Season 2 of Perry Mason Continues to Reimagine the Characters

By

Scott D. Parker

The second season of Perry Mason played more or less like how the original series television show used to: introduce some characters you don’t know, witness a crime (but conceal the culprit), and bring in our main characters. There will be a courtroom scene and there will be a confession of the real culprit on the stand in front of…

Okay, so the analogy only goes so far, and that’s why I am really enjoying HBO’s revamping of Perry Mason. I say revamping because it many ways, it’s not an update, but a throwback. The TV show was broadcast in the late 1950s and early 1960s and the stories were all contemporary. The original books started in 1933 and went all the way up to 1973. As far as I can suspect, author Erle Stanley Gardner kept Mason up to date with the times.

The HBO show is set in 1933 and serves as Mason’s origin to be attorney and man we know him to be. What makes this show special is that the creators do not attempt to press all the existing characters into the existing boxes we all know. Mason is a divorced dad, Della Street is studying to be a lawyer (and not just Mason’s secretary) and is a closeted homosexual. Ditto for district attorney Hamilton Berger, character traits that are explored and exploited. Private investigator Paul Drake is African-American so race comes to the fore often. 

When I think of this modern Perry Mason, I think about the Sherlock Holmes TV show Elementary. Unlike BBC’s Sherlock—which merely updated the old Conan Doyle stories to the present century—Elementary reimagined Holmes and Watson and changed their story. Same with HBO’s Perry Mason. And I have zero issues with it. If I want something traditional, the old TV is airing everyday on MeTV and I can go watch an episode. Or I can pick up one of Gardner’s books. I don’t want a warmed up retread. I want something new. That’s what this show is.

The writers of season 2 do take a page from Gardner’s often intricate plots. Brooks McCutcheon, son of a wealthy father, who has some shady dealings along with his philanthropy and driving desire to be Major League Baseball to Los Angeles. He is the one murdered in episode 1 of this eight-episode season. The accused are Rafael and Mateo Gallardo, poor Mexican-American young men who live in one of the Hoovervilles. (Historical note: I loved the use of “Hoovervilles” among the characters but none of them felt compelled to have an “As you know…” aside.) 

As with any good Gardner story, the more Mason digs into a case, the more oddball things crop up. This one has a few, but the highlights of this series are the individual moments that serve to mature and grow the characters. Mason, trying to make up for being an absent father really tries to be a part of his son’s life and ends up dating one of his teachers. Della meets and falls in love with a rich screenwriter and sees what it’s like not to have to live in a boarding house and be able to go to nightclubs that cater to lesbians. Paul’s story is not as happy, as the case compels him to do things he doesn’t want to do, putting pressure on his marriage and his living arrangements with his wife’s brother. 

Like the intro to this post, a key feature to any Perry Mason story is his courtroom theatrics. There are some in this show that are really good, including one fantastic one, but you’ll have to watch the show to see it because I’m not spoiling it here.

When you get to the end and the culprit is revealed, it will likely cause you to reflect on the entire series and think back to moments and if the writers telegraphed the ending. I’ll leave that up to you, too, but I’ll say that it makes sense. 

With the TV show, by the time you got to the end of an episode, there were clear winners and losers and the end result was as black and white as the film used to make the show. But we’re in the 21st Century now and few things are crystal clear. Both seasons of Perry Mason mirror the era in which we find ourselves living, and I’m perfectly fine with that, too. It’s more real, more nuance, and harkens back directly to a quote Mason heard in season 1 and repeats in season 2. 

I have grown to really like this series and it hangs on a point where a potential season 3 could show us the modern version of the old TV show. Boy, I hope we get a third season.

Sometimes Spoilers Are Fine AKA I Knew How The Last of Us Ended Before I Started

By

Scott D. Parker

I never thought I’d watch The Last of Us, the popular show by HBO based on a video game of the same name. In fact the closest I’d gotten to the show was the hilarious Saturday Night Live spoof of MarioKart done in the same, post-apocalyptic style. I’m not a huge fan of the genre and I was completely fine with skipping out on all the excitement.

In fact I was so okay with missing out on everything that when one of the recent episodes of the Fatman Beyond podcasts dropped and co-host Marc Bernardin began talking up the ending, I didn’t skip ahead. I just listened. Bernardin is a gamer, he played the original game and watched the series. He enjoyed the show, which can come as a surprise if you know Bernardin.

