Empire: "Poor Yorick"

When was the last time you went into the woods, stood in a small clearing no more than 15 feet in
diameter, and saw that you were surrounded by a group of identical trees? Never mind surrounded, when was the last time you saw as few as two trees that looked exactly the same with the same unique identifying characteristics and were right next to each other? I ask because I'm a born and raised city kid, and even living in a beautiful state like Florida, I make it a point not to spend anymore time than needed outside. But I'm honestly curious about whether or not this is a common phenomenon that I've just never heard of or witnessed before. And I ask because such a question is what was rattling around in my mind during one of the important scenes in this week's Empire episode. The problem with this is that while main characters are trying to dig up dead bodies on a TV show, I shouldn't be stuck thinking, "But that's not how trees work."

The willing suspension of disbelief is a two-way street. I'm willing to meet a storyteller halfway most of the time. I'm willing to do my part and turn a blind eye to silly and nonsensical things in an effort to best enjoy the story, but you have to give me a story worth enjoying first. There's actually a great example of the show doing just that in the previous episode. The Lyons sit down to dinner in the wake of Lucious' release. Never mind how ridiculous it is that all these characters who hate each other and have split up, gotten back together, and split up once again would agree to just head over to Lucious' house to sit down to a meal. I'm willing to overlook the ridiculousness that is the origin of this dinner party in favor of the fun and drama of seeing these stupid characters all in the same place at the same time. In other words, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief in favor of the juicy soapy story that I find far more interesting than I do the continued woes of Andre and Rhonda and the Clue case of finding Uncle Vernon dead in the living room by candle stick. So if you can't make the story interesting, at the very least you have to make it make sense, and the two of them forgetting where they buried Vernon because all the trees in this one small space are 100% identical does not make sense, so the entire scene crumbles as a result.

Which is a shame because I was rather enjoying most of the episode before that. "Poor Yorick" is an odd tale of two halves. The first half feels like some of the better aspects of Empire that we've seen this season. The second half kind of falls apart. The entire episode is written and directed by Danny Strong, so I don't understand the reason behind the loss of logic past the midpoint, but there it is. One minute everything flows consistently and the drama feels organic, and the next minute Cookie's got weird PTSD flashes leading to stupid behavior and Hakeem is stabbing a painting that shouldn't be there in the first place.

But I feel like I've spent so much time talking about the bad of this season that I want to focus a bit more on the good. Starting with the opening FBI raid of Empire and the song it's set to. The music of this season hasn't felt as stand out and impressive as the music from last season. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think the music last year was setting any new standards or heights for contemporary Hip Hop, but a lot of it was at least catchy and memorable. They'd spent so long teasing "No Apologies" that it was impossible not to recognize the beat and the hook by the time we finally got to hear it in an episode. While I don't think "Battle Cry" is quite on that same level, it's easily my favorite song so far this season, and I thought setting it against the FBI raid was both really on the nose (as tends to be the case with Empire songs) and really entertaining. The opening scene offers good music, the chance for a bit of levity from Becky (which is always appreciated), and an opportunity to push some aspects of the story forward. It's a lot of heavy lifting for one Empire scene, and I'd commend them for it.

Also in the good column was seeing Adam Busch guest staring as the artist photographer brought in to come up with a cover for Jamal's Rolling Stone appearance. Seeing another Buffy alum show up in an episode written and directed by Danny Strong was really quite great. And I have to say I like his weird sloppy artistic energy. And I like the way he was flirting with Jamal throughout their scenes together. What I don't like are the shots of Jamal's useless and annoying boyfriend looking all pained over it, but I've said more than enough about how I feel about Michael at this point. Suffice it to say, if Adam Busch can manage to stick around, I'm going to start hoping for him to replace Rafael de la Fuente as Jamal's love interest. It's nothing against Fuente himself, who I think is easy on the eyes and talented enough to stick around. It's just that Michael was ruined for me last season and they don't seem at all interested in doing any character rehab on him this season, nor have they justified his continued presence on the show, so I'm ready for him leave. Couple that with the fact that I think Busch's character has a kind of vision and an energy that I'd really like to see paired with Jamal. I don't know that they'd make each other better, but I do think these two characters could stand to make each other more interesting which is a lot more than I can say about Jamal's current relationship.

