Filed under: Talkin' 'Bout TV | Tags: supernatural, heroes, lost, flashforward, glee, house, stargate universe, community, fringe, castle, v
(Beware the spoilers that might possibly be in this post; swim at your own risk)
“After all the hype for this episode,” I said last night, pointing to the commercial for this week’s episode of FlashForward, which was billed as ‘The One to See,’ “if it doesn’t blow me away, I’m giving up.”
“You give up so quickly!” my mother replied, half-teasing. I’d already given up on three shows this year, deciding they weren’t worth the effort.
“I don’t exactly have a lot of time to waste these days,” I replied, which then led into a discussion of my ability to watch old crappy sitcoms ad nauseam.
The justification for those viewing habits is easy – I don’t have to use my brain to watch old episodes of Whose Line is it Anyway on You Tube. I can do other things at the same time, and since I’ve seen most of them before, I don’t have to pay much attention. If a one-hour drama is going to demand my full attention during valuable evening hours when I’ve just arrived home from work or school, then it damn well better be worth my time. I watch TV to be entertained. If I have to really struggle to get through 60 minutes of television, then mission unaccomplished.
The hardest part, I’ve found, about giving up on television shows is missing out on the watercooler talk. Most of my friends are real TV mavens, and I hate to be out of the loop when we get together. Glee is one show I wish I could get into, if only because every one of my friends is a Gleek. I just couldn’t do it. It used to be that if I committed to a show, then I stuck it out, good, bad, and ugly. Of course, I used to have free time, too.
I think the first show I gave up on after watching for two seasons was CSI: Miami. I simply couldn’t stand David Caruso tilting his head to the side and promising young women justice in his sex-offender voice, and there were no other characters I was particularly attached to. Sadly I have to watch it this week, since CBS decided to go for a sweeps stunt and unite the three CSIs on one case.
I let go faster these days since I’m short on time, and I know that if I ever really wanted to get back into something, the DVD set would be out in no time. But a lot of it has to do with having been burned. There have been shows that I’ve invested in that have either gone downhill or were axed before their times. I’m looking at you, Heroes, you harlot. I gave you some of the best years of my life, and then you ended Season 3 with Matt Parkman, Mama Petrelli, and HRG getting together and deciding Sylar should become Nathan. That was the final straw for me. I just don’t really have the luxury these days to stick with a show and hope it gets better.
Then there’s the little issue of CTRL-Z. Too many shows are trying to recapture the magic of the good ‘ol days, before the critics turned on them, and put a reset button on the show. Take House, for example. After sitting through the 2-hour season premiere (which miraculously moved away from the standard template of ‘person comes in with weird symptoms, patient mentions something which will be key later, team diagnoses, team almost kills patient once, twice, three times, House has epiphany, patient is saved though possibly in worse shape than when arriving), I thought this season had potential. House off drugs, House trying to be happy, that could make for a new and interesting direction. Then Thirteen got fired and Taub quit, making way for the old guard to return. Yawn. I was over it.
I gave up on Stargate Universe after the pilot, despite being a big fan of the other installments in the franchise. Part of it had to do with this controversy (and this post, while not exactly impartial, raises a lot of uncomfortable issues I’d overlooked), and part of it was sheer boredom. I didn’t like any of the characters, with the possible exception of David Blue’s Eli Wallace, and it was trying so hard to be so many other shows that it fell flat.
The one new show I’m really enjoying this season is actually a sitcom, and the fact that four of my current top shows are sitcoms has me retracting an earlier statement that the half-hour comedy was a dying art form. Community earns my attention because it’s not over the top, it has a strong ensemble cast, and it really focuses on achieving what it sets out to do – comedy in a specific situation. Plus, there’s all the pop culture references.
Sadly, many shows I’ve come to rely on are coming to their end. Supernatural, which has only gotten better and better with time, has some of the smartest writers on TV. You know they’re sharp because they make it all seem so natural (pun intended.) Despite bringing about the Apocalypse, the show’s stayed grounded with the (often painful and co-dependent) relationship between two brothers we love to love. Last night’s episode was fantastic – tongue-in-cheek while furthering the show’s mythology.
Another show that has definitely shown signs of improvement is Fringe. I was severely underwhelmed by the first season which did not make enough of Joshua Jackson’s character and dialed Walter’s eccentricities up to 11. Fortunately this year, the death of Charlie (sorry, Charlie) allowed Peter to step in as Olivia’s partner and gave him the chance to show off those skills he used to fake his way into MIT. Not just there to look pretty and interpret Walter-speak. I also give kudos to the writers for not drawing out the PodPerson!Charlie storyline too long. It was a premise that would have gotten sweaty fast, fortunately they handled it well.
Castle is another show that’s stepped up in its sophomore season. The mysteries aren’t really any more complex, but the characters seem to have hit their stride, and Nathan Fillion is irresistible. Kind of amazing that this is the first show he’s done that’s made it past season 1.
I started this post because I wanted to write about V. In a season that has been fraught with ‘whatevers,’ I’d heard a lot of good buzz about the show that hasn’t had an easy time of it behind the scenes. Between scheduling changes, showrunner exits, rumors and gossip about the cast, I braced myself for quick cancellation. Fortunately V came out of the gate strong – if it can sustain (with four episodes due to air and then a hiatus until January), it’ll go far.
It was an action-packed hour, and the writers made an interesting choice to play with time – instead of following the chaos in the days immediately after the Visitors’ arrival, the show jumps three weeks ahead when everyone is getting used to the idea of aliens, and many don’t like it.
The cast is well-balanced, with no apparent divas or weak links. There’s something to be said for new talent, but I’ll always love seeing familiar faces whose work I enjoyed in the past. Though I miss Morena Baccarin as the hooker with the heart of gold, I completely bought her as the lizard queen, particularly enjoying the way she played the scene in which her character Anna walks through a crowd of reporters, and she feigns ignorance over Earth culture, before replying to Scott Wolf’s comment with a sly sense of humor.
I love Elizabeth Mitchell, and have since her stint on ER. Her character, Juliet Burke, quickly became my favorite on the Island, and so I had my fingers crossed that whatever part she was playing on this new series, it would ease the pain of her having fallen into a shaft on Lost, detonating a nuclear device, and presumably blowing herself up in the process. Fortunately, it has.
While I’m noticing a pattern in blonde FBI agents whose long-term, reliable partners turn out to be something other than human, and wonder why television insists on showing working mothers as neglectful, at least her role is significant and interesting. And if Alan Tudyk is going to be an apparently hard to kill lizard, then at least Mitchell and Joel Gretsch (an actor I’ve loved since The 4400) get to hang out together. Too bad he’s a priest.
I love shows that focus on different intertwining storylines, always eager to see how the characters will come together, but I have to say I’m a little tired of that device, and it was nice that V started things off by separating into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ I probably wouldn’t have liked it as much if the end of the episode saw FBI Agent Erica and Father Jack going on to fight separate resistances that we all know would eventually become one. This cuts to the chase. I like the motif of having one other person in the world you know you can trust.
