These Aren’t Babies, They’re Organ Farms

How many bags of Easter eggs are acceptable to eat in a 3 day span? I really hope the numbers above 6.

Spoilers.

Community – “Critical Film Studies” (B)

I really wish I’d seen My Dinner with Andre before I watched this episode. I think I would have gotten a lot more of the subtle references if I had. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the episode, because I did. It’s just that the jokes I enjoyed most from this episode were more broad based than parody based. I watch so many movies I’m not used to not getting references. I do not like this feeling.

Danny Pudi deserves a ton of credit. The guy is a chameleon – not just in this episode either. Abed may generally be pretty stoic, but when he goes into parody mode he gets into it, and Danny Pudi ends up playing characters from a variety of different movies and TV shows. And what’s even more impressive is most of Abed’s little departures have some sort of source performance for people to compare him too.

I think that may have been the most enjoyable part of “Critical Film Studies”. Abed’s transformation into a completely different person was, from the get go, incredibly entertaining to watch. Jeff put it best – “Abed was being weird, and by that I mean he wasn’t being weird.” The storyline may not have been chalked full of jokes, but give the writers credit for staying true to the subject matter (I think anyway – like I said I haven’t seen My Dinner with Andre).

And in the end the show went back to some of the more dramatic elements that have been working so well for it this season. I liked Abed’s somber scene with Jeff at the end of the episode. They made reference to Abed and Troy spending less time with Jeff in the previous episode, so it didn’t feel at all forced that he was worried about the two of them drifting apart. I really like that, while Abed may seem like he’s not very normal, when it comes time to reveal his insecurities they’re all quite human. It’s a great way of keeping an atypical character grounded.

Humour wise the side show that was the Pulp Fiction party really carried the load for the A story.  Chang had a lot better episode than last week, and Troy’s insecurity about Jeff stealing Abed away from him was good for few a laughs. Pierce’s costume may have been the comedic highlight of the episode for me though. He was the perfect choice to play The Gimp from Pulp Fiction.

My other favourite moments:

-          Jeff’s description of Abed in his opening narration – “His obsession with pop culture had always alienated him. He’d quote movies. Pretend his life was a TV show. He watched Cougar Town. It was as if he didn’t want people to like him.” The sad part is that’s also a perfect description of me.

-          Pretty much any other mention of Cougar Town in the episode, especially all the shots at its name. It’s a good show people. You should all start watching it.

-          Pierce unzipping his mouth zipper to say “I’m hot and my balls are touching a zipper.”

-           “So I said to the director, can we have one more take, but they were already moving on... Courtney had nailed it.”

-          Pierce in The Gimp outfit telling Jeff “Pretty gay man. Pretty gay.”

-          “They said market price. What market are you shopping at!”

And because I feel like it, a few of my favourite little exchanges:

JEFF: Salad.
WAITER: Excellent choice.
JEFF: Yeah, I nailed it.

TROY: Chang made me open it. He seduced me with his dark Chinese powers.
CHANG: Why do you leave him alone with me!

BRITA: What, I have 3D vision now.
ANNIE: Yes, you do.
BRITA: You don’t know me!

The Office – “Garage Sale” (A-)

That was just a heart warming experience for anyone who’s watched The Office for any length of time. Michael’s exit from The Office, while a little sad, has been handled brilliantly so far by the writers, and finally the details of his departure are starting to fall into place.

It’s pretty impressive that in just one short episode the writers managed to set-up not only the idea of Michael proposing, but the proposal itself AND his reason for leaving. And none of it felt particularly rushed either. His early scene with Holly where the two of them talked about not having an in case they don’t end up with each other plan was a smart set-up for the episode that followed.

I particularly liked Pam’s role in the proceedings. Ever since she and Jim finally got together she’s been a little obsessed with becoming a matchmaker, and her involvement in the planning of the proposal injected some much needed humour into the storyline. This is exactly how the writers should be using Pam. Not goofy, but playing off some of the more out there characters on this show.

I loved the gas writing scene. It’s such a Michael way of doing things, and his conversation with Pam after she sees what he was doing was great.

PAM: Michael you’ve had two ideas today, and one of them was great, and the other one was terrible.
MICHAEL: I am not in the mood for riddles Pam.

The conference room scene that followed was pretty spectacular too. They had most of the original cast members contributing to the discussion which added a particularly nice touch of nostalgia. I liked Jim’s retelling of how he proposed to Pam, and Oscar’s list of what Michael really shouldn’t be doing. Even Ryan took some time away from ripping off his mom to help.

PAM: Michael, we are a family. And I’ve always believed that we should all be very involved in each others personal lives in a very major way.

