Television Of The Weak: The Best Jar Is Jargon

This week we've got Venture, V, Fringe, Mad Men & Dexter. Maybe House. Oh, and Sons of Anarchy.

The Venture Brothers: "Return to Malice" by Matthew J. Brady

Here's an episode that was perfectly fine in most every aspect, but neither funny nor eventful enough to really register in the memory all that much. Henchman 21 (I finally figured out which one was which!) is still in mourning over 24's death, and he's honed himself into a badass, whipping Monarch's minions into shape and ready to embark on a quest to find his best pal's murderer. His list of possible candidates includes Hank and Dean, Brock, OSI, and a bunch of others, so he starts at the top, kidnapping the boys and subjecting them to Chinese water torture to try to get them to talk. It all ends up being pretty lame though ("Are you sure you did this right? Cause I'm not really tortured. I'm just kinda wet."), and he gives up almost right away, realizing that he, through his cowardice, was the real murderer. Meanwhile, Dr. Venture and Sgt. Hatred try to rescue the boys but end up spying on Hatred's ex-wife as she has a three-way with some loser villains, Monarch's face swells up due to an allergic reaction to shellfish, and...that's about it. Decent moments here and there (Monarch and Dr. Mrs. the Monarch arguing about 21's behavior and comparing it to Monarch's relationship with his dead, stuffed cat is a good one), a few funny lines ("You seriously gotta untie me. Or you gotta scratch my heinie. Because my heinie totally itches!"), and little else that sticks in the memory. The show often does episodes that don't really impact the main storyline (I particularly like "Dr. Quymn, Medicine Woman"), but that gives them the freedom to just do something goofy and raucously funny, but with this, a plot that kinda-sorta ties into the over-plot but isn't very important in the big picture, they don't seem to have anything interesting to say. Eh, maybe I just miss Brock. I hope that golden-haired, indestructible sex god reenters all of our lives soon.

V - "Pilot" & "There Is No Normal Anymore" by Tucker Stone

The original V wasn't a gem of perfection, by any stretch of the mom jeans. Bad acting, bad casting choices, cheap-as-dirt effects--problems, son. The guy behind it, the dude they fucked out of a budget and fired mid-edit of "Final Battle"? Same cat who wrote and directed Steel, same guy who handled the high chairs for Short Circuit 2. And yes, I hear you out there: That goddamn opener! The Ironsides! The Beastmaster! The guinea pig! And yes, that was all well and good, and yes, remakes inherently suck, and "won't they come up with new ideas", and so on. For every Battlestar Galactica, there's a Taking of Pelham 123, thanks, we got it, but yes-sir-ee-Jonas-Brothers: the complaints of "please stop remaking everything" have made it up there with "hipsters R faggetz" and "I hate country music but I love Johnny Cash", meaning shut up and go think about how long your country has been at war, you entitled piece of shit. It's not like remakes of shit we kinda sorta liked whilst enjoying the blissful days of freedom that predated the demands of daily masturbation are standing in the way of better, smarter art. Nobody's passing on the next Chekhov to re-make V, it's just taking away the timeslot that would otherwise go to Joss Whedon Female Sci-Fi Concept Hour Version 18 or Your Mom Likes Lost, She'll Probably Like Lost-ers.

Of course, it would be pleasant if the new V wasn't so boring that dunking Mini-Wheats in various liquids to test buoyancy becomes more fascinating by default. In a way, it's grasped so much of the old V that it's almost a meta-success--the acting is almost across the board terrible, and the special effects vary from "that looks cool and sort of real" to "why is it that my Nintendo 64 more realistically portrayed the crash of a fighter jet, high budget television show?" So what's missing? No, besides those opening credits, which contain the greatest Tangerine Dream/Goblin rip-off of all time. Honestly, it's too early to tell--but something is. And while most of the reaction (the print reaction, from the people who make a living talking about these kind of shows) has centered on the fact that the aliens are using the word "hope" and "together" and "universal health care" the same way that some American politician does, the funny thing is this: almost every review mentions the guinea pig.

Seriously, that's gotta be it. Eat the goddamn guinea pig, and all the serious people will be cool with you!

(If you want shitheads like me, just bring Ironsides on board.) 

