Another week, another gigantic post. Enjoy!
Spoilers follow.
How I Met Your Mother – “Last Words” (A-)
What a great follow up to last episodes emotional ending. I was really wondering what they were going to do with this episode considering the tone of its subject matter, and I think they struck the perfect balance between comedy and addressing the obvious elephant in the room (Marshall’s dad died).
Robin’s role as “vice girl” was definitely the comedic highlight of the episode for me. Watching her slowly turn into a dealer was hilarious, especially how excited she was about it.
ROBIN: I’m gaining a reputation!
So perfect.
I also really liked Marshall’s somber lawyereds as each character went through the last words their fathers said to them. Robin’s excitement that her dad remembered her birthday was a great follow-up to her story (Cobie Smulders was really on her game this week).
And it all led to what was a very satisfying ending. While I think it was obvious that Marshall’s dad would eventually say something after the pocket dial, it didn’t make it any less enjoyable for me. I particularly liked that he saved his father’s last words for himself and made his eulogy funny instead. I’m a fan of a little levity at funerals. Marshall’s dad was right too – Crocodile Dundee 3 totally still holds up.
Californication – “Suicide Solution” (A-)
What a great episode. Hank's continued troubles with the law drive him further down a self destructive path than we‘ve seen in quite some time. After finally getting his reunion with Becca, he comes to the realization that she loathes him for what he’s done and that redemption can’t come in the form of a brand new Les Paul. Hank continues work on the film adaptation of Fucking & Punching and meets with actor Eddie Nero (Rob Lowe) to play the role of "Hank" in the film. The addition of Rob Lowe to the cast this season is an impressive casting call and the role that Lowe plays truly speaks to his versatility as an actor. The normally clean cut Lowe is decked out in the Brad Pitt style beard and "rock star" style clothing, a serious variation from his normal on-screen suit and tie. I have been a Lowe fan since the West Wing days and thoroughly enjoyed his cameo in Thank You For Smoking, so I have high hopes for him this season.
As Hank's serious legal troubles continue, so does the sexual tension with his lawyer Abby Rhoads (Carla Gugino). With Hank formally being charged with statutory rape, Rhoads' role in the series becomes a lot more interesting. Carla Gugino has done a fabulous job on Entourage for the last few seasons (a show I will be covering for Stuck on a Channel once it returns this summer... look forward to that sports fans.) Her feud with Ari Gold as Amanda Daniels, Vince's one time lover and former agent, is one of the great on screen rivalries. She plays the power suit better than any woman I can think of (our friend @Maxmillien, writer for SportsHaze and fantasybasketball.com, is all over that – man loves the ladies in power suits), so who better to play the female 'suit' in Hank's life than the sexiest business woman in showbiz?
The legal troubles plaguing Hank this season also provide a nice opportunity for the writers to discuss an ongoing theme throughout modern day Hollywood. Athletes seem to consistently find themselves in sexual scandals and while I cannot think of a Hollywood star who has committed statutory rape, I can think of countless stars in some kind of trouble with the law. Whether the writers will take that route and create some kind of social commentary remains to be seen. The show in itself is often a commentary on the plagues of success.
This episode ends on a seriously dark note as Hank steals pills from Sasha (playing Mia in the movie and his current tryst) and takes way too many while writing his apology note to Becca. The note itself is a fabulous piece of writing, ending with the line "its getting dark, too dark to see" from 'Knocking on Heavens Door'. The narration done by Duchovny while his character is literally spiralling downwards towards the floor is fabulous. Since there is still a whole season to go, I have no fear that Hank is dead. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the show end with a dead Hank one day. Duchovny said on the BS Report that they are never sure whether they’ll get another season, so the writers try to wrap each season up as if it were a series finale rather than just a season finale. Since last season they were willing to let him go to jail as an ending, I worry that a happy ending is not in store for Hank. Personally I want to see him back with Karen and Becca but that seems entirely unlikely. Maybe Carla Gugino's character offers Hank his best shot at redemption.
Shameless – “Frank the Plank” (B)
I think I’m finally starting to get an understanding of what this show’s all about. I was a little confused about where last week’s episode was taking the series, but clearly it’s not meant to be as serialized as I thought it was. That’s okay though, as what they’ve brought to the table is still interesting and more importantly, quite funny.
In this week’s episode we got a better look at Frank (William H. Macy) as we watched him wake up on a park bench in Toronto (woo Canada). I thought it was a pretty funny bit, and I laughed pretty hard when they revealed the CN Tower in the background. For the record though, Canada doesn’t have Mounties roaming around the streets on horseback. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.
The one sequence I particularly enjoyed was watching Frank rant about all the things he pays for only to have Lip calmly refute everything he says. On top of being pretty hilarious it’s a perfect character moment for Frank (of course he feels like he’s the victim), and also demonstrated just how self-sufficient these kids are.
