I watched Ozark towards the fag end of last year and found it to be an engrossing portrait of a family in crisis. In some ways, the Byrde couple at the heart of the show go on a Breaking Bad-esque journey - they are morally complicit to begin with but the extent of their moral decay deepens as the degree of their crisis does. Ozark presents a fascinating contrast to Breaking Bad even as it maintains crucial thematic similarities.
Both shows are principally about person/persons mired in the world of drug cartels. Breaking Bad’s protagonist - Walter White, starts off as someone you might root for but ultimately turns anti-hero in a glorious arc, reminiscent of P.B Shelly’s classic poem Ozymandias. The Byrde family’s nexus with a Mexican cartel is self-imposed and sown from the seeds of greed rather than necessity. This is an important point of divergence. It’s not as if the Byrde couple’s stories aren’t interesting, but I already know what I am going to feel for the duo. It’s probably why I found my attention drawn towards Ozark’s supporting characters.
Helen Pierce, the cartel lawyer is by far the most intriguing of the supporting lot in Ozark. Pierce is played with steely precision by decorated British actor Janet McTeer. Helen is always impeccably dressed, her face hardly ever betrays emotion and that we know precious little about her background, only adds to her mystique. McTeer uses her ample height to lend Helen a physicality that can oddly be both, threatening and reassuring. Helen might be a cold and imposing figure, but somehow it seems like she wasn’t always that way. She seems to be in control of every situation, and yet, you get the sense that she is on the edge of an invisible knife. It’s an edge McTeer tiptoes on with masterful nuance.
“That tension, of the two sides of her character, was what I was aiming to find a line between. That was part of the fun — to make her occasionally surprising.”
This got me thinking about how deliciously fun an Ozark spin-off/prequel - a la Better Call Helen would be. We don’t have to look too far for proof of how a show based on an auxiliary character of another successful show, can be immensely satisfying. For quite sometime now, Better Call Saul has been the best show on television that anyone hardly talks about.
Better Call Saul is the origin story of Saul Goodman, a flamboyant scene-stealer who is only thinly explored in Breaking Bad. The bearings of this character are the same as Helen Pierce. Both are lawyers for a drug cartel. Both have strong personalities that seem to be partly a function of the world they inhabit and partly a reflection of their actual selves. And finally, both characters exhibit the curious duality of fitting into their ruthless universe, but never quite fitting in perfectly.
Saul Goodman is the ‘other-guy’ in Breaking Bad, a slimy lawyer with a wobbly moral compass. But, in Better Call Saul we see Saul as he used to be. We see a Saul stripped of all the Goodman flash, as a certain Jimmy McGill who has the trappings and frailities of a pretty ordinary human being. By showing Jimmy slowly morph into Saul Goodman, the show exemplifies a fundamental tenet of life itself - actions have consequences. The trouble with nonlinearity is that there is no saying how big consequences can be for even the smallest of actions. Better Call Saul is billed as a slow burn drama. But what it is in essence, is a slow burn tragedy. Here’s virtuoso director Guillermo Del Tero on why he thinks Better Call Saul is better that Breaking Bad.
Whenever a character is even the slightest of a misfit in the world he is shown in, there exists a tantalizing opportunity to extract drama from it. Another good example is Bob Biswas, the hit-man from Sujoy Ghosh’s sleeper hit film, Kahaani. When we first see Bob Biswas in the movie, he seems like an innocuous man who would look more at home in a government office than with a gun in his hand. The shock on seeing him gun down targets with a greeting of Bengali-accent tinged ‘Namaste’ is very real. Saswata Chatterjee doesn’t let Bob Biswas become caricaturish and the character is easily one of the most memorable ‘other-guys’ Hindi cinema has ever produced. There is perhaps a tinge of a psychopath in Bob Biswas, a method to his madness, a calculation underlying the dual life he lives. Kahaani didn’t have space to tell his story. Perhaps the upcoming spin-off film will do him justice.
Whenever the spotlight falls on people other than the main-men (or women), it is often wonderfully revealing. The Indian cricket team that pulled off the famous win against Australia in Brisbane was made up almost entirely of other-guys. There is a good chance that some of them will not feature again in an Indian test side for a long time. And so, I want to write a bit about one of them - Shardul Thakur. After the match ended, there were articles that heralded the Indian team’s performance, ones that spoke about Pant’s bravado, Siraj’s extraordinary journey and Sundar’s impressive debut. Shardul Thakur was little more than a footnote.
Thakur ran in hard and took seven wickets, most of them in unsexy fashion. His critical fifty in the first innings was made up of breathtaking shots that invoked the genius of Viv Richards. But, Pant’s match winning knock will be probably be the one most will remember from the game. However, there is one image that stayed with me more than any from this ridiculous cricket match. The Indian players were walking back after dismissing the Australians for the second time in the game. Siraj took a fiver and was deservedly leading the pack. And right behind him was Shardul Thakur. Thakur had finished with 4 wickets, one short of his own fiver on debut. As Siraj held up the ball in acknowledgment, Thakur clapped the hardest and smiled the widest. I told you, shining the spotlight on the other-guys is often wonderfully revealing.
Here are some recommendations -
Before Adam McKay had Oscar nominations and helmed prestige projects, he made a film called - The Other Guys. Its incredibly funny and features awesome turns by Mark Walberg, Will Ferell and Micheal Keaton. This is a PSA : Sir, now streams on Netflix and if you haven’t watched it already, do yourself a favour and check it out. It’s superb. Chaitanya Tamhane’s impressive debut film Court is also streaming on Netfix India if you want some food for thought kind of cinema.
Longreads - This feature on Caravan, the best magazine in India by a long shot : One Magazine’s Fight for the Indian Mind. Caravan does some incredible reporting. Do consider buying a subscription and supporting it. If you had to read one piece on the historic Indian win at Brisbane, make it this by Prem Panicker - Thoughts on a Wolf Pack.
I recently read Nisha Susan’s collection of short stories - The Women Who Forgot To Invent Facebook. Some of the stories missed the mark for me, but the ones that didn’t, pretty much hit the bulls eye.
When I was back home, my Dad introduced me to the magic of a certain Saxophone player called Stanley Samuel who mostly does covers of Hindi film songs, old and new. Maybe it’s your jam too.
If this newsletter edition wasn’t enough indication, watch Ozark and Better Call Saul! I also quite enjoyed this quirky comedy called Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet. If you don’t feel like the entire season do check out the stand-alone episode (E05) called “A Dark Quiet Death” which features Nick from New Girl (Jake Johnson) and the Mother from HIMYM (Cristin Milioti) in fine form.
A shoutout to my quizzing buddy Harman, has a cool newsletter that focuses on how he reads. Do check it out and subscribe if you think it might be helpful/insightful.
I loved this short poem by Laura Gilpin.
Two-Headed Calf
By Laura Gilpin
Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.
But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.
Thanks for reading this long edition of the newsletter and sorry for the longish break. Isolation isn’t very conducive for writing. This newsletter is a potpourri of random thoughts littered with recommendations galore. If you liked reading it, do consider subscribing and sharing it with friends. Also, this newsletter tends to appear in Gmail’s Promotions tab. Consider filtering it to Inbox for easier visibility.
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