Poker Face and the Spiritual Reboot

by

Scott D. Parker

(With the upcoming debut of season 2 of Poker Face, I thought I'd repost what I thought about season 1 back in 2023).

Poker Face had me at Rian Johnson. But had I not known it was his brainchild, the show would have had me at the title font.

That yellow font on the title card, the year represented by Roman numerals. What decade are we in? Well, the headspace of creator Rian Johnson was the 1970s and 1980s with shows like Colombo and The Rockford Files. I suspect he gets nostalgically triggered when he sees the title cards of those shows and others and wanted to bring sensibility forward to the 2020s.

What sensibility is that? A traditional crime-of-the-week series. But not just that: a new crime every week with a whole new cast. Which brings me to another 1970s TV it reminds me of: The Incredible Hulk. Both feature a lead who is being chased across the country, meeting new people every week.

Now I know what you’re thinking: there are plenty of crime-of-the-week shows from Law and Order to Castle to all those shows on CBS I don’t watch. That’s not new. No, it’s not, but the laid-back aesthetic is a refreshing return to a modern TV landscape full of season-long streaming shows to modernized takes on old tropes.

Both of those things are fine, and I enjoy them, but I also appreciate the slower paced TV shows that used to dominate networks with stakes that are not really that high. And I very much applaud Johnson for channeling that vibe into something new rather than a modern reboot of an old franchise.

He could just have acquired the rights to, say, Colombo (the obvious ancestor to Natasha Lyonne’s Charlie Cale) and created a story around Colombo’s grandkid who is a rumpled detective just like Peter Faulk. I’d watch that and chances are, you would, too. But we’d constantly be comparing the new actor/actress to Faulk, much to the detriment of the new show. Also, we’d probably have the admittedly fun “sequel” to some random episode that no one remembers save the dedicate Colombo fans.

No, what Johnson did was take all those elements and, crucially, made something new, unique, and his own. That last bit is probably the key factor for Johnson. Given the opportunity, he’d probably make a Colombo sequel or adapt some Agatha Christie novel in to a movie, but with Poker Face and Knives Out and Glass Onion, he gets to revel in all the stuff he loves while playing in his own sandbox.

New Book Alert - Born a Ramblin' Man by Michel Lee Garrett

 Hey DSD Family, 

While some of us DSD regulars have become less frequent posters, you can be sure that, while we're away, we're getting a LOT of reading done. In the last several months, between my responsibilities as a books editor at Rock and a Hard Place, being a fan of books in general, and being asked for beta reads / feedback, I've read a ton of collections. Some of them are incredible. Some of them are pretty good. Only one or two of them were worse than that. 

In other words, it's an incredible time if you like crime fiction collections, and the future is looking even brighter. But in the meantime, one of those collections I read, one of those collections that was incredible, just came out yesterday, and I want to make sure everyone knows about it. 

BORN A RAMBLIN' MAN: fourteen tales of thieves, killers, vagabonds and lost souls by Michel Lee Garrett dropped yesterday, and I want you to read it. 

Here's the cover, if you haven't seen it. 

And here's what the book is about: 

In Born a Ramblin’ Man, Michel Lee Garrett weaves a tapestry of crime, desperation, comedy, and hope, all set against a backdrop of rural despair and big-city corruption. Across fourteen stories, small-time thieves pick the wrong pockets, small-town lives become uprooted by violence, and Michel’s recurring hero Raymond Reynolds grows from a ramblin’ vagabond into a seasoned investigator as he stumbles from one misadventure to the next. From the gritty darkness of the rural south to the neon underbelly of Las Vegas and all the highways in between, Born a Ramblin’ Man celebrates victories, heroes, criminals, and failures in equal measure.

Finally, don't take my word for it; two friends, who are known for their exquisite taste, had this to say about the collection: 

“Michel Lee Garrett is not only a brilliant writer, but an important one. Born A Ramblin’ Man is packed with the tough and the proud making their place in the lost corners of America.”

—Libby Cudmore, Shamus and Black Orchid award-winning author of Negative Girl and The Big Rewind

and 

“Born a Ramblin’ Man marks the debut collection of a ferocious and talented writer. Michel Lee Garrett brings to her work equal measures a vivid eye for character, a whip-lash storytelling sensibility, and an unquenchable thirst for justice. Haunted characters and haunted lives roam these pages, each one with Michel’s unmistakable touch. This is one not to be missed.”

