Is There Too Much Trauma Drama: The Trauma Plot in Peak TV

 

This week’s New Yorker features a long article by ‘A Critic at Large’ dealing with ‘The Trauma Plot’.  I really don’t have to describe what that is to anybody who has watched any television for the past twenty years what that is is: almost everybody who has watched any form of entertainment sees at least one series where it’s at the center of some character’s conflict. Hell, one of my favorite series of all time is Lost, a show where every character is dealing with some variation on trauma in their life. Near the end of the series, we end up learning that almost all of the action that has happened has in some way derived from a deranged woman killing a mother after she gives birth to twin boys and her guardianship and favoritism of one over the other pretty much ends up driving the action.

There’s a very good argument – I’ve actually made it in a couple of previous columns – that almost all of Peak TV has been driven by the dark backstories surrounding the protagonists of so many of the great dramas. It’s not a universal truth – the characters on The Wire consider whatever traumas they have part of life and so it doesn’t seem to bother them as much as the system they’re stuck in, most of the characters in The Shield are driven to deal with the traumas of others, and while Walter White did have a couple of traumas in his background, they were practically non-factors in what made Breaking Bad so brilliant. But trauma is at the center of almost every major drama in the Golden Age of Television, so it is understandable why many people, including the New Yorker Critic thought it a bit threadbare. And she didn’t even bother to deal with some of the most prominent examples – without a childhood trauma we wouldn’t have Dexter, Mr. Robot or Ray Donovan (okay, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing)

I’ll admit I have tired quite a bit over the years of having to deal with character after character having some kind of backstory that deals with some kind of traumatic childhood incident. It’s practically a staple of every major female character in a Shonda Rhimes series – Meredith Grey had a mother who never loved her; Olivia Pope had parents who were monstrous (understatement); Mellie Grant was raped by her father-in-law; Annalyse Keating was molested by her father. Those, by the way, are just the leads’ traumas; I don’t know if anybody in Shondaland’s body of work is suffering from some form of PTSD.

To be clear network TV, like so much else, has always done a bad job painting trauma in anything but something that will always defines you. Almost every lead in Greg Berlanti’s DC world has become a superhero because of some kind of horrid trauma in their past (though to be fair, that’s basically the jumping off point for every comic book story). Many of the characters in Ryan Murphy’s 911 series are dealing with some kind of trauma at some point in their past (and if they aren’t, they will eventually). It is rare for a well-crafted network drama to have characters who aren’t dealing with some kind of trauma – Buffy the Vampire Slayer was an outlier in that sense: the characters were outsiders in their world but they actually managed to work through their issues. (Eliza Dushku’s Faith is one of the best examples of that.)

Now trauma may be at the center of so many of the dramas of Peak TV, but what separated it from so many other series what that it didn’t define the characters. (Oz actually had its Greek chorus character laughingly mock the idea of it in an episode, as if to say that it was double-talk and an excuse.)  Tony Soprano definitely was traumatized, but he was still a monster – hell, the longer The Sopranos went on it became clear he was using his sessions with Dr. Melfi as some kind of excuse, something that became clear in the final episode. Brenda Chenoweth, Rachel Griffiths’ character in Six Feet Under had been traumatized before we got to know her but she managed to get through life fine, even without the Fishers. Half the characters on Deadwood were suffering from major childhood traumas – Swearengen recounted them horrifically in monologues, and they still paled to what most of the women had in their past -  but in this community they have found a way to fill a vital roles and even have loving relationships.  In Mad Men, no one even thinks of asking why Dick Whitman has become Don Draper as long as he can do his job – it’s only when he reveals his trauma that he becomes a liability. Even Dexter Morgan acknowledges that the trauma that is at the core of his being a monster – his Dark Passenger – is ultimately little more than an excuse.

Really, it’s only relatively recently that trauma became a go-to substitute for a back story for so many characters in television. I think this can actually be seen in the work of Bill Lawrence, the co-creator of Ted Lasso. The New Yorker article makes a fairly big point that so much of Ted’s buoyancy is at the center of a revelation in Season 2 about his own father. Compare this with the character of Dr. Perry Cox, memorably played by John C. McGinley in Lawrence’s NBC comedy Scrubs a decade earlier. Cox is the exact opposite of Ted in his nature – cynical, dark-humored, berating everybody around him, pissing on authority at every turn. On two separate brief occasions, we get a hint at Cox’s troubled childhood and it’s far worse than anything hinted at in Ted’s case. But Lawrence never considered it worth diving into the way he would so many of the characters around Cox – JD, Elliot, Turk, etc. He didn’t think it was important to us understanding him and it really wasn’t. I think Lawrence may have felt in this new era that there was some obligation to giving Ted trauma.

In all honesty, most of the best television of the past decade doesn’t burden its characters with traumatic backstories. Robert and Michelle King have been masters of this – no one on The Good Wife or The Good Fight has anything resembling a traumatic background, and if they do the writers don’t feel it’s worth dealing with. The Americans started out revealing a horrible trauma for Elizabeth, but the writers used as a way to move the characters forward from it, and once it was dealt with, never revisited in later seasons. Better Call Saul does reveal traumas in the backstories of familiar characters -we got a major insight into the cold Mike Ehrmantraut than I never thought was possible and we do have some ideas as to how Jimmy McGill ended up becoming Saul - but since we already know so much about them, it doesn’t seem like it’s tacked on in any way. The characters in Pose are all suffering from the most horrible traumas in almost every way, but the entire series was about them forgetting them and finding joy and happiness in life – something that was proven even in the sadness of the finale.

