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The Daily Beast: "Jack Huston: Boardwalk Empire's Scene-Stealer"

HBO’s Boardwalk Empire revolves around mob feuds, illegal bootlegging, and the corruption and venality that accompanied Prohibition. But beneath the surface, the show is about grasping at the American dream. That quest for happiness has never been more vivid—nor more painfully realized—than in Boardwalk Empire ’s Richard Harrow, a Great War sniper who now kills for profit, wearing a tin half-mask. Jack Huston, the grandson of legendary director John Huston (and nephew to Anjelica and Danny Huston), is stealing nearly every scene of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire , where he plays disfigured sniper turned hitman Richard Harrow. At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " Boardwalk Empire 's Scene-Stealer," in which I talk to Huston about this week’s episode, wearing the mask, and whether Richard still has a soul.

Rolling the Dice: An Advance Review of Community's "Remedial Chaos Theory"

Warning: You do not want to miss Thursday's episode of Community . It's a given that some of the most ambitious episodes of NBC's Community are often the ones with the seemingly most straightforward concepts. Look at Season Two's fantastic "Cooperative Calligraphy" for a strong example of this: the gang at Greendale is locked in the study room when Annie's pen goes missing. A bottle episode is turned on its head (no pun intended) here, transforming a slight idea into a larger one as the group is beset by paranoia and fractures in front of our eyes. The same holds true for Thursday's upcoming episode, "Remedial Chaos Theory," another bottle episode that defies the laws of logic and probability in a way. With Dan Harmon and the writing staff achieving such dizzying heights with "Cooperative Calligraphy," it seemed nearly impossible that they would be able to approach another bottle episode with the same gonzo spirit that made the

The Daily Beast: "The Cult of Linda Hunt"

At 66 and four-feet-nine, Linda Hunt is an unlikely action heroine. But as the enigmatic Hetty Lange on NCIS: LA , Oscar winner Hunt (who won for her staggering performance as a male Indonesian-Australian dwarf in Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously ) has become a Teen Choice Award recipient and the show’s breakout character. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, entitled "The Cult of Linda Hunt," in which I sit down with the Oscar (and Teen Choice Award!) winner Hunt to discuss NCIS: Los Angeles' Hetty, The Year of Living Dangerously , water from the moon, and what the future holds. (I also talk to creator Shane Brennan and Chris O'Donnell about the remarkable Hunt and her character.) NCIS: Los Angeles airs Tuesday evenings at 9 pm ET/PT on CBS.

Brand New Day: Thoughts on the Season Premiere of The Good Wife

The wait is over. After months of waiting breathlessly for the repercussions of Alicia (Julianna Margulies) and Will (Josh Charles) entering that hotel room together (with Alicia taking control of the situation), The Good Wife returned for the start of its third season ("A New Day"), written by Robert and Michelle King, with a new night and timeslot, a new haircut for Alicia, and a new office for our erstwhile good wife, who proved this week just how bad she can be. Among other areas, The Good Wife has excelled in its handling of female sexuality, particularly in terms of how it's handled within the confines of a primetime broadcast network drama. This hasn't been a show featuring much bed-hopping from its main character, who spent the first two seasons coming to terms with her husband's infidelity, her passion towards her boss, and her decision to kick said husband to the curb after learning that he had slept with one of the few friends she had (that would

The Daily Beast: "A Gifted Man's Leading Lady: Jennifer Ehle"

Jennifer Ehle, best known for playing Elizabeth Bennet in BBC’s Pride & Prejudice , co-stars in a new CBS drama, A Gifted Man . Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, " A Gifted Man 's Leading Lady," in which I sit down with Jennifer Ehle to discuss ghost sex, Game of Thrones, A Gifted Man, Pride & Prejudice , attachment parenting, Mr. Darcy, and more. A Gifted Man begins tonight at 8 pm ET/PT on CBS.

The Daily Beast: "Inside The Good Wife Writers’ Room"

There is an emergency session underway within the writers’ room of CBS’s critically acclaimed drama, The Good Wife , which returns for its third season on Sunday, Sept. 25. With 48 hours to go, the writers—overseen by husband-and-wife creators Robert and Michelle King—must rewrite the latest script and untangle a Gordian knot to come up with a new procedural case for hotshot lawyer Alicia Florrick (recent Emmy Award winner Julianna Margulies) and the firm to tackle. In the second season of the critical and ratings hit, the personal loomed large for all of the show’s characters. Alicia gave into temptation and slept with her boss, Will (Josh Charles), after years of having bad timing. Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) went to great lengths to conceal a long-buried secret—that she had, years before, slept with Alicia’s husband, Peter (Chris Noth)—in a storyline that involved baseball bats, smashed-out windows, and assaulting rival investigator Blake (Scott Porter). With its deft plotting an

An Indelible Mark: A Review of Season Four of Fox's Fringe

Try as you might, there are some marks that can never be scrubbed out entirely. There are some people who leave an indelible impression on our souls which remains long after they've gone, an afterimage burned onto our retinas, an echo of a cry for help, a sigh, a plaintive wail, or a whispered declaration of love. Within the world of Fringe , Peter Bishop no longer exists. We saw him blink out of existence at the end of the third season finale, flickering before our eyes as two universes forgot all about him. Nature, of course, abhors a vacuum, so time and space rush to fill the void left behind when an item is plucked out of the timestream. What does all of this have to do with Season Four of Fringe ? I'm glad you asked. ( PLEASE DO NOT REPRODUCE THIS REVIEW IN FULL ON ANY WEBSITES, BLOGS, MESSAGE BOARDS, OR SIMILAR. ) The season opener ("Neither Here Nor There") contains a rather ordinary procedural plot, but it also reintroduces us to the two universes, and to