usually the voice of reason, yet early this week he encourages Jax to continue on this vengeance quest. He talks about the dream of SAMRCO, its mission—but what is it? I’ve no doubt that these men care deeply for each other, but at what point does this escalation stop? It’s refreshing to see Jax finally expressing some doubt, but annoying to see otherwise reasonable men convince him nothing is amiss.

The show wants to sell the point that this is out of blind deference to their leader, and likely, deference to John Teller as well. I can buy that—the performances among even the tertiary members of the club certainly suggest this sort camaraderie, the fraternal mindset that would inspire devotion to a man and an ideal, even if that ideal is tarnished beyond all recognition. And so we get the big centerpiece of the episode, as Jax confronts Jury, the Indian Hills charter’s president, whom Jax has determined ratted SAMCRO out to the Chinese. Every word Jury says cuts deep, and while it’s not imparting any new information about Jax—Jury has after all come to a conclusion that any reasonable viewer arrived at episodes, if not seasons, ago—but it means something that these words are coming from a fellow Son.

“You had the chance to be something good for this club,” Jury says to Jax. “And you turned into everything he hated. You became the poison.” He earns a bullet to the head for his trouble, one Jax sells as self-defense even as the lone other Indian Hills crow loses his shit (“Your boy is out of control,” indeed). Finally, though, this scene gives us a turning point; in the later scene between Jax and Chibs, Chibs is no longer encouraging his president to continue down this path. Finally, a wake up call. “There’s gonna be questions about the rights and wrongs of the whole thing,” is perhaps a sterile way to put it, but it’s a valid point. No matter what the club’s mission is, no matter what ideal Jax thinks he’s upholding, what righteous vengeance he believes he’s carrying out, there is still right, and there’s still wrong. Murdering a club president, at least, falls on the wrong side of that line.

But while that scene and the ones surrounding it may be gripping, there’s no excusing the fact that it’s taken entirely too long for the story to reach this point, and that moreover there is entirely too long to go before the story reaches its next point. The rest of the episode bounces back and forth on the balls of its figurative feet, remaining firmly in place until finale time, when Jax will finally be permitted to learn the truth. (Right now, my money says that Unser finds out first, then somehow dies before sharing with anyone important, probably in the eleventh episode).

Outside of the scene with Jury, this episode features an incredibly silly, on-the-nose scene between Gemma and the pastor’s wife, which earns the distinction of being even more clunky than the frequent soliloquizing; another indication that Abel’s acting out is getting worse (and the actor’s acting is just plain bad); and Juice way too obviously playing out Jax’s plan to get him in proximity to Lin. All these machinations of the plot are here for the sake of it, here because there are episodes that need filling; but as always, they run circles around each other, giving just the illusion of progress, before we arrive at a final scene that we’ve already seen. The episode makes a decent thematic statement on the idea of accidents—neither Gemma’s murder of Tara nor Jax’s descent into darkness qualifies as one, even if they’ll both try to argue otherwise—but thematic statements also do not make for a complete episode of television, let alone a good one. The story that Sons’ seventh season wants to tell is not big enough to fill thirteen normal-sized episodes, let alone thirteen FX-style jumbo episodes, and the longer this goes on, the more frustrating that fact becomes.
Stray Observations:

– Finally, a good song choice! “All Along the Watchtower” on a fiddle fits well, and reprising the song at the end at least gives the sense that the contents of the episode are purposely meant to reframe the situation with Marks, and to paint him as an opponent much more serious than Jax gave him credit for. Then again, Bobby’s eye in a box might have hinted at that, too.

– Scenes like the very long silence between Chibs and Jax are what remind me that FX’s disregard for running times can be a very, very positive thing. That long, excruciating pan out would be the first thing cut on another network, but it is absolutely necessary to the scene.

– How funny would it be if Unser’s scrabble letters had spelled out “Gemma did it”?

Television is a tricky medium, especially in its current form. A series evolves over time, takes detours, scenic routes, tantalizing tangents, flights of fancy with supporting characters that, for even a moment, hold more interest and more promise than the stars of the show. Things change in a television series. But in the era of the prestige drama, audiences have come to expect more thematic consistency, more resolution, more of a sense that a series is a complete story, a long novel or film, rather than a collection of loosely related short stories. (We can perhaps blame Lost for this, and we can certainly blame Breaking Bad.) For much of its run, Boardwalk Empire was the latter type of show. Its many disparate elements were unified by a vague association with criminality, and, at least at first, with Atlantic City, but the characters and stories grew further apart with each season.

