There's a Light at the End of this Tunnel, Guys

Good news for those of you addicted to this blog: One of us sees a part in the clouds of schoolwork and anticipates that April-May will be lighter. This means daily posts are an option at that time. Until then, here’s your Monday summary. Yeah, we're behind on a few shows. 

Cougar Town - Ain't Love Strange: This show returned to a series low in the ratings. We were sad about that. It’s due to a tough time slot and no powerhouse lead-in like they had last year. That didn’t stop the show from turning in a premiere in its usual adorable, heartfelt style. We weren't digging Laurie's ankle monitor though. It felt like she would have told the gang the story right away, not in exposition in the episode.  
Episode grade: A-

Revenge - Chaos: Leeard was expecting (and wanting) the body to be Tyler, but Ern was completely surprised. Either way, bravo for the twist. In order to fool us, the show used a body double that looked sort of like Tyler and sort of like Daniel as the body that fell to the beach after being shot. We are really glad Revenge kept Daniel alive. One of us thought the Tyler stuff was getting a little too cheesy and overwrought, especially the scenes where he plotted with Emily. There was so much exposition that we expected him to break out in a cliché villain “muah haha.” Leeard hopes Tanaka doesn't kill Emily and is starting to like her.
Episode grade: A

Glee - Heart: Rachel’s dads were delightful, and we like the new Christian character. Ryan Murphy was jonesing for a Christian character so badly on The Glee Project that he was bound to name a Christian kid the winner. Now that he has his Christian, Ryan will be able to pick the most talented, awesome kids when The Glee Project returns. Yeah, we are still sore about Hanna losing. We also liked Quinn’s talk about Christianity and the Bible. For a crazy, flawed character, Quinn can manage to say sensible things when people need advice. She presented the other side of a common argument well. The show continues to avoid demonizing religious people while it pushes for tolerance of gay people. That’s quite a feat. We liked a lot of the songs and performances. It is eerie that Glee chose to do Whitney Houston’s famous song. The decision was made before Whitney died and the episode aired after Whitney’s death. Glee is psychic. That’s probably why it’s so crazy. We can’t believe we were sad for Karofsky. We are also surprised that Rory isn’t leaving! He was lying about his visa being denied. Does that mean Damian gets to be on the show longer than the few episodes he was promised? Strangely, Rachel Berry’s nighttime routine resembles Ern’s, only Ern’s is possibly more elaborate. Ern doesn’t do the ice thing though. That’s the height of insane, Rachel. 
Episode grade: B+

Glee First Listen Friday - Everything is a little forgettable except Blaine’s song, a cover of “Cough Syrup” by Young and the Giant/The Jakes. It’s a cool song. Blaine’s voice is too autotuned in it, but we still can’t decide if we like his cover or the original better. Rachel was given a song that didn’t fit her voice at all and the results were disappointing. The "Fly"/"I Believe I Can Fly" mash-up was ok. Ern is kind of over "I Believe I Can Fly". Leeard will never be.

The River - Los Ciegos: This show improves in its third week and is turning into a really fun show. A few of the characters got more sympathetic this episode, and there was some good humor. 
Episode grade: A-

Parenthood - Tough Love: Whoa, Julia. Being a paralegal is a hard job. They have to read well, pay attention to detail, and be extremely responsible. We love that Julia thinks Coffee Girl is that smart, but we think that’s a stretch. Fortunately for the legal profession, Coffee Girl did not apply. We love the aspect of Julia’s personality that just won’t let go of this girl, but we are bracing ourselves for a possible sad ending to this story. We can’t believe Amber was caught by Kristina so quickly. Haddie, you little rat! We are even more dismayed that Bob was such a pussy and let Kristina take her. They are both adults and the age disparity isn’t that great! Ugh, Kristina. We felt bad for Seth but not Drew in this episode. For some reason, we think Drew is too old to have this reaction. He has progressed to the age where he needs to work on being happy for his mother, getting along with his potential new stepdad, staying quiet about his feelings, and dealing with real life. Maybe we are being too harsh? Meh. 
Episode grade: B+

The Secret Circle - Return: Cassie's dad shows up at her house!! Then Cassie tells Adam, who says something like, "Then he's really alive?!" We wanted to hit him in the face for dumb ass-ery. It's been apparent for weeks. The audience knew in the pilot. Anyway, this episode was almost as good as last week's. The dad stuff did not disappoint. We're not sure we trust him, but we like him. We liked seeing Faye make out with a guy who wasn't Jake. Also, coma girl woke up. We'll see what that's about. 
Episode grade: A

The Vampire Diaries - All My Children: We have yet another Alaric death fake-out as a cliffhanger. Meredith shoots a gun in his direction. He'll live. He always does. We loved watching resourceful Elena face off against Rebekah, and it was nice to see Damon protecting his brother's returning humanity. Bonnie's mom is a vampire, yawn. Good job for fighting back, Elijah. Don't let this show take you from us again so quickly. This episode was fine, but it wasn't among this show's best. We weren't surprised by anything or particularly touched. 
Episode grade: B

Grey’s Anatomy - Have You Seen Me Lately?: Hey, you know what's awkward and sad? Watching Owen and Cristina in couples counseling. Owen is kind of jealous of Meredith, showing that he misses the point of this show, which is the friendship between Meredith and Cristina, DUH. You have to give them credit for trying with this marriage thing though. Lots of people would throw in the towel and no one would blame them, under these circumstances. Amy comes to Seattle Grace and tries to get her brother, Derek, to do a surgery. They do the surgery in the Private Practice hour (it's a crossover event), but we didn't care enough to watch Private Practice and see how it turned out. If someone else saw it, let us know. The good news this week is that Meredith and Callie might be friends now. Callie is going to help Meredith study after Meredith rocked a case where a man got his hand ground up in a meat grinder. Yuck. 
Episode grade: B

The Office - Tallahassee: The only time we laughed was during Jim's early-morning prank on Dwight. Part of the Scranton branch went down to Florida to design Sabre retail stores. Packer was there too. Dwight got appendicitis. Stanley is acting like this business trip is a month-long paid vacation. That's about it. We miss this show being hilarious.
Episode grade: C

Parks and Recreation - Dave Returns: First of all, Team Ben. Second, we also like Dave. He's so honest. We are still raising our eyebrows at the whole Ann/Ben thing, which is apparently still happening, but it was funny this episode. That song Andy wrote was appropriately hideous. Finally, we have exactly the same reaction to cops as Ben does: we never break the law, because we are terrified of cops. Ern can't even look at them when passing them on the street! 
Episode grade: A-

New Girl - Valentine: We got to see True Blood's Ryan Kwanten guest star as a guy Jess tries to have a one-night stand with. Jess's quest to "get some strange" ends badly. Wait, no, it ends adorable, because it ends with Nick dragging Jess to her bedroom when she contemplates sleeping with Schmidt. She brought an entire (and very large) box of condoms for the occasion. Guess who did sleep with Schmidt? No, not Leeard, even though he is her soulmate. Cece! We can't believe it, guys. This was a funny episode, but we don't really dig the one night stand topic. 
Episode grade: B+

Awake - Pilot: This episode is up on hulu, so you can watch it early, and you should. There isn't much here that wasn't shown in the preview, but we loved what was in the preview, so you can guess what we thought of the whole episode. The main triumph of the pilot is that we already care about the characters. We will be tuning into the second episode when it airs in March. This show reminds us a little of Journeyman, only we care more. Sadly, it seems like just the thing that could be cancelled well before it's time. NBC loves to give us great shows that don't hit it out of the ballpark, ratings-wise. With this show, we just hope there is a satisfying conclusion to what will probably be a short run. 
Episode grade: A

Modern Family - Aunt Mommy: We haven't been mentioning this show in the last couple of weeks, because most episodes are the same. People are saying this show is stuck in a rut and we agree. At least it's a relatively funny rut. However, this episode had some pleasing factors that made it stick out. For once, Cam and Mitchell's plotline didn't involve them having a fight/bickering. We got to see multiple characters drunk. The only thing that could have made this episode better would be if we had gotten to see Luke try to reanimate that dead squirrel. Even though Modern Family refuses to give us something that feels new, it's still a funny show.
Episode grade: B+

Happy Endings - Everybody Loves Grant: One of us watched this episode yesterday when she had a fever and no energy, and this show still managed to pull some chuckles out of the haze that was that day. Dave trying to be "the cool guy" made him the MVP of the night. If you like this show, you probably liked this episode. 
Episode grade: B+

Pan Am - 1964 (and the series as a whole): Well, this show wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it had a nice little (probably) close to the series. We were left with Kate moving up in the CIA, Laura and Ted are in love (and one of us is so glad we didn't have to see Ted tell her that Amanda is pregnant), Dean and Collette are on the road to reconciliation, and Maggie is by herself. While we can kind of see hints of where the show would go if it's given a second season (Collette's search for her brother, Laura and Ted trying to figure out their relationship, Kate becoming an actual spy, Maggie hopefully dying), we think that 1964 works as a decent series finale. Pan Am was a nice diversion, but we won't miss it too much.
Episode grade: B
Series grade: C

Casting news: The Good Wife didn’t have a new episode this week, but news emerged that Matthew Perry will join the show as a lawyer who is trying to win over Alicia. Alicia and Bing-a-ling? We really don’t see it, but we like the idea of Alicia getting another love interest. Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito will play a business associate of Pierce’s dead dad on Community. We’re sure it will be perfect and hilarious, like that show always is.

