Catching up
This season of Justified continues to be superb (much better than the previous one!), with great new additions, and the leitmotiv of betrayal/double or triple-crossing being well played. So many great lines as usual, in "Alive Day" even one from Raylan that was a discreet tribute to Elmore Leonard.
Yes "Wonderful things happen when you sow seeds of distrust in a garden of assholes" is actually a quote from one of his books! Raylan told Tim he read it somewhere...Of course Tim had a great response to that.
Avery/Katherine echoes more and more Boyd/Ava...especially now that Limehouse has confirmed Boyd's probable suspicion about his lover. Katherine is just super scary...the way she played with Ava like a cat with a mouse, in the previous episode, was really something.
Of course I loved her scene with Wynn Duffy (and a probably "aplexed" Mikey) too.
And I like Uncle Zachariah, even if he killed Boyd's prettiest henchman to date.
And the show, of course didn't go the easy road but eventually subverted all expectations viewers could have had about Choo Choo's demise. Because, everybody -- including himself -- expected him to end being hit by a train. And they made him human, much more than a comic relief before he was shot. Very nice touch. Garret Dilahunt was also very good in the scene when Markham convinced Walker that Choo Choo must be killed.
Also I must point that the review on the AV Club had that interesting insight about Raylan:
"And this is where we start to unravel the genius of Raylan Givens: It’s not that he’s corrupt as much as he exists in the negative space of forthright and upstanding. He’s the Schrödinger’s cat of law enforcement malfeasance, existing in both the good and bad states just as long as he isn’t observed. That’s why Art knows better than to look closely at what he’s doing, and why Rachel ultimately agrees."
The Boyd/Raylan scene was of course a wonderful moment. Olyphant and Goggins have such chemistry. As they recalled the dinner scene from the pilot, I thought that the show has to end with Raylan killing Boyd (something Raylan hinted at when he replied that he was sure indeed that the outcome would be different this time), not necessarily because the bad guys have to lose, but for the simple fact that even though there is no long last love between them -- especially since the end of last season --, Raylan will never be free of Harlan until he cut that last tie to his past.
Ghosts are what holding Raylan back. He keeps mentioning Arlo or his family...hell, I'm sure that his idea of "finishing the job" deep down is tied in with some unfinished business with his childhood and with his daddy issues. Raylan can't be a dad, as long as he's still Arlo's boy. He needs to beat the Harlan's villains - all of them, Boyd, Markham and his crew - because they are all avatars of the bad man, whose archetyp was forged by Arlo in his mind.
I will miss the show and my Raylan so much...
AS for Better Call Saul, well, it actually gets better with the passing of weeks. "Nacho" was already brillant, but "Hero" managed to top that. I'm impressed.
I just watched the latest episode of The Americans. I loved the two previous episode so much and didn't think that they could end this one on a note that was as emotionally devastating as last week's, but they did. Matthew Rhys' facial acting is simply phenomenal.
The show is so good at making poignant and subtle scenes. The corpse folding was hard to watch, the amateur dentistry was even harder, although it pointed out the incredible trust and intimacy between Elizabeth and Philip despite their fight about Paige...last week's the final scene in which Kimberley was in Philip's arms, while Yazoo wa splaying, was devastating because of Philip's obvious distress and disgust with himself (especially after his reaction to the creepiest ad ever...at the beginning of the episode). This week the Philip/Kimmy scenes were more bittersweet and there was something definitely more fatherly than flirtuous in the way Philip behaved around her (especially with the popcorn throwing that recalled another food game Philip played with Paige)...until she woke up from her stone state and kissed him and he kissed her back, but this episode's ending added a heartbreaking note to the situation, as Philip recalled his "training" time as a sex machine, told Elizabeth that the trick was to "make it real" and eventually answered her question with brutal honesty when she asked if he used it with her: "Sometimes". As usual the spy stuff is a way to say something about what marriage is.
Anyway, now I have my answer -- well sort of -- about Philip's ability to perform anytime with anyone. He is indeed the best, as Gabriel said.
The parallel between Kim and Paige, during the porch scene was a bit on the nose, but Rhys' acting was so wonderful that it made it worth it...and it's about time that he realised he - well his cool pot-smoker lobbyist persona as James- is to Kim what Pastor Tim is to Paige. The parallel between Pastor Tim and Jim was already there in the previous episode, during the birthday meal, in the way the pastor was focused only on Paige, talking about himself and ignoring everybody else around the table (especially when Philip tried to say something about the mistake that Vietnam was). He is a seductor too, not necessarily in the same sexual way, but still lobbying for Christianity, trying to get her in "Jesus' side", and the seduction works all the better since the girl's parents are "gone" most of the time. Paige's line about making herself "clean for Jesus", was also creepy and recalled that awful Love Baby's Soft advertisment. Innocence is sexy?
And now Philip bought her a virginal white dress for said baptism, probably thinking that it might at least save her from becoming a KGB agent, because to his eyes, what he does is nothing but dirty!
