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Better Call Saul Reviews: “Amarillo” (season 2, episode 3)

I was far too young to understand the central courtship in Moonlighting. I was just too young to care much about Sam and Diane on Cheers. But let me make one thing very clear: I feel as though I’m genuinely invested in the doomed romance at the core of Better Call Saul.

Kim and Jimmy matter to me…and I say this as somebody who usually couldn’t care less about will-they/won’t-they plots. It probably helps that this situation is more of a they-already-have/they-definitely-won’t. But, ultimately, I care. The strong writing and characterization undoubtedly help me to care, but it’s the easy chemistry between Odenkirk and Seehorn that truly makes it work. And it works because we know it’s destined to fail.

Better Call Saul is a tragedy. If you somehow escaped the cultural shockwaves of Breaking Bad, the two black-and-white fast forward sequences on this show make that much clear. There isn’t going to be — and emphatically cannot be — a happy ending, and their chemistry is made more tragic by virtue of the fact that it is so easy.

If Odenkirk and Seehorn didn’t roll off of each other so easily, didn’t complement each other’s comic and emotional strengths so well, didn’t feel so fucking right together, their relationship would just be one of many interlocking gears that keep the series chugging along. Instead, it matters. It means something on its own. And it’s all the more poignant that it’s going to come crashing, painfully, down on them both.

I love, love, love, love Kim. Better Call Saul needed to flesh out its roster beyond Saul and our old friends the Breaking Buddies, so it would be a lie to say that Kim Wexler was born of anything other than narrative necessity. And at first she even felt that way. But it didn’t take long for the show to position her as the singular, most defining difference between doe-eyed Jimmy and cynical Saul.

Jimmy has a heart.

We see it weekly. We see it when last week’s under-table flirtations are rescinded this time around…a rebuff so meaningful it causes Jimmy to double back and undo some of the good will he built up for himself, simply because she knew he built it dishonestly. And we see it again when a high-five turns to a held hand. Jimmy and Kim have already slept together…probably more than once. And yet her hand in his is what feels to him like paradise.

I understand that the language I’m using here can make it sound as though Kim exists simply for Jimmy to react to, as a goal to be reached or missed, as some personified gauge of his success as a human being…and, well, in a sense she is.

But only in a sense.

She is those things because this is Better Call Saul, and not Jimmy ‘n’ Kim: Flirty Attorneys. We will always see other characters through the filter of how they affect Jimmy, because this is the story of who he is.

But Kim doesn’t stop there. The writers invest her with a distinct personality of her own, and Rhea Seehorn’s performance suggests a real, rich human life behind it. She can serve a token role without being a token character, and as the weeks go by and she and Jimmy drift inevitably apart, I think it will become more apparent how autonomous she really is. Right now we see one side of her, because she’s on our protagonist’s side. Eventually she — or he — will permanently pull away, and we’ll see something else.

There is one exception to the rule that all characters are seen through Jimmy’s filter, and that’s Mike, whose own story has barely intersected Jimmy’s so far in the grand scheme of things.

That’s…odd, I have to admit. Sometimes it feels as though we’re watching Better Call Saul with interruptions from a supporting feature. There’s plenty of time — indeed, as much time as the writers would like to take — for their stories to comment on each other more directly, but for now the Mike material feels more like a fun digression than it does an organic component of Jimmy’s rise and fall.

I like Mike. If you’ve read any of my other reviews, you probably know that, but I want to make it clear here, because I was left a bit cold by his stuff this week. Yes, Jonathan Banks is incredible. Period. The man can eat a sandwich and make you feel like you’re watching your father get gunned down. But he still feels like an emissary from a different show rather than a character who belongs in this one.

That was made especially clear by the end of the episode. Mike goes to the vet to get some work. Then we find out that someone requested him by name. And then we see that Nacho wants him to bump somebody off. That’s three separate instances of the show promising tension — the last of which brings “Amarillo” to a close — but none of them made me feel invested the way a scene of Jimmy and Kim whiling away their dwindling hours together with Rock Hudson movies did.

That felt thrilling to me…knowing that their relationship is doomed to sink like that submarine. The Mike and Nacho teamup should have left me wanting more, but, frankly, I could have done with less. The real heart and spirit of the show is with our star-crossed leads, and it says something that the promise of exciting violence to come will also, disappointingly, distract us from the longer, softer, talk-y bits.

Am I down on the Mike stuff? No. I like it as much as the next guy. But I like the Kim material even more…and this episode gave great weight to the fact that she unwittingly enables Jimmy’s worst impulses. He’s seeking her validation so desperately that he’ll jeopardize his standing (as he did in the briefing meeting that opened the episode) and his job (as he did with the commercial). He wants her more than he wants respect, money, security, or anything else that’s being handed to him, and that’s both brilliantly sad and intricately woven into the fabric of the show. Mike’s stuff — at least for now — is just Mike stuff. Great on its own, but dim in comparison.

Season two is heading in an interesting direction, as Jimmy’s climbing that hill and proving, week after week, that he’s good at his job…but he’s also engendering a lot of doubt along the way. First there was Chuck, who knew him from his Slippin’ Jimmy days, but now it’s his new boss as well. Jimmy can get results, and can even use his showmanship to do The Right Thing, but he also loses allies along the way. He starts by flipping a light switch he knows he shouldn’t touch…and ratchets up his behavior until he’s buying airtime for an unauthorized commercial. The consequences are going to catch up to him, and if your enemies are powerful enough, it won’t matter how much good you did along the way.

“Amarillo” was a great episode in spite of the fact that it accomplished very little. It was a reminder that place setting can still be satisfying, that promises delivered deftly can be rewards in their own right. And it had probably my single favorite moment of the show yet, in which Jimmy urges his elderly clients to dismiss thoughts of Sandpiper as an armed robber…right after he himself planted that image.

That’s the show being as playful as Jimmy is…working us the same way he works them. Tricky, knowingly dopey, making us feel smarter than we really are in aid of getting us to come along for the ride.

