The Mindy Project 2.04: "Magic Morgan"

“We did actually talk about this. You don’t get heartache days. In fact, they don’t exist.”
-Jeremy

As a lawyer, this week’s episode of “The Mindy Project” was an interesting one. As somebody who doesn’t like artificial romantic roadblocks in her television shows, it was a bit frustrating. It’s quite obvious that Mindy is going t, at some point, date Cliff Gilbert, the kind of smarmy lawyer who she meets in this episode. The part that peaked my curiosity as a lawyer was the whole potential sexual harassment thread in the episode. Mindy, while really drunk, thinks maybe it would be a good idea to find out if Morgan really does bring good future dating luck to everybody he sleeps with. Holy bad idea on so many levels, Batman! Meanwhile, Danny is really not happy about Peter being a member of the practice, which causes greater friction among the group. That whole bit made Danny look kind of boring, although I’d much rather spend time around him than frat boy douche Peter.

As the episode opens, we see that Mindy is not taking the breakup with Casey well at all. Which is kind of odd considering she was the one that initiated it. Obviously everyone’s sad when they go through a breakup, whether you’re the breaker or the breakee, but Mindy’s taking it a touch too far for having been the breaker. And all over a guy who was an unfocused, inconsiderate jerk. Anyway, Mindy is a mess, ordering takeout, crying all over the place, and getting rid of anything that reminds her of her relationship with Casey. To make matters worse, when she’s out for a walk, she trips on a package in front of a building. The package belongs to a lawyer whose office is inside the building. That lawyer is the aforementioned Cliff Gilbert, of course. Cliff completely schools Mindy on why exactly she would lose if she sued him. As they would say on HIMYM, Mindy gets “lawyered.” I do enjoy a good lawyering. There’s really nothing better than intellectually kicking someone’s ass.

At the Shulman and Associates office, Jeremy has a big announcement. Since Dr. Shulman hasn’t worked there for about a year, he thinks it’s time to rename the practice. He got a fancy sign made and everything. The only problem is that instead of Lahiri, the sign has Casey’s last name on it. Mindy has to announce to the whole practice that she and Casey broke up, and the wedding is off. Mindy’s coworkers are sympathetic, but there’s really only so much they can do about what is an unfortunate situation. Morgan makes the mistake of trying to cheer Mindy up by telling her how every time he and a girl break up, the girl ends up marrying the next guy she dates. Mindy thinks this is weird, as do I. Actually, I guess it’s not so unexpected. Morgan’s such an odd duck that any other guy would have to seem spectacular in comparison, right?

Mindy says she’s taking a “heartbreak day” and leaves the office (even though Jeremy tells her that there is no such thing as a heartbreak day), and when we next see her, she’s back in her apartment, wallowing in her grief by looking at a photo of Casey on her phone and getting very drunk. Morgan decides to stop by and check on her, which of course can’t end well. Now that she’s drunk, Mindy is totally buying the “Magic Morgan” thing where dating him miraculously leads women to find their true loves. Mindy launches herself at Morgan, and Morgan tries to fend her off with a pizza box, to humorous result. Mindy finally convinces Morgan to give the plan a try by crying. Apparently he doesn’t like to see Mindy cry. Mindy wants to freshen up a bit before they have sex, and in that short amount of time, she sobers up enough to start regretting what she’s about to do. When she enters her bedroom and finds Morgan naked in her bed, she knows for sure that this was a bad idea, and she kicks Morgan out of her apartment.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned in the intro, Danny is not happy at all about Peter joining the practice. Danny is about as straight arrow as they come, and he really chafes against Peter’s frat boy douche-ness. Jeremy basically tells Danny tough luck, Peter’s excellent with patients, so he is not going anywhere. The straw that breaks Danny’s back happens in the hospital, when Peter is telling the other doctors a story about how a girl grabbed his junk. He demonstrates the maneuver with Danny, who doesn’t appreciate it at all, to put it mildly. Danny just goes completely off the deep end with his hatred for Peter after that one, and I kind of don’t blame him. I guess sexual harassment at the workplace is kind of an overall theme of this episode?

Anyway, when Mindy gets to work the next day, she finds out that Morgan is planning to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against her for the incident that happened the previous night. His lawyer is none other than Cliff, who seems pretty giddy at the opportunity, To Cliff’s chagrin, Morgan says he will drop the lawsuit if Mindy agrees to go on one real date with him. Mindy really doesn’t want to (and Cliff really wants to keep pursuing the case), but Jeremy and Danny insist that Mindy go through with it to protect the practice from liability. Danny, Jeremy, and Peter go so far as to help Mindy pick out what to wear for the date. That’s taking it way too far, if you ask me. Danny finds one of Casey’s shirts in Mindy’s closet, and Mindy completely loses it because she’s convinced she’ll always have reminders of Casey around, and she’s never going to get over what happened.

