Fresh off the Boat 2.16: "Tight Two"

“Being a manager is a lot like chess. If you can’t get rid of any of the pieces, you can’t win the game.”
-Jessica

“Tight Two” was an episode of “Fresh off the Boat” that definitely focused on the Huang parents. I also thought it exaggerated Jessica and Louis even more than usual in an attempt to achieve maximum comedic effect. In doing that, it was a bit of a failure in my book. I have a bit of trouble buying that Jessica would find working with the Cattleman’s Ranch staff so difficult, or that Louis would be scared to spend alone time with his kids. Although the first is certainly more plausible than the second. Louis always seemed like a reasonably good father, but apparently he’s so obsessed with always being the “fun dad” that he goes nuts if he spends any extended time alone with his kids. The situation evolves to really absurd heights, without any of the kernel of truth that usually makes episodes of “Fresh off the Boat” shine.

As the episode opens, Louis plays a practical joke on Mitch to make a big announcement. Cattleman’s Ranch is now going to offer food “to go.” Later that evening, the kids are watching TV and contemplating what they would do on a deserted island. Eddie wins, because he says he’d be willing to eat his brothers to stave off starvation. Just as this conversation is really getting going, Louis arrives home from work. He puts on an elaborate comedy routine and even brings the kids a cake from the restaurant. Shockingly, Jessica lets the kids eat the cake in their room before bed. Louis tells Jessica that he’s really trying to make the few minutes he has with the kids count, and Jessica thinks he’d have more time if his staff were competent. While Louis is continuing to try and be goofy, he falls and breaks his leg. And his mother resents his fancy wheelchair.

Louis really wants to go to work for the first day of Cattleman’s To Go, but he can’t even dress himself. Jessica thinks he should stay home, but Louis thinks his staff needs supervision. Jessica offers to take over for him at the restaurant since things are in a bit of a lull with the rental property. Louis finally agrees, but he tells Jessica she’s not allowed to fire anyone. The kids are excited to hear that their dad is going to be home when they get home from school. At the restaurant, Jessica holds a staff meeting to try and get everyone psyched up for the To Go launch, but it doesn’t go well, especially because Louis paged Mitch that Jessica isn’t allowed to fire anyone.

After school, Louis happily greets the kids, who quickly become occupied deciding which of them they would eat on the deserted island. When Jessica gets home, she is concerned to hear that Louis went to the diner without the kids. Jessica goes to the diner to confront Louis, and he admits he can’t be alone with the kids. Louis says the kids only like him because he sees them for just a few minutes a night. He can handle a “tight too,” but he’s afraid the kids will be disappointed if they spend too much time with him. Jessica says Louis needs to spend the next day with the kids by himself.

The next day at Cattleman’s, Jessica really rides the staff, and they don’t react to it well. A family picking up a To Go order asks if they can sit at a table after all, and Jessica says that’s fine. Mitch gives Jessica a heads up that he and the staff won’t receive a tip for that table, but Jessica doesn’t seem to care very much. In fact, she even starts suggesting to To Go customers that they eat in. She calls it “Cattleman’s To Go To Stay.” The staff start retaliating by making fake To Go orders. Jessica answers a phone call for an especially fake sounding, very large order, but the call didn’t come from either Mitch or Nancy. She may have actually blown a large order. Meanwhile, back at the house, Louis greets the kids with some rapid fire jokes and impressions that just leave them confused, then he jumps at the chance to just watch television with them. The only problem with that is that Grandma is watching a movie, and because she resents Louis’ “mobile throne,” she doesn’t want to change the channel. Louis tries to put words in the mouths of the movie characters, but that even wears thin quickly. He gives in and decides to let the kids draw butts on his cast.

When Jessica gets home, she sees that Louis no longer has his cast on his leg. Apparently he let the kids cut it off for entertainment, which is a new level of dumb even for Louis. She takes him to the E.R., where the doctor says it will be at least a six hour wait. Apparently they don’t consider letting your kids cut your cast off because you’re afraid they’ll be bored a true emergency. The kids were at the E.R. as well, but Louis again panicked when he thought they looked bored and gave them $50 to go spend to the vending machine. Jessica is annoyed, but she has bigger fish to fry. She really wants Louis to let her fire some of the employees at the restaurant. Louis doesn’t agree, and Jessica leaves in disgust, telling him he should spend time with his kids.

