I want to close these thoughts on this exceptional hour of television by noting that Lenny says something interesting about heaven to Eva and the doctor. After whispering his detailed knowledge of the place into the ear of their son, who weeps a single tear after hearing it, he later explains that heaven is exactly like Earth, “except it’s not the same, because in heaven, we glimpse God.” On a smaller, less cosmic scale, I think this is what The Young Pope and The New Pope offer audiences. This is a very real world, a world of cigarettes and sex, politics and personal grievances, dead dogs, dead brothers, sick children, sickened parents. Except it’s not the same as our world, because on The Young Pope and The New Pope, we glimpse … not God, I suppose, but Art. That’s close enough.

I wrote about the seventh episode of The New Pope for Vulture. This was some TV, boy howdy.

If the antihero with a guilty conscience is a fantasy, then it takes its place among beings from other forms of fiction animated by the unrealistic, the supernatural, the fantastic: dragons, zombies, alien invaders, masked slashers, haunted hotels, mad titans, sinister doppelgängers, xenomorphs, terminators, predators, you name it. No one holds the unreality of these entities against the works they inhabit, or at least no one should. No, we accept the unreality in exchange for what these things can reveal to us about our own lives — how they give us an imagistic vocabulary commensurate with the outsized and enormously powerful emotions we feel, emotions too strong for the vocabulary of everyday reality to properly convey.

And what do Saul Goodman and his difficult peers enable us to address? Our own guilt, our own shame, our own regret, our own conviction that had we been a better person in this or that moment, our lives and the lives of those we care about might have turned out very differently. Much maligned for allegedly teaching us to sympathize with the devil, the prestige-TV protagonist instead invites us to take a ruthless inventory of ourselves. On a much larger canvas than we ourselves possess, they play out the dramas of conscience we ourselves face on a smaller scale. That’s what they’re there to do: not to encourage us to give real-world bastards a pass, but to drive us to look at our own bastardry, however minor or major it may be, with fresh and unblinking eyes.

I wrote about Better Call Saul, “difficult men,” and the purpose of prestige TV for my latest column at the Outline.

I’ve heard Narcos and Narcos: Mexico described as the platonic ideal of a Netflix show: eminently bingeable, instantly forgettable. I don’t know if that’s entirely fair, particularly (as I’ve said before) for the Wagner Moura/Pablo Escobar seasons. But here we are at the end of a season that I enjoyed watching from start to finish, but would be hard pressed to, like, recommend to anyone for any particular reason, aside from maybe all the screentime Scoot McNairy got. He was right: This story does not have a happy ending.

I reviewed the season finale of Narcos: Mexico Season Two for Decider. Good but pointedly not great.

There’s one episode left in this season of Narcos: Mexico, and there’s over thirty years of actual narcos in Mexico remaining before the series gets up to date. So there’s plenty of room for final twists and turns in the season finale, which may or may not see the fates of Félix and his plaza bosses sealed, to say nothing of Walt back in Sacramento. All we know for sure is that, to quote Dune, the spice must flow. The only question remaining for this ruthlessly plot-driven show to answer is who will control that flow, and who will act to shut it off.

I reviewed the penultimate episode of Narcos: Mexico Season 2 for Decider.

There’s one more moment that sticks with me from this episode. When the representative from the opposition notices that the government’s tech guy is entering secret passwords for separate sets of results, he gets so angry he starts cursing. The Minister of Defense, who’s in the process of colluding with a druglord to conduct this massive fraud at that very moment, chides him for his language. It reminds me of the bit from Apocalypse Now when Brando says “We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write ‘fuck’ on their airplanes because it’s obscene!” From Saigon to Mexico City, civility is barbarity’s shield.

I reviewed the eighth episode of Narcos: Mexico Season Two for Decider.

I don’t know if it was deliberate or just dumb luck, but my favorite part of Narcos: Mexico Season 2 Episode 7 (“Truth and Reconciliation”) doesn’t come up in conversation between the characters. It’s not a plot point either, or a particularly striking shot. It’s just rain, that’s all—a gentle patter of rain.

The rain falls on the windows of a truck as DEA Agent Walt Breslin is driven back from a meeting with Juárez plaza boss Pablo Acosta by his girlfriend, Mimi. Spurred by her secret pregnancy and by her love for the man himself, Mimi called in a tip to the U.S. Embassy that Acosta might be willing to play ball and help bring Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo down. Walt dutifully hears the man out as they hang out on his roof and share beers—and stories of their brothers, both of them led to their deaths by drugs. Mimi explains to Walt that she hasn’t told Pablo about her pregnancy because his decision to walk away from his life of crime must be made for his own sake. As she and Walt talk, little drops of rain plink down the windshield—droplets of life and hope in an arid landscape. Again, I don’t know if this was an artistic choice, but how much of any work of art comes down to choice, anyway?

