Lost Rewatch: Born To Run

 

 

As I said in Whatever the Case May Be, I was never one of those Lost fans who either never liked or came to loathe Kate. That said, having rewatched Born to Run, I am starting to understand slightly better why so many people had issues with Kate, because this episode shows just how good a liar and manipulator she actually is and just how determined she can be to get what she wants no matter who she hurts in the process.

Perhaps the reason I missed this even after multiple rewatches is because this episodes shows many of the regular characters behaving just as poorly.  Perhaps because we are so focused on the bad attitudes of so many of the male characters, we ignored just how badly Kate is behaving even though it’s in front of us the entire episode.

As it becomes very clear that the raft is going to need to be launched much sooner than even Michael had wanted, Kate has now made it very clear that she wants to be on it.  Our focus in the scene is clearly on Michael’s stubbornness and that he has decided to stick to his original line-up even though Kate’s experience on a boat will probably be more beneficial than anything Sawyer could hope to offer.  But watch it again and listen to how Kate phrases things, particularly when she asks if Walt is coming on the raft. Michael has made it clear from day one that the whole reason he has been building the raft was to take him and his son off it. Kate is essentially phrasing it to sound that this very reason is now a liability to the trip. When Michael tries to challenge her on it, she responds: “What do you know about sailing?” Challenging the man who built the raft and who you’re asking permission to sail on it would be terrible form for anybody.

Michael’s behavior has not changed one bit over the last season; he continues to stick to his original opinion of people the moment he first meets them and sticks with it no matter what they do to assist him. He makes it very clear when he sarcastically asks Jack if he and Locke have made up (we’ll get to that) and the second Jack suggests that he was poisoned, he immediately thinks Sawyer did it even though it makes no real sense. If Sawyer really wanted to get back at Kate, why would he poison Michael? That Michael is actually thinking this way says far more about Michael than it does about Sawyer.

And for those who were still following the Kate-Jack-Sawyer triangle, again we have a clear contrast between how they have dealt with Kate’s status as a fugitive. Sawyer now confirms that he did know that Kate was the marshal’s prisoner and that if the rescue comes, Kate will be heading back to prison. However when Hurley accidentally reveals to Locke that Kate was the fugitive, Jack notably winces. For everything he has been holding against Kate in private for being a criminal and lying to him, he has kept her secret all this time.  (It’s kind of amazing, considering Hurley’s ability to spill information, that Hurley has managed to keep it this long.) He might suggest to Kate that she might have poisoned Michael (and in his defense, it’s not an entirely unreasonable suspicion to make at the time) but he keeps his suspicions to himself. The minute Sawyer suspects that Kate poisoned Michael, he turns on her for the first time since the series began and exposes her secrets for the entire island to see.  It is a truly despicable act, and it does (momentarily) turn Kate into a pariah for the first time since the plane crash.

In Kate’s flashback, which takes place before the one in Whatever the Case May Be, we learn more about Kate than we have so far in the series. We suspected the robbery and shooting we saw in that flashback were the crime that made her a fugitive in the first place; now we learn it’s the tip of the iceberg. We still don’t know the real crime that sent her on the run, but the flashback confirms another of Kate’s flaws. As much as she wants to run away (something that the recording of her in 1989 started long before that) she always seems to come back. She did that in her flashback and it thwarted her escape; now we see she has returned to her hometown because her mother is dying of cancer (and will be for a long time) and she wants to make amends. That she seems to think that she can just walk in to her mother’s hospital room seems naïve, but it seems to be reconnaissance to run down her childhood sweetheart, Tom.

The scenes with Tom are particularly painful as they are of lost promise more than anything else. We know even before we hear the record that Kate and Tom clearly thought they were going to live happily ever after, and now that can never be the case.  The time capsule seems significant now because it is where the plane that she wanted so hard to find in the marshal’s case is in it, but as we shall see it has a more symbolic importance that will become clear much later in the series’ run. When Kate finally appears next to her mother’s sickbed, she seems utterly open and despairing for the first time in the entire series – and then her mother starts to scream for help. (At the time, most of us thought it was because Diane was terrified of her daughter; we will eventually learn she was simply keeping an earlier promise that proved how despicable a human being she is.) Even then, Kate can not bear to face being in a cage; she runs away – and as a result, Tom dies.  Tom is not, for the record, ‘the man she killed’ but he is the man she loved and that’s why his death hurt her so badly.

The thing is, the end of that scene shows just how determined Kate is to not face the consequences of her actions. Even after seeing the man she loved take a bullet in the chest, even though the last thing he said to before he died was to stop running, she keeps on doing it. And similarly the last scene of the episode makes it clear just how good a liar she is. Kate confessed her sins to the camp when Sawyer exposed her (though again she cages is by saying ‘what I’m accused of doing, still refusing to say she’s guilty) and then tells everyone she didn’t poison Michael. We believe her because Jack has talked to Sun who he believes was responsible because she was trying to keep her husband from going on the raft. What Sun doesn’t tell anyone is that this was Kate’s idea. Kate wanted a spot on the raft and if it happened to coincide with helping Sun, well that’s a fringe benefit. Many fans continuously blame Jack for taking a self-righteous attitude towards Kate, and it’s ironic that this is one of the only things she actually does that he thinks she’s innocent of.

Then again, Jack’s mind isn’t entirely on the raft. Sayid has brought Jack out to the hatch, which has now basically been unearthed. Understandably Jack is pissed at Locke for keeping this to himself for three weeks, but what else is new? I imagine he’s actually angrier when Locke says: “All due respect Jack, but since when do I answer to you?” As we all know by now, Jack is more or less a dictator when it comes to his leadership style and he can not take any challenge to it. Locke has basically said outright what no doubt many in the camp have been thinking to this point, and when he chooses to bring up the secret Jack was keeping about the guns – not just from Locke, but from everybody else – it is a fair point. I have little doubt that, left to his own devices, Locke would have kept the hatch a secret until he could have managed to open it and maybe then told everybody what he found. Sayid has essentially forced his hand.

And its worth noting that when Jack essentially agrees with Locke, Sayid is appalled –   he’s clearly assessed even by now how much the two disagree and obviously thought Jack would do so just out of habit. He thinks the hatch was never meant to be opened from the outside and that there is something dangerous in it. That said, it’s hard to imagine Sayid could have convinced anybody to after all this time to just bury the hatch again (if nothing else, it would have really pissed off the fanbase who’d spent as much time as Locke wondering what was inside).

And if we needed any doubt that what was in the hatch was clearly dangerous, we get the biggest warning sign of all when Walt comes to Locke in the middle of the episode. The second Locke touches Walt, he gets a very clear sign what is in the hatch and just how dangerous it is. We never do learn exactly what he sees, but it’s clearly enough to terrify him. He burned the first raft because he didn’t want to leave the island, and he’s clearly been hinting to his father the last few episodes that he’s not entirely wild about making this trip. But the moment he sees what Locke he does a complete 180 and decides he and Michael need to get away as fast as possible.

And it says a lot about Locke, who knows how special Walt is and who is fully aware of his gift, that not even this changes his mind. He is convinced the hatch is his destiny and nothing that has happened – not the death of Boone, not being ostracized by the camp, not being shot by Shannon – is going to stop him from realizing it.  He thinks because he has Jack on his side that he can achieve it now. He doesn’t know that by doing this he has essentially laid the groundwork for the hatred between them that will make up the backbone of the rest of the series.

