Glee - Michael

Yes, there was a plot to recap and it mostly involved Rachel. But the episode was mostly about Michael Jackson. This was great for the show’s ratings, because plenty of people want to see MJ commemorated. We must admit we had a little fun too. Half of the songs and performances were flat and unworthy of Michael and half were really fun. We’ll get into which ones weren’t necessary. Overall though, this episode was respectful, funny, and very Glee. This show is not afraid or ashamed to just be a musical that makes no sense. We liked that the show didn’t go for the obvious songs like “Billie Jean,” “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” or “Beat It.” They dipped into the lesser-known hits so that a new generation can appreciate the stuff they haven’t heard.

The girls who left New Directions when they covered MJ were sad that they missed their chance to perform his songs. Everyone says, “No problem! We can cover some of his other songs for Regionals.” Blaine starts things off with “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and we were less than blown away. Blaine’s facial expressions are starting to annoy. Blaine foolishly tells Sebastian the plan, but Blaine gets what’s coming for that mistake. Stupidity isn’t a crime, but it pays. Good thing you’re cute, Blaine. Sebastian convinces the Warblers to do MJ at Regionals too, and the Warblers are slated to perform first.

New Directions takes the fight to the next logical step: A musical rumble in a parking garage where the groups perform “Bad” in each other’s general directions. Ugh. This song was one of the best covers used in the gayest possible way. How is singing ever going to resolve a fight if there are no judges to declare a winner? That must be what the Warblers were thinking, because Sebastian ends the whole thing by slushie-ing Blaine in the face. Blaine collapses and pules. We think he’s a sissy until New Directions figures out that this particular slushie was different. There was an ingredient in the slushie that scratched Blaine’s cornea. Ouch. Now Blaine needs eye surgery.

When the group hears Blaine’s medical news, Artie loses his shit. He starts freaking out at Mr. Schue, dissing the “it gets better” movement (ugh, that’s a good movement, Artie), and fantasizing about dancing aggressively while singing “Scream”. It’s weird and lame. Our eyebrows were raised. We don’t like that song to begin with. Die Artie. Die. Even Mike Chang’s dancing couldn’t save this embarrassment. If Glee could stop imitating music videos, we would take that as a favor. Thanks.

Full of dance-y, gay rage, the group plots revenge. Kurt takes a stand against violence, as he tends to do, so Santana takes things into her own hands. She goes to Sebastian dressed like a stripper in a top hat, or something (sidenote: whatever Ern, girl looked awesome), and they sing “Smooth Criminal” to cellos. This cover is so great that it’s justification for the entire episode. Santana tapes a tape recorder to her underboob (ha) and gets a confession out of Sebastian. He put rock salt in the slushie. Santana wants to turn this evidence over to the police. First of all, Santana, it’s illegal in many states to tape someone without their knowledge. Secondly, the regular slushie should have been enough for the police to get involved. There doesn’t need to be rock salt to have a battery.

What kind of limp-weenied cops are these? Considering the injury, there should have been consequences. The adults should have gotten a lawsuit going, at least. Santana thinks it will make all the difference if she proves that it was an irregular slushie. No, a regular slushie should have been enough. Lima, Ohio has got to be the worst town of all time. Either that or Glee doesn’t make logical sense…. Naw, Glee always makes sense.

Kurt smacks down Santana’s plan anyway. He wants to beat Sebastian at Regionals, not have Sebastian shipped off to juvie. Kurt invites Sebastian and the Warblers to the McKinley auditorium where they sing “Black and White” to the Warblers. The episode includes the face morph feature from the music video and Rory’s face is part of it. There goes another one of your episodes, Damian! Nice to see them put him to good use (major sarcasm). New Directions does such a jammin’ job that the Warblers (except for Sebastian) leap to the stage and groove with them as the magic of Michael Jackson’s music makes them forget that they are rumblin’ enemies. Kurt and Santana tell Sebastian that they have a tape of his confession, but that they are so holy they won’t turn it over to the cops. They are just going to sing the Warblers to death at Regionals. Mmhmm.

Along the way, Finn, Rachel and Kurt visit Blaine, who is in bed with an eye patch. All cornea scratches require bedrest. They sing “Ben” to him, which is not an obvious choice for an MJ episode. It’s too obscure. We also thought it was a waste of time. The words don’t fit Blaine at all. Mercedes and Sam sang "Human Nature". We love that song and it was a good cover. It’s one of the more obscure songs too, but that just makes it extra nice that Glee covered it. Mercedes and Sam kissed too! They have no chemistry, but we like their voices together and they are both decent people (by this show’s standards). So we are rooting for them.

Quinn gets into Yale and we are so excited for her. Quinn advises Rachel against marrying Finn. Quinn’s advice was half awesome and half too-cynical. We liked the bit about what really matters and Rachel’s future. We didn’t like the bit about women’s magazines saying that girls change their minds in their 30s. That’s true for a LOT of women, but not all. Plenty of people do just fine with their high school sweethearts. Overall, we agreed with Quinn, just like we did when she advised Rachel about losing her V-Card. (As usual, Rachel gets solid, mature, logical advice from Quinn, ignores Quinn, and follows her heart.) Quinn looks back on her old high school flames while singing “Never Can Say Goodbye.” She looks gorgeous, as usual.

Kurt hears that he’s a finalist for NYADA and Rachel freaks because both Kurt and Quinn are going to live their dreams. Rachel doesn’t hear from NYADA and cries in Kurt’s arms. It’s actually really sad. Lea Michele is a great crier. Burt, the best dad on TV, gives Kurt a wonderful speech about how Kurt went through so much and beat all the haters. “Today, you won,” he said. We loved the words, but it would have been better to save them for the actual win. Like, you know, when Kurt goes from finalist to “accepted student.” Seemed a bit premature.

Rachel feels like she has nothing but her boyfriend, so she accepts Finn’s proposal. They also sing “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” and it’s boring. When she finds out that she is a finalist for NYADA too, her face tells us that she regrets saying yes. There will be drama…. All-in-all, the reason we are still watching Glee is the musical element, so we are glad the show included so many MJ songs and so little stupid plot. Glee has a tendency to juggle too many stories in one episode, so only having about four or five was a nice change. They had to make time for the songs.

Episode grade: B+

Because were we not entertained?

Alcatraz - Cal Sweeney

Four down, 300-ish to go. This week’s criminal is Cal Sweeney, a bank robber who seduces tellers in order to get to safe deposit boxes. Rebecca, who are you calling average-looking? Those tellers were above average looking. Have you seen normal American women? They are about 40 pounds heavier at that age. Rebecca and Doctor Diego Soto track Cal to the next bank he is going to hit and arrive too late. Cal has accidentally triggered an alarm and was forced to take the entire bank hostage.

Rebecca sneaks into the bank via air vents and convinces Cal that she’s there to rescue him, presumably for these bosses or whatever forces brought the Alcatraz criminals to our time in the first place. Cal and Rebecca escape and jump into her cop car. Cal shows Rebecca a little black bag that he went into the bank to get. He doesn’t know what it is or why it is needed and he feels like he isn’t supposed to open the bag and see what’s inside. This shows us that Cal is operating under orders.

Rebecca maneuvers her car so that Cal is knocked out because he isn’t wearing a seatbelt (because it wasn't a law back in the 60s). This is EXACTLY what Ern’s dad told her to do if a bad guy ever got in her car and told her to drive. Ern’s dad assumes that no criminals would be smart enough to put on their seatbelts. After seeing this episode, they probably will be. That was a cheesy line Rebecca delivered right before spinning the car to a stop. We got it when Rebecca looked at the empty seatbelt buckle, thanks.

Rebecca opened the baggy and found another one of those gold keys. She turns it over to Hauser, but Hauser doesn’t tell Rebecca and Doc what the keys are for. Hauser takes the key to Neo-Alcatraz to be studied by his scientists, who are still trying to figure out how the prisoners arrived, where they have been, and who is orchestrating this whole debacle.

Of course, in the flashbacks we got a little of Cal’s story. He ran the black market in Alcatraz, just like Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption. Cal has a young assistant named Harlan who he warns against showing weakness. Deputy Tiller wants a cut of Cal’s operation, and when Cal refuses, Cal’s cell is tossed and a personal item is taken. It’s a tin box and Cal really wants it back. Cal conspires to get Tiller alone so that they can make a deal without Cal showing the other prisoners that he caved to Tiller to get the box back.

Alone in a bathroom at Tiller’s birthday dinner, Cal demands his box after striking a bargain. Tiller says he doesn’t have it, so Cal tries to drown Tiller in a toilet. The swirly wasn’t enough to stop Tiller from stabbing Cal in the upper thigh with a pen and leaving him, bleeding, on the bathroom floor. Cal was sentenced to 30 days in the hole. Just before Cal is taken to the hole, Harlan returns Cal’s box to him. It was Harlan who stole it because Cal showed Harlan his weakness. The box was the only thing left to Cal from his childhood home that burned when he was ten (and his family along with that home). With Cal out of the way and all the information about the operation in Harlan’s head, Harlan is free to take over the project. Cal is upset and smashes the tin box, his only weakness.

