So I happen to be bad with declarative statements.
A few weeks back, I stated quite explicitly that I am not writing tv reviews anymore. I really don't think I'm going about this plan the right way. Oh, well, it's not like my track record could get any crappier anyway.
'Brothers & Sisters' 1x06 - 'For the Children'
The boy-kissing continues. This show knows very well how to make me happy.
B&S keeps perplexing me with its mind-boggling tendency to alternate brilliant, sharp and funny scenes with clunky, overly sappy and soapish ones (like, say, the whole painful 'Tommy can't have babies' melodrama). It's confusing as hell.
Let's focus on the good ones here:
- Julia torturing Tommy with tantric sex - funny. And Julia is finally getting some personality. Still just a slice, but it's progress. I wonder when it's gonna be Joe's turn.
- All the Walker siblings uniting against Nora the Despot about the dreadful annual charity benefit (and it's just awesome, how, in this family, a charity benefit is a major issue requiring so much plotting about), and Nora the Despot getting her own way anyhow.
- Nora ambushing Kitty about the benefit and 'If you're going to insist upon being this antisocial, non-participating, saaaad person all the time, people will think you're aloof' (Sally Field's 'saaaad' just slayed me there).
- The Kennedy fantasy and how Nora apparently uses it as a trump card all the time, and Sarah's astonished 'She's used that before? God, she's good.'
- Kitty butting into the conversation where her show's host just compared her to a piece of chicken. 'I'm sorry. Hello. Hi, it's Kitty. Did you just say 'piece of chicken'?' - hilarious. Great delivery there, Calista Flockhart.
- Nora the Grandma with wings, a sword and a crown - a lovely picture - and 'I like it when they destroy things, it reminds me not to be too attached to material objects'
- 'Does anyone ever tell you to bugger off?', I love Nora and Kitty's chemistry. It's damn entertaining. Also 'He's the only D-level celebrity I know. Other than you. With all due respect.'
- Kevin asking all the girls he could get one on one with whether him offering Scotty to pay for being his date was really that bad, and getting adorably drunk ('I've always wanted to see New Zealand. No one knows us there. Maybe we could move there.') and then doing his lawyer mojo on Scotty's manager when he tried to fire Scotty for boy-kissing. 'Even wasted I can handle this' plus a 'I'm ready to roll' head crunch - I practically squeed at that.
- Uncle Saul. I love Uncle Saul. I don't really have anything constructive to say about him, but I love him.
I'm starting to genuinely like Kitty. I'm still shirking from Kitty/Warren that I just know is gonna come round the corner in a few weeks, but the girl alone is ok.
Patricia Wettig looks quite smoking here. Way better than she did on 'Prison Break', I don't care whether she's President there or not.
The show would really do itself a favor if it invested in some better actors as the recurrings. The guys playing Joe and Scotty were some pretty bad choices in that department. Though, actually, the Scotty one does quite a lot of boy-kissing, so I guess he can stay.
'Weeds' 2x12 - 'Pittsburgh'
Wow, that's some fireworks. I loved it, every single minute of it. Shame it lasted so short.
Let's go through this step after delightful step:
- Nancy telling her impromptu last will to morbidly fascinated Lupita, how the kids are going to go to her sister Jill ('NOT to Andy') and 'Did you know about all this stuff? Of course not, you don't even clean anymore'.
- Zooey Deschanel doing her quirky shtick again and spinning a exotic tale about Chile, Bumchuck (or whatever) the ultimate fighter, a shady poker chips buyer, babies and corn salad, all the time jacking Andy off without missing a beat. A lovely girl she is. 'Batshit nuts', but lovely.
- Crazily drunk Celia slobbing in a motel room. Celia rocked this week. Rocked hardcore.
- Isabelle comparing Celia to Voldemort and totally freaking Dean out.