When Jessica arrives at Cattleman’s she sees a large T-ball team that fits the description of the To Go order Jessica blew off, and Nancy and Mitch are waiting on them hand and foot. Mitch says they really pulled out all the stops because it was a huge order for the restaurant. Jessica is impressed, and she asks the coach if he wouldn’t mind paying the tip. He says he specifically did To Go To Stay so he wouldn’t have to tip, and he and the team leave. Jessica actually tips Nancy and Mitch herself. Back at the hospital, the boys arrive back from their vending machine adventure. Louis is forced to admit that he isn’t always “fun” and is sometimes boring. The kids say that’s okay. They’re happy with just chilling. Louis is amazed.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 3.12: "The Inside Man"

“You gentlemen interested in changing jobs? The good guys are hiring. You don't get to kill people in cold blood, but we've got a really good retirement plan.”
-Coulson

“The Inside Man” was certainly an action-packed episode of “S.H.I.E.L.D.” The President and Coulson decide it’s a good idea to hold an invite-only symposium about the Inhumans in Taiwan. Coulson in particular hopes it will be a chance to learn more about whether or not other countries are harboring Inhumans. It’s not going to be just a sedate little symposium, though. There’s plenty of political intrigue and Hydra interference. We really haven’t seen political intrigue to this level on “S.H.I.E.L.D.” before, and it’s fun, albeit kind of stressful to watch. Too many life or death moments in one hour! We also start to get a sense of what Maveth might really be capable of, and it’s not good. I really don’t understand Hydra’s devotion to Maveth, although I guess we aren’t supposed to understand pure evil like that.

As the episode opens, we start with Maveth, who is still in the TV room at Hydra HQ. He is introduced to Lucio, who is the guy from Colombia who can freeze people with his eyes, and Maveth is the only person/creature in the room that Lucio can’t freeze. Maveth does his turning into sand thing with Lucio, although I’m still not really sure what that means. Later, Maveth and Gideon have a conversation, and Maveth is looking even more worse for wear. Gideon asks Maveth if he needs a new host, but Maveth insists that Ward will do until everything is ready. After Gideon leaves, Maveth tells Giyera and Lucio that he needs five living humans. When the five humans arrive, Maveth basically absorbs them. By the end of the episode, he rises from the carnage, covered in goo and looking stronger.

We next see General Talbot, newly appointed head of the ATCU, arguing with his wife in an airport before she leaves for her flight. I’m honestly wondering how he got past security without a boarding pass. People can’t have emotional conversations by an airline gate anymore these days. As Talbot is watching his wife’s plane, he is approached by Coulson, which is super awkward. Although Coulson says he’d rather be Talbot’s partner than his boss, Talbot has no intention of letting Coulson be either. As we learn back at S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, the first mission of the new S.H.I.E.L.D./ATCU alliance is the symposium I mentioned earlier that is going to be taking place in Taiwan. The team are all working on the preparations. Daisy is especially skeptical, since the symposium is going to be about the “alien contagion.” She feels strongly that terrigenesis is an “awakening,” not a disease.

Meanwhile, Lincoln is in Taiwan on a surveillance mission with May. He’s watching Coulson and Talbot arrive, but things kick into high gear when he spots Carl Creel, too. By the time the team decides to react, Coulson and Talbot are in a parking garage. Coulson shoves Talbot in a vehicle and locks it while Lincoln attacks. Creel deflects the attack pretty easily, though, by turning to rubber. May, however, comes in with the assist and turns Creel to metal. Lincoln can now easily attack him, although he gets a bit carried away, and it takes a lot to make him stop electrocuting Creel. Once he is let out of the vehicle, Talbot says that Creel isn’t a threat. He is protecting him.

Meanwhile, back at HQ, Daisy and Lincoln are sparring, because Lincoln needs to train for his upcoming S.H.I.E.L.D. agent exam. It’s clear that Lincoln has some trouble containing his powers. Just as the sparring is about to transition to something more intimate, Simmons interrupts because she has noticed something weird while testing Creel’s blood. It turns out that Creel’s blood acts as a vaccine for terrigenesis. She transformed an old sample of Daisy’s blood, then was able to change it back with Creel’s blood. Lincoln thinks this could be a good thing, but Daisy certainly doesn’t. The two actually get into a pretty significant argument about whether or not the vaccine is a good thing, with each saying some pretty hurtful things to the other. By the end of the episode, though, they’ve made up. Lincoln admits he’s a bit jealous about how zen Daisy is with her powers. And since I really don’t care all that much about Daisy and Lincoln, let’s move on.

