2025 Year In Books

1. The Trial of Lizzie Borden, Cara Robertson

2. The Baseball Codes, Jason Turbow 

3. You’d Look Better As A Ghost, Joanna Wallace 

4. Do Not Sell At Any Price, Amanda Petrusich

5. The Bookshop, Evan Friss

6. First Lie Wins, Ashley Elston

7. Box Office Poison, Tim Robey 

8. How To Sound Smart At Parties, Michael McBride

9. Den of Spies, Craig Unger

10. How Can I Help You, Jenna Sims

11. You Are Fatally Invited, Ande Pliego

12. Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect, Benjamin Stevenson

13. There Is No Place For Us, Brian Goldstone 

14. A Most Agreeable Murder, Julia Seals

15. The Maid’s Secret, Nita Prose

16. The JFK Conspiracy, Brad Meltzer

17. Girl on Girl, Sophie Gilbert

18. The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions, Eli Bernstein

19. The Killing Fields of East New York, Stacy Horn

20. Vera Wang’s Guide To Snooping (On A Dead Man), Jesse Sutanto

21. Goodman/McGill, Alan Sepinwall 

22. Why We Love Baseball, Joe Posnanski 

23. The Golf 100, Michael Arkush

24. What Is Wrong With Men?, Jessa Crispin 

25. Let Them, Mel Robbins

26. Murder in the Dollhouse, Rich Cohen

27. The Fate of the Day, Rick Atkinson  

28. A Case of Mice and Murder, Sally Smith 

29. Fortune Favors the Dead, Stephen Spotswood

30. The Grandest Stage, A History of the World Series, Tyler Kepner

31. The Impossible Fortune, Richard Osman 

32. Regina, The Queens Who Could Have Been, Emily Murdoch Perkins

33. Unabridged, Stefan Fatkis

34. Every Day Is Sunday, Ken Belson

35. Blank Space, W. David Marx 

TV's Sophomore Slump

With network television on a hiatus until after the new year, I thought it would be a good time to check in on a few sophomore seasons.

Let's start with Matlock. It might sound odd to call a show starring a nearly 80-year-old actress that takes its title from a 1980s crime procedural starring Andy Griffith subversive, but from its first episode, Matlock defied conventional wisdom. What appeared to be a legal drama reboot turned out to be something much different. This Matlock is not out to do courtroom gymnastics on behalf of wrongly accused clients, although there is plenty of that, but rather, a revenge story, of a woman who seeks vengeance against the lawyers and law firm who buried an incriminating report about the risk of opioid addiction, a disease that took her daughter. Through the first season, Maddy got herself into and out of a number of close calls where her true identity (and purpose) was almost revealed until finally her supervisor and friend Olympia finally put the pieces together. The season finale ended on a cliffhanger of learning that Olympia's former husband Julian hid the incriminating report in a safety deposit box at the direction of his father, the managing partner of the firm where they all work. 

That first season balanced nicely the standard courtroom drama you expect in network procedurals with the main storyline but the second season has been far less consistent. For one, the Wellbrexa storyline is dragging on interminably, with Maddy and Olympia wrestling with the betrayal each feels about the other but unable to untangle themselves from the mess they find themselves in. The stories have leaned more heavily into Maddie's backstory, introducing her grandson Alfie's father (a recovering addict) into the mix while attempting to ask deeper questions about what constitutes justice and whether its even worth pursuing when the fallout could hurt people you care about. 

Still more, a pall has hung over the show with a report that the actor who plays Billy, one of the young associates who are on Olympia's team, was fired from the show for allegedly assaulting a co-star, the actress who plays Sarah. Watching the first part of the season knowing Billy would be written out of the show (which he was in the "fall finale" - off screen, taking care of his fiancé, who had just suffered a miscarriage) took away from those episodes and you can almost see the custody battle between Maddy and Edwin on one side and Alfie's father on the other coming from a mile away, but to me, it's the least interesting part of the show. 

The real problem is the Wellbrexa story lingers, now, with Julian actively working against his ex-wife (and Maddy) to curry favor with his father and redeem himself in his father's eyes. It just feels like so much navel gazing, but the other problem the show has is that once this storyline is wrapped, and the show runner indicated it would (thankfully) be done by the end of this season, what more is there to say? 

Then there is Watson, another in a long list of entertainment products from the rather fruitful tree that is Sherlock Holmes. Yes, this procedural follows Holmes's sidekick in modern day Pittsburgh where Dr. John Watson (played by Morris Chestnut) is a world-renowned geneticist working with a team of fellows to solve medical mysteries. I have often thought of Watson as a bizarro House, M.D.  Where House was misanthropic, Watson is nurturing. House belittled his fellows, Watson lifts them up. There are similarities. Both men have messy personal lives, as do their fellows, there is a female boss (in Watson's case, his ex-wife) and the episodes all have a weird medical problem requiring the doctor's singular brilliance to solve. 

