Fresh off the Boat 4.03: "Kids"

“Did it sound dumb? I’ve only had half a beer, but the voice in my head that criticizes me constantly has gone quiet.”
-Jessica

“Kids” was an episode of “Fresh off the Boat where I could especially sympathize with the Huangs, even if they did take things too far. As a single woman now, as of earlier this month, officially in my mid-30’s, I understand how kids change friendships. I’m not recently out of “kid jail” as the Huangs put it – I’ve never been sentenced in the first place. But plenty of my friends have been, or they’ve made other big life changes that have fundamentally changed their relationships with me. I don’t begrudge them that by any means – the kids of my friends are all awesome, and I want the people I care about to be happy in general. The change, however, is real. I can only imagine that how the Huangs feel, having just gotten to the point where they feel like their lives don’t have to be completely ruled by their kids anymore, when they learn that their best friends are now seriously considering kids. It’s got to be more intense, since they’ve been sequestered for so long and just now feel like they can regain some of their own identities again.

The episode opens with Louis and Jessica hearing a bunch of sodas being opened out in the kitchen. We learn that before he dated Alison, Eddie would make “Soda Suicides” that combined four types of soda and a red Jolly Rancher. He’d then stumble into the living room and spill the sugar bomb all over the couch. Now he’s back to making the diabetes in a cup, so Louis and Jessica want to make sure he doesn’t spill as usual. They enter the living room to find Eddie sitting calmly on the couch, the soda sitting on a coaster on the coffee table. Eddie says it finally occurred to him to put the soda on the table before sitting down. Louis and Jessica are thrilled, considering this a sign that finally all three of their kids are self-sufficient enough where they don’t need constant supervision. They’re finally out of “kid jail.” They realize they can go out for “dinner, and…” instead of just dinner, because they no longer have to rush home to Eddie. Jessica wants to invite Honey and Marvin to dinner and Karaoke right away. She even splurges for a private room and the four microphone package.

Meanwhile, Eddie gets home from school to see Alison of all people hanging out with Evan playing a game. Evan says that he and Alison became friends over the years when she was waiting around for Eddie, because Eddie is always late. Apparently they bonded over, among other things, POGs and Tamagotchis. Alison is a 90s tween/teen after my own heart. I think my POGs and my Tamagotchi are somewhere in my parents’ house to this day. Anyway, when Evan goes to the kitchen to get some dino nuggets, Eddie and Alison have a serious talk. Eddie doesn’t want Alison and Evan to be friends anymore, because it will be too hard to move on from her if she’s always around. Alison agrees that this situation is less than ideal, and she’s mostly been sticking around because she cant bear to let Evan down. As a child of divorce herself, she wants to make sure Evan still feels loved. Eddie, for his part, didn’t realize that Alison’s parents were divorced. Or that her family is Jewish (he asks if she gets double Christmas presents).

Louis and Jessica sit down at Chez Dennis, super excited for their night out. Honey and Marvin are a little late because Marvin had to finish cleaning Joy Behar’s teeth. Marvin says they can’t stay out late, though, because he’s having a medical procedure done the next day. He’s getting his vasectomy reversed because Honey really wants to have a baby. You can almost hear the record scratch at that moment. Jessica, who is, as you’ll recall, very happy to finally be sprung from Kid Jail, asks Honey if she’s sure she wants a kid at this point. Jessica emphasizes how great it is to finally not have to constantly mind children. Honey seems to think pinching baby legs and buying baby hats will outweigh all the negatives. Honey and Marvin leave early to prep for Marvin’s procedure, and Jessica and Louis end up going to karaoke by themselves. They find it’s just not the same without Honey and Marvin there to share in the fun. They just can’t do Paula Abdul justice.

Everyone’s been avoiding Emery because it’s his bad luck year and nobody wants the bad juju. Nobody but Grandma, that is. She is wise enough to use the bad juju for her own gain. First she has Emery “rearrange” breakable ceramics she doesn’t like that she had just been holding on to because they were gifts. He drops them and they shatter, of course. Then she takes him to mah-jongg at senior center, where she thinks Emery’s bad luck powers can take down her arch rival, Cheryl. Emery stands behind Cheryl, and Grandma does indeed win the mah-jongg match. Emery is a little upset at the idea of being used in this way at first, but he brightens when Grandma calls him her good luck charm. She has many enemies, and she needs Emery to help take them down. Because she is seriously the coolest and most badass grandma on television.

