The Twilight Zone (2019)

(2019 - )

I really wanted to like this new version of the Twilight Zone. When I heard Jordan Peele was the showrunner * my interest piqued even more. Like everyone else I thought Get Out was pretty cool, and while I hated Us, it had yet to materialize when the news broke. He seemed like a good choice. And when I heard he was going to be an on-screen narrator as well as showrunner, I liked it even more. This would be the first Zone since the first where that was the case.

That's proven to be a tricky area of navigation in the other incarnations of TZ. The 80s show opted to keep the narrator offscreen, and that worked pretty well but - to many - it just wasn't the same without the camera whipping around to see Rod Serling directly addressing the audience, cigarette in hand. You knew the story had been personally vetted by the guy on screen. As this wasn't the case with Charles Aidman or with Forrest Whittaker, who, while onscreen, just seemed like an actor playing a part. 

* Some say for the 2019 version Peele is the showrunner in name only. Peele himself equivocates on the subject in interviews. So who knows? Does the buck stop with him or one of the other showrunners, Greg Yaitaines or Simon Kinberg? 

I was also curious to know: what would a new Zone look like in the wake of things like Black Mirror? I remember, for example, prior to the release of the first Daniel Craig Bond having a conversation with a fellow Bond fan about the impact of 24. It's apples to oranges, perhaps, but 24 made the Brosnan-era Bonds look and feel a little behind the times. We were all pleasantly surprised by how that one (at least) worked out. 

Alas, not the case here. Apparently the powers that be felt the right response to things like Black Mirror was to put out a TZ that seems more concerned with hitting every branch of the Wokeness Tree as it free falls to the ground. Almost like a punt; "we'll never match or beat these guys so let's just woke the shit out of this and keep it moving." This is virtue signalling, not storytelling, and it definitely doesn't need to be called "The Twilight Zone." If it was called "The Twitter Zone" (and it's worth mentioning Yaitaines was an angel investor in Twitter, the West's premier social-shaming and un-personing platform) it would make sense.

But, you say, this is The Twilight Zone! Sense need not apply, right? Agreed. But I'm talking storytelling sense. There are plenty of episodes (from each previous incarnation) that relegate making sense to evoking a particular vector of anxiety. All well and good. But here it's a very, very particular and obnoxiously Voxsplainey anxiety. These aren't anxieties we all share or can learn from, in other words; this is bullet-point list of your garden variety wokester's social media preoccupations and mental shortcuts.

Once you realize this, the lack of sense quickly makes sense. You will never see an episode like "The Obsolete Man", for example, on this new Twilight Zone, because the show seems to be, bizarrely, on the side of the state from that episode. That is... an odd predicament for something called The Twilight Zone to be in. 

Your mileage might vary on these conclusions. So it goes. Let me say, too, I like plenty of things that do not share my own political conclusions, but they have to make sense as stories. Without that, it's just agitprop. And agitprop ain't The Twilight Zone; it's an indictment. 

Let's see what that indictment looks like. From least to most... I can't say favorite, because these are all non-favorites, for the most part. Generally speaking, though, if each of the following had been trimmed down to twenty-five minutes and handed off to people less interested in narrativemongering and more into sci-fi/ storytelling, they all probably would have worked. It's a shame.

10.

"Replay"

Directed by Gerald McMurray. Written by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds.

A woman with a magic camcorder that rewinds reality struggles to stop a policeman from Occupy Democrats central casting from shooting her son for driving and/or dreaming while black. 

The Black Lives Matter episode. 

Look, let's put to one side the argument on the actual facts that animate the BLM narrative. Whether you think this episode paints a reality or an unreality sustained with extreme prejudice by a wildly irresponsible media-academe - who just may be getting the very people of whom they purport to care killed in greater numbers than they have to be - let's just get that out of the away. It doesn't matter what's real or unreal, here, it only matters if people can relate to the anxiety. If done well, then anyone could; if done poorly, then only people who believe in the silly caricatures of take-your-pick-media and attendant narrative framing will do so. 

To say "Replay" fails to even nod in the direction of any outside its own echo chamber is an understatement. None of the details add up. None of the characters seem like real people or say real-people-things. This is basically emotional tortureporn but also - somehow - the definition of narrative masturbation. That people want to masturbate to Black Lives Matter fantasies is deeply embarrassing. (And disturbing! Of all the things to masturbate to, FFS.)

Also: this dude is totally doing it wrong, isn't he? The BLM sign is supposed to be facing the street. Is he reminding himself while he sits in his otherwise-awesome-looking study? (A quick word on sets in general for the show: the production value is outstanding. Every episode had one room at least that I wanted to spend time in.) 

A fine waste of Sanaa Lathan, which should be punishable by fine. The episode flirts at one point with an interesting premise, i.e. "connect with Home to avoid vicious cycles." Think of how much better something like that is done in Octavia Butler, or Alice Walker, just to name a couple. But of course, the episode is not concerned with doing its job well; this is agitprop for fellow travelers of this narrative. As is:

9.

"Point of Origin"

Directed by Mathias Herndl. Written by John Griffin.

The nanny of a wealthy socialite is taken away by immigration authorities. Get ready for the big twist: it is the wealthy socialite who is the real alien! An ice cream truck that appears every so often reminds us that this is, like, about America and stuff. 

The Open Borders/ Dreamers episode.

It was a toss-up between "Replay" and this one for worst of the 2019 season. Not only is the point thoroughly confused (and at odds with its own messaging, something that happens so often it might be considered a design feature rather than an ironic glitch of the intersectional left) the plot is presented in such an absolute jumble and the performances so terrible that my wife and I had to ask a dozen people just what the hell this was supposed to be about. 

There was a pretty cool episode of the revamped X-Files (written by Darin Morgan, so always an occasion) that did such a more intelligent, more entertaining, more internally cohesive, and just all-around better take on many of the same themes here. And I didn't walk away from that episode feeling hectored (incoherently). 

8.

"Not All Men"

Directed by Christina Chloe. Written by Heather Anne Campbell.