The true delight of Better Call Saul was illustrated wonderfully by that scene. It’s Bob Odenkirk — along with a team of massively gifted writers — working a room. And just as that bus was stalled, I’m starting to care less and less about whether we ever make it to our destination. I’m just enjoying the show.

Then again, this episode had “I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. McGill,” which can fuck right off.

Better Call Saul Reviews: “Cobbler” (season 2, episode 2)

We got a great episode this week, and that’s very nice. But the lateness of this review means I’ve had more time than usual to think about it, and I’ve found myself with a lot of questions.

That’s not at the expense of the show, or the episode, or anything, really. It’s just that at one point my thoughts came together…and then they had time to drift apart again. So I’ll run through my usual list of the things I enjoyed, but then I’d like to open a few things up to discussion. At this point I don’t think we have any correct or incorrect answers, but I’d definitely be curious as to other peoples’ thoughts.

Firstly, I recant my observation last week that our nebbish, budding drug dealer would be season two’s main client. While that’s still possible, it’s much less likely after the events of “Cobbler,” which see Jimmy clearing him of criminal suspicion by inventing a legal excuse for the man’s nervousness and secrecy. And that could well represent the end of that particular arc.

Which is okay; tying off that loose end doesn’t sacrifice any of that buildup so much as it allows it to feed other stories. Mike now knows where to find Nacho. Jimmy’s further implicated himself as Mike’s quasi-legal fixit man. And Kim — poor Kim — is second guessing, at least in the moment, the support she’s shown Jimmy through the years.

In fact, it’s easy to argue that the rush of confidence she gives him early in the episode is what leads to him accepting Mike’s ethically dubious proposal in the first place. A heartwarming moment flows gracefully and without interruption into a potentially very dark development. It’s a lovely illustration of the way comedy and gravity co-exist in this show, and I loved how easily and naturally that turn came.

Chuck’s temporary return to HHM was also handled brilliantly, with Jimmy’s immediate clench of anxiety when he saw the plastic tub being palpable and painful. It was a great moment, taking one of the sillier aspects of season one (by which I mean no disrespect) and bringing it back as an emotional punch for season two. Chuck’s arrival interrupts Jimmy’s speech…his confidence falters…the lights go out one by one around him.

I’m not sure exactly what Chuck’s motive was for returning. Clearly it was something to do with Jimmy, and he tries to pass it off later on as “bearing witness,” but doesn’t make it clear as to whether it’s witness to Jimmy’s ascent or tumble. From Jimmy’s perspective — the one with which the show aligns us in that scene — it was a dickish thing to do, whatever the motive, and seeing his brother again instantly knocks him off center.

…but Kim is there. Kim, who arranged to be there. Next to him. For him. She cares about him, she believes in him, and she knows what he’s capable of, even when he doubts it himself. And with a touch, she brings him back. It’s a sad and triumphant moment at once, and it both makes him feel better and more bitter. He does his best to blow off Chuck after the meeting, and then immediately agrees to help Mike in what he’s openly told will require him to recalibrate his ethics. Confidence and bitterness are a dangerous combination.

Both of this episode’s legal entanglements show what sets Jimmy apart: he’s willing to get his hands dirty. Just as he crawled around in a dumpster in last season’s “RICO,” and tracked the Kettlemens through the woods in “Nacho,” he’s willing to sit with every elderly Sandpiper resident and dig through their financial records seeking the evidence he needs. Lawyers operate cleanly, need to appear collected and respectable at all points, and send others to do their dirty work. Jimmy is used to the dirty work, and sees no such distinction…which allows him to build the case in ways other lawyers cannot. It also, of course, allows him to fabricate evidence by directing pie-sitting videos starring his client.

The same thing that could make Jimmy a great lawyer already, we know, makes him a criminal.

It was a solid episode, and we got to see more of Mike being Mike, which is always welcome. He’s the kind of character that can brutalize with a glance, and we definitely had our share of glances. His cool, unflustered confrontation with Nacho was a perfect, tense highlight of the show thus far. (Also very interesting: Nacho’s uncle is an honest businessman who respects his customers enough to talk them out of pricey options in favor of ones that would suit their vehicles better and save them money. It provided for a very interesting background commentary to his nephew’s dealings, and illustrates how rich a show we’re dealing with here.)

So, yes, “Cobbler” was great. But I have some questions.

Firstly, what is Chuck’s role on this show? It feels to me almost like his main arc was wrapped up at the end of season one, and while I’m not complaining about having Michael McKean pop up every few episodes, I do wonder what they intend to do with him.

Am I concerned? Not even slightly. But season one built up my expectations toward one thing, and then gave me something else. Here, I don’t know what expectations I have at all, unless it’s that he’ll fluster Jimmy now and again, which doesn’t seem like a rich narrative development to me.

Did Chuck outlast his utility? Or do you guys see something I’m not seeing yet? Again, I’m not writing him off…I’m just not sure where he’s going.

Secondly, the conversation with Kim at the end was fantastic, but only later did something occur to me. Yes, fabricating evidence is illegal. That makes sense to me, and it makes sense that Kim would react in exactly the way she did. But she was laughing at the rest of the story, and enjoying the anecdote. Which implies that she’s okay with actively lying to police officers with the purpose of interfering with their investigation.

Now, trust me, I’ve watched enough television that I’m aware of the grey area attorney characters walk constantly. It’s fine, to me, if Kim is okay with lying but not with falsifying evidence. There’s a point at which that distinction becomes less clear, but on its surface, I understand that.

My question is this: isn’t it still illegal to lie to an officer the way Jimmy did? Kim’s concern at least in part seemed to have to do with the trouble Jimmy could find himself in, but wouldn’t he already be in that trouble by virtue of having lied at all? He spun a very specific story to the police, which could be accepted or disproven just as the “evidence” could have been. Was he not already in trouble from the moment he started telling his story?

I don’t know. I don’t have a legal background, and I could be way off, but I’d be surprised if lying to police officers in that context was okay. And if it’s not okay, I think I buy Kim’s giddy enjoyment of the a little less. Is it more that she’s okay with all lying in the service of a client, but worried that the pie video specifically would make it easier for them to prove he’s lying?

