Join Salon staff as we discuss Episode 9 of "The Wire"
McNulty & Freamon visit Hooverville THE WIRE: Clarke Peters, Dominic West. photo: Paul Schiraldi (Credit: Paul Schiraldi)
Salon contributors will include: Heather Havrilesky, TV critic; Sarah Hepola, Life deputy editor; Alex Koppelman, staff writer; Kerry Lauerman, New York editorial director; Farhad Manjoo, senior writer; Laura Miller, senior writer; Joan Walsh, editor in chief.
BEWARE: Spoilers ahead!
Manjoo: Like the rest of you, I’ve been watching this story slowly crack open for several years now. It’s been 59 hours of TV time; there’s one more hour to go, and I can’t wait for it. But for now, this hour, this episode, felt like a coming together. It was simply breathtaking — the logical, perfect conclusion to all those hours, those years’ of stories, at once exhilarating and devastating, just like you knew it would be.
I watched this on Tuesday, and it’s haunted me in lonely moments ever since. I’m still a bit hopped up on it, so please forgive my sounding overwrought. The thing is, it wasn’t just the plot developments that got me, though these were obviously huge: Marlo! Snoop! Namond! Kima! McNulty! Bubbs!
But there was also something more complex here, something more intricately beautiful. In describing “The Wire” to friends, we’ve all remarked upon on its novelistic properties. This episode felt like the climax of that novel. Every scene hangs on the subtext of years’ of accumulated storylines; the story, now, is not just the script but also all that we’ve learned of these people’s motivations, their impulses, their relationships, the constraints in which they operate. The story is the system, and now, finally, we’re seeing the system in full.
Early in the episode, for instance, Daniels and Rawls meet with Carcetti’s chief of staff, who exhorts them to bring down the crime stats. It’s just a procedural scene, the kind “The Wire” has shown us many times before — a boss is asking the impossible from his underlings. Save for this: Now we understand all sides of the argument, because we’ve been shown each of their worlds. When Daniels says, “I was told by our mayor at the outset that there would be no more band-aids, no more stat games,” we know he’s telling the truth. But how can you disagree with the Carcetti aide? If the mayor doesn’t bring down the stats, he can’t be governor, and what good does that do anyone? “My boss needs to crime to go down now … or no one is going to be in a position to reform anything.” They’re going to go back to band-aids and stat games because nobody has a choice, just as it ever was.
On another subject: Kima didn’t have to do what she did. Can’t the ends sometime justify the means? They got Marlo. Why would she risk that catch? Jimmy’s scheme worked. That should be enough. Do you guys disagree?
Seeing Namond at the debate was probably my favorite moment this season. “What you have seen here is evidence of the progress that city schools are making under this administration,” Carcetti says afterward, but of course that’s not true. Namond survived despite the system, because Colvin pulled him out of it.
Carcetti, apologizing to Colvin, says, “There wasn’t anything that I could have done with your experiment in the Western district — there wasn’t anything that anyone could have done with that.”
“Well I guess Mr. Mayor there’s nothing to be done,” Colvin says. It’s unclear what he’s referring to — the drug war, the schools, city politics, the media? Of course, he means all of it.
Koppelman: I don’t think I can get nearly as poetic about this episode as Farhad did — I’m just still trying to get over the effect of that final scene. Even having watched it three times now, I still feel like I think Dukie must have when Michael says he doesn’t remember the carefree days of their summer gone by: Like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. Of all the poignant scenes in this show, that may have been the topper.
And speaking of that scene, and Michael, was I the only one who felt that the scene in which he kills Snoop was strangely… touching? (Well, at least touching for a hit?) Amazing how there was almost no anger, even a hint of tenderness, and yet it still felt completely real. I guess that in itself was disturbing in a way, too — it really showed that Snoop believed what she said, that a hit wasn’t about the target deserving it as much as it was just their time. And, of course, the preternatural calm both displayed was, when you stop and think about it later, chilling. And yet, I still find something almost warm about that scene.
Farhad, I do have to sort of disagree with you about two things. First, I think Kima absolutely did have to do what she did. What’s the purpose of being a cop if you’re just as bad as the people you’re chasing? At that point, you might as well just be a rival gang, albeit with more firepower. And beyond that, it wouldn’t have mattered; clearly, Freamon and McNulty’s scheme was on its way to unraveling even before Kima’s action. Smart as Freamon is, he left a big loophole, one the writers are pointing out quite adeptly — if you’re going to pretend to have a snitch, there needs to be someone who can plausibly be that snitch. Levy seems well on his way to figuring this one out anyway. (And hisses towards Herc for playing both sides here, by the way.)
