With these three episodes, season two of Sha Na Na ended. I will say that season two was considerably better than season one. The first two-thirds of season one was so cringeworthy with the comedy and the laugh tracks that it really took away from the music. However, near the end of season one, they clearly started to find their path and season two saw them hit their stride.
They had another tribute medley, this time for Paul Anka, who was also their guest star. They have done tributes for Elvis, Buddy Holly in the past and I am not sure why they did not do this more often. This was great and took the place of the comedy bit for the episode. Paul Anka sang a song then that I had never heard before.
This Paul Anka episode has to be considered one of the best episodes so far in the rewatch. It was up their with the Billy Crystal episode.
Speaking of Elvis, Sha Na Na has been doing more music from the King recently. Elvis was very much absent from season one, which makes me wonder if there were rights issues when they first started.
Joe Namath came in and sang with the group… well, singing is a bit of a stretch. He said “Get a Job” in the song Get a Job while the rest of them did the background vocals and all the main lyrics. Joe looked like he was having fun though, which makes it fun for the audience.
I had never heard of Lloyd Price, guest star #3, but he did a Stagger Lee and Personality mash-up, which I have heard.
Sha Na Na has always done a great job of pairing up their singers into voices that complement each other well. In episode 23, Donny and Lennie sang What’s Your Name, and they sounded fantastic together. Lennie and Bowzer did a song similar to Mr. Bassman, but different.
Last year’s Documentary of the Year at the EYG Year in Review was the first season of WWE Unreal on Netflix. Unreal season two just dropped the other day on the streaming service and it continues to be a fascinating show to watch.
One of the things that is most intriguing is how several of the big individuals featured on this show has specifically spoken out about how tough it is for them to deal with the idea of Unreal. Seth Rollins, CM Punk, Paul Heyman, Cody Rhodes have all spoken on how “old school” they were and how difficult it was for them as performers to accept the idea of Unreal. After years of protecting the secrets of the business, it comes as a hard thing for them to show so much from behind the curtain.
Yet, they were all right there, front and center during this five episode series.
The path from Wrestlemania to SummerSlam was winding, and that was the period of time this show followed. There was a major event that happened during that time… Seth Rollins blew out his knee on Saturday Night’s Main Event. Or did he?
Watching how this secret was worked behind the scenes, with few people actually being “smartened” up about it was amazing. The lengths that they went to in order to fool the world was tremendous. The long term storytelling of the work was next level and to hear the actual moment when it was brainstormed in a creative meeting was something that I did not expect to hear.
The words of Seth and his wife, Becky Lynch, punctuated the storyline. Becky telling how much she hated having to lie to everyone for months, and even confronting Triple H in the ring at one point, chastising him for making her lie, was so fabulous.
Becky Lynch was a definite star of this series. Her moments were engaging, entertaining and emotional. When she was telling the story about returning to the arena where he father had seen her before he died was very powerful.
I especially enjoy hearing the agents such as Michael Hayes, Chris Park, Shane Helms, Jason Jordan etc. and how they work a match backstage. This is one of the best parts of this series.
They also showed moments where the action in the ring did not go the way it was supposed to and we saw the aftermath: from LA Knight not executing the closing sequence in the Money in the Bank ladder match as it was planned to Lara Valkyria’s flubs during the no holds barred match with Becky at SummerSlam. It is a peak behind the curtain which can explain some questions. You may not have noticed anything wring with the ending of the MitB match, but you now can see perhaps why it has taken LA Knight a long time to reach the level the fans want him at.
The stories of Jelly Roll and his path to his first match, R-Truth and his subsequent release and return, Chelsea Green and her rise and fall of a US Champion, Naomi’s new character as a heel, Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky, the arrival of Penta, among other stories that were highlighted here made this quite the variety.
They announced that Unreal will be coming back in the summer to do a set of episodes dealing with the last few months of John Cena’s career. Sounds great.
I hope everyone is having a great MLK Day. I know not everyone is off work today, but my school is still off, so this has given me a chance to get this finished after yet another busy weekend.
I have been picking up a bunch of Marvel Team-Ups recently. The ones I got this week include #5, 6, 16, 17, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 55,57, 64, 66, 68,72, 73 and 86.