Fringe: "Earthling" by Matthew J. Brady

The big multi-universal over-plot of this series doesn't seem to be enough to sustain regular storytelling, so the last few episodes of Fringe have lapsed into "weird shit of the week" territory, although you never know when some tossed-off element (this episode mentions a Russian counterpart to Fringe Division, along with aliens) is going to turn out to be important when the writers need ideas. But whatever; the best parts of the show involve silly pseudoscience and occasional bits of humorous character work. The worst parts? The drama, oh the drama. Let's trot out that old trope in which a case from the past returns to haunt a character (Lance Reddick's Agent Broyles in this case) and it's a big fucking deal to them because they never solved it. I'm sure it won't be too long before an old flame shows up with deadly secrets.

The actual plot here isn't too bad though, with some sort of shadowy entity that has possessed the body of a comatose cosmonaut killing people by turning them to dust. There's some dumb explanation involving radiation and a mysterious chemical compound, but it makes even less sense than usual. The real money shot is the effect of the people's bodies crumbling to nothing when touched; that's some freaky shit there. It's ridiculous when you think about it (how does the dust maintains a perfect "shell", such that they're indistinguishable from their living selves other than remaining face just disappears like it's being eaten away. Yikes.

The "science" behind it though? Hilariously stupid. There's some sort of "formula" that Walter has to "solve", although it's just a molecular diagram, so what's he supposed to be solving? He does a bunch of writing science-y gibberish on chalkboards, calls the compound a "she" (and gets the episode's best line, "Titanium tetrachloride, you sly temptress!"), and eventually builds a model out of Tinkertoys, all so he can declare that it has inseparably bonded with the cosmonaut's body. There's some other silliness about the entity being like a ventriloquist, "casting" its shadow out of the body so it can kill people, and it can be contained by electrocuting the poor guy, because that makes for something approaching excitement.

So yeah, the show continues to be pretty stupidly enjoyable, but it would be much better if they embraced the looniness rather than trying to take it seriously. Eh, it looks like we won't be out of cliche territory next week either, since the teaser has people talking about that old saw in which people only use 10% of their brains, except for the week's bad guy, who uses ALL OF IT, holy shit! Scary stuff; I'll be sure to clear out my colon before watching.

House - "Known Unknowns" by Tucker Stone

This episode of House was basically a public service episode, because the producers realized that they should re-introduce the one character that makes the return of 13 less weep-inducing. That's right! It's that private detective guy who wears eyeliner. (You got a pause button, right? Tell me that shit on that guys face ain't eyeliner. Look, cupcake: the only dude who can pull off eyeliner is Bowie, which is why America didn't vote for that American Idol kid. Because he wore eyeliner, but was not Bowie.) If you've ever read an actual article about House--no apologies, I made an ass-ton of money sitting around googling shit like that when I was supposed to be paying attention to South Korean market trends in high value shoe purchases--you know that the plan with Private Detective Eyeliner was for him to captain the first official House spin-off. (The title of first un-official House spin-off is, of course, Lie To Me.) How well did that work out? Ha! It didn't work out at all! And this is the same network that keeps giving the green light to Bones! So yeah, P.D.E. is back, he's still horrible, and he's having sex with Cuddy, which is...yeah, that's just gross. Moving on.

The episode surrounding his return wasn't totally great either, with Foreman once again relying on House as he fails to save the patient of the week--a comic book nerd latchkey kid--while Cameron and Chase work out their marriage problems in a bunch of uncomfortable scenes that still play like emotional torture for the actors involved. Meanwhile, House and Wilson had their requisite "we're friends" scenes, some of which was pretty funny--god knows "fjords" will be about 8000 people's responses next time they get asked "what are you thinking about"--as well as being sort of sweet, in that general way all those scenes always are. All in all, it wasn't a very good episode, but unlike most of this season's on-the-nose-thematic plays tangled up in the wretched notion that it's fun to watch House apologize and be nice, this one was wrapped around the best relationship the show has ever had to work with. And yeah, I wouldn't mind if Laurie kissed the guy, just for the hell of it.

Dexter - "Slack Tide" by Tucker Stone

Whereas one of this seasons episodes was able to redeem the boring subplots about non-Dexter characters who have gross sex by throwing in a nice stunt kill, this episode tried for a bite of a similar apple. It failed miserably. 