Also, I think we disagree somewhat on our interpretation of the scene with Daniels, Rawls and Carcetti’s man. I didn’t read it as just a procedural scene; I actually think it had a pretty important message about the way the city works embedded within. That promise of change from Annapolis rang so hollow, because there’s no reason to think a Carcetti gubernatorial administration won’t be afflicted with similar problems, no reason to believe they’ll actually be able to do the big things they want to do then, because, well, won’t we need to show a 10 percent drop in crime when he’s readying to make his run for the White House? It’s how well-meaning people allow themselves to be trapped in the cycle, and I think that’s what Simon, et al., meant to show with the scene.
Walsh Yes, Farhad, we see all the wheels of the system turning now: Daniels leaves the meeting where the mayor’s aide demands a 10 percent crime drop, looking hopeless, and waiting outside is Freamon, to tell him they’ve caught the Stanfield boys “dirty.” Oh, and they’ve got a murder warrant for Chris Partlow too. Daniels smiles as if it’s all too good to be true (of course it is) and asks if there’s anything else Lester’s not telling him. Oh boy, Cedric, there sure is, but how is anyone going to tell you when you’re grinning like that?
I knew Greggs was going to tell, but I didn’t want to know. I’m somewhere between Farhad and Alex on this: I hoped she wouldn’t do it, but I knew she had to. Yes, they got Marlo, justice was being served, but rooting for McNulty and Freamon to win by any means necessary puts us in the Dick Cheney school of justice, doesn’t it? But I was rooting for them.
Alex, I completely agree about the scene where Michael shot Snoop; it broke my heart. Snoop looking in the driver’s side mirror: “How my hair look?” and Michael replying tenderly, “It look good, girl,” before he blows her head off. I did find myself wondering, though: How does Michael know Snoop’s decided he’s gotta get got, but Snoop doesn’t know Michael knows? Especially when Snoop tells him in that scene he’s not one of them, and he never has been? Anyway, yes, it was her time.
I couldn’t watch when Michael shot Snoop, and I could hardly watch him say goodbye to the crying Bug, trying to smile, showing those little-boy dimples, his voice cracking. I guess Bug’s in a better place though that aunt looked severe. And Dukie dropped off with the junk men was heartbreaking, too, if a little heavy on the message that all these people are junk to the rest of society. I’m going to miss this show badly when it’s gone, because knowing our culture devotes at least one fictional hour a week to exploring the tragedy of the American inner city is better than nothing.
Even before Greggs told Daniels, you knew it was all going bad, and McNulty knew it too — he wouldn’t even drink with Lester.
Havrilesky: Farhad, I like your point about how we’re pulling back and seeing the big picture at last. After so many episodes have carefully exposed the breakdowns of various working parts, now we’re shown how the whole machine refuses to function. The leaders and workers and institutions charged with serving the people fail to serve them, from the corruption of lawyers like Levy to the self-serving bullsheeeit of Clay Davis to the empty talk of Carcetti to the misguided scheming of McNulty and Freamon.
This may be the most difficult season to watch, because we’re seeing how little hope there is for the kids. Of course we were all relieved that at least Snoop didn’t take out Michael, but then there’s Bug, crying as his little family is torn apart, and Dukie left to the crazy junkie/junk man den (What the hell is the implication with the pony being led in there, and that picture of a dog on the wall?). I’m with you, Joan, I could hardly stand to watch those scenes. Simon is so merciless with us when it comes to the kids, and the message is clear: Unless someone swoops in and pulls them off the streets completely, the children are, for the most part, doomed.
Now it looks like Namond and Bubbles will be the only two happy endings of the final season. Namond has Bunny Colvin and Bubbles has a sister with strong boundaries who’s nonetheless willing to give him a place to sleep at night. It takes more than determination to make it off the streets — think of what a hard-working entrepreneur Randy was during Season Four — it takes someone who actually gives a damn, who can lend a hand.
“Ain’t no shame in holding onto grief, as long as you make room for other things, too.” This is more than just Bubbles’ acceptance of the tragedy of Sherrod’s loss; we’re being challenged to take in the enormous sadness of this picture. Simon won’t let us push these stories out of our minds, as Carcetti or Davis or Snoop or the other pragmatists in this dystopia choose to do. These tragedies are designed to haunt us so that we’ll hold onto them, take them to heart, and then make room for other things, informed by what we’ve seen.
Hepola: Sometimes I feel about the Wire the way I do about watching local news: People keep dying. Shit’s getting worse. Stay crappy, Baltimore. So in the midst of this particularly bleak episode, it’s nice to see a few glimmers of hope. I’m glad Namond’s appearance effected other people so deeply, too. It was great to see him, with that spongy poof of hair he never could let go of. The best anti-drug program for any society is two loving parents who take time for their child, and that’s what Naimond got. It’s what all kids deserve, frankly, but as Snoop says, not long before her insides meet her outsides, “Deserve got nothing to do with it.”
