Today is Wrestlemania Sunday!
The preshow for Wrestlemania 33 starts at 4 PM CST, so I am getting this column out a little sooner than I normally do. Wrestlemania is a big day for me and I am looking forward to tonight’s event.
Especially since the lead up to Wrestlemania has been excellent. Friday night, on the WWE Network, we had the WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony. Yes, it was long, but I really enjoyed everything about it. From the return of Eric Bischoff and Jim Cornette to a WWE stage to the induction speeches of Beth Phoenix, Diamond Dallas Page and Kurt Angle, the Hall of Fame always delivers emotion and enjoyable stories from behind the curtain of the world of professional wrestling. Kurt Angle celebrated by pouring two jugs of milk over himself (much like Stone Cold Steve Austin used to do with beer). Beth Phoenix introduced her husband, the Rated R Superstar Edge (Adam Copeland) and her beautiful little daughter in a poignant moment of the night. Also inducted were the Rock and Roll Express (Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson), Diamond Dallas Page, Eric LeGrand (received the Warrior Award), Ravishing Rick Rude, and Teddy Long.
Then, Saturday night on the WWE Network, NXT presented its latest NXT Takeover Special, from Orlando. This show is always a great night of wrestling and always has crowds way into the action, and this night was no exception. It has an early Match of the Year candidate when NXT Tag Team Champions The Authors of Pain defeated DIY and the Revival in a triple threat tag team match that was off the chart. We also say Asuka retain her NXT Women’s championship with a little dirty tactics vs. Ember Moon. And we topped it off with “Glorious” Bobby Roode defeated Shinsuke Nakamura in the NXT Championship match. Roode-Nakamura was hard hitting and would have been considered a brilliant match had the triple threat tag match not been on the card. Take Over has certainly set the bar for Wrestlemania.
This past Tuesday, in preparation for Wrestlemania 33, TV Fights transformed into Wrestling Fights for one night. Roxy Striar hosted the show that saw Billy A. Patterson defeat Joe Starr and Danielle Radford in a match of wrestling geekdom. They fought best WWE superstar of all time, most anticipated match at Wrestlemania 33, and Worst storyline ever. TV Fights is consistently entertaining on the Screen Junkies Plus streaming service and I really enjoyed the specialization during this week. It was announced that they would do another wrestling themed TV Fights the week of SummerSlam. YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!
However, there was more than just wrestling themed entertainment on television this week.
Grimm brought its series run to a close on NBC with a finale called “The End.” I used to watch Grimm regularly, but it faded from my watchlist a few years ago. I was always feeling as if the season long arcs were basically the same arcs just repeated with different characters facing basically the same challenges. Still, I enjoyed the early years of Grimm so I wanted to check out the finale. And, with the exception of some poor child acting, the show came to an acceptable conclusion. Our heroes came to a happy conclusion and they showed us the future of Grimms were well in hand. I must say, I was confused as to why they kept calling Juliette, Eve. Of course, when I stopped watching Grimm, Juliette had just been killed so I assume some weird mojo was going on. It was cool to see these characters one more time, especially Monroe, who was always a personal favorite.
Another show coming to an end, albeit only as a season finale, was Legion. David was able to rid himself of the parasite known as The Shadow King, but not without a cost. Now, the Shadow King found its way into the body of Oliver, who rode away into the world to cause problems another day. Not killing the Shadow King is a good choice. Many times, these super hero shows kill their villains and waste the potential for a lot of future shows. Not Legion which ended its 8 episode season with a post credit scene that saw David being kidnapped by some flying ball/robot. Legion has been a trippy ride all season long and I am looking forward to season two.
