Gossip Girl: Will You Be Mine?

With Chuck more sober and serious thanks to an intervention by his Uncle Jack, he heads to the reading of his father’s will.  Blair and Jack follow behind and we learn that Blair had a fling with Jack on New Year’s Eve.  Jack is named as Chuck’s guardian and trustee for the next two seconds until he’s 18.  Lily, who’s represented by counsel, gets 20% of Bass Industries, the board gets 19%, and surprise, Chuck is getting 51%.  Chuck and Jack are shocked, well more like Jack is pissed and Chuck is overwhelmed, thinking Bart is setting him up to fail.

The next day Chuck tells Jack he wants to take over the business now, with Jack wanting to hold on to power as the clock ticks until Chuck is 18 (really, how long could it be now?).  Chuck has Jack leave and Chuck takes his place behind Bart’s old desk, with controlling shares in Denver Carrington, I mean Moramax, no, no, Bass Industries, yes that’s it.

That night Chuck is to have a romantic dinner with Blair but instead Jack appeals to his nephew’s baser instincts — booze and boobs — and they spend a night out on the town.  Little does Chuck know, but Jack and Blair are throwing him a surprise brunch the next morning.

But before we get to the weekly party/denouement, let’s catch up with Lonely Boy and S…

Jenny is wondering what’s going on with Lily and Rufus in Boston, specifically whether they are hooking up.  Dan, who knows they are actually searching for their lost love child, is playing aloof with Jenny and avoiding Serena.  Dan calls Rufus to see when Lily is going to tell Serena but the eavesdropping Penelope & Co. only hear what they think is Dan admitting to cheating on Serena.  They tell Gossip Girl, who sent a message out saying that Dan is cheating on Serena with Georgina.  Really?  Georgina Sparks is the best they could come up with?  Isn’t she still in the rehab center/crazy house?

Serena catches wind of Penelope’s antics and tells Blair to control her minions better and to cancel the hit on Dan.  These folks are worse than the mob.  Anyway, Dan is shopping for candy with Vanessa and he tells her about his half-brother and how he hates concealing this from Serena.  As they’re distracted by the candy, Nelly Yuki steals Dan’s phone right before our Greek chorus, the three crazy tweens from Season 1, appears and chastises Dan for cheating on Serena again.  He leaves.  Serena catches up with Vanessa to see what’s wrong with Dan; Vanessa plays it off as nothing and texts Dan that he has to tell S about Rufus and Lily’s child.  Now dear reader, did you catch the part when Nelly stole Dan’s phone?  Well, oops, Nelly’s the one who gets the text, not Dan, and she promptly tells Penelope & Co. the dirt the night before Chuck’s celebratory brunch.

At brunch we see members of the board of Bass Industries and the usual players.  Dan is very excited to be there, even without his phone, because he loves brunch–so do I Dan (call me!).  Jack walks in, expecting to bring Chuck with him, but as the “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” dies down, we see Jack is alone.  He explains that Chuck had a rough night and is up in his office.  As the board members head up to see Chuck, Penelope tells Blair she wants to release some information to Gossip Girl.  Blair is too distracted by Chuck and gives the go-ahead without reading the information, which we know is a bad move.

In Chuck’s office, the board members walk in to see a drunk Chuck getting, er, manual stimulation from two prostitutes.  Blair also sees the scene and everyone, except Chuck, leaves in disgust.  Back at the brunch, everyone is holding on to their floppy cable knit hats as they learn that Serena and Dan share a half-brother.  Eric, who was inspired by a recent episode of As the World Turns, is trying to push Jenny aside so he can spend more time with Jonathan, but this all changes as they are speechless with the news that they have a sibling in common.

With Chuck (now wearing pants) projecting his anger on Blair, Serena freaks out over the news and that Dan knew but did not tell her.  She figures out that Rufus and Lily are in Boston searching for their child.  Anyway, Jenny, Eric, Dan, and Serena all think they are related while I wonder where “your mother has a mysterious child with the father of your fair-weathered boyfriend and your brother’s hag” appears on the chart of consanguinity. They didn’t teach that in Wills, Trusts & Estates.

