Chrisicisms: TV Catch Up
Let's talk Star Wars, Peacemaker, Righteous Gemstones and a bit of murder.
As you’re receiving this email, I’m about 30,000 feet above the ground on my way to Orlando for a much-needed vacation with my wife. We’d hoped to spend our 10th anniversary at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, but planning it for last March (when it was our anniversary) didn’t make much sense in the age of COVID. So, we’re heading down now for a kid-free week of riding roller coasters, drinking butterbeer and eating inadvisable amounts of bad food.
But not to worry! I was able to get several posts written and scheduled in advance, so you won’t miss a thing here at Chrisicisms! I have a Lent series starting on Wednesday, and the final installment in my Batman Franchise Friday series at the end of the week.
Today, though, I wanted to take some time to write about TV. When I first started this newsletter, I used to take more time to talk about the art and pop culture I was consuming. Now that the focus has shifted to mainly one topic for each newsletter, I don’t write about TV or books like I used to. So, periodically, I’ll try to get back into that.
None of these TV shows are exactly new; in fact, I was way behind the times on two of them. But they were all worth writing about. I’m also enjoying Severance, the new sci-fi thriller from Ben Stiller on Apple TV +, and Yellowjackets on Showtime, but as I’ve only seen a handful of episodes of each, I’m not really in a position to write more about them yet.
Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)
I was super behind on this one, and I don’t quite understand why. When episodes debuted in August, my wife and I sat down to watch it. We’ve always enjoyed Steve Martin and Martin Short — I skipped my 20th high school reunion a few years back because we had tickets to one of their shows — and we liked the episodes we saw. But somehow, we fell several months behind on this comedy-mystery, and only recently went back to finish it.
The series follows three tenants of a New York apartment. Steve Martin is a former actor who was famous for a police procedural several years earlier. Martin Short’s character is a Broadway producer responsible for several fiascos who is one step away from eviction. And Selena Gomez is a young lady with a secret past. The three connect over their shared love of true-crime podcasts, and when a neighbor is murdered, they decide the obvious next step is to make their own show where they solve the crime.
When this show was announced, I assumed it would be a silly farce, in the same vein as the stand-up comedy and revue stylings of the duo’s stage show. And while Only Murders in the Building is often very funny, what’s most impressive is that the show’s mystery is well thought out and its characters are often very compelling, with backstories that lend them a weight and sadness that we usually don’t see from these two iconic comedians. Both actors go broad when necessary — Martin, in particular, has the opportunity for some wonderful physical comedy in the finale — but they also create well-rounded, sympathetic and lonely characters. Gomez shows a gift for snark and fits in really well with the crew.
Only Murders in the Building is fun as both a well-developed mystery and an entertaining commentary on true crime-obsession and do-it-yourself podcast culture. It allows incorporates some really great supporting performances, including Nathan Lane, Tina Fey, Sting and the always-great Amy Ryan. By the time it resolves the mystery in the season finale, it’s already established itself as a delightful series, but it also sets up the hook for a second season I can’t wait for. Glad to see these two icons still going all out.
Peacemaker (HBO Max)
I enjoyed James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad well enough when it was released last August. The big-budget comic book movie was subversive, gorey fun, allowing Gunn to indulge the bad taste of his Troma days on a much larger canvas. But I didn’t go as ga-ga for it as others did; it was fun and made me laugh, but its flippancy often worked against it. I particularly didn’t like John Cena’s one-note Peacemaker, a character who seemed to exist for shock value and nothing else.
So, consider me gob-smacked that Gunn’s Cena-centric Suicide Squad spinoff was not just hugely entertaining; this crass, ultraviolet comedy series is one of the best pieces of superhero cinema I’ve seen and easily my favorite television show so far this year. If it took a middle-of-the-road action movie to get us here, it was worth it.
The key is that while The Suicide Squad made Peacemaker an asshole for the sake of being an asshole, Peacemaker gets under the skin of that assholeishness. Chris Smith is crass, misogynistic and quick-triggered (his motto is that he fights for peace…”no matter how many men, women and children I have to kill for it”). But the events of The Suicide Squad, including his cold-blooded killing of Rick Flag, have made him question his actions and motives. What’s worse, he’s been raised by an bigotted, purely evil man (Robert Patrick) who openly muses about killing him and once moonlit as a racist super villain.
There’s a plot to Peacemaker involving aliens and body takeovers, but it really serves as an excuse to bring Peacemaker into a flawed team that learns to function as a dysfunctional ad-hoc family. Throughout, Peacemaker begins to understand why he keeps people at a distance and starts to develop friendships he usually would have pushed away. And while he’s willing to be violent for the sake of saving the world, he also learns he’s tired of killing people.
