On the train home from college, today, I finished A Study In Scarlet, the first of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The book reads like 'one of those old books', but I loved it all the same.
The narrative is from Watson's point of view, following him home from Afghanistan, through the adventure of finding a roommate, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, learning about what sort of person he is, and then watching him solve a mystery. Part II takes on a strikingly different tone, as it is told from an omniscient third-person point of view. This is the story of victims of the Mormon community, of the murderers, turned victims themselves in London, and of the vengeful man Holmes arrests in his own apartment. After that tale, Watson's narrative resumes and the case is brought to a close.
I really liked this book. It is not necessarily a book you can analyse AP-English style, like A Brave New World was; or perhaps it is, but the reader does not feel the distinct need to do so. The part in the desert reads like a historical fan-fic, bringing in familiar characters like the Salt Lake Mormons, and, more specifically, an appearance by Brigham Young, but that does not mean it is bad. It reads not only well but beautifully, with vivid descriptions and a captivating storyline. Furthermore, as the first of the Holmes stories, the reader needs no background knowledge to understand the characters; Doyle introduces them for the first time here. This book is a wonderful read and I would highly recommend it. It's a great place to start for any aspiring Sherlock Holmes fan [like me], or for anybody looking for a fun story into which one can escape.
On a side note: I'd known that the character, House, was loosely based on Holmes, and after reading the first descriptions of him, I could definitely see it, right down to being a wonderful musician. You'll have to read it and see for yourself!
Fringe - Season 2, Episode 8: "August". Original Air Date: 19 November, 2009.
Michael Cerveris is back! He, and a bunch of other Observers have been sighted all over the place. So one of the Observers, August, who is not Michael Cerveris, kidnaps a girl to save her from a crashing plane. The other Observers are mad that he interfered, because she was supposed to die on that plane.
Meanwhile, the Team is trying to find him because, for all they know, he's kidnapped her.In the end, August realises what he has to do. The other Observers have hired an assassin to kill the girl, because she is not supposed to be alive, and they can't understand why he saved her [if you want to know, it's because he watched her grow up after her parents died, and he feels an emotional connexion to her, almost as a father figure] because she is, seemingly, unimportant. He risks his life for that girl and makes her important, by being implicated in the death of one of Them. And now she gets to live.
There was a lot of hype for this episode, and I don't really feel like it lived up to it. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun, intriguing episode... but it just wasn't that great. It wasn't very good compared to other episodes, and it didn't live up to the anticipatory advertisements and the real-life Observers planted around the country in cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago. For something that was expected to be so big, it felt fairly insignificant.
If you would like to see a sample of my notes on this episode: MICHAEL CERVERIS IS A BAMF Olivia is the most amazing woman evar and she's scared of roller coasters *love* Too many Michael Cerverises. They are not all Michael Cerveris. I have to go out. I would prefer not to gag you. WHY IS MICHAEL CERVERIS NOT IMPORTANT IN THIS EPISODE?!
Fringe - Season 2, Episode 7: "Of Human Action". Original Air Date: 12 Nov 09.
The episode opens with cops pulling in to save a kidnap victim, but one walks himself off a roof and one shoots all the other cops and then herself. When the team arrives, Walter guesses hypnosis, but Peter says it can't be that because hypnosis won't make you do anything you wouldn't do yourself. After more thought, Walter considers mind control as a completely viable option. Studying the body of a corpse, Walter tries to figure out a way to combat the mind control, and they stage a way to get the kid back. Except it turns out the kid, Tyler, is really the kidnapper, and he kidnaps Peter! Walter has trouble letting go of Peter, and he can't work without him. Meanwhile, Peter is trying desperately to fight Tyler's control, but can't. Eventually, he brings him to a strip club. He keeps trying to dissuade Tyler, but the kid is set in his course. He tells Peter that his father has lied to him all of his life, telling him that his mother was dead when in fact she was alive and well in Maryland, and that's why he's doing this. Walter figures out another way to block the mind control, with an EMT like in The Matrix I guess, and so they use it on the kid. Peter purposefully crashes his father's car in Tyler's moments of disempowerment. They wean the kid off of the drugs he'd been on and his powers go away. In the end, Walter and Peter share a sweet scene: Walter makes Peter crêpes and talks to him about when he was little and his mother. But then, we see Nina writing an email to Mr. Bell, of all people. She says that "one of the Tylers" showed mind control ability but that it had unintended consequences, and he went looking for his "surrogate mother" and so she is discontinuing the research completely, and there's a shot of Tyler's father wheeling Tyler into a room filled with Tylers!