Most of my favorite television won’t return until the new year: Leverage, Lost, Chuck. At least now that the World Series is over, Fox has brought back Bones (Wendell the Intern should get his own show). Then there’s USA’s lighter fare, like new favorite White Collar, Burn Notice (which starts its winter season soon), and Royal Pains. I’m ready to be entertained – bring it.
Growing up in Hollywood has given me a certain talent – a special skill, you might say. Celebrities do not sway me. While I enjoy identifying actors like they’re rare tropical birds, they’re in fact too common place for me to get riled up every time I spot one. Kirsten Dunst and Jake Gyllenhaal once ate brunch across the room from me, Marc Feurstein is a regular at my Coffee Bean, and I live across the street from Gwen Stefani’s brother.
I’ve become immune to famous people, which has gifted me with the ability to shove my friends in their path without hesitation. When pals R. and Z. texted me one night after our day at Comic-Con and bemoaned the fact that they were just feet away from Dollhouse actors Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjokaj, but had failed to speak, they came to the conclusion that if I had been around, they wouldn’t have frozen. I would have been the ice breaker.
So when we spotted the two actors at the double feature of The Guild and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood Friday night, I knew it was fate. I got the guys to their feet, and with my friend Roz from NiceGirlsTV.com as an extra buffer, we went over to speak to them. Don’t get me wrong, I love Dollhouse and think both Dichen and Enver are wonderful on it, but they’re not exactly Brangelina, so I was the first to open my mouth.
“Sorry to interrupt your conversation,” I said, getting them both to turn their heads. “But my friends here missed an opportunity to meet you at Comic-Con, and I couldn’t let that happen again. We’re all big fans of the show.”
Of course, both actors were exceedingly sweet and friendly, shook everyone’s hands and even stood in for a picture, though sadly the usher manning the camera managed to turn Dichen into a disembodied floating head. The boys and Roz commended Enver on his turn as Kiki on last week’s episode, and I took it all in, enjoying the fruits of my labor. Just as we were preparing to go back to our seats, it happened. I turned, and came face to face with Joss Whedon.
I squeaked.
See, as I explained to my friends, my powers don’t work on me. Actors I can handle – I tend not to approach simply because I don’t have anything new to say rather than because of fear – but when I come face to face with a writer whose work has inspired me, it’s full-on deer-in-the-headlights time. I love television, and admire actors, but where writers are concerned, I actually want to count myself among them. This results in the awkward limbo state in which I dwell for all aspects of my life. Not just a fan, not quite a peer.
I was inches away from Joss, and despite the voice in my head screaming, “Say something, do something, anything, stick out your hand, just do something!” I couldn’t move. My knees actually went weak.
Even a day later, I’m struggling to think of the words to explain just why this was such a momentous moment for me. His shows have inspired me to write for television. No one can make me laugh one moment, then rip my heart out and stomp on it the next like Joss. And to have come so close so many times, it was starting to become the stuff of legend. Surreal.
He slid down the aisle to his seat, followed shortly by sister-in-law Maurissa Tanacharoen, whom I also desperately wanted to talk to when I found myself with lock-jaw. It quickly became a parade o’ Geek Dreams, as the Guild cast followed with Sandeep Parikh and Felicia Day waiting for the chance to sit down. If it hadn’t happened right before my unblinking eyes, I would have called it a farce. Welcome to Hollywood. This is my life.
I trailed my friends (still on their actor-highs) back to our seats, and proceeded to kick myself for the next hour and a half. I couldn’t believe I’d let the moment pass me by, that while I could throw my friends at celebrities, I couldn’t manage to form a sentence in front of someone with a reputation for being generous with his fans.
I tried to put it behind me, chalk it up to yet another one of those moments, more fodder for the webseries, whatever, and threw myself into singing along.
After the Q&A, which, for someone who has been to many of these screenings and follows half the panelists on Twitter, was a bit redundant, I considered hanging around for one more shot at an actual, audible connection, but the mob that had surrounded the Whedons was too much for me. Roz swore she’d fix this situation in two weeks when we did this again at the Fairfax Regency Whedonopolis event.
So we stepped outside, chatted a bit, made plans for In & Out, and I was set to leave, ready to chalk it up to another missed connection. I thought about posting it on Craigslist.
Suddenly, Roz grabbed my arm.
“We’re doing this,” she said.
Doing what? I wondered, until I saw Joss Whedon exiting the Egyptian Theater from a side door.
“Oh shit,” I said, eyes wide, “oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
It was almost an out of body experience. For several seconds, I could not believe I was being towed toward the man behind Firefly. A low, chemical burn started in my gut, and my knees wobbled.
A part of me didn’t want to actually go through with it. I didn’t want to ruin the illusion, to end the story, to complete my quest. What would I strive for then? After so much hype, it couldn’t live up to the dream. I’d put too much emphasis on this meeting, when it was over – and it would be, all too soon – I’d have to live with it. I only got one shot at the first impression.
Of course, then it got even more ludicrous. Roz made at least four separate attempts to get his attention, each time losing him to another fan with a pen or a camera.
“This is insane!” I said, giggling like a twelve-year-old in a tickle fight. “I can’t believe this.”
Finally, as he was walking and we were trailing, she succeeded in piercing the veil.
“I met you at Comic-Con,” Roz prompted, when Joss gave a blank look after she introduced herself. “I called you a Corey because you were wearing sunglasses indoors.”
“Ah, yes,” spoke the Master, and then turned his gaze upon me. I was gawking.
“This is my friend Megan,” said Roz. “She’s a big fan, and she really wanted to meet you.”
You know how they say never meet your idols? Well, fortunately for me, unlike that time with David Sedaris, or the time I went to a Terry Pratchett signing, the reality lived up to the expectation. While I’m sure I was not as smooth as I could have been and he didn’t offer me a job on the spot, there was no awkward conversation about crop-dusting, or long wait as a bookstore employee went to find a sharpie. (A story, perhaps, for another time.)
I shook his hand.
“It’s so great to meet you,” I think I said. Everything at this point was a bit of a blur, but I was actually making eye contact. “This was one of those situations where I came close a bunch of times to actually meeting you and introducing myself, but never actually got there.”
“Well,” he said, in his low voice, “now we’re really close.”
He stepped right to my side, leering at me. (Yes, Joss Whedon leered at me.) Then he took a giant step away, like he was doing the Time Warp.
“And now we’re not,” he said. We all laughed. I squeaked.
“I actually wrote a webseries pretty much based on this,” I told him. The words just dropped off my lips. I was amazed that I had managed it.
His brow furrowed slightly. “Really?”
What was running through his head at that moment? Who knows. In the space of ten seconds I came up with more than a dozen possibilities. Fuck it, I thought, and opened my purse.
“I’m going to give you a card,” I told him, heart racing, “because I know a lot of people who will never let me forget it if I don’t.”
I handed him one of the postcards I’d designed for Quest for Comic-Con, and told him it was so nice to meet him. And that was it, my quest was finished, the challenge had been met. I went off, still in shock, and started composing this very blog in my head.
Will he watch the Quest? Probably not. But the fact is, I can tell my friends, relatives, and parents – not to mention the world wide web and my few loyal readers – that I met Joss Whedon, and I gave him my card. Cross that off the bucket list.
Next, get invited on The Daily Show.
