Back To The Island: Why The Character of Ilana May Be The Biggest Failure of Lost

 

It took many rewatches for me to realize that the final season of Lost did work that the show was not a disappointment. I now realize that part of the problem was not the series finale but some of the problems with the final season.

I think this has less to do with the flash-sideways (though in a different set of articles I will probably deal with my issues with them) and rather the action on the island. Some of it Darlton would later acknowledge was their own fault, most notably how they chose to cut bait on the Temple after having built it up so much over the second half of the series. Other parts, most notably everything involving Widmore, may have been based on the decision to try and tie all the storylines they'd spent the series dealing with up a bow.

But the one they really don't have any excuse for, both at the time and in hindsight, was how Ilana, who the writers spent pretty close to two seasons building up as vital to the endgame, went out in a damp squib.

This is different than how other characters who the writers had plans for had long-term plans for had to be killed off to the actors demands. The most notable example was Eko but it played out with other characters such as Matthew Abadon who seemed important when first introduced in Season 4 and was killed off when Lance Reddick was cast in Fringe in late 2008. In the case of Ilana the writers really don't have any excuse because they had built her up in Season 5 as important and then moved Zuleikha Robinson to a series regular for the final season.

And the main action on The Incident seemed to imply Ilana was important in a way we hadn't seen any other character being. One of the flashbacks that we saw involved Jacob visiting a heavily bandaged Ilana in a hospital in what appeared to be Russia. This was the first episode we'd learned of Jacob's existence and in all the other flashbacks he had visited the passengers on Oceanic 815 throughout their lives at key moments without them knowing it. Ilana was the first person who knew who Jacob was and who told her that he needed her to do something for him.

We'd first seen  Ilana when she was holding Sayid in handcuffs as they boarding Ajira 316. Interestingly Jack made no effort to talk to him when they got on the plane and while everyone saw him, no one mentioned him until the survivors all flashbacked to 1977.

Chronologically after the plane crashed on the island the first words out of Ilana's mouth were 'Jarrah'. In the immediate aftermath of the crash a passenger named Caesar took charge and began to search the island. Ilana seemed willing to follow his lead and eventually brought him to a man no one remembered from the plane, calling himself John Locke. She engaged in conversation with Locke and there's no sign as to how she reacted when he told her the last thing he remembered was dying.

Later in that episode she and a group of passengers found a crate and while they talked to Ben they never told anyone what was inside it. Eventually she and another man, known only as Bram, found guns and said they were in charge. When Frank challenged them she asked: "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" When he couldn't answer the question she knocked him out.

By the time of the season finale Bram clearly answered to Ilana and said he didn't understand why they were taking him with her because he didn't know the answer to the question. Ilana said: "That doesn't mean he's not a Candidate'. That was the first time we heard that word and we had no idea what it meant. Eventually Frank went with them to take what was in the crate to a cabin where we had been led to believe Jacob had been living all this time.

But when we got there, seeing the cabin for the first time in the daylight, it was a dilapidated wreck. Ilana went in and knew immediately Jacob hadn't been living there and 'someone else had been using it." She looked at a piece of tapestry which had an image of the statue and in the opening flashback we knew Jacob was living there.

And as we all know the finale ended with Ilana, Frank and her band of followers meeting Richard and the Others outside the statue in which Ben and Locke had gone in. Ilana asked to see Ricardos ("It's Richard, actually) and once he gave the correct answer to the question (in Latin it was: "He who will save us all") Ilana relaxed. She said she needed to show Jacob something and opened the crate which revealed…

Time for a flashback (whoosh)

Earlier in the season we'd seen what had happened to Sayid. He'd been getting drunk at a bar and he met a woman dressed who we now knew was Ilana. They chatted each other up and we saw them kissing in a hotel room. Ilana then pulled a gun on Sayid and said she represented the family of Peter Avellino, the man we'd seen him kill in back in Season 4. Sayid asked if she was a bounty hunter and she didn't answer.

Then we saw the leadup to Ajira 316. Sayid saw his fellow Oceanics get on the plane and he asked to take a different flight. Ilana said: "This is the flight we're taking." Onboard he asked if she worked for Ben Linus and it was clear she had no idea who Ben was and that Sayid had worked for him.

Later that season in Miles flashbacks in Some Like it Hoth he was kidnapped off the street by Bram, who said he knew what he was planning on doing, asked him the same question Ilana did and Miles had no idea of the answer. They told Miles he wasn't ready yet and that he was 'playing for the wrong team'. When Miles asked which team they were on Bram said: "The one that's going to win."

That flashback, it's worth noting, took place a full three years before the events in Season 5 and since Bram was taking orders from Ilana by The Incident, it's clear they knew about the island and that they were planning to get there. That part was never clarified but let's leave that for now.

Bram would go out of his way to tell Frank that he was with 'the good guys'. Frank didn't buy it and considering that was the exact phrase Ben had used to refer to the Others way back in Season 2, the viewer took it with a PILLAR of salt. And considering by this point Ilana had already forced Sayid to come to the island at gunpoint (a place he absolutely did not want to return to) and was essentially doing the same thing to Frank, when he told Sun later "I'm not buying it either," neither did we.

Considering that by this point in the series the only person on the island who had seen Jacob on a regular basis was Richard it seemed significant that Ilana had seen him and that he chose to trust her. But as Nikki Stafford pointed out in Finding Lost: Season Five there was a critical difference between his visit to the survivors in the past and his recent visit to Ilana. In that visit he was wearing black gloves as if he could not or would not touch her. That seemed to signify that she was less important to him than the survivors.

Now we would learn later that he had come to see her because he had six names for her, the names of the remaining Candidates. It was her job to get them to the island and for her to protect them when she got there.  That would explain why she chatted up Sayid and brought him on the plane. And it would seem to explain why she cared so much for John Locke and when she found his body in the baggage compartment of the plane, she knew that they were going after "something a lot scarier then what was in that box."

So during Season 5 its clear that Ilana and her followers seemed vital to the show's endgame. In a deleted scene from the Season 6 premiere that is built up. Ilana has realized that something has gone horribly wrong and wants to go into the statue to check on Jacob. Bram stops her and says he and the rest will go in. "It'll be daylight in 20 minutes. You have to get everyone to the Temple. You're too important."

So the three of them go in knowing something about what they're about to face but not enough. They shoot 'Locke' in the chest and he disappears. They find the bullet and then we realize the truth of something only theorized: the Man in Black is the smoke monster. He kills two of the bodyguards immediately. Bram picks up ash and uses it as a protective circle. This provides him with momentary protection – until the Monster brings down the ceiling and leads to Bram's death.

Now its worth noting 'Locke' identifies Bram – and by extension Ilana – as Jacob's bodyguards, not the Candidates. And later that season we know that Richard doesn't know who the Candidates are but Ilana does. Clearly Ilana has been completely off the radar of everyone on the island including the Monster. Combined with everything we've already seen it seems Ilana may never have been on the island but she knows more of its secrets then anyone we've met before. And this would seem to be confirmed as Season 6 progresses.

