How to Procrastinate Film Blogging? Live-blog a tv show.
Since The Film Experience has been in Viola Davis's corner for a dozen years now -- I gave her one of her first film prizes even if she didn't know it: a gold medal for best cameo in Antwone Fisher (2002) -- I felt obligated to watch her new headlining gig for at least a couple of episodes. I'm not remotely a procedural kind of person or a Shondaland person. Grey's Anatomy, her career-maker, had too much whining and Scandal is too hysterical and (worse) wildly uneven in its acting. Nevertheless I thought I'd live blog the first two episodes and see if it's fun enough to stay with (?) and largely to see if you are watching, too.
How To Express Your Feelings? Comment on said blog.
1.1 Pilot
00.01 Opening sequence is like those 'we're changing scenes and denoting the passage of time!' interstitials on Scandal but for like a whole interminable two minutes. Average Shot Length of .0001 seconds is not my speed. Some college kids are shouting about what to do with a dead body. Is it mine? Having died from seizures from the editing.
01.48 Tall cute black guy (who has the longest neck I've ever seen on TV) says that "tossing a coin" is OUR ONLY CHOICE. Thank god for coins because decision making, man. Tall cute black guy looks super familiar but I can't figure out why*.
03.03 MATT MCGORRY! (love him on Orange is the New Black. And his sense of humor as a celebrity)
03.33 Giggling that Wes (that's the tall guy's name) is told there's a seating chart in his class. He looks at it for less than .002 seconds while simultaneously swivelling his head around with that crazy neck of his to talk to all the other main characters (everyone with a line will surely be important)...and yet he knows EXACTLY where to sit. Psychic.
03.39 VIOLA ENTERS...
Gets a true star's entrance, too, seen only from behind as she introduces her character and scrawls the show titles on the board. That is a killer sequence (no pun intended), tailor made as both character intro for Annalise Keating and perfect promo for the show itself! My only quibble with this sequence is that they immediately cut to a title card instead of just letting the chalk scrawl be the actual logo, you know? Chalk scrawls are way more memorable than regular ol' fonts.
For what it's worth Viola also plays a professor in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her and this is perfect casting since she has such authority. When she speaks you mentally take notes.
06.00 Wesley didn't know the assignment Oooooh Wesley. You in danger, girl! "Let me help you OUT." Viola's line readings are perfection. She believes him but there's still contempt and warning in that last word even though in the very next lines she's really trying to teach him something and obviously rooting for him to answer correctly. And ooooh, now she's ripping another student a new one for taking away "a learning opportunity" by speaking out of turn with the answer.
07.26 It turns out her class is based around a current case and she invites her hundred plus students over to her office/house to interview her client. This is very realistic/professional.
08.45 More cast members. Viola has two associates in her law firm, Frank and Bonnie*, who, like Wesley seems super familiar. Plot points: the client is a secretary who may have poisoned her boss but he didn't die, was merely fucked up by it. Annalise will only choose four students to join her team. Gee, would that be the four students who spoke with Wes in the actual class ?
Multi-Tasking.. It's a Murder Weapon. It's a Symbol. It's an Immunity Idol!
09.11 GOOD GOD, SHOW, I AM NOT STUPID. It's now doing flashcuts to the opening scene (nine minutes ago) so that we notice that the "immunity idol" she shows the students is the murder weapon from the first "what do we do with the body?" scene.
10:00 Wes meets a neighbor who has a lot of piercings. Feisty! Ugh. Now we're back to getting rid of the body flash forward. I HATE entire shows as flashbacks. This was a huge turnoff for me on Damages (which I quit after Season 2 - did not regret leaving). Even shows that don't use it as structure usually employ it for an episode or five. So cliche from overuse.
Commercials. One for Gone Girl which [SPOILER] ...could also be called How To Get Away With Murder. I have not stopped thinking about since seeing it. [/SPOILER] I liked it more than Jason.
19:07 Dozed off during flash forward about the students in Viola's house rolling a body into a carpet. Then a good scene about students presenting hypothetical defenses that ends with Viola scrawling on the chalkboard again (I hope she does this every episode - like Wonder Woman's signature spins. The 3 step plan for defending murder charges?
- Discredit witnesses
- Introduce new suspect
- Bury evidence (by throwing so much info at the jury they feel only doubt)
Professor Viola likes Wes's oddly creative idea for a defense, 'the attempted murder was self-defense because the secretary had stockholm syndrome due to her uber demanding boss!'
Congratulations Wes, you're still on your way to becoming America's Next Top Lawyer!