Chuck confronts Jack, who replies that he’s pissed for getting nothing from Bart.  Jack’s trump card, though, is the morality clause attached to Chuck’s appointment, and Jack played the card and got the board to appoint Jack — as Chuck’s guardian — the head of Bass Industries.  Jack declares, in Alexander Haig-like fashion, that he’s in charge now.  Uh oh!

Eric, sporting the Paula Deen camera filter for his close up, talks with Serena and they conclude their grandmother, reeking of gin and Chanel No. 5, was behind this secret.  (I suspect we’ll learn more in the upcoming spin-off.)  They head off to the Brooklyn loft, where Dan and Serena make up and think it’s all right for them to date and still have a common sibling, citing the Clueless precedent of Cher dating her step-brother, Josh.  How this is relevant or analogous, I do not know, but because it involves Paul Rudd, I’ll allow it.

Chuck takes large ugly flowers to apologize to Blair.  She’s not having it, though, explaining that she believed in him, his father believed in him, but he ignored the words of Lena Horne (anyone? anyone?) and did not believe in himself.   She throws the flowers back at him as the elevator closes.

And what of our lovers in Boston?  Well, they originally have no luck with the adoptive family of their child and they fight in their hotel room.  Lily says she’s still in love with him and they make out.  During the commercial break, they play find the cobra in the bed sheet, which somehow signals the adoptive father to call to set up a secretive meeting with them.  At the meeting, they learn that their son, Andrew, was killed in a riptide last year.  Something’s fishy about this but Lily and Rufus leave disappointed but too soon to see the adoptive father’s wife walk in as the adoptive couple reveals that Andrew is their other son who died, not Lily and Rufus’s son–they don’t want to lose their other son to some rich snots from New York (I’m paraphrasing here).

Rufus and Lily return to Brooklyn to lament their loss and how they were never meant to be a family.  Lily wishes they could have been a family, as she and Rufus walk into the loft to see their children getting along (and watching Showgirls), just like a family on television.  And all the hizzos in the house go, “Awwww.”

P.S. Nate had two minutes of screen time to tell Dan that he took their friendship for granted and he’s sorry for what happened with Jenny.  It’s wicked gay and contrived, but a nice scene, nonetheless…

Season 2, Episode 15: Gone with the Will (originally aired January 12, 2009)

Listen to The J Factor with J.B. and Jaimie here or on iTunes.

For more on Gossip Girl, click here.

Mondays at 8/7C, The CW

Photographs courtesy of The CW

Battlestar Galactica: The Journey So Far

[Our crack scientists in the Poptimal.com Laboratories intercepted the following transmission in lieu of SciFi's recent top ten list preview of the final season of Battlestar Galactica. . .]

The Battlestar Galactica is hovering in orbit around the planet Earth, refugees from the Twelve Colonies of Kobol traveling through the universe for the past four years.  Our journey is about to come to an end, but first, where have we been in this time?

Four years ago the Twelve Colonies were destroyed by a surprise attack by the Cylons, a race of artificial intelligent robots who were created by man to serve man.  The Cylons rebelled and after a lengthy war, both sides signed an armistice.  Fifty years later, the Cylons launched a surprise attack.  Approximately 50,000 people survived but in the intervening four years, only 30,000 of us are left.  We are, as far as we know, the entire remains of the human race.

We are led by Admiral William Adama, Commander of the Battlestar Galactica, in our search for Earth, a mythical planet where we believe the lost Thirteenth Colony of Kobol lives.  Along with Admiral Adama, we look to political leadership in Colonial President Laura Roslin, who was the Secretary of Education and 43rd in the line of succession at the time of the attack.  Roslin’s cancer has also returned and many wonder whether she is the dying leader foretold in scripture who will lead us to a new land.

On our ship Galactica, Adama and Roslin are our de facto parents, and rumored to be romantically involved, and we children drink and screw around with each other too much.  Our XO, Colonel Saul Tigh is Adama’s longest and closest friend, although things have been tense since we learned of his secret.  Adama’s formerly estranged son, Lee, was the ship’s CAG (former Major) but has since entered politics by serving on the Quorum of Twelve; he’s separated from his wife, Junior Lieutenant Anastasia Dualla –ship communications officer.  Adama’s surrogate daughter, Captain Kara “Starbuck” Thrace is the new CAG; she plays by her own rules and is married to Ensign (and former Pyramid athlete) Sam Anders –she and Lee have a rocky history built on sexual tension (and a few intimate relations).  We all thought she died in an explosion but she mysteriously reappeared, unharmed, claiming to know the way to Earth.  Some people still have their doubts about her.  Speaking of, the ship’s mad scientist, now-religious prophet is Gaius Baltar, who aligned with the Cylons during our brief stay on New Caprica.  He has since redeemed himself to some by spreading the word of a single god’s love for humanity, but others are unconvinced.

