Category: Television-Fiction

Posts about TV shows.

Lionel’s redemption

It’s not a spoiler to say Lionel Fusco is in trouble. The trailer for the three-part Person of Interest sweeps series puts it right out there for us:

I love Fusco, you love Fusco, we all love Fusco. But, like the best ice cream cone you’ve ever had, Fusco is melting under the heat of HR. That was a painful analogy, and I’m sorry for making it. I was going to do up a long preview post, but this piece from TV Guide online covers most of it. Jonathan Nolan goes out of his way to not confirm that Fusco is the odd man out but he’s not fooling anyone. Take this statement:

“We promised all of our actors a journey with their characters. And a journey means a beginning, a middle and, sadly, an end.”

Fusco is the only character who meets that condition. He began, like Nolan says, as a bad guy. His journey began when Reese flipped him in the pilot and later, in season one’s Blue Code, kept him as his eyes and ears inside HR. He spent the next two seasons not fully in but not quite out. He had every opportunity to turn on Harold and Reese (and even his partner, Detective Carter) but he didn’t. Why?

The answer is found at the end of Blue Code. After being caught accessing the file of an undercover cop, a guard on HR’s payroll marches Fusco out to the woods. With a gun to his head, Lionel says:

“Think you’re the first person to ever put a gun to my head? Ever been shot? The craziest things go thru your mind. Glad I put on clean underwear or hid that stash of porn. Sorry that you’re son had to find out his old man was a dirty cop. Then you realize you’re gonna die. You try to go down doin’ somethin’ good. You wouldn’t know about that would ya you dirty sack?”


That is the arc of Lionel Fusco. He thought his death was at hand in the series premiere as a dirty cop whose truth would crush is young boy. From that moment on, under Reese’s direction, Lionel made his mission “to go down doin’ somethin’ good.” With his Endgame now becoming evident, I hope his death is a heroic one. I am certain that when we see Lionel’s final moments he will be content to know that he completed this journey of redemption for his son.

One last tidbit. The first episode of this three-part series is titled Endgame. The episode near the end of season two that saw Fusco finally and fully break from HR’s grasp? In Extremis, or finality at the point of death. From the moment Carter and Bear moved Detective Stills’ body to keep Fusco alive, his fate in the show was sealed.

Week 2 update:

The only thing I could say after last week’s episode was

As Carter drove to the judge’s house to get the warrant for Quinn’s arrest I felt like the show pulled a great misdirection on us and was going to kill off her instead of Fusco. The judge was crooked, and as they stepped Joss onto the tarp I screamed at my TV, “Reese? REESE?!?” Having the rug pulled out from under my assumptions like that is one of my favorite things a show can do to me. Much to my relief, Reese was waiting outside but after clearing out Quinn’s goons he made a disastrous mistake: He got caught on a squad car’s dash cam. (I thought he had been sloppy all season in his appearing at crime scenes to talk to Carter.) Simmons, who I hope really gets good and dead during all this, found it and put a hit on him. This week’s episode deals with Reese’s number being up.

But let’s be real: They aren’t killing off Mr. Reese. It’s still going to be Fusco and it appears that it will be tonight:

I’m leery of making predictions but I can see at least two tactics HR could use to put Lionel in grave danger. First, he knows how to contact “the man in the suit” who is now atop HR’s hit list. By forcing him to choose between his life and Reese’s, Fusco would get the chance to prove that his mortal loyalty is to good. Or, HR could get wind that he has a key to the safe deposit box where Carter stashed copies of everything she learned about the organization. Give up the key or die. If I had to bet money I’d put it on the first one.

In this extended clip from CBS, Michael Emerson said the writers gave him three scripts for who could be the one.

So we will have to wait until the very end to see it. I am just glad it is happening this week, not next week when I’ll be at my parents’ house. I will surely cry for Lionel and I don’t need them to see that.

Image credit: CBS.com

Take yourself Hostages

Image credit: CBS.comWe all take the risk of being wrong or exposing our stupidity when publish our thoughts, and I don’t want to mock someone else whose opinion turns out that way. But when someone is so completely and spectacularly wrong I can’t help but point it out. I did it last summer with a guy who thought watching television was a waste of time, I’ll do it today with this guy who thought the new CBS drama Hostages was terrible.

His brilliant “review” began with this sterling exhibition of prose:

“Who gives a damn. This show is unlikeable.”

Wow. I’m convinced. Hostages must be pretty bad. LOL. He goes on to judge the whole episode based on his belief that the opening scene should have been longer. Not whether or not it was any good. Nope. Just thought it should be longer. Instead of taking the show as a whole he seemed to stop thinking about it right there.

