Activists Make Horrible Elected Officials. Justin Pearson Is About To Learn That Lesson (Though He'll Never Admit It)

 

In 21^st century America with electoral politics almost always dysfunctional and a media that has always rewarded spectacle over substance activism has taken center stage as never before – and more and more the people at the center have completely and total misread how it's supposed to work.

Activism is all about the immediate: drawing attention to a problem in as attention gathering away as possible to raise awareness. Whether or not it actually makes things better for the cause at the center of it is almost never the point: it is about the rage that the young feel about the unfairness of the world.  And in a world increasingly lived on social media these activists translate the number of cameras at events or the crowd sizes or the number of followers on the internet as a sign that the world is on their side.

But in the 21^st century none of the social movements have led to any changes in policy which are the only way to resolve these issues. From the marches against the War on Terror and the War in Iraq, Occupy Wall Street, the marches against policing in across the country, whether Defund the Police or Black Lives Matter or all of the protest movements done regarding anything that Trump or the Republicans have done, these movements have objectively changed nothing for the American people, let alone globally. Because the media only cares about the story at the moment and because social media focuses on the bubble, these elementary facts are essentially ignored by all involved. 

The only way to bring about lasting change is through electoral politics. And here is the fundamental divide: while activism is popular among the left-wing of the Democratic Party at a national level, it rarely brings about electoral success for those involved. This is particularly true for those who try to serve in deep red states where the cause of conservatism is fertile for attention by the national media but almost never leads to political success. Wendy Davis drew much attention for her filibuster in the Texas Statehouse against limited abortion rights in 2013 (a speech that only delayed the vote until a later session) but when she ran for Governor against Greg Abbott she lost by nearly twenty points.

It's true that some activists have in recent years managed some electoral success as members of the Justice Democrats but it happens infrequently even there. Cori Bush needed two tries to win the Democratic Primary in Missouri and while she managed to serve two terms by her second term she'd become such a controversial figure on so many issues that the party actually primaried her in 2024 – and she was defeated. She was unbowed by that defeat and made it very clear she learned nothing from it – and she's currently trying to win her seat back this year.

For all the increasing numbers of the Justice Democrats victories this past election cycle its worth remembering that for all their efforts they've only managed to win in deep blue districts in Democratic states. They've yet to flip a district from red to blue in five cycles. And that brings me to Justin Pearson, their candidate for the Tennessee 9^th.

Pearson was born in 1995 in Memphis. Even as a child he was an activist in the student government. In 2020 he co-founded the environmental advocacy group Memphis Community Against pollution. A campaign to stop the Byhalia Pipeline from being built in Memphis he was joined by Justin Timberlake and Al Gore in successfully stopping the pipeline. In January of 2023 he won a special election to the Tennessee House of Representatives. At 28 he was the third youngest lawmaker serving into that body. It should be noted he was running unopposed in that district.

Not long after Tyre Nichols was killed by the Memphis police during a traffic stop. Pearson stated that he intended to introduce a bill to prevent police officers with criminal records from transferring across departments. He said he would serve on the Criminal Justice Committee in the chamber – a big claim in a body that had a supermajority of Republicans.  While being sworn in he wore a dashiki.  House Republican David B. Hawk commented on dress norms for the House, saying a tie was expected. This should have been a sign that Pearson was more interested in being an activist then a politician.

After the Covenant School shooting in Nashville Pearson joined a March 30 protest for gun control reform at the state capitol alongside Gloria Johnson and Justin Jones who would soon become known as the 'Tennessee 3'. Not long after there was a vote to expel all three members and Pearson and Jones were. Johnson was spared by one vote.

Regardless of what one things of the Tennessee lawmaker's actions or the movement to expel them Pearson's comparison of his removal from the chamber to the crucifixion of Christ is the kind of hyperbole one is far more used to POTUS whenever he claims something is 'the worst thing that ever happened to him'. By contrast this was the best thing that could have happened to Pearson: immediately afterwards Vice President Harris voted them in Memphis and President Biden personally called them.

Pearson was unanimously voted back by the commissioners and went on to win the general election. He was reelected in 2024, against an independent not a Republican. Pearson in March of 2025 presented a bill to repeal Tennessee's permitless carry policy. Again the heavily Republican Body this was going to be a non-starter. Pearson has also referred to ICE as a 'domestic terrorist organization' and a 'tool of white supremacy'.

In four years Pearson had introduced several bills of legislation in the house including increasing minimum wage for state employees, restoring voting rights of convicted felons and increasing healthcare coverage for individuals below the federal poverty level. None of them even got close to out of committee. (He is on several committees, none of which is criminal justice.) None of that stopped Pearson's star from personally rising and his speaking at the DNC on August 20^th, which did nothing to help Tennessee from going to Trump.

To be a good representative in the past one must work with one's colleagues and compromise in order to get things done. The ideal elected official has a utilitarian philosophy, believing in doing the most good for most people. Activists reject this approach in favor of raising awareness to the cause – and just as often, themselves. In Pearson's short term he has favored a confrontational approach which would always be problematic even if the Tennessee statehouse did not have a Republican supermajority. In short he was one of the Justice Democrats ideal choices to run for elected office.

In October of 2025 Pearson announced that he was going to campaign for the Tennessee 9^th districts with the full support of the Justice Democrats and Leaders We Deserve. This committee was headed by David Hogg who'd been fired as Vice Chair from the DNC for refusing to sign a pledge to stop primarying incumbent Democrats. A poll taken in February of 2026 showed him and the incumbent Steve Cohen in a virtual tie.

Then on April 29^th Senator Marsha Blackburn posted her support of redistricting Tennessee's congressional map, following the Supreme Court decision that partially overturned Section 2 of the voting rights act. Two days later Governor Bill Lee signed a proclamation that called for a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly to review the state's Congressional maps. In two days the new map was approved. One of the key decisions was to turn Cohen's district from D+ 23 to R+11. Immediately afterwards Cohen withdrew his candidacy.

In a future article I will be writing about the Voting Rights Act and the recent Supreme Court decisions that have followed. What I want to deal with here was how Pearson dealt with it. Understandably he was angry about it and gave the usual buzzwords about what a blow this was to democracy and race relations. In Pearson's case, perhaps more than any other elected official in America, his anger had to contain a very specific self-interest. Because rather than being guaranteed a seat in Congress like so many of his colleagues who had already won their primaries and the one that followed Pearson now has to do something that no Justice Democrats has ever done: flip a red district blue.

In previous articles I've written about how for all the publicity about the Justice Democrat and the Squad representing the progressive fighters of America they have been very selective about where they pick their battles in the last two elections. Because every time they try to run in a district that is anything other than deep blue, they lose and usually lose badly. The same year that Pearson was first elected to the statehouse Odessa Kelly was running under the Justice Democrat label in the 7^th district. She only received 38 percent of the vote.

That doesn't bode well for Pearson who to this point has never had to run against a Republican in his entire, albeit brief career. And considering that's he running in a state that Trump carried with 64 percent of the vote two years ago and where  only three counties went for Harris at all; to say this is an uphill battle is an understatement. 

Justice Democrats utterly stink at general elections, mainly because they almost never make it there in the first place and when they do they're in such familiar territory that they don't have to worry about the Republicans. All of the things that would have been an asset to Pearson in a Democratic primary are going to be a liability in the general in a way they just aren't  for Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez.  And that's before you consider that everything in Pearson's behavior has been designed entirely to inflame Republican voters, who he's now going to have to convince that he's on their side – something he's never done in four years in politics.

Pearson, without intending to, has become the litmus test for all of the Justice Democrats in a way that none of the others who've won this year can be. Pearson may not be as radical as some of the more recent members of this party but his positions are so much more out of the mainstream then the voters of his state that his election is now more significant than those who are. A victory here would be more impressive and groundbreaking that even Chevalier's primary win because it would argue that the message of the progressive can cross ideological boundaries – something that so many progressives have claimed for decades before this despite no electoral evidence to the contrary.

