Body of Proof 1.08: "Buried Secrets"

Sarah joins us today for yet another Body of Proof write-up. Enjoy!

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“We’re more alike than you think, Megan. I just follow the rules.”
- Kate

We begin this week with a woman driving at night, and it’s pretty clear she’s exhausted. She ends up dozing for maybe a second or two, and her car swerves dangerously. Next we see Megan is zipping through photos on her phone of Lacey horseback riding while meeting her mom for breakfast. It doesn’t take long before Megan and her mother are bickering. Megan apparently rode when she was younger and her mom didn’t want her to. Thought it was too dangerous. And in short order, Megan gets called away on a case.

The scene is more than just your normal crime scene. The victim, Joe, was a cop. So Sam and Bud are out for blood. Megan and Peter arrive and quickly notice that something is off. The blood should have coagulated by now, but it’s still dark red and wet-looking. So of course Megan is going to run it at the lab. Before Kate walks off, she warns Megan of the high profile nature of the case (read: don’t screw it up). Back at the precinct, Bud and Sam are starting to go through traffic cams and tips when the driver (the woman we saw at the beginning of the episode) turns herself in. Apparently, when her car swerved she hit the cop. She didn’t think it was a person. At the lab, Megan, Ethan and Curtis have a bit of squabble over testing the blood (it could be contaminated with oil) when Sam and Bud show up to share the news of the driver. Megan does a cursory exam and reveals that Joe was dead before the car hit him (good news for the driver).

Things are not going to be easy with this case. Joe and Sam go all the way back to the academy. She even got him and his wife together. But Peter promises they’ll find out what happened. Based on the skeletal injuries, Megan surmises that he was pushed or tossed off the overpass before being run over. And since there was blood basically everywhere in his body (including his joints), Ethan’s off to do another blood test. But that’s not all that’s odd. Joe’s been on desk duty after a drug dealer filed assault charges against Joe. So Bud and Peter go talk to the dealer while Megan and Sam inform Joe’s wife. Both visits are useful. The dealer said that Joe beat him up for not having info Joe thought he would. And Joe’s wife said he’d been working a case lately (and hoping he wasn’t having an affair). It turns out Joe was working an old unsolved murder where the drug dealer was the primary suspect. The victim was a star lacrosse player. Megan’s examining Joe’s heart, and she finds something that’s odd. It appears to be generic filler for a drug. And we see our little dealer selling them. And then it gets rather ugly. Sam and Bud are tag teaming the dealer in interrogation until he gives his side of things. He saw the girl the night she died, but she left with her lacrosse coach. And he also says that Joe tossed his place a bunch of times and could have gotten the drugs then. Sam is not pleased to hear the kid saying Joe would do drugs.

Sam and Bud have gone to talk to the lacrosse team that the victim played for and find out that Joe had been coming around almost every day for the past month. One of the girls had a theory that the victim was seeing a guy but wouldn’t tell anyone (could have been a teacher and that was strictly forbidden by the school). Meanwhile, at the lab, Peter’s having a hell of a time trying to find her autopsy file. Sam shows up at the lab and bullies Ethan into giving her the results of the second blood test. Joe died from being poisoned with a drug usually used to treat thrombosis and embolisms. Not long after, Curtis finds the girl’s file, and Megan discovers two inconsistencies with the prior ME’s findings. What he assumed to be tan lines was really evidence the victim had been moved before rigor set in and there was a mark on her neck not documented. And that’s enough to exhume the body and do another autopsy.

Megan walks in on Kate watching herself on the news (great crimson colored blouse she’s got on- really nice). Megan explains she wants to exhume the girl’s body but, Kate says to get Joe’s body on the table since that’s the case they’re working. Megan’s not stopping there. She tells Peter to notify the girl’s family of the pending exhumation, and then Peter pawns the task off on Ethan. That’s not going to end well. Meanwhile, Megan pays another visit to her mom. This time in chambers. Megan’s mom is a judge, and she signs off on the exhumation order. The exhumation goes smoothly, I guess. They find a weird little animal-skin ball in the coffin and bag it. Before they leave the cemetery, Megan pays a visit to her dad’s grave. We learn that he killed himself. At least we’re getting some pay off from the previous episode.

Sam is interviewing faculty at the girl’s school. They’ve brought one guy in, and he seems to be their guy. At least, he admits to having a relationship with the victim. And it turns out the ball from the coffin was a 19th century lacrosse ball he used in his Native American history course (which she and two other girls who accused the professor of coming on to them took). But he says he was out of town the day she died.

Megan and Curtis have begun to examine the body and the find a solid plug of particulate matter that would have been loose and uncollectable by the previous ME when the girl died. Before they can get farther than that, Kate bursts in and tells them to stop what they’re doing. They’ve just broken the law. Kate is furious that they broke procedure by not notifying the family. Ethan claims he’s been trying but has had no luck. Kate says Megan better hope when she (Kate) notifies the family they don’t want to file a complaint. I have to say, I saw this coming, but Kate has every right to be super pissed off. Megan doesn’t seem too fazed by the whole thing and tells Ethan he can make up for it by identifying the particulate matter from the girl’s nose. He discovers that while the bottom layer is mud from where her body was found, the top layer is clay. Green clay. And it matches the sample found on a piece of paper in Joe’s pocket. So Sam, Bud, Megan and Peter head back to campus to the tennis courts. They find that the courts were in between the party the girl was leaving and her dorm room. Megan still doesn’t understand why Joe had become so withdrawn and moody. She figured if the case hit him so hard because he had a daughter of his own, he would be home every night tucking her in. So she races back to the lab and tells Curtis to run a chromosome test. And then she heads down to the lab and finds Kate suiting up. The girl’s family gave their blessing for the second autopsy. Megan’s a little miffed that Kate didn’t tell her, but all’s fair in love and war. They begin to examine the girl’s body together and find that there’s a strange absence of fungus on her neck. They roll her and find an imprint of her killer’s hand.

