Glee: Swan Song(S4E9)

So, we open to a chaotic choir room: Marley merely passed out last episode, and the rest of the club brought her back to regain consciousness and whatnot.  Santana calls out Kitty(and yeah, I’ve decided to go with their actual names now, cause it was getting confusing), who adamantly denies attempting to give Marley bulimia.

Shue rushes into the room next, and lets the club know they’ve been disqualified.  The Warblers win.  New Directions is done for the year.

Sue then comes in, and commandeers everything in the choir room, since they don’t have need of it anymore.  Finn calls a powwow in Figgins’ office, where he learns a bit of bummer news: Every single practice space they normally use, including the auditorium and Spanish room have been taken over by various groups, since space is at a premium in this cash-strapped district.

OH! Then, we get completely random throwaway scene:  Sue is feeling slightly bad about taking all the glee club things, but then the floppy haired piano player comes in and bitches about the kids and their annoying spontaneous song-singing ways, and Sue feels much better.

In the choir room, all the kids want to bail on the Christmas program, and point out that Sugar already has.  Sam and Blaine additionally bum about their senior year being ruined since they can’t perform at regionals or nationals, and everyone kind of agrees to be done for now, except Marley who is attempting to stop the hate-train from crashing into her station.

Next, Brit is walking down the hall, and spots a loooong row of cheerios on the floor, and begins following the trail, eating as she goes.  And at the end of the trail is…Sam!  Who declares his crush on her.  Brit shuts him down almost immediately, though, due to the whole crazy lesbian bloggers(?!?) issue that was some sort of meta joke, maybe?  I didn’t really get it, but whatever.

The next day, we see everyone in their new clubs, because apparently If you don’t have a club, you fail at high school or something.  I dunno, I prescribed to the whole ‘screw this mess’ philosophy of not giving a damn in high school, so I couldn’t tell if this was a normal thing or not.  Anyway, Artie joined the marching band, Tina and Blaine joined the Cheerios, Jake and Ryder joined the basketball team, Unique joined floor hockey, and Dreads joined the interfaith paintball league.  And now, thinking about all these clubs they joined, I am even more confused as to why glee CLUB had to disband.  None of the other clubs disband when their ‘season’ is over, much less even have a season.  Stupid plot is stupid, almost as dumb as stupid new Rachel.

The next we see of the group, Finn is yelling at them on stage that they have for six minutes.  Most of the club declines to be yelled at by a 19 year old, and leave, save Marley, who still is trying to get everyone to like her again. 

Sam and Brit are walking down the hall, and suddenly, Brit has a change of heart, and she asks Sam on a date and they kiss, aww. /sarc

Finally, at the Christmas pageant six minute practice, only Marley shows up, but she has a new place for them to practice: the outdoor caf that totally makes sense for a school in Ohio.  At first, it’s just Finn and Marley singing, but then the rest of the group shows up, and it’s very ‘let’s move on to the next chapter’ story telling, and they didn’t do a good job of singing the song, either.

Oh, and there was a dumb subplot featuring special snowflake Rachel getting an invite to perform at the Christmas gala contest, and she wins, blah blah blah, and Kurt for some reason sings too, and manages to get into NYADA for spring semester, and it is super boring and predictable, and very lame.

This episode was very irritating.  I feel like it could have been a lot better, with the chapter closing arcs and whatnot, but that mostly failed miserably, beyond a couple of actually pretty funny meta jokes(brit one excluded).  I think the whole Cheerios taking over the space was overkill, and the story of everyone splitting apart without the shared goal could have actually been milked for a couple of episodes to great effect, but no, we got a split and reform all in the space of about twenty minutes, and neither felt earned. 

Everything in this episode, and, for that matter, this series, feels rushed.  We go from not hearing about a topic to that topic being over and done in the span of a half an hour every third episode or so.  For example, sectionals, from picking songs, to rehearsing, to performing those songs happen in one episode, which doesn’t even make sense at all.

I enjoy the singing in this show, but the story arcs are terrible.  I really wish I could slap some sense into the writers, and by extension, their stupid stupid character, but I am a lowly blogger, what do I know?

Featuring:

Somethin’ Stupid, as sung by Sam and Brit

All that jazz, as sung by Cassandra and Rachel

Being Good Isn’t Good Enough, as sung by Rachel

O Holy Night, as sung by Rachel

Being Alive, as sung by Kurt

Don’t Dream it’s Over, as sung by Finn, Marley, and rest of the club

Amazing Race: Take Down that Million(S21E11)

OOOOOH, I am so frustrated right now.

We started back in Spain, and headed up to France, followed by a final leg in New York city.  But who was there? 

