Grid Effect

South Park review is coming shortly, but I just caught wind of something directly related to the content of this website…

Remember when I said I may eventually reach my wits end with The Black Donnelly’s and eventually discontinue recapping the psuedo-crime drama? Yeah, turns out that will not be a decision I am forced to make. NBC has cancelled the series indefinitely. So, no sense in recapping an episode of a series that literally has no future (though I am certain a DVD release is an inevitability).

I will say that while I hadn’t began to write anything for it yet, the episode on Monday was pretty much a rehashed version of the past three episodes. Meaning, the entire plot revolved around Tommy and Jimmy independently running around New York trying to get money for varying reasons. Honestly, the writing felt stagnant and we were only five or six episodes into the first season, so its probably better NBC cut its losses, and cut mine as well. I was beginning to feel embarassed by my even remote affiliation with the series, I gave it too many chances and eventually found myself compromising any sort of critical standards for a show with a great premise and lackluster execution, and that typically does not warrant a weekly recapping here at Grid Effect.

So long, Black Donnelly’s. You are the first show to be regularly discussed here that was cut either prematurely or appropriately. Don’t worry, I am positive The Real Wedding Crashers will make your ratings look like those of American Idol.

In all mob and sport movies, there is a female love interest that claims to love the protagonist despite his shortcomings and/or misdeeds, this is a fine if overused gimmick and is occasionally used pragmatically to study both characters in-depthly, more so than if they had never been introduced.

Which brings us to The Black Donnelly’s. I have no idea why Tommy is so infatuated with Jenny. None. Other than Joey “Ice Cream” narrating it, there has never been any indication as tp why he is so smitten with her. It has only been stated, never explained. There has never been any deep sincerity between the two on camera, they seemingly share nothing in common and to top it all off, they have been friends since childhood and she, at some point GOT MARRIED! Set aside a few pleading, lovelorn stares, an impartial viewer would think they hated each other, if it were not for the fact that Joey “Ice Cream” says something along the lines of, “But Tommy would do anything for Jenny”, every ten minutes.

Last nights episode bordered on ridiculous. For God only knows what reason, Jimmy is under the impression that since he killed Louie “Downtown” and retained his cellphone with all of his customers numbers and gambling debts, that he is now entitled to those debts. Tommy was the lone voice of reason for about fifteen minutes, until discovering that an old high school friend named Maxwell who married a past love interest of Tommy’s was the person Jimmy was trying to shake down to the tune of $5,000.

In addition to this, Jenny’s dad, who is apparently suffering from Alzheimers, has been making bank deposits inside the neighboring mailbox. So out of nowhere, Tommy feels in the right to extort this guy for the five grand in order to help Jenny save her family’s diner, which we have never seen more than two people in at a time. To her credit, Jenny did not ask for any help and was unaware as to how Tommy came across the $2,500 (he split it 50/50 with Jimmy, who, by the way, was going to kill Maxwell for money he owed someone else). But when he offered her the money, she acted all conflicted about accepting it, she could have left it lying on the counter for someone else to pick up, or even put it back where Tommy found it or donated it to her favorite charity, but predictably, she took it presumably to save her diner.

Nothing about any of this is noble or selfless. Jimmy’s running around like a mad man threatening to murder people for essentially no reason, Kevin is complacent in all of it, Sean still hasn’t left his mothers apartment, Tommy justifies everything he does for duh purrty girl and Jenny is attracted to all of it, regardless of how much she pretends like she isn’t. I know he is presented in a overly sinister fashion, everytime he appears on screen the room gets smokey, the lights dim and they que up the suspense numbers to inidicate we are supposed to hate him; but at least he realizes he’s a scumbag and acts accordingly.

I carry much more respect for that than I do for three brothers (leaving out Sean, he has yet to do anything unredeemable other than mope around like a twelve year old), an unmerciful girl and an insufferable tagalong who all do remarkably horrible shit under the guise of “for the family”.

With all that said, this show literally has me by the balls for no explicable reason. I guess I am interested in seeing how they tie everything together and where they plan on taking Tommy’s character. So I suppose I’ll continue watching, though I probably won’t like it.

Well, the trailers for The Black Donnelly’s are beginning to mislead, probably in an attempt to boost ratings. But when they promote an episode that insists the Mother’s life is in jeopardy, I want to see some sort of confrontation. Call me shallow, call me crazy, but I am not watching The Black Donnelly’s for its realism or artistic merit, I am watching for pure entertainment value. Not to mention that after work, running, eating and studying for LSAT’s, there isn’t much left to do at 10pm.