Like the Lundy-falls-down-goes-dead episode, it's not that John Lithgow didn't bring a slice of the weird and the wonderful--he totally did--it's that the only possible moment you could see Lundy's death coming was in the seconds before it happened. "Slack Tide" spent a healthy majority of every non-gross people have sex filler time setting up the episode's completely predictable conclusion: Dexter kills an innocent person. And while Michael C. Hall can play that "i have totally fucked up" face as well as every 16 year old who just came inside his cousin's sin envelope, he sure as balls can't do anything about a script that dictates, from start to finish, the hour leading up to that moment. God knows if he'd even want to try, because at this point, the character's so far inside a corner that it would take Samuel Goddamn Beckett to get him out. And I'm not using Sam in that little made-up example because I like Sam and needed a writer who screams "smart" to finish the sentence, I'm using him because that's the kind of writer you would need to circumvent the fucking hoops in front of Dexter at this point. Because what does the Dexter viewer now have to suffer through, in every episode? You've got Dexter with his wife, Dexter with his kids, people having sex that you don't care about, people having sex that make you never want to have sex again, and then you've got at least four or five minutes where you have to watch Dexter rationalize why having a wife and family hasn't totally fucked up his life and made him boring, even though they've got James Remar running around in a cheerleaders uniform that says "having a wife and family has totally fucked up your life and made you boring" where it should just have a big A or a horseshoe. Beckett would just turn the entire show into a meditation on the time Dexter spends in that claustrophobic office, and while it would be boring, it would be boring in that way that Michael Haneke films are boring. Boring you can brag about sitting through. Because you're an asshole? I think I lost the plot at the end there.

Oh, yeah. Lithgow! Yes, John Lithgow did something nice and strange, and while he was then fucked by the gods of shitty scripts and forced to over-emote while planing wood (look it up if you don't know, you should, it's a good skill to have), the scene where he had some kind of mental breakdown after hitting a deer was excellent stuff. It seems unlikely that the Trinity character well ever fully make sense--at this point in the season, he's a mass of contradictions and confusion--and while Lithgow's sort of playing him less as a fully realized character, he's giving his all from scene to scene. It aggravates the brain a bit, watching Lithgow go from weeping slaughterbox to cold, manipulative sociopath--it's worth remembering that this guy has A) scream-cried in a hot shower B) psychologically forced a terrified mother to leap to her death C) beat a crybaby to death with a claw hammer and D) believably tousled his teenage son's hair--but it's just as worthwhile to remember that Lithgow's given his all in each of these scenes. In the deer scene, he pretty much lost his shit completely, breaking down and submitting to Dexter's "do you want me to kill it for you" question as if he was a virginal Mennonite ready for her maiden night of quiet sex. For stuff like that, I'll keep watching.

Sons of Anarchy - "Balm" by Tucker I KNOW Stone

Following what came across as the best episode I've seen of this show, the prospect of 90 minutes of the Sons was actually a bit exciting. And while it actually broke down to less than an hour, after you plowed through that extended trailer for Avatar (who is excited for that movie? what is wrong with them?), this was, yes, pretty good. It helped not to have to see a single second of Henry Rollins, that Cop Who Is Made Of Plastic, and Adam Arkin--man, was he a good actor? I keep thinking he was, but nothing pops up when I tell my memory to prove it. It helped that Jax was giving concrete things to do, because that keeps him from talking, and it helped that some of the good acting load was shared between Opie & Tommy Flanagan. (Various reviewers have mentioned that Flanagan wasn't given much to do in previous episodes of the show, one going so far as to call him a "glorified extra", which is sort of insane. While his brogue can be a bit tough to comprehend at times, his performance in Ratcatcher is a veritable showcase of the range he's capable of. Flanagan's career is a depressing one, considering how many of his roles seem to be granted on the basis of his fearsome appearance, so it's a pleasure to see his role on this show expanded. And while some of that expansion is, unfortunately, dictated by yet another threat of rape and murder--his estranged wife and daughter, of course--Flanagan plays betrayal and fear with the same ferocity that keeps getting him cast in shit-house action flicks like Aliens Versus Predator.)

