The Penguin (2024)

The Batman directed by Matt Reeves was a fantastic entry into the Batman universe, establishing a gritty, crumbling Gotham. You don't necessarily need to have seen it to follow The Penguin. The Penguin stands alone as a limited series that takes place shortly after the events of The Batman. The caped crusader doesn't make an appearance nor does he really need to. The Penguin is a far more interesting character. He's Tony Soprano, complete with the sick mother. And HBO gave us the best gangster drama character study since The Sopranos. Colin Farrell is completely unrecognizable under all that makeup with his old timey Queens accent. He's ruthless and scrappy.  He's vicious. And the series in later episodes goes back to show us what happened to make him this way a la Wicked. The plot and subplots are all devastating. It's a lot to handle. Not a show to binge in one sitting. He's not even necessarily the worst character. Cristin Milioti is maybe even more devious as Sofia Falcone. She is phenomenal. Love good dark storytelling. Surpasses The Batman.

My Brilliant Friend (2018-24)

My Brilliant Friend has consistently been one of the best shows on TV. But it hasn't gotten so much attention stateside being in Italian. I think Americans are getting more accustomed to watching subtitled content. But I think that's kind of the Netflix effect pushing the content via algorithm. Outside of Netflix, if you have to look for the content yourself, people are not seeking it out. And it's a shame because there's a uniquely Italian story here that's quite beautiful. It's shamelessly melodramatic in a way that I think is more acceptable abroad. You might call it soapy in America, but we're getting more of that in our prestige content too. It's deeply felt, passionate, aided by Max Richter's extraordinary score and the striking cinematography. 

It's a story of epic proportions, spanning decades in the lives of two friends. It's about their lifelong friendship, with all the complications that come with two competitive women. And at its heart there is a story about the power of education in a poor and dangerous community.  The intellectual circle and the mafia circle often intersect. We watch the whole community grow old. As kids they may have been enemies, and as adults they may still hate each other but their lives are so intertwined nonetheless. Beautiful show.

How To with John Wilson (2020-3)

How To with John Wilson defies categorization. I struggle to explain to people what exactly the show is, let alone what makes it so great. But this show was consistently one of the most interesting on TV. So let me try here. Each episode is a video essay in the form of a how-to. It begins with one topic, but it inevitable meanders into something wholly unexpected. It is narrated by John Wilson, an anxious New Yorker who really seems to understand New York. His camera captures all sorts of random found footage. It makes you wonder whether the words are made to match the images or the vice versa. The matching is hilarious. The images are often independently funny but put to words they take on a whole different meaning that makes you chuckle. And somehow the essays always turn out to be poignant, even profound. He interviews the strangest people who let him into their homes. They'll say something wild nonchalantly and he'll say "wait, what?" and then they can expound upon some crazy tangent that becomes the new focus of the essay. He loves to attend niche conventions and travel to remote corners of the country. With that HBO money, he lets the wind take him where it will and he just runs with it. And in the end, in the final episode, he came to a similar conclusion as Executive Producer Nathan Fielder did in The Rehearsal Season 1...a childless middle-aged man contemplating fatherhood. 

Barry (2018-23)

Barry ushered in the era of the black comedy.  How do you pitch a comedy about a marine-with-PTSD-turned-hitman-turned-aspiring-actor? The premise is ridiculous but it works. Bill Hader is a tour de force. He is a good actor, playing a character who is a bad actor, improving as an actor. Yes, the Bill Hader from SNL known for Stefon. He does some serious acting. And as showrunner, he created a poignant existentialist story. And as a burgeoning director, he directed some of the series's best episodes. There are some masterful shots Hader directs himself. He's not just a sketch comedian. Henry Winkler is fabulous as the acting teacher Gene Cousineau. And my personal favorite is Anthony Carrigan who plays the gay Chechen mobster Noho Hank. His viciousness and sarcasm is matched with a heart of gold.

