Glitch has definitely sucked me in pretty hard.
So, thanks to Meg, I'm on Glitch and just sort of poking about and having fun. It's so pretty! And I only have to play in short bursts of time! And it's so soothing and cute and fun!
And, yes, screencaps because they amused me.
I was at the Bureau to get My Papers (so I could ride the subway and get my house already) and, of course, they made me sit and wait for awhile. With nothing else to do, I watched the business... crocodiles... alligators?... do their work and saw one was working on the computer in the background.
There was a little person on the monitor, moving back and forth, around the ground. Are they monitoring people?, I wondered.
Then I realized, no, it was clicking the mouse to move the person/character around.
Around a bunch of dirt plots.
With crops in them.
Is... is he playing Farmville??
I laughed pretty much FOREVER.
One other thing I like about the game is that it's very cute and has a fun sense of humor. When you run completely out of energy, you go to hell and have to stomp some grapes to get back to life. It's kind of pretty down there, it's only a minor inconvenience, and not very hard to do.
I died earlier and saw, oh, hey, there's a piggie down here with me. And then it had something to say:
Ahahahaha, HELL IS BORING AND LAME, WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE? LOL.
I read the Alpha Flight (2011) #1-4 despite that I'm not the biggest fan of theirs, but. You know. Aurora and Northstar. I'm weak to Marvel twins. I went in with a lot of trepidation because this is Pak, who wrote Endsong. Which made me want to punch him in the face a lot. (I kind of really, really hated Endsong.) But I was trying to keep an open mind here! There'll SPOILERS of course.
I read this for Northstar and Aurora, only having the vaguest of ideas about the rest of the team. So, I can't comment as to their characterization, only that this is a solidly entertaining read. It's loosely connected to the Fear Itself storyline, but only in that it refers to the people running around with hammers, otherwise it seems to be pretty self-contained. (Or so I assume. I have yet to pick up Fear Itself, I'm still side-eying it.) But all I really wanted was my delightful messed up twins.
(Sidenote: My favorite comment about the tie-in aspect and how it was obviously an editorial push to tie this Alpha Flight mini in with Fear Itself to give it a bump: You know how obsessive some fanboys can be. There are some dudes in the world that would buy Fear Itself: Marville if some asshole thought that should exist. Yeah, I laughed.)
The story itself is... I mean... it's just sort of there. I was having trouble articulating my feelings on the issues, especially with a lack of familiarity with the characters, so I went searching for reviews and found almost none! It didn't really surprise me, because it feels like this mini isn't really doing anything, that it's just incredibly standard fare even when it's trying to be very dramatic. I honestly don't care about the storyline, I don't care about any of the characters (aside from my previously established favorites), and this feels very forgettable.
The one aspect I do like is Northstar and Aurora. Oh, my delightfully fucked twins, I love you so. I want to be annoyed at the return to Jeanne-Marie's split personality, because I get the feeling that that's what writers return to when they don't have any idea what else to do with her, but if it gives me Jean-Paul being worried over her and kind of obsessing over her, then BRING IT ON. I definitely enjoyed pretty much every moment Jean-Paul was in this! I wish it weren't necessary, but I sort of can't begrudge Pak and van Lente the one moment where Jean-Paul stops to make sure they're not bringing him on as a gay mascot. Sort of. Because part of me does think it shouldn't be an issue since he's a fucking classic Alpha Flight memeber. They're not asking you because they want the good PR, dude. They're asking you because you've been on the team for a shitload of years. Bringing it up felt like Pak and van Lenta not-so-subtly reminding us hey! hey! Northstar is gay! Did you know! He's kind of arrogant about it, too! But mostly he's gay!
Which, you know, I got that part when we saw him with his boyfriend.
(I want to like Kyle, I'm glad Jean-Paul has a steady boyfriend that appears in more than one writer's run, but YOU WILL PRY MY JEAN-PAUL/BOBBY OTP FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS. Fuck, I still can't believe I'm keeping an Austen piece of characterization. It hurts me, too, okay.)
