As in creator David Milch's previous HBO shows, Deadwood and the short-lived John from Cincinnati, one of Luck's central themes concerns the building of a community. This comes to the fore in episode seven, written by Amanda Ferguson and helmed by returning director Brian Kirk, which emphasizes the growing interaction between the denizens of the Santa Anita Race Track. It reinforces that the most successful of them rely on others, and those that don't are destined to fail. Continue Reading »
For two episodes with very little action, "The Man Behind the Curtain" and "Watching the Detectives" wind up revealing quite a bit about Justified's representation of violence. These are both plot-heavy episodes that serve mostly to move the various pieces around and transition the audience toward the season's end game, but they're also further proof that Justified has little interest in following traditional narratives of violence, and in particular how it relates to power. The various adversaries are certainly trying to carve out as much power for themselves as possible, yet their use of force only renders each of them more vulnerable and their many power moves ultimately serve to demonstrate how little control ear player has over their situations.
HBO's Game Change isn't the first time director Jay Roach and writer Danny Strong have tackled American electoral politics, and it's not the first time they've portrayed women in politics either. Their first collaboration, Recount, about the contested 2000 presidential election, featured Laura Dern as Katherine Harris, whose gauche gaudiness dropped into the middle of the film's strategic maneuvering came across as the antics of some kind of grotesque buffoon played for dissonant laughs. Game Change handles Sarah Palin (Julianne Moore) with a bit more aplomb, preferring sober psychological study to broad caricature. But it's precisely in its straight-ahead characterization that the film lays bare its contempt for the political theater on display. It's confident that Saturday Night Live-level mockery is unnecessary to highlight the absurdity of what's being proffered to the American public—and what that public is eating up. Continue Reading »
There's no getting around the fact that this week's episode of Luck, written by Robin Shushan and directed by Henry Bronchtein, was overstuffed with exposition. Last week's entry was a bit of a respite after the turning point that was the fourth episode, letting us take in the state of some of the characters midseason. This week's episode is one where David Milch and the writers start setting the plates into motion that will keep spinning all the way until the first season concludes three weeks from now. As such, much of the plot mechanics are a little more obvious, particularly in the storyline involving Ace's (Dustin Hoffman) scheme to get back at former partner-in-crime Mike (Michael Gambon). So, given that Luck is strongest when the show is at its most elusive, eliding past plot points to get to a deeper truth, the strongest thread this week belonged to stammering jockey agent Joey Rathburn (Richard Kind), whose simmering financial/professional tensions have finally come to a boil. Continue Reading »
After the emotional high points reached in last week's installment of Luck, it's only natural that this week's episode, written by Scott Willson and directed by Brian Kirk, feels a bit like a come-down. But the seeming pause in the action allows for revelatory moments of introspection which will inform the plot developments that arise as the first season heads into its backstretch. Characteristic of such introspection is the opening shot, trained on a reflection of Ace (Dustin Hoffman) before reframing on the man himself. Using mirrors both literal and figurative, this episode reminds us that three of Luck's characters, Ace, Joey (Richard Kind), and Marcus (Kevin Dunn), each bluff their way through many of their personal dealings considering their hidden good nature. Continue Reading »
As season three of Justified reaches the halfway point, things are starting to escalate in a hurry: Boyd (Walton Goggins) and Quarles (Neal McDonough) are confronting each other, their respective Oxy clinics are being attacked, Limehouse (Mykelti Williamson) has reluctantly become the linchpin of the coming war, and, sensing that things will only become more dangerous, Winona (Natalie Zea) has put an abrupt end to her reconciliation with Raylan. Yet, in this week's episode, "When the Guns Come Out," Raylan (Timothy Olyphant), the man seemingly always in control, comes across as quite oblivious to the trouble brewing in Harlan County. Continue Reading »
For the past few weeks, those unfamiliar with David Milch's style have probably been scratching their heads, wondering what, aside from the lush visual rubric established by Michael Mann, critics and fans see in Luck. As far as Milch shows go, Luck's characters, at least initially, are a good deal less likeable than, for instance, Dennis Franz's alcoholic, racist Andy Sipowicz was in Milch's NYPD Blue. Because the writer incorporates horse-racing terminology into his trademark stylized slang, Milch-speak as it's referred to, is made more impenetrable in Luck than it is in his period-accurate Deadwood—never mind the surfer-infused dialect of his failed John in Cincinnati. Tonight's revelatory episode, written by Daily Racing Form columnist Jay Hovdey and directed by Phillip Noyce, marks the turning point that should put any detractors' criticisms to rest. Continue Reading »
Dewey Crowe (Damon Herriman) is a desperate man—as you'd expect him to be, waking up in a bloody bathtub, ostensibly with both his kidneys missing, as he does in "Thick As Mud," this week's episode of Justified. Last week I expressed concern over this coming organ-harvesting plotline, mostly because I didn't find Lance (Clayne Crawford) particularly compelling as a villain and would prefer that the show focused on more interesting characters. But as it turns out, "Fancy Lance" is nothing more than a plot device, there to set into motion the next chapter of Dewey Crowe's hard-luck story. Lance offers Dewey the opportunity to buy back his own kidneys, but warns him that he'll only have four hours of life left to do it. The result is a race against the clock, as poor, incompetent Dewey robs anyone he thinks might have cash. Continue Reading »
If I had to select one image that best represents the central theme of this week's episode of Luck, it would be a medium shot of Marcus (Kevin Dunn), Jerry (Jason Gedrick), Renzo (Ritchie Coster), and Lonnie (Ian Hart), all holding carrots while they stand, befuddled, in Turo's stall. The episode's director, Allen Coulter, is known for the menacing edge he brings to his other projects for HBO, like The Sopranos. But what's often ignored is his ability to leaven such dark material with a healthy dose of humanity, and this week, Bill Barich's script provides just the right opportunity for Coulter to display his talent in this respect. A good number of our main characters are closer to catching on to what Luck's horse trainers, old Walter (Nick Nolte) and Turo (John Ortiz), seem to know already: These horses aren't just lucky talismans; they also possess a purity of spirit that rehabilitates many of the show's jaded characters. Continue Reading »
A lot of talk regarding season three of Justified has centered around whether the show could successfully replace Mags Bennett. The writers have cleverly embraced the gap Mags left behind; instead of trying to replace her directly, they've used her absence to create the sense of a town on the precipice of a crime war. Many different players are eager to fill the role of Harlan's chief villain. This week's episode, however, reminds us that Mags was never truly the chief villain of Justified to begin with.