The Cylons, or “skinjobs,” look like us now.  There are twelve models and, until we destroyed their resurrection hub, seemed immortal as they could download their thoughts into a new body.  One of the Cylons, “Number Six,” seduced Gaius on Caprica so she could access the defense department’s mainframe to allow the Cylons to launch their surprise attack.  There are other Cylons within our crew.  Junior Lieutenant Sharon “Boomer” Valerii (Number Eight) was a secret agent on Galactica who tried to kill Adama; she is now back with the Cylons.  A duplicate of her model, Junior Lieutenant Sharon “Athena” Agathon, seduced Captain Karl “Helo” Agathon and, through their love, decided to join Galactica to fight the Cylons.  They have a human-Cylon child, Hera, who seems to have a greater destiny of her own.  We recently learned that four other humanoid Cylons are on our ship: Colonel Tigh, Specialist Galen Tyrol (formerly Crew Senior Chief), Anders, and Tory Foster (former advisor to Roslin).

Before we arrived at Earth, the Cylons broke out into a civil war with Brother Cavill (Number Ones) leading the group of Fours, Fives, and Sharon Valerii who want to destroy what is left of the human race.  The Number Twos, Sixes, and most Eights are on the other side, lead by Natalie (Number Six) and helped us “unbox” D’Anna (Number Three), so we could destroy the Resurrection ship and learn the identity of the Final Five Cylons on our ship.  Although we have an alliance with the rebel Cylons, we still do not know who is the final Cylon or when the other Cylons will return.

Just yesterday the first convoy went down to Earth’s surface and it was a tragic sight.  The place is deserted, apparently destroyed in a nuclear attack.  Where is everyone?  What happened here?  What happened to the Thirteenth Colony?

[At this point the transmission ends, but having seen the recent preview of the final season of Battlestar Galactica, this is looking like a climatic ending to Ronald D. Moore's final act of the three act story.  I can't wait!]

[SPOILER ALERT: Not really a spoiler but I wanted to put down my prediction for what I think happens.  So the final Cylon is either Roslin or Lieutenant Felix Gaeta.  The Thirteenth Colony was actually Earth as we are today (in an alternate universe) that left the planet and went to Kobol and from Kobol to the Twelve Colonies.  All this has, as Pythia tells us, happened before and all this will happen again.]

Listen to The J Factor with J.B. and Jaimie here or on iTunes.

For more on Battlestar Galactica, click here.

Sci Fi, Fridays at 10/9c beginning January 16, 2009

Photographs courtesy of Sci Fi

Editorial: DC’s Steady Chasing The Paper This Inauguration

On the Metro train listening to T.I.’s new hit album Paper Trail, a lyric from the song Live Your Life (feat Rhianna and her forehead) kept resounding in my head – “So live your life, instead of chasing the paper. . . .” Boiled down for the hip-hop anemic, it means to enjoy the moment of the experience instead of relentlessly pursuing the all mighty dollar.   I can’t believe that I am saying this and I may need to wash my mouth out with soap, but Washingtonians need to heed T.I.’s advice . . . well at least insofar as it relates to the over commercialization of the 2009 Presidential Inauguration of President-Elect Barack Obama.  Read more

Damages: Starting Off with a Bang

Lawyers can be dangerous people.  I should know.  I live in Washington.  But there is no lawyer I know quite as treacherous as Glenn Close’s Patty Hewes on FX’s critically acclaimed lawyer/crime drama Damages.  But this year, little associate Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) may be giving Patty Hewes a run for her dirty money.

Season two of Damages opens with Ellen sipping on a drink and channeling Blair Waldorf with a law degree, from her icy stare right down to her pointy-toed, tough bitch shoe, interrogating an unseen person.  She tells mysterioso he/she should be very afraid.  And he/she should tell the truth.  She’s brought some persuasion if he/she doesn’t want to spill.  She pulls out a shiny little pistol.

