Because You Asked What I Think About...Family Tree

Family Tree is the new HBO show created by Christopher Guest (of This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting For Guffman, Best In Show, For Your Consideration, etc) and starring Chris O'Dowd (of The IT Crowd, Bridesmaids, and general adorableness) as a man who starts searching out bits of his family history.  It's quirky in a delightfully non-hipster way, and like all of Guest's work it's imbued with his unique charm while still being entirely its own piece of work.  The half-hour television structure is working well, and the actors we've seen so far (some familiar Guest faces like Michael McKean, some new ones) are flat-out superb and quietly hilarious.  O'Dowd's sister Bea (Nina Conti) and Monkey are some of my favorite new characters in recent memory.  Suffice to say, if you've enjoyed any of Christopher Guest's work in the past, you'll adore this, and if you're new to him than this is a lovely entry-point.  Funny, self-effacing, weird, and relatable, it's my favorite new show of the year.  The opposite of a disappointment.  Family Tree!  Go watch and tell your friends and make sure it doesn't get Enlightened.

Image via LATimes

GAME OF THRONES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey, I'm back!  I've spent the last month traveling a fair amount to have a ton of sex with my friend (who, coincidentally, looks like Jon Snow) because I am a genius and have mastered what neither Ashton Kutcher or Justin Timberlake could.  Also, I got into grad school!  So I've been celebrating and not watching too much of the television.  I'll be moving to LA in August to get a Masters in Cinema and Media Studies from UCLA, and until then I'll try to keep up with the ol' Hedgepig blog a little better because once school starts my writing will be heading in a whole other direction.  I'll probably end up posting more since I'll be writing so much anyway, but who knows what'll happen.  So stay tuned!  Exciting changes ahead.

Speaking of things that are ahead...winter is coming!  Winter is almost here!  As everyone on the internet already knows, the third season of Game Of Thrones premiered on Sunday, and it was FUCKING AWESOME.  Weirdly, for me (because I love A Song Of Ice And Fire with all of my heart and I love Peter Dinklage just as much. Holy shit he's so goddamn hot.  I had a dream last night where I got to make out with him and YES JOEY YOU CAN HEAT UP YOUR COFFEE ON MY LOINS because they are ABLAZE.), I hadn't watched most of the second season until Sunday, when I luxuriated in a full-on GoT marathon after returning home from my spring break sexcation.  And...dude.  That show.  It's just The Best! Like, I'm not sure how it could be better.  Well, Lena Headly's eyebrows are horrible and SO distracting, but that's it.  That's the only thing I'd change.

I'm a big stickler for adaptations remaining true to their books, but I also recognize that film is a different medium and so some changes are necessary.  The Harry Potter movies (at least 1, 2, 5, and particularly 6) are a perfect example of movies that made tons of unnecessary changes with huge adverse impacts on plot and characterization (don't even get me started on Harry not being under Petrificus Totalis when Dumbledore dies because I will get angry and you'll be like, "Lauren, I agree with you, stop ranting" but I WON'T because it's The Stupidest Thing Ever and it completely destroys the meticulously constructed storyline UGH ok sorry I'm done now).  However, Game Of Thrones pulls its adaptation off with greater skill and dexterity than even Lord Of The Rings.  With George R. R. Martin involved with the show, he seems to be using it as an opportunity to expand on stories and characters that weren't completely fulfilled in the first two books (which he wrote almost 20 years ago).  The episodes, for the most part, remain very true to the books, but when they diverge it never feels forced or constrained.  Rather, the show allows new perspectives and reimaginings without razing what was already written.

Here's What I Love: Enlightened

I was talking about Enlightened (the Laura Dern/Mike White HBO dramedy now in its second season) with a friend the other day and she said, "Oh yeah, I have HBO Go now, I should watch that."  And I immediately shouted at her, "YOU SHOULD!  IT IS GREAT!"

