Fringe 5.05: "An Origin Story"

“The pain is her legacy to you both. It’s proof that she was here.”
-Walter

“An Origin Story” took some time to mourn Etta, which was definitely a welcome decision. We saw how this has really rocked the Bishop family world, and it’s spinning everyone off in different directions. Walter’s trying to become the wise counselor, since he knows something of what it’s like to lose a child. Olivia’s paralyzed with grief and the fear that she’s going to lose the rest of her family too just as they all found each other again. Peter is just plain bent on vengeance, and he goes to frightening levels in pursuit of that vengeance. The “origin story” referred to in the title of the episode could very well be the origin story of Peter Bishop the Observer-tech charged supervillain. Peter’s rash decision at the end of the episode was both sad and horrifying. It pretty much sealed for me that “Fringe” will not be a show with a happy ending. For some reason I hoped it would have a reasonably content ending for most of the characters, but it’s pretty obvious at this point that it’s going to be a tragedy. And I suppose that’s fitting – Fringe was always a rather dark show – but I don’t have to like seeing characters I’ve spent all these years with in such pain.

The episode begins, fittingly, with Peter and Olivia mourning Etta’s death. They’re in Etta’s room, and Olivia is sleeping while Peter is kind of snooping around. I’d like to think he’s trying to get a sense of who his daughter was, but it really feels more like just snooping. And Peter’s way too happy when he finds Etta’s secret weapons stash. Olivia wakes up to see Peter eyeing up the guns Etta had hidden away, and they do actually take a little time to properly mourn. Meanwhile, in Manhattan, something shady is going on (as always). A city block seems especially electrically charged- like something in between a bad case of static electricity and a thunderstorm, and it drives people away. Once the block is clear, an Observer arrives with a strange cube device. The cube is used to open a portal, and through the portal, several boxes are shipped. Those boxes can’t contain anything good for humanity.

Back in Boston, Astrid reports to the team that it’s going to take her a while to get the next video out of the Amber. When they had to re-amber the lab in the last episode, Walter had left out some explosive chemicals that he was going to use to cook himself a meal. So we don’t really get any progress on the follow the steps to defeat the Observers plot in this episode. In fact, it’s probably the lack of progress that drives Peter to do what he does here. He’s feeling the need to lash out and make some progress in ensuring that Etta did not die in vain. Anyway, the conversation about the tape is interrupted by a phone call from Etta’s main resistance contact. He calls the team to the site in Manhattan where the Observers just opened a portal. Apparently the shipment was more atmosphere degradation equipment. The Observers are trying to make the higher C02 content of the atmosphere permanent with these machines. The team figures out that the cube device opened the portal, and the resistance contact says they’ve captured an Observer and a cube device. Peter insists that they need that cube device. He feels like if they can understand and destroy it somehow, it will stop the Observers. Everyone else wants to be more cautious with unfamiliar tech, but Peter wins.

Back at the lab, Peter is working with the cube, but he’s not having much luck. Meanwhile, Astrid needs more computing power to decode what they believe is a shipping manifest that will reveal when the next shipment of atmosphere degradation equipment is about to arrive. In the middle of all this failure, Walter has a theory. The cube creates a wormhole from the present day to the future, and if you block the wormhole, you can turn it into a black hole and cause the Observers some serious pain. Anti-matter is needed to accomplish this, and the team just happens to have some anti-matter batons. The only hitch left in the plan is that they need to figure out how to operate the cube device. The cube device has to answer the “call” from the future (the strange electric discharge) in order for a portal to open. It sounds like Peter is going to go torture the captive Observer to learn how to work the cube device. Olivia isn’t thrilled about all this. She says she’s worried about losing Peter. Peter just responds about the importance that Etta didn’t die in vain.

It turns out that Peter’s plan wasn’t to torture the Observer, per se. He’s using a camera to track the Observer’s eye movements. Peter believes that this will reveal “tells” that will let him know when he’s completing a step of the cube assembly correctly. Peter and the Observer engage in some amusing trash talk as this is going on. At the lab, Walter tells Olivia that he wants her and Peter to watch an old tape he found of one of Etta’s birthdays. It’s a nice heart-to-heart between Walter and Olivia, where Walter explains that Olivia and Peter really need to face the loss of Etta together if they’re going to survive as a couple. Walter correctly picked up on the fact that Olivia wasn’t worried for Peter’s physical safety so much as the future of their relationship. Even though Walter’s advice is sound, Olivia forcefully says that she’s not ready to watch the video yet. Astrid interrupts the conversation to say that the shipping manifest has finally been decoded, and the next shipment is that afternoon.