Books this week:
Uncanny X-Men #22. “No Clean Hands” Written b y Gail Simone and art by David Marquez. Cover art was done by David Marquez & Matthew Wilson. Mutina is back and wanting to join the X-Men. Yes, it may not be the most heroic reason and it sure seemed as if Wolverine and Nightcrawler have a different mind about that.
Where Does the Rainbow End? #1. Written by Francesca Perillo and art and cover art by Stefano Cardoselli. New book from Mad Cave. A new futuristic story involving robots and humans and how they now interact with one another.
Like a Bell in the Month of May #1. Written by Dustin Victor and art by Metro Catpiss. This was a book I picked up at In This Issue in Bettendorf. The owner of the shop told me that this was a couple of local creators who did this book. I thought it was cool so I picked it up. It is a weird story. It felt as if there was a page missing or something. I am still happy to have picked it up.
Avengers #34. “Heroes” Written by Jed MacKay with art by Farid Karami. Cover art was done by Russell Dauterman & Rachelle Rosenberg. I also picked up variant covers by Leonardo Romero and one by CAFU. This is Legacy number 800 for the Avengers. However, this issue felt a little lesser than I expected. It felt more like one of those clip show episodes of a TV show that reviewed previous episodes.
The Ultimates #20. Written by Deniz Camp with art by Phil Noto. Cover art was done by Dike Ruan & Moreno Dinisio. We get a bunch of the new Ultimate Vision and Nick Fury as we are moving toward the end of the Ultimates Universe.
Amazing Spider-Man: Torn #4. Written by J. Michael Straczynski and art by Pere Perez. Cover art by Humberto Ramos & Edgar Delgado. There is a scene in this book that I absolutely loved and felt vintage Spider-Man. When Spidey finds Evangeline sitting on a construction site, what follows is perfection.
Dungeons of Doom #1. Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson & Benjamin Percy with art by Justin Mason, Robert Gill, Carlos Magno, George Jeanty & Karl Story. The aftermath of the death of Doctor Doom rages on in the Marvel Universe and we get a bunch of people looking to take advantage of the situation.
DC KO #3. “No Mercy” Written by Scott Snyder and Joshua Williamson with art by Javi Fernandez and Xermánico. Cover art was done by Javi Fernandez & Alejandro Sanchez. It is tag team time as the remaining competitors get to choose a defeated champion as their partner… and no one chose Batman.
Black Cat #6. “Night Court” Written by G. Willow Wilson and art by Andres Genolet. Cover art was done by Adam Hughes. Black Cat needs help so she goes in search of Daredevil so he could help her find…. Matt Murdock? She needs him to help defend her in the court of vampires.
Geiger #20. Written by Geoff Johns and art by Gary Frank. Cover art was done by Gary Frank. I also grabbed the Wicked homage cover by Sean Von Gorman (Gold Medalist). The Northerner is here and looking for help from Geiger… and he’s not too anxious to join in.
Doctor Strange #2. Written by Derek Landy and artist is Ivan Fiorelli. Cover art was done by Alex Horley. Doctor Strange and Angela are running around the world of Asgard. I have to say that I was not as into this issue as I expected.
Sai: Dimensional Rivals #1. Storytellers included Peach Momoko, Iban Coello, Stan Sakai with Emi Fuji. Cover art was done by Peach Momoko. Sai is around the dimensions with different artists. Some of the work of this book was fabulous and I especially loved the black and white pages. This is an intriguing book that I am interested in continuing.
Minor Arcana #13. Written, illustrated and cover art by Jeff Lemire. Theresa heads to another fortune teller with some specific questions. The fortune teller is out of C.A.N.O.E. (Clairvoyant Association of Northern Occultists & Esoterics).
Alice Forever After #1. Written and cover art by Dan Panosian and illustrated Dan Panosian (London part) and Giorgio Spalletta (Wonderland part). A new series set in Wonderland with the characters of Alice in Wonderland. Where is the White Rabbit?
Space Ghost #7. Written by David Pepose and art by Jonathan Lau. Cover art was done by Francesco Mattina. Space Ghost takes on the Anti Matter Man. Can our hero stop him? Doesn’t seem like it.
Crownsville #3. Written by Rodney Barnes and illustrated by Elia Bonetti. Cover art was done by Jason Shawn Alexander. We got ghosts! Crownsville has been a fabulous book so far and the story of this haunted asylum is really creepy.
