Comedies - Written as we listened to the Glee Christmas soundtrack part two for the first time!

Modern Family - Treehouse
We really liked the Cam and Mitchell storyline and Leslie Mann’s guest-starring role. We also liked the line “It’s like the gift of the vagi.” Ha. Jay and Gloria’s storylines need work, we think. Also, Jay shouldn’t dance with his arms raised over his shoulders if he wants people to see him as a straight man too. That’s a pro tip for all you guys out there. Gay = over the shoulders. Straight = never. Admittedly, Jay did say he was a bad dancer.

Episode grade: B

America’s Next Top Model - Game
Notice we always lump this show in with the comedies. We know you don’t disagree. Anyway, we official ship Game and Allison Harvard harder than just about anyone else on TV right now. We thought she had a bad voice though and that Lisa should have won the challenge. Lisa is really winning us over this season. We were disappointed that Alexandria went home. We thought her video came off as snobby, avant-garde, and fashionable, not awkward, and she had a really interesting voice tone. Game is way more of a sweetheart than we expected. We’re fans now.

Episode grade: B

South Park - 1%
The show gets points for being timely, but man, there was so much wasted opportunity here. We came away unsure of what the South Park guys THOUGHT of the 99% movement, which is disappointing, because we love to know their opinions. They keep us sane and balanced. We came away thinking that Trey and Matt (or Cartman) think that the 99% just want to blame the rich people because they can’t bring themselves to blame Obama, because he is black. We don’t think race has anything to do with it, if that’s what they are saying. People just don’t want to be wrong about their political party or who they voted for, so they always just examine evidence that confirms their original chosen side, race or not. Also, the episode just wasn’t very funny. We are, however, going to occupy somewhere stupid with signs to honor the show and take pictures.

Episode grade: C

New Girl - Naked
Jess saw Nick naked and he freaked out. Bonjour Le Peen. We think the roommates are sometimes too mean to Jess and Jess is sometimes a little too stupid. This episode was funny though, and Lake Bell came on and did her awkward thing.

Episode grade: B

Up All Night - Parents
We liked Reagan’s parents, but this episode just wasn’t as funny as we wanted it to be. And we are starting to agree that Maya Rudolph doesn’t fit the rest of the show. We did like her singing over the video for the dead crewmember though. That was the sole out-loud laugh for us.

Episode grade: C+

Suburgatory - Charity Case
Tessa has trouble getting her school to understand what she is saying when she tells them that they should stop wasting food. In order to let everyone know how the poor live, she brought a homeless transsexual to school, which we think is kind of rude to the homeless transsexual. Still, it was all pretty funny. We need Noah’s character to be fleshed out better in the future.

Episode grade: B

Happy Endings - Lying Around
Brad and Jane lie to each other in order to have staycations. Penny knows some guys who people have tried to set her up with in the past but, since she's happily in a relationship, she lends one to Alex to date. However, Penny becomes jealous and gets him back. Dave makes one of the funniest, most awkward commercials ever, and then Max ruins it by making it good, but forgetting to put the name of the business and what Dave sells in the ad.

Episode grade: B

Community - Advanced Gay
Pierce becomes a gay icon and Jeff kills Pierce’s father. Yeah, it was just as awesome as it sounds. One of us is determined to put an item in her will that will be given to whoever can best be blamed for her death, because that is just a spectacular idea. Also, some Good Will Hunting stuff happened with Trey again, and it was still funny.

Episode grade: B+

Parks and Recreation - End of the World
When a local cult predicts the end of the world, the main characters have to think about their lives and priorities. Tom throws a party, as usual, and April helps Andy complete his bucket list. His bucket list is not as weird as we wanted it to be, but that storyline was sweet. We mourn for Ben and Leslie. The last two episodes have missed the happy energy we like about this show. Episode grade: B

The Office - Doomsday
Dwight comes up with an incentive to scare the office workers into not making mistakes. He’s a sweetheart at the core though, because he called the whole thing off just in time. He and Pam really do have a special, creepy bond. We like that there was more of a focus on Jim, Pam, and Dwight than, like, Erin. This was one of the funnier episodes this season. This show isn’t dead yet.

Episode grade: B+

As for the Christmas album, it was better than the last one. So if you liked that, you'll love this. Sadly, Dianna Agron has no songs on it. AGAIN. Why does the show think we hate her pleasant voice?

The Vampire Diaries - Good episode, as usual.

"Ordinary People"

It's getting to the point where we are thinking of recommending this show to true nerds who usually don't watch things set in high school. And older people. And men. Middle-aged men even. It's getting to the point where this show is so good that we are having trouble thinking of someone who SHOULDN'T watch it. Even a quieter, exposition-heavy filler episode like this one is better than most shows' finales.

Alaric and Damon bring Elena to see the cave sketches. Alaric gets to work on figuring on the symbols (with some help from Bonnie), reminding us of how much is sucks to be the nerdiest person on a show where the people do more research than a professor’s assistant. Elena goes to Rebecca to speed things up. Rebecca is still cheerleading and showing off her flips, and we are still not impressed. One of us has a sister who can do this and much more.

You might think it was dumb of Elena to go warn Rebecca about their Michael plan and threaten her brother, but remember, Elena is still needed for Klaus’ plan. She is basically the one person who can threaten Rebecca and live. Surprisingly, Rebecca eventually gives Elena the story of the Original Family, after only a little bit of taunting and time-wasting. And so we got another backstory episode, but at least feature Elijah, who we think everyone has truly missed.

We’ve said before that this show’s backstory is ridiculously complicated, lending this show to lots of exposition by flashback. But we’ve since realized that the backstory stuff is necessary to slow the show down and get us to think about the characters. If everything on this show happened in real time, we would feel like we were on a speeding rollercoaster with no time to reflect about things like motives and tragedies. So, instead of “backstory,” we are going to call all of this stuff “the show’s mythology,” which sounds better, don’t you think?

Before Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, the Originals got to the new world in order to escape from one of those European plagues. Esther, the family’s mother, found out about the new world from a witch, Ayanna. The new world was inhabited by werewolves, but there was peace between them and the Original Family for a while. We meet Michael, and we find out his likes and dislikes. Likes: Being a dick to everyone, being a hypocrite. Dislikes: Fun, especially laughter. Klaus was the rebellious child, because he pantsed Elijah during a practice swordfight. Harmless. Also: Hee. But then Klaus got his youngest brother, Henrik, killed by sneaking off with Henrik to watch the neighbors turn into werewolves.

