In Which We Short The Long Gain And Make Billions

The Evolutionary Spirit

by ALEX CARNEVALE

Billions
creators Brian Koppelman, David Levien and Andrew Ross Sorkin

The current U.S. Attorney in New York has an amazing story. Preet Bharara was born in India to a Sikh father and Hindu mother. He grew up in New Jersey with an outstanding sense of moral purpose and total lack of fear. His record prosecuting Wall Street only recently suffering a few setbacks. His story is entirely unlike the narrative told in Billions, a new series airing on Showtime, but I mean who cares if reality says a white man from a rich Long Island family isn't the most powerful and important lawyer in New York City. Let's cast Paul Giamatti.

Bharara's brother sold his diaper company to Amazon for half a billion and his mother called Sanjay Gupta's mother to gloat. These are still privileged people but since the story doesn't fit in to the tremendous whitewashing evident on Billions, it's besides the point.

Bobby Axelrod (Homeland's Damian Lewis) is up to something. He manages a hedge fund where most of the staff died on 9/11. He replaced them with younger, cheaper talent. It is intimated that he may have had foreknowledge of the attacks, since he was out of his office that day. In the first scene Billions shows between Giamatti and Lewis, both are screaming at each other in faux New York accents, "Fuck you!"

Is this how people think New Yorkers actually behave? The Sopranos disgusted Camille Paglia, because it was nothing like the tri-state area Italians that she knew. Adam McKay attempted a more down-to-earth (I can't say realistic) version of the movement of billions of dollars that surrounded the popping of the real estate bubble. Steve Carell was very good in The Big Short, which was not really about movers and shakers, but just people baffled by the state America was in.

The Big Short did not really make that much money at the box office. I recommend watching it, but honestly there is not a whole lot there. It's a bunch of witty repartee pasted over what is generally a dull story. The movie is so soft on the Wall Street bailout it practically repudiates its own message. You get the sense that Michael Lewis, and maybe even a lot of the people in the movie who shorted the real estate market, did not really understand the financial industry either. Lewis' protagonists come across as naive hypocrites. Did they think they were working for Habitat for Humanity?

I can't decide if Billions actually means to be taken seriously. It opens with Giamatti's wife (a deliriously opaque Maggie Siff) smacking her husband around and putting out a cigarette on his chest. Neither parent gives two shits about their children, which means it is very hard to sympathize with them. Giamatti is better at a character capable of self-deprecation; this blunt, conniving know-it-all does not particularly suit him and the show's writing turns him into a foul-mouthed missile.

You actually find yourself rooting instead for Axelrod. Despite the fact that he employs Giamatti's wife at his company as a staff psychologist, the attorney general still wants to "take him down" — on what evidence and for what reasons we have no earthly idea. Axelrod at least transcends the fuck-you New Yawk caricature with which he is saddled.

In order to avoid litigation, Axelrod employs many people working around the clock in his interest. Billions has cast a bunch of famous character actors to surround its two stars. Taken as a group, their presence is entirely distracting, since not a single one of them is playing against type. You have the secret service agent from House of Cards, the manager of the prison in Oz, Malin Akerman, The Yellow King, Kingpin's assistant, Gale from Breaking Bad. That is just to start, and it makes Billions feel like a collection of cameos rather than intense performances.

The financial talk in Billions is about a hundred times worse. This side of the story is all made up, so it is impossible to suspend our disbelief that any of it is important. Besides, Damian Lewis' Bobby Axelrod character already has more money than entire nations. There is nothing that could happen to him that would make a similar person blink an eye, so what are we watching this show for?

The frustrating thing is that there is a story to be told about the highest levels. Preet Bharara and the president who appointed him both have completely different motivations than any of the people on Billions. There must be a psychology of a hedge fund manager that is worth exploring, too, but existing as it is you are on the silly side of Wall Street, Billions is basically nothing more than a Manhattan telenovela.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

"Wishes" - Keith Zariello (mp3)

In Which No One's Dad In Real Life Looks Like Peter Krause

Braving It With the Family

by QICHEN ZHANG

Maybe if we didn't allow him to wear a pirate costume to school, he would fit in a little bit better.

— Parenthood's Adam Braverman, played by Peter Krause

Television's always been slow to pick up on parental irony. I probably wouldn't find Adam Braverman's delivery of a banal line so guffaw-worthy otherwise. To segue the family TV genre into a wholesomely sarcastic direction, NBC's new show Parenthood rallies Krause and a diverse cast (diverse meaning Joy Bryant as the token black character) in an attempt to portray real-to-life family issues without any syrupy ethical undertones, without any cultish evangelist propaganda, and — most importantly — without the sixties hair.

TV is so avant-garde these days.