Books - The White Devil: If nothing else, this book will make you deathly afraid of getting TB. The White Devil is a ghost story featuring an American teenager who has to go to a British boarding school. If you are familiar with Lord Byron as a historical figure or as a poet, you will enjoy this book a lot more than your average reader. This book was entertaining, for the most part, there was good writing, and it had some really creepy moments. But it never grabbed us and we will forget about the characters by the next week. 
Book grade: C+

As for movies, we re-watched Warrior, which is the best movie of 2011 that you never saw. Yeah, some of it isn't very original, but it is so intense Ern almost had a panic attack watching it, there's lots of emotion, you care about the characters, and it's never boring. Even if you aren't interested in MMA or fighting as a topic, you should give this one a shot. Grade: A We also saw The Other Woman with Natalie Portman. Despite mixed reviews, we enjoyed it enough that we're glad we watched it. Grade: B- Then, finally, one of us saw The Paper Chase. Like a typical law student, Ern nearly screamed at the end when the main character did what he did (no spoilers here, but if you've seen it, you know what we mean). How could he do that?!! We would NEVER do that. Also, plenty of Ern's law professors are just as bad as Kingsfield, seriously. Grade: B

Blog Update

We've only let the poll go for half a day, but the results are pretty conclusive, haha.

We have decided to post whatever we want, relating to entertainment, on Mondays. There might even be multiple posts, but they will all go up on Monday, so you know when to look for new information. If there's a particularly awesome season finale or something, heck, there may even be a recap.

Thanks for understanding :-)

Goodbye all! (possibly)

After a year and a half of blogging about TV nearly every day, it pains us to say we must stop. As fun as it is, stupid real life is upon us, and we realized something has to go. We are about to graduate and get real jobs and take big tests and stuff. We knew this day would come, but you probably didn't. Sorry about that. 

Anyway. Thanks for reading and happy watching

Updated: Okay, we're considering blogging once or twice a week, incorporating all of the shows we watch/want to comment on in those posts. Vote in the poll or comment, and let us know what you think.

The Voice - Blind Auditions Part 3

Let's get right into the performances.

Sarah Golden - We like when they do the shadowy “what do they look like?!!” thing with the audience. In Sarah’s case, the first question was “is it a man or is it a woman?” We decide it’s a man, and then the man says, “Record labels told me that I needed a different look.” Then we decided it was a woman. Record labels let uggo guys sings all the time. With girls, it’s practically unheard of. Decent voice. Not a favorite though. We like her as a person and her demeanor. We don’t know if her folk voice fit Lady Gaga’s power pop though. We really need to hear her sing something else. We will get to, because she advanced to Team Cee Lo.

Elley Duhe - Spell your child’s name right, people. This girl is 19 and quit HIGH SCHOOL. She did it with her parent’s approval to focus on music, even though she a) does not have Lea Michele’s voice and b) does not look like Britney Spears. Those are the only two things that would make dropping out of high school a good idea. She’s not good enough to do that. Fantastic job, parents. Good range, but an unpleasant tone and pitchy notes killed it. She had a good attitude too. She WAS humble and gracious. Her last note WAS good. But in the end, it was not enough and she was sent home.

Pip - Can we get a last name? Pip wears a bowtie to audition, so we like him already. He’s into musical theater, so that explains the wardrobe. All musical theater people are freaking hipsters. He’s adorable, but his voice might be too Broadway. We’d like to see him sing something besides "House of the Rising Sun". His voice could be good with a song that fit it. Really, after Haley Reinhart did "House of the Rising Sun" on Idol, no one should try it again. That version was unbeatable. All four judges turn around, but Adam ends up with Pip.

Erin Willett - Sob story alert! Dying father. We love her relationship with her father though. We also love her attitude about it. “One day he won’t be here; but today’s not that day.” Great voice, but it’s not very unique. One of us hates the song she picked though ("I Want You Back") and we both don’t think she’ll make it far. We got to see the dad tear up a little in happiness. Is this show trying to kill us? Blake picks her, and we are so happy, especially for the dad.

David Grace - College football player and coach?!! Hot. You know what’s not hot? That facial hair. This guy did a boring rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama", but at least he could play guitar. Blake makes a good point that just because they are country doesn’t mean he is going to pick them. They have to be just as good as the mainstream artists. This guy slid up to his notes too much and that hit the judges the wrong way. We agree and are glad he didn’t get picked.

Katrina Parker - Making us watch the audition invitation delivery was lame. She has a sob story too, and it involves mold. She has a little of that ADELE sound, only she is nowhere near as good as ADELE. She slid up to notes too, but Adam liked that she was “different” and turned his chair around, so she will advance on his team. Cee Lo hit on her. We love you Cee Lo, you weird effer.

Geoff McBride - This 51-year-old seems like a cool guy, but maybe that’s just the sunglasses he has to wear. He also used to kickbox and has his own sob story about his dead dad. Also, he has kids, so double whammy for those at home rooting for people over voices. Still, at this point we were getting sick of the sob stories and were waiting for a powerhouse voice or something we would download. You really can’t beat Erin’s cancer dad tonight. Geoff sings and  doesn’t sound very modern (he’s singing Stevie Wonder, so that might have been a factor), but he can sing. Christina pushed her button first. It was at this point we started to hate when the judges would holler at other judges to push their buttons. They think it’s good, but it’s not their taste, so they try to pawn people off on their co-judges. Stop it. If they are good, push your own button. Cee Lo must have heard us muttering at the TV, because he stopped trying to get Adam to turn around and just pushed his own button. This guy does have great energy, Christina. He goes with Christina.

Erin Martin - This is our second “Erin” of the night. “Erin” is a stupid name, haha. She is fantastically gorgeous and used to model. Even the crazy, awful hair she had didn’t ruin her. We were nervous about this one at first. She said that labels have told her that she needs coaching. Also, someone who has only been singing for two or three years makes us question their ability. With singing, you usually start in your teens or as a child, or you just don’t have it. It’s not a talent that hides itself. She gets picked early by Blake Shelton and Cee Lo who are probably delighted to see her. She has a raspy, Macy Grey thing going, but it’s pleasant, unique, on key, cute, and fit her song ("Hey There Delilah") perfectly. It’s like Macy mixed with Regina Spektor. Cee Lo hit on her. You know, she doesn’t have a great, showstopping voice, but it’s weird enough that we like her. She seems really fun. We kind of think she is lying about only singing for two or three years though. She goes with Team Cee Lo.

James Massone - This guy’s job SUCKS. He's from Boston though, so Leeard loves him already. We get yet another sob story. James’ friends were shot in a recording studio or something. He tells us that “you never know when it’s gonna be your last day.” Thanks for the memo, Oprah. He sounds like Zac Efron or something, and not in a good way. He sounds 12 years old. The judges think that equals cash money with the pre-teens, so three of them turn around. We raised our eyebrows. This guy is borderline bad. This is the first time this season that the judges picked a dud, in our opinions. Talk about pitchy. Talk about whiny. Bleck. He joins Cee Lo’s team. We guess we are happy to see him succeed, because he cried and he’s sort of sweet. He’s 23. Man, that voice is never gonna drop is it? Was this boy castrated?

Winter Rae - Parents, if you name your child Winter, she will end up with short, blue hair, cut in the most unattractive style possible. She will also have tattoos and work in a bowling alley. You have been warned. (If you name your kid “Summer,” the opposite will happen and she will be even more unbearable. Probably a blond, generic cheerleader who is mean to you.) She looks scary but she sings R&B, not rock. She’s friends with Perez Hilton. That’s probably how she got on this show. She is white, but she does not sound white. Her tone is thin. Lea Michele’s version of "Take a Bow" was much better. Winter did not get picked, but at least The Voice got a Perez Hilton guest appearance out of this woman. Adam gives Winter a speech about how they all were once rejected and how she should never give up. Blake tells her that her hair is cool. It’s not, Blake. Crazy hair is only cool if it makes you look better.

Chris Cauley - Sorry, bro, but Bruno Mars has the silkiest voice on "Grenade", and yours just didn’t measure up. His version of "Grenade" was also a little too toned-down. We think the comparison and song choice hurt him in the beginning, but two judges finally realized that the voice was good in itself and pushed their buttons. He joins team Adam, but in order for us to like him, he is going to need to bring us something a little less snooze-inducing. It was nice, but we don’t need someone to sing us to sleep like little snug babies. We need someone to knock our socks off. That still hasn’t happened in this episode.

The judges then pick three people who don’t get a chance to sing their whole songs. This is a blessing, considering one of them was an “M.C.” who sang “Let’s Get it Started.” Christina picked him, because she’s insane.

Jordis Unga - This girl has a Swedish mom and Tongan dad and is probably asked, “What race are you?” on a day-to-day basis. Or she would be, if people were way ruder than they are. She gets the last laugh, because she's great-looking. We liked her emotion and her spot-on Christina Aguilera impression, but we weren’t that impressed. She can certainly holler and the first two lines of the song were pretty. She has a great voice underneath her raspy style. She does squats when she sings, which is interesting. She goes with Blake.

We love when Cee Lo is shown holding his cat. We think everyone does.

Christina Millian, you still exist?

Blake: “Even Christina’s smilin’ and she never smiles.” Christina: “**** you!” Haha

Smash: The Callback recap/review

Bad news, guys. The Smash ratings dropped a LOT for episode two. What is wrong with people? This show is great. It probably won’t appeal to too many straight guys, but every musical-loving girl in America should be watching and are apparently not. Ugh. The show deserves more for writing really decent songs, having a stellar cast, and moving the plot along at 90 miles-per-hours. They already cast Marilyn, for heaven’s sake!