I’m persuaded.  So here’s a bit of honesty.  Before Wednesday night’s second season premiere, I’d never seen an episode of Damages, but the great thing about it, was I didn’t have to.  Here’s the lead up to this season in brief: Ellen is a young, fresh from law school associate working for power attorney, Patty Hewes.  Together they’re arguing a case against Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson) who committed some heinous financial fraud/scam/whatever.  In their attempts to convict him, they blackmail this Ray Fiske character (Zeljko Ivanek) who proceeds to kill himself in front of Patty.  Yikes.  Upset about the blackmail/suicide, Ellen expresses her guilt to Patty, who decides she’d have to have her killed.  Because that’s the leap we all would take.  Lucky for Ellen, the hitman didn’t succeed.  Unlucky for Patty, Ellen knows it was her who sent him.  Also, somewhere in this mess, Ellen’s fiancé David was murdered in a really bloody, ugly way in their bathtub.  This Frobisher fellow did it – or at least Ellen believes he did.  But at least Frobisher was convicted and some buddy of his shot him in a field and left him for dead.  We good to go?  Okay.

So we flash back to six months before Ellen pulled the gun out on mysterioso persona, to where Ellen and Patty are playing nice with Regis and Kelly.  With all those billions she won in her dirty Frobisher case, Patty’s hoping to start a charity with her bud Sam Arsenault for hungry children.  How sweet.  Ellen, pissed at Patty’s duplicity, exits to a car to meet with some FBI agents.  She’s been spying on Patty and planning to inform on her to the Feds.  Ain’t revenge a bitch?

Later in therapy, Ellen daydreams about finishing Frobisher off in that field he was shot in.  Then she tells her therapist she hasn’t had any revenge fantasies.  Flash to Patty in her office with her own little spy, Uncle Pete (Tom Aldredge), who thinks he should still be watching Ellen even though Patty seems to trust her again.  Plus, she’s too busy with her new charity to bother.  Turns out her Daddy Warbucks, Sam Arsenault, wants to run for office and isn’t too keen on helping out with her charity any more.  One gets the feeling Sam Arsenault doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.

But charities aren’t the only thing on her mind.  An old “friend” Daniel Purcell (William Hurt – talk about killer casting!) is having mysterious scientific documents sent to her office and begging her to help him fight some evil forces within his company which are threatening his family.  And Ellen is seducing Patty back to work with a case (a convenient trap from the Feds) on infant mortality among women who can’t afford caesarians.

Then we flash again to Ellen’s group therapy, where newcomer to the show, Timothy Olyphant (yum!) discusses his own revenge fantasy against his girlfriend’s killer.  I smell a love interest!  At another later session, the therapist tells Ellen she’s holding onto her anger as a way of holding on to her dead fiancé.  Ellen promptly storms out.  Wes (Olyphant) rushes after her, and after flatly telling him she’s not interested he reveals he was just returning her phone.  Embarrassed, they delve into conversation on how he lost his girlfriend to a drunk driver.  He knows the date of the guy’s parole.  And he knows it’s a Wednesday.  They bond.  Then he tells Ellen that people like them only have two options: forgiveness or revenge.  Wes hasn’t chosen yet, but Ellen seems pretty keen on revenge.

Ellen gets to choose soon enough.  Uncle Pete tells her what hospital Frobisher is in, and pretending to be his wife, Ellen goes for a little visit.  Maybe it’s the pathetic beard, the tubes, the helplessness, but vengeful Ellen sees Frobisher and then just walks away without him ever knowing she had been there.  Maybe revenge really isn’t Ellen’s game?

Meanwhile Patty is having her own nightmares and realizes she still feels guilty about trying to kill Ellen.  (Imagine that!) She asks Ellen if they might speak after the charity fundraiser and Ellen runs off to the FBI for a wire to record the coming confession.