- Celia invading Nancy's kitchen in the search of Silas the Thief and this little exchange: Nancy: 'I have no idea what you're talking about', Celia: 'I have Silas on video. Stealing', Nancy: *snags the tape and crushes it under the platform shoe* 'I have no idea what you are talking about', Celia: *whips out a gun*, Shane: *boggles* - seriously, I love this show - and then 'I borrowed it from Pam' (hee) and then she shoots through some cabinet and her awesome 'Oh my God'.
- Heylia doing her smug shit again but bent on pulling Conrad's ass from the line. Because she cares, people.
- Shane delivering his carefully thought-out graduation speech, the main point of which seemed to be 'There are motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane', and of course all the kids wildly cheering, because kids are just dumb shits that way and the Principal' hasty 'You've all graduated. Good bye' - I suppose the man is just too polite to say 'Fuck off and die'.
- The graduation party that featured Gretchen being annoying, the following exchange: Zooey Deschanel: 'I've liberated a case of cactus cooler for the ride', 'Andy: 'I'm not coming with you', Zooey Deschanel: 'It tastes like baby aspirin', Andy: 'Oh, In that case, I'm still not going', Doug and Dean having a catfight (also: Doug: 'You punched my neck', Dean: 'You're freakishly tall'), Celia macking on Andy just for the hell of it and Andy responding with all the sleazy enthusiasm he's got (they should totally get together in season 3) and Zooey Deschanel eloping with Shane and Andy following hot on her trail with Bumchuck (or whatever).
- The deal from hell going down in Nancy's Dope House: Sanjay showing up all of a sudden because he's a dumbass like that, him growing more panicked by the second and finally Nancy stuffing him in the closet, U-Turn and his one-man crew showing up and the due diligence 'Take off your shirt' and Nancy's 'I've shown you mine, now show me yours', the Armenians taking down Peter to the lovely tunes of 'Die, motherfucker, die', U-Turn and his one-man crew whipping out the guns instead of money (and 'Ain't no money, fool. I'm a fucking criminal') to which Nancy goes completely Petrified, and when Mary Louise Parker does Petrified, she wins bloody Olympics (and 'I hear you. You're a wonderful criminal'), the bloodied Armenians barging in and doing the full-blown Mexican standoff with U-Turn and his one-man crew over who gets the pot, Nancy opening the safe only to find that Silas has the worst timing ever and bringing her Petrified to the cosmic level and then calling her jerk of a son, who is just getting busted by police that Celia totally brought on his ass.
The season ends to Nancy trembling at five guns thrust right in her face, and I'm half certain that in August Sanjay is gonna spring out of the closet and save the day. Or perhaps not. Anyway, I'm fucking delighted.
'Prison Break' 2x09 - 'Unearthed'
Micheal apparently wasn't overjoyed by me proclaiming last week that Mahone is my new favorite, because he huffed, he puffed and he went back to being awesome again. I love him when he's being this purposeful, shrewd, smug bastard. Stay like that forever, Micheal. It suits you.
Micheal went up in my book yet again, but, the resourceful son of a bitch that he is, he managed to take down Mahone a peg or two in the process. Not that Mahone isn't great anymore, but Micheal made him lose his cool big time this week.
Mahone might have been played here, which lost him a few points with me, but he also got at least half of them right back free for having Crazy Sheila as an ex-wife. So Callie Thorne looked like a pretty sane and reasonable woman here, but she'll always be the amazing Crazy Sheila for me. Damn, I miss my fireman show.
I liked C-Note here. He acted smart, ingenious and befitting a man who used to be a prison go-to guy. I'm pretty curious what he's gonna do now, though. His options seem quite bleak. If he goes out of that a winner, the man gets my utmost respect.
Bellick trapping T-Bag. Pretty nicely done, with Bellick finally turning out not such a loser. Though, it's quite a leap to assume that he was the only one to draw the right conclusions from T-Bag's fifty-two 'please, forgive me' letters. From what I heard, there are some brainy people working down at the FBI. And it seems they were slacking off. Anyway, I'm willing to let that pass because Bellick ripping T-Bag's stitches? That was hardcore.
