Last night, PBS broadcast the final episode of the remarkable 25-year series of Poirot, starring David Suchet as Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, broadcasting Curtain, the last novel she published with the character. (That's Hugh Fraser as Captain Hastings, along with David Suchet) Back a few months ago, I mentioned here that in a way that relates to Curtain, Agatha Christie had written her greatest clue ever -- a claim I repeat without a sense of hyperbole, a claim that is most particularly notable when attributed to the writer regarded as one of the greatest writer of mystery clues ever in literature. However, since there were likely many people who hadn't read the book, but were watching the TV productions, I said that I would hold off describing this amazing clue until the last film finally aired.
With the movie of Curtain at last broadcast, I will now explain that Greatest Agatha Christie Clue Ever.(If you still haven't either read the book or seen the film and don't want anything given away, it's best to avoid reading any further at this point. You can always come back here later. But for those ready, here we go...) It starts with some background. Agatha Christie wrote Curtain in the 1940s and put it away as a legacy for her family, to be released after her death. (As it happened, though, she was imposed upon to agree to release it early, not long before her death, because of the success of the movie of Murder on the Orient Express.) Anyway, years back upon its publication, after reading Curtain I then went back to reading other Christie novels, in no particular order, just catching up on ones that I hadn’t gotten to yet. One of those was Dead Man’s Folly (which, as it oddly turns out, they made as part of this final series of five Poirot movies, too). One of the minor characters in Dead Man’s Folly is the mystery writer Ariadne Oliver, who Christie used on rare occasion and is very clearly her alter-ego -- among other things having a French detective who has very annoying, pretentious habits and is arrogant, and Ariadne Oliver always talks about how much she hates him. In Dead Man’s Folly, Adriadne Oliver and some other character are talking about all this again, and she once more repeats how much she hates her detective she created…and then adds something about how she really should kill him off one day. I laughed when I read that, having recently read Curtain -- and then a thought suddenly hit me. I went back and checked the publication date of Dead Man’s Folly -- and it was in the 1950s! That means that Agatha Christie had already written Curtain and knew that she had, in fact, actually killed off Poirot. And here she was, dropping the clue to readers that she had done so! If I’d read the books in order, I’m sure I never would have remembered that off-handed comment by the time I got to Curtain. But having read them out of order and then, by total chance, getting to it shortly after reading Curtain, that’s the only way it leaped out to me. As I said, to me, that’s the greatest Agatha Christie clue ever. Something that she set up but didn’t pay off for over 20 years.
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"I'm going to do a hard review of this." -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) There is going to be yet another investigation of Benghazi. Yes, really -- another one. But don't worry, this investigation is actually going to be very different. This one is going to be led by a pissed-off (and/or embarrassed) Lindsey Graham who wants to look into why the Republican-led, two-year, minutely-detailed investigation of Benghazi by the House Select Intelligence Committee almost totally absolved the Obama Administration of any conspiratorial wrongdoing. You know Benghazi. The "Benghazi-Benghazi-Benghazi-Benghazi-Benghazi- Benghazi" All Benghazi 24-hours- a-day subject that has consumed the Far Right, Fox News and Republic Party for the past two years. Throwing any and all possible horrific conspiracies by the President into the stratosphere and seeing which of all the many of them would stick. And the answer, after two years, is -- none. Zero. It's not that one or two of the least critical had some merit, it's that absolutely none of them did. And again, keep in mind, this exhaustive two-year investigation was led by Republicans. And not just any Republicans, but Republicans who have the most authority, Republicans who had been making the most ongoing charges or head-bursting outrage, Republicans who had the most to gain by findings of wrongdoing, Republicans who oversee the House Select Intelligence Committee. And they found nothing. N-o-t-h-i-n-g. And acknowledged it. And Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is really pissed off about it. This is the same Lindsey Graham who for the past two years has been at the forefront of Republican outrage in the Senate, decrying from his platform atop the mount about all the monumental conspiracies by the Administration -- only to find that the House Select Intelligence Committee of his own party has said, "Oops, sorry, there's nothing there. Our bad." "I think the report is full of crap," he told CNN. It is likely that the report thinks the same about Sen. Graham, though it wasn't available for comment. Mind you, in saying things like, "That's a complete bunch of garbage" and "I don't believe the report is accurate," Mr. Graham didn't offer any evidence proving his sense of crap, garbage and disbelief. All he offered was a bunch of questions he felt were unexplained. These are questions, it should be noted, that the Republican-led House Select Intelligence Committee spent two years looking into, and determining that the answer to those questions were unexplained because there was nothing to explain. Not just the House, but the Senate, as well. As Jeremy Stahl in Slate noted, "The report echoed the findings of a similar bipartisan review panel by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released earlier this year along with five previous investigations." And so, Lindsey Graham now wants to look into the Benghazi report that looked into Benghazi. Swell. His party is now in the majority in the Senate. He's free to waste more public money and time doing nothing in the Senate that has been the hallmark of Republicans for the past six years. I have no idea what a Lindsey Graham embarrassed-investigation would possibly try to twist and explain. (He has so much skin in the game at this point.) All I know is what a Republican-led House Select Intelligence Committee did explain. And this below is the EXACT TEXT from that very Republican-led report on page one, direct from its six-point opening summary, not anyone framing conclusions to put it all in a better light. (Note: You can see this summary and the full report here, if you want proof . Not that proof seems to be a convincing factor to the Far Right and the Lindsey Grahams of the world.) In its own words (emphasis added), the Republican-led report said -- quote --
To be clear, the report didn't say that everything was done perfectly and that no mistakes were made. There were mistakes, it was a tragedy, after all. What the report did do, though, was make clear that ALL the horrendous conspiracy theories (every one) and calls for impeachment that the Far Right has been dumping for the past two years had absolutely, full, totally zero merit.