For her charity, Patty quickly takes care of all.  Arsenault’s daughter finds herself splashed across the page one after she’s caught doing coke.  Arsenault calls Patty, who’s buddy-buddy with the D.A., for help but says he still can’t join the charity.  Patty does a stand-up job of acting insulted by this.  Clearly she would never stoop so low! (Guffaw.) But Patty can’t budge the D.A., Arsenault loses his political campaign support, and he comes crawling back to Patty and her charity.  She graciously allows him to rejoin the effort after doubling his commitment funds and putting the “Hewes” first in the charity’s name.  At the fundraiser for the event, Patty’s son mentions that he wasn’t surprised, he told her Arsenault’s daughter was a cokehead.  Yes he did, replies Patty.  Never mess with Cruella DeVil.

Trying to escape his own evils, Daniel Purcell approaches Patty at the fundraiser.  His house has already been broken into.  He fears for his family.  He wants the documents he sent Patty back; he’s going to handle it himself.  Patty agrees.  However, she decides she will jump in on Ellen’s infant mortality case, and Ellen sets up a meeting for them.  Walking the street, Ellen runs into Wes – what’s he doing here? fishy, fishy – and offers to help her get a gun.  He thinks she needs protecting.  Ellen says she doesn’t think she’s the revenge type and walks off to meet Patty with the wired, disguised cell phone in hand.

Over a few glasses of expensive red wine, Patty spews some bull about losing a daughter when she was young and tells Ellen that she’s the daughter she never had.  Ellen looks ready to throw something at her.  She then vents her frustration over Patty’s lies with the FBI who say investigating Patty could take years.  Does she have the patience?

Patty, on the other hand, gets a different nasty surprise.  She answers her cell phone and rushes off to a house surrounded by cops.  Inside is Daniel Purcell’s wife, strangled on the floor.  Daniel stands nearby, holding a cloth to a gash on his head.  Will Patty help him now?  I’m thinking yes.

Flash back to six months later (boy these flashes are making me dizzy) and Ellen’s still interrogating mysterioso.  Whoever it is, still isn’t telling the truth.  Ellen takes a sip.  That’s okay, she lied too, she says.  Then points the gun and bang, bang.

So who did Ellen unleash her awesome revenge on?  It couldn’t be Patty.  Typically shows don’t kill off their main character in the second season when they’ve already signed on for season three.  My money’s on handsome Wes.  But I guess I’ll just have to keep tuning in to Damages to see who bites the big one.

Do you have the patience to see the revenge through?

Season 2, Episode 1: I Lied, Too (originally aired January 7, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out You Gotta Be Patient by Alana D.

For more on Damages, click here.

Wednesdays at 10pm E/P on FX

Photographs courtesy of FX and IMDbPro

Ministering to Eli Stone

Tuesday’s episode, Two Ministers, had some of my favorite Eli Stone things: a controversial case, a twist ending, some religious philosophy, and lots of Nate and Eli.  So why didn’t I love it?  How about, where was Maggie?  Where was the musical number?  And why, oh why, was there so much Taylor and Matt Dowd baby drama?  Gross.  I won’t even get into their is-the-baby-healthy-or-not contrived drama.  After being cancelled, I’d almost think Berlanti was just phoning the rest of this season in, except the ministers did have some valuable life lessons to impart.

The first minister of the title was Eli’s newest plaintiff, Reverend Michael Stills, who used to be Reverend Michelle Stills.  Reverend Stills’ congregation is kicking him off his pulpit after the sex change, citing breach of contract.  Eli sees it as clear discrimination and enlists Keith, who was a member of Reverend Stills’ church, St. Anne’s, to help him fight the case in court.   It’s refreshing to see Eli accept Michael immediately and without hesitation, just as it’s enlightening to see Keith battle with his own prejudices.  Eventually, both Keith and the jury come to see Reverend Stills as a faithful leader of his flock, despite his physical change, and it’s wonderful to see a show stressing the uniting and tolerant aspects of religion over the divisive, exclusive ones – even if the call to tolerance takes a while.  We could use a little more of that message on TV and in this world.

The second minister was Eli himself, who was upgraded from best man to minister at his brother Nate’s wedding.  But just last episode, after undergoing the dark truth, Eli saw Nate’s fiancée, Beth, leave him at the alter.  This week, Eli tries to feel out what may be wrong by spending some extra bonding time with Beth.  But his efforts work against him when Eli realizes that the problem may be him.  After all, Beth’s the girl he lost his virginity to in college.  It seems some old feelings might still be there.  To confirm his suspicions, Eli goes back to sexy Dr. Lee for some more of the dark truth.  After she stabs him in the chest with a pin, he sees himself kissing Beth on her wedding day and Nate discovering them.  Eli awakes with loads of chest pain.

