Psych
Apparently they’re out of ideas. What did you think of the #psychremake? Though it rehashed the same story from an episode in season one, I enjoyed it just as if it were a completely new episode. Remake aside, it was a blast!
The “psychic” police consultants, unable to get consulting gigs with the SBPD anymore because of Trout, decide to branch out. Into the legal field. Shawn Spencer in a courtroom. This is gonna be good. You know that’s right!
Initially, Shawn and Gus go down to the courthouse to pay a ticket, but Gus meets a pretty girl and chats her up while he waits for Shawn. He doesn’t realize that she’s on trial for murder and is awaiting the start of the trial. With nothing better to do, Shawn and Gus sign on to help her lawyer, who is quite clearly in over his head. Also Ralph Macchio guest stars as the prosecutor. Too much fun 🙂
Though the duo is able to employ their usual tactics of investigation in order to prove the young woman innocent, it was pretty good. The victim is a weatherman with a womanizing habit. The defendant is the woman with whom he spent his last night. With another weatherman played by none other than Alan Ruck (Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, among other things) as the chief suspect, things go awry when he also turns up dead.
However, Shawn’s spidey senses of detection discover a piece of evidence that seals the deal and exonerates the young woman of all charges: a video which the womanizing weatherman recorded (may I say, just a little, EWWW) of their time together, on the very set that the weather is reported.
Gus, buying Shawn time to get back to the courtroom, goes into actor mode, quoting My Cousin Vinny, A Few Good Men, and a smorgasbord of other classic legal films. He gets held in contempt and escorted out by the bailiff, but gives Shawn just enough time to get back with the video evidence.
Gus quoting Jack Nicholson? You can’t find a better reason to watch this show!
American Horror Story: Coven
Witches be crazy, right? This episode was so disturbing, and mildly… offensive? In a backwards sort of way?
With Madame LaLaurie put back together, she’s decided to strike out on her own. Where else would she go but back home? Her house, though now a historical site, still is “hers”, and she reclaims it from the woman who gives the tour of the house of “horrors”, planning to “set the record straight” on all those “lies” that have been perpetuated about Madame LaLaurie over the years. Of course, she finally has to get a makeover, updating her look in order to fit into modern society, and though her tour is not quite as fun and terrifying as the previous one, she seems to be enjoying it.
Queenie works out LaLaurie’s plan and finds her at the house. When the mad old witch won’t release the tour guide she’s imprisoned, Queenie kills her–her immortality has been reversed in the wake of Laveau’s current predicament.
Zoe and Kyle are back after Zoe realizes, finally, that she could also be the next supreme. She feels it as an obligation and a calling, and doesn’t feel it’s fair to the coven as a whole not to participate if she might actually be their next leader.
Cordelia learns of Fiona’s plan to kill the girls and take off, just for a few more years, and she tells Fiona’s ax murderer boyfriend in the hopes that he will take out his frustrations on Fiona before she can carry out her plan. He does, in fact, but then he returns to the academy, thinking he can take on the coven on his own.
Nobody steps forward to kill him, so Kyle moves in first, but then the girls decide they’re feminists and don’t want to let a man do a witch’s job and then they all gather and stab him over and over again. Misty’s back, by the way, and throws the pseudo-feminist “we don’t need a man” line out. This scene rubbed me the wrong way, not because of the gore, though it was excessive and completely irrelevant. Because of the sudden ideological call and the pathetic attempt to unify the coven in an act of violence.
I tell you, this show has a tendency to devolve extremely quickly within the last few episodes of the season and this year is no exception. It seems like they spend too much time getting into the details and trying to weird you in the first half of the season, and then they suddenly realize that they have to wrap things up and they do so crazily, rapidly and without a whole lot of thought.
The first half is like The Conjuring, suspenseful and carefully executed, and the second half is like the twelfth Friday the 13th movie (or whatever number they’re on) – just there to get a scare or a gross-out or a reaction, of any kind. I hate talking about the show this way, but honestly, the show doesn’t deserve praise for showing up in the first half and sitting with its thumb up its butt for the last half.
It’s the finale next week, and while I’m still tuning in to find out who becomes the next supreme, I strongly suspect a bunch of the girls will die, for real this time. I also suspect that the ending will be more than a little unsettling and disturbing, and won’t give much more than a hint at resolution. Just based on past seasons and my own pessimism. Next season, I want to season AHS in outer space. Or maybe medieval times. That might be fun.
Nashville
Juliette, despondent about her career prospects as the scandal continues to whirl out of control, doesn’t know what to do. But, finally, Avery returns to set her straight. He sets her up with a disguise and takes her out to play for spare change on a Nashville street corner. Her career is not about Juliette Barnes the superstar. People like her music and her engagement with the music and the audience. I couldn’t agree more. It was great seeing her like this, and I’ll admit, that disguise had me fooled for a half a minute! She looks great, but totally different, as a dark-haired girl with a hat and glasses!
Scarlett is still trying to work through her feelings about Gunnar, and her feelings about her best friend dating him, but with the stress of the promotional tour and the lack of sleep, she is having more than a little trouble handling it all.
Deacon decides to take a contract, his first, with a record label. For so many years, he only worked with Rayna, but now the thought of making his own music and playing on his own sounds like a nice change.
Zoey is trying to be accommodating to Gunnar and his new career, which is skyrocketing fast as he encounters one of the members of Rascal Flatts and takes an afternoon to write a song with him, but it’s tough. She wants to support him, but doesn’t want to be second in his priorities all the time.
It truly astounds me how easily the people on this show move on from one another after their relationships end. Cry for a few minutes, or maybe even an episode or two, and then, what’s this? A new prospect? Sold! Forget that last person! This new person is exactly what I need and they’re perfect for me! Hooray! It’s a little unrealistic.
I know Nashville (speaking in terms more of the business than the show or the city itself, though the two are quite closely intertwined) is sort of a small town, but damn! This aspect is a little too soapy even for me sometimes. I want Izzy sitting shiva for Denny agony after a break-up, even though that was a death and not a break-up, but you get what I mean. Not every relationship on this show is a forever kind of love, but they make it out to be a pretty decent love and then it just gets discarded so easily, and quickly. Just a strange phenomenon.
Rake
I wasn’t sure this was going to be any good. Greg Kinnear? On TV? This is a man who’s been nominated for an Oscar, who’s starred in some of my favorite films, Little Miss Sunshine, As Good as It Gets. But you know what? It’s pretty darn funny. Bravo, Fox. Bravo.
The show centers on Keegan Joye, often known as simply “Kee”, and his absurdly immature lifestyle for someone who is of a certain age and a reasonably good lawyer.
His big thing is gambling, and he’s way into his bookie for almost 60 gees. He lives with a friend, and the friend’s wife and kids, has been driving with an expired license for two years, and has a bad tendency to act like he knows everything which usually only gets him in deeper trouble.
May I say, show stealer, Miranda Otto. Why this woman is not on every studio’s top ten list is beyond me. She’s a rock star, and she can do it all. Otto plays Maddy, Kee’s ex-wife with whom he has a teenage son, and though they still get along reasonably well it seems, she has his number but good.
The episode seems a little random, running through a series of mishaps on what I assume is a typical stretch (a couple days) for Kee. His car gets towed, he gets pulled over and his expired license is revoked, he gets a case he has not prepared for, one of his clients has paid him in bluefin tuna, he gets beat up by his bookie’s muscle, his son with a learner’s permit gets in a car accident, and he loses a good chunk of money that could have been used to pay down part of his debt.
The events all intertwine and build on each other, but it is sort of like Murphy’s law. Some of the stuff that goes wrong is entirely Kee’s fault and results from his bad decisions, other stuff just goes wrong because it can.
In any case, so far, they’ve got me on board. Funny, a little heartbreaking and well-thought out. Kee is a jerk, in many ways, but he’s a very entertaining jerk, sort of like Adam Sandler in Big Daddy or Ari Gold from Entourage. You root for him, even when he effs up in a colossal way.
Parenthood
Poor Julia. This separation thing is really hard on her. And now she has to tell her parents about it too. The golden child is now a failure. At least I think that’s how she sees it. Her parents have nothing but love and support to offer her.
Crosby and the fam have to move in with dear old mom and pop because, surprise, they’ve got mold! Crosby didn’t want to, but I don’t know why. It’s not like Zeek and Camille would have turned them away!
Speaking of those -iarchs (pat- and mat-) of the Braverman clan, Zeek sees how much Camille truly enjoyed her time in Italy, and he wants her to go off to France if that’s what she wants to do. He realized that he may have been holding her back all these years, and he wants her to enjoy her life, even if that means she spends some time away from him.
Sarah takes a risk, as Bravermans are prone to doing, and decides to shoot the brochure at the beach instead of in the studio. Hank objects, and even quits temporarily, but she wears him down and it turns out to be a good plan after all.
Oh shit. I think the Bravermans (Adam and Kristina) have really lost it this time. After Kristina helps out a woman whose daughter’s situation is situation is similar to Max’s, and after dealing with Max’s teacher who keeps sending him to the library for disrupting class, Kristina gets an idea. A monumental one.
Braverman Academy? The Braverman School? This is going to be a long battle, I can tell already. I know Kristina can pull things together, in the long run, but this is going to put them through the ringer. Still, after all the complaining and lack of results they’ve had with the public school system, it seems they were out of options, even if the crazy, least probable one was the only one left.
AIR DATE NOTICE: Due to the impending sports craze known as the Sochi Winter Olympics 2014, all, or most, NBC shows will be on hiatus until the games end in late February. Parenthood returns February 27th.
Up next:
Recaps from Friday night’s new episodes of Enlisted and Dracula are coming, and catch-ups from earlier this week (and some from last) are on the way. Maybe not soon, but they’re coming.
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