Fresh off the Boat 3.15: "Living While Eddie"

“Eddie, there is something called a white lie. And that is a lie that protects you from all the things that make white people soft.”
-Jessica

I found this episode to be especially fun, although it did tackle some serious discussion of Asians as the “model minority” as the real Eddie Huang would say and the fictional Eddie’s place in that paradigm. It’s another episode that I think the real Eddie might appreciate somewhat if he were to watch it. Yes, there are some light-hearted TV comedy hijinks, but Eddie also has some serious issues to wrestle with of the sort that the real Eddie has written about extensively. What’s more fun about this episode is a plot that takes place at Cattleman’s Ranch. An infomercial is being shot there, and Louis and Emery compete for the illustrious role of salad eater. Louis ends up having to be the adult in the situation, but Emery doubts the sincerity of Louis’ gesture. It’s all good stuff, really.

It’s breakfast time at the Huang house, and Louis has big news to announce. An infomercial is going to be filmed at Cattleman’s Ranch. Emery is a bit infomercial aficionado, so he is especially excited about this. Jessica is happy because she thinks someone paying them to not serve food is an especially ingenious scam. Louis agrees to let Emery watch the filming, since he seems really interested in it. Meanwhile, Jessica notices that her morning papaya (one of the few luxuries she allows herself) is missing. She immediately suspects Eddie, and he owns up to the crime. In retaliation (she’s a big believer in an eye for an eye), she takes Eddie’s breakfast cereal and eats it.

Later, Evan comes to Eddie with big news. At a “white friend’s” house, he has discovered a rather ingenious invention – the dishwasher. Jessica always makes the boys wash the dishes by hand, and they were taught that the dishwasher was just a drying rack. Eddie and Evan go to the kitchen, where they discover that their “drying rack” looks just like a dishwasher, just without buttons. Jessica tells the boys that they are under no circumstances allowed to use the dishwasher. It makes you soft and is bad for the dishes. And Chinese people care very much about their dishes (hence why they’re called “China”). Jessica arrives home to hear the dishwasher running, though, and when she checks it out, it’s warm. One of her children has been disobedient.

The first morning of the infomercial shoot seems to go swimmingly. Louis and Emery get to meet Tony Wonder, a famous infomercial host of whom Emery is a big fan. He even gives them both (rather ridiculous) signed bobbleheads. The product that is going to be sold is the “On-gun,” although Louis thinks “Gunion” would be a better name. One of the PA’s rushes in to tell Tony Wonder there’s a problem, though. Their “salad eater” is a no-show. The problem is quickly solved, however, when Louis agrees to be the salad eater. Emery seems a bit peeved by this. Before Louis starts filming, Louis seems confident, Emery kind of psychs him out, though, by reminding him how many people will be watching. We are treated to a montage of Louis flubbing his take (all he is supposed to say is “Onions, shallots, scallions, it does them all!") over and over. Filming is pushed to a second day because of it.

Jessica immediately accuses Eddie of using the dishwasher. Eddie doesn’t want to own up to it, but he can’t show pruned fingers to Jessica to prove that he washed the dishes by hand. Jessica suspends his allowance for three weeks, which disappoints Eddie, because he was going to use the money to buy an N-64. He wanted to play the new Goldeneye game. I do love the little historical pop culture references in this show. Jessica asks Louis if he thinks they’re raising a bad kid in Eddie. Louis thinks Eddie has a good heart and was probably just really excited to try the dishwasher. The next day, Jessica has the dishwasher disabled. Just as the plumber is finishing his work, Jessica gets a call from the record store at the mall, where the manager is accusing Eddie of shoplifting. Jessica at first shows up at the wrong location of the record store, but eventually she is in the right place, and she tells Eddie he’s in big trouble.

Meanwhile, at day two of the infomercial shoot, Louis is getting ready when Emery stops by to chat. Louis is happy because he has his line memorized and he thinks he’s all ready to go. Emery says that he’s been recast. Emery himself is now going to be the salad eater. Louis watches the filming. Emery says the line properly, but he can’t stop blinking when the camera is rolling. Louis, because he’s a good dad, looks past the whole recasting thing and tries to give Emery a legit pep talk. Emery, however, just accuses Louis of trying to psych him out. At the end of the episode, the whole family sits down to watch the infomercial. The creative team has incorporated outtakes of both Louis and Emery that make them both look foolish. To make matters worse, they stole Louis’ idea, and the product is now called the Gunion. Emery, however, is still convinced that his father doesn’t support him, which I found to be a little ridiculous. Grandma loves using her Gunion to shoot popcorn into a bowl, though.

