Television Blur (3/17/12)

Smash, “Chemistry” – Let me just get this off my chest, if the melodrama between Julia and Michael goes on for much longer I am going to ran a fork through my eye sockets. Okay, I’m better now. Aside from another episode of Michael swooning for Julia and both of them engaging in terrible decisions while leaving their families behind, “Chemistry” was sort of an unimportant episode. The fire between Ivy and Karen is still intense when Ivy comes down with laryngitis. She then takes a steroid to ensure that she can practice and sing for the workshop presentation, but that creates plenty of mood swings and hallucinations that troubles the leading lady of the Marilyn. Karen falsely gets her hopes up of taking over as Marilyn, but gets a break when a big-shot listened to her sing at the bar mitzvah. Once again, nothing major happened in the episode, but I’m still enjoying it regardless.

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Luck, Season 1 Episode 7 – All season long, we’ve been introduced with a handful of engaging characters and we have watched them go throughout their everyday business. We see Jerry gambling his money away, Ace plotting his revenge, Escalante getting pissed off, and a lot more. Even though nothing has seemed to happen yet, a lot of things are constantly in motion and that’s why I love this show. In the latest episode, Walter makes a decision to take Rosie off the horse and potentially having Ronnie ride Gettin’ Up Mornings soon. Also, Jo tells Escalante that she’s pregnant and he takes up the task by being a great parent to a young boy with an abusive uncle. Meanwhile, Ace and Joan Allen become closer and Jerry and Naomi heat things up. The big action scene of the episode is when Michael bashes Nathan’s skull in with a glass ashtray. Just when Ace was beginning to like him. We’ll see exactly what this will force Ace to do in the final two episodes of the season.

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Alcatraz, “Clarence Montgomery” – This was mainly a throw-away episode aside from one bit of information that they revealed: that there were experiments being done in Alcatraz that involved extracting blood, infusing it with radio-active material, and then injecting it back into the inmate. So is that what they’re doing to Tommy Madsen? But why? The episode revolved around Clarence, an innocent African American who lived through a tough time of discrimination where “white people always got their way.” It so happens that Clarence was involved with some more experiments in Alcatraz involving a psychological change that turned Clarence into a killer. At the end, Clarence found himself at the wrong end of a shotgun blast. Oh, and looks like Doc Soto has a date.

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The River, “The Experiment” – We last left off at some outpost that Emmet Cole’s body was dumped off at in the video tapes, but when the crew reaches the same outpost it is abandoned. This episode dealt with the reason why Kurt took on this mission. His girlfriend was here when a deadly virus was released, turning everyone exposed to it into a flesh-eating zombie. Kurt mourned his loss but at least had the quick turn-around to shoot her zombie state in the head. If only Rick from The Walking Dead had that kind of quick thinking. Anyway, Tess and Lincoln finally are reunited with Emmet, as he was cocooned like a dragonly, preserving his resources until a better time presents itself. The team manages to get Emmet back on the ship, but they have to deal with two zombies, one that kills a recently rescued Rabbit. After Kurt takes out one, Emmet surprises everyone and takes out the other one. I’m not exactly sure what to expect in the season finale, but it seems like there are still a lot of things to resolve, and I doubt The River will get to everything. What impact with the Xulos tribe have as the crew tries to leave. And what’s the deal with Emmet Cole? I’ll be surprised if he makes it out alive come next week.

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New Girl, “Control” – While I have enjoyed the majority of the first season of New Girl, this week’s episode did not impress me one bit. It actually might be the worst episode of the season. All the characters don’t move forward: Schmidt and Cece are still barely something, Nick finds another way to be a jerk, Winston still doesn’t matter, and Jess tries to change a good thing once again. In the episode, Jess changes Schmidt from being the control-freak of cleaning and providing for the rest of the apartment to a free-spirited hippie. Meanwhile, Nick and Winston argue about who owes each other money. Both story-lines were bad and therefore, this episode simply shouldn’t have been aired at all. Hopefully the last two episodes (a two-parter) makes up for this terrible blunder.

