BaskingsharkGTX
-
Posts
205 -
Joined
Content Type
Blogs
Gallery
Downloads
Discussion
Posts posted by BaskingsharkGTX
-
-
11 hours ago, preeya said:
Richard Gere (Billy Flynn) could be their legal representation.
It strikes me that Morris would make a pretty good Billy Flynn.
To be fair to the FBI with their shackles and chains, given that JCarp has so far escaped their clutches using just a metal tray and a broken walkie-talkie, guesses people's innermost secrets just by glancing at them, killed a dude with a pen and lip-reads secret code words at 20 paces, if I were them I'd probably keep her encased in a block of concrete up to her neck and tow her from place to place on a little wagon.
I have no idea how they are going to keep this dragged out for another four episodes but I'm glad it's not more than that!
-
1
-
-
Here's another question; what exactly are these cage dungeon places that the FBI randomly has in their basement where they store JCarp and now apparently also plan to keep Tal's girlfriend Mendoza? Is the FBI allowed to do this? Would they be all open with wire mesh like that so the supposedly super-dangerous need-to-be-kept-on-ice people who live in them can see and speak to each other? Next week will JCarp and Mendoza stare at each other through the bars, build a relationship and maybe eventually do a medley of songs from Chicago with JCarp as Velma and Mendoza as Roxie?
-
1
-
-
Sigh. So this was less aggressively terrible than the last few episodes but it was significantly more stupid and boring and does it strike anyone else that not only are these people not very good at catching Tal, they also aren't trying particularly HARD to do so.
I mean, the man has moles everywhere - in the FBI, in the CIA, in the transport company. While JCarp had her agent in Wherever The Hell It Was last week stealing papers that would get them closer to Tal than ever, Tal was in the US kidnapping her daughter and popping up in her house. This week he's got a freaking on-staff doctor and a mansion with a full surgery and a bunch of Minions patrolling it. And he somehow suddenly knows the doctor was working with the CIA/FBI and was going to have him offed as soon as the surgery was done probably because of another MOLE! Aren't there dozens of angles here they could be investigating from? Good thing they got lucky and the doctor randomly got a crisis of conscience and contacted them!
The scene where JCarp walked into the CIA and everyone immediately turned off all their monitors and phones and closed all the files was hilarious. They WORKED WITH THIS WOMAN! They KNOW SHE SEES ALL AND KNOWS ALL and just the TINIEST GLANCE can reveal their deepest darkest secrets to her!!!!!
And of course it WASN'T ENOUGH!!! They should have blindfolded her so she couldn't see the super-secret-super-safes and lip-read the exact piece of information she needed. Although then she probably would have sniffed the air and smelled the super-secret-ecryptophones and figured out that Easily Manipulated Sarah was right there to be manipulated from her familiar perfume and KNOWN IT ALL ANYWAY!!!
YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM THE JCARP, BITCHES!!!!!
Props to the doctor dude though, for being the first person to actually recognize her as The Most Hated Woman in America™!
Apropos of there not being a hell of a lot to say about this dull-ass episode, here is my The Enemy Within Drinking Game so far;
-
One drink every time the episode has less internal consistency than a Scooby-Doo cartoon from the Scrappy-Doo era.
-
One drink if JCarp stares impassively at the camera.
-
Two drinks if JCarp stares impassively at the camera and narrows her eyes.
-
Three drinks if JCarp stares impassively at the camera, narrows her eyes then looks sideways at someone.
-
One drink if JCarp is perp-walked into a CIA or FBI office wrapped up in chains like Houdini and everyone stares judgily at her.
-
One drink if a vehicle is driving down the road or crashing and the camera goes swooping around like a GoPro that's been mounted on a drunk pigeon.
-
One drink if an incompetent law enforcement official is easily overpowered and killed by a Tal operative.
-
One drink if someone turns out to be a Tal mole.
-
One drink if someone refers to JCarp as The Most Hated Woman/Person in America™.
-
One drink if she then goes out in public and nobody recognizes her.
-
Five drinks if she then goes out in public and somebody does recognize her.
-
One drink if someone reminds Morris that JCarp is The Most Hated Woman/Person in America™ and asks if he can trust her or her intel/deductions.
-
One drink if Morris reminds them that JCarp is responsible for Lane's death and he's only using her as an asset and actually hates her.
-
Five drinks if it sounds like he means it.
-
One drink if Morris and JCarp look each other in the eye and have A Moment Of Understanding and she says something faux-meaningful about how his pain will be worthwhile when they catch Tal.
-
One drink if a guest character has a dead significant other.
-
One drink if there's a flashback.
-
Two drinks if Lane appears in it.
-
Three drinks if Lane and JCarp appear in it together.
-
Four drinks if JCarp smiles in it to show How Deeply She Has Been Affected by her incarceration in the present day and What A Different Person She Is Now.
-
One drink if JCarp makes a ridiculous leap-of-logic Sherlock Holmes deduction that no actual human could EVER make but which gives them a clue that kicks off the investigation of the week.
-
One drink if someone JCarp knows from five years ago in Kazakhstan turns out to be just the very person they need or a situation she was in in 2007 in Swaziland is coincidentally similar to whatever situation the characters are in right now and she realizes exactly what they need to do as a result.
-
Two drinks if the person from Kazakhstan just happens to be in the exact same building right now.
-
One drink if Hana is threatened by Tal or school bullies or an outbreak of Mono at her piano class and JCarp instantly turns from ice-cold Superwoman into an incompetent, blithering human lump of jello.
-
One drink if Hana looks at her mother with a bewildered expression on her face and asks why she did it and JCarp doesn't tell her and asks her about her driving lessons instead.
