When the Clippers’ starters lined up for the opening tip Tuesday, Montrezl Harrell and Lou Williams were among them.

It was only an intrasquad scrimmage at an open practice held at USC’s Galen Center, but coach Doc Rivers is considering moving the pair from the bench, where they were two of the NBA’s best reserves last season, into the starting lineup at times during the season.

“This summer one of our sales pitches was, we already have our bench, we need a starting lineup,” Rivers said. “Now if you add Paul [George] and Kawhi [Leonard], now we have a starting lineup so maybe we can keep our bench intact.

“Having said that, I will not be surprised if I did use Lou as a starter for some games. Him and Trez, even, because you do still want to keep them together.”

Playing Harrell and Williams together would be nothing new, but doing so with the starters would be a change from the way the Clippers used them as super subs last season. The team outscored opponents by 4.3 points per 100 possessions last season when both Harrell and Williams were on the floor, the seventh-best rating among all Clippers combinations that played at least 500 minutes together.

The NBA’s all-time scoring leader off the bench and a three-time sixth man of the year, Williams started once last season. Harrell did it five times.

One impediment to starting Harrell more often is his 6-foot-8, 240-pound frame that is undersized against most, if not all, starting centers. That discrepancy often led to foul trouble early in his starts, as opponents attempted to back him down from the opening tip. Rivers doesn’t yet have a conclusive answer as to whether Harrell can play physically while fouling less. Rivers is not satisfied with the entire roster’s progress in that department so far.

“That’s something that we just have to get better at,” he said.

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The Clippers’ lineups to begin the season will likely change because George isn’t expected to make his debut until November as he recovers from offseason shoulder surgeries. George took part in three-on-three games before Tuesday’s practice but stayed on the sideline during the full scrimmage. The only other player to sit out the scrimmage was guard Rodney McGruder, who sustained an ankle injury Oct. 8 and is not expected to play Thursday when the Clippers finish their preseason against Dallas in Vancouver.

Upon George’s return, Rivers envisions employing a “sliding” lineup in which only Leonard and George are guaranteed to start.

“We’re gonna try to keep as much shooting on the floor with [Leonard] so teams can’t help,” Rivers said. “We will try to keep one roller on the floor with him so that guy is going down the middle of the paint and he’s creating help. We don’t have to make it that difficult.”

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Only Orlando’s Nikola Vucevic and Utah’s Rudy Gobert scored more points last season than Harrell as the roll man out of pick-and-roll sets, per Synergy Sports. Harrell made nearly 69% of his field goals from those scenarios. Williams ranked fifth in scoring last season among all pick-and-roll ballhandlers.

“You look at a lineup of Paul, Kawhi, Lou, Trez, and we always say ‘pick ‘em’ [for the fifth starter] if you want to be big or small, you could go a lot of different ways,” Rivers said.

Rivers speaks out

Asked again about the tensions between the NBA and China, sparked by Houston general manager Daryl Morey’s Oct. 4 tweet supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, Rivers said Morey “was right in saying that, but there’s consequences to every action, as well. I’ve been saying that.”

Morey’s since-deleted tweet read, “Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” Through a Clippers spokesman, Rivers later clarified that he was supporting Morey’s right to express himself.

Rivers’ latest foray into the issue came the same day that Hong Kong protesters burned the jersey of Lakers star LeBron James, who had said Monday that Morey was “misinformed” when he sent the tweet.

One minute remained in South Bend, and Fighting Irish defenders stood stacked at the goal line, but Markese Stepp made his intentions clear to his quarterback. He wanted the ball.

“He was fired up,” Kedon Slovis recalled of the USC running back. “The box is loaded, and we gave it to him, anyway.”

In his anticipated return to the state of Indiana, Stepp wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to punch in that score, even if it was ultimately for naught in USC’s loss. But now, with Vavae Malepeai out for the foreseeable future following knee surgery Tuesday, there should be plenty more where that came from.

Stepp is expected to split carries with junior all-purpose back Stephen Carr going forward. But considering Carr’s skill set, it’s likely Stepp takes the lion’s share of work between the tackles and in short yardage. With more than 14 touches per game to replace in Malepeai’s absence, his role could expand substantially.

How those carries will actually be split is to be determined. Neither Carr nor Stepp has carried much of a load in their collegiate careers.

Carr probably will play more in passing situations, but he hasn’t received more than nine carries in any game this year. Only once in three seasons has he had more than 14.

Stepp has double-digit carries in each of his past two games, but he acknowledged he was winded at times Saturday. The extra work, he says, has helped him find a groove over that stretch, as he’s averaging nearly eight yards per rush.

“The more carries any running back gets, the better rhythm they get,” Stepp said.

Establishing that rhythm moving forward will be crucial for an offense that’s turned to the ground more than expected recently as opposing defenses drop eight into coverage on a week-to-week basis. Those light fronts should continue Saturday against Arizona, which could use the extra defensive backs to help bolster a pass defense that ranks 11th in the Pac-12.

