The mad scramble to catch up on TV continues, and I know that technically Castle should come after Chuck seeing as they both air on Monday, but when I came to update on Castle, I realized I was missing an episode. So we’re doing this out of order and skipping right to V.
The last 2 weeks of the season were absolutely phenomenal. Plots thickened, characters disappeared, and some people met their untimely end at the hands of the Visitors.
Despite the fact that it was a slow week in televisionland, I still manage to post this thing a week after my self-imposed deadline. Glad my motivation level is so outstanding… I’m thinking I should just start sleeping less in order to get this shit done on time, perhaps now is the appropriate time to try my hand at speed… I kid, I kid. I’m just going to go for pure adrenaline to the heart, Pulp Fiction style.
Anyway, like I said, it was a pretty slow week in TV, but with the awesomeness that Monday nights continue to be thanks to Chuck and Castle, I can deal with slow TV. I’m considering changing my availability at work so I can always be home for these two shows, they are that good. Although I guess at this point in the season, that would be rather counterproductive… but I digress. As you probably know already, the less TV there is to watch, the more I write about what actually aired. SO these may be a little long winded, but trust me. I’m brilliant. It’s worth the read.
The Cape – Razer
Orwell has gone a little River Tam...
EDIT: I didn’t realize this was the season/series finally until after I wrote this review. Needless to say I’m not going to miss this show a whole lot, but I will miss my weekly dose of Summer Glau. Can someone write her a successful show and end this SUmmer Glau Curse now? Thanks.
Of course we reach the last episode just as Orwell starts to get an interesting story. While our (ok, my) favourite part of this show (or the only reason I still watch) was barely in this episode, her character is finally starting to get some umph. Other than that, it was another run of the mill episode of The Cape. Gang violence has taken a hold of Palm City, and it’s not just in the run down parts of town. Even the wealthy areas… aka where Trip and Dana are… are being shot up like crazy. This, of course, pisses Vince off like no other, and he decides to get to the bottom of it.
Well, the bottom of it is a little tiff between Scales and Fleming. But since they’re the only two big guns in town, they decide to cut a little deal. Ark will remain in control of all of the high profile areas of town, and Scales can run the rest; sort of like a Godfather type deal. In order to hold his authority, Scales has called in a demolition expert named Razer. Why he needs a high end explosives guy escapes me (I kind of don’t remember, nor do I really care…), but Vince and The Carnival intercept Razer’s ride before he can reach Scales, and Vince goes to see Scales in his place.
Unfortunately, the real Razer escapes Carnival custody and gives Vince up. Before he’s too brutally tortured however, Max swoops in with the cape and saves Vince while severely bruising some of Scales’ guys. Apparently Vince has a lot of tricks to learn about the cape from its previous owner.
Meanwhile, Fleming is having some Chess related problems; he can’t keep the guy under control. He goes to see his shrink, Jack Gellar Elliot Gould, who is surprised to hear that Fleming refers to Chess as a totally different person. Apparently the split between the personalities is becoming a little too intense, so the doc asks to see Chess. Fleming is resistant at first, but when the doc leaves the room Fleming pulls out a pair of Chess-like contacts. Is Chess real? Or is Fleming putting on an act? Or maybe, he just likes being crazy so he’s pretending for his shrink. Who really knows, but the doc and Chess have a lovely heart to heart and Fleming is told Chess won’t bother him anymore. Somehow, I doubt that.
Orwell, as previously mentioned, has been incredibly absent this episode, and when she has been on screen she has been severely stand off-ish. As the episode comes to a close however, we see why. Vince gives her a call to check in, and when she sounds weird he asks if everything is ok. She replies that everything is wonderful (an excellent Lily Allen song by the way), but since she’s sitting in the middle of a room that she has painted white in it’s entirety, and looking a little River Tam-ish, I’m going to go with she’s lying. Girl has gone crazy!