Just as Peter finishing putting together the cube device, Olivia calls him and tells him the location of the next shipment. The team is in place, but before they can fire the anti-matter into the wormhole, an Observer attacks them. Peter tries to fight back, and the Observer almost gets the best of him when Olivia gets off a good shot. Recovered, Peter shoots the anti-mater, and a black hole is created. The team gets away, but when they stop the car, they see the boxes of atmosphere degradaders float by anyway. Apparently the Observers had a way to get around their plan. Peter rushes off to go talk to the captive Observer and find out what the heck happened, and this time Peter is planning to actually use torture. Meanwhile, back at the lab, Olivia starts watching the tape of Etta’s birthday. Eventually, in a rage, Peter takes the chip out of the Observer’s head, killing it. Even more stupidly, Peter puts the chip in himself. He believes that with the combination of his emotions and the chip, he can be greater than any Observer. Olivia calls him right after the chip goes in his head, and she says she wants him to come home. Peter tells Olivia he loves her and goes back to writhing in pain from the chip embedding itself in his brain. And damn was that a painful way to end an episode, both physically and emotionally.

Person of Interest 2.05: "Bury the Lede"

“I made the grievous error of buying Bear a squeaky toy.”
- Finch

This week we dive right in with our POI, investigative journalist Maxine Angelus. There’s a mayoral race going on and she’s blackmailing some guy in a hotel room for some scoop. Reese is photographing her from a distance and we get introduced to the great hilarity of this episode; Bear and his squeak toy. I have to say my dog had a love of squeak toys, too. And man is Bear just the most beautiful and mellow dog, ever! I guess only responding to commands in Dutch will do that. Anyway, Maxine has covered all kinds of big name drama like Elias. Just as Maxine finishes up with her blackmailing, she gets a call from her supervisor that the FBI are bringing in loads of corrupt cops off HR’s payroll. I thought that was all done with that. Apparently not. Carter realizes that the FBI isn’t as happy because they still want the big boss (who may not be a cop). Fusco heads out and gets strong-armed by Simmons to keep an eye on the investigation and make whatever evidence is floating around or else his son may not have a dad.

Maxine runs into the head campaign manager for the mayoral candidate she is looking into and is told that he (the candidate) wants her head on a pike. She’s not really that concerned though Finch notes he’s probably not the last on their list of suspects. Maxine then chats with her boss about the whole head of HR debacle. She wants to write about that but her editor tells her she needs information and a source. Quite miraculously, she gets an anonymous call that points in the direction of Christopher Zambrano, son of one of the late Mafia Dons that was killed when Elias was taken out. Chris seems to be pretty clean which Finch and Reese think is a good way to hide his dirty ties. Plus he owns an import-export company. Maxine calls an old contact at the FBI who tells her that they have been looking into Zambrano in connection with HR. So she’s off to confront Chris and Reese is on her tail.

The meeting doesn’t go well. Zambrano pretty much tells her to get off his property. Just as Reese is about to swoop in but Finch alerts him that Maxine’s other pet project is Reese (aka the Man in the Suit). So now Reese has to find a way of protecting her without getting linked to the whole thing. Maxine is convinced she’s got the whole HR boss story sorted out. She gets permission to put it up on the paper’s website. Meanwhile Reese has enlisted Carter and Fusco for back-up since he can’t get close to Maxine without her asking questions. We got a really amusing scene of Finch being uncomfortable with Reese cleaning his sniper rifle at the library. Of course, Finch then fixes the whole “getting close to Maxine” problem by discovering she’s on a dating website and sets her up on a date with Reese. The look on Michael Emerson’s face after Maxine receives a text from Reese and Reese asks what he just said is priceless.

Reese shows up to the date in a stolen $100,000 sports car. Unfortunately he’s woefully underprepared for his date with Maxine. It seems Finch is rather miffed that Reese keeps getting details wrong. But he has a back-up plan. He had Zoe on stand-by for such an occasion. Maxine is really impressed that Reese dated Zoe Morgan. Their date is short-lived when they both get calls that Zambrano wasn’t who Maxine thought he was. They race off to his docks and find him dead. Not good. They end up at the police station and Reese and Carter have to act like they don’t know each other. Reese is about to get Maxine out of there (more as a protection for himself) when Agent Donnelly swoops in and demands to know where Maxine got the first tip. He produces her phone records and she directs him to the blocked call. Before she can ask any questions, he flits out of the interrogation room, only the reappear moments later. Donnelly gives us an info dump about Zambrano being the key witness against HR. Apparently Don Zambrano kept a written ledger of all the members of HR, including the top boss. Maxine screwed it up royally because they had just pushed through an immunity deal with Zambrano.

Reese has Fusco and Finch working on digging up the HR ledger. Meanwhile, Maxine is really not having a good day. She’s off the story because legal hasn’t okay’d her to do anything and her campaign contact is throwing her under the bus to discredit her on the blackmail scandal in the mayoral race. She calls the burner cell and leaves a threatening message. So Reese decides it’s a good idea to take her out for drinks. She tries to get him to help go through Zambrano’s financials and accounting but Reese tells her to let the authorities handle it. She admits to putting the scoop before the truth and that it cost a man his life. She wants to make up for it. Maxine walks out on the date. Reese connects with her a bit and then saves her from getting shot. He manages to take out some of the guys without giving himself away and then decides to take her somewhere safe, aka his apartment. And more comedy with the dog ensues. Finch realizes he’s still got Bear. And then Finch barely has time to hide in the closet before Reese and Maxine show up. And of course, the closet is full of guns. Lots and lots of guns. Michael Emerson has such amazing facial expressions.

