BuzzFeed: "Orange Is the New Black Continues The Dickensian Tradition Of The Wire"

The second season of the Netflix prison drama is a gripping, beautiful, majestic thing. Warning: Spoilers for Season 2 ahead!

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Orange Is the New Black Continues The Dickensian Tradition Of The Wire," in which I review Season 2 of Netflix's Orange Is the New Black, which returns June 6 on the streaming platform.

There are the television shows that you love to watch but that drift from powerful and provocative to comforting background noise, and then there are those that arrive with the momentous force of a revolution, issuing a clarion cry that is impossible to resist.

Women’s prison drama Orange Is the New Black, which returns for its second season on June 6, is most definitely the latter, a groundbreaking and deeply layered series that explores crime and punishment, poor circumstance, and bad luck. (At its heart, it is about both the choices we make and those that are made for us.) It constructs a gripping narrative that owes a great deal to the work of Charles Dickens, a social-minded and sprawling story that captures essential truths about those at both ends of the economic continuum. Just as in the Victorian era, within the world of Litchfield Penitentiary, everything is in its place and in its place is everything: Each of the characters is a cog in a larger machine.

The literary tradition of Dickens — so notably captured in HBO’s 2002–2008 crime drama The Wire — is keenly felt within Orange, as the action shifts between disparate characters in each episode, exploring their inner lives and hidden pasts. There is a strong sense of righteous indignation in the face of a broken and corrupt system, the failures of Litchfield a microcosm for the breakdown within the larger society. In the sixth episode of Season 2, Officer Susan Fischer (Lauren Lapkus) — perhaps one of the more genuinely sympathetic of the corrections officers — goes so far as to make the comparison, as she eavesdrops on the inmates’ telephone conversation recordings. “It’s so interesting, all these lives,” she says, her eyes gleaming with unrestrained excitement. “It’s like Dickens.”

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BuzzFeed: "A Girls Lover And Hater Debate The Season 3 Premiere"

The always buzzed about HBO comedy returned tonight and BuzzFeed’s Entertainment Editorial Director Jace Lacob, who’s looked forward to watching every episode of the series, and Deputy Entertainment Editor Jaimie Etkin, who’s begrudgingly watched every episode of the series, discussed the back-to-back episodes. They agreed on one thing. Maybe two.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "A Girls Lover And Hater Debate The Season 3 Premiere," in which Jaimie Etkin and I hotly debate the two-episode third season premiere of HBO's Girls.

SPOILER ALERT if you have not yet seen the Season 3 premiere of Girls!

Jaimie: I am simultaneously excited and nervous about this. My Girls rage is about to become public knowledge. I mean, I don’t have negative feels about Lena Dunham as a human or woman, but her show just makes me really frustrated. HOWEVER, I must say it was eye-opening to see how people talk to her, as exhibited by the TCA debacle last week. Dunham handled Tim Molloy’s awfully approached question about Hannah’s nudity very gracefully and of all the things I find unrealistic about the show, the nudity isn’t an issue for me. Let’s be honest: Pants are the enemy.

Jace: HA. I’m not bothered by the nudity at all within Girls. (Randomly, I’m listening to Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” right now, I should add.) To me, it’s an integral part of the emotional reality of the show; Hannah’s willingness to bare herself is not at odds with her interest in baring her emotions to everyone around her. And the scene in the season opener, where she rolls over to answer Jessa’s call, makes so much more sense that she wouldn’t be dressed; there’s more verisimilitude because of it. Why are people still so bothered by the notion that she’s not dressed, three seasons in?

Jaimie: (Sure. “Randomly.”) Because Hannah doesn’t have the conventional Hollywood body type. And as a twenty-something woman who doesn’t either, I appreciate that. That said, I have to be honest and say, that I think it’s incongruous with her very insecure character to be wearing bikinis (as we see in the trailer), some of those short shorts, mesh tops (::cough::), and the like. That, to me, doesn’t make sense for her character. But in the comfort of her own home, it’s very honest to see her not wearing clothes because, unlike in most shows, even on cable, we see someone get out of bed with their partner and put on clothes to answer the phone or something similar, which is just not realistic.

Jace: It’s the magic of the L-shaped sheet that we see so often in television shows! To me, it’s refreshing that Hannah, for her hang-ups in other areas, is very comfortable with her sexuality and her nudity. We should celebrate that, not denigrate it. But the show itself, to me, is refreshing in the honesty of how it handles the dynamic of female, twentysomething relationships. The Hannah-Marnie dynamic — with its embedded animosity and resentments — is endlessly fascinating to me. As is that between Hannah and Jessa. I loved the scene between them at the end of the second episode: anger mixed with relief.

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BuzzFeed: "Community Season 5 Feels Like An Old Friend Has Finally Come Home"

The long-awaited return of the NBC comedy — now back under the watchful eye of creator Dan Harmon — distances itself from its disappointing fourth season. Gas leak year, people.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest story, "Community Season 5 Feels Like An Old Friend Has Finally Come Home," in which I review the first few episodes of Season 5 of NBC's Community. (YES.)

I’ll admit that I was somewhat wary when three episodes from Season 5 of NBC’s Community surfaced on my desk last week. After all, the fourth season of the Dan Harmon-created gonzo comedy — which was Dan Harmon-less, after all — left a lot to be desired. I choose to look at it as an alt-reality version of a show that I had cherished in its first three seasons: The characters vaguely resembled that Greendale study group with whom I had spent so many virtual hours, yet they didn’t feel quite right. Something was off — the plots felt too contrived, and the show wandered into a broadness of comedy that it had previously adamantly avoided.

Given that, there is quite a lot riding on the Jan. 2 premiere of Community, which sees the return of Harmon as the showrunner of the comedy he created. Fortunately, the three episodes provided to press — Episodes 1, 2, and 4 — go a long way to reassure fans that the show is once more back in the hands of its true caretakers. (Warning: minor spoilers ahead.)

The fifth season premiere (“Repilot”), written by Harmon and the also returning co-executive producer Chris McKenna, attempts to reestablish Community’s identity after the flawed efforts of Season 4, much of which are explained away as a “gas leak year.” In fact, the episode — which both comments on the efforts of Scrubs to “repilot” itself in Season 9 and utilizes a similar formatting — distances itself entirely from Season 4, intellectually and creatively. As such, the episode has a lot to accomplish in a relatively brief running time, which might be why “Repilot” feels a little overeager and fraught: It needs to not only bring the study group back to Greendale and back together, but it also has to engineer a reason as to why they decide to stay. Bridges, both literal and metaphorical, are broken and mended.

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BuzzFeed: "Why Danish Political Drama Borgen Is Everything"

The Scandinavian drama, from creator Adam Price, is a dazzling exploration of the intersection between politics and the media that everyone should be watching. The television masterpiece returns to American screens — on KCET and LinkTV — on Oct. 4 for its third (and likely final) season. Minor spoilers ahead.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Why Danish Political Drama Borgen Is Everything," in which I review the third (and likely final) season of Danish political drama Borgen, which returns to the U.S. on October 4. (After writing about the Nordic Noir phenomenon last June, I named the show the best show of 2012 when I was at The Daily Beast and I stand by that metric. This is unlike anything on television.)

I’ve been passionately shouting at the top of my lungs about Danish political drama Borgen for the last year and a half. The groundbreaking and riveting show — which returns for a third season next month in the U.S. on LinkTV (and in Los Angeles on former PBS station KCET) and online — feels as if the best parts of The West Wing and The Newsroom were put in a blender and puréed… before being transformed into a gorgeously stylized haute cuisine dish. It is a staggering work of sophisticated beauty and dazzling intelligence.

Created by Adam Price, the superlative Borgen is often grouped together with its Nordic Noir kin — Forbrydelsen, which went on to be remade by AMC into The Killing, and Broen, which was adapted by FX as The Bridge — but the show doesn’t fit into the dark, dreary, and often depressing Nordic Noir category. For one thing, Borgen represents a rare streak of optimism and hope that isn’t typically seen in Scandinavian drama, which tends to revel in its almost all-consuming nihilism and darkness.

Borgen (which is often translated as “Government,” but actually means “The Castle,” a nickname for Christiansborg Palace, the seat of Parliament, the office of the prime minister, and the Danish supreme court) is gut-wrenching in its own way. The first two seasons of the show followed the ebb and flow of Denmark’s fictional first female prime minister, Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen). She’s an unlikely leader: a political moderate who ended up elected to the highest office of the country thanks to a quirk of Danish coalition government, and who struggled to balance her professional and personal lives. Her journey — attempting to improve Denmark while fighting off opposition from the left and right — was juxtaposed against that of gifted journalist Katrine Fønsmark (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen), a television news anchor with whom Birgitte occasionally crossed paths. One hallmark of Nordic television is its use of realistically rendered female characters and Birgitte and Katrine are no exception: Ambitious, flawed, and driven, they are spiritual kinsmen even while their work often puts them at cross-purposes. Ricocheting between print, online, and television media, Katrine attempted to find equilibrium in her own life, even as Birgitte’s fell apart in the wake of her national responsibilities: As Birgitte’s marriage imploded, her children’s lives became speculation for the tabloid press, embodied by the insidious presence of Michael Laugesen (Peter Mygind), the editor-in-chief of tawdry rag Expres and its online companion site.

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BuzzFeed: "Why Season 5 Of Parenthood Is The Perfect Jumping On Point"

The season opener of NBC’s 300-hanky drama is everything you want it to be: joyful, uplifting, and emotional. But, for those of you who have missed out on television’s most underrated show, this episode offers the perfect opportunity to get hooked. Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Why Season 5 Of Parenthood Is The Perfect Jumping On Point," in which I review the fifth season opener of NBC's Parenthood, which will satisfy longtime fans of this remarkable show while also providing the perfect access point for new viewers.

It’s no surprise that the fifth season opener of Parenthood — which airs Thursday, September 26 on NBC — generates some tears. Parenthood, overseen by Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights) and revolving around the sprawling Braverman clan of Berkeley, California, is now virtually synonymous with emotional catharsis, after all.