There was one more small moment in this episode that I really enjoyed, but it was so insignificant that I almost don't want to mention it. The shot of Hakeem at that bar prepared to send Jamal an apology through text only to delete it and change his mind. It's not that he's not sorry, it's that he can't bring himself to say it just yet, and there's a lot going on in Bryshere Gray's face in that quick scene. I think all three of the Lyons' boys have had impressive moments this season and this was Hakeem's. Never mind that it doesn't seem like the kind of bar that Hakeem would ever be caught dead in; the whole thing simply hints at an aspect of this story I'd like to see them explore deeper: the effect this rift is having on Jamal and Hakeem specifically. They had the strongest relationship of last season, and seeing them put through their paces this year has been painful and sad. It only makes sense that they'd feel dubious about the actions they're having to take for one reason or another, and I'd like to see more of those little cracks in the facade.

The rest of the episode is stock Empire fare by this time. The good thing about this episode is that there are at least small tidbits of good that weren't really a part of the previous few installments. So it seems they haven't fully forgotten how to tell good stories, but I don't think this is some kind of turning point for things. Something has to jolt this show into gear before it starts to feel like we're all just wasting our time here. Here's hoping finding a dead body in a passenger seat is that thing.

Random Thoughts:

--Cookie and Lucious have a funny scene where they shoot barbs at each other the likes of which only two people with their history would really be able to pull off.

--I think this show has to figure out what they want to do with Anika. All this back and forth bouncing between Cookie and Lucious isn't working. And while it seems like they've got her making moves to benefit Lyon Dynasty, all of them have been off screen and therefore might as well not happen at all. I've never seen a worse case of a character spinning their wheels.

--The music video scene was sadly predictable. I knew Jamal would throw the first punch, and I knew the bat would come into play. It's too bad because the more I see those boys together the more I remember that that's the best state for them. Talk about two people capable of making one another better.

--I haven't mentioned it yet, but I do think Andre Royo has been a joy as Lucious' lawyer.

--“If I die in police custody, I did not commit suicide.” It’s funny coming out of Cookie’s mouth, but the sad reality behind it and the necessity of it is tragic. Still better than seeing her in that gorilla suit though.

Sense8 S2 Episodes 5-8

“Who can say if it is we that make the choice, or the choice that makes us?”

Capheus' line from the fifth episode gets at one of my favorite aspects of this show: the question of

what makes us who we are. And also how who we are can bind us to others from around the world no matter how dissimilar we might seem. It also comes in the moment I knew I was going to go all in on this show. I think the 4 Non Blondes singalong from the fourth episode was a landmark moment of the series, but the conversation between Sun and Capheus in this episode marked the true strength of the series for me. It's two people who couldn't be more different; Capheus an African man with an exuberant and outgoing, optimistic personality, and Sun a Korean woman who is more reserved and internal and strongly pragmatic than most of the other characters. They get together and they just talk. There's no running, no shooting, no action, no big time governmental conspiracy behind their conversation, simply two very different people talking and finding out that they aren't very different at all.

I love the conversation that they have. I love the sheer amount of "I" statements found in it. Sun's isolation and struggle to answer the question before her calls Capheus to her in spite of how much she wants to be alone, but instead of having some kind of "tell me your problems and let me offer a solution" moment, Capheus talks about his family and his history with his mother. Sun talks about her family and her last moment with her mother. And through these similar relationships and experiences, the two of them arrive at a solution for their respective problems. Capheus remembers the importance of keeping his promise to care for his mother through everything, and Sun remembers the importance of keeping her promise to protect her brother and father. It's clear that their decisions to work for Mr. Kabaka and to go to prison respectively will setup their stories moving forward, but for the time being, it's just two people talking mostly about themselves, finding their similarities, and wading their way towards a hard choice.

The way the show can strike a balance between these quieter moments, and the bigger more action based ones is to its credit. But the second act of this 12 hour long movie also exposes some of the weakness in the storytelling. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that it exposes the very very fine line that I think the show walks sometimes successfully and sometimes a bit more wobbly. I talked in the last review about the pacing issues, how slow the show can feel through those early moments, and about when the show decides to release certain information. The biggest element of these in this second act comes in the form of the closure of Dr. Metzger's influence on Nomi's story.