To catch up, one sentence sums up the plot — a family living in Berkeley headed by a grandfather/grandmother couple with four smaller nuclear families living in northern California maneuvers around the tensions of their criss-crossing relationships. At face value, the show sounds mundane at best, a contemporary American Dreams at worst. With mostly B-list actors who peaked in movies with titles like Let's Go to Prison and How to Rob a Bank, the cast's potential to depict domestically-oriented characters seem initially dubious as well. But after giving it a chance, I realized that throwing a Berkeley hippie into the mix would've just complicated the weird, almost-incestuous, boyfriend-sharing debacle that pops up in later episodes of this falsely tame debut. NBC. Who could've guessed?

But isn't this northern California? Scandals don't create Parenthood's entertainment value. Instead, the show relies on character quirks for its draw. Even though the Braverman clan appears as though the members came out of an assembly line at the perfect-All-American-family factory, the script takes surprisingly humorous digs at the paradigms of kin.

Juggling both a son with Asperger's Syndrome and a teenager daughter who just started shopping at Victoria's Secret, Adam's bottle-blond wife Kristina (Monica Potter) acts as the doting and patient mother until you realize her stammering is just the beginning of her control-freak neuroses. Julia (Erika Christensen), the youngest Braverman sibling and feminist corporate lawyer, still eats dinner with her husband and daughter in their sleek kitchen, but only to project her personal competitiveness onto her soon-to-be-OCD kid at meal times and to make her husband feel insecure for cleaning so much as a stay-at-home dad.

It would be easy to assume that Parenthood's producers simply took Girl, Interrupted and removed all the knives and pills, if it weren't for the fact that Adam and Kristina's huge house in Berkeley's 'burbs looks too welcoming to double as an insane asylum.

Sadly, the next generation of Bravermans don't live up to their complicated adult counterparts. Haddie (Sarah Ramos), with enough teenage insecurities to fill up her pink Jansport backpack, gives off a more than irritating vibe as a sullen, typical, and over-privileged suburbanite. The inclusion of her edgier, pseudohipster cousin Amber Holt (Mae Whitman) in the show aims to balance Haddie's tall, blond goodness with a short, brunette hipster who moves into Berkeley with a too-cool-for-school attitude and an entire wardrobe from Urban Outfitters (fake glasses included).

A lapse in good script judgment — or lack of story ideas — further makes Amber out as an immature, boy-obsessed dunce, especially when Haddie and Amber get into a bitchfight during gym class about Amber sleeping with Haddie's scrawny boyfriend. Slogging through plotlines that make American middle-class teenagers look the fools, Sarah Ramos and Mae Whitman with their one dimensional performances make the show's Tuesday night counterpart The Biggest Loser look like intellectual fare. With the exception of Drew, Amber's introverted brother played who's SuPeR dReAmY in that soft-spoken way, the Braverman teenagers make a hysterectomy sound not only necessary but pleasant.

Having kids is so rewarding. Um. Yeah. Unquestionably, Whitman's character would've been better as a nonchalant ne'er-do-well, but her idiotic conversations with her mother about moving in with her boyfriend and, like, totally loving him always escalate into shrill, overdramatic chicken squawking and destroys the possibility for collected coolness in a deafening way. Get a grip! You're from Fresno, not a farm.

The kids are all right?

And the recasting of Graham to replace Maura Tierney — originally slated to play Sarah Braverman who left the show to deal with breast cancer treatment — doesn't exactly do the show favors either. What hopes I had for her television comeback dried up from the frictional heat of her never-ending babble, whether she's screaming at her over-processed daughter or covering up her awkward flubs at diner lunches with her siblings. Blaming the irritating pace of Graham's delivery on the writers resolves only a part of the problem. Soon, you start to realize that Graham basically started her new show where her old one left off. As the daughter who never managed to get her life together with no college degree toting sassy offspring, it's like we're back in Connecticut all over again, only with better weather this time.

Sarah, without a precociously wise daughter to fire back in witty repartée or a scheming, bougey mother to make her look like the good guy, doesn't pull off the friend-mother role in what Graham's treating as Gilmore Girls: The Sequel. Instead, she's stuck stuttering like a moron into the phone while she looks for her runaway daughter, making her look more incompetent parent than an insightful "frother."

It's not like the woman can't act — after all, of all jobs Graham could've bagged after Gilmore Girls wrapped, she took on the role of a biblical wife with realistic aplomb and without wearing Jesus sandals. Parenthood provides a storyline with plenty of opportunities for sharp quips and introspective performances, but Graham refuses to budge from the comfort of Lorelai's nervous and energetic rambling, something that doesn't work within an ensemble cast where Krause's calm Adam just ends up making anxiety-ridden Graham's Sarah look dumb. After 10-plus episodes, I pin it to sheer acting laziness. So I stayed up on a Tuesday night for this?