—James D.F. Hannah, Shamus Award-winning author of Behind the Wall of Sleep and Because the Night

You might remember us previously doing a cover reveal and interview for the anthology Michel edited, Burning Down the House, which you can read here (and which is another anthology you should check out, if you haven't), but, if you're all already caught up, Born a Ramblin' Man is out there and waiting for you to pick up a copy; make sure you get yours here. 

About Michel Lee Garrett: 

Michel Lee Garrett is a noir fiction author and Pennsyltucky poet. A queer and transgender writer, her work seeks to examine how inequitable systems manufacture injustice, and how the human condition is ultimately one of rebellion against an absurd world. Her fiction has appeared from Flame Tree Press, Shotgun Honey, Down & Out Books, Cowboy Jamboree, and others. She is the editor of Burning Down The House, a charity anthology incited by the songs of the Talking Heads to benefit the fight against climate change, forthcoming from Shotgun Honey.

You Don’t Always Have to Start from the Beginning of a Series

By

Scott D. Parker

 

A few years ago, I was shopping at Kroger when my eyes landed on the cover of a book. It was The Race by Clive Cussler. Here’s the cover.

 

I was immediately captivated. Old-fashioned planes! Cussler’s name! And was that trailing plane firing weapons at the leading plane? I picked up the novel and read the description and discovered the Isaac Bell series.  

The Race was the fourth one and I made the decision to start from book one and make my way forward from the beginning. With all of my other reading, it took me months to get to The Race but I read, listened to, and enjoyed every book in the series ever since.  

 

 

Daredevil: Born Again

 

Cut to this spring’s television. I didn’t immediately jump on the new Daredevil series on Disney+ because I had barely watched the Netflix series nearly a decade ago. I watched maybe two or three episodes and then just never kept going. Ditto for Luke Cage. Never even watched Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, or the Defenders. With so much content, I picked and chose what I wanted to watch and, well, these never landed in my queue.

A co-worker of mine talk Star Wars and Marvel movies and the Reacher TV show and books. After Reacher’s third season ended, he asked if I was watching Daredevil. I said no for the reasons I just listed. He told me it was quite good so I watched the trailer.

And was intrigued. Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk sitting in a café, just talking? Both Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio were born to play their respective roles. I last saw D’Onofrio in the Hawkeye series and for Cox, it was She-Hulk. So I said why the heck not give episode one of Born Again a try.

I was hooked.

It took me a few weeks—Daredevil is a show my wife doesn’t watch so I had to fit it in—but I caught up in time to watch the penultimate episode and the season finale when they debuted. I thought the season was fantastic. 

I loved the emphasis on Murdock and Fisk both trying to absolve their former selves to do something different only to be drawn back to what makes them themselves. I appreciated that we got basically a two-episode arc of Murdock just being a lawyer. I savored D’Onofrio’s portrayal of Fisk, including his peculiar way of speaking. And I loved the judicious use of action.

Stan Lee’s Famous Mantra

Stan Lee, creator of many of the mighty Marvel heroes, always had a mantra: every issue is someone’s first issue. As a result, nearly every Marvel comic in the 1970s and beyond featured a short bio, bringing a new reader up to speed on the character. From there, the new reader is empowered to read the issue and, hopefully many more.

When I read a few articles and listened to a few podcasts that ended up talking about Born Again, I discovered some disappointment. More than one person commented that elements of Born Again was a rehash of one of the Daredevil seasons from the Netflix era. That the Netflix version was better. That there wasn’t enough action.

But for me, Born Again was my real re-introduction to the TV Daredevil. I barely have any memory of the episodes I watched on Netflix nearly a decade ago. Now, it acts as my own template by which to judge any future Daredevil show, including the Netflix version if I choose to go back and watch those shows.

As my co-worker and I discussed each episode of Born Again, he extolled the Netflix series as something I should go back and watch. But, again, there’s just too much content out there that I want to watch. Andor season 2. Paradise season 1. The final season of Bosch. Mobland, Friends and Neighbors. The Studio. Heck, I didn’t even bother rewatching Ander season 1 because there’s just too much content and too little time. 

Go With the Book Whose Cover Grabs You

So, my experience with the excellent Daredevil: Born Again reinforces what I’ve started doing ever since I went back to the beginning of the Isaac Bell series: If a book captures your attention and you pick it up, read that book. Watch that show. Watch that movie. Listen to that album. It doesn’t matter if the book is the seventh in the series, it’s season three of a TV show, or if it’s the sequel to the hit movie you never watched. 

You can always go back. But you don’t always have to.