I didn’t get a lot of sympathy when I posted on FB that it was 28° when I was leaving for work this morning, but that’s the coldest it’s been here this winter. Sure, it gets up into the sixties in the daytime, but still.
It’ll be hot soon enough. Hot as an inferno. Which is a way of seguing into my latest column for Storytellers Unplugged. I had another article all ready to go when I heard about Dan Brown’s forthcoming novel. So I wrote “We’re All Doing Our Best” as a reaction to some of the reactions to that news. The good news is that I now have my February post written and queued up. I’ve never been a month ahead before.
I finished the first season of Prisoners of War (Hatufim), which is the Israeli program on which Homeland is based. It’s available on Hulu, if you don’t mind subtitles. There are similarities between the two shows, but there are more differences. Israeli officials release a number of prisoners in exchange for three soldiers who were captured 17 years ago. One of them comes home in a box. The other two have been tortured and beaten for years so, quite naturally, they have major adjustments. The world has moved on without them. Their families have a lot of adjusting, too. Nimrode has a son who was born after he was taken, and even his daughter doesn’t really know him. His wife has lobbied and led protests for the entire time he was gone. Essentially her life has been on hold, too, but now that he’s back, he’s a stranger in many ways. A man who lashes out in his sleep. The other, Uri, was engaged to be married. His fiance moved on after four years, marrying his brother, with whom she has a son. It’s a little like Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone. Uri hasn’t been unconscious for years, but he still loves his fiance. It’s a messy situation.
Unlike Homeland, the focus of Hatufim is primarily on the readjustment. There is a glimmer of suspicion that the two men may not be telling everything, personified by one man who keeps tabs on them after debriefing them. The two men were essentially collapsed into the Damien Lewis character, but one of the important features of Hatufim is the way Nimrode and Uri grew to rely on each other during their imprisonment. They’re almost like halves of a single person now. The finger-tapping code is much more significant in the original than in the American version, for example. Another interesting difference is the fact that not everyone in Israel is pleased that Nimrode and Uri were released. They feel that the price was too high. Terrorists who were responsible for the deaths of other Israelis were released in exchange. Then there’s the third soldier. His sister refuses to accept that he’s dead and she hallucinates him. She has conversations with him, even while she’s attending his funeral.
It’s a grittier and darker version of the story. There’s no need to gussy it up with terrorist plots, although there is a mystery that isn’t resolved in the first season, which ends with a truly surprising revelation. The performances are solid. Nimrode’s teenage daughter is a brat beyond compare, but more credible that the American version’s analog. The political subplot isn’t present in this season, though it could in the future since Nimrode, trying to find a new avocation, might go into politics to capitalize on his fame. It’ll be a while before the second season is available, though, since it just started running in Israel.
There were two instances of Famous Actor Syndrome last night, although one was handled better than the other. As soon as I saw Michelle Trachtenberg on Criminal Minds last night, I knew she was going to be the stalker. An actress of her stature doesn’t just play the girlfriend of a minor character. The fact that she was recognizable immediately tipped me off. Granted, they didn’t try to keep her nature a secret very long, but it’s something that could be done more easily in print. There are no famous actors portraying characters in a book or story, so it’s easier to hide suspects in plain sight. The other instance was on CSI, where the guy who played Arzt on Lost played the station manager where the anchor was killed. However, his character’s role was big enough that it made sense to have a recognizable actor play it. He didn’t have to be the killer, and there were plenty of other red herrings. I liked the “pithing” jokes at the beginning, I have to admit. “Relief pither” was a good one. I would have contributed “pithing contest,” but they didn’t ask me.
I suppose you could say that NCIS had the same issue. Oded Fehr, who plays Eyal on Covert Affairs, showed up this week. As time ran out, the number of potential suspects behind the assassination plot was very limited, but the resolution of that particular mystery didn’t seem as important as the personal story of Ziva’s struggle with her grief and the director’s need for vengeance.
Down to one more episode of American Horror Story and there’s still quite a bit to wrap up. The cold open was deliciously misleading and the resolution to that scene was a major stunner. The debate about who the contemporary Bloody Face is was put to rest in the bookstore scene near the end. It’s hard to imagine the scene where he meets his mother, though. She must be nearly 80 in the contemporary story since he’s 48. Lana turned into a bit of a bitch after she got famous for her true crime novel, too. I loved Jessica Lange’s performance in this episode. Occasionally she can go a bit too Tennessee Williams, but her crazy scenes were terrific. Frances Conroy, in her new guise as the tough dame on the block, was fun, too. So, we have to get “Sister Judith” out of the nuthouse (maybe) and figure out what happens with Kit’s two space alien children and resolve the modern Bloody Face story. All in an hour. A tall order.