However if he loses – and more likely how large the margin of defeat is for Pearson  – it will confirm to Democratic leadership in a very conclusive way that the message of the Squad and their colleagues does in fact have limits beyond the deep blue circles of progressives.  This combined with how many swing districts end up going Democratic this November – which as I've written involve many states where the left has scored victories – will give the clearest argument yet that a centrist path forward is possible for the Party and will likely buttress any argument going forward in future elections.

For a man who has spent his life being a proud activist one would think Pearson would be up to this fight and there is a part of me that wants him to succeed. The realist in me, however, thinks that Pearson will meet the fate of so many of his colleagues who've tried this way before and lost badly  - and like so many of them, will only take away the message that they're on the right side of history and the rest of the world is wrong.

 

My Predictions (And Hopes) For the 2026 Emmy Nominations, Week 3, Part 3: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series/TV Movie

 

First things first. In my last choice I am going to break my rule and advocate for a performance in a TV movie. That said for the five nominees I'm going to pitch here all of them are from Limited Series – though in one case, I'm going off book as to proper choice.

Here we go.

 

Olivia Cooke, The Girlfriend

The Girlfriend got some buzz at the end of 2025 with the series and Robin Wright getting a fair amount of nominations. It got some recognition from the Astras but I remain pessimistic it will be recognized. Which is a shame because having seen the series last February         I found it superb.

In a perfect world there would be room for both female leads: Olivia Cooke and Robin Wright both deserve nominations. So I'm going to advocate for the one I think deserves it and that's Cooke in the title role. I really thought Cooke's work as Cherry Laine, the working class woman who manages to land David as a boyfriend was the master class that carried this piece, despite the brilliance of Wright's possessive mother. We knew that Cherry was a liar and we saw her do incredibly horrible things but we also knew that Wright's character was too possessive of her son to the point that no woman would be good enough for her. When David was in an accident that seemed certain to kill him – and Laura told Cherry that he was dead – it was a betrayal so horrendous that it seemed impossible to forgive and it was. However by the finale it was clear just how devilishly matched these two women were – and when the tragedy was over you had every reason to think twice.

Cooke has been a major figure on TV ever since she shot to prominence on Bates Motel; her frail appearance showing women with incredible toughness beneath. As I write this the third season of House of The Dragon has debuted to incredible raves and considering how vital Cooke is to that story in a very different way I wonder if that might shoot her back into consideration. This would be one performer from Westeros I wouldn't mind getting an Emmy nomination.

 

Claire Danes, The Beast in Me

 I long since stopped being astonished by anything Claire Danes was capable of after nearly three decades in TV and two Emmys for her work as Carrie Matheson in Homeland. But just as Matthew Rhys found ways to still surprise me as Nile Jarvis Danes' work as Aggie Wiggs was just as impressive.

Danes has made a career of playing women who appear strong on the outside and professional but who are utterly broken on the inside. Here Aggie is something different: a woman who has been fundamentally broken for years because of the tragic death of her son, her marriage in a shambles, suffering from writer's block for her second book, living in a house in Long Island that is falling apart. When next door moves the literal neighbor from hell, demanding a jogging path and not taking no for an answer, Aggie finds herself opening up to him and when it seems a young man maybe dead she's terrified by what she might have caused. Then she finds herself getting deeper into Nile's orbit, fully aware of who he is, increasingly terrified by what he represents but increasingly pot committed to finding out the truth about what he is. When it is revealed the truth is something that not only doesn't always set you free but is best never revealed at all.

Danes got even more recognition then Rhys did, nominated for every award in the book at the end of the year and even more in the last month. In a wide open race she may earn yet another Emmy and while there may be more deserving nominees I can't wait to see what happens next.

 

Carey Mulligan, Beef

Ever since she made her debut to American audiences in An Education Carey Mulligan has a long history of playing characters who are broken internally even if they seem strong in their actions. You can understand why it made perfect sense to cast her in Beef even before it was revealed it would be a reunion with her co-star from Inside Llewyn Davis.

As Lindsay Mulligan plays a wealthy expatriate who's spent much of her marriage holding up her husbands dreams. They haven't had sex in over a year at the start of the series, she spends most of her time following her former boyfriend's socials without being able to follow through, she has no confidence that they will hold their job when the country club is taken over. So in a sense the fights that starts everything in Season 2 is technically her fault even though there are a lot of long-standing issues. She pushes for Josh to cover it up, when things spiral she's less supportive at first, then they seem to find a way to heal from it, and then everything goes from there before things end with them being held prisoner at a spa in South Korea. (As one is in these series.) By the end of the season she's managed to find a way forward – but there's a very good chance that she'll be back where she was in a few years' time.

Mulligan has been nominated for more than  a few awards and she even has a fair amount of trophies for her work in Promising Young Woman. Deservedly she'll be walking the red carpets during the next few months  yet again.

 

Laura Pidgeon, American Love Story

In many ways Laura Pidgeon had a far more difficult role to take on then Paul Anthony Kelly. JFK Jr was a public figure but Carolyn Bessette was known only as the woman who'd won the heir to Camelot and then basically disappeared. Her life was eaten by her husband's despite everything, and that's sadly true about her death.

So it might be surprising that in this version Carolyn comes across as the far more dimensional and realized character even more than JFK Jr. Pidgeon makes it very clear that Carolyn was her own woman, a silent force at Calvin Klein, a woman who was independent and had no early desire to be in the hands of America's tragic family, who resisted John Jr despite his entreaties – and then finally fell in love. Its clear their relationship was combative and that she resisted the idea of being part of this family. Their wedding day was happy – and from the moment the honeymoon ended she became a prisoner in her own home, a monster in the eyes of the media. In the penultimate episode we see two scenes of fights between the two of them, a Carolyn who is horrified by what happened to Princess Di among the most tragic moments. "They killed her," she says. "We're next." And we see them trying to rebuild their marriage before the inevitable tragedy claims their lives leaving a wreckage behind that, sadly, only a few truly know then or now.

Pidgeon is destined for superstardom for her incredible work as Bessette in one of the most erotically charged and sexually confident performances I've seen in years. I'm expecting great things from her and I think she has a bright future.

 

Sarah Snook, All Her Fault

Snook is the only performer in this category with a prize on her mantle for her work: she deservedly received Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series from the Critics Choice Awards this past January. To be sure it was the third prize she'd won from them in five years (she won for the last two seasons of Succession) but though she was stunned I wasn't. Her work as Marissa Irvine was one of the great triumphs of 2025.

Marissa finds herself at the center of a nightmare when she finds out her five year old son Milo has been abducted and the nanny of a woman she sent him to a playdate with was the one responsible. The abduction leads to a nightmare that reveals the fundamental cracks in her marriage and a series of events that reveals the rot at her relationship with Peter. This becomes even worse when Milo ends up being returned to her and the consequences have already spiraled. By the final episodes multiple people have died but even that is not the greatest tragedy of all and it forces Marissa to do something unthinkable in order to protect her family – something that the viewer sympathizes with despite everything.

Snook would appear to be the prohibitive frontrunner in this category though her one prize was a long time ago. As someone who had issues with her work in Succession I fully endorse if she ends up being the ultimate winner.

 

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Allison Janney, Miss You, Love You

I rarely push for nominees for their work in TV movies but when the performance is great enough I can make an exception. And that is the case for Janney's work in what will be one of the frontrunners for Best TV Movie this year Miss You, Love You.

Allison Janney plays Diane, a widow who is planning her husband's funeral. Her estranged son chooses to send his assistant instead of coming himself, forcing her to grieve with his assistant. What follows is essentially a stage play with very few characters showing up and Janney and Andrew Rannels carrying much of the action.

Janney has always been greatest when it comes to turning what should be tragedy into farce (she was superb in her last HBO TV movie Bad Education) and Jim Rash, the Oscar winning screenwriter behind The Descendants knows just how the handle how grief often leads to comedy. In addition to all of this with Janney near certain for a nomination for The Diplomat and a dark horse for Palm Royale – well I'd love to see a woman whose already made Emmy history keep making it.

 

Tomorrow I deal with Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series. And this time it will be strictly Limited Series.

