Station Eleven

I have watched this complex, challenging, and ultimately triumphant post-apocalyptic series three times, despite knowing everything that’s going to happen. It’s based on a book by Emily St John Mandel, with some major changes (including a redemption arc). Mackenzie Davis as Kirsten Raymonde gives the performance of her career, ranging from an abandoned young child to a powerful champion to an angry attacker to, finally, the hero who both saves and welcomes everyone. It covers several different timelines, with cuts to the main characters in each of these different timelines, from the day civilization basically ended due to a global plague, to the initial struggles for the few survivors, to the post-technology sparsely-populated world twenty years later.

Himesh Patel is Jeevan, the man who rescues the orphaned Kirsten, and Gael Garcia Bernal is Arthur Leander, a complex and important character (despite dying in the first scene). Danielle Deadwyler plays Arthur’s first wife and Caitlin FitzGerald is his second wife. We see them before they knew Arthur, as they each met and married Arthur, and as they each eventually encounter the day of the plague. Danielle Deadwyler, in particular, takes actions throughout that save numerous lives. All but one percent of the planet dies in those first few days, and we see the small group, The Traveling Symphony, as they pick up the pieces and become a caravan bringing Shakespeare to small towns in Michigan twenty years later. Technology is gone; the symphony is led by horses. The 2.7 million people in Chicago, where Kristen and Jeevan encounter the plague, are reduced to fewer than 27,000; and the northern Michigan towns where the symphony travels have at most a few hundred people.

Yet they survive, and persist, and bring music, drama, and joy. We see Kirsten challenged and attacked several times, escaping and developing survival skills. We see her mourn the loss of colleagues, and take on bandits and other threats, but we also see her learn to see the good in some of those threatening people. We see her separated from Jeevan by attackers, and we see her grow up without him, and then we see their triumphant reunion. The series finally ends with the song United We Stand by The Brotherhood of Man, and there could not be a more perfect ending: after hours and episodes of trials, challenges, conflicts, farewells and reunions, deaths and near-deaths, it perfectly summarizes what the entire time trip has meant to all these people. They’re united. They stand together. They accept each other. It’s a teary ending, and the tears are all of joy.

See the  Rolling Stone review and the Vanity Fair review.

Godless

Westerns typically have good guys and bad guys; emphasis on the word “guys”. This fantastic limited series rejects that expectation, focusing on a town where nearly all the men were killed in a mining accident and the surviving women hold it together. Michelle Dockery is the main hero, a female rancher estranged from the town because she won’t support their attempts to find new men to rescue them. She’s obviously famous for Downton Abbey and Restless, but this series is better, and she is incredible in it: complex, emotional, honorable, brave. Merritt Wever is the second female lead, in love with the town’s female schoolteacher, and willing to challenge both the women and the remaining men. An old marshal (her brother) risks his life to help. Jack O’Connell plays Roy Goode, an unexpected stranger with a troubled and criminal past, and Jeff Daniels is the criminal leader chasing Roy (and thereby pulling in both the female leads, against their wishes). The suspense never stops.

The show is more than good vs. bad, with complex characters on both sides. Subplots abound, with the corporate mining company trying to take over the town, a nearby Black town (where the “Buffalo Soldiers” originated) pulled in, a mysterious Native elder, a selfish newspaper publisher, and behind it all, a backstory that is gradually revealed. The main heroes, despite questioning their roles, do the right thing. They save the stranger, and he in turn defends them. Even the reluctant women, who try hard to welcome the corporate baron who wants to steal their town, eventually decide to fight with the heroes, to stand up for their community. It’s the best western series I’ve ever seen. (In the movie world, I’d compare it to Unforgiven and Silverado. But because Godless is longer and more complex, it’s better than either of those films.)

This series was written and directed by Scott Frank, who then wrote and directed The Queen’s Gambit (adapted from the book by Walter Tevis).

See the Rolling Stone review.

The Queen’s Gambit

Throughout her young life, chess prodigy Beth Harmon faces and overcomes major challenges: being abandoned, abuse in a harsh orphanage, misogynistic beliefs that she could not succeed in chess, adoptive parents who very much had their own problems and were not on her side, self-doubt, and eventually alcoholism. Her journey here is inspiring and joyful as she adapts her approach to new opponents and never gives up. Harmon is played by Anya Taylor-Joy, in what was hailed as her breakout role; it was that, though she’d already done exceptional work in The Witch (her best performance before this series), Split, Glass, Emma, and The Northman.

