Friday Night Lights, you are highly praised for your realism. It is part of the reason you have burrowed your way into our hearts and made us care. It is a rare and wonderful thing. Except when it is not. Because there is a big problem with realism. In reality, the Joe McCoys of the world always win. They get what they want because they have money, because they play dirty, because other people stop to smell the roses and don't hear Joe McCoy coming until it's too late and he's run his SUV up their ass. And that is why after spending our days being fake nice to our own versions of Joe McCoy, we like to come home and watch TV. Because sometimes on TV Joe McCoy does not win. Sometimes he is humiliated and humbled and for a brief moment we are convinced that all is right in the world. Except that your Joe McCoy, Friday Night Lights, he wins all the time. Tami Taylor ruined his first game coin toss and moved Luke Cafferty, but now he gets to watch her squirm, he gets home field advantage, he gets to mock the poor and the meek. And yes, it is realistic and unflinching but it's depressing. We watch our own Joe McCoys win in our own real lives. We have learned that there is such a thing as too much reality. Give us hope, Friday Night Lights!
Alicia and Will defend a rich a-hole against a lawsuit brought by his stepdaughter. Everyone (including Alicia) thinks he killed his wife even though he was found not guilty in his criminal trial. After many cringe-inducing a-hole moments, Kalinda finds evidence that the stepdaughter did it. In the end it remains unclear who actually did it, but the rich a-hole is off the hook. Will and Diane face off over the future of the firm. Kalinda helps Diane arm herself against a death threat but Diane gives up the gun before she starts liking it too much. Peter's trial begins and the threat they were holding over Amber Madison has disappeared, so she appears in court to testify that she was a gift to Peter in exchange for him dropping cases. It turns out that Peter was paying her, too, which argues against the corruption charges. Childs offers Peter a deal that will let him go home right away but he can never practice law again. It appears Peter is considering it. Alicia and Peter talk about the possibility of him coming home. She makes it clear they won't be sharing a bed, but does not completely rule out a reconciliation. She still loves him.
Um...huh? I need to find a physicist friend to watch this with me and explain time travel and alternate realities and whatever else may be going on way over my head. This is what I understood: Sawyer is broken-hearted in one reality and has the hots for Kate in all possible realities. Boone can't shake the speech pattern of a diabolical but loveable vampire. There are a ton of Others we've never seen before and they have a well-defined leadership structure and a fear of The Man in Black. TMiB is also the Smoke Monster. Sayid lives...or does his body live with someone else inside? Did you not promise us to start answering questions, Lost?
Vampires are everywhere! Pizza delivery boys! Bartenders! Library stalkers! Stefan pretends he will help unlock Katherine and Damon helps Stefan fight and kill the bad guy Pizza vamp. Incidentally, Pizza vamp is the worst vamp ever. He's unable to kill Elena, or successfully mess with her or whatever, even though he gets a bunch of tries. Alaric hates Damon from a closer distance while gripping a fistful of vervain. He and Jenna are starting to date and he might be Elena's dad. Or at least his dead wife might be Elena's mom. Jeremy loans J. Gilbert's journal to Alaric, but Bartender vamp, Library vamp and Damon all want it in order to free Katherine. Caroline and Matt kiss (yay! cute) and Bonnie falls for Bartender vamp.
Hey, Friday Night Lights, remember when all the bad stuff that happened to your characters was interspersed with good stuff? Stuff like winning championship games and hilarious, eternally cheerful sidekicks named Herc? Buddy Garrity on El Fuego is pretty frakkin' great, but not enough to make up for Calvin getting shot and killed in front of Vince (although the scene in front of Jess's house was quite beautiful), for Tami being crucified on the cross of religious extremism, Luke apologizing for a nasty injury and praying for drugs, Matt looking lonely in a gloomy city and Tim being viciously insulted for something he didn't do. Where's the good stuff? There are only two episodes left and next week looks terribly sad. WTF?