Filed under: This is My Life
There are a lot of things people say about Los Angeles that aren’t accurate. Not all the women are surgically altered, bleach-blonde, or completely artificial, and we don’t all carry Chihuahuas in our Prada purses. There are more unemployed actors and screenwriters than Starbucks to caffeinate them, but not every Angeleno has stars in his or her eyes. Most of the people who live here aren’t natives, and though we tend not to exchange pleasantries on the street, that doesn’t mean we won’t stop to help someone in trouble.
But L.A. drivers? Everything you’ve heard about them is true.
The reason driving in Los Angeles is contact sport is that it’s the only way to get around a geographically wide, densely populated city. We have a laughable public transit system, and most people can’t afford to live in the part of the city where they work. Driving is a necessity. No one likes it, everyone bitches about the traffic, and there’s something amazing in the fact that the time it takes to get from one place to another changes by hours depending on the hour of day.
I won’t claim to be a perfect driver. I failed my driver’s test twice – once when I turned right at a corner with a ‘No Right Turn on Red’ sign, and once after failing to back up straight three times on a Culver City street. Stupid, careless mistakes, the result of nerves and a serious dislike of the act itself. The first time I showed up to take the test, I was turned away from the DMV because I forgot to bring my learner’s permit.
After I took the test in my native West Hollywood, on the narrow streets I knew so well, it was over so quickly I was sure I’d failed again. (I didn’t.) In the seven years since getting my license, I’ve never been in an accident with another vehicle. (Knock on wood.) I got one speeding ticket on the 5 freeway Thanksgiving weekend ‘05, and another ticket in Pasadena for not having my lights on when I exited a parking garage at 1 in the morning. I’ve injured my car, accidentally turning into a short metal pole while backing out of a parking space, and side-swiping a trashcan left in the middle of the street by one of my West Hollywood neighbors, resulting in a broken side mirror. I get lost pretty easily in unfamiliar areas, but I am intimately familiar with the streets between Wilshire and Sunset, La Cienega and Highland, and so far I’m collision free.
So on Saturday, when a blonde woman in a black SUV tried to go around me just as I moved to go around the car in front of me, and we both slammed on our brakes and our horns, the first thought I had was, “Thank god I didn’t hit her.” She gestured at me from her car, but I just rolled my eyes. This was Los Angeles; come for the movie stars, stay for the reckless driving. Honk your horn and get over it. My relief didn’t last long, though, as the woman proceeded to tail me down Hauser and, when we stopped at the next light, jumped out of her car, approaching my window.
I probably shouldn’t have even lowered it. It was highly unlikely that she was going to apologize.
“You wrecked the rim of my car!” she said. It was hate at first sight. This woman was the embodiment of everything I loathed about the Hollywood stereotype. She was the reason people told me my hometown was shallow and superficial, that the people who lived there were horrible and terrible and New York was so much better. She was the bad apple in the barrel. She was probably from Florida.
Other than the color of her hair and her aviator sunglasses, I don’t remember what she actually looked like. I was more concerned with her oversized Ford Explorer, or Chevy Tahoe, the sort of SUV that didn’t belong on my tiny West Hollywood streets and always parked halfway across my driveway. Accidents were inevitable when you drove something the width of an elephant.
“I didn’t even touch you!” I said, stunned by the accusation. I was certain of it. If I’d felt even the slightest contact, I would have pulled over. I was not the hit-and-run type.
“If I hadn’t turned into the curb,” she screeched, “there could have been a really serious accident!”
“But there wasn’t,” I said.
“Because I turned and hit the curb!”
I’ll never understand the attachment some people have to their cars, or why, in this day and age, cars are still considered status symbols. For me, a car is a method of transportation, end stop. Sure I’d picked the pretty blue color over the grey because I liked the way it sparkled in the sun, but so long as it got me from point A to point B, I really didn’t care if the paint job was scratched.
This was not some pimped out ride the woman was driving. Her rims didn’t spin, they weren’t covered in bling, they didn’t even light up. They were metal covers for her over-sized tires, and I didn’t touch them. I didn’t even know how much damage she could have done when we were going at speeds of five.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have been trying to go around me,” I said, stomach lurching. My whole body was burning with guilt. “There weren’t two lanes, and I didn’t have my signal on, so -”
The point I was trying to get across was that at this particular intersection there was no left turn lane, just the single lane sandwiched in between parked cars on either side of the street; a tight squeeze on any occasion. When I had realized that the car in front of me was going to turn left, I moved around it, intending to continue straight (hence the lack of turn signal), and that’s when the woman’s horn shattered my ear drums and my heart jumped out my throat and onto the dashboard. Since there was only the one lane and I was not turning, there was no reason for me to put my signal on, but my admission of this only fed the sport utility woman’s flames.
“Exactly!” she said, triumphant and completely missing the point. She had been trying to go around us both, which, since I’d given no indication that I intended to do anything other than go straight, was a pretty stupid move. But it happens. A lot, in my neighborhood. What’s more, I could have easily understood it if she was intending to turn right at that intersection. Many people (myself included) invent a right turn lane so as to speed up the process. It’s not the safest choice, but we care a lot more about getting to our destination as quickly as possible than we do about getting there in one piece.
But she wasn’t planning to turn right. So I failed to understand how her decision to cut the line was my fault. Nevertheless, I was starting to think it was my fault. Could I be blamed for failing to signal that I was going to go around a car turning left? Could she accuse me of having forced her off the road? Was I actually going to get in trouble for driving as I had driven every day since I got my learner’s permit?
“I’m calling your insurance!” the harpy cried, despite the fact that I hadn’t given her my information or told her my name. I wasn’t stupid. By this point I was so rattled, I couldn’t do anything but roll my window up and drive off through the now-green light. I watched in my rearview mirror as she looked for a pen to take down my plate with before finally getting back in her car and moving forward. It wasn’t until much later that I thought maybe I should have written hers down, too.
She followed me from Wilshire to the 10 freeway, hulking, menacing, always right on my tailpipe. When we got to Fairfax and she finally moved into the left turn lane, I watched – amazed, stunned, terrified – as the drama queen hopped out of her monstrosity of a vehicle again, and came around to the passenger side to inspect her car. She couldn’t have cared less that she was doing this in the middle of traffic.
I couldn’t see any damage to her wheels. She caught me staring and held her hand up to her head, indicating that she was going to make a phone call that would end my life. I whipped my face away, staring straight ahead and speeding through the next light, certain I’d run into her again on the freeway, at the mall, in the grocery store. I couldn’t wear that t-shirt ever again, it was too conspicuous. I felt targeted, and used my signal every time I even thought about moving to the right.
All the way to Santa Monica, every possible repercussion of this incident ran through my mind. She would hire a private detective to track down my insurance company. The cops would be knocking on my door. I would be arrested for fleeing the scene of an accident that hadn’t actually occurred. The woman would claim she had whiplash from the sudden stop. She’d go home, kick in her own side door, and blame it on me. She would sue me for damages and my life would be ruined. But I had no money, nothing for collateral; what if she tried to take my dog?
