We like starting the year off a little gay. And what could be gayer than goodfella Ray Liotta, who plays corrupt Lt. Matt Wozniak in NBCs gritty new police drama Shades of Blue, kicking it with fellow cop Det. Donnie Pomp (Michael Esper)?
If you were watching the Jan. 21 episode, you likely went Whut? just like we did when Woz heads over to meet Donnie �" with a full-on, mouth-crushing, grab-your-neck, instant-Viagra-effect kiss. To say we didn't see that coming is a hella understatement. This show ups the ante every episode. There's something about the 61-year-old Liotta, the prototype for ruggedly, kicked-around-a-bit handsome who has been in a bazillion films, won an Emmy, been nommed for the SAG Award and others, playing a married cop who's on the down low with another significantly younger (Esper is 22 years Liotta's junior) detective.
This wasn't jumping the shark. Woz is a complex guy. His life's a total mess. He works hard, drinks hard, tortures perps hard, plays hard. He's grieving his daughter. He knows there's a mole in his outfit. He's on the outs with his wife Linda (the wonderful Lolita Davidovich from True Detective). The only person he trusts is Harlee (Jennifer Lopez), and she's the one who's taking him down. In a storyline that's totally about Woz needing an anchor, why wouldn't he turn to Donnie? Who knows a cop's life like another cop?
These scenes in Shades of Blue �" Woz and Donnie, Harlee and her daughter Cristina (Sarah Jeffrey), Harlee and her colleague Det. Tess Nazario (The Sopranos fave Drea de Matteo) �" play like set-pieces. Dark, even chilling, yet deeply, believably human. These characters are all broken, but none in the same way. So it's all jagged edges coming at you. Nothing feels planned. Nothing feels programmatic. For a procedural, it's very impromptu. And we like it a lot.
SoB has a diverse cast, and is the only drama series with a Latina lead. Largest minority group in America, yet this is the only drama series with a Latina lead. In 2016. Just saying. (We know Raul Esparza plays ADA Rafael Barba on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but he's not a lead.) Lopez herself got this show moving, just as she has other programs like one of the only lesbian-themed shows on the tube, ABC Family's The Fosters. When we're behind the camera, we're in front of the camera. It can't be said enough.
ABC's American Crime is a far superior drama to SofB, but it's a cable TV show that somehow ended up on network. We're not sure what John Ridley's show is doing on ABC instead of HBO, but we presume Ridley wanted it as accessible as possible. So it is without question the best drama on network. But the shockers come fast, hard and oh-so-cable-TV-like. There's a scene in the Jan. 20 episode where headmaster Leslie Graham (Felicity Huffman) is brushing her teeth while she talks to her husband who is in their bedroom. There's a ferocity to this tooth-brushing that is almost painful to watch. At any moment you expect blood to spurt from her mouth.
Again, so much we didn't see coming. Like the white co-captain of the basketball team, Eric Tanner (Joey Pollari), meeting up with an older guy in a parking lot. They sit in the car and talk. We think maybe they're going to smoke pot. Instead, the guy pulls Eric close, onto his shoulder. Then they kiss. Real kissing. The camera moves in, and so apparently does the guy, because Eric pulls back and says he doesn't want "that," he just wants to kiss. This is the same kid who in the first episode was joking about raping a girl. Is he bisexual? Or is he faking straightness with what he thinks might be the right language, but we all know is not?
The most dramatic scene in this episode is when Taylor is taken for a rape-kit exam. Working with Ridley's trope of keeping authority figures off-screen �" we hear their voices, we see hands, backs of heads �" we hear the voice of the woman who is doing the rape kit. She gives Taylor a gown, talks to him, explains everything as she puts him on the table. We see the implements. She explains what she is doing: the anal swabbing, the swabbing around his testicles, the anal exam. Her voice recedes a bit into the distance as we watch Taylor's face as he lies on the table and she explains how she's going to move this way and that. Her voice is matter-of-fact. But we see the humiliation. That's how good Ridley is. American Crime is mesmerizing. The young actors are especially good, as powerhouse veterans Regina King, Lili Taylor, Felicity Huffman, Timothy Hutton have long track records. But these kids feel real, true and believable, full of such a range of emotions. Catch up at ABC.go.com if you have missed the first episodes.
