Premieres: Lone Star

Lone Star, “Pilot”; or, “Sopranos Lite fails the Bechdel Test”

So my ladylove and I just (finally!) started watching Breaking Bad, and while I’m really enjoying it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen it before—as The Sopranos. And Dexter. And Mad Men. Apparently, the way to mark a show as Serious Television is to structure your story around a sociopath with a heart of gold. Or, put more generously, the question that seems to be guiding so many of the dominant narratives in our culture right now is this one: “How do men live with themselves after doing terrible things?” I’m not using “men” as code for “humanity” here—the question does seem to be one about men, quite literally. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the gendered nature of this concern becomes more obvious as the narrative in question is pitched to a wider audience.

Lone Star is the newest story in this mold, a narrative of a con man caught between two worlds; neither is “real,” but each offers a different version of the American dream: small-town or Big Time. The first episode actually feels a lot like the opening of Mad Men, but without the lush period detail or the mystery. After we get some economical backstory on the central father-son pair, there’s a nice mislead as the main character, Bob Allen (James Wolk) shuttles back and forth between mutually exclusive lives, with a wife in each. It’s shades of Midge and Betty, but the female characters are ciphers (so far, at least), each standing in for a different Way of Life, but with hardly any distinguishing features. I’m hoping this will change as the show goes on, but right now, they’re symbols more than real characters. The scrubbed, wide-eyed blonde is small-town America (Midland, TX, to be specific), and shares a split-level ranch house with Bob where he insists on mowing the lawn (shirtless, of course) himself instead of hiring a local kid. The other wife is dark-haired and stands in for access to unearned privilege and wealth. I’d be surprised if she didn’t turn out to be the bad one.

Ironically, as irritating as the wholly symbolic nature of the women in the story was to me, I loved the way the episode worked with more traditional symbols, like Bob’s suitcase or the two cellphones he has to carry with him to try to keep his different lives straight. The suitcase is a lot like the show—it’s not that original, but it’s a beautiful physical object, and it feels real. Although the trope of the Flawed Man with Too Much Power is starting to wear on me, the specific shots and music in Lone Star are gorgeous, and the central performance by James Wolk is really strong. He’s grinny and charming, but there’s a needy edge to his character that might prove really interesting if the show is given a chance to develop, and if its premise proves able to hold the weight of a full season, much less more than one.

As a side note, I watched this on the plane on the way back from San Francisco this weekend (hooray for JetBlue!), so I had to choose between it and The Event. It was a last-minute decision, but the dialogue in the endless previews for The Event looked too painful to watch without the option of pausing or fast forwarding, so I’m going to catch it on Hulu today. Hooray for living in the future!

Also to come in the Week of Premieres: Boardwalk Empire (I know it’s out of order, but I was away); How I Met Your Mother; Glee; Running Wilde; 30 Rock; Dexter.

Any other requests?

Comments

[Ariel]

I hoping the next post is about the premiere of The Event, which asks the age old question: How do men live with themselves after doing the terrible things that time traveling aliens make them do? As far as this viewer is concerned, The Event's pilot episode passes the Darius Amos Test

[Kristina]

I was not previously familiar with the Darius Amos test and feel infinitely wiser now -- thank you, Ariel! I second Ariel's request for commentary on The Event, though I have not watched it yet.

This is beautifully written, Anne. I just love the way you describe what very much appears to be the most prominent organizing principle of "serious" television today. I have no interest in this show, but I'd read as many commentaries on it as you care to write.

[Ben Owen]

Mmmm... brains. You pin the central preoccupation of modern TV and then move on to a thoughtful and sympathetic review. My question, though: why are we so worried about how men live with the terrible things they do? What's going on? I wanna do something sweeping like blame it all on 9/11, but Tony Soprano was everybody's darling before that, before the US was at war and real men were having to deal with the truly terrible things they'd really done all the time. So what's the story?

[Ben Owen]

Wait, wait... to clarify... plenty of men were doing terrible things before the US was at war. I just think that's the most visible sign of something new and terrible in the popular imagination (though I have war on the brain cause it's what I'll be teaching my students about this quarter).

[Anne Moore]

Thanks, friends!
So I think the obsession with Sinning Men has to do with global empire more generally--the war is just the clearest example of all that gone awry. But it's like you say, Ben, it's not as if people weren't being awful to promote their own interests.
Lone Star is interesting to me because, so far, you aren't encouraged to take the kind of distance from the hero that you are in the other examples I cited above (Mad Men, Dexter, etc). James Wolk's charisma is like a hammer, so it becomes hard to think straight. Although we're meant to judge the things he does, all the blame goes on the Bad Dad. The feeling is like, "I know capitalism is bad, but I'm trapped! I just want love!"
Again, I'm curious to see if this will develop into something more nuanced. I think it can, but I'm not holding out too much hope.

[99]

I held off on reading this until I saw it. I finally did yesterday and it did live up to the hype and this review hits it on the head. I think one of us (maybe me, maybe you?) mentioned that TV seems to always be about maturing and this certainly has those hallmarks.

You're right that the whole show is kind of a con: Wolk's charisma and the confidence of the filmmaking convince you that this totally, obviously, utterly implausible thing is real. There's not much there there yet. I'm hoping they find a way.

Oh, and does anybody else think that Bob's dad is going to turn out to be mysterious, maybe-dead Old Uncle Roy? Dun Dun DUN!

[Richard Martin]

The show has given me more than enough reason to love Bob Allen. He has the most charming and adorable face, plus his way of acting there (The Lone Star) was just amazing and superb!