Jay Baruchel as Jay, Fred Armisen as Jesus Christ, and Rosa Salazar as Rosa (Photo by Michael Gibson/FX)
FXX wants another season of the adult comedy series Man Seeking Woman, renewing the show for a third season. Season two recently wrapped up, increasing its ratings over season one by 2%. The ratings were high enough to warrant another 10 episode season which will air in early 2017, according to the network.
Man Seeking Woman was created by Simon Rich and stars Jay Baruchel, Eric Andre, and Britt Lower. Rich wrote the short stories the TV series is based on and serves as the showrunnner and executive producer. Jonathan Krisel, Andrew Singer, Ian Maxtone-Graham and Lorne Michaels also executive produce.
“Man Seeking Woman had another great season this year and continues to offer one of the smartest and funniest takes on dating and relationships on TV today,” said Presidents of Original Programming for FX Networks and FX Productions Nick Grad. “We are excited to move forward on a third season of Man Seeking Woman with Simon, Jonathan, Andrew, Ian and Lorne, and thank Jay, Eric and Britt for keeping the show so enjoyable.”
The Plot:Man Seeking Woman follows “Josh Greenberg” (Jay Baruchel) as he soldiers through the life-and-death stakes of dating. The series also stars Eric Andre (The Eric Andre Show) as “Mike,” Josh’s confident and daring best friend; and Britt Lower (Sisters) as “Liz,” Josh’s intimidating older sister.
Hi, Ed,” says Gordon (Ben McKenzie) to Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) hoping that his friend will help him figure out who it was on the GCPD who framed him for murder, still unaware that it was Ed all along in episode 17 of season 2 of FOX’s gritty comic-book inspired crime thriller series, Gotham.
As the episode begins, Bruce (David Mazouz) and Selina (Camren Bicondova) are being chased up on the rooftops after stealing some money from a third rate thug. Selina gets her jacket arm caught on something during the chase and rips it free but drops the bag full of money and makes a fast dash to jump across to the other rooftop. Bruce goes back for the bag, despite Selina yelling at him to leave it, and is able to grab it and also jump to the other rooftop leaving the overweight, exasperated thief out of breath and furious.
Bruce, who has obviously gotten much faster and more athletic, just smiles and tells the thug he’s a terrible thief to let two kids steal from him. He dumps his share of the money onto the ground. Selina gets upset with Bruce for doing it, but he reminds her that he’s not following her and living on the streets to steal but to understand criminals. “It’s research,” he says. Selina tells Bruce this whole research thing is getting old – clearly she wants him to become her partner in crime and on the streets – and walks off in a huff to which Bruce turns to her and says, “I kept enough for burgers.”
Meanwhile, the manhunt is on for Jim Gordon with Captain Barnes (Michael Chiklis) confronting Bullock (Donal Logue) trying to get him to tell him where Jim is. Harvey plays it off saying he doesn’t know, but Barnes is convinced Bullock knows more than he’s saying. The two men argue and Barnes threatens Bullock, telling him that he and the Captain owe it to the citizens of Gotham to be impartial to Jim’s plight of clearing his name and bring him in. Harvey replies, “The citizens of Gotham can eat my socks,” as he leaves the police station.
At Harvey’s place, he and Jim are going over the case and realize that only someone at the GCPD could have set up Jim because whoever it was knew too many details and the inner workings of the cases. Jim remembers that IA records all tips that come in, so Harvey reaches out to a lady friend he has in IA and after lifting her keys, Gordon is able to get his hands on the tape in hopes it will lead to the identity of the person who framed him for the policeman’s murder. While walking down a dark alley Jim comes across a woman yelling for help while two men try to mug her. Being the good guy that he is, Jim can’t just walk on. He fights off the two would-be muggers while the woman runs off screaming. Jim is about to go on his way when a cop shows up and tries to arrest Jim, first mistaking him for one of the muggers and then realizing he’s just found Gordon. Jim uses his fighting skills and disarms the officer. “Don’t kill me,” yells the cop. Jim replies, “I’m innocent,” and runs off into the night.
In another part of town, Oswald (Robin Lord Taylor) is attending his birth father’s funeral and is told immediately after by Grace (Melinda Clarke) that he can’t live with them anymore because she wouldn’t be comfortable living with a criminal. Oswald assures her he’s changed and couldn’t hurt a fly. He pleads for her to change her mind, telling her he’s willing to do anything. Grace decides to keep Oswald around as their servant which will also keep him away from any lawyers who might get him to challenge the Will.
Over at Arkham, Barbara (Erin Richards) seems to be recovering very well after waking from her coma. Dr. Hugo Strange (BD Wong) decides to release Barbara back into the real world, telling her she is no longer mentally ill. Even Barbara is nervous about the idea of leaving but Hugo insists she’s ready. Hugo tells his number two that Barbara’s release is a “beautiful experiment” as they will monitor her actions while she is out in the world.
Back at Harvey’s car, Gordon plays the tape but the voice is disguised and the sounds of the background noise might be a bird but it’s not clear enough to tell. Gordon decides to go see another friend and tells Harvey he’s done more for him than any partner could ever expect but to stay away since Barnes is watching Bullock so closely. It’s clear Jim doesn’t want his partner to get jammed up because of him. So Gordon drops in on Ed for help.
Ed, realizing Jim still doesn’t know he set him up, offers to help him by cleaning up the tape. While waiting for the results of the cleaning, Ed and Jim talk about the case and Ed makes the mistake of debating if the person who framed Jim is a psychopath, getting a little too defensive and engaged in the conversation. Gordon begins to suspect for the first time that Ed might be the one who set him up. Ed plays back the cleaned tape which now makes it clear it IS Ed’s voice on the tape calling in the tip about the murder. Gordon pulls his gun on Ed but unfortunately is sitting in a chair wired to shock him, which it does, and he’s knocked out.
