Untangling HBO's knotty, entertaining The White Lotus

Only about 100 people watched Enlightened, HBO's early 2010s oddball dramedy about a woman who has a philosophical awakening after a nervous breakdown upends her life, but we all loved the show with a frightening intensity and were devastated when it was cancelled after two wondrous seasons.  It seemed like perhaps that show's early demise took alot out of its creator Mike White as well, as he mostly stayed away from television in the years after, alternating between writing well-received but little seen indie films and large studio movies meant to keep food on the table.  It's not as if his focus on cinema was an alien turn for him, since some of his earliest critical successes (Chuck & Buck) and best-known works (School of Rock) come from the big screen, but it's hard not to feel like TV is the medium he's meant for.  

Well our wishes were finally granted with the premiere of HBO's miniseries-turned-ongoing-show The White Lotus earlier this year, the first series created by White in almost a decade.  His penchant for social satire, his interest in New Age spirituality and wellness culture, his simultaneous love and hatred of humanity -- it all gets ported over to this story about a high-end Hawaiian resort and the three groups of guests who stay there for one fateful week.  The first group is the Mossbachers, an affluent and dysfunctional tribe enjoying their family vacation.  Then there's the Pattons, a newlywed couple made of Shane (Jake Lacy), who was born into money, and Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), who was not.  Rounding it out is Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), who has come to scatter the ashes of her recently deceased mother.  In between all of that, there's also a focus on the people who work at The White Lotus, primarily hotel manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) and spa manager Belinda (Natasha Rothwell).

With such a heavy focus on the lives of privileged people, obviously the biggest struggle that detractors had with the show was that they felt it was hard to get invested in the main characters in a time like the one we're living through.  In fact, even a friend of mine to whom I recommended the show -- and if you're that friend and are reading this, I'm sorry for the call out -- watched the first episode and their reaction was "So far all of the main characters are unlikable and have the POC working for them."  To me, this poisonous need for likable characters in TV shows is a trend exacerbated by shows like Parks and Recreation, Ted Lasso, and Schitt's Creek that are so overly concerned with making the audience feel warm and funny at the expense of creating friction and challenging viewers.  

The White Lotus eschews those desires and is all the better for it.  This is a satire, and unlikability feels like the name of the game, the only way to understand its commentary on the difference between the haves and the have nots.  Something that crystallized in a recent rewatch is just how clear the show makes the delineation between the characters who stay at the resort from those who serve them through its writing and filmmaking.  "New Day," the show's second episode, opens with a montage of all the main guests at the hotel starting in a state of bliss, and then pointedly shifts to Belinda coming into work exhausted and Armond contemplating his sobriety.  Later in the same episode, there's a scene where Shane is at the buffet piling food onto his plate and the camera cuts to a shot of two unnamed attendants who look on as if they have a world of problems we're not given access to.  It's not a coincidence that Lani, the pregnant trainee who gives birth in the first episode, is shunted off after that, never to be seen again.  A working class woman of color basically doesn't matter to this world of privilege.

It helps that there's a gradient of likability amongst the main characters, where some seem more endearing in contrast with others.  Sure, Armond is kind of a jerk and he did genuinely mess up by double booking the room the Pattons were supposed to be in, but his struggle to stay sober is genuinely sad.  Yes, Mossbacher patriarch Mark (Steve Zahn) is a buffoon, but his health crisis in the early episodes and the rumination it inspires is truly engrossing.  These are examples of what's at the heart of Mike White's strengths as a writer: his characters can be prickly and difficult, but he gives them such a depth and dimensionality that it's impossible not to find something engaging about them.  He's so attuned to the facets of these people that he even puts incredible, character-revealing details in their reading choices.  Olivia (Sydney Sweeney) and Paula (Brittany O'Grady) reading Freud and Nietzche, Rachel reading My Brilliant Friend, and Shane reading a Malcolm Gladwell book are all inspired choices that make you think "Of course they would be reading that."

Even if you don't pick up on the more subtle moments the show has to offer, it also happens to be such pure pleasure on the surface.  Each episode is a blast to watch, so funny and sharp and lively.  And even though there aren't any grave stakes save a dead body teased in the very first scene (we'll get to that later), the story manages to feel propulsive, a sensation no doubt multiplied by the claustrophobic score that stampedes over every scene.  White's longtime history as a TV writer comes into play as he knows how to craft an episode, giving each one a consistent day-night cycle that keeps everything structured and rhythmic.  The plotting is intricate, keeping many plates spinning at once.  There's a beautiful cause-and-effect nature, like the events all exist on a labyrinthine pinboard, where small moments such as Paula losing her bag full of drugs play into seismic stories like Armond falling off the wagon.  Emotionally, the show works on that wavelength too, with temperaments stirred in one scene bleeding over and affecting that character's interactions with somebody unrelated.

That elaborate storytelling supplements the wild tonal highwire act The White Lotus pulls off.  Scenes can veer from levity to bracing pathos in a blink, often mixing the two together in a potent blend.  It asks you to laugh at these characters and take them very seriously at the same time, and it always works.  Tanya may be the the silliest character thanks to Jennifer Coolidge's delightfully spacey performance, but the scene in the first episode where she's telling Belinda about her dead mother is one of the most moving scenes of the entire series.  

Every episode has at least one scene like that, where you can feel the ground shift under you and take you to a completely unexpected emotional terrain.  There's that scene which happens in the dead center of episode two, where Nicole (Connie Britton) and Rachel have a thoughtful moment of connection between two career-minded women that totally takes a turn when Nicole finds out Rachel wrote a piece about her that she didn't like.  And there's also the scene in episode five where Nicole confronts Mark about telling their son about an affair he had.  For the whole series leading up to that moment, Nicole had been sketched like this laughable girlboss neoliberal who still loves Hillary Clinton, and then all of a sudden you're reminded that just like everyone else, she's a full human being with feelings that are capable of being hurt.  The mastery of tone that these six episodes display is honestly staggering.  You need the silliness to make the dramatic moments hit the way they do, and vice versa.

The show's interrogation of its characters only gets more precise as it goes on, especially with the aforementioned Mossbachers.  One of the treats of each episode is the recurring family dinners, which invariably become a discourse on class, privilege and gender, giving us ample opportunity to laugh at the irony of moments like Nicole and Mark going off on cancel culture while they enjoy being served at a resort on stolen land, watching indigenous people perform for their entertainment.

Paula's arc is the most fascinating thread in the Mossbacher web.  She sees herself as the good guy, the person of color outsider who's different from the out-of-touch people she's vacationing with and chooses to try to help Kai, the local guy she has a tryst with.  It's tempting to see her that way in comparison to the Mossbachers too.  But it's notable that the thing that pushes her to hatch a plan for Kai to steal jewelry from the safe in their hotel room while the family's away is Olivia flirting with him, which makes her actions seem more driven by getting revenge on her friend than any kind of altruism.  Her plan is also one where all of the risk is on Kai and virtually none of it is on her.

(I also just love that the Mossbacher marriage is saved by Mark assuming a traditionally masculine role of the protector when he defends his wife from Kai, especially since his whole arc is centered around his crisis of masculinity, between his testicle issues, finding out his father was a closeted gay man, and wrestling with his own role as a father.)

"Departures," the show's finale, is a masterclass.  Of plotting, of theme, of emotions.  Everything.  One of the two main themes that dominates and adds complexity to the episode is that one person's self-actualization serves as a detriment to another.  Tanya realizing that she shouldn't have transactional relationships is a promising breakthrough and moment of personal growth for her on its own, but it comes at the expense of her not helping Belinda start her business.  And consequently, Belinda discovering that she doesn't need to take on so much emotional labor for the hotel guests is great, but maybe if that didn't happen, she could've advised Rachel not to commit to a marriage that's crushing her soul.  Rachel's decision bleeds into the next overriding theme of the season's conclusion: people choosing what's easy over what's right (which we also see when Paula ultimately comes to terms with the fact that the Mossbachers are her people).

