Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
I am watching Three Pines, and every time Chief Inspector Gamache interviews someone I am struck by the kindness in his voice and the fact that he is asking the questions as if it’s not an interrogation at all. It feels like a conversation, not an accusation, and he really seems interested in the answers. He is truly interested in the person.
Such a thoughtful show; such a thoughtful character. I am on the last episode, and I’m feeling quite melancholy about this being the last one. Another great show, canceled. Bastards!
In any case, as I was watching today I realized that I am going to miss Inspector Gamache, and it came to me that he is someone I would very much like to meet, if only he were real.
What character from a film, a show, or a play would you like to meet in person, if only you could? (Let’s save characters from books for another time.)
Please tell us not just the who, but also the WHY. That is one piece of feedback I consistently get about Medium Cool – that it’s most interesting when people talk about the why instead of just list a thing that they like.
Update: I wrote this post last week, when I thought I was at the end of the last of the 6 episodes of Three Pines. Then I found out there were 8 episodes, not 6, so I watched the other two this week. Color me officially cranky about the ending. Bastards!
HumboldtBlue
Sherlock Holmes. He’d find me utterly boring, tedious and a bit too slow to really add anything to the conversation, but It would be a hoot to be able to pick that brain. Drink a few pints, talk about the different strains of Turkish tobacco and how the ashes from each cigar is different. Do an experiment or two on explosive paper (the sort used by spies) and smoke a
bowlerr… pipe or two.KenK
@HumboldtBlue: my first choice as well. Over a few pints, discuss ‘how’d you see this, how’d you see that’. I’ll accept either Jeremy or Benedict.
DesertFriar
Inspector Montalbano. I figured he would invite me to his house and have Adelina cook for the meeting. Arancini to start with pasta for the main meal with a good Sicilian wine (Lacryma Christi.
With the food & wine, wouldn’t care what we talked about.
Chief Oshkosh
The question might more specifically stipulate a fictitious character, since, for instance, would one want to meet with Lincoln as in Lincoln from one of the movie, or wouldn’t one more likely want to meet the real Lincoln.
So, for fictitious characters, I’d like to meet Rick Blaine so that I can finally know why he left American and couldn’t come back. Did he run off with a Senator’s wife? Did he abscond with the church funds? I’d like to think he killed a man; it’s the romantic in me. Maybe it was a combination of all three.
scav
@KenK: He’d be high on the list, but I might plump first for the textual Holmes, mostly because I think in becoming so iconic, he’s been smoothed out and lost much individual complexity. (Necessarily so, Conan Doyle wasn’t much bothered with continuity. See also the wandering wound of James or John of the indeterminate wives). Although the iconic versions you listed do have their charm . . . . .
Ah, but then, there’s always the Doctor. And, seriously, the Tardis. Wouldn’t we want to be in a universe like that? (Capaldi I think, if I was forced to be more precise. Proper amount of prickly and an excellent selection of desktop.)
Raoul Paste
@KenK: I wouldn’t mind Johnny Lee Miller
DSC
“I realized that I am going to miss Inspector Gamache”
the books are fantastic, and the audio books have an outstanding reader, Ralph Cosham
I have loved them all, and the characters are richly developed, the mysteries are involving, and the political intrigue is absorbing
HIGHLY recommended
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Chief Oshkosh: I can’t find a citation, but are you quoting Louie about why Rick can’t return to the US?” It’s the romantic in me ” sounds famiar
Miss Bianca
Inspector Rough from Gaslight. I truly fell in love with that character after playing him this fall and spring.
Although Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice would be fun as well.
HumboldtBlue
@KenK:
Or… Dr. Stephen Maturin, I would love to show him a modern anatomy textbook.
Chief Oshkosh
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Got it in one!
NotMax
A few which should need no further explanation as to why.
Pseudolus from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Flint from the “Requiem for Methuselah” episode of the original Star Trek.