At the record store, Jessica takes pause when the manager says Eddie could face jail time, because the store prosecutes shoplifting to the fullest extent of the law. He has to leave the room for a minute to deal with a rush on the latest Spice Girls CD, so Eddie and Jessica are able to have a little heart to heart. Eddie is very upset at being “profiled” by his mother, but Jessica says that after the papaya and dishwasher incidents, she can’t trust him anymore. Eddie owns up to using the dishwasher, but he admits that he didn’t actually eat the papaya. Evan has a weakness for tropical fruit, and since he has a “clean record” Eddie decided to take the fall. Jessica is impressed by this, so when the manager comes back, she starts standing up for Eddie. Eddie has a way to prove that he brought the CD in question (the Streetfighter soundtrack) into the store to sell and didn’t shoplift it. There’s one particular track that skips eighteen seconds in. Jessica prompts the manager to play the CD on the boom box (or “boom boom box” as Jessica puts it), and it does indeed skip exactly when Eddie says it will. Eddie is free to go, and his relationship with Jessica is better for it.

iZombie 3.02: “Zombie Knows Best”

“I know what’s happening with the brains right now but it still weirds me out.”
– Clive

I thought this was a pretty solid episode of “iZombie”. It had action and it moved the plot forward for the characters in a meaningful way. It felt like it was getting back to form after last week’s exposition-heavy premiere. I will admit their attempt to sort of use and intersperse in media res was a little confusing so I’m just going to address it up front. The lead detective on the case of the murdered family of zombies questions Clive about his relationship to the family. He was marked as the emergency contact for Wally on a form. So, we get to see how Clive first met Wally and Anna and how over time, after Anna’s husband got locked up for beating on his family and Clive kind of found himself in their family unit. We even learned how Clive got into Game of Thrones. Clive and Liv also chat with some of the Fillmore Graves people to see who might have wanted to hurt the family. It isn’t until Ravi is tasked with listening to one of the radio call-in shows that they realize things are moving a lot faster than anyone realized. Their neighbor called in because he saw brains in the trash and he posted about it on a message board. Someone there posted the address. Well, it seems the zombie community is about to be outed!

While all of this is going on, the gang has a new case to solve as well. At 4am, a father and daughter get massively t-boned by a big truck. As Liv and Ravi get to the scene, Clive gets to experience his first case with the full knowledge of Liv’s methods. I have to admit he’s pretty funny about the whole thing. She points out that she hadn’t eaten since the mercenary soldier guy and she’s getting a little rumbly in her tummy. Because there are two victims, they think Major can help out on the case, too. He’s a little worried about being on teenage girl brains (Liv had already dined on Dad before he arrived) because he’s starting mercenary training and he’s closer to finding Natalie (the zombie call girl). He’s got a phone number that Clive is going to chase down but he’s still fretting about it with Ravi as the brains kick in. I laughed as Liv and Major ate the brains and Clive and Ravi watched, Ravi with chip bag in hand. Gotta love it!

Thanks to teenage girl brain, Major gets to sing along (badly) to some angst-ridden female artists (it sounded like it could have been Taylor Swift but I’m unsure) when Clive and Liv come back with a dead end at the father’s work. Major then storms off to mercenary training where he’s ogling the other guys and commenting on their abs. They mention that they don’t get the personality and vision side effects of being on normal brains because Fillmore Graves gives them some mashed up brain combo thing in a tube (think Go-gurt). But as Major is showing off his selfies (which he thinks look awful), he gets a helpful vision about the teenage girl showing her dad something on her phone and her dad saying they need to go to the authorities.

Thanks to some digging by the super creepy IT guy, they learn that the girl in question used to be an ice skater and she used to be friends with our victim. The girl unfriended our victim on Facebook but she claims they had a fight about the victim being too judgmental of the other girl. Liv gets a vision at this point of the photo on the phone of the girl in bed with an older man. That man also happens to be the girl’s stepfather. Oh lord! And hey, he runs a plant nursery and has the type of truck that would be involved in the hit and run.