I certainly admire that the Republican-led House Select Intelligence Committee didn't let the Republican Party's pre-conceived two-year outraged screed color its findings But if you would like to know what craven cowardice is, you probably wouldn't have to look farther than knowing how the Republican Party almost near-totally buried their own exhaustive, two-year investigation of the Benghazi which completely (as in "100% completely"), exonerated the Obama Administration, that they had been trying to crush -- releasing it only before the weekend on the "Friday News Dump" and holding it until after the mid-term elections. This week's contestant is Betty Seckry from Kensington, Maryland. For those who've been reticent to play along, know that you stand a very good chance of guessing the hidden song here. What's hilarious though is that Ms. Seckry doesn't get it -- but does guess the composer style who is far more difficult to get. (When pianist Bruce Adolph plays it through a second time for her, she gets the hidden song immediately.)
Even if you never see the movie Rosewater that Jon Stewart wrote and directed, or if you do see it and hate it, there is still one good thing to come as a result of it. With only 12 episodes left of The Colbert Report, Jon Stewart's promotional tour for the movie allowed him to finally appear as a guest on the show which of course is hosted by his former "reporter" cast-mate, and that he himself is executive producer of. The friends made the most of it, giving Stewart far more time than most guests get, indeed breaking it up into the two segments. Here are both parts of that interview from Thursday. It's been a quiet week. Margie Krebsbach's English class discusses ‘The Great Gatsby,' Clint Bunsen tangles with two deer who find their way into town, and Dorothy recalls the story of Harold Hansen and Oscar Peterson.
I've held off writing about the CBS Sherlock Holmes-ish show, Elementary, thus far this year because I wanted to give it time to see where it was trying to go. After four episodes, I think that's enough time to wait -- and I don't have a clue what they're doing.
Okay, yes, I do know what they're doing. I just don't have any idea why in the world they thought this was a Really Great Idea. Because basically they've gone out of their way to flip relationships around and make most everything on the show intentionally unlikable. To be clear, I much enjoyed Elementary its first two seasons And (despite the criticisms I'm about to write below...) I think the new season still has incredibly good things going for it. Mostly what all that enjoyment and "incredibly good" encompasses is star Jonny Lee Miller, a tremendous British actor from the National Theatre, who is enthralling to watch, under any and all circumstances. (Last week, for instance, he had a scene watching a turtle eat lettuce -- seriously --, and he made it compelling.) The material has always been respectable, though the mysteries are just fair. The acting by others is pretty good, though I've never been a huge fan of co-star Lucy Liu. To me, she basically has two expressions -- pissed off and trying to be friendly, though happily she plays them well. But this year...this year, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. Clearly, they wanted to Shake Up the dynamic of the series, which is a reasonable thing when you fear your show risks becoming stale. But Elemtary has only been on for two seasons. If you think you're stale after two years, then something has gone way off the rails. And it wasn't stale. It actually was beginning to develop the characters a bit. But this year, they seemingly have decided to go for "kablooey." Here's the deal with the plot now -- Apparently during the show's hiatus, Sherlock decided to take MI6's offer to go back to London to work for them. Now, that would be an interesting way to Shake Up the series -- if they decided to show it. But they didn't, it all happened when the show was off the air during its summer break. When the series started up again a month ago, Holmes had decided to return. So, in other words, nothing really happened as far as the real-life viewer was concerned. We last saw Holmes In New York with the offer to go to London -- and when we next saw him, he was right there in New York. Well...one thing happened. His assistant Dr. Joan Watson apparently got really, really, really, really angry that he left. And so she's held this unearthly massive grudge against him. Even though he's profusely apologized -- something not terribly Holmesian, though if they want to continue developing him that way, so be it. Now, mind you, why she was SO furiously pissed off is something I've never heard explained very well. He's Sherlock Holmes, after all, mercurial, distant, socially inept, and from freaking London -- so going to London to work when the British government asks you doesn't seem all that horrible a thing to do. Enough to get SO deeply angry and continued bitter-angry, even after being apologized to by someone who doesn't apologize. Saying that he actually missed you -- and Sherlock Holmes doesn't miss people. But he said he missed you. And yet she's still raging at him. Even though she decided at the end of last year that she had to move out the townhouse they were sharing to be on her own. Which he not