Movies We Hate

Ern just watched a dud of a movie. Eat Pray Love. Leeard warned her not to do it, but Ern did not listen. It was loooooong, boring, shallow, stupid, and lame. Note to Hollywood: Watching someone travel to find themselves isn't as entertaining as you would think. It's much better to do it. This should have been called "You Had to Be There-- The Movie." Ern will never betray Rotten Tomatoes again...

It's going on the list of movies we hate, along with Doomsday (listed first for a reason), Natural Born Killers, Alexander, Mean Girls 2, any Fast and Furious movie, Lucky Number Slevin (Leeard actually enjoys this movie. Ern just hates revenge, unless it's done by Tarantino), The Ultimate Gift, The Bounty Hunter, Kingdom of Heaven, The English Patient, Seven Pounds, The Last Samurai, P.S. I Love You (Leeard loves this movie. Ern note: WHY?), Cop Out, The Da Vinci Code, Happy Feet, Hachi, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (Ugh, more revenge. Grace is so much more core-rocking, thus, Les Miserables being the best musical ever), The Ugly Truth, A Very Long Engagement, Mr. Brooks, Repo Men, The Day After Tomorrow (Leeard likes this movie, too), Avatar, Hitman, Good Luck Chuck, Law Abiding Citizen, Crank, Beowulf, Miss Congeniality 2, Shrek the Third, Australia, Midnight Express, Ultraviolet, the latest Indiana Jones movie, the last two Pirates of the Caribbeans, the Planet of the Apes remake, The Number 23, Blue Velvet, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (a technically "good" movie that made one of us fall asleep four times), Mary Reilly, Made of Honor, The One, Wanted, A Night at the Roxbury, Swept Away (or really almost any movie starring Madonna), Battlefield Earth, The Hottie and the Nottie, From Justin to Kelly, any Tyler Perry movie (except for I Can Do Bad All By Myself, because that was watchable), Down With Love, Primer (why make a movie where no one is going to care and 90% of the world won't understand it? It's just a bunch of nerds showing off), Daredevil, Catwoman, Eragon, and the latest Die Hard. The action was just too unrealistic to even suspend reason long enough to enjoy it. Has anyone heard of the laws of physics? And 87-pound Maggie Q could not throw a man around like that. (Leeard loves this movie with her entire heart. Ern put this on the list and Leeard disapproves. But hey, Ern likes Madonna, so we're even).

The above movies are dead to us.

Oh yeah, and Donnie Darko. We know, many of you want to shoot us in the face for saying that. But we will live our whole lives and never get the hype with that movie. Also, A Clockwork Orange and Million Dollar Baby are movies that one of us doesn't care for, even though they are revered. One of us LOVES A Clockwork Orange. We do actually have different tastes sometimes. About 5% of the time, but each of us feels strongly about the stuff in that 5%.

The Vampire Diaries - The Descent recap/review

FINALLY.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH that was a long break.

The episode delivered though. It didn't blow us away or shock us, but a lot happened that will keep the plot moving quickly.

Most of the episode focused on Rose’s slow death by werewolf bite, Damon’s futile attempts to save her, and Elena’s futile attempts to babysit/comfort her. Rose turned delusional from the bite, thought Elena was Katherine, ran around the house looking for blood, and finally escaped and killed three random people. Damon found her and took her home. Rose tried to convince Elena that she was lucky to have loving protectors and that Elena should try harder to live. Using his mind-powers, Damon gave Rose a beautiful dream where she was back in her homeland, with Damon, and human. She talked to him about how much she missed being human. As they laughed and teased each other in the dream, Damon staked her in the heart, ending her suffering. A tear rolled down his face. We didn’t like Rose, or her poor attempt at a decent accent, but we were actually sad when she died (one of us cried big, fat tears). The dream scene was sweet and got our emotions involved. Elena tried to comfort Damon, but he claimed he didn’t care that Rose died and brushed Elena off. Elena snagged a hug and then left him to his drinking.

Matt caught up with Caroline, kissed her, and asked her to get back together. Caroline still doesn’t want him getting caught up in her dangerous drama, so she turned him down. She got home at the end of a long, Matt-filled day, and Tyler was at her door. He kissed her too, and it looked like she enjoyed it (who wouldn’t?). She refused him too, yelled, “Everyone just needs to stop kissing me,” and went into her house. Poor girl (sarcasm, because both of those guys are really hot).

Jules, the werewolf who bit Rose, is still around, hating on the vampires, being snarky, and killing people in the woods. We are calling BS on the whole “I transformed and ate people last night, but when I wake up in the woods, my hair looked like I’d just had it styled for my beauty pageant” thing. Near the end of the episode, Tyler and Jules sat down at the Grill together, and she told him some things that are really going to put a wrench in everything. A) She knows he is a werewolf, B) Caroline is just one of the many vampires in town, and she lied to him about being the only one, and C) that Caroline killed Mason. LIES (well, that last thing, anyway). But he is going to go crazy.

Stefan sought about tracking down Isobel to get information on Klaus so that he could get Elena out of her deal with him/save Elena’s life. It wasn’t an epic quest; it simply involved getting Isobel’s number from Alaric. Stefan left a message and it looks like Isobel sent Uncle/Father John Gilbert to help. That should be interesting. We KNEW the show had a reason for keeping him alive.

Consumed with grief and guilt (the bite was meant for him), Damon wandered the streets, drunkenly. He laid down in the road. A woman stopped her car and got out to help him, and he compelled her to stand still while he released a tirade of emotion. He told her that he missed being human—a LOT. He was crying and screaming and speechifying, and she was begging for her life. Damon told her that she could go, but at the last moment, he bit her in the neck, killing her. Oh, Damon. You’re going to have to deal with all of those emotions sometime….

Everything that we knew was going to happen happened, and then some. This show is wasting no time, as usual, getting the ball rolling and our characters in the loop of what the audience already knows. We’ve got a great set-up for next week (and potentially the rest of the season).

Episode grade: B+

The Office - The Seminar recap/review

This week’s episode should get a good review just for having a surprise Ricky Gervais cameo. He and Michael met at an elevator and had a zany conversation about good comedy. We wish the show wasn’t just teasing us and that Ricky would stay a little longer, but we will take what we can get. That said, that moment could have been written better. It wasn’t as funny as we wanted it to be. The point of it was to make us all go, “Oh look! The guy from the British version of The Office! He’s the British Michael!”

Andy held a small business seminar in the conference room to increase his sales. He recruited some of the people from the office to help (Stanley, Phyllis, and Dwight), but they bailed when they saw that the attendees were mostly duds. Jim bailed when he saw a childhood friend in the conference room. His mother had tried to limit their interactions because Jim was in a higher reading group at school than his little friend. In elementary school, Jim told his friend that his mom said they couldn’t hang out because he was dumber than Jim. Embarrassed at his past rudeness, Jim wanted to avoid the adult version of this boy. He spent most of the day in the parking lot and ended up running into the man anyway. The man mocked Jim for working at a paper company and joked about Jim being a genius. It was awkward, but we liked it.

