read, THE AMERICANS is another instance of why the Golden Age of Narrative is currently on television. Because there continue to be shows that take seriously large, complex ideas and take the time to really let those ideas breathe and work themselves out. (Also, good dialogue and acting and direction and design and blah blah blah you already knew that.) THE SOPRANOS asks whether tradition and familial expectation trumps the immediacy of moral demands (it doesnt.) BREAKING BAD asks whether motive matters in committing acts of evil (it totally doesnt.) TRUE DETECTIVES asks whether nihilism is a viable response to a silent cosmos (no, despite the fact that it sounds amazing coming from a beautiful man in elegant repose.) And so on. THE AMERICANS takes very seriously this question: Are we who we say we are, or who others say we are? Are we the sum of our thoughts or the sum of our actions? Its a great big huge discourse on the kind of existentialism that so intoxicating that it turns neurotic intellectuals like me onto Heidegger and Sartre at an inappropriately early age, and makes us black-wearing, cigarette-rolling douchebags. (Guilty. So very, very, punch-me-in-the-face guilty.)
Posted on: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 02:07:53 +0000
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