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[Note: Before Midnight is an especially difficult movie to write about, simply because for some people, even what has become of Jesse and Celine since Before Sunset is information that they don't want. But it's impossible — absolutely impossible — to write about the movie without talking about where they stand and what the premise is. I did my absolute best to spoil as little beyond that as possible. But if it's extremely important to you not to know whether he missed the plane, whether they've seen each other in the last nine years, or the rest of the table-setting that happens in the film's first few minutes (and if you've managed not to know until now), stop here.]

It took three movies for the stunning series made up of Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and now Before Midnight to go back to the beginning.

And what was the beginning?

In 1995's Before Sunrise, directed like the other two films by Richard Linklater, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) spend a single romantic night together in Vienna. But that's not the beginning. Before they can spend that night together, they have to get off the train together. And before they get off the train together, they have to talk. And before they talk, they have to meet. And before they meet, that's the beginning.

Remember? They're on the train, and Celine gets up from her seat and moves, ultimately plunking herself down right across from Jesse and going back to the book she's reading. And he spots her out of the corner of his eye, an impossibly beautiful French girl, and he makes a little goggle-eyed smile into his book, because it's all just a little too unreal.

But that's not actually the beginning either.

In the very beginning, the reason Celine gets up and moves is that the middle-aged couple sitting near her is fighting in German, and she's tired of listening to it, even though she can't understand it. She winds up next to Jesse specifically because she's quietly but firmly put off by the ugliness of couplehood that's been corroded by years of togetherness; by familiarity that has bred contempt. The first conversation they ever have is about that couple, and the fact that Celine has heard that in time, couples literally lose the ability to hear each other — men lose their hearing of higher tones, and women of lower ones.

It took three movies and 20 years for Jesse and Celine to be the ones having the fight, and to worry that now that they've passed 40, they are becoming the couple they ran away from when they'd just passed 20. It's not hard to reshoot that scene in your mind's eye, with the 2013 Jesse and Celine fighting in the foreground while, in the background, the 1995 Jesse and Celine huddle to roll their eyes at those people who can't hear each other.

See, it turns out Jesse really did miss that plane at the end of Before Sunset, and he never really went home. They've been a couple ever since, and they have twin daughters, conceived shortly after they got together. His son and ex-wife live in Chicago and he's published more books; she's still a professional environmentalist. We meet them here in Greece, at the end of summer.

And they've learned, perhaps unsurprisingly, that if you think being separated for nine years is hard, you should try being together. Their relationship, originally so perfectly preserved and gorgeous in memory, has gotten scuffed and noisy and complicated. It's not just the two of them in a listening booth in a record store now. It's them and their daughters, and his son, and his ex-wife, and their friends, and their work, and ultimately everybody with the ability to intrude, which is ... everybody.

The neat trick of Before Sunrise was that as between the two of them, there were no obstacles for Jesse and Celine. They were perfect according to each other's greedy and generous interpretation. Everything that happened made them like each other more; every conversation they had made them seem more mutually well-suited. It's an almost perfect document of the intoxication of first meetings, of the sense that every time your phone wasn't ringing, this is the person who was supposed to be calling you, and every time you felt a space next to you, this is the person who was supposed to be in it.

The obstacles were simply guts and time; he had to get on a train in the morning so he could catch his flight home, and if they weren't going to get lost, somebody would have to find the nerve to say something before they parted. (Note, if you are under 25: we didn't have Skype or smartphones or Facebook then, so sometimes people we really liked got lost. P.S. Looking for them is one of the first things we did with Google.)

In the break between the first movie and Before Sunset, the big lingering question was whether they kept their promise to meet again six months later so they wouldn't get lost. The answer? They didn't. Life had intruded, and they'd gotten lost. That second leg of the story started with a broken promise, which announced that we were in a different place with these two. They knew more; more had happened to them. Still, they fell instantly into those same talks and walks. The obstacles were still external but more complex — professional obligations, other relationships, timing, geography, and the assorted bullpucky of life that keeps most things from ever happening. They had the opportunity to take a regret and transform it into a rescue, it seemed.

Did You Show Up in Vienna?
Before Sunset — MOVIECLIPS.com

Add this to the list of Democratic worries surrounding the wave of Obama administration scandals: the downstream effect.

It's prime candidate-recruiting season right now — the period in the two-year election cycle when officials in both parties fan out across the map in hopes of persuading prospective candidates to run for Congress. Issues and money always get plenty of attention, but the ability of party leaders to attract strong, capable candidates is vital to success on Election Day.

And that makes the timing of the political storm front especially inconvenient for Democrats.

It's not easy convincing candidates to put themselves through the grueling process of running for high office. Aside from the personal and family dimensions of the decision, there are more prosaic concerns: Will the party help with fundraising? Is the job worth the trouble or is Washington too broken to accomplish anything?

Prospective candidates also want to know about the end game. In other words, what are their chances of victory?

That's where the scandal trifecta fits in. Given the sacrifices candidates must make and the amount of time and energy required to run a top-notch campaign, some are leery of making a bid when the national political atmosphere threatens to be a significant drag.

