When ABC Hailed The King: A Celebration of One of TV and Literature's Greatest Collaboration

 

Before we get started, I think I have to give a brief refresher for those of you who are under forty.

During the 1970s and 1980s, what we now consider the limited series looked nothing like it did in the way that HBO and Netflix do it today.  The mini-series was essentially the equivalent of ‘an event series’.  All three networks would be willing to sacrifice entire weeks of their prime time schedule to telling an entire story in two hours blocks. To be clear, this came out of the immense critical and popular success of Roots but there was just as many versions of it that were in their own ways just as magnificent: Rich Man,, Poor Man,; North and South, Lonesome Dove and quite a few others. This came to an end in the late 1980s after ABC’s adaptation of Herman Wouk’s War and Remembrance was such as expensive failure that networks began scaling back on those kind of epics.

That did not mean the format changed or went away during the 1990s: only the number of nights they were willing to devote to these projects. To be clear, there had been many miniseries over time that had been two part and three part projects and during the 1990s they became the norm.  This involved compressing in stories but it didn’t always mean a sacrifice in quality.  And it was during this period that ABC began what would be one of the most successful collaborations between a writer and television probably in history.

To be clear Stephen King projects had been proliferating television during the 1980s just as so many film adaptations had. The problem was, of course, one that network television could never quite solve. How do you combine a man known for some of the most graphic images in horror with a medium that is always subject to censors? And the answer in the 1980s was, not well. King’s second novel Salem’s Lot was adapted into a two part miniseries in 1979. The best one can say about it is: it was good for what it was. It was a commercial hit, to be sure, but it was also incredibly bland. The fact that it managed to inspire a sequel Return to Salem’s Lot was a measure of its ratings rather than its quality.

There were similar attempts made throughout the 1980s that were, to say the least, not much better. A TV movie based on his short story Sometimes They Come Back with Tim Matheson as the lead came and went. (There’s a sequel to that, and its worse actually.) King made an attempt with a kind of series called Golden Years in which a seventy year old janitor gets exposed to a chemical formula and begins to grow younger.  There was a fair amount of talent attached to this series – gifted actors such as Keith Szarbaja, Frances Sternhagen, and an almost complete unknown named Felicity Huffman  - but CBS had no confidence in the property and aired in the summer of 1990 where it came and went. I barely remember and I can’t imagine you can find it anywhere.

To be clear during this period there were just as many King projects on film just as inadequate, and if anything, worse. Children of the Corn , a film that is so horrible I’m astounded that it’s the most successful franchise on his work, Firestarter, which is basically poorly acted and has lousy effects, Maximum Overdrive, one of the worst movies of the 1980s (which King himself wrote and directed) and Creepshow 2.  There were some treasures among the turds – The Dead Zone, Cujo and of course Stand By Me – but by the end of the decade, all but the most devoted horror fans were beginning to lose faith in the ability to successfully adapt any Stephen King project.

That started to change in the fall of 1990 when both a stellar film adaptation and a superb television adaptation of two of King’s greatest novel came to the screen. The movie, of course, was Misery  the first – and to date -only King film to win an Oscar for acting. Few people will ever forget Kathy Bates’ incredible performance as Annie Wilkes. Just as significant from the perspective of television was ABC’s adaptation of IT,.

Regardless of what one thinks of the series in retrospect  - and to be clear, I’ll acknowledge it was deeply flawed – what was far more important to fans of Stephen King was that television finally seemed to have cracked the code. The two-part series was a ratings hit and just as importantly, King fans embraced it.

For the next fifteen years Stephen King and ABC would collaborate on several exceptional adaptations – and in some cases, original projects – developed by King.  Eventually King himself began to write his adaptations and I’d argue that these projects are among the best adaptations of his own work, certainly for the small screen.  I would eventually see all of these projects, the majority of them when they originally aired. And because Stephen King is, well, Stephen King, it will be easy to find them streaming or on DVD.

Now since King gets rediscovered and many of his projects are constantly being revised, the question is should you see them or the newer versions that exist? I’ve seen a few of them too, so wearing my hats as a TV critics, a literary critic and a Constant Reader (as King calls us) I’ll give you my opinions.

 

1990: Stephen King’s It:  Adapted by Lawrence D. Cohen and Tommy Lee Wallace

I give this one more credit for tapping the wellspring than its actual quality.  It has quite a bit of genuine talent as many of these series do: the adults are played by some truly gifted actors: Harry Anderson, Dennis Cristopher, Annette O’Toole, Richard Masur, Richard Thomas, Harry Anderson (slightly tweaking his comic personality) and John Ritter (playing it perfectly straight) Of course all of this is dominated by Tim Curry, whose work as Pennywise is one of the main reasons to show.  This is also a chance to see the early work of Seth Green as well as Jonathan Brandis, a brilliant child actor whose committed suicide.

Much of the best work is in the first part as every character in the book receives calls from Mike and each of them have flashbacks to their past.  The scenes for the record don’t remotely gel with any of their original experiences with It in the original book with the sole exception of Bill’s, which is true in both cases. The final battle in 1960 has to be shifted to a more direct struggle (and honestly, I don’t blame either this version or the film for doing so; no matter how many times I read the book, it’s very hard to understand how the Losers triumph.) I also think the decision to make Stan the last character to receive the news instead of Bill is dramatically sound as it gives the first part the kind of ending it needs.

The second part has some good moments but the problem is not only that the kids aren’t there but that the final part tries to do far too much with too little time. I’ve always felt the series would have worked better with a three parts instead of two and that seems to have been the original plan. And I have to tell the descent into the sewer and the last half-hour are as anticlimactic as they seem now.

I give the project credit for getting what as much as they could on screen.  But I think that the film version that came out in 2017 is infinitely superior, far more faithful and much more frightening.  Part of it is because it’s on film, but honestly a lot of it is because the kids are far better performers and make their own stands. I also think the adult actors are far superior in every incarnation, and the ending is far more emotionally satisfying that either the mini-series – and I have to be honest, the book too.

See It: Only if you’re a completist.

 

The Tommyknockers (1993) Written by Lawrence Cohen, Directed by John Power

Okay I’m going completely against any true fan of King’s when I recommend you see this.  And its not because it’s really that good. It’s messy and its unpleasant, the special effects are mediocre and it basically wastes a great cast: from Jimmy Smits and Marg Helgenberger to E.G. Marshall. (When the best performance is given by Traci Lords, kind of says something about what you’re getting into). And I agree, the only reason you might like it is for reasons for pure camp: the dialogue is silly and the images are kind of ridiculous.

So why do I recommend it? Because with all its mediocrity, its still better than the book it was based on. I wrote an article last year that I thought The Tommyknockers is by far the worst novel King’s ever written because by far it’s the bleakest when it comes to every character’s fate. Which to be clear, means that every single resident of the town dies except for two young boys who are reunited at the end, but don’t yet know that their parents and everyone they know is dead. (In the world of King, this is what counts as a happy ending for much of his work.) Cohen, for all his flaws, seems to have realized that this was too bleak for his viewers to take and revised it to save the town and let most of the good people live.  Hell, he even let’s the pet dog come back to life.

Now I grant you most of the reasons to watch this may fall into the camp category, but that always works better for horror. If you love the book, don’t see this. If you find the book a weak link in King’s canon – and most of his devoted fans do – you’ll probably like this.

See It: Only if you don’t like the book.

 

The Stand (1994) Written by King, Directed By Mick Garris

The crown jewel of the ABC/Stephen King collaboration, this is one of the great projects King got for the small screen until Peak TV finally figured out to use him right a few years ago. I was recently fortunate enough to get a VHS recording taped the days the series aired in April of 1994 and it is still everything you think of it.

