New Girl 3.03: "Double Date"

“I made up a dance so everyone will be happy!”
-Nick

I’m getting to the point where I think I can almost officially say that “New Girl” is going down the road that almost all sitcoms go down after they’ve been on the air for a couple of years. Into the land of farce and cartoonish-ness. Much like when HIMYM started to go down this route, this makes me sad. I loved “New Girl” in its early days because it was a slightly heightened, twee version of my life as it was at the time. Now I feel like it is starting to drift away from that. Sure, the characters have to grow up and change (as am I), but like I said, I feel like the changes are making the show more shallow. Mostly, I have a problem with the directions that both Schmidt and Winston are taking, and since this is such an ensemble show, two of the characters being off brings the whole thing down. That being said, this episode still had its good moments. Schmidt did have a well-played emotional catharsis near the end of the episode, even if it was erased by fake evil-ness by the end of the episode.

This is the episode where Schmidt’s attempt to date both Cece and Elizabeth comes to a head. On the one hand, I’m glad that farce is finally over. On the other hand, I’m concerned that the fall out might be worse than the farce itself was. The set-up for this crisis is that Nick and Jess want to go on a double date with Schmidt and Cece. They just don’t know that Schmidt is still dating Elizabeth, too. Schmidt already has plans to watch television and eat pie with Elizabeth, but he tries to quick change those plans when the idea for the double date comes up. Winston wants to come along too, which the group allows, but they draw the line at letting him bring Furguson along. As they should. Winston thinks they should go to this hot restaurant called Pica, and he promises to get them a table, even though same-day reservations are supposed to be impossible to come by.

Cece takes Nick aside and tells him she’s worried that Schmidt might be doing drugs. He’s just been overly-enthusiastic and energetic about everything lately. Nick assures Cece that he doesn’t believe Schmidt is on drugs, but he’s reluctant to get involved in the situation beyond that. Jess, however, presses Nick to get more involved. She really, really wants Nick to talk to Schmidt about why he is acting so strange. Nick finally relents, and what he finds out is worse than what any of them probably thought. Nick has to promise he won’t be judgey in order for Schmidt to spill the beans, but when Schmidt reveals that he never broke up with Elizabeth, Nick is not happy about it. He tells Schmidt that he needs to fix this ASAP.

Nick tries to hide this from Jess to give Schmidt a chance to try and fix it on his own, but obviously this can’t be successful for long. Nick puts on a helmet so that Jess can’t see his face, and he distracts her for a little while with “no-kiss sex.” Jess still manages to figure out what’s going on, though, and she immediately rushes out into the living room to yell at Schmidt for cheating on Cece. She gives him an ultimatum. Either he needs to tell Cece the truth, or she will. Poor Nick doesn’t really know what to do with his circle of friends blowing up. He just starts dancing and acting goofy, hoping it will cheer everybody back up. Just as all this is going down, Cece arrives for the double date. Instead of telling Cece the truth right away, Schmidt just rushes her right back out, telling Nick and Jess that they should drive in a separate car.

Meanwhile, Winston has been going to now predictable lengths of crazy to secure a table for the crew at Pica. First, he tries to bribe the hostess with a I.O.U. for ten dollars. When that (obviously) doesn’t work, the hostess suggests that Winston try to find a seat at the “community table,” which is first-come, first-serve. Winston manages to strong-arm himself a place at the table, then he starts getting rid of the other diners by making them uncomfortable. He eats one woman’s meal right off her plate, which was just plain disgusting. Every time somebody leaves due to Winston’s antics, he puts something down on their chair to save the seat until everybody else gets to the restaurant. The staff at Pica are obviously not happy about this, and they come really close to kicking Winston out. I’m really surprised they didn’t kick him out as soon as he started his antics, really.

Anyway, in the car on the way to the restaurant, Cece continues to pressure Schmidt to tell her what is wrong. Eventually, he says that he has learned Nick is cheating on Jess. Cece is really pissed off about this, saying there’s no excuse for cheating, and the only acceptable response to a cheating man is a punch to the nuts. Obviously this doesn’t help Schmidt get up the courage to tell her the truth. When they arrive at Pica, Cece busts out of the car to go confront Nick, while Schmidt locks himself in the car in one last-ditch attempt to avoid the inevitable. Cece attacks Nick, punching him in the nuts right as she said she would. Schmidt, after a battle with the valet, finally enters the restaurant and admits to Cece that she’s the one who has been cheating. It’s the first real emotion from him that we’ve seen all season. He apologizes, citing the fact that he never really got over being the fat kid. Cece, however, doesn’t accept the apology.