This episode leaves a lot more questions than answers: surrogate mother? ONE of the Tylers? WHAT?! And what IS Nina up to? What are they planning?! Aaaah! I liked it! But I was also incredibly worried when I watched this episode. The bonds the watcher has 'created' with the characters are really put to the test watching this, which is somewhat embarrassing to admit.... :D
House - Season 6, Episode 6: "Known Unknowns". Original Air Date: 9 November, 2009.
OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH HOUSE IS BACK FROM THE WORLD SERIES BREAK. Thank goodness I have nicer things to say about this one than about Fringe.
A girl comes into the hospital after a night out partying. She's told her friends that she went to the band's hotel room and went skinny dipping with one of the musicians, but actually, she and her stalked their favourite sci-fi author all evening. When she decides to come clean about her actions that evening to the doctors, she can't; something in her brain [which is also making it bleed] is making her lie! Cameron and Chase try to talk to the author to see if he can give them any tips, and Cameron gets really upset with him because she's still upset with Chase and she's taking it out on the writer. And where is House during all of this? He and Wilson and Cuddy and her baby all go to a doctors' convention. Wilson is going to present a paper on euthenasia, but House doesn't want him to risk his license, so he drugs Wilson and steals his pants, and presents the paper himself under the nom de plume 'Perlmutter'. You can be sure that there were lots of lulz. House is also trying to impress Cuddy. She told him that she tracked him down in med school, and he confessed that he's basically been in love with her since he first set eyes on her, and then she leaves. And then we find out that apparently she's with that private eye from way back when. Remember him? Yeah, I didn't either, until a friend had to remind me. Oh well. Oh yeah, and the girl's okay in the end, and she did not get raped by the sci-fi writer.
In the very, very end, Chase finally comes clean with Cameron and tells her about his murder. Intenseeeee.
I think this was a very great episode. The mystery surrounding what the patient did that night was very intriguing, but even more important was the House-Wilson-Cuddy arch. Everything was there: lots of hilarity, new and old House, tearful moments, painful moments, and touching moments. It was so exciting! And the end was so intense, touching, and open-ended. Oh my gosh.
Castle - Season 2, Episode 8: "Kill the Messenger". Original Air Date: 9 November, 2009.
The episode begins with a bike courier; a masked man crashes a car into him and steals the package the man was set to deliver. The team tries to figure out what was in that package, so they track down the sender, an old woman, hooked up to oxygen in her own home. She says that she had no idea what was in the package she'd sent that morning, and that it was from her nephew, Brady. He had sent it to her years ago, and told her to keep it safe and to never look at it when he went to prison, and now, he wanted her to send it to whom it was addressed. That person? The captain. But when they want to talk to Brady, they find out that he's been murdered that morning in prison. Talking to others involved with Brady's case, in which he pleaded guilty to murder, they learn that he may not have been the murderer. A lot of digging around in Brady's victim's case brings them to one of the wealthiest families in the city: the Wellesleys. In the end, they discover that the Wellesleys' attendant / butler / everything man, Frank Davis, was not only responsible for the biker's death, but also Brady's [I think?] and the young woman from all those years ago. In the previous episode, Castle said, "I'm going to go with the butler," and tells Beckett it's who the mystery writers always go with when they're out of ideas. It's a cute bit of foreshadowing into the end of this episode. The minor plot in this episode is very minor; Grams gets a 'MyFace' as she calls it, and she has to deal with multitudes of friend requests. And then she has a date!
Like last week's Fringe, I like that we got to learn about a higher-up that we don't normally get much character development. Unfortunately, I thought it was too similar to Fringe's story, with the captain having to close up an old case and all that. I do not like weird TV coincidences like those.
The plot was quite gripping, however, I did not love this episode. Maybe I just wasn't into it, who knows, and I can't really say why, but I just didn't feel myself being drawn in the same way as I normally do.
Fringe - Season 2, Episode 6: "Earthling". Original Air Date: 5 November, 2009.
OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH FRINGE IS BACK FROM THE WORLD SERIES BREAK! Wait, hold that excitement... This episode of Fringe was another one that has very little to do with 'the pattern'. In fact, it seemed to be just an episode, and I wasn't in love with it. Maybe because my roommate had company, and they were loud, and I didn't get the same effect, but I can't be sure. The idea was they found this 'shadow man' who stole radiation from people's bodies, unfortunately, leaving them as dust. Very dead dust. "Except for the penthouse guy; he died of bad luck." This case had been Broyles's four years before, and he thought he'd fixed it, and now it's back to haunt him. We learn a lot about the guy because of this: some of his backstory [he had a wife and kids, for instance] and some of his character development. Always a good thing. So Walter tries to figure out what's going on as the killings become more frequent. There were Russian cosmonauts, outerspace organisms, and just general fun Fringe stuff.