Warden James and a mysterious someone are impressed with Harlan’s scheming, so the warden takes Harlan to a dank, dark place that seems to be on the lower levels of Alcatraz. Down there, the warden uses three keys (the same mysterious keys Hauser now has) to open a large, metal door. Harlan is to be introduced to someone inside that door. Roll credits.

Cal killed a few people with one of those cattle guns that Javier Bardem carried around in No Country for Old Men, so this episode was more violent than previous installments. We didn’t mind. We like when shows like this get a little violent, because that brings some darkness that ushers out campiness. We want serious J.J. Abrams shows. We like that each episode brings us some hint of the larger story and answers to come. We are still digging this show. It has a definite formula and isn't turning out to be the most original show on earth, but it's fun, and we are still interested.

Episode grade: B

Being Human - All Out of Blood

At the start, Aidan is still boning Julia. He wakes up in her bed and he has not yet turned or eaten Julia. Yay! Julia brings up her last boyfriend, who was “dead inside.” Ironic, because Aidan is dead…outside? Haha. The hospital figures out that someone is stealing blood bags and decides that they are being sold to drug addicts who need to pass blood tests. After The Vampire Diaries, if we worked with hospital security, Damon would be our first thought. Now, only supervisors can access the blood room, and this does not include Aidan. Aidan looks worried at this news, because blood packets are the way he is controlling his urges. He can only sleep with Julia if he’s just eaten, after all.

Josh rents two storage units for himself and Nora to transform in. Sally will lock them inside. Nora wants to change in the woods, because being locked in a metal container and filmed by Josh for “research” is, admittedly, creepy. This is how Nora phrases it: “I will let a ghost lock me in a storage unit so that you can videotape me while I take my clothes off and turn into an animal.” Josh feels guilty and the two kiss.

At the hospital, Sally teases Aidan about Julia. It’s really cute. One of the things we love about this show, and this episode especially, is the roommate banter. Like when Josh asked Aidan to use a glass for what looked like his last blood bag or when Aidan questioned Josh’s lame use of the thumbs up sign. Josh is more concerned about the Julia situation, because of what happened to Aidan’s last girlfriend. Man, thank God that last girlfriend is dead. She was disastrous AND annoying. Aidan refuses to let Julia meet his roommates, because he’s keeping it casual and fun. Josh gives his blessing. Aidan says he wasn’t asking for Josh’s blessing. Josh was all, “You know you wanted it.” Ahhh, roommates.

Sally keeps seeing a dark shadow. It’s the thing she saw come toward her from the mirror in her dream. It’s stalking her and freaking her out. Sally goes to the hospital’s maternity ward to look at the cute new babies. A nurse passes and says that she can’t hang out there. Since the nurse can see Sally, Sally thinks the nurse is dead, but the nurse can see dead people. The nurse tells Sally to get in line. Sally turns to see a queue of ghosts waiting outside the maternity ward. A ghost in line tells Sally that the nurse, Zoe Gonzalez, can get ghosts reincarnated. Zoe can match a ghost with a baby and help the baby accept the new spirit along with its own. Sally thinks this is groovy.

We raised our eyebrows. It’s the BABY’S life. The ghosts already had theirs, even if some of them were short. How messed up would it be to go through life with a passenger? A whole other person? Even if the baby’s spirit accepts the ghost, it’s still dodgy, and we've already read The Host. We’re sure the age of consent for having another person inside of you should be above, say, two weeks. The next morning, after both Josh and Aidan have had their girlfriends over for sex, Sally tells them about the reincarnation option. They laugh at her and Sally’s anger shakes the house. Aidan tells Sally to cut it out, because Julia is upstairs.

Julia comes down to the kitchen to meet Nora and the roommates. Then we are all OH SNAP because Julia is JOSH’S JULIA. Julia is the fiancé that Josh abandoned after he became a werewolf. It’s the same name on the same show, she’s a doctor, AND she talked about a bad ex. How on earth did we not see this coming? We're really glad we didn't, because that was awesome. Julia freaks and storms out. Josh follows, trying to apologize for leaving her. He tells Julia to trust him that it was for the best. Julia smacks him. The two actors are great together and this is a believable scene.

We’re team Josh here, obviously, because we know the whole story. Also, it’s crazy that she thinks Josh is dead inside if she was once close to marrying him. Even with his leaving her abruptly, it’s pretty obvious that Josh is a sensitive, guilt-ridden, caring dude. If Julia knew him well enough to marry him, a part of us thinks that she should sense there is something going on with Josh that’s out of the douchebag norm. Josh turns to go back inside his home. Nora is in the doorway and she doesn’t look pleased. Aidan tells Josh that he will stop seeing Julia.

Sally goes back to the maternity ward and sees Zoe putting a ghost into a baby. Zoe sees Sally afterward and Sally tries to convince Zoe to help her reincarnate. Zoe wants to meet Sally’s roommates so that she can interact with people who can see ghosts, like Zoe can. After interviewing Aidan and Josh, Zoe determines that she can’t help Sally reincarnate because Sally might have unresolved anger issues that could negatively affect the host baby. Sally begs Zoe to help, because she is afraid that the dark thing pursuing her will take her out. Zoe tells Sally that becoming an infant won’t help Sally defend herself against the dark thing.

Nora and Julia see each other in the hospital. Julia decides to clear the air and get everything on the table. Julia tells Nora that she knows the real Josh (and that he’s an a-hole) and that soon Nora will know this too. Nora meets Josh in the storage unit, where he is mounting a camera. Nora tells Josh that she doesn’t want to be locked up and confesses that she remembers killing the vampire. Josh asserts that his plan is for Nora’s protection. Nora says, “If you wanted to protect me, you would have run away before you did this to me. Like you did for Julia. For me, you had no problem cursing me.” She walks away and Josh is too stunned to even yell, “It SO wasn’t like that.” Burn. Poor Josh. Poor Nora.

Aidan is at home, sick and pale from not eating. Sally warns him to take care of the situation so that she won’t have to come home to a mountain of dead bodies one day. Aidan says that he is hesitant to drink from a willing donor, because when he drinks a live person, he has a hard time controlling himself. He is afraid that if he goes back to live people, he will lose control and become the monster he was in the past. Aidan sees Julia at the hospital and he tells her that it’s over. He says that their fling is not worth a friendship. Bros before hos, lady. It’s the code. He’s firm and cruel enough to be sure that he’s rid of her. He says, “It was just sex.” Julia is crushed, because they actually bonded and she thought it meant more to Aidan. This is the second time this woman has been dumped for her own protection. We kind of think that Julia is owed the truth. Couldn't it at least have been a discussion between Aidan and Josh?

Sally goes up to a baby and tries to get the baby to let her enter. Why would Sally pick a male baby when she has the pick of the ward? She stops attempting to enter when she sees the dark thing manifest in the ward. Sally doesn’t want the thing to follow her into the baby. Sally tells the thing to stay away from the child. The dark thing goes through Sally and Sally finds herself outside the maternity ward. Sally sees Zoe and tells her what happened. Zoe agrees to try to help Sally with the dark thing.

Nora sees Julia leave work and stalks Julia to her house, filled with anger. For a second, we think Nora is going to try to kill Julia. A car nearly hits Nora and she snaps out of her bloodthirsty stupor. Nora meets Josh at the storage unit, ready to go along with his plan. Sally locks Josh and Nora into the units where they change. One of them bangs up against the unit’s wall, denting it. They may have to pay for that…or at least explain it. Ha. Meanwhile, Aidan visits an older lady and pays $300 to drink her blood. There is a muscle-y man with a wooden stake to serve as protection for the woman, in case the vampire is too rough or loses control. Aidan drinks too much and the man has to pull Aidan away. Aidan looks positively intoxicated from the experience of drinking live. It’s spine chilling.

We feel worst for Aidan, at this point. Josh is a werewolf once a month. Aidan is ALWAYS facing his temptations and it’s hard to resist something when you were immersed in it before. It’s like a girl who went to third base with her first boyfriend. When she gets her second boyfriend, she will get to third base a hell of a lot quicker if she doesn’t have self-control, simply because she has done it before. That’s how temptation and giving into temptation is. It’s almost more honorable when someone ceases an activity they have already and fully been engaged in. Breaking a pattern is a lot harder than never indulging at all. We know that the show is going to take Aidan to a dark place this season. That's apparent. We hope this arc brings more to that theme than we are seeing in The Vampire Diaries this season. We want to see something new, not an older, darker version of The Stefan Chronicles.

We love the actors on this show, particularly Aidan and Sally’s portrayers. Aidan comes across as mature, and this is very realistic. Sally could be an annoying whiner just watching others live their lives, but she’s sympathetic. She pulls off "worried" and "regretful" well with every facial expression. Julie was well-cast. We’re surprised that we enjoyed the vacation from vampire politics, because that’s an aspect of the show that we find fascinating. This episode didn’t need it though. The Julia twist was great. There were lots of “oh snaps” in this episode, and we chuckled a few times as well as felt genuine sorrow for the characters’ plights. This one was emotionally rich and dark, and the pacing was expert.