-
One drink if JCarp escapes from somewhere using some random object that just happens to be lying around and also just happens to be the very exact thing she needs to get out of wherever she is.
-
One drink if JCarp is shown in her dungeon with a criss-cross shadow on the wall behind her to remind us that she is CAGED.
-
Five drinks if the "guard who is always there" actually IS there.
-
One drink if The Blonde Woman takes a too-long time to over-eagerly explain a piece of her tech to one of the other characters while they pretend to be interested but clearly don't give a shit.
-
Two drinks if it's Microsoft AI.
-
One drink if The Stubble Guy comes out with some cheesy Generic TV Action Show line of dialog that's been used 400,000 times previously in everything from 77 Sunset Strip to Hawaii 5-O to The A-Team to the Albanian remake of Magnum.
-
One drink if a romantic relationship between The Stubble Guy and Pettigrew is lamely hinted at but nothing happens.
-
Five drinks if The Stubble Guy actually gets something to do.
-
One drink if Raza makes a resigned snarky comment about not trusting JCarp but nobody pays any attention to him.
-
One drink if Tal makes a sinister phonecall from offscreen.
-
Two drinks if Tal makes a sinister phonecall onscreen.
-
Three drinks if Tal comes out with some ridiculous second-rate Bond villain dialogue about JCarp being the one who got closest to him and we are not so different you and I and come join me in my Evil Organization and I want you to feel the pain of incarceration and eyes out of skull and no Mr. Bond I expect you to die blah blah blah sinstercakes.
-
Four drinks if Tal shows up in someone's living room.
-
Five drinks if Tal shows up in JCarp's living room.
-
Ten drinks if Tal shows up in your living room.
- One hundred drinks if we ever actually meet Hana's father.
-
5
-
4
-
One drink every time the episode has less internal consistency than a Scooby-Doo cartoon from the Scrappy-Doo era.
-
There were so many nits to pick with this episode, it could keep a whole family of chimpanzees busy and fed for a month.
But first let’s talk about Tal.
Tal is sinister and a terrorist. He’s a sinister terrorist. He makes sinister phonecalls. (Lots of them actually. Frankly, The Enemy Within makes a far better drinking game than it does a show, and “Tal makes a sinister phonecall” is a “take two drinks”.) He also does sinister things in a sinister fashion. He rides around in sinister town cars. He sends sinister video streams. He appears sinisterly in people’s living rooms. He even looks sinister and speaks in a really SINISTER "Hewho Ewica" accent. (He sort of reminds me of the old Looney Tunes cartoons depictions of Peter Lorre.) In short, he seems like he ticks the boxes and should do what he needs to do and be what he needs to be even if you can’t help but feel like you’ve seen him many, many times before.
Then you realize that everything he says is so dementedly stupid and everything he does is so ridiculously illogical and plot-convenient and all that sinisterosity is just a thin veneer that covers some of the laziest writing this season.
Tal is a perfect - sinister - metaphor for this show.
On EW, Guards and Border Guards and frontline cops are all conveniently useless, regardless of whether they are American and get shot up by fake pirates or Croatian and get the crap kicked out of them by a woman half their size.) Everyone else, meanwhile, is super-smart and cool - until the writers need them not to be.
One minute, JCarp is incisive and Savanty. She scowls knowingly at video walls while commending her operatives on snatching the documents which will help them - at last - find Tal! (Who is in her house.) Ten minutes later, she goes to pieces and cracks instantly when she’s sent a video stream of her daughter sitting on a park bench, spews out the names of her operatives then drives round screeching hysterically like Lucy at the chocolate factory before switching back to Ice Cool mode to stab a guy in the neck with a pen.
And that's in spite of the fact that this woman has spent the entire series so far Deducing Amazing Things from sideways glances at headlines on laptop screens, overheard murmurings and the smell of someone’s lunch, she does not check that this video feed is even real.
It's not just the characters either. It's the whole setup. JCarp's the Grand High Priestess of the CIA (or whatever), but apparently there’s no protocol at all for what happens if she or a member of her family like, I dunno, the minor daughter she lives alone with, are targeted by bad guys. And no protection officers either.
She also has no security systems, cameras or anything else in her home, allowing The Most Sinister Terrorist In The World to just wander in and hang out waiting for her. And while he gave her his patented “We are not so different you and I, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah you got closer to me than anyone else” speech (Uh Tal, the only reason she’s close to you is because you’re in her living room and you came to her), she apparently also has no personal alarm, secret transmitter thingy or anything else she could use to summon help.
And since she’d already wasted her pen on that other dude earlier, she couldn’t even stab him in the carotid artery.
Someone upthread mentioned that they thought this could have been a re-edited version of what was originally intended as the pilot. I’ll go one further. It could be that they were too busy trying to remember their own characters’ names to write anything new so they just decided to film the very first rough draft of the pilot script and see if anyone noticed.
For purposes of fairness, there were some good moments. I did like the “Do I look like I got a phone?!” homeless guy. Can he be a new regular and just hang out with the current characters pointing out when they ignore the obvious? Then there was JCarp's "I cut myself on the car, it's not as bad as it looks" when her coat was COVERED in blood.
And I loved JCarp being all "Wawawa puhlease can I say goodbyeeee to my daughter??!!" and Morris' delivery of that straight up "No". I've realized the parts I enjoy most in this show are the bits where Morris does a stonefaced smackdown on JCarp. That says something about these characters...Anyway. Enough being nice. Spare the snark, spoil the spies. Other nits. In no particular order;
-
JCarp. Always sharp. Always on point. Always ten steps ahead* but... "Hey Erica, you forgot your cellphone!"
