Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite Wants to Be Approachable Yet Complex

How the fighter is trying to appeal to newcomers and the hardcore through elegant design choices.

By Daniel Krupa

Back in 2011, I bought a copy of Marvel vs. Capcom 3, with the aspiration of mastering its systems. Unfortunately as someone who has no real fighting game experience and is inherently lazy, I found it a pretty intimidating experience. In fact, I can still see it on my shelf now as I write this, quietly judging me. So when Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite says it wants to be accessible, I appreciate the olive branch.

I also realise that, for some, a word like ‘accessibility’ has other strong connotations when applied to a genre like fighting games. To the hardcore it might imply a lack of depth, but as Bill Rosemann â€" Creative Director at Marvel Games â€" tells me, that’s necessarily true and it’s something Marvel has a lot of experience with.

“A very key thing to Marvel in everything we create is accessible,” says Rosemann. “Whether you start reading the comics, or you start watching a TV show, or you’re seeing a film â€" we always say this may be their first comic, TV show, or film. It may be Doctor Strange or it may be Captain America: Civil War.

"So we start all of our stories very accessible, but we reward long term fans â€" so the more you read, the more you watch, you begin to make all of these connections. You watch a film, and you see Nick Fury approach another one of these characters and make these connections. The more you read, the more you watch, the more you see that it is very complex and interesting, and we reward you with your time. The game is the same way: very accessible, the more you play, the more you experiment... we’re going to reward all that time you’re putting into it.”

What we’re trying to do is make the game more elegant and simplified but still as complex and hardcore as it’s ever been.

Marvel has the mindset that any issue could be a person’s first, and that approach is informing Infinite. But as with previous games, it can still lead to a feeling, especially among die-hard fans, that their game is being taken away or diluted. I remember a similar conversation hovering around Dark Souls 2, yet that game turned out to be just as demanding as its predecessor. It does, however, make some of its systems easier to understand, which is no bad thing. Dark Souls doesn’t suffer noobs gladly.

“What we’re trying to do is make the game more elegant and simplified but still as complex and hardcore as it’s ever been,” says Mike Jones, Executive Producer at Marvel Games. “But we do want it to be approachable.” Jones stressed this was a new phase in the series â€" hence no ‘4’ in the title â€" and part of that goal is to attract a wider audience but not at the expense of alienating long-time fans.

“Say if you just love these characters and you want to hear a great story and see some great actions â€" it’s completely approachable in terms of how the systems work and in terms of how the controls work, but that depth is there if you want to find.”

Infinity Stones: Elegant Complexity

Even though the team wouldn’t be drawn into specifics, Peter Rosas - aka Combofiend - a former pro-player and an associate producer on the project teased where that complexity is to be found.

“There’s a very heavy technical aspect required to play the old ones,” says Rosas. “MvC2 is very unforgiving if you’re not very technical. But with this one [...] because it’s 2 vs. 2. It’s instantly that much more accessible. What you have is players who can just jump in, pick two of their favourite heroes; they don’t have to worry about assists. They’re not bogged down with all these decisions. Character, character, and your stone.”

>

Ryu activates the Power Stone.

The Infinity Stones â€" a recurring plot device in the Marvel Universe and soon to be a huge element in the MCU â€" unlock Infinite’s complexity and depth.

“We understand that three characters has been a staple for the last 16 years or so,” says Rosas. “To that effect we looking at the stones, and we were looking at a third character, and when you think about how teams were in the older games: what you had were two characters and then a third character who was a function, whether it be some type of pick-up or just for their assist â€" they weren’t picked because they were necessarily liked. They were picked for their functionality.

“So then taking that into account we thought what if we used the stones as functionality. What if we applied the stones to the team and then you modify the team entirely. So now you have the stone acting as a third character but also more than as the third character. The stone modifies the team in a way that really lets a player to create their own identity.

“Say I play a team of Ryu and Captain Marvel, and he plays the same, and he plays the same. But I play the time stone, and he plays with the power stone, and he plays with the mind stone. Suddenly, our tactics are very different. Our strategies are very different, and now we’re having a discussion which team is the best? What is the best way to customise the team? What’s the best strategy? It begins this discussion now. There’s much more customisation. There’s much more depth.”