Dr. Chen catches Eli leaving Dr. Lee’s – uh oh, someone was caught cheating on their faith guru – and Chen warns Eli again about the danger of the dark truth, especially for someone with an aneurysm.  He tells Eli he’s broken from his path, and that he shouldn’t go to Nate’s wedding in Vegas.  He’s messing with The Plan.  But Eli can’t seem to help himself and goes anyway.

In the hotel lobby in Vegas, prepping for the wedding, Nate realizes he doesn’t have the rings.  Eli heads upstairs to find them and finds Beth instead.  She confesses that she still might have feelings for Eli.  He says he doesn’t feel the same way, but too late, in comes Nate.  Beth runs away, and Nate looks pi-issed.

Eli spends the next week trying to get back on Nate’s good side and then finally just barges in on him at his apartment.  Eli apologizes again, but Nate doesn’t want to hear it.  He unloads on Eli and on all the ways his gift has ruined his life.  Nate’s lost his job at the hospital, his fiancée, he doesn’t have special gifts like Eli, and now he’s alone.  Eli is worse than their father, he says.  Boy, Eli does not like this.  He looks super ticked, tosses a pillow, and then his nose starts bleeding.  Nate rushes over, anger gone and full of concern.  Confused, Eli looks at the blood on his hand from his bleeding nose, and says, “Nate,” once before passing out.

What do you know?  The dark truth hurts.

Season 2, Episode 9: Two Ministers (originally aired December 30, 2008)

For another take on this episode, check out Two Ministers by Cameron Cubbison.

For more on Eli Stone, click here.

Tuesdays at 10/9C on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC

Due to the Inauguration coverage here in D.C., the weekly picks will return January 25, 2009.

Golden Globes Recap: Real Time Reactions

Since I was assigned to do a write-up on this year’s Golden Globes, I was forced to relegate the long, long awaited season premiere of my beloved 24 to the frozen reaches of my DVR.  To compensate, I have decided to write this recap liveblog style.  I’m sure Jack Bauer would be pleased.

The following takes place between the hours of 7 and 11 on the day of the Golden Globe Awards.  Events Occur in Real Time. Read more

The War of the Brides

I’m going to steal an idea from Mlle Campos and offer up a quiz to those of you who are considering seeing Bride Wars. 

1. Do you have trouble tolerating extended discussions about wedding planning ? e.g., varieties of invitation stationery, designer dresses, bridal tanning packages, etc.?

2. Are you easily irritated by the sound of shrieking?

3. Are you a guy?

If you answered Yes to any of the above questions, you may want to head over to the next theater and check out Gran Torino.

But if you, like me, enjoy the Style network’s excellent wedding-planner show, Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? and you don’t mind checking your brain at the door, Bride Wars might be just the thing to distract you from your latest bout of seasonal affective disorder.

Now, bear in mind that this movie was released in January for a reason. It won’t be up for any Golden Globes come next year’s awards season. The plot is bizarre, yet predictable. The actresses are far too good for their script. The secondary-character clichés abound (the tough-as-nails wedding planner, the ambiguously gay assistant, the uninterested-in-wedding-planning grooms). But that’s okay. This movie isn’t trying to be anything more than a popcorn flick that gets women to fork over $9.75 on a Friday girls’-night-out. And given how many blah “guy movies” have hit the multiplex lately, that’s just fine with me.

If you’ve seen the Bride Wars trailers, you’re familiar with the movie’s “high-concept” premise. Two lifelong best friends get engaged within days of each other. They’ve both dreamed since childhood of having a June wedding at the Plaza. They go to a wedding planner, who accidentally books both of their weddings for the same time slot, in different rooms. Either they’ll have to have competing weddings, or one of the friends will have to change her venue. What’s more important ? a lifetime of sisterhood, or being a princess for a day?