We have to admit that we were not that excited about Caprica. We loved BSG fiercely and loyally but did not buy into that love being transferable to a prequel. And maybe it isn't, but we have found a whole new love in Caprica. We're in. In the first two hours, we learned Admiral Adama was an adorable kid who probably faced a lot of discrimination and has always liked to read. We learned his dad is smart, proud, complicated and at least a hundred different kinds of sexy. The Admiral inherited a gift for crafting moving speeches from him. We learned racism is fairly acceptable on Caprica and that just like our Earth, immigrants dumb down their names to fit in. We learned Greystone is brilliant, at least a little insane and perhaps inappropriately fond of his dead daughter. We learned Caprica is awesome and totally exciting.
Welcome back, Vampire Diaries! We have missed you. Damon continues to dance on the line between good and bad, as he helps Elena out of the car wreckage but then gruesomely kills his ex (Hi Zoe! Bye Zoe!) after she tells him that if he gets Emily's spell book, Katherine can be released. Speaking of exes, Lexi's wants to kill Damon but Elena talks him out of it. Hopefully she'll be around to talk Alaric out of killing Damon because it looks like that's where the Alaric story is headed. Flashbacks show us Damon killed his wife. Alaric's ring is very important for reasons still unknown. Stefan meets Bonnie's gran for the second time (the first was 1969) and it's fully awesome. She lets him know if the revolution comes, she's throwing him under the bus right quick. He rescues Bonnie when she comes face to face with the wall Katherine is trapped behind. Jeremy makes a smart new friend who is determined to make him believe in vampires. Elena is mad at Stefan until she's not. He tells her she looks like Katherine because she's adopted, which is great because Jenna can never get mad at her again without Elena throwing the whole secret adoption thing in Jenna's face. We did miss you, Vampire Diaries.
I understand that if all the characters were happy all the time and never experienced any hardships or obstacles it would not be a story, okay? I get that. But it still seems so cruel to make it look like Vince is doing so well and then show us that he isn't. You give us the simple pleasure of watching Coach and Vince sitting at a picnic table discussing plays, then our hearts break for him as he cries to his mom that he needs her and tries to get help for her. Then Vern talks Coach into letting Vince freestyle on the field, then Vince ends up with $4,000 and a gun in his hand from his bad influences. It's all so frustrating. But thank you for Coach and Vern taking their relationship to the next level, it's adorable. And Tami's hilarious reaction to Coach's hangover. And Vern showing up to watch his son play. Thank you for all the boosters out watching practice. Awesome. But the list of things I hate you for is long. Becky and Luke, their parents, the Riggins brothers illegal activities, Vince Vince Vince. Still, every week I come back for more pain. And it looks like next week there is going to be a lot of it.
Since this time around Jack has the adorable granddaughter, he's not so much for torturing, for the ends justifying the means and all. Luckily Renee Walker has lost her damn mind and is willing and eager to carry the torch. You know it's bad when Jack is the one telling someone to dial it down. But Renee is just getting started. And it's not about getting her badge back or any other personal gain. It's about saving America. Because there's no one else. Meanwhile, Jack's already been captured and beaten, the stubborn bureaucrat is already on the Jack train, Cole has badass moments of his own, there's a bad guy so bad he's letting his son die in the back room of a restaurant and Chloe's learning curve is about to get a lot steeper because DaJennyna is going to be spending a lot of time being threatened by her creepy ex. I'm not even going to get into the Starbuck/Leoben-ness that will confront us next week.
Sylar gets lots of screen time this week as he forces then tricks the indestructible girl into mutual psychoanalysis. At the end it seems as though he's decided the only way to regain his humanity is to rid himself of powers. If this show turns Sylar into a good guy he's likely to be just as boring and insufferable as every other good guy which would be a tremendous television tragedy. As a reminder of Sylar's awesomeness, a dream(y) version of him shows up in that Japanese guy's dream and we remember that we miss him terribly.