For Adam Remsen on Jeopardy 13 Was Not a Lucky Number

 

 

If Adam Remsen wanted to finish June as Jeopardy champion he would have to win his thirteenth game. That is not a difficult number to pass – as we've seen in Season 42 along two super-champions were able to reach it and go further – but in addition to skill, he would need the luck of the draw. And on June 30^th he drew Mandy Moreno and Richard Nguyen.

Early in the Jeopardy round Adam got off to his usual strong start. But after the commercial break Richard found the Daily Double in TABLE SCRAPS. With $3400 to Adam's $5600 he bet $3000:

The Vicious Circle was another name for this celebrated group that first met for lunch in 1919.

Richard knew it was the Algonquin Round Table and took the lead from Adam. Adam would get it back before the round ended but it was much closer than it had been for a while. Adam had $7800 to Richard's $7000 while Mandy had $1800.

In Double Jeopardy Adam struck first finding the first Daily Double in SPECIAL EFFECTS. At $11,000 to Richard's $8800 he bet $5000:

The effect of this effect is that patients sometimes get better even when treated with inactive substances for fake procedures.

Adam immediately knew it was the placebo effect and went up to $16,000.

But Richard didn't back down. He went on a run of his own and by the time he found the other Daily Double he was in the lead with $17,000. He also bet $5000 in DIARIES & JOURNALS. Unfortunately it didn't go as well for him as it did for Adam:

His journal entry for November 5, 1922 includes his telegram to Lord Carnarvon: "At last have made wonderful discovery in the valley."

Richard's response was: "Who is Stanley?" In fact it was Howard Carter who had just discovered the tomb of King Tut. Richard dropped to $12,000 and second place.

But it was far from over. At the end of the round Adam was still in the lead with $20,800 to Richard's $14,000 while Mandy was still in contention with $5000. Unlike eight of Adam's twelve previous wins, it was not a runaway going into Final Jeopardy.

The category was 20^th CENTURY NOVELS. David Ben-Gurion called this 1958 book 'as a piece of propaganda…the greatest thing ever written about Israel.'

Mandy's response was revealed first and she couldn't come up with anything. However it cost her nothing and she was still at $5000.

Next came Richard. He wrote down: "What is Exodus?" That was correct: Leon Uris's novel about the founding of Israel. He bet $6401, giving him $20,801 and putting him in the lead by one dollar over Adam.

It was all on Adam. For six consecutive days he gotten Final Jeopardy correct. His response was: "What is Fiddler on the Roof?"  (In fairness he has a theater background and the musical is from around this period.) It cost him $8001 and Richard Nguyen would enter July as Jeopardy champion.

Adam Remsen finished with $306,415 which in a player's original appearance ranks 17^th all-time behind Adriana Harmeyer and Season 42's previous super-champion Harrison Whitaker. That is an impressive figure by any standard and far more than Ryan Long won in 16 games. Of course it's also less than Austin Rogers did when he won 12.It's also more money than Adriana Harmeyer had after 13 games and about the same as Scott Riccardi after 12 – and for that matter only $8000 less than Jamie Ding had after 12.

When all's said and done I think Adam was closer to the kind of super-champion that Scott and Adriana were and less so then not just Jamie and Austin but also Ray LaLonde and Matt Jackson, both of whom won 13 games apiece but considerably more money.  That's understandable considering that eight of Adam's runaways were close matches and he didn't get Final Jeopardy correct of four of them and in the four games he did win there wasn't a lot of room to wager big. His biggest payday was $50,000 on Friday which was also the same kind of payday Harrison Whitaker during his run.

With Adam's 12^th win he is at the moment guaranteed a bye into the semi-finals along with Jamie Ding and Harrison Whitaker. Of course just last month the same could have been said for Tristan Williams and there's still nearly three weeks left in the season. And for those of you who have good memories, it was around this same time last year Scott Riccardi began his run.  A lot can happen in three weeks and a lot has happened in Season 42 already.

So with that in mind here is the updated roster for the 2027 Tournament of Champions so far. Starting from the top with the players who have locked down their spots:

 

Harrison Whitaker, 14 wins, $373,999

Will Riley, 4 wins, $77,403

James Denison, 4 wins, $99,400

Jamie Ding, 31 wins, $882,505

Tristan Williams, 10 wins, $221,902

Chris D'Angelo, 8 wins, $194,201

Peter McFerrin, 6 wins, $147,399

Adam Remsen, 12 wins, $306,415

Mina Kimes, Celebrity Jeopardy All-Stars Winner

 

And here are the three 3-game winners who, while they have not officially locked down their spots, if the rules of the last few years apply are certain to be included:

Ron LaLonde: $52,501

James Hirsh: $67,418

Greg Shahade: $74,602

Greg will be there, of course, because he defeated Jamie Ding. Considering that Tristan has now been forced to compete in the quarterfinals there's a good chance that he might want to face off against Chris D'Angelo, there are a lot of great narratives for the 2027 Tournament of Champions along with a lot of great stories.

The one drawback where we've either had a champion with an incredible run or this succession of champions we've had is that so far we haven't had a lot of potential candidates for Champions Wild Card yet. (I'll get to them at my end of year wrap-up.) There have been very few two game winners. On the  other hand we've got a lot of great choices for the Second Chance Tournament starting with Mandy from this game.

The field for the 2027 Tournament of Champions just keeps getting stronger and Season 42 isn't even over yet. Keep watching these pages to see if anyone new arises. I certainly will be watching Jeopardy with breathless anticipation.

 

 

 

 

 

My Predictions (And Hopes) For the 2026 Emmy Nominations, Week 3, Part 2: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series (TV Movie)

 

For the first time in at least five years there's no clear frontrunner in this category.  And I'm excluding Charlie Hunnam for Ed Gein in large part because the reception for the third season of Monster  was mixed at best and while Hunnam was nominated for many Best Actor awards at the end of last year in the last few months the buzz has died down. Neither the Astras nor the Dorians nominated him. So while he make sneak in I'm not prepared to go that far. And while this does involve TV Movies, like in every other category below I'm not going to include it. It's not that like the Emmys will either (but you never know)

Here are the five men I've chosen.

 

Jamie Bell, Half Man

It was a certainty that Jamie Bell was going to be nominated for Half Man, the only question was in which category. Once that was sorted out Bell almost immediately shot to the top of the charts. With good reason: his word as the adult Niall Kennedy is one of the most riveting performances so far this year.

We first meet Niall on his wedding day, terrified that Reuben is going to show up for reasons we have no idea why at the start and don't become clear until the series reaches its second half. We're led to believe that Niall has finally found happiness and has acknowledges his truth self. It's not until we meet him as an adult that we realize just how much denial and misery he's gone through. Niall believed he was a man with potential to break out of his working class background and in fact he had no abilities as a writer. He was so ashamed of his homosexuality he spent his life sleeping with male prostitutes in the shadows to the point he was even blackmailed. Then he ended up getting married in a relationship everyone seemed to know was a beard but he seemed more angry at just how good Rueben's life was after prison. And so in the penultimate episode we watched as Niall destroyed everything good in Reuben's life – much of it after he learned how badly he'd failed. Then he managed his one success as a novelist – only to find that yet again he was a secondary character. Then we saw him engage in hidden sex parties at a bathhouse which led to a disaster involving both the death of Reuben's mother and misery at her funeral. And then he revealed that his greatest secret was just how much he had done to bring unhappiness to his life – and one last time his self-destructive nature emerged.

All of this is done with majesty by Bell, who gives his entire performance as someone who has so much self-loathing he spends his entire life afraid to face who he is and seems more determined to be the architect of his own misery then try to be true to himself. His fate is tragic at the end of series but in a way it's also inevitable. For an actor who has been a force of nature since he debut in Billy Elliot this is arguably one of the best performances he's ever given.

 

Paul Anthony Kelly, Love Story

How do you step into the role of a man who was considered the heir to Camelot? You engage in one of the most in-depth casting calls before reaching for a relative unknown. This was one of the biggest risks of Love Story but in the case of Paul Anthony Kelly as JFK, Jr it absolutely paid off.

