For Lionel, though, clinging to the belief that his son was insane when he committed his crimes is important because, for a long while at least, he lives in terror of the idea that he was in some way responsible for it all himself. When Jeff brings up the way Lionel used to help him collect and dissect roadkill, Lionel literally starts laughing in comical outrage over the idea. “You ain’t gonna lay this on me, no!” he says. “It’s not my fault! I didn’t do this! I was a good dad to you!” Of course he wants to believe this. Who wouldn’t, in his position?

I reviewed the eighth episode of Dahmer for Decider.

“I called y’all for months! Now y’all finally came and it’s too late! You came too late!” 

That would be the first time during this episode of Dahmer that I burst into tears.

“You knew he was a monster.”

“I knew. But nobody heard me.”

“I hear you, Glenda.”

That would be the last time during this episode of Dahmer that I burst into tears.

But there were times in between, and times afterwards, times after the episode ended and left me alone with what I’d just seen. Once again directed by Jennifer Lynch, from a script by co-creator Ian Brennan, Janet Mock, and David McMillan, this installment — titled “Cassandra,” after the prophetic figure from Greek mythology doomed to see the future without anyone every listening to her about it — is the most emotionally taxing thing I’ve seen on television all year. In terms of my visceral reaction to it, it’s one of the most emotionally taxing things I’ve seen on television ever.

I reviewed the seventh episode of Dahmer for Decider.

But for those of us who major in Jon Bernthal Studies, Gigolo remains a captivating portrait of a guy forced into a life he didn’t want at a too-young age, who found he excelled at it and came to embrace everything about it, only to have it all taken away from and be forced to reinvent himself, first as a convict, now as a free man. By the looks of things, he’ll be tricking again soon enough, yet another reinvention. Bernthal’s natural magnetism is the thing that connects all the dots: He’s equally convincing as a carefree playboy, a tatted-up jailbird, a down-on-his-luck sad sack, a doe-eyed heartsick lover, and a recidivist hustler. Physically, his gift is that he can embody all these things at once: It’s so easy to picture him as a fuck machine, a friendly just-folks kinda guy, or a thug, or sometimes all three at once. That’s the beauty of his work, and that’s the beauty of American Gigolo.

I reviewed this weekend’s episode of American Gigolo for Decider.

Dahmer may be the most grueling drama I’ve ever covered, and its sixth episode, “Silenced,” is one of the saddest hours of television I’ve ever seen. Anchored by a tremendous, heartfelt, achingly vulnerable performance by deaf actor and former reality TV star Rodney Burford, it offers the corrective that Dahmer has needed by giving one of the killer’s victims his own story, then slams the door on it, as you knew it must. That knowledge does not soften the blow one bit.

I reviewed episode six of Dahmer for Decider.

It’s only by cruising through life on Easy mode due to his race and gender — despite his outcast status, despite his closeted sexuality, despite his unspeakable urges, despite his overall taciturn and unlikeable demeanor — that Jeff got away with everything he got away with for as long as he did. Looked at with clear eyes, his life is just one long chain of fuck-ups. If he were a different color, if his victims were a different color, that chain might have been cut short much, much earlier.

I reviewed the fifth episode of Dahmer for Decider.

Anyway, I could not help be brought up short by the idea that mithril, of all things, is required to preserve the lives of the Elves? Because of the failure of a magic tree with no basis in Tolkien’s mythology? This seems like an awful lot to add to the mythos, and for what? An added sense of urgency? A connective tissue between the disparate narrative threads? A way to move the story along during these early episodes in order to kill time between now and the end of the season? All of these seem like ways of saying “the writers didn’t really know what to do, so they said to hell with it, Elves need mithril to live, so let it be written, so let it be done.” Granted, I’m bringing a certain bias to this analysis. But even if I weren’t, it seems both too neat and too busy, an overcomplication of a pretty straightforward story about the resurgence of evil and the need for disconnected races to unite to fight it. Adding “or else one of them will go extinct” undercuts the human (for lack of a better word) drama inherent in the need to persuade different peoples to fight for a common cause.

I reviewed the fifth episode of The Rings of Power for Decider.