Throughout the first half of Season 6 Ilana seems more aware of 'the rules' then most of the people we've met to this point, certainly any new arrival. She knew about Richard's importance, she knew about the cabin and where to find Jacob based on his clue. When she enters Jacob's sanctuary  - and she's clearly broken by it – she asks an equally shattered Ben what happened. When he tells her "you probably won't believe me" she does believe him when he tells about the monster, and when she learns Jacob was pushed onto the fire she takes his ashes and puts them in a bag. She tells them that the Man in Black is now stuck in Locke's body and that they have to go to the Temple.

When they get to the Temple and all hell is breaking loose (courtesy of Smokey) she moves in a direct pattern until she finds a hieroglyph that tells them where to find a panic room, a move that saves everyone in her party. And she also knows about Dogen the people who work at the Temple and certain details about everyone who's been here. She knows Miles can speak to the dead, for one thing.

And what drives all of this home is how Robinson manages to imbue Ilana with more then a bit of humanity we've gotten from everyone else who 'knows the answers'. She breaks down sobbing when she sees the bodies of her friends and what has happened to Jacob for a moment and when Ben comes in, she does her best to cover it. She insists on a burial for Locke and that somebody should say something. Indeed she seems astonished that no one knew him well enough to talk about him – which actually leads to Ben's crazy but heartfelt eulogy.

And when she learns that Ben murdered Jacob, though she tries to hide it has clearly cut her. She holds it in until they get back to the beach and then she pulls Ben aside at gunpoint and tells him he is going to have to dig his own grave and when he finishes she intends to kill him. Ben has spent the last four seasons able to talk himself out of every horrible thing he has done – and killing Jacob was honestly one of the most understandable actions he's taken – and now he is face to face an enemy who knows the consequences of his actions and people who know all too well what he's capable of.

It's understandable that when Smokey shows up and offers to give him the island if he kills Ilana that he jumps at the chance. It's not clear if the Man In Black knows how much of a threat Ilana is or if he's recruiting as Ilana herself put it. Whatever the reason Ben has no options.

Ben escapes and what follows is one of the highpoints of Season 6, if not the entire series. Ben looks at Ilana and sees himself, someone who has sacrificed their lives in the name of Jacob, a man who has never even spoken up for him. He admits responsibility for his role in Alex's death and that he gave up the only thing that mattered to him for the island.  Emerson is magnificent, in tears and agony in a way he's never come close to playing in his previous four seasons, with a rawness and honesty that we've never associated. The prince of lies is telling the truth.

So when he begs Ilana to let him go to the Man in Black "Because he's the only one who'll have me" we feel the pain in our guts. It's not a performance and Ilana recognizes it. So when she walks over to Ben and says simply: "I'll have you," it's an emotional highpoint.

At the end of the episode we have one of those moments we've seen so many times before on Lost a reunion of characters who've been apart for an eternity if not longer. But it guts us for multiple reasons. There is the fact there are so few people left on the beach to unite and there's a group of characters – Richard, Ben and Ilana – who aren't smiling. They were the disciples of Jacob and now that he's gone they have no future.

In the opening of Ab Aeterno, the first flashback is to Ilana's in 'The Incident'. We see both that moment and the aftermath. The bandages are gone with Ilana's face (the implication is he healed her by touching her) and he tells here that he has six names, the last remaining candidates and he needs for her to find them and to protect them. Once she's brought them to the island she has to bring them to Richard, who according to Jacob will know what to do.

But the thing is Richard makes it clear he has absolutely no idea what to do and storms off to try and have his meeting with the Man in Black. Hurley goes after him but Ilana stays behind, certain that Richard will come back solely because Jacob said he would. Everyone else is incredulous and when Richard comes back with Hurley and tells them that they have to stop the Man in Black from leaving the island, they have to blow up the plane everyone is astonished. Sun holds it in the most and Jack promises her that he'll try to get her and Jin off the island. But when he says this Richard makes it clear he shouldn't have because that's the only way forward.

It's worth noting that as important as Ilana seemed to be throughout this entire period the viewer still wondered just how much Jacob let her into his confidence. He'd given her the names of the remaining candidates but he hadn't told her what had happened to Locke. She brought Locke's body to Richard and the Others but didn't bother to tell anyone else that he was dead, which might have helped avoid a massive tragedy.  She didn't tell her followers that they couldn't kill him and that led to them all dying. And while she knew she had to protect a Kwon Jacob didn't tell her (or anyone) whether it was Sun or Jin.

And all of the knowledge he had he gave to other people but it was selective. He never told any of the Others why the names on the list were important at any point but he seemed more than willing to tell those who were off the island. Everybody had complete faith in Jacob even though as Richard himself said "He never tells us what to do."  Ilana had blind faith that Jacob was right.

And then…BOOM!

I've argued that Lost's reputation with female characters isn't entirely deserved but in the second half of the series it keeps getting harder to make that argument. Charlotte is the first freighter folk to die. Juliet is killed in the fifth season finale. Kate isn't a Candidate. We're not sure if Sun ever was. The writers could have at least partially atoned for that with Ilana and then she's killed off when she drops unstable dynamite right before the endgame of the series officially begins. We never even learned her last name.

I've tried to make an argument in my own writings that Ilana might work if you understand her as a symbolic character, the ultimate example of blind faith and another pawn in Jacob's war. Yet even then I think I'm grasping at straws. Nikki Stafford pointed out in her final volume of Finding Lost just how badly the writers screwed up with the decision and considering just how much she was willing to defend practically every other choice Darlton made from start to finish of the series that speaks volumes. And considering that nobody even bothers to mourn her death, it just makes it leave an even worse taste in the mouth.

Everything involving Ilana honestly speaks to all the bad things people say about Lost all at once. The writers never knew what they were doing; they built up plot threads and then cast them aside, they were horrible with female characters; they had no plan for the final season. The writers did a disservice to Robinson with Ilana's fate and they didn't do much better by the viewer.

 

And The Winner of the 2026 Tournament of Champions Is...I Break Down the Finals

 

 

It is impossible to predict who will end up winning any Tournament of Champions. It was impossible to do it when the limit was five games and it's no easier now that players can win 11 or more. In fact I actually wrote a series on this very subject leading up to the 2025 Tournament of Champions which more or less made it clear that just because Adriana Harmeyer was in the finals didn't mean she was going to win – as indeed she didn't.

Much like last year two of the three seeded players are competing in the finals: 16 game winner Scott Riccardi and 7 game winner Paolo Pasco. But for the first time in this new format the third had not won 3 games or a special Tournament like Sam Buttrey. TJ Fisher managed 5 wins and $100,723.

This is the first time since 2018 that all three finalists have won over $100,000 in their original appearances. Even since the dollar figures were doubled and the five game limit was lifted this hasn't happened that often: in fact it's only the fifth time in the history of the Tournament of Champions its happened at all. (Since I've listed most of the Jeopardy players and their previous tournament appearance on this show I won't bore you with them here.)