While the specifics weren’t forthcoming, each stones seemingly applies a team-wide buff, which can be used to either compensate for a fighter’s weakness, amplify one of their strengths, or add an element they lack entirely.

“So you see with Ryu [in the trailer] he uses the power stone to knock Captain Marvel against the wall,” explains Rosas. “So suddenly characters who didn’t have that ability have a way to extend combos or knock the opponent back. There are multiple uses for them. In addition to that, there’s a final effect we’re looking into.”

The Infinity Stones unlock thousands of different permutations to play around with. Or as Rosas describes it: it’s “for guys who want to sit in the lab and discover things through endless possibilities.”

>

Captain Marvel uses the Time Stone.

In the Marvel Universe, the Infinity Stones are among the most powerful objects, and in a neat move Infinite is applying that story logic to the fighting genre.

“They allow you to break the rules of the universe,” says Jones. “So thinking about it through a fighting game lens: what rules of fighting games would the Infinity stones allow you to break? So we’re looking at attack, mobility, vitality, space control â€" all those things where we’re adding tool to a character’s toolset that they might not have otherwise.”

“So with Captain Marvel [in the trailer],” says Rosas. “You saw she activated the time stone. All her attacks were extremely fast. She broke the law of time.”

And Jones expects this Infinity Stone system to drive the game’s meta in the long-run:

“You look at the history of fighting games [...] people have their favourites, but ultimately what happens is only five or six [characters] who have the tools surface to the top and are worth playing if you want to be competitive. What the [Infinity stones] allow you to augment the entire roster, and make up for weaknesses or double-down on strengths to create strategies and, hopefully, the metagame discussion we end up hearing is Ryu with the mind stone is OP, or Captain with the time zone is the best thing you could possibly do, but if you do X and use this set-up it’s way better to use the reality stone... or whatever it is. That’s sort of the lab experimentation, hardcore fighting game that we hope emerge.”

Read on for how Infinite is taking cues from Civil War and who we can expect to appear in the character roster.

Continues

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| Marvel | Capcom: | Infinite | Wants | Approachable | Complex | How | fighter | trying | appeal | newcomers | hardcore | through | elegant | design | choices | div> By | Daniel | Krupa< | span>< | span> Back | 2011 | bought | copy | Capcom | with | aspiration | mastering | systems | Unfortunately | someone | real | fighting | game | experience | inherently | lazy | found | pretty | intimidating | fact | still | shelf | write | this | quietly | judging | when | says | wants | accessible | appreciate | olive | branch | p> I | also | realise | that | some | word | like | ‘accessibility’ | other | strong | connotations | applied | genre | games | might | imply | lack | depth | Bill | Rosemann | Creative | Director | Games | tells | that’s | necessarily | true | it’s | something | p> “A | very | thing | everything | create | “Whether | start | reading | comics | watching | show | you’re | seeing | film | always | their | first | comic | Doctor | Strange | Captain | America: | Civil | p> So | stories | reward | long | term | fans | more | read | watch | begin | make | these | connections | Nick | Fury | approach | another | characters | complex | interesting | your | time | same | way: | play | experiment | we’re | going | putting | into | ”< | p> What | simplified | ever | been | p> < | div> | mindset | issue | could | person’s | informing | previous | lead | feeling | especially | among | hard | being | taken | away | diluted | remember | similar | conversation | hovering | around | Dark | Souls | turned | just | demanding | predecessor | does | however | easier | understand | which | doesn’t | suffer | noobs | gladly | p> “What | Mike | Jones | Executive | Producer | “But | want | approachable | stressed | phase | series | hence | ‘4’ | title | part | goal | attract | wider | audience | expense | alienating | p> “Say | love | hear | great | story | actions | completely | terms | work | controls | there | find | p> Infinity | Stones: | Elegant | Complexity< | div> Even | though | team | wouldn’t | drawn | specifics | Peter | Rosas | Combofiend | former | player | associate | producer | project | teased | where | complexity | p> “There’s | heavy | technical | aspect | required | ones | “MvC2 | unforgiving | because | It’s | instantly | much | What | have | players | jump | pick | favourite | heroes; | they | don’t | worry | about | assists | They’re | bogged | down | decisions | Character | character | stone | p> < | div> Ryu | activates | Power | Stone | p> The | Infinity | Stones | recurring | plot | device | Universe | soon | huge | element | unlock | Infinite’s | p> “We | three | staple | last | years | “To | effect | looking | stones | were | third | think | teams | older | games: | what | then | function | whether | type | assist | weren’t | picked | liked | They | functionality | p> “So | taking | account | thought | used | modify | entirely | acting | than | modifies | really | lets | identity | plays | power | mind | Suddenly | tactics | different | strategies | having | discussion | best | customise | What’s | strategy | begins | There’s | customisation | p> While | forthcoming | each | seemingly | applies | wide | buff | either | compensate | fighter’s | weakness | amplify | strengths | p> “So | trailer] | uses | knock | against | wall | explains | “So | suddenly | didn’t | ability | extend | combos | opponent | back | There | multiple | them | addition | there’s | final | p> The | thousands | permutations | describes | “for | guys | discover | things | endless | possibilities | div> Captain | Time | p> In | most | powerful | objects | neat | move | applying | logic | p> “They | allow | break | rules | universe | thinking | lens: | would | attack | mobility | vitality | space | control | those | adding | tool | character’s | toolset | otherwise | “You | activated | attacks | extremely | fast | broke | p> And | expects | system | drive | game’s | meta | run:< | p> “You | look | history | people | favourites | ultimately | happens | only | five | [characters] | tools | surface | worth | playing | competitive | [Infinity | stones] | augment | entire | roster | weaknesses | double | hopefully | metagame | hearing | zone | possibly | better | reality | whatever | That’s | sort | experimentation | hope | emerge | p> Read | cues | from | expect | appear | em>< | strong>< | p> Continues< | p> |