They caught Lincoln. Really, I didn't expect that, certainly not so soon. I'm betting here it's a build-up for Micheal's next grand dilemma: leave with a woman he loves - whom he wronged and who went through hell because of him - when they still have a chance, so that this whole break-out mess wouldn't be completely wasted, or go after his brother and his nephew, the only family he has left, even though it would most probably land his ass in jail again and make the whole effort go down the drain. I know what Micheal's choice is going to be before the problem is even there, but there's bound to be some angsting.
I wonder what happened to the Conspiracy Daddy? He pops in for a bit at the last moment at the end of season 1, and then he disappears again, seemingly not particularly interested in the fact that there is a country-wide man hunt for his only offsprings raging on. Bad writing, people.
'Friday Night Lights' 1x05 - 'Git 'Er Done'
Oh, the lovely, magnificent drama. This show is tight, I tell you.
I knew the Panthers would win, of course they had to win, they would have dropped out of the serious competition for the title if they didn't, and the main plotline would have been totally crushed. I knew all of that. Still, the game had me wide-eyed on the edge of my seat, almost paralyzed with anxiety. I'm starting to think that I'm getting unhealthily attached.
Julie and Matt. So sweet, so cute. He stammers, he blunders and tries for 'smooth' so hard and so hopelessly that my heart bleeds for him. But he's adorable. And, bless her blond little head, she sees it. I wasn't so sure about Julie at first, but she's been growing on me lately, and if she makes poor Matt happy, I won't say anything bad about her, ever.
Tami and the Coach. These two might very well be my favorite tv married couple (apart from Zoe and Wash, of course, but 'Firefly' has been gone for years now, it's high time to finally move on and accept the losses). They have an amazing chemistry between them, and they are not only a wife and a husband. but also best pals. They don't sugarcoat anything, they treat one another seriously and they are they really care for each other. And that little exchange: Tami: 'Can I help you make the decision?', Coach Taylor: 'Go ahead. Make the decision. You make the call', Tami: 'Start Saracen', Coach Taylor: 'Start Saracen? I cannot start Matt Saracen', Tami: 'Start Voodoo', Coach Taylor: 'I don't want to start Voodoo', Tami: 'Start me', Coach Taylor: 'He. I would love to start you' - doesn't sound like much transcribed, but it was fabulously done. And then, the morning after the game, the flirty Coach smarming how they are gonna 'get down tonight'. Oh, love.
The whole Voodoo vs. Saracen situation. Matt is diligent, trustworthy and the team backs him up, but he's not very likely to actually win the game, while Voodoo is insubordinate and neither the Coach nor the team trust him, but he is also talented enough to bring the Panthers a victory. That's some not only wonderfully structured but also very believable drama. Lovely.
Tyra. Her subplot felt pretty disjoined from the rest. And not really necessary. It's most likely because we really had only glances of her before and she's been nothing more than a bit player so far, and this big chunk we got today will probably start to have more meaning when we get to know her better but for now it seemed like too much. I like Tyra, quite surprisingly so, and today we saw that the girl actually has hidden depths and rises much higher than the white trash slut status she's been flaunting before, but she needs some sounder storyline. Her only real connection to the main plot is through Tim Riggins and presently Tim Riggins has his eyes only for Lyla and looks pretty much smitten. I still have faith in Tim/Tyra but it's probably not going to come around anytime soon and she needs something else to explain her presence on the show till then.
Other tidbits I loved: Smash buddying up with Matt; Matt coming to the Coaches office all hopeful and Taylor telling him he's going to start Voodoo, even though it was pretty obvious the words could barely pass his throat; the team visiting Jason in hospital, along with Tim Riggins, who nearly broke down at Jason's bed (and I almost broke down with him - damn you, FNL, how dare you make me wobbly), Matt standing up to the task at the game.
And the actual game? Absorbing. Beautifully shot. And bloody exhilarating. Still not a fan of real football, but fake tv football is damn awesome.
Seems I'm being a dutiful friend again, or even more so, since I'm waiting not only with 'Dexter' but also with 'Heroes' this time for my friends to join in. I'm too damn nice, if you ask me. But, hey, it's not like these two crazy twits that I call my friends aren't totally worth it. Still, too nice. I have to work on those mean bitch moves a bit more.
