TV this week
Parks and Recreation has some nice continuity--we get to see Ben Wyatt's cop phobia again, and there is almost no flavor of Ben Wyatt that I enjoy more than flustered Ben. Loved the Leslie/Ben interactions, from her stopping his verbal run-on with the police chief to him saying that he wouldn't mind if she had dinner with Dave on her own.
Speaking of Dave... I've only watched one other episode with him, and that was his final episode in season two. So I don't have much investment in him as a character or as a romantic interest for Leslie. His return amused me, but I don't care if he comes back yet again or not. At least they laid the groundwork for more sane interactions with Leslie and Ben in the future.
The gang singing Leslie's campaign song: funny! I will always love April Ludgate, secret-keeper. Especially when the secret is Duke Silver. Ann/Tom: she's confronting him head-on with all the reasons that dating him is a bad plan. He's pushing for more dates anyway. I still don't have strong feelings about them either way (as a potential couple), but I do like that someone is telling Tom directly what he's doing wrong. That line about movies? Hahahaha.
Moving on... OH CRAP, FRINGE, WHAT IS GOING ON? Shape-shifter Nina? Or red-verse Nina that we hadn't seen before? I was wondering why we were allowed to see both of her hands; made sense once we got to the cliffhanger ending.
Hee, as soon as Olivia left the SUV I yelled, "Nooooooooo!" at my TV. Imminent doom was obvious, because clearly we couldn't end the episode with a happy Olivia/Peter moment. Not with 9 more episodes left in this season.
BUT THERE WAS KISSING AND OLIVIA SMILING! Though Walter wasn't pushing them together as he used to do. The timeline switch clearly killed Walter's inner Olivia/Peter shipper. ;-)
Can there ever be a doctor on a TV show who doesn't use his own DNA when performing IVF?! Please? Ha. Also, are we going to get the threads of this case of the week again? Because how did the voices suddenly stop? (Also, how awesome were Olivia and Peter when they took down those two or three half-brothers who came after them. Just... wham, they were done.)
Yay, Astrid still in the field. Yay, Lincoln being smart and pushy. Yay, Walter tasting yet another drug. Heheh. "Red dye number four."
Enough rambling about Fringe. Let's go on to Person of Interest. Shoulders are the new kneecaps! That's what John Reese seems to be aiming for when he shoots now.
Episode 1.15 "Blue Code" featured an undercover cop, Reese overidentifying with him (shocking and new! hah), and Carter and Reese shooting together. All good things. Not nearly as much comic relief this week as the last several episodes, though, and I did miss that.
The opening was clever, taking us from Cahill the upstanding guy to Cahill the violent smuggler in just a few moments. Then we find out he's actually Tully the undercover cop next: family guy with a wife, a son and another baby on the way. The description of the security measures surrounding undercover cops was reassuring, but that's a job I can't imagine trying to do. Scary.
Speaking of scary, Snow's back in town, doing his usual I will stare at you intimidatingly with Carter. I'm not sure why he thinks it's going to be more effective this time than last time. (eta: I can't tell at this point if he knows Carter is working with Reese and wants to poison the relationship or if he's fishing to find out. He certainly didn't seem surprised at L.O.S.'s mention of a female cop near the end, though.)
And then Finch shows up immediately after, allowing for this brief exchange.
Carter: Files on undercovers are kept only as hard copies, so people like you can't hack into them.
Finch: Words wound, Detective.
Hehe. Anyway, when Carter gives Finch the you're going to do what now? look about breaking into that file and destroying the hardcopy, he assures her that he's got it covered.
And then we see Fusco, of course. Reese has a favor to ask of him. Fusco points out that he's not so close to his corrupt buddies as before (dun dun DUN!) and that he even got a commendation for his work. "Your ass got you that commendation," says Reese, and I'm torn between laughing and wincing as I watch this the second time. (I did laugh the first time, but that was before all the Fusco fiasco stuff.)
Reese accompanies Vargas and Tully to the next delivery. Before the delivery itself, Vargas gets a phone call--presumably informing him that someone on his team is an undercover cop. The delivery itself doesn't go smoothly either; we see John shoot shoulder #1, and one of the smuggler team takes a shot to the thigh. I'd say that's not good, but HE IS A WHINY PUNK, so it's okay. Also, whiny punk didn't have to toss his phone into the pile when Vargas demanded, so Tully can sneak the phone out and send a quick text to his handler to give him a vague idea of his current location.
Somewhere in here Carter and Finch have a phone conversation that goes something like this:
"You lost Reese again?!"
