Category Archives: TV

Mystery Boxes

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We discovered From via random targeted social media ads. It’s in its third season and currently airs on a service called MGM+. I’m not sure what MGM “normal” stands for, so the idea that I’m getting “plus” remains confusing to me. I know the lion; is it a bigger lion? A louder roar? 

From comes to us from at least one of the producers of Lost, Jack Bender, who also directs a bunch of episodes. It stars Harold Perrineau, a terrific actor who appeared on Lost but was not served well by their storytelling. I didn’t recognize anyone from the rest of the cast; there’s a guy who’s off-brand Paul Rudd, a pushy lady, an annoying kid, etc. They shoot it in Nova Scotia so I assume they paid for Perrineau and then picked up the rest of the cast from local repertory companies. I hope this is a good gig for all of them. 

I admire its purity. It’s a mystery box show that’s far more interested in the box than its victims. It pays enough lip service to character development that we have a pang of concern for these folks as they face outlandish challenges. But it’s really an onslaught of maladies, from food spoiling for no clear reason to the cadre of creepy monsters that only come out at night and are kept at bay by mysterious “talismen” in each of the small community’s homes. 

It’s a partial town, a few houses and a police station and a diner, a little church and some municipal building that’s now a clinic. And it doesn’t seem to really exist even though it does; the people who arrive there are never able to leave. They disappear from the point of view of the “real world.” 

There’s a creepy backstory that’s being slowly unveiled, weird caves with dead children walking around, a phone that only receives calls from the dead. Is there some mystical anguish deep in the soil of this place that is no place? Or is it a malevolent force torturing these souls with a deliberate menu of tricks and deceptions? 

Do I care? I don’t think so. I watch From while I scroll on my phone. I occasionally surface to keep up with the latest tragedy to befall these poor people I barely know. Recently after their crops mysteriously spoiled, the night monsters (who are all dressed up like 1950s stereotypes, the milkman and the cheerleader and so forth) petulantly let all the goats and cows out of their confines. This forced the residents to leave their homes at night to save the animals, and thus make themselves available for slaughtering. 

Ultimately, this led to Perrineau’s long-suffering town sheriff tied up in a barn watching a sweet old Korean lady being graphically murdered by these monsters, while he could do nothing to stop them. It’s basic cable levels of gore, so it’s not like torture porn…more like torture Cinemax Friday After Dark. 

It can be a brutal show, but horror in general can be brutal; the “mystery box” of it all adds a level of compulsion, if you are the kind of person to be drawn into these sort of things. That’s why I admire its purity; it’s not ashamed of what it is, and it doesn’t try really to elevate itself. There’s not a lot of deeper mystical meaning. 

That’s not to diminish what it does. It effectively maintains these mysteries in a way that suggests there is an answer (although fool me twice, shame on me). The actors bring credibility and grit to the scripts. It invites you to climb into the mystery box, but it’s also easy to climb back out when it’s over, and move on with the broader mystery box of human existence. 

I’ve Never Heard You Sing!

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“Are we made for war, Izaya? You know–I’ve never heard you sing!”
–Jack Kirby, New Gods #7, 1972

There are things that MATTER, to each of us; and then there are things that don’t really matter but still matter. Social media is a constant push and pull between sharing all of those things, in ways that feel comfortable, and ideally without the classic Reply Guy emerging in your space to say “Well achtchuallyeah, that doesn’t matter at all” or “What matters to you matters so little to me, I will shit on it and then drift on with my life.” 

Don’t yuck my yum. We told our kids that and I think of it every day on social media. I work at home, I spend more time alone than is probably “healthy,” and I am trapped in my head too often. I have often looked to social media as a way to connect to the outside world in a way that’s meaningful, without having to prowl my city to find the one other dude who is both way into the new Rings of Power show on Amazon and the recorded works of Elvis Costello. 

When you put something out into social, and no one seems to notice, I guess that sucks? But when you put something out and the Reply Guys appear, it really sucks. But how else do you create interactions, if not to reply? And how else do you create dialogue if not to disagree? 

It’s a sticky wicket. 

Anyway, I’ve come around on Rings of Power in its second season, and I live in fear of mentioning it because I do not need an army of Reply Guys to tell me why Tolkien is rolling over in his grave, threatening to disrupt the prosthetic elf ears carefully glued to his corpse to honor his final wish. 

Overall I think I was a little iffy on season one. Maybe I was overly critical of it, or maybe it wasn’t as good? Looking back it does feel like a shitload of setup, how much was necessary?

But I am A Dense Man and so I will confess, it did not lock in for me until like S2E2 that this is basically the story of the prologue of the LOTR movies told in full. I guess for some crazy reason I assumed it was just trying to draw thin lines of plot thread out of all these appendices and whatever leftovers Amazon had the rights to. Realizing that this story “matters” to the stories I already know and love from the Peter Jackson movies immediately upped my interest.

As these tumbler pieces of plot and pathos click into place, I think the show has risen to the occasion. it’s been incredible watching Annatar/Sauron slowly seduce Celebrimbor, and then leave him hanging as a broken betrayed man completely suckered by ego. As Annatar/Sauron, Charlie Vickers is delivering a performance for the ages. Fully revealed to the audience as the embodiment of manipulative evil, his every glance and gesture is carefully measured. His arm is touched with gentle intent and he struggles not to destroy whoever is attached to the kind hand. His contempt is always barely contained, his true power carefully concealed until it benefits him to use it. 

And there are moments that stand in the same company as Jackson’s LOTR films, although I’d not dare to suggest they’re “better.” The siege of Eregion presented in S2E7 feels tactile and brutal in ways that television typically does not achieve. There’s real scale in it; watching the short “making of” featurettes after each episode, you can actually see they’re going to real places for some of this stuff. There’s plenty of CGI and plenty of it looks a little crappy, but there’s moments where the CGI is enriching and supplementing something originally shot practically, and those moments carry unexpected weight. 

I’ve tried at least three times to read the Lord of the Rings novels and failed. (I did read the Hobbit often as a kid.) I’m not really a Toliken guy, but I’ll court the fury of some Reply Guy somewhere and suggest that while I can’t say if this is “faithful” to Tolkien’s work, this does feel like something he would have come up with. If he were still alive, and the LOTR movies made a shitload of money, and they paid him dumptrucks full of gold to develop a prequel, this feels like something he might have approved. 

And if not, who cares? Are we made for the onslaught of Reply Guys? I’m enjoying it. And that doesn’t MATTER to me, but it matters, so I’m eager to discuss it, but wary of the yuck to my yum. So it goes.