But a huge surprise redeems Graham's disappointing job and allows for another low-key actor's potential comeback. As Crosby Braverman, Dax Shepard somehow manages to make the youngest, most irresponsible member of the middle generation look the most in touch with reality. Granted, the producers took a cheap shot and stuck the usual black sheep into the family ensemble for variety's sake. But the casting of Shepard as a born-again father when he discovers his old girlfriend gave birth to their son Jabbar — which could've backfired given his history in über-family-friendly shows Punk'd and King of the Hill — is supported by his kooky take on the bachelor who refuses to settle down until forced to do so.

When the rest of his family becomes conceitedly embroiled in their own lives, Crosby reminds us that there's nothing wrong with just chillin' on a house boat, playin' some ping pong. With Type-A Adam and Julia fending off husband-and-wife problems in power suits, Crosby brings some laid-back attitude without breaking out the NorCal weed once. In an odd Zach-Braff-on-Scrubs manner but without the annoying exaggeration and overt displays of "Look at me! I'm madcap and funny!", Shepard uses his honest goofiness paired with an emotional conscience for his new task as his son's role model in order to legitimize himself as a "serious actor," leaving behind his days making movies in a New Mexico Costco.

Or maybe he just learned how to frownIt could be the onslaught of vampire fantasy dramas within the past two seasons. It could be that fat people losing weight is now considered prime entertainment. Whatever the reason, at the end of the past few Tuesday nights, I like Parenthood. I didn't mind that taken as a whole, the manufactured Braverman family resembled all the rest in television history. If the dialogue's this perfectly laced with sarcasm, I can take some of the more predictable moments.

If Peter Krause actually existed as a suburban dad in real life, I wouldn't mind moving to Berkeley for a piece of that jawline. And after the season finale in which Haddie dyed her hair black, maybe she'll be less angsty and more cool come September. In this age of hipsters where everyone is only allowed to like things ironically, Ron Howard's latest project lets me feel genuine for once. (With a hipster on the show to boot! OH, THE IRONY.)

After watching the season finale on Tuesday, I thought I had come to a neat little conclusion. Alas, NBC had again resorted to packaging a cute, family-oriented program into an hour-long dramedy dominated by levelheaded men complemented with their shrill overstrung wives and sisters, handing the viewer a challenge of making sense out of it. Looking back at past mediocre dramas like 7th Heaven, American Dreams, and even supposedly realistic but actually voyeuristic Friday Night Lights — Parenthood follows the lead of its many, many, many, many, many (press one for English, oprima numero dos para espanol) predecessors.

This is real life... I guess.This conclusion was promptly destroyed when Grandfather Zeek threw a first-class hissy fit at the dinner table when his own children attempted to help his property insolvency issues. Try as he may to ease into the warm and fluffy family genre, Craig T. Nelson flounders almost as much as his bald mullet. Whether acting gruff after cheating on his wife or bickering with his children in a redneck accent, the charm of senile seniority is lost on me. Kudos to Nelson for knowing how to channel maternal and menopausal onscreen — I just really wish he could've let Graham take over those reins.

Even though his character fails miserably at imparting wisdom even at his age, Nelson may singlehandedly make Parenthood must-see TV. You can't help but respect NBC a little more for breaking the mold and turning the usually wise and caring grandfather into a certifiable jackass who congratulates his granddaughter on standing her ground "when that boy was trying to get you to have intercourse with him."

Did I also mention they made Jason Ritter grow a 'stache and goatee combo?

Qichen Zhang is the senior contributor to This Recording. She last wrote in these pages about Gilmore Girls. She tumbls here.

"Bears Only Hibernate Sometimes" - Options (mp3)

"Back Home" - Options (mp3)

"The Best Part" - Options (mp3)

In Which We Try To Get Filthy, Creepy and Weird

A Day at the Beach

by HANSON O'HAVER

We are living in a golden age of television. Television is no longer just a mindless tube for you to sit in front of while you ignore your kids and eat Hungry Man dinners. No, television has now become a way to explore and examine society in such a way that was once left to sociologists. The crowning achievement of this new intellectual pinnacle, of course, is MTV's Jersey Shore.

Jersey Shore is essentially the Real World without the token gay and black people, and with more Italians. This has angered Italian groups, who have compared the show to minstrel acts, and who say that it perpetuates negative stereotypes about Italian Americans. Maybe, but it is Italian Americans who star in the show. If it was Brits in pasta-face, that would be offensive. But as is, their argument is comparable to if people said that Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown show was racist. Sorry, but Jersey Shore is not offensive, because its stars are eight people who are stupid and just happen to be Italian. If its theme was that its stars are stupid because they're Italian, that would be different.