"Not really (okay, yes, help?)..."
Fusco tries out his we're both corrupt, let's be pals again bit with a cop from "HR" but it doesn't get immediate results. Finch calls and has a scheme for breaking into the safe containing Tully's file. Carter and Fusco run into each other in the hall at One Police Plaza and they're both uncomfortable and I'm all sad, because I love the Carter-Fusco reluctant buddy cop show.
Anyway, Carter calls Finch with the car license plate details and goes out looking for it/Reese. Finch ends that call and connects with Fusco again, guiding Fusco on how to break into the safe room. Fusco gets caught just after shredding Tully's file. The man who caught him is working with "HR" as well, so Fusco isn't going to Reiker's. He's going down.
Back in the warehouse, Vargas is getting antsy. When the HR dude tells him that someone there made a phone call, he goes looking for whiny punk's phone. Reese sneaks the phone away from Tully, so he's the one who gets caught when Vargas dials the number. Oops. (Why didn't Tully turn the phone off? Or put it on mute? Then again, why do Reese and Finch continually say each other's names in conversations that could be overhead/hacked into? Why does no one that Carter arrests say anything about the tall handsome dude there with her? Why does Reese leave his fingerprints everywhere? Just part of the logic of the show. Heh.)
Anyway, Reese gets whacked in the back with a crowbar, tied up, and punched a lot. Not the pretty face, nooooo! Tully gets to 'question' him, and we have the I'm just like you, John Reese moment where Tully doesn't want to give up yet, even though he's risking a lot by staying. Tully tells Reese where the exchange is happening, and then he shoots John. (And how exactly does he manage to 'graze' him with the shot at that range, with Vargas as witness? Please explain the physics to me, someone.)
Reese and the body of the whiny punk are tossed into a car trunk. I'm still not sure why Reese is unconscious at this point, by the way, even after watching twice. Maaaaaaybe they bumped his head as they shoved his body in, but we didn't see it. Anyway, Tully plants a small flashlight in Reese's pocket, and the smugglers torch the car and leave. Cue the dramatic music as Reese awakens and struggles to get himself out of the locked car trunk. This would be a lot more dramatic if his escape hadn't been in the promos. Heh. (This doesn't even come close to the awful spoilers of the promos for Battlestar Galactica, so I'm not at the point of avoiding them like I used to for BSG.)
Reese manages to get out, and there's Carter! Yay! Reese proclaims it his lucky day, to which Carter says, "Your version of a lucky day is being shot and lit on fire." Hee. Apparently it is. Finch calls and Carter hands the phone to Reese; v. amused at Reese's reaction when Finch fails to ask how he's doing. Anyway, they exchange information: Tully's at the exchange without backup, Fusco is in trouble as well. Oh, and Carter has a nice stash of extra guns in the trunk of her police car. Sweet!
At the exchange, L.O.S. shows up in his fancy suitcoat. He's unimpressed with Vargas's difficulties with his crew, but they exchange goods and money anyway. Tully can't wait any longer and grabs L.O.S., his weapon drawn. This results in a standoff until Carter and Reese show up, guns blazing. (Hah, guns blazing is not a phrase I've actually typed before.) All the shoulders will be shot! Okay, really it's hard to tell what's being shot, because it happens fast. Reese has a brief face-to-face moment with L.O.S. and apparently Reese either knows the man or knows the type. L.O.S. has a quick expression that looks like have I already met you? but it's hard to be sure.
Then Reese gets to tell poor Tully that charges against L.O.S. won't stick; he's with the CIA. "The government couldn't win the war on drugs, so they're using it to fund the war on terror." Tully is saaaaaaaaaad, awwwww. But he wants to bring L.O.S. in anyway, in spite of the potential personal risk, at which point John Reese has tears in his eyes--seriously--and says, "Always liked to push my luck, too."
Fusco and HR dude have a lovely walk in the woods, as HR guy tells him, "No one's coming to save you. No one cares." Sounds familiar. (Army dude said something like that to Carter when she was upset about Yusuf's death.) Kevin Chapman has a nicely understated monologue about the thoughts that have run through his head when he thought he was going to die before.
Reese swoops in to save the day, but not Fusco, not really. "I can't have you coming clean, Lionel. I need you inside HR. Get close to them." Fusco does that shocked and heartbroken puppy look *cries* and says something about starting to enjoy being a good guy for a change. "I'm sorry, but you're more useful inside," Reese tells him, and leaves.
Last shots of the episode: Tully taking his wife to the hospital to give birth to their second child. Finch and Reese watch from the car. (Finch looks genuinely disturbed at the idea of a screaming infant, Reese looks... sad? Something that isn't freaked out, at any rate.)