If Scott or Paolo were to win this tournament and the $250,000 grand prize they will both leap up pretty high on the all-time Jeopardy leaderboard for total wins. Scott's already in 18^th place without any postseason play at all and this will put up on the verge of the top ten with a guarantee of moving higher up when the Jeopardy Masters takes place. For Paolo it will put him in the top 20 all time. And as we've seen being in third in terms of games and/or money won was meaningless for Yogesh Raut or Nilesh Vinjamuri going into the finals in the last two years.

It's worth noting that the exhibition game for the three seeded players was aired on Friday. Paolo became the first winner of that game in the short history of the TOC Exhibition to win and then win his semifinal match. (Mattea Roach won the first one in 2022 and Drew Basile won last year's. Both were defeated.) He did so in convincing fashion, trouncing both Scott Riccardi and Laura Faddah. Is it a portent of things to come? For the first time we will find out.

 

February 2^nd

 

The Jeopardy round of Game 1 was thrilling from beginning to end. Scott got an early advantage when he found the Daily Double in LITERARY BIOGRAPHIES. Already in the lead with $1600 he bet everything:

Richard Lingeman subtitled his biography of Sinclair Lewis 'Rebel from' this title road.

It took Scott a moment but he figured out the right Lewis novel: "What is Main Street?" He went to $3200. He held his lead throughout the round just barely finishing with $5400 to Paolo's $4800 and TJ's $4600.

Paolo got the first two clues correct in Double Jeopardy and then found the first Daily Double in WHAT A WORD! Perhaps thinking his skills as a crossword puzzle writer would help him he bet the $7200 he had. They did:

Plausible but misleading argument is called this, from thinkers whom Plato depicted as devious word-jugglers.

The word juggler thought. "What is sophistry?" he finally said. It was correct and he jumped up to $14,400.

Paolo managed to find the other Daily Double as well in THE 17^TH CENTURY. Already with a commanding lead with $18,000 he 'only' bet $4000 this time:

In this revolt of 1680, the village-dwelling Native Americans of the same name drove the Spanish out of New Mexico. He figured it out: "What is the Pueblo Revolt?" He was now at $22,000.

Paolo responded correctly on 19 clues with no mistakes and the question was could Scott to TJ catch him. The answer was no. With fourteen of the clues stumping all three players, neither TJ nor Scott could close the gap. Paolo finished with $25,600 to Scott's $8200 and TJ's $7800 to lock up his first victory by the end of Double Jeopardy. That was good for him because of how Final Jeopardy went.

The category was COMPOSERS. "This composer whose most famous work shows a Spanish influence said, 'My parents met in Madrid." This is one of those clues where I wish I could give those who gave incorrect responses partial credit.

TJ wrote down: "Who is Ravel?" then crossed it out and put down Bizet. Like him I wrote that down because I was thinking of Carmen and like him, I was wrong. He wagered $777.

Scott wrote down: "Who is Ravel?" and left it intact. That was the correct response as it referred to his famous piece 'Bolero'. Scott wagered nothing.

Paolo wrote down: "Who is Rossini?" Clearly he was thinking of The Barber of Seville. It only cost him $121 and that meant he got his first match point.

 

 

February 3^rd

Paolo came out swinging when he found the first Daily Double in the Jeopardy round on the third clue in WORDS OF MOUTH. He bet the $1800 he had:

A WWII ad campaign warned Americans about the risks of giving info to the enemy, leading to this 4-word rhyming slogan. Paolo figured it out: "What is loose lips sink ships?" He doubled his score to $3600. He kept his lead throughout the round, finishing with $6800. Scott was in second with $2600 while TJ spent so much time struggling that he was lucky to finish the round at -$1400.

Paolo put Game 2 out of reach even earlier in Double Jeopardy when he found the first Daily Double on the second clue in BEFORE, DURING & AFTER. This is a category that has caused Jeopardy greats infinite headaches for twenty five years. Paolo didn't blink before he bet the $8000 he had:

Piscine entry in a Douglas Adams sci-fi series that's in an unusual or uncomfortable situation listening to a Handel suite.

There was a long pause: "What is So Long and Thanks for all the Fish out of Water music?" Paolo almost deserved to win in getting that out in one breath and he went up to $16,000.

Then he found the other Daily Double on the very next clue in THAT'S A LONG TITLE. Asked if he was thinking of betting everything Paolo said "Not remotely" before wagering $6000:

This Swift Title continues 'for Preventing the Children of poor people from Being a Burthen to Their Parents." He knew it was A Modest Proposal and went up to $22,000.

For the rest of Double Jeopardy there were two questions. Could TJ get out of the red and could anyone stop Paolo from making it a runaway. The answer to question one was, yes, TJ did managed to do that by the eighth clue and said, "Thank goodness." The answer to question two, not even close. Paolo managed 21 correct answers and only 2 incorrect ones and by finding all three Daily Doubles finished with an incredible $31,200 to Scott's $9800 and TJ's $4600.

Redemption of a sort came in Final Jeopardy for Scott and TJ in Final Jeopardy. The category was AMERICAN ARTISTS. "His 1967 New York Times obituary called him a 'painter of loneliness." All three players knew the correct artist: "Who is Hopper?" (Like them I knew the obituary referred to the painter of Nighthawks. TJ creatively wagered $3177 to finished with $7777, Scott bet nothing and Paolo bet $1105 to finish with his second straight runaway and his second match point.

 

February 4^th

Scott came out swinging yet again in the Jeopardy round finding the Daily Double on the second clue in PENINSULAS. He bet the $1000 he had:

Rennes is the capital of this region protruding as a peninsula into the Atlantic Ocean with the English Channel to the North.  He knew it was Brittany and had a quick lead. It took a while for Paolo to get started today and he trailed Scott for the entire Jeopardy round. At the end Scott led with $5000 to Paolo's $4200 and TJ's $2200.

Paolo slowly began to move in Double Jeopardy and had $9400 by the time he got to the first Daily Double in GET A LOAD OF THIS PAIR. He bet $7400 this time:

Lewis & Clark met during these 'directional' military campaigns in the 1790s (a direction they'd later travel)

There was a long pause and Paolo was clearly not sure when he finally answered: "What are The Northwest Wars?" He was shocked when Ken told him it was acceptable. "The Northwest campaigns."

Then just like the day before he found the Daily Double on the very next clue in WHAT A CONCEPT. This time he bet $6000:

In a 1968 speech Martin Luther King said he'd 'been to' this location "…and I've looked over, & I've seen the promised land." Paolo was surer this time: "What is the mountaintop?" He went up to $22,800?"

It was all over sans the shouting. Paolo would have his most dominant performance yet: 26 correct answers and no incorrect ones. He finished with $33,200 to Scott's $7400 and TJ's $5800. When he completed his third consecutive runaway Scott and TJ joined in the audience with applause.

The last Final Jeopardy of the Tournament of Champions was an exercise and all three players treated it that way. I'll go through the motions: "This archipelago got its name in 1493 in honor of St. Ursula & her followers." Now I'm pretty sure none of them knew the correct response: "What is the Virgin Islands?"

