leave your make-up on & I'll leave on the light
Brooklyn Nine-Nine: The Bet
I was just reading the AV Club recap and every time someone even mentioned Holt pretending to get a text to get away from Terry's wife, I cracked up. HOW BRILLIANT WAS THAT? Bloop. *dies* Everything with Terry's wife was fantastic, from her being played by Merrin Dungey to Boyle telling her how beautiful she is to Terry being terrified because she called him "Terence" to "What else do I not know? You cooking meth? You breaking bad? How many cell phones do you have?" to Boyle's drug-induced truth bombs solving the problem.
I also really liked most of Boyle's climactic scene with Diaz - "I would have taken that bullet for anybody. I did what any good cop would do." YES. GOOD. And Rosa's FACE when he said it! But then they had to go and ruin it with his, "And when you go out with me - and you will" bullshit. NO. SHE'S TOLD YOU NO. THAT MEANS YOU STOP BUGGING HER ABOUT IT.
Otoh, I love that they retconned the stakes of the bet so that Peralta just wants to embarrass Santiago rather than have sex with her. That worked much better for me (and for the show), but it also allowed Peralta to be less obnoxious sitcom guy and more believable character guy, so much so that I am no longer adamantly opposed to Santiago/Peralta (Periago? Santialta?) though I still ship Amy/Rosa most. And every time he said, "I get snacky," I thought of
snacky. Also, I LOVED the crooks' reaction to their "fight." "I'm just glad you two got back together." *dies*
And then the capper is Hitchcock with his shirt off at the end. "I thought we were all taking off our shirts."
So this was definitely one of the best episodes of the show so far, and because of the Globes win, it looks like it's going to be renewed, so you should all watch it.
I think the only shows I really have to worry about are The Good Wife, which could end this season if they spin it right and I would be satisfied even though right now I think I want more, and Elementary, which will hopefully right some of the niggling wrongs I've felt about this season.
*
Dear SHIELD,
Namechecking Bucky Barnes is a nice (marketing) gesture, but it will not make me love you. Otoh, this episode was somewhat better than most of your other episodes, so points for effort. Which still doesn't mean it was good, but I'm pretty sure I yelled, "OH COME ON" quite a bit less at my TV this week than usual. Baby steps, I suppose. I still like May best.
still not impressed,
me
*
I'm reliably informed that it's Wednesday, so let's do the book meme!
What I've just finished reading
I FINALLY FINISHED Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, which goes on at least 100 pages too long and is much too repetitive about the Monday Night Football announcer issues. I'm pretty sure anyone interested in reading this book probably watched MNF during those painful Kornheiser/Tirico days, and therefore knows Tirico didn't like Kornheiser or find him funny. It didn't need to be rehashed as often as it was. When the book returned to the story YET AGAIN, I thought I'd somehow slipped back fifty pages by accident, but no, we just weren't done yet.
The book is interesting, but it does have some issues, some of which are just inherent in letting these people tell their own story, e.g., none of these dudes sound like they understand why sexual harassment is wrong and how their behavior fell under that rubric, but some were surprising to me, like how sycophantic some of the narrative in between the interviews was. I don't know, I guess I expected more critique from Tom Shales.
Anyway, if you are interested in sports and sports reporting and sports television as it exists today, you'll probably enjoy it (at least until it starts going on too long).
I also finished The Secrets of Station X: How the Bletchley Park codebreakers helped win the war by Michael Smith, which was interesting but somewhat dry, and putting it down in the middle to read the ESPN book meant I was a little confused when I picked it back up again, because I couldn't keep track of which Hut was responsible for what code etc. But the interviews interspersed with the narrative were really engaging, so I would recommend it if you're interested in the subject and haven't already read a lot about it.
What I'm reading now
Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu, which is a little too breathlessly in love with its subject to work completely, but it's also really interesting because Noor Inayat Khan sounds like a cool lady and she had a fascinating, if tragically short, life. (Also, this is a professionally edited and published book. Someone should have corrected the author's use of "may" for "might". I realize this is a pet peeve and a losing proposition, but I haven't quite given up the battle yet.)
What I'm reading next
I guess we'll see. The Goldfinch did indeed go back to the library before I could crack it open, but I found it on sale for $2.99 at some point, since I discovered it was already on my kindle, so I'll read it eventually. Maybe after I'm done with my awesome ladies of WWII phase.
Speaking of goodreads, I really hate the revamped digest emails now. I don't need images of the book covers in my email - I actually have all images turned off, so it makes the formatting all wonky and the emails nigh unreadable!
I also don't like the new Grantland redesign, and I still hate the AV Club redesign. I don't understand what this new website aesthetic is, but I don't like it. I don't like it at all.