This final season, and especially this last episode, attempts to rewrite that history of the series, turning it into a long story of one man’s descent into evil, and the destruction he wreaks on all those around him. With its final season, Boardwalk Empire states emphatically that its central character and primary concern is, always was, Nucky Thompson. You’ll have to forgive me the lateness of this review, as well as its length—I’m happy to say that, whatever else it may have done, Boardwalk has proved a thought-provoking and challenging show, delivers the kind of finale that one needs to sit with for a time. It’s a series that merits consideration.

“Eldorado” is an episode of endings, of reckonings. It moves slowly and with purpose, in no rush to reach any particular conclusion. We know already that the end has arrived, and so there is no need to move toward it any more quickly. The episode eschews the opening credits, but the scene that begins the episode evokes them anyway, as a stripped-down Nucky wades ever further into the tide that, for five seasons now, we’ve watched him stare down and turn his back on. It’s eerie and moody, and casts an appropriate sense of foreboding over the remainder of “Eldorado”, a feeling that is exacerbated by Nucky’s absence from much of the episode.

But the absence of Nucky is not a rare thing. We began the series with his story, yes, but it was equally the story of Jimmy Darmody, and became more his story with each episode. When “To the Lost” (also directed by Tim Van Patten) dispatched him, the story did not re-focus on Nucky, but instead exploded outward, encompassing Chicago, New York, Washington, Florida, and Cuba over the next two seasons. Nucky has been at the center of all this, but as many critics have noted, chief among them HitFix’s Alan Sepinwall, he’s been a void at the center, an unreadable blank slate, something off which the other characters can react.

To state, then, here at the end, that Boardwalk has been all along the story of Nucky and the Darmody family is revisionist at best. It feels somewhat like the finale to a show that Terence Winter has not been creating all along. The languorous pace of this episode, with its staccato bursts of emotion or of violence, seems to support this. The show concludes the stories of Luciano and Capone more out of a sense of narrative obligation than any particular interest—it’s the tying of historical loose ends, underscoring themes that are tangential at best to Nucky’s story. Certainly, both Capone and Luciano leave behind more of a legacy than Nucky manages to, but does that justify all the time spent with them on this show, to have their conclusions here feel more like addenda or afterthoughts than actual, vital parts of the story?

Perhaps it’s that Boardwalk expanded so rapidly that it bit off more than it could chew. Nowhere does this feel more the case than with Valentin Narcisse, who is unceremoniously murdered this episode in a brief scene, literally unfinished business for Luciano to take care of. Is the character a victim of the truncated season? After such a prominent introduction in season four, Narcisse is an asterisk, underused even in Chalky’s storyline earlier this season.

“Eldorado” is an interesting inversion of the show’s history, in that the scenes featuring Nucky are for once the most interesting things about the episode, and the most emotionally affecting. His first appearance (save the opening scene) is roughly halfway through the episode, in a gorgeous apartment in the titular Eldorado building. He meets with Margaret, and they continue to settle the score between each other. The symbolism of this couple slow dancing in an apartment they will never own, and being interrupted by a younger, happier couple, might be on the nose, but Tim Van Patten shoots the scene with such a keen eye, the nighttime color palette painting everything in mournful hues, that it’s hard to give the script too much grief. For a moment it even seems that Margaret would consider reuniting with her estranged husband after all; she notes it’s thirteen stops closer to downtown, and when Nucky asks what she means, her response is perfect: “I’m not sure. But I said it.” They have reached a frank honesty with each other now, a level of comfort that only years of separation could bring them.

Theirs is a relationship that was not always well served by the show, especially as Kelly Macdonald’s screen time has dwindled in the last two seasons, but her acting has never faltered, and where Margaret was once a drag on the show, she’s now a complete delight. Her scenes with Joe Kennedy are playful, and deliver on the hinted promise of feminist progress that the show has teased with the character, on and off, for years now.

In fact, if the first half of the episode is a series of scenes wrapping up various loose ends, the second half is a tour with Nucky, as he makes peace with what little family is left to him. Nucky and Eli have said goodbye many times, but this last goodbye is no less powerful for that. Nucky hands him a sack of cash and a razor, and it’s the nicest thing he’s ever done for him, one feels. There is both quite a bit of resolution, and none at all, with both Margaret and Eli; we do not know exactly what becomes of either of them, except that Nucky has in some small way absolved them of their association with him. He sets them free, acknowledges his own role in their misery, and plans to leave.