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Marvel's X-Men ResurrXion: Everything You Need to Know

The X-Men have had a hard couple of years in the comics, having had to continuously fight for mutantkind’s survival.

However all of that’s going to change come spring, when, following the conclusion of its big event series Inhumans Vs. X-Men, Marvel will be launching a whole slew of new titles under the banner of ResurrXion. Instead, the focus will be on what the X-Men are going to do with future they’d spent all this time fighting for.

“ResurrXion is all about embracing the [X-Men’s] original dream of coexisting with humans and fighting together to make a better world. All the books in some way, shape, or form, embrace that idea,” explains Daniel Ketchum, one of the editors overseeing the entire X-Men line up. “We’re going to get back to flights, and tights, and capes, and all the classic X-Men tropes. We very much want to harken back to that era where it’s the most classic iteration of the X-Men.”

One way in which the launch will do this is by leaning into the nostalgia of older series, with titles like X-Men Gold, X-Men Blue, and Generation X.

The other is by featuring new costumes. For Blue, artist Jamie McKelvie is in charge of the designs. For Gold, series artist Ardian Syaf will take the helm. And to welcome the new change, EW has an exclusive first look below at Syaf’s rough sketches as he worked out the final looks of each character’s costume.

“[Syaf] designed all of the costumes to specifically harken back to that classic golden age flavor,” says Ketchum. “They should in some way, feel familiar.

With Marvel launching so many series, EW asked Ketchum and X-Men line editor Mark Paniccia to break down what readers can expect from the rest of the series, as well as X-Men: Prime, a special standalone comic that’s meant to serve as a primer for the X-Men universe going forward. You can look at the exclusive cover reveal below. 

X-Men: PRIME

Ketchum says that this will be a perfect jumping in point for fans looking to get into the X-Men when ResurreXion starts since the single, standalone issue is meant to serve as a primer. With that in mind, Ketchum and Paniccia called on most of the writers who’ll be helming one of the new X-Men series to contribute. “It’s a book that represents the X-Men line going forward, as everyone plants their seeds,” explains Ketchum, of the comic, which will pickup directly after Inhumans Vs. X-Men ends. “We’re just at the tail end of the war. They’re literally picking up the pieces.”

Ken Lashley will be the artist drawing a bulk of the art for the issue. “He’s currently involved in the X-Men, and will be involved moving forward as well, so he was the right guy to pivot us from Inhumans Vs. X-Men to ResurrXion,” says Ketchum. 