The next morning Finch sends a text to Maxine and then she and Reese head for a meeting with Zoe. It turns out the shooters from the night before are ex-FBI and likely leaked the existence of the ledger to the real RH boss. Together, Reese and Maxine figure out where Zambrano has stashed the ledger (in the children’s carrousel he was importing). Unfortunately the two ex-FBI agents show up and start wailing on Reese. Carter and Fusco show up and manage to take the other guys out. Maxine gets her eyes on the ledger and thinks she’s found the top guy, one of the mayoral candidates. Fusco get his hands on the ledger long enough to rip out the pages with his and Simmons’ names on them. So it seems for now, he and Simmons are safe. I didn’t like that Simmons was working Fusco. I want him to be a true good guy. Reese ends up convincing Maxine that “the Man in the Suit” is just a myth so his cover is safe but there won’t be any more dates for them. I’m not that upset. I prefer him with Zoe anyway. She’s a lot of fun and knows his secret. Plus she sort of owes him for saving her life and all. Back at the library, Bear is happily chomping his toy sans squeaker. I guess Finch had enough. We end with a revelation of who the real HR boss is, the campaign manager that threw Maxine under the bus.

Nashville 1.04: "We Live in Two Different Worlds"

“That's the problem with being on top. It's that people aren't just waiting for you to fall, they're trying to cause you to.”
-Juliette

This was the episode where all of the conflict that was set up in the first three episodes starts to come to a boil. The drama hasn’t quite hit its height yet (that looks like it will be happening in the next episode), but things definitely started moving along in this one. This episode did convince me more than ever, however, that the show could do without the political plot. There is more than enough drama happening just in the music industry. The Gunnar/Scarlett/Avery triangle (now made a quadrangle with the addition of music publisher assistant Hayley) isn’t going anywhere any time soon. And there’s plenty to mine with Rayna/Deacon/Teddy/Juliette without getting too much into Teddy’s political aspirations and Lamar’s supervillainy. I think the idea of examining the country music industry from the points of view of characters at all different points in their careers is really cool, and I wish the show would capitalize on that more. That being said, it’s still a plenty enjoyable watch. I don’t really love country music, but this show makes me want to go to Nashville just to be around people so passionate about doing what they love.

Rayna’s sister tells Rayna that Teddy’s not polling well. Coleman has a pretty comfortable lead at the moment. Teddy has a fundraiser coming up at the local country club, and in her possibly misguided determination to “stand by her man,” Rayna offers to sing at the event. This could be because she’s feeling guilty about the very steamy dream she had about Deacon to open the episode! Rayna’s manager, not realizing the awkwardness going on between Rayna and Deacon right now (or maybe just not caring), calls Deacon and asks him to lead Rayna’s band for the fund raiser. Deacon reluctantly agrees, because he’s still whipped by Rayna, even though he’s having coffee with Coleman as he makes the decision. Oh, and it turns out that Coleman is Deacon’s sponsor. And the plot thickens.

Meanwhile, police show up at Juliette’s door because the video of her shoplifting has become a Youtube sensation, and shoplifting is, you know, a crime. Once Juliette is back home from that little adventure, her handlers are all in a tizzy. The situation is already a publicity nightmare and has the potential to become even worse. So they’re flying in the best publicist in New York to help contain it. Juliette has no interest in any of it, though. She’s oddly chipper and serene. Her façade only breaks when her mom says something and she yells at her handlers to get rid of her mom already. The aloofness continues even after the big shot publicist arrives. Juliette just does yoga and refuses to take any of the publicist’s suggestions. This (rightfully) drives the publicist a little nuts.

Juliette finally starts to realize the gravity of her situation (or the gravity of the situation finally eclipses her being pissed off at her mom) when deals she had previously set up start falling through. For instance, her manager tells her that she’ll only be an audience member at the CMA’s. They have taken Juliette off the list of presenters. At this point, Juliette finally agrees to do an interview with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America to try and set the story straight. The interview itself is an absolute disaster. First, Juliette tries to play the victim by saying that if she hadn’t been hounded by fans, she would have paid for the nail polish instead of rushing out of the store. Then, when Robin Roberts dares to ask Juliette a question about her mother, Juliette storms out of the interview. Juliette’s storm-out is soon all over the internet, and this is really the final straw. Her tour sponsors start pulling out, and the tour is effectively cancelled due to lack of funding. Juliette’s manager is even ready to walk, because he’s sick of her not listening to his advice. Juliette finally gets the hint that she’s going to have to make some significant changes in her life if she’s going to preserve her career, and she tearfully agrees to do whatever her manager suggests. Her manager says she’s going to need to do a contrition publicity tour, but for now, she should just call a friend and vent. Juliette protests that she doesn’t have any friends, but she ends up calling Deacon, of course.

