Song(s) of the week

This week’s pick:

“Both Sides Are Even” by The Boxer Rebellion

Where I found The Boxer Rebellion: I honestly have no idea, but probably Grey’s Anatomy. Man I miss television. How long until the new season starts up? Three months... damn.

What I like: To be honest I just recently came across these guys so I’m still discovering them on a song by song basis, this just happens to be one of my favourites so far. The Boxer Rebellion seem to always have great guitar work (the reverb-laden lead in the chorus reminds me a lot of Coldplay, and I mean that in a good way) and I love lead singer Nathan Nicholson’s airy vocals, but I think maybe my favourite touch in “Both Sides Are Even” is the rolling snare drum underneath everything. I just love the vibe the snare gives off. I know with all the other great things going on in this song it’s kind of random to center out the drum part, but hey – the heart wants what it wants.

Both Sides Are Even - The Boxer Rebellion

Song(s) of the week

This week’s pick:

“Rill Rill” by Sleigh Bells

Where I found Sleigh Bells: Surprisingly, on an actual music television station. Although it was like 5 in the morning at the time so take that with a grain of salt.

What I like: It took me a couple of listens to really get into, but there’s something endlessly addicting about the way “Rill Rill” is put together. The production is fantastic, the hook is phenomenally catchy, and while the song never ventures too far from its comfort zone – lead singer Alexis Krauss’s voice never changes its expression – it’s perhaps the chant-like nature of “Rill Rill” that really gives it its charm.

Rill Rill - Sleigh Bells

Song(s) of the week

This week’s pick:

“Crown Of Age” by The Ettes

Where I found The Ettes: This pick is kind of old. I first found The Ettes around the time that movie Whip It was coming out. Drew Barrymore was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The Ettes came out as the musical act because “Crown Of Age” was on the Whip It soundtrack. Somehow I managed to let it slip my mind until now which is unfortunate, because it’s a damn good song.

What I like: It’s simple and it’s catchy as shit. Pretty much exactly what garage rock should be.

Crown Of Age - The Ettes

Song(s) of the week

I apologise for the slow week. I’ve been using the time to catch up on another project of mine (which really means a ton of procrastination). But I’m back... mostly because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing a song of the week.

This week’s pick:

“Whirring” by The Joy Formidable

Where I found The Joy Formidable: Conan. By the way, he has a new movie coming out and it looks awesome.

What I like: Chocolate, girls who love Star Wars, and catchy reverb-laden pop. This song falls into the latter category. When I hear it, I like the way I feel.

Whirring - The Joy Formidable

Song(s) of the week

This week’s pick:

“Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster The People

Where I found Foster The People: I don’t know how underground these guys are with over 2 million hits on YouTube, but I figured I’d try to get the jump on them before they become really big. Carson Daly just did a feature on them so that’s what put them on my radar.

What I like: It’s one of those songs you just hear and instantly wish you’d thought of first. It’s got a fantastic bass line and the main hook is endlessly catchy, so much so that I’ve had a hard time getting it out of my head these past few days. I hope these guys do well.

Enjoy!

Pumped Up Kicks - Foster The People

Gagbismal

My last set of finales this season. This is a very bittersweet moment for me. The dot at the end of the 2010-2011 season. It’s been a good run.

Stay tuned throughout the summer though, I’ll figure out something to post. Maybe I’ll do a little listmaking, or some movie reviews, or maybe I’ll venture into some new category completely. Who knows, but whatever it is it should be awesome.

Spoilers...

Modern Family – “The One That Got Away” (B)

It’s a pity the producers didn’t go with last week’s episode for the season finale. For one, it was a graduation episode, which was a natural bookend in and of itself (named “See You Next Fall” if that wasn’t enough). And second, it was a much better episode than this week’s rather average affair. Even the obvious cliffhanger – Cam and Mitchell deciding to adopt another kid – didn’t really justify this episode as a finale. With the way ABC kept promoting one of the families making a major life decision, it wasn’t exactly hard to see what was coming.