It turns out that Heather, one of the girls on the lacrosse team, broke her finger when the victim ran into her at practice. So Heather followed her and ended up killing her. It was a mistake, but she let the coach talk her into lying about it and then the coach killed Joe when he got too close. Megan says he’s poisoned by the same stuff and he’s going to die. Bud and Sam bring him in for questioning and after he confesses, they give him a bottle of cranberry juice. Apparently that’s enough to cure him. Later, Megan swings by her mom’s chambers to tell her how it all went. Joan (Megan’s mom) says she wants one hour brunch that Sunday with no cell phones. Megan says she’ll do it if her mom signs an exhumation order for her dad. They fight over how Megan needs to move on, and Megan storms out. Back at the lab, Curtis hands over the chromosome test. Megan and Sam inform Joe’s wife that he had Huntington’s disease and all of the changes he’d been going through were related to that. But Megan did find that the paper in his pocket was origami for his daughter. At least they’ll have some peace now.

Glee 2.20: "Prom Queen"

“Oh, you can get married as many times as you want. You only have one shot at your junior prom.”
-Quinn

Overall I found “Prom Queen” to be a rather fun episode of “Glee,” although it certainly had its share of problems, like every episode has this season. I appreciated the joyfulness of prom, however, and the way the episode kind of wrapped up Kurt’s emotional journey this season. I haven’t loved the Kurt being bullied plot, not because it didn’t send an important and needed message, but because it was told in a heavy handed way and zooming over to Dalton Academy for an obligatory scene every episode fractured the storytelling. In this episode, though, I think the resolution was handled well. Karofsky came to grips with the true horror of what he had done to Kurt, and Kurt truly, fully embraced who he is with Blaine’s support propelling him forward. Although Karofsky still hasn’t fully accepted himself in the way Kurt has, this episode brought Kurt’s part of the storyline to a satisfying conclusion. What I didn’t like was some of the music choices and the rather ridiculous continuation of the Finn/Rachel/Quinn/and now Jesse soap opera.

As is pretty obvious from the title, this episode centers around the McKinley High Junior Prom. We open with Jacob Ben Israel interviewing Puck for a video and accusing Puck of being whipped by Lauren. That’s not the only trouble brewing as prom approaches, though. Principal Figgins wants New Directions to provide the entertainment for prom- he’s even willing to pay them. Sue is pretty irate over this and has a whole list of the most horrible songs they’ve ever performed that should not be performed again. I didn’t think that joke was especially funny. It was a bit too meta for my taste. Besides conflict with Sue, there are more typical teen issues related to prom that must be dealt with as well. Lauren, because she’s not a bean pole, is having trouble finding a nice prom dress that fits her. Mercedes has an even worse problem. She can’t find a date, and even though she doesn’t feel like she needs a man to define her, she just thought it would be nice to have a guy tell her she was beautiful and dance with her. I get where she’s coming from.

Rachel actually comes up with a rather ingenious plan to solve Mercedes’ problem, and it’s one I kind of wish I had thought of when faced with my own high school prom drama almost ten years ago (my how time flies). Rachel and Sam decide to jointly ask Sam to go to prom with them. He hesitates because of his family’s financial situation, but Rachel’s got that covered. They’re going to do prom on a budget. Off the clearance rack dresses, the dinner special at Breadstix, the works. I thought the whole thing was really sweet. The sweetness can’t last all that long without some drama, though. Rachel is in the auditorium rehearsing “Rolling in the Deep,” when all of a sudden Jesse St. James appears and starts singing it with her. Because Lea Michele and Jonathon Groff are both accomplished Broadway veterans, I really don’t have anything negative to say about the performance, but I wasn’t especially to see Jesse back. It feels like he’s got some sort of agenda, but I don’t know what it is. Finn sees Rachel and Jesse back together and throws a typical angsty fit. Rachel angsts back as good as she gets about Quinn. I think Rachel’s got the high ground with this one. Finn did break up with Rachel and get back together with his cheating, lying, manipulative ex, after all.

The rest of the boys all seem to have their own brand of prom drama. Kurt wants to go to prom with Blaine. Blaine is hesitant, just because of how he was treated in public school, but he eventually agrees. Later, Burt, Blaine, and Finn are all discussing prom fashion when Kurt decides to show off what he plans to wear. It’s a sort of tuxedo kilt outfit he made himself to honor Alexander McQueen and the Royal Wedding. Burt worries that it might be a little over the top and serve to only bait the more intolerant students at McKinley, and Blaine somewhat agrees. Blaine’s still a little jumpy about even going to prom in the first place. Blaine gets in a little trouble with Kurt for not loving the outfit, but Kurt claims to understand where Blaine is coming from. Kurt’s convinced that the McKinley kids aren’t that intolerant, though. Santana, Karofsky and the Bully Whips have been going kind of overboard protecting him, but there haven’t even been any incidents for them to protect him from. Kurt has even managed to find common ground with Karofsky, with Karofsky tearfully apologizing to him one day. Kurt accepts the apology, saying he hopes Karofsky will have the courage to come out sooner rather than later, because Kurt can see how being in the closet is causing Karofsky a lot of pain. I thought that particular scene was pretty great work by the actors involved.