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Awake, “Guilty” – I’m glad that the show isn’t snowballing faster than before it even had time to set its feet into the ground. With the bombshell that Awake dropped on us last episode, it’s beneficial that they ignored the whole mystery about this guy in a suit to allegedly took out Britten’s family. Anyway, we’re back to the family drama of Britten’s family still grieving for the loss of a family member. Hannah attends a charity function when they honor her son, and Rex feels terrible for wishing that his mom was still alive instead of his dad. Meanwhile, a convict escapes from his shackles and kidnaps Rex, seeking justice for the crime he never committed. After he’s shot to death, Britten must confront this convict in his other reality to locate Rex before it’s too late. There were plenty of good moments throughout the episode, and even though the plot was predictable it was still worthwhile. The shrinks didn’t have a major role in this episode and I hope they return to more of his therapy sessions soon.

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Community, “Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts” – There was nothing that I enjoyed more than the return of Community. After a hiatus, the Greendale gang returned to NBC. Pierce and Shirley team up to start a sandwich shop in the cafeteria when Andrew re-proposes to Shirley. Even though Britta and Jeff deeply oppose marriage, it so happens that Britta is a brilliant wedding planner. Meanwhile, Troy and Abed OD on being weird so they can be normal for Shirley’s wedding rehearsal. This specific story-line was my favorite because Community is always self-aware of its situation that this was basically poking fun at the fact that Community is too different for the general public to grasp. But at the end, Troy and Abed decide to embrace their weirdness and hopefully so will Community.

Televisionn Blur (3/10/12)

Luck, Season 1 Episode 6 – Cursed by the 42-minute-long basic television network shows, I’m not used to the amount of information that HBO’s Luck provides week after week. But once again, we have a lot of shifting of the chess pieces instead of some important moves during this week’s episode. We get a deeper look at Joey, who reached the point of his distress by calling his ex-wife and then tries to kill himself. Only an earthquake saves him. Meanwhile, Ace sends Nathan to meet with Mike and his two lackeys to convince them he has the Indian Game Board on his side. We know that Ace seeks revenge against Mike, but it’s still uncertain exactly what he intends to do to accomplish that. At the racetrack we have two races: Gettin’ Up Morning destroys its competition, though Walter is pissed at Rosie for using the whip, and Mon Gateau wins with Leon riding, though there was an inquiry regarding a possible foul that Leon was luckily not penalized for. This episode kept the usual slow-boil pace just like every episode of the series thus far. This is still one of the best shows on right now, and the value of multiple viewings increases the quality of this HBO series.

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The Walking Dead, “Judge, Jury, Executioner” – Something major happened during this week’s episode of The Walking Dead, so this mini-review will contain spoilers. Daryl kept warning us that the group is “broken” and that’s why he’s better off staying on his own. The group has finally sided with Shane and has agreed to kill Randall, but Dale does his best impression of Henry Fonda and tries to sway everyone to his side. It doesn’t work. Meanwhile, Carl is rebelling against everyone. First he disobeys Shane by climbing into the barn to talk with Randall, next he talks back to Carol, then he steals Daryl’s gun and taunts a walker, and finally he creeps into the barn when Rick was about to kill Randall. This kid is out of line, but I guess how else would a kid act in a world with no rules and death breathing on his neck? The conclusion made up for the lack of action throughout. Dale investigates a noise that is coming from a wounded cow when the same walker that Carl was taunting from before attacks Dale and rips open his stomach. The group responds to his screams, but it’s too late. Daryl puts a bullet in his head with the parting words, “Sorry brother.” Wow. It was certainly an emotional ending to a mediocre episode. Dale represented the ethical mindset of the group. With him out of the way, who knows what kind of chaos will develop.

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Smash, “Let’s Be Bad” – I don’t exactly know what it is about Smash, but I’m growing a bit weary of the series. Aside from it being the Glee for grown-ups, its characters are lacking (for the most part) and the themes being explored are too shallow to really dive into. Anyway, the drama continues with only one major thing happening at the very end of the episode, which was the kiss shared between Julia and Michael (like we didn’t see that coming a mile away). Meanwhile, Ivy is still being a snotty diva, Karen is still struggling with confidence whether it’s during the workshops or being paraded around by her boyfriend, and Tom is playing hard-to-get. For some reason, Derek is becoming one of my favorite characters (not because he’s a douche) because he’s the only one you really don’t know what to expect from. One minute he can melt Ivy into a puddle, the next he’ll be flirting with the waitress, and then the next he’ll want nothing to do with anyone around him. Overall, it was a good episode, not great. Oh at last note, more Kathryn McPhee numbers while she is undressing, please.