You can actually find this truth put at the center of a lot of the better comedies in the peak era. Barry actually did an entire season where his acting class found themselves working through exercises involving their often wretched backstories. When Barry revealed his, his acting coach thought it was a sign of too much stress. His girlfriend seemed to face hers in private – but when it came time to face it in public, she went back to the lie she spent years telling herself.  Throughout Atlanta Donald Glover and his writers have constantly mined comedies out of the traumas of one past – ‘Teddy Perkins’ memorably joked that trauma was the only way to make art.  The marvelous Dead to Me makes it clear that the worst possible thing that can happen to you doesn’t define you as person or serve as an excuse for how you live. And in the past year exceptional comedies like Reservation Dogs and Hacks make it clear that trauma is just a part of life – and sometimes, maybe the perfect material for comedy.

 To say that the trauma plot is a weak excuse for storytelling is true – which is exactly why it’s not going anywhere. It’s far easier to write a series and have its central character dealing with a trauma that only becomes clear over the course of a season then just you know try to write a more interesting story. And the thing is there are certain people who lap this crap up. Critics may be getting sick of the trauma plot, but shows like Law and Order: SVU wouldn’t be going into 500 episodes if people didn’t like it. The trick has always been whether or not the series has more than a character with a dark background to recommend it. This includes putting trauma there when it might not be – many people constantly try to argue that a series like Succession is a much more layered series than it actually is by suggesting that all of the Roy children have been abused in some form by Logan. This is literally giving a trauma plot to a series that doesn’t seem to really have one. It’s also why I preferred Billions to Succession – the characters and plots were so layered they didn’t need someone adding something that might not be there.

Trauma will always be at the center of television series – the trick is does the series have more than that to make it peak viewing? I’ve enjoyed almost all of the series I’ve listed above for the lion’s share of their runs. Most of them were successful for the entirety of their time on their air. But for a lot of series today – and again, you know what they are – they will always seem to double down on trauma instead of brilliant writing, whether they are comedy or drama. At that point, when they become something you have to slog through rather than enjoy, do what any other rational viewer would do. Stop watching it. There will always be something lighter and certainly something better written to take its place.

Women of The Movement on ABC: There's Nothing Limited About This Series

 

It wasn’t that long ago – hell it was in my lifetime – that network television was the go to source for extraordinary and even average mini-series (as they were known then). NBC was the voice of so many fantasy mini-series from Gulliver’s Travels to The 10^TH Kingdom. CBS was the home of some of the greatest Western limited series, particularly the works of Larry McMurtry. And from 1990 to 2005, ABC was the home to some extraordinary adaptations of Stephen King from The Stand to Storm of the Century.

But after the surge in reality TV prestige projects or even limited ones have basically become a thing of the past. In the past decade only ABC has been willing the raise the bar occasionally with the exceptional limited series on the battle for gay rights When We Rise and the extraordinary American Crime one of the greatest achievements of the 2010s. The latter received rave reviews, multiple Emmy nominations and awards – and no audience. Viewers voted they’d rather watch Shondaland instead.

As a new year begins ABC is once again demonstrating its courage in willing to fight for both prestigious limited series, both in acting and in subject matter. In a country still striving for racial equality the network is showing a daring new series about how far we (still haven’t) come. Women of the Movement a new anthology series focused on the African-American women who led the civil rights movement debuted with two episodes last night that will focus on a leader that until recently history has forgotten, Mamie Till-Mobley the mother of Emmett Till, the fourteen year old Chicago boy whose brutal murder in Mississippi was vital to the changes in the movement.

The first two episodes make it painfully clear that first and foremost Mamie was a mother. Giving birth to a child who was not expected to live long and be institutionalized if he did, Mamie managed to raise a normal child – quite remarkable given the nature of his birth. In the opening sequence, Mamie holds her baby son and says: “I’m not going to give you up” and in a historical sense, she never did.

When Emmett goes on a trip to visit his uncle in Mississippi, Mamie justifiably has forebodings. Even after he manages to persuade her, she spends the last possible minute trying to tell him every possible thing he shouldn’t do down south. She spends the next week staying in her bed, desperate for a phone call from him and is elated when it comes and he sounds just fine. But neither of them knows when he makes that call, he is doomed.

We’ve seen earlier that week that Emmett has gone to a shop owned by a white woman to buy candy. The series never shows us what actually happens and really, it’s irrelevant.  She drives after them with a gun. People in town start to ‘talk’. That woman decides she’s been threatened and tells her husband what happened. And then one night, a man with a gun comes to the family house and drags him out of it.

When Mamie learns what happens she becomes more than a mother. She mobilizes the NAACP and they mobilize the press. The reaction in Chicago is completely different in Mississippi – Till’s family talks to the sheriff knowing nothing will happen. There are reports that Emmett is alive – but the local law is covering. And eventually it’s only a matter of time before his body is found.

Holding all of this together is Adrienne Warren, who is magnificent as Mamie. She is gentle, pure and hopeful even through the dark moments and the moment where she suddenly becomes determined to get justice is one of the most galvanic I’ve seen in awhile. No matter what, she wants her son’s body back. When the undertaker tells her not to see it, she refuses. Then she demands it photographed and an open casket. It’s not her job to look away and she’ll damned if the world does either. Warren immediately goes to the forefront of Best Actress Emmy nods this year.

Some will criticize Women of the Movement of being ‘by the numbers’ as if somehow looking at this utterly horrific event and horrid miscarriage of justice – nowhere near the first or the last of its kind – could be considered something to be done ‘pedantically’. And I suppose if it were done on cable or streaming, it might be considered just traditional. But it’s not. It’s being done on network television, a medium that has spent far too much of its existence trying not to offend anybody and certainly not telling stories that don’t have happy endings even when it was fully involved in the Peak TV era. The fact that this story – which as far as I know has never been told on television in any form – is being told on ABC is in its way as revolutionary an idea as Netflix developing streaming series. Even if you choose to view it as a purely cynical attempt for ABC to compete for Emmys this year – something, by the way, it’s become nearly impossible for network television to do in any fashion – there are ways to do that sure as hell wouldn’t involve telling one of the darkest stories in human history.

