The Mastodon in the Room

by Courtney Hilden
Spoiler Alert!: Some of the early details of this episode are totally spoiled in this review. The crime itself, however, is not.

In this episode, where they "get the band back together," as it were, opened up on vacation clips of what various characters were doing. It was about as boring as actually vacation clips of characters doing things. It was sort of a lost opportunity, since the episode could have shown various characters doing legitimately interesting things in their various locales. Having a few episodes that focused on characters that were finding themselves deeply embedded in mysteries where ever they were and realizing they missed the work and their teammates would have been great. They would have given the actors, especially the lesser characters, a chance to have an episode all to themselves. Instead, they were just suppose to give us a taste of what they were doing, which was apparently exactly what you expected: Daisy still be annoying in Indonesia with Brennan stoically carrying on, Booth saving the day in Afghanistan, and Cam about to douse her career into flames.
Why was Cam's apparently impending career fail the genesis for bringing these characters back together? Somehow, this felt totally false. The case felt like a reject case from lots of other police procedural shows. Another case, a much bigger case, should have brought the characters together, or even better, a character's death should have been the case that called all the characters back to D.C. (Maybe they could have killed off one of those annoying interns. I'd still vote for Daisy, who is still so annoying and socially clueless that it's a shock Sweets has not diagnosed her on the autism spectrum.)
The episode was unrealistic in a lot of other ways. Daisy was beyond stupid to bring her engagement ring to Indonesia. She was dressed totally inappropriately with her skimpy underwear and cute clothes. (And was the camera's focus on her butt in an early scene necessary? No, it wasn't.) The only good thing about these Indonesian scenes is that Brennan was at least capable of wearing clothing that was practical for the environment and that did not do her any favors.
The costume choices continued to be strange throughout the episode. Sweets looked terrible doing the jazz look, but this was hard to notice, giving his terrible facial hair. His new look makes him look like an extra from Shakespeare in Love, and not in a good way.
On a feminism note, Brennan's comment to Booth that she had to beat people up because he "wasn't there to save her" was totally out of character, considering the pilot episode showed her perfectly capable of beating people up herself and not needing the least bit of help from Booth. What happened to that Brennan? Is she still lost out in the jungle?
Cam's anger at Brennan for pursuing the career she clearly loves was uncalled for. It smacked of all that "women need to sacrifice everything for everyone else" rhetoric. If Brennan had been a man, no one would have blinked at the decision to go do research in Indonesia. It also just reeked of trying to create drama for drama's sake. And it was another example of how unrealistic this episode was. If a program was that important to both the Jeffersonian and the FBI, someone would have stepped in to keep it going. And, given the reputation that Brennan apparently has, forensic anthropologists would have probably fought over it.
This doesn't mean everything in the episode was bad. For example, most of the interns are now out of the picture, leaving the least irritating one, Wendell. (Too bad about Nigel Murray. He had real potential.)

Chuck Versus the Anniversary

Spoiler Alert!: This review reveals everything about the episode.
by Courtney Hilden

In the season premiere of Chuck, our title character tries to both find his Mom and find a job (neither of which work out,) Chuck's Mom makes a few appearances (in a flashback, watching her son look for her, fighting bad guys), Sarah and Casey are so busy on missions they never see Chuck, and the Buy More is resurrected.
There was something reckless and sloppy about this episode. There was way too much they were trying to cram in to one episode. A lot of the other things that usually make this show delightful fell flat or felt lackluster. The humor was not nearly as funny as it once was, and this is probably attributable to the lack of everyone's favorite comic duo, Jeff and Lester. Something about the show feels very wrong and off without them.
Once again, Chuck is making a mistake he has already made: lying to Sarah. This always turns out badly, and Chuck never seems to think about this. Too bad the writers cannot allow Chuck the chance to think about things more. Sarah seemed completely unsurprised by the news that Chuck was lying about something, again. Even with the spy business being what it is, the lying that goes on between Chuck and Sarah is disappointing to watch. It also stretches a certain amount of believability, because it is hard to imagine any smart woman staying with someone with Chuck's history.
The show is wise not to rely too much on Chuck's intersect abilities. On another show, these abilities could easily morph into a deus ex machina, but on this show, they at least are smart enough to use it as sparingly as possible. The truth is that the show is at its best when it adheres to more realistic things, which is why Ellie's comment that jobs "are hard to come by," rings totally true, especially to anyone currently in the job market.
In terms of fight scenes, the best for this episode goes to Chuck's Mom, who had the most badass (but sadly quick) fight scenes. She and this episode's bad guy almost seemed friendly at the beginning of the episode, but that quickly turned sour.
Olivia Munn's acting left much to be desired. Usually the show does a decent job with acting, but her attempts at frigid were more like monotone.
Costume-wise, Sarah has one of the cutest tiered skirts on while discussing with Casey how Chuck does not want to come back to the spy world.
And finally, the show had a wonderful joke about spies when this episode's bad guy mentioned that Chuck and Morgan were smart to use public transportation to avoid detection. There was something about that joke that poked spies and spy movies right in the nose and allowed the audience to consider how too easy it often is for these characters. Getting Sarah and Casey on a bus? Perfect.