It seems almost altruistic of him, but then he visits Gillian, and he finds, somehow, a way to abandon her once more. She is another problem to solve, nothing some money won’t fix. “The past is past,” he says, as though the weight of his guilt is now too much to bear. “What do you expect of me?” He knows that he cannot undo the damage he has done to Gillian and her family, and when he offers her her own room, and a trust fund, he can’t even look her in the eye. The biggest success of this final season is the way the pulls the entire series into a not-too-tight knot. Intellectually, it may seem strange, off-balance, to reframe the series to hinge upon Nucky’s betrayal of Gillian Darmody. But in the moment, and especially in the final moments of “Eldorado,” it makes perfect emotional sense.

The show may have expanded outward and outward, to the point where Gillian’s continue presence was more confusing than rewarding, but season five represents a concerted effort to resituate the show’s emotional center, and, ultimately, I would argue that it works. This is owing in no small part to the flashbacks, which in “Eldorado” add up at last to two things: first, the fervent desperation with which Nucky tried to remake himself, to “get ahead”; and second, the horrible act of evil that forever doomed him, and that in fact, through the miracle of Tim Van Patten’s direction, Terence Winter and Howard Korder’s script, and Tim Streeto and Perri Frank’s editing, dooms him simultaneously in both his past and his present.

Let’s make no bones about it—the final scenes of Boardwalk Empire are a tour de force, beautifully shot, expertly written, drawing upon the show’s history with an inevitable sadness (or perhaps a sad inevitability). The moment the flashbacks arrive at the Neptune’s Bounty parade, we as the audience know what is to come, feel the pressing, impending dread. The cross-cutting between this scene and Nucky’s retrieval of Joe Harper is a masterful choice, beginning to connect these scenes temporally and emotionally well before the big reveal. It’s when this cross-cutting began that I finally admitted to myself that Joe Harper is, in fact, Tommy Darmody, and I’ve been wrong this whole time. That this fact was so obvious in retrospect deflates the reveal slightly, and I wonder if the show might have been more straightforward about Tommy’s identity to begin with.

But when I dismissed the idea that Tommy and Joe were one in the same, I did it on the grounds that it’s not the sort of thing this show typically does. And while the show does not normally present these things as big twists, the show does trade in questions of identity and pseudonyms and assumed disguises. Nelson Van Alden spent more time as George Mueller than he did as himself. Just this season, Nucky offers a false name, in the very same episode where Tommy offers us his. The reveal of Tommy Darmody isn’t a shocking twist; it’s a narrative inevitability. Same goes for the bullet he puts under Nucky’s eye.

In several interviews since the finale aired, Winter has stated the importance of presenting the Neptune’s Bounty parade, even though all of the facts of it are already known to the audience. As creator, he’s well aware of the dramatic import he’s placing on this particular moment in the characters’ histories. The cross-cutting continues throughout the remainder of the episode. At the exact moment that the Commodore dresses down Deputy Sheriff Johnson, Nucky walks down the boardwalk in his old age, eyeing strange men in dark suits, wondering which will kill him. As he promises a young Gillian, “I’ll always look after you,” her grandson pulls a gun on the man who murdered her son. As Nucky lays dead on the boardwalk, he grabs a nickel in the ocean. It all happens simultaneously, is the complete story of Nucky’s life. The sequence is stunning, beautiful and poetic. Tim Van Patten is a treasure, and the momentum of these final scenes as they push forward is arresting.

In the end, Boardwalk Empire ended the way that it always lived: something of a sprawling mess, but a beautiful, complex, worthwhile mess. I don’t know that the show ever really became more than the sum of its parts, but it had a great many parts over its five years, and though they sometimes digressed, and sometimes never went anywhere at all, they were consistently engaging in the moment. Boardwalk achieved a level of detail, of mise en scene, of authenticity, that is not often found. For an hour each Sunday, we were in the 1920s, no questions asked. The historical characters came to life in the way that only characters in stories can, and the fictional characters became living, breathing people. It was a peculiar show, not ever as popular as it might have been, but it was complex, rewarding television, with an impressively, impossibly deep bench of masterful actors, and production design and direction unrivaled by almost anything else on television. That’s not a bad legacy at all.

 

Stray Observations:

– A note on the score: This episode gets a 9 out of 10. Below I’ve broken down my scores for the season into the usual categories.

– Capone’s conversation with his son is expectedly heartbreaking, even without the callback to “Blue Bell Boy”. Stephen Graham plays this character loud and boisterous, sure, but he never loses sight of the fact that there is a human being here.

– Nucky has a “vision of the future” in one of the oddest scenes this series has ever presented. The girl singing on the primitive television is certainly another symbol of the impending future, but man, is it weird, especially with the over-saturated, bright lighting of the boardwalk set.

– “The old way of doing things, it’s over.” Lucky’s proclamation to the newly formed Commission is summative not just of his journey, but of the series’ arc in general. In Nucky’s flashbacks, the Commodore makes his own proclamation: “Through me and from me, that’s all there is.” That’s all over by 1931.