Axi-Cab #1. Written by Philip Nelson and art and cover art by Cee Raygun. There are two actual stories in this book, first one entitled “The Warden’s Last Ride” and the second one being “In the Air Tonight.” A murderous cab drives around looking for justice or vengeance. Another new horror story that was pretty good.
G.I. Joe #17. Written by Joshua Williamson and art and cover art by Tom Reilly. The Dreadnok War closes with an unlikely alliance between the Dreadnoks and Cobra Commander. Plus, a shocking final page of this story.
Transformers #28. Written by Robert Kirkman and art by Dan Mora. Cover art was done by David Nakayama. Man… Megatron is just absolutely brutal in this issue. The last few pages of this issue show how monstrous Megatron can be.
Other Books this week: Knull #1, Good as Dead #4, Logan: Black, White & Blood #1 (Silver Medalist), Luna Snow: World Tour #1, and Blood & Thunder #9.
Quick Hits: So Battleworld #5 finished this series off with a really weird final page. Is it meant to be a tease for another Battleworld series?? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #14 is hopefully my final issue of this series. I have had some books ordered before I wanted to cancel the book so I needed to buy them (store policy). It did have a nice cover. The penultimate issue of this series is Die!Namite: Blood Red #4. Still fun with the group of female comic stars. C.O.R.T: Children of the Round Table #5 brings our heroes into more training and prepping them of the final issue. Things are getting strange with The Last Day of H.P. Lovecraft #3. I picked up Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt #2 off eBay since I missed it when it was out. Silver medalist cover this week went to Wonder Woman: Black and Gold 2026 Special #1. Finally, this week we got It Killed Everyone But Me #5, which I actually have not had a chance to read yet.
I came back for Sha Na Na on YouTube and we got some issues with the recordings. Now, the recordings were loaded up from old VHS tapes, so the quality has always been iffy, but this was the first time when whole songs were cut out, specifically in episode 15. In the comments, the channel’s owner, pattyoc01, stated that it was because of YouTube needing to cut some out for copyright reasons.
Another issue came in this group of episodes with number 19. On the playlist, #19 is listed as starring Jimmie Rodgers. However, on the YouTube list, it was just a repeat of S2 E18 with the Ronnettes. Not sure what happened with that.
Another funny thing was at the end of episode 18, there was a brand new “Goodnight Sweetheart” closing. You can tell because the camera was closer to each member and Jocko had his mustache shaved off as he has had for most of the two seasons of the show. However, oddly enough, episodes 20-21 both had the old closing version, making me wonder if this playlist was in actual release order.
Interesting guest stars on these episodes. Dick Clark appeared as the only non-singing guest, but he certainly has big ties to music. They played some Rate the Music, like they did on American Bandstand in the old days. This was a fun use of Dick Clark. There was an appearance by Jan and Dean, who performed on the actual stage. They had a performance by someone named Johnny Tillotson, who I had never heard of before. He did Poetry in Motion, which I knew well, but I always thought it was by Buddy Holly, or someone like that. Del Shannon was on and he sang Runaway, of course. Trini Lopez sang La Bamba as The Angels did My Boyfriend’s Back.
There was a fun duet between Johnny and Pamela Myers, who plays Ginger. She sings every once in awhile and their version of Hey Paula was well done.
I really enjoyed the comedy bit with Bowzer playing “Sven Bowzer” in an opera with Dirty Dan as the reporter. I actually laughed several times during this section.
There are some of my favorite Sha Na Na songs on these episodes. Johnny singing Roy Orbison’s Cryin’, Tell Laura I Love Her ( also by Johnny), Screamin’ Scott leading the Sha Na Na sing along with the song Don’t You Just Know It, So In Love, and Peggy Sue.
Speaking of Peggy Sue, they did an homage to Buddy Holly on episode 18 with them doing four separate songs. They did this instead of the comedy bit and I think they should have done something like this more often. I know they had done an Elvis one previously.
Three more episodes in season two to go. Even with the quality and the copyright issues, I am pleased that I am able to revisit these shows.
In honor of Martin Luthor King Day, I scheduled Spike Lee’s film Bamboozled for the Genre-ary. It was quite the satire.
