tpel

Up until tonight I was at peace with the fact that we would only get 6 episodes. Now I want more. I want bat-crap crazy Mulder and affectionately smirking Scully on my TV every week forever! Mulder trying to get pictures, yet messing up with his phone, was a nice reference to the passage of time. Now that practically everyone has a camera on them at all times, the lack of photographic evidence for the various beasties witnesses claim to have seen challenges their credibility. Mulder intends to rectify this lack, yet he is, as he said last week, "old school", not necessarily up on tech stuff. Maybe a stupid question, given the fact that the writers admitted that the story had no logic, but if the animal control guy was strangling his victims, what was with all the torn out throats? Was he biting them too?

To make matters worse, while Adalind may not have chosen to become a hexenbiest initially, she definitely chose to get her 'biestiness back after she lost it. So if anyone is more culpable for actions taken while a hexenbiest, it is Adalind. While, technically, in this episode Adalind apologized, it felt like the kind of apology one might give for vague, minor offenses -- definitely not a "sorry I raped you, and your partner before you" tone. Robo-Eve managed to seem more genuinely aware of the depth of her offenses, when she said she remembered everything. Again, the problem is not whether or not Nick forgives Juliette. It is that either Nick has lost all coherence as a character or he is, as noted above, "a d**k of epic proportions". Having written off the main character as someone I could care about, this is the only question that interests me right now: I hope it turns out that Meisner is neither wesen nor Grimm, just a badass human. I wanted this before the recent episode, but seeing that he basically beat Juliette into submission, I would feel a little better about him as a character if he at least did so at great personal risk -- i.e., normally hexenbieste can eat humans for dinner.

Just re-watched "Kill Switch". I'd forgotten just how many funny moments it has: Mulder grinning as Twilight Time plays in the car. The Gunmen fanboy-ing over Esther, then she says "Is someone gonna un-cuff me or do I have to work this thing [the computer] with my tongue?" The Gunmen stare at her, paralyzed with awe and lust. Taking in their expressions, Mulder smirks, "You don't wanna take a vote." Scully's exasperation with Esther treating her like she's an idiot leads to much eye-rolling sarcasm -- "Oh, right, Death From Above."

I'm not following this reasoning. I would love an Adalind/Meisner pairing, and I deeply hate the idea of Adalind/Nick. But I don't see any reason they would go with Meisner/Juliette. Meisner is not a major character, so there is no pressure to pair him off with just anyone. And given that his training of Juliette seemed kind of abusive, pairing them together would be unsettling. Not Adalind/Nick levels of squick, but pretty bad.

I think neurofibromatosis can sometimes present like that. I saw a TLC show about a chinese man, whom this image reminded me of. If the idea is that the scientists are experimenting to try to help kids with real, human genetic disorders, then I guess it makes sense that they would pick some of the most dramatic and intractable ones. But if they are implying that these conditions are the result of alien DNA, that kind of bugs me. People with these disorders already face stigmatization; they don't need the implication that they are inhuman.

Thinking of the kids Goldman was keeping in plexiglass boxes, some of them clearly had real, recognizable medical syndromes, more or less accurately portrayed. For instance, the doctor mentioned Proteus syndrome, which entails the overgrowth of certain body parts, and we saw a girl with enlarged legs. Crouzon syndrome results in a distinctively shaped skull, and the boy Scully talked to fits reasonably well with that -- though I think bulging eyes are more typical than an absent eye, My question is: were all the disorders real conditions that the scientists are trying to cure via alien DNA, or are some of them made up, perhaps the result of alien DNA? I know Goldman mentioned a couple of other names, besides the ones I noted above, but I didn't catch them. Anybody else catch them?

I don't hate anybody, though I do hate what the writers have done to certain characters. If the show-runners pay any attention at all to social media, I think that is a distinction they miss. I like Juliette just fine, and didn't have a problem with BT's understated acting, but I hate how the writers seem determined to rob her of her agency at every turn. I thought Adalind was hilarious when she had to go through various disgusting trials to get her powers back, and am intrigued by the thought that she could maybe be redeemable. But I loathe the idea of a romantic pairing between her and the guy she sexually assaulted, and I want her role on the show to be based on something other than repeated pregnancies and consequent neediness. I think I'm an anomaly when it comes to Juliette -- there seems to be genuine hatred toward the character and the actress out there. So, with regard to her character, the writers can't win. Leaving her dead might have spared them some of the current ire, but it would have been bad storytelling. If they wanted her off the show, they should have had her leave Nick two years ago rather than have us suffer through degrading story arcs with her. And as OtterMommy notes, her death had "not permanent" written all over it; making it permanent would have screamed "last minute re-write". The writers haven't boxed themselves in quite so much with Adalind, however. Just get her out of Nick's warehouse of solitude, maybe find Diana, join the resistance, or even go back to being kind of evil.