But, hey, I do like that they've written him as arrogant but a decent man underneath it. They kept the pointed ears and high cheekbones, too! And every scene Jean-Paul was in, he got to be awesome. Being the only one to evade capture, breaking in and snarking the entire way to his sister, being an arrogant jerk in the best way...! I have thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed him.
To be honest, I don't care about the rest of the characters. I don't dislike them, but I don't care about Heather and Mac's drama, I don't care what's going on with Walter, I don't care that Puck is back, I can barely remember the rest of their names. I'm here for the Beaubier twins and they've been fun! That's enough for me.
I'm on the fence about Marrina. I'm intrigued by the idea of a character who only ever used to be Namor's love interest (was she his wife once upon a time?) getting a personality transplant and coming into her own, but she feels so... by-the-numbers "Fuck off, punk!" attitude. There's no magic there, no matter how much I want it to be there.
So. If you're looking for an overall good read, I wouldn't say this it. It's not bad, it has its moments, but it's overall pretty limp. If you're here for the Beaubier twins (especially Northstar), then it's worth a read through.
I finally sat down to watch The Mentalist 4x01 the other night, so SPOILERS for that.
That was... wow. After season 3's intense build-up and nerve-wracking finale, this was an incredible disappointment and possibly the single fastest wrap-up of a "our hero is on trial for murder" storyline that I have ever seen. All the more amazing for how Jane actually did it very deliberately and admitted that! But it was all swept under the rug to be forgotten about forever in ~45 short little minutes and just... I realize The Mentalist was never that well-written, that so much of it depended on Simon Baker's charms and the solid acting of the cast.
But the show really fell flat for me here.
I guess I'm glad that we're not going with a long, drawn-out trial. But to have the consequences of that finale just so very easily and quickly swept away... it leaves a bad taste. Even moreso because I read a quote from Heller about the season, how s3 was very over-arching storyline driven, while s4 is going to be less of that. Like that was a good thing!
Ugh. Show. That's why I was watching you! Your show is at its best when it's giving Simon Baker something to actually do! I was looking forward to Jane doing some real soul-searching, to genuinely questioning himself and not necessarily tying it up with a neat little bow at the end of the episode. To have your show seemingly not aggressively pursue mediocrity for once!
I'll still keep wtching. I like the character of Patrick Jane and the way Simon Baker plays him. I will just... take it even less seriously than I did before. Because, honestly, this show is terribly written. Who didn't know the wife was in on it from the moment she allowed Jane into her home? How was she not ready to tear his fucking face off for what he'd done to her family? How was she not even holding herself so tightly so that she wouldn't fall apart? No, it was obvious that she was involved and it was obvious that the show has no idea how to use subtlty--throwing out only one example of the husband's good deeds, so that there was no question of how he was the kidnapper of the girl he organized a search party for?--and just... asl;dkfjalksj I think maybe I'm disappointed in myself for having hopes for this season, I guess.
I don't care what anyone says, Suburgatory is still my new favorite show! I absolutely love that it isn't trying to be all grimdark or depressing, because my life is full of enough of that as it is and I have enough grimdark shows to watch already. I want something light-hearted that I don't have to worry about the state of the characters' emotional well-being, especially when it involves teenagers. Instead, it's just bright, colorful fun.
And also a moment where I, honest to god, had to pause the episode because I was IRL LOLing for a full minute straight, no exaggeration.
SPOILERS for 1x03 - The Chatterer.
The George half of the storyline this week was pretty weak, I'll grant you that. But Jeremy Sisto and Cheryl Hines and the rest of the cast are so delightful and charming to watch that they could probably just sit there and read the phonebook and I would think it was a fun way to spend half an hour!
I read a criticism of it (on the AV Club for memory) that having a stronger George focus in an episode, while Tessa takes more of a backseat in an episode, isn't a bad thing, that the show has always been about both father and daughter moving to this new place that's so alien to them. But the problem with a storyline like in this episode is that we have no idea of how George's character works, that we've not spent enough time with him to really know who he is or why he's doing what he's doing. And I had to agree with that. Sure, you could make some guesses (maybe he's feeling like he needs a new identity here in the suburbs, maybe he's feeling like he's in over his head so he wants to prove that he's got this all taken care of, maybe he's just a really comeptitive guy, etc.), but we don't really get a chance to get inside his head and that makes this episode's events seem like they come out of nowhere.
