Better Late Than Never: The Good Fight Season 2

It's really hard for any spinoff of a series to be at least half as good as the original. For every Better Call Saul, there's half a dozen Law & Order: SVU, for every The Flash, there's Fear The Walking Dead.  It would have been just as easy for the writers of CBS' All Access The Good Fight to take so many of the characters from the incredible The Good Wife, and just put them through the paces of a legal drama (another genre that seems to be going the way of all flesh).

But the Kings have never done anything remotely close to easy. If anything, they seem to be swinging for the fences now that they are unfettered from the profanity and nudity limitations that they would eventually satirize in so many of their brilliant TV parodies that seemed to be in the background so often in the latter seasons of Good Wife. And in response to a chaotic world that seems to be getting more combustible, they start their episode with everything exploding and keep blowing things up from there.

Never has this been more clear than with Diane. The rock of the Kings world for more than a decade, world events are starting to leave her more undone. And it isn't just the Trump Administration that is terrifying this life-long liberal (though we'll get to that), its more current events. In the Season 2 premiere, an attorney was shot by a man who confessed to the media 'Kill All Lawyers!" Since then, a string of similar deaths have struck fear into the legal community - including a supposed ricin attack that was just a scare - and now the world around law is  terrified. Bozeman-Reddick's new partner, Liz (Audra McDonald, finally in a TV series worthy of her) starts by befriending Diane, and then seems to openly scheme to undercut her, leading Diane to close an episode using an obscenity she could never have gotten away with on CBS. Now, she's starting microdosing with LSD, and has had an extramarital affair. It's stunning to see Christine Baranski, so long a pillar strength, play Diane as a character starting to unravel.

Other characters are trying to move through the chaotic world in a positive way. Maya (Rose Leslie) has finally had the scandal that dogged her all through Season 1 taken of her back in the second episode of Season 2, and seems to be positioning herself to be a major player. Marissa Gold (the incredible Sarah Steele) has finally become licensed to be a PI at the law firm, and is demonstrating that she is nearly as brilliant as Kalinda was in the original series (though she's a lot funnier) And Luca (Cush Lumbo) is facing major changes in her life, as she is now pregnant with the child of the ASA she had an affair without Season 1. Only he doesn't know about it yet.

The series cases are as ripped from the headlines as they were in so many David E. Kelley series, but Good Fight does is with a subtlety and far less pontificating than we ever saw on The Practice. A recent episode where a Bachelorette-type realty show was sued when one contestant assaulted another was done with so many of the cast demeaning the genre while admitting they enjoy it. And the series dialogue has wit and flow than even on its best day Aaron Sorkin couldn't match. And its always great to see that so many of the characters who made The Good Wife such a joy keep dropping by -  if they did a spin-off where Carrie Preston and Mamie Gummer decided to form a law firm together I would gladly pay twice the asking fee to see it. (Hint, hint.)

All right, yes. The Kings do not like Donald Trump. And if you've decided that TV shouldn't be political, an episode where the DNC comes to Reddick-Bozeman asking about how to make a case for impeachment isn't going to make you happy. But they've made it clear from the Pilot episode of The Good Wife that so much of this series is about politics, and how you deal with people who disagree with you. But they do it in such a way that its always entertaining. (The way they deal with the prequel to Darkness at Noon just makes me dissolve into laughter.) This is an angry series, but these are angry times.

The Emmy judges may not have nominated this series because they don't yet count CBS All Access a real network. Of course, The Good Wife was one of the great shows of the past decade, and the Emmy judges never gave it the love it deserved. Maybe in an era of TV that seems so devoted to period pieces and dystopian futures, the Emmys have forgotten how brilliant the truly original contemporary series can be. The Good Fight is one of the best shows on any service, and I hope enough people eventually find that out.

My score: 5 stars.

Homicide Episode Guide: Brotherly Love

Written by Julie Martin

Directed by Peter Medak

Ever since Homicide began running full seasons, it has traditionally started with multi-part episodes, either red ball cases or investigations that required more than one episode to resolve. 'Brotherly Love' is the first - and, unfortunately, the last - episode of the series that would serve as a standalone. Maybe that's the reason its so popular with the rank-and-file, though there's very little in it that would work for the series.

Lewis and Sheppard are called in on what seems to be a simple murder, that quickly spirals into bizarre. The victim, David Ralston, is found dead of a gunshot in his home. Before the teaser is over, we learn that he lived with his identical twin brother, Adam. It doesn't take more than a few minutes for the episode to get even creepier as we learn how obsessed the two brothers were with each other - the identical layout of their living room, complete with two TVs side by side leads one of the few good lines from Meldrick: "Maybe he couldn't decide between Hercules and Xena'.  There is clearly some kind of obsessive love going on between the two, and it just gets creepier when we learn that each brother had their own gun.

All of this is unsettling, but it honestly feels like its something that you would have expected from the minds of X-Files rather than the writers of Homicide. What gives this story any oomph at all is the work of Clark Johnson, doing his best actually policework in nearly two years.  The scene at the funeral home where he goes after Adam Ralston is some his best work in years, as is the scene where he manages to elicit a confession out of him. There's a certain amount of ambiguity here when we learn why the murder took place - Adam slept with his brother's girlfriend while masquerading as David, and when he told David about it, the two of them got into a huge fight, and he killed him. We never know whether he meant it for certain, but that maybe the point.

Unfortunately, one has to take this with the baggage that is being attached to Sheppard. Meldrick spends most of the episode treating Renee like a cop, and at the Waterfront, he actually unburdens himself of a secret we learned back in season 4, about his older brother having to be institutionalized for schizophrenia. This kind of unburdening would seem to be a nice character moment, were it not surrounded by the fact that Lewis still seems determined to try and get his partner into bed. And it doesn't help matters that for much of the episode, it now seems like Bayliss is determined to get in the line of suitors for Renee's hand as well, which is just starting to border on the ridiculous side.

What makes this episode work a little better is that we have a secondary investigation that is a bit more interesting. Ballard and Gharty go out to Johns Hopkins, and find themselves involves with a gunshot victim who bled to death. The kid who drove him to the ER is brain-dead in the sense that so many Homicide characters are, and finally tells them that they drove to DC to score meth, and a dealer shot his friend. (He didn't take his dying friend to a DC hospital, because if their parents found out they were getting meth, they would kill them.) Giardello does what so many squad commanders does, and tries to dump a stone-cold murder on DC. DC sends a detective down to Baltimore in a repossessed Mustang to tell them they don't want it. The brass finally tell the two of them to work together, using their brain-dead suspect.

This is actually mostly from Simon's book, although the end result is not nearly as pretty as it is here. (Indeed, an entire three pages in Simon's book was devoted to just how grateful the Baltimore PD is not to be working in Washington, where they averaged three hundred murders a year with a thirty percent clearance rate.) In typical Homicide fashion, there's a nifty bit of casting here with the Aerosmith drummer Joe Perry playing the DC detective who never quite warms up to Baltimore. There's a little bit of goofiness when Ballard starts flirting with him, but that's countered very quickly when Gharty tells her that he's left his wife. After spending the previous episode complaining on how getting shot changed Bayliss for the worse, Stu now admits that his brush with death has forced him to face certain truths about his own life. Unfortunately, his path will be a lot darker than Tim's.

By far the most significant change to the series takes place almost in passing. Mike has applied for a transfer to Baltimore and has agreed to work as FBI liaison for CIB, which would work in conjunction with Homicide, and naturally his father. Gaffney approves the transfer with relative subtlety, and then when he comes down to tell Al about the DC shooting, casually mentions it to him, because, well, he's Gaffney. This leads to a heated conversation between the two on the roof, and some actual awkwardness when he starts his official job. Things are not going to get any easier from here.