So don’t just consider Women of the Movement a limited series that you should definitely see this year (though you should absolutely). Think of it as ABC throwing down the gauntlet for network television to go back to the days when taking risks meant blocking off an entire week of programming for one series. They called them ‘event’ series for a reason. Women of the Movement isn’t quite there yet, but if it succeeds – and I really hope it does – it’s something that broadcast television needs to consider if it’s to have any future at all.

My score: 4.5 stars.

The Documentary Comedy Gets Schooled: Abbott Elementary

 

There has been a huge amount of derision of Parks and Recreation the past few years as a comedy series for not being the kind of show that works in the current environment. I don’t know how anybody could ever view a series with Chris Pratt and Rob Lowe in minor roles as ‘not working’, but that’s my jam. This year, a new comedy with the same time of format and just like Parks female run has debuted on ABC. It has everything that made Parks and Rec delightful, is far more faithful to the basic idea and is just as hysterical.

Showrunner-lead Quinta Brunson plays Janine Teagues, a grade school teacher at the title school. Janine has the same never-say-die optimism that Leslie Knope had, but considering where she is and why, it is far less warranted. Her school is one of the worst public schools in the country (in one of the most memorable opening gags her history book is three presidents behind so she has taped pictures of them into it) There is no money in the budget for anything, even mats for people to nap on. Janine tells us point blank that of the twenty teachers who started there three years earlier when she did, she’s one of only three who are still working there. We’ve met them both; Jacob, a white teacher so desperate to show his ‘woke’ credentials its sad and Melissa, who isn’t quite from a mob family, but knows people. Both are far more cynical then here. Neither have anything on Barbara (the wonderful Sheryl Lee Ralph) a ‘lifer’ who basically given up on anything any changing. It doesn’t help matters that the school is ‘led’ by principal Ava, a woman who is so utterly incompetent you’d think it had something to do with typical bureaucracy – until she tells she blackmailed one of the superintendents into getting the job. Added to this mix is Gregory, a substitute who actually applied for the principal position and is basically an administrator with no teaching experience.

Abbott Elementary is just as satiric in its jabs as Parks and Rec was but where the latter series was essentially a broader lampoon of the political situation, Abbott gets its humor from being just plausible enough to be funny. It also helps matters immensely that, with few exceptions, the cast is African-American and there’s a certain pain as they go through an absolutely horrendous situation. In the Pilot, Janine pushes as hard as she can to get money from the budgets for mats for her students who she needs to sleep. The money comes to the school, but the principal decides rather then spend it on the students to spend it all on a mural in the front of the school – with her face on it. When Janine tries to complain about it, the principal finds out and interrupting the lunch period so that everybody – meaning her – can publicly shame Janine.

Janine’s optimism is also far more muted than Leslie Knope’s ever was. She doesn’t try for sweeping changes – all she wants is to fix the light bulbs in the hall. And she knows how hard the job is. Near the end of the Pilot, Barbara explains every duty a teacher has to and her descriptors are painful in their honest – “You’re their second mother,” then she pauses, “sometimes their first.”  So much truth is in that statement and its something Parks would never dream of saying.

If I’ve made this series sound too dismal, it really isn’t. It can also be blissfully funny. There are already some interesting background characters – like the first grade teacher who tells his class about the Illuminati and the custodian who labels his fuse box with Boys II Men song titles. And there’s an earnestness to the comedy too – Gregory ends up trying to convince the mother of one of his students to drop her son off time by going to a nail salon with Barbara which is equal measure awkward comedy and some painful truths (she drops him off late because she has to make her shift at work and he’s worried that her son will fall behind in elementary reading)

The camera set workplace comedy has been a staple since The Office but so many of those series tried to focus on the behavior of the workers rather then the seriousness of their situation. Abbott Elementary doesn’t do that at all and as a result, many of these characters are probably a lot more fully drawn then the ones we’ve seen even on the funniest of comedies. (For one thing, the show makes the wise decision not to be the principal – who is very close in behavior to Michael Scott despite not being the same race or gender – anything but a side character.)I don’t know if this series will have the same lifespan as The Office and Parks and Rec but having watched just the first two episodes, it’s already far better than either series in their first season and in my opinion, deserves to have the same long run.

My score: 4.75 stars.

What TV Tells Us About Political Marriages Or What We Never Talk About When We Talk About Hillary

 

Two notes: I was originally planning to write this article after I finished watching Impeachment on FX but as I still haven’t finished the series and I think the views haven’t changed, I’m writing it now.

Second: This article will be a lot more political than almost I’ve written for this column and it’s probably going to have something to piss off everybody. That’s a sign I’m doing something right. Buckle up.

 

A few months I had a conversation with my parents, dyed in the wool democrats where I talked about Impeachment with them and my views on the Clintons, mainly to test to see if their opinions might have some flexibility after thirty years.

I really didn’t get any. When I mentioned that watching the series showed just how much of a victim Paula Jones was, my mother more or less scoffed. “She went up to a hotel room with the President. What did she think was going to happen?” My mom’s always been blunt, but this kind of stunned me. Similarly when I mentioned how horribly the world had treated Monica Lewinsky, she waved it off by saying: “Well, she’s doing okay now.”

I don’t think I’ve ever been this disappointed in my mother. I have no intention of raising this issue with my friends on the right, who no doubt still think Clinton should have gone to jail for having an affair. But I think this does express the futility of any kind of reflection on just how badly we treated the victims of Bill Clinton at the time and probably now. And the thing is there are still ramifications that we don’t want to admit too.

Which brings me to Hilary. Now I live in New York. I’m a registered Democrat. Which means in one form or another Hilary Clinton was on the ballot in my state seven times, either for senator, a Presidential primary, or for President. It was only the last time that I cast a vote for her. (I’m actually going to get to that one in a moment.)

I never voted for Hilary either for Senator or in a primary, not because I was anti-feminist, or because I didn’t think she was a good Democrat, or because I thought she was a corporate stooge. I didn’t vote for her because I considered her an opportunist, pure and simple – someone who had decided to market herself as something other than a politician but was as cold and calculating a political animal as any of the Republican’s who made her their target for nearly a quarter of a century.

