Category Writing

Southland will break your heart (spoiler)

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It was almost too much. Maybe it was too much. Code 4 came to an exhausting, traumatic end with the simplest of shots but the most raw, devastating moment in the show’s history. It was an absolute emotional savaging for the viewer.

Written by Will Rokos, directed by Felix Alcala, this was the tightest episode of Southland to date. It had everything you would want from an hour of TV drama: the humor was rawer, more visceral; the emotional reversals came hard and fast; the highs were higher, the lows were worse. And that was before the end, when we watched Shawn Hatosy and Yara Martinez come apart in each other’s arms. Just a held shot of the two of them, gasping for air, struggling to breathe with the absolute fact of what had just happened. The death of a partner, friend and husband. Grief is handled in many different ways in television shows. I’m not sure I’ve seen it handled like this, in its most unfiltered form. It was awful to watch, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment.

Hatosy in particular was astonishing, delivering an aggressively compelling and forceful performance throughout, culminating in his flawless portrayal of Bryant’s emotional disintegration.

The way Code 4 was directed by Feliz Alcala was almost ethereal in its quiet intensity. The opening flash forward was haunting, just Sammy shaking, lens flare, a barely moving camera, and then the scream. By the time we reached that moment for real, the knowledge of what it meant was almost unbearable, and when the moment continued, even though we desperately didn’t want it to, it was emotionally horrific. Alcala stayed close to the truth throughout, and we felt it. One key example: as the helicopter flashed the spotlight on Nate, moments before the end, he held up four fingers, signaling “code 4,” no further assistance necessary. Such a simple moment, made brutal by what followed. Southland excels at such simplicity and poetically retroactive impact.

Will Rokos wrote a tough, unflinching script, finding time amongst the darkness for the funniest moments we’ve seen in this show, which of course made the ending much harder to handle. The writers have done an amazing job this season, and have consistently pulled off an extremely difficult trick: not only have they kept the show subtly serialized and moving forward, but each episode is perfectly constructed as an entry point into the Southland world. That means new viewers could join at any point and be able to jump right in. The writers have encoded each episode this season with enough information to key the new viewer in to the relationships, but they’ve integrated it so carefully that it doesn’t interfere with the flow of the show for regular viewers. It’s a clever move on the part of the producers, and it’s working. Ratings are up, and Code 4 (and the wonderfully loyal fans) prompted Southland to trend for the first time on Twitter. It seems very hopeful that this means good things for the show’s survival and renewal by TNT.

But Kevin Alejandro will be sorely missed. Southland‘s loss is True Blood‘s gain. Alejandro was such a great part of the fabric of Southland, and did tremendous work. Kudos to him for making Nate Moretta such a compelling, soulful, and popular character.

Southland: “Discretion” is advised

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Season three of Southland continues to go from strength to strength. After last week’s complex, multilayered, full-cast episode comes this week’s Discretion, a more dramatically compact, but much richer hour.

From the opening flashforward (“not every cop bats a thousand”) as Ben was hurled into the plate glass and we freeze-framed on the image of him amidst thousands of shards of exploding glass, this episode made its intentions clear. There was only one question to be answered: would Ben be able to control himself now that his mother’s rapist was back on the streets?

With a more stripped down cast, Discretion mined deeper levels of conflict and richer character nuance. Jonathan Lisco’s script was a gift for all of the actors this week. Everyone started the show at odds, in conflict, snapping and driving back and forth at each other as the narrative took us ever closer to the seemingly inevitable confrontation between Ben and David Morgan, the man who years ago attacked Ben’s mom, knocked out Ben’s teeth, and set him on course to become a cop. It was compelling storytelling throughout. Lydia sparred with her still-new partner Josie. Sammy argued with Tammi via phone, while testing his friendship with Nate (what a great pair these two are, and what great work Shawn Hatosy and Kevin Alejandro do together). And Cooper was pissed at Sherman from start to finish, with room for some great training officer moments. Michael Cudlitz had a great episode (he is batting a thousand this season), Shawn Hatosy did awesome, heartbreaking work, and Regina King gifted Lydia with more layers and nuances than ever before. They all had great scenes to tear into.

But it was Ben Mckenzie’s episode from start to finish, and he owned it. From his pent-up, barely contained rage at the beginning, through to his stalking of Morgan, and the brutal beating he hands out to the perp who sends him through the plate glass, McKenzie just gave us his Emmy episode. And that was before the crushing final scene, which was classic Southland: incredibly quiet on the surface, but driven by heartrending truths like dark, powerful currents. McKenzie killed it. If you thought last week’s ending hurt, it was nothing compared to what was effectively the complete dismantling of Sherman’s whole moral structure and the foundation of his actions and beliefs, in a few devastatingly quiet seconds. Southland has never been so simultaneously  low-key and gut-punching as it was in the closing moments of Discretion.

This episiode had the force of Ben going through that window, and emotionally speaking it ended like that opening freeze frame: thousands of emotional shards hanging motionless in the air. A horrific, shattering moment for Sherman.

