“We’re Not Working with Anybody, Ever, Anymore!”

November 22nd, 2009

When we get this close to the end of The Amazing Race, the show’s interest in its characters begins to shift. At certain points, the show allows the racers to appear as comrades, laughing together and competing against the race itself more against each other. However, by the time you get to the final four teams, the show wants every chance to pit the teams against one another in a fight to get to the end, trying to breed the sort of competitive fire that you want to see at this stage in the game.

And while most of the google hits from last week’s post seemed to indicate that the biggest piece of news from the leg was crotch censorship, the real story was the way the producers turned Dan and Flight Time’s altercation into a sign that, from this point forward, things are personal. In reality, the clip was only really edited this way (Big Easy clarified, as they did at the start of this leg, that they had no personal vendetta), but what it does signal is that all bets are officially off.

And this week, as the teams head to the Czech Republic, we realize that this season these teams are perfectly built in order to enter into this competitive stage. There is no team in this race that is what one would call a “feel good” team, and the result is that we’re effectively watching to see how well these teams are able to embrace this competitive spirit. And while this might not fit into a narrative of personal achievement or self-realization, it does fit into what makes these final legs of the race suspenseful: all of these teams are both ultimately capable of being competitive (athletic and strong-minded), but they also tend to create an enormous amount of drama in the process.

As someone who likes this competitive side of the race, I’m pleased by this, but I can see how someone looking for more of a fan favourite finish to the race may be disappointed.

Some of my favourite moments on the race are those where a team becomes divided on an issue as integral to the race as competition. You start to see how people choose to ignore certain realities (like, say, teams not losing sleep over taking someone’s taxi in a race for a million dollars) in an effort to rationalize this crazy process: at this point, they’re suffering from killer fatigue, someone like Brian actually expects that Sam and Dan should apologize to him for stealing a taxi. Perhaps months later, as they share a lunch over all their adventures around the world, they can get together and clear the air, but in the context of the race this behaviour would make no sense.

But it’s the sort of behaviour that emerges when you have teams interacting with one another as the race gets more competitive. Meghan and Cheyne get into a fairly heated argument over whether or not they treated the Globetrotters poorly after the detour, and you can sense that the two are thinking about this race very differently. Meghan is thinking in the short term, feeling that they agreed to work with the Globetrotters and they should continue honouring that agreement. However, Cheyne is thinking in the big picture, believing that the Globetrotters could have just as easily taken the taxi, and that any advantage is a key to staying in the lead and staying in the race. Perhaps not surprisingly, Cheyne is in the right here: heck, if Meghan was able to see what we saw, she would know that the Globetrotters have intended to simply follow Meghan and Cheyne anyways before they agreed to work together, so this isn’t exactly some sort of long-term alliance that both teams are really devoted to. So much of the sense of an “alliance” on the race is convenience, whether in the form of a calculator or in the form of someone who has directions from a local, so to expect those sorts of relationships to remain sacred is inherently false.

Brian and Ericka’s beef with Sam and Dan is even more intriguing when you consider that, when Brian and Ericka are eventually spared by a non-elimination leg (get to that in a minute), Brian argues that he is out to prove that you can win this race honestly. This is noble, certainly, and makes for a nice sort of “good vs. evil” narrative for the show’s producers, but it’s also something that ignores the balance of the material (the million dollar cash prize) and the immaterial (personal satisfaction) that exists in the race. There is no one way to win the race, and in some instances dishonesty has triumphed over honesty, just as blind luck has triumphed over skill. While the taxi theft is something the producers like to be able to build up to create tension between the teams, it’s less about the tension between individuals and more the tension between competitive and non-competitive within each individual racer, within each team, and in the teams’ relationships with one another.

So I love moments like Cheyne losing his temper (and dropping an f-bomb) with Meghan over her conscience getting the best of her, or Ericka proving the voice of reason by pointing out that Sam and Dan aren’t likely detouring to the nearest confessional to wipe away their sin. As the teams begin to grow more and more competitive (with the finish line growing closer in each leg), they begin to either buy into the sense that this is a race or resist turning into “one of those racers” and losing some sense of their humanity in the process.

And one of the things that has been so interesting about the Globetrotters is that they don’t seem to care about any of this. Yes, this is a team that wants to win, but I don’t think that Flight Time was purposefully slowing down Meghan and Cheyne at the Detour. Sure, I may be naive for believing him to be telling the truth, but to this point in the race they’ve shown no sense of being coy with their strategy: while Meghan and Cheyne briefly plot to mislead other teams about what the “Vintage Praga” might be, Flight Time and Big Easy are more blatant when they try to “game the game.” You notice that they never debate about whether or not they should be competitive because they’ve always agreed: this is a game, and they want to win, whether it means freaking out a terrified southern belle in water wings or getting into a physical confrontation of sorts on a boggy boardwalk.

I guess it’s no surprise that players on a team that never loses are willing to be competitive to keep from losing, but I think it’s the kind of attitude that the other racers seem more reticent to employ. Sam (who initially insisted “No, we can’t” when Dan suggested they bribe Brian and Ericka’s cabbie), Brian and Meghan all tend to resist these attempts at being cutthroat or competitive, which creates tension in a way that doesn’t seem to exist between Flight Time and Big Easy. And while it’s true that competition between the teams can create plenty of tension this late in the race, like Big Easy nearly throwing a guitar at Meghan for yelling “Cheyne!” in the opera house, it is the tension between racers that will eventually bring you down. And while Meghan and Cheyne argued in the cab, and Ericka’s attitude has proven difficult in the past despite Brian’s supportive stance, and Dan and Sam had a hay bale-style meltdown on the rapids, the Globetrotters have stuck together through both stupidity (the briefcase in Dubai) and sloth (Big Easy in this Detour) in a way that could take them a long way.