Nygma drags Gordon’s unconscious body through an alley to dispose of it, but when he goes to open the trunk of a car to put Jim in he sees Jim trying to escape through a window. Ed fires the gun he took from Jim and hits him in the leg. Jim makes his way through the old building and comes across where Selina and Bruce have set up house. Bruce runs over to help Gordon and leads him to the couch where Jim quickly collapses and passes out on. “Great, I’ve got a dead cop in my crib,” says Selina to a concerned Bruce.
Gordon wakes up on the couch in the study at Wayne Manor. It seems Bruce called Alfred (Sean Pertwee) and had him come and take Gordon, Selina, and himself back to Wayne Manor. During a few moments alone, Gordon admits to Alfred he failed to protect Bruce from the hardship of hunting who killed his parents and feels bad about it. When the gang is all together again, Gordon tells Bruce and Alfred his plan to set up Ed. He needs someone to go into the GCPD and tell Barnes that he/she has seen Gordon and wants to collect the reward. Jim says in order for it to work it has to be someone Barnes would believe would betray Jim. Bruce, Alfred, and Jim all look right at Selina who’s eating and only half-listening. When she realizes they are looking at her, she asks, “What?”
Back at the Van Dahl mansion, Oswald has been made to be the family’s cook and maid and they enjoy picking on him and putting him down. Through the insults and taunts, Oswald is still able to maintain his demeanor and never loses it until he discovers the decanter of alcohol that was used to murder his father. He tests it on the dog and sees it die just as quickly as his father died. Oswald’s step-siblings enter telling him to make a roast for them and he lets out an insane creepy laugh… The Penguin is back!
Selina enters the GCPD looking for the reward as planned and it works. She tells Barnes, with Ed listening in, that she saw Gordon and he’s looking for Penguin because he knows where the body is buried. This causes Ed to believe that Jim knows where Kringle’s body is and he goes off to dig her up and move her body. Of course, Jim follows Ed and catches him digging up Kringle. Ed turns and points Jim’s own gun at him and Jim asks what happened to Ed, reminding him that they were friends. Ed reveals he murdered Kringle and he set Jim up to get rid of him investigating. As Ed talks, more and more of his insane personality comes out and Jim realizes the old quirky, smart, and likable Ed is no more. Just as Ed is about to shoot Jim, Barnes yells for him to drop the gun and give up. Seems Jim had Barnes and Harvey, along with about 30 other cops, out in the woods listening to their conversation. Ed makes a feeble attempt to run away but is quickly captured.
Back at the GCPD Barnes almost apologizes to Jim and says he’s happy he’s in the clear and that he owes him one. Jim asks him not to go too hard on Harvey for all his help. Barnes asks Jim when he can start back to work but Jim says he’s not coming back right away; he needs to solve the Waynes’ murder case for young Bruce first. He asks Barnes for the file which Barnes gives him along with Lee’s number, telling him to call her. Later in private Jim does call Lee, hears her voice and hangs up.
At Wayne Manor, Bruce tells Alfred he’ll be going back to the city with Selina when she’s ready to head back. Alfred finally has a chance to tell Bruce that Lucius fixed his father’s computer and his work can now be continued. Alfred also tells Bruce that Selina has been a good friend to him and cares about him and she doesn’t deserve to be put in danger over what got Bruce’s parents killed. Alfred says he can pursue this with him and say goodbye to Selina or go back to living in the city with her but he can’t have both, for her sake. Selina enters ready to leave and asks Alfred if they can get a ride back into the city. Alfred excuses himself and leaves the room.
Bruce tells Selina he’s not going with her and that he’s grateful for everything she has taught him. Selina becomes upset, mistakenly taking Bruce’s actions as a rejection of her, her life, and their relationship. “After all we’ve been through,” says the Cat, holding back her emotions as best she can. She leaves out the same window she almost always uses to enter the Wayne study and Bruce tries his best to hold back his tears.
Back at the Van Dahl mansion, Oswald has prepared two different roasts for Grace for her dinner. After she has tried both he reveals in true classic Penguin form that he knows she killed his father with the poison and she just ate some of her own children. Before the true horror of what is happening registers in Grace’s mind, Penguin kills her with a big knife.
Jim Gordon is at his place looking over the Wayne file when there’s a knock on his door. He goes over and opens it and is shocked to see Barbara standing there. “Hi, Jim,” she says.
Gotham season 2 episode 17 review:
Dark, action-packed, and smartly written, episode 17 titled “Into the Woods” finally has Gordon clearing his name and discovering the truth about Ed Nygma while also having the long-overdue rebirth of The Penguin and his homicidal ways. The two stand-out performances in this episode go to Ben McKenzie and Robin Lord Taylor for their wonderful portrayals of two characters who go through an emotional and intellectual revelation. McKenzie is great in the scene in the woods where Jim confronts Ed and discovers his suspicions are true about him being the one who set him up. It’s not anger or fear he shows but genuine sadness as he asks Ed why he did this, they were friends. It’s a brief but fantastic moment from McKenzie as Gordon shows he’s actually hurt that one of the few people in his life who he considered a friend has betrayed him so completely.
Robin Lord Taylor brings back the murderous, evil psychopath The Penguin in glorious over-the-top chilling form as he murders the Van Dahls for killing his father. Truly, it’s nice to have the real Penguin back.
With Jim, Bruce, and Alfred looking into the conspiracy that killed Bruce’s parents, Nygma getting locked up in Arkham, The Penguin now taking over his birth father’s fortune, and Barbara showing up at Jim’s door, it looks like things are really heating up and getting even more dangerous in Gotham as the show heads towards its season finale.
Hanna Mangan Lawrence called working with her Containment co-stars like being in a school camp in Atlanta. Mangan Lawrence said the big ensemble cast of the new The CW dramatic series really bonded, hanging out after shooting episodes, and going to dinner or drinks. “We, as a whole cast and everyone who worked on the show, we just all kind of straightaway meshed,” said Mangan Lawrence during our interview at the 2016 WonderCon held in downtown Los Angeles. She also talked about her character on the series and what audiences can expect when they tune in to check out Containment on April 19th.