As I stand on the precipice of my own impending parenthood, it’s the show that compels me to confront my own feelings on a weekly basis, realistically and perfectly capturing the highs and lows of American familial life, rendering each moment, whether it be the heartbreak of first love or the familiarity of old lovers, as something tenuous and all-too-brief.

In fact, if you haven’t been watching Parenthood, however, you’ve missed out on some of the very best writing and acting on television today, a true ensemble of adults and children who imbue their characters with such nuance that it’s often difficult to remember that the Bravermans aren’t real people with real lives. In an era of Scandal, Game of Thrones, and Homeland — collectively, Big Twist Television — the subtlety of this emotionally resonant drama is too often overlooked in favor of more overtly dramatic fare. Which is a mistake: Parenthood might be subtle but it’s also brutal, packing an emotional wallop in each installment that has millions of people reaching for the Kleenex, whether it’s a beautifully wrought moment of nostalgia, pain, or beatific joy.

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The Daily Beast: "Mad Men Season Premiere: Matthew Weiner on the ‘The Doorway,' and More"

Hawaii, hell, and heart attacks! Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner discusses Sunday’s sixth-season opener (‘The Doorway’), Don’s quest for paradise, Betty’s transformation, and more. Warning: spoilers abound!

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Mad Men Season Premiere: Matthew Weiner on the ‘The Doorway,' and More," in which I talk to Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner about the sixth season opener ("The Doorway") and some of the themes, questions, and characters within.

“Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.”

Mad Men’s sixth season started with a bang, with the season opener (”The Doorway”) offering us a look into the psyche of Don Draper (Jon Hamm), flitting between a doorman’s near brush with death, the weight of mortality, and the bliss of paradise, in this case the hot, white light of Hawaii. Throughout the two-hour opener, a jumping-off point for issues of life and death, characters took on complex examinations of identity and perception in an installment that managed to be lyrical and darkly existential.

The Daily Beast spoke to Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner, who is currently directing the season finale, to discuss Don’s quest for peace and his relationship with Megan (Jessica Paré), the transformation of Betty Francis (January Jones), the new role of Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), that bizarre rape joke, and more. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation.

The episode begins with Jonesy (Ray Abruzzo) suffering a heart attack, then shifts to Hawaii, where Don doesn’t speak aloud for eight minutes. What was behind your decision to open the season this way?

The idea was that it opens up with this heart attack, and its point of view is that Don is dead and that he is in some kind of state of paradise or maybe hell, or wherever you go—limbo, purgatory. I wanted to show him experiencing life around him and trying to get the mood of what paradise is, what Hawaii is. The idea was that you don’t know what state he’s in. It’s not mystery for mystery’s sake. It’s supposed to create a mood, actually paying attention to the ocean and the people having the party, and Megan with all of her joy.

The whole point of the first episode—and I’m calling it the first episode, those two hours together—is a lot about is how he’s seen by the outside world, and how we all are seen by the outside world, but particularly him and Betty. You approach him from the outside, and you slowly get into his mindset as you watch him. But you’ve got to have someone like Jon Hamm, who can hold your attention when he’s not talking.

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The Daily Beast: "Mad Men Season 6 Review: Triumphant, Lyrical, and Way Existential"

Mad Men’s Don Draper returns for his penultimate season on AMC Sunday—and he’s as down in the dumps as ever. I write about the dark mood hovering over the show’s brilliant sixth season.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Mad Men Season 6 Review: Triumphant, Lyrical, and Way Existential," in which I review the fantastic sixth season premiere of AMC's Mad Men, which returns on Sunday at 9 p.m. for its penultimate season: "Don isn’t so much a person as a reflection, a shadow, the wet ring left on a bar by a glass of Scotch."

Spoilers are funny things.

It’s tricky enough to write about a show without delving into the plot mechanics, and even more so when you can’t even touch upon certain aspects of the plot in even a cursory way. But that’s always been the case with AMC’s Mad Men, which returns for its sixth—and penultimate—season on Sunday at 9 p.m.

Creator Matthew Weiner wants to ensure that even the most quotidian of details about the plot remain concealed. Members of the press who received an advance copy of the two-hour season premiere were instructed not to reveal several elements about the new season, a detailed list of plot points that are considered verboten. Those restrictions make writing about Mad Men’s beautiful and bravura Season 6 opener (“The Doorway”)—gorgeously written by Weiner and directed by Scott Hornbacher—a minefield of potential missteps, but fortunately not entirely impossible to navigate.

The title is a clue to what is at play within Mad Men’s ambitious sixth season. Doorways are, of course, both a means of entrance and exit, and how you see this portal depends a lot on your state of mind at the time. Are we coming or going? Or, in an existential sense, aren’t we all always coming and going, the world forever on that inexorable loop of birth and death? Issues of mortality carry over from the brilliant (if somewhat polarizing) fifth season, which saw all manner of death imagery swirl around Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and the staffers at Madison Avenue ad agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. This emphasis on the transitory nature of life—embodied in last season’s suicide of Lane Pryce (Jared Harris)—looms still over Season 6.

If we are forever on that trajectory—from the womb to the grave—what matters most is perhaps how we spend the time we have, and what we make of ourselves. But for Don Draper, the quick-change chameleon ad man, identity is something fluid and fraught. An admonition to “be yourself” results in nothing but confusion. Who is Don, really? It’s a question that has been posed time and time again throughout the first five seasons of Mad Men, and one that he often answers through the relationships with the women in his life: first wife Betty (January Jones), daughter Sally (Kiernan Shipka), and his latest wife, actress Megan (Jessica Paré). Don isn’t so much a person as a reflection, a shadow, the wet ring left on a bar by a glass of Scotch.

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The Daily Beast: "Zero Hour: Is This the Dumbest Show Ever to Air on TV?"

ABC tries to get back in the Lost game with the ridiculous Zero Hour. My take on the show, launching Thursday, that just might be the dumbest ever on television.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my review of the first episode of ABC's overhyped adventure drama "Zero Hour" (entitled ""Zero Hour: Is This the Dumbest Show Ever to Air on TV?"), in which I call the Anthony Edwards-led drama "nothing more than stale schlock, an hour full of zeroes.

Ever since Lost went off the air—and, actually, before—the broadcast networks have desperately searched for a show that could tempt viewers eager to get, well, lost in the complexity, mythology, and mystery of the Damon Lindelof/Carlton Cuse drama.

Zero Hour is not that show.

The ABC drama, which begins Thursday night at 10 p.m., recalls fiascos like FlashForward more than Lost. Created by former Prison Break writer Paul Scheuring, Zero Hour is no valentine to television, offering up a ludicrous mash-up of overtly familiar tropes: doomsday devices, the birth of the Anti-Christ, secret societies, and a witch’s cauldron of yawn-inducing fare. Did I mention that there are also goose-stepping Nazis, clocks embedded with treasure maps, demon spawn, and enough nonsense to make The Da Vinci Code seem downright plausible?

The plot—and I use that term lightly—revolves around Hank (Anthony Edwards), the shlubby editor of a paranormal magazine (called Modern Skeptic, no less) whose wife, clock seller Laila (Jacinda Barrett), is kidnapped by a ruthless assassin on the FBI’s most wanted list as part of a conspiracy that involves the end of the world.

There’s also the appearance of 12 mystical clocks, constructed during the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and the Rosicrucians, a secret Catholic mystical sect said to be guarding some sort of device with the power to bring about “zero hour” for the planet. Hank sets out on a world-spanning mission (funded by whom?), heading for the Artic circle after discovering a diamond whose flaw is actually a map to something called “New Bartholomew” in an effort to find Laila and the man who took her.

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The Daily Beast: "Community: Season 4 of the NBC Comedy Ponders the End"

(Jordin Althaus/NBC/Sony Pictures)

The absurdist comedy returns to NBC on Thursday after a lengthy delay and many behind-the-scenes changes, including the exit of creator Dan Harmon.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Community: Season 4 of the NBC Comedy Ponders the End," in which I review the fourth season of NBC's Community, which returns Thursday evening and after many behind-the-scenes changes. Does the show look and feel as it once did? Or does it feel as though not every came back from summer break?

“What’s the deal, Jessica Biel?”

Community, after an absence of what feels like five years and numerous timeslot and launch date changes, finally unveils its fourth season on Thursday. For the faithful, waiting this long to return to Greendale has been an arduous trial, particularly as curiosity is running high amid the many behind-the-scenes changes made since the show wrapped up its third season way back in May 2012.

For one, series creator Dan Harmon is no longer at the helm, after a well-publicized ouster that saw him as well as showrunners Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan depart the NBC comedy. A handful of others—including writer/producer Chris McKenna (currently writing on Fox’s The Mindy Project), executive producers/directors Anthony and Joe Russo, and actor/writer Dino Stamatopoulos (Starburns)—also exited stage left. In their place are new showrunners David Guarascio and Moses Port, perhaps best known for their work on the multi-camera workplace comedy Just Shoot Me and for creating the short-lived comedy Aliens in America.

Suffice it to say, fans of Community want to know: what does the show feel like without Harmon and Co. steering the plot? On a show so gonzo and absurd and generally out there, what does the loss of its creator mean?

It would be far easier to say if the (new) Community were a disaster or a masterpiece. However, the truth doesn’t fall at either end. Community now feels rather like it did during its first three seasons, with its sense of humor and bizarro-world energies intact. (That sense of sameness might be aided by longtime writer Andy Bobrow scripting the season opener, offering a sense of continuity.)

If there’s anything I noticed during the two episodes provided to press for review (the first and third installments, but not—oddly enough—Megan Ganz’s Halloween episode, which airs on … Valentine’s Day), it’s that perhaps a spark that permeated the very best episodes of Community is missing. Perhaps that sense of mad genius came from Harmon himself or perhaps it can be regained once this new configuration of the Community writers finds their legs. But I can’t point to anything specific after two viewings. It doesn’t feel entirely off, but it feels as if not everyone came back from this prolonged summer break.