As such, offensive coordinator Graham Harrell said the Trojans planned to use Stepp and Carr “just like we did with Carr and Vae early on.” Over the first three games, Malepeai carried the ball 56 times.

“When they’re fresh, we’ve got two pretty special backs playing there,” Harrell said. “If they get a little gassed, we’ll figure it out.”

As far as Stepp is concerned, he can carry the ball more than he has thus far.

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“Whatever the coaches give me, I think I’ll be able to handle it,” Stepp said. “We’re all going to have to step up.”

Injury updates

After returning to health during its week off, USC’s defense gutted through injuries as best it could last week against Notre Dame, as linebacker Palaie Gaoteote and cornerbacks Olaijah Griffin, Isaac Taylor-Stuart, and Greg Johnson all played through pain down the stretch.

None of those four practiced Tuesday, and it’s possible that none will be available when USC takes on Arizona.

Gaoteote is “doubtful” with a high ankle sprain, coach Clay Helton said, and given the lingering nature of the injury, it could keep the linebacker out longer than this week. Without him, Kauni Mauga will step into a significant rotation role.

Greg Johnson, the starter at nickel corner, injured his shoulder against Notre Dame and was ruled out by Helton on Tuesday. He could face an extended absence, as Helton said he “needs time for rehab.”

The status of USC’s two starting outside corners, Griffin and Taylor-Stuart, is less certain. Griffin aggravated the lower back injury and bulging disk that held him out against Washington. Taylor-Stuart has a high ankle sprain, which Helton said was further along than the one suffered by Gaoteote.

USC had some hope that senior captain Jordan Iosefa might return this week to bolster the linebacking corps. But Helton said he expects Iosefa to continue sitting out.

For much of the last week, Todd McLellan has been coaching on the fly.

Such is the reality of the Kings’ early-season schedule, which subjected the team to an awkward seven-day break between the end of the preseason and start of the regular season, then consecutive games twice in the first week.

“We felt like we fell behind, then we felt like we were rushed,” McLellan, the team’s first-year coach, said ahead of the Kings’ game with the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday. “In my mind, we’ve played four games with one practice. Tonight will be the fifth still with a single practice.”

The side effects were felt in a 2-0 loss to the Hurricanes at Staples Center.

The Kings started brightly, recording the game’s first eight shots and drawing two early Hurricanes penalties. But they couldn’t take advantage of either. Then, the momentum flipped.

Over a 13-minute stretch between the first and second periods, the Kings went to the box three times. Their penalty kill held serve, offering optimistic signs of improvement after entering the game with a league-worst 56.3% success rate. Jack Campbell made several impressive stops, including an extended left-pad kick save to turn away a close-range chance shot from Jordan Staal.

“Our PK was excellent,” Campbell said. “Guys were sacrificing. We had a meeting today about it, and guys weren’t blinking an eye. They just went straight out and executed. That’s what we need.”

Still, a Hurricanes team that followed its run to last season’s Eastern Conference finals by winning five of its first six games this season tilted the ice. For most of the second period, they zipped the puck around in the Kings’ end. Finally, they broke through.

As winger Ryan Dzingel froze Kings defenders from behind the net, linemate Martin Necas sneaked into the slot uncovered. Dzingel passed the puck through traffic to Necas, who snapped a one-timer into the net.

The Kings didn’t offer much of a response. After tallying 17 shots in the first period, they recorded only three in the second. They squandered a short-lived power-play chance before the second intermission, turning the puck over in the offensive zone twice before a Drew Doughty interference call made it four on four.

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The Kings’ best opportunities in the third period came on the power play. On the first man advantage, with less than six minutes remaining, Dustin Brown had a deflection skip just wide of the post and Sean Walker had a high wrist shot from the middle of the ice turned aside by Petr Mrazek.

Mrazek, who stopped 31 shots, was called into action again in the final minute after Staal was sent to the box for boarding Doughty, who had to leave the game. McLellan said Doughty felt fine after the game.

Walker and Jeff Carter fired pucks at Mrazek in the final moments, but to no avail. With six seconds left, Teuvo Teravainen scored an empty-netter to seal the victory.

“They capitalized on one of our mistakes. We failed to do that on a couple of theirs,” McLellan said. “We didn’t handle [the Hurricanes’ pressure] well. The puck was too far away. We didn’t make clean plays. We didn’t get shots through to the goaltender. They were fronted.”

During the season’s first five games, the rebuilding Kings had been nothing if not entertaining. Before Tuesday, only Toronto and Winnipeg had combined for more goals scored and given up than the Kings, and each had played at least seven games. They were averaging the second-most shots (37.4) and had yet to be involved in a scoreless period.

As the Kings prepared to face the Hurricanes, the expectation was for more of the same.

“We were disappointed in the result,” McLellan said. “But when I look at the game, I thought it was very tightly contested, a battle for every inch.”

