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    Al Franken Becomes First Former U.S. Senator to Host ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’

    “But tonight is not about politics, it’s about comedy and having fun,” he said. “So, who’s here from out of state to get an abortion?”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.May I Be Frank?Al Franken returned to his late-night comedy roots on Tuesday, becoming the first former U.S. senator to guest-host “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” “But tonight is not about politics, it’s about comedy and having fun,” he said. “So, who’s here from out of state to get an abortion?”“Today, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a huge achievement. It makes the single biggest investment in addressing climate change ever. While I’m here, I — I really should talk about some of the other existential threats facing our nation: the enormous gaps in wealth and income, the threats to our democracy. But I really think one of the most serious issues facing our country today is just how big a [expletive] Ted Cruz is.” — AL FRANKENFranken also commented on the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago.“Now, some are saying Trump could be a flight risk, which is crazy that the former president of the United States is a flight risk. But the good news is that at least Donald Trump’s official presidential portrait is back up at every airport in the United States.” — AL FRANKEN“You know, there has never been a better time to visit Palm Beach because for the rest of the summer, Mar-a-Lago is running a special weekend getaway package that includes free breakfast, a room upgrade where available, and a nuclear secret of your choosing.” — AL FRANKENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Inflation Reduction Act Edition)“Well, guys, today President Biden returned from his vacation in South Carolina and signed the historic Inflation Reduction Act into law. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, things have been going pretty great for Biden. He may not have gotten the first impression rose, but he’s working his way towards an invite to the fantasy suite.” — JIMMY FALLON“It does everything. It subsidizes electric cars. It funds wind and solar energy. And it changes the name of summer to ‘extra spring.’ Hopefully, Mother Nature falls for that one.” — TREVOR NOAH“Right after he signed the bill, Biden was like, ‘What are those strange sounds?’ and a staffer was like, ‘That’s applause, sir.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Trump heard, and was like, ‘You’ll definitely want to sneak that one home when you leave office.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingWilliam Shatner narrated the “Daily Showography” of Elon Musk on Tuesday.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe comedian Nicole Byer will kick off two nights of guest-hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Wednesday.Also, Check This OutSolange Knowles at the David H. Koch Theater, where her first score for a ballet company will premiere at New York City Ballet in September.Rahim FortuneSolange Knowles will compose her first ballet score for the Fall Fashion Gala at New York City Ballet in September. More

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    Searching for Leonardo da Vinci in ‘Leonardo’