Lost Rewatch on VHS: The Greater Good

 

VHS Note: One of the ads in this episode’s recording was for a 20/20 special that went behind the scenes of Lost itself. While there had already been countless signs previous as to just how much the series now had a place in pop culture lore, the devotion of an entire prime-time special to it  solidified that it was officially part of hit TV.

 

John Locke will do far worse things during the course of the series then his actions in this episode, but I have few memories of him acting more tone-deaf and pathetic than in the aftermath of Boone’s death. Just after Sayid has given a eulogy that is extremely awkward, Locke emerges, with his clothes still covered in Boone’s blood and attempts to explain Boone’s death in a way that seems as much a defense of his own actions as it is how it happened. The editors cut to a wide shot that displays the entire camp standing around Boone’s body and Locke entirely on his own. It’s a clear metaphor for how the camp sees John at the moment, and it’s prescient as to how the divide between John and the survivors has officially become from this point.

Locke seems increasingly tone deaf as he walks over to Shannon with Boone’s stuff and tries to awkwardly commiserate with her about the loss.  Despite what Locke says at the end, its clear he’s hoping for some kind of absolution from her, which even the kindest viewer of the series has to say he does not deserve. The rupture he has made is impossible to mend, and this is never more clear when he is finally cleaning himself off and Walt, who has spent his time on his island worshipping John looking at him with utter terror in his eyes.

Jack doesn’t exactly come off much better in this episode. Kate finds him still determined to find Locke and do who knows what to him and practically has to be guilted by Kate to return to oversee Boone’s funeral. He can barely go through the motions there, seems to be determined to make Shannon say something rather than do so himself, and launches himself on Locke the minute he appears utterly determined to beat him to a pulp. It is worth remembering that the justification Jack gives for his rage at Locke about his role in Boone’s death is relative dross – even if Locke had stayed right by Jack’s side and told him every detail about his injuries, the chances of saving Boone were just as infinitesimal. What we are seeing is more or less Jack’s self-righteousness towards anyone who challenges him combined with his guilt over Boone’s death. I honestly believe even if Boone hadn’t died, the gulf between Jack and Locke would have become irreparable by the time the existence of the hatch was revealed.

What is far more damaging to Locke’s relationship to the rest of the camp is because of what happens between him and Sayid in this episode.  Sayid is trying to reach out for Shannon, who he knows is in pain and who he must suspect wants to see John dead. He goes into the jungle with John hoping he can head this off as well as to find out what may have caused Boone’s death. Perhaps he is hoping there is a reasonable explanation for what has happened.

The scenes in the jungle between Sayid and Locke are some of the best scenes in Season 1, as Sayid tries to interrogate Locke to find out what he has been hiding. Locke is very much aware of this but is still trying to deflect, which he has to know is a mistake given the circumstances, perhaps because he is still trying to keep his secret. But much as will be the case throughout the series, Sayid is always better at manipulating Locke than Jack because he is much more dangerous than Jack is. When Locke tells him that he was the one who smashed the transmitter way back in ‘The Moth,’ Sayid doesn’t hesitate a moment before grabbing John in a chokehold and putting a gun at his head. It may be a trick to try and get Locke to tell him the truth about the hatch. Locke is counting that Sayid will believe because he has a gun to his head. Sayid thinks Locke is lying for exactly that reason – and he makes it very clear to John at the end of the episode.

This episode no doubt earned Naveen Andrews a nomination for Best Supporting in a Drama for 2005 (sadly, the only one he ever earned for Lost). The flashback tells us what Sayid was doing in Australia before he got on the plane – and its genuinely appalling on many levels, not the least that of the U.S. government. Sayid is essentially bribed and then blackmailed by the CIA into meeting up with a former college classmate who is now part of a terrorist cell in Sydney. During the course of their interactions, he learns that there is an operation being planned, that Essam is going to be used as a suicide bomber – and that he does not want to do it. The scene where Sayid tries to convince the agency to flip Essam and they convince him that it’s his job to force Essam to go through with it so they can get the C-4 struck some as far-fetched. I found it neither in a realistic sense (I have little doubt the government would be willing to do the kinds of things they threaten him with and demand Sayid do) nor in the terms of television at the time. (This seems very much within the grounds of a 24 storyline. It won’t come as a shock that Donnie Keshawarz, who plays Essam, starred on 24 though oddly enough it was as the unsuspecting fiancée of the member of a terrorist plot – and his American wife murdered him in cold blood. For the record, this storyline also featured John Terry as her father. )

The Greater Good makes it very clear that Nadia is Sayid’s Achilles heel and he will do anything to see her again – even betray his principles and persuade an innocent man to become a martyr, then betray him at the last minute having talked him out of it. Essam’s last words to Sayid before he kills himself are: “I hope she (Nadia) makes you whole,” and this stings just as much as Essam’s suicide because, as we shall see, Sayid has never been fully whole. It is that sense of guilt that makes him change his flight to arrange Essam’s burial – and puts him on a course for the island.

As I have said many fans of the series were incapable of understanding Sayid’s romance with Shannon, no doubt more out of their dislike of the latter character. I never felt the same way about either her or their relationship at the time (then again, I did not watch the first season until it was in re-runs). I thought then, and do now, that Shannon’s character, like far too many of the female characters on Lost was badly underutilized.  Maggie Grace’s work in this episode is another example of the potential she had that was almost untapped during her time on the series. Standing over her brother, talking to John, she seems almost disconnected, and we assume she’s grieving – until she goes to Sayid and says: “John Locke was with my brother when he died. Will you do something about that?” She says it in such a detached fashion that you almost miss the threat and when Sayid comes back and she acts sullen again, we’re almost inclined to think she was just being the stereotype people thought – until we see her going to the gun case.

The scene between her and Locke is genuinely brilliant on all fronts because Shannon is both angry and disturbed enough to kill Locke and not feel anything until its done. Sayid manages to stop her at the last minute, and when she collapses in despair its impossible not to feel her pain – so much so that near the end of the episode Sayid actually doubts his actions. When Kate tells him that he had no choice, he says simply: “There’s always a choice,” and we knows he thinking about every single one he made from the moment the CIA pulled him aside in the airport – and far more than that.

The rupture between Jack and Locke was inevitable. The one between Locke and Sayid was not, and it is worth noting that Sayid is well aware several episodes before Jack is just how determined Locke is to stay on the island, even if he doesn’t comprehend why. In ‘Hearts and Minds’ Locke told Boone that it was important to keep Sayid ‘on their side.’ By the end of ‘The Greater Good’ it is clear that Locke has failed at that accomplishment spectacularly. Sayid will never be as outright dismissive of Locke as Jack will be from this point on, but he makes his point of view on Locke very clear in the last minutes: he knows that they will need him to survive, but he does not trust him. Viewed in that perspective the relationship that they have for the rest of the series follows exactly along those lines: Sayid will work with Locke far more easily than Locke will with Jack, but it is borne out of necessity, not out of trust.

And that’s made crystal clear in their last exchange where Sayid demands Locke take him to the hatch. Locke tries one last time to deflect. Sayid says with a coldness we’ve never heard him take with Locke before: “No more lies.” Sayid will never believe any action Locke takes at face value, and its worth noting he got there before Jack did.