The premise of the show is that four women and four guys from places like New Jersey, Staten Island, Long Island, and uh, Staten Island travel to Seaside Heights, New Jersey, to have a summer with, "guidos everywhere, hot girls, and house music." They all refer to themselves as guidos and guidettes, which is weird because I assumed that it was a derogatory term. Maybe it's like n-word, where only self-identifying group members can legitimately use the word? In any case, the cast, from memory, is as follows:

nicole keeping it realGUIDETTES

Angelina, who refers to herself as "the Kim Kardashian of Staten Island."

A girl with black hair with blonde streaks in it that I think is named Jenny, but who goes by JWOWW.

Sammi.

A girl named Nicole who goes by Snookie, but whom everyone calls names like Snickers and Snuggie. Even though everyone on the show is supposed to be Italian, I have a suspicion she might be Turkish. Also, she's the kind of short where a person's not a midget, but still shorter than any normal person. Like Danny DeVito.

GUIDOS

Vinnie, who wants you to know that he graduated college and that not all guidos are dumb. Spoiler alert: he's really dumb.

Ronnie, the buffest guy on the show, and also the most likable.

Petey, a DJ. I think he's secretly some kind of Latin.

Mike, who is maybe the least likable person on television. Confusingly, he refers to both his abs and himself as "The Situation."

Some of the highlights of the first two episodes include:

The guys bring home "sluts" and "whooores" back to the house, which displeases the girls. Btw, if someone could make a ringtone of a girl from Staten Island saying the word 'Whores,' I think they'd make a fortune.

Sammi hooks up with The Situation, but then ditches him for Ronnie, because Ronnie is hot. This makes The Situation unhappy, because it disproves The Situation's assertion that (I'm paraphrasing) "it's not a matter of if I'm going to hook up with Sammi, but when I decide to hook up with her."

Vinnie gets pink eye, from (he thinks) dirty dancing with a "fat skank." While this is not a possible way to contact pink eye, the situation provides for comedic gold. Especially when Vinnie doesn't let pink eye stop him from going out: he just puts on his white-framed sunglasses, so that no one can see his eyes.

Snookie brings home a "decent looking guy" from the club, who proceeds to throw up. At the exact second he throws up, the soundtrack changes to heavy metal riffs.

Snookie threatens to leave, but no one really pays attention because she's boring and MTV probably wishes they casted someone else in her spot.

Jenni is informed that she hooked up with Pauly the night before.JWOWW says she would never cheat on her boyfriend, because what she has at home is better than anything on the Jersey Shore. In the next scene, she cheats on her boyfriend with Petey, who, she tells the camera, has a pierced penis.

Angelina says she would never cheat on her boyfriend, because what she has at home is way better than anything on the Jersey Shore. In the next scene, she cheats on her boyfriend with a beefcake she meets at the club.

Sometimes the show has a weird after-effect on it, where it's made to look like it was shot on film. There is no explicable reason for this.

Also, one of the ads that plays during Jersey Shore is as follows: A stressed-out woman yells at and dumps water on her young children. Her husband walks in the door, and she tells him just can't do this, and needs some alone time. In the next scene, she is sitting on a park bench, watching The Hills on her cell phone, and she is happy. Then the screen tells you to buy this new cell phone.

This show is probably the best thing to air on MTV since whenever the first Real World aired. Actually, I just made that up and I was like 2 then, but still, the show's really good. Fuck those people who are like, "Waah, MTV sucks now, they never plays videos anymore, it's all just scripted reality shows." This is a good thing. Music videos are boring. Plus, do you really want to listen to any of the bands whose videosMTV would play? Of course not.

Scripted reality shows, on the other hand, are super entertaining. Also, it does not matter if Jersey Shore is scripted, because the people in the show clearly talk like they are on reality shows even when they're not on camera. It's not like these people would become genuine if you took away all the MTV staff. As anyone whose been to college or high school in the past five years can tell you, there are people whose entire lives are like MTV shows. These are the people who, when they have problems with their friends, sit down (usually in a circle) and stage a friendship intervention. Through shows like Jersey Shore, the viewer is able to see how this part of society lives. They live ridiculously.

If you're still not sold on the show's brilliance, read the following quotes, all of which come from the first episode:

"After I have sex with a guy, I will rip their head off."

"I am the Kim Kardashian of Staten Island, baby."

"My abs are so ripped I call them the situation."

"Let's get filthy, creepy, and weird."

"Seriously, when I bring girls back here they're gonna melt in their pants."

When Snookie went into the jacuzzi in her thong: "At least wear a thong bikini, that's a little more classier."

"They're sluts, and sluts should get beat."

"That's how we know we're classy girls. We've been living in the house with these guys for two days and we haven't even done anything."

Hanson O'Haver is a contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in Brooklyn. He last wrote in these pages about this art installation. He blogs here.

"Nowadays" - Eels (mp3)

"Unhinged" - Eels (mp3)

"Paradise Blues" - Eels (mp3)