TV

Critic's Notebook: Strong Year for TV Actresses Means Stiff Competition for Golden Globes and SAG Awards

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'Handmaid's Tale,' 'Big Little Lies,' 'Feud' and 'GLOW' are just a few of the female-driven ensembles ready to make a winter awards splash.

It hasn't been that long since the Golden Globe best actress field was thin enough that the HFPA could be swayed into oddball nominations like Callie Thorne for Necessary Roughness or Piper Perabo for Covert Affairs. Well played, USA.

It's only been a few years since the SAG Award for female actor in a drama could go to Maggie Smith for five minutes of expert sarcasm on Downton Abbey. Well, everybody loves a Dame.

Now, as a winter of award nominations looms, it's the best actress fields that are clearly the most competitive on the TV side, the categories most likely to be simultaneously packed with A-list powerhouses and yet still exclude a chorus of the medium's finest work.

There's little worry that Hulu's breakthrough The Handmaid's Tale is going to be excluded. Although Globes voters love to be the first to coronate a new show, they'll be hard-pressed to resist this Emmy darling, especially star Elisabeth Moss. The all-too-realistic dystopian adaptation of Margaret Atwood's revered novel sports a cast made for the SAG ensemble field, one that could also fill the supporting actress category with names like Alexis Bledel and Ann Dowd and Samira Wiley, were it not for the Globes' peculiar insistence on lumping all supporting performances — comedy, drama and movie/miniseries — into the same field.

Moss will probably be part of one of this award season's biggest trends, namely actors seeing double and I'm not talking about the likelihood that James Franco and his co-star James Franco could both be nominated for The Deuce.

Now bear with me, because this is going to get complicated: In addition to The Handmaid's Tale, Moss will probably get a movie/miniseries actress nomination for Top of the Lake: China Girl, where her competition will probably include Nicole Kidman for Big Little Lies, but Kidman is also impressive in a supporting role in Top of the Lake: China Girl and could be nominated there, but only if she can beat out Big Little Lies co-stars like Shailene Woodley and Laura Dern, who has a stiff rival in Laura Dern from Showtime's reboot of Twin Peaks. Facing off against Moss and Kidman in the movie/miniseries field will be Kidman's Big Little Lies foil Reese Witherspoon and a pair of other co-stars in Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon from FX's Feud: Bette and Joan, another limited series that could handily fill a supporting actress category with names like Jackie Hoffman and the Globes-friendly Catherine Zeta-Jones, who are both more likely to get squeezed out.

Also eligible, but unlikely to pull the deuce, not to be confused with strong awards contender Maggie Gyllenhaal of The Deuce, is critical darling Carrie Coon, who may have to settle for another Fargo-only nomination, though a Leftovers nod would give the HFPA a rare chance to "discover" a show after three seasons.

Since the shows premiered after the Emmys, Globes and SAG will also get the opportunity to be early adopters for star turns like Gyllenhaal's down-and-dirty Deuce work, Sarah Gadon in Alias Grace, Rachel Brosnahan in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Laura Linney in Ozark. And after years of being overlooked, the SAG ensemble category feels tailor-made for the perfect cast of Halt and Catch Fire, led by individually worthy Mackenzie Davis and Kerry Bishe. It's never too early and it's not too late.

The comedy side lacks a new juggernaut like The Handmaid's Tale, but that doesn't mean there aren't ascending actresses champing at the bit for exposure, especially with awards groups that the incredible Julia Louis-Dreyfus hasn't dominated to quite her Emmy extreme.

Is Netflix's '80s-set wrestling comedy GLOW ready to enter the ring? Even though she's been well known since her Community days, Alison Brie is exactly the sort of star-on-the-brink the Globes like to champion and the deep cast of relative unknowns is, like GLOW EP Jenji Kohan's SAG favorite Orange Is The New Black, a textbook ensemble.

Is One Day at a Time breakthrough Justina Machado in the Globes wheelhouse, while her co-star Rita Moreno fits better with SAG voters and their love of acclaimed veterans? Either way, the Netflix multi-cam is one of the year's unsung treasures.

Pamela Adlon didn't make the Globes or SAG cut last year, but the Better Things mastermind is also worthy of recognition from the Directors Guild and Writers Guild and pretty much any assemblage of craftspeople who want to recognize excellence.

A surprise nomination could help make the name of a DeWanda Wise from She's Gotta Have It or a Logan Browning of Dear White People, or maybe award voters are just going to return comforting names like Megan Mullally and Debra Messing of Will and Grace.

Expect men to also be nominated for Golden Globes and SAG Awards.

This story first appeared in a November stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

The Golden Globes SAG Awards
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'Survivor': Jeff Probst Discusses Playing With "Justifiable Ethics"

"Everybody has a different definition of a moral compass when it comes to playing this game," the executive producer and host tells THR about the show's latest Tribal Council dilemma.

Welcome to The Hollywood Reporter's Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers regular season coverage! Every week, we're bringing you exit interviews with the latest person voted out, recaps from THR's very own Dan Fienberg and weekly check-ins with executive producer and host Jeff Probst. Bookmark our season 35 one-stop shop to make sure you don't miss out on any of it.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for season 35, episode nine.

Say what you will about Mike Zahalsky. At least he's consistent.

Compare the comments the endangered Healer made at this week's Tribal Council about "justifiable ethics," which he applied to how the tribe should view the take-no-prisoners Joe Mena, with the comments Mike made in the preseason about his philosophy toward Survivor.