The next day, the girl and her mother show up, claiming that the stepfather has run off because he’s guilty of killing the father/daughter combo. The story they spin is fairly plausible at first. He broke off the relationship with his stepdaughter and she confided in her friend. Her friend told her father and he wanted to go to the police. But the girl never told her stepfather that last part so how could he have known? Cue the creepy IT guy again coming in with the texts between the girls. It seems that the girl might be our guilty party (she threatened our teenage victim and had been arrested for driving without a license a short time earlier). But then the real kicker comes. Someone put an app on the girl’s phone to track everything, texts included. And that person was the girl’s super rich mother (who left her stock broker husband for the landscaper …. yeah, they’re all real winners in this family). She was disgusted by her daughter’s actions and so she took it on herself to keep things quiet. Except, you know, now the media will find out anyway! Oh, and Clive manages to nab the stepfather for sexual assault (and statutory rape I’m assuming).

I really liked how this episode brought us back to the formula of the show and allowed Major to get into it a little, too. He was a lot of fun to watch on girl brains. Liv was more like her usual self with just a little more order (I mean she was always fixing things or sharpening tools). But hey, she did convince Ravi to talk to Peyton and see what could be salvaged there. I mean yeah she slept with Blaine but it wasn’t to hurt Ravi and it wasn’t like she intended it to happen in the first place. Although, I am a bit torn between the two pairings. If Blaine really isn’t faking the memory loss then I’d like to see him give it a real go with Peyton. But I also wouldn’t mind Ravi and Peyton being back together, too, especially now that they all know the whole truth and it would make him less sad.

MTVP Binges Out: Santa Clarita Diet: Season One

Who knew you could have a comedy about zombies? Well, I guess “Warm Bodies” is kind of comedic, but I wasn’t sure if that sort of tone could hold for a whole series on Netflix. “Santa Clarita Diet,” which tells the story of a realtor who turns into a zombie and her family, attempts to do just that, and I think it does it fairly well. The characters are well developed, as is the world building, especially for a comedy. You have to have a strong stomach to get through a few of the episodes, though. Becoming a zombie involves quite a lot of vomit, and zombie feeding can be . . . bloody. If you can get past those moments, though, “Santa Clarita Diet” is an entertaining five hours. Many of the episodes have fun cliffhanger twists. The creative team also digs a little deeper and looks at the emotional toll that becoming a zombie takes on the whole family. There really are a lot of layers to this show if you can look past the initial gore.

The show centers around the Hammond family. Sheila (Drew Barrymore) and Joel (Timothy Olyphant) are a husband and wife realtor team, and their daughter Abby (Aussie newcomer Liv Hewson) is kind of a typical high school student with a chip on her shoulder. One day Sheila vomits a whole lot (seriously, it covers an entire bathroom and I may never recover), including coughing up a small organ of some sort. That’s when she starts craving raw meat, then human flesh. Well, she develops the taste for human flesh after feeding off of a smarmy character played by Nathan Fillion, but I digress. The show’s mythology deepens as the season progresses. We learn that this has happened before, and in Serbia someone may have once come up with a cure, but the knowledge of that cure seems to have been lost. This isn’t good, as Sheila definitely starts to disintegrate.

I’ll admit, I almost noped right out of this show after the pilot. There was just so much vomit. And then in the next episode, the first feeding was really, really bloody. If it wasn’t for the interesting story twists and the well-drawn characters, I don’t think I would have stuck with it. In fact, I had to look past more vomit and blood in later episodes, especially as more zombies materialize. Nothing was quite as bad as the pilot, though. While the creation of a second zombie was plenty vomit-y, the camera didn’t seem to hold on the scene for quite so long. The significance of a room covered in yellow vomit was already burned into our brains in the pilot, so it wasn’t necessary to show it happening again for very long before we viewers could easily tell what had taken place.

