Review - SUITS 3.6: 'The Other Time'

This is the case that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends ...

Some people starting caring about it (not knowing what it was), and they'll continue watching it forever just because ...

THIS GOD DAMN CASE NEVER ENDS!

Hell, even when episodes are set 10 years ago, the case is still prevalent. There's just no end in sight here.

Despite my annoyance of the Ava Hessington case's refusal to go away, this was a solid episode. Basically, it comes down to this: Flash forwards = stupid and Flash backs = useful and interesting (even if they did a poor job of making them all look 10 minutes younger, let alone 10 years)

But the main criticism I had with this one was that we didn't really learn anything new by going back in time. We already knew why Harvey left the DA's office and we pretty much already knew that him and Donna hooked up one time and one time only. And there was no big revelation regarding Mike and his douchebag friend Trevor. I mean, how crazy is it that 10 years prior Trevor was getting Mike into trouble?

I really don't want this show to try to humanize that piece of crap. Not going to work. But any episode that brings back Mike's grandmother is good in my book.

And what a tease ... I thought we were going to learn the full extent of the can opener and the only thing we learned was that they were looking for a new ritual and a waitress happened to walk by as Harvey stole her can opener. I should have known better and not gotten my hopes up.

And yet another shock ... Harvey appears to be going back on his word on taking over the firm and things are on the verge of going back to status-quo. That's USA Network for you!

One last note: Sorry for not posting a review last week. I started writing it, but needed to take a break and just never got back to it. This isn't exactly a groundbreaking take, but reviewing a show can really sap your enjoyment of it. That's definitely at play with me and Suits right now.

QUOTES OF NOTE:

--DONNA: "I'm not into you, I'm Donna."

--EVERYONE: "I'm here, you're here -- do your job."

--HARVEY: "I don't want to find out what kind of lawyer I'd be without you."

--DONNA: "You really do need me to stop doing things like this ... in the future."

--DONNA: "OK, listen Rainman -- you wear lifts in your shoes, you want braces but you don't have the balls and you have a cat ... that you love more than it loves than you.

RANDOM RAMBLINGS:

--Louis is the creepiest dude ever and a complete snake, but it's hard not to love him anyway.

--I'm starting to think Donna is more valuable to a law firm than Harvey would be.

--HAHA, I love that the random dude in the elevator called Louis an asshole. Who doesn't hate that guy?

--At first, I was thinking that Dean could go *$#% himself, but then I realized that he pretty much had every right to be furious and take it out on Mike.

--Cameron is a terrible lawyer. How does he still have a job?

THE GRADE: B

Read More

The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.06: 'Space (I Believe In)'

Oh god.

Look ... I mean ... I had a feeling I was going to come out of this episode feeling extremely uncomfortable.  Let me first start by asking – Do you watch 'It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’?  If not, and if you enjoy demented humor, you’re missing out.  I spent 99.9% of this Covert Affairs episode, “Space (I Believe In),” in a pretty decent frame of mind, and then the last 30 seconds suddenly sent me into feeling exactly like the YouTube supercut of every single utterance of the phrase “GODDAMNIT!!” in the entire ‘It’s Always Sunny’ series.  Google “always sunny goddamnit supercut” and you’ll find it.  That is me, right now.

If you’ve read my previous reviews, you’ll know that I’ve been dead set against this “Helen is really alive!!” twist since the second we found out Helen ever existed to begin with.  And that is all while knowing it was 99% likely to happen, due to Bionic Woman constantly lurking in the background the entire season.  Why do I feel so uncomfy with this?  It’s two reasons, really.  First, it gives me horrible flashbacks to ‘Alias’.  There’s GOTTA be some ex 'Alias' superfans who watch CA, right??  Well, if you live in my head, which is not at *all* something I’d recommend, you’ll know (remember, this is pure fact because you’re hypothetically living in my brain), that the first two seasons of 'Alias' were amazing and seasons 3 through 5 were an ever-increasing pile of steaming shite.  Maybe I’m exaggerating, but it was a STEEP slope into season 5.  :shudder:  Anyway.  The turning point was the last scene of the season 2 finale, when Sydney wakes up confused and disoriented in Hong Kong, meets up with Vaughn, and Vaughn tells her, “Syd, you’ve been missing for 2 years, we thought you were dead.”  Syd then looks at Vaughn's left ring finger and is like, WTF dude, is that a WEDDING RING!?  Then we got to spend the ENTIRE 3rd season with some random blonde being MARRIED to Sydney’s new boyfriend.  What a nightmare.  In all fairness, JJ Abrams leaving the show to focus on ‘Lost’ was really the larger issue at hand; the overall quality of the show took a major dive at the same time.

But point being, one of the major suckage points was the fact that the writers purposely threw in this love triangle so as to *manufacture* drama and put a wedge between Syd and Vaughn.  It FELT contrived, and caused nothing but lameness the entire season.  I don’t know what the angle of the CA writers is with this Helen thing, but if it’s to set up a manufactured love triangle, then no.  No thank you.  It’s been done on many other shows, and it has always been lame.  If, on the other hand, it’s to INFORM our lead characters and give them insights on next steps to deal with Henry, or to help them to grow as characters even, then maybe it’s something that can be of value.  We shall see.  There’s another reason I feel uncomfy with this though, as well - The whole “OMGWHUUT she’s still alive!!” thing is a liiiittle on the wacky side for this show.  It would feel right at home on many other spy shows, but one thing I’ve always liked about CA is that it usually tries to keep its head a little closer to reality and away from soapy town.  Now, to be fair, the Lena storyline also veered a bit close to soapy town, but I loved that storyline so much that I was able to get past that.  Likewise, IF this “Helesa” (the Twitter fans came up with this nickname: a Helen/Theresa hybrid) thing is done well, I’ll be forgiving.  We just won’t know what this is about until we get there.  Fingers crossed.  BIG time.

Have I seriously just spent THREE paragraphs on the LAST 30 SECONDS of this damn episode!?  Lord.  Writing the rest of this is going to be a rough ride.  Let’s get to *everything* else now, shall we?  Outside of my uncomfortable feelings about Helesa, I actually enjoyed this ep.  I’ve gotten a big kick out of the whole “Annie killed Seth” storyline this season in general, and I’ve had to really sit and think about why that is.  I’m a HUGE sucker for spy shows.  A running theme on these shows is that bodies tend to pile up at the hands of the lead characters pretty regularly, and as far as I can think of, it’s pretty damn rare for the characters to ever face REAL consequences for that.  Think about ‘Homeland’ - Brody has killed several people, from Tom Walker to that tailor who made the suicide bomb vest, to the damn VICE PRESIDENT of the United States, and has he really had to face consequences for ANY of these??  I don’t think so, not yet anyway.  He dumped that tailor’s body in the woods and I don’t think we ever heard another peep about it.  Did we, or is my memory failing me?  OH my cousin Katie just reminded me – “Well he WAS a no-show at his wife’s fundraiser event that night, which was NOT COOL.”  True.  Maj consequences.

Now take ‘The Americans’ ... the bodies piled up all season, including the damn PARTNER of the FBI dude/neighbor investigating the KGB.  There’s constantly the threat on that show of any one of these killings coming to light, but that hasn’t happened ... yet.  Granted, it’s only been one season, so there’s plenty of time.  But you see where I’m going with this.  On CA, again keeping itself somewhat in the realm of the “real world,” when Annie accidentally kills someone, she has to face REAL consequences for it.  She has to sit in the hot seat for an entire in-depth murder investigation.  Yes, Henry saved her ass in the end, but her going against him now means she’s in even hotter water now than she was to begin with.  She doesn’t just get to wipe her brow in relief and go on her merry way.  She’s now even more screwed than she was when this ep started.  Like I said, the effort to stay within the realm of logic and reality is one of the things I’ve always loved about this show.  And the tense and suspenseful way they played out each bit of Seth’s murder investigation in this ep was great.  I’ve always loved Rossabi as a character, and Noam Jenkins was awesome in that final scene with Annie, after he had been “broken” and turned by Henry.  You could really feel his pain.  Poor Rossabi has been the CIA’s punching bag throughout this entire series, so I’m glad Annie defended him against Henry in the end.  The poor guy deserves someone on his side.  Marlon, on the other hand, is f*cked.