The date itself actually isn’t all that bad. Morgan reveals some of his past to Mindy, including the time he traveled to Canada to meet someone he met online. She turned out to be a he, and Morgan got beat up for his trouble. Mindy is a little weirded out by that story, understandably. The date takes a turn for the better when Morgan takes Mindy to the quarry he likes to go to when he needs to think things out. He shows Mindy how you can just yell out whatever is bothering you, and it echoes back to you. Mindy tries yelling about how upset she is over Casey, and it actually does make her feel somewhat better. It makes her feel better enough that she takes her last photo of herself and Casey out of her purse and tosses it into the quarry. Good riddance, I say.

Once Upon a Time 3.03: "Quite a Common Fairy"

“What if I can do what I say? I’m a fairy. You might try believing in me.”
- Tinkerbell

The clan (hey it’s easier to type and naming everyone) is trekking through the forest when they realize that Pan’s lair has moved. Sneaky little prick! Regina, once again, suggests she just use magic to pop in and grab Henry. Bu that won’t work according to Hook. Pan’s got wards. They need a fairy and he knows of one on the island. Of course it’s Tinkerbell. Regina isn’t so sure the little green lady will help them. We’re introduced to her by way of a Regina flash back. Regina is miserable being married to Snow’s dad. She’s always alone in the castle and she’s ignoring her training with Rumple. She’s frustrated and ends up falling out off a balcony. But Tink saves her. They have a chat and Tink thinks she can help Regina find love again with someone else. Unfortunately, Tink has to leave and she gets reamed out by the Blue Fairy (she’s kind of a bitch right now…wow).

Back on the island, Pan is being a royal prick. He’s making Henry do target practice with poisoned arrow (trying to shoot apples of Felix’s head). Yeah I think Pan’s just trying to turn Henry into a lost boy. Something tells me our young prince is stronger than that. The clan is still trekking along when Regina suggests she and Emma combine their magic. When Emma is less than receptive to this plan, Regina retorts about Hook being Emma’s boyfriend. Clearly Emma is still pining for Neal. And Hook notices Charming’s wound. He tells the prince he’s got weeks maybe at most but Charming refuses to tell Snow or Emma he’s been injured.

Speaking of Neal he’s trying to find a way to make a portal to get to Emma and Henry. He susses out from his time in Neverland that Henry must be there because that’ the only reason Emma would wind up in that hell hole. As the Merry Men show up, including Robin’s son, Neal is hit with an idea. He wants to use Robin’s son to call the shadow to take him. Understandably, Robin freaks out. Marian’s dead and the boy’s all he has left. Neal uses the fact that Rumple spared their lives as leverage to get what he wants.

Back on the island, Emma and Regina have a little heart to heart. Regina says it’s best if Tink doesn’t see her so if they find her, get Henry without Regina. They have a touching moment where Regina calls their quest “Operation: Henry” because that’s what he would have done (better name of course). It was cute. Back in the Fairytale Land that Was, Tink steals some pixie dust against Blue’s orders and goes to bring Regina to her new love. Tink leaves Regina at an inn with the man illuminated but Regina chickens out. In Neverland, Tink finally shows for Regina and she is really pissed at the Queen. Clearly, we haven’t seen everything that’s happened yet. We see that Regina lies to Tink about seeing the man and for her trouble, Tink gets her wings stripped. So I guess that’s how she ends up in Neverland. She kidnaps Regina and the rest of the clan realizes a little late that Tink was after Regina the whole time. Regina offers Tink the chance to kill her by crushing her heart but she also implores the ex-fairy to choose love and let Regina go so she can get Henry back. Tink finally relents but she doesn’t have magic anymore, not even pixie dust. They reunite with the rest of the group and Tink agrees to lead the way to Pan’s lair but they’ve got to have their own plan and only one shot to execute it.

Speaking of Henry, Pan explains that magic has been dying everywhere in every world because the people in the Land without Magic stopped believing. So Henry is the real savior of all magic. Henry doesn’t believe but Pan hands over the scroll. Henry tosses it aside at first and Pan remarks on how much like Neal he is. But Henry picks up the scroll and realizes Pan isn’t lying. I like that Pan is nefarious but it appears he’s also got an agenda and that the agenda isn’t all horrible death and mayhem. The Lost Boys are still super creepy but hey, you leave a bunch of teenage boys alone on an island that’s what you get (think Lord of the Flies).