On Bates Motel, the show recreated the iconic shower scene, with Norman Bates going full psycho on a hotel guest. However, as a twist, Rihanna, who was playing Marion- the victim from the 1960 movie- was not the occupant of the shower. Instead, it was Sam Loomis, the husband of Norman’s latest “love” interest. Sam had been having an affair with Marion and wound up on the other end of Norman’s iconic knife. It was a surprising twist and now opens up the remaining few episodes of Bates Motel for any sort of conclusion. Perhaps Alex Romero can finally find some justice for poor Norma. Also, Norman’s brother Dylan FINALLY discovered that Norma had died. The show referenced it as two years prior. TWO F’N Years? Come on, Dylan… pick up a phone, man. I expect a huge finale for Bates Motel.
This upcoming week is a big one as well. We have the Walking Dead season finale tonight. Wrestlemania 33. The RAW after Wrestlemania is always one of the biggest shows of the year. Tuesday will see the return of Agents of SHIELD. Then we have Feud, Riverdale, Designated Survivor, American Crime. Major League Baseball begins! All kinds of excitement.
The Flash musical episode. I like musical episodes of television. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Once More With Feeling”, Batman: The Brave and the Bold “Mayhem of the Music Meister”, Multiple Simpsons episodes… had special musical episodes. The Flash seemed like a great idea since both Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist were on Glee (as was Darren Criss) and could sing and dance and they had former Broadway stars Jesse L. Martin and Victor Garber in the cast. However, I found the hour to be lacking in many ways. I did not think the story was worth the time. I was disappointed in the music, not only the songs but also the amount of them. With the exception of the song with Jesse L. Martin and Victor Garber, the songs were poor. I actually thought some of the humor and writing of the show was solid, but the music was just weak. Maybe I should give it a second viewing to see if my opinions continued to be as they are, but as of now, I disliked the musical Flash show.
Then, Scandal. I was very disappointed with the “shock” ending of this show. I saw that one coming completely. The show was focused on Huck. Olivia (continuing to be one of my least favorite characters on the show- how she has fallen) told Huck to murder her father. In the process of Huck doing that, Rowan revealed the conspiracy behind why he killed the President. Huck discovered that there was a traitor in their midst. So Huck went about eliminating suspects. He got to his new girlfriend. He scared her, but in the end believed her to be innocent. And he then took her to see her friend, Jennifer Fields, the woman who was believed to be killed by Jake but wasn’t. And she promptly shot Jennifer and Huck. I saw that twist coming and was disappointed when they went ahead and did it. Even though there was a cool surprise after that with Abby being revealed as the person behind this all (even though that felt very much out of character for her), the rest of this episode was very frustrating.
Legion. What a great episode. This was the penultimate episode in the first season, and we get confirmation that the monster/parasite in David’s mind is indeed the Shadow King. They specifically said the name Shadow King, as well as his real name Amahl Farouk, in the episode. This was a true geek out moment, as was the hint of David’s real father. We saw a wheelchair with an X on the tires. We comic fans know that David’s birth father is Charles Xavier, and this is the first indication that Professor X will also be the father on the FX series. The whole David talking to David in a classroom with blackboards illustrating the history of the Shadow King was epic. Legion has been an existential trip all season long. It has been confirmed that Legion has been picked up for a season two.
Another great show on FX currently is Feud: Bette and Joan. The Sunday night show is only on the third episode, but it feels as if it has gotten better with each episode. Jessica Lange is tremendous as Joan Crawford. The show has already reached the end of the filming of “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.” I’m curious to see where this show will go from here, but I am completely engaged in it. I love Feud and Ryan Murphy.
I was not convinced about Trial and Error, the new comedy on NBC featuring John Lithgow after the premiere, but the next two episodes were shown on its normal night and I am all in. I actually was laughing very loudly several times. Now, I must admit that I think the Sherri Shepherd character with her inability to see faces and to laugh at the inappropriate times is going to be a joke that is going to be old soon. Despite that, I like the mystery of what is actually happening and John Lithgow is completely charismatic.
I caught up with the new season of American Crime. I don’t know why American Crime, which is shown on ABC on Sunday night, is not available on Hulu, but I was able to catch up on Amazon. Felicity Huffman has been on all three seasons of the anthology show and I was amazed by her performance in the second episode. The new season has several story lines going on, but Felicity has carved out a spot on this show as a great actress.