TJ wrote down: "What am I going to do with my time not that studying's done?" As Ken put it.  "This is the kind of existential question we rarely consider on Jeopardy." For the record he lost $1601.

Scott was simpler. "What is Congrats Paolo?" He lost $4600.

Paolo's response would have made anyone who didn't admire and love him do so: "What an incredible ride with the best TOC group I could ask for love you all!!!!!" He only lost $143 it didn't matter because he was officially $250,000 richer.

 

For as long as Jeopardy continues with this format in the Tournament of Champions Paolo Pasco will be the gold standard for it. All three of his games were runaways by a long shot. While he was not a super-champion by the terms recent viewers have come to know in the post-Trebek era, this level of dominance in a Tournament of Champions rivals two other players who are still considered among the greatest: Roger Craig in winning the 2011 Tournament of Champions and Alex Jacob in winning it all in 2015.

Alex Jacob is the better comparison as he also utterly dominated a super-champion in the same fashion that Paolo absolutely trounced Scott Riccardi. In that dominating performance Alex completely destroyed 13 game winner Matt Jackson who'd won $411,612 during that period and $50,000 in four different appearances. Alex Trebek would famously say Alex Jacob's performance was the most dominant he'd seen in thirty years of hosting. Ken Jennings can no doubt appreciate Paolo's performance from  that same perspective given his own performance against some of the greatest players of all time.  

By winning the Tournament of Champions Paolo's officially winnings now total $445,717. This puts him ahead of Buzzy Cohen on the all-time winnings list in 21^st place and he has also bypassed other greatest including Alex Jacob, Dan Pawson and Adriana Harmeyer. His total has a chance to go even higher in the Jeopardy Masters when they take place this year.

As for Scott Riccardi the $75,000 he won for finishing as a runner up moves his total in money winnings to $533,000. He is now in fifteen place, moving ahead of such fellow super-champions as Austin Rogers and Julia Collins.  And of course he and TJ Fisher will automatically return to compete in the 2027 Jeopardy Invitational Tournament next year.

As for this year's Jeopardy Invitational Tournament it is scheduled to begin as early as tomorrow. I'll be back next week with the official results.

Congratulations to Paolo Pasco. You've made your mark in Jeopardy history in a way that even long time viewers like me have rarely seen. I look forward to you have a long career in Jeopardy for years to come.

Patrick Dempsey Has The Memory of a Killer And He May Not Have It For Long

 

 

I don't have a lot of rules when it comes to TV but after a quarter of century of viewing I've reached some conclusions. One of them that will probably not surprise you is the Law of Shondaland:

Any actor who stars in a Shondaland series has done better work before and will unquestionably do better work again.

Ever since Grey's Anatomy debuted way back in 2005 in all of the series that I've watched (as far as I could stomach) this rule has a 100 percent accuracy rating. It is true with Sandra Oh and Katherine Heigl, it was true with Kerry Washington and Joe Morton and its being proven true with Aja Naomi King and Jonathan Bailey. And it was just as true with none other than Derek Shephard, aka McDreamy played by Patrick Dempsey for ten seasons before Shonda Rhimes decided to have his character killed off rather than renegotiate his contract. (I don't care what those involved say, until I learn otherwise I'm assuming that Rhimes is playing by the rules of the soap operas her shows clearly are.)

It has been forgotten by history that Dempsey had in fact appeared as recurring characters in two ABC dramas that were infinitely superior to anything Rhimes has produced. His first official role of significance on television was played the mentally unstable brother of Lily Manning, Aaron  on the still much missed Once & Again  throughout its three seasons. Playing a character who had spent much of his teenage years in a mental health facility but who had found a combination of meds that were working (when he took them) Dempsey inhabited a character who was trying to reenter reality. Before the series cancellation he  had actually found love with a fellow patient. He would receive an Emmy nomination for his role in that show

He then had a guest role in a multi-episode arc of The Practice during its final season. During this arc James Spader's Alan Shore (in a role that began his own career revival) was called in to when Dempsey, playing a childhood friend of his, was accused of murder. The final season was both a creative and ratings revival for the show and in this arc Alan, already embodying the sleazy characteristics that would carry him over to Boston Legal a year later, was able to show genuine emotional depth in his scenes with Dempsey, particularly when the final twist cast everything Shore thought about his friend into question. Dempsey received another Emmy nomination for his work.

Throughout his decade on Grey's Anatomy Dempsey was one of the few characters on the show – indeed in all of Shondaland – who was guided by a moral compass far more than the sexual drive that was true of almost everybody else in the show. That allowed him to make increasingly inferior material work as his basic integrity managed to hold the series together even as it became increasingly melodramatic. Well before his character was killed off it was becoming clear Rhimes was doing much to erode that basic integrity and while I fought his eventual fate was childish as is often the case with anyone who leaves these kinds of show I considered it the freeing of a captive prisoner.

Dempsey has taken the road less traveled. He played the title role in The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair and then actually took a role in an Italian-British collaboration Devils. His most recent work was playing Capt. Aaron Spencer on Dexter: Original Sin Harry Morgan's old partner whose son is apparently abducted by a serial killer but as the show progresses its clear there's far more to it – and Spencer – then meets the eye. Without giving anything way it was wonderful watching  Dempsey get to play someone with a much darker side than he had over ten years of Grey's Anatomy and I was curious to see what he would do next. So when I learned that he was going to be the lead character in the new Fox drama Memory of a Killer – the first real lead role he's ever had on television of any kind – I wanted to see what he'd do.

In a sense his work as part of Dexter has more than prepared Dempsey for his work as Angelo Doyle. Like Dexter Morgan he has a face he shows the world and a secret face that involves killing people. Indeed like Dexter he also has a code. But its more complicated then that as we see in the opening.

We watch  Angelo prepares breakfast for his daughter Maria (Odeya Rush) who's pregnant) with her first son. The two of them talk, he tells them that he's got a busy day selling photocopiers and says goodbye to her and her husband, promising to meet later. Then he drives out of his small Long Island suburb to a small house that has a basement and subbasement. He changes out of his clothes, puts on a suit and sunglasses and starts to take apart a rifle. He then goes to the basement and we see a fancy sports car and he drives over the bridge and into Manhattan.

We then watch as he prepares to carry out an assassination attempt but is thwarted when the target moves away from the window. He talks through his earpiece to the man inside Joe (Richard Harmon) and asks him to get him a reservation and a weapon. He then gets into the restaurant where the target is, walks inside, goes to the men's room and then walks with authority to the towel dispenser. He takes out a screwdriver and in a series of cuts we wait until his target is inside the men's room and then kills both him and his henchmen. Much of this is done in total silence, all before the opening teaser is over.