.
'Brothers & Sisters' 1x06 - 'For the Children'
The boy-kissing continues. This show knows very well how to make me happy.
B&S keeps perplexing me with its mind-boggling tendency to alternate brilliant, sharp and funny scenes with clunky, overly sappy and soapish ones (like, say, the whole painful 'Tommy can't have babies' melodrama). It's confusing as hell.
Let's focus on the good ones here:
- Julia torturing Tommy with tantric sex - funny. And Julia is finally getting some personality. Still just a slice, but it's progress. I wonder when it's gonna be Joe's turn.
- All the Walker siblings uniting against Nora the Despot about the dreadful annual charity benefit (and it's just awesome, how, in this family, a charity benefit is a major issue requiring so much plotting about), and Nora the Despot getting her own way anyhow.
- Nora ambushing Kitty about the benefit and 'If you're going to insist upon being this antisocial, non-participating, saaaad person all the time, people will think you're aloof' (Sally Field's 'saaaad' just slayed me there).
- The Kennedy fantasy and how Nora apparently uses it as a trump card all the time, and Sarah's astonished 'She's used that before? God, she's good.'
- Kitty butting into the conversation where her show's host just compared her to a piece of chicken. 'I'm sorry. Hello. Hi, it's Kitty. Did you just say 'piece of chicken'?' - hilarious. Great delivery there, Calista Flockhart.
- Nora the Grandma with wings, a sword and a crown - a lovely picture - and 'I like it when they destroy things, it reminds me not to be too attached to material objects'
- 'Does anyone ever tell you to bugger off?', I love Nora and Kitty's chemistry. It's damn entertaining. Also 'He's the only D-level celebrity I know. Other than you. With all due respect.'
- Kevin asking all the girls he could get one on one with whether him offering Scotty to pay for being his date was really that bad, and getting adorably drunk ('I've always wanted to see New Zealand. No one knows us there. Maybe we could move there.') and then doing his lawyer mojo on Scotty's manager when he tried to fire Scotty for boy-kissing. 'Even wasted I can handle this' plus a 'I'm ready to roll' head crunch - I practically squeed at that.
- Uncle Saul. I love Uncle Saul. I don't really have anything constructive to say about him, but I love him.
I'm starting to genuinely like Kitty. I'm still shirking from Kitty/Warren that I just know is gonna come round the corner in a few weeks, but the girl alone is ok.
Patricia Wettig looks quite smoking here. Way better than she did on 'Prison Break', I don't care whether she's President there or not.
The show would really do itself a favor if it invested in some better actors as the recurrings. The guys playing Joe and Scotty were some pretty bad choices in that department. Though, actually, the Scotty one does quite a lot of boy-kissing, so I guess he can stay.
'Weeds' 2x12 - 'Pittsburgh'
Wow, that's some fireworks. I loved it, every single minute of it. Shame it lasted so short.
Let's go through this step after delightful step:
- Nancy telling her impromptu last will to morbidly fascinated Lupita, how the kids are going to go to her sister Jill ('NOT to Andy') and 'Did you know about all this stuff? Of course not, you don't even clean anymore'.
- Zooey Deschanel doing her quirky shtick again and spinning a exotic tale about Chile, Bumchuck (or whatever) the ultimate fighter, a shady poker chips buyer, babies and corn salad, all the time jacking Andy off without missing a beat. A lovely girl she is. 'Batshit nuts', but lovely.
- Crazily drunk Celia slobbing in a motel room. Celia rocked this week. Rocked hardcore.
- Isabelle comparing Celia to Voldemort and totally freaking Dean out.
- Celia invading Nancy's kitchen in the search of Silas the Thief and this little exchange: Nancy: 'I have no idea what you're talking about', Celia: 'I have Silas on video. Stealing', Nancy: *snags the tape and crushes it under the platform shoe* 'I have no idea what you are talking about', Celia: *whips out a gun*, Shane: *boggles* - seriously, I love this show - and then 'I borrowed it from Pam' (hee) and then she shoots through some cabinet and her awesome 'Oh my God'.
