The Sunday night HBO shows all closed their episodes with excellent music choices and while both Girls with Chet Baker and Looking’s Spiritualized offering are both A+, I am going with Togetherness as this midweek edition of Music Monday. TV has introduced me to plenty of bands and artists I might not have heard otherwise and this morning has been spent listening to Lily & Madeleine.
First up “Come to Me Now” and the song which introduced me to this wonderful duo as it played during the final emotionally heavy scene and credits of “Party Time.” Punctuating Tina’s “I’m not really good at anything” declaration it offers some semblance of hope in Tina’s moment of despair; a moment I know I have experienced where you can’t figure out what the fuck you are meant to be doing and feel pretty garbage about some of your life choices.
And because I have spent the morning in this semi-productive state while also having flashes of creative self-doubt (standard Wednesday behavior) here is something from Lily & Madeleine’s new “Blues Blades” Acoustic Sessions EP. The song is a cover of Alex Turner’s “Stuck on the Puzzle” from the excellent coming of age movie Submarine. I love both versions and they manage to capture this feeling of being lost.
TV soundtracks forever helping to serve up new music to listen to.
It turns out that people don’t hate laughing as the numbers for Last Man on Earth’s debut are rather good. Hopefully it continues this way as I enjoyed the heck out of these first two episodes and Will Forte is still a dreamboat even with the super grizzly beard (his beard level in the photo above is pretty great).
On Monday Netflix announced when season 3 of Orange is the New Black will be available (June 12) allowing us to plan ahead and book the day off work. The cast of OITNB has a huge presence on Instagram and Dascha Polanco went for this cute inventive way to announce this date.
Slightly less artistic but still getting the message across is Laura Prepon with hashtags at the ready. And the bonus news for Alex/Piper fans – or anyone who watches the show really – is that Larry will not be showing up.
LAURA DERN IS MINDY’S OB/GYN?! Yeah I’m pretty excited about this and the guest stars on The Mindy Project this season have been A+ (which is why so manyof themhave featuredin this column).
There is so much bad photoshop used on both TV and in movies when it comes to splicing two photographs together and it has a habit of taking you out of the moment (see also using promo photos for what are supposed to be framed family shots and The Americans triumphs in this area by not doing this). Not so on Looking and I totally believe that this is a photo of Doris and Dom from their teen years and not two separate photos of Lauren Weedman and Murray Bartlett. Dom + Doris = ❤
The lack of Emmy nomination caused outrage, but not every awards body is making the same mistake and on Sunday Tatiana Maslany won Best TV Actress in a Drama at the Canadian Screen Awards for her portrayal of all the clones on Orphan Black. The show returns next month and this means more Maslany as every clone ever (okay not quite every clone ever and in season 3 she will share the clone load with Ari Millen). Magazine covers and promos with a heap of new footage ahoy!
Maslany is on the cover of Flareand as with recent runway shows there is a 70s theme going on; with Maslany as their face for the April issue they have produced 3 different covers each depicting a look from this era and this amount of outfit/hair switch-ups is probably what Maslany calls every day of the week.
And here is a look best suited to a Runaways gig:
Inside the issue Maslany discusses one bonus of playing multiple and extremely varied parts all on the same show “I never want to be one thing. As an actor, I never want to be the girl who was that. Which is why Orphan Black is so exciting. I’m never going to be typecast because I get to play all of these different characters.”
And here is a shot from the editorial that ditches the 70s theme and instead looks like a throwback to 90s Calvin Klein ads and now I really want to see a huge CK billboard with Maslany’s face on it.
The way Orphan Black examines body horror and so many different types of women (all played by mostly one woman) is one of its major strengths and when Maslany is asked about Strong Female Characters she bristles at this terminology because of how narrow it is “I think the scripts for strong women have been warped into this idea of strong women as unemotional, in power suits—a kind of men. Or they acquire masculine qualities in order to mask the feminine qualities.” Instead she gives an insight into what her dream kind of role would be citing John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence starring Gena Rowlands:
“She [Gena Rowlands’ character Mabel] is so unwilling to be defined by her gender. She’s ugly, funny, weird, vulnerable, very needy. She goes everywhere with no fear. I find fearlessness—which doesn’t mean not being scared; it’s like you’re scared, but you still go—those are the characters I’m interested in. I think strength is being able to reveal the grossest sides of yourself without apology and without a wink to the audience or fear of being ugly. That, to me, is strength.”
Between the multiple parts she plays on Orphan Black we have seen Maslany embody all of these things and it is testament to her work that I still forget she is playing all of these various characters. Speaking of which, here is the new season 3 promo and the shit continues to hit the clone fan. Instant feels at Sarah getting super mad at Mrs S for what has happened to her sister Helena.
Orphan Black returns Saturday, April 18 and for more from Tatiana Maslany’s Flare cover story head here.
The Good Wife deals with constantly changing moral grey areas and the word ‘good’ is in the title after all. The notion of what this means has been present throughout whether in the way Alicia is perceived as a woman who ‘stands by’ her husband or in her job that sees the blurring of ethical lines at times. Now as candidate for State’s Attorney Alicia has a brand which suggests moral order of the highest with her Saint Alicia nickname, but behind the scenes she makes compromise after compromise; first with her position on religion and this week with the money she will take to give her campaign the boost it needs to keep up with Prady.
