More from THE NEW YORKER's Emily Nussbaum and SLATE's Willa Paskin about the final episode of the Matthew-and-Woody arc of TRUE DETECTIVE (which will have different lead characters and storyline in Season 2)--and how integral (or not so) the female characters are to the series:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/03/the-disappointing-finale-of-true-detective.html
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/03/10/true_detective_has_a_woman_problem_yes_and_that_s_partly_why_people_love.html
Showing posts with label Emily Nussbaum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emily Nussbaum. Show all posts
Monday, March 10, 2014
Monday, January 21, 2013
THE NEW YORKER's Emily Nussbaum on the artistic implosion of HOMELAND.
Excerpted from Emily Nussbaum's "On Television" article TRIGGER-HAPPY in the January 21, 2013 issue of THE NEW YORKER (much of the article is about the FX series JUSTIFIED):
"As I watched "Justified"'s narrative expand and contract, it was hard not to think of Showtime's espionage thriller "Homeland," which just ended a disastrous second season. The show's original twelve episodes were a mini-masterpiece, a propulsive scenario paired with a reasonably thoughtful exploration of U.S. policy on torture and drones. The second season began well, but it imploded into schlock--the creators had fallen in love with the chemistry between their stars [Claire Danes as CIA agent Carrie and Damian Lewis as U.S. soldier-turned-terrorist-turned-double-agent Brody]. When a bomb went off in the finale, it killed every corrupt or shady character, a convenient metaphor for the show's problems: it had been purged of complexity, a side effect of success. The surviving ensemble--Carrie and Brody, Brody's family, Mike, Saul, and Quinn--were now cursed with, at worst, the flaws of the antihero: brilliant but unstable, willing to break rules in the name of justice. That's not an original story, let alone an interesting way to examine foreign policy."
"As I watched "Justified"'s narrative expand and contract, it was hard not to think of Showtime's espionage thriller "Homeland," which just ended a disastrous second season. The show's original twelve episodes were a mini-masterpiece, a propulsive scenario paired with a reasonably thoughtful exploration of U.S. policy on torture and drones. The second season began well, but it imploded into schlock--the creators had fallen in love with the chemistry between their stars [Claire Danes as CIA agent Carrie and Damian Lewis as U.S. soldier-turned-terrorist-turned-double-agent Brody]. When a bomb went off in the finale, it killed every corrupt or shady character, a convenient metaphor for the show's problems: it had been purged of complexity, a side effect of success. The surviving ensemble--Carrie and Brody, Brody's family, Mike, Saul, and Quinn--were now cursed with, at worst, the flaws of the antihero: brilliant but unstable, willing to break rules in the name of justice. That's not an original story, let alone an interesting way to examine foreign policy."
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