According to IMDB, “A frustrated African-American TV writer proposes a blackface minstrel show in protest, but to his chagrin, it becomes a hit.“
The idea of this movie was used recently in the film American Fiction starring Jeffrey Wright. The thing is that this was so much more satirical than I ever expected.
Damon Wayans played Pierre Delacroix, a highly educated and uptight TV writer whose pitches were being rejected by his boss, Thomas Dunwitty (Michael Rapaport). Delacroix decided to provide a protest by presenting a minstrel variety show embracing all of the negative stereotypes associated with blacks. He intended on the show being rejected and leading to his own firing to escape the contract that he signed.
The problem was that the show became a huge hit by the public and the critics. Delacroix became enthralled by the success, losing himself in the racism.
There are so many shocking moments throughout Bamboozled that it is a difficult movie to watch. It is a powerful dismissal of the manner of television and its portrayal of African-Americans over the years. Admittedly, Bamboozled is not subtle in its satire, which may make it too cartoonish at times.
The ending was extremely tough to watch as everything came to a head. The idea that this movie had times that were difficult to watch was clearly done on purpose. It was meant to shake up the idea of racial stereotypes and racism inside the entertainment industry as well as throughout history, and Spike Lee definitely reached that level.
This is one of those movies that I enjoyed, but will probably never want to watch again. I do think it is a worthwhile show and some of the big ideas are necessary to today’s world.
The second season of Agents of Shield starts off with new team members and characters leading to the Inhuman story- tied to Skye’s arc.
With Shield, Mac has arrived. Mac becomes a major force on this show moving forward. At this point, he is just a semi-regular, but he will become more as the years go on. Trip remained with the team after the end of last season. Bobbi Morse arrived in episode six. Morse is the name of the Marvel comics character Mockingbird, but the TV show never called her that. Lance Hunter was a merc at first when he arrived with Lucy Lawless. Lucy did not make it though as she wound up dead at the hands of the Absorbing Man. Turned out Bobbi and Hunter were formerly married. I remembered how much I loved these two. They were not on this show long enough.
Kyle MacLachlan joined the show as Skye’s mysterious father. He dropped the first hint about a new name for Skye. We learn later that he is basically the character of Mr. Hyde. He played a wonderful crazy.
Jemma went undercover at HYDRA. It did not last too long, but it helped bring us Bobbi. It is also a way to show the problems being faced by Fitz. Fitz was struggling during his recovery from the water trap from last season.
Raina is having troubles all over the place. Karma is surely mucking her up badly. She is scared of Skye’s father and Hydra’s new baddie, Daniel Whitehall, who was actually tied to an object from the Peggy Carter days.
Ward is being held in a cell in the cellar of the Shield base. They were using him as info. Then his older brother came back into the arc in episode six.
Melinda May is still such a bad ass. I loved her episode where she had to fight herself.
Does Dr. Robby have a sneaky, behind-the-typical-treatment treatment for every emergency situation? He sure feels like he has a folksy solution to all kinds of situations, from shoulder dislocations to baby urination. It feels that our new Dr. Al-Hashimi isn’t as impressed as I am.
Dr. Whitaker’s main focus of the day was trying to comfort a Alzheimer’s patient whose husband had died that day. It was heartbreaking seeing him, for the second time, tell her that her husband had died. He took her to see the body and even that did not seem to work as she just thought he was resting. Alzheimer’s Disease is truly a tragic thing.
A man who was choking on broccoli delivered the line of the episode. After they had removed the broccoli, he told about his wife making him count calories in an attempt to lose weight and he said “I never choked on an sausage egg McMuffin.” LOL.
Dr. King got knocked to the ground and struck her head. She spent most of the time worrying over her part in a malpractice case that she would be testifying in later today so I hope that head blow does not come back in a bad way.
Maybe I am getting used to this show as I was cringing and saying out loud “What is going to be in there?” as they started to cut off the cast from the arm of the man who was brought in last week with a horrendous odor. The made sure he showered last week and disposed of his clothes this week. Anyway, back to the cast, I knew something would be coming out of that thing and, sure enough, we has a whole bunch of maggots. Ugh!
We also have evidence that an 8-hour erection is not a good thing. Not sure I needed the dick-shot in the scene. I could have used my imagination.