Here’s my random thoughts before I get to my summary and grade:

• The exposition spent re-introducing Rossabi to the audience every single time he shows up again on CA drives me insane.  Wouldn’t a new viewer be able to figure it out from less obvious comments here and there??
• Hahaha poor Tim Griffin – how would you like to be killed off of a TV show, only to be forced to return for one more episode to play your own dead body?  Oh well, part of the job of an actor I suppose.  ;-)
• I recall recently saying, either in one of these reviews or to my friend Shelby, “Joan’s goddamn abandoned pill addiction storyline will haunt me to my grave.”  FINALLY it reared its hazy drugged-out head again tonight!!  We still have zero background on it, but at least it’s something I guess.  Oh and Annie jumping in to stop Rossabi’s line of questioning in defense of Joan gave me the warm fuzzies.
• Calder, seriously, continues to be ... THE WORST.  It’s frankly kind of annoying me, because he really didn’t seem THAT terrible in eps 401 or 403.  I could at least identify with where he was coming from in those eps.  But in 405 and 406 he’s just been downright insufferable.  I hope they put a little humanity back into his character soon.
• “Now Rossabi thinks there’s a conspiracy to cover up Seth’s murder.”  Auggie: “Well there kinda is!!”
• Bwahaa when Annie secretly calls the FBI chick in the evidence room to distract her – I love that she keeps the sound on her damn cell phone turned ON.  Great spycraft there – “Swipe click click dial!!”  Very inconspicuous.  Hahhaa I do like that her trick didn’t work here though.  Rossabi caught her.  That woulda been way too easy.
• They can’t possibly have much of a budget on this show for fancy stunts, I’m assuming, but they still managed to make Rossabi and Marlon’s fall from that balcony look pretty cool.  Didn’t feel fake at all – props to the director and stunt coordinators for that one.
• Annie/Auggie HAD to realize that Annie’s number would be all over Henry’s call history.  But Rossabi’s initial investigation was focused on Seth’s call history, not Henry’s.  I suppose they simply had no better option at that point than to put Rossabi on that goose chase, to buy themselves some time to get Henry’s GPS data.
• I already called out Noam Jenkins for his awesome performance this ep, and holy SHIT Gregory Itzin in that final scene with Annie?!  The recurring guest actors they have on this show really are top notch.  What a great scene.  I liked his line too: “You haven’t lost nearly enough yet.”  YET.  And we’ve never seen him that out of control.

This was one of those transitional episodes that I always find extremely difficult to assign a grade to.  The main purpose of it is to set up the next few eps, and depending on how those go, my opinion of this one could change significantly.  But if I’m taking this solely on its own, and mostly ignoring Helesa since it only took up 30 seconds here, I actually quite liked this one.  I thought it was smartly written, it kept me on my toes at every turn, surprised me in several places (e.g. whoops Auggie couldn’t hack into the FBI database after all, amongst many other moments), and all the actors gave great performances.  It wasn’t snazzy like last week with Vienna, and it wasn’t action-packed, but it was very solid, clever and entertaining.  It also set up the rest of the summer season, it seems, with Henry now on the complete warpath against Annie (along with the rest of Team Campbell).  I guess I’d give this a grade of …

GRADE: 91 out of 100

Dang, I feel like a zork giving so many eps B+ and A- grades other than 4.02, which I thought was a solid A.  But that’s just how these have been for me.  And believe me, if you were to read my old reviews of eps 3.13 and 3.14 you’d see that I have NO problem giving episodes “eh, not awesome” reviews just after watching them in real time.  I just luckily have not run across any of those in season 4 YET (knock on wood).  Am I lame??  Tell me in the comments.

The Plopper

Read More

The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.05: 'Here Comes Your Man'

Random fact: My husband loves “Here Comes Your Man” by the Pixies so much that he was careful to ensure it was played at our wedding reception.  The DJ played the song and people on the dance floor kind of halfway froze in a state of awkward confusion as to exactly what to do with it, but we were happy.  We and like, the 4 or 5 other people who knew what the hell the song was.  I wasn’t entirely sure what this title would mean for tonight’s ep of Covert Affairs, especially since the preview made it clear that our heroes A&A would be purposely separated during this episode.

  Turns out, it didn’t refer to our boy Auggie at all, but to my sweet, sweet illegitimate baby puma cub Teo.  Puuuurrrrr.  Well o.k., to be fair, I guess it referred to both of them since Auggie sent Teo there to begin with.  I mean whatever, fine Auggie, I’ll give you a LITTLE credit.

I kid, I kid.  I love Auggie as much as the next red-blooded gal of the dude-loving persuasion, but I’ve always been an equal opportunity appreciator of the fine male characters on this show.  And this storyline went down pretty much exactly like “Rock ‘n Roll Suicide,” didn’t it?  With Eyal?  Oh god how I LOVED THAT rescue scene, despite having to flinch and groan my way through Annie’s hair being down, then up in a bun, then down, then up in a bun again.  In a Russian prison, where she would have been very worried about the state of her hairdo.  Whoops, I digress.  Anyway I’ve seen this show take a lot of shit on the internets in the past from people who claim that Annie is a terrible spy because she always has to be saved by Auggie et al. (sidenote: I just had to google “et al.” to make sure I was using it properly here).  But I would claim that first off, this is not factually accurate.  Auggie HELPS Annie because he’s her handler, but she does just fine on her own in plenty of other instances as well.  I’m ok with the fact that she occasionally needs to be saved, because that’s how it would happen in REAL LIFE.  IF real life were this amazing, of course.  But point being, this mission was way too risky thanks to DPD Head Calder McJerkOff, so it went bad.  Was it convenient that Teo swooped in JUST at the right moment to rescue Annie?  Well yes, but I’m willing to accept some of the unrealistic stuff if they at least make an effort to make other aspects a bit more real.

OH!!  Record scratch sound!  Speaking of Calder McJerkWad, can we please go back to the first scene of the ep again for a second here?  The flash forward.  Can I get a WTF????  We’re in the elevator again, and I just have to ask, is it just going to be a theme on this show now that EVERY season involves Annie getting shot nearly dead by her boss??   Remember on ‘Chuck’ when Casey used to get shot practically more often than we saw Big Mike eating a donut??  I seem to recall him getting shot three separate times & getting thrown off a building once.  But at least those were all shots to the leg and foot.  Annie apparently is going to be taking KILLshots in every season now, I guess.  Of COURSE there are many things we don’t know yet about that scene, so we’re probably just being misled to think that’s what’s happening, when it’s really something else.  Still, my reaction to it was to physically pause the TV and yell, “Haha WHAT the F#$%!?” when I saw it (response from my husband from the back room: dead silence).  Hell, at least Annie made progress in this one by actually shooting BACK??  Maybe NEXT season she’ll actually win the gunfight.  Baby steps.

HAHA sidenote #2: Just now as I was finishing the above paragraph, my cousin Katie texted me, “Oh WTF. Annie gets shot AGAIN AND she’s wearing booties!!??”  Then we wasted several minutes trying to recall if she was also wearing booties when she got capped by Lena.  I don’t have time to check.  Someone’s gotta remember.

Whew ok so ... Lord I can’t touch on even half of what happened in this ep because it was DENSE.  Almost more so than last week, AND with more action.  My Twitter friend Shelby usually sums up the ep for me in a non-spoilery few words after she sees it on East Coast time.  Tonight she was 15 mins late, and as I was ALL CAPS yelling at her on DM to give me her reaction, she *finally* responded with, “Hang on, eating a Payday.  Trying to gather my thoughts.”  Uhhhh, yeah.  I did the same thing for about 15 mins after watching it.  I had to pause this ep every 5 seconds to re-listen to lines because SO much information was being dumped on us at once.  If there’s one major thing I take issue with in this ep, it’s the back-and-forth between Annie and Stavros.  She charms him in the beginning and that’s fun, but then it gets weird.  We go from a deal being made for his art collection, to Stavros calling Annie a fraud and coming within an inch of killing her by the river, to him suddenly trusting her enough to find him a buyer for 25 MISSILE LAUNCHERS.  I suppose that’s simply because he’s so desperate to find a buyer and get his Paul Klee back that he's willing to try anything at that point?  I just watched it again; I guueessss I can buy it because I suppose, what does he have to lose at that point?  He might as well give her a day or so to see what she can work up.  HAHA the location of those white vans with the missile launchers at the end though, just in the middle of the ... shopping area or something??  With all the people around, pretty ridiculous.

I’m going to sum up my overall take on this ep after my random thoughts:

• So Senator Pierson is in cahoots with Henry, eh?  I guess that explains all the mustache-twirling in ep 403.
• “Amy Jacobs is an LD on the Intelligence Committee for Senator Pierson.”  What the heck is an LD?  Lame Duck?  Lady Doctor?  Living Dead?  Legal District?
• HAHA Barber.  “I’m angry.  And SAD!!  And you know what??  I’m slightly annoyed, too ...”
• Seriously though, Calder Michaels is THE WORST, right!!??  He can’t even manage to charm Auggie properly with the promise of approving Project Hummingbird, which should have been SO EASY.  He has to completely f*ck it up 5 seconds later with his threat about Auggie’s call to Annie!!  He just oozes “dickhead” from every pore.
• Is it bad that I’m attributing a good 10 points of my score for this ep to the look and feel of the Vienna scenes alone??  I love the music they used on those too.  On point.
• In my ep 401 review, I made a crack about Annie being CA’s version of Claire Bennet, due to her uncanny ability to get shot twice in the chest & have no physical aftereffects or even scars from that.  I later watched 401 in HD (rather than the shitty low-def hotel TV I first watched it on) and realized I was wrong about the scars.  They were much more clear in the hotel scene here too, so I have to give the CA peeps their due credit for attention to detail and continuity.  Still no surgery scar though.  ;-)
• My my, Annie managed to take her habit of disregarding Auggie’s advice to new levels in this ep, didn’t she?  That Tarel Birkin conversation was intense.  Glad Auggie really gave it to Crapper McDoucheFace after that.
• “What I don’t understand, is how you got to Vienna so fast!?”  Hahah yeah, good question.  Spy shows are constantly guilty of these crazy globetrotting feats; it’s kinda funny that the writers called themselves out on this one.  It doesn’t necessarily forgive the contrivance of it, but at least they’re admitting it.
• “Welcome to my home, Annie.”  “Hello, Dion.”  Bwahaha oh Annie, you are becoming quite the lil’ sassafras these days, and I approve wholeheartedly.
• You don’t bring the Bionic Woman onto this show as a guest star simply to waste her on what we’ve seen so far.  That had to have been her trailing Henry at the end, right?  She’d BETTER NOT BE HELEN back from the dead!!  Grr.