There are three shots from this episode that are going to stay with me, I think. The first is Jeff in the bathroom mirror, covered in blood, accompanied by a menacing sting from the excellent score by art-rock musicians Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. The second is the moment where a drunken Jeff raises his cup of beer in a toast to the test of strength at the fair, emblazoned with phrases like “HE MAN” and “GOOD BOY,” phrases that mean more to him than anyone could have ever known. The third, probably obviously, is when he kisses the severed head through the plastic at the end of the episode. The man he murdered is now his keepsake, his secret. And many more men and boys will die before the secret is out. 

I reviewed the fourth episode of Dahmer for Decider.

We’re only three episodes deep into Dahmer’s ten-episode run, and already the accrual of brutal, depressing incidents has become difficult to endure. The fantastic, committed performances of Evan Peters as Jeffrey and Richard Jenkins and Penelope Ann Miller as his parents manage to make everything both better and worse. These are real, recognizable people with real, recognizable hopes and fears — the scene in which an astonished, joyful Joyce is offered a job counseling women at the center where she was once a patient is a genuinely touching moment of kindness towards an otherwise resolutely unpleasant, if very ill, person — that Jeffrey’s deeds will pulverize as surely as his hammer smashed those bones. It’s not going to be easy to watch, but then, that’s the point.

I reviewed the third episode of Dahmer for Decider.

Once again, cowriters Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy, led by director Clement Virgo, create a gruesome portrait of a broken person who can only find wholeness by breaking other people, quite literally down into their constituent body parts. He is both sad and contemptible, a shattered person who finds his meager pleasures only in shattering other people. The degree of difficulty inherent in handling this material is astronomical, but so far, they’ve pulled it off. I’m darkly excited to see where this ten-episode limited series goes. I’m anxious. I’m frightened. I’m sick. I’m watching good television.

I reviewed the second episode of Dahmer for Decider.

It’s with all this in mind that I approached TV superproducer/auteur Ryan Murphy’s stab at the material (no pun intended) with trepidation. Murphy is perhaps the most puzzling of all the big-name New Golden Age of TV figures. He’s responsible for American Crime Story, which in three distinct seasons, each overseen by different creators, established itself as probably the best anthology series in television history. He’s also responsible for…well, for everything else he’s done, from Glee to American Horror Story. These productions did not fill me with confidence; nor did the possibility that, as an attempt to score easy points with the audience, this version of Dahmer’s story would be treated as some sort of corrective to earlier interpretations, painting him as an unmitigated and unrepentant monster while showing little interest in what made him what he was and how he struggled with it. I mean, Monster is in the subtitle, or title, depending on your point of view. Can you blame me?

So I’m happy, if that’s the right word, to report that Ryan Murphy and his co-creator Ian Brennan’s Dahmer is as good an artistic take on Dahmer’s life and crimes as I’ve yet seen. Directed by TV veteran Carl Franklin, the first episode alone brought me to tears. Dahmer is treated as appropriately pathetic, but the viciousness of his crimes is not candy-coated. It’s clear that he knows something’s wrong with him, but he’s past the point of trying to do anything to stop it, and it’s other people — almost entirely people of color — who pay the price. 

I reviewed the first episode of Dahmer for Decider.

And we can talk about how the villains of the piece are, unambiguously, cops — not even stormtroopers or Imperial officers, but literal boys in blue. They trash homes, they bully civilians, they beat a female suspect, they shoot an unarmed man to death for failing to comply. Sure, they work for a corporation rather than “protecting and serving” on behalf of the people. What else is new?

The point I’m trying to make is this: When George Lucas envisioned the original Star Wars trilogy as a story of rebellion against an empire, he was thinking of Vietnam and the American war machine. But that hard-to-miss metaphor kind of slipped into subliminal range because the Imperials were hard to see as American analogues; their overall vibe owed too much to Nazi Germany (“stormtroopers,” for god’s sake) and, honestly, their awesome white armor was too cool-looking in a faceless sort of way. 

Not so here. So far, Andor’s rebellion is one of normal people banding together to fight law enforcement. It’s shootouts with corporate security forces. It’s hidden nexuses of resistance to the everyday depredations of forces that seem too big to fight against, until someone does it. Success is not guaranteed, and will not entail a big award ceremony in a temple on Yavin IV. At best it might make some small part of the galaxy a bit more livable for the people in it, for a moment or too. Is that worth fighting for? Is it worth dying for? Is it worth killing for? The show, crafted so skillfully in so many ways by creator/writer/showrunner Tony Gilroy and director Toby Haynes, is on Disney+, so its radicalism only takes you so far, but still, it has its answer. What’s yours?

