Saturday, November 30, 2013
Harder to survive on the margins
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This preview of the fourth and final season of Treme contains mild spoilers for the last five episodes, but nothing too serious. If you fear knowing ANYTHING ahead of time, move along. Also, health problems and other interruptions have put timely recaps in jeopardy. At least part of the first episode will be up in time Sunday, but I can't make promises about timeliness going forward.
The headline that I used for this preview of the truncated fourth and final season of HBO's Treme paraphrases something Marvin Frey (Michael Cerveris), manager of Annie Tee aka Talarico (Lucia Micarelli), says to his client in the Sunday season premiere after she finishes a set with her band. Frey advises Annie that her album has peaked and, if she wishes to continue her ascent to stardom, her act requires big changes. While Frey's statement specifically
pertains to Annie, it also applies to the unforgivable final season HBO allowed for this great series created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer. Yes, even in the commercial-free universe of pay cable, where subscribers should matter more than ratings, the various TV ratings systems (which grow more imperfect and outmoded by the day as the methods by which viewers watch TV evolve in ways A.C. Nielsen never could have envisioned) still capture the attention of channels such as HBO and Treme never drew an audience comparable to shows such as The Sopranos, Game of Thrones or even Boardwalk Empire. I suppose I should commend them for sticking with Treme as long as they did, but that doesn't excuse HBO for the scraps that it threw the series' way for a final season. Despite the burdens of a season half the size of a traditional one (and they received an 11-episode order for season 2) and steep cuts to staff and crew, the people remaining at Treme manage to go out well with few signs on the screen of the behind-the-scenes austerity measures imposed upon them in order to complete the story they never intended to run past four seasons. When I first learned of what HBO gave Treme for Season 3.5, my thoughts went to the citizens of New Orleans and the city itself, whose economy benefited from the series' filming there each year. Hasn't that city suffered enough? I digress. Five episodes remain to spend with the great characters we've met over the previous 31 episodes. We'll join the second line after the last episode airs Dec. 29. As the card shown above from Sunday's premiere indicates, the final season of Treme picks up 38 months after Hurricane Katrina and the federal flood that followed and devastated New Orleans and neighboring regions. More specifically, the day on which season 3.5 chooses to begin happens to be Nov. 4, 2008 — that historic day that saw Barack Obama elected the first African-American president of the United States. While the U.S. started the process of transition from one president to another, we learn of changes to most of the characters in the Treme universe in the premiere, “Yes We Can Can” (written by Simon, Overmyer & George Pelecanos, directed by Anthony
Hemingway), in terms of relationships started and ended, both personal and professional. For those forgetting where we left our friends more than a year ago, LaDonna Batiste-Williams (Khandi Alexander) struggled after her bar GiGi’s got torched in a suspicious, presumed revenge fire; Delmond Lambreaux (Rob Brown) found himself more torn than ever between his New York jazz career and his New Orleans roots, especially after his father Albert (Clarke Peters) began treatment for cancer; Janette Desautel (Kim Dickens) continued to butt heads with Tim Feeny (Sam Robards), the moneyman behind her new restaurant, Desautel’s on the Avenue; Sofia Bernette (India Ennenga) headed east for college as her mom Toni (Melissa Leo) continued to fight the good fight and began a relationship with Lt. Terry Colson (David Morse), who attempted to do the same within his police department; Sonny Schilder* (Michiel Huisman) wore down Tran (Lee Nguyen), the father of Linh (Hong Chau), and made her his bride; Nelson Hidalgo (Jon Seda), back in the good graces of C.J. Liguori (Dan Ziskie) and friends after exile for association with Oliver Thomas, worked on various projects, including a New Orleans city jazz center, a project that Del and Albert already decided not to take part in despite a possible lucrative end; Annie’s burgeoning career led to her breakup with Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn), who gave a “final” performance announcing he was quitting the music industry; and Antoine Batiste (Wendell Pierce) found himself getting into the groove in his job as the assistant band instructor at Theophile Jones Elie Elementary. My return to recapping Treme episodes comes after sitting out Season 3 (and post-episode summaries/reviews of Boardwalk Empire as well) due to worsening aspects of the physical limitations associated with my primary progressive multiple sclerosis. A major impediment to me continuing the recaps stemmed from the fact that my recaps of both series grew so insanely ambitious with research and links supplementing the general summary and assessment of each individual episode. In fact, I got so detailed when referring to neighborhoods and sections of New Orleans that some readers assumed that I either hailed from there or had lived in the city for a sizable portion of my life when I never got the chance to visit the Crescent City back when I was mobile. Thankfully, no one thought I was old enough that I acquired my knowledge of 1920s Atlantic City from first-hand experience. My recaps
for the final five episodes of Treme won't approach the detail or ambition of my season 2 efforts. (Look at my recap of Treme's season two episode "Carnival Time" or my recap of Boardwalk Empire's season 2 episode "To the Lost" to see how overboard I went.) I regret not being able to recap season 3 of Treme because I felt it turned out to be its best season, especially following season two, which contained individual episodes that proved great and contained truly memorable moments, but had too many episodes undermined by an editing style that seemed geared for children with ADD. In season three, the series largely corrected its flow problems and managed even to find use for some of its characters who had been annoying and pointless such as Sonny. It also introduced a new character in young enterprising reporter L.P. Everett (Chris Coy), a writer for ProPublica, who arrived in New Orleans to investigate the possible murder of a man by police following Hurricane Katrina. Everett's work brought him into contact with a natural ally in Toni and paralleled the internal frustration of Terry trying to delve into the culture of cover-up and corruption throughout the city's police department. While the entire ensemble managed to get their moments in season three, in my eyes, the season really belonged to Morse's stellar work as Colson. As a point of personal pride, when in season two Janette toured the kitchens of various New York restaurants, she began at the marvelous fictional creation Brulard’s, named for its owner and chef Enrico Brulard (a magnificent invention of a character by actor Victor Slezak — I still dream of spin-off where Brulard and Dr. John decide to open a restaurant and club together). Janette bonded best in Brulard's kitchen with actor Paul Fitzgerald's character, who never received a name, referred in credit lists simply by job title as Le poissonnier. In my recap of one of season two's best episodes, "Santa Claus, Do You Ever Get the Blues?" (written by Lolis Eric Elie, directed by Alex Zakrzewski), I decided to christen Fitzgerald's character as Paul. To my delight, when he turned up in New Orleans at Janette's new restaurant, he had a name and it happened to be Paul. I'd love to think I had a hand in that, but I'm not deluded enough to assume such a thing. It pleased me nonetheless and I wish I'd been able to note it when it occurred.What makes this final stretch of Treme particularly interesting are how some episodes seem to have an overlying theme in a way that previous installments didn't. While episodes might revolve around a common event or day such as Mardi Gras or Thanksgiving, a couple of these final five delve specifically, though subtly, into overarching topics. As I referred to earlier, few signs on-screen indicate the steep cuts made for the final season. You spot them when some regulars' names only appear in episodes in which they appear and in the relative absence of bigger names such as Elizabeth Ashley's wonderful Aunt Mimi, who appears but once and briefly.
