Category Archives: TV-G[eek]

The X-Files S2 E19, E20

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“Død Kalm” 

“Humbug”

Season two of The X-Files moves along with one of my favorite episodes and one that was decent. 

First up, Mulder and Scully age rapidly upon a ghost ship. They investigated the ship when crew members were found from the ship, ageing well past their times.

Mulder and Scully are at their best in isolation, places where the outside world is kept at bay. Here, it allowed Mulder and Scully to have some interactions that they might not have had in other instances. 

Problem with the episode was that the old age makeup did not look great. Mulder, in particular, did not look like an old man, more like a guy with a lot of latex on his face.

“Død Kalm” was okay, and the strength of the episode was definitely the relationship between our ever favorite FBI agents.

The next episode was “Humbug” which was one of my favs from the series. It was the time Mulder and Scully investigated murders at the freak show.

This was a great episode that really, for the first time, took a more humorous tone with the case. The writing of the dialogue was spot on in this episode. Mulder was as funny here as he has been yet, and shows what the show could be. Apparently, according to Wikipedia, the episode was written by Darin Morgan, who had helped his brother Glen on other scripts for the show and earned himself a full time job. He wrote some classic X-Files episodes including “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” and “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” both of which I love and can’t wait to get to during this rewatch.

The thing is that the show does not sacrifice the tension and horror with the comedy. It shows that The X-Files is capable of blending the tones together into something very satisfying and extremely clever.

It was fun to see Michael J. Anderson (who played The Man from Another Place on Twin Peaks) guest starring as Mr. Nutt. Another guest star was Vincent Schiavelli, who was once married to Miss DePesto herself, Allyce Beasley, and they appeared together on an episode of Moonlighting.

These kind of comedic episodes are some of my favorites of the entire series because they are done so well and yet does not rob the show of its signature style.

American Horror Story: Murder House S1 E9-E12

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I had been doing a rewatch of the first season of American Horror Story: Murder House, usually once every Sunday. I made it through episode 8, but so many other shows popped up that I kind of let AHS: Murder House slide. 

Now, with the Picket Fences rewatch finished, Monarch, Echo and Fargo (almost) ending, I decided to wrap up the first season in the Murder House. 

I remember the first time watching this show, the shocks were absolutely flying. I never saw the hanging of Ben coming. The deaths of the members of the Harmon family were all amazing, and is something that you can do in an anthology series, since you do not have to revisit the characters in a subsequent season (although, Constance, I believe, comes back in a later season with the baby she took from the house- as the Anti-Christ. That is a season I may have to watch for the first time).

The group of characters are all given pretty decent ends, even the ghosts that are trapped inside the house. It was a strangely satisfying and, dare I say, happy ending for the Harmons, considering that they all died tragically in the house. The ending of the show with them celebrating Christmas was a strange conclusion.

It was fun watching the spirits inside the house chase off the new couple that tried to buy the house. 

I glad to have finished off the first season. It was one of my favorites of the seasons that I have seen. 

Moonlighting S3 E12

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“Sam and Dave”

The soap opera Moonlighting continued with the episode “Sam and Dave” where Addison officially met Sam, Maddie’s ‘friend’ who was at her door last episode. Of course, Sam is played by Mark Harmon. 

I really don’t like the way this story progressed. It was just too dark for this show. Even the manner in which the show is being shot during these episodes make the mood much more dark. This episode drew a very negative comparison between David and Sam. It went out of the way to make Dave look bad and to made Sam look super-dooper. 

I was under the impression that David was an active drinker. I find it tough to believe he got as drunk as he did at the end of the show. 

Herbert Viola took another step to become the character I hate most on any show. He is such an annoying character and his treatment of Agnes is mean. I hated the ‘advice’ that David gave to Viola when Bert came to talk to him about women. 

The episode ended with a “To Be Continued” and it was clear that the show was moving along with this style.