This was the end of peace between the Originals and the werewolves. The Originals asked Ayanna to make them a spell that would turn them into super-beings so that they could fight the wolves. Papa Original is Michael (raise your hand if you saw that coming weeks ago), and he didn’t want to run. Out of pride, he wanted to stay and fight the wolves. Ayanna refused to help, so it was all up to Esther, the Original Witch. We were shocked, mainly because for years this show has been teaching us that all witches are black.

Esther turned her family into the first vampires so she wouldn’t lose any more children. We liked Rebecca’s acting while she was being turned. Sadly for the first vamps, nature balanced things out, and the vampires had weaknesses. Rebecca continued her story, telling Elena that when Klaus turned it became apparent that he was a hybrid. Klaus’ mother put him under the hybrid curse in order to suppress his werewolf side. Michael realized that Esther has been doing the nasty with a neighbor. Michael was pissed off enough about this to rip Esther’s heart out in front of Klaus. But we find out later that this last sentence is a lie.

Elena goes back to Alaric to share what she knows so that the deciphering can go faster. After looking at the drawings in context, Elena realizes that Klaus killed Esther, not Michael. Elena runs back to Rebecca with photos of the symbols. Rebecca goes mad with rage and grief, nearly kills Elena, and then just crumbles.

Damon frees Stefan, because he’s Damon, and took him to a bar to get some blood and drinkies. At first, we were all like, “Noooooooo,” but then we realized this was inevitable. Michael the vampire-hunting vampire shows up in the bar. Michael threatens, and nearly kills Damon. Out of concern for his brother, Stefan agrees to lure Klaus back to Mystic Falls so that Michael can kill Klaus. Michael said that if this plan fails, he will kill Stefan. He’s the vampire-hunting vampire, so we are guessing Michael is going to try to kill every vampire in town anyway. We’re pretty sure that the gang just traded in one problem for an even bigger one. We hate this guy already. One of us is pretty excited, though.

When Elena walks into her bedroom, she finds Damon waiting for her in her bed. Above the covers and clothed, so don’t get excited. They fill each other in a little. Elena tells Damon that she isn’t mad at him for letting Stefan out, because she thinks that it won’t be Stefan’s love for her that will save the day, but his love for Damon. Elena falls asleep next to Damon in the bed. This is not the first time these two have slept next to each other. Even though we ship them almost as hard as we ship Alaric/Damon, we think these two need to cool it with the bed sharing until they are together. It’s defusing the sexual tension and it’s not smart of Elena.

Katherine had better be alive. We didn't see her with Michael. GRRR. If you liked the song at the end of the episode, it's free on amazon's mp3 store right now. We didn't especially care for it, but we know some of ya'll might.

Episode grade: B

This grade is on a "Vampire Diaries Scale." If we were comparing this show to other shows, every grade would be at least an A-. This show is Ern-proof (Ern loves to give bad grades).

Shows picked up for a full season

Once Upon a Time just got a full season pick up. After only two episodes! Woooo hoooooo!

Also, people are discovering how hilarious Happy Endings is (finally!!), and it got an order for nine more episodes this season. Seriously, this show is so good that it turned Elisha Cuthbert from annoying to adorable. Last Man Standing gets nine more episodes too.

ABC ordered five more scripts for Pan Am, but that hasn't gotten picked up for a full season yet. It is struggling, so if you like the show, tell your friends.

BONES!

Bones comes back tonight. One of us is literally trembling with excitement. The other one? Not so much.

Glee: We’re literally horny with fear that this show has stopped making good music for us and wants to make us hate its characters

"Pot o' Gold"

This episode sucked so hard. Just about nothing went right, and this is after we waited a month for this episode. Stupid baseball! Most importantly, nothing from this episode will ever see either of our iPods. After three relatively strong, season one-esque episodes, we got this boring mess that made us want to nuke everyone on this show except for Burt Hummel. We are seriously going to write him in when we vote next time, even if he is fictional.

Most important thing first: Damian McGinty showed up for his first episode as Rory Flanagan, the Irish exchange student living with Brittany’s family. This would be a perfect opportunity for us to see Brittany’s family and smart sister, but alas, we were deprived in favor of less important things. Brittany thinks that Rory is an actual wish-granting leprechaun. She offers him her “pot of gold” in exchange for three wishes. Rory decides that this means her vagina. Santana lets Brittany know that Rory isn’t a real leprechaun and then he joins New Directions.

We have several problems with Rory. The first is that he would so be popular, what with that adorable accent and all the adorableness and whatnot. This is a common problem for this show. The kids who are picked on are the kids who would be cool. The second problem is that this is DAMIAN MCGINTY, who we all love for his charming, easygoing personality and genuine nature. Naturally, these shoddy writers decided to make his plot introduce him as the ultimate creeper, deceiving and preying on the near-retarded Brittany.

Our third problem with the new character is his hair. Damian’s hair on The Glee Project was adorable. We don’t know what Beavis-and-Butthead-y mess this even is. Who decided that his hair needed to be taller? Vomit. Damian’s acting wasn’t bad, even though it was hard to understand what he said a lot of the time. He and Brittany both need to speak more slowly. After being picked on, Rory walked through the halls of McKinley singing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” This wasn’t even a performance, which means that the show is no longer shunning the musical format where characters just sing about their lives (like Rachel did in season one’s “Take a Bow.”)

At first, during the song, we were squealing, “Sing, my precious leprechaun!” But then we wondered why his debut song was a piece from The Muppets. There had to have been a better choice. We guess he has to sing “Danny Boy” at some point, right? His second song, once he joined the Glee Club, was “Take Care of Yourself,” as song that had Damian sitting in his falsetto a lot. This was probably our favorite number of the night, but we don’t particularly care for the song. And as much as we love Damian McGinty, after the show had him lying to Brittany in order to sleep with her, we were a little turned off. That’s, like, near rapist behavior. Look at his face in the picture we used, lol. Mmmm, food that has touched kitty litter.

Sue gets the school musical shut down by getting the public riled up enough that the funding is cut. One thing we did enjoy was the woman standing outside Figgins’ office with the ANGRY sign. The expression on her face was pure gold. ("A musical about a race war that glorifies violence. It still seems extraordinarily gay." That's actually pretty accurate.) The Sue’s Corner this week was pretty amusing too. We like that Sue is pure villain again. Her war to get elected and take down the arts is just what we want to see from this character after her uneven, confusing arcs last season.