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The River, “Doctor Emmet Cole” – Just as the title suggests, this week’s episode of The River focused on the man who is missing, Emmet Cole. After a lead, the team located a pack with more video tapes that the crew gathered around to watch. Emmet Cole and two crew members traveled deep into the jungle following Cole’s hunch that the “source” is close. Russ didn’t buy into Cole’s blindness, but that didn’t stop Cole from exploring deeper into the jungle and putting his and his crew’s life in danger. They run into some mysterious happenings, leaving a monkey and one of the camera crew members skinned to death, but that doesn’t stop Cole from moving onward. All alone, he basically starves to death, but is rescued by a tribe who leave his body near an outpost. On the tape, there are plenty of people in this area who take him in. But then the video goes blank. The crew on the Magus trek into the jungle and locate the outpost, only to find that the place is abandoned and basically looks like an army ransacked it. The most revealing moment of the episode was when Lena told Lucas that she set off the beacon that made Tess and Lincoln go on this mission to find Emmet Cole. She just wanted to find her father, and now that she has, she’s realizing what kind of danger she has put everyone through. This might not be the best television program on air at the moment, but I’m surely intrigued about how this season will end.

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Awake, “The Little Guy” – So it turns out that there is a lot more than we had expected involving Britten’s “accident” and his two worlds. Somehow, I think that they pushed this story-line way too early in the series. I would’ve liked if they showcased several episodes of police procedures, family grieving, and therapy sessions before dropping a bomb on us, but here we have it. We don’t actually have enough information to figure out what’s going on, but when Britten’s boss Harper meets with that man in the suit at the end, they discussed that she’s monitoring him and how the suit shouldn’t have wiped out his entire family. Say what?! There is just too much to even compute about this cliffhanger, but overall the episode was well-crafted with Britten still using signs from each reality and passing them off to his partners as hunches. The scene when he watches both his wife and Rex ride that motorcycle was a very touching moment.

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New Girl, “Injured” – I love it when sitcoms have sports in an episode. New Girl opened up with the buddies playing a game of football when Jess plows down Nick and injures his spine. When Jess brings him in to Sadie, she notices a lump on Nick’s neck and advises Nick to get it checked out asap. With this sudden news, Nick and his friends assume the worst and what follows is a series of hilarious overreactions at the possibility that Nick could be dying. Meanwhile, Winston has a really tough time letting go of his car. Just like every episode of New Girl the ending is super sweet. The gang spends the night at the beach where Jess falls asleep by Nick’s side and Cece and Schmidt cuddle on the beach, while Winston sleeps in his car for what would be the last time. This wasn’t the best episode of New Girl, but it was standard for Jess and company.

Television Blur (3/3/12)

The Walking Dead, “18 Miles Out” – The episode was split into two story-lines: one focusing on Rick and Shane duking it out while trying to release Randall, the kid Rick saved outside of the bar, and one focusing in on the girls back at the barn where Beth wants to commit suicide because of her hopelessness. The action took place during the Rick/Shane scenes as they once again don’t see eye to eye. This time they decide to settle things with their fists until a swarm of walkers are released. Shane barely makes it out alive from the assistance of Rick and Randall. Meanwhile, Lori and Andrea butt heads with their opinion on how to ensure Beth doesn’t kill herself, which ends with Beth cutting herself with broken glass but shallow enough that she’ll survive. Call me crazy, but I’m beginning to go over to the dark side with Shane’s logic. Rick is too indecisive and unable to make tough decisions quickly. Nonetheless, these two dynamic characters are the heart and soul of The Walking Dead.

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Luck, episode 5 – Ace and Gus push their buttons with Escalante by calling out his gambling scheme. They order him to throw Leon out and hire the best jockey to ride Pint of Plain. This causes Joey to go into a rage, especially when Ronnie confesses he switched agents. Meanwhile, Marcus sees the doctor and is prescribed Valium. Under the drugs, Marcus confuses his care for Jerry as homosexual feelings, which Jerry laughs off. It’s the most sensitive we’ve seen Marcus all season long, but it shows the relationship between the two railbirds. At the end, Pint of Plain gets injured by a horse shoe during the race and we see another tough character let down his guard with an act of sentiment, Ace petting Pint of Plain.

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How I Met Your Mother, “Karma” – This season of HIMYM has been very uneven, with episodes of pure awesomeness and then others that are disposable. “Karma” was an episode in the middle of the spectrum. While the story-line of Barney pursuing Quinn at the strip club was dull and very unfunny, the story-line with Robin feeling captive in Marshall and Lily’s home on Long Island was pretty effective. But what matters is that Ted has become the main character again. Coping with the death of the idea of him and Robin, he tries to fill her room with something to forget her by. The conclusion was important to the progress of the series. Finally with Marshall and Lily back in the city, they don’t have to be excluded from the gang’s shenanigans. But where is Ted going to live?

