Tag: Showtime

Masters of Sex: Coats or Keys – Swingers (Review)

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Masters of Sex slips away from the office, except for a couple of scenes and moves into swinger territory.  “Coats or Keys” uses the setting of a sex party, hosted by Art and Nancy, to dig a bit deeper into the characters.

The beginning of the episode is the aftermath of that party. Linden has gotten lucky in the back seat of a station wagon and Virginia leaves Art’s bed. Bill is talking to someone off camera about mending their ways.

24 hours earlier, Nancy is worrying over the swingers party and Art explains that Bill will not be coming.  Masters and Johnson talk about the party. Bill says he cannot attend as it is his night with the kids. Virginia invites Lester.

Libby is in Bill’s office complaining about the dog he bought their kids.

“He shat Bill. He shat in the Barbie Dream House.”

In the office, Bill and Virginia each speak separately with the couple from last week.  As they speak with the sexually dysfunctional man and wife, it becomes clear that they are not compatible in the bedroom.

The backstory of each one features polar opposite cause and effect issues.  Gary had an overbearing father who ran over his family like a steamroller. Fran’s mother was the steamroller in her house. The woman demeaned and bullied her father non-stop.

As Bill and Virginia talk about secrets, she says “I’ve told you mine.” “Not all, I’m sure,” replies Bill.  Their discussion about the couple in treatment shadows what they need to do to repair their relationship.

Linden and Betty arrive at the party together. Both are telling each  other of miseries mentioned many times before.  Betty’s partner lying to her parents about their relationship and Lester’s wife messing around with balloon man.

Virginia and Libby arrive and like their office colleagues have no idea what the party really is. Virginia meets Michael, a friend of her “husband” Dan Logan. Things get awkward because he knows Dan and Alice.

Libby and Michael make a connection, although she still has no idea that this is a swinger’s party.  Soon after, Abe Perlman, Bill’s lawyer comes in and she tries unsuccessfully to avoid him.

Lester is too intoxicate to be appealing, he actually finishes the drink of the woman he is talking to, and Betty tells Virginia she needs to tell Bill about Dan.  After she agrees to tell him, Bill shows up wanting to know where the kids are.

Libby, discovering what the party is really all about combined with Bill’s arrival decides to leave.

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The penny drops for Betty, Libby and Lester.

Art picks Virginia’s coat and Lester picks his drinking partner’s.  She declines and he steps outside. Betty plunks herself down next to the piano player.  She sticks with the only other “homo at the party” for moral support and to keep her coat from being picked.

Nancy goes off with her choice while Art and Virginia talk. The orgasmic sounds of Nancy and her sex partner can be heard through the walls. As the tempo and the volume increases, Art reveals that he is not an enthusiastic proponent of their open marriage.

Bill drives Libby home.  The couple get into a spirited discussion that ends in Bill performing oral sex on Libby. This opens the door to further interaction that goes far to mending any burnt bridges.  While not a reconciliation per se, they seem to have dampened her hostility.

Amusingly, it all starts with Bill granting Libby three wishes.

Hysterically, after Bill brings Libby to an orgasm she is still angry. Bill asks why? “Because that was great,” Libby replies. “We could have been doing that for 20 years.”

Lester hooks up with Cleo the caterer. They have a talk by the driveway and Cleo proves to have a brilliant sense of humor. She tells Linden that “nothing radical has ever been catered.”

Betty and the piano player; Guy, spend the evening singing show tunes and leave together at nine.  They end up sleeping in the two lab beds at the office.

Art and Virginia talk throughout the night. She reveals that to her, sex is a weapon or a tool with which she can vanquish other women.  She realizes that Bill was, and is still, her perfect mate. He is willing to “kiss her bruises” and to accept her as she is.

In the morning Art gives Virginia her keys and she grabs Libby’s coat. Bill has taken the new dog, Baxter, for a walk and when Virginia knocks on the door he answers it.  After an awkward moment she tells him about Dan and Bill reveals he knew already.

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Bill responds with “I’ll see you at the office.”