Furthering the problem is, for all the time we spent on that storyline, it still felt like huge chunks of it were missing, like we were only seeing glimpses of it as things spiralled into weirder and weirder territory. When George first starts giving advice on men to the women at the PTA meeting, okay, sure, I can see how that spun out from the situation. But why was George suddenly speaking in soccer mom/teenager lingo? Why was he suddenly garage saling? Where did any of that come from?
The further you examine this episode, the more it kind of falls apart, even I have to admit that.
But I still can't be mad at it or not still love it dearly. Even when the writing is kind of failing, the lines are still sharp and the actors' delivery is beautiful, so I just end up enjoying my time immensely.
The same problems could be said of Tessa's part of the story, where it goes at whiplash speed through the storyline of her picking a newspaper elective, turning the school paper into a gossip rag that instantly becomes a hit and the school worships them to Malik wanting to sell out Lisa to Tessa putting a stop to it and everything just sort of neatly wraps up. On paper, it should be terrible. But Tessa and Malik and Lisa are so charming that I don't care!
And any storyline that gives me a Medium reference, with bonus hilarity of the picture of Malik's re-enactment of scenes from the show? God bless it. I took one look at Malik in the dead-on Patricia Arquette wig and I lost it. Possibly because I was such a big Medium fan for so long, but it was just plain hi-lar-i-ous. I had a headache when I was done! It really hurt!
SPOILERS for Modern Family 3x05 - Hit and Run:
I liked this episode, but it did feel very... I don't know. Like it was just sort of treading water. It was fun, maybe I just expect too much of this show, maybe... something. And I greatly enjoyed that, yes, Gloria does have all the answers, you non-believers! I enjoyed Mitchell taking down Todd from Community! I enjoyed David Cross! Ty Burrell always brings the funny and amazingness! I enjoyed many things about this episode!
But I just felt like this episode didn't really know what it wanted to do and the Claire running for town council storyline makes me want to brace for the return of annoying!Claire because, well, fuck you show, I love her and she's amazing, which you forget way too often.
I can't really put my finger on what felt off about this episode beyond saying that it felt like it had a lack in focus, but... with all my problems with this season, I have to admit that it's dropping down off my Must Watch Immediately list lately.
ETA: Oh, I read criticism on the recent episodes with how the interactions are basically always the same every week, that the show no longer mixes things up and... yes. Yes. I hadn't realized it, but I very definitely miss seeing this large family actually interacting. I appreciated Gloria and Cam + Jay and Manny last week, but we've seen those fairly often. One of the better scenes tonight was Gloria and Claire, but... how about Gloria and Mitchell? How about Gloria and Luke or Alex or Haley? How about Mitchell and Claire because they always bring the funny? How about Jay with his grandkids? Or Jay and either of his kids, too. Claire and Cam could be totally interesting! I would like to see some of these, please.
SPOILERS for Community 3x04 - Remedial Chaos Theory:
So, basically, it is a struggle not to hit up tumblr's Community tag and reblog each and every one of those gifs of Jeff and Annie kissing. A struggle I'm pretty sure I'm going to fail at.
Anyway.
So this episode.
It was amazing.
I can hardly even begin to talk about all the things I loved about it and all the things it made me ~*feel*~ and all the things that I want to believe this season will do! I think bullet points are the only way to manage my feelings!
→ TROY/BRITTA, omigosh yes plz. I was under the impression that Dan Harmon haaaaated the idea of them, so I'm not sure why it's been played up in recent times, it makes me think he's either setting us up for a fall or just outright trolling us! I don't dare to dream! Except... it's not just in one episode, it's been building for awhile and this episode was just so great for it. Showing that Britta sees the struggle he's going through, trying to grow up and not be treated like a kid, and she respects that. Showing that he actually thinks she's pretty cool, showing that their conversation in the bathroom brought out the really human side of her. I love this Britta so, so much!