Erin spent most of the day trying to beat Gabe at Scrabble on their phones. Whoever wins these games gets to pick the movie the couple watches. Gabe had won all past games, obviously, and kept making her watch horror movies. Erin wanted to watch Wall-E. Oscar and Pam tried to help her win this time, but she lost anyway. Erin is so dumb. But this time, she was actually kind of cute. After she lost, Gabe decided to compromise by getting a horror movie that featured a robot. Sort of like Wall-E. Then Andy stopped by and handed her Shrek 2 to borrow. Hopefully he gets her back soon. Or she dies. And he dies. One day, maybe, we will learn to love Andy and Erin, but right now, they are our least favorite characters.

Andy got Kevin, Creed, and Kelly to step in. Kevin trying to fire up the people at the conference was a laugh-out-loud montage of hilarity. And we love Kelly branding herself the “Business Bitch.” Michael pretended to be Greek all day (with an accent that sounded more Italian) and he spent a lot of time trying to get Holly to join him. Holly caved and became Greek too, and both she and Michael served as “plants” in the conference to start people buying Andy’s sales package. Stanley, Phyllis, and Dwight wanted back in on the deal when they found out that Andy’s conference was going well, but Darryl told Andy that they were users and to refuse them. Andy ended up making three sales.

Not enough Dwight for our liking, but this was still a decent episode. It isn't as good as the ones written by Mindy Kaling recently, but it continued The Office's streak of watchability. We think that the loss of Mindy Kaling and Kelly could actually be more devastating for us than the loss of Michael Scott ... We hope that Mindy's statement about possibly leaving the show turns out to be an empty musing.

Grade: B

Fringe - Reciprocity recap/review

Olivia, Peter, and Walter went to Massive Dynamic to check out the machine that could destroy both universes. The machine and the technology around it acted up when Peter walked into the room. Tests were done on Peter, but they came up empty. Shapeshifters started popping up, murdered, and the gang investigated that. They figured out that there had to be a mole in Massive Dynamic, and everyone with access to Fauxlivia’s journal that contained the identities of shapeshifters (hidden by a code, of course) was questioned.

Walter is still trying to grow back his brains. Astrid and Olivia went through Fauxlivia’s diary and notes to get a lead on the dead shapeshifters. In the end, it turned out that Peter was killing the shapeshifters, because they were threats and assassins, obviously. Walter figured it out and caught him just after he killed the last one. Also, as Walter hypothesized, the machine/weapon “weaponized” Peter. Because Peter came in contact with it, it altered him and made him into a killer. Peter argued that he just wanted to be proactive and get information. Walter, saddened, told Peter that this “wasn’t him” and that he had been changed. Turned to the dark side, dun dun dunnnn. Walter did not tell Olivia, but we have a feeling that the truth will come out. It is Fringe, after all.

We’re not sure how we feel about this episode or this new development in Peter’s psyche. We like Peter the way he is, but we are intrigued at the idea of a changed, more deadly Peter. Mixed emotions. But we can appreciate a curveball.

As great as this season has been, we can imagine that we would have enjoyed it more if we had waited for the DVD box and marathoned it. That might be the option we take if there is a season four, and we actually think that there will be.

Episode grade: B

Bones - The Bullet in the Brain recap/review

This week on Bones, the death of one Big Bad gave way to a new Big Bad.

The Gravedigger, a former prosecutor, liked to bury people alive, including burying Brennan and Hodgins, and trapping Booth. The manipulative baddie was trying to win an appeal, and she was riding to the courthouse with Sweets. She tried to intimidate Sweets by calling him the weakest part of the group, saying that if he testified it would benefit her. It worked. Sweets was completely wigged out. Ok, she’s scary, but we’re not buying that she is THAT scary. Sweets knows that she is a manipulative creep and, as a smart guy and a shrink, shouldn’t have let her get to him.

As they exited to walk to the courthouse, a sniper blew The Gravedigger’s head off, blasting Sweets with blood and getting chunks of skull and brains all over the ground. Nice. And disgusting. Although, it’s amazing that they can show something that nasty on network, prime time television nowadays.

Hodgins was ecstatic when he heard of The Gravedigger’s fate, and Angela was concerned at his approval of the man who shot her. Booth drew up a suspect list of possible vigilantes who could have made such a difficult shot. Brennan’s father, Max, was on it. Max showed up to prove to Brennan that he didn’t do it, because her opinion was the only opinion that mattered to him. As it turns out, Max could not have made the shot, and he was able to show Brennan and Booth that he wasn’t in town at the time of the shooting.

Sweets was still upset at the memory of The Gravedigger’s words bashing his skills (and the sight of her brain matter on his nice suit). But prosecutor Caroline gave him a lecture that smacked him right back into reality, and in a vulnerable moment, she admitted that she “messed herself” when The Gravedigger got shot in front of her, because she was scared. She asked Sweets not to tell anyone. We respect Caroline so much that we feel bad telling you that she messed herself on this blog. It was a sweet, brave moment where she reached out to Sweets in empathy, throwing away her tough-as-nails image for a moment to help him out. Good character moment.

The Squints and Brennan found out where the sniper was sitting when he shot The Gravedigger, and Booth and Brennan went to that location—an apartment. There was a dead escort in the bathtub, and that image was even nastier than The Gravedigger’s blown-off skull fragments. The escort lived in the apartment and had been warned by the sniper to get lost that day. She didn’t, so she became a casualty.

Booth narrowed the list of suspects down to just a few snipers, and they were all men that he knew, because men so skilled operated in a small circle. The final suspect was a man who shot a suspect despite instructions from his superiors, because he wanted to ensure the safety of a hostage. Booth knew and admired the man, but when the evidence pointed to him, Booth didn’t deny it. He found the man and confronted him, but the sniper got away.

Decent start to the sniper arc, and some good continuity and character development.

Episode grade: B+

Community - Celebrity Pharmacology recap/review

And the show opens with Troy and Abed dressed as bumblebees. This show is so great. They're dressed up as bumblebees, along with Britta and Jeff as cool cats and Shirley as a crayon, because Annie is directing an anti-drug play. Pierce is playing the marijuana leaf. Obviously. We do love that the gang is supporting Annie in this effort, even if it's not usually their scene (Britta, Jeff). The dean shows up wearing a bumblebee outfit, leading Annie to ask if he wants to be in the play. Oh Annie, do you not watch your own show? Of course the dean has creepy plans that involve him dressing up.

