If you want something done right, give it to actor Zahn McClarnon to do. That’s the logical conclusion to draw coming out of this week’s episode of Westworld, titled “Kiksuya” – and the series’ best hour by a considerable margin. For once, the show’s annoyances (easy escapes, constant pointless bickering, those damn orchestral alt-rock cover versions) aren’t enough to overwhelm the material of real value. It took one of its most underutilized cast members, placed him at the center of a storyline that directly addressed the series’ sci-fi conceit but combined it with real mythmaking power and then let him run. The warrior Akecheta may not save Ghost Nation and its many human captives, but he just might have saved this show.

Until now, McClarnon had only been required to do is act mysterious and menacing – which is easy to do when you’re covered head to toe in death-cult warpaint – and spend a little time in a real-world flashback scene looking smart and suave. (The dude is all cheekbones.) But if you watched Fargo Season Two, you know that this actor is capable of so much more. As Hanzee Dent, the Native American enforcer for a Midwestern crime family, he was a nearly mute murder machine whose every move and murmur carried the weight of the whole rotten world. His reading of a weary, whispered line like “Tired of this life” – so tired that even identifying himself as said life’s owner was too much to bear – was all he needed to make himself the season’s greatest monster and its wounded moral heart.

This is the McClarnon we get tonight.

Last night’s Westworld was, by a considerable margin, the best episode of the series. I reviewed it for Rolling Stone.

26. ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ (2001)

Meet the only film on this (or any other) list in which a deranged Vietnam veteran played by Law & Order: SVU’s Christopher Meloni learns valuable life lessons from a talking can of vegetables that can suck its own dick. (“And I do it a lot.”) With a gaggle of alums from the influential sketch comedy group the State both in front of and behind the camera – and a cast of soon-to-be superstars including Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Elizabeth Banks and Paul Rudd – this send-up of raunchy Reagan-era teen comedies has an anything-for-a-laugh approach that actually gets laughs every time. This one-time cult curiosity has since spawned two Netflix spinoff series … as well as a legendary DVD audio commentary track that just adds extra fart sounds.

I contributed a pair of write-ups to Rolling Stone’s list of the best comedies of the century so far, featuring the usual murderers’ row of writers. Enjoy!

Bill Mantlo’s versatile writing and Ed Hannigan’s expressive art helped these au courant characters make a strong first impression. The two collaborated on the pair’s design in particular, and the results speak for themselves, from the swirling void of Ty’s dark cloak to the daring dagger-shaped décolletage of Tandy’s bodysuit. Not to mention that the color contrast between the characters’ costumes are a bit like if the black-and-white outfits that artist John Romita Sr. designed for fearsome figures like the Punisher or Bullseye had been split into two people. The look also anticipated artist Mike Zeck’s design for Spider-Man’s black costume and its eventual incarnation as Venom a few years later.

C&D earned their own mini-series in 1983 and an ongoing comic two years later, both illustrated by Rick Leonardi. But despite, or perhaps because of, their combination of two of the era’s biggest trends – teen teams and “good guys” who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty – they never wound up hitting the heights of other anti-heroes. Still, the strength of the design, and the mixed-up-kids-bound-by-fate concept, kept them from fading from the spotlight completely.

Sadly, both Mantlo and Hannigan have suffered debilitating health crises: Mantlo was permanently incapacitated after being struck by a hit-and-run driver in 1992, while Hannigan suffers from multiple sclerosis. Despite the strength of their creation, the financial struggles endemic in the dog-eat-dog comics industry have made them causes célèbres for fans and charities alike.

I wrote a primer on Cloak and Dagger in anticipation of their new Freeform tv series for Rolling Stone.

It was the best of worlds, it was the worst of worlds. Like no episode before it, this week’s voyage to Westworld (“Les Écorchés”) was the proverbial non-stop action thrill ride – a carnival midway of cool sci-fi/horror imagery and visceral combat. It had James Marden’s Teddy going full Terminator, dressed in body armor and beating short-lived security badass Coughlin to death with his bare hands. It has both Clementine and Angela going out in blazes of glory, the latter by blowing up the hosts’ backup files in the Cradle and setting them free from the park’s endless loop. It has a beautifully shot face-off between Maeve and the Man in Black, the camera resting on Thandie Newton’s foregrounded face as she uses her psychic powers to turn the MiB’s own android allies against him. It has a creepy Bluebeard closet full of Bernard replicas and the real version getting possessed by the electronic spirit of his own creator so he can murder Delos thugs guilt-free. In short, it’s full of rad-ass robot shit.