"He May be Blood, but He Ain't Family"

A review of "I Have a Right to Sing the Blues"
by Courtney Hilden
Spoiler Alert!: Some of the surprises at in this episode of True Blood are given away or eluded to.



In the latest episode of True Blood, Jason continued to woo Crystal, only to discover that she is engaged to another man (who also looks like he is perpetually in a bar fight.)  Crystal is bringing out the sweetest and gentlest aspects of Jason and will hopefully this will distract him from his desire to become a cop without doing anything to earn being a cop.  Lafayette spent a day and evening with Jesus, only to have it ruined by a bunch of rednecks who beat up on Lafayette's new car with a baseball bat.  Tara was able to con Franklin into letting her out of her chains, and attempted to save herself and Sookie. Sam discovered what was really happening to his little brother, and went out to try and save him.  And the King of Mississippi discussed how much he hates normal humans. 

Lafayette and his new beau, Jesus, deserve the award for cutest couple on the show.  I'm terrified that Jesus is going to turn out to be a bad guy, as so many of the romantic potentials on this show turn out to be exactly that, especially when he got going on his religious beliefs over the Gods that Lafayette has in his house.  It was heartbreaking to watch a group of homophobes take down Lafayette's car, because it lead to Jesus realizing he didn't want to be around them.  
Erik's desire for his father's crown looks like it's going to be his motivation for the rest of the season.  It's a pity, since Erik is usually so much more interesting and complex than this.  The only good thing that has come of this storyline so far is that it has allowed the audience to see a man using sex to get what he wants, instead of just the female characters on this show. 

The costume people deserve points for their great work with Lafayette's costumes alone, but this show also had a great moment in women's costumes, when a customer at Merlotte's was wearing curlers in her hair.  What a hilarious costume.  Sophie-Ann, meanwhile, is also rocking out a great queenly look crossed with a business power suit crossed with the 1920s.  All the blood on the Lorena's costume in the second half of the episode was also perfect.  It's a little sad to see such pretty clothes being destroyed, but it also looks great and goes well with the horror tone of the show.  Melinda's nice blouse and combed hair was also a nice change for her, who has always looked liked she was rolling around in mud.  
It's also a relief to see Tara attempting to gain some control over her situation with Franklin.  It's good to see she is smart enough to realize how to get to Franklin and how to manipulate him, hopefully to her gain.  It's also a pleasure to see Tara and Sookie planning to save each other.  So many shows have men saving a damsel in distress, or, if the audience is lucky, a woman saving the day.  It is a nice change of pace to see a woman attempting to save herself and another woman.
The season seems to have a lot of people trying to save each other, or save themselves.  In Sam's case, he's trying to save his family, which are doing things he has only started to glimpse.  His own mother's belief that he isn't truly family is heart-breaking, given how much he does want to save them.  
In the not-so-good department, Sookie and the King's question and answer game was one of the longest, drawn-out and boring scenes, which is sad because it's suppose to be one of the most terrifying moments on the show.  The entire storyline involving Bill's time in Mississippi is long and boring.  The more characters it brings in, even the great ones, do not help the situation.  The only good thing that has come out of this storyline is Bill's small speech to Lorena about how much he wished he could have seen her before she turned.  It was the beginning to the great break moment between Lorena and Bill.