Episode grade: A

Pretty Little Liars - A Kiss Before Lying

Kate arrives in Rosewood and goes to the Liars’ school. Spencer sees Kate and recognizes her from somewhere. Eventually, Spencer remembers that Kate went to summer camp with her when they were younger. Kate confronts Spencer and asks if Spencer is “going to tell” and asks Spencer what she wants. Kate even offers Spencer money to keep her mouth shut. She wants to keep it a secret because Kate got bitten all over her face by bugs, and Spencer has a picture of her looking ugly. Spencer threatens to show people the picture if Kate is mean to Hanna, and it’s awesome.

Hanna is upset that her friends seem to be shutting her out. Really, they are still hacking A’s phone with Caleb. On the phone, they find a picture of a fake I.D. belonging to Alison. On the I.D., Alison’s hair is dark brown. Alison used to pretend to be someone else. She also liked Vladimir Nabokov. Of course she did. Hanna whips out a copy of Lolita that she borrowed from Ali. In the book was a claim check. Spencer called the number on the check and asked if she could claim her item. The man on the phone called her by Ali’s pseudonym on the I.D. and let Spencer know that she could pick the object up. So the Liars are about to find yet another clue.

Hanna gets a text from A telling Hanna to stop Caleb from doing his tech thing. If Hanna doesn’t stop Caleb, A says she/he will tell the police about Mrs. Marin’s stealing. Hanna tells Caleb about the threat. Caleb thinks the threat came from Jenna, so he goes to Jenna’s to confront her. Garrett sees and questions Caleb in front of Jenna’s house. Jenna is not home, and now Garrett is suspicious of Caleb.

Byron gets Ezra a promotion that would cause Ezra to move to New Orleans. When both Aria and Holden’s plan fall through, they actually spend a date together. Aria sees bruises on Holden’s body and he brushes off her questions. We smell an underground fight club. Holden is so much more interesting than boring old Ezra and his boring old geezer clothes. Aria suggests to Ezra that they melt Byron's glacier self by "generating more heat." Gross. And inappropriate. Who wants to think about their father when they're talking sexy with their boyfriend?

Spencer cries over Toby, and it’s sad. Noel is still dating Jenna, so the Liars have decided that Noel is “A’s eyes” and they hate Noel for it. Emily’s mom comes back to Rosewood and offers to take Emily and Maya to dinner. Maya acts like a huge, awkward bitch. She keeps bringing up pot and the Bible camp she was sent off to. One of us holds grudges but still doesn’t feel bad for Maya. Yeah, Maya has a reason to hate Emily’s mom, but she could have tried to grab the olive branch, for Emily’s sake. Maya redecorates Emily’s bedroom to make it up to her. Maya tells Emily she loves her and Emily returns the sentiment. Then they make out and lie on top of each other in Emily’s bed.

At the end, A sent everyone in the high school a naked picture of Kate in the locker room and set it up to look like Hanna sent it. Whoa. Poor Hanna. Ern also feels bad for Kate. Kate is the worst, yes, but that would be so horrifying. If everyone in Ern’s school saw her naked teet, Ern would vomit. Too far, A. Too far. (Sidenote: really? A naked breast is too far, but MURDER isn't? Ern is weird).

Nothing really happened in this episode. It’s filler if there ever was filler. However, it’s cool seeing Hanna open up to Caleb about the A situation (which one of us thinks is a pretty big deal). We would fear for his life, but he’s been promoted to series regular for season three. (Thanks, commenter who showed us that story). He will probably just ALMOST die now. Only seven more episodes until we know who A is!

Episode grade: B-

Gossip Girl - G.G.

Oh man. Oh man. This episode was perfect in every way. Ok, not every way. We are disappointed in who Gossip Girl was. But the build-up to the wedding was all worth it.

The episode started with a Serena dream. Hers are a lot more musical than Blair’s, it seems. She is Marilyn Monroe to Blair’s Audrey Hepburn, and she is singing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” in Marilyn’s voice, surrounded by boys. This was weird, stupid, and campy, but we completely loved it. Audrey Blair shows up to take Dan away from Marilyn and Serena wakes up. It’s the morning of Blair’s wedding.

We then see Chuck. If you were worried last week that he was going to become a villain again, you will be pleased to see that Chuck double-crossed the priest and decided to sabotage the priest’s plan to ruin Blair’s wedding. Chuck wants Blair to be happy. One, two, three: Awwww. That was always Chuck’s plan. Chuck poisoned the priest with Mexican toilet water from a Bass resort. Ha. Did he have that over-nighted or something? We mourn the lost opportunity to see Chuck don the priest’s outfit the father tried to give him.

Dan is Louis’ best man. What??!! That’s weird. Blair asked her stepdad to walk her down the aisle with her father, which was sweet. And, yes, Wallace Shawn had to utter the lines, “Look! It’s The Princess Bride.” Oh, har har har. Alright, we really did think it was clever. If inconceivable. We liked Blair's dress and veil, but we're not sure about her scraggly wedding hair or the bridesmaids dresses she chose. They looked like sponges, but they were nearly appealing. 

Georgina shows up with her husband to ruin the wedding so that she can get back at Blair. “That bitch got me remanded to rehab, banished from Bible camp, and abandoned in Belarus,” Georgina groused. Georgina had baby Milo with her, and he’s still an immobile cherub in a stroller. We’re pretty sure he should be walking by now. He was born years ago.

Nate meets the real Charlie who is a cater waitress for the wedding and there are sparks. What a coincidence! Apparently, she has catered for him before and he didn’t remember her. As a grand romantic gesture, Nate investigated her and found out everything about her, like that she was a student at Julliard. Top-notch journalist that he is, Nate did NOT find out that Lola was Charlie Rhodes. Bravo, Nate. You’re useless.

Blair has a panic attack when she puts her wedding dress on, so Eleanor uses her motherly intuition and realizes that this is a mistake. Eleanor runs right to Chuck. Chuck goes to Blair and Blair tells Chuck that she loves him and is actually marrying Louis for Chuck’s sake. Blair turns Chuck away, choosing Louis. Georgina is taping them and gets Blair’s confession saved to her phone.

Serena tells Chuck about Blair’s pact with God (groan). During the ceremony, when the “speak now or forever hold your piece” line is said, Chuck does not object and we were shocked by this. Come on, Chuck! Blair said she loves you and that she loves you more every day! That’s actually what old married couples say about each other when it’s a real, lasting thing. Everyone was looking at Chuck, waiting for him to do something, but he just kind of swayed in the hallway. This is why he deserves to lose Blair…for now.

Gossip Girl interferes. She texts everyone the video of Blair and Chuck. Jeez, people, turn your phones off in a wedding. Blair runs offstage. Blair tells Louis that she chose him, and that if he takes her back, Blair will never embarrass him again. She does this right in front of Chuck, who came back to apologies for coming to her wedding. Louis goes back to the altar with Blair and the two marry. During their dance at the reception, Louis says tells Blair that he married her for show. He doesn’t forgive her for loving Chuck and ruining their wedding.

Then Louis said that Blair needs to smile for the cameras and pretend to love him, because he will keep their marriage going for show until he tires of her, or something. Blair was all, “What about your beautiful vows?” Louis said, “Dan wrote them.” Why didn’t we get to hear those vows, by the way? We were cheated.

Meanwhile, Serena confesses her love to Dan. Dan has no reaction. Poor Serena. She really is a nice and pretty girl. She needs to realize that Dan hasn’t wanted her since he was, like, 16. He’s ready for someone smart who likes to see artsy films and read literature. Blair calls Dan after her horrific dance. Dan drives Blair away. Blair SHOULD have called an attorney to seek an annulment, immediately.

We’ve always complained about this show dragging out Chuck and Blair and ruining their romance, especially in the last two seasons. But this season has redeemed that, especially after the last episode. As perfect as it would have been for their romance to be complete at the end of season two, they were not good enough people to make real love last yet. They were not yet unselfish. Now, Chuck has done major work on himself and Blair sees Dan’s worth while also seeing that being a princess isn’t everything. Also, Dan is a real and realistic way to keep Blair and Chuck apart. The Blair/Dan romance isn’t a distraction or contrived obstacle. It feels real. It feels like the show is making Blair and Chuck a bigger, longer story than we previously thought it would be, but that it’s going to make sense in the end.

The episode ended with Gossip Girl typing and talking. We saw hands, and then the camera turned around to show Gossip Girl’s face. It’s Georgina! Gasp! Actually, lame. Dorota would have been better. (Speaking of, Dorota looked nice dress for the wedding). We already KNEW that Georgina was a double-crossing, sociopathic schemer. We hope that there is more than one Gossip Girl or something. Maybe she hacked GG’s site briefly or something.

This episode tried so hard. It deserves a perfect score for such effort, and it was entertaining and eventful as well.

Episode grade: A+

The Good Wife - Another Ham Sandwich

This show is so much better this season than it ever was in previous years, and this episode might have been the best of this season. The happenings were simple, so we can keep it succinct. But if you missed this one, you should go watch it, because it’s so satisfying  and delicious to see it play out. The drama, double-crosses, cleverness, emotion, and burns in this episode would blow your average episode of Revenge away. That’s quite a compliment, since you know how excited we get about Revenge.