Eddie and Alison are supposed to be talking to Evan about how he and Alison can’t be friends anymore, but Eddie is late as per usual. Apparently he saw a red fox and decided to chase it. Anyway, Alison is about to tell Evan the news herself, but she looks at his “best friends” arrow necklace and just can’t do it. Instead, she tells him that she and Eddie are back together. When Eddie does eventually arrive, he’s surprised to hear this. Alison promises to tell Evan the truth, but the second time she tries, she says they’re going to go for a pony ride instead. This is supposed to be a whole play on the divorcing parents stereotype, with Alison and Eddie trying to keep up a happy front as Evan rides the pony. Evan doesn’t have a clue anything is wrong.

Afraid of losing their best friends, Louis and Jessica offer to drive Marvin to his procedure. They make a pit stop at the park on the way, though. Marvin remarks on how many homeless people there seem to be in the par, but then Jessica points out that they’re actually just all exhausted parents. She reminds Marvin, who has been through parenthood once already, how difficult raising a child is. He said that with Nicole, Nicole’s mom did most of the work, but he knows that won’t fly with Honey. Honey will expect him to actually parent. Louis and Jessica drop Marvin off at the outpatient clinic. When he thinks they aren’t looking, he walks past the door and on to a city bus. Louis and Jessica celebrate their victory. Jessica re-books her favorite karaoke room (complete with four microphone package) and everything.

Eddie, Alison, and Evan arrive home from their trip to the park, and Evan’s got a big chocolate ice cream cone. Alison tries to tell Evan the truth, but eventually Eddie has to do the job. He is sorry he tried to cut Alison out. They aren’t together anymore, but he doesn’t want to forget Alison, either. He wants Alison and Evan to stay friends, and he hopes to be Alison’s friend too. Evan’s very angry about the lies, though. So angry that he smears his chocolate ice cream into the nice white couch Jessica took out of storage once she thought the kids wouldn’t ruin it. She and Louis stare at the couch stain at the end of the episode, angry that they still can’t have nice things.

While Jessica is happily talking about rebooking karaoke, Honey storms over and says that Marvin no longer wants a baby. Jessica thinks that they should all try to have fun to forget about the argument. Honey and Marvin, however, turn karaoke into a karaoke fight. She sings “All that She Wants” (Ace of Bass is very mid-late 90s), and he sings “Respect.” Then they storm out of the karaoke room. Jessica and Louis do eventually regret not better supporting their friends, and they stop by Honey and Marvin’s house to apologize. This leads Marvin to say that he thinks Honey would be a great mom, but he’s not sure if he’s ready for his life to change again. Honey says she’s scared too, but she thinks they can make it work together. And so the Honey and Marvin baby train is back on course.

Halloween "Classic" Recap: Ghosted: "Bee-Mo"

“Duct-taping you to the seat was legitimately my pleasure.”
-Leroy

“Ghosted” is one of only two new shows (along with “The Mayor”) that I’ve been watching this season. I wouldn’t say it’s a spectacular show, but it’s got a fun premise (two guys get recruited to help investigate supernatural happenings), and I’ve been a big Adam Scott fan for quite some time, so I’ve found it enjoyable enough. I think some rearranging the episode order hijinks were going on, because this Halloween episode was the second episode of the show to be broadcast, and it aired in early October. Although, since the show airs on FOX, the World Series could also have played a role in the scheduling. As longtime (are there any of you out there?) readers of MTVP know, I’m a big fan of Halloween and Halloween episodes of television, so I certainly wasn’t going to complain about getting a Halloween episode super early in a show’s run. Plus, the episode did some good work deepening the character of Leroy, who is played by Craig Robinson, aka Doug Judy on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. And there were werewolves! Sort of. More like werecats, I guess.

One thing I do really enjoy about “Ghosted” is the 80’s vibe they try to have going on sometimes. The soundtrack to this episode opens on “Power of Love” from “Back to the Future.” One of my happiest memories is dancing to this song with two of my closest friends, one of whom has since moved out of state, by the dock in the town where I live on New Year’s Eve 2015 (aka the beginning of the “Future” from the movies), so the song holds a special meaning for me. Anyway, the song is playing as Leroy and Max are driving to work, with Max droning on about how great his week has been and how excited he is to be working at the Bureau Underground. Then he asks Leroy about his Halloween plans. Leroy is planning on taking Jermaine, the son of his late LAPD partner, Trick-or-Treating. Max manages to passive aggressively guilt Leroy into extending him an invite, too.

