Saying Goodbye to 'Rescue Me'

As Rescue Me fans gear up for the series finale next week, I can’t help but feel sadness at the conclusion of this complicated, uneven, edgy but unquestionably button-pushing drama that plumbed the depths and sadness of 9/11 like no other piece of pop culture.

Though I gave up on the show for a season and a half – I was very put off by a scene late in the third season where Tommy Gavin sexually assaulted his estranged wife Janet – I returned for the fifth season and have remained a loyal viewer since. I’ve even been reviewing it for CliqueClack TV for the past two seasons.

This final season has been incredibly powerful, from its somber reflections on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 – how it’s being exploited, how it is still such a raw wound for many – to the depiction of firefighters facing their own mortality, ever aware of the dangers they walk into when they attempt to save someone who’s inside a burning building.

Tommy Gavin’s come full circle, from the crappy, alcoholic, selfish, wounded husband and emotionally AWOL father, to one who appears to have finally given up the booze, embraced his responsibilities as a husband and father and who can finally take a pass on temptations that come his way. He's made his peace with those around him (thanks to his buddy Lou prematurely delivering heartfelt letters Tommy wrote to be distributed to his family and friends in the event of his death).

Which of course means Tommy’s got to die, right? Well if you go by the second-to-last episode (I reviewed it here) it seems as though Tommy and his whole crew may (emphasis on may) have died in a warehouse fire (which reminded me of the 1999 Worcester fire, the one in which Denis Leary’s firefighter cousin and childhood friend perished as they entered a building intent on saving the people they thought were inside).

Who knows what lies in store for the finale next Wednesday night, whether Tommy Gavin will live or die, along with his brethren. Either way, I hope the series finale will be respectful of the show, the characters and the audience.

Image credit: FX.

Emmy Nominations: Love for 'Friday Night Lights,' 'Mad Men' & 'Modern Family'

Image credit: NBC via New York Post.

As it rounds the corner of its final season, Friday Night Lights and its two lead actors, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, have received Emmy nominations for the wonderful conclusion to the series which moved and delighted me. Though it’s highly unlikely that FNL will receive any Emmys -- it’s up against Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, Dexter and Game of Thrones in best drama, Chandler faces Mad Men’s Jon Hamm who had a stupendous year while Britton is competing with Julianna Margulies’ powerhouse turn in The Good Wife), it’s nice to see the gang from Dillon, Texas get some props for a change.



And it was a testament to the outstanding high quality of the humor, writing and performances in Modern Family to see that all the parents in the show were nominated for an Emmy, the show is in contention for best comedy (an honor it won last year) and one of its funniest episodes, “Caught in the Act,” is vying for best comedy writing. It’s been nominated for 17 Emmys, deservedly so.

Image credit: AMC.

Then there’s my beloved Mad Men which has been nominated for 19 Emmys. A favorite for best drama, which it has won for three consecutive years, the amazing Don and Peggy-centric episode “The Suitcase”  (where they stayed up all night working on the Samsonite campaign) was nominated for best writing, Miss Blankenship (Randee Heller) was nominated for best guest actress and Elisabeth Moss is up for best actress.

Other nominations that made my day: Amy Poehler for Parks and Recreation, Michelle Forbes for her poignant work on The Killing and Andre Braugher’s Men of a Certain Age nod.

Who was left out of the Emmy 2011 party?

All the folks from Parenthood. No nominations. Zip. Nada. I thought for sure that Peter Krause would be on the list for his Adam Braverman (I’m thinking specifically about the episode where he punched the guy in the grocery store for mocking his son who has Asperger’s), or Mae Whitman for her portrayal of troubled teen Amber Holt.

Rescue Me. Its sixth season was strong and powerful and grim as Denis Leary’s Tommy Gavin, like Don Draper, hit his alcoholic rock bottom. (Both depictions were ugly and gripping.) Certainly the series and Leary deserved nominations.

Ray Romano. He proved, in his second season as the put-upon divorced dad Joe with a gambling problem on Men of a Certain Age, that he has acting chops.

Michael B. Jordan as Vince Howard from Friday Night Lights. During these past two seasons, Jordan has given an achingly beautiful performance as the East Dillon Lions’ quarterback who struggled with his previous criminal entanglements with deadly gangs, with his father returning to the fold after serving jail time (and disappointing his son by reverting to substance abuse), his mother’s rehab from drug addiction and omnipresent poverty.
Nick Offerman from Parks and Recreation. Just for the episode where he sported dreadlocks. Ron Swanson's Pyramid of Greatness. Seriously. He made me laugh out loud.
 
