Wheel of LGBT fortune

We know you are already Oscar-ed out, but we will just say, for the record, that Neil Patrick Harris owns all the major awards shows now except the Grammys. But he was nominated for a Grammy for his Tony-winning performance as a trans woman in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, so maybe he owns the Grammys, too. Emmys? Done. Tonys? Done so well he has Emmys for hosting the Tonys. Magic stuff? Done. The Spike Video Game Awards? The opening act featured tuxedo-clad men breaking out in Broadway song and dance, and NPH came out yelling, "WTF do you think this is, the Tonys?" And now, the Oscars? Done.

We can't help liking NPH. He should be insufferable, since he's done pretty much everything, including being on TV, in films, web series and video games, taking a dark turn on Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story: Freak Show, and now he's married with kids, has a best-selling book, and is a perennial talk show guest. What's left? It's a subtle gaying-of-TV by just NPH, who is soon to have his own variety show, too. We still laugh when we remember his fabulous song at the Tonys, "Theatre: it's not just for gays anymore."

We're ready to hand an Emmy over to 81-year-old Cicely Tyson for her 10-hanky performance on the Feb. 19 episode of ABC's How to Get Away with Murder, which has its two-hour season finale on Feb. 26. Tyson guest-starred as Ophelia, Annalise's (Viola Davis) mother. This was an extraordinary episode with scenes like we have never seen on TV. It's not just the gay scenes on HTGAWM that are incredible, it's the scenes between women and the scenes involving black women and white women.

We already know there is no one on TV like Viola Davis. But when we see her as Annalise, sans makeup, her natural hair out and messy, and she slides to the floor in dirty pajamas to have her hair combed out by her mother, we are blown away. We know Peter Nowalk is a fledgling showrunner. We know Shonda Rhimes greenlit this show. But the result is arguably the most provocative and transgressive drama series on TV, network or cable. When Ophelia strips Annalise of her protective covering, the raw underside we see is almost unbearable to witness. Watching these two actresses quietly immolate the screen makes you realize that TV is the new film. There are things happening on TV that are so vivid, so hyper-realistic, there's no reason to leave the house.

Nowalk is doing genius work here. What we know from Ryan Murphy is that there are middle-aged actresses out there who are the best in their craft and not being given work in Hollywood. Murphy has plucked a dozen of them and put them in the best work of their impressive careers. Nowalk has tapped into that as well. And the result is extraordinary.

Plus, we have gay. So much gay. The Feb. 19 episode, the lead-in to the season finale, had a surprise gay storyline that was a stunner. It also had a low-key moment in which we are shown that thing that happens with gay male couples: one is pretty, the other is not, and stuff happens. Open. Honest. Real. As we said, transgressive. Oh, plus there's the murder stuff. Such a full hour. 

Empire building

Speaking of a full hour with gay: Fox's Empire. Only an out black director like Empire 's showrunner Lee Daniels could give us "faggot" and Cookie (the incendiary Taraji P. Henson, who is riveting). This show does gay like no other, but that's Daniels' hand, with some help from lesbian producer Ilene Chaiken (The L Word), who live tweets the show each week.

In a recent interview, Daniels told this story about the focus group watching the initial episodes of Empire: "They're at a 10 until the two men kiss. So at the end the questioner asks, 'Why is it a zero when two men kiss?' And you knew that the 100 people in the room, 95% of them were heterosexual, didn't want to admit to their homophobia, so they just sort of looked at the floor. 'But can you tell me why you're at a zero? Why do you go from a 10 to a zero?' Because it's unaccepted. I think that it's slowly becoming a thing because we are making it a thing. It is the civil rights of our time right now, and I think we have to not back down." Amen.

Then there's NBC's The Slap, which some critics hate, but which we love. Yes, it's hipster pomo angst, but it's got depth and range, and it's got out gay actor Zachary Quinto tearing the scenery to shreds, and it's got Peter Sarsgaard, Thandie Newton and Uma Thurman, who even though she rearranged her beautiful face, still can act.

This is a show about men more than women, or so it seems. But it takes us inside the men, and that isn't something we see much of except perhaps on Mad Men. We saw it on Breaking Bad, and somewhat on Justified. It's deeper than one imagines on The Slap, which deals with those edges between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, toxic masculinity as it is bred from millennia-old Greek constructs to Brooklyn hipsterism. Sarsgaard's dreamy, conflicted, introspective performance is beautifully nuanced, while Quinto gives full vent, using his height and his buff body like weaponry. In one scene we see him sliding huge blocks of ice into his small pool before getting in. He is Spartacus, and yes, we know we are mixing Mediterranean countries, but deal with it.

Feb. 26 is the series finale of NBC's Parks & Recreation, but for Harris Wittels, the finale came a week early, on Feb. 19, when the executive producer and writer for the popular sitcom, 30, was found dead of a likely drug overdose. Wittels had also been a writer for The Sarah Silverman Program, and was a stand-up comedian. He had just performed the night before his death.

And now, as they used to say on Monty Python, for something completely different, the news we wish we weren't seeing, most of it brought to you by who else: the Republican Party. The most shocking TV news of the week was Rudy Giuliani proving that the GOP is definitely still the party of straight white male racists.