So, on to the political intrigue! Coulson’s team searches the hotel room of the symposium attendees while the symposium is happening and Talbot and Coulson are cozying up to everyone. They use a machine created by Fitz to create gloves of the palm prints of the attendees to get into their rooms. While snooping, Hunter notices Creel going off-post, so he starts following him. Meanwhile, by snooping in the room of the Australian delegate, Bobbi figures out that the Australians have been keeping an Inhuman sedated for experiments. By following Creel, Hunter finds something unexpected in the back of a truck – a kid in a gel containment unit. He almost immediately gets stopped by guards, though. In the symposium, the group is about to vote in favor of creating an Inhuman sanctuary state in Russia when Talbot interrupts. He says they have a traitor among their midst, and that traitor is Coulson. Gideon takes the opportunity to make his entrance and says that Coulson is the director of Hydra.

Gideon quickly takes the opportunity to turn the symposium against Coulson, reminding the group that most of them now him from his work on the World Security Council or the good works of his foundation. He seems to be especially interested in cozying up to Petrov, the Russian delegate to the symposium. Outside, May saves Hunter from the Hydra security guards, and he tells her and Bobbi that he has a stash of guns. This makes May not hate him quite as much. We also learn that the person in the gel containment unit is Talbot’s son. That’s what got him to agree to be Gideon’s inside man at the symposium. Coulson is taken to lock-up, and when the entourage arrives there, Talbot is locked up too. Gideon orders both of them killed.

Creel of all people ends up saving the day by breakout Coulson and Talbot out of lock-up. They make their way out of the prison area while Bobbi and Hunter take on the Hydra agents still hanging around where the symposium had been meeting. Creel ends up saving Hunter, too, by killing an agent who is about to shoot him. To top off the success for the team, May pulls up driving the truck carrying the containment unit with Talbot’s son. Talbot watches over his son at the hospital, although Coulson assures him his son will be fine after some rest. Talbot and Coulson agree to a more cordial working relationship going forward. Bobbi and Hunter were told to tail Gideon, and in the episode’s tag, we see where he is. He’s giving Petrov a ride home on his private jet, and Bobbi and Hunter are stowing away in the plane’s cargo hold.

Once Upon a Time 5.15: "The Brothers Jones"

“I don’t care about the stories anymore. I want to be a hero. I want to help my mom, even if that means helping Cruella.”
- Henry

You would think I’d be dreading a Hook centric episode at this point but I’m actually kind of interested to see how Hook interacts with his brother now that the former is a pirate. Also, given the preview I’m intrigued to find out if and why Liam might not approve of his baby brother’s new beau (other than you know, the creepy factor which Rumple pointed out in last week’s episode). Just as Emma heals Hook, they get a knock on the door and Liam appears. He’s apparently learned that his little brother is in town and it’s kind of an awkward introduction. He clearly doesn’t like Emma and when he says that she’s not good enough for Killian, she gets defensive and thinks he’s rather self-righteous.

In flashbacks, we see Liam and Killian’s rise to the navy. When last we saw them as boys, their father had sold them into servitude. But all of that is nearly over since the following day they can sign up for the navy and be free of their contracts. Unfortunately, Killian is kind of a wuss and also a drunk. So while Liam goes off to secure papers, Killian gets tricked into gambling all his money away. Instead of taking the chance to join the navy when he gets back the next day, Liam tosses the papers into the ocean. He’s not leaving his little brother no matter what. Things get dicey as the ship sales into the eye of a massive hurricane. Apparently the captain (Captain Long John Silver I might add) is intent on finding the Eye of the Storm (some crazy looking sapphire). Liam and Killian mutiny with the rest of the crew and then things take a dark turn. Hades shows up and makes Liam a deal: let the rest of the crew die in the storm and Hades will save the Brothers Jones and get them navy commissions. Liam ends up following through and thus he and Killian join the navy.

Back in the present in Underbrooke, Henry gets a bit of a story on his own. He and Cruella are on the hunt for the pen and he has a run-in with the Apprentice who warns that Henry might be making the wrong choice. It appears that the Apprentice’s unfinished business is making sure Henry uses the pen for the right reasons. The kid struggles with that as the gang searches for the story book (Underworld edition) in the Sorcerer’s mansion. Henry ducks out to find the pen and ink (which he eventually does). He’s torn about using it though. I’m sure he’d love to find a way to bring Neal back to life but he’s obviously not going to do that. He’s also kind of tired of everyone treating him like a little kid in need of saving. He wants to be the hero.

