Notes on Pop Culture: 'Grey's' Pulls An 'Alias' & Ferrell Goes to 'The Office'

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy*

Grey’s Pulls An Alias

If you saw the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy, you were no doubt surprised by its final scene, which set up next week’s special “musical” edition of Grey’s slated to feature cast members singing songs which have previously been featured on the ABC drama including The Fray’s “How to Save a Life,” a tune made popular by the show.

I was none too pleased to see what happened in that final scene shortly after Arizona, who spent the episode being bitterly jealous of baby daddy Mark, proposed marriage to Callie on their way to a weekend away together: An Alias-like car crash. During the final moment of the fourth season of the spy drama, pregnant Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn had been discussing marriage while driving to a romantic, weekend getaway when they too got into a surprise car crash, although they were intentionally struck by someone as opposed to in Grey’s where Arizona accidentally smashed into a truck in front of them. (I reviewed the episode for CliqueClack TV.)

That being said, I’m very curious as to how this musically themed episode, slated for March 31, is going to play out. Will it be god awful or kind of cool?

ABC has released the first few minutes of that new episode. Warning: The video, courtesy of TV Fanatic, is graphic.

Notes from the Asylum: 'Big Love's' Last Season Begins, 'Grey's' Pregnancy Issues, 'The Company Men' . . . FINALLY!

Recap #44

Big Love’s Last Season

This is the Henrickson family’s last season on HBO’s Big Love and they started it off with the leader of their clan, Bill, acting like a head-in-the-sand narcissistic who’s suffering from a god complex as wife number one has started hitting the hooch in the middle of the day (in violation of her religion’s dictates), while wife number two threatened a grade schooler on school grounds and wife number three lost her six-figure job because her husband has outed the family as polygamists.

Yeah, about that outing thing, telling the world that he’s a polygamist mere hours after being elected to the Utah state senate, that didn’t turn out to be such a brilliant move. It didn't turn out to be a hit with anyone, not the employees at Bill’s home building supply store who were either quitting or talking smack about his family, not his campaign supporters who felt duped, not his fellow Republicans in the state senate who've vowed to politically isolate him, not the kids who go to school with the Henrickson children and not the Indian tribe which rescinded the Henricksons' contract at the family-friendly casino that was to be the family’s financial life raft.

Now they’re screwed.

While I’m hoping that Big Love’s final season isn’t centered around Bill being ridiculously out of touch, I’m eager to see what happens next. You can read my review of the season premiere on CliqueClack TV, where I’ll be reviewing each episode the day after it airs.


Image credit: ABC

Grey’s Pregnancy Issues

*Warning, spoilers from the recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy ahead.*

This past week’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy (I reviewed it here) -- which featured Meredith struggling with infertility, following her miscarriage, and Callie discovering that she’s pregnant with her friends-with-benefits’ baby -- got me to thinking about all the messed up messages that Grey’s Anatomy, and its sister show Private Practice, have sent over the years about pregnancy, child rearing and the medical profession.

Take Meredith “I’ve Got Mommy Issues Up the Wazoo” Grey. Early in the show’s run, she lambasted a pair of workaholic parents who hired a nanny to take care of their child. Burned by the fact that her dad left home when she was young and her mother threw herself into her surgical work and ignored her daughter, Meredith didn’t think she’d ever make a good mother. Until Derek said they should have a child. She got pregnant but before she could tell her husband Derek, he was shot, nearly died and she miscarried. Six months later, she’s having trouble having a baby and was told she has a “hostile uterus.”

When you throw in what happened with Callie Torres, who said she wanted "a dozen" kids since she was married to George O’Malley, plus Addison Montgomery, Mark Sloan and the only working parent on the show, Miranda Bailey, and you’ll see how thorny an issue this has been for Grey's characters. My pop culture and politics column this week is about all things babies and Seattle Grace.


Image credit: Rotten Tomatoes

The Company Men Finally Going to Be Released This Weekend

Fantastic reviews. Great cast. Perfect moment to address a timely issue – the dispiriting effect that layoffs and calloused cost-cutting/outsourcing efforts have on people who devote most of the waking hours of their lives to their jobs only to find themselves unceremoniously unemployed in a lousy economy when no one's hiring. I’ve been waiting and waiting for this much-delayed, Boston area-filmed movie The Company Men to be released. And FINALLY, it’s coming out this weekend.
And unlike the fact that I didn’t get to see The Social Network in the theaters – it’s in my Netflix queue – and I wasn’t able to see the Potter film in the theaters either (holiday madness and swine flu conspired in a sinister fashion to thwart me), I plan to, somehow, go out and see this film in the theaters.

Image credits: Danny Feld/ABC and Rotten Tomatoes.