But honestly, it was the scenes that made this one work. Watching Jax get emotionally dismantled by the until-now-funny Juice while Bobby snarled a silent agreement, seeing Opie mumble "the bed" as he finally tumbles into a sexual relationship with his surrogate spouse, and then seeing Ron Perlman openly tell Jax that yes, he does want his stepson to get the hell out of town--all of these scenes were good, and while they don't escape what continues to be the near-farcical seriousness of this pulpy show, I had little to complain about. Of course, all of these built to the emotional climax of the episode, the-decade-standard music montage. Intercut with Katey Segal's monologue, where she finally tells her son and husband that she was, in fact, gang raped and beaten, it was a testament to how exceptional something can be in the proper hands. Because here's the thing: Segal was extraordinary. Perlman was as well. Even Jax, the show's weakest lead, pulled it off. And yet?

There's the doctor girlfriend, spending the entirety of the scene behaving as if she's been brought in from a cloning farm, looking around the room as if she's confused by human presence, quietly smiling, carrying herself with a pride that's inexplicable, doing everything--every little fucking thing--as wrong as every little fucking thing can be done.

The scene worked. It's still a scene about a woman who's been gang-raped by Henry Rollins and crew, it's still being used as a motivation to maintain the show's "Jax is the lead" status quo, and it's the umpteenth time somebody-hurt-some-lady-so-hard-men-could-kill-other-hard-men, all that is totally accurate, and it's up to you how much time you want to give of your life to another "i'm gonna kill the men who raped my momma" story. But if you're down, and you're not full-up on those stories yet, this one knew how to play it, and it played it well. Simple as that. 

Mad Men - "Shut the door. Have a seat." by Sean Witzke

So yeah. This is over, huh? And this is way too long so feel free to skip it.

Open to Don Draper waking up in his dead father in law's bed, late for a meeting with Conrad Hilton. Connie tells Don he's getting bought out by McCann, Don hates those sausage factory assholes. He hates them! He waves his fists in his mind he hates them so much! Draper talks to Hilton like we wish he would, tells him he's sick of his shit. Hilton tells Don he didn't think he was a complainer, and that goddamn he pulled himself up by his bootstraps. Then Connie says they'll try again some other time.

Don steps into his office and flashes back on his dad telling his farm co-op to fuck off, he's not selling. Don then tries to tell Cooper to buy the office out from under them, Don calls Cooper old, Cooper calls Draper young. "I'm not sure you have the stomach for the realities." he tells Don. Basically, he tells Don that if they're gonna do that, they're gonna need to go with Roger Sterling on this. The hard, nasty realities of capitalism means that Sterling would rather make money on his stock options than actually try. Don, at his most desperate says "we have to try", Sterling raises his eyebrows, his interest piqued. Betty tells Don she's talking to a divorce lawyer, she's had a tough year, and she's done. Yeah that shit is happening. Betty and the aide to Rockefeller (I was in Rockefeller's house once. They have Picassos there, my dad took illegal photos of them. I touched the James Bond car they had too and it was the same hand I have with me now!) go see a divorce lawyer, he says theres no way they can do it in New York State. Cooper, Draper, and Sterling call in Jared Harris and asks him what PPL would take for Sterling Cooper. He says they don't have the money for it, smiles and walks out.

Don comes home to find his daughter asleep in his bed, flashes on his father and mother arguing about mother while he's drunk. Don's dad gives him moonshine as they get ready to hop on a horse and ride to Chicago. His dad gets kicked in the head by a spooked horse. Jared Harris runs it up the flagpole to his bosses @ PPL, finds out the whole company is being sold and he's being cut loose. He tells Cooper, Draper, Sterling that, and Don says "FIRE US". Harris says, fuck you pay me in the nicest british manner possible. They have Lucky Strike, which is not much. They plan to steal as many supplies, a few employees, and they have a timeline to do it before 2AM on Monday before the English notice. It's a raid, oh hell yeah this shit just got interesting oh thank fuck. First person Don asks is Peggy. Saw that coming! Actually doesn't ask, just tells her to get her shit together by Sunday. Peggy says she's had other offers (namely Duck Phillips cocksmanship). She says she's not interested in living in Don's shadow, tells him to fuck off.