I'm sorry this one's something of a crummy 'review', but the episode wasn't wonderful and didn't give me much to talk about, I think. There was very little Walter, Peter, or Olivia. The most character development was with Broyles, which is definitely not a bad thing, but I would have liked to see the episode a little more far-reaching.
TV right now is killing me. I hate baseball and Teen Jeopardy.
Stupid baseball. Fox is 'hosting' the World Series. Baseball is what made me watch House forty-five minutes late. Now it's the reason that Fringe, House, and Glee are all post-poned until the series is over. UGH. I'm sorry, sports fans. I really am. But isn't this what we have ESPN for?
Stupid Teen Jeopardy! Oh my gosh. I get really frustrated watching them. I don't think I'm really smart enough to be on the show, but I'd like to be, and I'm the same age as the kids on the teen tournament, but I'm answering the regular questions. I wish I had watched way back when Meryl was on it. I don't even remember why I didn't. But these kids... they played a clip of a bassoon, which has a very specific timbre, and the only person to ring it said 'violin'. No one else knew. There are always plenty of stupid little things like that. As an adult, I'll probably forgive them, like how I can forgive the little middle schoolers for not answering certain very simple questions. But I am the same age as these people, so I get very upset. And the simpleness of the questions is almost insulting! If I were on that show, especially tonight's episode, I would have been genuinely insulted if the questions were as easy as they were. And tonight's final! "There's a statue of him at the Baker street subway station." Girl answered Shakespeare. SERIOUSLY?
So I'm very excited for the next few weeks of television. Teen Jeopardy will be over after another week, and my regular daily trivia show can resume; the World Series will finally end, and we can go back to what's really important, House, Fringe, and Glee!
Castle - Season 2, Episode 7: "Famous Last Words". Original Air Date: 2 November, 2009.
This was a wonderful episode! It begins with Alexis, almost in tears [or very recently in tears, I guess], and she asks her father if it's true that Hayley Blue, the lead singer of her favourite band, is dead. It is. The crime scene is staged to look like a recent music video of hers, and the team follows a lead to her... most enthusiastic fan. A.K.A. stalker. He leads them to the band's guitarist, who leads them to the producers who had taken her in and paid for her rehab. Apparently she was like a daughter to them. In the end, they arrest the wife, but she is adament that it was not her. Of course, they don't believe her, but one look at the husband... Well, Castle hears her final song again, and he realises they've got the wrong guy: it was the husband. He had forced himself on her and later killed her. The episode ends with Beckett, Castle, Alexis, and Castle's mom [I really need to start remembering her name] at a Hayley Blue memorial concert, and, aw how cute, they look like a family. Or something.
I loved this episode. We see more of the relationship between Castle and Alexis, but through Beckett. She says it best when she says that she's so used to seeing Castle act like a twelve year old that it's weird [strange? refreshing?] to see him play the part of the father. And at the end, when Castle is confronting the man who raped the rock star, he's really into it, on the verge of tears, it would seem. The whole episode was really intense, with the same formula of leads and disappointments. Not much changes in the Beckett/Castle dynamic, though.
I also realised, just before watching this, that my Monday nights are all about architecture: first I watch House, then I watch Castle.
Castle - Season 2, Episode 6: "Vampire Weekend". Original Air Date: 26 October, 2009.
America's current vampire obsession has invaded... my half of the world...
