Apocalyptic Porn

We’ve been watching The Last Of Us, the new HBO series in which a few human survivors remain in a horrific alternative world. In this show’s grim vision, fungal creatures have taken over Earth and turned infected humans into bloodthirsty, blind zombies controlled by some all-encompassing fungal network, and the hardy remnants of the human race live (for the most part) in brutal, quasi-military zones in the bombed out shells of old buildings.

In short, The Last Of Us is about par for the course in terms of how TV shows and movies tend to envision the human future. The vast majority of depictions of the world to come in popular culture seem to be incredibly bleak. In these shows, every conceivable disaster–nuclear holocaust, climate change, alien invasion, artificial intelligence deciding that humans should be killed off or used as power cells, global pandemic, zombie attacks–plunges civilization into chaos, most humans perish, buildings collapse, the world as we know it ends, and the survivors live hand to mouth in a grim world, marveling at the glory that once was part of daily life.

And it seems like the producers and designers of these TV shows and movies love to present compelling pictures of just how far the human race has fallen. Gutted, collapsing buildings, overgrown urban landscapes, bad food, gross zombies. fascist governments–no detail of future bleakness is ignored. Is it because they want people to understand how much worse things could be, or do they just enjoy the challenge of presenting fallen civilizations–or is there some other reason? It’s as if some people revel in a kind of apocalyptic porn.

It’s interesting how science fiction took a turn for the worse. In the Star Trek universe, the future world is a hopeful place in which nagging societal problems have been solved and humans have become noble creatures seeking peace and progress in the galaxy. But how many Star Trek-like visions of the future do we see these days? The pessimists are dominant.

Dragon Fatigue

We’ve watched the first few episodes of House of the Dragon on HBO, and I would pronounce it shrug-worthy. They’ve obviously spent a lot of money on costumes and settings and special effects, but the show really isn’t very compelling. Unlike Game of Thrones, this prequel of sorts not isn’t must-see TV. Instead, it’s a big meh.

Why is this so? I think there are a lot of reasons. For one, there really aren’t many likeable characters. In fact, I would argue that there is only one: King Viserys. He seems like a good, decent, peace-loving guy who doesn’t want to fight wars or ride dragons and would rather spend his time building his replica of King’s Landing in his room. But he’s about it. Every other character seems to spend all of their time scheming, misbehaving, working to claw their way to the top, and engaging in every kind of sinful behavior you can imagine. Even their young kids seem like terrible jerks. You’d be hard-pressed to identify any likeable characteristic or endearing quality of any of the Targaryen clan, the other nobility, or the royal hangers-on. It makes you long for the Starks hanging around the great hall at Winterfell.

Second, the story is moving way too fast. We’re hopping directly from one great event to another, without much character-building story-telling going on in between (see point one). Characters are introduced, promptly die in childbirth or are killed in bloody, violent fashion, and the tale races on. There seems to be more interest in showing scenes that are graphic or disturbing than in providing any meaningful background or context, and as a result it’s hard to care much about anyone or anything. In contrast, the first few seasons of Game of Thrones–the best seasons, in my view–moved at a very deliberate pace, and gave the viewer a lot of time to find out interesting things about the world of Westeros, the noble houses, and even the common folks. We’re not getting any of that in House of the Dragon.

Third, the overall story arc pales in comparison to the white walker/winter is coming/end of the civilized world plot of Game of Thrones. And there really aren’t any good bad guys to hate with every fiber of your being and root against, either. The brooding brother of the king doesn’t hold a candle to Joffrey Baratheon, Cersei Lannister, Walder Frey, Ramsay Bolton, or Littlefinger. You couldn’t wait to see those horrible people get their ultimate comeuppance. I don’t feel that way about Daemon Targaryen. He’s mostly there, brooding and frankly being more annoying than horrible.

Finally, there’s very much of a been-there, done-that feel to this show. Swordfights, palace intrigue, sea scenes–it all seems like a rehash of what we’ve seen before. And throwing in the obligatory scene of someone riding a dragon doesn’t move the needle much, either. Good special effects, to be sure, but there’s nothing intrinsically interesting about an unbeatable superweapon. Showing flying dragons and having characters shout “dracarys” so someone can get immolated doesn’t solve the fundamental problems with this show.