Meanwhile, the Bureau gets word of a creature with glowing eyes and fangs (the aforementioned werecat, although they don’t know that yet), and they need to put a team on it. Since it’s Halloween, there are all sorts of paranormal things happening, and they’re understaffed. Leroy and Max are the only team available for the assignment. Leroy isn’t happy about this considering his Trick-or-Treating plans, but he doesn’t really have a choice. The guys pick up Jermaine, who really just wants Leroy to drop him off at a party being thrown by a girl he likes. First, though, he has to tag along while Max and Leroy investigate their new assignment. They start hunting around a warehouse, and Leroy tells Jermaine to stay in the car. Of course Jermaine doesn’t stay in the car, and he tries to pick up a cat he sees hiding between some boxes. The cat bites him, so Jermaine gives up. Next thing we know, Jermaine has glowy eyes, and he kicks the door to the car open and runs off.

Max and Leroy start looking for Jermaine, and they realize that the cat back at the warehouse must have been what infected him. They call the situation in to HQ, where LeFray gives some directions on what to do next in the middle of putting out multiple other fires. Max and Leroy track Jermaine to the house where the Halloween party he wanted to go to is taking place, and LeFoy tells Annie and Barry to meet them there with a whole bunch of tranquilizing weapons. They’re going to bring everybody infected to HQ for testing and hopefully a cure. Jermaine is indeed at the house. He gave the girl he likes quite the scare when he started foaming at the mouth. When Max and Leroy check out the house, the girl is infected now, too, and she tries to attack Leroy. Leroy holds her back with a table while Max knocks her out with a vase (he understandably had some hesitation about knocking out a child). They go into the next room and find that all of the kids have been infected, and the hightail it out of that house as fast as they can.

Outside, Max and Leroy meet up with Annie and the weapons truck, and they gear up to go back inside. Max tells Annie that if he makes it through this, she owes him a really stiff Midori sour. Annie then makes fun of Max’s drink choices, which I think is totally justified. As they are about to enter the house, Leroy says that Jermaine used to call him “Bee-Mo,” which is short for “Beast Mode,” hence the title of this episode. The fight in the house actually goes mostly okay. Leroy manages to tranq a bunch of kids easily, of course. Max is less successful. Jermaine jumps Leroy, and Max wastes four darts unsuccessfully trying to stop Jermaine. Jermaine leaves the house, and Max has to stab the mom of the house with a dart while Leroy has to shoot Jermaine before he can infect some more Trick-or-Treating kids. Jermaine’s mom even called in the middle of the whole mess. Eventually, though, all the infected are successfully loaded into the van.

As Max and Leroy are driving back to HQ, Max starts to feel a little funny. He feels warm, and just not well in general. Leroy ends up duct taping him to the seat of the car in case he’s infected. It turns out, though that Leroy is the one infected, and when his eyes start glowing, it becomes the car ride from Hell. Leroy, who isn’t infected after all, tries to steer the car with his feet. Eventually, they do crash, although not at high speed. At that point, Annie shows up and tranqs Leroy. Back at HQ, everyone who was affected is recovering nicely, even Jermaine, although he’s taking a little longer to recover than the rest, considering he was infected first. On the car ride home, Jermaine and Leroy have a heart-to-heart while Max pretends to be listening to his ear buds. Leroy says he’s always going to try and protect Jermaine, because he promised Jermaine’s father that he would. Jermaine is grateful for Leroy, but he misses his dad. Then he calls Leroy “Bee-Mo” again. Max thinks this is adorable, and he tries to join in, but Leroy and Jermaine aren’t having it.

The Mayor 1.04: “City Hall-oween”

“Ma, I just wanted to give Fort Grey a fun Halloween like you gave me.”
- Courtney

It is Halloween in Fort Grey, folks, so get in the trick-or-treat spirit! Courtney and the boys seem to love Halloween. They had a great time as kids hanging out in the building and trick or treating. Although, they didn’t know it at the time that Dina worked her butt off to make that happen. When Courtney is out trying to hand out some candy and he runs into his little buddy Elijah (the kid he found hanging in the commons before they cleaned it up), Courtney is hurt o hear that it isn’t safe for the kids to go out on Halloween. He’s even more annoyed at the Chief of Police when she says basically don’t go out and that they are going to be increasing police presence to try and combat the crime rate.