“Coats or Keys” was, perhaps, the funniest episode of Masters of Sex this season. It was also the most poignant.  Letting the viewer into Virginia’s mind and showing how she really feels about sex, herself and Bill.

The two comic highlights of the episode were Libby’s “we could have been doing this for 20 years” and Cleo asking Lester to “say something sexy” as she approaches climax.

“Civil disobedience,” whispers Linden…

Masters of Sex ended with Virginia realizing that she really belongs with Bill. Meanwhile, he and  Libby seem to be on the road to reconciliation.

The series airs Sundays on Showtime. Tune in and see where all this self discovery leads.

CAST:

Guest starring David Walton as Abe Perlman,  Enuka Okuma as Cleo and Nick Clifford as Guy.

Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee – The Root of All Evil (Review)

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Nanette Burstein  (who has a number of documentaries under her belt including the 2002 film “The Kid Stays in the Picture” which was a close look at coke head film producer Robert Evans) takes on John McAfee. Burstein does a good job peeling back the multiple layers of B.S. that surrounds the software tycoon and megalomaniac.

“The Dangerous Life of John McAfee” is a bit of a misnomer, although the film’s title could be seen as a skewed accusation.  For a man suspected of two murders and at least one chemically coerced rape, it seems life is more dangerous for those around the father of anti-virus software than for McAfee himself.

Documentary director Burstein plots the rise and increasingly odd behavior of McAfee.  From his forced buy out from the company that bore his name to his eventual migration to Belize. Once there McAfee wasted no time building a personal army of security guards and buying off the local police.

Watching the Showtime documentary it is clear that McAfee is, at times, beyond eccentric.  Several of the people interviewed by Bernstein come out and say the man is “batch*t crazy.” While in Belize, the software mogul definitely appeared to be delusional.

After his brief term as a yoga master, which, incidentally, appeared to be focussed on sex, McAfee moves to Belize. Apart from his armed bodyguards and accumulation of girlfriends and hookers, McAfee seems to  have believed he could replicate the 1992 Sean Connery film Medicine Man. 

Hiring a Harvard graduate to turn plants into medicine, McAfee spent his time granting interviews about a nonexistent products and looking for investors.

Later he was believed responsible for the deaths of two men in the area and the Harvard grad has accused him of rape. That John McAfee suffers from megalomania is apparent from his email correspondence with Bernstein and his threats.

The documentary speaks with a vast number of people in Belize, including the man thought to be responsible for carrying out the killing of McAfee’s next door neighbor.

By the end of the film, the subject of the documentary does not come off very well.  Overall it is a story of a visionary whose brief time in the spotlight paid over the odds and gave him a taste for the spotlight. McAfee took his payoff and “lived large” in several different places.

The former software genius seems to have lost that visionary capability and has replaced it with sordid desires and an accumulation of power.  McAfee is also the embodiment of a modern day flimflam man, aka an entrepreneur.

Almost as an afterthought, the film points out that his home  was raided by the police looking for manufactured drugs.

It is revealed that the suspected meth was in fact something else. Reading other articles about McAfee and his flight from Belize to escape questioning and possible conviction for murder, it is clear that Bernstein wanted to focus on the homicides and not the alleged drug dealing.

Vice Gaming, whose reporter inadvertently caused McAfee’s arrest in Guatemala, mentions the sexual obsession side of the man. Their article focusses on bath salts, as a sex aid, and McAfee’s orgies. They also talk about his interest in scat.

The Showtime documentary leaves all that alone. Bernstein is interested in John’s two alleged murders and his other off the wall antics. One of which happened to be his bid for the white house.

(On a sidenote, it would not be surprising to learn that McAfee and Donald Trump are actually huge pals.)

It is interesting to note that a man with so much money responds with threats of violence and disturbing innuendos to Bernstein’s documentary. Rather than take legal action, that the man could clearly afford, he  opts for threats.

The documentary actually does a good job showing just how delusional and dangerous McAfee is.  While the man is not in Belize any longer he still has enough money to cause problems in this country as well.