*Unless a sinister terrorist vaguely hints he might be in the same vicinity as her daughter but ignore that.
-
JCarp. Always sharp. Always on point. Always ten steps ahead but...
She's lax enough with her daughter that she brought her up to forget to do her homework and has apparently neglected to point out to her that as the daughter of the CIA's All-Seeing Chosen One, she should never do things like going AWOL from school, lest a sinister terrorist should wander into the same vicinity as her and start a Facebook live stream of her hanging around and turn her mother into a gibbering wreck.
-
JCarp. Always sharp. Always on point. Always ten steps ahead but... she tries to call missing Hanna multiple times - and only THEN does she use “Locate” (AKA Find My iPhone Except Generic Because TV Show). Granted there was a sinister terrorist...
-
How did Hanna’s phone get into the garbage if she was just picked up by people who she thought were real cops? Were they like “Young lady, you should be in school and we’re going to punish you for not being in school by tossing your $600 iPhone in the trash so let that be a lesson to you, HA!”
I don’t think cops are allowed to do that.
-
NBC, you really should have called me before you make more episodes of this show. That way I could give you my snarky notes beforehand so you can use them to make your show not be awful instead of me using them to fish for internet karma on here.
-
Tal’s operative caved pretty darn quickly after being stabbed in the neck. Since there was no Stubble Guy in this ep to give us our weekly dose of cliched dialogue we’ve heard 850,000 times before, we did have Tal stand in for him with the aforementioned “you got closer to me than anybody" and Morris doing “I don't care! All I care about is catching the person who killed Lane!”) but c’mon, Neckstab Henchman - what happened to “You’re gonna let me die anyway! I will tell you nothing, American pig! Tal will win! You go to hell!” followed by a quick loogie to the face?
-
How exactly did having the names of those four operatives and no other information about them at all help Tal find them and kill them? Especially Desiree, who got located immediately (seemingly as soon as Tal got her name) in spite of the fact that she was using an alias?
-
When the shit hit the fan and Blonde Woman bounced breathlessly across the office to tell Morris that it was indeed JCarp who was the mole and he arrested her, in the ensuing investigation, how did it not come out that JCarp made a call to the cops about her missing daughter and what about Neckstab Henchman’s body? Did that never get found and linked to her? Did she burn the jacket with all his blood on it?
-
“I will have her eyes plucked from her skull!!!!” Oh Jesus God, Fuck OFF Tal. Are you also gonna feed her to the ill-tempered, mutated sea bass?
-
How did Tal know Hanna was going to skip school and go to the park? A better-written show might have set up a more combative relationship between Hanna and JCarp and had it that she’d been playing hooky in the park every Friday for a month just to defy her over-rigid mother’s insistence on knowing where she was at all times and had unknowingly established a pattern Tal's people had observed. Character development? Conflict? Pffffft. We don’t need no stinkin’ character development or conflict here. We got a will-they-won’t-they thing goin with Stubble Guy and Pettigrew, dontcha know! The audience will be on the edge of their seats...
-
That scene where Morris got told his GF was dead was kinda… perfunctory. “Hey, what’s up, Morris, my man? So listen, it’s too bad but ya know that plane that went down? Yeah, Lane was on it. Sorry ‘bout dat, big guy! We still on for racketball Sunday?”
-
Lane’s parents don’t get an escort to her official memorial service? They don’t even get told what the ceremony entails and how it’ll run? “Heeeeeeeeey there, Mama and Papa Lane. Sorry ‘bout your daughter dying and all. Why don’t you swing by this little memorial thing we’re having for her - it’s super informal, no biggie. Just a star on a wall, little speech and some nibbles. You’ll love it. No dress code, just come as you are.”
-
Morris is allowed to lead the investigation into who caused his fiancee’s death? I guess we also don’t need no stinkin’ objectivity, either.
-
Morris: “I’m going to the briefing”. RazaJ: “I’m coming with.” Raza, dude? I don’t think it works like that. I know you’re high-ranking too and all, but high-security briefings are sorta invite-only. Why don’t you hang at the office and you and Morris can catch up at Lane’s memorial later. That’s way more casual. Star on Wall. Nibbles. You know the drill.
And last but not least…
- For the last three years, JCarp has had a phone number she could use to get in direct contact with Tal. A number that he hasn’t changed or killed, in spite of knowing she was arrested, tried, jailed for life-plus-her-next-five-reincarnations and given that snappy “I Committed Treason With a Cartoonishly Sinister Terrorist and Became The Most Hated Woman in America™ And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” Beefy-T. Why didn't she just tell Morris she has the number, barter it for a promise of freedom, then freaking call it and trace Tal's location?!!!!!
-
7
-
JCarp. Always sharp. Always on point. Always ten steps ahead* but... "Hey Erica, you forgot your cellphone!"
-
3 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:
In other words, a mixture of paranoia and PTSD is what made them family.
Correct. It also made them entertaining, which this show is most certainly not.
-
1
-
-
4 hours ago, Brian Cronin said:
There was a moment where Bragg was tussling with a bad guy where I legit couldn't tell them apart ("Is the bad guy winning?"). That's how crazy generic these characters are.
So much about this show is just lazy. (See my comment above about "Task Raven" for an example - like put 2 mins of effort into thinking up a non-stupid name?) This is another example. You know you have a fight scene with a tall, dark-haired white regular actor. At least cast a short, blond guy as the villain in the scene?
