You: A Highly Enjoyable Thriller/Romance Hybrid

Late this summer Lifetime quietly premiered You, a terribly titled new drama starring Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl) and Elizabeth Lail (never heard of her).  Advertised as a thriller about a man stalking a romantic interest, I wasn't expecting much from the show, but I had read some decent reviews so I decided to check it out.  The show follows Joe, a quiet bookstore owner who begins dating Beck, a loopy and irresponsible, but kind, student and aspiring writer.  Soon Joe becomes completely obsessed with Beck, monitoring her texts and phone calls and tracking her every movement, as well as doing everything he can to remove anyone vying for Beck's attention from her life.  This leads to a series of more and more serious crimes and a web of lies that finally begins to unravel in the last couple thrilling episodes of the season.

What could have been a mediocre show is elevated by the out-there, balls-to-the-wall performance of Badgley as Joe.  His acting never did much for me on Gossip Girl (at least from what I saw of the teen drama), but here his performance totally makes the show.  He skillfully creates a character that the audience believes could exist; we can see how Beck could be drawn to him, why he goes to such crazy lengths for love, and how he ended up becoming so disturbed in the first place.  Badgley’s voiceover narration is award-worthy by itself.  He injects darkness and wry humor into lines that are often quite cheesily written.  Because of Badgley, I found myself actually rooting for the character despite of all his crimes.  I even found Joe and Beck to be cute together, and I kind of wanted them to succeed as a couple, even though I knew that would never happen in the end.

Also notable is the subplot involving Joe's neighbor Paco (Luca Padovan), a young boy who Joe takes under his wing and tries to protect from his mom's abusive boyfriend.  Despite all of his misdeeds involving Beck, Joe does right by Paco, but towards the end of the season I started to wonder if Joe would start to groom him into becoming a sort of monster like himself, whether intentionally or not.  There's a moment in the finale where Paco discovers at least a piece of Joe's misdeeds, but he keeps the secret to himself, leading the viewer to believe that Joe now has a dangerously strong hold over him.  This sets up some interesting possible story evolution for next season.

Despite the show's fast-paced storytelling and strong performance from Badgley, it does still have a few flaws.  As I mentioned before, the writing is often quite cheesy.  The writers paint Beck into such a naïve nitwit that I sometimes just wanted Joe to kill her already (yes, I'm twisted).  I can't really fault Lail's performance for her character's flaws, however.  After all, her character is completely in the dark for most of the season, so she's just portraying a young girl falling in love.  When she does begin to uncover the truth in the last 2 episodes of the season, Lail switches gears and becomes a terrified victim, stepping up her acting game in the process (although still not matching that of Badgley).  Despite these flaws, I definitely recommend bingeing the 10 episode first season (now concluded).  I'm really curious to see where the story goes, if it comes back for season 2 that is...

Homecoming: Bingeable Modern Noir

Last week Amazon Prime premiered a new 10-episode drama series starring film actress Julia Roberts, which seems to be the streaming service's attempt to enter the awards race now dominated by HBO and Netflix.  The plot of Homecoming is shrouded in mystery, even as you're watching it, but I'll try to describe it as best as possible without giving any major spoilers away.  Roberts plays Heidi Bergman, a counselor at Homecoming, a private company program designed to help ease the transition of recently deployed military service members back to civilian life.  Heidi takes a shine to Walter Cruz (newcomer Stephan James), a new entrant into the program.  In counseling sessions, he tells her about the loss of his friend in Afghanistan to a roadside bomb and otherwise bonds with her over a series of conversations.  Is there any romantic interest between them?  I'll let you watch and figure out for yourself.

Heidi's boss, an eccentric character who micromanages her every move but gives her direction mostly just through phone calls, is Colin Belfast (Bobby Canavale, best known from Boardwalk Empire and a guest stint on Will & Grace).  Rounding out the main cast are Sissy Spacek as Heidi's mom, Marianne Jean-Baptiste (I know her from the CBS procedural Without a Trace) as Walter's mom, Alex Karpovsky (from the HBO show Girls) as Homecoming's life skills counselor Craig, and Shea Whigham as Thomas Carrasco, a bureaucrat investigating Homecoming.  The show flashes back and forth between Heidi's time at Homecoming and a separate future timeline where she is living back at home with her mom and working as a waitress, seemingly not remembering or at least not wanting to remember her time at Homecoming.  Viewers are kept in the dark for most of the season about what exactly happened to cause her career change, but we're slowly given clues that something nefarious happened at Homecoming, particularly involving Heidi and Walter.  I'll let you take the journey of unraveling the mystery as the characters do, and what an enjoyable journey it is!

I liked this show for a few main reasons.  First, it takes its time unspooling its plot, but it doesn't add a lot of unnecessary filler either.  Many Netflix dramas have the habit of running seasons of 13 episodes at 1 hour+, often feeling bloated.  Streaming gives directors the freedom to run episodes at just about any length they choose, but this freedom often eliminates the need for them to really edit and trim down their work.  Most Homecoming episodes are just 25-30 minutes, making it easily bingeable and keeping viewers engaged throughout. 

