Knocked my socks off

Short, late post today.

I've had a couple of things knock my socks off recently and thought I'd share (since I needed something to fill my Monday time). 

Rectify - This is a show that airs on The Sundance Channel and seasons 1 & 2 are currently on Netflix. We just finished season 1 and started season 2. This is a stunning, evocative, sweeping, beautiful, affecting, mournful, contemplative, thoughtful show that goes against the current trend of anti-hero leads. Rectify is unlike anything else on TV right now, not only in how the drama unfolds but in how it is shot and how it looks. If you like fiction that slowly builds to gut punch and heart punch moments, this is for you. Those six episodes of season one are damn near brilliant. It remains to be seen if it will sustain through a longer season two but, if those first two episodes are any indication, nothing to worry about. The final scene of the first episode of season two is one of the best things I've ever seen on TV. Which is funny since the show's creator, Ray McKinnon, stars in what I consider to be the greatest scene in modern TV history (McKinnon was the preacher in Deadwood).

Fortitude - The first season of Fortitude is currently airing and has four episodes left so it could totally go off the rails before the end. But right now, it is a really interesting show. It takes place in a small isolated Arctic town and plays out like a mix between a small town drama and a murder mystery. Then things subtly get weird.If this thing goes full weird, like it is threatening to do, it could wind up being one of my favorites of the year.

My Life As A Foreign Country by Brian Turner - This is a war memoir that is everything American Sniper should have been. Turner uses his time in war to reflect on the military service of his past relatives, on America's past wars, on his own experiences in the war, and trying to re-integrate back into society. Page after page contains sections that you re-read, write down, and want to remember. Hell of a book.