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arduinnaOh, right, February is a sweeps month. That explains a lot. This week has been chock full of great guest stars, all of whom I've had a blast watching.
Starting with White Collar, where Billy Dee Williams showed up to play an earthside modern-day AU version of Lando Calrissian. Okay, maybe not quite. But he was clearly born to play a smooth-talking man who can charm the socks right off of anyone, and equally clearly my crush on him has not abated. ♥
(Nor has Neal or June's crushes, if those looks are any indication.)
That whole episode was fun, barring the one niggly bit of June being weirdly sidelined - I kept waiting for some evidence that she knew perfectly well what was going on, and it just never came. She’s usually so unflappably, genteelly kickass that I was baffled by her seeming total lack of awareness in this one (right down to everyone, especially Peter, tromping up and down her staircase in front of her to poke around in the rooms upstairs).
Beyond that, though, I adored most of this. I loved Neal trying to get Peter to come to dinner then doing an end-run around him by asking Ell instead (heee, Peter so walked into that one), and how Ell instantly picked up on what Peter needed her to do and asked to look at the photo albums. And how miffed Mozzie was to have missed the party, and how he and June have their exclusive book club (seriously, I love so much that these two are friends with their own relationship outside of Neal, who just plain enjoy each other's company).
And Neal’s walk-in closet full of Byron’s old clothes, which is bigger than my bedroom, pretty much. Hee!
And Neal, all aglow as he got to study actual Treasury plates, and Peter bursting with pride as Neal rattled off all the problems with the fake IDs, even though obviously Jones would know as well as Peter does how good Neal is at this sort of thing.
In terms of relationships, this one was sort of fascinating, with the parallels between Neal, Ell, and Peter, and Byron, June, and Ford - they're like mirror threesomes, with Peter and Ford as total opposites and Neal and Byron as near analogues.
And then we have the steadily ongoing evidence of the strong relationship between Mozzie and June, and all of the usual Peter/Neal and Neal/Peter/Ell stuff, and also a nice steady stream of Neal/June, from Neal being comfortable with her in his apartment to them singing to them dancing - and that little cutaway to the fountains and the tall phallic buildings and hey, now, happy Valentine's Day, Neal/June shippers! *g*
This show just never fails to make me happy. I don't care about the plots, particularly, except as a vehicle to carry the characters around in, and it's always a fun ride.
And then there was Top Chef, which was the best episode EVER, because it had MUPPETS. That quickfire challenge was a thing of pure joy. They are never going to beat this episode.
I loved how obviously delighted everyone was to have the Muppets there; that must have been such a fun day. (I went and looked at some behind-the-scenes video, which I almost never do, and that set had a fair number of kids on it that day *g*.)
Dale would not have been my pick for winner for either challenge, but I'm relieved they sent Angelo home instead of Carla; I was really worried about Carla, and I want her to make it as far as possible. I figured Angelo was in serious trouble when he added both bacon and salt to his soup, but Carla had clearly had some sort of Killer Fatigue moment when she spent literally half her time running around the store looking for table settings and whatnot. Ouch. So yay on her being safe for another week.
I'm hoping Mike Isabella and Dale are next in line to go -- Mikey has annoyed me since day one of his own season, and I'm cranky that he's made it this far, since he just honestly doesn't seem to be that great a chef to me. Also he's annoying and misogynistic; I'm absolutely convinced that half of his shocked, wide-eyed "you?" to Angelo was because Angelo was on the bottom with two women, and Mikey just flat-out believes that women are useless. (It's possible I've never gotten past his comments during his first season about how "a girl" couldn't possibly beat him in any way.)
Dale is just annoying.
I don't think Tiffany's going to make it much further -- she seems to be falling apart, too exhausted to keep things going. Which is a pity; I like her more than Antonia, and I think Antonia has a better shot at making it to the final four.
Carla can skate into final four if she doesn't have any more screwups, and I'll be so disappointed if she doesn't make it. I want her there not just for her own sake, but to tweak Richard, who is always so utterly baffled when Carla wins based on clean, simple, good cooking with strong flavors. Hee.
*counts up* Wow, are we really down to six? Three women and three men, that's nice; early on it looked like things were skewing badly in favor of the male side of things, I'm glad it's evened out. Okay, of the field that's left, my picks for final three are Carla, Antonia, and Richard; Dale will probably round out the final four, but I hope he doesn't make it to the final challenge.
In conclusion -- COOKIE!
And finally, Fairly Legal, which I’m enjoying. I started watching mainly because I like the actress, who played Dani Reese on Life. Plus it’s a USA show, and they hit more often than they miss for me. If you haven't seen it, the premise is that Kate Reed used to be a lawyer in her father's firm (Reed & Reed), but quit law to become a mediator (still working at the firm) because she wanted to help come up with solutions that let everyone win.