We’ll continue to watch, but so far House of the Dragon has been more drag than dragon.

Hacks

Over the past few weeks I’ve been enjoying the HBO comedy Hacks. I was looking for something on the lighter side and had heard good things about the show, which turned out to be true.

Hacks tells the story of an aging comedian who has done thousands of performances on the Las Vegas strip, Deborah Vance, and her interaction with Ava Daniels, a young comedy writer who is desperately looking for a gig. At first, Ava’s approach to comedy doesn’t quite fit with Deborah’s one-liner style, and the two don’t quite mesh on a personal level, either, because Deborah is a Diva with a capital “D” and Ava is more of a flannel shirt-type whose general worldview is self-deprecating. But as they work on Deborah’s shows, they grow closer personally and professionally–although there are a lot of hiccups and blow-ups and cringeworthy moments along the way.

The show does a good job of combining comedy with a serious understory. The situations the characters find themselves in are funny (and at the edge of Las Vegas plausibility), as are many of Deborah’s (and Ava’s) one-liners, but it’s also clear that both Deborah and Ava have faced and will continue to face challenges as women working in a male-dominated industry. And another underlying message also comes through loud and clear: comedy is hard work, and the life of a comedian is not an easy one.

Jean Smart is wonderful as Deborah Vance: funny, unabashedly and unapologetically flamboyant, totally unpredictable in her reactions, and tough as nails in protecting her brand and her career. Smart has totally assimilated her character and radiates authenticity and believability. Hannah Einbinder also is excellent as Ava, who is drawn to Deborah–first out of desperation, but increasingly through admiration and genuine affection. The two have great chemistry, and it shows. And like any good comedy, Hacks has its share of interesting and zany ancillary characters, including members of Deborah’s staff, the filthy rich casino owner (very well played by Chris McDonald) who is trying to get Deborah to retire but also serves as her sometimes love interest, Deborah’s and Hannah’s agent and his unfiltered assistant, Deborah’s daughter, and Ava’s Mom.

Two seasons of Hacks are out and available for streaming, so it’s a good bingeing option during the hot summer evenings, with enough episodes to give the viewer a connection to these characters. Season three is on the way. I’ll be interested to see what happens next.

The Gilded Age

We’ve started watching The Gilded Age, a new HBO drama about New York City in the 1880s. The show is a prototypical period drama about an era when fortunes were being made and spent, the gap between the lifestyles of the poor and the wealthy became an immense gulf, the wealthy wore elaborate outfits (and changed multiple times a day) and adopted elaborate manners, and some people, at least, cared deeply and passionately about high society pecking orders and codes of conduct.

The series focuses on the households of the Van Rhijns and the Russells, who just happen to live across the street from each other in one of New York’s toniest neighborhoods. The Van Rhijns are old money and old New York, with all of the uber-snobbishness that attends that status, whereas the Russells are new money–lots and lots of new money, in fact–and have built an enormous mansion and happily engage in ostentatious displays of super-wealth, just to get some attention. In short, the Russells desperately want to be accepted into New York society, and at least some of the Van Rhijns are equally desperate to prevent that from ever happening.

As with any period drama, a lot of what’s interesting about the show relates to the setting and the recreation of the attire and practices of the era. The creators of The Gilded Age have done a meticulous job in that regard; the “production value” of the series is obvious, and the show is worth watching just for the ladies’ elaborate hats. But the incessant social scheming is entertaining, too, as is the upstairs-downstairs interaction between and among servants and served. Throw in overt insider trading in the unregulated post-Civil War era and business activities designed specifically to crush rivals and leave them ruined and destitute, and you’ve got a winner in my book.