NEW YORK — 

Shortly after Game 3 of the American League Championship Series had ended, the Houson Astros went about their usual postgame routine, changing, packing their things, and talking to reporters, before heading for the team bus. As they milled about, a few of them glanced up at the TVs mounted on the ceilings. They had been tuned to Game 4 of the NLCS, being played in Washington, where the Nationals had taken a 7-0 lead over the St. Louis Cardinals in the first inning.

It appeared Washington would be heading toward a sweep, whereas the ALCS had been relatively close through three games. Houston led the series two games to one, thanks to an 11th-inning, walk-off home run in Game 2 and Gerrit Cole’s strong effort in Game 3. It felt as if they might be in for a long series.

The Nationals could have a lot of downtime, one Astro remarked.

If that weren’t enough, it seemed as if the ALCS schedule might be disrupted, too. Rain was forecast for Wednesday night, which meant rumblings about Game 4 being pushed back to Thursday.

“I’ve never really had [a rainout] in the playoffs,” said Astros outfielder George Springer, who’s played 40 postseason games with the Astros since 2015. “So I don’t really know. Guess we’ll find out.”

A rainout could change the dynamic of the series. Both teams been expected to use Game 4 as a so-called bullpen day, mixing and matching relievers instead of using a traditional starting pitcher. If Game 4 were pushed back to Thursday, both teams could theoretically use their Game 1 starters — Zack Greinke and Masahiro Tanaka — on regular rest. They could also use their Game 2 starters — Justin Verlander and James Paxton — on regular rest for Game 5.

The Astros have been riding their starting pitching all postseason, the trio of Greinke, Cole and Justin Verlander. In this series, they’ve combined to pitch 19 2/3 innings, strike out 20 batters, and hold New York to five runs.

For the Yankees, a rainout could also give them time to diagnose what’s wrong with their offense, before they face the Astros’ starters again. After exploding for seven runs in Game 1, New York has scored three runs over the last 20 innings. On Tuesday, the Yankees appeared poised to break the game open several times against Cole, one of the the Astros’ Cy Young Award candidates. But he shut them down each time.

In the first inning, Didi Gregorius grounded out with the bases loaded. In the second inning, Aaron Judge struck out swinging with two runners on. And in the fourth inning, DJ LeMahieu flied out to center field, stranding two runners again.

Even after all those missed chances, the Yankees still had hope, when they put two runners on again, with two outs in the fifth inning. As Gregorius came to bat, the crowd rose to its feet and chanted his name. At the time, the Astros led 2-0. One good swing would give the Yankees the lead.

Cole threw a fastball about belt-high and Gregorius pulled a high fly ball toward the short porch in right field. From the dugout, Yankees manager Aaron Boone was willing the ball out.

“But I also knew he got under it and hit it high,” Boone said.

Josh Reddick, the Astros’ right fielder, settled under the ball at the warning track. Just above Reddick, a Yankees fan banged on the outfield wall and screamed in frustration. In the end, the Yankees stranded nine runners and went 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position. Gleyber Torres hit a solo home run to avoid a shutout. The Astros won 4-1.

“We weren’t able to break through,” Boone said. “We weren’t able to get that hit tonight to really allow us to be in that game or even grab a lead at some point.”

Mosquitoes collected in Anaheim and Westminster have tested positive for St. Louis encephalitis — the first occurrence in those cities in three decades, Orange County officials announced Tuesday.

The mosquitoes were collected late last week along Old Bolsa Chica Road in Westminster and near Dale and Orange avenues in Anaheim, according to Heather Hyland of the Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District.

The last time any St. Louis encephalitis-positive mosquitoes were found in those areas was 1987, according to the district. Mosquitoes testing positive for the virus
were found in 2017 near the vector control offices in Garden Grove, the agency said.

Most people bitten by a St. Louis encephalitis-infected mosquito do not become ill, but those who do will experience symptoms such as fever, headache, nausea, vomiting and fatigue. Older adults can experience inflammation of the brain, and in rare cases a person can sustain a long-term disability or die.

The last time anyone in Orange County was afflicted with
the virus was in the fall of 1984. There were six positive samples St. Louis encephalitis in mosquitoes from 1984 through 1987 in the county.

Vector control officials encouraged residents to dump any standing water around their homes to stymie breeding grounds for the insects.

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Authorities are investigating a possible homicide in the Hope Ranch residential community in Santa Barbara County.

The incident occurred in the 4100 block of Mariposa Drive.

An online records search indicated that it may be the home of former “Tarzan” actor Ron Ely.

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KABC-TV Channel 7 said in a tweet that the victim was a woman.

No further details were immediately available.

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Wednesday, Oct. 16, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.

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Lucy Jones, the high priestess of seismic science, issued her tweet a little more than 20 minutes after the magnitude 4.7 earthquake hit Central California on Tuesday afternoon.

“Today’s M4.8 near Hollister is too far from yesterday’s M4.5 to be connected,” she wrote, referencing the slightly smaller temblor that had rattled the Bay Area late Monday night. So much for trying to calm one’s nerves with a balm of aftershock inevitability, or make sense of the shaking ground with any narrative through-line from one earthquake to the next.

