Review: Malcolm & Marie & The Failure To Reach Euphoria

I was really, really looking forward to Malcolm & Marie. I have watched every episode of the first season of Euphoria at least twice. The hour "special episode" with Zendaya and Coleman Domingo talking for an hour in a coffee shop is one of my favorite hours of television, period.

John David Washington is clearly on the rise, still perhaps waiting for THE moment where he becomes an acting singularity as his father has become (excellent before St. Elsewhere, but carrying himself through that series with the consistent weight and ownership of the screen that has become his trademark), but his power is as burgeoning as a 3-day-old pimple.

Sam Levinson is the progeny of one of the greats, Barry Levinson, who not only delivered a lot of great movies as a director, but delivered some of the greatest television ever as a supportive executive producer, particularly with Tom Fontana, who had taken the reins at St. Elsewhere after Brand & Falsey moved on to their next glories. This is an entire b…