Carrie Coon (an Ohio native who we first saw in The Leftovers) deftly plays Bertha Russell, who will do whatever it takes to claw her way into the highest levels of society, and Christine Baranski is delightfully snooty and formidable as Agnes Van Rhijn, the matriarch of the Van Rhijn contingent. The kids in each household act as a kind of buffer between that irresistible force and immovable object. My favorite characters so far are George Russell, played by Morgan Spector, the railroad baron who is good-humored home but implacably ruthless as the head of the Russell Trust Company, and Denee Benton as Peggy Scott, shown in the photo above, a smart and sensible young woman who has the talent and ambition to be a successful writer but will have to overcome the racism and sexism of her time to do it.

It’s hard to imagine there was a time when people cared so much about social conventions and family lineage, but one of the joys of period pieces is catching a glimpse of those long-ago worlds during their heyday. The Gilded Age does an excellent, and entertaining, job of recreating the era that gave the show its name.

The GOT Countdown

On April 14, HBO will broadcast the first episode of Season 8, the final season of Game of Thrones.  All dedicated, borderline-obsessed GOT fans will then have the chance to savor six new episodes that will wrap up the TV version of the story of the Targaryens, Lannisters, and Starks.  (Don’t even get me started on when we might get the next installment of George R.R. Martin’s book series that launched the TV show, which has been the subject of almost as much speculation as the Mueller Report.)

I’m interested in seeing exactly how the story comes out, of course.  (Hey, I sure hope the living somehow defeat the Night King and his Army of the Dead!)  Mostly, though, I’m just curious about who is going to even survive until the story’s end.  There are so many characters on the show it’s hard to remember and list all of them, as we realized when we were talking about the show with friends over the weekend.  (Don’t forget Grey Worm, or Tormund Giantsbane, or Podrick Payne, or Eddison Tollett of the Night’s Watch!)  And one thing has been clear about Game of Thrones from the beginning, whether you’re talking about the books or the TV show — even leading characters get knocked off with Grim Reaper-like regularity.  And since it’s the last season, I’m guessing we can expect a real bloodbath, and maybe a colossal battle or two in which multiple characters that have gotten a lot of screen time get mowed down.

Because it’s clear that many characters are going to be stabbed, hacked, hung, immolated by dragons, poisoned, or have their throats deftly cut by Arya Stark, I find myself putting the characters into death-related categories.  There are the characters that need to get killed to satisfy the bloodlust of the viewing audience (Cersei Lannister, Euron Greyjoy, the Mountain, and Qyburn, Cersei’s evil wizard/chemist/mad scientist), characters that you know are going to bite it at some point, but at least are likely to die in heroic fashion (Beric Dondarrion, Brienne of Tarth, Ser Jorah Mormont, Varys, Theon Greyjoy, and probably Gendry, King Robert’s hammer-wielding bastard son), and characters that you would be really angry to see get killed but you know deep in your heart that it could happen because the show likes to throw shockers at you (Tyrion Lannister and Arya Stark).  There are characters that you don’t want to get killed but, if they must, you hope that they get some richly deserved revenge first (Asha Greyjoy and the Hound).  But what about the Khaleesi?  Jon Snow?  Sansa Stark?  Missandei?  Ser Davos Seaworth, my favorite?  Creepy white-eyed Bran?

One of the great things about Game of Thrones is its utter unpredictability, from the point Ned Stark got beheaded through the Red Wedding to the present.  And we’ve got less than three weeks to go before we start finding out.

Hard Knocks, Ho Hum

Russell and I have watched a few episodes of HBO’s Hard Knocks, which promises to be an insider’s look at pro football training camps, coaches, and players. Since this season is features the Cleveland Browns’ training camp, it’s a natural for us.

But after watching last night’s episode, I realized that the show is . . . well, boring. The fact that the exhibition game that was featured in the episode was a 5-0 snoozer didn’t help, but, really, watching a “reality” show about professional athletes isn’t any different from watching a reality show about real housewives or the Kardashians or ice-road truckers or any other group or occupation. After a while, you’ve seen everything, and it all seems pretty rote.

So assistant coaches in the NFL cuss a blue streak? Is anybody really surprised about that? Or about learning that pro athletes often act like adolescents or macho jerks? Or that head coaches are more like politicians than Xs and Os guys? And the “human interest” stories about guys who might not make the team and their families candidly just aren’t all that interesting.