-
2
-
-
This is starting to reach Austin Powers levels of idiocy. I think NBC actually meant it to be a satirical comedy called Generic Network Espionage Show. Either that or a drinking game. We are now at the point where I can't actually suspend disbelief for a single moment. I just watch while thinking constant MST3K-style troll-thoughts about every aspect of the writing and production. I'm pretty sure that's not what they were shooting for.
In no particular order;
JCarp is doing her makeup in the van before going to meet the Manbun Hacker.
Pettigrew: "You're trying to look like the NSA woman, but you're a known figure?"
Correct, Pettigrew. She is, in fact, The Most Hated Woman in America™ but don't worry - nobody recognized her on the last three occasions when she went out in public so they probably won't this time either.
JCarp: "I don't have to look like her, I just have to not look like me!"
Then she went out looking exactly like herself.
The dialogue in this episode was absolutely horrendous. Awful, AWFUL exposition from the Blonde Woman and Morris and while I did greatly enjoy the latter's verbal smackdown of JCarp and her hypocrisy, the ensuing dialogue about who was God and who wasn't (or something) was so abstract it could have been lifted from a Bergman movie.
Ditto Tal's meeting with his Generic Evil Politician Crony.
"I can assure you everything is going to plan."
"You assure me? You give me your assurances?"
Uh, yeah, Tal, that's what he said. Be happy you have been assured of his assurances and that you got to make an actual appearance this week, instead of just skulking around offscreen making Sinister Phonecalls.
And Blonde Woman was talking about her tech again. At great length and in great detail. While all the other characters stood around nodding politely and thinking "God, Blonde Woman, we know you have no social life and nothing else to talk about and probably just go home and feed your many cats and drink wine straight from the box while using Microsoft AI to make deepfake wedding videos of yourself and Morris but shut up about your tracker/scanner/financial transaction finder locator magic thing and just find Tal. Then join Tinder."
Of course, she only kinda sorta found Tal. And then only kinda sorta enough to almost catch him so he could get away and there could be more episodes. And that was in spite of Tal transferring money with "KO" as the reference which, as we were told, stood for "Kill Order." Handy tip, kids, when paying off your hitman, always write a nice clear universally-understood acronym in the "notes" field on the check in case you forget why you wrote it come tax time.
But the piece de resistance was probably Stubble Guy confirming that there WILL be a lame will-they-won't-they relationship between him and Pettigrew by talking about his feeeeeeelings for her while she was out cold, a trope that hasn't been used in a TV show for about 11 whole minutes. And then Morris came in and told Stubble Guy he should tell Pettigrew how he feeeeeeeeeeels about her and Stubble Guy was like "No, I can't, because that would be how an actual human might behave and then we wouldn't be able to string this out and have a cliffhanger where she almost finds out and/or has to choose between saving me and stopping Tal at the end of the season and maybe get three or four people to actually care and tune in to the S2 premiere to see what happens if by some miracle we actually get renewed." and then there was A BEAT as he and Morris shared a MOMENT where the air between them hung thick with parallels to Morris' tragic lost relationship with his tragic Dead Fiancee who is tragically dead and then Stubble Guy went to get coffee.
I also enjoyed Stubble Guy's delivery of the fresh and sparkling line "Stay with me." when Pettigrew was shot. It was a most unusual choice to have it sound like a vague afterthought he'd had while scanning the horizon as if looking to see whether the line for the mens' room had gotten any shorter.
Speaking of acting choices, JCarp was doing some prime scenery-chewing this episode. Eyes were narrowed then opened WIDE, nostrils were flared, lips were pursed and drawn back, cheeks were scrunched and flexed, sideways glares and glances were... given sideways. This was particularly noticeable in that last scene in her dungeon where she and Morris were talking about how INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT it is to catch Tal and how it will probably require LOTS OF PEOPLE TO DIE (but not the Manbun Hacker) and fingernails may not get blood on them but everyone may SWIM in it. Even though they could just have gone and looked at the security camera footage from their building, realized that whoever came from the White House to move Tal's operative out of their custody might well be a(nother) Tal mole, ID'd him as he left the building and investigated him and made him lead them right to Tal.
That dungeon scene was also very weirdly lit. It looked like Morris only had half a bottom lip and was incredibly distracting.
It is also very remiss of these people not to search JCarp when she is returned to her dungeon, especially since they put GIANT SHACKLES on her for when she moves round the building. And lucky for her that the dungeon has cell reception. Although if it didn't, she could probably build a fully-functioning cell tower/signal booster using a paperclip, a piece of discarded chewing gum and her bellybutton lint.
Aw, Melanie Mayron directed this episode. I loved Slap Her, She's French.
Oh, and Task Raven. Task Raven????!!!!! I mean, SERIOUSLY? It's called Task Rabbit because rabbits hop around a lot and seem busy-busy. Ravens just... hang out in trees, cawing and occasionally stealing shiny stuff. Nobody is going to call their site Task Raven.
Quoth the task raven, "This show sucks".
-
7
-
4
-
-
I note that Sam the bomber dude (whose name I can actually remember) got more character development and character-building scenes in this episode than any of the regular supporting characters have had in the entire series so far. Even if he did have to have a Generic Dead Girlfriend™ (which this brings this show's Generic Dead Significant Other Count™ to 2).
Seriously, writers, give these people some personalities already. Please, please, PLEASE add some dimensions. I mean Stubble Guy said - he ACTUALLY SAID - the line "Don't worry. We'll get this guy." Like, uh, Joe Friday called from 1968. He said you need a damn shave, hippy, and he wants his dialogue back.