But it also was used to tie into what I'm pretty sure is a building theme: Troy vs Jeff. From the beginning, Jeff has been the default leader of the group, the main character if one of them had to be labelled as such, while just sort of got written off as the dumb former jock kid. But he's struggling to grow up and I think he's growing into being a potential strong presence in the group, maybe even a bit of a leader. As much as I love Jeff, I THINK I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO SEE TROY VS JEFF.
I don't think it's a coincidence that, when Troy leaves to go get the pizza, the group descends into PURE CHAOS and destroys the apartment. When Jeff leaves to go get the pizza, everyone has a fun time and dances around and enjoys themselves at a party. That's not my observation, but I read it ahead of time, so it was in my mind going into the episode, and it struck me as very true. It might not be something I would have noticed on my own, but when writing this episode... how could it not be a deliberate set-up?
Not to mention the looks they were giving each other all night! The smiles over their pizza together! The way they looked at each other when Shirley said they were all making googly-eyes at each other! Stop getting my hopes up, show!
→ JEFF/ANNIE!!! Okay, sure, they had to get in another dig at the age gap and hammer it in just a little too much, but, whatever, I will take that if it means kissing! I never got tired of them repeating the same lines over and over, how Jeff hits his head and Annie offers to look at it, putting them in close quarters with each other, where the chemistry between them catches fire when they so much as look at each other. The way they lean into each other, the way they're comfortable in each other's space, the way Jeff says that she's important to him... all of that was delicious.
But then there was kissing.
And I'm just so delighted that this season has Jeff clearly having feelings for Annie, so it's very much a mutual thing. It gets a little tiresome when it's one-sided, it gets a ltitle embarrassment squicky, but here! They both want to bone each other so hard! And yet I can believe that they're holding themselves back because Annie is still growing up and Jeff's still emotionally constipated, but! He can tell her that she's important to him! And it's clearly not just about wanting to fuck her or because she's got, he actually likes her! He likes just being around her!
In a way, though, I actually like that the kiss wasn't in the "real" timeline, because I don't want them to have kissed yet and because they both need to get a little more comfortable with these feelings they have for each other, especially because (even if I thought it was kind of an annoying dig) Annie does still tend to say really inexperienced things in the middle of kissing. But! There has been progress. And it is very clear that it wasn't just the moment or the circumstances that got to them! Jeff and Annie were making eyes at each other in every timeline because they have feelings for each other.
→ The Norwegian troll from Pierce! Oh, it was beautiful. I love how it's presentation varied the most in the different timelines, how sometimes Pierce shoved it right in Troy's face, seemingly just because he was a jerk at first. But then, slowly revealing that Pierce did it because he was jealous of Troy moving in with Abed, after Troy used to live with him. And the one time Pierce tried to take it back because Troy thanked him for understanding that this move was about him growing up and needing to strike out on his own, like Pierce had at one time.
OH SHOW PLEASE FOREVER AND ALWAYS HAVE PIERCE GENUINELY CONNECTING WITH THE GROUP MEMBERS. It makes his dickery so much more hilarious and amazing when you balance it out with showing that there's a real human being in there who's lashing out because he's lonely and feels rejected!
The best moment with the troll was, in the Troy-goes-for-the-pizza timeline, after we'd seen several versions of the troll's appearance, he comes back to the apartment in flames and blood everywhere and people screaming... all with the troll standing in the middle of the fire. LOLOLOLOL.
And the googly-eyes scene! Pierce sticking the troll between Troy and Britta's faces when Troy looks back (again!!) at Britta! LOL.
→ I loved pretty much everything Britta did in this episode. The me-so-hungee dance when the pizza came! How is she so amazing!?
→ I'm wary of Annie moving in with Troy and Abed, but... I'm going to try trusting the show to see where it goes.
→ Multiple timelines can so often be used badly, when it's about the situation that's not really that interesting, instead of being about the characters and how they'd react to slightly different surroundings and what that says about them. This episode did the latter masterfully, leading to so much examination of the characters and their role in/their influence on the group as a whole! It masterfully decorated each timeline with recurring jokes (the troll! the bowl of olives! Roxanne! the cigarettes in the bathroom!) that built up to moments of utter perfection even in something as simple as Pierce tossing the troll doll out the window in a happier timeline!