I will be writing about the book itself in a different series, but this is one of the most complete adaptations of any King novel and is an argument that the author is the best person to adapt his own work. King took what worked of his 816 page magnum opus (the uncut version had come out by then, but there were very few things from it that make the cut here) and compresses it into one of the best productions of the apocalypse I’ve ever seen before or since.  Most of his cast were not celebrities at the time, but they were some of the greatest actors of their era. Molly Ringwald and Rob Lowe did much to revive their flagging careers as Fran and Nick Andros. Gary Sinise made an impression on TV that would make him one of the great actors of his era in the next two decades. Ray Walston continued the remarkable late career renaissance that had started with Picket Fences two years earlier.  Jamey Sheridan gave one of his best performances as King’s quintessential villain Randall Flagg. Ruby Dee was just as exceptional as Mother Abagail (her husband Ossie Davis made a smaller part as Judge Farris his own). And several of the most gifted actors in TV  for years to come – Miguel Ferrer, Laura San Giacomo and Bill Fagerbakke –  did some of their best work.

There are also several remarkable smaller performances throughout and images you won’t forget.  I’ve never been able to shake the image of Kareem-Abdul Jabar playing a character known as ‘the monster shouter’, walking the streets of NYC screaming ‘Bring Out Your Dead’, as the city is looting and skyscrapers have fires raging in them.  Ed Harris plays a military figure as the plague rages across the country who thinks it is more important to keep the cover story in place even as the world ends. And Kathy Bates has a cameo as a talk radio host who listens to her callers and asks about what they think as the plague rages.  Fran is listening as the military comes in and executes her.

Few King projects have ever had the resonance of this series (it was nominated for Outstanding Miniseries that year and won for its makeup and sound mixing.) Garris’ direction is perfect and the score perfectly mixes both original music and the right kings of songs. Few who have seen the opening where ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’ plays over a lab where hundreds of scientists lie dead of the plague that will soon destroy the world will ever forget it. I made a deliberate decision not to seek out the limited version that came out a few years ago in any form. Nothing can surpass what I saw here.

See It: Absolutely.

 

The Langoliers:  Written and Directed by Tom Holland

This is a disappointment. Holland as genre fans know, is by far one of the greatest forces in Horror. By the time he’d took on The Langoliers, he’d already written such classics as Fright Nights, Child’s Play. He’d written and directed for Tales from the Crypt. The subject for this adaptation is one of the better works King ever did. Part of his collection Four Past Midnight, it deals with a red-eye flight from LAX to Boston in which ten passengers all wake up and find that all of their fellow passengers and crew are gone – and so is the rest of the world. They eventually manage to land the plane and soon find that is the least of their problems. (This might be an ancestor text to Lost but King has never laid claim to that idea and he has been a huge fan of the show.)  There really isn’t any gore to speak of. Why didn’t it work?

Most of the performances don’t work, for one.  There are some good actors in this cast – David Morse, Dean Stockwell, Patricia Wettig, but they basically seem flat in the series. Bronson Pinchot, who has the role of the human villain, tries to overcorrect and he’s just terrible at it. The story can manage some suspense as long as we don’t see what looks like its causing the impending threat, but once we see the Langoliers, you almost want to start laughing. To be fair, they are exactly as described in the book. To be just as fair, they don’t seem very frightening then.

This is a very lousy production and worse it’s failure combined with the disastrous reception to Holland’s adaptation of King’s Thinner a year later, seems to have caused him to basically retire from the business. He has done some anthology series here and there and he’s occasionally appeared in films as himself.. But there’s a chance this drove him out of the Hollywood. His last project has been an animated version of this story as if he’s trying to correct his wrongs. I’m sorry Tom. The characters in the Langoliers traveled back in time but you still can’t get good work out of this.

See It?: Try not To

 

The Shining (1997) Written by Stephen King; Directed By Mick Garris

This is the most controversial one on the list because we know why it was made. King famously hates the Stanley Kubrick version of the film, which to this date many people consider a masterpiece. Roger Ebert considered it one of the greatest films ever made, putting it in his third book on Great Movies.  There were many who considered what King did an act of pettiness and vindictiveness and were inclined to hate this out the gate.

The thing is, King’s not wrong to feel this way. There is much to admire in Kubrick’s film – it is everything they say it is. But what it isn’t is an adaptation of King’s novel in any real sense of the word.  Kubrick seems to have taken the bare bones of the plot and basically chose to do what he wanted with every aspect of the story. I can understand why King was not consider this an adaptation of his work.

By contrast, the mini series is a truer one and if you are a fan of the novel, this is the version to want to read.  For all Nicholson’s power as a performer, it’s hard to tell when he goes crazy in the movie. You can see it happen over time in the work of Steven Weber. Who over a period of two days gradually goes mad.  It’s easier to be on the inside of Wil Horneff as Danny than the one we see in The Shining, and in the case it seems its trying to help him as much as drive him mad. And Kubrick’s treatment of Shelly Duvall was so monstrous during the film that she basically retired from acting not long after the movie.  This notoriously did disservice to Wendy who is the tower of strength in the book and who is the only reliable narrator. Rebecca De Mornay’s version is cooler and slowly realizes the threat.

You never sense the Torrance’s were a loving family in Kubrick’s film. They’re broken in this, but they’re trying to heal which makes what happens more tragic. It’s also more true to the film in the details – the lawn topiary attacking Danny, Jack’s gradual madness rather than complete deterioration, the croquet mallets, even the phrases Jack shouts when he’s hunting his family. And for the record, the ending of the movie bares no resemblance to what happens in the book. This version does and adds a bonus closer to canon both in the fate of Jack Torrance and a twist that is actually keeping with King.

Honestly, I think horror fans can freely enjoy both. The former is only available on DVD and VHs but it’s worth searching out and watching. (By the way Doctor Sleep the movie is a sequel to the film version of The Shining, not the book. Maybe in a few years we’ll get a mini-series of that too.)

See It: Seek it out.

 

Storm of the Century (1999) Written by King; Directed by Craig R. Baxley

By this point King was getting more ambitious and wrote his first original mini-series for TV and it’s arguably one of his works for any screen.  The series tells the story of ‘the Big Blow’ which took place on Little Tall Island. Constable Mike Anderson (Tim Daly) is dealing with the preparation of a big blizzard when a man named Andre Linoge appears on the island. He walks into a house, knocks on the door, and says: “Give me what I want and I’ll go away” before bashing an old woman’s brains out.

Linoge is waiting for Anderson and seems more than happy to be taken into custody. As he walks into the jail, he seems to know all the secrets of the town and is more than happy to share them. It turns out that Linoge has no problem committing a reign of terror even behind the pitiful cell.  As the blow continues, it’s clear that he knows their secrets and that he’s not human. By the time the desperate town-folk hold a meeting to hear Linoge out, they learn what he wants – and are in such horror that only Mike seems able to stand in a pitiful dissent.  What he gets from the town is so horrible that most involved are wrecked by it for years after the fact. But as Mike tells us, he thought he’d learned just how horrible it was during the big blow. He finally learns the truth years later – and it’s even worse.

This original production featured some of the most gifted character actors I’ve seen, past and present. Jeffrey DeMunn plays an oily town manager who finds all his secrets were never buried. Debrah Farentino plays Mike’s wife who becomes increasingly horrified by what happens over the next few days and whose decision is so horrible that she can never forgive herself for it. This is my first memory of Julianne Nicholson, who plays a frail teenager and who I have admired as one of TV’s great performers ever since. But the standout work is Colm Feore as Linoge. Feore is one of the most gifted character actors I’ve seen over the years; he’s played heroes as well as villains but he’s rarely been used to better effect here.

This series is etched into your memory long after it ends and is one of the great pure horror pieces I ever saw broadcast TV do. Seek it out. You’ll spend the first two parts wondering what Linoge wants. When you find out in the third, it’ll make you question just what you would do as much as Mike does at the end.

See It: With the lights on. In the spring.