I am roughly the same age as Jennifer Carpenter, yet I do not have up my sleeve an conveniently-accessible, easily-kidnappable Egyptian fixer who can be relied upon to provide me with the exact piece of information that will get me what I need, just like last week when I didn't have a former contact who could be coincidentally in the same building as me and who would be able to shed the exact light needed on a previous experience I had so I could use it to advise someone on exactly how to get a Mole Girl to switch sides. I feel like I've wasted my life.
Although on the plus side, I don't have to live in a dungeon, so there's that.
Hanna, upon seeing her mom's dungeon; "It's so..."
Me: "Atmospherically and dramatically lit with criss-crossy cage lines? Incredibly low-tech for a place where a law enforcement agency in 2019 would stash someone who is supposed to be The Most All-Seeing Dangerous Woman in The Universe and escaped from their previous cell using just a tray and a tooth? Oddly similar to the sort of place Vincent Price would have used to imprison his victims in The freaking Pit and the Pendulum?"
Hanna; "Small."
JCarp; "Well you know, I'm gonna add a mirror, a few throw rugs, some scatter cushions. That'll help. And I'm gonna get them to set up a second cage with an iron cot and a bowl of gruel so you can sleep over!"-
4
-
2
-
-
On 3/28/2019 at 8:07 PM, chitowngirl said:
When The Avengers was shown in America, they started with the Diana Riggs episodes, so we didn’t get to see the Honor Blackman ones.
Sorry to double-post. US broadcasts actually started with the second of the two Diana Rigg seasons. The first was shot in black and white and ABC demanded that the show move to color for broadcast in the US - they put money in to cover the extra cost. You're right that the Honor Blackman shows were never aired here when new - and nor was the very first season, with Steed's original male partner, Dr. David Keel (Ian Hendry), most episodes of which are now lost. (I think maybe three still exist and a couple of audio recordings)
The Whiskey Cavalier titles are also surprisingly close in some respects to the short-lived British show By Any Means (which coincidentally came from the same team as Hooten and the Lady.)
-
1
-
-
On 3/28/2019 at 3:45 PM, Jacks-Son said:
If I recall correctly (Ha!), I kind of remember that they would play around with showing the back of the unintroduced Mr. Peele and from the silhouette he had a similar appearance to Steed. Then, when they pulled a "Bewitched" and switched the lead with Linda Thorson, things got all crazy. I remember being torn because, as every kid in my generation, I had the hots for Diana Rigg.
Mr. Peel was believed dead and, as such, Mrs. Emma Peel was a widow. However, he was eventually discovered to be alive (he was a test pilot and had been missing presumed dead after crashing a plane in the jungle) and Mrs. Peel left the show to return to her marriage. When we saw him from behind in his one appearance as they drove away together, he did indeed look just like Steed (and was portrayed by Patrick MacNee's stunt double). Presumably, however, the marriage didn't last. When Mrs. Peel has a telephone conversation with Steed in The New Avengers and he refers to her as "Mrs. Peel", she admonishes him, saying 'I'm not Mrs. Peel any more!" Tara King (Linda Thorson) was sent by Steed's boss Mother (Patrick Newell) to replace Mrs. Peel.
Nice to see Ophelia Lovibond again. She was fun in this as in Hooten, which has indeed been cancelled.
-
1
-
2
-
-
On 3/28/2019 at 7:06 PM, Dowel Jones said:
They need the bulletproof, bombproof, fart proof, all glass cell that Raymond Reddington occupied for the first few episodes.
TBH, they could just keep her in a locked-down hotel room or something. Anywhere as long as they don't give her access to any metal trays...
-
2
-
-
31 minutes ago, Happy Harpy said:
They added two new co-showrunners after the pilot. They were just fresh from their flop (in the same slot) The Brave, which probably explains why Noah Mills was upped to full regular (imo, it wasn't needed). Comparing the pilot, very flawed but with some promise, with the episodes that followed, I feel the potential was ruined and it might be the change at the helm of the show that did it.
That's interesting, I wasn't aware but it explains a lot. The issue with this show is definitely in the writing. The actors have to sell atrocious dialogue, ridiculous scenes and have almost no characterization to work with and no opportunity to inject any of their own due to their limited screentime. Given JCarp's immediate realization that Kelli is apparently in love with Morris back in the pilot, I presume they are going to push those two together and I'm guessing they plan to do the same with Mills and Pettigrew since they seem to have "history" and spend most of their time hanging out together.
31 minutes ago, Happy Harpy said:balled fists
Oh. Those. Fists. So, so, so, SO on-the-nose. (Not in a punchy way, of course. In an anvilicious way.)
Coincidentally, a long time ago I worked on a comedy feature which called for two African-American leads, late 20's/early 30's. We were greenlit by the studio on the proviso that we could find a male and female lead who; #1 the studio would approve as being box-office enough and in the right salary range, #2 would agree to work together (ie didn't hate each other so much they couldn't be on the same set) and #3 were available for our shooting dates. It never got made because we could never get a combo together that ticked all three boxes but Morris Chestnut was on our shortlist of leading men, was available, was liked by both the two potential leading ladies and was the right price. Unfortunately the studio wouldn't approve him because they said he wasn't famous enough or funny enough. I hadn't seen him around since until this show came on - he is very charismatic and like JCarp, deserves better!
-
4
-
-
3 hours ago, kitmerlot1213 said:
I wish the show would do the same to Blondie-blonde tech genius--there is something so painfully 'try hard' about her every reaction and interaction that I just cringe whenever the camera pans to her.
I suspect you may be disappointed there because someone has to be around to shill for Microsoft AI! 😉
On 3/26/2019 at 8:48 AM, rhys said:Also, not for nothing, have i just noticed how jumpy the camera work is sometimes? When it was going around the table, oy, I needed a Dramamine.