It's Halloween, and Castle is preparing for a big party. He keeps mentioning it to Beckett, reminding her that costumes are mandatory, and hinting that he'd love to see her in something sexy. But even more important is the case: a vampire was murdered by a stake through the heart, in a cemetary. Yeah. Apparently this boy, Crow, belonged to a small geek community of vampires [I say geek meaning a person who is fascinated by one specific thing or culture and strives to live as close to the object of his emulation as possible, no negative connotations intended]. He was a young artist, who, together with his friend Damon, also found murdered, was creating a graphic novel about a real life NYC vampire named Morlock. The team finds Morloch and takes him into custody. He's a case, because he has a condition, I forget what it's called but its nick-name is the Vampires' Disease, and he is very sensitive to sunlight, to the point where his skin burns and blisters up with contact. With that condition come hallucinations and other craziness, so it's no wonder he actually believes he's a vampire. In the end, it was his insane babble and crazy talk that solved the case. Crow's step-mother had killed his mother so she could marry the father, and now, many years later, Crow figures this out and so she kills him too, trying to frame his group of vampire friends because of his father's disdain for them, in an effort to keep her husband close to her. In the meantime, Alexis is going to her first 'real' high school party with her friend and co-parent [for a health class baby egg project], and her dad knows she won't get into any trouble, but he tells her to call him if she feels uncomfortable or compromised in any way because he will come get her, no questions asked, no punishment. She thinks she won't have to, but she does because the punch was spiked and her friend was really wasted. Castle picks them up and does the right thing in calling the girl's parents, despite Alexis's protests that she would get in a lot of trouble. In the end, the friend was so mad that she broke the egg baby.
The episode was good, and very Halloweeny. Castle began the episode by saying how much he loved Halloween, but Beckett says it's the worst as far as weird crimes. I think the show did a decent job, too, and not making fun of the geeks. Of course, individual characters mocked the vampire Covent a little, but the way they were portrayed in the show was as a little weird, definitely different from the 'norm', but not dangerous or bad or stupid. And, I know I say this a lot, but I really love the relationship between Alexis and her father. There are so few 'like me' teenagers on television, whether it be adult programming on basic channels, like this, or on pre-teen shows on Disney. This girl is well-adjusted, has a few issues, but nothing she can't handle, and she's not angsty or slutty or deceitful like so many TV teens are. In this episode, she had to learn a bit of a lesson between choosing the right thing and the easy thing, but she followed her father's orders, and doing differently in that situation could have ended really badly.
I absolutely loved Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and I'm SO glad I read it. This book was not in the AP English curriculum, but my other friends read it, and when I helped them do a video project about it, I was intrigued. I'm so glad I got the chance to enjoy the book, even though it took me a while to read [I'm slow, I had school, I just don't like reading the last chapters because then the book is over, etc.].
The first part of the book is all exposition, and that's good. It really paints a picture of this Utopian futuristic society in which the action will take place. And it was very well written, with quick, sometimes disorienting scene changes, and sometimes vague dialogue, all of which seemed to further illustrate the collectively low attention span of the population. This is also when we're introduced to a myriad of characters; at first we are uncertain as to which characters the story will start to focus around, but after a while, Lenina and Bernard emerge as fully developed, complex characters. Allusions to Shakespeare in this section are almost meaningless because the characters do not know about him.
Which brings us into part two, where the action starts. Bernard feels a little differently about society than everyone else; we can relate to him the most because he, miraculously, holds onto some of our ideas of happiness and success, and we empathise with him because no one in the book can. He takes the seemingly simple-minded Lenina to a Native American reservation in the USA, and everything changes. The contrast between the reservation and the UK is so drastic, and we look at it with wide-eyed curiosity and wonder because it is nothing like anything we've been reading about up to this point, but it's also very different from the world we live in today [or is it?]. In this chaos, we meet John, the "Savage", but not an Indian and unable to fit in in either world. Bernard decides to bring him and his British mother back to England, as if he is a saviour or benefactor.
The last section of this book is ultimately depressing. All the fine thinking that Bernard had been doing, all the epiphanies he might have come to are destroyed, replaced, instead, by thoughts of self-importance and worth. The fame he achieves from bringing John to England has gone right to his head, and consequently, to his penis. John, too, is facing changes. He has a very hard time adjusting to this new way of life, he can't agree with the methods of the Brits because they are so contrary to everything he's learned on the reservation, and he feels himself falling in love with Lenina, but he can't do anything about it because the only way, according to his own beliefs, to have a woman, is to have only that woman, through marriage, for the rest of their lives. In the end, this is what kills him. It drives him to a life in the 'wilderness' in England, but when even that becomes nothing more than a spectacle for the curious Brits, he kills himself. The change was too great, the society was too devolved that it ultimately killed him.