A desperate phone call to my mother, who was on vacation with the rest of my family in Palm Springs, brought down the flood gates. Even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, that it was just one of those things that happened in L.A., and there was nothing Sport Utility Woman could do about it, I just couldn’t hold it together. There were too many what ifs. She had scared me but good.
“Honey, look, there’s nothing she can do,” my mom said. “Even if she went to the police, they’d laugh at her. You didn’t actually hit her, and there’s no damage to your car, so she can’t prove anything without a witness, which there wasn’t because nothing happened.”
I knew that, I did, but what if a ‘good samaritan’ outside the Coffee Bean on the corner had witnessed the whole thing and also blamed me? Me in my dirty 2007 Honda Civic, with the ‘Tailgaters will be fed to the Wraith’ bumper sticker. My own rims were scuffed from varied attempts at parallel parking, my front left one a little mangled from I-don’t-remember-what. What if that could somehow be used against me in a court of law? I couldn’t prove that it was older damage any more than Sport Utility Woman could prove it was brand new. If it came down to a case of she-said/she-said, who would the cops believe? I was a mere student. My nemesis was no doubt a Person of Stature, probably married to money.
I was so going to jail.
That night I went out with friends and had a rare margarita, telling the story like it was just another Los Angeles anecdote. The tequila and companionship assuaged some of that lingering guilt. My mother was probably right. The woman had blown off steam by scaring the bejeezus out of me, she would move on and realize I wasn’t worth the trouble, unless she was desperate for an unruly 18 month old German Shepherd. She probably wouldn’t appreciate all the fur on her hand-detailed leather interior.
Filed under: Quest for Comic Con
Watch Part III right here, or if you’re new to the Quest, then check out this convenient playlist. All future episodes will be added to it for your viewing pleasure.
A little about the filming of Part III -
You may remember my post about the perils of filming in a bathroom with automatic toilets, but now you can see how well it turned out, though for this scene between Gabby and her co-worker Eloise the danger came more from the giant wall of mirrors than the toilets. Thanks to the magic of Final Cut you’d never know what a pain in the ass this was to film. Our Eloise (Jamie Buxton) was really great to work with, and she’ll be back…
Most of the filming in my bedroom was done in advance of everything else, and the scenes in the boys’ apartment were also filmed together in chunks. All the scenes between Z.J. and David were filmed the same day as the Z.J. scenes from Part II. I realized when watching the episode for the fourth or fifth time that Z.J.’s roommate isn’t named on screen; for the record, that’s David, played by Mitch Guy, who also lent us the use of his apartment.
Again, I have to thank the three actors who played Gabby’s coworkers. They not only showed up to film their brief roles for free – they did it twice after the camera broke down on the first day. (Each of their characters is meant to spoof a big blockbuster, can you guess which?) They were so wonderful about the snafu. Of course, we did provide donuts. Keep watching after the credits for a few private moments with Bella, Tony, and Bruce.
So who can pick out the geek references in Part III? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
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FlashForward may have the same marketing campaign as Lost, but the creators and stars want to make it clear that this show is not like Lost, not at all, well, maybe a little, but please don’t compare the two, kthanxbye.
Whatever. Show politics aside, FlashForward has all the trappings of a show that’s right up my alley: multiple storylines, complicated characters, non-linear storytelling, conspiracy theories, debates about the nature of fate, interactivity…all things that I know have turned some viewers off of Lost, and while complexity doesn’t intimidate me at all, I’m going to do what I can to make this compelling show accessible to others who might not have my memory for trivial details.
In case you missed it: last night’s episode “White to Play,” did a fine job of reassuring the audience that if you missed the pilot, there’s still enough time to catch up. Take advantage of this window of opportunity, folks, it won’t last long. The episode opens on good old Planet Earth, zooming in ever closer to Los Angeles while children chant “Ring-Around-the-Rosy,” finally landing on an elementary school playground of apparently unconscious children – all except one. Charlie, the daughter of Mark (Joseph Fiennes) and Olivia (Sonya Walger) stands alone on the blacktop, clutching her mutant squirrel doll. But before we start to worry for her sanity, the kids jump their feet. They were playing ‘Blackout’ and start to ask each other what they saw. (Visions of the future include Disneyland and ponies.) Only Charlie refuses to play, and she shoves a boy who tries to make her tell. When a teacher intervenes, Charlie makes a break for it, running down the block and straight into a blockade of tanks and soldiers. No, this is not another post-apocalyptic future, not yet anyway, just the government’s response to mass chaos.
Meanwhile Mark’s dealing with his own problems as an underused Alan Ruck starts whining during their AA meeting. Mark’s really bitter, and interrupts Alan’s share time. Mark’s sponsor Aaron (Bryan F. O’Byrne) starts commenting on how they’re all trying to deal, and how lucky they are to already have a support group, so Mark really should chill.
FBI Director Wedeck gives the team a peptalk, reminding them that the public will look to them for guidance and reassurance. The deputy secretary of Homeland Security (Lynn Whitfield) strolls in with a bug up her butt – just where does the L.A. office of the FBI get off taking full responsibility for finding the cause of the flash forwards? Mark retorts that he’d be happy to turn the investigation over to anyone who has better information, but since he’s the one with the magic future board, she ought to drop it. Then Charlie’s school calls and he runs out while the others fill the secretary in on the Mosaic Collective, the website they’ve set up for people around the world to post their flash forwards. She’s not particularly impressed, until they show her the video of the man from Detroit who was awake during the blackout.
Mark and Olivia arrive at Charlie’s school and are ‘encouraged’ by the principal to ask her about her vision. Mark’s worried that Charlie saw the same man that Olivia saw, and thinks her family’s falling apart. They promise to show her that everything’s all right – for now. Since the babysitter’s gone AWOL, Olivia takes Charlie with her to the hospital, and while Olivia patches up Charlie’s mutant squirrel doll (injured in the line of duty) she meets Lloyd Simcoe (Jack Davenport), the father of the boy she saved just after the blackouts – and the man from her vision, the one she’ll be in love with six months from now when her husband’s gone back to drinking. Lloyd doesn’t recognize her, tells her that his son is autistic, and that he and his wife were separated soon after the diagnosis. He doesn’t know how to tell his son that his mother is dead. Olivia runs away as soon as she can.
Back at the FBI, Mark’s partner Demetri (John Cho) is upset that Mark’s wearing the friendship bracelet from his vision, because he thinks Mark wants the future to happen, though Mark assures him that isn’t the case, and is wearing the bracelet because his daughter gave it to him. Kids. He also mentions that the real reason Demetri’s pissed is that the more signs the visions are for real, the more likely it is that he’s going to die some time in the next six months. (He didn’t see anything during the blackout.) They stop bickering and refocus their attention on D. Gibbons, a name from Mark’s future board, right before she walks in the front door. Turns out she owns a cupcake shop and her vision involves FBI Agents Noh and Benford, her credit card company, and pigeons.
Mark accompanies Wedeck to impound the cupcakes Didi Gibbons brought as evidence, and bullies his boss into admitting the truth about his vision, which in an odd moment of slapstick, involved the john, and rescuing a fellow agent from drowning in a urinal.