    Our critic finds that a new biopic series on the CW prefers contemporary clichés to exploring what actually made the artist fascinating.Leonardo da Vinci discovered how to capture life in his drawings. And he found new ways to topple a castle. But the one thing he could never come up with was a good recipe for shampoo.That, at least, is the main message I took away from the eight episodes of “Leonardo,” a biopic series premiering on Tuesday on the CW. Following in the footsteps of “The Lord of the Rings” and “Game of Thrones,” the makers of “Leonardo” seem to have decided that old-time heroes need to have greasy locks.But then, “Leonardo” seems so indebted to “Game of Thrones” that it could hardly have gone its own way on grooming. Its music riffs on “GoT,” complete with drumbeats and a twinkly harp, and it includes gratuitous nudity and a pointless beheading. Think of it as a “CSI”-style spinoff — “GoT: Florence.” It shows how deeply our sense of history is essentially aesthetic, even pictorial: Our understanding of the past is based on the fantasies and images our own culture has already built up about that past — greasy hair and all — rather than on any real historical thinking. And that means we reject the true foreignness of history in favor of the comforting stories we’ve told ourselves about it, all rooted in today’s reality — or in Westeros, which is much the same thing.Despite its debt to “Game of Thrones” fantasy, “Leonardo” has the backbone of a 21st-century police procedural. The first episode, and then each one that follows, begins with its hero in prison for murder. As the artist (played by Aidan Turner) is interrogated by a Renaissance cop named Stefano Giraldi (Freddie Highmore, who, I’m glad to say, was permitted to wash his hair), flashbacks reveal how the artist ended up in such straits. Spoiler alert: In the final episode, when Leonardo is about to be hanged for the crime, we and Giraldi discover that he did not do the deed. Viewers who didn’t see that twist coming ought to have their Wi-Fi revoked.The series will most likely get away with the platitudes of its invented plot, since most viewers will probably be watching “Leonardo” less for its storytelling than for a glimpse of a certain Renaissance genius who, though dead for half a millennium, has become one of our current art stars. (It helps that his “Salvator Mundi” sold for $450 million in 2017.) But even though “Leonardo” is set in Italy around 1500 and purports to talk about a real man, this program’s grasp on history is as weak as any dragon drama.The murder plot is pure fiction, but that’s forgivable: Today’s biopics aren’t expected to stick to the facts. Watching “Rocketman,” we didn’t think that Elton John could really float above his piano. What I can’t forgive is the false picture “Leonardo” paints of Leonardo. As played by Turner (“The Hobbit,” “Poldark”), the artist seems a neurotic heartthrob with attention deficit disorder. In reality, Leonardo’s genius was systematic in the extreme: He’d take the time to understand and portray every hair on a woman’s head, every twig and leaf on a tree.Giorgio Vasari, the great Renaissance biographer, described Leonardo as a charming conversationalist, a deeply courtly being “whose personal beauty could not be exaggerated, whose every movement was grace itself” — a man “filled with a lofty and delicate spirit.” In “Leonardo,” he comes closer to Kurt Cobain. It’s as though, here in the 21st century, we have a single model for what creativity might look like, and the creators of “Leonardo” don’t dare ask us to imagine another one. I guess they could be right: We might be so completely stuck in our own times that we simply can’t inhabit the past’s deeply different realities. Or maybe history could offer an example of progress we might want to see.Matilda De Angelis as Caterina da Cremona, an invented character with whom Leonardo has an all-but-sexual romance.Angelo Turetta/Sony Pictures TelevisionThis biopic series could have moved in that direction when it came to the artist’s sexuality. Even though Leonardo da Vinci is one of the earliest gay creators we know of, “Leonardo” has him drawn most powerfully to women. Sure, the series shows him kissing a man or two, but the entire plot is built around his stormy, steamy, all-but-sexual romance with an invented character named Caterina da Cremona, played by Matilda De Angelis. (She’s the one we keep seeing naked for no reason.) In the 21st century, not to play one of history’s famously gay figures as notably gay seems borderline homophobic. “She was love,” says Leonardo about his invented girlfriend. Why not let us hear this gay artist say, “He?”When it comes to capturing the past’s foreignness, the show even misses little details it should have been easy to get right. Rather than drawing with a goose quill, Leonardo uses a metal nib — which only came into use centuries later. Candles, a pricey commodity in the Renaissance, burn by the dozen in every room, as though Leonardo had a side hustle in aromatherapy. (Maybe his vanilla-cinnamon pillars made Mona Lisa smile.) When he paints his “Last Supper,” the show breaks away to a computer-generated animation of how perspective works in the painting — then gets that perspective wrong.About halfway through the series, I took off my art critic’s hat, abandoned my interest in seeing yesterdays that are different from now, and tried pretending the show wasn’t about any real artist at all, let alone a gay one from the Renaissance. What if I changed the title from “Leonardo” to “Tony”? Would that help me enjoy it?Not much.Since the plot of “Tony” — sorry, “Leonardo” — is just an excuse for telling the story of a great artist’s life, the writers, Frank Spotnitz, Steve Thompson and Gabbie Asher, never bother giving it any real momentum or patching its holes. And since this is, again, the story of a great artist’s life, they make sure to stuff it full of every “great artist” cliché they can find: “A man like Leonardo — his genius is forged by pain,” says one typical line of dialogue. “And that pain can drive a man to commit terrible acts.” Leonardo van Gogh, you might call him — a hybrid creature that doesn’t even reflect how real artists think and act today, let alone how they did in the Renaissance. It’s a screenwriter’s fantasy of how old-time artists ought to be.In “Leonardo,” a Renaissance master tells his pupil, “You’ve drawn only what you saw. You must learn to draw what you feel.” That’s a bromide born centuries after Leonardo’s day — drawing “only what you see” was actually one of his most radical inventions — but it’s not clear we have much appetite for understanding how cultural foundations can change over time.To grasp how and why art got made in the past, we might need to unlearn our current ideas about artists. And you can’t blame “Leonardo” for not even trying. We’re all just so addicted to the dirty hair. More

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    How John DeMarsico Made SNY’s Broadcasts Go Viral