My favorite bit of this was when Mole Girl and Morris were driving along in her brand-new BMW SUV (apparently being a Mole Girl pays pretty decently) and the camera went off swooping down the road so we couldn't see either the car or them. I was like WTF?! Are we tracking a bird that's flying past them as a metaphor or something?
I realize this morning that all joking aside, I do know JCarp is called Erica Shepherd and after last night, I get that Mole Girl is/was called Cruz and after KITMERLOT1213's post I'm now aware that The New Woman is called Pettigrew but I genuinely don't remember any of of the other characters' names. There's just way too many people on this show and they are all completely unmemorable. IIRC, Blacklist, which has the same setup, just had James Spader, the leading lady and Rassler, the agent guy played by Diego Klattenhoff, the guy from Mean Girls and that was it. Here we have Morris and JCarp plus The Blonde Woman, The New Woman, The Stubble Guy and The Other Guy (and Mole Girl, RIP). We really only need two of them and then perhaps we could get to meet JCarp's invisible ex-husband, the y'know, LEGAL GUARDIAN OF HER KID!
-
1
-
-
"Why do I get the feeling you're testing me?" asked Mole Girl.
Um, maybe because literally every single line of dialog in this entire episode has had a sledge-hammer double-meaning and/or has been followed by a pregnant pause where the person speaking it looks sideways at the person they're talking to with a patented I Know You Know What I Know You Know But I Know You Know I Know You Know Too expression on their face.
"Guard!" yelled All-Seeing Sensei JCarp, She Who Looks At The World Through Permanently Narrowed Eyes. "I need to speak with Agent Whichever One It Was! Now!"
Except there was no guard outside her cell and there has never been a guard outside her cell in any episode of this show since the start.
Also, that cell set is ridiculous. It's like some sort of medieval dungeon. It appears to contain two ratty old benches, lots of dark ominous shadows and nothing else. Where does she sleep? Where is the ACLU? Next week are we going to see her be fed a slop of gruel which she has to slurp from a rough-hewn wooden bowl?
And of course, we had the obligatory How do you know X, Morris?/Because JCarp told me/BUT DO YOU TRUST HER???!!!!! scene. At this point, shouldn't all the characters freaking KNOW that every single piece of Amazing Information Morris has ALWAYS comes from JCarp and that it ALWAYS turns out to be correct and they can just stop questioning it and go back to being unmemorable and barely doing their jobs?
It was also truly fortuitous that JCarp's suddenly-clearly-remembered experience from ten years ago gave her exact and immediate clarity into Morris Chestnut's situation and she immediately knew what he felt and that Mole Girl knew what he felt and also knew what Mole Girl felt and how if Morris knew what Mole Girl felt, he could use how he felt and how she felt to TURN HER from Tal.
And it was even more truly fortuitous that that dude who was in Prague with JCarp ten years ago happened to now be in the exact same building as her dungeon and Morris' Scooby Gang HQ.
For a show that's supposed to be suspenseful, having an episode where we know who knows what and that everybody on screen probably also knows who knows and what they know and then are straight-up told they know they know they know and I can't do this anymore but you get the picture is jaw-droppingly lame writing. Literally the only thing that could have redeemed this mess and could have added an actual twist would have been if Mole Girl had shot Morris in the face when she had her gun on him and he'd been killed off.
Also, Mole Girl, I know you're dead now, but in your next incarnation, when you shoot little old woodland ladies in the back, please refrain from campily tilting your head to the side afterwards. This is what Sexy Psycho Lady Villains played by models who never acted before or after in 1960's James Bond knockoff spy movies used to do and it is cheezy.
-
6
-
4
-
-
I thought of more stupid things about this show that I wanted to vent about.
How exactly does the unseen father of JCarp's daughter not know that she has been going to visit JCarp? The first visit (that she stormed out of) was fully organized by Morris Chestnut. Did he just call up the daughter (who is a minor) on her cell and be like "Hey, wanna come see your mom?" without even running this past the dad who has official custody of her? It's pretty ridiculous that they clearly don't want to have to cast/show the dad while they load up the Morris' team with 47 agents, all of whom barely have time to do anything on screen.
And also, does this daughter have no feelings or thoughts of her own about this situation and what her mom did? When JCarp ran off and showed up at her house in the pilot and she saw her mom, she was all sad and crying, then when they first met she stormed out, then she got a bland note and came back. She was even sadly meh about having to not do volleyball anymore. She's just sort of... mopey. Wouldn't she be angry/betrayed/in denial/just SOMETHING to create some conflict and make her not appear such an underwritten jello person?
I am giving this one more week, mostly to see what happens with Mole Girl, but after wasting 120 minutes of my life on the first three episodes of Tidelands I promised myself that I would not hatewatch any more shows in 2019 so after that I may well be out.
-
3
-
-
MOLE GIRL YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED! All-Seeing All-Knowing JCarp is hip. She knows what cooks. She's wise to your tricks. She's wise to EVERYTHING. She sees you straightening Morris Chestnut's tie and immediately knows that you are playing a part and are Secretly Evil™. It was a clever ruse to make everything you say sound like you're reading it off a cue card so that when you lie, you don't need to sound convincing BUT NOT CLEVER ENOUGH! (or maybe the actress just sucks...)
Also I now know what the twist at the end of the season will be. DRUMROLL PLEASE as... Shepherd turns out not to be human! In fact she is.... a Microsoft AI™!
