Hightown - Netflix Series

Hightown- TV Series Official Trailer
LionsgateTV

What a fine cross section of humanity we have here: alcoholics, drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes, all your favorites. We have two stars in this show: 

• Jackie, the cute, petite, butch lesbian, alcoholic, federal agent, who likes to party hard.
• Ray, the womanizing Massachusetts State Trooper assigned to the narcotics task force.

Then we have the villain: Frankie Cuevas, the mid-level drug dealer, who has no qualms about killing snitches. He is well dressed, polite, civilized even, until he starts to think that someone may be lying to him and then his killer persona comes to the fore, and he is one nasty SOB.

Then there are the villains who might actually be good people:

• Renee, the whore and stripper who becomes Frankie's girl and mother of his child. She eventually turns on him because she realizes that eventually Frankie is going to kill her.
• Osito, an enormously fat black man who eventually displaces Frankie. Osito has more self-control, he kills people, but he runs a tight operation and the people he works with are loyal, so he doesn't have as much trouble. He doesn't just off people on a whim, which seems to be Frankie's method.

By the time you get to the second season, you realize that both Jackie and Ray are making promises that they cannot keep. Jackie is forever promising to straighten up and fly right, and then she immediately goes off on a bender drinking and snorting anything she can get her hands on, usually with a new girl she has just picked up. Ray keeps trying to recruit CIs (Confidential Informers), telling them he can protect them, but Frankie keeps killing them. Squealing may forestall getting sent to jail, but with this crowd, squealing will get you kilt.

This is a great show. I suspect because the whole thing is entirely believable. Jackie in particular is amazing. How can anyone fuck up that much and keep coming back? Oh, right, she's young and indestructible. For a while anyway.

The Perfect Couple - Netflix Series

The Perfect Couple | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix India

A very stupid show full of annoying, obnoxious people, making long pointless looks with weird eye movements that I suspect are supposed to make the character look suspiciou but they just look weird. We watched the first two episodes one night and then skipped to the last episode because my wife wanted to know who dun it. They do tell us, and they give us an explantion, but the explanation doesn't hold water. Rich couple have three sons. There is a trust fund that will released to the boys once the youngest turns 18, which is in a couple of weeks. Girlfriend of the bride has been messing around with the father and has gotten knocked up. Wife of oldest son kills girlfriend because once she gives birth, they'll have to wait another 18 years before the trust is released. EXCEPT the trust will already have been released long before she gives birth. Basically it's a soap opera masquerading as a murder mystery.

The Ether Dome

The Ether Dome at Massachussets General Hospital in 360 degrees
STAT

Because we know a person studying in Boston, we occasionally hear bits of historical trivia about the place, like The Ether Dome. It doesn't matter if the video above is playing or paused, you can grab a point (left click your mouse and hold) on the screen and drag it around to look all around the room.

Dr. John Collins Warren performs the first surgery without pain as William Morton administers ether - 1846