The folks from The Middle. I adored the episode where Frankie and Mike Heck attempted to "take back" the house from their kids but, inevitably, failed.

What nominations pleased you? Which omissions annoyed you?

Image credits: New York Post, Michael Yarish/AMC.

Notes on Pop Culture: Two Seasons of 'Breaking Bad,' 'Rescue Me' Battles Alcoholism & Army Mom Goes AWOL

Breaking Bad’s First Two Seasons

CliqueClack TV, a blog to which I contribute, has this nifty little feature called the “Virgin Diaries” where the site’s writers watch a TV series for the first time and write about it, giving readers who are already fans of the show the chance to re-live the show from the beginning.

In the past few weeks I've been writing about AMC’s Breaking Bad, the drama where Malcolm in the Middle’s Bryan Cranston plays anti-hero Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who’s diagnosed with lung cancer and starts cooking meth so that when he dies, he’ll leave some significant money behind for his pregnant wife and their 15-year-old son with cerebral palsy, as well as trying to make sure that the cost of his cancer treatments doesn't drive the family into bankruptcy.

The cancer, coupled with the drug making (he's a whiz at making pure crystal meth) awakens something dormant within Walt -- chiefly his confidence -- and he blossoms, going from a timid teacher (who had done Nobel Prize-worthy work in graduate school) to a cut-throat drug manufacturer.

My review of the complete first, seven-episode season is here, followed by my take on the first part of season two as well as the remainder of Breaking Bad’s sophomore season.

I was riveted by the first season while watching Walt transform, but I didn't find the second season as compelling as the first. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad, it was just . . . different, more depressing, as Walt’s personal life fell to pieces as he learned the ropes of the meth business and his partner coped with tragedies and struggled with his own appetite for drugs.

Rescue Me Battles Alcoholism

Speaking of depressing . . . the past two weeks of Rescue Me have featured the intense fear that Tommy Gavin’s daughter Colleen – who’s a raging alcoholic like her father – had died after going on a bender with Tommy (I was convinced that she was going to be found dead by the end of last week's episode), to this week's episode, where Tommy claimed he’s off the juice again and tried to drive demonic spirits out of his daughter by forcefully baptizing/exorcising her by plunging her face into a baptismal font which Tommy had filled with a priest’s stash of booze.

I can’t decide whether the show is going to try to sink Tommy to even lower depths – I don’t think he’s reached “rock bottom” yet, whatever one might call “rock bottom” – in his and his troubled family’s battle with alcohol, or whether it'll spend the remainder of the time trying to have Tommy climb his way out of the hole he's in. I also can't figure out where the writers are headed, and that's, I think, a good thing.

Army Wives and AWOL Moms

Recently Army Wives took on the thorny issue of what to do when a single parent is supposed to deploy overseas and his or her childcare arrangements fall through. Based on a true story of an Army cook who was threatened with court martial for failing to report for duty to go overseas after her mother backed out of taking care of her 10-month-old son, Army Wives tugged at the heartstrings, asking the question of whether this fictional AWOL Army mom should’ve been loyal to her job or to her child.

My column on moms in the military -- both on the Lifetime drama and what's gone on in the real Army -- was posted on Mommy Tracked this week.

Image credit: AMC.

Two TV-Centric Posts: 'Rescue Me' and Me as an All-Powerful Emmy Goddess

I’ve got two new posts up on CliqueClack TV today, the first is a review of last night’s episode of Rescue Me where Tommy Gavin publicly proclaimed that he was giving up drinking – AGAIN – and was going to be a better man, a better husband and a better dad. And everyone laughed in his face, not buying it, while his wife Janet told him that he'd transformed her into a cynical, negative person. Then by the end -- and this is hardly a spoiler if you've actually watched Tommy over the years -- he raised a hefty glass of whiskey and declared that the world was "not cooperating" with attempts to stay sober.

Now his eldest daughter Colleen is apparently following in his boozy footsteps and he’s helplessly inept when it comes to giving her guidance.

The second blog post is my wish list of TV shows and actors/actress who I think should get Emmy nominations when they’re announced tomorrow morning. I can summarize my go-with-the-heart picks with four words: Mad, Men, Modern and Family.

And no, Lost is not on the list for best drama because I’m still holding a grudge over that series finale debacle thing which still has me feeling as though watching the final season was a complete waste of time. (As more time passes, I find myself getting angrier about the whole mess.)

