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

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

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