Almost finished doing the taxes and looking forward to a refund, which is always nice. Listening to Split Enz and getting ready for a productive day of writing. The plan: finish first draft of short story, revise proposal, get two short stories back into circulation, start essay that is due in about a month.
Caught up on Thursday night programs. C.S.I. had some interesting moments, though I didn’t believe the resolution to the murder for a second. The perpetrator wasn’t a sociopath, clearly, but the crime was coldly calculating and, to my way of thinking, way beyond the capability of the person who ultimately confessed. It should have been a crime of passion, but the cover-up was too well thought out and executed. Also, wasn’t that the best looking thrift store you ever saw? Greg had a couple of good scenes—most notably when he took out the two fleeing crooks who had outwitted both Greg and the cop, Frankie Reed. And, of course, when you suspect there are hidden sex tapes somewhere, who else would you send to look for them? Special appearance by Hank from Breaking Bad as Ray’s ex-wife’s new husband.
I often miss bloopers that other people catch, so I feel good when I catch one. Early in the episode, when Gloria, Ray’s ex-wife (though his colleagues don’t know he’s divorced) shows up, Nick recognizes the situation for what it is and makes a hasty departure from the awkward scene. As he goes out the door he turns to say “Nice to meet you,” except his lips and mouth don’t move. It looks like a few seconds were trimmed, including the part where he actually said the dialog.
I had some problems with the plot of The Mentalist, too. I found it hard to believe that the U.S. Marshals would rely on one lone agent to secure a valuable witness, especially when the agent had to do hourly checks of the house’s perimeter. That was just too convenient. Clearly, there couldn’t be two, as that would have spoiled the story. I picked out the likely culprit from the very beginning and felt proud of myself when he turned out to be the killer—except in a nice twist at the end it turned out that he wasn’t, though he was meant to be. This was the evening for little girls to kill their fathers, apparently. Always good to see LaRoche. He’s a fascinating character. I don’t remember exactly when Grace met the FBI agent who proposed to her this week, but I want to throw this out there: who thinks he’s going to turn out to be the person who set the killer on fire? And did we already know that Lisbon’s father abused her?
Now that Olivia is back home on Fringe, the writers have to go to unusual lengths for us to get information from the alternate universe. So, this week, they had to concoct a totally irrelevant plot to convey one bit of character development and one shocking revelation. The whole thing with the bugs (very Creepshow, I thought) had no bearing on anything whatsoever, except it got us back “over there,” where we discovered that Walternate has some lines he won’t cross: he won’t experiment on children, unlike our Walter, thereby making him slightly less loathsome. And then there was the dramatic revelation about Fauxlivia, which is a real game changer. Did you hear the ballad version of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me” playing in the background of the early scene between Fauxlivia and her would-be future fiancé? There was a nice switcheroo at the end where we were led to think that Fauxlivia was infected. A perceptive viewer might suspect the slight of hand and think that it was actually her boss, Lincoln, the guy who replaced Alternabroyles who was infected instead, and even that proved wrong. I liked the exchange from the preview for the next episode: Walter says, “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” to which Peter replies, incredulous, “That’s where you draw the line? Ghosts?”