It's there we see him with his closer childhood friend Dutch. Dutch is played by that magnificent character actor Michael Imperioli and its clear you can see that this is what would happened had Tony not snuffed Christopher out in the final season of The Sopranos.  Dutch, however, is more competent and congenial with Angelo. The two of them go back to the streets of Brooklyn and Dutch has respected Angelo's privacy, only calling him in when he needs a job done. He doesn't know about Angelo's family, doesn't know that he has a wife who was killed and a possible granddaughter. Angelo has clearly spent decades keeping the two worlds separate. The problem is, things are about to get troublesome.

After this we see Angelo visit his brother Michael who isn't much younger then him but is something from late stage dementia, not even able to talk. It's clear Alzheimer's runs in the family and that it sets in early: neither man is out of his fifties. By the time the pilot is over Angelo's memory is beginning to betray him: he can't remember the security code to his apartment, he leaves his gun in the refrigerator and he's clearly having trouble memorizing dates anymore. This is bad enough as it is; it's worse because by the end of the first episode someone has clearly figured out the connection between the two worlds – and they've taken a hit out on him.

Dempsey turned sixty earlier this year and this is the kind of role that might appeal to him. He still very much has the McDreamy vibe to him and Angelo has the ability to pick up an attractive (age appropriate) female bartender with no problem and even though he's clearly out of practice in the pilot. But I've often wondered, while he spent so many years at Seattle Grace, if he saw so many other heartthrobs like Jon Hamm and Matthew Rhys (who also started out in network shows) doing darker roles and getting Emmy nominations and awards and wondering if he'd been missing out. Here he gets to very much have his cake and eat it too. Angelo Doyle has the aspects of many antiheroes of AMC dramas – the good looks of Don Draper, the  disease of Walter White and the code of Dexter Morgan. But while there are places in the Venn Diagram of all these shows where Anatomy of A killer has overlaps there's a sense of style that's clearly Dempsey and the shows own.

It helps that the series has fairly decent credentials: the executive producers are Todd Kessler and Aaron Zelman who created the masterpieces Damages and the equally brilliant Bloodline. Both men have experience working in network television prior to this and they clearly have the gift to help the show navigate the overlap between streaming and network. This is done by having many of the scenes unfold in relative silence with only the occasional text message to intervene. Considering how many of even the best television shows in the 21^st century are dialogue heavy I find this refreshing.

And it helps that while there is clearly some kind of master criminal  tracking him down (the Ferryman) the real adversary that Angelo faces is the deterioration of his own mind. Breaking Bad, for all its brilliance, never let Walter's cancer become too obvious until its final stages: by contrast its clear from the first episode Angelo's mind is deteriorating and he's clearly unprepared to handle it. Trailers indicate that he will eventually start seeking treatment for it and it is in the early stages. But considering that in the last episode he called his daughter to confirm that a hit was done – and used Dutch's name doing so – there's going to be a point when he can't handle it.

Memory also gets to handle family in a way that The Sopranos really couldn't. In that drama there was no aspect of Tony's life at work or at home that wasn't touched by being part of the mafia.  In Memory Angelo has managed to keep his work life and his home life separate for decades. But now violence is starting to come to Angelo's suburban life and the FBI is clearly sniffing around him. (Hello Gina Torres!)

Memory of a Killer has already had a much stronger three episodes in its first season then many Fox dramas have had, arguably the best stretch since Accused debuted three years ago. It also has a much darker feel to it then network dramas have at the moment – or for that matter even when they were trying to emulate cable and streaming. That may be a problem down the road for the show but for now its refreshing and bold. Don't get me wrong: I still prefer the stories of Will Trent and Elsbeth but I like a little darkness now and then and so far Memory is providing it. I hope it lasts long enough – though I do know given the character's problems, there's a time limit as to how long it can go and still work.

My score: 4 stars.

Kaley Cuoco Goes Into Dark Territory And Helps Raise Vanished Above the Formulaic

 

The first six seasons it was on the air I religious watched The Big Bang Theory.  I always thought it received both a fair amount of recognition from the Emmys and never enough: while the show and particularly Jim Parsons' won a huge number of awards during its run the overwhelming majority of the cast – particularly the incredible comic actresses that gathered when the series started to reach its comic peak after Season 4 – never got the respect from the Emmys they should have. That was particularly true of Kaley Cuoco as Penny, who started out as the dumb blonde and ended up being the comic spark that helped make the show work for twelve seasons.

Unlike her gifted brethren Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch  who pursued traditional, if intriguing, network comedies in the aftermath of the show ending its run Cuoco chose a darker and more interesting path. Her first major role was in HBO Max's The Flight Attendant in which she played the title character, an alcoholic whose one night stand ends up with her being part of international espionage. Nominated for multiple Emmys in its first season it ended up being overshadowed by what was going to be an all time classic HBO Max series Hacks which ended up debuting that spring and deservedly sucked up all the oxygen.

After The Flight Attendant was cancelled after a lackluster second season Cuoco ended up moving to the even blacker dark comedy on Peacock's Based on A True Story. She and the equally gifted Chris Messina played an unemployed married couple with a baby on the way who in order to make money begin their own true crime podcast and start listening to a potential serial killer. The flip side of Only Murders in the Building, it got into even darker territory by the end of the first season with the characters becoming killers themselves. A critical hit, it was also canceled after two seasons.

Now Cuoco has abandoned even the pretense of comedy in her next TV venture Vanished a combination production between British television and MGM+ which in its relatively short time in original programming has a capacity for original productions that are still pretty original. To be sure Vanished is not close to their best work by far, even by the standards of their work with British Television. It doesn't have the dark feel of A Spy Among Friends or the everything but the kitchen sink mentality of Proud Heroes but as I've mentioned countless times before the British have this way of making things that should seem formulaic at the very least watchable and frequently riveting.

Like far too many series these days it opens in medias re watching a motorcyclist with a helmet drive down an autobahn in Europe. He takes a package and walks to a grubby building. We then cut to Cuoco with cuts on her face and frantically washing blood of her hands. When the cyclist knocks on her door she's clearly terrified and tries to delay him, pushing chairs and furniture against the door while she frantically gets to the nearest window and manages to pull it open just as whoever it is breaks the door down. By the time she's leaping onto the garbage bins and running down the street the viewers knows what's going to happen and sure enough we then cut to the title that says: "One Week Earlier."

Then we see Cuoco who we quickly learn is named Alice walking into a luxury hotel looking for a man in the lobby. We quickly learn (after some well-choreograph but not explicit sex) that this is her boyfriend Tom and that they've been seeing each other pretty much steadily for four years. Alice is an archaeologist Tom runs a charity. Alice has just been offered a tenured professorship in Princeton and she thinks it is well-past time they settle down and become serious. Tom sounds enthusiastic.

Almost from the start there are signs Tom is not who he appears to be; he's always engaging in conversations that force him to leave the room a few times. When he tells her that they've managed to score reservations at a luxury hotel in Arles she's more than enthusiastic to go. They get on a train that will take them there. Tom gets pulled away on a call and Alice falls asleep.

When she wakes up there's no sign of Tom. She searches the entire train from top to bottom and can't find him. She has a frustrating encounter with the conductor, in which only a discussion with a friendly passengers helps her from coming to blows. She then gets a phone call where Tom is on the caller ID but when she picks up all she hears is background noise she can't identify.