Those of you who read my earlier blog on the Clinton scandal must recall the level of humiliation that Hilary was forced to go through virtually every night.  We all remember her loyalty to her husband, which was supposed to be strength. (Impeachment titled the Hilary-centric episode ‘Stand by Your Man’.) I never saw it that way. As soon as Hilary announced her run for Senate, it was crystal clear the person she was. She wanted power, and was willing to undergo whatever personal humiliation her husband had put her through to get it. And this was a measured decision – if she had divorced her husband at any point after January 20, 2001 I would have had no problem voting for her.  The fact she never has made it very clear that she considered the Clinton name more important politically than anything it might do to her reputation. That’s the reason I could never bring myself to vote for her on six consecutive ballots.

In the aftermath of the Clinton presidency, there have been several series where a political marriage is at the center. I could bring up examples of the Underwoods in House of Cards or the Grants in Scandal (indeed the latter features a first lady who is willing to do just about everything to cement her husband’s career so she can handle her own). But I think the most pertinent example can be found in The Good Wife.

For those who might have forgotten, the story centers on Alicia Florrick (expertly portrayed by Juliana Margulies) as the wife of a Cook County Attorney whose husband is forced to resign because of being caught with a prostitute in the Pilot. Throughout the series she builds up the reputation of ‘Saint Alicia’ for standing by her husband through his dark time even though it becomes increasingly clear as the series unfolds that he is completely unworthy of her affection.

Now to be clear, Alicia’s motives are purer than Hilary’s were – she has to support her children who still love and trust her father, and while she is willing to be a political wife – despite the hostility of her brother and mother -  she does everything in her power to stay out of the spotlight and be supportive.  But in retrospect, it seems very clear that the media did a similar spotlighting of Hilary’s political career. She didn’t introduce any particular legislation of note, she stayed in favor of the Second Gulf War until it was no longer politically viable to do so, and she never took any strong position when she was running for office. Yet so much of the media in both her Presidential campaigns considered her inevitable not because she was extraordinary qualified, but at least partially because of whom she was.

And there are clear parallels between the Florrick marriage and what we suspect is going on behind closed doors with the Clintons. Peter is found guilty of multiple infidelities (one with one of Alicia’s few friends) and eventually Alicia makes it clear this is a marriage in name only. (They spend much of the last two seasons only in the same room for political occasions.) Then there is the fact that in the sixth season Alicia is drafted to run for her husband’s old office – and it’s nearly a disaster from start to finish.

It should be noted that her run is pretty much arranged by her husband’s political manager Eli (the masterful Alan Cumming). Though Eli is basically a friend to her, he is loyal to Peter first and will utterly destroy his enemies and manipulate anyone to benefit Peter. The only reason he gets Alicia to run is because it will force an opponent of Peter’s out of the race; he no doubt thinks she can be controlled.

 Everything that makes Alicia a good human being – her trust for other people, her compassion – makes her a bad candidate. She misread a commentator’s approach, does a bad interview, and then thinks the worst when she runs against her. She uses every trick in the book to win, including turning against her husband in the final days of the campaign. When she manages to win (after Peter manipulates the final turnout) her character is assassination, and then she is accused of election fraud. The machine which supported her now casts her aside in order to protect the legislative they have. Finally Alicia loses her position at the firm because she’s now considered political poison by a top client. Alicia goes into a depressive funk that she doesn’t come out of until the series is nearly over. In the final season, as her husband campaigns for President she can barely work up the patience to go through the motions

And that’s the truth about Hilary. She was a bad campaigner. She never seemed natural or real in any political debate or rally I saw her at. She lost the nomination in 2008 in part because her campaign believed in her own aura. She only got the nomination in 2016 because there were no credible opponents. (BTW, Bernie fans, Sanders did well in 2016 not because he was the voice of the masses but because he was the anti-Hilary vote. If someone more viable – a Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren or even Jerry Brown – had been in the race, Sanders would have been gone by South Carolina.) Hilary may have been a good Secretary of State but she was never a good politician. There’s a reason so many people thought she was going to win; it was the nature of the opposition.]

This actually gets me to a point of my first article. At the second Presidential Debate, everybody was infuriated when Trump – just a few days removed from the Access Hollywood recording – brought three women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault as his guests. It was a dirty trick and a horrible thing to do. It also brought forth the question no one in the media has ever been willing to ask.

Impeachment portrays Bill Clinton as nothing short of an angry sexual predator. When the Supreme Court rules unanimously that executive privilege doesn’t hold for him, he calls the worst decision they’ve ever made and when an aide gently brings up Dred Scott he tears him a new one. When an article runs in Time accusing him of being a sexual predator, he castigates them about JFK’s behavior (I’ve been through this before) and when someone brings up it’s a different time, he lists his female appointments to the cabinet and judiciary and has the gall to say: “No President has done more for women than me.” He honestly doesn’t see the hypocrisy in his behavior. And the thing is, neither have many Democrats or the media.

I once wondered why no one poll during the Republican Primary ever asked if Trump’s being on television affected why primary voters for him. Similarly, I wonder why no one during either of Hilary’s campaigns ever asked whether Bill Clinton’s presence was an asset or a hindrance, particularly among female voters. Just as in the former case, I don’t know if it would have mattered but I do know the question should have been asked and never was.

This actually brings me to an interesting side note. Immediately after Trump’s inaugurations, there have been scores of women’s marches and an outcry against sexual harassment in general throughout America - #MeToo and #Time'sUp.  Would we have seen similar outrage if Clinton had been elected? Indeed, the follow up series of The Good Wife, The Good Fight actually asked that question in the Season 4 premiere. Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) wakes up in a world where Hilary won the 2016 election. Considering all the chaos that she has been living through the last three seasons (the series has made it abundantly clear how broken the world is) it seems positively utopian. Then the firm she works for announces a meeting with their new client – Harvey Weinstein.