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The Daily Beast: "Mad Men: Creator Matthew Weiner Shares 10 Facts About Season 6"

Mad Men returns on April 7! I talk with creator Matthew Weiner about what to expect from Season Six of the period drama, from a time jump to Don and Megan’s marriage.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Mad Men: Creator Matthew Weiner Shares 10 Facts About Season 6," in which I talk to Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner about what lies ahead for Don Draper and the staffers of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in Season Six of AMC's Mad Men.

Hold on to your period-appropriate hats: AMC’s Mad Men will return for its sixth season on Sunday, April 7 at 9 p.m. with a two-hour premiere, the network announced today. (The Emmy Award-winning drama will settle into its regular time at 10 p.m. ET/PT the following week, with an episode directed by series star Jon Hamm.)

“To be able to continue exploring the stories of these characters for a sixth season is an amazing opportunity,” said series creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner in a statement. “We love mining this world and look forward to bringing the audience stories that we hope will continue to both surprise and entertain them.”

When we last saw Don Draper (Hamm) and his fellow partners at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, they were being tested by marital infidelity, objectification, and suicide, to name but a few of the crucibles Weiner and his writing staff put the characters through in Season 5. But the darkness that enveloped Don at the end of the season may not have dissipated just yet.

The Daily Beast caught up with Matthew Weiner yesterday to shed some light on what lies ahead for Don and Megan (Jessica Paré), newly independent Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), and our other favorites. Below are 10 facts, gleaned from The Daily Beast’s phone interview with Weiner, about Season 6.

This will be the second-to-last season of Mad Men.

Weiner, speaking to The Daily Beast yesterday, confirmed that Season 6 will most definitely be Mad Men’s penultimate season, with the show set to wrap after next season.

“I’m going to confirm that,” said Weiner, who added that having an end date helped shape the overall narrative of Season 6 quite a lot.

“I came in with my plan for the season,” he said. “I was like, ‘I want to save that for the last season, I want to save that; I want to wait on that’ and I was pulled aside by Maria and Andre Jacquemetton, my executive producers, who said, ‘Don’t do that. You’ve never done that before. Let’s just use all the story that we have and we’ll deal with it on the other side of it.’ It really helped. Because I don’t want to change—part of it is superstition and part of it is the only way I know how to do it.”

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The Daily Beast: "Review: Season 2 of Homeland and Season 4 of The Good Wife"

Set your DVRs! I review Season Two of Showtime’s Homeland and Season Four of CBS’s The Good Wife, finding common ground in their deft and subtle explorations of identity.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "TV's Kick-Ass Women Return," in which I review Season Two of Homeland and Season Four of The Good Wife, tracing the way that both shows explore their characters' shifting identities.

In the season opener of Homeland, which airs on Sunday, Claire Danes’s Carrie Mathison smiles.

If you’ve been watching Showtime’s Homeland, the newly crowned winner of the Emmy Award for Best Drama, this seems entirely contrary to her character, a bipolar and deeply disgraced CIA officer who underwent electroconvulsive therapy in the first season finale. Carrie isn’t prone to happiness: she has been misunderstood, mocked, and kicked out of the intelligence community. For all of that, Carrie was also right that Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Emmy Award winner Damian Lewis), a former prisoner of war, is not what he appears to be.

Danes—who also won an Emmy on Sunday—inhabits Carrie with a crippling onus placed on her, one that has only widened the cracks in her sanity. Her prescience and her instincts go unheeded, and the damage that she causes threatens to consume her altogether.

CBS’s The Good Wife, also returning on Sunday evening, will deal with its own identity crises this season. On the surface, these two shows don’t seem to share many similarities. One is a tense terrorism thriller on premium cable, the other a contemplative legal drama that explores technology, politics, marriage, and the law with a subtlety that make it a paragon among television dramas. Both, however, tackle issues of self-identification with insight and perspicacity, and this is felt even more keenly in Homeland’s second season and The Good Wife’s fourth.

Within The Good Wife, Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) has played the dutiful wife and the aggrieved spouse with equal vigor, a friction that cuts to the core of The Good Wife. What does it mean to be good? And how does that reflect our own needs and desires outside that of familial responsibility? Having lost everything after the betrayal of her philandering husband, Peter (Chris Noth), Alicia had to, out of necessity, redefine herself through her work, returning to a profession that she had left. Her discovery that she excelled in the field is the first in a series of transformations for the character.

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The Daily Beast: "Damages Premiere: The Creators on That Twist, Julian Assange & The Final Season"

Watched last night's, uh, surprising season opener to Damages?

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Damages Premiere: The Creators on That Twist, Julian Assange & The Final Season," in which I talk to the creators of the serpentine legal thriller Damages about the show’s final season, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, and THAT shocking twist. (You know which one I'm talking about.)

Damages, which began its life in 2007 on FX before moving to DirecTV last year, began its fifth and final season last night, promising a bloody final showdown between two adversaries, malevolent and dangerous litigator Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) and her former protégé, Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne).

Season 5 revolves around a WikiLeaks-esque website and issues of corporate transparency, but what fans are really waiting for is for Patty and Ellen to finally throw down against each other. One of them, it seems, may not walk away from this five-years-in-the-making battle.

The Daily Beast caught up with Damages’ trio of creators—Glenn Kessler, Daniel Zelman, and Todd A. Kessler—to discuss how they approached wrapping up the series after five seasons, Ryan Phillippe’s Julian Assange-like character, potential consequences for Patty’s machinations, and—MAJOR SPOILER ALERT, if you have yet to watch the season opener—the apparent murder of Byrne’s Ellen Parsons, shown in a pool of blood after plummeting off of a building.

In approaching the final season of the show, did you look at the full series as a five-act play, and what does Season 5 represent in broad terms?

Daniel Zelman: From the very beginning, we talked about the show being five seasons and we always knew it was going to end with Ellen and Patty going up against each other in a case. [In Season 1], we started seeing the first few minutes of Ellen’s birth into the professional world. In the second season, it’s like her rebellious adolescence. The third season is when she becomes an adult and goes off on her own; she works at the DA’s office. The fourth season is about her realizing that she can’t fully become the adult she wants to be until she separates herself from Patty, and then the fifth season is the final act of that separation and her actually trying to conquer Patty and move past her. So, from the beginning, that was an arc that we had in mind. There’s the case every season and all of that, but the center of the show has always been Ellen and Patty and their relationship, so that was always the spine of the series.

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Bleeding Stars and Fiery Hearts: Thoughts on the Second Season Premiere of HBO's Game of Thrones

"For the night is dark and full of terror..."

Where does power reside? Is it contained within the knowledge of a wise man? The sword of a warrior? The magnanimity of a king? The coin purse of a wealthy man? The foresight of a manipulator? When a sharp knife is drawn against your throat, who is the one who actually holds the true power?

These are but a few of many questions pondered in the sensational opening chapter of Season Two of Game of Thrones (“The North Remembers”), written by David Benioff and Dan Weiss and directed by Alan Taylor, which returns with all the roar of a lion, the beating wings of a dragon, the pride of a stag, and the cunning of a wolf. Finishing its first season on such a pitch-perfect note of dread and chaos, Game of Thrones returned with a stellar episode that picked up the multitude of story strands from last season and gave them a meaty tug. (You can read my spoiler-free advance review of Season Two of Game of Thrones over at The Daily Beast.)

Just where does true power live and who wields it? Poor Ned Stark (Sean Bean) believed that he had stumbled onto a truth last season that threatened take down a clan and perhaps an entire kingdom, but his efforts to use that knowledge--to transform information into the currency of influence--only lasted so long as his head remained atop his body. Standing outside of Baelor's Sept, any last vestiges of power he may have wielded in his position as the Hand to the King faded the second Ser Ilyn swung the blade. As did the illusion that Cersei (Lena Headey) had any control over the tempestuous and volatile boy-king Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), who ordered the execution without thinking through the consequences of his actions.

Season Two of Game of Thrones follows the power vacuum that ensues in the wake of Joffrey's folly. The death of King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) and the murder of Ned Stark has precipitated an all-out war: Robb Stark (Richard Madden) has declared himself the King of the North, while Robert's feuding brothers, Stannis (Stephen Dillane) and Renly (Gethin Anthony), each claim that they are the true heir to the Iron Throne, the perilously sharp seat of power on which the boy-king now sits. Elsewhere, Daenerys Stormborn (Emilia Clarke) treks through a barren desert, the last of the Targaryen royals devoid of any power but in possession of three dragons. Mance Rayder, a former brother of the Night's Watch and self-crowned King-Beyond-the-Wall readies an army with sights on the south... and a red comet streaks through the sky, a crimson knife slashing through the heavens, that unites each of the characters: soldiers, beggars, and players alike.

(A brief aside: while I've already seen the first four episodes of Season Two of Game of Thrones, these thoughts contain no spoilers and will only reference the events depicted in this particular episode of the series. Likewise, while I've read all of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels, I won't spoil events based on knowledge from the novels as well. So confidently read with the knowledge that you're not going to be spoiled here. Additionally, this is not a recap, so I won't be covering the plot details beat by beat, but rather the themes of the episode and anything of interest that warrants discussion/analysis. Whew.)

While the Seven Kingdoms are beset by wars on multiple fronts, with several factions claiming ownership of the throne, there is--as always--another war brewing, the eternal battle between light and darkness, fire and ice, good and evil. We've already seen that an ancient evil, thought to be slumbering, is once again stirring beyond the Wall; the White Walkers are no mere bogeymen of children's fairy tales and dead men are rising to walk once more after death. While the players in the never-ending game of thrones make their moves, the cold winds are once more stirring, and the true battle is the one that poses the greatest danger to humanity.