Whenever I try to describe Treme to nonviewers, a pat description defies me. No television antecedent that's not really dependent on plot springs to mind as a comparison. Treme proves to be neither about the journey nor the destination while telling its tale of a community and its culture in the aftermath of a disaster, but, in the end, Katrina really isn't its point either. Miraculously, Treme works and, this late in the game, I finally realized the closest comparison to its type of storytelling. It came not from television, but a movie: Robert Altman's Nashville. It also focused on a musical community with a large cast of characters, some of whom met, some who didn't, and didn't contain what anyone could call a conventional plot, yet it's one of Altman's masterpieces. Of course, Nashville comes to a climax of sorts and covers a very specific period of time. That thought prompted memories of another essentially plotless, though quite different, great film that by coincidence took place in our bicentennial year: Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, only it contained no big finish. As for television, I still can't think of a Treme antecedent and that's probably a good thing. I expect someone to correct me in comments and come up with a similar TV example and I'll be suitably red-faced for that series not occurring to me, but until then I welcome that in my mind Treme stands as one-of-a-kind.
Treme premieres on Sunday night on HBO at 9 p.m. Eastern/8 p.m. Central.
*As far as I recall, Sonny's last name never was mentioned or seen on the show itself, but a book solved that mystery. Treme: Stories and Recipes from the Heart of New Orleans by Lolis Eric Elie, former story editor for the series, presents recipes belonging to various characters from Treme and it reveals Sonny's last name as Schilder when providing his dishes.
Tweet
Labels: Altman, Boardwalk Empire, Clarke Peters, D. Morse, David Simon, E. Ashley, HBO, Kim Dickens, Linklater, M. Cerveris, Melissa Leo, Overmyer, Television, The Sopranos, Treme, TV Recap, Wendell Pierce, Zahn
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Thursday, October 03, 2013
Sirota already did it: Bye bye 'Bad' Part II
that STILL has yet to watch Breaking Bad in its entirety, close this story now.
By Edward Copeland
When envisioning the epic farewell I felt I must write upon the conclusion of Breaking Bad, I didn't anticipate an important section of the tribute would begin with a South Park reference to The Simpsons. (If, by chance, you missed Part I, click here.)
Now, anyone with even a smidgeon of understanding of the basic tenets of comedy knows that if you need to explain a joke, you've failed somewhere in the telling. Despite this rule of humor, forgive me for explaining the title of the second part of my Breaking Bad tribute, but I can't assume that all Breaking Bad fans reading this also hold knowledge of specific South Park episodes. Way back in that animated series' sixth season in 2002, poor Butters' alter ego, Professor Chaos (six years before any of us knew Walter White and his inhabiting spirit Heisenberg), finds every scheme he devises greeted by some variation of the episode's title: "The Simpsons Already Did It." I just spent a long way to travel to the point of my headline, which refers to the great columnist David Sirota's article, posted by Salon on Sept. 28, the day before "Felina" aired, titled "Walter White's sickness mirrors America." (If you didn't understand before, I imagine you comprehend now how explaining a joke tends to kill its punchline.) In his piece, Sirota posits:
the specific pressures and ideologies that make America exceptional at the very moment
the country is itself breaking bad.
The most obvious way to see that is to look at how Walter White’s move into the drug trade
was first prompted, in part, by his family’s fear that he would die prematurely for lack
of adequate health care. It is the kind of fear most people in the industrialized world
have no personal connection to — but that many American television watchers no doubt do.
That’s because unlike other countries, Walter White’s country is exceptional for being a place
where 45,000 deaths a year are related to a lack of comprehensive health insurance coverage.
That’s about ten 9/11′s worth of death each year because of our exceptional position
as the only industrialized nation without a universal public health care system
(and, sadly, Obamacare will not fix that)."
Aside from the fact the Sirota misses the mark a bit concerning Walt’s original motives for entering the meth-making business and makes it sound as if his family encouraged the idea and raised money concerns before he even started to cook (more specifics on that later), Sirota’s piece covers ground that I always planned to discuss as well. Sirota might not be the first person to voice this hypothesis, but I’ve only seen and read his article (post finale, as I purposely tried to avoid other pieces to make mine my own as much as possible). I also saw the funny package envisioning how Walter's tale would play out if set in Canada. Health care costs in the U.S., significant in Breaking Bad, secured itself as a crucial aspect of my retrospective since the first half of season five given that I’ve
existed as a permanent patient for nearly the exact same time period as Breaking Bad’s television run. Unfortunately, my experiences give me much in the way of first-hand knowledge on the subject through which to view the series' take. While Sirota argues that Walt began his criminal career to pay for his exceedingly costly cancer treatments and White indeed used his ill-gotten gains toward those bills, he never expressed a desire to make a load of money to keep himself alive. Walter White already resigned himself to the idea of his impending death. The meth money’s only purpose originally, according to Walt, merely meant leaving behind a nest egg for Skyler, Walt Jr. and his as-of-then unborn child. He said as much in the great scene from the first season episode “Gray Matter” (written by Patty Lin, directed by Tricia Brock) where the entire family gathers at Skyler’s behest to stage a pseudo-intervention of the health care variety, passing around the “talking pillow” to take the floor and address Walt as to why he should accept the Schwartzes’ offer to pay for his treatments. The scene turns particularly grand
when Marie surprises (and pisses off) her sister by agreeing with Walt about not wanting to suffer through the chemo treatments and succeeds at changing Hank’s mind as well. A wonderful example of how the show (as all the best dramas do) successfully mixed levity with tragedy. One of the funniest moments in the history of The Sopranos came in its fourth season episode “The Strong, Silent Type” (story by David Chase, written by Terence Winter, Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess, directed by Alan Taylor) when Tony’s crew attempts a drug intervention on Christopher with disastrous and hilarious results. The night that episode aired, the premiere of “The Grand Opening” episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (directed by Robert B. Wiede) followed it, with Larry David’s own singular attempt at an emergency intervention for his new restaurant’s chef (Paul Sand) who had Tourette syndrome. My stomach hurt from laughing so hard that night. What makes interventions so easily comical? When Walt agrees to treatments and uses his meth money to pay (while lying to Skyler that he accepted Elliot and Gretchen’s offer to help), what motivates him isn’t (at least consciously) a sudden desire to fight the cancer but the need to live longer and build up a bigger bequest for his family. While the insanity of medical costs floats around the series at this time, this isn’t where Breaking Bad truly takes aim on our broken system.
