But is it "real" enough? Girls, The Wire and the authenticity obsession

Thinking about pop culture in terms of perceived authenticity can help explain reactions to everything from Girls to The Wire to Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway.

Lena Dunham, creator and star of Girls; David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Steven Poole's recent, excellent piece on the authenticity fetish currently dominating the culture (published in The New Statesman) has some fascinating things to say about the way critics and the public at large value authenticity in their entertainment. Touching on reactions to Zero Dark Thirty, artisanal coffee shops and Beyonce's performance of the national anthem, Poole ultimately concludes that the search for authenticity in entertainment and consumer goods is a way for tastemakers to distinguish themselves from the huddled masses who enjoy such "inauthentic" entertainments as lip-synched performances and Argo:

The authenticity of such an aspirational brand’s product boils down to the promise that numberless faceless artisans have laboured personally on your behalf. A similar fantasy underlies the ferocious insistence that a coffee shop be “artisanal” and “independent”, the indolent demand for a pre-aged Stratocaster, or the hysterical suspicion that a singer might not have been working hard enough to entertain us. The self-appointed guardians of authenticity, it seems, want desperately to believe that they are at the top of the labour pyramid. In cultural markets that are all too disappointingly accessible to the masses, the authenticity fetish disguises and renders socially acceptable a raw hunger for hierarchy and power.

 Of course, if you have a friend who prides himself on his consumption of only locally-grown, hand-picked food and micro-financed films shot on a vintage Super-8 camera (or if, god forbid, you are that friend), you were probably already aware of this phenomenon. Still, Poole's essay (which I highly encourage everyone to read - it meanders into existentialism a bit in the middle, talking about Sartre and "bad faith" and still manages to be worth your time) offers a useful starting point for a pop-culture discussion I've been wanting to have for a while, about perceived "realism" on film and television and the (often insane) reactions to that realism.

Game of Thrones season 3: who will live, who will die?

In preparation for the epic series' third season, I present a speculative list of the characters most likely to die, and those who stand the greatest chance of surviving the next ten episodes.

Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen; Michelle Fairley as Catelyn Stark

Game of Thrones has gained a reputation as a TV series that doesn't think twice about killing major characters, even when those characters happen to be the lead who was featured in all the promotional materials. The show's "no one is safe" sensibility makes it difficult (and irresistibly tempting) to predict who will be the next casualty. So just for fun, as a newbie who is unfamiliar with the books and therefore blissfully ignorant of the show's next painful twist, I offer up a list of the five characters most likely to follow Ned Stark into the next world, and the five who have the best shot of telling death, "Not today."

The Casualties

5. Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish (Aiden Gillan)

King's Landing's very own Tommy Carcetti might seem like the consummate survivor; after all, he's the third-smartest character on the show (after Lord Varys and Tyrion), he's demonstrated his craftiness on multiple occasions, and he's always willing to double-cross the losing side (a.k.a., the dearly departed Ned Stark). However, Littlefinger's downfall might be his lust for power. While Lord Varys always manages to keep his ambition in check, Baelish is the sort to be cut down while reaching for the crown. Not to mention that he's now the Lord of Harrenhall, and that locale has never been kind to its owners.

4. Ser Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen)

Now that Dany has a ship (not to mention some rapidly growing dragons), it seems that her return to Westeros is, if not exactly imminent, at least plausibly on the horizon. In spite of (or, rather, because of) Ser Jorah's love and loyalty when it comes to his Khaleesi, I don't see him ever making it back to Westeros. Love and loyalty are not the sorts of qualities that tend to get rewarded on Game of Thrones. Plus, back in Qarth, we met a cryptic masked woman who suggested that Ser Jorah may have betrayed the woman he loves. All signs point to an unhappy ending for Dany's white knight.

The six most awesome moments from Game of Thrones' third-season trailer

The trailer for Game of Thrones' third season is finally here, and boy is it amazing!



In no particular order, here are the six most awesome things contained in this clip:

• Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) standing in front of (commanding?) a giant army. Time for the Mother of Dragons to do some serious ass-kicking.
• Catelyn's (Michelle Fairley) line, "Show them how it feels to lose what they love." Season 3 is looking to be the season the ladies of GoT really get their bad-ass on.
• Joffrey's (Jack Gleeson) line, "Everyone is mine to torment." It's nice to know that the show's most villainous villain has only gotten more evil over the hiatus. Everyone needs someone to hate, and that someone is Joffrey Baratheon.
• "I'm going to light the biggest fire the North has ever seen!" Who else is excited for the introduction of Ciaran Hind's Mance Rayder?
• The dragons are growing! And flying! And possibly lighting a whole bunch of shit on fire!
• MS MR's awesome "Bones," which scores the trailer and which is my new favorite song. Between this and last year's epic "War is Coming" clip, which featured Florence + The Machine's "Seven Devils," I almost wish GoT used anachronistic pop music to score actual episodes (the key word being "almost").

UPDATE: There is now an extended version of the Season 3 trailer, and it is somehow even more badass than the first. Probably because of the dramatically increased presence of Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), whose fall from grace at the end of the second season has done nothing to diminish his quips.

THAT Scene: how Castle betrayed its main character (and the audience)

When Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) tortures an injured man for information, it sells out the character in the name of plot momentum.