Overall, it was a mediocre episode. The Chess development was interesting, and I love that Orwell is finally getting some interesting plot love, but Vince and Scales kind of bored me. Although I do love Vinnie Jones, and I do love that he always plays Vinnie Jones, but even his hilarious Scales can’t bring me into that storyline. Really, they should just do a spin off of Orwell and leave the Cape in the chest where it came from.
Chuck – Chuck Vs. The First Bank of Evil
It's bank robbin' time!
Have I mentioned that I love Sarah Walker? Because I do. A lot. And while this was far from a Sarah-centric episode, she had a couple of moments that made me love her even more… if that’s even possible. This episode had everything that makes Chuck so phenomenal – the overarching plot thickened, the personal lives of the characters developed, and a lot of fun and hilarity occurred in the meantime. Why this show doesn’t have an additional 5 seasons already on contract continues to blow my mind on a weekly basis. Stupid NBC. Anyway…
Vivian is set and poised to take over Volcoff Industries; the only problem is she’s not an evil genius like her father. She goes to his office to try and find a clue about the man her father really was, and she’s greeted by his skeezy lawyer, Riley (aka Satin from Reaper which just makes him that much more evil). He tells her that she has to take her father’s place, but she returns to the CIA with her father’s bankcard instead.
The card is for a safety deposit box in the Macau bank, which is apparently some crazy ass, probably evil, super secure bank in, you guessed it, Macau. The plan is simple: Vivian will go to the bank and access her father’s deposit box, with Chuck posing as her bodyguard, and maybe they’ll get an idea of Volcoff’s plan. Everything at the bank goes smoothly, until Chuck wanders past security and finds a bunch of super secret servers before getting caught. Vivian goes full Volcoff and threatens to kill Chuck on the spot for his subordination (he is pretending to be his bodyguard remember), but the bank asks that they don’t do that on their shiny clean floors.
Back at Castle, Beckman tells the team that the CIA believes the servers in the bank are poised to open a black market stock market (does saying market that many times even make sense?), and they must stop them. Vivian is to be used again, and while she’s in the safety deposit room she’ll upload some software to the servers, allowing the CIA to keep an eye on them. Of course while Vivian’s doing that, there will have to be a distraction to keep security busy. That’s where Chuck and Sarah come in – they’re going to rob the bank.
Vivian isn’t too crazy about this idea, so she uses this moment for some bartering. See, the stuff in the bank that her father left her wasn’t money; it was a bunch of newspaper clippings from her childhood. So she’ll go along with the plan, as long as she gets to see her father once it’s all over. Beckman agrees, and the bank heist is on.
Everything at the bank goes smoothly; Chuck and Sarah even discuss wedding plans while they’re threatening to kill everyone in the bank. It’s actually quite sweet. But Riley shows up again to put some ideas in Vivian’s head. He tells her that the CIA is actually lying to her, and using her, and they’ll never let her see Alexei. Chuck is just as much of a spy as the rest of them, and he’s telling her what she wants to hear. Unfortunately, this ends up being true since Beckman revokes her decision to let Vivian see her father. For the lady Volcoff, this is the last straw, and she decides she’d rather see her father than do what’s right and she is ready to take her spot as the resident bad guy for the rest of the season.
Meanwhile, Morgan is having some roommate issues… in that he can’t find a new one and he’s been sleeping on his Mom’s couch falling asleep to the sounds of her and Big Mike doin’ their thang. Desperate to get out of the house, he has started sleeping at the Buy More. One night, he’s awoken by the sounds of construction in Castle and he wanders downstairs to investigate. While he’s down there, he sees Casey taking charge of the remodeling, and overhears some tech guys discussing a crazy computer they’re installing. When Morgan asks the big guy about it, Casey assumes he’s using this as leverage to sleep on his couch. While this wasn’t Morgan’s original intention, it works out for the bearded man as now he has a place to sleep and he knows something Chuck doesn’t.