 

Rose Red (2002) Written by King; Directed by Baxley

Because of the immense popular and critical success of Storm, ABC had no problem when King adapted his next original project with Baxley a few years later. They had no problem giving King the same budget and releasing it on three consecutive days in January. (They’d done the same with Storm of the Century, in both cases giving it prime sweeps territory.) I have little doubt they expected the same critical reception. Instead, they got their weakest project from King since he’d started writing his own series for ABC.

Why doesn’t Rose Red work? It’s not so much that’s it just a variation of the haunted house genre and Shirley Jackson in particular; King has been riffing on genres for careers and making them his own.  It’s that he creates an interesting back story – there was even a tie-in book about Ellen Rimbauer that came out in conjunction with this series – and basically uses so little of it in the main action. And by far the biggest problem is who he casts in the lead role of Joyce Reardon.

Nancy Travis is a superb actress but it’s almost entirely in comic roles. She is incapable of channeling the inner darkness and arrogance that Joyce Reardon requires because she’s spent her entire career before and after playing nice people. Kyra Sedgwick or Andrea Parker (back then, female actresses asked to play dark characters on TV were few and far between and Edie Falco was busy) could have done it; Travis was incapable.  And I’m not sure most of this superb cast, from Kevin Tighe to the basically unknown Melanie Lynskey and Emily Deschanel were well utilized and Kimberly Brown had nothing to work with as Annie. It doesn’t help that King has always been weak when it comes to writing strong female characters most of the time in his fiction (it’s only in the last decade that he seems to have gotten it down cold; he could never have come up with Holly Gibney in 2002)

It's uneven and there’s no part of it that worked for me. I’ll admit I might be prejudiced because during this period my fanboy love of King was starting to fall apart (Dreamcatcher came out around this time and its one of his worst novels). Some might be inclined to revisit it twenty years later and maybe I will. But my memories of it aren’t fond.

See It?: I wouldn’t. Judge for yourself.

 

There are many reasons why King’s relationship with ABC began to break down after this point – the rise of cable, the decline of the mini-series and TV movie as something network TV would indulge in at all – but the most direct reason might well have been a change in leadership at ABC.

During this period ABC was going through a rocky period in the ratings and the president of the network Lloyd Braun was fired in April of 2004. This change at the top ended up helping ABC’s fortunes short and long-term: in the fall of 2004, the network debuted such critical and ratings hits as Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal and Lost, and that winter Grey’s Anatomy ended up premiering. ABC’s fortunes had radically changed.

But in adjusting its fortunes to becoming a new powerhouse in primetime, as a result they began to get rid of dead weight. And that weight included King. It did not help that his series project for the network Kingdom Hospital had been greenlit by Braun and had failed.  King and the kind of work he had done seemed of a different era. So in the spring of 2006 ABC more or less cut bait with King in Desperation.

And to be clear, they really shoved him to the curb.

Desperation (2006) Written by King; Directed by Mick Garris

King made no secret as to how angry he was about how what would be his final project for ABC turned out and he had every right to be.  Rather than allow him even a two part series for his novel, they only allowed him to have what amounted to a three hour TV movie, which is an ungainly amount of time for any project. Then to add insult to injury, rather than give him a sweeps time slot Desperation didn’t air until the end of ABC’s 2005-2006 season and opposite the season finale of American Idol.  This would have been shabby treatment for anybody; much less a man who was one of the most successful authors of all time.

And I’m not going to lie. Desperation is a mess. But it’s the kind of mess that could have worked had King and Garris been allowed to do what they usually did.  Most of the good parts of the novel are there: the opening involving the Jacksons when we think we’re going to be following Peter and Mary and Peter is killed off in the first scene.  Collier Entragian in the book is six feet five and in his thirties which Ron Perlman is not; but you don’t give a damn because Perlman’s face and voice are absolutely perfect for the monster within. The decision to keep using it as Tak jumps from body to body is the right one.

Steven Weber is as good as here as he was in The Shining.  Annabeth Gish is very good as increasingly terrified Mary. Tom Skerritt and Charles Durning as always never step wrong. You get a chance to see Samantha Hanratty, who has spent the last few years on Yellowjackets playing someone anything but innocent in an early role as one of the most innocent of victims. And King never relents in the darkness of his vision, not only in who he kills off but who he lets live.

You can see that had this been divided into two or three episodes it could have worked well enough and been at the level of King’s other work for ABC. Instead what you get is a rush job with much of the better stuff hurried over and almost all the key moments left out. There could have been a great mini-series here and instead we get a horrible TV movie. It’s an ignominious end to a great partnership.

 

There’s a chance King may have seen the writing on the wall before this. That summer on TNT what amounted to an anthology series of King’s fiction called Nightmares & Dreamscapes aired on TNT. There were eight short stories over four weeks: each one an hour long. And frankly some were brilliant.

There was Battleground a fifty-three minute silent movie that pitches hitman played by William Hurt against an army of toy soldiers with real bullets.  This hit man is more than up to the job almost to the end. There’s ‘Umney’s Last Case’, a story where William H. Macy plays private eye Clyde Umney, whose shocked to see his familiar world falling apart – until he meets the man who created him and learns he’s a fictional character. (Macy got a SAG nomination for it) There’s The End of The Whole Mess, a story about the end of war, the coming of peace and the Messiah told in an hour of video tape. Given how short stories and anthologies go together, it’s a pity this only aired once.

 And it is not like King’s presence has disappeared from television. Netflix has been filming his short stories over the years; some of which one would have thought unfilmable. Adaptations of his work such have been turned into mini-series and even series, such as Mr. Mercedes, Lisey’s Story, The Outsider and most recently Chapplewaite an adaptation of his short story ‘Jerusalem’s Lot’, his prequel to Salem’s Lot.  He even adapted Lisey’s Story for Apple, for better or worse.

King will never go away because horror never goes away. And for all his flaws as a writer, he will always find new fans because his work does reach to new generations.  What is remarkable about his collaboration with ABC in retrospect was how good it was, considering all the limitations that network TV had and still does when it comes to  so much of King’s work. The gore and gruesome nature that cable and streaming have no problem with were non-starters when King was adapting The Stand, but its hard to image anything Paramount Plus version did, even when it was allowed to also have the profanity and sex that the ABC version couldn’t.  And considering how disastrous so many of King’s filmed original projects have been (Sleepwalkers comes to mind) it’s astonishing that something as brilliant as Storm of the Century managed to make it on network television and was as good it was.  Even Rose Red is by comparison a masterpiece to something like Maximum Overdrive where King had full creative control.

The era where King and ABC collaborated can almost certainly never be returned too and maybe that’s for the best.  But considering his track record with so many other directors and so many other forms of adaptations of his work, loose to the point of in-name-only to the point that they are basically literally, it’s hard not to argue that during this sixteen year period ABC was this particular King’s most faithful subject. Constant Readers and horror fans alike should be grateful for that.

 

 

Fellow Travelers Takes Place in The 1950s But is Anything But A Period Piece

 

What does it say about me, who has studied almost every aspect of 20^th century American history, that it is only fairly recently that I learned about the Lavender Scare, another saga that gives lie to the argument that so many who choose to look at the 1950s as a blissful, peaceful era? Taking place in concurrence with the Red Scare led by Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn, it led an investigation into Washington officials in every aspect of government and society, not for their ideological beliefs but their moral ones.  If Eisenhower’s behavior towards McCarthy during his anti-Communist crusade barely pasted muster, there’s an argument that the hero of D-Day might have actually privately endorsed this one: he never had the most enlightened view of integration, so it’s not much of a step to go from their to investigate what people in their bedrooms.

Fellow Travelers,  a limited series adaptation of Thomas Mallon’s novel of the same name, ostensibly spans more than thirty years of history but at its core is McCarthy era Washington at the height of both of these scares. It begins its story at Eisenhower’s landslide victory in November of 1952 in McCarthy headquarters and ends its first episode just as McCarthy is announcing the investigation that will lead to the second part.  Joe McCarthy is played by that brilliant character actor Chris Bauer, who is clearly enjoying getting to play a proper villain after decades in TV as characters who are simply ‘morally ambiguous’. But the series centers around the relationship between two men Hawkins Fuller (Matt Bomer) and Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey).