L.O.S. is SOL. Snow accompanies him out of the police plaza; L.O.S. is breathing threats against Tully and Carter. Snow states that L.O.S. is impulsive and reminds him that they're behind enemy lines... and when L.O.S. gets into the SUV, a man waiting there puts a black hood over his head.
Finally, Fusco embeds himself with HR. Gah. not gonna cry, nope
Summary of the flashbacks to 2008: temporary misdirection about a foreign country, but this is happening in New York City. Both Stanton and Snow in the same scene: awesome. Neither seems particularly troubled by the dude they have hooded and tied up in the hotel bathtub. Reese, on the other hand, wants to know what bathtub dude did. Selling software to the Chinese is what Snow tells him. Hm. (Can't be Ingram; he didn't die until 2010.)
Reese is allowed some R&R, so of course he goes and finds Jessica's husband... because John Reese is all about obsession. Her husband Peter is a good-looking and friendly guy; doesn't take much for Reese to convinve him that he should meet the wife, just the mention of a common hometown. This is probably a lie; Reese and Jessica didn't strike me as hometown sweethearts. Stanton shows up, and (Liz pointed this out) immediately recognizes Peter as Jessica's husband. Whoa. She knows his age and his salary. She questions what Reese is planning to do--as do I. I honestly don't know, and I'm not sure Reese himself even knows.
Stanton gets the creepy-good speech. Like this: See, this is why I worried about bringing you back. You look like the rest of these people, but you're not like them anymore, are you. Then she shares a story (maybe it's even true) about her first time rotating back, and how she went to her home and sat outside in the rental car for three hours. This isn't some speech. We're not walking in the dark. We are the dark. Annie Parisse's delivery is chillingly good; she brings this subtle warmth to Stanton that makes her even scarier.
What I'm fascinated by are the two sides of Reese in the same time period. He was almost in tears as the number of the week makes a brave put potentially dangerous choice, and yet he also dooms Fusco to corruption and secrecy. John Reese: Fusco's erstwhile savior and malignant judge.
I mentioned in comments to Liz that John Reese locks people into categories. Jessica is The Woman. Fuscos is corrupt cop/asset. No one is allowed to change. It's a scary trait.
Well. I guess scary is the word of the day.
Posted at Dreamwidth: http://rose-griffes.dreamwidth.org/229713.html. Comment where you wish.
Speaking of Dave... I've only watched one other episode with him, and that was his final episode in season two. So I don't have much investment in him as a character or as a romantic interest for Leslie. His return amused me, but I don't care if he comes back yet again or not. At least they laid the groundwork for more sane interactions with Leslie and Ben in the future.
The gang singing Leslie's campaign song: funny! I will always love April Ludgate, secret-keeper. Especially when the secret is Duke Silver. Ann/Tom: she's confronting him head-on with all the reasons that dating him is a bad plan. He's pushing for more dates anyway. I still don't have strong feelings about them either way (as a potential couple), but I do like that someone is telling Tom directly what he's doing wrong. That line about movies? Hahahaha.
Moving on... OH CRAP, FRINGE, WHAT IS GOING ON? Shape-shifter Nina? Or red-verse Nina that we hadn't seen before? I was wondering why we were allowed to see both of her hands; made sense once we got to the cliffhanger ending.
Hee, as soon as Olivia left the SUV I yelled, "Nooooooooo!" at my TV. Imminent doom was obvious, because clearly we couldn't end the episode with a happy Olivia/Peter moment. Not with 9 more episodes left in this season.
BUT THERE WAS KISSING AND OLIVIA SMILING! Though Walter wasn't pushing them together as he used to do. The timeline switch clearly killed Walter's inner Olivia/Peter shipper. ;-)
Can there ever be a doctor on a TV show who doesn't use his own DNA when performing IVF?! Please? Ha. Also, are we going to get the threads of this case of the week again? Because how did the voices suddenly stop? (Also, how awesome were Olivia and Peter when they took down those two or three half-brothers who came after them. Just... wham, they were done.)
Yay, Astrid still in the field. Yay, Lincoln being smart and pushy. Yay, Walter tasting yet another drug. Heheh. "Red dye number four."
Enough rambling about Fringe. Let's go on to Person of Interest. Shoulders are the new kneecaps! That's what John Reese seems to be aiming for when he shoots now.
Episode 1.15 "Blue Code" featured an undercover cop, Reese overidentifying with him (shocking and new! hah), and Carter and Reese shooting together. All good things. Not nearly as much comic relief this week as the last several episodes, though, and I did miss that.