As for the leg beyond this particular theme, though, it was actually pretty much killed by the non-elimination. I distinctly remember them saying that all but two legs were non-elimination earlier in the season, but I likely misheard; accordingly, Brian and Ericka earn their third life (they would have been eliminated in Holland too, if not for Tiffany/Maria’s struggles) and live to fight another die, which sort of flies in the face of the spirit of competition. In the case of the Hay Bales, where Gary and Matt were saved just two weeks ago, I thought it worked because of how much that Roadblock inspired a sense of personal achievement that could be celebrated by being saved. Here, though, Brian and Ericka made a critical mistake inspired by an effort to be more competitive (taking the train/subway as opposed to a cab to the first clue in Prague), and it put them behind for the rest of the leg – there’s nothing unfair about this, so there’s something dissatisfying about them remaining for another week.

Personally, I like these kinds of episodes because they’re a sort of psychological experiment, but I can see how they might not be quite as engaging for some viewers. There’s no one left that you can really root for unconditionally, and that’s an integral narrative for some viewers. What will be interesting is seeing what happens next week when we really do get down to the Final Three, and we see whether Meghan and Cheyne’s domination to this point can extend into a finale regardless of their competitors. This won’t be the most emotional of conclusions, but I think that there’s a chance for a real race to be had here, and personally that’s all I hope for in the end.

Cultural Observations

• I also hope for teams that are capable of creating some enjoyable comedy, which Flight Time (and his graceful dance moves and operatic serenade) and Sam (who knew the Opera in question, and who was hilariously humming it in the taxi as they drove to the pit stop) are able to offer. Brian and Ericka are also capable of this, don’t get me wrong, but they were a bit tied up with the competitive side of things this week.
• In case it’s confusing to have this as Episode 10, when it’s likely labeled as Episode 9 in some circles, the two-hour finale threw things off, so this is technically the 10th leg.
• Always fun to see how the times work out when the teams leave the pit stop: while last week’s editing indicated that Brian and Ericka were fairly far behind the front teams, they were actually right on top of the Globetrotters (and were likely just out of the camera shot when they went wide on the showdown between the Globetrotters and the brothers).
• The Don Giovanni challenge felt like it was trying to create a memorable character in the laughing opera singer who insulted the contestants when they brought him guitars and instruments which clearly do not qualify as “tiny,” but I don’t think it really worked. The show is best when its hilarious facilitators are inadvertently hilarious.
• And, maybe it’s just me personally, but I’d much rather have a final leg with no team I hate than one where there are teams that I both love and hate: whoever wins this race, I don’t think they’ll be an undeserving or dissatisfying winner, which is better than if that remains a possibility even with one team I enjoy still in the running.
• Thank you, Amazing Race, for no more crotch censorship.

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Episode Synopsis : As Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s pass, Miranda gets a visit from her father, William who disapproves of her choices in life. Mark and Lexie cope with an arrival of a woman from his past.  Thatcher questions the Chief’s recent behavior as Meredith comes to his defense.

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Episode Synopsis : Sam, Dean and Castiel track down the Colt and head off to find Lucifer to send him back to Hell. It’s a hunters’ reunion when the crew joins forces with Bobby, Ellen and Jo for what could be their last night on Earth.

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Episode Synopsis : Mr. Schuester has the Glee Club split up into pairs to sing their favorite ballad, but when one kid gets sick, he’s forced to step in and winds up in a sticky situation. Meanwhile, Finn has dinner with Quinn’s parents.

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This last scene from episode 10 actually made me tear, not just because it is an awesome version of the famous ‘Lean On Me’, but also because I realized that your friends and family will always be there no matter what happens.

***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS***

After last week’s abysmal episode, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is back in top form with “The D.E.N.N.I.S. System.”

In this episode, Dennis explains to the gang his method for female seduction, a method called “D.E.N.N.I.S.”  The system, although hilarious, is something douchebags would use; we all know that Dennis is a douchebag, so it is quite fitting. After learning about D.E.N.N.I.S, each character tries to replicate the system, with great comedic results.

I found myself laughing the most in this episode, moreso than “The Waitress is Getting Married,” an episode I raved about. As said above, the D.E.N.N.I.S. method of seduction is devilishly funny. The characters make the method even more humorous because their attempts to use it are desperate; Sweet Dee tries to use it against her soldier boyfriend from “The Gang Wrestles for the Troops,” and Charlie attempts to use it on the Waitress.

Speaking of the characters, they are all in top form, though this time Dennis stands out amongst them all. I have been waiting for an episode where Dennis trumps everyone else and this is it. Frank is quite awesome here as well. He starts out in the background but comes into focus as the episode progresses. Charlie is once again underutilized, and it is sad because I really miss him; he could have been given so much more to do in the episode. Mac and Deandra are both equally mediocre; I do not think Kaitlin Olson will be a standout again this season.

“The D.E.N.N.I.S. System” marks the sixth episode in the season that I like, making this an average season. This is currently not good enough for me to want to purchase the season when it comes out on DVD, but if the next two episodes are great, I may end up doing just that.