Tanya and Rachel's conclusions are the ones that hit the hardest for me.  The former hurts so much because she felt like the most endearing and least monstrous hotel guest of the ensemble.  When it turns out that the rich will perpetually be who they are, it stings that much more because we were hoping that wouldn't be the case for her.  Ditto Rachel, whose arc is enthralling mostly due to Alexandra Daddario's performance.  Daddario is an actress who has mostly been stuck playing Hot Girl With Big Boobs roles, so it was a surprise to see her give such a layered turn here.  Rachel may not be the person who ends up dead in a box at the end, but in a way she chooses a different kind of death. 

Speaking of dead people in boxes...if there's a quibble I have with the show it's that I wonder if the dead body mystery should've been excised altogether.  Granted, I found the conclusion of Armond being the one who gets killed at the hands of Shane satisfying narratively.  Not only does it feel like a perfect capper to the chest-puffing back and forth the two of them were embroiled in throughout the season, but it also fits into to the pattern of all of the guests coming away from this week with their lives essentially returning to the status quo, while all of the staff characters end up with tragic fates.  But the tease of the coffin in the first episode feels like something out of show in the Big Little Lies milieu that subsequently caused some people to focus too much on that aspect miss out on the other richness this world had to offer.

One criticism I cannot abide by, however, is the charge that the show doesn't have anything interesting or new to say.  Judging from the previous 14 paragraphs I wrote, obviously I disagree with the "interesting" part of that claim.  As far as the "new" goes: The shows criticizing the rich that we get are often in the vein of Succession, painting the upper class as douchebags of the highest order, living on a completely different planet than the rest of the word.   Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that.  Succession is the best show on television.  But The White Lotus is the first show I've seen that really examines this new strata that's come to prominence in the last decade and a half, which is the rich liberal who doesn't think they're a part of the problem.  White uses lots of in-the-moment terminology in the series -- "triggered," "cucked," #MeToo -- and it's clear he's having fun with it, but he's also commenting on the fact that all of the political things that get discussed are just abstract ideas to these people.  Olivia may accuse her mother's tech company of "dismantling the social fabric," but at the end of the day, she's unwilling to acknowledge or give up the privilege she holds.  That it's characters are unaware of or deliberately obtuse about the power they wield might be the savviest thing about this terrific show.

The Bold Type is assuaging all showrunner change fears in its great second season

Usually the words "showrunner change" elicit waves of fear in the fans of a show.  Who can forget the huge dip in quality that Community took when main creative force Dan Harmon left the show in season four, or the post-Aaron Sorkin years of The West Wing?  A changing of the guard may as well be the death knell for a series in the eyes of some.  So when last year's renewal of Freeform's The Bold Type came coupled with the news that showrunner Sarah Watson would be parting ways with the series, it was pretty alarming.  It certainly didn't help that there were rumors that Watson cited "creative differences" with the network as the reason for her departure.  Under her leadership, season one of the The Bold Type defied expectations, delivering a thoughtful weekly delight that uniquely focused on female friendship and navigating the working world as a young woman.  If Freeform couldn't see eye-to-eye with Watson and her vision, then it was cause for concern that maybe they didn't understand what made the show great.

Thankfully, there hasn't been any quality dip in the show's second season so far.  If anything, it's been even better with Amanda Lasher (Sweet/Vicious, Riverdale) running things.  That's not to say there hasn't been a notable difference in the voice of the show.  The tone feels a touch more comedic, particularly in its first few episodes back, with characters cracking more aside jokes than it seemed like they did last season.  And the characters feel a little tweaked too, especially Sutton, whose characterization as a sexual free spirit who has had alot of partners in her life feels like a shade that was only invented this season.  The writers have also done work to expand the world of Scarlet Magazine, adding tertiary characters who make the workplace feel more real and lived-in.

In all the ways that matter, though, this is still The Bold Type we know and love.  At its core, this remains to be about what it's like to be young and trying to make it in the working world.  Vox's Constance Grady wrote a terrific piece a few weeks ago where she posited that this series is a romcom, but that the love interest is these women's careers, and that's the best way to describe what makes it so refreshing.  From the beginning, it's been devoted to telling stories about the intersection of life, love, and profession, each of those threads tangling together and complicating one another.  Most stories about young women use their jobs as mere window dressing at best, but for the three leads, the work is an essential part of what defines them.  Season two has given us more rich stories in that vein, with Jane trying to find her post-Scarlet footing as a freelancer, Kat taking on  new responsibility as a department head, and Sutton struggling to find a balance between after-hours networking opportunities and not burning herself out.

But the greatest love story of all in the The Bold Type is the one between its central trio.  The friendship between Sutton, Kat, and Jane is one of the richest relationships on television, and one of the few friendship circles that operates the way actual ones do.  Shows are so focused on dishing out story that it's rare for them to show the characters just hanging out.  Often, the best scenes in The Bold Type are the ones where the main trio are spending idle time together, filling one another in on their lives and asking each other for advice.  It's a friendship built on towers of mutual love, respect, and care, not manufactured drama and petty backstabbing.

That's not to say there isn't conflict between the women, it's just that when there is, it feels like the organic little disagreements that pop up in any friendship.  A perfect example occurred a few episodes ago in "Stride of Pride."  Jane finds out that she didn't get a job she was excited about because the magazine is trying to diversify its hires, and when she complains about it, Kat gets upset with her for implying that whoever the magazine did hire would be less qualified.  Later in the episode, they come to an understanding, as Jane learns to recognize her white privilege and Kat realizes her response might have been extreme towards her friend who desperately needs a job.  It's a conflict that lasts all of two or three scenes, but it's compelling because the show understands how thrilling it can be to see people communicate and work through their disagreements in simple but real ways.  It feels almost radical how central talking things out is to every story.

The show feels modern not just in that aspect, but in the way it engages with issues effecting our world today.  It tackles everything from body positivity to sexual assault -- last year, it covered the #MeToo movement before there was even a term for it -- with grace and aplomb.  And it does so in a way that feels organic to the show, because it knows that these are things that are baked into the everyday lives of young people.  This season has been a wonder that shows no signs of slowing down.  Not only has it stepped aside any worries about the offseason showrunner change, The Bold Type has become one of the best shows on television.

In defense of Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri

Around this time last year when we were deep in the throes of The La La Land Discourse, it seemed like we would never get anything more exhausting.  And yet, here we are in the midst of another bit of awards season backlash, this time with Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri.  It's a film that I loved when it came out (enough to put it at number six on my Best of 2017 list a few weeks ago), and I've listened to the complaints about it with open ears and still find myself disagreeing with most of them.

Despite all of that, it's a movie for which I'm hesitant to come to a vocal defense, for a number of reasons.  1. The attacks against it feel so passionate and personal -- I've seen many reviews saying variations of "I don't trust you if you loved this movie" and "You're a bad person if you put this on your top 10 list" -- that I didn't want to wade into that sea of vitriol.  2. I don't want to invalidate the genuine hurt and pain people feel about this movie, because I understand and sympathize with that feeling.  3. This isn't exactly a movie that needs a defense.  After all, it's winning awards and many critics still love it.  But enough people I follow on Twitter and Letterboxd (and by enough, I mean 90%) hate it that I feel the need to at least put my thoughts out there, so people can get a measured response from the perspective of someone who has heard the complaints and has some things to say about them.

A few weeks ago on the podcast Get Up On This, there was a heated debate about Three Billboards, and I really liked what co-host Matt Robinson had to say about it, because I felt like somebody else finally came away with the same perspective that I did and was able to articulate it very well.  Essentially, he explained that the movie was such an exquisite representation of what it feels like to be in America in 2017.  The anger, the confusion, the cruel treatment of marginalized groups -- all of it.  McDonagh is a British man, but he uses his outsider status to take a look at the state of our nation from his distance and say "Look at this terrifying, grotesque comedy," and then proceed to give us a movie that matches that thesis.