Hanna Mangan Lawrence Interview:
Some members of the cast say they’re germaphobes after doing the show and some aren’t. What about you?
Hanna Mangan Lawrence: “It has me more aware. I notice it. I notice when someone coughs or when someone shakes my hand, but I would like to think that I’m not playing into it. I used to always be weird on shaking hands because I have like clammy hands…only sometimes! Not always. I don’t know why I said that! There’s nothing worse than you feel like you’ve got a clammy hand and they want to shake. You’re like, ‘I don’t know…’ Anyway, that’s another story.”
Can you talk about your character and what your storyline is for the season?
Hanna Mangan Lawrence: “I play Teresa Keaton who is a young pregnant girl on the show. She has this love story with her partner, Xander. They’re quite young but they’re madly in love although the baby wasn’t really a decision. Like, they probably didn’t decide to have the baby but it’s happening and they’re going to give it all the love they can and raise the baby. But my mom isn’t so keen on that and she wants me to adopt it out, give it up for adoption. And so we’re actually at the start of the pilot where I’m about to run away with Xander and they’re going to go away and raise this child. And right before I get on the train to go meet him – he’s outside what becomes the quarantine area – I’m about to go on the train and the train stops and I can’t get on. Like, the train comes into the station, train stops, but the doors don’t open. At that stage nobody knows what’s going on. Is it just a train glitch or whatever? So that’s the kind of a conflict is that for me the love of my life is outside the quarantine area and I’m inside very pregnant.”
How will the fact she’s younger and more impulsive play into how much danger she’s in?
Hanna Mangan Lawrence: “You know, they are young but they’ve got level heads on them. They’re quite mature for their age. The thing is that there is this disease outbreak happening and that is so scary and that’s on your mind all the time. But our number one goal is to keep this child safe inside me, to get me out, to keep it safe. The thought of giving birth in a diseased section of the city isn’t one that I think of favorably.”
Does this kind of scenario make you wonder how you would react?
Hanna Mangan Lawrence: [Laughing] “I mean, just if I was pregnant how would I react?! That’s what I kept thinking. I was like could you imagine you’re in this part of the city and it’s sectioned off, you can’t get out and not just that but I am about to give birth, already scared because I am so young and having a baby this young and running away… You’ve got all these things on your mind. I don’t really know how she’s coping as much as she is.”
Being in Atlanta where it was so hot, how was it wearing that pregnancy prosthetic?
Hanna Mangan Lawrence: “It was quite good because I’m always wearing clothes so it didn’t have to be a full prosthetic, so it wasn’t as heavy which didn’t make me as hot. But it was kind of like this really sexy leotard with a massive belly, just kind of pillow material. But I did have a cute bellybutton that had popped. I had ice packs on my back and when I would take it off at the end of the day, it was just drenched in sweat.”
What was your reaction the first time you saw yourself in the pregnancy belly?
Hanna Mangan Lawrence: “I guess I was like when I do become pregnant I hope I don’t put weight on anywhere else like my character did. I was like, ‘That’s great. It’s just there and not anywhere else.’ It’s probably not a realistic view of what’s going to happen.”
Will we see her bond with anyone that outside of the quarantine she might not have connected with?
Hanna Mangan Lawrence: “Yeah, and I think that’s something that’s really interesting about our show is that me being an 18 year old pregnant girl and then interacting with people who are completely different from all walks of life. You would never meet them; you would never interact and you do, which creates such interesting drama, interesting stories. I’m really excited for everyone to see that.”
What do you think it is that makes Containment stand out?
Hanna Mangan Lawrence: “I think the special thing about our show is that, yes, it is a disease show but ultimately you’ve got these really strong characters and strong stories. It’s really about that. It’s about love. It’s about common and normal everyday things put into an extraordinary situation. I think that is just going to really grip people.”
Jack Huston from ‘Ben-Hur’ at the 2016 CinemaCon (Photo Courtesy of Paramount Pictures)
Paramount Pictures’ presentation at the 2016 CinemaCon in Las Vegas had plenty of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, new clips from Ben-Hur, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, and even a little Baywatch. But, surprisingly, the studio did not show off any footage from Star Trek Beyond even though there were posters promoting the film and the goodie bags given to attendees had Star Trek Beyond emblazoned on them.
Simon Pegg and J.J. Abrams were on hand for the Showman of the Year award presentation, however, the studio didn’t offer up any footage from the upcoming Star Trek film which Abrams is producing.
Kicking off the annual gathering of the National Association of Theatre Owners in Las Vegas, Paramount Pictures began their presentation by confirming Transformers 5, 6, and 7 are heading to theaters in June 2017, June 2018, and June 2019. Then after calling the new Turtles film – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows – explosive, Paramount Pictures’ Vice-Chairman Rob Moore brought Megan Fox and Will Arnett to the stage at the Coliseum in Caesars Palace to promote the film. Arnett took the stage pretending to be on the phone and then joined Fox at the podium to joke about who were the real stars of the film.
Fox said the Turtles are definitely the leads while Arnett, of course, claimed it’s all about him. Then a pizza delivery arrived which led to one of the most bizarre CinemaCon moments in recent history, with Arnett and Fox delivering it to some guy named Adam in the audience. The crowd wasn’t into the bit, mostly because it felt like a private joke that we weren’t let in on. Back on the stage after making the pizza delivery, Arnett munched on a piece while saying the new film’s action is bigger this time around. That was followed by a lengthy collection of clips that focused on the action and showed off more of Arrow star Stephen Amell’s character, Casey Jones.
Next up was the presentation for Ben-Hur and although Morgan Freeman wasn’t at CinemaCon, he voiced the introduction to the clips and to the film’s star, Jack Huston. Huston said the upcoming epic is a story of betrayal, redemption, survival, acceptance, and compassion, and he believes the film will work well with modern audiences because of its themes. The audience seemed to be into the clips shown which featured chariot races, harrowing stunts, and scenes with Huston, Toby Kebbell, and Morgan Freeman.
