The hug lasts 45 seconds before they kiss. Yes, I counted. In the terms of that episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” where Larry hugs Auntie Rae for a little too long, it’s nine “five Mississippi”s. And like any long, drawn-out take on this densely packed show, it stops everything in its tracks.
For three quarters of a minute, we watch empathy, respect, gratitude, warmth, heat, curiosity, desire and, finally, passion all play out in the silent embrace between Queen Rhaenyra and her friend and counselor Mysaria. For the first time in their lives, each of these two very different people has found somebody she sees as an equal, and who sees her as an equal in turn, and the thought quickly goes from comforting to intoxicating. Dragons are flying, men are burning, reigns are teetering, but for as long as that embrace lasts, the world of “House of the Dragon” exists between these two women’s arms.
“House of the Dragon” thoughts, Season One, Episode Six: “Smallfolk”
“Those About to Die” thoughts, Season One, Episodes Nine and Ten: “The Die Is Cast” and “Let the Games Begin”
This, ultimately, is the smartest move made by writer-creator Robert Rodat in the development of this show: Pairing the destinies of the power player we like the best and the one we like the least. Every victory is tainted, every loss contains a glimmer of hope. It leaves you wanting things to both happen and not happen at the same time — like the senators who offer up the weakest “Hail, Caesar” in human history as a response to Domitian’s ascension, we both accept it and don’t. It’s very smart storytelling.
I reviewed the final two episodes of Those About to Die for Vulture. It was a hoot.
“Those About to Die” thoughts, Season One, Episodes Seven and Eight: “Death’s Bed” and “All or Nothing”
I’m growing increasingly fond of Those About to Die as it goes. I enjoy unexpected filigrees and flourishes like Xenon coming on to Scorpus, like the playful “tchk tchk” sound Antonia makes when she tells her prospective new driver, Elia, that he’ll need to prove himself (if that wasn’t an invention of actor Gabriella Pession, I’ll eat an Andalusian), or like Tenax proclaiming what might as well be this show’s house words as he maps out his plan for the soon-to-open Flavian Amphitheatre, a.k.a. the Roman Colosseum: “Enough is good, more is better, too much is perfect.”
I reviewed episodes seven and eight of Those About to Die for Vulture.
“Those About to Die” thoughts, Season One, Episodes Five and Six: “Betrayal” and “Blood Relations”
And as the world’s biggest sucker for cooperation, I can’t tell you how my heart leapt to see Tenax, Domitian, and Titus work together to thwart Marsus’s play for the throne. None of these guys are such great shakes, so it’s not like, “Hooray, evil is defeated” or anything like that. It’s more that it’s simply pleasant to watch people who have every incentive to be at each other’s throats instead choose to work together, help each other, and treat each other decently in the process. When Titus sincerely thanked Domitian for saving his life, I wanted to get in on a group hug. Life may be cheap in Rome, but that’s all the more reason to let your bro know you love him.
I reviewed episodes five and six of Those About to Die for Vulture.
“Those About to Die” thoughts, Season One, Episodes Three and Four: “Death’s Door” and “Fool’s Bet”
Blue, white, red, green, gold — these are the colors of the factions whose drivers thrill the crowds at the Circus Maximus. But the color I want to talk about is purple. A dawn purple, a dusk purple, making the streets of Rome look cool and rich and inviting. This particular shade of purple doesn’t really show up until director Marco Kreuzpaintner takes over from Roland Emmerich for Those About to Die’s fourth episode. But after spending much of the intervening time in the amorphous, blue-and-orange color-graded no-man’s-land favored by so many TV productions today, it’s nice to spend a little time in lavender and violet. Feels appropriately imperial, doesn’t it?
I reviewed the third and fourth episodes of Those About to Die for Vulture.
“Thouse About to Die” thoughts, Season One, Episodes One and Two: “Rise or Die” and “Trust None”
With a cold-blooded murder orchestrated by its main character within its premiere episode’s first minute, Those About to Die ain’t your daddy’s sword-and-sandal action epic. Except that, well, it kind of is. Its writer-creator, Robert Rodat, is the Academy Award–nominated screenwriter of Saving Private Ryan, perhaps the greatest dad movie of them all (give or take a Shawshank Redemption). Roland Emmerich, director of the first two episodes, gave us Independence Day among many other “Sunday afternoon on TNT in a hotel room” blockbusters.
The show is largely being sold on the strength of a pivotal but minor role played by Anthony Hopkins, who achieved megastardom more than 30 years ago. Even the source material — the dubiously accurate and extraordinarily lurid “history” of Roman gladiatorial games and combat-sport spectacles by Daniel P. Mannix, the cover blurb of which is transcribed above — is the kind of thing you’d find moldering on your granddad’s bookshelf. For all its nudity and gore, the latter liberally splashed across the streets and statuaries of Rome in the CGI opening credits, Those About to Die is not in danger of crossing any kind of artistic Rubicon anytime soon.
The short version: This is the most obviously Game of Thrones–inspired show to come along since Shōgun, and it lacks half that show’s vision or restraint.