Early reviews compared Fuller’s character to the gay version of Don Draper, and I can understand at least part of that comparison. Like Don, Hawkins is roguish handsome, has no problem being behind the political scenes without being part of them, backs a prominent Democratic Senator but has no problem showing his face at McCarthy victory party, has a charming veneer that hides a sexual predator (which Don really was, when you get right down to it) and is cynical about every aspect of society that so many people hold dear – including Tim. The only difference is that when Hawk needs to indulge in his indiscretions, he has no problem going to the local men’s rooms and picking up strangers.  However, as a colleague of his says (Hawkins doesn’t really have friends) ‘he likes sex without emotional entanglement’.

At this core, however, Hawkins is more cynical that Don Draper ever was. Don made efforts to make connections, even if he didn’t know he was doing it. Hawkins sees everything that is going on – including the Red Scare itself – as an opportunity.  There is of course, a hidden level to this  that Draper never had: given just how dangerous it was to be labeled queer in 1950s America, Hawk is trying everything in his power to make sure he will never be suspected of what he refuses to acknowledge is something that could get end him in prison or dead. At one point a fellow state department official tells him a preview of what it is to come, and Hawk has no trouble telling him to throw someone else under the bus.  The next day, when he encounter the State Department a man he had a one night stand with who recognizes him,  he walks away and takes as circuitous a route back to his office as he can and did gives his colleague the number far more to save him then himself. When he learns that same kid tried to kill himself and nearly succeeded, he remains firm in public – and it is only a few days later that he raids his safe and gives the kid money from an anonymous envelope.

Early in the episode Hawk makes the acquaintance of Tim, who unlike Hawk is a true believer. He thinks that Communism is a danger to society and McCarthy is on the side of the angels. Hawk makes sure he gets him a job with McCarthy but its only so that he can use Tim – both for political advantage and sexual advantage.  Many of their early encounters show Hawk completely dominant over Tim, not merely in the bedroom but by mocking everything he stands for, including his religious background. (Tim is a devout Catholic when the series begins which Hawk seems to find amusing more than anything.)

Hawk spends much of the first episode acting like these encounters are not a relationship. Tim tells Hawk everything about himself and Hawk refuses to tell Tim anything. At one point when Tim bares his soul to Hawk, Hawk mocks not only everything he believes but everything they’ve been doing.  There are signs of the consequences even in the first episode. We first see Tim only drinking milk; by the end of the episode he gets drunk for the first time and Hawk seems proud of this.

I have told you much of what I have seen and not who the cast is. Hawk is played by Matt Bomer. Bomer has been in television almost all his life and yet somehow I’ve had so little interaction with him despite his resume: I somehow never saw Tru Calling, much of his star-making work in USA’ White Collar and I never saw his appearance in The Last Tycoon. I was, however, riveting by his work in the third season of The Sinner where he played Jamie, a husband and father who seemed to have everything, but whose appearance of an old college friend led him to take part in his death and go down a path of nihilism. One can’t deny his sex appeal – one doesn’t get cast in the Magic Mike franchise if you don’t have it  - and I’ve been very aware of his sexual preferences since he won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in the HBO adaptation of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart. He hadn’t really been hiding it before or since that win, certainly not in many of the projects he chose he has been one of many performers in Ryan Murphy’s stable for the past decade. Fellow Travelers is perhaps the first television series he has done where both parts of his behavior are in play simultaneously. In White Collar, he played a criminal whose role was the help the government get to other con artists by basically lying about everything: Hawkins is doing the same thing, including about the most vital part of his nature.

 Jonathan Bailey was less known to me because most of his work has been in British Television. He is remembered by many (but not by me) for his work as Lord Anthony in Bridgerton.  I do remember him for his work in Broadchurch where he appeared in the first two seasons but only vaguely (was the world not riveting by David Tennant and Olivia Colman?) Like all British Actors he has the American accent perfect and perhaps because he has been in the business since he was child, he is still capable of showing wide-eyed innocence when it counts. The fact that he is almost completely unknown helps in the first episode: it’s hard for anyone to stand in the presence of Bomer and not be in his shadow. But as the episode progresses, he begins to stand on his own to the point that he is visits confession for the first time in months, admits his sin and refuses to even consider contrition. “I felt like my true self for the first time,” he tells a priest before leaving the pews and it’s a powerful moment.

This episode also makes it very clear about the other issues play including African-Americans as well as their gay counterparts. One of the critical characters is Lucien, a reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier who works the D.C beat. Already having to live one difficult life, he also takes Hawk and Tim to a gay speakeasy (there’s a red light to warn you when the police are coming, though alcohol isn’t what their worried about) There’s also a young African-American boy in drag singing falsetto. We know enough from trailers to know they will become involved; we also know that Lucius will stay in Tim’s life longer than Hawk will.

This series begins in the 1980s, when Hawk is about to receive  a post in Italy during the  Reagan administration. By this point Hawk has been married for decades to the Senator’s daughter, played by that incredible talent Allison Williams.  This would seem to be a thankless role for a performer of her talent but Williams is capable of doing much with even a few words. In the present Hawk tells Lucy that he is going to San Francisco to see Tim. By this point, they have two children and seem to have the perfect life.  He says reassuringly: “You’ve always been everything to me.” The line she says back is utterly calm but reveals so much about the relationship that’ s unfolded – and what she’s had to give up.

It is not lost on me as a historian – though it may be on some others – the fact that this particular attack on ‘morality’ was led by two men, who along with being utterly evil in public were immoral in private: McCarthy was a heavy drinker and gambler, who never married and we all know that Roy Cohn denied his sexuality until the day he died.  But that hypocrisy of the Lavender Scare is not the point of Fellow Travelers, at least not yet.  The hypocrisy of forcing our values on all of our citizens that didn’t fit in a box is not and it is at the heart of the choices that Hawkins makes throughout his life.  It’s clear by the 1980s that the real reason the two never worked out was not just because of the impossible burdens of society but because Tim was not willing to live a lie and Hawkins couldn’t live anything but. There’s a scene at the end in 1980s San Fransisco where Hawk is sitting in a diner, looking at the openly gay behavior and we see a sense of longing that we never saw in the present.

I won’t testify yet as to the overall quality of Fellow Travelers as a series – I have only seen a single episode and I will probably need more time to judge. Those of you who follow my column know that I am fond of period pieces and this show certainly gets that part of it right, and the fact that it looks at a part of history even people like me might very well be unaware of would make it worth watching even if the execution turns out to be a failure overall.

Still the work not only of Bomer and Bailey, but so much of the cast – including Linus Roache as the Senator that Hawk works for – is genuinely superb and the writing is compelling.  We need to hear the story of Fellow Travelers not just as a reminder of how far we have and haven’t come as a society, but to see what it actually cost the victims of these ‘hunts’.  There is nothing Unamerican about being gay then there was about being a member of the Communist Party.  The problem has been – as today as the 1950s – that what is considered ‘American’ is something that fits the definition of those who claim to speak for them and those whose opinion never seems to be asked.

Author’s Note: In recent years, some historians have actually theorized that Joseph McCarthy himself was a Soviet agent.  Not in the way that it is viewed in The Manchurian Candidate, but there are those who connected him with a New York Congressman who was one and who he know.  McCarthy was, as I said, a gambler and some think that out of financial need, he agreed to use his elected office in a way to spread disinformation and to keep the Americans distracted during the Cold War. I’ve always thought that theory was half-cocked. Given recent events, well…

My score: 4.25 stars.

