Wednesday, October 03, 2007 Rant Archive
California Son is the most interesting episode of one of the most interesting series on television, CALIFORNICATION. Since its debut, its chief protagonist, Hank Moody (David Duchovny), has revealed numerous different slices of personality: drug addled, funny, tough guy and downright incomprehensible – among others. But in California Son we finally get a picture of where that all originated.
Hank gets a call from a sister that their father died. Hank hated him and said he’s not going to go home for the funeral. Instead he goes on a rum and coke bender (and I don’t mean the soft drink) that ultimately gets him into a room with a gorgeous prostitute he doesn’t believe is a hooker. When he finds out, he also discovers he has no cash, which gets him a beating from her pimp. But in between we see flashbacks of Hank and dad during the latter’s last visit to L.A. and Hank and his girl friend Karen (Natascha McElhone) when they were still together that fills in a lot of blanks.
Dad was something of an a-hole, a philanderer who was never there for his kids and was critical of them when he was around. He never had a nice word to say about anyone. He called Hank’s bald agent Charlie (Evan Handler) “a walking penis.” And his philosophy of life seemed to be “Life’s too short to dance with fat chicks.” You get the sense that one of the reasons Hank doesn’t like his father is because he is a lot like him. Looking at dad is a little like looking in a mirror and Moody doesn’t like his reflection.
But we also go back to where Hank, Karen and their child Becca (Madeleine Martin) first came to California. You see Hank becoming disillusioned wit what the film industry was doing to his novel (and there’s a cameo by a great Tom Cruise look-alike here that’s not to be missed) and by the general lifestyle.
I’ve never been approached by the Devil and told I have to hunt down souls that have escaped from Hell, but I would imagine such news would be tough to process. The slacker hero of REAPER, Sam (Bret Harrison), certainly finds it so. Despite successfully capturing his first soul in the pilot episode, he’s still trying to get out of his bounty hunter duties, but Satan (Ray Wise) isn’t having any of it. After Sam repeatedly avoids opening the box that holds his soul-snatching vessel, Satan explains (pretty nicely for the Prince of Darkness, really) that Sam doesn’t have a lot of choice, unless burning in eternal torment sounds like a valid option.
Sam is many things, but he’s not completely stupid, and he soon bows to the Devil’s ineluctable logic. Opening the box, he finds a remote control monster truck … a choice that seems questionable at first, since the only thing he knows about the escaped soul is that it can call down lightning strikes. What’s the connection? Well, Sam resolves to find out, especially since the sooner he does, the sooner Satan will get off his back for the time being, allowing him to finish inventory, get off the night shift and back on days working with Andi (Missy Peregrym), the girl Sam loves. Not only does he enjoy her company, but she turns out to be even more of a master of avoiding work than anybody else, including Sam’s best bud and soul-hunting partner Sock (Tyler Labine). Hot and an über-slacker? What’s not to like?
It looks like Alan (James Spader) is at it again. Sexy new lawyer, Lorraine (Saffron Burrows) has drawn the attention of the youngest lothario at the office. You know what that means; Denny (William Shatner) can’t be far behind. I swear, Denny can smell a women coming from miles away, so can Alan for that matter. God help the woman who finds herself between these best friends, she may just find herself torn in two like a Thanksgiving Day turkey bone. But I don’t know what Alan is doing sniffing around the new girl when his current paramour has put the baby offer on the table. Surprisingly, Alan hasn’t flatly refused to father her child, which tells me he either really likes this woman, or his manhood is bursting at the seems to plant its seed.
When new associate, Lorraine, walks in, Alan almost falls flat on his face. It isn’t just that he’s wildly attracted to her; it’s the fact that this is the same lawyer he got busy with in the elevator last week. You remember she was the one devouring him with her eyes, along with the rest of her body. I think this newbie is going to give Alan a run for his money. She’s so aggressive, it’s almost as if we have a female version of Denny walking around. I wonder if Jerry (Christian Clemenson) will be next? Poor Jerry, he probably wouldn’t notice anyway, he’s got his hands full trying to defend a guy that wouldn’t even speak during the first half of his trial. Even worse is the fact that the other new girl, Katie (Tara Summers) is so nervous about doing her summation she fainted during her practice session with Jerry and Alan. This is already revving up to be quit an interesting season for my favorite quirky law show. Now all they have to do is bring back that crazy gardening fanatic that kidnapped Shirley (Candice Bergin) last season. Of course that will prove to be pretty difficult since he died, but hey if anybody can do it David E. Kelley can.