One last note: The Greater Good is the only Sayid-centric episode in the entire series where we do not see or hear anything about his history as a torturer even as a throwaway. (Sayid says he was an ‘interrogator’ but Locke does not press the point.) One can only wonder what would have happened had Sayid decide to break his rules on the one man who had the most secrets to keep and who kept the longest.

Praising Criticism - TV Critics In Particular: How the Rise of Peak TV Has Led To A Similar Rise in How Critics Have Been Reviewing It

 

Throughout this long and winding series on criticism, you might have noticed that I have largely focused my attention on the follies of film and literature critics, leaving my field of television criticism basically unscathed. This is not out of professional courtesy nor because I think all these critics show perfect judgment all the time (my Overrated Series is a prime example of how I think that critics will reach an opinion about TV that I can’t comprehend). It is mainly due to the fact that overall, as the Golden Age of TV has become prevalent, I have overall been impressed by the work of my fellow critics in this field both as a body and in specific cases.

Those of you who have read my columns during Awards seasons should not be shocked by this. Every year since they were established in 2010, I have essentially written a series of love letters about the Critics Choice Nominations and the Awards that they subsequently give. I went into further paroxysm of ecstasy in 2021 with the first ever Hollywood Critics Association TV Awards which in just two awards have become an utter joy to write about, try to predict and then watch the winners. They have managed to cut the Gordian Knot about so many of the differences between Broadcast, Cable and Streaming that I’m impressed that it took me this long to come up with what seemed to be an obvious solution. And while I have my issues with the TCA and their methods of giving acting awards in a single category with no difference for gender or lead, I won’t pretend that I haven’t been overall impressed with their selections over the past several years, particularly when it has come to recognizing such extraordinary series as The Americans and Abbott Elementary.  I don’t agree with every single one of the nominations or awards they end up giving, but I tend to respect their choices more than the Emmys or Golden Globes and have been known to track down series that they nominate almost entirely based on the choices they have made. (I probably wouldn’t have chased down either Wednesday or Andor had they not been willing to select them.) Every time they have given awards I am proud of my chosen profession.

I have no idea who the members may be of these organizations, but I have reading enough criticism over the last quarter a century to know that the ones who give these awards are worthy of having this power. During Entertainment Weekly’s existence, I would always track down each new issue almost entirely for their television section alone. The reviews they gave either for a single series or occasionally series with a similar theme were always fascinating to read, and the fact that they would give the shows a grade equivalent to a report card helped clarify things for me. Their issues where they gave their hopes for Emmy nominations were always fascinating to read and eventually when I began my own official version around 2011, I followed their model and was always interested in their ballots for their awards (it’s there that I got my conception for Should Win/Will Win). And I loved their annual Best of list: which featured not only Top Ten lists from two or three different critics, but also a section for the worst 5 shows of the year, some of which often were successful series that had been huge disappointments. (The most prominent examples were Day 6 of 24 and the second season of True Detective.) It's also worth noting their publication was the only one I ever remember reading that was not inclined to dismiss franchise TV shows just for the sake of being based on a comic book or movie, something that far too many critics for ‘highbrow publications’ would do outright.

TV Guide was not quite up to those high standards, but as Peak TV has flourished they have been more than up to the challenge, both in their reviews sections and just as often in Cheers and Jeers, when they will deserved accuse hit series of jumping the shark or occasionally blame viewers for not watching a show they like. (This was after all, the first publication I remember to have covers devoted to ‘The Best Show You’re Not Watching, which including Homicide, Party of Five and Sports Night, all among my personal favorites.)

And for all the harsh blasts I have given to New York film critics over the years, those grudges don’t apply to New York TV Critics. The New Yorker erratically gave TV reviews for the first few years I read it, but around 2003 they realized just how great TV was becoming and began to assign some genuinely talent critics to the job. Emily Nussbaum, who worked for them until recently, is a genius whose reviews have always inspired me with their logic even when I didn’t agree with her opinion. (Her extreme dislike of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was one that she was proud of.) She was also superb at seeking out and highlighting series I thought did not get their due such as Billions, Evil and The Good Fight, and her worship of The Good Wife shown over four separate columns over the years, demonstrated the best of both writing and what a TV critics must be capable of in this era.

Other New York publications have similarly done well in this regard, some perhaps not surprising (The New York Times has become very skilled in its coverage) some more so (New York Magazine was always ahead of its time; it may have been one of the first publications to recognize just how great Oz was). But for the purposes of this column, I’m going to focus on the one that had perhaps the greatest influence on me growing up and a recent review that demonstrates just how truly great TV criticism can be, when done well.

When I was first beginning to take TV criticism seriously, one of the first papers whose criticism I considered most vital was that of Newsday. Part of this was due to the work of Marvin Kitman, one of the greatest TV critics of all time, who was at that point sharing duties with the equally skilled Diane Werts.

Kitman was a brilliant writer who had extremely high standards that, frankly, should have had the snobbish attitude of Pauline Kael and John Simon, both of whom I loathed. But I never hated him or found him the elitist snobs I have so many other critics, mainly because the shows he aimed his poison pen at basically deserved it. (When you consider some of the comedy series that were given the label ‘Must-See TV’ or some of the dramas that were airing on television during the 1990s, its hard not to say they earned his wrath.)

I will also confess I may not be capable of being unbiased because he was the first professional journalist I ever wrote into with my opinions – some of which he published in his columns and some of which he actually agreed with. He fully supported my views of the ridiculous practices of the Emmys nominating and giving the same awards to the same actors over and over (I referred to this as the Helen Hunt rule after she won four consecutive Emmys for Mad About You; I’d call it the Julia-Louis Dreyfus rule now) as well as my disdain for calling them ‘a yearly ceremony paying tribute to David E. Kelley and Steven Bochco (these days I might elaborate to Armando Iannucci and possibly Mike White). We also agreed about the greatness of Homicide and the superbness of Chicago Hope. I was in despair when he retired from all writing in 2004, though admittedly he left us with a warning that ‘as bad as TV was, it was going to get a lot worse in the future.” Deadwood and The Wire were still on the air, Lost and Desperate Housewives premiered that fall, and AMC, Showtime and FX hadn’t even begun to demonstrate their power. Well, nobody’s perfect.

Long after he departed, I would read Newsday’s TV page every day of the week. They would not always review a show; sometimes they wouldn’t be there at all, but I always found a fascinating read. Verne Gay, currently the major TV critic for the paper, has always been fascinating to read as a critic. And he’s probably one of the best working today.

Newsday reviews are interesting because he always follows the same format: there’s a brief summary of what’s the show is about (or if it’s a new season, updating us on how the last season and ended and how the new season begins) and then a general review of what he thinks, concluding with a summary of whether its worth your time. There’s a rating system of one to five stars (since reduced to four), and while the raves are always great to read, it's often the 2 and a half stars that are the most interesting because it’s just on the cusp between a good show and a waste of time and its hard to know if its going to be worth it for the viewer.  Usually these reviews are based more on the episodes they get to preview than anything else: Newsday only gave Watchman 2 and a half stars based on the first three episodes, but the general context was that it might still be worth the viewers time if they chose to commit. (Spoiler: It was.)

