So, here’s a two-for-one. I failed to post last week. Things were just too hectic. My sincerest apologies to my most devoted of readers. All one and a half of you.
Last week, Officer Dangle’s “black family” was coming into town to visit him because their dad died. He was convinced they were going to show him the will and all of his glorious inheritance. Dangle asks Williams to help him become more “black” and less “gay.” They both go into his house and do a clean sweep of all the items that might clue anyone in to his homosexuality. These include things like his Johnny Depp poster, his rainbow magnets on his fridge, and his wind up monkey that is suggestively eating a banana.
Williams tries to teach him the stereotypical speech and mannerisms that would make him seem more experienced in the ways of black culture. Ultimately, this fails, he ends up buying fried chicken for dinner, forties for drinks, and he and Williams shove each other’s tongues down one another’s throats at the dinner table.
Dangle’s family ends up being form the upper class and one of them is even an accountant of sorts. Dangle’s inheritance- a bill for the funeral and a keychain.
That was lat week. Let me bring to now.
This week, Garcia and Jones are assigned to work undercover at Burger Cousin because it’s been held up eleven times. Seth Green is the “manager” of the joint and constantly patronizes them. He intentionally dumps things on the floor for them to clean up, grabs Jones’ butt after giving him a lecture on sexual harassment, and tells them to clean up the bathroom after he admittedly “misses the toilet completely” after he ate chili.
Jones and Garcia are fed up after that and walk out. Green storms to the back and two men eventually emerge with Green behind them, holding them at gunpoint. Surprise. He’s the notorious robber.
Of course, the sheriff’s department failed once again to catch the bad guys; they never seem to do anything right.
I apologize for the brief post. Midterms are killer. Next week shall be better. Watch Reno 911 Wednesday @ 10:30.
February 27th, 2008 by
Peter Chen, weekend reviews editor
Recap: Last time, the designers used art museum material as inspiration. Sweet P was out, and Rami and Chris tied for third, so they both have to create collections, but their top three pieces will determine who gets considered for the final spot. Christian and Jillian were in.
It’s time to tour the contestants!
Sorry, guys, I got here a bit late, so Christian’s little recap bit is somewhat rushed. First up Christian (of course) with fierce haircut! He’s got predictably crazy designs. Lots of wild ideas, although it’s a little incoherent. Tim seems to be skeptical of a lot of Christian’s wildness, demanding a discerning “editing” eye. Christian’s virtuosity seems to maybe work against him.
Next, it’s Jillian time. Her collection looks a little bit bland, even if the work seems meticulous and well-done like the rest of Jillian’s work. Tim seems apprehensive about the lack of color, but we don’t see much of the collection, mostly just one piece. Then, we meet the family, of course. It’s off to Long Island, where the family doesn’t quite look, uh, fashion-forward. Dad’s trucker hat really completes the look. He could exchange hat ideas with Ricky. Anyways, Tim seems right at home (as always) with the family.
This episode leaves us with a few questions regarding Walter’s past, but also a few newly found hopes regarding his and Jesse’s future.
After being rejected for a sales job, Jesse meets an old friend named Badger, who, despite being slightly incompetent, Jesse decides to partner up with in order to cook and sell more meth.
Walter and Skylar go to a birthday of Walter’s old college roommate, Elliot. He runs an extremely successful and profitable company called Gray Matter, which he and Walter started in college. For unknown reason’s Walter is not a part of it. Elliot’s wife, Gretchen, is revealed to be a past lover of Walter’s, and the tension is there when they say hello to each other.
Elliot offers Walter a job at Gray Matter, hinting at the great healthcare that they have. After he turns it down, Walter berates Skylar for telling Elliot about his cancer, bewildering her completely.
Meanwhile, Badger shows up to Jesse’s camper with the necessities to cook meth, but only fools around and gets drunk during the process. Although the first batch looks good, Jesse complains that it’s not as good as Walter’s, so he dumps it and tries again. After multiple attempts, Badger gets angry and tries to prevent Jesse from the throwing the meth away; Jesse ends the scene by driving away in the camper, leaving Badger in the desert.