Holy cyclotron, fellow geeks and freaks, it’s season finale time in Eureka, and things are off to a nice tense start. When we left off last week, an experiment in alchemy unleashed a Midas bacterium on our favorite high-IQ abode. Unfortunately, the gold left in its wake turned out to be unstable, quickly degrading and leaving all Eureka at risk. As with all diabolical coincidences, this turns out to be the moment that Beverly (Debrah Farentino) returned to town via Gitmo, where she received the usual hospitable treatment. With the help of Henry (Joe Morton), she returned to GD with a specific goal in mind: Kevin Blake, the son of Allison (Salli Richardson).
Again with the coincidence: Just as Carter (Colin Ferguson) and Stark (Ed Quinn) arrive to get in on the fun, the Midas bacteria mutates into an airborne flesh-eating pathogen, tripping the biohazard alert, sending GD into lockdown and trapping Kevin, Henry, Allison and Beverly in a “panic room” contingency bunker. Damn, that’s a lot of sentence. Now, we pick up with Stark and Carter heading back into GD to re-establish contact with Allison and find out what the hell is happening. Since Fargo (Neil Grayston) had to stay behind as their outside world contact, they take Taggart (Matt Frewer) along for comic relief.
I have to admit something up front: I’m looking forward to the end of DAMAGES. Not because I don’t like the show, but because it’s just so damn exhausting. The narrative has so many twists it could run up a spiral staircase without making any turns, and more plots than a graveyard. Trying to review any given episode requires notes and captioning just to stay even. Oy. Having said that, though, I should point out that is part of its fun from a viewer’s standpoint. Whatever else you might say, it never fails to entertain.
This week’s episode is no exception. In the present timeline, Patty (Glenn Close) is missing, Ellen (Rose Byrne) is on the verge of some disturbing revelation, and Tom Shayes (Tate Donovan) is wandering around with a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face. In the past timeline, about a month before, David (Noah Bean) is having disturbing dreams involving Ellen and Patty being the same person, while Patty, Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson) and Frobisher’s lawyer Ray Fiske (Zeljko Ivanek) prepare the battleground for the major disposition of the case.
Meanwhile, Gregory Malina (Peter Facinelli) is still dead, putting a serious crimp in Patty’s case. However, Patty is not without weapons or resources. Speaking of people with weapons, we still have George Moore (Peter Riegert), a former SEC investigator on the government case against Frobisher, running around loose. It’s hard to say what he does or doesn’t know, but he radiates menace like sunlight, and whatever he knows, it spells bad news for somebody. Meanwhile, as a pair of scenes reveal, blood evidence leaves a trail, and the points it connects point to a rather disturbing conclusion.
Tonight’s episode, aptly titled “Soccer Mom in the Mini-Van,” begins with a woman getting out of her mini-van and longingly looking at a soccer field full of young girls. When Mom gets back in the van, she backs out…and BOOM! Mom’s leg comes flying towards camera.
Last week it was a skull in the windshield, and this week it’s a woman’s hands melted to a steering wheel. You’ve just gotta love the gore on BONES.
Turns out melted woman is no ordinary soccer mom. When Angela (Michaela Conlin) deciphers an amateur tattoo on the woman’s arm bone, we discover that Amy the soccer mom was June the National Liberation Army radical in a past life. Now it’s up to Booth (David Boreanaz) and Brennan (Emily Deshanel) to delve into a 30-year-old case and find out why someone wanted to blow up poor June.
While Booth and Brennan are off interviewing suspects, Hodgins (TJ Thyne) is left at the Jeffersonian with FBI bomb specialist Katherine Frost (Deborah Zoe) who just so happens to be “smokin’ hot” according to Angela. Hodgins--along with Zack (Eric Millegan--are usually the comic relief on the show, but this week was pretty much left to Hodgins as he becomes a blabbering idiot around the brilliant and beautiful Frost. Angela seems to be getting a kick out of her fiancé drooling on himself too, but warns him that whatever goes on in his pants just needs to stay in his pants. The funniest moment of the show is when Frost tries to throw away perfectly good evidence. As fast as you can say “particulates,” Hodgins has lost complete interest. No woman is hot enough to be forgiven for ignoring evidence.