Image credit: FX via New York Magazine.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Rescue Me's' Dysfunctional Premiere, FNL's Toilet Bowl & the Army Wives Turned into Working Moms

Rescue Me's Dysfunctional Premiere

The headline for my review of the season six opener of Rescue Me over on CliqueClack TV is: “Rescue Me’s premiere elevated family dysfunction to new heights.” That about sums it up.

As I watched the episode unfold, I absolutely could not believe the antics of the Gavin family. From Uncle Teddy showing up at the bar where he’d shot his nephew four weeks prior as though it was no big deal, Eddy exploiting Tommy’s shooting as a great business/PR move (asking Tommy to lie down in between the chalk outline of his body from where he’d been bleeding on the bar room floor), Janet intentionally poking Tommy in the spot of his gunshot wound, the wild ride Mickey gave Tommy from the hospital, to the boozing Colleen Gavin, I came to the conclusion that there’s something wrong with the Gavin gene pool.

FNL’s Toilet Bowl



Loved the threads touched upon in the most recent episode of Friday Night Lights, "Toilet Bowl:" Julie feared disappointing her mother and failing to live up to her expectations when it came to college. (Julie was less than enthused about her visit to Boston with Tami, who acted as though she'd been added to the Boston College public relations payroll.)

Landry and Jess moved forward with their adorable, awkward budding romance, although it seems as though Vince is still carrying around a piece of Jess’ heart in his back pocket. Luke started turning into a Nurse Jackie/Dr. House drug addict, going through pain medication at such a rapid clip that he had to resort to getting the name of a less than honest doctor in order to score another prescription because the pain in his hip from that ranch accident is still intense.

The two biggest stories of the week: Tim Riggins found his own field of dreams and, after realizing he’s in no position, financially to buy it, figured it'd be worth it to join Billy in an ill-advised, illegal after hours chop shop operation at Riggins Rigs in order to raise the cash to become a property owner. Bad. Move.

And finally, the lowly East Dillon Lions netted their first victory. Huzzah for the Lions.

Have I said lately that I’m particularly enjoying this fourth season of FNL? Seriously.

Army Wives Turned into Working Moms

My pop culture and politics column over on Mommy Tracked this week traced the evolution of the wives on Lifetime’s Army Wives from season one, when only Joan and Roxy had jobs outside the home, to the current season, where all of them are employed, with the exception of Claudia Joy who’s going back to school to complete the law degree she abandoned when she married Michael.

I think Claudia Joy’s transformation from being the helpful, party-throwing, consummate volunteer wife to working alongside her law professor on a case against Fort Marshall has been the most dramatic, followed by EMT Denise and “rookie” cop Pamela Moran, who’s freshly divorced and once again pursuing her career.

‘Rescue Me’ Premieres Tuesday, Will You Tune In?

Last we saw of Rescue Me’s Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary), he’d been shot by his grief-stricken Uncle Teddy and lay bleeding on the floor of the underground bar he ran with his firefighter buddies. Not too long beforehand, Tommy -- who’d given up on his hard-earned sobriety -- had been preaching to all comers that they should drink as much alcohol as they wanted, screw AA, Tommy said. However when Teddy’s wife died in a booze-fueled car wreck, Teddy held Tommy responsible for persuading everyone to start drinking again, thus the bar room shooting.

The sixth season premieres Tuesday at 10 on FX and I’m really interested to see what, if any, impact this near-death experience at the hands of his uncle has had on Tommy. If 9/11 rocked Tommy’s life, what would nearly dying do to him? Would there, could there be any real change? I’m doubtful.

Meanwhile, I’m not sure what to make of the two FX promos: The first one, “Cradle to Brave,” is a parallel portrait of two boys, one who grows up to be a professional baseball player for the Yankees (Derek Jeter) and the other who becomes New York City firefighter (Tommy Gavin). Something about seeing Jeter slowly drive by after Tommy risked his life to help a colleague out of a burning building, just felt odd to me as Alicia Keys sang “Empire State of Mind.” (Or maybe that’s just my reaction as a Red Sox fan.) Is this some sort of heroic equation, that Jeter gets cheers and accolades while Tommy gets a soot-covered face and is lucky to live to see another day?



The second video is a more traditional promo for the season as the words, “Sometimes you have to die to learn how to live” appear on the screen and Tommy is lectured about how not to let the “bad Karma” get the “upper hand on the good Karma.”