Olivia decides to take Charlie to see Lloyd Simcoe, to see if Charlie recognizes him. She doesn’t, but does recognize his son Dylan, and freaks out at the sight of Dylan in a hospital bed. This is enough cause for Olivia to take Charlie over to the FBI. While Demetri discovers that someone cloned Didi Gibbons’ credit card and used it in Pigeon, Utah, Mark gets the news that not only did his wife meet the man of her dreams, his daughter knows the other man’s son. Olivia swears she would never cheat, but Mark doesn’t have time to hear it – he’s got to go to Utah.
D. Gibbons, the unsub, bought a bus ticket, but never used it, and all roads out of town are blocked. The local sheriff greets Mark and Demetri, and mentions that she wouldn’t mind someone telling her what to do. The town’s a bit like a headless chicken after the blackout, though she didn’t see anything herself. Demetri’s very intrigued by this. Their stakeout leads no where, and he wants to pack it in, but Mark spies an abandoned doll factory across the road, and since in his vision a picture of a burned and melted baby doll was right next to the name D. Gibbons on his conspiracy wall, they all go in to investigate.
It’s creepy, and there are dolls hanging from the ceiling with nooses around their necks, which turn out to be part of a burglar alarm set up by their unsub. The sounds of ‘Ring-Around-the-Rosy’ fill the air again, and the good guys charge in to find a man in shadows standing over two tanks seemingly filled with water – and computer hard drives. There are explosives everywhere. Though guns are drawn on him, the man only says, “He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over,” then drops lighters into the tanks of what’s probably gasoline, causing them to explode. He fires a gun through the fire, and hits the sheriff, then escapes while Mark and Demetri shield themselves from the blast that should, by all laws of physics, blow them to bits.
With the picture of the burned baby doll taken by one of the CSIs, another piece of the future falls into place. The sheriff has croaked, though she leaves a decent looking corpse (no fire damage), and Demetri’s really scared since the first person he’s met who didn’t have a vision is now dead, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. He finds a chess piece – a white queen – and a fried cellphone. The unsub was a major computer hacker, and probably competition in the search for answers.
Back at the hospital, Olivia offers Lloyd some advice on breaking the news to Dylan before she takes Charlie home. Dylan seems to already know that his mother is dead, and responds to his father’s outpouring of love by asking to see Olivia.
The FBI are feeling pretty smug when they discover that the D. Gibbons from Utah made five phone calls right before the blackout, and then one during the blackout – a phone call to the man from the Detroit baseball stadium. Now there are two men known to have been awake for those very crucial two minutes and seventeen seconds. Meanwhile the Mosaic website is taking on a life of its own, and FBI Tech Janis, who saw herself undergoing an ultrasound in the future, is encouraged by Demetri (now a believer) to enter her own story, perhaps connecting with the technician who did the sonogram. She tells him he ought to make a post too – if he is going to die, maybe someone out there knows how, and he can prevent it. For reasons that are a little too convenient, he does so, only to get a phone call while walking to his car from a mysterious woman (Shohreh Aghdashloo) who tells him that according to her vision, he will be murdered on March 15th, 2010, and she’s very sorry.
Mark’s conflicted about the future, but tells Olivia that he’s glad she told him about Lloyd. They shouldn’t have secrets. Well, she shouldn’t have secrets. He decides not to tell her about the drinking in his future, or that he’s burning the bracelet Charlie made him because it’s an omen. When he goes upstairs to kiss Charlie goodnight, she asks him about the flash forwards, if they’re going to come true. Only the good ones, he promises. Oh good, she says, because D. Gibbons is a bad man.
All in all, an enjoyable hour of television, though I’m not particularly attached to Joseph Fiennes’s character. It’s nice that he loves his family, but he seems to be neglecting his job in a desperate attempt to keep them together. Which may be the point, but makes him a lousy lead.
All the cool shows are doing it; instead of picking up right where their May cliffhangers left off, they jump ahead a few months, making you think you’ve missed an episode or two, and then slowly over the course of the episode tell you want you really want to know, i.e. did they die/sleep together/give in to torture?
Half the shows that returned from summer hiatus after hanging from cliffs gave us a summary of everything that happened in the last month or so through expositional dialogue. NCIS decided to use flashbacks and truth serum.
In case you missed it: A quick recap reminds us that Tony shot Ziva’s boyfriend in self defense, she was pissed and went home to Israel, where she was immediately put into undercover Mossad work that resulted in her capture in Somalia. The seventh season “Truth or Consequences” opens on our favorite torturer, last seen demanding that the captured Ziva tell him everything she knows about NCIS. He’s got a new bag of torture tricks, and starts monologuing to the figure strapped to the chair – not Ziva, but Tony. What a shocking turn of events! What’s DiNozzo doing in Africa?
Well, he’s getting pumped full of truth serum, a special cocktail that forces him into flashbacks and individual character biographies on our team mates, in case you forgot who they were. Biggest shock of all in these little vingettes? Tony and McGee are partners, and actually seem to have bonded.
For whatever reason, NCIS has killed some of Salim the torturer’s men, and now he’s pissed. He asks for Tony’s mission. Tony tells him it’s an assassination. His, in fact. Tony is in Somalia to kill Salim. Surprise! But first he flashes back to May, and the investigation of a methamphetamine smuggling ring aboard a naval ship. This has nothing to do with Somalia or Ziva, but it kills time while Tony, McGee, and Gibbs look for a new teammate, and another meth overdose gives Ducky the opportunity to tell Tony that, no, he hasn’t heard from Ziva either. Now it’s June.
Tony and McGee go through the stack of files, deciding on a tough-talking DEA agent with an intense handshake who intimidates DiNozzo. He thinks she’s unflappable, which she is – until she gets her five minutes with Gibbs, who makes her cry. Apparently Ziva isn’t replaceable. (Which is true, but kind of harsh on Kate.) Tony tells Salim that if he could drag Ziva back to NCIS, he would – but Ziva David is dead. He looks like he’s actually struggling with some emotion there, good on him.
Salim starts monologuing again, and mentions that his personal drug of choice is caffeine which will be relevant later. Tony blabs about Director Vance, and his habit of keeping secrets. In July Vance and Gibbs discuss the absence of information on Ziva, and Tony enters into awkward banter with his next candidate for her replacement. For someone who hits on women like it’s a sport, it’s very strange to watch Tony get discomfited by a woman who flirts back; obviously he has other things on his mind. Captain Becky Hastings the thrillseeker flunks out when she balks at the idea of hacking into Mossad case files.
Tony and McGee have dinner together, but Tony is very distracted. He thinks it’s weird that no one has heard from Ziva. She might still be mad at him, but that’s no reason to cut off communication with the others. Tony seems genuinely concerned. McGee concurs, and they decide to track her down, afraid that she’s been prevented from making contact.
This leads tortured!Tony to reveal the existence of Abby to Salim, and goes into detail describing how in August they tracked Ziva’s movements in the middle east. Another potential recruit arrives, a police captain, but Tony’s so busy with a lead on a ship named Damocles, that he barely notices she’s female. He takes her to observation to watch Gibbs crack a suspect on that meth thing that’s completely irrelevant to the real plot, and Tony loses a few screws telling her how ridiculous the job is. Turns out the overdose ‘victim’ they’ve been nursing back to health is the drug pusher! Somewhat disillusioned Tony crushes police officer Heather Kincaid’s dreams when he tells her they’re not hiring. Definite aura of doom and gloom.
