Life with Charlie Crews, Season 1: Episodes Five and Six

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Charlie Crews and me: I confess I did not watch Life as closely as I did Homeland or Billions earlier. I kept it in my stash for a long time and my husband and I then binge-watched both seasons in a couple of weeks with no real opportunity to digest it. That is why I fell in love with Holliedazzle’s idea to re-visit this fantastic show and dive deep into it the moment I heard about it!

Crime fiction and me: I had a phase in my childhood that I told everyone I would become a detective when I grew up! It probably started with Charlie’s Angels at a young age, continued with Magnum P. I. and peaked with Murder, She Wrote. I also religiously read Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple together sealed the deal for me.

Los Angeles and me: I confess L.A. is not my cup of tea. Having said that, I always love films and shows that display the city they are filmed in with its good, bad and ugly and Life is no exception. In fact, the wide variety it has in all things makes Los Angeles the perfect setting for the show.  Continue reading “Life with Charlie Crews, Season 1: Episodes Five and Six”

Happy Father’s Day to Damian Lewis

No doubt many people get married and start families because it’s the thing to do, a natural progression in life. Not everyone takes the time or effort to really think about what it means to bring new life into the world or go forth on the venture with conscious intentionality. How many times have we heard (or ourselves thought) David Byrne’s immortal refrain:

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself: Well…How did I get here?

Following Damian as we do on this blog, we’ve seen at every turn that he seems to have entered his current life with full intentionality. You sense, in his various relationships prior to Helen, what we know of them, that he was always quietly in search of someone to settle down with, someone to have children with. Not all men think this way, I’m guessing, particularly attractive men who have no shortage of female attention. A lot of guys fantasize about the attention that Damian has always gotten, right? So, if you’re lucky enough to be Damian Lewis, why settle down? Why let a woman and the resultant children cramp one’s playboy style? But, no, Damian, even though he IS Damian, wanted the wife and the house and the family. And how beautiful the stories we hear and the images we get of him in arguably the most important role of any man’s life, the role of father. Here are some of our recollections of Damian being a Dad.

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They call him Dad

Dad is a word which can evoke a minefield of emotions simply because the word is personal to each of us and our personal circumstances will affect whether the word evokes positive or negative emotions.

Being a Dad (in real life) can be all kinds of difficult and rewarding. With father’s day approaching we take a look at Damian Lewis as an onscreen Dad.

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“Love is the strongest power there is.” – J.K. Rowling

Probably because I lost my dad at a young age, I am a true sucker for loving father-daughter relationships in fiction. Today I give you some of my favorite moments with Damian Lewis as screen dad. Even though the characters are quite different in each relationship, there is an overarching theme: A lost soul who finds meaning in life through his love for his daughter.

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Brody and Jess love story is over way before Brody returns home. Jess is in love with Mike even though she tries her best to start all over again with Brody. Chris, as much as happy to have dad back, is used to Brody’s absence since he was a baby when dad left for war. Brody does not know his son, and seeing how close he is to Mike, does not seem to try his best to get to know him. So it is all his daughter Dana that connects Brody to family. I know Dana has never been popular with the viewers but I love this independent, open-minded, headstrong young woman who LOVES and NEEDS her dad. She genuinely tries to understand the lost soul that Brody is. She is the one who does not want to believe, but in fact believes, Carrie when she comes to tell Brody is about to do something really bad. And it is Dana’s LOVE for his dad and Brody’s LOVE for her that stops the suicide mission: “I’m coming home, Dana.” Continue reading “They call him Dad”

Billions on Sky Atlantic, Episode 6: The Deal

imageedit_13_6627786066Billions Episode 6, “The Deal”, on Sky Atlantic has all the ingredients of a season finale, but, thankfully, isn’t. We’ve got surprises in a tepidarium, a war time speech rallying the troops, a valuable piece of crumpled up paper thrown across a conference room table. Under it all, we get the true ethics of the game laid bare, and, at the same time, we get Damian playing Bobby hunched inwards, closing ranks, in self-preservation mode.

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Here are our recaps and discussion of the episode.

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Previously on Billions: The Good Life

Previously on Billions…

Bobby arrives at Axe Hills on his expensive Bike to pick up eggs for breakfast. There is something about Bobby swapping his flashy bike for Tito’s very ordinary, but flower decorated bike that makes me love him even more.

Bobby is playing hardball with Wags. He’s not giving Wags anything but orders to ditch everything and the job of telling the investors as well.

Chuck is impatient and Team Chuck is feeling it because they have not been able to get very far as of yet in finding a way to get at Bill Stearn. Dale calling Chuck “dude” is a highlight. Kate steals the limelight, not for the last time this episode, by asking Bryan if he is still keeping emergency deodorant in his office. He says yes and asks her if she needs it. She looks at him pointedly and answers “no”.

source: Showtime
source: Showtime

Bobby is cooking breakfast for Lara and the kids. Chef Ryan jokingly asks if he is out of a job to which Bobby says that “breakfast is all he can handle” and Lara gives us some insight into her husband’s cooking skills by adding “yeah, trust me. We need you back”.

Continue reading “Previously on Billions: The Good Life”