Meanwhile, Puck wants Artie’s help spiking the special punch Sue provides for the prom every year. He’s worried that being named Prom King will ruin his street cred, so he wants to be Prom Anti-King instead. Artie declines, because he’s hoping Brittany will accept his “prom proposal,” take him back, and they’ll have a good time. Puck and Sam end up helping Artie with the proposal, which is a cute performance of “Isn’t She Lovely” in home ec class. Brittany seems flattered by the gesture, but she turns Artie down. She thinks she needs to work on herself, and she wants to spend prom dancing with other people’s dates. I think this is the first time I’ve ever found Brittany to not be likeable. Her reaction to Artie wasn’t her usual brand of clueless. It was just mean. Upset by the rejection, Artie agrees to help Puck spike the punch.

On the evening of the prom, preparations are under way with a vengeance. We get a rather sickening scene where Finn arrives at Quinn’s house to take her to the dance. He tells her how beautiful she looks, which honestly just makes me want to slap him for the wishy-washyness. And it gets even worse. We move to Breadstix, where the prom on a budget crew, now expanded to four with Jesse, are enjoying dinner. Jesse reveals his plan for what he wants to do since he dropped out of college. He wants to be a show choir consultant, because he thinks that’s all he’s really good at. He had been majoring in show choir at school, and he thought they’d have really smart kids to take the non-choir related classes for him like they did in high school. Finn and Quinn arrive at Breadstix for their own pre-prom dinner, and Finn and Jesse get in yet another argument. Finn used to be so much more likeable before he started this wishy washy business.

Finally it’s time for prom, and Puck, Artie, and Sam give an energetic performance of…infamous YouTube sensation Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” I was kind of appalled at the waste of talent with that choice. Those three guys together on a song can be epic, but instead it was wasted on that drivel. There was a complete 180 for the next song choice, with Rachel singing “Jar of Hearts.” Now I adore “Jar of Hearts,” and Lea Michele performed it admirably, and it’s even appropriate for Rachel’s mindset at the time, since she’s feeling burned by Finn and he seems to be sort of trying to say he wants her back. But I question whether it’s really a good slow dance song for a prom. It’s about a woman telling a guy to stay away from her because he’s hurt her for the last time. Not exactly romantic. Puck and Artie decide to put their punch spiking plan into action in between songs. Which doesn’t make much sense considering Puck’s plan was to distract Sue with dancing while Artie poured in the liquor. Sure enough, Artie gets caught, and Sue’s got him in interrogation in her office. Artie gets saved from torture by Finn and Jesse getting into a full blown fight and distracting Sue. She throws both Finn and Jesse out of prom, and Quinn seems to only be upset because it hurt her chances for Prom Queen. To ratchet up the drama even further, the Prom King/Queen announcements are made. Karofsky is named Prom King. Then Kurt, with a record number of write-in votes, is named Prom Queen. Everyone goes silent, and after looking horrified, Kurt runs out of the gym. Blaine runs after him.

Everything has devolved into chaos. Quinn slaps Rachel, claiming that she lost Prom Queen because everyone knows her boyfriend would rather be with Rachel. In her favor, Quinn is pretty horrified at her actions and apologizes immediately. Santana is also devastated that she wasn’t named Prom Queen, and she and Brittany have a little moment as Brittany tries to comfort her. Brittany would end up back with Artie by the end of the episode, though. That’s able to happen because Artie reveals to Sue that he was pouring lemonade, not alcohol into the punch. A little disappointed, Sue lets him go. After talking it over with Blaine, Kurt decides to go back into the dance and claim his crown. He does just that, and his classmates seem to respect him for it, even giving him a round of applause. It is then time for the Prom King/Queen dance, but even though Kurt encourages him that it would be the perfect time to come out, Karofsky refuses to dance. All is soon well for Kurt, though, because Blaine asks to cut in, and they kick off a big final dance number to Abba’s “Dancing Queen.” Overall, most of the kids (except for Karofsky) seem to leave prom in a better place than when they arrived.

Upfront Wrap-up: A Sampling of Next Season's New Shows

This week was a very busy one in television. It was Upfronts week, the week when the broadcast TV networks present their schedules for the next season to advertisers in the hopes that advertisers will want to pay a lot of money for ad space on the networks. It’s a big deal to those of us who are simply TV fans and not in the advertising business because it’s when we get official confirmation of what existing shows are cancelled and what new shows the networks intend to premiere either in the fall or at midseason. Unlike last year, I am pretty excited about a bunch of the new shows the networks introduced this week, as you might have been able to guess from the Pilot Season Preview post I did earlier this year. Surprisingly, only one of the pilots I profiled in that post didn’t get picked up to series, and that is Krista Vernoff’s “Grace.” I hope she gets a chance to really show what she can do soon, but for now, I’m going to be showing you previews of a slew of cool looking shows that did actually get picked up. I’m probably not going to watch all of these on a regular basis (I have time for maybe half of them), and I’ll probably only be covering 2-3 of them regularly here on MTVP, but I thought I’d take a chance and just go for broke, collecting anything that at all intrigued me here. Because this is a long post with lots of videos, I'll bring you the details after the jump.