When all is said and done, 'Brotherly Love' is not a particularly good episode of Homicide, yet paradoxically, it was considered one of the favorite episodes of the series in a Court TV poll. This makes less sense, since its not even among the best episodes of the seventh season. Maybe there were some Aerosmith fans juking the stats, maybe there were some people figured Sheppard should have her own episode. However you view it, its barely worth a single look.

My score: 2.75 stars.

Fan Ranking: 8th.

50 Greatest Episodes of the 21st Century, Part 6: 20-16

20. black-ish - 'Hope' - 2.`16

This is one of the few episodes from the original TV Guide list that I can't help but agree with. This series always mixed its dealings with relevant issues with a big dose of humor, but in this rare exception, it went into territory it rarely dove into. Dealing with an issue that has sadly become too common - a black child gunned down by a white man - the episode dealt with the stain of prejudice, and the futility that the Johnson clan so frequent bury. In perhaps the most painful moment of all, Dre recounts a moment that almost every African-American must have feared - the possibility that Obama would have been assassinated. But even after everything else, it ends on the tiniest ray of hope possible when Zoey, who spent the entire episode pretending not to care, finally admitting feeling futility, and the way the rest of the Johnson children tried to seize to this. There should be more episodes like this starting discussions. We need them now more than ever.

19. Parenthood - 'Because You're My Sister'

This was one of the most undervalued series in television history, a brilliant comedy-drama that touched on dozens of issues, and never seemed heavy handed, that had sixteen lead roles and never seemed like it was favoring one character more than another. Choosing just one episode as better out of the 103 that finally aired is very difficult, but if I was forced too, I would have to pick the fourth season finale. That season dealt with one of the most gutwrenching storylines on a show that has dozens of them - Kristina's season long battle with breast cancer. Fueled by the brilliant work of Monica Potter and Peter Krause, watching Adam and Kristina fight all season with this horrible crisis, and then finally get the good new was one of the pure joys. The series also balanced it with another heartbreakers, as Sarah (the incomparable Lauren Graham) having dealt with a love triangle all season long, dropped the wonderful Mr. Cyr, in favor of Hank - only to find that Hank had chosen to move back to Minnesota. (It would only be a temporary problem, but I felt like my heart had been stepped on.). The episode was moving, funny, angry, and ultimately joyous - all the things that this series could do perfectly, often in the same ten minutes. Stream it. Now.

18. Mr. Robot - eps3.4_runtime-error.r00

This is by far one of the darkest and most relevant series on the air, featuring some of the most brilliant cold openings since the days of Breaking Bad (which we'll get to soon enough), and features some of the most daring plot twists since Lost (ditto). There have been many incredible episodes over the course of its three season run, but by far, it's tour de force came just last year. Eliot finds himself trying to undo part of his hack at ECorp. During the course of forty-five minutes, he finds that his job is non-existent, that both Angela and his sister have betrayed them, and then finds the building overrun by the Dark Army. All of this would be stunning enough, but what makes the episode remarkable is that it seems to flow in a single, unbroken shot, following Eliot and Angela as they run around the building, trying to fix or break everything the other is trying to do. This was something that I've only seen tried before a few times, but never on a scale like this. With this episode, it more than demonstrated why its one of the greatest series currently on the air. I can't wait to see what happens in Season 4.

17. Homeland - 'The Weekend' - 1.7

This Showtime series has been all over the map. At times it has been one of the greatest accomplishments TV has ever aired, at other times, so slapdash in its plotting that you wonder whether writers learned anything from their mistakes from 24. What I think all viewers of the series can agree on is that the first season has been by far the best of them, and while the season finale was incredible, I think the highpoint came before that in this episode. Brody and Carrie have run off to a cabin in the woods to have a sexual encounter. During the course of this episode, Brody learns (inadvertently at first) that Carrie works for the CIA, that she has been surveilling him illegally, and that she thinks he's working for Al-Qaeda. Up until this point, the series has measured all of Brody's movements with ambiguity, so we still don't know anything for certain. Claire Danes and Damian Lewis are magnificent throughout this, but what makes this episode even better is the encounter going on as Saul drives an American sleeper agent to prison, and gently tries to get information from her on the entire trip. In the final ten minutes, he succeeds, and we begin to get the scope of the plan. We learn that an American prisoner of war was turned, but it was the other man, one that we have had reason to believe Brody murdered. If this had been the final resolution - and Gordon and Gansa said it might have been - I still think a lot of people would have been satisfied. As it is, it stands as the finest hour of one of the best first seasons in TV history.

16. American Crime - Season 2, Episode 7

This was one of network television greatest accomplishments this decade, a series that looked with real intensity, at the true darkness that penetrates America's soul when it comes to some of the biggest flashpoints in all culture. One could make an argument that first season of this anthology series, which dealt with racism and hate crimes, was the best, but by far the best episode came in an episode which dealt with the aftermath of a homosexual rape at an Indiana prep school. After Taylor spent the length of the season being attacked an ridiculed, he finally acted out on his aggression by bringing a gun and killing one of his attackers. All of the leads - from Felicity Huffman to Timothy Hutton on down were brilliant - but what made this episode work was how intercut between survivors of the all too frequent school shootings in this country, as they dealt with their real life problems. Like this series so brilliantly - and rarely - it pushed no agenda, it took no side. It just showed the horror and scale of the madness that has penetrated our world in human terms. That a series this good was allowed to air on network TV was a triumph. That ABC canceled it in favor of more Shonda Rhimes just goes to show the world we live in.

Homicide Episode Guide: La Famiglia

Written by Tom Fontana

Directed by Nick Gomez

What strikes you almost immediately within the first few minutes of the series premiere, are the changes. It's not just that the squadroom has a new paint job, or that the interrogation room has been completely remodeled. It's that many of the leads, even those we've known for only a season, are acting completely out of character. So much so that even the characters themselves notice it.

The most obvious change, and by far the hardest to take, is that of Bayliss. For six seasons, he has been the true north of Homicide, our way into unit, and its conscience. Considering the dual whammy of nearly dying in last season's finale, and the departure of Frank Pembleton, one can only expect that he would be reeling from the loss. Instead, his Zen approach to everything appears to be not a realistic reaction to what ever life-changing events have happened, but rather a chance to rewrite Bayliss. This seems particularly odd, considering that Tom Fontana is writing the first episode.

This would be a jarring change in itself, but Tim is only the most obvious case of what's going on here. First, there's the new detective to the unit, Renee Sheppard, late from the fugitive squad. Now, I'm not one of the people who thought that Michael Michele, like Jon Seda, was another horrible character. While initially seeming like one of those 'beautiful people' that Fontana said he'd initially never write into the series, Michele was actually a better actress than this, and throughout the season would actually seem to have more range than that. Fontana, however, does her character no favors by having both Falsone and Meldrick all but throw themselves at her throughout the episode. For six years, the writers have stayed away from the cliches that even David Milch would fall prey to on NYPD Blue of having two detectives from the same shift have any kind of relationship. Now, maybe trying to get to the attention that those higher rated series got, they seem to be determined to do it. They even sweeten the pot by having Renee be a beauty pageant winner. It's pat and its cheap and its everything Homicide wasn't.

And it gets worse! Now, Ballard who apparently worked an entire year alongside Falsone without having any attraction to him at all is now trying to throw herself at him. Considering that the two haven't had, or ever will have, any real chemistry,  it boggles the mind that the writers would go down this route either.

Honestly, with all the talk about the squadroom and the misfiring hormones, one wishes they'd get back to working old-fashioned murders. But even here, the series stumbles. It's not that the murders themselves are just more gruesome than the ones we usually get on this show, its that, for the first time, they're being tagged to someone on the squad. This is something that was old-fashioned in the days of Quinn Martin. What gives the episode its saving grace is that its tied to Al Giardello, who we only occasionally get ties to anything remotely resembling a backstory. One of the few things that the series will do right in its final year is give some more insight into the life of Al.