Also funny was the fact that this family only seems to watch the Discovery Channel – I love how into Deadliest Catch they are – and when they cheered as they discovered the dead body wasn’t Franks.
The last thing I want to briefly mention is how good the music on this show has been. Apparently their music supervisor and I have really similar tastes because I’m pretty sure so far somewhere around 90% of the music that’s been played on this show is already on my iTunes. Keep up the good work.
Episodes – “Episode 2” (B-)
Episodes is not doing that much for me. There are more funny moments in the second episode than in the first, but none of them are laugh out loud funny. Matt Leblanc seems good in his role. They gave me the Joey joke I was looking for which made me chuckle and his character seems to have potential to save the show from the mostly dull humour of its British leads. Their shock at Hollywood culture got old very fast. The recurring joke about their gatekeeper not knowing who they are is the funniest dialogue they seem to engage in. All the rest seems to drive the plot of them getting screwed over and has very little comedic relief. Again I will tune in once more next week to see where the show is going. I was listening to an AV club podcast and one of the contributors had seen the whole season and claims that the show gets much better after the pilot. So for that reason I am willing to hang on for at least one more week.
House – “Larger Than Life” (B)
I know a lot of you would write House off as your typical patient of the week show, and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong either (it has an obvious formula), but for my money House is still one of the most interesting characters on television. Now sure, he’s maintained his familiar gruff exterior, but don’t mistake that for a lack of character development. His characterization may have remained the same, but over the past couple of seasons (starting with a phenomenal episode in a mental institution) House has slowly started turning his life around. This was capped off in last season’s finale, in which House and Cuddy finally started a relationship.
Which leads me into this week’s episode, where House got the unfortunate experience of meeting Cuddy’s mother (Candice Bergen) for the first time. This show has gotten really funny in recent years (I watch it for the comedy almost as much as I do for the medical drama), and I can’t think of a better example of how hilarious this show can be than watching House drug both Cuddy’s mom and Wilson at Cuddy’s birthday dinner. I especially liked how Wilson started defending the drugging right before he realized he was drugged himself.
I also have to say I’m enjoying the new med student Masters (played by Amber Tamblyn). I like the dynamic she has with the other characters. She can compete with House on an intellectual level, but at the same time she’s also a med student, and needs one of the other doctors to be with her whenever she’s performing a procedure. It led to a great moment in this episode where Forman and Chase realized that even though they didn’t support her theory (and she was annoying the crap out of them) one of them had to go with her to test it.
Now I want to talk about one last thing that’s a little off topic (they let you do that on blogs) – I had read before that House was based in part on Sherlock Holmes, but it never really hit me how much they were alike until I watched the Sherlock Holmes movie the other day. There were times where it felt like Robert Downy Jr. and Jude Law were almost channelling House and Wilson in their performances (obviously Sherlock Holmes the character came first, but House came before that movie). I just thought it was cool – if you get a chance check it out and let me know if it’s just me who sees it.
The Cape – “Kozmo” (B+)
This week we saw the writers of The Cape plant some potentially massive plot points. Orwell (Summer Glau) appears as if she could be Chess' daughter and Vince's wife is starting to find the trail of his framing (obviously with a little help from The Cape himself). We received some more information on the origin of the cape and a second villain (distinct from the Ark crime contingent) has been introduced.
This week in Palm City we found ourselves confronted with the former owner of the cape, Gregor the Great, an escape artist trained by Max. But the cape brought out the evil in him and he went to prison. Being an escape artist that obviously did not last very long, so Gregor returns to Palm City to find Max and retrieve his cape. Obviously, he can't have it back as it has a new owner and who’s using it for more noble purposes. The Cape wins out in the end, but it is understood that Gregor will be back for his cape.
With this type of storyline, The Cape is further defining its role on television. On the same podcast I mentioned in my Episodes review, they also discussed The Cape. They hated it much like every other critic I have read but one of the contributors did mention an article that discussed why television super heroes rarely succeed and if I understood it correctly it’s because the shows try to appeal to too wide an audience. The Cape is succeeding in my opinion because it is not trying to take it too far. It knows what it is – a fun, action packed superhero show. It sticks to the superhero formula and introduces new characters and plot points at appropriate intervals. This is not the Oscar winning Dark Knight, but it’s also not the old school Adam West Batman either. The show has enough of a dark side to appeal to modern audiences but still has enough of the old school comic mentality to appeal to that niche audience. The Cape is truly bringing the comic book format to the screen.