Fargo S5 E9

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“The Useless Hand”

I was not sure how, after last week’s thriller of an episode, the show intended on having two more episodes. Last week absolutely felt like the penultimate episode. I guess I should not question Fargo. This was an amazing episode leading into what is surely going to be a devastating finale.

I have not been as interested in the character of Ole Munch for most of the season, and yet, it just a few minutes of screen time, I have a much more positive view of him than I have had all season long. He has also succeeded in making me feel sympathy for Gator, something I never thought could happen. When Roy basically cast his son Gator aside as being worthless, and Gator sadly asked for his dad, this was heartbreaking and you really see what a victim Gator is of his selfish and cruel father.

Dorothy is one of my favorite characters on TV right now. She is such a survivor and does whatever she needed to do to get by. The phone conversation between her and Lorraine was powerful, and gave Dorothy that extra bolt that she needed, with the line “No Daughter of mine…“. Maybe I missed it, but I would love to know how Dorothy became as competent in these tactics of war and violence as she has. How did she become “The Tiger,” as she was referred to by Old Munch at the episode’s end. I do wonder though, after being so tactful, why did Dorothy leave her gun just out in the open as she climbed down into “the Grave?” That felt like a real error that I did not expect Dorothy to make and she was very fortunate that Old Munch happened by when he did.

Sheriff Roy Tillman continues to just do whatever he wants and is ready to lead his men and followers into a firefight with the FBI. The scene where, on horseback, Roy rode up to the FBI to let them know, in no uncertain terms, that he would not be standing down or cooperating with any search warrant was intense as hell. It is pretty clear that the series writer and creator Noah Hawley is using Roy Tillman as a stand-in for a more famous figure in the world today. The call to arms Roy sent out over the live stream was reminiscent of things we have seen in our current political world. 

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters S1 E10

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“Beyond Logic”

So this was the season finale. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has been up and down for me all season long. Some of the moments were really good and other parts were not very good. That is a good example of this episode.

It was really predictable about what was going to happen, especially after Lee Shaw had to play Doc Brown trying to fix the wires in Back to the Future. As he was trying to fix the plug, he did it and then he stood around for several minutes while Godzilla and the flying titan fought. That led to him being left behind in Hollow Earth. Saw that coming.

However, Godzilla and the flying titan were awesome, though it did not have much time. 

Another week and Kentaro had some good scenes. He was the weakest character for most of the series, but last episode and this one, he really stepped up. And his mother had a great scene with his father too.

This show could have been consistently awesome every week, but it was not. It had its moments, but the writing did not feel as strong as it could have been. Since we just saw the Godzilla Minus One film that had a compelling story of the humans, this was just not at a level it needed to be.

Echo

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Everybody thought this series was going to be an utter mess. They said that Disney was dropping the episodes all in one day because they just wanted to get it done with and past it. Echo was supposed to be a waste of time.

This turned out to be an excellent five episode show. 

I was not a fan of the character of Echo in the Hawkeye series. She was probably the weakest point of that series and felt almost added in.

This show does a sensational job of taking some of the Maya scenes from the Hawkeye and blending them into the series, particularly the first episode. The tone of these scenes felt completely different and worked in the surrounding sections.

I liked the progression of Maya and her character. She was cold at the beginning and as she slowly accepted her Choctaw Nation generations. Alaqua Cox did a fabulous job as Maya Lopez, unable to speak, but still using facial features and body language to provide an understanding of the character.

The supporting characters in this show are very interesting and are some of the best written characters. Maya’s childhood friend Bonnie, her grandparents Skully (played by the wonderful Graham Greene) and Chula, her cousin Biscuits and his dog Billy Jack, her friend Henry and, of course, her ‘uncle’ Wilson Fisk.