The episode opens with Kat McPhee doing a pretty rendition of “Call Me,” a song that’s not really supposed to be pretty. That song is supposed to be sung with personality, and it’s not really a good song to cover anyway. The song is happening in Karen’s imagination as she performs her waitressing duties, badly. She wishes the audition people would just “call me.” Ugh. The episode gets better guys, don’t worry.

The showrunners are meeting, while Tom’s assistant, Ellis, eavesdrops at the door. Julia still hates him. Tom wants Ivy, because she has the experience, looks like Marilyn, and is a great performer. Also, he’s friends with her. A few of the others like Karen because she is “fresh,” “innocent,” and “feels like Marilyn.”  Karen and Ivy are called back again. Karen has to prove that she can dance, so Derek is teaching her the choreography to a fast-paced number. For some reason, everyone in this episode keeps saying that Karen can dance. This scene makes us question that. Even when she learns the dance properly and does a good job, we are underwhelmed. She doesn’t really move with charisma.

Ivy shows up and sees Karen. Ivy utters a diss veiled as a compliment, and we get the idea that this show is going to start making Ivy a little more unlikeable. We don’t like this, because it’s generic. It was better when we liked Ivy and Karen equally. The show continues to ruin this by having Ivy bang Derek. We hope she had sex with him because she wanted to and because he is good-looking, but we think she did it partly to secure the part of Marilyn. Ivy, you were good enough to get it without that. Karen was bad at reading lines and Ivy can act. We hope the show doesn’t make Ivy into a slutty villain. It comes across like a morality tale.

Julia and her husband, Frank, are told that they have to wait two years to get a child from China. Mr. Julia is upset and says that by the time this kid is 18, he will be 65. He wavers on their decision to adopt. Their teenage son hears the wavering and gets upset. He tells his mom, “Ever since I was little, you told me I’d be getting a little brother or sister. My sister is in China, you said, and we have to go get her. She’s waiting for us. What’s going to happen to her if we don’t get her?” Good point, kid. The kid will still exist even if you are too lazy to acquire her.

When you’ve made the decision to adopt a child, it’s kind of crappy to throw in the towel just because it doesn’t fit perfectly with your perfect rich life and perfect rich timing. JEEZ. These people don’t even have to work! They can just sit at home and work on their adoption process. Most people continue with their lives while they complete this process. That whole thing sort of made us hate Frank a little, even if we still love the Broadway vet who plays him. When you hear him sing, his purpose on the show will be explained, we predict. Still, we laughed pretty hard when Julia acted turned on by him. No way. He looks like a caveman.

Eileen has a nasty run-in with her husband and his freakishly young, blond wife. Eileen wins this week, because Derek decides to do Marilyn with Eileen rather than My Fair Lady with Jerry, who has recently acquired enough money to continue with that show. Soon, it’s time for the final audition. Karen is coming from a hard night, because she missed her boyfriend’s important business dinner in order to spend more time working with Derek. Dev yelled at her. Still, Karen kills her rendition of “20^thCentury Fox Mambo,” dancing and all. Halfway through the number, Karen is transformed into Marilyn. After seeing Ivy pulling it off last week in the baseball number, we are appalled that Karen is even an option. Stop trying to make Karen happen. It isn't going to happen. 

Even dressed up, Karen looks nothing like Marilyn. She can do Norma Jean and all-American innocence, but she’s one of the worst picks for Marilyn Monroe we’ve ever seen. It pains us to say that, because one of us loves Kat McPhee a LOT. She did a good job in the song, but she is clearly not the right choice. The showrunners see that as well and pick Ivy. The way she finds out slightly redeems her character after her actions this week. Ivy sings Crazy Dreams at a cabaret club. It’s a sweet song and Ivy’s voice is great, but this song didn’t really end the episode on a strong note. It was sappy. We get a shot of Karen lying on the couch, looking sad. We know the showrunners aren’t done with her yet. There are other parts in the play and they mentioned that she is “one to watch.”

Thank you, show, for being credible and picking the right girl for the lead. We are surprised and pleased. Oh! One more thing- That letter Julia wrote to the birthmother was just about the greatest thing you could ever write at one of those meetings. That bodes well for the dialogue in Marilyn. We also like that Julia and Tom have decided to make the musical less chronological. We like the theory that they are going to have Karen play Norma Jean (Marilyn before she was famous) and Ivy play Marilyn Monroe in all her glory. You know, the version all the drag queens imitate. It could still happen. None of the songs were amazing this week, but this is still a worthwhile show that we will continue to watch.

Episode grade: B

Pretty Little Liars - Ctrl: A recap/review

Aria meets Vivian’s “friend” in a restaurant. The rest of the Liars watch from an adjacent table. The friend is “Jonah,” a nerd who used to work for a cellphone company. Alison had Jonah try to track down A. Alison vanished before paying Jonah and he was fired from his job. Jonah knows who A is, but won’t tell the girls until they pay him what Alison owed: $2,000.

Meanwhile, A goes after Caleb, hard. Garrett and Detective Wilden seize Caleb’s laptop, which A stuffed with stolen school records. Hanna guesses Caleb’s password (the date they first had sex, which Caleb was cagey about, but which we totally guessed) and remotely deletes all the files on Caleb’s computer while he is being questioned. Caleb gets out and sees Hanna waiting outside the station for him. This recap isn’t doing that plot justice, because it was actually exciting, intense, and super-adorable. We love this couple! This is officially the first couple on this show that we really, truly care about.

Emily wins a swimming competition, and Ashley Marin throws the whole team a party. Maya is threatened by Emily’s dedication to her teammates and is also going through a hard time, because her parents found a joint in her room. Maya tells Emily it’s an old one, but her parents don’t believe her and want to send her back to True North. Emily catches Maya smoking a new doobie and the two fight. Maya tells Emily that she’s going to run away to San Francisco and stay with some friends. Maya invites Emily, who turns Maya down, because Emily is not crazy. Also because Maya is the worst.

Byron gets a note from A (a parent got a note from A!!!) telling him to go to a French, vegan café to find his daughter. Detective Wilden has a photo of the Liars dressed up as candy stripers, standing outside the hospital morgue. Since a page of Alison’s autopsy went missing that day, this doesn’t make the girls look good. Fortunately, Hanna comes up with a quick excuse to tell her mom.

Aria has a good plot this week. She ditches Ezra in order to go with Holden to his secret fight club. This is lucky, because Byron doesn’t catch her and Ezra together. Holden does karate, secretly. His parents don’t want him fighting people, because he was born with an abdominal aortic aneurysm (heart problems). Holden tells Aria that he could die doing anything and that his life will probably be short, so he wants to live it to the fullest. Aria clearly draws a parallel to her relationship with Ezra and ruins the nice sentiment.

Holden does well in the fight, but we scoffed at how much spinning his opponent did in the sparring match. You would never spin around like that in a real sparring match against a trained opponent. It’s douche-y and liable to get you hit in the back of the head. No one does that.

Finally, Spencer (who looked extra-pretty this week) is basically living with Aria and doesn’t want to go home, because her family is full of liars. Jason thinks that Alison was using her knowledge of Jason’s paternity to blackmail. Spencer straight-up asks her father if this is what was going on, and he denies it, convincingly. Spencer tells Jason that he’s wrong. Jason blows up at Spencer, but later accepts the truth. He says that they are always at odds because they have the “same wiring.” It’s sweet. Spencer tells Jason that someone was threatening Ali and that Ali figured out who. Spencer has an idea for how to find out. Spencer asks Jason to trust her…$2,000 worth.

Frankly, this episode had it all. Plot progression, heart, romance, suspense, a fight club, answers, creepers, and Maya probably leaving the show! We will know who A is soon! Until then, if this is filler, it’s the best filler around.

Episode grade: A+

How I Met Your Mother - The Drunk Train recap/review

We think we can all agree that the drunk train portions of the evening were the funniest and that we like Quinn. She is played by that amazing Ugly Betty vet, Becki Newton, whose character on that show always brought the laughs and style. Quinn is the same, only she’s smart too! Yay! We didn’t like the twist at the end, but there were a couple of genuinely funny moments, which is more than last episode had.

The episode started with penis jokes. Always a win with the CBS audience. Ba-dum-ching. Barney tells the group that Ted forced him to spend an evening on a double date, so Ted owes him (Barney suggests participation in a laser tag tournament as repayment). Barney’s date was Quinn, a  girl who would not sleep with Barney. He tried to convince this girl, Quinn, that he had EPS (Enormous Penis Syndrome).

Quinn plays along and Barney thinks it’s going well until Quinn tells him that she’s suffering from her own condition:  I’m Not a Gullible Dumbass Disorder. Nora 2.0 only funnier! Back in the present, Marshall and Lily mention that they have to catch a train back to Long Island before they end up with the last train, which is always full of drunks and sluts. One of us loves late night trains/subways/buses. They're easily the most entertaining.

As soon as Barney hears about this drunk train, he decides Ted should accompany him on a train ride. Lily, Marshall, Kevin, and Robin leave on a Valentine’s weekend couples retreat. Marshall and Lily tell Robin and Kevin that the key to a successful relationship is to never keep score. Of course, Marshall and Lily then spend the whole weekend keeping score and remembering funny/awkward situations where they let each other down and should have owed each other.

We agree with their philosophy that, as long as two people are engaged and trying, you should not keep score in your relationship. This counts with good deeds  as well as mistakes. Just because you clean around the house more, that doesn’t mean the person owes you and picks up the slack. Do stuff because you love someone or want to do it, not because you want to be repaid, because you want to feel self-righteous, or because you are trying to get leverage/rack up points.

