Captain's Log
We'll keep doing this every Sunday as long as we get readership and participation
We’ll start with Sundays on HBO, before moving into other streaming services, and network episodes…
The Righteous Gemstones, “For Jealousy Is the Rage of a Man” gives us a bit of follow-up from Eli regarding Cobb and Lori, but is more focused on the siblings, particularly as even Jesse and Judy realize they need to cheer up Kelvin and get his head back in the game for the Top Christ Following Man Award. Meanwhile, Dr. Watson is becoming increasingly close to B.J. (he is pretty comfortable washing the monkey’s asshole, and that’s not a metaphor) and increasingly hostile to Judy. Is this a Single White Female situation brewing, but with a monkey? Who knows!
And Gideon manages to impress Pontius and his skateboarding duster-huffing friends. Except, like, we already knew Gideon was an awesome badass, so this shouldn’t be a surprise. Anyway, with two episodes to go in the whole series, I feel like there’s gonna have to be a lot of plot action in these final two weeks. That said, even when the plot seems to be moving more slowly than it can afford to, this show is still funny as fuck (“I was driving near here and started turtle-heading. What do you want me to do? I’m not gonna go shit in the woods like an animal”) and even provides the occasional triumphant moment. You know I’m fully on board with wherever this show goes.
The Rehearsal is back with season two, kicking off with “Gotta Have Fun.” How do you even review a Nathan Fielder show? The premise is laid out before us: Nathan is going to use his tricks of the trade and his rehearsal-simulation project to find a way to reduce aviation disasters. This first episode focuses on communication as key, particularly between pilot and first officer, and Nathan works with a pilot named Moody, who reveals a significant amount of personal information, which leads Nathan to test his communication theories by… setting up a scenario that will get Moody and his girlfriend talking about his anxieties about their relationship. Reviewing a Nathan Fielder show almost seems beyond purpose; how the hell can I tell you if this is good when I have no idea where it’s going? I’m just here for the ride. (Which, hopefully, is not an aviation disaster– a topic Fielder presumably chose well in advance of the last three months of alarmingly frequent airplane failures.)
Hacks sends us to the dress rehearsal and debut of Deborah’s late night show in “I Love LA,” and of course it has some hiccups along the way– some predictable (Deborah having a panic attack at the dress rehearsal and insisting it’s not that), some less so (Ava and an emergency dildo purchase). But it’s still a fun episode, with some comic highlights (I particularly liked Damien at dinner and afterward, although Kayla gets some funny lines and Michaela Watkins’ HR lady is a perfect thorn in Deborah and Ava’s sides), and some great guest performances. (Helen Hunt is so perfect as Winnie, generally warm but still 100% business. And Carol Burnett! Makes a hell of a lot more sense than her other recent Prestige TV Show role, anyway.) And there are even a couple of sweet moments involving Deborah and Ava. Those two crazy kids will always find their way back to each other.
Andor premiered season two on Tuesday, which is making me think of how silly the order I’ve structured these articles is, since I basically caught up on the entire show in the week before season 2 premiered, and now I’m writing about season 2 first. Anyway: We kick off a year after the events of season 1, with Cassian trying to steal a TIE Fighter (I think)… except it’s some new experimental model he doesn’t know how to fly, which leads to some pretty funny slapstick in his escape attempt. Unfortunately, Cassian spends most of the first two episodes as a prisoner of one of the squabbling rebel groups, and then only shows up late in the third episode to save the day. For a show called Andor, the title character sure spends a lot of time absent or passive.
That said, it was still a welcome return, as we get a few other important stories as well. The rebels are trying their best to survive as undocumented laborers on the farming planet Mina-Rau and await Cassian’s return, while the Empire shows up for a surprise inspection (which gives us the sense it could go particularly badly in the second episode when one lieutenant takes a shine to Bix). And meanwhile, back on Chandrila, Mon Mothma remains conflicted about her daughter’s arranged marriage during the three-day wedding ceremony– shockingly more so than her daughter, who I think is all of fourteen– and, of course, Luthen arrives to present a surprise gift and, of course, keep an eye on things and pump anyone he can for information. And to make the hard decisions Mon is trying to avoid and to make it clear to her what the stakes are.