And its always interesting to watch their opinions of a series change over time, sometimes in the course of the same season. I well remember that at the start of Season 7 of Homeland, the initial review was fairly negative but the major objection seemed to be less with the plot of the episodes available, but the fact that the most important character in the reviewers eyes (Peter Quinn, the most ambivalent about the actions that took place each season) was now dead. I believe the reviewer’s opinion had become more favorable by the end of the season. And while they are capable of recognizing greatness when it is apparent and will hold to that opinion – the reviewers justifiably considered The Americans one of the greatest TV shows in history into the final season – they are more than willing to moderate their opinions over time. And it is in fact regard to that fact that I want to discuss a review I saw in the paper today: the review of the fourth and last season of Succession.

It's worth noting that the initial review of Succession in Newsday was not positive at all. They only gave it two out of four stars with the headline “A family that’s hard to like.” (This was a trend that was actually notable in the initial reviews, but that’s actually going to be the subject of another column later.) Their opinion improved quite a bit over time, and in this review they give it four stars. This in itself is not a shock – the early reviews of Season 4 have been laudatory, even rhapsodic. But the Newsday review is an exception to this, not because it doesn’t admit that its not a great show but because unlike all the other raves I’ve seen, it is questioning everything that so many seem to be drawn about it in the first place and actually calls into question why so many people watched the show at all.

After describing what’s happening the review quotes King Lear, saying: “nothing will come from nothing.’ It argues that all the action in Season 4 – Tom and Shiv’s marriage imploding, Connor’s disastrous run for the White House, the children’s decision to revolt against their father – are just a sign of meaninglessness.

The reviewer (I assume its Gay; I’m not sure) basically tells us that for all the extraordinary writing and acting and the idea of comedy, it’s essentially a dark tragedy. It makes it clear that the entire purpose of the series – who will run Waystar Royco – is in a way meaningless. He      quotes Lily Tomlin: “Even if you win the rat race, you’re still a rat.” He argues that whoever ‘wins’ the battle has already lost in a general sense: if Kendall wins, for example, it just means he’s become the most like Logan. He says no matter how the series ends, none of these characters will have a ‘come to Jesus’ moment because they’re not capable of it – “if they were, they would have by now.”

And in the last paragraph it argues that the entire series is basically a bad joke that it has told us ‘the military-media-industrial complex’ has apparently has done as much damage to people who run it as America. “Before this series began, we knew who the winners were and we knew who the losers were.” The implication is crystal clear.

I don’t normally like reviews where critics tell their audiences that in a sense the series they have spent several years watching has been a waste of time, and indeed, I’m not certain that is what the Newsday reviewer is saying. But in the case of a show like Succession where all the things that should utterly be repulsive to viewers – how unpleasant everybody is, how unqualified all of them are do achieve the goal of the series, and how meaningless it ultimately is whoever ends up winning – I actually think its justified, and not merely because I agree with the opinion.

For three seasons, millions of viewers seem to have been thrilled by the saga of the Roys even though nothing has happened, all of the characters are loathsome and its very clear that no matter who wins, the world loses. Even now, most of the reviews I have seen seem utterly determined to highlight all of these things as reasons to watch the final season. The Newsday review is arguing that the series is worth watching, but it is questioning why so many have been drawn to it in the first place.  Analysts might suggest that it is because of the brilliant technical aspects, the underlying meaning of so many of the behaviors of the Roy children or that so many Americans are experiencing schadenfreude at how miserable the rich and powerful are. This review argues in the strongest possible term I’ve seen any columnist say that the viewer’s enjoyment of this series is saying something very subtly unpleasant about the nature of the show’s viewer. And honestly, it is a question that we should have been asking more often.

It is reviews like this that make me proud of my chosen profession. It is the kind of nuanced, eloquent and even amusing review that the best critics are capable of. It gives the impression that this is a great show, and then argues that maybe it’s a good thing that its ending not just so that for the series to overstay its welcome, but to suggest that the fact we let it in the door says something unpleasant about us. Maybe the average reader will just look at the rating, assume that’s all need to see and ignore the rest. God knows that what far too many of us do anyway. But reviews like this – and frankly the best TV criticism – make us question what we are watching and why we are enjoying in the first place. We might still watch it anyway, but we might think as to why we are now.

 

Historical Figures Editions: George Wallace's Presidential Campaigns and The Rise of the Backlash, Part 1: 1964

 

As a historian, part of your job is that you have to write the truth about history, not just the people you admire. While I knew I was going to be writing about George Wallace at some point, I was obviously loathe to do so for reasons that are far too obvious.

Let’s be clear up front: Wallace’s segregationist policy and behavior as Governor of Alabama was not necessarily the worst or most cruel of the elected officials who represented the Deep South during the civil rights movement – governors like Orville Faubus of Arkansas and Jim Byrnes of South Carolina were at least as reprehensible. And compared to the personal behavior of Strom Thurmond, he can’t be called anywhere the most hypocritical of them. What Wallace’s behavior as Governor from the 1960s was simply the most public and at times the most cruel of any of the southern governors of that era, and it was for that very reason that it appealed to so many not just in the South, but in the North, not just Democrats but Republicans. The ‘backlash’ movement that began around time of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would be epitomized by many political candidates to this day, but for four consecutive election cycles George Wallace was the public face of it.

One of the best books about Wallace’s political life is called The Politics of Rage. This term could just as easily refer to the era we live in now. It does not take a genius to connect the dots between the people who voted for Wallace half a century ago and those who voted for both Donald Trump – and to a certain extent, Bernie Sanders – half a century later. Prior to Wallace’s arrival on the political scene, the term Populism was considered one of mixed repute – it had been linked to Jim Crow politics but also a political party in the 1890s that had argued for significant institutional change that both parties would eventually make policy in the Progressive era. After Wallace became a political force, populism had a dark tone that it has truly never recovered from.

But make no mistake: Wallace was speaking for a lot of people. History does not want to acknowledge it, then or now, but for far too many Americans in the 1960s and 70s, Wallace was considered the true voice of what so many in the country thought was wrong with it. Not just in terms of race, but with the disorder in the country, the clashes between generations and  the two party system as a whole. It is not a coincidence that Wallace’s campaign slogan for his 1968 Independent run for President was ‘Not a dime’s worth of difference’. George Wallace had tapped into the frustration that far too many Americans felt then – and still do now – with the two-party system. Politicians on both sides knew about this and for four straight elections, just the specter of him terrified politicians in both parties. Because of his presence in electoral politics, there is an excellent argument that the shifts in the Republican party were unnoticed for nearly twenty years and that the Democratic party made the cost for it in at least two straight elections, and that it may very well have affected a third. To ignore George Wallace because he was a horrible human being is to ignore the ugly side of America then and now. And based on where we are as a country, we can’t afford to do that.

In this series of articles, I will only tangentially touch on Wallace’s actions and policies while Governor of Alabama – at this point most of the public is aware of them due to the ugliness of the battles for civil rights. Instead, I will focus on each of his presidential campaigns, what they signified each time he ran for both parties and what effect they had on both sides. I will start with 1964.

 

In November 15 of 1963, George Wallace announced his intention to oppose President John F. Kennedy for the Democratic nomination. He did so when he was in Dallas, just a few days before Kennedy was assassinated.

At the time, Wallace’s notoriety was at all time high for his decision to stop four black students from integrating Huntsville elementary schools and for standing in the school door at the University of Alabama. When Lyndon Johnson made it clear that he intended to make sure that the Civil Rights Act that had been stalled in Congress would be passed in the first year of his administration, Wallace saw an opportunity. Advised by a public relations expert in Wisconsin, he entered three Democratic primaries.