But where House focused (at least in its early seasons) on the medical mysteries and filled in the blanks with B and C stories about the characters' personal lives, Watson is the opposite. The first season was uneven to say the least, toggling between Holmesian lore (the evil Moriarty flits in and out of the season before a final showdown with Watson) and the deep seated problems of the fellows (two of whom are twins, one, an addict, the other, a depressive; a third a prim overachiever in a bad relationship, the last, a sociopath). It often felt like a muddle and I was actually a little surprised the show was renewed for a second season; perhaps they should have left well enough alone.

The second season has been mid, at best. It did not take long for the writers to introduce the actual Sherlock Holmes, played as a sort of middle aged imp but who has zero chemistry with the guy who is supposed to be his best friend. Holmes's brother, Mycroft, a sort of shadowy CEO/obnoxious jerk has also made an appearance or two, trying to bigfoot Watson into doing his bidding. Episodes have included topics like the danger of chat bots and the tried and true crazy guy who takes over the hospital demanding help (something House did in its sixth season). It's all quite unfocused. You can see the writers' disinterest in the medicine because they keep tossing out new storylines and characters completely unrelated to the work in the hospital. Watson's sidekick Shinwell, now also a nursing student (because reasons?) is starting a romance with one of his supervisors, Dr. Derian (the sociopath) is in therapy but has attracted a fellow sociopath who is toying with Dr. Lubbock (the overachiever) and the twin brothers are just sort of ... there. Shows are supposed to get better in their second seasons, but this just feels like throwing a bunch of stuff against a wall and seeing what sticks (which, in my view, is not much).

Finally, let's talk about High Potential. A police procedural with the hook that the star is a savant with a no BS attitude played wonderfully by Kaitlin Olson. Morgan Gillory sports a 160 IQ and notices things at crime scenes mere mortals do not and is hired by the LAPD as a consultant. The first season had a great blend of snark and sass, humor and heart, that really won me over. The supporting cast in the fictional precinct was solid and the stories were your standard TV fare. In the background loomed a second story about a boyfriend (and baby daddy to Morgan's oldest child) who disappeared 15 years ago. 

Sure enough, toward the end of season one, this who-cares backstory bubbled closer to the surface and has taken on more weight in season two. The episodes themselves have been darker, particularly the two-part season premiere which wrapped (too quickly, in my view) what could have been an interesting cat-and-mouse plot between Morgan and a killer referred to as the Game Master. The other episodes have lost some of the lightness and wit that marked the first season; it's just not as much fun as the first season even as yet more new characters (all three of these shows seem to think more is more and it's actually not true!) like the new precinct captain who both has the hots for Morgan (seemingly every man in this show wants to sleep with her) and, if I had to predict, will likely be the key to unlocking the mystery of what happened to Morgan's long lost boyfriend (which again, who cares?) 

In sum, a lot of disappointing television from shows that started out strongly but appear to already be running out of ideas.

Book Review - Let Them

In the fourth season episode of Mad Men entitled The Summer Man, Don Draper, having spent months drowning his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle of rye whiskey, finds himself in a contemplative mood. Banging away on at his typewriter, we hear him in voice over poring out his thoughts. People tell us who they are but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be he observes, essentially repacking the oft-quoted line from Maya Angelou that when people tell you who they are, believe them the first time. 

I thought about that scene while breezing through Mel Robbins's book Let Them. A self-help bestseller Robbins pulls a few Draper-esque tricks of her own. The big breakthrough, the revolutionary thought that apparently so struck none other than Oprah Winfrey, one finds in this book is that you can't control other peoples' behavior, only your own. Like yeah, no shit. If someone is being a jerk, let them. If someone is being pouty and uncommunicative, let them. You can't force people to change and so if you just "let them" be themselves you will have less stress in your life, feel more secure and confident, etc etc. But there is a second step, one not in the book's title, that is equally important - "Let me." Here, the focus is on your own agency, your own accountability, your own free will to make decisions.

It all has the benefit of being pithy (the chapters are cut into bite sized pieces) and Robbins is at the read with convenient examples from her own life (that I have to believe are at least slightly embellished only because they SO PERFECTLY prove her point) to show how to recalibrate your thinking. An early example she cites is one where she is scrolling through Instagram and sees photos of some casual friends of hers on a girls trip that she (Robbins) was not invited to. Her initial reaction is to feel hurt and snubbed (understandable) but then pauses to acknowledge that these are not friends she is particularly close to and that she (Robbins) had done very little to maintain the friendships. Reframing the incident in these terms both allowed her to let go of her anger and hurt. She could not change her friends' behavior and she also saw that her anger was misplaced since she was also at fault for letting the friendships wilt. 

