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ceruseeSpecifically, jumping off from The Zanzibar Marketplace Job:
Okay, I had a problem with this episode: that it was so unfuckingbelievably awesome that I couldn't help thinking that I wouldn't mind at all if the show was always like this episode, with Nate and Maggie as an on-again-off-again couple getting into scrapes and Tara as the team's grifter. I like Gina Bellman as Sophie quite a lot, so I feel super-bad saying this, but I did not miss her at all in this ep, or for that matter in The Bottle Job or in The Future Job. Nate and Tara work well together, and the fact that they're strictly professional and not romantic at all is actually a bonus--I just watch them work the room as partners and delight in how good they are at it. I also like the way Tara interacts with the other cast members--I dig that she's not part of the family, but instead, the outsider they call in for special jobs; she also has fabulous chemistry with everyone; I think TV producers cry at night hoping to get this kind of strong chemistry with their regular casts, never mind the guest stars. I've always liked Jeri Ryan, but I'm surprised by just how much I like her in this role; I will be genuinely sorry to see her go when Gina Bellman comes back. I'd settle for Tara sticking around when Sophie returns, but I know it won't happen.
I don't dislike the ship of Nate and Sophie...but I ship the hell out of Nate and Maggie, because Timothy Hutton and Kari Matchett have that once-in-a-lifetime chemistry that you can see for your own damn self in the multiple different roles where they've worked together (A Nero Wolfe Mystery, 5ive Days to Midnight, and, y'know, here). Goodness knows, Nate and Maggie's history is at least as tangled and compelling as Nate and Sophie's, so for sheer dramatic material, it's kinda just a matter of preference. But Nate/Sophie is the endgame, I know, so I will not let myself get any more maudlin about Hutton and Matchett and how they are screen magic, baby...
Other unworthy thoughts: I totally love that Nate's drinking again. As some commenter on John Rogers' blog put it, he's more interesting as a functional alcoholic than he is sober. Self-destructiveness can be very painful to watch--in real life, it pretty much always is, unless you carry a major hate for the self-destructive person--but under the right circumstances (with a well-written character, a good actor, a convincing scenario) nothing in fiction is more compelling. To me, Nate and Nate's issues and Nate's drinking are definitely in the camp of compelling. I could and will watch Timothy Hutton in anything; he's such an interesting actor, and usually the most powerful actor every scene he's in (tho' he's a consummate pro, and does not steal focus when he shouldn't); sober Nate is thus still interesting. But I think the absolute highlight of Hutton's performance in the show was in The First David Job, when we were seeing his drinking and his self-destructiveness and self-delusions pretty much at their peak. It's a killer part, and he nails every second of it.
(Okay, he might have topped it with that absolutely devastating scene in The Second David Job where Nate tells Maggie the truth about the death of their son--it's rawly painful, and I have never been able to watch it without crying. But any decent actor should be able to go to town with material that juicy, and I think it's a little more difficult to hit the right notes in portraying someone who's spiraling out of control, but not yet hit the bottom.) Watching Nate transition from being a (presumably) reasonably happy person (successful in his job, married to the awesomeness that is Maggie, raising their much-loved, late-life son with her--Nate's obviously always had issues, but it does seem like he enjoyed his life at that point) to the staggeringly messed up person we know--well, seeing that would have been hard. But we got to skip it; we were introduced to Nate as a mess, so instead of watching him go through the initial, awful decline, we've just watched him struggle along in the dirt, sometimes getting his head up and even looking approximately in the direction of okay; mostly not. That mess is just fascinating to me. Nate needs to wallow in it? Hell yeah, let's wallow.
Okay, I had a problem with this episode: that it was so unfuckingbelievably awesome that I couldn't help thinking that I wouldn't mind at all if the show was always like this episode, with Nate and Maggie as an on-again-off-again couple getting into scrapes and Tara as the team's grifter. I like Gina Bellman as Sophie quite a lot, so I feel super-bad saying this, but I did not miss her at all in this ep, or for that matter in The Bottle Job or in The Future Job. Nate and Tara work well together, and the fact that they're strictly professional and not romantic at all is actually a bonus--I just watch them work the room as partners and delight in how good they are at it. I also like the way Tara interacts with the other cast members--I dig that she's not part of the family, but instead, the outsider they call in for special jobs; she also has fabulous chemistry with everyone; I think TV producers cry at night hoping to get this kind of strong chemistry with their regular casts, never mind the guest stars. I've always liked Jeri Ryan, but I'm surprised by just how much I like her in this role; I will be genuinely sorry to see her go when Gina Bellman comes back. I'd settle for Tara sticking around when Sophie returns, but I know it won't happen.
I don't dislike the ship of Nate and Sophie...but I ship the hell out of Nate and Maggie, because Timothy Hutton and Kari Matchett have that once-in-a-lifetime chemistry that you can see for your own damn self in the multiple different roles where they've worked together (A Nero Wolfe Mystery, 5ive Days to Midnight, and, y'know, here). Goodness knows, Nate and Maggie's history is at least as tangled and compelling as Nate and Sophie's, so for sheer dramatic material, it's kinda just a matter of preference. But Nate/Sophie is the endgame, I know, so I will not let myself get any more maudlin about Hutton and Matchett and how they are screen magic, baby...
Other unworthy thoughts: I totally love that Nate's drinking again. As some commenter on John Rogers' blog put it, he's more interesting as a functional alcoholic than he is sober. Self-destructiveness can be very painful to watch--in real life, it pretty much always is, unless you carry a major hate for the self-destructive person--but under the right circumstances (with a well-written character, a good actor, a convincing scenario) nothing in fiction is more compelling. To me, Nate and Nate's issues and Nate's drinking are definitely in the camp of compelling. I could and will watch Timothy Hutton in anything; he's such an interesting actor, and usually the most powerful actor every scene he's in (tho' he's a consummate pro, and does not steal focus when he shouldn't); sober Nate is thus still interesting. But I think the absolute highlight of Hutton's performance in the show was in The First David Job, when we were seeing his drinking and his self-destructiveness and self-delusions pretty much at their peak. It's a killer part, and he nails every second of it.
(Okay, he might have topped it with that absolutely devastating scene in The Second David Job where Nate tells Maggie the truth about the death of their son--it's rawly painful, and I have never been able to watch it without crying. But any decent actor should be able to go to town with material that juicy, and I think it's a little more difficult to hit the right notes in portraying someone who's spiraling out of control, but not yet hit the bottom.) Watching Nate transition from being a (presumably) reasonably happy person (successful in his job, married to the awesomeness that is Maggie, raising their much-loved, late-life son with her--Nate's obviously always had issues, but it does seem like he enjoyed his life at that point) to the staggeringly messed up person we know--well, seeing that would have been hard. But we got to skip it; we were introduced to Nate as a mess, so instead of watching him go through the initial, awful decline, we've just watched him struggle along in the dirt, sometimes getting his head up and even looking approximately in the direction of okay; mostly not. That mess is just fascinating to me. Nate needs to wallow in it? Hell yeah, let's wallow.