To do so, McDonagh works in a mode where he uses heightened dialogue and broad characters in order to force the audience to think more about how they stand in stark contrast with the actual issues he's trying to examine.  Part of the criticism of Three Billboards seems to be rooted in the fact that many people are taking the film at face value.  The movie is racist because the racist characters don't get a comeuppance, the movie is sexist because its female characters are portrayed in a sexist light, the movie has bad dialogue because nobody talks like that.  But that's not the way a stylized work is supposed to function and be assessed.  If you take a Douglas Sirk film at face value, you'll likely come away from it thinking that it's bad too.  McDonagh may be working with something that has a more realistic veneer, but in the end he's still attempting to do the same thing.  If you acknowledge that and still think it sucks, then fine, that's just a matter of taste.  But I've seen so many bad faith takes on the movie that it feels like people watched an entirely different film.  This is the guy who gave us In Bruges!  Hasn't he earned the right to be given the benefit of the doubt that he didn't make something as dumb and racist as people are saying it is?

I've tried to read as many negative reviews as possible and compile the gripes that popped up most frequently, so I could offer my thoughts on them.  I won't be addressing any complaints that are primarily taste-based, because it's hard to offer a rebuttal to "the plot is bad" with anything other than "I didn't think so."  This post isn't meant to change anybody's mind, as I don't imagine it will.  But there are so many people out there who are asking themselves "How could anybody like this film"?  This post is meant to offer an explanation, from one person who happened to like Three Billboards.

Criticism #1: The movie expects us to root for a racist cop's redemption arc
This is the big one that I just do not get at all, simply because I don't think that arc is something we're supposed to root for.  If you've read my Letterboxd review on this, you've heard my thoughts already, but I'll repeat them.  Here we have this movie about people lashing out at wrongs, feeling like the "proper" form of retribution hasn't happened, that certain people have been let off the hook too easily.  And then the film itself attempts to let Dixon off the hook in a way that feels too "easy."  I think McDonagh deliberately wants to make us uncomfortable with that, not be on the side of the narrative.  He's placing us right in the headspace of the characters in this story, questioning whether there can ever be forgiveness for certain acts.

We live in a culture of cancellation: when somebody does something wrong, we want them to disappear forever.  But the uncomfortable fact of the matter that Three Billboards explores is that these people don't just go away.  Others may not see value in watching a dumb, evil person fumble around trying to get on the path of good, but I think it's compelling to watch.  And the (again, deliberate) irony is that Dixon probably fails!  The film ends on an ambiguous note, where he and Mildred possibly go to kill a man who has nothing to do with the crime at the center of the story.  He is not being endorsed.  This is not a redemption arc.

(Also, full disclosure: I am a black man.  So it feels a little weird to have white people on Twitter tell me what I should find racist.)

Criticism #2: The women and minority characters are poorly written and portrayed
This one I can actually understand.  I think the women especially aren't given much life or complexity, and it feels like laziness on the film's part to make all of the supporting women paper-thin just because it has a magnetic Frances McDormand at the center.  But I'm also open to the possibility that this is another deliberate instance of commentary on the movie's part.  Who are the only sensible, kind people in this film?  A little person and three black people.  Even though Mildred's ex husband has a new 19 year old girlfriend who is portrayed as a naive airhead, she also gets a moment of tiny kindness and wisdom in the restaurant scene near the end of the film.  And yet these are all the people who get shunted off to the side in the narrative.  Don't those feel like reflections of how America itself treats these people?  I don't think the movie has contempt for these characters, even though the main characters do.

Criticism #3: The plot has multiple elements that don't add up or make sense
To me, this is something else makes it feel like the nasty, confusing mess that is our country right now.  Nothing makes sense anymore!  Plus, I tend to like when narratives allow for weird diversions and vestigial limbs.  Movies are not math problems.  Not everything has to "add up."

Criticism #4: There's a flashback where Mildred wishes her daughter gets raped, right before her daughter actually gets raped and murdered
Again, this is a heightened and stylized work.  If you take it at face value, it's bad dialogue.  But the purpose is not to be poetic or an elegant bit of dramatic irony.  It's meant to be an extreme moment from the gallows in order to reinforce the feeling of guilt that Mildred has, not the actual realism of the matter.

Criticism #5: The film has multiple little person jokes
To use modern internet parlance, I think the phrase "retweets are not endorsements" applies here.  I really don't think we're supposed to laugh at those jokes.  Nothing about the tone or the rhythm of the scene indicates that this is the moment where we laugh.  In fact, it seems to take sympathy with Dinklage's character at all times.

Those are the five big ones I found when perusing reviews.  I apologize if I missed anything or if you feel like your criticisms weren't represented.  I could be wrong with my take and become known 10 years from now as the fool who liked the new Crash.  Despite my feelings about this film, I really hope it doesn't win Best Picture at the Oscars, because that will just stoke the flames even more and the discourse will never end.  Also because Lady Bird is a better film.

A few parting words for Sweet/Vicious

The cancellation of Bunheads in 2013 ruined my ability to get upset about shows being cancelled.  Before then, it felt like I was always plagued by the untimely ending of some beloved but underwatched show, from Pushing Daisies to Dollhouse to Ben & Kate.  But since the network formerly known as ABC Family snuffed out Amy Sherman-Palladino's ballet-infused small-town dramedy, there hasn't been a single show whose cancellation has stirred me in any way.  Emotional calcification plays a role in this, but part of it is also because the television landscape has changed so much in the last few years that not as many cult shows face the network guillotine.  Take something like The CW's excellent Crazy Ex-Girlfriend for example.  Just a few years ago, its abysmal ratings would've been a surefire cause for cancellation, but the network executives have even stated that the critical acclaim it received brought a level prestige to The CW that factored into its ability to live on.

So it came as a bit of a shocking blow last night when Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, creator of MTV's terrific Sweet/Vicious, tweeted to announce that the show had been cancelled after one season.  It had low-ratings, sure, but the last few years of being a TV fanatic have trained me to believe that quality would win out more often than not.  Discovering the news on my timeline, I felt a twinge of something I used to know all too well, that anger and sadness that comes from something you love being shuffled off this televisual coil long before its time.

Sweet/Vicious aimed to tell a story about sexual assault from a unique angle.  Spurred by the mishandling of her rape case in the prior semester, college student Jules (Eliza Bennett) used her self-defense training to try to fight back and help prevent further assaults among the student body.  Once stoner-hacker extraordinaire Ophelia (Taylor Dearden) finds out her secret, she's brought into the fold and the two of them become campus vigilantes.  It's a premise that sounds a little silly on paper, but the show itself was a stylish mashup of adored genre shows like Veronica Mars and Buffy.  Much like its progenitors, Sweet/Vicious was full of funny characters and sharp, witty dialogue.  But it also weaved in a very serious examination of rape culture, what it's like to never truly feel safe or to have to face your abuser on a daily basis.  And over the course of its 10-episode season, it builds a complex and beautiful relationship between Jules and Ophelia, always taking their emotions seriously and allowing them to come together through organic connection.

MTV is not generally a network that gets alot of critical eyes towards it, but Sweet/Vicious was a show that resonated with critics and those who read TV coverage voraciously.  In fact, I wouldn't have been encouraged to check it out if it wasn't for the consistently rapturous tweets I saw from people whose opinion I trust over the course of the show's first few weeks.  It's for that reason why the network deciding to cancel it seems like such a shortsighted choice.  Like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend did for The CW, Sweet/Vicious brought a modicum of legitimacy to a network that's seen as containing frivolous programming.  It was a show that was full of potential, from a perspective of a growing audience as well as the possibility of it creatively flourishing, but now we'll never know what it was capable of.  I guess there's no justice in this world after all.

Maximizing the potential of Drake's "More Life"

Last year, I introduced the world to Views: The Antonio Whitehead Cut.  It was an effort to pare down Drake's misunderstood sad-rap opus into a version that emphasized just how many gems it contained once you part through the bloat.  After long and intense anticipation prior to its release, Views was met with a lukewarm response, and despite some positive reappraisals, the prevailing narrative has largely remained the same since then.  Despite the critical consensus, Views was a commercial success though, gaming the new Billboard chart rating system to maximize Spotify streaming counts due to its endless tracklist.