As tough as it was to watch Bug say goodbye to the only real family he’s ever known, it’s also the best chance he has not to wind up on either end of a gun barrel. It’s hopeful. (Dukie’s fate, not so much. No clue on the pony either, Heather, but the junkies inside can only make me think we’re watching the makings of another Bubbles.) And Bubbles will end the season with quiet dignity — a stark contrast to all the other flameouts. Heather’s right to point out the importance of family in making it off the streets, but Bubbles is also doing something extraordinary on his own. He’s making things right with himself. He’s stared down the worst in himself and accepted it — held on to grief, even though he’s made room for other things. No more dope to numb the pain. No more lies. No more hiding. That’s an act of courage that McNulty and Carcetti and Rawls and all the bureacratic suits — with their smoke and mirrors, with their greasy lies — probably could not imagine. They’re too self-interested, too manipulative; or maybe, in the old 12-step thinking, they just haven’t hit bottom yet. I have no idea if David Simon’s been in AA, but he clearly respects the quiet dignity of broken men trying to rebuild. Bubbles’ slow, grueling climb back is an interesting counterpoint to all downfall we’ve seen this season — the downfall of characters, of urban cities, of America. I got a lump in my throat when Bubbles introduced himself with his real name. If someone as emotionally eviscerated as Bubs can come back, that says something important for all of us. Sorry, did I say Bubs? I meant Reginald.
Oh, and Kima was right to do what she did. Gotta make things right with yourself.
Miller: For me, the most stunning moment was Marlo’s outburst in the holding tank — “My name is my name!” We all know that McNulty and Templeton are going down, right? The only real mystery this season is Marlo: What makes him go, and can he keep on going indefinitely? This is the first time he’s ever lost his cool, and that gives us at least one key piece of the puzzle. Why did his underlings hide from him the fact that Omar was calling him out? They knew that this was the one challenge their boss wouldn’t be able to resist. For me, that puts Marlo in a different, more human light. He’s not an enigmatic power-gathering machine; he has his pride, his reputation, and he cares enough about defending it to behave recklessly, perhaps. Sure, it’s a utilitarian concern: the fearsomeness of a gang leader’s reputation is a kind of resource. But what we saw in that cell was not Marlo the pragmatic, if ruthless, drug dealer, but a man who felt struck at the core. I’m sticking by my previous comparison of Marlo to Tamburlaine: pride will be his downfall.
Snoop died like what she was: a soldier. She and Chris were terrible, in the old sense of the word — inspiring terror — partly because, as Levy puts it, Marlo runs a really tight ship. They were disciplined, unflinching, reliable, stoic. The idea that people die when it’s their “time,” the fatalism of that sentiment, is the Greek vein in this story, the opposite of the novelistic narrative that Farhad mentioned. In Greek drama, individuals are the pawns of larger forces — the Fates and the gods. In novels, people are responsible for their own destiny, even if that destiny is catastrophic. What’s happening to McNulty is novelistic. What happened to Snoop is Greek.
Actually, I think this last season is the only substantially novelistic one for The Wire, and what I liked about the previous four was the show’s anti-American willingness to insist that we aren’t the masters of our fates. The shift has made it easier to say good-bye to it after this season has broken with so much of what made the series original.
As for getting out, we’ve seen Poot working at Foot Locker, for crying out loud, so it’s not entirely impossible for a kid without a rescuer to escape the corner. Can it really be that easy?
Quick Hits: Yuja Wang plays live
This elegant young virtuoso pianist (and not-so-secret Rihanna fan) is on track for a dazzling career
VIDEO
(Credit: Sound Tracks)
At the age of 24, Chinese-born Yuja Wang is one of the most exciting concert pianists in the world. Onstage, she cuts an elegant, sometimes provocative figure. Backstage, she’s more like a teenager, noshing snacks and listening to Rihanna on her earphones. But there’s no doubt that Ms. Wang, now a resident of New York, has captivated audiences and critics, from Beijing to Berlin. Her “virtuosity is stunning,” says the New York Times. “An artist of dazzling genius,” raves the San Francisco Chronicle. She’s earned praise for her almost “superhuman keyboard technique,” as well as her sensitivity and fearlessness.
We caught up with the international sensation in Los Angeles, where she performed Prokofiev at the Disney Concert Hall. Afterward, in a Steinway showroom, Wang played for us and spoke with SOUND TRACKS reporter Alexis Bloom about her life as a musical nomad.
Watch Quick Hits: Yuja Wang’s Polka by Strauss on PBS. See more from Sound Tracks.
Written in 1858 after a trip to Russia, Johann Strauss’ “Tritsch Tratsch Polka” is a jaunty, high-spirited affair and Yuja Wang obviously delights in playing it. Watch her smile at the end. If you’d like to see her perform live, Yuja Wang will be playing this April at Avery Fisher Hall with the New York Philharmonic and in Atlanta with the symphony there. In June she returns to San Francisco, where conductor Michael Tilson Thomas has been one of her strongest supporters.