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Episode Synopsis : Mr. Schuester has the Glee Club split up into pairs to sing their favorite ballad, but when one kid gets sick, he’s forced to step in and winds up in a  sticky situation. Meanwhile, Finn has dinner with Quinn’s parents.

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Episode Synopsis : Annie leaves Debbie and Harry surprised when she informs them that she would like to invite Jasper over for dinner. Dixon decides to pass on the event as a result of his anger over Debbie’s management of the Sasha situation. Meanwhile, Kelly shows support for Silver regarding the caring of Jackie despite the fact that she does not yet know if she can ultimately forgive her mother for all the pain she has caused in the past. Navid confronts Adrianna about her drug use, and a weekend camping trip leads to Ryan and Jen’s relationship climbing to
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Breaking Bad : Season 2 : Episode 10: “Over”

Walt investigates the water heater.

With a little down-time, Walt embarks on some home improvement and Worst Role Model projects. In this post, I’ll be talking about safety matches.

You can read more about this episode at AMC, IMDb and the A.V. Club.

Random thoughts

When Walt is extolling the virtues of the new water heater to Walt Jr, he says that it’s “117,000 BTUs.” The British thermal unit is an older unit of energy that has now been effectively replaced by the joule.

When Walt was walking away from the would-be-meth-cooker’s abandoned equipment, I was certain that he’d mutter “amateur” under his breath.

Phosphorous in matches

Our uninformed cooks are buying matches for a source of red phosphorous, which is required in the red, white and blue process to convert (pseudo)ephedrine to methamphetamine. Walt points out that they need the striker strips rather than the match heads – “strike-anywhere” matches do contain phosphorous, but the safety matches that are more or less ubiquitous these days do not. The dangerous components are segregated into the strips and heads, which means that matches cannot ignite by accident (e.g. on cowboy stubble).

Matches are (intentionally) ignited through friction – dragging the head against a rough surface generates enough heat to convert some red phosphorous (in the striker strip) into highly reactive white phosphorous, which then ignites upon contact with the air. This additional heat is enough to decompose an oxidising agent in the match head (usually potassium chlorate), releasing oxygen. The oxygen-rich atmosphere around the match head plus the heat from the white phosphorous are enough to ignite the main component (sulfur), which burns for long enough to set the wooden matchstick alight. The characteristic smell of a burning match is caused by sulfur dioxide, with perhaps a dash of carbon (soot) and phosphorous pentoxide.

Elements in the credits

I’m not sure why Michael Slovis wasn’t assigned iodine (I), carbon (C), hydrogen (H), sulfur (S), oxygen (O) or vanadium (V).

Tracks:

01-(You’re) Having My Baby
02-Crush
03-Don’t Stand So Close to Me – Young Girl
04-Endless Love
05-I’ll Stand By You

(TORRENT DOWNLOAD)

“Ballad”

November 18th, 2009

If you were to go back to the pilot, you would believe that Rachel Berry was the heart and soul of Glee. At that point, she was the person who most believed in Glee club, who saw it as the only place where she wasn’t the subject of ridicule and where she could express herself in the way she most desired.

But since that point, Rachel has become almost heartless. She turned her back on Glee club to join Sandy Ryerson’s musical, and she’s generally judgmental and frustrating before she’s caring or supportive. And yet, because Rachel is the strongest soloist (only Mercedes) on Glee, she’s remained at the centre of storylines and the club itself even while she seems convinced it’s actually holding her back from something better. It’s created a scenario where Rachel isn’t actually likeable, which is somewhat problematic if she’s supposed to be our heroine.

“Ballad” is a continuation of this theme, as a Glee Club exercise has everyone singing emotional ballads that bring out their deepest insecurities (in pretty uniformly effective ways) while Rachel is stuck in a “Hot for Teacher” scenario that never successfully bridges the comic and the dramatic (tears aside). I’m all for the show integrating more comedy than last week’s more emotional episode, and parts of this week’s entry nicely balance the two even with a lot of musical numbers involved, but Rachel’s storyline is effectively emotion-free, something that’s going to grow more and more problematic as we move forward.

There’s a moment at the end of Rachel’s storyline where Susie Pepper (played with verve by Sarah Drew) tells it like it is to Rachel, arguing that her crush on Will is all an attempt to boost her deflated self esteem. In that moment the episode tries to argue that Rachel’s craziness is, in fact, character development, and that all of her mean-spirited behaviour and insanity should be viewed as self doubt and insecurity. However, one of the problems that Glee has is that it sometimes goes too far with its comedy for me to buy such a tidy conclusion: while other characters in the episode get detailed sequences where they are able to confide in friends or confront their families about their problems, Rachel is left to be psycho-analyzed by a crazy girl caricature. Glee is fully capable of earning substantial character development with these teenagers, but tacking on rushed self-realization to an almost farcical story isn’t cutting it.

It’s not that dissimilar, in some ways, to what Brad Falchuk (who wrote and directed the episode) did with “The Rhodes Not Taken,” which introduced April Rhodes as a sort of “Look what Rachel could become in the future” story. Even there, though, Falchuk didn’t seem to know how to really connect the two characters through anything but song, and here the connection between Susie Pepper and Rachel never really goes beyond their shared insanity. Rachel has yet to have a legitimate personal connection with any character but Finn on this show, and it’s turning her into an island. I thought that Lea Michele did a great job with the comic elements of this week’s story, especially her “performance” during “Endless Love” as she descended into crazy eyes in a slow and hilarious fashion. And she also nailed the emotional moment she was given with Will at the end, so it’s not as if there was an issue of execution here. Instead, it was simply that the rest of the episode around her had emotional moments that felt infinitely more genuine, and which the show took infinitely more seriously, creating a gap that the vanity of both this week’s episode and the Rachel of previous weeks kept her from overcoming.