Tom Cruise wowed the CinemaCon audience in 2015, however, this year Cruise wasn’t available but did record a video message for the annual theatre owners gathering. Cruise said he’s currently in London and that he’ll begin shooting Mission: Impossible 6 this fall. He’s busy working on Jack Reacher: Never Go Back now with Edward Zwick (the two worked together previously on The Last Samurai) directing and Cobie Smulders co-starring.
Cruise revealed Smulders’ character has Reacher’s old job and that the new film will have more twists and turns – as well as Reacher once again warning people about things that are about to happen. Cruise said it’s a privilege to work on the film series based on the bestselling books, calling Jack Reacher an “analog character in a digital world.” Never-before-seen clips were screened, showing Cruise once again doing incredibly difficult stunts.
Paramount then proceeded to show off their potential Oscar bait, confirming Denzel Washington will direct and star in Fences alongside Viola Davis. Washington and Davis are reuniting for the dramatic film after winning Tony Awards for their performances on stage. The previously untitled World War II spy movie from director Robert Zemeckis is now officially known as Allied and will arrive in theaters on November 23, 2016. Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard star, and the studio showed off a brief clip of footage from the film which was absolutely gorgeous. Last in the Oscar bait category is Florence Foster Jenkins releasing in theaters on August 12th, pushing Ben-Hur to August 19th.
Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner were the next stars to take the CinemaCon stage, there to promote a film that is now on my must-see list following the screening of some incredible footage. Renner and Adams star in Story of Your Life from Sicario director Denis Villeneuve, and Renner won over the audience by saying he did the film because of Amy (the two also worked together on American Hustle).
“It’s Amy’s story and there’s not enough cinema in Hollywood with a strong, badass, intelligent female lead,” he said. Adams returned the compliment, calling Renner amazing and saying he brings so much to the film. The footage screened set up the story of Adams’ character as a linguist brought onto a team to try and figure out what aliens who’ve just landed on earth are trying to say and figure out their intentions.
Vin Diesel, another popular guy with the CinemaCon crowd, couldn’t make it to Vegas but sent a tape from the set of xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. Diesel is very proud of the film and is having fun reprising the role of Xander Cage.
Last but not least, Paramount showed a video of Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, and Kelly Rohrbach in bikinis/briefs. The Baywatch stars joked around about the appeal of the film, with Johnson saying the team kicks ass on the beach. The footage screened had a lot of skin, a lot of action, and Zac and Dwayne talking about their testicles in a clip from the film.
J.J. Abrams and Simon Pegg at the 2016 CinemaCon (Photo by Todd Williamson/Getty Images for CinemaCon)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams was named CinemaCon’s Showman of the Year and the busy filmmaker took the stage on April 11, 2016 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to accept the award from his good friend and frequent collaborator Simon Pegg. Abrams was named Showman of the Year by the National Association of Theatre Owners, and Paramount Pictures Vice-Chairman Rob Moore called him a visionary and a dreamer before bringing Pegg to the stage to finish Abrams’ introduction.
Pegg joked that while most moviegoers know Abrams as a writer, director, and producer, he’s also an actor. But, added Pegg, if you didn’t catch Abrams in Six Degrees of Separation you should consider yourself lucky. There’s apparently a good reason Abrams isn’t widely recognized as an actor. Labeling his friend an epoch defining filmmaker, Pegg described Abrams as a man, a dad, a husband, and a friend – only one of which applies to Pegg and Abrams’ relationship, joking that the two were recently married in a top secret ceremony.
Accepting the award, Abrams said movies have always been an important part of his life. Conceding that he was never athletic or popular, Abrams recalled how films were an escape and how some of his favorite experiences have happened in theaters. He’s living his dream now, being able to stand on the bridge of the Enterprise and take a seat in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, and he’s even embraced 3D technologies after initially being resistant. Abrams urged NATO members to accept new possibilities in the way movies are viewed by audiences, saying, “We have to do everything we can in this age of piracy to adapt.” He added, “There’s nothing better than going to the movies, and there never will be.”
Finishing up his acceptance speech, Abrams thanked both Paramount – the home of most of his films – and Disney. He also said the upcoming Star Trek Beyond, which he’s producing and Justin Lin is directing, will be the most thrilling Star Trek yet.
M Night Shyamalan and Blake Crouch from Fox’s ‘Wayward Pines’ at WonderCon (Photo by Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)
Fox returns to the bizarre world of Wayward Pines for season two beginning on May 25, 2016 at 9pm ET/PT, and at WonderCon executive producer M. Night Shyamalan and author Blake Crouch promised the new season will answer questions left lingering about the ‘abbies’ (short for aberrations). Teaming up to discuss the second season, Shyamalan and Crouch also revealed they plan to finish the story over three seasons, if Fox renews the show following season two.
The Wayward Pines Season 2 Plot: The second season will pick up after the shocking events of Season One, with the residents of Wayward Pines battling against the iron-fisted rule of the First Generation. Dr. Theo Yedlin (Jason Patric) – a new resident of Wayward Pines – awakens from suspended animation and finds himself in the middle of this rebellion, as he tries to understand what Wayward Pines really is and help preserve the endangered human race.
M. Night Shyamalan and Blake Crouch Interview:
What was the appeal of making the books into a series?
M. Night Shyamalan: “I love all stories that are contained but there’s something giant going on outside, whether it’s like Signs where it’s the end of the world but from a family’s perspective. This is that. The idea that Blake came up with is exactly that vibe. I wish I’d come up with it. [Laughing] I take credit for it as much as I can when Blake’s not around. Blake’s not real – that’s my pen name. But, I do like the contained feelings of what the human beings like. I’m not the big spectacle guy. ‘Add more space ships, add more space ships, add more…’ It’s more sound effects and keep it insinuated. Blake’s ideas are always insinuated. For so long in the whole first novel you don’t even know what’s going on. It falls in line with that thinking so we’re always telling the writers, ‘Slow down. Slow down. Yes, you’re going to reveal that but wait. Wait.’ They’re like, ‘How long?’ We’re like, ‘Maybe four episodes.’ ‘What?!’ ‘Slow down.'”
