Crash Love

by Courtney Hilden

Although I might be later embarrassed to admit this, I am an A.F.I. fan. I first became aware of them when they were mostly a punk band, and I liked the supernatural melodrama of their album The Art of Drowning, which struck me as a perfect soundtrack to shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Later on, when they released their Sing the Sorrow, I was impressed by the breath of influences (80s neoromantics, metal, punk, goth, pop) and their lyrical content, which focused on the same apocalyptic themes but with more imagery. In songwriting, it is so easy to tell listeners; it is so much harder to show them. Then Decemberunderground came out, and I was so disappointed by the B-side-esque quality of the most of the music, I was simply to afraid to try their next album, Crash Love. If it was bad, it would break my heart, because then it meant that A.F.I. was no longer the band I had loved. So I put off listening to it, even though I purchased it in late 2009.
What a mistake putting that off was.
Crash Love is not a perfect album, but it would be hard for anyone to beat out Sing the Sorrow. Crash Love is still wonderful, and breaks new ground lyrically for A.F.I. The album's lyrics are mostly centered around a souring relationship, which, considering the focus of some of their earlier work, is both new ground for them and old hat for most bands, which usually focus their work of this exact subject. What makes A.F.I.'s take on the subject interesting is how unrelentingly and unembarrassingly messed up and melodramatic this whole unraveling relationship is. Several of the songs, like "Beautiful Thieves" talk about committing crimes together, in a way that strangely conjures up Bonnie and Clyde, if they were modern criminals who shopped at Hot Topic. Many of the songs discuss pretending within the relationship, like in "Veronica Sawyer Smokes" mentions "feigning falling" and "Okay I Feel Better Now" where the singer admits "faking for you." The song "Too Shy to Scream" prophetically works through the breakup, noting that the other person will not even pause their life after ending a relationship, just simply move on. Hughes films are even referenced in "Veronica Sawyer Smokes."
The song that is actually the most interesting (and perhaps the most lyrically impressive) is "Sacrilege." It is the only song that is not obviously about a deteriorating relationship. Instead, it appears to be a critique of religion from an atheist point of view. It brings up multiple aspects of religion, calling it obsolete, filled with "hysteric fairy tales" and "one big joke." It twists and flips religious imagery and phrases in clever ways. "Say your prayers, they're the final punchline./I don't see the love/below or above," Havok sings. "Please believe I'm doing just fine." Given that so much of A.F.I.'s previous music has referenced apocalypses and religious imagery, this song is particularly interesting and sheds a new light on their older work.
The album is a perfect distillation of the power punk pop that A.F.I. is so famous for. There is something invigorating about the overall sound of the album, and unlike most pop out there, the songs deal in uncommon ways with love, and in the case of one song, critiques religion in an impressively passionate way.

Terror Trips

Spoiler Alert!: Some of the endings to these short stories are revealed in this review
by Courtney Hilden

Terror Trips is a collection of three Goosebumps stories done as graphic narratives. "One Day at Horrorland" chronicles a family's misadventures at a theme park, "Deep Trouble" is about a boy visiting his scientist uncle and meeting a mermaid, and "A Shocker on Shock Street" is about two kids trying out a new theme park ride.
Each story stands up at least reasonably well within the graphic narrative (or as the kids would probably read these call them, comics.) There is plenty of action and monsters to make each story fun.
The two stories for "Deep Trouble" and "One Day at Horrorland" are predictable. "Deep Trouble" has the hero, Billy, comes to the inevitable conclusion that the mermaid, captured for scientific study and confinement, should be released. "One Day at Horrorland" is slightly less predictable, with the children remembering a detail about the theme park that leads them to the discover the weakness of the monsters that are about to kill them. It is the sort of detail that seems to obvious in retrospect. In terms of the storyline, the impressive one is "A Shocker on Shock Street," which has an impressive Twilight Zone-esque ending. The story starts out with the assumption that the two children are completely normal, but in the end, it turns out they were like their father's other creations: robots meant to emulate something else. The ending was well-handled, fast, and devastating.
The art work for "Deep Trouble" is particularly beautiful. The artist, Amy Kim Ganter, created an adorable mermaid, one that I would love to follow in further adventures. The artwork for the other two stories was serviceable for the story but not as eye-catching as Ganter's work.