In typical Courtney fashion, he comes up with a crazy (but lovable) idea on the spot. Instead of towing the party line, he says that he wants to give the town and the kids a fun, community-based party at the Town Hall. They’re going to deck the place out and invite everyone in for some fun. The Chief is not impressed with this and says as much in a follow-up meeting. Courtney isn’t concerned, though. He’s just excited to have some fun. Oh, and he and the boys are having a hell of a time pranking Valentina. She freaks out over their zombie masks and then when she gets her hand stuck to a draw with a live tarantula in it, she really freaks out. To be honest, I don’t blame her. I hate spiders. They freak me out so much! And she didn’t even know she was walking around with it on her back. That just gives me the creeps!

I have to admit, I really enjoyed some of the costumes. Courtney was dressed up as an iPhone with only one bar of reception which is kind of amusing in our digital age. And the other guys came as a hashtag and a fidget spinner. People were having the most fun with spinning the fidget device which was pretty fun. Dina came as Maxine Waters which is obviously a very timely costume. It was somewhat uncomfortable with Valentina trying to connect with the guys and just constantly putting her foot in her mouth. I did appreciate her comment that the government building wasn’t a place for childish pranks—it wasn’t the White House after all. This show is definitely not afraid to go there in our current climate. At least our cast of characters is more endearing than the terrible excuse for a leadership team we have running our country.

During the party, Dina and Valentina have a heart to heart where Val admits that she doesn’t want to have to parent the guys at work because she spent her childhood basically raising her three younger sisters. It’s nice to know a little bit of backstory on her for once. It makes her only marginally less irritating. Dina suggest Val just have fun with them and treat them like the siblings she never had. So, she goes all in on that and gets one of the other staffers to pretend to be a severed head to scare them. What scares Courtney is that the party didn’t have its intended goal: lowering crime. In fact, it went up. When Dina later finds him on the fire escape gorging on candy, she reminds him that things don’t change in a day and that the party certainly won’t change it. So, the next morning he decides he’s going to give the police everything they want to hopefully combat the crime rate rising. But then, a group of parents shows up and thanks Courtney for giving their kids the chance to safely have fun. They also make a point of saying that no politician in the city had ever cared what the parents and community though. So, Courtney calls a press conference to announce his new advisory council which will consist of parents, other community leaders and representatives from the police department to try and resolve all of the issues. I think it’s a good idea for sure and starts to bridge some of the gaps we see in a lot of government these days. The Chief of Police even seems impressed by this idea. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of her in the coming weeks.

In the closing scene as the credits roll, Courtney decides to donate their leftover candy to the troops. While donating things to the troops is an admirable notion, sending them candy is probably a really stupid idea. I mean, it will take a while to get there and clearing Customs has to be a pain. Plus, it’s just kind of sad. It is kind of funny when T.K. admits he’s got a horde of candy stashed but it’s in a floor safe that requires two other keys to open it. It was a pretty ridiculous way to end the episode but I do think the characters were a little better this week. They are still following the general formula of Courtney having an issue, trying to solve it, failing, getting advice from Dina and then making a breakthrough. Formula can be a good thing given the right type of show but I feel like this is getting too predictable—even four episodes in. Honestly, I noticed it in episode 3 as well. I think the writers need to change things up a bit, or at the very least have Courtney begin to grow more as a mayor and implement some of the things he's learned over the last few episodes to better address upcoming issues. He doesn’t always need his mother to set his head straight. He’s an intelligent guy. He should be able to resolve things on his own.

The Mayor 1.03: "Buyer's Remorse"

“Lying. Dishonest media. Sad.”
-TK

The third episode of “The Mayor” wasn’t bad per se, but it was the first episode of the show to really make me question if I want to keep watching long-term. I like the characters and the tone, but it feels like the creative team is a bit out of their depth with a show about politics and government administration. As much as I loved that last week’s episode highlighted the importance of the government budget process/budget office (I’m a budgeteer in my day job myself), this episode missed the mark for me. I also didn’t love the resolution to Courtney’s dilemma of the week. Yes, I’d love to see a bit of a return to (outward, at least) civility in our politics, but politics has always been a bit dirty. I have personally had multiple lessons in that. There are obviously exceptions, but to be a politician, you’ve got to have the ego to think you should be representing your neighbors in government. Courtney’s going to just get eaten alive if he keeps going the way he’s going. We need more compromise in our politics (bring back earmarks – then our politicians would actually have tangible things to bargain with!), but Courtney takes it too far to the point of killing his political career before it even starts.