And if you want, I don't know 150 plus pages of this kind of stuff, it's there for you to read. Robbins takes these lessons into the workplace, the home, and to family and friends alike. But it dawned on me as she went on and on that all she was doing was taking the famed serenity prayer (Lord give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference) and putting her own spin on it. In the last third, Robbins cribbed another saying I am fond of - comparison is the thief of joy - as she discussed how to get past feelings of inadequacy or jealousy at what others have. So instead of feeling envy at someone else's success, you would ask that person what they did to achieve that success if you want it to. If you see someone on TV living large, instead of feeling jealous, be appreciative of the things you have because others are worse off than you. And so on. And perhaps there is a lesson in this one because I finished this book amazed that someone could simply take ideas that are basically in the public domain, put her own spin on it, and sell millions of books. 

Resident Alien

When Resident Alien premiered, I was hooked immediately. It was, to say the least, unconventional - a show about an extraterrestrial sent to Earth to destroy it who assumes the identity of a man he kills in a small town in Colorado that has Native American influences and an oddball cast of characters. But in the hands of show runner Chris Sheridan it somehow worked. Alan Tudyk, starring as the alien (in human form a doctor named Harry Vanderspiegle) brought an offbeat combination of deadpan humor and smarmy pretentiousness to the lead role. The fish-out-of-water aspect allowed for the inclusion of plenty of pop culture references (Harry learns English watching Law & Order reruns and becomes an obsessive fan of Jerry Orback), no-filter comments (after being admonished about his bedside manner with a patient, Harry gently reassures a female patient she was smart to come in and have a lump in her breast examined before blurting out "now let's see that tit"), and an outsider's observation of the human condition.

It was there that the show hinged. Harry thinks Earthlings are poor stewards of the planet they live on (which is why he is going to destroy it) but his interactions with *actual* human beings begins to change his mind. He is called into town to investigate the murder of the Sam Hodges, the town doctor, and meets Asta Twelvetrees, the lead nurse at the town clinic, who he strikes up an uneasy friendship with as they try to figure out how Sam was killed. He also comes into contact with the neurotic Mayor (Ben), the overly confident Sheriff (Mike), his deputy (Liv) and is clocked as an alien by Ben's son Max, who is able to "see" Harry's alien form even though it's camoflouged in (the real) Harry's body. 

And for the first five or six episodes of that first season, it clicked on all cylinders. There were the humorous asides like Harry getting high with Asta and her best friend D'Arcy, who owns The 59, the local bar, and getting the munchies, or clumsily googling information while giving a pelvic exam to a female patient, blended with elements of spirituality, particularly as it relates to Native American culture. Part of the reason Harry begins rethinking his assessment of humans is a visit he and Asta take to a reservation where he meets and hangs out with her extended family. Of course, all of this is being done while Harry is frantically looking for the device he was supposed to detonate to destroy the planet and also hiding his identity from everyone, but it worked. The show balanced its science fiction elements with a sensibility that reminded me of shows like Northern Exposure, Ed, and Newhart, all of which also incorporated small towns and quirky characters into a satisfying narrative. 

The worm turned slightly towards the end of that first season when Asta learns of Harry's true nature as the two are stranded in an ice glacier where Harry's doomsday device was located but it did not seem to be that big a deal until the second season opened. The show was a modest hit and received good critical buzz so its second season episode order was increased from the ten that aired to eighteen. The second season lost so much of what made the first season great. The humanist elements, the day-to-day in Patience, Colorado, the exploration of the characters all got shunted aside as the show went all in on the "alien" aspect of its storytelling. Suddenly there were multiple alien species all vying for control (or destruction) of Earth. The secret government agency that was also tracking Harry in season one became more prominent and the show simply lost its grounding while also being bloated and having episodes go by where seemingly nothing happened.  The resolution of Sam's murder was, of all things, that the real Harry Vanderspiegle was the culprit, but instead of mining that revelation for plot building, it was resolved quickly and never mentioned again until the show's finale. 

This reversal led to a significant cut in the third season order to just eight episodes, which suffered from the same problems as the second season. It was almost as if the writers had forgotten what made the show good in the first place and simply could not get out of the storytelling box they had placed themselves in. Ratings suffered and I often found myself asking why I was even still watching the show. Gone was the charm and humor of the early episodes. The clinic, a source of much of the humor in the show, was largely jettisoned. Side stories, like Asta's relationship with Jay, her daughter that she gave up for adoption as a child, withered, and the main focus became the idea that aliens were snatching residents of Patience and taking their children. It was dark and unsettling, while also drifting further and further from the show's roots. 