It stumbles a little here, too. Al's son, who has not even been mentioned on the series, shows up from Arizona, when its revealed that the third victim is one of Al's cousins. It's a shabby way to introduce a new character, but what saves it is the presence of Giancarlo Esposito as Mike. From the moment he shows up, we sense the coldness and bitterness between the two. We've gotten bits and pieces at how bad Al's family life has been ever since his wife died, but now we see the results, and they aren't pretty. When Mike wants to look into his cousin's murder, he goes first not to his father, but to Falsone. When Al learns of his sons involvement, his anger is probably not just motivated by the involvement of an outside agency, but by the fact that his son has learned a secret that he never wanted to tell.

The actual investigation is kind of second-hand for the series as well - the three murdered men were involved in putting away a mobster for twenty-five years, and when he gets out of prison, he seeks revenge - the twist being, that because he had brain damage, his family has carried it out. But at least, there's still an element of the old-fashioned Homicide as well. With no confessions from the suspects, and blood from only two of the victims on the weapons, Danvers agrees to try the family for only two of the three murders. Gee agrees to this, even though it means his cousins name will be in red forever.

As is the case with all season premieres, La Famigilia has too much going on to quickly absorb. In addition to all this, Meldrick is finally getting divorced, it looks like Gharty is heading in the same direction, and Munch seems to be dating Billie Lou, the Waterfront bartender we met last season. (Unlike all the other romances going on, I don't consider this one out of character for the series; Munch has always been perpetually lovelorn, and when he falls in love, he tends to punch above his weight.) Its troublesome that so much of the episode seems to be building around a dance party, and seeing our detectives troll for dates like a senior prom, much less boogying on  the dance floor, really seems like Fontana and the rest are finally listening to the network for more 'life-affirming moments'. It's the fact that Fontana chooses to have the episode close as the Giardello men have their first real conversation in more than a decade - where Al reveals how he, in his own way, is responsible for his cousin's death as anyone else, how much resentment Mike has towards his father, and how the two of them take the smallest possible steps towards reconciliation - that ring far truer than anything we've seen the detectives do in this episode.

This episode probably isolated a lot of the fans who had stuck with for six years, and even the ones who were still defending couldn't have been thrilled in the evolution - Clark Johnson started the series partnered with Jon Polito, who looked like the typical detective, and is now working with someone who looks like the network's idea of a detective. And while there are good moments, the seeds of what Season 7 will look like are more present in the bad ones, and will continue to sprout throughout the first half.

My score:2.75 stars.

A Trial, But No Errror

Kristin Chenoweth has always been one of the most incredible talents of the 21st century. Her work on Broadway has always been astounding - it never fails to amaze that such a melodious voice comes from such a tiny body. But nearly as impressive as her work on the boards has been her work on the small screen. As Annabeth Schott, she was one of the highlights of the often chaotic final seasons of The West Wing. Her work as Olive, the waitress who yearns for Ned on the criminally underwatched Pushing Daisies  was wonderful, deservingly getting her an Emmy.  And about the only thing wrong with her work on the satiric GCB was that ABC had no faith in it.

Now, she returns to series TV,  and as always, she's picked a gem of a series to work in: NBC's Trial & Error, a satire of the true-crime documentaries that perforate the airwaves, combined with the same mockumentary style that NBC has become famous for.

In this series, New York attorney Josh Segal has settled into the town of East Peck (where the residents are all Peckers, of course) and his second trial is that of the wife of the town's elders, Lavinia Peck-Foster. Chenoweth grabs on to a role she has yet to have a chance the play: the femme fatale. It's clear from the beginning of the series that everybody in this town loves her, which is why people have such a hard time thinking she's guilty of murder, even after the crushed body of her husband is found in a suitcase in her husband's trunk. Josh naturally considers her a dream client, even after she does everything in her power to appear guilty. This includes buying gifts for the jury, openly trying to seduce Josh, and in the final minutes of the second episode, being caught shoplifting. She may be guilty, but its hard for the viewer to accept it, because, come on, Kristin Chenoweth.

If it were just for the glorious work of Chenoweth, this would be a delight to watch.  But this is the second season of this series, and its very clear the writers have taken out a leaf from the Parks & Rec playbook. East Peck is just as messed up a town as Pawnee was (Peck rum is drunk at elementary schools, the voting age is around 8, East Peck is to the south of North Peck), and almost every resident of this town could be wonderful to build a series around. Nicholas D'Agosto as Josh is, more or less, playing straight man to almost everybody else. There's his secretary Anne Flatch (Sherri Shephard) whose naivety is matched only by the incredibly rare ailments that she seems to have by the bucketload (she seems to have to ability to nearly spontaneously combust, for one).  There's Dwayne, who seems to have a forcefield a stupidity around him. He's working for the police now, but he probably won't be for long, considering one of his major mistake was shooting his own toe of while demonstrating gun safety in front of an elementary school. And there's Carol Anne, the head prosecutor, who has a major affair with Josh last year, and is now seriously pregnant, using her pregnancy to manipulate the judge, and trying to keep poor Josh running through hoops. (Jayma Mays is a real revelation here.) And of course, there's the investigation itself, which involves trying to find out time of death based on the murder weapon, which is a grandfather clock.

If you want to see a real satire of all those murder-based series, Trial & Error is the show for you. If you want to see a genuinely brilliant comedy, it works as that as well. And, of course, if you want to see Chenoweth satirize her own ability to sing, well, you don't really need a reason to watch her. Really, about the only mystery about Trial and Error is why such a great show is working in the summer instead of being at the center of NBC's fall lineup. But then again, considering the dark materials that make up so much network programming, maybe this is the time we really need a little Pecker in you.

My score: 4.5 stars.

Objects May Be Sharper In Screen Than They Appear

Marni Noxon has, particularly in the past few years, become an expert at creating characters that, even in the age of Peak TV, are hard to find: the antiheroines. In UnReal, she pulled back the curtain on reality to television to reveal a world just as manipulated as so much network TV, but essentially controlled by two very twisted creative forces, magnificently portrayed by Shiri Appleby and Constance Zimmer. This year, on the intriguing new series, Dietland, she has created a world of #TimesUp gone mad, where women begin acts of terror based on their aggressors, where body shamers meet horrible fates, and where even the most powerful women know how perilous their positions are, and will gladly turn on those below them.

Now, on HBO's Sharp Objects, Noxon leads us into the bucolic small towns that we call part of Real America, and reveals them to be just as ugly and frightening as everything else. In this world, she is guiding by two women who are dominant in their chosen professions: Gillian Flynn, best selling novelist, who wrote the novel this is based on, and every episode, the queen of the modern noir and the broken women at the center of them, and Amy Adams, one of the most beautiful and talented actresses working today, who, despite her five Oscar nominations, has been most commonly known for playing innocents with dark underbellies.

In the series, Adams plays Camille Preaker, a vodka swilling, emotionally damaged, newspaper journalists, sent by her editor Curry to follow a story in her hometown of Wind Gap, where a murder took place last year, and another girl has disappeared. Curry is notably the only person in the entire narrative who doesn't think harshly of Camille. Camille clearly hates being back and town, where her mother (Patricia Clarkson, darker then we've ever seen her) has a position of power in the town, and clearly disdains her daughter.

As the crimes begin to unfold, it is clear that there are very dark undercurrents to Wind Gap that not even the police investigating the crime seems interesting in pursuing. The major detective on the case, Richard Willis (Chris Messina, one of the industries most undervalued talents)  is blocked by every avenue by Chief Vickery, who doesn't value anything he says that doesn't fit his world view. Camille, reluctantly, finds herself drawn more and more into the investigation, which she clearly sees linked to an as yet unspecified death in her past.