As I wrote in my sole previous piece on Breaking Bad prior to this post-series wake/celebration, I came to the series late and only began watching it live in the third season that premiered March 21, 2010, and ended with Gale Boetticher opening his apartment door to an emotionally fragile and gun-wielding Jesse Pinkman on June 13. As
proved to be the case with each season of Breaking Bad, each new season topped the one that preceded it, even though no bad seasons or mediocre episodes exist. Breaking Bad tackled the high price of medicine, if not as an overriding concern, or motivation, in the first two seasons not only through the obvious costs of Walt’s cancer treatments, but also when Heisenberg first appeared and marched into the headquarters of the psychotic Tuco, demanding not only advance payment for his “product” but reparations as well to cover Jesse’s hospital bills from Tuco beating poor Pinkman within an inch of his life. For myself (and, admittedly, this came from overidentifying with someone losing the use of his legs, albeit not because of an assassination attempt by vengeance-seeking lookalike cousins), the series’ most direct discussion of the flaws in this country’s health care system came in the hospital scenes dealing with the aftermath of Hank’s shooting. In the early days, when Walt coughed up cashier’s checks for cancer bills
since his health insurance coverage through his school district didn’t approach the needed benefits to pay for his treatments, viewers saw some of the costs, but we never received a final bill, especially after Walt went the surgical option, handled by Dr. Victor Bravenec, played by Sam McMurray. McMurray also played Uncle Junior’s arrogant oncologist, Dr. John Kennedy, in the classic Sopranos episode “Second Opinion” (written by Lawrence Konner, directed by Tim Van Patten), where Tony and Furio used some not-so-friendly persuasion on the golf course to convince Kennedy to treat Junior right. (When McMurray showed up on Breaking Bad as an oncologist, part of me wondered if his character wasn’t Kennedy, having relocated under a new name to Albuquerque out of fear of mob repercussions, unaware that his new patient might be deadlier than anyone in that northern New Jersey crew could be.) Back to Hank. We know the extra needed to get Schrader on his feet again. That even came up again in the final eight episodes: $177,000. Pretty pathetic that a loyal public servant such as Hank Schrader, whose job constantly required him to put his life on the line, didn’t get the kind of catastrophic coverage he required when he needed it. For all the times, she could annoy him and cause him grief with that little kleptomania problem, Hank Schrader could not have chosen a better mate than the former Marie Lambert. Marie might only work as an X-ray technician, but she spoke the truth as she yelled at the various people in the hospital that Hank had to begin work on regaining the use of his legs immediately because a delay of even two weeks would be too late. I actually cried when I watched the episode where Betsy Brandt spoke those lines as Marie because I’d yelled those words myself at people in the hospital when I went in there in May 2008. (For those unfamiliar with my personal plight, click here.) I already had limited use of my legs because of my primary progressive multiple sclerosis. Two weeks stuck in bed can do irreparable damage to a marathon runner. Quite some time ago, I was able to make contact with Ms. Brandt and shared my tale with her about how I wish that I’d had someone like Marie back then to fight on my side. She graciously wrote back, “Edward, Marie would have definitely been your champion…and we all need a champion at times.”
So much more to say. Who knows when I will get them posted? As I posted on Facebook, odds are this is psychosomatic or coincidental, but my M.S. symptoms have spread to parts of my body they had avoided before since Breaking Bad ended. Perhaps sheer force of will held them at bay until I saw the series until its conclusion. I haven't written all I planned to yet, but this makes for a good stopping point for Part II.
Tweet
Labels: Breaking Bad, Curb Your Enthusiasm, David Chase, Larry David, South Park, The Simpsons, The Sopranos, TV Tribute
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Monday, September 30, 2013
What a ride: Bye bye 'Bad' Part I
that STILL has yet to watch Breaking Bad in its entirety, close this story now.
By Edward Copeland
Kept you waiting there too long my love.
All that time without a word
Didn't know you'd think that I'd forget
Or I'd regret the special love I have for you —
My Baby Blue.
Perfection. I don’t intend (and never planned) to spend much of this farewell to Breaking Bad discussing its finale, but it happens too seldom that a movie or a final episode wraps with the absolute spot-on song. The Crying Game did it with Lyle Lovett singing “Stand By Your Man.” The Sopranos often accomplished it with specific episodes such as using The Eurythmics’ “I Saved the World Today” at the end of the second season’s “Knight in White Satin Armor” episode. Breaking Bad killed last night with some Badfinger — and how often do you read words along those lines?
We first met Walter Hartwell White, his family and associates (or, if you prefer, eventual victims/collateral damage) on Jan. 20, 2008. Viewers anyway. As for the time period of the show, the first scene or that first episode, I’d be a fool to venture a definitive guess. I start this piece with that date because it places the series damn close to the beginning of the 2008 calendar year. In the years since Vince Gilligan’s brilliant creation graced our TV screens, five full years of movies opened in the U.S. and ⅔ of a sixth. In that time, some great films crossed my path. Many I anticipate being favorites for the rest of my days: WALL-E, (500) Days of Summer and The Social Network, to name but three. As much as I love those movies and many others released in that time, I say without hyperbole that none equaled the quality or satisfied me as much as the five seasons of Breaking Bad.
For me to make such a declaration might come off as one more person jumping on the "what an amazing time we live in for quality TV" bandwagon. As someone who from a young age loved movies to such a degree that I sometimes attended new ones just to see something, admitting this amazes even me. On some level, early on in this sea change, it felt as if I not only had cheated on my wife but become a serial adulterer as well. In my childhood days of movie love, I also watched way too much TV, but I admittedly held the medium in disdain as a whole, an attitude that, despite the shows I loved and recognized as great, didn’t change until Hill Street Blues arrived. However, I can’t deny the transfer of my affection as to which medium satisfies, engages and gives me that natural high once exclusive to the best of cinema or, in those all-too-brief years I could attend, superb New York theater productions, most consistently now. It’s not that top-notch movies no longer get made, but experiencing sublime new films occurs far less frequently than in years past. (Perhaps a mere coincidence, but the most recent year that I’d cite as overflowing with works reaching higher heights happens to be 1999 — the same year The Sopranos premiered, marking the unofficial start of this era.) Granted, television and other outlets such as Netflix expanded the number of places available for programming exponentially, television as a whole still produces plenty of time-wasting crap. However, on a percentage basis, the total of fictional TV series produced that rank among the greatest in TV history probably hits a higher number than great films reach out of each year's crop of new movies.
Close readers of my movie posts know that when I compile lists of all-time favorite films, as I did last year, I require that a movie be at least 10 years old before it reaches eligibility for inclusion. With that requirement for film, it probably appears inconsistent on my part to declare Breaking Bad the greatest drama to air on television when it just concluded last night. However, I don’t feel like a hypocrite making this proclamation. When I saw any of the 62 episodes of Breaking Bad for the first time, never once did I feel afterward as if it had just been an “OK” episode. Obviously, some soared higher than others, but none ranked as so-so. I can’t say that about any other series. As much as I love The Sopranos, David Chase’s baby churned out some clunkers. The Wire almost matched Breaking Bad's achievement, but HBO prevented this by giving it a truncated fifth season that forced David Simon and gang to rush the ending in a way that made the final year unsatisfying following its brilliant fourth. Deadwood gets an incomplete, once again thanks to HBO, for not allowing David Milch to complete his five season vision. I recently re-read the one time I wrote about Breaking Bad, sometime in the middle of its third season, and though I didn't hail it to the extent I do now, the impending signs show in my protective nature toward the series since this came
when it had a smaller, loyal cadre of fans such as myself who almost wanted to keep it our little secret. As the series moved forward, what amazed me — something that amazes me anytime it happens — was Breaking Bad’s ability to get better and better from season to season. That rarely occurs on any show, no matter how good. Programs might achieve a level of quality and maintain it, but rarely do any continue to top themselves. The Wire did that for its first four seasons but, as I wrote above, that stopped when HBO shorted them by three episodes in its final season. Breaking Bad not only grew better, it continued to experiment with its storytelling techniques right up to its final episodes. In this last batch of eight alone, we had “Rabid Dog” (written and directed by Sam Catlin) that begins with Walt, gun in hand, searching his gasoline-soaked house for an angry Jesse, whose car remains in the driveway while he can't be found. Then, well into the episode, we pick up where the previous episode ended with Jesse dousing the White residence with the flammable liquid and learn that Hank had tailed him and stopped Pinkman in the act and convinced the angry young man that the enemy of his enemy might be his friend. Then, in the episode “Ozymandias” (written by Moira Walley-Beckett, directed by Rian Johnson), the amazing first scene (following the pre-title card teaser scene) at To’hajiilee following the lopsided shootout between Uncle Jack, Todd and their Neo-Nazi gang versus Hank and Gomez, lasts an amazing 13½ riveting minutes. The credits don’t run until after the second commercial break, more than 20 minutes into the episode. Throughout the series, despite being on a commercial network, Breaking Bad never shied away from long scenes (and kudos to AMC for allowing them to do so) such as Skyler and Walt’s rehearsal in season 4’s “Bullet Points” (written by Walley-Beckett, directed by Colin Bucksey) for telling Hank and Marie about Walt’s “gambling problem” and how that gave them the money to buy the car wash. The dramas on pay cable that lack commercials seldom provide scenes of that notable length. Fear of the short attention span. With as many channels as exist, I say fuck those fidgety fools. Cater to those who appreciate these scenes when done as well as Breaking Bad did them. That writing surpassed most everything else on TV most of the time and as usual at the Emmys, where I consider it a fluke if someone or something deserving wins, Breaking Bad received no nominations for writing until the two it earned this year (and lost). On Talking Bad following the finale, Anna Gunn compared each new script’s arrival to Christmas morning — and she also worked on Deadwood with a master wordsmith like David Milch. Looking again at the initial moments of Breaking Bad, now viewed with the knowledge of everything to come, it establishes much about Walter White even though it occurred before Heisenberg made any official appearance. Watch this clip of our introduction to both Walt and Breaking Bad and see what I mean.