It takes a full seven episodes before we find out who Metzger is actually working for. This information reshapes our interaction with Nomi's stint in the hospital from the first four episodes. He isn't some shadowy monster hired by her bigoted family to lobotomize her. He's a shadowy figure from a huge multinational conglomeration, BPO, who has been working to lobotomize senseates all around the world. That makes far more sense! Forgive my flippant tone here. In all honestly I do think that this explanation makes far more sense than the assumptions we were left to make before hand, but I also think the conspiracy storyline is the weakest within the show. But more on that in a future review.

This question of what information to release and when is at the heart of most storytelling. And the truth is I'm still not sure if I think Sense8 answers it properly. Telling us something more about Metzger when he was gearing up to perform the surgery would have changed my view of that particular story early on and helped things make a little bit more sense. It would have changed my perception of Nomi's mother from a cartoonishly evil villain, into someone who has her flaws but still honestly thought she was doing the right thing for her daughter. But having this information then would have eliminated the mystery aspect of finding it out here. So what's more important: giving your audience the information they need to make a scene make sense at the time, or preserving the mystery? I don't know that I have an answer to that question, but what is clear is that Sense8 chose the mystery and to a certain extent the first three episodes suffered as a result of that choice. If anyone couldn't make it through those episodes because they didn't have this information, then I wouldn't be able to blame them, but getting it here was a lot of fun and they certainly missed out.

There are two scenes in this collection of episodes that I think are just as much landmark scenes for the show as the singalong from the first act was. The first being the orgy scene in the sixth episode. It comes (pardon the pun) smack in the middle of the series (it's the center-most point of the center-most episode), and it is phenomenal. It's hot no matter how many times you watch, it's an unabashed moment of the producers saying, "Look at how beautiful our cast is," and it also answers one of those silly and simple but still important questions that sci-fi stories often have to grapple with: What's sex look like for these people now that they've been born to their new lives? The answer is hot, pansexual, international, and intense. And good for them! There's also something important about the fact that Sun, Riley, and Capheus are missing from the sexy fun times (though I can't really spot a solid reason for Kala's absence. Maybe she's sleeping). Lito and Nomi are having sex with their respective partners, Wolfie is turned on by a woman at the naked spa he seems to spend so much time at, and Will is exercising which we all know releases endorphins and gets you all worked up. So everyone participating in the mind orgy is already in that aroused headspace and get those emotions kicked up a notch by the actions of two members of the cluster. Riley, and Sun, however, feel sad and troubled at this moment. And Capheus is bored but trying to remain professional as he waits for his boss's daughter to finish her treatment. These three, even though they all seem to be awake at the moment the mind orgy happens, are not experiencing emotions that would allow for them to participate. Capheus at least seems to get a boredom boner while watching another Van Damme movie, but that's the extent of the effect. It shows, in my opinion, that the people behind the show are still really thinking about the deeper implications of everything they're doing. And this conscious and reasonable exclusion of specific characters takes a scene that otherwise might have been totally gratuitous and makes it an important moment of deepening the show's mythology.

But it also exposes one more potential problem with the storytelling. It feels like the producers know the portions of the story they're focused on now might be a bit slow and boring, and so every now and then they toss the viewers a bone to get them over the hump. Some of the action sequences and certainly the mind orgy scene feel as though they fall into that trap. They aren't wrong, per se; the story through this middle section of the show was especially slow and boring to me on this second viewing. But much as Game of Thrones often used sex and nudity to spice up what they thought was a boring exposition scene in their first season, Sense8 is trying to mask the fact that they couldn't come up with a more natural way to make the story engaging in its own rights by throwing sex at us as a distraction. I agree with the tactic here more than I did on Game of Thrones because 1) the scenes on Game of Thrones weren't as boring as the showrunners thought they were and therefore didn't need spicing up, and 2) because the sex here actually does do a good job of deepening the mythology of the show as I said. So if the distraction can still hold some level of importance, then I can't see a reason to fully dissuade them from using it. Though I would suggest maybe choosing a more interesting and engaging story for next season so you don't have to fall back on these tricks.

