This Week in Television - Apr. 22-27, 2012

Once Upon a Time
This was a good episode.  I think the show has gotten better now that it has more of a direction than stand-alone, fairy tale character of the week type episodes.  And I have to give them credit for another plot twist, because I thought August being Rumpelstiltskin's son was going to be a predictable let down similar to last week's Fringe, but I didn't see it coming when it turned out he wasn't the son.

Glee
I'm not a Whitney Houston fan, but I was under the impression that most of the covers in this episode were vocally inferior.  Why try if you can't do it justice?  And why exactly did we even need the Christian kid with the dreadlocks?  Because there was no one left for Quinn to date?  God knows Glee already has way, way too many characters with an unequal balance of screen time.  Maybe the kids wouldn't run out of people to date if they stopped switching partners every three episodes.  On the plus side, we got another speech from Kurt's dad, which always makes an episode slightly better.  Congratulations, Burt Hummel, you are one of only three characters (out of 9 billion - see above) who make the show worth watching.

New Girl
I didn't personally find the tap-dancing joke funny enough to warrant it predictably coming back during Jess's dinner with Russel and his ex-wife, but I did get a good laugh out of Russel's trying-not-to-eye-roll face.  Other hilarious things from this episode included Nadia's list of things she likes about America, and everything involving Schmidt's penis injury - especially his line, "I'm almost positive Nadia's vagina contains a right angle."

Survivor: One World
Disappointed that Kim broke her word for no reason and didn't take Kat on the reward, but she kicked ass at both challenges so I applaud that part.  And Kim's strategic mistake wasn't nearly as horrible as Alicia's comments about Christina's intelligence.  Ugh.  Alicia is a horrible, disgusting person.  The fact that she's still there makes me like everyone else less for keeping her.

Community
I never watched Law & Order, but because all detective shows are virtually the same, the jokes still worked as a generic parody of the genre, so it was a lot of fun.  I knew it was going to be Todd when they asked him about the bandage on his hand, but I imagine that predictability was actually a part of the parody and not a symptom of incompetent writing.  RIP, Star Burns.

30 Rock
While the previous live episode was flawlessly executed, this one had a few mistakes and technical difficulties, the worst being when a portion of the episode was lost when they accidentally cut to commercial in the middle of a scene and came back in the middle of another (though I think it was only in Canada, so CityTV's fault, not NBC's).  I didn't watch the West coast version, but I hope it was done better.  Also, while I like the idea of doing parodies of old live shows from back in the day, it felt a little like an excuse for Fey and the writers to take a mini break from 30 Rock and do some SNL-style sketches instead.  That being said, I do think it was funnier and more entertaining than last season's version.  All of the surprise cameos were so much fun. Amy Poehler as young Liz Lemon doesn't physically make any sense, but it's still awesome because it's Amy Poehler, and Fred Armisen's random lean into the shot from the background was hilarious because he came out of nowhere and that's all he did in the episode.

The Office
This was a fun episode because I liked all the little threads going on.  Well, not all of them.  Darryl messing with Nellie was funny in theory because I like when Darryl takes advantage of stupid people, but even as a prank victim I still have trouble enjoying her.  The character's just not funny or endearing, in any situation.  And the mass pet adoption thing was just done a couple episodes ago on Parks and Recreation.  I've pointed this out a few times, but why does it always seem to be The Office that accidentally uses the same jokes as other shows in close proximity?  I liked Oscar and Jim's little competition about whether the senator is gay.  Although the same basic thing keeps coming up once in a while, and it always ends with Oscar thinking he's wrong after all, but then noticing another gay tell and changing his mind again, but I guess I find it funny that the guessing game is still going on.  Random, unexpected appearance by David Wallace, who is now a millionaire.  What?!

Parks and Recreation
The debate went a little differently than I thought it would, but it makes sense as a political satire that the crowd would be so easily won over by the biggest idiot in the room simply because he's charming and easygoing.  But Leslie's closing speech was great, April's advice to Tom (in a mirror of their scene last week) was another cute moment, and Andy reenacting entire movies was hilarious.  Apparently his recital of Babe was incredibly moving, as it made Donna cry.

Awake
Dammit, it messes with my theory that red is real if Mike obtained the knowledge of the baby from the green world.  But there are still a lot more instances of him using red info in the green world as opposed to the other way around.  Maybe the baby was something he knew about subconsciously.  I think the most interesting thing about all this is that it now makes the red world more valuable to him than the green one, because there's only Rex on one side, but a wife and grandchild on the other.  It's unbalanced, at least for now.

Fringe
Good news!  Fringe will be back next season, for a shortened 13-episode run, before ending entirely.  This episode in particular felt like it was wrapping things up for a series finale, though.  For all the writers knew, that's exactly what they were doing just in case, but now that there's another season left I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the other universe.  They only said they "may" not be able to turn the machine back on.  Plus there were ways to get over there before the machine was built.

Hero of the Week: Andy from Parks and Recreation, for knowing how to provide entertainment when the cable is out.

Douchebag of the Week: Alicia from Survivor.  Gross.

The Sunset Limited

Impressions before seeing it
A simple concept, but a good one: two cool actors sitting around having an existential debate.  Sounds good.


How was it?
The story goes that Tommy Lee Jones' character (credited as White) tried to commit suicide, but Sam Jackson's character (Black) saved him, then brought him back to his apartment to basically use religion in an attempt to convince him not to try it again.  Not an easy task, because White is a very sad and lonely man, and an atheist.


Like Carnage, The Sunset Limited is based on a play and takes place all in one room, meaning it is obviously very dialogue driven.  It's not nearly as fun to watch as Carnage, but it's an interesting conversation to listen in on as these two share their world views.  Personally I think talking is what Sam Jackson does best - not that he isn't a fun action star, but I like him better in his calmer roles - and Jones is an actor who can pull off sad and weary quite well.  Together they did well with the material, which was interesting but not exciting.  I felt like the movie didn't have much of a climax and could have used a crazy, jaw-dropping reveal, but I'm only saying that for entertainment's sake.  Truthfully, it might have sensationalized the film's substance and overshadowed the rest of the conversation if they'd done that.  And, treating it as a real conversation, it probably wouldn't have contained any major surprises in real life.  Probably why this was a TV movie; it doesn't have movie theater excitement.


Recommendation
I think it's a definite watch if you have an interest in these kinds of deep, intellectual conversations, but it's not for everyone because if I haven't already said it enough, the movie is just one long conversation.  I didn't quite love it, but I liked it.

This Week in Television - Apr. 15-20, 2012

Glee

Why exactly is Mr. Schue forcing all the kids to have dreams and goals?  He teaches Spanish and one extra-curricular activity (which is, for some reason, treated like a regular class).  He's not even a guidance counselor, so it's not his job to get so aggressively involved in the futures of his students.  Although on the other hand, they're his best friends since he has zero adult friends.  The storyline with Unique was just Glee saying "Oh, wait, we haven't included any transsexuals yet!" and then slapping on the same "be proud of who you are" message that is included every single time a new character is introduced.  The only good part of the episode was Lord Tubbington doing household chores.

New Girl
Loved Zooey's meta shout-out to Bridge to Terabithia.  I don't think I liked Winston's storyline in this episode, and it's peculiar that he seems to get seperate scenes away from the rest of the cast more often than the other characters, but this new job of his is at least giving him something to do.  I actually kind of wanted Cece to be pregnant, if only for the comedic potential of her and Schmidt as parents, though at the same time it is a bit of a sitcom staple that can feel contrived if you do it wrong.  Russell's daughter was also funny with her sex malapropisms and obsession with Nick.  I think the latter might have felt creepier if she'd had more scenes with Nick uncomfortably reacting to her, but they wisely kept that to a minimum, and it was funnier for it.

Survivor: One World
Oh, Survivor.  I know you love playing the sappy music when someone gets a letter from home, but don't pretend anything involving Alicia can make the viewers weep.  She is the least sympathetic person on the show.  This season has now basically turned into not Troyzan vs. everyone, but Troyzan vs. Kim.  I'm not sure how I feel about Troyzan.  He is more or less a smart and capable player, but he's also being obnoxious.  I'm still rooting for Kim.

Community
I heard there was going to be a Dreamatorium episode, and that it was going to be very weird.  It was, but not as weird as I expected.  Troy saying he "didn't get Inception" could almost be taken as a meta comment on the nature of this episode, because I can see how some people might find it confusing even though it wasn't.  But having Annie and Abed impersonating their study group friends was a fascinating look at how they view the other characters (and themselves), and made for interesting juxtaposition given that Annie is sort of the heart of the show while Abed has trouble understanding emotion.  And it was hilarious that it did not occur to the Dean to change his outfit before going to the bank.

30 Rock
Kat was awesome in that she was like a young version of Liz, and just as funny.  The couch commercials starring Stacy Keach were also fantastic, as well as Liz and Criss pretending to be in a gay porno.  And I enjoy the running gag about Jenna's disturbingly violent relationship with Mickey Rourke, which I hadn't even noticed was a running gag before this season until I watched some reruns and found Jenna mentioning him every once in a while.  Could be gold if he ever makes a guest appearance.

The Office
Similar to last week, most of this episode just angered me.  I mean if you put a lot of Ryan and Nellie in the same episode, both being horrible but too self-centered to realize it (Nellie sort of did, but it failed to make her more likable), I am likely to pull an Andy and smash holes in my walls - although I did love that particular wall-punching callback.  The first time Andy did it in season three, he was overreacting, but this time it was completely justified, and kind of cute when Erin joined in his tantrum.  The second half of the episode was a little better for this, and for the enjoyable moment when Pam flat out tells Ryan she doesn't like him.  Oh, and the tag where Jim and Pam are secretly moved by Ryan's cheesy poem.

Parks and Recreation
Ah, I missed you, Parks and Rec.  This was one of those great episodes where every character got a chance to be awesome.  I think the more zany, unrealistic jokes on this show work best when they come from Andy - here inexplicably removing a ship from a bottle intact - because he is probably the most cartoonish character on the show, so he can get away with bending reality in a mockumentary from time to time.  Tom cheering up April was probably my favourite scene of the episode, though.  Being a self-centered tool (yet still a charmingly likable one) produces more of an impact when Tom does something sweet.  Leslie will destroy Bobby Newport at the debate, but I imagine his manager will have a trick up her sleeve because that episode won't have any conflict if it's too easy for Leslie.  But job loss stakes have been raised pending the election, and given that every single character on this show is so lovable, that's not something to shrug off.

Awake
To be honest, this was a mostly boring filler episode.  Don't have any more to say about it, but this was disappointingly the first episode I didn't find very entertaining.  Maybe it was the absence of the therapists.  I enjoy those scenes.

Fringe
Wow, this episode was pretty amazing.  The one complaint I have is that I knew Etta was Peter and Olivia's daughter pretty much as soon as she came on screen in the opening scene, and all of the obvious hints (everyone avoiding saying her last name, urgently pushing Walter about his team) only confirmed it.  It's rare that I predict something that well, so I don't know if it was a fluke or if it was really that heavy-handed, but the moment of reveal lost its power because of it.  For me, the biggest surprise of the episode was seeing William Bell inside the amber.  How does that dude keep dying and coming back so much?  Based on Olivia's absence and the "what he did to Olivia" line, I'm positing that he did something similar to when he inhabited her body, only this time he replaced the space her body was occupying with his own, or something like that.  Or maybe, if this is the future of the "Peterless" timeline, Bell never died in that one.  Anyway, this was one of the most absolutely riveting episodes ever, and having Desmond from Lost show up (the second biggest surprise of the episode, because I didn't know he was going to be in it) was icing on the cake.  I think I actually pumped my fist and went "Yes! Desmond!"  I love Lost too much.

Hero of the Week: Tom from Parks and Recreation, for making April smile, and because his bachelor pad is awesome.

Douchebag of the Week: Let's give Nellie a break and go with Ryan from The Office.  I haven't forgotten how much of a douche you are, Ryan.

Another Earth

Impressions before seeing it
It was a cool concept, if not necessarily a plausible one. Who wouldn't be curious about a duplicate Earth?

How was it?
A universe where two Earths co-exist was more like the setting of the movie than its concept. It's not entirely about the two Earths; that's just something that's there. Thematically, it's about atonement and redemption. Rhoda (Britt Marling), staring up at the newly discovered second Earth in the sky while driving, crashes into another car, putting the driver into a coma and killing his family. It was less an evil mistake than a stupid one, but she goes to prison for it and spirals into a depression. Upon release 4 years later, she runs into the survivor and spends the rest of the movie working for him in penance without his knowing who she is.

So as you can see, it's not a space exploration movie, which is disappointing at first but acceptable in hindsight. Not a single frame of the movie takes place on the second Earth, but we really don't need to go there because we're told it's an exact duplicate of ours in every way, so there would be no point. If you're then asking, "Then what's the point of putting that concept in the movie?", it ties into the main storyline at the end.

There are a couple of really powerful scenes here - especially the one where the doctor on TV is making contact with Earth 2 for the first time - that make Another Earth worth watching. It probably would have been forgettable if you took out the second Earth and left it as a mere redemption story, but they merged the two well and the writing kept it interesting. It more or less only has two characters, but I felt like I really understood them both. I saw the ending coming, but rather than disappoint me I was just glad that it made sense. Although it does end at one of the movie's best moments, leaving you wanting more.

Recommendation
While watching this, I thought that it would make an intriguing companion piece to Melancholia if you watch both and pretend they each take place on one of the planets. Their endings are rather different, but they contain some similar elements. Both should be seen in any case, but back to back would be kind of cool.

This Week in Television - Apr. 8-13, 2012

Glee
Oh, I see, they had Quinn get in a car accident so they could throw her in a wheelchair (in spite of there being no physical evidence whatsoever that she sustained so much as a paper cut) and pair her up with Artie, because this is the show that unimaginatively paired up two Asians, two Blacks, two Jews, two blonds, and two cheerleaders. According to Glee, you need to have something visibly in common with someone in order to hook up with them. Or you need to be Sam and Mercedes, who couldn't have less in common visibly but that's okay because their relationship was never visible, either. And the star quality of Blaine's brother was greatly exaggerated. He's been in ONE series of commercials, but everyone kept saying how he was such a big, successful superstar. His fame level would, in reality, be just under that of the Old Spice guy, yet everyone's pretending he's Justin Bieber. However, I did find his terrible acting advice funny, so at least there was something about this episode I enjoyed.

New Girl
A somewhat average episode this week, except for the scenes where they played "True American". I have no idea what that is, but I have played my share of "The Floor is Lava" in my youth. Good times.

Survivor: One World
This episode was mostly just a lot of scrambling as each gender became paranoid about the other, but the highlight was Tarzan losing the immunity challenge even before Jeff finished saying "This challenge is on." That was just funny, and probably the fastest challenge elimination in Survivor history.

Community
Sad but true that women with low self esteem are into guys who treat them like crap. And low self esteem is common thanks to media pressure and inter-female cattiness, so all the douchebags are getting way more women than they deserve. However, I don't understand how that would make Britta full-on addicted to Blade rather than just attracted to him. Nowhere near my favourite episode of the season, but still some good laughs, such as everyone constantly asking why the Dean was at Troy and Abed's apartment, Pierce finally becoming a welcome member of the group - for about two minutes, and Abed's extremely specific stand-up routine.

30 Rock
The Woggles song at the end was great, and in addition to "Dean Cain", I believe I saw "The Lorax" on Jenna's sexual walkabout list. I don't really have any warmth for Jack's relationship with his mother, though. I'm more a fan of his unusual friendship with Liz.

The Office
I liked the opening tag with everyone forgetting whether Stanley had a moustache or not, and Jim and Pam sabotaging the magician was mildly amusing, but otherwise this episode was a little hard to watch. It made almost every character look like a jerk at various points, and as I've said in the past, I don't find Nellie funny.

Up All Night
This was probably the best episode since the pilot, which isn't saying much, but thanks to the use of Julian and the semi-sweet re-proposal scene, it was largely a success. The "wife lost her ring" is another sitcom story that's been done a lot, but I think they improved on it by setting up the idea that Reagan originally proposed to Chris first, and then having her give him the moment back at the end. If there's one good thing that came out of this show, it's that it humanized Will Arnett when people have stated that they find his screen presence weird or creepy.

Awake
Not as epic as last week (seems to be the case for most of the shows this week), but entertaining nonetheless. It feels like they teased us with the conspiracy thing just to remind us that it's there, and then didn't really make much progress with it (interesting tidbit, though, that Harper has enough of a heart not to want Mike dead). But I shouldn't be expecting a TV show plot to be fast-paced, because that's not how serialized television works.

Fringe
The scene where Astrid gives her alternate self (perhaps she can be called Asprid, since she has something akin to Asperger's?) a can of coffee is probably the cutest thing that's ever happened on Fringe. But I thought the frequency matching to cause destruction to both sides was an interesting idea, even though I have no clue why Jones would want to do that, assuming he has a motive beyond being psychotic. Fauxlivia seemed fairly distressed over Alt-Lincoln's death. I'm betting it will push her toward our Lincoln finally landing himself a Dunham.

Hero of the Week: Both Astrids from Fringe. If you watched it, you know why.

Douchebag of the Week: Nellie from The Office. Please go back to England.

Win Win

Impressions before seeing it
Looked like it would be good. I like these little inspirational indie comedies.

How was it?
It went in a slightly different direction than I thought it would, but I always give points for not being predictable, so that's cool. It's not an underdog sports movie like I suspected it might be. What Win Win is about, is the kinds of things one does for love and through pain. Mike (Paul Giamatti), a lawyer and part-time high school wrestling coach, puts an elderly client of his into a home so that he can collect money he desperately needs to support his family, and then takes in the old man's grandson, who turns out to be a wrestling prodigy, so he can use him to boost his failing wrestling team. In Mike's eyes - and ours, since he's our protagonist - he's doing these things with good intentions. We know he's not a dick. But at the same time, those actions can easily be seen as conniving. This is the thing about good deeds vs. good intentions. The end result might be the same, but only the former guarantees gratitude and respect. We've seen this on Breaking Bad as well. The recipient of your good intentions might not want your resulting offering because of what you had to do to get it. They don't want you doing horrible things on their behalf, and that pretty much negates the good intentions angle.

In that sense, the title Win Win is ironic, because there's just as much losing in this movie as there is winning. However, there is no slash in the title so it's not referring to a win/win situation, nor is the movie presenting us with one. I think it is referring to two seperate wins: Mike, who has generally been losing at life until this situation happened to him, and the grandson, who has a troubled past but is overcoming it, as well as inspiring greatness in the mediocre wrestling team.

Anyway, as a dramedy this movie hits all of the right notes without losing credibility anywhere. The kid playing the grandson turned in a really great, low-key performance that very much reminded me of teenagers I've met. It was his first movie, too, so kudos to him.

Recommendation
Not quite the inspirational tale I was hoping for, but I'm glad I watched it. You don't have to be a fan of wrestling - I'm not - and it's not about the wrestling anyway. This is a movie for people who want a family drama with some laughs sprinkled on top. Nothing wrong with that when all of the elements work.

This Week in Television - Apr. 1-6, 2012

Once Upon a Time
I'm not sure why they want us to sympathize with Regina, but it doesn't work. She's already been too horrible for me to feel sorry for her. This episode might have worked better than the one earlier in the season where she lost her father, except wanting vengeance on someone who wronged you inadvertently because they don't know any better isn't exactly a just cause. But it turned out to be brilliant casting, having the little girl from Bridge to Terabithia play young Snow White. Her resemblance to Ginnifer Goodwin in her facial expressions and performance was eerie.

New Girl
Winston's monologue at the end of the episode was worthy of applause, clearing people out and fixing everything just so he could enjoy his weekend. Nick's highly disturbed and disgusted reaction to Schmidt and Cece was also a highlight, in a different way than Winston's was last week. And I enjoyed the cameo by David Wain, who directed this episode, as a runner in the marathon. But I have to say it: can't blame the guys for thinking about Jess when they go solo.

Survivor: One World
Kim was the star of this episode, and seems to be the smartest person left in the game, so I am rooting for her. Although I don't like the idea of Alicia being carried by that alliance.

Community
While I had some minor problems with last week's episode, I wasn't expecting part two to arbitrarily be a parody of a Civil War documentary. The awesomeness of that makes me more forgiving of last week's outing because it was a set-up for this. It was done so perfectly. They even added the PBS telethon at the end, which was a nice touch, and snuck in a little Dan Harmon cameo in one of the "historical" paintings.

30 Rock
30 Rock has more or less already done versions of the stories in this episode (remember when Jack got Pete to wear a hairpiece to instill confidence, Jenna got revenge on the writers by locking them on the roof naked, and Tracy became more responsible at his job when he and Liz switched minority roles?), and perhaps last week's episode about repetition was a way for them to sneakily get away with this week's plot recycling, but the important thing is that it was funny. 30 Rock usually puts jokes above story and character, anyway, and that's fine with me. I think my favourite was Dr. Spaceman's line as he inserted the mini troll pencil topper into Tracy's nose: "Goodbye, only evidence tying me to my ex-wife's disappearance."

Up All Night
The one thing I chuckled at this time was Fred Armisen as Ava's physical trainer, inexplicably using Don Henley as a motivator for her. But otherwise it was mostly going for the easy, predictable jokes, as this show often does. On an unrelated side note, why did NBC feel they had to put Parks and Recreation on hiatus when The Office hasn't aired a new episode in a month? The whole reason they took it off was because there were too many Thursday comedies and not enough timeslots, but they just wasted four weeks of opportunity (okay, three, because 30 Rock had a double in there). Ah well, Up All Night finishes next week and then Parks is back.

Awake
That was one of the most entertaining episodes yet, and highly thought-provoking throughout, thanks to Mike's confusion and hallucinations. Being injected into unconsciousness in the red world made the green world, once again, seem like the dream, because it just feels more logical to go into a dream from that rather than wake up from it, live a whole day in the green world, then go back to sleep and continue right where you left off. The penguin, in my opinion, is meant to be a red herring. It appears in both worlds, but it showed up in green first and then, also in green, we learned where it came from. Seeing as it is a hallucination either way, it doesn't really matter where it came from. Being in both worlds just makes green's reality a little more deceptively plausible due to the uncertainty of the penguin's genesis - i.e. it is as equally possible that Mike pulled it out of the dream as it is that he put it into the dream, because the penguin book exists in his memory. Hallucinating Dr. Lee in the hospital, however, is different. If the green world turns out to be real then Lee is a major clue, because if Mike can imagine Lee and his stock of psychological advice whenever he wants, who's to say he isn't always imagining Dr. Lee? But it is for this reason that Lee may also be a red herring if the red world is real. The fact that Dr. Lee never made an appearance in the green world may also be significant. My brain is hurting now.

Fringe
I'm actually kind of surprised that Lincoln became a big enough character to have an episode centered on him, because to me he's always felt somewhat insignificant to the show. I mean he's important to the Fringe team, but to the show itself, he's just kind of there not being noticed by Olivia. But he was used very well here to demonstrate why the current iteration of our universe, which had gotten along without an adult Peter until recently, is slightly different than we remember it. It's not just the absence of Peter, because the alt-world was always Peterless; that this iteration had no Peter in either universe, yet they still differ from each other, lends credence to free will and the idea that if you kept resetting the world, it would play out a little differently every time. But not 100% different; there are still certain time landmarks that will always happen and can be used by the observers as checkpoints. Or something.

Hero of the Week: Winston from New Girl, for his awesomely funny and effective monologue that was topped off by having a bowl of cereal.

Douchebag of the Week: Regina/Evil Queen from Once Upon a Time, because she apparently doesn't understand when vengeance is justified.

Weeds - Season Five

When season four was somewhat less than exciting, I wondered if the series was heading downhill. I thought it might be the location/setting change that caused the problem, or maybe it's that Guillermo wasn't a very interesting foil for Nancy, but this season managed to be good again without Nancy having to move the family a second time. In comparison, I think the character development was also stronger this season, as we saw changes occur in almost everyone: Celia hit an even lower rock bottom, Doug got even dumber and is still in his own downward spiral (though a different one from Celia's in that he occasionally attempts to get out of it but keeps failing), Andy and Silas became more mature and responsible, and Nancy seemed to stop selling weed altogether because she was too busy dealing with Esteban and the baby. As crazy as it is, I think Shane and Isabelle have become the most grounded characters on the show because they might be the only ones not to have changed since the show began. I think my favourite transformation to watch was Andy sobering up at the realization that he is in love with Nancy. While I did enjoy him as the show's second biggest fool (especially when paired with the biggest fool, Doug), these new feelings add a whole bunch of layers to his scenes with Nancy that automatically make them more interesting to watch. One thing I found a little strange was the use of Esteban, in that the show was always bouncing him back and forth between being someone Nancy loves and an antagonist from whose oppression she must escape. I guess you could say he wasn't going back and forth at all, he's just both of those things, but it almost felt like the writers weren't sure which one they wanted him to be. Maybe I'm not used to watching things where two people who love each other are making moves against one another.

Some other thoughts:
- It was a really funny series of scenes - and a nice wake-up call for Celia - when literally nobody wanted to pay a ransom to save her life. It will be interesting next season to see if she can get out of her slump by imitating Nancy (she's already got the wide-eyed expressions, dark hair, slushees, and pot-selling team.)
-Also funny: Doug and Dean mangling each other's genitals out of revenge. They are now the two biggest idiots on the show.
-Andy's beard now joins Nathan's on Heroes and Jack's on Lost in the exclusive club for TV depression beards. I thought I had a cool mental list going, but UGO beat me to it with an impressive 25 beards.
-The finale ending was unexpected but very welcome, no matter the consequences.

Best episode: I think I would have to go with "Glue", in which Andy and Nancy have a lengthy discussion about love while taking a magazine quiz in a waiting room, Dean poses as a black cop to freak out Celia, Shane and Silas rescue Esteban's daughter from date-rapists, and Pilar gets Esteban back under her thumb.