While Emma confides in Regina that she has a bad feeling about Liam, Hook is intent on not returning to Storybrooke when the defeat Hades. He think she’s not worth saving. After all, how could he ever be a hero when he’s been comparing himself to Liam the time. Of course, he doesn’t know his brother’s nasty truth. At least not yet. The truth gets darker when Hades tasks Liam with destroying the pages in the story book about himself. It seems Hades has something to hide as well.

Soon enough, Hook learns the ugly truth of his brother’s devil’s bargain. Not only did he sacrifice the crew back in the day but he’s betrayed everyone with the pages. Hook is pretty heartbroken by his brother’s betrayal but there’s not much time to process it because he and Liam get nabbed by their former crew and dragged down to the pits of fiery river to get tossed in. They’re about to go over when Hades poofs in and gets all smarmy. He sends Liam over the edge but Hook grabs him before he falls. But Liam sacrifices himself to save his baby brother which in turn allows him to ascend to the happy place with the rest of the crew. Liam’s sacrifice emboldens Hook to fight for his future with Emma (yes I was a little sad by this revelation) which makes her super happy. And Henry comes clean with the rest of the family about the pen. He vows to use it to write Hades’ story again. Which should be an interesting effort.

And in super awkward news, David spent some time with Cruella, pretending to be James and it was just really weird. She knew it wasn’t James the whole time but she was having fun. She also fills him in that his brother resents him (even though they’ve never met). Somehow James got it in his head that David was the favorite son which is why he got to stay on the farm with a loving mother. That doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense to David (or me really) but it was enough to prompt Henry to stop wallowing in his teenage funk. I do hope they give Henry more to do as the season goes on. For one thing he isn’t a little kid anymore so he should have more meaty stuff to deal with. And you give the kid this power and then don’t let him use it. Seems kind of lame to me.

And I’m sure the ending was supposed to be shocking but it wasn’t all that surprising because everyone knows everyone in this world. Hades’ pages from the book hid that he has some sort of past with Zelena. I don’t think he knocked her up or anything (yes Robin still has a baby girl somewhere in Storybrooke) but it seems Hades likes Zelena a lot and probably wishes he were the baby daddy. But we’ll be popping off to Oz at some point in the near future.

iZombie 2.15: “He Blinded Me…With Science”

“What does it mean that I find your new look weird and creepy?”
“It means you spend too much time with the dead.”
- Ravi and Liv

This episode had a lot of interesting moving parts going on that helped to push the various plotlines a little bit further along. I have to say, I didn’t see the twist coming with the case of the week. A disgraced scientist was lit on fire and so Liv (and Blaine eventually) eat her brain. It takes Liv a while to get a vision. First, she and Clive visit a former drug trial participant who sued after getting horrible facial scarring but she claims she got plastic surgery and had no motive to want the scientist dead. She points to the other scientist involved in the trial who is reduced to working in a restaurant. Liv gets her first flash that the dead scientist worked for Vaughn at Max Rager. But the visit proves unhelpful.

So, Liv decides to go undercover as it were and she gets some good information. But unfortunately she gets caught by Vaughn and kind of threatens her with incineration for meddling in his work. But she’s not going to let it go. After another vision of a zombie in the basement of Max Rager and Clive doing some digging on his end, they discover that the drug trial participant has a twin sister and the sister is the one who killed the scientist. I honestly didn’t see the twin angle coming. But it kind of made sense I suppose.

One of the more interesting aspects of being on scientist brains is that bot Liv and Blaine get to help Ravi with the latest batch of the cure. He thinks the information they’ve imparted may be useful but he can’t be sure. He’s tested the latest version on a rat and it has returned to normal but he doesn’t know how long it will last. Still, he gives Blaine a sample of it, warning it could return him to normal or it could kill him. This leads to some interesting emotions with him and his guys. For one thing, he wants to get out of the Utopium trade for now. He wants to make it look like he’s still dead. He also gives his guys the information for all of his accounts in case the cure kills him. It seems like he’s going to need to take that cure soon because he keeps coughing up blood. Definitely not a good sign for him (or Major really). I don’t want Blaine to die!