Drake repeated that trick again with his don't-call-it-an-album album More Life, a 22-song "playlist" that chronicles his obsession with the UK rappers, Caribbean music, and not taking naps.  This time around it was considered a success.  The reviews surrounding More Life have been much more positive, with many dubbing it a return to form after Views.  But even the praise was tempered with the idea that this collection of songs, while breezier than its predecessor, was still bloated.  An 80 minute album seems to be something we've just come to expect from Aubrey Graham.

But what if we didn't have to accept that?  Where Views was underrated and I trimmed it down to expose its many high points, I think More Life is slightly overrated, so I've made a condensed version to show the world how much better it could be.  I call it More Life, Less Songs, and here's how it looks:

1. Free Smoke

2. No Long Talk

3. Passionfruit

4. Jorja Interlude

5. Get It Together

6. Madiba Riddim

7. Blem

8. Gyalchester

9. Skepta Interlude

10. Portland

11. Sacrifices

12. KMT

13. Lose You

14. Can't Have Everything

15. Ice Melts

16. Do Not Disturb

This streamlined version comes in at 16 tracks, so let's talk about the cuts made to get it down from the original 22: People seem to love Sampha, but I remain skeptical so I'm casting off "4422" to his own album where it belongs.  "Nothings Into Somethings" is so slight it will hardly be missed, so that gets nixed too.  The only thing "Teenage Fever" has going for it is the Jennifer Lopez sample, so just listen to the original song if you want to hear that.  I didn't think Drake and Kanye West could collaborate on anything worse than the non-album version of "Pop Style," but they admirably proved me wrong with the turgid, grating "Glow."  "Since Way Back" is six minutes long...I don't think I need to explain why it has to go.  And last to be dropped is "Fake Love," which is good but we've all heard it a million times, and there's no need to hear it again, especially near the end of a long album.  With all those exclusions, the album length has been reduced from an interminable 81 minutes to a tighter 59.

One extra thing I did last year with Views: The Antonio Whitehead Cut was switch up the sequencing to change the order of a few songs.  I wasn't able to do the same on More Life, Less Songs because its tracks tend to connect and bleed into one another.  That's a shame too, because I do think there's some opportunity to switch things up, seeing as the first half is heavily weighted towards the R&B leaning songs while the back half is more rap-centric, and it would be nice to integrate things more.  Overall, though, the sequencing is less of an issue here than it was with Views.  I like to think that Drake read my post last year and realized I was right about starting that album with "Weston Road Flows," because he starts off More Life with the straight rap assault of "Free Smoke."

So that's More Life, Less Songs.  It still has both Giggs verses, so it's not a perfect album, but it goes down much easier than the original incarnation.  Feel free to see for yourselves, as I've added a Spotify version of my playlist below.  And Drake: if you're reading this, it's not too late to re-release the album with just these songs.

The Magicians: TV's most improved show

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which just celebrated the 20 year anniversary of its series premiere a few weeks ago, is one of my favorite shows of all time.  It's a show that I don't make comparisons to lightly, but it doesn't seem like everyone else is on the same page in that regard.  Any show that's supernatural or fantastical, has a relatively large ensemble, and quippy dialogue -- even if it just has one of those elements -- gets slapped with the "Buffy-esque" tag.  Because I know how much evoking Buffy means to me, I treat it as a sacred cow, so as to not have anyone who go into a show expecting it to give them the same feelings that Buffy did, only to be disappointed when it doesn't live up to those claims.  So it is with great consideration that I make the claim that The Magicians, which is currently nearing the end of its second season on Syfy, is one of the closest shows to capturing Buffy's spirit since it ended in 2003.

The show has overcome the adaptation issues that plagued season one
The Magicians is based on Lev Grossman's bestselling trilogy of novels that were released between 2009 and 2014.  Equal parts Narnia and Harry Potter, the series told the tale of Quentin Coldwater, a high school graduate who gets inducted into a secret and prestigious magic school named Brakebills to learn to become a magician.  Along the way, he and the cast of characters he meets at Brakebills learn that magic is both more difficult and depressing than fantasy stories make it seem, as they're opened up to a whole manner of hardships.  It's a quintessential look at what would happen if kids series tropes were deconstructed through a harsh, adult lens.

Though it's a more grounded version of classic fantasy novels, The Magicians trilogy still has its fair share of the supernatural, so a TV adaptation was always going to make some concessions for budgetary reasons.  The issue with season one of the show, however, was that many of the adaptation choices were simple story and character decisions, very few of which were for the better.  Aging up the protagonists from college to post-graduate age felt arbitrary and completely at odds with many of the coming-of-age themes that were integral to the book series.  And while some of the plot reworking made sense -- taking a character's story from the second book and making it run in parallel with the rest of the throughlines of season one was wise and necessary for contract reasons -- others made the season feel rather disjointed and rushed.

Part of the reason why season two has been so wonderful is that it has been smarter about the way it adapts Grossman's novels.  At this point, it's pretty much past following the storyline of the books, crafting its own narrative that works but still feels in the spirit of the source material.  And yet it also manages to lightly hop back to little details of the books in refreshing and thoughtful ways.  Creators John McNamara and Sera Gamble have proven themselves to be smart adapters, and this season I've found myself consistently surprised by how they're able to weave elements from the source material into the deviated path they've gone on with the story.

It understands what made Buffy great -- the characters
Even in the lesser moments of season one, the show was buoyed by the strength of its ensemble, but that sense of its characters has gotten even stronger in the second season.  Like Buffy, though it has a serialized narrative, The Magicians is basically a hangout show, and an excellent one at that.  Every member of the ensemble is a fleshed-out character with a distinct function in the group, and so much of the joy of each episode is derived from watching them bounce off of each other.

Here's an experiment for you: Think of a TV show, and imagine any two characters on the show being paired off for a storyline.  If every combination is an idea that makes you excited, that's the sign of a great series that has put tremendous thought into sketching out its characters and their dynamics.  Buffy was one of the shining examples of that concept, and The Magicians passes the test as well. The show knows it too, as this season has had more instances of shaking up its usual subgroups and letting unexpected matches play out for a few scenes.  It has even added to the fun by boosting its cast of supporting characters to interact with the core members of the ensemble, which was already at an enjoyably high amount of seven.

What's great is that there's also an understanding that tension within the group is important to the strength of the show.  Though there are external conflicts driving the season, most of the compelling material of the season comes from internecine drama within the gang, where it feels like they're likely to rip each other apart at any moment.  There is so much history and animosity between various characters -- Alice and Quentin, Penny and Kady, Quentin and Penny, almost everybody and Julia -- and this season has had many of those plates spinning at the same time, to great effect.  That's why the best episode of the season so far was the seventh episode, "Plan B," where everybody was forced to come together to plan out a bank heist that would benefit each one of them in different ways.  Not only was it a fun little episodic caper, but it cashed in on the intricate web of infighting that had been weaved over the course of the season.

There's a deft balance of comedy and tragedy
One of the other things that made Buffy so wonderful was its mixture of playfulness and truly devastating emotional content, and The Magicians has followed suit.  It's one of the most fun to watch shows on TV this year, full of quippy banter and oddball fantastical touches.  But it can quickly turn on a dime, forcing characters to make tough decisions in high stakes scenarios that have lasting consequences.  The proportion of laughs and drama never feels improperly weighed in one direction either.  Sometimes it can blend both in at the same time -- villains, gods, and powerful beings have a sense of silliness while still seeming formidable.  It's that difficult balancing act that makes the show so exciting to watch week to week.

In this current age of television, there's so much to watch on a weekly basis that my watchlist tends to pile up quickly.  Much can be gleaned from how I choose to prioritize shows.  And here's what I'll say about The Magicians: it's always the first show I want to watch whenever I have the time.  If the unassailable "how quickly do I want to watch it?" test doesn't convince you of this show's merits, I don't know what will.

I hate that I hate Legion

This blog is generally built on positivity.  When I first started it, I would occasionally write a negative piece, but I've gradually moved away from them, to the point that the only time I will write about a show I don't like is in the Pilot Talk series where I review the first episode of new shows.  For me, it's much easier to write from a place of enthusiasm than from one of hatred.  If you asked me to explain why I like a piece of art, I'd easily be able to rattle off multiple points to back up my argument.  My reasons for disliking something are a little tougher to nail down.  It's more of an ineffable feeling with dislike, in my opinion.  And ultimately it boils down to the fact that it takes me so much time to write that I'd rather devote my energy to the many things I actually enjoy.