A weird meteor shower activates the toxic masculinity that lies dormant in even the mildest of men and sets them on a rampage. Two women are stunning and brave in face of the calamity. 

The #YesAllMen episode.

A tonally one-note deal that squanders a somewhat fun premise by reminding us every few minutes that this is NOT a metaphor. With tears of rage in its eyes. At episode's end, not even gay men who practice appropriate allyship are safe, although one can "choose" their way out of it, apparently, if they just woke hard enough. 

Think of how much better they did this sort of thing on Buffy. Or in the movie Slither. 

The above three episodes are virtually unwatchable once their premises get tangled up in the confusion of virtue signals. The next three are ruined by their endings but are actually fairly compelling up until then. That makes them even more disappointing, so I considered putting them in the bottom three spots, but at least they're watchable enough until they blow it.

7. 

"Blurry Man"

Directed by Simon Kinberg. Written by Alex Rubens.

A writer on the new Twilight Zone series is menaced by the blurry man of the title and tries to unlock the repressed memory that seems to be blocking her from finishing her rewrites. Then she remembers - man, she used to love the Twilight Zone! - and then Blurry Man turns out to be Rod Serling. 

Egads.

Both Jordan Peele (who is clearly sending up himself so we shouldn't take him too seriously) and Sophie refer to the Twilight Zone as having had Rod Serling put himself in every episode "until now." I suppose you could make the case for his "appearing" in the other two Twilight Zones by virtue of his image being used in the opening credits. Otherwise, it's a bit of a pointless dis to the narrators/ hosts of the other series, no?

Another in the "makes no damn sense" category but the lead is pretty good and easy to watch going through increasingly silly set pieces. 

Some of which are pretty to look at, though.

 

The episode is conflicted on what it wants to be and why it wants to do what it's attempting to do or attempting to explore through Sophie's choice (ahem). But no clear answer is given, because the dilemma is not clearly defined. Needed a few more rewrites. Again, though, such things ("refining the script" "making it make sense" "having a point) are not the point, and I shouldn't harp on them.

The ending is very dumb. Why would Rod Serling be terrorizing this poor woman with lightning bolts and explosions and tables flipping over and all the rest if he just wants to, what, welcome her to the Zone? Help her become a better writer? (Huh?) Is she accepting her break with reality at the end or being invited into a pantheon she has disavowed? And did she disavow it? We learn nothing from the moments shown from her childhood.  The whole thing just unravels fatally with the dumbness of the reveal.

6. 

"Nightmare at 30,000 Feet"

Directed by Greg Yaitanes. Story by Simon Kinberg, Jordan Peele, and Marco Ramirez.

Adam Scott is white and not even getting to board the plane in the "privilege lane" (!) makes him feel any better about it. When he finds a magic mp3 player where Dan "Hardcore History" Carlin tells the story of the airplane's destruction, he tries to save everyone, but he's just too damn white. At the end, his fellow travelers tear him to shreds. 

Jesus Harold Christ this fucking episode. (The "White Privilege" episode if it even needs to be said.) It's actually incredibly tense and watchable, so kudos all around, but the self-loathing/ narcissism two-punch is bigger than any I've seen in recent memory. They even throw in some anti-semitism to woke it up even more by having the flight from Washington, DC bound for Tel Aviv, i.e. "the Zionist capitol" in the progressive-media imagination. This is an unconscionably racist episode  somehow unaware of how hateful and racist it actually is. 

And what to make of the ending? The narrator tells us that Adam Scott is an investigative journalist unwilling to investigate himself. But it is not himself he's supposed to be investigating; it's his whiteness, as defined by Linda Sarsour or Tamika Malloy, of course. Interesting how that's always the case. I was reminded of the end of 1984. ("He had won the battle over himself; he loved Big Brother.")

"Too! Damn! White!" might have improved the episode a bit had they named it that. At least that would add a touch of levity. (In fact, make it a comedy about intersectionalist mayhem, ending exactly the same way, and it's probably a lot closer to great than it is to terrible.) As it is, everyone Adam Scott talks to except the batshit white terrorist hates him, and then, at episode's end, kills him forever. Or something. Again with the negative-affirmation masturbational fantasies. 

And yet, like I say, it's actually pretty damn compelling right up until the ending. I liked how they kept teasing the wing of the plane, thwarting that expectation that it would be a straight-up remake of the classic Matheson episode. The audacity of making an episode simply about white people hating themselves in an unredemptive purgatory is remarkable. The audacity of something-not-quite-hope, one might say. 

5.

"The Comedian"

Directed by Owen Harris. Written by Alex Rubens.

A struggling comedian makes an unknowing deal with a legendary comic that sends his career to the stars but with a catch: the real things he brings up result in those things disappearing from the world. He tries to stay one step ahead of this power until it ultimately consumes him and he joins the 4th of July Ball mural at the back of the room. 

The Cancel Culture episode.

The wokeness is definitely front and center, but there's just enough self-awareness here on cancel culture being an ultimately nihilistic thing to carry the day. It's essentially a Magic Peddler/ be-careful-what-you-wish-for sort of deal. And the lead (Kumail Nanjiani) sells it well; I was genuinely interested in the relationship between him and his wife, his family, etc.

And at least it all adds up, too. This is the first we've looked at that does so. So why is it here at #5 instead of any higher? One reason: Didi Scott (Diarra Kilpatrick.)

Every moment with her onscreen is a small eternity of agony. Much has been made in recent years about comedians who have no actual jokes, who just shout their wokeness at you. She may even be sending up the thing, who knows; Samir's character certainly is. (Witness his bombing with his "edgy" Second Amendment material.) But Didi, somehow, keeps getting screentime, and there is no sense that we're supposed to be judging her equally. And at episode's end, she seems poised to take the same poisoned apple. But why? The world is doomed when she gets the power; can anyone plausibly see such a character cancelling herself to save anyone or anything? Is that the note the episode should end on: and then the world was cancelled, thanks to Didi Scott. That's the way the cookie crumbles... in the Twilight Zone. 