Neither quake caused any serious damage. But the ground visibly shaking in parts of the state less than a week after mass blackouts and major wildfires is certainly a reminder of the general precariousness of life in California, as well as the specific seismic forces that put the East Bay at high risk of a major earthquake.

This is, of course, nothing new. You live here and know full well what you signed up for, which is nothing short of a potential litany of bad things in biblical proportions. (“Follow the links to more information about a specific disaster,” an official webpage for the state department of public health helpfully explains, before going on to say, in nicely organized, paragraph-long sections, how earthquakes, floods, wildfires, landslides, tsunamis, power outages and extreme heat might come to ravage the state, respectively.)

Don’t worry, I won’t waste your time with any blathering about disasters and the unsteady California psyche, or offer bargain-rate poetry on paradise in perpetual destruction. (It’s all already been said, and better, many times before.) But the fact is, disasters have shaped the state — both physically and culturally — throughout our history.

And the only real certainty of California living is that they will continue to do so. All we can do is prepare and respond.

I have been revisiting a really smart story by my colleague Melanie Mason, written in the lead-up to the most recent gubernatorial election, about how the legacies of California governors are often shaped by natural disasters. She quotes former Gov. Gray Davis, who faced an unexpected power crisis while in office. ”A governor should expect that his agenda is going to be interrupted at some point by natural or manmade disaster. It’s just going to happen,” Davis tells her.

[Read the story: “Natural disaster is inevitable in California. And it can define a governor’s legacy” in the Los Angeles Times]

“How a state’s chief executive responds when calamity strikes often makes it into the history books,” Mason continues. But that response isn’t just confined to the camera-ready aftermath, when a governor shows up in a windbreaker to tour the ravaged landscape and promise to rebuild.

“The choices a governor makes ahead of disaster are no less consequential — and often present high political risk with little payoff,” Mason continues, citing a professor of political science who says that governors tend to get more public reward for crisis response than disaster preparedness.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to the PG&E blackouts brought an early test with, as Politico put it, “the shadow of Gray Davis” looming over him. It was arguably a largely unwinnable political situation, and Newsom changed course as public anger at the utility steeped to a boiling point. His well-staged excoriation of PG&E came, as Sacramento reporter Taryn Luna noted in her story, more than 36 hours after the blackouts began and struck a different tone than the message he delivered just a day earlier.

[Read the story: “For Gov. Newsom, PG&E power outages offer political rewards — and some big risks” in the Los Angeles Times]

Newsom is still relatively new in his tenure at the helm of the state, but his governorship (along with his larger political future) will probably be defined, at least in part, by disasters that have yet to strike.

And now, here’s what’s happening across California:

TOP STORIES

The Los Angeles City Council took a stopgap step Tuesday to stop no-fault evictions and rent increases, following fears that landlords are hiking rent and removing tenants before new state rental rules take effect in January. The council instructed the city attorney to draft an emergency ordinance that would stop landlords from evicting tenants without sufficient cause, such as failure to pay rent. They also voted to draft an ordinance that would limit rent increases for the rest of the year and block some evictions. Los Angeles Times

An explosion at a NuStar oil storage facility on Tuesday afternoon sent a huge fireball into the air in West Contra Costa County, shaking buildings and rattling windows for miles around and igniting a fire that was expected to burn for hours. Officials ordered residents in two small East Bay communities, Crockett and Rodeo, to shelter in place due to potentially unhealthy air contaminants, and residents were evacuated from the tiny community of Tormey. The I-80 was closed in both directions. San Francisco Chronicle

L.A. STORIES

The first Asian American woman to lead L.A. County is retiring. Sachi Hamai, a low-key figure known for championing women in leadership and implementing the county’s sales tax hike to tackle homelessness, is leaving her post as chief executive officer after a three-decade career in county government. Los Angeles Times

Hollywood’s overworked, underpaid assistants: A Twitter hashtag sheds light — and online outrage— on the entertainment industry’s labor practices. Variety

USC will relinquish control of the Gamble House in Pasadena. The international pilgrimage site for devotees of the Arts and Crafts style and point of pride for USC’s School of Architecture will be managed by the new Gamble House Conservancy. Los Angeles Times

Golden Age Hollywood’s “male madame” to the stars has died at 96. Scotty Bowers claimed to have arranged liaisons for everyone from Rock Hudson to Bette Davis and “helped keep the (often queer) secrets of contract players who were bound by morality clauses during the heyday of the studio system.” The Hollywood Reporter

Dozens of new apartments for homeless people could rise in Chatsworth after the Los Angeles City Council voted to fund a rare proposal to build such housing in the northwestern stretches of the San Fernando Valley. Los Angeles Times

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IMMIGRATION AND THE BORDER

A dead body in the Tijuana River caused 14.5 million gallons of sewage-tainted water to spill into the United States. Federal officials reported that the body had clogged the pumps in the river intended to prevent polluted water from flowing over the border. San Diego Union-Tribune