Speaking of Neal, Robin agrees to lend his son to call the shadow. It actually works and Neal latches on just in time to hitch a ride back to Neverland. No sooner does he land than Felix pops up and says Pan is going to be so pleased to see him. I seriously hope Neal gets to deck Pan in the face. He does also recognize the fact that he’s going to have to earn his way back into Emma’s heart. I’m glad he understand it’s not going to be all sunshine and roses.

And finally, we seems to wrap up some of Mulan’s story. Robin offers to let her join the Merry Men since she’s such a great strategist and his son remained unharmed by the shadow. She says there’s something she needs to do before she decides. She goes to see Aurora and at first it seems she needs to tell Phillip how she feels but it’s really that she’s got feelings for Aurora. Unfortunately, the princess breaks her heart by exclaiming that she and Phillip have a bun in the oven. So Mulan heads back to Robin and company and we learn that Robin is actually the man that Regina was destined to fall for. Yeah because everyone saw that coming when they made him a recurring character this season.

I’m looking forward to seeing if Henry and Neal at least reunite next week. As I understand it’s a Rumple-centric episode so that side of the family could come together and I’d be happy. Rumple needs to know his boy is alive. It still weirds me out a bit that Pan knows all about Henry’s history and it seems Neal ending up in Neverland as a boy was no accident after all.

New Girl 3.04: "The Captain"

“Ain’t no way in Hell I’ve got a cat brothel going on in my room and I’m the only normal person in this loft.”
-Winston

I think “The Captain” was probably my favorite episode of “New Girl” this season thus far. This episode lived where the show does its best work – awkward sexual situations. We also see Schmidt make good on his thread to try and break up Jess and Nick. Hopefully, this episode also represents the end of it. Because the characters in this episode told Schmidt exactly what I was saying last week. He needs to deal with his shit instead of blaming Jess and Nick for his dating two women at once situation ending badly. The one thing that didn’t work for me in this episode was the creative team once again going to the “Winston is just plain crazy” well. I miss the days when Winston was super competitive or good with kids. Now he's just plain nuts. To make it worse, the Winston plot also resulted in wasting the talents of one of my favorite comediennes, Riki Lindhome. Go check out the albums of her comedy band with Kate Micucci, called Garfunkel and Oates.

This episode really tries to deal with some of the realities of a couple living in an apartment with two roommates. Winston and Schmidt are just plain tired of having to listen to Jess and Nick having sex all the time. Schmidt becomes even more determined to break Jess and Nick up. Not only is he pissed off about their role in ruining his thing with Cece and Elizabeth, but he’s also sick of being around that much happiness when he’s going through a rough time. In sort-of related news, Winston informs Schmidt that he has to take Furguson to get neutered soon. Winston feels really bad about this, and Schmidt jokes about taking Furguson out on the town for one last hurrah. Winston, projecting his sadness over the break-up with Daisy and having to be around Jess and Nick’s happiness all the time on to Furguson, decides to take the suggestion literally. And yet another Winston be crazy plot ensues.

Schmidt is true to his word and puts his break Jess and Nick up plan into action pretty quickly. He makes a big happy one month anniversary cake for the pair. Jess, of course, thinks this is nice, although she’s still somewhat suspicious considering what Schmidt said in the last episode. This is really all a game to get in Nick’s head. Apparently the only relationship Nick has ever had that lasted longer than a month was with Caroline. Usually, the one month mark is where Nick gets scared and gets himself out of the relationship. Schmidt points this out to Nick, emphasizing how it seems Nick’s relationship with Jess has turned rather serious. This conversation has almost immediate consequences for Nick and Jess. The next time they try to have sex, Nick just can’t perform. Jess just wants to make a joke out of it to make Nick feel more comfortable, but that just makes Nick feel worse. Every time Jess tries to talk about it, Nick runs away, saying he has to go move his car.

Schmidt then takes his plan into phase two. While standing near a blender, he starts telling Jess that Nick has been with a lot of women, and Jess needs to make things more interesting in the bedroom if she’s going to keep Nick. He starts describing a move called “The Captain,” running the blender at opportune times so that the naughtiest bits are left to the imagination. All we know is that Jess needs to clean herself up immediately, and there are somehow racial slurs involved. Believing Schmidt when he says he has a PhD in “Nickology,” Jess decides to try out the Captain. As soon as she turns the lights out, Nick says he’s scared, which is one of those moments that proves the rule that Jake Johnson yelling randomly is never not funny. Things don’t get better once the Captain starts, either. Nick has a look on his face afterwards that shows he definitely didn’t like it at all.