Watch Quick Hits: Yuja Wang Plays Gluck and Liszt on PBS. See more from Sound Tracks.
We knew she was an incredible talent, but watching up close as Yuja Wang performs is another matter. She plays so lightning fast it seems as if we’ve sped up the video. Her technique is dazzling and precise, but it’s equaled by her passion and sensitivity.
In this video, recorded at the Steinway showroom in West Hollywood, Yuja is playing bits of three different pieces by Gluck, Liszt and Scriabin. It’s wonderful to watch her change pace and mood and see the concentration and deep feeling in her expression. At the end, it’ almost as if she emerges from an intense dream, smiling, and telling us, “This piano’s nice.”
Watch Quick Hits: Interview with Pianist Yuja Wang on PBS. See more from Sound Tracks.
Born in Beijing in 1987, Yuja Wang began playing the piano at the age of 6. From a music conservatory in China to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, she never stopped, and now she roams the world, playing a demanding schedule of concerts across Europe, Asia and North America. She’s recorded three critically acclaimed albums for Deutsche Grammophon, her most recent is a Grammy nominee. “I’ve been doing this my whole life,” she tells SOUND TRACKS reporter Alexis Bloom. “I can’t really remember anything before the piano.”
So, Yuja Wang is already a veteran, a self-assured and immensely accomplished virtuoso. But she’s also a young woman who travels the world, mostly alone, living in hotels and backstage dressing rooms. Is she ever lonely? “Not really,” she tells us. She’s “more alive” on the road, especially in concerts, plus “I have my BlackBerry, laptop and kindle. I’m all set.”
As you’ll see in her interview, Yuja is a warm, engaging personality with a quick laugh and a candid comment. She can be shy one moment, outspoken the next. When she’s warming up to play Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev, she likes to hear the raw wildness of Rihanna. And she’s made something of a reputation for herself in the classical world as a fashionista, not afraid to wear eye-catching outfits, including that orange dress that set off a wave of commentary last year when she appeared at the Hollywood Bowl. “I’m just being myself,” she says.
As the New York Times critic wrote after Yuja’s Carnegie Hall debut last October, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it. What matters is that Ms. Wang has got it as a pianist.”
TV’s golden age of opening credits
Goodbye, theme songs. Now, title sequences for "American Horror Story," "Homeland" and others are required viewing
Clips from the opening sequences of "Homeland" and "Mad Men"
One of the new television season’s most unsettling moments took place, as unsettling moments so often do, in a basement festooned with jars of pickled human fetuses.
Twenty seconds into a tour of this gruesomely decorated cellar, our skittery camera feed abruptly cuts out and, with an accompanying crunch of industrial music that could only have been composed by some dude wearing a black trench coat, we’re visually assaulted by an image that will haunt us forever: Connie Britton’s name, typeset in a bold, gothic font.
Now, the words “decidedly unscary lead actress provides unexpected fright” might very well appear somewhere in the series bible for “American Horror Story,” Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s gonzo FX drama set in a house in dire need of that diminutive psychic from “Poltergeist.” But deploying the tactic during the show’s main title sequence, using just Britton’s name? As her calming “Friday Night Lights” character, Tami Taylor, might have said, “That’s just clever, y’all.”
Not that anyone should be surprised when wildly imaginative content turns up during a program’s opening credits; these days, eye-popping intros can now be found on virtually any channel not named C-SPAN. And they aren’t picky. You see them setting up everything from big-budget premium-cable series such as HBO’s “True Blood” and Showtime’s “Dexter” to cultish hits such as IFC’s “Portlandia” and FX’s “Archer.” Reality and talk shows have them, and they even cling like remoras to the carcasses of the recently departed, as proven with NBC’s “Chuck” and Fox’s “Human Target.” While there are still many opening sequences that are as irritating as anything that has graced our sets since the dark, final days of “Small Wonder,” it’s also true that some of the best work being done on television today occupies the space once reserved for cheesy cast montages and explanatory ditties written by Alan Thicke.
“A lot of television main titles, from a design standpoint and a typography standpoint, are [still] profoundly mediocre, because they’re for goofy, silly shows,” says Kyle Cooper, the founder of Prologue, the influential design collective behind the instant-classic “American Horror Story” opener, as well as the one fronting its somber cousin “The Walking Dead.” “But mixed in, there’s some good things that get through.”
An increasing amount, actually. For those of us raised on a gluttonous diet of the programs now found on TV Land and conditioned to expect little more from opening credits than “… and Jerry Mathers as the Beaver,” flipping around the dial can make us feel as if a brave new world has sprung up overnight. And, even though the art of main title design on television has, in fact, been in the midst of a full-blown renaissance ever since Tony Soprano took his first drive through northern New Jersey in 1999, the number of quality openers seems to have skyrocketed on the sly. How else to explain that, in just 20 years, NBC has gone from the corny third-season main title sequence of “Blossom,” with its unfortunate misuse of flowery hats and Joey Lawrence, to the inspired paper cootie catcher gimmick of “Community,” which not only reveals the cast members’ names but also contains appropriately immature jokes, such as a drawing of a topless stick figure lady? And how is it that, in 1990, the painfully hideous bumper promo for the hideously painful “Club MTV With Downtown Julie Brown” was nominated for an Emmy — in the same category won in 2008 by the sublime animated opening sequence for “Mad Men”?
