Yet another episode that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth but I like the play on words that is the episodes title, so named because Johnny Drama is given the chance to co-star in a comedy written with him in mind but he in his usual style throws the opportunity back in the faces of those who worked so hard to get it for him, but at least that’s in character for Johnny. Ari is having some weird crisis with his personality and I am very confused over how the communication works over at his agency.
His agency co-founder Barbra questions Ari if rumors of a deal with the NFL are true. Why doesn’t she already know about it? When Ari was called by the NFL he was expecting the call so it had been setup for him, I assume by his agency. How does Barbra get left out of the loop on that?
Lizzy asks Ari to be the head of the TV department but is turned down harshly and clearly shows no interest in listening to her so she storms out. Later Barbra comes in suddenly supporting Liz for the head of TV if only to keep her with the agency because she threatened to quit if she didn’t get the job. Getting some of his character back Ari lets Barbra know that he doesn’t deal well with threats but knowing that Liz is good at her job (Something no one else at the agency seems to be) but isn’t ready to handle that position yet wants to keep her around and promote her when she is ready.I don’t know if Ari was bluffing just to try to win Barbra over but that sounds a lot like what happened to Ari and his old boss Malcolm McDowell.
Liz called their bluff and quit, much to Barbra’s dismay. I’m expecting to see Ari and her duke it out at some point over control of the agency.
Turtle’s business is losing money and will go under, surprise surprise on that one. I had thought maybe he was being a good manager off screen but it seems all his management skill was displayed on screen.
I know Alex is designed to be Turtles love interest, but that’s not going to stop me from against rage this character. If she was bad for Turtle before she is going to turn toxic in the next episode or two with this trip to Mexico. When has a trip to Mexico ever turned out good for anyone in a TV show?
E once again is doing fine. Sure his best friend is devolving into action junkie and a good deal of his time this episode was spent trying to help an ungrateful Drama, but he still seems to be top kick at the agency and him and Sloan (who we finally see since season 6) are doing fine. Out of everyone we’ve seen in this show E is the most well adjusted of them all at the moment.
Seeing Vince the way he is now is sad, he is becoming a junkie if he isn’t fully one already, and while the rest of the boys are tolerating it for now, sooner or later Vince is going to do something that will damage his career more than just pushing back re-shoots.
Reason I’m saying role reversal? is because it almost feels like Vince and E have switched places from season 1, where E was the untested young manager trying to break into the business and making tons of mistakes but it was all to get to that next level, and ultimately where E is now. Season 1 Vince was confident in himself, knew he could do better but was happy, but now because a director guilted him into doing a stunt (that honestly seemed unnecessary to be performed the way it was) he is now some thrill seeking zombie who only wants his next ride.
Anyway, this feels like a gateway episode. More setting up future events than really giving us anything. Drama may finally be getting a show (If he can ever let go of his ego), Turtle is going to get in trouble in Mexico count on it, Vince is going to end up burning bridges he shouldn’t have, and Ari is going to dig himself a deep hole.
It’s what the Boys do.
Other thoughts on the episode
*Lizzy says that she’s been dealing with the TV talent that everyone has been ignoring, in an agency that big why is anyone ignoring TV leads
*Seems like Lavin has given up on his job with opening up that wine. Maybe he will fade away and stop enabling Vince? Doubt it but we’ll see
*True to Barbra not even knowing about the NFL deal she doesn’t know how charmed the Dallas owner was with Liz, yet another thing she won’t be happy about.
*Ari did have a good moment when he comes back home and tells his wife that Liz is gone (though he leaves out that part that he didn’t want her to leave) and he tries to romance her with a bottle of Gray Goose.
*No mention at all about Vince jumping out of the plane? Okay…
Before I dig into ‘Buzzed’ I’d like to make a quick observation. Entourage came back on June 27, the Sunday before the 4th of July, and HBO did not air new content on the 4th so we’ve had to wait until July 11th for this second episode. So why didn’t HBO just wait till the 11th to start up the 7th season instead of making us wait an extra week between episodes?
We start with the boys, minus Vince, figuring out who is paying for breakfast with Drama trying to cheap out and Turtle fronting his company card only to find to it was declined by the fastest checkout ever. Turtle is confused why it was declined, E ends up paying, the they call Vince who is rolling out of bed and saying he needs a haircut.
Ari and his wife are driving into LA to look at a chandelier when he gets a call from the NFL about picking up TV rights and having a face to face meeting at 2pm. Ari spins the car around to drop off his wife, miffed at being blown off, but Ari assures her that if he closes this deal he’ll buy her Italy.
