This Costa Concordia salvage operation is fascinating. On one level it’s about as interesting to watch as paint drying, but on another the sheer magnitude of the effort is amazing. Imagine being in one of those Zodiac boats in the water near this thing as it starts rolling upright. Or, worse, in one of the minisubmarines checking out progress from below. Alas, night has fallen in Italy, so the cinematic nature of their progress has declined markedly.
I spent an hour yesterday with Hans-Åke Lilja, Lou Sytsma and Karen Lindsay recording the next installment of the Lilja and Lou Podcast. We were talking about The Shining in all its forms as a prelude to the release of Doctor Sleep in a week. We had a lot of fun dissecting the novel, the Kubrick film and the miniseries. It should go live a week from today.
I’ve joined the 21st century in terms of television technology. Our 15-16 year old behemoth of a TV set, which weighs approximately 2745 lbs, gave up the ghost on the weekend. It has served us well, and now it can go on to the next stage in its existence, perhaps as a boat anchor. Our cabinet is only 36″ wide, so I couldn’t go huge for a replacement. Maybe down the line. I got a 39″ diagonal Panasonic LED and upgraded our cable service to HD. Of course that meant I had to go through and reprogram all my favorites and series recordings to the new HD channels, but it was worth it. There’s something surreal about the way old, non-HD shows look on it.
I wrote my Storytellers Unplugged essay (for tomorrow) yesterday, and I also posted a review of Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, edited by Sarah Weinman, an excellent anthology of “domestic suspense” stories written by women in the 1940s to 1970s. The table of contents has a few familiar names (Patricia Highsmith and Shirley Jackson, for example), but most of the authors will likely be unknown to most readers.
Haven is back. It was the first show I watched on the new TV. Of course, it wasn’t recorded in HD. Good to see Colin Ferguson (Eureka!) join the cast. He’s one of the funniest physical actors I’ve seen in recent years. Not sure I care much for the young woman who rescued Duke from the hospital yet.
As I watched Breaking Bad last night, I couldn’t help but think that the Dexter writers were thinking, “You mean we could have gotten away with that? We could have killed Quinn and Angel and buried them in the bay, kidnapped Harrison, and put Dexter and Deb in a knife fight after telling Astor and Cody who Dexter really is. Man. Someone should have told us.”
It’s hard to imagine the show getting much bleaker than that. Logic told us that Gomez and Hank were headed for Belize. Gomez, who always was sort of a background figure, didn’t even get to utter a last gasp on screen, but Hank got sort of a send-off. He got to spit and curse and refuse to beg, at least.
Walter is all over the place in this episode, though. You think for a minute there’s some humanity left when he volunteers to give up every last cent of his $80 million in exchange for Hank’s life. Then a few minutes later he’s selling Jesse out and telling him about Jane. Then he’s trying save his family and a few minutes later he’s engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Skyler. Then he’s kidnapping Holly and then he’s giving Skyler a free pass. At first I thought he’d finally gone insane, but I later realized what he was doing with that phone call. He knew Junior (Flynn, I’ll bet that name sticks now) called the cops. He disavowed all of her knowledge of his crimes and minimized her responsibility.
So many brutal scenes. The shooting. Walt’s paralyzed reaction to it. Marie forcing Skyler to tell Flynn. Walt’s manic trip to the house and equally manic departure. Skyler’s heartbreak at losing Holly to him. Jesse, beaten so badly that he almost looked like Gus in “Face Off.” Walt could just stay gone, but we know that he’s coming back for some reason. Why? Only time will tell, but I suspect that Vince Gilligan isn’t done ripping our hearts out and pushing our pulses into the red zone yet.
After all that, the penultimate episode of Dexter seemed somewhat disappointing. So many missed opportunities. How could Dex even think of walking away with Saxon strapped in the chair? Sure, it was meant to show how far he’s evolved, but he was leaving Deb with a helluva mess to clean up. Saxon wasn’t going to go quietly. Even incarcerated, he knew a lot about Dexter. Dexter isn’t going to Argentina for the same reasons as Hannah. He doesn’t plan to be a fugitive. He wants to be able to come back. But if Saxon started saying bad things about him and some of the could be corroborated, he’d have no need of a round-trip ticket. At least Saxon solved the U.S. Marshall problem, but there’s still Elway sticking his nose into things and a tropical storm to contend with, not to mention Saxon and an injured Deb.
Next Sunday night is going to be crazy.
