31 January 2013

Justified

Raylan's GF and her husband have taken Raylan's $20k and gone to the backyard fights.  They're looking to get into cock-fighter management.  Seriously.  Raylan and Rachel work to hunt them down, including finding a store clerk that the asshole beats the shit out of. 

So the Jurassic Park Preacher is dead from the snakebite!?  Already?  That seems unceremonious.  That means Ellen May tries to come crawling back to the Crowders.  Ava thinks she's more trouble than she's worth so Boyd has Ava ship her off to his cousin in Alabama, a preacher who owns a motel and can put Ellen May to honest work.

Rachel had to go to work so eventually it's just Raylan who catches up to GF and Asshole.  They fight a bit and then GF tells Raylan his money's in the van, and she leaves while Raylan has Asshole arrested.  But his money's not literally in the van -- the chickens are.

Ava still doesn't trust Ellen May, and so when Boyd's War Buddy is driving her to the bus station and he gets a phone call, I know right away it's a call from Boyd telling him to kill Ellen May.  War Buddy is getting an attack of conscience though, and in his hesitation (getting himself straight in a bathroom with a little bump), Ellen May disappears.

Man, so far NOTHING is happening this season, right?  What the actual hell?

23 January 2013

Justified

Boyd stops by the Tent Church to talk to Jurassic Park Preacher's sister and offer her money to get her brother out of Harlan.  She says it'll cost a lot more, like a new church built somewhere.  So he sends his old war buddy after them along with another guy, who is attacked by the snakes.  He brings the guy - with the head (and only the head) of the snake still attached to his face - to Boyd's bar.  Jesus Christ.  Gross.

Raylan's GF used to be a thief/con-artist with her (ex-)husband.  Because all of his romantic entanglements must be hella complicated and laden with criminality.  He also gives the ex the "get out of town by 6PM" bit.

Johnny's going behind Boyd's back to meet with Wynn Duffy.  Says he'll help Wynn kill Boyd.  Oh hell no.  Ass.

Raylan and Tim go to visit the ex-wife of the guy-who-didn't-fall-from-the-sky, who happens to be a (real) psychic.  The guy was a witness in some sealed case.  An FBI dude shows up and distracts our guys, and while she tries to sneak away she's actually kidnapped by someone.  A someone who is blackmailing the FBI guy somehow.  But who knows how, because the FBI dude kills himself in front of Raylan after telling him where they can find the woman.  She tells them that the not-dead-guy saw Theo Tonin, the big time Dee-troit gangster, murder a government informant.

Over at Boyd's, the doctor comes and removes the snake from the guy's face.  They figure out that there's no venom there.  So Boyd comes to the Tent Church bearing the gift of a rattlesnake.  The preacher's sister confesses that she's been milking the snakes of venom, unbeknownst to Jurassic Park Preacher.  JPP doesn't care and handles the snake anyway, and is bitten. 

Raylan comes back home to the bar to find his GF missing and his place ransacked, stashed money and all.  Oh lordy, here with go with Raylan chasing some crazy GF.  Also, this 30-year-old mystery thing better get somewhere quick because I don't see the point.  I'm enjoying all the random character bits, but I don't know what the plot's getting at.

18 January 2013

Fringe

Farewell, Fringe, my love.  I still feel like this season has been meh.  But the previous seasons were amazing.  So it all evens out.  I'm going to miss my show either way.

I still don't get the whole Plan to Reset Time.  Baby Observer goes into the future at just the right time so someone's all, "Let's not create Observers????"  Whatever.  I don't buy it.  But OK.  He's important.  I get it.

Time to get Old!Broyles in on this.  He finds out where Baby Observer is being held, beneath the ruined Statue of Liberty.  Windmark's interrogating him but getting nowhere, just developing a bloody nose and a popped blood vessel in his eye for the trouble.  So it's time to bring out the tech to really get at this kid. 

The only way into the facility on Liberty Island?  Use the Other Universe.  Good thing Walter has some old Cortexiphan lying around to reactivate Olivia's ability. Plus they use the Other Universe Window to take a peek first and make sure the Observers haven't invaded there too.  All looks clear, so they go for it.  Time for a bunch of shots of Cortexiphan to the ol' brain stem for poor Olivia. 

OTHER UNIVERSE TIME!!!!!  My favorite place.  Chelsea Clinton leads in the Presidential race.  And Lincoln Lee is BACK!  He and Fauxlivia are married and have a grown-ass son.  And Fauxlivia is rocking some fabulous gray in her hair.  God, I love Fauxlivia.  I guess that's what the show was missing this season.  No crazy Freaks of the Week, no Awesome Dual Universes, no funny Walter food things.  Observers (and dystopian futures) were better in small doses.