The real problem, of course, is how strong the material was for the other major storyline of the episode, as Quinn and Finn end up telling their respective parents that they’re having a baby in highly inappropriate ways. The show struggled a bit here, too, in terms of balancing comedy and drama, considering that Finn singing to a sonogram was enormously creepy and Finn announcing her pregnancy at the dinner table in front of her paranoid parents was the sort of inappropriate thing that even Finn, who has been labeled stupid by the show, should have realized was a terrible, terrible idea. And yet, the difference between this story and the Rachel story is that the emotional conclusion felt earned, delivered with both subtle acceptance (Finn’s mother) and outright rage (Quinn’s father).

The scene with Finn and Quinn sitting there as her father berates them was a powerhouse piece of acting from Dianna Agron, who has really come into her own once they got her out of the cheerleading uniform. Gregg Henry was bringing everything he had as her unaccepting father, the Indians game story all but ripping Quinn’s heart out, and Quinn giving it right back and attacking her Mother for not saying something even when she clearly knew something was up was effective and powerful. While some criticized the show for becoming too dramatic last week, and for falling too heavily into melodramatic storylines like “Fake Baby” and “Not Really Finn’s Baby,” these are the sorts of scenes that remind you that the show is fully capable of delivering on the dramatic storylines when it wants to. While the hyperactive nature of the universe meant that the scene was a bit shinier and glossier, the quality of the scene was closer to something like Friday Night Lights than it was to something schlockier, and that’s obviously a high compliment.

I also thought this storyline was solid because it never stopped being comic leading up to that moment. While the “Fake Baby” scenario has all but poisoned Terri as a character (the one mention we got of it here made me shiver), this storyline has brought out some great shades of Quinn and Finn both. When Finn goes into the bathroom to call Kurt to figure out what he should do, and he ends the call quickly because “they’ll think I’m pooping,” it’s a funny line that immediately moves into a more dramatic sequence. While Rachel’s character has lost its heart, a character like Finn has been able to remain charming through his naivete and relative stupidity, and there’s never a doubt that he is being earnest with his efforts to provide for Quinn and this child (even if he should be less earnest when singing to Sonograms – seriously, creeped me the hell out). And while Quinn may have started out as a cold-hearted cheerleader, moments like last week’s flirtation with Puck and this week’s scene with her Mother have made her arguably an even warmer character than Rachel, even with her angry side. These two are trapped in what could be a downright terrible storyline, but “Ballad” shows that the writers aren’t interested in delaying the inevitable (informing the parents sooner rather than later) and making the same mistakes they made with Terri’s fake baby.

In terms of the other storylines running throughout the episode, I thought that Puck telling Mercedes about being the father of the baby was an intriguing moment, if only because it throws another secret into the mix and it starts to involve characters who aren’t pregnant/virile into the whole mess. However, as much as I enjoy the general principle of adding new characters into the storyline to make it more relevant, I will admit that Kurt’s love affair with Finn is sort of fizzling out for me. Yes, Kurt had some great one-liners, and the idea of him flirting with Finn (and Finn not really knowing what to do with it) is funny, but to have him legitimately fall in love with him (which is only going to end in heartbreak) is pretty much the same as Rachel falling in love with Will, and yet the show treats one as crazy and the other as almost romantic.

I think Kurt deserves to find love, but the show placing Kurt in the On Deck circle waiting for Quinn to strike out creates the sort of scenario that feels like a waste of the character (kind of like Mercedes convincing herself that she was in love with Kurt, for that matter). The show needs to introduce another gay character into the mix so that Kurt can truly fall in love, as pining after a straight dude is funny when it’s played for comedy but less productive when played for drama. On the other hand, conversely, Puck’s little moment singing to Quinn at the end is the sort of relationship that’s great to have under the surface because the romantic tension is both dramatic (the love triangle) and legitimate (as seen in last week’s food fight). I don’t see why Finn and Kurt can’t just be friends, as it maintains great scenes like Kurt helping Finn pick a song or a suit but without the futile romantic undertones. The scene in Finn’s basement was about two people bonding over parents who left them, and it reminded us that Finn needs a father right now, and that Kurt can relate to the loss of a parent and what that means for them. To add the awkward touching to the scene isn’t serving any real purpose, and if anything strains their charming and enjoyable friendship in a way which complicates without improving.

And while that covers most of the character notes, I want to talk about the rather extensive use of music in the episode. “Lean on Me” fits into the usual pattern of an uplifting final song bringing all of the other characters together (See “Somebody to Love,” “Keep Me Holding On,” “Proud Mary,” etc.), but many others were played out within the context of the episode itself. Turning the music into a sort of Glee Club homework assignment didn’t work as well in “Vitamin D,” where it seemed to overcomplicate the episode, but here the episode used “Endless Love” to start the Rachel/Will storyline and then complicated it with the “Young Girl/Don’t Stand So Close To Me” mashup, while using “I’ll Stand By You” and “(You’re) Having My Baby” to give Finn a voice in the episode. Overall, the music was a nice thematic fit for the various sequences, although I have two nitpicks.

