New Girl: ‘Menzies’

There was so much going on in this episode that I’m not exactly sure where to start. While I thought this episode was good, it was far from the best work we’ve seen from New Girl and I think that’s because they tried to cram 8 stories into an episode that called for 3 or 4 at the most. Again, I didn’t think any of them were bad but there was no room for any of them to breathe.

Our starting point stems from Jess’ inability to pay the gas bill and triggers Schmidt to turn it off until Jess finds a job and is able to pay for it. So despite having her monthly visitor Jess sets out to interview for being a night school teacher but loses complete control of her emotions the first time around and fails miserably. Later on she gets a pep talk from Nick and goes back in, nails it, and sets up lots of funny potential story lines going forward. However, Jess isn’t the only one who gets a visit as Winston has come down with “male sympathy PMS” and plenty of jokes pop-up because of it. It turned out to be Winston’s way of dealing with his recent breakup but I thought that deserved more than the 4 minutes of screen time it got. Oh well.

Schmidt has his own thing going on at work as his new boss is sex-crazy and definitely feeling the vibe that Schmidt is emitting. He’s forced to sign a contract with her in order to pursue their relationship further and it’s full of insane clauses like “guaranteed mercury poisoning” that Schmidt can expect. Schmidt also gets intertwined into Cece’s fear that Robbie thinks she’s a nice girl, pushing her into the two of them almost hooking up. And thank God Cece didn’t actually cheat on Robbie because I would have felt awful about both hers and Schmidt’s characters going forward for a long time.

Nick’s little adventure with his elderly Asian friend Tram was absolutely amazing though. Tram basically sits there as a sounding board for Nick to come to his own realizations about why he has anger problems and it quickly becomes hilarious to watch Jake Johnson struggle to accept how Tram is so knowledgeable and Zen-like. I really liked this story and I think they had the right amount of it, but overall there was little too much going on everywhere else. But I suppose you’d rather have too many good things than too few so I’m guessing this is just a minor blip in season two for New Girl.

Some of my other favorite moments:

• “I will push if I want to push! I hate doors!” – Nick
• “There’s something real creepy about you pal. You want to get weird, let’s get weird.” – Nick when he is first approached by Tram.
• “I feel like I want to murder someone and also I want soft pretzels.” 

How I Met Your Mother: ‘Splitsville’

Remember when we would have considered this to be the worst episode of How I Met Your Mother ever made as opposed to saying "well at least Barney didn't have a dog for wing-man?" Those were the days. What ticked me off the most about this episode is that not only was it lacking humor, but I was just plain out annoyed by the resolutions we got here as the set ups to them basically either made me dislike the characters or cringe at their wants and desires.

Obviously the biggest problem was the main story where we come to find out that Robin is in a purely sexual relationship with Nick who also is apparently one of the dumbest people on Earth (*). And Robin developing conflicting opinions on whether or not to dump him leads to Barney being required to step in and do the deed by finally declaring to Robin the love he really feels for her. Well, sort of. This has gotten to the point where it’s just down right insulting to the fans of the show. Even if we didn’t know, which by the way they have made it very clear to us that WE KNOW, Robin and Barney are going to end up together, I would still absolutely hate this on again off again story between the two of them. Get it over with, get them together, and let us and them get on with our lives.

(*) Now, if I’m not mistaken, nothing in previews episodes hinted at Nick being unintelligent so this was kind of out blue. I actually thought there was some humor in it, but I wish we had gotten before his final episode.

Oh and over on the Ted, Marshall, and Lily side of things? Well I could see this being a pretty decent side story of an iCarly episode. I mean come on. Radnor, Segel, and Hannigan are all good actors and once upon a time they were casted perfectly for their roles in HIMYM. But they don’t do what some of these recent storylines call for, basically turning them into cartoon characters.

Other favorite moments:

• One. There was only one thing that qualified for my “favorite moments” section and it had nothing to do with a part of the story or a joke. But watching Neil Patrick Harris pretend to eat his Chinese food at the beginning was amazing. And one point he accidentally dropped some chicken from his chopsticks and stared at them like they were defective.

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.

The Walking Dead: ‘Say the Word’

The question coming into ‘Say the Word’ was how would The Walking Dead respond to the crazy, unexpected, triumphant episode we saw last week? And the answer was with an episode that was just kind of there. It wasn’t a bad episode by any means, heck in the context of season two this would have been great, but here we got an episode that was just what it was: an hour of zombie entertainment. The Walking Dead has officially figured out what to do with the show. Obviously after the events of last week if was a necessity to take a breather; so instead of having all the characters stand around and talk about their feelings, we got a zombie slaughter fest and a few good teasers to set up future events.