Enter Melisandre (Carice van Houten), the "Red Woman," a priestess who follows R'hllor, the Lord of Light. She brings with her fire, light, and blood, as well as political and religious upheaval. She's placed her bets on Stannis, and sets herself up in his court, converting the possible King to her religious doctrine as well as his followers. When we meet her, in fact, she's burning the statues of the Seven--emblems of the seven-sided aspects of the god of the Andals--who have ruled over the hearts and minds of many of the Westerosi for centuries. But her actions go beyond the burning of mere effigies; in her bonfire, she's burning away the past, burning away beliefs, and of loyalties. The statues of the Seven are but sacrificial logs to her "true" god. Yet, while Melisandre's motives are questioned--by both Maester Cressen (Oliver Ford Davies) and by Lord Davos Seaworth (Liam Cunningham)--she is right about some things: a star does bleed (that red comet), the dead are walking in the North, and they should be wary of the cold and ice promised by the winter at hand.

A white raven, sent from the Maesters of Oldtown, signals the end of summer and the eventual arrival of a long winter. It may also signal the end of the rule of Man. Not everyone will make it through a decades-long winter, and as viewers we know that the residents of the Seven Kingdoms have more to fear than just starvation. Whether Stannis truly is mythical hero Azor Ahai reborn, whether he will come to be in possession of the fabled sword, Lightbringer, remains to be seen. But Melisandre believes, and belief is a potent and powerful thing. The ruby at her throat burns with a most terrible fire, not least of which when she proves herself impervious to the poison that Cressen slips into the goblet in an attempt to kill her. (His sacrifice proves worthless; he dies instantly and grotesquely, robbing Stannis of an adviser, but he fails to even injure Melisandre in the slightest. It's this sequence which provides the prologue in Martin's "A Clash of Kings." It's moved later in the episode, and the order of events is altered. If I remember correctly, Cressen has Melisandre drink first before he takes a sip; his surprise at her invulnerability registering more sharply. Likewise, some characters in Stannis' court in the books don't appear here, including two intriguing minor characters that I've long harbored theories about.)

As I mentioned in my advance review, Alan Taylor does a superb job here, and he's fluent in the underlying language of the show. I loved the way in which the red comet acted as a crimson threat lacing together the disparate plots. It's seen overhead from all over the world: Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) glimpses it at Winterfell, Daenerys from the Red Waste, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) from Beyond the Wall. It's a brilliant way of connecting the plots and shifting the action between perspectives, cutting between Bran to Danerys, from Danerys to Jon. (There's also a beautiful moment when Bran's hand moves through the water of the pond under the weirwood tree in Winterfell's godswood, creating ripples that disturb the tranquility of the pond, much like Ned's death has done for the Seven Kingdoms. It all comes back to consequences again.)

I also love the different ways that characters view the red comet. It becomes, alternately, an emblem of Robb's victory, Ned's death, Lannister red. But it's the wildling Osha (Natalie Tena, once again captivating in her scenes) who sees it for what it is: an omen of dragons. With the beating of their wings, magic appears to be returning to the Seven Kingdoms once more. Bran's dream, in which he experiences a moment through the eyes of his direwolf, Summer, also augurs interesting developments down the road. He wears Summer's skin as a man wears a shadow, he sees through eyes that are not his own.

It's a moment of magic, of raw, natural power, that connects Bran's subconscious to something large and eternal, much like last season's dream of the three-eyed crow. Even internally, there are battles to be waged. It's also a powerful way to allow the viewer to see directly through Bran's eyes, much as the novel's readers were able to do via the shifting point-of-view of the chapter narrators. By plunging us within Bran's unconscious mind, we're able to experience that narrative fluidity and specificity anew.

That sense of perspective echoes through the episode and the show itself. There's a moment at Craster's Keep, beyond the Wall, which demonstrates a sense of cultural relativity: the Starks and Jon Snow see themselves as Northerners, defining the term "southerners" to mean the summer soldiers of the South, of King's Landing and elsewhere. But, to Craster (Robert Pugh) and the wildlings, these black crows and anyone from south of the Wall are "southerners." Which poses an interesting intellectual question: Which is more important and more powerful: cultural boundaries or physical ones? Is our sense of self-identity as simply mutable as that?

It's an internal struggle that's also manifesting itself within Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen), ward to Ned Stark who has spent the majority of his life at Winterfell, a "guest" of the Starks who is nonetheless a hostage and the heir the Iron Islands. While he pledges his fealty to King Robb, is happy to call him "your Grace," and fights by his side, where do his loyalties lie? Is a wolf or a kraken? Is he a child of the North, or an Ironborn? When he pledges Robb to act on his behalf and seek his father, Balon Greyjoy, and ask for a fleet of ships, saying "We can avenge [Ned] together," can he be trusted? Is blood thicker than water, even in the frigid reaches of the North? Are we ever truly free of our families, our pasts, our selves?

Those shackles, whether metaphorical or real, bind us in ways we can't imagine. Witness poor Gilly (Hannah Murray), one of Craster's daughters/wives, forced to endure a life of toil and servitude to a man who has abused her in horrific ways. "Better to live free than die a slave," she chirps, the motto of the "free folk," the wildlings. But they too claim fealty, whether to Mance Rayder or, as Craster's possessions, to the man they serve. Likewise, Sansa (Sophie Turner) saves the life of Ser Dontos (Tony Way), who nearly meets the wrath of Joffrey after embarrassing myself during the king's name-day festivities. But is it better to die a knight or live as a fool?

Did Ned Stark's honor serve him well? Did his death achieve anything except chaos and bloodshed? Is it better just to live, in any sense, than to die? Is the wisest course of action to just find a way, as Gilly and others (including Maisie Williams' lost little bird, Arya, and Sansa) have, to survive?

They are questions that harken back to those posed at the opening of this review. What is true power? It's a philosophical debate enacted between Cersei and Lord Petyr Baelish (Aidan Gillen) at King's Landing. He believes knowledge is power, but his awareness of the incestuous relationship between Cersei and Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) matters little when steel is pressed against his throat. It's a lesson he should have learned from the deaths of Jon Arryn and Ned Stark: don't go asking questions, don't put honor above survival, and don't poke a sleeping lion. For her part, Cersei proves her point: that power exists within the individual ordering whomever holds the knife. But really, it's the knife itself which holds the power, and the hand that holds it. Mercenaries and sellswords, as well as even sworn soldiers, are only too changeable. Jaime Lannister proved this when he strode into the throne room and slew the Mad King, despite his oath. Men play plot wars, but it's swords that win them. The threat of personal violence can stay anyone's hand, even a man as shrewd and manipulative as Littlefinger.

Cersei, now Queen Regent until Joffrey reaches the age of majority, seems to take particular pleasure in the influence she's carved out at King's Landing, fitting seeing as much crimson-and-gold everyone--from Cersei to Joffrey--is wearing. Lannister colors, not Baratheon ones, naturally. But her mistakes can and will catch up with her. The arrival of Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) at court poses a threat to Cersei's rule, as does her son's volatile and violent nature. It's interesting that when Cersei slaps Joffrey, in full view of the workers making alterations to the throne room, no one moves to stop her or intervene; they quickly go back to work. Joffrey may sit on the Iron Throne, but he's largely a figurehead; it's Cersei who is charge. Otherwise, she'd be dead before her body hit the ground.

Naturally, Tyrion walked way with the best line of the evening: "You love your children. That's your one redeeming quality. That and your cheekbones." Dinklage is phenomenal here, wielding his position and his intellect like a badge of office, becoming for once not the "disappointing child" of the Lannister family, but an important and instrumental force within the kingdom. He quickly puts Cersei in her place, despite her tantrum, and seizes the reins of power. His arc is only just beginning here and it's fitting that Dinklage gets top billing in the title credits (which awaken such excitement in me every time); Season Two is a significant one for Tyrion Lannister, who more or less takes over the role of "main character" from Ned Stark in many respects, and his arrival in King's Landing is likely to stir up animosity within this nest of vipers.

Ultimately, "The North Remembers" was a brilliant and provocative opening to the season, demonstrating a willingness on the part of Benioff and Weiss to stir things up, to stray from the source material, and to adapt with a clear view of how television is inherently a different medium than the printed word. This is an even more dangerous world than the one we left behind last season, even more fraught with peril and possibility, and the war is only just beginning.

Personally, I'm curious to know just what the reaction will be to the ending of the episode, and of the slaying of Robert Baratheon's bastard offspring. While there is no shortage of violence on Game of Thrones, it's typically not enacted against babies and children, and the show tackles yet another taboo here. There's a sense of the Biblical at play here: the slaying of the firstborn, a blood sacrifice. Here, it's meant to consolidate power, to tie up the loose ends of Robert's dynasty, to ensure that Joffrey is the strongest claimant to the throne. But the sight of soldiers skewering babies is also something else: a sign of weakness, of fear, and of uncertainty. And somewhere along the long road to the Wall, another of Robert's bastards, Gendry (Joe Dempsie), begins his own journey, a bull's head helm in his hands, a disguised daughter of the North at his side. Where the winds will take them will become clear enough. But when even the powerful show their hand so brazenly, there's a whiff of possibility, and of revolution, in the air.

Next week on Game of Thrones ("The Night Lands”), in the wake of a bloody purge in the capital, Tyrion chastens Cersei for alienating the kingʼs subjects; on the road north, Arya shares a secret with Gendry, a Nightʼs Watch recruit; with supplies dwindling, one of Dany's scouts returns with news of their position; after nine years as a Stark ward, Theon Greyjoy reunites with his father Balon, who wants to restore the ancient Kingdom of the Iron Islands; Davos enlists Salladhor Saan, a pirate, to join forces with Stannis and Melisandre for a naval invasion of Kingʼs Landing.

The Daily Beast: "Game of Thrones' Glorious Return"

Season Two of the Emmy-nominated fantasy series Game of Thrones begins on Sunday night. And it’s fantastic.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Game of Thrones' Glorious Return," a review of the first four episodes of Season Two of HBO's superlative drama, based on the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series by George R.R. Martin. "Season Two of Game of Thrones is fantastic, overflowing with majesty and mystery," I write. "The night, we’re told, is dark and full of terror, and so is this provocative and enthralling show."