The End of the World As Pop Culture Knows It, Part 1: The Real - And Troubling - Reason I Do Not Like The Walking Dead

 

One of the things I find so maddening about not only my profession but so many people who’d you think would know better is when they look at a trend in Hollywood and use to argue that it is the reason certain people in our society are the way are.

This is crap. Hollywood has never led society. Hollywood doesn’t even lead Hollywood most of the time. What everybody always forgets – including the people in Hollywood – is that’s it is a business and that like every business, it’s follows the market. It follows a trend and milks the golden goose until there are no eggs left – and then waits a few more years and raids the gooses corpse in case everyone’s forgotten.

I can make this argument on just about any major issue of society you want but for the purposes of this series I’m going to focus on a trend that has become increasingly popular over the last decade: the end of the world. One of the narratives that so many critics and celebrities tie to rise of so many populists including Donald Trump has been the rise of popularity in the past decade of film and television franchises dealing with the end of the world and its aftermath.

This would not hold up under close scrutiny or indeed any scrutiny at all.  The idea of the world ending has been a mainstay of television and the movies since the Cold War began when our entire society was very certain that it was a matter of time that these scenarios were going to play out in real life. I hate to diminish the understandable concern so many people who are younger than me might think, but nothing fundamentally has in changed in our society since then save the nature of the end. In the 1950s until the 1990s, it was nuclear annihilation. As this century began it involved terrorism and occasionally climate change. These days it’s taken on the nature of plague – which to be clear was a trend even then. We’ve always had metaphors – alien invasion, zombie apocalypse, the rapture – but it’s always the same. As I wrote in a piece on Millennium, our society always seems to be waiting for the end to come, and when it doesn’t we just push the date back a little further.

So in that sense, series that deal with the end of the world these days are not a sign that Americans have been looking for a man like Donald Trump. That said, there is a trend in so many of these series in recent years that is troubling and I think it may be that reason that I finally realized why I have never been able to either get into or watch The Walking Dead, arguably the most successful franchise on television in the last twenty years.

To be clear I’ve had many other more personal reasons to avoid it. For one thing, it took one of my favorite prestige cable networks AMC – which was the creator of Mad Men and Breaking Bad and essentially turned into what amounts to almost entirely all Walking Dead network.  I’ve lost count of how many spinoffs there have been and now that Better Call Saul is gone, I’m not sure I’ll have a reason to ever look at it again. (Unless they renew Lucky Hank.)

There’s also the fact that the zombie is the least interesting of all the supernatural creatures. Vampires have charm; werewolves and ghosts have tragedy at their center, and witches have their own levels. Has their ever been any zombie film or TV show where the zombies are interesting at all other than their looming menace and the ways to kill them? A zombie on its own is basically dull; it’s only in numbers that their scary and even then, that’s not interesting really. A single vampire or werewolf is terrifying and has a sense of menace no zombie or group ever has.

It's not even that I never read the comic book, that would never have been a reason on its own to stop me from looking at any TV or film. Frankly I tend not to read the source material before I see a movie or TV show in order not to prejudice me about it.

No the reason I’ve never been able to truly enjoy The Walking Dead is a bigger implication. And to explain why I’ll let someone else talk for me.

When he was writing his non-fiction treatise on horror Danse Macabre, Stephen King did not talk much about the genre he was even then in 1979 making his own. However, he did briefly discuss the rational behind The Stand and he admitted something that may be at the core of why so many people like doing more than just idea of a metaphor. He was tired of how society operated at its core and a part of him relished the idea of being able to tear it all down. He even admits as much directly in the final sense: “Yes friends and neighbors, in The Stand I got to destroy the whole human race, and it was fun!” (His italics not mine.)

I think at some level that is the motivation at the core of so much of the apocalyptic fiction that existed before and after the time of King. It is the discontent of every aspect of our society and the idea that the best thing for humanity might very well be for there to be no more humanity. This is never something you like to hear people say out loud, particularly when it comes from the voice of anyone with power or who promises violence.  But I’m not going to pretend that every part of our society is not in some way a shitshow and that the idea that it might be simpler if it were all gone isn’t a comforting one. It’s also utterly ludicrous – I don’t think any millennial could survive five minutes without their cell phone, much less live off the land. But I do get why watching it play out on screen might give a person a vicarious thrill and that’s why so many of these genres are popular. So I understand in theory why millions would be drawn to it. It’s the execution (pun not intended) that bothers me.

See when Stephen King scrubbed the human race, he decided that was the start of something not the end. Indeed the quintessential adaptation of it for ABC actually used that as its tag: ‘The end of the world is just the beginning. King has gone back to the end of the world many times in his short fiction and longer novels – he actually visited the idea of a zombie apocalypse in Cell nearly thirty years later. But the recent I think The Stand is not only his best word on the subject – and the gold standard for so much of it that followed – was that King not only spent a lot of time on what society would look like after the end of the world, but refused to provide any easy answers as to what it would look like. (I’ll actually look at that in a later entry in this series.)

By contrast, not only after the original series ended but well into spinoff number three (or four, I’ve lost count) we don’t seem to be any closer in The Waling Dead universe to a new society or even anything resembling it. I admit most of this is based off summations that I get online or from publications over the years, but I don’t expect I’m far off. From what I understand, almost every season of any series deals with some kind of threat, either from zombies or some apparently safe refuge that a group of survivors must deal with, episode by episode or at the end of the season. Whatever respites the characters ever get is almost always off-screen and by the end of any episode they’re facing some force of attack, from without, within or both.

Leaving aside that decades after the fact no one seems to have come close to constructing something resembling a solution to the zombie threat (it’s been decades you think at some point the zombies would waste away somewhere) this reduces what should be a complicated issue to a fundamental question of always being in a state of waiting for the next attack to happen.  As a result The Walking Dead may be the worst example of television of torture porn. I’ve seen variations of in Shonda Rhimes’ work and the Game of Thrones universe, but Walking Dead is its own version of hell. It argues that not only should the viewer not bother to get attached to any regular for very long but that the characters themselves shouldn’t bother because at some point they will probably have to kill them, and often that’s the best case scenario. (I almost wonder if it would make more sense just for the regulars who are bitten to spend longer as zombies because it might be more interesting.)

That’s the thing that I find by far the most frightening about not only The Walking Dead franchise but its popularity.  I think millions of people watch it years after it stopped being interesting but because the idea of is appealing. You don’t have to live in a world with modern conveniences or any societal interests. You don’t even have to bother to make emotional connections beyond the occasional sexual encounter.  You don’t have to worry about stability or really plan for anything.  All you have to do is have a gun to blast creatures that were once human beings and sometimes even if they were people you loved. And it’s not like so many of these character truly seemed burdened by emotional trauma over all of these deaths over the years. Maybe there’s a larger statement to be made about how exhausting it gets to see your friends die and be able to nothing to stop it, but considering how much more interest people seem to have in the zombies than most of the character after a while, it really does make you wonder why people keep watching the show.

Is that why so many of us want a zombie apocalypse? Nothing about The Walking Dead seems like it’s a fun world to live in or one anyone in our society could survive it.  Certainly this isn’t a franchise that has to have a lot of laughs over fifteen years. I know that shows like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad can be grim, but I honestly think the only time the actors in Walking Dead had any fun was in a Robot Chicken parody when they made fun about how insane everything they were doing was.   I keep wondering if people enjoy this series and I have no good answer.

On a separate subject, however, I think I can comment. Over the past decade it has been a subject of great frustration by fans and cast members that The Walking Dead has been ignored by the Emmys. Most people argue that had to do with the fact the Emmys doesn’t know what to do with sci-fi and fantasy and while that might have been true when the series premiered, it certainly isn’t now. This past year alone, sci-fi and fantasy recognized peak proliferation in the drama category in the Emmys with Andor, House of The Dragon, Yellowjackets and The Last of Us all receiving Best Drama nominations. The latter’s nominations are particularly telling because that series is based on a video game that deals with a zombie apocalypse in all but name.