By doing so he completely missed what Hostages is about: The hostages versus their captors. In trying to sound like a sophisticated critic who could tear down a show, the genius expected the entire story to play out in its first episode.

Look at some of his assertions and how they are now known to be completely wrong.

There is no background about the president. He is correct in the sense that the president didn’t figure prominently into the premiere but wrong to think he has to be a central figure in the show. The writers outsmarted him and came up with a creative way to tell a story about an assassination attempt that doesn’t revolve around a presidential character. Making the president secondary reenforces the fact that the show’s central conflict is the Sanders family versus Agent Duncan Carlisle.

The Sanders family is not endearing. Labeling them all unlikeable blinded him to the beginning of the storylines that have played out since. The father’s affair, the daughter’s pregnancy and the son’s drug problem all played major roles in advancing the story and the characters later on. They helped pull the family together for its attempt to escape, which cemented us on their side in their fight against Agent Carlisle. Speaking of…

Carlisle is dumb. He was sort of right in asserting Duncan Carlisle was not smart enough to execute an assassination plot because the show has since revealed he is not the mastermind. We’re getting glimpses of who might be, and I expect we will soon know for sure as we head into the second half of the season. Then we will fill in the answers the reviewer claimed should have been answered in its first episode.

In his last attempt to sound intelligent, the author posits that Carlisle and Dr. Sanders know each other. It’s pretty sad, really, watching someone grasp at straws to prove his value as a blogger. It’s especially sad in this case, because the blogger is me!

I really blew it on this one. I was certain Hostages stunk. The early ratings backed me up and continue to with last week’s episode hitting a series-low 1.1 share. But I can’t hide behind the ratings.

Hostages has done a great job of giving us a story I didn’t see coming. I was so focused on the “assassinating the president” part that I didn’t see what the pilot put in front of us. It isn’t about the president at all. It’s about how this doctor and her family – her imperfect family – handle Duncan Carlisle holding them hostage.

It resembles Lost in that way. Being taken hostage and ordered to kill the president is the Sanders’ Flight 815. Being followed and monitored every hour of every day is their struggle to survive on the island. They all must confront mistakes from their life before captivity. The father had an affair, the daughter became pregnant, the son owed money to a drug dealer. Dr. Sanders faces the moral dilemma of her family’s life versus the presidents. When I said I could get behind a good story, this is what I meant!

Duncan Carlisle is a hostage in his own life, pinned in this plot he did not conceive. He cannot walk away and must, just like his captives, improvise his way through a situation that was never supposed to go on this long.

If I though it was so bad, why did I watch after the premiere? I’m not sure. Maybe I didn’t trust what I wrote. I enjoyed finding ways to say it stunk and got so caught up in the fun that I wrote what I thought would be entertaining instead of being accurate. Hostages is what I profess to enjoy about TV. Its characters are real and their decisions are driving the story, and I missed it.

CBS, like all networks, stupidly does not keep shows online during their first season. I cannot for the life of me understand why. If a new show picks up buzz halfway through its season, wouldn’t they want new viewers to be able to catch up? Instead they’re telling us, “Too bad. We don’t want you watching our new shows unless you were there in the beginning.” They learned nothing from the way Breaking Bad grew its audience through Netflix.

Unfortunately that means if you took my advice and stopped watching or never watched Hostages you don’t have a way to catch up. Blame me. When it comes on Netflix I encourage you to check it out. It’s good stuff.

Image credit: CBS.com

Person of Interest: The perfect scene

root_tbThere are just some scenes. As you watch them, you know you’re watching the writers, actors, editors and everyone involved at their best. Michael Emerson gave us a lot of them as Ben Linus; he gave us another one as Harold Finch.

The plot from last week’s Person of Interest was too complex to summarize here, so click over to CBS for the full recap.  It brushes over the scene with barely a mention, so that is where I will focus.

It is the last scene. Jason Greenfield is on his way to Cartagena, Timothy Sloan is safe, Jason Collier is still free. Much to her frustration, Root is not. Shaw clubbed her after they helped Greenfield escape the CIA and turned her over to Harold.

Here it is.

Everything thing about the exchange is gold. The dialogue is crisp and the footage is edited for perfect timing, showing the right reactions to the right words at the right time. Harold and Root. He wants to keep The Machine hidden, she wants to set it free. For the moment he has the upper hand. Physically, he has her trapped and cut off from any electronic communication that could connect her to The Machine. (You remember what a Faraday cage is, I hope.) Mentally, he poked a hole in her belief that she has a special communion with it. They kept the shot of her face reacting to Harold’s final line so we could see her realize he may share it, too. Perfect.

What Harold knows about The Machine’s new third category, which Jason Greenfield fell under, is unclear. He may be holding Root because The Machine needs him to or because he wants her cut off until he can figure out what is going on.