The opening was clever, taking us from Cahill the upstanding guy to Cahill the violent smuggler in just a few moments. Then we find out he's actually Tully the undercover cop next: family guy with a wife, a son and another baby on the way. The description of the security measures surrounding undercover cops was reassuring, but that's a job I can't imagine trying to do. Scary.
Speaking of scary, Snow's back in town, doing his usual I will stare at you intimidatingly with Carter. I'm not sure why he thinks it's going to be more effective this time than last time. (eta: I can't tell at this point if he knows Carter is working with Reese and wants to poison the relationship or if he's fishing to find out. He certainly didn't seem surprised at L.O.S.'s mention of a female cop near the end, though.)
And then Finch shows up immediately after, allowing for this brief exchange.
Carter: Files on undercovers are kept only as hard copies, so people like you can't hack into them.
Finch: Words wound, Detective.
Hehe. Anyway, when Carter gives Finch the you're going to do what now? look about breaking into that file and destroying the hardcopy, he assures her that he's got it covered.
And then we see Fusco, of course. Reese has a favor to ask of him. Fusco points out that he's not so close to his corrupt buddies as before (dun dun DUN!) and that he even got a commendation for his work. "Your ass got you that commendation," says Reese, and I'm torn between laughing and wincing as I watch this the second time. (I did laugh the first time, but that was before all the Fusco fiasco stuff.)
Reese accompanies Vargas and Tully to the next delivery. Before the delivery itself, Vargas gets a phone call--presumably informing him that someone on his team is an undercover cop. The delivery itself doesn't go smoothly either; we see John shoot shoulder #1, and one of the smuggler team takes a shot to the thigh. I'd say that's not good, but HE IS A WHINY PUNK, so it's okay. Also, whiny punk didn't have to toss his phone into the pile when Vargas demanded, so Tully can sneak the phone out and send a quick text to his handler to give him a vague idea of his current location.
Somewhere in here Carter and Finch have a phone conversation that goes something like this:
"You lost Reese again?!"
"Not really (okay, yes, help?)..."
Fusco tries out his we're both corrupt, let's be pals again bit with a cop from "HR" but it doesn't get immediate results. Finch calls and has a scheme for breaking into the safe containing Tully's file. Carter and Fusco run into each other in the hall at One Police Plaza and they're both uncomfortable and I'm all sad, because I love the Carter-Fusco reluctant buddy cop show.
Anyway, Carter calls Finch with the car license plate details and goes out looking for it/Reese. Finch ends that call and connects with Fusco again, guiding Fusco on how to break into the safe room. Fusco gets caught just after shredding Tully's file. The man who caught him is working with "HR" as well, so Fusco isn't going to Reiker's. He's going down.
Back in the warehouse, Vargas is getting antsy. When the HR dude tells him that someone there made a phone call, he goes looking for whiny punk's phone. Reese sneaks the phone away from Tully, so he's the one who gets caught when Vargas dials the number. Oops. (Why didn't Tully turn the phone off? Or put it on mute? Then again, why do Reese and Finch continually say each other's names in conversations that could be overhead/hacked into? Why does no one that Carter arrests say anything about the tall handsome dude there with her? Why does Reese leave his fingerprints everywhere? Just part of the logic of the show. Heh.)
Anyway, Reese gets whacked in the back with a crowbar, tied up, and punched a lot. Not the pretty face, nooooo! Tully gets to 'question' him, and we have the I'm just like you, John Reese moment where Tully doesn't want to give up yet, even though he's risking a lot by staying. Tully tells Reese where the exchange is happening, and then he shoots John. (And how exactly does he manage to 'graze' him with the shot at that range, with Vargas as witness? Please explain the physics to me, someone.)
Reese and the body of the whiny punk are tossed into a car trunk. I'm still not sure why Reese is unconscious at this point, by the way, even after watching twice. Maaaaaaybe they bumped his head as they shoved his body in, but we didn't see it. Anyway, Tully plants a small flashlight in Reese's pocket, and the smugglers torch the car and leave. Cue the dramatic music as Reese awakens and struggles to get himself out of the locked car trunk. This would be a lot more dramatic if his escape hadn't been in the promos. Heh. (This doesn't even come close to the awful spoilers of the promos for Battlestar Galactica, so I'm not at the point of avoiding them like I used to for BSG.)