Image Credit: Marvel

X-Men Gold

Writer: Marc Guggenheim Artist: Ardian Syaf

Fan favorite and long time X-Man Kitty Pryde will finally be leading her own team of X-Men, consisting of Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Old Man Logan and Rachel Grey. With the X-Men line focusing on more hopeful storylinesâ€"and tapping into some of the nostalgia of older titlesâ€"Ketchum says it makes sense to see Kitty in a leadership position. “She really was the Xavier student,” says Ketchum. “So in a lot of ways, the dream has come full circle. Kitty is now the person picking up the mantle and leading the team forward in the name of Xavier’s dream.” 

X-Men Blue

Writer: Cullen Bunn Artist: Jorge Molina

With their mentor Charles Xavier gone, the original five X-Menâ€"Jean Grey, Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, and Angelâ€"will not only be dealing with being stranded in the present day, but they’ll also be aligning themselves with Magneto, one of their greatest former foes. A large part of this has to do with humankind not considering mutants to be as much of a threat anymore. “Magneto sees that as an opportunity he wants to seize,” explains Paniccia of the unexpected partnership. “He makes a deal with them to take down anyone who’s going to pose a threat and disrupt the chance to have a peaceful, if not, neutral relationship with humanity.”

And this is just one of the big changes in the series. Another one is that Jean Grey will lead the team instead of Scott. “[Writer Cullen Bunn] and I just really felt that this is the perfect place for us to see her rise to the occasion and take control of the team. There’s no reason she couldn’t lead the team.” What’s more, Paniccia says that there will be new members joining the team, with the first one being hinted at in the series’ first issue. “As far as Jean goes, she’s the only woman on the team right now. This is a reflection of the fact that these are the original five. But the membership’s not going to stay at five.”

Image Credit: Marvel

Jean Grey

Writer: Dennis Hopeless Artist: Victor Ibanez

Not only will Jean Grey be leading a team of X-Men this spring, but she’ll also be helming her first ever solo series, which sees her taking her future into her own hands in an even more direct way. “Jean’ll get a premonition that the future she feared is actually a lot closer than she thought. The Phoenix is a very real threat,” says Ketchum of the premise for the series. “She realizes she is not where she needs to be to fight that thing.”

Ketchum says that writer Dennis Hopeless’ pitch for the series was that in between her adventures with the team Jean Grey will also be traveling the Marvel Universe in preparation for this encounter. “She’s going to study with Doctor Strange and maybe have an adventure alongside Ghost Rider,” says Ketchum. “Anyone who knows something about other forces or being possessed, or speaks to the mission she’s undergoing she’s going to have an adventure with.” 

Iceman

Writer: Sina Grace Artist: Alessandro Vitti

“The book is primarily focused on older Iceman, because it’s really his journey, informed by the younger Iceman’s journey,” explains Ketchum of the aim of Bobby Drake’s first solo series. “Younger Iceman is a hero who knows where he wants to go and what he wants to be as a hero. He’s completely well adjusted in many ways that adult Bobby is not.” It’s recognizing this that inspires the older (and now, openly gay) X-Man to reconsider his legacy beyond being known as “The X-Man who tells jokes” while also fully exploring his Omega-level powers. Ketchum says that the series will see the character “focus on him getting his act together both in his superhero life and also as a human being.” 

Cable

Writer: James Robinson Artist: Carlos Pacheco

The third and final character getting his own solo book as part of ResurrXion is none other than Cable. “With Xavier, Scott Summers, and Logan fallen, Cable is now the patriarchal figure of the X-Men line,” explains Paniccia. “The big man gets the big solo series.” The seriesâ€"which Paniccia says is one of the darker of the ResurrXion line upâ€"will see the X-Man traveling back and forth through different time periods in order to fix time itself. “It’s one of the best things about Cable in one book,” says Ketchum. “Cable jumping through time, and kicking ass, with preposterously huge guns and even bigger shoulder pads.” 

Image Credit: Marvel

Image Credit: Marvel

Generation X

Writer: Christina Strain Artist: Amilcar Pinna

“Not all mutants are created equal,” says Ketchum of series writer Christina Strain’s pitch for the series. “When you look at the line of X-Men, not every mutant is destined to be a world-saving X-Man. Some are just kids with a bunch of extra eyeballs.” And it’s exactly these young mutants that the series will focus onâ€"a group of “lovable losers” led by none other than Jubilee, and includes Nature Girl, Eye Boy, Bling, and Quentin Quire just to name a few.