This episode had a lot of similarities to Lost. Not only in the overall structure of building a low-key episode right after a fast paced one, but there were a couple details that reminded me of that other group of survivors. The first was the weirdness of seeing “normal” life in this show were we’ve become accustomed to seeing brutal incivility. Andrea and Michonne mingling around the quaint town of Woodbury was just like when we first saw “the others” houses for the first time and how incomprehensible it was for us to grasp that this structure was possible in these surroundings. The second was how the episode ended. Lost was the king of doing this: filling an episode with plot devices and just when fans would start to mumble about how “slow” this episode was they would drop a bomb like having a phone mysteriously ring and leave that nugget as a cliffhanger.

I actually really liked the pairing of Darryl and Maggie as they went in search of baby formula for little “Asskicker” as Darryl so fondly named Lori and Rick’s baby. Let’s give some major credit to Darryl too for being the first one to figure out immediately that the newborn will actually need to eat in the near future and taking the initiative to go see if he can find anything. The convenience of finding it was a little ridiculous but I’d rather they get the formula easily than just ignore the issue all together.

Over in Woodbury we got some more weirdness. First the Governor is collecting zombie heads for his own personal aquarium, then we find out he has his very own Life Size Zombie Barbie (from Mattel).  I know that Michonne probably has the right intentions to leave this messed up town, but from the perspective of her and Andrea I just don’t see how you can down running water, electricity, and protection provided when you know the rest of the world is as far away from providing these things as you can be. Overall, I don’t think I quite care enough about the Andrea/Michonne relationship to justify the amount of screen time that was devoted to their debate. I know this tension should be there but considering we just skipped over the first seven or so months of their adventures I can’t bring myself to invest in it.

A few other thoughts:

• We got ourselves a crazy Rick Grimes here. Last season I though Andrew Lincoln was one of the worst actors to be the lead of an ensemble cast on television. So far this season I’m finding myself rooting for him to get so Emmy recognition. Really enjoying play all these different emotions over a short period of time.
• The Governor’s notebook was pretty detailed and included lots of markings, page after page. I have a feeling we’re going to find out more about how to deal with the zombie epidemic in the near future based on his findings.
• For the second straight episode we learn more about T-Dog in one sentence than we did throughout the entire series beforehand when Glen tells Rick about how he had driven busses full of the elderly when the outbreak first started.
• I have a strong feeling that Merle’s dream was to be some sort of WWE wrestler with people cheering him on, which is why I found Zombie fight club to be a great achievement for the character.
• “Hello dinner.”

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.

The Walking Dead: ‘Killer Within’

“It’s so easy to do the wrong thing in this world.”

Lori Grimes was far from perfect. And by far from perfect I mean if she was standing on the top of Mount Everest, then perfect would be in an underground bunker in the heart of Louisiana. But she was also smart enough to accept that she had made too many mistakes, that she was so imperfect that at this point there was no way to reconcile herself. So she sized up her remaining options and did the only positive thing left that she could do. Let go.

As much I hated the character because her constant inconsistencies, poor judgment on just about everything, and being a detriment to the rest of the group’s success; that was a highly emotional and well executed death scene to say the least. Lori takes her last moments on this now apocalyptic Earth to confess to young Carl how easily the world can change you, and that change will probably be for the worst if you allow it. Then after Carl has heard enough of her blubbering after Lori delivers the baby and dies from blood loss, Carl is forced to put her down with his trusty sidearm. So in a span of about 5 minutes he is forced to watch his mother in labor, get gutted, and has to finish her off himself. Hopefully Herschel has some psychiatric experience from his past.

So as we lose someone who whines a lot and is much more a hindrance than they are useful in terms of helping in a zombie apocalypse, we gain another. The birth of the newborn will certainly bring about a whole host of problems for our survivors going forward, but that wasn’t even remotely what was going through Rick’s mind when he first saw it. And give credit to Andrew Lincoln for this one because that was some amazing acting, especially at the moment when he knelt down and screamed “Oh Nooo” when he saw Carl and was able to put all the pieces together about what his son just had to endure. I would not want to be a zombie in the path of Rick anytime soon.

What made this episode really special though is that Lori’s death came as an even bigger surprise seeing as it was the second death of a “main” character in the episode. The great Theodore “T-dog” Douglass also bit the dust in this one. What made the character so special to me was that the name “T-dog” was somehow less absurd than the actor’s actual name “Iron E.” Unfortunately it was clear early on in the episode that he wasn’t long for this world, what with him speaking up for the first time ever and the emergence of another black actor. For whatever reason there’s an unwritten rule in shows like this that you can’t have two actors of color sharing the screen.  But considering how little the show made us want to care about him at least he got a cool death out of it and was able to sacrifice himself for the team.