20:29 One of the students (I can't tell them apart yet because they all have black hair - why do TV shows always do this?) rushes into courtroom late. But she is clearly saving the day. I'm hoping it's a Legally Blonde lightbulb moment thing but it turns out she did some sleuthing and found out the witness was color blind. Which thoroughly discredits the lady's testimony. Viola ends the scene with a...
Thank you for your candor."
Which plays like a death blow as tossed-off line reading, a cat bored with a mouse. Love this actress so much.
22:00 Second reference to a missing student. Not the dead body from the opening scene because it's in the main plot which is the flashback.
22:53 WHOA! Wes accidentally walks in on Viola getting cunnilingus from a handsome shirtless man. You can't do that on television! That gives you NC-17 in the movies (see: Blue Valentine)
26:00 One of the three main male students - let's call him Not Wes Not Matt McGorry is hitting on an IT guy who works for the company that the defendant and victim work for. He wants confidential e-mails. He gets the emails but (surprise). It wasn't entirely a con job. Not Wes Not Matt is gay and still sleeps with the guy just as his face disappears off the side of the screen. WTF? The MPAA is useless. I am constantly seeing really R rated violence and now R rated sex things on TV and yet the movies remain so demur about sex (if not violence). This is even gay sex, too. In the movies the MPAA will slap you with an R just for having gay characters (witness: Love is Strange and Pride, both with no sex scenes or nudity, carrying R ratings).
Not Wes Not Matt will sleep with you for evidence
Student tells teach he got the emails illegally and Professor Viola... SMILES. And it's not even terrifying but warm/proud. I've heard various denizens of the internet say that Viola has "resting bitch face" but that's a gross exaggeration because there are few things scarier than her actual "bitch face" when she makes one.
32:45 Another student spots a clue. A lesbian clue! The secretary is maybe sleeping with the boss's wife? "SCANDAL!" (The Boyfriend and I say this dramatically and loudly whenever something outrageous happens on the show Scandal... which is roughly every other scene. He loves that show. I do not. But I do like making fun of it by loudly exclaiming "SCANDAL!" whenever the show expects me to be shocked)
* During commercial break I look up Wes and Bonnie. Turns out he's Alfie Enoch who played Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter movies and she's Liza Weil the rigid businesswoman sister in Bunheads! Yay, Bunheads. I'd rather watch more seasons of that than this. Can Viola dance?
34.22 Meet Mr. Viola, Professor Sam Keating, a psychology professor. Wes is stunned to meet him since he is not the African-American muscle man who was servicing her earlier. Wes has deer-caught-in-headlights panic in his eyes. Professor Viola offers a locked stare in return. They drink their drinks slowly.
39.26 Ugh the disposing of the body scene again. Pass. Which leads back into a scene of Laurel (student) talking to Frank (Viola's associate -- I'm learning the names) to tell him about the lesbian scandal. Cue: conversation about ethics of defending guilty people. Laurel realizes the lawyers she's working with already know their clients are guilty. SCANDAL!
Misdirection or Hot For Student?
41.33 Viola confronts Wes in a bathroom or something. Tells him about her broken marriage. Cries. Crocodile tears or Real confession? And then the confession turns into vaguely predatory chest-stroking!!! SCANDAL! Hot For Student. Wes runs away because he has used up his three acting faces (confused / terrified / stunned) in this one scene already and usually the scenes only require one. To be fair it would be absolutely terrifying to share a scene with Viola Davis when your previous biggest co-star was Emma Watson before she learned how to act.
42.24 Oh, never mind. Maybe the tears were real because Viola's trademark snot tear arrives. (See also: Doubt). Either that or she's crying because she had to move to television to get another lead role even though she headlined a blockbuster just three years ago. This shot of Viola last for almost a full minute. This show's editing only slows down when she acts. It knows where the money shots are... the other hyper-edited shots are just extra caffeinated because they're boring.
43.33 SCANDAL! Minor looks around the office suggests that Bonnie is sleeping with Annalise's husband. Or at least that she wants to.
45:00 Back in the courtroom. Damning evidence. A videotape showing the secretary buying the poisonous pills. Annalise freaks out backstage at her client. "STOP LYING!"
46:00 Annalise calls Detective Nate Leahy to the stand. Everyone is all like "who is that?!?" but Wes knows. He's the muscle guy that went to town on Viola's ladyparts. Goddamnit. The show flashes back to that event from 23 minutes ago, punishing those of us who pay attention. And even if you weren't paying attention, that's not a scene that's likely to have slipped your mind, you know? It's not every day you see a two time Oscar nominated woman of color being pleasured onscreen.