As great and as powerful a character as Mags was, the role of primary bad guy has been filled, from the beginning, by Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins). This is easy to forget, because Boyd is incredibly likable. (Surely he must be the most beloved neo-Nazi skinhead on TV.) It's a testament to Goggins and the writers that they've managed to craft a character with Boyd's background of crime, hatred, and violence, yet who still manages to be as morally ambiguous and strangely sympathetic as he is. Continue Reading »
Last week, Luck's introductory episode concluded with an exhilarating race that ended badly. The horse that "bug boy" (named for the bug-like asterisk that follows the jockey's name in the racing forms, signifying his apprentice status) Leon rode was put down after its front legs broke. That tragedy still hangs over the main plot of this episode (unlike most shows, Luck isn't naming its episodes). But it also thrusts Leon into a kind of limbo reflective of all of the show's characters. It's in this episode where one is first able to grasp how the different permutations of fortune (good, bad, indifferent) have washed the show's ensemble ashore onto the pretty and slightly desolate beach that is Arcadia's Santa Anita Park. Continue Reading »
Change isn't something that comes easily to Harlan County. Through Justified's first two seasons, we certainly discovered new facets of Harlan's seedy underbelly, but we haven't seen much about Raylan Givens's (Timothy Olyphant) hometown actually change. It's an insular place filled with a lot of ignorant people and a lot of guns. Its ways of doing things are firmly established.
This likely serves to constantly frustrate Raylan, a man who would rather forget his formative years in Harlan altogether. He leaves town for most of his adult life, but when he returns, the place is still populated by the same folks kicking around the same stories. Life in Harlan doesn't remind Raylan of his past; it is his past. And the version of Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) we see in this week's episode might argue that this is exactly the way it should be. Continue Reading »
Ace: Generally, how'd he look?
Gus: What do I know, Ace? All four of his legs reach the ground.
That exchange, between two of the leads on the new HBO series Luck, concerns Pint of Plain, the race horse that Chester "Ace" Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) owns by way of his driver and bodyguard Gus Demetriou (Dennis Farina). Gus is fronting for Ace, who's recently been released from prison and can't legally own a horse until he's off parole. But he knows as much about horse racing as most viewers probably do—which is to say, not much. Those expecting to get a primer on the sport will be disappointed by Luck's first episode, written by creator David Milch (Deadwood) and directed by his co-executive producer, Michael Mann. But that's not a criticism; what Milch and Mann have always been most effective at is getting to the substance of a specific subculture through stylistic means. Continue Reading »
The case-of-the-week A-plot of "Cut Ties," the second episode of Justified's third season, doesn't have much meat on it. It's another episode set mostly in Lexington and featuring a lot of characters we'll never see again, but it nonetheless manages to further complicate the power struggle brewing in Harlan. An old marshal friend of Art's (Nick Searcy) comes to town to check on his clients in witness protection, only to be tortured by one of them into giving up the location of another witness, and later executed. Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) teams up with Art, Rachel (Erica Tazel), and Assistant Director Goodall (Carla Gugino), a woman Raylan knows from Miami, to catch the killer and protect the compromised witness.
At first glance, Justified can seem a lot like any other action show, where expendable characters are introduced just to be shot, and the bad guys are killed without much consideration. To a certain extent, that's true, but the show also has a tendency to let the consequences of its various deaths fester, weighing the characters down until coming to the fore in unexpected ways. Most obvious is Raylan's killing of a Miami mobster in the series pilot, which plays out as a typical bad-ass TV lawman exacting justice, but the consequences of which have served as the setup for the entire series. We also saw Mags Bennett coldly dispatch Loretta's father in last season's premiere, an act ultimately mirrored by her suicide in the finale. Continue Reading »
In many respects, the third-season premiere of Justified, "The Gunfighter," is a difficult episode to love. The show's second season was incredibly strong, and went out with a powerhouse finale and a masterpiece of a final scene in which Mags Bennett (Margo Martindale) commits suicide with a poisoned glass of her "Apple Pie" moonshine. It was easy to get lost in the world of Mags and the Bennett clan, enough so that one might wish that Justified never leave the confines of Harlan County.
By contrast, "The Gunfighter" takes place almost entirely in Lexington, broken up only by Ava (Joelle Carter) and Devil's (Kevin Rankin) failed attempt to sell the now-spoiled pot Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) raided from the Bennett compound. Even Boyd and Dickie Bennett (Jeremy Davies) are separated from Harlan County on account of their respective incarcerations. In place of Mags, we're introduced to Robert Quarles (Neal McDonough), a well-dressed and cold-blooded mobster from Detroit who seems to be making a power play in Kentucky. Personally, I like Justified best when its stories are steeped in the tradition and mythology of Harlan County, and the idea of a central villain from Motor City isn't as immediately compelling as Mags and her family's tyranny. Continue Reading »
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