Naturally when she gets to a station and tries to talk to the police, the local gendarme is unhelpful, telling her that they have to wait 48 hours to file a missing persons report. It doesn't help Alice's credibility that when she searches Tom's luggage for his passport, she can't find it. The detective (Matthias Schweigert) tells her there are three reasons people vanish: "Money, legal problems, and relationships." When Alice says he doesn't know Tom, the detective asks: "Do you?"

Tom is very much a presence despite disappearing in the first twenty minutes of episode one: in large part because he is played by British heartthrob Sam Claflin and you don't cast someone like him in a TV show and have him absent after the first ten minutes. More seriously Vanished looks at the relationship between Tom and Alice as it began as we see that Alice is beginning to question if she ever did know Tom.

All of this is, as I say, formulaic but what sells is Cuoco. Still remarkably sexy as she passes forty Alice is the kind of role that she's been increasingly gravitating towards, a guileless innocent who is dragged into situations that quickly spiral. Unlike those series in Vanished Alice gets to play someone who is actually competent when we first meet her and doesn't need to be led around by the nose.

In the highpoint of the first episode (all I've seen so far) Alice ends up going back to the train station she thinks Tom might have left at. In a sequence with no dialogue we watch her retrace Tom's steps over train tracks (to the point when a train passes just by her we're as terrified as she is) trying to find some trace of him. When she finds a chewing gum wrapper that she knows is Tom's it's the kind of detective work none of her previous characters would have been capable of, even though we're aware it will come to nought in the first episode.

It helps matters immensely that by this point 'thrown in the deep end' is essentially Cuoco's brand. She was doing it even before she had her breakout role in The Big Bang Theory when she had a role playing a promising witch in the final season of Charmed. Cuoco's characters are usually women who seem at the surface level like they are out of their league but quickly prove that they have more going on beneath the surface than at first glance. Those who dismiss her, like the detective at the end of the first episode, do so at their own peril.

I'm not expected Vanished to be much more than a time filler during a February that doesn't have much on any of the major channels to offer me on a Sunday night. (I don't expect to have anything of interest until the most recent season of Dark Winds debuts in March.) But I never miss a chance to watch one of my favorite performers in anything they do and that has always been true of Cuoco. Watching her try to solve the mystery of her missing boyfriend is enough to get me through February and it may even be able to rise above the formula in four episodes. We'll have to see.

My score: 3.5 stars.

Emmy Watch 2026 Phase Two Part 1: My (Delayed) Reactions to the 2025 Image Nominations for TV

 

We've now unofficially begun Phase 2 of this year's Emmy Watch. With the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards in our rear view and only the SAG awards remaining, it's time to discuss some of the other major groups that give awards for television.

This year I will be expanding my scope slightly more as well as looking to see if other major awards groups even exist. For this article I'm finally going to get around to dealing with a group I started covering for my blog during the last few years: the NAACP Image Awards and their nominations for TV.

While it remains highly unlikely, to say the least, the Emmys will ever recognize series like Reasonable Doubt or The Upshaws for award recognition looking at the various acting and writing nominations for all three groups one can see possibilities for the year to come. And as is usually the case much of the time you wish the Emmys, in their less then infinite wisdom, would show some common sense and nominate some of these series and actors.

Anyway here we go and as always I start with drama.

 

OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES

One of these series was nominated for best drama by the Emmys last year and may well be again: Paradise.  Beyond the Gates is no doubt going to be in the hunt for Daytime Emmys down the road and Forever did get some recognition for various awards. The Emmys will never recognize Bel-Air or Reasonable Doubt.

 

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

Sterling K. Brown is here for Paradise and perhaps he'll even win. The Emmys really should nominate Forest Whitaker for Godfather of Harlem. I'm glad to see Morris Chestnut recognized for Watson. Michael Cooper is here for Forever and Jabari Banks is here for the last time for Bel-Air.

 

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

Yes the Emmys need to give Angela Bassett some love for her work in 9-1-1; they really do. Queen Latifah is here for the last time for The Equalizer. Lovie Simone, Patina Miller and Emayatzy Corinealdi have no realistic chance.

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES.

Okay I'm kind of shocked that no one from Severance here, considering Tramell Tillman did win the Emmy and the Critics Choice Award. Ato Essandoh has been nominated for the Critics Choice Award for his work in The Diplomat and it's not impossible he will be by the Emmys. Caleb McLaughin fills the gap for Stranger Things. Wood Harris has deserved an Emmy since The Wire but they're not going to nominate him for Forever, likewise no one from The Chi will get in and Adrian Holmes for Bel-Air.

 

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA

Karen Pittman is competing against herself: she's nominated for both Forever and The Morning Show. She's more likely to be nominated for the latter as is Nicole Beharie, both have been in previous years. I would love to see Audra McDonald nominated for The Gilded Age though its more likely Denee Benton will be. Aisha Hinds has no chance for 9-1-1

 

OUTSTANDING DIRECTING

Salli Richardson-Whitfield might very well get nominated for directing The Gilded Age or indeed some other award.  Its not clear what will happen with The Copenhagen Test. None of the other three series have much of a chance.

 

OUTSTANDING WRITING IN A DRAMA

This actually has some legs. The Lowdown does have some possibility for nominations so Walter Mosley could have a chance. The Pitt has had writing nominations in the chance and The Beast in Me is a contender for nominations in Best Limited Series. FBI and Law & Order have no realistic chance but its because the Emmys have turned their backs on network TV.

 

 Now Comedy.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES

Big surprise Abbott Elementary is here. Bigger surprise is the recognition for The Residence which got some Emmy recognition before it was canceled. Harlem has gotten some nominations for awards in the past and The Upshaws and Survival of the Thickest will not.

 

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

The Emmys absolutely should nominated David Alan Grier for St. Denis Medical. I've advocated for it numerous times. The Vince Staples Show was canceled. I'm not sure there's much love coming for the canceled Government Cheese and Cedric The Entertainer and Mike Epps have no realistic chance.

 

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY

This is the first category the Emmys either have or will follow: only Michelle Buteau for Survival of the Thickest has no chance. Uzo Abuda was nominated for The Residence last year and Ayo Edebiri, Maya Rudolph and Quinta Brunson are already regulars for their respective shows. Edebiri and Brunson are certainties and Maya Rudolph might buck the odds for Loot

 

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR FOR A COMEDY

Colman Domingo was nominated for The Four Seasons. Giancarlo Esposito should have been for The Residence. And I want to see Wendell Pierce nominated for Elsbeth and William Stanford Davis nominated for Abbott Elementary. The Daily Show doesn't fit the category.

 

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY

Janelle James may be the front runner for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy. Ego Nwodim left SNL before the season began so she's ineligible as is Edwina Finley for The Residence. The other two nominees have no realistic chance

 

OUTSTANDING DIRECTING IN A COMEDY

The Four Seasons, Government Cheese and Demascus are ineligible. Tyler James Williams might make it.

