Category: TV Show Reviews

Blindspot Episode 2: 5 Things We Learned

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blindspotEpisode 2 of NBC’s Blindspot brought more clues, a few explosions and a gun battle, culminating in a possible connection between the two lead characters. Let’s recap with 5 things we learned Monday night.

*Kurt Weller and Jane Doe may have know each other as kids. When he was ten years old, Weller’s friend disappeared. Before she was taken, there was a tree accident that left the girl with a scar on the top of her back, a scar that Jane also has. Could this mystery woman be Taylor Shaw, Weller’s friend who vanished? Blood tests come back next week.

*Is Jane a Navy Seal or an assassin? Another memory shows her taking out a priest at a church for a flash drive, something that makes Jane question whether she will like the person she eventually remembers. The weapons training also brings back the mysterious ruggedly handsome man(IMDB with that description, not me) who may be connected to Jane. Maybe the person who sent her on this amnesia driven mission.

*Another clue brings the FBI agents and Jane to a former Army pilot suffering from PTSD and someone who could be operating as a drone pilot with ridiculous levels of government clearance. The team checks him out, spooks him, and his house explodes. After they question his commanding officer, her car explodes. Another explosion rocks the agents outside the fellow army officer who may have turned the pilot in when he went off the edge. This sets them on a chase for him and the girl he kidnapped.

*The tattoos may seem like dead ends at first, but there is a connection between the army officer, Musgrave, they question and the fact that Weller may know her from his childhood. Are they leading the agents away from something bigger or direct clues to something she may not even be able to fathom?

*The end finds Jane grabbed in her apartment by the rugged bearded guy who keeps following her around. Who is he and what did he do to her? More importantly, did she tell him to do it?

That’s the clue in the finale. The man telling Jane she had this all set up, leading me to question whether we can really trust her in the end. Weller and her will go down a romantic plot angle that may doom the show, but I think in the end, she will be as mysterious and deadly as any suspect they chase. I don’t trust the wickedly beautiful and deadly Jaimie Alexander. Do you? Are you tuning in next week for another dose of Blindspot? I am. This rabbit hole is getting more interesting every commercial break.

The Player: Flawed yet entertaining

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The first frame of NBC’s new show, The Player, encases Wesley Snipes on the outskirts of Las Vegas standing over a dead body. Yeah, that Wesley. Formerly known as Blade among other action hero roles, Snipes has taken his talent to the smaller screen in hopes of kicking the dust off a once strong career that got rerouted by ego, taxes and bad decisions. Does it work? Is this Thursday cheeseburger undercooked or decent tasting?

Yes and no. The show co-stars Philip Winchester(who just finished off Cinemax’s Strikeback) and pairs the two man up as two parts of an elaborate “game” where Vegas billionaires place bets on “true crime”. As Snipes’ character says when first uttered, “Be ready to not believe me when I say it.” It’s not a bad idea. True crime, predicted by gamblers, and being held in check by Snipes’ mystery man in a suit and another woman Cassandra who may have ties to Winchester’s security analyst. Winchester’s Alex is their “player”, a man who must prevent crime and other than the lives at stake, there is also a wager hanging over his adventures.

This show suffers from a ton of coincidence(things happening right in time and characters predictability) and far fetched plot. It’s a show you have to buy into if you are going to like it. It also depends on the likability of Winchester, a man trained in the theater who folks may only know from the relatively underwatched Strikeback series which just concluded. He is new to network television and given a large chunk of this pie to eat. It may also depend if you like Snipes, who is the cover man for the show, the face you will see on posters and ads.

While flawed, The Player is entertaining in parts and sets up a riddle at the end of its pilot that may suck you in for a couple more hours. Is this show going to get picked up or last past 10 episodes? It’s so hard to tell. It doesn’t do anything particularly well or present a new premise but it’s got decent action and Vegas behind it.

Like it’s main face, Snipes, The Player is fun to look at but you question its longevity and ultimate goal. Is he enough? Can the thin plot hold our attention and will Winchester be anything more than a muscled hero to get behind? Lots of questions that 42 minutes can’t answer. I will tell you this. Next Thursday, I will be watching. Will you?

Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll is “Diet” Denis Leary

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When I heard about Denis Leary writing, creating, directing and starring in a FX television about an old rock n’roll band getting a fresh coat of paint, I was excited. After all, Leary cemented his status as a TV genius with his heralded 9/11 series, Rescue Me. A show that blended comedy, drama and was a classy ode to fallen firefighters for many seasons. That bought him a do whatever you want license from FX, and he chose to sink his teeth into an old rock lion trying to make a comeback. The idea couldn’t miss, but it did. Here’s why.

Unlike Rescue Me, Leary never punched the audience in the gut with a vigorous speech or a moment that made you step back and go, “wow”. There were five of those during the first six episodes of Rescue Me. I know the shows are drastically different, but Leary doesn’t pull any punches in any genre so I was disappointed when the final episode of SDRR aired last week and fizzled. It came and went. It was mundane. Ordinary. Punchless. Weak. Those are words I don’t associate with Leary entertainment.

Leary’s Johnny Rock had some direction, and even a few juicy one liners and jokes about real bands. The supporting cast of John Corbett, Robert Kelly, Elizabeth Gilles, and Elaine Hendrix. The first few episodes set up a cool story line about Rock’s daughter(Gilles) coming back to enliven the separated band, The Heathens. Corbett’s Flash had some good moments with Leary but it was far too “networky”. By that, it reeked of network television drool, something FX has largely avoided with most of its series. With only 10 episodes to tell its season story, the show never locked down a tone. It went in dramatic directions and always tried to give everything a light touch. Sometimes, a little edge was needed and left out of scenes. This was Diet Leary. Something I hoped I’d never taste on television.

Is it terrible? No. Some of the episodes worked but the story fizzled overall and does not leave me wanting more. FX let the final episodes air without announcing an end or a future. That only tells me their thoughts on the series don’t fall too far from mine.

I am sure Leary can fire another gem up for FX. He’s got a unique storytelling ability and can do most of the work himself. Would this show have worked on HBO or Showtime? No. A dirtier edgier network wouldn’t have given this show a touch of greatness.

In the end, SDRR just fell short of expectations, lacking the usual bite and punch one has come to expect with Leary entertainment.

Blindspot is an intriguing blend of thriller and mystery

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blindspotNBC’s new show Blindspot gets right to the point in its pilot. The hour opens in Times Square where a police officer comes upon a bag lying in the street. It’s a large bag and seems to be moving. The bomb squad comes in and when the bag is opened, a beautiful scared woman(Jaimie Alexander) crawls out of it. She is covered in tattoos, doesn’t know who she is and has an FBI agent’s name(Sullivan Stapleton) on her back in black ink. This is the jumping off point of NBC’s Blindspot.

Immediately, the FBI wants to know why Kurt Weller’s name is on this Jane Doe’s back. Is he a clue or is there a connection to her past? It doesn’t help that her memory is shot and she can’t recall how she got there. The hour sets off a chase around the city as the agents locate and decipher addresses, names and clues on her body.

She can fight and handle a gun, as Weller finds out. Is she a Navy Seal? Is she a member of a secret militia? Are there plans in NYC for a terrorist attack? At first she seems harmless but as the minutes go by, her skill set is revealed and she becomes more interesting and dangerous. The show ends with a big clue as to what happened to her and how she got into that bag in Times Square and will likely be the crux of the show. That is what is her allegiance? Which side is she working for and will it be revealed too late?

ABC’s Quantico is trying something similar, putting a group of young agents in the aftermath of a bombed federal building and seeing which one is guilty? Blindspot is keeping it more simple and encasing Weller and this woman into the center of the story. If she knows what is going on, why is his name on her back? What’s the catch there?

The actors are perfectly cast, which doesn’t mean they will be up for Emmy’s. This is entertainment folks and nothing more. This won’t replace your Mad Men fix but it may give you a different shade of Showtime’s Homeland without the melodrama of Claire Danes’ bipolar CIA agent. Alexander is beautiful but has a sexy combo of Lena Headey and Angelina Jolie action to her forte and Stapleton is an easy hero to like and sympathize with.

How long can Blindspot go? My wife commented about the limited shelf life of a story about a woman covering in tattoos and she is on to something. What happens when all the connections are made and the bad guys are found? Does the show run out of bullets? I don’t think so and I will explain.