I think maybe my problem with “The One That Got Away” was that the storylines were so fragmented it was hard to get invested in any of them. It was almost like an episode full of B stories. There were a few funny moments in each, but they were fleeting. Nothing really got fleshed out enough to leave any sort of lasting impression so as a whole “The One That Got Away” felt flat, perhaps even a little superficial.

I’m being hard on this episode, I know. If it were anything but the finale I wouldn’t be taking such issue with it, but finales need that extra kick and this episode just didn’t have it. With that said though, it’s not like it was all bad either. I’m starting to love the Pritchett’s new dog. That thing is freakin’ adorable. And you had to laugh at Gloria mistaking Jay’s desire to take up the saxophone for Jay’s desire to own a sexy phone.

I also really enjoyed Mitchell and Claire’s storyline. It’s a pity they didn’t get a little more screen time, but it was definitely fun watching them regress back to their childhoods. Their car ride home with Jay in the driver’s seat was by far the highlight of the episode for me. It makes you wonder why those two don’t get more storylines with each other, they have great chemistry.

Ed O’Neill deserves some serious credit for this episode as well. His story was one of the few that held up to the rather fragmented nature of the episode and a lot of that had to do with his strength as an actor. It’s was amazing just how funny watching Jay run errands could be, and the fact that most of them were for his own birthday party made it that much better. I especially liked his great little one-sided conversation with the dog groomer.

Looking back over this last season of Modern Family it’s been a pretty interesting year for the series. They’ve done their best to follow up their almost universally acclaimed first season by giving us some truly high quality episodes mixed in with a few average ones as well. Overall, I still think the series ranks as one of the better comedies on television today, but it’ll be interesting to see in what direction the third season takes us, whether the writers will be able to maintain to the quality of the show or whether it’ll start to taper off as many do in time. Modern Family still has a great cast so if the writing staff can keep giving them decent material, everything should work itself out nicely. Here’s hoping for many more funny seasons to come. 

** Note ** I did a little Wikipedia digging and it turns out last week’s episode was originally intended as the finale. It’s a pity they didn’t stick with their original instinct. ** Note **

Now for the quotes:

CAM: She’s gonna like you even if sports aren’t your thing.
MANNY: Aren’t my thing? I have a tennis racquet upstairs I only use as a bubble bath frother.

MITCHELL: Okay, that’s trespassing.
CLAIRE: No it’s not, we used to live here.
MITCHELL: I don’t think that does what you think it does.

MANNY: The catch part went fine... mostly. I took a running dive into the dirt.
CAM: Oh well, did you at least catch the ball?
MANNY: I was trying to throw the ball!

CAM: Gloria asked me to handle this. She’s going to yell at me Jay! She can be mean in Spanish.

CAM: Not so good with the bat?
MANNY: I am, as long as I’m using it to roll out dough.

JAY: You know what; I’m acting like a jerk. What am I 12?
LUKE: Hey!

And line of the episode:

JAY: (talking about a dog groomer) You know who did your job in my day? A hose.

Cougar Town – “Something Good Coming” (B+)

You’re right Ted, Hooch is crazy.

You have no idea how enormously happy it made me to see Ted Buckland back on television again. It really didn’t matter what happened in the rest of the episode, “Something Good Coming” was going to score high marks just for that cameo. I do have one question though – if Ted ran into Ellie (played by the lovely Christa Miller, who also played Jordan on Scrubs) in this episode would it have somehow ripped a hole in the space-time continuum?

It’s probably a good thing we didn’t find out. But regardless of the (imaginary) risks, I would love to see a few more of these Scrubs cameos. I was little sad that Gooch had apparently left Ted and ran off with Hooch (Laurie’s right, he didn’t stand a chance) but just watching Ted be Ted again was a delight. I loved his ability to turn any happy song into a sad song. I didn’t realize how much I missed Sam Lloyd’s music.