And when the time came for the proposal the writers truly outdid themselves. The tour through the office was incredibly sweet, and again did a terrific job of playing off the show’s rich history to make it that much more special for long time fans like myself. My favourite moment of the sequence was the hallway of proposals. Michael’s comments after each proposal were hilarious, and brought back even more memories of his time at the office (his comment after Ryan’s proposal was my favourite).

All the little details really added up to make the whole proposal feel extra special. The sprinklers going off, the Yoda voices, and the entire office watching through the window were all nice touches to an already special scene. If I’m already feeling this nostalgic now, I don’t know how I’m going to handle when Michael actually leaves.

The rest of the episode was pretty good as well. The garage sale was an excellent backdrop to the proposal. Kevin, Andy and Darryl provided a few particularly fun scenes as they played the board game to Dallas. I loved Kevin’s final power play of stealing the money and walking off as though he were the innocent party.

KEVIN: And that is Dallas.

And Jim and Dwight had a great side story as well. I’m not sure if I completely buy Jim tricking Dwight into trading him a telescope for some “magic beans” but these are the kinds of set-ups I like to see these two engaged in, so I commend the writers for the attempt. Plus I’m not going to lie – I laughed pretty hard when Jim walked out with the potted plants.

Parks and Recreation – “Camping” (A-)

If this is what passes for a transition episode for Parks and Recreation than I have seriously underestimated the writers of this show. What a great way to follow up on the high of the Harvest Festival. “Camping” set the ground work for the rest of the season while still delivering a remarkably funny episode.

Now I have to confess – when it comes to camping I’m a lot like April. I straight up hate nature. I guess that’s not a huge surprise considering I write a blog dedicated to television, but it does help in explaining why I found April’s grief so funny. Every time she complained to Andy about her situation it just seemed to get funnier and funnier to me.

APRIL: Camping sucks. It’s super boring. And you can see the stars which I hate. They’re creepy.

APRIL: I don’t even want to be here. The air is too fresh, it’s disgusting. I can’t breath. There’s a brook somewhere that won’t stop babbling. Shut up!

Amen sister, amen.

I also greatly enjoyed watching Andy’s trek to get to April. It was such a small side story that you could have blinked and you’d of missed it, but Chris Pratt did a terrific job of making the whole situation hilarious. My two favourite parts were when he walked into the thorn bush and when he emerged from the woods with a tree stuck to his shoe. It was some genius physical comedy.

The core of the episode though was about Leslie overcoming her fear of never being able to live up to the Harvest Festival. I really enjoyed the storyline. Not only did it do a great job of recognizing how hard Leslie works for the parks department, but it also did a great job of highlighting what makes Ron and Leslie such a great team. In the past Leslie has been shown to be an excellent counterpoint to Ron’s apathy, but I’m glad that they showed the opposite is true as well. Ron knows how to settle Leslie down enough to work productively.

I’m so glad that they brought Chris back in this episode too. He really is a great addition to this show. It’s not even that he has a ton of great one-liners or anything either. His character in general just has this really funny presence. Like the way he runs out the room as he’s leaving or makes Ann regress into a bumbling mess. Case in point:

ANN: (pointing to her hilarious streak of red hair) I didn’t do this because of you.

Poor Ann by the way.  Chris is so positive it’s impossible to figure out what he’s actually saying. Her reaction in the diner was perfect – "oh my god, this is happening again.” I’m actually interested in seeing whether or not these two end up together again. I’m assuming they will, but because Chris is so hard to read even I know don’t know where the writers plan on taking them.

The one thing I will say though – with Chris finally back they need to find some way to solidify Ben’s presence sometime in the very near future. They’ve done a good job of making his prolonged stay in Pawnee feel natural by playing it off like he really likes it there and is legitimately entertaining the idea of staying, but there’s only so long they can get away with that before it starts to feel a little tired, and I think that time may be coming soon.

I guess I’ll finish with some of my other favourite moments from the episode.

-          Tom camping with the entire sky mall catalogue, including a soft a serve ice cream dispenser – “Chocolate or Butterscotch?” “Uh swirl me. Dude camping is awesome.”

-          “Nooo! I was Tivoing cupcake wars.”

-          Leslie’s dream journal – “I married Alf and we’re pretty happy.”

-          “That was the second most awkward way a man has ever grabbed my breast.”

-           “Fishing relaxes me. It’s like yoga except I still get to kill something.”

-          Ron’s response to Jerry talking about putting on a teen abstinence workshop – “That might be incredibly effective.”

-          Leslie’s great call back to the Len song “Steal My Sunshine”.

-          “What the fuck is a German muffin?”

-          “I hate this place. This place is the exact opposite of sky mall.”

-          The fact that apparently Leslie only sleeps 3 and a half hours a night.

30 Rock – “Plan B” (B)

"I sense something. A presence I’ve not felt since...”

