I focus so much on the writing of this show, the shocking and rewarding ways that it deviates from the Disney Star Wars norm, that I feel I neglect the performances. Frankly, they’re uniformly excellent. Genevieve O’Reilly, conveying Mon Mothma’s imprisonment in a gilded cage. Denise Gough, making Dedra Meero one of the most magnetic and frightening villains in the Star Wars legendarium. (She’s serving Peter Cushing, baby.) Diego Luna, a rat in a trap, always searching for a way out, never letting himself let up. Andy Serkis, showing layers of weariness and fear under Kino Loy’s bluster, emotions that finally give way to anger when he realizes he’s been had. Kyle Soller barely keeping it together as Syril Karn, all desperation to prove himself to someone, anyone, to be respected, perhaps to be loved. Kathryn Hunter as his mother, a passive-aggressive martinet, making his life worse even as she purports to be making it better. It’s such a wide range of performances for such a wide range of characters, all of them handled with care, all of them, even the bad guys, treated as three-dimensional human beings.

Unless things go badly wrong, Andor has already cemented itself as one of the best science-fiction shows of the century, up there with Battlestar Galactica, Dark, and Raised by Wolves. I simply cannot wait to see how far it goes.

I reviewed this week’s excellent episode of Andor for Decider.

“I’m trying to think of something more fucked up than this.” Me too, Daniel Molloy, me too. Titled “A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart” with the show’s typical baroque brio, the fifth episode of Interview with the Vampire is a troubling hour of television. It chronicles first the disintegrating sanity of the young vampire Claudia, then the traumatic event that forces her back home, then the final collapse of her surrogate family via the abusive tendencies of its miserable patriarch. It does all this while sacrificing none of the richness that has made the characters, and the show, so vivid and surprising all this time. 

I reviewed this week’s excellent episode of Interview with the Vampire for Decider.

Have you enjoyed your stay at The White Lotus? No, seriously, I want to know: What did you make of the first season of writer-director Mike White’s anthology satire, about the trials and tribulations of the white upper class and their overworked, underappreciated servants at a luxury Hawaiian resort? Because here I am, filling out my comment card, and I’m just not sure what to write.

Of course I wish I loved the show. That’s easy: Don’t you wish you loved every show you watch? Particularly when you’re a TV critic who considers himself to be in the liking-things business, it’s always more fun to be over the moon for a series than to be left scratching your head. With a show as widely beloved and acclaimed as The White Lotus, that goes double.

But a part of me also wishes I hated the show. Hour-long comedy-dramas are the Coward’s Television: On a surface level they appear as character-driven and attention-demanding as your standard prestige-TV drama, but because the characters involved are joke-delivery mechanisms first and “characters” second, they are in fact neither. Unlike the people on, say, The Sopranos or Mad Men or Better Call Saul, their purpose is to be funny, which makes them a lot different than people who happen to be funny sometimes. You’ve met lots of people like the latter; people like the former don’t exist. 

But unlike, say, Succession — another widely beloved and acclaimed HBO dramedy about the rich and awful, which has somehow managed to convince the critical and awards establishment to let it have its cake (everyone telling variations of the same over-elaborate dick jokes season after season) and eat it too (sometimes characters get sad and, hey presto, Drama!) — The White Lotus tended to fall firmly enough on the black-comedy side of the spectrum to dodge that obnoxious neither-fish-nor-fowl nature. 

It took its time to get there of course, after an opening couple of hours so dry it wasn’t clear what the show was up to; and in its final episode or two it made sure to have several important female characters get really upset so you knew you were watching something real, man; but there was a sweet spot in the middle there where the assholishness and/or obsequiousness of the players just kept ratcheting up and up to such hilariously uncomfortable levels that it was hard not to root for the thing.

Which I suppose is where I find myself with Season 2, the first episode of which (“Ciao”) takes us to a new locale with an almost entirely new cast of characters, but with almost all the same thematic and comedic preoccupations. Everyone’s still rich, everyone’s still horny, everyone’s still either completely oblivious or so ostentatiously tuned into the world’s suffering that they’re oblivious to their own obliviousness, and the staff are still oh so happy to serve you.

All that throat-clearing is to say that I’m covering The White Lotus Season 2 for Decider, starting with my review of the season premiere!