That’s the thing about our country. We only care about outrages when our people who’ve been shortchanged. We all yell now at the hypocrisy of the GOP every time the party of family values has a sexual predator in elected office. What did we expect them to learn when a man who clearly was one not only was acquitted of the crime but we spent the next twenty years essentially blaming the victims?  If they’re a Christine Ford, they must be believed. If they’re Paula Jones, well, what did she think was going to happen when she went into a room with him?

For the record, I voted for Hilary in 2016 more out of obligation than any enthusiasm. Given by own druthers, I would have rather have voted for Gary Johnson. I admit, her Presidency would have been better for the country internationally and on almost every other front, but if you really think it would have been transformational, you’ve forgotten what the country was like during the Obama Presidency. And why would have been special? Hilary wasn’t a saint or a great legislator or executive. She was just another opportunistic politician. All of them are to an extent. They may not all be monsters but they’re not saints.

 

Trust Me, the Series Is Better: Comparing Big Sky To The Novels By C.W. Box

 

Ever since Big Sky debuted in the fall of 2020 and I learned that its source material came from a series of novels written by C.J. Box I have been waiting to read the books it was based on. Near the end of last year I finally got a chance to read The Highway the Box novel that is the ‘inspiration’ for the series. I use ‘inspiration’ in quotation marks because having finished the novel I’m genuinely baffled how David E. Kelley, who ever since his adaptation of Big Little Lies back in 2017 could have found some kind of inspiration in this series. Indeed, it would be more accurate to consider The Highway source material for Big Sky in the sense that it shares character names and the basic plot for the first half of Season 1. And given what I read in The Highway I understand why Kelley and his cadre took the liberties that they with the novel. Because if they had stuck a little closer to the source material I don’t think any service, much less a broadcast network, would have considered it for a series. I think they’d have had a hard time getting a film made of it.

(Warning: Spoilers for The Highway and the first several episodes of Big Sky ahead.)

In Big Sky Cody Hoyt, his ex-wife Jenny and Cassie Dewell are private investigators working in Helena. In the novel Cody and Cassie are both deputies in Montana. Cassie is being used by her boss to try and bring Cody down for mishandling procedures when it comes to arresting felons. Cody is being brought up on charges. Then I learned Cody’s backstory and it became very clear why the changes were made.

In the novel Cody Hoyt – played in the series by Ryan Philippe -  is a law enforcement officer who has no respect for the law – or really anybody. In fact, he’s already been kicked off another state police job. He thinks the judicial system is lazy and ineffective, he thinks that criminals are monster and he doesn’t care if they shoot each other up as long as they don’t hit a civilian. Not that he has much use for civilians either – he has a horrible opinion of just about everybody on either side of the spectrum. When a parent reports his child his missing, he can barely work up the sympathy for him because he considers him soft. The Cody Hoyt in the book would turn up his nose at being a PI and is actually considering becoming a criminal at one point. He is an alcoholic and both Jenny and Justin are with knowing it’s a matter of time before he falls off the wagon – which he does after he’s put on suspension.

To say that this would be a problematic character for a series in the era of BLM – which Cody would basically say ‘No Lives Matter’ – would have been impossible. Earlier in the Golden Age of Television, I’m not entirely sure any network would have been willing to buy into is – even HBO or FX. Because Cody Hoyt is essentially the kind of cop that Vic Mackey would no was too dangerous to be on the force and that Raylan Givens – who spent every episode of Justified working himself into a position to shoot a criminal – would not have any respect for because Cody would gladly shoot anybody. He’s the kind of cop who would barely fit in Deadwood – in the opening scene of the series, he would’ve let the mob hang Clell Watson and Seth Bullock wouldn’t dare have him as deputy. Al Swearengen might have made use for him at the Gem, but at some point he would make sure he was fed to the pigs consider Cody would not have just killed Francis Wolcott when he started making his threats on gold claims and would have just as simply killed George Hearst the moment he showed up.

Now just as in the series, Cody is dead by the halfway point of the novel. But everything about the investigation and its process is far superior in the TV series. Because it’s not just that Cody seems to be the character that Box has sympathy for, he makes almost everybody in the book far worse by comparison. In the series the action is started when Danielle and Grace are driving on break from college to see Justin. In the book, Danielle is a full-out bitch who ignores a warning light on her dashboard, pretends her sister is a whiner, and most importantly decides on the spur of the moment to change their itinerary to see Justin – who isn’t glad to hear of her plans because he’s trying to break up with her. And when Danielle and Grace are abducted by Ronald in the series, Box does everything in his power to make Danielle weak. She has none of the momentum or will that her sister does; in fact when her sister tries to work out an escape plan, she sells her out before it can start. When the girls are eventually rescued by Cassie, she almost seems to blame her for Cody getting shot: “He was looking for you.” This is as close to a crime novel where the victim is fundamentally blamed for what happens and it’s not a pretty picture.

But then Box doesn’t seem to make any of his characters seem sympathetic. Jenny is barely a presence in the novel. Sally, Rick Legarski’s wife, is divorced from him in the novel and is barely given much consideration. Neither has anywhere near the presence that Kathryn Winnick and Brooke Smith does; you can’t imagine Jenny getting in a brawl with Cassie or Sally killing her husband. They’re barely two-dimensional.

And the villains are actually worse than they were in the book. In the novel Ronald and Trooper Legarski don’t traffic the victims – they repeatedly rape and beat them until they kill them and they also film the actions. Ronald doesn’t even bother kidnapping half his victims, he just kills them. He has far less respect for Legarski, who seems far less clever than he was in series.

Indeed, there is no real investigation – Cassie gets the information when Ronald drops the secrets to Legarski in her lap. When she rescues the girls, she decides to kill Legarski without hesitation – ‘What Would Cody Do?” she chillingly thinks – and then plants a drop piece. By the end of the novel Cassie has essentially become an extension of Cody which Box seems to paint as a good thing. I was basically horrified.