Kevin and Robin quickly become annoyed with the other couple and retreat to their hotel room where Kevin proposes. Robin tells Kevin that she needs time to think about it. Kevin agrees to give her that time. Points for not freaking out, Kev. Robin tells Lily and Marshall that she’s been keeping something from Kevin. Is she going to tell Kev that she cheated on him with Barney?!!! No, because Robin is, apparently, a complete jerk. Her worry is that Kevin doesn’t know she’s infertile. Umm, we think the cheating thing needs to come out before you marry the guy, Robin, but that’s just us.

Robin tells Kevin she can’t have children and he proposes again. She accepts and they hug. Later though, Kevin suggests adoption and Robin makes it clear that she doesn’t even want children. In yet another conversation, Robin tells Kevin that if he marries her, he needs to be 100% sure that he is ok with never having kids. Kevin un-proposes. Poor Robin, but we’re not really sad about this relationship ending. Kevin never totally fit in and the cheating killed it. We’ve both shipped Barney/Robin, but that might have ended in this episode….

Because, meanwhile, Ted and Barney are riding the drunk train. Their first attempt goes badly. They first fall asleep and then have no luck with the sluts, who keep yelling, “You think you’re betta than me?!” and throwing their drinks on the men. Barney sadly recalls how Quinn summarized his life and then gutted it during the double date. She told him that he usually ends up going to strip clubs, where he is lonely, he always wears a suit, and he is trying to convince himself that his sad life is “legendary.” Barney asks her if she practices the dark arts. No, she’s just made of awesome.

Ted is fed up with his long, unfortunate search for The One. We are too, Ted. We’ve been along for the whole ride and suffered through all the red herrings as well. The next day, Ted and Barney realize that they need to be drunk to enjoy the drunk train. DUH. This works and they nearly pick up two sluts. They don’t take them home though. Barney can’t stop thinking about Quinn. Quinn turns out to be a stripper at Barney’s favorite club. Whoa! Did not see that coming. This girl has layers. How many smart strippers have ever been on TV? The best part? Barney doesn't know Quinn is a stripper yet.

Ted returns to find Robin and listens to her spill about Kevin. Ted tells Robin that missing out on kids wouldn’t matter to him (UM, you have kids in the future, Ted, not that you know that yet), and then he tells Robin that he loves her. Are you serious, show?!! You’re doing this to us AGAIN? If so, the show had better give us something original in order for us to have a reason to a watch a relationship we’ve a) already seen, b) don’t care about, and c) know won’t work out. Love for Becki Newton has made one of us stop hoping Barney and Robin stop being morons and love each other. One of us hopes Quinn is his bride.

Episode grade: B-

Happy Valentine's Day!

Shameless - Can I Have a Mother? Recap/Review

This episode marks the return of Frank’s mother, Peggy Gallagher, and she seems to be a worse parent even than Frank. Oh, don’t worry. This episode doesn’t excuse Frank’s behavior or make you feel sorry for the man. He’s still hilariously despicable and worth laughing at. But we do get to see why Frank is the way he is. So…Peggy. Well, she used to run a meth lab until it blew up and killed people. She spent twelve years in prison and was released early because the government decided she was going to die soon anyway. She has the mouth of a sailor, the racism of lots of grandparents these days, and makes it no secret that she dislikes Frank. When Frank tries to tell Peggy how his kids are doing, Peggy says the topic does not interest her.

Frank spends the episode trying to convince Sheila to put him in charge of Eddy’s trust. Sheila refuses, because Frank is an alcoholic who wets her bed. Frank’s mother pays Sheila a visit with Frank. While Sheila is her usually sweet-but-batty self, Peggy yells that Frank made a bad choice in choosing to bone Sheila. “I’d rather nail a hooker down on Wacker.” Frank does not defend Sheila, who yells for Peggy to get out. Peggy pays a visit to a plastic surgeon who used to cook meth with Sheila. He has some of the meth money.

Sheila threatens the plastic surgeon with the possibility of revealing his past to his family. When the doctor refuses to give her the meth money, Peggy tracks down the doctor’s little girls in order to kidnap them. Frank goes to the doctor to warn him, and the doctor gives Frank money, but it’s a lot less than Peggy wanted. Frank goes to Peggy with the money and she is angry that it is so little. Peggy deduces that Frank kept some of the cash, so she sticks a screwdriver in Frank’s leg and makes him cough it up.

Meanwhile, Fiona finds out that Steve married the little South American tart he hauled home with him. Fiona and Steve go on a double date with said tart and Adam. Steve explains to Fiona that his marriage is just for immigration purposes and to appease a South American druglord he offended: the girl’s father. Steve and Fiona fool around in the restaurant bathroom. Adam is no dummy and realizes what they have done when they come back to the table. He dumps Fiona and leaves, telling her that he had never explained that while on a date with him, he did not like other girls to have sex with other men in the bathroom. With a  Gallagher, he really should have made that clearer. Poor guy.

Sheila throws Karen and Jody a wedding reception. Lip shows up, drunk and uninvited. He and Ian are still on the outs, by the way. It looks like Karen momentarily reconsiders her decision to be with Jody, half-jokingly suggesting to Lip that they run away together or something. Lip tells Karen that he wants her to get an abortion and she slaps him. Sheila gets drunk and gives a horrible toast where she mentions Karen sleeping with Frank. Peggy and Sheila get into a fight which ends with Peggy whipping out a handgun. Steve (yes, everyone is at this party) grabs the gun in time to stop anyone from getting hurt. Frank calls the cops on his mother, but Officer Tony waves them away when they arrive. Peggy is in the clear.

That night, while his mother sleeps, Frank points a gun at her head, and we actually wonder if he will pull the trigger. He does not. The next morning, Debbie tells Fiona that Steve’s real name is Jimmy and that his parents live on Lake Shore and think he’s in school. Fiona leaves him a message telling him what to go do to himself (it starts with the letter “f”) and refers to him as Jimmy in the voicemail. Peggy decides to be nice to her grandkids and gives them presents. Fiona gets $500 and a near apology from her grandmother for sucking as a relative. Is this the silver lining to a cloudy character or does Peggy have an ulterior motive?

Ethel hears the news of Clyde’s murder from her sister-wives. These women come, all dressed in black like Amish ringwraiths, and tell Ethel that they have hired attorneys to help get Ethel back to their creepy compound. Kev does not like these women, even though Ethel sees them as her family. Ethel hears Kev badmouthing the women to V, calling them “evil,” and is upset. Ethel tells Malik that if she goes back to the compound, she could marry Clyde’s brother, who is much younger than Clyde was. Around 60! Oh man. Malik tells Ethel that she has to think of her child and focus on being independent.

Ethel packs her bags and Kev goes to check on her. Ethel hides her bag and Kev tells Ethel that he is here if she needs to talk. Ethel thanks Kev “for everything” with tears in her eyes. That was super-sweet, but COME ON Kev, clue in! Kev does not intuit that Ethel is leaving. Ethel is gone the next morning and leaves a goodbye note. V and Kev see that Ethel left with his pot stash that he buried in his backyard. Ethel gives the pot stash to Malik, who sells it. Ethel and Malik are running away together with the money! This is so sweet and one of the least messed-up things to ever happen on this show. For Ethel, this is such a healthy decision.

Back at Shelia’s, a letter arrives saying that Eddy left all his money to Karen. Sheila is happy that Eddy was able to express love to his daughter before he died. Frank has a meltdown and yells at Jody for being so lucky as to stumble into the reward, when Frank has been doing overtime sleeping with and coddling Sheila. Sheila finally gets it. She asks Frank to leave. Wow, Frank. A plane falls from the sky and does all your work for you with this woman, and you ruin it with your big mouth? Wow. He goes home and yells at Peggy, trying to oust her from his house. She is unfazed. Fiona and Frank share a beer on the porch. Fiona says, comfortingly, “My parents suck too.” Franks shares a bed with Carl in the van. He wets the bed. Carl complains and Frank says, “Find a dry spot.” Oh, this show.

Steve, why are you so complicated? Ian, why are you still mad at Lip for trying to help you? Lip, why were you mean to Karen? Frank, why did you ruin your own life? Peggy, why won't you leave? Kev, when are you going to have your own kid? Clyde, are you enjoying hell (we hope not, you slimy bastard)? Fiona, NO MORE MARRIED GUYS. Funny and twisted episode, as usual. For once, it wasn't too overstuffed with plots either. 

Episode grade: A-

Once Upon a Time - Skin Deep

Whoa. That’s two underwhelming episodes in a row, show. Sure, there were some great moments, especially near the end with Regina and Gold’s talk, but the rest of this episode was awkward.

Fairytale world: Rumpelstiltskin was apparently the beast in Beauty and the Beast. When Belle’s town is threatened by Ogres, Rumpy makes a deal with Belle’s father, Maurice. If Rumpy can have Belle, he will save the town. Maurice says no, but Belle says yes. Belle becomes Rumpy’s housekeeper who has to sleep in his dungeon. Yeah, his house has a dungeon. We really shouldn’t be surprised. Belle drops a teacup and it chips. It’s Chip. Chip does not come to life and start singing, sadly enough.

The two develop feelings for each other, and Belle just must be the most compassionate person on Earth, because we don’t see how she fell in love with Rumpy. Since it wasn’t well-developed, it just came across as weird and a little messed-up that Belle would fall in love with a guy who is such a jerk to her. Rihanna? Is that you? Well, Rumpy didn’t hit her at least. He did catch her when she fell off a ladder. Still. Stockholm Syndrome is not true love. Rumpy decides to let her go. He sends her to town to get straw, not expecting her to return. If she returns, he promises to tell her the story we saw a few weeks ago of how he lost his son and got all evil.

