Interestingly enough, this is yet another first season X-Files episode that I do not remember seeing at all. It is also another one that felt somewhat lacking.
It also is horribly dangerous to be a former friend or loved one of either Mulder or Scully as life expectancies seem to plummet.
On the other hand, Scully did shoot someone, and that doesn’t happen often.
With the spirit of the dead bad guy taking over the body of the dead FBI agent/friend of Scully, this had too much of the negative Freaky Friday vibe going on. The doctors worked on reviving the FBI guy for 13 minutes? Do they do that? Scully wanted more. I found that whole situation to be iffy.
Then, as the body of the dead bad guy was being shocked when they shocked FBI guy, this looked funny.
The relationships in the episode were weak. I had no connection with the FBI guy and there was nothing with him and Scully. The two bad guys did not work together well either and the twist that she betrayed him to the FBI did not make sense.
Then, apparently FBI guy had some kind of obsession with main bad guy and we never see any of this. We only hear it mentioned. I did not believe any of that either.
This one was quite disappointing. Second consecutive weak episode after the excellent Beyond the Sea.
Dana Delaney guest starred on Moonlighting as a former flame of David’s who had left him without a word three years before.
Sadly, this was Moonlighting and when she came back into David’s life, it was not the happy reunion that it seemed.
Jillian (Dana Delaney) came to Blue Moon to hire Maddie to find a necklace that had been stolen from her hotel room. When David came in, they were both surprised to see each other.
Jillian was having marriage problems and it was not too long before David and Jillian were back together. Jillian set up David to be the witness to her shooting her husband. Of course, she made it look like she was being attacked by her husband so that David could testify that it was self-defense.
The episode ended with one of the better chase scenes we have had. Maddie and David chased Jillian in the hearse and the funeral procession followed behind.
There was quite a bit of a tonal shift in the episode from most of the show until that chase scene. I did enjoy the chase scene much more than I enjoyed the first part of the show.
One of the great things about Picket Fences when they went into the court room, I was never sure what the outcome would be. In particular, any of the controversial topics of the day could have gone in any direction and with Judge Henry Bone sitting on the bench, it often did.
The controversy of this episode was the use of stem cells from aborted fetuses being used to treat Parkinson Disease.
On Picket Fences, the major argument against the use of stem cells falls into the idea that it becomes an umbrella issue under abortion and that it was argued that this type of experimental procedure would only encourage abortions to be done. Obviously, this wound up involving the church as well as the community.
The other major storyline was the specialist Jill called into the case was her former fiancée before Jimmy. The attraction between the two doctors remained strong and Jill ended up kissing him.
The show used this plot point to investigate the deep ceded resentments by Jill and her choice to come to the small town to be the town doctor instead of becoming a top-line surgeon. This then was used as a conflict within the marriage of Jill and Jimmy. As always, this show uses their stories to inform their characters at a different level than most shows.
Honestly, this is a perfectly enjoyable episode of Picket Fences, but it did not stand out. It was fine. Of course, this hour was probably better than most series like this.
Maxine, who in the early stages of the season, killed the criminal the Green Bay Chopper, thinks she found another one.
After taking out a personal ad in the newspaper, Maxine gets a response that she believes is from a serial killer named Cupid. At the same time, Jimmy gets shot in the butt with an arrow. Maxine was sure that this was Cupid because he was known to taunt the police.
She set up a sting operation in an attempt to lure the serial killer to her.
What happens next is a beautiful set up that lands Maxine in the line of fire.
When I watched this episode originally, I remember the shock and the disbelief about the ending. It was one of the best twists of the show, and the performance of Kurtwood Smith as fired FBI agent Barry Jenkins, who was obsessed with Cupid who killed his wife was spectacular. When he turned back to Maxine revealing himself as Cupid, the look on his face was complete psychosis.
