America’s Next Top Model: Take Me to the Jungle

It’s that time of the season where we narrow down to our final three and congratulate Tyra for breathing. Because if Tyra breathes, then she’s responsible for selecting these amazing models, photographing them with a style and genius to rival Annie Leibovitz, and for making the sun shine. Can you be any more amazing than Tyra Banks? Not likely!

Aaaaaanywho – Teyona’s feeling comfortable and like a legitimate threat. Celia reminds us that she’s old at 25 and uptight. Aminat’s less than thrilled about Celia sticking it out another week, while Allison, Celia’s BFF in the house, is happy to have her.

This week’s challenge involves learning the samba. Paulina leads the lesson in learning how to “fake it with confidence,” and the obvious joke about Paulina needing to fake a personality is a waste of my word count. During the lesson, Paulina calls Celia old-looking (again), and that by trying too hard, she’s coming off desperate. Ouch. Celia takes that one hard. Aminat, meanwhile, impresses Paulina with her animation in expression and movement, while Allison, unsurprisingly, has no rhythm and Teyona lacks grace.

The next day, the girls must samba while modeling. The winner and a friend walk away with jewelry by Ara Vartanian. Allison does marginally better, while Teyona surprises with her awkwardness. The dance-off comes down to Celia and Aminat. Though Aminat rocks her dance, Celia’s chosen for the win because she relaxed and gave an impeccable performance. Celia’s shocked by the win, and Aminat’s jealous. Celia shares with Allison.

Photo shoot! An elaborate two hour bus ride and a fake jeep break-down leads the girls to Tyra in the middle of the jungle. Guess who the photographer is? Tyra! Scream! Hair and make-up transforms the girls into birds – huge, teased hair with slightly animalistic make-up.

Everyone but Teyona is nervous about shooting with Tyra. Because Teyona’s the shit, yo. She has three number one pictures, and a slowly growing ego to match Sandra. Remember that craziness?

So, once Tyra makes her debut as a hitchhiker who ambushes the girls with her fierceness, she dominates the rest of the photo shoot. We hear how intimidated the girls are by Tyra, and how amazing she is (Allison even awkwardly tells her she’s really pretty following her shoot). Then we constantly hear Tyra’s directions to the girls, which is less about her being a good mentor and more about her being a great photographer. Natch. Then there’s Tyra’s take on each girl following the shoot. It’s all Tyra, Tyra, Tyra, all the time! She even almost “kills” herself while photographing Teyona – which means she slipped. A little. The whole thing’s so over the top, it was probably the best part of the whole season. That doesn’t say much for this cycle, but it does tell you how hilarious the Tyra Factory is, and it’s good to laugh at this show again.

Onwards! Allison impresses Tyra, and Jay says it was the most relaxed she’s ever been. Then the awkward, “You’re really pretty,” and Allison interviewing about what a “square” she must appear to be. I love this girl, she’s such a nut. Aminat requires a lesson in how to move her face, and Tyra complains again that the light doesn’t hit Aminat in a very flattering way. It’s just ridiculous how kicking Aminat’s body is. Celia makes an effort to be relaxed and less stern in her shoot, to avoid the problems she encountered last week. Tyra was surprised to learn the Celia has a freshness about her after all, and Celia’s so happy about a good shoot that she’s near tears. She fawns slightly over Tyra, but mercifully, we don’t see a lot of it. Teyona talks about her confidence and her ability to easily get in the zone. Her shoot becomes difficult as the sun disappears and she’s been draped in too many clothes. Teyona’s willing to strip down a bit and work with Tyra’s directions, so Tyra thinks Teyona’s just amazing.

Judging. Guest judge: Ann Shoket. Yawn! Allison is up first, and blows the panel away with an amazing photo. Tyra tells her she nailed the shot within six frames, and both impressed Tyra and made her proud. Because Tyra was like the mama bird, and Allison was her little baby. As if, in fact, this were about Tyra’s genius. Wait, sorry, I covered that already. Teyona’s photo draws mixed reactions – Paulina loves it, but Nigel and Ann dislike it because it lacks energy and the pose is awkward. Tyra praises Teyona’s flexibility during a tough shoot, but apologizes for not pushing her more and says that while it was a good shot, it wasn’t Teyona’s best. Nigel likes Celia’s photo and Ann says it shows strength, but Ms. J says that it doesn’t make Celia look any younger. Nigel calls Aminat’s photo “exquisite,” and even Ann likes it, but Paulina says she’s not working her body enough. Tyra calls her a surprise, because she stepped up her game this week.

We’re down to four, so screw deliberation and let’s get to the results! Called first: Allison! Sometimes, Tyra really is smart. Bottom two: Aminat and Celia. Though Tyra liked shooting them both, Aminat needs to learn to work her face, and Celia needs to look younger. So, since Aminat can actually change what she’s doing, Celia goes home! I’m definitely surprised, because Celia’s a much stronger model than Aminat. I absolutely thought the final two would be Celia and Teyona (with Teyona to win).

Celia bids farewell with a lighthearted interview and by blowing a double kiss to the camera, as if America’s been charmed by her all this time and really sorry to see her go. Which sums up everything wrong with Celia.

Which brings me to this question: Since the judges know the applicants’ ages when they apply, why let the older girls compete if they just eliminate them in the final weeks because they “photograph old”? They should cap the applicant age at 21. Celia’s  photographs aren’t suddenly changing – despite the judges’ McKey-like obsession with Celia’s odd bone structure and angry eyes, she’s always had bad/old pictures. So eliminate her early if you’re just going to crush her hopes over a stupid reason later. For that matter, don’t even let her in. I’m no fan of Celia, but it’s a bad and unfair reason for elimination at this point in the contest.

My guess is Allison goes home first next week because she can’t walk a runway to save her life, and a final two between friends Aminat and Teyona is probably more interesting than between Teyona and a blonde mouse. I hope the producers learned their lesson from last season’s exciting, anti-climactic McKey finale.

Next week: Let’s put this cycle to bed already!

Season 12, Episode 12: Take Me to the Jungle (originally aired May 6, 2009)

For more on America’s Next Top Model, click here.

Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW

Photographs courtesy of The CW, Nigel Barker, Evan Giordanella

The Soloist

I’m a big sap. After seeing The Soloist this weekend, I heard mixed reviews. Many people had read the book written by the real Steve Lopez “The Soloist: A Lost Dream, and Unlikely Friendship and the Redemptive Power of Music,” so I think they had more of a right to be biased. I couldn’t really tell you where they elaborated or what the changed or if the tone was any different which probably allowed me to enjoy it a lot more. On top of most journalist just being avid readers, well they are journalist like the character played by Robert Downey Jr., and in that case, many already knew the story if not the man himself. What I did feel was the story was beautifully today, the acting superb, and though not an Oscar-winning story, I definitely appreciated the emotion director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) attempted to invoke.

If you were to watch the previews, you’d probably think that the story was about finding oneself and an purpose, redemption and an overall uplifting tale of overcoming obstacles. The truth is, this is not the story that leaves you feeling happy, like all is right in the world, but that’s what touched me so much. It isn’t a story meant to be a commentary on homelessness or mental illness, two causes close to my heart. It’s about two individuals’ very different struggles, and the fact that life is simply not perfect, no matter how you try, what you achieve, and especially how many times you fail.