Back at the loft, Elizabeth breaks up with Schmidt by throwing pie in his face. Cece had Elizabeth’s phone number and called her to let her know what was going on. After Elizabeth leaves, Schmidt gives a look that makes me think we just saw a supervillain’s origin story. And what a lame origin story it is. He’s going to go off the rails because he’s pissed that people found out he was cheating. You cheat, you pay the price, I say. Anyway, Schmidt is incredibly pissed off at Nick and Jess over all of this. Pie still on his face, he vows to do something to break them up when they least expect it. Nick and Jess then frantically start revealing facts about themselves to each other that they think might upset the other person. Schmidt has gotten in their heads, and this can’t possibly end well.

50th Anniversary Countdown: Doctor Who 7.08: "The Rings of Akhaten"

“There is one thing you need to know about traveling with me. The one thing apart from the blue box and the two hearts. We don’t walk away.”
-The Doctor

It has been so long since “Doctor Who” told a proper outer space adventure story. Not only was “The Rings of Akhaten” a proper outer space adventure story, it celebrated music in a way that hasn’t been seen since the Ood were featured in the Russell T. Davies era of the show, particularly in “Planet of the Ood” and “The End of Time.” Sure there was a bit of this episode that felt like the poor man’s “Planet of the Ood,” but it was nice to have an episode that tried to evoke that feeling at all. This episode also provides the most information that we’ve learned about Clara’s family to date. We see how her parents met, what the Oswald family was like when Clara was a child, and the aftermath of the death of Clara’s mother. Clara overall doesn’t feel like as fully formed a character as any of the Russell T. Davies era companions, but this episode helped with that a bit. Overall, it was a great first fun adventure for new companion Clara.

The Doctor returns to Clara’s house to make another pitch for her to travel with him. Clara agrees, and the Doctor, of course, wants to know where she’d like to go. Clara can’t decide, so she says she’d just like to go somewhere “awesome.” The Doctor chooses a space adventure instead of a historical adventure, which, as I made clear in the introduction, is just fine by me. I love a good Doctor Who proper space adventure. The episode that really got me hooked on the series was the second episode way back in series 1, “The End of the World.” It was a far-future space story that was just so inspired by Douglas Adams (former “Who” showrunner himself, primarily of “Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy” fame), that I couldn’t help but love it. The Doctor takes Clara to the Rings of Akhaten, and they stand on one of the small rocks that make up the rings. Clara is awed by the sight, so she and the Doctor decide to have some fun by going to a more populated area of the Rings.

The Doctor and Clara find themselves in a market area, much like the Doctor and Donna would often find themselves in on their adventures. It’s the “Festival of Offerings,” where the Rings align and the people who live there are expected to make offerings to pacify their God, called “Grandfather” or “The Old God.” While walking about being touristy, Clara encounters a little girl who is trying to run away from her minders. Clara befriends the girl and learns that her name is Merry, and she is the “Queen of Years.” The Queen of Years holds all of her culture’s history and music. Her job is to basically sing a big solo in the ceremony that will be performed to pacify The Old God. When Clara learns this, she tries to encourage Merry, telling her she’ll do a great job with the performance. Merry sings to a pyramid on a neighboring asteroid, and all seems well until the Old God appears to wake up. When that happens, a sort of tractor beam emanates from the pyramid and snatches Merry. Clara promptly feels really, really bad for encouraging her.

The Doctor’s been traveling to important points in Clara’s life, in an effort to try and figure out why he has met her (and watched her die) twice before, so this lets us viewers see some of those “greatest hits” throughout this episode. We learn that Clara’s parents met when a leaf fell on her father’s face, obscured his vision, and her mother pulled him out of the road to avoid an accident. Clara still has that leaf, and her father told her it was the most important leaf in all of human history. The Doctor saw that moment, and he also saw Clara and her father visiting Clara’s mother’s grave. We learn a little more of Clara’s history through Clara’s conversations with Merry. She tells Merry about a time when she got lost and talks about how she felt when her mother finally found her. There’s a sweet flashback scene that we see several times in the episode of Clara’s mother telling Clara that she will always find her. It’s actually bittersweet, considering we know that Clara’s mother died when Clara was still fairly young.

Anyway, Clara and the Doctor decide they have to help Merry, so they buy a space scooter and travel to the pyramid. There are some really creepy creatures there that look like a cross between mummies and the Silence. One of them is in a plexiglass box, so everybody figures he is the Old God. There’s plenty of action in this part of the episode, as the Doctor, Clara, Merry, and a monk are all trapped inside the pyramid with these creatures. The mummy in the box basically wants to feast on Merry’s soul. Apparently the amount of history of her people she possesses is quite tasty. The Doctor saves the day, of course, holding off the mummy and its guardians with the sonic screwdriver while Clara and Merry escape back to the planetoid’s surface.