The other scene is Nomi's big action sequence towards the end of the eighth episode. This is the start of the other reason I think I love this show more after a first season than I do most other shows in the same time frame. One of the reasons I don't care for first seasons as much as I do subsequent seasons of a show is because I'd much rather see characters in control of their skills and abilities than simply learning how to get there. One of my favorite moments in Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes in the finale of the fifth season when Buffy goes out back to kill a vampire like it's nothing and then walks back in to continue the conversation about how she's going to save her sister from a god. Vampires through the first three seasons represented a serious threat to the group. Every night offered Buffy a difficult fight, and the villains she was most frightened of (Spike, Drusilla, The Master) were all just vampires. But by the time you reach the fifth season, slaying a vampire is just "what I do," as she puts it.

While the senseates aren't quiet as in control after their first eight episodes, the start of that control is beginning to shine through. Will and Nomi are drawn together through their simultaneous investigation into the BPO issue. And so he helps her to escape when Whispers is coming for her. Her distress wakes up Sun who joins with Will's knowledge of basic police procedure to keep them informed of what's happening and to give Sun a leg up in her fighting with predetermined information. All of this is seamless, and when you consider that Sun hasn't spent much, if any, time with either Will or Nomi before now, you see that there's an ease with which she can come to their rescue and do her thing. Likewise, as soon as Nomi gets into the car and remembers that she doesn't know how to drive, here comes Capheus with his exceptional driving skills to help her out. It's a fun and important scene that showcases a taste of just what is possible through the senseate connection. If this is what can happen when just four of them Share with each other and use their skills to help one another get through a tough situation, then imagine what it will be like when all eight of them work in tandem. Honestly, I don't think it's spoiling anything to say that we won't have to wait for the realities of that too much longer. To give us the satisfaction of that in the midst of the first season is remarkable. And it feels, at least to me, like its happened sooner here than it would have in most other shows.

The other stories drag a little through these middle passages as the show works to setup the final moments. A lot of what happens here is clearly just table-setting of everything to come. Felix gets shot and ends up in a coma with Wolfie by his side. It's a tragic thing that stems clearly from their theft and sale of the diamonds in the first act; before he's shot, Felix is panicking about the fact that he tried to get in touch with Abraham and hasn't been able to. But there's still something that feels a bit more liminal about it all. I was invested the first time I watched it, and even still invested now, but it's not as satisfying as the heist that came before it and the action that will follow. So you're left viewing these scenes as what they are: an excuse to get Wolfie and Kala more time together, and obvious setup for what's to come in Wolfie's story.

The second act does at least represent the strong escalation of Kala and Wolfie's romance. When he shows up naked to her wedding (and shout out to the writers and directors for going with a full frontal male nude shot here when so many other shows shy away from such things while not at all second guessing the choice to show women naked), it starts the main portion of their story together. The track of their romantic relationship running alongside Will and Riley's is one of the things I like about the show. But in these middle moments it makes Kala and Wolfie feel more isolated from the rest of the group in a way that bothers me. I think the show has a slight problem with balancing who spends time with whom in the cluster, and that's hardly ever more glaring than in this story where Wolfie spends pretty much all of his time with Kala and she spends most, but not all, of her time with him. More on that to come.

With that being said, I love their rooftop conversation about her faith and his atheism. As an atheist, I tend to side with Wolfie here, but I also really enjoy seeing and hearing stories about people who do have faith and who have thought about their faith and the reasons they hold it and have strong moments in their past that connect them to their faith. The scene of Kala as a child looking out through Ganesh's eyes and seeing the festival and becoming a true believer is beautiful and moving. And her assertion that her love and belief in science is not mutually exclusive to her faith is a really nice touch. The show's continued work of making these characters deep and three-dimensional is something that should be applauded.

Sun's story finds itself starting in earnest while most of the others are at a middle. The scenes of her in prison are the best for the character. And the story of how these women have found a freedom and a sense of community only in prison, having been removed from the male dominated world they otherwise live in, is both beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time.

Lito is also at something of a beginning for his story. The first act for him served as nothing more than character introductions, while the second act introduces the real antagonist and the obstacle he has to overcome. Lito's story continues to be my least favorite, but I think I'll save most of my thoughts on it for the review of the last act.

