American Gothic (1995) s01e07 – Meet the Beetles

I’m not sure what iteration of “Make Bruce Campbell Happen” his guest appearance on “Gothic” fits in, but I was expecting more of a showcase. Campbell’s a state cop come to town at the behest of his sister (Derin Altay); her husband’s missing, and she’s convinced he’s been running around with Brenda Bakke. When sheriff Gary Cole doesn’t take Altay seriously, she calls in Campbell. Campbell immediately suspects Cole of being jealous over sort of girlfriend Bakke having other male attention and starts investigating him.

The episode opens with Lucas Black and his best friend, Christopher Fennell, traipsing around Black’s old, now burned-down house. They find a skeleton (and Sarah Paulson’s old doll), with the skeleton turning out to be Altay’s missing husband. Except he’s only been gone a couple days, nowhere near enough time for the decomposition.

Pretty quickly, both Turco and Cole realize the skeletal status of the deceased has to do with Beetles. The local, exceptionally creepy natural history museum is basically an excuse for boss Selene Smith and her staff to feed carcasses to the beetles and get shiny bones in return. Smith’s fascination comes off as obsessive, whereas Turco and Campbell both think bugs are gross. Cole doesn’t seem to mind them, though we also don’t get any scenes of him controlling them or anything demonic.

We do more of a look into Cole and Bakke’s relationship. He’s nowhere near as in control of her as previous episodes have suggested; Bakke’s character arc is the show’s second most impressive at this point. Black gets the number one spot (his arc this episode weaves through the police procedural), then Bakke, then probably Nick Searcy (who’s not around this episode at all), then Sarah Paulson (who’s got very little here, but it’s all vital) then incompletes for everyone else so far. While there is an exposition dump between Jake Weber and Turco before the opening titles, Weber disappears at that point. What with a special guest star and an actual mystery, no reason to keep doctor Weber around. Wait, maybe Weber’s there for the autopsy, then disappears. He’s definitely gone once the bugs take off.

Oddly, the episode calls back to that opening conversation between Weber and Turco at the end—she’d had an offer to cover a major story in Charleston, meaning she’d have to leave the show—when it turns out the offer’s somehow a Cole machination. Only there’s no explanation of how or why. Victor Bumbalo and David Chisholm get the writing credit for this episode, and there’s a big swing in quality. Not to mention the icky way dudes talk about Turco and Bakke, which is even worse when you think about how it’s probably sanitized what women would’ve gone through in the nineties South.

Despite the terrible video montages, the episode’s fairly good-looking. Director Michael Nankin does a little better with Bakke’s falsely accused femme fatale arc than Turco’s amateur investigation. Black’s arc fits somewhere in the middle; despite the excellent acting, Black’s treading water this episode.

It’s a real good episode. Probably Turco’s best performance so far, with great work from Cole, Bakke, and Black. And the forty seconds of Paulson.

Real good.

American Gothic (1995) s01e06 – Potato Boy

CBS didn’t air Potato Boy during “American Gothic”’s original run. It started the network shuffling the show order in earnest, presumably to make the show more accessible to new viewers. Since it’s television—network television—they somehow managed to skip a literal onboarding episode. Gary Cole narrates Potato Boy’s first act, clueing the viewers in on the ground situation. The episode deep dives into two and a half characters in addition to the youthful (“Gothic”) adventures of recently orphaned Lucas Black. It’s an awesome done-in-one.

Of course, the network screwed it up.

Michael Nankin gets the writing credit and directs; Nankin’s the best direction on a “Gothic” episode so far. He likes watching the actors, which is essential given the character examination aspect of the episode, but also as a contrast for Cole. Everyone else feels, and we see them feel; Cole’s like a lizard. He’s calm, motionless, then he acts. And he’s trying to pass those lessons on to Black.

Their arc in this episode’s disturbing. Black seems closer to drinking the dark side Kool-Aid than ever; whenever he gets this close to Cole, Sarah Paulson usually shows up, but she’s got an offscreen subplot involving the title character.

