Richard Castle, I hate you and wish you were my dad
I watched two TV shows today, and both of them made me tear up for real life reasons.
The first was, of course, the Sarah Jane Adventures. I went a bit misty-eyed at the beginning, but soon forgot about that due to antics with the alien baby, Sarah dearest feeling completely clueless, and Clyde being the adorable manly sweetie he is. (I had a soft spot for Luke in the early seasons, but Clyde's character development has just floored me, somehow.)
The other show was Castle, and it struck a lot closer to home.
So ever since last season there's been an ongoing plot line where Alexis's boyfriend who is a year older than her goes to Stanford, and Alexis decides to apply to early admission at Stanford and go to college a semester early to be with him. The first two episodes of season 4 have her over the moon about this grand plan of hers, talking about how awesome it's going to be, picking her classes, and generally terrifying Richard who is starting to get a bad case of empty nest syndrome. And, in tonight's episode, she found out that she didn't get accepted.
I sympathize. Fortunately, she is mostly absent from the episode and we mostly only hear about her raging grief second-hand, or I think I honestly would've started bawling. As it was, I shrunk down into the couch and got something in my eye when she came down from her room with a box full of trophies claiming that she was going to throw them all out and ranting that they were worthless, that she'd been preparing all her life for this and if she didn't have this, then what did she have?
Damn you, sirs and madams. Good job and damn you. I want to give you all a big hug/ask if any of you stalk me.
(I did, in fact, try to throw out my Mathcounts trophy, the one I considered legitimate. It is either in a box in my closet or my mom stashed it away somewhere, but either way it is no longer on top of my desk.)
Otherwise, very good episode. Outside of that painfully disappointing premiere, they've brought the Castle humor back full-throttle this season after season 3 got noticeably darker, they've unprettied Beckett a bit after season 3 made her look like a supermodel (notice a pattern? did not like season 3 all that much), and they limited mentions of her mother in this episode to an aside that she was a lawyer, and that's where Beckett's intimate knowledge of complicated legal shenanigans comes from, which is actually useful and slightly relevant to the case.
Also, I've noticed a bizarre pattern here. The first case (I'm discounting the abortive mess from the first episode) involves a victim whose hand was cut off, then he was cleaved in two straight down the middle with a sword. The second case, this one, first the body went missing and all they had was a big puddle of blood, then they found it in a cryogenics facility but the facility didn't want to give it up, so eventually they came to an agreement where they got everything but the head (so they cut off his head post-mortem), then right when they realized the head was important the head was stolen. The theme here seems to be, "Let's see how much we can confuse the M.E.!" I love Lanie, but I really wish Perlmutter was the M.E. for these episodes, his snark would've leveled buildings.
Also, yay Ryan-centric episode next week. Esposito's episode was really good, I can't wait for Ryan's. Everyone's favorite dork in waistcoats needs more love.
Anyway, I have a few concrete thoughts on Merlin that have coalesced since Saturday after I came down from my Doctor Who high. Namely, Percival, you are a Knight of Camelot now. Surely you can afford a set of chain mail that doesn’t look like you stole it from a smaller man, ripped it down the front and added buckles so it would fit, and then tore the sleeves off with your bare hands just for shits and giggles. We understand that you have nice biceps and that they can undoubtedly do things like rip chain mail in half; now protect them properly from those that would wish to harm them. Also, series 3 starts out with magic!insane!Uther, whereas series 4 starts out with legit!insane!Uther. Huh. Accidental foreshadowing?
But what have we learned from all this the most? That Colin Morgan should never ever ever ever ever ever be put in old person makeup. Ever.
The first was, of course, the Sarah Jane Adventures. I went a bit misty-eyed at the beginning, but soon forgot about that due to antics with the alien baby, Sarah dearest feeling completely clueless, and Clyde being the adorable manly sweetie he is. (I had a soft spot for Luke in the early seasons, but Clyde's character development has just floored me, somehow.)
The other show was Castle, and it struck a lot closer to home.
So ever since last season there's been an ongoing plot line where Alexis's boyfriend who is a year older than her goes to Stanford, and Alexis decides to apply to early admission at Stanford and go to college a semester early to be with him. The first two episodes of season 4 have her over the moon about this grand plan of hers, talking about how awesome it's going to be, picking her classes, and generally terrifying Richard who is starting to get a bad case of empty nest syndrome. And, in tonight's episode, she found out that she didn't get accepted.
I sympathize. Fortunately, she is mostly absent from the episode and we mostly only hear about her raging grief second-hand, or I think I honestly would've started bawling. As it was, I shrunk down into the couch and got something in my eye when she came down from her room with a box full of trophies claiming that she was going to throw them all out and ranting that they were worthless, that she'd been preparing all her life for this and if she didn't have this, then what did she have?
Damn you, sirs and madams. Good job and damn you. I want to give you all a big hug/ask if any of you stalk me.
(I did, in fact, try to throw out my Mathcounts trophy, the one I considered legitimate. It is either in a box in my closet or my mom stashed it away somewhere, but either way it is no longer on top of my desk.)
Otherwise, very good episode. Outside of that painfully disappointing premiere, they've brought the Castle humor back full-throttle this season after season 3 got noticeably darker, they've unprettied Beckett a bit after season 3 made her look like a supermodel (notice a pattern? did not like season 3 all that much), and they limited mentions of her mother in this episode to an aside that she was a lawyer, and that's where Beckett's intimate knowledge of complicated legal shenanigans comes from, which is actually useful and slightly relevant to the case.
Also, I've noticed a bizarre pattern here. The first case (I'm discounting the abortive mess from the first episode) involves a victim whose hand was cut off, then he was cleaved in two straight down the middle with a sword. The second case, this one, first the body went missing and all they had was a big puddle of blood, then they found it in a cryogenics facility but the facility didn't want to give it up, so eventually they came to an agreement where they got everything but the head (so they cut off his head post-mortem), then right when they realized the head was important the head was stolen. The theme here seems to be, "Let's see how much we can confuse the M.E.!" I love Lanie, but I really wish Perlmutter was the M.E. for these episodes, his snark would've leveled buildings.
Also, yay Ryan-centric episode next week. Esposito's episode was really good, I can't wait for Ryan's. Everyone's favorite dork in waistcoats needs more love.
Anyway, I have a few concrete thoughts on Merlin that have coalesced since Saturday after I came down from my Doctor Who high. Namely, Percival, you are a Knight of Camelot now. Surely you can afford a set of chain mail that doesn’t look like you stole it from a smaller man, ripped it down the front and added buckles so it would fit, and then tore the sleeves off with your bare hands just for shits and giggles. We understand that you have nice biceps and that they can undoubtedly do things like rip chain mail in half; now protect them properly from those that would wish to harm them. Also, series 3 starts out with magic!insane!Uther, whereas series 4 starts out with legit!insane!Uther. Huh. Accidental foreshadowing?
But what have we learned from all this the most? That Colin Morgan should never ever ever ever ever ever be put in old person makeup. Ever.