Meanwhile, Winston goes off in search of a cat for Furguson to bang before he’s fixed. Winston approaches a lot of women with cats, but they al understandably think he’s weird and brush him off. The only woman who seems interested is Riki Lindhome’s character. She thinks that when Winston refers to “her cat,” he’s actually referring to her. But he’s not. He’s literally referring to her cat, Fatty. They go back to the loft, and Winston even manages to entice Riki’s character into his bedroom (along with her actual cat). Jess and Nick are making a lot of noise in the next room as they try out the Captain, and Winston is getting frustrated because the noise is keeping Furguson from having sex himself. At this point, Riki’s character realizes that Winston really was looking for a hook-up for his cat, not himself, and he rightfully hightails it out of there.

Jess eventually spills the fact that she talked to Schmidt about her and Nick’s problems, and Nick flips out. He reminds Jess that they can’t trust Schmidt right now, and he tells Jess that Schmidt doesn’t really know him all that well. They then go out into the living room to yell at Schmidt. Instead of being contrite, Schmidt flips out too. He screams and begs for Jess and Nick to break-up so they can all go back to just being roommates again. Could the shake-up of Jess and Nick dating be what’s make Schmidt and Winston act so darn weird lately? I could potentially buy that. Nick doesn’t want to give into Schmidt’s manipulations this time. He tells Jess that he likes her a lot, and he’s happy that they’ve made it to a month. He’s going to work on expressing his emotions more, because he thinks it will help their relationship. This results in Nick starting to spill all sorts of awkward things about himself, including a story about the time he saw his mother naked.

Schmidt continues to go off the rails in full tantrum mode. First he starts destroying all the condoms in the apartment, then he starts taking all of Jess’ birth control pills. That seems like a really, really bad idea. Jess can probably get more meds, so that’s not a big deal, but it can’t be healthy for Schmidt to take all those hormones at once. Anyway, Winston finally steps back into loft parent mode and tells everybody to just quit acting like such idiots. As it says in the Quote of the Episode, when Winston is running a cat brothel, and he’s the most normal of the bunch, they’ve got problems. Big problems. He tells Schmidt he needs to deal with his shit and take ownership of his role in his personal life blowing up, and he tells Jess and Nick that they need to try to be a little quieter. Nick tries to respond to Winston’s request by taping up egg cartons all over his room for “soundproofing.” Which is kind of adorable.

Person of Interest 3.03: "Lady Killer"

“Just once, I wish you guys would call about something that didn’t require a firearm.”
- Carter

This week starts off right in the thick of things for our heroes. Reese and Shaw are checking out this week’s POI, Ian Murphy. He happens to be on a date out on the lake and Reese and Shaw are fighting over who gets to row the boat. On first watch I just thought that was funny, however on re-watch I realize now it was sort of a set up for later on. Anyway, Reese heads to Ian’s apartment while Shaw follows him. He’s a chameleon, changing his outfit and hitting on a completely different woman. That’s not all that’s creepy about Mr. Murphy. In his apartment, Reese uncovers dozens of files on women who’ve all used the same online check-in app at the same restaurant. While Finch insists this doesn’t mean the guy’s a killer, Reese also finds a flyer for a missing woman and an article about a woman who died in a car accident. Hmmm….suspicious.

The gang doesn’t have enough to go to the cops yet so they’re going to stage their own little trap. And of course, this includes the awesome plotline of sending Shaw, Carter and Zoe undercover as potential bait. The scene where they all arrive at the safe house to get briefed is pretty hilarious. Carter is miffed the assignment involves being armed but she gushes over Shaw’s mini gun. It’s kind of adorable. And Zoe’s got a phone Taser courtesy of Reese (aww). They head out to the club and share a drink while waiting for Ian to show. Thankfully they’ve got Fusco watching their backs. I’m so happy Fusco got to be part of the action. I miss him and Carter as a team. Not surprising, when Ian shows up, he picks Carter as his next target. He flirts with her and she agrees to let him make dinner for her the following night. Then things get creepy. He follows her out of the club and starts stalking her down the street. Al the while, Fusco’s whispering in Carter’s ear where Ian is. She gets a little freaked and ducks behind a car and slams into Reese. It would seem Ian cut off his pursuit before anything hinky could go down. But now it means Carter has a second date with a potential killer.

Elsewhere in the city, things are moving along with Root, as well. She steals some drugs and aerosolizes them to knock everyone in the institution out so she can escape. She even tells her doctor the plan (which includes punching him in the neck and stealing his car keys). There’s an added element of danger though because Special Counsel is still hunting her down and it seems they’ve found her. As Root (and the Machine) predicted, the hired gun from Special Counsel shows up. Root manages to take him out and escape but Finch has been alerted that something is up (via the Machine sending him Root’s social security number). He goes to the facility and sees the dead hit man. Root out in the world again isn’t good.