The Potato Boy is an urban legend amongst the youth of Trinity proper. Being raised in the country, Black isn’t informed—his pals, Christopher Fennell and Evan Rachel Wood, have to warn him about the mutant child who does nothing but sing hymns from his attic cell. Ghostly sister Paulson visits Black and becomes enchanted with the singing and disappointed in her apathetic brother. Paulson comes back a few times in the episode, but she’s off having the supernatural adventure of the episode, which they haven’t got the budget for.

Black also bonds with reverend John Bennes after legal guardian Tina Lifford takes Black to church for the first time. Bennes figures into Black’s A-plot and Brenda Bakke’s B-plot. Bakke and Searcy alternate the B-plots. The episode does a complex examination of Bakke, subtly and not; it’s a fantastic episode for her, easily her best, but also the best female part on “Gothic” so far. Meanwhile, Searcy’s in therapy, except he can’t talk too much about the details of his working relationship with Cole. Searcy’s phenomenal.

What with covering up Cole murdering Paulson and all.

Then Jake Weber’s got a C-plot, which also ties into Black’s plot and Bennes’s church. Nankin gets some great acting out of Weber too.

Heck of a lot of great performances this episode—Black, Bakke, Searcy, Paulson, Weber, and, of course, Cole (who’s so good narrating even though the narration’s too much and not enough you miss it once it’s gone). “American Gothic”’s a very special show and Potato Boy’s its most successful episode.

Obviously, CBS bumped it.

The Flash (2014) s06e08 – The Last Temptation of Barry Allen, Pt. 2

So unlike previous seasons, the CW “Arrowverse” showrunners—at least on “Flash,” “Supergirl,” and to some extent “Batwoman”—are doing a pre-Crisis arc and a post-Crisis arc, which might end up making a lot of sense depending on how Crisis goes… so this episode is the big finale to the comically godawful Sendhil Ramamurthy arc. He gets to turn into a big skull-faced Venom CG monster at the end, but the monster still has his voice so even if the CG is bad, Ramamurthy is able to make it even worse with his performance.

Also with the end of the arc thing there are big action set pieces, except they’re not big. They’re fake big. There’s a zombie apocalypse as Ramamurthy infects people in Central City with brainwashed “Dark Flash”’s help. We don’t get to see the apocalypse because budget; instead it’s Candice Patton and Carlos Valdes arguing about what to do next. As Grant Gustin left Valdes in charge (for after Gustin dies in Crisis), Valdes thinks he’s got the best plan. Meanwhile Patton has a different plan, one where Gustin’s not acceptable collateral damage.

Both plans are stupid because the script’s stupid but Valdes’s performance is so lousy, it’s impossible to side with him. He and Danielle Panabaker desperately need to get off this show, both for the show and for themselves. Panabaker at least has some okay moments as (don’t call me Killer anymore) Frost, but when she reverts back to regular Caitlin she’s bad. Not sure why. It’s obvious why she doesn’t use her powers against the zombies when she and Jesse L. Martin go out to the street to fight them. Because budget. But why’s Panabaker so thin playing her regular role? Maybe because she’s so bored with it they had to make her a different character to keep her on the show?

As for Gustin, who last episode went over to the dark side, possibly willingly, he doesn’t get anything to do until the end of the episode when they’re all sitting around moping about Crisis. It’s a terrible scene, though possibly better than the previous episode where he frets about his mortality. I foolishly thought the show might have some good “Road to Crisis” stuff but it’s all crap. It’s not exactly disappointing but it’s surprisingly poorly executed.

The one technically good thing in the episode is when Cecile (Danielle Nicolet, who’s all the show’s got going on anymore) and Victoria Park have to escape from a building overrun with zombies. Nicolet uses her psychic abilities to sneak them out in a long “continuous” shot sequence, which is technically proficient but still bad.

Because budget.

It’s probably not a good idea the show set its whole season up as a jumping off point for after the crossover, but unless they clean house on the cast and get some better writing, “The Flash” has run out of steam.

Tom Cavanagh sucking the season certainly doesn’t help things.