The first season finale of Picket Fences was a memorable episode. Guest star Della Reece appears as one of the great Blues singers known as Naomi Grand. She was performing in Rome and Zach won a contest to play with her.
When the night of the concert came, just after they finished their scat, Naomi collapsed on stage. Jill diagnoses liver failure and claimed she was going to die without a experimental treatment, the use of a pig’s live as a stopgap measure until a human liver could be found.
The surgery was a success, but when Naomi awoke, she was horrified by the idea that a pig organ was inside her body and demanded that they take it out. Of course, Jill refused and that meant that we got to hear those wonderful words… “Douglas Wambaugh for the pig woman!”
Meanwhile, Maxine and Kenny pulled over a speeder who was in labor and ready to give birth. Maxine helped give birth even with the baby being a birch.
Turned out though that the mother was wanted as an accessory to a bank robbery and she took off afterwards. But not before she left the baby with Wambaugh with instructions to give the baby to Maxine.
Maxine wanted no part of the baby at first, but the little girl warmed Maxine’s heart and before long, Maxine was anxiously trying to adopt her.
Sadly, Maxine’s heart was broken as the mother turned herself in and gave testimony against the bank robber so she could keep the baby.
These were two fairly emotional stories contained in a single episode. The pig liver story was more like the weird stories of Rome, whereas the baby was the story to dive into our characters hearts and minds.
It was a strong episode to finish off an exceptional first season. There were no flops during this season, with even the lowest episodes on my list being very enjoyable.
Our weekly dose of Dungeons & Dragons has arrived with the fifth episode of Bonus Action. I have really enjoyed this group as they have spent so much time dealing with character instead of just going out and fighting every week.
Once again, the group spends their time this week building character and having fun without having to dive into battle at every corner.
I think I said it before, but this is a type of D & D that I could really get into instead of the D & D that I remember playing, where having a lot of characteristics and a great backstory was second, if not third, to stats and fighting skills.
Rory had a very good week this week as his friendship with Victor continues to grow. Rory finding that blood curse that was on Victor was clutch.
And Bric’s magic skills came through big time too with his casting suggestion. Natural ones can be tough for DMs.
The running gag of Marlon failing to pick pockets is really funny.
Todd needs to get something special for himself as he was in he background for most of the night. He is more than just comedy relief.
The story is coming into the forefront of the adventure and the fight for the Arcfire looks to be shaping up to be a huge conflict.
The fourth and fifth episodes of the new Netflix limited series, Bodies, are fantastic. This show has been doing a spectacular job of laying out this complex story through four timelines and multiple characters. I have found the plotting of this series to be tremendous work.
There are some heartbreaking surprises in these two episode, things that I did not see coming.
The timelines begin to bleed across as fingerprints from 1890 are matched in 2023. An older Shahara turns up in 2053 while investigating in 2023. We get an explanation on the importance of Elias and who he is connected to.
The death of Ester was tough to stomach and you could feel the pain that Charles was going through. Maybe the show should have given us a few more scenes with the two of them together to make their connection feel a little more realistic, but, in the end, I did feel for the loss of the girl and understood the suffering of Charles. I was so rooting for him to get his justice, but I had that sinking feeling that it wasn’t going to happen.
The time travel aspect of the show has started to come into focus and we are starting to see out antagonist in a clearer light. The conspiracy seems to be blankets over a lot of people over several timelines.
My guess is that the eventual wildcard involved here is Iris Maplewood from 2053. She seems to be with Mannix at this point, but one has to feel as if she is going to make the difference in the story.
Three more episodes to go. Things are going to be explosive soon.
Kimberly and her best friend kiss, experimenting and stir up all kinds of trouble.
Kenny and Maxine compete for the job of under sheriff and stir up all kinds of trouble.
Jimmy makes some mistakes when speaking with Maxine about the position and stirs up all kind of trouble.
Poor Jimmy just does not see things coming. He is pretty old fashioned when it comes to a lot of things, but when he told Maxine that he did not think she would be accepted as under sheriff because of the other male deputies, he really put his foot in it.
His heart was in the right place. He did not intend to commit sexual discrimination even though that was exactly what he had done. He was trying to protect her from a job that he did not think she was ready for. He just went about it in the wrong way.
Of course, Maxine did not react well to not getting the job at first either. Her immediate outburst was disrespectful to Kenny, no matter what she said later. It showed that Jimmy was right that she was not ready for the position, even though he went about it in the wrong manner.
I think the show did a great job with the Kimberly sexual confusion story angle. This felt real and made a lot of sense, even if it were uncomfortable to watch at times. Jimmy, Jill and Lydia reacted in all sorts of ways though, in the end, Kimberly seemed to appreciate what they had done. They sort of lucked into it.