It’s Grand Jury time. Will and Kalinda scheme and plot enough that Will is not indicted. The information in the file Kalinda slipped Dana was falsified. Dana slaps Kalinda in the face after that comes back to bite Wendy in the butt. Elsbeth has all her witnesses bring Peter up whenever possible so the Grand Jury is confused into thinking the State Attorney is the real guilty party.

Alicia tries to get Peter to drop the indictment. When Peter cracks that Alicia is sleeping with her boss, Alicia says, “Is that the issue.” Peter explodes, “Of course that’s the issue!” It’s ugly and interesting and long-awaiting. Alicia says that she’s not sleeping with Will. Which is true. They aren’t doing it anymore. Peter doesn’t believe her and storms out.

Wendy freaks out when things don’t go her way and calls Alicia to testify about her secret, personal relationship with Will. Cary told Wendy about that. To his credit, Cary is appalled that Alicia is being called and lets Wendy know it. Alicia admits to sleeping with Will and then walks out of court, risking being held in contempt. Everyone hates Wendy even more now, even Peter.

Peter fires Wendy. Wendy doesn’t take that lying down and tells Peter that she will be taking the case to the Bar Association. The show is leaving the question of whether Will is actually innocent unanswered for the audience. Everyone is on his side. Does he deserve it? It looks like Diane had some doubts in the courtroom.

Eli tries to get a job working for a gay rights group in Chicago. Caitlin saves the day for Eli, even though Eli has been torturing her with menial tasks to get back at David Lee. Eli and Stacie Hall have sex. Stacie orchestrated the tryst so that she could drop a bomb on Eli: She will be running Eli’s ex-wife’s campaign for governor. Eli is upset. We love seeing Eli thrown off kilter. He has two weaknesses: children and his ex. 

We won't get more for three weeks, so savor this one.

Episode grade: A+

Shameless - A Beautiful Mess

Mess is right. Beautiful? We don’t see it. We were actually a little stressed-out for the characters this week, even though it was the funniest episode of the season so far. Karma hit Fiona in the face like a chocolate milkshake when Craig’s wife, Lucy Jo, shows up at the Gallagher house looking for revenge. Lucy Jo tries to get her beat down on and Fiona has to flee from the Gallaghers' to Sheila’s house or risk being hit with a baseball bat for sleeping with Lucy Jo’s husband. We love Fiona, but we also love Lucy Jo. That is just the perfect reaction for when a woman bangs your husband. Lucy Jo for president. How did Lucy Jo find out? Craig told her, because “he’s a pussy.” Fiona’s friends and family tell her that she “always picks pussies.” Angry Fiona texts Craig that he’s a pussy and sends him other charming messages trying to get him to call off his wife.

Lucy Jo continues to wreak hilarious havoc over the course of a few days. She beans Fiona with a milkshake and paints a lewd statement on the Gallagher door. She also has her children stand on the side of the road under a banner that says, “Fiona Gallagher Had Sex With Our Daddy.” In the end, Fiona breaks down. The stress is getting to her and she is only wasting her time with these guys to get over Steve anyway. She keeps calling Steve and getting his voicemail. Jasmine is still trying to lead Fiona down a bad path of sugar daddies and Fiona almost hooks up with Adam, a guy who looks kind of like Steve. In the end, Lucy Jo and Craig show up on the advice of their priest to get Fiona’s forgiveness. It is a painfully awkward, hilarious scene. Fiona escapes to the bathroom and cries. Dirty slut or not, we feel bad for her and we hope Steve gets his tail back to town by next week.

It’s a bad week for both Gallagher women. Debbie breaks out in a stress rash and smashes Barbies to deal with her chaotic life as a 4^th-grader running a daycare. Fiona tries to get Debbie to relax by having Debbie throw a slumber party. But this is even more stressful than nothing, because Debbie has no friends. Debbie has to bribe Simon, a nerdy kid from the library who has a crush on Debbie, to introduce her to the popular girl, Holly. Holly is 15, mean, in fourth grade, and gorgeous in a skank sort of way. Holly agrees to come to the sleepover because she has a crush on Lip. Carl brings his new friend, Little Hank, to Debbie’s party. Little Hank is amazing. He is a kid with a housesitting business. He uses the empty houses to drink stolen booze in. Debbie has a crush on Little Hank, even though Simon is much cuter and worthier. Little Hank likes Holly though. It’s kind of cute until Holly sneaks into Lip’s room in the middle of the night to bone him. Lip is not his father, it seems, because he yells at Holly and throws her out. Holly leaves the party and Little Hank follows. Debbie is crushed and blames Fiona for the entire bad experience.

Sheila finally makes it to the beauty salon and the Alibi Room is only a day away. Frank tries to reawaken Sheila’s agoraphobia by making up local disasters, having his armless friend run into the house with a “bleeding” stump, and shooting at Sheila from a safe distance…with a gun containing the wrong ammunition. This literally backfires and fragments scratch Frank’s cornea. He is forced to wear an eye patch for the duration of his panic day. The Luger and the story of the Luger was pretty awesome. On the day of Sheila’s outing to the bar, she walks out and a piece of the plane falls from the sky. Sheila freaks and rushes back into her house, broken. Frank hits his knees to thank God. We laugh, even though it’s awful.

Ethel is starting to grow on us. Kevin introduces her to Malik, a black boy her age with a child of his own. They set up a playdate and bond. Vanessa is concerned that Malik isn’t good for Ethel and Kevin is happy to see Vanessa acting like Ethel’s “mama bear.” Lip spends the episode investigating Jody, trying to find dirt on him. When he finds out that Jody (chodie, haha) has no skeletons in his closet, Lip sleeps with Mandy. He tries to get Mandy to seduce Jody, but Jody refuses Mandy and then tells Karen. Karen goes to the Gallagher house and kicks the crap out of Lip. She tells him to leave her, Jody, and THE BABY alone. Uh oh. Karen has only been sleeping with Lip, not Jody. Jody is older and can provide. Lip cannot. So that’s why she’s doing it and not because of Jody’s dong. Did you SEE that thing?

Quote of the week: “I never should have f***ed Dotty to death. Coulda made that work.” –Frank

Episode grade: A-

Once Upon a Time - Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

Storybrooke, Maine: Sidney goes to Emma with the news that Regina had him fired from the paper. He wants revenge on Regina for that and for making him look like a fool in the election for sheriff. He tells Emma that Regina has stolen $50k from the town. Emma and Sidney break into Regina’s office and find evidence that Emma deems “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Fruit of the poisonous tree, in legal terms, refers to “the principle that prohibits the use of secondary evidence in trial that was culled directly from primary evidence derived from an illegal search and seizure.” So, no Emma. The stuff you found in Regina’s house wasn’t the fruit. It was the tree. Don’t worry. Lots of real cops don’t know the rules of criminal procedure either. The non-law schooler knew what you meant though, Emma, so don't feel too bad. Plus, we get what the showrunners were getting at (what with Regina being the Evil Queen and all).

Be it fruit or tree, Emma can’t use it against Regina in court, but she CAN go to a town meeting and brandish it about so that Regina will be discredited in the residents’ eyes. Emma ends up looking like an idiot when Regina admits that she used the money to buy land from Mr. Gold to build a new playground for the town’s children. Regina threatens to get a restraining order in light of the break-in, so Emma needs to stay away from Henry for a while. She can still contact Henry on the walkie-talkies though. We like that Emma got slammed for breaking into Regina’s office. We like that she knows she acted like a bad guy there, because she did. We didn’t like seeing it. Emma and Sidney meet in the diner and talk about their new alliance. Then the show cuts to Sidney meeting Regina and discussing their alliance. They’ve been tricking Emma together THE WHOLE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ugh, we know, show.

Dear Once Upon a Time: You are so much better than this. As a family-friendly, fantasy show, you have been cleverer and we are going to hold you to that standard. We are supremely irritated at the Sidney set-up. We knew he was lying the whole time, and yet Emma had no idea. This is the same Emma who keeps talking about how she has a superpower where she knows when people are lying to her. Was this just a bluff that she uses on little kids? Because we thought that was factual information. If so, that's fine, but we need that made obvious to the audience. We really hope that Emma is wise to Sidney’s intentions and just playing along, because that would actually make sense and fit the rest of the episodes where Emma is street smart and cynical. This episode, Emma was not only dishonest, she was confusing. Consistency, people.

In the fairytale world, King Leopold, Snow’s father and Evil Queen’s husband, finds a magic lamp. He rubs it and a Genie comes out. The Genie of Agrabah is Sidney/the Magic Mirror and he’s wearing the most ridiculous outfit. Ladies and Gentleman, Gus of Breaking Bad is no longer scary. All it took was one crazy genie outfit. The king says that he has no wishes, because he has everything he wants. This makes us like him and simultaneously roll our eyes. There are no people like that! Especially rich people with power! The king wishes the genie free and uses his second wish to give Genie his third wish. Genie says he will never use that wish, because he has granted 1,001 wishes and has seen them all go badly, in the end.