Much of this captivating, and like so many HBO projects, it is extremely well cast. (In addition to the actors I've mentioned, Matt Craven and Elizabeth Perkins have small roles that also add a lot of flavor.) Yet I have to admit, there are underlying obstacles with the series so far that lend doubts to ranking it as brilliant as some of the previous works of art that pervade many limited series of the day. For starters, there's the fact that this is an eight episode series of a book that, in its paperback edition, was under three hundred pages. Not having read it, I deeply wonder whether or not this series will be subject to a ridiculous amount of padding. Also, the editing of this series is very bizarre - every few minutes, we cut to scenes from Camille's past or the investigation that offer no context and seem more random than anything else. It seems far too much out of Terence Malick than Jean-Marc Vallee, who had more control in Big Little Lies. Perhaps they'll be some kind of payoff later on, but now it just seems a distraction.

Doubts aside, this is still the most fascinating project to come out of HBO so far in 2018. One can see why the network was drawn to it: in setting and story, it bares a resemblance to the first season of True Detective, minus the overwhelming nihilism. (It's dark, but not that dark... yet). Compared the fantasies that have the strongest following, this is set in a world that is far too real. I just hope that Noxon and co have the good sense to let the end be the end.

My score: 4 stars.

Homicide Episode Guide: Fallen Heroes, Part 2

Teleplay by Joy Lusco; story by James Yoshimura

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

With the airing of the second part of ‘Fallen Heroexs’,  more comes to a conclusion than season 6. It is the end of the Mahoney saga that began two years ago,  it is the resolution of he shooting of Luther Mahoney that has dogged the squad since a year ago; and it is the end of Mike Kellerman and Frank Pembleton’s careers on the police force.  We also know that this is the last episodes of both Andre Braugher and Reed Diamond as regulars, and in many ways it is the end of  how Homicide  proper used to work. But let’s deal with this one event at a time.

Gee’s declaration of war on the Mahoney’s following the shooting up of the squad room  a few hours earlier, is followed through. The homicide detectives round up every Mahoney player they can find, smash in every Mahoney stash house, haul in every corner. None of this, however, can hide the fact that visible fractures are now appearing in the squad.  Stivers and Falsone have a squabble over Paul’s apparent ability to stay calm while they operate on a crime scene.  Kellerman and Lewis are now visibly sniping at each other, and Bayliss and Pembleton--- the guts of the unit--- are starting to get angry about how to approach the job. (In a very out of character display Bayliss whales on an interviewee)  And the fragile bond that held Kellerman, Lewis and Stivers together about Luther’s shooting finally cracks. Not surprising, the one who breaks is Stivers, the one person who has never felt completely right with the shooting.

We don’t see the full effects of this until halfway through the show. The squads effort to find Georgia Rae have been fruitless, not breaking until they follow a flimsy lead that finally leads them to the last of the crew. Even there is no satisfaction  for the Baltimore police--- by the time they find her, Georgia Rae is dead, apparently at the hands of her own people. While chasing down the last of the Mahoney’s group, Frank aims his gun on one---- and freezes. The only thing that saves him from death occurs when Bayliss steps  in his path--- and for his trouble, takes a bullet in the guts. The shooter is killed a mere seconds later, but Frank barely gets time to process this.

At the hospital, Frank demonstrates the fear for Tim’s safety and compassion for his partner that he never displayed on the job.  However, Giardello--- now realizing the sin in his own house--- pulls Frank aside and demands that he go back over Luther’s shooting and find the truth. It is hard to tell what has a greater effect on Frank --- not being able to be  with his partner in his hour of need., or having to interrogate his fellow detectives about an earlier shooting. Whatever he goes into the box--- his room---- for the last time.

The interrogations of Meldrick and Mike are, in many ways, classic Pembleton. Aided by Falsone, Frank talks calm and reasonably to Meldrick trying to get to he truth on what really happened in Luther’s apartment. Though it is obvious Lewis feels guilt, he does not give up Kellerman---- to the last, he is loyal to his old partner. He then goes after Mike, something that disgusts both cops. Kellerman has always respected Pembleton, and he can’t believe that he’s being accused of this crime by him. By sheer persistence, Frank manages to get Mike to admit what he hasn’t been able to admit even to himself since the shooting----  that Luther had lowered the gun to his sides, and Mike had shot him anyway. Mike tries not to put anymore of this on Terri and Meldrick, but Frank doesn’t let it go.

When Gee asks him about it, Frank says that he will not write the shooting up anyway other than the truth--- to the last, he remains true to his ethics. Gee than goes to Kellerman, and tells him that he can either take a charge--- which he has a good chance of beating---- but take down Stivers and Lewis with him, or he can leave the force and it stays with him. In either case, Mike is done as a cop. This comes as a huge blow to Mike--- before he meets with Gee for the last time, he has a talk with Meldrick. He asks Meldrick for his gun and a moment to himself. Meldrick declines. The man who wanted nothing more than to be a good cop is  cop no more.

As for Frank, he has faced some truly ugly things in his years as a detective. But the combination of the violence surrounding the last acts of the Mahoney organization, his failure to  move under the sights of a gun, and the conspiracy by people he used to work along side  to cover up a murder is too much for him. He hands Giardello his badge. “there’s no truth for me anymore.” He tells Gee. “I’m not going back on the street. I’m never going back into the box. I’m through. Finished.”

And with his resignation comes to end of Andre Braugher’s career on the show and the use of the interrogation room as Grand Central. The squad will be repaint and rebuilt after the shootings and the urine-yellow bricked from will be panels over and hammered up. The box will be gone. Interrogation rooms are all that remain. The difference may seem semantic but it is not. On a purely personal level, the show could have survived Braugher’s departure, but the writers seemed insistent on making the squad room more ‘user-friendly’ (it will become clear what I mean in the last season) helped destroy the show that I had come to worship for four years. This was a sin I can not forgive, even nearly eight years later.

Again the second part of ‘Fallen Heroes’ demonstrates a level of violence that is not  consistent with Homicide. We  have a lot of detectives shooting felons and a lot of what can be described as unnecessary carnage. Again, I was willing to forgive this because the ‘meat’ of the episode remained dramatic tension and superb acting. Unfortunately, it would be a harbinger of bad things come. Throughout the shows final season, there would be a level of fighting and shooting permeating that seemed more consistent with a series such as NYPD Blue rather than this show  The acting; the mysteries, the things that made the show click for five years would be cast aside. For that reason, I don’t regard the sixth-season finale with esteem. There is good stuff here, but its overshadowed by the violence, and that is more upsetting than Bayliss lying near death.

My score: 3.75 stars.

Fan ranking 6^th

Reactions To Emmy Nominations: Part 2, Comedy

OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES

I'm not sure what I'm more impressed by. The fact that they nominated eight comedies in this category, or that Modern Family or Will & Grace  weren't among them. For the first time in nearly a decade, there's going to have to be a different winner in this category, one that might actually presage the future.

To the specifics. Atlanta is one of the best series on television. Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's fourteen nominations almost make up for all those years they ignored Gilmore Girls. GLOW actually should've gotten more nominations than it did (I'll get to that in a bit) and black-ish  remains superb four seasons in.

I have, not surprisingly, more problems with the HBO nominees. Barry is actually a fine series, so I'll let it pass. But I'm not entirely certain that Silicon Valley was anywhere near as good as it has been in previous seasons, and frankly, given the middling response for Curb Your Enthusiasm, I really think a show like The Good Place would've done better.  I'd complain about Kimmy Schmidt, but since it only got one other nomination, I'll let it go.

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A COMEDY

Yes! They recognized Ted Danson for The Good Place! Of course, they only gave it two other nominations, but that's still better than last season. Donald Glover, incredible, deserved all the nominations he got this year. Anthony Anderson, still exquisite. William H. Macy, I actually think he earned it this year. And Bill Hader was actually very good in Barry.

I really do think they're pushing their luck by nominating Larry David again. Residual SNL feelings? Still, they got five out of six. Not bad.

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY

Will the Emmys know how to give a Best Actress in a Comedy with no Julia-Louis Dreyfus in it? We'll find out this September. On an even better note, hip hip Issa Rae! She finally got in. Not feeling insecure any more?

