I wrote earlier that the second season of Weeds left me chilly. Well, buckaroos, have I got some good news for you! It gets all crazy and super-well-put-together again!
The premise is imaginative, zany, and impossible, but not impossible enough to fall outside the realm of some alternate universe naturalism. All of this is relatively unimportant. The pay-off, for me at least, is straight-up whimsy, that bizarro varietal of comfort which convinces, however briefly, that anything is possible.
They put together this ass-kicking montage of Nancy--suburban mom turned drug-lord protagonist--and her new reality: working retail in a maternity store, the legit front for a drug business over which she no longer has control. The execution was completly outside the normal mode of the show--the use of voice-over; the faux-conclusiveness; the solemnity--and you could just feel Nancy drying up, the intensity of her frustration. Moments like that make you realize how deep she got into it, what a terrible, corrupt person she is, but also how much she loved it, nay! how much she needed it. Cut back to the present, as Nancy closes up shop, and there's a thumping in the back room. Nancy enters to find... a man emerging from a tunnel to Mexico, trapped under a pile of boxes. He yells in Spanish, telling her not to put boxes there, ever again, and the camera follows as he walks back into the tunnel. We see crews of filthy diggers, lanterns, and drugs in maternity store bags as the guy walks back yelling instructions. Cue some awesome, kind of bubbly imagination land music and Nancy, that adorable risk-junkie, goes straight down the all but literal rabbit hole with only a moment's pause for wonderment, sticking her head in where she doesn't belong all over again but knowing, a little better this time, exactly what that may entail.
Awesome character moment, awesome music (you just have to trust me), and a perfect example of a show being true to its fundamental roots as an experiment in fantasy.
Showing posts with label Weeds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Weeds. Show all posts
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Oh Canada
I've mentioned Slings & Arrows a few times before, but probably not with sufficient awe and reverence. This show is consistent and surprising, which is like the holy grail of television.
The British model for a drama series, and apparently the Candian structure as well, is six episodes. In America it seems to be either 13 or 23, and I think the main dramatic thrust gets serious dilution when you need to fill so much air time. With six, each and every episode is based around the same 'A' storyline. No need to put up with entire episodes based around so and so who you never really cared about. A season of Slings & Arrows, for example, is about a specific production in a yearly theater festival, and that is what is going on every time you tune in. Sure, The Wire had 13 eps a season, but that show was effin' epic.
I've been watching S & A and Weeds in tandem. Cutting one drug with a slightly different varietal in the hopes that it will dilute the potency of each, risk being that I will get powerfully addicted to both. So far I'm cool, especially because the second season of Weeds is kinda choking. Nancy pants is going through this whole "ooh, look what I can get away with now that I'm a drug dealer" thing and just being a really terrible terrible parent. I guess it's pretty ok, especially the bits where she plays the DEA boyfriend against her lovestruck business partner for titillating dramatic tension, but they just went off the deep end in the part of the show that deals with family matters. Maybe it's just the dialogue, which got away with being clunky in season 1 somehow, because it was cute, but when you need to bring your a-game in season 2 and prove you can last in harsh post-novelty climes without the benefit of concept and character enfatuation, the half-wittedness just don't seem to fly any longer.
So, seriously, if you're in the game for some sustained and complicated dramatic action, netflix or pirate from the high electronic seas a copy of Slings and Arrows. They don't do dippy, and if you're a performer, like myself, it digs pretty deep into questions of poetic faith and worthiness/lack thereof of the artistic pursuit.
The British model for a drama series, and apparently the Candian structure as well, is six episodes. In America it seems to be either 13 or 23, and I think the main dramatic thrust gets serious dilution when you need to fill so much air time. With six, each and every episode is based around the same 'A' storyline. No need to put up with entire episodes based around so and so who you never really cared about. A season of Slings & Arrows, for example, is about a specific production in a yearly theater festival, and that is what is going on every time you tune in. Sure, The Wire had 13 eps a season, but that show was effin' epic.
I've been watching S & A and Weeds in tandem. Cutting one drug with a slightly different varietal in the hopes that it will dilute the potency of each, risk being that I will get powerfully addicted to both. So far I'm cool, especially because the second season of Weeds is kinda choking. Nancy pants is going through this whole "ooh, look what I can get away with now that I'm a drug dealer" thing and just being a really terrible terrible parent. I guess it's pretty ok, especially the bits where she plays the DEA boyfriend against her lovestruck business partner for titillating dramatic tension, but they just went off the deep end in the part of the show that deals with family matters. Maybe it's just the dialogue, which got away with being clunky in season 1 somehow, because it was cute, but when you need to bring your a-game in season 2 and prove you can last in harsh post-novelty climes without the benefit of concept and character enfatuation, the half-wittedness just don't seem to fly any longer.
So, seriously, if you're in the game for some sustained and complicated dramatic action, netflix or pirate from the high electronic seas a copy of Slings and Arrows. They don't do dippy, and if you're a performer, like myself, it digs pretty deep into questions of poetic faith and worthiness/lack thereof of the artistic pursuit.