Are there any new sets we visit this season?
M. Night Shyamalan: “Well, it is Wayward Pines…there’s not a lot of land.”
Blake Crouch: “Not a big annex. Wayward Pines West.”
M. Night Shyamalan: “But we are outside the fence a little bit. This season we learn about the abbies so that’s the big exception.”
Blake Crouch: “There was much more time outside the fence this season.”
With all of your projects, how much time do you actually get to spend with Wayward Pines?
M. Night Shyamalan: “You know what? That’s a great question. I would say right now too much time. You agree?”
Blake Crouch: “I agree!”
M. Night Shyamalan: [Laughing] Always on the phone. You can’t get out of Wayward Pines! Literally, my hotel room is just Wayward Pines stuff, like piles. When I’m on the plane ride I’m organizing what I’m going to read and watch for Wayward Pines. It’s addictive, you know? The fun part, I guess maybe you’re the same way, I very much need to have that buzz all the time, a creative buzz. The outline from 207 is there and then you can watch the dailies from 204. You can call the actor about the 205 notes that he had. It’s always [something]. It’s fun. My wife would say it’s terrible, like a crack addiction. And I’m sure the writers are like, ‘Night’s on the phone again.’ I should put a camera on that side so when I’m calling from Philly and they’re like [rolling their eyes].”
This was originally planned as an event series. How did the fact season one was so popular affect the way you approached the story?
M. Night Shyamalan: “Well, you know, it was a very serious thing what you’re talking about. For me, I get really hyped about not taking advantage of opportunities to reduce the quality of storytelling. Say they say, ‘We guarantee you and Blake you can have 10 seasons of this,’ that’s a no. We came together and we said this was fantastic and for me I said to him, ‘Your premise is so powerful, I want to finish talking about what it means, the implications.’ We actually just got to do in the first season is just present the premise and didn’t actually get to talk about what that means to be the last town, what are the abbies, all the Biblical stuff that I love. So we sat together and…”
Blake Crouch: “We approached it a little bit like Jurassic Park. There’s a line where Jeff Goldblum’s like, ‘Just because you can do something, should you do it?’ and that was like the related conversation that we had over the summer as we’re realizing that people are very much responding to this. I think we both went in very skeptical that we would do a second season. We wanted to just kind of sit for a few days and talk in the broadest of terms about why we would continue this story and did we have something very important to say in a finite structure. We walked out of those days feeling like, ‘Yes, we have something very big to say.’ Bigger even than the first season. That’s why we did it.”
M. Night Shyamalan: “We went and kind of thought of the end and then said, ‘How many episodes would it take to tell that story?’ So I think the beauty of where we are now with television is you can fit the format to the story now, and you don’t want it to suddenly… It had such a structure to it, the first season had a structure like what was holding up the tent – the poles – and we wanted it to have the same kind of thing where you could tell we’re aiming towards them. I love the analogy but just finding more people on the island, you’re aiming toward a thing and we’re letting you in on it one episode at a time to where we’re going.”
Blake Crouch: “That’s why it consumes our lives right now because it’s inventing the wheel every new episode. I’m so jealous of the procedural model because that seems like – I know it’s not easy but you kind of know what you’re doing where this is hard every single time. You want to make sure you’re leaving nothing on the field. Each episode is a revelation of what this idea is and where the characters are.”
Is Tales from the Crypt going to be a new story each week or would you consider the American Horror Story model?
M. Night Shyamalan: “I can’t say 100% but I’m thinking it’s more…right now where I am, if you would have asked me this six months ago I would have had a different answer but where I am right now is more individual Black Mirror type of stuff.”
Will there be a crypt keeper?
M. Night Shyamalan: “Yes.”
Does this give you an additional outlet a lot of authors don’t necessarily have to be able to continue working with your creation but in a new media that you’re involved with?
Blake Crouch: “Yeah, it does and it’s really exciting and fulfilling. When I finished The Last Town I was and still am 95% sure I’m not going to write another Wayward Pines book. That was like five years of my life doing that and I’m doing new things now. I feel like I’ve said everything in that medium that I’m going to say about this town and I would rather leave people wanting more than they’re full of this meal and let’s move on to the next thing. So, yeah, it’s amazing to get to explore it in a different medium.”
Without any spoilers, how much of the second season is going to be outside of the walls?
M. Night Shyamalan: “It’s a very contained piece. We can say the second season is about the abbies. It seems at the end of the first season you have a primitive understanding of what that is, what an abby is but that’s actually not what an abby is.”
Are you going to leave the end of the second season open?
Blake Crouch: “I mean I think we have an idea for how the show would end and it’s a question of are we fortunate enough to get to tell that story beyond season two.”
M. Night Shyamalan: “Yeah, we’re – I think we can say, I think we’re allowed to but I’ll just say it anyway – it’s a three season story. If we get the opportunity to tell the third and final season, then we finish the story. [Laughing] If we didn’t, we don’t and I guess we’re all screwed.”
It has to end after three?
Blake Crouch: “Absolutely.”
M. Night Shyamalan: “Not with us. It won’t be with us.”
How does it feel to see your town realized?
Blake Crouch: “It’s amazing. It’s even crazier to go up and actually walk through the sets in Vancouver. The first image I ever had of the books of Wayward Pines was a little snow globe on Sheriff Pope’s desk. It’s in the books and it’s a whole thing of it because it’s the model of the town. It’s a town in glass. They had recreated that snow globe and when I went up there I was like, ‘That’s so cool!’ The neatest thing when they wrapped production on season one they’re like, ‘Do you guys want anything?’ I was like, ‘Can I have the snow globe? That’s all I want.’ Now the snow globe sits on my desk.”