The way the show first made us think that Jenkins was Cupid, only to see the other guy, Ben Sasha (Stephen Tobolowsky) to grab the undercover Maxine was awesome. What a great twist to make us think that we had it all backwards and that Jenkins was not Cupid after all, only to reveal that Jenkins and Sasha were both Cupid.
When I watched back in the 1993, I truly thought that there was no way that Maxine was getting out of this. It was a stunning ending.
There are still little bits of character development in the series even in the episodes that are story driven like this one. There was a continuing detail to Carter, showing how lonely and sad he actually feels, which shows why he is always so desperate to be deputized, to make it appear as if he is not as impotent as he feels.
Something that I wanted to mention about Picket Fences that I really love is how they bring back specifics from previous episodes. This episode, they referred to the Green Bay Chopper several times. They have been known to bring up previous characters or storylines in conversation, just like real people would. This is not just a TV series where each episode is stand alone. There is a continuity to Picket Fences and I love that.
As of this moment, Be My Valentine is my favorite episode of the show. We’ll see if it can hold that spot. I am currently five episodes from the end of season 1 and ten days officially into the Picket Fences DailyView Rewatch.
I am not sure what I can say about that finale episode of Loki, which was nearly an hour in length and was an absolute heart-wrencher. I felt very much like this after the astounding episode four of this season, a … it’s hard to explain. My gut has a hallow feeling, but not in a bad way. This is an amazing finale that really takes the show into a position that I never thought I would see.
With Loki mastering the time slipping last week, and showing up right behind OB as Victor Timely was heading down to get spaghettified, I think everyone believed that Loki was going to do some fancy time travel tricks and save the day. When they did not work, it felt as if the show was going to do what I really did not want it to. When Loki used his time slipping power to return to the site where Sylvie killed He Who Remains, I thought it was clear what was going to happen.
Then it didn’t.
It really felt like Loki was going to end up killing Sylvie. How many times did she say that in order to stop her, Loki would have to kill her? A dozen? More?
But Loki didn’t.
Loki even verbally jousted with He Who Remains. The moment Loki showed He Who Remains that he was more than just a puppet was a cheer out loud moment.
I know there have been some people speculating that Loki would end up as He Who Remains, and, while that is close to the end, I do not think that anyone would have suggested that Loki would end up being Yggdrasil.
Yggdrasil was a sacred tree in Norse mythology that was at the center of everything, with the Nine Worlds existed.
Loki striding out into the temporal time stream, grabbing branches along the way, and connecting them all to him, within a tree of life was a stunningly beautiful and devastating way to end the series. Loki, who was going through everything in this series in an attempt to not lose his friends and end up alone, wound up alone at the center of everything.
The TVA is nicely set up as an anti-Kang organization as the TVA mentioned that they were keeping an eye on the variants of He Who Remains for the potential upcoming war. The TVA has been rumored to be involved in other future MCU projects and this would be so awesome.
Tom Hiddleston was amazing, completely wrapping his two season character arc for the God of Mischief. I am not sure if this means that Loki has transformed into the God of Stories or if this is a whole new thing, but either way, Hiddleston was spectacular.
Owen Wilson’s Mobius’s arc came to an end too with his visit to his sacred timeline self (not sure if the sacred timeline is still a thing). His final interaction with Sylvie was very bitter sweet.
Ke Huy Quan was a perfect fit for this character of OB. He had so much energy in the show. I saw a video message of him on Twitter (X, whatever) promoting the finale and he was so excited about it. You could tell how proud he was being a part of the show and it was so awesome that he was finally able to put out a video to express how he felt (since the actor’s strike is now over).
Loki season two absolutely felt like a conclusion to the first season. I have seen the director claim that season two was like a bookend to season one, and that is exactly how it felt. We revisited a ton of moments from season one with a time slipping Loki and it was wonderful.
I truly found this to be a brilliant end to the series and I felt very blown away by emotions and a spectacular looking show. I really loved WandaVision, but Loki is pretty dang close.