"I'm a physician," Mike said at the time, weeks before uttering a similar speech in front of his fellow castaways. "I do medical research. I know I have the highest ethical and moral code out there. But in Survivor, you have to have justifiable ethics and justifiable morals. You can't always tell the truth. You can't always necessarily do the right thing. But you also have to be able to justify what you do, and know that there are some lines you can never cross. Like, people who are bullies, or people who are just mean for the sake of being mean. Those people, no matter whose alliance they're in, have to be eliminated immediately. At the end of the day, Survivor is a microcosm of civilization, and in civilization, behavior like that can't be tolerated, even if it's the democratic favor, so to speak. Just because more people vote the wrong thing, doesn't mean you do it when it's the wrong thing."

Sounds familiar, right? Mike gave more or less the same exact speech at this week's Tribal Council, moments before playing his hidden immunity idol on himself, an ultimately unnecessary gesture given the evening's end result. (We'll need a blackboard in the coming days to break down exactly what Mike was thinking. For now, we have Dan Fienberg's recap.) Was Mike's speech a means of drawing the vote his way, so he could play his idol and remove a target from the game? And even if it was all a ruse, is there a truth brimming beneath Mike's philosophy, that there are lines in the sand on Survivor that can never be crossed — such as concocting a lie about a former marine breaking oaths rooted in their time at war, the way Joe lied about Ben Driebergen just one week earlier?

Whatever Mike's goals were in speaking out on "justifiable ethics," he brought one of the most fascinating tenets of Survivor into the foreground this week through his speech. With that in mind, let's turn once again to host and executive producer Jeff Probst for his thoughts on how one justifies their behavior, their strategy and their ethics in the cruel game of Survivor.

"One of the fundamental appeals of Survivor is the idea that everybody has a different definition of a moral compass when it comes to playing this game," Probst tells THR. "We've seen players who would make the choice to never lie in the game due to their religious beliefs. It just wasn't worth it to them to compromise something they hold so dear. But we've also seen players swear, with joy, on their kids' lives and use that bond as the set up for a massive blindside. Justifiable ethics is what makes this game so fun. We all draw the line in the sand in a slightly different spot."

"I think Mike is playing the game as he must at this point," he continues. "When you're on the bottom you must stir up trouble. Same with Joe making up stuff about Ben. But with Ben, things get a little touchy. [Joe is] not just swearing on his own kids, he is attributing a lie to someone who fought for our freedom — and Joe goes further by directly connecting the lie to the Marines. Them's fightin' words! But is it wrong? There is no answer. It depends who you are playing with. If Joe can get Ben upset enough to do something crazy, then maybe it's a good strategy. That's the 'justifiable' part of this thing. Joe can justify. He has a family he is playing for, and Survivor doesn't have a rule against lying. So where's the issue? Deuces! This game really makes fun of our 'ego,' the part of ourselves that so identifies with 'who we think we are' or 'what we stand for' — all this stuff that is really ridiculous, but we can get so upset about."

Speaking of ego, Probst offers one more insight into the matter about what his own ethical code would look like if the tables were turned, and he was one of the 18 castaways vying for the million-dollar prize.

"You didn't ask me what I would do, and my 'ego' is insisting I tell you," he says. "I would definitely have a line that I would not cross. I wouldn't lie on my kids and I would try to never make it personal as in making up a story that Ben lied on the word of the Marines. But other than that, I'd go for it. I'd play big and I'd set people up and I'd probably betray way more than I can even anticipate. I would only want to win Survivor. I wouldn't care about anything else. Then I'd justify it all in the reunion show."

Justifiable ethics notwithstanding, Mike's posturing wasn't enough to control the tribe's vote. Instead, another Healer wound up on the receiving end of a the torch snuffer: Cole Medders, the wilderness therapy guide who physically dominated the challenges in the first portion of the game, embarked on a romance with nurse Jessica Johnston and ate all of the peanut butter in sight, only to become the third Healer in a row (and fourth overall) to walk away from the game.

Here's how Probst viewed Cole in the preseason: "Hard not to like Cole. I think he's going to be a favorite. I think kids will really like him. He is that kind of older kid you would want to hang out with on the weekend, or you would love if he were your big brother. It's pretty cool that he's decided to take his love of the outdoors and turn it into something positive by helping at risk kids maybe find inspiration or another path to life or a way to forgive themselves and move forward. I think he's 24, and that's a pretty mature point of view [for that age]. He has this big grin, and he's a good-looking kid. When he talks, you kind of find yourself going, 'Man, you have a lot of good qualities!'"

And here's what Probst thinks about Cole now: "I think all of this is true about Cole. Kids really dug him and every woman I know and every gay guy I know wanted to date him. It's been a while since that many of my friends have texted me asking about a player. But Cole did lose a little of his swagger as the days mounted. I think his inability to keep a secret really hurt him. But I don't think it's because he can't keep a secret, I just think Cole didn't fully understand the impact his sharing would have on his game. I think he was learning very fast, just not fast enough! As for the selfish nature of his eating habits, that's just a total misread on social politics. You just don't do that on Survivor."

Check back with THR.com/Survivor all season long for more from Probst, weekly exit interviews with the eliminated castaways, and weekly recaps from THR's very own Dan Fienberg.

Survivor
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'Godless' Team on Expanding Netflix's Limited Series Beyond One Season

Stars Jeff Daniels, Michelle Dockery, Merritt Weaver, Sam Waterston and Thomas Brodie-Sangester star in the seven-part show that "really turns the Western genre on its head."

Westerns are making a comeback with the help of Netflix’s latest original limited series Godless.

A number of series that begin as limited engagements have expanded with multiple seasons. Shows including Netflix's 13 Reasons Why and AMC's The Night Manager began as limited series, though both have been renewed for following seasons. HBO's Big Little Lies is another limited series that is regularly rumored to be coming back for a second cycle.