HIMYM 6.23: "Landmarks"

“Okay, what’s the message, because if it’s another hypothetical, yet eerily accurate drawing of my boobs…”
-Lily

Although it didn’t exactly have a ton of substance to it, I generally enjoyed watching “Landmarks.” It looks like Zoey is on her way out, which is very welcome, in my opinion. Watching Ted and Zoey bicker constantly was not exactly my idea of entertainment. Another positive about this episode was that it featured a comedic, but not cartoonish performance from Neil Patrick Harris as Barney. If you’re one of the one or two people who have been reading this blog since the early months, you know that I have a love for the Joss Whedon internet movie “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog,” and there was a scene early in the episode where Harris really got to channel Dr. Horrible. I found that to be a lot of fun, of course. I also liked that, in addition to mostly dealing with Zoey, this episode also brought the Arcadian conflict to a head. I guess that’s to be expected considering it’s the season’s penultimate episode, but it’s nice to know what side Ted’s on. Well, it’s nice to know what side he’s on this week at least.

The episode uses a hearing about the Arcadian as a framing device. A committee is considering whether the Arcadian should be named a landmark (thus shutting down the GNB headquarters plans). Marshall speaks on behalf of Zoey and the others who want to save the Arcadian, taking pride in ending his arguments with rhymes. I found that kind of silly- the joke just didn’t work for me. Then Ted is called before the committee, and he’s asked whether, as an architect, he thinks the Arcadian is a landmark. Ted pauses, and we backtrack to see what led up to the moment when he’ll have to make this decision. As most things on HIMYM do, it started during an evening at MacLaren’s. Ted, Marshall, Lily, and Zoey are all sitting at the usual booth, and Barney and Robin are sitting at a separate booth because of Barney’s feud with Marshall and Ted over the Arcadian. I really liked that Robin is sticking with Barney throughout this whole mess- I don’t think he’d have any friends otherwise.

Anyway, my favorite part of the episode is when Robin delivers a message from Barney. Barney has instructed the MacLaren’s kitchen not to make any more hot wings, and he makes his friends watch as he licks each hot wing on a plate in front of him and throws them on the floor. The note instructs Robin to end the message with an evil laugh, but she’s not very good at it. Barney finally comes over to talk to the rest of the group in person, and he gets Ted to admit that he’s gone turncoat because of Zoey. It’s not Ted’s architectural judgment that has him suddenly wanting to save the building. But we already knew that…back at the beginning of the season. Anyway, after getting Ted to make that admission, Barney leaves the group with a real evil laugh- Dr. Horrible style! Because working on the evil laugh is about standards, people!

Barney and Robin have a conversation about just why Barney is so upset that Ted has taken Zoey’s side in the Arcadian feud. We see a flashback to Barney warning his boss, Arthur, that Ted might tell the committee that the Arcadian should be a landmark. Arthur reminds Barney that Ted was only hired on Barney’s recommendation. Arthur is in a bad mood because he’s going through a divorce and has lost custody of his beloved dog, so he tells Barney that if Ted tells the committee the Arcadian should be a landmark, both Ted and Barney will be fired. After hearing this news, Robin tries to change Ted’s mind about what he’s going to say at the committee meeting. She gives him three scenarios about how the meeting could pan out, and none of them are especially good, even if he tells the committee exactly what Zoey wants him to say. If he does that, then he’ll resent Zoey for the rest of their relationship because she will have forced him to give up on his dream of making his mark on the Manhattan skyline. She’s a smart one, that Robin.

That night, Ted appears to be visited by Barney in the middle of the night- Barney dressed up as the architect who designed the Arcadian , that is. Ted immediately assumes it’s Barney playing another of his crazy pranks. Barney did sneak into Ted’s room in the middle of the night to get condoms when he was dating Robin last season, after all. Barney assures Ted that Ted is actually dreaming, and tells Ted he needs to tear down the Arcadian and follow his dream. Ted still thinks it’s actually Barney until suddenly his mother appears. Which was kind of gross and only mildly funny. Ted wakes up almost immediately and calls Zoey. They meet in front of the Arcadian and reminisce a bit about how they first met. As she’s about to leave, Zoey says it was nice to have “one last look at what we’re trying to save.” Ted agrees, and it’s obvious he’s made the decision to speak in favor of the GNB headquarters at the meeting and break it off with Zoey.

At the meeting, Ted does exactly what it was obvious that he would do. He says the building should not be a landmark and gives some very good reasons why. Zoey is incredibly pissed off by this (which is also predictable), and in retaliation, she rushes onto the stage with the tape she recorded back during “Natural History” where Ted said that the Arcadian should be a landmark because of the lion’s head stonework. She plays the tape to quite an uproar, and the committee decides to adjourn for the evening. The gang (even Marshall) holds an emergency pow wow at MacLaren’s. Barney and Ted are convinced their careers are over, and the boys and Robin all start talking about opening a bar. They think it would be especially amusing if it were a court themed bar (I didn’t think that was so funny- sounds too much like work to me), but Lily wants to come up with a plan to save their jobs instead. This gives Marshall pause because he knows how diabolical his wife can be when she puts her mind to it. Sure enough, she comes up with a plan rather quickly.