Speaking of Major, he gets a new list of zombies from Vaughn (who is really hyped up on Super Max) and then has a really awkward interaction with him and Rita/Gilda. Major is pissed that Vaughn put Rita in Liv’s orbit when he was under the impression if he did as he was told, she would be left out of it. And then Major drops the truth bomb that Rita had seduced him. Vaughn is not happy to find out Major has been getting horizontal with his daughter. This part kind of confused me a little bit since he doesn’t seem to really care all that much about his child (as is evidenced later in the episode). But he gets really violent and starts throwing things when he sees Rita’s black eye (and damn that thing looked nasty!). Major quickly gets out of there but it isn’t really a good situation for father and daughter. And as I mentioned, things get even icier later when Vaughn pontificates in the basement about how everyone will be on Super Max and it won’t matter if people get violent. And then their test zombie gets loose and Vaughn hightails it to the elevator, leaving the scientist and Rita to face the zombie alone. Rita escapes but she’s definitely covered in gore. I highly suspect she’ll be joining the ranks of the undead shortly. Vaughn just sits there and stares blankly at her through his locked office door. The guy is nuts!

The final little plot thread happening this week had to do with Liv being suspicious of Drake and his whereabouts. So she jacks his phone and cyber stalks him. She sees him go to his mom’s place and then she follows him to Boss’s office. She kind of freaks out about that. I suspect she isn’t really worried about the Chaos Killer going after her man but Blaine wants Major to get rid of Drake for not giving him a heads up that Boss was gunning for Blaine. Speaking of Chaos Killer tidbits, Clive’s FBI girlfriend found more human brains in Blaine’s dad’s Canadian cabin and then when she calls to confirm with her lab guy that cow brains are smaller than humans they find out that the other brains they tested were also human and someone doctored the report. Oh boy, that one is going to come back and bite Liv in the butt.

Liv goes to confront Drake about his criminal dealings (again we know he’s a cop undercover and everything) but he’s not going to show up. First he gets stuck on a really long call with his needy mother and then Major drugs him and drives off just as Liv pays the check and heads home, upset that Drake stood her up. I am very interested to see where several of these plot threads go over the course of the last four episodes of the season. Liv needs to find out soon about Major’s side job and that he’s got Drake. I can’t imagine that’s going to be a very good conversation on either front really. I also have a feeling that Clive is going to join the zombie club by the end of the season. I mean it can only go on for so long. The man needs to be out of the dark soon or else he just seems kind of stupid. Everyone else in Liv’s life (who seems to matter…aka not her family) knows the truth so why not Clive, too. I’m sure he’d get over the shock and still work with Liv after that.

Blindspot 1.14: “Rules in Defiance”

“They were right. Why should they trust me? Why should I trust myself? I could have been anyone before this. I don’t think I can do this anymore. I want to stop. I want to leave the FBI.”
- Jane

This was one hell of an emotional episode for pretty much the whole team. Jane spends most of it on the outs, feeling like she can’t trust herself or the team. She calls in sick but then provides a key piece of information (a suggestion really) that helps break the case wide open. By the end she’s made some decisions about what she plans to do moving forward and Oscar isn’t very pleased. She wants out of Orion and whatever their bigger plan is and she wants to just be FBI. But there are other people within their organization who won’t play nice with Jane and that includes threatening to kill Weller if Jane doesn’t cooperate. That’s not going to sit well with our heroine that’s for sure. And I realize the quote of the episode doesn’t really reflect Jane’s ultimate choice but I thought it was important to share just how many doubts she’s having about her relationship with these people (both the FBI and whoever is running with Orion).

The case of the week comes to the gang a little circuitously. Patterson notices two tattoos on different parts of Jane’s body that end up corresponding to points in the city. After doing some math (provided to them by an anonymous email) they get one point (in a triangle) that likely works. Patterson kind of gets dumped on for using the email (although she does swear she got IT involved immediately). I feel bad for her. She’s just so eager to solve these cases and help people. Lighten up! Things start to go pear-shaped when the team minus Jane gets to the location and starts banging on doors. They interrupt a police sting (oops) but they do find the clue they were meant to find: a mural of a young woman who disappeared seven years ago.