    SNY already had some of the best announcers in baseball. John DeMarsico, the network’s director, has made every game feel like a trip to the movies.On a sticky August evening at Citi Field, toward the end of a crucial Mets victory against division rival Atlanta, closer Edwin Díaz threw his last warm-up pitch and began his long, familiar journey from the right field bullpen to the mound for the top of the ninth inning. But something unusual happened: The television broadcast did not cut to a commercial.Instead, the camera trailed behind Díaz as he walked through the bullpen door, broke into a jog and traversed the outfield grass. The trumpets of “Narco,” Díaz’s beloved entrance song, were fed from the stadium public address system directly into the broadcast, making fans at home feel like they were watching it all happen in person. Or maybe that they were in a bullfighting arena in Spain. Regardless, there were chills.The broadcasting flourish was designed and executed by John DeMarsico, 35, the game director for SNY, the Mets’ regional sports network.“We’d covered him coming in before, but we never blew off a commercial break to show the whole thing,” DeMarsico said. “And we’d never sent the camera crew down there to do the dramatic, from-behind shot. I had it in my back pocket all year, and I was waiting for the right game to do it.”That same game had featured Jacob deGrom’s return to Citi Field after more than a year lost to serious arm and shoulder injuries. DeMarsico gave deGrom, the Mets’ co-ace, his own star moment, skipping an ad break to show his first-inning warm-up pitches. That time, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man” piped into the broadcast.John DeMarsico has created several viral moments this season with directorial choices during Mets broadcasts on SNY.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesIn both cases, the embellishments had been discussed earlier in the season but were decided upon in the moment, with DeMarsico feeling the mood in the stadium and improvising a cinematic response.Regional sports networks take their share of abuse, with complaints of streaming blackouts from fans and Major League Baseball’s frequent attempts to build its audience through other alternatives, be it Apple TV+; NBC’s Peacock streaming service; or other platforms. But in a medium that seems antiquated to some, SNY’s theme all year has been innovation.In this case, the network is building on what was already a strength. The chemistry of the network’s broadcast team — the play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen and the analysts Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez — has long made SNY destination viewing, even when the team on the field sometimes didn’t command that level of attention.“The team has always been experimental,” said Darling, who, along with Cohen and Hernandez, has held court over broadcasts full of goofy tangents, movie recommendations, and inside jokes that have been going since 2006. Darling sees their interactions as a sign of respect for the viewer. “I think there’s a fear with some broadcasts that don’t trust their fan base to be intelligent enough to see something different. A lot of broadcast teams are fearful of alienating their core fans who will criticize anything outside of the ordinary, especially when criticism in today’s world is so instantaneous.”Keith Hernandez, Ron Darling and Gary Cohen keep things casual in the booth with guests like the comedian Jerry Seinfeld.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images For NetflixAs the comedian Jerry Seinfeld said on one of his many trips to the booth, “It’s a TV show, it’s not just a game.”DeMarsico, with the producer Gregg Picker’s support, has quietly been helping the visuals of their broadcasts catch up to the quality and innovation of the narration. And like a crafty reliever, he has done it with a formidable bag of tricks.He uses unusual camera angles, forgoing the typical center-field shot at crucial moments, instead filming the action from behind the right-fielder or near the visitor’s on-deck circle.He employs split-screens to highlight confrontations between pitcher and batter. In a tense at-bat between Díaz and Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich earlier this season, DeMarsico began the shot with Díaz’s face in the left side of the frame. He then faded in Yelich’s face on the right side, gradually having Díaz disappear. Fans had a chance to truly see the pitcher and the batter staring each other down.DeMarsico understood that Jacob deGrom’s return was something special. Capturing his warm-ups was turned into art.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesThese techniques are attempts to tease out the drama that already exists in the game but had previously been difficult to visualize.“Baseball is inherently cinematic, more so than other sports,” DeMarsico said. “In football and basketball, there’s so much speed. In baseball, there is no clock. The geography of the field is very structured. You’re able to set the scene, and establish the confrontations between batter and pitcher like a duel in a western.”After decades of baseball games looking nearly identical from network to network, these shots can feel bracingly original.For DeMarsico, it is a natural collision of his two passions: baseball and film. Before beginning his SNY career with an internship in 2009, he studied film at North Carolina State University. Conversations about his work are peppered with the names of directors, both famous and obscure. He models his methods of creating suspense on the work of Brian De Palma, and cites Martin Scorsese’s famous tracking shot at the Copacabana in “Goodfellas” as his inspiration for the Díaz bullpen moment. He also cites Nicolas Winding Refn — the Díaz-Yelich moment was inspired by Refn’s 2009 Viking epic “Valhalla Rising” — and Sergio Corbucci, who directed some of the most violent spaghetti westerns.While the concepts of SNY’s viral moments were discussed in advance, they were deployed in the moment by DeMarsico. Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesIn Saturday night’s win over the Philadelphia Phillies, DeMarsico repeated the Díaz bullpen shot, but this time began it in black and white, and then moved to color when the pitcher stepped onto the field, a clear nod to “The Wizard of Oz.”Then there’s Quentin Tarantino, who influenced perhaps the most lighthearted of DeMarsico’s innovations: the “Kill Bill” filter. The Mets lead the majors in hit batsmen this year, and Showalter’s escalating irritation has been a running joke among Mets fans. The broadcast team ran with it, using the same effect employed by Tarantino in the “Kill Bill” films whenever their protagonist’s thirst for vengeance is triggered: a red tint, a sound known as the “Ironside Siren,” and a double exposure of her face and a memory of the traumatic event.DeMarsico used the sound and color a few times, but knew something was still missing. So he had his crew put together a montage of the most egregious hit-by-pitches this year and overlaid it on Showalter’s face, implying that the manager was reexperiencing a season’s worth of insults each time a Met got plunked.Some baseball purists might object to such shenanigans, but it is certainly drawing attention to the network. The clip of Díaz’s entrance went viral and has now been viewed on Twitter more than 8 million times.How games are shot for regional sports networks has rarely been a hot topic. That has changed with SNY this season.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesFor a sport that has long battled traditionalism in its effort to attract younger fans, these innovations may come across as avant-garde. But they could also give something of a road map for how baseball could modernize its other broadcasts — a process that began almost immediately when Apple TV+ recreated the Díaz entrance, nearly shot for shot, in its presentation of a Mets game.But with the Mets on pace for more than 100 wins this regular season, and DeMarsico at the helm of their broadcasts, a little competition is nothing to worry about. “I still have a few tricks up my sleeve,” he said.That type of confidence could explain why the SNY production team has been given such wide leeway to experiment, even sacrificing some advertising dollars along the way to do it.“It’s not something we want to do a lot because the commercials obviously pay the bills,” DeMarsico said of the times they stayed with the action on the field. “But there’s a trust factor with SNY. We pick our spots and choose wisely, and as long as it doesn’t become an everyday thing, we can do things like that and make moments that are special for the folks at home.”He grinned and added: “Maybe 8 million views is worth a commercial break.”The Mets are on pace for more than 100 wins this season. DeMarsico still has some tricks up his sleeve for the stretch run.Michelle Farsi for The New York Times More

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    Guest Host Desus Nice Breaks Down Trump’s Excuses on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’