Olivia crosses over into the room where they were holding Baby Observer.  Only they've moved him because they're going to disassemble him.  Now that doesn't sound good.  And Olivia's starting to kind of phase in between both universes, her Cortexiphan wearing off.  She gets to the kid just as they're about to strip him for parts, and they make it back to the Other Universe.  But an Observer follows.  Good thing Lincoln and Fauxlivia Lee take care of the situation.  Olivia makes it back over with Baby Observer.

Windmark finds out Broyles was behind the exposure of Baby Observer's location.  So he's pissed, as usual.  He figures out Broyles is going to meet our Team, so he has someone follow him.  Too bad Broyles is too smart for that and notices them following.  Broyles is captured. Uh-oh.

Donald/September built a machine in the lab whilst everyone was off gallivanting across universes.  He pays a visit to an old Observer pal to get a piece he needs.  Time to open a wormhole to the year 2167, and Walter has to accompany the kid.  Walter and Peter say a Sad Bishop Goodbye.

Oh but they can't get that piece they need from the Observer because the Bad Observers have caught up to him, killed him, and taken the tech.  Windmark knows they are trying to reset time.  Astrid comes up with an idea to use one of the Observer's "shipping lanes" as a wormhole. 


Donald/September says he should be the one to escort the kid into the future.  Yeah, DUH, you should be!  Walter doesn't need to do this shit.  Take your bald kid and get into the future!!!

There is some great grossness, and Olivia and Peter unleash all the different contaminants, poisons, and foreign bodies from the past 5 years into the ventilation system at Observer HQ.  Observers dropping left and right from various Freaks of the Weeks Greatest Hits.  Our Team gets whatever tech they need from Observer HQ to take over the shipping lane.

Windmark finds them and starts beating the crap out of Peter and Olivia.  Til Olivia summons her electrical powers and has him pwned by a car.  R.I.P. Windmark you bastard.

Donald/September is killed in a shootout running toward the wormhole.  So now it really is up to Walter to take the kid over.  Bye bye, Walter.

We're back to the point where Olivia, Peter, and little Etta are in the park.  But this time, no Observer invasion.  Happy ending, but what happened to my Walterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

This Week's Final Code: *sob*  LOVED and CLOSE  *I'll miss you*

16 January 2013

Justified

Art breaks the news to Raylan that Arlo killed a fellow prisoner, and Raylan fills Art in on the Panamanian diplomatic bag found in the wall.  Art, Raylan, and Tim head out to track down Waldo Truth and his family, which turns out to be a family full of criminals.  The family is just the ultimate in white trash.  Waldo's been missing for 30 years since a pilot came and said he had a job for him.  Art remembers the pilot's name - he always thought he was the one who was pancaked in the driveway, but instead it was Waldo.  So where's the pilot and why did he fake his own death?

Preacher Billy appears to be actively trying to convert people in Boyd's inner circle - first the dealer, now Ellen May.  He ends up sending a bunch of creepy, singing children into Ava's whorehouse to try to recruit members.  So Boyd and crew show up to the Tent Church.  IT'S A MOTHERLOVIN' PREACH OFF!!!!  Boyd wins because he's way hotter.

And poor Boyd has another problem - a crew trying to sell heroin in his town.  The crew is part of Wynn Duffy's organization, so Boyd reaches out to become his heroin distributor in Harlan.  And Duffy's curious why Arlo killed his boy up in prison.  Jesus, everyone in Kentucky is tied to everyone else.


We've also got some random dude looking for fights, being randomly pushy with Raylan at the bar and then winning a backyard fraternity MMA fight. Dude turns out to be married to Raylan's GF.  Oops.

14 January 2013

Fringe

It took me this long to catch up on Fringe, which clearly means I'm ready to let go.  Guess I'm just trying to make the separation easier, you know?

Tank Time!  In order to pull out the memory of September that Baby Observer planted in his brain, Walter decides to go into the Deprivation Tank.  Sans trunks, of course.  He figures out where September used to live (when he had hair) and the team goes to see if he's still there.  Along the way, we get a really touching Walter/Peter moment where Walter remembers things from the old timeline and says he loves Peter and they hug and get teary.  So what - someone's gonna die, right?

Windmark heads into the future to meet "The Commander" and there is much general Observer creepiness.  Windmark really has a hard-on for killing Our Team, which is odd because Observers don't get hard-ons for anything. 