Perhaps that is the key difference between them. The Last Of Us is fundamentally about characters and about human connection even in the midst of the end of the world. Few would look at an episode like ‘A Long, Long Time’ and could see it appearing at any point in The Walking Dead.  The Last of Us is a series about finding humanity even after the end. The Walking Dead can’t even find humanity among the humanity that’s left.

Lost Rewatch On VHS: Eggtown

 

Note: This episode, like several others, had ‘enhancements’ – a small screen at the bottom with captioning that revealed certain details of previous episodes that certain viewers might have forgotten over time. Among them is one in the opening scene where Locke brings Ben his breakfast and reveals he’s locked in the basement and tells us where this room is and how the situation is reversed from where it was in Season 2. In other words, it was the TV version of Finding Lost, albeit with even more details.

One of the ads during the episode is for an ABC sitcom called Miss Guided with Judy Greer as the lead! Why did no other service give her another chance like this?  Also we get a promise of a sneak peek of a little independent film called Iron Man.

 

In the final act of the episode when Locke is committing one of the most frightening things we’ve seen him to do yet, he introduces himself to Miles as John Locke “and I am the protector of this island.”  I have a feeling that, if the rest of his followers had heard him say that (never mind what he actually does to Miles) they would have run for the beach as fast as their legs could carry them. Because Locke has now made it very clear what his intentions are and that he has been lying to them when he offered to protect them in the first place.

We’ve known since Season 1 that Locke’s religion is the island and he has sworn allegiance to it. However in previous seasons he’s at least made the effort to try and keep people safe and to help protect them even if it was only because he thought they were important to the island. Now he’s forsaken any human impulses at all.  His response to Kate’s not-joke about this being a dictatorship is not comforting and for all Sawyer’s reference to their being sheep, there is clearly unease, creature comforts aside. Hurley is clearly terrified of getting on Locke’s bad side, Claire is troubled by his behavior and we already know that Sawyer isn’t with him. For all John’s talk of bringing everybody here to keep this safe, they are all very clear that they are dealing with someone who is at best confused about the next steps, and at worst, unhinged.

The only reason we don’t truly wonder if Locke has become a monster is because both Ben and Jack are right about what they say about him. Ben says that John is lost because he is trying to manipulate him and Jack, who has similar doubts about the freighter folk, automatically says Locke has no idea what he’s doing when the suggestion comes up – but both men are dead on with their assessments. Locke is so desperate for some kind of affirmation that he is doing the right thing that when Sawyer comes to his door and offers him a shoulder to lean on, he agrees to it because he needs a friendly face.

In Finding Lost Season Three, Nikki Stafford speculated Locke used Sawyer to kill Cooper as much because Sawyer had conned him out of the guns in The Long Con as because of how Cooper had ruined Sawyer’s life the same way he ruined Locke’s. While I’m not sure I agree with that theory,  I now wonder if Sawyer agrees to help Kate because he is still angry about the trick Locke played on him just a week ago.  Because Sawyer basically does a version of the exact same trick he played on Locke when he took the guns in the first place. He convinces Locke that he is his friend, gives him confidence about something Kate told him and tricks Locke into trusting him to get away from the boathouse so that Kate can get Miles away from him and to meet Ben. Locke hasn’t learned from his mistakes but Sawyer clearly has: Locke is completely fooled by Sawyer’s con and doesn’t even think about punishing him. Granted his focus is now on the people who immediately he sees as his betrayers and because he’s in a position of power, he now has the ability to wreak vengeance on Miles and Kate. In the latter case, there’s no evidence that might have held up (we know that Sawyer has the authority to protect Kate) but Locke never does anything to punish Sawyer for the rest of the season. (Though to be fair, there will be a significant number of upheavals before he remembers too.)

Eggtown does not have the best reputation in certain circles: (Nikki did not think highly of it) but aside from the fact that it has the worst representation of a trial in history, I don’t think the parts involving Kate are as bad as some people think. I do, however, understand why Kate’s reputation starts to truly take a hit during this season and much of it has to do with what’s going on in New Otherton.

Kate has clearly stayed behind because she has her own agenda, and we’re not terribly surprised to know what it is: Sawyer finally told her something she’s been avoiding for three seasons and she needs confirmation that its true.  That Kate is first and foremost protector of her own interests is not surprising but it’s not much different from many of the other characters on the island and two of them are the people she tries to get help with.  To be fair, she tries to get Locke’s permission but Locke has already proven he will listen to no one else’s point of view even if it might help him.  Having taken the high road, Kate then goes to Miles and tries to get answers without involving anybody but Miles wants a quid pro quo.

The scene where Miles finally encounters Ben is fascinating and almost comedic in the context of Season Four.  Ben is confronted with someone who has a momentary advantage of him but he’s clearly stunned when it turns out that what Miles wants from him is money/ It’s one of the first times in a while we’ve seen him surprised and when he asks why its such a specific sum, it’s one of the few times in the entire series that he genuinely doesn’t have an answer – and Miles doesn’t give him one.  (The viewer does get one, eventually.) The fact that Miles is clearly so mercenary fits in with his nature as well as how coldly he discussed that everybody on the freighter knows who Kate is and what she’s done.  In a sense, he tells Kate exactly the same thing Sawyer did in the previous episode – and right now, we’re still trying to understand why she chose to ignore them both.

And at the end of the episode when Kate chooses to leave Sawyer behind with no explanation, his hostility is more than warranted. Kate has been flittering between Jack and Sawyer since day one and the fact that she chose to stay with Sawyer just two days after Jack told her that he loved her says more about her moral problems than any crime she will be charged for in the future.  Sawyer by far is the most honest person in the episode about his intentions and Kate repays by slapping him in the face. I could understand why some fans who didn’t already dislike Kate might turn on her here. It’s hard not to see her actions on the island as selfish.

Now in the flashforward while we don’t get any new information about the Oceanic Six (at least, it doesn’t seem that way until the last line of the episode) we do get an answer to the question at the end of Through the Looking Glass: how was Kate walking around free to meet with Jack in the future? And the answer seems to be, she was put on trial for her crimes.  I’ll set aside as to the fact the writers of this episode clearly never saw an episode of Boston Legal as to how a trial works and get to the more important issue: what we learn about Kate in it.

Jack testifies as a character witness at Kate’s trial and its here that we hear for the first time the story that they’ve been telling the world. Jack is clearly so confident that the public believes it that the man who frowned at everyone’s morality on the island has no problem freely perjuring himself in a court of law. Right now, it seems that the story is that the crash involved far fewer survivors at the start: Jack mentions that only eight of them originally survived the crash. This actually leads to another question: which people did they say didn’t come back? Are they names we know? (The live episodes won’t tell us that; the DVD actually does.) He also lies about the Marshal not surviving, Kate telling him her crimes, and him believing that they she had to be innocent.  As a sweetener, he even says he’s not in love with Kate any more.  Jack was a never good liar on the island but now in a court of law, he does it better than Kate ever did – and it clearly makes her uncomfortable beyond the obvious reason.

This episode also has the final confrontation between Kate and Diane and there is something emotionally satisfying about it.  Kate finally tears into her mother with the righteousness it deserves and Diane doesn’t even have the courtesy to acknowledge she did the right thing. She says everything changed after she thought Kate was dead but we’ll eventually learn that’s not the case. There’s no indication Diane went to meet the Oceanic Six when they were first rescued, she certainly made no effort afterwards, and she clearly was willing to testify against her daughter. The only thing that seems to have changed her mind isn’t even sympathy for her; it’s that she wants to meet her grandson before she dies. Kate got not mercy for her mother for anything that happened in any of the flashbacks and she shows none here. Whatever reason for Diane’s decision not to testify, she deserves no sympathy. We have no idea if Diane dies after this episode or if she’s still alive by the time we get to the present day, but it’s clear from the series that Kate has kept her promise to keep Diane out. If nothing else, she deserves credit for that.