Any or all of the regular cast of Vicious.
trollhattan
Number Six from Battlestar Galactica. Because reasons.
2nd place to Agustus McCrae from Lonesome Dove.
zhena gogolia
Fitzwilliam Darcy from the 1995 Pride and Prejudice
Mark Darcy from Bridget Jones
Played by Colin Firth, is my explanation
raven
For nine years Colin Sutton was the Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) for the Metropolitan Police. During his stint, which ended in 2011, Sutton led more than 30 successful murder investigations including two of the most infamous cases in British history. Sutton tenaciously and relentlessly pursued serial killer Levi Bellfield as well as serial rapist Delroy Grant known as the ‘Night Stalker’, bringing both men to justice.
Now happily retired in Suffolk, Sutton’s memories about the two cases have been turned into the TV series Manhunt starring Martin Clunes. Let’s take a look at Sutton’s most famous investigations.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Chief Oshkosh: I just looked it up and you were practically word for word 🥰
kalakal
Jeeves from the P. G. Wodehouse novels. I’d just love to get his take on Wooster and his fellow Drones. Also it would mean I’d be living in Wodehouse’s world and I would love to be one of his characters
Josie
@zhena gogolia:
Concur.
HumboldtBlue
@raven:
Nice! I’ll add that to the queue!
Chris
MacGyver.
Much like Sherlock Holmes, pop culture remembers the magical brain and forgets the kindness and decency that are, to me, even more foundational to the character. In the Richard Dean Anderson incarnation, he was portrayed as a guy who would put every bit as much effort into saving a depressed teen he just met from committing suicide, as he would into sabotaging a nuclear reactor in Iran. There’s something nice about the “I am basically a James Bond level hero and yet no problem is too small for me to care about” persona. Sort of like the best Superman and Batman incarnations.
Chief Oshkosh
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): It’s one of only 3 movies on my iPhone. Don’t know where the others went and I’m such a lazy luddite that I haven’t bothered to figure out why. So sometimes on long flights, I’ll re-watch it for the gazillionth time, even though it’s not my favorite Bogart movie (To Have and Have Not gets that accolade), it is my wife and my favorite Bogart movie.
Nancy
I’d like to meet Angela from the series Bones.
Why:
She’s an artist, she has a mysterious past*, and she gives Temperance Brennan details for the sex scenes in her books.
She’s kind and tolerant of the various prickly personalities on that show.
*She married a gorgeous man but didn’t realize or remember they were married I’d want to ask how she would forget that man until he showed up.
pajaro
If she’d speak to me, I’d like to chat with Paige Jennings, who walked off the train and away from her parents in the last episode of The Americans. I’d want to tell her I worried about her, and hoped she had done well (she would be in her early 50’s), and I’d be so interested in hearing about how her life turned out. (and maybe find out if she ever spoke with mom and dad).
raven
And, of course, Jeremiah Johnson.
kalakal
@kalakal: Meant to add Jeeves as the Stephen Fry incarnation in Jeeves & Wooster
laura
I tried so hard to not watch The Bear. I’d convinced myself it was another food themed scam (do not go to the second location for some bougie exclusive dining experience). Then I heard from a personal opinion haver, and found it to be an initially difficult and off putting endeavor. And then season two made it all worth it. Story arched, plot was plausible mostly, but the characters- oh how they bewitched and beguiled me. It is a perfectly cast show, pitch perfect the acting is so very good and each character has their own personal story arch even if just hinted at. I imagine they must have come to play and open themselves to each other so that the whole of the cast is the show- there’s a mechanical metaphor that eludes my ability to describe it, but there’s that about it.