Second, the direction by Sam Esmail (the creator of Mr. Robot), music, and writing are absolutely mesmerizing.  The show has the feel of an old-school 1940s or 1950s film noir, which is enhanced by the tension-inducing background music and the framing of certain shots.  Esmail makes frequent use of the split screen during Heidi and Colin's phone conversations, as well as overhead shots whenever possible.  Also, the aspect ratio goes from widescreen to full screen as the onscreen timeline switches from present to future.  The director was clearly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock in his directing style, even borrowing music from the classic film Psycho.  He also seems to relish in simply letting his characters talk to each other.  Watching actors talk with no action can sometimes feel boring for viewers, but the writers of this show have a knack for interesting, realistic dialogue that never bores and always advances the plot.

Finally, the acting (particularly that of Roberts and James) is top-notch.  In an awards-bait show like this, actors can have the tendency to over-act, sometimes seeming to practically scream for an Emmy or Golden Globe   Here, though, the acting is very low-key for most of the season, only really allowing the actors to stretch in the last few episodes.  But this doesn't make their work any less compelling.  Shoutouts also to Spacek and Jean-Baptiste for making the most of their small but meaningful roles.  Real supporting actors allow their leads to shine, and these two, along with the rest of the supporting cast, do just that.  I fully expect to see some acting awards nominations to come out of this season (both lead and supporting), in addition to nominations for directing, writing, scoring... the whole shebang.

The ending of the season kind of brought the story of Heidi and Walter full-circle, but it didn't exactly wrap everything up into a neat little bow, which I like.  I hate when shows give us a happy ending just for the sake of wrapping things up (I'm looking at you, The Haunting of Hill House).  I would love to see a second season, but only if the plot makes sense and only if Roberts is available.  She was the heart of the show, after all, although everyone involved should be proud of what they created.

Fall TV Check-In

Well, it's now the beginning of November, and we're now about 5 weeks into the new tv season.  Time to check in and see how some new and established shows are doing, both creatively and in the all-important ratings.  There have been some surprises for sure.

Netflix Rules

Netflix has continued its string of successful shows with several high profile premieres this fall.  The Haunting of Hill House came out of nowhere and became a buzzworthy horror breakout.  The show is genuinely terrifying, but it's also a deep family drama with rich writing and many great performances.  I didn't expect much from Making a Murderer season 2 (what else was there to learn about this story?), but it dove even deeper into the cases of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, richly exploring the appeals process and keeping me completely enthralled for all 10 new episodes.  It also introduced true crime fans to a new breakout tv legal personality in Avery's lawyer Kathleen Zellner.  She stopped at nothing to find new evidence in Avery's case, even though this meant implicating several of her client's relatives in the process (oops).  I couldn't get into The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the new darker tale of teen witch Sabrina Spellman, but it was a good substitute for fans of the Netflix hit Stranger Things, whose new season has been delayed from its usual October premiere.  Although Netflix doesn't release viewership numbers, I imagine that the streaming service is doing just fine right now.

Reboot Fatigue  

I was very much anticipating the return of Murphy Brown, the smart 80's-90's sitcom set in a fictional newsroom, but I've been highly disappointed in the new version (as CBS is in its ratings).  I welcome any show that pokes fun at our president, but this reboot has decided to focus almost solely on Trump and his relationship with the media, completely ignoring any semblance of character development for both its returning players and new characters like Murphy's son (now working at a conservative Fox News-like network) and a bar owner played by Tyne Daly.  Most of the jokes fall flat, and I kind of just want it to end, even before its already-promised 13 episodes.  It's highly doubtful that CBS will choose to continue with this mess.  In addition, the Roseanne-less reboot of the rebooted Roseanne, now called The Conners (did you follow that?) is pulling numbers much lower than Roseanne last season, and I wish that it was a lot funnier than it is.  The choice to kill off the Roseanne character with an opioid overdose was, however, was a pretty bold and moving choice.  Add to this a sad debut for the rebooted Magnum P.I., and the networks must be starting to rethink continuing on the reboot train.  The one exception is Will and Grace, which remains pretty consistently laugh-out-loud funny and has even dove into some serious issues in the reboot's 2nd season, and Last Man Standing, which has become a bonafide Friday night hit for FOX after ABC axed it just over a year ago. 

Fading Hits

I've been a fan of This is Us and its brand of heart-tugging storytelling since the beginning, but this season has me a bit worried for its future.  Season 3 plotlines like Toby's depression and Randall's jump into politics seem unimaginative and boring, and the show now seems like it has to force its trademark tearjerker moment some weeks.  The past stories of young Jack and Rebecca and the 10-year-old and teenage Big Three are far more interesting than the present-day storylines, but the writers seem to be finding it more and more difficult to weave past events into the present-day story.  I have faith that it can recover, but I really hope that it can pull out of it's junior slump soon.  In addition, Modern Family, now in its 10th and hopefully final season, has became almost painfully unfunny and unwatchable.  Once a fresh take on the "modern family", it ran out of funny and believable plotlines several years ago.  I was curious when the show promised the death of a "major" character this fall, hoping that a death could breathe new life into the characters, but that "major" character turned out to be someone who had only appeared in a handful of episodes throughout the past 10 years.  The death episode itself was pretty moving and creative in its depiction of the characters' differing reactions to the death, but still it felt like a cheap ploy to keep me watching, and I'm not sure I can forgive that.