What’s this? A somewhat timely post? Holy crap it is! Don’t worry – none of us have gotten any more productive. There are just a lot of reruns this week.
Spoilers ahead!
Shameless – “Casey Casden” (A)
Man – this show is fun-nyyyy. The Gallaghers followed up last week’s great episode with another terrific outing. This week we follow Fiona and the gang as they deal with the fallout from Deb (who also happened to be the standout from last week’s episode) kidnapping a child because she was mad they took Aunt Ginger away.
I loved the way they set up this episode. It really felt like a homage to that old movie The Sting (starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford), with title screens setting up each stage of the plan to get the child back to his parents without anyone going to jail (or the family splitting up – the montage of the last time that happened was hilarious). I was a huge fan of watching Fiona and Steve try and coax Deb through the lie, especially after she told them the original story about how she coaxed the kid to come with her in the first place.
DEB: I waved a snickers bar at him.
I also loved Fiona reaction to how good of a liar Deb turned out to be with the cops (I thought it was hilarious she got an award for bringing the kid back). It’s kind of sad, and I could be misinterpreting it, but it seems to me like Deb is just so desperate for any kind of adult attention that when she got in front of the police she just went wild with the story. It seems to be same the reason she took the kid in the first place.
But it’s the way this show can mix the humour with the really sweet moments that makes it so fun to watch. After the whole ordeal was over Fiona admits to Steve “I hope I’m not fucking up the kids”. It was a really nice moment on its own, but they go from that to the wonderful sequence after the credits where Deb informs her she can’t go to school because the doll Steve bought her has Diarrhoea and kept her up all night (she does all this as she smears peanut butter on a diaper), and it’s because of that previous moment that we know exactly what the look on Fiona’s face means.
The Gallaghers weren’t the only great part of this episode though. I really liked watching Tony and his partner together, particularly the scene where they fought over whether they’d be asking questions or not (“why the fuck wouldn’t we ask questions?”). I was worried maybe Tony would be brushed aside now that his relationship with Fiona seems to be stagnant, so I was glad to see him get ample screen time in this episode.
And finally I have to mention my favourite recurring joke in this series, which is watching Kev (Steve Howey of Reba fame) react to the Gallaghers using all his stuff. I literally laughed out loud when he got out of his cold shower, saw the mess his bathroom was in, and just yelled out “fucking Gallaghers”. He had the big twist ending this week, so I’m looking forward to seeing more Steve Howey in the next episode.
Fringe – “Reciprocity” (A-)
This week’s episode was not quite as good as last weeks for 2 reasons.
First, the trailers at the end of "Firefly" made it seem like the doomsday device was going to be the predominant focus of the show. It was not, and that was disappointing.
Second, it was predictable in a way that Fringe has not been recently. When Peter lies to Walter about being out and they find a dead shapeshifter the next day, my first thought was "Peter did it." The team assumes it was Walternate and so Peter isn’t found out, but to me as a viewer it was fairly obvious when it happened.
Still, to call "Reciprocity" bad would be insanity. This is the best show on the air right now, and it didn’t disappoint this week in excitement or mythology.
“Reciprocity” focused heavily on the few remaining sleeper agents from the alternate universe being hunted down (by Peter), having been identified from the notes uncovered from Fauxlivia's computer. By the way, the name Fauxlivia is brilliant and I give kudos to the writers for using it since I’m fairly certain that people commenting about the show on the web have been using it for months. Anyways, the episode looked heavily into the notes taken by Fauxlivia and discussed some of the fallout from them in terms of Peter and Olivia's relationship. They seem to be on the mend – hopefully the fact that Peter is now a psycho-killer doesn’t hinder their relationship.
The episode also brought back the idea of "The First Peoples", a book introduced earlier in the series written by Seamus Wiles. There are a few things I would like to say about this. To start with, the name Seamus Wiles, as pointed out on a number of online forums, is an anagram for Samuel Weiss. Samuel is the man from the bowling alley that helps Olivia. Creepy... no? I can't wait for someone to make a page like this for the connections in Fringe. It would have to be a Venn diagram though with the two universes and Peter in the middle. That would be awesome. Internet world... get on that.