I reviewed the third episode of Andor for Decider.

The Disney Star Wars Universe is a fictional world in which plot is privileged over all, in which fanservice and Easter eggs are held up as superior artistic achievements to virtually any other aesthetic consideration. With that in mind, it’s worth saluting the fellow who did nothing else but bang a metallic drum that signals the end of the work day for the working stiffs who populate Andor.

Why is he there? Why does the show repeatedly take time out of its already truncated running time to show us his routine? Because it adds something, dammit. Because little details that are unnecessary for plot movement are, outside the auspices of major franchise properties anyway, the stuff that good drama is made from. They’re like the huge, very un-Star Wars drums that hit on the soundtrack just prior to the end of the episode: They stick out, and insist that you experience them. I don’t want to make too much of the guy myself — it’s just a couple of little moments, that’s all — but those little moments linger.

I reviewed the second episode of Andor for Decider.

As a score that’s more John Carpenter than John Williams plays in the background, out-of-focus lights pass by overhead. A man walks in the rain through a red-light district of an alien city, in which various life-forms attempt to entice passers-by through Amsterdam-style show windows. The man enters a brothel — later referred to as such, by name — where an exotic-dancer hologram cavorts and employees attempt to entice him to try various wares from various exotic locales. 

The man refuses; he’s looking for his long-lost sister, not a good time. In the process, he makes enemies of two corporate rent-a-cops, who follow him out of the establishment into a dark alley and stick him up for money. 

The man fights back, accidentally killing one of his muggers before getting the drop on the other. Rather than report the death to the authorities together, as the remaining assailant begs him to do, he simply shoots the other guy to death in cold blood. More moody synths play on the soundtrack. 

So ends the first ten minutes of Andor, Disney+’s new serialized Star Wars drama. It’s true that my knowledge of the material is not exhaustive. But it’s safe to say that based on what I’ve seen, these ten minutes are more interesting than everything I’ve seen from the Disney Star Wars machine since Rogue One — combined. 

I reviewed the excellent first episode of Andor for Decider.

What I’ve learned from reading a bit of other people’s reactions to American Gigolo the TV show is that there are folks in this world who aren’t interested in watching Jon Bernthal strut around L.A. while being sexy and melancholy. Couldn’t be me! It’s hard for me to imagine a more telegenic leading man than Bernthal, his face all raw power, his eyes all bleeding soul, his body a machine — this time one built for sex rather than violence, as it was in The Punisher and We Own This City. His performance fascinates me, which is more than I can say for other more prominent shows at this moment. Let’s see where he rambles to next.

I reviewed tonight’s episode of American Gigolo for Decider.

Now that’s more like it!

Look, I’ll admit there are any number of reasons why I might have warmed to this episode of The Rings of Power more than its predecessors. Maybe, as a guy with the White Tree of Gondor tattooed on my arm, I just want a big-budget J.R.R. Tolkien TV series to succeed. Maybe I’m simply getting used to the show’s depictions of its characters and their world and learning to live with them rather than chafe at them. Maybe I’m feeling peer pressure!

Or — and I think this is the more likely case — maybe the show is finally doing what I’ve wanted it to do from the start: tightening the focus, abandoning the cheap “cliffhanger” mysteries that artificially forced the plot along, and allowing the story to emerge organically from interactions between characters with different personalities, goals, fears, plans, desires. Maybe it’s acting like a drama, instead of an expensive sandbox in which to play with a bunch of Tolkien and Tolkienesque toys.

In other words, maybe it got good!

I reviewed this week’s Rings of Power for Decider. It’s a vast improvement over its predecessors, though still far from perfect.

The episode’s primary driver, as you might have guessed from this brief summary, is not plot at all, but character-based ambiance, specifically emanating from Jon Bernthal. I’ve had the pleasure of covering his work in The Punisher and We Own This City for this website, and I’m not ashamed to say I simply can’t get enough of the guy. The thrill of watching Jon Bernthal work out in prison, drive a car on the freeway, languorously recline in bed, walk around in expensive-looking clothing, run his hands through his floppy hair, et cetera and ad nauseam, cannot be overstated. There’s just something about his dark brown eyes, his prizefighter face, his overall physical swagger that can’t be imitated or duplicated. You either have it or you don’t.