Maybe the Browns are just intrinsically boring, as well as historically inept — or maybe the Hard Knocks concept has run it’s course. Whatever the reason, Hard Knocks is a big ho hum in my book.

When All Will Be Revealed

Tomorrow we’ll see the finale of HBO’s Westworld.  We’re being assured that all will be revealed, and after the episode the show will actually make sense.

Yeah, right!  I’ll believe it when I see it.  That’s like expecting triumphant Trump staffers  and bitter Clinton campaign operatives to reach friendly consensus on why Donald Trump won the election, or imagining that fair-minded Michigan fans will freely concede that the referees correctly spotted the ball on the 15-yard line after J.T. Barrett’s fourth-down keeper in the second overtime of this year’s classic version of The Game.

Westworld is right up there with The Leftovers as the most confusing show since Twin Peaks.  It’s so intentionally mystifying that I don’t even try to understand it, or piece together the disparate threads of the plot.  I just wince at the horribly bloody violence that is likely to occur at any tender moment, groan at the show’s troubling core assumption that any human who goes to a fantasy world will promptly turn into a blood-soaked, sex-crazed lunatic, and recognize that any character in the next instant could be revealed as a robot, a cold-blooded killer, a psychopath, or all three.  (I also cringe for the actors who have to routinely sit buck naked on chairs on a sterile set while other characters question them and tap iPads, but that’s another story.)

I’ve stopped trying to figure it all out.  Kish and I watch the show, and I just let it kind of wash over me, rather than struggling to make sense of why Dolores’ outfit changes from instant to instant or why Bernard’s interactions with his fake dead son are so significant.  I realized that the show had reached the point of ridiculousness this past week, when I was walking back from lunch with two friends, one of whom watches Westworld and one of whom doesn’t.  The watcher and I started talking about the show, and after a few minutes of discussion of “Billy” and the possibility that the show’s plot is running along different timelines and the importance of the photo of Billy’s bethrothed and whether the twitching beings at the church Dolores visited were troubled robots looking for some kind of salvation, the non-watcher asked, with a baffled laugh:  “What is this show?”  And I realized that it was all pretty silly.

So I’ll watch the finale, but I’m not expecting that I’ll get everything in this episode, because that sure hasn’t been the case in the past episodes.  I just make one request:  before we move on to “the new narrative,” can you at least let us know what the old narrative was all about?

Moving Too Far, Too Fast

We all knew that, this season, Game of Thrones the TV show would move past Game of Thrones, the books.  What I didn’t fully appreciate was how far, and how fast, the TV series would progress.

One of the most enjoyable things about the books in my view has been the deliberate pacing.  The stories have taken a long time to unfold, and in the meantime we got to revel in the sigils of the minor houses and what kind of elaborate food was being served at a banquet and the colors and cut of the doublet of some obscure lord who appeared briefly and then vanished from the storyline.  With the TV show, there’s none of that.  Major characters come and go and get knocked off at breakneck pace.

I hate it that characters I really liked are being killed right and left — like the wildling woman who watched after Bran and Rickon after Theon Greyjoy conquered Winterfell — but mostly I’m concerned that the story is just moving too darned fast.  In the George R.R. Martin world, it would have taken 300 succulent pages to get to the point of Daenerys torching the leaders of the Dothraki, and Sansa and Jon Snow resolving to march on Winterfell and try to kill the execrable Ramsay Bolton, but in the series it takes only an episode and a half.  How far are we going to get in the story line this year, anyway?

And that’s the big issue for me.  Much as I think the TV is great, I like the books even better.  What’s going to be left of the plot when this year’s episodes are over?  And if George R.R. Martin doesn’t bring out the next volume until next year’s episodes air, the disconnect is just going to be too much.

Slow down, HBO!

Bad News For A Song Of Ice And Fire Readers

If you are a fan of George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire series of books, upon which the fine HBO series Game of Thrones is based, you’ve learned to be patient.

