Brain Dump: Wynonna Earp, Nashville, The Bold Type

Tim Rozon, Melanie Scrofano, and Shamier Anderson in Wynonna Earp

Time for a television watcher’s brain dump. This week I’ll offload short thoughts about Wynonna Earp, Nashville, and The Bold Type.

Wynonna Earp

Melanie Scrofano with her baby bump showing
The superhero and her big ass . . .  gun.

In season 2 episode 5 “Lets Pretend We’re Strangers” it was revealed that Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) was pregnant. In episode 6 “Whiskey Lullaby” one week later, Wynonna fell asleep and woke up with a full sized baby bump.

It’s a sci fi show and Wynonna can do these things, although star Melanie Scrofano took the normal number of months to develop that impressive baby bump. They could have hidden it like so many other baby bumps before this. They hid it for a while at the beginning of the season. But they decided to go with a pregnant superhero. Pregnant Wynonna kicked down doors and plugged demons with her Peacemaker just like always.

Yes, the ass-kicker-in-charge is fully capable of doing her job while preggers. As far as I know, that’s a first for television.

The impressive part of episode 6, as Wynonna tries to deal with this unexpected change in her life, was the quality of acting from everyone who had a scene with the suddenly changed Wynonna. Melanie Scrofano herself was absolutely outstanding, but so were Shamier Anderson, Tim Rozon, Dominique Provost-Chalkley, and Katherine Barrell. Melanie Scrofano had emotional, personal, brilliantly acted scenes with each of them. Together they created the best ensemble performances in this series.

Huge kudos to the actors and to April Mullen the director, Caitlin D. Fryers the writer, and Emily Andras the series creator for this outstanding episode.

Nashville

Charles Esten, Maisy Stella and Lennon Stella in front of a poster sized image of Connie Britton in Nashville

When everyone’s favorite character leaves the show, or dies as Connie Britton’s fabulous Rayna James did on Nashville, it feels like the show cannot survive. What Nashville decided to do with it is similar to what Wentworth did with the death of Bea (Danielle Cormack) and what Last Tango in Halifax did with the death of Kate (Nina Sosanya) – let everyone grieve the loss together.

But Nashville is setting a new standard on what reads and feels like real grief. Perhaps it’s great writing on Nashville. Perhaps it’s brilliant acting from Charles Esten as the widower Deacon. Perhaps it’s brilliant acting from Lennon Stella and Maisy Stella as Reyna James’ two daughters. Perhaps it’s because the grieving has gone on for many episodes and permeates every aspect of what the characters choose to do this season. For whatever reason, it’s a real look at grief. Truthful emotions, people.

Huge kudos to Callie Khouri and everyone involved in choosing to make season 5 of Nashville tell the story in this way.

The Bold Type

Aisha Dee, Meghann Fahy, and Katie Stevens in The Bold Type

The Bold Type was inspired by the life of former Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Joanna Coles, represented here as Jacqueline Carlyle (Melora Hardin), editor-in-chief of Scarlet magazine. In episodes 1 and 2, I liked Jacqueline Carlyle best of all the characters – probably because she was past the 20 something angst of the three young women working for her. Jacqueline was a savvy journalist, wise, and encouraging to her staff.

The majority of the story centers around Jane (Katie Stevens), Kat (Aisha Dee), and Sutton (Meghann Fahy). The love, sex, fashion, feminism, journalism, career goals, and New York City mayhem brought into the series come through these 3 friends.

Other important characters so far were Richard (Sam Page), a boss and Sutton’s secret sex buddy, Alex (Matt Ward) who worked with the 3 women and was their friend, and Adena (Nikohl Boosheri) an artist Kat interviews because she’s an out Muslim lesbian.

It’s tricky to give The Bold Type a 100% approval rating after watching only the 2 hour premier, but I thought it was well done and peopled with interesting characters. It’s fast-paced and clever with serious comedic timing from the actors.

Did you catch any of this TV? What did you think of the shows I mentioned?

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