Vincent D’Onofrio returned to form as Kingpin. He is always so great as this character. Lots of people hated his Wilson Fisk from the Hawkeye series, but I did not mind it. It was not as good as his appearances in the Daredevil Netflix series, but characters can be different. Here, he is closer to the way he was in that Netflix series. The connection of Kingpin and Maya was a major piece of the show.

The Echo series took a lot of criticism for dropping the shows all at once, but this feels as if the show was designed to be binged and it works that way.

This also makes the Netflix Daredevil series MCU cannon, which has been questionable over the years. They go right into the Wilson Fisk backstory with his father (how he bludgeoned him to death with a hammer). Oh and the first episode fight with Daredevil was spectacular.

I will say that I feel as if the final episode was a little rushed. I did like how the Maya-Fisk relationship ends up resolving. I’m not sure if I liked how the ‘Echo gives the others power too to fight’ because it seemed to be kind of add.

However, for the five episode series, I think Echo is an excellent series and was better than I thought it was going to be.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians S1 E5

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“A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers”

As a fan of the WWE, I was looking forward to seeing Adam Copeland, a former WWE wrestler under the name of Edge, appear on tonight’s Percy Jackson episode on Disney +. Copeland was playing God of War Ares on the show. He did a great job providing Ares with some quirky traits.

However, Percy and Annabeth went on a side adventure to recover Ares’s shield as the God of War kept Grover as insurance. 

Grover showed he was smarter than Ares as he was able to suss out (at least, according to the cliffhanger) who it was that stole the master bolt. I guess that Grover will let us in on the secret next week.

Percy and Annabeth are really bonding, much more than either of them expected. 

They found themselves in an amusement park created by Hephaestus. There was a trap that Percy had to trigger in order to get the shield, but Annabeth would not give up on him and talked Hephaestus into freeing Percy.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians has been a consistently good show every week, with a cast of charming and engaging young actors and some fun appearances by Olympians. It looked like the previews for next week has Lin-Manuel Miranda showing up as Hermes.

The quest continues in Vegas!

The X-Files S2 E18

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“Fearful Symmetry”

Invisible elephants? Invisible tiger?

Mulder and Scully investigate a zoo where some weird things are going on. Mulder believes that the animals of the zoo are being abducted by aliens and artificially inseminated, having the babies taken for some reason.

The action centers around a gorilla named Sophie, who could communicate via sign language and was scared of the light.

This was quite a tragic episode with a lot of animal death and discussion of mistreatment. 

Not sure why the animals were invisible. Overall the episode was below average.

Picket Fences S4 E20, E21, E22

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“Forget Selma”

“To Forgive is Divine”

“Liver Let Die”

These three episodes were, in continuity, supposed to be shown before episode 18, “3 Weddings and a Meltdown,” and the fact that they were shown after it did affect the enjoyment of the episodes, especially episode 22, which dealt with a potential cancer scare for Jimmy, but since we know in episode 18, we know Jimmy is fine, it removed any level of question about the diagnosis.

In “Forget Selma,” we saw how Douglas and nuMiriam Wambaugh reunited, and it was one of the worst episodes of the series. It started decent, with Douglas being very jealous over nuMiriam and her new “bridge” partner, a retired stock broker played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr. 

Unfortunately, this fell hard in the second and third acts. The whole showdown at nuMiriam’s house was just ridiculous. It felt like a scene out of a conclusion of Moonlighting but without the witty comments of Dave and Maddie.

The second of these episodes included a rape of an Amish woman, and the subsequent case that led to. The Amish Council of Elders had decided that she would not press charges or testify against her rapist because their religion insisted on forgiveness.

There were a bunch of familiar faces in this episode. Kelli Williams, one of the stars of David E. Kelley’s courtroom drama The Practice, was the victimized Amish girl Hannah and Alyson Hannigan (Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) was another victim of the rapist. 

The final release order show was the aforementioned cancer scare for Jimmy. This was a very effective episode which would have been so much more if I did not know that Jimmy made it through. It also made the split between Jimmy and Jill in the finale (E18) make even less sense than it did at the time. After surviving this cancer scare, how does crazy Jill continue to do what she does in the finale?