Surprisingly, at least to me, the show got a fourth season renewal and it finally got closer to its origins only to have the network bigwigs decide that this would be the show's final season. At least it somewhat got back to what it did best in season one. Yes, the alien aspect was still there (something called a Mantid shape shifts into different forms when it's not murdering people and lopping their heads off) but the human element came back to the fore. Harry, now stripped of his alien powers (don't ask) fully appreciates and understands what it means to be a human. His interactions with Asta's family help him understand how people connect with one another and how we are connected to the Earth we inhabit. It was these grace notes that I always thought were at the core to the show's appeal, the voice overs Harry provided that talked about the complex and often frustrating experience it is to be alive but how we strive to help, connect with, and support one another. It was a relentlessly optimistic view of humanity that was too often missing from this middle seasons where I think the show probably lost many of its viewers. 

I will always believe there was a better version of the show that could have been made but also cherish the laugh out loud moments it provided. When the real Harry's wife shows up a few episodes into the first season and it looks like he'll be leaving Patience, he seethes with jealousy as everyone fawns over Dr. Ethan, his replacement. Ethan is good looking and a do gooder (he not only served with Doctors Without Borders but speaks French too) and Harry can't stand him. The two arm wrestle and Harry nearly rips Ethan's arm out of its socket and then peacocks around the bar expecting everyone to congratulate him but of course they are tending to Ethan's who shoulder is relocated into its socket as Harry looks on despondently. By the finale, Ethan is back, except this time, he, like Harry, is inhabited by an alien. Instead of killing him, Harry gets him drunk, as Asta did with him on his first day, and in that moment, the alien experiences a small slice of what it is to be a human and Harry can leave Earth knowing it is no longer in danger. It was a nice call back for long-time fans and an uplifting way to bring the show to an end. 

Sirius Is Not Going To "Fire" Howard Stern

I woke up this morning and fired up the old Twitter machine and saw unsubstantiated rumors that SiriusXM is not going to renew Howard Stern's contract when it expires at the end of the year. Having listened to Howard on and off for more than 35 years, let me be the first to call *partial* BS on this story. 

The man is 71 years old, so the idea he would sign up for another five years was far-fetched to begin with but it's equally far-fetched to believe the company he basically single-handedly saved from bankruptcy would toss him to the curb like some old piece of furniture. Yes, Sirius is a much different (and bigger) company than the one Howard joined in 2006, and his schedule is far more modest than it once was, but I think the more likely scenario is that Howard re-ups for 1-2 years and here is why:

1.    Being able to promote a "farewell" tour for Howard is too lucrative an opportunity for Sirius to pass up, especially since Howard has done so much work to bring in "A" list interviews in recent years. 

2.    While management at the company may not be the same as it was when Howard first started, I have to believe there is an interest in thanking him for his 20 years on the air. He promised an audience and he delivered. The messy litigation he initiated because of a dispute over a bonus he claimed he was owed happened 15 years ago. Otherwise, he shows up to work every day he's contracted to be there, has been a loyal soldier in terms of promoting the company, and, not only saved the company from going under but became the pivot point for the merger between Sirius and XM.

3.    Howard is loyal to his audience and to his staff. He would not leave longtime employees in a lurch where they have less than 4 months before they have to look for new jobs. Re-signing for a year or two will allow his staff to set up their next move. Similarly, it will give fans the chance to say a proper farewell to a guy who has been the soundtrack to their lives. 

So slow your roll, internet. I don't think Howard is going anywhere (for now).  

Book Review - What Is Wrong With Men?

For a roughly 10 year period between 1985 and 1995, Michael Douglas was on what they call in sports a “heater.” Douglas starred a string of box office hits playing everyone from police detectives to the President of these United States. He got flashed by Sharon Stone and went on South American adventures with Kathleen Turner. And at his peak, he nabbed an Academy Award for his portrayal of the venal Wall Street trader Gordon Gecko whose “greed is good” speech helped define the ethos of the Reagan years. 

In Jessa Crispin’s hands, Douglas’s oeuvre is the jumping off point for her examination of modern masculinity in her recently released book What’s Wrong With Men? By examining the characters Douglas played, Crispin argues that you can track the slow death of “the partriarchy” which, in lay terms, was a societal structure where men, whether their colors were white or blue, were assured of a steady job, a stay-at-home wife to care for his kids, and whose primacy was never challenged. Men basically did whatever they wanted and rarely suffered consequences for their actions. 

And in this way, Douglas makes a compelling avatar. Although not technically a baby boomer (Douglas was born in 1944, two years before the start of the post-war baby boom) by the mid-1980s, boomers were ascending into positions of power but doing so in a workplace that was more racially, ethnically, and sexually diverse than ever before. But Douglas’s characters were often at sea in this evolving cultural moment. In movies like Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction, Douglas is confronted with women who have agency and power, money and lives that are not reliant on the things men were traditionally relied on to offer. He can’t blithely ignore Glenn Close after their weekend fling anymore than he can match the wealth and success of Sharon Stone. The former is done in not by Douglas but his doting wife and the latter outfoxes him and is going to bury an ice pick in him as we fade to black. 

