The Omnibox: all things television

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
Just started to watch Castle Rock, a Stephen King adaptation available on Hulu. Surprisingly nuanced and slow paced through the first two episodes, though it begins to add intensity thereafter.

Episode One: Severance

The warden of Shawshank prison commits suicide, leading to the installation of a new supervisor. She wants to know why a whole section of the privately held and operated prison has been unused for decades. A guard's investigation of the closed section reveals the answer. Deep in the bowels of Shawshank a man has been caged and kept from everyone else and off the books. The young man refuses to respond to any attempts to communicate with him, except for the utterance of one name, Henry Deaver, in response to a request for his name.

One of the guards says, "One thing's for sure. He ain't Henry Deaver."

Meanwhile, Deaver is a defense attorney on the recent losing end of a death row case. Reeling from that loss, he gets the call to return "home" to Castle Rock, Maine, and Shawshank prison. The caller, the same prison guard who made the discovery, won't identify himself to Deaver, but relates the rough sketch and the prisoner's declaration while communicating a fear of what might happen to the man without some assistance. Deaver reluctantly returns.

As a boy, an adopted Deaver disappeared for 11 days from the home of a prominent member of the community, his adopted father and a popular local preacher, prompting a manhunt that ends with a deputy named Pangborn finding the impossibly unharmed (given the cold) boy standing in the center of a frozen lake, claiming to have no memory of anything that transpired during his absence. One of the things that inarguably did? The injury of Deaver's father, who later succumbs from the exposure leading many in the town to blame Deaver, some suspecting the boy of somehow causing the harm and secreting himself, as the two had a contentious relationship.

Other characters we meet in the opening episode include Deaver's mother, played by Sissy Spacek. The two had a close relationship, but it's obvious that there's an enormous strain in it, likely over that same period of time, though we see a relieved Mrs. Deaver rushing to the boy in flashbacks. It is clear in short order that Deaver has been away for some time without a great deal of contact. Mrs. Deaver is suffering from encroaching if sporadic dementia and her son is surprised to find the caregiver service he put in motion didn't make it past a brief opening period. A second shock is the discovery of a much older Pangborn semi-ensconced with the mother (and played by Scott Glenn). Add to the mix a psychic childhood friend named Dale Lacy, who appears to be inextricably bound to the thoughts and feelings of Henry and who may have played a role in the elder Deaver's death and you have the foundation of the piece.
 

Lon

Well-known member
Been watching the Doris Day Show on Decades, with Denver Pyle, Rose Marie,John Dehner (who started out as an animator for Disney), and James Hampton.
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
I've been streaming a show on Prime called Goliath, and wow. Billy Bob Thornton is amazing, and there's a stellar supporting cast, an engrossing storyline, and great location filming in LA - like Bosch only closer to the beach. :chuckle:
I'll have to take a look. I'm a huge Bosch fan. Welliver is a gem who got my attention back with Lost. Great to see him in a role that almost seems made for him. . . Glad he isn't doing the "stash" though. That would be awful.
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
I'll have to take a look. I'm a huge Bosch fan. Welliver is a gem who got my attention back with Lost. Great to see him in a role that almost seems made for him. . . Glad he isn't doing the "stash" though. That would be awful.

Welliver - I kept forgetting he was an actor playing a detective and not an actual, real life detective.

Thornton doesn't play a detective, he plays a lawyer, so that might be an added incentive for you to give it a try. :)
 

Town Heretic

Out of Order
Hall of Fame
Welliver - I kept forgetting he was an actor playing a detective and not an actual, real life detective.

Thornton doesn't play a detective, he plays a lawyer, so that might be an added incentive for you to give it a try. :)
Mostly, lawyers tend to hate legal shows. It almost never rings true. We either laugh a lot and irritate everyone trying to enjoy it for other reasons, or bury our heads in our hands and wait for a place to slide out of the room.

Exceptions? :think: The Verdict was surprisingly real in more ways than it failed and where it failed was largely about creating tension as a drama, which you have to understand. Grishom's stuff tends to be ridiculous, which is even funnier given he's actually a lawyer.

My Cousin Vinny is actually a great window into expert testimony and how it works. The rest is nonsense, but entertaining.

Anatomy of a Murder is very good on all fronts.

Inherit the Wind is largely lifted from actual Scopes trial transcripts. If you want to see the theater of the old courtroom, it's a great one.

And The Paper Chase is a funny window into the crucible of law school.
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
Mostly, lawyers tend to hate legal shows. It almost never rings true. We either laugh a lot and irritate everyone trying to enjoy it for other reasons, or bury our heads in our hands and wait for a place to slide out of the room.

I thought you might think that, I was trying to stay optimistic. :eek:

Just watched episode 5, and have to say there's a lot of cussing. There are only a couple movies I can remember (not that I have much of a catalog of movies I've seen :chuckle:) where the language has been this pervasive. It's like every other sentence and I can't seem to ignore it, it's kind of stuck in my awareness. With the other movies I was able to look past it and for some reason with this show I can't.

Thinking of times when I've been let down by people I cared about, or leaders I'd respected, or ideals and institutions I'd counted on staying true, and of course I can't count how many times I let others or myself down. Human nature, yes, and usually it's tempered by knowing there are good people out there, and ideals worth fighting for. But Goliath keeps hammering how people are selfish, and greedy, and cruel, and how completely power corrupts. And how little power the average person has compared to the few who hold the power and will do anything to keep it. Billy McBride is meant to be the David to the big law firm/defense contractor's Goliath, and I hope they win but you know so often in real life they don't.
 
Top