Last night was by far the least engaging episode to date. Two of the brothers, Sean and Kevin were pent up in their mothers house. Kevin, who’s aware of the threat from the Italians, is playing the role of protector (probably not the best option), and Sean is in hibernation because of the remaining facial scars from the beating he took. I know if I almost die in a hospital, my utmost concern would be some temporary scars. The writers emphasized the point that he was the “ladies man” of the four, but if one has a near death experience in a hospital, it just doesn’t seem realistic that his immediate regret is a dminished sexual prowess… but maybe that’s just me.

Again, I do not watch this show for its realism, but if your going to incorporate Dostoevsky and Aristotle quotes as thematic interpretations for every episode, something other than a few facial wounds has to be at stake.

One thing I did find humorous, if not typical, is that as a result of Joey “Ice Cream’s” pining to have some sort of sibling solidarity, he attaches himself to Tommy, unequivocally the most dysfunctional of the four. Desperation reaps condemnation, I suppose. If nothing else, at least there is a reason why Mr. “Ice Cream” is a suitable narrator.
Anyhow, clearly stealing gambling debts from the mob is going to come back to haunt the Donnelly’s, but the gimmick of Jimmy getting them in trouble and everyone else suffering the consequences, then Tommy being forced to handle the situation is already tiresome. I would assume the series extends beyond that, but who knows? As of now it is pretty uneven.

I did like how this episode ended, after Nicky threatened Tommy’s family (more specifically his mother), Tommy showed up in front of Nicky’s mother’s apartment to pay of this supposed debt and subtley threaten his mother. It was an original eye for an eye retaliation. Sort of like saying, “we might not be able to kill each other so easily, but those close to us who are most vulnerable are easy targets. So if you hurt my family, I will not hesitate to hurt yours”. then Nicky’s subsequent confirmation that Tommy isn’t someone to take underestimate was enlightening.

I guess this was something of a transition episode. Now that all the heat has blown over from murdering Huey and the Italian mob boss (his name escapes me at the moment), they need some new moral and substantial quandary’s for the sake of the series. I imagine this all ends with Tommy “running the neighborhood” at some point, that is becoming even clearer now that his tuition money from art school is being withheld by Dokey.

Speaking of which, it makes Tommy’s confliction over murdering Huey all that more resonate. Not only was this guy a mentor, a confidante and a friend, he was also paying for his school. In hindsight, it seems like he should have let the two of them kill Jimmy, the malfeasant drug addict with a temper; and let his mentor and father figure live.

And the mistreatment of Jenny was appropriate after last weeks conclusion. She strung two guys along while cheating on her husband (he’s allegedly dead, but she doesn’t know that) and deserved to suffer some sort of consequences. Well, she did. between Jimmy’s attempt at subtley dismissing her and Tommy’s indifference, she looked devastated. Of course, Tommy is still smitten with her and judging by Jimmy’s reaction after she left the bar, something tells me he is as well. This might help explain why Jimmy is so contemptuous of Tommy.

Oh well, next week looks eventful, but then again, the previews look eventful for every episode. One can only hope these are not as egregiously misleading as last weeks previews.

I have never seen a dramatic series operate like The Black Donnelly’s, so much has happened over the course of three episodes (four if you count the online exclusive) and we haven’t really seen any of the characters question their past actions or been fed any motivation from any of them. Every human emotion about the four brothers comes from the mouth of Joey “Ice Cream”, so at this point it is still a pressing task to take any of them seriously. I’d feel the same way about anybody whose explanations came solely from the mouth of someone with the words “Ice Cream” in their nickname.

Last nights episode revolved around the funeral for Huey, the Irish mob boss Tommy killed in order to ultimately save his brother Jimmy and to take out vengeance for his younger brother Sean. Despite the fact he was setting up Jimmy, Tommy had no intention of murdering Huey, he was sort of collateral damage as he was conspiring with the Italians.

Either way, Huey’s younger brother Dokey (and presumable new boss of The Irish Outfit) has managed to piece together through a series of events that the Donnelly’s were responsible for his brothers death. He doesn’t know in what capacity, but he is certain enough to threaten Erin (Tommy’s crush) in order to hail Jimmy and Tommy down to the basement during his brothers wake in the Donnelly’s bar.

Eventually, Tommy and Jimmy get the drop on Dokey and his muscle after persuading them to let Erin leave. Tommy goes into a really detailed fabrication about who they killed and everything else to try and make amends… it works.

Needless to say there needs to be more illustration of an internal struggle with Tommy, some sign of self-doubt to make him likable. As of now, we are supposed to be rooting for him but are not provided any real incentive to do so. He spends the entirety of every episode bossing around his perpetual trembling voice brother Kevin and measuring his dick with Jmmy. It seems like he has supplicated matters for the Irish for the time being, but now the Italians (the most cringe worthy Italian crime family in the history of television or film, by the way) have a bone to pick with the Donnelly’s, will there be any self-reflection or is everything still going to be hammered home by Joey “Ice Cream” and his emotionless tale of the four brothers? My guess is the latter.