Meanwhile, Carter is prepping for her date. Ian got a large sum of money nine years earlier supposedly from an uncle but it turns out to be the father of the car accident victim. Carter’s date is going all right though she’s a bit jumpy. Outside, Reese and Shaw are waiting to see if they need to shoot Ian and we get some confirmation that Reese and Zoe kind of have a thing going. Shaw is more pragmatic. She’s more a free spirit not tied down by relationships. Anyway, dinner ends and as Carter heads out, two guys show up to mug her and Ian. Luckily she’s got her gun on her and Shaw covers the other guy and they whisk Ian off to the Library. Fusco does some digging and figures out the thugs were hired by the dead girl’s father. So it’s time for an info dump. Ian and this girl met in college and fell in love. But Daddy got super protective when she got pregnant. He basically threatened Ian with public ruin if he didn’t take the money and leave. He didn’t have anything to do with the family until the funeral. Ian explains the father flipped out and our guys figure out why. Ian was led to believe his child was aborted but it would appear she had the child (a little boy). Well now we know he’s a victim not a perp.

Reese and company share the news with Ian and he’s kind of shocked. He wants to see his son once, even if the kid doesn’t know who he is. Reese and Zoe go to find the kid’s birth certificate but it’s nowhere to be found. Ian and Finch are off to see the kid from a far but since that’s about the time Finch gets the warning call from the Machine, Ian ends up kidnapping his own kid. He realizes the mistake and calls Carter for help. Shaw does a little digging at the hospital where the boy was born and found the birth certificate with Ian’s name on it. So it looks like he may have a shot at being a father after all. Let’s just hope the kid isn’t too traumatized (to be fair nothing really happened…he even got an ice cream out of the deal). Before Ian heads off with his kid he asks Carter out again. She says that it might work when things have settled down a bit for everyone. I really hope they bring him back. He seems like a decent guy (minus the creepy stalker-ness) and Carter needs something good in her life.

I’m a little worried that the plotline with Root is going to start to overtake the bigger story but we’ll have to see what happens. I kind of wish they’d just finish the HR storyline. As I’ve said before, that’s gone on a season too long at this point. Carter needs some resolution so she can get back to being a detective and Fusco’s partner. Because they developed such a great bond and chemistry last season.

50th Anniversary Countdown: Doctor Who 7.09: "Cold War"

“I’m always serious. With days off.”
-The Doctor

“Cold War” was written by “Doctor Who” veteran Mark Gatiss, who also happens to be a good friend of head writer Steven Moffat. Most of the very small readership of MTVP should know that we aren’t big fans of Gatiss around here. I at least generally find his episodes to be among the weakest. Don’t get me wrong, the episodes he has written of “Sherlock” are all very good, and he has very good ideas about what “Doctor Who” should be about, but the actual episodes of “Doctor Who” that he writes just plain aren’t good. This is the writer who brought us the iDaleks back in series five’s “Victory of the Daleks.” Anyway, not surprisingly given the title, this episode takes place during the Cold War. 1983, to be exact. I guess they wanted the nice round number of the episode taking place 30 years ago (a fact which I know quite well considering I myself will be 30 next week). The episode also brought back a classic villain, the Ice Warriors, who, to be honest, are really kind of boring.

The episode takes place entirely on a Soviet nuclear submarine. The submarine crew is joined by Professor Grisenko, who has brought a fairly large ice sample on board for transport. This ice sample is melted, which is going to cause the crew a whole lot of trouble. The captain of this submarine is Captain Zhukov, by the way, and he’s played by Liam Cunningham, better known as Davos on “Game of Thrones” (in my world, at least). Anyway, in the type of mishap that is pretty typical for “Doctor Who,” the Doctor and Clara think they’re going to Vegas, but they actually end up on the submarine instead. That had to be quite a buzzkill. I know if I thought I was going on a fun trip to Vegas and ended up on a Cold War-era Soviet submarine, I’d be back in the TARDIS and heading for home faster than you could say “nyet.”

Anyway, the Doctor and Clara have some work to do to prove to the Russians that they mean no harm. The Ice Warrior has caused the whole sub to crash, too, which definitely doesn’t help. In this process, Clara discovers the TARDIS translation matrix, which is pretty amusing. Clara is pretty surprised to find out that to the submarine crew, it sounds like she is speaking Russian. I wonder if she had actually tried to speak Russian, if it would have sounded Welsh like Donna sounded when she tried to speak Latin in “The Fires of Pompeii?” Everyone is just starting to trust each other when the creature that was freed from the ice appears behind the Doctor. The Doctor has just enough time to learn the creature is the Ice Warrior Grand Master Skaldak before one of the submarine crew stupidly tasers the thing. The Doctor is obviously concerned about this, and he orders Skaldak retrained immediately. The problem is that Skaldak will take the tasering as an attack that he absolutely must retaliate against.