And, yes, screencaps because they amused me.
I was at the Bureau to get My Papers (so I could ride the subway and get my house already) and, of course, they made me sit and wait for awhile. With nothing else to do, I watched the business... crocodiles... alligators?... do their work and saw one was working on the computer in the background.
There was a little person on the monitor, moving back and forth, around the ground. Are they monitoring people?, I wondered.
Then I realized, no, it was clicking the mouse to move the person/character around.
Around a bunch of dirt plots.
With crops in them.
Is... is he playing Farmville??
I laughed pretty much FOREVER.
One other thing I like about the game is that it's very cute and has a fun sense of humor. When you run completely out of energy, you go to hell and have to stomp some grapes to get back to life. It's kind of pretty down there, it's only a minor inconvenience, and not very hard to do.
I died earlier and saw, oh, hey, there's a piggie down here with me. And then it had something to say:
Ahahahaha, HELL IS BORING AND LAME, WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE? LOL.
I read the Alpha Flight (2011) #1-4 despite that I'm not the biggest fan of theirs, but. You know. Aurora and Northstar. I'm weak to Marvel twins. I went in with a lot of trepidation because this is Pak, who wrote Endsong. Which made me want to punch him in the face a lot. (I kind of really, really hated Endsong.) But I was trying to keep an open mind here! There'll SPOILERS of course.
I read this for Northstar and Aurora, only having the vaguest of ideas about the rest of the team. So, I can't comment as to their characterization, only that this is a solidly entertaining read. It's loosely connected to the Fear Itself storyline, but only in that it refers to the people running around with hammers, otherwise it seems to be pretty self-contained. (Or so I assume. I have yet to pick up Fear Itself, I'm still side-eying it.) But all I really wanted was my delightful messed up twins.
(Sidenote: My favorite comment about the tie-in aspect and how it was obviously an editorial push to tie this Alpha Flight mini in with Fear Itself to give it a bump: You know how obsessive some fanboys can be. There are some dudes in the world that would buy Fear Itself: Marville if some asshole thought that should exist. Yeah, I laughed.)
The story itself is... I mean... it's just sort of there. I was having trouble articulating my feelings on the issues, especially with a lack of familiarity with the characters, so I went searching for reviews and found almost none! It didn't really surprise me, because it feels like this mini isn't really doing anything, that it's just incredibly standard fare even when it's trying to be very dramatic. I honestly don't care about the storyline, I don't care about any of the characters (aside from my previously established favorites), and this feels very forgettable.
The one aspect I do like is Northstar and Aurora. Oh, my delightfully fucked twins, I love you so. I want to be annoyed at the return to Jeanne-Marie's split personality, because I get the feeling that that's what writers return to when they don't have any idea what else to do with her, but if it gives me Jean-Paul being worried over her and kind of obsessing over her, then BRING IT ON. I definitely enjoyed pretty much every moment Jean-Paul was in this! I wish it weren't necessary, but I sort of can't begrudge Pak and van Lente the one moment where Jean-Paul stops to make sure they're not bringing him on as a gay mascot. Sort of. Because part of me does think it shouldn't be an issue since he's a fucking classic Alpha Flight memeber. They're not asking you because they want the good PR, dude. They're asking you because you've been on the team for a shitload of years. Bringing it up felt like Pak and van Lenta not-so-subtly reminding us hey! hey! Northstar is gay! Did you know! He's kind of arrogant about it, too! But mostly he's gay!
Which, you know, I got that part when we saw him with his boyfriend.
(I want to like Kyle, I'm glad Jean-Paul has a steady boyfriend that appears in more than one writer's run, but YOU WILL PRY MY JEAN-PAUL/BOBBY OTP FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS. Fuck, I still can't believe I'm keeping an Austen piece of characterization. It hurts me, too, okay.)
But, hey, I do like that they've written him as arrogant but a decent man underneath it. They kept the pointed ears and high cheekbones, too! And every scene Jean-Paul was in, he got to be awesome. Being the only one to evade capture, breaking in and snarking the entire way to his sister, being an arrogant jerk in the best way...! I have thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed him.