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Twelve Democratic presidential candidates crammed on a debate stage for a very long time and many things were discussed. And then, in what can only be described as an act of very high-concept performance art, Anderson Cooper asked the contenders to tell America about their most surprising friend. Here are seven other takeaways. Los Angeles Times

San Diego Republicans failed to endorse a candidate for the 50th Congressional District. This marks the first time incumbent Rep. Duncan Hunter has failed to get the Republican Party’s full support. The six-term congressman is preparing for a federal trial on charges of campaign finance violations and faces three high-profile Republican opponents. Los Angeles Times

In other state congressional news, the GOP wants to knock off Rep. Josh Harder, but the Central Valley Democrat has more cash than anyone else. The freshman rep has consistently outraised Republicans in the race by huge margins. Modesto Bee

We know that trying to keep all 53 of our California congressional reps straight is a Sisyphean task, so here’s your quick Josh Harder refresher: He’s the guy who recently brought a giant dead swamp rat to Washington. He is also one of the seven Democrats in “purple” districts who flipped seats formerly held by Republicans during the 2018 midterms.

The fashion hits and misses of 2020 campaign merchandise, from messaging misfires to the best color schemes. Los Angeles Times

CRIME AND COURTS

Did Sacramento pot businesses pay bribes? The FBI is investigating whether payoffs to public officials were made in exchange for favorable treatment and license approvals. Sacramento Bee

A thief stole a $20,000 Salvador Dalí etching from a San Francisco gallery. San Francisco Chronicle

Actress Felicity Huffman reported to a Northern California prison, where she will spend two weeks behind bars for conspiring to rig her daughter’s college entrance exams. Huffman will serve her sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, which is approximately 340 miles — and one stunning fall from grace — away from her home in the Outpost Estates section of the Hollywood Hills. Los Angeles Times

HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT

A bacteria outbreak at a state prison in Stockton has cost California $8.5 million and doesn’t appear to be going away seven months after it infected two inmates, one of whom died. Sacramento Bee

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

San Francisco will ban cars from Market Street. The municipal transportation agency unanimously approved the $604-million Better Market Street Project to transform Market Street between Octavia Boulevard and the Embarcadero and restrict private vehicles between Steuart and Gough. Curbed SF

As developers try to meet the needs of the growing 55-plus homeowner market, a Palm Springs project is using a novel twist: marketing specifically to LGBTQ seniors. San Bernardino Sun

How TheRealReal took consignment global — and very high-end. The San Francisco-based platform for selling previously owned luxury goods became the first clothing reseller to go public last year. (BTW, this story was written by the great Susan Orlean, in case that changes your level of interest in clicking a link about the fancy consignment business.) The New Yorker

A “miniature Burning Man” will soon come to the outskirts of Kern County. The nonprofit San Diego Collaborative Arts Project is putting on the show. Bakersfield Californian

A historic Cambria schoolhouse was relocated across town. The structure was built in 1881. San Luis Obispo Tribune

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles: partly sunny, 87. San Diego: sunny, 77. San Francisco: cloudy, 62. San Jose: cloudy, 70. Sacramento: cloudy, 76. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

Today’s California memory comes from Dr. Richard L. Carhart:

“It was 1983 and I was finishing a post-doc at USC when I first saw the Seal Beach Pier. Being from the Midwest, I had never really seen anything like it before and I made a point of paying homage, as it were, whenever I was near the beach. Then came the storm. Seeing that gaping hole in the mid-section of the pier was startling, and little did I know at the time that subsequent storms and fires would have a similar effect. But the pier always returned in spite of it all. I see this now — some 35 years later — as a metaphor for how things manage to endure, simply because we would have it no other way.”

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints, ideas and unrelated book recommendations to Julia Wick. Follow her on Twitter @Sherlyholmes.

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In the early 1930s, Roland C. Casad introduced a new form of advertising: text on squash. On at least four different occasions, the Los Angeles Times featured Casad’s squash advertising.

Casad, in the above image, appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Sep. 16, 1935. The text on the squash proclaimed, “You may not like everything about a person, even so about a newspaper, but if you want to read a real newspaper, read the Los Angeles Times, Roland C Casad.”

In 1933, Casad sent a squash — with a text message — to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Oct. 18, 1933, Los Angeles Times reported:

If the railway mail service is gentle in its handling of the parcel post package interested to its care yesterday by Roland C. Casad, orchardist of Covina, President Roosevelt will enjoy at his Thanksgiving Day dinner a huge green banana squash, grown especially for his table.

On the squash, which weighs eighteen pounds and is twenty-one inches long, the President will find a message addressed to himself and the citizenry at large, reading as follows:

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“When the people show as much interest in the solution of this depression as our President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, does, this depression will soon be over. This is the people’s problem as much as his.”

When the squash was about six weeks old, Mr. Casad, using an ice pick, scratched the message on the vegetable. The scar tissue caused the inscribed letters to stand out as though they were embossed.

After displaying the gift to Postmaster O’Brien, U.S. Atty. Hall and United States Marshal Clark, the grower had it prepared for the parcel post service.
::

This post originally was published on Sep. 29, 2014.