51:00 After commercials Annalise grills the detective about the video and this is the only scene where Viola opts to display her infrequent sense of humor (can she do comedy?) totally taunting her boyfriend who actually was with her during the collection of this evidence. Funny funny line reading of "okay!" when she sheepishly says he was with friends by which he means, visiting her vagina.
53:00 Viola wins the case and she and her blonde associate are smug about it. But before their smiles there's ilarious crosscutting between all the guilty and conflicted characters that reminded me a bit of Rocky Horror's roll call during T-t-t-t-t-t-ouch Me" THEY'RE ALL BAD PEOPLE!
54:00 Viola chooses five students to join her firm for the semester. The gay guy is top of the class but she also chooses Wes. So he's back to confused face again. This is actually a really well written scene as he thinks he was chosen because he saw her indiscretion and she misdirects suggesting that he doesn't think much of himself if he thinks that's why and maybe he shouldn't take the job.
Do you want the job or not?
Of course he wants the job. Series regular work pays well!
56.00 New scene involving a water tank. Uhh-oh. Another dead body. It's that missing student. It turns out she was a student of Annalise's husband.
56:50 Viola and hubby watching the news of the dead body and here's your last shot of Annalise. She turns and practically stares right at us, with something like haunted guilt. But of what? This would be a great closer except we return to the flash forward and we see who the first i.e. the second dead body was. It's her husband! The show, which thinks we are completely braindead, intercuts his dead face with his scenes from earlier in the show.
I bet you the boyfriend did it."
END CREDITS
1.2 "It's All Her Fault" Or, The Spoiler Alert is In the Title!
00.01 I'll try not be as wordy this time. Not-Wes-Not-Matt called one of the girls a "bitch baby" in the flash forward to the murder cover up... unfortunately he didn't mean it as a compliment. In the flash backward Annalise and her husband are still stiffly conversing about that dead student.
02.29 Annalise in the classroom, setting up the episode's (series'?) themes. "Our clients, like all of us lie. Which makes them unknowable... do you know who anyone really is?"
04.40 Guest star of the week, never without a TV Guest Star gig Steven Weber, who I'll always think of as Jeffrey, is playing an eccentric rich man accused of stabbing his wife multiple times. He makes the third reference to "marriage" as a trap/trial in four minutes and Viola, annoyed, is all "Let's keep it movin" And jesus this is so SILLY: They kept the murder scene intact months (?) later with excessive blood spatters et al in case forensics missed anything and they want to sweep again. Please. You have so many people in the room... and using the room. And now people are jumping on the murder bed. That is no way to preserve a crime scene! See eccentric rich guy asked for a volunteer as he wants to reenact the prosecutions theory of the murder and the girls, too shyly written, don't volunteer so Honorary Gurl Not-Wes-Not-Matt s all 'pick me. pick me' and promptly gets thrown on the bed by Jeffrey who, if you'll recall, kind of equating sex with death as Jeffrey, too.
Then I pretended to initiate sexual relations.
Trashy. This show is trashy. And seems to think that it needs lots of gay innuendo / sex to keep the gays interested. Don't they know that diva female leads tend to be enough? Not that I'm complaining about I really must learn his name.
7.20 ...But Not-Matt-Not-Wes also hasn't learned people's names and call's Wes "Wait List," a reference to his perceived to be lesser intelligence, and socioeconomic status.
10.00 Oh it's my favorite coin-flipping scene from the future again with a new detail. Wes lied when he flipped the coin and chose his own HTGAWM adventure saying "heads" when it was clearly "tails". SCANDAL!
15.18 Post commercial, we saee that the show already has a pattern. One of her students finds a clue and we cross cut said clue with courtroom time in which Viola delivers the smackdown based on the clue. I would like this show more if it was less courtroom drama (been there a million times) and more college classroom drama (been there but far less frequently). Hey everyone is still learning names and the pretty aggressive girl is called "Prom Queen" and Matt McGorry is referred to as "Doucheface" which is kind of his interpretation of the character, so: fair.
19.14 Viola confronts her labia loving boyfriend outside the courtroom. He is not pleased to see here.
What do you want from me. You won your case. You get laid. How else can I be of service?
Ouch, but: fair.He warns her to never call him again or he'll tell the husband all the "filthy nasty things I did to you. Particularly that thing the editors keep reminding the audience I did to you with those flash cuts to last episode!"
