Game of Thrones in an Alternate Universe

This is courtesy of the brilliant RICK & MORTY on Adult Swim. In my humble opinion, the finest new comedy series in years. It is rare for something to come out of the gate so perfectly realized. I enjoyed the pilot but I think it hit genius with its second episode, "Lawnmower Dog". I watched that episode so many times, I thought it might have been a fluke confluence of brilliance. Then in episode 5, "Meeseeks and Destroy", I suddenly found a new high-water mark. The show is devastatingly funny and black and absurd and profound and wrong and righteous. And there's part of me that's a little jealous that someone else has created something that has such an immediately fervent cult. But I'm working on it.


My other favorite show is THE AMERICANS, which is moving confidently through its second season. A show that could have been a campy mess — from the network that brought you the campy, inexplicably-praised AMERICAN HORROR STORY — but instead proved to possess an emotional intelligence beyond its high-concept. The two leads, Kerri Russell and Matthew Rhys, are fucking phenomenal. I wasn't too familiar with either of them before this show but they are... forces to be reckoned with. This is a show that could not have existed here in the 80s. A show where you actually sympathize with and root for these Russian spies.

And yes, on the same network JUSTIFIED is as great and criminally under-appreciated as ever.

This is the second week off of that last long gig. I am catching up with a lot of things and reacclimating and recalibrating and reviewing the situation.

Week one was taxes.

Week two is writing.