Of course, the same could no doubt be said about Richard Gere, who originated the role of Julian in Paul Schrader’s original film. (Reports that this show functions as a timeframe-adjusted sequel to the movie are greatly exaggerated; there’s simply no way to reconcile the events of that movie, in which Julian dodges a murder rap at the last minute thanks to the grace afforded him by the woman who loves him, with the events of this show, in which he does 15 years hard time.) Gere, who in retrospect looks like a sort of Bernthal/David Duchovny prototype, portrayed Julian as a beautiful nullity, a sort of sexual idiot savant whose polyglottism and knowledge of fashion, food, cars, stereos, art, and so on functioned solely as a means to woo older, wealthier women. The movie’s big tell is that Gere’s Julian had an apartment full of framed paintings and photographs simply stacked against the walls, not hung on them; he knew what constituted Good Art in the eyes of his milieu, but he didn’t care enough to actually enjoy it, since enjoying it wasn’t his job. 

I wrote about the series premiere of American Gigolo for Decider, where I’ll be covering the show all season. I also wrote a fair bit about Paul Schrader’s original American Gigolo film, about which I have mixed feelings. Check it out!

I’m trying, as hard as I can, not to let my lifetime of Tolkien readership to affect my judgment of the show, which is its own thing in a very different medium with different structures, strengths, and requirements. But it’s hard! It’s hard because I know how complex and tragic this material can be, and I’m seeing so little of that complexity and tragedy; in its place are a bunch of gritty tough guys and wide-eyed wonder-seekers I don’t recognize, whether their origins are canonical or not. Aside from some really cheesy seafaring sequences everything still looks solid and expensive, but it feels like some vital part of the storytelling and character-building budget was cut. Short of a magic ring, I’m not sure how the show digs itself out of that hole.

I reviewed this week’s episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power for Decider.

The biggest problem with this episode is evident if you compare it to, like, any other episode of good television. For the most part, stories in prestige TV are driven by character interaction. People encounter one another, have conversations or arguments or fights, emerge on the other side either changed or redoubled in their determination not to change, and the plot proceeds from there. (This is how House of the Dragon works, to cite an obvious point of comparison for this show.)

In this episode, though, written by Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul veteran Gennifer Hutchison of all people, way too many of the scene transitions that propel the narrative are these kind of cheap cliffhangers, in which the action is cut off just before or just after something interesting happens. Arondir gets got by some goblins? Cut! Durin père and Durin fils open a treasure box with a secret MacGuffin inside? Cut! Theo’s blood gets drawn into his obviously evil Sauronic artifact? Cut! Galadriel and Halbard get rescued by the silhouette of an off-camera sailor? Cut! 

You could get away with one or even two of these pseudo-suspenseful edits, I guess. But a whole suite of them? It’s not storytelling — it’s a cheat code, the easiest possible way to drive people from one moment (or episode) of the story to the next. I’m surprised it made it out of the writers’ room this way.

I reviewed the second episode of The Rings of Power for Decider.

At this point, I want to state for the record that I am currently covering not only The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon, and in neither case do I feel it’s my job to adjudicate the differences between the books and the shows. The books are the books and the shows are the shows — two different media, two different sets of structures and demands and rewards. Ultimately, what matters is what winds up on screen, and how that comes across to the viewer.

That being said, I must admit that it’s extraordinarily difficult for a person like me — a guy who first read The Hobbit at age 5, who’s seen the LotR movies more times than I can count, who’s read Tolkien’s books to his children multiple times, who has the goddamned White Tree of Gondor tattooed on his arm — to formulate an equal appreciation for the canonical characters and the invented ones. Galadriel and Elrond, and even Finrod and Gil-galad — these are old friends of mine, dating back decades. Arondir and Bronwyn and Theo and Nori? To paraphrase Mariah Carey, I don’t know them.

I reviewed tonight’s series premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which was okay, for Decider.

Where does that leave us, then? In the grips of an expertly made story of devotion and deceit, supported by excellent acting (I’m particularly impressed with John Lithgow’s ability to convey dismay and disbelief in seemingly dozens of different ways), played out with guns, on an international scale. And hey, did I ever mention how beautiful those medieval-style opening titles with the dogs are, by the way? The Old Man is crackerjack TV, in other words. I can’t wait for round two.

I reviewed the excellent season finale of The Old Man for Decider.