On a recent spring afternoon, an endless blue sky over a deserted beach seemed to offer a snapshot of Southern California’s idyllic promise. But look past the waving palm trees and the picture changed.

There, on the horizon, a flotilla of oil tankers dragged a gloomy thumbprint across an otherwise postcard-worthy view, and high winds made life difficult for a TV crew on a bluff above the shore.

For the record:

11:02 AM, Aug. 09, 2019
In an earlier version of this post, a photo caption misidentified James Urbaniak as Wyatt Russell.

On a concrete bench overlooking the coast, a rumpled man in ill-fitting khakis (played by James Urbaniak) counseled a dark-haired young woman (Sonya Cassidy) fighting to keep hair and grit out of her eyes as cameras close around them. “The abyss isn’t death,” he told her. “It’s just a fable that God made up to keep us away from the truth.” With that, he walked away, and in the silence that followed it was hard to tell whether this supposed psychic’s words should be taken as profound or nonsensical.

Welcome to Long Beach, and to the weird, rewarding contradictions of AMC’s “Lodge 49,” a series that returns for its second season Monday but remains very tough to describe.

“I really don’t know, other than it is about the dichotomy of the life we all live,” said Wyatt Russell, who plays protagonist Sean “Dud” Dudley, ex-surfer and formerly aimless “knight” of the Ancient and Benevolent Order of the Lynx. On the sofa between us, Snowball, Russell’s fluffy mini-husky, vied for our attention. “Every day you’re going to experience greatness, you’re going to experience joy and you’re going to experience pain in some way, shape or form.”

With his long hair, blond beard and slacker’s bearing, Dud drew comparisons to The Dude, of “Big Lebowski” fame, upon the show’s debut. But that doesn’t do justice to the more earthy eccentricities of “Lodge 49.”

“My best pitch is, it’s a great show if you don’t own a television,” Russell added with a grin. “It’ll be your favorite show on TV if you don’t own a TV.”

That kind of tag line won’t delight AMC’s marketing department, but it speaks to the meandering, novelistic nature of the show. Mixing comedy, drama and touches of fantasy, ranging in tone from heartfelt to philosophical to happily absurd, the series, co-created by Jim Gavin and Peter Ocko, revels in the unsettled nature of its time.

On one hand, “Lodge 49” is an intimately drawn, leisurely paced series about the past-its-prime fraternal order and its hopeful savior. On the other, it’s a show about late-stage capitalism, the decline of the middle class and two siblings who must reckon with the crushing debt and existential uncertainty that come with the sudden death of their father.

It may be the funniest tragedy — or perhaps most tragic comedy — on television. But for a show that’s primarily filmed in Georgia, it also captures the diverse, idiosyncratic nature of its setting as few shows ever have.

“There’s a certain mood and feeling to [Long Beach] that I’ve always been drawn to,” said Gavin, who was born in the city and raised in nearby Orange. On set in a hooded sweatshirt and Lynx baseball cap, he pointed toward the place where, not that long ago, he lived in a $700 a month studio just blocks from the ocean — a seemingly impossible (yet very Long Beach) price for beachfront access. Reached by phone after the “Lodge 49” panel at the Television Critics Assn. biannual press tour in Beverly Hills, he talked about the series’ connection to the port city. Though only 10% of the new season was shot on location, “Lodge 49” excels at capturing its setting, from its hazy light to its distinctive spirit, which balances beach-combing ease with a working-class backbone far removed from the glitz that shapes so much of neighboring Los Angeles.

“The history of Long Beach is very much the history of postwar America … a thriving suburban place with a lot of industry, mostly aerospace, and thriving public institutions,” Gavin says. “It’s now a city that’s trying to find its new identity at a time when the sense of the future is very tenuous.”

Ocko, who credits a strategically placed decal of two palm trees for the convincingly Southern Californian quality of the show’s mini-mall donut shop (which is also in Georgia), has found that — for all of Long Beach’s struggles — the charm of its low-slung homes, sun-blasted skies and proximity to the Pacific remains. “Within about five days of the trip here, most of the people we bring from Atlanta are looking for apartments,” he said.

Still, the halting nature of Long Beach’s evolution since the end of its industrial heyday mirrors the characters of “Lodge 49.” Cassidy’s Liz Dudley, Dud’s sister, was a waitress at a Hooters-like sports bar before falling into its corporate leadership program — a twisted, cultish world of nonsensical buzzwords and bizarre rituals, which she escaped by jumping off a harbor cruise with her fellow trainees. Dud’s mentor, Ernie (played with understated, dignified pathos by Brent Jennings), is a plumbing-supply salesman who nearly landed a top-dollar corporate client last season — before it disappeared in the shell game of the new economy.

“I think of Ernie as a young guy stuck in an old man’s body, because he’s always open to try things, and he’s still trying to get what he thinks he wants in life, which changes,” the soft-spoken Jennings said. “We have our expectations and we look up at one point and say, ‘Does where I am now in any way meet those expectations and can I challenge myself to do more? Or do I challenge myself to accept who I am now as the best that I can do?’”