Gunnar and Scarlett continue to have professional success, and unfortunately, it continues to cause problems for Scarlett and Avery. Gunnar stops by Scarlett and Avery’s house to deliver the good news, and Scarlett blatantly pushes past Gunnar’s attempt at a celebratory hug to hug Avery. Can Scarlett really dig the knife any deeper into that poor boy’s heart? I mean, I know Gunnar kind of has it coming to him for going after a girl with a serious boyfriend, but Avery is such a tool! Anyway, Gunnar and Scarlett get a tour of their music publisher’s offices, where it looks like they’ll be spending a lot of time. Apparently the office has “writing rooms” where they’re expected to be on a regular basis. Does anybody know if this is realistic? I always thought songwriting was more of a work from home career. Anyway, Gunnar meets and has some chemistry with Hayley, who is an assistant at the office.

Gunnar, Scarlett, and Avery are invited out to dinner with some of the publishing company big wigs (and Hayley, too). The dinner, unfortunately doesn’t go very well at all. The publishing big wigs ask Scarlett questions about her writing process and such, and Avery gets kind of pissed off when Scarlett actually has thoughtful answers. Because he was supposed to be the songwriter, not Scarlett. It gets even worse when Scarlet tries to be nice and tells the publishing bigwigs what a great musician Avery is. Avery’s having a really difficult time not being the successful one in their partnership. Gunnar has a much better night than Scarlett. When we next see him, he and Hayley are post-coital and quite happy. They go out for a little walk once they’re both dressed, and Scarlett sees them when driving up to pick Gunnar up for work. She ends up turning around and having a meal with her Uncle Deacon, who tries to explain how it’s difficult to be the one in the relationship who is struggling career-wise. When she goes home, Scarlett begs Avery to start supporting her, but he’s not very helpful. He says he’s trying. I don’t think he’s trying very hard.

The Rayna/Deacon/Teddy plot this week largely centers around the big country club fundraiser for Teddy. It turns out that the chair of the fundraiser host committee is an ex-girlfriend of Teddy’s named Peggy. They were an item about fifteen years ago, but it’s clear that there’s still something there. Teddy and Deacon get into a huge argument before the fundraiser, with Teddy being pissed off that Deacon is at his event (considering his history with Rayna and all) and Deacon making it clear that he intends to vote for Coleman, not Deacon. Rayna and Deacon perform a song for the fundraiser (and not even one of their old love songs), and Rayna, Teddy, Deacon, and Peggy all stare daggers at each other through the whole thing. At the end of the song, Teddy walks out. Back stage, Rayna and Deacon have a painful conversation that at leaves Rayna in tears. Back at home, a still tearful Rayna tells Teddy that she’s firing Deacon. Teddy’s not being entirely honest, though. He and Peggy have a clandestine meeting where they allude to something bad they did a long time ago that can’t at all every be discovered.

Arrow 1.04: "An Innocent Man"

“They need to be stopped. So if it’s not going to be the courts and it’s not going to be the cops, then it’s going to be me. And I hope you.”
- Oliver

We pick up exactly where we left off last week. Oliver has given Diggle the antidote to the poison from Deadshot’s bullets. When Diggle comes to, Oliver is standing there, sans hood, in full Arrow gear. Diggle is kind of confused and tries to punch Oli a few times but isn’t having much luck. Oliver wants Diggle to join him in his quest to rid Starling City of its corrupt, criminal elite. Diggle takes off after calling Oliver a murderer and a criminal. Oliver heads back to the Queen mansion to find Laurel waiting for him. She gives him a talking to about being selfish and self-centered. She leaves and he heads to bed. As he’s trying to sleep, he flashes back to the island. I guess he’s now living with the archer who shot him originally. His newfound friend comes back to their cave with a caged bird. He keeps saying something but Oliver doesn’t speak Chinese so doesn’t know what’s going on. In the present, Oliver wakes up and ends up chatting with Thea downstairs.

The next morning, Oliver comes to the kitchen to find that Diggle has resigned and been replaced by a new guy. He’s kind of an idiot. Oliver manages to give him the slip by asking him to bring the car around and then take off on a motorcycle. Oliver heads to his man cave and starts digging on Peter Declan and Jason Brodeur. Brodeur was Declan’s late wife’s employer and he’s also on Oliver’s list. It turns out that Declan’s wife was going to blow the whistle on the company for illegal dumping. The evidence was stacked against Peter and he was convicted and sentenced to death. Now he’s got 48 hours to live and Oliver is desperately trying to find a way to get him out. So as Arrow, he enlists Laurel’s help. Laurel meets with Peter and learns that he and his wife did fight the night she died but it was about her telling a supervisor about what she’d found.

Meanwhile, over at Queen Consolidated, Walter is a bit distracted and forgets lunch with Moira. Compliance flagged a $2.6 million withdrawal from one of the subsidiaries. Walter tries to brush it off as just an error so as not get Moira upset but there is definitely more to it than that. After Moira admits that she took out the money for a friend’s start-up company, he quietly enlists the IT girl from last week to look into the financials. She finds that the money was used to buy an old warehouse. When Walter goes there, he’s in for a huge shock. We all thought the Queen’s Gambit was lost at sea but it’s sitting there in the warehouse.