The New York Daily News wrote about the new season by saying that its first four episodes “build on Gavin’s collapse. He is haunted by his cousin’s death [on 9/11] and his own mortality. He’s also suspicious of his firehouse family, though they rallied to help his wife maintain their home when he recovered.”


Of the fifth episode of this season, series creator/writer/star Leary told the paper: “It’s an explosion of everything that’s gone on in Tommy Gavin’s life. It’s the bottoming-out of his alcohol addiction. It slips in time from past to present, constantly back and forth. It’s a really nasty episode. Everybody’s abandoning him.”

Are you looking forward to the sixth season?

Critic Names Favorite TV Pilots from 1999-Now, What Are Some of Your Favs?

Given that it's almost time for the new fall TV shows to commence -- the notion of "fall TV" almost seems retro, given the new, re-jiggered TV landscape where new shows now premiere throughout the year -- the Boston Globe's TV critic Matthew Gilbert was thinking about pilot episodes recently and comprised his own list of favorites that aired in the past 10 years.

The best one, in Gilbert's judgment: Freaks and Geeks, which premiered on NBC a decade ago. Gilbert said: "It so perfectly captured the relative innocence of the pre-MTV world, before kids were media-bound and ironic. Each of the indelible characters -- the cool kids and the geeks, all of them on the high school fringes -- was in place from the beginning."

Rounding out his top 10 were:

2. Lost (2004)
3. How I Met Your Mother (2005)
4. 24 (2001)
5. Mad Men (2007)
6. The West Wing (1999)
7. Arrested Development (2003)
8. The Sopranos (1999)
9. Action (1999)
10. Friday Night Lights (2006)

I would've make a different list, although I wouldn't quibble with the inclusion of Lost, 24, Mad Men, The West Wing and FNL.

One of the best pilots I'd ever seen was for Alias (2001) -- which received an honorable mention from Gilbert -- which set the stage for a powerhouse of a first season, and was gripping, dramatic and soulful at the same time, launching the careers of Jennifer Garner, Michael Vartan and Bradley Cooper, who played a reporter who was in love with Garner's character. Garner's character's finance was murdered early in the first episode and she later learned that not only was her standoffish dad a CIA agent, but that the off-book, clandestine CIA group she thought she worked for was not connected to the U.S. government. She worked for the "bad guys."

I'd also include one of my perennial favorites, Once and Again (1999) whose pilot episode about the impact of two divorces on suburban Chicago families was raw and honest. This show's cast included Sela Ward, Shane West, Evan Rachel Wood and Patrick Dempsey.

Two more favorite pilots: Six Feet Under (2001), which introduced us to the freaky Fisher family on the day the family patriarch died, and the poignant season one opener for Rescue Me (2004). To round it out to an even top 10 pilots from the past 10 years, I'd throw in Big Love (2006).

If you were making a list of the best pilots that aired between 1999 and now, which ones would you say kicked some serious behind?

Suburban Mom's Pop Culture Week: Hamm on Talk Shows, Julie & Julia and Classic Kerouac

TV:

To be honest, I've been DVRing talk shows all week to catch Jon Hamm talk without saying anything of substance about the season three premiere of Mad Men on Conan, Fallon & Good Morning America, watching marathon Red Sox games (like last week's 15-inning losing battle against the sinister Yankees) and cringing as Kate Gosselin also visited the talk show circuit, including her terribly awkward chat with the clueless Regis Philbin who apparently is the only person on earth who thinks there's a chance in hell that Jon and Kate will reconcile. Other than those things and the latest episode of Entourage -- which'll be the subject of an upcoming stand-alone post -- I haven't caught much TV this past week.

Sitting in my DVR queue are two episodes apiece of HawthRNe (which just got renewed for a second season) and Rescue Me, plus I've got to catch up on Weeds and Nurse Jackie with my Showtime On Demand because I'm behind a couple episodes with those as well. (I blame my backlog of unwatched material on my new puppy Max who likes to howl in the middle of the night, for long stretches of time, who's got me feeling like a sleep deprived new mother. It's easy to blame the pup. He doesn't read my blog.)

Oh, I AM planning on watching a niche drama on Sunday night, LIVE. It's on AMC. Maybe you've heard of it . . . something about ad men in the 1960s . . .

DVDs:

Last week I was all wrapped up in season two DVDs of Mad Men for a column I was working on and am just about finished with watching the first season thirtysomething DVDs in preparation for another piece (have one episode left). Don't know what I'll watch on DVD when I'm done with these two shows. Maybe I'll finally watch the Milk Netflix DVD I have sitting, unloved, next to the TV.