The British-born Cassidy, who prior to “Lodge 49” was seen in imported sci-fi and costume dramas, says her appreciation for the sarcastic, seemingly self-destructive Liz is that capacity for acceptance. It’s part of how she found herself admiring Liz for taking her chances overboard rather than chasing the security of a corporate gig.

“I really respected her in that moment,” Cassidy said in a phone call. “I think there’s a lot of people who will find themselves going down the path that has appeared in front of them that they didn’t really think they wanted, but they’re just going to kick along. Liz doesn’t kick along down the wrong path.

“There’s something I talked about with Jim and Peter that there is a lovely kind of lack of aspiration in the Dudleys,” she added. “They’d be quite happy living a content, secure life in Long Beach. But, of course, having a simple, quiet, secure life is not an easy thing now.”

Her impression bears out in Season 2 when Dud is asked what he would do with his life if he could do anything he wanted. His answer, while very funny in the moment, is endearingly earnest in its simplicity.

“We always say we’re the least aspirational show on TV,” Gavin jokes when asked about that exchange. “Dud and Liz’s attitude is one that’s kind of familiar to me. The things that make me happy have never been connected to money or having a certain status.”

Heading into the new season, “Lodge 49” remains stubbornly off-kilter. Heartened after surviving a shark attack, Dud starts cleaning pools again, albeit with a very on-brand business model, and both the Dudleys must reckon with a new tenant occupying their late father’s storefront: another family-run pool business.

Bronson Pinchot shows up as Liz’s shady new boss, and executive producer Paul Giamatti at last appears onscreen as a Clive Cussler-esque writer of spy thrillers. (“He was raring to go,” Gavin says of Giamatti’s move from behind the scenes.) Then there’s the lodge, which remains under threat with new, more-regimented leadership, but will ultimately begin to reveal its mystical secrets. The series continues to resist easy comparisons, which is fine with Gavin.

“We compartmentalize things in stories and books and movies. Things are one way or the other,” he said. “In life, those things always live side by side. Some of the hardest I’ve ever laughed have been during the darkest moments; moments that have seemed like the happiest moments of my life, there’s a tinge of melancholy that I don’t understand. For me that just feels natural.”

“What I love about our cast so much is they all seem to get that. They know those notes, you don’t play one and then the other — they’re played together in kind of a weird, funny, melancholy harmony,” he added. “That’s kind of the sound of the show.”

‘Lodge 49′

Where: AMC

When: 10:10 p.m. Monday

Rating: TV-14-DL (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14 with advisories for suggestive dialogue and coarse language)

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“On some days, all of the beautiful things in my life break my heart.”

So says Sean “Dud” Dudley, played by Wyatt Russell, in the beautiful, some days heartbreaking serial comedy “Lodge 49,” whose second season finished Monday on AMC.

Set in Long Beach, Calif., the story centers on Dud, a surfer kept from the water by injury (snake bite in Season 1, shark bite in Season 2); his more practical, equally lost sister Liz (Sonya Cassidy); Dud’s friend and sometimes reluctant mentor, Ernie (Brent Jennings), a plumbing supplies salesman; and the Ancient and Benevolent Order of the Lynx, the quasi-Masonic organization into which Dud stumbles at the start of Season 1, and the family he finds there.

“Home,” the poet wrote, “is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in” — as much as they may hate to. On that premise, countless situation comedies, dramas and reality shows have been launched. Indeed, most television shows are at bottom about family. “Seinfeld,” “The Office,” “Friends,” all are family comedies, really. Every workplace comedy, every quirky small-town comedy, is also a family comedy. Their characters are not necessarily related, but are more than usually bonded: a tribe to which outsiders are admitted only with suspicion or ceremony. (That’s why it’s always a little creepy when regulars in such shows become romantically involved; you might be set up to want it to happen, but you know deep down it’s wrong.)

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“Succession,” HBO’s much-tweeted-over successor to “Game of Thrones” is explicitly a story about family, and though they are all terrible selfish people, they are tied together by something more primal than money or power. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Fleabag,” which stormed the Emmys this year, is a story of sisters and their father, the distraction of Andrew Scott’s Hot Priest notwithstanding. “Sex and the City” was “Little Women.” “Game of Thrones” — family. “NCIS” — family. Vampire slayer Buffy and her Scooby Gang, and all Scooby Gangs back to the original: You guessed it.

Dud and Liz, protective of each other in sometimes critical ways, lose their father early in Season 1, and their mother long before our story begins, and that loss is not yet lived through. Ernie, to whose lodge “knight” Dud is a “squire,” is a brother and a father figure to him; Liz, meanwhile, latches on to Lenore (Bertila Damas), a flight attendant who knew their father, for clues about her long-dead mother. Dud is at times distracted because he’s a dreamer and Liz because she is a responsible person fated to take care of other people’s business. Though things often go wrong for them, one senses that the cosmos is on their side.