For those of you who do not understand how comics work I will give you a little rundown. Comics are published monthly or sometimes twice a month (The Amazing Spiderman is one of the only titles I can think of that’s published twice a month). The story arcs go for about 3-6 issues, but sometimes if it’s a major "event" they’ll go a bit longer. An "event" is something that shakes up the comic book world, like Marvel's superhero civil war, or DCs Blackest Night. The storylines are self contained but follow within the timeline of a given character. For example, a recent Spiderman storyline had him fight against the Kraven family (Kraven the Hunter's wife and children) as they hunted all of the "Spiders" (Spiderman, Spidergirl, etc etc.) in an effort to prevent Kraven from coming back to life. Some heroes die, Kraven comes back, and Spiderman fights him off in the end – all in all a typical story arc. I know how cheesy that sounds, but it was a good fun read. It’s not about the dialogue – it’s about interesting plots and great imagery.
The Cape does the same thing for TV. Each episode is a mini story-arc that follows within the overall timeline of The Cape. There are the main arch villains (Chess) and the mini villains (Scales, Gregor and likely more to come). In each episode there are on-screen titles which dictate the chapters of the story arc or the individual issues. Each one provides us with a little insight on Cape and pushes the plot forward toward a culminating event, probably a fight scene with the villain of the day. If the Cape fails to get rid of a villain for good, we know they will be back some day. We know what his overall goal is and this is how each episode fits into the timeline of The Cape. Like Spiderman wants to live a normal life and Batman wants to rid Gotham city of evil, the Cape wants his family back. Each episode will bring us closer to that point, but the path is not a straight line. We will get more cape lore, more understanding of the background and depth of the characters, and we will continue to be immersed in the Palm City world.
My hope is that Chess will be defeated by the end of the year, but that Tarot (some crime contingent they mentioned in episode 2) will emerge as the overall target for The Cape. The nice part about a superhero story is that it can evolve in any number of directions. By season’s end Vince could be back with his family and acting as Palm City's guardian angel. More likely is that his wife falls in love with her boss, but that is another story all together. By season 4 we could jump ahead 20 years to where Vince is training Trip to be the new cape, just like how Robin is now Batman, and Bruce Wayne is now creating a global Batman army (yes this is the real, current, Batman storyline). This is what’s wonderful about creating a superhero. The lore of the cape is what can drive the show. That is what makes people fall in love with certain heroes.
Wolverine is my favourite because of where he comes from and what he stands for (and also because he is the best there is at what he does, bub). Spiderman is still one of the most popular comics out there because of his back story, what he stands for, and because twice a month people know they can pick up a book and simply be entertained. I know that barring any serious plot writing catastrophes or plummeting ratings, I can tune in every week and simply be entertained by The Cape, and that’s exactly why I will continue to watch. The Cape is a good comic book show and I'm kind of tired of hearing otherwise. So I'll see you next week, same cape time, stuck on the same channel.
V – “Laid Bare” (B-)
This show gained points this week for doing all the things I hoped it would do in my last review. First off, the writers had our local chapter of the Fifth Column finally start making some more difficult decisions. I really liked that the show brought our characters into a more morally gray area, specifically in Erica and companies decision to torture an undercover V agent for information. You may remember this is exactly what Anna did last season to an undercover Fifth Column member. I like that this show is comparing the methods of its heroes with its villains – it keeps both sides accountable and makes for a far more thought provoking hour of television.
Lisa’s story this week was along these same lines. She had to essentially torture a human to death or risk exposing her secret Fifth Column leanings to her mother. This led to what I thought was a very well done ending, where each of Erica and Anna’s respective children went to the other for comfort. The juxtaposition of these two relationships was a great stylistic choice, while simultaneously setting up a chilling image of what’s to come. Major props to whoever came up with it.
The other development I liked in this episode was the addition of Chad to the Fifth Column. Not just because this finally gives his character something interesting to do, but because this group desperately needed to increase its membership. His eventual introduction to the rest of our main characters was a promising scene, and Chad’s increased proximity to the main storyline will hopefully help make his character a little more noteworthy.
The only reason this episode didn’t score even higher for me is because V continues to spend a huge amount of its time covering up for its various plot holes. V DNA starts to disintegrate, so you can either find out her mission or help your son. She’s been drugged, so she will conveniently never remember any of this. Please start using more natural plot progressions so you don’t have to spend half the episode covering up your holes in logic.
Bob's Burgers – “Human Flesh & Crawl Space” (B+)
This review will be short and sweet.
Watch Bob's Burgers. Seth McFarlane doesn't need another TV show (Family Guy is great but the other 2 take the formula and beat it to death), the Simpsons are almost out of ideas and South Park cannot carry us forward forever. We need another comedy, so watch this show. It’s fresh and I really enjoyed the first 2 episodes. It has some really great subtle moments like the sign in “Human Flesh” that says "Don't taste me bro" or the Child Molester Burger that comes with candy on the side. The most you can say for any pilot is that it has great potential. This show has great potential so give it a watch.
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