The King lets Genie chill in his pad and holds a party where he tells Snow she’s everything to him or something. He also waxes on about his dead wife, who was just as beautiful as Snow. We instantly stop liking the king, because anything that happens to him is what he deserves after such stupidity. Evil Queen was IN THE ROOM. You don’t keep talking about your gorgeous dead wife, who you still love, right in front of your new one. It’s just not smart. Genie takes one look at Evil Queen and decides she’s the love of his life. He gives her a mirror and says that she is the fairest in the land. The queen writes in her diary about her new gift and how a new flame has renewed her hope in love. Girl, come on. Neither of these men are hot.

The King reads the Queen’s diary. Well, that’s a violation. He’s the worst. We don’t get how the king could be so content and Buddha-like and yet be such an ass in his personal life. He doesn’t seem to love the queen at all, but he’s upset that someone might steal her from him. The King shows Genie the diary and asks for Genie’s help in finding the queen’s new paramour. He also locks Evil Queen in her rooms so that she can’t see this guy anymore. Controlling creeper. We really did not enjoy the writing for King Leopold.

The Evil Queen’s father brings Genie a locked box and tells him to bring it to the queen. Genie does and the Evil Queen unlocks the box. It contains the snake of Agrabah. Or snakes. We don’t know. There were two heads, but it could have been two-headed. It was super fake looking, in any case. These snakes can kill with a single bite, like lots of poisonous snakes, so we’re not impressed. The Queen pretends that she is going to let the snakes bite her, but Genie stops and her says they should kill the king with the snake(s?) instead.

Genie brings the snake to the King’s room at night and puts them in his bed. The king is bitten and wakes up. The Genie confesses to the dying king that he is the queen’s new man. The king looks pretty shocked, and even though we don’t particularly like Snow’s father by now, we are scandalized at this betrayal. You don’t KILL the man who freed you. You may steal his wife, for true love’s sake, but kill him? That’s cold. The king says, “You were right. I never should have made a wish.” Way to hammer it home, show. We got that when it was foreshadowed in the first five minutes.

Too late, Genie figures out that the queen only needed him to pin the king’s murder on, and she does not love him. The genie doesn’t care that she doesn’t love him and uses his wish to be with her forever and always look upon her face. Wish granted. He is now trapped in the queen’s mirror. Dude, 1,0001 wishes later, and you still don’t know that you have to make wishes specific?

Also, the stranger has Henry’s Once Upon a Time book and when he held it up in the show’s final minutes, his face held a mixture of awe and…nausea? We don’t know, but the expression made us think that he has some clue of the book’s significance. Did he write the book? What is the stranger doing here? He’s not killing an Arab, so what? In other news, David and Mary Margaret are still canoodling, unmolested by the queen.

We didn’t like this episode. We did think it was cool how the show had a new twist on the Genie plotline and how everything fit together, but it hardly makes any sense at all that Sidney would still be in love with the queen in the fairytale world after what she did. In previous episodes, it looked like Genie and the queen still had a good relationship, or at least a working relationship. You would think there would at least be some awkwardness between them after all that drama. The double-cross thing is lame and Snow's father evoked no sympathy. 

Episode grade: C

The death of Butterface and other happenings on TV this week

Shameless - I’ll Light a Candle for You Every Day

Fiona’s moral compass is off this week, and she sleeps with a married crush from her high school days. He's played by Taylor Kinney from The Vampire Diaries (Uncle Mason), so we can't really blame her. Even Lady Gaga had to get a piece of that action. However, that is the ONLY time you will see us excusing adultery. It's not like Fiona has any role models at all. Fiona also finds a purse left on the train with five hundred bucks in it. Because the purse is designer and real, Fiona assumes that it belongs to a rich woman and decides to keep the money and spend it. Then Fiona finds out that the woman who owned the purse is poor, with children, and from Fiona’s neighborhood. Fiona busts her butt at work and makes the money back so that she can return it to the woman. When she tries, the woman accuses her of stealing it in the first place and the two get into a fight. Fiona walks away, her attempt at being nice ruined. She then calls Steve, just to say hi. We see him, in paradise, getting a blow job. So sad.

Frank gets Butterface to agree to marry him so that he can get her pension money when she dies. When she is in the shower, Frank intercepts a call from the hospital offering her a heart and tells the hospital that she has passed away. When Butterface hears that there was a heart she missed, she offers Frank money to sleep with her so that she will die. Any redeeming quality Frank ever had is negated by this storyline, and we are surprised the show had him do anything as horrible as killing Dottie. This makes sleeping with his son’s girlfriend and surrogate daughter seem like nothing.

Debbie becomes obsessed with death, Kevin thinks about buying the bar even though Veronica doesn’t think he can handle it, Lip meets with a soldier to get information for Ian about West Point, and Jody asks Karen to marry him. Poor Lip. Overall, this week was a little sad, but still funny. We’re glad that we finally saw Steve and we hope he’s back in Fiona’s life soon. The plot with Fiona’s high school crush was funny, mostly because he ended up being so comically bad at sex. We think Fiona learned her lesson.

Episode grade: B

Being Human - Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?

Nora, transformed into a werewolf, kills Heggeman, much to Leeard’s joy, because she’s been hating Heggeman for a while. Daughter turns out to be named Suren. Lame. We had hoped her name would just be Daughter. Aiden digs her up from her grave and she is one ugly puppy for a few hours. Aidan feeds Suren willing people until she regains her strength and her looks. And hey! Look! It’s Sierra from Dollhouse. Nice. We think she’s pretty cool-looking. Aidan suggests that they get a vampire police officer to assist them, but Suren takes a human police officer named Cecelia off the street. Believing that one of their own sires, rather than one of Bishop’s would be more loyal, Suren asks Aidan to turn Cecilia, fully knowing that Aidan is trying not to eat humans. He refuses and Suren turns Cecilia.

Sally’s plot was the weirdest this week. She didn’t like the experience of sleeping while dead, because of the nightmare she had. She has Stevie and his friends Dylan and Boner over to the house. The best line of the episode was when someone said that a ghost hadn’t moved on because he hadn’t seen Scarface. Ha. You know Ern hasn’t seen Scarface? Now that Nora is a werewolf, she can see Sally. Josh tries to get Nora to live normally and forget about her miscarriage and lycanthropy. The two go to a first-year med student mixer, where Nora gets drunk and almost spills all her bad news to the partygoers.  Josh decides to drop out of medical school and look for a cure for lycanthropy. Yeah…good luck with that. We feel so bad for Nora, but we like seeing Josh trying to take care of her and make little jokes. It’s endearing.

Sally and her ghost boys go to a party where Sally finds out that ghosts can possess living people’s bodies if those people are either willing or not in their right minds. The young people at the party were drinking, so they were ripe for possession. After a few botched attempts, Sally is able to possess a girl and heads right to the snack table. That’s the first thing we would do too, girl. Sally is happy that she is able to feel and taste, until Dylan pretty much tries to rape her right in the middle of the party. Stevie pulls both Sally and Dylan out of the bodies in order to help Sally, and then Stevie annihilates Dylan. That’s the best word for it, really. Stevie permanently destroys Dylan, causing him to disintegrate. Sally is upset and afraid that ghosts can destroy each other. Nora tells Sally that it’s better to know what you are capable of and it is revealed that she remembers killing Heggeman.

Episode grade: B+

Justified - Cut Ties

This wasn’t the best episode of this show, but it wasn’t bad either. Raylan and a Marshall he used to know, played by Carla Gugino, spent the episode trying to protect someone in the witness protection program. Art steps out from behind his desk to help. It was pretty cool to see Art out and about. We generally don’t like him because of how he hates Raylan, but he was competent and charismatic in this episode. There was a little mystery as to who got one witness killed in the first place and it was fun to see that unravel.

Raylan realizes that Boyd wanted to go to prison so he starts trying to get Boyd out by recanting his statement about the fight. Through hard work, Boyd is able to get alone with Dickie so that he can threaten him and find out the location of all the Bennett money. Dickie reveals that Mags gave all her money to Limehouse, a mob guy/crime lord in Harlan County. Yep, that’s gonna be important later. This episode was filler, but Justified filler is still pretty entertaining. Everything we’ve written about this show has been really short because all we ever want to say is, “Good dialogue.”

Episode grade: B-

Gossip Girl - The Father and the Bride

It’s time for this wedding already. All this lead-up is driving us crazy. They’ve been talking about this Blair wedding forever. We need to see her in the dress, see the ceremony, and then have her take off with Chuck or something. If the wedding actually goes through to the “I do’s,” we will be surprised, but we won’t be pleased. This week was the bachelorette party and Beatrice conspired to get Blair really drunk so that Blair would say something that Beatrice could use to stop the wedding. Beatrice was scheming with her cousin, the priest. A priest scheming to get a young girl really drunk just sounds wrong. Beatrice has a change of heart though, and the priest is forced to choose Louis’ mother as his new partner in his “stop the wedding” conspiracy. All this would be intense if anyone really wanted this wedding to happen anyway. Hilariously, Blair’s bachelorette party ends in her brief arrest for having a doobie in her mouth. That scene was great work from Meester, who really can be funny given the right material.