Downey plays Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist who’s marriage to his editor has fallen apart and is struggling to find THAT story. (You know the one that I am talking about.) While his life falls apart around him, so does the newspaper he works for since people are getting laid off left and right. One day, when fortune finds its way to Lopez, he runs into Nathaniel Ayers, played by Jamie Foxx, playing a two-string violin. He’s rambles incoherently, where’s clothes that look like he stole them from to put nicely “street ladies,” and he clearly could be schizophrenic. One of the most endearing and funny moments is Lopez trying to interview Ayers like he would a normal person, only to get nothing he could understand and turn into a coherent story.
Through well placed and timed flashbacks, what we, the audience, and Lopez do learn is that Ayers used to be a student at Juilliard, studying the cello, until the voices in his head prevented him from being able to live normally in society. His life led him to Skid Row, one of the harshest and most populated homeless areas in Los Angeles, where his talents are wasted but apparently he still seems to be positive about the place he is in life.

And that’s the beauty of this story. The Hollywood way, the Oscar-worthy way, is to make you feel pity for Ayers, to comment on how horrible homelessness is in America, especially Los Angeles and how little we do for the community of our own peers. Using the backdrop of the City of Angels, where people drive so much, Wright could have focused on how the homeless population appears to be hidden, unlike in Manhattan or Chicago, but he choose to tell the story from the inside out, not the other way around. Don’t get me wrong, one of the largest parts of the story is Lopez’s struggle with wanting to do more, but having to come to terms with the fact that no matter how much you may want something to change, you may not be able to make it all better.

On top of that, Foxx portrays a man who is not to be pitied because even through the madness he knows who he is and that he is in control of his life, no matter how out of control it can seem or get. And that’s what Wright achieves here. He makes the story not about people with mental health through the story of one man, but about one man with an affliction. And it’s much less about homelessness and mental health than it is about an interesting friendship and an ability to see people for what they really are or truly seeing people who have always been in front of you for the first time.

And the most surprising part of it all for most viewers will be that it isn’t at all about Ayers being saved or Lopez doing something good unlike so many people in the world. Sure Lopez wanted to help him, get him medication and make his life better, but really it was about Ayers inspiring Lopez and showing him passion, something he’d obviously lost a long time ago.

Like I said earlier, I know others have their gripes with this film, but for me Wright didn’t try to make it anything more than a delightfully told story, centered around two very different people who for whatever reason form a bond. And that’s beautiful. I warned you, I’m a sap.

The Fashion Show: The Must Have

In case you hadn’t heard, Project Runway packed its bags and headed over to Lifetime.  The new season of PR doesn’t start until August, so now Bravo has given us this knockoff.  The hosts are Isaac Mizrahi and Kelly Rowland.   Ms. Kelly and Mizrahi!

No ma’am.  I hate the opening song.

So we start off meeting the gaggle of contestants.  There really are too many to concern myself with, so we’ll have to do this:

• Laura – sustainable materials, organic sources, fair trade, and tree-focused carbon offset programs

• Keith – his photo on the Bravo website has him wearing a tee shirt with a flying unicorn on it

• Lidia – inspired by her Russian heritage, beautiful people, different cultures, and art

• Anna – holding distaste for the principles that money means power and thin means beautiful. HUH?!?!?!

• Johnny R. – his personal aesthetic is messy, oversized garments that can be worn in multiple ways to allow consumers to make each piece their own. He looks like Roseanne in the movie She-Devil.

• Merlin (yes, Merlin) – a Mexican spitfire who has designed for Paula Abdul

• Reco – his style is ultra glamorous and oozing with high voltage sex appeal, and he designed for strippers in college to pay da bills

• Haven – self-described “control freak” and “bitch”

• Markus – has a boring bio, but he says that he went to the best fashion school in the world

• Daniella – Talking about being strong and sexy.

• James-Paul – worked at Vivienne Westwood and claims his secret weapon is “his brain.” He seems very robotic.

• Jonny – co-founded a North Hollywood artistic compound, appeared on America’s Next Top Model and the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency

• Kristin – Chicagoan with white and red hair

• Angel – master’s degree from Columbia who is inspired by high tech fashions

• Andrew – a well-established designer of designer underwear.  Also known as the “Pantichrist.”

I must describe Merlin’s outfit.  He is wearing a completely red body suit, complete with a long coat and hat.  The hat has a jewel and long pheasant feather coming out of it, and he has on white knee-high boots.  In two words: fantastically awful.  I already love him the most.

In walk Ms. Kelly and Mizrahi.  Kelly is so pretty.   Like amazingly pretty.  But I don’t understand why she’s on this.  She’s not a fashion icon.  She doesn’t have a fashion line of her own.   I guess she just had some time on her hands while she waits on Beyoncé to finish her latest tour.  Isaac Mizrahi has on a smock of sorts with a puffy collar around his neck.  Um, he always dressed well when he had his talk show on Oxygen, so I don’t know what all this is about.

Reco is broke and needs the money because he lives at home, and his parents will drive him crazy.  He is from Tennessee and has this great country accent.

Ok, so this show has its version of a Top Chef Quick Fire.  These fools are calling it the Harper’s Bazaar Mini Challenge.  This challenge is to make a little black dress in an hour.  Isaac takes off that crazy neck roll to reveal a black tee shirt, which is all that the designers will have to work with.

All of the designers work.  Some of them are doing dumb things like using garment bags, using hair, and using purple thread.

Merlin marks his sewing machine by leaving his boots on the station, and dances off saying, “Keep it creative!  Keep it creative!”  He is PISSED to come back and find one of the interchangeable other designers working on his machine.  He doesn’t understand why his white boots didn’t let her know that this was his machine.

The judge for the mini challenge is from Harper’s Bazaar, Laura Brown.  She insults almost everyone’s gowns.  For example, she says that Reco’s dress is well done for “Vegas” and whatever stripper wears it will make a lot of money.

Laura Brown picks her three favorites:  Merlin, Keith and Johnny R.  Johnny R. is pleased because he is into instant gratification.  Gag.  The prize for the winners is that each of them will get to choose their teams for the elimination challenge.

Merlin – in a fur hat and a tank top – tells us that he is not pleased about working in teams.

The three winners will pick teams by looking at the dresses.

Johnny R.’s team: Reco (who knew he’d be picked because of his “sewin’ ability”), Markus, Haven, and Laura.

Merlin’s team: Angel, James-Paul, Danielle, and Lidia (who was picked last).

Keith’s team:  Andrew, Johnny, Kristen and Anna.

Tonight’s Elimination Challenge involves the “must have” pieces.  It’s a trendy item at the moment and will work with different outfits.  Each team will come up with the one piece that will go with five different looks.  The five outfits must create a cohesive collection.

Jonny R – a pair of harem pants!?!?!?!??!?   (Reco, who is challenging Merlin for my favorite, says that’s just a couture name for Hammer pants, as in M.C. Hammer)

Keith’s team – a tube skirt

Merlin – a bolero jacket

In the fabric store, Merlin freaks out on Daniella because she really wants to use navy, and he says, “I’M THE LEADER!”  Nevertheless, he caves to her request to use navy, despite his belief that it will look like it is for old ladies.

In the work room, Keith is wearing a tee shirt with too deep of a v, showing off his underdeveloped chest.  Also, Merlin and Daniella continue to have issues on the length of the bolero jacket.  Most of these other people take themselves too seriously and bore me to tears.

They are staying at Le Parker Meridien, so the show has to show them there getting drunk and ready for bed.  That’s the rules.