unreasonably took as distancing their relationship. Which is party of why he said he took the job in London. And she's SO MAD at him???! Even after he explained all this and apologized. So, that means we now have this profoundly bitter rift that's still continuing after four episodes. She at least doesn't appear to be as furious at this point, but there still is clearly a holier-than-thou, woman-scorned chip on her shoulder, allowing for the rift to remain apparent. Far more bizarre though is that last season, after Holmes starting training her as an apprentice for a year (the first year of the show she was mainly his social worker protector, who went along and helped out a bit), Watson is now apparently so brilliant a master detective already that the NYPD has hired her as their private consultant, replacing Sherlock Holmes -- the greatest detective in the world -- when he left. Seriously?? No, I mean, seriously????!! Not only is this mind-numbingly unbelievable (the amazing genius Holmes spent years and years and years and more years obsessively training himself to understand the most arcane minutiae of world knowledge -- and in one year, Joan Watson, former surgeon, has come close to matching him? She sure didn't show it even close last year), but worse, it created an awkward dynamic on the show whereby when Holmes returned, he was put in the position of getting Watson's grudging permission before the NYPD would take him back as a consultant. And ever since, the imperious Holmes has been forced to be sort of acquiescent (by his standards, at least), making him less vibrant a character in those moments. And it's required the show to keep coming up with convoluted reasons why he and Watson keep working together, since it was established that she'd "accept him back" on the condition that they worked separately from now on. (Hey, there's a great dynamic for a detective series!). But no, things are even worse than that. Because they had Holmes bring in a new assistant from London to train as a protege -- and as pissy as Dr. Watson has been this year, this new woman pretty much hates everybody in the world, including it seems the man who is training her. Always getting so angry when Holmes deigns to work with Watson. And snarky because there's really not ever enough for do. (In fact, dramatically, there isn't much for her to do. So, why bring in the character??!) And even when they finally had their first really fairly interesting episode, they could help muck it up. It was an impossible challenging murder that Holmes and Watson finally seemed to sort of work slightly better together, a bit -- the show couldn't let things alone, but instead (are you ready?) didn't let Sherlock Holmes solve the crime! Instead, they left him having to accept that the killer's accomplice took the rap, while the murderer couldn't be proven. And when we last saw Holmes, he was left lying on the floor of his townhouse, staring at the evidence, pondering o-what-could-he-do, the proof must be there... It just sort of sucked the life out of the room. (Besides which, it was idiotic. They had showed that accomplice didn't know a single thing about computer code, and expert knowledge was required to commit the crime. It's hard to imagine that a good D.A. couldn't have broken her confession. And then been able to prove the connection to her computer-expert professor...) What also hasn't helped the show is something out of the producers' control -- the real-world schedule. CBS airs the series on Thursdays -- but for the first several weeks of the new TV season, the network broadcast NFL football that night, pre-empting Elementary, while its competition solidified their fan base. So what began as one of the network's hits when it came on the air, is now floundering in the ratings. All the while making all the main characters on the show so unhappy and leaving Sherlock Holmes morose on the flooor. As I said, it's clear that the show decided to Shake Up things, even though it didn't seem particularly needed. I suspect too that Lucy Liu wanted more to do, or the show wanted to give her more. But...but when you're doing Sherlock Holmes, that's sort of the interesting balance the character has -- he's brilliant and rude, and he has a sidekick who keeps him in line and helps the best he (or she) can. If you don't want that, don't do Sherlock Holmes. You can give Watson more, and a more rounded life than Holmes will ever have, but to split the character off from Holmes and become almost as brilliant, just please spare me. I'm sure that they are continuing to develop the situation, and what we see now will not be what is going on by mid-season. That doesn't mean it will be better, but one can hope. But one can also hope that they haven't driven away the audience by the time they get to that point. To be clear, the show remains a total joy to watch Jonny Lee Miller. And he remains the main character, even if he's now sharing more of the stage. But...man, are they making you slog through the muck to get to the destination. It's getting better. Or perhaps less annoying. But why on earth did they think it wouldn't be this way when they came up with their Really Great Idea to Shake Up things??? |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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