When the DA offers a plea bargain, Kate seems to have accepted it even if it means that she can’t do the one thing she’s good at: run. In a sense this episode shows that Kate has been finally willing to take responsibility if not for her actions, then for someone else. She has decided to protect her son and keep her safe from the circus around her. She’s made it clear that as much as she cares for Jack, her son has to come first. Of course, then we get back to her house and we learn her son is – Aaron.

My larger problem with this revelation has little to do with Kate but how much it undercuts a major storyline that has been beneath the surface of the first half of the series.  Ever since we saw ‘Raised by Another’, we have been led to believe that Claire was put on the plane because Aaron had to be born on the island. We’ve spent the better part of three seasons thinking that there is some deeper importance to Aaron’s birth. The fact that Aaron ends up getting off the island cuts the legs off his importance to Lost as a whole. He will have an underlying importance for awhile (much of Season Five is about the idea of how the characters on this shows issues with their parents are changed by the children they have in the interim) but it really makes you wonder what the whole purpose of everything involving Aaron’s protection and safety has been for much of the first three seasons.

If this storyline undercuts Aaron, it completely destroys Claire’s relevance to the story. The obvious question as to why Aaron is being raised by Kate off the island is what happened to Claire? And the show completely waffles it. Considering the revelations we had about Claire’s connection to Jack as well as her connection to Charlie, the obvious step forward for the show would be to make her more important to the series, not less.  But Lost doesn’t have a great history in that regard: Shannon was only alive a few episodes after Boone was killed and Michael’s character was gutted after Walt was kidnapped.  Charlie died just a couple of days ago, and everyone seems to have moved on. The show will do somewhat better with this going forward, but they truly dropped the ball when it came to Claire, though it’s not going to be clear how badly for a few more episodes.

None of this has done much to move the bigger problem: what’s happening on the freighter? Much of the action on the beach is out of concern what has happened to the helicopter that took off at the end of the previous episode. Jack is doing everything in his power to assure the people on the beach that things are going to be okay, but while his followers are slightly more trusting of him than Locke, that’s a low threshold. Eventually Jack demands that Charlotte use the emergency frequency to call the freighter – and the answer they get is that it never go there.

Our first thought is obvious: did the helicopter not make it back to the freighter? Naomi’s crashed when it was coming to the island, and Frank barely managed to land it.  It’s quickly becoming clear that finding this island – and leaving it – are extremely difficult, if not impossible. Is something keeping the helicopter from getting to the island?

In the next episode we will start to get answers to these questions. However, for once, we won’t care about that as the writers are about deliver not only one of Lost’s greatest episodes but one of the great episodes in the history of television.

The Right Is Wrong And So's The Left Congressional Chaos Edition, Part 4

 

The (Political) Assassination of Kevin McCarthy

As Carried Out By The Democratic Caucus

Under The Directive of Matt Gaetz

 

 

There’s an old story told in Congress. A freshman Democrat is elected to the House. He runs into one of the elder Congressman and with youthful vigor asks: “Where are the Republicans? I want to meet the enemy!”

The elder Democrat shakes his head. “The Republicans aren’t the enemy. They’re the opposition. The Senate’s the enemy.”

I have little doubt Joe Biden knows this story, less still that he told it himself many times over the years.  And while this may have been naïve when he was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and seems like a fairy tale these days, few would argue that has been approach to Congress and governing.  I imagine that one of the bigger complaints those on the left have is that he spends so much of his time refusing to de facto say all Republicans are the enemy rather than referring to many of them as simply the opposition.

But that has been one of the reasons Biden’s approach is admirable even if you disagree with his policies. For far too long too many on  both sides of the aisle – yes leftists, don’t shake your head here! – have viewed every aspect of politics as a zero sum game with your colleagues in any elective body, federal or state, as a game where the opposition is evil incarnate and not someone to talk you, much less work with.  Democracy only works as a partnership. If you’ve decided that one side has no right to govern or even be listened to, then you have a dictatorship not a democracy.  Biden keeps putting his hand out to Republicans no matter how many times it gets bitten.  But if you stop putting your hand altogether, you are not working for all the people any more than the people who bite it.

Now considering not only that Joe Biden is the leader of the Democratic Party and his long history in Congress, you’d think that the rank and file would follow his orders on approach to leadership. You’d think given the shocking results of the midterms they’d be even more inclined to listen to him.  For months leading up to it, the Republicans were certain that the ‘red wave’ would be a complete repudiation of everything Biden stood for. And then Biden had the best midterms of an incumbent President in 20 years and the best any Democrat has had since FDR in 1934.

That the Republicans chose to ignore the lessons of the midterms when it came to governing isn’t really shocking.  They seem to have decided to tie their fates to  a man no matter how elections it costs them on a national level because – as these articles have illustrated – they are fine at getting power but have no idea what to do with it when they get it.

What is frankly more troubling is the Democrats attitude in the aftermath of the midterms. They had spent pretty much the last year screaming to their faithful that they had to vote to save democracy as they knew it.  And the people did that. The Democrats made gains at the governor’s level in many states; they actually gained seats in the Senate and even control of the House was up for grabs for a full week before everyone knew the Republicans would have control. Had the DNC run a better campaign in New York and worked a little harder in Lauren Boebert’s district, they might very well have managed to hold the House of Representatives too. The public had indicated that they seemed to believe that the Democrats were more qualified to manage the government.

But if your argument for leadership is that the other side is squabbling children – something that the Republican caucus was more than demonstrating in the leadup to the ballot for Speaker in January – then that means you have to be the adults in the room.  And here I fundamentally think the Democrats let their own pettiness win out.

As is very clear, their hatred and contempt for Kevin McCarthy was more than merited. I understand their instinct to let him reap what he had sewn when he took over as Speaker.  But if your argument for being elected is that you are a public servant, then you have to live up to the obligation. If your argument is that the other side causes nothing but chaos, then you have to prove that you are for stability.  And while it might have been personally satisfying to see the Republicans squabble and bicker and refuse to give Kevin McCarthy the Speakership – even though they had no other candidates and seemed to be doing what they did to make the leader of the house essentially Speaker in Name Only  before he took office -  well, there’s a part of me that thinks there’s  culpability on the Democratic caucus’ part.

To be clear Kevin McCarthy was going to be Speaker. Part of the frustration that even talking heads on Fox News said as the battle waged with the holdouts was the fact that they had no alternatives.  They never suggested any and in many cases most of the holdouts just voted present.  As we learned in the immediate aftermath the Freedom Caucus and Republicans too loud mouthed to even be part of that wanted to make McCarthy as weak a Speaker as possible, willing to do whatever they said for the sole purpose of letting him be a figurehead.  These were horrendous actions held by a fragment of the GOP caucus.

And while I can understand in theory why the Democrats – who had no love for McCarthy at any time even before Biden took office – would enjoy watching him suffer. But there’s a point where it becomes irresponsibility on their part.  We all know, despite all of the emails that the Democrats were sending out at the time, Hakeem Jeffries was never going to be Speaker.  We also know that if you’re trying to show that you’re a party of sane government you have to help your opposition.  Did it ever occur to Jeffries or Pelosi or anyone in the Democratic caucus to even consider just throwing McCarthy a bone? They could have just let six or seven Democrats vote for McCarthy just to put him out of his misery by at least the eighth ballot.  Now there is no evidence that McCarthy would have accepted Democratic support under any conditions, but there’s also none that the Democrats even made a token offer for the sole purpose of having him reject it.  In fact doing so would have sent as clear a message to their base: “We offered to help McCarthy. He turned us down. He deserves what happens to him.”  D.C. is built on meaningless gestures, but Democrats wouldn’t even bother to do that.