Things quickly turn extra crazy when the gang figures out that two ICE agents have been smuggling women and trafficking them near the Mexican border. The young woman they are initially led to was murdered and her boyfriend is facing a lethal injection the next day for it. But he claims he’s innocent (although he changes his tune when his family is threatened). Patterson works out the way the girls are being tagged and Zapata offers to go undercover to find out where the girls are being taken. If they can find the people who are really running the show, they can get the original victim’s boyfriend off death row and overturn his conviction.

Of course, it doesn’t go smoothly at all. Part of me wants to blame Reade and Weller bickering over Reade dating Weller’s sister but really I guess it wasn’t their fault. The driver who was working with the ICE agent drugs Zapata and some other people drag her into a van out back and take off. The driver has kept the necklace Patterson gave with the tracker in it. Almost too late, the guys realize that she is no longer on the bus.

I must admit I was honestly worried for Zapata when she woke up and one of the other women filled her in. They aren’t being sold or trafficked elsewhere. The ringleader holds parties and forces the women to dress and hands them out to his “clients” to do whatever they want. The ringleader quickly realizes Zapata isn’t the woman they were supposed to get and so he decides to make a run for it and burn the place down with all the women inside. Luckily, thanks to Jane suggesting the women weren’t being moved elsewhere, the guys arrive in time to get into a fire fight while Zapata gets the women out of the house. But she gets stuck in the basement when all of her exits are blocked. But one of the escaped women alerts Weller and Reade and they manage to rescue her before the house blows up.

One of the people who was working the ring (who started out as a victim) testifies about what happened to the other girl (a client killed her and then the ring leader made the other woman dispose of the body). So the girl’s boyfriend is free and everyone is home safe. For the most part. Jane pays Zapata a visit afterwards and expresses her happiness that she’s all right. She also admits that she missed being with the team. In an interesting turn, Zapata says that if it hadn’t been for Jane’s tattoos the women who were being held would have died because no one was looking for them. I thought that was really powerful. And at least someone is accepting of Jane. Weller’s off dealing with her rejection by sleeping with his ex-girlfriend a lot. Not that she seems to mind that much. And Reade and Mayfair are still digging into Carter’s disappearance. Reade gets a hit on some traffic camera footage (and spots Oscar) but I think Oscar takes him out before he can relay the message to Mayfair. And by taking out I mean just knocking unconscious (I hope). It also appears that Zapata has other things to worry about now, too. An Assistant US Attorney bugged her place due to her gambling issues but they don’t care about that. They want whatever she can get on the whole Carter-Jane-Mayfair drama going on. She wants to say no but the attorney threatens that she can’t afford a good lawyer so she’d end up in jail for quite some time. I really do feel bad for her. She just keeps going from one bad bullying situation to another. She’s trying to her life back on track and everyone just keeps making it harder than it has to be! She doesn’t deserve that.

Fresh off the Boat 2.15: "Keep 'Em Separated"

“Alright, we were debating who’d win in a fight. A Cabbage Patch Kid possessed by a demon, or Teddy Ruxpin with a Metallica tape in him.”
-Louis

“Keep ‘Em Separated” was interesting because it didn’t rely on the novelty (in the television landscape) of the Huangs being an Asian family. Many times on “Fresh off the Boat,” the story is driven by how the Huangs look at or handle a situation in a different way because they are of Asian descent. I could see anyone of any heritage responding to the situations presented in this episode in the ways that the Huangs did, however. Jessica wants to get a clingy Louis out of her hair, but she gets jealous when his distraction is a female pool partner. Eddie makes a huge mess of finding out that his former crush Nicole is single and that his current girlfriend used to have a crush on his best friend. It’s just relationship drama in general, and it was interesting to see the Huangs work through it.

At the beginning of the episode, Louis is being extra clingy. He has turned over the responsibility for closing the restaurant to Mitch, so he has a lot more free time than he used to. When the Huangs lived in DC, Louis had a friend he would play pool with in his free time, but he doesn’t have a similar close friend in Orlando. Jessica and Honey are trying to have book club, and Louis keeps interrupting. First, he interrupts at his own house, then at Honey’s house, then at the Denim Turtle (the Lesbian bar Jessica frequents), and finally at Cattleman’s Ranch. They figured that since Louis was leaving work early, he wouldn’t come back to work to find them, but alas, he did.