Of course the wedding plans are ongoing, but Sarah isn’t really feeling it. Ellie, who is doing her best to get our girl excited, explains that she was in the same boat when her wedding planning started. But then there was a moment when everything hit her, and she realized that she was getting married to the man of her dreams, and everything after that was fantastic. Sarah seems skeptical, but Chuck suggests that she get really excited about one thing and then ease herself in from there. Sarah takes his advice, and she chooses to get excited about the dress. Cue wicked wedding dress montage (in Castle’s amazing closet… I want one). When she finally finds the dress, she utters, “we’re getting married” and there are giggles and tears… and I totally mean from her. I wasn’t crying… I swear. Of course now that she’s excited about the wedding, she goes at it in true Sarah fashion and a monster bride is born. How Chuck is going to afford this wedding is beyond me.
This was such a fantastic episode, and it wasn’t even the best of the season… which just goes to show how wicked this show is. But we all know I could gush for hours about how awesome Chuck is. The wedding stuff really was adorable; monster bride Sarah is going to be absolutely hilarious and this wedding is going to be ridiculous. I can’t wait. I’m very curious as to what Casey is really working on, and I have a feeling Morgan will learn first now that the guys are roomies… that is just guaranteed hilarity. Vivian’s rise to the top of Volcoff is awesome, and a brilliant plot move. Now, even with Alexei locked away, Volcoff can still be the big bad of the season, and I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of Mr. Dalton. The rest of the season is shaping up my friends; we’re in for a hell of a ride.
Castle – Countdown
Trapped, frozen, and running out of time
Ok, before I start recapping this week, I recently realized I left out a very important plot point from last week’s Castle. Martha has scored two tickets to the very exclusive spiritual retreat called “The Oasis of the Serenity”. When Castle asks what it is, she replies, “You haven’t heard of the Serenity?” to which Castle gives a knowing smile. It was fantastic, and definitely worth sharing. Moving on to this week…
We pick up right where we left off last week – Castle and Beckett are trapped in an ice truck, slowly freezing to death. After being kicked off the case, no one will be looking for them, and with no cell service, things look grim for our heroes. As the cold kicks in, Beckett starts to explain that she always thought she’d meet her end through the wrong end of a bullet not freezing to death. Castle tries to lighten the mood, but Beckett just holds his and tells him that she’s happy he’s there as she starts to fall asleep. Just as Castle begins to drift off himself, Ryan and Esposito bust in and save the day. Apparently when Castle didn’t leave a message for Alexis and wasn’t answering his phone, she got worried and called the precinct. When Beckett was also unreachable, they figured they’d be up to something stupid, and they were right.
Once Castle and Beckett are defrosted and ready to roll, it’s right back to work. Now that they know Amir and Jamal aren’t the culprits, it’s back to square one. They realize that Amir wasn’t the only one driving the cab, so they look into the routes the other drivers took in the weeks leading up to Amir’s death. Kevin McCann also drove to the warehouse, and when the cops look him up, they find out they he doesn’t exist anymore… Kevin McCann is a dead war hero. They find McCann’s sister, who recognizes her bother’s imposter. His name is Radford, and during their last conversation he said that the world has forgotten there’s a war going on and they need a wakeup call.
The team apprehends Radford, but he’s Special Forces and won’t give up anything… even when Agent Fallon goes a little apeshit and pulls his gun on him… leading Beckett to pull her gun on Mr. DHS. The only thing Radford says is that when all of this is done with, the nation will get their terrorist and he’ll be nothing but a footnote in history. Castle realizes that if Radford’s previous patsy’s are dead, he must be setting up someone else. The team rushes to Amir’s house to check on his family, only to find her security detail dead, and the house is empty.
Luckily, Castle still has the card from the Syrian dude, and while he’s not forthcoming with information, he does let it slip that he had Amir’s house under surveillance, and if they were going to check out a warehouse at a certain intersection, it wouldn’t be the worst idea. So, they go to the warehouse, but they’re too late. Amir’s wife has already taken the van with the bomb as she’s been promised that if she does what she’s told, she’ll get her child back alive.