Basket cases
From the sublime to the ridiculous, but Baskets, which premiered on FX Jan.21, is funny. Unpredictably funny, it's created by the off-beat trio of Louie C.K., Zach Galifianakis and Jonathan Krisel. FX describes the plot: "With hopes and dreams, Chip Baskets (Galifianakis) sets out to become a professional clown. After failing to get a degree at a prestigious clown college in Paris, he is stuck with a job at a local rodeo in his hometown, Bakersfield, California."
This is dark comedy. And it is pretty good. Chip failed because he doesn't speak French and miming wasn't enough. Now he's back home working the unenviable job of rodeo clown. Chip's family is something else again. Mom Baskets is played by the hilarious Louie Anderson. Dale Baskets (also played by Galifianakis) is the successful brother and Dean of Baskets Career College. Odd things ensue. Chip comes back home with a French wife, Penelope (Sabina Sciubba), who just wanted a Green Card. A young woman meets Chip after he crashes his motorcycle when a bee flies into his helmet (this is hilarious, truly). She's nice, he's not. We often weary of Galifianakis in other things, but here he's quite good and you feel for him. Baskets is funny. Try it.
ABC's Agent Carter returned Jan. 19 for a second season, and good golly is it ever good. Unlike other comic-series-come-to-TV shows, Agent Carter is set in the 1940s. This makes for fantastic set design, fabulous old cars and great hats for Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell), simply superb as a Clark Kent-style spy. It also makes for an intelligible spy drama, as we all know the perils of WWII global politics. And occasionally it's just soothing to get a break from Dystopia, where we all seem to live now.
There's a lot of kick-ass in this drama, too. Vicarious thrills of kicking the bad guys to the proverbial curb can't be underestimated. This is an A+ show even if you aren't keen on the whole Captain America genre. Sometimes a little heroism really is just the ticket.
There's a brutal irony that #OscarsSoWhite will be held during Black History Month and hosted by black comedian Chris Rock. Talk about awkward. The annual extravaganza will air on ABC on Feb. 28, the piece de resistance of the ongoing awards season. The issue of diversity at the Oscars has been the stuff of myriad TV talk segments since the nominations were announced on Jan. 14. Director Spike Lee, whose film Chi-Raq and its stellar cast were snubbed by the Academy, has been on GMA, The Tonight Show and Nightline, discussing what some are calling a boycott by actors of color of the Oscar ceremony.
April Reign, managing editor of BroadwayBlack.com and the queer-friendly woman behind the hashtag, was on CNN discussing the incredulity of yet another year without a single actor of color in any of the four acting categories: 20 slots, all white.
Actress Jada Pinkett Smith, whom we love as the bisexual Fish Mooney on Fox's Gotham, has been outspoken about boycotting the Oscars. Pinkett Smith, who portrayed Alex, a lesbian author, in The Women, has starred in more than 30 films, including the entire Matrix series. She and her husband, Will Smith, are considered Hollywood royalty. Smith was widely expected to get an Oscar nod this year for his stellar performance in Concussion. Both Smiths have been supporters of marriage equality and contributed to the fight against Prop 8 in California.
Smith spoke exclusively to GMA's Robin Roberts on Jan. 21 about the boycott decision, saying, "We're part of this community. but at this current time, we're uncomfortable to stand there and say that this is okay. My wife's not going. It would be awkward to show up with Charlize [Theron]," Smith joked. more seriously, Smith told Roberts, "There is a position that we hold in this community, and if we're not part of the solution, we're part of the problem. It was her call to action, for herself, and for me and our family to be a part of the solution."
Idris Elba, whom we have been watching since he was on The Wire and whom we have loved for the past five years on Luther, for which he's won a Golden Globe and been nominated for several Emmys, gave the best speech on #OscarsSoWhite. Elba was presumed to be a lock for a Supporting Actor nod for Cary Fukunaga's film Beasts of No Nation. Fukunaga co-created HBO's True Detective and directed the genius first season.