Each season, if picked up, will be around 26 episodes. One of the pros and cons of a network show is an extremely long season(premium cable’s 10-12 episode format is much better) so Blindspot will be a slow reveal but there are directions to go. What if in the end they find the baddies but Jane Doe has a secret plan? What if she gets away and becomes the antagonist? What if there is a mole in the FBI? Terrorism plots carry tons of juice and threads so stay tuned.

The show has shot 8 episodes and will probably not shoot more until NBC asks for more. Network shows don’t give a long leash to a fall prime time show so Blindspot has some lifting to do. I think it has potential but only time will tell.

After one hour, are you in or out?

Tweet me @buffa82.

Gearing up for NBC’s Blindspot

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A naked woman covered in tattoos is found in Times Square with your name across the middle of her back? If you are FBI agent Kurt Weller(Sullivan Stapleton), this is a problem, a clue, and a potential storm of confusion wrapped into one. It doesn’t help that the Jane Doe comes in the form of the beautiful Jaime Alexander(Thor). This is the basis of the new NBC series Blindspot, a show hoping to do big things for the network as the new shows start to unfold this fall.

The discovery of Alexander’s woman in the streets sets off a web of conspiracies and a hunt that will culminate in a connection back to Weller. Why is his name on her back? Who put it there? Who put her in New York? Is there a terrorist attack planned? The good thing about a new series with very little clues is that it remains unpredictable. This will extend the series past other more functional and safe shows. Creator Martin Gero has executive produced short run series like Dark Matter, The L.A. Complex, and Bored to Death. Blindspot is his baby and hopefully a chance to get a full season of episodes.

The show co-stars Audrey Esparza and Rob Brown, but appears to be a show centered around Alexander and Stapleton. You’ll know him from the Cinemax series Strikeback and the 300 sequel, Rise of An Empire. You’ll know Alexander from her role in the Thor films, The Last Stand and a number of TV series including Showtime’s Nurse Jackie and HBO’s The Brink. Here is a show that combines all the easy juicy elements of entertaining television. Thriller plotted storylines involving terrorism. Beautiful women. Men with just the right amount of facial hair and good action. Are you in?

If you want a serious thriller with some mystery and juice hanging off the end, give Blindspot a shot. Come back here for a weekly recap of each episode.

Edward Burns’ “Public Morals” is a kick

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38664Edward Burns has been trying to make this story for years. A long time. The writer/director/star of TNT’s Public Morals told the tale in his book, Independent Ed. He’d been wanting(needing is more like it) to make this cop show that he could dedicate to his dad, a law enforcer when Ed was a kid. The Irish American cop/gangster film that the audiences hadn’t gotten a taste of yet. He tried with three different scripts. Stoolie, On the Job, and No Sleep Til Brooklyn. The money and studio never came around and the creative control didn’t arrive until Steven Spielberg met Burns and they became friends. TNT came calling and gave Burns full control. Here’s your canvas and brushes, go ahead and paint your dream show. Burns took the tools and ran. The result didn’t disappoint.

Public Morals is an old school kick in the head. An ode to hard drinking wise guys, cops and the women of the late 1960’s who tried to make them slow down on a night here and there. Burns is Terry Muldoon, the leader of a group of cops that act “as landlord” to keep the local hoods, rackets, gaming, and all low level activity on an even keel. They are the ones who bend but don’t break when it comes to their own moral code. The group includes seasoned actors like Michael Rapaport(back where he belongs after that Justified debacle), Austin Stowell, Wass Stevens(who looks cut directly from that era), and Patrick Murney’s Petey Mac. Their territory and jobs are threatened when Rusty Patton(Neal McDonough) comes back onto the scene, murders a gangster and sets off a turf war.

That’s all you need to know about the plot. Bullets are fired. Punches are thrown. Tons of threats are made and a ridiculous amount of booze is consumed. The Public Morals cast make Mad Men look like early evening hustlers when it comes to whiskey, beer and every other fluid that can be set on fire. Come for the dialogue, which hops out of this actor’s mouth like a jazz number and always lands smooth.

Authenticity is what Burns gets right with Morals. Everything is done right. The cars, bow hats, suits, walks, talks, weapons, and the overall swagger. Nothing is phony or done halfway. With a period piece to work in these modern superhero powered entertainment times, the little shows like Public Morals have to either transport us, thrill us or present some once in a lifetime acting. While the acting is solid and the story is familiar yet ripe for the senses, the authenticity of the dialogue and the look of the show elevate the proceedings.