Vince meets up with the rest of the boys right before an interview sporting a buzz cut leaving the boys dazed and confused but not having time to really accept it before Vince gets brought into the interview where he on the last question jokingly remarks that the movie will probably suck.
Turtle gets a call from his credit card company saying there was a $10,000 charge from Tiffany’s on it which he suspects is from the chick he fired in the 1st episode. While interviewing a new driver, Alex (the girl that got fired) shows up for her last check. Confronting her about the charge she admits having used it a Tiffany’s but it on Turtles orders to buy his mother a birthday gift. The ultimate plot device rears its ugly head because the whole issue with the card is because Tiffany’s added a zero to the bill by mistake.
Still jobless Drama recruits E to read scripts for him, though after awhile of reading worthless scripts a clearly frustrated E comes up with the idea of finding a show runner to write a role just for Drama.
Ari with the help of Lizzie Grant (the girl that ruined Andrew last season) impress the NFL owners so much that they want Ari to bring an NFL team to LA. In celebrating the successful meeting Ari dances around his office with Lizzie when Mrs Ari shows up and is pissed off by the combination of getting blown up, this other woman, and finding out it was the woman that destroyed Andrew. She storms off with Ari attempting to follow her but he is alerted that Nick Cassavetes is on the phone and sounds pissed. Seems Vince did not clear his haircut with Nick, who now wants to do some reshoots. Ari gets E on the phone yelling at him about Vince who just so happens to be calling E so they conference the call and find out Vince lied when he said he told Nick he was cutting his hair, and that he would have to call them back because Vince was about to jump out of a plane.
I don’t like this episode. My hope that Alex was going to be a 1 episode character was sunk and I fear that she is going to keep recurring through out this season as Turtle continues lusting after her.
In the 6 seasons we have known Ari we have come to understand that is a vengeful ruler, so I question why he would keep on staff the woman that ruined his mentors life, it just sings out of character.
E once again seems to be doing well this episode, even though I don’t think he will be able to find a show runner to write something for Drama its an idea I’m surprised no one thought of sooner.
I called Vince last week. That car stunt has hooked him on a Vince adrenaline rush. The entire episode he is wanting to change things up or go do extreme sports or other activities. It will be interesting to see how E and Ari handle Vince from here on because depending on what the writers do Vince cutting his hair may backlash his acting career pretty hard.
There is still hope for this season but its quickly dying every second the character of Alex is on the screen, as well as every moment Turtle is thinking about her.
Other Observations
* When Turtle is interviewing another driver she brings up that she has been an actress on the show Californication. I usually love 4th wall breakers, but this seemed weak
*Ari gets told by an office messenger that checks are missing in payroll, future plot or just fill dialog? He is also told right after that that Jeffrey Tambour wants a meeting with him.
The Boys are back once again for season 7 and while I enjoyed watching it I find myself wondering where this season is headed (and if Jamie-Lynn Sigler will be back for more stuff with Turtle, I’m I the only one that thought their ‘break-up’ seemed very weak at the end of season 6?).
We start with Vince, who after shooting a scene goes back to his trailer and is confronted by the director Nick Cassavetes and other man they didn’t really make it clear who the other man is, for all I know he is Robert De Niro’s agent because together they attempting to guilt Vince into doing stunt work.
Next we see Johnny Drama who is down from his S6 Finale high and coming to realize he still doesn’t have the lead in a show. So Drama returns to form and rages against Hollywood for not giving me the chance he believes he deserves.
Ari, now Super Ari, head of the largest entertainment agency in the world is having trouble separating his duty as a manager of agents from his old hands on approach with his clients.
E… E didn’t seem to have any problems this episode other than being worried about Vince’s stunt work
And now we come to Turtle. Seemingly all better from Jamie crushing his heart, Turtle is running what appears to be running a chauffeur business with attractive women as the drivers. One of his employee’s shows up late, doesn’t have her uniform, gets lost, loses the car, and we find out this isn’t the 1st time she’s been a flake so what does Turtle do? Nothing because he has a crush on her for some reason and attempts a kiss after she explains her sob story about her parents. The attempt is firmly rejected and the woman quits, finally. Let us hope its the last we see of her.
The episode ends with Vince agreeing to do the stunt, jumping a car over a ramp and performing a near 90 degree turn to avoid a burning building. Vince sticks the jump but does not make the turn and board sides the building. Vince emerges unharmed and feels like he blew the take but Nick tells him that it looked sick, to which Vince says he is ready to go again.