[…]

The same cannot be said of the new narrative’s antagonist. Frankly, it’s time to come to terms with Charlotte Hale. Obviously, Tessa Thompson’s on a career hot streak – but the character of Hale is ice cold, and not in the unflappable-villain way she’s supposed to be either. There’s just nothing interesting about this one-note one-percenter, or the smirking way in which Thompson delivers every line. She has the mocking affect of a condescending reply from a Trump supporter on Twitter. She’s obnoxious when she has the upper hand over Peter Abernathy and Bernard in their respective torture chambers, and she’s just as irritating when her picked-on minion Stubbs, or rogue hosts Dolores and Teddy, have the upper hand on her in turn.

I reviewed tonight’s Westworld, which was both good pulpy fun and incredibly stupid, for Rolling Stone.

29. Enfys Nest

Looking like a cross between Kylo Ren and a crazed buzzard, the black-clad marauder called Enfys Nest is a terrifying presence as Solo picks up steam, leading a clan of Cloud-Rider sky pirates in daring, deadly raids against Han’s criminal crew. But this fascinating character is more than he – or rather, she  – seems at first glance. Nest is actually a teenage girl (played by newcomer Erin Kellyman) who’s assembled her own rebel alliance of aliens, all of whom have been victimized by the crime syndicates Solo and his comrades have been forced to serve. Under her leadership, they’ve started to fight back. Han’s decision to help her out rather than sell her out is a major step on his road to the Rebellion – and, hopefully, just our first glimpse of an incredibly cool new character.

I updated Rolling Stone’s list of the 50 Best Star Wars Characters of All Time to include Solo and The Last Jedi. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself at eight, or eighteen, that this would be my job someday.

Dismemberment, disembowelment and decapitation: Traditionally, these aren’t what you’d call teachable moments. But thanks to some swordpoint shenanigans in Shogunworld, all three figure prominently into a key scene in this week’s episode of Westworld (“Phase Space”). Even better, they go a long way toward demonstrating why this installment is such a dramatic uptick in quality from its predecessors. Whether it’s the script by Mad Men veteran Carly Wray or the direction by Swedish filmmaker Tarik Saleh is unclear, but there’s attention paid here to subtle human reactions to events as they unfold that’s unequaled by previous episodes. It’s all about the execution – even when you’re talking about an actual execution.

Let’s take that gory swordfight as a starting point. The duel in question involves Musashi, the ronin befriended by Maeve and her posse last week, and his former lieutenant turned rival Tanaka. Eschewing the techno-telepathy of “the witch” in favor of an old-fashioned mano a mano – staged in broad daylight, as opposed to the previous episode’s inexplicably murky swordplay – the two men go blade for blade in front of our heroes and a whole crowd of townspeople. (Contender for most memorable shot: An old man covering a little boy’s eyes to shield him from the bloodshed.) The fight ends with Tanaka’s protracted, screaming demise: Musashi cuts his hand off at the wrist, then provides him with the short sword he must use for harakiri, before beheading him. It’s the first time in a long time that the show’s brutality has been this inventively and empathetically staged. When the samurai and his geisha comrade Akane (who memorably carves out the heart of her own daughter for cremation) choose to stay behind and fight for their homeland instead of fleeing, the decision feels truly earned.

I reviewed last week’s episode of Westworld, which I thought was better than most, for Rolling Stone.

But – listen, this is Westworld, there’s always a but – enough baffling decisions remain to knock you out of the action faster than a katana to the face. For starters, despite what looks like very strong fight choreography and a behind-the-scenes budget bigger than a small country’s GDP, all the combat is shot in the dark. This is usually either a cost-cutting measure (you don’t need to pay for details you can’t see) or a way to hide sloppy swordplay. Since neither of those factors appear to apply, it comes across like sheer addiction to the murky, somber lighting and color palette of Prestige TV. What’s the point of all that precise blade-wielding if you don’t actually get to see the damn blades?