The Doctor defeating the mummy isn’t the end of the problem though. That mummy was not The Old God. The planet around which they’re all orbiting is. Akhaten makes his presence known by shining light down on the planet and turning the gas on his surface into a really nasty looking grimace face. The Doctor decides he’s going to try to save the day again. Since Akhaten likes feasting on stories so much, he offers Akhaten all his 900+ years of memories. This plus Merry singing a lullaby helps calm him down a bit, but Akhaten is greedy and he still wants more. It’s Clara who ultimately saves the day. She offers up her leaf. What’s special about the leaf is the potential it contains – what Clara’s mother could have been if she hadn’t died at a relatively young age. This proves to be too much for Akhaten to feast on, and he implodes.

Once the danger has passed, the Doctor returns Clara to her home. She suddenly remembers him watching her when she was a tween at her mother’s grave, and she starts getting suspicious. The Doctor explains that he’s been investigating because she reminds him so much of someone he once knew. Clara then makes it very clear that she’s not going to be any mere “replacement” in the Doctor’s life, and the Doctor assures her that she’s not. As they part until their next adventure, the look on the Doctor’s face shows that he is still really troubled by Clara’s “Impossible” status.

Person of Interest 3.02: "Nothing to Hide"

“People who say they have nothing to hide usually always do.”
- Finch

I have to say I wasn’t overly thrilled with this episode. I really didn’t like the POI of the week and I think the fact that he was such a jerk just took me out of the episode. Our main focus this week is a guy named Wayne Kruger, the CEO of a company that mines personal data and sells it to people and companies. It’s kind of like the Machine but more nefarious. Reese and Finch enlist Shaw for some additional help on the case. For someone who doesn’t like being part of a team, she sure is around a lot. As much as I like her snarky quality, I could actually do with a little less of her.

Things are looking innocent enough as Shaw listens in on a business meeting that Kruger hopes will result in a big fat deal. Unfortunately, things start going sideways quickly. His credit cards are being declined and then at his anniversary party, someone’s hijacked his sweet anniversary video and mixed in stuff from a sex tape. Seriously why do people record themselves doing stupid stuff like that? Anyway, it ends the party prematurely and Reese and company have to step it into high gear to stop whoever is coming after Kruger from doing it again.

Carter’s got her own little drama going right now. She visits Cal’s grave and runs into his godfather, Quinn (the head honcho of HR). She heads off for her shift with a rookie officer as he realizes they’ve still got a problem with Carter (demotion notwithstanding). Carter is not pleased to have to ride with a rookie but it means she’s off working the night shift. IN a move that surprises no one, the rookie gets sick at a crime scene. I have to say Cater was a little too bitter at the start, bossing the kid around. I’m still conflicted as to whether he’s an HR plant or not. He gives a nice speech near the end that he wanted to ride with her because he heard about her in the academy and the way she took down the corrupt cops. Time will tell.

Finch has dug up some serious dirt on Kruger after the party mishap. He’s buried all negative online criticism of his company and he also buried a major lawsuit where people’s lives were ruined from fraud to blackmail to murder. It would appear someone is giving the plaintiffs a shot at revenge because Shaw gets security camera footage one of the plaintiffs sneaking in the altered DVD. Carter gets the honor of pulling the woman over and hearing her sob story about how her fiancé dumped her after he saw some old pictures of her and an ex (naughty pics). Later that day, Kruger’s secretary quits on him after she hears a recording of him saying he wished she had more qualifications other than a nice butt. The guy really is a jackass. It is hard to feel sorry for him honestly. The worst part of it is the lead plaintiff in the case lost her daughter because a stalker found the girl’s address on Kruger’s website and killed her.

Our heroes are not having a very good time of keeping Kruger safe. First, he gets into the elevator and it goes into a fee fall even though it’s not supposed to be able to do that. And then he gets into his car and nearly gets killed as the car goes haywire and he can’t control it. And all Kruger is worried about is things getting botched with his big business deal (which by the way appears to be off because it was discovered he’d been arrested in the past and he’d been hiding it). I guess he only put up the façade he wanted people to see on his profile on his site. Jerk. Finally, Reese and Shaw get Kruger to the library and determine that other plaintiffs have been sent packages and ways to get back at Kruger. While in the relative safety of the library, Kruger gets a voice mail from one of the business guys saying the company is willing to reconsider if they meet at the airport. Finch tells Kruger to stay put but Kruger knocks Finch out and takes off. Reese and Shaw have deduced that the lead plaintiff’s ex-husband is really the one behind everything so they’re checking out his home and his locker at work (Shaw spotted him posing as a maintenance guy).