Overall, I thought the episode relied way too much on Trump humor, and as I’ve said already, while he’s still in office, it’s too soon for me to find his utterly degrading to our country antics funny. There were three Trump references even before the opening titles. First, TK and Jermaine hang a “congratulations” banner in Courtney’s office because they want to stay in his inner circle and correctly believe he thrives on meaningless praise. Then Courtney, the guys, Val, and Dina watch a very distressing news report. Courtney has a 23% approval rating, and the people of Fort Grey have buyer’s remorse. For Trump references two and three, Council President Gunt speculates that voter fraud lead to Courtney’s election, and TK gives the Quote of the Episode above when the news report shows him saying something unflattering about Courtney. It was just way too much all at once, even though the parallels between the premise of this show and the current Liar in Chief are obvious.

Val encourages Courtney to try and get a small win for the people to get the momentum going in the right direction. Courtney is inspired by his press secretary, who was drenched while waiting for the bus and is trying to blot herself off with a tissue. Fort Grey has no covered bus benches, and Courtney thinks it’s time they get some. The idea sounds even better when Val says she thinks that somewhere between 61-64% of Fort Grey residents use public transit. She warns Courtney, however, that he can’t just make this happen on his own. He needs to get approval from the City Council. At Courtney’s direction, she sets up a meeting with Gunt. The meeting, as you’d guess is a disaster. Gunt makes it clear that because he thinks it’s a good idea, he’s going to block the bus shelter plan. In fact, he plans to block anything Courtney wants to do so that there will hopefully be a recall election by the end of the year. Val is conspicuously silent through all this, only managing some stammering at the end. It doesn’t make sense to me that she’d be so intimidated by a slimeball like Gunt, and it doesn’t make sense to Courntey, either. He’s pretty pissed about it, actually.

There’s a little side plot where Jermaine and TK are supposed to be hiring a receptionist, but they fail because they’re using it as an occasion to one-up each other. Then they move on to trying to buy Courtney gifts. Dina puts a stop to that pretty quickly, though, reminding Jermain and TK that the three boys have been friends for years, and they’re pretty much family now. Plus, Courtney’s not going anywhere as long as he still lives with his mama and rides a bike. Courtney asks their advice on whether they think Valentina has one foot out of the door (we’re talking about someone who can’t even take the protective film off of her cell phone), and they agree that of course she does. This gets problematic when Valentina actually has a good idea for making the bus shelters happen. She’s got some contacts at the transportation department who told her that they could sidestep the Council if they declare the bus shelters a safety issue.

After Courtney thinks about it, though, he doesn’t trust Val, so he passes up the meeting with the transportation director to instead try and make his case on a local political talk show called “The Grey Area” hosted by none other than Parks and Rec’s (and Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party’s) Jim O’Heir. Val thinks this is a bad idea, but Courtney thinks he can handle it. Of course Courtney gets eaten alive. The host starts right in on Courtney’s terrible approval rating. The worst part is when Gunt calls in and gets the transportation director on the line to say that bus shelters would cause a safety issue, not solve one. Courtney is so completely embarrassed by all of this that he basically runs off the show He runs home to his mama, who was watching the Bachelor, but can clearly tell something is wrong. She takes him out for a hamburger and doles out some of her famous advice. Courtney’s not built for conflict. He’s gotten things in life by compromising and collaborating with his adversaries.

Courtney takes this advice and surprises Val with a new plan. He marches straight into Gunt’s office, and he raises the window shades. Outside is a billboard with both their pictures on it and a picture of a new bus shelter. He’s very willing to publicly share credit for the bush shelters if that’s what it takes to get Gunt to approve. Gunt takes the bait, and the bus shelters are a go. In real life, though, it’s not so easy, and somebody like Courtney would indeed get eaten alive. That’s why I’m not an aspiring politician myself. It’s way less soul-crushing to wield power from behind the scenes! Anyway, Val seems to approve of Courtney’s move. After a long evening of answering constituent phone calls (his boys still haven’t managed to hire a receptionist), Courtney sees that Val has finally actually unpacked her new office. The public isn’t so impressed though. One particular lady is grateful for the bus shelter until she falls in a pothole. Then she just wants the pot hole fixed. Welcome to government! There’s always something new brewing.

