TV Withdrawl

. . . So Ian and I finished The Shield. I didn’t cry as everyone expected me to, probably because I knew it wasn’t going to end well. I sat and thought about it for a few minutes, finished my beer (Gritty’s IPA) and got on Amazon to order Season One.



Pictured: The Greatest Movie Ever



That was a few weeks ago. In the meantime, Ian and I have been trying to find a new show to fill the void and so far, nothing’s working. It’s like trying to quit heroin. I sat through not one, but two additional second-run showings of Predators, two nights in a row, just to get my Walton Goggins fix. We watched Chrystal, (Does Billy Bob Thorton have more than one expression? Does he ever do anything other than stand with his head slightly cocked, looking puzzled/deep? I don’t care if he hung out with Warren Zevon, I’m not buying his “genius” for another damn minute). We watched Randy and the Mob. We watched The Accountant. I considered watching Saving Grace for my Kenneth Johnson fix, but Ian stopped me before I hurt myself and those around me.

Fuck You, Fuckers

We thought The Wire would be good. We liked Homicide (the book and the show) and recognized a lot of the cast from Homicide and Oz, but by the second episode, we didn’t know a single character’s name, or what was going on other than that the writers felt liberated to use the word “fuck” in every fucking other fucking word. James fucking Ellroy fucking does this too, and it fucking annoys the fuck out of me. See how it bogs down the sentence? I get it, The Wire ran on HBO and I get it, people curse. I think “fuck” is one of the greatest words in the English language. But if you use it too much, the meaning gets lost—not just of the word, but of the whole sentiment you’re trying to convey. Vic Mackey never dropped a single f-bomb and you knew that he meant business. Meanwhile, Cop ____ on The Wire says it every other word, and I still feel like a kitten could kick his ass.

We sent that back and got Sons of Anarchy, which was written by The Shield co-producer Kurt Sutter and ran on FX. Jay Karns had a short run of the cast, and Dutch-Boy was Ian’s Shane, so he was all tingly about that. And Ron Pearlman as a biker dude? Awesome. How could this possibly suck?

Sons of Anarchy is a soap opera with motorcycles. All they do is stand around talking about the jobs they’re going to pull—running guns to the 1-9ers (Shield shout-out!) and then generic-looking dirty-blonde biker-protagonist mopes around because his baby-momma did a bunch of drugs and now he’s got this preemie baby and I think he is either or used to bang the lady doctor with the tramp stamp and he is sad because he doesn’t want to do bad biker stuff anymore. Yawn.



Not JK Simmons

Also, I kept thinking Ron Pearlman was JK Simmons, and then I was

Not Ron Pearlman

disappointed when I realized that it was just Ron Pearlman, who may be awesome but has too dry a screen presence to convey any sort of tension.

We barely even made it to the Jay Karns episodes, and I didn’t get to see Kenneth Johnson all covered in grease.



Mike brought over Burn Notice, which is, for now (until Justified comes out on DVD) filling the void. It’s a PI show, which I can dig, and I like the narrative voice. Bruce Campbell is pretty great. It’s clever without being quirky, even if the girl is driving me crazy. She’s ugly as sin and unforgivably annoying. We’re also trying our hand at Doctor Who and The Commish, so wish us luck.