Everyone has underestimated the enormity of the situation it would see when Kruger goes to meet the guy who called him. The ex-husband is waiting and Kruger threatens to kill him, making him straddle the perp/victim line. I will give the writers props for that since we’ve never actually had a situation like that. But it turns out the guy from the company Kruger’s been dealing with is actually the one behind everything. He’s trying to teach Kruger a lesson. Reese shows up but both he and Kruger get shot by the new nefarious big bad. Kruger in fact gets shot in the head. So this is also a first (Elias doesn’t really count) for the team losing a POI. The fact that they’re introducing another long story-arc when they haven’t ever really wrapped up the others (aka Elias, HR, and Root) is a little worrisome. I know the show can be high concept at times and it likes to delve into its mythology but they really need to conclude a few of the bigger storylines before starting a new one. I have a feeling this new big bad will dovetail with Root and that could be interesting but really, HR went on way too long. Carter needs to take them down once and for all and so we can move on. As for Elias, as much as I adore Enrico, Elias could end his storyline too and I’d be fine with that.

Really, I think this episode sets up the bigger plan for the season but it did have some hiccups along the way. I’ll reserve judgment for the new evil until we’ve seen a few more episodes and how the plot unfolds. I was kind of hoping the writers would get back to the boys saving people every week like they did in season 1. I think the show did suffer a bit with the larger mythology last year and I don’t want to see them start to slide downhill in quality.

Trophy Wife 1.02: "Cold File"

“I have said it once, and I will say it again. You know, aside from me, I do not understand your taste in women.”
-Jackie

“Cold File” was clearly an effort to try and show how “Trophy Wife” is going to work on a week-to-week basis. We aren’t just going to focus on the action at Pete and Kate’s house. The whole family is going to be in every episode, even if one or more of the kids are at their mother’s house. Or at least that is how it appears from this episode. To be honest, I’d prefer if the show were more focused on Kate’s point of view. The fact that the entire B plot took place at Diane’s house, with one phone call to Pete being the only connection to Kate and Pete, makes me think this is going to be more about the whole family than Kate’s particular journey. That change definitely also led to a change in tone. The tone feels lighter, for sure, and it feels like there’s less depth. Kate just does stupid things trying to take care of Burt. There’s no journey, really. I’m going to chalk this one up to Alan Sepinwall’s theory that the first few episodes of a show are just the creative team trying to recreate the pilot over and over to make sure everyone understands what the show is going to be.

So the main theme of this episode is that Kate really wants the opportunity to do some parenting. We see Kate’s frustration with how Pete pretty much does everything for the kids when they’re staying at his house. I feel like the creative team knows what they want to do with Burt more than the twins. There’s a scene where Pete is going through Burt’s bedtime ritual, and Kate is lying on the bed with them because she wants to feel included. Bert’s bedtime ritual is very elaborate, by the way, involving multiple glasses of water, multiple stories, and a final countdown. I was a pretty bad sleeper myself at Bert’s age, but I don’t think my parents would have put up with all that. I got a story before bed, a Dixie cup of water, and that was about it. I still didn’t sleep, but by that point I had learned not to bother my parents about it. There’s also Bert’s soccer games, where Pete coaches and Bert is the goalie. Meanwhile, Hillary and Warren get a really clichéd plot that doesn’t deepen them as characters at all. But more about that later.

Anyway, after one of Burt’s soccer games, Jackie asks Pete if he can watch Bert on a night that he is supposed to be at her house. Jackie wants to go on a pub crawl with her tai chi class, but she needs someone to watch Bert. Jackie is more just plain wacky (rhyming not really intended) as opposed to slightly exaggerated crunchy granola in this episode, which was a little disappointing. Anyway, Pete has a client meeting that night, so he’s not available. Kate jumps at the chance to watch Bert on her own. Jackie warns her that putting Bert to sleep is a project, but since Kate has watched Pete go through the ritual time and time again over the past year, she thinks she can handle it. Jackie is skeptical, but Kate still gets the job of watching Bert for the evening.