When asked whether Godless could fall in that category if the Jeff Daniels-starrer is positively received, many of the castmembers said they believed the show should remain a limited engagement. “I think it’s a novel,” Sam Waterston, who plays Marshal John Cook, told The Hollywood Reporter at Sunday's New York City premiere at The Metrograph. “I don’t think they’ll make a Godless 2.”

His co-star Thomas Brodie-Sangster agreed. “It’s got a really nice beginning, middle and end. It’s very popular now-a-days to just make something go on and on and on. At some point, it becomes some sort of money-maker thing and I think as a viewer you can see that and sense that,” said the actor, who plays Deputy Whitey Winn. “For me, unless they do something amazing with the writing and as long as it’s appropriate, I think it’s nice to actually have a Netflix show that comes out like this where you have the beginning, middle and end.”

Director, writer and executive producer Scott Frank added that he had not thought of any storylines that could follow season one of Godless. “You never know, but right now I don’t know what it would be,” he said.

The series follows notorious criminal Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels) and his gang of fellow outlaws as they seek revenge from his former son-like figure Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell). Roy finds help in the form of recent widower Alice Fletcher (Michelle Dockery), who resides in the female dominated town of Le Belle, New Mexico, that recently lost many husbands and fathers due to a horrific accident.

“You start just by playing a guy who’s a father who lost his son, or whose son, at least in his mind, has betrayed him. So it becomes a father-son story,” Daniels said of how he prepared for the role. “As far as what Frank Griffin is made of, I mean the guy needs a shrink. He needs a team of shrinks and they weren’t available in the 1880s.”

Many of the actors found inspiration from a variety of different outlets to play their roles. Dockery credits "Cowboy Camp” for helping her get into character, which taught castmembers skills like how to shoot a gun. “That’s something I’ve never done before. I was intimidated and terrified actually when I picked up the rifle for the first time,” she said. “Also, horse riding in a very different way than I have before. Western riding is very different.”

Samantha Soule, who plays Charlotte Temple, watched classic Western films to prepare for the role. McCabe and Mrs. Miller and High Plains Drifter were just two of the films she studied for inspiration. “It was such an excuse to really just binge watch,” she said.

When asked if he turned to any Western films to gain inspiration, Brodie-Sangster stated, “I planned to and it never happened. I think that’s because of the writing. Everything was very much there and the characters were all very well thought about,” he explained. “Production has kind of been in the mind of Scott Frank for a long time and everything was all there and ready to go. I walked onto set and I didn’t feel I had do to a huge amount of research.”

Veteran actor Waterston mentioned that his past work in the genre made it easy for him to get into character. “I did Heaven’s Gate and Rancho Deluxe, so this is not my first rodeo,” he said.

Merritt Wever, who plays Mary Agnes, credits “pictures of women fighting in Barcelona to fight the fascists” during the Spanish Civil War for helping her find inspiration for the character. She continued, “For some reason even though those aren’t of the same time period, I found them somewhat inspiring and informative.”

Godless has been making a name for itself as a feminist Western among a number of critics. “It was written long ago and I think it’s sort of an accidental feminist Western more than anything else,” said Frank.

“It’s ultimately a story about people. Of course it’s a story that hasn’t been told before,” said Dockery on whether or not she considers the show a feminist statement. “It has all of the classic elements of a Western, but these towns in which were solely made out of women were common in those times and it’s something that people have never seen before in a story, particularly in a Western.” She added, “The women unite to fight against Frank Griffin and it really turns the Western genre on its head.”

Godless is streaming now on Netflix.

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'Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers' Faces 'Fear of the Unknown'

A series of questionable strategic decisions by one castaway make a predictable 'Survivor' Tribal Council entertaining.

[This recap contains spoilers for the Wednesday, November 22 episode of Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers.]

Let's all pause to think about that Tribal Council, shall we?

There was a lot of dumb and crazy at that Tribal Council, albeit mostly coming from one player. There was a lot of hollow, intentionally hollow, talk of morals and ethics and a lot of the dumbest Survivor analogies I can ever remember hearing, albeit mostly coming from one player. There was a really stupid piece of strategy that was put forward in an aggressive attempt to swing the Tribal Council vote, followed by a dynamic immunity idol play, albeit mostly coming from one player.

So I guess that on this Thanksgiving Eve, we should all say we're thankful for Doctor Mike?

Thanks for making things interesting, Doctor Mike.

But geez, that was not good, Doctor Mike. For all of the thrusts and parries of tonight's Tribal Council, the vote went exactly the way even the most rudimentary Survivor logic would have dictated.

Basically, Cole lost an individual immunity and Cole was voted out. That wasn't hard. We'll never know how many individual immunities Cole might have won if he'd stuck around, but this was simple. You don't let a player like Cole stick around if you can avoid it. Even if you know that nobody especially likes Cole because he gossips and spills secrets and he eats food that isn't his to eat and he goes fishing for his own food and eats it alone, even if you know all of these things, voting Cole out in this circumstance shouldn't have been hard. And it wasn't. But Doctor Mike sure talked a lot.

At the top of Tribal Council, as Doctor Mike whispered to Joe, "I need you to follow my lead tonight. Just trust me," I wondered if he had a brilliant strategy. He started by saying it would be a moral and ethical failing for Ashley and Chrissy to talk about how much they hate Joe and then not vote him out, because Survivor is supposed to be like society and… something or other. I'm not sure what. So in this moment, I figured that Doctor Mike was trying to sway the Heroes/Hustlers alliance to vote for Joe and then he was going to pull out his idol and play it for Joe and it was going to be thrilling. Again, this is what he thought. I'm not sure why he would have thought that way and I guess I'd give Doctor Mike some credit for realizing that nobody was responding to him and talking about how bad Joe was. They were listening to Doctor Mike and thinking Doctor Mike sounded like an idiot and then he reversed course and started saying genuinely insane things.