I’m gonna run this a bit differently thatn I normally do, but I want to keep you in suspense!

We started out with Trey and Lexi leaving first, James and Jaymes in second, Josh and Brent in third, and The Twins last.  Once they all get to France, there is a lot of trash talking between the Twins and Josh and Brent, and alliance making between all the teams but Josh and Brent. 

The Twins were bunched until the first clue, where they ran into their speedbump, which separated them from everyone else. 

That is, until they got to the detour, where they ran back into Josh and Brent.  Unfortunately, the Twins fell behind again, while Jaymes and James, and Trey and Lexi busted their behinds and got out ahead of both of them.

Josh and Brent nearly got themselves out of it again when they had navigation issues getting to the detour, and the Twins made it to the Roadblock before them.  The Twins actually managed to leave the Roadblock ahead of Josh and Brent, but had their own navigational issues, and so the Twins made it to the final pit stop in last place, and were eliminated.

The funny stuff: NBC Thursday(12/6)

Yay, my favorite day of the week!  We start, as always, with…

30 Rock

This was kind of an odd episode.  There were so many visual jokes that really don’t translate well to the written word, but on the other hand, a bunch of them didn’t hit, either, so there was that.

Starting with Liz and Jenna, Liz is all happy because she’s married now, but Jenna is terribly put off that Liz stole her thunder, namely her secret wedding and awards, because, oh, by the way, Liz is getting an award too.  Which is being broadcast live on Lifetime. Dot com. Slash garbage file.  At the awards ceremony, Liz figures out that Jenna is trying to ruin her big day, and ruminates with Gayle, Oprah friend, about how their respective best friends continuously try to overshadow them at every turn.

Liz, though, gets the last laugh when she befriends the lighting specialist, who lit the stage in a completely unflattering light, cause Jenna to run in panic, not wanting to look like an old hag.  After some news from Jack, Liz realizes that life’s short, and she and Jenna shouldn’t be fighting, and Jenna took a pill that makes her feel feelings, and she’s happy for Liz.  Then the pill wears off, and Liz has mom arms.

Jack, on the other hand, is having mother issues.  His mother in is town for Christmas, and he isn’t going to do anything for the entire time, just so he can’t disappoint her.  Of course, she manages to die at a most inconvenient time, and with her last wish, told Jack she only wants him to be happy.  Jack takes this to mean she’s disappointed in him in some round about way, and goes off to write the eulogy.

At the funeral, Jack eulogizes that the disapproval of his mother is what made him the man he is today, and then he lists off all his accomplishments, including the greatest eulogy of all time.  Cut in between various cuts of said eulogy, we see the crowd lapping it up, and it apparently is the greatest eulogy ever.  But how could it not be, with Kermit, and Paul McCartney and Jack playing a flute piece.  And then, SURPRISE WEDDING!  Jenna and Paul get married in their strange costumes, and Paul takes her name.  It’s as weird as you might think.

Kenneth, lastly, is feeling down in the dumps because Hazel was fired, and then she broke up with him.  Tracy tries to cheer him up by making things like a TV show, since that how Kenneth wants it.  First, he invites Florence Henderson, but she turns out to be a right bitch, and then he gets them stuck in a elevator to talk and learn things(with Florence Henderson again), but all it manages to do is depress Kenneth even more due to everything not working out how he expected.

But then, at the funeral, Kenneth realizes that his life is way better than TV, since he had a TV star trying to cheer him up for two straight day, and when has that ever happened on a TV show? 

I was amused by this show, but the second viewing didn’t do much for me.

I did get a funny line:

Liz and Jenna, after Liz thwarts Jenna’s plans: “You’re not the center of the universe, JENNA.”  “I am too! I’m the moon!”

The funny stuff: ABC Wednesday(12/5)

So I was a bit of a slacker on these, sorry about that.  We had a couple of fun shows tonight, starting with…

The Middle

This episode was kind of the standard ‘we’re poor’ story line, but it worked for me.

The main arc of this episode involved Mike and his brother Rusty(played by Norm MacDonald), and furniture that was less than legally acquired.  Mike agreed to help him move out some furniture from Rusty’s old place, but when they get it back to the Heck’s garage, since Rusty didn’t actually have room for it in his new place, it turns out the furniture was ‘won’ in a bet, according to Rusty, but not anyone else.

Axl spends the majority of the episode arranging the furniture in the garage to make himself a bachelor pad while Mike attempts to get Rusty to move it out, unsuccessfully.  He finally gets so frustrated that Mike disinvites Rusty to Christmas, and gets a couple of guys to help him move the furniture back.