Fortune reports that McAfee is fighting back against the documentary. Like everything else on file about the man, it appears to be a form of  self aggrandizement. His version of events makes him a  victim of the press and Showtime in particular.

Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee is steaming on Showtime. Stop by and check this documentary out.  Watch this take on an “ugly American” who built his own gang in Belize. McAfee comes across as the root of all evil in this film and not just because of the fortune lining his coffers.

This documentary proves that money may not be able to  buy happiness but it can pay for the murder of two people in another country.

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Masters of Sex: The Pleasure Protocol – Multiple Orgasms and the Single Girl

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Masters of Sex “The Pleasure Protocol” steps away from correcting dysfunctional sex and enters multiple orgasm training for a single woman who wishes to experience this holy of holies. Virginia decides to make this deviation from their normal workload without Bill’s knowledge.

The episode also looks at S&M fantasy versus reality and Bill finally learns the truth about Dan and Virginia from a surprising source.  Nancy and Art’s secret is revealed and Libby has phone sex with  Bill’s lawyer.

In what seems to be a move to make Virginia jealous, Bill asks that Nancy attend all meetings.  His female business partner is not overly pleased at this turn of events and she says so. Virginia also is short tempered at the first meeting and leaves early.

A young woman wants to learn how to experience multiple orgasms and initially Dr. Dreesen tells her they cannot accommodate that training.  Virginia disagrees and partakes of some sexual experimentation to see if it is possible to “manufacture” the experience.

It is.

Bill and Nancy counsel a couple who are having issues. She wants a bit of rough and he does not “get it.” They mention a film that the wife saw which turned her on and him off. Nancy and Bill got to see the movie. It is about rape and physical abuse.  Masters leaves early.

The two doctors talk about the pathology of the wife’s urges, Bill believes that anyone who craves pain with sex suffers from trauma. The wife says this is not the case at all.

The husband attempts to satisfy her craving to be spanked and goes completely overboard. He begins hurting her and then slaps the hell out of his wife. Bill has to grab the chap and pull him off of his  wife.

Masters has gotten it wrong, it is the husband who was traumatized and not the wife. As he says to Nancy earlier, in order for pleasure and pain to occupy the same space the individuals need to be well adjusted. Clearly the husband is not.

The young woman that Art and Virginia is training can not find a partner. Betty talks the lawyer who met her when she worked in the brothel into helping the young lady out. It goes very well with the woman experiencing  three orgasms in under 10 minutes.

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Judy Greer as Alice

Away from the sexual training Virginia gets a visit from Dan’s wife Alice. She has been listening to all those answering machine messages that Virginia left for Dan.

They talk.

Johnson explains that she broke Dan’s heart by sleeping with a sailor on the wedding day. It was set up so he would catch her in bed with the stranger. Alice remarks that the act seems very sad.

Later, Bill  attends an A.A. meeting and Alice is there. During her sharing with the group he learns that Dan came back to her.

Lester, who is trying out his camera, takes pictures of Art and Nancy kissing. He gives her the chance to come clean and tell the two partners about Art.

Bill wants to fire them but Virginia talks him out of it and warns the two not to lie again.  Masters learns that Johnson destroyed all their personal files.  This news upsets him.

Throughout the last few episodes, Masters has been watching the recording of Virginia masturbating to orgasm. He has been, to put it mildly, somewhat obsessed.

At the end of the episode Bill takes the film from the spools and deposits it in a metal rubbish bin. It looks like he will burn the film and attempt to move on from his obvious obsession.

Another reveal in this episode is the news that Art and Nancy are in an open relationship.  Clearly she is a bit interested in Bill and even makes plans to flirt with her boss.

When they are at the film, and later in the bar, she seems to be focussed on Bill in a less than professional way.

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Bill and Nancy discuss pleasure and pain.

Libby continues to forge her own way and rips a strip off of Bill’s Lawyer, whom she apparently had phone sex with earlier.

The clear message in Masters of Sex this week all has to do with what was learned in the multiple orgasm training. Art mentions that the woman experiences these with no connection to her partner. They have no previous history; it is purely a physical phenomenon.