From the beginning, all the elements of Walt’s delusions had planted their roots in his head: the denial of criminality, his conviction that his family justified all his actions (which, compared to what events transpire later, seem rather minor moral transgressions now). One thing I wondered: Did Hank hang on to that gas mask somewhere in DEA evidence? It had Walt's fingerprints on it since he flung it away bare-handed. If Jesse told Schrader where they began cooking, hard evidence for a case existed and things might have turned out differently. Oh, well. No use crying over spilled brother-in-laws at this point. Dipping in and out of the AMC marathon preceding the finale and watching and re-watching episodes over the years (because, among the other outstanding attributes of Breaking Bad, the show belongs on the list of the most compulsively re-watchable television series in history), I always look for the exact moment when Heisenberg truly dominated Walter White’s personality because while I’m not in any way excusing Walt’s actions the way the deranged Team Walt types do, obviously this man suffers from a split personality disorder. You spot it in the season 2 episode where they hold the celebration party over Walt's cancer news and he keeps pouring tequila into Walt Jr.'s cup until Hank tries to put a stop to it, prompting a confrontation that mirrors in many ways Hank and Walt's after Hank deduced his alter ego. It also contains dialogue where Walt apologizes in the morning, saying, "I don't know who that was yesterday. It wasn't me." What caused that split, we don’t really know. We know that Walt’s dad died of Huntington’s disease when White was young and Skyler alluded to the way “he was raised” when he resisted accepting the Schwartzes’ help paying for his cancer treatments in the early days and he has no apparent relationship with his mother. Frankly, I praise creator Vince Gilligan for not taking that easy way out and trying to explain the cause of Walter White’s madness. I find it more interesting when creators don’t try to explain what made their monsters. I didn’t need to know that young Hannibal Lecter saw his parents killed by particularly ghoulish Nazis in World War II who ate his parents. Hannibal's character remains more interesting without some traumatic back story to explain what turned him into the serial killer he became. Since I brought up
those Team Walt members, while I can't conceive how anyone still defends him, I understand how people sympathized with Walter White at first and it took different actions and moments in the series for individual viewers to accept the fact that no classification fit Walter White other than that of a monster. In the beginning, the series made it easy to feel for Walt and cheer him on. When he took action on the asshole teens mocking Walt Jr. for his cerebral palsy, who didn't think those punks deserved it? While an excessive act, when he fried the car battery of the asshole who stole his parking space, who hasn't fantasized about getting even on someone like that? Even when Walt's acts got more serious, you sided with him, such as when he bawled, sobbing "I'm sorry" repeatedly as he killed Krazy-8. Even the moment most cite as the breaking point as Walt watches Jane die plays as open to interpretation. He looks like a deer in the headlights, uncertain of what to do as much as someone who sees the advantage of letting this woman in the process of extorting him expire. The credit for that ambiguity belongs to the brilliance of Bryan Cranston's performance. However, once you get to that final season 4 reveal of the Lily of the Valley plant, I don't see how anyone defended Walt after that, if they hadn't stopped already. As Hank said at the end, Walt was the smartest guy he ever met, so why couldn't he devise a way to either save himself or kill Gus that didn't involve poisoning a child?
With all that said, Walt, while not redeemed, did rightfully regain some sympathy in the home stretch — surrendering his precious ill-gotten gains in a fruitless plea for Hank’s life, trying to clear Skyler of culpability, ultimately freeing Jesse and, most importantly, admitting that all his evil deeds had nothing to do with providing for his family but were because he enjoyed them, they made him feel alive. Heisenberg probably left that drink unfinished at the New Hampshire bar, but I think the old Walter White returned. The people he harmed deserved it and the scare he put in Elliot and Gretchen Schwartz merely a fake-out to ensure they did what he wanted with the money. He didn’t break good at the end, but he tied up loose ends and then allowed himself to die side by side with his true love — the blue meth he created that rocked the drug-addicted world.
Alas, my physical limitations prevent me from giving the series the farewell I envisioned in a single tribute, so I must break this into parts as much remains to be discussed — I’ve yet to touch upon the magnificent array of acting talent, brilliant direction and tons of other issues so, while Breaking Bad’s story has ended, this one has not. So, regretfully, as I collapse, I must say…
Tweet
Labels: Breaking Bad, Cranston, David Chase, David Simon, Deadwood, Hannibal Lecter, HBO, Milch, Netflix, The Sopranos, The Wire, Theater, TV Tribute
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
What he really wanted to do was be an actor
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of The Sydney Pollack Blogathon occurring through July 22 at Seetimaar — Diary of a Movie Lover
By Edward Copeland
For 40 years, from 1965 to 2005, Sydney Pollack directed 19 feature films. His last directing effort appeared as an installment of PBS' American Masters series on the architect Frank Gehry. Prior to that, he directed lots of episodic television. As Pollack reached the end of his life (and beyond it) he produced projects more than he directed and toward the end he also resumed the artistic endeavor where he started, acting more
and more often. When he ventured into show business, he aimed toward acting. His father hoped that Pollack would pursue a career in dentistry, but after catching the theater bug in high school in South Bend, Ind., he left for New York following graduation and studied with legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner at Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse (The same year he directed the American Masters special on Frank Gehry, he executive produce another episode of the series on Meisner). Eventually, he became an assistant to Meisner and even taught acting to others, though in a 2006 interview with Venice Magazine, Pollack resisted calling the technique he learned and passed on "The Method." "People call a lot of things 'The Method,' but there really isn’t one Method," Pollack said, "but it’s all derived from Stanislavsky. It’s all derived from Stanislavsky, but Stella Adler taught it different than Sandy Meisner and Strasberg taught it differently from both of them, and Harold Clurman taught it differently than the three of them, and Bobby Lewis took it in his own direction, as well. They each took The Moscow Art Theater of Stanislavsky and basic principles, and then developed their own approach. The goal was always the same: to find a way to analyze the construction of truthful behavior within imaginary circumstances."As he acted a lot in television of the 1950s, Pollack's interest turned to directing. While Pollack directed and produced some great and good films (my favorite being 1982's Tootsie, where he took his first substantial acting role since an episodic television appearance on a 1964 episode of the crime drama Brenner starring Edward Binns and James Broderick), after Tootsie, he acted or did voicework in more films and TV shows than his entire filmography. In many ways, I found Pollack more interesting at times as an actor than as a filmmaker, and that's where his career in the arts began, with his single Broadway role in 1955's The Dark Is Light Enough by Christopher Fry and starring Katharine Cornell, Tyrone Power and featuring Christopher Plummer.