THAT Scene is a recurring feature that takes a closer look at a single scene that exemplifies a particular show, theme or moment in time. The scene might be good or bad, but it will always be memorable and worth talking about.

When judged alongside other serious Castle episodes (for the record, the worst kind of Castle episodes), "Target," the first half of the Alexis-gets-kidnapped two-parter that ends tonight with "Hunt," is actually pretty solid. The hour does a good job of building to the reveal that Alexis (Molly Quinn) is missing, first by playing Castle's increasing paranoia over the Columbia-set mystery for laughs, then having Castle and Beckett discover that Alexis was with Sara El-Masri (Karen David) the night she went missing, and finally revealing that Castle's daughter was the kidnappers' second victim. It was also a good episode for Alexis, who has been increasingly grating as of late; Quinn did a great job leaving behind the character's neuroses and showing that she can be calm and collected under pressure while remaining vulnerable. Plus, we got a surprisingly detailed and accurate depiction of how to pick a lock in the bargain!

One incredibly jarring moment, however, nearly soured the whole experience for me. After finding the injured driver of the kidnappers' getaway vehicle in a local hospital, Beckett (Stana Katic) and Castle (whose presence at the interrogation of a man involved in his daughter's kidnapping would bother me more if it weren't consistent with Castle's usual blatant disregard for actual police procedure) try to get the man to tell them where Alexis and Sara are being held. After an immunity offer fails to entice, Castle asks Beckett to give him a moment alone with the man. We see Castle threaten the suspect, and then cut to Beckett outside, as we hear the injured man scream. A moment later, Castle emerges with the address of a farmhouse north of New York City.

Community celebrates its (apparently real) return!

Will Community actually return on February 7 as NBC has promised us, or will this be another October 19 situation? (By the way, NBC, thanks for totally ruining by birthday by cruelly yanking my Community away!) Only time will tell, but this epic Steve Porter remix of moments from the show's third season is good news.



You tried to destroy Community, NBC, but you only made it... MORE AWESOME!

EW.com re-imagines Game of Thrones as a CW-style soap opera

As part of the magazine's year-end round-up of the best and worst everything in pop culture, Entertainment Weekly created a clever promo for Game of Thrones, if the epic aired not on HBO but on the CW.



While highlighting the pairings of Ygritte and Jon Snow and Daenerys and Ser Jorah was the obvious way to go, I quite enjoyed the way EW took advantage of the excellent chemistry between Peter Dinklage and Conleth Hill to imply a somewhat plausible romance between Tyrion and Varys. Plus, the Tyrion/Varys (Varion? Tyrys?) pairing would leave the door open for an excellent love triangle between the Imp, the Spider and poor, loyal, left-out Bronn. Spin-off series, anyone?

The Girls season 2 trailer is here

The sophomore season of Lena Dunham's much-discussed series is heavy on the Shoshanna (yay!), but generally lacking in Donald Glover.

Zosia Mamet and Alex Karpovsky of Girls.

I had something of a complicated relationship with the first season of HBO's Girls. (Of course, given the endless discussion that surrounded the series, having an uncomplicated relationship with the show would have been almost impossible). The series got better and funnier as the first season came to a close, but I still had some real issues with the way Dunham portrayed issues of sex and relationships among twenty-somethings, issues that kept me from ever fully connecting with the titular girls and their many awkward and hilarious problems.

The just-released trailer for the second season, however, got me excited for Girls' return by smartly emphasizing the comedy and allowing the audience to laugh at Hannah and her friends' often unrealistic expectations and world-views. Plus, it highlights the series' greatest asset: Zosia Mamet, whose Shoshanna was the funniest, most likeable and most criminally underused character of the first season.

The trailer demonstrates a couple of notable blindspots: Shoshanna and Ray telling Marnie (Allison Williams) that she's pretty, but not beautiful enough to be a model, rings false to anyone with eyes, and the blink-and-you-missed-it appearance by Donald Glover doesn't do much to generate excitement over  the Community favorite and actual non-white person making an appearance on a show that came under so much scrutiny for its lily-white cast.

However, these two misses are made up for by the myriad of funny lines and mocking character insights that the clip dishes up. From Adam's (Adam Driver) incredibly creepy song and stalker-y text messages, to the sight of Shoshanna and Ray repeatedly getting it on, to Marnie's oblivious self-obsession and the zen veneer Jessa (Jemima Kirke) uses to mask her naivete about her marriage to Thomas-John (Chris O'Dowd), there's a lot of promise in this two-minute spot. Now we'll just see if the second season can live up to it.

The best lines and moments from the Girls trailer:

• Seriously, how hilariously creepy is Adam's break-up song?
• "This is what happens when you break up with a sociopath." Truer words, Hannah, have never been spoken.
• "You tend to overthink things, and that's an issue for you." On the one hand, overthinking things is definitely an issue for Hannah. On the other hand, Jessa married a smarmy investment banker without even knowing his address.
• "And I know that I always said he was murdery in a sexy way, but what if he's murdery in like a murder way?" Adam does have a kind of charismatic serial-killer vibe to him.
• The re-appearance of The Lonely Island's Jorma Taccone as a sexually aggressive artist is as improbable as it is funny.
• "What are you wearing?" "Oh, a shirt!" It's mostly Dunham's inflection on the last line, not to mention her absurd neon mesh tank top, that sells this one.