Tuesday, October 13, 2015 — 6
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

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ACROSS
1 Attorneys’ degs.
4 Clipper or Laker,
briefly
9 Up to now
14 Sup
15 Get up
16 Jigsaw puzzle
unit
17 Norse war god
18 Ruthless
adversary
20 Planting ground
22 Have debts
23 Joints often
sprained
24 Words before
card or lock
26 Precious
27 Serious software
problem
30 “Rats!”
34 Hyundai luxury
model
35 Victor’s cry
37 Besides
38 Actress Hagen
39 ’60s-’70s
“Hollywood
Squares” semi-
regular
42 __ bind: stuck
43 Video game
letters
44 Circular
imperfection in
wood
45 Slip-on shoes
47 One with a killer
serve
49 Wisenheimer
52 Obsessed whaler
captain
54 Boating stopover
55 Half of the hip-
hop duo Black
Star
58 Certain NCO
59 Billions of years
62 Truth known only
to a few ... and a
hint to a word
hidden in 18-, 27-,
39- and 49-
Across
65 Agcy. with narcs
66 Mark with a sale
price, say
67 Greek goddesses
of the seasons
68 Vex
69 Airline seat
choice
70 Hinged fasteners
71 McMahon and
Sullivan

DOWN
1 One of two
MetLife Stadium
NFL teams
2 Belafonte hit
3 Erotic dance
4 “Platoon” war
zone
5 WWI era English
poet Rupert
6 High-flying battles
7 East, in Mexico
8 “Michael Collins”
actor Stephen
9 Exhausted
10 Made a pig of
oneself?
11 Have a hunch
12 Summit
13 Husband-and-
wife creators of
Curious George
19 Doctor House
portrayer Hugh
21 Prevaricator
25 Lewis’ partner
26 Monastic hood
27 Flora’s partner
28 Ancient Mexican
29 Rodeo rope
31 Life-ending
season in
Ecclesiastes
32 Socially
insensitive, in a
way

33 “__ your
mother”
36 Tibet neighbor
40 More than a
little risky
41 Mausoleum
46 1997 movie
beekeeper
48 Tire type
50 Hardships
51 Letter-shaped
shoe fastener
53 Line of
shrubbery

55 Juan’s “Look!”
56 “Dedicated to
the __ Love”
57 Grounded fast
planes, briefly
58 Spartan
promenade
60 Techie,
stereotypically
61 Fifth Avenue
retailer
63 Librarian’s
rebuke
64 “Amen!”

By Mike Peluso
(c)2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/13/15

10/13/15

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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CONCERT REVIEW
Last night I fell in
love with two Brits

Jamie N Commons
and Catfish & The
Bottlemen play St.

Andrew’s

By DANIELLE IMMERMAN

For The Daily

On Oct. 11, 2015, I fell in love

with two British musicians at
Saint Andrew’s Hall. I didn’t
think it was possible — to be hon-
est, polygamy really isn’t my thing
— but when Brits woo you with
their musical talents, it’s hard to
resist.

The night began with Jamie

N Commons, a British blues rock
and folk musician. Commons was
born in England, but lived in Chi-
cago during his formative years,
so his music is heavily influenced
by the American blues, folk and
swamp rock music; his unique
blend of blues and rock sounds
great recorded, but live is some-
thing else. I knew once he walked
on stage in a poncho that his per-
formance would be one to remem-
ber, but once he opened his mouth
the poncho became irrelevant.
There are only a handful of live
performances that bring me to my
knees, and this was one of them.

Commons
began
with
an

acoustic solo performance before
the rest of his four-piece band
joined him on stage. Between
his cover of Pink Floyd’s “Wish
You Were Here” and his bluesy
rock euphoric originals, Com-
mons nailed it all. Each song he
performed was unique, beautiful

and made my heart melt. When
Commons opens his mouth, a
flood of rich, luscious and haunt-
ing baritone vocals escape from
his body. Every word that he sings
wraps around you. Each drum
beat moves you and every pluck
of the guitar reverberates through
your body. Commons’s live per-
formance can be felt and inter-
nalized in a way that his recorded
music cannot. That’s not to say
that his recorded music isn’t good,
because it is, but there is some-
thing about live music that can’t
be replicated digitally.

Similar to Nick Cave and

George Ezra, Commons’s voice is
distinctly deep and full of raspy
and sultry undertones; he’s the
kind of vocalist who you never
want to stop singing which is
why I was disappointed when his
seemingly short set ended. Luck-
ily, there was a quick turnaround
before Catfish & The Bottlemen
took the stage.