With "The Comedian," the show wants its cake (i.e. these comedians are awful; this way of life is destructive; be careful what you wish for) and to eat it (far too many over the top lines to quote, with "STAY IN YOUR BITCH-ASS LANE!" probably the least offensive) too. An experiment: swap the casting for the Didi Scott character with the straw man drunk driver comic character, and let events unfold exactly the same way. How do your feelings change? 

4.

"The Wunderkind"

Directed by Richard Shepard. Written by Andrew Guest.

After botching the re-election campaign of an incumbent President, Raff Hanks, a would-be kingmaker, seeks to redeem himself (or perhaps get revenge on an America that spurned his expertise) by getting Oliver, an eleven year old You Tube star, elected. When Oliver makes it to the White House and passes all sorts of crazy laws, Raff regrets his decision.

This is kind of a fun one. Good performance from John Cho, if nothing else. If you think the narcissism of the pundit/ political advisor class is a clear and present danger in this country - and I'm not sure the makers of this episode do but I sure do - it's kind of darkly funny in several spots. America's political-media elites are still in denial about the election of 2016. A missed opportunity here, perhaps, to examine that a bit, but examining the denial can still be instructive to those of us outside that loop. (Witness for example how Oliver's parents are what is sometimes referred to as "Fox News Hot.") 

It's an interesting premise. Anyone who hasn't read Prez (the DC comic) or the Sandman story deconstructing it or seen Wild in the Streets should do so; it'll give you something to contrast this against.

It's not very realistic (the campaign especially) but it almost rises to enjoyable. Vulture - who gets literally everything wrong, which is a gift - calls it a "facile stab at political satire," so you know just from that that there's something here. Jordan's wrap-up at the end is good: "Society is a fragile ecosystem. Razzle and dazzle people with the right lies and eventually they'll go blind to the madness right in front of their faces. Raff Hanks made a living selling the American dream. But, once sold, he created a true nightmare that he couldn't buy back." 

Ahh, projection. A helluva drug.

3.

"The Blue Scorpion"

Directed by Craig William Macneil. Written by Glen Morgan.

A depressed anthropology professor learns his father has killed himself. While going through his things he discovers a gun called the Blue Scorpion with a bullet with his name ("Jeff") on it. From that point on, everyone he meets seems to be named Jeff, and he feels increasingly compelled to use the gun, at one time even speaking the words of his father's suicide note ("I love him more than I ever loved you") to his estranged ex-wife (whose new lover he tries to shoot). When he rids himself of the gun at the end, it's found by two boys, one of whom discovers the name on the bullet has changed to his own. 

The Guns Episode.

I'll say it one more time: edit this one down to twenty-five minutes and you might really have something here. It's overstuffed with gun narrative half-thoughts - practically every one you've ever heard, all put into a blender - and that wears a bit thin over forty-five minutes. It inevitably leads to a Taxi Driver-esque showdown (i.e. an explosion of violence where the mentally disturbed lead is mistakenly lauded as a hero). 

As a coherent comment about guns, or violence, or depression, it fails pretty hard. As an accurate description of woke confusion, disdain (my favorite is the "gun superstore" salesman Jeff keeps talking to throughout, who shares snippets of "the legendary Blue Scorpion," etc.) and anxiety on the topic, it lands pretty well. This is one of the few episodes I feel like watching again, even more than the next two. I can't say it's a success, but there's some interesting stuff going on. I've read dozens of "harrowing descent into mental obsession" stories over the years, and this felt like it'd have read well as a short story. 

Too bad the lead isn't played by Will Ferrell. Chris O'Dowd does a good job, don't get me wrong, but Ferrell would have lent a little something extra to it. Or maybe Jim Carrey, who's especially vocal in his gun narrative confusion in the real world. 

2.

"Six Degrees of Freedom"

Directed by Jakob Verbruggen. Written by Heather Anne Campbell and Glen Morgan.

The crew of the Bradbury spacecraft barely escapes Earth on its planned mission to Mars before North Korea launches its nukes (a specific obsession of the blue-checkmark gliteratti a couple of years ago) at the United States, engulfing the world in nuclear war. Over the long journey to the red planet, the crew fractures, and one member, Jerry, is seemingly killed when he goes out the airlock. The survivors make it to Mars, while Jerry, it is revealed, has been captured by aliens who have been monitoring the crew to determine if they're worth saving. 

Okay, just to get my only complaint out of that way: this isn't a terribly original story. Not everything has to reinvent the wheel, but it seems very inspired by things like The Outer Limits episode "Nightmare." Just to name one of the more one-to-one examples. (I'm sure there's a Ray Bradbury Theater episode it's ripping off, as well, but I can't put my finger on it.) Again, though, this a show that prioritizes its optics over all else, so plot redundancy isn't a big concern. Fair enough.

Outside of that, it's pretty good. Who doesn't like a close-quarters/crew-fracturing/ are-we-really-already-dead sort of tale? What? Bad timing, yes, I agree. It could have been better, but compared to most of the above, it's Citizen Kane. 

The title makes little sense, no? To the story? Of course, it wasn't chosen to make sense to the story. 

1.

"A Traveler"

Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour. Written by Glen Morgan.

At the height of the annual Christmas party in the far north of Alaska where Captain Lane Pendleton pardons whomever's in the lock-up, a mysterious man appears in one of the cells. He claims to be "A Traveler," who is here to chronicle Pendleton's famous parties for his adventure-travel-audience. In reality he is the spearhead of an alien invasion. He promises to give Yuka Mogoyak, a native Alaskan police officer, a position of authority. At episode's end, Jack, her brother, shrugs off the invasion; maybe it'll be better with them in charge.

I basically enjoy Storm of the Century enough where some of that affection carries over to obvious homages like this. It also evokes "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" as well as "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," and has a lot of engaging performances. Easy to pick it as my favorite, even if it's not a very well-constructed episode. It hums along nicely enough, though.

The main problem is the one facing each episode of the series: attempting to shoehorn things that make zero sense into things (everyone rolling with the sudden appearance of someone in a locked cell underneath the station, his entire cover story, his alias as "A. Traveler," that the North Koreans and Soviets would have heard of Lane Pendleton's "famous" Christmas parties, etc.) that make metaphorical sense (arbitrary pardons, white colonization of Alaska, cultural appropriation, Christmas, etc.)