Walter Jr. is caught trying to buy beer at a convenient store by a police officer. Instead of calling his father to get him out of trouble, however, he calls Hank. This was quite interesting and heartbreaking, but I think Walter Jr. still has problems with his dad not receiving treatment.
Walter comes home to find his family waiting for him, asking him why he passed up Elliot’s offer to help pay for treatment, and why he doesn’t want to perform chemo. Walter Jr. is upset that his father is giving up, while he himself wanted to give up in his battle with cerebral palsy, but kept fighting. Marie tells Walter that she wants him to choose for himself, seeing as how some people regret going on chemo.
Walter retorts that the quality of life that chemo would give him would not be worth living. To him, this is the last choice that he is able to make in a life that seems like he doesn’t have a choice about anything in. However, after seeing all the cancer pamphlets and books that Skylar is reading, seeing her true effort, he agrees to be treated.
After his first treatment, Gretchen calls Walter to express her sympathies about his diagnosis. She asks if his turning Elliot’s offer down had anything to do with her and Walter’s past. Walter lies, and says that his health insurance is covering it all.
The last scene concludes with Walter walking into Jesse’s driveway and saying “You want to cook?”
Damn you midterms. Because of said tests, I’ve been extremely busy the past few days and therefore neglected my duties here. And even though I’m still busy, here’s a semi-quick, smaller recap of this past week’s episode: “Eggtown”
February 24th, 2008 by
Peter Chen, weekend reviews editor
8:03 – It’s time for the most boring telecast of the year! Are you ready for long tribtues? Categories no one cares about? Red carpet inanities? Jon Stewart fumbling through a quickly-written script by marginally interested writers? Then it must be Oscar time!
OK, they’ve got Regis on to do the red carpet stuff. I guess I’d rather have Regis than Joan Rivers.
8:11 – Wow, these interviews are about as intriguing as the Hollywood red-carpet uniform smiles. Ugh, can’t we just skip this part? I mean, what about this is interesting exactly? Oh my God, why is Miley Cyrus here? Could ABC pimp her any more? (I’m using “pimp” in memory of David Shuster.)
8:15 – Hey, it’s Daniel Day-Lewis! You’ve got him for an interview! What are you going to ask him? Oh, oh, nothing. Oh, OK. Can we please get to the dead-people tribute reel already?
8:18 – Miley Cyrus mention count: 8, not including the Barbara Walters special. I quit until the actual ceremony starts.
8:30 – What’s up with this ridiculous CGI opening? Was that Godzilla? Geez, a Transformer? Really? This is pretty atrocious, for an awards show that prides itself on “class.”
8:32 – Monologue time! Writers’ strike riffing… It goes over well-enough, with a room full of sympathetic Academy members. Making fun of Bardem’s haircut – great. Jew jokes? Excellent! Iraq movie jokes? Not so much with the audience there.
Overall, the monologue was O.K., and pretty good considering the quick writers’ situation.
8:43 – Costume Design… Elizabeth. I’m always pissed that this category goes to period pieces. Why do elaborate old-timey costumes always get the big awards? I want to see some just straight-up normal costumes winning. Isn’t it just as artistic to produce costumes for, say, “No Country For Old Men” as “Elizabeth: The Frilly Age”?
8:47 – Hey, let’s pat ourselves on the back for Oscar ceremonies! 80th anniversary! Retrospective junk. Hooray! It’ll be even longer!
8:52 – Animated Feature… Ratatouille! Huzzah! That’s about right. No upset here. I can’t believe that animated movies get so screwed when nominating for Best Picture. It’s too bad that the category was created to reward animated features and instead punishes them if they’re good enough to merit Best Picture.
8:57 – Makeup… La Vie En Rose! French accents galore and the Academy gives the finger to Norbit. Aww, too bad. The makeup was really excellent in good ol’ “Norbit.”