Virginia looks dismayed.  In a clinic built upon “functional”  sex being important to a relationship, it appears that the reverse is not true at all. A relationship is clearly not important for satisfactory sex.

Masters of Sex airs Sundays on Showtime.

CAST:

Guest starring Judy Greer  as Alice Logan

Masters of Sex: Inventory – Rebuilding (Recap/Review)

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The theme this week in Masters of Sex is rebuilding. “Inventory” (which refers to a step in the A.A. program) sees Bill, Libby and Virginia making moves to get their lives back together. These steps forward are being made professionally as well as personally.

Some of them are more successful in this rebuilding process and by the end Virginia looks to still be struggling.

Libby has turned the kids against Bill and he moves from the lab bed to an apartment of Louise’s friend. All he has to do is water the plants and feed the cat.  Masters is still fighting the A.A. process and refusing to take part in the meetings.

On a sidenote: Niecy Nash is beyond brilliant as  A.A. leader Louise Bell. Nash’s adept skill as an actress has allowed her to thoroughly irritate as the annoying Denise Hemphill in Scream Queens and then go on to become a “Yoda-like” figure in Masters of Sex.  

Nash does not speak awkwardly like the Jedi trainer but she does espouse some pretty deep wisdom. She is a caring and layered character that we like immediately. 

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Niecy Nash as Louise Bell

Bill is making significant progress on a personal and professional level this week, precisely because of the A.A. template. It takes Louise to point that he needs to practice what the program preaches.

As Masters tries to clear the air with Libby, she drops a bombshell on him. His soon to be ex reveals a list of sordid affairs that went on behind his back. Bill is distraught at the news of her infidelity.

Later, Masters tells Libby that he accepts her sexual flings and is even glad that she found pleasure from another avenue.

Meanwhile Virginia tries wooing Dr. Madden (John Billingsley), her former therapist, into joining the Masters and Johnson team. He refuses. Virginia does not stop however and after getting the doctor drunk, and sleeping with him apparently, decides he would not do at all. 

The verdict is that Madden is too judgmental.  This sequence is revealing. Virginia obviously had no issue with using sex as a means to an end. Or, perhaps more accurately, as a tool/weapon.

This interlude also opens up just how manipulative she can be.

At the office, Betty makes her move for a raise and Virginia hires Art Dreesen as the company psychiatrist instead of Madden. He professes a sort of hero worship and has a “secret” connection  with Nancy.

Bill and Nancy treat the couple with the shoe issues and she reaches out and touches Masters when the the two start to have excited sex.  This leads to a questionnaire intended to keep the he and Nancy from getting too attached to one another.

After the revealing of backstory for each participant, Nancy then asks if Bill and Virginia ever had sex.  Masters lies and says no.

Libby takes another step towards rebuilding her life by recruiting herself as the new secretary for her divorce lawyer.

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Tessa (Isabelle Fuhrman) is furious with her mother for lying about Dan and moves out of the house. She goes to live with her father and Virginia is shocked and upset  by her daughter’s decision. 

Back at the offices, Virginia has Lester (Kevin Christy) install voice activated tape recorders in all the rooms. Bill questions this move, but Virginia points out that if they had them last year, he would not be facing criminal charges.

By the end of the episode, both Masters and Johnson have new partners and they are uneasily starting up business as usual.

Masters of Sex continues to deliver a series that, couched in the guise of a bio-drama, shows the real aspect of sex and relationships.  At one point, in “Inventory” a couple are having sex in the background.

This couple consists of “normal” looking people, he is overweight and she is pretty much nondescript. No supermodel posers here, just average people having sex at the clinic.

Although it is interesting to note that all the staff at the office are very attractive. Which makes it abundantly clear that Dr. Madden would never have fit in as well as Dr. Dreesen.

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Jeremy Strong as Art Dreesen.

Masters of Sex airs Sundays on Showtime.

CAST:

Guest starring Jeremy Strong as Art Dreesen,  Niecy Nash as Louise Bell and Betty Gilpin as Nancy.