There were a lot of really memorable performances throughout the first season. This is the first time I had seen Drew Barrymore work (she’s had plenty of work over the years, just not much that I have found myself watching), and I was impressed with her comedic chops. Timothy Olyphant also had fantastic comedic timing. I had only heard of him in connection to antihero dramas of the Golden Age like “Deadwood,” so his comedic sense was surprising. The newcomers who played the teens, Abby and Eric, were also quite impressive. Liv Hewson mostly plays Abby as a rebel, but she does have moments of clarity, too, where she realizes that what happened to her mother is a big deal, and it’s okay to not quite know how to react to it. I enjoy Eric for his game-ness to get involved in whatever paranormal hijinks the Hammonds get into.

I think what m¬akes the show more than a gore fest is that it genuinely tries to explore how Sheila’s transformation affects the rest of her family. Sheila is going through some pretty significant changes. Not only is she craving human flesh, her inhibitions in general have been significantly introduced. She used to be a very uptight, regimented person, but now she’s constantly horny and considering telling her daughter to find herself instead of go to college. This causes problems for the rest of the family, because the Sheila they knew is no longer, and she was the one who kept everything running. Joel feels out of control, and he feels like he should be doing more to protect Sheila, even if she doesn’t really need protecting considering she’s a zombie and all. He’s determined to stand by Sheila and help her figure out life as a zombie, even if she doesn’t think she needs help. The transformation also affects their daughter Abby, who was always a bit of a rebel, but she starts acting out even more after Sheila’s transformation. She starts skipping school and stealing motorcycles. There’s a really touching episode that I’ll get to in a minute where Sheila tries to have some mom/daughter time to right the ship.

Speaking of that mother/daughter time, my favorite episode of the season was the penultimate episode, “The Book!” It’s the episode where Sheila and Abby have that mother daughter time trying to involve a situation involving a stolen motorcycle and a storage unit chop shop that Abby finds herself in. I appreciated Sheila realizing she needed to slow down a bit and make sure her family would be okay through the coming changes, and I also realized Abby stepping back and giving some consideration to why she had been acting out. At the same time, Joel and teenage neighbor Eric (who is smitten with Abby, naturally) go to a paranormal convention to seek out someone who may be able to help cure Sheila. Eric is at home in this sort of environment, but Joel is immediately pegged as not belonging. I wish I could say that the defensiveness of the convention regulars was overblown, but I’ve spent enough time in fandom to know that isn’t the case. It was amusing to watch Joel eventually get what he thinks he needs, though.

Once Upon a Time 6.16: “Mother’s Little Helper”

“I’m sorry, I was weak.”
- Gideon

Well, this episode was a hell of a lot better than the week before. It moved the plot forward, filled in gaps in the story and gave us the final season-ending arc we’ve been waiting for. It also really feels like this could be the end of the show (and with the ratings it’s been getting, I suspect it may be the end for sure). We pick up where Gideon and Emma left off. She’s pissed at him (as he insists any efforts on Hook or Emma’s part will not bring him back). She even slugs him in the mouth. But as we will learn by the end of the episode, things are not what they appear.

In the past, we see Gideon growing up in the Black Fairy’s realm. She steals kids to work in her fairy dust mines (so she doesn’t have dwarves) and she thinks Gideon is special and that he’s going to be a gift to her. Seriously, this woman kidnaps other people’s children and fawns over this one but she couldn’t give two shits about her own kid? Did she ever think maybe if she hadn’t had Rumple she would never have Gideon? Also, it’s super creepy and cult-ish that she makes them all call her mother. We see the boy that Gideon told Gold about a few weeks back. He thought the boy died but when we find Gideon on his 28th birthday (he doesn’t know what those are) we find the boy (Roderick I believe) wasn’t dead after all. He’s alive and working in the mines and trying to steal stuff from the Black Fairy to stop her. The boys team up (is it wrong I was kind of hoping for like a little romance there?) and break in the Black Fairy’s vault to steal and orb to communicate with the Savior. But Mother is hip to their plan and she turns Roderick into a bug and steps on him, leaving poor Gideon to scream in heartbreak. And then she takes his heart and insists that he find the Savior and kill her so the sword can open a portal to let the Black Fairy out of her realm.