Also, true to the show’s programming, cringeworthy music cues are abound here. If you thought the cover of Kanye West’s “Runaway” (coincidentally the week he went full MAGA) or the “White Stripes: Indian Edition” version of “Seven Nation Army” were hard to take, wait until you hear faux-Japanese versions of the Stones’ “Paint It Black” and the Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” The former, at least, is a callback to the show’s first use of the song, during the Sweetwater bandit raid that ShogunWorld has recycled for its own setting. But “Cash Rules Everything Around Me,” during a scene that has nothing to do with cash? Is the idea “Well, Wu-Tang love samurai flicks, so it works”? If so, why not remake a song that actually samples music or dialogue from those films? As it stands, this just sounds like taking the Wu’s most recognizable hit and dumping it in the middle of a scene just because they can. Not even dropping a big sack with a dollar sign right in Thandie Newton’s lap would seem more jarring.

I reviewed the Westworld where they went to Fake Japan for Rolling Stone. I was pleased to see the show embracing its innate pulpiness, which has always been far more interesting than the deep thoughts it seems to think it has, and I write about that a bunch. But it still makes everything such a challenge to actually enjoy because of choices like the ones described above.

A hallmark of great art is showing you something you never imagined needing to see until you actually see it. No one is claiming that Westworldis the second coming of the Sistine Chapel, but the HBO hit has flashes of greatness from time to time – and there’s a scene in this week’s episode (“The Riddle of the Sphinx”) that’s damn near canon-worthy. Who knew that watching a grizzled Scottish character actor playing a robotic replica of himself, boogieing down to the manic crooning of Bryan Ferry in Roxy Music’s glam-dance classic “Do the Strand,” was what our lives were collectively missing? You can keep your mazes and mysteries and violent delights woth violent ends. We’ll take Peter Mullan’s Jim Delos rocking out to an Eno-produced glitter-rock jam any ol’ time.

I reviewed last night’s episode of Westworld for Rolling Stone. Typical Westworld: a good scene or two amid a ton of self-important dross.

Westworld frustrates because it doesn’t seem to recognize its own strengths. Hint: They don’t lie in lines of clichéd dialogue like “We ain’t so different, you and I,” or in raga-fied instrumental cover versions of the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” (as heard in the opening sequence, ugh), or in a predictable cliffhanger in which a samurai attacks Maeve’s group when they arrive in Shogunworld. The whole point of the park it has the potential to be anything, but winds up being something awful, because that’s human nature. That’s rich territory to explore, but the show’s still wandering in circles.

I reviewed episode three of Westworld Season 2 (the one with India in it) for Rolling Stone. I think it’s pretty clear this is not going to turn into a good show, which makes its few flashes of…brilliance is way too strong a word, but interest, at least? more frustrating.

That said, all the usual caveats apply. The return of Logan and Young William and the debut of James Delos add even more assholes to a cast of characters full to bursting with them. Despite the stamp of co-creator Jonathan Nolan and Mad Men vet Carly Wray, the script still tends toward the obvious (the predictable twist at the party, a too-cute bit that introduces the “doesn’t look like anything to me” catchphrase) and the clichéd (someone actually says “You have no idea what you’re up against”). The plotting is plodding, with one thing happening after another and no clear climax or standout sequence to point to.

And with the exception of a sprinkling of jokes, the tone is so unsmilingly serious that it feels like its parodying a Weekend Update Stefon bit: “This park has everything: unhappy robots, unhappy people, unhappy robots who think they’re unhappy people …” Like the characters, we’ve got a long road ahead of us before we reach our destination. If the show stays in this grim mode, it may not kill us to take that ride. But it won’t exactly thrill us, either.

I reviewed last night’s episode of Westworld for Rolling Stone. It’s not a good show, but the way in which it’s not good is mesmerizing. With both this review and the one I wrote for the premiere, I found myself doing a ton of beat-by-beat plot recapping, which I usually avoid, and wondered why. I came to the conclusion that it’s because the show is nothing but plot. The puzzlebox mysteries can’t be commented on without indulging in baseless speculation, the themes can all be encapsulated in a sentence or less, and there’s no poetry or rhytm; the show just morosely moseys along until it ends, week after week. Yet it’s never actively off-putting to watch, somehow. On twitter someone described it to me as watching a ballgame with no commentary and no real rooting interest in either team, which is as good a read on it as I’ve ever heard.

