Tag Archives: Pure

Links: Pure, Season 2

From John Doyle of The Globe and Mail:

Link: Pure: A grim, good cerebral drama we don’t see often in Canada
Pure is a dense drama, grimly beautiful, and it threads a fine line between cops-and-criminal storyline and an examination of stifled religious moralism. (The first season is available on Super Channel for a good binge-watch.) The manner of its melodrama isn’t an easy sell. But it’s fiercely good, a rare Canadian TV foray into new territory. Continue reading.

From Bridget Liszewski of The TV Junkies:

Link: Pure’s Alex Paxton-Beesley on Anna’s isolation in Season 2
“My character was so isolated, but it was also so strange to be without Ryan, my partner in the show. It was especially hard preparing for all the Low German that I had to speak for this season. Laura Kohoot, our advisor on the show, is just the most invaluable member on our team and we spent a lot of time together working on that.” Continue reading. 

From Bill Brioux of Brioux.tv:

Link: Alex Paxton-Beesley goes Medieval on your hynie in S2 of Pure
“She is so different this season and she’s going to places I wasn’t sure of. Then again, all these things are happening to her for the first time, too, so as much as it was unknown to me, it was absolutely unknown to her.” Continue reading.

From Debra Yeo of the Toronto Star:

Link: Drugs, desperation and Mennonites all back on TV’s Pure
It’s not usually a good thing when an actor cancels an interview, but when Ryan Robbins had to bail on a chat with the Star, leaving Alex Paxton-Beesley on her own, it seemed a bit like life imitating art. Continue reading.

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Preview: Pure deals a second season on Super Channel Fuse

When we last left Pure, its characters—and the show itself—were in disarray.

Eli Voss, the Season 1 villain who had forced Noah Funk (Ryan Robbins) and his wife, Anna (Alex Paxton-Beesley) into ferrying cocaine through Mexico into the United States, was killed by Noah. But the Funk’s actions led to them being excommunicated from their Ontario Mennonite community. Noah, despondent and feeling like he had failed his family—and gotten his brother, Abel (Gord Rand), killed—left the community altogether.

As for the show, CBC opted not to renew Michael Amo’s creation for a second season. Thankfully, Super Channel stepped in and ordered six more episodes. In the U.S., Season 1 was broadcast on Hulu and then picked up by WGN America; the American superstation will also broadcast Pure day and date with its Canadian counterpart.

A woman stands, facing two men who are walking towards her.When we catch up with the Funk family on Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on Super Channel Fuse, Noah is nowhere to be found. It’s a year since the events of the Season 1 finale, and Anna and her children Tina (Jessica Clement) and Isaak (Dylan Everett) are still on the outs with their community. In danger of losing her home, Anna pleads to the elders for help. Of course, the colony knew what Voss was doing at the time but still blame the Funks for the sins brought among them. Anna was forced to pick up the pieces after her husband left and has shown great strength in doing that. She’s very different from the woman we first met in Season 1.

Meanwhile, Det. Gates (Cory Bowles) has been searching for Noah at Anna’s request. And it’s while he’s doing it that Gates stumbles upon a crime scene introducing viewers to Hector Estrada (Victor Gomez) and his hitman Orff (Conrad Pla), two dudes that are just as evil as Voss and intent on getting the cocaine pipeline going again. We’re also introduced to Det. Valerie Krochak (Zoie Palmer), a former hockey player turned forensic accountant who becomes embroiled in the case.

After over a year since Super Channel announced a sophomore season, it’s good to jump back into Amo’s world. For such dark subject matter, Pure is rife with humour and heart. The scenery is stunning (Nova Scotia stands in for Ontario) and while much of the dialogue amongst the Mennonite characters are spare, a lack of words is made up in facial expression, body language and eye movement. And, when they do speak, it’s to say something truly important, heartfelt and with conviction.

Pure airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on Super Channel Fuse.

Images courtesy of Super Channel.