To be clear, Wallace did not run against LBJ so much as he did surrogates for him: in Wisconsin he ran against Governor John Reynolds. And no one was taking him that seriously initially: Reynolds continuous dismissed him throughout the run as ‘a kook… supported by right wing elements.” The media, the clergy, the AFL-CIO and even Wallace’s own party denounced him.

Such denouncements only fueled Wallace. He campaigned heavily in ethnic neighborhoods with immigrants from countries that had were under the iron curtain. These people were attracted to the message that the civil rights bill would affect their jobs, neighborhoods, property values and schools. Combined with an anti-communist message, Wallace had found a winning formula.

At one point Reynold’s told supporters ‘it would be a catastrophe if Wallace received 100,000 votes.” He didn’t receive that many – he received 266,000, almost a full third of the votes cast in that primary.

Wallace next appeared in Indiana, a state with a long history of Klan activity. Now the Democratic establishment was taking him seriously. Governor Matthew Welsh ran specifically so that Wallace would not be unopposed. He manipulated party machinery, touted his civil rights credentials and had himself photographed shaking hands with Johnson. Even Ted Kennedy made a stop in Indiana to denounce him along with the state’s Democratic Senators.

Wallace faced a far more difficult campaign in Indiana, heckled at a speaking engagement at Notre Dame and publicly refusing to return captured Civil War battle flag that his state had. But at the time there was a wrinkle in the primary that would end up benefiting Wallace in future campaigns – a closed primary that allowed Republicans to cross over and vote for Wallace. In this election, they had to sign an affidavit they would vote for the Democrat in the general election. In future years, Indiana – and other states – would not hold them to this.

Wallace’s showing in Indiana was below expectations after Wisconsin: he received 176,000 votes which only came to around 30 percent of those cast. However, given how serious the Democratic Party had taken his campaign this time, it was startling – and unsettling.

Then came Maryland, racially polarized. The Johnson campaign struggled to find a suitable candidate, finally settling on junior senator Daniel Brewster. At this point, the number of people against Wallace was staggering. Not just popular Senators such as Ted Kennedy, Abraham Ribicoff, Frank Church, and Birch Bayh were campaigning against him, but even some Republicans – Milton Eisenhower, the former President’s brother, stumped against him. This time, his strength came not just from his stance on race but from the Eastern shore, where it was said as much as 90% of the white vote was in his favor. Riots in Cambridge had erupted over an equal rights law’s repeal, and the National Guard clashed against him. When a baby was thought to have died from tear gas used by police, it seemed a PR disaster to the campaign, and it didn’t seem to help that a Neo-Nazi run party was favorable to him.

Despite that many thought Wallace could still win Maryland – and on primary day, he nearly did received a whopping 43% to Brewster’s 53%. He won 15 of Maryland’s 23 counties and outright among white voters. Only a combination of double the usual African American turnout and liberal votes from Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties prevented a Wallace victory.

But Wallace’s ambitions – and his gall –  did not stop when the Democratic primaries ended. In what should have been a warning sign to both parties, he made a visit to Barry Goldwater,  the Republican nominee facing a landslide defeat in November and made what was an unprecedented offer. He wanted to run as Goldwater’s vice president, offering to switch parties if he could.

Goldwater, who was already on record voting against the Civil Rights Act, rejected the idea, officially because Wallace was a Democrat, unofficially because he was repulsed by Wallace’s racism. (Goldwater’s opposition was that he thought the bill was on its constitutionality, not because of any personal prejudices though it ended up costing him and the Republican Party because of that perception.) While one admires Goldwater for having principles that transcended wanting to win in November, it’s interesting to speculate what might happened had he chosen to take Wallace.

Goldwater would still likely have lost, but he might not have in a landslide. Just as Johnson’s presence on the Democratic ticket had ensure the South for JFK, Wallace’s might have done likewise for Goldwater. In addition to the five states Goldwater carry, he might very well have been able get him over the top in Florida (which Goldwater barely lost) Arkansas (a state Wallace would carry four years later) Virginia and Oklahoma (which was close). Perhaps the Wallace vote would have helped him in states such as Maryland and Indiana, and maybe put West Virginia and North Carolina in play.  Perhaps as much as fifty to sixty more electoral votes would have gone into Goldwater’s column that November as a result of Wallace on the ticket.  Given Wallace’s later electoral successes as well as his popularity in the North, it might have added as much as two to three million votes to the Republican total as well.  It would still have been a Johnson victory, but Goldwater’s showing would have been a stronger one for the conservative wing of the party and he might have been able to contend for the nomination again four years later when the Vietnam War caught up with Johnson.

Of course, there would have been repercussions the other way. Johnson painted Goldwater as a racist with little evidence in reality; Wallace’s presence would have guaranteed it and Goldwater would have lost what support he had in the north and the Southwest. It might well have cost him Arizona, which he barely won anyway.  Still considering that the sole justification Goldwater gave for choosing New York Congressman William Miller as his vice president was “he drives Johnson nuts”, there could have been an argument for choosing someone who already had a track record for doing that – and could have helped him electorally.

But Goldwater turned Wallace down and he had to save face by saying he had achieved his goals. Unfortunately, the 1964 election would be a disaster for Alabama electorally. An unpledged slate of Democratic Electors effectively removed Johnson from the ballot in Alabama. With Johnson not on the ballot, Goldwater rolled the victory in Wallace’s home state with nearly seventy percent of the popular vote. For the first time since Reconstruction, Alabama had Republican representatives in Congress, with five new House members. Wallace’s personal ambitions had cost his state dearly in November and considering that he was term limited by the state Constitution, his future prospects in the state looked grim.

No doubt LBJ breathed a sigh of relief, thinking Wallace would be a thorn in his side on civil right for the next two years but no longer a threat electorally. He and the Democratic Party had no idea what the next four years would be like for the nation and that by 1968, LBJ would be politically dead – and George Wallace would be the boogeyman for both the Democrats and the Republicans.

In the second installment, I will cover Wallace’s 1968 third party run for the Presidency.

Better Late Than Never: Wednesday

 

One of my fondest memories as a child is watching the film adaptation of The Addams Family and its sequel. I consider both movies hysterically funny as well as among the best examples of a film adaptation of a classic TV series. (Of that era, the only movie that matches it in my opinion, was The Fugitive.) It was triumph in every way, from its brilliant direction and designs, it’s exceptional musical score and its incredible performances. And it will also go down history for being the breakout performance of Christina Ricci as Wednesday.

Ricci has been one of my favorite actresses ever since I was introduced her in that film. Even at thirteen, she had the ability to steal every scene she was in. Her perfect deadpan delivery made every line hysterical: (My favorite exchange is when a Girl Scout offers to buy lemonade for her, asks if her lemonade is made of real lemons and says she will if she’ll buy a box of her Girl Scout Cookies. “Are they made from real Girl Scouts?”) Ricci has spent the last thirty years as one of the few child actresses to make a perfect leap to adulthood with no true sign of any trauma as a result. (The characters she plays, on the other hand…)

It was in part due to my incredible fondness of Ricci’s work that I was reluctant to initially watch Netflix’s Wednesday. I wasn’t worried about The Addams Family getting the same treatment as Riverdale as Netflix’s version of Sabrina; doing a grim reboot of The Addams Family seemed as impossible as a satire of a Wayans Brothers parody. And honestly,  adaptations of old TV franchises and comic books almost never seem to see the light of day at awards show, so I figured best to put it on the back burner when I got free time. (Ha, ha.) Then Jenna Ortega and the series itself began to get nominations from other awards shows: Ortega has to date been nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy in the Golden Globes, Critics Choice and SAG awards and the show itself has been nominated for Best Comedy by the first two. I realized I had to start getting caught up.