In the second half of its season opener The Unit made a return to the status quo by neatly tying off the loose ends from last season, as well as setting up some new rivalries that will surely mean trouble for The Unit in the future. Keeping in mind that I’m still learning this show, here’s the recap:
Last week’s Season premiere left off with Jonas (Dennis Haysbert,) Bob (Scott Foley) and Grey stumbling upon a large underwater graveyard out at sea, presumably the reason for the Unit being set up in the first place. This week’s episode began with the Unit doing what they do best: kicking butt and taking names. Bob used his CIA contacts to secure further intel on who was setting up the Unit and why; Col. Ryan, having re-united with his team, lied to his traitorous ex-wife that he would accept the ill-gotten job offer of her mysterious benefactor, in order to draw that master conspirator into the open; Jonas gathered his team together (including breaking Hector (Demore Barnes) out of jail,) now prepared to make a move against the conspirators; Mack just tried to hang on, having been captured by black-ops agents at the root of the conspiracy and put to torture, unless he signed a false confession, damning the Unit.
As it unfold the team got back together; Bob’s CIA contacts gave up the who’s and why’s of the conspiracy; Col. Ryan’s ex-wife took the bait, leading the leader of the conspiracy right into the Unit’s hands; a tenuous truce was struck with the conspirators and the Unit’s name was cleared; Mack was saved; finally the men were free to go home to the women who loved them (in Mack’s case, sort of loved him,) with the targets wiped from their backs. For now.
You know a show has turned a corner in creativity when a baritoned narrator intones something drastic in the promos like “This week on THE BIGGEST LOSER…the UNTHINKABLE!” That’s what NBC did this week. It makes you wonder, has reality TV finally crossed the mortality line? Have they actually killed someone? I never want anyone to die, but that would make for an excellent rant.
Imagine my disappointment when it turned out that the contestants were evicted from the BIGGEST LOSER campus. I was relieved no one was dead of course, but is that really UNTHINKABLE!!? It’s rather mundane in the scope of reality TV so maybe in that sense it is unlikely, but not really UNTHINKABLE!! Luckily for us, the deep voiced guy returned.
Thankfully this show is no longer two hours. Unfortunately this means they left out the scene of Trainer Bob ripping his Blue team for ousting Jerry last week. We did get right to the action, though. The reward challenge started with a temptation for the trainers. Cupcakes. Buttercream frosted cupcakes. Jillian and Kim passed immediately even though if they ate the right cupcake their team would get a time advantage for the actual challenge. For Bob it was a different story. With his Arkansas like twang, he sounded positively Clintonesque eyeing a plus size intern as he looked over the treats. He eventually passed and they all dedicated themselves to winning the challenge the right way. Yeah team!
House (Hugh Laurie) has to find three new members for his team but can he narrow the field of forty prospects, save the Air Force Captain who suddenly suffers from synethstesia, and rationalize his sudden visions of his former staff?
Of course he can and if he can’t it’s because no one can. We don’t watch HOUSE M.D. for the suspense or really even the medical drama; that stuff has been covered in the TV landscape. We watch HOUSE M.D. for the superior acting and the writing as it regards human nature as well as the nature of humans…and House.
This Air Force officer wants to be an astronaut. She can’t let NASA know she is “Hearing with her eyes.” So she goes to House, explains her plight and drops a few bricks of cash on his desk to cover the expenses off the record. House turns this over to his forty prospects to see who can pass his ever-changing tests. Some excel, like getting a solid polish on his car, while others flounder (note to self- don’t use a defibrillator in a hyperbolic chamber…BOOM!).
In the midst of this, House catches a fleeting glimpse of fired staffer Chase (Jesse Spencer). He checks with pal Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) to see why Chase is roaming the halls, only to be informed that Chase is working in Arizona at the Mayo clinic. Wilson opines that House is suffering guilt for driving his former team away in such a House-like manner.
Paring down his number from forty appears positively arbitrary and much of it is, but House does promise immunity to whoever works up the correct diagnosis. Next week’s preview showed tribal torches. Check out last week’s rant from yours truly to see who predicted the reality TV angle. Thank God somebody is making fun of that genre. See, now I just pulled something patting myself on the back.
Following in the hallowed steps of popular animated sitcoms, a Family Guy movie seems inevitable—especially now that Fox’s other hot animated property, The Simpsons, has cashed in at the box office. Always the comedian, creator Seth MacFarlane sat down with MTV recently to dish on the likelihood of a Family Guy feature film, and even who he’d like to see play live-action roles of TV’s most depraved family, the Griffins.
“I guess Juliette Lewis would be Meg, David Hyde Pierce would be Stewie,” [MacFarlane] chuckled. “Ann Coulter would be Brian. Let’s see, Rosie O’Donnell would be Peter—She’d do a good job, she’s talented, a multi-faceted entertainer.”