I’m really not sure.

Those are logistical questions, though, and while I’d be interested in hearing peoples’ thoughts, neither of them are especially important to me.

Much more interesting is comparing the world of Better Call Saul to the world of Breaking Bad. In that latter show, we didn’t have to wait long to see blood being spilled, lives being taken, innocents in danger. Bad decisions in Breaking Bad were really bad decisions with really bad consequences…a theme that carried from the pilot to the very last episode.

In Better Call Saul, however, the stakes are lower. These characters are in danger of being lied to, misled, betrayed, taken advantage of, ripped off, intimidated, ridiculed. They’re not in danger of being strangled, gassed, gutted, stabbed, dissolved, blown up, shot.

And that interests me, because this character occupies both of those worlds. At one point, his decisions lead him from one degree of everyday consequence toward another. That’s Jimmy becoming Saul, yes, but it’s also one man choosing — for one reason or another — to open a Pandora’s Box of violence and danger.

And why would somebody choose this? To leave the smaller punishments behind in favor of the larger ones? To turn away from personal slights in favor of being kidnapped and held at gunpoint in the desert? To stop helping a small-time crook out of jam and start suggesting that big-time trouble makers be sent to Belize?

There’s an easy answer: the rewards are bigger as the stakes get higher. But something tells me it’s not as simple as that. That’s the reason for Jimmy becoming Saul, potentially, but not the reason for a man to willfully thrust himself into a more dangerous, potentially fatal, lifestyle.

More likely? By the time he makes that decision, he has literally nothing left to lose.

Remember that when he’s on the bed with Kim, and she’s wearing his University of American Samoa shirt. She warns him against going down a dark path…and we know he’ll do it. We know he’d lose her if he did.

But by the time he does, I don’t think she’ll even be around to lose.

ALF Reviews: “Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” (season 4, episode 18)

See that screengrab? That’s the face Anne Schedeen makes after ALF delivers his first line.

ALF’s line is nothing phenomenal, or surprising. It’s barely even interesting. Willie asks ALF how he’s doing, and ALF replies, “I’ll be better after I have some coffee and we talk about death.”

And that screengrab is Anne Schedeen’s silent reaction.

She holds that face for a moment. Then she shifts her eyes. Finally, she turns and walks away.

It’s a perfect bit of facial acting. Whatever line she could potentially have delivered in response to ALF would have been a disappointment compared to what we actually got…this lovely moment of implied, quiet frustration. Her look asks the question she’s asking herself internally: “What horse shit am I in for this week?”

Anne Schedeen has been a highlight from the very start of this show. I still remember that dumbass scene at the end of the first episode, with everyone cracking up at ALF’s “great” “jokes” while Kate sat there scowling. We were supposed to see her as some kind of cold, bitchy killjoy. I immediately saw her as my soulmate.

And now, as the show winds down, I appreciate moments like this even more. They’re limited in number. Every one of them subtracts from what we have to look forward to. Each time she silently fantasizes about disemboweling ALF with a ravioli stamp, it brings us nearer the last time she will ever do this. Together, dear reader, we approach the zero. Take a moment with me to appreciate what we have. Enjoy every sandwich.

Anyway, ALF’s big thing today is his realization that he’ll outlive the Tanners by a significant margin, which is better than him getting another job. (By this point I think we’ve exhausted all of them short of “snuff film director.”) He asks what he’s going to do after Willie and Kate pass away, and Kate — in what must be a joke though, sadly, Anne Schedeen doesn’t sell it the way I know she can — suggests that he move in with Lynn.

Which causes Andrea Elson to make this face:

And you know what, Andrea? You’re alright, too. Great facial acting here as well. It’s a perfect way of showing us that her answer is “fuck no” while she’s too polite to actually say so. (She does has a few lines to this effect, so it’s not entirely facial acting, but that doesn’t make it any less good.)

For a show that’s so bad with female characters, I have to admit the Tanners with vaginas are way better than the Tanners without. If I found out that next week’s episode was about Lynn getting hit by a car, I’d feel at least a little sad. If I found out it was about Willie getting hit by a car I’d call out of work and spend the whole day masturbating.

After the credits, ALF bitches that the Tanners are going to die while Willie bitches that ALF bitches too much that the Tanners are going to die. It sucks.

Then the family leaves to go to a bar mitzvah, which is believable because if sitcoms have taught me anything it’s that Jewish people are too polite to ever, under any circumstance, tell others that they don’t actually like them.

Then he picks up a picture from the table and says, “Ohhh, Lynn…” and some music comes on, and I was entirely convinced ALF was going to jack off to her photograph right then and there.

Fortunately, he doesn’t. Whew. I guess I don’t have anything to worry about this w–

no oh no

no fuck no no no FUCK no

Not another cocksplitting dream sequence. What the fuck did I do in a past life to deserve this?

At least tell me this is the last dream sequence in the show. At least give me that small comfort.

Right? This fucking show is almost over. Surely we can’t have an episode in which ALF dreams he’s a detective in search of the Maltese Tabby or some shit.

Anyway, he daydreams about living with Lynn when she’s really old and…

nope

nope nope

Uh-uh. I’m done.

I didn’t sign up for this shit. I signed up to review ALF, yes, but not this.

No human being deserves this.

The review series ends here. You’ve been great. It’s been a fine run. But I…I can’t go on.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Orbit Guard ships on fire off the shoulder of Xerxes IV. I’ve watched Mr. Ochmonek’s shirts glitter in the dark near the Tanners’ gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears…in…rain.

Time to die.

SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT LOOK AT IT GOD DAMN

Fuck. She looks like Dan Aykroyd in Nothing But Trouble. This is gross. Did they actually need to turn Lynn into some hideous old hag you find in the bathtub at the Overlook Hotel?

ALF alludes to the fact that Kate is dead now, and he tells her aged daughter who just cooked him dinner while he sat pantsless and useless doing nothing that he hopes she’s burning in hell as they speak.

I hate this show.

