FYC: Lauren Weedman for Supporting Actress, Comedy

Team Experience shares their personal dream picks in multiple Emmy categories as voting begins. Here's Adam on an actress we're all hoping to see a lot more of... - Editor

Lauren Weedman was to the first season of Looking what Joan Cusack was to Working Girl. They each drifted in and out of the main narrative, never the primary focus, but neither restricted entirely to the background. Their sharply delivered lines punctured their scenes, dick-slapping the audience, demanding attention. While they may have been vital to their best friend’s stories, they couldn’t tell their own stories. 

During the second season, Looking realized the strength of Weedman’s performance, allowing the indispensable Doris to come into her own as a character. Adding another individual to their mosaic of souls wholeheartedly discovering who she was, searching for where she wanted to be, and loving the people that surrounded her elevated the show. We followed Doris as she dealt with the repercussions of losing a parent and revealing her childhood of abuse. We championed Doris when she reclaimed her autonomy by confronting an unhealthy codependent relationship. We swooned when she allowed herself the possibility of a romantic future by finally exposing her vulnerabilities without the masking of her humor.  

Lauren Weedman positively throttled me like a famished crocodile death-rolling a dehydrated antelope during the Doric-centric episode, “Looking for Plot.” That raw, acerbic wit, and melancholic longing Weedman was able to express with only the constricting of her chin muscles split my sides and welled my tear ducts simultaneously. Her fucking CHIN made me feel feels I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling. Jesus.

We will no longer be able to follow this group of friends and lovers around each week but when I reminisce on my times spent with the boys and gal of Looking, I’ll always cherish Lauren Weedman’s performance as Doris. I'll cherish it in much the same way I once, while at a funeral, devoured an entire Edible Arrangement centerpiece while fellow mourners shot me disapproving looks as I selfishly grieved. It may seem reductive to compare Lauren Weedman’s affecting, poignant, barbed performance to that of a gloriously displayed collection of sculpted fruit, but each supported me while I accepted circumstances I couldn’t change, and helped me move on. 

Previously:
The Americans
Jane the Virgin
Cara Seymour, The Knick
Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Ruth Wilson, The Affair 
Matt Czuchry, The Good Wife 
Gwendolyn Christie, Game of Thrones 

Coming This Week:
Ann Dowd, The Leftovers ...and more!

10th Anniversary: Joan Allen, Family Struggles, and 'The Upside of Anger'

a special anniversary tribute from Adam Armstrong

Are you close with your father?”

This was asked of me recently at a social gathering for a graduate school program I may attend in the fall. Not knowing how to respond, or rather, unwilling to respond honestly, I answered by saying, “Yes, you could say so.”

This is the scenario people who come from a family in which the dynamic has been disrupted from a parent abandoning the unit loathe, yet know all too well its inevitability in conversation.

So does The Upside of Anger, which is celebrating its tenth year in release. The film chronicles the means by which a family copes and moves forward with their lives after the patriarch has left them, presumptuously thought to have run off with his younger secretary to live in Sweden. The family, one all too relatable in this modern familial climate of increasing divorce rates, is comprised of a bitter mother and her brood of children, all of whom in some way fail to meet her and each other’s expectations. [more...]

Click to read more ...

AHS: Freakshow "Bullseye"

While Nathaniel catches up with his DVR post-AFI, here's Adam - Editor.

American Horror Story, and in particular this season's "Freak Show," has about as much forward progression as a treadmill. This week's episode trudged ahead with its story by the smallest margin possible that could still be labeled "forward". Miraculously, the episode somehow managed to contain four plotlines: Elsa, further displaying her ruthlessness to survive on her birthday of all days, reveals a dangerous new act for the Freak Show (after surely watching Theo James perform a similar routine in Divergent); Stanley exerts pressure on Maggie to murder the Freaks; Paul indulges in a secret romance with Penny as he juggles his illicit affair with Elsa; and Dandy attempts to woo Bette and Dot much to the chagrin of his mother.

