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AKA Jessica Jones. The Marvel/Netflix joint has confirmed ongoing speculation that Mike Colter (Good Wife) will play Luke Cage, AKA strength-enhanced super hero Power Man, in the show starring Krysten Ritter as the title character, a troubled former super hero who opens her own detective agency. Marvel fans who’ve been following the Marvel/Netflix collaboration which begins with a Daredevil series, will assume Colter will also play the character in the upcoming solo Luke Cage show. (TVLine)

Continuing Series

Once Upon a Time. Sebastian Roché (Scandal, The Originals) will guest-star as Aurora’s pop, King Stefan, when the show returns from hiatus in March. (EW)

Frequent visitors of the site, followers of mine on Twitter, or subscribers to the TV Water Cooler podcast all know of my undying admiration and affection for Showtime’s freshman drama The Affair. For the uninitiated, The Affair is a 10-episode series that details the major events and casual details of a simple affair between two married people (the great Dominic West and Ruth Wilson). As almost an incidental throwaway, there’s also a murder underlying the entire series.

For me, the beauty of The Affair is its character-driven plotting and its lavishly adult narrative. These are all parents dealing with real life issues – love, money, children, sex, loss, grief – and the creators never dumb it down for mass consumption. They’re not in a hurry to shock. This is a marathon show, not a sprint.

The Affair has proven a quietly confident and focused series that has quickly risen on my Best Of 2014 list. Last night’s season finale nearly pushed it to the top slot. I celebrate and advocate its greatness for defining a complicated romance between two anti-heroes. They aren’t Bonnie and Clyde, but Alison and Noah are unlikeable people making wrong-headed choices. And that’s what makes it so great – and Emmy worthy, in my humble opinion.

As for last night’s season finale, spoiler territory ahead…

Following Noah’s perspective, we see him fall from celebrating the swinging single lifestyle, swimming and fucking in equal measure, to being placed on paid administrative leave for an in-school tryst. It’s during this leave that he writes his massively successful second novel, presumably somewhat based on his affair with Alison (Wilson).

The biggest surprise of his sequence is his shocking encounter with estranged wife Helen (the excellent Maura Tierney). She initially confronts him with embarrassing evidence of his many recent affairs and violent assault on Scott Lockhart, the 30-year old who impregnated their 16-year old daughter. You expect unreasonable divorce demands or blackmail to follow, but, instead, she unexpectedly begs him to return after confessing to being overwhelmed and lonely. This scene is Maura Tierney’s best of the series in that she manages to combine her inherent rage, lust, and embarrassment as she gives in to Noah.

Following their (brief) reconciliation, Noah receives a call from Alison, alerting him that his daughter has fled to Montauk into the arms of her older lover. A violent altercation ensues between Noah and Scott, interrupted only by Alison’s husband Cole (Joshua Jackson) and his gun.

Or does it really happen that way at all?

As the story resets, we see Alison recharging at her mother’s mystic, mumbo-jumbo retreat. I enjoy her mother’s presence as it adds a little humor to the very serious proceedings, but there’s a whole bit about Alison needing an emotionally cleansing fuck that’s a little hard to take. If there’s anything Alison Lockhart needs, it sure isn’t more sex.

Alison returns to Montauk and faces the wrath of those she left behind, particularly that of her husband who begs for her return. Alison loves him but confesses that she doesn’t want to be with him any longer. The loss of their child lingers heavily in the air between them. When he continues to plead for her return, she seals the deal by lightly accusing him of neglecting their son just before he drowned.

Bruised and angry, Cole’s reaction seems to be exactly what Alison wanted, and, just before completely giving up on her, news of the young Solloway girl’s arrival in Montauk reaches the couple. Cole and Alison arrive on the scene in a completely different version of similar events relayed through Noah’s memory. But more on that later…

At the end of the episode, it is revealed that Alison and Noah are indeed happily married with child. That is, until the detective, who has been quietly investigating the death of Scott Lockhart and particularly Noah’s involvement in it, comes to arrest Noah.

That event sets up either a critical flaw or an exciting realm of possibilities for season two. There is clearly much more of the story to tell – Noah’s divorce and subsequent marriage, the birth of his child with Alison, what happened to the Lockharts, and so forth. Yet, so many shows have dazzled in their first season only to fall flat in later outings (Homeland, I’m looking at you).