Kelly shows us the man behind the magazine covers to show a man who bore the weight of his father's name his entire life and seemed to bear the paparazzi that came with it. We see a man who is terribly insecure, who seems to bear the burdens of his mother and his sister and finally finds his soulmate in a woman who spends the first third of the series ignoring his advances. When on their first date Carolyn asks him: "When did you first know you were a son of a President?" you can tell he's never been asked the question before and that earnestness follows him.

In Kelly's portrayal we see a man who is struggling through life, trying to figure out what he wants to do with it – a burden most of us deal with but has extra weight for a man named after JFK. Much of the series shows Kelly failing and blundering every step of the way professionally and with his family. The only place he seems to succeed is with Carolyn and as we see in the final third, he seems to be blundering that. And he can never forget who he is: in a stunning scene we see Caroline reacted after Princess Di's murder and Kelly makes it clear he can't deal with it – it brings back a trauma his family seems unable to escape, one that will eventually come for him. The series never lets us forget how this love story ends; it's a tribute to Kelly that we spend the series hoping against hope things will work out different.

This series lived and died on its two leads and Kelly was up to the task.

 

Oscar Isaac, Beef

How has Oscar Isaac gotten this far in his career and somehow never gotten any major awards? I'm still royally pissed that his most notable prestige TV projects Scenes from a Marriage only got one Emmy nomination – for Isaac – and as a result he had no chance of winning in a stacked field. Isaac has been one of the greatest actresses in the 21^st century and now reunited with his co-star from Inside Llewyn Davis (we'll deal with her below) he is at the center of the highly anticipated second season of Beef.

Isaac is such a big, awkward looking man that his appearance frequently disguises just how broken most of the characters he plays are. He uses this to his advantage as Josh, the head of a country club that is about to be taken over and that he and his wife are holding on to for jobs in a desperate need for status. Their marriage has been struggling for a while and when they are caught on an iPhone Josh tries to use his position to talk Ally, the employee who filmed it down in a way that can only come across as frightening even though its just his desperation showing. And it backfires spectacularly, leaving him forced to give an incredibly unqualified woman a job she has no ability to handle. This leads him to believe he can manipulate her into a situation to give him and his wife financial security for life as well as a fresh start. Because this is Beef is backfires spectacularly and Josh ends up doing things and going place we absolutely know he's not prepared for.

Isaac is long overdue recognition from any awards show – Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys – for more than fifteen years of incredible performances as one of our most undervalued actors. He's going to get nominated this year. That's a start.

 

Matthew Rhys, The Beast In Me

It was a given that Matthew Rhys was going to be attending the Emmys this year as a nominee along with his wife Keri Russell. The question is now how many nominations he'll be getting. His odds for being nominated for Best Actor in a Comedy for Widow's Bay are going through the roof but if that doesn't work he's definitely going to be there for his incredible work as Nile Jarvis.

I'd long since thought I was incapable of being surprised by Rhys as an actor but yet again he did so as a man who is suspected of murdering his wife even though no one could touch him, who oozes threat and danger in everything he does (and he's more than capable of it in the present), a man who makes you uncomfortable when he's eating chicken. And Rhys portrays Jarvis by someone who likes being a dick, who thinks he's the smartest person in the room, who likes making Aggie uncomfortable every time they're together, who likes outsmarting her. Even when we think we know what he's capable of, he finds a way to rise below it and even when we know the truth about him, we're not just convinced it's another lie.

Rhys has already been nominated for nearly every award in the book for his work in The Beast in Me so a nomination is nearly inevitable. The question is how many nominations he'll get and how many awards he wins? Because I'm pretty sure he will. You don't want to piss him off by having him lose.

 

Michael Shannon, Death by Lightning

Of all the actors I've listed Shannon is both the least likely to be nominated and the only one so far who has an award to show for it. He received the prize for Outstanding Actor in a Limited Series from the Gotham TV awards. In fact both he and the series have gotten their share of nominations with Shannon being nominated for Best Limited Series by the Critics Choice Awards and the series being nominated by the TCA earlier this month.

And Shannon is more than overdue recognition from the Emmys; he's been owed something since his incredible work as Nelson Van Algren, the ultra-religious Prohibition agent who finds himself working for Al Capone. He's been one of our greatest actors in film and TV for over two decades, capable of disappearing into roles. So the fact that he managed to do so into James Garfield, a man who history has all but forgotten, a President only known for his assassination, should not be a shock. Shannon plays Garfield as a man who didn't come to the Republican convention with the plan to be President and left as its nominee. We see the way his life would intersect with Charles Guitean and how it ended tragedy that may have brought about reform that Garfield himself might never have done.

Like so many performances Shannon's is less showy then the ones in this category but its just as worthy of a nomination. I hope he's there.

 

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Mitchell Robertson, Half Man

Considering how the first half of Half Man revolves around Reuben and Niall as teenagers the actors who played them were just as important. Gadd went to great lengths to cast two relative unknowns who looked very much like Bell and Gadd as adults. Both performers were quickly hailed for their work. The question was where would they compete.

With Robertson deciding to shortlist himself as Lead Actor his odds drop dramatically compared to his counterpart (I'll get to him below) but it's certainly not because of the caliber of his work. Indeed Robertson's performance is just as central to Half Man working as any of the adult counterparts because we need to get a picture of just how badly bullied and broken Niall is before Reuben ends up in his home, how terrified he is of him at first and how he gets lured into his orbit. So much so that he can't survive one day in college before he calls Reuben for help – and that leads to the tragedy that shapes both men's lives for the decades to come. Just as horrible is seeing how Niall is clearly being manipulated to lie in his testimony for a greater good – and how everyone around him uses him to do so – and how he first agrees, then breaks under the stress of it, again shaping their lives.

It's a powerful and wrenching performance that rivals the work of last year's phenomena Owen Cooper in Adolescence. Whether it will pay off for him the same way it did for Cooper is highly unlikely but it's just as great.

Tomorrow I deal with Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series. I'm going to go off-script here as you'll see.

What I Wish Democratic Leadership Would Say to the Justice Democrats After the Midterms

 

Hello. I've gathered all of you this very small room to talk to all of you about the list of 'suggestions' you've submitted be part of our agenda for the upcoming session.

(Puts paper into shredding machine)

Let's be clear. You are now representatives of Congress, elected officials and Democrats. You're now loyal to America, your district and the party. The idea that my party should listen to a dozen, what's the woke term, nuts and make the agenda of Congress something that can't get out of committee and the current President will never sign is a waste of everybody's time. You want to make a show of it on C-SPAN? Go ahead. I'm sure the Republicans will be fine with that. But you're elected representatives, not activists. Act like it.

(After several minutes of shouting)

Oh, take a chill pill. Frankly you should count your blessings we're even talking to you. There are, last I counted, less than 12 of you in the House of Representatives. Ohio has a bigger delegation in Congress than you guys do in all 50 states. And somehow you think you're the voice of the people?

To be clear this conversation's a long time coming. Honestly we should have had it after Biden's election but we were dealing with other things. You know, like trying to run the country and govern responsibly. And by the way, thanks for not helping during that period.  Voting against Biden's infrastructure bill after we compromised with the Senate really made us look good in the eyes of an America who voted for us because they wanted a return to sanity.

Look I know our party doesn't have a reputation for it – hell, we let you guys become members – but we want to win elections and make government policy.  And let's be clear when the Justice Democrats were launched after the 2016 election we were rooting for you guys. We'd gotten our asses handed to us by Trump and we wanted to regain power in the next election. It had nothing to do with Trump so much as that's what political parties do. I'm not sure you guys understand that basic concept.

So our mistake was giving 'the Squad' so much publicity after 2018. I'll admit we were stunned when AOC beat Dan Howley and maybe that explains our reaction. We've never been known for great judgment and I guess we seized on you four because we thought you'd help us take back the White House and Congress in 2020.

Honestly we should have been paying more attention. After the 2018 election two of the founders of the party Kyle Kulinski and Celenk Uygur were gone criticizing it  for 'falling short in cultivating a unified cohort of legislators able to champion priority bills'. And if that didn't drive the point home Uygur would file to run for Congress in November 2019 and he stated he didn't want your help. That should have been a bigger sign.