*old man yells at clouds*
*
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/632712.html.
people have commented there.
I was just reading the AV Club recap and every time someone even mentioned Holt pretending to get a text to get away from Terry's wife, I cracked up. HOW BRILLIANT WAS THAT? Bloop. *dies* Everything with Terry's wife was fantastic, from her being played by Merrin Dungey to Boyle telling her how beautiful she is to Terry being terrified because she called him "Terence" to "What else do I not know? You cooking meth? You breaking bad? How many cell phones do you have?" to Boyle's drug-induced truth bombs solving the problem.
I also really liked most of Boyle's climactic scene with Diaz - "I would have taken that bullet for anybody. I did what any good cop would do." YES. GOOD. And Rosa's FACE when he said it! But then they had to go and ruin it with his, "And when you go out with me - and you will" bullshit. NO. SHE'S TOLD YOU NO. THAT MEANS YOU STOP BUGGING HER ABOUT IT.
Otoh, I love that they retconned the stakes of the bet so that Peralta just wants to embarrass Santiago rather than have sex with her. That worked much better for me (and for the show), but it also allowed Peralta to be less obnoxious sitcom guy and more believable character guy, so much so that I am no longer adamantly opposed to Santiago/Peralta (Periago? Santialta?) though I still ship Amy/Rosa most. And every time he said, "I get snacky," I thought of
snacky. Also, I LOVED the crooks' reaction to their "fight." "I'm just glad you two got back together." *dies*
And then the capper is Hitchcock with his shirt off at the end. "I thought we were all taking off our shirts."
So this was definitely one of the best episodes of the show so far, and because of the Globes win, it looks like it's going to be renewed, so you should all watch it.
I think the only shows I really have to worry about are The Good Wife, which could end this season if they spin it right and I would be satisfied even though right now I think I want more, and Elementary, which will hopefully right some of the niggling wrongs I've felt about this season.
*
Dear SHIELD,
Namechecking Bucky Barnes is a nice (marketing) gesture, but it will not make me love you. Otoh, this episode was somewhat better than most of your other episodes, so points for effort. Which still doesn't mean it was good, but I'm pretty sure I yelled, "OH COME ON" quite a bit less at my TV this week than usual. Baby steps, I suppose. I still like May best.
still not impressed,
me
*
I'm reliably informed that it's Wednesday, so let's do the book meme!
What I've just finished reading
I FINALLY FINISHED Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, which goes on at least 100 pages too long and is much too repetitive about the Monday Night Football announcer issues. I'm pretty sure anyone interested in reading this book probably watched MNF during those painful Kornheiser/Tirico days, and therefore knows Tirico didn't like Kornheiser or find him funny. It didn't need to be rehashed as often as it was. When the book returned to the story YET AGAIN, I thought I'd somehow slipped back fifty pages by accident, but no, we just weren't done yet.
The book is interesting, but it does have some issues, some of which are just inherent in letting these people tell their own story, e.g., none of these dudes sound like they understand why sexual harassment is wrong and how their behavior fell under that rubric, but some were surprising to me, like how sycophantic some of the narrative in between the interviews was. I don't know, I guess I expected more critique from Tom Shales.
Anyway, if you are interested in sports and sports reporting and sports television as it exists today, you'll probably enjoy it (at least until it starts going on too long).
I also finished The Secrets of Station X: How the Bletchley Park codebreakers helped win the war by Michael Smith, which was interesting but somewhat dry, and putting it down in the middle to read the ESPN book meant I was a little confused when I picked it back up again, because I couldn't keep track of which Hut was responsible for what code etc. But the interviews interspersed with the narrative were really engaging, so I would recommend it if you're interested in the subject and haven't already read a lot about it.
What I'm reading now
Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu, which is a little too breathlessly in love with its subject to work completely, but it's also really interesting because Noor Inayat Khan sounds like a cool lady and she had a fascinating, if tragically short, life. (Also, this is a professionally edited and published book. Someone should have corrected the author's use of "may" for "might". I realize this is a pet peeve and a losing proposition, but I haven't quite given up the battle yet.)
What I'm reading next
I guess we'll see. The Goldfinch did indeed go back to the library before I could crack it open, but I found it on sale for $2.99 at some point, since I discovered it was already on my kindle, so I'll read it eventually. Maybe after I'm done with my awesome ladies of WWII phase.
Speaking of goodreads, I really hate the revamped digest emails now. I don't need images of the book covers in my email - I actually have all images turned off, so it makes the formatting all wonky and the emails nigh unreadable!
I also don't like the new Grantland redesign, and I still hate the AV Club redesign. I don't understand what this new website aesthetic is, but I don't like it. I don't like it at all.
*old man yells at clouds*
*
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/632712.html.
people have commented there.