– Boardwalk Empire is actually a pilot that I didn’t care for—I found it boring and drawn out, clichéd Scorcese without any of the verve that made his films pop. It wasn’t until the second season that I returned and fell in love, and obviously, by “To the Lost” I was hooked. This was such a smart, cerebral show—the equivalent, to me, of picking up a Fitzgerald novel, with the costumes and the direction playing the role of that writer’s lyrical prose. “Lyricism” is, to me, the best way to sum up Boardwalk’s artistic style and intent. There have been on this show so many indelible images, ones that will stick with me for a long time, and Boardwalk delivered on that promise right up until the very end. I’m going to miss it. Thanks for taking the time to watch this last season along with me.

As we get started this week, I’d like to offer Verizon’s summary of this episode: “SAMCRO makes an unlikely partnership in order to undermine a powerful club enemy.” I am not inspired with confidence.

And sure enough, “Greensleeves” suffers from the same issues as earlier episodes this season, the same issues that have plagued the show for years now. It’s bloated, overly complicated for the sake of being so, and reluctant to change its status quo, preferring instead to cycle through endless iterations of the same conflicts, over and over. That the show can’t figure out how to streamline this mess of plot is a shame, because many of the individual components are quite good this week. But the show is spinning its wheels, and it’s doing so in the laziest possible way, to boot.

First, that cop who got shot, and who was waking up at the end of last week? She’s just not going to ID the club because Charming. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It’s lazy, and it’s the same narrative bullshit this show pulls on a regular basis. A threat is built up, pushed to the precipice of an actual payoff, and then just vanishes, just in time for a new, even bigger and badder threat, to emerge. This happens literally every season, sometimes multiple times a season. We’re halfway through and we have already gone from Lin to maybe-Jarry-but-not-really-lol-jk to Marks within a few episodes. It’s frustrating.

This episode features two great monologues, one from Jax and one from Gemma. Jax’s very long speech to the club is more or less his St. Crispin’s speech, and sure enough, it presages what will certainly be the club’s final trudge into war (barring another last minute reversal before Gemma’s secret is revealed). It’s weakened by the fact that, to paraphrase Nero, we’ve heard this before, but that doesn’t mean Charlie Hunnam doesn’t give a good speech regardless. In some ways, it is finally an at least partly honest acknowledgment by Jax of of how far down this path SAMCRO has gone, and it’s a reminder to the audience that his vengeance is in pursuit of a lie. With the information we have, it’s easy to become frustrated and lose sight of the fact that the club is completely unaware; it’s very smart on the writers’ part, then, to give such a potent reminder of that fact. Dramatic irony is no substitute for a compelling narrative, but at least the performances are worthwhile.

The same is true of Gemma’s monologue, which this week is addressed to Thomas, rather than Tara’s ghost, and which is overheard by Abel. If nothing else, the show deserves credit for creating some tension in this sequence; I was convinced that Wendy would overhear it, and Gemma would shoot her. The episode attempts to build tension throughout this storyline, as Gemma becomes convinced that Jax plans to hurt her for her part in helping Juice. But the setup for this tension is pure sitcom, a misunderstanding caused because Rat and Happy needlessly withhold information from Gemma. From a characterization standpoint, it’s about time Gemma starts feeling some guilt for her actions, but the tension itself is manufactured, and toothless, the moment you give it any thought.

Very little else happens throughout the episode. Between episodes, Jax has apparently hatched a plan to plant Juice in prison and have him work with Tully, but by episode’s end, that’s still all the information we have. Similarly, Abel knowing about Gemma is a tragic development, but it doesn’t move the needle on the season arc at all; the revelation is still a ticking bomb and no more. Unser might be ever closer to unraveling the truth, but he’s still just approaching the truth, and every episode seems to suggest he’s only one move away, before moving the goalpost on the story’s resolution. The longer the narrative time bomb ticks, the more of what tension remains deflates. Inevitability can create a sense of dread, sure, but before long anticipation becomes annoyance. You’d think Sons might have realized this by now, but every season still has the same problems.

To stall the eventual and necessary payoffs of their stories, the writers instead construct missions-of-the-week to occupy the club, which is fine as a structure for a series, but exhausting when we have to sit through the same emotional beats, over and over again. Gemma is guilty and insane. Jax is heroic but misguided. Unser is finally turning a critical eye to the club to which he’s given so much and from which he’s received so little in return. Nero wants out of the game. We know. But even though the show takes place within an extremely decompressed timeline, it doesn’t make that pacing work the way a show like Breaking Bad manages to. The tension on that show is genuine, and grows naturally from the story consequences of its characters decisions. The tension on Sons is fake, reverse-engineered to arrive at an ending that just needs to get here already.