Which brings us to Legion.  Everybody seems to love FX's new Noah Hawley drama about a lesser known corner of the X-Men universe.  The praise has been off the charts and it's only getting more effusive. I was fully ready to embrace this show -- I love FX, I love X-Men, I love shows that aren't afraid to be different.  I should love Legion.

But here's thing...I just don't.

In general, I'm not a huge fan of Noah Hawley's style.  I liked season one of Fargo and liked season two less but still well enough, but my goodwill towards both were despite Hawley's idiosyncrasies, not because of them.  Part of the reason why I liked the second season less than the first was because it felt like the show was marked with an increased of being pleased with itself.  Again, this is something that's hard to quantify, but there was a smugness to season two of Fargo that left a bad taste in my mouth.  Not to mention the fact that it was met with "this is movie-level quality" and "this is by far the best show on television" hosannas.  Because Fargo was such a critical success, and because FX practices placing alot of trust in its creators, it seems like Hawley was given carte blanche with Legion.  That's the only way to explain the way his tics have been amplified thousandfold here.  The quirky and wry tone, the winking references (there's a character who's literally named "Syd Barrett"...ha ha?), the haphazard structure to the story -- it all melds together for an experience that makes me want to rip my hair out in annoyance.  And what's worse is that I'm almost completely on an island with this opinion.

For its entire run so far, Legion has proven that it's all style and no substance.  I don't necessarily mind a show that favors style over substance.  I love style!  But what is irksome about Legion is that it has the false pretense of containing substance.  The show purports to be a deeply psychological show, arguing that its obnoxious exploratory memory sequences are just a lens through which it examines mental illness and trauma.  All it really does, however, is use mental illness as a shorthand for depth.  What is the show really saying about these issues?  Not much, once you dig past its wacky flourishes.

Maybe I'm just being a hypocrite.  After all, I'm usually a big fan of these go-for-broke seasons where it seems like the creator is just doing whatever they want with no care for how it's received: the final season of The Sopranos, season five of Mad Men, season two of Girls.  The closest relative to this season of Legion is Mr. Robot's divisive second season, which I loved.  But for all its stylistic ostentatiousness, season two of Mr. Robot was deeply character-centric.  Perhaps main character Elliot got less examination than one would expect, but the season really dug into supporting characters like Dom, Angela, and Darlene.  Its machinations gave the audience a much deeper understanding of what makes them tick, increasing our ability to be invested in their stories.  There are two more episodes left of Legion this year and I don't feel like we've been given much reason to care about David or his flat "romance" with Syd.  All of the characters on the show are dull ornaments lost in the brush of its trippy larks, which makes it hard to care about anything that happens in the story.

There's nothing about the show's gonzo, psychedelic style that feels honest either.  The fourth episode garnered advanced praise for how out there is was, with critic Alan Sepinwall tweeting that it was the weirdest episode of TV he had seen since Twin Peaks aired in the early 90s.  So I approached the episode with optimism, hoping it would be the one that finally turned me around on the show.  Instead, I came away disliking it more than ever and was completely vexed by the David Lynch comparison.  When I watch Lynch's work its strangeness seems genuine, like the product of someone who is truly a weirdo.  In contrast, Legion's oddball sensibility feels artificial, like Noah Hawley is constantly bludgeoning us over the head with how much of an auteur he is.

So everybody's favorite show on television right now is currently my least favorite show I'm watching, by a very large margin.  I take no joy in hating it though.  I truly do want to like it!  There's a fun genre show in there under all of the masturbatory flights of fancy.  The worst part of it all is that this is a show so unconventional and outre that disliking it leaves you vulnerable to being accused of "not getting it."  I can assure you that I get Legion.  I just don't get why everyone else is putting up with it.

A few thoughts on The Edge of Seventeen's fascinating protagonist

Reviews for The Edge of Seventeen have been overwhelmingly positive, with critics citing it as a classic teen movie, the first in a long time.  That's true, the film is fantastic and sure to be very high on my best-of list at the end of the year.  It's funny and heartbreaking, with a generous script that allows all of its characters to be fully formed and go through their own little arcs.  But at the center of it all is Nadine (played by Hailee Steinfeld), a perennial outsider still coping with the death of her father four years ago, who finds herself angry and alone when she breaks up with her best and only friend Krista after she starts dating Nadine's brother.  There's something that really stuck with me about Nadine's character and her journey, so I wanted to write some semi-scattered thoughts about her.

Nadine has many hateable qualities -- she's rude, impulsive, selfish, inconsiderate...the list goes on -- but I found myself loving how hateable the film was willing to make her.  There are a few questions I asked myself when trying to figure out if Nadine was a good protagonist: 1. Would this movie be better if she was more likable?  2. Is the film aware that she is unlikable?  Really, both are tied together, as it feels like the answer to the second answers the first as well.  The film is very aware of her unlikability.  It's very pointed and deliberate that every character in it tells Nadine that she's kind of a trash person at one point or another.  She's never treated like the hero, the way that alot of stories about teen outsiders would.  And I think that's why it's essential for her to be unlikable, because the entire story is about examining that unlikability.

I've seen some of the more negative reviews of The Edge of Seventeen that have made fun of the scene where Nadine goes on a rant to her teacher (an amusingly cantankerous Woody Harrelson) about how much she isn't like the other girls at school, how she likes old music and movies.  But all of that trite special snowflake garbage isn't an endorsement of Nadine, it's the film pointing out a clear defense mechanism of hers.  She presents herself as different from her peers as an excuse to not have to make any real connections.  (It also creates some hilarious irony, because as much as she tries to argue for her uniqueness and inner coolness, she still has a crush on the lamest, most cliche mysterious boy ever.)

A couple of weeks ago, I had a discussion with a friend of mine who didn't like the film as much as I did.  She's a little bit younger than I am, so Nadine is more of a peer to her, and one of my friend's big issues with the film is that there are many moments where Nadine acts in ways that no teenage girl ever would.  So she felt like it was frustrating that this film that was touted as "THE movie for this generation" would get so many details of what it's like to be a teen girl wrong.  I thought she brought up some very astute points and I'm certainly not an authority on this matter, so I can't really speak to Nadine's realism as a teenage girl, but I found her intensely relateable at times.

More than anything, Nadine seems like a deeply angry person, and something about that anger resonated with me.  I'm not as mean as she is, but that feeling of always being so angry all the time hit so close to home.  Writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig, with the help of a terrific performance Hailee Steinfeld, does such a wonderful job of sketching out the way she masks feelings of pain and insecurity with anger and careless comments.  It's a delicate and difficult thing to do, but you could always recognize the thousands of complicated emotions nested under her mean surface.  In a weird way, even when Nadine's actions aren't understandable, that lack of being understandable feels understandable.

And though it's never quite explicitly stated in such terms, it seems that Nadine is suffering from anger and depression issues that go beyond simple adolescent angst or even grief from the death of her father.  I think it's telling and crucial that four years have already passed after her dad's death when the film starts.  Not to say that four years is enough to completely get over something like a parent's death, but that detail -- plus the flashbacks showing that she's always been sullen, standoffish, and angry -- indicates that her problems existed regardless of the tragedy in her life.  Her father's death merely exacerbated them.  Another key moment is when we see her taking a pill and we learn a few scenes later that it was an anti-depressant when she explains it to Erwin, the nerdy guy who has a crush on her.  She explains that they were given to her because of her dad's death, and then she remarks "usually people only take it for like a month..."  It's an exaggeration to try to downplay the fact that she's on medication, but she also brings up a good point.  If this medication was solely given to her to cope with the aftermath of her father's death, would she still be taking it four years later?