Another solid episode that was spent more with the characters than anything major in the emergency room. The show blends the cases and the doctors/nurses brilliantly and this is why it is one of the best shows on TV.
“Welcome to National Biographic! Today, we here have the Common Male American, but as you can tell, this is a big catch today,“ The camera zoomed into a guy at a park that looked identical to Tom Crust, just trying to eat a sandwich in peace. “Here we catch this wild animal snacking on it’s natural prey, The Sandwich, this creature is typically an easy one to find eating, as that’s it’s main directive in life! Isn’t that awesome?” The camera focused on the sandwich, and then the person turned towards us. “It appears that the predator has spotted our filming team capturing their essence,”
“Dude, why are you filming me?” The person got closer to the camera.
“Go, go!” The camera was dragged against grass and concrete so nothing was seen, only heard.
“Hey! Get back here!”
“Go back to the studio!” The camera cut, and returned to the inside of a tree, pointing downwards back at the same person.
“Welcome back to National Biographic, today, we have found the Common Male American yet again, besides it’s name having the word common, this is actually quite a rare species! Only one of these Common Male Americans that exists in the world!” The camera focused yet again, this time the person was walking away from the park. “Quietly we must follow,” And the camera fell to the ground, cracking the lens, and on a sidewalk facing the person.
“What the- Are you still filming me?” The person shouted. “Do you think I’m Tom Crust or something?” They shouted again. The sound of the production team falling out the tree was heard, but they weren’t in the field of view.
“Wait, are you not? Scrap everything! Who fact checked this? Just leave the camera on the ground, it’s useless!” The team bickered and walked away. The person then walked up to the camera, and picked up the camera.
“I wasn’t expecting that to work so well, too bad I am Tom Crust… They’ll get over it,” Tom Crust then pressed pause on the camera, stopping everything.
There was a family everyone admired. The D’Amore family looked perfect from the outside—a loving mother, a hardworking father, and three well-behaved daughters. Little did they know, perfection can hide terrible secrets.
It was November 15, 1992, the D’Amores arrived at church at 7:30 p.m. The building was quiet, and the air felt strangely cold, as they stepped inside. Before church the family went to turn the lights on and unlock the doors. When the girls got back together the lights went out and Charlotte went to turn the circuit breaker back on.
That’s when the screaming began.
Mr. D’Amore body lay motionless in the hallway, blood pooling beneath him. He had been murdered. Mrs. D’Amore immediately called the police, clutching her younger twins, Lizzy and Belle, who were crying in confusion. When the officers arrived, Mrs. D’Amore realized Charlotte, her oldest daughter, was missing.
Moments later, a scream echoed from the back hallway. Charlotte appeared walking toward them, oddly calm .She told the police she saw something, something she couldn’t explain, almost demonic in nature in the pale glow of the moon light.
The police took the family home that night. Once inside, Mrs. D’Amore sat her daughters down and spoke gently. “Something very bad happened to your father,” she said. “But we are safe now.” She turned to Charlotte. “Are you okay, sweetheart? I know that was scary.”
Charlotte stared at the floor. “I can’t stop seeing his body,” she whispered. “Mom, I’m scared. Her mother hugged her tightly. “No, Charlotte. You didn’t do anything wrong. Go get some sleep.”
Charlotte went to bed with her sisters that night listening to their quiet breathing. What her mother didn’t know was that Charlotte had lied, she remembered seeing the figure first, seeing the blade in her hands, then washing something off her hands.
One year later the family returned to the church where it all took place and tragedy struck again. Mrs. D’Amore was killed in the same hallway as her husband. This time Charlotte was seen with a blade in her hands. Years of being starved, and abused had filled her with rage. Something about that church and that day had caused her to snap and finally act out. Charlotte was arrested, and Lizzy and Belle were taken away.
Ten years later, Charlotte was released, her only desire is to find her sisters.
One day an author wrote a story that had 5 characters.The story was about 5 old people playing cars and their names were Joe, Bob, Sherrill, Kathy and there was a 5 person. But who was that 5th person? It was a mystery. But they were determined to find out who this person was.
So they began their first game of cards. Joe drew first and picked up 3 spades. Next the mystery person went, they all examined his face to see if they could remember who he was or if they even knew who he was.