The Glee kids have to sell ad space in their programs to pay for the musical. Burt Hummel saves the day, buying lots of ad space and convincing the town mortuaries to do the same, and also decides to run against Sue as a write-in candidate for Congress. TEAM BURT! Burt was the only redeemable character this week. The good guys on this show are very often too mean-spirited. We liked when he showed gratitude to Will (“Your Glee club saved my kid's life”) and when he told Kurt that he was proud of him and that his being gay wasn’t an issue in his decision to run for Congress.

The most horrible character this week was Quinn. First, she bashes Shelby’s looks (whatever Q, Shelby looks awesome) and then she calls child services on Shelby in order to get custody of Beth. Quinn had planted items in Shelby’s house that would make her look like an unfit parent, all because Quinn has nothing going on during her senior year. Puck has his pool business, others have the musical, and the rest of her friends have college. Beth is Quinn’s “one thing that is perfect.” The “one thing she can’t screw up.” Umm, Quinn, we’ve got news for you: having and raising kids can and will be a huge mess for you. Oh Quinn, you’re the worst. We don’t like that the writers took this initially interesting storyline to the mean place. However, Quinn was wearing cute dresses this week, and her hair is still adorable. We're very particular about hair, you see. If you have a whole team of people making you look good, someone needs to get the hair right. It's not like these people are us, with thick waves and humidity.

Shelby gets Puck her condo’s pool-cleaning contract, and he is touched that she believes in him. Puck goes into Shelby’s apartment and removes all of the incriminating items. He also sings “Waiting for a Girl Like You” to Beth (who is precious) while Shelby watches, and we saw what was coming a mile away. The song was sweet though. Also, we saw a lot of Puck’s abs, for which we are grateful. We enjoyed his line, “Baby sacrifice makes me sad.” The episode ended with Puck kissing Shelby. Ern kind of liked that, but Leeard hated it. You know how we usually feel about teachers and students having flings on shows. Both of us think Shelby + Puck kind of stupid, but it’s also kind of hot.

Mercedes is still out of the Glee club, and this week, she took Santana and Brittany with her. This is a smart move, because Brittany has moves and Santana’s voice sounds great with Mercedes’. The new group is called The Troubletones, and even though we hate them, they sound pretty good. They performed Christian Aguilera’s “Candyman” in full costume, in front of Will and Finn, for no reason or other audience. We don’t know why the show had to cover a song that wasn’t a hit when it came out and was also recorded by someone who can sing and who has a similar voice to these cast members. We like when Glee improves pop songs.

Finn is jealous of Blaine and started being mean to him. We wanted to be mean to Blaine because of his awful, gelled-down hair that took a dead-sexy guy and made him look like a taint. Still, we weren’t happy with the return of a focus on what a jerk Finn can be. Blaine covered “Last Friday Night” with the rest of New Directions. Who thinks that’s a good song? The best thing about that was it allowed Katy Perry to have fun and make a cute video. The Glee version was way too overproduced and autotuned, but we liked the gender swap and the dancing/performance was cute. Still, unnecessary. This show didn’t have Rachel or Shelby sing, and this is what we’re given instead?!!

Brittany and Santana are dating and taking baths together, and we approve. Santana is still in the closet though. We liked how Santana shut down Sugar Motta. This episode had nods to the show’s past mistakes and cleared a few things up (like mentioning who the lips were in Rocky Horror), but that just shows that the writers are looking at internet comments too much. It felt self-conscious that the writers have to defend themselves in their show. It takes us out of the fiction.

Leeard thinks she might stop watching this show, because the events of this episode hacked her off so much. Ern enjoys a good Ryan Murphy trainwreck and the opportunity to give poor grades and write scathing reviews, so she'll probably stick with it. The main things we hate are the fact that there are two Glee clubs and all the Rachel hate. The other divas on this show, including Mercedes, are just as bad as Rachel, if not worse. Remember in season one when Rachel defected in order to star in a musical? She came back with humility and remorse, ready to work with the team. We’ve never seen that level of sweetness from most of the other divas. The last couple of seasons have taken the heart out of Rachel’s character, and we want her to become sympathetic again. Leeard wanted to give this an F+ (the + was because we love Damian, obviously), but after a night of cooling off, we think it deserves a higher grade for some of the funny one-liners.

Episode grade: D

2 Broke Girls and Terra Nova: Listen, Battlefield Earth

2BG - “And the Pretty Problem”

We’ve heard two main criticisms of this show, and now we’ve heard these criticisms again from a source that we actually like, so we shall name them and respond. They are 1) Max is too mean to Caroline and the show can be mean-spirited in general, and 2) the show is racist. As for the first thing, we agree with half of it. Max can sometimes say cutting things to Caroline in a way that comes across as cold and disrespectful. While we hope that is toned down as the show goes on (the last couple of episodes seem to have gotten rid of it, for the most part), it doesn’t ruin the show for us. We are more concerned with the number of groan-worthy sex jokes. Friends did sex jokes right. This show doesn't really get how to make those funny.

As for the show being mean-spirited in general, we don’t care about that. The world the girls live in is snooty and harsh. Hipsters and hippies always deserve to be mocked. Also, people who are rude to waitresses should be mocked. Regarding the second point, we think Han is funny, so we don’t mind that he is a caricature. The Ukrainian guy (Oleg) needs to go though, stat. Last night, the show stereotyped American/Jersey Italians (not regular Italians. There's a difference). While these criticisms are true, they don’t ruin the show for us, and we can see them becoming less of a problem as the girls bond and more side characters are introduced. We already have Johnny, and he’s pretty cool. The “insult cupcake” idea is perfect for these girls and the show. Decent episode this week.
Episode grade: B-
TN- “Bylaw”

This show is lucky it’s on Mondays, the stalest night of the TV week, except for Saturdays. One thing annoying that we noticed is how Elizabeth is always so perfect in her interactions with the ever-annoying Zoe. When Zoe played sick to visit Elizabeth at work, Elizabeth’s reaction just didn’t feel authentic. That’s not how parents sound. We’re not saying she should have screamed at the kid. She just shouldn’t have sounded so rehearsed and like a Brady Bunch mom. None of the parent/child interactions feel real to us.

Something we like? The female cop. She seems like a no-nonsense professional. And we also still like Taylor. During this episode, we were most interested in Josh’s fight to get his girlfriend to Terra Nova. He described the future as a place so bad that some of his friends killed themselves. That makes sense. There’s a saying that goes, “What you believe about your future controls what you do in the present.” That’s why hope is so important, we guess. It makes sense that Josh would do anything, even work for Mira, for someone he cares about. We like that kid.