Belle walks away from his house and meets the Evil Queen on the road. Offff course she does. The Evil Queen tells Belle that evil curses (like the one Rumpy is under) can be broken by true love’s kiss. This sounds nice, but we knew it would go wrong, because the idea came from the Evil Queen. Belle returns to Rumpy with straw, determined to break the curse. She kisses him and it starts to work, but Rumpy freaks out. He thinks she is in league with the queen to take his power and can’t really love him. Rumpy is mean to Belle, trashes his place, and then throws Belle out of his castle. Belle calls him a coward for not being able to believe that someone could love him. These lines almost worked and sucked us into the tragic love story the show was trying to write. However, context ruined the lines.

Later, the Evil Queen visits Rumpy and tells him Belle killed herself after being rejected by her father and locked in a tower. Where there were clergy with whips. Huh? Like a moron, Rumpy believes her. We are almost 100% sure that Belle is still alive, because she is alive in Storybrooke. Regina has her locked in a padded room, hidden in the local hospital. She looks all crazy and sad. Belle was played by Emelie De Ravin, who was better on LOST. Also, her accent didn’t match everyone else’s on this show.

In our world, Maurice is a florist named Moe French. He owes a debt to Mr. Gold, so Gold takes his flower delivery van on Valentine’s Day. That’s gonna hurt business, and Mr. Gold's chances of getting his money back. In revenge, Moe robs Mr. Gold’s place. Emma finds the stuff, but Rumpy says she didn’t find everything. He goes all vigilante, despite Emma’s warnings to leave it to her. Rumpy finds Moe, kidnaps him, beats him with his cane, and questions him, dropping weird hints about why he’s really mad. Emma shows up in time and arrests Gold. Moe is taken to the hospital.

Regina brings Henry to Emma’s office and offers Emma 30 minutes to have ice cream with her son. Regina wants a word alone with Gold. Regina admits that she put Moe up to steal from Gold. She has the missing item and will return it to him in return for his real name. Gold pretends not to know what she is talking about, but finally coughs up “Rumpelstiltskin.” Hmmm, so he knows that he used to live in another world. Not a surprise. Regina gives Gold the cup. In B plot, Sean proposes to Ashley (Cinderella, who we barely remember) at her girls’ night out with Mary Margaret and Ruby (Red Riding Hood). Mary Margaret grows dissatisfied with her wrong, secret relationship with David.

We liked the darker, creepier moments of this show, and Gold’s twistedness. The Gaston thing was funny. This show needs to skew dark, but its characters need to act in ways that actual humans would act. Last time, we got a king with mixed motives and weird, slightly despicable decisions. Here, we have a love story we didn’t buy, even though we love the Beauty and the Beast story. LAZY. This was a missed opportunity, overall, but it was a little better than last week.

Episode grade: C+

Southland - Identity

Lydia is pregnant and she’s keeping the baby!  We don’t know about this, y’all. So far, it’s touching, but we’re not usually a fan of taking the main female character on a show and impregnating her. It makes stories screech to a halt. The father is yet unknown, but we bet it’s whoever Lydia called at the end of last week’s episode. We know. That tells you nothing. Tang advises Lydia to keep the pregnancy a secret as long as possible so the station doesn’t put her on desk duty.

Lydia is called to investigate the murder of a real estate agent, Brian Monroe. She finds out that Monroe let workers stay upstairs in his house for free. Lydia meets a worker, Melanie, and her daughter, Nicole. Nicole starts fighting with another worker and that worker audibly accuses Nicole of Monroe’s murder. Melanie steps in and confesses to the murder, obviously to save her teenage daughter. Lydia questions Melanie back at the station and finds out that Monroe and Nicole were sleeping together. Melanie and Nicole were living behind a 7-11 when Monroe took them in.

Melanie says that Nicole has always been a troubled child. Nicole has personality disorders as well as ADHD. Nicole’s behavior and the effort it takes to care for her cost Melanie jobs and apartments, but Melanie simply sees all this as a test from God and loves her daughter. It’s really sweet. Meanwhile, Nicole has run away and is on the streets. After evidence leads back to Nicole, Lydia finds and chases her through the street. Nicole cuts Lydia’s arm with a knife, jumps into a truck and tries to drive it away. Nicole hits a squad car that was blocking her exit, and Ruben shoots Nicole in the shoulder.

Nicole cries, saying that she ruined everything, as Lydia arrests her. Weirdly, even though this girl is clearly crazy, we felt bad for her. At the hospital, Nicole confesses to the murder, saying that she caught Monroe sleeping with another worker. Nicole is afraid her mother hates her, says she wants to die, and says that she doesn’t matter. Lydia assures Nicole that her mother loves her and her face lights up when Nicole comes up in conversation. The worker who slept with Monroe tells Lydia that when she has kids, they will be lucky. It’s a nice moment, but that worker is still a ho.

An off-duty Ben chases a guy away from his female neighbor after he sees the guy giving her a hard time. The woman thanks him and a police car pulls up. Ben tells the cops that everything is alright and they leave. The woman says that she hates cops and asks Ben if he heard about the cop who hit a girl for no reason. Ben looks uncomfortable and says, “That’s messed up.” Ben goes to a crime scene and stands with his partner over the dead body of Lupe, a victim who was well-liked in his area. They find the killer later. Sammy tries again to get Ben to move to his neighborhood. We also find out that Tammy has custody of the baby. Ugh.

Next, Ben and Sammy chase a purse snatcher. Sudden movement causes Sammy to pull his gun and shoot. He accidentally shoots a dog. This saddens us greatly. We hate when dogs are hurt or killed on TV and in movies. One of the things we liked about LOST is that they never killed the dog. Ben arrests the suspect while Sammy applies pressure to the dog’s bleeding wound. Sammy yells at the suspect for causing a dog to be shot. Sammy trades two Lakers tickets to get the dog a ride to the animal clinic. Sammy finds out that the dog needs surgery and it will cost $1,300. Sammy is willing to pay when the dog’s owners cannot, and everyone thinks he’s crazy. Watching the other cops make fun of Sammy (especially the card) was great. We also liked seeing Sammy not be a dick for once this season.

Sammy and Ben are called to a community pool where an Asian woman is threatening a man with a knife. She drops the knife when the police tell her too, maintaining that she can kill the guy with her bare hands. Ben notices a little girl floating face-down in the pool, jumps in, grabs the girl, and revives her. We’re not super-sure what happened there. Did the girl nearly drown because everyone was distracted by the fight? Was the fight over the girl? Either way, we like seeing Ben saving children rather than punching them, haha.

Cooper and Tang are asked to remove a homeless man from private property. The man, Tom Smith, is a mentally ill ex-marine who did not have an I.D. and so could not re-enter homeless housing. Tang wants to get Tom an I.D. so that he can go back to this shelter. Tang spends most of the episode on her cell phone trying to get help for Tom, while her partner deals with the other police situations of the day. Even a mangled body, completely dismembered from being hit by a train, cannot distract Tang from her mission to help Tom. There’s some black humor there.

Tang walks around the scene of that crime, screaming into her phone at whatever incompetent person has the nerve to not care about a veteran. We’re pretty sure everyone was won over by Tang in this scene, if there were any hold-outs. We’ve been fans from the start. Tang tells Cooper that her father was a marine. Cooper asks if Tang is going to rescue every marine they come across, which reminds one of us of one of her favorite episodes of The West Wing ("In Excelsis Deo", in case anyone cares). Tang replies, “Never leave a man behind.” Tom’s mental illness  and other obstacles get in the way of Tang’s plan to save him, however, and the two cops are forced to simply move Tom down the street, away from the private property.

This episode was really sad, but it hit all the right notes. This was a strong outing, but we want Cooper and Ben to make up and love each other again.

Episode grade: B+

Justified - The Devil You Know

We feel like this season so far has been more of an ensemble show than a show about our favorite rule-bending, wisecracking cowboy. It seems like all the criminals get way more screen time than Raylan, and we are not liking it. What we do get of Raylan this week was good, but we want more. Watching the mostly idiotic baddies bicker is getting old. We like Limehouse though.

Neal McDonough gets Devil on his side, and Devil tries to get Johnny to turn on Boyd with him. Johnny doesn’t take this deal and ends up shooting Devil in the chest in front of Boyd. Good. One less bad guy to take screen time away from our Hillbilly Whisperer. We did get to see Raylan visit Loretta. He got no information about the Mags money from her though.

Dickey and Dewey escape from prison, and this is pretty funny. Dickie arranges to get the Mags money from Limehouse for Ash. Raylan and Rachel block the way to Limehouse’s area of town so that no drug money can get in or out. Raylan tracks Dickie to a safe house, where he sees Ash in the street. Ash tries to pull his gun and Raylan runs Ash over with his car, twice. Raylan gets on out of the car, questions Ash, and calls an ambulance, all the while teasing Ash. We want more Raylan teasing people!

Ash’s men take Dickie to the Bennett general store where they are not very nice to him. Limehouse saves Dickie, but Dickie finds out that Mag’s money is only $46,000 rather than three million. Dickie refuses the money and tells Limehouse to take it back and increase it. Limehouse agrees in order to honor his original deal with Mags.

We ship Rachel and Limehouse. Not because they are both black, duh. Because they have clear chemistry. This episode was a little slow, despite all the happenings. Again, we chalk it up to the show switching its focus from Raylan to the ne’er-do-wells of the area. We like that Neal is a little scary, Boyd is a little crazy/a little awesome, and Limehouse has a definite good side. But the others can go pound sand. The focus on the villains' set-up may be good for the season overall though. While for one or a few episodes, it tries our patience, we admit it will make things so much better to watch when Raylan takes everyone down.

