This is a perfect time to catch up on the best of television, since so many of us are watching more of it these days, particularly on Saturday nights. I’ve been assiduously avoiding  all news for the last month or so and am faintly aware of the impeachment proceedings and Biden’s energy pipeline kill-shot only because they were mentioned by subscribers in the Rick’s Picks ‘Coffee House’.  My news embargo has been as tight as I, a lifelong news junkie and former newspaper editor, can make it. I canceled a subscription to the Wall Street Journal that had run for nearly 40 years, and I don’t even watch Tucker anymore, let alone network or local news.

Collateral damage from the red/blue color war still raging in America has so far amounted to the loss of two friendships, one of them stretching back 65 years.  When I was scheduled for chemo and radiation, this old buddy came down to Florida to see me through a horrific first week that was to have included massive infusions of metal-heavy chemicals and enough X-ray exposure to kill just about any living thing. At the last minute, I  opted instead for a surgery-only treatment at M.D. Anderson Center in Houston. This allowed my friend and I to spend the week taking epic walks on the beach, enjoying some of South Florida’s best restaurants, and discovering the hidden pleasures of Delray’s Asian massage parlors, his area of special expertise. My friend is from the theater world, the founder of one of the country’s most successful non-profits. He is a self-described anarchist, and his politics could not be further from mine.

‘A Killer of 450,000 Americans’

This was never a problem before Trump. In the end, though, with just a couple lines of text, the friendship was over.  No more dialogue, he texted, until I get “things” sorted out. “Things” undoubtedly alluded to my certitude that the election was stolen — an opinion that I had completed avoided in emails over the last three months. No matter, it seemed. This was an ultimatum to see things his way — or else. And so I let the dialogue end there rather than let fly with the kind of invective that would kill any chance of reconciliation. I even gave him the last word — a text that “my guy” had “killed 450,000 people” with Covid. And with that, the brightest, most articulate person I know became just another stupid horse’s ass.

Concerning the best of television, I stumbled on Netflix’s Ozark last night after tiring quickly of the highly recommended but much overrated Gomorrah. Although rated an astounding ‘8.7’ on IMDB, it is just a thinly plotted, garden variety shoot-’em-up involving warring mafia clans in Italy. Ozark, however, is a real class act. Its producer, director, writer and star is Jason Bateman, who brings a quirky kind of realism to every project he’s involved in. Here, Bateman’s character, a by-the-numbers financial planner, agrees to launder drug money in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, for a vicious Mexican cartel boss who’d marked him for death.

A ‘B&E Magician’

In episode three we meet the redneck Langhorne clan, including teen daughter Ruth, whom the local sheriff describes as a “B and E magician.” The scene where Bateman tries to recover a pile of drug money from the Langhornes ranks with the best television I’ve ever watched. In descending order, my other favorites are: Deadwood, The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, Peaky Blinders, 24 and Billions.  All are far better than anything that has come to the theaters in recent years.  Who needs AMC, Marvel comic heroes and imitation-buttered popcorn when you can get the real thing practically for nothing at home?