 I can actually tell the audience for a lot of books by how their written. I’m kind of stunned that anyone would want to read the Box series – they’re basically the same kind of murder porn that far too many police procedurals are. I suppose they may call back to the Western in its setting and styles, except for the fact Box seems to be calling for some kind of ambiguity – in that everybody is horrible, especially the hero. At one point it’s mentioned that in the previous book Cody shot a pedophile and left him hanging alive in a national park. Cody not only shows no remorse but actually seems to want appreciation for the fact.

So let me put it bluntly. If you’ve seen Big Sky and you haven’t read the novels, don’t under any circumstances. They will introduce you into a world where the sun doesn’t shine and the badge is used as an excuse for more violence and corruption by the good guys. I haven’t usually approved of the liberties Kelley and his writers have done with the source material they did, even though I was a huge fan of both Nine Perfect Strangers and The Undoing. In the case of Big Sky, thank you, oh, thank you, for making a book that I would never read into a series I can’t stop watching.

The Overrated Series: Ray Donovan, The Series That Can't Be Fixed

 

I honestly hoped that when Ray Donovan was cancelled way back in 2020 that I was done writing about a series that in my mind (and no doubt many others) represented everything that was wrong about Peak TV. But the movie that fans and creator Live Schreiber have been trying to make is finally going to air later this month which will no doubt satisfy those who somehow thrilled to everything Ray did.

I’ve never truly understood why this series had a devoted fanbase and why this series pretty much became the backbone of the network much the same way Homeland and Shameless did throughout the 2010s. I’ve written numerous articles expressing my problems with the series over the years and by now even those who don’t watch the series know the details. So in this article I’m going to focus on what I consider the most fundamental flaws with Ray Donovan, why this series was still loved by a rapid fanbase despite –and maybe even because of it - and why the series will probably never be wrapped up in a satisfactory manner even if it hadn’t been cancelled prematurely.

First some history: Ray Donovan debuted in 2013, immediately following the final season of Dexter. I have no doubt the intention of Showtime was to draw a clear link between the past of the network and its new future. The strategy never made much sense then or now. Dexter Morgan and Ray Donovan are monsters with similar demons and none clearly want to do anything about them. But I’m pretty sure that Dexter would have gotten a clear picture of Ray by the middle of Season 1 at the very earliest. He would have admired how Ray seems to get paid to utilize the worst aspects of his Dark Passenger and he would respect how much Ray cares for his family. But by a certain point I’m pretty sure Ray would have ended up on Dexter’s table. (I’ve actually considered writing some fanfiction to fit this narrative.). He’d understand that Ray is damaged and he might have some regret about doing it, but Ray’s a killer the same way Dexter is. He just gets paid to make the bodies disappear.

Also running almost contemporary with Ray Donovan was a series with a similar theme: ABC’s Scandal.  Olivia Pope may find a way to get her clients out of trouble with far less bloodshed than Ray does on a weekly basis, but the basic premise is the same. (Indeed, Ray Donovan would complete the circle in its last two seasons when the series moved to New York and Ray began a stint helping political candidates clean up their messes.) That said, I’m certain Olivia and Ray would view each other with mutual disdain. Ray would have no use for all the airs Olivia puts on that she is working for a higher purpose and Olivia would have no respect for Ray’s bluntness as well as his willing to sacrifice any client for his family’s own good. I’ve mentioned in previous articles that Donovan is superior in that he is no illusion, but it still doesn’t make either a good series.

Indeed, one of the biggest flaws with the series is Schreiber’s portrayal of Ray. I realize that at his core the viewer is supposed to feel some sympathy for Ray because of how damaged he is given how his life has been. But Schreiber’s portrayal almost from the beginning of the series to the end as completely unemotional bordering on contemptible towards everybody in his life has been one of the great flaws in the history of television. Even Dexter Morgan knew enough to put up a false face of cheerfulness before the rest of the world and the people he loved. Ray not only doesn’t bother with that, he barely seems to care about his family in any sense of the world. I suppose in a way he loves them in the fact that he wants to protect them and keep them out of trouble, but he has done so by controlling every aspect of their lives and seems ungrateful when they try to do any kind of independence. Everything the family does is viewed as an inconvenience more than anything else. And it’s not like he ever shows it in a way that respectful to the people he cares about. This is a husband who, as viewers recall, reacted to his wife’s diagnosis of cancer, by having sex with his next door movie star neighbor while she was on her deathbed and then denied it when his daughter confronted him on it after the fact. Ray doesn’t have any real humanity or any real interest in self-growth. (I’m actually going to get back to that in a minute.)

I’d say Ray is the most contemptible characters on the series, but of course there’s Mickey. I have never understood any aspect of Mickey’s character almost since he debuted. In every possible way Mickey is a bigger monster than Ray is, and if anything far less self-aware. Jon Voight is one of Hollywood’s greatest actors, but there is absolutely nothing for him to work with in this character. Season after season Mickey makes mess after mess not only for himself, but for everyone he comes in contact with, especially Ray’s brothers and his children. In all candor, he ran out of any real purpose by the end of the first season and yet he’s still around. I’m honestly not sure which part of his character is more unbelievable: the fact that he keeps getting out of prison despite him ending up there every season or that anyone else in his family has anything to do with him. At the end of the first season Abby learned that Mickey had known that Ray had been molested by the same priest that had molested his other brother and he tried to laugh it off. She called him ‘the wolf’. Next season, her son was hanging out with him. And Mickey has, if anything, less self-awareness than Ray does. In the Season 7 premiere Ray went to his father in prison and did one of the hardest things he ever did: he forgave Mickey for everything. Not only did Mickey not accept the apology, he demanded that Ray forgive him for putting him in prison. Even after everything he’s done, Mickey will always think he’s the wounded party.

