TV Reviews

Louie – Airport/New Jersey

After twelve brilliant episodes, C.K.
could have gotten away with phoning in this year’s finale, but with
“Airport/New Jersey” he gave us two incredible segments to wrap
up the second season. They were so good in fact, that we’ll forgive
him screwing up their order, as “New Jersey” came first and was
almost nonstop laughter. While “Airport” had a much more
depressing tone, with Louie saying goodbye to his unrequited
love, it still brought the heartbreaking hilarity that has been a big
part of making this season so great.

He may not have been the most memorable
of the two guest starring comedians, but it was a treat seeing Steven
Wright(who, if you aren’t familiar with standup, is probably most
recognizable as the Guy On the Couch from Half Baked). His
deadpan delivery is priceless whether he’s on or off the stage, and
such was the case when he was convincing Louie to stick around after
the show to get some “tail.” Watching Louie troll for eye
contact amongst the ladies had the cringe-inducing humor that comes
with any of Louie’s attempts at socializing. If he had just struck
out at the bar, Louie’s night would not have been so bad, but that
just wouldn’t be enough misery for the hapless comic. It was pretty
much inevitable that Louie’s under-stimulated libido would trump the
voice in his head telling him that getting into a car with a strange
woman offering to expose herself isn’t a good idea. Eunice may have
lacked subtlety, but her blunt offer was certainly enough to get
Louie to bite, and the shock it elicited, in both him and the viewer,
shattered the sultry, seductive air the scene had been building to
get a good laugh out of a bit of blue humor. As did Eunice’s “hands
on” approach to silencing Louie’s protests as they headed into New
Jersey; especially for Louie’s open-mouthed reaction. There was more
laughter to come when they reached her place and the other shoe
dropped.

Wilfred – Identity

The season finale of Wilfred is
here, and it went out in the same bizarre fashion that it began.
Unlike the pilot though, “Identity” wasn’t providing the big
laughs that came with our first introduction to these characters.
It was, thankfully, not from jokes missing their mark, but as with
last week’s episode, simply because there weren’t enough. In fact,
the plot of Ryan’s return to the cutthroat mentality of his days as a
lawyer resulted in more head-scratching confusion than comedy. Of
course when you’re paying homage to Lost, you have to leave
the audience at least a little befuddled.

Over the past dozen episodes the
dislike for Wilfred’s evil doings has turned into full blown hatred,
but with “Identity” the series took a break from the norm and
focused on making Ryan into a character to be despised. In doing so,
the episode showed that perhaps there is something to the yin and
yang relationship the pair have. It’s still crazy -even crazier than
conversing with a dog in the first place- that Ryan would have dealt
with Wilfred for this long, but maybe he needs a companion with no
moral compass to remind him to keep an eye on his own. It’s hard to
be immoral when your cleaning up the messes of someone who brings new
meaning to the word. Ryan may have willingly put his history as a
unscrupulous lawyer aside, but he showed here that he still has it in
himself to be a bad guy. So if Wilfred can keep Ryan on the straight
& narrow, or at least not blazing his own crooked trails, than he
might just be worth all the trouble he causes. Which is why this
series could have life into a second season; if it manages to find
the funny again.

Haven – Friend or Faux

“Friend
or Faux” did one thing extremely well. It allowed Audrey, for the first
time,  to express her feelings about — and expose her understanding of
— her rather unique situation: the fact that she has memories that are
not actually her’s. The issue was elegantly handled in a episode that had very little else to recommend.

The
story involved (one at a time) copies of a man, so it implied a memory
split, but allowed the copy to retain the original’s memories. This was smoothly used by the writers to segue into Audrey’s
own memory condition and craft a beautiful conversation between the
copy and herself. The best line was Audrey’s “My best friend
Brenda used to say I think too hard, in the sixth grade. Except for
that she wasn’t really my best friend, cause I never met her. She was
someone else’s friend. Not mine.” Watching her say it, actually
watching her throughout the scene, shows how good Emily Rose is at
portraying a down to earth, no-nonsense woman, who gives the impression
she cannot fully embrace any emotion.

True Blood – Soul of Fire

True Blood is a special piece of television. Rather than making the show consistently good, the writers have taken it upon themselves to deliver just about the most up-down season of anything in recent history. Throw in the fact that the show deals with the supernatural and things get interesting, but add to that the fact that the supernatural elements of this HBO behemoth lead to some of themost cringe worthy visual effects shots on television, resulting in some of the most appalling acting on television, and you get something special. “Soul of Fire” took that X-factor element of visual ridiculousness to an entirely new level when the vampire-witch throw-down at the Moon Goddess Emporium came to pass. Sadly, when I say thrown-down, I don’t really get to mean it, as the fight that everyone was expecting following the badass ending to last week’s “Burning Down the House” didn’t come close to happening. 

The majority of the episode was, of course, still devoted to the happenings at the home of the coven, bouncing back and forth between the vampires outside and the humans inside, but instead of a battle, we got a negotiation. Arriving at their target with the intention of blowing it to hell, Bill, Eric, Jessica and Pam were stopped in action when Jason informed them that Sookie was inside. Admittedly, the result was probably the single funniest moment in True Blood’s history – both Bill and Eric showing their displeasure with Sookie’s actions in a unique way – but it was also, unfortunately, the beginning of a marginally palatable episode. Seeing that her feud with the vampires was coming to a head, Marnie called upon the coven to back her up. When they refused, she turned violent –  telekinetically throwing a knife into one of their chests. Although she had gone back on her previous desire for exile, Antonia saw the murder as one step to far and tried to bail on the Irish witch. 