After being awed by one of

the most unique talents of 2015,
my expectations for Catfish &
The Bottlemen were high. The
mom standing in front of me

clearly was excited for the head-
lining band because she nearly
took my eye out when Catfish
appeared on stage to the sound
of a roaring crowd. I, too, was
excited to see this young British
four-piece band take the stage,
but clearly their dedicated fan-
base of screaming girls and the
occasional mother were far more
eager than me to get their hands
on them.

Though Catfish & The Bottle-

men performed well live, most
of their indie rock music blended
together. Their most well-known
songs — like “Homesick,” “26”
and “Kathleen” — were stand-
outs during their set, but the rest
of their performance was mainly
interesting due to the crowd’s
enthusiasm and the band’s relish
of that enthusiasm.

Unlike Jamie N Commons,

Catfish & The Bottlemen sound
slightly better recorded. Ryan
McCann’s voice isn’t as strong
as Commons’s, so comparatively
the performance felt weaker.


Had there been an alternative
opener, I would probably say that
Catfish & The Bottlemen nailed
the performance, but Jamie N
Commons is a hard act to follow.

At the end of the day, Catfish

& The Bottlemen was a pleasant
band to hear live and are no doubt
talented. They have the indie
rock vibe down to a science and
undoubtedly can bring a crowd
to tears, but the true winner of
my heart was Jamie N Commons,
because it’s only once in a blue
moon that a poncho-wearing tal-
ented baritone Brit comes along.

TV REVIEW
‘Home Fires’ sizzles

By SOPHIA KAUFMAN

Daily Arts Writer

Stories
of
wartime
are

romanticized
in
ways
that

aren’t always obvious to any-
one
who

didn’t
serve

on the front
lines.
This

goes for sto-
ries about life
on the home-
front, too. But
while
PBS’s

new “Master-
piece” series
about
Brit-

ish
citizens

on the brink of World War II,
“Home Fires,” has its fair share
of soaring violin music and
sweet tableaus, it surprisingly
delves deeper into a well of sto-
ries that, despite having been
told before, feel revitalized.

“Home Fires” follows the

lives of British women living
in a more isolated rural area of
England on the brink of World
War II. The pilot opens with an
argument: Some women believe
that until the war is over, the
Women’s Institute, a volunteer
organization, should stand by
and wait to reopen after peace
is restored. Others believe that
they have a duty to help. One
woman calls for a vote of no
confidence in the president,
who then immediately resigns.
A few loyal supporters follow
her out the door — but enough
remain to keep the doors of the
Institute temporarily open.

Typical war dramas involve

husbands, fathers and sons
enlisting and leaving weepy,
worried wives and mothers —
but that isn’t what this story
focuses on. It focuses on those
women who aren’t defined just
by their relationships to men.
They have their own community
and ways of contributing to
the war effort, and their own

struggles, too. They are just as
strong and just as vulnerable
as the men are, but they must
try twice as hard to have their
efforts at aiding the country be
validated.

It’s difficult for a show

centered around women to avoid
portraying them as catty or
one-dimensional when they are
in competition with each other,
but “Home Fires” avoids this
pitfall. It realistically depicts
the tensions that grew out of
class differences; for example,
several of the supporters of the
Institute’s old president turn
their noses up at women who
live on farms and don’t wear
pearls to meetings.

It helps that the cast is well

prepared
and
comfortable

in their rapport, with actors
such
as
Samantha
Bond

(“Downton
Abbey”),
Daisy

Badger (“Shelter”) and Claire
Rushbrook
(“My
Mad
Fat

Diary”)
inhabiting
their

characters with a confidence
that
makes
for
believable

interactions.

Though it is a relatively cozy

show — calming color schemes
and
perfectly
coiffed
hair

included — it doesn’t shy away
from the darker aspects of this

time period. One of the women
wants to join the workforce,
knowing that her family is tight
on money, but her husband sees
no reason for her to do so. She
serves him breakfast after he
tells her that they aren’t having
that discussion again, and when
he notices she isn’t eating, she
quietly tells him there was only
enough for one. He smashes
everything off the table and
tells her she is welcome to it —
if she gets it on her hands and
knees. When a mother asks a
doctor to fabricate a note for
chronic asthma for her son so
he can’t be drafted, the doctor
grimly informs his secretary
that she won’t be the last parent
to do so.

Yes, this is a show in which

making jam serves as a patriotic
call to action and a sign of
hope, but it is also a show that
won’t shy completely away from
portraying the time period’s
desperation in a way we’d
sometimes
rather
not
face.