Yeah, I was puzzled that Nick and company explicitly decided not to consult with Renard about the wesen revolutionary group, after they saw the claw-like symbol. I totally get why they would have reservations about trusting Renard, but whether or not these reservations come up seems to depend on plot convenience. I mean, this does seem to be the sort of international political thing that's right up his alley. I can buy that he doesn't happen to know about it, maybe, but it is harder to buy that the other characters wouldn't consider him to be the most likely contact of theirs to know about it.

I want to go out on a limb and suggest that Nick is more of a problem for this show than Juliette and Adalind are -- fully acknowledging that the latter two have had some deeply problematic story-lines. But they are secondary characters; he is the lead. And lately he is leading badly. My first impression of Nick was that the character was bland and the actor was only so-so. But I soon found that, while Nick alone might not be riveting, he played very well off other characters -- like Monroe -- and DG grew into the role quickly. I still wouldn't rank him among the best actors on the show, but by the end of the first season, I thought he was pretty good. And Nick served two important roles admirably: he was the glue that held a disparate cast of characters together, and he was the eyes through which the audience learned about the Grimm-and-wesen world. He was also pleasantly angst-free, reacting to stresses without being broody or morose. Fast-forward a few years and those awesome other characters that Nick brought together have become marginalized. Monroe, for example, is still around, but he has less of interest to do. More of the weight of the story-telling is on Nick alone, yet the writers frequently undermine his competence -- from taking eons to realize that his girlfriend's aberrant behavior post-mysterious-coma just might be the result of a spell, to leaving his badly-injured protege unguarded at the hospital. Worse, it's becoming harder to figure out what his emotional state or motivations are. There were the moments that Actionmage referenced from the season premiere where it really felt like Nick was going through something. And when it is the point of the scene, such as in these instances, the acting and directing really comes through. But then it seems like the show forgets about such things. So, we have Nick frantic about Trubel's apparent abduction one week . . . and then he's not. He's appalled by what Adalind did to him . . . and then he seems kind of OK with it. These are possible character arcs, but I feel like we are missing the steps in between. Without them, I feel disconnected from the character who is supposed to hold the show together -- I can't see the world through his eyes, because I don't know what the heck he is thinking. Oddly, it reminds me of a moment a couple of seasons back. I don't remember the episode, but there had recently been some kind of conflict between Nick and Renard, or Nick had recently found out something devious that Renard had done, or something like that. Then they had to work together at the precinct. On Renard's end, there were subtle indicators that the situation was awkward --little stuff, like breaking eye contact early-- but from Nick there was nothing. My best guess is that the directing for the show is very straight-forward: if an emotional note isn't key to the scene, it may be overlooked. That can work OK when the emphasis of the show is on action-adventure monster-of-the-week stuff. But if they want us to traverse significant emotional arcs with these characters, without devoting reams of dialogue to them, they're going to need to give us more of the subtle stuff.

OK, trying to get some of the timeline clear (I missed some episodes toward the end of last season, and probably repressed some stupidity ;-). Given what we've learned this week: Reyes' group became interested in Trubel after she decapitated that FBI agent. She accompanied Josh home, and around that time, she voluntarily-ish joined the group. This makes sense of the "six months" comment with regard to the motorcycle. She "came back for" Juliette, at the behest of the group -- not necessarily to kill her, but to grab her for hexenrehab. At that time, she was forcibly removed from the scene by other operatives, either so she couldn't reveal anything to Nick, or just as a writing convenience, to make it seem like she was kidnapped She spent some time in shipping containers, and seems like she is maybe not Meisner's biggest fan, but contrary to the hints the show was dropping, she was probably not the snarling beast he was fighting with behind locked doors -- that was probably Juliette. Now she's back again, after probably a few weeks' absence, during which time Adalind's baby was born, Nick moved to the warehouse, etc. We still don't know precisely how she came to be so beat-up, but presumably it was at the hands of the Wesen revolutionaries. She hasn't actually lied to Nick and company, but she has withheld information. Reyes' group either convinced her or coerced her to do so. Reyes' group seems not to trust Nick. Is this just the result of bad communication? I mean, yeah, Nick and Reyes got off to a bad start, but Reyes was in cahoots with with Meisner, and Nick is sort of allied with Renard, and it seems that Renard and Meisner are on good terms (despite the fact that, or perhaps because, Meisner killed both Renard's brother and father). You would think that amid all the cloak-and-dagger scheming, someone would say, "Hey, wait a minute, I know a guy . . ."