So through the first two acts of the show we've seen great character work, a solid foundation being laid, a clear process within the four episode arcs, and the beginnings of how in control and how strong the cluster is capable of being. All of which, I think, has been handled deftly and with a self-assurance that other shows don't have in their first season. Next week, we'll look at the way they bring these things together in the final act and maybe talk a bit about what I think of as the last reason I loved this first season so much: The show's strong sense of identity.

TV Review: Empire Episode 8: The Lyon's Roar

What came first, the Character or the Story? I know it seems like a very writerly riddle, but I do think it's a perfectly valid question. If I have the most amazing story ever told, does it matter if the characters within it are a little bland and two-dimensional? Conversely, if I have the most fascinating characters, can I get away with a story that's a little less interesting? I think the best stories strike a balance between those two forces; placing interesting characters in interesting situations and having them do interesting things as a result is always the best way to go. But in a show's first season, typically, I think we might be more likely to have to choose one or the other. I don't think this is anyone's fault; it's simply down to the logistics of storytelling. How well rounded and flushed out can a character be within an ensemble after only seven hours? So if the character work is improbable after such a (relatively) small amount of time, then the story should swoop in and pick up the slack, right? But if I were to ask you what the central story of any given Empire episode was, could you tell me?

I was bored at work not too long ago and I asked a few friends of mine to name Buffy episodes for me to watch. A couple people responded by telling me that they don't remember the names of individual episodes, so they couldn't really help me. To this I responded, "Simply tell me the story of the episode in question, and I'll tell you the title of the episode." I'm capable of doing this partially because I've watched through Buffy more times than I can count, but mostly because Buffy is a show in which almost every episode is centered around a specific and memorable storyline. This is where I'm starting to think that Empire is facing the biggest problem. Any given week with this show is less about a central storyline and more about a string of things that happen. This week, there's a party, Cookie and Lucious hook up again with Lucious promising to dump Anika, Jamal comes out, and Andre and Vernon work together to try and get Andre on the books as the Interim CEO in case Lucious is incapacitated at any given time, but those are plot points within a story, not a story in and of themselves. So what is this episode centrally about? What is any episode of this show about when you get right down to it?

It's not that Empire hasn't been facing these problems all along. In spite of my praise of the show, these cracks have always been there. It's just that the ride was so much fun before now that it simply didn't matter. "The Lyon's Roar" just isn't fun. Nor is it particularly enlightening outside of a couple small moments. Ultimately, what we're left with is an episode that doesn't really get its characters or its story right, and it's all left feeling messy.

On the character front, I think we need to talk about Andre. This is one of the few Andre focused episodes of this first season, and I think everything suffered because of it. Empire has big and important things to say about art and artists, but as such, it doesn't seem to know what to say about the only non-artistic Lyon in the group. Andre's initial position within the show seemed to be about mental illness, and living with bipolar disorder, but that seems to have taken a backseat as of late.  So all that's left for him is his status as a good business man. But is he even that in this episode? The idea to be the interim CEO comes from Vernon, not from Andre. That seems like a simple enough idea that someone with all the learning Andre's amassed should have been able to come up with much sooner. His next big calculation in an attempt to get the votes he needs to make this happen is to pimp his wife out to one of the board members. This seems like the kind of thing that can work, until the plan goes wrong, Rhonda sees who she's supposed to be seducing, and decides she doesn't want to play anymore. And the closest thing a backup plan that Andre has seems to be calling another board member and simply asking him for his vote, which works out just fine. So why were we put through that painful dinner scene in the first place?

It all boils down to Empire not really knowing who its characters are. And how could they when the characters seem to change at the drop of a hat. One week Andre is a seeming business genius, the next he can't even figure out a way to make sure he can get the votes needed to be named interim CEO to the company he's worked at all his adult life. One week the Lyons are all banding together in the face of the knowledge of Lucious' illness, the next week Lucious is laying bare the long list of problems he has with Andre's wife. The sad thing about this moment is that it's actually a great storyline for Empire to tackle, but it comes so fast out of nowhere that you're only left with a vague feeling of WTF instead of a serious idea of what it all means. Empire continues to be a show with a lot to say, but with very little understanding of the best way to go about saying it.