I may still be suffering from the concussive blow dealt by the intro to “Suddenly Susan” — a super-sized Brooke Shields stomping through San Francisco — so forgive me if I sound groggy when I ask: How exactly did opening credits become essential viewing?
“You could make a few different arguments,” says Chris Billig, executive producer at TCG Studio, the firm responsible for, among many other things, the purposefully discordant main title sequence of Showtime’s “Homeland.” “But I would make the argument that as television has become a more creative medium, it has drawn better talent. A lot of feature guys are willing to get involved in the creative process of television now. When you have that transition, you ultimately have a higher bar for your creative delivery.”
In recent years, of course, a number of directors and actors more often associated with cinema have dipped their toes in the foreboding waters of series television: notables like Martin Scorsese and Steve Buscemi (“Boardwalk Empire”); Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte (“Luck”); and Don Cheadle (“House of Lies”). But it has been a slow build to get to the point where a hugely successful movie guy like David Fincher would be willing to commit to the open-ended rigors of episodic storytelling, let alone with two-time Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey in tow. A film-to-TV transition by an A-lister would have been hard to fathom even just a dozen years ago, when networks were still the primary source of entertainment on the small screen. But then came “The Sopranos.” Fueled by its unprecedented success, HBO and other premium outlets, which aren’t as concerned about advertisers or the FCC, began rolling out the welcome mats — and wheelbarrows of cash —for creative types. A trickle-down effect soon extended to basic cable, broadcast television and beyond, and here we are at a moment in history in which a bidding war for the exclusive rights to air 26 episodes of Fincher’s upcoming political drama “House of Cards” ends with upstart Netflix ponying up $100 million.
With that kind of cash at stake, the folks from film have been arriving in droves. And not surprisingly, they’re refashioning television in their own image. “In features, people realize that every minute of screen time is precious,” says Cooper, who became a hero of typography fetishists everywhere for his meticulously crafted title sequence for the 1995 Fincher mindbender “Se7en.” “The titles can do more than just setting up people’s names.”
Like many others in his field, Cooper subscribes to the philosophy popularized by Saul Bass, who almost single-handedly created the art of main title design in the 1950s and ’60s with his stylized sequences for Alfred Hitchcock (most notably “North by Northwest”), Stanley Kubrick (“Spartacus”), Otto Preminger (“The Man With the Golden Arm”) and other auteurs. His theory: “You try to reach for a simple, visual phrase that tells you what the picture is all about and evokes the essence of the story.”
Evocative brevity is very much on display in Cooper’s masterful opening credits for “The Walking Dead.” In just 35 seconds, viewers learn pretty much everything they need to know about the series — namely, that it’s a creepy, yet frustratingly slow-moving, zombie drama set in a post-apocalyptic world in which the zombies are rarely the focal point.
Bass’ philosophy is also in play during the opening sequence for “Boardwalk Empire.” Karin Fong, a director and designer at industry alpha dog Imaginary Forces, worked closely with series creator Terence Winter to find the best way to clue in savvy HBO audiences to the world they’re about to enter. Ultimately, they decided on an impressionistic approach that might have left Sherwood Schwartz scratching his head: shots of Steve Buscemi, dressed in period garb, standing alone on a beach surrounded by bottles of liquor. “I think many of the best titles don’t duplicate what is shown in the narrative that follows but instead serve to intrigue and pull in the viewer with emotional impact,” says Fong.
Essentially, she’s talking about content branding, or creating images that will emotionally adhere viewers to a particular show, a once-flourishing technique that had been in hibernation on television for many years. During Saul Bass’ heyday, visually compelling intros weren’t uncommon (e.g., the cartoonish opening for the 1965-69 CBS series “The Wild Wild West”). But with rare exceptions — “Miami Vice,” for one — networks went in a different, more utilitarian direction with opening credits in the 1970s and ’80s. “Maybe people chose not to put their money into that part of the show, or they forgot that you can do a lot of other business there,” says Cooper (who, perhaps not coincidentally, did the main titles for the 1999 film adaptation of “The Wild Wild West”).