And yet the amazing part about this episode is that Ted Buckland wasn’t the only awesome cameo in it. If you looked closely in the background of the scene where Laurie tried to convince Trav to go back to college, besides a pretty blatant Subway plug (it sucks, but if it keeps the show on the air so be it) you would have found Danny Pudi, aka Abed from Community. Now there’s a couple reason why this cameo was so great. First off, Busy Philipps and Dan Byrd both made cameos in the Community season finale, so it was nice to see Cougar Town get their own cameo. And second, in Community’s My Dinner with Andre parody “Critical Film Studies” Abed actually told Jeff that he had done a background spot on Cougar Town. I mean, you’ve just got to love it when shows follow up on obscure crap like that.

Phew, that was a lot of time spent on cameos. As for the rest of the episode, I thought the trip to Hawaii went over pretty well. I liked the pairing of Bobby with Andy and Ellie. Andy and Bobby had some truly great bromance moments, my favourites being their secret door knocking language and the fact that Andy had to take Bobby bed shopping because the two of them “like the same firmness.” I also thought the whole toothbrush incident with Ellie was hilarious. The way Bobby and Andy kept compounding the lies just made it funnier and funnier.

I had a more mixed reaction to Grayson and Jules however. I really liked their ending. I’m happy the two of them didn’t break up over whether or not to have children, and I thought Jules’ “I would go on any adventure with you” line was an especially sweet way to finish off the episode, but much of the build-up to that moment was very missable. As much as I loved Jules’ morning routine song, their condom search wasn’t very funny, and a lot of the time this storyline felt like it was spinning its wheels just waiting for that ending to come.

The one thing I found a little peculiar about this episode was the Laurie/Trav storyline. I found it odd that Laurie went about convincing Trav to go back to college by basically seducing him and then pulling back the curtain to show him how stupid it is to make decisions based on chasing girls. I certainly can’t say I’ve seen a story like that one before. Don’t get me wrong, there was something oddly thoughtful about what she trying to do, it was just a strange way to go about it.

But I guess there’s always been something strange about Cougar Town, it’s actually what makes the show so enjoyable. And I do have to give them credit – they’ve won me over this past season. Before this year I barely gave Cougar Town a second thought and now I consider it one of my favourite shows. I can’t wait to see what the writers have in store for next season. I was reading somewhere that it’s going to be Bill Lawrence’s last, so hopefully he’s got a few great ideas saved up for his final season.

Now for the quotes:

JULES: So I called your college and told them you left school because your grandma has syphilis. It’s okay... there’s a little truth to that.
TRAV: Nana Cobb?
JULES: We’re moving her to a less swingy retirement home.

JULES: I don’t believe in ghosts because if they were real I’d like to think that I would be felt up all the time.

LAURIE: Just give me my parameters. Is middle school style okay – under the shirt over the bra – or are we going full on 9^th grade in which case I’m going to need to rent a hotel room or maybe a boat.

JULES: I just got the chills... or I was just felt up by my first ghost.

JULES: He lives in a shack. He sits on the beach all day and parties all night. What kind of life is that?
LAURIE: An awesome one.

JULES: Oh my god, I want to snort this!

JULES: (singing her morning routine song) Brush your teeth/wash your face/take your pills so you won’t get pregnant.

LAURIE: You know in ancient times Hawaiian warriors to prove their manhood would wait right here and battle sea turtles as they came in to breed.

And the quote of the episode:

JULES: It’s for the lady who likes to lounge by the pool but also get paid for sex.
LAURIE: You can do that? Is that a job?

You’re Right, Much Better

Two more season finales, this time for House and The Event. Be careful of the House review if you don’t want anything spoiled for next season, the sixth paragraph has some sensitive information. It’s all in the article though. Enjoy!

House – “Moving On” (B+)

Moving on may be a bit of an understatement. When House acknowledged something needed to change last week, I honestly didn’t think it would mean car through Cuddy’s dining room. That ending certainly is a game changer for the series, and I really don’t know what’s going to happen next season. I’m pretty sure House isn’t going to be allowed back in the hospital for a while. I’m also pretty certain that trying to do so will get him arrested.