 

OUTSTANDING WRITING IN A COMEDY

All of the nominees are for shows that either ineligible this year or have already happened. That said Abbott Elementary and Hacks are likely to be in contention for writing.

 

OUTTSANDING TV MOVIE, MINI SERIES OR SPECIAL

Washington Black, Ironheart and G20 I've all heard of and they're ineligible. Ruth & Boaz and Straw have no chance.

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN TV MOVIE, LIMITED SERIES, SPECIAL

Bryan Tyree Henry has been nominated for multiple awards for Dope Thief. Idris Elba's best chance is for Hijack, not Heads of State. Taye Diggs and Giancarlo Esposito are great actors they don't have a chance.

 

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A TV MOVIE, MINI SERIES OR SPECIAL

All of these nominees are ineligible, which is a shame because Dominque Thorne in Ironheart was solid.

 

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR SPECIAL

Okay I wouldn't mind if Jay Ellis was nominated for his work in All Her Fault and having seen much of Dope Thief Ving Rhames more than deserved a nomination. Neither of the nominees for Straw have much of a chance.

 

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A TV MOVIE, LIMITED SERIES OR SPECIAL

Zero Day should have gotten more nominations across the board. No one else is likely

 

I'm actually going to look at some of the other categories.

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A YOUTH

Frankly I think this category should exist at the Emmys. And Amanda Christine and Blake Cameron James work in Welcome to Derry was superb as was Percy Daggs IV in Paradise.

Shows like Chief of War might contend for technical awards. The Emmys won't touch All's Fair with a ten-mile pole.

I'll be back at the end of the month to see if the winners give us any guidance.  Later this month I'll be dealing with a new face to Emmy watch: the Saturn's. And I should have following them even longer the Images honestly.

Why Everybody Has Read The Matrix Wrong, Part 1: Why The Matrix Was Neither Groundbreaking Nor Particularly Impressive If You Looked Below the Surface

 

Over the last twenty five years I've watched the Wachowski siblings The Matrix and the first two sequels countless times. I've made no secret of the fact that I feel that they completely frittered away the talent showed in their debut film Bound with films that are nothing but popcorn.

Now pedants would call me a snob because the opinion of pop culture and quite a few major critics is that The Matrix is one of the most revolutionary films ever made. I suspect that's simply because none of those people had any experience with so much of the movies of that era or the literature of that time.

In recent years we've seen an entire internet following of a kind of misogyny based on the so-called 'Red Pill' version of it and the Wachowskis have recent taken to arguing that the 'manosphere' has misinterpreted their vision. On that they have a point – but I'm pretty sure it's not one they want to be proud of.

By this point I've seen the film enough times – more than I comfortably want to – to have gathered quite a few impressions of it. And the truth is I'm pretty sure everybody from day one has been reading The Matrix wrong. So I will be discussed why so many people have misinterpreted it. First from the stand point of culture and genre.

Let's start with the fact that in the 1990s there were a lot of movies that were based on the idea of virtual reality. Some of them were just dumb action films like the bizarrely dumb Denzel Washington vehicle Virtuosity in which Washington played a cop tracked with hunting down Sid 6.7 (a movie Russell Crowe has to have regretted making for the last thirty years) a combinations of hundreds of serial killers. Far more inventive was the 1995 neo-noir masterpiece Strange Days in which Kathryn Bigelow showed us a picture of 1999 Lost Angeles were one is fed virtual fantasies as a kind of addiction. Bleak and extremely well-acted by Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Lewis and Angela Bassett this movie bombed at the box office but became a cult classic.

Most incredibly in 1998 came Alex Proyas' Dark City  a movie that Roger Ebert named the best film of the year ahead of Saving Private Ryan and would one day name one of the greatest films ever made. For sheer scope and imagination it remains one of the most dazzling films of all time and it's hard not to imagine filmmakers like Christopher Nolan being influenced years and decades later. The movie takes place in a distant galaxy on a planet controlled by The Strangers, a mythical alien race who 'mix and match the memories of our inhabitants like so much paint'. Rufus Sewell plays John Murdoch an amnesiac who thinks he is a serial killer and has vague memories of a distant time. William Hurt plays an inspector trying to solve a set of killings. Kiefer Sutherland plays Dr. Schreiber who has been forced to work with them.

There have been arguments as to whether the final cut is the true way to see this film. All I know is that I've seen it several times and in any version it is a masterpiece. I didn't see a film this visually stunning with a plot until I saw Inception in the theaters and the performances are superb all the way through, particularly Sutherland who has never played a character more physically and emotionally broken in his film repertoire before and rarely has since. It's radically daring, has a plot to match and is more horrifying in its ideas that anything else.

All of which is to say that by comparison there isn't anything close to that level of originality in The Matrix. The idea of people living in a virtual simulation was one that sci-fi writers such as William Gibson had been writing for years and in truth it wasn't that different plot-wise from so many stories in The Twilight Zone. Indeed Star Trek: The Next Generation did at least one story and shows from the 1990s The Outer Limits and Lois & Clark: The Adventures of Superman covered the same ground in an hour.  As Ebert noted there was nothing that remarkable about the virtual reality in The Matrix. "It's like real life, only more expensive."

Similarly the idea of being controlled by an AI was also a plot of numerous sci-fi novels and TV shows over the years. The only difference between the Machines in the Matrix and HAL or The Quartermass Experiment was better effects. From the idea of using technology as a plot point Strange  Days  is infinitely superior.

I think part of the reason The Matrix seems like its about more than it is has to do with the fact that they cast Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus. Fishburne's presence is much like Alec Guiness in Star Wars: his voice and delivery lends gravitas to dialogue that really doesn't say that much at the end of the day. I'll grant you the screenplay is better than Lucas's but that's saying very little.  In his review of Reloaded Ebert compared it to Laurence Olivier giving a speech at the Oscars in 1978. Jon Voight was wowed by it at the time but when it was over it was clear it was just drivel.

That's a pretty fair comparison to so much of the dialogue Fishburne delivers throughout the trilogy and you could extend to so many of the other actors and actresses such as Gloria Foster and Mary Alice as The Oracle when they talk about Neo's mission and him being the One. Does what they say mean anything? Not really. Does it sound like its important? Absolutely and you understand why Keanu Reeves only questions himself after he's left their presence. I wouldn't want to argue with them either even if I knew they weren't making any sense.

Now before I go any further I don't hate the first Matrix film. I think its immensely overrated and I'm depressed that the Wachowskis chose to go from Bound to a movie that is just a fancier and more elaborate version of 1992's The Lawnmower Man in terms of basic plot idea. For what it is The Matrix is a very good film. It is a technological masterpiece that deserved the Oscars it won, the action sequences are incredibly good and many of the moments do haunt me, such as how Cypher reveals his betrayal of Morpheus and then kills Apac and Switch while they are powerless to do anything. (I really wish there had been a way to bring Joe Pantiliano back for the sequels.). I think Carrie-Ann Moss is by far the best thing of the entire trilogy as Trinity and I'm sorry that career never took off the way it should have. And if it The Matrix had just ended after the first film I probably would have been willing to let it go. Its in the sequels that the larger problem becomes clear – and no its not just the plot becomes harder to comprehend.