Once the first game of cards was done it was sherrill who won and they then decided to go get some food and learn more about this mystery person.
They all ordered chicken because everybody likes chicken and once they got their food they began to question the man. They asked him things like; where he was from, how he randomly showed up with them, what his favorite color was, etc. They learned that his favorite color was orange but they couldn’t remember anything else.
Wait a minute they all thought, why can’t we remember anything he just told us? And then they remembered, they had all been diagnosed with a disease but they couldn’t remember the name.
Then the secret man told him, you all have dementia and I am your caretaker. They were all confused what dementia was and why they needed a caretaker. So the doctor explained to them that dementia meant that they were beginning to not remember everything. But they were confused and they didn’t think they were forgetting anything at all. They believed he was lying to them and he was a fake caretaker and called the police on him. But they couldn’t remember what number it was to call the police. So the question remained, was this a fake caretaker or did they really have this dementia disease?
In Houston, July 21, 2004, a report came into the Waller County Police Station about a supposed alien siting while a man was sitting in his backyard. The report wasn’t from the man, but from his neighbor, who had called the station 5 other times that week about seeing an unnatural amount of light coming in through his bedroom window, seeing his neighbor just looking up in the sky at nothing, and at one point, he even saw weird non human foot prints outside his house.
Miguel, who was the man who made the calls, went over to the man’s house to talk about the strange things that were happening. The guy’s name was Dan. They ended up talking a while, and Miguel said that he thought that the aliens were kidnapping people and putting them in their UFOs and taking their places.
When Miguel suggested this idea, Dan agreed but for a second, he looked very surprised that Miguel’s theory was so complex. Dan asked Miguel how he thought this, and Miguel said that he’s been thinking about it for a while and that was his best guess.
Miguel went home and went on with his evening. At 8:04 pm, he heard a sudden scream come from Dan’s house. As soon as he heard it he wanted to hide, but knew that he had to find out what was happening, so he ran to Dan’s house. Miguel stepped inside the house, because the door was open, but when he walked in he saw Dan…his eyes were glowing white and light was shooting out from his limbs. He was making a terrible screeching sound that almost made Miguel black out right there.
Miguel looked at his watch and he realized that the time passed an hour and it was now 9:03 pm. Dan must be doing this. The sky quickly became dark until it was 10 pm. Dan slowly turned into an alien. Miguel now knew…Dan was always an alien.
Once Dan was done transforming , a UFO came out of the sky and beamed the stolen residents down. Miguel took the chance and pushed Dan into the beam, and he got sucked up. The hatch to the ship closed too soon, so Dan hit the bottom of the ship. With the force of the hit, the alien’s ship blew up. Miguel saved the hostages and they all went back home.
So the day after he went around the city and found as many clothes he could find, it didn’t matter the color. After he found what he could he put the clothes on over his other clothes that he had on and went back to his box to sleep for that night because it was getting dark outside.
It is now the next day the homeless man woke up, He was hungry of course but there was no food around that’s why he wanted money. After thinking about how to get money he remembered the clothes he found and he was going to use them to rob a bank for at least $1,000, he wanted at least that much because he didn’t want to starve. He was fine with sleeping in a box but having no food was not acceptable with his standards.
Now It’s 9:15 AM now the homeless man thought that he shouldn’t rob a bank yet, he thought about going and stealing peoples wallets. He thought about it for 28 minutes and he decided that it was a good idea so he put on those clothes that he found and did just that. After a long time it was now 12:45 PM, He had gotten 3 wallets, the money that was in the wallets added up to $51 with that cash. He remembered that he lived by a GoodWill, so he went into the GoodWill and bought a pair of pants, shirt, gloves, winter hat, socks and shoes the cost of all that was $20.39 with tax.
Now he goes to a place called McDonald’s and just gets some fries for $3.86 with tax. But only the fries didn’t fill him up because he hasn’t eaten in 3 days so he went back into Mcdonald’s and ordered 2 Big Mac meals For $16.46 Including tax. With purchasing all that stuff he is left with $10.29. After that he went to a home depot to get a ski mask for $5.08 and now the homeless man will steal wallets for a living until he can get a job.
I just finished the first season of The Pitt on HBO Max just in time for the start of season two. And season two kicked off setting up the overarching drama that will be running through the day.
