Showing posts with label Hap and Leonard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hap and Leonard. Show all posts

Saturday, July 17, 2021

1st Anniversary of Amazon Original Series "El Candidato" - Will there be a 2nd season?

  
Today is the one-year anniversary of "El Candidato" (Amazon Prime Original), a 10-episode series created by Peter Blake. It's a gritty, edgy, narco-crime thriller. It takes place in Mexico City. 

Without knowing about the likelihood of seeing a second season, I first thought about how it could resume from where it left off after the last episode of the first season. However, as much as I really love it as an international drama, I enjoy imagining how the show could break with the format or genre, even just for one episode. 

Usually, Amazon's original series have never allowed a standalone episode, at least not that I've seen. Other shows have dared to do it and have done it well. In season 3, for example, of “Breaking Bad” with "The Fly," or Season 5 of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the musical “Once More with Feeling.” “Stranger Things” in its second season made an unpopular standalone episode mainly because it focused on new characters that didn't appear ever again. 

A change from the format also means the writers can stray from the genre, as in, introduce comedy to a drama or play with fantasy outside of the show's typical realistic style. Sometimes it works well when it explores deeper the psyche of a character especially if it can be a standalone episode to take their personality quirks to another level.

As usual, my imagination kind of runs wild, so here are some fun predicaments, some plausible and some not so much:

Referencing how they tried to cover for something happening off the books in episode one, what if Isabel Alfaro (Eréndira Ibarra) and Wayne Addison (James Purefoy) really did go to a karaoke bar? Could it really be Wayne, in tribute to Elvis, singing "Heartbreak Hotel"? Does Isa secretly film it? Yes, indeed, she does, and she posts it online for all his enemies to see. And then comes the wrath the day after. (I confess, Latino pop songs are my weakness so I imagine Isa would be  culturally appropriate in picking a song for her own karaoke spotlight.)

Isabel, aka Isa, is talked into training a rookie CIA agent, who was part of a gang of Chola girls from Echo Park in Los Angeles. Isa clashes with the rookie because she recognizes herself from 15 years ago. After Isa loses a bet, the rookie gives Isa a makeover for one day. It's definitely against the standard image of a CIA agent. (Isa talks about her dark past a couple of times in season one, so her being asked to train this girl is plausible).
Lalo (José María de Tavira), currently mayor of Mexico City, is campaigning to become President of Mexico. The campaign office's computer servers are subject to a ransomware attack in which if he doesn’t do what they say, they’ll reveal information about drug cartels who are funding his campaign. They can regain access to the servers if Lalo finds a boy who was separated from his adoptive parents at the border. The boy was fathered by narco leader Rafael Bautista, and the mother gave up the boy for adoption. He finds the boy, but the child is against being reunited with his adoptive parents and wants Lalo to be his father. (Lalo was not hip on the idea he could be a father in season one).
30-second scene #1, in monochrome. Music scores the scene like in a 1970s spaghetti western-style of “Final Duel” and “Death Rattle” by Ennio Morricone from Once Upon a Time in the West. An owl flies down to land on a Santa Muerte display. Rafael Bautista's (Joaquín Cosio) voice is calling "Wayne," from inside the skeleton. Wayne Addison walks by and hears it. Stops in disbelief. It's midnight and no one else is around. He looks at the statue and Bautista's face flashes for a second. And then Wayne, startled by the vivid dream, wakes up, and the screen switches to color and the sun is beaming into the room. He's looking for something. The camera passes over the gun on the nightstand by the bed, the empty liquor bottle, and then pauses on the honey BBQ corn chips. Wayne grins with satisfaction while reaching for the bag.

Go back to when Wayne tells Isa in the first episode to keep her hands off his honey BBQ Fritos or he'd kill her. Bautista prays to Santa Muerte aka "The White Lady" in several episodes. (NOTE: Eva Aridjis is one of the staff writers for "El Candidato" and made her own documentary about Santa Muerte that was released in 2007.)
30-second scene #2. Wayne, while recovering from his leg injury from the shoot-out at his place, receives a present, and when he unwraps it, he notices the card is signed by Nestor, thanking him for getting him a bed at a decent rehab facility near the ocean. Wayne picks up a cane from the box and pulls on the handle, revealing it is a custom-made sword cane. Why? There are not enough opportunities in TV and film for characters to use sword canes in fight scenes anymore. Once presented, it definitely has to be used later. 

o SPOILER NOTE:
Nestor is the character who was coerced to be the fake secret operative, "Penumbra." Isa has to be a badass on top of her already badass-ness to acquire Nestor's drugs so he can stop having withdrawals and suddenly he's unreliable. The eighth episode, "Fireside Chat," is so exciting and, in my opinion, exhibits superior acting, writing, and directing. It is distinctively apparent with "Fireside Chat" that James Purefoy had much more freedom to stretch in this show. It's thrilling to watch him go for it in depicting Wayne's desperation when he's in the hotel's bathroom.

I'm also a fan of the 7th episode "En la ciudad de la furia" (In the city of fury) because the history fills in why something transpired in the third episode with Ted Malek (David Fridman).

Finally, it would be amazing to pull off a crossover episode using mistaken identity between two characters working a case separately for different purposes. I've never seen it done before in which an actor has starred on two different shows years apart from each other would play two characters in merging the two shows into a crossover. The premise is that you have Hap Collins crossing into "El Candidato" territory from "Hap and Leonard" with his buddy Leonard Pine (Michael Kenneth Williams), and unbeknownst to each other Wayne Addison is working the same case as theirs, but not necessarily sharing scenes together. James Purefoy gets to portray two of our favorite crime-fighting characters! 
Imagine a scene in which Hap and Wayne almost cross paths, missing each other by two seconds. They both stop like they sensed something weird, and then shake it off and keep going forward to wherever it was they were going.