We liked that Jim and Elizabeth had a little fight in the episode about what should be done with the prisoner. This family needs to start acting more like a Friday Night Lights family and less like the Cleavers. The plot was decent, but we can’t say the show has hooked both of us yet. It’s halfway through its first season, so that’s not a good sign. And OF COURSE Zoe has a pet dinosaur now. Ugh. Ok, ok. We admit it’s a little cute.

Episode grade: C+

How I Met Your Mother: Caress

“The Slutty Pumpkin Returns”

We loved the Bejeweled Blitz reference! We don’t know if you guys know this, but we are insanely good at BB. We get scores in the 800,000s every week, and our highest scores are in the upper mid-900,000s. We will crack a million, if it’s the last thing we do. We are fighting to be the first of the two bloggers to do so. But we have lives too, we swear.

Katie Holmes guest starred this week, and she was pretty funny. It might have been her part. She looks older. She’s starting to look like a grown up. Laugh at her marriage with Tom Cruise all you want, but his midlife-crisis marriage has lasted longer than most celebrity marriage (hey there Kim Kardashian). Maybe it’s really love. We liked the younger version of Ted who made a contract with himself to sleep with every girl who wanted to sleep with him. Wow, that was unwise, younger Ted.

Ted was an idiot in this episode. He’s an idiot in every episode, actually. But he’s the other blogger’s soulmate, so this blogger should shut up now. We found it interesting that Robin was offended that Ted slept with a girl he had no feelings for. So is that the rule now? When is it socially acceptable to bang someone? First it was marriage, then it was engagement, then it was intending to get married, then it was being together for three months, then it was three dates, then it was any monogamous relationship, and now it is having at least a sliver of “feeling” for the person. What’s next? Liking that person’s clothes?

Robin and Barney are so meant to be. They are both Canadian. Barney is STILL wearing the duckie tie. Barney’s Canadian accent sounds a little too Scottish. Robin’s was great though. This episode was Norah-free, and we weren’t missing her much. Lily and Marshall spent the episode in the suburbs for Halloween. That reminds us of Happy Endings, and that’s not good for How I Met Your Mother right now. Happy Endings did that plotline the right way, and it was hilarious. Here, it was just a lacking. The Canada and Slutty Pumpkin stuff was pretty funny, so we enjoyed the episode, overall.

Episode grade: B-

Homeland: The Only Good Use for Death Metal (OH EXCUSE US: "NOISEGRIND")

“Blind Spot”

Brody’s Islamic tendencies weren’t just a one-time comfort. He’s in the garage bowing to Allah again this week. This still doesn’t mean he’s a terrorist. Again, we think this means that he WON’T be a terrorist, because that wouldn’t be politically correct. Brody got to see some of the interrogation of one of his former guards who beat him and then peed on him. Well, that was extremely rude. Team Brody here. No one should ever pee on anybody, unless the other person specifically requests it or was stung by a jellyfish.

During the interrogation, Saul got a dig at Catholics in, and we did not think it was clever. That was so hundreds of years ago anyway. Carrie gave Brody her digits in case he needs to talk. She’s a real sweetheart to his face. Watch Brody fall for Carrie. That would be something. Watching Jessica try to connect with this guy is just depressing. We don’t like her haircut. She looks too much like she did in V, and that’s going to distract us.

The psychology and family stuff is just as interesting to watch as the homeland security and terrorist plot stuff. This surprised us, because we were wary when we first met Carrie’s family, and tons of people think that Jess and her kids are little more than a distraction. But we find it cool to see Carrie’s soft side and Brody’s struggle to resume a normal life. This is good stuff. This isn’t Kim Bauer getting stuck in a cougar trap, even though this episode reminded us of 24 more than any of the others. We think it’s about time that the affair is spoken of though. Everyone knows, so out with it.

Brody talked his way into getting a face-to-face meeting with his guard. Brody came across as pathetic in the confrontation, and we were disappointed. If he is good, we wanted to see a powerful moment. If he is bad, well, then that was all part of the plot to slip the baddie a razor blade. Just when we were starting to think Brody is most definitely innocent, the Professor gets a tip off that the government is onto him, and the guard is able to kill himself with a razor blade he somehow got.

Carrie suspects Brody, of course. She lost her cool with Saul trying to get him to bring her theory about Brody to the higher-ups. She always loses it around Saul, huh? Then she quit her job, but we think she will be back. We still freaked out a little bit, because we like watching Carrie do her job. Then we wised up and realized she could never stop investigating Brody, or there would be no show. Shudder. The horror. Fortunately, we will have this show for at least another season.

We think the coolest ending for this mystery is to have Brody turn out to be a terrorist but then turn back to our side after he heals a bit. That way we can have our cake (he’s good) and eat it too (he’s a terrorist/Carrie’s right). We are starting to like Carrie and dislike Brody. Brody always acts like a prideful douchelord and Carrie really cares about preventing deaths and keeping her nieces safe. Team Carrie, even if she’s a little crazed.

Episode grade: A

Allen Gregory: Pilot

The show almost lost us in the first scene. There is a fine line between hilarious pretentiousness and obnoxious arrogance (a line the show Frasier toed perfectly). The introduction of Allen and one of his gay dads made us almost dislike the characters enough to not think they were funny. We are speaking particularly of the Tony Nomination speech and intro. However, we really liked the gay dad’s introduction of Julie. “Add Julie to cart.” We don’t say this a lot, but ROFLMAO.

The arrogance might not even be necessary for Allen’s character. For his dad, it works. But Allen might have done better just being blunt, smart, precocious, and not good with authority. Allen has dark hair, blue eyes, and glasses. On his first day of school, he befriends a red-haired, freckled kid. Aaaaand now we want to go watch a Harry Potter movie.

The Hermione Granger of the operation is Julie, Allen’s adopted sister, whom he hates. She seems to be the sanest character on this cartoon, and we love her. All of the side characters are funny, actually. We loved that Allen was attracted to his school principal, even though it makes no sense. Why does a seven-year-old have a libido? Maturity does not equal puberty.

Jonah Hill’s delivery is good, and we like the dysfunctional gay couple. Usually on TV, gay people have to be saints for good PR. This couple is horrid, and the show is funnier for it. We also liked the Bones reference and the choice of background music throughout the show. Lots of the pretentiousness is right on.

We can see lots of people hating this show, because it’s super mainstream, the characters are unrealistic, and this is a cartoon in every way. It’s a little immature too. One of the main gags involves Allen sharting in front of his new true love. But we laughed and enjoyed this half hour, for the most part. It’s not brilliant, but it’s not bad.