Motor City Blues

Spoiler Alert!: The most important spoiler for the season so far is in this review.

by Courtney Hilden

Oh, hi, Detroit 187, it's been a long time since we've checked in with you.
The first thing this episode covered, and probably the biggest change on the show, is the death of Detective Stone. He sort of died off screen, as the audience watched him get shot and then they ended the episode there. And when we returned, there were the detectives, mourning his loss. Given that Stone was one of the few white and young actors on the show, it's surprising that they killed him off. This is actually sort of admirable, because usually when they kill off characters they are the person of color who has always been relegated to a side character anyway. Here's hoping the show will allow the other characters, almost all who are people of color, will be the focus of the show. They are far more interesting.
That said, the characters got over Stone's death pretty quickly. By about fifteen minutes into the episode, it was easy to conclude that no one on the team had died, judging by how business as usual the characters were. Sanchez, as a woman (and the only woman really on this team, as one of the others is a boss and the other is federal) was the only one allowed to mourn, which adheres to our culture's insistance that only women can (should, are weaker for) showing emotion and that men never feel anything, especially not for a colleague or friend. The scene between Sanchez and Fitch, talking about Stone, rang incredibly false. The actress playing Sanchez seemed to struggle to be sad.
Speaking of feminism, it would have been easy for this show to turn Fitch's wife, Linda, into a sterotype, but instead, they showed her as someone who wanted her son to know his father and wanted to avoid a confrontation with him. This is possibly the most heartaching and realistic-kid-centric divorced couple I've seen on television.
That said, taken in the context of Sanchez, Latina as female stereotype and Linda, white woman as not a female stereotype, I was bothered. Linda, a white character, is allowed to be more than her identity as a white woman, while Sanchez is confined to the stereotypes of Latinas as histronic. Or, put another way, Sanchez, as a woman of color has been defined solely as a woman of color, and nothing beyond that.
(As of this episode, Sanchez is also the character with the least to do or the least backstory. The show has spent time showing the audience Fitch's family problems, Washington's relative family bliss, Longford's struggle with whether or not to retire, and Mahajan, with his romantic life. When are they going to give Sanchez something to do other than be a love interest of Stone and Fitch? When is she going to be defined as more than a woman for male characters to desire?)
That said, this show as a whole has done been doing some wonderful things with their soundtrack and set. The soundtrack has been a wonderful blend of old school and new school, with an emphasis on music that has come out of Detroit. The graffiti in this episode was also great. "At least Katrina was quick." That's a wonderful bit of on-the-nose politics. Nice. And the best moment? Bobby freaking out Washington by calling him on the phone.

Any Human Heart Episode Three

by Courtney Hilden

I am usually sad to see a miniseries come to an end on Masterpiece Theater, Classics Edition, but here I found I was desperate to see this particular story, with increasingly wonky structure, no discernible meaning, and despicable characters, end, so then finally, blessedly, I would never have to revisit this work.

The first two episodes were relatively simple: Logan, the main character, moves between a netherworld where all his former selves reside, the story of his life, and then his old age self. Episode three found the story also moving between several stories of the older self (played by Jim Broadbent), and this became particularly confusing, as it wasn't exactly clear when things were happening. (When exactly, in the chronology, was Logan at the beach? He was suddenly in the cabin burning things, then we cut back to the beach scene, where he's drinking a beer and looking miserable.)

Midway through the episode, Logan asks himself "is my luck running out?" What I find myself wondering is when he ever had luck. His entire life was just one mistake after the next, and the fact that he spends his entire life thinking it's luck, when it's clearly all about the decisions he makes (and, the decisions other's make), his continued illusions just make him seem far too stupid. (The only thing easier to see through is the makeup that the various young actors had to put on.)

But all these things are tiny quibbles next to the various problems of the work as a whole, which I found myself struggling with. The place of women within the story was troublesome. Logan spends his entire life treating women poorly. He sleeps with women he knows are involved with his best friend, Peter. He marries two separate women because he wants to be in a relationship, not because he loves them. When one tells him she's divorcing him, he throws an abusive fit at her. He longs for children, but never to really be there or do anything remotely supportive, he just wants their love and affection, particularly the love and affection of female children, in what is an obviously creepy role. And then he sleeps with whatever he can. And yet, the work never passes any judgement on his poor behavior, never reveals the obvious misogyny and patriarchy that destroys several of these women's lives. If nothing else, it seems to revel in Logan's relationships with women, even depicting them as the underpinning of his life. But, of course, Logan's life is not about how much he loved these women, it's about a pathetic man too oblivious to realize how much harm he does and how treating women badly is impractical because it just leaves him feeling empty and hopeless, which just causes him to repeat the cycle of lovelessness all over. The work glorifying him as a model is problematic because there is nothing really good about him, just selfish, pathetic, or both.

The other troubling depiction is of the socialist collection Logan works for in this particular episode. Like other parts of this story, this just seems to be another way for the work to show how important its star is ("Look!" the works says. "There's the former King of England, there's the second World War, there's a reference to "Hills Like White Elephants." Please. Let's not pretend that this isn't just a cherry picking of historical events to make the audience feel as if somehow Logan is important, when the truth of someone's life within historical events is often far more complicated and rarely so involved in things only a Masterpiece Theater audience would be familiar with.) This socialist collective could have been fascinating, a critique of the collective's most anti-woman, racist leanings, which is vaguely danced around. Instead, it became a series of jokes, poorly made and apolitical. This miniseries might leave you to believe that the collective was ridiculous to have security measures, but the truth was that organizations like this were under constant watch from various governments, and they did work, through spies to infiltrate and disrupt their activities. (Whole books, yes, whole books, have been written on the subject, and yet this miniseries, with its dedication to HISTORY, is ignorant of them.) Two girls who engage in lesbian sex are depicted as evil, mean and stupid, and just another attempt to make lesbians villains. Moreover, this part of the episode totally brushes over what the collective was trying to do, making it into a silly game of silly young people, instead of important work to end oppression, work that still, in various ways, goes on today. It is an insulting depiction of activists. If you think that activists are unimportant, then clearly you haven't been paying attention to the work going on in Egypt.