Cut to Don and Sterling walking into Campbell's house like hitmen or coroners. They're here from the bank for your house, shithead. Campbell pretends he doesn't know what they're talking about, forces Don to compliment his work. Don says that Campbell saw this coming, that he's got his eye on the future completely missing that Peggys the one thats actually saw the future. Campbells getting his way by just being there, finally we're back to the shit that made this show run. Campbell orders his wife around, it turns her on "sound like a secretary". Cut to Draper and Sterling drinking together for the first time in what seems like years, calling Campbell a little shit. Sterling drops a huge bomb on Don, that Betty's love interest has a name and its Henry Francis. Don's pissed, like go home and kill his wife pissed, but he he smiles a little. Then Don goes home drunk and grabs his wife out of bed with one hand, calls her a spoiled brat and a whore. She just stares at him and the baby starts crying, and he doesn't know what to do. He clearly wants to go further but that's the mother of his children. Ten bucks if you thought they were finally going to destroy Don's image completely and have him hit her.

Cut to Campbell and the tv dude in the elevator. He doesn't know shit and they spring it on him. When he says he's gotta think about it, Cooper threatens to lock him in the closet until monday. Then they all realize that its going to be difficult to steal all the shit they need because they don't know where it is.

Cut to Don and Betty telling their kids that Don's moving out, and they think they're in trouble because they're in the living room. Cindy Brady lisps her way through an accusation about her father lying, then tells her mother that this is her fault. The other kid, who I don't even think has a name for me to forget says "please don't go, I don't want you to and cries". Don hugs him for what seems like forever. He doesn't want this either, but it's happening.

Cut to Don at Peggy's door, him begging him to come work for him. Don talks to Peggy like Connie talked to him. "I see you as an extension of myself, and I shouldn't". No shit, Don, no shit, Mad Men writers. Don can't make it right with Betty or his kids so he's going to make it right with the only person he's been able to actually talk to this whole series. Don says he needs her help, but he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life trying to hire her.

Cut to all the guys in the office, Joan Holloway coming in to save all their asses because she's the only one who knows what she's doing. Don kicks open some doors for the fat guy (Harry! Thats his name!) and Campbell, literally. They all spend the day ransacking, Campbell even walks out with that stupid gun of his. Sterling and Draper stand in the office, Don take one last look. Don goes to lock up, Sterling tells him it's not worth it. Jared Harris talks to his boss, gets fired, they all meet up after setting up shop in a hotel room.

Don calls Betty, tells her where he is. He tells her she's going to get what she always wanted. She tells him that she's not going to keep the kids from him. They say goodbye. Don hangs up and looks at his new team, smiles. Cut to Betty and the Baby and Henry whatshisname on the plane, and the kids at home with the maid, because who gives a shit about them anyway. Cut to Draper walking into his new house. Credits.

It's nice that this show found some urgency in the finale. Jesus fuck, it slumped this season, there was a pretty good argument that they had jumped the shark. Seriously, last episode it seemed that they had broken Don's character for good, and the hackenyed "oh Kennedy's dead just like our marriage boo hoo boo hoo" bullshit. If this is the Don and Betty show, it sure as fuck was Betty's season, even though Don meeting Hilton was one of the best scenes in the show's history. Maybe not, maybe it was just me hating the hippie teacher, but goddamn there was a lot of slack in this season. Betty's arc was better, but only by a little - the underlying insanity of the character in the previous two seasons wasn't touched on once, she was just a pregnant woman and then a wife in love and then a wife in love with another man. This shit screamed TRANSITIONAL SEASON like not many before, especially series that weren't recast or retooled. Kinda like the Wire season 4 only not nearly as good, not by a long shot, where they decided that it was time to snap McNulty in half for the good of the show. But no, now we have a new status quo reshuffling that's startlingly like the way the show worked in the first season, without disavowing how much Sterling, Peggy, Campbell, Joan, and Don have changed. The shit Connie Hilton says in the beginning, the angry ghost of his father yelling at him when he was drunk last season, Betty's Dad telling Don that he's not worthy of his daughter, that added up over the season and it just took the writers a long time to let it sink in. If s2 was Don's dark night of the soul, walking into the ocean and coming out different, this season was the world telling him he's not ready. He wasn't. His bullshit is still bullshit and it's even more if he's going to spend every second of his life lying and settling into his life as a cog in a corporate machine. The existential capitalist Don Draper, the poetic Stringer Bell of the advertising game, that guy spent the season doing nothing, sitting on his hands and banging his kid's idealist shithead teacher. He may have been morally right, he may have had more opportunity to buy into a life he thought his wife wanted now that he's carrying Hilton's briefcase, but he didn't do shit. Finally Don's back, angry and forcing his way in the world, ready to fall on his ass because he's got nothing to fall back on. The only difference between this final scene and the first episode is because he was acting like that with a family and girlfriend and lies upon lies all strung together with his damn will and five or six drinks. Now there's none of that, Don's a solitary man for the first time since he met Betty and the only way he's going to avoid losing it is by jeopardizing his career and everyone around him and goddamn its probably going to work. Last episode I was ready to give up on this show, which had turned into slow strangled bore, but that was apparently a dodge because this shit was in the barrel the whole time. Seriously, next season? More like this, goddamnit. More Don and Betty and Joan and Sterling and hey I actually learned some of the minor characters names this time because I gave a fuck. "Sterling Cooper Draper Price, how can I help you?".