First, I’m tired of mashups: they’re not nearly as great as the show things they are, and while they’re almost always well put together I’d have much rather had Will just sing “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” for the sake of the show resisting the Mashup trend. Second, and more problematically, the overproduction of the numbers got in the way here. It’s one thing when it’s the entire Glee Club performing “Lean on Me,” or something taking place in an auditorium (or meant to be played up as dramatic like “Endless Love”). But Finn’s performance in front of Quinn’s parents would have been far more genuine if he had been singing it live, with imperfections and nervousness and actual character. The production effectively strips the character out of these numbers, and while Matthew Morrison, Lea Michele and extensive voiceover work made “Endless Love” more personal, Finn had none of the same and I thought the number was weak as a result. The show would be infinitely more effective if it started to differentiate between these elements, as it would make both types of performance stand out that much more.

Overall, though, a solid episode: it has the trademark unevenness in places, sure, but it was inoffensive in terms of the problematic storylines and had a number of strong dramatic storylines while not failing to bring the funny either (I’ll get to jokes in the bullets).

Cultural Observations

• An entire episode without Sue Sylvester, which was good for the sake of the episode (she wasn’t needed), but always a bit of a disappointment.
• However, Brittany has really developed into a great comic talent. There was nothing elegant about Brittany’s jokes in the opening sequence, but her belief that “ballad” was a word for a male duck (that’s a mallard, Brittany) was really just a bit of foreshadowing for her hushed “I bet the duck’s in the hat” when Will goes to draw names. Just a really fun little comic bit, and the kind of clever humour I like the see the show go for over broader comedy.
• Charlotte Ross and Gregg Henry were great casting for Quinn’s parents, as was Sarah Drew for Susie Pepper – part of me feels as if Glee could pull a Freaks and Geeks/Friday Night Lights and pick up an Emmy for Best Casting, as it’s really been across the board great (plus the casting agents are always given credit for finding good young talent).
• Both Terri and Emma had hints of their past storylines with Will in the episode (Terri’s bloody puss evasion, and Emma being just as sucked in by Will’s song and dance as Rachel was), but the episode wasn’t about them and so it didn’t bother going into them. This is a good development, as Jayma Mays was allowed to remain charming without being turned into a homewrecker and there were even a few moments where I remembered how potentially interesting Terri was (being crazy but in an ultimately sane way) before the hysterical pregnancy.
• I saw a few people on Twitter mention this, but the cameraman during the dinner table sequence at Quinn’s house was having a seizure: the show’s had some bad shaky cam in the past, but this was perhaps the worst we’ve seen, and it made no sense in the context of the scene. I know I compared it to Friday Night Lights above, but this is not actually that show, and it doesn’t work for me.

Have You Seen Heroes: Season 4 Episode 10 – Chapter Nine 'Brother's Keeper'?

Episode Synopsis:

Samuel learns just how powerful he can become and takes dangerous measures to reach his full potential. Meanwhile, as Tracy begins to lose control of her ability, one of her own comes in harms way.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Heroes: Season 3 Episode 10 – Chapter Ten 'The Eclipse Part 1'?

Episode Synopsis:

Having reestablished control over the Company, Angela sends Nathan and Peter to Hatai to find the power-suppressing Hatian to bring him back to the USA to help in their fight against Arthur Petrelli and the evil Pinehurst. Hiro and Ando travel to New York to come back into the fold and ask for Parkman’s help. Hiro, having lost part of his mind, but not his powers, teleports himself, Ando and Parkman to Kansas to Daphine’s home to find out what Mr. Petrelli has on her. Also, Sylar teams up with Elle to try to capture Clare to bring her to Pinehurst to give her to Suresh to experiment on as the missing catalyst to the formula. But everything changes when a prolonged solar eclipse happens, which renders the heroes and villains powerless, stranding Peter and Nathan in Haiti with the Hatian who is trying to capture the powerful Voodoo witchdoctor Baron Samedi. In Kansas, Parkman must find a way into the Millbrook house without his mind-reading powers, and learns what Daphine is without her super-speed powers. In California, the powerless Elle and Syler try to capture Clare, who accidentally gets shot, and Nathan seeks revenge.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Heroes: Season 2 Episode 10 – Chapter Ten: Truth & Consequences?

Episode Synopsis:

Peter Petrelli and Adam Monroe track down another founding member of the Company and learn the location of virus 183. Maya learns how to control her powers but Alejandro’ distrust of Sylar leads to a deadly confrontation. Niki returns to New Orleans and tells Micah about her medical condition. When his backpack is stolen, Micah and Monica set off to retrieve it, but things don’t work out as planned. Hiro decides to avenge his father’s death and goes after Adam. Claire, grieving over her father’s death, decides to go public with her powers in a bid to stop the Company.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Heroes: Season 1 Episode 10 – Chapter Ten 'Six Months Ago'?