Julie Plec surrounded by the ‘Containment’ cast at WonderCon (Photo by Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)There’s not a vampire or a witch to be found in Julie Plec’s new The CW series Containment premiering on April 19, 2016 at 9pm ET/PT. Instead, the threat in the new show from The Vampire Diaries and The Originals series creator/executive producer is a highly contagious disease that shuts down the city of Atlanta and forces the citizens into quarantine. During the 2016 WonderCon in Los Angeles, Plec answered our questions about the new series and why the subject matter appealed to her.
Julie Plec Interview:
Do you ever worry about spreading yourself too thin?
Julie Plec: “Yes, every day, and yet somehow the more I take on I manage to find myself less stressed out and less worried than I ever did on any given day of season one of The Vampire Diaries. There’s pros and cons to taking on a lot of different projects, obviously. The pros is you get to diversify your creativity and your relationships, and also you get to exercise that ambitious side of us that exists everywhere. You want to be doing things all the time. The cons is that you don’t get to dive in 1000% on any one. But let me tell you, diving in 1000% is painful. It’s a beautiful pain, but it’s painful. And so I sleep better and I cry less the more projects I take on. So, it’s got a good side and a bad side.”
So you’ll just take on another dozen and be perfectly happy?
Julie Plec: [Laughing] “Then I’ll just die. My body will just give out. Even though my heart will be in it, my body’s going to be like, ‘No, sorry, we’re done!'”
What made you think the original foreign series would be good for American television?
Julie Plec: “You know, it’s funny because I realize I never asked myself that particular question: would this be good for American television? Because, for, me as an American watching the Belgian show I just thought it was so spectacular and so I thought if I have the opportunity to tell this story, too, then I’m in. It never occurred to me that there might be somebody, a fan of American television, who might find it too dark or too bleak or anything like that because to me it’s so powerful and emotional and weirdly romantic and suspenseful – and all those things that I love when I watch TV, so I have pretty good confidence that it will translate. It’s obviously extremely universally troubling. It could happen. It has happened in its own way across the globe and it could happen to us any day, especially in a city where the CDC takes up its roots. So there’s a little bit of gross and wicked ‘what if’ fun to be had with it as well.”
Your projects have never been light, fluffy, happy things, so do you just love this dark world?
Julie Plec: “Well you know what I love to do is I love to explore a dark world with really light themes. Or, dark themes in a lighter circumstance. I like love. I like finding stories about love and the more you can make the world surrounding that relationship really troubling and really tumultuous, the more inherit conflicts there are to separate love. That’s the root of the storytelling I love the most is fighting for the one that means the most to you. It actually provides a lot of really great story.”
Who is the ‘it’ couple people will be rooting for?
Julie Plec: “Well hopefully people will make their own choice although I will say having watched the Belgian series that I was very, very smitten with Jake and Katie. There’s a lot of things we’re doing the same; there’s a lot of things we’re doing differently and so we’ll see. But, you can see in the pilot that there’s a little sense of, ‘Who are you handsome, interesting cop that’s going to sleep 10 feet away from me for the next god knows how many days?'”
Is there something you’re really excited to explore in this world of this show that you haven’t gotten to explore before?
Julie Plec: “There are a lot of things, both on the practical level and the creative level. Practically, I loved being able to be in the city that was itself. I love being able to show the Georgia Department of Public Health, the capitol building, in the way that it must have been thrilling making a political show set in D.C. To be able to photograph that world and write to that world and actually shoot in that world is really great.
I loved not having to come up with a mystical consequence or a mystical solution. Or have, ‘We’re in trouble so what can we have the witch do to save the day?’ I loved the idea that there really was no solution and that people just had to rely on their own basic human response, their instincts to get through the day. There’s something very pure and simple about all that that I really enjoyed. It’s like writing – there’s an episode where a man refuses to leave a building that’s meant to be demolished and Lex (played by David Gyasi) has to go in and talk to him about that. We think it has almost nothing to do with the quarantine itself but it was just a man who was dissatisfied in the city. There’s pages and pages of these two talking and it’s the most beautiful thing. It’s so real and it’s about real problems. Not to marginalize what I do in The Vampire Diaries because we do dabble in real life relationships stuff really well, but just to write two people talking was a real thrill.”
When you’re dealing with an outbreak like this, do you worry about still giving that sense of hope for the viewers who are watching?
Julie Plec: “Yes. As a fan of apocalyptic programming whether I Am Legend or the book The Stand, the things like Contagion, 28 Days Later, all those things that I loved as a fan, I have found that when there isn’t some glimmer of hope to latch onto, that I walk away feeling so distressed and not in a good way. Like, emotionally unsettled and unsatisfied. So everything I do I try to make sure that you do get a sense of, ‘Hey, we’ll make it through this.’ Or, ‘If we don’t make it through this, we’re together.’ That love will conquer all in whatever way that means. And so the stakes, the risk is huge, but it is not just the ticking clock that winds down to the catastrophe because that would just be depressing.”
Do you have someone from the CDC always on set?
Julie Plec: “Yeah, we had someone from the CDC read the scripts. We will send them every episode when it’s done. They go through it. They will breakdown anything they feel is unrealistic or if we’re getting the language wrong. They’ll sort of tell us what to make sure to look out for. We have a medical technician who will come to set when we’re doing anything with doctors, medicine, etc. who makes sure we’re handling that right and we preserve the integrity of the science and that kind of thing. The good news is we feel pretty well researched, so anything that we did wrong we either did it wrong on purpose because it made more sense that way or a whole group of people really screwed up.”
Watch the full interview with Julie Plec on Contagion:
Julia Louis-Dreyfus in season five of ‘Veep’ (Photo: Lacey Terrell / HBO)
HBO’s Emmy-winning half-hour comedy series VEEP will return for a fifth season beginning on April 24, 2016 at 10:30pm ET/PT with Julia Louis-Dreyfus back as now-President Selina Meyer. The second season of the critically acclaimed series will also feature Tony Hale, Anna Chlumsky, Matt Walsh, Reid Scott, Timothy Simons, Sufe Bradshaw, Kevin Dunn, Gary Cole, and Sam Richardson. Returning as guest stars during the upcoming season are John Slattery, Sarah Sutherland, and Hugh Laurie.