The first episode of season one and the final episode of season two have the same title, “Glorious Purpose.”
EDIT: I just saw a tweet that expressed my feelings perfectly so I wanted to add it here. The season finale made me feel sadness, yet at the same time, made me feel hopeful.
Yes, that is it. Thanks to Aaron S Bailey for the tweet.
As much as I love #Loki it doesn't need another season, @MrEricMartin is spot on. This "book" was told perfectly and ended on a note that leaves you sad but hopeful. Can't believe we've reached the end though.. what a ride! pic.twitter.com/aE5AcjYuZw
The next episode of Picket Fences brought a couple of major controversial topics to the front of the story.
One, a local dentist is fired because he would not reveal to his patients that he was HIV positive.
Two, a doctor refuses to allow his wife to be disconnected from life support despite the fact that she had been declared dead. The reason? She was pregnant and he wanted to keep her alive so she could give birth to the baby.
The first case was very much of the typical prejudicial situation that the show specialized in. The second case was a whole pro life, pro choice debate that has still be a major issue in the world.
Of course, the cases lead to a fight between Jimmy and Jill as they wound up on separate sides of the debates. Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker are at the top of their game in these knock down verbal fights.
This was also a great episode for Douglas Wambaugh and Judge Henry Bone. Wambaugh was extremely effective in both of the cases, including a strong cross-examination of Jill. Henry Bone, once again, showed what a well-meaning judge he is. You can see the heavy toll that each decision he makes takes on himself.
Religious freedom comes front and center on Picket Fences as there are a couple of stories involving strange uses of the concept.
First, a church that uses ducks and goats as sacrifices? It is funny seeing Maxine flip out while sneaking into a funeral and arresting the entire church full of people. Judge Bone kicked that case very quickly.
The other story was the main one as one of Kimberly’s friends turns out pregnant, but Kim was confused. She had never even mentioned a boyfriend before. However, Kimberly saw her in a romantic kiss with her father and suddenly everything was hitting the fan.
Except, it turned out that it was not incest and instead was polygamy. Kimberly’s friend was not the daughter of the man, but one of his wives. They were Mormon.
There was another story happening as separated-at-birth twins reunited in Rome through a series of coincidences… including one sleeping with Kenny and the other having the orgasm, in her car in another part of the town. Both twins ended up as Kenny’s girlfriend in the weirdest part of the weirdo episode.
All around the limbo clock, hey let’s do the Limbo Rock!“
An absolute classic of an episode for Moonlighting as Maddie catches David leading a limbo celebration in the office and makes a bet with him that he can not act like a mature adult for a week. If she wins, David has to fire two of their most expendable employees. If David won the bet, he would make Maddie limbo.
As Miss DiPesto stated, Maddie had ‘de-Dave`d’ him.
Meanwhile there was a case involving a pseudo-kidnapping and a wealthy woman whose step son was kidnapped and she wanted Dave and Maddie to negotiate down the cost of the ransom.
Another great episode that saw Maddie come to an understanding with who her business partner is and how she missed him when he was acting too much like a boss.
I remember this one clearly when the show was first on the air and this might have been the first episode that I really fell in love with the show. The ridiculousness of the court case being argued by Douglas Wambaugh, and yet winning, only to discover that Alice Freeman, who had runover her husband with a steam roller (that image stuck with me), had made up everything as a way to get rid of her husband without a divorce. The last scene of the episode with Carter spying Alice with the doctor who testified against her together in her house was shocking.
Then, as I was watching, the B-story of the episode was fairly shocking in its own right. It was Matthew who was having dreams about sex and having his ‘penis explode.’ That topic has been done before, but what was wild was how the show had Matthew’s dream being Maxine coming to him in a bra and panties (holding chocolate cake and a baseball card). It made me wonder if they shot this regularly or if there was some kind of movie magic involved because it felt a little creepy having Lauren Holly, the actress, approach teenager Justin Shenkarow, barely dressed and, in another moment, undid her top.