What is going on with Root and The Machine? The episode gave us a little more to add to the piece I posted last week.

Watch it here from CBS.

The third category and what we know about it may not be any more than what Harold does. Root’s mission from The Machine was to use Shaw to help Greenfield escape CIA custody and flee to Cartagena in Columbia. There he will seek out a bar with a man named Ruiz. Why? Root does not know, she leaves big-picture questions to The Machine. It sees itself (I’m going to avoid using feminine pronouns to describe The Machine for the sake of simplicity in writing about an inanimate female character and an animate one) facing an existential threat that, apparently, Root can help it neutralize. That’s why one of its first acts after rebooting was to retask Root to the “Analog Interface” and break her out of the psychiatric hospital.

The source of the threat could be Peter Collier. Collier is revealed to be the leader of a hacker group by the name “Vigilance.” Wayne Kruger, you’ll recall, found a data mining company that made him a target for Collier in the season’s second episode. Murdering Kruger was the event that caused Jason Greenfield to report Vigilance to the government, which is how he ended up in a cell next to Root at a CIA black site. That is exactly where The Machine knew he would be, and putting Root there to break him out shows how well The Machine can predict events. It makes you wonder how far into the future it can see.

Vigilance protests government surveillance. Jason Collier, meet Edward Snowden. I said before I down want the show to incorporate that affair into its storylines, and I can’t be certain this wasn’t the direction the writers planned for season three last spring. After Harold and Reese saw the week’s number to safety — Jason Greenfield’s brother — Reese expressed his suspicion that we haven’t heard the last of Collier and his band of hackers. I guess that’s how it will be. Person of Interest is a well-done show, as evidenced by the scene I broke down at the beginning, so I trust they can do the story well.

Image credit: CBS.com

Note: I’d have the video embedded instead of linked if I knew a d*rn thing about how the Internet works.

Revenge “Dissolution” snap reaction

Jack Porter“Love built on lies is an arduous endeavor, for wherever passion and treachery meet, dissolution begins. Still we fight to hold our ground in the emptiness, ignoring the fact that every relationship, even the ones we cherish, inevitably dies.”

Of course Nolan does morning hydrotherapy.

Emily is way out of line telling Nolan he can’t be involved with Patrick.

What does Charlotte have against Emily and Daniel get married? I forget.

Victoria lied to Charlotte about who really cut Conrad’s breaks. That is so Victoria to lie to her daughter in order to lie to their father.

Do rich people really get together for fancy breakfasts? It’s just breakfast. Have some Wheat Chex and an orange.

“Good morning kitten, it’s lovely to have you back in the litter.” Weird Conrad.

Victoria’s Pop Tart joke, hilars.

Emily is stupid going to the guest house to see Aiden. This is not how a covert evil-doer would go about her business.

Oooh, way to protect your…art gallery…from Conrad. Oh and then drop the tampered brakes bomb! Is she manipulating him by thanking him?

Daniel wears a tie clip like a sissy.

Hey the car crash girl. Not a bad return, should have seen it coming after the profile bit from a few weeks ago. He deserved that ripping.

Charlotte, this is what I was talking about when I urged you to not turn into your mother. Your brother is right about Sarah, reporting her for being rude is not nice.

“Guess what we have? Foundation issues.” – Emily to Daniel. No kidding.

I continue to believe Emily is far too sloppy with her proximity to Aiden. They shouldn’t be talking at the Grayson’s or at her house.

A beach in the Maldives. Why would they mention that?

“I think he’s the one.” – Really, Nolan? I mean, really? AND THEN STUPID JACK OPENS HIS STUPID JACK MOUTH. Major LMAO at Nolan thinking he was dropping a bomb on Jack about Emily’s identity.

The lighting on this construction scene is exceptionally bad. It’s an interior set and they usually do an okay job but that was bad.

Is there a such thing as a forensic realtor? Because if Conrad had one I have to think you’d be able to tell that a house isn’t really sinking.

Smart play by smart Jack to pretend he didn’t know about Emily. Then trying to turn Nolan against Patrick. Is Emily putting him up to this? I can’t imagine Jack would come up with it on his own. He flipped him from “the one” to an ex in one conversation.

So why bring Sarah back? Charlotte gets her a job, then what? Will she try to put her between Daniel and Emily?

“What do you know Conrad, we’re slipping into the sea!” – Victoria’s second great line.

“This pile hasn’t been a home for years.” – Not as good as the other two, but good. This is a divorce bomb?

There they go holding hands on the beach. How has Victoria, who never trusts anyone, not put a PI on Aiden and caught this yet?

“You know if we can’t sell this place perhaps we’ll just turn it into a home for wayward boys. She’s got her bastard, her Brit…and you.” – Conrad. Sharp stuff tonight.