This is far from the first time we have talked about this idea of being good nor is it the first time Alicia has discussed it in such an overt manner as she does at the end of the episode, however The Good Wife manages to discuss this same topic in new and interesting ways as Alicia continues to wrestle in private with how far she will go to get what she wants. With the State’s Attorney race it polarizes the previous quandaries Alicia has faced from her personal relationships to how she conducts herself as a lawyer.
In the past she has more than happily – okay she has been super skeezed by Sweeney on countless occasions – represented Colin Sweeney whereas now she knows she can’t be seen with him in court without negatively impacting her SA chances. Alicia has no time for Sweeney in “Dark Money” openly dismissing him until he calls her bluff and threatens to tell the press where her PAC money is coming from. A compromise in an endless stream is met and she gives him legal advice but refuses to appear in court. Sweeney is cool with this and she does indeed give him something to use on the stand. After the big blowup between Alicia, Cary and Diane at the end of the last episode I was surprised that none of this tension was present this week especially as Sweeney is essentially running to Alicia at any given opportunity and sidelining the lawyers who are actually representing him in court. It does position Alicia on one side with Cary and Diane on the other but there aren’t any repercussions from this screaming match, in fact it is like it never happened.
The version of Alicia on the show Sweeney is suing over – ripped from the headlines “Call it Murder” – is “not for sale” and while this a little on the nose it is something Alicia has to deal with this week. Alicia’s relationship with Prady is cautiously friendly and it would have been so easy for the show to have made Prady another distasteful opponent. It is far more interesting this way and I feel like I’m cheating on Alicia by saying this but I don’t think I would even mind if Prady won this thing, especially as Alicia’s PAC keep stooping to new levels of awful with robocalls targeting areas who might be put off by the rumors suggesting Prady is gay and that he supports gay rights. Alicia is constantly battling her team and calls them out for the West Wing themed Twitter accounts – yes I yelped with joy at the Twitter handle @TobyZiegler44 although I am disappointed the profile pic is the egg of sadness – and the negative campaigning. This is all well and good, but Alicia still takes the ‘dark money’ on offer and money she only found out was available after seeing Prady receive a call from someone called Redmayne.
Guy Redmayne is very wealthy and he has a substantial amount of cash to give to either Alicia or Frank. Redmayne spends most of his chat with Alicia inappropriately pawing at her legs and hands which she fake smiles through, but it is when they get onto the topic of her opponent that things shift from sleazy to horrifying as he uses homophobic slurs to describe Frank Prady and his opinion of Prady has been shaped by the robocalls Alicia complained about to her team earlier in the episode. She is complicit without being complicit. What she could have done is tell Redmayne that his money is not wanted and instead she stays quiet rather than objecting. When Redmayne talks to Prady he refers to Alicia as a sex object suggesting all kinds of degrading he would do to Alicia in bed – which Redmayne is using as some kind of litmus test to see if Prady is gay or not – Prady does not stay quiet and voices his disgust and is greeted with a shoulder shrug comment from Redmayne “right, but I’m rich so it really doesn’t matter.” The moral high ground is won by Prady and Alicia’s campaign just got the financial boost it needed.
Both politics and the law can be shady; we’ve seen Alicia wrestle with dilemmas in both arenas going back to the first season when she removed a hairbrush that could be considered evidence against their client (in 1.14 “Hi”). Saint Alicia is far from saintly and it wouldn’t be all that compelling if Alicia always chose the moral high ground. Money makes a campaign stronger and Alicia wants to win, which is why sucking it up and smiling at this asshole was the right call for her campaign. But she can still feel like shit about it and it would be a concern if she didn’t question the lengths she is going to.
Cue an Alicia sized glass of red, a wine cardigan and a good cry with a comforting hug from her daughter. Grace immediately contradicts her mandate that “everybody is bad in some way” by telling her teary mom that she can’t be bad “because you’re the best person I know.” I will give Grace a pass on this because she probably believes this to be true and she is trying to make Alicia feel better about her moral crisis. This is the season where they have finally figured out how to use Grace effectively and I wonder if this is because there is only one Florrick child to deal with.
The Good Wife’s portrayal of both its legal and political arms shows murkiness throughout offering up a variety of paths these characters might take that could lead to victory despite a dodgy background or could land the least complicit person in jail. Even in the Lemond Bishop story he has to deal with everyday problems and not resort to his usual illegal methods; for him the dilemma between really doing something to the bully who is hurting his son versus doing the responsible adult thing is one of the hardest decisions he has made. Also how dumb do you have to be to bully the kid of a notorious drug kingpin? Kalinda has to decide whether to protect herself or the child in question and it is unnerving to see her so unnerved; Bishop’s kitchen continues to be a hotbed of terrifying tension. If only Marissa Gold could be a bodywoman to everyone (myself included) and point out when there is an awkward silence. She will also bring you milk and cookies.
TV Ate My Wardrobe 