In the present, Emma and Snow pay Rumple and Belle a visit about Gideon and they get the low down on what she did to Gideon and also that she’s Rumple’s mom. Seriously, they are a really messed up family. Emma finally agrees to help Gideon when she recognizes the same look Henry had when he found her all those years ago: the need for hope. He agrees to bring Hook back and give her the sword but they need to bring him back at the Sorcerer’s mansion because it’s a super strong nexus of magic. Unfortunately for Emma, Gideon has been playing her this whole time (as we know it was mostly the Black Fairy controlling him through having his heart). He summons a giant spider (like in the book Belle sent off with him as a baby) to kill Emma and it works, much to Gideon’s surprise. He’s able to free the Black Fairy, even though Gold saves Emma at the last minute and they are able to defeat the spiders. This, however, leads to quite the family confrontation. Emma is convinced Gideon is evil and Belle now thinks she may be right. But Rumple is insistent that his son can be saved and he’ll take whatever measures are necessary to protect his boy. I will give him props for being a better parent than either of his. He is fierce when it comes to his boys.

But the Swan contingent of the family isn’t the only one having issues this week. It seems Regina can’t manage to break the sleeping curse put on Snow and David, even though she’s managed to break everything else that the Evil Queen did (including locking Dr. Doolittle in a cage which I found kind of funny). She thinks Emma may have some ingredients she hasn’t tried and when she asks Henry to write them down and fetch them, he goes into a weird trance and starts drawing bizarre symbols before passing out. When he wakes up, he’s got no memory of what he’s done. So, Regina decides they should go talk to the one person who would know what’s happening: Isaac. He’s not in a mood to be helpful unless she gives him a few things: namely a fancy sports car, Hamilton tickets and his freedom so he can go back to New York. In the end, he gets a crappy beat up station wagon and the ability to leave town. But as he departs, he does drop some knowledge on the Mills clan. The Author powers are taking over and soon Henry won’t be able to control them. And then, Isaac suggests they take a look at the story book. They are in the final chapter, the last to be written. Isaac warns that the final battle is coming between the Savior and a great evil and no one wants to be around for that.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like the writers came into this seasons like it was their last. This would be a great way to end the series. Let Emma be victorious over the Black Fairy and get everyone their happy endings. Let them ride off into the sunset (even if it’s with the pirate I detest). Oh, and speaking of pirates, Hook tries to get a magic bean from Blackbeard in exchange for the Jolly Roger and when they portal out of the Enchanted Forest, they end up in Neverland which is currently overrun by the worst of the Lost Boys and now Hook is stranded there. I suspect we are going to get more Hook backstory in the coming weeks as he’s trapped there. I wonder if perhaps Pan may make a reappearance.

Once Upon a Time 6.15: “A Wondrous Place”

“I guess what they about wishes is true, there’s always a price, always a cost to pay.”
– Aladdin

Boy is this a jam-packed episode. At the top of the hour Emma drops the news on David that Hook killed his father and has now left town. Meanwhile, Hook, Captain Nemo and Liam are on the Nautilus and have gone through a portal to who knows where and Jasmine and Aladdin are in the Enchanted Forest trying to find their home. In a flashback to many years ago, we see the Sultan trying to marry off Jasmine to a prince with an army to face off against Jafar. Jasmine insists on finding a hero (aka Aladdin) but Jafar pops by to say that savior is no more and Jasmine’s only recourse is to marry him or else the city will be destroyed. On the bright side, I do appreciate the writers keeping in that Jafar was the bastard son of a King who always wondered about being a prince. Jasmine is still determined to find a hero, even if it isn’t Aladdin and latches on to Ariel who is in search of Prince Eric. I guess they needed to sort of wrap up Eric and Ariel too. I have to admit for a minute when Ariel said that Eric had a navy fleet I was worried Jasmine was going to try and marry him! But it doesn’t happen. Instead, Jafar impersonates Eric and when jasmine agrees to marry him, Jafar makes the city disappear. He taunts her about her choice and calls her a failure.