The Movie Trivia Schmoedown had a pretty good week this week on Collider Video on YouTube. The Tuesday match was a return match between The Schmoes (Kristian Harloff and Mark Ellis) vs. Team Top Ten (John Rocha and Matt Knost) that went down to the final question. Top Ten got the win and earned themselves a team title shot vs. the Patriots. Then, on Friday, the Wolves of Steel teammates, Mark Reilly and Clark Wolfe, had a singles match to gain a title match with “The Outlaw” John Rocha. Mark Reilly defeated his teammate and then he had a great and intense promo with Rocha in the backstage area. I know most of that stuff is put on like pro wrestling, but Reilly and Rocha were great here. You could almost believe that they hated each other. The Movie Trivia Schmoedown has become one of my favorite shows online during the week. Congrats to Kristian Harloff and Mark Ellis for their work on this entertaining show.
How about Iron Fist. Marvel’s latest series dropped on Netflix this past Friday to unmarked territory for a Marvel series… bad reviews. The show had been panned, lambasted… dramatically by the critics leading me to wonder how bad the series could be. The answer? Not bad at all. In fact, I binged the series this weekend and I enjoyed it tremendously. I find it difficult to believe that this was a series that received 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. Sure, it may not be up to the standards set by Daredevil, but to call this a failure is just not fair.
What could cause such issues? Well, there is speculation that the controversy about Marvel not casting an Asian actor to play the role of Danny Rand (despite the source material featuring a white Danny) was mentioned by several critics, leading me to believe that some of them may have gone into the viewing with a less than objective viewpoint. Maybe they only watched the first two or three episodes because these episodes are not the best of the series. It is fairly slow paced…. as they said on Collider TV Talk, deliberately paced, and maybe that would have led some critics to blast the series as they did. Maybe some critics were looking for better martial arts, but I don’t know any different so it seemed fine to me.
The next really big news happened on MSNBC where Rachel Meddow tweeted out earlier in the day on Tuesday that she had President Donald Trump’s tax returns. This created a firestorm of activity for the news network ans excited Americans tuned in for the breaking news, only to discover that the tax returns in question was two pages from 2005 that showed that Trump had paid some 35 million in taxes. Then, it was revealed that the tax returns had been anonymously left in a reporter’s mailbox, leading to the, fairly reasonable assumption, that the Trump Administration themselves had leaked this information to serve as a distraction or to show that he actually did pay taxes. Not only that, but with Maddow stretching the reveal out into about half of her show’s run time, she was criticized for trying to fool the viewers into thinking she had more than what she did. Bill Maher even went as far as to say that Maddow’s scoop had “turned out to be a big Nothing Burger. Worse than a Nothing Burger, it was a Help Trump Burger.” Maddow defended her reporting by saying that “we broke the story correctly.”
Turning to a president of another type, Designated Survivor continued its sharp return with an exciting episode that saw the death of newly minted and treacherous Vice-President Peter 
This week saw the premiere of the first two episodes of Trial and Error, the new comedy series on NBC starring John Lithgow. Told in a mockumentary format, Trial and Error follows the story of the eccentric Southern poetry professor who was accused of murdering his wife by throwing her through the glass door. The show features a crew of extremely wacky and crazy characters with many of the strange and quirkiness that one might see on this type of show. The show has several redneck and Southern justice cliches that it milks for all its worth. There is also a young New York lawyer who comes down to handle the case, adding to the comedy. Honestly, Trial and Error only worked because of Lithgow and his remarkable ability to be funny with this oddball character. I plan on giving it yet another few episodes to see if the show can catch its feet.