First of all, I will be upfront. Ortega is perfect in the title role. She has all of the mannerisms that every Wednesday has down: perfect deadpan delivery of every line, and all of her lines are straight out of what we know she would say. (“My last therapist had a nervous breakdown,” she tells her new one.) Ortega is a marvel to watch every time she’s onscreen, and she’s on it almost all the time, she can generate laughs every time she says a line, even when she’s giving voiceover narration. Most of the cast I’ve seen is equally good: Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman are superb as Morticia and Gomez, Riki Lindhome is absolutely sublime as Wednesday’s new therapist and of course, Ricci herself as the dorm mom at Wednesday’s new boarding school. The show is directed by Tim Burton, who you honestly wonder why he never directed the Addams Family movies. And Danny Elfman himself is providing the score.

All and all, Wednesday has all the makings of a masterpiece. But I can’t quite put my – well, Thing – as to what is missing from this series and why sometimes I have trouble just going with it.

Having seen the first two episodes, perhaps my problem came more with the Pilot than anything else.  Watching the teaser I was in utter rapture: Wednesday admiring the sadism of high school, removing Pugsley from the locker and telling him crying makes him look weak, releasing piranhas into pool to Edith Piaf, saying “No one gets to torture my brother but me” I thought: “Splendid!” And then much of the Pilot seemed directed towards being something very close to the worst kind of things for a show involving the Addams Family:  being traditional.

I don’t object in principle to Wednesday not wanting to follow the path of her parents and instantly trying to escape from her mother’s boarding school. Admittedly,  I’d think that kind of rebellion would be dating the quarterback and becoming a cheerleader, but that’s the wrong kind of torture for Wednesday. The idea of a boarding school for outcasts is a funny idea in principle, as well as Wednesday’s roommate being the most cheerful werewolf imaginable – that’s a special kind of hell for her. I love the idea that she still uses a typewriter to work on her novel, and that she hates social media because it involves technology, not because she hates the effect it has on people. (Was one of the co-founders of Facebook and Addams? No, that’s just too cruel even for them.) I like the idea of a boarding school among outcasts having a caste system, vampires, werewolves, telepaths and the far too underused sirens, as well as the fact that having supernatural powers actually amplifies teenage hormones (Buffy made that joke very clear) Gwendoline Christie is delightful as the headmistress, who happened to be Morticia’s roommate when she was a student and Lindhome, who has a wonderful habit of playing relentlessly cheerful character is great as Wednesday’s new therapist. Most of the young actors are also superb: Joy Sunday is wonderful as Bianca, the siren whose more or less the queen bee of the school, Emma Meyers as the way-too-cheerful werewolf and I hope to see more of Eugene, the sole member of the beekeeping club, who already stole every scene he was in.

I guess my largest problem with the pilot was that the show tried to hard to fit Wednesday into the conventional hero mold. Considering that the writers for the series created Smallville, maybe this should have been a huge shock. The larger problem is, of course, Wednesday Addams could never be mistaken for Clark Kent and trying to fit her into the model of a conventional teenage hero of the series is an idea that doesn’t inspire me. (And seriously, trying to give Wednesday a trauma plot  for her trademark unemotional behavior? I’m pretty sure traumatic childhoods are encouraged by Addams’ as a precious family heirloom.) There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with trying turn Wednesday into a teen detective and mix it with the supernatural; it just seems kind of you know -ordinary.

Many of my concerns were assuaged having seen the second episode. The show seems to have found more of a groove by putting a murder mystery at the center, which I did not think would work very well in the Pilot. It helps a lot that, for all the outcasts and bullies in the series, the writers have decided to make the heavy the town sheriff, who wants to make sure the academy is closed down, but who is utterly contemptible to his own teenage son  (he practically demands that Tyler tell him what’s going on in his therapy sessions and seems relieved Tyler is talking about his late mother rather than ‘spreading stories about his old man’.) You actually hope this guy gets eaten by the monster that’s in the woods.

It also helps that the series is now begin to utilize Thing who, just as in the films and TV show, steals every scene they’re in. Wednesday clearly has a bizarre relationship with it (are there any other kind) and its actually entertaining to see Thing being used to a greater ability as a spy and how other people react to it. (Enid’s conversation about bonding with Thing ‘over mani-pedis’ was a huge laugh.) Christina Ricci’s character is also enjoyable to watch. AT first, you think like so much else in the series’, her presence is simply another Easter egg, but as always with every character she’s ever played, there’s more beneath the surface. She seems to be the only ‘normal’ person at Nevermore (which in itself is an in-joke) and there’s something both sad and funny about her in every scene. I have little doubt she’s hiding something beneath the surface but in a show like this, it was actually be more surprising (and interesting) if she was actually who she was at face value.

There are clearly signs this series could step wrong at any moment, what with the murder mysteries, the psychic flashes and the secret societies. This is, after all, the trap that so many reboots such as Nancy Drew and Riverdale fell prey to very quickly. But unlike those shows, the decision to use Ortega as a voice-over narrator is the right decision because Wednesday is taking all the overarching seriousness that these show’s take and undercutting with dry humor with every other line. I was still struggling with the idea that this series could contend for awards after the Pilot; the second episode convinced me that both Ortega and the show deserve every nomination and award they will get in the near future.

If I have any doubts about Wednesday, it is the fact there are times it takes itself too seriously when it comes to sticking to genre-tropes. Wednesday alone should take everything seriously; the show should try much hard to stay funny and light. There are more than enough scenes in the series to make me think it will stay that course, but there are always warning signs.  There is clearly enough good stuff in Wednesday to make it be the next big thing for Netflix; perhaps even a worthy successor to Stranger Things when its final season airs.  The Addams Family  has always been eccentric, grotesque and funny, when it was at its most strange and everything else around reacted to it. Conventional would be as dirty a word as ‘normal’ to the show. Those are, to coin a phrase, the Family Values that I hope Wednesday sticks with.

My score; 4.25 stars.

 

There is One Thing That Much of the Left and the Right Completely Agree On - And That's What's Causing So Many Problems

 

 

If I had to choose to betray my country or my friend, I should hope I would have the guts to betray my country.

Attributed to both E.M. Forster and Francois Truffaut

I met the man who would become my best friend when I was eleven. For more than thirty years, the two of us have supported each other through good times and bad times. I met the woman who eventually became his wife and was at his wedding. He didn’t ask me to be his best man because by that point he knew me well enough to know I couldn’t handle it. The man he asked was by then one of his closest friends and mine as well as was his sister, and eventually that man’s wife. For the better part of a decade, my visits with the group have been one of the few things in my life I can rely on for stability; the conversations we have had among my great joys.

Now I have to tell you that I do not share the exact same political views with any of them. My mother, as much a bleeding heart liberal as you can find, understands my friendship with them but does not like them much. My father who shares more of my mother’s political views than my friends, is more understanding of my loyalty and devotion to them.