I reviewed Narcos: Mexico Season 2 Episode 7 for Decider.

When I saw in the opening credits that this episode (“El Dedazo”) was written by series co-creator Carlo Bernard and directed by its head helmer Andrés Baiz, I figured we were in for something momentous and mournful, the way the best Narcos and Narcos: Mexico episodes tend to play out. That…really wasn’t the case, as it turned out. Instead, it’s the usual formula: incremental movement across a tangle of plot threads, generously seasoned with graphic violence and political cynicism. Not even a side plot in which Félix more or less stalks his Long-Suffering Ex-Wife adds much to the mix.

But one thing Narcos teaches you is to look for the little things. It’s in the way one of the murderous PRI brothers waxes rhapsodic about women in tennis skirts. It’s the idea of a man whose name means “The Crazy Pig” getting sent to conduct high-stakes negotiations. It’s in that weird glance Ramón Arellano Félix shoots him before his men open fire. It’s in the fact that Cochiloco takes off his sunglasses for maybe the first time since we’ve met him, only to get shot seconds later. It’s in the way Félix finds himself swept up in a rally for the PRI’s rival party, a development that seems to start the wheels turning in his head for a maneuver that could pull his ass out of the fire one more time. Narcos is rarely, if ever, going to blow you away—but that just makes any moment where it scores a direct hit on you that much more impactful.

I reviewed the sixth episode of Narcos: Mexico‘s second season for Decider.

I’ve thought about this tumultuous, remarkable episode quite a bit, and the connective tissue seems to me to be the issue of desire. Desire can make a person beautiful through the act of feeling it, the way Attanasio became beautiful to Ester through his desire for her. Not being desired can make a person feel ugly, the way Sofia sees her own face distorted in a mirror after the truth about her husband comes out. A lifetime of not being desired, the kind of life Brannox has experienced after the death of his brother, leaves one searching for something to fill the void — religion first, then drugs when that won’t do. Follow the love: That’s where you’ll find failure. It’s harsh, but at times at least, it’s true.

I reviewed the sixth episode of The New Pope for Vulture.

What does it all mean? It means you’re watching Narcos. As I put it in my review of the previous episode, “You can probably expect the usual cat-and-mouse, one-step-forward-two-steps-back kind of stuff to happen.” We’re firmly in two-steps-back mode at the moment: for Walt, whose decision to sow dissension in the cartel instead of just rolling up the tunnel-diggers himself leads to innocent miners losing their lives; for Chapo, whose big innovation has gone up in a cloud of dust and who now has the very angry brothers to worry about; for Félix, whose plan to dictate terms to the Colombians has gone completely backwards, and who barely escapes the episode with his life. You can pretty much expect the next set of twists and turns to reverse everyone’s fortunes again, since that’s how this show rolls nearly every time—until, inevitably, one of the major players falls for good, at which point someone else will step up to fill the vacuum. Is this a recipe for fulfilling television? No, probably not. Does it make for very watchable television? You bet.

I reviewed episode 5 of Narcos Season 2 for Decider.

“You’re not an idea guy, Chapito.” So says Palma, the head of the Sinaloan branch of Mexico’s cocaine cartel, to his doofus underling Chapo.

Famous last words, am I right?

With his Moe Howard haircut and pipsqueak voice, Chapo comes across like an overgrown child, an impression he complains about in Narcos Mexico Season 2 Episode 4…to his mommy. But as even a casual observer of the news knows full well, he will one day become El Chapo, one of the most powerful and dangerous narcotraffickers in history. This episode takes its title, “The Big Dig,” from the innovation that proved he was “an idea guy” after all.

I reviewed episode four of Narcos: Mexico Season 2 for Decider.

Watching Narcos: Mexico means following along with an endless series of deals, double crosses, alliances forged and broken, leverage gained and utilized, cards getting played and dominoes falling down. It’s not high art; neither opening an episode with a dream sequence nor peppering it with De Palma-esque split-screen sequences changes that. But if you’re into this kind of thing, you make like Zuno and go along for the ride.

I reviewed the third episode of Narcos: Mexico Season Two for Decider.