I do believe that I called this last week. On ABC’s Scandal this week, it was revealed that Eli Pope was the actual assassin behind the gun that assassinated President-elect Frankie Vargas. In last week’s column, I said, “ I must say that I approve of this season of Scandal, as it has kept me on my toes and guessing who was actually behind the death of Vargas. However, I might be disappointed if it turns out to be Rowan.” Who knew that I was prophetic. Now, I will say that the episode was very dramatic and still did surprise me with the lengths that Papa Pope will go to for his power, but I have to say that I really believe it is past time for Papa Pope to finally pay for his crimes.
I also predicted that Caleb would not be long for the show. Then last week, he was hit by a car and dies. This week, they had to get rid of the body. Norman Bates continues to race toward his insanity as he is having more and more conversations with his dead mother. He is also dressing up a woman he is interested in in his mother’s dresses. There was so much creepy about that episode that you can’t even begin explaining it. Alex Romero continued his trek back to get his revenge on Norman for murdering Norma by picking the buckshot out of his stomach from his encounter at a farm. Romero appears to be on a direct target for Norman and is like a Terminator in doing so.
On the Walking Dead last week, it seemed as if we finally have the confident Carol back and ready to fight. Sadly, it did not come until after the death of young Benjamin. Benjamin, shot by the Saviors when it appeared that the Kingdom had shorted them a cantaloupe, died because of Richard’s attempted plot to get the Kingdom to join Rick and the others against the Saviors. This plot led directly to Morgan strangling Richard to death in front of the Saviors and King 
Ezekiel. We saw the return of berserker Morgan. However, the events of this episode has convinced Ezekiel that the time for fighting is here. Morgan then revealed the truth about what Negan had done to her friends to Carol. Things are progressing rapidly toward the season finale of the walking Dead in just three weeks. Oh… and we all love Jerry!
Ryan Murphy returned to TV this week with his next anthology series. Feud: Bette and Joan premiered Sunday night, telling the story of how film icons Bette Davis and Joan Crawford came together to film the movie “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.” Starring Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon, Feud pulled no punches in the display of this famous feud. I was surprised at the level of language on display on the TV network, including several F-bombs and one very memorable use of the C-word. Brilliant performances and an enthralling story. Feud is the next great Ryan Murphy mini-series and this year’s People vs. OJ.
FX’s Legion continues to be the most trippy, psychedelic and confusing hour of television anywhere. And that is awesome. This week, it seems that the “Devil with Yellow Eyes” may have been identified as the X-Men baddie The Shadow King. Although they never specifically named him Shadow King, there are plenty of hints and suggestions to infer that the psychic villain is indeed the “parasite” that has taken up root in David’s brain. The scene where the Devil With Yellow Eyes comes into the white room and stalks Syd was as frightening as it could possibly be. This week’s Legion felt much like the episodes of Twin Peaks where Agent Cooper is running around inside the Black Lodge. You could never tell what was real and what was not. Legion definitely has that tone to it. The first episode of Legion was underwhelming to me, but I have really begun to dig this out-of-your-mind trip. Plus, a haunting version of the Rainbow Connection. Episode 5 was masterful.
Designated Survivor returned from a long hiatus to reveal the person who had been shot by the sniper’s bullet in the cliffhanger during the midseason finale. Turned out that it was President Kirkman himself. This was a bit of a letdown, considering that really took the question out about whether or not the assassin’s bullet would prove fatal. Clearly Kiefer Sutherland was not leaving his own show. However, the rest of the intrigue within the episode was spot on, especially with Kirkman finally coming face to face with Agent Hannah Wells. Finally! The treason of the Vice President is about to come out.
Riverdale was very solid this week as we had a Jughead-centric episode. Jughead has become one of my personal favorite characters on Riverdale and I was happy to see more about him. It featured a nightmare segment with Jughead picturing the crew like they are portrayed in the classic Archie comic books. The all-American family, with Jughead sporting his comic alter ego’s iconic headgear as well. The show quickly transformed back from this dream into the strange and bizarre show that it has become. This is another show that hearkens back to Twin Peaks, with the central mystery of who murdered Jason Blossom adding in both Jughead and his father as suspects.