In other news, we got some more insight at what’s going on in Woodbury. Merle has his little heart set on finding his baby brother, but the Governor doesn’t seem very interested in allowing him to try and accomplish this task. Andrea and Michonne continue their disagreement as to whether or not they should stay or go. Personally, considering they  haven’t actually seen any shenanigans going on from those in charge in here, I don’t see how you can justify leaving the only town left in the world that has electricity and protection available to them based solely on a “gut feeling.”

This episode was able to keep the season three hot streak going for the show and actually has a strong argument for best episode the series has ever made. Things are going to change drastically for a main group in the immediate future as I’m sure Rick will go off the deep end, especially since this whole mess started from him chasing that prisoner Andrew out into the yard without actually finishing him off. I made the mistake of forgetting that in any kind of action or sci-fi show you have to assume that unless you actually see a person die on screen, there’s a good chance they’re still alive.

A few other thoughts:

• Setting up a trap?
• Glen had a super underrated episode considering all the other messes that happened. Not only was he able to score some guard tower sex, but also had one of the better zombie kills to date by straight up slicing off one their heads with his machete. Plus he foreshadows all the craziness by asking: “Oh man. Can’t we just have one good day?” at the beginning of the episode.
• I hope this isn’t the last time we see Herschel take out a zombie with his crutches.
• “How come we never hooked up?” –Merle is really one with words.
• The Governor tells Andrea his name is really Phillip. Yeah I’d go by “The Governor” too.

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.

Saturday Night Live: ‘Louis C.K. with Musical Guest Fun.’

I’m not going to try and pretend I understand what the people in New York and its surround areas are going through right now in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and the destruction it left it behind. But I will say that you’d be hard pressed to find a better host for a live, New York based show that exists mainly to provide laughter for those who need it. Louis C.K. has always been the perfect blend of grace and slop which allows him to be really smart, really real, and really funny. A lot of people will argue that Louis is the best stand-up working right now, of which I agree, but hosting a live variety show is something we haven’t seen from him. I’m certainly excited and rooting as hard as I have ever have for a host to absolutely nail their performance. Go get em’ Louis.

Hurricane Sandy Press Conference

There was certainly no way to avoid doing a hurricane Sandy sketch considering the national attention it’s gotten over the past week. The tough part is trying to make a natural disaster funny. Mayor Bloomberg’s sign language interpreter was a good target considering her ability to sign so enthusiastically earned her plenty of recent internet fame including her very own Tumblr page. Following that up we got Chris Christie expressing his thoughts on the hurricane along with his New Jersey-style interpreter who added the Jersey stereotype gestures to her signing. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed Fred Armisen’s delivery of the line “Los blancos amore Homeland.” Pretty solid cold open, glad they didn’t take up too much time with it knowing they had Louis C.K. in waiting and didn’t have to use the open to kill some time like they’ve had to do with weaker hosts earlier in the season. Grade: B

Monologue

Louis C.K. comes out in his classic black pants and black golf shirt. Wouldn’t want Louis any other way. This was clearly a case of the SNL writers telling Louis to just do your thing man as the entirety of his monologue is him doing stand-up about a recent event that happened in his life.

Louis tells the comedic story about how he was forced to be the one who helped up an old lady who had fallen down at the airport and how difficult it was for her to stand back up: “What are you a baby deer? Just stand.” Then, to his dismay, she then requires further help from him to find her gate. His response is: “I have to help her. I’ve already been kind. I can’t switch now.” Ah, I think I could listen to him describing foreign old ladies for the rest of my life. Really fun start and apart from the way he says the word “ell-ectricity” I totally approve of the monologue. Grade: A

Fox and Friends

This has been one of the best recurring skits of late, thanks in large part to Bobby Moynihan being so funny playing Brian Kilmeade. Him playing the innocent moron is definitely tapping into Brick Tamblyn territory and it’s fantastic. Donald Trump is the show’s special guest this week played by Jason Sudeikis and he comes bearing some pivotal election information: “I have it on good authority that President Obama has been texting Abu Nizar, Jafaar, and the Riddler.” Louis shows up with some real warnings related to the hurricane and to throw away food perishables, but as Taran Killan explains: “It’s better to drink spoiled milk then no milk at all.” They also ran their show’s fact checker corrections and the only one I initially caught was “trees do not have bones.” Grade: A-

Lincoln

The bar that was already set high with “Sad Mouse” for the new SNL digital shorts that will not actually be called “digital shorts.” But damnit if Lincoln didn’t just blow it out of the water. In one spectacular meta joke we get to see Louis C.K. playing Abraham Lincoln, playing Louis. They were able to recreate the “Louis” opening credits to a tee, this time with C.K. dressed as Lincoln as he goes about climbing up the subway steps and eating ¾ of his pizza before running to do his stand-up set. And Only Abraham Louicoln would have the depressing self-awareness to feel bad for the detective who will have to solve his inevitable murder. You’ve got competition Daniel Day-Lewis. Grade: A+

Australian Screen Legend

The most honest and passionate love scene in Australian cinema.