This Is Us 2.05: “Brothers”

“It would be so easy for you to be nice to him but it takes you more energy and causes more trouble being mean to him like you are. So, why can’t you be nic3e to him?”
- Jack

Well, Kate’s happy news from the ned of last week’s episode is perhaps the only bright spot in this episode. And even that had a bit of a damper put on it by Kate and all of her fears. She’s now eight weeks along and she’s finally able to tell Toby the good news. He’s beyond excited and happy about the news but she begs him to temper his excitement and hope because there are a million ways it could go wrong for them given her weight and age. But, after she gets into an argument with one of the people at her weight loss therapy group and the gets into a fender bender with her, Kate shares the news of her pregnancy (she was momentarily terrified she’d done something in the accident to harm the embryo. This gives Kate the boost she needs to let Toby share the news with random strangers. Which he does in typical over-the-top Toby fashion.

While Kate and Toby are sort of sharing their happy news, things with Kevin and Randall are a little tougher: especially for Kevin. He’s in New York for a gala event where he’s being “auctioned off” for a date to raise money. He makes a somewhat stupid and insensitive comment to Randall about wanting to be auctioned off (sometimes Kevin doesn’t think). Anyway, Randall is going to gala and Deja expresses interest in attending. Randall thinks it is a good idea and a chance for him to connect with her. Beth is skeptical, especially since she thinks (and rightly so) that the girl is crushing hard on Kevin. But, Deja gets all dressed up and they go to the gala. While trying some shrimp cocktail (presumably for the first time), Randall makes a move to stop her from eating the tail and she flinches and runs off to the bathroom. Meanwhile, Kevin has run out of his pain meds and so now he’s medicating with alcohol, which Sophie notices and warns him to pace himself. He clearly doesn’t listen because he’s pretty hammered at the event and he even totally misses the auction. He’s off having a very angry conversation with his doctor about the fact they can’t refill his prescription because they already gave him one refill more than they should have. Kevin is just sliding down his father’s (and grandfather’s) destructive path and it’s kind of heartbreaking to watch. At least Deja manages to open up to Randall in the bathroom (Randall preparing to go in was pretty hilarious). I’m glad she was finally able to put into words why she feels so uncomfortable with people (men specifically) touching her. And it’s as sad as we expected. She suffered physical abuse at one of her last foster homes.

Back in the 1980s when the Big Three are around nine or ten, Jack decides to take the boys on a camping trip to try and strengthen their brotherly bond while Rebecca and Kate plan a fun girls’ weekend of manicures and movies. Rebecca and Kate’s movie-going is quickly put on hold by a call from the nursing home where Jack’s father resides. He’s dying and Rebec a decides to go since Jack isn’t around. She doesn’t have a lot of interaction with her father-in-law. He lies in bed not speaking for most of it. When she finally gets in touch with Jack at the campground (oh the difficulties of reaching people before the era of cell phones) he has no interest in saying any goodbyes to the man who tortured him as a child. In a rare young Jack flashback, we see him in the car with his father going on a fishing trip. His father decides he needs a beer (or several) and pulls into a tavern, leaving young Jack alone in the car. Jack is sure his dad will come back but until he does, he’ll have to content himself with looking after his younger brother Nick! The fact that Jack had a little brother (who if Jack’s late-night trip to the garage to look at Vietnam photos is any indication may be dead) makes his desire to get Randall and Kevin to get along all that more poignant. He knows what it’s like to have a brotherly relationship and he just wants that for his boys. I’m not sure he’s going to get it before he passes, though. Hell, even as adults they don’t get along that well. At the campsite, the boys are setting up the tent and Kevin purposely lets it collapse on Randall. Jack sends Kevin into the tent (once it’s put back up properly) as punishment. And when Jack goes to try and talk to Kevin about why he’s so mean to his brother, Kevin doesn’t want to talk about it. In fact, we know he’s really good at hiding and not dealing with his feelings. But later, while Randall and Jack are cooking hot dogs over the camp fire, Kevin finds Randall’s notebook where Randall has noted all sorts of things that Kevin likes in an attempt to get his brother to like him. While it may not be a permanent fix for their brotherly bond, it’s enough to get them toasting marshmallows together with Jack.

While I wasn’t moved to tears entirely this week (which is a rarity with this show) I did like that we got see some new facets of Jack’s character and pieces of his past that make him the man he is today. I’m kind of anxious to see him back in the 1990s dealing with his alcohol recovery. He’s already told Rebecca about taking money his father. I wonder if she knows about his brother. I can imagine Jack deciding that his brother (and that possible loss) weren’t worth mentioning to Rebecca because they were part of the past he was trying to forget.

Lucifer 3.04: “What Would Lucifer Do?”