But sometimes you just wanna see sexy people in gladiator uniforms run around snogging and fighting and using old-timey accents to sound faux ancient. Well, I do, anyway. And even if there’s a lot of fat that could have been trimmed from these first two hourlong episodes, as well as a lot of dramatically inert characters who could have been spun into something more substantial, well, to paraphrase Gladiator, I was at least entertained.
I reviewed the first two episodes of Those About to Die for Vulture.
“Presumed Innocent” thoughts, Season One, Episode Seven: “The Witness”
I still can’t say enough good things about the performances. The way O-T Fagbenle slowly emits the word “fuuhhhcked” from his mouth has to be heard to be believed. Peter Sarsgaard is like the Gollum of legal thrillers. Jake Gyllenhaal maintains an intensely physical vibe through careful placement of intense workouts and equally intense snippets of his sex life with Carolyn. You need to feel that passion, as he puts it on the stand. You need to feel how it’s both exciting and destructive.
I reviewed this week’s fine episode of Presumed Innocent for Decider.
“House of the Dragon” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Five: “Regent”
In his series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire, the author George R.R. Martin has based a trio of men-at-arms on Curly, Moe and Larry, the Three Stooges. He has used the superheroes Blue Beetle and Green Arrow as the basis for noble houses’ emblematic sigils. During the events depicted in “House of the Dragon,” the important House Tully is variously ruled over by Lords Grover, Elmo, and Kermit, with a Ser Oscar thrown in for good measure, as if “Sesame Street” had come to the Seven Kingdoms.
So do I think it’s possible that in his book “Fire and Blood,” the basis of “House of the Dragon,” Martin put Prince Aemond Targaryen in control of Westeros just as a cheeky way to illustrate the maxim “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”? I wouldn’t put it past him.
I reviewed tonight’s episode of House of the Dragon for the New York Times.
Shelley Duvall’s ‘Shining’ Eyes Were The Audience’s Portal Into The Overlook Hotel
Shelley Duvall had some of the most beautiful eyes in Hollywood history; Bette Davis eyes, Ella Purnell eyes, Emma Stone eyes, Anya Taylor-Joy eyes. Indeed many of her early roles counted on the sex appeal those eyes radiated. But by taking on Wendy Torrance, Duvall showed she was fully aware of her physical instrument’s full range of capabilities. The same eyes that seduced half the male cast of Nashville, say, could also be used to convince an unsuspecting audience that your son was communicating with the spirit world, that your dry-drunk husband had gotten into a spectral bottle and grabbed a weapon to wield against you, that things had gone so wrong that the world itself is bleeding. That’s a special gift, one without which — without Shelley Duvall — the greatest horror movie ever made would be measurably less great.
I wrote about Shelley Duvall’s tremendous performance as Wendy Torrance in The Shining for Decider.
“Presumed Innocent” thoughts, Season One, Episode Six: “The Elements”
Presumed Innocent is a good-looking show in a non-ostentatious way, and that’s true throughout this episode. Little moments like Barbara and Rusty hugging in their living room. Tommy returning home and displaying genuine, uncomplicated happiness as he hugs his adorable orange cat. Jaden clinging to Rusty almost for dear life. The almost expressionistic positioning of Rusty, Mya, Ray, and Barbara for the camera in their meeting discussing Barbara’s demeanor in court. It’s nice to feel rewarded for watching.
I reviewed this week’s episode of Presumed Innocent for Decider.
“The Acolyte” thoughts, Season One, Episode Seven: “Choice”
Let the record show it was neither my decision nor yours to spend the first six episodes of The Acolyte teasing a mystery to be revealed in the seventh. That’s the kind of decision made by a creative team confident in its choices — in ability to reveal and conceal at will, to generate fresh interest while continuing to string us along, and to deliver when the time finally comes.
Based on this week’s episode, that confidence was misplaced. Not one choice made in “Choice” proves capable of bearing the accumulated weight of the six episodes of “What really happened on Brendok on that fateful night sixteen years ago?” that preceded it.
The script stumbles right out the gate by casting this flashback episode as a sort of alternate take on the previous such installment, which showed us the Jedi’s arrival on Brendok and the tragic end of Mae and Osha’s coven from Osha’s perspective. The problem is that nothing whatsoever is gained from shifting the focal point from Osha to Sol, or to his fellow Jedi Indara and Torbin, or to their mothers Aniseya and Koril. They might has well have simply re-aired that earlier episode, just with the cameras placed three feet to the left. That’s the revelatory new viewpoint we’re getting.
“House of the Dragon” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Four: “The Red Dragon and the Gold”
From its sobriquet on down, George R.R. Martin’s World of Ice and Fire is largely a bipolar one. Blacks fight Greens. Starks fight Lannisters. And in the prophetic Song of Ice and Fire itself, death wars against life.
The dragons flown by the Targaryen dynasty are an exception to this rule. In the source novels, various maesters and royals speculate that dragons are neither male nor female, capable of switching sexes as needed. True, they are the fire that helps turn back the ice of the Night King and his undead minions in “Game of Thrones,” and the most magnificent and awe-inspiring living creatures in the Westerosi bestiary. But they are also death incarnate, capable of inflicting carnage amid soldiers and civilians alike at an industrial scale.