We were so focused on the four of you who won, we ignored the 71 of you who lost. And I'm not talking about the primaries. I'm talking about those of you who lost in the general in 2018. Let's go through your 'greatest hits:

Audrey Denney and Ammar Campa-Najjar in the California 1^st and 50^th. Lost.

Stephany Rose Spaulding, Colorado 5^th district, ran unopposed. Got less than 40 percent in the general.

Sanjay Patel, Florida 8^th, ran unopposed in the primary. Got less than 40 percent in the general.

James Thompson, Kansas 4^th. 40 percent in the general.

Matt Morgan and Rob Davidson in the Michigan 1^st and 2^nd. Both of them ran unopposed. Both were beating by nearly 15 points.

Jamie Schoolcraft, Missouri 7^th. 30 percent in the general.

Jess King, unopposed in the Pennsylvania 11^th. 41 percent in the general.

Vanessa Adia, unopposed in the Texas 12^th. Barely got a third of the vote in the general.

Randy Bryce Wisconsin 1^st. 42 percent in the general.

 

To drive the point home every time you won a primary in a seat that was either competitive or red, you guys lost. And lost badly. So in 2018, you did nothing to help us regain the House majority. You changed some of the faces in our delegation but that was it.

None of you could win a Senate primary, certainly not Paula Jean Swearengin in West Virginia. So let's go to the governors races. Christine Halquist won with your blessing in Vermont and Ben Jealous did in Maryland. Halquist got humiliated by incumbent Phil Scott and Jealous got blown out by Larry Hogan. So in two of the bluest states in America, the Justice Democrats couldn't win the governorship.

There's a complicated term for that in politics. It's called 'losers'.

Now to your credit you seem to have learned that fact the next time out and you only backed 10 new candidates. It must have hurt when Bernie made it clear he didn't want your endorsement for President.

Anyhow by now it was clear you were only focused on districts you could win and you only tried two more that were competitive. Georgette Gomez in the California 53^rd and Kara Eastman in the Nebraska 2^nd. Eastman was the tell; she'd run in that district two years earlier and lost in the general. She lost again, this time getting 46 percent of the vote compared to 49 percent last time. Gomez only got 40 percent of the vote.

Two years later we gave you one last chance as Odessa Kelly ran unopposed under your endorsement in the Tennessee 7^th. She got 38 percent of the vote. That's the last time you've tried to run in a district that wasn't deep blue.

By that time we'd stop looking for you to help us defeat Republicans and started looking for people who could. This was harder then it should have been because the right has done a great job convincing undecided and working class voters that every single member of the Democratic Caucus in both hoses is AOC or Elizabeth Warren – even those who are white, cis males.

We actually found some in the 2018 election, Democrats who could win in districts Trump carried. By the way 'DINO' is really more of an effective nickname for you guys then it is for Tom Suozzi and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.  And they should get more credit. They managed to convince people who voted for Trump to vote for them. You still can't convince people who voted for Hilary or Biden to vote for you most of the time.

And yet, perhaps because you seem to believe Fox News is gospel, you decided that you represented 'the people'. Not just the Democratic Party or even the House. "The people'.  I grant you our party doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to winning over the working class or swing voters, but its better than 'zero', which after five straight elections are the number of seats you've flipped from Republican to Democrat. I know some of you think math is a tool of oppression but 'some' is always going to be more than 'none'.

After the disaster that was 2024 both our party made a deep dive to try and field candidates in all 50 states by the start of the midterms. Your director said you were going to do the same thing. The difference is by the start of 2026 we'd actually managed to do that – and you'd convinced fourteen people to run in eleven states. Actually twelve. You got Nida Allam and Cori Bush to run again for seats they'd already lost.

Some people might have finally gotten the message after five straight cycles of out and out failing to convince Democratic voters, never mind the electorate, that your agenda was the one that the masses wanted. But I guess you're more like us then you think, in that no one's ever accused you of making sane choices.  You decided you could convince the masses you were on your side by never talking to half of them ever again. Seriously some of you make us miss Marjorie Taylor Greene. At least by the end she was showing some signs of sanity.

Oh sure, you managed to the great successes in a few primaries but you didn't do anything to help us grow our majority. No you decided the best way to help the Democratic Party in the midterms was to run in districts Republicans weren't even contesting. Yes I'm looking at you Chris Rabb. Big help in Pennsylvania this cycle. We could have done it without you and it might have been easier if we had.

We've been too polite the last few cycles. We've given you chance after chance to convince the electorate they want you have to sell. They don't. You can shout and scream all you want about us losing in 2024 because we didn't stress Gaza enough.  To be very clear we were trying to win Michigan and Wisconsin, which are in the Midwest, not in the Middle East. I know you guys think the world revolves around every word you say but it never did.  They rejected your agenda when you were mild on Israel in 2018, you really think they'd be more inclined to hear you when you've basically made it part of your platform that Congress should vote to dissolve Israel?

By the way Representatives Valdez and Chevalier Congress doesn't have that power. It never did. I'm beginning to think most of you ran for Congress without having the slightest idea how government works. I know you believe in the damn magic lantern theory that basically says Presidents can press buttons and will policy into agenda and that basically proves that you spent your entire time in college protesting and didn't go to a single Government and Politics class.

If the President had that power, well, he wouldn't be a king. He'd be God. And since you guys spent so much time arguing against the former and think organized religion is a hoax I don't think you spent a moment in your life that wasn't on your cell phone. You might as well use your degrees for toilet paper for all you got from your educations.

So this is how things are going to work in this cycle and for the foreseeable future. You can say whatever you want to the media or your followers, make all the videos you want. Go nuts on college campuses saying your speaking to the people. But when we want you to vote on any agenda, you shut your mouths and do it. That's what party unity is. The Republicans have put that to an art form. Part of the reason we've had trouble winning voters is because we can't control our nuts as well as they can control theirs.

If you were so anti-establishment, you shouldn't have decided to run for one of the biggest in America. We're here to try and make the government work in an era when people believe – rightfully – that it's broken. And trust me when I tell you this, in eight years you've done absolutely nothing to either help us fix it or even give the impression you want too.

You don't like that? There's the door. You can quit anytime. And if you don't want our help in the next election, we're fine taking away our endorsement and our money. If the people are with you, as you claim they are, then you don't need such illusionary things.  You'll easily be able to win against the Republicans in your district – or you know if we choose to primary you. And we do have a track record of doing that. Ask Jamaal Bowman. Ask Cori Bush.

The alternative is that you find a way to convince the masses that your agenda is popular. And that means being able to flip a district that's red or even purple.  And those of you in New York might want to keep in mind that Zohran didn't go anywhere near Long Island when he was trying to reshape the party in New York. (And by the way Tom Suozzi and Laura Ryan want to make it very clear they're not returning his calls for a reason.)

It's a big country. There's lot of places for you to prove you can. The fact that you've completely failed in all of your attempts shouldn't discourage you. After all you have Democrat as part of you name for a reason.

That concludes our meeting. I'm sure you have lots of speaking engagements on college campuses or hundred dollar a plate dinners in which you're the featured speaker of why capitalism is a sucker's game to attend. Don't worry. After all, being a hypocritical is a job requirement in this town. We just pass legislation in our spare time.

 

Author's Note: While this is a satire, all of the names of defeated Justice Democrat candidates are real ones, as are the percentage of how badly they lost in their races between 2018 and 2022. All of them were found out by a one minute google search – something that its clear to me very few people in the media have done at any point in the last eight years.

Another reminder to do your homework.

 

 

My Predictions (And Hopes) For the 2026 Emmy Nominations, Week 3, Part 1: Outstanding Limited Series/Anthology

 

In the decade that I've classified as Peak Limited Series there are always an amazing number of great contenders for the prize going into the Emmy nominations and one overwhelming frontrunner. In this cycle that's true in the former but in the latter its absolutely not. Because every end of year awards show was dominated by Adolescence across the board we have no real frontrunner not only in this category but any of the categories that will follow.