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Smash, “The Cost of Art” – Finally, Karen catches a break this episode and makes some friends in the workshop for Marilyn the Musical. They teach Karen how to become part of the ensemble instead of always standing out, but it’s clear at the end that she’s meant to be a leading lady, not one that blends in with the rest of the cast. Meanwhile, Derek throws a party for a young TV-star, Lyle West (guest star Nick Jonas). The characters begin to understand the situation clearer: Ivy sees Derek for a flirtatious and untrusting boyfriend while Karen finds out that Ivy slept with Derek for the leading part. From the preview of next week’s episode, looks like this is just the beginning rounds of the Ivy vs. Karen match-up.

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The River, “Peaches” – What kind of curse will the Magus find them-self with this episode? Well, their engine is shot and they need replacement parts to avoid being stranded on the Amazon River. Luckily for them, there’s another boat in the area. The Exodus and its four-person crew aboard the Magus and they laugh, cheer, and share stories with each other like a group of friends on a camping trip. But they soon find out that the members of the Exodus are ghosts trying to leave their ship by capturing people to replace them by sunrise. Lincoln, Clark and AJ race to save their crew before it’s too late. The episode concentrated a lot on Lena and her search for her father. When she finds him on board of the Exodus, happiness pours from her face, but she’s left with the opposite when she has to leave him on the Exodus along with the other ghosts.

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Awake, “Pilot” – This new NBC drama has a lot of potential. The plot is simple yet complexly fascinating: Michael was in a car accident with his wife, Hannah, and son, Rex. He is currently living two realities, one where Rex died from the accident and one where Hannah has died. He is a police detective and in both realities, he has separate cases to solve, different partners, and different shrinks. The dilemma is that he doesn’t know which world is real and which is a dream. Pretty cool, huh? The cop portion of the series seems like it’s going to be very procedural: two intertwining cases every episode where he has these “hunches” because of his other reality. But the best part of the show will be the psychological aspect of Michael dealing with the loss of a loved one. Awake will show how different, or similar, his world ends up being if his wife or son died in that crash.

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Parks and Recreation, “Campaign Shake-Up” – The campaign of Leslie Knope has been running quite smoothly the past few weeks, but that all changes in this past week’s episode when Bobby Newport hires a new campaign manager, Jennifer Barkley (Kathryn Hahn). She’s smart, has quick wit, and on top of that she is over-the-top friendly. Time and time again, Jennifer plays Ben and Leslie for a fool, which results in Team Leslie wiping away their recent punk’d spot with alcohol. Meanwhile, to avoid a new hire to fill Leslie’s shoes, the Parks and Rec department have to solve the problem of germs spreading from the water fountain. These were easily the funniest scenes of the episode. I laughed out loud every time someone actually put their mouth around the spout of the fountain. In the end, Ron promoted April. The episode was missing the usual shenanigans that I love from Tom and Andy, but adding Jennifer to the race will add some nice political comedy between both campaigns in upcoming episodes.

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The Office, “Test the Store” – For me, this week’s episode of The Office was disappointing. When I’m not falling out of my seat with laughter by the time the opening credits are rolling, I’m already dreading the rest of the episode. Anyway, the Sabre store is opening and Dwight is striving to be the leader that will gain him the VP position. They’re showcasing the Sabre Pyramid and everything falls apart when Ryan flees from his presentation. Meanwhile, in the Scranton parking lot, Andy gets a black eye from protecting Pam from a group of young girls on bikes. Toby gives a self-defense class, but eventually the truth is revealed and Andy is teased mercilessly. Back at the store, Jim fills in for Ryan and impresses the crowd. At the end, Dwight is named VP and celebrates with his usual leg-kick and fist pumps. Again, I wasn’t impressed by the episode at all.

Luck: Season 1, Episode 2

The second episode of Luck lacked the power and great cinematography the pilot had, but it pushed the story-line and characters forward, which is progress. With a slew of characters and only an hour to gaze upon everyone’s problems and situations, this episode was certainly a filler for greater and more exciting things to come. This isn’t a terrible thing, for those who watched Game of Thrones know, but it left me with such anticipation that I simply want nothing more than this week to breeze by.