Oh, and Matthew had to fight an older bully to protect Zach. Jimmy had found out and gave his son some pointers and Jimmy’s shock and joy when he discovered that Matthew had won the fight was as funny as Jill’s outcry over him knowing and letting Matthew do it. It was a funny little C-level story.
We looked quite a bit at Jimmy again this episode, as he interacted with his real children and his two deputies that he thinks of as his children. Maxine was mad at Jimmy, but she’ll get over it.
I started a new limited series on Netflix that had been on my queue for a few weeks now. I wanted to wait until a couple of the shows that I am currently watching were coming to an end. Loki is now done. Goosebumps has one more episode next Friday. Gen V is over. It felt like the right time to start something new.
There are eight episodes of this British limited series. It is called Bodies. I had seen the premise of the series on Netflix and it sounded remarkable.
The premise on Netflix said, “Four detectives. Four timelines. One body. To save Britain’s future, they’ll need to solve the murder that altered the course of history first.”
1890. 1941. 2023 and then eventually 2053. Four timeframes that all wound up with the same apparent murder victim, his eye shot out, stripped naked.
In the 2053 year, we learn that something terribly tragic was going to happen in 2023 that we did not yet know. It sounds like whatever it was is a huge destructive event.
These characters in the different timeframes are all fascinating and complex.
I have found this to be so great so far and I am fully engaged with this show so far.
A powerful episode of Picket Fences, “Rights of Passage” featured a small band of Native Americans taking over the court house because the town of Rome decided to build a golf course that would extend over the burial grounds of their ancestors. The eventual showdown was built to exquisitely and was used, as is always the way with this show, to deal with some deep insecurities of one of its characters, in this case, Jimmy Brock, the sheriff, as Jimmy had some deep reflections on his time as the sheriff and what the job entails from him.
Jimmy really did not want to lead an attack on these Indians to reclaim the courthouse despite having the Mayor and Judge Bone making demands of him.
Seriously, Judge Henry Bone looked very much out of line through most of this episode, making demands of the police, especially Jimmy, whom he asked “What kind of sheriff are you?”
I found Henry to be really obnoxious during this episode. He seemed to be more concerned with get “his” courthouse back than dealing with the situation calmly and under control.
Chief Winnetka forced Jimmy’s hand with his demands to get rid of the golf course. It was a powerful episode with some painful moments for everybody.
The side stories included Matthew fighting a bully to protect Zach and Ginny protesting Jill’s office with other ‘little people’ because she was giving a small child HGH shots so he could grow bigger.
Either way, the standoff at the courthouse was clearly the main storyline and led to the death of the Chief. It was a sad ending.
I’m starting to believe that I did not see very many season one episodes of The X-Files as episode 16, Young at Heart, is another one that I do not remember ever seeing before.
I also would hate to be a partner, friend, associate, co-worker, mentor of Mulder or Scully because they are always doomed. As soon as FBI agent Reggie Purdue walked on the screen and started talking to Mulder about the old days, I knew immediately that this guy was not long for the world… and damn, if I wasn’t right.
This was a tale about a killer that Mulder had caught early in his career, but not before the killer, John Barnett, had killed a couple of agents. Mulder had a clean shot, but did not take it because of the Bureau’s policy, and he blamed himself for the deaths after.
Barnett was supposed to be dead, having died in prison years ago, but it turned out that he survived and had been taken as a guinea pig for an anti-aging process meant to help cure the disease called progeria, a disease that causes rapid aging in children, by the prison doctor at the time, Dr. Joe Ridley. Ridley was doing human trials with his aging procedure, and they all failed, except for Barnett.
Barnett was also the X-Files version of Dr. Curt Connors of Marvel Comics (aka The Lizard) as he had grown back an amputated hand with use of some salamander DNA. That is never a good idea.
I liked this episode with the back and forth between Mulder and Barnett. It did not have a lot of X-Files-like weirdness, but it made up for that with a very creepy and vicious villain. It was also satisfying to see Mulder shoot and kill Bartlett at the end, making up for his previous non-action.
David and Maddie are babysitting a woman who claims to be a leprechaun.
Kathleen Kilpatrick was a wee little Irish lass with bright red hair. She was being chased by a man who was trying to capture her so he could get her pot of gold. She hired Dave and Maddie to protect her. She was not hiding the fact that she was a leprechaun.
Alexandra Johnson played Kathleen Kilpatrick and she was great. She was charming, charismatic and funny. She fit very well with David and Maddie, holding her own with these two powerful actors.
The case caused conflict with Dave and Maddie, as every case would, but this one was not as much of a conflict as usual. That was because of the bubbly performance of Johnson.
There is a fun sequence with Dave, Maddie and Kathleen being chased through the airport by the man seeking her pot of gold.