I haven't really talked about it before (except in this post about the awards' tendency to undervalue comedy) and there's a reason for that:  literally no one I know watches it or talks about it or is even aware of its existence.  But I've been watching steadily and if you are into incredibly good actors being very raw and vulnerable and dealing with some very intense yet universal aspects of being human, then you will definitely enjoy Enlightened.  The first season MAY leave you feeling empty and hopeless and full of despair, but know that the second season moves in a more optimistic direction without sacrificing any of the tumultuous emotion or complex characterization of the first.

This is gonna be a short post because I don't want to ruin any of it for all of you who almost certainly haven't watched the show, but here are some basic highlights:

Why "Girls" Is Bad For America

I am so fucking sick and tired of hating "Girls".  Every time someone on Facebook posts something about how much they love it or about how they "are SO Hannah", I die a little inside.  It's not because I think the show is bad.  It's because I think it's bad FOR US.  It's bad for our culture and our nation.  And I didn't really know how to express WHY until I saw this post (from Craigslist via Videogum):

Ever feel like life in the big frantic city is just too much? Are you a twenty-something young woman seeking fame, fortune, love or even a hookup with potential? How do you get from here to there when you can’t even get a seat on the L train! Come to a casting call with our Emmy-winning production company and tell us your dreams and woes, your highs and lows, your tales of *** in the city and the outrageous opportunities that have come your way. Is your circle of friends bound together by not just the parties, fights, and brunches but frequent bouts of commiserating over your struggles? It isn’t easy taking the road less travelled, but making it as a writer, designer, entrepreneur, actress/model or glorified dog walker never is!
The real life television show we are making follows the trials and tribulations of an ensemble of wise-beyond-their-years young ladies. We are with you living the dream in hipster Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. Only well educated and cultured extroverts need apply. Are you thinking about that show–”Girls?” Well we didn’t say it but. . ..now that you mention it.

OH JESUS FUCKING CHRIST NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Boardwalk Empire: Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

After every episode of Boardwalk Empire this season, I've thought, "Should I write about it now?"  And the answer has always been no, because the show has been leading to something big, but until these last few episodes I had no idea what it was.  Maybe I should've waited a few more weeks until after the season finale, but the time finally felt right.  We found out where Nucky's path this season is taking him, and it looks pretty grim.  I've actually been working on this piece for a couple weeks now because most of my time has been consumed with applying to grad school, and then I had a personal tragedy that didn't inspire a desire to watch people get beat to death or shot to shit.  I'm still dealing with that loss, but this piece has been eating away at me and it's finally time to finish it.

I'm going to backtrack for just a second and explain my feelings about Boardwalk Empire previous to this season.  I've watched it since the beginning, and enjoyed the performances and the beautiful set design, costume design, direction, and cinematography enough to keep coming back to the show, but it wasn't until last season when I really began to FEEL for the characters.  Much of this has to do with my current favorite dramatic character, Richard Harrow AKA Sexy Richard Half-Face, but not all.  As the stakes became higher and important character information like Jimmy and Gillian's fucked-up history was revealed, the show became imminently more fascinating.  The season two finale proved that Terence Winter and the rest of the writers aren't afraid to make big sacrifices for the sake of valuable plot and character arcs.  Ok, I was trying to avoid it, but we're gonna get all sorts of spoilery up in here now.  Join me after the jump!

The Newsroom Is Bad

Ok, to start out with, I know I've been AWOL for a while.  Well, only a couple weeks, but it feels like a long time.  And the truth of the matter is I just haven't been watching TV lately.  *GASP*  Oh, I watched Mad Men, and I caught up on Veep over the weekend, but mostly my pop culture time (which hasn't been much, since I've started a new, full-time job) has been consumed with reading the Game Of Thrones books. They are just SO GOOD!  I could read them forever!  And I pretty much have been, to the exclusion of almost everything else.  I'm gearing up to start doing Dawson's Creek recaps pretty soon, but I've got to finish Storm Of Swords first.  SORRY!  But some things take precedence in life, and amazing books are one of them.

It's no surprise, then, that I slept a little on the premiere of Aaron Sorkin's new drama, The Newsroom.  And  then when I saw pictures of Kristin Davis macking on Sorkin, I remembered OH!  This show!  I am excited about it!  So I took a break from Arya and Jon Snow to check it out.