Like me, you’ve read the existing books in the series, reached their end with the epic tale still completely midstream and tantalizing plot threads dangling, did some reading about the pace of Martin’s writing, and realized that the next volume wouldn’t be coming out for years — but the books were so good that you were willing to wait, and wait, and wait, in hopes of seeing where the plot line goes and finding out, at some indeterminate date far, far, far into the future, how the story finally ends.

So when we all heard that the next book in the series, The Winds of Winter, was planned to be released in conjunction with the airing of the next year of Game of Thrones, this coming April, we rejoiced — but many of us also maintained a healthy bit of skepticism and an “I’ll believe it when I see it” attitude.

Now we learn that that skepticism is justified, as Martin has announced that the book isn’t done, it won’t be released by April, and he doesn’t know, in fact, when it will be finished because the writing is going slower than he anticipated — and this is from a writer who took six years to produce A Dance With Dragons, the last book in the series.  It’s disappointing, but I can’t say it’s really surprising.

So this leads to a quandary:  should the fans of the books and the TV series watch the next season of Game of Thrones, when the storyline moves past the end point of the last book?  I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m going to watch, because the TV show has diverged from the book plotting, anyway.  In my view, the world created by Martin’s fertile imagination is sufficiently rich that it can support two alternative approaches to a great story, and I just can’t wait much longer before I learn about what happens to Jon Snow — in the TV universe, at least.

In the meantime, I’ll wish George R.R. Martin a long, long, long (and productive) life.

A Song Of Fight And Ire

As a fan of the Song of Ice and Fire books by George R.R. Martin, I view the HBO series Game of Thrones as both a blessing and a curse.

The TV show is a blessing because it helps to fill the Westeros void as we wait . . . and wait . . . and wait for Martin to finish the next installment in the series of epic books.  It’s a curse because the course of the TV show is, increasingly, veering away from the established plot lines of the books.  The variances are both large and small.  Unless you have a complete recall of what happened in A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons — something I cannot claim — you can’t even identify all of them.

There is no way that a TV show could possibly present all of the plot lines in Martin’s vast landscape of characters.  I can understand the Game of Thrones producers taking shortcuts in the storytelling and lopping out characters — like, apparently, the tale of the Iron Islands and Greyjoy clan and the post-death Cat Stark.  Even so, this year the TV show is treading on increasingly thin ice (and fire).  Sansa Stark back at Winterfell and betrothed to the sadistic Ramsay Bolton?  What the hell?  Jamie Lannister off to Dorne on a half-assed mission to retrieve his daughter?  Sir Barristan the Bold killed, and maybe Grey Worm, too?  And where is Bran Stark, anyway?

I still enjoy the TV show, because it is well done and the Martin-inspired tapestry is so rich.  But increasingly I view it as an alternative history of Westeros, the Wall, and the rest of the world, a tantalizing kind of “what if” approach to the characters we’ve come to enjoy while we all bide our time waiting for the release of the next book — which will tell the true story.  And when will that be?  Only George R.R. Martin knows for sure.

Character Study

Sunday night was the series finale episode of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.  Kish and I have watched the show with pleasure since its inception, and we were very sorry to see it end.  (Spoiler alert:  if you haven’t seen the last episode, you may not want to read this.)

Part of the attraction of this terrific series was its lush recreation of bygone and forgotten places, whether it is Atlantic City in the late 1800s, America in the early days of Prohibition after World War I, or New York City during the grim days of the Depression.  The sense of period accuracy was total, down to the starched collars and spats.  Part of the attraction, too, was the many tremendous performances the show routinely delivered, from Michael Kenneth Williams’ simmering Chalky White, to Jack Huston’s partially masked, tortured Richard Harrow, to Kelly McDonald’s deeply conflicted Margaret Thompson, to Vincent Piazza’s Lucky Luciano, who probably changed more over the more than a decade covered by the show’s story arc than any other character.