When my wife suggested we give episode 1 a try, I was reluctant. She knows my aversion to the genre, but it her turn to pick a show—I selected Apple TV’s Shrinking—I opted to give episode 1 a look. I fully expected to have my usual complicated feelings about a world after everything goes to hell and bow out.

But I didn’t. In fact, I rather enjoyed it. And, knowing the ending, the major events of episode 1 were still hard to watch, but I had already been conditioned to understand that these events in the premiere episode had to happen if what we see in all the trailers and online ads is true: Pablo Pascal’s Joel has to get Bella Ramsey’s Ellie across the devastated country to a place where they can use her immune blood to create a cure.

Here is the crucial fact about this show and knowing the ending: the characters, the choices they make, and the ramifications they inflict on others is immensely compelling. I found myself eagerly waiting to watch the next episode (we staggered the show, usually one per night, over the entire 9-episode run.

The two leads are stellar. There was one particular scene in which Joel gave a monologue and, afterwards, I told my wife that’ll be the clip they play at the Emmy ceremony. Because Pascal and Ramsey should both earn nominations for their acting. Unlike a typical show with this kind of content, these two actors ground their characters in real life. Side note: the pandemic-like event takes place in 2003 and the show occurs in 2023 so all the stuff we’ve come to know in the past twenty years never happened.

If I characterize the ending in any way, that might be a spoiler for you, so I’m not even going to try. But evening knowing the ending before I started, I was still deeply invested.

Maybe it’s because The Last of Us isn’t a franchise I know and love well, like Star Wars or Star Trek. I stayed away from most of my usual sites on Thursday so I could go into the series finale of Picard fresh. I often wonder what it’s like for younger folks to, say, watch the original Star Wars trilogy knowing in advance Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father or that Leia is his sister. I may get around to HBO’s other popular TV show, Succession, but I’ll go in knowing what happened in last week’s episode.

Are we too fixated on spoilers?

I mean, all we really have to do is stay away from the internet on the day of a release if you want to view something without knowing anything. That’s not a big deal. It’s not like Lester Holt is going to spoil the ending of The Last of Us on his nightly broadcast.

Back in the 1970s, my parents and I would just go to a theater and walk in, sometimes in the middle of a movie. We’d watch the ending, wait for the show to start again, watch until we got to the spot where we came in, and then leave. As a storyteller, I can’t imagine the thinking, but that was a real thing. I know I’m not alone.

I like a movie or show or book to capture me with its content. I barely ever read movie reviews ahead of time (I read them after I’ve watched the show and made my own conclusions. Ditto for TV, music, and, of course, books.) The trailer has me or it doesn’t. Or an actor and a role has me or it doesn’t, like Nicholas Cage as Dracula. That was all I needed to know I wanted to see Renfield.

Still, even if you are spoiled, the quality of the show can give you a deeper appreciation of the story, like The Last of Us did for me. It’s a quality program and one I’d certainly recommend.

Pushing the Old Guys Aside: HBO's Perry Mason Season 1

by
Scott D. Parker

I finally finished Season 1 of the updated and re-imagined Perry Mason TV series on HBO Ma. Yeah, I know: I’m two years behind. There’s just too much good content to watch and not enough time.

Here’s a funny thing: when I pulled it up on HBO Max late last week, my time stamp was halfway through episode three. I asked my wife if she’d be up for watching. She was and, without going back to re-watch the opening two installments, we forged ahead.

The cheeky summation I’ve heard about this show is that it is not your grandfather’s Perry Mason. That’s certainly true, both in the language and the personal relationships. The moment where Della Street, assistant to E.B. Jonathan (Jonathan Lithgow), the nearly-too-old-for-this lawyer defending Emily Dodson, climbs into bed with her girlfriend, my wife asked about it. Cue said cheeky comment.

I enjoy the old TV show quite a bit, but I’m nowhere near an expert. It’s just good comfort television. As for the books, I’ve only read the first one. What’s fascinating about the first book and the 2020 series is how much alike they are. If the only Perry Mason you know is Raymond Burr, well, he’s not like Matthew Rhys but Burr is also not exactly like the character we first see in 1933. Rhys and 1933 Mason are scrappers, not afraid to poke a hornet’s nest and see what happens. It’s rather remarkable how well that type of character fit both in the Depression as well as ninety years later.

This being an origin story, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how far down Mason was when this series began. Employed by E.B., Mason drinks way too much, is estranged from his wife and son, and constantly is threatened to have his family’s house taken away from him.

But the core quality of Perry Mason is his drive for justice. He can’t let things go when he knows there is something just under the surface. To quote Mason’s own self description when asked what he does, “He snapped out two words at her. “I fight!””