Episode grade: B-

Pan Am: Catch Her If You Can

“The Genuine Article”

Maggie spent the episode worrying about losing her job after making that crack to her boss last week. You know, the thing where Maggie told the mean girdle-lover to get on the scale? We weren’t worried, because it’s obvious that Christina Ricci is the biggest (and only) star on this show, and her character would not get permanently canned. Also, when you have a job, you have to follow the rules and respect your boss. That's just reality. No matter how much of an independent, trailblazing woman you are.

The bloggers were split on liking Maggie in the last couple of weeks, but we are both starting to hate her now. She really is out for herself, and she’s a liar. She’s not a liar in a brilliant, funny, Frank Abagnale way. It’s like the writers are trying too hard to make Maggie a smart, feminist icon, and it isn’t coming off as authentic.

It was nice to get some background on the character though. Maggie is like a poor man’s Joan from Mad Men. It’s possible that this is the actress’ fault. With a character like this, you need someone adorable who has charisma. Someone cocky, but in a way that you love her. Not someone who is obnoxious and whose speech is always stilted when she’s trying to show the world her gumption. The best example of this was when Maggie arrived at her Pan Am interview late.

Christina Ricci is a little toothpick suffering from Up All Night’s aforementioned face v. ass complex. As you age, you have to decide whether you want your face to look too thin and haggard, or if you want to put a little weight on, have a nice face, and lose your tight little behind. Christina went with saving her bum, and her face is looking too harsh. We miss her round cheeks. On her face.

We liked the way her college professor took the roll. That’s how we are going to do it, if we ever have to. Only, instead of favorite book (because lots of people don’t read), we will ask for a favorite TV show. The mutants who don’t own TVs can just get out of our classes.

We are getting a little disenchanted with this show. Where is it all going? We care about Collette and sometimes Ted, but we’re not overly attached to anyone on this show. How can this stay and Off the Map get cancelled? Does anyone else wonder if one of the actresses playing Collette and Kate should have had Christina Ricci’s role?

One thing we liked a lot? Kate’s new mission to turn her lover into a spy. Welcome to the big leagues, indeed. Dean and Ginny are in love, but Maggie ratted them out to Pan Am’s VP to save her own job. That won’t go well for Dean and Ginny in the future, will it? All the stuff with Laura and Maggie getting arrested for buying stolen goods was a waste of our time. In the end, Maggie is a fake, but she’s trying to become the real deal. We can admire that. We like that the character has flaws. But because of the performance and line delivery, we can’t like the character completely.

Episode grade: C+

The Good Wife: “Oh Good, She Banged a Nice Bin Ladin.”

“Affairs of State”

The above line was one of the funniest in The Good Wife’s history. We love how this show is a procedural that changes things up. There’s always a case, but there are always tons of ongoing subplots and lots of character development. And sometimes the case is over, sometimes they start in a mediation, and sometimes the characters show up right on the scene of the crime, like in this episode. Nothing feels the same on this show. It’s not like other procedurals where if you have seen one episode, you’ve pretty much seen them all. Cough. House. Cough.

The case this week wasn’t anything we cared much about. A foreign national was accused of rape and murder (he did it). Caitlin hung around with Alicia for the whole case. At first, we thought she was annoying and we were wanting Martha. But Caitlin turned out to be smarter and more likeable as the episode went on. Is she going to sleep with Will or something? Not that Alicia would be over-heartbroken. She doesn’t want Will to meet her kids. That’s a sign that she’s right about it not being love.

We love seeing Parker Posey at anytime. You know this about us. But as Eli Gold’s ex-wife? Someone needs to tell this show that it isn’t Christmas for another two months. Something else we love to see? Cary making out with someone. That boy is fine and he’s even sexier when he’s doing some kissing. Mmhmm. We didn’t see it as much when he was on Gilmore Girls, but he’s hot on this show.

Kalinda did a background on Parker Posey and found out that she had cheated on Eli Gold during the years when he thought they were happy together. We felt bad for Kalinda when Eli Gold forced the truth out of her. But not too bad. She is Kalinda, after all, and we will never forgive her. Eli Gold is obviously being set up for a fall this season.

Obviously, we are getting the Rape App. And carrying yellow cups.

Episode grade: B-

Dexter: “All the darkness that you think you got inside you? All it takes is a little bit of light to keep it at bay. Believe me, I know."- Sam

“The Angel of Death”

With a title like this, we should have seen a major death coming, but we were still surprised. Brother Sam actually was a good shepherd, and like first good shepherd before him, he had to pay the ultimate price. We can’t wait to see Dexter’s reaction to this. It would do this show some good to have Dexter go a little crazy with his revenge, but we don’t think Brother Sam’s death will be enough to send Mr. Cool off the rails the way we want to see. Some are doubting that Sam is actually dead though. We don't know...he was shot plenty of times. Some are STILL doubting that Brother Sam's faith is genuine. We think it is.

Ladies, you actually do have to give the engagement back if you break things off. That’s the usual legal rule. However, if he dumped you after the engagement agreement, you can keep it. If it’s mutual, you give it back. It’s only fair, right? Deb and Quinn are starting to treat each other like humans again. We like that. It shows class.

Travis and Gellar were searching the streets of Miami for their next victim: someone to play the part of The Whore of Babylon. Mostly they pointed out drunk chicks in skimpy dresses, walking around late at night. This must have put a shudder into every girl in Miami, because what girl, even a virgin, has been to Miami and not worn a little dress and gotten drunk? They hit one with a car and shoved her into the trunk. Too bad she was drunk, or she would have been able to find the release cable. That car looked cool enough to have one.

If you are shoved into a trunk, you can also kick out the rear lights and stick your hand out to signal to other cars. We’ve heard of people hitting women with cars and then jumping out and stealing their purses. That is a complete pussy move, because all this does is avoid a fair fight. WITH A GIRL. How lazy/cowardly can you be? Watch out for cars, ladies, whether you are drunk and whorish or not.

We chuckled when Dexter remarked that defacing a Bible must break some sort of rule. People can get superstitious with these things. Street preachers used to pass out little New Testaments on our college campus to people who didn’t really want them, and all of Ern’s atheist friends were too afraid to throw them away, as if they would go to hell for discarding them. They would give them to Ern, because Ern reads the Bible. But how many little New Testaments does anyone need?!! It’s called Goodwill, people.