Frankie, on the other hand, has a plan to pay for all the Christmas presents: she got a job at JJ Mackies, a Target/Walmart-type clone.  All the gifts they would normall get are there anyway, and she gets a 30% discount!  As she’s getting rung up after her first shift, thought, she learns a little unfortunate truth: the discount doesn’t kick in for 20 days, due to people taking the job for one day just for the discount.   She spends the next three weeks hiding away Christmas presents in the store so other people won’t buy them, only to be thwarted by a coworker finding every single last one of them.

In the end, she give the kids pictures of what they are going to get, and they buy it all the day after Christmas, when everything is on sale anyway, so it’s a win-win for everyone.

Lastly, Brick and Sue are at a youth group meeting, and Pastor Tim-tom asks Brick to be in the Christmas play.  Brick, oddly enough, agrees, and Sue even gets in on the action by becoming the concession stand operator.  Brick is actually rather enthusiastic about his part in the play, and even gets an upgrade to Wise man numbers 2 AND 3, because wise man 3 couldn’t figure out his line.

But, as usual, Brick completely fails in the end, when he gets utterly distracted on stage, and doesn’t even say his one line.  BUT! It makes the rest of the family get to be in a better mood, laughing at Brick’s antics, and getting back into the holiday spirit.  It helps Mike remember that Brick is the weird brother of Axl and Sue, and that he wouldn’t want them to ever get angry at each other like he did to Rusty, and so he calls and makes it up.  This is also where Frankie gets her present idea, and Sue has fun giving away her 1200 cookies.

I really liked this episode for the religious elements.  Not that there was a whole lot of actual theology or anything, but moreso in the fact that the Hecks to church things, and they are not weird because of it.  They are weird for other reasons, yes, but the fact that they go to church, even on non-Sundays, it’s treated as though they should be mocked or ashamed because of it.  It reminds me of Boy Meets World in that way, to be honest.

I did get a couple of funny lines, as well:

Sue and Brick, to their parents regarding the card they both have: “Oh, it’s the invitation to Axl’s Christmas party, didn’t you get one?”  “Hmm, awkward.”

Mike, after Frankie starts to talk about her new job: “Why do people say guess who?  I already know it’s you.”

Parenthood: Trouble in Candyland(S4E10)

And suddenly, things get interesting…

Sarah and Mark are finally going on their trips, Mark to the wedding, and Sarah to the job thing with Hank in LA.  They are completely awkward while packing, and Mark is clearly harboring resentment, though he does a terrible job of hiding it.  When Sarah finally makes it to LA, she calls and leaves a whiney message for Mark, saying how much she misses him and blah blah blah.

After the day of job stuff, Sarah and Hank are drinking at the bar, and Hank is fully depressed over his daughter moving to Minnesota, so they get to drinking.  As they are getting back to their rooms, drunkenly stumbling down the hall and leaning on each other for support, who should be at Sarah’s door, but MARK!  They get into a huge argument, and Mark stalks away, feeling stupid for wanting to apologize for arguing with her earlier.

The next morning, Sarah is very short with Hank, telling him it’s not her job to fix him, and it gets very awkward from then on out.   The next we see of this threesome, Mark is on a treadmill, and Sarah and he agree to dinner and a discussion.  Clearly there are still issues though, as Sarah says “I love you,” and Mark says “me, too.”

When Mark is headed to the dinner, he runs into Hank in the elevator.  Hank tries to smooth things over, telling Mark that Sarah knew the LA job thing was a sham, but obviously THAT didn’t go over too well with Mark.  When he gets to dinner, they stare at each other awkwardly(I think I’m sensing a pattern…) until Mark blows up, and breaks up with Sarah over her inability to be happy for once.

And in the end, Hank says good bye to his daughter while Sarah says goodbye to the life she had been living with Mark.  It went not good.

 In other news, Amber tries to get Ryan a job at Joel’s construction site.  Joel acquiesces after a bit of coffee bribery, and Ryan starts the next day.  Except Ryan is kind of a fail construction guy.  He measures once, cuts twice, and can’t even break a piece of sheetrock correctly.  But the piece de resistance is his complete and utter failure to recognize that long poles plus short corners equals a broken $800 window. 

Ryan quits on the spot, and stomps off the yard even though Joel tries to stop him.  Joel stops by his house later, but Ryan doesn’t answer the door, clearly going into a depression spiral, and most likely his and Amber’s arc for the next part of the season.

The Funny Stuff: Fox/ABC Tuesday(12/4)

On Tuesday, we had a couple of new shows, one pretty good, and one awesome.