We see the gang meeting with Arthur, but Saget!Ted refuses to confirm exactly what happened for legal reasons. When the committee reconvenes, something rather unexpected happens. First they say that Zoey’s recording convinced them that because of the lion’s head stonework, the Arcadian should be a landmark. But, what do you know, late in the night, the lion’s head stonework was removed, so now there is no reason to call it a landmark anymore. As they leave the meeting, Ted and Zoey officially break up. And we also see that the lion’s head stonework is now in Barney’s bedroom. And he’s hoping he used the right screwdriver to put it up. Here's hoping Jerry has given Barney some more lessons on how to use tools since we last saw him!

Game of Thrones 1.04: "Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things"

“Distrusting me was the wisest thing you’ve done since you climbed off your horse.”
-Petyr

“Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things,” as the title would suggest, had a general theme of people not fitting in. Bran Stark doesn’t fit in his new life of being unable to walk. Ned Stark doesn’t really fit in the cutthroat world of King’s Landing. Jon Snow doesn’t fit in the world of crude ex-prisoners at Castle Black. Arya Stark doesn’t fit in the woman’s life for which society says she is destined. Daenerys no longer fits among her brother’s family. The world depicted in “Game of Thrones” is harsh, however, and doesn’t take to outcasts or differences kindly. Some of these characters will find a way to thrive despite not fitting in, but I am sure that many will instead meet a tragic end. That’s just good storytelling. Despite being tied together thematically, this episode still continued to be very heavily a set-up episode. By the end some events happen that will obviously have big repercussions down the road, but history quizzes between characters is still the norm.

The opening of the episode sets up the episode’s theme nicely. Bran is dreaming that he’s able to walk, and he follows a bird (a raven, I think) around the grounds of Winterfell. When he wakes up, however, he’s still in his bed with his nurse watching over him. Theon Greyjoy interrupts a conversation with the nurse to let Bran know he has a visitor. We then cut to the main hall of Winterfell, where Robb is talking to Tyrion of all people. Robb vacillates between being hostile and trying to keep up an air of courtesy. Tyrion can tell that he’s not really welcome to spend the night at Winterfell, but he has a gift for Bran. The gift is plans for a saddle that Bran can use to continue to ride horses, even without the use of his legs. Tyrion claims that the motivation behind the gift is simply that he has sympathy for fellow “broken” people. Bran seems happy about the gift, at least. Before leaving Winterfell, Tyrion takes time to mock Theon for essentially being the Starks’ lackey. Theon is the son of a nobleman of the North who tried to rebel against Ned. He became Ned’s ward as a sort of collateral to make sure another rebellion would not happen. So really, the conversation between Tyrion and Theon was pretty much just to download some of this history to the viewers.

Up at the Wall, we meet yet another new recruit to the Night’s Watch. His name is Sam, and to say he wasn’t a talented fighter would be an understatement. He doesn’t really want to fight, and the other men just beat him up. Jon tries to put a stop to it and stick up for Sam, and it mostly just earns him ridicule. Jon can take care of himself, though, so he doesn’t seem to mind. He seems to become especially determined to help Sam when Sam explains just why he wants to join the Night’s Watch. His father did not want him to be his heir, so he gave Sam a choice. Essentially, either join the Night’s Watch and disclaim his inheritance, or die. Of course the way Sam’s father put it was even more sinister. He was going to make the death look like a hunting accident. Jon uses his direwolf to keep Sam safe from the other Knights while he’s asleep, and he also arranges it so the other Knights let him win easily at practice. This obviously annoys the Captain just a bit. This plot, while it seems kind of surface, does lead to some good character development for Jon. Jon and Sam talk about sex, and Jon mentions that he had a chance to have sex with a prostitute once, but he decided not to, because he didn’t want to bring another bastard into the world. The Captain interrupts the conversation to give us another round of stories about just how horrible Winter is for Westeros, especially at the Wall.

My favorite plot of this episode involved the Dothraki. Through conversations with Ser Jorrah, Daenerys learns that Viserys’ plan probably won’t work. The Dothraki have never crossed the Narrow Sea, and if King Robert uses warfare techniques that are at all modern, he’ll win. There are no hordes of commoners eagerly awaiting Viserys’ return- they care more about where they’ll get their next meal. Meanwhile, Viserys is enjoying a bit of bathtub time with a prostitute he hired to be one of Daenerys’ maids. She asks him about dragons, and he enjoys telling her stories he learned as a child and stories about the dragon skulls that used to be on display in the Red Keep at King’s Landing. His mood sours when the prostitute asks what happens to the skulls. Then Viserys just gets nasty, saying she wasn’t hired to make him sad. Viserys’ mood sours further when Daenerys sends one of her servants to call Viserys to dinner. He interprets that as her sending a whore to give him orders. He gets very abusive, saying that Daenerys has “woken the dragon,” but for the first time in her life, Daenerys fights back. She has taken strength from her position in the Dothraki community, and she threatens to cut off Viserys’ hands if he ever hits her again.