Business, of course, explains the general trend over the last few decades, especially on networks, of marginalizing opening credits. You can’t blame the suits for wanting to truncate the stale convention in favor of a few more seconds of advertising space each week. By the mid-1980s, main title sequences on television had become entirely predictable: neatly explain the premise of the show or the characters in 30 seconds or less, hopefully via an insidiously hummable theme song, à la the ragtime “Mr. Belvedere” tune that still rattles around in my head daily and drove one should-be YouTube star crazy enough to lip-sync it while sitting on the toilet. Even programming honchos knew that, by and large, opening credits had become something to skip over — or, worse, given how rapidly the cable universe was expanding, something to flip away from. The fear of viewer flight got so bad that one fed-up ABC executive, perhaps after seeing the intro to “Full House,” suggested that the network eliminate them all together.
In the late-1980s, when “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” savaged tired openings on his groundbreaking Showtime series with lyrics that literally went “This is the theme to Garry’s show/The opening theme to Garry’s show/This is the music that you hear as you watch the credits,” the death knell had tolled for earnest title sequences. Producers who wanted their shows to land with Gen X — the target demographic advertisers coveted most at that time — needed to inject them with winking humor (e.g., “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”), genuine genius (David Lynch’s iconic lead-in to “Twin Peaks”) or extreme brevity (“Murphy Brown,” “Seinfeld” and “Frasier”). For the networks, the last technique resulted in slight upticks in viewer retention and ad revenue, and helps explain why shorter titles and cold opens are so prevalent on broadcast television in 2012.
“At the end of the day, the networks are about selling soap and shampoo and stuff like that,” says Billig, whose company worked with J.J. Abrams to devise the famously brief “Lost” sequence. “There’s always the question of ‘How much time do we allow for the main title?’” In the case of “Lost,” the answer is 12 seconds.
Since it’s unlikely that the networks will ever be able to greenlight show openings as daring as the ones increasingly found setting up the likes of “American Horror Story” and other cable shows, and since the threat of viewer retention still gives them nightmares, maybe ABC and its broadcast rivals should strive to lead the charge in a promising sub-development: main title sequences that change from episode to episode. “Weeds,” for instance, produces a completely original vignette each week that not only cleverly incorporates the show’s title but also hints at the content of the episode. The ridiculously ornate maps concocted for the “Game of Thrones” opening sequence, which won the prime-time Emmy for outstanding main title design last September, change from episode to episode, depending on where the action takes place. Of course, those perpetually watchable credits sequences are just variations on a hugely successful long-running gag from a network show. What fan of “The Simpsons” hasn’t sat through the opening credits hundreds of times to see what Bart Simpson writes on the chalkboard or what happens with the couch?
For now, those of us whose brains are still playing “The Brady Bunch” earworm on repeat can rest easy knowing that the trend toward more visually sophisticated opening credits should prevent the unironic explanatory theme song from making a comeback — although Zooey Deschanel’s adorkable throwback “New Girl” intro is a near-miss. Of course, this may dismay fans of shows sporting inscrutable main title sequences, and fans of camp, for that matter. In other words, “Homeland” viewers shouldn’t expect to hear Claire Danes rhyme “She knows her Hezbollah” with “Despite being bipolar” when the show returns for Season 2.
“That would be awkward,” says Billig.
Jack Donaghy fears the 99 percent
Occupy Wall Street sneaks into "30 Rock" and "The Office." How does the movement avoid becoming just a punch line?
Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy (Credit: NBC/Ali Goldstein)
It’s official. The class war is waging and there’s no denying it – even “30 Rock” says so.
On Thursday night’s episode of the award-winning comedy, Jack Donaghy — the debonair, Reaganite CEO played by Alec Baldwin — confirmed what some of us have been thinking for a while: “We’re on the verge of a class war.”
Since the show’s first episode, Donaghy has embodied a parodic late-capitalist overlord. In previous episodes, however, the fulcrum of his political commentary fell strictly along party lines: he called Obama a communist from Kenya, described Bill Clinton as president “inter-Bush” and engaged in Reagan-themed role-play sex. The jokes last night broke this mold. His reference to class war was not just wheeling out the Republican canard that higher taxes constitute a war on successful people. Donaghy was talking about unrest on the streets of New York.
Baldwin’s character was mugged in a Manhattan construction tunnel and notes with shock that “my assailant was a middle-aged white man wearing a button-down shirt and Dockers.” His analysis: “The lower classes are getting cranky at the rich earning all their money away from them.” There’s no falling back on tacit racism or pointing blindly at gang violence; Jack — like many of his real-life counterparts in the 1 percent – was forced to recognize a structural problem.
It looks like another strong example of the Occupy movement’s insertion into the public consciousness. If we needed reassurance of this, the episode ends with another character referencing “the 99 percent and the one percent.” And in a recent episode of “The Office,” Robert California, the CEO played by James Spader, complains that “the 1 percent are hurting too.” The language of Occupy is firmly lodged in the cultural mainstream.
But some caution before we celebrate the shifted zeitgeist. Occupy Wall Street began as an amorphous assemblage, a challenge to the status quo underpinned by radical politics and new social practices. What does it mean for this movement to sit so comfortably in the narrative of an NBC hit show, couched among popular movie references and soft jabs at wealthy New York lifestyles?