Ray Donovan Season Four Finale: Rattus Rattus (Review)

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Ray Donovan must be one of the best shows on television for pulling a save out of what seems to be thin air. The season four finale “Rattus Rattus” seemed to have Ray painted into a corner with no way out.

After a few short twists and turns however, it is Mickey who inadvertently saves the day.

The episode starts with Ray having a dream. Abby has died and  the entire Donovan clan  are at her funeral.  As Father Romero (Leland Orser) presides over the service, Sonia is massaging Ray’s crotch. 

Romero then starts talking about a new app that saved him 10 minutes in his journey. “10 f**king minutes Ray,” he crows.

Donovan wakes up.

There is a lot going in in this last episode.  Avi is recuperating in the hospital. Barnes clears out the office and gets all of Ray’s files.  Sonia tells Donovan what the FBI agent offered her to rat Ray out. He has promised safe passage and a new identity for her daughter.

Donavan tells Sonia that Frank Barnes is “a lying sack of sh*t.” It turns out that the federal agent is also stupid. He sends Sonia to her death.  It is Barnes’ plan to have Ray and Kovitzky convince the Russian mobster that she is an asset.

The former art dealer ends up nn a metal morgue tray with a bullet in her head. Mickey wants to ride on Ray’s deal with Hector and hits Abby up for money. She shows him the painting; Girl With Guitar and tells him to sell it and use the money to place the bet.

Frank insists that Ray wear a wire to the fight. Mickey gets contact from the pawnshop and while the man looks at the painting, Mick finds that the back of the thing is full of drugs.

After the discovery of the smuggled drugs and Sonia’s death, Ray calls the family together. They orchestrate the take down of Dimitri and his goons.

Amidst all these plans, Hector wants to fight for real and Father Romero comes to see Ray. Bunchy tells Terry about Ray forcing Hector to throw the fight.

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Ismael Cruz Cordova as Hector Campos and Victor Ortiz as Whittaker

Terry confronts Ray about Hector murdering Marisol and then promises that he will put something in Hector’s eyes to keep him from backing out.

Abby reveals to Ray that her treatments are working and the cancer is disappearing. Bridget gets accepted to NYU and flies off to New York. Donavan takes her to the airport.

Ray sits with Dimitri at the fight after giving back the wired shirt to Barnes. Hector does not go down in the sixth round. Ray has told him to win and Dmitri is furious. Campos wins the fight.

With all the precision of a “Godfather” hit the Russian mobster and his men are taken out. Avi and Daryl partner up to grab Dimitri and his chauffeur. Bunchy and Mick take out the muscle at the Russian’s house.

Ray and Lena take out the replacement for Belikov and then call Barnes. When the FBI agent arrives, the new “Ivan” lays on the floor, not moving, and Lena has taken all the drugs from the paintings.

The Donovan’s are celebrating Hector’s win and Terry gives an impassioned speech. Ray arrives and speaks with Hector. Abby meets her husband outside the gym and they kiss. She goes up the stairs and after a moment Ray follows.

Once again Ray Donovan proves that above all else, this show is about family.  Even though it looked like Ray was either going to be killed by Dimitri or get sent to prison or  be forced to join a witness protection program, Mickey turned the tide by discovering those drugs.

This finale allowed Donovan to slow down from that frantic pace he has maintained from the first episode.  The family stepped up to the mark and saved the day allowing Ray to concentrate on getting out from under the Russian mob.

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Ray and Dimitri

Memorable moments  of the episode included Avi kicking the crap out of Dimitri’s driver.  Sonia’s body in the morgue and the shooting of all the Russian mobsters. (Avi keeping Daryl from being involved was particularly touching.)

Lena and Ray taking out the “New” Belikov was also brilliant.

This was a brilliant end to a frantic season for Schreiber’s character. While the show’s only Emmy went to Hank Azaria  this Showtime production is definitely the cream of the crop.

CAST:

Guest starring Raymond J. Barry as Dimitri, Michael McGrady  as Frank Barnes, Ismael Cruz Cordova as Hector and Embeth Davidtz as Sonia Kovitzky.