Friday, June 13, 2008
The Return of Television
A sudden bout of downtime settles over me, like a shot of tequila on an empty stomach. I love tequila, but "settle over" is all wrong. I mean SHOOTS THROUGH MY UNPROTECTED VEINS AND CAPILLARIES WITH RAPACIOUS VIOLENCE.
Accordingly, I have gorged myself on my backlog of television shows. Oh, the Weeds, the Slings & Arrows of outrageous fortune which encourage me to take arms against a sea of trouble! Also I am listening to "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap on repeat. For like two days. Mmm, whatcha say?
Confession time, this is one of those periods of self-imposed cabin fever during which I write lots of Important Things on index cards, make faces in the mirror, and hatch ingenious schemes like the creation of a "Naked Guy" vlog and figuring out how to make the Altar of Entropy do some serious journalistic work in the alternate universe of WoW. Just do it, Gerrit, you'll thank me later. I'll totally come to Brooklyn to intervene in three months (the amount of time I expect it will take you to create level 70 toons on every realm and start brewing a devious conspiracy to overthrow Blizzard). Other activities on my todo list: drink whatever alcohol is in the apartment without repeats; headstands until I black out; handstands until I black out; memorize the lyrics to "Hide and Seek"; prepare absurd greetings for those foolish enough to call me on my telephone.
Anyway, I totally just saw a great moment of television. Finale of the first season of Weeds--Nancy pants has built herself a motherfucking drug empire. She is the big momma, by hook, crook, wit, luck, hotness, and that special courage that can only come from being really really ignorant. They organized a great Godfather-esque scene in which she gathers all her peeps and begins a meeting. Youngest son watches open-mouthed as the double doors are shut on his mother's place of business, knowing that not all is right in suburbia.
Counter this very theatrical scene with Nancy showing up at the Nice Guy's house. You know, the one that has been pursuing her but they could never get together because she is a DRUG DEALER and has problems. She is vulnerable, they take her right off the mystical pedestal built for her--I gotta do an aside here. Anybody else like Dune? You did, because it was AWESOME. At the end you have the motherfucking KWISATZ HADERACH standing on top of the universe. It is a case study in how to make your protagonist Awesome and attain godliness. Ethical, aesthetic, or philosophical problems with this particular narrative aside, everything that happened after that moment in the Dune universe sucked. So way to go Weeds, for jumping that sinking ship.
Anyway, newly vulnerable, human, and relate-to-able Nancy, maybe finding something good and untainted in her life again, gets up to go pee and throws on Nice Guy's robe. Flips on the light... she is wearing a DEA jacket.
God I love it. I love it so much I will go practice arm balances for at least twenty minutes and then drink more beer. Is there an index card with something Important written on it in my future? Cabin fever eightball says: "As I see it, yes!"
Accordingly, I have gorged myself on my backlog of television shows. Oh, the Weeds, the Slings & Arrows of outrageous fortune which encourage me to take arms against a sea of trouble! Also I am listening to "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap on repeat. For like two days. Mmm, whatcha say?
Confession time, this is one of those periods of self-imposed cabin fever during which I write lots of Important Things on index cards, make faces in the mirror, and hatch ingenious schemes like the creation of a "Naked Guy" vlog and figuring out how to make the Altar of Entropy do some serious journalistic work in the alternate universe of WoW. Just do it, Gerrit, you'll thank me later. I'll totally come to Brooklyn to intervene in three months (the amount of time I expect it will take you to create level 70 toons on every realm and start brewing a devious conspiracy to overthrow Blizzard). Other activities on my todo list: drink whatever alcohol is in the apartment without repeats; headstands until I black out; handstands until I black out; memorize the lyrics to "Hide and Seek"; prepare absurd greetings for those foolish enough to call me on my telephone.
Anyway, I totally just saw a great moment of television. Finale of the first season of Weeds--Nancy pants has built herself a motherfucking drug empire. She is the big momma, by hook, crook, wit, luck, hotness, and that special courage that can only come from being really really ignorant. They organized a great Godfather-esque scene in which she gathers all her peeps and begins a meeting. Youngest son watches open-mouthed as the double doors are shut on his mother's place of business, knowing that not all is right in suburbia.
Counter this very theatrical scene with Nancy showing up at the Nice Guy's house. You know, the one that has been pursuing her but they could never get together because she is a DRUG DEALER and has problems. She is vulnerable, they take her right off the mystical pedestal built for her--I gotta do an aside here. Anybody else like Dune? You did, because it was AWESOME. At the end you have the motherfucking KWISATZ HADERACH standing on top of the universe. It is a case study in how to make your protagonist Awesome and attain godliness. Ethical, aesthetic, or philosophical problems with this particular narrative aside, everything that happened after that moment in the Dune universe sucked. So way to go Weeds, for jumping that sinking ship.
Anyway, newly vulnerable, human, and relate-to-able Nancy, maybe finding something good and untainted in her life again, gets up to go pee and throws on Nice Guy's robe. Flips on the light... she is wearing a DEA jacket.
God I love it. I love it so much I will go practice arm balances for at least twenty minutes and then drink more beer. Is there an index card with something Important written on it in my future? Cabin fever eightball says: "As I see it, yes!"
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