It’s a double-edged sword: the popular recognition nods to Occupy’s resonance, but also wields capitalism’s sharpest tool – recuperation. The risk is that Occupy stops providing a context of unrest and just blends in to the current cultural context as is. If Occupy actions and ideas don’t continue to surprise and challenge people, public awareness of the movement becomes no more potent than knowledge of the latest Ryan Gosling meme. “30 Rock’s” recognition of a coming insurrection might be a self-denying prophecy: What sort of political upheaval is preempted by a Thursday night comedy interspersed with commercials?
That said, a call for a nationwide general strike on May 1 has come out of numerous Occupy groups — and the debates around this are as unwieldy, confusing and full of potential as were the conversations leading up to Occupy Wall Street’s public inception on Sept. 17 in downtown Manhattan. No one knew what an occupation of Wall Street could look like or mean; same is true of May Day 2012. How will TV writers, or any writers, for that matter, get their heads around this one?
In last night’s “30 Rock,” Jack Donaghy warns, “There’s a war going on out there and you’re going to have to pick a side.” Gladly, there’s a side, enraged by the current context and weary of capitalist recuperation, that will never be comfortable as the punch line of an NBC comedy joke.
Tim and Eric’s comedy of repulsion
In their new movie, the cult comics push the limits of human vulnerability -- and generate laughs from nerves
VIDEO
“Repulsion” is an emotional response that darts past the smug butterfly nets of intellect and rationale to expose my true and shameful feelings: Nothing turns my stomach like a stranger’s display of vulnerability. This reaction sickens me, in turn, and begins a cycle of nausea and self-loathing. I am repulsed, revulsed and repulsed again.
I say a stranger’s vulnerability and not a friend’s, because a loved one’s vulnerability is less of a risk to them, and so less of a burden to me, the witness. In the split moment that a person is vulnerable, or when we project a vulnerability onto them, we become responsible for their existence in the world. In seventh grade, the year-supreme of vulnerability, I overheard a girl in my class talking about her excitement over the year’s first dance. Her mother was taking her to get her hair done, she said, and to buy her a new dress. My skin prickled with discomfort. Didn’t she know the dance wasn’t a “get your hair done” kind of big deal? On the night of the dance, everyone was in a casual dress or jeans. She showed up with an elaborate updo and a ball gown. That moment has forever seared itself in my mind. I wanted to throw up and cry.
This repulsion toward vulnerability is really a resentment at being put in charge of a person who doesn’t know how to play the game of affecting invincibility. The main purpose of this game is pretending death will never come; the smaller goal is to pretend that we are all perfectly self-sufficient. This is why so many people were outraged at Lana del Rey’s “Saturday Night Live” performance: She stopped playing the game and forced us to bear witness to her crippling fear. This is also why people abuse the elderly and disabled and animals — their vulnerability is too obvious and provokes hostile resentment.
But here’s where it gets tricky: When we’re revolted by someone’s vulnerability, we split into two. We imagine that person’s vulnerability in the eyes of the rest of the world, and we ourselves are one of those other people, watching. We’re watching the interaction between ourselves and that person, simultaneously, from the inside and the outside. Our repulsion becomes sadness as we watch ourselves reject them — because if they are vulnerable, then we are, too.
No one provokes this death spiral of emotion better than Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, the Tim and Eric comedy team whose sketch show “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” aired on Adult Swim from 2007 to 2010. Their new movie, “Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie,” is available now on demand, and in theaters March 2. There’s a Facebook watch party Saturday at 6 p.m.
Almost fainting or willing yourself into non-existence is a large part of the Tim and Eric viewing experience, and if you haven’t seen them before, you might have to take the grossness in doses. Start with the more easily digestible, and amazing, Paul Rudd “Celery Man” clip.
And here’s “Biology for Foreign Men,” on “the chubs”:
Chubs aside, the show’s true comic genius lies in its cultivation of moments of sincerity toward increasingly obsolete cultural norms: ideas of success, professionalism, sexuality, masculinity, entertainment or social interaction. It’s this sincerity that causes excruciating discomfort, for witnessing someone else’s belief in something we’ve decided is a joke, is pure vulnerability.
Look at the “petite feet” sketch below. Cowboys play pool. They hear a woman’s footsteps. The woman turns out to be a man with the footfall of a woman. The cowboys get onstage and sing a song. A song about a man with the feet of a woman. This is all funny on its own, but the sketch’s main brilliance is the “actor” playing the petite-footed man and the surrounding extras. They aren’t in on the joke, not in the same way that Tim and Eric are. This is true for most of the supporting actors and extras in the majority of Tim and Eric sketches. In their “Billion Dollar Movie,” a man delivers the duo new work uniforms. They dance around in their new clothes, while the man stands there … and continues to stand there long past the time we’ve expected the scene to cut. He looks uncomfortable, and in turn, I want to throw up.