I like that Fairly Legal has a lot of characters who could be stereotypes but aren’t, quite -- like, Kate hates the younger woman her (recently deceased) dad had married, who also happens to work in the firm and is technically sort of Kate's boss. Typical, except the reason Kate hates her is that she knows full well that this woman made her beloved dad happy in a way her mom never had, and that’s really hard for her to cope with, so instead she hates the new wife. And she’s admitted this to the other woman. Which - how often do you see that?
Kate’s brother, formerly a fairly high-powered lawyer, has quit the firm to be a stay-at-home dad for his baby, while his wife continues her own career, because he doesn’t want to be like his dad in terms of fatherhood -- and he’s clearly competent at it and happy doing it, and no one bats an eye that he’s a SAHD.
Kate is genuinely friends (occasionally with benefits) with her ex-husband, an ADA who’s all about winning cases and who could easily be a caricature, but who has enough good moments to let you understand both why they’re divorced and why they used to be married, and how they salvaged a solid friendship out of it.
Kate’s assistant, Leo, is a geek who isn’t remotely ashamed of it - he keeps his autographed Buffy watch in a drawer at the office, and plays online RPGs at the office after hours - and who also isn't the butt of geek jokes about it. He's damn good at his job and is respected for his ability to juggle things and dig up information (and his ability to more or less keep Kate on track, or at least keep adjusting the track to match Kate's movements). He knows when he’s being played and can and does turn the tables on people -- watching him scam an ipad out of Kate’s ex-husband, who had blackmailed Leo into helping him find Kate a gift, was awesome.
The plots are less interesting than the characters, but that's okay, I'm not in it for the plots. (Which is good, because I think Kate's a terrible mediator. The show presents her as fantastic at it, but she's not remotely neutral; she picks sides in almost every case, and manipulates things to get her chosen person the best deal possible.)
So, anyway, interesting characters, kinda fun show, I’m liking it. Then this week’s ep came on, and I noticed a name in the guest-star credits and went buh? and watched, to be rewarded with this:
Made my whole night, that did.
From the look of it, this will be a recurring role; when I was looking for the photo I hit some sites saying he'd been signed to do five eps, but that was before the season run got cut from 13 to 10 eps (... so I probably shouldn't get too attached to this show, sigh), so who knows how many he'll really be in.
I was pretty eye-rolly about the plot arc he's part of when it showed up, and am still eye-rolly about it on a plot level. But meanwhile, we have the pretty of RDA, who brings color to the world wherever he goes:
And that makes up for a whole lot of forced-plot-drama.
(Okay, yes, that's just a totally random addition to the post. But I loved those commercials -- he did a second one as well, walking through rooms -- and wanted to see if I could find them online. Surprisingly difficult to do! This was the only one I could find.)
Starting with White Collar, where Billy Dee Williams showed up to play an earthside modern-day AU version of Lando Calrissian. Okay, maybe not quite. But he was clearly born to play a smooth-talking man who can charm the socks right off of anyone, and equally clearly my crush on him has not abated. ♥
(Nor has Neal or June's crushes, if those looks are any indication.)
That whole episode was fun, barring the one niggly bit of June being weirdly sidelined - I kept waiting for some evidence that she knew perfectly well what was going on, and it just never came. She’s usually so unflappably, genteelly kickass that I was baffled by her seeming total lack of awareness in this one (right down to everyone, especially Peter, tromping up and down her staircase in front of her to poke around in the rooms upstairs).
Beyond that, though, I adored most of this. I loved Neal trying to get Peter to come to dinner then doing an end-run around him by asking Ell instead (heee, Peter so walked into that one), and how Ell instantly picked up on what Peter needed her to do and asked to look at the photo albums. And how miffed Mozzie was to have missed the party, and how he and June have their exclusive book club (seriously, I love so much that these two are friends with their own relationship outside of Neal, who just plain enjoy each other's company).
And Neal’s walk-in closet full of Byron’s old clothes, which is bigger than my bedroom, pretty much. Hee!
And Neal, all aglow as he got to study actual Treasury plates, and Peter bursting with pride as Neal rattled off all the problems with the fake IDs, even though obviously Jones would know as well as Peter does how good Neal is at this sort of thing.
In terms of relationships, this one was sort of fascinating, with the parallels between Neal, Ell, and Peter, and Byron, June, and Ford - they're like mirror threesomes, with Peter and Ford as total opposites and Neal and Byron as near analogues.
And then we have the steadily ongoing evidence of the strong relationship between Mozzie and June, and all of the usual Peter/Neal and Neal/Peter/Ell stuff, and also a nice steady stream of Neal/June, from Neal being comfortable with her in his apartment to them singing to them dancing - and that little cutaway to the fountains and the tall phallic buildings and hey, now, happy Valentine's Day, Neal/June shippers! *g*
This show just never fails to make me happy. I don't care about the plots, particularly, except as a vehicle to carry the characters around in, and it's always a fun ride.
And then there was Top Chef, which was the best episode EVER, because it had MUPPETS. That quickfire challenge was a thing of pure joy. They are never going to beat this episode.