Donald (September, a bit older now and still with hair), is indeed still in his apartment.  Must be rent controlled.  So Donald used to be the Observer September and then as "punishment" for helping the Team, he had his device removed and named himself Donald.  He tells us that hundreds of years from now, Observers just create themselves in labs - humans decided to sacrifice human emotion for increased intelligence.  And Baby Observer is September's kid, who was deemed an anomaly because of his brain development, so September hid him in the past.  Oh lord, now my eyes have gone crossed.

So Donald/September says they have to send Baby Observer into the future, to the point where humans made that decision to grow Observers, to prevent them from doing so, thereby never creating Observers.  They're going to reset time.  What Walter hasn't told the others is that, in order for the plan to reset time to work, he has to sacrifice himself.  Baby Observer showed him that.  See - told you someone was dying.

As the team tries to get wherever the team is going, Baby Observer is caught by Windmark.  Or maybe turns himself in.

This Week's Code: GRACE

Well, the show is nearly over - and the preview showed Lincoln Lee and Fauxlivia, so I'm kind of excited.  Can we get some Charlie before it's all over?  Maybe reset the timeline and then open like we did in the pilot?

10 January 2013

The Oscar Nominations

I made sure to have the Oscar nominations loaded up live the second I got in to work.  They were announced at like 8:35 AM, and by 8:45, my Facebook status update read, "FU Oscars, back to work - no Kathryn Bigelow? Suck my left nut."  I didn't even have time to process the lack of Quentin Tarantino and Ben Affleck directing nominations as well.  What the hell?

Lincoln got the most nominations.  It was a great, historical biopic, but not the Best Picture of the Year.

Best Picture:

  • "Beasts of the Southern Wild" - it's next up in my Netflix queue, mostly because the 9-year-old girl (who was nominated for Best Actress!) is supposed to be amazing in it.
  • "Silver Linings Playbook" - I've been pushing Mike to see this for weeks; we've GOT to see it this weekend.  If there's time, with all the football.
  • "Zero Dark Thirty" - winner winner chicken dinner
  • "Lincoln" - what I said
  • "Les Miserables" - really more about the acting than the film as a whole, but makes sense
  • "Life of Pi" - I will never watch a movie about a kid stranded in an ocean with a tiger, I just won't.
  • "Amour" - supposed to be good, but it's French.  So, you know, no.
  • "Django Unchained" - OF COURSE
  • "Argo"  - OF COURSE
Moonrise Kingdom was probably my Number 4 film of the year.  Couldn't have fit in a 10th nomination for Best Picture, you bastards?

In Best Director news, apparently Django Unchained, Argo, and Zero Dark Thirty - the three best movies I saw this year - directed themselves.  Cool.

Other Nominations I'm Happy About

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, "Django Unchained"

Best Supporting Actress:
Anne Hathaway, "Les Miserables."  But Sally Field, "Lincoln"??? No.
 

Best Actress:  Jessica Chastain, "Zero Dark Thirty" and Jennifer Lawrence, "Silver Linings Playbook"  (no, I haven't seen the second one yet, but I love her so YAY)


09 January 2013

Justified

Finally time to get back to Kentucky.  We binged on all of the Season 3 Blu-rays since New Year's -- Justified is such a marathon-worthy show.  But I'm ready for some new episodes.  All I've heard about this season is that it focuses on some old mystery rather than one Big Bad.

Flashback to 1983.  Old mystery confirmed.  A dude falls out of the sky and slams into the street outside what I'm assuming is Arlo's house, bricks of cocaine or heroin splattered on the ground along with his brains.

In present day, Raylan gets a call from a bail bondslady he used to bang, who wants some help tracking down a guy.  Since it means 3 grand, he'll be a bounty hunter, no problem.

Now we've got Patton Oswalt calling Raylan because a couple teenagers broke into Arlo's house.  The thieves had ripped open some holes in the drywall and Raylan and Patton find an old bag containing an old driver's license with the name of Waldo Truth.  Raylan figures out that Arlo hired the kids to steal whatever was in the old bag, but Arlo won't admit as much when Raylan visits him in prison.

Meanwhile, Boyd gets wind of a new church in town - Last Chance Holiness Church - that's getting people off drugs and hooked on Jesus.  Well, that's not good for Boyd's oxy business. An old war buddy of Boyd's shows up looking for him, and Boyd offers him a job cuz he needs some outside enforcer help.  And the Jurassic Park Kid is one of those preachers with the snakes that heals people.

Meanwhile, Arlo's a badass, slitting a dude's throat in prison when the guy asks him too many questions about that old bag.  So it's Justified: the Year of the Old Bag then.  Good to have you back; let's move on from the setup!