As society evolved during this time period, this sense of emasculation reached its apotheosis (at least in the Douglas canon) in Falling Down, where he plays a divorced, recently laid off defense contractor. Stripped of the traditional roles of husband and provider, Douglas’s character lashes out in ever increasingly violent ways, not against his former employer, but by punching down against those who subject him to petty indignities like the fast food manager who refuses to serve him breakfast as the restaurant shifts to its lunch menu. Falling Down is a sort of canary in a coal mine for the mass shooters of the modern day whose manifestos were littered with similar feelings of inadequacy, frustration, and rage. 

On the other end of the spectrum is Gordon Gecko. Who uses all the tricks in the book to accumulate wealth and power. For decades, this kind of behavior was winked at and nodded to, a passing mention of a deal in a country club locker room or over drinks in a university dining club where no one was the wiser, but those days were coming to an end and Gecko is ultimately brought down by his surrogate son, the dirt under his nails protege who finally realizes that breaking the law in the service of getting rich is not worth losing your soul. 

And it was a bit surprising that Crispin gave Wall Street short shrift in her book because that movie also telegraphed where we are today. The zero sum tactics in that movie, the idea that if you’re not cheating you’re not trying, and that wealth is its own reward perfectly define the era we now live in. Look no further than who is occupying the White House right now and how that person has bent and broken laws, stiffed business partners, and marketed himself as a business genius while hocking everything from crypto coins to sneakers to his gullible supporters who all believe they too can get rich like him. In retrospect, the only surprising thing about Wall Street is that Gecko ends up going to jail. 

In Crispin’s telling, the fall of the patriarchy was simply replaced by a new and equally flawed model - meritocracy - which promised a level playing field but in reality simply allowed people who already had wealth and power to consolidate their standing and shut the door behind them, leaving the masses out in the cold. As Crispin traces this post-patriarchical world, she argues that the splintering of society manifested on the left in renewed interest in socialism (most notably through the Occupy Wall Street movement) and on the right by manosphere influencers and bloggers who preached a lewder, more hateful version of male superiority that belittled women, demonized minorities, and told alienated men they had been sold out. 

But when it comes to offering solutions, like many critics, Crispin is light on details. Perhaps it is because she has a tendency to paint with an overly broad brush, particularly when she directs her fire at the political system. To her, the Sorkin-esque version of government reflected in Douglas’s role as President Andrew Shepherd in The American President, fetishizes a moderate, common sense liberalism divorced from reality and the Obama Administration’s failure to prosecute bankers after the 2008 housing crisis created the space for Trump’s populist pitch to alienated white working class voters. She is also quick to call out the two party system but in doing so, goes too far in suggesting there is no difference between the two. While Crispin is entitled to her opinion, T\that type of nihilism, manifested in voters who turned to Ralph Nader in 2000 and Jill Stein in 2016 had a devastating effect on the future of our nation.  At best, she suggests community-based solutions with low bore stakes that do not demand a CVS receipt-length checklist of qualifications and interpretation of a man’s views of the world in order to have allyship. It’s a weak tea finish for an otherwise engaging and thought provoking book. I encourage you to read it and draw your own conclusions. 

(Half) A Commute From Hell

Since I don't have anyone in my real life to vent to, you, the handful of people who read this dopey blog, get to hear my tale of woe. 

I had to go to Newark yesterday for two meetings that could have unquestionably been handled remotely, but the powers that be demanded my presence. Fine. Not ideal, and I had no say in the matter, so I shoved my laptop into a bag, along with a book, a bottle of water, and a piss poor attitude and headed to the NJT station for a day I had already mentally prepared myself was going to be miserable. I should also mention the weather. It was already close to 80 when I left a little before 8 with humidity at "Florida" levels making it feel even worse and I was of course in a suit and tie (although I carried the jacket for obvious reasons).

In fairness, the trip up could not have gone smoother I got a spot in the parking garage and the train was literally on the platform waiting for me, the express that would get me to Newark Penn in 45 minutes. Upon arrival in Newark, I shuffled down to the Light Rail, which was ALSO waiting for me on the tracks. Two stops and a four block walk later, I was at the office. Door to door in a little over an hour. 

In the afternoon, I had my eye on the 4:33 train. The problems started as soon as I left the office. What had been uncomfortable but tolerable heat in the morning had turned into sidewalk-melting discomfort that made even the couple of block walk unpleasant and of course I had not refilled my water bottle before I left. This time, I had to sit in the Light Rail for like 10 minutes, a dank, humid wait but nothing compared to the sauna that hit me when I got to Penn Station. To add insult to injury, what should have been a roughly 10 minute wait for the NJT train stretched to close to 30 minutes due to delays, and I just was sitting there, slowly melting, dabbing my forehead to clear off the sweat and really struggling since there is no air conditioning in Penn Station, nowhere to really sit and be comfortable (the benches are literally designed to discourage you to sit on them too long to discourage homeless people to use them), and of course the mass of humanity simply added to the heat and humidity. 