So, If I’m looking at the big picture right now, the Powerful Big Bad Henry storyline needs to fully play out before I can really form a valid opinion on it.  And the Calder stuff in this ep was obviously contrived to create hurdles for our characters, especially his mandate that Annie cut off ALL contact with Auggie.  But, I’m willing to buy it for now to see where it all leads.  I’ll tell you what I appreciated about this ep though – It’s one of the things I’ve always liked about this show – When things go wrong on missions, they’re not always things you expect to go wrong, and the REASONS they go wrong tend to be quite logical.  You’re not always going to be able to make the deal with your target without hitting some major bumps.  You have to bring in another agent at the last second to deal with those bumps, you might get someone who’s green.  You get someone who’s green, you might run into issues with them not being 100% on their cover.  You trust someone like Puma Cub to save your ass, and shit may go sideways later when he suddenly decides he’s going to kill your assets & smash your only method of communication with him.  You kill someone and dump their body in the Potomac, that shit is going to wash up somewhere eventually.  And thank GOD they made Seth really for real dead.  Having him turn up alive would’ve been too hokey for this show.

I’d say I liked this ep better than the last couple.  None of them have been a total knock out of the park for me like 402 yet, but I liked this one.

GRADE: 90

Depending on what happens later with Calder and Henry I may decide I graded this one too high, but based on what I know now, I enjoyed it overall.  What do you guys think?  Am I being too hard on Calder?  Did I grade this too high or low?  Tell me I suck in the comments.

The Plopper

Read More

TOP 10 Stupid Things TV and Film Makers Do

Not necessarily in any order. Though, it’s in a specific order so I'm lying.

10. People just hang up when a phone conversation ends. No one ever says “bye” and no one ever calls up the other person asking them “What the fuck, Bob?! You just hung up on me!”

9. Lovers call each other by their first names instead of “baby” or “honey” or “titty sprinkles”.

8. Characters constantly refer to each other by name as if they're trying to remember it, because that's how we all do it, right?

Bob? Right, Bob? Hey, Bob. What's up, Bob? Bob? Let's go do that thing, Bob.

7. A discussion that starts at one location will continue to its next logical step in a follow-up scene in a completely different location, even though the characters would have taken minutes to hours to arrive there and would have finished the conversation already.

Obviously this is based on those times when you're like "Hey, Bob, how about we finish this conversation when we arrive where the cameras are filming the next scene? Okay, Bob?"

6. I supposed this started with BATTLESTAR GALACTICA but it has caught on with writers all over the place: Military and police personnel referring to female superiors as “sir”. NOPE. INACCURATE. It’s still “ma’am”. Don’t believe me? Try calling a female officer “sir” and see what happens.

Seriously, don't fuckin' do that.

5. Arm and leg bullet wounds are shrugged off even though they can be extremely painful, result in broken bones, and cause severe blood-loss that can kill just as easily as any other wound.

4. People dial phone numbers from memory. No one is ever like "Fuuuuuck! I should have put that number in my phone!"

3. Characters don’t say “ummm” or “ahhh” or “uhhh” like real people do. They are all expert public speakers that never lean on auxiliaries.

2. No one can see what is happening within anything greater than a 5 degree field of view. They’re always really surprised by someone not directly 2 feet in front of them. People just pop up on them like ninjas.

1. Characters speak at a normal conversation level in a non-secure location where anyone can hear them say something super important that should be kept secret.

Read More

BREAKING BAD - It's really quiet over here, guys!

It was nice to see the BREAKING BAD crew back in action last night, giving it their all and acting the shit out of the scenery. The episode was a good launching point for the remainder of the series, if a tad bit much on the setup side (since this is supposed to be episode 5.09 and not 6.01, shouldn't there be a bit more going on?).

However, the thing that I walked away from in this episode was the quiet.

I know this show is fond of its quiet moments to build up tension and allow the actors to play around with their reactions. And I'm a fan of that. Not enough shows utilize quiet. There's often way too much talking in scenes. In the real world, people who know each other well have a lot less to say a lot of the time.

No one pulled off the quiet better than Hank (Dean Norris, in the role of his career), who only now realizes that his buddy Walt is the Darth Vader of this universe. If there is an Emmy for projecting the conflict, suffering, anger, and feelings of betrayal without ever saying a word, then Norris should get it. Hell, give it to him anyway.

Unfortunately, the scene between Jesse and Walt had a bit too much quiet and it's not the first time, or even close to it. I've noticed over the length of the series, and specifically since Jesse started becoming the strict moral compass, the quiet between them is used to convey manipulation, distrust, and sometimes acceptance. It's just that in a show that tries to live within the believable real world, that much quiet is rarely seen as a sign of trust. And for a character like Walt, who we are to believe is a wolf of perception, for him to miss that Jesse's quiet is about distrust and disbelief, as opposed to acceptance, is difficult to swallow.

Therefor the only reason for the quiet is to manipulate us into thinking the scene has more weight, when it doesn't. That's when I get pulled out of the moment. That's why that scene didn't work as well for me.

Still, shows need more quiet. Let the actors do that thing they do with their eyes. Unless of course it's an eyeless actor, then give them lots of dialogue.

Read More

CFBWMR Episode 8 - Solo

GeekFurious talks about almost very little in a raspy voice thingy. Then talks briefly about BEFORE MIDNIGHT, and Erin McGathy's "This Feels Terrible" episode with Dan Harmon (CLICK HERE FOR THAT). Also the devastating news that Erin is not a real redhead.

It's 7 minutes long. Though, only like 5 of those minutes have any talking.

Press play below to listen:


Or RIGHT CLICK AND SAVE the mp3 to your hard drive.

Read More

Need Money, Please Donate

Hello all my lovely readers!

I need money.

Desperately.

[insert reason here]

Please donate below.

Thanks! Love you!

UPDATE: I think I corrected the problem with getting an error when you clicked the button (sorry about the big space... no clue what's going on).

DONATIONS (tell me in the notes section if you don't want me to make the amount public):

Daryl M $15.00.
Nacho L $100.00.
Ploppalicious $50.00.

Read More

Review - SUITS 3.04: 'Conflict of Interest'

Short and concise review coming up...

Things that we knew were going to happen, thus making it not at all that interesting nor good: Donna and the new guy hooking up. ... Donna realizing that Harvey would not be happy about it, thus not telling him -- leading to Harvey finding out later in the worst way possible and causing a rift (that will last like one whole episode) between them. ... The Ava Hessington case that just won't die with no end in sight. ... Harvey continuing his war with Jessica.

There were others, but that's good enough. Now, on to the things that we didn't necessarily see coming but still don't care about: Mike and Katrina connecting. The Rachel being jealous part, of course, was no surprise whatsoever. If this turns into something, which I don't think it will. I will stop watching this show because it will be the worst storyline ever.

And the supposed bombshell that Ava wasn't involved with the murders is a non-issue for me. They kept making it appear that she was guilty, so I was expecting the show to turn the switcheroo on us. So I wasn't exactly blindsided by her changing Harvey's mind. Frankly, all I care about is that case coming to a close.

I wonder how long they will drag out the war between Jessica and Harvey? Something needs to happen on this show, because literally nothing did in this episode and it was a boring clunker.

QUOTES OF NOTE:

--LOUIS: "What just happened to him?
--KATRINA: "He got Litt up."

DONNA'S TOP 4 QUOTES:

4. "What can I say, it deserved me."
3. "Quiet, copy boy."
2. "Suffice it to say, I was awesome."
1. "She finds you a bit douchey, love."

RANDOM RAMBLINGS:

--Louis waddling, but pretending to run when hot women were nearby was priceless. I also loved the point.

--That reporter bought Mike's accent? Oh come on.

--Black swan.

THE GRADE: D+

Read More

The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.04: 'Rock A My Soul'

Wow, should I be flattered that we viewers of ‘Covert Affairs’ are so “high class” that the main product placement being used this season is for the Jaguar F-Type?? 