Another folly of this series, seeing the web exclusive episode was almost imperative to being able to follow this episode properly. They alluded to it in a couple flashback scenes but never took the time to address how Kevin attempted to get Jimmy out on bail and what transpired between Tommy, Erin and her dad. Very strange that they would make a key plot development so pivotal to the story “web exclusive”, then not make an effort to advertise the exclusive (I only heard about it from reading Pop Candy).

Also, for all the arguing between three of the four brothers, there discourse seems fairly stagnant. It mainly consists of Tommy berating either Kevin or Jimmy with questions, Kevin trying to earn the respect of his two brothers and Jimmy attempting to prove he is still the alpha dog when standing next to Tommy. They always explain what they are going to do, but never explain how or why. Occasionally Joey “Ice Cream” will voice over the description and/or reasoning, but it simply doesn’t resonate with the audience when the main characters are never forced to explain themselves.

Hopefully something changes in their narrative style because my interest is teetering in the balance, and judging by the nielsen’s, Haggis and Moresco are going to need every viewer they can get.

The Black Donnelly’s sophomore episode was substantially more coherent than its premiere, but it didn’t return in the manner I was hoping. Many of the same cliches stayed prevalent and the dialog didn’t improve one iota. But still, I fully plan on watching this show next Monday. Why is that? Everything I respect and enjoy about scripted television (outside of plot development) this series misses its mark on, clearly this is something of a guilty pleasure for me.

For starters, remember when I said Kevin Donnelly was a cross between Sonny and Fredo? Yeah, he is just Fredo. When he unflinchingly murdered those two people outside of the bar where Sal and Huey were congregating, I just assumed that was going to be Gary Cooper, “strong, silent type”. Considering all we saw of Kevin in the premiere was that he had a mild gambling problem and he viciously shot two people with seemingly no remorse, I would venture to guess the continuation with this character was handled somewhat poorly, as he essentially started crying on two separate occasions in the same scene.

Tommy Donnelly, on the other hand, is setting up to be not “good guy forced to do bad things” brand of character, but rather a cold-blooded killer along the lines of Paulie Walnuts or Sylvio Dante. As of now, its hard to even label him an anti-hero because he is fighting for the virtue of Jimmy (a character only portrayed negatively) and Sean. And the only thing we know about the latter is he is very comfortable around women and he might die.

The only (and possibly sufficient) motive we have from Tommy is he swore to himself and God to never let anyone harm his family after he ran over Jimmy’s leg with a stolen car when he was ten. But there has to be more reflection about the past, if for nothing else than to redeem Tommy in some capacity. The only such instances we have seen thus far is flashbacks and some teardrops when he murders three people. How does he devolve from that into bludgeoning the knees of a corpse (Downtown Louie) to fit him in a barrel so he’ll sink to the bottom of the river? I understand his role as protector, but still, there should be some sort of transition.

Speaking of which, one of the pet peeves of mine on crime series’ are the horribly cliched nicknames. Such as “Downtown” Louie and Joey “Ice Cream”, its pretentious of me, I know, but why not simply go with Louie and Joey. Downtown Louie had maybe five minutes of screentime last week before Jimmy shot him in the face, so I guess the sole purpose of the nickname is to distinguish him from the pack, because the entire story is going to stem from his murder, but what are the origins of the nickname? At least we know Joey Ice Cream’s name is an honorary title, because he melts under pressure. But then why even bother? He’s the fucking narrator, the audience doesn’t need any precursor to identify him.

Also, Jenny Reilly continues to agitate more and more with her insipid obviousness. First she makes out with Tommy, then cleans the blood off the basement stairs of the Donnelly’s bar for them, then gets lectured by her father about the lack of morality on the Donnelly’s part, then she sleeps with him and then claims that she cannot be with him. And according to Mr. Ice Cream, its because he has agreed to protect his brothers, even though the two things are mutually exclusive and never really intersect. Whatever, what’s a mob narrative without a faux-noble love interest.

Again, a lot of inconsistincies and shortcomings, but for whatever reason, it seems the content alone is triggering my patience.

In the past six months, NBC has taken a risk with a wide variety of network dramas and sitcoms that break the mold of the garden variety we are accustom to. Some have been commercially and/or critically successful (Heroes, Friday Night Lights), while others have been utter bombs (Studio 60 anyone?), but what you cannot begudge Kevin Reilly for is a lack of effort, in a time when most entertainment venues are stale, flat and predicatable, I think that is to be applauded.

