Justified Revisited

I wasn't happy last time I blogged about Justified. I felt empty and let down. However, I've adjusted my expectations of the show and I must say I've been enjoying it. This might not be the Kentucky I know and love but I've come to enjoy it. I think it's a bit like someone gave Captain Kirk a southern accent and let him loose with a gun. Sounds a bit silly but roll with me. He has a chick begging to have sex with him (not that he tried to resist too hard). He would rather follow his own personal morals than the rules of the government. While he is under investigation for one of the people he shot in the past 8 episodes, he's shot a lot of other people too. I feel like there were more similarities but they're not really springing to mind. My only lingering issue with Justified is I'm still not sure what US Marshalls do.

Why the iPad isn't a Kindle killer and we won't see the death of tv

My family now owns a Kindle and an iPad. I got the chance to play around with both this week. The Kindle looked and felt dull and outdated in comparison to the iPad. There's not doubt about that. (The iPad was so shiny. I think it stole my soul.) But my Dad loves his Kindle. I asked if he wished he'd waited for an iPad and with out a pause, my Dad replied in a negative fashion. My Dad thought the iPad was too shiny. Metaphorically blinding. Nope, he'd rather stick with his Kindle. According to him it feels and looks just like a paperback. It's easy to use and he can make the font bigger very simply. The iPad feels weird in his hands, too big and too small at the same time. And the touch screen weirds him out. He accidentally hits things he doesn't mean to and he can't quite get the hang of a touch screen that doesn't rely on pressure. And as far as ebooks go, like many people from older generations, he can't read anything longer than an email on a computer screen. My father isn't a luddite by any means. He was the first internet pirate I ever knew. But I asked him straight up "Do you like the Kindle because it's simple to use and is set up similar to 'older' tech?" and he said yes.

My Mother watches the TV show "Bones" religiously. Yet, somehow she managed to miss recording the first episode of this season. Oh, no problem, I told her, you can just watch it on Hulu! This really confused her. I explained that Hulu allows you watch television over the internet. My Mother was shocked and confused so I tried to show her how it worked. But she refused to watch it online. Something about it deeply disturbed her. Maybe the idea of spending an hour in our computer chair, maybe she wasn't ok with NuvaRing commercials, I'm not sure. She didn't want to talk about it. She'd rather miss one of the most important episodes of "Bones" than watch it online.

My parents both remember when their families switched from black and white television to color. It was a very different experience that came from a very similar source. The difference in operating a B&W TV vs a color one was minimal. When we switched from cable to satellite (and eventually a dvr service) there was a learning curve. It's a very different experience from a kind of different source. I wasn't used to anything else so I picked it up quick, but my mom still fumbles occasionally. It was once suggested to me (I forget by who/what) that in the near future people will watch things from their television via the internet exclusively. Some people do use the internet to watch television, like netflicks on the xbox. However, your average adult would rather go to Blockbuster than stream something. The experience is essentially the same, but the operation has a completely different mindset.

I loved my little brother's iPad. I use Hulu on a daily basis. But no matter how shiny these things are, most people over 40 don't want to have anything to do with them. I expect that by the time I am middle-aged and stuck in my ways, I'll have Multivac in my brain and the intertubes playing on every wall of my house but I'll so not be ok with finally switching to the metric system--I have no idea how far a meter is.

TV Review: Justified - Ep 1 through 4

Several of my friends started tweeting about something called Justified a few weeks ago. By some sort of osmosis, I learned that it was a show set in Kentucky. And then I had a few spare hours and a DVR with two episodes of Justified on it today. So I grabbed some pizza and sat down on the couch. At the end of two episodes I wasn't sold but was interested enough to hunt down the other two episodes on Hulu.

My verdict? While it failed to capture the Kentucky I know and grew up in, Justified isn't half bad. It can't seem to decide whether or not it's going for full on southern camp or a cop drama that just happens to be set in rural Kentucky. My main nitpick is that despite being set in the lovely suburban paradise of Lexington, 90% of the show has been in Harlan, a town three hours away. Harlan has more in common with the coal fields of Virginia than most of Kentucky. Even then, the only thing setting this in Kentucky is the assumption that we're all redneck white-trash or obsessed with getting out of Kentucky.

Bottom Line: Even though it paints Kentucky in a negative light, Justified is an intriguing cop drama (the laughs are few and far between) with great characters and a lot of potential. Also, I like that hat.

TV Review: Big Love - Outer Darkness

In the Big Love episode "Outer Darkness", Barb finds out she's going to be excommunicated from the Mormon church. The first thing she does is beg her female relatives to borrow a temple recommend so she can get her endowments. This plot line both confuses and touches me. Here's a little primer on temple recommends. When a Mormon turns 12 they can begin attending the temple, doing baptisms for the dead (which are exactly what they sound like). Endowments are a ritual preformed in the temple (essentially) when young adults become real adults. You must be endowed before going on your mission or being married. Generally, if you've done neither by your mid-twenties you'll get your endowments. It's part of be coming a full adult in the Mormon church. Barb was married in the Mormon church. She would've gotten her endowment shortly before her original marriage to Bill.

Setting that aside, watching Barb go through the endowment ceremony was one of the most poignant moments in the series. She is torn between her faith in the principle (polygamy) and the way she lived for the first thirty odd years of her life. If she doesn't have her endowment, she can't enter into the Celestial Kingdom, the highest kingdom of heaven. The Mormon faith teaches that any lesser level heaven might as well be hell because there is the knowledge that they might've had the Celestial glory.

The very next day, Barb is excommunicated from the Mormon church. Had she not been excommunicated, and had the principle proven to be wrong, she would have qualified for one of the two lower kingdoms of heaven. By being excommunicated, Barb's name was removed from the Church records. She is no longer sealed to any of her family--in the Mormon afterlife she won't be able to be with any of her family. She cannot be sealed to any of her family. Ordinances cannot be preformed for her after her death. It would be as if she never existed. In the afterlife she will be cast into Outer Darkness. Though Barb no longer believes these things, she was raised to believe these things were true.

How do we deal with something like that? When the way you were raised, the people who raised you all say that your actions are as bad as they come. Barb put a lot of effort into avoiding being excommunicated up until the point of explicitly lying. Although she did not believe the Church had the right or even the ability to excommunicate her, Barb still feared that excommunication. Although rationally she knew it shouldn't matter, years of indoctrination made her emotions go off the deep end.

The thing that has made Big Love such a great show in my eyes, is the way it echos my life. I watch Barb deal with the same struggles I have. She left the Church for the principle; I left the Church for Agnosticism. However we both struggle with the same things. We attempted to keep out loss of faith from our families. We fear committing a sin that we can't come back from even as we put more and more walls between us and our former faith. We can't find the support we need or even people who understand where we're coming from. We have yet to find a healthy way to deal with any of this. I am not sure one even exists.