After the ratings and critical heights scaled by the first season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, expectations are dangerously high for the launch of Season 2, which begins this Sunday. Based on the second volume (A Clash of Kings) in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, Game of Thrones has a lot to prove to fans of both the books and of the award-winning HBO drama. Can it top the addictive thrill of the first season? Will it prove to be both loyal to the source material and still work for television?

Fortunately, judging from the four episodes sent to critics, Game of Thrones thrills on all levels. The show is a profound achievement, fusing together the taut narrative framework of the novels with a momentous and swift pace that drives the action forward, while writer/executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss manage almost a baker’s dozen of separate storylines.

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

Games People Play: Thoughts on the Fifth Season Premiere of Mad Men

"Nobody loves Dick Whitman."

It's been seventeen long months since we last saw Mad Men and the breathless two-hour season premiere goes a long way towards curbing our addiction, quickly bringing us up to speed in the changes within the lives of Don Draper (Jon Hamm), Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks), Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), and the rest of the ad men at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

If Season Four began with a provocative question ("Who is Don Draper?"), the fifth season opener ("A Little Kiss"), written by Matthew Weiner and directed by Jennifer Getzinger, begins with more than a few declarative statements, about both the characters and the era in which they live, and those four little words, uttered by Megan (Jessica Paré), speak volumes about the sort of relationship Don is enmeshed in when Season Five begins.

For a man who cloaked himself with secrets as a woman might a mink coat, Don Draper is living a life that's far more free and open than we've seen the past four seasons. In fact, his entire identity--previously predicated on a monumental lie--seems far more at ease at both work and home, though it's still, as always, fraught with complication. This is Mad Men, after all, and a Don at peace with the world is very dull indeed...

The world itself is far from at peace with itself when we rejoin the story: riots in three cities, racial tensions, and organized protests right under the windows of SCDP rivals Y&R in the opening sequence of the episode. Said sequence finds Y&R execs callously tossing water-filled bags onto the protestors, soaking a young African-American boy and leading his mother to go up to the executive floor and offer a piece of her mind. While the entire scene seems at first disjoined and separate from the action, the two-hour opener proves just why it was constructed as a double-episode, rather than just two single episodes strung together. Folding in on itself, the episode is bookended by considerations of the protests and of the semblance of equal opportunity.

While Don and Roger's "equal opportunity" ad is meant to be a jape at the expense of Y&R, it has serious implications, not least of which is that SCDP must hire at least one person of color in order to save face. While the show has had African-American characters in the past (Lane's Playboy Bunny girlfriend and Paul Kinsey's girlfriend, to name two, as well as the Drapers' housekeeper, Carla), the office itself has remained a lily-white place of business, populated largely by the old guard and one or two (Peggy, Joan, and Megan to an extent) women who have managed to carve out positions of power. But the doors of the lobby have more or less remained closed to anyone who didn't fit the mold of Roger Sterling and his cronies. Until now.

I'm curious to see just who gets the sole secretary job that Lane (Jared Harris, astonishing as always) has been forced to carve out of the budget, lest SCDP find themselves the subject of a protest, and how this new woman fits into the microcosm of the company amid some very turbulent times.

But while there are clearly external pressures at work here, not all of the changes occurring are taking place from the outside-in. Sally (Kiernan Shipka) is once again adjusting to change in her own life, adjusting to the sight of a naked woman in her father's bed, a woman who is the new "Mrs. Draper," and is drinking black coffee while it's Don who is cooking breakfast for the kids. There's clearly some unease on behalf of Sally towards Megan, a mixture of curiosity and ambivalence, seeing her role as her father's favorite co-opted by a newcomer into the household. She's largely trapped between the half-finished bedroom at her father and Megan's gorgeous new Manhattan apartment and an empty skulking castle of her mother and Henry's in Rye: the city and suburbia, the past and the future, stability or revolution.

Megan herself is entirely grounded in modernity: a modern woman who is the exact opposite of Betty Francis (January Jones) in every respect. She drinks black coffee, works for a living, has her own money, and isn't afraid to engage in provocative and sexually forward behavior, something that would mortify the icy Betty. Megan's surprising performance, at Don's surprise party, of "Zou Bisou Bisou" is a landmark for the show: the ownership by a woman over the male gaze of her partner. While the song is performed for Don, while all eyes (both male and female) in the room are on her, Megan is clearly getting off on the attention and claims ownership over the sexual energy she gives off. (She even tells Peggy earlier in the episode that when she throws a party, people go home and "have sex.")

It's both a sexually charged performance and an intimate gift for Don, offering him a piece of herself in front of his colleagues, bringing the private into the public sphere. It also backfires magnificently. The always-private Don is embarrassed to see his sexually hungry bride so blatantly charged up; it's a collision of the ordered sectors of his own life. And there are casualties as a result.

Don's furious response, as he tries to go to bed while Megan is still keyed up from the party sums up a potential chasm in their nascent marriage, of ideals as well as emotions. If Megan sums up liberty, both sexual and social, she represents the potential and promise of progress. She's the pretty young thing that Don wanted to own, but she's proven that she won't be owned by anyone ("It's my money," she tells him) or controlled. Her sense of fashion, her friends, her outlook are sharp call-outs to the cultural revolution making its first steps here. But unlike Roger and Jane's dreary marriage, Megan won't be captured in a gilded prison, even one of her own making. She's fiercely independent, fiery, and passionate, in touch with her emotions ("I don't like those people") and her own body. (Paré is fantastic, eradicating the sense of Megan as an innocent naif from last season, rendering her a full-blown liberated woman here, all polka-dots and black undergarments, a French coquette with a body and a brain.)

The sense of the male gaze is reflected back in the cleaning scene after Megan goes home early from work. As Don finds her cleaning up after the party, the tension between them turns into something else: a sex game, in which Megan, stripped down to her bra and panties, begins to "clean up" while flaunting her body, telling Don that he doesn't deserve to touch her, let alone look at her, that he's old and probably can't even have sex. A moment of potential dominance/submission (she tells him to sit and watch her) turns into a moment of sexual release on the white carpet of their palatial place, a far cry from the desperation of Don's bachelor pad on Waverly.

While Don has moved more firmly into a wealthy sphere of Manhattan, it's Pete who has traded his apartment for a house in the suburbs, while Trudy--now a mother herself--waits at home or drops him off at the station. His sense of loss, embodied by his line about hearing the traffic over the party music, said wistfully, is keenly felt here, the "sacrifice" he's made in order for his family. But whether he comes to resent Trudy (as suggested by his commuter train passenger friend) or whether he softens and changes remains to be seen. At work, however, Pete is just as vengeful and territorial as ever, demanding a larger office (he ends up getting Harry Crane's office with its windows, while Harry embarrasses himself in front of Megan, showing his true colors) and tricking Roger into a 6 a.m. meeting.

It's this sense of gamesmanship that powers the episode in several ways: the Y&R ad, Megan/Don on the floor, Lane's efforts to make believe with the "girl" Dolores, another fixation for the sensible Lane, torn once again between his duties as a "gentleman" and family man and that of a man in the 1960s.

Lane is unexpectedly captivated by the sultry promise of Dolores, a kept woman rolling around in bed at 11 a.m. in her undergarments, especially when he sees her slob of a boyfriend, Mr. Polito, who is nothing like the man that Lane had imagined. His decision to keep Dolores' photograph, with its girlish "XXOO" inscription, in his own wallet is the keeping of a talisman, something that connects him to an alternate self, a garter on the arm of a knight, an emblem of both chaste chivalry and of wanton sexuality. He's a man trapped between relationships, between countries, between cultures, something we're reminded of both by Dolores and Polito, who immediately know that Lane isn't "from here."

It's also Joan who finds herself cast adrift. Now a mother, she's torn between the duties of her station and of her own desires. She admits, only to Lane, that she missed work, missed what was happening without her, the jokes (again, that return to games) and the daily goings-on. While she clearly loves her baby, her identity is predicated on more than just her role as a mother and wife; she herself is intrinsically connected to the office and the professional sphere. Her emotional breakdown in Lane's office, as he chivalrously offers her his handkerchief to blot her eyes, comes when she realizes that she has value in the eyes of her coworkers, that she still has a job. It's not so much an escape hatch from her life, as it is part and parcel of it.

There's also a clear connection between her baby being soothed by the movements of the elevator and Don as well: the shot of Joan and her mother rocking the baby to sleep in the elevator is juxtaposed with a shot of Don and Megan in the elevator at the office. If Don is at his best at work, as we've seen the last few seasons, what does it mean that he's now defining himself in terms that go beyond that? That he's not as driven, not as severe (as evidenced by his lack of support in front of the clients of Peggy's "bean ballet" concept for Heinz), and not as decidedly grim? If work isn't everything, than what is to Don? Even after his argument with Megan, there's the sense that these two have something deep and mysterious between them, built on honesty and truth, and that the Don Draper we thought we knew has perhaps changed somewhat.

Who is Don Draper? I feel like we're only just beginning to know the answer to that question. But what we're seeing here is a Don Draper altered by his surroundings, his relationship, and his outlook. A man in summer, casting off the memories of the past, fittingly on Memorial Day weekend. A household of children and a twinkle in his own eye when he looks at Megan holding Joan's newborn son. Personally, I can't wait to see just what happens next: felicity or misery? Opportunity or adversity? Pleasure or pain? Is it true that nobody loves Dick Whitman, or that someone finally does, warts and all?

But regardless of what happens next, Season Five of Mad Men began with enough style and substance to power a season of most other shows. I'm curious to know what you thought: what did you all think of "A Little Kiss"? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Next week on Mad Men ("Tea Leaves"), as Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce tries to build upon its current business, Peggy is given new responsibility; Don and Harry indulge a client.

Brand New Day: Thoughts on the Season Premiere of The Good Wife

The wait is over.

After months of waiting breathlessly for the repercussions of Alicia (Julianna Margulies) and Will (Josh Charles) entering that hotel room together (with Alicia taking control of the situation), The Good Wife returned for the start of its third season ("A New Day"), written by Robert and Michelle King, with a new night and timeslot, a new haircut for Alicia, and a new office for our erstwhile good wife, who proved this week just how bad she can be.

