Jason Clarke and Jason Isaacs in Brotherhood by Jim Fiscus/Showtime
This Sunday, it sure didn't feel as if the sweeps month had already ended. Major pivotal episodes of ABC's hit series, a movie special on CBS (one of the better Hallmark Hall of Fames to air in a while) and, somewhat lost in the shuffle, a season finale of one of TV's more underappreciated dramas. That's a lot to digest.First off, the watercooler show of the night was unquestionably Desperate Housewives, capping an above-par season with the long-awaited arrival of a devastating twister. The circumstances were just about as far-fetched as most things that happen in this diverting comedic soap, but that final shot of a flattened Wisteria Lane was truly apocalyptic. Lynnette’s banshee screech would have been justified even if she hadn’t just realized the house where her family had hunkered down in the basement was buried in rubble. Outstanding.(For the record, I side with those who think that Ida, the owner of the wayward cat, is probably the “friend” referred to in...
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Justin Timberlake by Lester Cohen/WireImage.com
Justin Timberlake will play a professional hockey player who is romanced by teammate Romany Malco's missus in the Mike Myers comedy The Love Guru.... Also per the Reporter, Carla Gugino is a CSI who woos Robert De Niro in the crime drama Righteous Kill, also starring Al Pacino.... David Schwimmer is Kate Beckinsale's hubby in the political thriller Nothing But the Truth.... Ron Livingston is Eric Bana's bud in The Time Traveler's Wife.... Jason Isaacs and Melissa George are John Cusack's nemesis and girlfriend, respectively, in the thriller Stopping Power.... Per Variety, Eva Mendes has joined Frank Miller's The Spirit.
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Even without the accents, you'd know The State Within (Feb. 17, 18 and 24 at 9 pm/ET on BBC America) was a British spy thriller for one reason: The hero doesn't pick up a gun until the final night, and he never fires it.
Which doesn't mean there isn't a high body count in this frighteningly smart three-part miniseries. The State Within, from the BBC but set mostly in Washington, D.C., is one of those bloody exercises in paranoid conspiracy where you wonder if any of the good guys — such as they ambiguously are — will survive to the end of the story.
"This makes Watergate look like a parking violation," says one of the players in this nightmare scenario, which begins when a passenger plane heading to England explodes after takeoff from Dulles Airport. The cause: a bomb, with a British Muslim implicated.
Handling the diplomatic fallout is British Ambassad
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Question: How can Showtime bring Brotherhood back after killing its most compelling character (Michael)? I mean, doesn't the fact that there is no longer a second brother kind of make the whole title moot?
Answer: I checked with the other big Brotherhood fan in the office, and we agreed that while Michael was badly beaten in the shocking season finale, there's no reason to think he's dead. Heaven, or in his case hell, forbid. Look for him to return in the second season. And if you're a true Jason Isaacs fan, here's some more good news: He's the star of a much-anticipated BBC America miniseries airing next month, The State Within, a political thriller in which he plays the British ambassador to Washington, with Sharon Gless as the secretary of defense. Can't wait to watch that one ...
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Jason Isaacs, Brotherhood
When Jason Isaacs first comes on the phone, he mentions that he is covered in blood. Sounds like an interesting — but not atypically brutal — moment is in the works for Showtime's Brotherhood (Sundays at 10 pm/ET), where he plays prodigal hoodlum Michael Caffee, MIA for seven years and now back home in Providence, Rhode Island, to reclaim his turf, all the whole trying not to sully his legislator brother's political profile. But it turns out that Isaacs — whom you know from such film fare as The Patriot (he popped Mel Gibson's son) and the Harry Potter series — has his hands dirty for a diffe
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Will the Caffee family of Providence ever achieve the mythic status of Jersey's Sopranos clan?
Probably not. Which shouldn't keep you from the darkly compelling world of Brotherhood (Sundays, 10 pm/ET). Showtime's morally ambiguous family saga (substituting thick Irish brogue for Italian swagger) is richly plotted and totally absorbing, one of summer TV's best surprises.
Shot distinctively on location, Brotherhood paints Providence as a cesspool of political chicanery and violent disorganized crime — each subculture embodied by a Caffee brother.
Tommy (Jason Clarke) is the good, responsible son, a family man and ambitious state representa
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