In the Enchanted Forest, Jasmine finds the ring that was supposed to be her dowry and decides she’s going to chuck it and the lamp into the ocean. Unfortunately, before they can do so, they are attacked by a kraken (which I guess is good in a way since Hook and the crew need the blood to create another portal). As they try to find Jafar (given what he did to the city way back when), Hook sort of gets roped into giving love advice to both Jasmine and Aladdin. He’s none too happy about playing match maker either. Oh, and then as they are on their way to find Jafar, they end up starting to sink thanks to kraken damage. Jasmine uses one of her wishes to get them to the frozen island. Nemo and Liam (who got transported with the other three) head back to the ship to go down with it. As much as I am not a fan of Hook in general, I would have liked to see more of him and Liam bonding and just getting to know each other while they were both in Storybrooke. I mean, would Liam have been involved in the wedding party if the wedding were still on (I suppose it probably will be back on at some point this season).

The gang end up at what looks like a tiki bar and are very confused at first. Then Jasmine realizes the trap that gets sprung on them (full of forks) could only belong to one person. Apparently, this is where Ariel and Eric have ended up. And they’ve somehow ended up with Jafar’s genie lamp (thank you for keeping that continuity again, too). But he’s found a way to break the genie curse. He knocks out Ariel, Aladdin and Hook and reveals to Jasmine that her city is in the crown jewel that ended up in her pocket. He demands the ring back but she turns him into a creepy wooden staff with some of his own magic and then with a kiss to Aladdin, she restores her city.

Back in Storybrooke, Emma tries to distract herself with digitizing files at the sheriff’s station when Regina stops by with a half price drink special coupon for a new bar in town. Regina even convinces David to go back to sleep so they can have a proper girls’ night out (without Zelena). Emma isn’t interested and only ends up going when she gets tricked into responding to a bar fight. She’s not really into the whole bonding time (although she’s highly amused by Snow semi-drunkenly challenging some Vikings to a game of darts to see who pays for their tabs). Ultimately, Emma opens up to the bar tender. But that’s not such a great thing because just as she gets in touch with Hook (thanks to a device from Ariel), the bartender shows up and it’s really Gideon. He’s being kind of a dick but at least he’s asking Emma for her help in taking out the Black Fairy. The boy has finally taken the advice I’ve been yelling at my TV screen for weeks. If he had just asked for help in the first place, none of this drama would be happening and they could have established a stronger front against the Black Fairy sooner.

Overall, I was not impressed with this episode. I felt like they could have done a lot more with the girls’ night out. We need to see some fun Emma, Regina and Snow interactions and the bar setting was perfect for that. It wasn’t that I didn’t think they shouldn’t have concluded the Aladdin and Jasmine storyline but in all honesty, I didn’t really care about them that much. If we are going to wrap up storylines, I’d rather they finally reveal who Lily’s father is! I mean that’s a piece of Emma’s history they haven’t fully explored yet and I think they should have. I hope that they will move things forward towards some kind of resolution. I did like that they are finally having Gideon ask Emma for help. If he can stop being so creepy and a tool then maybe things can work out for the heroes and our reformed villains (I’m counting Rumple among them for now because he is trying to less of a dick right now). I also hope they give Henry some more to do, other than sitting on the couch listening to music like they did in the two scenes he was in this week.

iZombie 3.01: “Heaven Just Got a Little Bit Smoother”

“You really should tan and dye. We’re trying to keep a secret here.”
–Vivian

We’re back! It’s been a long time since Liv, Clive and the gang were on our screens but they are back in action and it’s going to be glorious! When last we saw Team Z, Peyton was stuck in an awkward Ravi/Blaine love triangle, Clive was hip to the zombie truth and Liv had kind of started a mini zombie apocalypse at Max Rager! Things take a fiery turn when Vivian, the head of Fillmore Graves (oh so funny … or not), has the Max Rager building blown up to cover up the zombie feast that had gone on there. She also is going to get all the Chaos Killer victims to a safe house and get their stories straight. Basically they are going to try and pin everything on Vaughn.

Later that night, Liv and the gang decide not to keep any more secrets from each other (which includes the fact that Peyton had slept with Blaine at one point and again she’s stuck in this weird sort of triangle with him and Ravi). Liv is grateful to still be on soldier brain because otherwise she’d be falling to pieces over having to kill Drake. Girl has really bad luck with boyfriends! Major is also having some issues with acclimating back to the world now that he’s been cleared as the Chaos Killer. He gets a coffee cup with Chaos Killer written on it and someone has seriously defaced his house. He’s also still trying to find Natalie (the zombie hooker) to wake her up but he’s not having much luck with that.