Crazy Jill storyline is easily the worst storyline in the entire run of the show as it took the character and warped her into something was unrecognizable. 

Episode 22 was one of the best ones of the fourth season. 

However, Maxine was missing in all of these episodes so it still made no sense when she and Kenny started out the finale in bed together.

Season four was definitely missing a lot and was far lower than the first three seasons. Still, Picket Fences is one of my favorite shows of all time and I am very pleased that I got a chance to do this rewatch for EYG. 

Picket Fences S4 E19

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“Winner Takes All”

The crazy Jill storyline continued this episode. She becomes a basketball coach and drives the children to the point where they hire Wambaugh to sue their parents to stay away from the games.

As a former coach, this episode pushed a lot of buttons for me. The know-it-all parents are a major issue in youth sports competition and there is a problem that you see all over the place.

It is kind of weird watching this episode after the finale from episode 18. 

There was a sub-story where Matthew got involved in gambling. Kenny stepped up big time in this side story.

Best part of the episode was the end song, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” performed by Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwoʻole. 

I also enjoyed the story told by Dr. Joey about her own past with her mother and figure staking. Amy Aquino delivered that monologue extremely well.

The worse part of the crazy Jill story is that there is no real reason behind it. It just shows her own character.

Moonlighting S3 E11

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“Blonde on Blonde”

The soap opera section of Moonlighting started with this episode. 

It also revealed another one of my least favorite TV characters of all time. Sam Crawford, played by Mark Harmon. When Mark Harmon suddenly was standing in Maddie’s doorway, blocking David from finally telling Maddie how he felt, he cemented his place among the most despised characters around.

Mark Harmon was a top notch actor and was playing a character who, by all accounts, was a wonderful person, but he the definition of wrong-place-wrong-time.

This also started, in my mind, the eventual downfall of Moonlighting. When the show turned from a romantic comedy investigating cases with Dave and Maddie verbally sparring into this example where they were separated, not working together and focused more on the darker side of their relationship, is when the show started a downturn. Sure the ratings would be high for these episodes and Mark Harmon had created quite a buzz with his shocking appearance, but they started to lose something that made the show what it was.

You saw the elevation of Herbert Viola to sidekick status instead of DiPesto love interest and that was another misstep.

The X-Files S2 E16, E17

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“Colony”

“End Game”

A two part episode that brought the mystery of the disappearance of Samantha Mulder back to the forefront, and gave us another of the recurring villains, an alien, shape shifting bounty hunter with blood that is dangerously corrosive to humans.

The use of Samantha Mulder was done extremely well in this episode, although to be honest the future use of the mystery of her disappearance becomes one of the most overused aspects of the series. I am not sure if the creators of the X-Files actually know what had happened to Samantha and they just wrote that she disappeared and decided they would answer it at some point, not knowing the truth.

We met Fox’s mother and father in the episodes and the father was definitely a questionable guy. He felt fairly withdrawn from his son (something we learn more about later in the series).

The confrontation between Skinner and X is the elevator during “End Game” gave us some real insights into both of these men, especially Skinner, who had been painted as a questionable agent, someone that could not be trusted. This showed that he may be more than what he had seemed before.

Mulder and Scully prove that they are better together than they are separately. I did feel like I have seen Scully kidnapped and in danger from the villains too much during this season. I did like how Scully came into the hospital at the end of the episode and basically saved Mulder’s life with her take charge attitude, not taking any crap from the doctor on duty.

This two-parter was really strong and was a solid pair of episodes in the mythology of the show.

Fargo S5 E8

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“Blanket”

Sheriff Roy Tillman is absolutely spiraling out of control. 

He is completely unhinged.

And the confrontations with Tillman and Dorothy were totally intense. I want more.