Is every teaser in every episode all season long going to involve a terrorist or terrorists easily overcoming some facet of law enforcement and waltzing into the country? I do not feel my tax dollars are being well spent.
It is great that New Woman from last week is now a regular because what this show needs is more flat unmemorable characters. Now I can be unable to remember her name too!
-
1
-
2
-
-
8 hours ago, tennisgurl said:
the dead fiance
Given how many TV and movie spies have dead fiances/wives/husbands/families/children/children who they befriended/friends/former military unit colleagues etc etc etc, I'm amazed that any of them can function. If the real CIA/FBI were like this, the mental health support budget would bankrupt the country in a week.
-
7
-
4
-
-
5 hours ago, MissLucas said:
The only thing lacking seems to be 'common sense to organize protective detail for daughter when going after scary terrorist'.
It is her ONE FLAW! When the writers were creating her character by following the flow-chart in "TV Writing for Dummies", they got to the part which said "Your character must have a FLAW. This is their ACHILLES HEEL!" and decided they were giving her this blind spot as hers.
Unfortunately one of them had spilt coffee on the next sentence which said "The flaw must make sense."
I do wish this show was better. Jennifer Carpenter is such an interesting actress. She makes unusual choices and tries heroically to sell her Sad About Daughter Monologues. Deb was my favorite on Dexter - her foul-mouthedness was a really offbeat character trait and Jennifer sold it without making her obnoxiously abrasive which was no mean feat. She really deserves more than to be stuck playing Red Reddington's savanty little sister.
-
2
-
-
2 minutes ago, preeya said:
OK, I'll bite. Translation, please.
Sensei Master Jennifer Who Sees And Knows All
-
2
-
-
Hmmm, not sure if done. Was definitely about to be done until I saw the preview showing that Sensei Master Jennifer Who Sees And Knows All is going to figure out the mole situation and that this isn't going to be dragged out all season. It might be interesting to see how things pan out as Mole Girl matches wits with SMJWSAKA, especially since Mole Girl has seemingly discovered SMJWSAKA's daughter-shaped Kryptonite. And all law enforcement agencies are apparently powerless to protect her from the unseen but equally all-knowing, all-powerful Tal.
Re-reading that last paragraph, I have to ask - is this actually a Superhero show?
Mind you, given how easily and quickly the DEA team in the teaser were taken down by the Cartel baddies, maybe SMJWSAKA is right not to trust them to protect her daughter or, y'know, anything.
16 hours ago, Writing Wrongs said:And her face has been all over the news, but the Ambassador's wife showed no recognition or wondered why a traitor was interviewing her?
This.
Also, hello random woman from FBI Training School who we never met before and who that one dude with the stubble brought in to do stuff this week. I'm sure you're a very interesting character and a great person, but this show already has about 20 characters we've barely met, know nothing about, do not care about and who should be able to do all this sort of suerveillancey, wire-cutty stuff for themselves because they are regulars and you are not. Please go away again so they can have a tiny sliver of screentime to develop more than one dimension each.
Screentime is kind of a premium in this show, you see, because every week things have to grind to a halt while JCarp does emotive monologues about her daughter and also because the writers needed to take a lot of it to drop anvilicious parallels between her sitch and the sitch of this week's other non-regular who, in turn, also hoovered up even more of it and then didn't manage to even do what she was supposed to do. And all this when I can't even remember what the stubble guy or the blonde woman or the other guy who didn't think JCarp's plan was a good one are called. (Oh and he was right. Maybe he should be the new Sensei Master Who Sees And Knows All.)
Tomorrow I plan to walk into my office slowly, read three random pieces of paper out of the corner of my eye and then astound everyone by knowing exactly what is going on in their lives.
-
7
-
2
-
-
Man, I'm so torn on this. On the one hand, I like that it goes beyond being a procedural. On the other, this ep was kind of... flat. And on another, I love love love JCarp. She has great charisma, she is a great actress, she has such an interesting face and she deserves to head her own show, but this woman she plays is The Smartest Person In The
RoomWorld and it's just... stupidly OTT. It worked on Blacklist because Reddington is a psychopath with a massive past in crime. It feels like she should be more than what she was. They introduced her as "an amazing code-breaker" but she's also an amazing escape artist, finder-of-stuff-in-a-packed-out-storage-unit, reader of people's behavior, deducer of facial expressions and leaper-of-logic. Yet she hasn't even thought that the CIA analyst might be Tal's asset which is kinda obvious (when she alerted the guy Morris Chestnut shot off the fire escape by text, didn't they check his phone and see who he'd been in contact with?) She couldn't figure out a smart way to get her daughter out of his clutches either and resorted to giving up her operatives pretty quickly.I'll probably stick around a bit longer though as there's little else to watch at the moment. I also feel like there's kinda too many secondary characters.
-
4
-
-
On 2/27/2019 at 2:26 AM, deaja said:
Ugh, I hate that she went to her daughter’s school knowing she’d be arrested. I get that she needed to see her, but her daughter has likely been through enough. Now she gets to see her mom arrested- and in front of her friends?
I thought the exact same thing! Also, obviously we have not met the daughter properly, but how does she feel about her mother? Does she believe her mom is this big-ass traitor? If so, she could have turned against her. She looked like she was sad and mouthed "I love you." back - I kind of feel like we needed to know more about how she currently feels about her mom and we sort of don't.
It had its moments and was interestingly filmed. It doesn't look like a generic network show, and it went beyond the usual procedural, plot-wise. I adore JCarp from the days of Dexter but making her this... savant was a little much at some points. Also given that she was super high-up in the CIA, wouldn't there have been some protection for her daughter or some sort of protocol for something like this happening?
