Ended up having to proof two short stories. I received the proofs of “Red Planet” for Evolve 2 yesterday as well as the other story I mentioned previously. I got one of them finished and back to the editor this morning, but I still have the other to take care of. That’s tomorrow morning’s task. By the oddest of coincidences, both of these stories are science fiction, which isn’t what I usually have published.
This week’s Justified gave Timothy Olyphant the chance to show his chops as a hung over hurting unit. His performance was very convincing! Raylan also took a great thumping at the hands of Coover, though he recovered from that a lot faster than I expected. He’s in a bad spot, because he’s sure that Art, his boss, knows about the missing money that he and Winona replaced last week, and I can see why given how cranky Art was when he assigned Raylan to guard Carol. Carol is a piece of work, slinking around in front of Raylan in her underdrawers and otherwise trying to seduce him.
The bad blood between the Givens family and the Bennett clan dates back to prohibition. We now know what happened to Dickie’s leg: Raylan hit him with a baseball bat after Dickie beaned him during a baseball game. During that at bat, Raylan said the first pitch was a “Linda Ronstadt” (blew by you), which I thought was funny. Wondered what Coover had inside that bag? Apparently the writers believe it was a badger, though that was never stated. Poor Charlie: Eva isn’t someone whose gun barrel you’d want to stand before.
I thought Raylan’s solution to the old “no cell phone signal” problem was pretty ingenious. I’m not sure I’d go to Mags Bennett’s “whoop-dee-do,” though. Made me think of a Jonestown massacre waiting to happen. “You all deserve each other,” Raylan says to Carol, Boyd and the Bennetts. “Whenever this shit all blows up in your faces, guess what? I won’t be here to clean up the bodies.” Yeah, right. That’s exactly where he’ll be. “I try to be whatever’s required,” he tells Carol. For her, for Winona, for everyone.
I thought it was appropriate that the town meeting was held in a church. Boyd and Mags both addressed the audience as if they were preachers. And what is the deal with Boyd’s hair? It gets wilder and wilder every week. Looks like he sticks his finger in the light socket every morning.
The “cycle” gimmick on CSI was a little forced, I thought. Of course, this is Las Vegas, where they’ll bet on anything. However, I guessed who would be the natural death shortly after the character was introduced. He was annoying, so he had to die. But it was Doc Robbins for the win.
And what was the deal with the Jabba the Hut references? There was one on CSI and another on The Mentalist. Was it his birthday or something? And I didn’t get him anything.
Law & Order: SVU is mining the cast of Lost for guest stars. First it was Henry Ian Cusick and this week it was Elizabeth Mitchell. She gave a very strong, layered performance, I thought. I was impressed. Got a kick out of Jeremy Irons as the guest shrink who gets far more involved in cases than their real pro shrink ever does. When someone asks him if he’s a psychologist he says, “Psychiatrist,” then waves his hand dismissively. “Same thing. Just a few more days in school.”