Over at the precinct, Laurel is getting her dad to help out a little on the investigation. She gets the name of the supervisor whom Peter’s wife told about the dumping, even though he testified that she never told him anything. Later, Oliver and new body guard guy show up at Diggle’s sister-in-law’s diner. He has a chat with Diggle where he explains the mission left to him by his father as well as the fact that he more than likely killed Diggle’s brother’s killer the day before. He asks Diggle again to join him and once again gives new guy the slip. We get a bit of comedic timing on Diggle’s part where he basically says “yeah, that’s boy is gone now”.

Laurel confides in her friend that she’s working with Arrow and then heads off for a rooftop meeting with him. She tells him about Peter’s wife’s supervisor and Oliver goes off to interrogate the guy. I have to say his “Arrow” voice is kind of ridiculously low and weird. But anyway, big handcuffing the supervisor to a train track of an oncoming train, Oliver learns that he was paid off and he has a file in his desk at work that Peter’s wife gave him. Oliver delivers the file to Laurel and it seems like she’s warming up to his way of thinking. We get another flashback where Oli tries to snag some of archer guy’s food and all he gets for it is swatted away and hand gestures indicating he should kill the bird in the cage. Oliver gets home and he’s pretty happy that things with Laurel seem to be going well, even if she doesn’t know he is Arrow. There’s another funny bit with new bodyguard guy showing up looking rather tired and annoyed and Oliver just blowing him off.

At the legal aid office, Laurel is working on the case when her dad shows up. They come to blows over her working with Arrow and it seems Detective Lance is less than pleased that his daughter is now lying to him and breaking the law. She heads to court to try and get a stay of execution with the newly discovered evidence but the judge isn’t buying it. Brodeur is starting to panic but his thugs promise him that after her failure in court, Laurel will head to prison to talk to Peter and they’ll take him out before he’s officially executed. Problem solved that way. Laurel tells Arrow that she would need a signed confession at this point to save Peter. So he’s off to get one. He learns about the prison hit going down and manages to stop it from happening. But he loses Laurel’s trust. It seems though he’s gained Diggle’s. After a pep talk from his sister-in-law, he’s changing his tune.

We flash back again to the island where Oliver finally kills the bird and the archer starts speaking in limited English. What he’d been saying before means “survive” and that if Oliver wants to survive, he has to continue to kill. I am interested to see how Oliver takes over the archer’s persona because he’s wearing the same clothes as Oliver is as Arrow. Unfortunately, after Oliver saves Peter’s life and he’s reunited with his daughter, things go downhill. Sure, Diggle is all in, especially since he doesn’t think Oliver is quite prepared for what war does to him. But Detective Lance is reviewing footage from the shooting where Oliver killed Deadshot (Laurel explained he wasn’t in his usual get up) and sees Oliver on surveillance grabbing gear out of the trash can. And so he shows up at Queen central and hauls Oliver off for murder, among other charges.

New Girl 2.06: "Halloween"

“Statistically speaking, every American thinks about Abraham Lincoln at least once a day.”
-Schmidt

It surprised me to realize that “New Girl” hasn’t really done a Halloween episode before, considering their Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes last year were so excellent. “Halloween” did not at all disappoint. It definitely lived up to past holiday episode expectations. I think I laughed more during this episode than every other episode of this season of “New Girl” thus far, mostly due to the comedic talents of Jake Johnson. He made me laugh even more than Max Greenfield’s Schmidt in this one, which I’ve found to be increasingly the case staring as far back as the second half of season one. Greenfield was no slouch in this episode, either, though, effortlessly transitioning from Abraham Lincoln to “Matthew Mcconaughey in ‘Magic Mike.’” Tying the whole episode together was the fact that for a brief moment in the episode, all of the roommates were in a relationship of some sort, but by the end, all of them were completely single. Cece, however, is inexplicably still with Robbie by episode’s end, although it’s pretty obvious that won’t be the case for much longer.

We learn early in the episode that Jess’ latest temporary job is at a haunted house. She’s a zombie scarecrow, and the make-up is actually pretty elaborate and cool. This is important, because most of the latter part of the episode takes place at the haunted house and surrounding fair. After work on this particular day, Jess is planning to pay Sam a visit for the usual meaningless sex. When she stops by Sam’s work, however, she discovers that he’s not just an ER doctor. He’s a pediatrician. Seeing Sam interact with kids (and seeing the thank-you cards from kids on his office wall), makes Jess start to see Sam in a new light. She think he might want an actual relationship with Sam and not just the causal whatever they’ve got going on right now. Jess asks Sam to come visit her at the haunted house, and she asks him to wear a costume for her. She later tells Nick that she thinks if Sam actually does where a costume, it means he’s starting to feel the same way about her.

Speaking of Nick, his college friend Amelia is in town for business, and he invited her to crash at the loft. Nick had a thing for Amelia in college, but he never really had the courage to go for it. Times have changed, though. Amelia pretty much jumps Nick, and they have quite the ugly make-out session. Amelia manages to smush Nick’s face or something. It looks horribly awkward. They have sex, too, but Nick is coming to realize that the reality of being with Angela is quite different from what he imagined when he was in college. Nick’s not quite ready to admit that things aren’t working, though. I think at this point he was still too invested in the fantasy of Amelia he had built up in his mind to give it all up. Winston and Shelby are at a turning point, too. Winston tells Nick that he and Shelby are going to wear sexy costumes this Halloween, and he’s hoping that will reignite their sex life. Nick isn’t optimistic.