To be honest, I don't care about the rest of the characters. I don't dislike them, but I don't care about Heather and Mac's drama, I don't care what's going on with Walter, I don't care that Puck is back, I can barely remember the rest of their names. I'm here for the Beaubier twins and they've been fun! That's enough for me.
I'm on the fence about Marrina. I'm intrigued by the idea of a character who only ever used to be Namor's love interest (was she his wife once upon a time?) getting a personality transplant and coming into her own, but she feels so... by-the-numbers "Fuck off, punk!" attitude. There's no magic there, no matter how much I want it to be there.
So. If you're looking for an overall good read, I wouldn't say this it. It's not bad, it has its moments, but it's overall pretty limp. If you're here for the Beaubier twins (especially Northstar), then it's worth a read through.
I finally sat down to watch The Mentalist 4x01 the other night, so SPOILERS for that.
That was... wow. After season 3's intense build-up and nerve-wracking finale, this was an incredible disappointment and possibly the single fastest wrap-up of a "our hero is on trial for murder" storyline that I have ever seen. All the more amazing for how Jane actually did it very deliberately and admitted that! But it was all swept under the rug to be forgotten about forever in ~45 short little minutes and just... I realize The Mentalist was never that well-written, that so much of it depended on Simon Baker's charms and the solid acting of the cast.
But the show really fell flat for me here.
I guess I'm glad that we're not going with a long, drawn-out trial. But to have the consequences of that finale just so very easily and quickly swept away... it leaves a bad taste. Even moreso because I read a quote from Heller about the season, how s3 was very over-arching storyline driven, while s4 is going to be less of that. Like that was a good thing!
Ugh. Show. That's why I was watching you! Your show is at its best when it's giving Simon Baker something to actually do! I was looking forward to Jane doing some real soul-searching, to genuinely questioning himself and not necessarily tying it up with a neat little bow at the end of the episode. To have your show seemingly not aggressively pursue mediocrity for once!
I'll still keep wtching. I like the character of Patrick Jane and the way Simon Baker plays him. I will just... take it even less seriously than I did before. Because, honestly, this show is terribly written. Who didn't know the wife was in on it from the moment she allowed Jane into her home? How was she not ready to tear his fucking face off for what he'd done to her family? How was she not even holding herself so tightly so that she wouldn't fall apart? No, it was obvious that she was involved and it was obvious that the show has no idea how to use subtlty--throwing out only one example of the husband's good deeds, so that there was no question of how he was the kidnapper of the girl he organized a search party for?--and just... asl;dkfjalksj I think maybe I'm disappointed in myself for having hopes for this season, I guess.
I don't care what anyone says, Suburgatory is still my new favorite show! I absolutely love that it isn't trying to be all grimdark or depressing, because my life is full of enough of that as it is and I have enough grimdark shows to watch already. I want something light-hearted that I don't have to worry about the state of the characters' emotional well-being, especially when it involves teenagers. Instead, it's just bright, colorful fun.
And also a moment where I, honest to god, had to pause the episode because I was IRL LOLing for a full minute straight, no exaggeration.
SPOILERS for 1x03 - The Chatterer.
The George half of the storyline this week was pretty weak, I'll grant you that. But Jeremy Sisto and Cheryl Hines and the rest of the cast are so delightful and charming to watch that they could probably just sit there and read the phonebook and I would think it was a fun way to spend half an hour!
I read a criticism of it (on the AV Club for memory) that having a stronger George focus in an episode, while Tessa takes more of a backseat in an episode, isn't a bad thing, that the show has always been about both father and daughter moving to this new place that's so alien to them. But the problem with a storyline like in this episode is that we have no idea of how George's character works, that we've not spent enough time with him to really know who he is or why he's doing what he's doing. And I had to agree with that. Sure, you could make some guesses (maybe he's feeling like he needs a new identity here in the suburbs, maybe he's feeling like he's in over his head so he wants to prove that he's got this all taken care of, maybe he's just a really comeptitive guy, etc.), but we don't really get a chance to get inside his head and that makes this episode's events seem like they come out of nowhere.