Jeff discovers that Britta doesn't like flirting via text, which leads him to flirt for her. Unfortunately, he ends up sending some highly inappropriate texts to her nephew instead of the guy she's potentially interested in. This leads Jeff to give Britta's bra to her nephew in exchange for never telling anyone what he did.

Annie is having financial problems, since her parents cut her off for going to rehab. Over-reaction much? Your daughter is seeking help for a problem and you decide to not give her any financial support? Bad form, Annie's mom, but a hilarious picture of WASP reactions to issues (sweep them under the rug). Pierce follows her home (to her apartment above Dildopolis - ha) and decides to give her money. This leads to Pierce controlling Annie, which is exactly what she didn't want, and why she hasn't taken money from her parents. They work it out in the end, and we like Pierce a little more now. Their scenes do lead to some hilarious lines, including Annie calling Dildopolis a "marital aid store" and Pierce saying "you save your eggs for a rainy day" when Annie mentioned possibly selling her eggs for cash. Ultimately, Annie decides to get a job. Isn't she supposed to be smart? Getting a job is the most obvious response to not having money. It confused us that she would think about selling her eggs before she thought about getting a job. We get that it can be difficult to get one, but to not even think about it? Weird. We guess if you've never gotten one before, you might think it's harder than it is. However, she mentioned that she's had a job before, so we're still confused.

The kids seem to actually think Pierce is funny in the play, which is kind of unexpected. He goes off the deep end (which is less unexpected), with a clown wig and sparklers. The kids continue to laugh, and Pierce is drunk on the applause from the kids. The kids start throwing the "drug free baseballs" at the gang and it takes Chang to get the show back on point. He dressed up as drugs "after they stop being fun and start being crazy/turn on you." Chang goes to his batshit crazy place and gets beaten up by the kids. It's pretty awesome. Apparently, he's actually part of the group now. Shirley was ignoring Chang for a while, and he was trying to get her attention because she might be carrying his child. At the end of the episode, Shirley acknowledged him. We really hope the baby is Chang's. It will make the show interesting. HA.

If you've watched this show before, the episode is a lot better than this recap made it seem. There were a lot of funny lines and moments that we can't mention, due to time and length-of-recap restrictions. If you want it all, watch it on hulu. It was sweet, funny, and slightly insane - just how we like our Community. One of the best "drug" episodes of a comedy that we have seen.

Episode Grade: A-

American Idol - Nashville, Tennessee auditions

Oh Nashville. You better be good. (Side note: one of the bloggers visited Nashville a few months ago and loved it. She's expecting a lot from this episode).

And they start off with a guy who thinks screaming is singing. Awesome. Though in all fairness, Steven Tyler is a judge, so we can see where he might've thought that was a good idea. We're ignoring the next contestant, Christine McCaffrey, because no. She has a chipmunk voice and made us agree with Randy, which we don't enjoy. America Idol, we thought you were better this season.

Chelsee Oaks and Rob Bolin - exes who still duet. This should be interesting, especially since they're both getting through to Hollywood. We think Rob has the better voice, but she's adorable. Also, they sound really good together and had excellent song choices. JLo and Steven tried to get them back together, which was cute. We're definitely going to remember these two. There's an awkward bit after the judging with Chelsee's current boyfriend that was ... telling.

Next, we get the obligatory "Steven and Randy are dirty old men" segment. Ignoring that. Allen Lewis is hilarious and has the best laugh, but cannot sing. At least not by himself. Again, we agree with Randy; he probably would sound a lot better with a band. This whole agreeing with Randy thing better not become a pattern. The next girl is Stormi Henley. She was Miss Teen USA. Of course she was. She's gorgeous and very personable, but doesn't have a great voice. They put her through, though. We'll see.

Then, we have a gaggle of bad singers who we, fortunately, don't have to hear. Adrienne Beasley is a black woman who was adopted at the age of two by a white family, and they are all adorable. She doesn't have the best voice in the competition, but she gave us chills, which doesn't happen too often. Steven Tyler had some coherent comments, which Leeard greatly appreciated. Her dad is "tickled" that she made it through to Hollywood.

Someone screams some Chaka Khan at us for way too long and again, Randy is trying too hard to be the new Simon. When Steven Tyler is the voice of reason, you need to re-evaluate your decisions. A montage of bad singers follows, and one of them has to be told by Ryan that "it's just an audition". Can they make posters of that and hand it to everyone who walks out crying? Thank goodness we have Jackie Wilson next. Her voice is not at all what we were expecting, and it's great. She's going to Hollywood, obviously. And then she makes out with someone who looks like he could be her dad. Creepy. We're going to pretend that didn't happen, along with the next contestant. Younique is a cute girl, but slightly delusional.

They follow her up with three great guys. Leeard would buy Paul McDonald's cd right now. His version of "Maggie May" was wonderful. The next guy, Jimmie Allen, is very enthusiastic and enjoyable. The final one, Danny Pate, is great and got the judges into his song - an excellent move. All of them go through. The next Idol Sob Story is about Matt Dillard and his family, who have hosted over 700 special needs foster children. We like him as a person, but his voice wasn't as good as the previous three. He gets through, because apparently we don't have a vote.

They are hyping the final girl up so much. Lauren Alaina (ANOTHER 15 year old) started singing because of her cousin, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor three years ago. Three sob stories in one episode? Come on, Idol. This is the Season of Stories, apparently. Anyway, she's totally worth the hype and the sob story, because she's fantastic. Great, great voice and very exciting. She brings her family in and then sings "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" with Steven Tyler, which is her parents' song. It's pretty awesome as well.

Well, way to go, American Idol. You took an episode that was easily a B and made it an A with one girl.

American Idol - Milwaukee, Wisconsin auditions

Some of the positive changes the show has made have started fading. This episode, they showed more rejects, and they even had a montage of people crying. Has the show lost its new classy streak? We sure hope not. We feel bad for the people crying. They have to go home and face everyone they know after crying on national TV, and not in a sexy Tim-Tebow-crying-after-that-one-UF-game kind of way either, but in a pathetic, “I misjudged my ability, went for my dreams, and got crushed” kind of way. Still, the contestant intros and stories feel less like the American Idol people are feeding them canned lines, and it’s starting to feel a lot more real, rather than cheesy and packaged. But did this episode really have to be two hours long?