Tony walks into Abby’s lab, where she and McGee regale him with a rendition of the Israeli version of “The Farmer in the Dell.” Somehow this allows them to connect NCIS and Mossad to Salim, and tells them that Ziva was onboard the Damocles with Salim’s smuggled goods. Only problem is that the Damocles capsized. There were no survivors. But wait, the eagle-eyed viewer says, putting aside the fact that Cote de Pablo is still in the credits, we’ve already seen Salim torture her. So clearly, she didn’t drown.
Tony really thinks she’s dead, and so he decides to go on a personal vendetta and stop Salim’s terrorist plans on Ziva’s behalf. He says No to Gibbs. Of course, Vance can’t authorize a mission in Somalia without proof that Salim is there – even after Abby tracks his camp by following his supply lines and desperate addiction to Caf-Pows.
When Salim learns of the method in which he was discovered, he throws a tantrum and storms out. Tony then speaks to McGee, who is lying supposedly unconscious on the floor. They have a plan, but it’s not quite time to put it into action. Salim is rattled, and this makes him bring a hooded figure into their cell, then offer them a proposition. First one to talk, lives. The other dies. The hood is removed, and, dun dun dun, it’s a very vulnerable-looking Ziva. They gaze into each other’s eyes. Tony seems genuinely surprised, but quips, “So, how was your summer?”
Ziva doesn’t seem all that happy to see him, but Cote delivers Ziva’s line, “Of everybody, in the world, who could have found me, it had to be you,” in such a way that it sounds like acceptance. Like, of course it was Tony. Who else? Then Tony, possibly still under the effects of the truth serum, tells her why he came. “Couldn’t live without you, I guess.” Tiva fans everywhere sigh happily.
Ziva urges Tony to tell Salim everything and save themselves; she’s ready to die. Too bad that’s not the plan. Back in September, Vance refuses to authorize the mission without confirmation of Salim’s whereabouts. Tony’s pissed, but in typical Gibbsian fashion, Leroy Jethro drums into Tony’s head that a few lost NCIS agents in the Sahara would constitute a reason for interference, change the circumstances, so to speak, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Ziva can’t believe that Tony and McGee allowed themselves to get caught. The more Tony talks, the crazier he sounds to her ears. Salim returns with a knife and the announcement that he’s moving out – but leaving his prisoners behind. McGee makes a move and knocks Salim to the ground, then goes for his knife, but Salim has a gun. Tony starts running his mouth again to buy them some time. He starts talking about his role in the team – calls himself the wild card, refuses to accept reality. Oh, and by the way, remember how he mentioned his boss was a sniper?
From a million miles away, Gibbs takes Salim out with one bullet. Tony and McGee help Ziva to her feet, and they round the corner, right into Gibbs, looking like the swamp thing in his camo. It makes a lovely reunion moment if you ignore the implausibility of Gibbs getting there so fast from his little hill perch.
It’s a happy ending, and they all go home, without being allowed to shower or change, apparently. Ziva looks frightened as she steps off the elevator, but then Vance leads the office full of nameless extras in a round of applause, and she’s pulled into the loving embrace of Abby, while Tony looks on longingly from his desk.
Now I’m really confused. An article I read sometime last season indicated that a happy future was not in the cards for Tony and Ziva, so what are they playing at? Years of sexual tension seemed to implode in last season’s finale, and while I’m not complaining, Tony’s actions in this episode clearly demonstrated some very real feelings for Miss David, feelings that go beyond office flirtation. This was not a return to the status quo, nor was it a precursor to a messy heated fling that ends with them shooting each other. This was the groundwork for actual emotions, potential for an actual relationship.
Don’t toy with us, CBS.
Filed under: I Heart Lists, Quest for Comic Con, Talkin' 'Bout TV | Tags: emmys
I don’t usually bother to watch the Emmys. I love television, but the television I love is rarely even nominated, and the show lacks the full-scale spectacle of the Oscars. However, this year the hosting duties went to Neil Patrick Harris, and who am I to turn away from NPH, Dr. Horrible himself? (Besides, almost everyone on Twitter was abuzz and I knew it would bug me if I wasn’t in on the fun.)
Forget the wrap-up – what the Emmys need are subtitles. Here’s what I learned from this year’s program:
- All awards shows should feature an original musical number and be hosted by someone who has practiced his hosting on the Tonys. This will make things easier for the day when all of the ceremonies are combined into one giant hybrid: the Acadegramtonespiremmy Awards.
- Celebrities should not wear solid red on the red carpet unless they want to clash or disappear in the press photos. Corollary: dresses with long, sloppy trains look like unfinished Project Runway designs.
- Kristin Chenoweth is adorable, talented, and unemployed.
- The Academy was blackmailed into voting for Jon Cryer, or his win was the result of leftover sentiment from the death of John Hughes.
- Justin Timberlake should give up music and join SNL as a regular.
- Blake Lively would like everyone to know she has breasts. (Message received.)
- People are finally tired of Monk.
- Everyone loves Lorne Michaels, and I should fax him my resume.
- I still don’t get Family Guy.
- People swear a lot in “reality” programming.
- Survivor is still on the air. Go figure.
- Drew Barrymore and Justin Long are back together. It saddens me to realize that I actually care. It’s even sadder that I was upset when Cherry Jones didn’t thank partner (ex-partner?) Sarah Paulson in her acceptance speech. And it’s perhaps saddest that I am aware of these things.
- Anna Torv would also like the world to know she has breasts.
- There are not enough female comedy writers, and The Daily Show in particular needs more estrogen. (FYI, Jon Stewart, I’m totally available.)
- For the number of writers SNL has, the writing should be better.
- Jon Stewart gets to brag about having two more Emmys tonight; Stephen Colbert will probably challenge him to a duel.
- We lost a lot of good people this year, and many of them quite young. Way to bring the party down, Sarah McLachlan.
- Breaking Bad gets a lot of applause and Bryan Cranston wins another Emmy, despite the questionable grammar of the show’s title.
- In a year where Jeremy Piven didn’t even get nominated for Supporting Actor, someone still thought Entourage was funny enough to be nominated for Best Comedy.
- Dealing drugs will get you an Emmy nomination (see Mary Louise Parker and Bryan Cranston).
And, of course, the most important lesson of all: Television is dead. The internet reigns supreme, featuring such delightful programming as QUEST FOR COMIC-CON on YouTube. And if you haven’t added yourself as a Fan on Facebook, what are you waiting for?
Is that character development I spy in the Warehouse? On a SciFi show? Maybe the rebranding has done some good after all – add Pete Lattimer’s unexpected growth to the news that Stargate Universe will be more serialized than its two predecessors, and it would seem that the cable network has turned a corner. No more CTRL-Z!