I know TV advertising and viewing habits are a much different beast these days than they used to be ... with my TiVo, I hardly see commercials anymore.  So I’ve gotten used to, and can even forgive, obnoxiously overt product placement in my shows.  Hell, ‘Chuck’ fans even supported Subway enough to come up with the “Finale & Footlong” campaign; eventually those sandwiches practically became their own characters on the show.  Oh and how bout all that Bud Light Annie & Auggie are always drinking at Allen’s??  Do people REALLY drink Bud Light??  No matter.  Point is, we fans are completely willing to put up with a certain level of cheesy product placement in order to keep our shows on the air.  But with that said - seriously, CA, did you really have END the entire episode with the ridiculous Jag commercial??  Because now, despite it being an otherwise pretty good episode, I’m left right at the end suddenly feeling annoyed.  And now I’m starting my review this way.  Grr.

O.k. sorry, rant over.  Let’s get to the ep now, shall we?  Let me start by asking this: Am I the only person who is feeling kind of relieved that Auggie’s gig as head of the DPD didn’t last long?  There's a line in the ep during a tense conversation between A&A where Annie says, “I don’t want to do this if we’re going to wind up like Joan and Arthur.”  THANK YOU Annie, I don’t want you to either!!  I’ll be honest, I love Joan & Arthur as characters, but I never found their relationship to be particularly romantic or even all that compelling, up through season 3 (though I will say, it has gotten much more interesting in season 4, which I definitely appreciate).  But through S3, it seemed like it was simply all tension all the time, with them constantly bickering back and forth about the conflict between Arthur as Joan’s boss vs. her husband.  Having A&A wind up like this is the absolute LAST thing I want for this show.  I’d rather the show focus on Seth’s zombie corpse rising up from the Potomac for revenge (like Jason Voorhees?) than to see a version of this show where the romance is completely sucked out of A&A’s relationship, and all that’s left is constant bickering.  :shudder:  Nightmare.

So not surprisingly, I spent much of the ep feeling very nervous about this.  Now that the ep is over, however, I feel fairly relieved that A&A do not seem to be headed this direction.  I don’t THINK.  Auggie’s demotion helps.  Is that horrible of me?  Sorry, Auggie.  A&A is way more important to me than your career.  There.  I said it.  It’s out there.  Sue me.  And on a similar note, most CA fans spent the entire week leading up to this ep freaking out and speculating on just WHAT the hell Auggie’s secret could be.  I heard theories ranging from Auggie & Teo being brothers (which would have been my own personal soapy hell), to Auggie moonlighting as Daredevil at night, to Auggie having bad credit (in the “mundane Auggie secrets” category).  After all this speculation, I’m downright relieved at what the secret ended up being.  I went into this episode with a horrible fear that it would be something shark-jumpingly horrible (Anyone else still scarred by Luke’s long-lost daughter April on ‘Gilmore Girls’?), and it ended up being something I was pretty fine with.  Teo caused the death of someone Auggie was in love with ("Helen").  And Auggie believes that his fully open “no secrets” relationship with Helen is partly responsible for her death.  Hence, we have an explanation for his attempts at keeping Annie in the dark on certain information.  O.k., I can deal with that.  Just so long as Helen doesn’t turn out to be secretly still alive or some ridiculous shit.  THEN we’d be in the shark-jumping zone.  Bionic Woman - I’m looking at you.  You’d BETTER be someone other than Helen using the alias of Teresa.

The reveal of Auggie’s secret is a great example of one of the things I’ve always loved about CA – it has a very “down-to-earth,” true to life quality that wasn’t there with many of the wacky spy shows I’ve loved in the past.  It’s a lot more relatable.  It’s not 'Covert’s way to make Auggie’s secret something total out-there and overly melodramatic.  And that’s why I found HENRY’s storyline in this episode to be a bit irksome.  Clearly he is the “big bad” this season, at least so far.  And that completely makes sense, given that he’s been lurking around as this angry vindictive and powerful character since the beginning of season 1.  CA is not taking this in an unexpected direction at all.  What irks me about it is that Henry’s “a son for a son” campaign against Arthur is not only a bit “operatic,” to use an analogy that Henry actually used in this ep, but it doesn’t even necessarily make sense!  We know that Henry blames Arthur for Jai’s death, but we’ve never been given a reason as to WHY.  Have we??  Did I miss that at some point??  Are we simply to assume that Henry thinks Arthur’s bad management of the DCS led indirectly to Jai’s death?  That doesn’t seem nearly damning enough for him to want THAT level of revenge on Arthur.

In any event, despite my concerns about Henry and my nervousness about A&A, I did find this to be an entertaining episode.  In the past, I’ve found that my fave shows tend to be at their best when the core characters are really banding together to fight against a common enemy.  At the end of season 3, I was really concerned that Joan and Arthur would be turned into villains this season due to the contents of Henry’s file.  Thank GOD they didn’t take this in that direction, as it wouldn’t have been true to what we’ve seen from these characters so far.  No one is perfect and they’ve made plenty of mistakes, but they’re not bad people, especially Joan.  So Joan’s line at the end, “From now on we trust NO ONE but ourselves.  No one,” gave me a very warm fuzzy feeling.  I want our main characters to grow closer, not further apart, and to work together.  And that seems to be the direction they’re going.  Joan even gave Annie some relationship advice in this ep!!  She gave Auggie some too for that matter.  Aww.

Oh, I also like that Henry called Annie out on Auggie’s involvement in this situation being the entire reason that she let Henry court her in the first place.  I suppose it’s obvious that this was her motivation, but it’s nice to see it clarified.  There’s no way in hell anyone would go through all this trouble just to help out and/or dig up dirt on their bosses.  Here’s the rest of my thoughts on the ep in random order:

• Annnnd Annie’s red VW Golf is suddenly in perfect shape again.  I guess it really is like Walter White’s indestructible Aztek.
• Eric Barber is back!  And trying out Auggie’s office for a bit.  I love any excuse for scenes with him.
• Auggie makes two blind jokes within the span of like 20 seconds in this ep.  Is this a record?
• So Annie couldn’t get the calendar with the bug in the Chens’ room, but I guess the audio device Auggie already had set up was good enough?  Also, Auggie specifically says the Chens have no cell phones in their names, and are likely using burners.  And yet, Annie is alerted when a call comes into Xu’s cell, and can hear at least his side of the convo.  How?  Is that just from the same audio sensors through the wall?  Do they have Lester Freamon working for them or something?  (High-five for anyone who gets that reference).  OH he was in two eps of this show too!!
• Wow, Wendy Chen had quite the ‘tude going on there, eh?  To be fair, Annie WAS a bit annoying in that first convo.  For a “neighbor.”
• What the hell is up with Eric Braithwaite??  He’s been in 4 eps of this show in seasons 1-3 according to IMDB.  Can anyone with a better memory than me remind me of his backstory?
• “Don’t worry Olivia, my former husband seems to have a way with women!”  Nice one, Joan.
• “I thought you said I was the type that didn’t need luck!”  Annie remembered Auggie telling her this when they first met.  Aww.
• “My feelings haven’t changed, just my job.”  Again, aww.  Also, it’s good to see that Annie’s not listening to what Auggie tells her to do any more now than she did before they started dating haha.
• Henry: “Just keep yourself covered, the sun can be very dangerous, if you’re not protected.”  This was an odd line.  What was up with all the “sun” references here?  My cousin Katie thinks it’s a sun/son analogy.
• Teo: “[Arthur] didn’t raise a son, he raised a spy.”  Looks like Arthur’s got a little of the Jack Bristow thing going on in his past.
• Annie’s call from the safe house after finding everyone dead: “Umbra 10-79.”  Is this a real term or was it made up for the show?  I did a quick Google search and came up empty-handed.

So what’s my grade for this ep?  I’m having trouble deciding if I liked last week’s ep better, or this one.  Last week was more exciting and action-packed, but this week was stronger on plot movement and character development.  And despite my concerns about A&A and the Joan/Arthur parallels, their scenes here were all pretty damn great.

GRADE: 88/100

I changed my grading system since we’ve had 3 B+ eps (IMO) so far.  Whaddya think?  Too low?  Too high?  Yell at me in the comments.

The Plopper

Read More

Review - SUITS 3.03: 'Unfinished Business'

I'm typically a fan of multi-episode arcs on shows like 'Suits', but at this point I'm just glad the Ava Hessington case is over with. It was stalling/delaying Harvey's attempt to take over the firm from Jessica and that's much more interesting to me than some foreign client who tries to bribe her way out of everything and that is completely obsessed whether or not Harvey thinks she's also a murderer.

He doesn't care and neither do I.

I'm also not much interested in the new hot-shot fixer from out-of-town, Stephen Huntley. He's a smooth talker, which can be fun, but I just don't care about his character or what he's up to. We already have a character that does what he does and we like him much more. And haven't we had enough of characters we don't know if we can trust or not? And OF COURSE Huntley is going after Donna to try to mess with Harvey. So obvious. I'm sure we all want to see Donna happy and all, but not if it's a ploy from the writers' room to make it more about Harvey than about Donna. Do not short-thrift Donna, dammit!

What is the deal with Katrina and her war against everyone? What is this, high school? (Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to see Amanda Schull back on the show.) Just not sure where they are really going with this. Being on Team Litt could be interesting. I hope they go after Harvey and Mike somehow. Louis deserves a win at some point.