The next day, Merlin is terribly disappointed with his jackets.  Merlin and Daniella continue to have spats.  Merlin tells Daniella that she dresses like she’s 40, and he reminds her, “I AM THE TEAM LEADER!”  Merlin chops off part of his jacket, and much drama ensues as all of the others have to do the same thing now.

Isaac and Kelly come into the room and ask the designers to gather around.  Kelly tells them, “You will have to impress more than Isaac and MYSELF!”  Ok, look, “myself” is something called a reflexive pronoun, and that was not the proper use.  I need for people to learn proper usage of a reflexive pronoun because it is a pet peeve of mine.  IT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!  (Whew.)  The episode’s fashion show will be in front of a bunch of fashion “insiders” from the industry, and they will judge the looks.  The winner of the challenge will have his or her outfit produced and sold on online at bravotv.com.  Uh, THAT’S THE PRIZE?!?!  Is that good?

Isaac wants to have a look at everyone’s stuff.  I’m not pleased that the judges also critique the work in the workroom.  It seems a little like cheating to me.  Isn’t the whole idea to judge the work on its own, away from the personalities?

The following activities occur during Isaac and Kelly’s trip through the workroom:  skepticism towards the harem pants; Haven admits to not being a good sewer, and it shows; Merlin blames Daniella for the judges’ perplexed looks regarding the color of their bolero jackets; concern about whether the models will be able to get the tube skirts/dresses on (Kelly: “I need some butter and a miracle to get this on me!”); Kristen never stops running her big, fat mouth.

Kelly and Isaac have a discussion on what they saw in the work room.  Team Merlin does not have a lot of cohesion, but Team Johnny seems to be working together well.   They are also concerned about whose bright idea it was to double line the double-stretch fabric for the tube skirt/dresses.   Finally, they are concerned about being embarrassed in front of the “industry insiders” coming.  Isaac is wearing a bandana tied around his neck like Fred from Scooby Doo.

The next day, everyone has high anxiety because it’s the day of the first fashion show.  The runway is a triangle.  All of the models get dressed while the “industry insiders” arrive.

It’s time for the show!

Team Johnny, Must Have Item: Harem Pants

• Reco has paired his harem pants with a tank and a bomb-ass, sculptural collared jacket. Everything is in purples and grays. It’s a “professional” look.

• Laura’s “casual” look has a cardigan and a gray tee with a hood. Isaac comments that it looks like she has drapery around her waist.

• Johnny admits his pants look awful for his athletic look. There’s an unattractive crop top, too.

• Haven’s outfit is supposed to be for cocktail hour. She hates the top, and so do I. It’s this horribly sewn boxy nonsense with dumb shoulders.

• Markus’s formal looks pretty great actually. He has a sequin panel in front with white panels on either side. The back is organza.

Team Keith, Must Have Item: Tube Skirt/Dress

• Kristen has a red top with a white floaty with skirt and the tube skirt almost completely hidden underneath. Blech. There are black hose and white shoes with it. UGLY.

• Johnny D’s skirt is so tight that the girl cannot walk in it. Literally, she can barely walk. It’s soooooo tights. The model looks HORRID.

• Keith’s design is a high-waisted version of the skirt with a flowery top, but it’s too tight, too. It does not look good.

• Anna’s “professional” design is too tight with a badly cropped, red jacket.

• Andrew’s looks far and away the best. It pairs the skirt with a classy ivory sleeveless top. The neckline is cut in such an interesting way to give it structure.

Team Merlin, Must Have Item:  Bolero Jacket

• Daniella’s casual look. It’s a navy suit with a red shirt underneath. She says it’s about sophistication, but Merlin says it’s old fashioned flight attendant. I’m on Merlin’s side with this one. It’s so pedestrian.

• Merlin’s cocktail hour outfit looks a bit like a high fashion court jester. Merlin squeals in delight when she walks out. His model rocks the gown for him. Daniella says it’s a circus outfit.

• Angel’s professional look involves a strangely layered skirt, and Ms. Kelly says that the jacket is not falling correctly.

• James-Paul has a severe black gown with the navy bolero. It’s quite good looking. There is all kinds of interesting shape and movement to the dress that I’m not good enough to describe.

• Lidia has paired a blouse with a navy skirt. The blouse has a really explosive, exaggerated collar. I don’t think it looks good.

Judging.

Kelly, Isaac, Fern Mallis, and Elie Tahari.

Kelly says that there was not one piece among the “must have pieces” that she cared to have.  Isaac says that they need some criticisms.  Fern says that these were good ideas that were badly executed.

Isaac says that he was embarrassed at the fashion show and that he would fire any of them if they worked for him.  They all let him down.  OUCH!

The audience chose the winning team, and the judges will choose the winning designer from that team.

Johnny’s team is safe, and Haven is in complete shock.

Merlin’s team is the winning team, and he does a joyous crazy dance.  He is wearing a patching argyle skirt and hat with an afghan as a scarf and a skin-tight red tee shirt.  Daniella and Merlin fight on the stage in front of the judges, requiring Isaac to step in and give a life lesson.

The top two looks on Merlin’s team are Merlin’s look and James-Paul’s look.  Daniella rolls her eyes.  James-Paul delivers some strange story about how he only works with rectangles and squares, and Reco rolls his eyes.  James-Paul wins!  He is very excited.  As excited as a robot can get.  You can buy his outfit on bravotv, but this is a recession so spend wisely.

Keith’s team is the worst team.  Isaac cannot believe how badly the team executed the idea.  Kelly says that they were all too small.  The bottom two are Kristen and Jonny.  The audience’s ideas of Kristen: “bargain basement,” “poor quality,” “what was the designer thinking.”  Elie Tahari cannot picture an occasion to wear it.  Fern can’t find the “must have” piece.   Johnny’s design was “slutty,” “ill fitting,” and “made the model’s breasts look weird.”  Jonny struggles to defend his outfit.  Isaac calls the skirt unforgivable.

The judges say that they need to deliberate.  Fern votes Jonny.  Elie says Kristen’s wasn’t wearable.  Kelly says that she wouldn’t be caught dead wearing either.

Jonny is voted off, with the worst tag line ever, “We’re just not buying it.”  Give me a break.  Jonny has a tearful departure, saying that his friends told him that he’d go all the way.  I hate it when your friends lie to you.

Lord have mercy, this show was dull.  This show makes me miss Project Runway so much.  I need about half of these heifers to be put out to pasture, then maybe I can manufacture some interest in this foolishness.  So help me, Merlin’s nuttiness is all that makes it exciting.

Season 1, Episode 1: The Must Have (originally aired May 7, 2009)

For more on The Fashion Show, click here.

Thursdays at 10/9c on Bravo

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal

Rescue Me: Sheila

I still get a tingly sensation in the pit of my stomach every time I start watching an episode of Rescue Me. I feel like I’ve stumbled onto this great secret that nobody knows about. Though actually, plenty of people know about and love Rescue Me, even if it has yet to get the awards attention it so richly deserves. That better change with this season, because every episode so far just keeps raising the bar. I don’t know how Peter Tolan and Denis Leary do it, frankly. I’m not just talking tv standards here, there are scenes in Rescue Me that are as good as anything I’ve ever seen on the big or small screen. And I’ve seen a lot.

In my review last week I wrote that “Sheila is the hardest character to take on the show because she’s so high-strung and emotionally insane. But she really had nothing to do last season, and so far she hasn’t had much to do this season. I wonder if Denis Leary and Peter Tolan have anything cooked up for her.” That was going to be my one criticism of the show, but I just had to laugh in bewilderment because in this episode, which is called “Sheila,” Leary and Tolan do just that. This episode is all about Sheila, and for the first time in a long time, I felt waves of sympathy for her.

