I
just saw something I never
thought I’d see on network
television.
That seems like a ridiculous
thing to say in 2015 — the notion
of any storyline
being
“ground-
breaking” seems
especially
out-
dated.
Anyone
could turn on
“Looking”
and
watch a show
entirely absent of
the omnipresent
straight
white
male.
Anyone
can
queue
up
Netflix and watch Annalise Keat-
ing shatter expectations on “How
to Get Away With Murder” or
Aziz Ansari craft jokes from pure
pathos on “Master of None.” Any-
one could count the hundreds of
ways these shows and characters
subvert the typical narrative, and
I could have enough fodder for 10
years’ worth of TV columns.
But this is my TV column, so
I’m going to talk about “Scandal.”
Again. But this time, it’s different.
“Scandal” showed me something
I never thought I’d see on network
television.
“Scandal” is one of the riskiest,
most shocking shows on TV. The
violence and graphic content it
depicts is unparalleled among its
broadcast peers. The President
of the United States murdered a
woman onscreen. Another woman
chewed off the skin on her wrist. I
won’t go into too much detail about
the dozens of torture scenes that
“Scandal” has subjected its viewers
to, but I will say that there is one
involving tooth-pulling, and you
are lucky if you don’t know what
I’m referring to. The crimes are
difficult to watch, but “Scandal”
handles violence with a special
focus on the victims of violence,
so they never feel gratuitous. In
season three, “Scandal” explored
Mellie’s experience as a victim
of sexual assault, which is to this
day one of the most devastatingly
nuanced portrayals of rape I have
seen on TV.
After four and a half seasons, I
assumed that “Scandal” had been
there and done that. There was no
more ground to break.
However, “Scandal” is nothing
if not surprising. Its fifth season
has been fantastic so far, a
welcome respite from the utter
garbage of the show’s previous
season. This year, “Scandal” has
let its most intolerable characters
(Papa Pope, Huck, Jake, basically
everyone involved in the toxic
B613 plot) take a step back in
order to spotlight the relationship
drama between Olivia and Fitz. As
Olivia wrestles with herself over
whether she wants to sacrifice
her career and independence for
Fitz’s love, Olivia suddenly finds
her decisions are being made for
her. News of their years-long affair
is leaked to the press. She moves
into the White House for her own
protection, and there is nothing
for her to do there except play
the dutiful First Lady and hunt
down a snickerdoodle recipe for
a Congressman’s wife. She hates
that she is so good at serving her
man, dressing up in holiday party
finery and standing by Fitz’s side
like a sparkly cufflink.
A pregnant sparkly cufflink.
The mid-season finale sneaks
this bombshell on viewers in the
last 15 minutes of the episode.
It truly comes out of nowhere,
dropped in the middle of a
narrative lull of a scene featuring
Olivia’s father and her former
associate.
Eli
Pope
reminds
Huck, his former employee and
metaphorical son, that returning
home for the holidays may not be
as idyllic as Huck imagines. Huck
says that if it weren’t for Olivia,
Eli would certainly be dead. It’s
all standard “Scandal,” and the
details don’t really matter. But
Eli turns the conversation ever
so slightly. A happy home is not a
sanctuary, but a prison: “Olivia is
also the reason I’m shackled to this
chair. Family is a burden.”
Cut to a close-up of Olivia’s legs
and blue medical scrubs moving
around them. Olivia Pope, the main
character of a television series that
airs at 9 p.m. on a weeknight, is
receiving an abortion on-screen.
I can say with confidence that
this subject matter has never been
tackled by network TV. Some
statistics say that one in three
women will receive an abortion at
some point in her life, but television
danced around this fact. Even
when it made narrative sense for
a character to exercise her right to
choose, the story almost invariably
shifted to her changing her mind
(Miranda on “Sex and the City”) or
having a convenient miscarriage
(Jessa on “Girls”). When TV
women did receive abortions, they
did so off-screen (Claire on “Six
Feet Under”). One in three women
will see the inside of that operating
room, but TV usually shrouded
these stories in narrative gaps and
opaque allusions. Abortion was
one of the few taboos TV had left,
one of the few stories it was still
afraid to tell.
But Olivia Pope is a strong
woman, the kind of character
who
will
smash
every
barrier to get the respect and
opportunities she deserves. She
chooses, and she is not one to
hide behind a veneer of fakery.