I’m not going to fault the show for its strengths. Like most episodes, the acting is on point, and there some lovely shots in this episode too. The composition Gemma and Nero standing beneath the Teller-Morrow sign is beautiful and almost even poetic, at least by Sons’ standards. Jimmy Smits is, and always has been, a reliable, valuable addition to the cast, and Nero’s scene with Gemma at T-M is poignant. Their exchange, Nero tearfully insisting “We deserve something better, Gemma,” and Gemma’s plaintive reply of “Do we?”, is powerful. But as I wrote at the outset of this season, its success rises and falls on its ability to maintain momentum. That momentum has fully stalled. Given the ending of tonight’s episode, it’s likely to pick up again, but if Marks is just another episode in this crazy rollercoaster ride, another obstacle so that Katey Sagal can stick around until the finale and nothing more, then we’ll be back here again in three episodes’ time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

 

Stray Observations:

– Another unnecessary diversion this episode is with the titular Greensleeves, a gross pimp who exists only so that Jax’s Diosa operation can appear noble by comparison. While Diosa might be better than working for fucking Greensleeves, their last crew was violently gunned down, so let’s cool it on how great of an employer we are, Jackson.

– Holy shit Jax is going to get this woman killed. If it weren’t for the previous speech I would believe he didn’t give a shit. But that’s the thing with Jax; he can be as nice and caring as he wants, but at the end of the day he does not care if these people die.

– Maybe Gemma is nervous about going to the cabin given that it is routinely the place we take people to in order to murder them? RIP Piney.

– Bobby Elvis is down an eye, as Marks announces that he means business. My gut says the show is cheating by letting him survive, especially since Bobby is basically a redshirt at this point anyway, but I might be letting the show’s terrible history with this sway my opinion.

– Obviously the title was an excuse to close with Katey Sagal singing “Greensleeves.”

-Tig casually grabbing at Unser while on the phone is hilarious.

– Poll: is the child actor playing Abel really bad, or are the dead creepy eyes a secretly brilliant performance?

On a weekly basis, Parenthood has to juggle so many characters and stories that individual episodes can feel less like cohesive story units and more like a selection of scenes required to advance each storyline, without regard to how well the scenes fit together. There are so many characters to serve that, even when some are benched for the week (as Sarah and Hank are this week), episodes are juggling four or five storylines simultaneously. It’s nice, then, when an episode like “The Scale of Affection is Fluid” comes along where all of the disparate stories fall under the same thematic umbrella.

The centerpiece of the episode is Max’s story—fitting, as it also provides the episode’s perfect title. What’s really great about this particular story is the way it uses Max’s Asperger’s not just to highlight Max’s own difficulties with typical teenage tribulations, but also to shed some light on more normative expressions of romance and desire. Adam and Kristina try to teach him that attraction must be mutual, that Max can’t force Dylan to like him the way he likes her. That’s a great lesson, but Adam blows it by allowing for the caveat that, hey, Kristina didn’t like him that much at first, either. Monica Potter is always great, but she’s amazing in this scene, as Kristina becomes more and more frustrated with Adam, until her annoyance gives way to exasperation. Max, of course, runs with Adam’s made-up scale, happy for a way to quantify attraction in a way that makes sense to him.

What Max stories also do almost always on this show is challenge the ways in which we raise kids with disabilities. Adam and Kristina both care for Max and do an excellent job as parents, but they also both tend to jump overboard in their desire to protect him. That Kristina is so certain Dylan will not reciprocate Max’s feelings says far more about Kristina than it does about Max, but this is a complicated issue, and the show treats it as such. Consistently, Parenthood presents Max as just like any of the other Bravermans, with his own unique quirks that just happen to be related to his condition. (This also means we get some really excellent Max-isms tonight, including: “This picture of a horse tells me that she likes picture and she also likes horses.”)

Max’s story is the most explicit rumination this week on the mutability of attraction, but all of this week’s stories suggest that theme to some extent. Julia has officially and completely moved on from Joel, as her relationship with Chris gets more serious by the week. I still wonder how balanced the show’s presentation of this separation is, as Joel has done such a 180 turn this season, but I continue to dig the way that Parenthood, unlike other shows (ahem, Scandal) makes Julia the most interesting thing about this love triangle. There is no sense of Joel and Chris competing for her affection; instead, Julia has her own agency, and reserves the right to do whatever she pleases and make her own decision, in her own time. She also reserves the right to plain not know what she’ll do next.