Unsurprisingly, they both go the princess route. Each blames the other for not changing venues, and they very maturely act on their anger by playing a series of pranks on each other. The pranks run from the tame (Emma has chocolates delivered to the dieting Liv) to the mean but fixable (Liv switches out Emma’s spray-on tanner with a bright orange hue) to the unforgivable (which I won’t describe for fear of spoilers). The writers also somehow contrive a strip-club dance-off between the brides (hey, whatever it takes to get the straight guys into the theater, I guess). It’s like watching a very long episode of Friends, except Rachel is the only character, and there are two of her.

It’s hard to suspend disbelief far enough to accept that two sane, intelligent, adult women would behave this way, especially since Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are playing Liv and Emma, respectively, as fully three-dimensional people ? the kind of confident, complicated women you want to root for, even when the script has them literally clawing at each other. But if you can pull that off, and you enjoy watching good actresses wear great clothes while sipping champagne and shopping for wedding dresses (I know I do), you may want to give the movie a shot.

Bride Wars falls into that squishy, non-romantic-comedy-yet-still-funny-and-targeted-exclusively-at-young-women genre previously occupied by The Devil Wears Prada and Legally Blonde (both of which, I’m happy to admit, I own on DVD). Bride Wars doesn’t compare to either of those, and won’t be taking up space on my shelf anytime soon. But it’s a sufficiently fun way to spend a couple of hours.

Grey’s Anatomy: Wish I wasn’t.

*Yawn* This episode of Grey’s Anatomy, “Wish You Were Here,” picks up with the still-feuding Cristina and Meredith. Now everyone is taking notice of their awkward silences and thinly-veiled animosity.  When a death row patient arrives, the two are at odds in the level of compassion and treatment they are willing to provide.  Cristina and Derek have little sympathy for the patient, who has a shank lodged in his spine.  Meredith attempts to ease his pain and form a rapport, but she’s in the minority.  They finally learn of the crime for which he’ll be executed, and he’s every bit the monster Cristina and Derek assumed him to be. Meanwhile, resident horndogs Callie and Sloan continue to lust after Lexie and Sadie.  Izzie continues to talk to her imaginary friend, Denny – and confides in Alex that she’s been “interacting” with a now deceased old flame.  Surprisingly, Alex is supportive and understanding. He has really turned over a new leaf with Izzie and seems to genuinely love her.  Hopefully she’ll tell Denny to beat it before she blows a good thing.  Meredith and Derek are going strong, as he sweetly tries to fill the void left by Cristina, while Cristina shuts out Dr. Hunt when he tries to cheer her up.  Cristina is emotional and needy, so I thought it was odd that she shot him down after recently pining for him.

This was a pretty uneventful episode, and I was a little disappointed with it.  One would think the writers would have come up with better material after making viewers endure a lengthy hiatus between new episodes.  Perhaps next week’s episode will fare better. I’d rather have moist eyelids than heavy ones, so bring back a storyline good enough to inspire some emotion!
Season 5, Episode 11:  Wish You Were Here (originally aired January 8, 2009)

For different take on this episode, check out Wish Granted by Inisia Lewis here.

For more Grey’s Anatomy reviews, click here.

Thursdays 9/8c on ABC
Photographs courtesy of ABC

Grey’s Anatomy: Wish granted.

I’ve been trying to figure out what went wrong. There are so few shining stars this season, and all my favorites seem dull compared to last season. I can’t put my finger on exactly what changed. I still believe a lot has to do with the writers’ strike although I’m not sure exactly why anymore. So I started thinking. . .

What if an extended television break has made us into tougher critics? Since we missed what we love so much, we ended up inadvertently setting the bar higher than we had before. Forced to find other forms of entertainment besides primetime TV resulted in a greater demand for a better show when it returned. All I know is that after this most recent hiatus, I was eager to see how my favorite shows would jump back, and I’m happy to say I have nothing to complain about when it comes to this week’s Grey’s Anatomy episode.

(Yes, that even includes the doomed Denny/Izzie storyline.)

I would say it’s standing on solid ground. Yes, this season of Grey’s Anatomy has been decidedly less-than, but I felt genuine waves of happiness and sadness as I watched this week’s episode and that should be the goal. I’ve stated before that Grey’s does its best when we care about its characters, even the ones that only come into our lives for one episode. I laughed and I cried. I cared about the patients and the docs. I felt like I was watching real human emotion and being able to feel it in my bones. I felt like I connected with Meredith’s overarching theme in her voiceover. And that has not been the case in a long time.