It's that at the end of the day there are no good guys when it comes to the final two movies. Let me explain.

Morpheus tells Neo when he's finally able to see and move what the Matrix is. I think its been lost over all the brilliant kung fu and Keanu Reeves flying and agents and famous actors saying deep sounding things in some of the most purple prose that anyone except Chris Carter has written what it actually is. The thing is Morpheus tells us that its there to turn a human being into a Duracell Battery.

We're told and shown 'the endless fields where humans are no long born…we are grown…where they liquify to dead to feed the living." Interestingly outside of the simulation we never go to one of those fields and I don't think that's a coincidence.

Now every sci-fi film or TV show I've seen before as well the majority that have happen since that deal with the subjugation of Earth by some force, whether it is an alien race or intelligent machines, involves some form of resistance to overthrow it and the purpose of the lead character is to help the resistance do so. In fact Dark City itself does exactly that and there are clear parallels between Murdoch and Schreiber's relationship and Neo and Morpheus.

Schreiber knows that Murdoch is different from the others and once Murdoch finds Schreiber tells him in great detail who the Strangers are and who Murdoch has been in relation to the planet. He reveals in great detail that there is 'nothing beyond the City'. He then helps John realize his true potential and find away to defeat the Strangers in a climatic battle. And in the aftermath Murdoch rebuilds the planet into something close to Earth.

Morpheus, like Schreiber is present to reveal Neo's potential the change the world, in this case to shape the Matrix. And the ending of the first film seems to imply that 'The One' is now going to help liberate humanity from the rule of the Machines and the Matrix. Except…that is not the point of Reloaded and Revolutions. (I have yet to see Resurrections but since the basic premise is that basically nothing has changed since the third film I'm going to leave it out.)

Now I've watched both films multiple times over the years and while the basic plot remains hard to follow under all of the portentous monologues that interrupts the action sequences the main purpose seems to be to end the war between the Machines and Zion.  The Machines wants to kill everyone in Zion and that is because Morpheus, Neo and the rest of those in the various ships are…

…liberating a handful of people. I'm not sure of the exact number but its somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000. We never hear of any raids on the fields, any attempts to destroy the Machines or to dissolve the Matrix itself which in case you've forgotten is the main source of the Machines power. Without them they'd theoretically be gone.

Now no matter how many times I watch these films I only see three sets of combatants: the people of Zion, the Machines and Agent Smith who seems to represent a threat to all of them. The Wachowskis never seem intent on explaining how this happened, apparently being more interested in seeing Keanu Reeves fight hundreds of Hugo Weavings. They never really explain how Smith manages to be both in the Matrix and one of the survivors at the same time even though they have two whole movies to do so.

Now I've never been able to understand who the climax plays out and how Neo manages to defeat all of the hundreds of thousands of Smiths by letting himself be sacrificed to one. I know there are countless websites that will explain this point to me but that's not the point of this article. What I do know is that in the denouement the Architect and the Oracle have a conversation and The Oracle says:

"What about the others? The ones who want out?"

The Architect says: "Obviously they will be set free."

Now I grant you I may have missed the point through the jubilation of the War being ended, the fact that Neo somehow is dead but might come back and the presence of a rainbow. But it sounds to me that all that these two movies have been about is not some kind of liberation of mankind or defeating the Machines but essentially some kind of Cold War where the Machines agree to leave Zion alone and Zion agrees to let the Machines keep growing humans and feeding them with the dead as long as you allow those who want to leave to join our community.

And of course the Matrix will be allowed to continue to exist and countless millions will be kept as unknowing slaves while occasionally people of Zion come in to do martial arts and give long speeches. (Again Resurrection would seem to argue that was the case.)

Now I have no use for Star Wars  even Episodes 4-6 but at least when Jedi ended everyone in the galaxy had been liberated from the rule of The Empire. They weren't celebrating because they reached détente with Palpatine and he'd agreed to let them keep a handful of planets. But that is the victory that Revolutions is supposed to give us as the cause for all the people we've seen die horribly in the last two movies. This is what Trinity died for? This is what Neo died for? (Yes I know there both alive in the next film but there was a fifteen year gap. The viewer could be forgiven for thinking that.)

Neo himself seems willing to acknowledge that this was never the point of what he was doing. When the Architect tells him that his failure to comply will lead to a systemic failure which causes the Matrix to shut down, Neo says calmly: "You won't do that. You need humans to survive." The Architect says just as calmly: "There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept." And need I remind you that a few minutes later he is willing to let the entire species die to save Trinity.  Some white savior he is.

The fact that in three films the Wachowskis weren't willing to do what Alex Proyas was more than willing to do in one is not the main reason I have so many problems with the first three Matrix films but let's not pretend it’s not a big one.  We've followed Neo's journey for three films, six and a half hours, endless fights, lots of special effects and dialogue that makes the kind of things George Lucas wrote over the years seems like Noel Coward. And what's the end result? The majority of humanity – 99 percent of it, according to the film's own plot  – is still exactly where it was when Morpheus started searching for him! Mr. Anderson might have well taken the blue pill for all the good he did for everyone he was working in his software company during this period.

All of the trilogies I've seen like this (Lord of the Rings and Nolan's Dark Knight Series) try to either build their movies to a climax with the heroes journey.  The various Phases of the MCU have a similar dynamic (I haven't seen them but that's what I've observed). Action film franchises like Fast & Furious have a single story at the center, those movies based off books have an endgame in mind and for all their flaws each set of trilogies in Star Wars had a goal at the end.  The first three Matrix films are the only franchise I've seen in nearly thirty years of viewing film where, for all of the action and special effects, you could make a convincing argument that the status quo is the same from before the films began.  And considering that Resurrections seemed to reverse everything that ended that trilogy there's an argument that even what happened in Zion and with the Machines was pushed back to zero as well.

I'm not saying this as an elitist who has problems with blockbuster films: for all the formulaic aspects to the overwhelming majority they have the benefit of having a beginning, middle and end, even when they take multiple films to get there.  The Matrix films almost by themselves don't seem willing to get that far. And considering that the second two films are ostensibly all about the war between the Machines and Zion, it's telling the Wachowskis spent so much of the second film as well as the third in The Matrix where theoretically the major conflict isn't happening.  At a certain level I get it – this is more fun that watching the somewhat cliched post-apocalyptic world that is the aftermath – but it undercuts the argument that these films are about anything deeper than getting to see Keanu Reeves fly through the air. The threat of the apocalypse is, as Smith himself, almost as artificial as the Matrix itself.

So that's why I believe that the place the original film as well as the franchise has been another one of those pop culture stand-outs where millions have seized on it even though there's no there there. In the second part I'm going to deal with why there very well might political interpretation of it that is elitist and bigoted – and it's not the one the right has misconstrued it as for its own gain.