Charlotte getting Sarah fired was for a good reason? Nice.

Now Emily is mad that Nolan let Jack go to Conrad about Patrick. “circling planet Emily.” Awesome. Nolan and Jack are doing a great job contrasting with Emily to bring out all of her faults this season.

Conrad put the fortune in gold? Didn’t figure him for a Glenn Beck fan.

When you ask how someone learned of damning information, you are confirming it.

Looks like Aiden spooked Emily with this begone and never see them again talk. She won’t want to leave Jack and Nolan behind.

Patrick is too confused by this to stay away.

“In this last bit of time we have…” – Emily to Jack and Nolan.

Oh god. No death faking please.

Photo credit: ABC

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Coven and two comedies

The second of two posts running down new fall shows on my schedule. Catch up with part one.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – ABC Tuesdays

SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson played by Clark Gregg.
SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson played by Clark Gregg.

Every few years I pull out my old comic book collection from the early 90s and re-realize I outgrew them. It took the first half of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D pilot for me to re-re-realize it. I didn’t think it was bad. It just wasn’t for me.

After hearing good things about it on social media I gave it a second look. It is actually not too bad. Yes, it’s very comic book-ie, but it seems to do it well. I have even less familiarity with the Marvel universe than I do the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow so most of the mythology goes over my head. Otherwise it’s clean, simple fun.

American Horror Story – FX Wednesdays

The yearly telenovela from FX normally gets its own treatment but until it proves it can match its first season it will stay here with crap like Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Season one was a fantastic mix of acting and demented storytelling. Dylan McDermot and Connie Britton left for other projects (Nashville and, now, Hostages, respectively). Jessica Lange and Evan Peters stayed to be joined by Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe and James Cromwell in season two but they couldn’t rekindle the magic. The scene in season one when Britton and McDermit’s daugther, played by Taissa Farmiga, tried running away but only ended up running in circles into and out of the house because she was dead remains one of my favorite scenes in any show. AHS didn’t come close to that level in season two.

Nor has it so far in season three. Lange and Paulson continue to star as witches at a coven in New Orleans. Farmiga is the latest young witch to be taken in by the group. Peters takes on the role of a frat boy killed in a bus accident and sewn back together in a scene so amateur hour that it felt like an after school special on the Hallmark Channel.

None of the new story is interesting. Jessica Lange was gold in season one but seems to have only played diluted versions of the same character since then. The Harmon’s haunted house featured a dead maid trying to seduce Dylan McDermot; the coven in season three was stormed by zombies.

Maybe it’s time we all admit season one was as good as it’s going to get.

The most unbelievable thing I will probably ever write here…

I’m liking some sitcoms.

Falling for Criminal Minds forced me to question everything about my post-Lost television snobbery. Falling for a couple of sitcoms this fall is personally shocking but I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it. You’re always allowed to enjoy funny.

Mom – CBS Monday

You’ll always have me at Allison Janney and Anna Frris, I will say that upfront. Faris got pregnant as a teenager with her daughter who is now, you guessed it, a pregnant teenager. Janney was a terrible mother who drank, ran drugs and gave her daughter several potential stepfathers. This makes the humor quite a bit more adult than I was expecting on a primetime network, but I’ll take it. A little sanitized dirty humor never hurt anybody.

Beyond the laughs — I can’t believe I’m going to say this — I. Like. The. Story. Of. This. Sit. Com. And. I. Care. A. Bout. The. Charac. Ters. Faris wants to be a better mom for her kids than she had and gets sympathy when her pregnant daughter turns to Janney for support. Janney, in turn, sees that she can be as a grandmother what she never was as a mother. It’s all very nice and the timing between Lanney and Faris is perfect.

Despite being mostly panned before its premiere CBS picked up Mom for a full season.

Trophy Wife – ABC Tuesday

The melded family ensemble show works as well as its kids, and Trophy Wife has good kids. Two teenagers from Bradley Whitford’s first marriage are as funny and awkward as you’d expect them to be. His adopted son with his second wife is the overly-smart provocateur who tends to speak Yiddish. The wives are stereotypical and Whitford’s new wife, Malin Akerman, is trying to make herself look legitimate in everyone’s eyes after meeting him in a bar.

That isn’t the most rousing summary of a good show but the adults are good and the writers let the kids do their thing. Akerman downs a water bottle full of vodka to cover for the teenage girl in one episode and gives the adopted boy an iced coffee in another after letting him stay up all night. In one episode they learn the oldest daughter is hooking up with “Ace McBrady” and confront her about it in a party scene that had me on the floor.

ABC released the pilot online weeks before it aired and critics like it. You can jump in at anytime without missing a beat.