The 2016 presidential race has only started sotto voce, with Hillary Clinton looking more like the president-in-waiting as Vice Pres. Joe Biden did a Biden on TV, giving a shout-out to a former congressman whom he referred to as his "old butt buddy." That was followed by his rubbing the shoulders of the wife of Defense Secretary Ashton Carter during Carter's swearing-in. Biden was filmed whispering in Mrs. Carter's ear, which prompted David Letterman to show the clip, say "Ick," then read off his Top 10 list, Top 10 Things Joe Biden Said at This Moment, including #7, "Have you seen Fifty Shades of Grey? "

Late-night comedian Jimmy Fallon aired a clip of the back-to-back Bidenisms and said a little on-stage prayer for Hillary to choose Biden as her running mate. "Please make it Biden, please make it Biden, please make it Biden." But as is always the case, the Republicans bested the Democrats for late-night comedic fodder.

Jeb Bush was all over the tube this week like white-on-very-white-rice trying to prove he isn't his father, George W.H., or his brother, George W. But since everyone was playing video of him saying that he stood by both of them, good luck with that. We saw him on Feb. 19 saying that he loved his father and brother (he didn't mention his brother Neil, who was involved in the savings and loan scandal) and "even" his mother, who had previously said there had been enough Bushes in the White House, but who on Feb. 17 said she'd changed her mind. Barbara Bush's recanting of her previous comment got this from Conan O'Brien on Feb. 19: "Jeb Bush's mother, Barbara Bush, has given her son her blessing to run for president. So now Jeb's campaign slogan is, 'My mommy said I could.'" We're not sure how Jeb walks all this back. Seems like a lot.

Chris Christie was also a headline and a punchline. Although he was out fundraising, Christie's donors might have been taken aback (or taken their funds back) when America's loudest-mouthed governor got trounced in a poll conducted by Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute of Politics. That poll showed Hillary Clinton would get 58% of the vote in such a contest, compared to 35% for Christie. The reason this matters is because New Jersey is the 10th most populous state and a swing state. Christie trounced his Democratic opponents in both his runs for governor, and made history by choosing the first Hispanic and female lieutenant governor. Christie got 32% of the Democratic vote in those two elections. The poll is considered a litmus for other swing states, and also showed Hillary way ahead of other Republican contenders for 2016. It was big political news on the Sunday shows. Fox did what Fox does, pretended it never happened.

But in that same poll, all the heavy Republican favorites fared poorly. Hillary got 58% to Jeb's 32%, and against the new rising star, Wisconsin's formerly gay-hating-but-now-testing-the-political-wind, saying-same-sex-marriage-shouldn't-be-a-political-issue Gov. Scott Walker, Hillary got 60% to his 29%. The poll prompted Seth Meyers to note that when Christie heard the news, he decided to change his strategy. "Today he was spotted at JC Penney trying on pantsuits."

Then there was Rudy Giuliani, who was at a fundraiser for Walker in Wisconsin on Feb. 18. Giuliani decided to lead with the idea that Pres. Obama doesn't love us. Whut? We would have loved to have seen Walker's face, but that video wasn't on the news. Giuliani said, "I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country." The remarks went viral. Giuliani, being soulless, decided to defend his remarks with worse ones, which also headlined TV news.

On Feb. 19, Giuliani told the media, "Some people thought it was racist. I thought that was a joke, since he [Obama] was brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools, and most of this he learned from white people. This isn't racism. This is socialism or possibly anti-colonialism." He also said, "What I don't find with Obama �" this will get me in more trouble again �" is a really deep knowledge of history. I think it's a dilettante's knowledge of history." Says the dude who just mentioned anti-colonialism in 2015 as if that's a bad thing.

The incident is bound to be a fundraising tool for the Democrats. Walker was asked on CNBC to comment, and he said, "The mayor [Giuliani] can speak for himself. I'm not going to comment on what the president thinks or not. He can speak for himself as well. I'll tell you, I love America, and I think there are plenty of people, Democrat, Republican, independent, everywhere in-between, who love this country." Yeah dude, that was your chance to walk away from utter insanity, and you didn't.

Even Fox News seemed to be appalled by Giuliani. Megyn Kelly hammered away at him on her show on Feb. 19, but like a demonic clone of Dick Cheney, he stayed on message, even going so far as to say that Obama's grandfather (not the Kenyan one, the decorated WWII soldier) had introduced the President to "Communist ideas." In Kansas. That hotbed of Communism.

Kelly finally asked whether Giuliani had demonstrated "civility," to which Giuliani replied, "I think it was perfectly civil. I think that is a perfectly reasonable opinion." And there, dear readers, is why the Republican Party is totally nuts. Hillary must be dancing a little just-hanging-with-my-granddaughter, watching-them-destroy-themselves dance.

Finally, if you missed the SNL 40 extravaganza, you can watch online. A lot of it was good, some of it not so good. Eddie Murphy just walking on and off was bizarre, as we would have loved to see Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood . On Feb. 19 it was revealed why he didn't have a second of funny. He was supposed to do a Bill Cosby rape sketch, and he decided at the last minute he couldn't do it. Fellow comedian Norm McDonald said, "He didn't want to kick a man when he was down." Cosby himself applauded Murphy's decision.

Director Judd Apatow went on a bit of a Twitter tear in response, noting, "By the way, in case you forgot, Cosby likes to knock people unconscious, then fuck them. Then he intimidates them into silence," and, "It is important that when our friends rape people, we support them, and do not mock them for raping people. That would be wrong," and, "What?! He is a rapist. That is not loyalty. It is choosing to support a rich rapist over 30 victims."

So for Viola Davis and Taraji P. Henson, for Peter Nowalk and Lee Daniels, late-night comedians and the joke that is the Republicans, as well as your evening dog-falls-through-the-ice news stories, you know you really must stay tuned.