The Doctor, being the Doctor, wants to try and resolve this situation by talking first. Clara gets drafted into being the person doing the talking, because when he comes too, Skaldak is going to have been offended by everybody else. Clara does a good job parroting what the Doctor tells her at first, but soon enough Skaldak figures out that the Doctor is really the one doing the talking. Skaldak has a couple secrets himself, though. First, he’s been sending out a distress signal on the off chance Ice Warriors still exist (Skaldak’s been frozen for thousands of years). Second, he’s not where Clara thought he was. She was just talking to his armor. Skaldak himself is out of his armor and skittering around the ceiling. As soon as Clara has enough and opens the door to leave the room, Skaldak skitters his way right out in the the rest of the submarine, where he proceeds to continue skittering and occasionally picking off members of the submarine’s crew.

Skaldak has lost hope that there are still Ice Warriors around, so all he wants is revenge. And he’s on a nuclear submarine. The Doctor, Captain, and all the crew then become concerned that Skaldak is going to want to use one of those handy nuclear weapons to just completely destroy humanity all in one go. It doesn’t help that one of Skaldak’s victims happens to completely describe the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. Skaldak is fully cognizant that he has what he needs to get his revenge. The team then decides to split up, as you do when there’s a scary creature lurking about. This is where my attention starts to drift every time I watch this episode, but Clara and the Professor are paired together, and the Professor hums Hungry Like the Wolf. That’s an important plot point for later in the episode. Oh, and there’s a bit where Skaldak tries to grab Clara, the Professor shoots Skaldak, so then Skaldak grabs the Professor instead. Oops.

Skaldak does release the Professor, but then things go from bad to worse. Skaldak has summoned his armor, gets back into the armor, and uses the armor to start interfacing with the sub’s nuclear weapons. The Doctor tries to talk Skaldak down, but of course that’s hopeless at this point, so the Doctor starts using his own Cold War tactics. He says that if Skaldak tries to launch that missile, he (the Doctor) is going to just blow up the entire sub. Just as things are looking pretty dire, the sub is pulled to the surface of the water by a beam emanating by a big flying saucer of Ice Warriors. Skaldek’s not alone after all! Skaldek is transported up to the ship, but the missiles are still armed. Clara starts singing “Hungry Like the Wolf” while everybody waits to see if the Ice Warriors have decided not to destroy Earth after all. Soon enough, the missiles disarm, and the danger is over.

Since they’re at the surface, Clara and the Doctor stand on top of the sub to have a look around at the Arctic ice. Clara finally thinks to ask where the TARDIS is, because it vanished right after the big crash at the beginning of the episode. The Doctor says he’s been fiddling with the Hostile Action Displacement System, which led to the TARDIS disappearing at the sign of trouble. The Doctor does a quick scan with the sonic screwdriver, and he quickly locates the TARDIS. It’s at the Pole, but the wrong one. The South Pole. The Doctor jovially asks the Captain for a lift, and the Captain obliges. The episode ends, so we don’t really see how the whole Doctor and Clara take a trip around the world with some surly Russians thing turns out. More’s the pity.

Trophy Wife 1.03: "The Social Network"

“Call me Doctor Dre, ‘cause I’m about to Snoop Dogg.”
-Pete

Holy crap was this episode embarrassment squick-inducing. But it did make me laugh, which is more than I can say for last week’s episode. The adults can’t use technology thing is kind of played out and clichéd, but laughs are definitely good. It seemed like the adults in the family were definitely working more as a team in this one, although, like the previous episode, this episode gave one of the exes and her child(ren) the b-plot on their own. This week, the b-story honors went to Jackie and Bert, as the rest of the family dealt with Hillary potentially continuing her rebellious phase. Although the rebellion turned out not to be quite as bad as everybody thought, which I found kind of disappointing. I thought the dichotomy between Hillary and Warren was more interesting in the pilot. Now they’re both kind of nerdy and lame. So am I, so I’m not judging them. I just found it more interesting when they were more different.

This episode is really all about Hillary, although it’s more about the rest of the family reacting to something Hillary allegedly did than Hillary herself. Diane calls Pete with the news that she heard Hillary “hooked up” with a boy named Ace at a party the previous weekend. Poor Pete doesn’t know what hooking up means, and when Kate explains the spectrum of possibility for what it means, Pete’s not at all happy. Diane wants Pete to snoop around Hillary’s room to find out more about what she might have done when she was supposed to be at a girly sleepover. Pete, now that he knows what Hillary might have done, is all for this plan. Kate is dubious, though. She remembers how she would have felt violated if her parents snooped when she was a teenager. She’s concerned about Hillary, but she doesn’t think breaking Hillary’s trust is the right way to go about the situation. While Kate’s ideology kind of falls apart by the end of the episode, I think she has a point. Maybe I’m just idealistic?