Peacemaker might be Gunn’s finest work, combining the sleazy, over-the-top carnage of Super and Slither with the R-rated humor of his Troma days, all filtered through the surprising earnestness he brought to the Guardian of the Galaxy films. It’s the rare show that includes bloody shootouts punctuated with gross-out gore gags that is also able to pivot to affecting drama and moments of character growth. And it’s all fueled by a gloriously trashy hair metal soundtrack (and if you haven’t seen the show’s opening credits sequence yet, spend an hour or two reveling in that now).
Among the pro wrestlers who have become successful actors, I’ve always positioned Cena between Dave Bautisa and Dwayne Johnson. He doesn’t quite have the former’s range and deftness, but he’s willing to joke at his expense in a way Johnson, who seems obsessed with brand management, can’t. Cena had a great deal of fun skewering his brick wall physique in movies like Trainwreck, although more serious fare like F9 leaves him floundering. But Gunn pulls a masterful comedic and dramatic performance from him; in the space of two episodes, Cena seems just as comfortable dancing around in his tighty-whities as he does sobbing into his pillow, and he of course handles the action sequences masterfully. He’s surrounded by a terrific ensemble, including Steve Agee as a smartass tech worker with his own insecurities, Jennifer Holland as the team leader who can’t bring her guard down, and Danielle Brooks as an out-of-her-depth field agent. Freddie Stroma earns some big laughs as the young antihero/psychopath Vigilante, and Patrick delivers another terrifying and iconic villain role.
I’ve been very open before that when it comes to the Marvel vs. DC battle, I’m an MCU fan. And I think Marvel has had a much more consistent output over the years. When DC projects bomb, they usually bomb hard. But there’s a wild card quality to some of their work that often is bolder and more subversive than Marvel’s formula allows. I may not like Joker at all, but I love that Warner Brothers took a risk on it. I think Birds of Prey is a weird-ass little comedy that is a ton of fun. And Peacemaker ends up being the best of the DC universe as well, mainly because it leans not into comic book mythos but into its storyteller’s unhinged vision (and is happy to skewer DC mythology wherever it wants, whether that’s giving Superman a poop fetish or bringing in some surprising cameos an hour too late in the finale). As a result, Peacemaker is funnier, more thrilling and more resonant than anything either house has put out in a long time, and more proof that James Gunn is a creative force to be reckoned with.
The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+)
I always rolled my eyes when people suggested a movie or TV show about Boba Fett. The character was famous as a piece of iconography and toyetics, showing up and looking badass in The Empire Strikes Back before dying in Return of the Jedi. He was a jetpack and helmet, not a character, and I wasn’t sure we really needed to return to him or flesh him out.
After a season of The Book of Boba Fett, I still stand by that. This seven-episode series is a narrative mess redeemed only when it decides to change the channel on itself five episodes in to just become a secret season of The Mandalorian.
It’s no fault of Temeura Morrison, who is fittingly gruff and intimidating as the titular bounty hunter and one-time Sarlacc snack. Morrison was a highlight on The Mandalorian, and I guess I can understand why Lucasfilm thought it would be smart to have him headline a miniseries about the iconic character. But aside from an interesting backstory about Boba embedding himself in a herd of Tusken Raiders, they never figure out what their antihero wants. He’s ostensibly there to take over the crime syndicate once run by Jabba the Hutt, but the show never explains by a one-time bounty hunter would want to instead be a crime boss. There isn’t an overarching goal or any high personal stakes; for much of the first half of the season, Boba simply floats in a healing tank, and the story meanders through his negotiations with local underlords and politicians.
It doesn’t help that much of the action in the first few episodes is confusingly filmed and too often shockingly inert. Robert Rodriguez, responsible for the badass El Mariachi and Desperado films, directs several episodes, but his action sequences lack any sense of geography and his chase sequences feel robbed of any speed or urgency. The show occasionally trots out familiar Star Wars iconography to goose nerd interest (hey, it’s a Wookie! Oh, it’s those green pig guys! Look kids, it’s Stephen Root!).
It feels like the writers were also bored with Boba, and halfway through, the season abandons him for the better of two episodes to bring in Mando. And the show noticeably picks up in these moments. It’s great to see Pedro Pascal back in the Beskar armor, and the show quickly reaches into The Mandalorian’s bag of tricks to keep audiences engaged, constantly yelling “You like Grogu? Look he’s going to try to eat a frog! Here’s young Luke Skywalker again! Oh, remember when Timothy Olyphant joined the Star Wars universe? You loved Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka, right? Well, here she is, right before she leaves for her own spinoff!” It might be cheap fan service at the expense of plot points that should probably have been saved for The Mandalorian’s upcoming third season, but it does work in goosing the show’s focus and energy.