"If Ben is King Arthur at the Round Table, I am happy to be the Statue of Liberty in America, because America's gonna beat England in the end," Mike declared.

This is not a sentence that has any meaning at all. Like… Ben's a half-real, half-mythological ruler from a pre-American period of England and you're a large statue that was a gift from the French? The Statue of Liberty and King Arthur have never fought each other in a war, but now I want to see Pacific Rim: The Statue of Liberty Versus King Arthur.

Then Doctor Mike played the idol on himself, quoting Emma Lazarus as he declared that America would remain in the game. America was never actually in jeopardy. Two people voted for Mike, but he was never the target, so he threw away his idol for nothing. Of course, he also would have been throwing away his idol if he'd played it on Joe. The best would have been if he'd decided to play it on Cole, because then he'd have saved Cole and sent himself home, which would have been well-deserved, which wouldn't have made any sense because Doctor Mike voted for Cole. But if Doctor Mike voted for Cole and presumably had reason to figure Joe was voting for Cole as well, what did Doctor Mike even think was happening? Did he think that he'd been nerdy and bratty enough at tribal to become a bigger nuisance than the biggest physical threat in the game? Why would he have thought that? As it stood, there was nothing good about anything he did and having found that idol was pretty much the best piece of his Survivor CV. I bet if he'd told Joe he had an idol, Joe would have come up with a better strategy for that idol.

Cole left feeling proud of himself and insisting he had romantic hopes with Jessica, who I'd already nearly forgotten about.

Wednesday's episode wasn't exciting, but it was filled with people doing confusing things. That can be entertaining in its own way.

Why did Doctor Mike do anything he did? No clue.

Why did Ryan tell Ben about his idol after having told Devon and making it clear to Devon that they were in a special two-person alliance? I know he hasn't watched this season so he had no way of knowing that this has been a season of people telling other people's secrets for no reason. I guess Ryan couldn't have predicted that Ben would then go and tell Devon about Ryan's idol, because why would Ryan have expected Ben to do that? As it stands, it looks like Ben did the right thing in telling Devon because it only made Ben look more trustworthy and Ryan less? But then why does Ben keep doing things unilaterally and then telling people that he isn't a dictator? Ashley and Chrissy are not happy with Ben at this point and there was no reason why that had to be the case. How hard would it have been for Ben to say, "Look, Cole needs to go first, but let's split the vote with Joe so that you at least know I'm taking you seriously"? Not very hard. Throwing the extra gratuitous votes to Doctor Mike was purposeless.

And why is everybody suddenly freaking out about Joe's threat this week when he was basically the same annoying guy last week when they had a free, idol-less tiebreaker vote open to target him and, instead, took Desi out for no reason?

And why was everybody shocked that that Glamour Desi, the first person on the jury, was gorgeous? She's a pageant queen, right? But Devon and a couple others were acting like they'd never seen Desi before. Or maybe they'd just forgotten her and they were like, "Oh right! Desi! We voted her out last week!"

I guess the concluding thought here is that entirely too many players this season aren't good at Survivor, but as bad at Survivor as they are, at least they executed basic strategy this week!

A few bottom lines before I go and await the arrival of the Thanksgiving Fairy…

Bottom Line, I. You would not have predicted Lauren outlasting Cole in that uncomfortable-looking squatting immunity challenge. Lauren's position in the game is looking stronger and stronger as we move forward. She's still got her bonus vote, she's won a few things, she's been a part of alliance-building with Ben and she's not making enemies. It hurt my back to watch the immunity challenge and it hurt my brain when Jeff Probst called the dousing of fire in the challenge "symbolic of what will happen tonight at Tribal Council." In Jeff Probst's world, extinguishing fire is symbolic of extinguishing fire.

Bottom Line, II. I also liked the reward challenge climax that came down to Joe shooting balls into baskets overhand and Ben shooting underhand, Rick Barry-style. Or as Probst put it, "Ben is going granny style! Old school midwest!"

Bottom Line, III. If you recall that Doctor Mike actually started the episode by instigating a whisper campaign against Cole for peanut butter eating, I guess I might as well raise this possibility: Maybe Doctor Mike's only goal was to keep Joe quiet at Tribal? He just wanted to keep Joe from doing anything to screw up the vote, which he suspect was going to go against Cole? But he worried that maybe if Joe started talking, something else might happen? So he told Joe to be a follower and not a leader in the Tribal Council debate just to keep the apple cart from getting upset? Yeah, I've got nothing.

Bottom Line, IV. So next episode, do Mike and Joe make the appeal to Ryan, Devon and Lauren that going to a final seven with four Heroes is dangerous and they need to take out a Hero? The problem with that is that while it makes sense, the splinters were actually coming from Ashley and Chrissy within the Heroes group.

Bottom Line, V. More good nature this week. There was a camouflaging octopus and a slithering sea snake and one very industrious spider, plus the reward winners got to watch dolphins while they ate bagel sandwiches and chocolate cake. The sea snake was even mentioned in the context of the episode, but didn't come into play. And speaking of "coming into play," our remaining advantages in the game include: Ryan's idol, Lauren's extra vote and Chrissy's expired super-idol, which I continued to insist has to be used as a bluff.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, everybody! And be sure to check out Josh Wigler's interviews. See y'all again next week.

Survivor
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DC TV Watch: 'Arrow' Actually Celebrates a Happy Thanksgiving (Against All Odds)

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THR rounds up the major twists, new mysteries and more announcements for all the DC Comics TV shows.