When the train finally arrived, there was little relief. The car was of course packed and the air conditioning was not doing much. I tried to stay calm but just felt my energy sapping away, wondering if I was suffering from heat stroke (and of course stressed that poor P and G were waiting patiently at home, no doubt starving even though I'd left a little food for them). After about 20 minutes, I could not read anymore and just basically shut down, the trip interminable. Once I got to my stop, me and what felt like half of Mercer County got out and I had to hump it up 4 levels to get to my car, where I practically collapsed before sitting in full blast A/C for five minutes just to get my energy up a little. A commute that took about an hour and twenty minutes in the morning took twice as long in the afternoon (and with weather about 10x worse). 

It took a good 10 minutes just to get out of the lot because so many people were leaving and I got home like 5 minutes before a massive thunderstorm broke out. I guzzled some water and about half a bottle of Liquid IV which helped and I also jumped in the shower, but of course, like two minutes later, yes, reader, the power went out. Thankfully, it was brief, but still, just an awful cap to the day and that isn't even getting into how out of sorts P and G were, how hot the house was because I set the A/C at 76 when I'm not there but when it's 95 degrees out with a "feels like" of 100 plus, it does not do much, so it was several hours before I unwound properly and the house also cooled enough to get to sleep. What a M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E day. 

The Pitt

Since I'm an old, I still consume most of my TV on, you know, A TV, and not on a phone or an iPad or any other screen, I'm not much of a streamer. So it was a happy coincidence that HBO decided to run a marathon of The Pitt about a week ago. What a great show. The elevator pitch would be 24 meets ER as we follow a group of emergency room doctors (ER) in real time (24) through a 12-hour shift (that extends out to 15 hours due to a mass shooting event). It is propulsive viewing and its binge-ability (for lack of a better term) is both a blessing and a curse. 

The show pretty much draws you in from the get go when we meet Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle, another ER connection), the attending doctor of the emergency room at a Pittsburgh hospital, as he arrives for his shift, talks down Dr. Abbott, his opposite number (literally) off a ledge before digging into the day with his merry band of doctors and nurses. His senior residents Drs. Collins and Langdon, and more junior staff, including Drs. Mohan (aka Slo-Mo for her pace of treatment), McKay (a single mom embroiled in a custody dispute with her ex husband), King (an empathetic, but socially awkward (possibly on the spectrum?)) second year resident, Santos (a mouthy go getter who gets on everyone's nerves), Javadi (a 20-year-old prodigy whose mother is also a doctor in the hospital), and Whitaker (a wet behind the ears medical student from Nebraska). There is also the charge nurse, a no-nonsense but has a heart-of-gold type named Dana and the rest of the staff. 

Over the course of the day, the drama comes fast and furious and all manner of societal ill slaps you in the face. Human sex trafficking victim? Check. Dad molesting his daughter? Check. Little girl drowns in backyard pool? Check. And that says nothing of the more routine gun shot wounds, heart attacks, and mentally ill patients the doctors treat. It is A LOT to absorb and watching it in binge mode can feel like sitting on a train watching the countryside go past. It's all a blur. You simply don't have time to really sit and think about the 19-year-old who dies from an accidental fentanyl overdose because your attention is immediately grabbed to the possibility Dr. Langdon is a drug addict who tampered with medication to hide his problem. Dr. Collins literally miscarries during the middle of her shift, splashes some water on her face, and heads right back out without missing a beat. Each episode covers roughly an hour of the shift but it is so packed with story telling it can be hard to keep up with all of it but the show is so absorbing, you want to immediately start the next episode. 

The binge gives the show a kinetic feel that puts you in the doctors' shoes and a sense of how quickly they must move on because the rigors of the job demand it. Ironically, it is not until the late in the season episodes covering how victims of a mass shooting are treated that the show slows down. There is less time for the personal or dramatic because the sole job is saving lives. And it is to the show writers' credit that during that arc several new doctors (night shift) are introduced with a fully lived in feel that makes you want to get to know them even more.

The acting across the board is top notch. Wyle's Dr. Robby is at turns compassionate, hard assed, and sympathetic. He goes above and beyond to continue doing tests on the teenage overdose victim to placate his parents even though he knows the kid is brain dead but cuts to the chase when two adult children attempt to override their elderly father's living will requests. He is also dealing with trauma of his own - the show occurs on the fourth anniversary of his mentor's death during COVID, and Robby feels responsible for the man's death even though he was not to blame. When Dr. Robby briefly breaks down while the bodies start filling up the ER in the wake of the mass shooting, he feels like he has let down his team. It is to Dr. Abbott, who Robby had talked down at the beginning of the day and who came in to help treat patients to explain that losing it for a minute or two is natural and ok. 