9:00 – Amy Adams is boring me. Three “Enchanted” songs? Yeesh. Will I have to endure two more?
9:12 – Visual Effects… Golden Compass (take that, Michael Bay!) Art Direction… Sweeney Todd. Deserving winners for both categories I guess. Those polar bears were awesome, and “Sweeney Todd” had a definite “look.”
9:17 – Supporting Actor, the suspenseless category. Breakin’ out the Spanish is Javier Bardem! Nice!
9:30 – Why is “Bee Movie” here at all? I think this is worse than “Norbit” getting a nomination. I’m fairly certain that all these short films were better than “Bee Movie.”
9:35 – Supporting Actress… Tilda Swinton! It could be upset night for “Michael Clayton”…? Who knows? We are also onto our 10th Miley Cyrus reference.
9:45 – Screenplay Winner… No Country. I guess there’s no big winner this year.
9:50 – Argh, another little featurette about how they pick the Oscars. Ugh. Can we just hand out the little statues already?
9:52 – Mentions 11 and 12 for Miley Cyrus before her shtick. Maybe after this song we can finally be rid of all this Cyrusing.
10:05 – Sound stuff all goes to Bourne Ultimatum. Deserving wins again. And here I had “No Country” on the ballot. What a n00b.
10:10 – Best Actress time! The French pull another upset! Take that, cinema legend Julie Christie! I guess they figure she already has one for “Darling” in 1965. Still, couldn’t they manage an “On Golden Pond” nod? Oh, well, still deserving enough, although I’ve honestly had enough of the “Win Top Awards By Imitating Dead People!”
10:18 – Wii! Are you serious? Anyways, the “Once” performance is understated, well-done and classy, just like the good ol’ Oscars should be.
10:28 – Every Oscar Best Picture. Ever. Scrolled through. Will to live… fading…
10:45 – Man, it’s been so long since an actual award. Maybe Foreign Language Film happened while I wasn’t looking. Anyways, that’s a category that needs a total revamp anyways. Check out arguments far better argued than mine here.
10:50 – Sorry, I’m losing my will to live, but at least “Once” won for Best Song. Thank the Intelligent Designer. Listen to the song here.
10:57 – Classy move letting Marketa Irglova get her acceptance speech. Up yours, Academy orchestra!
11:00 – Three hours… Oh, Lord, I have to quit sometime. Anyways, “Blood” won for cinematography, putting me out in the balloting again. I thought “Diving Bell” would’ve been a lock. Still wide open for the big categories.
11:05 – Did they really omit Antonioni from the “Dead Dudes Tribute”? Really? That guy? Film legend? Arguably the most influential director of the second half of the 20th century? Blow-Up? L’Avventura? Nah. The Academy again proves that it supports the worst kind of canonization, not even trying to repair historical errors until it’s far too late. When will Michelangelo get his due?
11:14 – It’s the Iraq Force Multi-Racial Award Presentation Committee! Really, it’s a nice gesture, but I feel like they should’ve presented Documentary Feature instead of Short, since that’s where all the, you know, Iraq movies were.
11:20 – “Taxi to the Dark Side” won for Documentary Feature. Excellent film, and definitely an urgent one for our nation. You can check out the trailer here:
11:33 – The second-least-unpredictable award of the night went to, in fact, Daniel Day-Lewis. Helen Mirren didn’t even look like she opened the envelope.
11:47 – Well, No Country takes Director and Picture. That’s a wrap, folks.
This episode begins with Hank and his DEA team having a meeting to discuss the absence of their snitch, Domingo, AKA Crazy-8. Finding out that he was a snitch, we now know that it’s a good thing Walter killed him, because, in the best situation, we’d find our hero in jail, arrested by his own brother-in-law. Hank says to his officers “I think we might have a new kingpin in town,” while the camera pans up to show Walter, pale, hairy, and pot-bellied, brushing his teeth in the bathroom. Classic.