Rachael Brosnahan, most likely the odds on favorite to win this year, and that's Marvelous. Tracee Ellis Ross, still reigns, well, supreme. I'm actually glad, despite the potential controversy, that Pamela Adlon was recognized for her excellent work in Better Things.

I guess my real problem isn't with who's in, but who got left out. Nobody who sees Allison Janney or Lily Tomlin can deny they're brilliant comic talents, but couldn't they have found room for Alison Brie for her fine work on GLOW. It seems odd that after getting nominated for every other award, she couldn't even get nominated. Oh well, there's always next year/

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR, COMEDY

As always, this is where things start to get a bit mixed. I have no problem with Alec Baldwin being nominated. Brian Tyree Henry and Tony Shalhoub definitely earned their spots. Tituss Burgess is sort of Kimmy Schmidt's breakout character, so I'll let that go. And I'll be honest, even its more sentiment than quality (though really, he's been so good in everything the last twenty years) I'm glad Henry Winkler was nominated for Barry.

I can understand why Louie Anderson was nominated: he has been the last two years, and he's probably Baskets greatest assets. But why Kenan Thompson? I'll admit I'm torn her - he's been SNL go-to guy for nearly fifteen years, so one could make an arguments that he's overdue. But how could they omit Marc Maron, who's one of GLOW's greatest assets? He'll probably get multiple opportunities, but still, I'm disappointed.

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS, COMEDY

All right, I'm glad they nominated eight actresses, but I'm little confused why these eight actresses.

Zazie Beetz was superb on Atlanta, no question. Betty Gilpin, exceptional on GLOW (and frankly, of all the leads, I thought she was the most likely to be overlooked). Alex Borstein, pleasant surprise for Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I honestly thought Marin Hinkle might have a better chance. And I have no problem with Kate McKinnon coming into the category for SNL, even without Hilary in her repertoire, she's superb.

Now Leslie Jones can be very funny, but I do think she verges on overkill. And is there now some requirement that three comediennes from SNL be in this category every year? I like Aidy Bryant fine, but still. And while Megan Mullally and Laurie Metcalf are wonderful actresses, I kind of feel nominating them is a step backwards. (And I would think, given all the problems Roseanne caused, they'd want to avoid having her in the category.)

I guess I'm just disappointed that, with all these nominees, they couldn't find room for Mayim Bialik. Oh well.

I'll get to the Limited Series and Movie tomorrow. Believe me, I've got something to say.

My Reactions To This Years Emmys Nominations: Part 1, Drama

I know I should be dismayed that the Emmys keep making many of the same choices year after year. They are, after all, driven by complacency more than anything else. But part of the reason that I've been increasingly impressed with the Emmys record the last few years is that my general satisfaction level with their choices has gone up to around 70%. It's not perfect, I know, but considering that for many years they would be lucky to crack the 50% mark, does seem to indicate a certain level of improvement.

And, to be perfectly honest, many of my choices were recognized. Yes, Game of Thrones again led all comers with 22 nominations, but for the first time in nearly twenty years, the network didn't lead in total nods. That honor went to Netflix, which frankly, has a greater variety and more interesting choices on its menu. And whereas the last two seasons, its had a near lock on best drama, it will most likely be at war with Westworld and Handmaids Tale, leaving room for a couple of dark horses.

The comedy choices were equally impressive, considering that they had to bring this category to eight nominees. And in the age of the reboot, none of the major comedies that were eligible are in the hunt. ((Mostly.) Which means that for the first time in nearly a decade, the Emmys will have to crown a new show.

I'm still a little irked that SNL got so many nominations. (I'll go to specifics later.) And I'm more than a little frustrated that so many of my choices in the limited series were basically shutout. But like last year, the Emmys continue to demonstrate that they are becoming more and more attuned to the level of the Golden Age that we are currently in. Now I shall go to the specifics.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA

The Crown, The Americans, This is Us, and Stranger Things  were four of the series I was hoping would get nominated. Westworld remains one of the most visually fascinating series on the air. And really, if you didn't expect Game of Thrones or Handmaid's Tale to be nominated, you haven't been paying attention to the Emmys this year.

Would I have liked to see The Deuce nominated? Yes, but I'm not shocked it wasn't. I'm a little more surprised that Homeland and The Good Fight were basically shut out. My really disappointments come with the number of nominations - but I'll get to that below.

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR, DRAMA

Sterling K. Brown and Milo Ventimiglia, no complaints. Ditto Matthew Rhys. I'm very glad to see that Ed Harris was nominated, even if it was as a lead and not supporting, and I'm also glad to see Jeffrey Wright listed - though I didn't include him, he more than deserved his spot.

Jason Bateman's spot isn't a huge shock, considering he was listed by the Golden Globes and the SAG awards. I guess this is the one category I'm actually pleased by who was omitted - no one from Game of Thrones, no Liev Schreiber,  no Donald Sutherland. Would I have liked to see Paul Giamatti or James Franco listed? Sure. But overall, no real complaints.

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS, DRAMA

Elisabeth Moss - given that she won every award between here and last year. No shock. Keri Russell and Claire Foy get one last deserved chance at gold. Evan Rachel Wood was remarkable in Westworld. And I'm glad to see the voters had a long enough memory to remember Tatiana Maslany.

Sandra Oh was expected to be nominated for Killing Eve, and while I appreciate both the nomination and the significance, I can't help but wonder what the hell Mandy Moore has to do to get a nomination? There'll be more opportunities of course, and the category's going to have more openings next year. Still, I'm a little stunned.

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR, DRAMA

This is where I start to have problems.  Mandy Patinkin and David Harbour, I'm overjoyed they were nominated. I'm glad Matt Smith was nominated as well - he was superb as Prince Philip and frankly should have been considered by other groups.

It's the other nominees I have a real issue with. Peter Dinklage, I expect to be nominated by this point in Game of Thrones run. But do we have to have anyone else? And while I've always been a huge admirer of Joseph Fiennes, his work wasn't anywhere near the level of, say, Noah Emmerich or Justin Hartley. I'm starting to really get the feeling the Emmys have problems in this category.

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS, DRAMA

Okay, I'm glad they decided to nominate seven actresses. I do, however, have real problems with the seven.

Millie Bobby Brown, she has earned it. Thandie Newton, exceptional work. And I'm very glad the Emmys took Vanessa Kirby's work as Princess Margaret in for consideration.

I'm not even that irked about all of The Handmaid's Tale's nominations. I love Alexis Bledel, I've made that clear, and I've been an admirer of Ann Dowd for several years. But couldn't that have been enough? I love Yvonne Strahovski, and she should've been considered for an Emmy at least since Chuck, but couldn't they have considered her some other year. And what is with the obsession with Lena Hradey?

My real aggravation is with two of the nominees they locked out. Margo Martindale has been the greatest assets of The Americans since it started. How could the Emmys justifiably ignore her final season? (Then again, she did win two Emmys for it already, so she may be less upset than I am.) And how in the name of all that is holy could they ignore Chrissy Metz for This is Us? I know, the same way they could ignore Justin Hartley and Mandy Moore, but still is the biggest robbery of the year.

I need to calm down. I'll be back tomorrow to deal with the comedy awards, which actually made me happier than the dramas for a change.

Homicide Episode Guide: Fallen Heroes, Part 1

Teleplay by Lois Johnson; story by Eric Overmeyer

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Given all the events involving the Mahoney organization which have transpired this season, it was perhaps inevitable that the two-part season finale of Season 6 would tie up the loose ends of the story.  Regular fans of Homicide  who watched ‘Fallen Heroes’, however, must have been stymied by how it played out. But let’s start at the beginning.