Armando Iannucci created VEEP and David Mandel, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Frank Rich, Chris Godsick, and Lew Morton executive produce.
The Season 5 Plot: President Selina Meyer is in the midst of a virtually unprecedented Electoral College tie, with her future as commander in chief coming down to just a few hundred votes. While Amy and Dan work on a long shot to victory, Selina finds herself spinning her wheels in D.C., as her staff strives to make her seem presidential (even though she actually is President), at the same time fending off the ambitions of Tom James, her charismatic running mate, who in a twist of obscure constitutional procedure could end up becoming president.
VEEP April and May 2016 Episodes:
Episode #39 (season 5, episode 1): “Morning After”
Debut: SUNDAY, APRIL 24 (10:30-11:00 p.m. ET/PT)
Other HBO playdates: April 24 (12:30 a.m., 3:30 a.m.), 26 (4:25 a.m.), 27 (9:30 p.m.), 28 (10:05 p.m., 4:30 a.m.) and 29 (3:25 a.m.)
HBO2 playdates: April 25 (8:00 p.m.), 29 (5:30 p.m.) and 30 (4:40 a.m.), and May 15 (9:00 a.m.)
On the night after the election, Selina discovers a possible road to victory. Meanwhile, Amy must figure out if she is back or not; Catherine kicks off a behind-the-scenes documentary project; Mike announces that he and Wendy (Kathy Najimy) are adopting a baby from China; and Dan considers a new career.
Written by David Mandel; directed by Chris Addison.
Episode #40 (season 5, episode 2): “Nev-ah-da”
Debut: SUNDAY, MAY 1 (10:30-11:00 p.m.)
Other HBO playdates: May 1 (12:30 a.m., 3:00 a.m.), 3 (5:00 a.m.), 4 (8:30 p.m.), 5 (11:00 p.m., 5:30 a.m.) and 6 (3:10 a.m.)
HBO2 playdates: May 2 (8:00 p.m.), 6 (5:00 p.m.), 7 (1:45 p.m., 1:45 a.m.) and 15 (9:30 a.m.)
Amy, Dan, Jonah and Richard try to win the presidency for Selina. Back in D.C., Selina brings in respected Washington fixture Bob Bradley (Martin Mull), aka “The Eagle,” and, after nudging out Tom James on the newly created banking task force, meets billionaire banker Charlie Baird. Meanwhile, Mike tries to get healthy before his baby arrives; Kent investigates Sue’s age; and Amy and Dan share a charged moment.
Written by Lew Morton; directed by Chris Addison.
Episode #41 (season 5, episode 3): “The Eagle”
Debut: SUNDAY, MAY 8 (10:30-11:00 p.m.)
Other HBO playdates: May 8 (12:30 a.m., 3:30 a.m.), 10 (5:20 a.m.), 11 (8:30 p.m.), 12 (10:00 p.m., 5:30 a.m.) and 13 (4:25 a.m.)
HBO2 playdates: May 9 (8:00 p.m.), 13 (5:15 p.m.), 14 (5:45 p.m., 5:20 a.m.) and 15 (10:00 a.m.)
Mike must deal with the consequences of Selina’s tweet. Feeling usurped by Bob, Amy begins to be troubled by his behavior. At a museum gala, Gary finds himself the belle of the ball.
Written by Steve Koren; directed by Chris Addison.
Episode #42 (season 5, episode 4): “Mother”
Debut: SUNDAY, MAY 15 (10:30-11:00 p.m.)
Other HBO playdates: May 15 (12:30 a.m., 3:30 a.m.), 17 (5:25 a.m.), 18 (8:30 p.m.), 19 (10:30 p.m., 5:15 a.m.) and 20 (1:40 a.m.)
HBO2 playdates: May 16 (8:00 p.m.), 20 (5:30 p.m.) and 21 (10:50 a.m., 1:50 a.m.)
Selina rushes to the hospital while attempting to win the presidency. Amy and Dan discover the O’Brien camp has staged a fake protest, and task Jonah and Richard with organizing their own pro-POTUS demonstration. Mike and Wendy meet with a potential surrogate.
Written by Alex Gregory & Peter Huyck; directed by Dale Stern.
Kyle Chandler in ‘Bloodline’ season two (Photo by Saeed Adyani/Netflix)
Based solely on the new trailer it appears Netflix’s season two of Bloodline is going to be even better than season one. If you haven’t binged on season one, you still have time to catch up before season two arrives on May 27, 2016. The hour-long drama stars Kyle Chandler, Ben Mendelsohn, Linda Cardellini, Norbert Leo Butz, Jacinda Barrett, Jamie McShane, Enrique Murciano, and Sissy Spacek. The series was created by Todd A. Kessler, Daniel Zelman, and Glenn Kessler.
Season one of Bloodline set the bar high, earning Golden Globe, Emmy, and Critics’ Choice nominations, along with a nomination from the Writers Guild of America.
The Plot: Set in the Florida Keys, Bloodline centers on a close-knit family of four adult siblings whose secrets and scars are revealed when their black sheep brother returns home. For season two, the tagline reads “You can’t escape the past.” The Rayburns struggle to conceal an unthinkable crime and begin to unravel in the midst of mounting lies, betrayal, and paranoia.”
The CW’s new dramatic series Containment is set to debut on April 19, 2016 with Chris Wood, Christina Moses, Trevor St. John, Kristen Gutoskie, David Gyasi, Hanna Mangan Lawrence, George Young, and Claudia Black in starring roles. Created by The Vampire Diaries‘ Julie Plec, Containment‘s set in Atlanta and takes place immediately after a deadly epidemic breaks out that forces the authorities to quarantine the city. Teaming up to discuss the series during the 2016 WonderCon, Chris Wood and Christina Moses talked about their characters and explained why they were drawn to the project. Wood told us he likes to describe Containment by saying viewers will come for the horror and the situation and the landscape and they’ll stay for the relationshps. “It’s really a story of humanity. That’s the beauty of it,” said Wood.