“I’m what I’ve always been: a punisher and for reminding me of that, I salute you.”
- Lucifer

Lucifer seems to be living up to his promise to get back in the favor game. He even manages to sort of save a judge’s marriage by sleeping with the new wife so the judge can reconnect with his ex. Very weird but Lucifer seems to be enjoying himself. He even is mildly interested when Amenediel says he believes that God’s task for him relates to Lucifer. Our angel isn’t sure exactly what dad had in mind but Lucifer suggests he walk a mile in his shoes and grants big brother access to his social media and closet. This is going to be interesting. He certainly rocks the duds but his attempts to “be” Lucifer falls painfully flat the first two times at Lux. But hey, he manages to get a pretty lady to ask him to buy her a drink in the end!

While Amenediel is doing a little soul searching, Chloe is miffed at Pierce for turning her down as a union rep (I’m not quite sure that’s how it works but whatever) and they land a new case: a counselor at a reform program for juvenile drug offenders was murdered. Lucifer is skeptical (of course he is) but it seems he may be right that one of the kids is to blame for the crime when a tool belt with a missing knife is found in the counselor’s office. Only the residents get those types of toolbelts. The search for the missing tool leads our team to a resident named Tyson who has gone missing. Dan does a little digging and finds camera footage of the kid in downtown LA but since his juvenile record is sealed, they have no idea what his crimes are. Oh, and Pierce is being a total dick to Chloe by saying he thought they’d be farther along in the case by now. Ella insists he’s got the hots for our lady detective but Chloe isn’t buying it.

Lucifer uses his favor with the judge to find out Tyson’s crimes and finds him boosting a high-end muscle car (which in the past he’d used to buy drugs) and Lucifer decides to scare the literal crap out of the kid by driving real fast toward a ledge and dangling the kid from the open passenger side until Tyson says he’ll tell Lucifer everything. According to young Tyson, the victim was planning to expel a resident and she wouldn’t leave with him (Tyson was in love poor sod). Peirce is still annoyed with Chloe’s lack of progress and a lack of consensus about the crime and he event ells Lucifer that our devil is being a “good” influence. That rankles Lucifer to no end and he ends up paying the reform program a visit and chatting up all the kids. It’s kind of an odd situation as he is discussing with them about drug distribution tactics (he’s desperately trying to prove he isn’t a good influence at all) when one of the residents clues him in to a giant pot field. Someone’s been busy!

Lucifer has the kids cultivating the cache until Chloe shows up and arrests the girl who had been growing the pot. She at first says she’s not going to talk and then decides to cough up that she saw Tyson burying something by a sundial on the property the night of the murder. And while Lucifer, Chloe and Ella are digging up the murder weapon—and Chloe is lamenting how Pierce hates her—Dan is bailing Amenediel out of jail for paying a prostitute. The poor guy had no idea what he was getting himself into and Dan is totally amused. Gotta love when Amenediel is uncomfortable in social situations. It’s almost endearing. And later, at Lux, he and Dan get to bond a little as Amenediel explains what he’s been doing. Dan recounts what basically amounts to Lucifer’s life and Amenediel realizes what a lonely existence his brother lives, even if Lucifer doesn’t see it that way.

Even though the evidence is mounting against Tyson, Chloe isn’t ready to call the case solved. The other resident’s alibi was that she was Skyping with her boyfriend. But as previously explained by the head of the program, kids had to earn such privileges and if she was on the verge being booted, she wouldn’t have had computer time. So, Chloe is going to head back to the program to chat with the head of it and Pierce is tagging along. She kind of lays into him about all the crap he’s been giving her but he explains that she’s one of his best detectives and he wanted to see her work. Unfortunately for him, the program head has a shot gun and Pierce takes one to the abdomen. Ouch!

Lucifer ends up tracking the guy down and beating him half to death before Amenediel shows up and sort of talks some sense into his brother. And with the case solved, Chloe goes to visit Pierce in the hospital and she is way more emotional than I expected and it makes me worried they are going to throw another love triangle at us! Oh, and Dan go the union rep gig which Pierce told Chloe is for “has beens” which annoys me. Dan is a good guy who did one bad thing. He shouldn’t still be punished for it. And Back at the penthouse, Amenediel shares with Lucifer what he thinks his task now is: to be there for Lucifer when he needs him. Lucifer isn’t convinced and recounts a story about a soul he tortured for centuries and one day when he didn’t, he realized that whatever meager attention he paid the soul made the guy feel like he mattered and that is exactly how Lucifer sees Amenediel. Lucifer rips into his brother but Amenediel won’t take the bait. He’ll take his brother’s harsh words but he will still be there when Lucifer needs him most.