The chase is on. The team splits up to try and track down the van, and Castle and Beckett are the lucky two who stumble upon in. They manage to get Amir’s wife to stop, but when they open the back of the van they realize they may be too late; there are less than 2 minutes on the bomb’s clock. Panicked, they call Fallon to try to get info on how to dismantle the bomb, but he’s at a loss. For the second time in one day, the partners face death hand in hand. They brace themselves for the blast, but at the last moment Castle grabs all of the wires on the bomb and just yanks them out, stopping the clock and saving the day.
The gang celebrates their success over beers at the precinct, and Fallon pulls Castle and Beckett out into the hallway to apologize for being such an ass. I should probably mention that Ryan brought it to our attention earlier than Mrs. Fallon died in the second tower on 9/11, while on the phone with her husband. Castle and Beckett are, obviously, understanding, but hope they never see the dude again. At least not under these circumstances. The partners are alone in the hallway, and Castle tells Beckett he has been thinking… and just when it looks like he’s going to ask her out or profess his undying love for her, he says he should go home. Beckett looks confused, but when Josh walks up behind her she understands. The episode draws to a close with our heroes alive and well, but with their newfound appreciation of life, they both realize they should just get their shit together and be together. At least for my sake.
What an excellent episode of television. All other TV shows take note: This is how you do a two parter, this is how you make a procedural drama feel fresh and unformulaic, this is how you create phenomenal sexual tension between your two leads. In case I haven’t made myself clear, this episode was brilliant. Not only did it have everything we love about Castle, but the show got a little political and actually made you feel for the bad guys. At least a little bit.
I’m very curious as to where the show will go from here. Obviously they’ll be back to the formula next week, but I feel like the relationship between Castle and Beckett will definitely be changed. How could it not? After surviving two near death experiences with someone, the connection between you has to become deeper… maybe this will be the season they finally admit that they’re 100% crazy about one another. One can only hope.
V – Uneasy Lies Ahead
Nothing like a little comfort after possibly killing innocent live aboards...
V is really setting itself up for an epic season finale, and I really hope they get to come back for another season. If you’re not watching this show, you should be. It’s a lot of fun, it’s got two wicked female leads, and it’s got crazy-lizard aliens. What’s not to love?
Erica still needs to prove herself to the rest of the Fifth Column, and she has a plan. With the help of Malik’s information and her team, the gang have figured out that Anna’s end game has to do with the DNA of the live aboards. They figure that the crazy needle tests the V’s have been running on their visitors are actually DNA extractions. Everyone who has lived on the shit has been extraordinary in one way or another; the V’s are building the perfect human DNA so they can breed an exceptional hybrid species. Erica’s plan: corrupt the DNA of the liveaboards and thus, destroy Anna’s master DNA strand.
Sidney has found a virus that will do all of the DNA corrupting for them; it’s just a matter of stealing it from a secure lab. Erica and Hobbes are all for the busting up of a lab, but Jack is having moral reservations. While they should be doing everything they can to stop the V’s, they can’t throw all of their morals and beliefs out the window in doing so. It makes them just as bad as their alien enemies. Erica however, ignores Jack, and they go ahead with the plan to steal the virus. During the heist, a guard catches them and Erica gives him a couple of shots to the chest – both of them kill shots. Luckily the guy was wearing a vest, but Jack is taken aback by the lack of morals in his leader.
They get the virus out to fifth column members who will somehow distribute it to the remaining live aboards before they get on the motherships. Sidney explains that it will corrupt the DNA sequence enough to make it useless to Anna, but there’s one small catch: the virus is untested and it could kill the guys before they even step on the ship. Cue another moral-related outburst from Jack, and while this isn’t ideal for their plan, it will at least allow Anna to know that the fifth column is still alive and kickin’.
On the ship, Anna is having some issues of her own as all of her mating partners for Lisa keep spontaneously puking their guts out… literally. All of the dudes except Tyler are being affected by the phosphorus in a very fatal fashion, and Anna doesn’t know why. To make matters worse for the queen, as soon as the live aboards make it to the ship, one of them collapses from the virus. Unfortunately for the fifth column, the V science dudes are able to figure out what went wrong before inserting the corrupt DNA into the master sequence and Anna is able to accomplish her goal. With her perfect strand of DNA she is ready to get her breeding on, but she now knows that the fifth column continues to present a very viable threat.