Movies:

While I haven't seen any movies this week -- save for the tail-end of Message in a Bottle which I caught on cable and made me instantly tear up because I'm a sentimental fool -- I'm hoping to see Julie & Julia this weekend. Reviews have been stellar. I think my best plan of action will be to eat something halfway decent before walking into the theater, otherwise I'll be distractedly ravenous during the entire thing.

Books:

Finally finished re-reading The Time Traveler's Wife and sniffled my way through the end. Again. Even though I knew how it ended, it still made me cry and ponder Clare Abshire's life choices. Wonder if the movie -- which is, unfortunately, getting mixed reviews -- aptly translates the dense, long and somewhat complicated book. I hope that it does a decent job because that's on my "to see in the theater" list.

After completing Time Traveler, I was browsing through my bookcase at books I own but haven't yet read and pulled down a 1959 edition of Jack Kerouac's On the Road (a paperback that once belonged to my mom). I've never read any Kerouac. It's time I change that.

Image credit: From this web site.

'Rescue Me:' Having a Great Fifth Season

I've been extremely impressed with the fifth season of Denis Leary's gritty firefighter drama Rescue Me on FX. It's had more than its share of insanely dark moments, from Tommy Gavin (Leary) announcing to an AA meeting that not only had he resumed drinking but that he was enjoying it, to Tommy seeking to prove that he wasn't dead inside, that he still had tears left to shed, because he could feel his thigh being scorched by a blow torch. There's been Sean Garrity's (Steve Pasquale) kidney cancer, which was thought to have been caused by the rescue work he did at Ground Zero in the days after 9/11.

But there have also been ample moments of humorous awkwardness:

-- The unorthodox back "treatment" at the chiropractic offices.

-- The we're-so-happy-and-a-walking-Talbots-ad charade Tommy and Janet Gavin (Andrea Roth) put on when they visited Katy's super-snooty boarding school, including Janet's kick-ass verbal take-down of the insufferable snobby parents.

-- Michael J. Fox's turn as Janet's psycho, violent boyfriend Dwight who gave new meaning to the word "ball-buster."

-- The sheer illogic behind the Janet-Tommy-Sheila (Callie Thorne) sex-with-no-strings troika that's bound to blow up at any moment. Seriously, not a single one of them is completely sane. I predict major ugliness by the end of the season.

-- Shawn (Larenz Tate) has been trying to woo Colleen Gavin (Natalie Distler), despite her, shall we say, daunting amount of sexual experience which initially turned him off. (Do you seriously want to know what was up with the peanut butter?)

-- Can't forget Garrity's drug-induced song-and-dance fantasies, where he donned a top hat and tails and belted out show tunes, as he lay in a hospital bed after his cancer surgery.

However it was the return to 9/11 as the source of many of Tommy's issues which have grounded this drama, returned it to its raison d'etre. The presence of a French journalist in the firehouse, pressing people about their recollections of that day and inquiring about its lasting impact, stirred the pot. The sexy French journalist, over whom Tommy and Lou fought, handed Tommy a DVD with some 9/11 footage to review. While watching it, Tommy realized that his cousin died when the second tower collapsed, not the first, because he saw Jimmy, alive in the footage. Later, as he and the writer were sitting in a restaurant overlooking Ground Zero and discussing the loss of his cousin that day, Tommy ordered and drank a scotch, poignantly leaving his one-year sobriety chip inside the glass.

In that moment, Tommy decided to resume his drinking ways. His lunatic Uncle Teddy (Lenny Clarke) only made matters worse when he told Tommy that the best way to come to terms with Tommy's father's death was to watch a DVD (again with the DVD) of family home movies with a big scotch and have a good cry. However when Tommy couldn't cry, he worried that he'd become devoid of feeling in the wake of 9/11 and the deaths of his son, his brother and his father, hence his drunken application of a blow torch's flame to his bare thigh, so he could feel something, literally and emotionally.

After the "Torch" episode, the most disturbing of the Rescue Me installments this season, the show didn't flail around in hopelessness. The very next episode was largely devoted to the guys from the firehouse breaking the rules in order to give kids battling cancer some joy by bringing fire trucks to the hospital where Garrity was recovering from cancer surgery. When a kid with absentee parents took off with the rig and Tommy chased it down in the department SUV with a "cancer kid" named Timmy riding shotgun, there was an essence of gallows humor when Timmy, who said he knew he was going to die from cancer, told Tommy that after that thrilling car chase, he could now die, satisfied.