Sheila is on new medication now and she’s trying to let go of her resentment and bitterness toward Tommy and her son Damian. She even tells Damian, after seasons of vehemently forbidding it, that she will support his choice to become a firefighter like his late father Jimmy. The major upset is once again the 9/11 footage that has Jimmy on it. First Lou sees it, proving Tommy isn’t crazy, and then Sheila sees it after Genevieve gives her a copy of the DVD. Callie Thorne shows a whole new side of Sheila and is absolutely phenomenal in the last scene of the episode, which consists of Sheila being interviewed by Genevieve. It’s a five minute scene with very little coverage. It’s basically a five-minute close-up of Thorne as she gives this amazing monologue talking about losing Jimmy and why she got involved with Tommy, etc. It could have been a very maudlin, over-the-top moment (especially given how emotionally turbulent Sheila has always been as a character), but Thorne displays amazing resolve and restraint. It’s a staggering bit of acting that made me see the character in a whole new light.

We also get amazing development with Sean this week. Sean has been complaining about his back and some…um, dysfunction…throughout the season thus far. These health issues have been used only for comic relief, which is usually what Sean provides anyway. So when we see him at the doctor’s office for his back, we’re expecting comedy. So when the doctor tells him that he has discovered that Sean has a malignant tumor on his kidney, it hit me like a ton of bricks to the face. Sean is no longer a vehicle for comic relief. He’s facing the loss of his job and his life. He runs into a colleague right after he gets the news and breaks down. His colleague tells him that he can’t let the FDNY know about his condition or he’ll be taken off duty. Sean marvels at the irony that he most likely got this tumor volunteering at Ground Zero, and now he can’t use his FDNY insurance. I have no idea what’s in store for Sean next. This show is so crazy I swear I wouldn’t rule it out that they’ll kill him off.

The other highlight of the episode is the return of Michael J. Fox as Dwight, Janet’s new, chaotic, paraplegic boyfriend. Tommy comes over to the house to try to figure out what Janet is doing with his youngest daughter Katie, who hasn’t been around (this after Tommy has a nightmare about Katie getting blown up by a suitcase bomb during a terrorist attack). He finds Dwight, and Dwight convinces Tommy to let him take him out for a drink while they wait for Janet to come back. The lengthy scene that follows between Dwight and Tommy-where Tommy learns that he and Dwight actually have a ton in common, including losing their cousins and being haunted by ghosts-is hilarious, surprising, and powerful, three words that typify the show itself.

This episode has definitively moved the season in a darker direction, and I’m foaming at the mouth for more. Rescue Me has done the impossible and topped itself. It’s some of the most incredible television I’ve ever seen.

Season 5, Episode 5: Sheila (originally aired May 5, 2009)

For more on Rescue Me, click here.

Tuesdays at 10pm on FX

Photographs courtesy of FX and IMDbPro

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Boom!

I’m a big believer in maintaining realistic expectations about movies. I remember when Spider-Man 3 came out, and people were complaining that the story was silly. But, I mean, dude, it’s Spider-Man 3. You shouldn’t be going for the story. You should be going to see the CGI and to marvel at the hilarity that is Tobey Maguire dancing.

So what are you going to see Wolverine for? Well, I guess you could be going because you think Hugh Jackman and/or Liev Schreiber will turn out fantastic performances, in which case you will indeed be satisfied. Or you could be going because you’re already very familiar with Wolverine’s origin story via the original X-Men comics or other sources and you want to complain about how Gavin Hood butchered it, in which case I suspect you would also be satisfied. Or, if you’re like me, you’re going because you liked the humor in the first three X-Men movies, and you also really liked that moment in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers when Legolas snowboarded down the wall of Helm’s Deep, and you think Wolverine will contain many such similarly awesome moments. In which case you will perhaps be over-satisfied.

But you shouldn’t go in to Wolverine expecting a cinematic masterpiece, is what I’m saying. If you do that and you come out disappointed, you have only yourself to blame. After all, this is a movie whose basic premise is that having retractable metal claws in your hands would be really cool.

The movie and Hugh Jackman really do keep trying to make you care about Wolverine – excuse me, Logan – as a character, and more power to them. But I’m not buying into this as a tragedy when the supposedly heart-wrenching self-sacrifice scene is followed immediately by a boxing sequence that plays as a ten-minute fat joke. Nor do I care about Wolverine’s romantic entanglements that don’t involve Jean Gray.  The dude’s immortal; any girlfriend he has is just going to wind up getting screwed, like in that one Twilight Zone episode.  I did, however, find the relationship between Wolverine and his brother engrossing, but that was mostly because the actors sold it so well. And there was one scene, which I won’t spoil, that I found genuinely moving.

Poor Hugh Jackman can act, he really can, but to get attention he’s forced to run around naked in subpar movies and sing awful lyrics on stage at the Oscars with Beyoncé and Zefron.  And it’s clear that he worked out really, really hard in preparation for this movie, so much so that you can’t help feeling bad for him when you’re staring at close-ups of those grotesquely rippling muscles and you remember that they totally could have achieved the same effect with digital enhancements. He was just that dedicated to this role, which is not worth that level of commitment. Hugh, I saw The Prestige, I know you can bring it. Stop acting so desperate, you’re embarrassing us both. (Also, it’s worth noting that I initially wrote this review on my iPhone, which kept correcting my spelling of “Jackman” to “Hackman.” Perhaps Steve Jobs is trying to tell us something.)

Also, going in to Wolverine, you’re expected to know at least the basics of the X-Men universe. I’ve seen the first three movies, so I could mostly make sense of it, but I suspect there was a lot I missed about the story by not knowing more than that. One expects movies like this to be a richer experience for those who have read the comic books and seen the previous adaptations, but the best comic book movies – Iron Man, Spider-Man, Batman Begins, etc. – strive to make sure newbies don’t feel lost or overwhelmed. With Wolverine, you’re supposed to know from minute one that, for example, these characters have healing powers that make them essentially indestructible, but we’re never actually told that. So the movie’s awesome opening-credits sequence will probably make quite a few of the uninitiated give up on trying to follow the story before the movie even gets going.

But nevertheless, the action sequences are, of course, superbly executed, and that’s what really matters with this kind of movie. The aforementioned opening credits, which follow Wolverine and Sabretooth (I refuse to call them by their namby-pamby non-superhero names, even though Gavin Hood wants me to) through a bunch of different wars is amazing, and I’m going to have to look that up on YouTube and watch it a dozen more times or so. But there reaches a point where you’ve seen so many awesome action sequences in a row that they stop seeming awesome and start seeming, well, kind of repetitive, and I don’t want to say “boring,” but … actually I kind of do. By the time we reach the big climactic fight scene between Wolverine, Sabretooth, and a particularly nasty supervillian, though, the movie has regained its stride. It’s one of those times where you sit straight up in your seat watching without making a sound because you’re terrified you’ll miss something, because the scene’s execution is just so cool in every possible way.

Other highlights of the movie include Taylor Kitsch, who plays Gambit, who was quite good on those three episodes of Friday Night Lights that I saw and who has a sort of young Christian Slater look about him (well, to be fair, he’s a former Abercrombie model). Also, since I was once a very major fan of Dominic Monaghan, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that he did very well in his role as a short guy who flutters his eyelids a lot, and that his appearances were mercifully brief.

