Some hiatuses (hiatii?) are over, some are almost over, and there's a new show on the block that's in my wheelhouse. So let's get back into the TV.
Last Resort: Damn the Torpedoes
Since LR was the only show I've been watching to actually air during this period, and it consisted of three episodes that wrapped up the series, I'm not going to look at them individually. One of the main reasons I kept watching the series, after Serrat proved invulnerable and the DC plot became completely implausible (really, you can shoot the National Security Advisor and have no repercussions?) is that it had been canceled early enough to allegedly give the production team enough time to make the last episode into a series wrap.
Since the last three, held back into 2013, were late enough in the production that alteration was possible, I expected, obviously too optimistically, for there to be some artful rejiggering of elements to support a series conclusion.
There isn't. The series teases in that direction, with the sudden helmet-cam-supported coup d'etat attempt. There are enough (one) high-profile characters involved that the viewer who reads entertainment news would expect the coup to work. The problem is, this was all part of the show's long-term plotting, and the coup fails -- and in typical Last Resort fashion, fails grandly. Having a shadowy, competent secret service simply foil the plot would cast too many aspersions on the many incidents of baffling stupid behavior.
This week felt like adjustments were made to start wrapping the series up for its shortened run. Cortez outed herself as the mole, just as a nothing-to-live-for Sam throws in with the chief's gang of conspirators. Serrat again changes tactics and decides to sell out the island's rare earth minerals to the Chinese; I hoped vainly that perhaps they will be his executors when Marcus is deposed.
Though it's more likely that Marcus will leave in triumph. While the DC plotting remains scattershot, the endgame is now in sight: Speaker of the House Ernie Hudson has thrown in with the Good Guys for a coup d'etat on the president (if he exists).
Missing this week are Sam's purloined wife, and, good for her, Dichen...
Last Resort: The Pointy End of the Spear
So much for the coup. It would have been a very plausible way to wrap up the back-home plots, but apparently this was meant instead to keep the dubious legitimacy of the corrupt president in place for a longer haul. Worse, the plot is foiled by a J-horror style phone call which causes the conspirators to kill themselves in public fashion. The political world of Last Resort does not even remotely resemble this one, and as the series goes on/winds down it's one of the major fundamentals on which the series utterly fails. You simply cannot have a show built around an insane American president and then 1) Never really explain anything about his motives, and 2) Have only one principal character in North America to work against him. As with Serrat, the series tried to play this both ways and came up far, far, short.
Last Resort: Controlled Flight Into Terrain
Really, an enormous missed opportunity last week with the coup foiled. If the kill order had been in a little earlier, this episode might have been an as-satisfying-as-possible-under-the-circumstances finale rather than the obviously doctored mess it became.
With the hope of the coup gone, the COB's sudden but inevitable mutiny occurs, and, unfortunately, it's co-opted by Creepy Anders the rapist, who decides to give the Colorado to the Chinese. Why, precisely, the Chinese opt to turn on Marcus, whose pre-mutiny position is just as strong as it was when they made a deal with him a few weeks ago is best left unexamined.
Still, both long and short-term plots are wrapped up with some flourishes, as the waffling Sam decisively backs Marcus over Anders (really, wouldn't anyone?) and the mutineers are wiped out. I'm happy they dispatched old creepy Anders without any ceremony or speechifying, just a few angry bullets.
Worse is the situation back home, where Kylie attends a cocktail mixer for the president. Originally intended as a milestone on her long plot to depose him, in a truncated series she simply conceals a gun. Yes, don't frisk her, Secret Service, she's one of us. More implausibly, Kylie receives time to stand and reflect after shooting the president... unless they wanted him dead, also!
With the president dead, the Chinese closing in, and the mutiny giving Marcus a new perspective on the game he's been playing for the last twelve weeks, he chooses to go down with the ship to prevent its capture. It's a tidy means of clearing three major series elements, though even at full gravitas, Marcus falls a little short of carrying the moment.
Cut to the hastily-written epilogue, where everyone reflects on their post-Colorado status, and lament that Last Resort was not conceived as a thirteen-episode run. Restructure the DC elements, off Serrat after he crosses Marcus around halfway through, and it would have been a strong, probably award-winning miniseries. An interesting failure, and I suspect one that will inform future "high concept" network efforts.
The Americans:
Pilot
As I watched the pilot, I noted with some trepidation that for story potential, The Americans was as loaded as Last Resort and at first glance, in execution appears to be more sustainable.
I like the idea of an 80s-set series made with a 21st century cable sensibility. If such a series were possible then, it would be entirely espionage plot-driven, whereas today, this series has long-range storytelling on about eight different fronts: The overarching plot level of cold war espionage which includes both American and Soviet adversaries (or at least, unsympathetic oversight), the Sopranos-like split between extralegal job and family life -- and again both between the parents and the kids, and what the job means to their assumed marriage: her obvious training-inflicted damage, his jealousy of her femme fatale persona. And finally, the philosophical split between Philip and Elizabeth; he's not remotely a true believer, and she clearly is. The major conflict between them (to sell out or not) is a shade too strong to begin the series with, as I'm unsure that she can fully trust his loyalty with this established as fact.
It's at the intersection of these points, when the two of them determine the fate of T-dogg, that the series makes a bold mission statement: that all these pieces matter. Very strong pilot episode, I'm onboard for the season.
The Clock
Well, that was a step down. This was largely the 80s all-plot style I was fearing from the show. A little harder edged, our protagonists more unsympathetic than say, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, but all plot and, really, a fairly stupid plot. The fiat mission, the poison/extortion tactic, and then leaving the principals alive* is just incredibly dumb, and well beneath the course charted by the pilot.
* Though killing the maid would obviously draw yet more attention; the whole notion was lose-lose even if Philip could manage a better disguise.
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