It all revolved, however, around Nucky Thompson, as brilliantly portrayed by Steve Buscemi.  The last season, in particular, drilled down to the core of this fabulous character who is loosely based on a real Atlantic City politician.  Through the splices of scenes from his childhood as a straight-laced, polite boy trying to help his sick sister and protect his mother from his abusive father, to his early adulthood as a deputy sheriff trying to lift his family up and making choices that would set his future path, to the fully grown man who was a mixture of master political manipulator, far-sighted visionary, and ruthless criminal, we got to know Nucky as well as you can get to know any TV character.  When Nucky saw the early TV broadcast in the last episode, you just knew that he was looking at it with wonder — but also with an eye toward how he might profit from it in the days to come.

What a complex character Nucky Thompson was!  Consider his relationship with his faithful manservant, Eddie Kessler, who he risked his life to save.  Or his mentoring of Jimmy Darmody, only to turn and kill him in cold blood when Darmody became a rival.  Or his refusal to give up on the ne’er-do-well brother who betrayed him, even to the point of giving Eli a bag of cash (and shaving utensils) so he could clean himself up and reconcile with his wife.  Through it all, Nucky showed a deep understanding of the meaningful people in his life and their motivations, anticipating and defeating their moves against him.

And that’s why I don’t buy the last scene of the show.  I refuse to believe that the Nucky Thompson we came to know could so completely lose touch with the son of Jimmy Darmody and the grandson of Gillian Darmody that he wouldn’t even recognize him and therefore could be shot and killed by him.  Given the significance of the two Darmodys to his life, I think the Boardwalk Empire Nucky would have always kept an eye on the Darmody boy, recognizing him as a potential threat and dealing with it by helping him and co-opting him.  Nucky’s shocking death was a powerful way to end the show, but I just don’t think it was true to the character that I came to know.

Vince Vaughn On True Detective?

HBO has confirmed two of the four leads for the next season of True Detective.  They are Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn.

Wait . . . Vince Vaughn?

Is this the same True Detective that featured tough, riveting, two-fisted portrayals of Louisiana cops by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson?  You know, the one that followed two radically different personalities over a number of years and believably depicted how they became close friends while they were trying to track down a terrible, twisted serial killer?

The same True Detective that Kish and I concluded was one of the very best TV shows we’d ever seen, period?

I thought Vince Vaughn only made stupid, cookie-cutter comedies with Owen Wilson that people stopped going to about five years ago.

HBO is pretty good at casting against type.  Maybe Vince Vaughn is tired of portraying an oily, bloated, fast-talker and wants to get into a serious role that allows him to show he can actually act.  I’m not sure it will work, but it’s certainly an intriguing casting choice.

As for Colin Farrell, if he shows the same acting ability he showed in In Bruges, I’ll buy it.

Silicon Valley

Thank God for HBO On Demand!

I missed Silicon Valley when the show was first aired earlier this year.  Over the weekend, though, I sat and watched all eight episodes from Season One in one sitting, with only an appropriate mid-season bathroom break.  It was tremendous, and I would argue that the final episode of Season One ranks as one of the great single episodes of any TV sitcom, ever — right up there with the Death of Chuckles episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show or the Seinfeld episode about The Contest.

If you haven’t seen the show, the plot is straightforward.  Four computer geeks decide to start their own company, with a product based on an advanced compression algorithm one of them has developed.  The show is a satire of the Silicon Valley culture — drenched in cash, but also insisting that it is altruistically making the world a better place — and is chock full of memorable characters and scenes.  It’s about time we saw a lampooning of the technology/money culture in America, and this show really delivers — with a few detours into Satanism, American immigration policy, technology shows, billionaire egos, and some other sources of hilarity.

The principal actors on the show — Thomas Middleditch as the vomiting software genius, T.J. Miller as the brash and self-deluding Erlich, Martin Starr as the deadpan, Satan-worshipping Gilfoyle, Kumail Nanjiani as the acerbic Dinesh, and Zach Woods as the boring but capable Jared — are spot on in their depiction of nerds and geeks trying to find their way in the cash culture, and the rest of the cast is equally good.  The writing is terrific and sharp.  If you haven’t seen it, give it a try.