Despite Steven Tyler’s disgusting habit of hitting on underage girls, he is quickly becoming one blogger's favorite judge. He is saving all of the best people! He favors the contestants with character. Remember last week when he saved the Broadway girl? We loved last night when he saved the sweet little 15-year-old girl, Emma Henry, who Randy thought was going to get eaten up in the competition. She probably WILL get eaten up. Reality TV is a cold competition, but we say let it happen. She will learn something, and you should at least give her a chance. If she doesn’t do well, she can always try again with a little more knowledge next time. And who knows? Maybe she will find some inner strength and do well this time. The point is, Steven Tyler appreciates that you have to be different and unique to stand out in the competition. The other judges are more into commercial pop. Steven is a crazy, horny old loon, but he fights for the contestants that snap him out of his laid-back, nutso rocker zone. Randy is trying to be the new Simon, but he’s overplaying it. He even hit a contestant in the face (albeit accidently). Leeard thinks his newfound mean streak is coming off as fake.

On the contestants: That first kid, Scott McCreery, has a voice that is pure country butter. Leeard, as the resident country music lover, thinks he's amazing. It elicited the remark "Hellfire, save matches, f--- a duck, and see what hatches” from Steven Tyler, which was nice, and just the sort of critique we have come to expect from this 62-year-old who squeals notes like he's onstage every half-hour or so.

The radio guy, Joe Repka (“I’m gonna shoot this straight to the moon!”), is seriously a combination of nearly every guy who has ever asked Ern out. Sadly, Ern is a major Oblivious Creep-magnet. But she laughed at this guy. The guys who ask Ern out take rejection just as well as this guy did too. They just keep on trying, never getting the hint. We also kind of liked Naima.

We disagreed with one of the yeses, Thia Megia, who sang “Chasing Pavements,” and was loud and on-key, so she got through. But she tried to sound soulful, and it sounded a little forced/unnatural. Also, did anyone else dislike how she was pronouncing some words? Bizarre. We liked the white house intern’s voice, but Leeard didn’t want to. When the Harvard-graduate intern (Molly Swenson) was talking, Leeard though, “Wow, she seems like an a-hole,” and then she didn’t have anyone with her at the audition. Also, she was in love with Barack Obama, who neither blogger voted for. (And it’s not about race or money or where he was born, it was just that he didn’t have the experience to back up his words, and the other guy did.) But we thought it was fun to have such a smart, accomplished contestant go through. And speaking of smarties, we both want to marry the accountant. (Note: Leeard obviously wins this competition since she's actually an accountant and Ern's first reaction when she saw him was "ew, an accountant"). He’s another favorite with an awesome voice. In fact, these two were probably the best contestant's last night.

We had a couple of dud contestants who were obviously not serious, including the Packers fan who sang “opera” Justin Beiber and the Civil War re-enactor. We loved Steven Tyler’s reaction to the Civil War guy. He pretended to approve of him. The guy, who was acting crazy to be funny, actually looked scared for a second when Tyler was talking about what he liked in the performance of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” He hadn’t expected approval. Ern laughed at that one woman who butchered "Loving You" and then reamed the judges for not putting her through because she was an overweight woman.

That Scott Dangerfield guy (who was J-Lo’s favorite) has the personality of a star, along with a decent voice. His charisma is more remarkable than his voice. Allie, the rabid Steven Tyler fan, should not have gotten through. But we are glad we didn’t have to watch her get her heart broken by her idol. And we like that J-Lo is looking for variety.

Of course, the water cooler moment of the night was the last contestant, Chris Medina, who sang The Script and had a fiancé who got in an accident months before their wedding and suffered brain damage because of it. Remember? He stayed with her and takes care of her, along with her mother. He said that if he made it to Hollywood, it would give his fiancé a reason to be happy. Leeard cried and Ern sucked it up, but it was a near-miss. So sweet and so sad. We hope this guy does well, because he had one of the best Idol Sob Stories of the show’s history.

News - The Dark Tower and The Office

Even if none of you care about The Dark Tower, and even if no one has read the excellent books by Stephen King, we will be covering the TV/movie adaptation extensively, so everyone can just deal with it. It rocks.

It rocks a little less now though. Ron Howard and Co. have offered Javier Bardem the lead role of Roland. First off, is the accent going to fit? Will none of the other characters have an accent? Also, this guy can be a little stiff. Roland has to be warm one moment and cold another. We can't picture Bardem tugging at our heart strings in scenes with Jake.

Whatever. We are still pulling for fan-favorite Viggo Mortensen. Or, as Ern's cousin suggested, Christian Bale.

As for The Office, Will Ferrell will be one of the bosses they bring in to phase Steve Carell out. He will have some episodes with Steve, and then one without him, and then he will leave. He should help the transition go smoothly, but one blogger has never thought he was funny. We will both still be watching though.

Southland - Code 4 recap/review

Whoa. Holy Moly. Sadness. Amazingness. Wow.

Yesterday, Southland shocked us by killing a very main character in a pretty brutal fashion. It started with Sammy sitting in a hall (later revealed to be a hospital, but we had guessed that), looking depressed and then hearing a woman’s scream. You would think it would be Tammi having baby trouble, but it wasn’t. We were completely unprepared for the actual death. There weren’t any spoilers, the episode didn’t hint at it, the season didn’t hint at it, they didn’t do a whole cheesy episode focused on just that one character (like, say, LOST would have). Meredith Grey didn’t do a voiceover. It happened quickly and we actually didn’t believe it for a few minutes. It was just like when someone really dies (only it’s on TV, so we are a little less sad).

Even without the shocking twist, this episode was fantastic. Sammy moved in with Nate and his family to get away from the cheating Tammi and the restraining order. He lost his temper a lot in the episode. Lydia worked on a murder case, but when she found the killer, the guy claimed that he was working (and killing) for the dead guy’s 14-year-old nephew. Apparently, “Gizmo” is already a crime lord, and he still lives with his mom. In a great scene, Lydia knocked on the door and confronted Gizmo, telling him that the police were onto him, even though they couldn’t prove it yet. LOVE Lydia. Love the absence of her annoying partner.

Cooper thinks Ben is being careless because he thinks he has a handle on this cop thing now. Ben made tons of HILARIOUS mistakes in the episode, causing Cooper to haze him in front of other cops and make jokes. Ben told Cooper that it was getting old, and Cooper came back with something like, “You’re more dangerous now than when you first got out of the academy. Now you are more likely to get someone killed. In 90 days, you won’t have someone to watch your back and the guy who draws the short straw is going to be relying on you to stay alive.” Youch. The picture, by the way, is one of the consequences of a Ben mistake.

Nate and Sammy spent most of the episode trying to get a young, female witness to identify some suspects who murdered a dad on his way to buy his 5-year-old son a birthday cake. They did it for street cred, natch. Nate showed her the victim’s children and wife standing in the yard, told her a little about himself, and finally cracked her. Sammy and Nate were riding home in their car and chatting when someone in a big bunch of gangters threw something at their car. They got out of the car to handle that, and Nate Moretta got bashed in the head, and it looked like he was killed instantly. It took a long time for Sammy to drag Nate into a cop car, because he had to fend off the rest of the gangsters with his gun. Other cops showed up, and Sammy and Nate rode away. The episode cut back to the hospital scene, and Nate’s wife was screaming and crying. She walked out in the hallway and hugged Sammy, and they both just kind of crumbled to the ground. It was really, really sad.