And this goes on throughout the entire family. Bunchy (Dash Mihok) should be sympathetic because of being molested by a priest. In the first season he kidnapped that priest put all his brothers freedom in danger, and then seemed peeved when Ray shot him. Terry (Eddie Marsan) developed Parkinson’s after years in the ring. In Season 5 a special treatment seemed to help him – until he decided in Season 6 to start bare knuckle brawling. Darryl (Pooch Hall) the illegitimate son worshipped Mickey even one of his girlfriend’s gets killed by his actions. This goes on to the next generation. Bridget, after helping save a young boy’s life and marrying him, started cheating on him the following year – just like her father. All of the characters get each other in trouble when the find themselves immersed in Mickey’s machinations. In the seventh season Darryl said: “I’m a Donovan. I want to be like you.” And Bunchy always considered the slowest says: “I don’t know why you’d want to be anything like us.” It’s a question the series should have asked years ago and even now has no answer.

The theory seems to be that it’s the Donovans against the world. The fact that more often than not the world is in the right is irrelevant. The fact that Ray more often than not will burn any professional relationship he has in order to help his family also seems irrelevant. I’m honestly surprised no one has flat out said that this fixer can’t be fixed because it’s been clear since at least Season 1 Ray is broken beyond repair and won’t do anything to help himself. This is a man who, after jumping off a building and nearly drowning in what was so clearly a suicide attempt, called one of his clients to get him out of jail rather than go to therapy. Yes I know he started seeking treatment in Season 7. It’s too little, too late.

In the entire series run the only purely sympathetic character is Ray’s wife, Abby (Paula Malcomson). To call her long suffering is to say Ray is broken. She endures all the torments of her husband, all his infidelities, all the family trauma, mainly because she thinks she has too. Her husband keeps cheating on her, but when she forms a friendship with a cop, she is shunned by the family. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she seemed determined to face the end, something her husband denied. (Of course rather than show her affection, he did everything he could to get her into a special treatment program including dosing the most likely candidate with drugs. I guess that’s love.) Abby chose to end her life in one of the few genuinely heartbreaking moments in the series. To this day I think she chose to kill herself rather than live one more day as a Donovan. And considering that Ray showed his grief by shunning his daughter and beating up his family, it’s hard to say she was wrong.

So why do so many people love Ray Donovan? It’s a question I’ve never been able to really answer. There have been a lot of good actors in the cast over the years – among the recurring cast members are Elliot Gould, Susan Sarandon, Katie Holmes, Alan Alda, and Ian McShane – and perhaps there are some viewers who, just as in Scandal, get a vicarious thrill looking behind the scenes at the truly horrendous behavior of the rich and powerful. And there’s a very strong possibility that this series appeals deeply to an elder demographic than so many of the other Showtime series – the cast does sways towards veteran actors rather than younger ones unlike so many TV shows. But maybe its because the series is formulaic in a way so many of the series in Peak TV are – there’s a formula to how each season plays  out that really hasn’t changed much since Season 1. The fact that all of the problems should have been wrapped up somehow by Season 2 at the latest doesn’t seem to disturb people. (Then again, the original showrunner Ann Biderman left the series under circumstances that remain unexplained to this day. It is always possible she had plans for the series that her replacements have basically ignored.)

And who knows? Maybe after everything that’s happened Ray Donovan the Movie will wrap everything up in a satisfactory fashion. For all the problems I had with Scandal over its run, the last two episodes did a lot towards some kind of resolution. But the thing is I don’t believe it. I think there is only one possible ending for this story: Ray has to kill Mickey. For seven seasons Ray keeps trying to avoid doing this, and now that he (spoiler) knows why his sister killed herself – a story the series had kept quiet until Season 7 – its hard to imagine a scenario that he could ever just let Mickey live.

Because after everything Ray has done over the last seven years, there’s no happy ending for him. He pretty much assured even the possibility of that would be destroyed in the last minutes of the original series. He has failed as a husband, as a father, and as a brother. He thinks he’s good at one thing only – cleaning up messes, and Mickey is the ultimate one. I don’t really know what happens if this turns out to be the case, but there’s no real way his history with Mickey ends in anything other than violence. The trailers for the movie seem to suggest that’s what will happen.

Dexter – which everyone agrees ended badly – was given new life this past year. Somehow, even if the movie is a success, I don’t see a revival of Ray Donovan in the future.  It isn’t just Ray, but the entire series that was broken and nothing can be done to fix it. This movie may bring closure, but I don’t think it will end well. For either the characters or those who watch it.

Top Television of 2021: Jury Prize

JURY PRIZE

Whenever he listed his top ten films for the year, Roger Ebert would leave a subheading for the ‘jury prize’ – films he thought were great but didn’t quite make the top. Similarly here is a shorter list of TV series and performers that might well have slipped under the radar in 2021 or that just didn’t quite make the list. I’ll actually throw in some commentary about series or formats I’m impressed by and others that need improvement.

 

ACTRESS whose WORK YOU MIGHT LIKELY MISSED

Daisy Haggard

Everybody was justifiably focused on the outstanding work of Jean Smart in both Hacks and Mare of Easttown, but just as impressive was the quiet work of a great British comic actress-showrunner. In April of this year Season 2 of Breeders a quietly brilliant comedy about a British family trying to raise their children aired on FX. I recommended both Haggard and Martin Freeman for Emmy nominations this year for their exceptional work. (As you can imagine Breeders itself should get a jury prize.) Haggard was quietly wonderful as a wife and mother constantly under pressure from her parents and her husband to live a life she didn’t want too – which had major consequences by the end of the season. This September, the other series she was the lead in – collaboration between the BBC and Showtime – Back to Life aired its second year. In the role of Miri, a woman paroled after serving eighteen years for murder and utterly rejected by the small coastal town she has to return to live, Haggard was exceptional as a woman to trying to make a career and a romantic life for herself while the people around her – including her best friend – tried to wreck it with no thought to her. It is possible there will be no third season for Back to Life – it ended on a near perfect note – but there are few actresses like Haggard who have this gift for balancing comedy and drama so perfectly. You can’t look away from her, and I look forward to seeing what she does next.