- Heylia doing her smug shit again but bent on pulling Conrad's ass from the line. Because she cares, people.
- Shane delivering his carefully thought-out graduation speech, the main point of which seemed to be 'There are motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane', and of course all the kids wildly cheering, because kids are just dumb shits that way and the Principal' hasty 'You've all graduated. Good bye' - I suppose the man is just too polite to say 'Fuck off and die'.
- The graduation party that featured Gretchen being annoying, the following exchange: Zooey Deschanel: 'I've liberated a case of cactus cooler for the ride', 'Andy: 'I'm not coming with you', Zooey Deschanel: 'It tastes like baby aspirin', Andy: 'Oh, In that case, I'm still not going', Doug and Dean having a catfight (also: Doug: 'You punched my neck', Dean: 'You're freakishly tall'), Celia macking on Andy just for the hell of it and Andy responding with all the sleazy enthusiasm he's got (they should totally get together in season 3) and Zooey Deschanel eloping with Shane and Andy following hot on her trail with Bumchuck (or whatever).
- The deal from hell going down in Nancy's Dope House: Sanjay showing up all of a sudden because he's a dumbass like that, him growing more panicked by the second and finally Nancy stuffing him in the closet, U-Turn and his one-man crew showing up and the due diligence 'Take off your shirt' and Nancy's 'I've shown you mine, now show me yours', the Armenians taking down Peter to the lovely tunes of 'Die, motherfucker, die', U-Turn and his one-man crew whipping out the guns instead of money (and 'Ain't no money, fool. I'm a fucking criminal') to which Nancy goes completely Petrified, and when Mary Louise Parker does Petrified, she wins bloody Olympics (and 'I hear you. You're a wonderful criminal'), the bloodied Armenians barging in and doing the full-blown Mexican standoff with U-Turn and his one-man crew over who gets the pot, Nancy opening the safe only to find that Silas has the worst timing ever and bringing her Petrified to the cosmic level and then calling her jerk of a son, who is just getting busted by police that Celia totally brought on his ass.
The season ends to Nancy trembling at five guns thrust right in her face, and I'm half certain that in August Sanjay is gonna spring out of the closet and save the day. Or perhaps not. Anyway, I'm fucking delighted.
'Prison Break' 2x09 - 'Unearthed'
Micheal apparently wasn't overjoyed by me proclaiming last week that Mahone is my new favorite, because he huffed, he puffed and he went back to being awesome again. I love him when he's being this purposeful, shrewd, smug bastard. Stay like that forever, Micheal. It suits you.
Micheal went up in my book yet again, but, the resourceful son of a bitch that he is, he managed to take down Mahone a peg or two in the process. Not that Mahone isn't great anymore, but Micheal made him lose his cool big time this week.
Mahone might have been played here, which lost him a few points with me, but he also got at least half of them right back free for having Crazy Sheila as an ex-wife. So Callie Thorne looked like a pretty sane and reasonable woman here, but she'll always be the amazing Crazy Sheila for me. Damn, I miss my fireman show.
I liked C-Note here. He acted smart, ingenious and befitting a man who used to be a prison go-to guy. I'm pretty curious what he's gonna do now, though. His options seem quite bleak. If he goes out of that a winner, the man gets my utmost respect.
Bellick trapping T-Bag. Pretty nicely done, with Bellick finally turning out not such a loser. Though, it's quite a leap to assume that he was the only one to draw the right conclusions from T-Bag's fifty-two 'please, forgive me' letters. From what I heard, there are some brainy people working down at the FBI. And it seems they were slacking off. Anyway, I'm willing to let that pass because Bellick ripping T-Bag's stitches? That was hardcore.