Unsteady Thrones

I’m struggling with this new season of Games of Thrones on HBO.  I’ve missed a few episodes due to travel, now I’m trying to catch up, and as I watch the episodes I’m seeing increasing divergence from the plot line of the books.

I’m not sure why it’s happening, either.  The first few seasons of the series were generally faithful to the books.  Now we are seeing all kinds of weirdness that seems, to me at least, to be completely inconsistent with the characters.  Brienne of Tarth, who really means it when she swears a vow, is present at Joffrey’s wedding with Sansa Stark — who she has promised to retrieve from King’s Landing — and she doesn’t do anything about it?  Bran ends up at Craster’s Keep, where the rogue Men of the Night’s Watch are brutalizing Craster’s former daughter-wives, keeping Ghost in a cage, and torturing Hodor?  Littlefinger and Lady Tyrell openly confess to conspiring to poison Joffrey?

I know TV series and movies often take liberties with the books on which they are based, but I’m not liking the direction in which Game of Thrones is heading.  I’ve loved the books, and I think their plot lines are great.  I just don’t get why we’ve suddenly taken a left turn.

An Unabashed Rave About The True Detective Finale

The finale of HBO’s True Detective was as awesome as any fan of the show could have hoped. It was an acting, storytelling, and philosophical tour de force that left us wishing this show and cast would go on forever.

We found out who The Yellow King was, and he was every bit as creepy and appalling and deeply, fundamentally disturbed as we anticipated. As is true with everything about this fabulous series, the finale gave us only a glimpse as the life of this terrible serial killer of children and left so many questions about him unanswered that you could write whole books providing the explanation. I liked that they left things unanswered and tantalizing — it suggests the creators of the show respect their audience rather than patronizing them. Like the rest of season 1, the finale really made you think.

Spolier alert: I’m also thrilled that Hart and Cohle survived. I thought they would be killed off, and in some sense that would have taken the easy way out. When characters survive, you have to think about what they will become, which is harder.

In this case, I think we can conclude that — as terrible as their long experience was, and the many points of anguish they suffered, and inflicted on each other and Marty’s family — they ended up as better people. Marty obviously learned that his family is what is really important and that he has deep feelings for the iconoclastic Rustin Cohle. Cohle, on the other hand, reconnected with his daughter and his father, and now is allowing a dash of optimism to enter into his unique and bleak view of the world. Marty and Rust would make a formidable team going forward, but of course we don’t know whether that will happen, just as we don’t know whether there’s a glimmer of hope that Marty and Maggie get together again — which Kish is hoping for.

I thought it was great that Marty showed that, for all of Cohle’s dismissal of his skills when they ended their partnership in 2002, Marty prove to be a damn good investigator whose hard work and insight led the pair to the Yellow King. I liked that Cohle remained judgmental and inflexible about Marty’s self-destructive philandering. I especially appreciated that, at the moment of death, Cohle thought of and sensed his daughter, who had been an important start of the back story at the beginning of the series but hadn’t been mentioned recently. Reintroducing Cohle’s devastating loss of a child made the powerful closing scene even more powerful.

And what about that gripping, stunning closing scene, when both Cohle and Marty bared their souls? It showed what an epically well-acted series this was, because both Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson absolutely nailed it. McConaughey gave a titanic performance as Cohle shaken and struggling and uplifted by his visions at the moment of death, and Harrelson was brilliant as he showed the layers, and changes, in a character who went from a cheating good old boy to a good man over the 17-year arc of the story.

I’ve long been a Woody Harrelson fan, and McConaughey matches him talent for talent and nuance for nuance. I loved the camaraderie of their two characters, the humor they brought to the roles, and the absolute credibility of their artistic creations. Harrelson and McOnaughey are simply two of the best actors around.

And if this posting isn’t enough of a rave already, let me end with a plug for HBO. For years, Kish and I have been saying that HBO has the best original programming on TV. From The Sopranos to Deadwood to Game of Thrones — and a bunch of other great shows in between — HBO has produced a huge collection of incredible TV programming. If you don’t subscribe to a network that produces a show like True Detective, you’re just cheating yourself.