What to watch

Remote viewing: The top 10 television shows of 2012

Downtown Abbey
Girls
Photo courtesy of HBO
Game of Thrones
New Girl

All the presents have been unwrapped, and you only have a few days left of sipping egg nog. But the end of December is about so much more than that — like the inevitable review of the past year’s TV offerings.

There were period dramas, offbeat comedies, fantasy epics and many more. Yes, a veritable bevy of offerings had me glued to the TV this year. It’s as a self-diagnosed telephile that I offer up my picks for the best of television in 2012, in no particular order.

Downton Abbey
This PBS period piece captivated culture fiends everywhere. Kicking off at the start of the Great War, the sophomore outing of this tale of the upper crust and those that serve them ran the television gamut — illness, love triangles, murder and inter-cousin marriages. Pepper in some beautiful people, some less so (sorry Edith), plus incredible costumes and cutting old-lady banter, and you’ve got a treat whose 2013 return is more than welcome.

Parks and Recreation
Leslie Knope wasn’t the only one who had a big year in 2012. The rest of the Pawnee Parks and Rec department contributed to one of the best seasons that this once-misfit NBC comedy has had to date. Knope and Co. shined through their competitive spirit, working hard to bring their effervescent blonde heroine to victory. Cult TV favorite Adam Scott’s addition to the cast not only gave Knope a worthy male counterpart but also a hipster girl’s nerd crush for the ages.

Veep
Oh boy. Where to start? This island of misfit political toys flew in under the radar this year. Take a female VP whose own political aspirations didn’t get her to the top, add in a feisty and potty-mouthed chief of staff, a bumbling press secretary with a fake dog, a blowhard go-getter, and an awkward assistant with a Rain Man-esque memory, and you’ve got an ensemble comedy that’s sneakily hilarious. And don’t even get me started on the much welcomed TV return of Tony Hale. We’ve missed you, Buster Bluth.

New Girl/Happy Endings
Yes, I know these are two different shows. But their quick-witted humor and twenty- to thirtysomething pith are a part of a new wave of television. The former brings the oft-polarizing Zooey Deschanel to television with a cast of bros that together provide the perfect counterpart to her sometimes over-the-top quirkiness. On the latter, a group of apathetic Chicagoans goes through the motions of adulthood, while constantly insulting one another and slinging more pop culture references than you can count.

Game of Thrones
Sex. Incest. Dragons. Swords. War. Little People. Game of Thrones has it all. This George R. R. Martin-adapted series shockingly outdid itself in its second season, taking the jaw-dropping moments up to 11. From poor Sansa’s unfortunate relationship status, to Tyrion Lannister’s overall winningness, to ragamuffin and general badass Arya Stark, to Robb Stark’s rule-breaking nuptials, there was a lot to take in this season. Would you want it any other way?

Girls
Say what you want about Lena Dunham. She gets people talking. And her foray into television was one of the most talked-about half hours of 2012. Hannah Horvath may hope to be the voice of her generation, but with Girls, Dunham speaks to a generation of women who like to see versions of themselves on television. Casual (and awkward) sex, body issues, drugs, cheating — all the normal offenders of early adulthood are here.

Sherlock
Show runner Steven Moffat is no stranger to making things great. His resurrection of Dr. Who popularized the show overseas in a way never previously expected. With his modern retelling of the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Moffat has struck gold, adding a stylish spin brimming with awe-inspiring intelligence. It doesn’t hurt that he seemed to snag two of the UK’s biggest names for starring roles, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. The two play together as well as any detective pair in all of fiction, which makes it even harder to cope with the news that due to their busy schedules, production on season three hasn’t even begun.

Mad Men
If anything, we can thank Mad Men for bringing “Zou Bisou Bisou” back into the cultural lexicon. Season five of the AMC critical darling saw Don Draper snagging a French-Canadian child bride, Roger Sterling facing a bitter soon-to-be-divorce and the financial success of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce hanging by a thread. And let's not forget about the depressing downward spiral of Lane Pryce, who forged his own demise after a financial deal went wrong. It was one of the most heartbreaking things to grace our screens this year. While things seemed to be perfect in newlywed paradise for Megan and Don Draper, season six promises a shakeup of marital bliss.

