Nerdy Squirrel Reviews by Pasckie Pascua

“The Deuce.” Netflix DVD. 3 Seasons. This series is exemplary in capturing the texture, grime, and smarts of 70s/80s New York City during the Golden Age of Porn. Co-created by David Simon, former police reporter for The Baltimore Sun who gave us the remarkable “The Wire,” this show explores government and police corruption, the violence of the drug epidemic and the real-estate booms and busts that coincided with the change. Mr Simon’s turf.         “The Deuce” is the nickname for 42nd Street between Seventh Avenue and Eighth Avenue.        The series features a large ensemble cast including James Franco playing twins, which doesn’t move me at all (sorry!) and Maggie Gyllenhaal as an ambitious sex worker who becomes a film director, which is as usual, a compelling portrayal. Maggie is Always Great. Support cast is exemplary as well, notably Gary Carr as C.C., a charismatic but ruthless and controlling pimp; Emily Meade as Lori Madison, a young woman who quickly becomes a sex worker afte

“The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe” (BritBox) British drama, based on real life. Dramatizes the John Darwin disappearance case in the U.K., where prison officer and teacher John Darwin faked his own death and reappeared, five and a half years after he was believed to have died in a canoeing accident.        No plot twists or hold your breath suspense or coppers chasing Mr Darwin kind of thriller. The essential meat of this sad, cute, and silly miniseries is the understated intensity and compelling chemistry between leads Eddie Marsan (as John Darwin) and Monica Dolan (as wife Anne Darwin). Sure, you’d hate John for his sly manipulation of Anne, and maybe hate Anne as well for her hapless stupidity? But it is not hard to feel for their everyday people deadend existence: Simplistic, helpless, dumb, but naturally human.         The show tiptoes on predictability and immobility at times but Mr Marsan and Ms Dolan are such remarkable, experienced performers that you’d sit there, without

“Atlanta.” Hulu. Comedy-drama. 4 Seasons. We all agree, this is Donald Glover’s transition project, and the series also “made” Lakeith Stanfield and Brian Tyree Henry. And, especially, my new favorite, Zazie Beets. The popular series, which earned quite a number of Golden Globes and Emmys, centers on college dropout and music manager Earn and his rapper-cousin Paper Boi and buddy Darius.         What sets the show apart from other black efforts is it isn’t blackcentric in your face, kinda. And the way Glover delivers his message cuts though you like a tiny, insistent razor blade and then you end up laughing. This is not hysterical Eddie Murphy, or a philosophizing Spike Lee joint. This is just Atlanta, black neighborhood life. Sometimes we don’t need to politicize life.         But then, wait. Season 3, which took us to Europe, slowly lost its accessible down-earth cred to a dark, surreal paradigm that cuts through arthouse pretensions to Eurocentric ersatz. Lost me. Season 4, while on

“The Diplomat” (Netflix) Season 2, political drama. Centers on the new U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, as she defuses international crises, forge strategic alliances in London and adjust to her new place in the spotlight while also trying to survive her marriage to fellow career diplomat.        I watch a lot of political TV series that it'd seem I've seen enough. Yet I never lose interest. "The Diplomat" is a bit on the "Madame Secretary" line that it wouldn't be hard to sense predictability. Yes, it is. But somehow we are watching the same drill again albeit a different drillmaster or drillmistress, if you may.         This time, Keri Russell--wearing the nervy spunk and stubborn vulnerability of "The Americans'" Elizabeth Jennings--carries "The Diplomat" like it's an entirely new political thriller ride again. As Kate Wyler, Ms Russell melds pretty well with co-star Rufus Sewell, as her hubby. She brings out stressed

“Breaking Bad.” (Netflix.) 5 Seasons. Crime drama. According to series creator Vince Gilligan, the title is a Southern colloquialism meaning "to raise hell.” Yet this ultra-popular neo-Western series is definitely more than “raising hell.” I say, this could be how a template of exemplary streaming TV should be: Revolting at times but poignantly believable, piercingly dark in its bottoms-up hilarity but a sociocultural indictment that we can’t run away from. It is so wickedly truthful.        The story: Walter White is an underpaid, overqualified and dispirited high school chemistry teacher who is struggling with a recent diagnosis of stage-three lung cancer. White turns to a life of crime, partnering with his former student Jesse Pinkman, by producing and distributing crystal meth to secure his family's financial future before he dies, while navigating the dangers of the criminal underworld.            Nothing so new about that plotline. We have wallowed in similar story struc