Then this guy Robert comes home. It’s Lynn’s husband, who’s a mime or who actually gives a fuck. Furienna? Are you out there? Do you even give a fuck? How could anyone? Who would even remember this asshole?

Yeah, he’s been on the show before. It took me a really long time to figure out that this is the same kid we met in “It’s My Party.” So, I guess they grew up and got married in ALF’s fantasy at least. And, at long last, ALF gets to hide under Lynn’s bed and listen to her fuck.

Whatever. I don’t care. ALF can jack off to thoughts of Lynn getting pounded by whatever guy he chooses. But Robert is an odd choice for the show itself to make, isn’t it?

We’ve met Robert only once, five weeks ago. He hasn’t been mentioned since. He was barely in that episode, and it’s not like the story revolved around Lynn’s new love interest; that just sort of barely happened at the end. Lynn hasn’t referred to having a boyfriend in the meantime, but I guess they’ve been dating ever since. That’s a lot for an audience to remember and assume, especially in pre-DVD days.

On top of that, when we do see him again he’s aged up and caked in mime makeup, so it’s not as though anybody on the planet would recognize him even if they were unreasonably invested in some tossed-off romantic development from five episodes ago.

It’s really strange. At least when she was dating Lizard we heard about him a few times here and there. And Danny Duckworth popped up a few times to remind us that she was still seeing him. Now we flash forward to a married Lynn and she’s with this bozo nobody on Earth could possibly remember, in a completely unrecognizable costume anyway.

Why not use a new character? And why did we sub Danny Duckworth out for this idiot anyway? Not that I liked the guy, but I at least would have recognized him.

What’s more, I would have known that becoming a mime would represent a pretty significant personality shift for Danny. For Robert? I have no idea. Is the joke that he’s already on his way to miming for spare change? Or is the joke that somewhere along the way his plans got derailed and he’s stuck doing this?

I have no idea because I don’t know who this dope ever was to begin with.

Oh, who am I kidding. The “joke” is that someone’s wearing silly makeup. Good thing we have an elaborate fantasy episode to get to a great payoff like that.

Look at these fucking screenshots. I feel like I’m suddenly watching a show about a serial killer.

Anyway Robert does some shitty mime stuff for fucking ever. I guess the writing staff had it easy this week. All they had to do was write “SOME ASSHOLE IS A MIME” across four pages and, boom, scene done.

Then the phone rings and it’s the circus and Robert gets a job with them and OH MY GOD WHO CARES. We’re almost 10 minutes into the fucking episode and all that’s happened is that ALF daydreamed about Lynn having saggy tits.

Oh, look. Now they have a knife throwing act. And, believe me, if Robert pierced ALF’s jugular here and now I’d declare “Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” to be a masterpiece. But somehow I know that won’t happen.

This episode is instead the result of someone saying, “Wouldn’t it be funny if ALF lived with a mime?” and nobody having the heart to club that guy to death with a pillowcase full of broken glass.

Then…

Yeah, for once the show makes good on a promise of putting ALF in mortal danger. For that, I salute it.

But it’s a little disappointing that it’s not…y’know. Funny. It’s just ALF screaming while fake knives appear around him. It’s the kind of thing I can easily imagine coming up in a brainstorming session; it’s another “Wouldn’t it be funny if…?” This time, though, the answer could have been “yes.” It really could have been. But nobody wrote any jokes worth telling. Oops.

The big punchline happens with the inevitable knife-near-the-crotch, which causes ALF to quip, “Couldn’t I have at least worn a cup?”

And this — precisely this — is where you see the difference between a genuine comic mind and somebody cashing a paycheck. ALF’s situation here doesn’t precisely mirror a very famous event on The Tonight Show early in Johnny Carson’s tenure, but it’s close enough to be instructive.

You can watch the legendary moment right here. And you should. Because Carson had almost the exact same setup…but wasn’t prepared for it. It was unplanned. No writing staff. No rehearsal. No guarantee anyone would find his joke amusing.

So Carson worked the moment. He let the inherent, awkward comedy of the situation stand for itself. When Ed Ames goes to retrieve the blade, Carson grabs him and pulls him back, which is funny in itself and allows the humor of the accident to simmer.

By the time Carson opens his mouth and delivers his line — any line — the audience is dying for it.

I won’t spoil the joke — you really should watch the video — but it says a lot that Carson and ALF had the same setup. Carson hit a grand slam with no preparation and only his own wit to work with, and no possibility of a second chance. ALF had an entire writing staff sat in a room to come up with a punchline…and they produced “Couldn’t I have at least worn a cup?”

I’m not going to tell you that ALF’s joke is shitty — though I will tell you right now that ALF’s joke is shitty — but there’s a clear gulf in comic value between the two moments. Carson had no time to prepare and could have whiffed, but he gave American television one of its most famous moments instead. ALF had all the time in the world to prepare, and nobody remembers this shit even happened.

That’s the difference between telling a joke and being a comedian.

Anyway, even ALF realizes that this shitty fantasy sequence isn’t going anywhere, so he boots up another one. Now he envisions his “worst case scenario”: living with Brian. And, man, if you ever wanted to punch a child actor in the balls, introduce his big scene exactly that way.

I might as well mention now — at the very least for the sake of postponing my own worst cast scenario: writing about Brian — that I think this is a solid premise for an episode.

No, not “cut to the actors in pancake makeup doing shitty old people voices.” But “explore what such massively different life expectencies mean for these characters” is great. And, nicely, it flows naturally from the show’s own premise; ALF isn’t from Earth, and we’ve long known that his species lives much longer than we do. On the outside possibility that a Tanner lives to be 100, this barely makes a dent in ALF’s own 650-year lifespan.

There’s a lot you can do with that. In fact, the ratio isn’t all that far off from what humans expect of their canine companions. You adopt a dog and, on rough (rough-rough) average, it will live for ten years. In that time it becomes part of your family. It becomes your friend. It keeps you safe, provides you with company, and wants for very little. It doesn’t judge you or argue with you or ridicule you when you do something foolish. It cares about you. It admires you. It depends on you. It introduces to your life a very specific kind of companionship…

…and then it passes away. The dog’s life is over. Your friend and confidant and a member of your family is gone, all at once and forever.