The week started off with one of the biggest controversies of all time, and the biggest Oscar mistake ever. Sunday night, Jimmy Kimmel hosted the Academy Awards and did a bang up job. He hit many, if not most, of his bits and the show was reasonably entertaining. However, once the Best Picture Award was to be announced, the broadcast stepped into some kind of Bizarro world. Presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty were given the wrong envelope (Best Actress) so when Beatty opened it, he was understandably 
confused. Everyone, including Dunaway, thought he was just messing around, keeping everyone in suspense. He showed her the card and she saw La La Land and announced the musical as Best Picture. The problem… it had not won. Moonlight was the actual winner for Best Picture, and what followed next was as surreal of a scene as you will ever see. Apparently, there is always two envelopes available depending on which direction of the stage the presenters enter from and the side where Beatty and Dunaway entered from had not gotten rid of the duplicate envelope. Hence, the most amazing Oscar moment was born. La La Land producer 
Flash completed its two part Gorilla City story arc Tuesday night and the second part was quite a letdown. The invasion of the gorillas led by Gorilla Grodd should have been an epic encounter that Flash, Kid Flash and the crew had to struggle against, forever changing them. Instead, it took like 5 minutes and one moment of planning. Most of the episode was given to the Kid Flash/Jesse Quick relationship and the weird performances of Tim Cavanagh. I found the CGI to be just terrible, even by TV standards. Especially with the gorillas. After a pretty fun (though campy) part one episodes, I expected much more form Flash, but this was well below expectations for this series.
Bates Motel is just full boar fun. Seeing Norman dressed to the nines as Norma while talking to the frozen corpse of his mom in the cellar…well, Bates Motel has gone places where few TV shows have been willing to go. Your main protagonist is completely certifiable and you just love him for it.
On Screen Junkies Plus, Movie Fights have begun their March Madness programming. The first major event they held was billed as Rocha-Mantz III. John Rocha and Scott Mantz are both movie pundits that work in Hollywood, but they have had some contentious moments on the debate show as well as the Movie Trivia Schmoedown on Collider. Movie Fights brought the pair in to do a special one-on-one fight this past Thursday on the streaming network. Judge Andy Signore moderated the debate that included such geek-tacular arguments such as Star Wars vs. Star Trek, Moonlight vs. La La Land and what was the best performance from Bill Paxton. The two plus hour show came up at a dead heat for the final speed round question which was won by Scott Mantz. Mantz will now go into a special #1 contenders battle to see who will earn a title shot at reigning Movie Fights champion Dan Murrell.
Saturday Night Live returned from break and hit the cold opening hard with Kate McKinnon playing Jeff Sessions as Forrest Gump. The opening scene was just tremendously funny, taking advantage of the Sessions-Russian rumors that have been flying around Washington this week. However, I felt that the remainder of SNL (excluding Weekend Update) was lackluster. Considering the amount of crazy that had happened during SNL’s break, I expected way more than I got. The video tribute to the Republican who stood up to Trump- TBD was funny, but there was so much more that could have been mocked.
We had double sad news in the world of television today. Bill Paxton (who may be more well known from his movie roles, but I will always remember as John Garrett on ABC’s Agents of SHIELD) and Judge Joseph Wapner from The People’s Court died today. RIP to these legendary men.
This week in TV started off strong with the return of Bates Motel. And we see that Vera Farmiga is going to still be a huge presence on the show despite her character of Norma Bates being killed in the penultimate episode of season 4. The “spirit/delusion” that hung out in the house was great, chastising Norman for going out and leaving her alone. The final season of Bates Motel is off to a great start.