In case you missed it: Tuesday’s episode, “Nevermore,” opens on a little bookshop in Colorado called “Bering and Sons.” Turns out, Myka’s dad is a Cylon (Michael Hogan). He finds a package on his doorstep containing a rare book, but when he takes it down to his lair library to examine it, the words crawl off the page and under his skin, similar to that scene in The Mummy with the scarabs. Meanwhile, Pete and Myka are on the trail of MacPherson in separate locations. Myka has taken Berlin, and Pete is on the hunt in Montreal. Germany is a dead end, but Pete winds up chasing MacPherson down Canadian streets while Artie and Claudia run interference with the Mounties from the relative safety of the Warehouse. Just as Pete corners the dastardly MacPherson in an alley, Myka discovers something in the apartment in Berlin – MacPherson’s got the cymbals (whatever that means.)
Artie calls out a warning to Pete, but not before MacPherson does his belly-dancer impression, clanking little finger cymbals together and blowing out the windows of the approaching police car, taking two policemen with them. Pete, though knocked out, is unharmed. He regains consciousness just in time for Myka to receive a phone call from her mother – her father is apparently dying and this was the best way to break the news.
For reasons that are never entirely explained, we are then taken to Portland, Oregon, the site of a private school that looks suspiciously British. The kids exhibit behavior typical of all high schools everywhere as one young lad, the designated “geek,” is taunted by the designated “jock” for having a crush on the popular girl, Tamara. Poor geek. He looks at the jock with hatred in his eyes so you just know something bad is about to happen.
Artie thinks he’s talking to Leena when Mrs. Frederick appears, reinforcing the suspicion that she and Leena are connected in a not entirely natural way. She scolds Artie, even though she just did that last week, and tells him to keep his people in check.
Back in Portland, the geek is taking a test when he starts to hear whispers coming from the Edgar Allan Poe display. Why this particular school gets to have its own Poe display, we may never know, but it comes with its own stuffed raven. After the teacher sends Tamara to collect the exams, he calls Bobby, the geek, over for a little chat and a nod and a wink in Tamara’s direction. Bobby still hasn’t talked to her. Oh, the pains of youth. The teacher gives Bobby a book of poetry, and suggests he let Blake do all the work. Bobby’s still preoccupied with the voices in his head.
Myka arrives in Colorado to find that her father is not dying and Pete has joined her for moral support – and a side of her mother’s hot wings. In an absolutely startling twist, Pete shows a high amount of empathy and decency when dealing with Myka and her family, somehow resisting the temptation to revert back to the child he has been for the better part of ten episodes. Could it be little Petey is actually being allowed to grow? Only time will tell, but I for one approve of the change. Take note, Syfy: You can have child-like charm and emotional maturity at the same time.
Colonel Tighe Myka’s father sits down to read again, and the words crawl under his skin, again, while Bobby hears voices in another state, again. The intercut scenes end when Bobby breaks the glass on the Poe display and steals a quill; Myka’s father screams. Pete, Myka, and her mother rush in, and Pete’s the first to figure it out. Uh oh, Daddy’s got an artifact!
They call in Claudia who brings the Special Cannister O’ Purple Goop with her, and they rush downstairs to dispose of the book. But not so fast! The book is only one half of the Artifact, it works in tandem with another object, and both must be destroyed to put a damper on its power. Artie, via the Farnsworth, deduces the missing half must be a pen. By now, Mrs. Bering is really confused, especially since she thought her daughter still worked for the Secret Service.
Since they suspect MacPherson of sending the book, Artie “circles the wagons” around Claudia’s brother Joshua and Pete’s family, and the two of them go looking for the rest of the Artifact while Myka stays home and reads to her father to keep him grounded in reality. (Yeah, that bit was a little fuzzy for me too.)
Over at the Prep, the jock is badmouthing the geek to the popular girl, which he happens to overhear, and while Mika’s dad stirs from his Poe-induced haze to shout, “Fire!” the jock’s locker explodes in his face. Pete and Claudia are on it. Before they arrive on the scene, however, Bobby is called in for a heart to heart with his English teacher, who gently accuses him of breaking the glass and stealing the quill. Bobby replies by handing his teacher a scrap of paper with the word ‘WALL’ on it, and kind-hearted Teach is promptly sucked into the walls of the school.
Pete and Claudia inspect the jock’s locker and find a piece of paper with ‘FIRE’ written on it taped to the back. They share an ‘aha’ moment, and Pete asks the bewildered principal if they happened to have Poe’s quill lying around. They did – until it was stolen, of course. Bobby is eavesdropping – and doesn’t like what he hears.
Back in the bookstore, Myka’s dad wakes up to make a Johnny Cash reference and apologize for being a lousy father, before slipping back into the quasi-coma. Mom tells Myka that Dad has regrets, and mentions that he always wanted to be a writer – even wrote a novel, but when he couldn’t get it published, he told her to burn it and never wrote again. *sob*
Pete and Claudia are examining the scene of the crime when Pete hears something. It’s coming from the wall! Pete and Claudia show off their AP English Lit skills by crying out, “The Cask of Amontialldo!” (Not The Tell-Tale Heart as is so erroneously reported here.) Pete uses the base of the stuffed raven to start bashing in the wall and in an impressive display of strength, he and Claudia rip bricks out with their bare hands. The magical bricks must not have had time to properly set in the mortar.
Myka’s dad is slipping away (painfully, by the sound of it) as Bobby hunts Tamara, and hands her a “poem,” forcing her to read the one word on the page – MINE. This turns her into a zombie bride. Artie tells Myka that she has to find the book that means the world to her father if she’s going to fight off Poe. Fortunately, Mom didn’t really burn Dad’s manuscript, so Myka runs off to find her father’s opus.
Pete and Claudia find the happy teenage lovebirds, but unfortuately Claudia reads from a paper left on the ground, and the next thing they know, they’re strapped to the floor while a pendulum swings ever closer to hasten their demise. Claudia tries to talk some sense into the Poe-addled Bobby, but he starts babbling about words having power.
As Myka reads to her father from his novel about a father and daughter (quel suprise!) Bobby gets dizzy and drops the pen, shaking the effects enough for Claudia to break free of her bonds and bag the pen in the Anti-Artifact Ziploc Baggy ™. Tamara comes out of her trance, Bobby collapses, and Pete grabs the pen, running for the door. Claudia stays behind to make sure Bobby gets to the hospital, and Pete shows up in Colorado to unite the two objects.
Success! Daddy Bering survives the encounter, Pete tells Myka he may be in love with her mother, and her mother tells her that she’s done good. Also, look after Pete.
Mrs. Fredrick drops by the Warehouse to tell Artie that MacPherson was in Colorado the whole time, distracting them with Poe. The Farnsworth shorts out before he can warn Pete and Myka, but Pete gets one of his vibes, and he and Myka run back into the bookstore, only to find her parents held in sway by a lantern held by MacPherson (Jack the Ripper’s lantern, no less.) Turns out this was all so he could get the book and pen together. Myka scolds him for going after family, and he says Artie started it (foreshadowing, much?) He trades Myka’s parents for the Artifact, and disappears in a flash of light. Myka doesn’t like being used, but Artie says MacPherson didn’t use her, “he used me.” Bum, bum, bum!