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Jann: Zoie Palmer on Max and Jann’s “very cool sister dynamic”

Zoie Palmer has well over 100,000 Twitter followers that she interacts with on a regular basis, but back in 2015, she picked up one particular follower who wanted to cast her on a TV show she was developing: Jann Arden.

“Yeah, we met on Twitter of all places, and she talked about me being on the show,” Palmer says. “She’s funny as heck, and she’d been watching a show I did, and I’ve been watching her career forever. We just got on like a house on fire, it was just a natural thing.”

Their online friendship led to Palmer being cast as Max, the fictional sister of fictional Jann Arden, in the CTV comedy Jann. As the series begins, Max finds out she’s pregnant with her fourth child—despite her husband Dave’s (Patrick Gilmore) recent vasectomy—and is well over being the responsible sister who cares for their mum Nora (Deborah Grover) while Jann freely pursues her music career.

But even though Palmer says the siblings “may not know each other” if they weren’t related, she also says that they need each other.

“They bring a lot to each other,” says Palmer. “And because they’re so different, the comedy of that is endless.”

Max and Jann’s complicated, hilarious, and ultimately loving relationship is on full display in Wednesday’s new episode, “Major Party Foul,” as Jann takes over planning Nora’s 75th birthday party from Max.

We spoke to Palmer, who will also be appearing in the upcoming second season of Pure, during a visit to Jann‘s set last fall to learn more about Max and her experience working on the show.

Jann is quite a change of pace from your recent work on Dark Matter, Pure and Wynonna Earp.  Have you found it fun to work on a comedy?
Zoie Palmer: I love it. You know, Dark Matter was amazing, I loved it, it was a great three years. But then when things are over as an artist, the best thing that can happen is that you do something that is nothing like the thing you just did. That’s how I want to make my career, to go from totally unrelated thing to totally unrelated thing.

You play Jann’s sister Max on the show. They seem very different from each other. 
ZP: Jann has no kids and a music career, and Max has three kids and is pregnant, so their lives are very different from one another. And I don’t know if these two people would know each other if they weren’t sisters, you know what I mean? They’re really different. But it’s incredibly complementary and they kind of lean on each other in a weird way. Like, Jann brings to the table what Max doesn’t and Max absolutely brings to the table what Jann needs a lot of the time. So it’s a very cool sister dynamic. I think a lot of siblings have this thing where they think, ‘I don’t know if I’d know my sister or brother if we weren’t actually growing up in the same household,’ and I think it’s the case for these two, but it’s very cool that they are. They bring a lot to each other, and because they’re so different, the comedy of that is endless.

Jann has mentioned how nervous she was about acting in this series. Have you been helping her out at all on set?
ZP: There are technical things, like jargon on set where she might ask, ‘What does it mean when they say this or that?’ But overall really, because she presents such an honesty in her life, she really is an authentic person. The Jann that you saw [during the set visit], the Jann that we see on set is the same Jann that is in the kitchen making coffee. That’s her. I think the reason why that lends itself so well to acting is that she’s able to very easily tap into a real moment, which you need so much as an actor. So she kind of comes by that side of acting quite naturally. She’s pretty real, and she doesn’t have many moments that are not real.

Besides Jann herself, what do you think viewers will enjoy most about the show?
ZP: I think people are going to see their own family on TV in a lot of ways. Because this show presents all of those dynamics: the disagreements, the uncomfortable moments, the love. You know, I have one sister, and my mother used to say, ‘You have to be there for each other. You only have each other.’ I heard it over and over. It was a mantra in our house. So, I think it will be relatable.

You’ve been working all over Canada the last several months, shooting Pure in Halifax and filming Wynonna Earp and Jann in Calgary. Are getting homesick for Toronto at all? 
ZP: I’ve been travelling since May, but I love what I do and I love being in new places and, for me, it’s like a dream. It’s what I wanted to do since I was a kid, was this, so I love it. But, yeah, I have my things I like, my shower I like, and my park that I like to walk in. All the things you have at your house that you want.