Speaking of Agents of SHIELD, it ended its storyline arc of the LMD with the most insane episode that I have ever seen. There were remarkable emotional moments throughtout, barely giving you a chance to process what was going on. The confrontation between LMD Fitz and Simmons, Simmons and Daisy finding each other, the confrontation between LMD May and LMD Coulson, the fight between Daisy and LMD Mace, the use of Daisy’s powers to take out Mac and Coulson, the reveal that Fitz not Daisy was the LMD, the murder of 
I have not been watching The Flash as much this season as I have in the past, but I found myself back on the viewership of the show as Flash and his friends headed to Earth Two to save Harrison from Gorilla City. Gorilla Grodd has always been one of my favorite villains in DC and the draw of this episode had me searching out the CW for Flash. It being a two-parter did not hurt either. Next week’s episode looks tremendous so I expect to be watching it next week as well.
The standout moment from last week’s The Walking Dead was definitely the reunion of Daryl and Carol in her little house just outside of the Kingdom. I’m not sure how I feel about Daryl lying to Carol about the Saviors. I understand why he did it, but hiding the fact that Glenn and Abraham were killed by Negan might be worse later than now. Sure, Carol had said that if anyone else of their people suffered, she would go kill everyone and lose herself, but lies have a tendency to come out. Will that affect their sweet friendship? I hope not. By the way, it was fun to see how Daryl and Shiva the tiger were seeming to bond. I see a scene down the road where a rampaging tiger may save everybody’s favorite redneck.
Oh, there was also this….Winslow the spiked zombie…
We know know who killed Wes on How to Get Away with Murder after its two hour season finale on Thursday. I must say that the reveal of the killer, a friend of Laurel’s, hired by her father, was a bit anticlimactic to me, although what led up to that reveal was tremendous. Connor being “kidnapped” by the DA who was revealed to be working against Annalise was quite the twist. For a while, I thought he was going to be the killer. Peter Nowalk (Connor) and Conrad Ricamora (Oliver) delivered knockout performances. It was also nice to see Annalise get her groove back, if only partially. Viola Davis is tremendous in this role and I am cheering for her tonight at the Oscars for the Supporting Role she had in Fences.
I have really enjoyed the new version of The Match Game, starring Alec Baldwin. I did not expect to like it much, despite how much I loved the original version with Gene Rayburn. However, the show is funny, just as risque as the original and shows how much fun you can have with celebrities and liquor. I would kind of like to have a couple of regulars among the rotating celebrity cast like the original had with Charles Nelson Reilly and Brett Sommers, but when the show gets a cast like last week’s, where they clearly enjoy being together, it can really make magic. This is a perfect replacement series for the summer or during hiatus. I hope Match Game has a long life on ABC.
I want to start off with Santa Clarita Diet. This was a new show on Netflix starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant. Now it did not drop this past week, but this was the week that I was able to get around to binging it. There were ten episodes about a half hour each and I found this laugh out loud funny. Drew Barrymore was the wife of Timothy Olyphant, and Barrymore, for some reason, winds up vomiting everywhere (in one of those really gross scenes), dies and becomes a zombie. However, she retained her personality, her feelings and much of her characteristics. She does start to hunger for human flesh and has to start to do some really drastic things to stay as she was. Olyphant was just tremendously funny, with a real dry wit and fantastic dialogue, and he had amazing chemistry with Barrymore. There was also a daughter on the show played by Liv Hewson, who had a sweet relationship with neighbor and top notch geek, played by Skyler Gisondo. I really have loved the sweetness of these two young actors. The show is a hoot and I can’t wait for more of it. Now, I will admit that the show can be pretty graphic at times, so take that into consideration. But it was well worth it.
Sunday night, the WWE had their latest pay per view on the WWE Network, The Elimination Chamber. And there was big news coming out of the event as they crowned a new WWE Champion. Bray Wyatt won the WWE title inside the Elimination Chamber after a brutal match with five other competitors. While in the chamber, Wyatt pinned the champion John Cena and former champion AJ Styles. This was Bray Wyatt’s first time holding any kind of title in the WWE, and signified a big change heading towards Wrestlemania. He then wound up pinning John Cena again on the following Tuesday’s episode of Smackdown Live. Word was that Cena insisted on putting Wyatt over. Good for John if that story is true.