And....oh.  This face. :/

By now you've probably seen the opening speech that Jeff Daniels makes, where he talks about how America ISN'T the best country in the world:



It's wonderful and honest and informed and really great and exactly what I hoped this show would be.  But then...he says this (italics mine):

"But [America] sure used to be [the best] (ed: REALLY?  IT DID? SINCE WHEN???).  We used to stand up for what's right (again: REALLY? SINCE WHEN???).  We fought for moral reasons (like all those Native Americans we killed for 'moral reasons'?), we passed laws for moral reasons (like all those laws to keep black and white people from getting married?), we waged wars on poverty, not poor people (REALLY? Like all that help we've given poor people during the decades-long War On Drugs?).  We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chests (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA).  We built great big things (Congratulations, America, on building big things.), we made amazing technological advances, explored the universe, cured disease, we cultivated the world's greatest artists (okaaaaay) AND the world's greatest economy (ummmmmm).  We reached for the STARS (vom).  We acted like men (VOM).  We aspired to intelligence, we didn't belittle it, it didn't make us feel inferior (If that is what you'd like to believe, Sorkin).  We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn't...we didn't scare so easy.  We were able to do all these things and be all these things because we were informed.  By great men, men who were revered (Yup, W.R. Hearst was super great and kept us EXTRA informed).  First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one.  America isn't the greatest country in the world anymore."

So, as you can probably tell, I've got some problems with this speech.  America isn't the greatest country in the world ANYMORE?  So when was it?  When we had slaves?  When we shoved our immigrants into tenements to die of tuberculosis and starvation and factory fires?  Was it during the Trail Of Tears?  When we outlawed alcohol?  When we lynched black people?  When we put Japanese-Americans into internment camps?  Was it when we put "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance or when we continually denied equal rights to women, and gays, and racial and ethnic and religious minorities?  When we entered in to multiple wars and armed confrontations against small countries because we disagreed with their ultimately ineffective and self-defeating ideologies? When we watched our citizens ravaged by AIDS and did so little to help?  When we freely armed horrible, genocidal people around the world?  When we allowed the Supreme Court to elect a president?  When we put our money where our mouth was and never beat our chests on Imaginary Island in Never Never Land?  Tell me, Aaron Sorkin, precisely WHEN America was the greatest country in the world.  Because by my count, that was NEVER.

Veep Life

So, in all of the miserable hubbub about Girls, no one is talking about Veep.  Well, not no one, I heard a thing about it on NPR, but you know what I mean.  But, hey!  Guess what?  Veep is fantastic!

I should have started by mentioning that this show co-stars Tony Hale, and obviously anything Tony Hale touches turns to beautiful gold, including that episode of Dawson's Creek where he tells Dawson he has to pull the old man's plug or when he was the amazing ceramics teacher on Community ("No Ghosting!").  So it should come as no surprise to anyone that his role on an HBO comedy is anything other than perfection.

And, oh!  Julia Louis-Dreyfus!  I mean, talk about women in comedy.  It might be a little unfair to compare Veep to Girls, but too bad so sad, they're on the same night on the same channel so I'ma do whatever I want.  Whereas Hannah in Girls is relentlessly pathetic and trying so hard to be REAL that she becomes REALly unbearable, Veep's Selena is flawed in some charming ways of which she seems hyper-aware yet simultaneously totally oblivious, but her shortcomings only make her more likable and relatable (which, sadly, is I believe what Dunham was trying to achieve). And just the fact that Veep's cast has an authentic gender-balance, actual characters of color, and shows a woman holding a serious position of power (and yet simultaneously no power at all because being the Vice President sucks) in our government makes in miles better in terms of "women characters on television" than anything I saw on Girls.  Point made, contradictions left unexplained, let's move on.

A Girls World

Ok, time to talk about Girls.

I've mentioned numerous times before that all-encompassing titles irk me.  Titles like Girls, Modern Family, Humboldt County, etc., that seem to purport to represent an idea, a place, or an entire group of people.  These titles set themselves up for failure, because there's no way they can be everything to everyone.  I came to Girls with this bias already in mind, and although brief moments of the show were enjoyable and fun, for the most part I found it excruciatingly insufferable.