All that said, it's kind of slim pickings for the first season of new Zone, and this is my pick of the best of the lot.

~

Hope season two is better. It's possible. Lord knows there's enough existential anxiety around right now to move beyond luxury beliefs like woke dogma and into more archetypal things. It might even be considered a public service worthy of the (actual)... Twilight Zone.

The Blackford Oakes Novels by William F. Buckley, Jr, pt. 2

Let's finish up this two-part overview of the Blackford Oakes novlels with my six favorites.

6.

(1986)

The year is 1954, and Joseph Stalin is dead. Laurenti Beria, ruthless head of the KGB, plots to succeed him. Meanwhile, Oakes trains with a squad of US and British commandos for a doomed (jinxed by a traitor) mission to Albania. Oakes's determination to find the traitor takes him from London to a KGB hideout in Stockholm, while the power struggle playing out in the Kremlin reverberates around the world. 

"I don't often drink when doing business. On the other hand, I don't often have a meal with a fascist imperialist."

This is the closest any of the Oakes books comes to a James Bond novel. Mainly on account of its two villains, Heath (the enforcer) and Fleetwood, deep cover Soviet agent slash mad scientist, whose invention, the Zirca, is the ultimate surveillance state weapon. He also has a genuine supervillain lair in Herstmonceux Castle, where his Zirca lies like Herbet Lom's superweapon in The Pink Panther Strikes Again. 

Remember a few years back when that collection of number stations was making the rounds? What? You didn't have that in your CD changer? I used to listen to it in the mornings at the bar I used to run, after I had to fire my janitor. Whenever I think of all the sweeping, mopping, and spraying I did at that place, it's to the mental soundtrack of "Kholov, kholov... eleven... eleven... eleven." There's a bit of that in here, as well - a very effective way to communicate in code to your agents around the globe. 

One last quote: Anthony Trust (Black's recruiter and oldest friend) on the curious (to a Catholic anyway) fact of Hitler and Stalin having been baptized. "Perhaps, baptized, there would be less theological red tape in dropping them into the inferno." 

5. 

(1976)

It is 1952. Truman is nearing the end of his term, Great Britain has a new queen, the Cold War is beginning to heat up, and vital Western secrets are falling into Soviet hands. The CIA is faced with a delicate dilemma when they discover the source of the leaks to the KGB has been traced directly to the Queen's chambers. Thus young Blackford Oakes - handsome, connected, and newly recruited to the CIA - is sent to London to penetrate the Royal circle, win the Queen's confidence, and plug the leak. The action leads to an explosive showdown in the skies over London.

The first book of any series is always an interesting case. Sort of like the pilot for a TV show. Will it connect with an audience? Will it get picked up? You're pretty much assured the main character isn't going to die, though, so accordingly having 'Will Oakes die?' be part of the drama might seem a misstep. It's certainly a credit to Buckley's writing: even though I was in doubt on that score, I felt Blackford's anxiety keenly. Keeping these spoiler-free means I can't talk about how cool the ending is, except to say hey, I thought it was very cool. 

All the characters here are memorable (the Queen, Viscount Kirk, Blackford's parents and stepfather, the jets i.e. the Hunter and the Sabre) and we get a clear sense of who the main characters (Blackford obviously, but also Rufus, Sally, Anthony Trust, and of course whichever President, CIA director(s), or KGB head is for the year in question) are. Buckley wanted Oakes to be as quintessentially American as Bugs Bunny or Indiana Jones (my examples, not his) and he mostly succeeds, although it's helpful to remember an upper class American of Blackford's time seems fairly British to modern eyes. What distinguishes Oakes as a Yank is an insouciance in the face of hierarchy. We see it often in the series, and we get our first glimpse(s) here. My favorite example is when he straightfaces a Senator's wife that there's a button behind a curtain in the Oval Office that when pressed lowers all of Washington, DC into a nukeproof bunker. 

4.

(1980)

The year is 1956, the cold war is hot, and the US is locked in a do-or-die space race with the Russians. Who will get there first? Once more, the decision is made to send in Oakes. His assignment is to kidnap from Vienna two Russian missile scientists who can help put the Americans out front for good. To succeed, he must dodge a lethal combination of murderous KGB agents and vengeful Hungarian freedom fighters - fresh from defeat in the bloody streets of Budapest - who have mistaken - at a double agent's urging - Oakes as their enemy. Who will be the winner in this cloak and dagger race to space?

“You’re saying I set up the old lady to get tortured and shot? Fuck you, Nady. If the revolution was made up of types like you, I'm glad you lost.”

I wasn’t sure which quote to lead with, as there are more than a few good ones. (At one point, Dean Acheson’s mustache “pointed skeptically at the menu.” That cracks me up.) This one takes place in that exciting few months while the US and USSR were competing to launch the first satellite. We all know how that one ended. All the Russians needed was a Van Der Graaf generator and didn’t even realize they could just order one from the U.S., whereas all the Americans needed was the right ozone formula, which the Soviets had but, of course, was not for sale.

I hope you won’t consider this a spoiler, but this has my favorite last line/ title tie-in of the series. It’s just a code for who gets the satellite in orbit first. Years later on the occasion of the moon landing, Blackford returns from a mission to a message from Anthony Trust: “Blackford, re: your communication of October 4th, 1957, don’t give it another thought. What’s on second.” 

3.

(1982)

When a shadowy Russian mole threatens to undermine the Free World's defenses by infiltrating Eisenhower's National Security Council, Oakes is called in to unmask the imposter. He turns the tables on the Communists by piloting a U-2 spy plane on a Gary Powers-style one-way mission behind the Iron Curtain. Sentenced to death and trapped in the depths of Lubyanka prison, Oakes may have turned his last trick. Or has he? 

I learned a lot of things I didn’t know from this book. (Did you know the marbled remains of the former Reichstag were used to make the Soviet memorial in Berlin? I sure didn’t. “The Soviet gift for cannibalization.” 

My Dad took me there when we went to Berlin in 1983. 