Jann airs Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

Images courtesy of Bell Media.

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Super Channel announces premiere date for Season 2 of Pure

From a media release:

Super Channel is pleased to announce that it has set a premiere date for the highly anticipated second season of the critically acclaimed Canadian Mennonite drug drama, Pure. The dramatic saga of Noah Funk’s double life will return on Tuesday, May 28 at 10 p.m. ET exclusively in Canada on Super Channel Fuse. Each episode will also be available on Super Channel On Demand, the day following its linear broadcast premiere. Subscribers can also catch up on all the drama of season one of Pure, available now on Super Channel on Demand.

The six-episode sophomore season of the Super Channel original production, which was shot on location in Nova Scotia, stars Canadians Ryan Robbins (Arrow, The Killing) and Alex Paxton-Beesley (The Strain, Murdoch Mysteries), with Alyson Hannigan (How I Met Your Mother, American Pie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) joining the cast as a recurring guest star.

Season two picks up with Anna Funk (Paxton-Beesley) going it alone after Noah (Robbins) disappeared for a year. In an attempt to shield her children from the family’s involvement with the drug cartel, Anna finds herself in the very center of the drug ring she and Noah attempted to take down.

The series takes us deep inside a closed, secretive subculture through the eyes of a conflicted, good-hearted man trying to protect his family and preserve his faith.  Inspired by true events, Pure is the journey of Noah Funk, a newly elected Mennonite pastor, who is determined to rid his community of the scourge of drugs and its nefarious ties to a trans-border smuggling alliance with ruthless Mexican cocaine cartels.  Just when he thinks he’s won, Noah and his wife Anna are thrust headlong into a desperate world of violence, greed, and betrayal.

Pure is produced by Two East Productions and Cineflix in association with Super Channel, WGN America, Hulu and the CBC.  The series is created by Michael Amo (The Listener) with Amo and director Ken Girotti (Orphan Black, Vikings) serving as executive producers for the second season, along with Brett Burlock, Peter Emerson and David MacLeod (Call Me Fitz, Haven). Cineflix Rights has the exclusive worldwide distribution rights to Pure.

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Links: Pure, Season 1

From Lauren Sarner of the New York Post:

Link: Drug-dealing Mennonites take center stage in ‘Pure’
Grizzled men trafficking drugs is hardly a new TV trope — think “Breaking Bad” or “Narcos.” But the twist for “Pure” is a doozy: drug-trafficking Mennonites.

The new WGN America series follows a drug ring in the unlikely setting of a community of Canadian Mennonites, a strict religious sect with a low-tech lifestyle similar to the Amish. Continue reading.

From George Dickie Gracenote of the Daily Herald:

Link: Mennonites get pulled into drug smuggling in WGN America drama ‘Pure’
We often think of Mennonites as devoutly religious people who live simple lives free from the less-desirable aspects of modern existence. But a series premiering on WGN America shows that they, too, are not immune to the horrors of the 21st century. Continue reading.

From Meaghan Darwish of TV Insider:

Link: WGN America’s ‘Pure’ is inspired by the real-life Mennonite Mob
Looking for your next drug-centric binge? Want a show that’s a mix between AMC’s Breaking Bad and Cinemax’s Banshee? WGN America’s PURE may just be the fix you’re looking for. Continue reading.

From Dale McGarrigle of TV Fanatic:

Link: Pure’s Ryan Robbins Q & A: His Crusading Pastor, a Menacing Mob and his Spunky Little Drama
“I became really fascinated by the whole Anabaptist movement, and the lifestyle, that very simple off-grid lifestyle that many Mennonite communities practice.” Continue reading. 

From Dale McGarrigle of TV Fanatic:

Link: Pure’s A.J. Buckley Q & A: His Broken-Down Cop, Infiltrating the Mob, and His Entrancing Imported Drama
“I hadn’t really played a character like this before, so I called my agent back and let him know I was interested. Then I had a call with the director and the showrunner and that was kind of it. Bronco was born.” Continue reading. 

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