She serves no one. Olivia’s non-
stop work ethic and honesty
inspire me in every episode,
and I feel lucky that this
experience that is shared by
so many women is represented
by someone as unbreakable
as Olivia. And if “Scandal” ’s
treatment of Mellie’s sexual
assault and loss of a child are
any indication, “Scandal” will
not just let the abortion play
out for shock value. Mellie bled
and grieved young Jerry’s death
for the better part of a season,
and hopefully, when “Scandal”
returns from its mid-season
break, the show will explore
the period of adjustment just as
fully for Olivia.
In the monologue that scores
Olivia’s scene on the operating
room table, Eli says, “Family
doesn’t complete you. It destroys
you.” I never thought I would
hear these kind of words on
cautious,
government-regulated
network TV. I never thought that a
television woman could be so open
about her choice and the logical
steps that led her to it. I thought
that good characters, strong and
likeable ones like Miranda Hobbes
and Mindy Lahiri, only really had
one option. I’m glad I was wrong.
I hope “Scandal” never stops
surprising us.
Be like ‘Scandal’ and
surprise Gilke with an email
at chloeliz@umich.edu.
TV COLUMN
‘Scandal’ never
stops surprising us
CHLOE
GILKE
CONCERT REVIEW
Miley’s ‘Milky’ tour
is a sensory assault
By CHRISTIAN KENNEDY
Daily Arts Writer
A little over a year ago Miley
Cyrus wrapped her 78-show
Bangerz World Tour. Saturday,
she played the 2,888-person
capacity Fillmore in Detroit,
showcasing her free collabora-
tion album with psychedelic
rock band The Flaming Lips,
Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz.
And as Miley explained The
Milky Milk Milk Tour: “small-
er venue, same amount of bal-
loons.”
After an opening set by
Dan Deacon worthy of a Van
Goghian double amputation, it
wasn’t clear if the show would
be worth the nine hours in the
freezing snow. Miley can some-
times be just plain ridiculous.
Some of the Dead Petz mate-
rial flirts with the line between
music and noise.
She can be on drugs. She can
be provocative. She may not
fully grasp large issues such
as white privilege. But despite
all of her shortcomings, from
the moment she took the small
stage, “Dooo It!” didn’t sound
as shitty as it usually does and
she encapsulated the crowd for
a two-hour trip into her most
recent musical facet.
She
followed
“Dooo
It!”
with
its
Bangerz-equivalent
“Love Money Party” hyping the
already-spirited crowd. Com-
plete with dozens of three-foot
balloon spheres, “DO IT” nylon
blow-ups, champagne bottles
and a stage packed with Miley,
her band, Amazon Ashley and a
crew of random hippie friends/
dancers, Cyrus was the focal
point of the most stimulating
show in recent memory.
As queen of excess, Cyrus
donned a slew of ridiculous
costumes, including (but in no
way limited to) a baby, a pair of
bedazzled milk cartons, a stick
of butter and a purple-haired
unicorn with an unreasonably
large faux penis. The outfits
topped off the psychedelic stag-
ing consisting of a mirror ball
the size of a piano, fog machines,
graphic screens and light up
cords hanging up from the ceil-
ing. That, combined with the
bulk of Dead Petz, resulted in
an aesthetically pleasing, some-
times overwhelming, show that
allowed Cyrus’s raw vocal tal-
ent and genuine personality to
shine.
The new sound focuses on
space, animal or weed-inspired
tracks. Actually, they’re all
weed-inspired — some are just
more upfront about it. The
songs boast enough catchiness
to roll with a crowd. Hippy-
dippy “1 Sun,” vagina jam “Bang
Me Box” and “I Forgive Yiew”
were among highlights. Even
the monologue-heavy “BB Talk”
was an honest, comical lead-in
to the pre-“Fweaky” strip tease
which began as Cyrus in BB
costume, ending with a heart
bikini top and high-waisted
bottoms.
Slower moments emphasized
Cyrus’s talent and tenderness.
She covered “You Are My Sun-
shine” to mass crowd participa-
tion as well as debuting a new
track, which seemed to nod to
her country roots. The climac-
tic screams of “Twinkle Song”
blur the line between beauti-
ful and egregious, landing near
cathartic. And toward the end
of the spectacle, the bass lines
of “Evil Is But A Shadow” were
the closest thing to a musical
orgasm, with beats distinctly
vibrating through the chests
and over the skin of attendees.
Cyrus’s new direction aside,
she knows what her fans want
when she closes out the show
with “We Can’t Stop.” The
banger from two summers ago
united Miley’s fans as glitter
cannons exploded and a two-
person rainbow costume waltz
around the stage.