The allusions to Shakespeare throughout the book were an important and helpful tool in the telling of the story. Shakespeare was the only ally John ever really had, and he could quote the plays almost entirely, even before he knew what they meant. The book is especially full of allusions to The Tempest [fitting, because I started it shortly after I had seen the play over the summer, and my school just put it on this past weekend], a mystical story about savages and Europeans, love, and freedom. Of course, from the colonialist point of view that the director took with the college's production, we see the same sort of interaction when the 'civilised' Lenina and Bernard step into the dirty reservation, and when they take John and his mother back, as if they were their saving grace. The title itself, Brave New World, is an allusion to The Tempest. Miranda speaks it when she sees humans other than her father and herself for the first time. It carries many meanings in the context of this novel, the most obvious of which is John's transportation to England from the reservation in America. But it also serves as a nod to the social context of the story: the England portrayed in this novel is drastically different from that of 2009 or of the 1930s, and is, therefore, a brave new world. But, as Miranda was, herself, human, and so the apparitions before her were not truly 'new', the chilling part of a dystopian novel such as this is that this could be us, and is it really all that new to us? Is it really so different from what we have now?
Just some little things~ 1: Every once in a while, a section or statement would ring so true and so possible that I would go back to the title page and check the publication date. This book could easily have been written last year, and it is as true now as it was in the 30s. 2: Even though it was written in the 30s, I still imagined 1970s-style clothing, especially whenever Huxley described Lenina's fashion.
The Tempest by William Shakespeare, as performed by the students of Connecticut College on Sunday, 25 October, 2009. This is a blatant copy and paste of an assignment I did for my acting class, which has also been copied and pasted to 4:12.
The Tempest was great. The effects were striking, the acting was fantastic, serious parts were serious, funny parts were funny, and everything ran smoothly and added up to create a great performance. And the set was beautiful, functional, and fitting for the play. One or two little pieces of clear green fabric created an entirely new setting. Everything was so intricate and well made, and created stunning levels for the actors to physically be on. The lights were good, too, especially the lightning. The sound was the only thing I didn’t love. In some scenes, the drumming drowned out the voices (and I was only in the second row!) so I think a better, or at least a quieter, approach might have been taken. But I liked the effect of the drumming, rain sticks, flutes, and singing. As far as the adaptation, I think it was wonderful, but personally, I’m a huge fan of the magic.
I think all the performers were successful. I especially liked the scenes with Caliban, Stefano, and Trinculo. They all knew exactly what they were fighting for (to kill Prospero, to drunkenly become Queen of the island, to get through this alive) and stuck to those goals; they were not only believable, but they made strong choices, like quivering in fear under a broken umbrella, and not being afraid to find themselves in actions or positions that, outside the theatre, might seem very odd. The three connected very well, too, which is what drew me to them the most. They were always with each other and never seemed to break focus, always listening and reacting, almost like they were hearing and saying the words for the first time.
Heroes - Season 4, Episode 6: "Strange Attractors". Original Air Date: 26 Oct 09.
This was a fun, sad, and scary episode. It starts with sex - Sylar and Mrs. Parkman? Oh wait. That's Matt. Or.... What? Apparently Sylar has been taking over Matt's body little by little and it's driving Matt insane. His storyline quickly heats up, and eventually, he realises that the only way to protect his family from Sylar's control is to leave, and he tries to explain this to Janice. She insists that he stays in the house and she'll go. After she leaves, Matt starts drinking and he realises it's making Sylar hurt. He drinks and drinks until Sylar disappears, but then he blacks out. Janice comes back with the policeman who'd been helping Matt through therapy, and they wait until he wakes up. But now it's Sylar in control of the body and Matt is just the premonition; he has no control whatsoever. Scary! There's also a Claire and Gretchen storyline. They get kidnapped and taken to some faraway location, which turns out to be a slaughterhouse, to do some initiation thing for the sorority. During the scavenger hunt there, Invisibitch tries to kill Gretchen twice; eventually there's a fight, and Claire ends up slightly impaled. Of course, that's no problem for her or Gretchen, but for the other two pledges, well let's just say they were more than a little freaked out. And this might mean uprooting Claire all over again. Sad! And then there's Jeremy. He's being kept in the town jail and Noah can't get him out. He calls in a favour with Tracy Strauss, and he forges some paper work that makes her Jeremy's 'aunt' so that she can sign him out of jail. A brief meeting between Tracy and Samuel leaves Tracy wondering whether she should bring Jeremy to the carnival where he'll be at "home" or give him a new life where he can be invisible. When they finally get him out, half the town is lined up outside in protestation, and one man breaks through the police line and starts threatening him. Jeremy uses his power and kills the man and walks back into the jail. That night, a few cops decide to take the law into their own hands; they chain him to a pick-up truck and they drive away, leaving him dead. Noah is, of course, very upset, knowing that he failed him, and Tracy is equally as upset. Then Samuel comes in and destroys the police station with his brainnn. And some little comments: I don't like the way they shoot Matt in close-ups, and Gretchen has the same IKEA comforter as I have at home! ♥ A fun quote from Gretchen: "Sounds like some crazy-ass conspiracy theory. Which... pretty much describes your entire life."