To adequately discuss Girls, one must first have an understanding of Tiny Furniture.  Now, I kind of liked Lena Dunham's film, although I hated almost every character.  It was like they were insisting that "these are REAL characters, that's why they're stupid jerks to each other all the time", but just because real people are flawed doesn't mean that's ALL they are.  I have a similar problem with Girls, but we'll get to that in a second.  Tiny Furniture started out funny and relatable - English major, just out of college, forced to move in with her family - it pretty quickly turned frustratingly sad.  Dunham's characters, who appear to be autobiographical to some degree, are pathetic.  They struggle to maintain agency over their own lives, and when they finally attempt to assert themselves, they get in their own way.  It's not very much fun to watch, especially because by the end of the episode, I actually like every single character less than I did at the beginning.  Except the mom, because she (Leslie Ann Baker?) was great.  Seriously, they're all awful, but all of this leads to the real problem with Girls.

PRIVILEGE.  Ughhhhhhhhhh this show reeks of privilege.  White privilege, rich privilege, upper class city dweller privilege, legacy privilege, New-York-Is-The-Best-City-On-Earth-Ugh-Woody-Allen privilege, just all the horrible East Coasty privileges you can think of rolled into one giant rat king. And then everybody just fucking COMPLAINS for the ENTIRE show.  Boo fucking hoo, your parents have been supporting your life in The Most Expensive City Ever for TWO YEARS so you could work at an internship to advance your career except you were so used to being coddled and taken care of that you didn't think about maybe using the valuable experience you've gained to try to find a PAYING JOB even if it's not in your chosen field or whatever.  Sorry, let me just stop and think about the look on my parents' faces if I told them I needed them to give me $1100 a month.  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Oh, man.  Good one, guys.  I mean, yes, my parents have supported me and lent me money before, but, like 200 dollars to fix my car - like most people I know, they're not rich. Look, the truth is, Hannah and I have a few things in common.  We're twentysomething English majors a few years out of college with an eventual goal to write for a living.  The difference is I've been writing AND working for the past four years...just like everyone else.  Yes, a lot of people get support from their parents these days, and yes, it's hard to find a good job, but to be so upset and surprised about being cut off from your parents like it's this great injustice is just horrendous.

Stuff We've Got To Talk About

Ok, I've got 45 minutes before I have to get in the shower and head off to meet a friend, so let's get to it!  So much going on...so here it is, in absolutely no particular order.

Oh, the Chevy Chase/Dan Harmon thing makes me SO SAD.  Without knowing any more than what anybody else on the internet knows, my take on it is that these dudes are both just too cranky and too narcissistic to ever get along.  However, in the over-all scheme of things I've got to side with Harmon.  Chevy has been vocal about his disdain for sitcoms since the beginning, and doesn't seem to be able to understand how transcendent Community really is.  Here is a guy who has been, since the real beginnings of his career on SNL, a superstar, and has the ego to match.  I'm betting his agent or manager or someone convinced him to do Community in order to get his face out there to a younger audience and that Chevy didn't bet on the show becoming the phenomenon it has.  Additionally, I think the Pierce character hits a little too close to home for him sometimes.  I don't mean the daddy issue stuff (although, who really knows), but the old man/out of touch/hopelessly un-hip stuff ("Encarta it" ahahahahaha).  I bet before this show Chevy still thought of himself as being a classic bad-ass, but the writing has forced him to look his own old-man-ness in the face.  Anyway, that's just my take on it, who effing knows.  I think it was bad form for Chevy to walk off the set, and it was bad form for Harmon to chant, "Fuck you, Chevy" at the wrap party (although I do think that's pretty funny), but it was really bad form for Chevy to leave such a horrible message for the guy that is his BOSS.  And sorry, but calling D. Harms a bad writer doesn't hold water because everyone in the world knows that the opposite is true and that he's actually The Best writer (and I'm sure that Dan could care less about Chevy telling him to suck his cock).  Threatening to leave the show over this is a selfish, petty, childish, TOTAL DICK MOVE.  Honestly, I wouldn't care THAT much if he left - the incredible cast could pick up his slack - but the threat to do so just pisses me off.  Chevy needs to get over himself, stop thinking he's above doing television, and maybe if he were a little more respectful than stuff like this wouldn't happen.  Hmph.