Of course that wasn’t really the ending. “Moving On” actually started with the fallout from House’s actions, and that fallout framed the episode from there on out. It’s a pretty classic narrative technique, it’s just unfortunate that the writers thought it would be enough to carry what was otherwise a fairly bland episode through to its much more exciting conclusion.

I mean ending aside, this was a pretty standard episode of House. The patient may have had a few quirks, but for the most the part she was just the typical case of the week, and to me that just doesn’t cut it for a season finale. Last week’s episode may not have had the same shocking ending, but at least it tried to do something different. I would have liked to see a little more of the inspiration in this one (though to be fair House’s injury from the last episode is probably what kept us confined to hospital).

I do like that House left the country though. Actually, if he hadn’t done it because he was running from the authorities it would have been a nice way to conclude his character (and obviously the show). He looked so calm as he walked along the shoreline.

I really hope that the writers use this ending to shake up the show next season. Don’t just somehow explain his way back into the hospital. Break the mould a little. Keep him in the tropics, or throw him in a prison if you have to. Or back into the mental hospital, one of the all time great episodes of this series.  Even getting him a job at a different hospital would at least be a change of pace. But whatever it is, use it to change the formula. There’s always going to have to be a medical aspect to House, but that doesn’t mean it has to be the same formula. House is an interesting character with or without the mind bending patients. Use that.

** Major spoilers for next season **

The one sad note of this ending is that it means House and Cuddy likely won’t see each other again. If you haven’t heard already Lisa Edelstein won’t be returning next season, so unless she decides to do a guest appearance to write her character off, Cuddy’s story will likely end with her finally giving up on House. It’s not as if she was super important to the show anymore – these days she barely even puts up a fight when it comes to House’s hijinks – but I still would have liked to see the two of them end on at least somewhat good terms.

But again, with change comes opportunity. This was a very up and down season of House, and it’s pretty clear to me that if they stick to the traditional format come September this show won’t last much longer. Hopefully this finale gives House the creative shot in the arm it so desperately needs.

The Event – “Arrival” (B)

So it all ends in a giant cliffhanger... how unfortunate. I’ll admit, I was pretty intrigued by the sight of a whole planet coming through the wormhole, especially the part where the First Lady called it home. (I knew she was an NTB!) I might have liked to see how next season played out.

Still, it’s easy to set up cliffhangers, it’s much harder to pay them off, and as interesting as the ending was, the episode was still plagued with many of the same problems evident throughout the series. The plot to stop Sophia’s rollout of the virus was a perfect example. The set up was way too convenient, explained mostly in expository dialogue, and for some reason Sophia herself was involved with the implementation of the virus. That last one makes absolutely no sense to me. There were plenty of other NTBs who could have done that job, why would they risk losing their leader for nothing?

The other thing that had me a little annoyed was Simon’s teaser to Sean about the true background of the NTBs. It’s always annoying when a character starts to reveal a secret and then gets interrupted, but this whole figure-out-how-to-read-the-scroll thing Simon threw into that mix was especially irritating. One because we’ll probably never get the answers, and two, because if he already knew what it said than why couldn’t he just tell him?

As for the rest of the episode it was fairly hit or miss. It was nice to see the President finally stick it to Jarvis. That was certainly a long time coming. I was a bit more wary about Leila being pregnant though. It didn’t come as a huge shock when the doctor told her they’d found something in her blood work, but is that even possible? I can’t really speak for the timeline of this series, but it feels like it’s been too long since those two saw each other for that to happen.

Either way, it’s been a tumultuous run for the series, and frankly I’m not entirely sad to see The Event go. There have been talks of Netflix potentially picking up the series ala the Friday Night Lights formula, but regardless I probably won’t be watching it, so this is it for me. Farewell, The Event... I wish I could say it’s been fun.