I'm glad Juliette is back. Anything to save me from Nick and Adalind playing house. Unless the dire predictions of a love triangle come true, which just . . . ugh. On the humorous side, it would be the least passionate love triangle imaginable. I mean, I liked Season 1 Nick and Juliette, but even then they had a comfortable-long-term-couple vibe, not raging passion. And I don't detect the slightest hint of chemistry between Nick and Adalind. So, I guess a love triangle between the three could be so bad it's funny. Nah, probably it would just be painful. I think the stammering-whatever was the show trying to keep the viewers guessing about Adalind's feelings. It wasn't very convincing to me. But I notice that Adalind's main interest in the conversation was to pump Trubel for information about Meisner, someone with whom she has chemistry to spare . . . Seriously, I'll forgive the writers for many (though probably not all ) their sins if they ditch the stupid triangle potential and have Adalind go off with Meisner to find Diana :-)

I agree with previous posters that it is ridiculous for Nick to not tell his friends about Trubel's return, and not have anyone at the hospital to keep an eye on her. But I want to note that, to me at least, this is not just a minor plot hole. As they often do, the writers have undermined the characters by making their behavior at odds with any recognizable human motivations. A few weeks ago, Nick was tearing around like a crazy person looking for Trubel. He did patently stupid things, like confronting an FBI agent in public, at her office. The only way the viewers could rationalize his behavior was to conclude that he was overwhelmed by his need to protect his friend and protege. Then he seemed to . . . get over that impulse? More recently there has been little evidence that he was continuing to search for her. And now she shows up and is clearly in need of protection, and he drops the ball. We can't even really spread the blame over the other characters, as Monroe and Rosalee didn't know Trubel was back until halfway through the episode, and might have reasonably assumed that Nick had her under police protection. Thus we are left to conclude that either Nick has a really short attention span or he doesn't care very much about Trubel. Well, really, I conclude that he's just badly written. But it is hard to stay attached to a character whose motives seem so divorced from human psychology. On the plus side: MEISNER! He is awesome. I want Adelind to drop Nick like a hot potato and run off with Meisner and Kelly, picking up Diana along the way! All of this gag-worthy humanizing of Adelind the writers have put us through lately has done nothing to make me warm up to the idea of a Nick/Adelind pairing. But maybe it will let me see her as less-of-a-monster enough that I can root for an Adelind/Meisner pairing. It is interesting that we don't really know what Meisner is yet. I kind of hope he is neither Grimm nor Wesen, just a badass human :-)

The picture at the top of the Previously TV analysis article linked above, taken out of context, is kind of a gift to Barba/Huang shippers. Barba is looking up in Haung's direction with what could be interpreted as an adoring smile. Of course, in context, we know that just after this scene Barba says he regards Huang as a hired gun for the defense, so his smile is probably more "appraising a potential threat" than adoring. Still, nice picture! I suppose we might never know whether Hodda is guilty in Hector's case, but (despite the clunky dialogue that gesundheit so aptly derided) I would like to see Huang's assessment vindicated.

Yeah, to me that's part of the problem. The other characters reacted like it was this impressive thing that he knew Spanish. I wouldn't think that having this skill would be all that unusual in a major hospital in Chicago. Could just be the clunky writing of a pilot episode, where every character beat has to be over-emphasized.

I'm afraid this might kill the show. This guy is apparently the lead, but I cringed almost every time he was on screen -- such a Marty Stu. His acting wasn't particularly bad; really, it was the writing. Oddly, he was quite tolerable in his scenes with the psychiatrist (whom I liked), so maybe there is some hope for him. First impression: I kind of liked Choi and that neurosurgeon, and also the psychiatrist. The female characters seem to have a nice vibe between them.

As others have mentioned, yes, he appears briefly. Having Meisner and Renard in a scene together certainly upped the hotness quotient of the episode, though sadly neither of them had reason to remove his shirt ;-) Otherwise, I kind of liked the lost boys and Rosalie plot. Yeah, there were parts that didn't quite make sense, but at least it felt fairy-tale-like, something the show has been lacking of late. Nick playing house with Adelind is disgusting on a number of levels. It is also perplexing. With Diana, everybody was after her, so it was understandable that steps would be taken to keep her protected. Nobody seems all that interested in nabbing Kelly or Adelind now, so keeping her near Nick actually puts them at more risk.

Wow . . . that was pretty bad. A lot of the dialogue consisted of various characters repeating what happened in incredulous voices. As usual, the writers struggle with giving the characters plausible motivations. Hank, Monroe, and Rosalie don't believe Nick because . . . I got nothing. Nick charges around like a lunatic, which only sort of makes sense if he believes Trubel is in immanent danger, yet he takes time to hang out at the hospital to be with a woman he has good reason to hate. Yeah, it's his kid, but that's a reason to make sure Adelind is safe and that somebody is with her, not a reason why he must be there himself, until Rosalie tells him to go. I want Juliette to be alive for two reasons, First, to avoid the dreaded Nick/Adelind pairing or some other godawful Nick-romances-wesen plots. Second, I'm repulsed by the idea that the show would kill off the two adult professional women, leaving only a woman who is literally a fox, a woman who seems to exist only to get pregnant every season, and a male-fantasy badass woman-child. I'm actually quite fond of Rosalie and Trubel, but Rosalie has been marginalized along with Monroe, and Trubel was at her best when interacting with Juliette and it would have been all kinds of cool to see her work with Kelly. That said, I fear that if the show does bring Juliette back, they'll do it in some stupidly contrived way. On the positive side, Renard and Meissner are hot. That is all ;-)