The Milky Milky Milk tour
isn’t the little sister to Bangerz
Tour. It’s the stoner cousin who
is always down to try some-
thing new and “fweaky.” Show-
casing her new material, Miley
acknowledges the success of
what came before her (some-
thing she avoided with Bangerz)
and gave some of her closest
fans a peek into what’s next.
She might not be the artist she
has the potential to be, but with
Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz
and the Milky Milky Milk tour,
she’s closer than ever.
‘More’ needs more
TV REVIEW
By SAM ROSENBERG
Daily Arts Writer
Television dramas about rich
people and their wealthy lifestyles
tend to follow a formulaic method.
The characters
are depicted as
superficial, the
storylines
are
usually generic
and the drama
is
exaggerated
to an excessive
degree.
Frequently,
these
white-
collar
shows
portray the upper class as devious,
corrupt or greedy, their success
only making them more obsessed
with power and money. Though
some of these shows have proven
to be successful (CW’s “Gossip
Girl” and ABC’s “Revenge”), they
don’t always offer engrossing
material or delve into thought-
provoking themes. Such is the case
with Crackle’s new original series
“The Art of More.”
While a decent attempt at being
a suspenseful crime thriller, “The
Art of More” is mediocre and
somewhat perplexing, focusing
more on glamour than on content
and coherence. Set in the seedy
underbelly of New York auction
houses, the show centers around
successful, debonair art executive
Graham Connor (Christian Cooke,
“Witches of East End”). Connor
works at the upscale Parke-
Mason auction house, where he
encounters rivals, affluent clients
and a black-market side business.
Based on the premise alone, “The
Art of More” seems like it could
be an appealing exploration into
the lives of American socialites
through their ventures in crime
and debauchery. But alas, it only
builds on bland clichés. The only
exception is that these socialites
bid for fancy cars and famous
paintings, which is about as
unexciting as it sounds.
The pilot episode, “Heavy Lies
the Head,” doesn’t do “The Art
of More” any storytelling justice,
with a convoluted plot that’s
very easy to get lost in. Several
flashbacks are used to convey
Graham’s
backstory,
but
the
organization of the episode sets a
confusing tone for the show. In the
opening scene, there is a flashback
to an Iraqi museum in 2009,
where Graham is an American
soldier who becomes engaged in a
physical struggle with art robbers
attempting to steal a prized crown.
Then, the scene shifts to present
day, where Parke-Mason is selling
that same crown for a large sum
of money. Though the first scene
is referenced later and gives more
details about Graham’s past, “The
Art of More” struggles to achieve
any fluid connection between
these flashbacks and Graham’s
character.
While the cast of “The Art of
More” is attractive and fit for
their roles, the acting could use
a great deal of work. Graham’s
charismatic
suaveness
with
potential
clients
helps
his
business at Parke-Mason, but
Cooke’s stilted, robotic delivery
as Graham makes him sound
unconvincing.
Dennis
Quaid
(“Vantage Point”) plays Sam
Brukner, an obnoxious, Donald
Trump-type
billionaire
and
client of Parke-Mason, whose
prominent
drunkenness
and
flirtation with young women
is grossly overused. Perhaps
Brukner is supposed to be an
unlikable character, but “The Art
of More” could make his role more
three-dimensional if it reduced
his erratic behavior. Graham’s
boss Arthur Davenport (Cary
Elwes, “Saw”) acts like a typical
slimy villain, with no distinctive
features other than his blue suits
and British accent. However, one
bright spot in the mostly dull
cast is actress Kate Bosworth
(“Still Alice”) as the alluring,
elusive Roxanna Whitman, one
of Graham’s adversaries. Though
she is on screen briefly in the
pilot, Bosworth breathes life into
Whitman, making her the show’s
most intriguing and mysterious
character.
Unfortunately,
Bosworth’s
presence and the show’s stylish
aesthetics seem to be “The Art
of More” ’s only redeeming
qualities.
There
aren’t
any
compelling
twists,
thrilling
action sequences or exciting plot
developments. Instead, “The Art
of More” moves at a plodding
pace and offers ambiguous clues
about Graham’s mysterious past
and ulterior motives. Considering
“The Art of More” is featured on
the streaming service Crackle,
a poor man’s Netflix, it hasn’t
reached the inventive heights
of other online original series,
especially since it shares the same
platform as a raunchy animated
series
(“SuperMansion”)
and
a direct-to-video sequel of a
David Spade movie (“Joe Dirt 2:
Awesome Loser”). Even though
it has some potential to break
creative
barriers
for
crime
dramas, “The Art of More” needs
more suspense, more character
development and a more gripping
plot in order to do so.