What have you thought about Rescue Me's fifth season? How does it compare to previous seasons?

Image credit: FX.

Suburban Mom's Pop Culture Week: Tommy Gavin, Jason Bourne, Harry Potter, Michael Jackson, Sarah Palin & Red Sox

When I haven't been catching up on the latest news stories about Michael Jackson, the unfaithful South Carolina governor who doesn't know when to shut up, U.S. troops leaving Iraq and about Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell being put on the DL (!), I've been coping with sick kids and have been sick myself . . . but that hasn't stopped me from consuming pop culture and watching Sox games. Here's what I've been up to pop culture-wise this week:

TV:

-- Sox, Sox and more Sox. Mercifully, I didn't watch the entire game when the Sox blew a massive lead -- and "imploded" according to Jonathan Papelbon -- against the Orioles. Silly gal that I was, I thought they were going to win because they were up by so much, so I tuned in to other things, like Rescue Me.

-- I said this last week and I'll say it again this week: Rescue Me has been great this season and has drawn viewers into dark, twisty, unpredictable places. This season warrants a full blog post on its own, particularly given the blow torch scene. Damn!

-- Nurse Jackie: Jackie Peyton's kid is creating drawings sans colors, with no sun in the sky? Sounds like the recent weather around New England. Kidding aside, this dark show has me hook, line and obligatory sinker.

Movies:

-- Adored the Bourne Ultimatum which The Spouse and I saw on DVD. It sparked a heated discussion about who would take who in a fight: Jason Bourne or Jack Bauer. (I say Bourne. Bauer would be too busy yelling, "Dammit!" and trying to get patched in to Chloe on the phone.) While Ultimatum's handheld camerawork made me feel a bit nauseous at times (or it could've been the flu from which I was recovering), I was otherwise highly entertained.

-- What didn't I find so entertaining this week? Planning on watching the cerebral Frost/Nixon film by Ron Howard, only to find that I'd instead ordered from Netflix the ACTUAL Frost-Nixon interviews from the 1970s. At 10 p.m. on a Saturday, I could've stayed up to watch Ron Howard's hyped up dramatic version of the interviews, but I feared the real ones would've put me to sleep. It lies, still unwatched, next to the DVD player.

-- In preparation for a column in which I compare my kids' fascination with all things Harry Potter to my generation's fascination with all things Star Wars, I OD'ed on Potter films, specifically The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Order of the Phoenix. I still tear up at the end of Phoenix.

-- In preparation for a different column for a different publication, I'm planning on going to the theater to see the Sam Mendes film starring The Office's John Krasinski called Away We Go. It's been a tad challenging to find it playing at a theater near me, seeing as though it doesn't have a massive, nationwide distribution. I can't decide whether to keep my expectations low or not, given that I really did NOT like the last Mendes film, Revolutionary Road.

Books:

-- I'm continuing to re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as we're now at T-minus two+ weeks and counting before the film version is released.

Magazines/Newspapers:

-- I've not yet read the Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin -- "It Came From Wasilla" -- but from what I've read on the internet, it sounds like it may well be a polarizing piece about a woman who's controversial herself. It's on my "must read" list.

-- I read a thought-provoking column in the New York Times over the weekend which mused about whether Michael Jackson is truly the last, worldwide mega-star who spans the generations. His music, the article suggests, was popular in the pre-internet days/pre-iTunes/pre-fractured pop culture world, when everyone watched MTV when it still played music videos. I tried to think of another cultural figure who is vastly popular with a wide swath of people, whose accomplishments affect people of varying backgrounds and nationalities, and who would cause people to spontaneously gather to celebrate and the only name that popped into my mind was Oprah. Do you think Times writer David Segal is right when he speculates that there will be no more mega-, multi-generational celebrities like Jackson?

Image credit: Vanity Fair/Risko.

Introducing: Suburban Mom's Pop Culture Week

I've always been interested in the weekly feature on Whitney Matheson's blog Pop Candy called "This Week in Pop," in which she tells her readers what things, pop culture-wise, she's reading/watching/listening to, etc. It tends to generate some discussion amongst her readers about their pop culture consumption.

So I've decided to do my own version of a weekly list here on this blog. I'm, cleverly enough, calling it, "Suburban Mom's Pop Culture Week." (I know. Title stinks. However if I come up with something with a little more pizazz, you'll be the first to know.) My list will include stuff I'm watching/reading for both business and pleasure.

TV:

-- Watched the latest two episodes On Demand of Edie Falco's Nurse Jackie on Showtime. Her storyline, particularly when it comes to her oldest, anxious daughter, is becoming insidiously nuanced. Three episodes in, I'm hooked.

-- I set the DVR to record TNT's second episode of HawthoRNe (with Jada Pinkett Smith and former Alias hottie Michael Vartan) but it didn't record the show for some reason. Maybe it's the 2,000 episodes of Sonny with a Chance, Jonas episodes and repeats of the Clone Wars cartoons that are clogging up the DVR queue. I'm going to have to watch the new episode online to see how the tone compares to the pilot.

-- Rescue Me. Man, this show is getting as dark and sticky as molasses . . . that's when it's not being interrupted by odd musical numbers starring Sean Garrity in top hat and tails. More on Rescue Me and Tommy Gavin's return to the bottle in a separate blog entry.

-- Da Sox. As in, the Boston Red Sox. You might as well consider this an omnipresent entry on the list. The Sox. On NESN.

Books:

-- I'm working on a column about Hollywood moms so I'm in the middle of reading Tori Spelling's Mommywood. (Seriously, it's for a column . . . to which I'll link in this space later.) I'll also be re-reading a book I read a few years ago, Motherhood and Hollywood by Patricia Heaton for comparison's sake.

-- Although I've got the Mad Man-inspired book of poetry, Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara on my nightstand waiting to be parsed, I went to the movies this weekend with the kiddos (see next item) and saw the trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I read the book last summer and am a bit fuzzy on the details as I zipped through it fairly quickly, so in preparation for the big movie release on July 15, I'm re-reading it.

Magazines:

-- Just read a piece about Jada Pinkett Smith in Redbook about how she and husband Will keep their sex lives spicy. (Key: A change of venue.)

-- Am waiting for a good time to thoroughly read the "Living by the Numbers" package of stories in Wired.

-- Perused Entertainment Weekly's "must list" for summer pop fare. Meryl Streep's new movie about Julia Child looks promising.

Movies:

-- Went to see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian over the weekend with The Spouse, the kids and my parents. It was just okay, though the kids laughed, some belly laughs. We'd visited the Air & Space Museum in DC a few summers ago so they remembered some of the exhibits and monuments which were shown in the film. Afterward, they actually asked questions about General Custer and Teddy Roosevelt. If anything, at least the movie sparked a discussion about American history, albeit a minor discussion.

-- The Netflix DVDs sitting by the TV: The Bourne Ultimatum and Frost/Nixon.

-- The Spouse and I caught the last third of Little Miss Sunshine on cable TV over the weekend. I've forgotten how good that movie is. The ending was truly a surprise the first time I saw it.

What are you watching/reading/listening to this week?

Image credit: Scholastic.

'Rescue Me:' Darkness, Descending

This season's Rescue Me on FX has gone back to where it all began: 9/11. Or, more precisely, to, what Denis Leary's character Tommy Gavin this week dubbed, "What happens after."

What has lured me to the show again, after having left it for a few seasons, was this very development, its revisiting of the festering wound that hasn't yet fully healed. A French journalist working on a 9/11 book is serving as a catalyst who's rekindling nightmares anew as dramatized in the person of Tommy. Even after his son has been killed, his marriage has withered, his father has died, his resistance to alcohol has faltered (again), Tommy continues to willingly face the killer flames of fires to save people all across the city -- to rescue complete strangers -- but hasn't made peace with the ghosts of 9/11 who continue to haunt him.

While last week's episode wasn't as emotionally heavy as this week's (Sean Garrity's secret cancer diagnoses notwithstanding; Janet confronting the mean middle aged moms was fabulous, by the way), this week's installment has drawn viewers literally into Tommy's darkness with him, where the ghosts of his past taunt him, call him a coward for what he did or didn't do on that historic, horrific day. How his climbing back into bottle and facing his dead relatives is going to play out, I surely don't know, but it's been damned riveting this far.

Image credit: FX via the Charlotte Observer.

'Desperate' Mondays: Rose's Turn

Maybe it's because I was spoiled by three consecutive days of thrilling baseball in the form of the Boston Red Sox kicking the New York Yankees' collective behinds. Ground rule doubles. Fastballs at 99 mph. A grand slam. STEALING HOME PLATE. What's better than that?