In regards to Rachel and Mike, is getting on one knee to ask someone to be their girlfriend the new rage? C'mon, Mike, you can do better than that. If you ask me, Mike and Harvey are a much cuter couple. I mean, how awesome is it that they are doing movie lines/analogies together again?

QUOTES OF NOTE:

--HARVEY: "Origami festival? Oh my god."

--HARVEY: "Do you want a lawyer who thinks you're innocent and loses, or a lawyer who doesn't want to know and wins? ... Then don't ask me that question again, because after I win and after you're free -- what I think, won't matter."

--MIKE: "Yeah, but we can take him. What's he gonna do? Talk to us with his words?
--RACHEL: "Or wag a finger at us?"
--MIKE: "Or give us a timeout?"
--RACHEL: "Maybe slap us with a lawsuit?"


RANDOM RAMBLINGS:

--Was hoping for the Rachel-Donna spat to last much longer. But coming from a USA show, I knew it wouldn't. Viva la status-quo!

--Gary Cole is a douche in everything he does, isn't he? Still love him, though.

--Louis' Dictaphone is back! They should make an entire episode out of just playing what is on it.

--I've heard we are going to learn about the origins of the can opener ritual this season. Can this happen next week, please?

THE GRADE: C+

Read More

The Plopper Review - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.03: 'Into the White'

Have I already mentioned that Teo Braga may be my new Simon Fischer?  Yeah ... 4.03 “Into the White” pretty well solidified that.  For now, at least.  Sigh.  “Do you trust me?”  YES Teo, YES ... your wish is my command.  Your sweet sexy puma eyes have melted my heart!!  I’m yours.  You DO still know true north honey!!  Let’s talk it out.  There, there.

Answer me this though ... I’m tired, I have a headache, and my brain is moving slowly tonight ... but how is it that it took Annie & Team so long to figure out that the Solstar meeting was the target of the ALC bomb plot?  Didn’t we already know last week that Solstar was going to be having a big executive pow-wow in Colombia the following week?  And of course, Henry (who is in bed with Solstar) is the one who gave Annie the intel about the bomb plot to begin with.  Shouldn’t that have been higher on Annie’s list of possible targets before she even got to Colombia?  Also, is it a little convenient that amongst the torture devices, weapons, laptops, and other random junk at the CIA Black Site, there also just so happened to be a brochure/packet for the Solstar meeting laying around??  Kinda funny.

O.k. since I started this with a gripe (or else a dumb misunderstanding on my part), let me get to one more of those before I get to the good stuff:  What the hell is UP with that Senator Pierson biznatch!!??  What is her damage, and why does she have such a vendetta against Joan??  I mean ... were her accusations of Joan using Arthur to climb the CIA ranks and being too dense to realize he was cheating on her just ... a little weirdly personal?  One thing I’ve always complained about with ‘Dexter’ since day one, even when it used to be a good show, is how ridiculously exaggerated some of the “bad guy” characters are ... beyond real life.  As in, a convenient way to make them extra hate-able.  It felt like there was a *little* of that going on with the Senator Pierson character here ... but maybe that’s just me?  And Joan’s blackmail, WOW!!  I don’t know whether to be disappointed in her dirty tactics, or bow down to her badassery here.  A bit of both.  And I definitely appreciate the layered characters on this show.  No one ever seems to be 100% “good” or “bad.”

O.k. now let’s get to the stuff I liked.  First off, this episode contained a shockingly high number of moments that made me laugh out loud, by myself, at my TV.  And yes, I mean that in a good way.  Even from the very first scene: In the parking garage, Annie says to Arthur/Joan, “It’s intel that suggests that Teo may be involved in a bomb threat against an American target in Colombia.”  Arthur’s “It’s a total lie!” spoken simultaneously over Joan’s “I’ll get this to South America desk, loop in the CTC (etc)… right away” cracked me UP.  Other crack-ups: EVERY scene where Teo flustered the crap out of Annie.  From the first time she found him and he threw her exit package papers all over the ground for her to dive and grab, to the moment at the CIA black site when he answered her proud/accomplished, “That’s right I can get you out of here (if you tell me the ALC target)!!” with a swift kick to the chest.  And knowing that kick was coming (from the preview) meant that Calder’s warning, “He can kick out 5 feet so stay back at least 6,” right before leaving her alone with him made me laugh really, REALLY hard.

We got some good character interactions in this episode as well.  Annie and Calder trying to work out their different approaches to their spycraft was fun.  Like in the jungle: “Well I want him captured alive.”  Calder: “Alive is the toughest option.”  Calder then questions Annie on whether she really knows when to give up on trying to charm/turn a target and instead simply ... well, deal with them another way, let’s say.  Also, we got yet another *very* interesting Annie/Joan conversation following baby Teo’s smackdown (kickdown).  “You don’t need to worry ... do you understand?  You have my support on ... whatever you need.”  Again, Annie looked a tad bit choked up at the end of that.  I still wish these two would communicate better with each other, but I’m very glad to see them back on good terms this season.

My other random thoughts:

• It’s one thing to ask your boyfriend for a favor like killing a spider or doing your laundry ... it’s *quite* another to ask him to break the news to your boss that you KILLED her close colleague-slash-buddy-slash-ex-boyfriend.  Oopsie!!  Auggie wins enough points for like 20 good boyfriends on that front.
• I liked Auggie’s little Marshall Flinkman moment with his untraceable cell phone prototype.  If only he could’ve tied the number 47 in there somehow.  “It’s a prime number.”
• “You just packed my favorite t-shirt, didn’t you??”  “I was hoping you’d think it was in the wash, and then I felt bad!!”  Last week Piper Perabo won the “cutest line delivery” of all time award (per Chris Gorham and all CA fans on Twitter) with her “That’s my forehead” line.  She may have actually managed to match it again this week with the “I felt bad!!” line here.  The cuteness of these A&A scenes this season has been pretty damn great so far.  I hope they can keep this up.
• Colombia looked pretty fuckin’ (err, gosh darn) awesome in this ep ... damn, fans of this show are spoiled as hell with all the on-location shooting.  It’s the thing that makes CA stand out from everything else on TV, and I hope they never stop doing this as long as the series lasts and despite any budget cuts they may be forced to endure in future seasons (NONE I hope!) haha.
• In that first scene of Joan’s “interview” with the Senate Intelligence Committee, the guy asks, “We all reviewed the intelligence surrounding Jay Wilcox’s death ... We also read a closed file about an unnamed operative who was shot in her house, here in Washington.”  Proof of how useless my brain is tonight – I seriously had ZERO idea who this statement referred to until I rewound it and watched again hahaha.  Oy.
• I know everyone thinks Auggie’s protective behavior over Annie is super sweet and cute and all ... but at what point does it become a little too “controlling boyfriend”-y?  I get it from his side, don’t get me wrong, and it’s not like he’s not still letting her do her thing.  He is.  I’m curious to see how long that lasts though.  Is she gonna have to tell him to step off at some point?
• Annie’s reactions/flinches to Calder’s beating Teo at the CIA black site were priceless.  And Calder’s giddiness at grabbing the jumper cable thingies and water bucket - also funny.
• “I know exactly what I did to him.  I know that 4 blows to the head and not 5 would be the difference between the hospital and death.”  Oh, sweet Teo, you had me at “4 blows to the head.”  Swoon.
  
• If that final sequence had ended before Annie made it back home to Auggie, I would’ve bashed in my TV with the remote.

One last thought to end this: Remember the quote I gave in my 4.01 “Vamos” review from Myles McNutt’s AV Club review, the one that gave me the “ah ha!” moment?  The one that asked, “Who is Annie other than a vessel of the series’ narrative?”  A major part of Myles’ point was that in season 3 (more like mid-season 3 onward in my personal opinion), most of Annie’s motivations have centered around OTHER people: Saving Eyal, convincing Simon to turn himself in, seeking revenge for Simon’s death, helping Simon’s sister, etc. etc.  This season feels similar so far: She’s trying to protect Auggie from being brought down by the Arthur scandal, she’s trying to help Arthur, to help Teo, to help Joan, etc.  Even with the theme of “secrets” this season, all the secrets so far are OTHER people’s secrets.  What about Annie herself??  What’s HER deal??  I already harped on that in ep 4.01, and now I’m thinking I may be asking that question for a while ... but we’ll see.  We shall see.

EP 4.03 GRADE: B+

I liked this one a bit better than the premiere, which I also gave a B+, but let’s call this like an 89% vs. an 87% for the premiere.  Maybe I should start rating these out of 100 like HGF does.  Now tell me I’m a nutjob in the comments below.

Follow The Plopper on Twitter

Read More

'Game of Thrones' Home Video Sales Plummet in Season 2

I am a big fan of GAME OF THRONES, and an even greater fan of the books on which the show is based, the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series by George R.R. Martin. So I was very excited last year when home video sales catapulted the show to #1 in DVD sales for 2012.

I was also excited when season 2 was released on DVD/BD and read this article (based on an HBO press release) that touted the success of season 2 home video sales.