"The environment really does matter in the recruiting process," said Guy Harrison, a former executive director with the National Republican Congressional Committee and a veteran of the candidate courtship game. "This is constantly going to be coming up in conversations. ... Recruitment isn't necessarily finding people to run. People bubble up to the surface. You work to reduce the barriers to running. That's why atmospherics matter so much."

So far, there isn't much evidence that potential Democratic candidates are spooked. The party committees whose job is electing Democrats to the House and Senate insist the scandals aren't a problem and haven't required any additional hand-holding.

"The recruiting environment isn't about daily ups-and-downs because the deciding factor for our top candidates is the prospect of ending the dysfunctional, chaotic and obstructionist reign of House Republicans," said Emily Bittner, press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "In fact, House Republicans themselves are our greatest recruiting tool, and there is no sign that they will get their act together and finally be more popular than head lice anytime this century."

Still, the recent decisions of two A-list Democratic Senate prospects not to run in 2014 sparked speculation that, at least in some red states, the 2014 outlook is gloomy. While former Rep. Stephanie Herseth of South Dakota and Rep. John Barrow of Georgia made their announcements before the three administration scandals took full shape, they served as a reminder that red state Democrats would be saddled with some Obama administration policies that may not play well in culturally conservative states.

Equally important is the burden of history. The 2014 elections will occur against the backdrop of the "six-year itch," which refers to the tendency of the party controlling the White House to suffer big losses in the sixth-year of a president's tenure.

And there's yet another reason for prospective Democratic candidates to pause before jumping in. If historical trends hold true, the demographic composition of the 2014 midterm electorate will look considerably different than the one that re-elected Barack Obama in 2012: It's likely to be a more Republican-friendly electorate.

If the current controversies are going to depress recruiting efforts, it's more likely to be reflected in House races than in Senate ones since House elections are more easily influenced by national political forces — think Watergate in 1974 or Obamacare in 2010 — than Senate contests.

"Unlike House races, Senate campaigns have the resources to introduce new information about themselves and their opponents and distinguish the race from the national environment," said Matt Canter, communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

When it comes to the House, where seats go before the voters every two years, there's more incentive to sit out an election cycle than in the Senate, where opportunities come up much more infrequently.

Given the present conditions, Harrison explained, "Candidates will say, 'Why wouldn't I wait another two years for the next presidential election?' "

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is confident the spate of controversies won't have an effect on recruitment at any level.

"In spite of this being the worst, most polarized environment I've seen in 20 years, there are still opportunities to make a difference," she said. "These so-called scandals are not going to stick or adhere to individual candidates and ultimately Republicans' continued desire to see Obama fail will backfire."

Arrested Development returning via Netflix? Just another old-media brand reviving itself on new media.

The TV show, which originally ran on Fox from 2003 to 2006 and unveils new episodes on Netflix next weekend, finds itself in splendid company. Radiohead, Louis C.K., Veronica Mars — all found their audiences with promotion and distribution from big studios and networks. Radiohead was signed to a major music label. Louis C.K. enjoyed HBO specials and TV shows. And Veronica Mars ran on two TV networks for three years.

But Radiohead defied industry norms in 2006 by selling its album In Rainbows directly to fans for whatever price they chose — and the band made millions. Louis C.K. took a similarly successful route with a comedy special in 2011, charging viewers five dollars to download the special online. And Veronica Mars fans contributed more than $5.7 million on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter — almost three times the stated goal — to pay for a movie adaptation.

Author Grady Hendrix says these models aren't exactly replicable. These are mid-list, old-media artists, not blockbuster celebrities. But their fan bases and name recognition furnishes them with a new-media edge that won't be shared, he says, "[by] some band from Cleveland that has a small following looking for Kickstarter funds for their album."

Inevitably, some old-media brands still manage to do it wrong. The blandly impersonal Kickstarter page of actress Melissa Joan Hart might as well have been written by a publicist's intern. The former star of Sabrina The Teenage Witch is soliciting funds for a new romantic comedy, but as Hendrix points out, with the slightest of smirks, "It's raised $50,000, and it's doing really badly."

On the other hand, a Kickstarter campaign from actor Zach Braff simply oozes kinship with fans. And they've rallied, giving more than $2.7 million to support a follow-up to his 2004 movie Garden State and surpassing his goal by hundreds of thousands of dollars. "There are shots of him and his brother and all these behind-the-scenes things," Hendrix notes," And you feel like, 'Hey, Zach Braff is going to answer my emails!'"

A sense of ownership and connection leads people to donate money to movies ultimately benefiting the major studios that make them. But it's important to recognize that Warner Brothers will still invest many millions in producing, distributing and promoting a Veronica Mars movie, even with Kickstarter's help.

And there could be more to come. Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities points out that rumors have swirled that late show Heroes might be resurrected by Microsoft as an Xbox exclusive. "And the only way you'll be able to watch," he says, "is on Xbox."

Giving still-grieving fans hope for new Xbox or Netflix episodes of their canceled darlings such as Caprica, Chuck or Firefly.