Oh and "I want to be the parent my father never was!" BLLLEEEEEEEAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH Hello, Generic Daddy Issues, my old friend, I see you've come to plague another TV character yet again. I mean seriously? Doesn't she have enough to deal with what with having let the world think she was a traitor and losing access to her daughter etc etc etc.
Good job they didn't take her to a dentist who was on the 25th floor of a skyscraper too.
-
3
-
-
OK, that finale was pretty terrible but I don't care I liked it anyway. And I never thought Cole and Erica had anything like the chemistry Cole and Natalie did so I don't even care that Andrew got character assassinated in the DUMBEST way possible, or that they went full cliche with her dumping him at the alter, I'm glad they ended up together and I also don't even care that Cole took Natalie on a freaking revenge mission to Ecuador and left their daughter ALL BY HERSELF, everybody is where they should be and they are all friends and I swear to God I will never ever know how Keesha Sharp managed to sell some of that horrendous expository dialogue so well or how Stiffler grew up to be a likable cool leading man, but if that is the last I ever see of Roger Murtaugh and Wesley Cole, I will miss them, and I will imagine that they went on to have many many more wacky yet thrilling adventures and Natalie was exasperated with Cole but they lived happily ever after with Maya in adjoining motel rooms and the Murtaugh kids lived at home until they were well into their 40s because they are so incapable of doing anything but it's all OK, I'm happy. That was fun.
-
1
-
4
-
-
On 2/20/2019 at 11:13 PM, SweetTooth said:
Okay, I know Murtaugh's kids are spoiled brats, but seriously, they're at an age where they should understand how important this interview was for their mother, and coming downstairs and stomping your feet, pretending that dude wasn't there, just seemed really stupid.
"It's too late for an Uber."
OMG. Has she ever taken one? She lives in suburbia. Even in the middle of the night, they arrive in less than five minutes.
She's a grown woman at this point. The minute she realized her dad wasn't there, she should have called an Uber and made sure she got to her S.A.T.s. They're sending their little girl out into the world completely unable to take care of herself in a stressful situation.
And if she thought her dad driving her would be LESS stressful than a friendly Uber driver, she's seriously deranged.
Seriously, both their kids are basket cases. Trish was all up Roger's ass about being too hard on Roger Junior WHEN THE KID HAD JUST BOUGHT INTO A PONZI SCHEME. Rianna gets in trouble in literally every single episode. If there is an S4, it would really nice if both of them could grow up a bit. It can't exactly be much fun for the actors to play them since they're written like 5 year olds.
-
1
-
The Enemy Within - General Discussion
in The Enemy Within
· Edited by BaskingsharkGTX
Uuuuuuuuuurrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh. I missed commenting on last week's episode because I followed my own drinking game and passed out when Mr. JCarp actually showed up.
Actually that's not true, I passed out with boredom. All I remember is that JCarp ran off and it was stupid, her husband previously didn't know that Hannah was going to meet her so he must be really stupid and something about a prison disguised as an eco-friendly self-sufficient dorm and it was incredibly stupid. Oh, and everyone (Pettigrew, Stubble Guy, Guest Woman Who Designed The Dorm/Prison/Whatever) wore really stylish wool coats. Costume designer on point.
This week's installment also left me in an utter stupor but was probably the best one I've seen. Although "best" is a subjective term here, because it still had about as much internal consistency, character development and suspense as a mediocre filler episode of Peppa Pig. But you could see that if the writers had actually made JCarp and Morris into interesting characters who had an actual relationship instead of cardboard cutouts who hang around telling each other what a connection they have, there might have been some actual suspense and tension here. Especially with the FBI's answer to Rosa Klebb breathing down their necks. But they didn't. So there wasn't.
Pettigrew has been in hundreds of hostage situations and she knows that the South African Terrorist with the Wobbly Accent won't negotiate. Uh yeah, cos she's such an expert given how she messed up her last negotiation. Also, was the Heart Pill Woman faking it? She forgot all about needing her pills as soon as Stubble Guy got shot and failed to drop dead as her son in law had claimed she would. If so, excellent completely-silent escape-plotting on behalf of that family. Or maybe their favorite family pastime is sitting around at home discussing what they'd do in a theoretical hostage situation and they were actually super-pleased to get to put it into practice and didn't need to discuss it.
New addition to drinking game; one drink whenever anyone says "Sierrrrrrra Maestrrrrra" and pronounces it with a R-rolling sort-of Spanish accent.
And next; Tal's Biggest Generic Terrorist Attack Ever which Magical Erica will foil at the last minute with a jar of pickles, a doorhandle and a lightly used copy of the July 1997 issue of Popular Mechanics and then she will probably disappear on Morris for realz because it's almost the season finale and Hannah will look worried and say "But who will I talk to about driving lessons in a dungeon now?!" and her father will say "I didn't realize you were taking driving lessons? Hey, did I forget to put pants on this morning?" and then Morris will disobey Rosa Klebb and go rogue and we will see him dump his earpiece and cellphone in a trashcan so he can't be tracked and we know he's gone rogue and he'll follow JCarp to Sierrrra Maestrrrra (assuming the budget will stretch to some location filming someplace that looks vaguely like Cuba and has film tax credit financing available) and the team will have to decide if they trust JCarp and will take a Leap of Faith and decide they do and there will be a lame showdown with Tal and a lame twist and I will not care and nor will anyone else and Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
ETA:
Hulu is now recommending me a bunch of shows that are "For fans of The Enemy Within". I need to send them a message and say they actually need to start recommending shows which are "For people who hatewatch The Enemy Within."