Overall, the work was toggling between boring and offensive. I would much rather seen the life story of almost every female character than Logan, and I would have much rather seen historical events depicted in the way they happened, not from a reactionary, simplistic point of view. The only thing that I liked about this miniseries is that it is over and that, unlike say, Downton Abbey, there isn't talk of a second season.

Two Stories

Spoiler Alert!: This review spoils all the best treats of this episode.

by Courtney Hilden

Enough time has elapsed that most people probably don't remember "Three Stories," which took place in a similar context: House talked to students (that time, the kind getting medical degrees, this time, the kind learning long division) using several medical stories, with the big reveal at the end (what happened to House's leg and, apparently, attitude.)

It's this lack of revelation that made "Two Stories" such a disappointment. The three stories wove around and then showed the audience what was unexpected but necessary to understand; here the stories wove around and the payoff was nonexistent. The actual case (about a young man who had food quite literally go down the wrong pipe), was so clearly the sideline that it could have been absent and unmissed. The storyline that we should have cared about, over Cuddy and House's relationship, was equally lacking. It is hard to believe that Cuddy would only now realize that House's jerkiness extents to petty things like slamming the door and using someone else's toothbrush. And then he says he's sorry, and that's it. If the payout from this had been better (it wasn't really the toothbrush, it is that he is selfish and uncaring and that maybe those qualities are more problematic because, um, Cuddy needs someone responsible and thoughtful enough to think of her/them/Rachel, and maybe she's pregnant...I'm just brainstorming here, and even on a stomachache in a end-of-the-work-week haze I can come up with more reasonable or sane reactions from her.)

House fans have quickly become apathetic about House/Cuddy (and, from what I can tell, even Huddy fans aren't really enjoying the glow). I know I'm apathetic, just because the relationship, which could encourage a certain amount of emotional growth from House has allowed him to plateau all over again. House is always at his best when he's forced to confront himself or being funny. This episode featured none of the former and only some of the latter; it's time to get back to the formula that works and actually has story potential.

Threat Level Midnight

by Courtney Hilden

"Threat Level Midnight" was not just the title of the episode, but the title of Michael's movie, that he apparently spent eleven years on. The episode is the movie (an abbridged version, sadly) and the office watching it.

This episode is possibly the best idea the writers have had for an episode. It plays off of already established information (Michael's bad movie script from so many years ago.) One of the best parts of the episode was that it brought back multiple characters that have since left the show (mainly, Michael's ex-girlfriends, Jim's one ex-girlfriend, and that goofy friend of Michael's that no one likes.)

This episode highlights what the show does best: silly situations and Michael's huge, unreasonable ego. All of the actors did a great job acting in the various parts of the movie, perfectly playing both their characters and their character's characters. Andy totally nailed it as a bad actor playing a Jersey man. I also loved how Holly saw how Michael's goofiness, although sometimes fun, is also out of control and frequently is the most obviously immature thing about him. Michael might want to get married, but he has no idea what that would really mean, and Holly is hopefully realizing that the desire to get married does not necessarily make him compatible for her.

Honestly, I would watch a whole episode of just Michael's various movies. Jim's Goldface character was possibly the best villian of all time. Could we please have a sequel episode of Goldface's evil behavior? Please?

Chuck Versus the C.A.T. Squad

by Courtney Hilden

Last episode, Chuck realized that Sarah did not have the kind of family and friends to come to their wedding, so he begins to search for her colleagues from the CIA. Chuck comes across a group of girls called the C.A.T. Squad, and you know that means an episode filled with bad jokes.
Obviously the C.A.T. Squad was meant to be remind viewers of Charlie's Angels, but like so many of the sexist concepts on the show, this fell flat. Sarah's already a hottie, we get it, it's hardly as if anyone needed reminding. The only good thing was that the writers were competent enough to give each of the girls motivation, even if it was pretty two dimensional and predictable. (The Party Girl was clearly the cutest and most likeable, like a Reese Witherspoon-esque character, which of course also meant she had to be the villian.
What was the point of this episode? Of this entire storyline? What the show should be doing is exploring Sarah's past, especially since she is the second most important (and one of the more interesting and engaging) characters. Sarah deserves to have as many episodes exploring her past as Chuck as had for his. This episode just felt like a waste of our time and excuse for a bunch of sexy women to bounce around. The strengths of this show are their storylines and character development, and that is what the writers should be focusing on.