Many people take that very hard. I’m one of them who does. It’s such a scary and uncomfortable thought that it holds me back from getting another one. Can I really experience that kind of loss again?

I knew a guy who was always in total control of his emotions. At least, as far as anyone else could tell. He was even-keeled and very rational. He gave great advice. He kept his life in order. It was easy to be jealous of the life and family that he’d built around himself. And when his dog died, he fell apart.

He didn’t lose his job. Nothing tragic happened to his wife or his children. He wasn’t evicted from his home.

No…his dog died. Naturally. Predictably. And I saw him sit on the ground and weep like a child, months later, still hurting.

We forge bonds in ways we don’t expect. They happen naturally, and often irrationally. Did you ever have a friend that drove you crazy? Of course you did. Do you miss him or her right now? You may well. Every relationship we experience has some kind of shelf-life. One day, it will be gone. And with very few exceptions, we’ll feel their loss. We’ll miss them. We probably won’t forget the negative aspects, but we’ll sure as hell wish we could have the positive ones back.

ALF and the Tanners have to face that fact, one way or the other. He will outlive them. There’s no way around that, and no concession that can be made. As such, he is in a worse position than they are, emotionally. Just as we have to see the dogs we love pass before we do, ALF has to see his surrogate family age and die at a rate to which he is not accustomed.

That’s a rich vein to explore from a storytelling and characterization standpoint. Even better is the fact that it perfectly feeds a secondary plot: ALF’s mortal fretting can remind Willie and Kate that they will die, too. Which one will go first? (Willie, obviously, because he’s 85 years older than his wife, but, you know, for the sake of argument.) What will the other do at that point? And then can’t Lynn and Brian start to wonder what life will be like without their parents? These are questions human beings already ask themselves at various points throughout their lives. It happens naturally, and it’s relateable for an audience. Having ALF raise the issue — for his own very good reason — would force these characters to consider it themselves, and, suddenly, you have a strong theme for every one of your characters to explore this week.

It’s a series of scenes and conversations that can be both hilarious and heart-breaking.

None of that happens, of course, and instead we get ALF in a collared relationship with a grown man.

It’s Brian, all grown up, and I admire the show for tracking down an adult actor as stilted and incompetent as Benji Gregory. That can’t have been easy. His IMDB profile is pretty meaty, so most likely somebody out there is going to read this and say, “He’s not bad! He was great in xxxxxxx!” And, fine. Maybe he was. I’ll take your word for it. But he’s fucking terrible here.

The joke at first, I guess, is that ALF is treated like a dog instead of a family member. Then the joke becomes that Brian’s wife Roxanne hates ALF and tries to kill him. Then it becomes that Brian thinks she’s an olive oil heiress when she’s actually some powerful Mafia figure or something.

I don’t know. It sucks but at least she’s not a mime.

Roxanne is played by Fran Drescher, and you probably expect me to rip into her, but she’s not too bad here. This was from that bygone period of her career, before she got confusingly famous for being an annoying and grating Jewish stereotype. Right now she’s….just an actress in a sitcom, really. She hams it up a bit, but it’s nothing obnoxious. She does decent work with the little this thankless show gives her, and she’s probably the highlight of the episode, actually. (Faintest. Praise. Ever. But you get what I mean.)

I don’t dislike Drescher. She understands comedy and she gives her audience what it wants. I remember her best from The Nanny, and that was no masterpiece, but it’d be difficult to watch it and conclude that Drescher didn’t know what she was doing, or that she didn’t do it well.

By all means if you thought The Nanny was shit, have at me in the comments. But for what it was — a light, mindless slice of weekly entertainment — it was well enough made, acted, and written that it never bothered me. I probably even laughed at some of the jokes.

Come at me, Fusco.

Their son, Brian Jr., is played by Benji Gregory. And, okay. That’s kind of cute. But what I really like about it is the fact that Brian Jr. doesn’t have any fondness for his father’s naked alien sex pest. When ALF tries to talk to him, Brian Jr. says to his mother, “It’s bothering me again.”

It doesn’t really go anywhere, though. The idea of ALF living with a child who is well and truly disinterested in his antics is great, but it’s only ever that: an idea.

We do hear a bit about Brian Jr.’s cat, Fifi, and ALF doesn’t even crack wise about wanting to eat it, so I guess the change of heart in “Live and Let Die” really was permanent. I’m still keeping an eye out for that change in character to be reverted, but, for now, I like that they’ve stuck with it.

Anyway, Fran Drescher orders a hit on ALF, and some goons come in to shoot him to death.

I have no complaints about where that scene ended.

Then the fantasy ends and, man, I never thought I’d say this, but I really wish ALF were spending the episode masturbating instead.

We do get a funny line in which he laments that adult Brian was a kept man, but “at least he found something he’s good at.” That was…okay.

ALF looks through photos again and arrives, presumably, at one of Eric. (We don’t see any of the photos, because god forbid we get some sense of what memories the Tanners have of their lives or of each other.)

And, yeah, neither Lynn nor Brian got a flash-forward that had anything to do with who they are as people (it sure is odd that the whole episode is about ALF missing them, while his fantasies seem to indicate that he knows nothing about them to begin with), but Eric? Eric’s a baby. The show can do anything with this. There’s no continuity to uphold or expectations on the part of the audience. ALF has carte blanche to do as it pleases, which could actually be…

Oh for fuck’s sake.

…FUCK

Eric is some kind of children’s show host, one half of The Eric and Sparky Show. And man this guy sucks ass. I can’t tell if he’s acting in this clownish, idiotic way because that’s his stage persona, because that’s who ALF thinks Eric will actually grow up to be, or because this actor was told to play a grown-up with the mannerisms and excitability of a baby.

In short, the entire joke of these sequences is “here’s what’s happening,” and I couldn’t begin to tell you what in shit’s name is happening.