We thought we saw a budding romance between Deb and Anderson, the new guy, because they are both so “no nonsense.” But it turns out that he is married, and sleeping with a married man is NOT something we want this show to put on the Deb character. We are starting to like her a lot more since she has become lieutenant. We were totally on Deb’s side in her fight with Jamie. Harrison is much too young to know what those pictures are of and recognize that they are horrible, even if he got a good look at them. Chillax, girl.

Quinn’s dalliance with Gellar’s old lover garnered him evidence that pretty much confirms Gellar is the man the cops are looking for. Quinn must be feeling pretty filthy right now. He shared a woman with this dude. Bleck. Also, even more shameful: Quinn didn’t seem to know who C.S. Lewis was. He’s dead to us. Dexter found Travis and nearly took him to a kill site, but when he found out that Travis was an accessory, unable to actually kill anyone, Dexter let Travis go. Watch out, Gellar. Or don’t. You’re gross and we want you to die.

Episode grade: B

The Walking Dead: Shane Looks Cooler with a Buzz Cut

“Save the Last One”

We want to start this off by saying that this is not AMC’s best show. Not by a long shot. In fact, we think it’s a little overrated. But we liked the ending of this episode a lot. Shane murdered Otis in order to escape and, arguably, to save Carl’s life. It looked like unless one was going down, they both were going down. He didn’t kill Otis lightly. But man, that death was horrible. He was alive while he was being ripped and eaten. While we usually saw Shane as a nuisance that threatened the main guy’s marriage, we now see that he is hard core and interesting.

We were sad that Otis died though. PETA would be happy, because he was a hunter and it’s ironic to watch him get eaten. But standing on the bleachers and planning with Shane, Otis showed himself to be brave and a little bad ass. Back at home, Lori and Rick pondered the fate of their son. If the supplies didn’t get back fast enough, they would have a choice between letting Carl die or letting the doctor try to operate while he could move and feel it. Lori said, “Maybe this is no world for a child.” Rick sort of looked at her like, “Well, too late, woman, because we already have one.”

Rick donated more blood to Carl, even though it put him at risk of a coma. This made us like him more. We are suckers for good dads. The fact that Lori clearly didn’t appreciate Rick before he got shot and slept with Shane makes us hate her more with every passing good deed by Rick. We know it isn’t her fault she had an affair, because she really thought Rick was dead. But if we’ve learned anything from this show (and Homeland), when you are faced with that situation, it is best to come clean right away. As soon as the guy shows up. That wouldn’t make for good drama though.

In the end, Lori agreed to fight for Carl’s life, the supplies got there in time (good thing, because we didn’t want to see a child in pain), and Carl was stable when we last heard of him. We are glad. We know we said that we would respect this show more if it killed a child early on this season, but we want it to be Sophia. It’s her own dumb fault for running and going in the wrong direction. Carl is the more tolerable of the two. And we don’t want to see it. Have the scouting members of the group find Sophia’s body. Don’t call us cold/monstrous. You’re the one watching The Walking Dead, haha.

We’re glad that Andrea insisted that the hanging walker be shot. She did give a lame answer though. That wasn’t a fair trade. The Dale and Andrea stuff is getting awkward and cheesy, which is a bad combination. Have these two make up already and just forget anything ever happened. Speaking of cheesy: Rick talking about Carl and the deer. You could put that stuff on a Hallmark Card. If we wanted to read one of those, we wouldn’t be sitting here watching a show with this much carnage. This episode was better than the last two.

Episode grade: B+

Once Upon a Time: Queen-Centered Week

"The Thing You Love the Most"

The second episode kept most of its audience and turned in strong ratings. Yay! We got a lot of the Evil Queen's backstory and motives here. Does Regina remember she is the evil queen? It seems like she knows something. Either that, or she is figuring things out. Does Gold remember that he is Rumpelstiltskin? We wouldn’t put it past him. We think his casting is spot-on, by the way.

In our world: Regina sets Emma Swan up to be arrested for stealing Henry’s patient file from his therapist, Dr. Archie Hopper/Jiminy Cricket. If Emma wasn’t extremely dumb in that moment, she wouldn’t have been tricked. Going to someone else’s son’s shrink to ask questions is overstepping your bounds, even if the mom IS evil. Also, she should have known that Hopper wouldn’t risk his professional license and a lawsuit by giving a stranger Henry’s file.

Mary Margaret Blanchard/Snow White starts to trust Emma and bails her out of jail. We like Ginnifer Goodwin’s hair short, and we aren’t against short hair or anything, but does it have to be THAT short in our world? Why not a nice bob just under the ears like she sported in He’s Just Not That Into You? We’re surprised her fairy world incarnation isn’t Peter Pan with that hair and those ears. When Emma recognized Mary Margaret as her supposed mother, we were touched just thinking about what will happen when those parents realize Emma is theirs. Speaking of which: No Charming in this episode? Wake that boy up. We need more testosterone on this show.

Emma takes a chainsaw to Regina’s apple tree, which we thought that was truly awesome. Of course, it wasn’t smart, because now she committed an actual crime for Regina to punish her though. We guess Emma is strong and cool, not smart. The sheriff, who has a crush on Emma, talked Regina out of going after Emma for the tree incident. Enraged, Regina tricks Emma into calling Henry’s fairy tale belief’s “crazy” in front of him. Poor Henry! We guess Regina can’t resort to Ye Olde Restraining Order, because the town is so self-contained, magical, and self-governed that she can’t seek the help of outside law enforcement. Sheriff Dreamboat is all Regina’s got.

Emma makes things up to Henry by telling him that she was just saying that in front of Regina in order to trick her. Aw, kids are so easy to fool with words. That’s a cute kid, and we are rooting for him. Emma is thrown out of the bed and breakfast because of their “no felons” policy. Clearly, no one writing this show knows that you have to be CONVICTED before you are a “felon.” We saw no trial. Also, we don’t know if stealing files from shrinks is a felony. Mary Margaret Blanchard lets Emma stay with her.

We also caught sight of GUSTAVO FRING as the Regina’s henchman, Sidney, who investigated Emma for her. This is a totally different role than Giancarlo Esposito's role in Breaking Bad. Sidney appeared to be friendly and NOT powerful. He was kissing Regina's arse, even though Regina is clearly a jerk to everyone. He's also the face in the magic mirror in the fairy world. We know, it was really dark and foggy, so we weren't sure at first. Don't be sad if you missed it.

In the fairytale world: A lot happened. The Evil Queen got the dark curse from Rumpelstiltskin, who is a surprisingly effective villain from PRISON, and then the Queen traded it to Maleficent in exchange for the sleeping curse Maleficent used on Sleeping Beauty. The Evil Queen had buyer’s remorse when Prince Charming was able to break the sleeping curse on Snow White with just a kiss. She should have remembered that this is what happened to Sleeping Beauty as well. These queens are evil, not smart. Rumpelstiltskin must be the town smartie.