Succession (2018-23)

For quite a long stretch of time during the golden age of TV, Succession was the best show on air.  From the beginning, it spoke to our nightmare times. The Roy family was most closely modeled on the Murdochs but there is something undoubtedly Trumpian about it all, isn't there? It's so painfully realistic, it's terrifying at times. Succession was the perfect balance of comedy and (Shakespearean) tragedy. And it wasn't just clever writing. It was the comedic performances and the hilarious cameraman controlling the zoom lens. There are so many iconic moments that have entered the culture. I'm talking "L to the OG", boar on the floor, two safe rooms, crack some greggs to make a Tomelette, etc. Really any scene with Cousin Greg. 

The final season was announced ahead of the season premiere. Succession ran a tight four seasons, left us wanting more, rather than overstaying its welcome. There was a clear series arc that the showrunner Jesse Armstrong had clearly thought out.  And it took a bold swing in Season 4 Episode 3 that paid dividends. The final 3 episodes were excellent. I feel like they really stuck the landing. The final season leans more tragedy ("You are not serious people") than comedy, but it has its moments, like "it's not that lemony" and Connor arguing with Roman about ambassadorships. 

And how about that opening song by Nicholas Britell!

We Own This City (2022)

We Own This City has been described as a spiritual sequel to The Wire, which ran from 2002-2008. David Simon is the great chronicler of the American city. Simon and George Pelecanos return to Baltimore to follow up on the state of the police and the effect the killing of Freddie Gray. had on our beloved city. It's a damning critique of the Baltimore Police Department as an institution and the War on Drugs that bred it. It may come off as preachy at times, but that's because they're willing to speak the hard truths that no one else will. And yes, sometimes they need to be said out loud. It manages to be both aggravating and absolutely devastating. It makes you feel defeated, that the problems we face in this country are just so insurmountable under the weight of our broken and corrupt institutions.

Jon Bernthal gives a career best performance as Wayne Jenkins. There's something about him that just screams dirty cop. He has the brashness and charisma and bro-eyness. It's spot on casting. And his bawlmer accent is excellent. The time jumping is a little confusing, but it allows all the angles to unfold at once: the police, the FBI investigation and the DOJ consent decree. We see the police stops happen in flashback, and then relive them as the FBI investigates them, and then again as the DOJ gathers evidence for its own work. You can't look away; the miniseries is transfixing.

His Dark Materials (2019-22)

I found His Dark Materials very difficult to follow.  I know the books were written for children but for some reason I just couldn't understand what was happening. Even after 3 seasons, I'm still not sure what the heck dust is. I'm still not sure if Mrs Coulter and Lord Asriel are evil. I don't know why Lyra is so obsessed with Roger when she's got this hunk Will. I chalk it off to the writing. And I found the child actors Dafne Keen and Amir Wilson are very ok. I honestly found them to be kind of annoying. I thought there would be more Lin Manuel Miranda, but he's a pretty minor character. Ruth Wilson is probably the highlight. The subtext of the plot though is fascinating reading about it afterwards. The critique of the Catholic Church is spot on. And I thought the final episode was a stand out. The denouement following the climax of the penultimate episode is quite beautiful. It kind of comes out of left field, but it's a great tie up. The second season was super boring. I nearly stopped watching. And I'm not sure if it was worth finishing but here we are.

Westworld (2016-22)

Westworld was supposed to be HBO's successor to Game of Thrones in terms of epic fantasy and expense and violence and nudity. And it had a promising start. Season 1 was top notch TV. It delivered on the spectacle and the mind-blowing twists. And it had a philosophical bent to it. There were some really beautiful, poignant episodes--I specifically remember Akechata's Season 2 episode 8 titled Kiksuya. Season 2 was actually quite good in retrospect with its biblical scope, but I didn't see that until the end. While watching season 2, I found it to be kind of a drag. Seasons 3 and 4 did absolutely nothing for me. They were so complicated and boring. How did they lose the magic of Season 1? It became a totally different show. Once they left the park and entered "reality" it became too convoluted. And it's not like season 1 was even easy to follow. I'm glad they finally pulled the plug because I had felt obligated to slog through the last two seasons.