And if need be, they can be called upon to kill one another, in battles as brutal as they are beautiful. There is a reason scholars within Martin’s fictional universe refer to the Targaryen civil war as the Dance of the Dragons: The conflict is as rapturous to behold as it is repugnant, often in the same scene.
I reviewed tonight’s incredible episode of House of the Dragon for the New York Times.
“Presumed Innocent” thoughts, Season One, Episode Five: “Pregame”
I recognize his reaction, because I’ve seen people react to me that way. Yeah, that’s right, call me Tommasino “Tommy” Molto, because I’ve horrified my inner circle with my self-pity. The key exchange:
TOMMY: “I’m good at what I do!”
NICO: “…Do you think I would give you this case if I didn’t think that?”
There’s a uniquely insufferable trait, and it’s one I recognize in myself, of being awarded some boon you earned from a person who respects you, yet insisting they don’t and the whole thing’s some kind of scam set up for the benefit of watching you fail. Why? Who would do this, and to what end? What is Step 2 in the Underpants Gnomes’ plan here? I don’t know! Tommy doesn’t know! But there’s a certain kind of self-pity — self-contempt is probably the right word — that insists upon this absurd premise anyway. It’s crybully behavior. It’s the mentality of a person who’s a bottomless pit.
I reviewed this week’s episode of Presumed Innocent for Decider. Good show!
“The Acolyte” thoughts, Season One, Episode Six: “Teach/Corrupt”
The episode ends admirably oddly, with Osha putting on Qimir’s helmet — it’s made from cortosis, a metal that both shorts out lightsabers and has a sensory-deprivation effect so that your only remaining sense is the Force itself, provided you can tap into it. We see her put the helmet on through her eyes, watching the world go black except a little sliver of dim light. We hear her breathe, and the credits begin to roll over the sound effect, not Star Wars-y music as has been the case…well, literally every other time I’ve watched anything Star Wars.
I’m impressed by this willingness to break the mold, also reflected in the decision to let actor Manny Jacinto flex his full sex appeal as Qimir. Obviously, I’m impressed by all the cute little guys. But I’d be more impressed if I felt these innovations came in service of material that provided any of it with a compelling context. Evil twins, mistaken identity, “What happened?” “I’ll tell you everything” episode after episode…there’s not much to go on there.
‘Interview With the Vampire’: Ben Daniels on That Bloody Season 2 Finale
As a screen presence, Santiago needs that kind of ammo. He has to hold his own with the “big four” members of the show’s emotional quadrangle, Louis, Lestat [Sam Reid], Claudia and Armand [Assad Zaman], even though he’s not romantically or emotionally involved with any of them.
[Smiling] Is he not?
Well, well, well!
This was one of the first jobs I’ve ever done sight unseen, just because it meant working with Rolin. From the outset, Rolin called up and said, “Listen, are you OK if we don’t make Santiago queer?” I was like, “Yeah, I can sort of see it.”
But as the script started to come in, I thought the only way this level of vitriol that he has works is if he’s in love with Armand. There is this extraordinary psychological term called reaction formation, which is what Iago has for Othello. It’s a defense mechanism whereby your impulses are so unacceptable to your ego that they’re replaced by this opposite, exaggerated behavior.
Santiago finds Louis incredibly attractive. Because Armand killed Santiago’s maker — who I think he was in love with too — and also finds Louis attractive, the whole thing must be destroyed. It gave such a drive to his hatred. It was just something ruminating in myself that drove him forward in a very aggressive, mad, extreme way.
Here’s a gift link to my interview with the magnificent Ben Daniels about his delightful work as Santiago on this season of Interview with the Vampire. He was extremely gracious and generous with his time and emotion, as you’ll see. It’s one of my favorite interviews I’ve ever done.
House of the Dragon’s Ewan Mitchell Wanted His Nude Scene to Shock You
I was honestly surprised to find Aegon and his buddies still bullying Aemond during the brothel scene in this episode. Historically, bullying Aemond has not worked out very well for people.
Aegon catches Aemond in a vulnerable spot. Picking up the script for the first time and seeing those brothel scenes in episode two and three, I saw a brilliant opportunity to offer a rare glimpse of his vulnerability. You only ever see him in his Targaryen blacks, so to see him in that world — not only that, but then humiliated by his brother — is quite shocking.When he gets up and walks out without bothering to dress first, so sure of himself even in the face of that humiliation, he seems scarier to me than when he’s riding on Vhagar.
I love that line from Michael Mann’s Heat, when Bob De Niro’s character says, “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.” That’s the code his character utilizes so he’s able to maneuver around this world without getting caught by Al Pacino.Aemond has a similar code that stops him from being hurt like he was as a kid. That’s why he’s able to walk out on the madam in that scene. He’s humiliated by his brother and all his crew, and it’s like this switch flips. The madam is no more. All of these people in front of him? They mean nothing. He stands up, he owns it. “Yeah, I’m bulletproof. Anything you say, it will not work.” Like you say, it’s scary.