Also on Sunday night, The Walking Dead returned with its mid-season premiere and we saw Rick and his group meeting up with King Ezekiel at the Kingdom. Honestly, that meeting was fine (yes, it was awesome when Rick’s group saw Shiva, the tiger, for the first time), but the best part of the episode was the epic mass zombie kill pulled off by Rick and Michonne later in the episode. This was one of the greatest scenes in the seven year run of the show and made everything else on this episode pale by comparison.
Agents of SHIELD found that robots are never a good thing. All of the team members who went on a mission to save Director Mace from the Inhuman hating Superior of the Watchdogs wound up being captured and replaced by LMD (Life Model Decoys). That included Mace, Coulson, Mack and Daisy. The first thing the newly minted LMD crew did was to reactivate the LMD May as well. In fact, only Fitz and Simmons remained as humans, a fact which our ever lovable scientific duo have discovered. The upcoming episode on Tuesday will be the final Agents of SHIELD episode until April and has been rumored to be bringing the LMD storyline to a climax.
Riverdale has returned to goodness, after last week’s weaker episode, with a focus this week on the music teacher, Mrs. Grundy. We found out that this was not her real name, and that she was supposedly hiding out from an abusive former relationship (though I am unsure if I believe that). However, when the secret of her tryst with underage Archie Andrews came to light, Mrs. Grundy was forced out of Riverdale. We also got quite a bit about Jughead as he tried to save the destruction of the drive-in theater– because that was where the now homeless Jughead was living, as we discovered. Riverdale picked up the pace this week after last week’s odd episode and became once again a show not to miss.
Scandal also has been on fire this season as the mystery of who assassinated Frankie Vargas was filled with twists and turns. This week we discovered that Cyrus and Tom were not behind it, despite Cyrus spending the entire episode in prison. His trials in the prison were full of dramatic moments and you really found yourself hurting for Cyrus, despite the horrible things he has done over the years. The twist that Tom admitted that he had not killed Vargas was unexpected and really brought home an extremely strong and entertaining hour of television. Scandal has really been firing on all cylinders this season after a couple of down years recently.
Another murder mystery is getting ready to end as How to Get Away With Murder will broadcast a two-hour finale this coming Thursday. We found out this past TGIT that Connor had a bit of a secret when it came to Wes’s death. In a flashback, we saw Connor, who had been all up about Annalise being possibly guilty, trying to revive Wes with CPR. The shocking final scene was shown to us after Oliver found some evidence on Annalise’s phone that proved Connor was at her house on the fateful night. Could Connor be the killer of Wes? Did he set the house on fire to cover his tracks? That seems unlikely to me as this feels like one final misdirection that HTGAWM is known for. Still, I believe Connor has some ‘splainin’ to do.
On Friday, the latest match in the Movie Trivia Schmoedown was released, and what a match it was. We saw a new Movie Trivia Schmoedown champion crowned as “The Outlaw” John Rocha completed his unlikely journey back from the Bespin edge to defeat “Dangerous” Dan Murrell. Murrell, the Movie Fights and TV Fights Champion, could not answer the final question, “Who directed the ‘Burbs?” (Joe Dante, by the way), and was defeated by one point. Rocha nearly broke down in tears when the announcement was made. I will admit that, although I have always liked John Rocha, I was cheering for Dan Murrell. However, it is always awesome when someone reacts the way Rocha did when achieving a goal. Clearly Rocha was happy to win the title and he showed it with his emotional response. Congrats to “The Outlaw” on his well deserved victory.