    “He says the F.B.I. planted fake evidence to frame him, and now he wants them to return the fake evidence,” Nice said. “Even O.J. is like, ‘Yo, bro, you wildin.’”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Not-So-Safe KeepingDesus Nice, the former co-host of Showtime’s “Desus & Mero” guest hosted “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Monday, where the topic was the F.B.I.’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.“He’s like a racist Jason Bourne, but more orange,” Nice said of Trump.“Trump says the documents the F.B.I. took from Mar-a-Lago are covered by his white privilege — wait, excuse me, I mean his executive privilege.” — DESUS NICE“They also confiscated 8,000 McRibs, nine Melania clones, one never-been-used Peloton, two tons of industrial-grade ranch dressing, ‘Girls Gone Wild’ volumes 8 through 19 — ay, yo! — Lindsey Graham’s testicles.” — DESUS NICE“Let me just break down Trump’s defense: He says the F.B.I. planted fake evidence to frame him, and now he wants them to return the fake evidence. Even O.J. is like, ‘Yo, bro, you wildin.’” — DESUS NICE“Here’s the thing Donald Trump doesn’t understand: He doesn’t own those documents. They belong to his former employer, the United States government. See, that’s not how jobs work. When you get fired from an office, you don’t get to take the Xerox machine home with you. When I got fired from Showtime, they didn’t let me bring home the cast of ‘Shameless.’” — DESUS NICE“And people are saying, ‘What’s the big deal about a president keeping classified documents at his house?’ Because his house is a golf resort! It has a seafood buffet on Wednesday nights. Come on. This is like if Obama left the nuclear codes at Red Lobster.” — DESUS NICEThe Punchiest Punchlines (Top Secret Edition)“Over the weekend, we found out that the F.B.I. seized 11 sets of classified documents from Trump’s home, including four sets that were marked ‘Top Secret.’ You know Trump just kept those hoping to come across KFC’s secret blend.” — JIMMY FALLON“Also, just a thought, but if the government doesn’t want people reading those files, maybe they shouldn’t label them ‘Top Secret.’ It’s like a guy labeling a porn folder on his computer, ‘Best Porn.’ Call it banana bread recipe. No one will open it.” — JIMMY FALLON“The government should do what we do: Just put secrets in a folder called ‘Taxes 2012-2017.’ Yeah, I have done that my whole life. The only screwup was, I did this when I was 12 years old, and then my mother was like, ‘What taxes are you paying when you’re 12?’ And then she busted me for porn and tax evasion.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingThe singer-songwriter Em Beihold made her television debut on Monday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightSterling K. Brown will appear on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutAfter John Turturro, left, was cast in “Severance,” he suggested Christopher Walken for a role.Wilson Webb/Apple TV+Christopher Walken and John Turturro drew on their years of friendship for their Emmy-nominated roles in “Severance.” More

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    ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6, Episode 13 Recap: Life