Episode Synopsis:

Claire Bennett is at home reading when the cheer leading captain walk in with a uniform and informs Claire that another cheerleader dropped out and the spot is hers if she wants it. Hiro Nakamura has traveled back in time to the Texas diner but realize he can’t after she tells him she has a terminal disease. Nathan Petrelli and Peter Petrelli are preparing to take down their dad D.L. Hawkins and Niki Sanders are newly weds. Chandra Suresh has come to America to find and contact the people he thinks have taken an evolutionarily step. Sylar is the first but doesn’t appear to have extraordinarily powers but then has the power to move things with his mind after he invites and kill another person on Chandra’s list and then goes back to Chandra

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

“Murder”

November 12th, 2009

The best thing about The Office is that its silliest episodes can sometimes be its most effective. An episode like “Cafe Disco” last season was the perfect way to break through the tension of the Michael Scott Paper Company period, devolving into a dance party that helped to bring everyone back together albeit through a less than serious structure. While the show can go off the rails if things become too silly, there is something very honest about situations where the silliness is the result of a human response to a crisis, or to a period of tension. Michael Scott is not the only person in the world who doesn’t like tense situations, although he may be the only one who decides to turn his office into a dance party or, as we see in “Murder,” the scene of a vicious murder.

What makes the episode work is that it continues a couple of ongoing character trends (Jim slowly turning into Michael, Andy’s interest in Erin) in an episode that otherwise devolves into the office’s crazier characters overacting their way through a murder mystery in a box while the rest of the characters contemplate some major financial restructuring. It’s a good introduction to what seems like the next major arc for the series, and I think it’s an effective piece of television comedy in the process.

I want to start off by acknowledging that anybody not charmed by Ed Helms in this episode is simply immune to charm. Andy in a relationship with Angela was ultimately a mistake because she is insufferable and he is earnest, to the point where the relationship was destructive to a character that I genuinely like (Dwight and Angela worked because Dwight suffering has always felt more logical, and the two “deserved” each other to some degree). But now that the show is sweeter on Andy, albeit not afraid to make him creepy (See: touching Pam’s stomach), it makes more sense for him to go after someone like Erin in a way that is sort of allowing the show to pretend like we saw the first days of Jim and Pam’s flirtations, except with both characters being a bit more off kilter. I also like that the episode does give us both sides of the relationship, as we see Andy’s anxiety for most of the episode before revealing that we could have just as easily seen Erin’s anxiety throughout. Ellie Kemper broke my heart in the scene where she tells us she thought it was a real date, and that’s stunning for an episode that had characters talking in terrible southern accents for most of its run time.

Similarly, despite the overall zaniness, I thought that the Jim and Michael side of this story hit home pretty well. While this isn’t quite “Tube City,” it is an example of Michael going for the fun over the practical, although Jim once again sees that there is some logic to his argument. He argues that it was a good day for there to be two managers, and I think the episode only worked because of it. Part of what frustrates Jim about Michael is how selfish some of his ideas are, and there was a moment here where (when defending the murder mystery) Michael became overly emotional and more or less admitted that it is more he than the office who needs this. It’s why he falls further into the delusion when David Wallace does eventually call (although, to Michael’s credit, he did call him in the first place), and it’s why Jim eventually withholds the information regarding the company’s insolvency. He knows that the office wouldn’t be able to take that sort of news, and that the game (for all of its silliness) might be the only way to get through this day. Some have argued that this storyline is the show preparing for Steve Carell’s exit from the series, letting Jim learn from Michael’s successes and failures, and while I don’t think Carell will leave the show so soon (his movie career hasn’t suffered due to being busy on the show, it’s suffered due to bad movies) I do think that it’s really getting the most out of the dual-manager system.

Otherwise, I thought this one was a lot of fun if not a lot of substance. I’ve done these murder mysteries before, and it is only really fun when everyone gets involved, so seeing montages like Dwight accusing everyone before eventually deciding it’s Phyllis (which is right) because she is who he is most medium suspects is just plain funny. I also liked seeing how Pam, who Jenna Fischer did a great job turning into a cranky opponent of Michael in the past few episodes, transitioned back into a supportive role, playing along before anyone else and then quite wonderfully becoming part of the double agent gun fight in the episode’s coda. I thought the episode did a great job of breaking down the bigger pieces of news with humour, like Oscar being forced to use a terrible southern belle accent to try to explain cash flow problems – it never seemed like it was reducing the importance of those emails and the reality of Dunder Mifflin’s financial scenario, but it also never got bogged down by them either.

As for those problems, we’ll see where they go from there: the show has not been avoiding the recession, as branches have been closed and jobs have been lost, but for the entire company to be in this position is something that raises a lot more questions. We know that Scranton as a branch has been performing well, but having two managers seems frivolous and this certainly does place Michael’s job (as a potentially unnecessary bureaucracy) in jeopardy. This was a good way to ease into the storyline with a bit of humour, so I’m pleased to wait and see what the show has to offer from here on out.

Cultural Observations

• In an ideal world, Dwight would have had some emotional component in this one, because Rainn Wilson was pretty great throughout: I particularly enjoyed the cold open, which is a very simple joke (Dwight attacking Dwight) that was just played really well.
• I am enjoying the fact that Ryan’s weird fashion choices has become an unspoken joke for the show and all, but isn’t it about time we bumped him from the credits? I don’t dislike B.J. Novak or anything, but it’s getting obnoxious.
• I thought that Creed’s late arrival, and his quick exit when he thinks he was really under suspicion of murder, was almost too rote a Creed joke: I knew how it would go as soon as he drew up, and not necessarily in a good way.

“Balm”

November 10th, 2009

I don’t need to tell you that “Balm” was an exceptional hour plus of television: for about two weeks, critics have been waxing poetic about how this could be the show’s defining moment, and how this is the episode that raises Sons of Anarchy from the upper echelon of television drama to the upper upper echelon of television drama. The result is that Sepinwall, Fienberg, Ryan, Poniewozik and every other critic under the sun have already made their position extremely clear, to the point where I don’t really have much to add in terms of singing its praises.