Welcome back to The Hollywood Reporter's weekly DC TV Watch, a rundown of all things DC Comics on TV. Every Friday, we round up the major twists, epic fights, new mysteries and anything else that goes down on The CW's Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl and Black Lightning, and Fox's Gotham.

[Editor's note: THR will continue to cover the onscreen events of the DC TV series as producers Warner Bros. Television investigate Arrow, Supergirl, Legends and The Flash executive producer Andrew Kreisberg, who has been suspended following multiple allegations of sexual harassment. Here is how the stars responded to the allegations.]

Arrow

Something to be grateful for | Usually when comic book shows try to celebrate any kind of holiday or momentous occasion, shit hits the fan real quick. So when Arrow decided to not only air a new episode on Thanksgiving but also have the characters try to celebrate the holiday onscreen, it was pretty much a given that things were not going to go smoothly. Diggle (David Ramsey) ended up going through withdrawals from the drug he was taking to hide his injury, so Oliver (Stephen Amell) was forced to suit back up as Green Arrow. He then had to lie to his son Wiilliam (Jack Moore) about it, and even made Diggle lie to William for him. Oliver was also arrested as the Green Arrow by the FBI, and they claim to have hard evidence linking him to murders, so that's going to trial. Plus the anti-vigilante law passed after some meddling by Cayden James (Michael Emerson), and the whole city has turned against Team Arrow. But at least one good thing did come out of the episode, making it a very happy Thanksgiving indeed for everyone: Thea (Willa Holland) woke up from her coma. She's been out of commission all season after suffering sever injuries from the Lian Yu explosion, but she was awake, alert and talking and joking with Oliver like she had just woken up from a long nap. She even got to have Thanksgiving dinner with Oliver, Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards), Diggle and William like one big family. Hopefully this is a sign of more good things to come for her character.

Legends of Tomorrow

Too many coincidences | After time anachronisms forced Ray (Brandon Routh) to meet his younger self, Stein (Victor Garber) to meet his evil ancestor, and now Mick (Dominic Purcell) has had to face a younger version of his father, something is starting to add up to more than just coincidence. Why do all the time anachronisms that the Legends have had to face always connect with someone from their past? Is there more to these errors in the timeline than meets the eye? And why is Ray the only one who seems concerned by that fact?

Time travel is so easy that even a monkey could do it | Not sure how this one is going to play out, but it won't be good: Damien Darhk (Neil McDonough) saved Gorilla Grodd from dying in a fire in the Vietnam War, only to bring him to the present and give him a device that allows the giant gorilla to time travel with a single thought. So yeah, on top of everything else, now the Legends have to worry about a time traveling psychic angry giant gorilla. Oops.

Supergirl

Mrs. Mon-El | Despite Mon-El's (Chris Wood) miraculous return to National City, his reunion with Kara (Melissa Benoist) wasn't as romantic as she hoped it would be. As she finds out once he started opening up to her, he was sucked into a wormhole and popped out into the future after leaving Earth, and it's been seven years for him since he last saw Kara, even though it's only been seven months for her. He kept on living, met Imra Ardeen (Amy Jackson), aka Saturn Girl, and as Kara found out at the end of the episode when she woke up and kissed him right in front of Kara, they were married. Talk about an awkward way to meet your ex's wife. And while the mystery surrounding Mon-El's reappearance played well in this episode, having to wait another two weeks (as the crossover airs next week) to finally get into the Legion mythology is going to be tough. This tiny taste of Saturn Girl and the Legion ship buried underneath National City was not enough!

Reign is born | In a storyline reminiscent of Smallville in more ways than one, Sam (Odette Annable) has officially transformed into the villain Reign (although she hasn't suited up just yet). After getting to the bottom of her origin story with her estranged adopted mother, Sam used a crystal from her spaceship that her mother hid in a barn to build her own Fortress of Sanctuary, a black and sinister twist on Kara and Clark's (Tyler Hoechlin) Fortress of Solitude. But after a hologram told Sam she was meant to be a Worldkiller, unfortunately Supergirl didn't take time to dwell on Sam's reaction. Instead, something inside the Fortress essentially took over Sam's mind and made her a hollow vessel for the Worldkiller persona to come forth. It's a shame the show didn't take its time to let Sam evolve and become Reign naturally. Wiping her mind and uploading a new, evil personality makes it hard to empathize and understand her choices moving forward. Hopefully Sam will try to wrestle back control over her body and mind over the next few episodes. Watching that struggle would be a much more compelling arc than a new, robotic person just replacing the single mom.

The Flash

A fortuitous meeting | The Flash finally gave viewers The Thinker's (Neil Sandilands) origin story via flashbacks, and while his descent into villain-dom was fascinating to watch, it was a chance encounter in the past that was the best part of the episode. The night of the particle accelerator explosion back in the pilot, The Thinker aka Clifford DeVoe took his "thinking cap" invention to STAR Labs, intending to use the energy exerted to power it on. During Harrison Wells' (Tom Cavanagh) welcome speech (part of which was shown in the pilot but was expanded on in this episode), Wells noticed DeVoe in the crowd and clearly recognized his name. He seemed awed and a little entertained at the thought of meeting DeVoe, laughing to himself like some kind of a private joke … because, as fans remember, that's not actually Harrison Wells. Back in season one, that was Eobard Thawne (Matt Letscher) aka the Reverse-Flash posing as Wells, and being from the future and Barry's (Grant Gustin) nemesis, Thawne would know all about another one of The Flash's greatest past rivals, The Thinker. That subtle nod was clever (and worked only because it wasn't spelled out for viewers), and something Barry missed entirely since he ran off to try and stop Iris' (Candice Patton) mugger from stealing her laptop. If only Barry had stayed for 30 seconds longer, he would have had a lot more information about his present foe. At least he and the rest of the STAR Labs team now know for sure DeVoe is The Thinker, since he outed himself to Barry by the end of the hour. The fact that DeVoe is not even concerned with revealing his identity and origins to Barry is pretty downright terrifying. He's so far ahead of everyone else and Barry only just realized the game is being played.