That is, on just about every topic except for Art and Jamal's sexuality. At this point, I'm left wondering why the entire series isn't just a string of scenes about Jamal being gay and arguing with Lucious and other characters about the importance of Art and Music. The entire sequence of Jamal's coming out is about as perfect as we've seen from the show. From he and Lucious' discussion about why they do what they do (for the music of course, which will live on long after both of them are dead), to the overwhelming support coming from everyone in the audience except Lucious when they hear how Jamal's given a queer edit to the song. The entire audience cheers, the camera lingers on every one of the major characters in attendance, all of them give nods and salutes of approval, and Lucious simply stands there stone faced. It's the culmination of what the show, and Cookie, have been saying all along, and Cookie isn't shy about saying it again: no one but Lucious cares about Jamal's sexual orientation. He came out, he's been a huge story on the 24 hour news cycle, and the world keeps spinning.

But when all is said and done, will "The Lyon's Roar" be remembered as Jamal's coming out episode? Is that the core story of the hour? It's true that the issue of Jamal coming out is brought up early in the hour in the scene between him and Hakeem at the church, and then culminates in the act itself, but I don't know that I feel like there's enough there for it to even be the B-plot of the episode. Especially in the face of the story being teased out over the course of all eight of these first episodes. It feels more like the culmination of a season long story than anything self-contained within this hour. This episode left me feeling like Empire's actual longevity might be in question. The meteoric rise in viewership over this first season will probably be more than enough to keep it on the air through two, maybe even three seasons, but ask yourself this: What will Empire look like upon rewatch, or more specifically on binge watch. When people sit down to either relive this first season, or to introduce their skeptical friends to it during the upcoming hiatus, will they be as impressed and excited as we were through those first five or six hours, or will they struggle to latch onto any of the flat characters or find any of the non-existent episode to episode storylines?

Random Thoughts:

--I'm also really just pissed off at the show's treatment of Tiana. Given the fact that we haven't seen her again since her own big coming out episode, it feels like everything about her only served to further Hakeem's storyline, and I'm sick of seeing interesting female characters sidelined or used as props in a male character's story.

--Unless I'm mistaken, this is the first episode that's both written and directed by Danny Strong. Danny's had some serious writing success lately, and as a Buffy Alum I wish him all of the best, but this was not a very good showcase for his talents. All of the characters basically just say what they're thinking, and there wasn't any kind of special flare to the directing that I could see. I think he should stick to writing, but I also think he can show himself as being a stronger writer than this episode presented him as.

--The White Party at the center of the episode must be a different White Party than the one I'm thinking of.

--I can't express enough how disappointed I am that this is the first we're hearing about Lucious' feelings towards Andre marrying a white woman. I think Andre's self-consciousness about his lack of musical ability has been an undercurrent to the show and the character all along, so that doesn't surprise me, but the thought that he married a white woman and went to school in order to be accepted within white culture is new. As well as Lucious' feelings towards same, and the idea that no matter how hard Andre works for that acceptance, it's not possible. There are so many threads that the show could tease out here, and yet it does a disservice to all of them by speeding through them in that one scene.

--Something else that felt rushed, or at least unearned by the show was Hakeem's statement that he's always felt like Cookie loved Jamal more than she loved him. On the one hand, I want to say that that's a fair and succinct way to bottle up all of Hakeem's anger and frustration towards her, but on the other hand I don't get it. Cookie was in prison for 17 years, all of Hakeem's life basically, but he says she always paid more attention to Jamal than to him. For all those years, was she sending Jamal birthday and Christmas gifts from the slammer and not sending any to Hakeem? She wasn't really in a place, I assume, from which she was capable of reaching out, so what specifically happened to make Hakeem feel that way? Also, why then is all of his anger over that placed on her and none of it towards Jamal? It makes more sense that that feeling of neglect would sour his and Jamal's relationship as well, and yet it doesn't seem to have done so.

--Point to fact, Jamal and Hakeem seem to be great at a number of points in this episode. The scene at the end with Hakeem telling his big brother just how proud he is of him and just how brave he is was the single best moment of the night. That relationship continues to pay dividends.

--What does Jamal having a daughter add to the character or the overall plot and story of the show? So far I continue to say nothing, but it's possible I'm just missing something. It all seems like a horrible waste to me though.