Fred Armisen hosts this Australian version of Masterpiece Theatre in which he looks at some of “best” scenes that have occurred over the great and illustrious history of Australian film. Kate McKinnon plays Tess Davies and Bill Hader plays Graham Dixon. Louis shows up later and plays John Chisholm who, after Tess’ character has been killed off, becomes intimate with Graham Dixon in “On the Bluffs,” the story of forbidden love. It’s that rare shot taken at Australia that we don’t see enough but the jokes weren’t there on this one. Grade: C-

Musical Break Number One

Fun. decided to go with “Some Nights” as their first song and it just not there. I don’t know if the sound was off or what but it didn’t sound right and was far from enjoyable. I feel like if you call your band “Fun.” it automatically set you up for the “more like anything but fun” hack joke so I won’t make it. Yet. Grade: D

Weekend Update

The biggest headline hit was in reference to Mayor Bloomberg’s remarks on the subway system being down because of Hurricane Sandy: “The subway will be up and running at full capacity. Which would be amazing considering it’s never happened before. Then they take the opportunity to pepper in some politics here before the election with Sudeikis coming in as Romney for a few fluff jokes. The next guest is Aidy Bryant as Courtney Barnes who is a social media “expert.” It’s been a long time coming for these people to be made fun of and it allowed for us to be shown this very important political tweet: “Vegetables suck and ice cream rules” sent from the account of Joe Biden. The girl you wish you hadn’t started a conversation with at a party appears as the third guest and gets played by Cecily Strong. She explains, or attempts to, her views on politics and how put off she is by, well, everything. I can definitely see this being a recurring character going forward. Fairly strong weekend update, but considering there were three guests, none of which played by Louis, I was a little disappointed. Grade: A-

Mountain Pass of Zog

Well that explains why Louis wasn’t in Weekend Update, probably took a little while to get into costume. To Louis’ amusement, they aren’t quite able to get the timing right on the act of blowing the horn and using the sound they have prerecorded for it. The whole sketch turns out to be a long joke about how Louis had been mispronouncing the name Zorn as Zog and at the end he goes on his merry way after delivering the crystal that will save his life. Certainly not the best sketch of the night. It kind of felt like they had the idea for a scene and wanted to do a farce of fantasy worlds and they came up with the premise later. Grade: D+

Hotel Check Out

“This is why it’s very important to double check the bill.” I liked this sketch enough that I’m glad they did it. This could have been a scene right out of Louis too, only he would the guy checking out, some sad and somber music would start playing as Louis’ life crumbles around him when he realizes he doesn’t have enough money to pay for all these mistaken charges but if he doesn’t leave now he’ll miss a potential career changing opportunity. This sketch, however, is much more upbeat and we get to have some laughs at the lunacy we now endure from hotels and the likes. Grade: C+

Musical Break Number Two

This time going with “Carry On.”  When will musical guests learn that slow songs usually don’t transfer well to the stage of Saturday Night Live? I thought Carry On was better than their rendition of “Some Nights,” but I just thought it felt out of place, especially after Louis came back from a commercial break clearly having joking around with the audience members. Based on the way some of them were sitting, I’m assuming he was discussing with them whether or not they should actually look backward awkwardly at the camera while he introduced Fun. again.

If it had been me making the song picks I would have gone with “Pretty Girls” for song number one, it’s actually a fun song like the band’s name suggests and the lyrics talk about being Saturday Night for petesake! And then you have to go with the song that got you here with “We are Young” and see if you  can get Janelle Monae to show up to help out. Grade: C

Last Call at Donnelly’s

It’s “you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here time” at Donnelly’s pub in which Louis and Kate McKinnon are the final two bar patrons of the bar run by Kenan Thompson. They engage in nonsense drunk talk and are able to make connections between the two of them for every aspect of their lives including what they think are very similar meals: “What did you have for lunch today? Same time… Baby food, Candy Corn.” Kenan Thompson plays a great straight man throughout the sketch and does an excellent job of showing the disgust we were all feeling when the two engage in a kiss involving way too much tongue. Grade: B+

Final Thoughts

Overall I was satisfied with the episode and there were a few really great moments. I wish they had done a little more politically related such as Romney collecting food in Ohio and Louis plays some kind of average citizen that questions where it’s going and it’s hinted at that Mitt is keeping all of it himself… I don’t know there’s something there. Also, I think they should have done something with the new Disney/Star wars merger and the announcement of the movie which could have replaced the weak “Mountain Pass” sketch. But of course I’m nitpicking. Next week we get Anne Hathaway with musical guest Rihanna. My hopes aren't high but we’ll see.

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.