You can tell Burns has been wanting to make this show for a long time. The tale came right from the man’s bones. It’s apparent from the first shot that this is no cash and grab job. Burns has never done that in his career so why start with his own show. He works when he feels there is a story to tell and because the man loves to direct movies. Morals feels like a small screen film being diced up into ten chapters and dealt out weekly.

It never hurts to have seasoned performers like Brian Dennehy, Robert Knepper, and Timothy Hutton sharing a piece of this gritty cake. Public Morals also employs a great selection of tunes to either lighten the mood or grind it to a halt when the action takes over. Burns doesn’t waste a single minute of his weekly dose of 51 minutes of crime here. Every moment feels thought out and invested. Take a look for yourself.

When you are caught up with all four episodes on demand, check out Burns’ book where he breaks down the backstory and buildup to Public Morals. It’s a special read from a special brand of storyteller. Burns is a renegade and always has been. Public Morals is his baby and it always leave me wanting a bigger taste of the action.

True Detective’s Season 2 Finale: A Giant Mess

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(In case you missed it on KSDK)

Picture yourself ordering a big juicy ribeye steak and you get a dried up bland T-bone steak cooked by a cook who hates his job. That’s what I got after 8 hours of heavy handed drama on HBO’s season 2 of True Detective. The finale stunk up the room and it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. How did golden boy Nic Pizzolatto round up all this talent and mess this up? Next time, Nic, buy a diaper and unload in that instead of all over people who pay top dollar for HBO and went into this summer expecting something better.

I gave this season time to grow on me. Think of spending a few hours with a VERY serious kid at a playground. He’s cool and wants to have fun but can’t stop talking about philosophical meanings and boring layered narratives. That’s True Detective in 2015. Overwrought and overcooked and just too much in the end. Worst of all, its creator lost his compass. Pizzolatto can write twisty seedy stories about the rugged battles we fight within our subconscious on a daily basis but believe me he had better than this assortment of characters running around with their heads cut off in the middle of this mystery plot.

Hey, there’s Vince Vaughn, trying to recover some dignity from a career that fell straight down the soft comedy rabbit hole. Vaughn was trained on theater and came up in Hollywood through dramas like Clay Pigeons and Return to Paradise. What happened to that magnetic presence from Swingers? Vaughn was miscast here as a former criminal trying to go straight and a stupid one at that. He couldn’t handle the dialogue and never seemed comfortable except for a handful of scenes. Maybe he bit down too hard on the comedy bug or maybe he wasn’t meant for this gym class.

Look at Taylor Kitsch, playing the most doomed closeted gay cop of all time. So serious, never smiling and tormented beyond belief. The main recipe this season was inner torture. Look at me, I am pale, unhappy and out of cigarettes. Show pity on me. Taylor’s Paul, an ex-soldier trying to ride a patrol bike who gets sucked into this crime investigation set to explode. He never seemed right for the job, the same way the actor never knew quite how to play his character. When he found his step, it was overacting. So visible and forced.

Same for Rachel McAdams, the beautiful talented actress who is working so much right now she may need a break. Sometimes, when actors work at much as she has in the past year, I wonder if they don’t know how to handle a big role like this. Her overprotective, damaged, knife wielding badge started out like someone we could like in a dirty cool way, but quickly her character boiled too much and the goods spilled out. By the end of Sunday’s finale, I really didn’t care what happened to her character because I never felt like I knew her.

Colin Farrell’s Ray was the only character I felt had a complete base to work off of. A cop whose wife was brutally raped, a crime that set Ray off on a revenge trail that left him thinking he had killed his wife’s attacker but spending the rest of his life not sure if his son was really his. Farrell adopted this deep slightly Southern drawl and assortment of plaid shirts and funky facial hair to rip into Ray. It was like his Miami Vice character went to Texas and came back a changed much more tormented dude. A sad one but a character we cared about. Farrell can visually project 80 emotions on his face but in the end, the showrunners did him wrong, at least in my eyes. They walked him into a trap. I didn’t expect characters to find happiness at the end, but I expected they’d read something better than what they found.

One character needed his comeuppance and didn’t get it. You’ll know if you watch.

