What a time to be alive! Month five in the over-the-top telenovela that is the Trump presidency, and "Muy Loco Peligroso Trump" makes "House of Cards" and "Scandal" look like ABC After-School Specials. We're still reeling from James Comey's June 8 testimony, which we watched with rapt attention, hoping he'd do to Trump what he did to Hillary: keep him out of the White House.
Regardless of what happens next �" Jared Kushner, Gen. Mike Flynn, Attorney General Jeff Sessions all testifying �" hearing Comey repeatedly call Trump a liar was, to quote Trump's attorney, validating. While watching a cudgel of constitutionalists on CNN and MSNBC talk about obstruction of justice and burdens of proof, we caught an ironic exchange between Jeffrey Toobin and John W. Dean. Toobin is a legal scholar who was assistant counsel for the Dept. of Justice during Iran-Contra. Dean was White House counsel for Richard Nixon and one of 48 members of the Nixon Administration who went to prison in the Watergate scandal.
Toobin and Dean were discussing Comey's statement the night before his testimony. Dean said Comey's statement alone meant the burden of proof for obstruction of justice had been met. Toobin countered off the cuff, "Well you were convicted of it, so you should know." That this was a moment of levity is quite a statement about the way we live now.
The New England Journal of Medicine released a study June 7 that determined Trump is making us both mentally ill and mean. We believe it. Is it any wonder we want scripted TV that is either incredibly dark or incredibly funny? Both are on offer in the coming weeks, and we are here for it and then some.
Our favorite new show is ABC's "Downward Dog," which is in an early time-slot, so we aren't sure it will gain the ennui-and-angst-ridden adult audience it's geared toward, but hopefully folks will DVR it to pump up the ratings. "Downward Dog" is spun off a web series created by Samm Hodges and Michael Killen. The premise is a dog doing a mockumentary about his life. We hear his interior monologue so there's none of that creepy weirdness of making the real dog who plays him beautifully have his mouth animated to match the dialogue.
Martin, voiced with genius and superb pacing by Hodges, is the mixed pit-bull/mutt of Nan (played with pitch-perfect edgy millennial goofiness by Alison Tolman). Nan's coming off a break-up, and Martin is still finding his way in life, unsure if he wants to dedicate to the life of the mind, or if he should engage in mindless sports like other dogs.
Both Martin and Nan are searching. For what we are not sure, but that is the basic plot. Where are we going, and how will we get there? Nan is no longer together with Jason (Lucas Neff), but he is hopeful they'll get back together and comes around regularly to see Martin. It's impossible to articulate how perfect Hodges is, how well he and the actual dog Ned, who has that soulful dog look, are in this black comedy. Suffice it to say we could watch hours of this and never be tired of the suspension of disbelief required. It's charming, urbane, witty as hell, and you must watch it.
TNT's new black comedy "Claws" debuted June 11, and it is queer. We are always ready for Niecy Nash ("Reno 911"), and she gives us everything as Desna Simms, head of a group of five manicurists turned money launderers and organized crime mavens. Co-starring with Nash is Carrie Preston as Polly. Preston revealed her comedic talents on "The Good Wife" and won an Emmy for her role as quirky genius attorney Elsbeth Tascioni. Polly is a different kind of genius.
"Claws" is super gay, although only one of the main characters, Quiet Ann (Judy Reyes), is an out butch lesbian. "Claws" has so much high camp, it sometimes feels like RuPaul should be somewhere waiting in the wings for a cameo. Also in the cast are Jenn Lyon as Jennifer, Karrueche Tran as Virginia, Harold Perrineau ("Lost") as Dean, and the inimitable Dean Norris ("Breaking Bad") as Uncle Daddy. There's plenty of waxed, buff and naked eye-candy, since the show is set in Florida and men have to regularly strip down for the pools. Originally made for HBO (there's got to be a story there) and executive produced by Rashida Jones, herself a comedic actress, "Claws" is a cool drink of fabulous summer fun.