Anyway, Pete is determined to snoop, and Kate goes along with it to kind of contain the damage once Hillary is caught in more blatant lies. Kate just wants to do a cursory lookaround, but Pete goes right for Hillary’s laptop. He gets on Hillary’s Facebook account and starts trying to look up Ace. Unfortunately for Hillary, Pete keeps typing in the status box when he means to type in the search box. So he just keeps posting Ace’s name as Hillary’s status over and over, sometimes with even more embarrassing additional search terms like “cute boy.” This was when the embarrassment squick started to kick in. I would have been mortified if I was Hillary in that situation. Also, it was kind of embarrassing that Pete didn’t understand the basics of Facebook. My 70-year-old father can navigate Facebook just fine as far as I am aware. Granted, he has spent a career in IT, so he’s not afraid of new technologies (unless he’s asking me how to use the DVD player), but still. I can’t believe that a smart guy like Pete wouldn’t be reasonably Facebook literate.

Anyway, Hillary is understandably mortified the next time she checks her Facebook newsfeed. The situation blows up, and Hillary finds herself grounded. The big problem for Hillary is that there was a party she really wanted to go to that weekend because Ace was going to be there. Kate’s still determined to try and be Hillary’s “friend,” because she thinks Hillary will open up to her more if that’s the case, so she tries to smooth things over. Hillary immediately wants to take advantage of the situation and tries to guilt Kate into letting her go to the party. Kate sees through this much, at least. Hillary does, however, manage to negotiate herself into being taken to the movies by Kate. Kate stands up to Pete and Diane to get them to allow Hillary to go to the movies, and both she and Meg drive Kate there. It was nice to see Meg again, although she didn’t really have much to do in this episode. Anyway, they drop Hillary off at the theater, and Meg suggests they go for frozen yogurt. Meg and Kate are just about to get their delicious frozen treat on when Meg spots Hillary getting into a friend’s car instead of going into the theater.

Meanwhile, like I said, the b-story involves Jackie and Bert. Bert has a play date with a kid he really can’t stand. It turns out that Jackie set up the play date because she wants a chance to talk to the kid’s mother, who sells jewelry in her shop. Jackie, you see, has new career aspirations. She wants to give up her moderately successful real estate business to become a jewelry designer. Between the crunchy granola-ness and the jewelry designing, Jackie is starting to remind me of my own mother, although my mother has a work ethic like nobody else I know and actually has a good career. Unlike Jackie, who floats from career idea to career idea. Anyway, Jackie talks to the kid’s mom about selling jewelry, and the mom says that she’s willing to consider it, but she needs 500 pieces in the shop the next day. Bert hears this, and he gets worried about his mom. He asks if Warren can come over, and the two of them start making jewelry like there’s no tomorrow. Jackie sees this, and she actually has some shame when she realizes how she made Bert worry about her.

Anyway, realizing that there’s been another lie, Kate and Meg tail the car Hillary is in all the way to the party she had wanted to go to. At the same time, Diane is getting intel from her own sources that Hillary is going to the party. Dianes sources are pretty underhanded, really. She made a fake Facebook account and created a popular high school girl persona named Courtney. Somehow, even though she doesn’t really exist, Courtney is in on all the gossip at Hillary and Warren’s school. It’s friend catfishing, which is just strange. Regular catfishing is strange too, but this is even stranger! I worry that the creative team might take Diane just a tad too far to be a character I want to watch. We’ll see. Anyway, poor Hillary is embarrassed by the whole entourage that shows up to take her away from the party. First Kate and Meg bust in (Meg desperately asking for alcohol), then Pete, Diane, and Warren follow. When Meg realizes there’s no alcohol, everyone realizes that Hillary isn’t really doing anything bad other than lying about her whereabouts. This is a pizza and bridge party, and it’s kind of lame. Hillary is taken home because she’s still grounded, but Warren is allowed to stay at the party. And thus concludes Kate’s first parenting not-fail.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1.03: "The Asset"

“Everything powerful is dangerous.”
-Ian Quinn

“The Asset” was another solid attempt by Team Whedon to show us what “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to be like on a week-to-week basis. The formula definitely seems to include fun international action adventures, and I definitely approve of that. It’s a nice bit of diversity in my heavily women-in-their-early-30s sitcom diet. What was especially cool about this episode was that it served as a supervillain origin story. Now I know I sometimes compare things on other, non-genre shows to supervillain origin stories, but this was a literal one. What seemed at first like a pretty standard S.H.I.E.L.D. rescue story turned into the origin of Graviton, a legit villain in the already established Marvel universe. I’m pretty new to the Marvel universe, so disabuse me of my ignorance with some of this stuff. Would you rather have another person discovering this world and starting to get enthusiastic about a fandom, even if it’s a learning process?