Rhys fights, both with his fists as well as his brain. The problem is that he often goes a few steps too far and says things to people like Della or his investigator, Pete Strickland, who are trying to help. I appreciated seeing Rhys try and smooth over Mason’s rough edges by the end of the season and never quite finishing the job.

It’s also fascinating to see how they inject 21st Century themes into a show set in the Depression. It’s obvious that same sex relationships and racial prejudices existed in the 1930s (and the 1950s era of the TV show) but it’s good to see it out in the open. Paul Drake, Mason’s main investigator by the end of the 2020 series, is now portrayed by Chris Chalk, an African-American. That itself brings up a lot of possibilities of narratives and themes. But I liked that Drake, a beat cop when we first meet him, has an inner integrity that is stronger that any position or job. Ditto for Della. The old TV show always showed her as all but an equal partner, but she always remained a secretary. The 2020 Della is an assistant, but she’s already enrolled in school and plans on becoming a lawyer. “A woman lawyer,” Mason says at the end. “A lawyer,” Della replied. “No modifier.”

Author Erle Stanley Gardner’s books are famous for their intricate nature. This 2020 season lives up to that bar. I did not see the ending coming and I really liked how the trial was resolved.

Oh, a quick shout out: Stephen Root, known for his comedy chops, plays the smarmy, publicity-hungry DA is all of his greasy glory. It made me want to see how many other non-comedy roles the actor has done. Loved him as I did Lithgow.

I suppose, with any origin story, you have to have older characters in places of authority that the younger characters seek to overcome. It’s pretty much the same in Season 1. So, in a very literal sense, the young Perry Mason beat a couple of old guys. You know, so it really isn’t your grandfather’s Perry Mason.

We need to talk about Barry...

I want to get this first part out of the way so everyone who loves Bill Hader and loves Barry can read the rest of this blog with an open mind: I love Bill Hader, and I love HBO's new dark comedy, Barry. When I saw the first preview, I knew I was going to love it. Listless hitmen in dark comedies are my jam. Grosse Point Blank remains one of my favorite movies - and Bill Hader? Bill Hader is BILL HADER, he's fucking hilarious.

(spoilers galore -through episode 5)

So why do I feel so conflicted at the end of every episode?

The premise is that Barry is a Marine turned professional killer who has suddenly tired of all the killing and wants to become an actor. Hader explains this in a post show talk as "killing was the only thing he was good at." This trope fucking pisses me off. I'm not going to bother trying to be eloquent about it. Every video game, every movie, every thought someone has about a contract killer has to start with some veteran who discovered that "killing was the one thing I was good at" or "I was really good at killing."

Killing isn't a skill. You can kill yourself by accident. You can kill another person by hitting them with a car. Life is actually fairly fragile. Throughout the episodes that have aired so far, we only see Barry in one situation that looks anything like combat, and both he and the other veteran handle it like shit. He gets knocked out, and his Marine buddy runs in and puts both of them in insane danger. The rest of the time he's killing people in ways that are either fairly easy (with a gun, at close range) or would have nothing to do with combat at all (strangulation). So what they mean, when they repeat that Barry is good at killing, is that he is good at compartmentalizing the emotions that make it emotionally and morally difficult to kill people.

When we accept the trope that hitmen are veterans because veterans are "good" at killing people, we are accepting the idea that veterans are amoral. There's a fantastic scene where the students in Barry's acting class talk about how people who kill on orders from others are damaged and "psycho" and Barry, in a rare moment of real emotion, snaps back at them. He makes a pretty great point about how we view veterans, and the class seems to take something away from it - but the whole thing is undercut by the fact that in this context - the acting students are the rubes. The acting teacher (played by Henry Winkler) makes a joke at the end that reminds us, actually, Barry isn't talking about combat or attitudes toward veterans. He's talking about murder for hire. The point about respecting veterans, or understanding the moral complexities of war is a joke, not a statement.

Of the four Marine vets we spend time with, one has a relatively normal life. One we don't get to know, one is Barry, the hitman, and one is an abrasive, over the top drunk who lives for the opportunity to kill and be put in harm's way. Even the friend with the normal life is supposed to have found this after the military. At times, it feels like the show thinks people join the military, disappear into a black hole where they "lose part of (their) soul" (actual quote from Hader on his character), and have to fight their way back to humanity when they return.