    In the series finale, Jimmy and Saul go to war. Kim flies across the country, twice.And so we leave the flawed and conflicted hero of our story, in ADX Montrose, a.k.a. “The Alcatraz of the Rockies,” the maximum security prison where he will serve an 86-year sentence for a wide assortment of felonies. There he will bake bread and, one imagines, dispense endless amounts of free legal advice for the rest of his days.If this ending surprised you, take comfort in this fact: It surprised Saul Goodman, too. Or rather, it was the result of a decision that managed somehow to seem both determined and out of the blue. For a few minutes of this series finale, after negotiations with prosecutors that included a master class in legal posturing, Saul Goodman appeared headed toward a mere seven-and-a-half-year stint at a (relatively) comfortable federal penitentiary with, we are told, a golf program.It was a sweetheart deal based on a version of his working relationship with Walter White that was utterly fanciful, one in which he was a victim of the deceased meth king, not his most important enabler. Though patently far-fetched, Saul needs to sell it to just one juror, as he tells the lead federal prosecutor, George Castellano (Bob Jesser). And after giving government lawyers a look at how effectively he can feign victimhood, the government signs on. It appears as though what we have is the tale of a man who, in the end, is untroubled by his conscience, or at least able to quiet that conscience long enough to wangle the bare minimum of punishment for his many sins.But that is not the end of the story. When Saul hears that his ex-wife, Kim Wexler, has confessed to the authorities about her role in the death of Howard Hamlin and faces a potentially ruinous lawsuit from Howard’s widow, he changes his mind. In the ultimate reverse Perry Mason moment, Saul confesses to everything in open court, defying both an incredulous judge and his stupefied co-counsel, dooming himself to life behind bars.The volte-face leaves our protagonist with a very different legacy. “Better Call Saul” has long been a character study, and the character was forever toggling between shades of good and bad. As Jimmy McGill, he had a peerless gift for con artistry and a conscience. His morals were forever at war with his principal talent — swindling people, for money or fun and sometimes both.Then he became Saul Goodman, and the conscientious side of Jimmy disappeared. He became a very entertaining scoundrel.The finale and the last few episodes were designed to keep viewers wondering which of these two — Jimmy or Saul — would have the upper hand. Saul seemed likely to win, in part because the rapacious side of Jimmy and Saul kept getting highlighted. Especially in this episode.In different scenes, three characters from earlier parts of this show and “Breaking Bad” turn up to take a final bow and to help Jimmy riff on the theme of regret and second chances. To Mike, in dialogue set during their near-death march through the desert in Season 5, Jimmy says that given a time machine, he would teleport back to 1965 so he could invest early in Warren Buffett’s epochal moneymaking run at Berkshire Hathaway.“That’s it? Money?” Mike says incredulously.Jimmy looks ready to admit to something more meaningful but lets the moment pass.When he has a time-machine talk with Walter White, as the two share an underground apartment and await new identities, he says he would like the chance to avoid a knee injury he sustained during a “slip-n-fall” scam when he was young.“So you were always like this,” Walter says with disgust.And when Chuck, his older brother, says, “If you don’t like where you’re headed, there’s no shame in going back and changing your path,” Jimmy seems unmoved.“When have you ever changed your path?” he retorts.None of this makes him sound like a guy ready for a moral reckoning. And, of course, the dark version of Jimmy-Saul seemed ascendant in recent episodes. In Omaha, we watched his on-the-lam persona, Gene Takavic, devolve into what might have been the most contemptible version of his character we have ever seen. In the penultimate episode Gene/Saul seemed ready to strangle Carol Burnett (OK, she’s Marion in the show, but she’s still Carol Burnett) with a phone cord.So why does Jimmy trump Saul in the end? Why does he opt for a lifetime of punishment? Part of the answer is love. Love for Kim, specifically. His fake offer to the feds to provide dirt on his ex is, we learn, a ruse to make sure she is in the courtroom to watch him redeem himself.There’s some symmetry here. He becomes the toxic version of Saul because of Kim. He returns to the morally fastidious version of Jimmy for the same reason. In the next to last scene, the two are sharing a cigarette, just as they did at the beginning of their legal careers.Of course, love can’t fully explain the decision to choose 86 years of prison. Jimmy has opted for light over darkness, and that means giving himself the sentence he thinks he deserves. Sound improbable? Keep in mind that Jimmy/Gene has often lurched between good and bad, at moments and in ways that feel unpredictable. Which might be his defining quality and the only reason that the writers could pull the final switcheroo in this episode. It’s a narrative cliché that character is destiny, and Jimmy/Saul’s true character was a coin toss until the end. And thus, so too was his destiny.As for Kim, she is going to manage. She seems ready to leave her sprinkler company job to work again as a public defender. True love, however, might not be in the cards. She was never more amorous than when she and Jimmy were fleecing a mark. But if she finds another con man, she might avoid him the way alcoholics avoid booze.There is much to hash over in this episode but space for only one last question: What is the final verdict on “Better Call Saul”?Here’s Your Faithful Recapper’s take: it was occasionally a great show that was more often a pretty good show and too often a dull show. It got bogged down in story lines — everything involving Chuck, most notably — that were happily forgotten. It had trouble modulating its tone. There were goofy elements to the scheme to frame Howard, for instance, which felt out of place even before the guy was murdered. There were a few too many elaborate cons. And the writers seemed to relish their willingness to let Jimmy McGill’s biography unfold at its own sometimes glacial pace, ignoring the pace viewers might have preferred.The show was always an odd contraption. It had spare parts bolted on from “Breaking Bad,” and it told the story of cartel life before Walter White in segments that were often the most gripping in an episode. (Big round of applause for Hector, Gus, Nacho and Lalo.) It created two completely different planets and allowed them to cross orbits very rarely, albeit to thrilling effect. (Consider the restaurant meeting between Mike and Kim.) The writers gave themselves a nearly impossible task: to tell a story about love and ethics that kept being interrupted by a bunch of cunning and heavily armed sociopaths.In the end, what shines brightest to Your Faithful Recapper is the psychological richness of the show’s characters. One could argue over their motivations as if they were real people; their actions were often ambiguous enough for viewers to debate. Also, the show was always beautifully directed and shot. (Remember those ants swarming over sidewalk ice cream in Episode 3 of Season 5?) Attention to detail yielded all manner of Easter egg for vigilant viewers. (The same banal, hotel room painting appears in both “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul.” In this episode, Jimmy/Saul flies on Wayfarer, the same airline that suffers a mid-air collision in “Breaking Bad.”) And there was a lot of exceptional dialogue, ranging from poignant to hilarious. You often watched and thought, “Nobody on television writes this well.”Or showcases such superb acting. Jonathan Banks’s performance in Episode 6 of Season 1, which tells the back story of Mike Ehrmantraut, is just one of many standout performances. Then there’s Rhea Seehorn’s Sphinx-like style since she first appeared, which provided a wallop to her tearful catharsis in last week’s episode. Oh, and a hat tip to Betsy Brandt, who turns up in the finale and gives what is arguably Marie Schrader’s finest soliloquy.That’s all from Your Faithful Recapper, who will sign off with that pretend-gun double draw farewell and take a shot of tequila, the show’s tipple of choice, in tribute. Now it’s your turn. In the comments section, opine on this episode and the entire series. Also, nominate a character, or set of characters, who should get the next spin off so we can do this all over again. More

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    ‘Five Days at Memorial’ Tells the Harrowing Story of a Deadly Choice