It seemed like it was just going to be a normal episode. So, so wrong. It was totally entertaining, and every storyline and case was right-on and interesting. And then they topped it off with that ending, and they executed it so perfectly and surprised us so much. Southland is going to get the best grade so far of the new year. Sad though. Nate was one of the best characters on the show. He was a really good and funny guy. He will be missed.

Episode Grade: A+

Gossip Girl - The Kids are Not Alright recap/review

It's about time Gossip Girl came back. It's not as good as it was in seasons 1 and 2, but we like our Mondays better with it than without it, thanks.

Blair was looking for an internship to become a Powerful Woman, which, as we remember, is the reason she left Chuck (proving that ego IS stronger than love???). She looked on a list of powerful women and ran into Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo. Blair started stalking Indra’s whereabouts and found that Eleanor Waldorf was going to dress her for an event that very night. So when Blair’s mom offered her an internship with Waldorf designs, Blair accepted, all the while scheming to get close to Indra. Dan warned Blair that it would blow up in her face, and it did. Eleanor cottoned on, and she was hurt that her daughter sought out powerful female role models and Eleanor wasn’t really on the list. She fired Blair and Blair never got to meet Indra. After this, Dan talked to Blair and made Blair decide that her mother was actually a good Powerful Woman figure. She went to her mother and made nice. The two decided that Blair should be a fashion editor/critic, not a designer.

Serena and Chuck teamed up to blackmail Lily. Chuck wanted his empire back and Serena wanted Ben freed from prison. Serena dressed up like her mother and got into Lily’s safe deposit box at the bank. Chuck commented that Serena dressing up like her mother and him acting like her son turned him on. Chuck, you’re so weird. In the safe deposit box was a copy of the affidavit Lily had forged. Any decent handwriting analyst would be able to figure out it wasn’t Serena’s real signature condemning Ben. Lily was hiding the judge involved in the old case in her hotel, and Eric found out about that and joined Serena, tipping her off about how evil their mom was being. Serena tried to hand the affidavit to a reporter at the party everyone attended, but Dan replaced it with a different envelope and saved Lily. We kept talking to the screen, saying, “Doesn’t Serena realize that if this gets out, her mother will go to jail?” It turns out she didn’t; her mother had to inform her.

It turns out that Lily wasn’t all bad. She ended up getting Ben out of prison and she was trying to keep Chuck’s company intact. Chuck and Serena ruined that with their bickering, and a good buyer backed out when he heard about it. Chuck’s company was bought by one of his father’s old frenemies. Bart Bass had shoved this guy, Russell Thorpe, out of too many deals, and so Russell had a grudge against Bart and his empire. Russell told Chuck that he wants to dismantle Bass Industries and sell it in bits, destroying it.

Russell has a daughter, Raina, who is attractive and very into Chuck. One of the final scenes in the episode showed her offering to take him home, presumably for sex. He accepted and left with her. Raina is known for being direct and truthful, but that doesn’t stop her from being extremely coy with Chuck every time she sees him. Every girl knows you have to be coy to be sexy! Psh, it would have been more interesting if her directness transferred to her romantic life as well. We’ve seen the “Sexy Minx” role on this show before. Chuck is not the only one who has exchanged fluids with a Thorpe; Lily slept with Russell, too. The Captain, who is living with Nate and driving him crazy, is going to be working with Thorpe to get back into high circles.

Dan spent most of the episode trying to get a date with Serena, but she kept ditching him to work on her blackmailing project. This cost him an interview for an important internship. Serena confessed that she thinks she keeps testing him to see if one day he will just ditch HER, and they agreed that they shouldn’t date until they trust each other and the timing is right….which was weird. If she can’t trust Dan, how can she trust this new guy, Ben? She took Ben out for coffee after his release from prison. They are totally hooking up now. Dan and Blair went to another movie together.

Complaint: they are still in college. What’s with all of the business plotlines? Save those for the summer. We want young, catty drama. And does anyone really care what The Captain is doing? Nate’s dad needs to get interesting or ship out. His new job with the new enemy might make him useful, but during this episode, he was a dud.

Plenty of schemes, but not enough fun. Things wrapped up too neatly. But at least we have the Dan/Blair pairing to look forward to. We know they aren’t the endgame, and we would flip out if they were. It needs to be Chuck/Blair, Serena/Nate, and Dan/Jenny (incest would work for them). But, for now, we are just happy that Blair might start up with someone who isn’t Chuck or Nate. Chuck keeps getting all of these great post-Blair girlfriends. He doesn’t deserve them, so it’s time that Blair gets hers.

Episode grade: B-

Pretty Little Liars - Careful What You Wish For recap/review

This episode featured a school dance marathon, but instead of having to dance all night, people just got sponsors for number of dances they did with someone else. It made Leeard miss Gilmore Girls.

Aria’s mom brought Aria’s childhood babysitter, Simone, back to town to speak to her students, because the Simone is now a writer in New York City. Aria’s mom tried to hook Simone up with Mr. Fitz. Aria was disturbed, because Simone was nice, pretty, smart, and Mr. Fitz’s age. But, like predators everywhere, Mr. Fitz was only interested in wide-eyed, innocent lambs, so Aria kept her “man,” after some jealousy drama. Aria’s mom chaperoned and danced with Aria’s dad, but they did not get back together.

Maya’s parents had her cell phone programmed so that she could only make and receive calls from her parents. Hanna found a technology nerd for Emily to pay for programming Emily’s phone to be able to reach Maya’s. The tech nerd was decent-looking and offered to help Spencer break into Ian's desk at school (he's a coach), so we think that we can expect him to stick around. He could be useful ... When Emily spoke to Maya, she was upset that Maya didn’t sound like herself. She was already sounding hollow and brainwashed. At the dance marathon, Emily grabbed Hanna’s flask and got wasted.

Spencer spent most of the episode looking for her laptop, which was stolen, probably by Ian. Ian returned the laptop, but the video of him with Alison was gone, so the girls couldn’t give it to the police to free Toby. But there WAS a new picture of Alison the night of her murder, heading off into the night. A shadow followed her.

Hanna tried to get a job to get money for her family, but she had no luck. But at the dance, A texted Hanna, offering her hundreds of dollars for each dance with sad old Lucas. Hanna did it, and her jock boyfriend, Sean, broke up with her after she spent most of the night with her arms around Lucas. Emily reamed Hanna for toying with Lucas and told her that she was worse that Alison. Then Emily went up to Ian and said something like, “We all know what you did.” Spencer tried to convince him that Emily was talking about how he and Spencer had romantic encounters, but we don’t think he bought it.