Homeland
Claire Danes deserves her recent Best Actress Emmy for eye movements alone; the former teen star speaks volumes with those baby blues. This chronicle of a bipolar CIA agent and the men who love and hate her (I’m dramatizing, clearly) had a lot to live up to in season two. After a season of "is he/isn’t he" speculation about forlorn ginger POW Nicholas Brody, Danes’ Carrie Mathison was finally free of her feelings and pumped full of electric shock therapy. So where was a show with such a narrow plot line to go? The writers found a map, and while season two wasn’t without its detours (can we just lose Dana altogether?), the show lived up to the hype.

Louie
There’s so much to say about this FX vehicle for a beloved comic who has catapulted his way from cult favorite to big-star status. First of all, it’s simultaneously one of the funniest and most depressing shows on television. Louis CK’s ability to humanize loneliness and create a hilarious awareness of the human condition is unparalleled. He navigates the dating world, deals with inane human interactions, and accurately and awkwardly voices common yet unspoken behaviors about sexuality and race, all while causing us to laugh so hard we snort. When he’s not doing that, he’s headed to Afghanistan with a baby duck, presenting the comedy-loving public with one of the most touching hours on television.

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Movie Review

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck team up for Netflix crime thriller The Rip

Photo by Claire Folger/Netflix

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in The Rip.

For as closely tied together as Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are, it might come as a surprise how few times they’ve led a movie together. They’ve appeared alongside each other in Good Will Hunting, The Last Duel, and Air, but the only time they were on equal footing in a story was Kevin Smith’s Dogma. So the fact that they are the two true stars of the new Netflix movie The Rip makes it a rare opportunity for the longtime friends to square off against each other.

Damon and Affleck play Lt. Dane Dumars and Detective Sgt. J.D Byrne, respectively, the two highest ranking members of a Miami police department squad that specializes in drug and drug money raids. A tragedy to begin the film already has the team - which includes Detectives Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor), and Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandina Moreno) - on edge, with the FBI and DEA breathing down their neck.

Going off a tip, Dumars gathers the team to raid a house in nearby Hialeah that is supposed to have a stash of a relatively small amount of money. But when they get to the house occupied only by Desiree Molina (Sasha Calle), they soon discover that there’s close to $20 million there instead. The team, required by law to count the money on site, must not only fight the urge to skim a little off the top for themselves, but also worry about the Cartel and other agencies that might want a slice of the pie.

Written and directed by Joe Carnahan, the film is a surprisingly effective crime thriller made even better by its high-quality cast, which also includes Kyle Chandler as a DEA agent. The story is designed for the audience to not know who’s trustworthy until the last possible second, and the various twists and turns it takes are well done, with barely a hint of narrative cheating.

Taking place entirely at night, the mood is set right from the start, with the only surprise being that Carnahan didn’t add in rain for extra effect. He keeps things tense with a number of subtle elements, including having the house located in a seemingly deserted cul-de-sac. This allows for the characters to remain on high alert at all times, with anything out of the ordinary - an unexpected noise, a flashing light, etc. - adding to the stress of the situation.

The only element that could have used a bit more of a punch-up is the characterization. The story is set up to cast suspicion on almost everybody, making it tougher to understand exactly what type of person each of them is. As the two leads, more time is spent with Dumars and Byrne, leaving everyone else with slightly underwhelming arcs. It’s to the credit of the actors that everyone else below Damon and Affleck is still compelling.

Damon and Affleck play their sometimes friendly, sometimes adversarial roles well, showing an ease together that’s a result of their friendship and the acting skills they’ve honed over 30+ years. Taylor, an Oscar hopeful for One Battle After Another, and Oscar nominee/Emmy winner Yeun have a pedigree that elevates their supporting roles. Chandler, Moreno, and Calle each get just enough to demonstrate why they were cast in their respective roles.

Damon and Affleck have had their individual ups and downs throughout their careers, but when they choose to work together, the results are usually good-to-great, as they are in The Rip. It’s a different take on a crime thriller that features a story that will keep viewers guessing until the very end.

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The Rip is now streaming on Netflix.

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