Not the greatest episode, and not the big bang we thought we might see after the fantastic ending to season 6, but it seems they aren’t even trying to top that and instead just setup new troubles for our boys to face. So even though S7’s opening gambit is a bit lack luster we have many things to look forward to.
E and Sloan should be getting married at somepoint, Drama should finally get a show of his own with the help of Lloyd, Ari will need to come to grips with not being able to be as hands on or will end up demoting himself and finding a new person to manage the day to day, Jamie-Lynn Sigler needs to come back for Turtle but as long as this isn’t about him pining after the flake that quit I’ll be happy with him. Finally Vince, I can’t say for sure but just judging from what we were given at the end of this episode it looks like Vince might start thrill seeking and will more than likely end up getting hurt, maybe damaging that baby face of his.
Looking forward to seeing what the rest of this season will offer, but at least it will be hard to get much worse than this 1st episode.
Been silent for awhile here at the Power Surge but that is going to change, and it will all start with a girl who I used to be friends with a long time ago.
As stated before Supernatural has been one of my personal favorite shows for a long time. The show’s arcs have been building up and have come together this season with the Winchesters vs the World, and God vs Satan. Eric Kripke (Show’s Creator) originally envisioned a 5 season run and won’t be returning for the now confirmed 6th season, and while I’m excited to see more Supernatural action you have to wonder, where are they going to take the show after this season?
If you haven’t been keeping up with the show there are going to be some spoilers in my speculation. Consider yourself warned.
The easiest way (and the path I think we will end up seeing) is for this season to end with the brothers finally accepting (for whatever reason) their respective angels and the 6th season the power struggle between heaven and hell duking it out now that they have their generals in play.
This can only happen if they haven’t yet finished the final episodes and rewrite the story enough to blend it in. Given that Kripke won’t be on S6 though I believe he will want finish the show he set out to make leaving the writing staff with the mammoth task of topping God vs Satan.
Assuming that Season 5 is going to continue as planned, I look forward to seeing what the writers will do to top this season.
Last nights Castle was a wonderfully contained 1 shot episode that gave you everything you needed and nothing you didn’t. From the Murder of a Cuban baseball, to Alexis’ curisotiy about her lineage and Castle never knowing who his Father was, in the end every story element ties in with each other in ties itself off with a charming dash of Nathan Fillion’s usual ham.
While I look forward to how they will advance Beckett’s story after the events of “Sucker Punch”, last nights Castle was a nice, well written and acted distraction.
I just got around to watching this Thursday’s episode of the Office (Ain’t the flu great?) and while it was better than last weeks episode that isn’t saying much.
‘Sabre’ is all about Dunder Mifflin’s new ownership coming in and setting up shop, and unlike past power shake ups (i.e. Ryan’s take over, Charles Miner, etc) the titular Sabre company appears to have it’s act together (aside form a funny gag with Christian Slater). My fear for the Office’s future lays with making the shows environment too real, allow me to expand on that.
The Office has always towed the line with suspension of disbelief for me with the documentary style and the question of what kind of company would allow a man like Michael to be a manager, and openly waste so many resources, but the presence of Michael Scott has never been to far away from the heart of the show. The loose restrictions put on him by Corporate and the even looser restrictions he places on his employee’s allow for the character development and humor we have come to love from the Office.
Time will tell how Michael Scott and Sabre deal with either other, but the Office’s recent outings have left me with a grim outlook.
Allow me to go off on a semi-related note and ask what is that is causing star characters to what to get behind the camera and direct, and why have the two most recent examples been some of the worst episodes for the series in recent memory?
‘Sabre’ was directed by John Krasinski, and How I Met Your Mother’s ‘Jenkins’ was in the hands of Neil Patrick Harris. Maybe the Producers knew this were weaker episodes and handed them off, or maybe it was just bad writing and bad luck. Both men are fantastic actors and I have nothing but respect for both of them, I just hope the next time they get to direct produces a better episode.
Let me start off by saying that while I did harp on How I Met Your Mother earlier about the lack lusterness of ‘Jenkins’ last night made up for it by giving us the ‘Perfect Week’. I attribute most of the success of the episode to it’s high dose of Vitamin-B(arney)*, which was something sorely missing in ‘Jenkins’, and that leads me into the topic of this post.
*Jim Nantz was fantastic is well
When I was growing up and even up to just a few years when every you met someone named Barney there was always one punch line that was never too far away.