The supporting cast is also outstanding. Each character is so well drawn but also so well acted, it is like they have been playing these characters forever. The show traffics in BIG emotions, be it the waiting room fight between patients arguing over whether a child coughing for an hour should wear a mask to the aunt who brings her niece to the hospital for a medication abortion only to have the mother show up to stop it, the crushing experience (which happens more than once) of parents having to say goodbye to a child, or the fear of a new mother who fears her baby has been stillborn (this was a particularly graphic scene not for the faint of heart) and on and on. I literally gasped at the end of the ninth episode when Dana, taking a smoke break outside, is cold cocked out of nowhere by a disgruntled patient. But to me, it was the smaller moments that felt the most earned. Dr. King relating to an autistic patient with a sprained ankle by turning down the lights in the room and turning off devices that make noise in order to make him feel more comfortable. Whitaker, bouncing back from a couple of very tough experiences early on to show empathy toward Robby when he sees his boss crumpled in a corner reciting a Jewish prayer. Abbott, unwinding with his colleagues after the mass shooting event and taking off his prosthetic leg, saying so much without saying anything at all.

While there are a few nits one could pick like the overbearing administrator who shows up every few hours to complain to Robby about wait times and patient satisfaction, or the not-so-subtle riffs about how doctors and nurses are overworked and underpaid or the patient who was part of a civilian squad of people in the 1960s who helped create the modern 911 system, these are minor critiques in a 15 hour season that is some of the best TV I have seen in a long time. Honestly, my fear is that the show's success will lead the creators to try and top it in season 2. I hope instead they realize the show's strength is in its inter-personal relationships, its examination of how decision making is reached under pressure, and that these are people who are doing the best they can under impossible circumstances. 

30 Years Ago Today

I saw my last Grateful Dead show thirty years ago today, in Pittsburgh. Of course, I did not know at the time that I would never see Jerry again, but it was a fitting end, and I will tell you why. The Dead, for me and my friends, was not just a musical act, the band, and all the attendant swirl around it, was, for a time, basically our lives. We traveled with the band up and down the East Coast and for me at least as far away as Chicago and Indiana. We ditched classes in college to go to shows, we jotted down set lists in little notebooks that themselves became part of the experience. We met strangers in parking lots and became friends, we had weird little interludes, passing moments that we probably did not appreciate fully at the time because no one thought it would ever end.

By 1995, we were expert at the arcane rules for getting mail order tickets and a friend of mine and I were able to secure two for Pittsburgh, a roughly three hour drive from our homes in the DC area. We had no real plan other than to leave in the morning, drive to the show and then turn around and drive back after the show was over. It would be a long day, but when you're young you don't really think about such things. 

Three Rivers Stadium was a concrete mausoleum. Built in the era when multi-purpose stadiums were all the rage, it was a big donut-shaped monstrosity at the confluence of the Alleghany, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers. After doing the standard loops around the parking lots we headed in to our seats on the floor. The show itself was unremarkable for the most part. We did see the band perform a cover of the Talking Heads song "Take Me To The River" (perhaps owing to the location of that day's concert) and they replicated (in part) the "rain" themed songs they had performed at the last show we saw at RFK Stadium just five nights before. A pre-drums Terrapin was .. fine, and a rare Gloria encore closed things out. 

But that wasn't the real story. The real story was a quintessentially Grateful Dead experience we had at the show. To wit, in a stadium of I don't know, 60,000 people, when we got down to the field and to our seats, not fifty feet away from us was a guy we knew in high school who my friend had also went to college with but neither of us had seen in several years. Aside from the randomness of running into someone we had not seen in so long (I mean really, what are the odds?) even more fortuitous was the fact his girlfriend was from the Pittsburgh-area. We spent the show with them and then she graciously offered us a place to stay at her parents home so we did not need to make the long drive back that night. 

Her family home was more like a farm, about 20 minutes outside the city and it was very welcoming. We showered off the "ick" (what I used to call the combination of sweat, stink, and general body odor that accumulated when you spent a summer's day at a show) and slept in something akin to a guest house. A full spread of breakfast was waiting for us when we woke up and our buddy and his girlfriend then led us back out to the interstate so we could head home.

It was that kind of kismet, those random experiences and interactions that I miss, almost more than the music. That day remains a cherished memory and I wanted to acknowledge it.

Matlock Was Always Going To Let You Down

There was a scene about halfway through Matlock's two-part season finale that got me thinking, of all things, The White Lotus (Thailand). Over the strains of Fleetwood Mac's Landslide, Maddie Kingston (aka Maddie Matlock) takes down the so-called crime board she, her husband Edwin, and their grandson Alfie had created to answer the question of who, among the attorneys at Jacobson Moore, had removed an incriminating report from a discovery production done by their pharmaceutical client Wellbrexa highlighting the danger of addiction posed by its opioids. The Kingstons' daughter (and Alfie's mother) Ellie had died from opioid abuse and the trio believed the firm culpable for her death by hiding the report that would have pulled the drug from the market long before her death. 