Reese manages to get out, and there's Carter! Yay! Reese proclaims it his lucky day, to which Carter says, "Your version of a lucky day is being shot and lit on fire." Hee. Apparently it is. Finch calls and Carter hands the phone to Reese; v. amused at Reese's reaction when Finch fails to ask how he's doing. Anyway, they exchange information: Tully's at the exchange without backup, Fusco is in trouble as well. Oh, and Carter has a nice stash of extra guns in the trunk of her police car. Sweet!
At the exchange, L.O.S. shows up in his fancy suitcoat. He's unimpressed with Vargas's difficulties with his crew, but they exchange goods and money anyway. Tully can't wait any longer and grabs L.O.S., his weapon drawn. This results in a standoff until Carter and Reese show up, guns blazing. (Hah, guns blazing is not a phrase I've actually typed before.) All the shoulders will be shot! Okay, really it's hard to tell what's being shot, because it happens fast. Reese has a brief face-to-face moment with L.O.S. and apparently Reese either knows the man or knows the type. L.O.S. has a quick expression that looks like have I already met you? but it's hard to be sure.
Then Reese gets to tell poor Tully that charges against L.O.S. won't stick; he's with the CIA. "The government couldn't win the war on drugs, so they're using it to fund the war on terror." Tully is saaaaaaaaaad, awwwww. But he wants to bring L.O.S. in anyway, in spite of the potential personal risk, at which point John Reese has tears in his eyes--seriously--and says, "Always liked to push my luck, too."
Fusco and HR dude have a lovely walk in the woods, as HR guy tells him, "No one's coming to save you. No one cares." Sounds familiar. (Army dude said something like that to Carter when she was upset about Yusuf's death.) Kevin Chapman has a nicely understated monologue about the thoughts that have run through his head when he thought he was going to die before.
Reese swoops in to save the day, but not Fusco, not really. "I can't have you coming clean, Lionel. I need you inside HR. Get close to them." Fusco does that shocked and heartbroken puppy look *cries* and says something about starting to enjoy being a good guy for a change. "I'm sorry, but you're more useful inside," Reese tells him, and leaves.
Last shots of the episode: Tully taking his wife to the hospital to give birth to their second child. Finch and Reese watch from the car. (Finch looks genuinely disturbed at the idea of a screaming infant, Reese looks... sad? Something that isn't freaked out, at any rate.)
L.O.S. is SOL. Snow accompanies him out of the police plaza; L.O.S. is breathing threats against Tully and Carter. Snow states that L.O.S. is impulsive and reminds him that they're behind enemy lines... and when L.O.S. gets into the SUV, a man waiting there puts a black hood over his head.
Finally, Fusco embeds himself with HR. Gah. not gonna cry, nope
Summary of the flashbacks to 2008: temporary misdirection about a foreign country, but this is happening in New York City. Both Stanton and Snow in the same scene: awesome. Neither seems particularly troubled by the dude they have hooded and tied up in the hotel bathtub. Reese, on the other hand, wants to know what bathtub dude did. Selling software to the Chinese is what Snow tells him. Hm. (Can't be Ingram; he didn't die until 2010.)
Reese is allowed some R&R, so of course he goes and finds Jessica's husband... because John Reese is all about obsession. Her husband Peter is a good-looking and friendly guy; doesn't take much for Reese to convinve him that he should meet the wife, just the mention of a common hometown. This is probably a lie; Reese and Jessica didn't strike me as hometown sweethearts. Stanton shows up, and (Liz pointed this out) immediately recognizes Peter as Jessica's husband. Whoa. She knows his age and his salary. She questions what Reese is planning to do--as do I. I honestly don't know, and I'm not sure Reese himself even knows.
Stanton gets the creepy-good speech. Like this: See, this is why I worried about bringing you back. You look like the rest of these people, but you're not like them anymore, are you. Then she shares a story (maybe it's even true) about her first time rotating back, and how she went to her home and sat outside in the rental car for three hours. This isn't some speech. We're not walking in the dark. We are the dark. Annie Parisse's delivery is chillingly good; she brings this subtle warmth to Stanton that makes her even scarier.
What I'm fascinated by are the two sides of Reese in the same time period. He was almost in tears as the number of the week makes a brave put potentially dangerous choice, and yet he also dooms Fusco to corruption and secrecy. John Reese: Fusco's erstwhile savior and malignant judge.
I mentioned in comments to Liz that John Reese locks people into categories. Jessica is The Woman. Fuscos is corrupt cop/asset. No one is allowed to change. It's a scary trait.
Well. I guess scary is the word of the day.
Posted at Dreamwidth: http://rose-griffes.dreamwidth.org/229713.html. Comment where you wish.