It is hard to choose among many great casts of the previous tv season,there were endearing comebacks like Kevin Bacon,fantastic ensembles as in
"Game of thrones",some daring choices like James Purefoy and some fantastic new faces.But among those my absolute favourites are two completely different shows.
"Enlightened" was probably the most surprising tv comedy ever seen on tv.The audacity of the idea,the finesse,the masterful building of atmosphere,all of that and much more make it one of the best tv projects in tv history,in my humble opinion.But what really made that show so brilliant was the perfect cast
Laura Dern was definitely her best ever.You just couldn't take your eyes of her,her face,her wardrobe,the infinite lightness of her becoming that outrageously irritating character.And yet in all of the mess she created around her there was always affection for her weaknesses and hope,hope that in the end at least something will come out right for her.She is a great actress but never before did I believe her character so completely.
And that is the fine line that divides good and great acting.Great actors are simply the character they play and You believe them unconditionally.Every time.Some average actors can also have an episode or two of complete authenticity but it happens mainly when get to play a role close to their own nature.Unlike them,the true masters can take You anywhere they want and You never waste a second about questioning their realities.
But the real heroes of Enlightened were
Mike White, who created the series with Dern, and
Tim Sharp.Their faces were vaguely familiar but I never saw them before in something so compelling.I still can't decide whom I prefer since they were both fantastic.White so precise and weird,Sharp full of irritating energy,his crazy eyes and hair flying around and yet nothing was superfluous about his Dougie.
The rest of the cast was also perfect with a wonderful guest starring of Dern's mother,
Diane Ladd.
It was pure joy watching them, even if it was only two short seasons.
"Rectify" is something completely different.A dark and haunting tv drama about a man whose murder conviction is questioned after 19 years of serving on a death row.He comes back to his parents house and just tries to survive.Everything about Rectify is mesmerizing.The stiffening atmosphere of troubled South,the painfully slow development of all that could go wrong for this strange creature that is Daniel Holden.
And in the middle of that storm there is Holden,depicted by brilliantly efficient
Aden Young .His physique is perfect, his eyes burning with all the frustration and despair and yet his gestures are sparse and methodical.Everything he does seems vitally important,from the way he sits in his room to the violence he keeps in himself.He is a mystery,a painful mystery that never loosens its grip on the spectators.No one knows for sure what he did and what he will do next and in all that tension there is palpable fear,we are all afraid of him and for him.
He never ever loses the depth of his emotion,he is tragic without being pathetic,in one word he is perfect.
The rest of the cast plays beautifully at his side,and as in Enlightened and every other great tv series, You just enter a different world and become one of them,a participant instead of just a spectator.
And then there were
"Girls", and there is a different quality that I appreciate in their cast or more precisely in their creator
Lena Dunham and it is the imagination in putting together characters so diverse and original.She is a force behind it all and one must admire her ability to find guys like Adam Driver or Alex Karpovsky.On their own they are just eccentric creatures nobody likes very much but all of them put together in the narcissistic symphony that Girls is,they become irresistibly unbearable.
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