Furthering the problem is, for all the time we spent on that storyline, it still felt like huge chunks of it were missing, like we were only seeing glimpses of it as things spiralled into weirder and weirder territory. When George first starts giving advice on men to the women at the PTA meeting, okay, sure, I can see how that spun out from the situation. But why was George suddenly speaking in soccer mom/teenager lingo? Why was he suddenly garage saling? Where did any of that come from?
The further you examine this episode, the more it kind of falls apart, even I have to admit that.
But I still can't be mad at it or not still love it dearly. Even when the writing is kind of failing, the lines are still sharp and the actors' delivery is beautiful, so I just end up enjoying my time immensely.
The same problems could be said of Tessa's part of the story, where it goes at whiplash speed through the storyline of her picking a newspaper elective, turning the school paper into a gossip rag that instantly becomes a hit and the school worships them to Malik wanting to sell out Lisa to Tessa putting a stop to it and everything just sort of neatly wraps up. On paper, it should be terrible. But Tessa and Malik and Lisa are so charming that I don't care!
And any storyline that gives me a Medium reference, with bonus hilarity of the picture of Malik's re-enactment of scenes from the show? God bless it. I took one look at Malik in the dead-on Patricia Arquette wig and I lost it. Possibly because I was such a big Medium fan for so long, but it was just plain hi-lar-i-ous. I had a headache when I was done! It really hurt!
SPOILERS for Modern Family 3x05 - Hit and Run:
I liked this episode, but it did feel very... I don't know. Like it was just sort of treading water. It was fun, maybe I just expect too much of this show, maybe... something. And I greatly enjoyed that, yes, Gloria does have all the answers, you non-believers! I enjoyed Mitchell taking down Todd from Community! I enjoyed David Cross! Ty Burrell always brings the funny and amazingness! I enjoyed many things about this episode!
But I just felt like this episode didn't really know what it wanted to do and the Claire running for town council storyline makes me want to brace for the return of annoying!Claire because, well, fuck you show, I love her and she's amazing, which you forget way too often.
I can't really put my finger on what felt off about this episode beyond saying that it felt like it had a lack in focus, but... with all my problems with this season, I have to admit that it's dropping down off my Must Watch Immediately list lately.
ETA: Oh, I read criticism on the recent episodes with how the interactions are basically always the same every week, that the show no longer mixes things up and... yes. Yes. I hadn't realized it, but I very definitely miss seeing this large family actually interacting. I appreciated Gloria and Cam + Jay and Manny last week, but we've seen those fairly often. One of the better scenes tonight was Gloria and Claire, but... how about Gloria and Mitchell? How about Gloria and Luke or Alex or Haley? How about Mitchell and Claire because they always bring the funny? How about Jay with his grandkids? Or Jay and either of his kids, too. Claire and Cam could be totally interesting! I would like to see some of these, please.
SPOILERS for Community 3x04 - Remedial Chaos Theory:
So, basically, it is a struggle not to hit up tumblr's Community tag and reblog each and every one of those gifs of Jeff and Annie kissing. A struggle I'm pretty sure I'm going to fail at.
Anyway.
So this episode.
It was amazing.
I can hardly even begin to talk about all the things I loved about it and all the things it made me ~*feel*~ and all the things that I want to believe this season will do! I think bullet points are the only way to manage my feelings!
→ TROY/BRITTA, omigosh yes plz. I was under the impression that Dan Harmon haaaaated the idea of them, so I'm not sure why it's been played up in recent times, it makes me think he's either setting us up for a fall or just outright trolling us! I don't dare to dream! Except... it's not just in one episode, it's been building for awhile and this episode was just so great for it. Showing that Britta sees the struggle he's going through, trying to grow up and not be treated like a kid, and she respects that. Showing that he actually thinks she's pretty cool, showing that their conversation in the bathroom brought out the really human side of her. I love this Britta so, so much!