After the night’s happenings, Lucas thought he had a chance with Hanna and asked to take her home. Hanna shot him down, saying that she promised her girlfriends she would ride home with them. Emily apologized to Hanna for what she said at the dance marathon, but Hanna agreed that she was horrible. At least she had hundreds of dollars for her family’s financial woes….

The episode ended with A (not shown, obviously) walking up to Aria’s mom after the dance to get black leather gloves and a black leather coat out of the coat-check. Aria’s mom spoke to A in a way that made it clear that she knows A and likes him/her enough to be friendly.

This episode felt a little frantic, but there was definitely a lot of drama and happenings. It was completely enjoyable. We even liked watching Aria almost blow her cover trying to take down Simone in a rage. We wish Aria had something else to do besides date Mr. Fitz. They need to get caught already.

Episode grade: A

Now that We've Seen Two Episodes...Here is the Off the Map review

Oh great. A show for those of us who want another Grey’s Anatomy, only with fewer characters and more wilderness. We were nervous immediately when the beginning of the show informed us that it takes place “Somewhere in South America.” Pull out your maps. This continent is huge. This tells us nothing. You never hear “somewhere in Asia” or “somewhere in North America.” We guess the show’s writers consider this continent to be unvaried/not special. Even if they don’t, that’s a stupid way to start the episode. Just have a character make a crack about being in South America, and you would tell us all you want us to know without making us question it. Duh. Also, did they just use a “jungle noises” sleeping sound maching to make the background sounds?

Then, the first episode was super self-conscious. It kept dogging white people coming to third-world countries to help. The title was “Saved by the Great White Hope.” We guess that the show had to make fun of itself in a politically correct way to stave off the critics doing it. We don’t think this should be a thing. No one should make fun of Americans (or anyone, really) going to help others. If you scoff at that just based on the principle of white people helping ethnic people, you’re racist. It’s people helping people. What, only Spanish people are supposed to help their own? Rich, young Americans SHOULD help poor people, so why is it PC to scoff at them when they do? Unless they are doing a bad job or adding to the problem, we don’t see why this episode gave so much lip service to the mocking of it. The first episode had a whole character devoted to judging the gringos (Zee). Funnily enough, we would have guessed that she was white until she started speaking with a Spanish accent. We hope now that the show is done covering its arse, it can get down to business.

The cases in both episodes were good though. A few of them had us genuinely concerned for the fictional patients involved. It was weird how so many of the young doctors didn’t know Spanish. There are plenty of Americans who know Spanish. They could have gotten some recruits that knew it out of hundreds of applicants. Heck, both Leeard and Ern speak more Spanish than these people, and they're the ones actually going to South America. You can’t throw a rock in either of our towns without hitting people who speak more Spanish than this. Unrealistic.

We could have guessed it was a Shonda Rhimes production as soon as a guy had his shirt off. Or how about when the frat guy (formerly Matt on Friday Night Lights) made a dramatic speech about his need for redemption to a guy who didn’t speak English. Call us softies, but we kind of liked the theme were the people needed redemption and new starts. It grounds the characters into some kind of story arc right away, even if it is heavy-handed and cheesy.

In the end, we decided that most of the problems with this show are going to fade away as soon as the introductions are in order and the show goes on. People with medical knowledge might scoff at the coconut transfusion or the flimsy attempt at CPR by one character (that’s supposed to be able to break RIBS, woman!). But we don’t care. We are already asking, “Will Lily get with Dr. Ben or will the redhead from Twilight get to keep him?” The second episode was already better than the first one. We are going to stick with this. It could turn out to be enjoyable. And who doesn’t love that Caroline Dhavernas is on TV again? Wonderfalls was way too long ago.

Grades for the episodes combined: B-

Fringe - The Firefly recap/review

Despite this being a pretty decent episode, the recap is going to be short, because the gist of what happened is simple. The Observer set up an elaborate experiment to see if Walter would sacrifice Peter to right the balance and/or save other lives. Turns out, Walter would, which is highly interesting and will set up lots of good fun for later in the show.

We also got to see Christopher Lloyd who played an ex-rock musician who played in one of Walter’s favorite old bands. He had a son who died in 1985, but the son mysteriously turned up at his nursing home to ask him to help Walter, so the gang showed up to check out the mysterious occurrence. The Observer had snatched the son from 1985 and moved him forward in time to talk to his future dad. Get the reference? A time travelling kid from 1985 starring alongside Christopher Lloyd? If you don’t get it, you aren’t nerdy or cool enough to be watching Fringe, so you should just stop now.

The Observer met Walter and told him that after he stole alternate Peter, alternate Peter (now the only Peter) had caught a firefly. This meant another little girl didn’t, so she stayed out late trying to catch a firefly. So her dad went out to look for her and hit a pedestrian. While Christopher Lloyd was telling him about his son getting hit by a car while he was crossing the road (that’s why the band broke up), it dawned on Walter that he had killed his hero’s son. Walter felt guilty.

The Observer saved a woman’s life, stopped a robbery, shot Peter with a weird electronic gun that just threw him into the ground and gave him a headache, almost killed Peter, and led Olivia through a chase scene. All of this culminated in The Observer a) saving Walter’s life and b) testing Walter. Walter was afraid The Observer was setting all this up to kill Peter and right the balance. Rather than stop Peter from chasing The Observer into a dangerous situation, Walter obeyed Peter and stayed with an asthmatic woman who needed medical attention to save her life.

Meanwhile, Olivia was still dealing with her life getting intercepted when she receives a package containing Peter’s favorite book. The package came out of a conversation Peter had with the other Olivia. Olivia was sad and didn’t want to read the book, but Peter told her that he meant it for the real Olivia, so that she could get to know him better. There was a sweet moment before danger hit. No kissy stuff though. This was a fast-moving, easy-to-watch episode of Fringe, but there was nothing really gross or mind blowing. Still, Friday night is looking a whole lot sweeter for us lately. As far as the ratings go, so far, so good. And as this blog pointed out (http://catstvmusings.blogspot.com/2011/01/good-news-for-fringe.html), Friday nights were good to The X-Files, so why wouldn't they work for this show? Yay!

Episode Grade: B

No Strings Attached movie review

Let’s face it: Chick flicks are never going to be Oscar material. What they CAN achieve is hilarity, cuteness, and not being completely idiotic and forgettable. We think No Strings Attached was just fine. It was raunchy, but funny in the first half. (It’s rated R.) We are still laughing over “the period mix.” The second half turned into more of a dramatic, romantic movie, but by then, you were too hooked on the characters to care that there weren't as many laughs.