We Are Who We Are (2021)

Man these kids are annoying as hell, but I guess that's sort of the point. The first handful of episodes get filed under the kids-behaving-badly Euphoria genre. But Luca Guadagnino's style is such that it's filmed in an interesting and loving way. He recreated his own military base set to film on; there is definitely a message in there about Donald Trump and race and the military abroad. There was way more gratuitous nudity than I was expecting. And one episode verges on child porn. But getting past those episodes, the last two are excellent. There was a lot of Bologna nostalgia in the last episode. They filmed on location, and I recognized all the places. I love that they call San Luca the most beautiful place in the world, cause it's extraordinary and picturesque. I love that Guadagnino filmed mundane everyday places that I recognize too, like Piazza 8 Agosto, Bologna Centrale, that little window with the canal, etc. Take me back!

The Deuce (2017-19)

Not as groundbreaking as the Wire, but every bit as astute, insightful and well made. David Simon remains our greatest chronicler of the American city, this time New York in the 70s and 80s around 42nd Street. The epilogue shows what it has transformed into now, a tourist trap, a far cry from the Taxi Driver-era. Simon is interested in the how; what are the socioeconomic and political drivers that cause a city to change? Ed Koch looms over the show though he is never shown on screen. The third season's coverage of the AIDS epidemic is especially poignant. In parallel, it's also about the pornography industry, in that window it enjoyed mainstream success. For that the story expands out to California. I'd say the third theme is the mafia, showing the audience how organized crime makes money in as much detail as The Sopranos. Simon treats his characters equally and with dignity, whether they are government officials, policemen, reporters, mobsters, pimps, prostitutes or pornographers.  They all have rich, thoughtful characterization with satisfying arcs. The stars are James Franco, who plays twins, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who plays a prostitute turned porn-director turned art house filmmaker. The rest of the cast is full of David Simon regulars who appear in his other works. He continues to cast them because they're good. Simple as that.

Insecure (2016-21)

Issa Rae's breakout hit Insecure closed out its fantastic five season run. She succeeded in writing contemporary black life on screen. She personified the side of Los Angeles that portrays neither the glamor nor the ghetto. She depicted that in-between period of life in your late twenties/early thirties that Friends put on screen when you are still trying to figure out your life and your "friends are your family". Perhaps it's fitting that the finale sees Issa's best friend Molly getting married. It is their friendship that sits at the center of the show. It's what makes season 4, the one where their friendship is on the rocks, the strongest. Their romantic relationships with a rotating cast of eligible black men (and Alexander Hodge) revolve around Molly and Issa's love for each other. While Lawrence was the emotionally earned choice (though maybe abrupt for the finale), I don't think it's the most adult choice. Yes, Lawrence has grown but Issa has too. And following her heart is the more immature option, and I think she has grown into a new phase of her life in which she would have been able to move on. Overall though, I loved the time-jumping finale. 

It is a beautifully shot show, with lighting and makeup befitting black skin tones. It was sometimes uneven, but Insecure took big swings. It was at once funny, endearing, moving, raunchy and authentic. And it all evolved from a little web series featuring Issa rapping to herself in the mirror. Certainly, by the end she is no longer the insecure girl pumping herself up in the mirror anymore--the final shot is the empty mirror. The music supervision was always really good. They find the right song for the moment, while serving as a platform for new black talent, doing exactly as Issa Dee does in the show. That goes not only for the musicians, but also the cast of supporting actors (a standout discovery in Yvonne Orji) and in Issa Rae's real post-Insecure life with her production company Hoorae. 

Mare of Easttown (2021)

5 stars for Kate Winslet and the whole British cast (and non-Brits alike) nailing the notoriously difficult Delco (Delaware County, PA) accent. The glamorous Winslet totally inhabits the decidedly unglamorous Mare. The production design and setting are supremely specific, and the show is all the better for it, bathing the show in realism. In this depressing, small rural town, rife with teenage pregnancy and drugs, Mare knows everybody and everybody knows her. In some ways, she is like the "mayor", a detective actually. People come to her with all their problems, and they expect her to solve them. Her methods are unconventional, those of someone policing her friends, rather than one who is strictly bound by the law. Her main claim to fame was a basketball championship in high school. But when it comes to a serious, big case, she's kind of in over her head. She lacks the objectivity to do serious detecting. Very strong character development and as a result deeply felt emotions. The plot is a whodunnit, with plenty of red herrings. Even the ones that don't pan out still feel like valuable additions to the plot. Every episode ends with a cliffhanger. I was kept guessing til the very end. The suspenseful pacing is palpable. HBO strikes again.