And on a final note: If you’re considering staying until the end of the credits to see if there’s a cool tag scene, think about whether you really care that much. Apparently there are multiple versions of these post-credits scenes being shown in different theaters, but the one I saw was so lame people in my audience actually booed. Including me. Come on, Gavin, we just watched ten minutes of scrolling text listing all the stunt guys and makeup artists, we deserve better.

Check out Tanya’s review here!

See Inisia’s review here!

Fringe: The Road Not Taken

Finally! The Observer returns, and that guarantees us a huge dose of weird Fringe goodness . And it’s about time.

A sick, panicked woman runs out of her Manhattan apartment, can’t hail a cab, and hops on a bus that will be stopping at a local hospital. Her body temperature shoots way up, and mid-ride, she alarms the passengers and driver when she bolts for the exit in a full sweat. On the sidewalk, she cries for help, but within moments, Spotted! She overheats and spontaneously combusts, burning to death right there on the Upper East Side.

Before the Fringe-ettes arrive, Broyles recaps ZFT for the audience at home, because if you really think about it, on the surface they’re just a German terrorist organization. But the writers have really made things confusing with all this talk about war, without us knowing who the opponents are. Sound familiar? But we do know we need super-soldiers, or superheroes, or mutants. Take your pick. Nothing on this show is new.

Broyles has the entire Fringe department investigating ZFT and William Bell for concrete links, which sparks a visit by Nina Sharp. It’s been a while. She refutes Broyles’ claim that Bell leads ZFT. Later, we also have the return of Agent Harris (remember him?), still hard-assing Olivia, because…why not? He demands the department back off Bell because of Massive Dynamic’s government contracts. Broyles agrees, and then turns around and tells Olivia to keep searching. Harris, however, knows Olivia too well, and orders her to take a psychiatric exam in order to undermine her authority and emotional stability. I expected more from him. Like re-assigning Olivia to a different department or something.

Meanwhile, Doc finally shares the news about his typewriter and the ZFT manifesto. But he says that it’s Bell’s typewriter (while I always assumed that Doc wrote the manuscript) and that though the document condemns Bell, it’s also missing a chapter on Ethics. Which is hilarious, because if anybody lacks an understanding of ethics, it’s Doc and William Bell. Remember the experimenting on children? Doc believes that someone has removed that chapter to manipulate the manifesto to suit their purposes. He’s convinced he’s hidden another copy of the complete manuscript … and if he finds it, he believes it will absolve Bell. Doc spends the rest of the episode trying to jog his memory.

But the real show goes on with Olivia, who investigates our spontaneous combuster, Susan Pratt. Doc theorizes Susan was a pyrokinetic (but here, at least, the writers acknowledge that they stole, er, borrowed this idea from Stephen King). She was a test subject trying to control her powers, and unable to do so, turned the power in on herself for fear of hurting someone, and ultimately exploded from the built up energy.

Funnily enough, I recently saw this episode of NCIS, but I’m sure the writers aren’t bumming storylines from them. There are much better sources out there. For example, Olivia realizes that she’s started inexplicably hallucinating (no one makes a connection to Nick Lane, which would seem logical, wouldn’t it?), and thinks that she sees two bodies charred on the UES, instead of the one. She hallucinates a conversation with Broyles, and then hallucinates a vision of Boston burning and in distress. When she finally confides in Doc and Peter, Doc explains that every time we make a choice, there is an alternate decision we could have made. This alternate choice creates an alternate reality. Olivia has experienced these moments before in her other reality; therefore, her hallucinations are actually moments of déjà vu. Or what we like to call, a glitch in the Matrix. Though no one can explain why she experiences them, Olivia believes that if she can use the “hallucinations” to discover the identity of the second body, she will be able to solve the case.

So! At the next opportunity, she lucid dreams her way through the hallucination and discovers that Susan Pratt has a twin sister. Upon being knocked back into her own reality (literally), a quick search locates Susan’s twin, Nancy Lewis. Olivia and Charlie investigate and discover Nancy has been kidnapped. Peter uses his new fake science device to help find the kidnapper’s identity: we can hear sound/conversations recorded from a glass window. No, I didn’t mistype that. Just go with it. The Fringe-ettes listen to the scuffle and kidnapping of Nancy, including the phone tones of a call the kidnapper placed to confirm the abduction. Olivia dials the number, and guess who answers? Harris!

Olivia and Francis tail Harris to a warehouse (!) where he oversees Nancy’s progress – Harris is trying unsuccessfully to “activate” her Firestarter powers to see if she can control them. Meanwhile, Olivia creeps through the warehouse and finds her picture on a wall with other pictures of experimented children (including the Twins). Whoops! Finally, Olivia stumbles upon Nancy, strapped to a bed and panicking. Harris laughs from the other side of a bulletproof window. He locks Olivia in, realizing his win-win situation: Olivia’s presence caused Nancy to panic and activate her powers. Even now, she’s burning up. If she explodes like her sister, then Harris no longer has to worry about Olivia. But if Nancy controls her powers, then Harris can confirm success to his superiors. Olivia helps Nancy focus on calming down and redirecting the heat, and we watch as Harris suddenly starts to sweat, turn red, and spontaneously combust! Twist!

Later, Olivia confronts Doc about the experiments he and Bell conducted on her and other children in Jacksonville. Doc breaks down, and claims they were Bell’s experiments, and they were trying to prepare the children for what is coming…but what it is, he doesn’t know, and he can’t remember exactly what they did to the children. Doc cries, and it’s sad to watch.

Back at his lab, a somber Doc locates the missing and complete ZFT manuscript. He excitedly reads the chapter on Ethics, and the necessity of protecting and nurturing the children, preparing them so that they can one day protect the rest of us – and then in walks The Observer! He says, “It’s time to go, Walter.” Doc seems at once to know and not know what this means – but he leaves with The Observer nonetheless.

And finally, Nina Sharpe shows up at Broyles’ home for some action – by which I mean, to report a rise in Observer sightings, which signals some event they’ve both seen before. Uh oh! When Nina returns to her own home, she’s met by two men with tranquilizer guns. And no, they’re not just happy to see her.

That sums up all the stuff you need to know. You should also know that Clint Howard guest stars as a conspiracy theorist who believes (correctly) that William Bell is behind all of these human experiments, as he prepares for War … against the Romulans. Then a few Spock jokes, which would be really funny if we all didn’t know that Leonard Nimoy will be playing Bell next week. What great foreshadowing that would have been. Also, I’m a little tired of JJ Abrams’ pimping of the new Star Trek movie. Obviously, I’m a fan of the franchise, but give me a break already. I fast-forwarded through our special sneak peek during tonight’s Fringe because for everything they’re showing us on the gazillion trailers and commercials, I’d like something about the movie to be a surprise.

Also! Speaking of Star Trek, how cool is the alternate reality stuff Fringe has going on? I admit, I’m a fan of this kind of thing. Ordinarily, I’d be all, “Well, how much more random can we get on this show?” but a season worth of paradoxes and time travel on Lost (other devices I usually like) has prepared me for the completely random. Charlie Francis sports a facial scar in Olivia’s alternate reality and he’s even more angry at his supporting role than he usually is (you know Exposition’s like a mad scientist in this world! She probably even has a real speaking part!), and Olivia’s “got half of Boston in quarantine lockdown.”  Uh! Oh!  And the best part? Olivia just phases in and out – no transporter accidents necessary!