I love Will Arnett. There’s some talk about him potentially replacing Michael on The Office, and personally, I would love to see that. It’s really too bad Running Wilde got cancelled on him. It was just starting to get funny when Fox pulled it off the air. He needs to get on a show that can’t get cancelled so that people can start recognizing how funny he really is.

His cameos on 30 Rock have always been good. I remember laughing my ass off the last time he was on as he and Jack argued face to face over the merits of cold versus warm pizza. I say that because it reminded me of a scene in this episode where Jack and Banks went into a long extended itsy bitsy spider metaphor that ended with Bank’s spider climbing back up the spout again. It’s these moments that truly makes Arnett’s guest appearances so funny.

Liz’s storyline this week was a little slower than Jack’s, but wasn’t without at least a few charms. As she goes around telling everyone that TGS has been place on a forced hiatus, she realizes that forced hiatus actually means cancelled and that everyone else has a backup plan. From there on it was Liz panicking to find a plan B of her own.

I really liked each character’s backup plan, especially Sue, who went back to her previous job as a police psychic. The clip of the television show from Holland based on her story was especially funny. I think my favourite part of this storyline though was Liz’s conversation with Aaron Sorkin. I love that they had the conversation walking through a hallway – a classic Sorkin move – only to end up in the same room they started in.

A lot of people may not remember this but back when 30 Rock was first premiering so was Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which was very similar in terms of its premise (both based around the inner workings of a late night comedy show), the only difference being Sorkin’s was more of a drama. At the time there was a lot of talk about whether the television landscape could handle two shows about such similar subject, and I got the impression that Sorkin’s project was the one favoured to win out (it did have Mathew Perry’s return to television). That’s why it was so funny to not only see Sorkin on the show, but to hear his little introduction interrupted by Lemon.

SORKIN: I’m Aaron Sorkin. The West Wing, Few Good Men, The Social Network.
LIZ: Studio 60.
SORKIN: Shut up.

I’m assuming Tracey will back in the next episode with the way things left off. I enjoyed watching Liz and Kenneth figure out that he’s been in New York all along. Lemon’s little cutaway about being the world’s worst hooker was pretty funny, as was the after credits sequence where Kenneth admitted that he probably should have figured it out sooner. The writers have done fairly bang up job of compensating for Tracey’s absence, but I do miss his particular brand of craziness on the show. It’ll be nice to have him back soon.

Grey’s Anatomy – “This is How We Do It” (B-)

I saw that car accident coming from a mile away. I figured it out when Callie unfortunately took off her seat belt. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with it in the next episode. There are a ton of possibilities running through my mind. Maybe one of those lose-the-baby-to-save-the-mother type moments. Or maybe Arizona will be fine and will spend the episode arguing with Mark over something to do with treating Callie, only to become closer than ever in the end. Who knows? My guess is whatever they do it’ll be intense.

Unfortunately the ending couldn’t really save the rest of the episode that came before it. Derek and the Chief’s storyline felt like it was spinning its wheels a bit (Derek and the Chief would be a great band name for a guy named Derek and another guy who likes being called Chief). The patient stories didn’t really go anywhere, and I wasn’t at all a fan of the Chief doing a surgery to prove Derek should take Adele into his trial.

I’m also a little sad that Teddy and Henry don’t look like they’re going to hook up. I was definitely rooting for these two... for some reason. I guess probably because it would be a good story like Teddy said. But wait – if Teddy is saying no to the relationship now does that mean she’s going to change her mind the next time she sees Henry? It’s really the only place left to go. Or is this just the last time we’re seeing Scott Foley? I hope my incessant question talking is helping.

I did enjoy Kepner’s story in this one though. Her character has grown on me quite a bit over the last season and although perhaps a little high strung, she does a good job of grounding the show with her more innocent storylines. I particularly enjoyed her scenes with Avery and Lexie in this one. As much as I like that Lexie and Avery have gotten together I’m with April on this one – get a room you two.

And I don’t think it was much of a surprise but it was nice to see Karev and Lucy finally get together. I think the actors definitely have some chemistry together so I look forward to seeing how they actually do as a couple. Karev deserves something good to happen to him, especially after listening to Meredith list off all the bad things that have happened to him just over the past couple of seasons.

But I don’t cheer for just any old relationship. I am not a fan of Bailey and the nurse she’s dating. The two of them are quite irritating with each other, and more than anything I just don’t like him. He seems kind of pompous doesn’t he? I was secretly hoping they would break up at the end of the episode but the opposite kind of happened. Hmmm, I hope next episode they stay together.

Alright, I’d better cut it off there. It’s very late and I’m not sure if anything I just wrote made any kind of sense. I apologize if that’s the case. I’ve gotta wake up early anyway to find someone named Derek to start a band with.