Several episodes ago I made the argument that American Gigolo’s warmth was a welcome development given the emotional sterility of Paul Schrader’s original film. Now I’m not so sure. These final few episodes have seen warmth tilt over into soap suds, and the replacement of a harsh look at Julian’s lifestyle with a give me back my son whodunnit didn’t benefit anyone in the end. And I can’t help but feel that this show with “gigolo” in the title should have featured, well, more gigolo-ing, or really had any interest in sex work at all beyond providing an taboo backdrop for a murder mystery. A curious, curious beast, this American Gigolo. I wonder if we’ll see Julian ride again. So to speak.

I reviewed the season finale of American Gigolo for Decider.

Stefan Sasse and I tackle the latest episode of the excellent Andor in a Patreon-exclusive podcast—subscribe and listen!

But mostly, trying to encapsulate the brilliance of this show is best done by simply recounting a litany of the many many ways in which it draws the Star Wars struggle down to a human level. This is a show concerned with prison bureaucracy, with the existence of toilets, with the existence of deaths from despair. It’s aware of revolutionary factionalism and bureaucratic infighting. It unflinchingly depicts cops and corrections officers as unrepentant, moronic sadists. It shows how prisoners can be made to turn on one another, crabs-in-a-bucket style. It includes insightfully fascistic phrases like “Can one ever be too aggressive in preserving order?” and “If you’re doing nothing wrong, what is there to fear?” It acknowledges that the quaint customs of the various exotic civilizations in the Star Wars Galaxy include shit like arranged marriages between children. It shows committed romantic partners reading each other to filth, as when Cinta dismisses Vel as “a rich girl running away from her family,” then effectively quoting the Velvet Underground & Nico by telling Vel “I’m a mirror…you love me because I show you what you need to see.” A prison overseer tells Andor “Losing hope? Your mind? Keep it to yourself.”

I reviewed this week’s episode of Andor for Decider.

Here’s a quick question for you: Remember when American Gigolo was about being a gigolo?

Admittedly, it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it situation. Since his exoneration for murder and reemergence from prison, Julian Kaye has, by my count, gone on precisely one date with a client. They skipped out on a high-school reunion and had sex in a dive-bar bathroom before she revealed to him that she’d once accidentally killed someone, putting something of a damper on the evening. He coached her through her guilt and escorted her to the doors of the high school, yes, but that was where their evening ended. 

All the other sex work we’ve watched Julian/Johnny perform has been via flashback, and much of that coerced while he was a juvenile. To the extent that his titular job is a factor in the series at all, it’s purely as context, the world in which the various crimes, lies, betrayals, and heartbreaks with which the show is more concerned emerge from. The killing for which Julian was framed; the death of his high-school girlfriend upon her involvement in this other part of his life; his complicated relationships with fellow veterans of the trade Lorenzo and Isabelle; his continued dealings with Detective Sunday, the cop who put him away and now feels guilty about it; his child with former client-turned-girlfriend Michelle Stratton; his son running away with an older woman, that older woman’s murder by one of Michelle’s husband’s employees, and his kidnapping by a second such employee; the revelation that the woman he was accused of murdering was the sister of the girl who killed herself: All of these things stem from Julian’s life as a gigolo, without actually providing us with any insight into or commentary on that life. He could just as easily be a (very sexy) cop, or teacher, or paleontologist.

It’s frustrating! Come on, guys, it says “American Gigolo” right there in the title!

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

Here we are, back again for a slightly delayed take on last week’s stellar episode of Andor! Subscribe to our Patreon and listen!

I think that’s the key thing about this episode, written by Eleanor Burgess and directed by Keith Powell, and about the show in general. Its ability to balance the thrills and chills and sex and blood and comedy of an over-the-top Gothic vampire romance with serious observations about race, wealth, addiction, unhappy relationships, and now de facto child abuse and the misery of teenagers is hugely impressive. It manages to deliver pretty much everything you’d want from a vampire show, and more besides. And now we have four core performances that are funny and empathetic and nasty and brilliant, from Bailey Bass as well as from Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, and Eric Bogosian. 

Between Interview, Andor, and House of the Dragon, those of us who hunger and thirst for legitimately sophisticated nerd-genre storytelling are eating very, very well this Halloween season.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Interview with the Vampire for Decider.

That seems to be the case most specifically with Prince Daemon. Much of the fandom wants to see him, as you put it, wearing a white hat or a black hat, to the point that many of them criticized Sara Hess, a writer and executive producer on the show, for her less-than-glowing assessment of Daemon. Did you see this coming?

I’m having trouble understanding it. We established right out of the gate, in the pilot, that Daemon is a fascinating guy, but he’s not Ned Stark. So I didn’t see it coming.