Chris ends up spending time with the kids, and while it truly is an accident, it’s also obviously good for them. Julia does apologize to Joel for the way it happens, but she doesn’t apologize for the thing itself, and that’s good for her. The separation story is quickly becoming my favorite Julia story of the series, and it continues to build outward in complicated ways that don’t create unnecessary or unrealistic drama. Is it perhaps a little too convenient that Joel just happens to arrive at the barbecue to see Chris still there? Probably, especially since you wonder why he’d go to things like this at all at this point in the separation. But Parenthood is a crowded show; you more or less have to forgive them the occasional narrative expedient.

Amber returns this week, where she meets cute with a bland tech start-up dude who we’ll simply call Captain Exposition. He is boring and tells complete strangers entirely too much about his boring life. But he’s cute and seems safe and Amber decides to go out on a date with him anyway. Drew (rightly) tells her that she’ll need to tell Captain Exposition about the pregnancy sooner rather than later, but of course, he changes his tune the moment she does. (You could say Amber goes from a 5 to a 1 in a split-second.) “I’ll call you,” is a pretty empty promise, although I do half wonder if he’ll be back in an attempt to subvert expectations here. I’m all for whatever gets Amber and Drew on screen together, as their sibling relationship is one of the best to watch on the show, but this story feels more like going through the motions than anything else, owing at least in part to how bland Captain Exposition is.

Crosby gives me trouble this week, too, as his mid-life crisis continues to resemble nothing more than a temper-tantrum. His minivan joyride with Zeek is a sweet moment between the two, as is their conversation after physical therapy in the bar. Crosby’s admission that he’s feeling overwhelmed by and perhaps even resentful toward married life and parenthood is darker and more direct than I’d expect from this show and especially from this character, but it certainly starts to flesh out his behavior this season beyond “typical Crosby man-child shenanigans.” Jasmine continues to get the shrew treatment with this story, though, as does Camille, and even Zeek’s admonition to Crosby about marriage, “You gotta try to enjoy it, son,” isn’t enough to erase that fact.

Still, this is a well-constructed episode, and even the weaker storylines have some impact due to the thematic consonance throughout. I’m hopeful that as the stories begin to approach resolution, we’ll see more episodes where the content is this unified. That this show is even still around is a small miracle; that it’s still holding at this consistent level of quality is nothing short of amazing.

 

Stray Observations:

• Of course Crosby and Zeek feel compelled to override Adam’s advice to Max to “pursue common interests” with Dylan. “What base are you on?” “She doesn’t like sports, I don’t understand.” Exchanges like this are why we like Max episodes, guys.

• While I love Crosby and Zeek’s relationship, I have to chuckle at the way the show equates Crosby not riding his motorcycle anymore to Zeek getting open heart surgery. That’s something Crosby would do.

• Did Drew Holt get a haircut? He did! There’s still a mop on top there but at least he went in for a trim around the sides.

• Chris is so perfect that I feel like he is secretly Patrick Bateman or something.

• When Sydney and Victor go on about awesome Chris is (they’re not wrong), Joel goes off about “the subtle beauty that is baseball” and how “with the exception of your mother most lawyers have questionable morals.” Be more passive aggressive, Joel.

While this episode is ultimately a step down from last week, by the final scenes, I can confidently say that the Scandal I know and love is finally back for a while. “The Key” is by no means a perfect episode, but whatever missteps it takes, there’s no denying just how exciting its final third is. There’s been a lot bubbling just beneath the surface this season, plot-wise, and “The Key” starts to let everything boil over.

Specifically there are two big narrative explosions this week, both spun out of Rowan’s framing of Jake. Until he confesses, Jake is a prisoner of the United States government, and his imprisonment has the dual effect of leaving Olivia completely clueless as to whereabouts, as well as keeping Mellie clueless as to Fitz’s. These two absences at the center of the episode are what finally pull the trigger on what to this point has been only dramatic potential.

When Scandal is really on point, it paints its characters as god-like, extreme both in their most deeply felt emotions and in their most petty trivialities. The show is set in Washington not because of any particular political reasoning, unlike say The West Wing, but because it gives the characters control over larger-than-life situations, placing the lives and deaths of everyone around them directly in their hands. (The very existence of B-613 is proof positive of this decision by the writers.)