I loved how obviously delighted everyone was to have the Muppets there; that must have been such a fun day. (I went and looked at some behind-the-scenes video, which I almost never do, and that set had a fair number of kids on it that day *g*.)
Dale would not have been my pick for winner for either challenge, but I'm relieved they sent Angelo home instead of Carla; I was really worried about Carla, and I want her to make it as far as possible. I figured Angelo was in serious trouble when he added both bacon and salt to his soup, but Carla had clearly had some sort of Killer Fatigue moment when she spent literally half her time running around the store looking for table settings and whatnot. Ouch. So yay on her being safe for another week.
I'm hoping Mike Isabella and Dale are next in line to go -- Mikey has annoyed me since day one of his own season, and I'm cranky that he's made it this far, since he just honestly doesn't seem to be that great a chef to me. Also he's annoying and misogynistic; I'm absolutely convinced that half of his shocked, wide-eyed "you?" to Angelo was because Angelo was on the bottom with two women, and Mikey just flat-out believes that women are useless. (It's possible I've never gotten past his comments during his first season about how "a girl" couldn't possibly beat him in any way.)
Dale is just annoying.
I don't think Tiffany's going to make it much further -- she seems to be falling apart, too exhausted to keep things going. Which is a pity; I like her more than Antonia, and I think Antonia has a better shot at making it to the final four.
Carla can skate into final four if she doesn't have any more screwups, and I'll be so disappointed if she doesn't make it. I want her there not just for her own sake, but to tweak Richard, who is always so utterly baffled when Carla wins based on clean, simple, good cooking with strong flavors. Hee.
*counts up* Wow, are we really down to six? Three women and three men, that's nice; early on it looked like things were skewing badly in favor of the male side of things, I'm glad it's evened out. Okay, of the field that's left, my picks for final three are Carla, Antonia, and Richard; Dale will probably round out the final four, but I hope he doesn't make it to the final challenge.
In conclusion -- COOKIE!
And finally, Fairly Legal, which I’m enjoying. I started watching mainly because I like the actress, who played Dani Reese on Life. Plus it’s a USA show, and they hit more often than they miss for me. If you haven't seen it, the premise is that Kate Reed used to be a lawyer in her father's firm (Reed & Reed), but quit law to become a mediator (still working at the firm) because she wanted to help come up with solutions that let everyone win.
I like that Fairly Legal has a lot of characters who could be stereotypes but aren’t, quite -- like, Kate hates the younger woman her (recently deceased) dad had married, who also happens to work in the firm and is technically sort of Kate's boss. Typical, except the reason Kate hates her is that she knows full well that this woman made her beloved dad happy in a way her mom never had, and that’s really hard for her to cope with, so instead she hates the new wife. And she’s admitted this to the other woman. Which - how often do you see that?
Kate’s brother, formerly a fairly high-powered lawyer, has quit the firm to be a stay-at-home dad for his baby, while his wife continues her own career, because he doesn’t want to be like his dad in terms of fatherhood -- and he’s clearly competent at it and happy doing it, and no one bats an eye that he’s a SAHD.
Kate is genuinely friends (occasionally with benefits) with her ex-husband, an ADA who’s all about winning cases and who could easily be a caricature, but who has enough good moments to let you understand both why they’re divorced and why they used to be married, and how they salvaged a solid friendship out of it.
Kate’s assistant, Leo, is a geek who isn’t remotely ashamed of it - he keeps his autographed Buffy watch in a drawer at the office, and plays online RPGs at the office after hours - and who also isn't the butt of geek jokes about it. He's damn good at his job and is respected for his ability to juggle things and dig up information (and his ability to more or less keep Kate on track, or at least keep adjusting the track to match Kate's movements). He knows when he’s being played and can and does turn the tables on people -- watching him scam an ipad out of Kate’s ex-husband, who had blackmailed Leo into helping him find Kate a gift, was awesome.
The plots are less interesting than the characters, but that's okay, I'm not in it for the plots. (Which is good, because I think Kate's a terrible mediator. The show presents her as fantastic at it, but she's not remotely neutral; she picks sides in almost every case, and manipulates things to get her chosen person the best deal possible.)
So, anyway, interesting characters, kinda fun show, I’m liking it. Then this week’s ep came on, and I noticed a name in the guest-star credits and went buh? and watched, to be rewarded with this:
Made my whole night, that did.
From the look of it, this will be a recurring role; when I was looking for the photo I hit some sites saying he'd been signed to do five eps, but that was before the season run got cut from 13 to 10 eps (... so I probably shouldn't get too attached to this show, sigh), so who knows how many he'll really be in.
I was pretty eye-rolly about the plot arc he's part of when it showed up, and am still eye-rolly about it on a plot level. But meanwhile, we have the pretty of RDA, who brings color to the world wherever he goes:
And that makes up for a whole lot of forced-plot-drama.
(Okay, yes, that's just a totally random addition to the post. But I loved those commercials -- he did a second one as well, walking through rooms -- and wanted to see if I could find them online. Surprisingly difficult to do! This was the only one I could find.)
