and so bloody!

But you totally have to watch Ian McShane, even as you hate him.

fwiw, I don't hate Al. I think he's quite a good bloke, all things considered.

And it's nice sometimes, when you're broke like me and you feel that your life is not working in some way, not to be again watching pretty people you envy get off, which of course sells a lot of soap to the hooples.

Therein lies the philosophy of British soaps. Our huddled masses like to watch proper actors who can act playing poor people with cellulite and dodgy hair and bad teeth having crappy things happen to them in crappy locations, rather than watch crappy actors from the Valley Of The Implausibly Gorgeous playing shiny airbrushed people with perfect skin and expensive haircuts having crappy things happen to them in expensive locations.

(Man, I remember being totally wrecked by an episode of Eastenders which was entirely a two-hander, with June Brown's 70-something year old Dot Cotten (the character is a chainsmoking busybody who works in a laundrette, a devout Christian whose husband was A Bad Lot, and whose son was an Even Worse Lot, but who has finally (after several decades) been wooed by and wed quite a nice bloke) wrestle with whether or not to assist her old friend Ethel (80-something, and very wee and frail, played by Gretchen Franklin) with committing suicide. It was absolutely heart breaking stuff, and not at all sappy. Just wrenching. Crap. And now I'm crying just remembering it. Argh.)

...well, and then there's Hollyoaks, which is a British Soap that wants to be an Australian soap and is full of pretty young people. (Australian soaps are sort of the middle place between US and UK soaps - still working class settings, but the people are prettier and younger, on the whole.)

I don't hate Al. I think he's quite a good bloke, all things considered.

All things considered, Al is a very decent human being who just happens to be capable of hard core violence when it's needed.

Well, at first, my first reaction was a love-to hate one. But he's more complicated than he looks and there are far darker forces in Deadwood than he is. Which I like, though it did rob me of my Snidely Whiplash experience. Does everyone know BET has started running The Wire? The expletives get cut, which makes at least one scene I love deeply into mime(Because it was totally just two detectives saying "Fuck." and "Motherfucker" with...every conceivable inflection and understanding each other perfectly.) I happened to see a commercial with Idris Elba playing a romantic lead in a movie. Hope it is better than his last one. Still blown away that he's a UK-er. His American accent is perfect. Apparently, drug dealers used to stop him on the street and confide in him all the time.

I think you two are fooling yourselves. Al's a child-murderer capable of killing anyone at any time if it gives him an advantage. His growing sense of community and restraint is admirable and his charisma is undeniable, but if you knew Al in real life, you'd be wise to keep yourself at considerable remove.

I've heard that BET's run of The Wire is mostly uncut, just dubbed over the "shit"s and "fuck"s and blurred over the nipples.

I hear ya, Corwood, but an McShane is so dang attractive that it clouds my judgment. He's one of those guys that many women go gaga over and men say "Really? But..he's old, and not in great shape and not gorgeous and, and and...." Almost every actress in the series who has spoken on commentaries mentions how sexy he is.

But, yeah, Al is not a safe person to get close to. He is capapble of generous acts, but not on a predictable basis.

Well, that's true. Swergin is compelling as hell, and there is a soft part, but decent?(shrugs) Al is the anti-Sobatka. He does *right* things for *wrong* reasons.

He's one of those guys that many women go gaga over and men say "Really? But..he's old, and not in great shape and not gorgeous and, and and...."

Oh, I get that. I love his take on Swearingen so much that even I would make out with him.

I love his take on Swearingen so much that even I would make out with him.

And that makes me want to make out with YOU.