Nate, Serena, and Gossip Girl get together to find out that Trip was the one responsible for the car accident. Trip was just trying to ruin Nate’s night. He didn’t actually want to kill or seriously injure anyone. But Trip’s life is over now and we don’t care. The only time we even remember that guy is when the show brings him up. We’re not even sure if his name is spelled with one or two “p’s” and we’re not going to look it up. Serena still has feelings for Dan and asks him to keep up their fake relationship, for Blair’s sake, even though Blair told Serena that they could stop pretending. Dan wrote Louis’ vows for him, and Blair saw them and thought that Louis really understood her or something. This made her more sure of her decision to marry Louis. Good grief. What a circus. But we are really like the plotline where Serena is trying to win Dan back just as he’s trying to ditch her in order to help his writing career.

Episode grade: B-

Parks and Recreation - Bowling for Votes

Ben and Leslie hold a focus group where one man doesn’t like Leslie, because she doesn’t seem like someone he would like to bowl with. Leslie freaks out, invites this man (anonymously) to a bowling party soon after and proceeds to try to win him over. It doesn’t work, because this man is obviously a douche. He calls Leslie a bitch and Ben punches him. In a press conference, Leslie stands by Ben and this causes the people in her next focus group to like Leslie a lot.

Meanwhile, April, Chris, Andy, Jerry, Donna, and Ron try to raise funds for the campaign. Chris and Jerry make it into a competition which April is determined to win so that she can ruin Chris’ happiness. April shows Chris kindness after Millie dumps him. It’s so funny to see April try to be sweet. We are kind of feeling Chris and Ann again. Anyone else? This episode was cute and funny, as usual. Both plots worked for us and were equally funny.

Episode grade: A

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

You’ve probably seen this book in the window of your local bookstore. It’s been hyped, promoted, and advertised to death, so we decided to see what all the fuss was about. Critics loved it. The premise: Two old magicians train children into adulthood to compete against each other in a competition/showcase. The venue is a unique circus full of colorful performers and great minds. There can only be one winner, which makes it hard when the young magicians fall in love.

The good:

• The descriptions, the circus, the scenery, and the visuals. This author is a painter and she knows how to describe art that comes to life in your head. You can see everything. The book’s world is colored, textured, and gorgeous. The descriptions of what’s going on, the clothes, the circus tents, and the circus acts are the best part of this book. If you love rich descriptions when you read, you’re gonna choke your chicken to this book. If you liked Memoirs of a Geisha because of all the descriptions of the kimonos, this book will deliver exactly what you like.
• The actual writing is good. For a first novel, it’s stellar, and the author is obviously brilliant and talented. We think that’s the draw of this book for critics. A beautiful writing style is not all it takes to make a book great though...
• The tone is gripping. Sometimes the book can be genuinely eerie and then, in the very next chapter, a scene will be full of childlike wonder. “Dreamlike” is a good word to describe this mood.
• We wanted to go see the circus. We wanted to live in this world. We wanted this world to show up in our dreams.
• We’re pretty sure this is going to be a movie soon, because it’s screaming to be made into a movie. The movie will be truly magical.

The bad:

• It’s slow and takes a while to get into some action. One of us listened to it on audiobook and it was hard to finish. When it’s hard to LISTEN to a book while you are riding a bus, you know you’ve got a chore of a book. The writing and pace are akin to that of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It’s a wonder we finished that book. In fact, if you loved Jonathan Strange, you will love The Night Circus. They are similar. They both have little magical realism, a little of the macabre, and then a little all-out magic. They are both a little cold and distant from their characters and human themes. They both take a while to get going and could have been a heck of a lot shorter.
• The plot takes a backseat to the scenery. The author even said in an interview, “Plot is not my strength” and confessed that she only thought up the circus and the magician/love/competition element (basically the whole plot) was pitched to her by publishers. She added it in after they gave her the inspiration. This is a woman who should be co-writing novels with another author. She should describe everything and let the other author do everything else. Better yet, Erin Morgenstern should probably make movies. She’s be a great director, visually. She should design sets and magical scenes. Film is what she should be in, not books.
• If you are more into character development, plot, and dialogue in books, you are going to be really frustrated. One thing we wanted with this book was a character to root for. You never got into anyone’s head. You didn’t care who won the contest. You wouldn’t have been truly sad if anyone died. Some of the characters are interesting, but we don’t get inside their heads or stories enough. They are never fleshed out or explained to an extent that you want them to be. The consequence is that the book never grabbed our hearts. 
• It ends like Lord of the Rings. There are about five too many endings. But, unlike with Lord of the Rings, by now you don't care about everyone's fate and you already know what happens to everyone. There isn't much new information.

Bottom line? Unless descriptions are your favorite parts of books, you’re gonna want to wait for the movie on this one.

Book grade: C

Writing grade: A

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

It’s Mindy Kaling from The Office, so of course it’s funny. It’s not as funny as we wanted it to be, but it left us wanting more. This book could have been three times as long. It made us want to be best friends with Mindy. We were really impressed with her ability to create a play where two women played Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and have THAT be her big break. We liked her essays, lists, and honesty. The best parts of this book, for us, were her childhood memories. We also liked her observations on romance. We don’t get one-night-stands either, Mindy. This book is less "laugh-out-loud comedy" and more "amusing memoir", as is usually the case with comedians. If you want to get to know Mindy Kaling, pick it up. If you just want to laugh at comedy essays, go get a George Carlin book.

We ended up wanting to know Mindy and laugh at her life, partly because she is so relatable in her book. If everyone is hanging out without you, Mindy, we would love to hang out with you. She's a little like Kelly on The Office, if Kelly were really smart and not a horrible, devious, and desperate person. This book made us wish that someone this obsessed with comedy could get another gig now that The Office is worn out. They’ve done all they can with those characters. Move on. This is someone who hit comedy gold with a female version of Ben Affleck. Give her another show! We did like her behind-the-scenes tidbits about The Office and the people who work on that show, including what the work environment was like.

We especially enjoyed her smart, eerie take on Steve Carell. He’s a nice, polite, genius with integrity…who observes people so well that he is able to create a bumbling character like Michael down to the mannerisms. We shudder to think of how he would imitate our unknown foibles and dorky moments. We are a little scared about how Mindy keeps talking about wanting to star in a romantic comedy. No, Mindy, you’re too good for those. Clearly, Mindy needs to write young-adult novels that are humorous and real. We know Mindy Kaling is going to have a great future and this book just made us love her more.

Book grade (for a memoir): B+

Book grade (for a comedy book): B-

The Bride Wore Black Leather by Simon R. Green

One of us has been reading Simon Green’s Nightside series for years. The reason we like it is the Nightside itself. The world under London that Green imagined was just as colorful on the page as in Green’s head, it seemed. We also liked the eclectic mix of characters and mythical beings. John was ok, but he was never the draw. We liked the noir-ish tone and the standalone mystery plots. This series is a good springboard for the imaginations. We always thought there was more that an author could get out of this world and more that he could do with it. We guess Green ran out of ideas. We wish he would co-author this series, with, like, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, or someone else. It helped that all the books were short too. 

One of us usually hates the parts in books that feature description and prefers dialogue. Here, the descriptions and back-stories were what won that blogger over. This series isn’t must-read, rush to the bookstore stuff. We weren’t waiting earnestly for another installment. It’s one of those things that you read because it’s there, it’s mildly entertaining, and you’re waiting for something better to come out. It's not particularly great, but if it's your taste, it has its moments.

This series was at its best in the first six books, when John was trying to figure out who his mother was. Then things got repetitive and fluffy. The climax happened halfway through the series and it was stalled from there. The last two books, however, were pretty good and almost a return to form. We thought the Unnatural Enquirer was the weakest entry. We never liked that demon girl reporter.

We always had a problem with the seeming limitlessness of John’s gift. In later books, using it too much made him bleed from his head orifices, which by that point just seemed like a way to answer that complaint. We also hated the way Green would repeat the same jokes, but we liked the self-aware way he addressed that later in the series.

We liked that Suzie got healthier, over the course of a few books, and was able to get married at all. We really liked how Green brought back most of the characters for a farewell, including some that have been long gone. Green knows how to end a series. This last book almost made the ones that were dull worth continuing the series for. It was a fun and satisfying conclusion.

We are a little annoyed that it’s ending NOW. It would have taken real imagination for Green to keep things going with John as Walker now. It’s easy to write for the underdog defying authority. We thought Green breathed new life into the series by making John the authority, but then he decided to do nothing with that and just end things. We hope Green changes his mind.

Now that it’s over, even though we haven’t appreciated it much in the last few years, we are wondering if there is a way we can bring it back. If there was a book series that would make a good TV show, this is absolutely it. The standalone adventures worked well for this series and we could see it making a decent TV show, even if it would be too weird for most people.

Book grade: B

Series grade: B

Three young adult novels for people who can't get enough of that genre

We recently went on a small young adult novel binge. Did we find the next Hunger Games? Naw. Were our lives changed forever? Unlikely. Did we have fun being distracted from schoolwork by formulaic teen romance, strong female protagonists, dystopian societies, and supernatural beings? Of course.