There are even tiny little aspects of her character that point to deeper issues, like the fact that she offhandedly jokes about suicide three different times in the film.  Sure, adolescence is typically characterized with melodrama but the frequent suicide references, even in a casual manner, is something that felt very recognizable as a fellow depressive type.  The big emotional moment comes near the end of the film when Nadine reconciles with her brother revealing the intense self-loathing that she's been holding in.  "Sometimes I feel like I'm floating outside of myself...and I hate what I see."  It's a devastating scene, one that really seems to cross off the last slot on the mental illness bingo card.

Whether my possible crackpot theory is off or not, what I'm saying is that it's interesting and daring that the film makes Nadine so messed up and doesn't run away from it.  That's why if I do have one gripe with the film, it's that the ending feels a little too pat.  I would have much preferred if it concluded in a way that mirrored Erwin's short film, with her finally coming to her senses and him rejecting her because she's too late.  Or would that have felt too on the nose?  Maybe, but it would have done a better job of cutting down the simplistic "Nadine came to terms with her issues and now she's nice and thoughtful and happy" impression of the ending we get.  Still, that's one little blemish on an otherwise sublime film.  I don't know if it's the essential movie of this generation, but it did feel like a movie specifically for me.

Thoughts at the halfway point of Mr. Robot's divisive second season

There's a growing trend in this current age of TV, marked by a buildup/teardown cycle that occurs with high-buzz shows, but it has been especially pronounced this year.  The 100 slowly began to gain momentum with some critics of note (and a few critics who aren't of note, including myself) over its first two seasons, only for it to have an uneven and controversial third season earlier this year.  Then there is Lifetime's behind-the-scenes drama Unreal, which recently concluded an absolutely disastrous sophomore season, just after it lit the world on fire with its smart, exciting, Peabody award-winning first season.  It's almost as these shows realize their newfound position in the spotlight, and choke under the pressure.

We're seeing a little bit of that on a smaller scale with Mr. Robot too.  Its first season came out of nowhere, on a network known for breezy, "blue skies" programming and from a creator who previously had no experience writing television.  Straight from the pilot the show established itself as a visually stunning, narratively trippy oddity and only became more so as it went on. But up until a week or two ago, the critical consensus surrounding its hotly anticipated second season is that it has been a step down from the first, with many asking themselves "where is this all going?" by the end of each episode.

This happens all the time when a show gets the "You have to watch __________" treatment, for a number of reasons.  The first is that alot of people caught up on Mr. Robot after hearing all of the fawning praise about it, so it's likely that they binged the first season in a very short amount of time.  Now that they've had to adjust to weekly viewing, it makes the show seems slower and more adrift than before.  For a similar example, look at certain internet comment sections for episodes in the beginning of season four of Breaking Bad, where people complained about the show being more listless than usual.  Breaking Bad was always a deliberate show, it just seemed more so after so many people binged the first three seasons based on the building buzz.

The second reason is a matter of expectations.  When a show first arrives there's no baggage attached to it, nor is there the overwhelming notion that it will be good.  (Expectations usually only come from shows with a big name attached behind the scenes, like Vinyl.)  People underestimate the role surprise can play when it comes to loving a show.  Once that series has already established itself and built up goodwill, that surprise is taken away.  It's hard not to feel like there's alot of that going on with the second season of Mr. Robot and people chalking it up as more of a disappointment than it actually is.  That's not to say that some shows aren't deserving of the harsher criticism that comes with the loss of surprise, because like I said, season two of Unreal was an unmitigated disaster.  But it does feel like the "oh, it's bad now" hand-wringing that comes with these shows that have a meteoric rise is a little overstated sometimes.

All of this is a very long and complicated way of saying that I don't agree with the complaints about season two of Mr. Robot.  In fact, I think that it is several orders of magnitude better than it was in its first season.  Granted, it helps that I was never as sold on the show as others were at the height of its hype hurricane last year.  Where season one landed the show on many critics' top 10 lists, it failed to even make my top 20.  (It was number 41.  There's alot of good TV out there!)  This was a show I liked, and I consider the first season's big twist to be one of the finest rug pulls I have ever seen.  Yet I remained unconvinced that it was ever going to be a series that I could come to love.  It was just too chilly and detached, too indebted to its influences.

The first season of Mr. Robot felt like a textbook example of style over substance.  A large portion of that style was clearly cribbed from Fight Club, a film I don't enjoy very much, which certainly didn't help matters.  But it wasn't just the Fight Club nature of it all, it was that the show seemed to push all of its visual and narrative tools to the limit, with every shot featuring a character in the corner of the screen dwarfed by the background space, and its invitations to the question of what is real or not.  After a while, it was numbing and a little boring.

This year, it feels much more like the style enhances its substance.  Much has been made about creator Sam Esmail's decision to direct every episode of the season, and even though critics showed concern about him burning himself out, it really does seem to have made a positive impact on the show's aesthetic.  There's a clarity of vision that just didn't come through when he had to resort to delegating.  Visually and tonally, season two has been bolder and more breathtaking than ever before.  Esmail has broadened the palette he's working with, relying less on Fincher-isms and adding Kubrick to his arsenal, with so many frames having that wide-open and meticulous construction the latter was known for.  But it goes deeper than just visual cues.  A more electric creative energy runs through every aspect of this season, from the creation of a fake art film to explain the origin of the FSociety mask, to a title card cut that felt like something straight out of a horror movie, to a 20-minute segment done in the style of a 90s sitcom.

Another one of my gripes with season one was that I didn't feel anything for the characters.  That was just a byproduct of the show's general chilliness, but I'm the kind of person who needs to be engaged with a show's characters in order to truly love it.  Twists and turns only go so far if it's not rooted in meaningful character progression.

Maybe Esmail realized this too, as he's made a concerted effort this year to really dig into what makes these people tick.  Where season one was a plot-driven techno thriller, this season is more of an ensemble drama.  It has done so by bringing supporting characters like Darlene and Angela to the fore.  The latter is an especially wise choice given that Angela has always been one of the more fascinating characters, and this increased focus has only solidified that.  Some people find her storylines tedious, but to me she's the key to understanding the show.  In a way, all of these characters are people with a need to be recognized, and her specific desire for validation -- through the mantras that she whispers to herself when she's all alone and her quest as a warm-blooded person attempting to adapt to this cold-blooded world -- is the most overt expression of that.

There's also the addition of a completely new character in the form of Dominique Dipierro (played by Grace Gummer), the FBI agent tasked with bringing down FSociety.  On paper, she's just an assemblage of tough cop cliches -- intense devotion to her job, doesn't get along with her peers, almost inhuman detective skills -- but Gummer is giving a career-best performance in the role.  And Dom is given life beyond a stock type in the moments where we see her outside of her job, riddled with anxiety and an inability to sleep at night.  She's an extension of one of the main themes of Mr. Robot, especially this season: above all else, this is the story of lonely spirits shuffling through a crowded, hyper-connected world.

At this point Elliot, the show's ostensible protagonist, is the least interesting character.  This would be a problem if the show still had the same structure it did last year, but its transition into being a rich ensemble piece helps matters.  And despite being out at sea narratively, he still ties into the arc of the season thematically.  A few episodes back, Dom has a conversation with Minister Zhang, who we know to be Whiterose (B.D. Wong), where she explains why her FBI job appeals to her.  That explanation contains one of the most important lines of the season, as she says "I'm disgusted by the selfish depravity of the world, but at the same time, I'm utterly fascinated by it."  But it could have easily been a line that came out of Elliot's mouth.  Or any of the central characters, really.  That's one of the most interesting ideas holding this season together, the notion that all of these players are driven by similar impulses, and yet they act on those impulses in divergent ways.

So I've loved this season of Mr. Robot so far and have found so many fascinating things to pluck out of it, but judging from this week's episode, I'm not so sure the show is interested in the same things about itself that I am.  At the end of "h4ndshake.sme," the popular fan theory that Elliot has been in jail all season was proven to be true, and I'm still working through how I feel about it.  Esmail seems like a smart guy who trusts the savviness of his audience, so it's possible that this development wasn't meant to be a revelation for us.  After all, he's stated that Mr. Robot (as played by Christian Slater) not actually being a person was not supposed to be a surprise in season one, and this is the closest analogue to that.  But what made the Mr. Robot reveal in season one not feel disappointing is because it was used as a smokescreen to hide the twist that Elliot and Darlene are brother and sister.  If this season is not building to some other bombshell, then I'm not sure what the point of spending seven episodes moving towards something that ultimately doesn't affect the way most viewers take in the show is.