As Maddie plucks photos and post its off the wall, a montage of her interactions with Olympia, Julian, Sarah, Billy, and Senior flash across the screen. Maddie infiltrated the firm as a sort of sleeper agent, ingratiating herself into the workplace with her cornpone Southern accent and disarming references to her advanced age to piece together most of the mystery of the missing document. But she also remembers the many good times she shared with people who constantly surprised her with their dedication, willingness to fight for what was right, and their friendship. What she had expected to be a quick hit penetration of a place whose lawyers she thought of as amoral was a more nuanced experience, particularly her bond with the hard charging Olympia, who slowly allowed Maddie in as a confidante and whose betrayal Maddie felt acutely.

Once the board was cleared, Maddie thumb tacked a photo of her, Edwin, and Ellie to the board and in that moment, much like the look of serenity that came across Rick's face after meeting Jim Hollinger and seeing him not as some arch villain who ruined Rick's life and killed his father, but as a frail old man, part of me thought Maddie would simply let sleeping dogs lie and instead of going forward with her plan to expose the firm, and in particular, Olympia's now ex-husband Julian as the guilty party, simply continue working there while letting go of her desire for revenge. 

And, much like Rick's inability to let go, Maddie could not either. Both shows and characters are bent on revenge, but as Matlock hurtled toward the end of its season, it did a great job of examining the same question The White Lotus broached - what cost is paid when we seek revenge? In Rick's case, he paid with his life and that of his partner Chelsea. For Maddie, the costs were more nuanced, but no less devastating. Her lies lost her the trust of Olympia, triggered Sarah into risking her job by taking on a client unbeknownst to Olympia (and in violation of firm policy), and led her to take advantage of other people in the firm, manipulating them into helping her get the information she needed. At the same time, while Edwin was preparing for them to return to their old lives, Maddie's passion for the law had been reawakened through her work at the firm. He looks forward to tackling the bucket list items they have back in San Francisco, she wants to continue working as a litigation attorney in New York. The desire to find justice for their daughter has not only consumed their lives but altered how they each view what their lives should be and affected the lives of the people Maddie works with. 

Of course, the beauty of The White Lotus is that each season is self-contained. Stories resolve and the cycle starts anew. Matlock is a procedural and so its season one ending was inevitably going to be ambiguous. Olympia, unwilling to accept that Julian would violate basic ethical duties, is committed to exonerating him, but in doing so, she is drawn into precisely the kinds of manipulative actions that Maddie now realizes poisons relationships. Doing so lands her in a bank vault with a safety deposit box opened and the incriminating study binder clipped within it. If finding the literal smoking gun was not enough, Julian shows up and confirms he did in fact remove the document, at his father's direction, nearly 15 years earlier. He pleads his case, or at least tries to explain that as a young lawyer trying to make his dad happy, Julian did something he understood was wrong and argued that he is a different (and better person) than he had been all those years ago. 

The price revenge exacts on the one seeking it comes into sharp relief. Had Olympia not pried into Maddie's background, she never would have learned of her duplicity and by extension, learned of her ex husband's perfidy. As a partner, she now has two massive problems - she has a fiduciary duty to the firm and now knows it would experience humiliation if Maddie's infiltration of the firm and exposure of their malpractice becomes public. Moreover, she now knows the father of her children did it, which exposes him to public humiliation as well. On the other hand, Olympia believes strongly in doing what's right and, as a mother, empathizes with Maddie's desire to see the people who she sees as being responsible for her daughter's death be brought to justice. 

While the writers set up Season 2 to answer these questions, they lack the whodunit-ness of Season 1. After all, the mystery that triggered Maddie's desire for justice has been solved, it is just a question of whether Olympia will tell Maddie what she discovered. And while that is enough to fill some storyline, the finale showed that the writers know far more needs to be put on the plate to fill out the meal. Billy's ex-girlfriend Claudia is pregnant with their child, Sarah is feeling herself after notching her first trial victory but has drawn the attention of her nemesis at the firm, who suspects Sarah of obtaining this client against firm policy, and Alfie's father shows up at the family's front door. Are his motives to simply be in Alfie's life or attempt to take the boy away from his grandparents? That is a lot of narrative runway to fill a season and suggests the Wellbrexa storyline will just be one of many, not the central focus. The big reveal of Julian's complicity was not a Perry Mason moment, rather, it was a melancholy and muted ending that will require Olympia, and to a lesser extent Maddie, to decide whether revenge is worth it and what justice looks like. These are existential questions that can lack the flash and pop that TV procedurals traffic in, but the show has, to its credit, tried to reach for a higher plane than most of what is still on network TV. As they say in the business, stay tuned ...