The Plot Against America (2020)

David Simon's sleek adaptation of the Philip Roth novel is terrifying. It is a WWII alternate history Roth wrote during the George W Bush era, but it is painfully familiar in the Donald Trump era. America realized a version of Charles Lindbergh's fascist fantasy under Trump making it an especially timely adaptation. The first few episodes are a bit slow, but the finale is extremely intense. That drive to and from Danville, Kentucky is a masterclass in suspense. The 1940s production design is excellent. The actors are all great; I think Zoe Kazan is especially good as the Bess. From what I've read, Simon changed the perspective of the novel, which was originally told by older Philip (a stand-in for the author) remember his childhood. The show is rather third person omniscient, following the action of all the characters separately. It's more natural for a TV show, but it does feel like something is fundamentally changed by making it more impersonal. And the bleak ending of the show is more pessimistic. Now that we've lived through the Trump era and see that the racists have not gone away, Simon's ending is probably more realistic, appropriately cynical.

The Sopranos (1999-2007)

With our HBO Max subscription, it was finally time to tackle the original that ushered in the golden era of television. Its influence is unmistakable. It was the first show to trust its audience with a complex season-long arc, a serial plot. There is no Walter White without Tony Soprano; Anna Gunn channels her best Carmela, even RJ Mitte is riffing on Anthony Jr. It brought cinematic film making technique to the small screen. And it pushed HBO to the forefront of quality programming, becoming synonymous with prestige (and violence and nudity). It mixed suspenseful drama and black comedy in a now recognizable dramedy genre. It made bold narrative choices, and the story spent inordinate amounts of time in the hospital, wantonly killing off characters left and right.

Everyone knows it for being the gangster show, but that's really the window dressing. Its central themes are rather the Italian-American experience, family (inextricable from being Italian), the suburbs, fragile masculinity (often performative in front of the other guys, and heavily reliant on racism), and in the later seasons post-9/11 America. The series opens with Tony in his therapist's office, already attacking the idea of the strong masculine type (and possibly contributing to the now open acceptance of therapy in the mainstream), and placing Tony's mental state at the heart of the show. It asks whether Tony can be cured and the answer come season 6 is a resounding no. I think that's why I felt unsatisfied by the ending, because if Tony hasn't grown over the last 86 episodes then how could it be over?  

While I can appreciate the show and recognize its greatness, I admit that I didn't necessarily always enjoy watching it. It does feel a little dated. The very overt (and uncomfortable) racism and bigotry that may have been played for comedy back then doesn't land that way anymore. And in a different era of gender politics, the guys are less sympathetic characters today.

I May Destroy You (2020)

Michaela Coel is undeniably brilliant. She is uncompromising in her bold vision. Her characters say and do things that no one else would get away with. She creates complex, imperfect, messy characters. Arabella is a promising if unproductive writer. Terry is her sometimes overbearing ride-or-die. Kwame is an unassuming sex addict. Coel is indeed so uncompromising that it is sometimes hard to sympathize. Even when they do the right thing, when Terry unflinchingly supports her friend's self-care routine for instance, they do it in such a way that may actually be harmful.  She resists clear answers, preferring to explore the ambiguities for moral righteousness that perhaps doesn't exist. This makes I May Destroy You a challenging watch. It is not immediately accessible but it is ultimately rewarding. Coel probes several variations on the theme of consent, as well as others. The themes are both universal and culturally specific to the black British experience. She loses me a bit in the middle episodes, but she absolutely nails the landing. The last two episodes are excellent. The finale puts the title I May Destroy You into perspective. I hadn't given that qualifier a second thought until it became clear what it meant. Arabella plays through several different scenarios in her head, some of which involve her destroying her rapist (raper in British English). But in a fitting ending, she learns how to move on.