The second half of the episode takes place at the Halloween carnival and the haunted house where Jess works. We’ll get the Winston and Shelby plot out of the way first since it had the least substance to it. Can we please have a good Winston subplot sooner rather than later? Some of the stuff at his office last season was pretty darn hilarious. Anyway, Shelby’s costume isn’t exactly sexy. She’s “reigning cats and dogs”…as in she’s in a queen costume with plushie cats and dogs attached to the cape. It’s fun wordplay, but it’s pretty obvious that she’s not that invested in saving her relationship with Winston. Things come to a head while they’re in the haunted house, and an actress in the nurse costume finds herself listening to the whole awkward conversation where Winston and Shelby talk about not having sex anymore and how their relationship isn’t working. They end up breaking up, and while I’m happy that Winston’s out of a toxic relationship, I’m disappointed in how the creative team kind of destroyed Shelby this season. Winston was so in love with Shelby last season, and I wish we could have seen what happened to make things change. Instead, Shelby just became a cold shrew, and I kind of resent that.

Sam does show up at the haunted house, and he wears a clown nose as his costume. Jess thinks this means that he must really be considering a relationship with her. Then, while Jess is working, Nick catches Sam texting another woman. Sam really doesn’t want into be in a relationship right now, and he doesn’t realize that Jess is starting to feel differently. Nick wants to save Jess from going down this road, so he decides to brave the haunted house to find Jess and tell her what happened. Nick is petrified of haunted houses, though, and when Jess pops out to scare him, he accidentally punches her. All of Jess’ coworkers then gather around Nick and start attacking him, which is pretty much the funniest moment of the season thus far, just because Nick is more petrified than injured. Later Jess finally talks with Sam, and she realizes that they aren’t on the same page. So we’ve got relationship two finished. And Nick finally faces Amelia and they realize things aren’t going to work out either. Relationship number three right there.

Already single Schmidt spends his haunted houe time with Cece and Robbie, as awkward as that seems. Schmidt’s dressed as Abraham Lincoln, and when paired with Cece’s angel costume, looks suspiciously like a groom to her bride. Robbie takes a walk with Schmidt, and they have a bit of a confrontation (in which Schmidt repeatedly tries to head but Robbie), and they seem to reach some sort of an understanding. Robbie announces to Cece that they’re going to be hanging out with Schmidt from now on. All the parties involved seem happy about this on the outside, but it’s pretty obvious they all realize it could be awkward. I really can’t see how it will end well. In what seems like half a peace gesture and half an attempt to flirt with Cece, Schmidt gives Robbie his Lincoln outfit so Cece and Robbie can be the bride and groom. This leaves Schmidt in underwear and a vest, which is when he transforms into the character from “Magic Mike.” The look in Cece’s eyes at this point tells me she and Robbie will soon be a thing of the past.

Revolution 1.06: "Sex and Drugs"

“How are we going to get out? How are we going to get Nora out? If I don’t do this, you all die.”
- Charlie

We begin this week with Miles and company stealing a militia wagon. Nora is in a bad way, failing to fight off an infection in the wound she got courtesy of Hutch. Charlie is ranting about how Aaron shouldn’t be saying things will be okay because he couldn’t save Maggie. We flash back to the night of the blackout and Aaron and his wife are in a limo on their way for a weekend trip on the company jet to celebrate their anniversary. Then of course, the power goes out and a big ass truck slams into them. In Philly, Danny finally gets to meet Monroe for like half a second before he’s ushered off to his room. It’s a little unclear whether Neville is in trouble but he gets promoted to Major and is now in charge of intelligence and interrogation. Just what we need, this guy asking people questions. Back on the road, Miles finally gets them where they’re going, to a guy named Drexel who can help Nora. Well, only if Drexel isn’t intent on killing Miles…which he is. And it turns out that Drexel is just messing around.

The doctor tends to Nora while Aaron and Charlie are pampered. Miles is down with Nora naturally. I really hope we eventually get to see what their past was. I also really want to know why Miles deserted the militia, especially since we’ve seen that it was basically his idea and everything. As Aaron is sitting in the nice comfy room, he flashes back to two months post-blackout and his wife isn’t doing well. She’s got dysentery from drinking tainted water. A young guy named Sean explains it and offers them some fresh water. Charlie hops in a bath and has a bit of a freak out remembering pretty much everyone she ever loved leaving or dying on her. She pulls out her box of post cards and rips them up. Out in Philly, Jason (aka not!Nate) shows up and Monroe compliments him on his report. Neville says it’s a bit light. Either way, Monroe gets out of him that it was Nora with the group and that Aaron has one of the pendants. Jason is concerned when Monroe wants to send one of his more ruthless guys after Miles and company. Obviously he has a thing for Charlie he’s trying to hide.