Raising Hope

We started here with Burt and Virginia.  Burt saw a rape on the way home from work, and Virginia was obviously concerned, until she figured out that it was a squirrel, and not a human being.  Burt does get her to worry about it, and they spend the episode capturing, then attempting to punish, the offending squirrel.  They eventually decide on castration, and bring the squirrel to the vet, who refuses, on account of that’s what animals do.  He then lets the squirrel out the window, and the squirrel gets right back to it’s business of humping anyone and anything. 

In other news, Jimmy and Sabrina have a slight conflict, in that Sabrina only takes the fun stuff with Hope, like playing in the mud or bringing her to the carnival, while Jimmy is stuck with the hard stuff like cleaning and disciplining.  They decide to let Sabrina take care of Hope for the weekend, while Jimmy hangs out with Barney, working on his masculinity on the auxiliary police force.

Of course, it turns out the auxiliary police force is less police and more Barney being tolerated because he give the dispatcher a discount at the market.  They tool around town on the recumbent bicycle built for two, sorting recycling and looking for trouble.  And they find it!  Loud yelling is coming from a house, and they run up to tend to the situation.  Which turns out to be a little girl at her uncle’s house, with a splinter.  Luckily, Jimmy is such a nurturing  guy, he knew exactly what to do, and the day was saved.

When he got back home, he found Sabrina at her wit’s end.  She apparently is just finding out that kids like to do things over and over again, like reading a book and watching a video and knocking over blocks.  But after all the stress, and the whole weekend of the hard stuff, Hope bonded, and calls her mommy.  It’s super cute. 

This was a fun little episode, and I really like how the family dynamic is growing in a natural way, with spurts and hiccoughs just like a normal family.  I got a few funny lines for you, too!

Burt, after Virginia is dismissive of his squirrel rapist: “A moth is just an ugly butterfly Virginia! Racist!”

Sabrina, babbling when Jimmy sits her down for an intervention: “Ok yeah, sometimes I eat dirt! Einstein ate dirt! Einstein!”

Virginia, when she tells Sabrina what her intervention is about, after Jimmy starts in on a terribly long soliloquy: “Sorry Jimmy, but the baby would have been a grown up by the time you finished that sentence.”

Burt at the vet’s office, regarding the squirrel: “Hide yo cats, hide yo mice, cause he’s rapin’ everyone up in here.”

The Funny Stuff: CBS Monday(12/3)

Tonight get only one show, the nearly over

How I Met Your Mother

This was yet another filler episode, and since we know this isn’t how any of our charaters end up, it was even worse than normal.

Lily and Marshal are bemoaning the fact that Lily’s dad can’t take care of Marvin for the week, and Ted, in a job lull, offers to take over.  He, of course, starts stealing firsts from Marshal and Lily, such as the first crawl.   Apparently when Lily’s dad takes care of him, Marvin is a catatonic baby, and doesn’t do anything.

They eventually throw and intervention for Ted, realizing that with the finish of the GNB building, he had a huge hole in his life, and they set him up on the headhunter interview he cancelled to take care of Marvin.  It was about as exciting as it sounds.

Meanwhile, Barney and Robin were playing this weird little game, wherein Robin attempts to woo Barney now that she’s closed the door on them being together.  But, as Lily put it, Barney locked that door, which is why Robin is obsessing.  Robin tries a myriad of ways to get him interested in her again, such as “The Robin and Lily get freaky/The Robin and Lily ‘That Bitch Brandi’ get freaky.”  In the end, Barney takes Brandi to the news room, but has a breakdown, where the awesome Patrice comforts him, and they go back to his apartment to play Crazy Eights.

Oh, and Barney loses Clarence, one of his ties, to a very serious ketchup accident, and decides to start a  running joke business: “Bro Bibs.”  Every person’s shirt style is mimicked and Lily loves the idea, and really wants in.  Watch this plot arc vanish in a matter of a week, though.

So, like I said above, very filler, and terrible behavior all around.  I mean really, Ted?  Taking Marvin to see Santa for the first time?  That is seriously cold.

I did get a few funny lines for you, though.

Lily, to Marvin: “If you ever wanna see these boobs again, crawl, you son of a me!”

Lily,  after learning about Barney’s business idea: “Bro bibs for women! Bitch bibs! Barney’ll sue us for sure, but lets do it!”

Barney, when he starts to leave with weather girl Brandi: “Someone’s about to get unseasonably banged.”

Ted and Marshal, after Ted comes to his senses, and decides to get rid of the lollipop he’s holding: “I’ll just give it to one of these kids.” “Ted, you’re half naked, and not ONE of these kids parents, don’t give them candy.”