    A new scripted series on Apple TV+ dramatizes the crisis faced by a New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina, as the waters and the death toll rose.It was tense and sweaty on the set of “Five Days at Memorial,” the new Apple TV+ limited series about systemic and personal failure at a New Orleans hospital in the days after Hurricane Katrina. The cast, emotionally invested and physically drained, was wiped out.It was time to play some Mafia.The freewheeling, ice-breaking role-playing game, which also goes by the name Werewolf, is a favorite of Cornelius Smith Jr., who plays the distraught Dr. Bryant King in “Memorial.” He brings it out whenever bonding is in order, and to hear the “Memorial” cast tell it, they would have wilted if they hadn’t come together when the cameras stopped rolling.“It was really extraordinary because here we were telling this story that is not all smiles — it’s a very deep story, a very troubling story, a very heavy story,” Smith said in a video interview from Washington, D.C., where he was playing Frederick Douglass in the musical “American Prophet.” “So it was nice to be able to counter that with a very joyous relationship and spending quality time with castmates and really developing a bond off-camera.”The eight-episode “Five Days at Memorial,” premiering Friday, can indeed be tough sledding. Based on the 2013 book by Sheri Fink, which was adapted from her Pulitzer-winning investigative article for ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, it tells the story of Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, where 45 bodies were found in Katrina’s aftermath, in September 2005. (Sold in 2006, the hospital is now Ochsner Baptist Medical Center).“We didn’t want to dictate how people should feel about this story,” said Carlton Cuse (left, with Jessica B. Hill and Cornelius Smith Jr.), a creator of the series. “We didn’t want to take a side.”Sophie Giraud/Apple TV+The hospital had been flooded, its power and generators knocked out. Chaos reigned. Several health providers on the scene raised concerns that patients had been given lethal injections during the evacuation process.Both book and series depict the Memorial crisis as a series of impossible decisions, made by flawed individuals under unimaginable pressure, and complete systemic breakdown. In this sense, it’s a microcosm of Katrina, which had a death toll of more than 1,800 people.In a video interview, Fink, who was also a producer on the series, pointed out that the hospital had a 101-page bioterrorism plan. This was, after all, the post-9/11 era. But there was no emergency plan in place for evacuating over water.“I really hope that people watch the series and engage in thinking hard about the consequences of a failure to invest in preparedness for rare, but potentially catastrophic and very foreseeable circumstances,” Fink said in a video call. “A hurricane and a flood in New Orleans were very foreseeable.”Indeed, the levels of failure involved in the Memorial disaster, and Katrina in general, were staggering.“When you have this kind of systemic failure, it’s also a mechanical failure,” said John Ridley, who created the series with Carlton Cuse (“Lost,” “Bates Motel”). “It’s an electronic failure. And it’s a human failure. You’ve got to look at how humans interact in the systems we build.”In the hurricane’s immediate aftermath, hospital administrators did the equivalent of a victory lap and heaved a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, the levees, which had begun failing almost immediately, got progressively worse. Then the severe floods came. (Readers unfamiliar with what happened next may want to stop reading now.)The show depicts several Memorial staff members, including Dr. Anna Pou (played by Vera Farmiga), making plans to provide “comfort” for patients who they have determined would be difficult to evacuate, in the form of injections. Someone, you keep thinking, has to pay for this. But nobody does. (Pou, along with the nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo, played by Sharron Matthews and Sarah Allen, were later arrested on multiple counts of principal to second-degree murder but were never indicted by a grand jury.)“There was incompetence on every level of leadership,” Farmiga said of the failures at Memorial Medical Center. But she also defended her character’s commitment to help.Russ Martin/Apple TV+Viewers are likely to feel outrage at some of the events depicted. The series creators, however, argue that thirsting for revenge is pointless. To them, it was an impossible situation, with no clear-cut villains.“We didn’t want to dictate how people should feel about this story — we didn’t want to take a side,” Cuse said in a video interview. “I’m curious to see where people come out about all of this and what kinds of different opinions people have about how things went down.”One character who definitely has an opinion is King. He takes a look around and determines that something is rotten at Memorial. He seethes at the idea of lethal injections.He is also among a handful of Black doctors at the hospital — and the only one on duty during the crisis. He can see that most of the people affected by the breakdown are Black, as are most of the people seeking help who are turned away. King is acutely aware of this, even as it unfolds.“I like to say race is another character in the series,” Smith said. “It’s there whether you want to acknowledge it or not. It plays a role in how we all perceive things in life.”“They’re in New Orleans,” he added. “It’s a predominantly African American community. And what he experiences is clearly, to him, outlined by race. That’s what he’s seeing.”Farmiga acknowledged that human failure was rampant. “There was incompetence on every level of leadership,” she said in a video call. But she also defended Pou’s commitment to help. The surgeon reported for hurricane duty despite being told that other doctors could look after her patients.“She was motivated by humanitarian aid,” Farmiga said. “She chose to face those intolerable conditions. That takes an extraordinary amount of courage.”Much of the series was shot in an enormous, custom-made water tank, just outside Toronto, as a way to recreate the flooding at the hospital. Sophie Giraud/Apple TV+“Five Days at Memorial” was initially optioned to be a movie by the producer Scott Rudin, and then by the producer Ryan Murphy, who planned to use it for his “American Crime Story” anthology series. When Murphy scrapped those plans, Cuse came calling, won Fink over and approached Ridley to be his partner.Fink liked the idea of making “Memorial” into a limited series, with the time and commitment to present a detailed and balanced adaptation.“It just seemed like a great way to tell this story, because if it were done in a movie, there wouldn’t be enough time to bring out all of the nuance,” she said. “It is a long and detailed book, a work of journalism that took many years.” (Fink, who was a staff reporter at ProPublica when her article was published, is now a domestic correspondent for The New York Times.)Cuse is well aware of the parallels to a more recent health crisis. He remembers his partner, Ridley, reminding him of the adage that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. And so “Five Days of Memorial” went into production amid the global health crisis of Covid-19, a crisis for which many argue the United States was ill prepared.“Instead of the question of who’s going to get on a helicopter to evacuate, we’re dealing with who gets a respirator or who gets a vaccine or who gets a monoclonal antibody,” Cuse said.Some of “Memorial” was shot in New Orleans, but much of it was shot in a custom-made, four-million-gallon water tank just outside Toronto. Cast and crew had to quarantine upon entering Canada from the United States because of the pandemic. It was a stressful process, and a prelude to a stressful shoot.They knew, however, that unlike the characters they portrayed, they would return to their ordered lives when their work was done — that they were ultimately playing make believe. And they knew they needed to get it right.“I felt an enormous sense of responsibility to the people of New Orleans, to the survivors,” Farmiga said. “It’s their heartache. It’s their trauma. It’s their story.” More