This is a good little mystery with agreeable symmetry, beginning with Oakes’s show-trial behind the Iron Curtain and ending with the (near) trial of the mole, once uncovered, in the USA. Both parties, Russian and American, are guilty of course of the crimes they’ve been captured for, but unlike the Russians, the CIA just can’t call up their attorney-friend in Moscow and send him down to Lubyanka. Not so with the Soviets, who specialized in using the freedoms of the West against itself:

"J. Daniel Umin's name made judges with cast-iron stomachs and nerves of steel moan. For twenty-five year he had defended Communists, crypto-Communists, saboteurs, seditionists, terrorists. His intrusion into a  case meant a volcanic tremor, felt up and down the judicial vertebrae from Jail guards to Supreme Court Justices. He was inevitably insolent, studiedly impolite, routinely obscene. That his contempt for the courts, his abuse of process, his outrageous personal behavior, would objectively justify (disbarring) him was not doubted by anyone (but) J. Daniel Umin had acquired a perverse immunity. He had industriously advertised himself as a friend of political liberty, the prime mover in the anti-McCarthy movement in America, and as such he regularly worked the college circuit. He delighted in taking a judge - whoever had most recently ruled against him - and devoting an entire lecture to the judge's background, making sexual insinuations, accusations of outright incompetence, innuendoes about the judge's drinking habits, about scandals involving his brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, godchildren. He did this with such utter, righteous, communicable high-mindedness that he succeeded in causing several distinguished men of the bar to have nervous breakdowns and two to retire; one died of apoplexy, right in the courtroom.

Umin never appeared anywhere without a) a cigar, b) a poetic tribute to the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, c) warning against the ideologization of justice by the military-industrial complex, and d) the suggestion that behind it all was: the Central Intelligence Agency, primeval enemy of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and Lillian Hellman. Notwithstanding that he was a traveling spectacular - the indigenous equivalent of Moscow's May Day Parade - he was a careful scholar and brilliant legal parliamentarian. At Yale as an undergraduate he had a distinguished career, during which he had shown no racial tendencies. But in his junior year accepted election to the senior society Scroll and Key. More than one biographer of J. Daniel Umin had suggested that his rejection by the LEADING senior society at Yale was the root cause of his anti-American resentments. Soon after graduating from Yale Law School he came out for abolishing all private colleges as "citadels of privilege." He had a speech on just that subject which he delivered at least once to every college at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, and NYU, regularly receiving standing ovations."

During a five minute recess while the US attorney merely pauses to verify something, he goes outside to deliver “an impromptu press conferences to the reporters on creeping American fascism, the revival of McCarthyism, the senility of Eisenhower, and the repeated rejection by the US of peaceable initiatives by the Soviet Union."

Sound familiar? I submit that the character and tactics of JDU have been institutionalized in American life throughout the media-academe. Which is bad enough but it's led to a sort of kneejerk response from the proverbial man in the street who passes through either of those institutions. (A sort of snort - then "Capitalism, maaaan.")

2.

(1984)

President Kennedy has been in office for less than a year, and the Berlin Wall is about to slam shut the last escape route of communist Eastern Europe. Uncertain about the Soviets' intentions, Kennedy sends Blackford Oakes into the chaos of East Berlin to plumb the depths of the crisis. Oakes' contact is Henri Tod, leader of a secret group of German dissidents, who has a price on his head and an ingenious plan that might just save Eastern Bloc domination. When Tod mysteriously vanishes, Oakes locks horns with the ultimate opponent, East Germany's unscrupulous party boss Walter Ulbricht. 

"Remember, Blackford, our friends in Moscow enjoy advantages we don't enjoy, in this case the fiction that East Germany is an independent country. And they are closing in. They have been talking now for months and months, laying the background 'Peace treaty... peace treaty... peace treaty.' That itself has an impact like the repeated use of 'disarmament.'" 

This tactic – advancing one agenda while promoting another, until it is too late to escape – works well, doesn’t it? I also liked this one: “'Worry only in part about the enemy's capabilities. Worry about the enemy's intentions.' Who first said that? Was it Julius Caesar? Cato? Alexander? It could have been Abel, who knew the power of Cain, but did not know his intentions and then suddenly it was too late.”

This one walks some of the same ground that Stained Glass did. I liked it much more, though; the whole German-dissident-threatens-Soviet-hegemony-in-East-Germany thing is utilized more effectively. There are also well-written interludes with JFK that are presented as monologues breaking up the action so often.

More than most of the other Oakes books, this one exploits the layers of irony in the Cold War struggle. The sticky points, or the “b.o.” (the initials of the main character, which used to evoke “body odor” but not sure if that would be the case any longer, but in the 80s/ to someone of Buckley’s generation? Absolutely. Subtle commentary on the stench of intelligence work, or the lack of olfactory residue to a successful operation). Just one of many examples: Caspar Ultricht, the nephew of the East German leader, whose father was shot by the communists (on the uncle's go-ahead) for “building railcars that were used to transport people to death camps.” Which, of course, they were, but his father was not exclusively or purposefully designing them for such. He designed railroad cars, period, including the one built for the fuhrer, which Casper and Claudia appropriate for their own use. But this was just the official reason for shooting him; he was shot because he secretly contacted the Americas to let them know how they could seize four key checkpoints and obstruct the flow of traffic eastwards. "That was when the Russians and Eastern European refugees were beginning to be shipped back to Russia to be killed. What Father didn't know was that the whole operation had an American stamp of approval."

"Your thoughts, comrade, as I warned you as a student in the university, are sometimes hampered by a bourgeois affinity for reason."

This one has some real punch to it. I wish there were movies of some of these; the last ten or twenty pages of this one, especially. 

1. 

(1985)

The year is 1961. President Kennedy, who has selected Oakes to meet with Che Guevera inside Castro's Cuba, has contrived a daring plan - dubbed Operation Alligator - that will hopefully bring about an era of detente in East/West relations. The communists, however, have another agenda: a double-cross with terrifying consequences. Soon Oakes is trapped in Cuba along with his partner on the mission, former KGB agent long since defected to the West Cecilio Vellasco, and the heat is on. Warming the climate greatly is the sultry beauty Catalina, Che's adjutant, an American fellow traveler who finds herself growing disillusioned with Castro's revolution. The forecast calls for betrayal, power politics, and sudden death. 