Adult Eric is played by Mark Blankfield, who’s been in a lot of things, including Fridays, some Mel Brooks movies, and one episode of Arrested Development, so I can’t imagine he looks back on this crap with much fondness.

In Arrested Development he was the doctor who treated Michael after the wreck in “My Mother, the Car” and I did sort of wonder why they never brought that character back. He would have been a nice counterpoint to the literal doctor, in the same way that Wayne Jarvis was a nice counterpoint to Barry Zuckerkorn.

Oh well. That’s still his most recent role, so maybe the guy retired after that. I only wish he retired before this.

Anyway, they do some kind of mailbag thing and I guess some kid writes in saying that he wants to see ALF get set on fire, so Eric is going to do it until some scary-ass talking clock tells him the show is over.

I hate you guys.

The show ends, and ALF complains that he’s been shitting his box and nobody’s cleaning it out for him.

I hate you guys.

Eric introduces ALF’s replacement.

I really do fucking hate you guys.

The stagehands come over and lock ALF in the box with his own feces. Which, frankly, seems like a preferable fate to watching the rest of this episode.

So he dreams about living with elderly Willie instead and–

OKAY NO THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH THANK YOU NO

NO THANK YOU NO

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK THIS EPISODE FUCK

Look at that face. He’s planting permanent erectile dysfunction with his mind. WE ARE ALL EFFECTIVELY STERILE

He asks ALF to open the curtain for him, the joke being that he’s too far gone to realize it’s already open, but ALF tells him to eat a dick.

I can’t stop taking screengrabs of this. I want you to understand that I hate you every bit as much as you hate me.

Look at this shit. He looks like a Dick Tracy villain.

By the time we get to the hideous old Kate crone it doesn’t even register. Who fucking cares.

Yeah, she’s old and knits a lot. We get it, show. You have no idea who any of these people are, so you’re stuck doing a half hour of old people sitting around, being old.

And that’s…it.

Like, really. The episode just ends. We don’t even return back to ALF at the table in present day or anything. I’m not exaggerating; the episode literally just gives up in the middle of a fantasy sequence and stops.

In the short scene before the credits, the family tells ALF that his fantasies were way off and they’d never behave that way. So I guess they had to sit and endure the same half-hour of shitty sub-stories that we did. For the first time ever, I sympathize with the Tanners.

And…that’s it.

No crisis resolved. No questions answered. No fun had. No comedy enjoyed. Not even the central question is addressed. (Q: What will ALF do when the Tanners are no longer around to protect him? A: Lynn marries a mime.) It’s just ALF fantasizing about some idiotic nonsense until the scary-ass talking clock says the show’s over.

Which is a shame, because this was a topic bursting with narrative possibility. Even the flash-forward idea could have worked if we were flashing forward to anything worth watching.

You’re in luck, though. Here’s a three and a half minute meditation on mortality in the form of an incredible, perfect little pop song. It’s fun, sad, sweet, insightful, worrying, and reassuring in equal measure. It does in no time more than this episode does in far too much time.

It’s a great point of instructive comparison, just like the Carson example earlier. Same territory being explored, in one case by artists in full command of their craft, and in the other by ineffectual, disinterested workmen who toss out some crap and hope for the best.

The significant gulf in life expectancy between ALF and the Tanners is a point of emotional, psychological, and physiological conflict woven tightly into the very fabric of the show. “Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” finally realizes it can do something with that…

…and then immediately makes us wish it didn’t.

But, hey, at least it gave use the show’s greatest metaphor in the form of a shriveled up old Willie.

Countdown to ALF saying all of his goodbyes: 6 episodes

The Venture Bros. Review: “Rapacity in Blue” (season 6, episode 4)

I admit it: I picked a damned terrible season of The Venture Bros. to review in this format. Not because it’s been a bad season — it’s been very funny on the whole, and never less than interesting — but because there’s so little to appraise in isolation on a week to week basis.

The Ventures aren’t jetting around the world getting into scrapes, they’re not beset by villains of the week, and complications are raised without being resolved.

That’s the nature of the story Doc and Jackson are telling this season. It’s not a problem. In fact, it’s exciting. The lack of a 22-minute hard stop for all of their ideas must be liberating; whenever they need more time to develop an idea, they let it bleed into the next week. And the week after that. These are good things.

But man does it make it had to look at it in weekly chunks and speak about it intelligently. Like any story, you need to look at where it’s going before you get the whole picture. In the absence of knowing where it’s going, all you’re left with is how well is it being told. That’s a great thing to focus on, but I don’t want reviews like this to be various repetitions of “‘Rapacity in Blue’ was very funny.

Having said that, “Rapacity in Blue” was very funny.

The pattern so far this season seems to be one episode of wall-to-wall setup, followed by one episode of partial payoff. So far, I like that; it keeps the plates spinning without leaving us afraid that it’s not going anywhere. I wonder if that’s going to keep up. If it does, I wonder how successful it will seem in retrospect.

The biggest payoff this week came on the heels of last week’s Blue Morpho setup, which isn’t surprising. The reveal of The Monarch’s father being a hero — let alone a hero who associated with Jonas Venture, Sr. — immediately seemed like a fruitful avenue for the show to explore. If I’m worried by anything it’s the fact that it took four episodes to get The Monarch into the Blue Morpho suit.

The slow burn worked, don’t get me wrong, but the story possibilities, the jokes, the atmosphere…everything became so urgently rich that I could spend eight episodes watching nothing but that. (Speaking of which, do we think The Monarch will appear in every episode this season? I’m thinking he will…and if I’m right it’ll be the first season in which that’s the case. He’s long felt like a secondary protagonist for this show, and maybe that’s finally happening from a structural standpoint.)

The entirety of this material was great. There’s plenty of fun to be had with The Monarch simply discovering a cave full of gadgets, but tying it into his bloodline, his destiny, and this show’s always brilliant exploration of the difference between a good guy, a good guy, a bad guy, and a bad guy…it just brings the comedy and the potential to a whole other level.