Here is the problem, following that “day one” phenomenon, sales kind of took a dip. A kind of huge dip. Even when factoring in the Blu-Ray sales, which likely increased year-to-year, the overall home video sales for season 2 are much lower.

Let’s look at where the sales for the season 1 DVD box set was last year around this time:

Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season – 949,240 units sold for $32,450,566 in revenue.

Now look at what sales are right now for season 2:

Game of Thrones: The Complete Second Season - 534,471 units sold for $16,493,733 in revenue

It is still doing well, coming in as the #2 television show in home video sales for 2013 (after “The Bible”). However, it is a stark change from the previous year.

So what happened? Especially considering that TV viewership increased (the show has a per episode total viewership of nearly 14 million). Well, without having HBO’s internal data, I'll conjecture that many of the people who bought season 1 went on to watch season 2 (and 3) and skipped out on buying the show now that they have HBO and can watch it anytime they want via its various viewing options (HBOGO and On Demand etc).

If this is the case, then HBO is fine with people not buying the box set since the revenue from subscriptions more than make up for any loss in home video sales, especially if the subscriber holds on to their HBO service for the whole year.

Or, all those illegal downloads really are hurting HBO’s bottom line.

What say you?

Note: I tried to contact HBO about these numbers but never received any kind of response (even though I attempted several times).

UPDATE: since someone brought up Blu-Ray sales making up for some of the losses, here is my response from below (which you can find easily but I decided to include it as part of this article since some will never look for it).

BLU-RAY Sales:

Week 1 Game of Thrones: The Complete Second Season - 336,215 units sold - $10,083,088 total revenue

Week 2 Game of Thrones: The Complete Second Season - 64,534 units sold - 365,193 total sold - $2,580,733 revenue - $11,597,496 total revenue

As you can see, after the first week, sales plummeted. By the third week, it wasn't even on the top 20 list (which means it sold less than 20,000 units that week).

UPDATE 2: here is the comparative DVD sales numbers for that period of time.

Week 1 Game of Thrones: The Complete Second Season - 241,587 units sold - $6,037,259 total revenue

Week 2 Game of Thrones: The Complete Second Season - 64,932 units sold - 306,519 total sold - $2,225,869 revenue - $8,263,128 total revenue

Week 3 Game of Thrones: The Complete Second Season - 27,725 units sold - 334,244 total sold - $831,473 revenue - $9,094,601 total revenue

Read More

CFBWMR Episode 7 - SDCC 2013 Vs. NerdHQ 13

Nacho Libre and GeekFurious talk about SDCC 2013 and NerdHQ 13. This was supposed to be short. Then it went long. Lots of rambling. Some GAME OF THRONES spoilers for season 3 so careful!

WARNING: ADULT LANGUAGE!!!! OMG! NSFW!!!

Also, I apologize for an audio problem where the entire audio cuts out. Yet again, I did something that caused full audio cut offs in spots (for a second). I will be sure to fix that next time. Sigh. SIGH!

PRESS PLAY BELOW TO LISTEN:



OR, right click and save the MP3 file to your computer to play later. We don't do iTunes.

Read More

Review - SUITS 3.02: 'I Want You To Want Me'

As per usual, let's get my rant out of the way first ...

So this was episode 2, did I miss an episode 1.5 or something? This week begins with Mike and Rachel all lovey-dovey, but where the hell did that come from? That is certainly not the way those two left things in the premiere last week. Am I missing something here? I don't mind them being together, but holy shit they missed a step along the way here. Someone please help me out with this.

But luckily one of my fears was alleviated this week. With Harvey and Jessica working together on the case, I was worried the show was going to renege on Harvey's plan to take over as managing partner. But despite them co-existing to claim victory in the Ava Hessington case, Harvey told Donna he still plans a coup d'etat.

And as I've said several times since reviewing the show last season, this show is at its best when the characters are at odds with one another. And this week was the perfect example of that. Whether it was Donna vs. Rachel, Harvey vs. Mike or Harvey vs. Jessica, those battles were really great to watch. Let's face it, no one is watching this show for the cases-of-the-week. So that high-level tension is needed.

If it were up to me, I would have kept Mike with Louis for at least a few more episodes -- the spat between Harvey and Mike would have been better if it lasted longer. (I really don't think Harvey would have relented so easily. He was so adamant to Mike that they were done ... and then Donna comes and says it's time to forgive him and he suddenly does.) There was plenty more material to get out of it, too. Oh well.

And I'm sure Donna and Rachel will be back to being BFFs soon, which is unfortunate considering how epic their argument was. No way would Rachel forgive her so soon, but realistically that's probably what will happen.

I want something in the show's core to change and our only hope for that is a continued attempt from Harvey to take down Jessica. I'm just skeptical that's what will actually happen.


QUOTES OF NOTE:

--DONNA: "What high school did you go to?"

--LOUIS: "Can't a man just take out another man in the middle of the day for some steak, for some wine and for some cheesecake that will knock your socks off?"

--LOUIS: "Is this about the fact that I'm in the nude?"
--MIKE: "Please don't harp on that."

--MIKE: "OK, If I get in will you stop saying words?"

--HARVEY: "Maybe you didn't hear me -- I said you and I ... are done."

--RACHEL: "This wasn't about a job for me, it was about having a life -- but I guess you wouldn't understand that."
--DONNA: "Rachel, I'm going to walk away before we can't go back."

--LOUIS: "I think you're half-Harvey and half-me. You've had your time with him, now have your time with me."

RANDOM RAMBLINGS:

--See what happens when people tell the truth? All hell breaks loose.

--My senior prom went amazingly well, unlike Louis'.

--Donna really likes Richard Gere.

 --Oh dear God, Louis. (I'm thinking of the mud bath scene)

--I'm sorry, I just can't feel bad for someone who made a "Welcome to Team Litt' cake.

THE GRADE: B

Read More

The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.02: 'Dig for Fire'

Umm … holy SHIT, Covert Affairs. If you haven’t seen episode 402 "Dig for Fire" yet, turn back immediately, because I’m going to just jump right to the point here.

The very LAST thing I expected when this episode began was that we would finish it with our two main characters attempting to cover up a dead body that Annie left in the Potomac. And not just any dead body, but none other than Joan’s “Pills Anonymous” buddy and carrier of massive pining Joan-crush from last season, Seth Newman!! And of course that is only after finding out that he was the mole leaking intel to Henry and Solstar. I suppose that last part was not exactly a major shock, but until now I really hadn’t even thought much about Seth since last season. And I spent the first half of the ep busy focusing on the question of whether Joan’s baby was Seth’s instead of Arthur’s. So I will admit, I was a little distracted, until that moment when Seth walked past A&A and Auggie grabbed Annie’s arm with a gasp. At which point I said, “D'OH!! Uhh DUH!!”

Whew ... o.k. let’s take a few steps back, shall we? I spent the first 30 minutes of this episode on the edge of my seat, but also wondering if this would wind up being one of those episodes like “Man in the Middle” that is literally ALL tension and dialogue on a medium simmer with some occasional moments of intense flare-ups/arguments between characters. Those eps are nice to do every now and then, but I’ll admit that I was wanting more than that from the second ep of season 4. Still, the first half of the episode gave us great tense scenes between Annie and Arthur, Annie/Henry, Joan/Auggie, and quite a nicely heated argument between Arthur and Auggie in Arthur’s hotel room while Annie pretended to have to take a wizz. (“Sack up,” Auggie!!) The sequence where Annie tails Henry through the DC Metrorail was really cool too; nicely filmed. I’ve only ridden the DC Metro once ever and it was way back in 2004, but I think that was really the DC Metrorail in this ep, right? Or am I an idiot for thinking that? It’s got those domed ceilings, right, with the big “M”s on the trains?

We also got some very nice plot progression during this first 30 mins with the Teo/Colombia stuff, and I was frankly kind of shocked at how many of the secret bombshells from the premiere were fully let out of the bag to all the characters here, so early on in the season. In a sense I’m extremely happy about this though, because I can tell you from other shows I’ve watched that there are few things more frustrating to the audience than to spend an ENTIRE season knowing a secret that one or more of our major characters don’t, and to be forced to sit through ridiculously contrived storylines and idiotic behaviors from the characters in order to keep the secret(s) hidden from each other until end of the season. Any Sons of Anarchy or Castle fans will know exactly what I mean. Uggh. So I’m quite glad Covert has laid a lot of this stuff out on the table right upfront, so we can now sit and watch as it hopefully causes very interesting situations for our characters to deal with and work through as the season plays out.

So, all in all, the first half of the episode chugged along pretty decently, but THEN, BAM, we got the first scene in Auggie's apartment. This was where "Dig for Fire" really started to come together for me, and to break away from that "Man in the Middle" feel. First off, CHRIST, how sexxxy was that scene, visually?? This ep was directed by Félix Alcalá, the same guy who directed “Suffragette City," with that dreamy ethereal quality. So it’s really no surprise that he directed this ep as well, with scenes like this one on Auggie’s bed with the jazz music in the background. Whew!! (fanning face) ... And of course, as I mentioned and discussed with several of my fellow fans last week, we got some actual real dialogue between A&A here! Per usual, Auggie did most of the talking, but at least we got some important character interaction here, albeit with Auggie clearly still hiding some major stuff from Annie. Annie’s never been great at expressing herself; I and several of my fellow fans have wanted to shake her by the shoulders for quite a while now (season 3 included), and tell her, “Annie, USE YOUR WORDS, HONEY!! Use your WORDS.” At least we got a little of that in this scene! A teeny tiny bit. I really hope we get more eventually.