The five nominees that I've selected are the most likely to have contenders in nearly every major category in a few weeks' time. The usual providers are offering big contenders with a very strong possible that one new face may break through in a big way. Here are my choices

 

All Her Fault (Peacock)

Those of you who read my column last year know what a big fan I was of this show. I basically binged it just in time to put in on my ten best list of 2025. I spent much of the end of year cycle pushing for it and Sarah Snook throughout the end of year races. And now it looks poised to put Peacock, which has quietly been putting together some of the best shows of any streamer in the last few years, in the Emmy race in a major category for the first time in its run.

All Her Fault was by far one of the most brilliantly literary adaptations I've seen in the past decade and I've seen some masterpieces. In a rare move for this past cycle it’s the only literary adaptations that's going to contend. And by transplanting Andrea Mara Irish set saga into Chicago the writers did such a brilliant job you can't imagine it working in any other setting. Indeed there's an argument, good as the novel, this adaptation is far better.

Much of its power comes from the performances of the two women at its center, played by those forces of nature that are Sarah Snook and Dakota Fanning. Snook is among the frontrunner for her second Emmy for her work as Marissa Irvine, the working mother who goes to pick up her son at  a playdate and becomes the center of a nightmare. Fanning is just as brilliant as Jenny, the mother who finds out her nanny essentially set herself up in a position to abduct Marissa's child and who finds out just how shaky her own marriage is.

Both women are backed up by an incredible supporting cast including some of the darkest work Jake Lacy has ever done and Michael Pena as a force of integrity who has to compromise for tough choices. The story ends up playing with chronology and one is forced to realize the catchphrase "All these nice people killing each other" has a darker subtext.

I don't know how much of a chance this show has at the grand prize: this is an incredible field of talent and as I said there are no clear frontrunners. But this is clearly one of the best limited series in a field of incredibly strong ones.

 

The Beast In Me (Netflix)

This season was an unprecedented year for purely original limited series, something that is rare when so many of the best pieces are adaptations. The Beast in Me very quickly became a sensation at the end of year awards, earning multiple nominations for Best Limited Series and acting nominations for Matthew Rhys and Claire Danes in one of the most unsettling pieces that isn't from a best selling novel in a long time.

Rhys plays Nile Jarvis, the heir to a billionaire housing legacy whose wife disappeared leaving no body and a suicide note. He's just moved to Oyster Bay with a security entourage, barking dogs and a new wife. Danes plays his new neighbor Aggie Wiggs, a non-fiction author whose spent the last four years trying to write a follow-up to her first work. Her life has fallen apart ever since the death of her son four years ago and a mental breakdown that followed.

The two of them begin a frightening dance as Aggie tries to find out the truth behind her neighbor as well as the horrible things he might still be capable of doing. Both leads are cast against type; Rhys is playing someone loathsome and potentially monstrous; Danes someone who can barely function. It’s a fascinating dance. And it's led by an incredible supporting cast as well including Brittany Snow and Jonathan Banks in roles you can't quite believe they can do.

Like All Her Fault The Beast in Me has been a major contender in end of year nominations and despite all of the great shows in the interim I still see no reason why it won't be among the final five.

 

Beef Season 2 (Netflix)

After the first season of Beef swept the Emmys in 2023 Lee Jung-Jae chose a different path for Season 2. Rather than follow the saga of Korean-Americans he chose to look at two different couples: Joshua and Lindsay, the two managers of a country club and Ashley and Austin, two twenty-somethings who are struggling for poverty.  The younger couple seems more devoted then the older one, they don't fight and they are stunned to see Joshua and Lindsay in a knockdown brawl. In an effort to attain upward mobility Lindsay blackmails the couple for a job she's not remotely qualified for. Joshua and Lindsay, who are dealing with financial strains, find a way to manipulate her for her own gain.

In keeping with the past season things quickly spiral out of control, showing both the lack of stability in both relationships. Jung-Jae chooses to take Season 2 to take a different look at the class divides we have particularly with the one percent and how it protects old money rather than new. He heads his cast with two of the greatest actors of the 21^st century Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan as Joshua and Lindsay and two young talents Charles Melton and Callie Spaeny as his younger couple as well as an incredible group of supporting actors from William Fichtner on down.

The second season of Beef didn't land as powerfully as the first and as a result what was supposed to be a race that it would dominate has now seemed less likely. But that doesn't mean the second season is any less memorable, bizarre, hysterical or weird then the first one or just as brilliantly painful to watch. Jung-Jae chose to right approach when he decided to turn Beef into an anthology. It's not like he's going to have a shortage of material when it comes to how rage effects for the foreseeable future.

 

Hard Man (HBO)

After his Baby Reindeer became a cultural phenomena and swept the 2024 Emmys Richard Gadd, who won for acting, writing and producing had everybody anticipating his follow-up project. Gadd chose to go even darker, bulking up and creating a project that deals with much of the same subject matter as Reindeer but takes a far, darker and more unrelenting look at it.

The series follows Niall and Reuben from their teenage years until their confrontation on Niall's wedding day. It shows the young Reuben as an alpha male from day one with the threat of violence in everything he does and Niall both fascinated and repelled. Niall is terrified of his sexuality and can't seem to face his attraction to men, even as the world becomes more accepting he becomes less so. Reuben spends his youth being repulsive and at one point engaging in a horrific beating of a young man. When he asks Niall to lie about it in order to save him from prison Niall can't do it, which leads to things getting worse.

What Gadd makes clear, both as writer and as Rueben as an adult is that he and Niall are both two sides of the same coin when it comes to how toxic masculinity can reverberate. Reuben takes his vision of being a provider and his own failures out on the world in horrific form while Niall takes it out on himself. They are the only two people who can understand each other and yet they only seem alive when they are destroying each other and it progresses to a horrifying – but inevitable – conclusion.

In only his second series Gadd has made it clear he is one of the greatest creative forces in TV working today. Half Man shows what Adolescence only implied about the nature of toxic masculinity and how destructive it can be around those who suffer it. I don't know if this series will receive the awards Adolescence did but in my opinion it’s the better work by far and just as deserving of the prizes.

 

Love Story: JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bissette (FX)

I have astonished by how Ryan Murphy and his writers have done a brilliant job in so many limited series in the last decade showing the most monstrous parts of human nature in our society. So I was delightfully surprised that for his latest work with FX Murphy decided to focus on something that almost seems saccharine in the 21^st century: a love story. 

The title is basically all that the writers are interested in. To be sure there are stories about the difficulties of being in the spotlight and being part of a political family but that's a secondary part. The writers want to tell how JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette fell in love, got married and how it was tragically cut short. It's surprising how this being just as riveting as so many mysteries and darker stories.

They are helped by two total unknowns in the title roles: Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pigeon who manage to show the life beneath the tabloid. We see how JFK Jr is drawn to a woman who isn't awed by his last name or what he represents and how it fascinates him, a woman who doesn't want to be in the spotlight. We see how Carolyn was very much her own force in Calvin Klein and could have been prominent in the world of fashion. We see how the Kennedys, first Caroline (Grace Gummer) and so many of the rest resisted Junior's romance, even though its clear no woman would have been good enough. And we watch after their glorious wedding, how the paparazzi do much to break Carolyn down and destabilize their marriage. The dual tragedy is not just their tragic death but how both lost their lives before they could realize their happiness as a couple.

I don't know what the writers will do to follow up this story (it took seven years for them to come up with a second season of Feud). But I appreciate the magic and gentle touch of this one – even if it means that the 1990s are now considered 'a period piece'

 

 

For Your Consideration

DTF St. Louis (HBO)

The only reason I'm submitting this series FYC is because there are only five nominees in this category. There's also an excellent chance that it will be nominated in this category regardless: it already has been nominated by the Astras and its actually won in this category at the Gotham TV awards.