Yeah, Loren quitting her job and moving in with her parents makes no kind of sense. So it's probably a TLC move. Nikki not having thought about going to school or working reflects negatively on her, but only slightly -- she just got here, she's only 19, I won't judge her too harshly for not having thought everything through. But props to Mark's daughter for floating the idea. She knows her Dad is a wackadoodle and that there is a good chance the relationship will crash and burn. Still her little-sister-slash-stepmom might as well get an education out of it.

Yeah, that's what I'm feeling too. The show-runners got rid of a lot of the annoying stuff that dragged things down last season (Crane Family Drama, etc.) But the show seems to have lost its urgency. Pandora is a cool enough foe, I suppose, but her conjuring some new evil each week is already getting a bit predictable. Now we've got the requisite love-interest characters on board to provide convenient obstacles to a romance between the leads. Meh. I want my wacky, bat-shit crazy show back! That said, at least this week was pleasant to watch.

Getting the Roladex back is probably of no practical benefit, but it's a symbolic victory. I thought it was a sweet gesture from Mitchel to Jay. The moment in the Closets, etc., guy's office when Mitchel realizes what an awful plan they are undertaking was priceless. He says something like, "The scotch is wearing off and I'm starting to realize that if we do this Earl will have a picture of you with your "deal" out, and I'll have it burned into my brain . . ."

Well, at least this one wasn't as depressing as last week's. Sheldon was insufferable, but at least Raj and Howard were mildly amusing. And Leonard and Penny had moments when they weren't miserable so . . . yay?

I was pleasantly surprised. I had read an Entertainment Weekly review that said David Duchovny was mis-cast as the lead detective, but I thought he really made the role, giving Hodiak that undercurrent of quirk that makes the stiff cop exterior more interesting. OK, I'll admit it: I spent the first half-hour waiting for him to suggest alien abduction as a possible explanation for the girl's disappearance ;-)

"Junior Professor" is not an official title, but it is common to refer to untenured faculty as "junior faculty". Unless the guys are supposed to be much younger than the actors portraying them, it would not be odd for people their age to have tenure, particularly if they are supposed to be geniuses. You normally apply for tenure in your 6th year at a university; high achievers can apply for "early tenure" before that. But, yeah, it has nothing to do with someone dying. I've heard of situations where universities tried to limit the percentage of tenured faculty within a department, which can create competition among those who are up for tenure at the same time. I think this is generally frowned upon in academia. The Star Wars fan link reminded me of when Penny and Amy are talking and Amy confuses Star Trek and Star Wars, and Penny corrects her. Then Amy asks what the difference is, and Penny replies something like "There is absolutely no difference!" As a fan of both franchises, I think she's wrong, but her delivery was awesome :-)

Yeah, he proposed without telling her he was a Grimm -- not a shining moral moment for him. She knew he was hiding something from her, so she said 'No' but did not break up with him. Basically she was interested, but only after he was willing to tell her the truth. It's just not fair. I was so ready to be done with this show. They killed the two mature professional women, leaving us with one who is literally a fox, one who seems to exist just to get pregnant every season, and the male-fantasy-badass-woman-child. Not that these latter three lack merit -- the first and the last are pretty good characters in their own right. I love Rosalie, but as Monroe's role has diminished so has hers. And Trubel has grown on me to the point that I would be happy to have her back, but then I remember that many of her best interactions were with Juliette. So now it will be all about Nick's man-pain. I think DG has improved a lot as an actor, but combined with writing that can charitably be described as "broad" (that NOOOOO NOOOOO NOOOOO scream was beyond cheesy), I'm worried that this will all be insufferable. So why can't I just quit the show? One word: Meissner. Kind of embarrassing that my feminist concerns about the show may be trumped by a really hot guy ;-) Maybe I'll just watch his scenes and ignore the rest of this train wreck.

I'm not sure I bought Oscar's motivation here. He apparently loved his sister, and in a way Sherlock helped her unwittingly by setting up the rehab stint for Oscar. Yet he was willing to leave her body under a bridge just to get Sherlock to use again? I guess it is possible, but it felt a little off to me. I am glad that Sherlock's relapse was not part of a bargain to get the information on Alfredo's whereabouts, but rather a reaction to the whole situation. As for Sherlock's father, I know he's not quite old enough, but Hugh Laurie would be awesome! Hey, female actors play the parents of actors who are only a dozen years their junior all the time :-)