How awesome would Season 2 be if they explored this alternate reality? John Scott’s alive, and somebody’s a crazy sex fiend. That’s always the way it is in alternate realities.

And so: in the finale, will Nina Sharp call in that favor Peter owes her? Will Olivia’s stepfather emerge? For that matter, who’s her real father: William Bell or Mr. Jones? If Doc and Bell experimented on siblings, why didn’t they take Rachel? Or have her powers not manifested yet? Is Rachel even Olivia’s real sister?

Next week: The season finale! And possibly, the answers to some questions.

Season 1, Episode 19: The Road Not Taken (originally aired May 5, 2009)

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

For more on Fringe, click here.

Tuesdays at 9/8C, Fox

Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro

House: Who doesn’t go for the drugged-out hallucinating bad-boy type?

Last week, I somehow forgot to mention that I love Chase. I feel bad about that, because I do love Chase, and I loved Chase more last week than I have pretty much in the entire season prior. And it wasn’t just the giant stuffed kangaroo. Although, okay, that was a sizeable chunk of it.

But more on Chase later. This was an action-packed episode so let’s get to it.

Our patient is a 21-year-old ballerina named Penelope whose boyfriend/dance partner drops her during rehearsal, prompting her to stop breathing. House diagnoses her badly, for reasons that I’ll discuss in a sec, and they treat her with antibiotics and then do a procedure on her that is apparently the medical equivalent of waterboarding. I already saw the video of that journalist who had himself waterboarded, so I chose not to watch this fictionalized version, but I heard enough to know that Taub slipped during the procedure (maybe I should retract what I said before about how he was the only doctor on the show I’d let come near me if I got sick). And anyway the whole thing was just a setup to address the issues of the day and to transition us into this week’s freaky symptom: Penelope loses 80 percent of her skin. Apparently this is sometimes a side effect of antibiotics. It’s called toxic epidermal necrolysis. So glad I know that now. I bet there are people who watch this show for the same reason they go on those freaky drop-straight-down-from-9,000-feet rides at Six Flags. House finally figures out that Penelope has gonorrhea, which is causing major problems with her heart. In order to operate to fix the heart problem, they have to dopamine her up, which causes her to get gangrene in her hands and feet, so they’ll have to amputate. Penelope, being a ballerina, is not on board with that, and the doctors (minus House, who by this point is way off in his own storyline) are resigned to her dying, until Taub figures out some magical procedure that Chase is convinced won’t work, which works. So Penelope is cured, and she still has all her extremities. Go Taub!

Anyway, all that dramatic stuff with the waterboarding and the skin falling off had nothing to do with the actual diagnosis and was just there because the case itself wasn’t that interesting. A ballerina at risk of losing her hands and feet? That might’ve been moving 30 years ago on General Hospital. On House, it’s nothing. Cuddy’s handyman actually lost both his hands a couple of seasons back. Besides, as has been the case in three out of every four episodes this season, the patient story is just there to propel the character story. That never used to bother me. But now, I really miss having cool patient stories. Remember when they killed that little girl in season 2 and nailed her head to a table so she’d lie still while they diagnosed her? Remember when that T.B. doctor refused to be treated for T.B., but then it turned out he just had cancer anyway? Remember when a teddy bear caused an epidemic in the hospital nursery? I used to really like that show.

Which isn’t to say that our character stories aren’t good this week, because they are, as usual. We spend most of the episode watching House freak out about his ongoing hallucinations of Amber-as-House’s-subconscious (hereinafter Ambrouse). House has decided (correctly, according to Wilson and Cuddy) that these hallucinations are symptoms of a very serious medical problem, so House spends a while diagnosing and/or treating himself. In the meantime we get to see Ambrouse do some ballet stuff (I recognized first position from the class I took when I was 5; I’m guessing that’s the extent of House’s ballet knowledge too), and there’s also a freaky moment when Ambrouse slits her wrist in despair at the prospect of not being able to practice medicine again. Later, House puts himself into insulin shock for some reason I didn’t follow and wakes up sure Ambrouse is gone for good. But no! Just when he thinks he’s safe, she’s back again. They try to make her reappearance scary, and for these scenes at least I do think bringing back Kal Penn would’ve fit the role better; it’s hard for Anne Dudek to be frightening no matter how weird the lighting is. She also does some a cappella of a song that I’ve never heard before, but the lyrics are pretty creepy. And her singing isn’t so great, but I think that’s just because she’s Acting. (I tried to find a clip on YouTube but instead I found this gem of a Robert Sean Leonard interview. Enjoy.)

Following this reappearance of Ambrouse, House freaks out for real. He and Wilson settle on Vicodin overdoses as the cause of House’s hallucinations, and detox/rehab is deemed the cure. It’s all very dramatic and darkly lit and scored, and it’s generally portrayed as the worst thing that can possibly happen to anyone ever in the world. Never mind that we’ve already seen House detox once, and go to rehab once (and let’s not forget that Christmas he OD’d on some dead guy’s pain meds). Plus, as far as I could tell we still haven’t ruled out schizophrenia as a possible diagnosis yet.

But this development, too, is in many ways only there to propel the real story. House decides rehab can’t possibly work, since he’s that good at cheating. (Really? There is seriously no rehab facility in the world that is sufficiently equipped to handle a middle-aged guy with a bad leg and a functioning addiction to Schedule III prescription narcotics? House has an awfully high opinion of himself.) So he asks Cuddy to come over and hold his stubble back while he pukes. She agrees, of course, happily abandoning her invisible baby to hang out with House at his most disgusting. She even seems to enjoy it. Then, the next morning, when House is over the worst of it and is in fact looking remarkably good for a guy who just spent the night having a sweaty hallucinatory fit on his bathroom floor, they flirt. They have this exchange:

Cuddy: “You want to kiss me, don’t you?”

House: “I always want to kiss you.”

And then they make out.

And obviously, this is what this season has been building up to. And it’s also where my DVR cut off, so here’s to hoping nothing too dramatic happened after that other than the obvious, and that Hulu.com gets the episode online sooner than usual.

Well, we’ve already had to watch the fallout of one House/Cuddy kiss this season, and it went on for about a million years and made me hate both characters. So I kind of wish this episode had been the season finale, so we could avoid having to suffer through that again. But I am assuming that this time, it’s going somewhere (somewhere other than “We can’t figure out how to stretch out this storyline for 12 more episodes help help help!”).

And finally, in what may be my all-time favorite House subplot, Cameron announces to Chase over dinner one night that she still has some of her dead husband’s sperm. I can’t remember laughing out loud at a House episode in a long time, but that, and the ensuing conversation, did the trick. As did the scene that follows, when Chase recounts their dinner conversation to an unusually judgmental Foreman, because Chase has no friends and it wouldn’t have been appropriate given the rest of the episode to have Chase confess this to House himself (even though that would’ve been about 100 times funnier). In the end, Chase wears a hilarious polo shirt and breaks up with Cameron for not being willing to commit by throwing out her dead husband’s frozen sperm.

Anyway, regardless of the absurdity of this whole concept, I’m on Chase’s side here. And it’s not just because – say it with me – I love Chase. And it’s also not because Jennifer Morrison and her extensions (which I totally didn’t notice until alert commenter Jean pointed them out a couple of weeks ago, but now when I look at her it’s all I can see (that being said, JM is looking fantastic these days)) aren’t doing such a great job with these scenes – after all, they’re given such little screen time to work with it’s hard to really hold it against them.

This storyline is much more interesting (but no less funny) when you think about it in the context of Cameron’s history, and the heavy emphasis placed on her issues with her dead husband, and with House, in the first two seasons. This is a character who, we were told over and over, was happiest when everything around her was broken. She chose to marry a dying frat boy who, as far as we know, she didn’t even love. Then she chose to pursue her emotionally unavailable and otherwise unsuitable boss, even after he rejected her over and over again. Then, when first confronted with the possibility of an actual non-broken relationship with Chase, she rejected him, over and over again; when she finally decided to pursue that, she made the decision the same night she quit her job working under House, aka the night she ruined the other, then more important aspect of her life. And now, all of a sudden, she has no problems at all – she’s 30ish, she’s got the most stress-free department head job in the world, she’s in love (or something close to it), she’s getting married, she’s over House (or so we’ve been led to believe), she’s got not one but two readily available sources of sperm, and she’s got fantastic hair extensions. So she has to break something, and apparently the only way she can think of to do that is by revealing her sperm-related secrets. But it did the trick, so go Cameron. You should’ve just trusted your instincts and said no two weeks ago. Oh well, at least Chase got a cool bachelor party out of the deal.

(And no, it doesn’t bother me that Chase and Cameron appear to have broken up. Seeing as how they already broke up two episodes ago, and they wouldn’t have already set a wedding date for the week of the season finale if we weren’t going to see a wedding in the season finale. And also, the writers have no idea what else to do with these characters, and stringing out this rarely-seen romance even further would be preposterous. Then again, if they do get married then we will never see any hint of their romance ever again, because it will be resolved (like how we never see Cuddy’s baby, now that she isn’t debating whether to have one anymore). And since the romance is the one thing that the writers have been able to do with Chase and Cameron for the past two seasons, it’s in their best interest to continue it. But, breaking them up creates the same problem. If this were Lost, they would resolve this issue by having Chase and Cameron enter into a love quadrangle with Foreman and Thirteen (which, much as it makes me cringe, would be way more interesting than the Jack/Kate/Juliet/Sawyer thing, and not just for the potential girl-on-girl reasons).)

So, see you at the altar, season 5. We’ve had our ups and downs, but I’m holding out final judgment until the credits roll.

Season 5, Episode 23: ­­­­­Under My Skin (originally aired May 4, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Cameron Cubbison’s review here.

For more on House, click here.

House, Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Michael Yarish, IMDbPro

House: Under My Skin

It’s the penultimate House of the season, and it’s one of the better episodes of late. We open with fancy, classical dancers doing their fancy, classical moves. The director of the proceedings worries about his star guy’s back. Hmmm, is this guy the future patient? Well, according to the House formula, no.

The guy says he’s fine but when he lifts a ballerina over his head, his back seizes and he drops her. Then the ballerina, Sophie, starts gasping for breath. While she’s doing this, House is at home eating cereal. That sounds good right now. He’s remarkably calm given that the ghost/hallucination of Cutthroat Bitch is sitting across from him strumming the ukulele. He chastises her for trying to kill Chase. She simply responds that he isn’t completely rational. Hallucinations are so obnoxious!

Foreman comes in and whines at House to come in to work the ballerina case. House wants to stay home, but unfortunately, if grownups don’t go to work, they get fired. When they get to the hospital, the team goes through the usual diagnostic Olympics. Dead Cutthroat Bitch keeps suggesting ideas, and House continues to suggest the exact opposite of everything she says. House realizes he can’t keep these hallucinations a secret anymore, so he goes to pay his significant other Wilson a visit.

He bursts into Wilson’s office and ignores the whines of a guy who Wilson just told has kidney cancer. He tells Wilson that he’s hallucinating and that he thinks it is because he has sleep apnea that is messing up his slumber time. House asks Wilson to sit in on all of his differentials because he doesn’t fully trust himself anymore. Wilson asks House who it is that House is hallucinating and House lies and says Kutner. After all, who wants to say that you’re hallucinating the dead girlfriend of your best friend who coincidentally, you helped to make dead.

But Cutthroat Bitch tells House that she knows he’s wrong about sleep apnea, which means that House knows he’s wrong too. House then goes back to the drawing board. He gives Wilson a lovely laundry list of possible theories for why he is hallucinating, including infection, schizophrenia (kind of a late diagnosis huh?), trauma, MS, and finally, Vicodin. House of course doesn’t want to believe that his dependency on Vicodin is behind his hallucinations, because then he’ll have to either give up practicing medicine-and thus give up his life meaning-or detox from the pills and probably have to stop practicing medicine because he’ll be in too much pain. Not exactly good options eh?

Meanwhile, Sophie the patient gets put through all kinds of hell. The team injects water in her lungs which makes her feel like she’s drowning, and then her skin starts peeling off like wrapping paper and they have to keep applying fake skin before she bleeds out. This is one of the more gruesome House cases I can remember.

That’s basically what happens in the episode, we cut back from House trying to diagnose the patient and House trying to diagnose himself. Unfortunately, the writers have dreamt up and chosen to include what is in my opinion quite possibly the worst subplot ever created: while newly-engaged (ugh) Chase and Cameron are at home, Cameron mentions that she has kept the frozen sperm of her dead husband and wants to keep it so that if she and Chase get divorced, she can still have kids. So let’s recap: two uninteresting, pointless characters who have been on life support for two seasons + frozen sperm=equals good idea? Not in any sane universe.

At one point House thinks he has finally shed himself of his hallucination nightmare and goes out to celebrate with beer and onion rings…my kind of celebration. But alas, he is wrong, and when House realizes this, the sheer fear and despondency that registers on Hugh Laurie’s face is overwhelming. Seriously, Laurie is a force of nature.

Of course, the part of the episode that will have people gushing and beaming is that after Cuddy helps House start detoxing off Vicodin, we learn more about their 20+ year history and, gasp, they finally get together. I’m sure they’ll be broken up next week already for the sake of season finale conflict, but it was definitely a nice little moment. The last couple of episodes have had season-finale events: Kutner’s death, nimrods getting married, House and Cuddy getting together. Makes me wonder what’s in store for the actual season finale. Until next week…

Season 5, Episode 23: ­­­­­Under My Skin (originally aired May 4, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Who doesn’t go for the drugged-out hallucinating bad-boy type? by Robin Reed.

For more on House, click here.

House, Tuesdays 8/7c on FOX

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Darren Michaels, IMDbPro

The Tudors: A Fool’s Errand

This week I go tropical with The Tudors and enjoy a vodka and pineapple juice as we watch Henry pick up the pieces as he mourns the death of Queen Jane (who only survived four episodes of this show).  At least she’s dead and doesn’t have to suffer through the tedium like I do.  Anyway, we see some disembodied pigs and are reminded of the swine flu paranoia gripping the nation.  But in medieval England, this leads to an assassination of MP Packington, ally of Cromwell.  Cromwell is somewhat concerned but presses on in his search for a new bride for the king.

Henry spends most of the episode locked up in his chambers scribbling pictures of an imaginary palace where he will only talk to Will Summers, his fool.  They play cards and talk about the sketches and then debate the new articles of faith while consuming a lot of wine.  Of note, thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife’s ass.  An important lesson regardless of your individual faith.

In Italy, Sir Bryan is flitting about with loose women and drink when he demands two emissaries of the Prince of Naples find Reginald Pole.  Pole, meanwhile, is paranoid and rightfully so.  Bryan found him, breaks into his room and stabs the empty bed since Pole managed to escape.  It’s very Nazgul at Bree.

Sir Charles Brandon’s wife is distraught over her pregnancy as she is reminded of all of the people Brandon had killed.  And at this point it’s only 18 minutes in and I need a refresher.  Was the gratuitous nudity, sex, and violence the only thing keeping this show interesting?

While I’m away, someone else at court is murdered and Cromwell thinks the sergeant at arms is not trying hard enough to solve these offenses.  We shall see.

At Edward the Baby’s new household, the walls are washed three times a day and he is kept in a carefully constructed bubble designed by the king in a vision he saw whilst playing cards with a ghost (designs on file with the Lord Privy Seal).  Cromwell is growing frustrated by the king’s absence and his designs for a new palace that will cost a considerable amount of funds.

But then, there is a fight outside of court.  The sergeant at arms cannot contain it (he is killed) and Cromwell sends in reinforcements.  In short, everything is in shambles by the king’s absence.  The King’s Council is equally disjointed and refuses to take instruction from Secretary Cromwell as he has no authority absent the king.  The Council adjourns with a reprimand to Cromwell.  His power is fading, meaning he’ll likely be dead before the season is over.

Summers wakes Cromwell to say the king would like to see him to attend to the matters of state.  The most pressing for Cromwell is a new bride for Henry, but Henry is not interested.

Instead, Henry meets with his bishop to learn of the committee’s decision on the new articles of faith.  But they cannot reach a conclusion.  Henry submits his own list of six questions that must be resolved to determine the articles of faith.  We attend to a reading of the answers to Henry’s questions as we cut to a scene of Henry wearing a diaper and getting over his wife’s death with a healthy dose of T & A and a side of Vitamin P (wink, wink).  Oh and the Lord’s Prayer was amended to include the Doxology and any contrary opinion on these Articles is grounds for treason.

As the anvil of foreshadowing drops, Cromwell is seen speaking in private about how these articles are nothing more than backsliding toward Roman Catholicism, only without the Pope, just Henry.  We end with the fool laughing and sitting on the king’s throne.  If only I were sitting on a throne, I’d think I was looking into a mirror.

Will this get interesting soon?  My magic eight ball says, “All signs point to no.”  Blurg!

Season 3, Episode 5 (originally aired May 3, 2009)

For more on The Tudors, click here.

Sundays at 9pm on Showtime

Photographs courtesy of Showtime, Jonathan Hession

Grey’s Anatomy: It’s a Grey Day

Let me be frank from the beginning. All this wedding brouhaha imaking me feel like a pre-menopausal 45-year old or a 7-month pregnant  lady. (I’m just guessing here.) I happen to be getting married in a little over a year, and anything having to do with weddings, love, family or friendship makes me ball uncontrollably, even on a second viewing.

Seriously, a show that can make you feel emotions about life like you’re feeling them for the first time, is seriously a show I hope will never go off the air. Not only is Callie still dealing with being servered from her entire family, but Izzie’s mom an Meredith and Lexie’s dad appear out of thin air!

THE OUTCAST

When Yang hasn’t seen any rent money, she tells Callie to just lie to her parents and say she’s broken up with Arizona just to get back on their good side.  Luckily, Callie has a crazy surgery plopped in front of her to take her mind off the fact that her aunts, sister, and well, the whole damn family is following in her father’s footsteps and ignoring her.  The patient Willow was living in a tree to save “her friend”from the “corporate bastards,” and when it was bulldozed, causing her to fall and break ALL of her limbs. And while it’s fodder for Mark and Callie, her sister is none too pleased with her actions. (It seems like it’s not the first time her sister has put nature before sense.)  But it’s Willow’s conviction that inspires Callie to stick with her decision to stand up for herself and against her family.

IT’S A GREY DAY

It’s so fitting for an episode about our doctors and their parents to center around a patient who was shot by his own daughter. Truth is, I knew the moment this cute little girl came in that something was off with this family. (Oh, and it is Grey’s Anatomy.) The girl, apparently, shot her dad by accident, and the mother was acting all sketchy and skittish.

Since Meredith’s dad has shown up, the Chief has gone back to being the “parental-like” figure in her life, which has never sat well with our Mer if last week is any indication. Thatcher is doing the 12-steps, and he’s at the point where he’s owning up to his past mistakes.

Lexie,the sweetie that she is (and, unlike, Meredith, having an actual shared life with her father), forgives her dad pretty quickly. She even goes out to dinner with him and introduces him to Mark, though she cutely can’t muster up the word “boyfriend” (but she does hold his hand ON TOP of the table!).  However, Meredith doesn’t easily let him into her life.

This only exacerbates her already strained relationship with her boss. When they find out the little girl shot her father to protect her mother from abuse (I knew it!), Meredith breaks, and is farther pushed over the edge when the mother wants to go crawling back to him, forcing her daughter into the act as well. She screams at the mother, overstepping her boundaries as a doctor, but sticking up for the child when no one else would.

The Chief isn’t too happy about this, partly because he’s tired of feeling punished for having an affair with her mother, but also because they’re supposed to supportive , not antagonistic. He even threatens to suspend her if she gets close to the family again, but of course Meredith can’t stay away, even though she choose a softer way of inspiring the mom to change her daughter’s future.

Though the Chief finally sees the error of his ways, what important here is that Meredith accepted the Chief’s apology for basically not recognizing how his affiar with her mother affected her childhood. “I should have fought for you Meredith, like you fought for that child today…no one stood up for you; I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

MOMMA KNOWS BEST?

Izzie has to confront her mother whose crazy antics are a reminder of Izzie’s childhood. It’s clear from the beginning (Izzie’s nickname is Cricket!) that the two love each other, but Izzie didn’t invite her and she definitely didn’t have the guts to tell her how serious her condition is.

Izzie’s mom Robbie listens to psychics and thinks Alex is “young and yummy.” When she does find out how bad things are, she pretty much can’t handle it, and being Izzie, she gets Bailey to help her convince her mother that her surgery went well (though we know that even more tumors have popped up since the surgery and chemo). We get to see how deep Izzie’s love for her mom is, and Sharon Lawrence brought me to tears when she explained to Izzie how she always knew she was better than the trailer park. I think from all the ladies, including Bailey who supports Izzie since her mother doesn’t know the truth, deserve Emmys!

SIDENOTE?

Christina and Owen come to a head (kind of) when Owen shows more attention to George during surgery. It doesn’t help that he’s been throwing out “hey there nows” and “take care nows.” We finally see Christina get emotional, and you know it’s love when you see the Yangmeister brought to tears. When she confronts him for acting like, well, a jackass, Owen confesses that his shrink helped him figure out what to say (length=3 words) that wouldn’t be “I love you.” Because saying I love you to her isnn’t fair since no good for her. For a minute, I thought she might say it back, she might kiss him or at least say she forgive him, but she walks away, leaving him with “take care now.” Ouch!

The end of this season is killer. I’m crying, laughing and totally falling for this Yang-Owen pairing even more than I fell for the Yang-Burke pairing (which was some pretty hard falling, if I remember correctly). Oh, and though I didn’t focus on it very much because there was so much more going on, the Mer-Der wedding is still on, and I can’t wait to see the end results.

For fun, check out their own “personal” website.

Season 5, Episode 21: No Good at Saying Sorry

For more Grey’s Anatomy, click here.

Thursdays 9/8c on ABC
Photographs courtesy of ABC

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