First up is Wither by Lauren DeStefano. Premise: You know, the usual. In the future, a cure for cancer and many forms of aging has been found. Sadly, the generation born after the first, perfect generation has a life span of 20 for females and 25 for males. Everyone is freaked out. The other countries may or may not be nuked into non-existence. And human trafficking has amped up a notch since female brides are needed to breed quickly so that more children can be born to keep families, and the human race, alive. Teenaged Rhine Ellery has been grabbed by a rich family and forced into a marriage with two other wives to a pretty naïve young man. Fortunately, one of the family’s servants is young, male, not a jerk, and might help her get free. Less fortunately is the house’s all-knowing, controlling, super-creepy patriarch who experiments on dead bodies in the basement, looking for a cure that will save humanity. Sounds familiar, right? Ha, kidding.

The great thing about this book is the villain. The patriarch is really and truly scary in a lot of ways. His traits ring true and he will get your spine crawling, at least a little. The plot of this book is to be praised. While most of it happens in the house and there isn’t much action, it is intense, haunting, and you really, really want Rhine to be able to escape back to her twin brother. With death looming so closely over most of the protagonists, this book has a morbid, deep vibe that makes everything more urgent and less saccharine than other teen books. The main character is smart, emotionally healthy, and easy to like. The downside is that the love triangle probably won’t put butterflies in anyone’s stomach, but it will probably spark a good debate as to who Rhine should end up with at the end of this trilogy. Also, some of the things about the future world are way too unrealistic. The second book comes out in February, and we recommend reading this one in time for the sequel. We also like that Rhine was blond. Usually YA books have to have brunettes as main characters in order to show intelligence and strength, but that's one of our stupider stereotypes in society, right? (We're both brunettes, by the way.) The book was entertaining and weird enough to warrant checking out. We got it in audiobook format and the narrator's breathy, depressed-sounding voice was annoying at first, but the performance was good after you got used to those qualities. The best thing about this book was that it stayed with us days after we read it. Book grade: A-

The second young adult book we read recently was Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. This was one of the easiest reads we’ve come across in a long time. We don’t want to give much away about the premise, but let’s just say that it’s a star-crossed lovers story between a human girl raised by monsters and an angel. It’s less stupid than it sounds, really. This one is strong on the romance front. The side characters are also interesting. The main character, Karou, is likeable and her best friend brings humor to the book. The writing is good, and the fantasy aspects and world are pretty original. It has what’s usually called “good world-building.” The downside here is that this book ends on a cliffhanger and the next book doesn’t come out until late this year. We’re talking August, at least. If we were young adult book fans who hadn’t read this book yet, we would totally read it….but only once the next book was available. Book grade: B+

The last young adult book we read recently was Gabrielle Zevin’s All These Things I’ve Done. Of all three of these books, this was the quickest read. It had a strong plot, but we don’t know that we fully bought the premise and the world. Would chocolate REALLY be something to kill and steal for? We doubt it. This book takes place in New York City, in the future, after we have ruined our world a little bit more. Not as much as in Wither, but it’s still pretty bad. Sixteen-year-old Anya Balanchine (ridiculous name, right?) is the heir of a notorious crime boss and mobster, who is dead, and she has to take care of her grandmother and younger siblings. However, the book strongly implies that later Anya is going to take over the running of the family business from her extended family. The wrinkle in that is Anya falling in love with the district attorney’s son.

This book is entertaining fluff. We hope that, in the future, the author focuses more on the mafia and birthright aspect of Anya’s story. We loved how tough she was and how her intelligence made her a prime candidate to step up (down?) and be a crime lord. This could be sort of a teenage Walter White in the making. From nice girl to The Godfather. We know there will be a sequel at some point, so we hope to see the rift between herself and the D.A.’s son grow as she gets into the family business. But you know how sometimes you are reading a book and you think some of it is too like the author’s fantasy through which she is living vicariously here, and that it’s too self-indulgent? That’s present here. Some of it is TOO romantic, if you know what we mean. Did Anya really have to go to the juvenile detention center twice? Although her silent cellmate was pretty interesting… We also thought the title was forced. The last line of the book nearly ruined the whole thing for us. There's not as much action as you would expect from this premise. Anya goes to school like a regular kid too. Lots of it is pointless. But it’s a quick read and teens should enjoy it if they like futuristic romance. Book grade: B-

Glee Casting News

White Collar's Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) will play Blaine's older brother. We are so excited. What great casting.

5 things we’ll miss about Chuck (and 3 we won’t)

With Chuck ending its 5 year run tonight, we thought we’d reminisce about our favorite (and least favorite) parts of this charmingly nerdy show.

Things we’ll miss:

1. John Casey: He’s easily one of the best parts of this show, and has remained that while our interest in Chuck and Sarah has drastically decreased over the past 2 seasons. We don’t even mind that they gave him a daughter, which we usually do (see Luke Danes, Gilmore Girls).

2. Ellie and Awesome: One of the most adorable, fully functional, completely in love couples on tv in recent memory. They’ve definitely changed since having Clara, but they’re still a couple we aspire to be like.

3. The Chuck and Morgan friendship: We love this relationship too. They’ve had their arguments, which is completely normal, but they’ve always gotten over them and realized that they do love each other. These two would obviously do anything for each other, and have. In general, their friendship is a great example of true love. Forget Chuck and Sarah, we’ll miss Chuck and Morgan.

4.  The Buy More: We mainly liked confining the cast of weirdos to this place. It could be a nice change of pace from the spy world. When the original Buy More blew up, we were kind of bummed. Luckily, Carmichael Industries was able to rebuild it and use it as their headquarters.

5. Zachary Levi: There were times when we didn’t understand why Chuck was acting in a certain way, but we always appreciated how Zachary Levi brought him to life. In other hands, Chuck might have turned unsympathetic, especially after losing the Intersect. Luckily, Zachary Levi still made us root for the most adorable nerd since The O.C.’s Seth Cohen.

Things we won’t miss:

1. Jeff and Lester: During the first season, we didn’t mind them. They were pretty small characters, and we could handle them in small doses. Even the first instance of Jeffster! was fine. After 5 seasons though, we’re thankful we don’t have to see them anymore. We do have to say, though, that we liked making Jeff saner (and having them both figure out the spy secret). An interesting development for them, finally.

2. Everyone having the Intersect: We know other places have complained about this before, but it really negates most of the first, awesome season if both Morgan and Sarah can handle having the Intersect in their brains. Part of what made Chuck so compelling originally was having this special character who was needed by the government. Taking away his uniqueness, to us, diminishes part of the beginning of the series.

3. The massive inconsistencies: In addition to everyone and their mother having the Intersect, we also won't miss sloppy plotting (like bringing all of the villains to Castle and still thinking of it as a safe location).

Regardless of what we will and won’t miss, we’re glad we’ve had 5 seasons with this little show that could. We’re especially glad that the show runners got 13 episodes to wrap it up, even if we didn’t like some of the things that happened at the end. Now we can go back to eating Quizno's instead of Subway.

Glee - First Listen Friday song reviews

It’s Michael Jackson week on Glee this upcoming Tuesday, and we are actually pretty excited. We love that there are a LOT of songs. We may stop complaining about the lack of Rachel songs, because she’s had the most solos, by far. http://www.gleeforum.com/Characterand39s-solos-t25513.html. Naw, we’re still going to complain. We want at least one Rachel solo per episode, haha.

"Bad" - Artie, Santana, Blaine and Sebastian with New Directions and Dalton Academy Warblers. We didn't like Sebastian’s voice the first time we heard it, but maybe that song was just too high for him. You already know how we feel about Artie (ugh) but we like the Warblers and Blaine. Everyone loves Santana’s voice. Without Artie, it would have been perfect. One of us doesn’t really care for this song, but it’s a decent, energetic version. We like the Warblers on background. It really works for this song. B+

"Ben" - Kurt, Rachel, and Finn. Lovely, but just ok. It’s a down-tempo song. One of us has always hated Kurt’s voice. The other of us really thinks this song fits him. It’s not bad. B-

"Black or White" - Mercedes Jones, Santana Lopez, Rachel Berry, Artie Abrams and Kurt Hummel with New Directions. Jeez, enough with the Artie already. This song is fun and this version is just what you would expect from a Glee version of this song. B

"Human Nature/Nature Boy" - Mercedes and Sam. We like these two voices (and characters) together and enjoyed listening to this song. It didn’t blow us away, but it was pleasant and not at all annoying. Mercedes really is the unsung singing hero of this show. She can sing anything and make it good. B+

"I Just Can’t Stop Loving You" - Finn and Rachel. We love Finchel duets. It calls back season one. Finn sounds less autotuned than usual in this song. We like it. Overall, this song was a little dull though. Rachel sounded like every girl in the song at the end of a Disney movie, when the credits roll. A 90s diva. Definitely an older, dated sound here. C+

"I Want You Back" - The Warblers. We love the a cappella sound and their background noises. They probably spit so much though. We think Sebastian’s voice is too high and thin to really compete with Blaine’s, but this song was pretty good. Short though. B-

"Never Can Say Goodbye" - Quinn. Finally! We actually love Quinn’s voice. It’s not a powerhouse, but it’s pleasant. She rarely gets to sing. Her voice reminds us a little of Natasha Bedingfield’s in this song. B+

"Scream" - Artie and Mike Chang. Artieeeeeee. Just stop. We had trouble listening to this whole song. C-

"Smooth Criminal" - Santana and Sebastian. Pairing these two is an interesting idea and this is a great song. We had high hopes for this number and it delivered. Santana even sounded a little different than she usually does. She sounded kind of sweet and even dipped into her higher register more. We liked the variation. We’re sure to download this one. It’s one of those songs that as soon as we heard it the first time, we immediately wanted to hear it again. One of us saw the clip on hulu and the context makes it even better. A

"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" - Blaine and New Directions. We love us some Blaine. B

Overall, the songs should satisfy people who have been waiting to hear Glee cover lots of Michael Jackson. One of us doesn’t really GET Michael Jackson but still enjoyed most of these songs. Music-wise, this should be a great episode. You just know there is so much opportunity for good dancing here. The performances should be amazing. Overall grade for sound only: B. We anticipate that will go up to an A or A- once the performances are paired with it. We're gonna go listen to "Smooth Criminal" again.