Master piece
Season 2 of Netflix's Emmy-winning comedy "Master of None" was released May 12. Here it is a month later and we are just catching up, because we're spending too much time watching the queer prime-time lineup of Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon and Rachel Maddow on CNN and MSNBC. Who would have guessed the gays would have the news locked in the time of Trump? What a delicious irony.
We keep hearing terrible excuses from some of our white colleagues for not watching "Master of None," like, "I'm not an Indian Muslim/Taiwanese American/person of color, and I don't know what I would have in common with those characters." Teachable moment where we say, "You mean like the white TV characters people of color have been watching since TV began?" Welp.
"Master of None" is the place where we learn, laugh, and see the best coming-out episode of anything ever. "Thanksgiving" is pure, gut-wrenching, tear-jerking brilliance. Not all coming-out scenes in real life are smooth like they are on TV shows. In real life, ours got us kicked out of the all-girls school our mother, grandmother and sister had attended, and landed us in a mental hospital for conversion therapy, in a scene much like the one starring Sarah Paulson in "American Horror Story: Asylum."
Based on "Master of None" star Lena Waithe's own coming-out story, Denise comes out, not an easy ride for a young black woman in the 1980s. Kym Whitley as Denise's aunt, and Angela Bassett as her mother, Catherine, make this an incomparable episode. Thanksgiving is that holiday we all have stories about. Especially those of us who are LGBT. "Master of None" nails it.
When the first season of "Master of None" debuted, Waithe told The Hollywood Reporter that her character was going to change things up. "I don't know if we've seen a sly, harem pants-wearing, cool Topshop sweatshirt-wearing, snapback hat-rocking lesbian on TV." Waithe, whose character was originally supposed to be a straight white woman, not a black lesbian, said, "I know how many women I see out in the world who are very much like myself. We exist. To me, the visibility of it was what was going to be so important and so exciting."
It is both important and exciting. The "Thanksgiving" episode is about many things, including race. In an interview about the episode for Vanity Fair, Waithe explained how getting Bassett onto "our little show" was such an honor, and made her step up her writing game. She also put Bassett in context as an actress and racial-barrier-breaker. "Angela Bassett is a freaking legend. Without Angela Bassett, there is no Viola Davis, there is no Halle Berry. She's the one who came in and did things Meryl Streep was doing, as a black actress." Bassett does those things in "Master of None." Yet another reason to watch.
Our patience with comedy is limited, but our need for drama has ratcheted up since Trump took over. F/X's "Fargo" ended its third season June 7, so now you can go binge the whole dark, funny season at once. We highly recommend it. Much of what happens in this season is satisfyingly vicarious when one feels just a little murderous.
That would explain why we binged the last four episodes in a row of season one of "Queen of the South," to catch up to season two, which debuted June 8 on USA and Telemundo. "QotS" is about drug cartels, the blurred lines between America and Mexico near the Texas border, what some people will do for money, and where others draw the line. Watching Teresa chug down more than a dozen packets of cocaine after one of the other drug mules dies in her lap made us glad we'd chosen a different career path.
The show stars Brazilian actress Alice Braga as Teresa Mendoza, a once-wealthy drug "queenpin," who in season 2 is working as a drug mule and first lieutenant of Dona Camila Vargas (Veronica Falcon), who is gradually taking over the territory of her estranged husband.
"QotS" is violent. There are a lot of murders, and torture is intermittent, but it is also extremely compelling. We consider violence and danger the purview of men, but "QotS" examines what happens when women take charge of criminal enterprises. In Spanish and English, so it's also good for building your Spanish vocabulary as well as prepping you for the violent return of "Game of Thrones" in July. (The violence, not the Spanish.)
Back for its fifth and final season is BBC America's award-winning sci-fi clone drama "Orphan Black," starring Tatiana Maslany as, well, everyone. Maslany has been the eternal bridesmaid at the Emmys for her tour de force performance as a half-dozen different women, but the timing was bad for her. She is compelling as each character, and the scenes are seamless. Yet more than half the time she is playing against herself. She really deserves an Emmy.