Speaking of threats, Anna puts a kill order out on Ryan Nichols. When he dodges the assassination attempt, he turns to Lisa for help in getting off of the ship. Since she’s all buddy-buddy with grandma, she goes to Diana for help. After a lovely reunion with his queen, Ryan manages to leave the mothership using one of Diana’s secret escape pods. Lisa thanks her grandma for her help, and Diana says that if Anna is becoming more aggressive, they may need to reach out for help. She sends Lisa to deliver a message to one of her most loyal subjects, and as the episode draws to a close, Lisa tells Marcus that Diana is still alive.
Erica is feeling pretty down about her unsuccessful plan, and since Jack is still riding his moral high horse, she turns to someone a little more ambiguous on the matter: Hobbes. And let’s just say they comfort each other in a very morally ambiguous fashion…
This season of V is just kicking ass all around. The characters are rapidly evolving as they become more desperate to reach their goal; the differences and similarities between Anna and Erica are striking and brilliant. This week’s focus on the morality of war was incredibly interesting: how much sacrifice is too much? When does collateral damage turn into slaughter? Watching Erica move slowly toward the extremist side as she tries to save her son, not to mention the world, is a lot of fun. What can I say, more explosions makes for more fun TV.
The relationship between Lisa and Diana continues to intrigue me; I wonder what Diana’s true goal is. I highly doubt she just wants to help humanity, there’s got to be something in it for her. I really can’t believe that Marcus is loyal to the former queen… this shit just got really interesting.
Modern Family – Two Monkeys and a Panda
While Claire tries to solve a family crisis, Phil takes in a little Phil time.
After the comedy gold of the past few episodes, this week’s Modern Family fell a bit short. Not that it wasn’t funny – I definitely found myself laughing out loud – and not that it wasn’t touching – there were definitely a few “aww” moments – it just wasn’t at pat with the last few episodes. But really, that just goes to show how awesome this show is. They have set the bar so high that they’re sub par episodes are still laugh out loud funny as well as sentimentally adorable. God, I love this show.
The three families had their own stories this week, so let’s just take them one at a time, shall we?? First up: Jay and Gloria. Jay has been thinking a lot about what will happen to his family once he’s gone, so he wants to make their transition into a Jay free life as easy as possible. This, of course, means he’s on the hunt for his final resting place. He tells Gloria that some “prime real estate” has become available, and he takes his wife to a mausoleum/catacomb (both words I learned from Buffy) to show her where they’ll be spending eternity together. Well, Gloria’s initial thought is that it looks like their bodies will be stored away in a glorified filing cabinet, which is definitely a fair assessment. The people selling the “region” of the mausoleum are worried that because the couple’s age difference, Gloria might remarry after Jay dies, and she’ll want to buried with her new husband which will either leave them neighbourless or with a complete stranger next to them for eternity. Jay has never thought the age difference was an issue, and he starts to wonder if he’s just a putz Gloria married out of pity. Manny reassures his step-dad that Gloria could have anyone she wants, but she chose him. That’s got to count for something. With his new found confidence, Jay comes up with an even better “once I die” plan: His ashes will be put in a coffee tin on the fireplace so he can keep a constant eye on the putz Gloria will marry after him.
Haley and Alex are having the constant argument of sisters everywhere: bitch, that’s my sweater! Claire tells Haley to let Alex borrow her sweater, but Alex does the unthinkable and rips a hole in the back. Now Claire is on a daylong mission to try and replace the ruined shirt. Phil, on the other hand, is having a less stressful day. He won spa gift certificates in an auction, and since they were about to expire, he decides to use them himself. While surrounded by the women at the spa, Claire calls to ask him to make dinner and he doesn’t handle the call too well. The spa-women give him plenty of advice on how to handle Claire when she’s having a bad day, and when he gets home and puts it to practice, he definitely comes out on top. Meanwhile, Claire has found the right sweater for Alex to give back to Haley, but the store left the security tag on. Claire tries to get it off herself, but that leads to an ink-splosion just as Haley walks in the door. She flips a shit on Alex for ruining her sweater and the sisters are at it again. Oh, sibling.