We loved this from Elba, who was speaking about both film and TV, as he's worked equally in both: "Diversity in the modern world is more than just skin color. It's gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, social background, and most important of all, as far as I'm concerned, diversity of thought. Because if you have genuine diversity of thought among people making TV and film, then you won't accidentally shut out any of the groups I just mentioned." Elba said, "The TV world helps shape the real world. It's also a window on our world. But when we look out the window, none of us live in Downton Abbey.'"
The issue of whiteness and straightness (gay director Todd Haynes' fabulous film Carol was also shut out) has long been a concern of ours in this column. Lip-service to diversity is a continuing problem on TV. One has only to look at the top-rated TV shows to see how white things still are. While some showrunners like Shonda Rhimes, Greg Berlanti and Ryan Murphy have diverse casts, most shows remain majority white. A show like Empire, created by black gay director Lee Daniels, has achieved critical acclaim and strong viewership. Star Taraji P. Henson just won a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of Cookie Lyons. But the question has been raised by the still-mostly-white media if the primary audience is black and gay.
We don't care about that as long as Empire remains on the air, since it's got everything. Another strongly diverse show is The Flash. The cast is racially diverse and has an out gay actor, Victor Garber, as well as gay characters like David Singh (Patrick Sabongui). Another of gay showrunner Greg Berlanti's shows, The Flash is nerd-worthy and has a lot of prettiness, gadgetry and finesse, as well as strong female characters who are not hangers-on, but plot-central.
Sitcoms seem better placed to have the kind of diversity that every show should have, although we aren't sure why. Two new sitcoms on NBC, Telenovela and Superstore, which both recently debuted, are diverse as hell and really funny. With their respective powerhouse stars (Eva Longoria and America Ferrera, respectively) they have single-handedly amped up the presence of Latina actors on the tube. Superstore has black, white, Latina, Asian, gay and disabled characters. It's perfect. Telenovela has an almost wholly Latina cast, which no other show off Univision, Fusion or Telemundo has.
We've lauded all of Rhimes' shows that have operated as prototypes for diverse programming and are still thinking about the race discussions on last season's Grey's Anatomy propelled by Dr. Margaret Pierce (Kelly McCreary) and Dr. Stephanie Edwards (Jerrika Hinton). In these exchanges, both black doctors addressed their white peers in ways that made black audiences nod and clap, and forced white audience to squirm and think. Squirming and thinking seem key to us. We don't want to lecture here, but as lacking in LGB characters as TV is (trans folks are getting refreshingly wide attention on the tube), racial diversity is even worse. We have long decried the practice of two-for-one: gaying a character of color. There are far more interracial lesbian and gay couples on the tube than in real life. Just as there are far more black-Latina-Asian sidekicks of white characters than in real life. How many of our white readers have best friends who are people of color? Yet we are expected to believe that black people are lining up to be BFFs with white people on the tube. Suspension of disbelief, anyone?
What we find most disturbing in this lack of diversity is the long-term network shows with either no black characters in the main cast (looking at you, NCIS) or one character who is expected to stand in for all people of color (yes, you, Law & Order: SVU and NCIS: New Orleans). How can shows set in major urban areas like New York and LA be so white? This must stop. Elba's speech makes sense on many levels. When we are behind the camera, we are in front of the camera.
Spend the week watching the color spectrum of your favorite shows. See where the actors of color (if there are any) fall in the plot line-up. Keep an actual tab. Then remember who's the frontrunner in the GOP presidential race. Everything is interconnected, as Elba stated. It's not, as April Reign said, that we want the Oscars or other awards' shows dumped. We just want them to reflect America. Because the rest of us out here on the margins deserve to see ourselves on screens big and small. And screw you if you don't feel the same way, Hollywood.
So for outrage aplenty as well as some kick-ass new shows and manly men kissing the hell out of each other, you really must stay tuned.