Meanwhile, at Diane’s house, Hillary and Warren get into an argument. They start to push each other around a bit, and they accidentally spill a dish of salsa on Diane’s nice white couch. Hillary, by the way, has gone through a casting change. She is now played by Bailee Madison, best known as young Snow White on “Once Upon a Time.” When I first heard about this change, I feared she would be too young to really continue on with the characterization of Hillary that we saw in the pilot (the rebellious teen who would sneak vodka in a water bottle to school), but she doesn’t look quite as young as I feared. It remains to be seen if Hillary as a character is now written differently, because the plot involving Hillary and Warren in this episode was pretty generic. They’re terrified that Diane is going to exact one of her bizarre punishments, so they try to hide the damage by turning over the couch cushion. Any good “Big Bang Theory” viewer knows that doesn’t work, though. A turned-over couch cushion is pretty obvious.

Diane does indeed notice the couch damage, and she decides to implement a little psychological torture on her own children. First she makes quesadillas for a snack for the kids and serves them with salsa. Then she starts salsa dancing in the living room. Finally she just turns the couch cushion back the right way and leaves it there for the kids to discover. At that, they finally crack and admit all. Diane makes them promise not to eat in the living room or lie to her again. Marcia Gay Harden is really the only thing that saves this plot. She seems to delight in torturing her kids in this way, which is really the only thing that’s at all subversive about this episode. I miss the subversiveness of the pilot, really. That’s what made the show interesting and not just a generic family sitcom. More, please!

Anyway, as you might predict, Kate’s night watching Bert by herself does not go at all as planned. He just will not go to sleep for anything. Eventually, Kate lets him watch TV in bed with her, figuring that will make him sleep like it did for her as a child. Instead, Bert sees a show about a doctor who cut out women’s uteruses, and he gets really freaked out. The next morning, Bert is really sleepy because he didn’t sleep well, so Kate offers him a sip of her coffee. Instead of a sip, he drinks the whole thing. This makes Bert act super crazy at soccer practice, which culminates in Kate accidentally hitting Bert. Jackie has had it by this point and starts telling Kate how she’ll never be a mother. Pete manages to put a stop to the bickering, though, reminding Jackie that she once faced the same challenges as a new step mom to Warren and Hillary. Jackie takes this to heart and apologizes to Kate. And so all is once again right in the world of this super crazy family.

Sleepy Hollow 1.03: "For the Triumph of Evil"

“I saw a demon. I saw a demon in the woods and I lied to protect myself. I was a coward and I betrayed my sister. I turned my back on her when she needed me and I will not do it again. It’s my fault. You can come at me all you want but I see you and I am not afraid anymore.”
- Abbie

Before we begin this week’s recap I thought I’d share the good news. Fox has renewed Sleepy Hollow for a 13-episode second season. This excites me because it shows the network has faith in the show and they’re keeping to shorter runs to keep the story tighter. And now onto the recap!

This week starts with Abbie being called into an interrogation by Captain Irving. A psychiatrist is present to help and we see Ichabod interrogating a suspect. That’s the first thing that clues Abbie in to something bizarre going on. The fact that he’s interrogating teenage Abbie is even creepier. Ichabod’s eyes go completely white, Abbie gets locked in the interrogation room and a white eyeless, mouthless demon shows up. Abbie wakes to a call from dispatch about a possible crisis sitch. It turns out Abbie is not in fact having a good night at all. The person who is in crisis is the same doctor she saw in her dream (whom she’s never met). The woman treated Jenny back in the day and lied about believing her story. The woman leaps to her death and then her eyes filled with sand pop. It’s definitely icky. Abbie and Ichabod start looking into the doctor’s files and we see her talking to Jenny on tape. Ichabod still thinks Abbie had a prophetic dream and it has to do with her role in averting the apocalypse but Abbie still wants to try good old fashioned police work.

Ichabod seems to win out a bit when he suggests the demon Abbie saw in her dream was connected to the doctor’s death and it seems to have something to do with what she and Jenny saw as kids. So his logical conclusion is to talk to Jenny. Abbie is reluctant and not just because they haven’t seen or spoken in five years. Jenny got arrested for breaking and entering and theft and so there’s the whole cop/criminal dynamic working against them. Still, Ichabod thinks they ought to try and when Jenny refuses to see her sister, Ichabod scores a brief interview. There’s some amusing banter between he and Jenny (not the same kind as with Abbie) before he informs her that he believes her and so does Abbie. Jenny’s skeptical since it appears she and Abbie fell out long ago over the woods incident. She tells Ichabod to ask Abbie if her conscience is clear about what happened.

Abbie is reluctant to dish on her past but Ichabod impresses upon her that keeping silent may also keep them from learning the truth. So Abbie admits they were missing four days and when they woke up they were found by a rancher. The guy saw the demon, too. Abbie told Jenny to keep quiet about what they saw since they just landed in a decent foster home and blathering on about demons would shunt them back into the system. Obviously Jenny didn’t listen and Abbie denied seeing anything. Apparently the rancher kept silent, too. We see him fall asleep and the demon from Abbie’s dream shows up. Our heroes are already on their way when the cops get called in. The rancher is holding his wife hostage. Abbie goes in and yet again fails to save the victim. This is really not her day! But before the rancher blows his brains out, he warns that Abbie will be dead the next time she falls asleep.