Gotham airs Thursdays on Fox. Supergirl airs Mondays, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow air Tuesdays, Arrow airs Thursdays; and Black Lightning will premiere Tuesday, Jan. 16, all on The CW.

Arrow The Flash Supergirl
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'Law & Order: SVU' to Address Harvey Weinstein Scandal

The episode, which will be centered on the airline industry, will air in 2018.

File this under bound to happen.

NBC's Law & Order: SVU will address the Harvey Weinstein scandal with an episode slated to air in 2018.

The veteran Dick Wolf procedural will explore rape culture in the workplace but it won't be set in Hollywood. Instead, the hour will be set in the airline industry as producers on the Mariska Hargitay starrer were already working on the episode when the Weinstein scandal broke and proceeded to change Hollywood's conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace.

“We were actually working on a story about airline pilots and what a boys club that is,” exec producer Michael Chernuchin told EW, who was first to report the SVU episode news. “We were beating the story out and said, ‘Wow, this is exactly what the actresses go through in Hollywood. It’s the same environment.’ So we got all of our Harvey stuff out with airline pilots.”

Fallout from the Weinstein scandal has spread across the entertainment industry as actors, showrunners, producers, executives, casting directors and other industry figures face allegations of sexual harassment that continues to have a ripple effect on the business.

This is the latest example of how SVU has tackled ripped-from-the-headlines story.

Law & Order: SVU
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On the Set of 'I'm Dying Up Here' as It Transports Cast and Crew Back to the 1970s

"Our show has an interesting quirk to it in that it's about fun comedy in the '70s, but it's also about the underbelly of this world," says star Melissa Leo. "So sometimes it's this uproarious, crazy set, and then there's other times when it's intensely serious, quiet filmmaking — we've had it all."

Entering the cavernous Culver City set of Showtime's I'm Dying Up Here is like walking into a time vortex. Guests are instantly whisked back to the 1970s as they become engulfed in a bell-bottomed, sideburn-sporting sea of extras. A nearby coffee table even has a few contemporaneous issues of The Hollywood Reporter (then a daily publication) strewn across it, one of which features a front-page story about a new hit movie called Star Wars.

On this afternoon in November 2016, the ensemble dramedy chronicling the birth of modern stand-up, executive produced by Jim Carrey, is shooting a scene for its season-one finale. Castmember Erik Griffin, one of many comedian-actors on the series, turns a set into a singing routine, and suddenly the dozens of background actors are grooving to the music.

The series, which was renewed for a second season in September despite modest ratings (it premiered in June), explores the period when stand-up began to change. "It went from setup punchlines and jokes to storytelling and therapy and creating characters," says executive producer Michael Aguilar. "This is just before that moment it took off."

Though Carrey didn't appear on the series, he'd pop into the writers room sporadically to tell stories about his time coming up in the Los Angeles comedy scene. Most of those tales turned up on the show, including one in which two of the characters end up living in a closet.

The tone on the set mirrors that of the series, says star Melissa Leo, who plays a firebrand comedy club owner. "Our show has an interesting quirk to it in that it's about fun comedy in the '70s, but it's also about the underbelly of this world," says Leo. "So sometimes it's this uproarious, crazy set, and then there's other times when it's intensely serious, quiet filmmaking — we've had it all."

This story first appeared in a November stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

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Sarah Gordon says she was an intern when her then-boss made her watch a sexually graphic scene from the 2002 film.

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'Runaways': How the Marvel Series Might Pull a 'Game of Thrones'-Level Twist

Spoiler alert!

[Warning: this story contains spoilers from the Runaways comic book series on which the new Hulu show is based.]

When it comes to the television adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona's Runaways, the comic book scribe had one simple rule for Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the Gossip Girl team charged with bringing the Marvel Comics series to life: "No Wikipedia answers."

"It was important to me that we do something where people can't go online and read how this ends or what's going to happen next," Vaughan recently told The Hollywood Reporter. "If you're a fan of the comic, you're going to be surprised. If you've never read the comic, you're going to be surprised."

With that said, there's at least one massive twist from Vaughan's Runaways arc that could find its way onto the Hulu series before season one ends — and in the spirit of that twist, be warned: potentially massive spoilers are ahead.

In the comic books on which Runaways is based, the six teens are struggling to reconcile the truth that their parents are members of the Pride, a supervillain organization with ties to an ancient evil. Except there's one Runaway who isn't struggling with this secret at all. This person has not only known about the Pride for a full year before the rest of the Runaways, but actually understands and accepts the dark deeds.

Are you sure you want to find out who that person is? Look no further than the image below…

"I knew from the beginning that Alex was going to be the traitor," said Vaughan, speaking about the game-changing twist involving Alex Wilder as a double agent within the Runaways. "It became difficult, because we fell so in love with him, that it was hard to finally pull the trigger in the end."

But the trigger was pulled nonetheless: Alex reveals himself as a traitor within the Runaways group at the end of Vaughan's first arc on the comic book, which leads to the rest of the kids fighting against him, and ultimately leads to Alex's death — followed swiftly by the deaths of the rest of the Pride.

"When people were first reading Runaways, I liked how if you're reading Spider-Man, you're pretty sure Spider-Man isn't going to die next month," said Vaughan. "But with Runaways, people really had no idea which characters were expendable and which characters might do a heel turn and could end up working with the villains. I loved that."