They caught Lincoln. Really, I didn't expect that, certainly not so soon. I'm betting here it's a build-up for Micheal's next grand dilemma: leave with a woman he loves - whom he wronged and who went through hell because of him - when they still have a chance, so that this whole break-out mess wouldn't be completely wasted, or go after his brother and his nephew, the only family he has left, even though it would most probably land his ass in jail again and make the whole effort go down the drain. I know what Micheal's choice is going to be before the problem is even there, but there's bound to be some angsting.
I wonder what happened to the Conspiracy Daddy? He pops in for a bit at the last moment at the end of season 1, and then he disappears again, seemingly not particularly interested in the fact that there is a country-wide man hunt for his only offsprings raging on. Bad writing, people.
'Friday Night Lights' 1x05 - 'Git 'Er Done'
Oh, the lovely, magnificent drama. This show is tight, I tell you.
I knew the Panthers would win, of course they had to win, they would have dropped out of the serious competition for the title if they didn't, and the main plotline would have been totally crushed. I knew all of that. Still, the game had me wide-eyed on the edge of my seat, almost paralyzed with anxiety. I'm starting to think that I'm getting unhealthily attached.
Julie and Matt. So sweet, so cute. He stammers, he blunders and tries for 'smooth' so hard and so hopelessly that my heart bleeds for him. But he's adorable. And, bless her blond little head, she sees it. I wasn't so sure about Julie at first, but she's been growing on me lately, and if she makes poor Matt happy, I won't say anything bad about her, ever.
Tami and the Coach. These two might very well be my favorite tv married couple (apart from Zoe and Wash, of course, but 'Firefly' has been gone for years now, it's high time to finally move on and accept the losses). They have an amazing chemistry between them, and they are not only a wife and a husband. but also best pals. They don't sugarcoat anything, they treat one another seriously and they are they really care for each other. And that little exchange: Tami: 'Can I help you make the decision?', Coach Taylor: 'Go ahead. Make the decision. You make the call', Tami: 'Start Saracen', Coach Taylor: 'Start Saracen? I cannot start Matt Saracen', Tami: 'Start Voodoo', Coach Taylor: 'I don't want to start Voodoo', Tami: 'Start me', Coach Taylor: 'He. I would love to start you' - doesn't sound like much transcribed, but it was fabulously done. And then, the morning after the game, the flirty Coach smarming how they are gonna 'get down tonight'. Oh, love.
The whole Voodoo vs. Saracen situation. Matt is diligent, trustworthy and the team backs him up, but he's not very likely to actually win the game, while Voodoo is insubordinate and neither the Coach nor the team trust him, but he is also talented enough to bring the Panthers a victory. That's some not only wonderfully structured but also very believable drama. Lovely.
Tyra. Her subplot felt pretty disjoined from the rest. And not really necessary. It's most likely because we really had only glances of her before and she's been nothing more than a bit player so far, and this big chunk we got today will probably start to have more meaning when we get to know her better but for now it seemed like too much. I like Tyra, quite surprisingly so, and today we saw that the girl actually has hidden depths and rises much higher than the white trash slut status she's been flaunting before, but she needs some sounder storyline. Her only real connection to the main plot is through Tim Riggins and presently Tim Riggins has his eyes only for Lyla and looks pretty much smitten. I still have faith in Tim/Tyra but it's probably not going to come around anytime soon and she needs something else to explain her presence on the show till then.
Other tidbits I loved: Smash buddying up with Matt; Matt coming to the Coaches office all hopeful and Taylor telling him he's going to start Voodoo, even though it was pretty obvious the words could barely pass his throat; the team visiting Jason in hospital, along with Tim Riggins, who nearly broke down at Jason's bed (and I almost broke down with him - damn you, FNL, how dare you make me wobbly), Matt standing up to the task at the game.
And the actual game? Absorbing. Beautifully shot. And bloody exhilarating. Still not a fan of real football, but fake tv football is damn awesome.
Seems I'm being a dutiful friend again, or even more so, since I'm waiting not only with 'Dexter' but also with 'Heroes' this time for my friends to join in. I'm too damn nice, if you ask me. But, hey, it's not like these two crazy twits that I call my friends aren't totally worth it. Still, too nice. I have to work on those mean bitch moves a bit more.
.