Wherein The Wire Crushes All Hope

Oh, jesus. This blog. I love it so much, but sometimes it's hard to decide what to put here. Television hasn't been that great in the past week - I mean, sure, Bored To Death has been fantastic, you should all watch Bored To Death. Boardwalk Empire is having a much better season, due entirely to the awesomeness of Sexy Richard Half-Face. I watched the first episode of Downton Abbey Season 2, which was beautiful and amazing and everything I wanted it to be and I will post on it very soon but I don't want to ruin it for those people who don't watch all their tv on the internet and actually wait for things to air on a regular television set. All I'll say is that the Dowager Countess does NOT disappoint. I was going to write about Up All Night and how it is definitely the best new comedy of the season but then time got away from me and all of a sudden it is Wednesday and I decided I can write about that tonight or tomorrow but just saw there's no new episode this week. Speaking of lack of newness, I finally decided I was gonna do Glee recaps and then stupid baseball happened and is still happening and hopefully there will be a new episode to make fun of very very soon. And then I WAS going to write about How I Met Your Mother but this week's episode was decidedly lack-luster and oh man do I hate Nora but I hate even more the implication that Robin and Ted might get back together because ugh, let's leave that dead horse to be dead on the ground without beating it any more, shall we? So - now you can imagine all the alternate timelines wherein I actually wrote about those things, and we'll move on from there in this, the best and most real timeline (the evil version of me definitely lives in the HIMYM one).

I'm almost certain that part of what has been causing my blogger's ennui is that I've been watching a lot of The Wire. It took me a really long time to actually want to watch the show, because I have issues with anxiety and depression and mostly The Wire looked like an incredibly dark and depressing show about drugs and corruption. And guess what? Turns out The Wire is an incredibly dark and depressing show about drugs and corruption. That's not to say it's not good. Obviously it's good. But I don't think it's so much for people like me who lovelovelove comedy and think that every great drama should include a little levity (remember when Ms. Blankenship died and they had to wheel her out of the office without the clients seeing and Harry is all "My mother made that afghan!"? That's what I'm talking about.), and those who are also just naturally anxious people. WARNING: do not read any further if you have not seen The Wire and think that you might someday want to, because I'm about to get all kinds of spoiler-y up in here.

"It's an awful waste of a lot of good tablecloths"

Man, so that was actually an awesome episode of Boardwalk Empire. I mean, this is what they did last year - started out strong and then quickly got slow and boring and kind of lame. But the premiere episode opened up a lot of promising new storylines, and I'm actually excited to see where they take us, which is a nice surprise.

Let's tackle them one by one, shall we?

Well, Omar AKA Chalky got hit by the KKK (I know a call a lot of things The Worst on here, but let's face it, the KKK is actually THE WORST hands down), which appears to be orchestrated by Jimmy's dad (The Commodore? The Commander? Something like that.) This is the one piece that doesn't sit well with me because Chalky is my all-time fave on this show and this development seems to hint towards less Chalky and less of the black perspective in general, which is not good. More Chalky! Let my Chalky go! Anyway, this is part of Jimmy's dad's plan with Eli and Jimmy to edge out Nucky and take back Atlantic City. Good luck old man. There was a real creepy scene in his game room where he talks about how the bear thought he didn't have to be afraid of him and then he shot him in the stomach. Not a big stretch to realize that Nucky is the bear.