It was a good episode. It was gripping, to use the traditional review language. I wanted to keep watching, and I was genuinely upset when it was over because I wanted to keep watching. I'm a little tired and way behind on watching, so that's about all the opinion you'll get. Have fun watching this one!
Glee - Season 1, Episode 8: "Mash-Up". Original Air Date: 21 October, 2009.
The great slushy war has begun!
Apparently, Finn and Quinn have dropped down to the bottom of the high school 'food chain' when news of their baby went public.
Emma and Ken decided they need to have their first dance, but the problem is, Emma wants My Fair Lady's "I Could Have Danced All Night" but Ken wants "The Thong Song". Yeah. So they approach will and ask him if he'd be able to work on some sort of mash-up for the two... and for dance lessons. So later, Emma shows up in Will's classroom after school for her first lesson, and they dance, but then he trips and pulls her down on top of him. It's awkward. And Ken sees.
In another story arch, Quinn and Finn visit Emma for advice on how to be cool. She says 'sunglasses' but then quickly changes her answer to something along the lines of 'the most important part is being yourselves'. In the next scene, Finn and Quinn don sunglasses and they think it's working for them, until the entire football team surrounds them and bombards them with slushies.
Apparently Noah is hot for Rachel. He had a dream that he was with her, and so they hooked up once. "Rachel was a hot Jew, and the Good Lord wanted me to get into her pants." The next day, he sings a song for Rachel - "Sweet Caroline", and it was great - but Quinn seems to think it's for her. Heh. Eventually, they start dating. It's pretty weird, really. But because of this, someone slushies him, and Rachel is stuck cleaning him up. He shows her a sensitive side that the audience didn't really know existed.
Finn's getting hate from all sides. A fight breaks out on the football field when other players openly question his leadership ability, and his masculinity. Because of what Glee Club seems to be doing to the team, Ken adds a mandatory practise at the same time as Glee rehearsal, and the boys who do both will have to make a choice. Will goes to talk to Ken about the practises, but Ken says he's sick of being 'settled for'. Ken knows that Emma is only settling for him, but he loves her enough that he doesn't care. But when it comes to football, he says they'll just have to see who's being settled for.
Noah tells Rachel he's going to choose football practise over Glee "I feel like such a bad Jew." When it came to that dreaded rehearsal, the two football players that aren't Noah and Finn showed up. And then Noah did too! But Finn never showed up, so everyone was sort of mad at him. Oh, the things we'll they'll do for masculinity. *Sigh*
Will goes to talk to him, and he tells him that he's making the wrong choice, and he plays the 'you remind me of how I used to be' card. Good play. It worked. So Finn goes to Ken and after a little persuading, Ken cancels the mandatory practises so they four can do both.
Another dance rehearsal takes place in a bridal shop. Emma needs to make sure she can dance in her dress, so Will pops in the Karaoke version of "I Could Have Danced All Night" and tells her to sing along. Do you know how excited I got when he said that?!
A cool thing in this episode is that Sue gets a storyline, and it's really something. A man at the news station asked her out on a date, and she thinks she's in love. She even gets Will to teach her to swing dance to impress him. But just days later, she catches him making out with another woman. The jerk says, "You didn't think that we were... exclusive... did you?" So now happy-Sue is back to mean-Sue. She yells at Quinn, calling her a disgrace and forcing her off the squad. So no, that part wasn't cool.
Will goes to talk to Emma: he can't get the songs to go together, no matter how he tries. She knows. It's symbolic, obviously.
And Finn comes back! Of course. He buys everyone slushies. Quinn's in normal clothes. Wow. She says she'll have to start every day with a slushie facial, and Will says that's okay because she's got eleven friends to wash it off for her. Then they all slushie Mr. Shu.