I should also mention that on almost all things – not merely political, but also cultural, historical, and philosophical – I agree with them only thirty to forty percent of the time at most.  That’s not a big deal with me; I think I have common ground with almost any of my friends fifty percent agreement. What I care about far more is the fact that while I know my friends can be rigid in many respects, they will always be willing to hear me out when I disagree with them and I will do the same when they disagree with them. I have mentioned more than once that I agree with Voltaire’s statement (which I’ve quoted often enough that I won’t do so here) in that everyone is essentially entitled to their opinion, whether I personally agree with it or not. The problem with so much of today’s discourse is that almost no one seems to share that opinion.

My politics have never more or less aligned to one particular political party or view, particularly because I am for many things and against very few. What am I against, do you ask? I am adamantly opposed to bigotry, hypocrisy, and stupidity. And in the last several years, it has become crystal clear to me that all of these things are so common that they not only cross party lines, but also racial, economic, gender, and sexual ones. I’ve dealt with some of my issues in some of my columns before and will do so again, but in this one, I want to look at how some reason partisan comments have clearly shown just how ingrained the latter has ruined any political discourse.

I believe at my core the two-party system is wrecking the country – emphasis on two.  George Carlin has come back into vogue in the last few years and one of his key bits is the fact that in a country with so many varieties of consumer goods, when it comes to the most basic fact of our democracy, we get two choices and we’re told to be happy with it. In an earlier blog, I argued that almost every major societal change in our political system more or less came because of a third party and that the other two parties either spent a lot of time either destroying the interlopers or reluctantly accepting the ideas so that they became irrelevant. None of this has done anything to fundamentally frustrate the average voter’s problem where choices were so limited. (I believe my next historical column will deal with the last major political figure who represented for many Americans a fundamental change in politics as usual – and how that terrified both parties for four consecutive election cycles.)

With the heightening of partisanship this century, both parties have essentially come down to the same argument: voting for a third party is letting the ‘other side’ win and that will make things worse for America. That has essentially killed on the vine any chance for political growth in the 21^st century as well as fundamentally solidified the argument both parties have been making for nearly half a century. Neither side argues so much for that they will make your lives better, they always the other guy will make them worse. Whatever policies they might have are irrelevant because the system is arranged so that legislation can’t get passed in either case. All that matters is the threat that the other side will it make it worse for you no matter how much your life stinks at the moment.

In this sense, I do comprehend the frustration of so many leftists on this site who are frustrated with the Democrats only being slightly less bad than the Republicans. However, many of them have made it clear multiple times that they don’t even want to bother to vote, much less try to mobilize their forces to create another political party that might make things better for them. So as Bill Murray said in another context, when it comes to doomcryers: “Who cares?” Let’s concentrate on two people on completely different sides of the political spectrum who in the last month essentially said the same thing.

Last month, Marjorie Taylor Greene  tweeted that there should be a ‘national divorce…red states should secede from blue states.” Many on the left and on this blog mocked her for this statement demonstrating their own hypocrisy.

You see, as someone who has spent far too much time among the leftists and progressives, they are at the end of the day, as bigoted and separatist as they accuse the right of being.  They mocked the ideas of a ‘national divorce’ while just this past month I read one columnist who was posting the idea of America splitting into no less than eight separate countries.  This did not fundamentally surprise me because I have noticed that for all the talk of inclusion the left has, that will never apply to anyone who is conservative, Republican or even disagrees with them once.

They have argued about the right ‘not bothering with dog whistles’, which is envy that their brand has been coopted. I’ve read and seen far too much to know that the left has never bothered with them; they wear their hatred for the right (and the center, and comedians they don’t like, and whoever else isn’t in lockstep with them) on their sleeve. They believed in a free press during the Trump era, but their definition of a free press is one that never says anything remotely bad about any Democrat.  They hate Fox News with a passion, but don’t think Republicans should appear on any other news channel, write for any other publications, or really have an opinion at all. They argue in the strongest possible sense that all lives are equal and deserve to be mourned, and at least one ‘progressive’ site spent much of the pandemic posted the social media posts of people who thought Covid was a myth, ending with their deaths. They said they mourned their deaths, but the underlying message was: “They had it coming.”  They argue that the electoral college is broken and that Republicans are cheating to win. Then they do everything in their power to recruit more Democrats to vote and argue that all Republicans are evil and that if Biden dares to negotiate with Republicans – or you know, even talk to them –  that how dare he talk to ‘those people’.  They argue the Republicans want a dictatorship and fascist state. The underlying message of so many of these sites is that the Democrats essentially want the same thing.

And that argument was made crystal clear in a column due to appear in next week’s Atlantic. For all intents and purposes, The Atlantic is essentially “doomcryers lite” and I wasn’t surprised when another progressive website quoted one  written as being from a ‘conservative columnist.’ For the record this man (who will I not dare mention his name) was a regular on MSNBC for the past decade. The only way you could consider him conservative is that he probably didn’t endorse Bernie in either of the last two primaries.

For years the Atlantic has raged against Trump, the right and conservative media. This column basically said that it was time to stop letting the Trump voter – and by extension all Republican voters – off the hook. It more or less called them traitors, that reasoning with them was pointless and that they were essentially enemies to the state even if they were your friends and family. It didn’t go quite so far as to say that they should be forced to wear badges with a small elephant on them, but that was the implication.

That The Atlantic decided this article should be published is a travesty because it more or less gives cover to so many progressive websites to essentially say what they’ve wanted to all along: Republicans are evil, there’s no point in trying to hope they’ll improve and really we should stop even trying to talk with them.  They have spent years accusing the right of having neither empathy nor compassion. Articles like this essentially say out loud that they don’t have any either, at least you know, to those people.

And neither comment was written in a vacuum. At the end of the day, both sides are certain of one thing: they hate and cannot stand the other. This level of division has permeated on every level of our society and far too often has gotten to the point that you must be one the right side of every issue one hundred percent of the time. That this is not a tenable way of life, that our points of view on certain views have been changing for decades and now seem to change every minute, is irrelevant. And it has led to a society where you are always wrong about something and if your right about something, you don’t mean it.

So what approach should we take? Well, I think the best way to express is to deal with two very comedians, one I wrote about recently and who is now under a cloud and one who I usually disagree with vehemently but who last week demonstrated a larger point we should all follow.

I have always loved Chris Rock, and I still believe he is groundbreaking and revolutionary comedian. Of course, now that he is rich and successful, he’s a bitter black man and therefore must be ignored. Nevertheless, I still consider him a truth teller and his clearest remarks on this came in his 2004 special: ‘Never Scared.” In it he said: that all conservatives, liberals, Democrats and Republicans are idiots. Never stick to one think. Listen. Then make a choice. I got shit I’m conservative about and shit I’m liberal about.” (I can now see millions of people searching for this minute on YouTube and commenting “This proves he was never an ally!” and of course miss the point.)

Now anyone whose read my blog knows that I do not like Bill Maher. Hell, the Chris Rock column about him was written to compare him unfavorably to Maher as a comic. But the thing is, like everybody else on Earth, Maher is not wrong a hundred percent of time. And he proved it in spades in his final comments on this week’s Real Time.

Much of it dealt with Greene’s desire for a national divorce, which did call out for ridicule.  Then he did something I really wish he’d do more often: he argued how absurd this idea for some kind of national divorce by using facts and figures to demonstrate there is no such thing as ideological purity.