Episode grade: B-

This week, Happy Endings is great, The Office is ok, and Ringer forces us to drop it by sucking

Happy Endings - The St. Valentine’s Day Maxssacre

This was probably Alex’s finest episode. She was hilarious getting mistaken for a stripper, staying optimistic about love, and reciting all those historical facts about Saint Valentine’s grisly death. They ripped him tip to taint. We weren’t into Dave’s story, especially when it capped off with him missing a threesome. We are getting sick of the whole threesome trope. We did like his middle school email address. threesomechaser@pulaskimiddleschool.org. Very funny. Brad went to the dentist and got a little too much happy juice. He spent Valentine’s night high, drooling, covered in chocolate, and full of really amusing things to say. He also compared the gang to their respective Friends characters. Comical. Penny gets dumped by a guy she wanted to dump, but she felt like it would be kind to not dump him in the “break-up window.” That’s when a holiday or big personal event crops up and it would be cruel to dump someone. Max finds his ex, Grant, and the two share a kiss. Grant is played by the lead of that really good cancelled show, Lone Star. This episode had so many laughs that we are glad we’re not doing a full recap of it. We’re running out of synonyms for “funny.” It was so droll, you guys.

Episode grade: A

Ringer - What Are You Doing Here, Ho-Bag?

We officially do not care about this show anymore or anyone in it. It moves at a glacial pace. The reveals are not shocking. We don’t care about the characters. The episode titles are immature and try too hard to be clever at the same time. The show doesn’t know if its audience is composed of stupid adults or of teenagers who enjoy watching mostly adults. The episodes are too long. We have six other shows that we watch on Tuesday nights. Its situations are implausible and character motivations are unclear. The show is not entertaining to us. For a while, it seemed to get better, but the long break took its toll on our ability to remember this show was even on. The two episodes, including this one, after the hiatus have only served to bore us to tears. We have much better things to watch and not a whole lot of time, especially since we started posting more and doing longer reviews. We may tune in for the finale, just to see the conclusion of this mess. Better luck next time, SMG and The CW.

Episode grade: F because it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The Office - Special Project

The single best scene of this episode was when Dwight was in the conference room, teaching his new team about Florida. It had great small jokes, especially if you are familiar with Florida. We are. Yes, there are too many mosquitoes. This episode was just ok, but it set up some things that will likely pay off later in the season. Like Kathy being after Jim, sexually. What a whooooooore. We know Jim won’t cheat on Pam, but it will be fun to watch Kathy try to get him, only to fail and then get fired. Also, it will be fun to see Dwight and his team in Florida. Lots of people think Dwight plots are weak, but we can’t get enough Dwight. On The Office anyway. We are still unsure about the Dwight spinoff they are considering.

Episode grade: B-

R.I.P. Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston is dead at 48. She had one of the greatest voices of our age, and she will be missed.

Secret Circle - Valentine recap/review

Happy Valentine’s Day indeed. This is not only the best episode of The Secret Circle’s season, it might be the best Valentine’s Day episode we’ve ever seen. It had just the right mix of recognizing the holiday and continuing on with all the drama and scares. Diana was our MVP of the night, showing off just about every side of her personality. We want to be friends with this girl. This episode was appropriately funny, scary, and eventful. The actresses playing Diana and Melissa have great chemistry together and are talented to boot. Put these two together more, show!

Jake and Faye wake up after their ill-advised hook up, fight, and then have sex again. At school, Cassie talks about how she felt a connection to her father in the basement. Diana wants to have a guy-free Valentine’s Day. Melissa comes up with the idea that they should all go to Faye’s and have a girl’s night and sleepover. Adam asks Cassie to go on a date with him. Cassie points out that it’s Valentine’s Day, to which Adam responds, “What? That’s so random.” Later, Adam moans about the poor decision to say that. Oh Adam. You're so adorable.

When Cassie is getting something out of her car, there is a man in a hooded robe standing behind her, haunting/hunting her. Later, Cassie sees this dude and freaks out appropriately. Jake talks to his witch hunter boss, Isaac, and finds out that John Blackwell killed this coven and stole Cassie’s medallion from them. The medallion contains the power of thousands of dead witches. Now, that coven wants revenge and the hooded ghost stalking Cassie is a part of that coven.

At the sleepover, Melissa convinces Diana to try her witch drug. Hilarity ensues. Diana is in a great, ballsy mood and is even more adorable than usual. Melissa, Diana, and Faye do a spell to bring to bring them a hot pizza guy. Lee rings the doorbell and Diana kisses him. Faye points out that Lee is not the pizza guy and Diana breaks off of him. Lee came over to fix a broken totum he gave to Faye earlier. The totum is supposed to sleep in Faye’s bed with her every night until it sucks away all her weakness, leaving only pure power. The totum looks like it’s made of bits of people. It’s the creepiest thing, but Faye is ambitious and will try anything. The real pizza guy comes later and he is hot. The spell must have worked. Diana kisses him too.

The party is really cute and fun, even though it’s that way mostly because Diana and Melissa are on drugs. Cassie shows up to ruin the fun (as usual), talking about her dead dad and hooded figures. The girls pull out an Ouija board and get a message. It’s just one word and it’s “sacred.” This is useless to them. Cassie realizes that she’s ruining the party and leaves. Jake shows up shortly after, looking for Cassie to warn her about the ghost coven. The girls chase him off. Girls only, cootie-bringer. As she is driving home, the medallion starts choking Cassie and she gets into a car accident. The car flips and it’s pretty sweet. Cassie, you are a moron. You should have hit the brakes when that necklace started tightening around your neck. You can’t fend off choking and drive at the same time. She's probably pretty glad she wears her seatbelt.

Jake gets Adam from the docks so that he can help find Cassie. The boys call Diana for information, and Diana is not happy. She tells them that maybe Cassie found a third boyfriend and is off with him. Diana’s happy high is wearing out, and she’s getting all honest. She tells Faye that Melissa prefers her as a friend and Faye is jealous. Faye retorts that Diana dropped Melissa as a BFF in middle school when Diana started dating Adam. It happens. People dump others when they get boyfriends and girlfriends. It still sucks for friends and family though. Their fight is interrupted when they find Melissa overdosing on the witch drug.

Melissa vomits the stuff up. We guess these girls thought an ambulance was unnecessary? Well, they're witches, so maybe it's understandable. Melissa wants Diana to take care of her sick self, not Faye. Faye looks hurt. Hey, Faye, if you want your friends to like you, stop trying to take their power, stop being mean, and don’t be such a slut. We still like you though, Faye. The girls give Melissa a talk about not taking the drug anymore. It’s like an episode of Intervention only everything is a lot easier! The key to addiction is friendship! Tell the experts!

Cassie gets out of the car after her accident and sees the hooded ghost, who leads her to a creepy abandoned church. Cassie yells at the ghost to come out and face her, even though she is in the creepiest, darkest church ever and should not challenging ghosts. The entire coven comes out in their hoods and encircle Cassie. Of course Adam and Jake get there just in time. The ghosts start to surround Adam. The robes drop to the ground and the spirits go right into Adam, all possessing him at once. They say, “Give us the medallion!” Whoa, Adam is Gollum now, and we like it.

The ghosts start making Adam cut his own wrist with his knife so that Cassie will cave and give over the necklace. Jake warns her not to, screaming that this is too much power to give to dead, angry witches who hate Cassie’s father and would probably kill her for revenge. Cassie looks like she is going to give the medallion to Ghost Adam, to save him, so Jake lamely yells, “I choose you!” and starts to interfere. Cassie uses her magic to toss Jake into the pews like an annoyance. Cassie is no Pokemon, Jake. Cassie crushes the medallion, destroying it. For some reason, the ghosts don’t take their revenge for that. Maybe they don't have the power to do it, now that the medallion is gone? Whatever, it was awesome. The witches leave Adam, and he and Cassie hug while poor Jake looks like he’d rather not be watching this embrace. It was actually a pretty bad-ass scene.

Jake brings the crushed medallion to Isaac who moans that Jake disobeyed his orders, has too much anger, and cannot be helped now. Faye and Diana make up, and it’s sweet and redeems Faye a little. Diana too, because she had her mean moments this week. She was totally entitled to them though. Lee is trying to heal a catatonic woman (probably his old girlfriend), and it looks like he is doing it through the totum. Is he going to steal Faye’s life energy or something? Faye had better watch out. Lee has a master plan, and it’s to heal this catatonic person, not to help Faye. Adam shows Cassie that he set up a Valentine’s Day dinner on his boat. He comforts her after she says that she wanted her father to be good because she didn’t want to believe she was evil like him. Adam assures her that she’s just fine and they make out. On the dock, we see the back of (presumably) John Blackwell and his scarred hand. Finally!

Episode grade: A+

Grey's Anatomy - All You Need is Love recap/review

It’s Valentine’s Day at Seattle Grace, and MerDer are just trying to find a nice, quiet, babyless place to have sex. They try all morning and fail. Rubber duckies are a real mood-killer for these two. At work, Meredith and Bailey get caught up treating a patient with seizures. The spend the day figuring out that there is a tumor on one of her ovaries. They have to sterilize the young woman, and her significant other is depressed about it. Bailey had dinner with Ben planned, but she kept having to push it back. Ben knows Bailey, so he had dinner set up at the hospital, complete with a hired waiter. He anticipated this problem weeks ago. Despite our complete annoyance with everything associated with Bailey’s love life, we smiled. Ben really does have it figured out.