Meanwhile, it’s lunchtime at Eddie’s school, and he’s showing all his friends, including Alison, a Redbook he swiped from his mom because it has a photo of Whitney Houston on the cover. Alison is cool with Eddie’s love of Whitney. After she leaves, another kid delivers the news that Hot Chris broke up with Nicole. Nicole stops by their lunch table not long after the announcement. Eddie is pretty cool while talking to Nicole, but his friend Trevor is decidedly not. Eddie asks Nicole if she’d like to hang out and get ice cream some time, and she agrees. Later, when playing video games together, Eddie’s best friend Dave asks Eddie if Alison is okay with Eddie and Nicole getting ice cream. Eddie says she doesn’t know about the ice cream plans yet, but she’ll probably be okay with it because she was cool with the Whitney Houston magazine and she also doesn’t know that he used to have a crush on Nicole. Dave is understandably concerned that Alison doesn’t know about Eddie’s history with Nicole.

Jessica wants to encourage Louis to find his own friends like he had back in DC, so she pushes him into getting back to playing pool. She has his pool cue retipped, and she gives him a list of several local pool halls he can try. Louis goes to a pool hall called Cue Tips, and while things are a bit dicey at first (the clientele is mostly biker types), he eventually wins them over. He stops by the house to drop off the dozen eggs Jessica asked for, and he tells her that he and his new friend “Tony” cleaned up at Cue Tips and are going to another pool hall for more fun. Only “Tony” is actually Toni, as in a woman. Jessica is very upset about this and vents to Honey about it. Then they go to the pool hall to meet Toni in person. Black Velvet is playing as they walk into the pool hall, so of course Toni looks extra hot. Jessica and Honey talk to her, and Toni is pretty clear that she just likes to play pool and isn’t making a move on Louis. Jessica is still really bothered by the situation, though, so she lies and tells Louis that Mitch locked himself in the restaurant while trying to close.

At school, Eddie and his friends decide that Eddie’s best play for the Alison and Nicole situation is to keep them separate so they don’t talk to each other and find out things they shouldn’t know. This plan goes well all day until bus time. The boys are all in the bus congratulating themselves, when they see Alison and Nicole exchanging jewelry and generally being friendly to each other. Eddie talks to Alison on the phone about the Nicole situation, and surprisingly, Alison is cool with it. She already knew Eddie used to have a crush on Nicole. She thinks past crushes should be in the past, including the crush she used to have on Dave. The next day at school, Eddie starts being really mean to Dave and says hurtful things to him. Alison sees this, and she’s not happy about it. She’s really not happy when she finds out Eddie is going to ice cream with Nicole. She thinks it’s hypocritical that she’s supposed to be cool with Nicole but he’s not cool with Dave. And she’d be right about that.

One they’re at the restaurant, and it’s clear Mitch isn’t there, Jessica admits she lied because she isn’t comfortable with Louis hanging around Toni. She starts listing off very detailed rules that need to be followed if Louis is going to have a female friend, and she says he needs to find a new pool partner. Next thing we know, Jessica is all decked out in black, trying her best to look sexy as she struts into the pool hall. The illusion is shattered, however, when she has to dig her ID out of her very large purse. Jessica keeps breaking all the pool etiquette rules, which frustrates Louis to no end. She takes other people’s quarters for the juke box, and she has the juke box play Amy Grant on repeat. She also doesn’t understand how to play the game. At one point, she declares pool boring, and she wants to know what Louis and Toni would talk about during all that time spent waiting. His answer can be found in the Quote of the Episode above.

By the end of the episode, the friendships that were tested are all repaired, although it seems like not all the romantic relationships are. Jessica and Louis are fine, of course. Louis reminds her that she and Honey talk about silly things much like he does with Toni. Jessica says she doesn’t want to be the person to stop him from doing that. Louis and Toni can be pool partners again, although some of the ladies from the Denim Turtle keep watch to make sure there’s no funny business. Eddie ends up going to the ice cream truck and buying ice cream for himself and Dave. Neither Nicole nor Alison are around. Eddie apologizes to Dave, explains what happened, and they come to an understanding. Even if Eddie has messed things up with the women in his life, at least he has his best friend back.