The gold turned out to be stolen from a bank years before by three men, including Kathleen’s father. She discovered that he had lied to her about being a leprechaun and that he was a thief.
Kathleen leaves the gold with Dave and Maddie and heads back to Ireland.
This was a fun episode, but it was not the most standout one. Alexandra Johnson did a solid job, but she did not do much more than a handful of guest appearances after this.
In the office scene just before Kathleen arrived and during the time she was talking with Maddie and Davie, the lighting of the scene was really messed up. There were huge shadows in the room coming from Dave and Maddie as well as other objects of the room. There was one time when you could barely see David’s face because Maddie’s shadow was blocking him. It was real noticeable and distracting. There were other moments of the episode that made it feel as if it were shot differently than other episodes of the series and thus made it fell cheaper.
The first five minutes was just about as disturbing of a five minute scene television has ever seen. It was also very tough to watch as a character that we have come to like, Tate, played expertly by Evan Peters, is shown to have gone into his school as an active shooter, killing a whole bunch of people along the way (many of whom we had seen in the Halloween episode as the group chasing Tate).
However, Tate’s origin and backstory was not the only shocking and horrifying moment of this packed episode.
Here piggy, piggy, pig.
Eric Stonestreet had a guest appearance as Derek, one of Ben’s patients who was afraid of urban legends, especially the one about the Pigman. Derek could not look in the mirror in fear of saying the words, “Here piggy piggy pig” which, much like the story of Candyman, is supposed to summon the Pigman. The explanation of the story by Derek to Ben was absolutely the creepiest, scariest thing I had seen on TV in a long time.
Derek’s absolute fear was palpable and his attempt to overcome this fear in the Harmon’s bathroom in Murder House was frightening and just not a good idea. The irony of how the story ended up was amazing writing, if not tragic.
Tragedy was all over this episode as Tate saved the life of Violet, who had taken a handful of pills in a suicidal wave. Tate dragging Violet’s body into the bathroom and forcing her to vomit the pills while running the shower over her was heart-wrenching.
Watching Constance eating some of the disgusting things that Constance brought her ‘for the baby’ was stomach-churning.
Speaking of Constance, her ‘talk’ with Adelaide through a medium, Billie Dean, was another tragic moment of this episode, providing Jessica Lange with some wonderful material to play. Billie Dean was the first appearance of the brilliant Sarah Paulson in the series. Sarah Paulson becomes a fixture in American Horror Story and other projects by Ryan Murphy.
And we hear from the ultrasound technician who had fainted when giving Vivien’s ultrasound. She claimed that she had seen the beast in Vivien’s womb, hooves and all. She had left her job and had taken up residency in a church where she was praying. Between this and the raw brains and pancreas Vivien has been consuming, this baby is going to be something else.
“Piggy Piggy” is one of the best episodes of the season. It is disturbing and keeps the audience constantly on guard, uneasy about where the show is taking us. It is full of some great acting, from Jessica Lange to Eric Stonestreet to Evan Peters.
Picket Fences has the most well developed ensemble cast of characters of any TV show I can remember. I do believe this show is the precursor to shows like LOST or The Walking Dead where even the secondary characters are deeply developed and have real feelings and emotions. Picket Fences was truly ahead of its time as a show.
Tis episode focused on Carter Pike, played as always wonderfully by Kelly Connell. We have seen Carter through other episodes in little bits, but this time we really dive into the doubts and mind of Carter, and, because he is a morose and melancholy individual, with terrible feelings of insecurity.
They take Carter and rip everything away from him, his reputation, his job, his self-confidence.
When a missing man shows up dead with radiation burns in garbage outside the Brock house, questions about the possibility of UFOs take over Rome. A traveling group led by a woman named Wendy of UFO believers arrive and gain Carter’s support. When Carter announced to the press that he was listing exposure to radiation from a UFO as a possible cause of death of the man (after seeing something in the sky the night before), things went terribly wrong. Jimmy and Mayor Pugen fired Carter from his post as Medical Examiner because his credibility had been damaged beyond repair.
Turned out that Wendy was using Carter for publicity and her people had used a hologram projector to make Carter think he saw a UFO.
The UFO story was countered in the episode by the fact that the man they found in the garbage was a Jewish man and Carter would not release the body for burial. So the episode has some serious scenes dealing with the Jewish faith and the beliefs of Judaism. Douglas Wambaugh had some amazing scenes dealing with his own issues in connection to his religious beliefs. There was one with Doug and Miriam, his wife, in bed that again showed a deep understanding of Wambaugh and who this character was.
I really did feel for poor Carter by the end of the episode and, once again, Picket Fences showed why this show won as many Emmys as it did.
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
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 