I love when people employ that "the forecast calls for..." conceit. Always entertains me. Same as when a character whips off a disguise to the shock of those assembled, who cry out his or her real name, and they respond "At your service!" These are my confessions, planet Earth.

"He sat and drank daiquiris as though he were Ernest Hemingway."

Is this the best or my personal favorite? Usually I make a point of such a distinction, but here I'll make an exception. It is both my personal favorite and it is the best of the series. “Buckley’s most successful attempt to shade his fanciful thriller-comedy into more serious matters of love, loyalty, and honor" says one of the blurbs on the back cover. Agreed 100%.

Not to repeat myself, but part of its power lies in how each character is so memorable. Of all Black's allies in the series, I like Vellasco the best, and of all the real-world villains animated from Buckley's POV, he perhaps handles Che the best. (Fidel and Raul, too.) Much more than caricature or fodder for Black's occasional quips about the tyranny of Castro vs. the tyranny of Chase Manhattan, I walked away from this book with a deeper understanding of both Che and of the Cuban Revolution.

The last fifty to one hundred pages are fantastic stuff. Spoiler-free, so you'll get nothing out of me! What a great movie it'd all make, though. I've mentioned that a few times, and it's a shame no one has ever tried to adapt these. Hope that changes someday. 

Two last quotes, friends: (1) On hearing that Batista's former head of suppressing communist activities was hired by the government to weed out potential subversives in the Cuban immigrants to the U.S. Black exclaims "Some Americans can be so goddamn dumb. You would think that anyone who had been in charge of suppressing communism in Cuba would have a hard time establishing his credentials as competent to do anything." And (2) Buckley has many a fine turn of phrase throughout, and this is by no means the best, but it''ll work as a representative example of his style: “He fastened the bunk straps around her. She would not now be tossed onto the cabin sole * if one of those rolls coming now every few minutes tilted the vessel into an angle that overcame the serene gravitational inertia of a body lying on a level surface.”

* Sole just means cabin floor, I guess. I had no idea.

One last word re: the title, which refers to the name of the Operation Kennedy gave it as well as Che's always saying it as his farewell. (Is he teasing Black about knowing the name of the operation? Probably.) Just once throughout the book I wanted to hear Oakes respond - particularly in their last scene together, when it would be very cinematic - 'In awhile, crocodile.'

~

All the Blackford Oakes books are still in print and are highly recommended to the Cold War spy genre reader or just fans of political history of the mid-to-late-twentieth-century in general.

(1925 - 2008)

The Blackford Oakes Novels by William F. Buckley, Jr., pt. 1

I recently completed the Blackford Oakes novels by William F. Buckley, Jr. and wanted to commemorate the occasion with my usual overview-and-rankings sort of post. 

The author with canine companion, Cavalier.

This is intended more for those readers who’ve no familiarity with the series rather than the seasoned Oakes reader and as such will be mostly spoiler-free. Happy to hear from any who’ve read the books, of course – seasoned or not. 

Who is Blackford Oakes? He’s referred to as a super-spy in several places. This is perhaps misleading. Sure he’s super as in superior in most categories to most men, and he’s super at his job. But super-spy conjures up certain fantastic elements that are not at all a part of things here. While not mirthless meditations on good and evil, there’s little of Moonraker or boat-cars in the Oakes books. (Although at least one of Oakes’s adventures does seem to be channeling Fleming’s Moonraker a bit, if not the movie.)  Perhaps a better way to put it is that Oakes is indeed a super-spy, but these books are not of the “super spy” genre. The villains are (for the most part) real people, and (likewise) all the situations really happened. Not the actual plots, mind you, but the situations that give rise to them. 

Certainly the character’s background is extraordinary. Born to wealth and aviation royalty (his father’s best friend is Charles Lindbergh), startlingly handsome, English public school (at least briefly), decorated WW2 pilot, Yale class of 1951), etc. This tracks for the backgrounds of most real-world CIA recruits in the years after the war, something the Soviets were able to use to their advantage. As someone says in one of these books, it was a lot easier for the Soviets to get intel on the West (by, say, writing Yale and having the yearbook of each graduating class delivered to anywhere in the world) than it was for western agents to get anything out of Russia. 

In addition to being a fellow Yalie of extraordinary background, Buckley was a CIA agent himself. Only for nine months and certainly not at the Blackford Oakes level. (To distinguish their two careers further, Buckley quipped he made his protagonist irresistible to women.) He was moved to write the books by an offhand suggestion suggestion from his publisher and as a reaction to then (as in now) trends in media concerning this agency:

“The point I sought to make and continued to do so in subsequent novels is that the CIA, whatever its failures, sought, during those long years in the struggle for the world, to advance the honorable alternative. When I wrote it wasn’t only Robert Redford who was however obliquely traducing the work of our central intelligence agency (by starring) in a movie the point of which was that the CIA is a corrupt and bloody-minded secret instrument of an amoral government, and that it routinely embarks on stratagems that beggar moral justification. Many others making similar points in every branch of the media: in novels of the recent past (Graham Greene, John Le Carre, Len Deighton) The point, really, wasn't that there really wasn’t much to choose from in a contest between the KGB and the CIA. Both organizations, it was fashionable to believe, were defined by their practices. I said to Johnny Carson when on his program he raised this question to say the CIA and the KGB engage in similar practices is the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes the old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the way of a hurtling bus, on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing an old lady around.”

Blackford Oakes shares the same view, although it is his friend Anthony Trust who is the real anti-communist crusader. Oakes is more of a realist:

“Black felt himself curiously affected by the invisible network being managed at one end by Josef Stalin, the principal agent - now that Hitler was gone - of human misery; and at the other end, by Washington DC, a network of its own, protective of human freedoms in design, but, also, necessarily engaged in the same kind of business: lying, stealing, intimidating, blackmailing, intercepting. Quod licet Jovi: That which is permitted for Jove to do is not necessarily permitted for a cow to do. We might in secure conscience lie and steal in order to secure the escape of human beings from misery or death; Stalin had no right to lie and steal in order to bring misery and death to others. Yet, viewed without paradigmatic moral coordinates, simpletons would say simply 'Both sides lied and cheated - a plague on both their houses.'"