Season 1 was brilliant because it had a sexy confidence, was extremely well written and felt fresh and rightfully gloomy. People were sad, drinking too much, way too violent, but they had a purpose throughout the misery. The season had a vibe and a pulse. It was a wild guitar solo that seemed to last for 7 hours before encore sprung this culmination of all the plot threads. It also had a white hot can’t go wrong Matthew McConaughey meeting the character of a lifetime in Rust Cohle. A man who preached about a flat circle. Maybe Pizzolatto should have stuck with that circle and brought him back, along with Woody Harrelson’s Marty Hart.

To me, the biggest missing element from Season 2 was a foil for the seriousness of the main characters. Season 1 balanced McConaughey’s madness and wrenching monologues with the bewildered humor and light presence of Harrelson. Season 2 was missing a Woody Harrelson. Something to balance all the depressed folks out. Too bad.

Another missing element from Season 2 was director Cary Fukunaga, a maverick world creator from Season 1 who turned Louisiana’s swamp into a gothic lost and found crime zone. The rift between him and Pizzolatto split the marriage they shared via True Detective and deprived Season 2’s players of a great director. Without his compass(Fukunaga’s camera), Pizzolatto was lost this go around.

Maybe Season 3 brings back Cohle and Hart. Go back to what worked and what put you on the map, Nic. Season 2 found you without a purpose. Season 2 felt like leftovers in a broken refrigerator. It was the little brother trying to be as cool as the older star athlete and coming up short. Maybe fans were set up to be disappointed.

True Detective Season 2 tried to go big with a larger cast and wide spreading mystery plot. It misfired, badly. You can go back and watch it again, and I’m sure the effect wouldn’t be better. Only worse.

Nice try, Pizzolatto. Next time, find a worthy story, characters worth caring about and something fresh. Take some time my friend. You need it after that strikeout.

In the meantime, go catch up on Cinemax’s Banshee, a show that DOES NOT disappoint. Like ever.

AMC’s Better Call Saul Doesn’t Achieve Greatness

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Question: Would you still watch Better Call Saul if there was no Breaking Bad first?

Would you still dig the characters and story as much?  If there was no precedence of the iconic show that marks its future, would Better Call Saul be as juicy? Does it have the merits to build an entire show on or is it a nostalgic ride that reminds people of their departed favorite show? It’s a question many struggle with and I posed to myself as the first season comes to an end Monday night.

The truth is the show is an uneven mess and varies in tone so much that a viewer can get lost on the way to figuring out if this show is truly great or simply riding the coattails of its meatier predecessor. Mixed within the seedy Albuquerque land that co-creator Vince Gilligan paints in this universe are scenes of heavy hitting power and poignancy but they are more scattered than one would like. During the first nine episodes, the writers can’t figure out when to properly unmask their anti-hero, Jimmy McGill, and reveal him as Saul Goodman, the character many know and love from Breaking Bad. (more…)

Justified Finale: A Perfect Ending

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“We dug coal together.”-Boyd Crowder

(SPOILERS involved)

A classic Elmore Leonard character was a good man with a violent heart. A man on the right side of the law who had the ability to do bad things and feel like his actions were justified in the end. One of the many reasons the FX show Justified, inspired by Leonard’s stories, which wrapped up its series finale on Tuesday, was able to be so good for so long was because it honored Leonard’s original vision for the character of Raylan Givens and never gave into network television norms or turned him into a retread of stereotype.

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Jon Bernthal: Netflix finally lands the real Punisher

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Ladies and gentlemen, Netflix’s Daredevil just graduated towards into Truly Badass Territory. TBT my friends! Versatile actor and owner of one of the best noses in show business, Jon Bernthal, will portray Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, in season 2, set to begin filming later this summer.

Look, season 1 was solid. Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio set up an intriguing chess match in Hells Kitchen and the fights were brutally great and the supporting cast was fine(except for Foggy, he sucked). Bernthal’s entry as Castle just fits and is one of those casting moves that resembles a home run being hit and the batter executing the most lethal bat flip of all time.

Since Frank Grillo is Crossbones in Marvel’s universe already and all the the choices are lame(Thomas Jane apparently retired to DoNothingVille), Bernthal is a great choice for several reasons but I will lay out a few here while the crumbs are still dropping.  (more…)