The Evil Queen goes to get her curse back, but Maleficent doesn’t want the Evil Queen to use it, because the curse is just too evil. Maleficent is played by Kristin Bauer (who is Pam on True Blood), but we were not impressed with this new, secondary villain. We think the baddies need to be a little more intimidating. Maybe a different actress needed to play the Evil Queen. She sort of screams “soap opera” to us. The magic fight between the two helped, but it ended a little too slapstick for us. So, anyway, the queens throw down a bit and Maleficent loses.

The Evil Queen leaves with the curse and tries to set it off, but she uses a horse’s heart to activate it, and that’s not enough. The curse fails. The Evil Queen goes to ask Rumpelstiltskin, and he tells her that she must sacrifice what she truly loves in order for the curse to work. Rumpelstiltskin gives her this information in exchange for being important in the new world and able to get favors from the Evil Queen, so long as he says please when he asks. So the Evil Queen kills her own father, whose name was Henry, uses his heart, and is able to cast the “No Happy Endings” curse. We found out that the Queen lost someone or something that she loved, and she blames Snow White for it.

The price for using the curse is that now the Evil Queen has “a hole that can never be filled.” Is there such a thing, we ask? The LOST writers are huge on redemption. We loved the Evil Queen’s stone gnome that ended up in her garden. We kind of hope that Rumpelstiltskin turns out to be the Big Bad, or that there is a player to be named later that will scare us more than the Evil Queen. We like that she has sympathetic moments though.

Episode grade: B

American Horror Story is getting a season two

Well, as long as they introduce new characters to haunt/kill some of these old ones off. We don't want this stuff to drag out.

Eli Gold, Evil Cupid

Revenge - “Intrigue”
Even the blogger who isn’t super into Revenge had to admit that this was a strong, intense episode. Emily and Nolan sent the video of Frank trying to kill Lydia to Conrad. Conrad fires Frank and tells Frank to stay away from Victoria. Nolan and Declan push Jack until Jack goes to Emily and tells him how he feels about her. Emily rejects him, and we are sad. Lydia is alive! Just in a coma. Tyler continues to ruin Daniel’s life (WHY? Just jealousy? Or is Tyler infatuated with Daniel?), so Daniel ends up passed out on Jack’s bed on his first night of work at the bar. Ouch. Emily tells Tyler off while on a double date with Daniel and her British friend. We like seeing her lose control, especially when it’s directed at douchebags. We loved that the show took a break from the “revenge procedural” formula. If Emily always succeeded in her perfect revenge plots and if that were all that was causing trouble, things wouldn’t be gripping. Now things are a mess, and we like it. We especially want to know what Frank is going to do now.

Episode grade: A-

The Good Wife - “Marthas and Caitlins”
Alicia has to ask Colin Sweeney for help when the firm’s key witness in an important case commits suicide. Sweeney gets info for Cary and, in return, is released from prison. Alicia is asked to hire a new associate, but the girl she picks is ousted in favor of David’s niece. It’s not what you know, but who you know. Just about every subplot was advanced in this episode. Celeste was a lot more fun than usual this last week. Also, most interestingly, Eli Gold promised someone from the Democratic party that Alicia and Peter would be together soon. What dastardly deeds will he have to commit to pull this off?

Episode grade: A-

Sons of Anarchy - “Family Recipe”
Tara wants to relocate for the children’s safety, and Jax thinks this is a good idea. The club gets attacked and realizes that the drug dealing might not have been such a good idea. Clay kill Piney Winston to stop the letters from getting out. Chibs makes progress with Juice on the emotional front (aws). Overall, we were pleased with this one.

Episode grade: A-

The Walking Dead - “Bloodletting”
We will actually respect this show if it kills one of the children. Not that we usually like dead children, but children on a zombie show are just cutesy distractions and potential causes for doom. We liked seeing Shane tell Lori that Rick was shot (this was in a flashback). The man who shot Carl turns out to be Otis, a man who lives nearby and hunts for food. Otis takes Rick, Shane, and Carl to a veterinarian, Hershel Greene, who takes one of six bullet fragments out of Carl. Hershel’s daughter goes to find Lori and saves Andrea from a walker. Hershel’s daughter is kind of a bad ass with a horse. We hope she sticks around. Rick donates blood to Carl and is weakened. Otis and Shane go to the local abandoned school to get FEMA’s supplies that were stored there so that Hershel can operate on Carl. Unfortunately, the high school is overrun with walkers. Otis and Shane locate the medical supplies and gather what they need, but they are chased by a ton of walkers and have to lock themselves into the school to stay alive. That last chase by the walkers and the subsequent barricading of themselves into the school was delightfully frightening. When the show does things like that, it is at its best.

Episode grade: B

Nikita - “343 Walnut Lane”
Percy gains leverage against Alex. Percy also tricks Nikita into thinking she’s found her father, but the man turns out to be a Division agent who infiltrates Birkoff’s house and nearly gets everyone killed. The reason this episode gets a B is that Nikita told Michael about his son. The show didn’t drag the secret out for even one full episode! We are excited by this, and we admire Nikita’s intelligence and honesty. That is not a secret she should have kept for long, and on most shows, she would have. We continue to be amazed that Maggie Q looks to weigh about 75 pounds, but the showrunners expect us to buy that she could beat up a several full-grown men at one time.

Episode grade: B

Prime Suspect - “Regrets, I’ve Had a Few”
A young woman is killed and her body is found in a park, covered with flowers. Jane first suspects her stepfather, but it turns out the stepfather loved her, and it was a park employee who did the deed. He also killed a bunch of other women. The first half of this episode was really slow and tried our patience, but it was worth watching in the end.

Episode grade: B-

Pan Am - “One Coin in a Fountain”
Someone on this show finally has sex that we get to see. It’s Kate, and she steals a crush of Maggie’s for her spy duties, ends up liking him, and sleeps with him. Kate actually acts as a competent spy this week. One of us has decided that Maggie is a bitch and one of us still loves her. Laura spends the episode trying to find the engagement ring she pawned so that she can give it back to her ex-fiancé. Ted helps her get it back. One of us likes Ted, and one of us thinks he’s kind of a creeper. Dean romances Ginny, a passenger who is also the mistress of Pan Am’s vice-president. We loved Ginny and thought she was especially gorgeous. We are still lamenting the lack of Collette storylines.