Once Upon a Time 5.14: "Devil's Due"

“It’s quite simple. Can you stand helping me if it means helping him?”
- Rumpelstiltskin

I have to admit I laughed a lot during this episode and boy did it feel good. As I’m sure I’ve expressed previously, I was a little hesitant with this arc given the focus on saving Hook but it is turning into a much more dynamic arc with filling in gaps for characters and providing some meaningful moments between people you wouldn’t expect. This week’s flashback focused on Rumple and Milah before she left to sail the world with Hook. While they bicker if Rumple being useless, Bae gets bitten by a poisonous snake and the magic healer they go to wants 100 gold coins to give them the antidote. Being dirt poor, Milah orders her husband to go back and steal the potion, telling Rumple he needs to be brave. He doesn’t steal it. The haler gives it to him with a price of a deal: the healer gets his second born child. When Milah finds out, she’s really pissed and heads off to the tavern where she meets with a dashing pirate. And we know the rest. Oh, but Rumple also goes back to kill the healer when he is the Dark One, assuming that will void the contract.

As the Charmings clean up the mess in the apartment (thank you three-headed hell dog), Rumple heads to the shop (which Pan has left to him along with some pipes which I laughed a lot), using some magic to we think see Belle again. But things aren’t quite what they seem. Whatever the image of seeing Belle means, it prompts him to offer the others his assistance. He convinces Emma that he can use the aura of a dead person to get them through Hades’ barrier and that dead person just happens to be his ex-wife. And Hook’s ex-girlfriend. And Neal’s mom. She’s working as a crossing guard which Rumple takes great pleasure in point out the irony of, but she agrees to help when he brings up Hook’s predicament. Speaking of, having declined Hades’ order to choose three people to stay, Hades hangs Hook above the river of lost souls and steadily lowers him towards its murky depths.

So the meeting between Emma and Milah is pretty awkward (just as I’d hoped) and I laughed heartily at that, too. The looks they both give Rumple and each other are priceless. But Milah gets them through the barrier and after Emma drops the truth bomb about Neal being in heaven (or wherever happy-land is); Milah agrees to go with them to finish rescuing Hook. Rumple finds a boat that gets them across the river but Milah insists on staying with the boat (when Rumple says he’s staying in the boat, too). So, while Emma goes and manages to get Hook before he falls into the water, Rumple and Milah get to have a kind of sweet moment. Milah’s unfinished business is Bae (obviously). She’s hoping that by doing something generous and helping rescue Hook, that maybe she’ll get to move on and be able to apologize to their son. Rumple insists that their boy will forgive her, having done so for him (and Rumple did far worse arguably). This gives Milah some hope. But that hope will soon be dashed when Hades interrupts the plan. He offers Rumple a deal: get rid of the boat and he’ll get to go home. His friends have to stay put. Rumple destroys the boat and then sends Milah into the river of lost souls, claiming it was Hades’ doing and injuring his hand to make it look real when Hook and Emma come along.

Elsewhere in Underbrooke (as Regina coins it), she pays a visit to Cruella who is now the Mayor. She wants to know how the graveyard works. There are three settings on the head stones: upright means they’re still in town, tipped means they’ve moved on to happy-land and cracked means they’ve gone to the worse place. Regina and Snow go to find Daniel’s grave and are relieved to find him not in town. Regina is a little sad she couldn’t have seen him but she is thrilled he’s moved on. Things look pretty upbeat as everyone gathers together and Regina gets her magic back (by healing a wounded horse). But there’s a problem. She can’t take Emma’s heart to split it. They quickly learn that Hades chose three people to stay when Hook wouldn’t and he’s chosen to the women (and mothers) of the group. That choice kind of annoyed me a little bit. Why all the women? Why take them away from their children?

But that’s not all that’s upsetting for mothers. When Rumple goes back to Hades to get his lift home, we learn that he wasn’t checking in on Belle earlier, he was trying to find Neal (well, specifically his child). He found his child, just not the one he was looking for. Clearly Belle doesn’t know she’s with child yet but I suspect she will. I also am not surprised they wrote Emilie de Ravin’s pregnancy into the show. And Hades gleefully points out that death didn’t void the contract and the contract has been signed over by the healer to Hades. So now Rumple is his bitch for as long as he says and he can cash in on said Rumbelle bun in the oven whenever he wants (although presumably after the wee one is actually born and not just a collection of dividing cells). So it would seem that everyone is kind of in a tough spot right now. Their transport home was destroyed, half the team can’t get out of Hell and Rumple’s unborn child is going to be property of a guy who thinks blue flames are a fashion statement. I can’t wait to see how they worm their way out of this predicament. At the very least I suspect Hook will get the chance to get cleaned up and maybe Regina can heal some of the facial damage from Hades’ beatings.