I know it doesn’t sound like much to people from northern climes, but we are under a “winter storm” warning (or a “winter mix,” as they’re describing it) for the next day or so. They’ve already started spraying the bridges with MgCl2 and the bad weather hasn’t even started yet. Some places not too far north of here might get 2″ of snow and Houston itself could see ½” of freezing rain, sleet or snow. Cool.
I’m near the end of the first draft of the new short story. I know how it’s all going to play out, more or less. Just need to write it. This is one of those cases where I dream/think my way through the next scene early each morning before I start my writing session.
Yesterday, I went to a community association presentation by two representatives of Homeland Security Investigations, which is the investigative branch of the Department of Homeland Security under the auspices of Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE). The community has organized a bunch of these crime-related presentations. Last year I saw a couple of U.S. Marshals and next month it will be someone from the DEA. Always useful information for some future writing project. HSI has a lot of programs that deal with any number of different legal fronts, so it was interesting to hear what all they do, which is much more than most people might think. The most entertaining part of the presentation, though, was watching the two presenters patiently deal with the guy in the back row, a middle-aged man who queried them about several conspiracy theory topics. “I read in an article that…” kind of things that were vaguely out there. RFID implants, mass seizures of phones and tablets at border crossings, things like that.
If I was from New Jersey, especially if I worked in law enforcement in that state, I don’t think I’d be very happy about this week’s episode of Law & Order: SVU.
Boyd sure is juggling a lot of plates in Justified this season. He has to get Ava out of trouble, deal with Paxton, deal with Mooney, deal with Darryl and Dewey, deal with his Johnny, deal with his drug sellers. Have I left anything out? Raylan has it fairly easy going so far, other than the baseball-bat wielding guy with a grudge. Looks like he’s going to get to stay in the big house with the bowling alley for a while longer. The one-on-ones in the series are so good. Boyd and Raylan, Raylan and Art, Raylan and Wynn Duffey. Verbal sparring matches that are so much fun.
True Detective looks like a winner. Who would have guessed that the crazy one in a pair of cops played by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson would be the former and not the latter. Harrelson’s cop is fairly straight-up, although I wouldn’t mind if someone told him to stop acting as if he had a mouth full of chewing tobacco all the time. The show takes place in two time periods: the mid-1990s, when Harrelson and McConaughey first team up in homicide to investigate a murder that looks ritualistic, and many years later, when a couple of agents are grilling them individually to rebuild the case files about the murder (murders?) lost in Hurricane Rita. This isn’t a standard Q&A—McConaughey and Harrelson are free to reminisce at length, and they do. It’s a slow burn, but it’s fascinating story telling and impressive characterization. Apparently this season will tell their story completely. If the series returns in the future it will feature different characters. (What was with the owl in the rafters of the burned-out church, anyway?)
Banshee is back for a second season. I don’t hear many people talking about this one. It’s more of a guilty pleasure. Not nearly as thoughtfully constructed as other, higher-profile series. It is uber-violent and there is a lot (a lot) of sex. Some call it soft porn. The first episode of the first season started with a guy getting a big gaping hole shot through the palm of his hand. It’s over the top, and the continuity folks must go crazy trying to keep track of what cuts, bruises and other injuries Sheriff Hood needs to be sporting at any given moment. Hood (not his real name) is an ex-con who served 15 years for his part in a jewel heist. He ends up replacing the recently deceased guy who just arrived in Banshee, PA to be the new sheriff. No one knew what Hood looked like, so the identity theft went off without a hitch. Banshee, with its Amish component, should be a quiet little burg, but it’s far from that. You don’t have to think too deeply when watching the show. The plot stumbles along from one violent confrontation to the next. Last week, one of the town cops beats her ex-husband to within an inch of his life with a Gideon Bible, and that was just the fourth or fifth set-to in the episode. The investigation into the massive confrontation at the end of season 1 serves as a brilliant recap, I thought. A good way to refresh the memory about what happened.