It’s the discovery of an old video cassette that helps The Monarch accept that his father was a good guy, and it helps him accept that precisely because there was some moral ambiguity to the man. It comes first in the form of a jokey conversation with Jonas and a staged confession to the camera…but let the tape run a little longer and you see your father cheating on your mother, relishing and abusing the power over strangers that comes with fame.

It’s fully possible that the Blue Morpho was a genuinely great human being before he became friends with the self-absorbed, debaucherous Team Venture, but The Monarch here sees evidence of grey around the edges, which makes his birthright — as 21 puts it — a bit more palatable.

And, of course, once he gets into the suit, he becomes a good guy. The clothes absolutely make the man. He starts by toying with the idea of blowing up an aggressive driver (the fact that he only toyed with the idea is major progress for The Monarch) and ends by coming to the legitimate rescue of Billy Quizboy and giddily celebrating with 21 how good it felt to be the hero.

The Monarch has long been a perfect illustration of the show’s artfully hazy approach to good guys and bad guys. In fact, he was arguably the show’s first illustration of that approach…and it’s something that’s been explored by innumerable characters since. (Let’s not forget as well as the constantly shifting alignments between and within the show’s various factions.)

Dr. Venture, too, serves as a constant reminder of the blur between the heroic and villainous…in fact, Dr. Venture may well be responsible for more of the show’s most terrible events than The Monarch, and The Monarch was unquestionably part of more of the human and emotional moments.

21 has also explored both sides of the dichotomy…albeit more actively. When he was a villain, he knew he was a villain. When he was a good guy, he knew he was a good guy. The Monarch and Dr. Venture each reject their “other” side whenever somebody brings it up, but 21 was perfectly willing to explore himself and try to find his actual place in the world. The fact that he’s a villain again — while acting as a hero — is a great way for him to tie those two competing aspects of himself together, actively, with an eye toward personal unification.

In fact, come to think of it, Hatred’s “once a bad guy, always a bad guy” speech to Gary last season seems to have been proven correct. Of course, the big irony there was that Hatred himself was a bad guy who was no longer a bad guy. Then again, he started as a good guy, so maybe the inevitable return to factory settings isn’t such a bizarre thing for him to endorse. There’s the suit, and there’s the man inside the suit. But who is it really?

“Rapacity in Blue” (which has the best episode title in several seasons) still doesn’t tell a complete story, and it starts a couple of new plates spinning with Dr. Venture’s panicky scramble for a new invention and Brock’s sexual frenzy for Warriana — the latter of which seemed a bit odd and which I expected to have resolved in the show’s tag — but it’s also…satisfying. Thrilling. It’s like sneaking away in the middle of the night and getting away with something you know you shouldn’t do. We come home giggling and tripping over ourselves, even if it hasn’t (yet) really amounted to anything.

As ever with season six, though, what happens this week will be defined or redefined or undermined by what happens next week. And I was definitely left confused by a few things.

For starters, I’m not sure why Billy had to be under the effects of the God Gas when he met Blue Morpho. Sure, he concluded it was really Rusty in that suit, but I think he could have done that anyway, and it’s odd to me that the only witness to anything that happened was someone whose perspective is clearly unreliable. It would have been far more interesting to me if Billy was actively convinced it was Rusty, rather than being in every position to doubt himself.

That’s pretty minor, though. More significantly, I’m not sure I buy that Dr. Girlfriend would jump to the conclusion that The Monarch went on a date night with 21…she should be a bit savvier than that, especially since last week she (believed she) saw her husband arching Dr. Venture against her wishes.

Speaking of which, The Monarch knows about Copy Cat’s little ploy last week…so has he discussed that with his wife? There’d be no reason for him to keep it to himself and every reason to tell her what really happened, so I don’t know if we’re still dealing with relationship fallout from last week or not.

It just feels slightly sloppy around the edges, and, if anything, that’s made more clear because the core idea of the episode — and its central thrill — is so well handled. (I also have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the vocal return of 24; I’d honestly expected we were done with him entirely.)

“Rapacity in Blue” is my favorite so far of the season…and it promises some incredible fun to come. I hope we haven’t seen the last of the original Blue Morpho, but this newest incarnation — with a Kano who isn’t even Asian — represents the single most exciting development the show has had in years.

It’s times like this that eight-episode seasons really start to feel like a gyp. Things get interesting just in time to start winding down.

Here’s hoping The Venture Bros. does what it does best, and proves me dead wrong.

What this site could look like

Running a website is its own reward. As you know, I just need to turn on my computer and lots of money and sexy ladies and respect come tumbling out of the screen and into my lap. It’s great and you should all feel pret-ty envious. Probably even suicidal.

But it has its…less rewarding aspects as well. Mainly the investment of time and money to keep it operational.

Time is not exactly a rigid requirement, I admit. Yes, it can take me several hours of work for an ALF review, or several days of work for a Fiction Into Film, but on the whole it doesn’t take too long to sit down and write something.

However, if I am sitting down to write something, that’s time I’m not spending writing other things…whether those are personal projects, freelance work, or just the emails I owe friends who at this point definitely assume I’ve died.

Then there’s also fresh air (whatever that is) and a social life, or reading, or watching movies or playing video games or, basically, experiencing all of the things other people have created. And so it can be difficult to balance. Sometimes I’ll go for weeks on end doing nothing but writing. Other times I want to spend that time catching up on things I’ve missed.

And I can do that. That’s the best thing about having my own website and not working for others anymore: I set my own deadlines.

That’s also the worst thing about having my own website and not working for others anymore: I set my own deadlines.

So while this means I can delay something (or many somethings) it also means that if I’m not posting anything, people will check back less and less often. And if they check back less and less often, finding very little to read when they do return, they might stop showing up. And while that’s okay, it’s not ideal. I don’t write for the sake of having an audience, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t value having an audience. And I value it deeply.

This audience. The one you’re a part of. The audience who is reading this right now, wondering why the heck I’m bringing any of this up. (I love you and you are handsome.)

Well, that’s because it ties into the other less-rewarding aspect: money.