The biggest strength of this movie is the female lead. The closest thing to a romantic comedy Natalie Portman has done is Garden State, and that doesn’t really qualify. We know why she waited so long: Natalie was offended by the flimsy female characters who can’t live without a man that populate chick flicks. So she waited for this role. This role might have gone TOO far in trying to switch around the gender stereotypes. One scene that comes to mind is when a guy says to the main male character, “I’m the guy she marries. You’re the guy she [has sex with a few times].” That’s a statement often made to compare loose and chaste women, not men. But we liked that Natalie’s character, Emma, wasn’t into fashion, didn’t work in the media, wasn’t lamenting her weight, and wasn’t yearning to get married as soon as possible. It was a refreshing departure from most movie women, but possibly an unrealistic one. Look around: There are more women who want a boyfriend than who just want sex for their own physical pleasure. That’s how we are wired, for the most part. While we admired the attempt to upset stereotypes, we raised a few eyebrows at the likelyhood of all this.

But Emma was also smart (she was a doctor), compassionate, bold, and very funny, rather than just a flat shrew dating a funny guy. (Aren’t you sick of uptight, type A women in these comedies dating a laid-back slacker?) Ashton Kutcher wasn’t annoying in this either, for all of you who hate him out there. Don’t let his presence turn you off of seeing this movie. He and Natalie had great chemistry, and they both did a good job. One of our mothers was afraid that the movie would have a bad message, because this mom believes that sex is a big deal and only for people who at least love each other. But the end message is that it’s not possible to be “sex friends” and that it’s better to let yourself fall in love. The story is completely predictable, but most love movies are. You’ll enjoy getting to the end. As far as regular romantic comedies go, this one is an A. As far as movies in general go, it’s about a B-. We had fun watching it. You can hate on it for being a standard rom-com/not a critical darling, but there's no denying the entire audience in our theatre had a lot of fun too.

Perfect Couples premiere review

This show is a comedy about three different couples. First, we have Vance and Amy. They fight a lot, are immature, and then they have tons of makeup sex. Second there are Rex and Leigh, who are the controlling, drinking relationship experts who think they have it all figured out. Last, Dave and Julia, who are (relatively) normal. From the opening, we were shouting, “Cliché!” at the screen.

The premise and problems are similar to those of Better with You. What we have here is another batch of weak, one-sided characters. The writers needed to think through the individual people more, rather than just conceiving of the couples and giving them each a certain type of couples behavior. Good, interesting couples start out as interesting individuals.

But this show has a zany side and a good tone to it, so it is superior to Better with You. While the start is weak, it may show improvement as the show progresses. It’s on a channel and a night that’s good for comedies. The actors are good. It’s ho-hum now, but don’t so many great comedies start out iffy before they find their voice? There is hope. As for Better with You, there was never hope (even though one of us is still watching).

Episode Grade: C+, but a hopeful C+

American Idol - New Orleans Auditions

This show is different, and one of us likes it a lot. It’s so nice to see judges who don’t embarrass people for ratings. Plus, American Idol is showcasing mostly good auditions. The bad people come in montages and aren’t ridiculed with circus music and cameras following them out of the audition room. What is American Idol without someone walking away, cursing, crying, and flipping the camera a bird? American Idol is also showing appreciation for beauty over belting, which is great.

We love how Randy is calling himself “The Dawg,” which makes no sense, because he calls OTHER people “dawg.” Because Simon isn’t there to be mean, Randy took it on himself to say what needed to be said in this episode. He is the mean one now. He’s not super mean, but he is there to throw out a “that was terrible” or two. JLo is still sweet. Steven Tyler is still crazy.

The first person we saw was Blake Patterson, singing Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” at the piano, crying because he didn’t make it. Did any other TV lover notice that he kind of looked like Lee Pace? That’s something to SMILE about, har har har. Jordan Dawson came soon after that. He was the music teacher. (Wasn’t his student ADORABLE?) One of us thought that Jordan’s voice was a little too breathy and had a rasp of damage to it. He had a little of the Broadway style, a good version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", and good pitch. But the voice wasn’t clear enough for us. We can’t see him making it too far. Shortly after that, we saw the girl with the big lips who sang the Bob Dylan song. Randy joked that she could be related to Steven Tyler, with those lips. Tyler said, “You never know,” and we know he meant it, because of how he met his daughter, Liv. http://www.lovelylivtyler.com/info/life_story/

Another notable contestant who made it through was Brett. You know, the guy with the ginger fro who was picked on. They could do a Glee episode on that guy…. He had a good voice and he is unique, but he sang with our pet peeve: the tight neck - when you don’t have control of your voice and you have the tightest neck ever to squeeeeeze the sound out. It’s not good for the vocal cords and it’s not attractive either. One of us loved him - she was crying, no joke. Gabriel, the guy who sang Lady Gaga, could have saved it if he were really good. He made a smart choice singing a silly song that sounded bad, because it got him in the room. Where he dropped the ball? When he didn’t immediately say, “Wait, let me sing another song, I was just joking.” Even one of the judges wondered if he would have done better with a different song. That was Gabriel’s cue to quickly interject. He had a tight neck too, though.

We felt bad for the guy who talked about how he went to “Idol Camp,” because the camp must have just taken his money and laughed. He was EDUCATED too. He was a nursing student. That just shows that even really smart people can have delusions. We liked the tubby, cute 15-year-old Justin Bieber sound-alike's voice, but what will happen when it drops? Some guys aren’t good after their voices change. The last girl, with the special needs child, had a lot of beauty to her voice and we suspect that the flaws (and the tight neck) came from nerves. Has she already had work done on her face though? At 23? It looked like it, but we hoped not. Her child was precious, but JLo looked like such a moron when she whispered to the little girl. Did she not notice the hearing aids?

They are letting unique people in. They are letting marginally attractive people in. We may actually get some variety this season, after last season's parade of young people who mostly couldn't sing. We're lovin' it, dawg.

The Office - Ultimatum recap/review

At the end of last year, Holly said she was going to give A.J. an ultimatum: Either he proposes or they break up. Everyone in the office knew it was going to happen, and Michael was freaking out wondering which outcome would occur. He made himself videos to comfort himself in the event of either occurrence. If Holly was engaged, he would play the video encouraging himself not to commit suicide. If Holly and A.J. broke up, he would play the video that encouraged himself to party for a few minutes and then calm down. Erin helped him make these videos, and she also helped him arrange supplies in two boxes (a sad box and a happy box) that would help him in either event. For instance, the sad box had scotch in it, the happy box had champagne.

When Holly appeared, it was revealed that she and A.J. were still together, but they were not engaged. She gave him the ultimatum, but then she backed down. Michael lost it and got mad at everyone in the office for not following through on their New Year’s resolutions. Pam had prepared a giant board for everyone to write their New Year’s resolutions on. Michael forced Creed to do a bad cartwheel and Kevin to eat a raw vegetable, fulfilling their resolutions and attacking Holly through them. Michael ticked both of them off, so he apologized to them in front of Holly.