Going Boldly: When The Orville is more Trek Than Star Trek

If you’ve been paying attention to sci-fi tv shows of late, you are probably aware that Star Trek: Discovery (the latest tv-verse Trek show in quite some time) has finally made it to air. After a lot of behind the scenes drama (creator Bryan Fuller jumping ship primary among them) it is finally here and it just so happens that this season also saw the release of Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville. While there is some debate of whether it was supposed to be a straight comedy or a Trek parody, it definitely has tones of Trek in its DNA. And therein lies the problem. Because The Orville, to me, feels like it belongs in the Star Trek universe more than Star Trek: Discovery.

Let’s start with the cast of characters first. Within the first episode of The Orville, we’ve met the core crew of the ship and by episode 2 we’ve learned enough about each of them to relate to them in some way. Yes, the constant reminders of Captain Mercer and Lt. Greyson’s failed marriage due to her infidelity was a bit grating at first, but it gave us real insight into these characters and what we could expect moving forward. Sure, there are some things that seem kind of gimmicky (every time Ed can’t open a door, he asks his super strong crewmember, Alara, to “open this jar of pickles”) but we really get to see how these people interact with one another. I really enjoyed the episode where we got to see the Machlin culture and their perceptions on gender and gender identity.

In contrast, the first two episodes of Discovery only introduce us to two of the characters with whom we’d be going on this journey: Lt. Michael Burnham and Commander Saru. Everyone else (for the most part) is dead by episode 2’s end. We don’t actually meet the crew we are supposed to be spending the season with until episode 3 and even then, we barely know anything about them. I suppose we know the most about Burnham’s new roommate by the sheer fact she won’t shut up about her issues. The ship and the rest of its crew is shrouded in mystery and by that point in any show, if you aren’t connecting with at least one character, it’s not worth sticking around. I’ll be honest, I made it through episode 4 but by at that point, I still didn’t care about any of the characters and have since given up. Even the Klingons, which should feel familiar given their long history in the Trek universe, feel distant. I’m happily awaiting the next new episode of The Orville (episode 7) later this week. I want to spend time with Ed, Kelly and the rest of their motley crew.

In terms of visual effects, I will give it to Discovery that it looks super slick and shiny with lots of cinematic effects. Honestly, it feels like it belongs in the film franchise universe, rather than the TV verse. That’s not to say that The Orville’s visual effects are terrible. They are quite good for a TV budget and we’ve come a long way in special effects for science fiction than when Trek first began. But, Discovery does have that slight edge here in presenting a prettier picture, if you will. A lot of the camera angles are used artfully as well on Discovery to convey the personal view, especially from Burnham’s perspective in the first episode. I also have to ding The Orville just a bit for their overdramatic musical cues. They’ve been toned down a little (or maybe I’ve gotten used to them) but the first few episodes, the music was way overdone and too loud.

But even pretty pictures aren’t enough to overcome the lackluster characters and the plot that feels the most un-Trek ever. By the end of episode 2, we are thrust into a brutal, bitter war between the Federation and the Klingons. It’s literally all about this war and its casualties and costs. I can’t remember a time when Star Trek dealt so heavily with such a plotline. It was always with an eye toward exploration and interaction of new cultures. It was a positive outlook on what life could be like centuries from now. Even Deep Space Nine, which arguably was the closest to Discovery in terms of dire battle cries had time for light-hearted episodes and wasn’t quite so dark and dismal. With the Orville, they don’t take themselves too seriously although they always manage to address topics that are kind of weighty with an interesting twist. The aforementioned Machlin plotline was very interesting to see how it resolved, even if it wasn’t what we the viewer (and many on the ship) expected. The Orville is very much an homage to the fun, meeting new people, vibe of the old Trek. And I feel like given our world these days, that’s the kind of show I want to watch.

I can’t even say that I would want to watch Discovery as a movie. At first, I wasn’t sure I cared about the massive change in the Klingon appearance (without any sort of explanation like what we got in later Trek years after The Original Series). But the more time we spent with them (in their dimly lit ships) I got annoyed. It didn’t help that for authenticity sake the Klingons primarily spoke in Klingon with English subtitles in a font that’s really hard to read. Ultimately, I was more than happy to give up watching Discovery to spend more time with Captain Mercer and his merry band of misfits traveling through the stars and just trying to have a good time along the way. It reminds me of The Next Generation and Voyager (my two favorites of the original run of shows) and that just makes me even more excited to check in with the USS Orville every week for a new adventure.