But hey, Narcos is gonna be Narcos from time to time. This is not genre revisionism along the lines of what The Sopranos did for mafia stories, or what Deadwood did for Westerns, or what The Wire did for cop shows, or what Game of Thrones did for fantasy and so on. Narcos: Mexico never really promises to be much more than a jaundiced but well-crafted look at the drug war. Sometimes those drug warriors are gonna sound like clichés rather than people. Like getting kidnapped and tortured, it’s an occupational hazard.

I reviewed the second episode of Narcos: Mexico for Decider.

Subtlety has never been Narcos‘ strong suit. In its original incarnation as the story of the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar, its transitional season chronicling his rivals in the Cali Cartel, and now in the spinoff series Narcos: Mexico, the show displays a welcome cynicism about America’s quixotic war on drugs. At times, it also takes on a rueful, almost poetic tone, as the thugs on both sides of the battle are made to confront the consequences of their actions. But as a viewer, you’re never asked to do a whole lot of work to figure out what’s going on. Case in point: As Félix Gallardo, Mexico’s drug kingpin, struggles against a cash flow problem that has him at odds with both his Cali suppliers and his Mexican underbosses, he sits and watches a chained tiger.

Get it?

I’m back on the Narcos: Mexico beat for Decider this season, starting with my review of the season premiere. I really enjoy writing about this show, which is good-but-not-great in a way that’s interesting to talk about.

More than any episode of The New Pope yet — and this is saying something — this one has sex on the brain.

I reviewed the fifth episode of The New Pope for Vulture.

I appeared on the latest episode of Fanbyte’s The New Pope podcast Papal Bull: Resurrection to speak with hosts Merritt K and Eric Thurm about the show, Catholicism, Marilyn Manson, and much more!

Picture two people. Then picture a wall between them. Now imagine that this wall is permeable, so that human connection can take place through it. Even so, the wall is a barrier that partially obscures the identity of the person on the other side, preserving anonymity, or at least the illusion thereof.

Congratulations: You have just imagined either a Catholic confessional or a glory hole. What this episode of The New Pope asks is, porque no los dos?

I reviewed this week’s episode of The New Pope for Vulture.

More than any other show on television today, The New Pope understands the value of unusual human faces. In addition to Orlando’s Cardinal Voiello, its core cast includes the saturnine, frog-faced Cardinal Aguirre (Ramón García); the effete and angular Cardinal Assente (Maurizio Lombardi); the beady-eyed, mononymed Vatican operative Bauer (Mark Ivanir); the soft-tempered and soft-featured Cardinal Gutiérrez (Javier Cámara); Kiruna Stamell, a little person, as the Abbess of the Vatican’s cloistered nuns. Of course, there’s the new pope himself: John Malkovich’s Sir John Brannox, his deeply lined face framed by a scraggly white beard, deep-set eyes recessed even further by generous helpings of guyliner. Creator and director Paolo Sorrentino’s closeups, particularly striking when the whole College of Cardinals is gathered together in all their red-robed splendor, make a meal out of every one of them.

My new column at The Outline is about the unconventional (read: normal) faces of The New Pope.

I’ve made my triumphant return to the Delete Your Account podcast to talk to co-hosts Roqayah Chamseddine and Kumars Salehi about the year in movies, the decade in TV, the horror renaissance, the Star Wars situation, and more!

“You remind me of my favorite actor, John Malkovich.”

“Doesn’t do much for me.”

It feels too easy, somehow, to lead a review of an episode of television as rich as The New Pope’s third installment with the cheap pop of a fourth-wall break. But that’s the thing about The New Pope: It can make easy meta-jokes, like Cécile de France’s Vatican PR maven Sofia Dubois telling John Malkovich’s character that he looks like John Malkovich, and still be an enormously affecting and visually spectacular meditation on desire, duty, family, sex, and the need for human connection even in the face of extraordinary obstacles. Hell, it even can crack wise about Megan Markle floundering in her role as royalty—a reference that wound up being unbelievably timely—and still feel more like a poem than a gossip rag. That is its power.

I reviewed this week’s episode of The New Pope for Vulture.

If Seinfeld was a show about nothing, The New Pope, like its predecessor, The Young Pope, is a show about everything. Everything important, anyway. Love, faith, sex, death, shame, grief, God, lust, politics, violence, orgasms, depression, art, poetry, music, hope — all of it coming at you faster than you can keep up with, all of it wrapped in a package as beautiful as one of the bespoke suits worn by Sir John Brannox, the man who will soon be … well, you know.

I reviewed last week’s fantastic episode of The New Pope for Vulture.