Aside from the mechanics of the plot, I would love an explanation of the differences in Noah and Alison’s versions of their lives. Sure, I can understand difference in clothing or changes in locations – memories can be tricky bitches sometimes. And they’ve done this before – the death of Alison’s grandmother was particularly strange in its varied incarnations – but never with so much at stake. The great chasm of differences between seemingly major events (the incident at the Lockhart house in the finale, for example, where important characters are completely omitted from Alison’s recollection) leaves me scratching my head.

Scratching my head in a very good way. I’m excited to explain away the differences, to dream up logical explanations. But if the series wraps up without explaining the discrepancies, then it will clearly have been nothing but a gimmick.

And I think I would like that not at all.

Joseph Sargent whose TV and movie directing career spanned over 50 years, has died at age 89 from complications due to heart disease.

Sargent had stints on such shows as Lassie, Gunsmoke, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Invaders and many more. On the big screen, he’s probably best known for the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three starring Walter Matthau which younger audiences have discovered as the inspiration for the character names in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.

In addition to 4 Emmy wins (from 8 nominations), Sargent chalked up 3 DGA wins (from 8 nominations), the most recent for the 2005 TV movie Warm Springs.

Check out the epilogue from the March 8, 1973 Kojak episode “The Marcus-Nelson Murders” for which Sargent won his first Emmy.

A gaggle of colleagues and competitors (most of whom are unfit to fix her a drink) recorded messages of farewell to longtime CNN fixture Candy Crowley upon her retirement.

Cable and broadcast news, already a borderline joke even with Crowley to help keep the bar raised a little bit, will now be just that much worse. In the words of Craig Ferguson (who himself recently broadcast his final episode of The Late Late Show) “Television will be shit without you.”

Crowley’s final broadcast as the anchor of State of the Union with Candy Crowley was Sunday, December 21.

The premiere of AMC’s Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul is still more than two months away (February 8, 2015), but the internet has been lousy with pictures and teases and snippets and whatever. Here’s another teaser clocking in at 30 seconds which gives probably the clearest look yet at the tone and feeling of the show.

Entertainment Weekly caught up with Bruce Campbell to ask about his return to his character, Ash, for Starz’ 2015 10-episode horror-comedy series Ash vs. Evil Dead. You’ll be happy to learn that Ash is a little older, but he isn’t any wiser.

“He continues being a trash-talking know-it-all who doesn’t really know anything. He’s the ultimate anti-hero. He’s a guy with no appreciable skills. He’s not a former Navy SEAL, he’s not a former CIA or FBI. He’s no special anything. He’s just a guy from S-Mart, you know? And think that’s part of what people relate too. All these super hero movies—I rather relate to a garage mechanic who gets into a sticky situation. That’s what I look forward to playing—a guy with horrible flaws. In Army of Darkness he can’t memorize three words and he’s responsible for the deaths of a 100 people—this is your lead character!”

Head over to the once-proud entertainment rag for the full chat.

Lena Dunham and the cast of Girls lay out the directions their characters will be moving when the show returns to HBO on January 11, 2015.

Dunham promises lots of great guest stars, more of Marnie singing embarrassingly in public and yep, there’s Jell-o wrestling.

The BBC reports that blues-rock singer Joe Cocker died today at age 70. I know this isn’t a music blog, but my first memory of Cocker is a TV memory. It’s when he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 1976 and John Belushi, already well known for his exaggerated-but-affectionate Cocker impression, came out on stage for a duet of “Feelin’ Alright.”

Here’s the Downton Abbey sketch George Clooney recorded for ITV’s annual Text Santa charity telethon. George played Lord George Oceans Gravity, Marquis of Hollywood. Jeremy Piven also showed up as his character from Mr. Selfridge, but who cares?

While I am a rabid Amy Adams fan, I was a bit unsure how she would fare on this week’s Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live. Since I didn’t see the first time that she hosted, I was anxious to see how the always game Adams fared with these seasons comedians. Adams’ sweetness always radiated through the screen, and if the sketches didn’t live up to her eagerness, no one would blame her.

Did anyone ask for a flashback from 1997? Well, whoever it was deserves a slow clap, because Mike Myers popping up as Dr. Evil in the ice breaking sketch was pretty damn hilarious. It starts as A Very Somber Christmas starring Sam Smith, but then Dr. Evil shows up to tell Kim Jung-un to lighten up over this week’s controversy over The Interview. Myers even throws some shade to himself about his movie choices (“if you want to put a bomb in a theater, do what I did with The Love Guru”). Too little, too late?