The protagonist Carmy was, to my mind, the least interesting, but without him, there is no Sydney, and she is so very special, all ambition and anxiety, and just dealing with the reality of failure, loss, loneliness and so much risk that I couldn’t sleep at night for worrying about her. Marcus; so tender, blossoms as he travels for work. Tina, the embodiment of meeting and exceeding at a challenge she never imagined, and Richie, I hated him, he’s that guy, instant irritant, arrogant asshole, covering up a shallow interior. And against his will and with the enthusiasm you see when visiting the department of motor vehicles, he discovers his purpose, a switch is flipped and watching Richie come into the fullness of himself and express himself – it’s positively John Cole-like! He and Sydney, I’d so enjoy a conversation with them, but I’d really be happy to speak with every single actor about their character, their experience in this ensemble, and the work-life of acting. There’s a second string that’s just as strong- Robert Townsend, Oliver Platt, Jamie Lee-Curtis (you just have to see her), Olivia Coleman- she punches above her weight in a brief and subtle scene.
I’ve tried to keep it general to avoid spoiling the the fun. It’s not for everyone but it rewards the diligent viewer.
Citizen Dave
Racking my brain on this one. I like so many darker characters: Travis Bickle, Coen Brothers movies. The Dude would be blast to hang out and bowl with.
scav
Also, definitely a day or two with Wallace and Gromit. Again, because that world and then possibly figuring out (or more likely merely observing!) what makes Wallace’s mind tick. Besides, I like cheese. Gromit would absolutely be my preferred pet from fiction, although he’d likely find me dull.
Chris
Oh yeah;
Pick a Bruce Campbell character. Any Bruce Campbell character. Autolycus. Sam Axe. Brisco County Jr. Although my favorite might be his guest star role as Santa Claus in The Librarians.
He’s the actual Guy You’d Want To Have A Beer With.
Miss Bianca
@Chris: I heartily concur!
@HumboldtBlue: And Stephen Maturin, another excellent choice! A glass of wine with you, sir/ma’am/gentlebeing!
Scout211
Some female characters I would love to hang out with because they are so smart, strong, friendly and cool. They might be too cool to hang out with me, but I’d still like to try.
Mary Richards
Liz Lemon
Veronica Mars
Leslie Knope
Lisa Simpson
WaterGirl
@DSC: I am super fussy about narration in audio books, so I am glad to hear that.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Admit it, you’re a rebel!
Steve Holmes
Ted Lasso
The Dude, Walter and Donnie
McNulty and Bunk
Craig
Rebecca Walton from Ted Lasso. She turned into an interesting person.
Kristine
If I were trying to find information about someone, Joan Hickson’s Miss Marple. But I believe that after a while, I would be fighting the feeling that she was evaluating me and finding me wanting.
Hickson’s Marple is My Marple. There’s an edge to her portrayal that I don’t see in others. I doubt anything would shock her. I do mean anything.
I would love to watch Jackson Lamb (Slow Horses) in a meeting or confrontation, but I wouldn’t necessarily want to meet him.
I would like to work for Dr Strange in the library at the New York Sanctum. I liked that the movie portrayed magic as something that could be taught to anyone, that you didn’t need to be born with some talent (although that would help).
Maria Hill (from the Marvel movies) was an underrated character. Ruthless and matter-of-fact brutal. I would like to know if she was always that way or if she needed to learn.
Miki
Gamache in the books is even better.
eclare
Deborah Vance (Jean Smart’s character) from Hacks. I love her attitude, plus she loves the good life, so we’ll ride around in the Rolls drinking Dom Perignon.
Steve Holmes
@Steve Holmes: also I would like to meet all these characters randomly in a diner.
I spent some time in the 80s traveling up and down California’s Central Valley, for work. The towns along the route ( Stockton, Manteca, Fresno) had great diners. I met interesting people at every one (Always sit at the counter or bar if you’re eating alone). The conversations were great.
zhena gogolia
@eclare: Yeah, she would be fun. For a while.
japa21
Hercule Poirot, from the current series. An absolutely intriguing character, who has a very strong moral base, a rigid sense of right and wrong, but can be so extremely caring and empathetic.