America, Jack Bauer never wants to be the guy to save us, it just always seems to end up that way. This time he reallyreally does not want to be that guy. He's happy just taking his adorable granddaughter to the zoo and napping on the couch after. Sure, his man purse is still ready to be donned and he remembers how to shoot a gun but he's like, totally not into it. It's not his problem. Unfortunately the bad guys do not stop being bad just because Jack Bauer is retired. Evil men still spin their evil plots and government bureaucracy is too stubborn, slow and stupid to catch them. It's up to Jack and Chloe (and later on probably Renee Walker and Freddie Prinze Jr) to find a way to save us all in spite of the lack of support from the newly shiny and stupid CTU. Chloe has not yet mastered the CTU system but she's still awesomely full of attitude and back talk and thanks to the recent repeat of last season's finale, we all remember that Renee will do whatever it takes to get the bad guys. And listen, Jack Bauer, we'd all rather nap on the couch than go running around shooting at people, at some point likely getting captured and doing it all while fighting bureaucracy for the right to succeed. So thanks in advance, Jack Bauer, for saving America. Again. All in a day's work.
This show is really good at tying Alicia's work into her personal life. This episode is largely about the trouble kids can get into behind their mothers' backs. Alicia's client is a doctor accused of over-prescribing painkillers to a high school patient dead from an overdose. At home, Zach is getting into a nasty role-playing game with Becca. Kalinda earns her keep this week as she becomes a double agent for Peter against Childs, gets hit on by Cary and still finds time to discover the real source of the killer painkillers. In a completely heartbreaking turn, it's discovered the dead kid stole the pills from his mom. Alicia goes home and tries to make sure her kids aren't doing anything correspondingly shady. They manage to tell her just enough to get the new nanny fired. In Will news, he looks good in a tux.
Yay, Joe! This was a fun episode, from Manfro's unwilling participation in Joe's can-you-see-my-boxers experiment to the silly headbands the day after the date. It's nice that the show is taking the time to let us know the employees at Joe's store. They are turning out to be fun. And the date itself is cute and sweet but still close enough to cringe-worthy to fit well with the show.
Sylar is barely even in his own show this week, even with the promise last week that he would stalk the indestructible girl. Mostly this week is about other people doing stuff like talking about ratatouille and cellos, trying and failing to get to Samuel and breaking Mohinder (he's still alive and has powers? huh) out of a straitjacket by reminding him that he's strong. It's way more boring than it sounds. Forty-four minutes in we get a glimpse of Sylar, but he's only in Peter's dream. Lame. And next week he has non-consensual relations with indestructible girl? C'mon! Give Sylar something worthwhile to do!
The Lions have a W on the books, y’all! And Landry got a date! Of course, the Lions only beat the other last place team in what the town calls The Toilet Bowl and we are set up to fear that Landry is heading for some kind of Vince-related disaster...but still. In other news, Tami and her bulletproof cheerfulness push Julie, kicking and pouting, into her future. Luke is clearly on his way to developing a painkiller dependency, Buddy Garrity’s campaign of awesomeness continues (El Fuego!) and Vince’s mom may be either back on drugs or just plain crazy. Jess’s brothers are adorable, chaos reigns even within the Taylor household at times and Tim Riggins thinks he’s only good at football and crime. But the Lions have themselves a W, y’all! Happy New Year!
Alicia is in the middle of working on a case against a Glenn Beck-type tool when she’s yanked off and forced to work on the divorce case of Carla Browning and Glenn Childs. Childs managed to find himself a woman of equal or greater evil to marry and divorce. Mrs. Browning needs her pre-nup to be ignored and her strategy is to threaten to tell Alicia the information she knows Childs has on Peter. She tells Alicia about a file on Childs’ computer called Triton Fields. Childs thinks Alicia and Peter are masterminding the whole thing and so tells Alicia about the packages he’s left (that she knows nothing about because her kids have been intercepting them) and ominously claims to have more damning information. He also transfers Peter out of protective custody and threatens his family. Peter takes it like a man. Mrs. Browning, after she gets what she wants and right before she signs the agreement, tells Alicia that Childs tapped the Florricks’ phones. In Cary news, he is tasked with hand holding the client when Alicia is pulled from the TV tool case, and he’s terrible at it. In Will news, the TV tool digs into the firm and comes up with a photo of Will and Alicia from when they went to the hotel lobby for a case. He twists it into them having an affair, which many people seem to believe. Will has some history with the defense lawyer in the case and they flirt sexily but it appears as though Will decides to not do anything substantial about it. The TV tool also accuses Diane of being a lesbian, which she finds hilarious.