The fourth episode of Bonus Action was an unexpected one, but it was truly one of the best.
The episode saw the group passing through the Sea of Dreams and they all had individual dreams, all of which had to deal with their back stories.
This was an amazing way to give us more information on these characters and their lives without simply telling us.
DM David was the star of this episode as he provided some of the best D & D descriptions I have heard. He weaved every dream from meetings he had with the players off screen and he provided some different variations of the dream concept. There were some dreams that were really scary, some of the dreams dropped hints or possible story beats, making the PCs unsure about what they were doing.
My thought as I watched this was… when I played D & D years ago, I would have loved this but my groups were never into character development or deep backgrounds. I always tried to add what I could, but the D & D format was never my strength.
Loved how these six players seem to believe that the character parts are every bit as important as the fighting.
The first time Kenny isn’t a great shot, he gets taken down.
A powerful episode dealing with the consequences of a police officer being shot and the ways that that can mess with someone’s head.
Kenny is shot by Frog Man at a jewelry shop. Frog Man, a person who had been committing crimes with frogs, was at the shop and wound up shooting Kenny twice. He just happened to get the drop on Kenny.
Kenny was rushed to surgery and Jill had to operate to pull the bullet out of him.
Eccentric frog lover Peter Lebeck (Michael Jeter) was an immediate suspect and Maxine overstepped procedure in her investigation, which led to Peter’s arrest and eventual dismissal of charges because of an illegal search and a confession that stemmed from the legal term, ‘poisonous fruits.’
This entire event led to a meltdown between Maxine and Kenny, because Kenny blamed her for not being there when he needed her and Maxine mad at Kenny for going behind her back to Jimmy. These two who have been very close really came to some dramatic tension.
It turned out that it was actually Peter’s son Milton (Chris Owen) who had shot Kenny, as the 11-year old was trying to find a hero, aka Frog Man.
Maxine and Kenny were able to work out their issues, as Jimmy pointed out that they were both at fault for the situation. That Kenny was not mad at Maxine, but at himself because he got shot and that he had taken the situation with such a lazy approach and that Maxine had blown the search and arrest because she was affected by what had happened.
The scenes with Peter and Milton at the police station before Milton was taken away were powerful and painful.
This was a really strong episode that, again, takes the plot and uses it to dive deep inside the characters that we love.
Kris Kringle is arrested and takes the police station hostage. Kenny is still a great shot.
A pageant is not allowed because of the Nativity scene. Separation of church and state.
Unfortunately, Judge Bone has an issue with transsexuals. He warned Wambaugh not to bring the case into his court room. That warning was clearly never going to be kept.
Jimmy’s ex-wife Lydia comes to help with Kimberly.
These were two consecutive excellent episodes. The whole Santa takes the station hostage was tense and anxious. As it was mixed with the whole Kimberly drama that was ripping apart the Brock family making it all the more poignant.
Once again, holidays in Rome, Wisconsin are something else.
The X-Files episode that asks, “What if the Amish were way darker and creepy?”
This was another episode of the X-Files from season one that I do not remember at all. I do believe that I have never seen this episode because I do not think that I would have forgotten this.
I hope Marjorie Taylor Greene never watches this episode.
We start off with a man and a woman enthralled in sexual intercourse. When finished, she stands up, he has a massive coronary and she changes into a man.
Yup. That’s is what I said.
The episode title is Gender Bender and it is about a group of Amish-like people who have pheromone powers. They were called the Kindred. One of their members left their community and has been sexing it up around the east coast, killing his or her sexual partners.
Mulder and Scully wound up inside this Kindred commune and saw some weird things, including some strange ritual where they took a sick man and covered him with some goop and buried him alive, as he gradually turned feminine.
There are so many bizarre images and ideas in this episode that it made it fairly disturbing to watch. I’m sure there is some kind of theme involving sexual identity or sexual proliferation, but that all gets lost among the rest of the weirdness.