As drama, however, Westworld still needs a serious tune-up. Working off the first season’s template, co-showrunner Lisa Joy and her co-writer Robert Patino have once again created a world in which everyone’s an asshole and no one likes anyone else. Even aside from the actions of obvious villains like the Man in Black or Dolores – who kills hosts and humans alike if she feels they don’t fit into her grand plan – you’ve got Lee trying and failing to sell Maeve out to human security forces the first chance he gets; Maeve keeps him around and alive out of necessity, but that’s about it. Ditto her utilitarian affection for Hector: She’s got a kid to rescue, and she needs a gunslinger to do it. As for Miss Abernathy, her promise that she and Teddy will be together till the end apparently winds up floating belly-up alongside the poor cowboy himself.

On the human end of the spectrum, Sizemore and Charlotte react to the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds, of people primarily as an annoyance, both of them slipping back into their usual sleazy subroutines without missing a beat. Strand, the domineering Delos thug who “rescues” Bernard, treats everyone he meets like dirt; it’s enough to make you miss the as-yet unseen dirtbag Logan from Season One. Even the offsite company higher-ups are willing to let all their friends and financial backers die gruesome deaths until they get what they want; considering the real-world class solidarity among the One Percent, this is even harder to believe in than the existence of killer robots in cowboy outfits.

Whatever else it is, Westworld is a workplace drama. (The office may be overrun by rampaging androids and the drama mostly consists of dodging bullets and accessing robotic brains, but still.) If everyone we meet is a sarcastic creep who’d sacrifice everyone they know to achieve their goals, the workplace can’t function and the drama can’t engage or enlighten. For conflict to mean anything, there has to be some kind of genuine cooperation and affection for contrast. Unless and until that emerges, the guns of Westworld will never quite hit their marks.

I’m covering Westworld for Rolling Stone again this season, starting with my review of last night’s premiere. I think the best we can hope for is a bunch of cool gross violent shit to tide us over during long dull periods of dorm-room philosophy and people being dickheads, but I’d love to be wrong.

9. Will there be so many mysteries this time around?
This is the biggest question of all. Season One came with all the clues, twists, and meta-mindgames you’d expect from a show co-created by J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan, whose puzzle-box projects include Lost, the Cloverfield franchise, Memento and The Prestige between them. (The third member of the trinity, Lisa Joy, has a track record of more straightforward storytelling.) All that code-cracking, flash-backing, and maze-running kept YouTubers and Redditors busy for months. But sometimes the trickery got in the way of what otherwise would have been a cracking yarn about machines struggling to become sentient, the sadistic humans who made them that way and the weird war between them.

Maybe it’s foolish to expect an old host to learn new tricks. But if the Season Two trailers – full of half-built robotic bulls, menacing fleshless android skeletons and Evan Rachel Wood on horseback straight-up murking dudes – are any indication, Westworld has pulpy power to spare. With the secrets of the Maze, the Man in Black and Ford’s new narrative finally solved, could the show embrace the joys of sci-fi/fantasy/action genre storytelling that have worked so well for shows from Game of Thrones to Breaking Bad, without ever dumbing them down?

I’ll be covering Westworld for Rolling Stone again this year, starting with this piece on the big questions left over from Season One; the question above is really the only one that matters.

Best: “Streets of Philadelphia” (‘Philadelphia,’ 1993)

Like “Shaft” shaking up the saccharine sounds of the 1970s, Bruce Springsteen’s sad, sparse contribution to the soundtrack of Jonathan Demme’s AIDS-crisis drama Philadelphia is a bracing break from the Best Song norm of its era. The lyrics are one the Boss’s most haunting portrayals of loneliness and abandonment (“I was bruised and battered, I couldn’t tell what I felt / I was unrecognizable to myself”); he recorded the song alone in his home studio with a synthesizer and a drum machine, and you can hear the isolation in every note. (The only down side to the song’s victory: Neil Young’s even more devastating contribution to Demme’s movie, titled “Philadelphia,” had to lose.)

Worst: “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” (‘The Lion King,’ 1994)

It didn’t have to be this way. When Disney’s big animated comeback The Little Mermaid upended the Eighties’ string of Top 40 Best Song winners in 1989, it did so not with a ballad (although “Part of Your World” is one of the studio’s best) but with the calypso jam “Under the Sea.” Beginning with 1991’s Oscar for “Beauty and the Beast,” though, the category became a cartoon-ballad free-for-all, with live-action winners mostly following suit. The result is one of the dreariest, schmaltziest runs in the award’s history, and they don’t come much goopier than Elton John and Tim Rice’s love song for lions. Pro tip: “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” is twice as long but about 40 times as awesome.