It just seems like a miscalculation no matter the angle you approach it from.  If it was meant to be a bigger twist than it is, then I don't know why Esmail thought he could get away with it after he primed the audience to look for things like that in the first season.  If it's not meant to be twist, then his desire to return to the well of Elliot having distorted perceptions of reality is troubling.  Not only does it lead to some of the show's more self-satisfied stylistic detours, but it's also getting a bit repetitive already.  (And again, did it really need to take seven episodes to get to this point?)

Still, I'm feeling very high on this season, despite my trepidation about the most recent episode.  I never thought I'd be in a position of loving it so much, and ironically, right around the time that everyone else started to slightly turn on it.  That's fine, I don't mind being on the minority (and possibly wrong side) of the internet consensus.  My only worry is that Sam Esmail will take in too many of the criticisms of season two and muffle his creative vision.  For better or worse, his is a style that deserves to operate unfettered.

I like Roadies ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I started this blog in March of 2013, and in the almost three and a half years since I've been an amateur critic, I've felt pretty secure about my opinions.  There have been times where I've liked something more than most of the Internet (like Degrassi) and times where I've liked something much less (something like Bojack Horseman comes to mind), and on every occasion I've felt confident about those takes.  And yet for the past four weeks I've watched Roadies, Showtime's new music dramedy from filmmaker Cameron Crowe, and after every episode I've thought to myself, "Do I have bad taste"?  Reviews haven't been kind to the show, which follows the touring crew of a successful arena-level quartet named The Staton-House Band.  Even I can acknowledge that many moments in the first four episodes have been quite poor.  Despite all of that, I absolutely love watching Roadies.

It's not like I'm even a Cameron Crowe apologist either.  I was young enough when I watched Jerry Maguire that the only bits of it that I remember now are the parts that have become entries in our cultural lexicon.   (You know, "Show me the money!," "You had me at hello," Jonathan Lipnicki's head.)  It wasn't until just recently that I finally got around to watching Almost Famous, which most people consider his peak, but I merely thought was solid.  And the only other one of his films I've seen is that treacly mess, We Bought a Zoo.  If there's anyone I'm rooting for it's Winnie Holzman, one of the other executive producers of the Roadies.  She created the greatest teen show of all time in My So-Called Life, and her involvement in anything automatically makes me excited, especially after the fallow period she's had for the last five or six years.  However, her voice is hardly anywhere to found in this show, despite the fact that she wrote the second episode.

Roadies is full of narrative failings.  Mainly, the issue is that promising setups get marred by shaky execution.  In the pilot episode we're introduced to Reg (Rafe Spall), a financial consultant hired to manage the tour's budget and prevent the band from hemorrhaging funds.  Somewhere in his storyline is an interesting examination of what happens when the corporate bottom line gets in the way of artistic freedom, but that conflict wilts under the weight of platitudinous dialogue about "the power of music" and "true art."  Then there's the story of Kelly Ann (Imogen Poots), who works the set rigging and leaves the tour in order to go to film school, only to rejoin minutes after saying farewell.  It sets up a compelling dynamic, where the rest of the crew feels abandoned by her despite her very brief departure, and she has to work to win everyone back.  The show chooses to explore this story avenue by saddling her with horrible comedy runners, as we see Kelly Ann's bizarre attempts to rebuild her relationships with everyone.  Not even someone as winsome as Imogen Poots can save them.

It's indicative of a larger issue plaguing Roadies, which is that it doesn't understand what the proper ratio of comedy and drama should be.  Right now, it's pitched as a comedy with a few dramatic moments, but here's the thing -- the comedy often stinks.  Every episode incorporates at least one broad bit or character that just tanks the whole vibe of the show.  The first episode introduces a lunatic stalker character who is obsessed with the band, and the tone of her scenes imply that we're supposed to find her hijinks and the efforts the crew make to contain her entertaining, but they fall completely flat.  Later, in the third episode, we meet a ridiculous music blogger character (played by Rainn Wilson, doing some of his most irritating work) who holds more sway than any critic has ever had.  When those two characters' paths intersected in that episode, it made for some of the most ill-advised television of the year.

What a shame that the show is so determined to generate laughs, because there's alot of melancholy at its core, and I wish it would explore that more.  At its best, Roadies gracefully depicts how sad and lonely life on the road can be.  These characters are always moving around with no place to call home.  The relationships they form in certain cities cannot sustain themselves.  They're constantly cycling from large, sterile arenas to cramped, dehumanizing tour buses.  And all of this work is for a band that probably doesn't know all of their names, and fans who definitely don't.  The show doesn't necessarily need to become a bleak drama, but leaning into its dramatic elements would add layers that could help sell everything it has to offer.

Despite my love of the sadness at the center of the show, I do think when its frothiness works, it works really well.  Ultimately, that's what makes Roadies so enjoyable and easy to watch -- even its melancholy is light and low-stakes.  Cameron Crowe's golden-hued earnestness can be a little silly, but it goes down easily, which makes for an extremely relaxing viewing experience.  Roadies doesn't ask much from its audience, save the ability to stomach a bunch of indulgent musician cameos.  Maybe it's the minimal risk that makes the show's flaws simple to shrug off and its high points so charming.

No episode better embodies the push and pull between that capacity for greatness and pure trash than Sunday's installment, "The City Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken."  In it, the crew finds their rare day off thwarted when Reg breaks a sacred rule by uttering the word "Cincinnati" on the tour bus, forcing everyone to go through the bizarre, difficult process of breaking the curse inflicted on them.  The break from the usual concert prepping structure allows for the show to play around in its sweet spot, making ample time for the characters to just hang out and bounce off of each other.  What makes these people fascinating is learning all of the rituals and superstitions and shared history they have.  At a certain point though, the follow-through on everyone trying to break this curse becomes over-the-top and insufferable.  And between all of those lovely hangout moments comes annoying antics that threaten to ruin the goodwill built up a minute earlier.

This is the kind of episode that has that great scene in the beginning with the ladies of the crew using what little time they have to maintain their hygiene between cities.  Then it has scenes where it continues to try and push romance onto Kelly Ann and Reg, an awkward road best not traveled down.  There's a beautiful shared moment that the crew has while My Morning Jacket's Jim James -- oh yeah, he's in this episode for some reason -- performs a song by The Who.  But then there's also a moment where it checks in on former crewmember Phil, who is literally in outer space.  I wish I was kidding.

So Roadies isn't actually good, but it has the tools in place to get there.  The cast is appealing, the vibe is nice, and the show really does seem to be trying.  I can see this becoming a mix between Party Down (finding unique stories to tell within each week's venue) and Slings & Arrows (a behind the scenes series about performers and those who make those performances happen).  But even if it never does reach those heights, that wouldn't be so bad, because it's already one of the shows I most look forward to every week.  Let's hope it does get better though, so I could at least feel less bad about loving it so much.

How to fix Drake's "Views"

We're witnessing a change in discourse regarding music that's both a gift and a curse.  Spurred on by the rise of surprise releases and the ubiquity of social media giving us an all-access pass to the thoughts of critics and fans alike, the gestation period for albums is becoming shorter and shorter.  In a way, that's exciting.  Even as a mild Radiohead fan, I couldn't help but get swept up in the fervor a few weeks ago when they dropped a new album on a Sunday afternoon with very little lead-up.  That collective listening experience is intoxicating.

But it also leads to everyone feeling the need to be the fastest one to deliver the hottest take.  Can we really determine if Beyonce's Lemonade is a masterpiece on the first night of listening to it?  Likewise, was The Life of Pablo really the mess everyone instantly declared it to be after Kanye West finally let us listen to it?