How ever thanks for Neil Patrick Harris and HIMYM the Barney’s of the world now have a much cooler stigma attached to them, and instead of getting sung a slightly disturbing children’s song (I love you, you love me…) they are now simply told to “Suit Up!”
Now if only TV could help break my name stigma, or at the very least stop making it worse.
Three of my favorite shows have recently returned from their respective winter breaks. Usually the coming back episode sets up the events of the later half of the season and rekindles excitement for the show that has been lost over the break, but that practice seems to have been lost in favor of coming back as if nothing has happened in the interim month in a half.
It’s been a personal favorite since I was introduced to it late second season, but the return episode “Sam Interrupted” while it would have been fine had it aired Nov. 26th, but being forced to wait till Jan 21st for this episode just seemed like a let down, and a poor follow up to the fantastic “Abandon All Hope…”
Don’t get my wrong “Girls Versus Suits” was one of the better episodes of HIMYM I’ve seen in awhile and well worth the month wait, but after GvS came an awkward little episode called “Jenkins” which leads us into another two week mini-break for the show with forced catch phrases, a lack of Neil Patrick Harris screen time, and a horrible Marshall/Lily story. It’s not the worst episode HIMYM has thrown at us, but the bad taste is sticking around because we don’t get to see any more of the gang till Feb 1st.
Okay Office… Who thought this was a good idea? A month and a half break, coming back for one episode than another week off, and you make that one episode a recap clip show? Are you Serious? I have never been a fan of recap episodes and have yet to meet anyone who has enjoyed a recap episode, so the logic behind this move just confuses me to no end, but when you consider that it’s from NBC the stupidity of it doesn’t seem as bad in comparison to other recent events on the network.
James Cameron returns to form with the sci-fi epic Avatar, a film who’s hype has seemed to have touched almost everyone in it’s lengthy production time. Should you believe the hype?
Sure
…I mean if you really want to.
When I went to see Avatar yesterday I did so knowing the basic story elements before hand. Solider comes to strange new environment, gets involved with the native culture, and eventually betraying his old life in the defense of his new one. While none of it is really new, none of it really needs to be, Cameron uses his masterful control of the medium to bring Pandora to life and allow us the pleasure of getting engrossed in his wild, savage, and beautiful dreamscape.
While their is a ensemble cast composed of Termintor Salvation’s only saving grace Sam Worthington, Cameron Veteran Sigourney Weaver, Lost’s Michelle Rodriguez, and Joel Moore from Grandma’s Boy, none of them get as much screen time as Pandora, and what an actor Pandora is.
Worthington, who for for some reason reminds me of a more likeable and serious Chris Evans (though Evans was good in Sunshine) plays Ex-Marine Corporal Jack Sully. In the film you never quite get all the information on where he is coming from, but you are given enough to know that his fires of his motivation died along with his brother. Lucky for us he soon gets re-motivated when he discovers that he gets to run around as one of the Na’vi (Hey! Listen!)
The person that makes that all possible is Dr. Grace Augstine (Weaver) who starts out rather upset that she is being forced to use Jack because she was expecting his brother who had apparently trained to be an Avatar Diver for three years.
She still however has Norm Spellman (Moore) who feels like Salieri for awhile before coming around to accept Sully as part of the Science team and a friend.
Getting the Science team to and from where it needs to go is snarky pilot Trudy Chacon (Rodriguez) who starts out as your typical Cameron pilot (flashs of Ferro) but comes to side with her companions on the Science team in the end.
Now getting back to what stole the show for me, Pandora. It’s easy to get lost in the lush jungles, glorious vistas, and locations of Pandora. Every part of it felt alive, and I was completely taken in and absorbed by the masterful creation.
To wrap this up I would like to address some of the more negative criticism out there for Avatar. To all those that would say “It’s CG, it looks fake” or “I like practical effects” As a fellow fan of practical effects this film still took me right in and never let go. “But Floating Mountains, that’s not possible!” Seriously? You took some of the most breath taking imagery and ripped it apart to “That’s not possible?” Seeing the impossible as the ordinary, isn’t that why we go to movies in the 1st place? To escape our world for a few hours and live life through a different point of view?
Sure we all have out place to disagree on the how much one my enjoy a movie or not, but if you can no longer walk into that theater, suspend some disbelief, and enjoy some escapism I think you need to ask yourself why you are going to the movies to begin with.
Just go out and see Avatar if you haven’t already, in 3D IMAX if you can