“You’re going to see these kids go through all the growing pains of finding their way, finding out who you love, trust, or don’t,” says Ketchm of what you can expect from the series “[They’ll be] learning those hard lessons and fighting for their lives all along.” Ketchum adds that part of the fun of the book is watching these inexperienced teens encounter villains they’re not really equipped to go up against. “What does a girl who talks to squirrels do against a sentinel?”

And just like Blue and Gold, the series will pay homage to the series from which its name comesâ€"and not just be continuing to be a book about Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Teases Ketchum, “One of the villains is actually from the original series because we wanted to make sure we paid homage to the predecessors.” 

Weapon X

Writer: Greg Pak Artist: Greg Land

“Weapon X is back as a reaction to [mutants’] resilience to extinction. It’s like bringing out a can of industrial Raid,” explains Paniccia of the titular program. “They’re going to wipe [mutants] out for good this time.” And as part of the program’s bid to extinguish mutants forever, they’ll primarily be going after the mutants they know are going to “fight dirty,” including Old Man Logan, Sabretooth, Warpath, Lady Deathstrike, and Domino.

And with the series’ core group being a mix of heroes and villains, the team’s dynamic is going to definitely be interesting. “Logan and Sabretooth have no love for each other, so it speaks volumes for how effective and dangerous the Weapon X program is for him to end up seeking out Sabretooth and forming an alliance with him,” says Paniccia. “It’s going to be a dark book. It’s arguably our darkest book out of the line, and is going to have some really shocking moments in it.” 

X-Men: PRIME will be released Spring 2017. You can look at the rest of the series’ covers below.

Image Credit: Marvel

Image Credit: Marvel

Image Credit: Marvel

Image Credit: Marvel

Image Credit: Marvel

Image Credit: Marvel

Image Credit: Marvel

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R.L. Stine to Write Man-Thing Series for Marvel

Photo

Credit Tyler Crook/Marvel Entertainment

Man-Thing, a swamp monster introduced by Marvel Comics in 1971, will return in a series beginning in March. The horror comics will be written by someone more than familiar with tales of suspense: R. L. Stine, the author of the “Goosebumps” novellas for children.

For Mr. Stine, 73, writing the five-issue series is something of a lifelong dream. “My first ambition was to be a comic book artist,” he said. “I started doing these little comic books in the fourth grade: ‘Super Stooge,’ the dumbest hero on earth.” Though he shared the stories with his classmates, he quickly realized he had no talent for illustration. “I was terrible,” he said. “I had no choice but to be a writer.”

The new Man-Thing series, with covers by Tyler Crook and interior artwork by German Peralta and Daniel Johnson, is inspired by the iconic horror comics of the 1950s like Tales From the Crypt, of which Mr. Stine was a big fan.

“They were scary, really gruesome, bloody comics and they always had a twist ending,” he said. “I think they’ve been a major influence in everything I’ve done since,” he said. This was despite his mother’s efforts, who thought the comics were trash and would not let them in the house. Thankfully, the local barbershop had them. “Every Saturday morning, I’d go get a haircut so I could read the comics,” Mr. Stine recalled.

Marvel offered Mr. Stine several characters, but he quickly settled on Man-Thing because of his fondness for swamp monsters, which have been frequent characters in “Goosebumps” stories. Despite being a horror series â€" aimed at teenagers and older â€" Mr. Stine hopes to bring some comedy.

“I’m going to do a lot of action and a lot of great violence and make it creepy, but I’m going to make it funny at the same time,” he said. “It’s what I try to do in my books.”

In the first story, Man-Thing heads to Burbank, Calif., wondering why he is not starring in a major motion picture. (Comic book purists may balk at one revision to the character: Man-Thing will no longer be mute. “He can talk and he’s very sarcastic,” Mr. Stine noted.)

Each issue will also include a short horror story written by Mr. Stine and drawn by a guest artist.