HumboldtBlue
@laura:
I started it on the recommendation of a friend and didn’t finish the first episode. I found it too fast, too trite, too pat, and stopped watching. Then a few months later, I went back and watched it again and ended up binging it and that led to long text threads with my sister about the series.
She absolutely loved it (we come from a large talkative family and while we had our serious issues and dysfunction, we weren’t near that family’s scale), and while it took me a bit to warm up, it caught me. There’s a depth, a real human depth to the show, and it touches on themes every one of us recognize and themes that elicit real emotions and feelings.
I recommend it to all.
Nelle
@Kristine: I totally agree with Hickson’s portrayal of Miss Marple. And I believe she did those when in her upper 70’s and early 80’s. I’d like to have tea with someone who sees so clearly and has no use for games.
Just look at that parking lot
The recently deceased Florida author, Tim Dorsey had a long running series featuring the duo of Serge Storms and Coleman. Serge was a believer in correcting the wrongs foisted upon some of his fellow Floridians. He possesses a seemingly unlimited knowledge of obscure Florida history and Coleman could show you ways to get wasted that most people could never had imagined.
I doubt I would survive a week with these two , but I would like to have tried.
HumboldtBlue
@Miss Bianca:
Imagine introducing him to modern music! And modern medicine!
To the King!
Mr. Bemused Senior
I described this thread to my daughter and after some thinking she piped up “Grover.” This got me thinking, there are quite a few Muppet characters I would love to meet and then I realized that people did get to meet them on the Muppet Show. That would be fun.
TBone
Atticus Finch
eclare
@HumboldtBlue:
It took several tries for me to watch The Bear. The first few episodes left my nerves so jangled that I didn’t know if my heart could take it, but somewhere around episode three or four it clicked, and then I finished season one and two in a matter of days.
Talk about characters I would not want to meet: Jamie Lee Curtis’. Another episode that was nerve wracking.
HumboldtBlue
@eclare:
Indeed.
NotMax
Two more. late entries.
Will Geer’s Grandpa Walton.
Stretching the topic a mite, from real life the pioneering aviatrix Harriet Quimby.
Chris
@Just look at that parking lot:
Thanks, I’ve never heard of that guy and may have to check it out. I’m glad I don’t live in Florida anymore and honestly you probably couldn’t pay me enough to move back. But I’ve still got plenty of good memories of the place, definitely don’t mind continuing to read stories set there, especially if I get to learn more about it in the process.
dm
When I was in college, the crew from Real Genius, because their brilliance was carried into every aspect of their lives. Plus, well, I had a crush on Jordan (as did a number of my friends).
Now, I’d love to be on the bridge of Star Trek’s Discovery. Pretty much for the same reason as the characters from Real Genius: most of the plots end up resolved by them sitting down and, in the words of The Martian, “science the hell out of” the situation (though, to be honest, the “science” is mere technobabble).
Of course, there’s a certain hubris involved in thinking I could be anything more than a fly on the wall of such company….
Gloria DryGarden
This is a hard one. I’ve met actual famous actors, when I was a body worker. They’re kind of just real people, even if I believe the characters the actors play in their shows. Sometimes when I watch a rom com, a chick flick, I fall in love, temporarily, with the male lead, and I want to know them, and be in love, and have someone look at me in that way. There’s a recent one, and gods, the way he looks at her, the character he inhabits, it’s delicious and swoony. (And I’ve only seen clips. It’s recent, and I’m going to a friends house soon, that has prime, we can watch it together).
(This fascination needs to become temporary real soon; it’s been distracting).
Also, I’m dependent on YouTube, and the free library movie service, Kanopy. I might like to meet John mcwhorter, the linguist who does language families of the world, on the great courses. I couldn’t hold my own in a conversation with him, but I’d certainly go to hear him speak. He’s funny in a dry way, and linguistics and languages are so interesting, even as a beginner lay person.