Episode grade: B-

Person of Interest - “The Fix”
Reese has to protect a professional fixer (like on Michael Clayton) named Zoe. Zoe has information that she shouldn’t. Carter gets closer to Reese while investigating a murder. This episode was pretty average, but we enjoyed seeing Finch face down a bad guy over drinks in a restaurant. Finch can be scary. Just watch him when he was Ben.

Episode grade: B-

Grey’s Anatomy - “Put Me In, Coach”
Because these doctors have tons of free time, Owen enters Seattle Grace into a softball league to compete with other hospitals. They lose horribly. Richard forces Meredith and Bailey to work together in his old trial. Jackson is angered when he sees Lexie become jealous of Mark, who is dating someone new. Alex attempts to get a judge to speed up Zola’s court date and succeeds. This episode is the definition of filler. Alex is just asking to get sued at every turn. What he did was against HIPPA laws, as well as an attempt to influence a judge. Also, who freaking cares about Bailey, Kepner, and Meredith’s trial? Meredith shouldn’t be on a trial! There are no consequences in this hospital. Some of the softball stuff was funny, and we liked that Cristina put a patient first and is in Teddy’s good graces. Now Teddy wants to find dream surgeries for Cristina, and we can’t wait to see that.

Episode grade: C+

Why didn't enough comedies turn in Halloween episodes? (We're looking at you Modern Family and Up All Night)

Happy Endings - “Spooky Endings”
Jane and Brad decide to spend Halloween in the suburbs to get a look at their future, because Jane doesn’t want to raise kids in the city. Jane dresses as Bacon, but Brad forgets his Egg costume. Things go awry when they don’t have enough candy for the big kids. Then it’s war. Penny has Max’s head sticking out of her stomach in a baby Bjorn for her costume. It’s even funnier than it sounds. Dave dresses as Austin Powers, but that was so ten years ago, so no one knows who he is and thinks he is Elton John. Alex gets a raspy voice because she has a cold, dresses as Marilyn Monroe, and is mistaken for a transvestite. This might be our favorite Halloween episode of the season. We’ve just realized how eternally bummed we will be if this show doesn’t stick around.

Episode grade: A

South Park - “Broadway Bro Down”
The South Park guys have gotten a second wind since they don’t have to focus so much on The Book of Mormon and it seems they have re-committed to making the show good. This episode spoofs many Broadway shows, Sondheim, and veganism. For people who like Broadway and recognize the shows and how similar the mock tunes sound to the actual scores, this episode is an even bigger treat. This episode featured less Cartman than we usually like, but it more than made up for it in plentiful crass humor and theater references.

Episode grade: A

Community - “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps”
Britta gets the gang to share scary stories in order to determine who got a score of “psycho” on her personality test she gave out for psychology class. It turns out Britta put the tests into the scoring machine the wrong way, so when she re-scored them, she found that all of the group’s members were crazy except for one. We love that it was Abed who isn’t the psycho one! That makes the most sense, anyway. This was really funny for people who know the characters of this show, because each person’s scary story fit them so well. We died laughing at Pierce’s. Shirley’s made us hate her a little, but it was still funny.

Episode grade: A-

2 Broke Girls - “And the Disappearing Bed”
Caroline has to put together a Murphy bed without the help of a man. Max has to work up the stones to give Peach a business card for the cupcake business, because Peach is having a birthday party for her children. Both girls succeed in their tasks, with mixed results. Max develops an adorable crush on Johnny from the bar. We like where this was going. This episode was one of the show’s best, and it’s one that we wish had aired early on in the show’s run, so that people checking it out could have used this episode in order to judge the show. Also, what is up with vision boards on TV lately? Who is the lobbyist who got vision boards on multiple shows in less than a week? They should have vision boards on, like, Terra Nova. What is up with vision boards' increasing popularity? The Secret came out years ago, and it's still stupid now.

Episode grade: B+

The Office - “Spooked”
Oh, Office. We dropped you, but then we were bored and marathoned your newest episodes. Not bad. Not good either, but not bad. Good enough to get you back on our watch list. The episode “Garden Party” was the best of the bunch, because it had lots of good Dwight/Jim interactions. The Halloween episode wasn’t too shabby either. The writers nailed the costume choices. We enjoyed Robert California’s plot to figure out everyone’s deepest fears in order to tell the perfect ghost story. We are liking Andy better, especially since he got that tattoo. We still don’t like Erin though. And it looks like we never will.

Episode grade: B

Parks and Recreation - “Meet ‘n Greet”
This episode had way too much Tom, and that’s why it’s gotten the lowest grade of the season so far. While all the characters on this show are necessary and funny, Tom is the least so (even though we love Aziz Ansari). Tom emcees an event for Leslie’s campaign, but it ends up being all about him and his company. In the end, Tom admits to Leslie that his company has failed. We didn’t think this plotline was funny. We were just embarrassed for Tom and Leslie. Fortunately, the B-plot saved it. Andy and April threw a Halloween party to Ben’s displeasure, because they didn’t warn him first. Ron Swanson and Ann fix things around Andy and April’s house rather than join the party. With most of our strongest characters bringing laughs at the Halloween party, Tom had no chance of stealing this show.

Episode grade: B

Suburgatory - “Halloween”
This creatively named episode had Tessa dressing as a mock suburban girl, complete with a bump-it, track suit, and heels. But then her friends tell her that she looks and speaks just like the girl who used to live in Tessa’s house, who went to "a better place". Tessa’s friends perform an exorcism, but then their long-gone classmate returns. Crisis averted? George tries to convince Dallas that being scared can be fun so that Dallas will give him permission to decorate his lawn for Halloween. Yep, there’s a home-owner’s association. George finally meets Dallas’ husband, Steven. Neither of the plots really worked for us, but they were interspersed with good enough jokes that this episode squeaked by with an above average grade. The guillotine helped.

Episode grade: B-

How I Met Your Mother - “Noretta”
It’s finally time for Barney to sleep with Nora, but things on their date keep going wrong and ruining their date. Barney always finds a way to turn it around though. Also, the gang ponders the weirdness of how people tend to end up with someone with similarities to their parents. One of us thought this episode was funny. The end tag was pretty great, and the episode didn’t try to shoehorn a bunch of things in. The other blogger wanted to slap this episode with a big F for being unoriginal and unnecessary filler, but even she has to admit that the concept has merit. People DO end up with their parents a lot of the time. After all, Ern has always been attracted to Republican guys.

Episode grade: C+