Welcome to my Monday newsletter. This week, I am looking at Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, the latest episode of True Detective: Night Country and more!
For the last couple years, my most highly anticipated new show of the year turned out to be a disappointment (The First Lady in 2022, Dear Edward in 2023). So between that track record and the fact that Prime Video had a late embargo and a binge model, I was very worried that my #1 for 2024, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, would follow in those footsteps. Well, I'm happy to report that not only did Mr. & Mrs. Smith not disappoint, I would say it actually exceeded expectations.
I've watched three episodes of the eight so far and the closest comparison I can make is Poker Face in the sense that it's a throwback case of the week feel but with the gloss and money of a prestige TV show. I really don't mind self-contained shows. TV has been thriving on that model for decades. The problem with so many broadcast shows nowadays is that they are so unambitious with low production values that it really doesn't feel worth my time. What both Poker Face and Mr. and Mrs. Smith did is put some gloss (high production values, great guest stars) on a tried and true TV formula and the results are episodes that are endlessly enjoyable because they're familiar in the best sense of the word. These are shows that could run for years or a decade even though they probably won't.
Donald Glover and Maya Erskine are just terrific in this. They have a crackling chemistry and a real sweetness with each other. The mundane approach to spy work is a great source of comedy and Glover and Erskine are the perfect personality types to approach being a spy as a day at the office. Of the three episodes I watched, I really enjoyed the first and third. The first did a great job of setting the tone of the series, including the opening scene which featured Alexander Skarsgard and Eiza Gonzalez in cameo appearances. The third episode was set at a very fun location of a cozy and ritzy ski resort. I was a little less enthralled with the second episode, which featured an odd guest turn from John Turturro, but there were still moments to like. That's going to be the nature of episodic shows. Some cases will be more intriguing than others.
I do not understand at all why Prime Video chose to do this show as a binge drop. It's gotten pretty positive reviews, it's very clearly a case of the week approach and Prime has moved in general to a weekly release format for most of its bigger shows. I look forward to watching the rest of the season and really hope it gets a second season.
FX had the return of Feud this past week, seven years after the campy but acclaimed Bette vs. Joan. The new installment, which has Ryan Murphy's name attached, but came from Jon Robin Baitz and Gus Van Sant, focuses on colorful personality Truman Capote and his feuds with several women after he uses their real life troubles to write a thinly-veiled novel.
The strength in this show is very easy to pinpoint. It's the performances. Specifically, Tom Hollander is giving a really strong performance as Truman Capote, an outrageous yet complicated personality. Hollander is effective being larger than life and incredibly nuanced. Much of the pre-release attention came from the "Swans" - an all star cast of actresses including Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Demi Moore, Calista Flockhart and Molly Ringwald. Watts is easily the star alongside Hollander in the first two episodes while the other women make less of an impression. There's also quite a bit from the late, great Treat Williams in the first two episodes.
The strong performances and visual flairs are trying to make up for some other deficiencies. The show is playing much more like a biopic than a "feud." It really feels like the Feud moniker was just slapped on instead of being a thematic successor to Bette vs. Joan. It also just isn't a show that has enough story to tell. I already feel like the amount of filler is huge and it's only two episodes in. The life of Truman Capote probably didn't need to get eight whole episodes when the tensions seem to be very repetitive. Finally, despite the larger than life figure at the center, the show has cut down on the camp factor quite a bit. Bette vs. Joan was a mess at times but it was a glorious, campy mess. This show seems to be trying to play it a little too straight instead of embracing the camp. I'm gonna stick with this one because I'm finding the performances very satisfying. But I wish it was a little less uneven.
This week's episode of True Detective: Night Country had a whole lot of the two main detectives unraveling for good reasons. This episode was definitely more character-based and less focused on the mystery though the final chunk of the episode moved the story forward quite a bit. With only two episodes left, I'm curious to see if the mystery part of the show can come to a satisfying conclusion. The show itself is already a success because the character work has been great for the most part. Jodie Foster continues to be great and Kali Reis has gotten notably better as the series has gone on. John Hawkes and Finn Bennett have been great too even though the show itself has used them sparingly at times.
But the case itself gets ignored for large swaths while it also seems to be playing with the supernatural more than I would like. The final scene of this week was perfectly emblematic of the problem. Jodie Foster seemed to be in a psychological thriller while Kali Reis was in a horror movie with jump scares. The supernatural/horror elements are not totally working for me because so much of the rest of the show is so grounded in reality and real problems. This season has reminded me and others of Mare of Easttown and in that episode, the relationships between the characters ultimately mattered a whole lot more than the case. The difference was there was no supernatural element to Mare, it was a good old-fashioned "who done it." I'm just not convinced about the direction the case seems to be heading on Night Country.
SCRIPTED PREMIERES THIS WEEK
This week brings a few more broadcast shows back with ABC's Wednesday comedy lineup of The Conners, Not Dead Yet and crown jewel Abbott Elementary (two episodes) returning. On Thursday, Netflix premieres all 14 episodes of their limited series One Day. I know Netflix doesn't do weekly rollouts but I'm a little surprised this didn't at least get broken into two parts. Elsewhere, Paramount+ has the second season premiere of Halo, which didn't make much of an impression in its first season and Max has the second season premiere of Tokyo Vice. On Sunday, CBS is giving its coveted post-Super Bowl slot to new action drama Tracker, which brings Justin Hartley back to Broadcast TV and kicks off CBS's strike delayed premiere week.
ODDS & ENDS
- I was going to do a full review on Genius: MLK/X but I tapped out after one episode (and lost interest during the episode, to be honest). There's nothing horrible about it but it just seems like a run of the mill bio TV show that doesn't really have anything new to say. Both men are fascinating individuals but the lack of dynamic writing and meh production values made me not interested in watching a full season.
- I continue to feel the same about Expats as I did in my review last week. There are some intriguing elements and some eye-rolling elements. Among the latter, a character in Hong Kong said about Friends: "I think that was filmed in Burbank on a soundstage." That's not the way real people who don't follow the industry talk. That's the way Hollywood talks. A real person would just say "I think that was filmed in Hollywood" if that. The specificity is such an example of out of touch Hollywood writing. It's a small thing but just an eye-roll moment.
- A couple casting notes I'm super interested in from this past week: Catherine O'Hara in the second season of The Last of Us (what an interesting person for a show like that) and Matthew Mcfadyen starring in a series about the assassination of James Garfield from the Game of Thrones creators. Both very intriguing!
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