Poor Dorothy is so strong, but you can see the doubts and the anguish she is suffering. The fight scene between them was off the charts. I was so rooting for Dorothy.

Graves had set up the sheriff’s debate and that made Tillman look like a crazy man, which was just what Graves wanted. Of course, Graves wanted to negotiate with Tillman, but Tillman had his own negotiating technique in mind. He shot and killed him.

We also got confirmation that Tillman had killed Linda and buried her. 

It amazes me that there are two more episodes left. This made me feel as if it were a penultimate episode. This episode was so great. I really do love Dorothy and Tillman is one of the best villains you are going to find anywhere. 

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

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“Axis Mundi”

Episode nine had the least shocking twist of the whole season. One that we all saw coming. Cate, who is lost in the Hollow Earth, was saved from a rampaging titan by a woman with a bow and arrow. The woman was, of course,  Dr. Keiko Miura, who we thought had died back in 1954 when she got pulled down by those bug-like creatures. 

Well, honestly, who really thought she was dead? 

We learned a lot about Shaw’s past in Hollow Earth and why he is so spry for a 90 year old guy. Wyatt Russell does a great job in these scenes.

The scenes between characters are the best scenes of this episode. The scene with Kentaro and his father were probably the best scene that Kentaro has had in the show. 

Kurt Russell’s Shaw and May found each other in Hollow Earth after last episode’s mess and they tried to find Cate. May seemed more worried about Cate than just a friend.

Everything is being set up here in this penultimate episode for the season finale next week. 

Picket Fences S4 E18

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“Three Weddings and a Meltdown”

It is official. I have decided that Jill Brock is one of my least favorite characters on Picket Fences. I am not sure how she has gotten away with all the things she has said or done over the last three and a half season, especially during season four, and still acts as pretentious as she does. 

Jimmy finally called her out about her behavior from a few episodes ago, but it was dropped immediately as Jill promptly made it about him. She then she took off her wedding ring and left him, telling people that she and Jimmy had split up. 

Of course, it was over before the end of the episode and they were back together, thanks to Jimmy’s words.

Douglas and nuMiriam apparently got back together as well. It happened off screen, I guess [EDIT: actually it looks like it happens in one of the next few episodes. It is explained below]. Max and Kenny were also back together. I’m not I remember that happening either.

Carter and Sue decided to get married and Max and Kenny and the Wambaughs joined in on the ceremony. 

Matthew was not here and we have no idea why. This is listed as the series finale on IMDB, but there are four more episodes on Prime. Not sure if they are just out of order or if there were more.

So as I was writing this, I did some research. According to IMDB: “The actual series finale was episode #18, “Three Weddings and a Meltdown”, a feel-good episode that offered happy endings all around. So how did four more episodes wind up showing after the series finale? CBS had canceled the show, and was eager to replace it with a higher-rated new series, so they officially ended its run on April 24 by airing the series finale, without having entered the previous episodes. There was a possibility that those episodes might have never been shown, once the show was canceled. But when summer arrived, CBS dug them up and broadcast them in June, probably thinking that brand new, unaired episodes of the acclaimed show get better ratings than the typical reruns that usually dominated TV in the summer time. But it’s clear from the various plots in those last four episodes that they were originally meant to be aired before the series finale, not after. Character arcs (such as Wambaugh’s troubled marriage, and Kenny & Maxine’s off & on romance) that were finally resolved in that series finale were suddenly unresolved again in these belated episodes. So, although episodes 19 – 22 are listed as the show’s last four episodes, episode 18 should really be listed as the final episode of the series, regardless of when it aired.“

That made more sense than the storylines that happened in episode 18.

The three weddings were cool. I loved Carter’s story arc. You would expect him to bail on the wedding, but he did not. And he was able to convince Kenny and Max to not give into their doubts and to go through with the wedding. 

It was a nice wrap up to the series, although it does kind of ruin the remaining four episodes of the series.