Most of the episode, however, takes place in King’s Landing. The upcoming tournament in honor of Ned’s installation as Hand of the King is causing trouble. The Small Council is begged to provide extra security, and Ned obliges from his personal guard. After the Small Council meeting, Ned talks with the Grand Maester about Jon Arryn’s death. The Grand Maester mentions that Jon Arryn was looking for a specific book before he died- a history of the houses of the Seven Kingdoms. Basically, a book of really detailed genealogy. Ned continues his investigation by talking with Peter. They discuss Ser Hugh of the Vale, who had been Jon Arryns squire but was knighted soon after Jon Arryn’s death. Petyr advises Ned not to question Ser Hugh of the Vale himself (there are spies everywhere in King’s Landing), but send his most trusted man to do the job. Ned sends the captain of his guard, but Ser Hugh is just a jerk to him, pulling rank and refusing to answer any questions. Ned also pays a visit to an armorer Jon Arryn visited just prior to his death. The armorer tells Ned that Jon Arryn wanted to see “the boy.” Ned now wants the same thing. The boy works for the armorer, and because of his dark hair and other distinguishing features, Ned instantly recognizes that he must be a bastard son of King Robert.

The Stark daughters are both having a tough time of it at King’s Landing. On his way home from a meeting, Ned runs into Arya, who just wants to talk about her sword fighting lessons. Then she wants to know about Bran’s future, considering Bran will never be able to walk. Ned assures Arya that there are plenty of ways Bran will be able to make a living. When Arya says she wants to be lord of her own hold of land, Ned says she’ll marry a great lord and have many children. Arya says that’s not at all what she wants for her future. Meanwhile, Sansa is worried that her typical woman’s future won’t be happening. After her teacher quizzes her on some Westerosi history, Sansa reveals that she thinks Joffrey hates her. The teacher reprimands Sansa to stop dwelling on the direwolf incident.

The climax of the episode is the big tournament. Sansa is watching from the stands and sitting with Petyr. Which is kind of squicky, considering how he feels about her mother. There’s a big joust between Ser Hugh of the Vale and the Hound’s older brother, who is known as the Mountain. The joust seemed cool and exciting until the Mountain pierces Ser Hugh’s throat and Ser Hugh falls to the ground, with blood spurting out of his neck for just a bit too long for my taste. As Sansa looks on horrified, Ser Peter tells her the story of how the Mountain caused the burns that scar the Hound’s face. Then he tells Sansa not to tell anyone this story, because if she does, she’ll probably be killed. Like I said. Creepy! Why did he tell her that story if it’s so sensitive? Speaking of the object of Petyr’s affections, we end the episode with Cat at an inn on her way home from King’s Landing. Who but Tyrion enters and wants to spend the night. Cat, believing Tyrion organized the attempts of Bran’s life, uses her father’s connections (the inn is near her ancestral Tully home) to draw up a mob against Tyrion.

Fringe 3.22: "The Day We Died"

“Philip, if what we lost in Detroit still means anything to you, just give me one chance. That’s all I’m asking.”
-Peter

“The Day We Died” was a very ambitious third season (not series, surprisingly) finale for “Fringe.” It faltered on the execution a bit, but as always with “Fringe” this season, and for most of last season as well, I appreciate the effort at creativity. This episode introduced yet another new world to us, differentiated by a white background title sequence as opposed to the blue sequence for episodes in our universe’s present day, red for the Other Side, and 80’s retro (my personal favorite) for flashback. The new world is fifteen years in the future, and only our universe has survived. That doesn’t mean things are all sunshine and puppies, though. Our world is apocalyptic because there are still holes being torn thanks to the destruction of the Other Side. I’m not sure I fully support this plot twist. I usually love dystopian future stories, but I kind of have a problem with this one. First of all, if this was just a one-off (which, given some of the plot developments, seems like a possibility), it feels like it was kind of a waste of a season finale. On the other hand, if this is yet another world we’re going to be shifting to periodically, I think that could be just one twist too many. We already have two complete worlds of characters to keep track of and invest in. A third is too much.

The episode opens in the future with Peter being taken to “Fringe Medical” after an accident. They do all sorts of futuristic-looking medical stuff to him to help him recover from his injuries. A young woman approaches the entrance to the hospital and asks about Peter. It turns out she’s a grown up Ella (Olivia’s niece), and she is now a Fringe agent. I found this to be the most interesting aspect of this particular future. Olivia, who is now married to Peter, meets up with her niece at the hospital, and soon after that, Peter is released. The three talk about the situation that led Peter to be in the accident. A terrorist called Moreau is leading a group called the “End of Days.” This group’s mission is to plant devices at soft spots and try to cause accelerated tears in the fabric of the universe.

We then see Moreau and his team execute one of their attacks. This one is at the opera house the team used to cross to the Other Side in last season’s finale. A light bomb goes off, and the entire opera house disappears. The Fringe team is on the case, of course. Peter examines a device that was left behind by Moreau and his crew, but it’s technology he has never seen before, and he just can’t figure it out. He asks Olivia to see Walter, because Walter is the only person he knows who might understand this technology. There’s only one small problem. Walter is in prison for the crime of starting the destruction of the universe. Peter pays Walter a visit in prison for the first time since Walter’s incarceration. Walter wants an update from Peter about whether things are as bad as he has heard, and Peter confirms that they pretty much are. Time vortexes have even begun to crop up. Walter looks at the device Peter found, but he says that to really help, he would need proper tools and equipment.