Mitch and Cam win for the touching story of the week. Cam is trying to give the word “adoption” positive conations for Lily by clapping and saying, “yay” every time he says the word, and he’s also decided to write an adoption story called “Two Monkeys and a Panda”, and make a scrapbook of the whole adoption process so his daughter can be proud of her history. While going through all of Lily’ s paperwork, he realizes that Lily’s name isn’t Lily Tucker-Pritchett like it’s supposed to be, Tucker has been documented as her middle name. Cam originally accuses Mitch of doing it on purpose, since he’s in charge of the legal stuff, but when he comes back to apologize for said accusation, Mitch admits that he did it on purpose. When they were waiting to get Lily, Cam kept freaking out and Mitch was so scared that he was going to up and leave them that he didn’t want Tucker to be a constant reminder of the man who abandoned them. Cam is obviously crushed, so to make it up to him, Mitch takes a stab at a first draft of “Two Monkeys and a Panda”. The story is adorable, and when he says, “adopted” at the end, Lily claps. All is right in the world again.
It wasn’t a horribly funny episode this week, but it had its moments. Phil is quite possibly the most clueless man on the face of the planet with the purest heart imaginable. Everything he does makes me laugh hysterically. Mitch and Cam’s story warmed my heart, as did Manny’s speech to Jay about how much his mom loves him, and Haley and Alex remind me a little too much of my sister and I. Except our mom would never drive around to find a replacement sweater, she’d just tell us it was our own damn fault and we’d have to deal with it. Usually violence was involved, I always won.
Well this is officially the most delayed week in review as of let. Massive failure on my part, and for that I do apologize. In my defense, I did work over 60 hours last week, and combine that with constant, weather related headaches, it doesn’t leave a lot of time for writing. But, here we are, it’s finally done, and hopefully I’ll have last week’s up in a more punctual manner… but it is me, so I can’t make any promises.
Last week delivered another excellent 7 days of television (well, 5 if you count the days I actually watch TV…). Chuck and Bones both returned, one with emotional turmoil and one with less of a bang, The Cape continues to entertain me far too much for my own good, and Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory both had me laughing for the entire half hour (well, 22 minutes if were going to continue being precise). As per usual, I have a lot to say and never really know when to shut up, so let’s see what last week brought us.
This week of TV was awesome. Just straight up awesome. While all of the shows aren’t back yet (I cannot wait for Chuck and Bones to return), those that are kicked ass, and a new show I’ve been looking forward to for months finally premiered.
We’ve got a lot to discuss, so let’s just get right down to business, shall we?
I’m officially a crazy person. I don’t know what made me think I could work 50-60 hours a week and do TV blogging on an episode by episode basis. I’m officially going to be doing a TV Week in Review, hopefully every Sunday or Monday of the following week, and will be covering: The Cape, Chuck, The Event, Castle, Glee, V, Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, Grey’s Anatomy, and Bones. That being said, V was so epic last week that when I went to do my mini-write up for the TV Week in Review, it was hella long so I decided to give it it’s own post. Plus the return of Morena Baccarin to my TV on a weekly basis deserves its own post, don’t you think?
V returned for season two with a vengeance last week, with new plot twists and developments everywhere you looked. When we left our Visitor friends at the end of last season, Anna had just released the Red Sky after Erica blew up her children/hatchlings (and Morena Baccarin let out that bone-chilling emotional scream… goose bumps). As season two beings, Red Sky is four days in and no one on Earth knows what’s going on. Before I go any further, I should explain that I adore this show. Not only does the cast include a former shipmate on Serenity, a former doctor from Chicago County General (who moonlit as a cast away on Lost) and a member of the final five cylons, but it’s just wicked. So my reviews will probably tend to lean a little in the positive direction… especially when the leading ladies are concerned. You have been warned.
So this is what V's look like under all of that human?
My Life as Rach 