 

ACTOR WHOSE WORK YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

Corey Stoll

Ever since he played the doomed Peter Russo in the first season of House of Cards Stoll has been one of those actors you can never look away from the minute he appears on screen. He has spent much of the last several years drifting between movies and TV (this year he made an unforgettable impression as a bigoted New York lieutenant in West Side Story) but as 2021 unfolded he has been returning to the medium that he broke big in.

In Billions he makes a memorable impression as Mike Prince, Bobby Axelrod’s biggest threat to date. Seen as a man who seems generous who can tell Bobby that he’s a monster as Season 5 unfolded this year, you watched as you saw him manipulate Chuck into a position to take Bobby down – all so he could take over Bobby’s company in the final episode. I don’t if Billions will work now that he’s the antagonist of the show, but part of me thinks if anybody can pull it off Stoll can.

He also had a memorable cameo in the first episode of the extraordinary Scenes from a Marriage this September. As one of the few actors other than Oscar Isaac or Jessica Chastain who occupied the screen at all, he was memorable as a colleague who had an open marriage, seemed happy about the world and quietly bullied everyone around him. I have few complaints about that limited series; I just wish we’d seen more of him.

Stoll is scheduled to appear in other series throughout 2022 in addition to Billions and as someone who has always admired his work I’m grateful to see him getting some of the meatiest roles he has in awhile.

 

SCANDAL? WHAT SCANDAL?

Jeopardy Is Back Big Time

Yes I know people were outraged by after everything involving the guest hosts of Jeopardy we somehow ended up with Mike Richards. Then in the course of a month, Mike Richards lost his jobs as host and producer. People may still have their problems with Mayim Bialik and they may have issues with Ken Jennings. But really, at some point all of this is just window dressing. What has always mattered about Jeopardy are the contestants and the champions. And in the last six months, those of us who are watching the series for that really should be happy.

In a period of less than six months two of the greatest Jeopardy champions in the history of the series have been gracing the podium with their presence. Matt Amadio took second place all time when it came to games won with 38 and is currently in third place all time with money won with more than $1.4 million dollars. Less than two months after he left the stage, another of the all time greats has appeared – Amy Schneider as of the end of 2021 has won 24 games and just under $900,000. She’s currently fourth all time in games won and money won. This level of greatness on Jeopardy is almost completely unprecedented in the show’s nearly four decades on the air.

And it needs to be made clear that the hosts currently splitting the duties are both doing a superb job. Mayim Bialik continues to demonstrate her bubbly charm and great wit when it comes to dealing with the contestants. And I am very impressed with Jennings’ ability to be so outwardly proud of the accomplishments of Amy Schneider particularly as she takes her own run at his title. In between we’ve had three other fairly good champions and the first ever Professor’s Tournament which had in my opinion some of the toughest material on the show in awhile.

So go ahead and mock Jeopardy for its hosting problems and say that Dr. Oz and Aaron Rodgers should still be doing it. Like I’ve said on numerous occasions if all you care about is who hosts and how they do, you’re watching for the wrong reasons. I’ve watching for the champions and all I can say is Alex would be so proud.

 

SERIES THAT ENDED PERFECTLY

The Bold Type

One of the most quietly brilliant series of the 2010s with three of the most realistic and likeable heroines of all times. If there’s every any series that deserves a continuation or a reboot down the road, it’s this one.

 

SERIES THAT REALLY NEEDS TO CALL IT QUITS

The Blacklist

It’s been running on fumes for at least the last three years and if there’s any continuity to it I don’t see it any more. And seriously, if you’re going to kill of the character that was basically the center and anchor of the show and still try to go on - Season 9 of The X-Files. James Spader can’t save this show

 

LIMITED SERIES I’M GLAD IS CONTINUING

The White Lotus

The rarely perfectly coifed comic mini-series was exquisitely cast and acted from beginning to end. We may have different staff and guests in Season 2, but as long as Mike White is at the helm, I’ll gladly come back for another stay.

 

SERIES THAT SHOULD HAVE STAYED LIMITED

Your Honor

To be clear this series didn’t work exceptionally well as a series, but IT ENDED. Where can the series potentially go after this? I love Bryan Cranston, I truly do but he barely carried this series for one season. This isn’t Big Little Lies. There’s nothing here.

 

NETWORK OR SERVICE THAT IS SHOWING THE MOST IMPROVEMENT

ABC

Over the past year I’ve been impressed with the level of material that has been coming out of ABC, starting with Big Sky and some of the better shows of 2021 The Wonder Years and the dazzling soap-satire Queens. (Please bring the Nasty Girls back for a second season.) And having gotten a glimpse at the pilot of Prescott Elementary it looks like they may have a market for comedies that aren’t reboots. Keep going and don’t cancel.

 

NETWORK OR SERVICE THAT SEEMS TO HAVE LOST THE THREAD

Fox

I wasn’t shocked when they cancelled Filthy Rich – I knew it was just a placeholder. Then they killed Prodigal Son even though it was by far the best Drama on their network and I held my tongue. But now it looks like a truly imaginative and original series like The Big Leap will die without a second thought and you’re just going to keep The Simpsons and Family Guy going. Its hardly worth tuning in to any series on this network – its either going to get cancelled or jump to a streaming service (witness Lucifer and The Orville) The Cleaning Lady might be an interesting show. I’m not going to bother getting attached before you announce the next reboot of 24.

 

Well, that’s it for 2021. It’s been a tough year and it may get worse before it gets better, but look on the bright side. In just a few months Atlanta, Barry, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Stranger Things will all have new seasons. If things go well, we might get new seasons of The Crown and Better Call Saul later this year.  Things are looking up already.