But it also was used to tie into what I'm pretty sure is a building theme: Troy vs Jeff. From the beginning, Jeff has been the default leader of the group, the main character if one of them had to be labelled as such, while just sort of got written off as the dumb former jock kid. But he's struggling to grow up and I think he's growing into being a potential strong presence in the group, maybe even a bit of a leader. As much as I love Jeff, I THINK I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO SEE TROY VS JEFF.
I don't think it's a coincidence that, when Troy leaves to go get the pizza, the group descends into PURE CHAOS and destroys the apartment. When Jeff leaves to go get the pizza, everyone has a fun time and dances around and enjoys themselves at a party. That's not my observation, but I read it ahead of time, so it was in my mind going into the episode, and it struck me as very true. It might not be something I would have noticed on my own, but when writing this episode... how could it not be a deliberate set-up?
Not to mention the looks they were giving each other all night! The smiles over their pizza together! The way they looked at each other when Shirley said they were all making googly-eyes at each other! Stop getting my hopes up, show!
→ JEFF/ANNIE!!! Okay, sure, they had to get in another dig at the age gap and hammer it in just a little too much, but, whatever, I will take that if it means kissing! I never got tired of them repeating the same lines over and over, how Jeff hits his head and Annie offers to look at it, putting them in close quarters with each other, where the chemistry between them catches fire when they so much as look at each other. The way they lean into each other, the way they're comfortable in each other's space, the way Jeff says that she's important to him... all of that was delicious.
But then there was kissing.
And I'm just so delighted that this season has Jeff clearly having feelings for Annie, so it's very much a mutual thing. It gets a little tiresome when it's one-sided, it gets a ltitle embarrassment squicky, but here! They both want to bone each other so hard! And yet I can believe that they're holding themselves back because Annie is still growing up and Jeff's still emotionally constipated, but! He can tell her that she's important to him! And it's clearly not just about wanting to fuck her or because she's got, he actually likes her! He likes just being around her!
In a way, though, I actually like that the kiss wasn't in the "real" timeline, because I don't want them to have kissed yet and because they both need to get a little more comfortable with these feelings they have for each other, especially because (even if I thought it was kind of an annoying dig) Annie does still tend to say really inexperienced things in the middle of kissing. But! There has been progress. And it is very clear that it wasn't just the moment or the circumstances that got to them! Jeff and Annie were making eyes at each other in every timeline because they have feelings for each other.
→ The Norwegian troll from Pierce! Oh, it was beautiful. I love how it's presentation varied the most in the different timelines, how sometimes Pierce shoved it right in Troy's face, seemingly just because he was a jerk at first. But then, slowly revealing that Pierce did it because he was jealous of Troy moving in with Abed, after Troy used to live with him. And the one time Pierce tried to take it back because Troy thanked him for understanding that this move was about him growing up and needing to strike out on his own, like Pierce had at one time.
OH SHOW PLEASE FOREVER AND ALWAYS HAVE PIERCE GENUINELY CONNECTING WITH THE GROUP MEMBERS. It makes his dickery so much more hilarious and amazing when you balance it out with showing that there's a real human being in there who's lashing out because he's lonely and feels rejected!
The best moment with the troll was, in the Troy-goes-for-the-pizza timeline, after we'd seen several versions of the troll's appearance, he comes back to the apartment in flames and blood everywhere and people screaming... all with the troll standing in the middle of the fire. LOLOLOLOL.
And the googly-eyes scene! Pierce sticking the troll between Troy and Britta's faces when Troy looks back (again!!) at Britta! LOL.
→ I loved pretty much everything Britta did in this episode. The me-so-hungee dance when the pizza came! How is she so amazing!?
→ I'm wary of Annie moving in with Troy and Abed, but... I'm going to try trusting the show to see where it goes.
→ Multiple timelines can so often be used badly, when it's about the situation that's not really that interesting, instead of being about the characters and how they'd react to slightly different surroundings and what that says about them. This episode did the latter masterfully, leading to so much examination of the characters and their role in/their influence on the group as a whole! It masterfully decorated each timeline with recurring jokes (the troll! the bowl of olives! Roxanne! the cigarettes in the bathroom!) that built up to moments of utter perfection even in something as simple as Pierce tossing the troll doll out the window in a happier timeline!