Last week while subbing I came back from lunch with a cup of coffee, and told the teacher I was pretty sure coffee was the 6th love language, or maybe all foods. Somehow she mentioned John mcwhorter, and we nerded out about him for a few minutes before the kids arrived. No idea how she even guessed I’d know who he was.
I think it would be an interesting writing prompt, to explore what I might say, or ask, of a character, or a famous person. Write a fictitious story of meeting them, how it goes, what I most want to know, or who I’d most like to become, in their presence. I hope I am not too old for some more unfoldment and becoming. I definitely need to reinvent whole swaths of my life; it’s a bit daunting..
I’d enjoy meeting, or listening to, a live talk by David Attenborough. I like his voice, and the humorous intrigue he conveys, talking about the natural world. Again, I don’t see how I’d hold up my end of a conversation w him. But I’d take a nature walk with him nearly anywhere, just to exclaim together our awe of cool or beautiful nature details. Does this count as someone in a show?
pajaro
@laura: I loved Robert Townsend’s character so much. Season two really was note perfect, imo.
Chris
Thinking about it because I’ve got an episode on right now:
Teal’c and Bra’tac, from Stargate SG-1. I realize their backstory was basically made to fit the narrative needs of the evolving story, but here’s what it ads up to: they grew up in an ideological bubble as complete as North Korea’s, and yet they grew up to be political radicals who believed in the complete overthrow of the social order, while also being pragmatic enough to realize they had no way of making it happen and that the best they could do was to practice an extremely unsatisfying form of harm reduction. But they were still on the ball enough to recognize exactly the right moment to flip the switch from “damage-limiting realist” to “violent revolutionary.”
Yeah, I’d love to pick their brains. Especially Bra’tac’s, since he was the one who mentored Teal’c.
The Lodger
@Just look at that parking lot: Tim Dorsey died? Damn.
Gloria DryGarden
Ok
id like sit down w Kate from taming of the shrew, and ask about her feelings, how they changed, and is she really at peace with it, and why?
and there was child in a Jamie lee Curtis movie, can’t remember her name, nor the movie, maybe it was “my girl”. There’s a scene, after she got her first period, and after Jamie lee’s character ( the girlfriend of her dad, the town undertaker) has sat her down to explain what was happening to her. Her friend comes by to ask her to go swimming, and she says no, and tells him, “and don’t come back for 5-10 days.” Her. I’d like to sit down with her, and a whole group of young women to discuss our moontime, how it goes, how it might go, how it varies, how it affected us. I love, love, that line, from the movie. It’s 42 years of life, for most women, and is hardly ever discussed, beyond “do you have any advil.”
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Chief Oshkosh: I recently read Bogie and Bacall by William J. Mann and learned lots about both of them, before they got together, lots about both of them together, and then Betty’s life after he dies. She was only 32!!. Highly recommended. Hard to believe she was only 19 or 20 in To Have and Have Not. After reading the book, I proceeded to have a mini Bogie festival via TCM. :-)
karen marie
@Chris: I read several of Tim Dorsey’s comic crime capers decades ago and thought they were very funny. Sometimes novels don’t age well but I think his would if only because they’re “pre-technology” — it’s the old days when people DID things instead of fucking with their phone.
SFAW
Frank Pembleton: a complex, brilliant detective
Kambei Shimada (or Shimada Kambei-san?): can’t give a good reason why him specifically, but Shichinin no samurai is my favorite film. I guess because he’s a more complete person than Kikuchiyo. [I guess maybe it’s a tie between him and Sanjuro Kuwabatake.]
Angus MacGyver: I’m an engineer, what can I say?
Ser Bronn of the Blackwater: because of his iconoclastic/NFLTG attitude
Bunk Moreland: hey, it’s Bunk. And he played lacrosse, to boot.
