Some things you wait on turn out to be worth the wait. In TV, that would include REACHER's season four this summer. However, other things just aren't worth it. That would include HBO's LANTERNS this summer of which Stan rightly noted:
I may give it a try next week, I may not. I was not impressed. Especially with the lack of special effects. It's like they've done it on the cheap. You do Green Lantern, you need to be doing huge special effects. At one point, he is taking on a 'bomb' and even that ends up off camera. It's just rinky dink, cheap ass, no budget b.s.
There are some shows you can do on the cheap. A show revolving around Green Lanterns? No, that's not one.
Expectations are too high for the bearer(s) of that ring.
BIG MISTAKES, PROUD and LUCKY. Those are three programs that were worth catching.
BIG MISTAKES was released in April but we didn't find time for it until July. It's the latest from Dan Levy. As with SCHITT'S CREEK, Dan co-stars and co-created BIG MISTAKES which revolves around his character Nicky and Nicky's sister Morgan (played by Taylor Ortega). He's a pastor who is out to his congregation but not prepared to tell them he has started a relationship. Morgan's far less grounded. Their grandmother has passed away and their mother is on a manic tear so they end up at a pawn shop looking for some thing for their grandmother to be buried with. Morgan finds a cheap necklace and the guy won't sell it to her. But, as they leave, Morgan's grabbed the necklace.
And their mother loves it and the grandmother is buried wearing it.
And after that?
The pawnbroker shows up wanting the necklace back. Or else.
And the or else gets worse and worse and the man's part of the mob and the necklace is, in fact, very valuable. It was a big mistake for Morgan to have taken the necklace and for Morgan and Nicky to have allowed it to be buried with their grandmother.
BIG MISTAKES is a very funny show.
The only problem? Laurie Metcalf.
She plays their mother. And sometimes she's perfect in the role. When she is, she recalls her work in ROSEANNE and JFK and INTERNAL AFFAIRS. And when she's not? It's like watching her in SCREAM II when she's playing the bad guy and she can't carry it off. This happens when she goes so far over the top and, yes, we know Metcalf goes over the top in pretty much everything. But when she goes so far over the top that she's a parody of herself.
She needs to reign it in or the character needs to be revamped so that she's not someone people would vote to be mayor and someone who runs the family hardware store and is seen as a pillar of the community.
PROUD is a Polish series with a dubbed in English version that streams on HBO. Ignacy Liss stars as Filip -- a partying model -- who has been living with his sister and his sister's infant child Tosia. His sister dies and Filip wants to raise his niece but suddenly roadblocks emerge because he's gay. This a powerful drama which really pulls you in.
As does LUCKY, an APPLE TV+ series starring Anya Taylor-Joy as Lucky -- a con artist raised by a con artist. That con artist is played Timothy Olyphant who is wonderful in the role and that's true of Taylor-Joy, Annette Bening, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor . . . There's not a bad performance in the cast. It's really something to watch the actors work individually and as an ensemble. LUCKY is a thriller and there are enough twists and turns to hook you and keep you hooked.
Those are three programs -- a comedy, a drama and a thriller -- and each one is special and worth watching.
Worth watching because it's quality television.
Some things are worth watching because they inform.
Last week, we got informed that Wajahat Ali and Rula Jabreal are racists. This was conveyed when Rula appeared on Wajahat's podcast and began trashing US House Rep Hakeem Jeffries.
Democratic lawmakers denounced left-wing Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal for referring to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) as an “AIPAC monkey.”
Jebreal made the comment during a podcast interview with progressive commentator Wajahat Ali earlier this week, and it has since gotten traction on social media.
“He is a bought and paid by AIPAC monkey,” Jebreal said. “With all due respect — and I don’t mean it in a racist way. He is just basically an errand boy, and we’re done and tired.”
The Congressional Black Caucus promptly denounced the remark — and called out Ali for platforming it.
“To be clear, there isn’t a non-racist way to call Leader Jeffries—a Black man—a ‘monkey’ or ‘errand boy,'” the caucus wrote, in a statement on X. “@WajahatAli, this is what happens when we hold ourselves to such low standards for what’s allowable in our discourse—people get comfortable being openly bigoted. We have to stop platforming and trafficking in anti-Black racism, whether it’s on the political right or the left.”
He is a bought and paid by AIPAC monkey. With all due respect and I don't mean it in a racist way. He is just basically an errand boy, and we're done and tired."
"I don't mean it in a racist way."
She knew it was racist. Don't give us, Joy-Ann, that b.s. about Rula not knowing it was racist because she's not from the US. And then shoring it up with some tale that your father told you. Deal with the facts. We know you're not a Democrat anymore. We caught that announcement when you made it. But whatever you are now, you need to deal with facts.
But Joy-Ann and Wajahat didn't want to deal with facts which is why neither of them pressed Rula about her use of the term "errand boy" which was also racist.
"We should stand together against fascism and hate and not be divided."
Wajahat Tweeted that Saturday.
If you really think that you wouldn't have had that conversation with Rula to begin with.
There are people running in Democratic Party slots for the midterms -- 57 days from now. Guess what? Some of them we don't like.
Guess what else? You don't see us attacking those people.
We grasp that the Democrats have to take control of the House in the midterms. Have to. And, hopefully, will also take control of the Senate.
The primaries are over. There's no point in trashing whomever won them on the Democratic Party side. Not if we're focused on winning back the House (and hopefully the Senate).
"We should stand together against fascism and hate and not be divided."
Wajahat says that -- in defense of Rula.
To take heat off Rula, he says that.
Well guess what, Hakeem is up for re-election in 57 days. Wajahat had no concern about us all standing together against fascism and hate with regards to Hakeem. He let Rula spit her hate at Hakeem and her racism. And, to be clear, when she said it in real time, he didn't push back, he didn't even touch on it until it became an online issue at which point he brought her back on and did the I-know-you're-not-racist bit with Rula.
She is racist. Her comments were racist. And Wajahat is racist for letting those comments go unaddressed when she originally made them.
Joy-Ann? Well she's got her own history of making remarks that she shouldn't have and then lying about them. Or are we to forget her homophobic remarks from the '00s? And when she was confronted with those remarks -- those posted online statements -- she denied them. So she's probably not the one, Wajahat, to run to in order to shore up someone's credibility after they made offensive remarks.
"We should stand together against fascism and hate and not be divided."
But Rula was the one who divided us -- with Wajahat's permission -- by attacking Hakeem.
