Lodge 49

I really didn't know quite what to make of this after watching the pilot but then as I watched the following episodes I got hooked. The "plot" is never less than opaque but somehow that doesn't seem to matter. Well made, shot and with some very decent acting this program draws you into the lives of a group of disparate people who for one reason or another are drawn to Lodge 49. Is it about freemasonry? Not really although there is the silly regalia they wear and there are "mysteries" but there seems no emphasis on doing good works or that membership entails giving fellow members a leg up. The habitues of the Lodge are all missing something in their lives that they find in the fellowship of the Lodge. These people are not in the top echelons of society and their jobs if they have them are less than fulfilling so the Lodge provides a sense of community and friendship that the outside world does not give them. If you get past the first episode you come to like most of the characters and become involved in the minutiae of their lives. I found it charming and entertaining and there are some genuinely laugh out loud moments. I hope the series will get a 2nd season.

Cancelling Lodge 49 will go down as one of AMC's most regretted mistakes. It's a delightful multi-faceted series that I'd been meaning to give more attention to here. It's just hard to sum up what a charmingly esoteric experience it is if you've not seen it. (The Prague Paradox by L. Marvin Metz is off the flippin' chain!) Early ads focused on the superficial The Big Lebowski similarities so I didn't expect it to grow on me exponentially with each episode. The ensemble cast & their dialogue sparkled. It's about alchemy, economics, & the friends we made along the way. I was pleasantly surprised it wasn't cancelled after its inaugural season. The second season was even more superlative, featuring a dumpling eating contest between Sonya Cassidy & Paul Giamatti! Apparently AMC only wants to be The Walking Dead Channel now. Please join me in campaigning alternate outlets to pick up Lodge 49 for a third season! I won't let the cancellation bear deprive the world of its idiosyncrasy!

It was a lot of things -- quirky, warm, compassionate, weirdly comical at times, but sort of like People of Earth in the way it showed people's connectedness and sense of community. I'm heartbroken that it was cancelled.

It's hard to describe Lodge 49 without giving too much away. There are no scary monsters or much in the way of violence or action scenes.Just a really good slow burn 'alternative' drama with decent acting and characters that really makes you want to find out what happens next, both in terms of plot and also character development. I found myself liking and caring about all the main characters in the story. The description makes the show look like science fiction or fantasy, but the fantasy elements are quite subdued. Something weird may or may not be going on in the background but the show is mostly about the characters and what happens in their lives. I wouldn't have expected to like it as much as I did based on the description. Now I'm waiting for season 2.

Jim Gavin's sadly truncated characterful odyssey Lodge 49 is a really beautiful bit of television - a grandly eclectic musical score (their music supervisor was the editor of Shindig! Magazine), a magnificent cast and some truly bold set pieces make it one of the more interesting shows of the era but it is inconsistent. Tonally it's something akin to a Coen brothers' approximation of the allegorical "John From Cincinnati"- with semi-mythical coincidences and strange occurrences mingling with everyday drama and human pain.

There are some really strong moments here but the pacing can drift into the glacial and the fundamental issue with portraying groups of people who meander through life looking for meaning is that this listlessness also seeps into the episodes themselves. Looking back across the two seasons it's sometimes hard to see the justification for whole chunks of it, but when it does coalesce into something it can be legitimately breathtaking.

The backbone of the show is the "knight and squire" relationship between Jennings & Russell - the evergreen latter now making well-deserved waves in the Marvel omniverse. The whole cast is glorious though from the magnetically listless Sonya Cassidy to David "Knifeman" Pasquesi's starry-eyed apothecary to the magnificent Bruce Campbell and the deeply underrated Adam Godley. There's a strange existential melancholy to a prematurely cancelled show - a public story perennially unfinished - that sort of works for Lodge 49 and the Lynx lodge and its cultish trappings will stay with me for a long time.