Just reading ”bottom of the pile” makes me queasy.
These actors have either been given no direction, or purposefully incongruent direction. Their presence is awkward and forced, or often worst of all, they’re genuinely having fun, excited to participate in showbiz, not knowing that we’re laughing. It’s this not knowing, a lack of awareness of context that makes us so uncomfortable. Half of the whole is in on the joke — and half of the whole is not. The burden this imbalance places on us is why many people can’t stomach Tim and Eric, don’t understand them, or walked out of their Sundance screening. But this is exactly the reason why Tim and Eric are brilliant.
It’s important to mess with the spiritual structure of the world — the architecture of ideas, institutions, identities and even the structure of filmmaking. Only by doing this can the ludicrous nature of the game be revealed. Maybe one day we will overcome our repulsion toward weakness and admit our fragility on a daily basis. On that day Tim and Eric will no longer be unsettling, but until then, in a very twisted way, they’re helping us get there.
“Eastbound and Down” heads to the Redneck Riviera
Minor-league players are big-league fools -- and even worse parents -- in the HBO comedy's third and final season
Austin McLamb, Danny McBride (Credit: HBO/Fred Norris)
That slyly funny Brit Ricky Gervais will get all the praise and smarty-pants chittter-chat this weekend for his admittedly insurrectionist new series “Life’s Too Short.”
But let’s raise a peach Schnapps and give a rebel yell to his HBO comedy companion Kenny Powers, that maniac in a mullet and a muscle shirt, and the new season of “Eastbound & Down.”
Actor, writer and Will Ferrell buddy Danny McBride so embodies the larger than life Powers that it would be hard to separate him from the horrible, self-centered former big-league pitcher forever trying to adjust to a new chapter in his life. He’s such a real character that an actual minor-league team, the Pensacola Pelicans, extended a contract to the fictional Kenny Powers two years ago.
As with so comedies built around unlikable central characters, it was tough to warm to someone so callous, dimwitted — and truly redneck. You got the feeling that some fans of the Confederate-flag waving, doobie-smoking Powers were just cheering on his antics, and longed to emulate him.
In the first season, getting hired as a gym coach at his old small-town North Carolina high school proved tough to take for a flamed-out former major leaguer. Last season, he took off for Mexico, to wallow in all manner of incorrect antics, cockfight cartels and drug mishaps. But back in the states for this third and final season, Powers has been signed by the (fake) minor-league Myrtle Beach Mermen and is living large once more.
For years, McBride and his comedy co-writer Jody Hill talked about moving the show to the so-called Redneck Riviera and now it’s happened: It’s the intersection of trashy tourist culture, chain restaurants, souped-up jet skis, tattoo shops, monster trucks, muscle T’s – in other words, a Kenny Powers paradise. He takes to it like a man with his boogie board, done up in Confederate flag and pot leaf design.
He’s even got a best friend that plays up their mutual jerkiness, Jason Sudeikis of “Saturday Night Live” fame, pitch-perfect as his catcher and pal Shane. The two cads who imagine themselves players (and wait outside the high schools for their girlfriends) egg each other on with extreme handshakes and exhortations (to the mystification of the rest of the locker room).
Powers’ one-time sweetheart April Buchanon (played by the remarkable Katy Mixon), scarcely seen in Season 2 after he ditched her at a gas station, is back in Shelby raising their now 1-year-old child. Kenny can barely bring himself to hold the baby.
Forced into fatherhood, the clueless Powers ferries the tot in a backpack that he’s cut holes in for breathing, straps him in shotgun in Shane’s big-wheel pickup (with weird DeLorean doors), uses a curtain affixed with duct tape as an all-day diaper and tries to figure out which kind of soda the kid likes best. At the beach, he digs a hole and covers him with a towel to keep him from getting sunburnt (or getting away while he body surfs).
His infant-handling skills go far beyond anything seen in “Raising Hope” or even “Raising Arizona.” There ought to be a disclaimer that no babies were hurt in the filming; after a while, you start to wonder.
And as they traverse this dangerous comedic edge every bit as skillfully as Gervais does with the little-people humor on “Life’s Too Short,” McBride celebrates the Southern-fried dirtball culture of flyover America like some “Red State Diaries”; it’s a veritable HBO “Hee-Haw.”
Page 1 of 496 in Television
Gun Control: Where do our priorities lie? 
Sister Nancy Ruth, Life-Professed Member of the Order of St. Andrew, Hudson Valley, New York 
Obama Continues to Box In His Opposition 
My Facebook angst 
He was our eyes 
Painting as Paris burned 
Quick Hits: Yuja Wang plays live 
How to solve the boomer retirement crisis 
The science of rubbernecking 
38 years of self-love 
TV’s golden age of opening credits 
Anthony Shadid yearned for home 
When I was captured by Gadhafi’s forces 