Running a site like this isn’t free. There’s not an exceptional expense, but it’s significant for someone in my…ahem…modest income bracket. I pay for the domain and I pay for the bandwidth. The latter of which I had to upgrade about a year ago when my traffic increased, and which I’ll have to increase again before long.

And those things are fine; believe me, I’m not complaining, but I want to make it clear why I’m interested in defraying the cost as much as possible, and within reason. (We’ll define “within reason” before long.)

Frankly, Noiseless Chatter operates at a loss.

Big deal. I’m okay with that.

But I’d be foolish if I wasn’t at least a little interested in reducing the degree of that loss.

Fortunately, webmasters like me can pull in money hand over fist! Every day I get offers from people who want to throw money at this site. LOOK!

I mainly just thought this one was funny…later emails were more in line with what you see below — I did ask for clarification — but anyone who comes to this site and thinks I’d be the kind of guy who wants to open crates with a crowbar can’t have read a word that I’ve ever written. And I don’t think any readers hang around here because they think they’re reading the ponderous thoughts of a man who blogs between crowbar sessions.

I’m sure that a broad spectrum of international organizations would be touched to have their content featured between screengrabs of a masturbating puppet, but I had to decline. I know what the content looks like. It all looks the same. It’s without value or meaning, written for the express purpose of fooling search engines into associating one specific company with one specific keyword. In short, they’re writing to fool a robot. And they’re wondering if I could be bribed to let them do it on my readers’ time. For the princely fee of $20.

And hey, look, confirmation that the folks reaching out to me aren’t even bothering to customize their templates beyond the barest minimum. Surely the content they’re offering will be stellar. (They’re doubling that money, though. I’m twice as tempted to fuck over my readers!)

I get these a lot. Like, all the damned time. Sometimes they take the time to learn my name. Usually they don’t. One of them, for some reason, called me Sue. And none of them, ever, care about you, or the site, or what anybody coming here would like to read.

They write garbage. I know they write garbage, because I used to work for a digital marketing agency that pulled this same crap. We wrote garbage, too.

But…well…wouldn’t that be nice? If I could just take one of these folks at their ostensible word every month? That’s an extra $40 every 30 days. And, hey, what if I did two per month? Or three? I could pull in $1,200 a year easily, just by posting this crap that nobody cares about. And doesn’t that sound like a fair trade? Maybe I could even post it on Sundays, when I never post anything and nobody even thinks to visit the site anyway. Who would that hurt?

It’d hurt the site.

It’d hurt what I’ve built.

It’d hurt you guys, and make poor use of your time.

I don’t want to hold Noiseless Chatter up as some exemplar of quality or anything, but I hope it can have just a little bit of integrity in a medium that…doesn’t always value it. And doesn’t always want it. And is glad to fake it just long enough to turn itself around for an easy buck.

There’s a blogger I used to visit that, within the past year, has turned her site over to sponsored content, and it’s sad. I won’t name her site here because I don’t intend to shame her and I don’t know what’s behind her decision, but I went from having a blogger I was interested in reading whenever she had something to say, to having a shell of a blog that doesn’t seem to have much of her in it at all.

I don’t want anyone here to feel that. If you get any joy out of this site whatsoever, I’d like to maintain that. If you don’t…well, even then it’s not like sponsored content is going to change your mind. Nobody wins.

I make money, yes…but nobody wins.

I’ve hosted pieces here that were provided by outside writers, but I’ve never accepted a penny for doing so. I’ve reviewed other people’s products and wrote about their projects, but never in exchange for money. And I wouldn’t take any. Ever. If I get a review request for something that interests me, I ask for a copy of that item, which I think is fair. If they offer money, I refuse. As you see above, people do indeed offer money.

I’ve had people ask how they can support the site. One reader — whom I don’t wish to embarrass, but feel free to out yourself in the comments — said he goes out of his way to click ads on my site in order to help.

And, yes, that’s a way, but never, ever feel obligated to do that. If you see an ad on my site for something that interests you, and you click it, I get a little money from Google. If you don’t click it, I get a little less (as long as the ad actually displays).

Don’t click for the sake of clicking…but if you do click, it helps. I’m not asking you to click; I’m just explaining how it works. If you tell me here and now that you’d never click a damned thing on my site, I wouldn’t think any less of you, and I have no expectations that anybody will click anything.

Really, the only thing I would ask is that you disable adblock on my site. And that’s not even a very strong request. Frankly, I don’t mind what you block or don’t block. But if you’re wondering “how can I help?” that would be the extent of my answer.

Ads are a touchy subject. I feel dirty every time I see them on my own site. At the same time, they’re helping me afford to keep the site. Does that make them a necessarily evil? I…honestly don’t know. And it’s probably not for me to decide. Many of you don’t seem to mind either way. Others, I’m sure, hate that they’re here. Believe me, I hear you, and I understand. If there were any other way to defray the cost of maintaining the site, I’d be all ears.

I could offer something for sale, here. And maybe I will, at some point. Right now, you could always buy a mug if you haven’t already. They’re good mugs! But that’s just an option. Maybe in the future I’ll have more options. Again, I’m all ears.

But, really, there’s not much that you can do. I could set up a donation link or something, but I’d rather there be something of value changing hands. I do have an idea for something else to offer in the near-ish future, and I’ll probably announce that in the near-er-ish future, but right now the way to help…the best way to really help…is just to read.

To comment.

To like this stuff on Facebook.

To share it with your friends should you feel so compelled.

That’s all. It’s not money that keeps me going. If this site one day broke even I’d do a cartwheel, but that’s not what I’m after. I could make this site immediately profitable at the expense of its identity…and I don’t want that.

I want you guys.

And every time you show me you’re engaged — even through disagreement — it means the world to me. That’s what keeps me here, investing time and money and, on Thursdays, my sanity. I read all comments. I value every like and retweet and everything else. I get giddy when I look at old articles and see that they’ve been shared dozens of times. In some cases hundreds. In one case thousands.

That means everything to me. That’s why I write. That’s why I have this site. And that’s why no amount of money is going to tempt me — really tempt me — to part with it.

The internet eats great things alive.

Thank you for giving me reasons every day to keep this small one afloat.