Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden
“SLOW HORSES” (Apple+):
In the same way that the novels of John LeCarre epitomized Cold War espionage, the spy stories of Mick Herron nail the rudderless amorality of our current situation.
In Herron’s Slow Horses series (read them…they’re the best spy novels EVER) the enemy is not so much the Russkies or Jihadists as it is the power-hungry politicians and behind-the-scenes manipulators who would bend Britain’s espionage apparatus to their own twisted ends.
Going in I doubted that a TV adaptation could match the wonders of Herron’s prose, but I’ve been proven wrong. “Slow Horses” is utterly captivating…hilarious, infuriating and suspenseful.
And it offers Gary Oldman at his absolute best. Oldman’s Jackson Lamb is a disheveled, flatulent alcoholic who after a career as a field agent has been demoted to lead Slough House, a dead end posting for spies who have screwed up.
Lamb is unrelentingly cruel to his loser minions (the show is a veritable cornucopia of inventive insults), but he remains a master spy, and even from the bitter exile of Slough House (whose inhabitants are contemptuously dismissed as “slow horses”) he has the brains and inventiveness to run circles arounds his corrupt “betters.”
This perf has “Emmy” written all over it.
Our main “good guy” is River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) who came to the service as the grandson of a legendary spy master and shamed his family by flunking a training test in a very public way.
But all of the horses have their own morosely funny backstories (substance abuse, hacking, gambling) which are examined over the show’s three seasons (there’s at least one more to go).
And as their nemesis we have the magnificent Kristin Scott Thomas as Diana Taverner, second-in-command of His Majesty’s spy service and determined to move into the top slot by any means necessary.
Sebastian Manicalco, Omar J. Dorsey
“BOOKIE” (MAX):
The same sort of freewheeling capitalism-on-steroids energy that propelled HBO’s “Ballers” is a big factor in “Bookie,” a drop-dead funny half-hour comedy about a couple of LA oddsmakers who aren’t nearly tough enough for their chosen line of work.
Danny (standup Sebastian Manicalco) is more or less joined at the hip with Ray (Omar J. Dorsey). Danny is the brains of the outfit; Ray, a former footballer, provides the muscle.
Only problem is they’re all bluff…basically they put on a threatening show, but panic when it comes to actual violence.
Which means that the degenerate gamblers who owe them money are always squirming out of paying up. (Charlie Sheen appears in several episodes, portraying a smarmy gambling addicted version of himself.)
It’s sort of a criminal version of the “Odd Couple.” Danny and Ray spend WAY more time with each other than with their womenfolk, have their own zinger-heavy language, and share a dread of taxes, responsibility and 9-to-5 jobs.
The revelation for me was Maniscalco’s performance. He was really good in his brief turn as Crazy Joe Gallo in Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” but that didn’t prepare me for the superb timing and subtlety of expression he displays in every episode of “Bookie.”
This is laugh-out-loud stuff.
Brie Larson
“LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY” (Apple+)
Oscar-winner Brie Larson makes a rare trip to the small(er) screen to embody the alluring/austere heroine of Bonnie Garmus’ best seller.
Her Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant chemist who, alas, is the wrong sex. The series begins in the 1950s and the chauvinists who run the big research lab where she works cannot see Elizabeth doing anything more challenging than making the perfect cup of coffee for the “real” scientists.
Her prickly personality doesn’t help. Elizabeth doesn’t flirt, is indifferent to the usual standards of femininity and has been cursed with the need to speak truth to conventional manliness, even when not in her best interest. She suffers from a form of social autism.
But love finds her in the form of nerdy Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman), the firm’s top chemist, who becomes her lover and lab partner.
Fired when she becomes an unwed mother, Elizabeth ends up at a local TV station where, in a page from the Julia Child playbook, she becomes a sensation with an afternoon cooking show that breaks down recipes to their molecular basics. (She’s a chemist, after all.)
Covering nearly 15 years, “Lessons in Chemistry” carries not only a strong protofeminist message, but deals with the growing Civil Rights movement (Elizabeth lives in a predominantly black neighborhood).
There’s a huge supporting cast, but this is essentially Larsen’s show…she takes a stand-offish, brittle character and somehow makes her inspirational and aspirational.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 