C
The Art
of More
Series
Premiere
Crackle
SMILEY MILEY
“Miley, what’s good?!?”
TV REVIEW
We need more TV
like ‘Jessica Jones’
By SOPHIA KAUFMAN
Daily Arts Writer
Marvel’s new Netflix series
“Jessica Jones” isn’t just the best
female-driven superhero show
on
air
right
now (not that
there are many)
— it’s the best
superhero show
to have come
out within the
past few years.
It would have
been watchable
even just as a
private investi-
gator show, but
the superhero storyline adds an
element of intrigue that keeps us
watching even more closely. The
opening credits sequence feels
bizarrely reminiscent of “Mad
Men,” “Doctor Who” and “The
Pink Panther,” but somehow it
works perfectly. And the show
itself — thanks to phenomenal
acting, intelligently crafted plot-
lines,
stylish
cinematography
and distinct lack of tired female
superhero tropes — is addicting.
Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter,
“Don’t Trust the B---- in Apart-
ment 23”) pays for her rent (and
her whiskey habit) by working
as a private investigator in New
York City. We see immediately
that she’s not normal — she can
lift a car with one hand — and we
learn that she’s “gifted” in other
ways, as an ex-superhero. Mike
Colter (“Million Dollar Baby”) is
introduced in the pilot as Luke
Cage, a bar owner gifted with a
nearly unbreakable body. From
the first few moments, Jones and
Cage share tantalizing chemis-
try that quickly escalates into
boundary-pushing sex scenes.
Jones struggles with PTSD
from an abusive relationship
with Kilgrave (David Tennant,
“Doctor Who”), a gifted villain
who can influence people not
only to do horrible things but to
feel like they want to do those
things — like shooting their own
parents in an elevator. Kilgrave’s
abusive behaviors are often sexu-
al in nature, and Jones is not his
first or last target.
Ritter is captivating as Jones,
with her nuanced performance
growing in depth throughout the
course of the show. Ritter is as
unaware of the camera as Jones
is unaware of her own good
qualities, resulting in an organic
portrayal. Ritter accesses a wide
emotional
spectrum,
playing
Jones as brazen yet panicked
and vulnerable, often at the same
time. Jones never takes a moment
to appreciate the good things she
has done for the city or for other
people, preferring to ignore feel-
ings of self-blame and drink to
avoid PTSD flashbacks.
“Jessica Jones” is as strong as
its protagonist. Ritter, Tennant
and Colter are compelling leads,
and the supporting cast holds
up as well. The directors are lit-
erally shooting for subtle noir
tones, and despite some overly
exaggerated mood lighting and a
couple extra-long shots of seedy
street corners and Manhattan
bars, the noir influences glim-
mer through. The show holds
a surprising number of artistic
touches, like a light percussive
drumbeat that accompanies an
extended bar fight scene. The
jazz score doesn’t feel out of
place, but accentuates the over-
all tone of the PI storyline.
While the pilot episode holds
gems like “You’re one of them,”
“you’re not normal” and “I’ll tell
the world!” directed at Jones
when she’s holding a car in one
hand, “Jessica Jones” never relies
too heavily on superhero-hiding-
in-plain-sight mechanisms. The
show winks to those viewers who
have read the comics on which
“Jessica Jones” is based, but it’s
also completely accessible to
those who haven’t.
Even though it seems like we
can never have a female superhero
on TV who is dangerous without
also being “damaged,” this show
doesn’t fall into traps that female-
driven superhero shows often get
tangled in. Despite Jones’s sultry
voice-over narration, she isn’t
over-sexualized and there are
close and complex relationships
between Jones and other women.
There are very, very few hints of
an “I’m not like other girls” sen-
timent. And sexual violence isn’t
aesthetized here, but treated
gravely, as it should be.
Jones is a capable ex-superhero,
a cynical P.I., a survivor, a com-
plicated friend and a vulnerable
person trying to stop an abusive
man from barreling back into her
life while protecting people she
cares about. The show captures all
of these elements equally without
relying too heavily on any single
one. “Jessica Jones” does justice to
its protagonist.
But the best thing about “Jes-
sica Jones” is undoubtedly the fact
that you can stream the entire first
season on Netflix, right now, from
pilot to finale. And then watch it
again, because yes, it’s that good.
A-
Jessica
Jones
Series 1
Available for
Streaming
Netflix
6A — Monday, November 23, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com