Also, there’s some very funny stuff in these three episodes. Syril and Deera’s lunch with Syril’s mother Eedy is very funny and leads to some terrific verbal ownage. Cassian’s escape from the rebel cell is pretty funny, insofar as the rebel cell’s infighting and ridiculous traditions are funny. Oh, and in case you weren’t aware, the show is coming out three episodes at a time, apparently with a year of time in between each one, to lead right up to the events of Rogue One. So this is the second and final season of Andor, but so far, we’re off to a good start.
Elsbeth returns from taking last week off, picking up with not a new murder, but an old one, as we return to the Judge Crawford case, and get a flashback to 33 years prior that explains just what the judge is covering for that led him to murder Andy Mertens. He’s up for a federal judgeship, and this pushes Elsbeth to dig deeper into his case before he really becomes untouchable, and where then we see how far he’s willing to go in response and the ways he can use his power. Michael Emerson (who, if you didn’t know, is Carrie Preston’s real-life husband) gives a delightfully evil-patrician performance as the judge here, again, and with two episodes to go in the season, I’m very much wondering how all of this ultimately gets resolved.
In the network-sitcom world, Poppa’s House continued on with “Babygirl,” where Junior’s sister Natalie (played by Amara Wayans, Damon Wayans Jr.’s daughter) returns to visit after a long time to announce her engagement (to a very scary, at least to Junior, ex-con)… and she’s still estranged from Poppa after how their parents split up, so Junior trikes to broker a peace and get them to reconcile. Another solid episode, and I rather enjoyed Tre Hale as Dyrrl (“not Darryl. It’s Dyrrl. Like ‘squirrel’ with a D”) too. Alas, the show’s cancelation was announced, so next week will be the last of it we get.
We also got the first new St. Denis Medical in a few weeks with “Bruce-ic and the Music,” centered on a fundraising gala for the hospital, which gives us a great chance to see how some familiar dynamics and character relationships play out in new settings. Very fun episode, with Ron and Joyce’s particular sniping over emcee duties a highlight, and some great physical comedy from Bruce and Matt (respectively, not together)– really, this one was a good showcase for everybody.
Everything else has either ended, didn’t air a new episode this week, or we’ve fallen behind on it.
The Studio had one of my favorite episodes so far this season with “The War,” which takes a bit of a detour from the last few episodes. Instead of Matt’s desperation and need to be liked fueling a farcical plot, we get the titular war between Sal and newly promoted creative executive Quinn, who are pitching similar horror films to Matt. (Sal’s is Wink, essentially a remake of Smile, including the same director, Parker Finn; Quinn wants to bring on Owen Kline to make an artier horror film.) Matt barely features into this one, as it’s all about Sal and Quinn undermining each other’s pitches, and each other, culminating in some great farce, slapstick, and physical comedy. One of the season highlights so far.
Andor – As mentioned, I finished season 1 the day before season 2 premiered. The stretch run is pretty damn thrilling, as Cassian helps coordinate / inspires floor manager Kino Loy to lead a prison break, and then Maarva’s funeral inspires a rebellion against the imperial presence on Ferrix. We learn Luthen has a mole in the ISB (and he decides to sacrifice a rebel cell to preserve his mole’s cover and build the Empire’s complacency); and in the finale, Cassian not only saves the day, but has gone through enough of the Empire’s bullshit that he’s finally on board with the rebellion. Great finish to the season– the first half was a little slow, as we only really got to the fireworks factory every third episode or so, but the stretch run was pretty much all killer.
Gotta get back to Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney and Common Side Effects! And start Side Quest! And I am back to being a week behind on The Studio.