I’ve had friends in recovery tell me they can’t watch this show because of the lead character’s problem with alcohol. I don’t agree. In the context of her struggles, determination, and triumphs, her alcoholism is not a crisis or even a flaw; it’s just another part of her life, another obstacle that does not derail her. What makes this series shine is the way she almost gives up, yet keeps coming back; sometimes with the help of friends, and sometimes not. When she loses, you feel for her, and it makes her subsequent victories more resounding and heart-felt. Each time she is embraced, whether by friends, competitors, fans, crowds, or chess-playing strangers on the streets of Moscow, we in the audience are completely on her side. For me, there’s no difference between applauding the show and applauding Beth’s talents and journey or Anya Taylor-Joy’s incredible performance; it’s all one gorgeous masterpiece.

See the Time review and the Den of Geek review.

Daisy Jones and the Six

Taylor Jenkins Reid wrote the novel and then co-produced this excellent limited series. The novel follows the “unreliable narrator” approach, where different characters tell different and often conflicting versions of events. The show changes that format, and Jenkins Reid and the main characters say it does a perfect job showing what actually happened. It’s glorious to watch. I watched it three times (skipping one episode the third time through). We see the characters as they struggle with addiction, marital conflict, competing interests, some backstabbing, fears, and a chaotic run of success, failure, success, and then what appears to be a chaotic and powerful final failure. But wait: as all the pieces come together, we find things we didn’t know, and we find joy again. I watched the ending several times, crying each time. There aren’t enough words to describe how much this show moved me. The lead characters say it moved them as well.

Riley Keough (Elvis’ granddaughter and heir) is powerful as Daisy Jones; so are Camila Morrone (Camila Alvarez, Billy’s wife and Julia Dunne’s mother), Sam Claflin (Billy Dunne), Suki Waterhouse (Karen Sirko, the pianist), and Nabiyah Be and Ayesha Harris as a gay couple at a time when it was not okay to be gay in public. (Nabiyah, as Simone Jackson, makes a powerful statement when she walks away from the recording contract she’s wanted her whole life because of a clause that would have forced her and Ayesha to keep their relationship secret.) Timothy Olyphant plays a completely unexpected role as the band’s manager, nothing like the tough cop roles he’s famous for from Deadwood and Justified.

To add a postscript, I am now trying to finish my first novel and created this website because I was inspired by Taylor Jenkins Reid (and in particular by her novels The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Carrie Soto is Back, Daisy Jones and The Six, and Malibu Rising, in that order).

See the Daily Beast review.

A Murder at the End of the World

Starring Emma Corrin as Darby Hart, this series seems at first to be a traditional Agatha Christie (or Knives Out) whodunit: a dozen guests who mostly don’t know each are invited by tech billionaire Andy Ronson (Clive Owen) to his remote retreat. Not surprisingly, one guest dies, and the investigation starts. But the show is more complex and challenging, not just as Darby hunts for the killer, but as other characters come on and off her side, and the power figures try to stop her (or do they?), and the other guests keep introducing blame and confusion, and Darby doesn’t know who to trust. It is very late in the series before the sides become clear.

But the actual show starts before any of this, and ends beautifully in an echo of the beginning. We first see Darby at a bookstore as she’s reading an excerpt from her new book, a non-fiction account of how she and Bill Farrah searched for and found a notorious serial killer of (mostly young) girls. Suddenly Darby is invited to the hidden retreat where she meets Andy Ronson and his wife, another tech genius (Brit Marling).

Created by Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling (who also created the OA), this series takes some surprising turns, without ever quite leading us astray. We’re not surprised at the first death, but we are shocked that it’s Bill Farrah, whom Darby has not seen in years. We’re also not surprised that many of the guests have possible motives, nor that most of the guests are wealthy and brilliant. But why is Darby there? Why was Bill there? And as Darby starts to make progress in finding the killer, why does Andy try so hard to make her leave, without ever actually threatening her? What’s really going on between Andy and his wife Lee Andersen? Why are the other guests there?

Nothing is easy or obvious about this show. I was on Darby’s side from the first jump, even as she makes some confusing moves. With the flashbacks, it can seem hard to follow, but there’s a point to every scene, and when the major confrontations finally occur, it’s up to Darby to save those she can, while, well, burning everything else to the ground. And it doesn’t end there; it ends with Darby again doing a public book reading, again a non-fiction book, in the same bookstore as the beginning, but this time, she’s reading her story about a murder at the end of the world. When the audience stands and applauds, it is well-earned. I cried.

See the Rolling Stone review.