Shana
@kalakal: are you a member of The Wodehouse Society? Our convention is in Nashville this September. A lovely and very fun weekend as you’d expect with the subject.
sdhays
@Nelle: I’ll add my +1 for Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. The other adaptations I’ve seen simply don’t capture the way the character is a totally unassuming nobody – somebody’s old spinster aunt who’s never left her village – and yet can be quietly intimidating up close. They always seem to want to make the character…bigger, and that’s not what makes her so compelling.
RevRick
Jessica Jones. She’s a Marvel superhero who has undergone tremendous trauma and tends to isolate herself and self-medicate with whiskey. We know the facts of her backstory, but she fears self-revelation, and I would like to befriend her (she evokes a paternal instinct in me).
Gloria DryGarden
Wonder Woman, and Xenia the warrior princess would be fun to meet. I don’t think they have time. What would I say? Admiration, thanks. Or questions about how they deal with the pressures, responsibility, and fame…
thruppence
Father Cadfael. Good at solving medieval mysteries, smart, wise, compassionate (maybe a touch cynical?) and has a vast knowledge of herbal medicines. Probably knows some good jokes too.
Gloria DryGarden
@Nelle:
@sdhays:
now you make me want to look up these miss marple movies. I love quiet unassuming characters who pack a punch…
autocorrect tried to make that miss marble. Jeepers
kalakal
@Shana: No I’m not, thanks for bringing it to my attention, I’ll have to look into it, I’ve loved his books for over 50 years. I imagine the convention would be great fun
laura
I’d like to climb on the Joan Hickson bandwagon- astringent and masterful at analogizing village life and crime.
kalakal
I’d like to meet John Steed and Mrs Peel because they’d be so cool to hang around with
Mr. Bemused Senior
@kalakal: oh yes [Steed and Mrs. Peel]
billcinsd
@Nancy: Wasn’t Angela’s father one of the ZZ Top beards?
The Lodger
@karen marie: my wife has a few on her mystery bookshelf. I’ll pick one or two up and get back to you.
dm
@thruppence: also, some great stories. I don’t think cynical so much as wise.
Just Some Lurker
@Chief Oshkosh: I’d always figured that Rick Blaine was a “premature anti-fascist,” one of those Americans who (IRL) volunteered to fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War, and were then declared subversives by Uncle Sam because, while Franco and his insurrectionists were supported by Nazi Germany, the old regime in Spain was supported by Soviet Russia (which later pulled that support, dooming the antifascist cause in Spain and leaving quite a few foreign volunteers in mortal peril, but that’s another story and George Orwell tells it in “Homage to Catalonia”)…
Anyway, it’s not hard to imagine that Rick Blaine was such a volunteer, like Robert Jordan in Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” or the quite real members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. It squares the circle of his idealistic nature and his soldier-of-fortune resume, and it’s not, strictly speaking, implausible for a mercenary who fought on the losing side of another country’s civil war, to pop up a decade later, running a shady business in a neighboring country…
So, if something like this represents the outline of Rick’s career before he opened the Cafe American, then in all likelikood he can’t go back to the States because he’d be facing federal prosecution for bearing arms under a foreign flag. He might even have had his US citizenship revoked while he was abroad.
JustRuss
@kalakal: While my respect for Jeeves knows no bounds, I’d love to tag along with Wooster on a visit to one of his friend’s or relative’s estates. No telling what hilarity might ensue. I admire Bertie’s bottomless and often unwarranted optimism.
I also enjoyed Three Pines a lot.
Roberto el oso
Just off the top of my head: Evelyn Carnahan, the character played by Rachel Weisz in “The Mummy”.
Mr. Prosser
I’d would like to have a quiet summer afternoon in a country pub garden with Peter Wimsey and Bunter as portrayed in the Masterpiece Theater series. Pints of bitter and just listen to both of them speak on any topic that comes up.
Gloria DryGarden
@Mr. Prosser: I’d like to come. Also would like to meet his wife, the writer, I forgot her name! It’s been years, maybe I can reread them now.