The Night Of (2016)

The word that immediately comes to mind is harrowing. It's just absolutely devastating. The first episode is especially tense. My fists were clenched the whole episode in dread and anticipation. The brilliance of The Night Of is that despite the mood of impending doom that pervades the whole series, there are moments of levity. Morgan drew a good comparison to the Good Wife, with its eccentric cast of recurring lawyers and judges (John Turturro is great fun).  I think the obvious comparison is to When They See Us, also about the false accusation of a young man of color in the murder of a white woman and an ensuing look at the New York criminal justice system. He is first prosecuted in the media, and then he is forced to learn to adapt to prison life. Riz Ahmed is transformative as Nasir. He's one of the most exciting young actors today. The standard of proof in a criminal case is beyond a reasonable doubt. To me, there was plenty of room for doubt, but I was sure the jury wouldn't see it (Though the mystery is resolved by the end, it's never really about who did it. It's about whether the system will punish him anyways). I was expecting that kind of devastating ending. I was so relieved when the jury declared a mistrial and the prosecutor did the right thing. Her closing statement was rife with tension, unsure if she'd follow through on what she knew to be wrong. That said, the trial seemed unrealistic, but better for TV. It seemed like a lot of the discovery was unreasonably late, and the direct examinations sounded more like cross.
 

Sharp Objects (2018)

Yes, there is a twist at the end. No, the preceding episodes are not worth the payoff. The first six episodes are excruciatingly slow and uneventful. The last two episodes pick up, but it is already too late. All of the characters are unlikable creepy crazies. It is very dark. The whole rural southern gothic vibe is quite off-putting, as is the racism and homophobia and Confederacy paraphernalia. The twist is good but it's so last minute that we don't actually get enough explanation to be satisfied. We don't get her motivations, or how the cheerleader is involved, or how she's so freakishly strong.  The editing style was too quick for me. There are lots of hidden words that I missed. There are time jumps that are not clear cause Amy Adams looks exactly the same. There are short hallucinations that are easy to miss. We often don't know what we're seeing. It's all intentionally disorienting and I don't like being disoriented. The music choices are interesting. Why do they use the wistful Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a beautiful, colorful French musical? It doesn't fit at all.

The Wire (2002-8)

David Simon landmark series holds up in the waning years of the Golden era of television. The technology may be outdated by now, but the drama is timeless. Simon pioneered bingeable television (along with the Sopranos, I suppose), plotting a mystery to unfold over the course of a whole season. And today in the streaming era, every TV show worth its salt has an overarching plot. Some may criticize him for being slow, but it's a methodical slow burn that allows for deep characterization of even secondary characters. We come to know not just the cops, not just the head honcho drug dealers but even the street level kids (a very young Michael B Jordan). His sense of realism comes through in his unknown actors, character actors, non-actors, and many real Baltimoreans. The show is about characters who are trapped by the institutions (a set of rules) that plague the city.

The Wire is Simon's love letter to Baltimore. It may not always seem that way given all the crime and corruption he highlights but indeed it is. No city has ever gotten such a thorough treatment on TV, exposing its underbelly. He doesn't do it out of malice or hatred but he genuinely believes that it can do better. Despite the specificity, it could have been about any city because in general terms it is about the decline of the American city. Other cities also have drug problems, docks, corrupt city government, schools, and print media. He would give post-Katrina New Orleans a similar treatment in Treme, but Simon has a personal connection to Baltimore. He (and writer Ed Burns) have first hand experience about the things they write (the Baltimore Police and the Baltimore Sun).

Seasons 3 and 4 are the strongest. Simon's analysis on the flaws in our education system is brilliant. I thought season 2 at the docks was kind of weak while watching it but in retrospect it was also very good. There are so many characters and by the end I felt like we got satisfactory closure on each one. It was kind of weird that McNulty doesn't feature much in season 4, but honestly, it's all the better without him. His twisted story line in season 5 is probably the weakest, most cynical (most ironic).