Californication Season 4: “It’s getting dark, too dark to see…”

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“My heart was beating outside my chest… It’s been almost too much to bear.”

Written by Tom Kapinos and directed by David Duchovny, Suicide Solution was abundantly soulful, transcendently raw and eerily beautiful.

It’s fair to say this episode was Duchovny’s finest moment yet in the series. From Becca’s lonely guitar playing, through Hank’s heartbreaking realization (beautifully, subtly played by Duchovny) that for now at least, he has lost her, to the extraordinary power of its conclusion, when the scuffed poetry of Hank’s words to Becca was overlaid with hypnotic, melancholy dream-imagery, as Hank’s self-medication finally took him down, the show reached a new level. “It’s getting dark, too dark to see,” Hank said in voice over as the waves crashed over him, swallowing him whole.

With this season, the show as a whole is delivering on everything it has promised in the previous three seasons, and more. It’s better at everything now. Executive producer and creator Tom Kapinos is flexing new dramatic muscles, and the show has come back as though it spent the hiatus working out: it’s leaner, stronger, tougher, and its core twin strengths (the genuine love of Hank for his family, and the don’t give a f**kness of it all) are back in full effect, but this time used more precisely and to more subtle, devastating effect.

This season is all sinew, muscles and veins, exposed and raw. It’s all about facing the music in the worst possible way. It’s about staring into the eyes of your daughter who hates you. A life in painful shards, slicing the skin. Season Four of Californication is drawing blood. It’s harsh, unforgiving. And still it’s damn funny. Whether it’s Hank getting unexpected relief from Marcy, or Rob Lowe channeling Brad Pitt’s Floyd and Gary Oldman’s Drexl from True Romance to play Eddie Nero, the crazy A-lister who wants to play Hank in the movie of his book, the show jabs humor with southpaw precision. It’s great to see the show full throttle like this. Its one liners are sharper, its gonzo situations more outrageous. It’s pulled off one of the most difficult tricks in TV: treating darkness and humor just the same, combining them into one scathing, blistering, pain-fuelled but hilarious blend that charms, horrifies, moves and makes you laugh, hard.

There were moments in season three when the show located itself – charmingly to be sure – in the quirkier areas of its world. The drama of it all was traded down in favor of priceless humor. This was a good trade, for a time, but ultimately Kapinos brought the show to the darker place it needed to be, where every seed Hank has sown is reaped.

Throughout the first three seasons, Hank played at self-loathing, played at being the one everyone hated, knowing, or at least hoping, all along that it wasn’t quite true. But now, it’s real, and Duchovny is giving a virtuosic rendering of a man realizing his life really is disintegrating, and flashing that smile or being rogueishly adorable means nothing anymore to those whose hearts he has truly broken. It’s a tough, excruciating experience and lesson: watching Hank learn it is heroically compelling.

Californication is at the top of its game, and getting better.

******

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Occasionally those passions explode: Southland, Punching Water

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“Start with the truth.”

So screamed Shawn Hatosy ‘s Sammy Bryant, handily summing up the show’s mantra in the opening scenes of this week’s Southland, the thrilling, brutal, blistering and frequently hilarious second episode of the show’s new season. Phenomenally written by Cheo Hodari Coker, and directed by Christopher Chulack with an even surer eye for movement, detail, light and Los Angeles locations than usual, Punching Water was the series’ high point to date, eclipsing past career best eps like Phase Three and What Makes Sammy Run?, raising the bar even higher for the show, and for TV drama.

What made this episode special was the heightening of the show’s fundamental elements, and the way they were combined with such sure control. Every element was punched up: the tight narrative style, the dry humor, the raw treatment of violence, and making small moments count for everything. Impressively, considering the budgetary restraints faced by the show this season, the episode not only featured all of the main cast (Lydia, Nate, Sammy, Sal, Cooper, Sherman, Chickie and Dewey), but even managed to bring all of them together in one superbly written, acted and shot, highly charged scene that also delivered one of the series’ greatest moments to date: the sight of Lydia slapping down Dewey. This was the flash forward that opened the episode, with the accompanying voiceover describing what happens when you bring together a bunch of cops passionate about their jobs: “Occasionally those passions explode.”

Despite being driven by a brutal sequence of multiple retaliatory murders across the MLK weekend, this episode also managed to be the funniest in the show’s history. There were many comic moments: Nate and Sammy’s back and forth (“playa, playa”), the other cops’ jibes about Sherman’s new lady friend, or, my personal favorite, Cooper screaming off in the patrol car with Sherman, leaving Dewey behind with a none-too-thrilled Chickie. Throughout, Punching Water ducked and dived with the confidence and sure step of a pro, like Ali, knowing when to hit you hard, and when to dance around.

The theme that drives Southland is what it means to be a cop, and Punching Water advanced this further, with awesome levels of gravitas courtesy of Michael McGrady, in a welcome return to the show as Detective “Sal” Salinger. He rallied the troops to get out to the streets to find the killer of a four year old, the latest victim in the wave of murders. Coker wrote a great speech, and McGrady completely nailed it. In doing so, he anchored the scene, the episode, and likely the season as well. He also initiated a first for the show: a montage sequence, which also marked the first time (more or less) the show has used a soundtrack since it ended the pilot episode Unknown Trouble with The National’s Fake Empire (which I talked about here). It was a departure, but it worked perfectly.