Mellie Grant gets this about her own life, and so she is the character that most embodies this aspect of the show. It’s no surprise, then, that she is frequently the most compelling and interesting character on the show. Mellie has so far been a pitiable thing this season, almost difficult to watch, and certainly only a pale shadow of the character we’d gotten to know prior to her son’s death. But the knowledge that Jerry was murdered, that his death was not a freak accident but was just another part of the game she thinks she’s playing, has a peculiar effect on Mellie. The chance to ascribe meaning to Jerry’s death pulls her out of her grief, and on the one hand, it’s a triumphant moment for the character, as she emerges from the muck of despair and depression. It’s also a completely insane reaction for anyone to have, and Fitz is duly horrified and repulsed by her. This is the appropriate level of craziness for Scandal to operate at, one that acknowledges the unique and destructive lives these characters lead.

Scandal needs to operate at that level, because it’s the only foundation that will support a character like Rowan, or a story like the intricate manipulation he’s currently perpetrating. It would be oh so easy for Rowan to be a caricature, and when the rest of the show is trying to emphasize quiet character moments and reflections on morality, he does. When the rest of the show gets on that same level, though—when Mellie becomes grateful for her son’s murder, when Quinn slices a dead teenager’s corpse open to retrieve the key she swallowed, when the President of the United States kicks the living shit out of a prisoner in a secret detention room, et cetera—then Rowan just fits right in, doesn’t he? It helps that Joe Morton plays his relationship with Olivia so well. Their father/daughter chemistry has a lived-in ease to it, but both Morton and Kerry Washington physically remind us of the complicated history of this family. They’re never too close to each other, their body language is always a little stilted, their speech slower and with more pauses for thought (or, in Rowan’s case, for choosing the best lie). His lies are eerily convincing, and as he “explains” Jake’s guilt to Olivia, he hits an emotional nerve that he knows will seal the deal.

But when stories of the gods aren’t about life and death and power, they are about the passions of the gods, and good lord, are passions of the gods on full display this week. This is one department where the show maybe could use some restraint, or at least a different angle. I know this is just how the show works, but Olivia Pope is a strong, independent woman (or so we are frequently told), and the President’s son has been killed—can this not be about which of her boyfriends loves her more? Because, as Jake points out to twist the knife, Fitz is so eager to accept Jake’s guilt precisely because Olivia loves him. I don’t need or want a show about these two stupid men fighting over a helpless Olivia Pope. But Olivia is helpless this episode, wondering where her boyfriend is for much of the episode, and breaking down crying at the end of it. To her credit, she does immediately and correctly accuse Rowan of setting him up, but then she’s all too happy to accept his explanation (however convincing) and back into her corner. While reuniting Abby and Olivia is probably a good move for the ensemble, it emphasizes the love triangle in that “Pick me choose me love me” way that devalues Olivia’s agency and participation in the story. I’ve written about this before, and I haven’t changed my mind—I really wish Scandal could be a little more feminist in the way it plays out these romances. I would say that the romance between Fitz and Olivia is less toxic now than it was toward the end of season three, but given the way this week’s episode ends, I’m not sure for how long that will be the case.

For better or worse, though, this privilege of godliness belongs to only some of the show’s cast, and what’s been the most entertaining aspect of the season so far is the way we’ve seen the various supporting characters envy or covet this power, and act out these emotions in interesting ways that manage to complicate the overall story. David Rosen’s story is annoying, and caught up in the most excess B-613 baggage this show has left, but it’s central conceit is a good one, and the question “Why are we all trying to be Olivia Pope?” is one that the show should be asking at this stage. It goes hand in hand with Cyrus’s dressing down of Olivia at the White House, with catty references to her “other boyfriend” and an impassioned reminder that Jake is a murderer, however much she’s managed to ignore that fact. These people are in service of nothing and no one besides themselves, and they have committed unimaginable sins and atrocities with increasing casual coolness. It’s the common idea of Scandal as House of Cards’ pulpier cousin, but that idea is common for a reason—when it comes to Scandal, the pulpier the better.

 

Stray Observations:

– The investigation into Kaitlin Winslow’s death continues, as Quinn helps Olivia investigate her murderer. Aside from the wild key retrieval, this is a by-the-numbers case of the week, and the continued one-note characterization of Quinn makes it hard to be super invested in this one. The most interesting aspect of this story is Olivia’s relationship to Katherine Winslow, but Olivia is not involved with this investigation for most of the episode.

– Huck returns to his family as well, and while the shape of the story is heartbreaking, Huck is another one-note character, who is sympathetic in a supporting role and in the context of his friendship with Olivia, but he can’t really support his own stories so well. Guillermo Diaz’s acting in the role is still overly affected, distracting from whatever emotion there is in the writing.

– “The B-613 files” are on track to become this season’s “Publius,” a dumb phrase uttered so frequently as to lose any semblance of meaning.