Will the Hulu adaptation follow suit, and turn Alex into a villain at some point in the future? Through three episodes, one can read the scenes involving Rhenzy Feliz's bespectacled hero in an ominous light, though the three actors who make up the fictional Wilder family are careful not to reveal too much at this point in time:

Rhenzy Feliz ("Alex Wilder"): "Alex is dealing with something different in the series than he is in the comics, so there's a little bit of a different backstory. The series dives much deeper than the comics did, so we're taking it a little bit slower. There's still a lot more to be found out. I can't tell you exactly how different and similar they are, but it isn't extremely different. The essence is still there."

Ryan Sands ("Geoffrey Wilder"): "Of course I know where Alex ends up [this season], but we're far from any hint of [his arc in the comics] on the show right now. It would be a crazy dynamic. That would be hard to imagine in the show, but it would be amazing to see."

Angel Parker ("Catherine Wilder"): "Rhenzy is a wonderful actor. He's a great lead to our show. [Schwartz and Savage] assured us that they were sticking with the comic for the first season, and then they would branch off of that, sort of how Game of Thrones broke off a little bit from the source material. But I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball. I definitely don't know what their plans are. We don't have a season two yet. We'll see how that goes. But I don't know why they would kill off such a wonderful character. We'll see. My guess is as good as yours, I know that much!"

For his part, Vaughan once again refers to the "no Wikipedia answers" rule in terms of what to expect from Alex Wilder in the future: "The only way to recreate [the comic book's] level of uncertainty is to do an adaptation that says we're not going to be completely beholden to what's happened before. Anything can change. I find that really exciting."

Do you think the Hulu series will make a traitor out of Alex Wilder? Sound off with your theories in the comments section below!

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David Lynch on Another 'Twin Peaks' Return: "I've Learned Never Say Never"

The director discusses what would bring him back to the mystery drama series, the sadness of editing departed co-stars and how the roadhouse booked such great talent.

It's equally remarkable that the methodical and unpredictable David Lynch directed all 18 episodes of this summer's Twin Peaks revival and that Showtime let the esoteric auteur deliver a haunting, confounding, towering series that seemed close to unfiltered. Nightmarish surrealism blended with musical performances from the likes of Eddie Vedder and spiked with the sadness of deaths from several major castmembers.

In his amiably evasive fashion, Lynch discussed his renewed love for television, the Twin Peaks season's ending, and more with The Hollywood Reporter.

After the premiere event in L.A., did you pay any attention at all to the reactions and responses to the 18 hours?

Yes. I would hear about how it was going as it went along, for sure.

What were you looking for in terms of how audiences were reacting to it?

I really loved the 18 hours myself, but you never know how things are gonna go over in the world. So I was curious of that, how it was going. That's all.

Did anything surprise you or excite you about how actively engaged viewers were?

No. That was really, really good. I'll tell you, it was a total blessing how it went in the world. Sometimes it doesn't go that way. And this was really, really great.

There were episodes throughout the season, like the eighth hour, the nuclear bomb episode where I got to the end and I tried to imagine how Showtime executives must have responded when they saw that hour of television that you brought them. Were there any kind of reactions and feedback along the way from Showtime to what you were bringing them?

Well, in the beginning, I think, obviously, executives, they worry about how things are gonna go. But I've got to say, they were super good with me and I had complete freedom. So it was very good. David Nevins and Gary Levine and Robin Gurney at Showtime ended up being big fans. And it was really happy times working with them.

Did they ask you questions along the way?

Everybody, they're human beings. So they've got questions like everybody else. And they loved seeing clues and trying to figure things out. And they were into it all along. They were really into it. Especially when it got all together with the sound and music mixed in. They really, really were fans.

After the original Twin Peaks run and after the Mulholland Drive pilot, I imagine that you had an ambivalent attitude toward television and how you fit within it. As it stands today, where do you see the match between your storytelling instincts and television?

I love a continuing story, number one. And I think the feature film is going through a troubled time right now. So television, cable television, is the new art house. And it's so beautiful because you can tell a continuing story. The quality of the sound and picture is not as good as in the theater, but it's getting better all the time. And if people see it on a big screen in their house with the lights down and good sound, or if they see it with headphones, it's possible to really get into that world. So it's a hopeful time, and cable television is getting better all the time, and it's a beautiful place for these things.

People don't always watch TV in perfect conditions. When you were working on capturing the darkness of the photography and the layered sound design, how many different screens and situations did you watch episodes in to make sure it was playing the way you wanted it to?

Oh you watch it all the time. And in the mix, I'm working with [sound and music supervisor] Big Dean Hurley and Ron Eng and we go through things. Every element of a film is important. So you keep working it until everything feels correct. And it's a delicate thing sometimes. All the time it's a delicate thing. Too loud or the wrong sound can throw you out. So it's a grand experiment to get everything to feel correct. And it's the same way when you start shooting. Every single thing, the way they look, the way they talk, what room they're in, what the light is like, all the different elements that make this thing up, you just keep working on them until it feels correct and it's really great fun work, but it's sometimes high tension.

I was surprised when it was initially announced that you were directing all of the episodes. Were you always confident that you would have the time, have the ability, have the desire to do all of those 18 hours yourself?

Absolutely.

And there was no period of doubt along the way?

No, no, no, no, no. It's so beautiful.

How did you parse out your time and your energy and your enthusiasm to make sure you were able to do it all?

Once you sign on for that, you're just chained to it. And there's no let-up. If you're sick, you can't stay home. You just go. It's a runaway train, but it's a beautiful trip.

What parts, in particular, felt like a runaway train?