All of this collides together in a finale that works in spite of itself. I can’t explain exactly why there’s a huge fight that takes up the end of episode seven, or why the show waited until the penultimate episode to bring in its most striking villain, a blue-skinned/red-eyed cowboy named Cad Bane. But the show glosses over those questions in favor of some (finally) coherent action, lots of pew-pew-pew blaster fights, a giant Rancor wreaking havoc, and a final shot of Baby Yoda squealing in joy as he and Mando fly away at lightspeed. None of it makes sense, but it’s fun to watch and catnip for Star Wars nerds. As a season of TV, it’s absolutely a mess; but as a bit of Star Wars nerdiness to hold us over until more Mandalorian, it’s a harmless distraction.
The Righteous Gemstones (HBO and HBO Max)
I’m writing this before the Feb. 27 finale, which I likely won’t have time to watch before heading out on vacation. So, I guess it’s possible that the HBO series could fall apart at the end of its second season, but I’m confident it’s in good hands.
When The Righteous Gemstones debuted a few years back, I enjoyed it but also was a bit frustrated that a comedy about an American religious dynasty (syndicate might be a better word) seemed to lack any insight into the characters’ theological background or beliefs. This highly dysfunctional family seemed only to exist to assert their dominance, indulge their pride and wage wars of power.
As the second season comes to a close, I totally get it.
The Righteous Gemstones is what American Christianity looks like without any responsibility to stick to ethics, morality or doctrine. It’s a skewering of the ultimate end of the prosperity gospel, in which its leaders parrot talk of Jesus and prayer but exist only to pad their bank account and build up for themselves timeshare resorts in Florida. Jesse, Judy and Kelvin Gemstone aren’t seeking a seat next to the Heavenly Father, but instead obsessed with seeking the seat of their earthly father, Eli (John Goodman); and if they can earn his approval in the process, while also taking their siblings down a peg, all the better. It’s a 30-minute, more overtly comedic version of Succession, just with a few more prayers and a lot more penises (the show is not sexual at all, but gives Jackass a run for the money with gratuitous, unflattering male nudity, often as a way to humiliate its characters).
This season’s plot is much more complex than the hit-and-run/blackmail thread that powered season 1. It involves a murdered journalist (Jason Schwartzman), a skeezy old friend from Eli’s past (Eric Roberts), a Texas power couple interested in launching the world’s first Christian timeshare resort (Eric Andre and Jessica Lowe) and a cult of holy muscle men led by, and eager to take advantage of, Kelvin. It eventually involves gun-crazy gangs of “motorcycle ninjas,” the Memphis mafia and dark secrets from Eli’s past.
But the plot, as bonkers as it gets, is beside the point. At heart, The Righteous Gemstones is a comedy about the impossibility of being a functional family when you’re fueled by immense wealth and manipulation. It’s about petty sibling rivalries that are constantly poked, but abandoned briefly if an interloper threatens the family. It’s about insecurity and how it turns us all into pathetic, power-hungry dolts. And it’s about abandoning the heart of religion in order to use it as a tool for manipulation, greed and self-advancement. The Righteous Gemstones is a show full of despicable characters, and yet their self-loathing and misplaced pride (which often go hand in hand) keeps them oddly sympathetic.
It helps that the cast is so great. There are few people who play pathetic machismo better than Danny McBride, who also finds a few moments to be surprisingly earnest this season. Every insane word out of Judy Gemstone’s mouth invites big laughs when delivered by Edi Patterson. And the strange mix of short-man syndrome, homoeroticism and daddy issues that plague Kelvin allow Adam Devine to create one of the most purely funny characters on TV. There are few better fits for actor and character than Walton Goggins and sleazy huckster Baby Billy. t goes without saying that Goodman continues to be god-tier in this show, and the show’s new additions get on the weird wavelength put together by McBride and co-creators Jody Hill and David Gordon Green (who worked with McBride on his previous HBO shows, Eastbound and Down and Vice Principals).
There are times when The Righteous Gemstones is an unpleasant watch as it portrays a deeply broken family and an unholy mixture of Christianity and American greed. But the bleaker it gets, the harder the jokes land, and the show’s twists come fast and furious. The Righteous Gemstone isn’t for everyone, but I’m grateful we’ve been blessed with it.