Under the same mode of operation, NBC debuted The Black Donnelly’s last Monday to mixed reviews. The series was created by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco, who brought us the 2005 Oscar winner for Best Picture in Crash. Haggis, who got his start in television has never been one for subtlety so the unapologetic nature of “Donnelly’s” should have been anticipated. But the series did have its positives and negatives and the mixed reviews express my sentiments exactly for what I saw last Monday. Here’s a quick summary of my thought process while watching at lunch seven days ago:

Heavy narration=cheap plot device, too many characters introduced too soon, there’s a recognizable face, that doesn’t make any sense, Tommy Donnelly is a decent actor, this is like a cross between “Sleepers” and “The Godfather”, there’s two recognizable faces, cliche, cliche, melodramatic acting, I can successfully identify every character now, who are all those women?, Holy shit! that was a damn good payoff and an unexpected twist. I’m intrigued.

It came as no surprise to me when Nielsen feedback showed that The Black Donnelly’s lost millions of viewers from teh first half hour to the second. For the first thiry minutes there is almost nothing positive to say about the series. It was, and I am being generous when I say this, very disjointed. There is almost no symmetry from scene to scene, we are introduced to about three scores of characters in the first fifteen minutes and given about ten different back stories. It was initially confusing, upon second viewing everything was crystal clear but never the less, sloppy.

If you did happen to tune in for the first half hour then sticking around for the second half hour was worth your time, because the payoff was in the final five minutes was enormous, even if somewhat predicatable. Either way, the episode beomces more of a redemption tale then a standard issue crime story.

The characters are essentially carbon copies etched out from other crime dramas and plastered onto the screen as Irishmen instead of Italians. The four brothers all have shades of Sonny, Michael and Fredo. Tommy is the soft spoken leader trying to steer him and his three brothers from a life of crime, he is Michael all the way. Jimmy is the hot headed older brother with a heroin habit making Sonny with a touch of Fredo. then the two characters that are essentially put on the back burner are the little brother Sean (seems intelligent like Michael but weak and misguided like Fredo). And Kevin, whom has a penchant for gambling despite his notorious bad luck (dumb like Fredo but ruthless like Michael). All in all, there is a lot of material here for one episode.

Some of the peripherial characters are borderline unbearable. Particularly Jenny Reilly, the childhood tomboy friend of the four brothers. According to the narrator (we’ll get to him in a minute) her husband has been dead for an undetermined amount of time, everyone in the neighborhood besides her knows this yet she is under the impression he is at some sort of teacher’s conference.

A cliched, insufferable little fellow by the name of Joey “ice cream” is narrating the story to two detectives. Aside from a few instances, we are never quite sure how he is privy to all of the information he is. He has longed to have siblings like the Donnelly’s and is something of the smarmy loser that everyone uses as the neighborhood whipping boy. He has an obnoxiously grating voice and is supposed to be for comic relief, such as when he keeps rehashing or embellishing stories (”I was with a girl that doesn’t stop all night”, then we see his mother chase him out to a cab). It is never made clear if Joey is honest or not when talking to the cops, so it leaves the option open for several more twists and turns if the writers deem that necessary.

We get a little backstory to the Italian family, but nothing of substance. It is worth pointing out that there are several “that guy’s” in this pilot. There is that guy who played Frank Sobotka in the second season of The Wire, that guy who played Murmur on The Sopranos and the CO on Rescue Me and that guy who played Miguel Alvarez on OZ, in which he was a latino crime leader; now he is the Italian mob lead on “Donnelly’s” and seemingly the main antagonist.

As far as technical aspects are concerned, the writing is mediocre, the quality of acting varies (Peaks with Kevin Donnelly and bottoms out with Jimmy), the cinematography is, well, cinematic; and the plot is intriguing. I cannot recall what the last network crimes series was, but as far as these things are concerned, the show was watchable. Haggis, who was responsible for a previous series of the same vein with EZ Streets, and has been quite successful in film the past few years with Crash Letters From Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers and Casino Royale and Million Dollar Baby (all of which he wrote the screenplays for and the first of which he directed). With that kind of film resume, coupled witrh television work in the same genre, one would expect the series to be exceptional as opposed to simply watchable.

Not to say Black Donnelly’s wasn’t a complete flop by any means, but if it wasn’t for the last five minutes I might have been singing a different tune. Never the less, I am somewhat eager to see where they take this story so I’ll be tuning in tonight. this is a series that is really dependent on personal preference, if you like crime dramas, it is worth the hour out of your evening. If you do not like Goodfellas, The Departed or any other mob movie, do not even bother. Because while I thought the premiere had its redeeming qualities, it is nowhere near the caliber of the two Scorsese pictures.