And it deserves to be nominated. It's brilliantly original, hysterically funny and is so well done that I actually think that it’s a satire of so many of the great dramas that have been on networks like HBO in the past. I honestly think giving the rhythm in which the characters speak, the flashing back and forth with the chronology, the way the big mystery isn't actually a mystery, that there's no real crime at the center of everything that DTF St. Louis would work as a satire of True Detective. That's actually the reason I'm not certain it will be nominated: it's too clever by five-eighths and historically the Emmys like their limited series to be genuine and gritty to the point of lunacy.  And their track record of nominations in this category for shows that are not dramatic is shaky at best.

But don't kid yourself. DTF St. Louis is a wonderful show that deserves all the nominations it can get. It's going to contend in quite a few categories as you'll see below. And if you think it’s a little too weird for the Emmys, no limited series is normal. It just looks that way from across the street.

Tomorrow I deal with Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series. Nominees are pretty clear but I don't have a frontrunner yet.

Homicide Rewatch: Blood Ties, Part 2

 

Teleplay by David Simon ; story by Tom Fonatana & James Yoshimura

Directed by Nick Gomez

 

In the middle section of the three part opener of Season Six we find ourselves dealing with two stories. One is a subplot that is one of the most comic murders Homicide will deal with (and its dealt with some humorous ones. The other, which continues the investigation into Melia Brierre, is far more serious and at the time drew far more controversy among long time viewers.

The former, which bears the biggest imprint of the author, reminds the viewer the importance of setting of Homicide. Baltimore is not the main character of this show in the way that Simon would famously claim it was of The Wire five years later but it's very much an important series regular. I've referred to this in passing in several of my reviews of this series but I don't think I've emphasized how groundbreaking it was for a network drama to be shooting in Baltimore at a time when every other series was being filmed in LA. It had been just as groundbreaking when Law & Order had filmed in New York at the start of the decade but unlike the more iconic series while the writers and much of the staff were from Baltimore they rarely drew attention to in a particularly showy way. One of the handful of times that Baltimore was directly put at the center of the setting is in the major storyline where Munch and Kellerman get 'a red ball with seams'. They're called to Camden Yards in the middle of a day game with the Orioles in the midst of a tight pennant race.

During the 1990s the Orioles were more of a contending team then they'd been in a decade (and in fact would end up not contending for another twenty years) Indeed much of the reason this episode was at the center of the story was because many believed the Orioles would be in the World Series that year. Unfortunately by the time the episode aired on October 24^th 1997 the Cleveland Indians had eliminated the Orioles in the ALCS and would do on to lose to the Florida Marlins in a world series so painful that it killed many of the viewers and commentators watching it. That doesn't change the fact that its still one of the most entertaining stories in Season Six and one of the most quintessentially Baltimore storylines.

Munch and Kellerman are called to the Camden Yards where a panicked adviser tells them that a New York tourist, one Tommy Elefante, has been found dead in the midst of an Orioles game. Everyone is initially excited about this – Falson wants Munch to pull one of the Oakland stars out of the lineup until the eighth inning and Gharty wants Munch to ask one of the Orioles management if Armando Benitez will be getting any more time in the bullpen for the fantasy league. (I'll get to how this pays off, because its hysterical.) When Munch and Kellerman get there the security crew chief shows up panicked and before he can open his mouth Munch says his line for him, tourist attraction, 48,000 fans, important this be done quietly and without attention. And of course even though the detectives have literally just gotten there when he finds out they haven't immediately solved the case he calls the governor.

Kellerman actually seems unwilling to believe the governor will be called and for once Munch actually seems clued in: "A murder at the Yards in a late season game with the playoffs just around the corner? You're talking millions of tourist dollars in ticket revenue." After the description of fecal gravity they walk into the stadium and Kellerman says: "Lucky us. There's only 48,000 people here with a possible motive."

It doesn't help that Elfante is the quintessential horrible Yankee fan, degraded Davey Johnson and the sainted Cal Ripken ("The Iron Mitt") The fans are distracted by the game and seem more interested about how Jimmy Key is pitching then the fan's death. And in one of those hysterical twists he's not been killed by an Oriole fans but his fellow New Yorker who can't even manage to hide his Bronx accent, doesn't know how to pronounce Baltimore, and agrees to confess if they'll let him finish watching the game and by him a dog and a beer. (The fans cheer as he's hauled off…because there's a rally, of course.) He and his friend got drunk, threw a battery or two at the left field ("Where I come from it's a custom," he says proudly) he then beat his friend to death and then went back to the bleachers even though he changed his seat. He makes it clear that there is a pennant race in the American League East and he wants to see the game.

"Not my day. A pinch hit home run in the bottom of the tenth… and I have to cop to murder." For a Yankee fan, it's hard to know which he considers worse. The two of them rode four hours as Yankee fans because they thought the Yankees would be playing the Orioles that day. When Munch tells them the makeup game wasn't until next week, something the New Yorker didn't know until they scalped the tickets.  Then in the first Elfante tells this fan that Robby Alomar is the best second baseman in the league. Worst when they go to the bathroom Elfante tells him that the Orioles are a better team. And worse they were the better team last year. "The Yankees wouldn't have won that series except for the fan that stole the game!" (See below for details.)  So like any good New Yorker he knows he has to lay a beating and he throws one punch and Elfante does a header.

 

The larger problem with the Brierre investigation – the one that troubled many viewers at the time – was how Frank Pembleton spends the first two episodes doing everything possible not to look at the most likely suspects. Just as troubling in the minds of many was how Giardello seemed determined to keep the Wilsons save from the eyes of his detectives, even if it means protecting them from murder.

This never troubled me that much at the time and does so less now for multiple reasons. For one thing its been established that Al Giardello has a long history with many of the prominent voices in the black community. We saw in Season Three his complicated friendship with Sam Thorne who he clearly respected and it took him a while to get around to investigated Burundi Robinson because he believed he was doing good work for the black community. It's easy to see his relationship with the Wilsons in the same light.

Frank's case appears different as we know this is a man who has adamantly pursued the truth and considers all victims equal in death. But it's worth noting in five seasons he's never once been in the position to investigation an African-American like Felix Wilson. This is a man who we've seen spending every day seeing the absolute worse of black men and women in his city, the majority of who are dope fiends and criminals. We've saw how much a fourteen-year old African-American killing another fourteen year old affected him because of the wasted life and we know how afraid he was of bringing a child into the world. He's justifiably cynical because of the job and the people he should respect – like the bosses and the higher-ups – he knows too well are just political animals who have no use for the rank and file.

Into this world comes Felix Wilson a man, who as we see in this episode, is a man who has done good work for the poor and misfortune minorities in Baltimore. Wilson is a black multimillionaire in an America that has built multiple obstacles against that happening and he has used his success to give back to the community. Pembleton has no heroes in his day to day life; is it so wrong that he wants to believe the best in one who has given no sign of being anything but one?

Its worth noting at every part of this its clear Frank feels more committed to this then Al is. Indeed, his decision to leak the suspect to the press in order to put daylight between the Wilsons is so blatantly unhelpful that Pembleton actually calls Al on it. He even is willing to say that while he believes the Wilsons are innocent, he thinks they should submit blood and hair samples if only to eliminate them as suspects.  The fact that Giardello then pulls him off the case to have him go to the rec center for the sole purpose of showing him the good Felix Wilson is doing to the community is the first time we've seen him putting his finger on the scales and not in a good way. Frank knows he's being manipulated but allows himself to be so even when Wilson acknowledges the manipulation is in play. In the scene that follows as he and Bayliss are driving to the factory you can tell there's a part of him trying to justify it to himself as much as his partner. This might have bothered some viewers but its actually part of how Frank will continue to show growth even in Braugher's final season: even as they plan to end his chapter the writers are still finding depths in him that the viewer is unaware of.

To Ballard, who just transferred from Seattle and has no idea of the importance of Wilson the fact that Pembleton and Giardello seem hung up on 'Caja' rather then looking at Felix and Hal, seems like they're giving privileged treatment to rich people. To Gharty there's clearly something darker in play – and this is the episode that makes it clear where he stands in a way that is guaranteed to make the liberal viewer uncomfortable, even as we acknowledge the greater point. The most fascinating man to watch in this scenario is Bayliss who makes it clear that he's just along for the ride. However when Ballard makes it clear she wants to have a talk with Hal Wilson Bayliss gives tacit approval.