I was feeling pretty bummed out Friday night for no particular or apparent reason, so I decided to throw on a few episodes of The Jeselnik Offensive for some reliable laughs. This fills a similar space to Norm Macdonald’s “Weekend Update” for me, being both time capsule and timeless– the commentary on current events should make this very dated; the sharpness and precision of the jokes make it funny no matter how many times I’ve seen it. It’s definitely a snapshot of the comedy world circa 2013, but there are just so many good one-liners throughout the whole thing. (If you liked him better when Kumail Nanjiani was still a comedian and not an ultra-jacked Marvel guy, then you’ll really like his appearances here.)
Tomorrow night is the season– and now, having been cancelled, the series– finale of Poppa’s House. Next week’s Righteous Gemstones is the series finale.
Tina Fey’s latest, The Four Seasons— an adaptation of the 1981 Alan Alda film of the same name, starring, among others, Steve Carell, Will Forte, Colman Domingo, and Kerri Kenney-Silver alongside Fey– premieres on Netflix May 1.
Keep the conversation going in the comments; it keeps the feature alive!
About the writer
Captain Nath
Born on the bayou, thriving in the mountains. Writer, gambler, comedian, singer-songwriter, bon vivant, globetrotter, and all-around Renaissance Man with perfect opinions about TV and music. Pronounced with a long A and with the H.
It's a gaming ship.
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Department of
Conversation
Just caught up on Hacks today and it’s a real relief to have some movement towards reconciliation.
– The sound and camera work during Deborah’s panic attack was fantastic at getting those sensations across: the whine in the ears and the sensation of narrowing vision
– I hope Deborah appreciates Winnie: without her, there’s no check on Deborah’s self-sabotage
– I want a large art print of Ava alone at those tables with the bottle of champagne (poor Ava; the transition from employee to management is hard and lonely)
– Poor Jimmy, but this is on you for waiting until the last minute to ask people to dinner
– It was sweet of the guy behind the counter to offer Ava that free sample
The guy offering Ava a free sample of lube was the perfect detail (I said in the moment that he sensed an upcoming threesome and was rooting for her).
I knew Deborah would wind up focusing on Ava during her opening monologue, but that didn’t lessen the emotional impact at all. The way it played out was so lovely, and I especially liked Deborah having a reflexive, relieved, pleased laugh in response to Ava’s reaction.
Hacks
Man, there’s a lot going on in this episode! This is functionally one story, from beginning to end, showing Deb and Ava prepping for the first episode and then the immediate fallout – the plotting looks a lot more ragged than it actually is. In the buildup: Deb is under enormous pressure and everybody knows that, trying to build her confidence; she sees that and is irritated but also needs it, and is irritated by that too. It’s a great moment in the airing when Deb looks out into the crowd and only sees Ava – a moving expression of love. In a way, part of Deb’s job now is to filter out the unnecessary data, and she chooses Ava as her support.
The fallout is fun too. One recurring thing true about both Ava and Deb is that, while both can be self-absorbed assholes, they also tend to get dragged out to hang out with strangers or near-strangers and then have the time of their lives; getting out of their own heads and effectively taking in data from other people. Let’s say there’s two different kinds of extraversion – the taking in of data and the putting out of data. Ava and Deb are both very extraverted, and they tend to assume they’re supposed to be outputting data – controlling things, navigating the world – and they tend to be surprised but pleased when they sit back and take in data from other people.
(You also see this with Ava, who finds being in charge isn’t quite what she hoped it would be)
I love that Damian is getting weirder and weirder.
I loved Damian’s first glass of wine as (I assume) a callback to him being a Jehovah’s Witness, a great and deft finding of a new angle on the original joke (Deb hired him because he would never want holidays off). It also reminds me of Troy’s comment about this on Community: “And you can’t drink. But it helps.”
Oh man, I’d forgotten all about that!
Hacks, “I Love L.A.”
What everyone else has been saying!