There are some pretty sweet special effects early in the episode. A convoy is heading down a pretty deserted road, when all of a sudden one of the SUVs protecting a tractor trailer just plain flips in the air. The truck driver is understandably freaked out, and he starts radioing for help. Help doesn’t come, though. Soon enough, the truck is flipped through the air, too. Once it lands, a team of commandos approaches the mangled vehicle. Inside is an older, rather unassuming scientist. This scientist, we will later learn, is Dr. Franklin Hall, a very important S.H.I.E.L.D. asset. He doesn’t seem all that perturbed at being taken away by shady commandos, surprisingly enough. S.H.I.E.L.D., however, is not at all happy about it, so of course Coulson’s team is going to be sent on a rescue mission.

Agent Ward is working on training Skye when the call comes in. He has her working with a punching bag, and she’s not really enjoying it at all. I guess she thought S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to be all fun adventure stuff, but this type of training isn’t what she had in mind. Anyway, FitzSimmons happen to know Dr. Hall, so they are especially unhappy about the news of his abduction. He was one of their professors back in the day, and they both had a soft spot for him. Simmons starts doing some experiments right away, and she has a breakthrough when she causes a reaction similar to what threw the tractor trailer. And she also finds a small metal ring in the middle of it all. This will obviously be an important clue later in the episode.

The team really gets to work with almost too much efficiency for this early in the series. I think there should still be some friction and inefficiency as a new team is trying to figure out how to work together. Coulson tracks down the supplier of the backhoe that was used to pry open the truck and get to Hall. The guy is super shady, but eventually Coulson learns that the backhoe was paid for in gold. It’s a very particular type of gold, and the team manages to track down the source. The owner of the mine is none other than Ian Quinn. Quinn is a sort of rival physicist to Dr. Hall. WE see their friendly-ish rivalry throughout the episode. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team is not at all wrong in their deduction. When we next see Hall, he’s waking up in Malta, in the home of Quinn. Quinn has renounced his American citizenship and moved to Malta so he can live in what he considers an unregulated paradise of unfettered capitalism. Not my kind of place, but to each his own, I suppose.

With Hall firmly in his possession, Quinn gets into a bit of an info dump/evil speech of evil. He’s got machines of the type that caused the S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles to crash. The secret is an element called gravitonium. Any fans know if this is a real thing in the Marvel universe, or is it just the next Team Whedon created vaguely superhero-ish word? The next wonderflonium, if you will. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team has a plan in place to rescue Hall and secure any gravitonium. Skye is going to use an evite she got to one of Quinn’s parties to deactivate a security fence around Quinn’s compound so the rest of the team can mount the real rescue.

While some of the team (mainly Ward) was skeptical about putting Skye in danger, Skye actually starts out to be quite good at this new job. She charms Quinn enough that he takes her to a back room. He’s impressed that she’s part of the Rising Tide, given his own anarchist streak. Quinn eventually catches Skye snooping, though, and she has to save the mission by giving up that she’s been bugged by S.H.I.E.L.D. This results in Skye destroying her earpiece, which makes the rest of the team nervous, to say the least. Skye’s got to deactivate the fence if Coulson and Ward are going to do what they need to do, and it takes just a little too long for comfort. Skye does eventually get the job done, though,

Once in the compound, Coulson pays a visit to Hall, and all is definitely not as it seemed. It turns out Hall sort of arranged for the abduction. He claims to want to destroy the gravitonium machines that Quinn has all over the place. Hall fires up the biggest machine, though, and it starts messing with the gravity all throughout Quinn’s building. Elsewhere, Skye is found out by Quinn, and he calls security on her. She uses a move Agent Ward taught her, though, and she manages to escape out a window. It’s pretty impressive, really. I think this might indicate that even though Skye seemed to sympathize with Quinn’s anarchist bent a bit, she’s loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D. For now, at least.

Hall wants to destroy the whole building because he believes that no one should have the power of gravitonium. Not Ian Quinn. Not S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson obviously can’t let his whole team die, though. A comment from FitzSimmons that the machine needs a catalyst to stop gives Coulson his out. He blasts the floor near Hall, sending Hall right into the middle of the machine. Hall becomes the catalyst, is kind of liquefied in the process, and all the shaking stops. The machine is then moved to the deepest levels of S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, and no one is allowed to know where it is. As it is locked away by agents, we see a liquefied hand push out from the center of the catalyst. Hall is clearly still alive in some form.