20.46 Oh, now the last moment of the first episode makes more sense. Annalise thinks her husband was sleeping with the dead girl and searches his phone. Her name is there but innocuously, an email about an assignment that's due and can she be a day late?
Meanwhile Laurel, the shyest character but so firmly written as one thing SHY that I have now learned her name goes to Bonnie for help. Liza Weil responds.
I look nice. I know. But that's just my face. You coming to me with your questions and personal drama is not going to make me nicer. So instead of answering your question, let me just say that the time you are wasting worrying about Frank is time you should be getting Annalise to actually learn your name.
I'm done talking to you.
Liza Weil is killing this character. Love her. Although it might be pushing it to have every female character except Laurel be a bitchy heartless diva? Just saying. Free advice for the writer's room!
27.36 Annalise writes on the chalkboard and reads her scrawlings aloud. Yay! Visual equivalent of catchphrase. I hope. (Although it's not even 10% as exciting this time because the show maybe doesn't realize that this is fun. Particularly fun if they make us wait to hear Viola read the line til she's almost done writing. Certainly a lot more fun than spending half of each episode in a courtroom where 10% of all television episodes of all time have taken place.
28.50 We meet the daughter of Steven Weber. And in the courtroom - GASP. SCANDAL! - we realize Daddy lied to her about the way her birth other died years ago.
31.00 Commercials. One for Interstellar. I repeat:
I’m probably the only person in the world who is excited about INTERSTELLAR solely to have Anne Hathaway back.
— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) October 2, 2014
35.42 Viola is pissed at Weber that he didn't share this news about the first wife also being killed with a butcher knife but how did her team of lawyers and student lawyers not think to, you know, look this up? He says she wouldn't have taken his case if she thought he killed his first wife, too. "You underestimate how much I like a challenge," she sasses back. "Especially when my salary-free employee students have to dig through garbage and hack into computers and steal evidence to help me build my case." (Okay, that last part I added.)
36.19 Not-Wes-Not-Matt is on the phone with his computer hacker boyfriend -- oh, not his boyfriend "I don't do boyfriends" he corrects Prom Queen. "Wait. You're gay," Doucheface responds in perfect perfect bro confusion. I like Matt McGorry. In this scene we are also reminded that Bonnie is in love with Annalise's husband but Annalise is probably not.
37.25 They fight and when he swears he never slept with Dead Girl she responds "Good eye contact," which is so mean and deadly accurent. Somehow they end up making out even though she's beginning to think he killed the Dead Girl.
40.30 In the trial we learn that the murder we saw was "messy inaccurate" and that the knife wounds hit bone but in the first murder, it was one clean stroke from someone who knew what they were doing. Which is to say Rich Man killed the first wife and his Daughter killed the second. The show doesn't make the connection but it's kind of great that Viola's awesomely precise "Good eye contact" line reading in the previous scene was basically one clean death stroke. She's an experienced killer. Wes figures, ever one step ahead of the other students but one step behind the audience figures it all out. Annalise compliments shy girl Laurel and tells her "speak up more. I like your ideas."
47.16 This is my favorite moment of the second episode. (Loving Viola but not the series which is too standard network drama obvious for an actress of her calibre) They leave having won the case (and incidentaly having set two murderers free). The press are going crazy and the students are terrified at the commotion and Viola Davis has this Smug Bitch smile on her Mary Blige coiffed face the entire relaxed strut through the hallway and into the elevator. Awesome.
48.55 Another gay sex scene with computer hacker Oliver who wants to be the top this time. Seriously? Remember when the camera had to look away in the 90s when that guy on Melrose Place just pecked his boyfriend's lips? (p.s. How is it that I know the series regulars' boyfriend's name but not his name?)
50.18 GASP! Viola discovers during an intimate dinner that her husband has removed Lila's name from his phone. She exits quickly making up an excuse and runs to see her lover and tells him she thinks her husband did it and cries a lot. Visibly freaked out.
56.19 Rebecca, piercing girl, gets arrested for Lila's murder. Flashforward to the body burial. In the future Rebecca and Wes are now together but she's gone into hiding. So many times we will be returning to these scenes? I wish it weren't so many. There are so Stock Mystery!
Somewhere in the final moments Annalise beds her husband but it's not some joyous "Viola with a libido finally" scene. She cries when its over because she thinks he was Dead Girl's Boyfriend and I bet you the boyfriend did it.
END CREDITS
Previously as The Fil Viola Experience
"Holy shit, that woman can act!"
and Why hasn't Denzel made Fences with Viola yet?