Jimmy married his baby mama and they are living in a creepy Oedipal house with Jimmy's mom, who admitted that she used to kiss his "winky" when she changed his diaper. (A) Gross, and (B) GROOOSSSSSSSSSSS. Jimmy's wife (Amelia or something? I can never remember these people's names) is understandably skeeved. I am rooting for Sexy Half-Face and her to get together; that scene of him gluing the pictures of families, lovers, and children into the bible was my favorite scene of the whole episode - so poignantly tragic and beautiful. That actor, whoever he is, is incredible. More Sexy Half-Face! Meanwhile, Jimmy continues to reject Nucky for reasons that aren't entirely clear, possibly because I kind of stopped paying attention to this show halfway through last season. Did Nucky try to kill him? Or is it just because he wouldn't give him enough responsibility? I've not no idea, but it doesn't really matter. Nucky is hurt because he pretty much raised Jimmy and cares for him, but Jimmy is selfish and also clearly has HUGE parental issues being that his mom is a creepy whore who is only 13 years older than him and his dad is The Worst. So Jimmy puts Nucky's gift of the statue of the man and the boy bonding over a dead deer in the closet and symbolically turns out the light.

"You weren't even in Time Bandits!"

I've been hearing some rumblings lately about how Ricky Gervais has lost his game. Now, Gervais has always walked a somewhat tenuous line with me - it took a few years' time and a second viewing of The Office for me to really come around - but I don't think you can deny that the man can be hilarious, even if his Simon Cowell uniform is quite laughable in a different way. Additionally, I think he's been really smart about the way he's handled things since Extras ended - after making smart choices like casting Louis C.K. in The Invention Of Lying, Gervais has let the spotlight shine on smaller characters, and used his forceful personality to drive the comedy from these supporting roles.

Larry Sanders, Late-Night, & The Greatness Of Rip Torn

I know everyone has been waiting with baited anticipation for my post on The Larry Sanders Show (haha, just kidding, I think I know like one other person who has even seen any of it), so here goes! Wait no longer, friend.

The Larry Sanders Show starred Garry Shandling as a late-night talk show host, and ran from 1992-1998 (yes, my Wikipedia bookmark works!). It covered the filming of the show but was mostly about backstage details and Larry's life. He has a sidekick, Hank, played to creepy D-list perfection by Jeffrey Tambor, and a producer/hetero life partner named Artie, played by the brilliant and inimitable Rip Torn. The celebrities that show up on Larry Sanders are too vast to mention, but the regular cast includes plenty of familiar faces (Janeane Garofolo, Jeremy Piven, Wallace Langham, Mary Lynn Rajskub). The Larry Sanders Show was also where a lot of big behind-the-scenes names built their resumes, including Judd Apatow and Steve Levitan. This is just to show you that in terms of comedy quality, this show isn't essing around.

Larry Sanders was the original Entourage. In fact, it's a lot like Entourage except without the homophobia and the boobs and the terribleness and the (mostly useless unless adorable counts as useful) Turtle. You've got Vince (Larry), E (Artie), and Drama (Hank). There's even a perfect asshole Ari-ish agent played by Bob Odenkirk. What I mean by this is that the show deals very heavily with the showbiz machine (and television and handling the networks in particular), what it's like being a celebrity and having relationships (be they work or friend or romantic, with regular people and with other celebrities), and with the immense amount of ego coddling that can go into being the person who does the least amount of work with the most amount of benefit. Entourage has covered all of these topics (substitute "network" for "movie studio"), but the problem with that show is that, even when it was good, it felt too much like an inside joke. Also, sometimes the entire plot hinges on "Will someone get some really special, expensive thing/vacation/pussy?" and that is boring and no, not aspirational. I would rather see a celebrity pretend to have been to rehab in order to get out of being embarrassed and then develop an actual addiction and have to be guided through detox by Roseanne any day.

Wherein We Find Ourselves In Treatment

I was going to use this opportunity to write a Motherboy post (don't worry Alia, it's coming!) but I figured it'd be better if I wrote it at actual Motherboy time. So this post is going to be all about my TV therapist.

My mom, who is herself a therapist (and not a psychologist or an analyst, which I think has been greatly beneficial to my personal well-being), turned me on to In Treatment. I mean, I had obviously heard about it, but the whole concept sounded a little intense and not really something I could get into. But then, with the Netflix DVD laying around on Thanksgiving break, I watched the first few episodes and immediately moved on to the rest.