Back at Drexel’s, Miles is packing up to get back on the road when Drexel saunters in. He gives a big speech about how he knew Miles way back when and that after Miles deserted, Drexel got treated like crap, too. He ushers everyone outside to show off his burnt poppy crop (for making heroin). He says the drunken Irish family up the road did it and he wants Charlie to go kill them (or Drexel will kill our group one by one). Yeah I really dislike this guy. Charlie’s all dolled up to go infiltrate the Irish camp. Drexel tells her to take out the head of the family by sticking a poker in his eye (ew). He also gives her a cover story about her being one of his girls who he’s been roughing up (and then he hits her). Miles grabs him by the throat but can’t do much with the guards pointing crossbows at him. So Charlie goes off and Drexel tosses Miles some coin for his trouble and for burying Charlie. Aaron is freaking out a bit and we get another flashback. A group of people, including him and his wife, have been camped together and they’re frantically trying to leave before militia show up. Aaron is too slow and his wife gets caught. Luckily Sean is there to help. I can’t quite tell where this story is going.

In the present, Aaron tells Miles he has to choose Charlie’s safety over him and Nora and that he’ll try to get Nora out of the house. He sends Miles down some secret passage to the kitchen (Aaron’s house had 3) and Miles takes out the guys in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Charlie makes it to the camp and worms her way in to see the head of the family. It becomes clear quickly that Charlie doesn’t have it in her. For one thing, she sees that the head of the family was just playing with his adorable grandson. And he and his family used to be cops. He torched Drexel’s crop because his daughter Rebecca ran off to Drexel and came back a corpse. Miles has managed to get over to Irish territory but not much else. Aaron and Nora aren’t doing so well. The doctor shoots Nora up with adrenaline and Drexel rather cheerily says that she and Aaron are going to shoot each other. It seems like Aaron just isn’t very good at protecting the people around him.

Charlie is trying to get her courage to off the Irish guy and ends up smacking him in the face with a tea kettle. She’s about to stab him when Miles swoops in and says they’re leaving. Back at Drexel’s, Aaron is trying to be strong and say they aren’t going to play his game. We get another flashback to eight months post-blackout where he’s trying to start a fire. His wife says only he matters to her, not what they had before or that he can’t start a fire or find food. In the present, he tells Nora to shoot him because he’s useless and she can help find Danny. When Nora refuses to shoot him, he cocks his gun and shoots himself in the chest. He looks dead though there’s no blood. Just as Drexel gets close enough Aaron pops up and shoots him. Way to go Aaron. He pulls out his no bullet-dented flask. Kind of clever, I have to admit! He gets Nora out of there and they meet up with Charlie and Miles. Aaron seems mildly glad Charlie didn’t kill the guy. We get one last flashback where Aaron has basically left his wife because he thinks she’s better off with the group. I guess this leaves things open that maybe she’s still alive somewhere and they could reunite eventually. We close in Philly where Danny finally gets to see his mom after years of thinking she’s dead.

Once Upon a Time 2.05: "The Doctor"

“As long as you live in the past, you’ll never find your future.”
-Rumpelstiltskin

“The Doctor” was the first episode of “Once Upon a Time” this season where I didn’t really hate the present-day Enchanted Forest plotline. Captain Hook was added to the mix this week, and he made things interesting. I was a little disappointed in the flashbacks this week, though. They once again largely focused on Regina and her descent into evil. I’ve learned enough about Regina’s secret pain, thanks. She has layers. I get it. What I did think was cool about the flashbacks was that we learned the later-ego identity of Dr. Whale (finally!). He’s (spoiler alert) none other than Dr. Frankenstein. There is a scene in his lab at the end of the episode that is especially appropriate, given that this was the episode that aired closest to Halloween. I kind of wish that the flashbacks could have been more focused on him and his awesome black-and-white horror movie world.

We’ll start with the present-day Enchanted Forest story since it’s my favorite of the three this week and it’s kind of stand-alone. The ladies return to the safe haven island to find that Cora has completely leveled the place. She’s torn out the hearts of most of the refugees, leaving the dead strewn everywhere. The ladies can only pull one survivor from the wreckage, and that survivor is none other than Captain Hook. Emma is very suspicious of Hook, and she goes into full Sheriff/PI interrogation mode. She thinks that he was a plant among the survivors courtesy of Cora. Hook offers to help the ladies in their quest to go back to our world, but Emma wants the full truth from him first. Emma goes a little too far with this, really, and she ends up tying Hook to a tree and whistling to attract Ogres. It does finally get him to talk, though. He admits that he’s been working with Cora, but he’s willing to switch sides. Cora has the wardrobe dust to open a portal, but in order to actually navigate her way to our world, she needs an enchanted compass. Hook just happens to know where that compass is located. Hook takes the ladies to Jack’s beanstalk, and he says that if they can defeat the giant at the top of the beanstalk, they’ll find the compass. From the previews, it looks like the giant will be played by Jorge Garcia, so the next episode should be pretty awesome.