Pollack began directing episodic television in 1961 and had ceased television acting in 1964 with that appearance on Brenner. As he jettisoned acting to concentrate on directing, he made a single movie: the 1962 Korean War drama War Hunt. The film starred John Saxon and Charles Aidman, but in addition to Pollack's supporting role, the movie offered appearances by Gavin MacLeod, Tom Skerritt and uncredited work by another future director, Francis Ford Coppola, as an Army truck driver. The biggest name among the ranks (at least he would be eventually) turned out to be a young Robert Redford. Pollack would direct Redford in seven films: This Property Is Condemned, Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor, The Electric Horseman, Out of Africa and Havana. Redford served as one of the producers of A Civil Action which featured Pollack in an acting role.
The headline at the top of this piece isn't quite true. Pollack return to acting in 1982's Tootsie (aside from a brief cameo in 1979's The Electric Horseman) proved to be quite a reluctant one. He already had cast Dabney Coleman to play George Fields, agent to prima donna/unemployed actor Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) but Hoffman pushed Pollack into taking the role himself, seeing the dynamic they had in their disagreements over the script. Pollack didn't want to leave Coleman in the cold so he cast him in the role of movie's fictional soap opera's director instead. Hoffman's instincts didn't fail him or the film as his scenes with Pollack provide many of the movie's comic highlights. You get that in the scene above, in the scene in the Russian Tea Room where Michael surprises George by showing up as his new alter ego Dorothy Michaels and, in perhaps my favorite scene between the two of them, when Michael shows up at George's home late one night to try to explain the romantic complications, including the fact that the father (Charles Durning) of the woman he loves (Jessica Lange) bought Dorothy an engagement ring. Forgetting for a moment what this all means, Pollack's reaction to news of the proposal comes off as priceless.
Following Tootsie, Pollack returned to the directing-producing track for a decade. During this decade he won his two Oscars for Out of Africa, but looking at the projects in that decade on which he worked solely as a producer or executive producer actually look more interesting than most of the movies he directed in that time. Some examples of his producing output from 1982 to 1991: Songwriter, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Presumed Innocent, White Palace, (surprisingly) King Ralph and Dead Again. With Tootsie, Pollack displayed a grounded, realistic comic side, but when 1992 arrived and he began to act up a storm, his range
widened, even if for the most part Pollack got pigeonholed as either a lawyer or a doctor, he played distinct members of each profession. Ten years after Tootsie, he managed roles in three films (and found time to executive produce two movies as well: HBO's A Private Matter and Leaving Normal, which had the misfortune of being too similar to Thelma & Louise and coming out a few months after the other film). The photo at the top of this post shows Pollack in his first 1992 role, Dick Mellon, business lawyer to besieged studio exec Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) in Robert Altman's The Player. As Mellon, Pollack plays a no-nonsense Hollywood figure who has seen it all and never changes his vocal tone, no matter how serious the situation becomes, and doles out truisms such as in this exchange with Mill. "Rumors are always true. You know that," Mellon tells Mill. "I'm always the last to hear about them," Griffin sighs. "No, you're always the last one to believe them," Dick corrects his client. Pollack, as in the case of his casting in Tootsie, hadn't been the first choice of the director. Of course, Pollack had helmed Tootsie and opposed casting himself as George Fields. With The Player, Altman tried to cast as many of the character parts with lesser-known faces because his film contained so many star cameos and he wanted to avoid as much audience
confusion as possible. Initially, Altman sought writer-director Blake Edwards, who also started his career as an actor, though he hadn't appeared on screen since 1948, for the part of Mellon, but it didn't work out and he went with Pollack, who only had that one role in Tootsie in 30 years. While The Player offers darker, satirical laughs than Tootsie did and Pollack doesn't get the laughs out of Dick Mellon that he did out of George Fields, he garnered more laughs in his most dramatic, deepest film role yet as Jack, the divorcing best friend of Gabe Roth (Woody Allen) in Husbands and Wives. I wasn't as crazy about the film as others, but Pollack delivered one of his greatest acting jobs, ranging from the at-ease midlife divorced man finding renewed vigor with a twentysomething aerobics instructor (Lysette Anthony) and then turning downright nasty on her at a party when she doesn't meet his standards for intellectual heft. He literally drags her from the soiree and tosses her toward his car, accusing her of being an "infant." It's a scary side of Pollack that we'll see more of in other roles. His third on-screen role of 1992 didn't receive a credit, but the cameo in Death Becomes Her provides what could be Pollack's funniest moments as an ER doctor examining Meryl Streep. The clip below leaves out his character's final punch line.Until his death from cancer in May 2008, seeing Pollack act became a much more common sight than spotting his directing credit. He turned up in legal entanglements again in films such as A Civil Action, Michael Clayton and Changing Lanes. He guided Tom Cruise into the sexual netherworld of the rich and powerful in Stanley Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut. He took roles in the last two films he directed, Random Hearts and The Interpreter. Pollack even provided the voice for the studio executive in The Majestic and the French film Avenue Montaigne. His final film role was in the romantic comedy Made of Honor where he played the father of the male maid of honor (Patrick Dempsey). On television, he did more voice work on comedies such as Frasier and King of the Hill. He also played a doctor on an episode of Mad About You and had a recurring role as Will's father on Will & Grace. He even played himself on an episode of Entourage, his last TV or movie appearance. Of all his late appearances though, the one that stands out to me also came in 2007 and put him in the role of another doctor. In the batch of the last nine episodes of The Sopranos, Pollack played jailed oncologist Warren Feldman, incarcerated with the dying Johnny Sac (Vincent Curatola) in the great episode "Stage 5." This scene I believe gives a great example of how talented Pollack truly could be as an actor.
Tweet
Labels: Altman, Blake Edwards, Coppola, Cruise, Dabney Coleman, Durning, Dustin Hoffman, J. Lange, Kubrick, Plummer, Redford, Streep, Sydney Pollack, The Sopranos, Tim Robbins, Woody
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
James Gandolfini (1961-2013)
Sometimes, when the greatest of our artists mark the upper reaches of their golden years or they've announced an ominous health prognosis, I plan in advance what type of appreciation to write. However, when an unexpected death such as James Gandolfini's occurs at the age of 51, the task proves harder — I expected a lot more to come from this gifted actor, not this sudden, cruel punctuation mark of finality stamped on a career that promised us so much more.