And then shortly after this, we got the scene of Annie and Joan in the bathroom! I didn’t mention this last week, but one of the things that greatly pained me about the last third of S3 was how horribly strained Annie & Joan’s relationship was, and how neither of them ever properly talked anything out. We kept getting hints that Joan had gone through a similar past traumatic situation that Annie had been through with Simon and Lena, but we got zero exploration of what that was or whether Joan could give Annie advice in that area. Instead, these two just fought like an exhausted mom and teenage daughter and never got to the root of any of their issues. So I really appreciated this scene in the bathroom, even if they still talked about essentially nothing other than the preggers bombshell. Annie looked like she was about to choke up when she said, “Joan, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something ...” before Joan interrupted her. Was the “something” simply the Arthur/Teo/non-cheating secrets? Or was there anything more to that?

And of course, last but not least, we have Annie breaking into Seth’s apartment. I had read a spoiler that made me expect a physical fight to ensue there, but I did NOT expect anything like what actually went down. It totally shocked me not only how involved and stunt-laden the fight was, but the fact that Seth DIED as a result. I mean o.k. first off, maybe this is stupid of me, but I’m not convinced that a fall from the height of that bridge would really kill someone. But maybe it’s way higher than I think. In any event, holy shit. And then, seriously, the scene in Auggie’s apartment afterward, with the bandage tape on the forehead!? I will admit I am a HUGE sucker for shit like this, but that was seriously one of the best things I’ve seen on my TV in a while. Well o.k., in the cute/funny department, anyway. This is another perfect example of the type of character interaction that we’ve gotten almost none of since mid-season 3!! MORE, please. MORE!!

And then of course at the end, we have Henry setting Annie up to carry out more of his agenda, via a trip back to Colombia. With this development plus Seth Newman now mysteriously “missing,” we’ve got a lot for our characters to deal with in ep 403. (Insert Seinfeld voice: "Newman!!!") I can’t wait to see how it all plays out.

A few last random thoughts:

*The first scene in the episode, with Annie and Arthur – This is the first scene inside Danielle’s kitchen since Lena shot Annie and Simon in there, right? I had been wondering if and when Annie would enter that room/house again. This scene was different than how I thought that would go down, but we did get a callback to that trauma with Annie mentioning “the last time someone broke into my kitchen.”

*I cannot emphasize enough how much I HATE that weird stubby fat creepy little silver revolver Annie always insists on carrying. Does the flash-forward scene at the beginning of 401 indicate that she’ll finally get a normal gun later in the season!? God, I hope so.

*Have you ever heard of the Showtime documentary called “That Guy … Who was in That Thing?” It’s about exactly that – those actors you’ve seen in countless movies and TV shows, and you know their face SO well, but you don’t know their name. You just know that they were “the guy from that one movie, and a few eps of that TV show.” I caught a decent chunk of this doc last year, shortly after getting into CA, and was pleasantly surprised to see Gregory Itzin featured pretty prominently in it. Well guess what? We know his name now.

*Should we discuss the flats Annie wears during the Henry-tailing sequence? I mean Jesus, I’m just glad the poor girl is finally wearing some sensible shoes for an outing like this. Maybe they should let her do that more often.

*So we were right about Arthur’s “affair,” just a cover for the Teo-related secrets he’s trying to hide. No shock there. Nice to see him protecting Joan from the shitstorm, at least.

*Have you ever heard a more polite and dainty puke than Joan in that bathroom with Annie?? Hahaha that was amazing. I wish I could barf like such a lady.

*Seth’s “Buenos tardes” that causes A&A to recognize his voice was kinda hilarious for two reasons: 1) that he would conveniently say that exact phrase in the office, and 2) his voice is so weird and loud there; sounds like it was definitely put in during ADR.

*Annie’s little red VW has taken a lot of shit-talk from picky fans over the seasons, who have wondered why she never got a better car. I’ve never had any issue with it, but I do find it interesting that they beat that thing up pretty bad in this episode. Is that the end of Annie’s little red Golf?? Well maybe not, I just watched the scene again and I guess it’s not THAT bad. It just initially had me picturing that ep of South Park where they kill off Chef by slowly tearing him to shreds via bear/cougar-mauling. There was major venom involved in South Park’s case … was there any similar venom in this case about that little red Golf? Hehe. But after watching the scene again I’m thinking it’s actually more like Walter White’s Aztek, indestructible.

So now for the ep 402 "Dig for Fire" grade ... I’m going to give this episode an:

A

Holy shit, is that too high?? Am I being too generous? I kinda loved this one. I just have not felt nearly this satisfied by a CA ep since the “Let’s Dance”/”Rock ‘n Roll Suicide” timeframe. Maybe that’s not saying much given my huge frustrations with the last third of season 3, but still. I really liked it, what can I say? Am I crazy? Tell me in the comments section.


Rachael (The Plopper)

Read More

Review - SUITS 3.01: 'The Arrangement'

I'm not a lawyer so I don't know this to be a fact, but I think it's safe to say that TV shows that focus on the law are not all that realistic.

But hey, perhaps lawyers like Franklin and Bash performing outrageous stunts to win cases do exist! (Example: "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!" SHIT, it DOES work!) And I'm sure Mike Ross isn't the only fraud lawyer out there, either. (Jeff Winger did it too!)

If these shows were realistic, they probably wouldn't be that compelling. So I suppose this is a good thing. But what happened in the first five minutes of the Season 3 Premiere of 'Suits' was NOT a good thing.

That first storyline involving Harvey trying to finagle more money for his basketball player's new contract was an absolute travesty of television. Let me count the reasons...

1. Deron Williams, the player whom he was negotiating for, is ALREADY under contract for another four full seasons in the NBA. Scheduled to make $18,466,130 in the 2013-14 season ... $19,754,465 (2014-15) ... $21,042,800 (2015-16) ... $22,331,135 (2016-17). I can let that one slide. But...

2. In the NBA, there's a ceiling in how much money a player can make in a season. Williams is a max-contract player, so there would literally be no haggling on the final dollar amount whatsoever. Even if the team WANTED to give him more money, they couldn't.

3. In fact, if a player signs a max-contract with the team he is currently on, he stands to make $30,000,000 more than if he signs a max-contract with a new team. So there is no leveraging to be had with another team. If the player wants to take a different team's offer, fine, but he's leaving 1-year and 30 million bucks on the table to do so. Yeah, it doesn't happen very often (Dwight Howard just did so when he left Los Angeles to go to Houston)

4. Obviously agents do some shady/manipulative type stuff when negotiating. This isn't news. But Harvey HAD to be lying when he said he had an offer from another team, because Williams was still under contract. Because that is tampering and illegal to do. Teams can't talk contract with a player from another team. That is a colossal no-no in professional sports and teams get fined a shit-ton for doing so. Not only that, but they would be likely be prohibited from ever signing that player.

5. Yeah, because Deron Williams is going to threaten to sit out the fourth quarter of a playoff game to leverage more money in his contract. Which, as we now know, isn't even possible in the first place. UGH.

OK, rant over. My apologies. Chances are either some of this bothered you already, or you hate sports and now hate me for wasting all your time when you thought you would be reading a review of the episode.

Now back to regularly scheduled programming...

Speaking of ranting and false threats -- did any of us really think that Harvey was going to either quit the firm or try to get Darby to fire him? Come on. I hate when shows resort to false stakes to create drama. IT DOESN'T WORK WHEN WE ALL KNOW THAT THERE ARE NO REAL STAKES ON THE LINE.

OK, rant over. It actually turned out pretty awesome in the end, because Harvey quickly abandoned that plan and decided to try to railroad Jessica. Let's hope he sticks to this plan and we get several episodes of that, because that will be fun to watch -- even though, again, I think it's fairly safe to assume that plan will essentially not be successful, either. As long as it results in some fun and some viciousness between Specter and Pearson, I'm more than fine with that. Those two are at their best when they are at war, anyway.

Two last things from the premiere that I really don't have much to say about, but need to touch on or some of you will get mad:

1. Here we go again with Mike and Rachel. They continue to go back and forth between kinda being together and her hating him. I don't mind that necessarily, I just prefer them to stick with one of those paths for more than an episode or two. It seems like she's pretty damn furious with him right now so I hope that continues for a while. Rachel is really awesome when she's angry and it would be fun to see Mike with her as a pseudo-enemy.

2. The feud between Louis and Nigel is a bit weird, but I still like it. I mean, these two should be the best friends in the world, but of course Louis screwed it up. It's just so great to see people mess with Louis (and I love Louis). He just wants a friend and everyone is out to get him. It's great.