Dwight and Andy’s resolution was to meet a loose woman, so Darryl suggested the bookstore. Darryl’s resolution was to read more and he wanted a free ride to the bookstore. Darryl bought an e-reader. Yesssss, those are awesome. On the way back to the office, Dwight moaned that he hadn’t met a loose woman and suggested a strip club. Wary of the daytime strippers and how horrible they must look, Darryl suggested the roller rink. Andy loved the roller rink the most, especially when he was the only one there, so they played Dave Matthews Band for him.

At the end of the episode, Holly called A.J. and decided to take a break from their relationship. Not a bad episode, not a great episode. Something important happened though, and we laughed when Kevin had to eat the vegetable. We are ignoring the Knights of the Night. That was too much. Also, not a lot of Jim in the episode. The Office has been a lot better than it was last season and in the beginning of this season though.

Episode Grade: B-

Community - Asian Population Studies recap/review

An average, not-that-funny episode of Community? That hasn't happened in a while.

Remember the Halloween episode last year where Shirley and Chang had sex, but then everyone lost their memories? Remember how Chang left a voicemail to Troy saying that he did the nasty with Shirley? Well, that came back to haunt our Greendale students this episode.

Shirley is pregnant (which you could have guessed if you paid attention to Abed’s menstruation chart a couple of months ago), and she assumed the baby is her ex-husband’s, so they got back together. Because the reason they broke up was that he cheated, Britta is not happy to see that they are an item again. But Troy and Pierce did the math, and the baby could be Chang’s. Pierce let Shirley know after she voted against his pick in the group’s election for a new member of the group. Because Shirley’s ex is a “new man” now, he decided to stay with Shirley and father the baby—no matter whose it is.

Annie has started liking Rich, a bit character from two previous episodes. It’s ok if you missed or forgot him. This show is all about the little details, and you have to pay close attention. Remember the one episode where Abed was missing the entire time, but if you looked closely among the extras in the background, you could see him helping a girl deliver her baby and fighting another guy over her? Community is like that sometimes.

Annie wanted to get Rich into the study group, but Jeff gets wildly jealous of him. First of all, Rich is “perfect.” He makes great kettle corn and is really nice to everyone in the group. Jeff made one of his famous lawyerly arguments to get the group to vote Chang into it, rather than Rich. It worked and now Chang is part of the group. After hearing that Rich refused to date Annie because he thought she was too young for him, Jeff ran dramatically through the rain to someone’s apartment, and he gave a dramatic speech in the doorway of…not Annie. He went to Rich’s place and begged Rich to teach him the secret of being so perfect, so that he could abuse it for his own ends, naturally. We will see what comes of that, but we are not huge fans of Rich the character.

This episode was more plot advancing than most Community episodes. It had lots of little details and references that are good if you have been watching the show for a while. Jeff’s love with Annie is still dead, for now, we have a new character, and Chang is an official part of the study group. Yikes.

But the episode wasn’t as funny as usual. DON’T let this review put you off of watching the show if you have never seen it, because it is usually fantastic. Just not this week. But if you liked the song at the end where Jeff was running to Rich, it is called "Running Through Raining" by Ludwig Göransson. The song hasn't been released yet though.

Episode Grade: C+

Life Unexpected Season (and probably series) Finale review

The finale was sweet and it tied up all the loose ends. We wouldn’t call it “good” though, or "unforgettable." There were a few moments that ALMOST ended in one of us tearing up, but almost isn’t much. We wouldn’t say it’s a must-see, unless you’ve seen every episode of the show or you love it, or both. It felt like a series finale. We will tell you how things turned out. Spoilers follow.

-Cate had a miscarriage and then found out that she couldn’t have any more children. Ryan decided that Cate was enough, and Cate decided that Lux was enough. Cate got to know how it felt to be internally broken, helping her relationship with Lux.

-Angry at Baze, Lux told him that Emma had an affair with his father. Baze confronted Emma, and she told him that the affair had gone on for four years. Baze quit his job, bought his bar back, and came to terms with being himself and not his father. Baze broke up with Emma, because she is now gross to him. We felt kind of bad for her, but seriously. We'd have broken up with her, too.

-Emma’s kid told Baze and Cate about Lux’s relationship with her teacher, Eric. Baze nearly physically killed him on site. Lux was extremely upset that it had to end, because it was a good relationship from her view. Eric took it well, because he was starting to see how wrong it was to be in a relationship with the fragile teen. (Thank goodness SOMEONE on TV thinks this kind of relationship is wrong. We're looking at you, Pretty Little Liars.)He didn’t want to hurt her and kept trying to break it off before he was caught. Baze and Cate told him to leave town and not contact Lux again, or they would call the police. He agreed, left Lux with a small token to inspire her to let him go, and was never seen again on Life Unexpected. This whole thing was pretty intense and led to a heartbreaking argument between Cate and Lux. But we are so glad that the show called the relationship up to the carpet and didn’t let it end well. No matter how cute and young the teacher was, and how good the two were together, it was still wrong.

-Ryan fought to get Cate her job on the radio back, and he succeeded. The Cate ran into a pregnant Julia (Ryan’s ex), found Ryan, and said, “We need to talk.”

Then the show flashed to “Two Years Later.”

-We saw Lux giving a speech at her graduation, which means she must have gotten a whole lot better at school. We learned that she and Tasha would be attending the same college.

-Apparently, Tasha and Jones broke up, because Lux kissed Jones after the ceremony while Tasha watched. Rather than scream at them, Tasha took their picture. So either Lux is with him now or Jones is DA MAN and snagged both of them.

-Ryan and Julia were sitting together with a big baby and then they kissed.

-Then, what we’ve all been waiting for: Cate said, “She (Lux) made it,” and then Baze replied, “So did we.” Then they started making out. The whole group jumped in for a picture and the show ended.

Well, that was abrupt. But it sort of made sense. Sort of. It just all seemed really fast. Cate and Ryan were doing really well. That sounds like an interesting and dramatic two years that we will never get to see. We are glad that Cate and Baze ended up together though, after this last season. During the first season, we were on Team Ryan. But his lies and baby drama and fighting with Cate wore us out. Everybody is getting along wonderfully in 2012 though, so we guess all the characters finally grew up. Or got really fake.

There were about two good episodes this season, so the season gets a C. The episodes were good enough to pull it up to “average.” Those were the ones that involved Lux’s history with Trae. The one where she went to court and the one where Tasha hit Trae on the head with a shovel. We would give the first season a B+.

As a whole? Series grade: B-