Some of the films Gandolfini made during his time on the show weren't always the best, but he seldom failed to deliver whether it was his military prison warden in The Last Castle, his philandering husband in the Coens' The Man Who Wasn't There or, most especially, his gay hit man in The Mexican. Perhaps his finest screen work came in In the Loop, the satire about an attempt by D.C. insiders to stop hawks from starting a war. He also did a fine turn in the HBO movie Cinema Verite about the making of the landmark TV documentary on the Loud family in the 1970s that could be called the first reality show. His voice also proved perfect in Spike Jonze's film of Where the Wild Things Are. Among recent films, he and David Chase reunited in Chase's feature directing debut Not Fade Away, and he appeared in Zero Dark Thirty.
I wish I could have seen Gandolfini's Tony-nominated performance in Yasmina Reza's play God of Carnage. Gandolfini also didn't limit himself to acting, serving as producer and interviewer for two great HBO documentaries related to war: Alive Day Memories and Wartorn: 1861-2010.
Several works lay in various stages of production, so I expect we have some more James Gandolfini performances to anticipate, but not remotely as many as we should. RIP Mr. Gandolfini.
Tweet
Labels: Alec Baldwin, Coens, David Chase, Gandolfini, Geena Davis, HBO, J. Lange, Obituary, T. Scott, Television, The Sopranos, Travolta
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Sunday, June 03, 2012
Closing on the House
"House's Head" undoubtedly stands as the most exciting and riveting hour the series ever produced, but the switch to its essential second half, "Wilson's Heart," may necessitate a move to a different pace but it more than compensates for that with its emotional impact. It provoked real sadness in having to bid farewell to the great character of Dr. Amber Volakis aka Cutthroat Bitch, so marvelously played by Anne Dudek — at least as a living, breathing role. You have to suspect that the decision-makers at House realized the mistake they made by not letting House hire her as part of his team. They did everything to keep bringing her back to the show, first as Wilson's girlfriend then as House's hallucination, even letting her reprise that role in the series finale. Dudek received more screentime in that final hour than Olivia Wilde's Thirteen did. Just imagine how much more entertaining those final three seasons could have been with Amber as a living member of the team.
The same quartet of writers who penned "House's Head" wrote "Wilson's Heart," though Katie Jacobs receives the directing reins. The second half of the story begins at a different New Jersey hospital — Princeton General — where Wilson and House find Amber hooked up to a ventilator, a heart monitor and various IVs. The attending physician, Dr. Richmond (Dan Desmond), informs them, "Her heart won't stop racing, no idea what's causing it." Ever the diplomat, House responds, "Sure it wasn't the bus that landed on her?" House wants to move Amber by ambulance immediately to Princeton-Plainsboro. Richmond, not in a mood to cooperate now, argues that House lacks the authority to make such a decision. "But her husband can," House responds, hinting at a spaced-out Wilson. "Move her!" Wilson insists. During the ambulance ride, while House works desperately to figure out what's wrong with Amber, the grief-stricken Wilson stays stuck on the question of why Amber was on the bus with House in the first place. “I’m not hiding anything, I just don’t remember,” House finally tells him in an attempt to get him to focus. As Amber starts to flatline, House prepares the defibrillators and it snaps Wilson back to the issue at hand. He urges House to stop. “Protective hypothermia,” Wilson suggests. House reminds Wilson that Amber's heart already has
stopped beating, why does he want to freeze her? Wilson's theorizes that since her heart has incurred damage, if they revived her now, they'd just be killing her brain as well. If they can lower her temperature, it can buy time for House to diagnose the problem. “This is not a solution. All you’re doing in pressing pause,” House argues, but Wilson stays adamant. "House, this is Amber! Please,” Wilson pleads to his friend. House tells him to pull the saline solution as he starts grabbing the ice packs. While a mystery (actually two) lie at the center of "Wilson's Heart," it doesn't play at the same pace as it did in "House's Head" because of the undercurrent of melancholy and higher stakes. At the hospital, they get her body cooled and Chase hooks her up to a heart-lung bypass while everyone gets to work trying to figure out a solution. Taub becomes the first brave enough to ask House if he and Amber had an affair, which House denies. "You can’t really say that if you can’t remember," Taub counters. "I lost four hours, not four months," House replies. Taub asks if House might have taken any drugs with her and House again doesn't think so, but agrees to Taub's suggestion of a tox screen. As Thirteen and Kutner search Wilson and Amber's apartment for any clues, Kutner stumbles upon a sex tape, prompting Thirteen to protest that none of them should be treating Amber in the first place. Treating a friend can cloud judgments, Thirteen says. Kutner reminds Thirteen that she didn't even like Amber. As House stares at the whiteboard, we see a sign of Ambers yet 
to come as he experiences his first Amber hallucination. "Are you OK?” she asks as she appears in the office. House tries to ignore her and even recognizes that he's hallucinating. “What did we do last night?” She pours House a glass of sherry and continues. “Maybe she always had a thing for him…his mind, his blue eyes…” Dream Amber straddles his lap. "So maybe they decide to meet one night at an out of the way bar. Does that sound familiar? Do I feel familiar? What do you feel?” She whispers in his ear, “Electricity.” House awakens and limps to ICU. He wants to apply electrical impulses directly to the hypothalamus so he can evoke his detailed memories. Wilson and Cuddy don’t think it’s a good idea. Before House can experiment, everyone gets paged. Kutner found prescription diet pills containing amphetamines in vitamin jars. House wants to check manually if Amber's heart valves calcified and Chase prepares for open heart surgery, but Wilson stomps off, not looking pleased. As Chase puts drops in Amber's eyes, he notices that they are jaundiced. meaning liver failure. Diet pills don't do that so they return her to ICU. More diagnoses get posited, then pushed aside. Wilson just keeps pushing for cooling Amber down further, but Taub again becomes the voice of reason. He realizes he loves her, but cooling her down isn't going to save her. House gets stuck on the idea that Amber poured him a sherry in his hallucination. Kutner recalls that there's a bar near the crash site called Sherrie's. House orders them to keep Amber cool — he's taking
Wilson for a drink. When they get to the bar, the bartender recognizes House and assumes he's returned for his keys, which he gives to him. He asks if the bartender saw him with a blonde and if she appeared ill. The bartender remembers her sneezing. "Did you see the color of the sputum?" House inquires. "I assume sputum means snot? Look, I see a lot of drunk chicks in here. I didn't have time to stop and analyze the color of your girlfriend's boogers," the bartender replies. “She’s not my girlfriend genius,” House responds. “She was hot, you seemed into her and she bought you drinks. Last night she was your girlfriend,” the bartender insists. House ignores him and wonders if Amber already had an infection, but Wilson gets stuck on the bartender's comment. “You seemed into her?” Wilson repeats. “If he had a brain he wouldn’t be tending a bar,” House answers. After Taub and Foreman find some infiltrates and minor inflammation on the liver biopsy, House leaps to the conclusion that Hepatitis B lies at the root of the problem. "Start her on IV interferon. I'm going to tell Wilson." House tells Foreman. Noting how