Cool thing of the day

Enjoy!

Amazing Race: Not a Well Rounded Athlete (S21E10)

Well, that was a thing.  Considering we’ve only had two NEL’s, and there are only four teams left, I bet you can guess where this leg went, hmm?

Let’s get right into it, then.

Natalie and Nadiya left first, at 2:55 in the morning.  Due to a massive bunch, they were grouped with everyone once they hit Spain, but they managed to bork the whole thing up by failing at stick.  Every year, someone gets hit by the stick stick.  They did fairly well for the rest of the leg, but couldn’t make up their early fumbles, and managed to come in last(SPOILERS!)  But are they eliminated?  Finish the recap to find out, or be not surprised by my uber subtle opening paragraph.

James and Jaymes left second, and had a good leg.  They had no issues with stick, and stuck with Trey and Lexi to find the musicians in the cave.  They got lost heading to the detour, but in going to the wrogn one, they really cracked me up: “workin at Chippendales, we put on a construction outfit or two.”  “Yeah, I may have swung a Styrofoam hammer” *grins* They had to put together a windmill for Don Quixote, and got all gussied up for it and everything.  They only didn’t come in first because of…

Trey and Lexi, who left in third.  They had a very strong leg, even though Lexi got a bit whiney at the end.  A little cut on your finger is not something to go into full meltdown over, though it may be a case of killer fatigue.  They rocked the tennis challenge, and were able to pull into a lead and didn’t relinquish it.

Josh and Brent left last at 9:38 am, so only six and a half hours behind the rest of the teams.  They must have made up a lot of time, cause I could have sworn they were a full day back, but they really got their act together.  They even met up with the rest of the teams in Spain, with our first big bunch in a long while.  Even though they got all caught up with the rest of the teams, they still managed to fall to the back of the pack, and were only saved from their second last in a NEL by the unforced errors committed by the twinnies.  They were even a bit funny this week, in a self-deprecating sort of way.  Josh managed to hurt his ankle in the previous leg, and Brent was trying to be helpful: “I’m breathing through the pain for you.” “Thank you, but it still hurts.”  Then they thought it would be a good idea for the guy with the bum ankle to do the tennis challenge.  Yeah, not so much.  It took them three tries to get through it, and they only accomplished hurting the ankle even more.  They rocked it on the windmill task, and managed to come in not last for the fifth leg in a row.

This was kind of a frustrating episode.  It seems like the roadblocks and detours should mix around the teams a bit more than they do, and not so much the getting to the challenges.  I really don’t think Josh and Brent should be there, but they are following my theoretical strategy to a ‘T’: Don’t come in last.  It seems to be working for them, so we’ll see how everything shakes out in the season finale next week.

In looking back at my predictions from the fifth episode, I only have the possibility of getting two right: if Natalie and Nadiya get in the top three, and don’t come in third, and if Trey and Lexi go out in fourth.  I thought James and Abba were still going to be here, along with Abbie and Ryan, but not so much.  I also though James and Jaymes were going out in fifth, and Josh and Brent, and we all see how well that worked out. 

Like I said earlier, next week is the finale, so we get to find out if Josh and Brent finally get out like they’ve been threatening the whole time, and if my favorites, the Chippendales, will win it all!  Woohoo!

Finishing Order(Average Place)

1. Trey/Lexi(3.30)

2. James/Jaymes(4.00)

3. Josh/Brent(5.10)

4. Natalie/Nadiya(3.20)   

Glee: Thanksgiving(S4E8)

So I’m guessing this is the episode that was supposed to air last week, instead of the superheroes on Thanksgiving, which was weird.  Sandy probably borked everything up, and now they’re all off…hopefully, this’ll be fixed soon enough.

Anyway, on to the main story:

A whole bunch of alumni come back and randomly break into song, as one is wont to do in the McKinley auditorium.  We have Quinn, Puck, Santana, Mercedes, and Mike, with Finn lurking in the shadows as well.

Finn asks them a favor over dinner at breadsticks, and we cut to the mass of them in the choir room with all the actual glee club members.  Finn asks that each alumni mentor a newbie, as follows:

Quinn with FQuinn, Puck with FPuck, Santana with Marley, Mercedes with Unique, and Mike with FFinn.  Oh, and Britney uses this moment to confirm in her mind that Mercedes was cloned to create Unique, so there’s that.

FPuck and FFinn have a gentleman’s agreement, in that FPuck won’t take things that FFinn wants, since FPuck got Marley.  This leads directly to a dance workshop where FPuck blows his moves to let FFinn have the dance lead in their rendition of Gangnam Style for Sectionals.  Oh, if only I were joking.