To me, Daemon is the antihero of this story. He’s a character with a real darkness to him, who’s dangerous and charming in equal parts. I knew people would be fascinated by him and latch onto him, but I figured they’d do it in the way they did with Jaime Lannister or Bronn or the Red Viper. I did not think they would oddly apply this sort of super-fandom to him and try to justify every single thing he’s done as being intrinsically heroic. It simply isn’t. It’s not the case. Nor will it be in the future.

Nobody in the show writes in a vacuum. I’m the lead writer; I oversee everything that happens on the show; every choice comes through me. If it’s on the screen, it’s because I either wrote it or approved it being written. Sara Hess and I wrote 85 percent of Season 1 together. We did not set out to write villains and heroes in this. We set out to write interesting humans and complex characters who are hopefully compelling, but compelling doesn’t always mean heroic or unimpeachable.

I see Daemon as having heroic aspects to him, and I understand why people would. I mean, he’s incredibly charismatic, he’s handsome, he looks great in that wig, he rides a dragon, he has a cool sword. I totally get it. But if you’re looking for Han Solo, who’s always going to do the right thing in the end, you’re in the wrong franchise, folks.

I interviewed House of the Dragon co-creator and co-showrunner Ryan Condal for the New York Times.

Which brings us back to that torn-out page Alicent sent to Rhaenyra as an olive branch. The two girls were just 14 when Rhaenyra was declared heir and Alicent was sent by Otto to “comfort” a grieving Viserys, putting an end to those carefree days. Luke was just 14 when he died. And so a war set up long ago in the names of two children, who grow into women whose shared childhood memories nearly prevent that war from breaking out, becomes inevitable when a child dies. None of these poor kids asked for any of this, but the system — the monarchy, the patriarchy, the violence underpinning it all — turned them all into cogs in the war machine anyway.

Dragons, incest, one-eyed princes, ancient prophecies, etc.: They’re the flashy, occasionally sleazy adult-fantasy stuff that have made Dragon blockbuster material. The arresting visuals — the meeting between Rhaenyra and Otto at sunset, Luke’s flight through the stormclouds, all those hulking dragons — help as well. But it’s that central tragedy, of two well-meaning women slowly made into realm-destroying monsters in a world where actual monsters still take wing, that elevates the show above its genre counterparts. Forget dragons for a moment; there are other ways to soar.

I reviewed the season finale of House of the Dragon for Rolling Stone. Heck of a show!

Stefan Sasse and I are back with our latest weekly BLAH, this time focusing on House of the Dragon Episode 9! Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts!

One of the many things that fascinate me about Andor is the way it makes you feel empathy, even admiration, for the employees of the Empire. Part of the explanation for this phenomenon is the simple fact that it’s simply a better written work of filmmaking than the vast majority of Star Wars material; of course the Imperials and their lackeys are going to feel more fully human, because everyone does. But even as the show chronicles the touch-and-go, knife’s-edge early days of the Rebellion, it paints portraits of Imperials you wouldn’t mind having a conversation with — if it weren’t for, y’know, the fascism. But still!

Take Dedra Meero, the Imperial Security Bureau officer trying her damndest to figure out the exact contours and scope of the nascent Rebellion. Thwarted by bureaucracy and backstabbing colleagues, she takes advantage of new laws passed in the wake of the Aldhani raid — the Patriot Act, basically — to work around those obstacles and get the information she needs from a galaxy-wide survey, instead of going sector by sector as mandated. And she gets results: enough information, she says, to prove her theory about a coordinated, galaxy-wide rebellion is correct. 

And instead of chiding her for breaking the rules or being over-ambitious, her supervisor, Major Partagaz, rewards her! He compliments her moxie and initiative, wondering how much better off they’d all be if everyone who worked for him displayed the same qualities. He gives her control of the sector previously under the command of her primary office rival. And he warns her to watch her back, knowing what kind of people they’re all dealing with. 

As played by Anton Lesser, Partagaz a charming guy, intimidating but insightful, the kind of boss you’re both scared of and kind of in awe of too. And Denise Gough plays Dedra as nothing but competent, strikingly so — truly skilled at her job in a way that makes you like and respect a person. These are remarkable, precise performances that endear you to the characters — I mean, again, if it weren’t for, y’know, the fascism. But still!

I reviewed today’s episode of Andor for Decider.

The latest iteration of my House of the Dragon character guide is now up at Vulture, covering the events of episode 9. Brush up before the finale!