Let’s get to the recap. Last week, Turo Escalante’s horse, Mon Gateau, won a race in the Pick Six despite being a huge underdog and now we understand that Escalante plays quite a dirty game to give his horses unfavorable odds to everyone outside of his close circle. He benefits from these tactics by betting on his own horses and making a lot of money from the payout. In a claiming race, Escalante enters Mon Gateau while bandaging his ankles even though there’s nothing wrong with the horse. The horse wins but to Escalante’s surprise, Mon Gateau was claimed.

As for our four wealthy railbirds, Renzo takes a chance at claiming Mon Gateau, but loses the horse in the end from the result of bad luck. We learn about Lonnie’s insurance scam that he’s trying to back out on, but what he doesn’t know is that the two women he thought he was partnering with has the intention to kill him off to collect on his policy. Poor Lonnie. I want to like him because he seems to be a likeable, albeit stupid, fellow but he is the most disposable character on the show.

Marcus is still as miserable and cranky as ever, but seemingly the only one of the four with any self-control over his recent winnings. He’s laying low and lecturing the others about spending too much money when they shouldn’t be. He believes that their money should be taken with great responsibility. Meanwhile, Jerry (my favorite character thus far) has hit the high stakes poker tables against his rival, Lester. After losing thousands, Jerry hits a stroke of luck by hitting a King on the river against Lester. I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve seen of the suspense between these two at the casino.

As for Ace, we learned a lot about his past and his motives for the rest of the season. We learned that he gave Escalante a nudge in the right direction when he was young, but Ace didn’t take any credit for Escalante’s hard work that resulted in where he is right now. We also understand the magnitude of this revenge that Ace is seeking against DiRossi, Cohen, and Mike for allowing him to take the fall in order to avoid having his grandson put in jail. He took the rap for Mike’s cocaine stash, which he never confessed to. Let’s just say that Ace and Gus are about to get their hands dirty.

Finally, Walter shed some tears as he told the heartbreaking tale of what happened to Delphi, the sire of his colt Gettin’ Up Mornings. As a part of an insurance scam, Delphi was killed and Walter can’t help but to feel responsible for not being able to stop it. When Walter describes what it was like to hear Delphi’s legs break, you cringe along with him. Meanwhile, Walter helps Rosie at her chance to ride in a race, one that she has well-deserved.

Like I said earlier, this episode kept its slow pace throughout aside from the second poker scene, but it was still a very interesting hour of television. I would love to see more interactions between Ace and Escalante because they are two mysterious yet dangerous characters in the show. Also, it’s going to be interesting to see how the railbirds deal with Lonnie’s current situation, beaten and bloodied in the motel.

HBO’s Premiere of “Luck”

HBO’s newest drama series is titled, “Luck.” Set in present day, the show surrounds itself with horse and the life of gambling at the racetrack. For those who never stepped foot at a racetrack before (myself included), it took a while to understand all the motives and regulations for what the characters were trying to achieve. But aside from the vernacular, Luck is shaping up to be one hell of a show.

Dustin Hoffman plays Chester “Ace” Bernstein who has just been released from prison after a three-year sentence. His friend, Gus Demitriou, drives him back and will now be the front to Ace’s plans, since he has to be cautious not to violate his parole. There isn’t much more information to Ace’s plan aside from his eye on a particular horse. We’ll see what his whole deal is soon enough.

The bulk of the episode concentrated on four gamblers, Jerry, Lonnie, Marcus and Renzo who are punching in their ticket for the multi-million dollar jackpot of the Pick Six. If they predict the winners of six consecutive races, they have the chance to win the jackpot. The most vital of the group is Jerry, whose reputation in poker doesn’t live up to his talent at picking horses at the racetrack.

Jerry’s most controversial pick was the fourth race when he singled in Mon Gateau, a 12-1 odds horse that hasn’t run in two years. But Jerry likes Mon Gateau’s trainer, Turo Escalante. Even though the jockey didn’t follow Escalante’s advice to win, Mon Gateau pulls off the upset. Escalante cashes in his winnings and eventually so do the four gamblers who win the grand prize of the Pick Six.

While I am unfamiliar with the world of the racetrack, the show kept my attention especially during the racing scenes. There are a number of characters that are seemingly connected, so that’s going to be fun to watch. Dustin Hoffman will certainly be able to capture our undivided attention in upcoming episodes, and I look forward to being amazed by Nick Nolte. With only eight episodes to go, I can’t wait to see where Luck takes me.