Among other areas, The Good Wife has excelled in its handling of female sexuality, particularly in terms of how it's handled within the confines of a primetime broadcast network drama. This hasn't been a show featuring much bed-hopping from its main character, who spent the first two seasons coming to terms with her husband's infidelity, her passion towards her boss, and her decision to kick said husband to the curb after learning that he had slept with one of the few friends she had (that would be Archie Panjabi's Kalinda Sharma, naturally). On the night of his election victory.

This week's episode--which found Alicia representing a Muslim college student alternately accused of participating in violence at an interfaith rally and first-degree murder--may have revolved around ethnic tensions and avatar-based video gaming but it was the scene between Alicia and Will--in which they continued the affair they started in the season finale--that got tongues wagging this week. Was it too hot? Too steamy? Did it cross the line?

I'd argue that it was steamy but it was also a very mature handling of female sexuality, one that we don't ordinarily see on television, as Alicia gave into her own desires, once again taking control of the situation from her male partner, to achieve her own pleasure. It's no surprise that Alicia refuses to be objectified here; the title of the series speaks volumes about the way she had been objectified as the scandalized politician's wife. Likewise, the courtroom scenes proved that she refuses to bow to her husband, now newly returned to his seat of power, but instead promises an adversarial relationship with her estranged partner.

These two are all smiles in front of the kids, but the facades wear thin whenever they're alone: Alicia tells him that she'll make excuses for him rather than sit beside him over dinner at Zach's girlfriend's house; she refuses to be shaken when Peter tries to goad her into crumbling after proving her mettle in court. They might not be divorced, but these two are clearly already plotting their own particular revenges.

And that's a Good Thing. In its third season, The Good Wife isn't approaching anything--whether it be the struggling marriage between Peter and Alicia, the sexual tension between Alicia and Will, or the now fractured friendship between Alicia and Kalinda--as anything resembling a sacred cow. Instead, it's playing fast and loose with its dramatic underpinnings, creating a shifting landscape where anything is possible, plots can turn on a dime, and relationships can be undone with relative easy.

I will say that I am going to miss Kelli Giddish, who reprised her role from last season as the mercenary-minded Sophia Russo; her presence here gives us hints of the love triangle that the Kings told me would have gone down between Kalinda, Cary, and Sophia. She's a fantastic foil for Kalinda as well, their sexual tension simmering quite nicely (after a fling last season) while their competitive natures get the better of them. Having Sophia turn up like the metaphorical bad penny every time Kalinda got a lead on the investigation served to further intertwine their lives. It's a shame that we won't get to see this develop further now that Giddish is starring in NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Cary, meanwhile, is playing for keeps. It's remarkable just how much Matt Czuchry's character has changed since the early episodes of the series. Once an arrogant little minnow, Cary has become a ruthless shark, perfectly willing to do whatever he has to in order to win, in order to prove his place beside Peter at the state's attorney's office. Even his one seemingly altruistic act in this episode--slipping the traffic camera report to Kalinda--had an ulterior motive, as he then flipped the situation on its head, using the report to finger Alicia's client as the prime suspect in a brutal murder. (Which, to me, always felt deeply personal, rather than political: stabbed 45 times screams crime of passion, not hate crime, per se.) I'm curious to see where Cary is headed and whether his closed-off nature speaks to his association with the similarly compartmentalizing Kalinda.

However, I do want to see Alicia and Kalinda eventually come back to some sort of understanding, though I hope it takes a while for the ice to thaw between these two. As much as I loved Diane's insistence that the two women work out whatever is between them (implicit in that: an understanding that Diane doesn't want to know what it is), I thought the scene between Kalinda and Will at the bar underpinned Kalinda's loneliness this season. She's shut down emotionally again, unwilling to let Sophia in, unwilling to let anyone get too close after she got burned by Alicia. Maybe Kalinda does need a dog. (Plus, how awesome was Will's suggestion that "Kalinda and pooch" could solve crimes together?)

All in all, I thought that "A New Day" represented a fantastic start to the third season, one that immediately made me crave more episodes of The Good Wife immediately... and an installment that made me feel that perhaps winding down my weekend with Alicia and Co. on a Sunday evening is a great thing indeed.

However, I'm curious to know: what did you think of "A New Day"? What was your take on the Alicia/Will scene? Will Kalinda and Alicia ever mend their fences? What's going on with Grace and her new tutor? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Next week on The Good Wife ("The Death Zone"), Alicia must quickly learn English Law when a libel case she won in the United States is retried in a British court.

Quick Thoughts on Tonight's Parenthood Season Premiere

I had hoped to have a full review of tonight's fantastic Parenthood season opener ("I Don't Want to Do This Without You"), but unfortunately I'm being pulled in a thousand directions at the moment, so you'll have to settle for a glowing (if brief) recommendation to tune in tonight when this remarkable and emotionally powerful series returns for its third season.

Five months have passed since we last saw the sprawling Braverman clan, and change is in the air for nearly all of the family members. Adam (Peter Krause) is still out of work and has been reduced to loafing around the house and going on interviews for jobs that he doesn't really want and is over qualified for, having lost his purpose and identity as the family's breadwinner; Kristina (Monica Potter), meanwhile, is quite pregnant and quite capable of bringing home the bacon, having gone back to work. It's interesting to see how the dynamic between the two of them has shifted so considerably, now that their traditional gender roles have been reversed. (Adam, were you always such a traditionalist?!?) But there's another possible path for Adam, one that involves Crosby (Dax Shepard). That's all I'm saying on that front.

There's trouble ahead for Haddie (Sarah Ramos) and Alex (Michael B. Jordan), as things go in both a predictable and unexpected way in the season opener, and Jordan gets the chance to act opposite a cast member with whom he may not have gotten any screen time last season. (I will say, however, that something needs to be done to Haddie's hair, which just makes me sad.)

Amber (Mae Whitman) attempts to get back on her feet after last season's car accident and decides to move out of her grandparents' house. What follows--and the places that her relationship with Sarah (Lauren Graham) will likely go this season--gives the episode a strong throughline as Sarah too reevaluates her life on the eve of her 40th birthday, and the episode gives Graham some strong scenes with both Whitman and Bonnie Bedelia's Camille as a result. Plus, Jason Ritter is back, as well, which can only mean one thing for Sarah...

Julia (Erika Christensen) and Joel (Sam Jaeger) are still looking to adopt, though the perfect birth mother basically stumbles into Julia's lap. I was a little bit uncomfortable with the sheer incongruity of this development--as well as the massive coincidental nature of the set-up--that it took me a little out of the story, if I'm being honest. (The only instance would be the return of Joy Bryant's Jasmine, who continues to be a major downer.)

But, really, that's a quibble regarding a sterling season opener that reminds us why we love Parenthood in the first place: realistically drawn characters, universal emotions and experiences, and dialogue that captures the natural tone and vigor of familial life in all of its glorious colors. I've missed you, Team Braverman.

Season Three of Parenthood begins tonight at 10 pm ET/PT on NBC.

Time Flies: Thoughts on the Season Premiere of HBO's True Blood

I don't know about you, but I'm kind of sick of faeries, and it's only the first episode of the season...

In my advance review, I was extremely upfront about my feelings about the handling of the faerie court and the opening sequence of the first episode of Season Four of True Blood ("She's Not There"), written by Alexander Woo and directed by Michael Lehmann, which depicted just what happened to Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) after she disappeared into the light at the end of last season. What we encounter is a seemingly, well, fairy tale kingdom where human-faerie hybrids snack on light fruits and hang out interminably by a lush fountain courtyard.

Alas, nothing is as it seems and all that glitters is not gold... the tranquility that the tableau presents is once more a false front, a shiny facade concealing the waste and desolation of the faerie realm, which looks rather like the dusty canyons near Calabasas. What follows is a B-movie chase as faeries lob light grenades at Sookie and her granddaddy Earl (Gary Cole), who attempt to flee back to the earthly realm of man once Sookie goes all microwave fingers on Queen Mab.

Yawn. Not how I would have started us back in Season Four. There was something entirely... off about the whole sequence which seemed tonally out of place from True Blood as a whole. Yes, this is a series that is constantly reinventing itself and reimagining its own limits, but I never thought I'd actually find myself watching some weird Syfy Saturday night telepic whilst I was actually watching True Blood. Wisely, this sequence seems to exist to (A) demonstrate that the faeries in question are not actually Disney versions, but the darker versions glimpsed in folklore, and (B) to get Sookie back to Bon Temps as quickly as possible.

It's the second reason that's the most successful, revealing just what happened to Barry the Bellhop from Season Two (he's also part faerie) and what ever happened to Sookie's missing grandfather, who has spent the last twenty years in the faerie realm, unaware that time has been passing. His death is the rare emotional beat in the opening sequence, as he turns to dust on Adele's grave, finally reunited with his lost love. But the return to earth actually has a third and more important purpose: it allows Alan Ball and the True Blood writing staff to achieve something they haven't done in the past. Yes, a time jump.

Throughout the series, each season has started just seconds or minutes after the conclusion of the previous one, but it was absolutely necessary to get us out of the doldrums of last season and advance the plot significantly. Thus, a one-year jump that finds Sookie grappling with the fact that only a few minutes have past for her while over a year has gone by during which everyone else in Bon Temps is existing in a new status quo. While Sookie blinked, everyone else changed, allowing the series to jump ahead to explore the new circumstances that the characters find themselves in. It's a smart way of breaking the series' time-based narrative device, while allowing the audience to share Sookie's perspective, as she's forced to come to grips with the changes in Bon Temps.

So what's going on with everyone? Let's take a look, character by character.

Eric: He's now purchased Sookie's house right out from underneath her, allegedly as proof of his faith that she was still alive and would come back to Bon Temps eventually. While this makes him her landlord of sorts, it also seems to demonstrate that Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) feels he has certain, er, property rights as the owner of Sookie's ancestral home. In other words, "You're mine!"