obvious it is that his boss is running on fumes responds sarcastically, "Good idea and I'll go nap because I was concussed last night and had a heart attack this morning. I'll tell Wilson. You go sleep." Since when has House taken anyone's advice? He heads to the ICU where Amber opens her eyes, sits up straight and criticizes House for making such a "lame diagnosis" as Hepatitis B. She points to a red rash on her lower back. House wakes up in his office and says to himself, "I get less
rest when I'm sleeping." He heads back to the ICU and gets help turning her and, sure enough, the red rash marks her back where the Dream Amber showed him. More speculating ensues. “We are not starting her heart until we’re 100 percent certain!” Wilson shouts. "We’re never 100 percent certain,” Foreman reminds him, then gets shocked when House sides with Wilson. "You know he’s wrong! You can’t change your mind just because a family member starts crying. They’re always scared!” Foreman argues. House insists on running blood cultures on the rash. Foreman goes to Cuddy and lets her in on what's going on, saying that Amber will die for sure if she doesn't step in. Wilson walks into the ICU as Foreman and Cuddy begin the process of warming Amber back up. Foreman says it's the only way to see if the antibiotics are working. Wilson spots the EEG readings. “Well done. We still don’t know what it is but you just let it spread to her brain!” He confronts Cuddy later in House's office. "This is exactly what I said would happen, it’s in her BRAIN now!" he yells at Cuddy."Brain involvement gives us a new symptom," she responds defensively. "That wouldn’t BE there if you hadn’t —" Wilson can't finish his sentence. "It’s where the disease was going, we needed to know that," Cuddy says. "This was not your decision to make!! You went behind MY back, you went behind House’s back!" Wilson chides her, halfway between anger and tears. The arguing awakens House, who stumbles his way into the middle of the mess pleading for "inside voices." Cuddy tells Wilson that House wanted to warm Amber up but that Wilson has guilted him into changing
his mind. “Heart. Liver. Rash. And now her brain,” Cuddy lays it out. House can't cover up the facts for his friend anymore. Autoimmune fits best," House admits, advocating warming Amber up. Wilson won't give up yet. He fears that if something else turns out to be the culprit, steroids could make her worse. He’s the attending, you’re the family. Go spend more time with the patient.” Cuddy tells him as gently as she can before leaving Wilson and House alone. "You can't do this," Wilson says, just shaking his head. "It’s not a good argument. It’s not an argument at all. I’m sorry,” House replies regretfully. Wilson kicks a chair and leaves, but he returns, seeming as if reason has returned to him. “Cuddy’s right. I was afraid to do anything. I thought if everything just stopped it’d be OK.” House tries to reassure him that it will be and tells him that Taub has begun treatment. Wilson then says they haven't tried everything and suggests House's earlier crazy idea about zapping his brain with electricity to see if he can jog loose any other clues. “You think I should risk my life to save Amber's?” House asks. Wilson nods and House lets out a joy-free laugh before nodding himself. Once he's strapped in and Chase inserts the voltage, he's transported back to Sherrie's bar, but the images come in black and white and without sound. "As long as I'm risking my life, I might as well be watching a talkie," House tells Chase, giving him the OK to up the voltage. Chase doesn't like the idea, but Wilson turns it up. House recalls the bartender taking his keys. He called Wilson to pick him up, but Wilson was on call and Amber
answered so she agreed to come fetch him. House talked Amber into one drink. He was so blotto that he forgot to take his cane or to pay the bill, but Amber went back and took care of both. House tells her to go home, he'll take the bus, but she boards the bus to return his cane. "Are you doing this for me or Wilson?" he remembers asking her. "Wilson," she answered. House salutes her. On the bus, House remembers Amber sneezing again and telling him she thought she was coming down with the flu. He then visualizes her reaching into her purse for pills — he yells in vain for her not to take them but she does and House has the answer and it isn't good news. The crash destroyed her kidneys and her body can't filter the drugs out of her system. Dialysis won't clear out the amantadine poisoning. Nothing can save Amber. House collapses, falling into a coma. Chase and a surgical team try to shock Amber's heart to no avail.
Chase prepares to call the time of death, but Cuddy tells him not to do it but wake her up instead. “Wake her up? Just to tell her that she’s — that she’s — ” Wilson can’t speak the words. He places his hands over his faces. Cuddy put her hand on his shoulder. Wilson pulls Cuddy into a tear-soaked hug. “You are waking her up. So you can both say goodbye to each other. She would want it,” Cuddy tells him while still holding tight. Wilson eventually lets go and returns to ICU where Amber slowly opens her eyes. Cuddy keeps a solitary vigil by House's bedside. House's team prepares their farewells. "We should say goodbye," Thirteen suggests. "She didn't even like us," Taub says. "We liked her," Kutner declares. "Did we?" Taub asks. "We do now," Foreman responds. When Amber starts to come to, she remembers the bus crash. Wilson describes a little bit of what happened but when he mentions her liver and she sees how upset he is, Amber deduces the rest. “I’m dying,” she declares. The team comes by one at a time, not saying much, though Thirteen gives her a big hug that seems to take Amber
by surprise. Amber admits she's tired and wants to sleep, but Wilson begs her to hang on a little longer. "I’m always going to watch out for you, OK," she tells him. "I don’t think I can do it," Wilson starts to break and hold her tighter. "It's OK," she whispers. "It’s not OK. Why is it OK with you? Why aren’t you angry?” he asks as he tears up. “That’s not
the last feeling I want to experience,” she replies. Wilson pulls back and kisses her, then turns off the bypass machine. Amber stares at him for a second or two longer before her eyes slowly close. Wilson holds her and cries. House, meanwhile, remains in a coma with Cuddy asleep in the chair beside his bed, her hand gripping his. Inside his mind, House imagines himself on the bus again with Amber. He wears his hospital gown and they alone ride the vehicle. "You're dead," he says to her.
"Everybody dies," Amber points out. "Am I dead?" he asks her. "Not yet," Amber answers. "I should be," House declares. "Why?" she inquires. "Because life shouldn’t be random. This lonely misanthropic drug addict should die in bus crashes. And young do-gooders in love who get dragged out of their apartment in the middle of the night should walk away clean," he insists. "Self pity isn’t like you," Amber notes. "Yeah well, I’m branching out from self-loathing and self-destruction. Wilson is gonna hate me," House worries. "You kind of deserve it," Amber tells him. "He’s my best friend. I know. What now? Can I stay here with you?" he asks Amber. "Get off the bus," Amber suggests. "I can't," House claims. "Why not?" Amber
wants to know. "Because…because it doesn't hurt here. Because I…I don't want to be in pain, I don't want to be miserable. And I don't want him to hate me," House admits. "Well…you can't always get what you want," Amber says, quoting his favorite philosopher. House stands up and walks to the exit of the bus. In his hospital room, his eyes open. "Hey, I'm here. Blink if you can hear me," Cuddy says to him. House blinks and starts to speak, but she tells him to rest. Later, Wilson looks in and he and House exchange
glances but no words. Wilson goes home. When he gets to his apartment, he finds a note on his bed from Amber telling him that she's gone to a bar to pick up a drunken House. What a triumphant two-hours of storytelling that made use of all its characters, giving us backgrounds on Kutner's past and Thirteen's future (as if we cared) and didn't even need guest stars. It also cemented more strongly the idea that perhaps there could be something romantic between Cuddy and House. In many ways, it marked the highpoint of the series. It had individual episodes that scored after that, but mostly the remaining years of the show involved a rollercoaster of quality. Still, I have one episode that ranks higher.