Oh and Martha, who already mentioned the scent of babies, just before the episode with the creepy ad, told this time that the foster girl she was watching and obviously wanted to take in was "good to eat"!
Philip's training was revealed in breif flashbacks as the Centre made his younger self have sex with many different people, women and men, young and old, generally not attractive. The training made it easier for him to do what he does now. It made him efficient. Not only a whore but the ultimate actor, using something that calls to the mind the "method" of the actors' studio.
Last week, Stan recalled his undercover years and began to suspect Zinaida because she seemed to be telling the Americans what they wanted to hear, as he used to do with the White Supremacists. This week Oleg also mentioned another kind of training that helped him to live in the USA. In a way Paige is being trained too, in the Youth Church.
Philip isn't killing like he did last season, but still he's destroying lives (Annelise, Martha and possibly Kimberley if he carries on the seduction) with his actions and feeling bad for his victims, especially when they are so young that he can't forget that he's a father too. He really has been through an ordeal since the beginning of season 2. I'm glad that the Kimberley storyline is connected to the Paige's one, and that Philip is conflicted because of his own fatherhood, otherwise his objections that Kimberley is "young" would have sounded very 2015, and not credible for a KGB spy operating in the early 80's.
That said, even with our 2015 sensitivity, morally speaking his seduction of Kimmy isn't worst than Elizabeth's coldly killing that innocent guy with crushing him under his car*. Far from it. But the point here isn't neither about providing excuses nor about judging our protagonists, it's the consequences of the bad actions on the ones who are making them that the show is so good at exploring. Being a spy is not glamourous, not matter the side you're fighting for; it's traumatizing...and scarring.
Believing helps to think that the end justifies the means -- it helped Elizabeth to go past being raped by a superior KGB officier and do everything she has to do -, but having a conscience can be dangerous. The question now might not be whether Philip might eventually lose his conscience or his life, but if Elizabeth will end up losing her faith.
Now I'm curious about that KGB dog Elizabeth walked to check on the Northrop employee that had to be eliminated so Lisa could get his job!
*Me, being French I can' help thinking of the seduction of Cecile de Volanges by Le Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, although if I remember correctly Cecile is. It was way more cruel, given the fact that it was not a stake in the cold war, but just a request by Madame de Merteuil to take revenge on her former lover who wanted to marry a true virgin. Using adolescent girls as asset or pawn is an old trick.
No Arkady again, and yet I can't help being glued to the screen from the first seconds to the last, and marvelling at the beautiful writing and the awesome acting. That show is simply the best!
Yes "Wonderful things happen when you sow seeds of distrust in a garden of assholes" is actually a quote from one of his books! Raylan told Tim he read it somewhere...Of course Tim had a great response to that.
Avery/Katherine echoes more and more Boyd/Ava...especially now that Limehouse has confirmed Boyd's probable suspicion about his lover. Katherine is just super scary...the way she played with Ava like a cat with a mouse, in the previous episode, was really something.
Of course I loved her scene with Wynn Duffy (and a probably "aplexed" Mikey) too.
And I like Uncle Zachariah, even if he killed Boyd's prettiest henchman to date.
And the show, of course didn't go the easy road but eventually subverted all expectations viewers could have had about Choo Choo's demise. Because, everybody -- including himself -- expected him to end being hit by a train. And they made him human, much more than a comic relief before he was shot. Very nice touch. Garret Dilahunt was also very good in the scene when Markham convinced Walker that Choo Choo must be killed.
Also I must point that the review on the AV Club had that interesting insight about Raylan:
"And this is where we start to unravel the genius of Raylan Givens: It’s not that he’s corrupt as much as he exists in the negative space of forthright and upstanding. He’s the Schrödinger’s cat of law enforcement malfeasance, existing in both the good and bad states just as long as he isn’t observed. That’s why Art knows better than to look closely at what he’s doing, and why Rachel ultimately agrees."
The Boyd/Raylan scene was of course a wonderful moment. Olyphant and Goggins have such chemistry. As they recalled the dinner scene from the pilot, I thought that the show has to end with Raylan killing Boyd (something Raylan hinted at when he replied that he was sure indeed that the outcome would be different this time), not necessarily because the bad guys have to lose, but for the simple fact that even though there is no long last love between them -- especially since the end of last season --, Raylan will never be free of Harlan until he cut that last tie to his past.
Ghosts are what holding Raylan back. He keeps mentioning Arlo or his family...hell, I'm sure that his idea of "finishing the job" deep down is tied in with some unfinished business with his childhood and with his daddy issues. Raylan can't be a dad, as long as he's still Arlo's boy. He needs to beat the Harlan's villains - all of them, Boyd, Markham and his crew - because they are all avatars of the bad man, whose archetyp was forged by Arlo in his mind.
I will miss the show and my Raylan so much...