Peter decides to call in favors to make Walter’s request happen. Specifically, he goes to Broyles, who is now a United States Senator. Broyles is very, very reluctant to grant Peter’s request, at first saying that Walter will only be allowed to consult on the case from prison. Peter accuses Broyles of caring only what his constituents will think on election day, but Broyles shuts that down pretty quickly. The reason he doesn’t want to let Walter out of prison is because he’s genuinely horrified at all the destruction Walter has caused, including a massive vortex in the middle of the Thames. Peter finally wins the day by invoking something that happened between them in Detroit. Walter is extremely happy to get back into his old lab, even if he is in chains. There’s also a very sweet reunion with Olivia, who is coordinating the return of all of Walter’s equipment from evidence. Walter and Peter have another chat, which pretty much serves to tell us how things got so bad. When Peter got in the doomsday machine, it destroyed the Other Side. The two universes were connected, so that spelled doom for our universe, too. The best part of that exchange was that Peter actually called Walter “dad.”

In a scene that’s probably just there to make us feel really extra sad about events that happen later in the episode, we get to see a glimpse of Peter and Olivia’s home life. Peter shows Olivia a drawing that their young neighbor made for them. It shows the two of them with a child, which their neighbor is so sure they will have soon. Peter uses this to segue into talking to Olivia about how he really wants kids. Olivia would like a child too, but she doesn’t think it would be fair to bring a child into this harsh, apocalyptic world. Peter thinks their neighbor is doing just fine as a child in this world, but he doesn’t win the argument.

Walter wakes Olivia and Peter up with a phone call about a breakthrough. He has found that the canister from the opera house has a distinctive radioactive signature. Fringe’s science division tracks the radioactive signature to a remote forest location. Peter finds a key there, and he hides the key from Olivia, looking kind of sinister about it. It turns out it’s the key to the Reiden Lake house, and that’s where Peter heads immediately. He finds Walternate sitting in the kitchen, and Walternate is only too happy to use the opportunity to make a big, dramatic Evil Speech of Evil. Meanwhile, the rest of the Fringe team is dealing with a report of Moreau and his team breaching the containment area around the wormhole in Central Park. A light bomb goes off, and the Fringe team is knocked unconscious. When Olivia comes to, she sees the wormhole has gotten worse.

At Reiden Lake, Peter tries to negotiate with Walternate and apologize for destroying the Other Side. Walternate’s not having it, though. It turns out he was only appearing in the Reiden Lake house via hologram. He’s really in a van in Central Park. He jumps out of the van and promptly shoots Olivia in the head. This resulted in quite a few expletives from me. Peter presides over a Viking-style funeral for Olivia, with her casket burning on a barge in the water. This made me wonder what the writers thought they were writing. Doctor Who? Star Wars? I guess the Viking-style funeral is the go-to funeral for genre. Following the funeral, Peter is being very (understandably) broody in his apartment, but I was distracted from the melancholy by the contents of Peter and Olivia’s refrigerator. There was steak in a can! That just struck me as a fun bit of whimsy, made possible by telling a story that takes place 15 years in the future.

While Peter is grieving, Walter and Ella have a talk at the lab where they try to come to terms with what has happened, Ella mentions that there “are no happy endings anymore,” which I thought was a lovely callback to “Brown Betty.” In that episode, a very young Ella demanded Walter change the ending of the story he was telling to make it happy, and Walter complied. After talking to Ella, Walter makes a breakthrough on the End of Days case thanks to something he sees on his computer screen. He visits Peter to make a request based on what he has figured out. He essentially wants Peter to use one of the vortexes, the Central Park wormhole, to travel back in time and make a different choice. He wants Peter to choose to do something other than destroy the Other Side when he gets in the machine. Walter explains in detail why he can’t change the past but Peter can (something about how Walter already affected history by sending the parts of the doomsday machine back in time). It all reminded me very much of the Doctor and his rules about “wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.”

Peter’s future consciousness gets sent back into the Peter who is in the machine in 2011. Instead of destroying the Other Side, Peter creates a bridge between the two universes. Walternate, Alt-livia, and a bunch of Fringe scientists (and their office) suddenly appear inside our Statue of Liberty. Peter stresses to all of them that they need to work together to find a way to fix both universes. And then he promptly disappears. Olivia takes over the cause, reiterating to everyone that they need to work together. Walternate looks dubious, of course. I don’t think he really wants to solve anything. He just wants vengeance. To cap off the episode, we see several Observers congregated outside the Statue of Liberty. Their job is to try and explain to us viewers what the heck just happens. Apparently nobody remembers Peter now because he served his purpose and therefore never existed. In other words, he’s Rory from the second half of series 5 of “Doctor Who.” So where is Olivia’s engagement ring to remind Olivia of Peter like Amy had to remind her of Rory?