The sex shop guy is one of the side characters the show does so well, where he has a distinct personality and his own sense of humor and history; he was a major highlight for me.
Obviously Deborah choosing Ava as the person she performs for–Ava almost glowing with pride at watching her, luminous in the dark studio–is the biggest Deborah-Ava moment of the night, but Ava helping Deborah out of her hospital room so they can watch the show in the waiting room is a close second. And I love the moment being punctured in a slight, funny way–“A fan’s a fan”–without any deflating feeling setting in.
And the rest of The Pitt
I would recommend this overall: it’s not essential, but most of the time, it’s a very enjoyable B+ show, with a lot of strong, interesting capsule storytelling (I want to say episodic, but the structure actually gets in the way of that; instead, we have a lot of small stories embedded in the larger narrative, and their pacing varies). It’s flawed–weak pilot, occasional preachiness, etc.–but it’s usually very engaging, and again, it has some good narrative instincts. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
A medical shift is usually twelve hours, and this has fifteen episodes, so you spend the whole season knowing some big disaster is coming, and when it finally arrives, the show uses it well. I’m a sucker for watching people scramble to function effectively in an overwhelming emergency, and the last episodes really deliver on that front, with an extreme and inherently hard-to-manage situation keeping everyone on the hop and pushing them in new directions. (Mohan with the drill!) There’s an almost apocalyptic, trial-by-fire feeling to the final episodes–Abbot compares it to wartime medicine and working in a MASH, which checks out–where improvisation, speed, and creative solutions are all key to getting anything done. It’s just plain fun to watch.
Best minor use of the “the whole season is one long shift” premise: how uncanny it is when characters who have had their hair in ponytails the entire time, for obvious reasons, finally get off shift and literally let their hair down. It’s a small but good detail that emphasizes how much time we’ve spent with them in a particular context that’s now coming to an end. Best major use: Pediatrics. It becomes the morgue during the mass casualty event, and Robby breaks down in there, and when he reminisces about a man who died earlier that day, in front of his children, he knows, as do I, that it happened in that exact room, and that the painted animals on the wall that seemed oddly appropriate and comforting at the time now seem morbid, and it’s all just been the longest fucking day.
FRIDAY
Andor
Season 2, Episode 3. “The Harvest”. First time.
In typical Andor fashion, the third episode closes out the arc in spectacular fashion. The action is pretty thrilling but what really makes it come alive are all the great character beats throughout. I don’t want to go into full plot spoilers, so I’ll just keep on the characters and jump into:
STRAY OBSERVATIONS (I’ll allude to some spoilers here)
– Syril and Dedra’s domestic life gives me some light Zone of Interest vibes.
– I like how Vel doesn’t seem have much to do in these episodes but she goes through a whole small arc anyway: We see everything she rejected in her Chandrillan upbringing: the rituals, the class system, the heterosexuality. And she finally catches a glimpse at the end of what she chose instead and it breaks her. And she’s just as alone as ever.
– She also must be pissed as hell that Cinta was probably in Chandrilla the whole time. Cinta’s reveal here was brilliantly weaponized here, both by the show and her boss.
– Mon and Luthen’s final exchange is not only great in the moment, it also establishes a dynamic that might recur through the season: Luthen gets nasty shit done, Mon looks the other way trying to maintain plausible denialibility. Getting shitfaced sure helps.
– Absolutely love the filmmaking of that one Stormtrooper taking his shot at Brasso. For once, you know this trooper is absolutely not going to miss and it’s given the gravity it deserves.
– Noticed on rewatc that B2EMO was playing a game with the kids at the big farm breakfast. Awww. Also, one of those kids is playing with an AT-ST marionette at the table. Pretty loaded image.
– Absolutely brutal scene between Bix and the Imperial officer.
https://youtu.be/6E7gfpGql7w?si=CxyF4UZC8HaEqAO6
I want a flying combination disco ball / boombox.