Most Quotable: Elsa dismissing Penny’s entrance into her tent as she consoles a wounded Paul, “Speaking of cheap perfume.”

Best Line Reading: In the midst of Amazon Eve expressing her concern on Ma Petite’s absence from breakfast, she manages to still include her curiosity for her eating habits, “She never misses breakfast – I don’t know where she puts it.”

Best Entrance: A swaddled Ma Petite being opened from her box as Elsa’s birthday gift. 

Episode MVP: Jyoti Amge, the world's smallest woman at 2'6", as Ma Petite. Runner up: Costume designer Lou Eyrich for Elsa's Temple Grandin outfit in the opening scene.

Movie/TV References: The chair Elsa sits in while she opens her gifts resembles the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones. How well do you think Elsa would fair in the world of Westeros? My guess is that Cersei would dispense with her with the same ease that Bette ate that spoonful of caviar.

Body Count: None, right? Unless I missed something, but Paul isn't looking too great.

Funniest Moments: At least this episode had a handful to get me through to the end credits, like Elsa cuddling Ma Petite on her throne, Ma Petite's butterfly imitation with her tiny figures inside a specimen jar. And Paul, accused of pickpocketing Dandy wiggling his fingers and dryly countering, “That’s a laugh.” 

Episode Grade: D. As evidence I list for you the following scripted lines in all their subtlety:

1. Paul articulating his loss of innocence, “Before life stole my innocence.”
2. When prompted by Ethel to blow out her candle and make a wish, Elsa exclaims through voiceover that all she wants is to be loved by another person by saying, “I just want to be loved.” 

previously... 

Freakshow: Pink Cupcakes

Nathaniel's in LA for the week so welcome Adam, who previously covered True Blood, for the latest AHS: Freakshow epsiode. Here's the rundown and commentary. How'd you like the episode?  

The Motts. They're the best part of "Freakshow," yes?

Plot: Elsa continues to plot against Bet and Dot since they’re in the position to replace her front-lining status at the Freak Show. Stanley and Maggie conspire to murder the Freaks, choosing money and notoriety over human compassion. Gloria and Dandy each come to terms with his new 'hobby,' she in the way of clean up and him in the embracement of his murderous urges. Desiree realizes she may not be as “freakish” as she once thought, while the Strongmen combats his inner self-loathing for that which he cannot change. 

The Strong Man joins the rest of the planet in lusting after Matt BomerGuest Star of Note: Matt Bomer!  ♥ In what begins as a slightly boring intro, more needed for its revelation of the strongman’s love for a man than anything else, becomes exponentially more interesting when Dandy enters the picture. Also, that hair and those eyes. *swoon* (Gabourey Sidibe makes a brief Horror Story return as Patti Labelle’s inquiring daughter, but that scene was more about revealing Gloria’s inner pain from being an absent mother than announcing the presence of a new character.) 

QUOTABLES & SPOILERS after the jump...

Click to read more ...

True Blood's Mercy Killing

Here's Adam Armstrong and me on the series finale of True Blood. My comments after Adam's -Nathaniel

One thing you should know about me: I am a pro-rationalizer. I don’t enjoy disliking things, especially when it comes to movies and TV shows. So many people, so much hard work, so on and so forth. Take for example, this one time, on the way home from seeing the third Paranormal Activity movie. I was so invested in the series I went to every midnight showing. I loved them. And then that movie played its final 20 mins, and it was fucking garbage. It was the American Horror Story: Coven of movies before Coven was even around.* Seriously, was Ryan Murphy a creative consultant for the ending of that movie? But, still, on that ride home, ridden with disappointment and rage, I clung to one aspect of the movie I liked in order to forcibly admire it. “BUT, THAT ROTATING FAN SHOT, RIGHT?!” 

However, some train wrecks are beyond extreme and unreasonable rationalization. As you damn well know, I was more than liking this season, especially when evaluated on the True Blood grading curve. But what the actual fuck True Blood? [more...]

Click to read more ...