-Sean Witze, Matthew J. Brady & Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[LurkerWithout]

The review of "V" reminded me of how much I've been missing "Economist vs. Idiot". Which then reminded me that I an afford to buy the magazine myself now. So thanks for costing me money Tucker Stone, you big stupid jerk....

[MarkAndrew]

So when my Facebook friends talk about "V" they're referring neither to Thomas Pynchon or Alan Moore.

Cool.

'Cause, seriously, given the context I was hell of confused.

[Tucker Stone]

Lurker, I miss doing the Economist articles too, and I never planned to abandon them for this long. They'll return, although I'm not sure when exactly. Thank you for saying that. I'm not sorry you spent money on them, though, because I like to think that you stare at the Economist and think of me giving you a backrub.

mark: i'll trade you some "V" talking facebook friends for the one who keeps bugging me about playing fucking Texas hold em and "why can I has Jesus".

[LurkerWithout]

Mmmm. Back rubs...

[Stig]

You know, that Venture Bros. episode did impact the main plotline significantly in some ways:

* Sgt. Hatred got the huge shock that will finally convince him that his wife will never take him back, and thus he will have to grow up a tad;

* We discovered exactly how #21 managed to cope with #24's death (badly) and become so badass;

* Dr. Venture & Dr. Girlfriend finally made their peace, relationship-wise;

* The Monarch made an impact on the Murderous Moppets, so there might be less jokes about them trying to kill people;

* The Monarch recognised that #21 was a real human being and a valuable asset rather than just another expendable lackey - that conversation at the end was extremely intelligent;

* The post-credits thing. That might be one of the most significant moments thusfar in this year's season, especially when you examine its implications in tandem with the numerous clues left at the end of Season 3 as to who killed #24. Personally, I blame HELPeR.

[Abhay]

"Jesus fuck, it slumped this season, there was a pretty good argument that they had jumped the shark."

I loved this entire season. I don't know what transitional season means-- for me, it was excellent throughout. Guys Walks Into An Ad Agency was excellent, the Gypsy and the Hobo was excellent, Roger's creepy party was excellent. Even the episodes that were less than excellent had moments in them that were top-notch (Don getting forced into a contract finally, say). The finale was sublime. Sublime.

I have no idea what people have been complaining about. The second episode of this season was slow, maybe; the rest was solid gold.

[Sean Witzke]

I haven't been reading any other reviews of it, but it really felt that after the premiere it just dove for a while there, with a good moment or two an episode just to keep it interesting. The stuff with Betty's Dad was so awful. The finale was amazing though, as good as the best stuff in s2.

[Matthew J. Brady]

Stig: wow, that seems like a bunch of Geoff Johns-ish continuity wankery to me (and almost all pretty tangential, rather than main-plotline-affecting, if you ask me). You don't have to spell out every little emotional nuance; we can pick up on this stuff through regular stories, or so I would hope. Of all that you mentioned, the scene between Monarch and 21 was probably the best, mostly because it was a good character moment. "I just don't have that kind of hate!" I liked that bit.

Eh, who knows, maybe like you said, it's setting up some stuff to come, especially with that post-credits thing. Is 24's killer even important? I always figured he was just collateral damage in the big firefight or whatever. You never know what's going to turn into a big, crazy thing on this show. Unpredictability!