It’s always great to watch Kristen Wiig on SNL, but does she have to keep coming back? It almost feels as if no one thought Adams was strong enough to pull off a large musical theater song about Christmas without inviting Wiig to be a part of it. It might be a running gag any time Adams hosts, because Wiig interrupted Adams the first time she hosted. Wiig is an audience favorite (and arguably the last most dependable cast member), but it feels like she just waits at the SNL stage door in hopes something will come her way.

The fight to keep everything PC and inoffensive is handled hilariously in the small digital short about a group of small girls enjoying their new doll, Asian American Doll. The doll doesn’t even have a name, and she only comes with two accessories: a chef’s hat and an adorable doll. The last line delivered by the young actress made me laugh out loud, and the tagline for the doll (“made from a place of fear!”) makes me wish toy commercials were a bit more direct.

Full disclosure: I haven’t listened to Serial yet (I know, I know!!!), so I feel a bit inept writing about it. I’m just going to put it here, and everyone can talk about the brilliance of it. I’ve heard that this sketch was the best of the night.

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Taran Killiam and Amy Adams take on the Holderness Family’s now famous Christmas Jammies video in one of the best sketches of the night. Instead of bragging about their family’s accomplishments, the Tenderfield’s reveal all the embarrassing incidents that have happened to their clan. Killam admits that he threw up on Matt Lauer, and Adams’ wife started an affair with an underused Kenan Thompson. The highlight would have to be Kate McKinnon’s sociopathic daughter.

Weekend Update was particularly disappointing this week. Even though Bobby Moynihan tried to save it as Kim Jung-un, Kenan Thompson’s character was kind of sad, and Wiig and Fred Armisen popped up as Garth and Kat. It goes on too long, and Wiig’s continuous giggling over Armisen isn’t as charming as the actors might think it is. Actors breaking on SNL is one of my favorite things every, but this was kind of annoying.

Jay Pharoah and Pete Davidson played rappers who grant Moynihan’s Christmas wish to liven up an Office Christmas Party. It gives us our only peek at Leslie Jones, and Amy Adams is almost unrecognizable as a mousey payroll accountant who goes crazy. At this point in the episode, one probably realizes that Adams is criminally underused this week.

The worst sketch of the night is easily A Very Cuban Christmas. It came off as if they were just trying to cram as many Cuban celebrities and references into 5 minutes, and it came off disconnected and half-assed. Cecily Strong’s Gloria Estefan resembled a Miss America contestant more than the Latin singing superstar, but Killam actually does a pretty spot-on impression of Pitbull. You know that the sketch is bad when the best thing about it is a successful Pitbull impersonation. This is the epitome of how bad the writing of an SNL sketch can be.

The weirdest skit of the evening involved a singing sister trio in 1957. Adams, Kate McKinnon, and Cecily Strong play singing sisters who approach Moynihan and Kyle Mooney for a drink before they perform on stage. If they incorrectly guess what the drinks are, the girls volunteer to chew on garbage much to the men’s horror. It starts off very oddly, and the dialogue feels like it doesn’t make sense. By the end you learn that the girls are actually a trio of singing raccoons, and their Christmas wish was to become famous singers (and kiss some men). Yes, that’s seriously what happened. When I first saw it, I sort of just stared at the television and wrote it off as a stupid sketch. When I re-watched it, the payoff made me laugh out loud. Perhaps it was the cute raccoon puppets or maybe it was because it was so weird.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that my favorite cast member is Kate McKinnon (she has an almost Jim Carrey-ian way of contorting her face). My favorite sketch was the continuation of McKinnon’s crazy cat lady that operates the cat store, Whiskers R We. Adams plays Ashley, McKinnon’s girlfriend, and the two of them introduce adorable felines while revealing details about them (“Toby is a textbook narcissist” or “I’m not a cat—I’m a MAN!”). It’s uncomplicated, and it allows McKinnon to be kooky while talking to the audience. I could watch this every week.

How did Adams do? She’s perky and sweet (as always), but this was a classic example of the writers not stepping up to the plate to allow the host to be all that he or she can be. It’s not Adams’ fault whatsoever, but it did appear that she was having a great time. Tis the spirit of the season perhaps. All the Christmas cheer might have blinded everyone as to how weird this week actually was.