He reminded up that Greene comes from Georgia which has two Democratic senators (the left pointed this out a lot mocking Greene) and a Republican governor (they conveniently forgot that). He reminded us that there is a significant percentage of Republicans who believe in gay marriage, hate the idea of a border wall and want to legalize pot. Then he pointed out there are a percentage of Democrats who are gun owners, that some are anti-abortion (Henry Cisneros of Texas had to survive a primary challenge because of this) and that for sixteen percent of Sanders voters, their second choice was Trump. “Seems we’re going to need more countries than just the two,” he said. “Or we could stick with the one we have.”  His audience, his panel – and me at home – all applauded heartily at this sentiment.

I realize that quite a few people on either side will never accept this approach – like I said, stupidity is one of those things that crosses all divides – but it’s my particular stand. Which is why I led with that epigraph and told you the story at the opening. I will never agree with them a hundred percent of the time on politics. Sometimes I may even find their points of view repugnant. But that is not now, nor has it ever been, grounds for treason. So in case anyone ever asks me, if I have to choose between my country (these days both sides will use that as interchangeable with a political point of view) and my friends, I won’t blink once before choosing my friends. Anyone who has to think even for a second about that, well, I am sorry – that none of you have ever had friends like that.

Eight Days A Jeopardy Champion: Assessing Stephen Webb's Performance

 

 

When Stephen Webb officially qualified for the Tournament of Champions last Monday, it looked like he had the gift of the all-time greats. Looking near the end of Double Jeopardy like he was going to lost in a runaway, he managed to regain enough money in the last few clues of the game to have more than half his challenger Roy Camara’s total. When he was the only player to come up with a correct Final Jeopardy answer, he managed to win $38,400, very close to his biggest total in his first five games. It looked like he was just getting warmed up.

But in hindsight, the warning signs were there. In his previous four wins, he had managed to find at least one Daily Double in each game and make them pay off. From that point forward, he never found another Daily Double. The next three games would end up being victories more due to the lack of success his fellow challengers would find in Daily Doubles. This would be crystal clear in the Double Jeopardy round of Game 6. Challenger Long Nguyen had been making a serious run and Stephen in Double Jeopardy. He was at $12,400 when he found the second Daily Double in the category SCRAMBLED U.S. HISTORY, in which he had already gotten the previous three responses correct. With a chance to take the lead away from Stephen, he bet everything but could not come up with an anagram that led to THE MONROE DOCTRINE. As a result, Stephen finished the game with a runaway though only with $16,000. That was crucial because of how Final Jeopardy went.

The category was COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD. “Part of the largest contiguous land empire during the 1200s and 1300s, today it’s the world’s second largest landlocked country. Both Stephen’s opponents knew the clue referred to Mongolia. Stephen wrote down Mongolia, crossed it out and put down Kazakhstan, which is the largest landlocked country in the world.  It cost him nothing, but it was an omen of how Final Jeopardy would end up going the remainder of the week.

Wednesday’s win would end up being a relatively low scoring affair in the Jeopardy round. In Double Jeopardy, each of his opponents found one of the Daily Doubles. But by that point Stephen already had a significant lead and would get enough clues correct that neither of them could catch up to him. He finished Double Jeopardy with another runaway game. No one got Final Jeopardy correct, so he won another $20,000.

His eighth game was essentially a back and forth battle with challenger Sarah Matthews. The Jeopardy rounded ended with her at $9000 to his $8000. In Double Jeopardy,  Stephen would quickly sweep the category SCIENTIFIC LAWS AND THEOREMS (he’s a data scientist and would dominate nearly every science category in the game). Sarah retook the lead when she found the first Daily Double; Stephen took it back on the next clue and would maintain it despite Sarah finding the second Daily Double and responding correctly on the penultimate clue of the round. The two of them were the only ones left at the end of Double Jeopardy; Stephen with $22,400, Sarah with $17,600.

The Final Jeopardy category dealt with 1980s MOVIES. “A writer and producer of this movie said he wanted it to be like a Western or James Bond film, “only it takes place in the ‘30s.” Neither contestant came up with Raiders of the Lost Ark and while Stephen won, it was by far his lowest payday with $9599.

From the start of the Jeopardy round of Friday’s game, it looked very much like this was the end of the road for Stephen. Challenger Kelly Barry got off to a quicker start them him, his other challenger Mark Bernstein found the Daily Double in the Jeopardy round ahead of him, and it was only because he bet everything on the Daily Double and it went wrong that Stephen went into second place, where he would be the round ended. In Double Jeopardy Stephen would not be able to ring until the ninth clue of the round. Mark found both Daily Doubles, one put him into contention, the other took him right back out of it. When Kelly got the $2000 and $1600 clues incorrect in THE CARRIBBEAN, it opened a window for Stephen which he walked through; by the end of Double Jeopardy he had a narrow lead over Kelly with $12,600 to her $11,600. Mark was still in there with $4000.

Final Jeopardy was a variation on an old standard: STATEHOOD. “Congress relented in 1890 after this prospective state said it would wait 100 years rather than come in without the women.” Mark wrote down: “What is Wisconsin?” and lost half his money. Kelly wrote down the correct response: “What is Wyoming?” (The Equality State; the first to allow all women the right to vote.” She gained $3000. Mark however had written it’s neighbor: “What is Colorado?” He would lose $10,601, dropping him to $1999 and third place. This made Kelly the new champion with $14,600.

Stephen’s eight wins and $184,881 would be an impressive number of wins and money even five years ago. In the post Alex-Trebek, super-champion era, it does not look particularly impressive. It’s only the third highest number of games won this season and considering that Troy Meyer managed to win $214,802 in six games a little more than two months ago, it almost seemed meager in comparison in the era where we now seem used to players winning ten or eleven games and around $300 to $400,000 at a minimum. However when one looks say, at the contestants from the 2021 Tournament of Champions as a comparison, it’s actually a fairly impressive number.

Leaving aside Jason Zuffranieri, whose $532,496 in nineteen games now seems positively modest in comparison to the last couple of years,  the second place finishers were three female champions each of whom won eight games: Karen Farrell, Jennifer Quail, and Mackenzie Jones. (Quail made it to the finals before losing to Sam Kavanaugh). And of those three eight game winners, Stephen actually won quite a bit more money than Karen, who won ‘only’ $159,603. Furthermore, his eight games won and cash won would be more than all the competitors in the 2019 Tournament of Champions (of course, that means ignoring the Holzhauer in the room.)

And as any recurring fan of the show knows, a modest win total does not count you out against opposition who seems more qualified. Ben Ingram managed to emerge victorious over the controversial but exceptional Jeopardy player Arthur Chu and twenty game winner Julia Collins in a hard fought 2014 Tournament of Champions. In 2017, a determined (but clowning) Buzzy Cohen came from a distance third to defeat the clownish (but exceptional) Austin Rogers in the Finals of that Tournament. And we have seen just this past year just how much Andrew He put Amy Schneider through her paces before she managed to come out the victor.

So yes, Stephen’s eight games and total cash won may seem a  bit modest to those of us who have spent the last couple of years. But that does not mean he is not a great player or that he may be a threat to those super-champions down the line. He may ‘merely’ be a very good Jeopardy champion. It doesn’t mean we should underestimate him.