Bill: William Compton (Stephen Moyer) is now--wait for it!--the Vampire King of Louisiana, and Eric's boss. Looks like he managed to get one over on old Sophie-Anne, though we'll get more on what happened there in the next few weeks. And Bill seems to be operating under the shared notion that the vampires need to reform their image, something that the AVL agrees with. (Hence that hilarious public service message from Kristin Bauer van Straten's Pam about Fangtasia being for everyone.) He's been under suspicion as Sookie's killer, and provides her with an alibi when she returns to town, saying that she was acting on his authority.

Jason: Jason (Ryan Kwanten) is now a deputy sheriff, serving under Andy Bellefleur (Chris Bauer), who appears to be addicted to vampire blood. And, despite the fact that no one has heard from Crystal in over a year, Jason has continued to care for the poor, in-bred denizens of Hotshot, bringing them food and supplies, and repeatedly fixing their refrigerator... That is, until he's clocked over the head and locked inside said fridge. Oh, Jason...

Lafayette: Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) hasn't gone soft in the last year, though he did find a new coif to go along with his saucy attitude. He and Jesus (Kevin Alejandro) are still going strong in a committed relationship, though Jesus pulls one over on Lafayette and brings him to his Wicca group, where Lafayette is introduced to Marnie (Fiona Shaw). And just like that, their circle is completed as Lafayette's innate abilities seem to super-charge the group. Marnie is able to successfully bring her dead familiar back to life, thanks to Lafayette's presence... and he's scared out of his wits when Marnie channels poor Eddie to deliver a rose to Lafayette. Eeek.

Tara: Tara is now living in New Orleans under a new identity. As Toni, she's a foxy boxer in a lesbian relationship, though she seems to be far more level-headed than angry. (Notice: she keeps the $20 from the drunken would-be john, rather than kicking his ass.) But she's also living a lie, telling her girlfriend all number of falsehoods as she slips deeper and deeper away from her life as Tara. A text from her dad about her dead grandmother? Please. But whether she comes back to Bon Temps now that Sookie's back in the land of the living remains to be seen...

Sam: After shooting his brother (who is now living with Maxine Fortenberry as a Hoyt manque), Sam (Sam Trammel) is trying to deal with his anger management issues, and he's found a collective of other shifters with whom he can open up about his true nature... and go riding in the woods as a horse. (I loved the bait-and-switch here; while it seemed like they were swingers, they're actually secret shifters.)

Jessica and Hoyt: Bon Temps' resident romantic couple is going through some serious problems one year after moving in together. As Hoyt (Jim Parrack) bristles against the fact that Jessica isn't performing any of her duties as his girlfriend (no food in the house, despite the fact that he's feeding her with his own blood), Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) snaps. What follows might just be one the most disgusting scenes ever on True Blood as Jessica cracks some eggs into a pan and slops the uncooked eggs--shells and all--onto a plate as Hoyt tucks in. Their stubbornness and anger, at least, quickly turns to humor, indicating that there's still some hope for these two. Sigh. But that scene at Fangtasia, as Jessica finds herself wanting a taste of someone else, doesn't bode well...

Arlene and Terry: Our Merlotte's mainstays (Carrie Preston and Todd Lowe) have already given birth to their darling little baby boy, thanks to the time jump. But a year hasn't assuaged any of Arlene's fears about her son, the offspring of a sadistic serial killer. And he's already decapitating dolls the second no one's looking. Look for things to get seriously weird there over the next few weeks. Is it fitting that the Arlene/Terry storyline is unfolding at the same time as the witches' one? Hmmm...

All in all, it's good to be back in Bon Temps and as soon as we got away from the faeries and lumieres and canyon runs, I felt a lot better about this episode, though it wasn't the most exciting and gripping season opener. It's no surprise then that HBO made the second episode available a week early over on HBO Go, though I personally would have gone with a two-hour opener if possible, as Episode 402 has a hell of a lot more momentum and a better cliffhanger ending. But that's just me. Still, I'm hoping that the witches come more into prominence than the faeries and that things begin to move together quickly... But not too quickly. (I can also honestly say that Episode 402 is a huge improvement on this week's slightly lackluster season opener. Something to look forward to, at least, if you haven't caught the early showing on HBO Go.)

Still, I'm curious to know what you thought about the season opener? Did the faerie bits make you cringe just as much as they did me? Did you overlook the opening sequence to focus more on the character bits back in Bon Temps? Quality-wise, how would you rate this week's episode? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Next week on True Blood ("You Smell Like Dinner"), Sookie adjusts to Bon Tempsʼ new realities; Bill reveals pieces of his past; Eric crashes a witchesʼ meeting; Jason gets his wounds licked; Andy struggles with his addiction; Sam learns of Lunaʼs special talents; Jessica satisfies her blood cravings; and Arlene witnesses strange behavior from her family.

Ep. 38 Preview

Time Flies: Thoughts on the Season Premiere of HBO's True Blood

I don't know about you, but I'm kind of sick of faeries, and it's only the first episode of the season...

In my advance review, I was extremely upfront about my feelings about the handling of the faerie court and the opening sequence of the first episode of Season Four of True Blood ("She's Not There"), written by Alexander Woo and directed by Michael Lehmann, which depicted just what happened to Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) after she disappeared into the light at the end of last season. What we encounter is a seemingly, well, fairy tale kingdom where human-faerie hybrids snack on light fruits and hang out interminably by a lush fountain courtyard.

Alas, nothing is as it seems and all that glitters is not gold... the tranquility that the tableau presents is once more a false front, a shiny facade concealing the waste and desolation of the faerie realm, which looks rather like the dusty canyons near Calabasas. What follows is a B-movie chase as faeries lob light grenades at Sookie and her granddaddy Earl (Gary Cole), who attempt to flee back to the earthly realm of man once Sookie goes all microwave fingers on Queen Mab.

Yawn. Not how I would have started us back in Season Four. There was something entirely... off about the whole sequence which seemed tonally out of place from True Blood as a whole. Yes, this is a series that is constantly reinventing itself and reimagining its own limits, but I never thought I'd actually find myself watching some weird Syfy Saturday night telepic whilst I was actually watching True Blood. Wisely, this sequence seems to exist to (A) demonstrate that the faeries in question are not actually Disney versions, but the darker versions glimpsed in folklore, and (B) to get Sookie back to Bon Temps as quickly as possible.

It's the second reason that's the most successful, revealing just what happened to Barry the Bellhop from Season Two (he's also part faerie) and what ever happened to Sookie's missing grandfather, who has spent the last twenty years in the faerie realm, unaware that time has been passing. His death is the rare emotional beat in the opening sequence, as he turns to dust on Adele's grave, finally reunited with his lost love. But the return to earth actually has a third and more important purpose: it allows Alan Ball and the True Blood writing staff to achieve something they haven't done in the past. Yes, a time jump.

Throughout the series, each season has started just seconds or minutes after the conclusion of the previous one, but it was absolutely necessary to get us out of the doldrums of last season and advance the plot significantly. Thus, a one-year jump that finds Sookie grappling with the fact that only a few minutes have past for her while over a year has gone by during which everyone else in Bon Temps is existing in a new status quo. While Sookie blinked, everyone else changed, allowing the series to jump ahead to explore the new circumstances that the characters find themselves in. It's a smart way of breaking the series' time-based narrative device, while allowing the audience to share Sookie's perspective, as she's forced to come to grips with the changes in Bon Temps.

So what's going on with everyone? Let's take a look, character by character.

Eric: He's now purchased Sookie's house right out from underneath her, allegedly as proof of his faith that she was still alive and would come back to Bon Temps eventually. While this makes him her landlord of sorts, it also seems to demonstrate that Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) feels he has certain, er, property rights as the owner of Sookie's ancestral home. In other words, "You're mine!"

Bill: William Compton (Stephen Moyer) is now--wait for it!--the Vampire King of Louisiana, and Eric's boss. Looks like he managed to get one over on old Sophie-Anne, though we'll get more on what happened there in the next few weeks. And Bill seems to be operating under the shared notion that the vampires need to reform their image, something that the AVL agrees with. (Hence that hilarious public service message from Kristin Bauer van Straten's Pam about Fangtasia being for everyone.) He's been under suspicion as Sookie's killer, and provides her with an alibi when she returns to town, saying that she was acting on his authority.

Jason: Jason (Ryan Kwanten) is now a deputy sheriff, serving under Andy Bellefleur (Chris Bauer), who appears to be addicted to vampire blood. And, despite the fact that no one has heard from Crystal in over a year, Jason has continued to care for the poor, in-bred denizens of Hotshot, bringing them food and supplies, and repeatedly fixing their refrigerator... That is, until he's clocked over the head and locked inside said fridge. Oh, Jason...

Lafayette: Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) hasn't gone soft in the last year, though he did find a new coif to go along with his saucy attitude. He and Jesus (Kevin Alejandro) are still going strong in a committed relationship, though Jesus pulls one over on Lafayette and brings him to his Wicca group, where Lafayette is introduced to Marnie (Fiona Shaw). And just like that, their circle is completed as Lafayette's innate abilities seem to super-charge the group. Marnie is able to successfully bring her dead familiar back to life, thanks to Lafayette's presence... and he's scared out of his wits when Marnie channels poor Eddie to deliver a rose to Lafayette. Eeek.

Tara: Tara is now living in New Orleans under a new identity. As Toni, she's a foxy boxer in a lesbian relationship, though she seems to be far more level-headed than angry. (Notice: she keeps the $20 from the drunken would-be john, rather than kicking his ass.) But she's also living a lie, telling her girlfriend all number of falsehoods as she slips deeper and deeper away from her life as Tara. A text from her dad about her dead grandmother? Please. But whether she comes back to Bon Temps now that Sookie's back in the land of the living remains to be seen...

Sam: After shooting his brother (who is now living with Maxine Fortenberry as a Hoyt manque), Sam (Sam Trammel) is trying to deal with his anger management issues, and he's found a collective of other shifters with whom he can open up about his true nature... and go riding in the woods as a horse. (I loved the bait-and-switch here; while it seemed like they were swingers, they're actually secret shifters.)