To sum up: Pete showing depth of character – good. More Claudia – always good; hopefully Allison Scagliotti will be a regular next season. Literary references – great. Swiss cheese plot – not so great. The main thing I was left wondering: why did Bobby hear the pen whispering in the first place? What made him so special? They could have at least made him a Poe-enthusiast prior to his possession, anything other than the random attack of the midnight drearies. And why a Portland prep school?
The idea of a two-part Artifact is great, but since the separation of pen and book isn’t a recent development (given the fact that the pen was locked away in a display case) shouldn’t all this have happened sooner?
Hopefully Pete won’t revert to his immature self right away – I get enough of that on Psych, and it makes for a much more believable, equal partnership with Myka. It’s only character development, folks, if the character gets to continue developing, not devolving.
Quoteable:
Pete: But there’s something else.
Myka: What?
Pete: I think I’m hot for your mom.
(Myka thinks about it)
Myka: I’ll break it to Dad.
Pete: Okay
Filed under: Quest for Comic Con
Link to PART I: My Kingdom for a TARDIS
Comments? Questions? Unadulterated praise? Seriously, I’m an open book. I want to hear what you think!
I’m offering up a challenge to all champions of the land: a prize to be named later for whomsoever can point out all the pop culture references in this episode. If you so choose to take up the mantle, email me at hollywoodjanesmith @ gmail.com.
(Watch out, it’s going to get spoilery up in here.)
It must be a sign of the times - in advance of the Devil’s debut, Supernatural fans managed to turn #luciferiscoming into a trending topic on Twitter, only to infuriate the legions of God-fearing folk who weren’t in on the joke. I’m not sure how many people have to use a hashtag on their tweets in order for it to trend, but it’s a lot. Yet, the fifth season premiere of this CW show only managed a 1.5 rating. So what happened to all the Twits?
You don’t know what you’re missing. As hoped, Season 5 came out strong; Supernatural is one of the few shows that actually benefits from making their characters miserable. “Sympathy for the Devil” opens right where Season 4’s “Lucifer Rising” leaves off – with Lucifer rising. Despite Satan going nuclear and taking out that little church and its little town, Sam and Dean are somehow magically transported to ’safety’ aboard an airplane, just before it makes an emergency landing due to the aforementioned explosion. (I’m sure this didn’t help Dean’s fear of flying.) The plane doesn’t seem to crash, though, as next we know the boys are driving a rental car back to the home of the Prophet Chuck in order to find Castiel. Shell-shocked Chuck delivers the bad news: Cas was blown to bits by the archangels. Dean is severely pissed, so when Cas’s former angelic superior Zachariah shows up with a couple of his minions, and tells Dean it’s time to fulfill his destiny by stopping Lucifer before he puts on his human overcoat (’cause them’s the rules), Dean blasts them away with the bloody anti-angel seal he learned from Cas and Anna.
After the boys leave, Chuck contacts Becky, the moderator of a Wincest fansite based on his books of prophecy, and asks her to deliver a message to the Winchesters because he’s being watched. Fan girls with a sense of humor everywhere die laughing over Becky’s Sam/Dean fan fiction and her high-pitched squeals.
Sam and Dean wind up in yet another motel room of dubious decor where Sam keeps trying to apologize for going Dark Side, but Dean’s not having it. The passive-agressive routine is interrupted by Becky’s arrival, and while she gropes Sam she recites Chuck’s most recent vision: the Sword of Michael is on Earth, in a castle on a hill made of 42 dogs. Yeah, a hill made of dogs. Since the Archangel Michael kicked Lucifer’s butt downstairs in the last big battle, the sword is V. Important.
Then Bobby shows up at their door, and in the space of a few minutes seems to forget everything he told Dean about family last season, just because Sam confesses to starting the Apocalypse by killing Lillith and breaking the final seal. (Even though technically Dean started it by breaking the first seal.) Bobby tells Sam that if they happen to survive this, Sam should, “Forget my number.”
Teary-eyed, Sam decides to get a little air by checking the local church for information on Michael’s sword. Bobby continues to act un-Bobby-like when he tells Dean that maybe John was right when he said Sam might have to be killed. Dean says nothing, but the mention of his father triggers a memory of a business card – one for a storage unit with a castle-theme on 42 Rover street.
“Thanks for that,” says the demon possessing Bobby, and the door bursts open and three more demons stroll in, including one not-so-familiar face. Ta-da, it’s Meg, last “seen” possessing Sam and torturing Jo in Season 2. She’s got herself a brand new body and a desire to gut Dean like a fish. Fortunately she decides to let the demon in Bobby do the honors with Ruby’s magic knife, and the real Bobby surfaces just long enough to stick that blade in himself, killing the demon but good. Bobby proceeds to bleed all over the motel room.
Sam returns to the room in time to get reacquainted with Meg, but she ditches her meat suit before either Sam or Dean can touch her. The boys rush Bobby to the hospital, but can’t stay since the demons know where the sword is. They run to their dad’s storage unit, only to find a number of dead demons and Zachariah waiting for them.
“You’re the sword,” he tells Dean, which makes little to no sense. Apparently, ’sword’ is angel code for ‘very powerful vessel’ much like ‘grail’ in The DaVinci Code is code for ‘Jesus’s babymama.’ Or, in Dean-speak, the Glourious Basterds want him to spend his days as an “angel condom.” The angels need General Michael to take down Lucifer, and Michael needs to be invited into Dean’s body, or it’s no go. Dean refuses, even after Zach breaks Sam’s legs, gives Dean stomach cancer, and removes Sam’s lungs. Angels, in case we didn’t realize it before, are total dicks.
Fortunately, before Sam can suffocate or Dean can cough his stomach onto the floor, the room is filled with a bright light, and – ta-da! – Castiel returns to kick some righteous ass. With a long metal spike, he slaughters the minion angels, and, insinuating both his return and Sam and Dean’s miraculous escape from Lucifer were acts of God, he demands that Zachariah return the Winchester boys to their rightful prettiness, then get the hell out. Zach reluctantly complies.
At the hospital we find Bobby alive, but unlikely to walk again, and just to twist the knife in our guts, the boys finally have it out in the parking lot. Dean tells him it’s over, that they can never be what they once were. Sam chose a demon over his own brother, and even though Dean knows he’s sorry, the trust between them is broken.
Ouch. Dean can be so judgmental.
So where do we go from here? Well it seems the writers are bringing back all the reoccurring characters who haven’t bitten the dust (and a few who have), Dean and Cas are going to bond over strippers, and Sam will likely have many more episodes of self-loathing and massive guilt to look forward to.
Now, I trust the writers – they’ve taken some pretty big risks, and actually saw them through with great dramatic results. I just hope they aren’t going to make Sam suffer for too long – hasn’t the poor boy suffered enough? He’s definitely the show’s whipping boy. I do love Dean, but it occasionally irks me how even when he does something stupid or wrong (selling his soul, breaking the first seal) he comes out looking like the suffering hero rather than the bad guy. And as much as I love Castiel and what the writers have done with the place, the core of this show, and one of the reasons it’s so consistently strong, is that it’s about the fucked up relationship of these brothers. They better keep it that way.
Quoteable:
Dean: I got no idea. But what I got is a G.E.D. and a “give ‘em hell” attitude and I’ll figure it out.
- Episode 5×01 “Sympathy for the Devil”