Although everyone in the cast did classy work in this episode, it was McGrady that landed the killer punch.

And that’s what the show ended with: a devastating emotional killer punch that concluded the show’s underlying theme this week, as summed up by Sherman: “love’s a bitch.” Love or lack of it was the catalyst of everything that happened in the episode, and the final scene was the perfect example of how this show can devastate you in seconds. Like a high performance car, this thing can shift gears seamlessly and quietly. You don’t even know it’s happening until it’s too late, the tears rolling down your face. This episode was a full court press throughout, saving its best shot for last.

Damn, this show is good.

Shamelessly Brilliant

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On Sunday 1/9/11 at 10pm ET, the Warner Bros./Showtime remake of the wild, raucous and charming British show Shameless will begin.

Overseen by the prolific and talented John Wells (ER, Southland), and the show’s original creator Paul Abbott (State Of Play), the pilot episode does an extraordinary job of translating the anarchic heart of the original, transplanting it successfully from a run-down Manchester district into a raw, snow-covered, beaten-down Chicago setting.

It’s hard to overstate how much the original show meant to me when it aired seven years ago in 2004. It was unlike any other British show at the time: unflinching, inspiring, heartfelt, emotionally brutal and bloody funny – much like family life, no accident as Paul Abbott was always upfront about how shamelessly autobiographical the show was meant to be. The show centers around alcoholic patriarch Frank Gallagher, father of six kids of various ages, abandoned by their mother, and left to fend for themselves. Frank dedicated himself to getting as drunk as possible, leaving oldest child Fiona to hold it all together. Out of these dark events, Abbott created an incredibly charming, outrageous and moving comedy drama, which just happened to be hilarious, and heartwarming, with its biting, whip-smart humor and belief in the power of family.

British shows don’t always, or even often, fare well when they get remade for American TV. For every success story like The Office, there are others that miss the mark. I have to admit to a sense of trepidation with Shameless: the original was so… original, and raw. Would it be possible for an American channel, even a cable network like Showtime, to pull this off?

Hell yes.

From the very beginning, this new incarnation barrels along, sharper and harder than the original, and any doubts about the show getting softer in its transition to the US are decisively kicked aside with a razor sharp sense of abandon that is wielded with hysterical precision. The script by Wells and Abbott crackles with a new electricity: the show is invigorated with its new setting and cast. Yes, the cast. The cast of the original was one of the most charming, likeable and funny collection of rude, stick your middle finger up at authority misfits. How would this aspect of the show translate?

Again, brilliantly. The cast feel instantly at home inhabiting these characters, managing to normalize their good looks to the extent that you realize that Shameless is our Hamlet, a great play waiting to be reinvented for a new era, and these are the latest players to bring it to life. They do it with utter conviction. Three in particular have their work cut out for them: William H. Macy as Frank, Emmy Rossum as Fiona, and Justin Chatwin as chancer Steve, who in the first episode tries to win Fiona’s heart with charm, wit, and a new washer. Macy does a great job of taking over from David Threlfall’s iconic version, embodying Frank’s “to hell with the world while I have a drink” mentality, and is perfectly at ease with the many physical tics and mannerisms that seem to make up Frank’s existence. Likewise, Chatwin steps up manfully to the unenviable task of taking over from the frankly legendary James McAvoy, whose career was launched with this role: it’s great to see how easily Chatwin handles the challenge, bringing a new level of charm, wit and cheekiness to Steve.

But Emmy Rossum is the true star of this show.

In the original, Anne-Marie Duff brought a raw, fragile roughness to the character. Rossum goes one better, exposing Fiona’s delicate mix of in your face attitude, desperate vulnerability, her longing for more from life, and her overwhelming desire for things to be different. Rossum embodies and evokes all this beautifully, with a raw, real, sensual honesty. I’m not the first to say it, but an Emmy for Emmy seems assured.

The show benefits hugely from its transition to the tough, unyielding urban setting of a decaying Chicago neighborhood. It’s excellently directed by original Brit director (here a co-producer too) Mark Mylod, and perfectly shot by DP extraordinaire Jimmy Muro in a gorgeously crisp and sharp style, with outstanding location choices that enhance every exterior scene. Its use of loud, raucous songs kicks up the joyous, crazy energy. And its handling of a teen struggling with his sexuality is commendably done.

As soon as the pilot ends, you want more, lots more. You want to binge on the rest of the episodes like Frank with an open tab at the bar. It takes everything great about the original, makes it better, and adds new outrageous and heartfelt elements, while easily sidestepping sentimentality. It moves faster, hits harder: it’s even more uncompromising than before, and more brilliant for it.

Simply put, Shameless is the most thrilling, exciting TV drama debut of the 2010-11 season. Watch it.