Maybe it's because HBO's In Treatment (which I'm going to write about in a separate blog item) is so gripping and exquisite, even when you're watching nothing but people talking.

Maybe it's because many other TV shows have been so good lately, such as Lost, Rescue Me, House, The Office, experiencing a rebirth of sorts with Michael's upstart company. (I'm currently irritated that Grey's Anatomy has become a showcase for dead and dying kid scenes. Seriously, as the mom of young kids, I can't take these kinds of scenes each week. I'm begging ya Shonda, please have Dr. Bailey get out of pediatrics, NOW!)

Whatever the cause, I do know that I've lost my Desperate Housewives' mojo. I've been writing about the show on this blog after each new episode but have been rapidly losing interest, despite the fact that the show's continuing to get good ratings. I, personally, don't find it a "must-see" anymore. Stories are becoming repetitive, characters too predictable.

How many times is Bree going to be betrayed by her husband/lover? (Rex cheated. The creepy pharmacist guy wooed Bree after killing Rex. Orson swooped in, knowing full well he'd already tried to kill Bree's neighbor Mike. I could go on and on here. Bree's unlucky in love. We've got it. But how many times are we going to see her go to war with the man who she once loved?)

How many episodes are going to feature the theme that people routinely hide things from one another? (Wasn't that the theme of the pilot episode, that Mary Alice was hiding her pain when her life looked pristine and perfect from the outside just before she committed suicide? Katherine "confessing" that she was hiding her desire for Mike to commit to her? Duh. Of course she'd want commitment. It would be out of character for her not to.)

How many times are we going to witness one spouse get jealous of another? (Tom getting upset that Lynette took a shower at the office? Like Lynette's really going to cheat on him with Carlos. Tom is feeling emasculated -- AGAIN -- because Lynette is working and comes home tired and uninterested in sex. Tom's looking to validate himself, make himself feel better. Why not have him buy a midlife crisis-mobile. Oh, wait. Already did that. How about have him join a rock band? Did that too. Flirt with a horny neighborhood housewife? Now he can check that off his list.)

Bah!

So now, if the heavy-handed foreshadowing at the end of this episode goes where I think it's going to go, we're going to see nutty, lying Dave try to kill Susan and Mike's son in order to pay Susan back for accidentally killing Dave's first wife and child? An injured or dead/dying kid, what is this, Grey's Anatomy? Good grief. Maybe they should just call an end to the season right now so the writers can re-group.

Image credit: ABC.

Rethinking 'Rescue Me'

I abandoned Rescue Me in June 2006 following a controversial scene involving what I saw as Denis Leary's deeply flawed and tragic Tommy Gavin character sexually assaulting his almost ex-wife Janet. Some argued that it wasn't an assault, given their troubled relationship, but the scene really bothered me nonetheless. Though at the time I adored the show for its button-pushing dark edginess, that scene was too dark. I said I wouldn't watch the show again.

And I haven't.

But, as they said in the Godfather, when I thought I was out, I feel like I'm being pulled back in. Now that the series is gearing up for its fifth season (premiering tonight on FX at 10) and reviewers are saying they're going to get back to the essence of the show -- how New York firefighters' lives are impacted by not just the danger they face everyday, but by the events of 9/11 -- I'm finding myself tempted to tune in once again.

The New York Times review of the first few episodes of this new season, in particular, make it sound as though it will be intriguing on multiple fronts, including political and socio-economic. Reviewer Ginia Bellafante wrote:

"As the most frantic and emotionally undone member of the crew of 62 Truck, at a New York City firehouse, Tommy was hardly finished working through his guilt and grief over his [firefighter] cousin's death during the 9/11 rescue mission when he was forced to deal with the loss of his son, killed by a drunk driver. At the end of last season Tommy's unloving father died as well, and it isn't too long before he is turning up in Tommy's vodka-induced visions, Tommy's hold on sobriety as shaking as a timid child's on horseback.

The specter of 9/11 -- never completed submerged but sometimes obscured by the show's elements of comic soap opera -- is in the foreground again, as another crew member begins to espouse the theory that the attacks were orchestrated by neoconservative nut cases bent on American global domination."

So, I'm thinking I may go back on my three-year-old vow and tune in tonight, just to see where the character with whom I once sympathized -- Tommy Gavin -- is in his post-9/11 journey.

Are there any shows you USED to watch that you started watching again after taking a season or more off? Are you looking forward to the new season of Rescue Me?

Image credit: FX.