I'm really glad this show is back. Let me know what you guys thought about my rants and the first episode back.

QUOTES OF NOTE:

--HARVEY: "So unless you intend to cook me breakfast tomorrow, I'd say we're done."

--DONNA: "Please stop saying Uniball."
--LOUIS: "No, I will not."

--MIKE: "You have no idea what I have or haven't done to get where I am."
--RACHEL: "And that's the whole problem -- I have no idea who you are."

--HARVEY: "You come to me. You tell me everything -- that's what god damn loyalty is."

--RACHEL: "Code 2!
--DONNA: Richard Gere is in the lobby?"

--MIKE: "By the way, if you ever do send that letter, you're in the same boat as me."

RANDOM RAMBLINGS:

--If you forgot where the show left off, check my review from the Season 2 finale for a refresher.

--Man, I missed the great music from this show. This week's favorite: 'Sacrilege' by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

--That dream sequence from the beginning with Rachel exposing Mike didn't fool me even for a second. What's the consensus on dream sequences? Yay or nay? Personally I find them rather lame and overplayed on TV. I mean, we get it, Mike is worried about being exposed. We don't need a dream sequence to tell us that.

--How come when I tell girls about the first time I saw them, it doesn't go quite as well for me as it did for Harvey?

--Haha, I love you Donna for torturing Louis. Excellent work.

--Did Harvey send Scottie to London just because the show couldn't afford to have her as a regular on the show? Or because she wasn't available to? Or because they plan to bring her back for dramatic effect later? This is something I'd like to know. I've always liked Abigail Spencer, so it would be nice to have her back at some point. Although I've never felt much of an investment in her and Harvey.

THE GRADE: B

Read More

The Plopper Reviews - COVERT AFFAIRS 4.01: 'Vamos'

Ladies & gentlemen, months ago I announced that we would no longer be doing TV episode reviews on this blog. And then Sony hired Dan Harmon back and I had to keep my word (that I would review any episode of a Dan Harmon run COMMUNITY). So TV reviews are back! And we kick it off with a guest review from The Plopper (aka maryploppins). Enjoy. Comment below if you want her to write more. If you don't, then don't comment below. I'll know by the total lack of comments that you hated it. --HGF

I figure it’s only fitting for me to write a guest review of the Covert Affairs season 4 premiere at GeekFurious, since it was HGF’s review of ep 302 last year that made me finally pay attention to this show.  I fell completely in love with the first 11 eps of S3 … and then liked, but had issues with, the last 5 (312-16), which was most of the fall season.  The writers squeezed a new major story arc (Khalid/Megan/Mossad) into those last 5 eps, which, IMO, made them very plot dense (a plot which I wasn’t entirely in love with), and light on character focus, at a time when I thought we needed that more than ever.  One of the many things that made the first 11 eps of S3 so great, other than the very engaging long arc with Simon and Lena, was that the pacing allowed for enough character moments and interactions along the way to really draw you in, and to allow you the viewer to better understand the characters and their motivations.  312-16, however, felt a bit jumbled (main story arc included), and these character moments were few and far between.  So I’ve been a bit nervous to find out whether season 4 will more closely resemble those first 11 of season 3 that I loved, or the mixed bag of the last 5.

So what’s the preliminary verdict, based on ep 401, “Vamos”?  I give it a thumbs up, for the most part, but I would say that in certain ways it felt quite similar to the S3 finale.  I thought the finale was the best of the last third of S3, but it still had that dense and slightly cluttered feel of many plot points being tied up (and/or kicked off to set up S4) all at once.  Likewise with “Vamos,” it felt a bit like the writers were in a contest to squeeze in as many S4 set-up plot points and bombshells as possible.  We got three major new character introductions, several huge bombshells/plot twists (including a long lost son, a flash forward to Annie and Calder shooting at each other, a surprise pregnancy, and an extramarital affair), a trip to Colombia with a full (rogue) mission for Annie/Auggie, hints at even more bombshells to come, and the intro of A&A as a couple.  That is a LOT to take in, in just one hour of television.  Many of these seem like promising storylines, but of course only future episodes will tell.  What I can say is that they certainly kept me quite entertained throughout this ep, at least.  The fact that a full hour went by in the blink of an eye to me says a lot for how immersed I was in it.  Hill Harper and Manolo Cardona both did excellent jobs of introducing us to the characters of Calder Michaels and Teo Braga, and I’m excited to see what they’ll bring to the rest of the season.

Now let’s talk about Annie & Auggie for a sec, shall we?  First off, I gotta say, one of the things I really like about Covert Affairs is that it has managed to spend 3 seasons keeping us engaged in the A&A friendship without putting so much focus on it that the entire series revolves around it.  Many shows wind up becoming almost solely focused around the main ‘ship, even when they never necessarily planned to do that at the outset of the series.  I love that CA has spent 3 seasons allowing both of these characters to have their own romantic lives completely separate from one another, while still building their friendship into something that you eventually want to see moved to the next level.

And overall, I like how they handled this new romantic relationship in “Vamos.”  I reeaally hope they don’t shy away from the sexy sex scenes now that A&A are together, which seems to be a pattern with many other shows (I’m looking at you, Chuck and Castle). And thankfully we got some of those sexy times in the opening sequence.  But somewhat surprisingly, the scene I enjoyed much more than the opener was A&A in the hotel room while Annie stitches up Auggie’s shoulder.  Why?  Because not only was it pretty physical and sexy, but A&A actually talked as well!!  One of my huge frustrations of the last 5 of S3 was that A&A did not converse about anything significant in those eps, like, nearly at ALL.  And this was at a time when they had a LOT to talk about. Without scenes like this, it's extremely difficult to have a clue what is going through these character’s heads.  So in a sense, this hotel room scene felt like something long overdue from the last third of season 3.

The hotel room scene gave us intriguing thoughts from these characters such as Auggie feeling emasculated because of Annie's need to “protect” him on their mission (similar to 302 “Sound and Vision”).  We also got an observation from Auggie about what Annie’s true motivations are in wanting to continue chasing down leads/clues in Colombia – that she gets personal satisfaction in attempting to outwit Henry Wilcox.  Myles McNutt makes a fantastic point about this exchange in his AV Club review, which gave me a bit of an “ah ha!” moment in piecing together my own frustrations with the last third of season 3.  He says: “The show has gotten better, and Piper Perabo has done some solid work in the role, but who is Annie other than a vessel of the series’ narrative?”  It’s not that the show hasn’t explored this - it has - it’s just that I’ve seen very little of it since Annie returned from Russia.  I spent much of those last five S3 eps wondering WHAT the hell was going through her head, as I felt like the audience was almost entirely shut out.  I really, really hope Auggie’s observation about Annie in the hotel scene is an indication that we’ll get more character focus like this in S4.  I’m the type of person who needs to get into the characters' heads a bit, to understand and relate to them, in order for the show to fully suck me in (it’s the primary reason I’ve had trouble completely immersing myself in The Americans, even though it’s a very good show).

A few last points:

• Each season of CA uses episode titles based on song titles from one particular band.  For S4, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that the writers are using a Pixies theme.  But if there’s not an ep somewhere in S4 called “Wave of Mutilation,” I’m gonna be kinda bummed.  It’s too good an opportunity to pass up.
• Is Arthur’s story about his extramarital affair real or is it just a cover for something else he’s is hiding behind closed doors?
• Kari Matchett just had a baby (congrats to her!) and was pregnant when filming the first few eps of S4, so her pregnancy was written into the show.  Not shockingly, that story felt fairly tacked on in this ep, and I wonder if it’ll eventually be developed into something that gels better with the rest of the storylines.
• I know the flash-forward at the beginning of the ep is an overused storytelling device at this point, but I was intrigued by it.  Stylistically it felt a little funky at the point where the elevator opens and the shooting begins, but I can’t tell if that’s just because I was watching it in shitty low def on this hotel TV with horrible picture and sound quality (I'm on vacay at the moment).  In any event, I am very interested to see how we get back to this scene in real time.
• There is one other exchange in the Colombia hotel room scene between A&A that intrigued me as well: Annie apologizes for her “janky” stitch-up job on Auggie’s shoulder, mentions that it’ll cause a scar, and Auggie says, “Well, scars are sexy.”  Annie responds with, “Depends on how you get them.”  What does she mean by this?  Is there an obvious meaning or reference here that I’m missing or forgetting?  I do find it kind of an ironic statement considering the mystical powers she seems to have that allow her to have zero visible scars from taking two slugs to the chest last season & having surgery to open her chest as a result.  She’s like Claire from Heroes or some shit.
• I think I may already be in love with Teo Braga.  That was quick.
• Did you notice the theme song was gone from this episode?  I saw a tweet from Chris Gorham that seems to indicate that this may be permanent.  If so, I'm fine with it.  The peppy tone of the title sequence fits much better with the lighter seasons 1 & 2, than it does the significantly darker seasons 3 and 4.
  

Overall, I would give “Vamos” a grade of:

B+. 

I toyed with giving it a B, but I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt for now that what we saw in this ep will pay off further as the season continues.  Fingers crossed.

The Plopper

Read More