When I decided that the penultimate episode of House's inaugural season, the episode that won its creator David Shore an Emmy for outstanding writing in a drama series, deserved my top spot, I pondered how many great series produced their finest installments way back in the show's initial year of existence. The first example to pop into my head happened to be "Tuttle" from the first season of M*A*S*H, but with most other series I tend to think of best seasons and they usually come later, as was the case, in my opinion, with House as well. In fact, if I ranked the eight seasons of House from 1 to 8 with 1 being the best, I'd place them in this order:
I suppose the fact that my choice for my favorite of the series' 177 episodes (actually, the total should be 176, but they count the behind-the-scenes special "Swan Song" that aired before the "Everyone Dies" finale May 21) comes from my fourth-favorite of the series' seasons must speak volumes for the greatness of "Three Stories." As I've written earlier in this piece, I came to House late and didn't see the show in order, but the series didn't bother to explain from the beginning what caused the injury to Dr. Gregory House's leg and the genius of "Three Stories" stems from the fact that his "audience" of med students, literally representing the home viewer, don't realize at first
that the lessons he shares with them aren't simply situations they might face when they become doctors but that he's actually describing his own traumatic past. It all comes about simply enough when Cuddy informs him that usual doctor who presents the lecture, Dr. Reilly, "is throwing up. He obviously can't lecture." House, always looking for a way out of busy work asks her, "You witness the spew? Or you just have his word for it? I think I'm coming down with a little bit of the clap. May have to go home for a few days." She makes him give the lecture anyway and we're essentially rewarded for an hour with a command performance by Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House, literally standing on a stage above his audience and holding us all in rapt attention. Before House gets to the auditorium, a face from his past stops him. His former girlfriend Stacy Warner (Sela Ward) approaches him. She knows he isn't happy to see her, but she needs his help with a case — her husband’s. He's been suffering from severe abdominal pain and fainting spells. They’ve gone to three doctors and nobody has answers. She gives House his file and begs him to think about it. "I know you're not too busy. You avoid work like the plague. Unless it actually is the plague. I'm asking you a favor," Stacy says. "I'm not too busy, but I'm not sure I want him to live. It's
good seeing you again," he replies as he limps past her on the way to the auditorium. Really, choosing "Three Stories" almost counts as a no-brainer on my part since the episode earned near-universal praise from critics and fans when it originally aired (Not that I noticed at the time). It completely upended not only what had becoming the formula for House but for any medical drama in history. With the seats of the auditorium a little more than half-full of fresh young faces wearing clean white coats (though the audience's size will wax and wane throughout the day(, House takes to the stage. "Three guys walk into a clinic. Their legs hurt. What's wrong with them?" House asks the students. One of the students — given the moniker Keen Student (Josh Zuckerman) in the script — shoots his hand into the air quickly. House gives him an annoyed glance. "I'm not going to like you, am I?" Don't misunderstand the statement I'm about to make about "Three Stories" — if you just skim the comment and don't pay attention to the context, you're liable to think I'm overrating this episode beyond the realm of good reason and judgment. However, I mean it with all sincerity when I equate "Three Stories" to episodic television drama as Orson Welles' Citizen Kane is to cinema. That doesn't mean that I think "Three Stories" stands as the greatest example of an hour of TV drama ever produced (I don't even think that about Citizen Kane in
terms of film). I'm referring solely to its structure. As so many point out about Kane, no matter how many times you've seen it, you're never positive what scene comes next. Other films work that same way and so does "Three Stories." To begin with, the title of this episode of House happens to be both a complete misnomer and totally accurate at the same time. When House tells the med students that "three guys" walk into the clinic, those cases will merge and bleed together, one will be a young woman, another becomes Carmen Electra and soon not only the cases don't match the genders but they add up to more than three. On the other hand, in the larger scheme of things, the episode does concern itself with three stories: 1) House's lecture to the
students; 2) Stacy's return and her attempt to get House to take her husband's case; and 3) flashbacks to House's leg injury and Stacy's involvement in that. While it defies the structure of a typical House episode, "Three Stories" manages to blend most of the elements we've come to know and love, even this early in the show's run: the cynical humor, the pathos, the truth, the idiocy. "Three Stories" belongs in that rare section of television episodes that deserve the title masterpiece such as "Three Men and Adena" from the first season and "Black and Blue" from the second season of Homicide: Life on the Street. "Guy Walks Into an
Advertising Agency" from season three and "The Suitcase" from season four of Mad Men. Too many episodes of The Sopranos, Deadwood and Breaking Bad would qualify. The Wire plays like one long episode to me so I can't even separate it into chapters. "Three Stories" separates itself from every other House episode (even some later attempts to abandon chronological order) by defying the need for synopsis or highlights. It's not because I'd give away spoilers — it's because if you've never watched an episode of House before, watch "Three Stories." The series hooked me in that hospital bed before I ever caught up with this episode, but I find it hard to imagine anyone watching this episode of House and not coming back for more. I will share a handful of the episode's best quotes, since House as teacher makes for an interesting idea. "It is in the nature of medicine, that you are gonna screw up. You are gonna kill someone. If you can't handle that reality, pick another profession. Or, finish medical school and teach."; "I'm sure this goes against everything you've been taught, but right and wrong do exist. Just because you don't know what the right answer is — maybe
there's even no way you could know what the right answer is — doesn't make your answer right or even OK. It's much simpler than that. It's just plain wrong."; "This buddy of mine, I gotta give him ten bucks every time somebody says 'Thank you.' Imagine that. This guy's so good, people thank him for telling them that they're dying.…I don't get thanked that often… It's a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies. The only variable is about what. The weird thing about telling someone they're dying is it tends to focus their priorities. You find out what matters to them. What they're willing to die for. What they're willing to lie for." Also, pertaining to his real-life situation when an aneurysm caused an infarction in his leg muscle, killing the muscle. Cuddy and Stacy advise amputating his leg to save House's life, but House refuses despite the risks. "I like my leg. I've had it for as long as I can remember," House
declares. He wants a bypass to attempt to restore circulation. When that surgery doesn't completely succeed, House suffers a heart attack. He requests to be put in a temporary coma to get through the pain. Stacy, acting as his medical proxy, tells Cuddy to take the middle ground between amputation and a bypass, so they remove as much of the dead muscle tissue as possible, leaving House as the limping, pain-afflicted man we know. At last, I've finished. There were many episodes I wanted to talk about, lines I wished to quote, points I wanted to make. Oh, well. Arrivederci House and Wilson — riding those motorcycles out there somewhere. Let's hope those five months last awhile and when you two find yourselves alone, you won't be as broken as everyone who stepped into Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital seemed to be. Greg House's problems grabbed the spotlight, but the true theme of House was healing in every sense of the word and it wasn't just the patients who needed fixing. All staff members were damaged. Not just House, but Wilson, Cuddy, Foreman, Cameron, Chase, Taub, Park, etc. House always tried to get the old band together again because what would his life be likewithout his dysfunctional relatives? What will ours be like without his?
..
Labels: Awards, Breaking Bad, Deadwood, Homicide, House, Lists, Mad Men, The Sopranos, The Wire, TV Tribute, Welles
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