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    in Television

    What’s on TV This Week: ‘House of the Dragon’ and U.S. Gymnastic Championships

    HBO airs the “Game of Thrones” spinoff. Olympians Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles compete in the women’s gymnastic field.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Aug. 15-21. Details and times are subject to change.MondayBETTER CALL SAUL 9 p.m. on AMC. The sixth and final season of this “Breaking Bad” prequel spinoff is finishing up its 13-episode arc on Monday, which came after a two-year break and an on-set health scare for Bob Odenkirk, who plays Saul Goodman. This episode will tie up lots of loose ends from an unexpected turn of events. The New York Times reporter David Segal wrote in last week’s episode recap that “the show has ditched the idea that this is a narrative about love. The show will culminate, it seems, by posing questions about fairness and justice and maybe mercy.”TuesdayAidan Turner in “Leonardo.”Lux Vide/CWLEONARDO 8 p.m. on the CW. After a successful first season run of this show in Europe and Canada, it is coming to the U.S. via the CW. The series stars Aidan Turner as a young Leonardo da Vinci in a fictional version of the real painter’s life. The first episode centers on Leonardo being arrested for poisoning Caterina de Cremona (which, for the record, did not happen in real life). The series also stars Matilda De Angelis and Freddie Highmore.DARK SIDE OF COMEDY 9 p.m. on VICE. This original series from VICE is addressing how the unexpected fame, societal pressures and internal battles that come along with being a notable comedian can have an impact on addiction or depression. Each episode will feature a comedian who has battled with mental health struggles or died of suicide. The first episode features Chris Farley, the “Saturday Night Live” comedian who died at 33 from an overdose of cocaine and morphine in 1997. Other episodes in this 10-episode series will feature Andrew Dice Clay, Roseanne Barr and Artie Lange.WednesdayTHE OLD MAN AND THE SEA (1958) 6:30 p.m. on TCM. This film, based on the Ernest Hemingway novel of the same name, is about a Cuban fisherman (Spencer Tracy), his 14-year-old friend Manolin (Felipe Pazos Jr.) and the fisherman’s three-day battle with a huge marlin fish. “It is an impressive ordeal, as ordeals in catching fish go, and Mr. Tracy represents it in an admirably rugged, stubborn way,” the New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote in his 1958 review of the film. “He looks convincingly ancient, with lank white hair and stubbly beard, and he performs with the creaky, painful movements of a weary, stiff-jointed old man.”ThursdayJeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz in “The Bourne Legacy.”Mary Cybulski/Universal PicturesTHE BOURNE LEGACY (2012) 6:42 p.m. on STARZ. This movie is the fourth in the franchise — with “The Bourne Identity” (2002), “The Bourne Supremacy” (2004) and “The Bourne Ultimatum” (2007) coming before. This movie does not actually feature the titular C.I.A. agent Jason Bourne because Matt Damon, who plays him, did not sign on. Instead, Jeremy Renner stars as the rogue spy Aaron Cross, who, having survived an assassination attempt, is on the run after Jason Bourne exposed black-ops programs to the public.FridayNEW YORK TIMES PRESENTS: SUPERSPREADER 10 p.m. on FX. This documentary series from FX in collaboration with The Times, which has included “Controlling Britney Spears” and “The Killing on Breonna Taylor,” is back with a new episode on Friday. This new episode takes a look at Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician in Florida, who has faced scrutiny and government regulatory action after spreading false information about the Covid-19 vaccine and instead recommending unproved and dangerous alternative treatments which benefits him financially. The episode will simultaneously air on FX and be available to stream on Hulu.Nathan Fielder in “The Rehearsal.”HBOTHE REHEARSAL 11 p.m. on HBO. With a six-episode arc, Nathan Fielder’s new show is wrapping up its first season. In this show, his follow-up to “Nathan For You,” Fielder directs rehearsals of staged scenarios featuring ordinary people to prepare them for the future events. “The show has a philosophical core: Is it ever possible to truly understand another person?” The Times’s television critic James Poniewozik wrote in his review of the show. “And there’s a tender, even beautiful side to its surreal moments.”SaturdayGASLIGHT (1944) 9 p.m., on PBS (check local listings). This spooky film noir, directed by George Cukor, stars Ingrid Bergman as Paula, a young woman who returns to her deceased aunt’s home in London with her new husband, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). Strange, unexplainable things happen in the house, but Gregory, who is not who he says he is, tries to convince Paula that it is all in her imagination and that she is hysterical. The verb “to gaslight” — to psychologically manipulate a person into questioning her own sanity — derives from this movie, J. Hoberman explained in his 2019 article in The Times.SundayU.S. GYMNASTIC CHAMPIONSHIPS 7 p.m. on NBC. The 2022 U.S. Gymnastics Championships are happening this week at the Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fl., and Sunday is the last day to watch the competition live. Olympians Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles will likely lead the women’s field and Yul Moldauer and Shane Wiskus will compete against Brody Malone as he tries to defend his 2021 title. With the 2024 Paris Olympics less than two years away, this championship acts as a preview for that competition. The gymnasts will participate in the all-around and apparatus competitions.HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 9 p.m. on HBO. Though “Game of Thrones” has been off the air for three years, this prequel spinoff, based on George R.R. Martin’s novel “Fire & Blood,” is set 200 years before. “Dragon” also features a new cast as warring factions of the Targaryen family: Matt Smith as Prince Daemon, Paddy Considine as King Viserys and Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra. “The trick here is, you don’t want to just remake the original show,” Casey Bloys, the HBO chief content officer, said in a recent interview with The Times. “You want to make a show that feels related and honors the original, but also feels like its own.” More