She and Ichabod head back to the secret archive room to do some digging on the demon. Ichabod recalls a Mohawk chieftain recounting a story about a demon that kills people who have turned a blind eye to justice. No denying Abbie fits that description. I really like the way they are working in pieces of history and making it interesting and not what you’d expect. Ichabod recounts that the Mohawks were secret allies with the colonials. Who knew! We also get a rather amusing comedy bit where Ichabod tries Red Bull for the first time and it’s clear he’s not a fan.

Armed with the knowledge that this week’s evil beastie is a Mohawk demon, Ichabod recommends seeking out a shaman to help corral the sucker. The closest they have in Sleepy Hollow is a car salesman. After a little arm twisting and throwing around some historical quotes about evil triumphing when good men do nothing, the guy agrees to help. He explains that he has some tea that will put Abbie to sleep so she can enter the dream world and scorpion venom will help control what happens. Seeing as if she dies in the dream, she’s dead period, Ichabod chugs some tea along with her. I think it was partly an excuse to get Tom Mison shirtless. In the dream world, Ichabod and Abbie are separated for a while until they both end up in the interrogation room. The demon keeps demanding that Abbie admit what she saw. It even goes as far as to start torturing Ichabod. She finally admits that she lied because she was scared and that she should have told the truth and not abandoned her sister. And most importantly, she’s not afraid anymore. The demon turns to glass and she shatters it, releasing both Ichabod and herself from the dream.

They end up back at their fortress of solitude to recover but Irving drops by and asks how they got in. Ichabod admits to breaking a wall and in an attempt to keep our time traveler from doing so again, Irving promises a key to the front door. Probably easier than climbing through old Revolutionary War tunnels. Oh and I can’t tell if he’s a believer yet and what side he’ll end up supporting. After Irving departs, Ichabod urges Abbie to mend fences with Jenny. Abbie was already a step ahead of him. I’m glad we’re getting some more back story on Abbie. I adore Ichabod and I want to know more about his history, too but Abbie deserves equal screen time. The writers are doling out information at just the right pace to keep the flow nice and even. And as usual, they mix the humor and the creepy wonderfully. Unfortunately, our dynamic duo is going to have anew dilemma on their hands. Abbie shows up to apologize to Jenny only to find her sister has flown the coop! I’m hoping Jenny is able to put her animosity for Abbie aside and help them kick some demonic ass.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1.02: "0-8-4"

“Do you need anything else before I go check on the device made of evil that’s sitting in our cargo hold?”
-Agent Coulson

As the second episode of a new series, “0-8-4” had a lot stacked up against it. Second episodes are tough, because the creative team has to take the show out of the introduction phase and provide a good example of what the show is going to be like on a week-to-week basis. In that sense, I think “0-8-4” accomplished what it needed to. The team is going through some growing pains as they all get to know each other (a trick pulled from the “Avengers” mothership), but they also went on a really cool adventure. It appears that the team will go on some threat to the world-type adventure each week, and I think that could be a lot of fun for as long as the creative team can come up with engaging ideas for adventures.

In this episode, the team is responding to an “0-8-4,” which S.H.I.E.L.D. code for an object of unknown origin. This one is in Peru, which I think is part of what made the adventure fun. I wasn’t expecting the team’s escapades to be on an international scale, but I guess I should have, considering S.H.I.E.L.D. is a global organization. Coulson even has a custom plane that his team uses to travel. They all have their own bunks, and the whole thing is Coulson’s pride and joy (after Lola, of course). Anyway, the team heads to a cool looking pyramid in the Peruvian jungle. The artifact is inside, and the team really doesn’t have much of a chance to figure out what it is before they have company. Peruvian military arrive on the scene and they’re led by Camilla Reyes. It’s pretty clear right from the get-go that Coulson and Reyes have a history.

FitzSimmons are doing some tests on the 0-8-4 while the scuffle is brewing outside, and they discover that the object has its own power source. This probably isn’t a good thing. Outside, Coulson and Camilla have a little argument over who gets to keep the object. Camilla wants it, probably because it could be useful to stop Peruvian rebels, but Coulson says that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s 0-8-4 designation trumps everything. They don’t really have much time to argue about it, though. The aforementioned Peruvian rebels blow something up right near the pyramid site, and all Hell breaks loose. Ward makes the rather dumb choice to just yank to object out of where it was lodged in the wall, and the whole team (plus as many of the Peruvian military as survive the attack) hightail it to Coulson’s plane.