This is not to say the books are literary agitprop or propaganda for propaganda’s sake. I agree with David Beilstein: " A story anchored on propaganda — being didactic — is antithetical to the soil upon which good storytelling germinates. (…) These books are not tools to give conservative readers their own propaganda … these novels do not ignore the reality of a complex, divergent world of the repercussions of a human condition mired in sin and misery. Consequently, Buckley’s Oakes novels are revelations rooted in the culture and organic nature of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Cold War."

I think that’ll do for background, won’t it? Like I mentioned, it’s tough to find comprehensive info on Oakes out there. In addition to the usual googling and Goodsread-ing, I utilized both the forum and archives of the magazine he founded (National Review) but couldn’t find the answers to some of my questions. We’ll deal with the biggest mystery of them all in the first book we’re going to look at. (It is also the only book of the below that is NOT spoiler-free. There’s no other way to discuss this one, trust me.) 

Let’s run the Oakes books through the Dog Star Omnibus Least-to-Most-ifier and see what happens!

11.

(2005)

On a special mission to Moscow in the dying days of the Cold War to safeguard Mikhail Gorbachev, Oakes poses as book publisher Henry Doubleday. (Except when he’s referred to – as he is in several places – as “Harry.” Is that a common nickname for Henry? I’ve never heard it if so, but maybe so.) While in the Soviet capitol he meets and falls in love with a Russian urologist and crosses paths with Kim Philby, once the head of UK anti-Soviet operations but in actuality an agent of the Kremlin, long since defected to the USSR. Though his mission is successful, tragedy strikes, leading to a showdown between Oakes and the infamous English turncoat. 

“He walked, unmolested, through empty streets in that fabled city from whose fortress terrible despots had done so much to hurt so many.” 

This is an outlier to the series. From a narrative POV, Oakes is very passive here; everything more or less happens to him rather than the character driving any events. Which is fair, but it doesn’t make for the most exciting finish to the series. Even the very end is an orchestrated move by the antagonist, it seems to me, more than the agency of the protagonist. (Things that matter only to English majors. And probably only ten percent of them.) Another oddity is how the same plot motif (Reagan sends Oakes to the USSR to stop an assassination plot on Gorbachev) from A Very Private Plot is used. This conspicuous repetition may be a clue; I’ll get to that. The best part of it is the very ending, particularly the last couple of lines, which moved me despite not really being happy about everything leading up to it. 

Perhaps what happened is that the author read the memoir of Philby’s wife (as he mentions in the afterword) along with a couple of other post-Cold War Soviet books and thought “I know – I’ll have (here comes the spoiler) Oakes kill Kim Philby! Why didn’t I think of that before?” Philby is indeed an appropriate nemesis/ shadowy reflection of Blackford Oakes (even if he is occasionally camp villainy in LCFBO), and, had this been how A Very Private Plot ended, well then: that might have worked, sure. But it wasn’t. That also makes the ending of Last Call rather impossible, doesn’t it? Oakes is killed (or at least that’s what we’re led to believe) shooting Philby, in 1988 or 1989, whatever it is. But he’s alive in 1995 – as is Sally, whose death in LCFBO allows his whole romance angle with the Russian urologist – what? 

Is this a what-if/ alternate timeline? There’s some precedent to the idea, as the series (in Saving the Queen) starts with a clearly fictitious Queen of England. So, we’re already IN an alternate universe to begin with. Another thing the author mentions in his afterward is how his long-time first-draft-readers were now deceased. Perhaps they would have caught any of these errors, if they are indeed errors, or suggested Buckley be clearer in his intentions.

It’d be nice if someone would set the record straight on this. It seems inconceivable that such a meticulous mind as Buckley’s would forget such details, but it seems equally unlikely such a thing would have happened (affixing a what-if coda to the series) without telling someone about it. 

10.

(1987)

The year is 1963, and Fidel Castro and John Kennedy are plotting against one another. Castro seeks revenge for his humiliation during the missile crisis, and Kennedy approves a plot to assassinate the Cuban tyrant. When the CIA’s ace agent Blackford Oakes is called upon to carry out the agency’s plan, he discovers he himself is a pawn in a counterplan that  calls for his own demise and could lead the death of millions of people. The result is a tale that roams from Miami’s Cuban quarter to Castro’s inner sanctum and features betrayal by friends and lovers alike. 

Another one that revisits ground already trod in the series and I suspect for a similar reason (i.e. the author read something, in this case The Riddle of AMLASH by George Crille III) and thought oh, that would've worked well for the book I just wrote; why not write it again? Not necessarily a dealbreaker. But if the puzzling incongruities in the above didn’t exist, this would be my least favorite, mainly because even though parts of it really hum along – such as some of the Cuban/Soviet intrigue (how little things can have dire consequences in totalitarian systems is a design feature of the whole series) and the big twist involving Sally – much of it is simply too contrived, particularly in the third act. We’re back to spoiler-free, here, so I’ll say no more. 

Speaking of Sally, let me get this out of the way: I think Buckley should have re-thought this character, or at least her being a part of every book in the series.  For too much of the series she’s just the long-suffering always-a-bridesmaid in the background, while Blackford is hardly monogamous. When that changes, it get s more interesting, but it’s a bit late in the game. Again: not a dealbreaker, but I got a little bored with the character and their relationship (and the constant allusions to Jane Austen.)

9.

(1979)

It is the year 1952. With the Cold War raging, Blackford is sent to Germany. Ostensibly there to help restore the thirteenth-century chapel at the Palace of St. Anselm, his real mission is to penetrate a movement begun by the owner of the chapel, Count Alex Wintergrin, who is spearheading a campaign for a unified fatherland, an idea that creates panic on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Oakes must either betray a friend or find a way to change the rules in a high-stakes battle of wills between the CIA and the KGB.

