SDOACG: Back in the Boudoir

While most focus this Sunday is on Showtime's The United States of Tara, Secret Diary of a Call Girl returns for its second season, and just might surprise folks more. If season one seemed at times like a prostitute checking her watch, this season seems to have a better idea of how to give the audience what it desires, providing more titillating predicaments for our Belle, while also bringing more of her personal life (Hannah) into focus.

I think the distance we felt from Billie Piper's portrayal in the first season was due to a couple of reasons. Piper has been a star in the UK since she was a child, so taking the role as a call girl was a huge deal and it makes sense that they were cautious with what they did with her character. Meanwhile, the episodes are only 23 minutes and with only eight episodes a season (under four hours,) the season is over by the time most American series are just getting started.

With the second season, Belle no longer works for a Madame and even finds herself taking on the role of one, teaching the young and dense apprentice (Bambi, played by Ashley Madekwe, who's actually older than Piper). Meanwhile Hannah has a love interest in Alex (Dead Like Me's Callum Blue,) making the separation of her personal and her professional life that much more complicated.

In the first four episodes already, there are several inspired moments, like the twisted visual coupling of a baptism and a golden shower or a three-way from leopard-print hell. Musically, the second episode ends with the perfect use of The New Pornographers' "Adventures in Solitude". "We thought we'd lost you... welcome back."

Welcome back indeed.

Previously: Monday Night Vice (series premiere)

Blah with dignity

I guess we can now add killer to Nancy's growing criminal resume. Drug dealer, arsonist, smuggler... it's obvious Nancy's given up entirely on being 'mother of the year.' Last night, Weeds dealt head on with the dying Bubbie storyline, and the euthanasia debate was hardly riveting. Airhead Silas stood in for the opposing view, and his straw men argument quickly blew down a few 'blahs' from Andy -- albeit, well written blahs.

When all is said and done, though, it's naturally Nancy (aka "Not Francine") who gets the honor. Bubbie predicted that shiksa was going to be death of her anyway, and leave it to Nancy to find an indirect way to do it - fuse box. Note that she's doing this after smuggling drugs and a criminal over the border, just to, you know, top off her day. It's like gardening in the rain after going for a run, no sense showering between.

To take the episode out, the song "Thank You For Making Me Feel... Better" (from singer/songwriter Linus From Hollywood) is played, with the intent being one of relief for Bubbie. But the song itself was actually written about a man's love for beer. Taken from the obscure album Let Yourself Be Happy, it's a bit of an ode to Pet Sounds, using only beer bottles as instruments for the recording. He did it all using just a 12 oz and a 40 oz bottle, overdubbing all the clinks and tuned bottles together. In addition, there's bottle caps and a bottle breaking, adding to the drunken ambiance.

Meanwhile, Secret Diary of a Call Girl again resorted to music to keep us at arm's length during one of Hannah/Belle's introspective moments, letting only the lyrics to Regina Spektor's "Fidelity" let us in on the internal struggle going on during a rather intense shower:

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds...
... and it breaks my heart

Previously: Monday Night Vice (Season premieres for Weeds/Secret Diary of a Call Girl)

Monday night vice

Last night began Showtime's summer lineup of women behaving badly, with the season four premiere of Weeds and the debut of the UK's Secret Diary of a Call Girl, two series that confront society's morals with a knowing wink. Both premieres, while witty and charming, kept me at a distance, like cashed pipe or a hooker with her eye on the clock (aren't you done yet?)

Weeds, for it's part, still feels as transitional as last season's crazy ride to break the series down in order to rebuild it as something new. It starts right where season three left off, with the Agrestic McCommunity up in flames, with the assumption that we'll ignore that Shane's gone through puberty in the interim hours. Nancy's moved up the chain, from dealer to runner, and she should be up to the challenge, if the the music choice is any indication. "Se Puede" from Chilean funk supergroup Los Mono, was written as a sort of mantra for someone looking at a new and difficult challenge. The song's title translates to "it's possible" and is repeated in the song, which was originally written as a theme for a children's animated series in Chile -- which is appropriate given Nancy's continued childlike naivete in the face of the danger she surrounds her family in.

Speaking of childlike naivete, did anyone else notice that the Botwins essentially moved to John From Cincinnati's old neighborhood, just north of the Mexican border? They even have their own Shaunie Yost living next door. They may call it Ren-Mar (named after the studios where Weeds and a lot of other series are shot,) but it reeks of Imperial Beach. As such, it appears that creator Jenji Kohan will pick up David Milch's side theme of immigration and border politics. One thing I look forward to is a return to the show's conceptual roots -- a family dealing with the loss of their father. Moving back to Bubbie's house, surrounded by reminders of the long dead Judah, means that perhaps the Botwins will finally confront their still-repressed grief.

Moving on from repression, SDOACG is anything but, with our protagonist Hannah (Belle) telling us through the fourth wall "first thing I think you should know is that I'm a whore." Ok, the mood is set and you've piqued my interest. Problem is, even with all the sass (and eye candy) that Billie Piper (Doctor Who) provides to the UK imported series, it still leaves me a bit cold (but not necessarily blue). Which is, I guess, kind of the point. When Hannah mistakenly gives up her name to a john, we're treated briefly to The Noisettes' "Cannot Even (Break Free)", which works it's cathartic magic as a backdrop to Hannah pulling herself together and working herself back to a proper distance from her job (and us). An episode lasts only 20 minutes long, which means SDOACG has to uses all it's wiles to try and get you off as quickly as it can, but those moans sound more fake with each glances at the clock. Still, even she left me a bit unsatisfied, almost getting there was just enough to bring me back.

Songs from Showtime's Monday Night Vice
1. "Se Puede" - Los Mono - Weeds, Ep4.01, Nancy and Guillermo look over the border
2. "You Know I'm No Good" - Amy Winehouse - Secret Diary of a Call Girl, theme song
3. "Cannot Even (Break Free)" - The Noisettes - Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Hannah has a moment of reflection after accidentally revealing her real name to a john