The show’s concept is that every hour is shot in real time as the day shift comes in to take over. Doctor Robby arrived at the hospital on what was supposed to be his final day before heading on a sabbatical.
The show had its typically gross injuries that made me turn my head away. I have always had trouble with medical shows dating back to Quincy. This is far more realistic than most medical shows.
We have a brand new attending physician who will be replacing Robby when he was gone. She is Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, and she definitely has a story to tell. They ended the episode on her as she stared down at a baby that had been deserted in the hospital’s bathroom. She also has a series of “improvements” for the Pitt that will surely create a conflict with Robby.
Dr. Langdon’s story continued. It did not seem that Robby had forgiven him yet. They had Langdon apologize to Louie, the patient we met last year who drank a lot. He is back and I am getting the feeling that something terrible is going to happen to him. The scene between Langdon and Louie, when Langdon revealed that he had stolen Louie’s medication in season one was a great scene and it made me like Louie all the more. I sense heartbreak coming.
Whitaker seems to have taken some steps to being even stronger than he was before. He led a moment of silence for a patient they lost (as Robby watched approvingly in the background). However, the first impression of the new interns was not the most impressive I have ever seen.
The Pitt is such a fantastic show and I am happy that it will be back weekly moving forward.
This block of four episodes went into deep details about Tahiti, a magical place… or at least, what it truly was.
The information Coulson was able to ascertain about the mysterious magical place showed him some of the horrors that he went through to bring him back from the dead. He learned that he was dead for several days, not several seconds as it had been told to him. We saw the horror-scape imagery of them working on Coulson’s brain, implanting memories to help him forget the time of his resurrection. That image was truly horrific.
We are introduced to John Garrett, played by the awesome Bill Paxton, whom will become a major issue later this season. Garrett was Ward’s former SO and he came to the Bus to take control of the prisoner, Ian Quinn. Coulson did not want to give him up because he had shot Skye twice, leaving her for dead.
The whole Skye gamut was rough as the team tried to find T.A.H.I.T.I. and hope to find a way to save a dying Skye.
Several tense moments. Several of these episodes, especially T.R.A.C.K.S., played with POV and would go back to different groups of the agents, showing what they saw during the same time frame. It was a clever episode that ended with Skye getting shot.
We learned that the drugs that were created to save Coulson (and eventually Skye) came from the dead body of a Kree, hooked up to a machine inside T.A.H.I.T.I.
I’m still finding more and more times where Ward’s actual Hydra roots came in conflict with what he did. I do not remember much about these episodes, but the questions about him actually being Hydra is absolutely not being hinted at yet.
The team is bonding all the more with every episode. Next episode will be the one to feature Lady Sif, as we saw Lorelei arrive in the post credit scene of episode 14.
I originally chose “Death By Lightning, the mini series from Netflix, as the next show for the Sunday Morning Sidewalk because it had four episodes and I was not yet ready to commit to one of the longer shows on my list. After watching the first episode of the series, I made an excellent choice.
I was thoroughly compelled by the show. I knew little of James Garfield, outside that he was President of the United States. The way this show set up the amazing, true story was simply brilliant.
In sense, setting Garfield and his would be assassin Charles Guiteau in the same world was a remarkable feat of storytelling, which immediately reminded me of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr from Hamilton.
There was something so hopeful about the way Garfield received the nomination from the Republican Party in 1880. In a world of political discourse that we exist in today, I can not ever see such a thing happen and, the fact that it had happened, was stunning.
The political in-fighting inside the convention was fascinating. Garfield, who did not look for the nomination, received the ground swell among the delegates. Watching it build through the convention brought me a level of aspiration for the process.
Meanwhile, Charles Guiteau was being introduced to us as a manipulator and, perhaps, a mentally ill individual. What his plans are moving forward after robbing his loving sister once again, is compelling.
Great acting in the show so far as Michael Shannon and Matthew Macfadyen lead this talented ensemble. There was also several other amazing actors in the cast including Nic Offerman, Bradley Whitford, Betty Gilpin, Shea Whigham, Alistair Petrie, Laura Marcus, and Paula Malcomson.
I am hooked after this first episode and I am excited to see the remaining three episodes of this mini series from Netflix.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 