Continue reading the main story"

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“Rectify” Is a Quiet Marvel

> Daniel was convicted of a brutal but ambiguous crime. Now that he’s out of prison, everyone wants clarity. Credit Illustration by Tomer Hanuka In the first episode of “Rectify,” Daniel Holden (Aden Young) is released from death row, and he gives a speech to journalists and protesters gathered outside the prison. Rather than assert his innocence or talk about justice, he offers a zigzagging meditation on the nature of fatalism. “I had convinced myself that kind of optimism served no useful purpose in the world where I existed,” he explains, in an underwater monotone, as the protesters look on, baffled. “Obviously, this radical belief system was flawed and was, ironically, a kind of fantasy itself.” Humbly, as if ending a philosophy seminar, he concludes, “I will seriously need to reconsider my world view.” For three years, “Rectify” has been a small marvel, an eccentric independent drama, filmed in Griffin, Georgia, and airing off the beaten track as well, on Sundance. With its skewed insights into carceral cruelty, “Rectify” took the slot that “The Wire” used to occupy: it’s the smart crime drama whose fans have trouble persuading others to watch, because it sounds too grimâ€"or maybe too good for you. It’s a frustrating dynamic that has haunted other dramas without cowboys or zombiesâ€"“The Leftovers” and “The Americans” come to mindâ€"but “Rectify” ’s reputation for difficulty is misleading. The show’s dreamy pace makes it a satisfying high, like a bourbon-soaked bob down a river on a humid day. It’s a show about the way that time gets distorted; it’s one that distorts time, too. As with many structurally daring series, it’s joyful, because its insides match its outsides. It’s also, more straightforwardly, a gothic mystery about small-town secrets. When Daniel was in his late teens, he was convicted of the rape and murder of his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Hanna. He served nineteen years, most of them in solitary confinement. The crime itself was a foggy, ambiguous incident that involved psychedelic drugs; two boys testified against him, and, under pressure, Daniel confessed. DNA cleared him of the rape but not of the murder, so plenty of localsâ€"and, at times, Daniel himselfâ€"suspect that he did it, because he was found cradling Hanna’s naked corpse, which he’d decorated with flowers. But Daniel’s younger sister, Amantha (Abigail Spencer), never lost faith in his innocence, and she’s been sleeping with the liberal Jewish lawyer she lobbied to work on his behalfâ€"the big-city Reuben to her Norma Rae. Everyone involved wants clarity, now that Amantha’s faith has paid off. No one gets it. The murder case is reopened and leads down alarming paths. Few people want to face the uglier facts, including the knowledge that Daniel was raped in prison, multiple times. While he was on death row, his father died and his mother remarried, so he has two new stepbrothers, Ted, Jr., and Jared, who is still in his teens. In some ways, Daniel is himself an adolescent, prone to self-indulgent, self-destructive whims. In isolated Paulie, Georgia, he’s a distinctly odd figure, a socially awkward autodidact who meditated and read obsessively in his cell. He speaks in an off-kilter, whispery style, making even sympathetic neighbors uncomfortable. His mannered intellectualism marks him as an outsider, queer in several senses, as much as any suspicions of criminal guilt do. The one person who truly gets him is Ted, Jr.,’s wife, Tawney, a sweet born-again Christian who is desperate to save Daniel, and with whom he develops a dangerous chemistry. Their flirtation takes place, however, largely through elevated conversation about Thomas Aquinas and Buddha, forgiveness and humility. And, in fact, a lot of the pleasure of the show is in the dialogue, which favors the stuff that Daniel jokes is not “gallows humor” but “lethal-injection humorâ€"it’s more humane but less funny.” “It felt good to use the telephone that wasn’t smarter than me,” Daniel tells his sister, about a pay phone. His companion on a road trip tells him, “Everything that happens between men and women is written in mud. And butter. And barbecue sauce. Paula Deen said that to me in a dream I had one time.” Ted, Jr.,’s boozy koan: “First you hate it. Then you like it. It’s called beer.” While the talk takes its time, the plot moves fast. The first season covers six days in six episodes, and climaxes in two crimes, one committed by Daniel, one against him; by the fourth and final season, currently airing, only a few months have passed. Several of the best episodes are one-offs, featuring characters we never meet again. In one, Daniel drifts into the orbit of an antique dealer named Lezlie, a Pan-like anarchist, who invites anyone who is not a gentrifying yuppieâ€"the class he regards as ruining Paulieâ€"to party at his