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    Denzel Washington Honors August Wilson’s Legacy at House Opening

    After fund-raising and restoration efforts, the childhood home of the playwright will offer artist residencies and other programming.PITTSBURGH — On Saturday, crowds gathered outside August Wilson’s childhood home in the historic Hill District here to celebrate the grand opening of the August Wilson House. After a yearslong fund-raising and restoration effort, the house where the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright spent the first 13 years of his life will now be open to the public with the goal of extending Wilson’s legacy and advancing Black arts in culture.Wilson, who died in 2005, is perhaps best known for his series of 10 plays called the American Century Cycle, which detail the various experiences of Black Americans throughout the 20th century. Nine of these plays are set in this city’s Hill District — a bastion of Black history, arts and culture — and one, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” is set in Chicago.The restoration effort was a long time coming. Wilson’s nephew, Paul Ellis Jr., began the project after his uncle’s death. The abandoned house had been left to sit in a state of disrepair. Although it became a spot of cultural pilgrimage for Wilson’s fans after his death, those pilgrims saw only decay once they arrived.With the help of various Pittsburgh foundations and other benefactors — among them, the two-time Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington — the house is now a home for those who will follow in Wilson’s footsteps.The August Wilson House is not a museum. Instead, the restored space is a community center that will offer artist residencies, gathering spaces, fellowships and other programming for up-and-coming artists and scholars. There is also an outdoor stage behind the home, which is currently showcasing the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company’s production of Wilson’s play “Jitney” through Sept. 18.The playwright spent the first 13 years of his life in the house in Pittsburgh’s Hill District neighborhood, the setting for many of his plays.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesAccording to Sam Reiman, a trustee of the Richard King Mellon Foundation here and a board member of the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, the space will be “the birthplace of August Wilson’s successors.”Along with Reiman, Saturday’s ceremony featured a star-studded lineup of speakers, including Washington, who helped raise millions toward the home’s restoration. Washington also starred in, produced and directed the 2016 film adaptation of “Fences,” one of Wilson’s Pittsburgh-based plays, that filmed throughout the Hill District. He also produced the 2020 film adaptation of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”Washington praised those in attendance for their support of Wilson and his legacy.“I want to thank the community,” Washington said, because Wilson “is yours, and you are his. You just share him with the rest of us.”Wilson’s widow, Constanza Romero Wilson, who designed the costumes for many of Wilson’s later plays, also spoke at the event.“This is sacred ground,” she said of the house, located at 1727 Bedford Avenue. It “commemorates our generation’s hero — August Wilson. August Wilson House belongs to the Hill, to Black Americans, and because his stories are American stories of triumph under oppression, it belongs to all of us Americans.”Washington thanked the community for its support. “You just share him with the rest of us,” he said.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesAlso in attendance were local leaders, including Ed Gainey, Pittsburgh’s first Black mayor, and Daniel Lavelle, a city councilman.The commencement speaker for Gainey’s college graduation in 1994 was none other than August Wilson, whose name the mayor admitted to never hearing before that day. He called his mother, he said, and she told him everything about the playwright.“There’s not a child in this city who should not know who August Wilson is. Not a child,” Gainey said. “And today speaks volumes to how far we’ve come in recognizing African American history in this city and celebrating the heroes that came before us.”He added, “Today is August Wilson’s Day.”It was a sentiment echoed by Lavelle, who had one note for Gainey’s speech.“Not only should every kid in our city know who August Wilson is,” he said, “but every person in this country should know who August Wilson is.”Lavelle also read a City of Pittsburgh proclamation declaring Aug. 13, 2022, Paul Ellis Jr. Day, honoring his work to preserve Wilson’s home.“People actually told me that my vision was too big,” Ellis explained, adding that when he spoke about what he wanted his uncle’s house to become, people looked at him as if he was a child proudly declaring he’d someday be president.“But as Nelson Mandela said, ‘It always seems impossible until it’s done.’” More