Plus, the show implied that the Kindred were aliens and that they escaped in their ship at the end of the episode.
This was anticlimactic and, simply put, a messy episode. Even if some of the ideas are worthwhile exploring, this does not work. Scully is even shown nearly being a victim of these pheromones and is almost raped by one of the Kindred.
On Halloween, the spirits of the dead are able to walk the streets once more. So it makes it easy for all of the lost souls living inside the Murder House to get out for a night.
The story advanced like crazy in these two episodes. So much happened. We met a gay couple who were former owners of the house who was killed by Rubber Man. Moira left the house and went to see her mother who was on life support that she immediately took her off. Hayden showed up to torment Ben and Vivien, forcing Ben to tell Vivien the whole truth. Tate and Violet were chased by a group of teen ghosts who claimed that Tate had killed them. Adelaide is hit by a car after she was dressed for Halloween as a ‘pretty girl’ and she dies before Constance can drag her onto the Harmon’s lawn. Constance grieves desperately for her loss and tells Violet that she was Tate’s mother. Vivien felt her baby kick, which should be too soon so they go to the hospital and the nurse collapses when she see the baby. Ben leaves the house the next morning and Vivien indicates that she is going to divorce him.
Just so much happening. I remember when it was first aired being really uncertain about everything that was going on, but this time, with my foreknowledge, everything was much clearer.
There is a ton of drama going on around the Murder House and everyone does a wonderful job. Jessica Lange is magnificent in this episode with the death of Adelaide. She always acted as if she did not love her ‘monster,’ as she called her, but the moment she finds her on the ground and desperately tries to drag her to the lawn before she dies so she would continue to exist, albeit trapped in the Murder House, is heartbreaking.
Evan Peters is another actor who brings his best in this episode as he starts to remember what he did to those teens. I believe that is coming up soon.
Dylan McDermott and Connie Britton both play every possible emotion during these two episodes as Ben clings to his life with his family, even while it slips away.
Zachary Quinto makes a great cameo as one of the former owners of Murder House, the one whom is killed by Rubber Man.
Overall, these two episodes play great together and is a complete gamechanger.
A dead body. Suicide or homicide? How does a snake play into it?
Another mystery in Rome, Wisconsin that the Sheriff’s Department has to solve. But can their motives be trusted?
A woman is found dead in her home and the initial appearance is that of suicide. However, her husband, Brian, is confident that she would never have killed herself. He wanted to blame her sister, K.C., who has several pet snakes and thus dubbed ‘The Snake Lady.’
Problem… Maxine started to have feelings for Brian, to empathize with him over his situation leading to Kenny to call her out on it and tell Jimmy.
The case went through several final answers, from suicide to accidental shooting to possible murder. Poor Carter had to report each change in the case to the media which mocked him horribly over the changing case and Carter’s constant comments of being ‘nearly’ deputized.
The mystery of this episode is well done and is one of the tropes of Picket fences. There are a ton of twists and turns among the show’s mystery cases and this is no exception. Everything does come out nicely done and worked as a solution.
Again, we get conflict between our characters developed by the plot. In this case, Maxine and Kenny, who had a lovely encounter with one another last episode over Thanksgiving, immediately had their partnership tossed in the grinder.
By the way, Kenny is one damn fine shot.
The only drawback of this episode is that we never got to hear, “Douglas Wambaugh for the Snake Lady!” No Wambaugh or Judge Bone this episode. Perhaps Wambaugh is taking this episode to spend more time with his wife after last episode’s issues.
One more thing, Brian had grabbed Kenny around the throat and pushed him against the wall, and I am not sure how he did not get charged with assaulting an officer. Kenny was fully in control of the situation though and wound up hitting Brian with the handle of his gun. Still, Brian should have faced charges. “Douglas Wambaugh for the police assaulter!”
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 