As I’ve said, this was a fun adventure story, but it also really tried to do some work on establishing character relationships. Skye has officially joined the team as a consultant. Given her former status as a member of the Rising Tide, she earns a little suspicion from the rest of the team, especially Agent Ward. He’s a super rule follower, and the idea of having a only recently former terrorist hacker on the team causes his blood pressure to go up. It also doesn’t help that he and Agent May are the only members of the team with combat experience. FitzSimmons and Skye are all pretty useless in a battle. FitzSimmons, of course, spend most of the episode uttering adorable Jossian banter. As they do. Ward and Skye also have an interesting conversation, where Skye tries to explain the philosophy behind Rising Tide. The idea is that if everyone just does a little bit, it can create something bigger. This idea will come into play later in the episode.

While most of the crew makes it safely back to the plane, things unravel fast once they get there. The team figures out that the artifact is actually tesseract based, so it could go splodey pretty easily. In an enclosed place like Coulson’s plane, that could go very badly very quickly. Camilla still wants the device, so she tries to distract Coulson with a little flirting while her troops disarm Coulson’s team. This whole situation forces the team to work together to regain control of the plane. They have to free themselves from imprisonment, then, once they’re free, they have to fight the Peruvians. Each member of the team has a bit of a contribution to the effort, reflecting what Skye told Ward about Rising Tide. Ward even points that out at one point, showing his increasing acceptance of Skye.

The actual battle where the S.H.I.E.L.D. team retakes the plane from the Peruvians is pretty epic for television. I guess all that Marvel money was put to good use. There’s plenty of hand-to-hand combat (Ward, May, and Coulson are the best at that, of course), and the whole thing culminates in a hole being blown in the side of the plane. This starts to cause rapid depressurization, and Ward is about to be sucked right out of the plane. Ward’s life is saved by some quick thinking on the part of Skye. She manages to plug the whole in the plane with a big, inflatable life raft. The plane is seriously damaged, but the team lives to fight another day. We get a short appearance from one Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury (the S.H.I.E.L.D. head honcho) near the end of the episode where he yells at Coulson for all the damage that has been done to the plane. Coulson promises to fix it up just like it was before the fight.

The episode ends with the team starting to be more of a cohesive unit. They all watch as the 0-8-4 is shot into the sun, where it will be destroyed. Kind of a severe measure, but I guess the tesseract was really really dangerous? There’s more respect for Agent May now (they all thought she was just transpo, and now they know she can fight). There’s also more acceptance of Skye. That acceptance may be misplaced, and in his conversation with Nick Fury, Coulson admits that. He’s willing to take her work for as long as she’s willing to give it, though. While the team is all watching the tesseract launch, Skye gets a Rising Tide related text, and she replies that she’s all in for whatever they have planned next (after only a slight hesitation). It’s going to take some work for sure to keep her on the team.

Once Upon a Time 3.01: "The Heart of the Truest Believer"

“We need to believe. Not in magic, but in each other.”
- Emma

We are finally back for the third season opener of Once Upon a Time. For those who don’t know, ABC is splitting this season by airing eleven episodes in the fall and eleven in the spring. Therefore, we’ll have two semi-contained storylines and the first of those is Neverland.

We briefly visit Emma eleven years earlier as she gives birth to baby Henry ta 8:15 (yes that’s not lost on this viewer…see what I did there?) but she says she can’t be a mother, even though it seems she’s only got a couple months on her sentence to go. In the present, The Charmings, Regina, Rumple and Hook arrive in Neverland. Emma shares some serious words with her parents about the fact that they have equal experience and wisdom since they’re the same age and if she’d ignored their suggestion, they wouldn’t be hunting for Henry. And Rumple announces that he will go rescue Henry since he’s most familiar with their foe and our Savior lacks faith in her family and herself. Speaking of Henry, he, Greg and Tamara end up on Neverland itself and quickly learn something is amiss. Their communicator for the Home Office is a sand-filled toy. Just as they start to build a signal fire, Felix and a crew of Lost Boys show up and reveal they are the Home Office and they never wanted to destroy magic. It was just a ruse to get Greg and Tamara to cooperate. And in short order, Greg’s shadow is ripped from his body (I’m hoping this means his soul and that he’s dead but he could become a zombie later on possibly) and Tamara takes an arrow to the back as Henry runs off to evade the Lost Boys.