So some other stuff! - I feel so bad for Emma! *cry* And for Ken, too, but to a certain extent, he's getting... a little bit of what he wanted... - Will performs "Bust A Move", and wow, can he dance!! That was really impressive. I didn't like when he made Kurt stand up and he started singing to him about some girl, but I did like how Kurt rolled his eyes and mouthed 'Oh my God' and walked away. Good for you. - BUT! I'm pretty sick of Will singing these pop songs. They're offensive songs, and I get that it's funny for plot, but... ugh. - GLEE WORK ON YORU LIP SYNC ITS NOT BELIEVABLE - By the way, Sue thinks you should marry your dog. - JAYMA MAYS HAS AN INCREDIBLE VOICE ♥♥♥ I figured she wouldn't, since she's portraying a non-Glee Club role, but... wow. :D - Will, stop falling in love with Emma. It will make everything awkward. - Oh the things we do for masculinity. Sigh. - Oh the seven-11 product placement. - KURT! He took one [a slushie] for the team. It's a good thing he's in love with Finn.
Overall, a very good show, but they need to play down the heteronormativity and the offensive pop songs, as usual.
I'm skipping Castle this week. I watched it, and it was good, but my roommate came in and talked to me for like fifteen minutes and I was very distracted. I'd like to watch it again, but that seems like an even bigger waste of my time than the way I already waste my time, and I'm just a little too stressed out for that. So I will simply post the notes I took while watching, typos and all, and leave it at that.
Castle - Season 2, Episode 5: "When the Bough Breaks". Original Air Date: 19 Oct 09
He's late so they tease him. He's pretty distracted thinking about his upcoming launch party. Candy wrapper. "Mmm, kinda tastes like soap. I like it." postcards in home Alexis is excited to go. Certain British spy. WHOO? I've probably never heard of him. My roommate came in and distracted me for ten-ish minutes. Oops. Something about the kid she babysat or something. They arrest a Czech man, the victim's ex-husband, but he thinks they were chasing him as immigration cops. There's a woman that they didn't get to interview on their first go-around, and she says that the night of the victim's murder, she recalls seeing the victim arguing with a man; the artists' rendering looks an awful lot like someone they already know. So they talk to this doctor - he's the husband of the woman they interviewed, the father of the kid the victim was giving candy to. Apparently, they were having an affair. But what else? Launch party! Did you read the dedication? "To the extraordinary KB and all my friends at the 12th." "You are extraordinary." "can I close the deal, already?" "What if the wife got onto the affair?" They fight. British secret agent or new Nicky Heat novel? Hmmm... WHAT AN AMAZING PLOT TWIST not enough alexis in this ep. "That was Esposito. There's been a murder. Are you coming or not?"
Castle - Season 2, Episode 4: "Fool Me Once". Original air date: 12 Oct 09.
The episode starts with a bang, as usual, when a man on his way to the North Pole broadcasting to a class of children is murdered on camera. Turns out the man was running his "North Pole expedition" from his apartment in NYC, after conning a few private schools out of a lot of money.
Beckett is pushing Castle's buttons, and he says he won't let it get to him... but oh it gets to him. She says she has 'plans,' which Castle assumes to mean 'date,' but we see her hop into a relaxing looking bubble bath with a glass of wine and Castle's new book. Next day in the office, she's playing games with him.
Alexis has a hot, new violin teacher, who has her father quite nervous, but his mother is perfectly okay with it. Always the voice of reason, that woman. Well, Castle starts freaking out about Dillon, which leads him to an epiphany about the victim's fiancée's father, which leads them down that investigative path.
But when they approach the father, he reveals that he knew all about Fletcher's con business because he'd hired a P.I. to follow him for a week or so. The team goes to the P.I. to see the photos, and they find one with the elementary school teacher from the beginning of the episode, so they go back to him. The teacher says Fletcher has a partner and he points her out in the photo, and it's Elise, Fletcher's fiancée who was quite insistent that her betrothed was not a con artist. So now we've come full circle, and Castle asks, with good grammar, "Who's conning whom?"
Well apparently Elise thinks that Fletcher was a CIA agent. But - is her lead legit or is it just another lie he told her? Castle knows a guy, and they check out this lead - he was not in the CIA.
Meanwhile, Alexis is freaking out because of her father freaking out. She yells at him for checking up on Dillon - it's always interesting to see how his cases take shape in his family life - and she tells him that she's a good girl and she's in high school, which is "the Wild West of hormones." Well played, Alexis.
They go back to Elise, to tell her that her fiancé was not in the CIA, but she has even more shocking news for them: Fletcher's alive.
"But if Fletcher's alive, who's the dead guy in our morgue?"
"I hate this case!" "I know, isn't it great?"
They find the engagement albums for Elise and Steve, and they figure out that Susan was Fletcher's con partner, naming her as suspect because she stood to lose a lot of money if Fletcher really was changing his ways. They shout, "The con is still on!" and rush to stop Susan. They apprehend Susan, and all is well. Except for Elise, because her fiancé is really still dead.