One sad Valentine’s Day case involved a woman whose boyfriend was in an accident after chasing her down. The woman had been dating the guy for eight years, with no proposal. When her boyfriend handed her a little box that contained a locket instead of an engagement ring, she had enough. She vented to Lexie, screamed, and acted like the crazy beeyotch that no one would ever want to marry. Team boyfriend! Also, if he doesn’t propose for that long, girl should move on a lot quicker. The guy ended up dying and the girlfriend learned her lesson about wanting to get married…or something. She was all, “I don’t care about all that stuff anymore.” If only he would live! He didn’t and Lexie opened the Valentine’s day locket, she saw a message that said “marry me.” So if only the woman had opened the locket, the guy wouldn’t have died. Stupid. We already had a “dead guy was about to propose” patient storyline on this show and it was way sadder the first time.

Lexie babysits for MerDer so that they can get some together time in. They even manage to get upstairs to bone while Lexie holds Zola. Richard is not as lucky. He gets home and his wife does not recognize him. We liked Richard’s attitude toward the holiday. “What’s wrong with a day dedicated to the person you love?” Exactly, Richard. We don’t have a whole ton of patience for people who are bitter toward this holiday. Yeah, it’s a fake holiday, but if you are single, remember it’s not all about you. Some people are celebrating what they have and your day will come. Bitterness is not attractive and you are not a lesser person on February 14^th or any other day if you don’t happen to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. Spend the day with your best girlfriends or buy your cat some kibbles or something. And, yes, this is coming from a single person.

Another Valentine’s Day patient is a little girl brought in because of a peanut allergy. A little boy gave her a cookie with nuts in it and his mom had to bring the girl to the hospital. The little kids are in love and it’s so cute. They are holding hands the entire time. Then the girl’s mom shows up, angry. She doesn’t like the little boy’s mom and thinks it’s crazy that she didn’t know about the allergy. She yells and makes the boy and his mom leave. Karev is all, “They’re cute and in love. Let them be cute.” But no. The moms make the boy go. He tries to refuse, but Karev tells him to write a note for his little girlfriend and Karev will be there when the girl wakes up so that he can read the note to her. The note is really sweet. After reading it, Karev tells the girl, “You picked a good one.” The only thing cuter than these patients is Alex Karev getting all sweet and human when he’s taking care of kids.

Callie has a romantic evening planned for Arizona and Arizona fears that it’s camping, which she hates. Still, she wants the night with Callie, so she tries to get Mark to cancel his evening with Julia and babysit Sofia. Mark loses a match of rock-paper-scissors, which is fine, because Julia had to cancel due to work. Jackson helps Mark babysit and Mark helps Jackson start studying for his boards. They do this with a bottle of wine, which we would think would ruin both the studying and the babysitting. We haven’t done drinking while babysitting (because we are not crummy people), but we have tried drunk studying. That was a fail. Callie and Arizona have a nice night in Derek’s trailer. Lexie nearly admits to Mark that she still loves him but doesn’t.

Of course, most of us were watching and waiting for the fate of our most troubled couple. Owen and Cristina are not speaking. Cristina tells Meredith that she thinks he is going to leave, and that she doesn’t care. She is a surgeon and will not beg. If Owen wants to walk out on her and hate her, fine. There’s nothing she can do about it. The concern on Meredith’s face tells us that she knows Cristina is lying. Cristina breaks the silence by asking her husband if she can go back on Teddy’s service and he immediately agrees to let her. This sort of means that he doesn’t care anymore. He doesn’t want to teach Cristina anything; he just wants to be away from her and not have to talk about it.

As Cristina walks a way, a flower delivery van crashes into the ER and nearly hits her. Owen is able to push Cristina out of the way, and it’s pretty bad ass. He’s faster than the speed of sound. As fast as Edward Cullen, easily. They lie on the hospital floor together and Owen asks if she’s ok. She says yes. He asks, “Are you sure?” She nods, her expression like that of a romantic heroine in a bodice ripper. Owen lets go of her and walks away, abruptly. Worst Valentine’s day ever, ya’ll.

Owen, Cristina, and Teddy have to do surgery together and it’s awkward. Owen and Cristina have to take the elevator together afterward (“I already pushed…. Whatever.” Cristina is so funny.) and Owen tells Cristina that he’s moving out. Cristina says, “Ok,” and manages to keep it together until Owen gets off at his floor. Then she breaks down in tears. We hate when Cristina cries. It always breaks our hearts a little. Owen decides that he needs a friend today, so he tries to talk Teddy into going to Joe’s with him for drinks. He wants Teddy to finally stop hating him. Well THAT’S not happening. Teddy gives him this little gem of a speech:

“Are you done? Are you finished? I hate you. From the moment you decided to put the needs of your hospital over my dead husband, I have hated you. I lie alone at night and I look at the spot where my husband used to sleep and I actively, with every cell in my body, hate you. I wish you were dead instead of him. I think about all the soldiers, good men who died over there in Iraq, and I don’t understand what kind of God would allow you to survive. We are not friends. This is not grief. It will not pass. I hate you! Please, don’t speak to me again, unless it’s work related.”

Whoa. Heavy. Also, WHY? It’s not Owen’s fault Henry died. It would have made no difference if Teddy were told right away. Owen was not the only liar that night; Teddy lied to Cristina about who Cristina would be operating on. We guess Teddy feels betrayed, but we think Owen made a rational decision not to tell Teddy that her husband had died while she was operating on someone. It wasn’t the needs of the hospital. It was the needs of another life. We can’t even… Teddy’s being crazy and that speech was mega-harsh. She said it with extra venom too. It's like back when Jack Bauer killed her husband, only then she actually had a reason to be mad. If Audrey can forgive Jack Bauer and give up her sanity for him, Teddy can let Owen buy her a drink while he rambles about his horrible marriage and dead baby. 

We thought Owen and Cristina were over, for now, but there is still hope for the couple that can’t catch a break. At the end of the episode, Cristina finds Owen in his weird little air duct room, having alone time and looking upset (as usual). She swallows her pride and says, “Please, don’t hate me. I’m begging you.” Then they get close and touch each other a little. Meredith’s voiceover talks about calling truces. The episode leaves us wondering if they will separate a little more amicably (without hate) or if they will give it another go. At this point, either would be logical.

Episode grade: B

The Vampire Diaries - Dangerous Liaisons

While Alaric spends the night in the hospital, presumably under the tender loving care of his new doctor girlfriend, and recovers from the latest Alaric death tease, Elena is nearly being killed by Rebekah. Elijah saves Elena, and we are reminded that we are this close to being Team Elijah. We are sad that he is probably going to die. The next morning, Caroline gets a call from Tyler, telling her that he is going to fix himself as per her dad’s instructions and then come back to her, sire-bond free. Aww.

Meanwhile, Esther plans a ball in the family mansion so that she can get a word with Elena and officially mark her family’s arrival in Mystic Falls. Esther sends an invitation to Elena and on the back it says that it’s time the two meet. Damon vetoes this, thinking that Elena needs to stay far from this ball. He and Stefan will attend without her. Have the Salvatore brothers met this girl? If Elena thinks she can help by going to a ball, she is going to a ball. Her parents and Jenna must have left her a fortune when they died, because Elena shows up in one of the most beautiful evening dresses we have ever seen. We think she should have ditched the gloves though. There was already enough going on with that dress.

Elena gets another dance with Damon (!!!) and there is actually a lot of dance partner switching that night, enabling everyone to have the proper threatening or flirty conversations. Stefan helps Elena ditch Damon’s protection so that she can meet with Esther upstairs, far from the festivities. Stefan breaks Damon’s neck when he isn’t looking, and you know it takes at least a few minutes for a vampire to recover from that. Elena remarks that Stefan doesn’t care about anything anymore, except killing Klaus, and Stefan agrees with her. His facial expression says differently. Elena also thanks Stefan for continuing to respect her choices and let her do her own thing, even after the end (or drought) of their relationship.

Esther lays things out for Elena. She wants to kill all of her children, not just Klaus, because they are abominations. Esther needs a drop of Elena’s blood to put in Klaus, Kol, Finn, Elijah, and Rebekah’s champagne in order to magically bind them for killing at a later date. Elena provides the blood. Oh no, it can’t all be that easy. There has to be some more horrible consequence to this. Besides the death of our favorite Original, Elijah, and the crushing of our favorite new ship (Caroline/Klaus). Finn knows about Esther’s plan and is all for it. That’s weird. Leeard was impressed and liked that Finn knew the Originals need to die. Maybe the linking of the Mikaelson children is not to kill them. Maybe it’s for something else. We pause now to chuckle at how clever their made-up surname is.

Rebekah invites Matt to the ball so that she can kill him in order to hurt Elena, with Kol’s help and approval. But Matt is adorable in a tux and acts a perfect gentleman. Rebekah is completely won over as far as Matt goes and who wouldn’t be? He is adorable and we don’t say it enough. We are too often distracted by Damon. Speaking of Damon: There was a discussion about how Damon is starting to feel too much and it’s becoming a liability. Wow, that guy can’t win. We spent two seasons trying to get him to embrace his humanity, and now that he has, both Stefan and Elena have a problem with it. Not fair.

 Damon tells Elena that he loves her, only to have her respond, “Maybe that’s the problem.” Damon gets all Damon-y again when he sees Kol carrying out the original plan to kill Matt. Right in the middle of the party, Damon throws Kol off the balcony and starts thrashing him. When did Damon get strong enough to completely destroy an Original in a fight. Heh. We liked it, so we won’t question it much. Matt gets off with a crushed hand. Someone feed that boy some vampire blood; he has no health insurance. Rebekah follows Matt to The Grill and he turns her down, even though he thinks she’s cute and fun. The whole crazy vampire family thing is just too much. Damon swoops in and tells Rebekah that she needs a guy who can handle her. That’s how she and Damon end up making aggressive, super-hot lurrrrve. We don’t know if we like that. Well, we don’t like it. Damon belongs to Elena. But we don’t hate it either.