I had a grand old time writing about the best and worst Best Song Oscar winners of all time for Rolling Stone. These kinds of pieces are a blast to write, since you get to cover so much territory and study how values change over time.

If the series has faded from the zeitgeist somewhat, you could perhaps blame the finale – an attempt to provide closure that was perhaps a little too successful, and pulled a few too many punches at the expense of “redeeming” its chrome-domed king. We’d hardly be the first to say that if the show had ended two episodes earlier with the bleak and brutal “Ozymandias” – directed by Johnson, written by Moira Whalley-Beckett and frequently cited as the finest single episode in the history of television – it would be a better show.

But this stumble at the finish line can itself prove instructive, since it provides a full clip of ammo for the fight over the role series finales should play in our assessments of series as a whole. It does so in much the same way that the finale itself existed in conversation with The Sopranos‘ cut to black and Lost‘s journey into the light, to cite two previous blockbuster sign-offs. Success or failure, it exists to be argued about – which is a form of success all its own.

Most importantly, and more than any other show of its time, Breaking Badproved that you can have your cake and choke on it too. Boasting roller-coaster thrills, catchphrase gold (“Science, bitch!” “I am the one who knocks!”) and a crack supporting cast so strong that they could sustain an entire second spinoff show (thank you, Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks and Giancarlo Esposito), Breaking Bad was an absolute blast to watch and a delight to look forward to every week. Yet it bore no illusions about the horrors being perpetrated in its hero’s name; it never passed up an opportunity to remind us what he’d done in the name of “family.” Its balance between the exquisite and the awful – thrilling us with Walt’s misadventures one moment, beating us emotionally bloody with them the next – was unequaled in its time. It remains an achievement worth remembering and rewatching. To paraphrase the original Ozymandias himself: Look on its works, ye mighty, and despair.

I wrote a Breaking Bad retrospective in honor of the show’s 10th anniversary for Rolling Stone. In addition to tackling the thorny issue of the finale, I also tried to emphasize the strength of the cast, the resonance with the growth of the MAGA alt-right, the danger of mere political readings of the show (pro or con), and its flabbergasting proficiency with action and suspense, which I suspect is its most lasting legacy. I, uh, kinda forgot to include this, but I do think that shows like The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story give lie to the idea that the antihero genre is a spent, or even destructive, force.

Best TV Series, Drama
The Crown
Game of Thrones
The Handmaid’s Tale
Stranger Things
This Is Us

WILL WIN: To paraphrase Bruce Wayne, Globes voters are a superstitious, cowardly lot. After anointing The Crown over worthy competition last year as a nod to our collective norms, expect voters to join the #Resistance and crown The Handmaid’s Tale this time around.

SHOULD WIN: As usual, Game of Thrones aimed highest and hit hardest.

ROBBED: Where to begin? The Americans, Better Call Saul, Halt and Catch Fire and, most flagrantly, The Leftovers are all all-time-great series that the Globes have seen fit to circumnavigate.

Best TV Series, Musical or Comedy
Black-ish
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Master of None
SMILF
Will & Grace

WILL WIN: This is wild: The only series reappearing from last year’s suite of nominees is Black-ish. Your guess is as good as ours, but this certainly seems like a sign it’s a favorite.

SHOULD WIN: Go Black-ish, the most thematically ambitious of the bunch.

ROBBED: The final season of Girls, critical darling The Good Place, Better Things, Broad City, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Silicon Valley, Insecure, Veep … seriously, it’s easier to list the shows that weren’t nominated than the ones that were.

Best TV Limited Series or Movie
Big Little Lies
Fargo
Feud: Bette and Joan
The Sinner
Top of the Lake: China Girl

WILL WIN: Big Little Lies has the star power and the critical acclaim in the most perplexing Globes category of them all.

SHOULD WIN: Fargo, hands down. It’s a season of television that speaks directly to our current predicament without ever lecturing us about it.