Pembleton and Bayliss are called in for an ‘old-style’ red ball--- the murder of a federal judge, stabbed to death in broad daylight. It is our old acquaintance Gerald Gibbons. Because Frank and Tim have had  almost no association with the Mahoney murders, they don’t learn the Mahoney connection until near the end of the first act, when the Feds show up and tell them that Gibbons was about to be indicted for  corruption charges. Obviously the case takes on a whole new turn and a far messier turn when we learn who the killer is Nathaniel Lee Mahoney, aka Junior Bunk. You’d think Junior would still be in prison considering he’d been arrested in the season opener, but his sentence was reduced so that he could get out on work release--- reduced, by the way, by Judge Gibbon.

 But this isn’t the weepy eyed, girly man we met way back in season 5, oh no. Even though Junior has only done six months in the joint, the experience --- physical, mental and sexual--- has made him a stone-cold, tightly wound felon. (Some might argue that prison doesn’t change a man that quickly; I would counter by pointing out the character of Tom Marans in  last years ‘Prison Riot’ or Tobias Beecher in Fontana’s Oz)  This becomes clear when Tim and Frank interrogate Junior and he doesn’t even flinch at the threat of death row. He is wound up, but we don’t know how much.

Given the way the detectives dislike the Mahoney organization, and the way Kellerman and Lewis ride Junior when he is being held in the squad, we can see Bunk is ready to snap. And  after the director (in an unusual lack of subtlety) telegraph something might happen when Junior (and the viewer) sees a cop put his gun into a desk drawer, we’re ready to expect something. It comes as a huge shock though when Junior grabs the gun and starts shooting up the squad room. (It must have been a pretty full clip; I counted fifteen shots minimum that junior fired) Three uniformed officers are killed and Gharty and Ballard get badly wounded--- Gharty takes two in the chest; Ballard gets shot in the ankle. (There’s a certain style of the show that the two detectives who nearly die in Junior’s rampage are the ones who had the least to do with the Mahoney investigations.) Of course, Junior gets killed too, as at least four detectives and Lieutenant Giardello shoot at him.

We’ve seen gunfire on the show before, but this is the first time it really seems like overkill (pun intended). The sight of the squad after the gunplay ends is a haunting site, with the lights burnt out and windows shattered, but it really seems it belongs on some other type of program. I don’t know of any  police drama  where a squad-room ended up looking like Beirut and it blows any pretense of ‘reality’ out of the water.  They don’t even kill off one of the regular patrolmen like Westby or Sally Rogers. The war metaphor seems particularly appropriate  because after this Gee and the Baltimore PD  informally declare war on the Mahoney organization, vowing not to sleep until Georgia Rae is in custody.

 Despite all the shooting, like the old school Homicide we have a B-story going on. Falsone and Stivers are called in to investigate the murder of a parole officer. Actually, execution is a better term--- his car is riddled with gunfire from a moving vehicle, a la a drive-by. Turns out this PO was a real stickler for rules and one of his parolees was another old acquaintance --- Pony Johnson,  who was arrested for a double homicide in year one of the show. (Why he was paroled after only five years is a question the show never answers They also make a huge continuity error by saying Munch was the investigating detective; in actuality Kay Howard and Beau Felton were the arresting officers) Johnson got pissed when violated him and sent him back to Jessup and got his crew to kill him. He also hired a member of his crew (who was sleeping with the PO’s secretary to make him an easy set-up. Even throughout the violence in the squad, Falsone and Stivers still put the case bed before going to the hospital to check on their friends.

‘Fallen Heroes’ is a very dark-natured show but compared to some of the best episodes of Homicide  it is incredibly derivative and chaotic. It also features two of the most inappropriate musical interludes the show ever dead, including one that has ‘Save the Last Dance’ playing while we watch Ballard and Gharty undergo major surgery. Parts of the episode (the stuff with the parole officer, the early interrogations) are well done but a lot of it seems out of place. It well directed and acted but the efforts don’t seem even as good as last season.

My score: 3 stars.

Fan ranking: 7^th

My Picks for This Years Emmys: Supporting Actress - TV Movie/Limited Series

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A TV MOVIE/LIMITED         SERIES

This category has been dominated by Regina King the last couple of seasons (deservedly so) and Laura Dern last year. It is possible (if the Academy follows by desires, so take that idea with a grain of salt) that Dern will dominate again, but its more likely that a new face will prevail. It's more likely to come from one of the HBO TV movies, but here are my preferences.

Penelope Cruz, The Assassination of Gianni Versace

For those of us who only knew of Donatella Versace through SNL's satires of her through the first decade of the 2000s, it no doubt was stunning to see Cruz's creation of her as the iron fist of Versace empire. Trying to hold the company together after her brother's death, searching to keep him away from the coldness after his HIV diagnosis, her stormy relationship with her brother's lover, and the final moments where she acknowledged just how shaken she was, this was a performance that very likely could have Cruz getting an Emmy to go with her Oscar. I would be fine if that happened.

Laura Dern, Twin Peaks: The Return

As I said previously, she will mostly likely be nominated for he excellent work in The Tale. But if the Academy dares to drag its memory back to last year, they'll find hard to ignore Dern's remarkable as a Twin Peaks character we frequently heard about but never saw: Diane. As a boozy, shrewd, foul-mouthed and ultimately fake (with David Lynch, who can ever be sure) former colleague and love of Dale Cooper, Dern gave a performance that, even among the huge cast, was one of the most noteworthy and frightening in her repertoire. This may have been her best work with Lynch, and she goes all the way back to Blue Velvet. And on a personal note, I've never seen a more brilliant use of the f-word as punctuation, since McNulty and Bunk used it to figure out a crime scene in The Wire. She deserves to be recognized for that alone.

Riley Keough, Paterno

Having seen the movie, I mostly thought that, like so many HBO productions, hugely overblown. The movie centered entirely on the denial basically surrounded Joe Paterno, and had only a side-long relationship about what the Penn State coach actually knew - kind of like telling the entire story of O.J., and not dealing with the murder trial. What I did find good was probably the one performance that slipped under the radar - Keough's work as the dogged journalist who, going against the entire sports world, stubbornly picks at the decades of abuse by Jerry Sandusky until it breaks. She's a very gifted talent (as those few who watched Season 1 of The Girlfriend Experience know) and in a cast of much bigger talent deserves to be recognized.

Nicole Kidman, Top of the Lake: China Girl

Why do I want to recognize an actress who basically ran the table last year for her incredible work in Big Little Lies? Well, aside from the obvious reason that she won last year and that's usually a good enough reason for the Emmys to nominate you again, there's the not incidental fact that playing a complete different character in this already brilliant series, she once again demonstrated that she's one of four or five of the greatest actresses working these days. (Admittedly most of the others are also in Big Little Lies, but still...) And in a smaller, less showy role, she commanded the screen. That should be enough of a reason

Jennifer Jason Leigh, Patrick Melrose

She may be the most underrated Actress in the history of Hollywood, constantly ignored for Oscar nominations and nearly as often for Emmys. But its going to be really hard for the Academy to find a justification to ignore her for her fine work as Patrick's mother. One of the few performers in the limited series who aged significantly, she gave memorable work as a woman, who was nearly as damaging to her as his father, who knows what her husband is doing and chooses to ignore it, who thinks charity to strangers is more important than it is to her family, who puts her son in the agony in trying to end her life, and than backs out at last minute.  We know from watching the series that her husband has damaged her at least as much, but one finds it hard to consider that even close to an excuse. She's as good as she always is. Let's hope the Academy finds it enough.

Isabelle Nelisse, The Tale

There were a lot of good female supporting performances in this movie, but by far the most brilliant was the most unsettling. As the 13-year old Jennifer who narrates most of the movie, and engages in the majority of the most horrible behavior in a way that she considers consensual almost the entire way through, it was riveting. But what makes this performance among the most outstanding of the year, at least for me, were the sequences where she talks to the adult version of herself and feels no shame or even sadness for what has happened to her. Her simple reaction to whether or not telling the title story was a good thing - "I got an A" - may be one of the most frightening deliveries for the TV year. There were a lot of great character actresses in this movie. This thirteen-year outdid them all. And I hope she's acknowledged for it.