Klaus spends the evening trying to woo Caroline, who shows up wearing a dress Klaus sent her, plus the bracelet, looking like a million bucks. He shows her a horse and tells her a story about his old horse, thousands of years ago. Caroline doesn’t like that Klaus is trying to buy her. She tells him that his problem is that his daddy didn’t love him, so Klaus believes that no one will love him for himself. So Klaus has to manipulate and dagger and sire and buy people in order to not be alone. Caroline stomps off, even more awesome than she was at the beginning of this episode.

When Caroline gets home, she finds a pretty good sketch of herself standing next to a horse. A note at the bottom of the drawing says, “Thank you for your honesty.” Aww. Klaus is a good artist. Love him for that! We do realize that Caroline taking up with Klaus while Tyler is off torturing himself in order to be with her would be the ultimate betrayal. But we can’t help but root for Klaus/Caroline anyway. In a lot of ways, they are a perfect, if unexpected, match.

Episode grade: A-

Alcatraz - Guy Hastings

We are still watching this show, even though we don't usually follow shows with such a procedural format for long (well, Ern doesn't). We figure that once we've seen a couple of procedural episodes, we've as good as seen them all, with the occasional finale or episode that hits it out of the ballpark. However, there's just something about Alcatraz that makes us want to keep watching for now. This week was just OK, despite a few revelations and forward-moving plot. This show could stand to get a little creepier, we think. 

Guy Hastings is the first guard out of the missing 63s. Back in 1963, he’s a good guy and a family man. He loves his wife and has a daughter named Annie. His job at Alcatraz was training new guards. One of the new guards is Ray, the man who raised Rebecca. Young Ray became a guard so that he could get close to Rebecca’s grandfather, Tommy. It was revealed in this episode that Ray and Tommy were actual brothers. Ray changed his last name so that he could become a guard in Alcatraz, because there is no way he would have gotten the job if the hiring committee had known an inmate was his brother. Ray is Rebecca’s real uncle, and now she knows it.

In the present day, Guy Hastings makes a beeline for his old apartment and is surprised by a park ranger. He beats up the park ranger, which gets Hauser, Rebecca, and Doc on his tail. Rebecca and Doc visit the grown Annie, Guy’s daughter who has kids of her own and very fond memories of her dad. Rebecca and Doc ask to see Annie’s father’s old stuff. Annie has a photo of Guy with Ray back when they were guards.  Rebecca then gets a call from a bartender at Uncle Ray’s bar. Uncle Ray is missing.

Guy Hastings grabbed Ray, and Ray was not surprised to see him. Guy is looking for Tommy Madsen, because whoever took the 63s and made them travel through time wants Guy to find Tommy. Ray leads Guy to his old childhood home where he grew up with his brother. Rebecca and Doc figure out the secret sibling-ness and the location of said childhood home. They go there, and Guy grabs Rebecca, holding a gun to her head. Hauser shows up (he has a tracking device on Rebecca’s car) and Rebecca shoots Guy in the leg to keep Hauser from taking him out.

Guy is arrested, but Hauser isn’t as mean to this one. Guy was not a criminal and what happened to him was undeserved. Hauser lets Guy get a glimpse of Annie and her family before taking him wherever the guards are going to go. Hauser says that this is the one look at his family Guy is ever going to get. Sad.

Rebecca figures out that there is something unique about Tommy, and that Hauser needs someone connected to Tommy in order to succeed. Hauser admits that he offered her Uncle Ray a similar job, years ago. Rebecca realizes that she has leverage over Hauser by her very cooperation. Finally, Tommy comes into Ray’s bar. Ray tells Tommy that he needs to stay away, because he is putting Rebecca in danger. In fact, if Ray sees his brother again, he is going to shoot him.

Episode grade: B-

The River - Magus and Marbeley

We watched both hours of this creepy little show, and at the end of those episodes, we still aren’t sure if we like it. It has a lot of elements that we enjoy. We like the horror and supernatural elements, the mystery, most of the cast, the Blair Witch Project-y filming, and the speed at which answers are dispensed. The story was decent. We think the failure of the characters to grab us in the first two hours is what made this show tedious to watch at times. We just didn’t enjoy watching it as much as we wanted to, even though we decided that it was objectively pretty good. We are going to keep watching. It’s different than almost anything else on TV, and the first season will only be seven episodes (eight if you count these as two, even though they aired the same night), so we should probably give it the full season. Maybe the characters will become people to us soon. We admire this show's weirdness.

Dr. Emmet Cole, a TV naturalist, disappeared in the Amazon and was declared dead. His wife, Tess, gets a deal with the network to fund her journey to find her husband, as long as they get to tape everything…and as long as the Cole family’s only child, the grown Lincoln, goes with them. Lincoln is estranged from his father (because all the long trips into the wild for TV took the father away from his family) and would rather stay home and finish medical school, believing his father to be dead. He can’t refuse his mother’s pleas and finds himself on a boat, on a river, in the Amazon, looking for his father.

Our first complaint is that Lincoln could definitely be hotter. The actor needs to eat some cheeseburgers. Our second complaint is that Tess (generic widow name) is played by Leslie Hope, who annoyed us as Jack Bauer’s wife in 24. She does a fair bit of screaming in The River and we don’t appreciate it. She is also too thin to really be attractive, but at least she has hair on this show.

Along for the ride is a produce, Clark, that Tess probably boned and a camera crew. Clark is played by another 24 (and Lipstick Jungle!) alum, Paul Blackthorne, who used to be decent looking, but age isn’t doing him any favors. At least he still has his British accent. At the last minute, the gang is joined by Lincoln’s childhood friend and daughter of the cameraman who went missing with Dr. Emmet Cole. Her name is Lena, and she’s a pretty blonde. She does not annoy us, as you might expect. Nope, all that is saved for screeching, manipulative, cheating Tess.

There are two more players on this boat who need a mention. There is the Captain, Emilio Valenzuela (pretty last name). He worked with Dr. Cole in the past and has a psychic daughter named Jahel, who is also beautiful. Jahel speaks no English. The network and Tess have hired a professional bodyguard named Kurt Brynildson. He is very German, and yet his accent doesn’t come across as gay, like most German accents. If we had to do any guy on this boat, it might be him, quite frankly.

Lena helps them find Dr. Emmet Cole’s abandoned ship, the Magus. Inside, they find a mysterious force that tears Lena’s leg. She needs stitches. Through psychic Jahel and the examination of the evidence on the boat, they decide that the force is the ghost of Emmet Cole’s last producer, Cam Travers. The ghost destroys the group’s rafts and engines. Uh oh. Sh*t just got real. Everyone panics, and it’s funny. They figure out that the reason the ghost was encased in the Magus was because Dr. Emmett Cole trapped it in the ship in the first place. That was their solution, so our crew decides that they need to do a blood ritual and re-trap it.

During the ritual, Tess screams at the ghost, asking if her husband is still alive. She gets a reply: Yep. Dr. Emmett Cole is alive. Lincoln changes his tune of reluctance and is ready to plunge forward in the search for is dad. Lena brought 104 archive tapes of the mission that brought Dr. Emmett Cole to the Amazon anyway. He was looking for a) real magic and b) something called The Source, and the journey involved shamanism and magic and other weirdness. The German bodyguard has orders to take Dr. Emmett Cole out if the doctor has found The Source. We don’t know who the orders are from.

In the second hour, one of Dr. Emmett Cole’s trained dragonflies goes into Jahel’s mouth so that the doctor can use her as a mouthpiece to talk to his wife. Dr. Emmet Cole tells Tess that she needs to give up the search and go home. Something bad happened to him, but he wants his wife out of it. One thing we do like about Tess is her determination to find this guy. The gang goes into the jungle and finds a tree covered in dirty, creepy dolls. Of course, they move a little. There’s also a really great shot of a small monkey holding a doll face in front of its own. It turns around, removes the doll face, and makes its monkey noises. That was kind of a scary moment, even though it doesn’t sound scary. Dude, the dolls are creepy. We’re telling you.

The group decides that this is the perfect place to set up camp. This tree has to do with a spirit and the dolls are gifts to appease its anger or whatever. Lincoln sees his old teddybear hanging from the tree and we get a flashback to Dr. Emmett Cole giving his son a serious…and creepy…talk. The gist is 1) there’s a pendulum of life and death, 2) someone might stop it from swinging, and 3) Lincoln might be the child strong enough to do something. Then Dr. Emmett Cole gives Lincoln a necklace, but we see later that Lena might be the person destined for this vague, mysterious greatness.

Lincoln takes his teddybear back and this angers the tree. The spirit tries to steal Lincoln’s mommy by pulling her into a muddy stream. Lincoln and the others try to put the teddybear back, but it is rejected and falls off the tree many times, even though they tie it on securely. Lincoln hears the legend of the spirit of the tree and figures out what he has to do, which is dig up a corpse and throw it in the river. Tess is pushed back from underground, alive. This whole tree thing was pretty entertaining and just the fun kind of scary that produces a few jumps and a few good laughs. It’s not campy enough that you can’t take it seriously enough to watch, but you can tell the show isn’t taking itself too seriously either. It's nice to see a horror show that doesn't just go right for shock and is building to something.

Episode grade (for both): B