The Tell-Tale Heart

by Paul Kandarian

I think I'm losing my edge. I’m a guy who loves, just loves the dark side of things. I’m not necessarily a dark person, just a bit moody from time to time (depending on whom you ask). But as a consumer, I love dark drama, films, TV shows, plays, books. And as an actor, I love nothing more than playing deeply conflicted, flawed characters and peeling back layer upon layer of darkness to let that darkness just shine bright.

I adored The Sopranos during its run. That show just reached into my throat, pulled it inside out and left me wanting for more. I remember many Sunday nights after each new episode – and especially the lights-out ending of the last one – staying awake just jazzed by the power of what I’d seen, unable to sleep and then having dreams punctuated by visions of mafioso dancing in my head.

Ditto for shows like Deadwood, and that dark vein of black emotional gold that threaded through both seasons about a gold-rush Western town and which was inexplicably canceled. They did cobble together a movie years later that was good, but not nearly as good as the original series.

Most recently, I’m caught in the gloomy and doomy webs of shows like Ozark and Yellowstone. The former, I mean wow, this seemingly ideal family, white, toothy, suburban, with everything going for them when WHAM! they’re plunged into the depths of depravity, chaos, and murder. Helen, the sleazy lawyer, at the end of season three… if you’ve seen it, you know. And if you haven’t, let’s just say Helen lost her head when all about her others were keeping theirs.

Yellowstone, my God, that show. The sprawl of it all – the location is sensational, beautiful, and bold. And the characters are, too. Kevin Costner in probably his best role ever and so many others steeped in misery and mystery, living lives tragic and agonizing amid the best and most twisted versions of the cowboy ethic you’ll ever see.

But now… now I’ve lost my edge. Now I love, nay, I adore…

Anne with an E on Netflix. There, I said it. I feel better already. If you don’t know it, Anne is a remarkable, nerdy, and superbly confident and lovable young girl who grows into the same and even stronger as a young woman in the late 19th century. She’s had a dark past; she lost her parents as a child and lived most of her youth in a horrific orphanage in Nova Scotia, where the series is set.

Anne is a gem of a character, so sweet and superb and curious and smart and supportive and loving. She’s adopted by an elderly brother-and-sister team who run a farm in their rural town of Avonlea, the series based on Anne of Green Gables, and it is just superb. Fantastically acted, scored, and filmed, this is up there with the best of the best series I’ve ever laid my heart on.

And there is nary a murder or drug deal or dismemberment or really fatalities of any sort. It is the sort of kumbaya-feeling, puppy-dogs-and-lollipop pap that I would mock violently in the past. But not now. Now I embrace the pure golden feelings this show emits, even when realizing it’s geared toward a younger audience. As one reviewer put it, “It’s like hearing a story your mother has told you since childhood being retold by your mom’s best friend in college – there’s more to it and it’s more exciting.”

The goal of this murderous reign of terror was not to kill the Indian, but kill the Indian in the child. And it is presented in this series as an entry point for young people and anyone to learn more about it, because education is the surest way to understanding. But the show overall is just so beautiful and lovingly presented, that I don’t even mind when the message of each episode tends to smack you over the head and purposely pull at your heartstrings. Okay, granted, it’s a little (or a lot) like an over-the-top ABC Afternoon Specials of the ‘90s, but sometimes I like my syrupy sweet lessons delivered drowned in sepia tones from the lips of idealistic children and grumpy grownups. But not for long – all that sweetness is contagious.

Yup, I gotta say Anne with an E is just for me, and just the antidote for bloody, dark, depressing, and scary shows. I still watch them, mind you, but an escape to the simple and simplistic is just the recharge I love to indulge in.

Don’t think that means I’m losing my edge, but softening it a bit may be good for the soul.