So this week, we were asked to think about the wishes we make. (I know that I at least got one wish granted in this fantastic episode.) Meredith and Christina are still on the outs. When I say outs, I mean it’s like the Arctic between the two former BFFs. Their hot other halves are between them when Derek, Owen and the ladies are put on a very hush-hush case, but more on that later.

Returning to form, Mark and Callie struggle to remain professional when it comes to the very sexy interns that surround them. I gave the writers a lot of flack when it came to the exit of Erica as well as their storyline, but I do love Callie best when she’s single and bumbly and all cutesy. Mark is having a hard time keeping his eyes off Little Grey post-seduction, and Sadie clearly makes Callie loco so she creates a one-step program (step one: No sex with interns) to keep the two on the straight and narrow. This group of lovers works with a patient who’s broken almost every bone in her body in the last year and repeatedly screams to God in exasperation. When they find a tumor that’s causing the breakdown of her bone calcium, it’s the final straw. She’s given up everything in her life to make her world safe, even the love of her life who moved to Denver. (She knew broken bones and ice don’t go too well together.) By removing the  tumor, the patient has the chance to follow her heart to Denver. With this romantic ending, Sloan’s one-step program lasts, oh, one work day, and most likely not much longer for Callie.

Elsewhere, Izzie is acting a bit more normal but that doesn’t mean there’s less Denny. It just seems like she’s gotten more used to having him around. Since Alex has said those three special words, (big deal and she knows it) she feel compelled to tell him what’s been going on. This was an unexpected twist. Though she can’t be exactly upfront about it, she does hint to the fact that she sees Denny, minus the whole sex part. He doesn’t flip out, but instead jokes sweetly with her about it and says he’s willing to share her. It also happens to be her birthday, so his nonchalant response is like the perfect present. She doesn’t even have anything more to wish for when she blows out her birthday candles.

In another hospital wing, Bailey meets a difficult day when one of the doctors dies while treating a patient close to her heart who has experienced chronic stomach and liver problems. A new, young doc named Arizona, wearing those roller skate sneakers in a hospital (really?), takes over the case. When Arizona wants to stop treatment and put the kid on the donor list, Bailey flips, and the Chief is not around because he’s sulking about how far the hospital has fallen. The most touching part of this storyline is the quirky kid who want to be one of those Make-A-Wish kids even though he’s not terminal. When his sickness takes a turn for the worst, the Chief not only rallies to help Bailey brainstorm and support a friend, but the kid gets his chance at a wish which is obviously bittersweet.

Now back to what I began earlier. This episode began a 3-episode arc featuring Eric Stoltz playing a charming, creepy serial killer.  (Stoltz has also directed past episodes of Grey’s.) He forces differing opinions by our docs regarding the treatment of people who maybe don’t deserve the same treatment as others. (At least,  those who don’t kill for fun!)  Meredith’s on the side of treat without judgment while Christina and Derek are on the opposite side. It dredges up a lot of drama in the hospital, personally and professionally, and it won’t be the last of it, I’m sure.  After the long, hard day of battling with her best friend and boyfriend, Meredith is defeated, but Derek confides that his father was murder which might skew his view to a particular side. All is forgiven as he takes the position of temporary BFF and dances it out with Meredith to make her feel better. (I need to find me a McDreamy that’s for sure.)

Rhimes must have some kind of plan because the crazy triangle between Izzie, Denny and Alex is seeming a lot less insane. Plus this bitter battle between Meredith and Christina is turning out to be some seriously intriguing drama. I didn’t think it would last long, but I’m actually glad it has. It’s adding a different dimension to both characters and their friendship.

And lastly, will this Stoltz arc pan out as one of the better storylines? It’s definitely shaping up to be, and as I’ve said earlier, Grey’s is back on top! Hopefully there’s no stopping it.

Season 5, Episode 11:  Wish You Were Here (originally aired January 8, 2009)

For a different point of view, read Tanya Lane’s take, Wish I Wasn’t., here.

For more Grey’s Anatomy reviews, click here.

Thursdays 9/8c on ABC
Photographs courtesy of ABC

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