AS for Better Call Saul, well, it actually gets better with the passing of weeks. "Nacho" was already brillant, but "Hero" managed to top that. I'm impressed.
I just watched the latest episode of The Americans. I loved the two previous episode so much and didn't think that they could end this one on a note that was as emotionally devastating as last week's, but they did. Matthew Rhys' facial acting is simply phenomenal.
The show is so good at making poignant and subtle scenes. The corpse folding was hard to watch, the amateur dentistry was even harder, although it pointed out the incredible trust and intimacy between Elizabeth and Philip despite their fight about Paige...last week's the final scene in which Kimberley was in Philip's arms, while Yazoo wa splaying, was devastating because of Philip's obvious distress and disgust with himself (especially after his reaction to the creepiest ad ever...at the beginning of the episode). This week the Philip/Kimmy scenes were more bittersweet and there was something definitely more fatherly than flirtuous in the way Philip behaved around her (especially with the popcorn throwing that recalled another food game Philip played with Paige)...until she woke up from her stone state and kissed him and he kissed her back, but this episode's ending added a heartbreaking note to the situation, as Philip recalled his "training" time as a sex machine, told Elizabeth that the trick was to "make it real" and eventually answered her question with brutal honesty when she asked if he used it with her: "Sometimes". As usual the spy stuff is a way to say something about what marriage is.
Anyway, now I have my answer -- well sort of -- about Philip's ability to perform anytime with anyone. He is indeed the best, as Gabriel said.
The parallel between Kim and Paige, during the porch scene was a bit on the nose, but Rhys' acting was so wonderful that it made it worth it...and it's about time that he realised he - well his cool pot-smoker lobbyist persona as James- is to Kim what Pastor Tim is to Paige. The parallel between Pastor Tim and Jim was already there in the previous episode, during the birthday meal, in the way the pastor was focused only on Paige, talking about himself and ignoring everybody else around the table (especially when Philip tried to say something about the mistake that Vietnam was). He is a seductor too, not necessarily in the same sexual way, but still lobbying for Christianity, trying to get her in "Jesus' side", and the seduction works all the better since the girl's parents are "gone" most of the time. Paige's line about making herself "clean for Jesus", was also creepy and recalled that awful Love Baby's Soft advertisment. Innocence is sexy?
And now Philip bought her a virginal white dress for said baptism, probably thinking that it might at least save her from becoming a KGB agent, because to his eyes, what he does is nothing but dirty!
Oh and Martha, who already mentioned the scent of babies, just before the episode with the creepy ad, told this time that the foster girl she was watching and obviously wanted to take in was "good to eat"!
Philip's training was revealed in breif flashbacks as the Centre made his younger self have sex with many different people, women and men, young and old, generally not attractive. The training made it easier for him to do what he does now. It made him efficient. Not only a whore but the ultimate actor, using something that calls to the mind the "method" of the actors' studio.
Last week, Stan recalled his undercover years and began to suspect Zinaida because she seemed to be telling the Americans what they wanted to hear, as he used to do with the White Supremacists. This week Oleg also mentioned another kind of training that helped him to live in the USA. In a way Paige is being trained too, in the Youth Church.
Philip isn't killing like he did last season, but still he's destroying lives (Annelise, Martha and possibly Kimberley if he carries on the seduction) with his actions and feeling bad for his victims, especially when they are so young that he can't forget that he's a father too. He really has been through an ordeal since the beginning of season 2. I'm glad that the Kimberley storyline is connected to the Paige's one, and that Philip is conflicted because of his own fatherhood, otherwise his objections that Kimberley is "young" would have sounded very 2015, and not credible for a KGB spy operating in the early 80's.
That said, even with our 2015 sensitivity, morally speaking his seduction of Kimmy isn't worst than Elizabeth's coldly killing that innocent guy with crushing him under his car*. Far from it. But the point here isn't neither about providing excuses nor about judging our protagonists, it's the consequences of the bad actions on the ones who are making them that the show is so good at exploring. Being a spy is not glamourous, not matter the side you're fighting for; it's traumatizing...and scarring.
Believing helps to think that the end justifies the means -- it helped Elizabeth to go past being raped by a superior KGB officier and do everything she has to do -, but having a conscience can be dangerous. The question now might not be whether Philip might eventually lose his conscience or his life, but if Elizabeth will end up losing her faith.
Now I'm curious about that KGB dog Elizabeth walked to check on the Northrop employee that had to be eliminated so Lisa could get his job!
*Me, being French I can' help thinking of the seduction of Cecile de Volanges by Le Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, although if I remember correctly Cecile is. It was way more cruel, given the fact that it was not a stake in the cold war, but just a request by Madame de Merteuil to take revenge on her former lover who wanted to marry a true virgin. Using adolescent girls as asset or pawn is an old trick.
No Arkady again, and yet I can't help being glued to the screen from the first seconds to the last, and marvelling at the beautiful writing and the awesome acting. That show is simply the best!