When Leonard mistakes Wayne for Hap out in public and then freaks out when Wayne says, "I've never seen you before in my life. I'm not your buddy, but I hope you find him." Hap returns from somewhere else and Leonard freaks out again. Hap suggests humorously that Leonard could have been hallucinating from something else in his pipe, and they bicker back and forth trying to make their point.

Or if Hap meets someone from the agency who mistakes him as Wayne. He has no idea of Wayne's secrets when they ask questions. It backfires so Wayne has to double back and fix it to keep people off his back.
 
Of course, this is most implausible, but it's really fun to write it. I admit that this is my most self-indulgent, ambitious, and risky choice. Keep it simple and focus on the comedy.

I love the "puzzles" made by David Lynch and Stephen King, yet, they tend to leave the viewer with so many unanswerable questions. There's also a tendency to over-complicate the story when involving twins, Gemini mythology, and alter-ego themes. When limited by a fixed amount of time, one can get into deep water with the overwritten psychoanalytical dialogue.

Share in the comments if you have other fun ideas for "El Candidato" or other shows you follow.

Links:

Saturday, December 05, 2020

Hap And Leonard (canceled too soon) - Adapted from Joe R. Lansdale's novels

 

In wanting to understand the versatility of James Purefoy's work as a lead up to his appearance as the character Phillipe de Clermont in the second season of "A Discovery of Witches," I've been watching some of the films and TV shows in which he stars or has some role. One of the films was Churchill (2017) as King George VI, a figure who was previously played by more than a dozen other performers. He doesn't have a significant amount of screentime, but his portrayal was so that one could easily believe he's been King George VI since he was born. He was portrayed with a vulnerability, yet nuanced with the kind of gentle authority to help us understand Churchill and him had experienced a mutual admiration.
Currently, I am nearing the end of the three brief seasons of "Hap and Leonard" (based on the novels by Joe R. Lansdale) -- streaming on Netflix. A-list directors and writers adapted the gritty action-filled drama preserving Lansdale's brutally honest, verbal tongue-in-cheek humor for the small screen, but almost every episode has a cinematic quality. They also try to make a difference while facing many obstacles over the course of three seasons. No sugarcoating and being able to tell it like it is may be what makes the show so different than the average formulaic drama.

It's also important to call attention to the excellent stunt performances. I once heard actor Nathan Fillion call stunts such as these the "Harrison Ford" style of fighting. They're actually really good at making it appear as if they feel every punch or kick. The choreography and expert editing obviously helped "Hap and Leonard" be the #1 rated drama on Sundance TV up until it was canceled after three seasons

Pairing James Purefoy (Hap) and Michael Kenneth Williams (Leonard) is brilliant because they are opposites on the surface, yet even if their banter tends to get argumentative, they're really working with each other to get through various life dilemmas. I'm enjoying this show for its quality writing and a deeper appreciation of the performances with only four remaining episodes of the 3rd season in my queue. 

Lansdale's novels reflect his own progressive values and his experience of living in one of the poorest areas of Texas. Life in those parts is about scheming for quick money and the struggle to stay out of trouble. In the series, Hap and Leonard have a scene in which Hap uses coupons and asks Leonard for 2 bucks. Lansdale sets up for us in CH. 1 how a money scheme develops starting with Trudy, Hap's wife (Christina Hendricks), who Leonard views as trouble as soon as she shows up. "Here comes trouble"... "Don't come crying over to my place if she does it to you again." Something went down in the 1960s that hurt Hap, which we soon find out. But Trudy is a character who wins our hearts and tries our patience so we, too, feel affected by every critical, heart-stopping moment just like Hap and Leonard.

The Vietnam War is a significant topic in CH. 2 of Lansdale's book Savage Season for which S1 is based, consisting of six episodes. While I could analyze several dozen well-executed scenes, I'm a little partial to one key moment in S1, when we are offered some insight into who Hap Collins is as a person and that he objected to the Vietnam War. We also learn that Leonard is a veteran having served in Vietnam, he's a Reaganite, and throughout S1, we learn about his homosexuality. We're shown the boundaries of this lifelong friendship while hearing the infamous song, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)," spontaneously coming through on a car radio. We watch Hap as he looks back on his experience with showing up at the U.S. Army's office, answering to being called to serve in the Vietnam War. He's holding the hand of wife Trudy. He chooses to be a conscientious objector and serves his time in jail. 

It wouldn't be a good drama without any villains. In S1 Jimmi Simpson plays Soldier, whose twisted humor is both gutsy and understated. He has varying levels of psychosis-with-a-smile; without hesitation will maim and kill to get what he wants. His partner in crime is Angel (Pollyanna McIntosh), described in the book as having "the constitution of a horse and a head like an iron skillet." Not wanting to spoil it further, there are more well-developed characters we meet such as Leonard's Uncle Chester, who does not accept Leonard's life choices, and we meet MeMaw, who lives across the street and is a significant figure in an unsolved mystery in S2. More gifted actors continue to join after S1 as guest starring roles. S2 is based on the book Mucho Mojo and S3 is based on the book Two-Bear Mambo.

It's a terrible shame that no one really talks about these underrated canceled shows. It's possible to watch "Hap and Leonard" in one weekend, but go back to the beginning and listen to the dialogue because it is too good to be rushed.

Links for further reading/viewing: