I could've given the editor(s) of the New York Times' ThursdayStyles section a big, fat kiss this morning after I first looked at the newspaper. Normally, I wouldn't have any such smoochy desire. Normally, I'm irked by some story or another in that section because it makes me feel like a schlub because I don't spend $500 on my footwear and am unwilling to spend a lot of time and effort trying to keep up with the beautiful and the fabulous who have mucho disposable income with which to purchase the latest, trendy fashion "must haves."
But when I gazed at today's Styles section and saw that almost the whole top half of the newspaper was occupied by images of actress Reese Witherspoon on three different magazine covers looking like three different women due to the amount of Photoshopping that had been done to her photos, I smiled through my outrage.
While it's true that the web site Jezebel has done a stellar job of chronicling the odious Photoshopping that sadistic magazine editors routinely engage in -- the process of taking already lovely people and digitally altering their images, rendering them inhuman looking -- it's quite a statement by the Times to dedicate the entire top of the Styles section to this soul-crushing, destructive technique which editors defend, as if it's ethical or even good for their readers. (They're wrong on both counts.)
The article began this way:
"Most readers of fashion magazines are aware that all photographs, at least to some degree, lie.
More often than not, images have been altered -- historically with painstaking tricks of lighting and exposure and, more recently, with retouching software that can make celebrities and models look thinner, taller, unblemished, with brighter eyes and whiter teeth. Seemingly perfect. Advances in digital photographs that cover models often resemble weirdly synthesized creatures or, as the photographer Peter Lindbergh described them this week, 'objects from Mars.'"
The paper explained how Lindbergh "stirred the pot by creating a series of covers for French Elle that showed stars . . . without makeup or retouching." Lindbergh told the Times: "My feeling is that for years now, it [Photoshopping] has taken a much too big part in how women are being visually defined today. Heartless retouching should not be the chosen tool to represent women in the beginning of this century."
When asked by the Times about Photoshopping, the editor of Glamour said, "Fashion magazines are always about some element of fantasy but what I'm hearing from readers lately is that in fashion, as in every other part of our lives right now, there is a hunger for authenticity." Just look at those Witherspoon magazine covers above -- from Elle, Marie Claire and Vogue -- and you tell me that editors of fashion magazines will actually give readers "authenticity" on a regular basis, not just in some "very special issues," like the one featuring Lindbergh's natural photos. I seriously doubt it.
I tend to think that the magazine editors don't care a whit about the negative impact these false images have on girls and women because they hawk false fantasy masquerading as something remotely achievable. They'll, sadly, likely continue to carry on with business as usual, as shown in the video below from Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty:
This season's Rescue Me on FX has gone back to where it all began: 9/11. Or, more precisely, to, what Denis Leary's character Tommy Gavin this week dubbed, "What happens after."
What has lured me to the show again, after having left it for a few seasons, was this very development, its revisiting of the festering wound that hasn't yet fully healed. A French journalist working on a 9/11 book is serving as a catalyst who's rekindling nightmares anew as dramatized in the person of Tommy. Even after his son has been killed, his marriage has withered, his father has died, his resistance to alcohol has faltered (again), Tommy continues to willingly face the killer flames of fires to save people all across the city -- to rescue complete strangers -- but hasn't made peace with the ghosts of 9/11 who continue to haunt him.
While last week's episode wasn't as emotionally heavy as this week's (Sean Garrity's secret cancer diagnoses notwithstanding; Janet confronting the mean middle aged moms was fabulous, by the way), this week's installment has drawn viewers literally into Tommy's darkness with him, where the ghosts of his past taunt him, call him a coward for what he did or didn't do on that historic, horrific day. How his climbing back into bottle and facing his dead relatives is going to play out, I surely don't know, but it's been damned riveting this far.
A couple with eight children is going through an incredibly emotionally wrenching time . . . and this difficult period is being crassly exploited by a national network for ratings. I speak, of course, about Jon and Kate Gosselin, of Jon & Kate Plus 8, the parents of twins and sextuplets who star in a TLC reality show about their lives. For the past several months, the Gosselins have been besieged by paparazzi and have denied reports of marital infidelities and rumors that they're living separate lives as they teeter on the brink of divorce.
After I watched the season premiere of the fifth season of their show last night -- which garnered 9.8 million viewers, a series' high -- I felt like I needed to take a shower. I was heartsick thinking of what those eight kids will think when they grow up and realize that their parents' marriage fell apart in front of a national television audience, never mind if it gets ugly with regards to child custody issues. The premiere felt incredibly manipulative as it pushed the couple way beyond their comfort zones because, as we need to keep remembering, the TLC folks are not on the Gosselins' side. They're on the side of ratings.
The nomination of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the nation's highest court to fill the seat vacated by outgoing Supreme Court Justice David Souter will likely succeed, but not without some degree of controversy.
There's enough material out there on Sotomayer onto which folks with myriad viewpoints can latch and make hay. Conservatives, for example, are ticked that she described the U.S. Appeals Court as have a law-making role, not an interpretative one. (During a panel discussion she said: "[The] Court of Appeals is where policy is made. I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don't make law. I know. Okay. I know. I'm not promoting it. And I'm not advocating it.")
Plus there's that inflammatory comment Sotomayor made a few years ago that's been talk radio fodder this afternoon about how people's life experiences come into play when judges render legal opinions: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
The web site Politico described Sotomayor's positions on the wedge issue of abortion as "murky:" "In 17 years on the federal bench, she has issued no opinions dealing directly with abortion rights. And in two cases dealing tangentially with the issue -- involving anti-abortion protesters and the government right to limit abortion-related speech by foreign recipients of U.S. aid -- the appeals court judge's ruling favored abortion opponents. Still, anti-abortion forces are convinced that [President] Obama would not nominate Sotomayor without being confident that she supports abortion rights."
But on one thing, I think people along the various points on the political spectrum can agree: She's got a great story. Sotomayor grew up in a Bronx housing project with her parents, born in Puerto Rico, and brother. Her dad died when she was 9 and her mother, a nurse, worked like crazy to pay for parochial school for her two children. Sotomayer, who was an avid fan of Nancy Drew mysteries as a child, according to the New York Times bio on her here, went on to attend Princeton on a scholarship and then Yale Law School, worked as an assistant district attorney and a corporate litigator before becoming a judge. Then there's the story about how Sotomayer "saved baseball" during the MLB baseball strike in the mid-1990s. ("She ended a long baseball strike [in 1995], briskly ruling against the owners in favor of the players," the Timeswrote.)
The most moving moment in the announcement of her nomination occurred when she tried to describe how much she appreciates everything her mother did to help make this moment possible and she teared up. No matter what happens during this summer's confirmation process -- save for a scandal, she'll almost certainly be confirmed, though not without some protest over the justices-as-lawmakers comment -- it is heartening to hear a success story like Sotomayor's. (To hear her remarks, go about 11+ minutes into the video.)
So we all know that Kiefer Sutherland was busted for literally headbutting a fashion designer earlier this month in New York -- supposedly while defending Brooke Shields, according to news reports -- and has a court date set for June. But leave it to Jimmy Fallon to ask Sutherland if he thinks he's actually super agent Jack Bauer.
While watching the NBC Nightly Newslast night, I learned that the airport "puffer" machines, the ones that attempt to detect explosives' residue on airline passengers, are being removed from U.S. airports because they cost too much money to maintain, after the federal government spent $36 million for them in 2004. Oh, and it's costing $1 million to take them out, NBC reported. Anchorman Brian Williams said that the machines are so pricey to keep in top operational condition, that some of the machines were never even taken out of their boxes! (Your taxpayer money at work!)
And Williams is ticked off. He commenced his segment on this issue by noting that when President John F. Kennedy set a goal of having an American land on the moon within 10 years, "We made it without breaking a sweat." Now, eight years after 9/11, he noted, airport security hasn't improved much at all.
"It's been eight years and the public's safety is at stake," Williams said, sounding more like an irritated columnist than a news guy. "And to borrow from an old expression, 'If they can put a man on the moon, why can't they come up with a better and safer solution [for airport security]'?"
*Warning: Spoilers ahead from a variety of recent season finales*
I've come to the conclusion that, for the most part, season finales are serious let-downs. They almost never live up to the hype. And how can they, really? We viewers want drama, humor, the occasional sweet moment and cliffhangers . . . but not emotionally brutal cliffhangers that can sometimes appear out of left field. The networks just want one thing: Monster ratings, and they don't care how they happen. This means there's tremendous pressure to amp up the drama and conflict, even if they don't make sense as far as where the show has been throughout the season because without ratings there will be no show. This annually leaves us viewers with TV season finales that largely leave us disappointed and, sometimes irritated particularly if a naked, ratings-chasing maneuver is employed.
Take Lost's shocking season three cliffhanger finale. Now that was one hell of a finale. A beloved character, Charlie Pace sacrificed his own life in order to save his friends and, after three seasons of character flash-backs, Lost engaged in several flash-forwards, depicting Jack Shepherd in a future point in time longing to return to the island while, in the current time period, Jack was singularly determined to get everyone off of it. It was the gold standard of finales. A major character died in it -- doing something he thought would save the woman he loved -- but his death was beautifully and touching done. It was tough to watch Charlie drown, but it made sense for the larger story at the same time that it made viewers sad.
Compare that to Grey's Anatomyrecent, fifth season finale, where it was left uncertain as to whether two of the show's original characters will live or die when season six begins. One character, Izzie Stevens, had been battling cancer, so if she had died it would've been understandable and, given the previous three-hankie episode where she was married, poetic and tragic. But instead, the show had Izzie AND George O'Malley facing death, as O'Malley was hit by a bus and potentially fatally injured. Tacky. Grey'sfourth season finale ended on a much better, more uplifting note, with Meredith Grey committing to Derek Shepherd by making a "house" of candles on the plot of land Derek had picked out for their future home, even as O'Malley learned he'd failed his intern exam.
Grey's season finale notwithstanding, the rest of this year's season enders were all over the map as far as quality goes.
Lost's season ender was good, but I thought it opened up too many different and confusing themes. Whereas the season three flash-forward finale blew my mind, this season's ending frustrated me because I was (and still am) having trouble reconciling the religious imagery and overtones with the sci-fi time travel angle, plus I feel deceived about the whole John Locke-is-really-dead twist.
The 24 finale -- which had many gripping moments this season, loved President Taylor, Renee Walker and even by-the-books Larry Moss, liked the debate over the use of torture, adored the new Washington locale -- was a classic case of too much build up. The show seemed to sputter to a lackluster conclusion, particularly when there's not much drama in the Jack Bauer's-gonna-die question because we already know that Bauer lives because Kiefer Sutherland has signed on to take his 24-hour odyssey to New York City next season, provided his parole officer lets him out of LA. Kim Bauer sitting next to her father's hospital bed, coupled with the ambiguity of the resolution with the sinister Alan Wilson -- who apparently was behind all manner of badness for several seasons, including the plot against President David Palmer -- didn't hold a candle to previously powerful season finales like the death of Teri Bauer in season one, the apparent poisoning of President David Palmer in season two and Bauer being shipped off to China in the fabulous season five.
The finale for House, however, was a nice departure from the pressure to be overly, out-of-one's-depth dramatic with the last show of the season. The tone of the final 2008-09 episode was well balanced all the way through to its "what the?" ending where we learned that Greg House didn't actually have relations with Lisa Cuddy and that his hallucinations had become so severe that he checked himself into a psychiatric facility.
Friday Night Lights capped a poignant season with an episode that jumped a few months into the future and unceremoniously had Eric Taylor dumped as the Dillon Panthers' coach and instead, assigned to run the football program for a new high school whose most talented players had already been poached by Dillon. There were way too many holes and unexplained questions as to how or why the town that had been behind Taylor -- who led his team to the State Championship that season -- would so easily fire him. I'm sure next season will be just as good as previous ones, but the finale felt abrupt.
The Office ended quietly with an insane Dunder Mifflin company picnic -- and the delightfully awful Michael Scott/Holly skit where they inadvertently informed an entire branch that it was being shuttered -- where the closest thing to a cliffhanger was Pam's visit to the ER. Viewers were led to jump to the conclusion that Pam is pregnant, but that's just an inference without overt confirmation.
Contrast the low-keyed Office finale with the over-the-top Private Practicefinale, where there was an accidental embryo switch leaving two women pregnant with the other's baby, the ob/gyn for a patient with a high risk pregnancy was caught making eyes at the patient's husband in front of said patient, and a pregnant shrink (who refused to figure out which of her two lovers is the father of her baby) was rendered paralyzed by a shot administered by a patient who plans to cut the therapist's baby out of her belly. This wasn't a series of episodes. These events didn't unfold over a period of weeks. It was in one finale. And it was all too much.
I'm convinced that the ratings pressure is the biggest culprit for the zany finales and the reason why viewers inevitably feel disappointed by the aggressively-promoted season finales, many of which fail to justify the hype because either they're artificially crammed with manufactured drama or because the writers have things happen that they normally wouldn't.
What recent season finales did you like? Which ones let you down?
*Warning: Spoilers from the Grey's Anatomy finale*
I wanted to wait a few days before I wrote something about the Grey's Anatomy season five finale because my initial reaction to the last few minutes of it was negative, very negative. Made me feel manipulated. I was ticked off.
Thus I decided to chill for a few days, put a little distance between me and the finale so I could think about it and blog after my shock had worn off. But I remain annoyed, not by the bulk of the two hours, though, which featured wonderful scenes including Paris Gellar and Matt Saracen as inspiring patients, the beautifully complicated Cristina and Owen love story, the blue Post-It Note wedding with the simple yet moving vows ("No running away." "To take care when old, senile, smelly." "This is forever."), the agonizing thought process that went into deciding whether Izzie should have the brain surgery and then her signing the DNR, the reaction of the staff to the notion of George serving in the Army (particularly Arizona's backstory about the importance of Army trauma surgeons). I'm simply annoyed with the conclusion and it's coloring my reaction to the entire finale.
Grey's fans of course knew that Katherine Heigl, who plays Izzie, and T.R. Knight, who plays George O'Malley, have had creative and professional disagreements with the show's execs/producers/writers for some time. Heigl complained that she wasn't given meaty material last season and made noise like she wanted to leave the show. Knight, according to news reports, wanted out of his contract because his character's storylines had all but disappeared. Given all of that, I couldn't help but feel as though the season finale was more about the off-camera antics than the natural, creative flow of the ABC drama.
Yes, I could see it as plausible that Izzie could die from her cancer and her risky surgery. That makes sense, no matter how upsetting it was to see Alex clutching her in his arms as she started coding. But deciding to have George hit by a bus and mangled beyond recognition? While it's true he was heroic ("a hard-core hero" as Meredith said) and that he saved a woman's life in the process, but the symbolism of being hit by a bus seemed like payback to Knight. And to have BOTH Izzie and George code simultaneously, and then feature Izzie in the same prom dress she donned when she was boarding the elevator to visit her fiance Denny who, unbenownst to her, had just died . . . this was all way too much for one finale, for five minutes of TV.
I'm not alone in being unhappy with Grey's final minutes. Here's a sample of different folks' responses to the finale, in which the fate of Izzie Stevens AND George O'Malley were left in limbo (Are they both gone? I'm not convinced.):
New York Magazine's Emma Rosenblum, in a post whose headline called the finale "A Betrayal," wrote:
"T.R. Knight's George . . . got little to no screen time this season until the finale, where he signs up for the Army and is promptly hit by a bus. This plotline really disappoints: [Show Creator] Shonda Rhimes claimed this episode would be true to the characters, but if you're familiar with George's five-season arc, his Army enlistment seems mighty suspect. He had just started his hard-won residency at Seattle Grace after failing his boards the first time around, so why would he leave now? And then he gets hit by a bus. The only believable thing? No one notices George's absence (since he was never around this season). The five minutes from when Meredith finally realizes that the no-faced man is George to when he shows up, ghost-like, in an Army uniform, is certainly not enough time to ready our tear ducts for the final farewell. No weepy goodbyes? No musical montages?"
". . . [T]he ending for O'Malley feels excessive to me. There was . . . an expectation that T.R. Knight, the actor who played O'Malley, would be leaving the series as well, but they deftly wrote him out in Thursday's finale by sending him off to Iraq as a military combat trauma surgeon.
Was it surprising when he appeared to be the victim of a fatal traffic accident -- hit by a bus after saving a woman by pushing her out of the way of it?Yes, it was surprising. And while I suspect some will say it was a cleverly done ironic twist and even a comment on the battlefields that America's streets have become, to me it was mostly about shock value.
And while some longtime fans are arguing that there is wiggle room for the two 'dead' to return, I believe that is mostly a matter of denial on the part of those fans. But even if they are right, it is only further of evidence of the ways viewers' feelings are abused by the producers. If either of these two characters show up in any form next year -- even as ghosts -- I am going to wail away for days on this blog about the cheap and low-down way the show exploits its fans."
The web site Double X called what happened a broken contract with the loyal viewers:
". . . George's death was a big ol' eff you to the actor and to the audience. Last night George, who has been noticeably and woefully underused all season, enlisted in the Army as a trauma surgeon, which would have been a perfectly acceptable, if totally lackluster way to send him off. But getting shot at in Iraq was too good a fate for George, who instead became 'roadkill' (as one of his doctors put it) after pushing a stranger out of the way of a bus. His friends only realized it was him underneath all the swollen damage a few seconds before he coded.
George is a character Shonda Rhimes has spent five years making us care about — and she didn't even give him his own death scene. Instead he got a brutal, shocking, expedient death he had to share with the show's real star (Izzie). His violent end wasn't necessary to the plot, the character, or the story. It was just some grizzly afterthought."
However the Los Angeles Times'Mary McNamara said she thinks that the ending is indicative that Grey's Anatomy's future might on the uptick, creatively speaking after what she saw as an underwhelming season:
"All I have to say is: They better both be dead.
Grey's Anatomy limped to its season finale . . . with a two-hour episode that looked very much like one-hour episodes pushed together as we all waited in less than breathless anticipation to see if the endless and increasingly monotonous rumors were true and both T.R. Knight . . . and Katherine Heigl were leaving the show.
. . . For a moment, it seemed Knight would be deprived of even a picturesque death scene -- Izzie collapsed in Alex's arms (causing even the jaded TV critic who saw it coming to sob mildly) but George, of course, had no face. But creator Shonda Rhimes is anything but heartless and so we followed both into the Afterlife, which turns out to be an elevator, where Izzie in her prom dress met George in his dress uniform (which actually he cannot have actually received yet but whatever). The two looked at each other enigmatically and lovingly."
As if you need reminding, below is a clip of the last five minutes that everyone's STILL talking about:
What did you think of the finale? Do you think the touchingly poignant moments outweighed the shock and the uncertainty of the fates of Izzie and George?
* Warning, spoilers from the Desperate Housewives season finale ahead. *
Three plot twists stood out among the pack in the DH finale:
1. Susan, Mike, MJ & the murderous Dave . . . plus Delfino nuptials.
If Mike Delfino married anyone OTHER than Susan Mayer -- two months after attempting to heroically save her and their son from the homicidal nutcase Dave Williams/Dash -- then I would be surprised, shocked even, which would be nice, but not in a Grey's Anatomy shocked kind of way. (I'll rant about GA's manipulative finale in a separate post.)
But let's face it, if Mike married someone else -- two months after planning to hop a plane to Vegas to marry Katherine Mayfair -- then the writers will have a lotta 'splainin' to do. I'd be hard pressed to come up with a plausible scenario for Mike marrying anyone who isn't Susan. They've already jerked this couple around enough since season one. Last year's season finale took the new mom Susan, who was happily married to Mike, and flashed forward five years to show Susan kissing another man. During the summer before this fifth season began, everyone speculated about what that scene meant, only to learn that Susan and Mike had divorced in the wake of a traumatic car accident which left a mom and her young child dead.
To have Mike not marry Susan this time around, after all the nonsense with Edie in season three then putting them together and breaking them apart for the second time, would be absurd, particularly because the writers have made it clear that they still love one another and, had it not been for that accident, they'd still be together. Dave remarked that bringing Mike, Susan and MJ to the location where his wife and child died would be poetic. And it truly was if the writers used it -- the location of the incident that ultimately separated Mike and Susan -- to bring the couple back together and make the family whole again.
As for Katherine, well, she's just poor, pathetic Katherine sitting alone in the airport clutching two coffees and looking bewildered, someone who I wished had been more confident in her own value, intellect, success and attractiveness. If she was so afraid that the man who moved in with her and proposed marriage didn't really love her, that she needed to keep him away from his ex-wife lest he flee into his ex's arms, then she already knew, deep down inside, that he was not the right man for her. Hopefully Katherine will be given something more useful to do in season six other than moping around and making moony eyes.
2. Lynette is pregnant with babies five and six just as Tom's getting ready to go back to school to learn Mandarin Chinese.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Tom Scavo found something about which to be excited, other than his bad garage band or his mid-life crisis mobile that he had to sell. Going back to college was a great idea, and it was completely in character how Lynette responded to his initially ambiguous plan. "Okay," I thought, "they're onto something with the Scavos here. 'Bout time."
Then came news of Lynette's twins pregnancy. Are the writers seeking to reboot the Scavos' story, to move the family back to square one from the first season, and if so, will they have learned anything about balancing work and family? I could be on board with an "oops" pregnancy as long as it's not simply a rehash of previously trod territory.
3. The Solises take in Carlos' teenaged niece, in a story that feels like we've previously seen on DH.
Of the big developments in the finale, this one seemed odd. Haven't we already seen this storyline before, albeit with slightly different twists? This reminded me of the fall-out after Tom's eldest daughter Kayla (conceived pre-Lynette with a former gal pal of Tom's) needed to be taken in after her loony mother Nora was killed. The scheming daughter came between Lynette and Tom, manipulated Lynette to get what she wanted, goaded her and pouted in front of Tom until Lynette became so wild with frustration that she convinced Tom that, for the sake of their family, Kayla had to be sent away. After Kayla called child care workers on Lynette, Tom agreed.
Is that what they have in mind for the Solises? Having Carlos' niece Anna goad Gabby and manipulate people into getting her way until Gabby says that, for the sake of the Solis family, Carlos has to send Anna to live with another relative? Anna seems like simply an older version of Kayla, only she's learned how to use her sex appeal to get boys to do her bidding and give her designer duds. She also knows how to make Gabby crazy.
This can go nowhere good. And I must say, I'm not a fan of the girl-as-manipulator storyline being repeated. It also will do nothing positive for Gabby's character, who's at her most unlikeable when she locks horns with another female regarding control over a man, in this case, Carlos.
(I've decided against addressing the Bree Van de Kamp Hodge/Orson Hodge story because I think it's silly.)
Overall, I did like this Desperate Housewives finale. I genuinely wondered whether they'd go so far as to have Dave kill MJ (which would've been really brutal) or harm Susan. Flashing forward two months to show Mike marrying a thickly veiled woman without revealing her face was a clever move, even if it simply cannot be anyone other than Susan.
Your thoughts on the finale? Did it meet your expectations?
Matthew Fox appeared on Jimmy Kimmel's show to promote Lost, but he wound up promoting his comedy chops. The two did a video -- which reminded me of Kimmel's video with Ben Affleck, minus the bleeped out expletives and sexual references -- which was weirdly amusing.
Being the White House press secretary seems like a cruddy job. You've got to field questions about subjects about which you might not have a firm grasp. You might be asked to subvert the truth, to lie, to pretend you don't know something that you DO in fact know, to try not to cringe when you hear yourself say ridiculous statements like when Robert Gibbs had to, with a straight face, tell us what the vice president MEANT to say when he said he wouldn't want anyone in his family to be in a confined space with the swine flu going around.
That said, I laughed when I saw this video of Gibbs' response to THREE reporters' cell phones going off during a nationally televised press briefing. I only wish he'd been able to snag that last phone from the CBS reporter and chuck it out the door with the other one.
Honestly, don't these folks get that it's respectful to put your phones on vibrate, particularly after one interruption, never mind THREE. If I can figure out how to put my cell phone on vibrate when I'm in a movie theater or at church, certainly White House reporters can do that during a press briefing. Maybe Gibbs needs to run a public service announcement before commencing the briefing: Silence your cell phones. Or else we'll toss 'em out of the room. (Link to the video here.)
*Warning: Spoilers from the Lost season finale ahead*
I've just gotta get this out of the way . . . I will never think of the phrase"lock box" quite the same again. (Bad, I know. . .)
I spent a good hour-and-a-half last night vigorously debating with The Spouse about Lost'sseason finale, specifically about Jacob and his nemesis, and how time travel fits into what now appears to be a TV show about the innate good/evil tendencies in humans, free will versus determinism. Immediately after the screen went white (NOT black, per usual), the debate commenced. Jacob, dressed in white, represents God, The Spouse argued. Jacob's trying to prove that humans can do better than to succumb to their most base, evil temptations. The other guy, dressed in black, The Spouse continued, is the devil who's trying to prove to Jacob/God that people are inherently evil and selfish.
The other guy, let's call him Hal just so I don't have to keep calling him "the other guy," looked out from the island's beach, sitting next to a huge Egyptian statue, and looked at what I can only assume is the 1800s era ship, the Black Rock, that eventually shipwrecked there. Hal said, "How did they find the island? . . . You [Jacob] brought them here. You're trying to prove me wrong aren't you?"
"You are wrong," Jacob said.
"Am I? They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same."
"It only ends once. (?!) Anything that happens before that is just progress," Jacob replied.
Here, watch the opening scene for yourself (link to the main Lost site with the "loophole" video here):
I listened to and pondered The Spouse's arguments and then asked, "Does this mean that the island is like a Garden of Eden, a test site for a meta human nature experiment so that Jacob/God can improve upon his creation and prove to Satan that humans can be forces for good in the world?"
"Let's say I buy that whole good versus evil theme, buy into it as the framework for the remainder of this television series," I continued, "how the hell does time travel fit into it? Isn't time travel a scientific notion? Daniel Faraday, who told Jack Shepherd how to supposedly prevent the crashing of Oceanic 815 in 2004, was a scientist who spent decades studying time travel. He had knowledge of the electromagnetic properties of the island. How does that fit into a purely good versus evil story?"
The Spouse didn't really have an answer and was starting to grow a wee bit cranky as the clock ticked past midnight. (I think I'd had way too much caffeine prior to watching the finale.)
It was true that Jack had to decide whether he had faith in Faraday's scientific certainty, or whether Jack should instead just forge ahead with his own life and not blow up The Swan. He could've wooed Kate back and lived in the Dharma village. But Jack ultimately made the choice that he thought was for the greater good, not just for Jack Shepherd. He was proving a Jacob/God point that humans can be selfless. So there was some degree of faith there, a moral test, I conceded to The Spouse. But that scientific time travel element -- which has so dominated this season -- mucks up a good versus evil theme, muddies the waters, I insisted.
As much as I want to cross my fingers and hope that the writers are actually going to make this all make sense -- and I mean ALL , such as why these particular people, why they ALL had to come back to the island, why certain people are in 1977 and others are in 2007, why Jacob can appear on the island/off the island, what Christian Shepherd's ghost has to do with guiding Sun, how Locke's father wound up in "The Box" last season, why doesn't Richard age, what about Walt and how do the ubiquitous numbers come into play? -- I'm growing fearful that it won't all be tied together into a neat package as I so much want it to be. I want to believe that my own faith in the Lost writers will pay off in the end.
Anyway, onto more episode analysis . . . The issues of "free will" and choices for either the greater good or for selfish reasons, have been explored before, however in the finale they were repeatedly invoked. Sawyer/LaFleur wanted to take the Dharma sub and go away with Juliet to live happily ever after. Kate wanted to go back to help "save" their friends on the island. And while Sawyer, Juliet and Kate were initially going to try to stop Jack from detonating the H-bomb at The Swan because they were afraid they'd all be killed, not saved, they eventually allowed Jack to go forth and drop the bomb, hoping they'd be saving everyone who'd been killed since their plane first crashed in 2004. (Another nod to Jacob/God's selfless choices.)
H-bomb aside, the scene in Jacob's lair -- where Ben was told by the Locke impostor (Locke being supposedly possessed by Satan now) to kill Jacob -- played out more starkly as good versus evil. Jacob looked directly at Ben, who'd once been the "leader" of the island, to whom Jacob had never spoken, whom Jacob had refused to see. The more Ben thought about how he'd been blown off by Jacob, the angrier Ben (who'd been saved as a child by the smoke monster . . . or could it have been disciples of Satan/Hal who saved Ben from death, took his soul and made him evil?) got. "Why him?" Ben asked referring to Jacob allowing Locke to visit as soon as he'd been crowned the island's leader. "What was it that was so wrong about me? What about me?" then, of course, an angry Ben killed Jacob/God, scoring a victory for Hal/Satan. (See the violent scene below.)
When we learned that Locke's body was inside the big metal box being toted around by the latest airline crash survivors, I was totally confused. After all that Jesus/resurrection talk, the Judas and the cross imagery, Locke is actually dead and Hal/Satan has been impersonating him? I'll be frank on this matter; I don't understand this turn of events, despite the "loophole" stuff that Hal and Jacob discussed on the beach in the 1800s. I don't get how there could be two Locke bodies at once, unless of course one Locke body is time traveling, but I didn't get the impression that the Locke who told Ben to kill Jacob was OUR Locke. We're supposed to believe that it was Hal/Satan who'd somehow found a loophole to kill Jacob. How does this so-called loophole work? Could the key be somehow related to time travel?
I have no idea. Seriously. By the time I finished trying to reorient myself to the new Lost reality (Locke's not alive. Locke's not really supposed to be a resurrected Jesus figure even though he did hear Jacob say, "Help me," two seasons ago. Jacob/God visited and touched most of our Oceanic folks -- Jack, Hurley, Sayid, Sawyer, Kate, Sun & Jin, appeared to resurrect a dead Locke after his father pushed him out of the high rise window. Hal/Satan is trying to prove that people are inherently selfish and evil and prone to violence.), it was 12:30 a.m. and The Spouse was telling me to shut up because he had to go to sleep. And now, 15 hours later, I'm still stumped.
I'd love to hear your theories, your reactions to the season finale, particularly how time travel fits into the overall theme of what now appears to be good versus evil. And what's up with Locke?
*Warning, spoilers ahead from the previous episode of 24*
Public service announcement: There will be no head-butting/violating of probation jokes, inferences, etc. in this blog post. Personally I'm afraid Jack Bauer will come after me if I do. Now, onto 24 . . .
Next week, Fox will air the two-hour finale of 24. And I just have a tiny grievance to lodge in advance of the finale. While I've largely enjoyed this particular bad day in Jack Bauer's life -- it was heads and shoulders above the previous day -- it pains me to see that it appears to be veering toward a premise we've seen before, specifically, in the very first season. The recent episode concluded with Kim Bauer's life in jeopardy courtesy of some sinister bad guys who're going to make Jack do their dirty work on their behalf or else Kimmie's time being hunted by a cougar in the woods several years ago will seem like a walk in the park.
Is it too much to ask that the writers go with a different twist?
After its first few episodes, many folks were complaining that NBC's new Amy Poehler comedy, Parks and Recreation -- where Poehler plays deputy Parks director Leslie Knope -- was too similar to The Office, a show from which several of the Parks folks hailed. Poehler's character, people complained, was just a female version of Michael Scott.
However after reading New York Magazine'sEmily Nussbaum's ode to the show and Poehler's character, I find myself agreeing with her thesis:
". . . [A]fter five episodes, [Parks and Recreation] has begun to kick free for me, mainly because the writers are onto something timely and resonant with Leslie, a fool who is also a budding heroine . . . [H]er motives are mixed, and her go-girl feminism goofy, she's not wrong to see cynicism everywhere -- the show satirizes her naivete, but it's also clear she's the only one trying to make things better."
Nussbaum added that the comedy showcases a female pol, similar in vein to the lead character in the comedic film in Election, Reese Witherspoon's Tracy Flick. Knope is, "a deserving hard worker, beaten down by the lazy and popular. At its best, Parks and Recreation provides an appealing Flick's-eye view -- the opportunity to see Leslie's burning, bumbling ambition as noble, not merely absurd."
I concur that Parks has started to grow into its own. Having Poehler's Knope work so hard to break through the political glass ceiling is simultaneously played as much for chuckles (because of her vast cluelessness) as it is for the "truthiness" it provides, that being that it's not exactly easy to be a successful female politician.
Knope went to the barbershop where a number of famous local pols have had their hair cut for years, even though that particular barber doesn't usually cut women's hair. He gave her a severe, masculine hair style and didn't understand why she went to him, but Knope was thrilled and felt as though she'd been accepted by the political establishment, that she'd invaded a male bastion where she believed political wheeling and dealing was conducted.
Knope wanted to fit in with the "guys" at city hall and have a few beers with them in the courtyard as they regularly do. But she was felt terribly guilty over having shared a bottle of wine from a gift basket that she'd received and said they couldn't ethically accept as public servants. She then outed herself as an unethical employee, something none of the men would've done and was reprimanded.
Knope -- whose office prominently features framed photos of women politicians -- tried to use a hardball political tactic recommended by her mother, also a local official, in order to help a worthwhile public works project move forward. However when she was unable to execute the borderline unethical political manuever, she was wholesome enough to feel guilty about it.
Sure, at first blush, Leslie Knope may seem Michael Scott-ish, but she's evolving, along with her own kooky brand of dunderheadedness. The show could also shine an interesting spotlight on the wackiness of local government. As a young newspaper reporter who covered my fair share of small town meetings, I know that there's plenty of material the writers can mine to make this show an entertaining, comedic romp, with Poehler at the helm.
It is with a grave amount of sadness that I've been watching the media coverage of three high-profile women whose husbands have been accused of/have admitted to being unfaithful. While the stories, blog posts and analyses about the betrayed wives generally start out as sympathetic, inevitably things take a turn and the women are blamed, mocked, or worse.
My Pop Culture & Politics column this week examined the mainstream news media's coverage of women/mothers in the week leading up to Mother's Day. While I analyzed Time Magazine's list of 100 influential people (only 29 were women, a third of the women's write-ups mentioned that they are moms, as compared to 5 percent for the dads), I pointed out how folks have been laying into well known women whose husband have (or reportedly have) cheated on them. Last week, the media was largely focused on sympathizing and vilifying Elizabeth Edwards and Kate Gosselin in particular.
Edwards, wife of two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, is promoting her new book Resilience, in which she addresses many issues including her husband's infidelity with a woman who's rumored to have given birth to John Edwards' baby. And while folks feel badly that she's struggling with terminal cancer, that hasn't stopped people from slicing and dicing her recent decisions. To stay with him. To intentionally expose him and their three kids to further public scrutiny by writing her book.
In an interview with the Today Show this morning after listening to some harsh comments opinion writers had made about her, Edwards explained that she'd been asked to write a book about overcoming obstacles BEFORE she knew about her husband's dalliances. Not that that fact will matter to her critics.
Meanwhile Gosselin, who, with her husband Jon, stars in the TLC reality show, Jon & Kate Plus 8, has recently been subjected to humiliating reports that Jon has been stepping out on her. While she's out promoting her new book, Gosselin has faced questions about her husband's reported affair and she told Meredith Vieira on the Today Show that she's "hesitant to believe" that her husband strayed.
This deconstructing of the wives' motives and actions and whether they "made" their husbands stray, what good is it doing for anyone? The vitriol is being directed at the wrong people.
It's a bit too much for one eight day period -- including one in which the home town hoop team is in the playoffs, and there's baseball on -- all these season finales at once. And you know that if you don't watch the finales on time (even in the DVR/TiVo era) you're likely to get something spoiled or you might stumble upon something accidentally on the internet.
If you don't want to miss some of the big finales and/or need to set the DVR, here are a few of note coming up over the next week:
House, Monday, Fox. Huddy. The combo of House and Cuddy. Doesn't exactly seem like the beginning of a beautiful relationship. One with power plays, resentment, lack of communication and co-dependency: Yes. Loving commitment: No. Huddy aside, I'm wondering if House has been suffering from Izzie Stevens syndrome, only the deceased person he's been hallucinating wasn't his one-time fiance, but his buddy's gal. Hmmm.
Lost, Wednesday, ABC. The big kahuna of all finales. Two-hour extravaganza. Jack. With an H-bomb. Threatening to blow up what in the future will become the Hatch. Kate not supporting Jack (again). Sawyer/LaFleur in another love triangle. Locke setting out to murder a mysterious character (who may or may not be among the living). I know that my expectations are way out of proportion with what the writers can possibly deliver, but, seeing that it's Lost, I simply don't care. Hope I'm not bitterly disappointed on Wednesday night.
Grey's Anatomy,Thursday, ABC. Yes, I was tearing up at the Izzie-Alex wedding switcheroo, particularly Alex's beautiful vows. ("Today I become a man. Today I become a husband . . . Today I become accountable to you, to our future.") After five seasons of this wildly uneven though always entertaining show, I'm planning on having a big tissue box next to me when I watch the finale. I'll also be crossing my fingers that there will be no more sick/dying/dead children. I've had plenty this season, thank you very much. If you believe the rumors, George O'Malley may or may not be leaving Seattle Grace. Izzie may or may not be dying/losing her memory post-surgery. We shall see. They've reserved two hours.
The Office, Thursday, NBC. Other than me continuing to miss the oddball nature of the Michael Scott Company. I have no earthly idea what'll happen. Maybe an explosion at Dwight's beet farm?
30 Rock, Thursday, NBC. Liz. Jack. Jenna. Tracy. Kenneth. It'll be a long, laughless, special guest star-less summer without them. The finale promises Donaghy daddy issues with guest star Alan Alda. Kidney anyone?
Desperate Housewives, Sunday, ABC. Let's hope Dave Williams goes bye-bye, Susan Mayer and Mike Delfino stop teasing us (and leading on clueless Katherine Mayfair) and that the Scavos get some decent material. Maybe Bree will decide to go into the burglary biz, as long as she stops renting storage units under her own name in which to house her ill-gotten-gains.
24, NEXT Monday, Fox. Jack Bauer's latest bad day comes to a close next Monday in a two-hour extravaganza. Maybe Jack will finish off the bad guys with a fierce headbutt . . . no wait, that's Kiefer Sutherland, the actor who plays Jack, and unsuspecting fashion designers. Maybe Sutherland just got confused and THOUGHT he was Jack and that the designer was really Tony Almeida in disguise.
This was a much better Desperate Housewivesepisode than the recent lot of 'em, the ridiculousness of Bree breaking into her own home with Karl the snake notwithstanding.
The whole Tom Scavo STILL having a mid-life crisis story this week featured a new, interesting twist by having him, a man, worry about how his middle-aged looks would affect his potential employment opportunities. (That whole bit about Tom not knowing what Twitter was said more about Tom's connectedness with new marketing tools than the lines on his face.) The twist afforded us the chance to enjoy that great late night kitchen scene where Lynette tenderly traced the wrinkles on Tom's face and said they each told a story from their marriage, that his face was a map of their lives together. It brought a tear to my eye, even though I, like Lynette, wouldn't want someone to use my face to tell my life's story.
I also appreciated the Gabby story which contrasted her spending gobs of money on a crystal vase and pricey fabrics, with the fact that a friend of hers, who used to serve food on Tiffany china, was now in a soup line after she lost everything to pay for her dead husband's medical bills. (Gabby didn't even know the woman's husband had died.) It was the first time in a while that Gabby has mentioned or acknowledged that, not too long ago, she was doing whatever she could to keep her house and take care of her family, something the show's writers seem fond of ignoring. I'd love to see this angle pursued with more vigor, with Gabby's classic sardonic comments of course. Totally unrelated: What's up with her non-speaking younger daughter? We only ever hear about Juanita.
Those two bright spots outshone the dim ones, the aforementioned Bree-Orson situation and the now tiresome Dave Williams-is-out-for-evil-revenge story which promises to come its apex during the season finale on Sunday. (*fingers crossed*) I'm not sure where I sit on the Susan-Mike-Katherine love triangle front. I could take it or leave it.
As for the season finale, here's what I'm hoping for: Something resembling a decent plotline for the Scavos (kind of like a parting gift for the crappy season the actors have been given), Dave to depart Wisteria Lane (preferably in a straight jacket), Bree to just have Orson seen by a psychologist and for the Solises to resemble a family again.
*Warning, spoilers from the recent episode of Lostahead*
The new Lost episode -- "Follow the Leader" -- was one of those head-scratchers that made me feel confused and clueless, even though I've seen every episode of this show -- multiple times -- and frequent blogs with vigorous Lost fan bases.
Maybe I was tired when I was watching. There ARE two Boston teams in sports playoffs (Celtics, Bruins), plus I was also trying to simultaneously watch the Red Sox. I was also cranky, had a precariously low level of caffeine in my system and truly wasn't in the mood to be required to think this hard.
Now that I've had time to think about the episode, I'm trying to make sense of it. Let me get this straight:
-- Jack wants to carry on dead Daniel's work as outlined in Daniel's notebook which was given to Daniel by his mother who wound up killing him. Jack thinks that by blowing up "Jughead" (the hydrogen bomb buried under Dharmaville -- maybe THAT'S why women couldn't bear children), he'll be restoring the natural order to their lives, putting everything where it should be. The original Oceanic 815 crash will not happen in 2004 because the pent-up electromagnetic energy on the island will have already been released due to the bomb's detonation.
As I pondered this, I kept thinking of the phrase, "Dead is dead." If Jack, Kate, Eloise, Charles W., Hurley, Sayid, Sawyer/LaFleur, Kate, Miles and Juliet are all blown up how could they still be living in the future? Say only a couple of them are blown up, like Jack and Sayid if they happen to be close to the bomb. They'd be dead. They wouldn't be able to be on the plane in the future would they? Unless of course the island heals them, post-blast . . . Could they possibly head off the construction of The Swan and the infamous button?
-- Kate now thinks Jack's a suicidal maniac and prefers to face the Dharma mania to Jack's . . . and winds up on the sub that's evacuating the women and children off the island, along with Sawyer (who, circa 1977, wants to invest in Microsoft and become rich) and Juliet (who's less than thrilled that Kate has joined them). However ABC ruined the suspense for next week by showing a clip of Sawyer back on the island so we know their time on the sub plotting to relaunch their lives is short-lived.
-- Locke impersonates Moses by leading his tribe of followers down an island beach in search of "Jacob," after having provided them with fresh meat (in the form of a freshly killed, sacrificial boar). He tells them that when he finds Jacob -- who asked Locke to help him during last season -- he plans on killing him. Huh? Is Jacob alive and needs to be killed (like Locke "needed" to be killed by Ben) in order to live forever? Is Christian -- whose last name IS Shepherd -- Jacob, or are they separate?
-- There's been a large amount of chatter online speculating about whether Richard Alpert first came to the island on that Black Rock ship that crashed on the island (Richard was working on a ship in a bottle) or is some kind of ancient Egyptian (hence his eyeliner and the hieroglyphics in the Temple) who has been resurrected (hence he never ages). What really threw me during the last episode was that Richard, who always seemed so self-assured, seemed baffled when Locke told him to go meet a time-traveling version of Locke and assist with removing a bullet from his thigh. When Richard asked Locke how he knew that the time-traveling Locke would would be there, Locke replied that the island told him.
-- Which brings us to the question is "the island" Jacob? Does the island have its own spirit and intentions separate and distinct from Jacob and from Christian, who seems to be playing a pivotal role in guiding the time traveling Losties, like giving Sun the photo of the 1977 Dharma recruits?
The ONLY thing that's clear -- other than the fact that Miles' daddy didn't really leave Miles and his mother but was seeking to protect them, hence his picking a fight to make his wife leave -- is that "The Incident" will likely be the focus of the season finale next week, which will likely leave us on a life or death cliffhanger.
Meanwhile, the latest Lost Untangled video (link here) made me laugh with the comical images of Jack & Co. swimming through the tunnels, Sayid's "I am not a killer" line and Locke's grandiose presentation of the dead boar.
What did you think of the latest installment? What are you hoping to see in the season finale?
TV Squad (full disclosure: for which I used to blog) has a new list out. They love lists. This time, the web site puts 10 shows in the crosshairs and targets them for cancellation. Topping TV Squad's "Series That Should be Canceled" is Grey's Anatomy, writing: "I cannot take one more minute of Meredith whining. I've reached my limit." (See why I DON'T think Meredith is a whiner and why I root for her character, here.)
Included among the other programs that TV Squad targets are: Survivor, American Idol, Brothers & Sisters, a CSI, a Law & Order and Private Practice (lots of hating on Shonda Rhimes here, although the Violet-being-held-captive-for-unwilling-C-section scenes in the season finale were patently insane, plus her refusal to test for whose baby she was carrying was annoying to no end).
I must, however, disagree with the list, at least as far as Grey's goes . . . as long as the remainder of the Grey's season doesn't go whole-hog dead Denny-ish wacko on me. If that happens, I may find myself concurring with TV Squad, but not because Meredith's a "whiner."
Is there any TV series which you wish would just be put out of its misery?
I've been with Grey's Anatomy since day one. I've hung in there through a series of obnoxiously preposterous storylines, like dead Denny having sex with Izzie, George/Meredith, George/Izzie, Callie living in Seattle Grace's basement even though we later learned that she has a giant tru$t fund (was that ever explained, by the way, why she was living in the basement because she was rich?).
I stuck with the show because I have a soft spot for the dark and twisty Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo). And not because we share the same first name. Unlike those who despise her character, dismiss it as whiny, indecisive and narcissistic, I've seen her as an emotionally embattled survivor who doesn't see the world quite the way others do. And that's what I like that about her, particularly given her circumstances.
Meredith had an absent and borderline emotionally abusive workaholic mother who never seemed to believe in her daughter. Meredith's father also abandoned her after he divorced Meredith's mother, and instead chose to love and raise his second family and blow off his only child from his first marriage. When her mother got sick with Alzheimers, Meredith had to care for her until she death. The man with whom she fell in love conveniently forgot to tell her he was married, until his unfaithful wife confronted the two of them. Then the love of Meredith's life chose to try to patch things up with his wife, all the while giving longing looks to the heart-broken Meredith who was working in the hospital. Meredith then had a bomb squad guy -- Coach Eric Taylor! -- blow up in front of and all over her. Her father, who lapsed into alcoholism, blamed Meredith for the accidental death of her step-mother. Meredith then attempted suicide and nearly died.
From the ashes of all of that, Meredith Grey emerged as a semi-sane, fiercely loyal, talented physician who still adores Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), the man who jerked her around, became impatient with her emotional distress and toyed with her emotions. I respect Meredith's character and find her interesting. I've always felt that McDreamy was just a sideshow with hair gel. Meredith is the real deal, hence the show being called GREY'S Anatomy, not Seattle Grace.
However as we approach the show's 100th episode Thursday night -- which is supposed to feature Meredith and Derek's wedding -- I do so with great trepidation, fearful of more melodramatic dead Denny scenes, Izzie dying right after/before the ceremony (so Katherine Heigl will get some Emmy-worthy material) or some weird medical crisis I can't even imagine . . . yet one more thing or incident that will detract from Meredith's desire to lead a low-keyed life with her friends beside her. I'm hoping, sincerely, really hoping that the episode is not over-the-top.
As the traditional television season comes to a close with spring season finales for big shows like Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, The Office, 24, 30 Rock and Lost approaching, it's good to know that, aside from watching my beloved Boston Red Sox on TV, there will be some new TV programming to sample.
That includes Army Wiveson Lifetime, which premieres its third season on June 7.
I was late to this whole Army Wives thing. The show has a very dedicated following, which I learned while preparing for a column about the women on Army Wives. I bought the season one DVD set, watched it in one sitting, and then caught up on season two episodes which I'd DVRed.
After watching them, I found that while some aspects of the show can be overly sentimental, it can have some stilted dialogue and doesn't have uniformly solid acting, Army Wives can be entertaining and, most importantly, enlightening. I don't have anyone in my family or circle of friends who's involved in the military or has served. The lives of military families are completely foreign to me and, given that our country is fighting a two-front war and President Obama has said he wants to amp up the action in Afghanistan, I think that trying to understand their struggles is something I think is worthwhile.
So as much as I may mock Lifetime TV, my DVR will have a regular appointment on Sunday nights this summer.
Let's get right to the point with this Desperate Housewives' wrap-up/review, shall we?
Likes:
-- The writers put a clever twist on the Susan-Mayer-gets-back-together-with-her-ex-painter-boyfriend. Jackson appeared in Fairview with no advanced warning after the two broke up months ago. The two had dinner at Susan's. Jackson abruptly asked Susan to marry him. She cut him off mid-sentence and fled to another room where, through a closed door, she proclaimed her unrequited love for him. Chagrined by her overly emotional response, Jackson told her, through the same closed door, that he was only looking to marry her so he won't be deported to Canada. He needed a green card. That made me laugh, for the first time in many a recent DHeppy. I was NOT expecting this. It has comedic potential, having Susan be thrice-wed.
-- Liked the Juanita/make-up storyline. I've been waiting for the writers to dive back into this subject matter, given that Gabby used to be a model and to her, appearance is of paramount importance.
After Carlos was blinded and he and Gabby had two kids, Gabby dropped her superficiality and focused on living a well rounded life. She didn't obsess over her looks and even willfully ignored the fact that her two daughters were a bit on the heavy side.
However -- as I've lamented many times here -- ever since Carlos regained his eyesight and landed a six-figure job, Gabby has returned to original form and forgotten that those hard days existed. She blew off her daughters' potential body and beauty issues, particularly given the fact that Gabby returned to the glam.
-- The sex-for-30-consecutive-days bit with Lynette and Tom Scavo was amusing at first. Those books about married couples having sex every day for a whole year really irk me. They don't take into consideration sickness and the unpredictable messiness of life. And that's what the writers were taking on here: The backlash against those who proclaimed that sex every day would rejuvenate a marriage. Having Lynette tell the Wisteria Lane gals that she'd return to their card game in the kitchen quickly -- because it wouldn't take long to satiate Tom, who was urging her to end the card game so they could get busy -- did elicit a chuckle.
The storyline moved into uncomfortable territory, however, when: a) It appeared as though an insistent and increasingly irrational Tom was considering having sex with an exhausted Lynette after she fell asleep, and 2) He appeared at Lynette's office one night when she had to work late and said they had to have relations on her desk during a conference call while Carlos was at an off-site meeting. Those scenes weren't funny. They were icky. And distinctly unsexy. Perhaps that's what they were going for, how having sex for consecutive days regardless of mood just because you made some agreement ISN'T sexy. If so, then they succeeded.
Dislikes:
-- Dave Williams WAS an intriguing, angry, potentially sinister dude. Liked the way Neil McDonough played him at first. Now? Don't care. Don't care how he's plotting to get back at Susan and her second ex-husband Mike Delfino and possibly their son MJ.
-- Have also lost interest in Bree Van deKamp Hodge getting angry and wanting to divorce creepy thieving ex-con Orson. The fact that she turned to Susan's first ex-husband, the cheating, untrustworthy Karl to be her divorce lawyer (and the previews for next week show them BREAKING INTO a house while clad in all black), is just silly. Why?
-- Katherine putting MJ up to interrogating Mike during breakfast about whether he'll ever pop the question was so very desperate and sad. When Katherine first appeared as a show regular, she was so confident, showing Bree up with her perfect pies. Now Katherine is a shadow of her former self. That's too bad.
Well, DH fans, what did you think? What are you hoping to see in the season finale?
I dedicated my Pop Culture & Politics column this week to In Treatmentand how, at the root of all the HBO show's patients' problems seems to be flawed parenting, which, as the parent of three young kids, is frightening.
But the drama -- which gives you half-hour glimpses into the therapy sessions of five patients (including the therapist, Paul Weston, himself) -- does more than make me hope that my flawed child-rearing idiosyncrasies aren't going to send my kids to a therapists' sofa in a decade or two. It makes you assess and think about your own life and wonder, "Am I doing THAT? Do I respond to situations like this patient?"
There's a college-aged cancer patient who won't take care of herself and won't tell her family because she doesn't want to burden them, a disgraced CEO with panic attacks and childhood guilt, a couple that's divorcing that has a suffering son who thinks he's responsible for the family's break-up and a fortysomething attorney who's angry that she never got married and had children.
Then there's the therapist, played by the immensely talented, Emmy winning Gabriel Byrne, who lives a lonely life in Brooklyn, while his children and his ex-wife live in Maryland. His oftentimes combative sessions with his therapist, Gina (Dianne Wiest) are, by far, the ones to which I look forward the most each week.
While HBO may have cornered the market on death with its provocative Six Feet Under, and put its stamp on the life of thirtysomething single gals in NYC with Sex and the City, I think the network can now claim the therapy arena as well. In Treatment makes the therapy sessions on other shows look positively amateurish by comparison.
I miss the Michael Scott Paper Company. Already. It completely rejuvenated The Office. It made us see the nutty, clueless boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell) -- who couldn't get his own grandmother to invest in his start-up company -- in a different light, as it did for Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) who became more than a phone-answering secretary.
The Dunder Mifflin salespeople got a boost from it as well. They actually had to work to try to actively save their clients, whose accounts they wanted to keep away from the clutches of the Michael Scott Paper Company's eager sales associates. Sure, you expected Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) to tussle with Michael, Pam and Ryan Howard (B.J. Novak) over clients. Dwight would go to the mat over a lost paperclip.
And just as I was hoping that the Michael Scott Paper Company would actually take off from their puny closet/office, Michael, Pam and Ryan returned to the comfort of the Dunder Mifflin fold (although Ryan's stint in sales was short lived). Now I fear that The Office will lose the creative mojo it generated with Michael's departure from Dunder Mifflin and things will simply revert back to the way they were.