Meanwhile, in Storybrooke, Charming makes the mistake of telling Dr. Whale that the Enchanted Forest probably still exists, and other lands that were hit by the curse may still exist, too. Regina’s in a session with Jiminy (she wants help with quitting magic use for Henry) when Whale interrupts. He demands that Regina send him back to his home. Jiminy, however, sends him away. Nobody interrupts one of Jiminy’s therapy sessions! Jiminy focuses back on Regina and asks her to start thinking about why she’s so stuck in her past. We then get our first flashback of the episode. In it, Regina is working with Rumpelstiltskin to hone her magic skills. She has successfully frozen a unicorn in place, but now Rumpelstiltskin wants her to take out the unicorn’s heart. Rumplestiltskin ends up having to do that part of the job, but he then wants Regina to smush the heart in her hand to kill the unicorn. Ewww. It seems like Daniel’s memory has been holding Regina back, both in the past with honing her magic skills and in the present with trying to give up magic. Jiminy tells Regina not to hold on to the past, and Regina storms out of the therapy session. Driving in the rain, Regina has a vision of Daniel, and it seriously freaks her out.

At the Storybrook stables, Charming gives Henry a horse as part of Henry’s training to be a “knight” and instructs Henry to muck the stall twice a day. Then Charming leaves to attend to other matters. Because that always ends well when the worst grandpa ever leaves Henry alone. Elsewhere in Storybrooke, Regina goes to her family mausoleum, and she’s very disturbed to find that Daniel’s tomb (where he is supposed to be frozen) is empty. We then get another flashback, and this time Regina is asking Rumpelstiltskin if he knows how to use magic to bring back the dead (she wants to bring back Daniel, obviously). Rumpelstiltskin tells her she can’t do that. Jefferson overhears this while delivering a crystal ball that is supposed to help Rumpelstiltskin travel to our world, presumably to find Bae. Jefferson couldn’t find the other items on Rumpelstiltskin’s list, though. Jefferson has a little chat with Regina and offers to find “the Wizard” for her in exchange for a royal passport. He thinks the Wizard might be able to bring Daniel back from the dead.

Jefferson does indeed bring the Wizard to Regina, and it turns out that it’s none other than Dr. Whale. He’s been experimenting with bringing people in his world back to life, but he needs a stronger heart than what he had available back home. He’s heard that Enchanted Forest hearts are so strong that they glow, so he thinks this is the best place to try and conduct his experiments. If Regina can get a heart, Whale thinks he can bring Daniel back to life. Regina won’t kill anyone, but she thinks she knows where she can find a heart. She takes Whale to her mother’s vault, which looks disturbingly similar to the vault Regina would eventually create for herself. It’s full of little drawers with hearts inside. Whale chooses his preferred heart, and he’s almost giddy with anticipation at operating on Daniel.

Back in Storybrooke, Regina pays a visit to Whale’s lab. It’s a complete mess, and it’s obvious that somebody trashed the place. Regina finds Whale under a table, and it’s pretty clear he’s injured. It turns out that Whale stole both Daniel’s body and another heart from Regina’s mauseleom, and he was indeed able to bring Daniel back to life. He’s not the Daniel that Regina knew, however. He’s a monster, and he’s responsible for the destruction of a lab. I thought this was becoming a kind of weird combination of the Wizard of Oz and Franenstein. Charming questions Regina about the lab attack, and he’s really unhappy to hear about Whale trying to bring Daniel back. Regina thinks Daniel might have gone to the stables, since he died I the Enchanted Forest stables. This means Henry’s in trouble, of course. Henry is grooming his new horse when the horse starts going crazy and knocks Henry over. Then Daniel appears on the scene.

The rest of the flashbacks of the episode show Whale’s failed experiment. We see him doing the heart replacement procedure on Daniel, but he comes out and tells Regina that the procedure didn’t work. This pisses off Regina so much that she goes to Rumpelstiltskin and proves to him once and for all that she has the fortitude to (literally) crush hearts. We later see Whale, Rumpelstiltskin, and Jefferson consipiring. The whole thing was a set-up, and Whale and Jefferson were just doing whatever Rumpelstiltskin told them in an attempt to get something out of the royal family, no doubt. As payment, Rumpelstiltskin gives Whale a strong, glowing Enchanted Forest heart.

Back in Storybrooke, Regina and Charming arrive at the stables just in time to save Henry from shuffling zombie Daniel. Charming wants to kill Daniel right then and there, but Regina wants to talk to him. At first, Daniel is pretty much just aggressive and “grr…brains,” but Regina gets the real Daniel to break through. What he says isn’t what Regina wants to hear, though. He’s in a lot of pain (presumably from the procedure that brought him back to life), and he really just wants Regina to let him go. Regina won’t do it at first, but then Daniel starts slipping back into “grr…brains” mode, and Regina has to kill him with magic before he attacks her. Regina tearfully returns to Jiminy and confesses to using magic again.

Meanwhile, Dr. Whale shows up at Rumpelstiltskin’s shop, asking for help reattaching his arm. Whale (whose actual name is Victor, by the way), tells Rumpelstiltskin that he reanimated Daniel because he thought Regina would send him home in gratitude. When he gets home one day, he wants to try to reanimate his brother again. Apparently the first time didn’t go so well. We then get one final flashback to the beginning of the reanimation gone wrong. Whale is actually Dr. Frankenstein, and his world is black-and-white horror movie goodness. It will be fun to explore more of this aspect of the story in the future, for sure.