See you Thursday.

My Picks For This Years Emmys: Outstanding Supporting Actor In A TV MOVIE/Limited Series

This is always a tricky category to vet, even though none of the major series that infiltrated this category are present. Expect Ryan Murphy's series, as is their want, to dominate the category. I have problems with American Horror Story, but not American Crime Story. I actually don't have objections to some of the HBO movies this year, but my choices probably won't be the same ones that picked. Here are my preferences.

Jeff Daniels, The Looming Tower

I've always had mixed emotions about Daniels' work on television. I thought his win and nominations for The Newsroom were some of the biggest errors the Academy has made since he joined the television revolution. But his presence as an actor has been much more measured in some limited series. He has as much a chance of prevailing for his work in Netflix's Godless, which earned him a SAG nomination earlier in the year. But I think it more likely he will earn it for his fine work as the doomed security head at the World Trade Towers before 9-11. And should he get a nomination for playing the lead, I wouldn't object to that either.

David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return

In some ways, this may seem like the most ludicrous pick of all, particularly considering that there are a lot of other good options from this very series, including lawmen Dana Ashbrook and the late Miguel Ferrer. But the truth is, Lynch's work as Gordon Cole, the FBI supervisor of Dale Cooper, used mostly for comic relief in the original series, was one of the stabilizing agents of the new version. As Cole found himself going deeper into the morass that ended up grabbing his finest agent, Lynch demonstrated gifts as an actor nearly as polished as his work as a director and a writer. Perhaps its not surprising that seemed able to deal with the mess that kept spiraling, even as he managed to lay out some of the more comic moments with his chronic problems with hearing. I think the odds of him getting nominated are remote. But the odds were long this series would ever see the light of day.

Edgar Ramirez, The Assassination of Gianni Versace

In some ways, much like in the first season of Crime Story, the title character ended up playing second fiddle to far more brilliant suns. But its hard to imagine the series working as well as it did without Ramirez to anchor it. As he played an iconic fashion designer, struggling with his relationship, deal with being HIV positive, trying to find a way for his sister to find her muse, and slowly climb himself back to life all the while knowing that he would face a horrible demise, Ramirez managed to hit all the right notes as this man who was born too early and died too soon. It's hard to imagine the rest of the leads won't get nominated, but Ramirez earned it.

Jason Ritter, The Tale

Since I first encountered this incredible actor on the undervalued Joan of Arcadia, Ritter has earned a great reputation playing warm, nice guys. (He just got through a stint playing one on Kevin (probably) Saves The World). So it was incredibly shocking to see him cast radically against type as the running coach who very slowly is revealed to be a monster and a pedophile, and yet remain so charming that not even decades later does his victim realize she was abused. Frankly, its a hard performance to watch, and not just because many of the scenes involve the seduction and molestation of a thirteen year old.  It's because the viewer has such a hard time equating it with the actor we have come to respect. Ritter's never quite gotten the acknowledgement he deserves from the Emmys. This should qualify as one such performance.

Michael Shannon, Farenheit 451

Shannon has never earned the respect for any of the roles he's place on film, stage or TV. Mainly because they are characters that even when they appear normal, there's something discomforting about them. But now, role and actor were perfectly matched when Shannon played Captain Beatty, the head of the fire department. As either mentor or villain, he never quite fit the role, but watching him maneuver Montag into surrendering the free will he's spent a movie earning - before a crowd of millions - was some of the most unsettling work he's done. Some may protest that the rewrite of the movie was wrong. But seeing Shannon stand over the defiant Montag in the final scene was one of the most memorable moments of 2017. He deserves to get his first Emmy nomination.

Hugo Weaving, Patrick Melrose

Weaving has played some truly memorable villains in his time, but as David, Patrick's father, Weaving did some of his most truly horrific work. Seen by everybody who knew him as 'a remarkable man', every we see about him from the moment he first appears on screen as this hulking, washed out brute, who only seems human when he's demeaning somebody. We know he's a monster before the horrific things he does to his son ever take place. In a year when some of the best performances dealt with true evil,  Weaving's work reminded us just how easy it is for someone to be a monster mainly because his sins are ignored. Even under Cumberbatch's work, Weaving was nearly at his level.

My Picks for This Years Emmys: Lead Actress In A Movie/Limited Series

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A TV MOVIE/LIMITED SERIES

It's rare that the field for this award has dried up so remarkably, but as I said, with no Feud, no Big Little Lies, and no Fargo, the typical big lead for these awards are just not as omnipresent as they seem to be. I can think of more than a few that might fill the roles, and there are probably some obvious ones that I'll leave out. But here are my best choices.

Gillian Anderson, The X-Files

I know she's had her difficulties with this series, and that she won't go forward if the X-Files gets a season 12.  (And Fox, Carter, et al. if Anderson says that she's not going to do another season of The X-Files, for the love of God, don't do one) But none of this changes the fact that Dana Scully has defined my generation by leading the charge for all the strong, female roles that have come in the new millennium. And as Scully went on a journey to find the son she gave up for her adoption, and finally admitted her love for Mulder, it more than justified bringing it back from the dead, no matter what you thought of the series last couple of storylines

Hayley Atwell, Howard's End

Were it not for the fact that this series is on a network that almost regularly gets shafted by the Emmys, I would have been more than willing to give this series more nominations. But I have always been an admirer of Atwell's work, even the stuff that wasn't directly Marvel related, and when given a nearly impossible job - to play the character that Emma Thompson made iconic with her Oscar-Winning performance more than a century ago - and managed to, at the very least, equal that job is one of the more remarkable accomplishments of this impressive season. It's already earned some listing for the Ten Best List. I hope that she can keep pushing for it

Jessica Biel, The Sinner

From the opening moments, when her character seemed to stab a totally random beachgoer and offer no reasons for her actions, Biel delivered one of the most shocking performances of the 2017-2018 season. Of all the potential nominees in this category, her work this season was a radical jump forward from just about everything else we've seen her do. She made an abrupt jump into an already crowded female category at the beginning of awards season, or she almost certainly would've won something by now. I think there's a very good chance that she'll be at the center of this years awards.

Laura Dern, The Tale

Yes, she managed to take an Emmy last season for HBO. And I personally think that she should be considered for another nomination in a different category. (I'll get to that in a bit.) But playing the later version of a woman, trying to deal with a molestation experience in her childhood that she can't, for most of the movie, even admit was abuse was a revelatory performance that I don't think anybody who watched TV this year can readily forget. Never mind the timeliness of the film or the ward, this was another magnificent performance by one of the great actress of our time. If she doesn't get nominated this year, there is no point in  these awards.

Cristin Milioti, Black Mirror: U.S.S Callister

For reasons that are almost certain due to my own failings, I've never given this now legendary British Netflix anthology the time of day. And every time it produces another group of episodes, it seems determined to dare me to ignore it. It would be very silly of me to ignore this brilliant series that perfectly paid homage to Star Trek and The Twilight Zone, particularly considering the work of Milioti as a woman who wakes up on a TV starship, and finds herself in a Serlingesque nightmare.  I've been an admirer of her work since How I Met Your Mother, and thought she was robbed of an Emmy nod for her work in Season 2 of Fargo. This seems like a more than ideal time to recognize her.

Elisabeth Moss, Top of the Lake: China Girl

Between her iconic roles as Peggy on Mad Men and June on The Handmaid's Tale, Moss played a subtler but just as intense role as Robin Griffin, the intense, sexually confused, detective determined to solve one of the more harsh crimes in Jane Campion's memorable Sundance mini-series. And even though the second entry was, perhaps inevitably, not nearly as strong as the first one, Moss remains as charismatic and as dark as ever. Like Dern, I would have no problem with her double-dipping this year.