“Who did I leave out?” MacFarlane laughed. “Oh, Chris! Phillip Seymour Hoffman! And of course Lois would be, let’s give it to Kathy Griffin for god’s sakes. She’s paid her dues!”
Of course he is joking, but MacFarlane is enthusiastic about seeing a feature-length Family Guy misadventure reach the silver screen—if proper timing can be worked out between screens big and small:
“At some point, I hope [to make a “Family Guy” movie,] he insisted. “The trick is to find a way to do it and do the series a the same time. That’s almost impossible and I think that’s why it took ‘The Simpsons’ twenty years. Hopefully it’s sooner rather than later.”
THE GAME is probably the worst show I’ve had to endure watching in a while. I am pretty sure that lame CAVEMEN show is going to have something on THE GAME. Without killing the entire show in the first paragraph I guess I’ll get to the point. THE GAME is a spinoff from the show GIRLFRIENDS. Too bad I have never even heard of that show and have just decided it never deserved a spinoff. I am not even sure who’s watching this stuff but they all deserve a lobotomy. The end of last season (how this show got the ok for a second season I will never know) Derwin (Pooch Hall) got outed for sleeping with some skeez thereby destroying his relationship with Melanie (Tia Mowry).
Melanie loses her mind. That is the best way I can explain it. Just short of setting a hotel on fire Melanie yells at everyone she has ever met and then crashes the car that Derwin bought her. Hell hath no fury….right? Anyways, through some of the worst overacting I have encountered since the late night skin flicks on Skinemax, Melanie aka. Mel goes to confront her friends over the fact that no one told her that her boyfriend was a philanderer. She uses her power as the hurt and neglected woman to manipulate her friends into going to the apartment she shared with Derwin and collecting her stuff. Fellow footballer mother & wife, Tasha Mack & Kelly Pitts (Wendy Raquel Robinson & Brittany Daniels respectively) agree to retrieve Mel’s belongings as it’s the least they can do since they’ve basically been the worst friends on the planet.
Imagine your lowest social moment in high school. Now multiply that by fifty-thousand and you have the basic social standing for Justin (Dan Byrd) our tragic protagonist & high school junior. The problem with Justin is his unflagging hope to end his run as the school dork. His mother, Franny (Amy Pietz), perpetuates this problem by falsely building up her son’s ego.
The first day of Justin’s junior year of high school things appear to be working out. He avoids the ritualistic beating, he’s invited to join the conversation going on in the locker room (even if it’s about how someone slept with his sister), and he’s placed on the Senior’s Ten Most Bangable Girls list. This nomination solidifies the end to any hope he’d have at being anything other than the class joke.
His sister Claire takes the third place spot on the list, and after his mother complains to the guidance counselor Justin moves from eighth place to sixth. If there was ever any hope for his social life it was fleeing from Justin’s grasp at warp speed. During a conference with Justin’s high school counselor his parents are talked into becoming a host family for an exchange student. It will give Justin someone to bond with and revive his public persona.
Out here in viewer’s paradise, we left the Caffee brother’s in a dither at the end of last season. Michael (Jason Issacs) had been bludgeoned by longtime friend & police officer Declan Giggs (Ethan Embry). Tommy Caffee (Jason Clarke), Michel’s brother, was confronted with the problems in his marriage & the worsening of the relationship he has with his wife. Michael barely escapes the attack with his life and like we’ve come to expect things are neither good nor bad for the Caffee family, only crappy with a side of potential danger.
The show starts with Tommy working on flipping a house. He swings a sledgehammer and visualizes his wife cavorting with her dead, former flame, Carl Hobbs. Next we find Michael in a doctors office, big brother is watching him struggle with a puzzle that most autistic kids could do with ease. Poor Michael, he’s turned into Lenny from John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice & Men. The doctor says that Michael has cognitive damage that may or may not go away with therapy and time. Gee wiz, thanks for the assurance, he will either get better or he won’t. I guess I should be considered an M.D. also.
While all of this is going on Tommy spends the episode dealing with a bribery investigation being handled by the U.S Attorney’s Office and giving his wife, Eileen (Annabeth Gish), a really hard time about being a whore. Eileen on the other hand continues on her path of destruction. Turns out the monotony of family life is just too boring for this old minx. We find her sitting on the floor of her house smoking a joint after throwing around all of Tommy’s laundry. What a gem. Later on, she runs into Carl’s widow and begins to befriend her. Way to go slut bag, you only destroyed her life and now you want to suck her into your hellish vortex. I guess that’s what friends are for.