Chris Wood and Christina Moses Interview:
How much has this changed the way you think about touching people?
Chris Wood: “For me, it’s more in public places where it’s very crowded or if I go to a doctor’s office or a hospital. I just don’t want to be around it. I was in a hospital a few weeks ago and when I walked in there, it was the first time I’d been in one in real life since doing the show and it just sort of freaked me out differently. Probably because that’s one of the sets on the show that my character lives in. I actually sleep in the hospital in Containment all the time, so I actually had a reaction, a physical reaction, when I walked in.”
Why does your character sleep in a hospital?
Chris Wood: “It’s where I get stuck. It’s just where I happen to be when it starts. You have to make headquarters. If your house isn’t within the radius, you have to find a place to stay and it seemed like the safest place, I guess.”
Christina Moses: “And a lot of people get stuck there, so once you’re in they won’t let you out. Wherever you kind of end up, unless you happen to live inside the quarantined area, you stay where they tell you.”
What do you think would be the hardest thing about being quarantined?
Christina Moses: “I would be trapped and not have freedom, and fearing for my life. Not having good food, access to good food…everything I take for granted just taken away.”
Would you be someone who panics or would you be able to rationally decide what to do next?
Chris Wood: “I think I’d be calm, sort of that eerie calm you get in chaos sometimes where all of a sudden your overdrive kicks in and it’s like, ‘We have to make decisions to stay alive.’ I feel like I would do that, but maybe it’s just wishful thinking. [Laughing] Maybe I’d just panic and then run into someone with the virus.”
Christina Moses: “I would think that I would panic, but I’ve obviously never been in anything that horrendous and life-threatening. But there’s times where I’ve been surprisingly calm, clear-headed, and can handle what needs to be handled in the moment. But, I wouldn’t be able to maintain that. Maybe I’d do both. I think that’s actually what’s great about our show is you don’t know that about yourself. You think you know that about yourself. You think you know who you are.”
Chris Wood: “You can’t even imagine how you would react because it’s all so instinctual. It’s instincts kicking in to protect yourself and the people with you. It changes based on what’s happening. It’s hard to know what you would do, and it’s terrifying.”
Christina Moses: “And you get to discover it with us.”
How do you develop your character when you have such a short time to introduce them before you get trapped and they change their personalities?
Chris Wood: “That’s something that I think’s the strength of the first episode alone in telling us who these people are, how they tick, what you can assume they’re going to be like once they’re trapped or once they’re trying to help from the outside. You can see who they are in the form of the person as they arrive in the situation and then it leaves us the room to watch these characters evolve. Through the reactions and the relationships they forge you see how they change. I think that’s the strength of the first episode. The writing and the structure of it, you really do actually meet the truth of each character and then you get to carry that forward to watch them change because it will change. It wouldn’t have been a truthful story if the characters didn’t change.”
Christina Moses: “No one would be interested. That’s what we watch TV and films for is to go on these journeys, to watch them discover things about themselves and also as the viewer to discover it before they do. I think that’s the best when you discover what they haven’t yet about themselves. That’s good writing and good acting, and good storytelling.”
Was there one thing about your character you latched onto, that no matter how they changed remains the same?
Christina Moses: “Yes, her strength and her ability to survive. Even though she wants to keep people [away], she can’t. Her heart won’t let her when it comes down to it. That’s something that becomes a lot stronger for her as the season goes on.”
Chris Wood: “His heroism. His ability to step up. This is someone who could have been a leader but chose to be a follower and is more comfortable in that position. I think that’s a beautiful story to tell is one of someone who takes the second position, who doesn’t want the spotlight, who would rather just sort of coast through and not have to deal with the highs and the lows that come with leading. He’d rather just coast and that’s how that person protects himself. That’s how Jake prevents the hurt is that he passes by maintaining this sort of boring equilibrium and he’s sort of closed off. For me that’s what resonated just reading the first episode when I wanted to go into the project. You can see through the cracks that he’s really there, and I think that’s the beauty of the whole show is that every character’s story is one of who they are through the cracks. They have to break through that and the containment situation actually forces it out of them. That’s sort of why we love disaster stories, I think, is extreme circumstances bring out the best and worst. It brings out the truth; it brings out who someone is. I think that’s why people will respond to the show is because that is true. The writing really explores that.”
Does the fact the show’s about a deadly disease make you nervous your character could get killed off?
Chris Wood: “Zero job security! It’s like, ‘Hmmm, let me pick a show where people have to die.’ People will die and that’s definitely a factor.”
Christina Moses: “But that’s the fun of it, too. But the thing is it’s the heart of the story – the humanity, the love stories, who we become and who we discover ourselves to be, the truth that’s revealed – that’s the juice. That’s what’s fun to play.”
Chris Wood: “And if we get to do that for one season or whether we get to do it for six, whether the show goes that long or whether we’re in the show ourselves, that’s the kind of storytelling that as actors I think we’re all hungry to do. It’s the kind of story that maybe doesn’t end the way you want it to, you know? Sometimes those are the best. Game of Thrones has sort of proven that. I’m a firm believer that as long as it’s got the meat and the heart, it doesn’t matter about the duration.”
Christina Moses: “It’s all about the story.”
The series is described as dark. Are there any lighter moments?
Chris Wood: “Oh yeah. It actually lives more in the light.”
Christina Moses: “There’s so many beautiful, touching moments. Oh yeah, it wouldn’t work otherwise. You have to have those redeeming qualities otherwise it just is too heavy.”
Chris Wood: “The writers had a big mantra written on their board which was for the season as a general theme and also for each episode. The three crucial ingredients were the ‘Three Hs’ which were horror, heart, and holy shit. So, every part of our show contains that.”
Watch the full Chris Wood and Christina Moses interview:
