Gossip Girl Review: Now We’re Getting Somewhere

 “It doesn’t matter if the dress is couture if the girl is off the rack”

 Blair (Leighton Meester) is back, baby. So is Chuck (Ed Westwick), for that matter, evidenced by the maroon blazer/yellow striped shirt ensemble.

The gang descends on NYC in another great episode, giving me hope the show is, in fact, returning to glory. This week we get an evolution in S and B’s relationship, more growth for Chuck, and a few answers surrounding the enigma that is Juliet (Katie Cassidy).

Even Georgina (Michelle Trachtenberg) takes an interesting turn – you know – if you believe her. Really, the constant wondering if she’s telling the truth is what makes her character fun, interesting, and the girl you love to hate. This week, Dan (Penn Badgley) thinks she’s still at the spa but Gossip Girl photos place her sunning on St. Bart’s. Rufus (Matthew Settle) arrives to spill the beans that Dan is not, in fact, Milo’s father. Dan tries unsuccessfully to find Georgina, then reaches the conclusion I did two weeks ago – that she’s not coming back. Not wanting Milo to grow up in foster care, he announces he will raise the boy himself. After all, his name is on the birth certificate. In tried and true blue best friend slash girlfriend fashion, Vanessa (Jessica Szohr) insists on moving in with Dan to co-parent the baby. Yawners. I could not have been more happy to be wrong about Georgina in this situation. She returns, placating Dan with a story about getting knocked up by a Russian spy while joining the mile-high club. Once in Russia his wife found out about the indiscretion and Georgina’s pregnancy and tried to have her bumped off. Classic, priceless Georgina. In the end, she did something not-classic and missed her son, coming back to raise him herself. Dan tells her she’s not fit and that he’s not giving Milo to her. We’ll see what happens with that.

Oh, and Vanessa is moving in anyway. Snooze.

Dan and Vanessa aren’t the only couple making that leap to co-habitation. Chuck and Eva (Clemence Poesy – Fleur Delacour from the Harry Potter movies, wow! Didn’t put two and two together right away) settle into the Empire. Eva seems uncomfortable with Chuck Bass as opposed to Henri, unused to the spas and being waited on hand and foot. She tries to be nice when she sees Blair while dress shopping. That didn’t go so well (see quote at the top of this article). If it were anyone else, I would have felt sorry for her. Since it’s the girl standing between Chuck and Blair…not so much. Chuck reassures Eva that her simplicity is one of the things he loves most about her, and wants to introduce her to his family at Fashion’s Night Out. Rufus and the magically reappearing Eric (Conor Paolo) have their doubts about Chucks rebirth as a good person, choosing instead to be bitter over the almost-rape and later deflowering of Satan Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen) herself. Who can corrupt Satan, I ask you? Lily (Kelly Rutherford) asks Rufus to give Chuck a chance, but Rufus instead forces Chuck to out his previous behavior to Eva. She forgives him, of course, because apparently she’s the nicest, sweetest, most understanding girl around. Gag me with a spoon.

Serena (Blake Lively) and Blair arrive at Columbia, ready to put the past behind them, but someone waits to split them apart. They both expect to be admitted to the school’s elite, coed social club, Hamilton House. It turns out the mysterious and surely evil Juliet is handing out the keys, and has just one left – for Blair. Serena’s not a jealous type, really, so she’s happy for Blair. She starts to see that college won’t be such a breeze when Dan and Nate (Chace Crawford), then Blair, all blow her off when she invites them to dinner. She (finally) starts to suspect Juliet might be behind her missing invitation when the girl tells her Blair is the one who got her acceptance nixed. At Fashion’s Night Out the Hamilton House girls (including a reappearance of Penelope (Amanda Setton)– yay!) run and tell Juliet that S is “going Jersey Shore” on B and Gossip Girl is streaming the whole thing. Come to find out, in a very pleasant surprise, that S, B, and Darota (Zuzanna Szadkowski) set Juliet up. I guess Gossip Girl (Kristen Bell) doesn’t like other people taking advantage of her pawns.

At any rate Juliet is outed in front of Nate and the rest of the party and Lily, powered by the omnipotent Bass Industries, gives Serena the key she was supposed to have had all along. My second favorite part of the episode? Nate Archibald growing a backbone and standing up for himself AT LAST. He tells Serena he’s angry with her for cheating on him, breaking up with him, running away without a word, and then returning and expecting everything to be the same. Hmmm, when you put it that way…

Good for Nate for standing up to Serena. Bad for Nate for going after Juliet and still wanting to date her after her scheming. Hasn’t he had enough scheming girls to last him a lifetime?