In Treatment is a fascinating character study. It's a telling testament to the immense skills of Gabriel Byrne that he is able to carry every single episode of this show on his back. Even when his patients lose my interest, I'm still invested in how Paul will be affected by them.

Let's back up a little. For those of you who don't know, In Treatment is about a psychologist, Paul Weston, who, when the series begins, is treating patients out of his home office in Baltimore, MD. Part of the fun of this show is getting a glimpse of something that is normally considered forbidden, even illegal to disclose: private therapy sessions. The first client we see is a trainwreck of a woman named Laura, who is clearly suffering from a terrible case of transference that Paul doesn't seem to know how to handle. From there we see that each of his following patients are reflective of a part of Paul's own life as he struggles to keep his family together and maintain some sanity for himself.

The last episode of each week is devoted to Paul's own therapy sessions, beginning with Gina (Dianne Weist) and, in the recently completed third season, moving on to Adele (played by the incomparable Amy Ryan). In these sessions we get to see Paul removed from the position of evaluative power that he usually assumes and put into a place of vulnerability. He clearly isn't very comfortable with such a position, and his relationships with Gina (who used to be his supervisor, which those familiar with the study of psychology will know is quite unusual and probably problematic) and Adele showcase that discomfort. The Paul who appears in his own therapy sessions is quite different from the capable Dr. Weston we usually see, easily helping his own patients.

And he is, in all honestly, quite a capable psychotherapist. He truly does connect with and help most of his patients, when he's not crossing boundaries or trying to solve his own problems through the treatment of others. As anyone who went to college or has spent any time studying psychology knows, psychologists are often just as crazy as any of their patients, and Paul is no different. But some of the most moving contrasts in the show are between the way he relates to his patients versus the way he relates to his friends and family. Especially since he does such a great job with all of his child/teenage patients (in fact, in each respective season, Sophie/Oliver/Jesse have all been my favorites) it is very tough to watch him try to carry on those skills and relate to his own children, because he simply doesn't know how to be a good dad without also being his childrens' therapist. Again, boundary issues arise.

Boardwalk Empire: the show you're supposed to love

Boardwalk Empire is hard to want to write about. This is because it's obviously one of those lauded, "good" shows...but I am not even close to obsessing about it. The actors are great, totally solid - although in period dress Michael Pitt's resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic grows tenfold - and the directing and set design and beautiful, but I have not found myself forming connections to any of the characters. Maybe it's just all the exposition that's necessary in the first two episodes, but I've now seen over two hours of Boardwalk Empire without feeling any emotional connection - and that just doesn't feel right.

Bloggers Aren't Always Right: Entourage

so, after that post on Entourage, i've kept watching the show. and, i have to say, i was surprised enough by it that i felt the need to write this little...well, it's not really a retraction, i'll just call a takesies-backsies. in fact, i think i'm going to start a series called BAAR: Bloggers Aren't Always Right just for these occasions where i form an opinion and then find evidence to contradict it. it happens often enough, and i like to keep an open mind.

well, at least partly. everything i wrote about guest stars and hating Eric and Drama and Adrian Grenier's hair and Turtle losing weight...that still stands. but i wanted to go back and talk a little more about the character of Ari Gold and about the presence of female characters on the show.

first, the wimins. historically on Entourage, women have only existed in relation to the main male characters. fans, starfuckers, starlets, girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, wives, studio execs, publicists...basically as tools the men use to achieve their needs and desires. the women who did have power (Ari's wife; Ari's partner, Barbara; Vince's publicist Shauna played by Debi Mazar; rival agent Amanda Daniels; Dana the studio head) were generally portrayed as one-dimensional bitches and/or shrews.

now, with this new season, we have some actual women development going. first, there's Ari's wife, who has some actual agency and is shown to not only love her husband but also stays on top of his shit. next, there's Sasha Grey. while the version of herself she plays may be a bad influence on Vince, the ideas she espouses in relation to sexuality and society are really spot on. it's nice to have a smart, sexy woman be taken seriously on this show.

we will not discuss Alex. i still hate her.