“Lodge 49″ is a show about goodness and pure intentions — Dud is a sort of Prince Myshkin, or Leslie Knope if you prefer — the exercise of which it does not treat with irony or cynicism. That doesn’t mean it’s not full of conflict. Characters go back and forth wondering who they are and what they’re meant to do and whether what they do means anything at all. (A few are less than good, to be sure, with impure intentions; this is not “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”) Most are stuck in old ways, looking for a way forward. All are looking for a place to belong.

It’s a spiritual show, with a generous definition of what might comprise spirituality, constantly nudging its characters toward a state of appreciation, of being present, of opening their eyes — even if that means (literally) blindfolding them. Doors and trapdoors are a motif. They may lead to secret rooms, where secret knowledge awaits, or to Antarctica, or to a random backyard; there is also a good bit of falling through floors or into holes. Enough that you can take it as a symbol or a sign.

The show is invested in myths and legends. Whether the particular quest on which Dud & Co. embarked in the latest season — they’re in search of “lost scrolls” — is meaningful or meaningless, the point is that even a meaningless quest is meaningful, because it’s, you know, a quest. There are references to tilters-at-windmills Don Quixote and Sancho Panza — knights and squires! — including a rendition (in French, in Mexico) of “The Impossible Dream.”

And much that seems big proves hollow at its core, or at least merely life-sized: little men and women behind their various curtains. Captain, a mysterious real estate developer from Season 1 who is spoken of with habitual awe, turns out to be Bruce Campbell in a hot tub. Liz goes to punch Janet (Olivia Sandoval), who has stiffed the employees at the restaurant Liz manages, and Janet turns out to be a hologram. When Liz catches up with the real thing, Janet confesses, “When I was a kid, I dreamed of starting a global brand, putting my stamp on every continent. But instead, I’m the CEO of a regional conglomerate. It’s sad.”

Businesses collapse; big deals evaporate. Lenore is involved in an Amway-like pyramid scheme in which bitcoin, imaginary money, plays a part. “Anything is possible” is a refrain of the second season, but not necessarily: The famous writer of thrillers who falls in with our heroes (extravagantly played by Paul Giamatti, an executive producer of the series) claims that whatever he writes he knows — that is, he assumes that if he can write it, he can also do it. This belief will prove disastrously, though not fatally, untrue.

The lodge is a refuge from all that, a place where small things become big. “Outside these walls, the world can be a cold, cold place,” Ernie says near the close of the second season, going on to echo something Dud says in the first: “But in here, when we’re all together, it’s different. It’s different in here.”

One distinguishing quality of Long Beach, whence hails creator Jim Gavin, also a writer of short stories, is that it is not Los Angeles. “Lodge 49″ pays tribute in a nonpatronizing way to all Southern California that isn’t Los Angeles. There are references to Fountain Valley and Fullerton, to the old Costa Mesa punk-rock palace the Cuckoo’s Nest that will mean more locally than abroad — as well as a nod to the late, great Huell Howser (“Do the words ‘California’s Gold’ mean nothing to you?”). But the very sound of them gives the flavor of the patchwork of small-town suburbs that sit cheek to cheek in the sprawl. Remembering his days “on the road,” out selling, Ernie reminisces: “Sometime at dusk I’d be at the top of a transitional loop and I’d see the whole city down below; lights going on, sun going down and the fire out over the ocean. It was beautiful.”

Recognition of beauty is at the heart of the series, teased by a soundtrack of new and old psychedelia and ’60s British folk rock. (A perfectly placed recording by Fairport Convention of Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine” moved me to tears.) Visions may or may not be real, given that the show likes to keep things ambiguous and that a character might also be on drugs or delirious, but they are always significant. Sometimes the magic is more: Liz’s vision of Antarctica leaves real snow on her shoulders and gives her a taste for freezers and dreams of blizzards. The last remaining member of the Mexican Lodge 55 El Confidente, played in a lovely performance by Cheech Marin, paints scenes that come true, either because he can see the future or his paintings can create it.

“You know,” Dud asks him. “If you can create the future, could you do me a favor? Maybe could you paint me somewhere down the line after my leg’s all healed and we get the scrolls, my bills are paid, and it’s like I’m somewhere at the beach with my wife or just someone special? And I don’t know. Maybe we have a kid? And Liz is there, Ernie and whoever else wants to come and hang. It’s just like another day at the beach, but it’s the day of days.”

In the painting of the future I’d like to come true, “Lodge 49″ comes back for another season — just one more, I think, because this feels like a trilogy to me; the arc of its arcs bends toward conclusion. You can kill a plant with too much water as well as too little, and as much as I love these characters, I would not want to consign them to whatever fresh dilemmas the writers would have to concoct for them in Season 4 or 5 or 6 or 7. They are too good, too real, too much on a road to somewhere for that.

Barring that, if “Lodge 49” loses its lease on television, leaving our friends hanging from this and that cliff, I have an idea for your next book, Mr. Gavin.

‘Lodge 49’

Where: AMC Premium

When: Any time

Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under age 17 with an advisory for coarse language)