When I was on active duty I lead a relatively normal life for a woman in her early twenties. I worked, I went home, I socialized with friends, dated, went out on weekends, traveled home for holidays. When I was a reservist married to an active duty Marine, we bought a house, got a dog, had a kid. Now, I'm a veteran battling very real PTSD from my time in service (not combat), married to a combat vet who is still active duty, and my life is about as suburban and "normal" as it can get. It is this way for the vast majority of people serving. It's more likely that an active duty service member would get married and start a family at a younger age than the national average.

And maybe right now you're thinking I sound like pedant. Like the gun nuts who write authors to complain about a firing pin being described incorrectly, I'm just mad at what they got wrong on a topic I know a lot about - but that isn't it.

These tropes hurt veterans. A lot of people are okay with that idea because they believe veterans are put on a pedestal in this country, but what pedestal allows for so many vets to live on the streets? Despite the fact that only 34% of adult men are veterans, 40% of homeless men are veterans. And although, only somewhere between 10 and 20% of vets suffer from some sort of mental illness, Americans overwhelmingly believe we are unstable, and mentally ill. Despite the fact that mentally ill people are more likely to be victims of violence, to live on the street, etc. we're viewed as ticking time bombs, or like, in Barry's Taylor character, loud, violent, and ready for a fight at all times.

Despite having less mental health problems than the general public seems to think we do - a lot of us are killing ourselves. Why? We can't get services.  Women veterans are at particular risk, because even when we can get services, they are catered to male veterans (ask me about the horrors women veterans experience in VA psych wards if you feel like you have a strong stomach). Women veterans are TWO TIMES as likely to complete suicide than civilian women. One in three women in the military are raped. That doesn't include other forms of sexual assault or harassment. Of course, women Marines don't actually exist in Barry. Like most popular culture, Barry assumes that all veterans are men, and all veterans served in infantry jobs. None of the characters we meet had a job specialty in the Marine Corps - they're just "Marines."

One benefit of being a woman, is most people assume I'm not a veteran, so I get to hear all the horrible things people believe about veterans first hand. Not that knowing I'm a veteran has stopped people I thought were close friends from expressing incredibly prejudiced and harmful opinions about who "we" are. I have spent years banging the drum that veterans are all different, we are a group of individuals - and popular culture works directly against it. Politicians want you to believe we're a homogeneous mass, even the ones who claim to "love the troops." Popular culture wants a quick shorthand - so we get the same characters over and over again. Barry is a soulless killer. Taylor is a maniac who lives to kill. Servicemembers don't have lives and families. Women don't serve.

It's easy. And when I see it in a show I otherwise love, it fucking sucks. It sucks to work hard to bust stereotypes and then see them employed freely on a show that is otherwise original and inventive. Listening to Hader and Alec Berg talk about writing the show - it's clear they put thought and care into every aspect of Barry's development. But they didn't put any thought or care into the messages they were sending about veterans.

I want shows with veterans who aren't dead-eyed killers or over the top maniacs. I want shows with veterans who have their own stories separate from being broken or damaged by their service. And jesus, I want the scenes about people like me and my husband to play in Barry as beautifully funny as the scene where Hader gives his outrageously upbeat take on the Glenngarry Glen Ross speech.

If I Ran HBO

Well, I'd sell my stock options and retire to write books before I bankrupted the place, but let's say I made one decision before I left.

It would be a series. I used to love movies, I used to go all the time but I don't much anymore. Now I prefer the longer story arcs of a good seriesor miniseries. The Sopranos, The Wire, Rome, Deadwood, Band of Brothers - I watched them all on DVD.

Now we have HBO Canada so I'm looking forward to The Pacific (my father-in-law spent a lot of the war in what we used to call Burma with the RCAF):



And I'm really looking forward to this one:



Let’s see, Emmy Award winner Terence Winter (The Sopranos), Martin Scorsese, Steve Buscemi, Gretchen Mol, based on the book by Nelson Johnson, set in Atlantic City during Prohibition, I guess it could be good.

So, the next big one I'd like to see as a series on HBO is this:









Such great characters, everybody from Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover, Nixon, Kennedy (Big Brother and Little Brother), Jimmy Hoffa, movie stars, mobsters, HUAC, COINTELPRO – it’s Hollywood, Washington, Vegas – everything.

I really liked the movie version of LA Confidential but the material in these three books would make for such a great HBO show. Each book could be a ten or twelve episode season.

Let's face it, HBO is losing out to AMC and FX and other cable networks and stuff like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Justified (the one based on Elmore Leonard's Fire in the Hole with US Marshall Raylan Givens) and so on.

So, what do you think? What material would you like to see adapted into a cable TV series?