The Big Bang Theory 4.22: "The Wildebeest Implementation"

“Nothing rhymes with orange. It’s probably lonely.”
-Raj

Okay, I’ll say it. The “Big Bang Theory” powers that be went way out of their wheelhouse with this episode. I watch the show for the geekery, not for silly, petty plots that marginalize female characters. This episode was much more focused on the latter than the former. I think this is a problem inherent in adding Amy and Bernadette to our stable of regular characters. Normally, I would applaud adding a stronger female perspective (in addition to Penny’s) on the boys’ geekery, but I haven’t really seen much evidence that this show can portray female characters well. According to “The Big Bang Theory,” all we do is go out for drinks, go to the restroom together, and shop for shoes. Sure I do all those things, but there are many more things I enjoy too. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t be watching “The Big Bang Theory.” I’d be watching “Sex and the City.”

The opening of the episode especially showed how incapable this show is of portraying women. Amy, Bernadette, and Penny are in a rest room, and Amy is making Penny uncomfortable, naturally. Bernadette mentions that Priya invited her and Howard to dinner. Amy thinks Bernadette should accept the invitation and use the opportunity to be a sort of double agent. All this high school cliquiness is getting old fast. To add insult to injury, the ladies follow up their restroom chit chat with some shoe shopping. Can we get any more stereotypical?

Finally, we move back into some more familiar territory for the show. Sheldon is trying to develop a three person chess game, and he’s telling Leonard all about it as Leonard prepares to go to the dinner Priya has arranged. Throughout the episode, Sheldon’s game gets more and more complicated- he keeps inventing new pieces like the poisonous snake. It’s a welcome bit of geekiness and Sheldon’s neuroses in the middle of what is not a typical storyline for this show. After leaving Sheldon to his game, Leonard runs into Amy in the hallway. Amy has on new pointy-toed shoes and is walking very awkwardly. I had to admit, that was actually pretty funny. When Leonard arrives at Priya and Raj’s apartment, he finds a very exasperated Raj. Raj says he’s lonely, and he resents having to leave the apartment so Priya, Leonard, Howard, and Bernadette can have their dinner and be coupley.

We then switch to Penny’s apartment, where Amy and Penny are sitting on the couch eagerly awaiting Bernadette’s double agent reports. They receive news from Bernadette in the form of text messages. Then Penny and Amy decide that they should tell Bernadette things to say to make Priya unhappy. First, they tell Bernadette to let Priya know that Penny is about to go to Europe to shoot a movie with Angelina Jolie. And it’s going to be in 3-D. When we switch to the point of view of the dinner, Leonard says he’s surprised by this news. Well, he’s mostly surprised that Penny didn’t tell him about the job already. This gets him in a little trouble with Priya of course, who demands to know why he’d be surprised that Penny wouldn’t tell him something when he’s not dating Penny and he’s not really supposed to be hanging out with her anymore. Leonard kind of just cowers and apologizes. As much as I liked Priya when she first appeared, I really can’t wait for her to be gone now. Watching her be Leonard’s puppetmaster is just not good TV.

As the evening goes on Bernadette starts to have difficulty keeping her stories on track. The rest of the group starts questioning her in detail on the things she’s told them, especially that Penny is now dating an astronaut. They want to know how Penny met an astronaut in Pasadena/LA while most astronauts live in Houston. Bernadette escapes to the bathroom and frantically calls Penny and Bernadette. They want her to keep up the spy act, even though she’s seriously about to spontaneously combust. She’s seriously feeling the guilt. She also spills some interesting news she learned during the course of the evening. Priya and Leonard are planning a trip to India for the summer. This makes Penny very worried (sill Evil Wil Wheaton, convincing her to break up with Leonard in the first place!), and she wants Bernadette to go back to spying. This time Bernadette’s mission is to find out if this trip to India means Priya and Leonard are engaged. Bernadette does as she’s told and finds out that they are not, in fact engaged, nor are they anywhere near getting engaged. After accomplishing her mission, Bernadette just plain can’t take the subterfuge anymore. She goes on a rant about being a good Catholic girl and storms out of the apartment. Howard runs after her, looking quite confused.

Meanwhile, after being banished from his apartment thanks to the dinner party, Raj finds himself at Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment. Sheldon is playing three-person chess by himself, and he doesn’t especially want to be interrupted. At first, he doesn’t even let Raj in. Eventually he takes pity on his friend, however, and Raj gets an invitation to hang out and have Sheldon’s obligatory upset friend hot beverage. While Sheldon is preparing said hot beverage, Raj starts whining again about how he’s along and is going to stay that way. Then he pulls a pill bottle out and asks Sheldon his opinion on whether or not he should try taking some experimental social anxiety meds some university colleagues gave him. Haven’t we done this plot back in late season 1? Raj passing by the poster advertising that clinical trial and then sneaking back to take the information is one of the funniest scenes of the entire series. I guess Chuck Lorre and crew don’t expect we viewers to have that good of a memory.

The joke is taken a little farther this time, although I still prefer the original. Sheldon inexplicably agrees to accompany Raj to a coffee shop to try out the meds. Everything is going well, and Raj is making conversation with a nice woman, when all of a sudden the meds kick in a little too well. Raj gets just a bit too comfortable, and the coffee shop patrons get to see a lot more of him than they probably ever wanted to as he begins to take off all his clothes. Poor Raj. He just can’t find anything other than alcohol to help with his selective mutism around women. The last experimental drug caused strange twitches, and now this.