I’ve been thinking about this, and I’m kind of at a loss: What’s so American about American Gigolo, anyway? The adjective implies a sort of national universality about Julian Kaye’s escapades, or a uniquely American characteristic thereof. But as far as I can tell, he’s just some poor sap who fell bass-ackwards into sex work and thence into a wrongful murder conviction, and who’s now struggling to piece together exactly how and why both things happened to him. It’s tough to see his life, as portrayed in this series, as anything emblematic of any larger, America-wide concerns. He’s just some patsy, and remains so.

I reviewed last night’s episode of American Gigolo for Decider.

The best way I can sum up Interview with the Vampire so far is that, like House of the Dragon and Andor, it’s what I once imagined nerd cultural hegemony might be like: smart, sharp, horny, campy, and at least a little bit unpleasant and disgusting — everything you might have wanted before mighty corporate machines figured out how to produce the stuff like they produce breakfast cereal. 

I reviewed last night’s episode of Interview with the Vampire for Decider.

Perhaps it’s too late at this point to ask, but does some part of Ser Criston still love Rhaenyra?

[Smiles ruefully.] First love is first love. I think everyone will always love the person that they fell in love with for the first time. From the first time you hear a beautiful piece of music, you’ll always love it, even if you’ve heard it a hundred times, because you remember that first time you heard it. So yeah, he will always love Rhaenyra.

I interviewed House of the Dragon star Fabien Frankel for the New York Times.

Okay, so: Why didn’t Rhaenys just torch the royal family and the whole Green crew?
[Laughs long and hard.] I know! The temptation is there, right? In the end, she makes a bigger choice. We see that at the moment with what’s going on in Ukraine; to choose not to destroy is the better choice. That’s an important thing for us all to remember right now.

It’s why she would have made such a great leader. She had, in that moment, all the power. Yet she has respect for Alicent as a woman and a mother. They understand being in the grip of other people who might torch them. They know the only right choice is not to go there. Furthermore, it’s the intelligent choice, on her part, not to torch a whole bunch of innocent people in the room. What’s to be gained? In the end, it’s not her battle.

The escape she makes on the dragon is something that’s been brewing since that very moment she was passed over wrongly, unjustly, for the crown. It’s this yearning just to get the hell out and get away from the whole ruddy lot of things. When she bursts out of that arena, she’s internally saying, “Fuck you all.” It’s more about that than a need for revenge or destruction that the men might’ve jumped onto. She’s breaking her own glass ceiling.

I interviewed House of the Dragon star Eve Best for Vulture.

Writer Sara Hess and director Clare Kilner give the whole affair the vibe of a tense political thriller, as alliances are forged and broken and various players jockey for position in the new regime. Much of this is achieved through deft character work that helps shore up some of the show’s shakier decisions.

For example, is it a little annoying that Alicent decides to crown Aegon instead of Rhaenyra due to a sitcom-style mix-up involving Viserys’s dying declaration? Sure. But it’s worth noting how duty-bound she seems to feel about it; as far as she’s concerned, she’s doing the right thing and honoring the late king’s wishes, not gleefully screwing her frenemy over. In fact, she fights — hard — to keep Rhaenyra alive in the face of opposition from no less than her own father. Actor Olivia Cooke threads this needle with aplomb.

Similarly, Rhaenys’s decision not to roast the whole royal family comes across as foolhardy, at least at first. But keep in mind that, like Alicent, the older woman is trying to avoid a war, not start one. If she were to inaugurate her former daughter-in-law Rhaenyra’s reign by sneak-attack slaughtering Aegon II, Otto, and Alicent, as well as innocents like Aegon’s sister-wife Helaena, how would that help anyone?

(One quick note: Helaena appears to have foreseen Rhaenys’s dragon attack, muttering about “a beast beneath the boards” earlier in the episode. Pay attention to this one, folks.)

Then there’s Aegon himself. He’s a thoroughly contemptible person, and he both knows it and hates himself for it, as conveyed through a remarkable performance by actor Tom Glynn-Carney. He has no desire to be king, and says so; he thinks his mother’s claim that his dad declared him the heir on his deathbed is bullshit, and says so too. But once he hears the roar of the crowd, he begins to change his tune, holding his legendary sword Blackfyre aloft and pumping it to pump up the people. Given that his only hobbies appear to be drinking and making weaker people suffer, that’s not a good sign.

I reviewed last night’s episode of House of the Dragon for Rolling Stone.

Stefan Sasse and I continue our breakneck pace of reviewing big genre shows with our latest podcasts on Andor, which we love, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which we do not love. The latter is the first time I’ve done a podcast where I got so emotionally exhausted that I literally had to ask Stefan to stop the episode. How’s that for a selling point? These are both Patreon exclusive, so go subscribe and listen!