S and B move in together. I don’t know how long this will last, but I like it. If I can’t have Chuck and Blair, Serena and Blair are a good second choice. The characters on this show are back in sync this season, each growing but remaining faithful to who they are, or who they want to be. Watching Chuck date Eva is going to be as hard for me as it is for Blair, but I’m happy the two of them are talking.

At the end of the episode Juliet goes to visit someone in prison. I thought it was Carter Baizen (Sebastian Stan), but word around the web is that it’s a new character, played by actor David Call. I think we’ve verified that Juliet is not Gossip Girl, but who she is…that remains an intriguing enigma.

In the teaser for next week we learn Eva has a secret. I hope it’s deep and dark and makes Chuck hate her forever. Is that bad?

Season 4, Episode 3: The Undergraduates (originally aired September 27, 2010)

Mondays at 9/8C, The CW

Photographs courtesy of The CW, Giovanni Rufino

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Devil Review: Wait What?!?! It Doesn’t Suck?

Five people get onto an elevator, which abruptly stops working. Trapped inside, the occupants of the elevator are starting to get hurt. No one happens to know that one of the trapped victims is not who they seem to be. One of them is the Devil.

Director John Erick Dowdle‘s film Devil tells the first story in the trilogy of The Night Chronicles. The stories within the The Night Chronicles originate from the mind of infamous Hollywood director M. Night Shyamalan. Unless you’ve been living in a bubble for the past year, nearly everyone is skeptical on taking a chance on Shyamalan after the negative reception for his previous movies The Happening and this year’s Avatar: The Last Airbender. Luckily with Devil M. Night has taken a step towards a return to his prior glory. Even though I enjoyed the movie there are some things that work great and others that don’t. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it spoiler free.

The biggest factor that makes Devil a worthy watch is that it doesn’t try anything too crazy. It has it’s story and it knows what it is doing with it. It won’t bring anything out of left field. There is a twist, like every Shyamalan movie, and it’s a good one. A twist majority won’t see coming. To me the twist was what ties up the movie nicely.

What I also liked about the movie was that it kept me going along for the ride. It didn’t bore me as events unfolded. The feeling of suspense and what lied ahead left me guessing till the very end. Oddly enough, even though this is a pro for the movie it ends up being a bit of a con.

There is no way to guess who the Devil is in the movie without it being spoiled for you. Unlike Shyamalan’s earlier work The Sixth Sense, if one paid attention close attention they could have guessed that Bruce Willis was dead from the beginning. That’s just not the case in Devil. No clues or hints can be given to answer the question for yourself. Also, if I just spoiled The Sixth Sense for you, that’ s your fault. Why haven’t you watched it by now and how on earth wasn’t it already spoiled for you?

Another issue I had with Devil was the damn shaky cam in the elevator. The security guard (Bokeem Woodbine) suffers from claustrophobia. Since the elevator is packed, the camera is mostly up in characters faces for a good portion of the elevator scenes and can’t decide if it wants to stay still or not. Sometimes its shaky on the guard to portray claustrophobia and other times its shaky on other characters for no apparent reason. Pick a style and stay with it damnit!

In the end Devil is just plain good time. It’s neither great nor bad. It’ll guarantee a fun watch at the theater and will have some people spooked by the big reveal. The twist will deliver. I will say that if you do plan on seeing it, stay away from spoilers and give this movie a fair shot. If you don’t want to take the risk at the box office then at least do yourself the favor and Netflix it.

Photos by Kerry Hayes – © 2011 Universal Studio

Mad Men Review: Oh God.

Sweet baby Jesus. Watching Mad Men this week was like seeing a giant put a bunch of people in a bag with a really big porcupine and then see him shake it violently. Nothing the people can do will help them escape the pain and suffering that will surely follow and all we can do is watch and cringe.

Over the course of four seasons we’ve know that Don Draper isn’t who he says he is but it’s never really seemed like it could have implications beyond his own personal life and conscience but all of that is about to change thanks to something that is normally mindless. SCDP has been pursuing work with North American Aviation for about two years and the latest project with them requires a security clearance. No big deal, right?

FALSE! When Don’s secretary fills out the security clearance form using his standard info and has him sign it without telling him what it is, she unknowingly kicked off a process where Don has already perjured himself. And before you can say G-Man, investigators are interviewing Betty who naturally lies for Don and then warns him of the pending investigation. To say he freaks out would be an understatement and I feel like I was right there with him. I haven’t felt this nervous for a TV character since the second season of The West Wing when the fact that Bartlet has MS goes public.