Blaine is also not exactly having the best of times. Don E keeps insisting he’s faking the memory loss and then quits (and decides to go into business with Blaine’s unfrozen dad to compete with Blaine’s business). I honestly can’t tell if Blaine is faking it or not. I like this version of him a lot more than the dickhead. He even offers to be an ear for Peyton if she ever needs him. By the end of the episode, she even calls him for moral support when someone is online trolling her and it is freaking her out (and Liv and Major and Ravi don’t answer her calls).

I have to admit I did find a lot of this episode very exposition heavy. Liv, Major and Clive go back to see Vivian to get her to explain about the whole “With us or against us” bit and the “zombie homeland”. She’s more than happy to oblige. She bought out Max Rager so no one else could have the formula for Super Max and it’s making the zombies faster and stronger so they can beat the humans who will inevitably want to take them out when the general populace becomes aware of zombie kind. Major seems pretty damn pessimistic about the whole thing but Liv wants to believe better of humanity. Given the world we currently live in, I’m inclined to agree with Major on this one. Humanity can be pretty awful to one another for little differences. But Fillmore Graves has a plan. In addition to training up their military forces, they’re setting up a sanctuary island for all zombies to relocate so they can be safe, including the children. Yes there are undead kids going to school, including a little boy that Clive used to leave nearby. It was a sweet little reunion and it is going to be some interesting motivation for Clive moving forward. I have to admit, I like that they are expanding the scope of the zombie population. We also learn that Vivian’s husband was turned first and then he got extorted for $25,000 per brain (oh, hi there Blaine) and when he stopped paying, he disappeared. Before he did, she scratched herself with his hand in the middle of the night so she could still be with him. Sort of a reverse of Major and Liv: Vivian at least wanted to be scratched. I did find it kind of amusing that everyone kept telling Liv that she needs to tan and dye her hair to fit in but I think if she did that, it would be too weird and would ruin the “look” of the show.

When Liv finally comes off soldier brains, she has quite the breakdown and so Clive decides to just get her really drunk and drop her on Ravi’s work couch before heading out. Interestingly, Ravi has new vials of cure #2 (the one that gives memory loss). So he has decided to try and find a way to reverse the memory loss so that maybe the cure can still work. Of course, you only have 17 vials (15 if you count giving one to Liv and Major) and so who decides who gets it? All very interesting questions for the season going forward.

What is not so interesting is the crime scene Liv and Ravi get called to (after his former boss at the CDC shows up with one of the bodies from the Max Rager massacre and finds brains in the stomach … oops). The little boy who Clive used to know has been murdered along with his parents. They all had shots to the back of the head with very little blood. The father’s nails were pulled off and had cans of Super Max shoved in the pockets. Someone specifically targeted this family of zombies because they were zombies. At this point, Liv realizes that humanity isn’t ready to know the truth. And Major has decided to join up with Fillmore Graves as one of their soldiers so that he doesn’t have to worry about people caring that he was basically a serial killer. Clive obviously can’t be on the case but he, Ravi and Liv agree to investigate the case on their own time because someone needs to pay for the crime and the officer assigned can’t find out about zombies.

Fresh off the Boat 3.14: "The Gloves are Off"

“I get that. March 24th was my steak birthday.”
-Louis

Overall, I enjoyed this episode of “Fresh off the Boat” because it delved into something the show hasn’t explored much yet: Honey and Marvin’s family. We meet Marvin’s ex-wife, Sarah, and the episode explores the dynamics of the blended family. Jessica, naturally, tries to mix in when she starts learning about the full situation, which results in wacky hijinks. And everyone involved comes to some important realizations. Except maybe Marvin, who is a freaking coward. I am both Team Honey and Team Sarah in this whole situation, although Honey still comes to Marvin’s defense because he must have some redeeming qualities if she married him and all. He’s pretty clueless to what’s going on with Honey, Sarah, and Nicole, though, which doesn’t really speak well of him.