We could say McCarthy sold his soul to become Speaker but not even I would suggest he had one before he got to the point he could get it.  And as I said with the Wilde quote that started this series, McCarthy learned that both parts of it are true.  Even more than his predecessors McCarthy had no control of his caucus. Even before he took over there were already signs the tale was wagging the dog – Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene had a fight over his taking leadership in the first place, Greene eventually got ejected from the Freedom Caucus, moderates were upset about his refusing to put votes to the floor, the hardliners were just as determined to impeach Biden as they had been to impeach Clinton more than a quarter of a century earlier even with less evidence than two decades earlier and of course the biggest sin McCarthy did was to not allow for a shutdown.  That action, as now know was, the nail in McCarthy’s coffin with the fringe of the GOP: Matt Gaetz filed the motion the next day.

I will not dispute McCarthy was an incompetent Speaker who, like every other Republican in the last thirty years with the exception of Hastert, was always being undermined by the most extreme members who had no interest in governing and only performance. None of that in my opinion remotely justifies the Democrat Caucuses actions which everybody in the media including Fox News seems willing to let them off the hook for.  Make no mistake the Republicans performed a coup d’état when they removed McCarthy from the Speakership. But  Matt Gaetz and Nancy Mace should be sending the Democratic leadership a thank you card for making their preposterous dreams a reality.

See a week ago, a member of the GOP caucus tried to say that the majority of the Democrats were responsible for what was going on in the House on CNN. The reporter kept reminding him the Republicans were responsible and he kept coming back to the talking point before he admitted, yes eight Republicans voted McCarthy out. This means that 213 Republicans were behind McCarthy. In other words, while a minority of Republicans did vote to remove him that could never happened without almost all the Democrats being willing to do the dirty work.

What was the discussion like on the Democratic side before the vote was taken? Here’s a hypothetical.

“Ok before this votes happens, let’s consider the pros and cons of agreeing to vote McCarthy out.

Con: The Republicans have no alternative for McCarthy. Considering it took fifteen ballots just to get McCarthy Speaker in the first place, does anyone want to think about how long it will take for their caucus to come up with an alternative that their entire membership will vote for this time?

Con: Yes McCarthy is incompetent. But he was willing to get a coalition to vote to keep the government running. In less than a month and a half, we’re going to have to do this again. Does anyone think McCarthy’s replacement – whoever they are – will be any more reasonable than he is?

Con: If we do this, we are doing Matt Gaetz’s handiwork. I don’t think I need to remind you that while McCarthy is spineless and incompetent, Gaetz is an unindicted criminal.  Even if he weren’t he’s already everything we hate about the MAGA extremists.  How can we question the GOP’s morality if we’re willing to put ourselves on his side?

Con: Given the track record of the GOP, anyone they pick is going to be worse than McCarthy and almost certainly have more contempt for the institutions we stand for.  You think McCarthy’s bad; what if they go for Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Besides if we hate McCarthy this much, maybe the worst thing he can do is stay Speaker.  Hell, maybe by the time the election comes around he’ll resign or someone primary him out. 

Here’s an alternative. Let’s just all vote present when Gaetz calls for the vote.  McCarthy will know he owes us and he will be weaker with the GOP going forward. Maybe he’ll just resign before the election. The fact that this is even happening is enough to guarantee we’ll regain the House next year.  And as an added bonus, people like Gaetz will get to see how alone they are on the fringes of the GOP. By doing it in front of the entire world,  we’ll get to hurt Gaetz too.

(Silence) “That’s a lot, I admit. What are the pros?”

There’s only one, I guess: Kevin McCarthy won’t be Speaker any more.

AOC: Let’s throw the bastard out.

And that seems to have been what the Democrats did when they voted.  They decided that fear of the unknown as well as endless chaos outweighed their utter loathing and contempt for Kevin McCarthy.  They didn’t have to vote as a body: 20 or thirty could have chosen to sit it out to make the same point. But instead 208 of them chose to do so.

And there is no sign the Democrats took any responsibility for the chaos that has taken place over the last three weeks. Indeed, they seem to have spent a lot of time enjoying the fact that the body they were elected to, the one they were all members of, could not operate or function. The longer this dysfunction went on, the worst the situation got and what was already a national crisis became an international one after the attacks on October 7^Th. 

To be clear the Republicans showed no sign of having organized when they got back , given how disastrous Scalise’s attempt was and how Jordan’s attempt to obtain also failed. And I do get the schadenfreude in seeing the Republicans deal with the mess they made.  But just as with McCarthy at the beginning of the year, they made no offer to help in any regard.

  Don’t pretend the Democrats have clean hands in leaving one of our Houses of Congress unable to act for three weeks in the midst of a crisis in the Middle East.  I’d argue that the Democrats had a moral duty to swallow their pride and offer some kind of willingness to vote for a Scalise or McHenry or really anyone.  They accused Matt Gaetz of using this crisis to fundraise his own plans as morally contemptible.

Do you want to know what the Democrats were trying to do during this same period? I receive no less than a dozen emails saying that Republicans should vote for Hakeem Jeffries. To be clear, Democrats were saying that the best solution Republicans should do after the Democrats as a body forced McCarthy was to vote Jeffries in.  Even if it was just fanfare, that’s as much a coup attempt as what Gaetz did.

Oh and remember the outrage that so many had when the suggestion was made by members of the Freedom caucus about Donald Trump being named Speaker? During this same period I received no less than four emails suggesting that Liz Cheney should be named Speaker instead. They even made the exact argument the GOP did: ‘the Speaker doesn’t even have to be a member of Congress.”  To be clear until three years ago the Democrats absolutely hated Liz Cheney. They only liked her when she chose to sacrifice her seat to stand against Trump. They didn’t mind that she lost her seat because many in the left don’t consider Wyoming ‘a real state.”  All of this is just part of the left’s larger narrative that the only good Republican is one who has no chance of holding elected office.

And for the record when Maxwell Frost decided to come to Stephen Colbert in the days after voting to have McCarthy removed, the fact that he chose to make light of it was reprehensible. “I mean,” he told Colbert. “they have to take responsibility for their actions. Why should we give them a hand up?” Cue laughter from the New York audience. Isn’t it hysterical that I helped oust the leader of the body I was elected to serve? I mean, right now the country’s in a national crisis but what are we supposed to do about it? Reach across the aisle? That’s so last century. Anyway vote for Democrats across the board next year!

Right now, there are a lot of people who are justifiably upset about how old the majority of the leaders in Congress are and that it’s time for new blood.  The thing is, right now the leader of the Democratic Party – of the entire country – is Joe Biden.  We don’t know if Biden had any role in advising the Democratic Caucus how to vote but personally I don’t think that happened.  Because I know enough about Biden to know the kind of politician he is.

Biden served in the Senate for 36 years and presided over it for eight more.  Few political figures are more well-versed in politics than Biden. Biden believes in the integrity of the institutions – its why he ran for President, its why he campaigned and its almost certainly why he ended up winning. Biden believes in democracy and the Democratic Party and he knows that while both must be healthy, the latter cannot exist in a vacuum.  Biden has spent a fair amount of time in the last year trying to argue for bipartisanship despite the resistance the GOP puts up. He calls out MAGA but he refuses to give up on the Republican party altogether. Members of his own caucus don’t seem willing to make those concessions.

Whatever Biden feels towards McCarthy – and he probably has as much reason to loathe him as most Democrats  -  he would have thought both the Republicans action to unseat him and the Democratic caucuses decision to go along with it as equally wrongheaded.  Much of that is because he has to deal with the consequences to a greater extent that the Democrats in the House will to be sure – and make no mistake, the last three weeks since McCarthy was removed have made an already difficult job that much harder. But at the end of the day, I think it pained him as another sign of the partisan divide that he campaigned to try and end. How much it must pain him to see that right now, so much of the Congress he spent his life a part of sees the Republicans as the enemy instead of the opposition.

In the conclusion, I will deal with the results of the weeks of voting and how I’m pretty sure that neither side has learned anything from this – certainly not the Democrats.