The major difference though is that Don doesn’t have a loyal and brilliant staff to advise and help him. Instead he has the sniveling weasel, Pete Campbell who knows his secret but can’t be trusted as far as Sally Draper could throw him. When Don begs him for help Pete is able to get a friend to confirm that the investigation will stop if SCDP lets the client go so Don insists that this happen. Sure, this sucks as it could mean $4 million in business for the firm but they are finally on good financial footing so it’s no big deal.

Oh, wait. At a business dinner the asshole leader of Lucky Strike, Lee Garner Jr. (Darren Pettie), informs Roger that Lucky Strike will be dropping SCDP as their advertising firm. You may remember earlier in the season when we learned that Lucky Strike actually makes up a very significant portion of SCDP’s income and that losing it would kill the firm. Eeek. And because Roger doesn’t inform his partners of the impending loss, they let Don’s dumping of North American Aviation to save his own hide go ahead in hopes that they’ll still be OK, when in actuality that portfolio could save them. I cannot wait to see the Lucky Strike news come out though. Will Pete betray Don in an effort to save the firm? It hardly seems like too good of an opportunity to pass up for a sneaky thing like him so this is going to get vicious. And by vicious I mean incredibly awesome to watch.

Predictions from that last week that Joan would be up the spout after her alleyway rendezvous with Roger proved true this week as she and Roger confront her pregnancy and decide that abortion is probably the best option. Joan is cool and collected about the whole thing and handles the duty herself but once at the abortion clinic an encounter with a young mother taking her 17-year-old daughter to get an abortion seems to have some kind of impact on poor Joany. While never explicitly said, all signs point to her not going through with the procedure, which could lead to any number of things in future episodes as if things couldn’t get more complicated for these characters.

And finally we have the tormented Lane Pryce. Lane is currently dealing with a separation from his wife and was happily expecting a visit from his son only to get his own father instead. Poppa Pryce insists that Lane go back to London with him to sort out his personal family matters but first Lane tries to introduce him to the new love in his life. Unbeknownst to all of us until now, Lane has caught a small case of jungle fever and fallen for a beautiful African American woman who also happens to be a waitress at the Playboy Club. This of course normally wouldn’t be worth a mention but for it to be happening in 1965 is fairly monumental.  Poppa Pryce is not impressed by his progressiveness though and shows it by hitting him upside the head with a cane and forcing him to go back to London to sort his life out. A little harsh but the Brits do everything a little bit differently I suppose.

And so with three episodes left in this season of the best show on television it is clear that things are going to be very bumpy for everyone involved. The firm will either be going down in flames with no clients or Don will be forced to sacrifice himself to save it. Joan will carry a child that doesn’t belong to her husband while he fights and probably dies in Vietnam. Roger could drop dead from a heart attack any minute. Pete will likely do something awful. And Sally may well suffer a head explosion from her experience seeing The Beatles at Shea Stadium. And all of this is probably just a tip of the iceberg that Matthew Wiener will throw at us before all is said and done. I’ll be out of commission for the next two Sundays in a country where AMC isn’t exactly readily available so until then my mind will be boggling about what’s going down at SCDP but rest assured I’ll be back for the season finale and I think I can safely say that it will be a doozy.

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Season 4, Episode 10: Hands and Knees (originally aired September 26, 2010)

Sundays at 10PM/9C, AMC

Photographs courtesy of AMC and imdbpro.

SUNDAY, 26th (Week of Sept 26 – Oct 2)

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES: Vanessa Williams returns playing the only character she’s good at – someone manipulative.  (9pm/ABC)

MONDAY, 27th

HOUSE: The new season premiered last week, but has the show jumped the shark with a Huddy romance? (8pm/FOX)

TUESDAY, 28th

GLEE: It’s Britney/Brittany, bitch! (8pm/FOX)

WEDNESDAY, 29th

UNDERCOVERS: One word comes to mind when I think about this show – HOT! (8pm/NBC)

THURSDAY, 30th

BONES: Conspiracy theory – Booth’s new girlfriend is just a ploy to make Brennan jealous. Okay, that’s probably fact and not much of a conspiracy. (8pm/FOX)

FRIDAY, 1st

TEACH: TONY DANZA: In other words, Danza can’t get anymore acting gigs so now he actually has to hold a regular job. (A&E/10pm)

SATURDAY, 2nd

THE BLIND SIDE: Watch the film that gave Sandra Bullock her cursed Oscar. (8pm/HBO)

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