ROBBED: Never in the history of television award ceremonies have shows been as badly neglected as Twin Peaks: The Return and The Young Pope. The latter is a contender for the all-time surreal greats right out of the gate; the former was crowned as “the most groundbreaking TV series ever” by this very publication. Ignoring these shows makes the Globes a goofy joke, to be honest, though we’re happy to laugh along as long as we can.

Despite not caring about awards, I’ve come to both enjoy and be pretty good at predicting them. Go figure! I wrote up my predictions — as well as should-wins and snubs — for the massive, crazy Golden Globes slate for Rolling Stone.

When 2017 lies dead and buried in the ground, “Separate the art from the artist” will be chiseled on its tombstone. But what will we find in the grave?

If it’s the idea that creators are shielded from scrutiny by the strength of their creations, then goodbye and good riddance. For too long, sexual predators in entertainment and media triple-axled their way across the thin ice of “open secrets,” their safety ensured by power. (Why, one of these men even became president!) The crack, the splash and the final desperate glug-glug-glugs were long overdue.

If we’re lucky, though, this year of revelation and reckoning will force a deeper reexamination of our desire to see artists and their art as identical, because that dull blade of interpretation cuts both ways. Like a bizarro Louis C.K., whose professional accolades protected his personal reputation, Lena Dunham is a multi-hyphenate auteur whose detractors see her history of poor attempts to address urgent issues offscreen and take it that her art is similarly inept. The best way to argue against this clumsy conflation is by example – and “American Bitch” is as good an example as it gets. The third episode of Girls‘ sixth and final season, what’s arguably the series’ finest (half-)hour attacks the creator/creation dichotomy with funny, frightening ferocity. This parable about abusive artists doubles as case for its own artist’s singular skill as an observer of moral failure … including her own.

I wrote an essay about Girls’ “American Bitch” for Rolling Stone. This is just the first in a series of deep dives by the usual murderers’ row of RS writers. Stay tuned!

Did I not mention that Kyle MacLachlan read and enjoyed my weekly Twin Peaks reviews for Rolling Stone?

The Deuce saved its best, and its worst, for last.

The final episode of the show’s first season is called “My Name Is Ruby” – a title that serves as an assertion of humanity, a prophecy of doom and famous last words all at once. Written by series co-creators David Simon and George Pelecanos and directed by Michelle MacLaren, it’s technically about the moment that the selling of sex became part of the American mainstream. But more importantly, it’s about the people left behind as surplus to the transition. As such, it contains two of the show’s most powerful and upsetting scenes.

I reviewed the strong season finale of The Deuce for Rolling Stone. Your basic B-grade prestige drama overall, with hints of greater promise in the final two episodes.

Let’s get this out of the way: What we have just witnessed was, hands down, the best episode of The Deuce yet. By a lot. Titled “Au Reservoir,” it’s funny, scary, sad, sexy and entertaining as hell from start to finish. How did this so-so show get so damned good so suddenly?

The answers may lie behind the scenes. This episode was directed by co-star James Franco, who previously helmed one of the series’ better installments. Judging from his two turns in the driver’s seat, he’s got a knack for finding the warmth and humor in the characters and their plights; you can see the kind of actor he is reflected in the work he gets out of others.

Screenwriter Megan Abbott likely deserves the lion’s share of the credit. Along with George Pelecanos, Richard Price and Lisa Lutz, she’s part of the murderers’ row of crime novelists who share the show’s scripting duties. But her writing delivers in ways even the best bits of previous episodes never did.

The Deuce Disliker has logged off and the Deuce Enjoyer has logged on: I reviewed tonight’s terrific episode for Rolling Stone.

Honestly? Watching shows written by the most acclaimed novelists in the crime genre hasn’t done much for me beyond make me wonder what the hell is going on in the crime genre. I guess pretty much the same thing that goes on in every genre. Patrick Rothfuss is well-reviewed, you know? But Abbott’s work on this episode redeems the field as far as I’m concerned.

Last week, The Deuce staged a war of words that saw its combatants, Candy and Rodney, criss-cross their stretch of 42nd Street. This week’s episode (“Why Me?”) tries a different but equally effective tactic: From the big-picture meta-plot to the individual storylines, everything seems headed the same way all at once. It’s the first installment of David Simon and George Pelecanos’s period piece that doesn’t feel like bits and pieces stitched together, but a cohesive whole.

I reviewed this week’s episode of The Deuce, basically the first one I enjoyed, for Rolling Stone.