After Skylar randomly beings to cry at a family BBQ, Walter confesses to his family that he has cancer. Most of the plot progression in the episode is derived from this.Walter tells Skylar that he’s taking money out of his pension to pay for his cancer diagnosis/treatment, when he’s really taking out of the money that Crazy-8 offered him in the desert.
Meanwhile, Jesse is taking more and more of Walter’s meth, and becoming increasingly paranoid. Although he takes a time-out from the drug scene to stay with his parents and little brother, Jesse stops by Walter’s house to give him a share of the profit from the meth that Jesse sold: $4,000
While on the way to the doctor’s office, Walter encounters a young man who is annoying everyone in the office with his cell phone jabber. (Trust me this is important.) Walter notices his license plate that says “Ken Wins.”
At the doctor’s office, Walter is told by the country’s top oncologist that the cancer has spread to his lymph nodes, but may still be treatable with chemotherapy, although the side effects will be awful. Walter expresses his uncertainty about the chemo, since it will cost $90,000, thinking that if he spends that money and then dies, he’ll leave his family with an enormous debt. Walter Jr. berates his father for giving up, telling him that he’s going to give up so easy, “then just die already.”
At Jesse’s parents’ house, a house maid finds marijuana hidden in a bedside table, and gives it to Jesse’s parents who scold him for his reoccurring drug abuse and kick him out of their house. Outside, Jesse’s little brother, Jake, says “Thanks for not telling on me. Can I have it back?” Jesse rips up the joint, pats his little brother on the head, and makes his way down the road.
In the final scene, Walter sees the “Ken Wins” license plate at a gas station and notices Ken inside the station, still talking on his cell phone and being an annoying bastard. Walter gets out of his car, pops Ken’s hood, and sets a wet squeegee from the gas station on the battery, causing the car to overheat. As Walter walks away from the nice BMW, it explodes, and the screen fades to black.
This episode, though not nearly as exciting as the last one, was crucial to the development of the characters, I think. The question hanging over everything, for me at least, is what’s going to happen to our hero? Even if he beats the bad guys, sells the meth, makes the money…he’s still got cancer. And as much as I want to see a miracle cure, I’m not sure that’d be very faithful to this show’s drama. But damn, it’d be nice.
What an amazing start to the season. The first three episodes of S4 have been tremendous and have moved at a break-neck pace. It’s obvious that with the number of episodes remaining figured out, Cuse and Lindelof are not worried about padding the story one bit.
Anyway, last night’s episode was titled “The Economist” and was Sayid-centric. The question is, was it a flash forward or a flash back?
So, here’s the breakdown: the Reno sheriff’s department is commissioned to sell candy bars (specifically “coconut nut clusters”).
I’m sure many of you remember doing something of this nature when you were younger. Whether it be selling popcorn for Boy Scouts, cookies for Girl Scouts, or crappy magazine subscriptions in high school, I’m sure have some recollection of these activities. Remember knocking on those doors only to have them opened by the creepiest person imaginable? Old Ethel in her half-way undone robe sans undergarments, the house with the vicious dog that’s larger than a bear, the laughing yuppies not wanting you to waste their time, or the frggin’ cheapskates that say they can’t even afford to turn the lights on, let alone by something from you. They were all there and very much apart of the frustration of selling the useless crap you were required to get rid of.
Well, that’s not exactly the scenario in this episode, but pretty close.
Everybody teams up in pairs to sell the Coconut Nut Clusters and has a pretty easy time. They even break last years record of the number of sells.
That is, everyone except Deputies Kimball and Jones. They seemed cursed from the get-go.
The first door they knock on results in a frenzied man yelling “Get off my property!” and proceeds to stick a shotgun through the mail slot. He fires, Kimball gets hit in the arm, and blood spatters the camera lens (a technique Reno has really adapted this season). Sling and all, they go on selling. The next day they visit a house and let a kid try one of the candy bars. He eats it and says “This is really good.” His mom walks in and screams that he’s diabetic and the kid immediately falls on the floor in a coma. The next house is that of an elderly lady (the formerly mentioned Ethel might be applicable). “It’s so nice of you to stop by,” she says. “I haven’t had visitors in a long time.” She doesn’t move. For a long time. Too long. Is she going to move? Stalk-still. Jones checks her pulse and sure enough, she gave up the ghost.