As Henry makes his way through the forest he stumbles upon another young fugitive. They take off together and we learn this boy apparently pissed off Pan by stealing pixie dust but he says it doesn’t work. Their plan to get to a safe place where the Lost Boys can’t find them takes a turn when they reach a cliff and the Lost Boys aren’t too far off. Henry grabs the dust and sprinkles it on them both, launching off the cliff to safety. I can’t decide if Jared’s acting has gotten better or not. I mean he’s a cute kid but he’s not great. Ultimately (and not surprisingly), the fugitive leads Henry into a trap. Our young friend is in fact the nefarious Peter Pan. Yes, Rumple is scared of a fifteen-year-old British boy with a smug attitude. I’ll be interested to see where the writers take this storyline. I want to know why Henry is so important (Pan says it’s because Henry has the heart of the truest believer) and how the rest of the family fits in. I think we’ll get some useful Pan backstory along the way, too.

Rumple’s off wandering the woods when he happens upon Tamara. She’s still alive (though barely) and he removes the arrow which allows her to speak. Her words are useless though. Sure she explains that she told Henry to run but the Lost Boys are after him and that she didn’t realize what was happening. But she asks Rumple to forgive her for what she did to Neal and he can’t. He rips her heart out and crushes it much the same way he did to Milah. I cheered. We finally have a Rumple-esque reaction to Neal’s supposed death. A little while later, he runs into Felix. It would seem that Pan and Rumple have a history that was at least partially amicable (or at least not completely hostile). But since Rumple is there for Henry, Pan is declaring the Dark One an enemy. Felix taunt Rumple with saying that he’ll die. Rumple doesn’t care. He knows he’s on a suicide mission, he just wants to see how many Lost Boys he takes with him in the blaze. Before Felix departs, he tosses Rumple a straw figurine which immediately dissolves Rumple into tears. I want to know more about that!

Back on the Jolly Roger, Hook and Emma share a drink in honor of Neal only to be interrupted by angry mermaids. They are trying to capsize the ship. Charming is having none of this nonsense so he starts shooting stuff out of the cannon. Emma and Snow catch a mermaid while Regina sends fireballs out into the water to scatter the rest. They bring the captive fish lady on board and Hook orders it off his ship. It’s not clear why at first until she blows into a conch shell and shit hits the fan in a huge way. A storm starts brewing and the mermaid says they’re all going to kill each other. And they very nearly do. It’s actually a rather hilarious bit of snark as Charming gets a little too angry and threatens to kill the mermaid while Regina eggs him on. Then Regina and Snow’s differences come out and Regina gets in another zinger about how it’s stupid that Snow thinks her “rainbow kisses and unicorn stickers” is going to do anything to the mermaid. And then the punches start flying. Regina and Snow are pounding on each other and Hook and Charming go at it. Emma realizes what’s happening as the storm worsens but she has to jump overboard to get everyone’s attention. She very nearly dies but Charming dives in and saves her.

When they finally make it to land, Emma gives an impassioned speech about how it doesn’t matter that they are enemies. She realizes that she is a mother (she gets kind of fierce about getting Henry back) and that she is going to be the leader. The important thing is they need to believe in each other to get through the craziness they’re walking into. I think that belief is going to be more difficult than they anticipate.

And finally, we find that Neal has in fact survived his gunshot wound to the chest (I missed the placement of the bullet last season) and is now in the company of Phillip, Aurora and Mulan. Mulan is skeptical of his Enchanted Forest-origins until he explains he’s Rumple’s son and he needs to get back to Emma and Henry. Aurora attempts to use the crazy sleeping curse nightmare to contact Snow but has no luck. So Mulan and Neal trek off to Rumple’s castle. I had a few quibbles with this part of the storyline. Mostly, how did Neal even know his father had a castle? On the way, Mulan asks why Emma never mentioned him and we get a rehash of the fact he broke her heart and he’s trying to make up for it and show her that he loves her. On a side note, I somehow predicted most of Neal’s storyline for this episode before it even aired. Anyway, they get to the castle but find it occupied by none other than Robin Hood. Neal hands over the keys provided, Hood help look for anything magical that could point Neal in Emma’s direction. He finds his father’s old walking stick which reveals a cabinet full of goodies, including a crystal ball. At first it’s not working but Mulan suggests he focus on Emma and how he feels about her. It works but he’s seriously dismayed to learn she’s in Neverland. So at least he knows where she is. Now he has to find a way to get there. And I’d imagine that reunion is going to be a tinsy bit awkward. And hopefully romantic. And I wouldn’t mind him slugging Hook for good measure. But overall, I enjoyed the season opener and I have a feeling the split season format is going to make for stronger storytelling and that is never a bad thing.