The episode opens with Jessica preparing for a day of yard sale shopping. She wears Louis’ fishing vest and puts a different denomination of money in each pocket (it helps with her bargaining). Eddie really wants Jessica to find him a used gold grill, but that seems unlikely. Meanwhile, Evan is at Honey and Marvin’s house, trying to sort out Jessica’s Tupperware from the pile on the table (they switch Tupperware back and forth so often they have trouble keeping track of what belongs to whom), when Nicole shows up. She didn’t work on her science project when she was spending time with Sarah, so now Honey is going to help her. And to make things worse, Sarah shows up too, acting like she still owns the place. She insults Honey, then she goes to use the bathroom, which she says she was retiling while Honey was sleeping with her husband. Sarah is played by Heather Locklear, by the way, which seems appropriate. Marvin clearly has a type.

Jessica is at the yard sale trying to haggle over a blender with a child (who is smartly skeptical of Jessica’s bargaining tactics) when she spots a woman who seems to have the haggling thing down. She’s telling a tall tale about the death of her aunt, hoping to earn sympathy. This earns mad respect from Jessica, naturally. Later, Jessica wants to have a post-yard sale cider at her favorite bar, the Denim Turtle. Honey joins her, and she quickly wonders why the bartender is serving them three ciders. The third member of their party is none other than Sarah, who is the woman Jessica met at the yard sale. Sarah and Honey are obviously not thrilled to see each other, and they start sniping at each other right away. Honey wants to leave, but Jessica has requested a Sarah McLachlan song, and nobody is allowed to leave while Sarah is playing. As soon as the song is over, she leaves.

Meanwhile, the boys and Louis are watching television with Grandma when they see her look wistfully at a Jazzy electric wheelchair commercial. Emery thinks they should get one for her, and if they can prove she’s over 65-years-old, it’s free. The problem is that nobody knows how old Grandma is. She doesn’t even know. When prompted, she says that the day she celebrates as her birthday is actually just the first day she ever ate steak. The boys start asking Grandma questions to try and figure out her age, and when Grandma asks why, Evan says that Emery is writing a report on her. Emery decides he’s going to legit write the report, and this leads to him using a quirk in a photograph to prove that Grandma is over sixty-five. When the family presents Grandma with the data, she’s thrilled to find out that she might still be in her 60s – she thought she was older. They all go to the store, and Emery is prepared to present his case to the salesman. The salesman, however, says that Grandma is obviously older than sixty-five, and he just needs to send a photo of her face to the insurance company. Grandma swears that the salesman has made a new enemy that day, and at the end of the episode, she rolls up to his car in her new Jazzy and keys it.

The day after the bar skirmish, Jessica shows up at Honey’s house (with more Tupperware) to apologize. She sees Honey struggling to get Nicole to work on her science experiment. She’s supposed to be investigating the effect of different corrosive acids on teeth (using Marvin’s tooth collection, which may be a mistake). Nicole doesn’t pay attention to the timer at all, and the experiment is a disaster. Nicole reminds Honey that her mother didn’t finish high school, and she’s doing fine as head of the gloves department at the local department store. Honey tells Jessica she wishes Nicole didn’t think her mom could just get her a job at the department store, because maybe then she’d put some effort into school. Jessica goes to the department store and is talking to Sarah when Sarah is really rude to a customer. Next thing we know, Jessica is asking Honey to thank her because she got Sarah fired. This leads to a heart-to-heart between Honey and Jessica, where Honey explains that sometimes she just needs to vent. And she also has to explain to Jessica want venting is. It’s a word Jessica didn’t understand before. Like “closure” or “Clinique.”

Sarah is packing up her things at the departments store when her manager tells her she’s not fired after all. The customer who complained recanted. Sarah sees Honey and Jessica and immediately assumes Honey tried to get her fired. Jessica admits what she did and apologizes. Honey swears she didn’t want Sarah to lose her job. Sarah eventually admits that her issue with Honey isn’t Marvin. She’s over Marvin. She doesn’t want Nicole to think that Honey is the “fun one” and like her better. Honey assures Sarah that Nicole needs her mom and she would never try to get in the way of that. The two ladies reach an accord. The next time Sarah drops off Nicole, she has already done her math homework and wants to watch a movie with Honey (who is in the dog house with Marvin for ruining some of his famous tooth collection in the failed science experiment attempt).