Saturday Night Live turned out to be a rerun this week, which disappointed many viewers considering the President Trump press conference on Thursday was wild and ripe for parody. The press conference was just one of the week’s worth of chaos (fake news I guess) surrounding the Trump administration. It started on last Sunday’s morning talk shows with Trump surrogate Stephen Miller said, in his best henchman voice, that “…our opponents, the media, and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions that the powers of the President to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned” and ended this past Saturday with Trump stating during a campaign-style rally in Florida that there were terrible goings on in Sweden, a fact that was a surprise to the Swedish officials. Next week’s SNL could literally fill the entire 90 minutes with Trump items.
Melissa McCarthy has played White house Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Last week, the world all laughed together as the clip of McCarthy dominated television discussion, and now she returned to SNL for a second week, this time with the cold open. The ruthless portrayal of Spicer is remarkably funny and savagely satirical. The Trump administration has brought out the best in SNL, bringing the show back to prominence that we have not seen in many years. Rumors circulated this week that Rosie O’Donnell wanted to play Steve Bannon on the show (the show currently portrays Bannon as the Grim Reaper), but there was no sign this week of Rosie. However, Alec Baldwin, this week’s host, did reprise his Trump, taking the three federal court judges who overturned the travel ban to the People’ Court.
What happened to Riverdale? The first two episodes of the new CW series based on the comic book characters of the Archie universe were very intriguing and interesting. There was a central mystery involving the disappearance of Jason Blossom and the show had a Gossip Girls meets Twin Peaks feel to it. Last week’s episode ended with the apparent arrest of Cheryl Blossom for the murder of Jason when his body was found dead (not missing). Then, this week’s episode, focused on a boring story about the football team and their slut shaming of girls at Riverdale High. While the story is an important one to tell, the timing of this was extremely questionable as it seemed to derail the momentum of the first couple of episodes. I hope it gets back on track next week.
Scandal continues it renaissance with another dramatically intense episode, showing us the real circumstance behind the assassination of President Elect Frankie Vargas. It turns out that Cyrus Bean was behind the assassination, inadvertently. The killer turned out to be Tom, who had killed the president’s son, and who was in love with Cyrus. His plan was to get Cyrus into the Oval Office. The problem, Cyrus rejected him because, although he had sent him after Jennifer- the young lady who had made the call that tipped off Olivia Pope on the possibility that Cyrus was guilty, Cyrus had told Tom that Frankie was not to be touched. After rejecting Tom, Tom got his own revenge by confessing to the crime and telling Fitz and anyone who would listen that Cyrus had ordered him to do it.
24 Legacy premiered to lower ratings than anticipated after the Super Bowl. People believed it was because the Super Bowl ran long, with the New England Patriots defeating the Atlanta Falcons in the first ever overtime Super Bowl in history. However, 24 Legacy first two episodes were tremendous, effectively setting up the series with its bright new star Corey Hawkins (Dr. Dre from Straight Outta Compton). By the end of episode two (which aired the next night in its regular time slot), I was all in with the new version of the beloved show.
Legion debuted on FX this past Wednesday and most people who saw it spoke extremely highly on the new mutant series. I will be honest, I was not sold with the pilot. It was interesting, but I found it kind of hard to follow. The first episode was an hour and a half and followed the story of telekinetic mutant David Haller (Dan Stevens) through his struggles at a mental institution. The show was certainly a beautifully shot and directed show and it is not as if I hated the episode. I just was not as blown away as I thought I might be. It appears that the ratings agree with me as they were only so so for FX. I will still be watching the show, however, expecting the story to improve as we proceed.
My current favorite couple on television goes to Maya and Jimmy DiMeo from ABC’s Speechless. This week’s Valentine Day episode looked closer at their relationship and found one of the healthiest married couples on television. These characters are played charmingly by Minnie Driver and John Ross Bowie. They are so perfect for each other despite being shown as people who have a list of problems and eccentricities. Speechless continues to be a consistent and solid comedy for ABC on Wednesday nights and the chemistry between the DiMeos are a big reason why.
TV Fights Live crowned a new TV Fights Champion this week after a week of controversy on the Screen Junkies Plus show. Last week, challenger Joe Starr, who had been trash talking for weeks toward champion 
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 