Boardwalk Empire opens its fifth and final season with a flashback to 1884, wherein a young Nucky is shown swimming, poorly, in an attempt to earn some of the coins that the Commodore tosses into the ocean. He competes, poorly, with several of his peers. It’s a case of the show going back before it goes forward, and I fear it’s also a case of the show thinking itself deeper and cleverer than it actually is.

When the heavy-handed flashback has ended, the scene flashes forward to Havana, Cuba (as opposed to the other Havana, most likely; see also Coney Island, Brooklyn, and Bronx, New York), and the year is now 1931. We have missed a rather lot in the intervening years since season four ended—not least being, Nucky is now holed up in Cuba with Patricia Arquette. Chalky is now in prison for reasons unknown, part of a black chain gang.

Last season’s finale felt very much like the end of something, certainly owing to the death of Richard Harrow, but it also felt like a gentle reset on the show. Eli was sent to Chicago with Van Alden; Margaret fell into Arnold Rothstein’s orbit; Chalky withdrew to Havre de Grace, and seemingly out of the mob game entirely; Gillian went to jail. By jumping ahead to after the Depression, you can’t help but feel a little robbed of witnessing the direct fallout of these developments. The premiere leans heavily on Nucky, who is by far the show’s least interesting character, someone around whom the things we actually care about happens, but who himself seems to have very little impact on those events.

The worst offense of the time jump is that it results in a whole lot of place setting and piece moving, directly after a finale that was in large part place setting and piece moving. Abandoning a perfectly good premise in order to set up another one is fine, but man, it can be a drag. We spend much of this premiere playing catch-up, or else struggling to figure just what the hell, exactly, is going on. With only so many episodes remaining, there really is an unjustifiable amount of time spent on unnecessary flashbacks to Nucky’s youth. We learn nothing about him we didn’t already know, or couldn’t have guessed, and the rest plays as a ham-handed attempt to generate empathy for a character that, frankly, deserves none.

In the present it’s more of the same, as Nucky wheels and deals in Cuba. Patricia Arquette continues to delight as Sally Wheat, and Steve Buscemi is typically droll as Nucky, but the various characters introduced in Cuba don’t make much of an impression, at least not in this first episode. Again, you can’t help but miss the characters we already know. There’s an admirable bit of symmetry here, as Nucky endeavors to be ahead of the curve once more, this time setting up a legal alcohol distribution operation, just in time for the end of Prohibition. The series will end as it began, and that’s very nice. But toward the end of the fourth season, the series was reinventing itself—doesn’t that seem like a better deal?

As for the other characters, we spend the most time with Margaret, who finds herself embroiled in…well, in something or other, after her boss shoots himself in the head in front of the entire office, after giving a peculiar speech about Mickey Mouse. Chalky silently plots his escape from the chain gang, either masterminding a rebellion, or simply taking advantage of a fortuitous uprising; which is not clear, though the implication is strongly toward the latter. We even drop in on Lucky Luciano, who conspires with Bugsy Siegel to assassinate Joe Masseria before initiating himself by blood into what appears to be the mafia proper—Lucky, like a young Nucky before him, will do a favor to get ahead. It’s the most intriguing of the episode’s developments, both because of our previous investment in Lucky, and because of the near-certainty that whatever path he’s on right now, it’s due to collide with Nucky’s before long.

Mostly, the premiere raises more questions than answers, and the questions are rarely good ones. What is the point of the flashbacks? Why is Margaret still on this show? Why is Chalky the only person who seems to have aged since 1923? But there are interesting questions as well. And it may be that worrying too much about an uneventful premiere is a moot point—after all, the previous seasons have uniformly gotten off to slow and often strange starts, only to have everything come together by season’s end. There is no reason not to keep giving the show the benefit of the doubt. But there’s no question that the season we’ve gotten here is very different from the season that was suggested in the previous episode, and there’s definitely a disappointment of expectations as a result.

This is very much an average, run-of-the-mill episode of Boardwalk Empire, in other words. The production is top-notch as always, and in fact, Cuba in the 1930s allows for a different visual palette than the show normally goes for, and it’s frequently a striking one. But narratively, there’s too much time spent on flashbacks that are notably mainly for a particularly bad Dabney Coleman impression, and too little time spent on characters like Chalky, Lucky, and Margaret, the latter two of whom feel shoe-horned into this episode. That’s to say nothing of the characters who are entirely absent—as with previous seasons, it seems we’ll be dropping in and out of plotlines in alternate weeks, if not entirely at random. Maybe it will all come together in the end. History suggests that it will. But taken on its own terms, this premiere episode is too scattered to be of substance, and suggests more of its own missed opportunities than it does any particular promise of the future.