Beckett turns to secrecy to read Castle's book, hiding in the bathroom, but he surprises her in there [hahaha], and he resolves things with his daughter.
Some quotes I enjoyed: "That man could sell sand to a camel." "Oh now who's the sucker .... [awkward silence]... Sir." "Shut the front door."
Heroes - Season 4, Episode 4: "Hysterical Blindness". Original air date: 12 Oct 09.
The focus of this episode is mostly on Claire, Peter, the carnies, and Sylar. Sylar can't remember anything at all, and he was picked up by the police. Eventually, he was ID'd as a murderer and he has to escape, which is when he discovers his powers. Claire has to deal with a stalkerish roommate, but Invisibitch, as Vigg calls sorority girl Rebecca, is making it seem a lot worse than it really is. Gretchen, on the other hand, isn't trying to kill any one who gets close to Claire, she's just crushing real hard. Turns out Rebecca is with the carnies, and she's trying to 'push' Claire to join them, but Sylar gets there first. And then there's Peter and his deaf friend who sees music. Poor Peter: he's been feeling so estranged from everybody lately, and he's finally acting on some advice to reconnect with his family, but all his mother can think about is Nathlar [makes sense, since he's been missing and all, but still, poor Peter :( ]. He saves the deaf woman from being hit by a bus and absorbs her power, and that's when he can start to forge a connexion with her. I liked that story-line. It's cute, and I feel bad for the deaf woman, and I can't wait to see where that goes. The episode ends with Hiro showing up and then passing out in Peter's apartment! ><;; Claire said, "I have been chasing normal life forever" lol something tells me it won't be so normal for long [and by the end of the episode, I'm pretty much proven right]. I'm really excited for the Sylar story arch, and, well, all of them. I can't wait to see what happens to everybody, to meet new characters, and to see Invisibitch get hers [something tells me that will take a while]. This is the season we've been waiting for. No joke. Start watching.
**I'm naming the episode numbers by the "Chapter __" in the beginning of each episode. That two-hour season premiere screws it all up.
House - Season 6, Episode 4: "Instant Karma". Original air date: 12 Oct 09.
In this episode, Foreman and Chase have to own up to the death of James Earl Jones in the previous episode, while treating a young boy who seems to have no hope. The father of the boy is distraught, fearing that his financial success has lead to his son's immenent death: karma. In one fell swish of the pen, he signs away his entire life, every dollar, and then House miraculously has his trademark epiphany [while making a Grinch reference!], and the day is saved. There was a scene with Thirteen in the cab, and the cabbie gets upset with her for not trusting him. I liked that part. It's true: you never know who the other person is, and sometimes, maybe you should give them the benefit of the doubt. It really sucks how Chase has to keep lying to Cameron [I say Cameron because it really bothered me in the previous episode how he kept calling her his 'wife'. Okay, sure, they're married, but really, everyone knows who 'Cameron' is, so you don't need to say 'wife']. It was also funny when she called him Robert. House is still the same old biting character, but not as biting, which is mildly annoying... But he has good depth and he's still as interesting as ever... if that makes sense. Watching Chase trying to own up to his crime was so sad! Something I've noticed: WHY DO THEY ALL HAVE FIRST NAMES FOR LAST NAMES? It's not like I'm just figuring this out now, but, Chase, Cameron, Wilson, okay, that's really it, but it's still very annoying. It makes hearing their first names even more awkward. All in all, a nice episode, but I wasn't as connected as I was last week.
I've been doing a lot of review-style entries on the other blog, and I figured that people wouldn't necessarily want to read about them. Plus trying to keep up with them and post about... well... life?... would be hard, and would include multiple posts a day. For that reason, any 'review' [I am in no way a critic, nor should I really be listened to, this is all opinion] -style posts will be here.
I've only posted two TV review posts on four-12 so far. The first one can be found here and the second, here.
From now on, you can expect individual posts per show, and posts about books, movies, CDs, and other things of that sort. Yay! I'm excited [heh -.-"].
Coming soon: House, Heroes, Castle, Glee, Fringe, Brave New World, and Forget And Not Slow Down. Even though I should be studying.
My name is Kathleen. I'm on winter holiday after my third semestre at college. Sometimes, I wonder why I'm not British. I'm currently attempting to work my way through geekdom.
Currently reading: Nothing at the moment, hoping to start something soon Currently listening to: The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert soundtracks