This year's biggest victim of this phenomenon is Views, Drake's expansive sad-rap rumination on fame, loneliness, and the city he calls home.  Once it dropped, the early opinion deemed it a bloated, monochromatic letdown.  Official reviews ran with that idea too.  Pitchfork, one of Drake's biggest acolytes, gave the album a 6.8.  Stereogum, The AV Club, Hip Hop DX, and various other sites were similarly lukewarm.  Advance copies weren't given out for this album, and if you look at the dates that these reviews were posted -- some of them on the same day it was released -- it's clear that reviewers didn't give Views much time to marinate.  I can't help but wonder if the general consensus on the record would be a little different if there wasn't such a rush for everyone to get their official opinion on it out into the world.  After all, the album has a 68 on Metacritic, a score far more mediocre albums regularly eclipse.

I, too, was in the negative camp when I first heard the album.  I've always had issues with Drake's music, and Views initially felt like all of his worst impulses compounded into an LP that heavily emphasizes the L.  After a few listens, it started to grow on me considerably, to the point where I've become somewhat of a champion for this deeply underrated album.  Views has some gems to offer up.  The problem is that it asks the listener to sift through a little bit of rubble to locate the shiny bits.  So I've proposed a solution, what I like to call Views: The Antonio Whitehead Cut.  It looks a little something like this:

1. Weston Road Flows

2. 9

3. U With Me?

4. Feel No Ways

5. Hype

6. Controlla

7. Redemption

8. With You

9. Still Here

10. One Dance

11. Child's Play

12. Too Good

13. Views

The biggest sin Views commits is that it's way too long, clocking in at 81 minutes but feeling more like 100.  So the initial step is to start chopping off songs.  First to go is "Keep the Family Close," which actually is a good opener in concept, but in execution it's mostly just a slog.  Nix "Faithful" because it's boring and not very memorable.  "Grammys" sounds like an outtake from What a Time to Be Alive, a mixtape that already feels like a collection of outtakes.  Every incarnation of "Pop Style" stinks, so that can go too.  "Fire & Desire" feels twice as long as it is, and the fact that it's near the end of the album doesn't help matters either.  Once that song gets cut, there's no real reason to keep "Summers Over Interlude" either.  Trim all of that fat and you've got a lean 53 minutes of music, almost the perfect length for a rap album.

Then there are finishing touches to put on the sequencing.  Without "Keep the Family Close," the album is lacking a fitting opening song.  The terrific "9" has 40 and Boi-1da combining their powers to create a beautiful, chattering beat but it doesn't exactly set the stage for the album.  That's why I propose putting "Weston Road Flows" in the leadoff slot.  With no chorus and four minutes of Drake spitting some of the best bars on the album, it's a perfect shot in the arm to start the record with, and it bookends nicely with the straightforward rapping approach of the album-closing title track.  The only other minor problem is that "Controlla," "One Dance," and "Too Good," the trio of dancehall-tinged tunes that are all highlights, are way too clustered together.  Moving "Controlla" closer to the front of the album helps spread that sound out a little bit, and also keeps the three songs in an order of increasing excellence.

Views: The Antonio Whitehead Cut isn't a perfect album.  It can't escape one of the other big issues with the record: Drake's persona, which has grown more oppressive and exhausting with each release.  Reducing the track length also reduces how much of Drake you get, but you're still bound to hear alot of his weird issues with women and his "woe is me" posturing, only seeming half-aware of how much he actually sounds like a jerk in most of the scenarios he describes.  And for what it's worth, this is a mood piece album that's trying to evoke some very specific vibes, so removing the sprawl makes it harder to appreciate what Drake and 40 are aiming for.  Still, this streamlined version of Views goes down much easier.  If it had been released in this incarnation, it would be considered one of the best rap albums of the year.

If you only watch one YouTube channel, make it Just Between Us

I think that I've outgrown YouTube.  Just a few years ago, I was an avid visitor of the site -- I was subscribed to like 50 different channels, all of which I watched regularly.  But between having a job, watching TV/movies, listening to music, and writing blog posts that nobody reads, I just don't have time to watch somebody vlog about a bath bomb.  There are still about five channels whose content I'll watch whenever they upload a new video, but it had been years since I felt truly excited about YouTube.  At the ripe age of 24, I inexplicably felt too old for something.

Who knew that all I needed was Just Between Us, a comedy series from writing partners/best friends Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin, to fill me with life?  Somehow, I had never watched a single video of theirs and had only even vaguely knew about the channel until a few weeks ago when Hank and John Green mentioned that they were filming an episode of the show.  That's what finally made me think "Hmm, I know of Gaby Dunn from around the Internet.  Maybe I should check this channel out."  So I watched one video.  And then I watched a few more.  I just couldn't stop watching them, they were too delightful.  In the span of a couple of weeks, I had watched every single episode.

The format of the show is simple: every week they read a relationship/sex/life question submitted by a viewer and attempt to give that person advice, which is only sometimes helpful but always hilarious.  Each episode is loosely scripted, with alot of room left for improvisation.  Within that structure Gaby and Allison play exaggerated versions of their actual selves -- the former's character is a carefree, aggressive feminist and the latter is a neurotic, Type A personality.  When the show first started in 2014, Allison was the straight man to Gaby's antics, but their characters have since evolved to the point where they're both pretty wacky, Allison maybe even more so than Gaby.  Judging from the comments on their videos, people often have trouble wrapping their heads around the fact that JBU is scripted and the women are playing characters.  In a way that's understandable, because the show is so fun that you almost want it to be how they really are.

Plus, the show is at its best when it allows a little bit of reality to come in.  In past videos, Gaby has discussed her polyamory and bisexuality, even sharing the story of how she came out when she was younger.  Even more refreshing is Allison's openness about her lifelong struggle with OCD and other mental health issues.  There's still a stigma that society has against mental illness and it's really inspiring, heroic even, to see Allison's ability to take it seriously while also spinning comedy out of it.  In a weird way, watching her has helped me understand and be less ashamed of my own battle with mental illness.

You can pick whether Gaby or Allison is your favorite, but doing so would be against the point of the show.  Really, Just Between Us is about a beautiful friendship, about two people who form one wonderful comedy powerhouse.  (It's a testament to Gaby and Allison's chemistry that seemingly half of the audience ships them.  Granted, the internet will ship anything, but there's something about JBU that really taps into that impulse).  Watching it will give you that same feeling of watching something like Broad City, where the warmth is just so infectious.  Honestly, I can't think of anything that makes me as happy as this channel does.  There are episodes that I have watched multiple times, and I never rewatch YouTube videos.

Last year, the duo began releasing sketches on Thursdays to go along with their regular Monday advice videos.  These shorts already started out polished, but they keep getting better and better.  Judging from YouTube views, fans seem to favor the sketches too.  I prefer the more candid feel of the advice videos, but really it's a matter of personal preference, since both formats are great displays of Gaby and Allison's talent as writers and performers.

Which makes it such a bummer that the show apparently isn't very financially successful, as Gaby described in her terrific article about the grim economics of YouTube.  In a fair world, Just Between Us would be making five times more money than whatever it's making right now.  Hopefully their Patreon (which I support them on) will get more patrons over time, because this is the best thing on YouTube.


I've compiled a list of some of my favorite Just Between Us videos as a primer for any newcomers.  All 15 of them are advice videos because I love those so much that I couldn't fit any sketches in.  But try some of those out too; you can't go wrong.  Plus, these videos are only about three minutes long, so watching this whole list will take you the same amount of time as watching an episode of TV.

Episodes to get you started:
1. How Important Is Sex?
2. What If Someone Only Wants You For Your Body?
3. Are You A Gaby Or An Allison? (ft. John and Hank Green)
4. What Is Consent?
5. Allison's #dearme Story
6. Why Is Allison Bad At Dating? (Dating With Mental Illness)
7. What Was Your Worst Breakup?
8. Why Is Gaby Prettier Than Allison?
9. Is Anything Real?
10. Do Labels Matter?
11. Can You Date Your BFFs Crush?
12. Which Ex Do You Hate The Most?
13. What If Your Crush Is Taken?
14. How Do I Accept My Small Boobs?
15. Can You Be With One Person Forever?