ramshackle house. In another, Daniel gets a ride from a stranger and steals some goats. There’s a strong sense in “Rectify” that, when your memory has been rendered spongy and your safety shattered, each event might last forever or be gone in a flash. Perhaps the standout episode is “Donald the Normal,” from Season 2. In it, Daniel finally leaves town. He takes a bus to Atlanta, then puts on nice clothes and goes to a museum to see a beautiful painting that he knows only from a book. Throughout “Rectify,” the claustrophobically close-knit Paulieâ€"where the local waitress sleeps with both Daniel and the politician who framed him, and where Hanna’s brother glares at Daniel’s family in the supermarketâ€"is portrayed as near-enchanted in its isolation. Any mention of a larger Southern city (even from the former Atlantan Amantha, who has a liberal hipster’s condescension for her home town) makes it sound as distant as Mars. At the museum, Daniel is approached by an attractive older woman, played by Frances Fisher. “What do you think?” she asks. “I think I’ve looked at this painting in a book for so long that somehow my brain has trivialized it,” he says. “And as I stand here in front of the real thing I feel, if anything . . . disappointed.” She’s charmed by the alien quality that others find so creepyâ€"his formal speech, his lack of boundaries. She invites him to lunch with her book-club friends. These are sleek, rich city women. He tells them that his name is Donald and that he owns a bookstore in Alabama. This experiment in reinvention falls apart fast. Daniel has cuts on his forehead and cheeks, the remnants of a beating that put him in a coma. And, bright as he is, he can’t improvise a life he never had. He finds himself faking a conversation about a book he hasn’t read, something with a “pitiful” protagonist. “This bread, um, is excellent,” he says, trying to change the subject. “The panini bread?” one of the women asks. “Yes, um, the pallini bread,” he responds. “It’s . . . unusually fresh.” It’s a heartbreaking slip, a class error that locks him out of a whole world. The book-club women get into a conversation about a story that Daniel >has read, Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain,” and which he’s memorized. His lunch companion can’t believe it: “It would be torture to memorize.” No, he explains: it was a calming task, back during “a period in my life when I was having some difficulty dealing with the passing of time in a traditional sense.” Because Wolff’s story deals “with the bending of time,” memorizing it helped him bend time as well. References like this get at the show’s fearlessness in taking art seriously, not merely as a distraction but as a bridge between strangers, a way of reframing the world. Still, it would be an exercise in solipsism without the larger, more grounded ensemble, particularly Daniel’s opposite number, Ted, Jr., who becomes both his bully and his victim. As played by Clayne Crawford, Ted is a strutting, insecure shit-kicker, a high-school tough kid gone to seed. A salesman at the family car dealership, he’s the yuppie type Lezlie disdains, or, at least, he aspires to be: he and Tawney share a McMansion decorated in pastels. When the bank won’t give him a loan for a sketchy scheme involving leasing auto rims to black customers, he mortgages the house, despite Tawney’s resistance. When things fall apart, he gets scary. In another story, Ted might be a cartoon villain: the abusive husband who, at one point, confesses to something so close to date rape that it’s a distinction without a difference. (Crimes on “Rectify” are like that: violence so ordinary that no one reports itâ€"and, when someone does, the justice system makes it worse.) But the show sees Ted’s side, too. Like Daniel, he is a man humiliated by loss of control, with few coping skills when he’s been abandoned. In “Rectify,” anyone who feels something for others, however painful, must be redeemable. In the final season, Tawney and Ted, Jr., go to therapy, heading toward divorce. Daniel, who has been legally “banished” to Nashville, lives at a halfway house and gets an artist girlfriend. The crime is on the verge of being solved. If “Rectify” has a flaw, it’s one that so many humane shows develop in their final stretchâ€"a Tawney-like desire to save everyone, simply because these are characters we’ve loved for years. In one scene, Amantha, recognizing that an old enemy is helping solve the mystery of Hanna’s murder, asks, “Is there anyone left to hate?” Daniel wryly refers to himself as Humpty-Dumpty, but he’s often more like Kimmy Schmidt: he’s strange not because his capacity for wonder has been shut down but because it’s almost too open. As the finale approaches, it’s not the show’s problem that I’ve found myself wanting some ugly to stay ugly. Perhaps I will seriously need to reconsider my world view. >♦ "

| “Rectify” | Quiet | Marvel |

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