Back to the “The First Peoples”. If you go on the forums you can find out a lot about what people's theories are. I’ve read reference to a number of real books (“The First Peoples” is fictitious) as well as the anagram thing. At the end of the episode we find out that Massive Dynamic has been acquiring copies of the book from museums and collectors. It turns out that William Bell was also looking for copies of the book back in the day. Interesting little cliffhanger.
Finally the episode drops a real bomb on us. Peter is a weapon. Walter hypothesizes that by touching the weapon on the other side Peter has picked up some of its "ideas" and has become weaponized. Hence the name, "Reciprocity."
So where does this leave my theories?
Well it only really helps one of them. Peter could very well become evil by next season. I predict him trying to get back to the other universe to retrieve the stolen parts and use the machine, forcing both Olivias to try to get him back to normal/kill him if need be.
That’s all for this week. Listen if you liked Lost, or Battlestar, or TV in general, watch Fringe. It’s amazing. I can't say enough good things about where the show is right now. It takes 6 episodes out of Season 1 to establish the Fringe Universe... but after that... WOW.
Californication – “Monkey Business” (B+)
This episode was full of so many great lines, I can't even think of one to quote as my favourite. If you watched it than you know that Marcy talking about a baby and Runkle and Hank discussing auto-erotic asphyxiation makes for some pretty funny TV. Even if you don't watch this show, just spend half an hour watching this episode for the one-liners.
Highlight of the week: Runkle attains #17 on his quest for 100... even though it was just the tip.
This week Runkle, Hank, Stu and the director whose name I can’t remember meet with a billionaire financier named Zig. After some insane rambling on Zig's part and him pulling a Billy Walsh and referring to Runkle only as "agent," they decide to take the party to Zig's mansion for a script read through. Hank reads the part of the male protagonist (based off the character based off of him in the novel) and Zig's sexually liberal sister wives play the female roles of Karen and Mia. This performance has miraculous consequences and Zig gets his first "hard on since the Clinton administration." He decides that this miracle boner is too precious to waste on mediocre head from his wife so he retires upstairs to get to know himself a bit better. Runkle retires to a room with one of Zig's wives where he conquers #17 by playing "just the tip", but then kills Zig's pet monkey while trying to get it to leave the room. Obviously everyone freaks out a bit, and Runkle has to tell Zig what he has done. The only problem is that everyone is high and Zig has killed himself through auto-erotic asphyxiation. OK... I have decided on my favourite line.
HANK: I am not adverse to the occasional choke and stroke but this is a prime example of why one must always use the buddy system.
And that really sums up the episode except for one part – how are they getting themselves out of trouble? Well... Hank decides to call his lovely lady lawyer, who commends him for the small amount of maturity he showed in calling her to help deal with the problem of a dead billionaire.
I'm proud of you too Hank Moody. Mazel Tov.
The Cape – “Dice” (B)
I am worried about The Cape. I still really enjoy the show, but I worry that other people do not. It’s still the same show, exciting and whatnot, but it lacks the sophistication and wide spread appeal that makes modern shows gain a following.
The Cape is still very much a comic book in TV format and they’re doing a very good job of writing it as so. We learn more every week about the back story of the characters and it continues to build the myth of the cape itself. This week they gave us information in the form of flashbacks, which is a technique quite commonly used in actual comics to give insight into how past events transpired. This time we saw a bit more about the day that Vince was framed and how Max Malini knew that he would be the one to wear the cape from some sort of prophecy (or something that he read off of a piece of parchment).
This episode also featured Dice, a character with her own powers – she could see the universe in terms of its quantum pieces and therefore possessed the ability to see the future. Chess killed her father and now she’s out for revenge. This puts our hero in a tight spot – if he lets Chess die at Dice’s hands he may never be able to clear his name. This forces him to save Chess' life twice over the course of the episode.
While the episode was good it continued to remind me that the characters in The Cape are really just versions of comic book characters already in existence.
The Cape = Batman
Peter Fleming aka Chess = Norman Osbourne/The Green Goblin
Orwell = The Oracle (Jim Gordon's daughter in the Batman series... she does exactly the same thing, that is, use technology to help the hero)
I still think The Cape has potential and I hope people can find a way to get interested in the show as a real interpretation of a comic book. It’s very much the campy sort of stuff that golden age comics were made of. Again I will be tuning in next week, same cape time, same cape channel (That channel is NBC in case there was any confusion).
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