The contrast comes in the interviews: Bayliss and Pembleton deal with Regina and Thea with something close to kid gloves while Ballard and Gharty take on Hal with a slightly more pressing attack. Despite his attitude afterwards it's hard for me to look at this as any other tactic. Hal takes the appearance of an entitled prep school kid who seems above it all and deflects the questions. Its only the fact the detectives are white and Hal is black that makes it different. Ballard treats Gharty with anger afterwards acting as if he's racist and she talks with him about the idea of Baltimore being black.

The Gharty-Ballard partnership is a fascinating dynamic because its one we genuinely haven't seen on Homicide: a young twenty-ish detective with a season veteran. Both Thorne and Gerety would be superb because the despite the clashing politics and worldview both had there is a genuine respect. It's also interesting to see Ballard as the most openly liberal Gen X type whereas Gharty sees the world in real terms. She wants to get blood and hair samples from Felix and Hal because that's the way she would do things but Gharty makes it very clear there's a different power structure in Baltimore.

"Even if you were the primary, you think Giardello would let you work this case the way you want it? Not a chance in hell. Giardello would still be in our faces. He'd still be working to protect Wilson and his family…You and I, we're just working the case, taking in the facts…Giardello and Pembleton they are covering Wilson's ass because his ass is the same color as theirs. I'm not saying Giardello is a bad lieutenant, I'm not saying Pembleton is a lousy cop, but the racial stuff is right there on the table. Nobody's talking about it, but it's there."

Gharty is speaking in the frequently crude terms that have made up his character from the start. What makes the viewer uncomfortable is that we've seen what Giardello and Pembleton are doing and its hard to disagree because it makes us take the side of a man whose using such bigoted terms.

The fact that Pembleton is at the same time trying to argue that Ballard and Gharty are racist and that he's being the same detective we've always seen makes a contrast that is fascinating: we're so inclined to see Frank as the hero that we want to disbelieve the evidence of our eyes – and it becomes harder to do so once he learns that Caja is has been in a Haitian prison for four months. And when Giardello comes down and is pissed that it had been leaked that Caja was no longer a suspect – and more importantly, that the Wilsons are being harassed – the simmering tension between Pembleton and Ballard in particular explodes.

Its refreshing the first person to get into a pissing contest with Frank Pembleton and be on the ride of things is a woman. Gharty then pushes back at Frank, Bayliss defends his partner and unfortunately Frank starts defending the Wilsons.  Its Frank who starts using the most racial of terms to refer to how Ballard and Gharty see the Wilsons. Sadly then Gharty points out that they're black and successful and have half of city hall in their pocket. Again despite his crudeness he's not wrong: indeed much of The Wire will make it very clear how much the city is in control of powerful African-Americans who are fine with the status quo even as it ostensibly comes on the backs of 'their own people'.  Pembleton is right when he points out how things change when Irish and Italian ruled the city, but so is Gharty when he says two wrongs don't make a right. And its telling that Frank takes Bayliss's 'betrayal' the hardest.

That said it's telling that at this point in their partnership Frank knows that if Tim thinks he's pulling his punches he really is. So while he seems to be acting like a crybaby when he decides to bring in Felix Wilson we know at some level he realizes he has to do it. Bayliss has always been the conscience of the unit and Frank knows he can't mess with it.

The scene in the box between Wilson and Pembleton is a high point as we get to see two of the greatest actors of all time sharing the screen.  Wilson acts like he wants to see the 'hot seat', almost like he's looking forward to being interrogated. The two of them talk about what it's like to be black in a white world, they talk about Al Giardello, Felix Wilson says he thinks Al has the more important job, Frank says he knows Wilson is not some CEO out to make a buck.  Frank tells Wilson the details about the murder and then he says that they'll need a blood sample. Frank then lowers his voice and makes it clear he doesn't want to do this but he has too. Its uncomfortable for us to see him contorting himself in this position. And then comes what is a shock though it shouldn't be given what the viewer has been through for five seasons.  Felix Wilson had sex with Melia that night. He had in fact been having an affair with her.

Its almost worth having had to go through the last two episodes to see the stunned look on Kotto's face and the genuine shock on Braugher's as he realizes his instincts have been completely wrong.  Braugher looks defeated and broken in a way we rarely see: he can barely manage to go through the motions in asking for the blood sample and when Wilson walks out the door he can barely say anything. Even in the aftermath when Ballard points out that Wilson has not only had sex with the maid and lied to the police Giardello and Pembleton are still trying to find ways out of this that they wouldn't do with anyone else.  Its only when the Wilson's attorneys show up and make it very clear that they will not be answering any more questions – or submitting blood and hair – that Frank and Al are forced to face the fact that they can no longer make excuses for the man they've been defending.

And that this story isn't going to have a happy ending for the Wilson family.

 

 

NOTES FROM THE BOARD

Mahoney PTSD: Falsone corners Stivers after telling her about Georgia Rae's bail review hearing and tells her he looked at the file and says he's partnered with Lewis but he still wants to know from her. Stivers takes this hard. "So you sleep with the guy a few times and as soon as he goes to the john, your hands are in his wallet, seeing where he's been and where's he done? Either you trust a man or you don't? (Considering how things will play out later this season there's multiple ironies in play.) Stivers then confronts Lewis about it (while he's looking at Playboy) and they discuss the possibility that Falsone may be from IID and the two detectives bicker about how badly things might go if this blows up.

 

'Detective Munch': Lots of good lines. When he finds the Yankee cap on Elefante "We should check the Maryland annotated code. I'm not sure this is a crime in Baltimore." (There's an argument outside of the Bronx it’s a justifiable homicide anywhere else.) This is followed by his wonderful description of how things will go:

"Right now the governor's screaming at the mayor, who's berating the commissioner, who's abusing Bonfather, who's torturing Gaffney, who's kicking it all over Gee's shoes. We don't put this case down by the 7^th inning stretch, you're back in auto and I'm walking a beat."

The best moment comes at the end when Munch gets to see Scott Erikson. Munch then asks him if Benitez is going to have any save opportunities. Erikson looks over his shoulder. "I don't know. Why don't you ask him?" Benitez then says: "Give me a break." At least you solved the murder.

It was the 1990s: Enough time has passed that I think it's worth explaining at least one of the references.

In the 1996 ALCS the Yankees and the Orioles were playing when a Yankee hit a fly ball that a fan named Jeffrey Maier grabbed and made sure the Yankees would homer and eventually win the game. But as much as Munch and Kellerman might thing otherwise, the Yankees did win the series in five games and the Orioles never had a chance in that series. I know because I watched every game of it.

Scott Erickson pitched 16 years in baseball spending his longest tenure with the Orioles 1995-2000 and again in 2002. In 1997 he won 16 games in 33 starts with a 3.69 ERA which in the 1990s was a big deal. Armando Benitez made his debut with the Orioles in 1994 and was with them until 1998. He would eventually pitch for (horror) the Mets and (blasphemy) the Yankees in 2003. He would eventually go 40-47 with 289 saves in his career. For the record in 1997 he had one of the least successful postseason series ever by a relief pitcher. In the four games the Orioles lost, they lost by one run, and in three of them he was on the mound for the final run, being charged with 2 losses and a blown save. So maybe he should have gotten less save opportunities?

Hey, Isn't That… Lynne Thigpen, who plays Regina Wilson, made her debut in Godspell. Five years later she made her official film debut in the cult classic The Warriors as DJ. She made several appearance in TV shows like Gimme A Break!, Rosie in Season 2 of thirtysomething. Naomi Sayers on the short run series FM and DA Ruby Thomas in the 1991-1992 season of LA Law. She then became beloved to a generation of viewers (including me) for playing The Chief on PBS's Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego for five seasons..

After playing Regina she played Judge Ida Boucher in three episodes of LA Law and Carla Howard in John Singleton's remake of Shaft. In 2000 she was cast as Ella Farmer, the secretary in CBS's crime drama The District. On March 12, 2003 she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died at her home at only 54. Her premature death was a tragic loss to fans of theater, film and television.