With solemn faces of pure despair and defeat they walk out to their cruiser and lean against the hood with the candy bars. A kid on crutches sees them and asks if he could have some. They say sure. The kid slowly crosses the street and a car horn sounds. “No!” they scream, but it’s too late. The kid gets demolished. Jones tries to walk across the street later and the same truck comes back around and hits him. Copycat.
They also encounter the all-to-familiar Girl Scout cookie seller. It’s straight form the westerns; a showdown for sure. Kimball and Jones run to a house saying, “No, it’s ours.” The girl scout casually comes up behind them and pulls out two pistols and says, “This is my motherf$%^#@g house!”
The kicker comes when Kimball, Jones, sling, neck brace, crutches, cuts, and bruises all go to their last attempted house. They knock and the door is opened by a behemoth of a man outfitted in full S&M garb: chains, the mask, boots, a collar, etc. They look away but still pitch the candy to him. The behemoth tugs on the chain he’s holding and out from behind the wall comes a smaller (the slave) man dressed in similarity to the biggun’. They finish their pitch while he’s in the doorway and say, “It will help underprivileged kids live a better life.”
“And it’s tax deductible too!” the little one says in a familiar voice.
“Jones?”
End scene.
At the end of the show, everyone is in the meeting room counting their loot. You can distinctly see Kimball and Jones slowly wobbling their way up to the door with looks of defeat. Everyone in the room is amazed at the amount of money they’ve made and the camera zooms in on Kimball and Jones outside at the door. They look awful.
Poor Jonny “Fairplay” Dalton. The guy can’t catch a break (other than coming in third on Survivor: Pearl Islands after lying about his beloved grandma’s death to get sympathy). He’s easily the most hated player in Survivor history, unless that rabid Christian chick from last season pissed anyone else off as badly as she did me. Now that Dalton is starting a family offscreen, reality tv just isn’t his bag anymore. Or else he just begged his tribe to send him home out of shame because Yau-Man tackled him head-first into the hull of a boat early in this, the first episode of Survivor’s 16th season.
The hook this time around is that a group of 10 “fan favorite” Survivors take on a group of 10 huge Survivor fans from around the country, the presumed experiment being to see whether the crafty veterans or excitable n00bs want the million dollar prize more. After this episode, I’m thinking the fresh meat is out for the money while most of the veterans are just in it for the nookie.
So who are the chosen few past survivors who signed up for another 39 days of challenges and backstabbing? Aside from Dalton and the Zen master Yau-Man, there’s unassuming beauty queen Amanda and studly gravedigger James from last season. We also have the amiable Cirie, the scowling lesbian barista Ami, the Jewish Hollywood comedy writer Jonathan, and soft-core porn star and former Survivor runner-up Ozzy. Rounding out the veterans are Eliza, the perpetual law student who never shuts up, and freakishly hot eye-candy Parvati.
I haven’t had time to get to know the n00bs yet (this usually takes a few weeks). I can still surmise, after only an hour, that we’re in for an interesting season with the fans pulling out all the stops to defeat their favorite former cast survivors.
To recap the particulars, the vet tribe (Malakal) lost to the fan tribe (Airai) in a puzzle challenge that involved complete pwnership by the fans and Eliza getting smacked in the face something awful. Now that’s entertainment. Jonny “Fairplay” was voted out after he asked the tribe to allow him to return home to his pregnant girlfriend and avoid being American’s villain for another 15 weeks. They obliged.
The preview for next week promises much tent lovin’ between tall Amanda and wee Ozzy as well as between Parvati (yum) and the extremely lucky James.
February 27th, 2008 by 
Nathan Brown, weekend