“Home Fires” doesn’t just fill a
void for period dramas, a genre
with a pretty niche audience;
it handles its subject matter
with sensitivity and dexterity,
making
for
genuinely
fun

viewing.

A-

Home Fires

Series Pre-

miere

Sundays at 8 p.m.

PBS

PBS

Undisputed underwater-basket-weaving champs of 1942.

TV REVIEW
‘Once Upon a Time’
a promising premiere

By AMRUTHA SIVAKUMAR

Daily Arts Writer

“Once Upon a Time” ’s two-

part, season four finale had
me clinging to the edge of my
seat. Just as
we were ready
for the happy
ending
that

inevitably
had to follow
Henry Mills’s
(Jared
S.

Gilmore,
“Mad
Men”)

decision
to

break
the

author’s
pen in half,
Emma
Swan

(Jennifer
Morrison,
“House

M.D.”) tethered herself to the
darkness, saving Regina Mills
(Lana
Parrilla,
“24”)
from

being caught in its wrath. After
facing a season-long struggle
to understand her place on the
good-versus-bad
spectrum,

Emma, in one split second of
primetime television, became
the
untried
name
on
the

notorious Dark One’s dagger.

The series that had seemingly

tried so hard to explore the
depth between goodness and
evil has fallen prey to pushing
characters to find their place
at either end of the dichotomy.
In the season five premiere,
Captain Killian “Hook” Jones
(Colin
O’Donoghue,
“The

Rite”) attempts to summon
Emma through the Dark One’s
dagger, only to realize that
she’s trapped in another world.
Later, it becomes clear that
Emma is yet again trapped in
the Enchanted Forest with an
amorphous Dark One trainer,
of sorts, who has taken on
the form of Rumplestiltskin
(Robert Carlyle, “28 Weeks
Later”).
As
she
struggles

to
resist
magic
—
which,

apparently, is what allows the
darkness to consume her —
back in Storybrooke, Regina
tricks her wicked half-sister
Zelena
(yes,
once
again)

into opening a portal to the
Enchanted Forest that can only
be harnessed by someone bred
of more evil. On finding Emma,
the crew takes off to Camelot
to find the elusive Merlin, who
is said to be the only one which
powers to destroy the powers
of the Dark One entirely.

Six weeks later, back in

Storybrooke,
the
cast
is

transported
back
to
the

Enchanted
Forest
with
no

memories
after
entering

Camelot to find Merlin. Emma,
by this time, is seen to have
embraced the darkness, and
swears to take revenge against
everyone in Storybrooke that
betrayed her.

It’s the classic case of been-

there-done-that. We have only
seen memories being wiped
from Storybrooke characters
twice before now, and Regina’s
dark humor, though often the
most entertaining part of the
show (”You know you can
still deliver a baby without
a tongue!”), makes the ease
in which she admits to being
the
town’s
savior
to
the

Camelot empire slightly less
believable. To keep the show
afloat, ”Once Upon a Time”
’s writers will have to prove
that they are capable of taking

a set of seasoned characters
and pitting them against new
challenges.

Morrison’s
acting,
as

expected,
is
consistently

phenomenal, as her transparent
struggles have kept a show
buried in fantasy still rooted
to segments of reality. Her
depiction of a villain in the last
few minutes of the premiere
comes out, in some ways,
more naturally than Parrilla’s
version of the Evil Queen of the
Enchanted Forest. The writers’
decision to foreshadow the
future, rather than building
plot through flashbacks, is
refreshing. There is only so
much of the Enchanted Forest
we can see before thinking, “If
I wanted to see this, I would
dig out my childhood VHS
tapes.” If anything, a Camelot-
centered storyline seems to
have far more intrigue than
last year’s take on Anna and
Elsa from “Frozen.”

I’m optimistic. Executive

producer
Adam
Horowitz

promised, earlier this month
at
a
Comic-Con
panel,
a

flashback to Hook’s childhood
and upbringing is in the works,
along with a two-hour, mid-
season finale that will delve
deeper into the relationship
between Mulan, from Disney’s
“Mulan,” and Ruby, from “Red
Riding Hood.” “Once Upon
a Time” ’s power, despite its
shop-worn
dialogues
and

often-childish plotlines, lies
in
its
approachable
acting

and believable relationships.
By bringing the supporting
characters
more
into
the

forefront of the show — while
still driving the development
of its core cast — “Once Upon
a Time” might just manage
to keep alive a plot that has
managed to keep characters
which are nearly a century old
in our literature fresh.

B+

Once Upon
a Time

Season Five

Premiere

ABC

Sundays at 8 p.m.

Approachable

acting and
believable

relationships.

To be honest,
polygamy isn’t

really my

thing.