If you've never delved into "Orphan Black," this isn't the season to start, but the other four seasons are available on Netflix, Hulu and BBC America. The show is an intricate drama about what we know is right around the science corner: cloning of humans and parts of humans, and what the moral grounds are for such experimentation with our fellow humans. And what might go wildly wrong. For fans of the series, the final season will be bittersweet but spectacular.
There is no show we want to watch more than Netflix's new, ultra-hyped series "Gypsy." We aren't sure how Netflix nabbed Oscar-nominated British actress Naomi Watts for the lead, but they did, and we are thrilled. Netflix teases the series with this synopsis: "The 10-part psychological thriller follows Jean Halloway (Naomi Watts), a Manhattan therapist with a seemingly picturesque life who begins to develop intimate and illicit relationships with the people in her patients' lives. As the borders of Jean's professional life and personal fantasies become blurred, she descends into a world where the forces of desire and reality are disastrously at odds." Who among us hasn't experienced the forces of desire and reality being disastrously at odds?
Those people Jean gets involved with are both male and female. Netflix released a lengthy trailer on June 9, and Watts is fantastic. Fans of Watts will have flashes of "Mulholland Drive." "Gypsy," created, written and produced by Lisa Rubin, has a similar kind of surreality to it. It also stars Bill Crudup as Halloway's husband, Michael and Brenda Vaccaro, Poorna Jagannathan, Sophie Cookson and Karl Glusman, among others. Netflix streams "Gypsy" beginning June 30.
Some returning favorites to stuff into that overloaded DVR for June are Ava DuVernay's complex drama "Queen Sugar," returning to OWN for a second season June 20; and AMC's "Fear the Walking Dead," for those who can't get enough of those zombies, returns for a third season, where things are exacerbated at the U.S./Mexican border.
Oscar winner Melissa Leo (Goldie) stars in a new Showtime series, "I'm Dying Up Here." Goldie (loosely based on Mitzi Shore) runs a 70s Hollywood comedy club where stand-up comedians are always hustling to get space at the mic and "Tonight Show" spots. With Ari Graynor, Michael Angarano, Clark Duke, Andrew Santino, Al Madrigal.
Summer wouldn't be summer without some supernatural thrills from the master. Stephen King's "The Mist" premieres June 22 on Spike, and has everything: mystery, disappearances, fear of the Other, insects. June 5, Spike released a new trailer, and the 10-episode series is both visually stunning and a terrifying evocation of the King classic. Created by Christian Torpe, the series stars Morgan Spector ("Person of Interest"), the great Frances Conroy ("Six Feet Under"), Alyssa Sutherland ("Vikings"), Gus Birney, Dan Butler (one of the first out gay actors on TV), Luke Cosgrove, Danica Curcic, Okezie Morro, Darren Pettie, Russell Posner and Isiah Whitlock, Jr. "The Mist" is set in Bridgeton, Maine. Something mysterious befalls the small town, a mist that rolls in one day and never leaves. Where did it come from? What is in the mist? Bad things. The natural world is turning on itself, and those who stay out in the mist �" well, you wouldn't want to do that.
As with King's previous summer series "Under the Dome," the isolation of a community creates a nightmare scenario, and people don't trust each other. That distrust worsens as the mist becomes entrenched and scarcity of resources becomes a concern. People's pasts are revealed, scapegoats are targeted: it's Trumpworld in microcosm. Showrunner Torpe told Entertainment Weekly that mere implication of something deadly was not enough. "We didn't want it to be a monster show, we wanted it to be a show about fear and how people react when they are afraid. In order to do that, we obviously need to scare the characters once in a while."
So for fear that you can turn off with a TV remote, comedy with a touch of something wicked, truth-telling from gay TV writers, and the latest in the never-ending story of "Muy Loco Peligroso Trump," you know you really must stay tuned.