Jessica and Hoyt: Bon Temps' resident romantic couple is going through some serious problems one year after moving in together. As Hoyt (Jim Parrack) bristles against the fact that Jessica isn't performing any of her duties as his girlfriend (no food in the house, despite the fact that he's feeding her with his own blood), Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) snaps. What follows might just be one the most disgusting scenes ever on True Blood as Jessica cracks some eggs into a pan and slops the uncooked eggs--shells and all--onto a plate as Hoyt tucks in. Their stubbornness and anger, at least, quickly turns to humor, indicating that there's still some hope for these two. Sigh. But that scene at Fangtasia, as Jessica finds herself wanting a taste of someone else, doesn't bode well...

Arlene and Terry: Our Merlotte's mainstays (Carrie Preston and Todd Lowe) have already given birth to their darling little baby boy, thanks to the time jump. But a year hasn't assuaged any of Arlene's fears about her son, the offspring of a sadistic serial killer. And he's already decapitating dolls the second no one's looking. Look for things to get seriously weird there over the next few weeks. Is it fitting that the Arlene/Terry storyline is unfolding at the same time as the witches' one? Hmmm...

All in all, it's good to be back in Bon Temps and as soon as we got away from the faeries and lumieres and canyon runs, I felt a lot better about this episode, though it wasn't the most exciting and gripping season opener. It's no surprise then that HBO made the second episode available a week early over on HBO Go, though I personally would have gone with a two-hour opener if possible, as Episode 402 has a hell of a lot more momentum and a better cliffhanger ending. But that's just me. Still, I'm hoping that the witches come more into prominence than the faeries and that things begin to move together quickly... But not too quickly.

Still, I'm curious to know what you thought about the season opener? Did the faerie bits make you cringe just as much as they did me? Did you overlook the opening sequence to focus more on the character bits back in Bon Temps? Quality-wise, how would you rate this week's episode? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Next week on True Blood ("You Smell Like Dinner"), Sookie adjusts to Bon Tempsʼ new realities; Bill reveals pieces of his past; Eric crashes a witchesʼ meeting; Jason gets his wounds licked; Andy struggles with his addiction; Sam learns of Lunaʼs special talents; Jessica satisfies her blood cravings; and Arlene witnesses strange behavior from her family.

Ep. 38 Preview

Butterfly Effect: The Series Premiere of The Killing

In my review of AMC's addictive new mystery drama The Killing, I compared the new series, which premiered last night with a two-hour episode, both to Twin Peaks in some of its underpinnings (save the presence of the supernatural) and to the work of mystery novelist Ruth Rendell.

The comparison to Rendell--whose family, like Forbrydelsen, the series on which The Killing is based, hails from Denmark--is quite apt in certain respects. While some of Rendell's novels--particularly her Inspector Wexford installments--deal with crime investigation, the majority of them either delve into the pathology of the killer, exploring just what makes a person kill, or the way in which crime, particularly murder, affects everyone both before and after the perpetration of the crime. Of all crimes, murder is the one with the largest emotional fallout: not just to the victims but everyone the victim leaves behind; their secrets and those of the dead are forcibly brought out into the light. There is no such thing as privacy in a murder investigation, no secret unearthed, no feeling unrecorded.

In The Killing's first two episodes ("Pilot" and "The Cage"), written by Veena Sud (the first was directed by Patty Jenkins, the second by Ed Bianchi), we see the detritus left behind by the disappearance--make that death--of teenager Rosie Larsen: a butterfly collage on the wall, a pink sweater in a desolate field, a blood-stained wig in a dumpster, a name scratched into a high school bathroom mirror. These are the pieces that we leave behind, flotsam and jetsam clues for someone to piece together. But Rosie's family has their own emblems to hold onto, sources of guilt or horror: the ripped fingernails of the victim, a missed chance to say goodbye, the puddle made by her dripping hair, the way a broken vase can set off a indicting conversation about blame.

The discovery of Rosie's body, found in the trunk of a car belonging to the Richmond campaign, a car that was sunk at the bottom of a lake, has its own butterfly effect: the injustice of such a crime has ripples that affect everyone even tangentially influenced by Rosie Larsen: the girl's family, grieving for their slain daughter, her teenage friends, the police detective trapped in Seattle by the case, and a political campaign seemingly shocked that they've become entangled in a murder investigation.

That paper mosaic butterfly in Rosie's room, its double echoing, painfully, on the dead girl's neck, says so much about Rosie's life, her dreams, her loves, her optimism and buoyant spirit. But Rosie Larsen is dead. She will never again play with her little brothers, never kiss her father good-bye, never attend another dance. Her passing is keenly felt by everyone, their reactions raging from numbness to rage, from palpable loss to the desire to make sense of it somehow. (Even if that means, in the case of Terry, to blame the girl's mother for not calling her daughter all weekend.)

For Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos), there's an inherent sadness in seeing that paper butterfly on Rosie's wall, even as the siren song of personal happiness beckons to her in Sonoma. The dreary, rain-slicked streets and fields of Seattle seem miles away from a wedding and a future in Sonoma. Juggling her engagement to Rick (Callum Keith Rennie), her sullen teenage son Jack, and her desire to move on from this cold city, Linden is instantly connected with the teenage girl. While every fiber of her being is telling her to leave, to get on that flight, the universe is conspiring to keep her in Seattle.

(Enos' physical slightness here serves her character well. There's an aura of bruised vulnerability surrounding her, even as she stares upwards at the faces of men far taller than her. She's tiny but a giant in her own right and Enos plays her, her ponytail swinging as she walks, as a woman in a man's world who is still very much a woman, even one who "shops at Ross.")

It's Linden's intuition that leads her to discover Rosie's body in the trunk of the car, a gruesome and heartbreaking reveal made all the more disturbing when the audience learns that Rosie ripped off her own fingernails attempting to free herself as the trunk filled up with water. Linden's insight, her quiet nature, make her perfectly suited for this investigation, even as she's saddled with a new partner in unorthodox ex-narcotics squad member Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman), a shifty copper who has more in common with Linden's young son than he does with her. (Witness the vending machine food conversation, a favorite from the first two episodes.)

But Holder's instincts are just as solid as Linden's, even if they require some, uh, distinct methodologies. He tempts two teenage girls with pot and an invitation to party, only to turn around and use the information they provide him with a the first real clue they receive since the discovery of Rosie's corpse, locating "The Cage" in the high school's basement, a sordid and squalid hideaway with a bed on the floor and blood on the walls.

Was Rosie held here after the dance? Just what happened here and whose blood is that on the walls, a grisly handprint in crimson? And if something did befall Rosie here, how did she get from the school to the lake, where she met her fate?

Questions abound here and that's only natural in a murder investigation. The connection between Councilman Darren Richmond (Billy Campbell) and Rosie remains tantalizingly unclear. Why was she found in one of the campaign's cars? Did the killer mean for Rosie to never be found... or did they want the body found in order to cast suspicion on Richmond himself? Curious, that. Meanwhile, the good councilman has a leak within his office and all signs point to one of his deputies: ambitious Jamie (Eric Ladin) and smooth-as-silk Gwen (Kristin Lehman). Did one of them leak the Yitanes endorsement? Who tipped the press off about the connection to the vehicle? And just what did happen to Darren's dead wife Lily? And what "trips" has he been taking? Why is Gwen so willing to out herself as Darren's lover and provide him with an alibi?

Even as the investigation circles the political world, The Killing charts several other spheres, delving into the domestic front as Rosie's grief-striven mother Mitch (Michelle Forbes) and father Stanley (Brent Sexton) have to tell her brothers about their sister's death. In my advance review, I praised Forbes' searing performance, which reminded me of Grace Zabriskie's in Twin Peaks. Watching the first episode for what must be the fifth or sixth time, it doesn't lose any of its emotional impact. Raw and filled with unimaginable loss, it's a staggering performance that gives me chills each and every time I see it. Sexton's quivering lip and stammer as he tells his son that they're going to be okay is so overflowing with loss and love that it's impossible not to see the breaking heart inside his barrel chest.

And then there's the scholastic world that Rosie inhabited. Just what is Rosie's friend Sterling (Kacey Rohl) so terrified of? Her nose bleeds when she's questioned by her teacher about Rosie's whereabouts and she jumps inside her skin when she's confronted by Stanley. Why is she so ill at ease and scared all of the time? What's the connection between Rosie and bad boy Jasper (Richard Harmon) and druggie burnout Kris (Gharrett Paon)? Just what bad things has Jasper done in the past? And what is Jasper's wealthy father Michael Ames (Barclay Hope) concealing from the police about his errant son? Harmon's Jasper seems to be the prime suspect here: a brooding, spoilt rich kid who seems to only care about servicing his desires and wreaking havoc in his wake.

These two episodes provide a strong foundation for the future episodes to come, establishing the world and the various players in this investigation, showing us the personal cost to everyone and the quest for justice that lies ahead for our intrepid detectives. Holder makes a terrible error when he tells Rosie's parents that they will catch whoever did this to Rosie. Linden knows from personal experience that you can't make promises you can't keep. But Holder's effort to offer Mitch and Stanley a champion for Rosie might just make them villains if they can't deliver their daughter's killer. Even as Linden puts everything on the line--her role as fiancee, as mother--for this case, there's the feeling that unmasking this killer may prove far more difficult and deadly than Holder realizes.

All in all, there's a strong undercurrent here of dread and loss, one that doesn't let go from the opening moments (including that haunting credit sequence) to the very end of the second episode, when Linden surveys the gruesome scene inside the cage. There's something very wrong about those bloodstains on the wall and the juxtaposition of the witch's hat that Rosie wore at the dance, a sign of the horrors to come. A sign that very bad things are on the horizon...

What did you think of The Killing? Are you caught up in the investigation and the mystery surrounding Rosie's death? And, most importantly, will you watch again next week? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Next week on The Killing ("El Diablo"), Councilman Richmond suspects a leak within his team; Sarah tracks down a witness and is led to a suspect.