My Picks For This Year's Emmys: Lead Actor in a Movie/Limited Series

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A TV MOVIE/LIMITED SERIES

After three consecutive years where the strongest lead performances were in the female lead categories, this season has seen a shift to fairly dominant male-led series. (I expect that this trend will only true for this year.) However, given certain limitations, I feel very strongly that there will be more nominees from movies this year. I actually have a couple of preferences from that category as well. Bearing this in mind, here are my choices, knowing full well that Netflix and Hulu will probably drop a couple in.

Darren Criss, The Assassination of Gianni Versace

One of the most dominant and fascinating performances for the entire year, Criss did something that even the greatest television has rarely been able to do: put you in the mind of a psychopath. The reverse unfolding of the series showed us just how Andrew Cunanan went from a gay rent-boy to a serial killer. He never quite earned our sympathy - he was just too deranged a personality to accomplish that - but through Criss' portrayal we saw that in many ways, Cunanan was as broken and damaged as the victims he killed. The fact that Criss managed to do all this while making us forget the memorable portrayal of Blaine in Murphy's Glee demonstrated just how great a talent he is. Probably the front-runner for the Emmy.

Benedict Cumberbatch, Patrick Melrose

One is tempted to draw parallels between Melrose and Cumberbatch's other most memorable TV portrayal - after all, both he and Sherlock Holmes were damaged addicts. But that's practically all that the two have in common. Cumberbatch was so brilliant to watch playing a character, trying to deal with his various addictions, his psychological damage, and his incredible family dysfunction - things that Sherlock, for all his intellect, would not be able to comprehend. This was mesmerizing television, another, and if anything, far greater master class in acting than Cumberbatch has ever accomplished. I really hope that there's some possibility for additional stories about Patrick. He made a compelling journey, and I'd like to see Cumberbatch try and help him heal.

Jared Harris, The Terror

Yes, it was a brilliant performance, seeing Harris playing the captain of a doomed ship at the center of an Arctic expedition, trapped by the snow and ice, pushed by disease... and stalked by something no one can comprehend. But, honestly I've been a fan of this actors calm stoicism, even when led towards villainy, ever since I first saw him on Fringe. And frankly, the man has a track record of dying in TV and movies almost as bad as Sean Bean. I don't think he'll survive til Season 2 (his character was the only one to make it to the end of the series) but I think just for his dignity and class, he deserves a nomination, especially for a series that is likely to dominate.

Michael B. Jordan, Farenheit 451

The voters will more likely choose as their representative from HBO's brilliant TV movies, Al Pacino's work in the title role of Paterno. Pacino has been linked so successfully in his collaborations with the cable network that he gets recognized even when, like here, its a lesser effort.  Far more daring and radical was the interpretation of the groundbreaking Ray Bradbury novel, a work that with each passing days fits our present more and more. Jordan's work as Montag, the firefighter who finds himself gradually embracing the world of literature was so astonishing, you didn't even notice that his character had been made African-American.  The story became simultaneously more dystopian and more optimistic mainly through Jordan's work. And let's be honest, he's been deserving of an Emmy nomination since he burst on the screen as Wallace in the premiere season of The Wire. Normally, I don't like move actors taking up these spaces. For Jordan,  it was a pleasure to watch.

Kyle MacLachlan, Twin Peaks

The only argument I can see against nominated MacLachlan is that he came playing the iconic lead from this iconic series - and then spent the length of that series not being Dale Cooper. This frustrated many people. But really, all of this only adds to this astonishing quality as his work. He played three distinct characters: Cooper, the Chance Gardener like Doug Jones, and the evil incarnate BOB, and played them all so incredibly that you had a hard time believing that they were all being played by the same actor. Maclachlan has always been a versatile actor, even though he's spent decades trying to overcome being Lynch's main lead. This series did a few things wrong, but none of them had to do with MacLachlan's work. If the series had aired a little earlier, he would be a lock for the Emmy.

Bill Pullman, The Sinner

This brilliant character has been laboring in the field so long in anonymity (with the unfortunate exception of Independence Day) that its rather sad that no has ever tried until now to put him in the lead of anything, film or television. As was the case so often, the quiet, dignified performance he gave was obscured by a brighter sun - Jessica Biel's murderer (who we'll get to in the next category). But as always, his deflection mixed with his own problems made him just as interesting watch, and well worth being a figure to build a series around. He deserved an Emmy nomination as much as Bill Paxton, the late character actor he was constantly confused with through their joint careers. Let's hope they don't wait as long this time.

My Picks For This Years Emmys: Outstanding Limited Series

I've felt more enthusiastic about this category the past three years. This year, however, its a bit harder to work up excitement. American Crime is gone.. Fargo won't be eligible til next year (though frankly, I should be grateful its coming back at all) No Feud. No Big Little Lies.. Hell, I'd even settle for Season 3 of True Detective.

That being said, there are still some very valid contenders this season. But, for the record, I'm probably going to be borrowing from the TV Movie categories more heavily than usual. Not that there weren't some brilliant performances there. But we'll get to them.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace

Okay, it wasn't at the level of People Vs. O.J. Simpson. But the second season of American Crime Story did have some of the more memorable performances of the year. And  by operating in reverse chronology, we got to see a lot clearer what drove Andrew Cunanan to become the monster he was - something we never saw for O.J. Simpson. The series took on the issue of homosexuality in a far darker and more realistic way than we've come to expect from Ryan Murphy and company, and in its own way, it was as relevant as Simpson was in 2016. We still had a harder time looking at the title victim, but considering how closely we viewed all the other victims - including Cunanan himself - it was hardly lacking. The odds on favorite to win this year.

Patrick Melrose (Showtime)

A very latecomer to the list of the nominees, that may actually work in its favor. Starting out as a jet-black comedy about the life of a drug-addicted high class Brit, it very quickly veered in even darker territory into such subjects as child molestation, the silence that follows abuses, and how the sins of the father can be visited upon the children.. Of course, all this may be lost on those who came watch the master class of acting that we have come to expect from Benedict Cumberbatch, but it had some brilliant ensemble pieces as well from a very good supporting cast. Ending on the faintest bit of optimism, we can possibly get, this could be one of the great accomplishments of the year.

The Sinner (USA)

Another one of those dark American adaptations of an even darker Scandinavian procedural, the likelihood of this series being nominated  depends on whether the voters can be asked to recall a nominee from as far back as last August. But the fact is, the Emmys should recognize memorable female performances, and its likely that they'll remember Jessica Biel's unforgettable turn as a woman who murdered her own child, and Bill Pullman's solid portrayal of the man who more determined to find the motive than the criminal herself. Considering its coming back for Season 2, I think it very likely that they'll remember it.

Top of the Lake: China Girl (Sundance)

Admittedly, its more likely that any of a half-dozen more popular series will get the nomination than this New Zealand mystery. But Jane Campion's very dark female led series was a surprise favorite among the Emmys when the first movie came out three years ago. And the brilliant work of Elisabeth Moss and Nicole Kidman is more than worthy of Emmy discussion. It's likely that The Terror will take this spot, but one would be hard pressed to find a better group of female performances this season.

Twin Peaks (Showtime)

This is going to be a really hard one to pull for.  It started airing way back in May. It was far, far less popular than Showtime expected. And even the most devoted of fans of this classic series (of which I am one) would have to admit that it was almost, but not entirely, unlike the phenomena that stunned audiences a quarter of a century ago. In a larger sense, though (and when you're dealing with any David Lynch project you have to deal with a larger sense) that's the point. This was a phantasmagorical journey into a world that we only got a taste in the original series. And there were at least three or four episodes that already rank among the greatest of television  in this century. It was remarkable, mirrored only by the fact that Lynch, having a cast of hundreds, managed to get his series on the air, with nobody knowing what the hell was going to happened. In the age on the Internet getting everything three minutes after an episode airs, that's outstanding. And now he wants to do a Season 2. Now that's wondrous and strange.