You can listen to the songs for yourselves here: http://www.gleethemusic.com/us/episode/michael

Southland - Underwater

Lucy Liu’s Jessica Tang is still around, even though it still says “guest star” in the credits. How long will she be on the show, we wonder? And yet, we are too lazy to try to look it up. We are as lazy as Tang. Lydia Adams’ new partner, Reuben, is also still around, and we find him boring and forgettable. We’re surprised we know his name. We didn’t catch it last week.

Tang, Cooper, Dewey, Rueben, and Lydia find a handbag with a severed arm still attached to the handle. Nice. Inside the purse is I.D. for a rich woman named “Meredith Williams.” Tang and Cooper are to notify the husband. When Mr. Williams is told of his wife’s demise, he laughs and the house’s butler says, “The witch is dead” in Spanish. The entire house seems to celebrate and the cops, weirded out, walk away. Lydia and Rueben look for the man who ran down Meredith Williams and find him in his garage. He had a few to drink the night before and though he hit a coyote. Oops! Also, how drunk do you have to be to think a person is a coyote or to not check. He is put under arrest, which is good, because if you are THAT drunk and you even consider driving, you deserve what you get.

Lydia and her boring partner are then called to investigate a homicide that occurred in a convenience store. The victim was a prison snitch named Mac Logan. He was a key witness against a man named Darrell Miller who spent 22 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit. He was released when DNA evidence exonerated him. Lydia and Rueben go to Miller’s house, where he is uncooperative. When Miller leaves, they knock again and are admitted into the residence by Miller’s grandma, who has dementia. Wildly illegal. They find the evidence they need though. Rueben thinks Miller’s victim got what he deserved for getting an innocent man sent to prison and wonders if he and Lydia should just toss the evidence against Miller. Lydia disagrees. Hey, Rueben, just tell the court about how you guys got the evidence without knowing consent to search the house, and Miller will get off without you breaking any rules.

Cooper tries to find out about Tang’s personal life, but she is tight-lipped. Tang has to be the laziest cop on this show. Last week, she spent the day trying to get food from a taco truck. This week, she sees a naked jogger and, rather than arresting him, tells him that he can’t run around here, but he can run down the freeway. That way he will be busted by highway patrol and she won’t have to do it. Nice one, Tang. Jeez. Karma hits when Cooper and Tang spot a man running down the street, fully on fire. You give up an easy, disgusting case and you get a hard, disgusting case. Let that be a lesson to Tang. Also, the man got caught on fire while he was in a porn shop, so Tang had to go in there and investigate. Ha. We kind of like Tang though, laziness aside.

Sammy has a pool party attended by Ben, shirtless. Ben makes out with a cute female cop. Another cop comments that white boys get the hottest girls. Well…ok then. That was a random and weirdly racist comment. Ben and Sammy have a new captain, Captain Rucker, who is played by Carl Lumbly, Sidney’s partner on Alias. Hell yeah. His policy is that the cops will be hard-asses, cleaning up the streets, and for every mistake they make, they will have to fill out one line of a McDonalds application. He hands these applications out. We feel bad for all the people who work hard for a LIVING at McDonalds and get this crap from everywhere.

Ben’s sweet side is not on display as much in this episode, and we don’t like it. We guess it’s good to have a rounded character, but it’s weird to see Ben act like a saint last week and a horn-dog who punches women in the face this week. We’ll get to that… Anyway, Ben teases a female officer and Sammy suggests that he just ask for her number. Ben says the middle-school method is more fun. The sweet side makes a brief comeback when Sammy and Ben bust an underage hooker with a crack pipe. Sammy’s plan is to turn her into a C.I. so the cops can use her and Ben’s is to call social services or something and get her out of “the life.” Sammy names Ben “Captain Save-a-Ho” and the hooker lets them know where she got the drugs. We guess Sammy won that one.

They arrest the people at the stash house. There was a little drama where one of the suspects escaped, and that ends with Ben yelling at a woman for letting the suspect hide in her house. He’s all, “See if we ever answer a call down here again!” and the woman responds with, “No one asks you to come down here.” It almost gets ugly, but Sammy pulls Ben away.

We find out later that Ben is starting to get jaded. He says, “I wanted to make a difference. You know it's funny, I used to think about how these kids grew up. No parents, drug abuse, hungry. [Now] I ain't a social worker.” We hope Ben finds a happy medium between wide-eyed, too-trusting softy and the a-hole he’s becoming now. Next, he and his colleagues deal with a crazy cat lady and we have no time to go into that. There are just too many cases and incidences in one episode. It’s The Vampire Diaries of cop shows.

Ben and Sammy have to shut down a dance party in a parking lot when the property owner calls police to evict the hooligans. One of the teens girls pushes Ben, so he has to arrest her for putting her hands on a police officer. Her friend starts defending her, slapping Ben and then spitting in his face. Wow that is a) a good friend and b) a dumb friend. Ben punches her in the face. We were taught that men shouldn’t hit women, but we would have hit this bitch too. It was a huge overreaction and both Ben’s captain and Sammy chastised him for it. And that girl cop Ben was teasing? She handed him a McDonald's application. Zing. We guess. This episode brought a lot more humor than usual.

In other news, Dewey is a chubby chaser. 

Episode grade: B

Our Instant Reactions to the Oscar Nominations, Especially the Snubs

There were lots of glaring snubs this year, and we are not pleased. Even for a year with mostly lame movies, there were a few that deserved to be rewarded. How many accolades do The Artist and The Descendants need? Spread the love around, why don’t you? We wish War Horse would just go away. Manipulative drivel. We are happy about the love for the very weird The Tree of Life. We are also glad about Nick Nolte’s nod for Warrior and Demian Bichir’s nod for A Better Life. Those are both underrated and under-seen movies. Ern just saw Warrior and loved it.

Poor Albert Brooks! He should have gotten a nod for Drive if only because Drive should have gotten some sort of nominations in a big category. It wasn’t exactly Oscar bait, but it was our favorite movie of the year. Brooks’ tweet after the nods came out was, “And to the Academy: You don’t like me. You really don’t like me.” Oh Al, we like you! Jonah Hill was good in Moneyball, but it’s baffling to us that he got the spot and not Brooks. We’re also surprised that Ryan Gosling wasn’t nominated for anything.

There were two break-out stars this year that did wonderfully in multiple movies and received lots of Oscar buzz. One, Jessica Chastain, was recognized for The Help. We like her unique look and obvious range. She did funny in The Help, deep in The Tree of Life, and dramatic in The Debt. The other break-out actor, Michael Fassbender, was snubbed for Shame, even though most people assumed that was a slam-dunk for the actor. We’re surprised as well. Maybe the message or content of the movie turned voters off? Or maybe Fassbender isn’t as well-known among industry insiders as Brad Pitt and George Clooney. We would have been rooting for Gary Oldman anyway. We have a feeling that newcomer Fassbender will get another chance at an Oscar and Oldman has been deserving of AT LEAST a nomination for years.

Ern is not happy that Harry Potter didn’t get a best picture nomination. It wouldn’t have won, but it should have gotten a spot in order to honor what that cast and crew did for ten years making those unfilmable books into decent movies. It was powerful and it got rave reviews from all the critics. We have no patience for genre bias. Freaking Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close got a nomination and not Bridesmaids or Harry Potter? Rotten Tomatoes needs its own awards show.

We are both really bummed that Shailene Woodley didn’t get a nomination for The Descendants. She was probably our favorite part of that movie. We are glad Rooney Mara got a nod, but she’s not going to win, so we are not THAT glad. We are rooting for Michelle Williams in that category anyway, because Charlize Theron was snubbed, and we like Williams as a person. We’re pretty happy about Melissa McCarthy, but, again, she probably won’t win. How was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo not nominated for Best Original Score?!! The Artist is obviously going to win, but still. We've made our love for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross pretty well-known on this blog.

There should be a new category called “best Meryl Streep performance” so that she can just compete against herself. We are glad that Rango is probably going to get a win, and Leeard is glad that Angelina Jolie didn’t get nominated for the movie she directed. Leeard is also happy that a Polish film was nominated, even though A Separation will take that prize. 

Overall attitude: Whatever. And TEAM GARY OLDMAN.