"What do you believe in?"

"I believe in the life of the mind, and in human fancy, and in the everlasting struggle against vulgarity."

"What do you mean you believe in the 'struggle against vulgarity'? Does that mean you believe that the struggle is going to happen, or does that mean that you believe that the struggle is worth winning?"

"It is obviously worth winning. But it will never be won. That is why I qualify it by calling it an everlasting struggle."

"The Communists believe more than you do."

"That is certainly correct. So do African witch doctors."

This one started off very interesting for me and then kind of plateau’d. The title suggests a central theme of something beautiful that once served a whole different social order, being restored, while also the double entendre of "stained" glass/class. But once it got into the Wintergren campaign stuff and beyond, I found my attention wandering. It won the National Book Award the year it came out, which probably means there's a lot going on under the surface here that a second read will bring out. 

At several times in the series, Buckley indulges in some self-parody, usually through the mouth of some character or another. Here he has one of Wintergren’s dinner guests deliver an imitation of a German writer appearing on television at the time, who was widely known, and widely caricatured, "because of his depressing ubiquity.” (Buckley was the host of Firing Line, a frequent guest on other's shows, a syndicated columnist, a magazine publisher, and a fiction novelist: there was a period of time in America life when he was inescapable.)

Heck, he was even parodied (briefly) in Aladdin. How many people got this reference in 1992? I sure didn't, but I love that it happened. 

“’The court's decision in favor of Count Wintergrin,' said Himmelfarb, imitating the tired, tiresome archness of Razzia and his euphemistic style, 'is a tergiversation for the German people...'” When you read enough Buckley, you’ll see he has certain vocab go-tos; tergiversation is one of them. (Demisemiquaver is another. Blogger is even telling me these words don't exist. Go read some Buckley, Blogger!) 

At novel’s end, there is an exchange between Dulles (CIA head) and Oakes, which touches on one of the central themes of the series. When Oakes – disgusted with how things went in Germany – confronts Dulles about the dubious morality of their actions, he gets this dressing down from his superior officer: “To this question of ‘did we do the right thing, the question you ask I do not admit. (In this world) if you let them, the ambiguists will kill you (…) And I hope you will understand, because if you do, it will be easier for you; if you do not, you are still too inexperienced to discuss these matters with me."

8. 

(1994)

The year is 1995, and an ambitious US Senator wants to weaken the power of the CIA, perhaps to the point of its elimination. To accomplish his goal, he tries to enlist Blackford Oakes – now retired – into his cause by forcing him to testify before a senate committee about CIA covert activities in 1985-1986. The senator demands to know the secret of "Cyclops", a covert operation President Reagan authorized to prevent the assassination of Mikhail Gorbachev. Oakes tells him to pound sand though later he feels bad about it. (“It left me feeling sanctimonious, and I try to avoid that. Maybe you’ve noticed. I hope so.”)

This one drags in spots, but parts of it are great. I was curious how Buckley would handle the Reagan years. Of all the Presidents who appear in these books, Reagan was the one with whom the author was personal friends. 

Most of the things I liked about it - including the relatively feel-good ending, and the appearance of an old frenemy - are kinda spoilery, so I'll leave it be. I enjoyed it, though. Buckley's put downs crack me up, such as when he refers to a department chairman as “a bloated, baby-faced zealot given to intellectual pettifroggery” and “a corpulent visual mess.”

7. 

(1990)

The year is 1964. Lyndon Baines Johnson and Barry Goldwater are vying for the presidency, and Oakes has been sent to South Vietnam to halt its infiltration by men and materiel coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Working out of Saigon with Tucker Montana, who designs a brilliant system for breaking the North’s supply route, Oakes is caught up in the ambiguity and confusion generated as America’s involvement in the conflict escalates. As Tucker’s murky past, his torrid romance with the seductive Lao Dai, and the growing menace of global war come into focus, both men find their loyalty called into question. 

“The whole purpose of the Geneva Accords was to end the war in South Vietnam. But after they were signed, the North Vietnamese, a party to the agreement, withdrew exactly forty men. The South Vietnamese pulled out nine thousand. Everything is proceeding exactly as before, but with greater intensity, through Laotian territory. Laos is supposed to be neutral – never mind that it isn’t.”

Vietnam fascinates me. It's such an intersection of dramatic elements and contradictions: intense individual achievements and heroism against a backdrop of systemic dysfunction and tragedy. I figured I'd love this one, but mostly the aspects of it I found enjoyable were the historical considerations, not the dramatic ones. This takes place in that window of time where it was thought irrefutable that they could simply seal off the South from the North and the problem would take care of itself. Was it the will of the North to penetrate the South or the will of the VC to persevere that was underestimated? Is it an anti-communist affair or an anti-colonial struggle? By the book’s end, BO and even Rufus can't say for sure, but they know it will prove a fatal mistake for both the US and the South Vietnamese.

Crikey, I haven't mentioned Rufus yet, have I? He's Blackford's mentor and a CIA asset, though never a director. The man whose word everyone from Oakes to Eisenhower to the KGB takes very seriously.

Tucker’s story just didn’t grab me, mainly, so its resolution (spoiler free) didn’t do much but annoy me. (And rob a little agency of the North Vietnamese, who certainly evaded the sophisticated attempts to stop them on the Trail without any American's help. To my knowledge, anyway.) The problem of Vietnam is stated pretty well here, though:

“When a country declares war it is expected to use its maximum resources to win that war. We can’t use the bomb in Vietnam – we all grant that. But the general fear of the bomb extends to a failure to use the next echelon of modern weaponry. Hanoi and Haiphong would cease to exist if we were to drop half the bombs that we’re prepared to drop on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. So we go with with a third echelon – supplies, training, intelligent: support systems, essentially, while the enemy’s use of the third echelon is decisive. Contingently decisive: the NVA are prepared to kill and to torture the entire South Vietnamese clerical class, the whole intellectual, educational, political, and religious infrastructure: that is what the Viet Cong are doing right now, in the countryside. How much of that, backed up by conventional North Vietnamese military, will they need to do before winning?”

~

Next Time: the Top 6