Entourage – Second to Last

After seven-eighths of the final season of Entourage, one thing has
become more than clear: the show has forgotten that it’s only twenty minutes
long. For a few weeks now just about anyone watching the show will have noticed
that very little is happening each and every week, perhaps mistaking it for
simple pacing problems as I did, but whilst pacing is certainly an issue, the
real problem that the show has been facing is much larger. Not being a sitcom
like everything else that runs this short, it seems that the team behind Entourage
has forgotten that drama takes time to unfold if it’s going to be anything
worth a damn. As a result, the majority of the final season has been spotty
pieces of drama mixed with sparse humor that makes for sometimes entertaining
but often awkward viewing.

Louie – Niece

The penultimate episode of Louie’s
second season saw him hosting a reclusive house guest in the form of
his niece. As the two unlikely companions venture out into New York,
Louie learns that looking after a child who never speaks can be as
bad as caring for one who never stops. Though it wasn’t quite up
there with last week’s hour-long installment, “Niece” still
provided the humor and heart that this series does better than almost
any other.

If his opening standup segment was any
indication, C.K. must have had a run-in with a disagreeable young
store clerk before his show. Attacking an age group for their right
to be indignant with him led to some hilarious lines; “You’re
twenty! Which is a mathematical guarantee that you have no skills
and nothing to offer anybody in the world.” And let’s face it,
Louie is really going after anyone not old enough to be him, so don’t
feel singled out if he happened to guess your age. In addition to
kicking off the episode with a laugh -several actually- C.K.’s
onstage performance served as a good lead-in to an episode in which
his onscreen persona is dealing with someone he deems far too young
to be so miserable. As it turned out though, with what she has to
deal with, Amy might actually be justified in her loathing for life.

Wilfred – Sacrifice

“Sacrifice” wasn’t much funnier
than last week’s installment of Wilfred, but it was still an
improvement. For the second time in as many episodes, Ryan was
contemplating freeing himself from the unhealthy relationship he
shares with Wilfred, but the crazed canine was having none of that.
“Sacrifice” just wasn’t that entertaining, though it was less
from the jokes that fell flat and more because of a general lack of
trying. In fact, this episode had the emotional scenes one would
normally associate with a season finale, as opposed to its lead in.

Ryan’s escape plan came in a much
prettier package this week(sorry Dwight Yoakam), and even spoke
Italian. Cinzia, the Mediterranean beauty that Ryan meets on the
beach, was a too good to be true type of girl, certainly from where
Ryan was sitting. Of course before any talk about leaving the
country could come up, the two had to get to know each other.
Unsurprisingly, Wilfred gives them about two minutes to do so before
he sets to ruining their budding romance. His appearance did earn
the first laugh of the episode(besides Ryan’s deer-in-the-headlights
stare as he moons over Cinzia), so he can be forgiven for being such
a poor wingman. Comparing the sacrifice Ryan has to make in picking
up Jenna’s dry cleaning to the sacrifice the Roman soldiers made in
killing Jesus brought an outburst of laughter, made even better by
Wilfred’s convincing sympathy for those poor centurions. Being the
weak-willed runt that he is, Ryan of course kowtows to Wilfred’s
whining and passes on a date with someone who could be Italy’s
entrant in the Miss Universe Pageant. Granted, the pair’s stopoff at
the marijuana dispensary was certainly more entertaining than
rollerblading would have been.

Alphas – A Short Time in Paradise

With “A Short Time in Paradise,” Alphas‘
producers tried again to provide a self-contained episode allowing them
to focus on the team. They failed (again), even with the story line
involving the most likeable characters. Rachel’s issue with her family
was at times annoying, the relationship between Nina and Cameron was as
awkward as ever, and Dr. Rosen was dragged into an amateurish sub-plot
about guns. Ironically, the Alpha-of-the-week story line — which was
probably not meant to be — proved more interesting than the others
despite also failing to deliver.

Haven – The Tides That Bind

“The
Tides That Bind” brought us something new by introducing a whole family
— or more accurately, a whole clan — of cursed people in an episode
that quietly ignored what happened the previous week. There was
something sadly beautiful in the main story that made it right at home
in Haven. Plus, the episode also managed to bring together two storylines that were until now developing independently.

Breaking Bad – Problem Dog

With this episode Breaking Bad’s
fourth season is halfway over, and the series marked the occasion
with a brilliant installment. The other characters didn’t stand a
chance of competing with Jesse’s storyline, but Hank did give him a
run for his money. “Problem Dog” not only had the incredible
character development that has made up most of the season, but also
pushed the plot along into the setup for what one of the characters
themselves called, “a perfect storm.”

Showing Breaking Bad isn’t above
a little product placement, the cold open still did an excellent job
of portraying Jesse’s mindset. Gus’s evil empire must extend to the
gaming world, as that is the only way to explain Jesse getting his
hands on Rage before it’s been released. Well that or the
production deciding they needed a little extra income(just as likely
it was a move on AMC’s part, who has been known to encourage their
shows to include more product integration). Jesse’s guilt naturally
took the back burner when he began working with Mike, but it’s still
there, in fact, it has developed. Now his most pressing concern
isn’t the pain over what he did, but that he hasn’t felt enough.
Jesse wants the pain, he wants to be punished for what he’s done.
And since no one else will, he does it himself by reliving the moment
of Gale’s death with a video game. Not the most subtle message the
series has sent out, but one that was necessary in setting up one of
the most emotionally powerful scenes the series has given us this
season.