However, that’s never particularly stopped me before, so I still want to talk about how great this episode is, or, more accurately, why this episode manages to be great despite some significant challenges. This is an episode which builds its tension around an action that before last week was almost entirely foreign to its audience (at least those with no deeper knowledge of MCs than what the show offers) and that creates an emotional climax you can see coming by the time the episode gets going, and yet manages to pull it off so brilliantly that it’s as if we as viewers have always known what ”going Nomad” refers to and that we could never have expected the kind of emotion the episode’s final moments bring.

It’s an episode that turns the viewer into an active participant in the lives of each and every single character, to the point where we are sitting at the dinner table with the characters in that final scene and responding as they are to the news being delivered.

And that’s some damn fine television.

The strategy of this episode is as elegant as the rest of the episode, really. After last week’s ending, the show has is forced to problematize “going Nomad” to the point where the eventual decision to allow Jax to leave the charter becomes painful for us to watch. We already know that Jax has good reason to hate Clay, and that while Jax is wrong to presume Clay was behind the warehouse attack his logic of leaving the club in order to avoid the larger blowup between the two men is not without merit. What the episode needs to establish, then, is why going Nomad is something that could tear this club apart, and more importantly something that will eventually drive Gemma to speak the truth regarding her horrific experience at the hands of the League of American Nationalists.

The episode achieves this through a calculated strategy of reintroducing characters that we haven’t seen active for a while to remind us what a charter truly means, and what Jax is giving up (or giving up on) to become a Nomad. We get his conversation with Piney, who feels as if Jax’s decision to leave the club puts any and all efforts to gain revenge on Clay and Tig for killing Donna on ice, which is followed by having to break the news to Chibbs who sees the Sons as his only family (albeit I’ll get to his story in a moment) and can’t imagine leaving it. While telling someone like Tara the news gets only confusion and uncertainty, and eventually trust in his judgment, when he tells Juice he gets an emotional plea. The Juice sequence was perhaps my favourite of these visits because of how earnest he was: he was once a prospect, and he repeats to Jax the words that he told him when he recruited him (or something of the sorts) in order to indicate that the club is what holds you together. Heck, even the dead rise to warn Jax about the consequences of going Nomad, as John Teller’s book features a passage that cites going Nomad as too uncertain for even his restless soul.

It all results in the scene where, as everyone votes around the table, it’s not entirely clear what we’re supposed to want here. What was so interesting about the sequence is that it’s preceded by Jax going to Clay and basically offering him an out: he knows that Clay didn’t burn down the warehouse, so he’s willing to stick around so long as Clay is willing to have him. However, Clay tells Jax straight to his face that he wants him gone, a decision he makes because Jax is a constant challenge to his authority and, more importantly, knows too much that could hurt him. The season has not made it a secret that Clay’s hands will at some point soon keep him off of his bike, and that the power would got to Jax who has made it his mission to get in Clay’s way isn’t something that makes the President very comfortable. Scenes like this one, and the vote which takes place afterwards, take the idea of going Nomad and turn it into a both a referendum on the club’s direction (testing whether anyone is willing to defy Jax’s wish in an effort to keep him around and truly try to fix things) and an interpersonal struggle for Jax.

However, the one person who we are to believe is most able to make a judgment on Jax’s decision is the one person who isn’t sitting in that room voting on it, but instead holds a meeting of her own. Gemma is in a unique position in this way, mother to one and wife to another, and more importantly she is someone who has read John Teller’s book and who understands its message perhaps better than even Jax does. The scene where Gemma tells Jax what she believes John Teller learned in his life is mighty complicated, including an insinuation that John took his own life (which perhaps goes against previous assumptions that Clay might have had some part in his death as well), and is as expected a great piece of acting from Katey Sagal. The message is that Jax is very much like his father, and that his death and his words should serve as a warning to Jax as much as they could serve as a manifesto. The book is of two minds, that’s always been clear, and as Jax tells Piney it’s not exactly what one would call a clear guide to success. However, Gemma points Jax to the passage about going Nomad because it indicates that John, in all of his complications, needed that sense of identity to keep himself sane, just as Jax might well need it to keep himself safe. The reason the book is so disjointed is that for all of his issues with the club, it was something he couldn’t live without, which Gemma believes ultimately tore him apart.

What Gemma ends up doing is heart-wrenching, even if it was easily choreographed from the moment that Gemma started gazing into the distance and talking to Unser about protecting her boys. The predictability should have limited its emotional impact, but Sagal was having none of that, and everything just tore down my defences. There’s a nice irony in the fact that what was supposed to tear the Sons apart has now been deployed at the very time it will bring them back together, but there’s also a tragedy in Gemma having to speak those words and seeing how hard it hits someone like Clay. Gemma realized very quickly that Jax and Clay were missing the big picture, that their squabblings within the club were keeping them from seeing how they could best protect against external threats. The same thing that killed John Teller, she believes, is the same thing that was about to kill Jax and Clay if not for something to bring them together, and as such she sacrifices and tells the tale she, to this point, has told to no one in full. Sagal was amazing in this episode, as she has been all season, but that last season was as much about Hunnam and (especially) Pearlman’s reactions, and they both nailed it.