It's every day. Picture it, when you get there in the morning, it's like there's a giant ravine. And as you're working during the day, you're building a glass bridge. It's a delicate bridge and it's made of glass. And once you've got everything done for that day and it feels correct, boom, the glass turns to steel and you can cross over. And then you've got to do it again the next day.

Then how does it feel when you finally have picture lock?

Well you see, picture lock is one thing. But then there's sound. And nothing's finished. All these things have got to come together for it to really be what you want. So it's really not done until the very last bit of color correction.

And are you the kind of person who really would be able to just keep working and tweaking on this forever?

No. There's a point where you say, "This is finished." But it's the high tension. You know the deadline is looming out there so you just keep working away. But then you've got enough time to say, "Yeah, this is now finished."

The season is such a great showcase for Kyle MacLachlan in so many different ways. Did you know going in how much you wanted to show off his versatility?

It's not a question of showing off. You get these ideas, and I knew Kyle could do it. But it's these characters, they've got to be a certain way, and so you work together, all the different elements that make up each one of those characters. And then the actors have got to supply their talent and make it real, from a deep place, and Kyle sure did it.

How much did watching what he was doing steer how much we were seeing of certain characters? It seems like Dougie is the kind of character who could be really tough to watch if he weren't being played so magically. How did you know that Kyle was giving you what you needed from that character?

You see it before your eyes. You can fine tune things or you can talk and adjust. But all the things, the wrong thing can break the reality of the character. So you work and you talk and you rehearse and you talk some more. And then, the actor, Kyle, he locks in on these things and away we go.

Deputy Director Cole [Lynch's character] had a very big part this season. What are your strengths and weaknesses as an actor, do you think?

I always say you should talk to producer Sabrina Sutherland, because Cole gave her nothing but trouble. He's horrible to work with. Demanding.

There's this tremendous weight of the passage of time and almost of mortality itself that hangs over the season. Did you always realize that was what the feeling was going to be or did it grow in production and then postproduction with the passing of Catherine E. Coulson and Warren Frost and Miguel Ferrer?

Oh yeah. We were so lucky that we got Catherine. She passed away four days after she shot her scenes. And Miguel and now Harry Dean Stanton. It's a sad, sad thing. I just loved working with Miguel. I loved working with everybody. But I guess it's just a terrible thing to lose people. And everybody's had that experience. But it's just really fortunate that we got them in the show.

Does that put a different weight on you when you're in the editing room and you want to make sure you honor these people?

You just look and say, "There's Miguel alive and well and doing his thing." And you know that he's not here anymore. But in a way, it's finishing things up the way you would with any scene, any character, but you have that in the back of your mind. And you just wish that it wasn't so.

With that on your mind, how much room was there in the process to fall in love with new characters?

Plenty of room. Plenty of room. There were 237, I believe, actors in this, and all of them, I just loved working with them. And all of them did such great things. It was like the Magical Mystery Tour.

Does that seem insane to you when you're in the process of having 237 actors in this epic work?

It's a little bit insane. But you just go one day at a time. A person comes in and you have that day, and then they're gone. But they're in the film, and you wish that everybody could be around, and that you would have dinner with them in the evening, and you'd be one big family. But it's like one family member at a time, sort of.

Was someone like Kyle, who had worked with you so many times, was he almost like a team captain, making sure that everybody was on the same page and doing the same things?

No. I'm a team captain. (Laughs.) Kyle was there a lot, and I think he was happier than I'd ever seen him. He just was so happy being these different characters. And it was kind of euphoric.

The structuring device of the roadhouse musical numbers, when did that come to you and how did you approach those almost episodic moments?

Because there's the roadhouse, and you could have the possibility for different bands, and people started submitting things through my music agent, through Big Dean Hurley, and little by little by little starting hearing things that were so perfect. And all those bands were organized and shot in one day. So Dean, much to his credit, he had to organize all that. A band would go onstage with all the things they needed. They'd record, it would be shot with three cameras and all the different things they needed, and then off they'd go. Stage would be cleared. New band would come in, all the stuff they needed. It was just one long, beautiful day.

In your mind, how does a small town honky-tonk do such a spectacular job with booking talent?

It's a magical thing. You talk to musicians and they play New York, Madison Square Garden, and then they get a call from Twin Peaks and they say, "I'm there."

When did you know how you wanted to end these 18 episodes?

Well, when the script was done.

But it wasn't one of those things where you said, "OK, we're aiming to this line of dialogue, we're aiming to this point"?

No. You build it. It's like, I don't know exactly. You can say the script is musical notes, pages and pages and pages of orchestrations. And you're building it. But you can see the notes, how they're supposed to go and where it goes soft and quiet and where it builds. And where it goes here and there, transitions. And it's just all there in the music. You just have to translate it to cinema.

And do you view the ending as being a cliff hanger or do you view it as a broader, philosophical question that maybe doesn't require answering?

I don't really say things like that. But you know, I always say that there should be some room to dream.

What would be the impetus that would require you and Mark Frost to come back to this world? What would it take?

I don't know. It's too early to say that right now.

But it's definitely not something that you rule out?

I've learned never say never.

Going back to the feelings you're having about TV, have you started thinking in terms of long-form storytelling more often in your mind?

Yeah, it's thrilling to me. Continuing story. It's absolutely thrilling.

And do you think that TV is generally ready for the kind of stories you want to tell, or was Showtime a special case?

No, I think they're generally ready. And I think it's what's happening. All these things go in waves. But right now, it's a very friendly environment for a continuing story.

Does that make you want to dive in aggressively? Does it make you want to go, I want to catch this wave while it's still cresting?

In some ways, yes. (Pauses.)

And in other ways?

No. (Laughs.)

A version of this story first appeared in a November stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

Twin Peaks
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