Chernobyl (2019)

The HBO miniseries was remarkably prescient. In 2019, it was a warning, of the inevitable dangers that were waiting around the corner for a society built on lies and more lies. Craig Mazin and Johan Renck could not have predicted the arrival of the Coronavirus, arguably the worst global disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. "Why worry about something that isn't going to happen?" Especially when we know it is bound to happen...In 2020, the warning goes unheeded. As those in power continue to lie to each other and to the public and to themselves, the pandemic worsens. And they devalue expertise. Is Anthony Fauci our Legasov? The coal miner refusing to wear the mask is scarily accurate.

The first three episodes are frustratingly excellent, while the final two episodes are admittedly a little slow, though make science quite interesting.  The depiction of the Soviet Union in all its flaws, and styles, and bleakness is striking. I found a line in episode 4 to hit particularly close to home: "What you are proposing is that Legasov humiliate a nation that is obsessed with not being humiliated?" Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have this in common with the Soviet Union, caring only about appearances but being completely deluded as to how they are actually perceived. They are societies  that don't care about their people, ready to cut corners and silence the truth at the cost of lives. Comparisons to the Soviet Union are not complimentary.

Quick aside, I don't think Chernobyl should have won all the Emmys over When They See Us. Both express exasperated frustration in their early episodes, but Ava Duvernay's series evolves into an emotional journey that takes it to another level.

Watchmen (2019)

In a word, Damon Lindelof's HBO-adaptation of the beloved graphic novel Watchmen is extraordinary. It is actually not really an adaptation, it is a sequel that takes place 34 years after the comic. It satisfies fans by respecting the source material in themes, characters, and structure. You don't need to be familiar with the original, but you can certainly better appreciate the brilliance if you are.

Lindelof uses Watchmen to make the an incisive, honest, and hard-hitting reckoning with race in America. Our hero is Angela Abar, played by Oscar-winner Regina King (and surely a future Emmy-winner). She is a former Tulsa police officer who has since retired but now dons a mask and costume as the vigilante Sister Night who collaborates closely with the police. In this alternate Tulsa, the police by law are now required to wear masks to protect their identities. It asks the question that the original did but brilliantly about the police: what do people feel empowered to do behind a mask? Tulsa was the sight of the real-life massacre in 1921 that demolished "Black Wall Street", one of the most prosperous black communities in the country at the time. This is an event that is inexcusably not taught in schools. Our society has not reckoned with the wrongs it has committed. And until it does, it will never move past it. Watchmen gives this massacre the respect it deserves. The ending is extremely satisfying. The story closes all its loose ends perfectly. The early episodes have you asking lots of confusing questions but if you can make it to the end, it will all make sense.

In addition to writing a compelling story, Lindelof has crafted beautiful character studies. Episodes 5, 6 and 8 are character studies of Looking Glass, Hooded Justice and Dr Manhattan respectively. Tim Blake Nelson's Looking Glass is probably the most interesting character and he is an excellent actor. Hooded Justice was the first masked crusader. Assumed white, he is cast black here and not only does it make sense, you realize he must've been black all along. Without spoiling it, his origin story makes clear that the first superhero had to be black, as the superhero emerges out of necessity. The symbolism obviously pointed to lynching; it was all right there and we didn't realize it. This episode, a bad trip on Nostalgia, is mostly in black and white and is filmed in what looks like one long take. Dr Manhattan's episode tells a beautiful love story to explain who he is. The music supervision is fabulous throughout the series, but this episode cleverly uses multiple songs with the theme "blue" as Dr Manhattan is blue.

This is a TV program for our time and for all time. 

Notes:

• Veidt's alien squid is literally Professor Daniel Deudney's theory on space politics! 
• We are not told who Lube Man is but in the supplemental documents online, we discover it Agent Petey. It's not crucial to know this, but it makes sense. Just like the original comic, there were supplemental materials; yes, even down to that level Lindelof respects the source material
• No season 2! The ending is so perfect and self contained, I'm ok with just one season.