What’s interesting is that you could argue much of the above wasn’t actually “plot,” per se, which says a lot about the confidence Kurt Sutter and Co. have in the show to be able to do an episode like this late in the season. It was possible not just because of the execution but because we got some forward momentum in Chibbs’ return into the middle of the ATF/IRA battle brewing. Titus Welliver was great as always as the newly arrived IRA bigwig Jimmy O’Flannery, but this was really more about Chibbs than it was about him. Chibbs, we learn, has reason to hold a grudge: Jimmy got him kicked out of the IRA, stole his wife, and raised his daughter as his own. The episode places a lot of discussion on the value of the charter as family, which is especially true for Chibbs since his situation meant that his actual family and his gang family were both taken away from him. However, what we see in “Balm” is Chibbs sensing that his real family has been victimized long enough (especially when Jimmy threatens to take Chibbs and Fiona’s daughter as his new sex toy once Fiona’s looks fully fade away) and turning into a rat in the process. Having Ally Walker back is always welcome, and a circumstance where Chibbs assists the ATF on busting the Irish and Zobell happening just as news of Gemma’s rape breaks is the kind of chaos that the show thrives on.

“Balm” wasn’t some sort of unexpected greatness from this show, as we critics have been praising it since the end of last season, and especially so during the past few months. However, it’s the kind of episode that has never felt quite so integral to the show: in the midst of chaos the episode switched gears to a series of conversations and confrontations that were not so much dramatic as they were emotional, leading to a conclusion that makes us teary-eyed even when we know all of the facts being stated. It’s an episode that takes us so far into this world that we imagine we’re sitting listening to Gemma speak, or sitting at a diner table as Jimmy threatens Chibbs’ daughter, and where we wanted to cast a vote in that meeting as much as some of them didn’t want to cast a vote at all. Just a really fine episode of television, and one which promises greatness yet to come.

Cultural Observations

• I loved the final montage as we panned down from each person as Gemma continued talking. It was a scene that mixed the comic (Prospect helping heal his swollen prosthetic testicle in the mud) with the dramatic (Tig breaking down under the influence of the mushrooms, signalling his inner turmoil over Donna’s death), and was just really evocative and effective. I do have to wonder, though: was the show insinuating that Piney killed himself? It was such a small moment, and without any indication as to its conclusion, that it’s left a dangling thread which could be either followed through on or ignored.
• Tara sure seems kind of uninterested in whether she keeps her job or not, although I don’t blame her for not liking that administrator.
• Speaking of that administrator, she’s effectively playing the same character as Anna Deavere Smith on Nurse Jackie but without the prop comedy.
• And since I wasn’t able to include it within the logic of my opening since he didn’t get the episode early, do check out Zack Handlen’s great review of the episode over at The A.V. Club. It’s down as I post this, but it should be fixed eventually.

Watch Sons of Anarchy Season 2 Episode 10 (S2E10) – online free video stream. You can Watch Sons of Anarchy online Free Streaming Video here. For you that always waiting for this TV show, now the newest episode of this television series has been aired on 10 Nov 2009 (11/10) on FX channel. Title for newest episodes of  Sons of Anarchy Season 2 Episode 10 is : Balm. Don’t worry if you had missed to watch this TV show at the aired date above or outside U.S and can’t watch this TV Series, you can still watch online live streaming video of Sons of Anarchy episode here for free. Taken from updated and working video hosting like Hulu, Sling, Megavideo, Zshare, etc.

Episode Synopsis :
Agent Stahl (Ally Walker) takes notice at the handsome profits SAMCRO is reaping from the repo business. Meanwhile, the Jax- Clay standoff forces Gemma to make a difficult decision.

Don’t miss to watch Sons of Anarchy Season 2 Episode 10 (S02E10)

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 8 Episode 10 – Bride?

Episode Synopsis:

Oliver gets a step closer to finding Lex, but Clark refuses to help for the time being, due to Chloe’s special day, while Lois finds she has special feelings for Clark, who has a surprise waiting (or two) waiting for him at the wedding reception.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 7 Episode 10 – Persona?

Episode Synopsis:

While Clark is still frozen in the fortress, Bizarro grows closer to Lana, who returns the feelings on just as deep a level, even sharing some badly-needed information with him while he still attempts to carry out his intentions of destroying Clark. Lex’s brother, Julian, reveals himself to Lionel in an effort to clear the air between all parties involved.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 6 Episode 10 – Hydro?

Episode Synopsis:

The Daily Planet’s gossip queen Linda Lake uses her ability to transform herself into water to find the dirt on people and run her weekly saucy story, however detrimental for them. After bringing out baseball star Mike Dawson is doped, Lake drags him into a fountain pond staging suicide, which fan Jimmy Olsen convinces Chloe can’t be true. Next Linda overhears Chloe and Lana about her doubts to accepts Lex’s marriage proposal because she is not quit over Clark and prints it, to Lex’s despair and making Clark realize he’s not quit over Lana either. Lex promises Linda any price to find something against Clark, and Chloe has a hard time keeping his being Kryptonian secret, while it makes her furious that people tells her their secrets while complaining when refused another’s secret. When Lois tells Clark she suspects Olliver of being the Green Arrow after seeing he has an arm wound at the same spot, but wants him to be innocent either way, he finds an original way to help both friends while she gets Jimmy to help her set a trap for Ollie. Lex is prepared to wait for his pregnant lover…

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.