Drought, day 180 (rough estimate). No relief in sight.
Finally got around to watching the Criminal Minds finale. I thought from the opening they were going to riff on Matheson’s Duel, with a killer truck driver. Turns out the truck was a red herring and the real killer was the guy who ended up in the ditch because of him, with a couple of bodies in the trunk. The rest of it was sort of ho-hum, with the obligatory season-ending threat that certain characters might not come back next season, coupled with the obligatory near fatalities of a couple of characters. I liked the fake-out with the woman leader who looked like another victim. Very photogenic, but not exactly logical. However it did open the door for the second fake-out at the end, except Rossi was all over it. The team made an awful lot of deductions in those few minutes of aftermath, though. I miss the days when the show spent more time trying to get inside of the heads of captured villains.
House’s patient of the week “elevated being full of crap to an art form.” A performance artist who wanted to turn her presumably (but ultimately not) fatal disease into another of her works of art. House seems to be trying hard to change, but leopards don’t change their spots and everyone is alluding to the possibility that if he doesn’t talk about it he’ll explode. Thirteen goes along with his current scheme because it’s the least horrible of all the possible schemes he might come up with. She gets him. Taub has the “pina colada” song for his ex-wife and still-lover’s ring tone. How heavy handed and symbolic is that? But he got the surprise of the season when he discovers he’s going to be a daddy times two. Awkward much? Favorite scene: Cuddy is ranting at House at his bedside. Foreman rips aside the curtain. “It’s a privacy curtain,” Cuddy complains. “It wasn’t working,” Forman responds.
Pretty damned dramatic ending, though. Seems they were all right in worrying about the way House was bottling things up. He endangered the lives of several people. Where can the story go from here in the fall? House behind bars instead of in rehab? Performing diagnoses via collect calls from the clink? Or via cell phone while sipping margaritas with Red down in Zihuatanejo?
Finally, in the last minutes of The Event, we get some hint of what the series’ title refers to. Apparently it’s a kind of apocalyptic prophesy (sound familiar?) about what will happen to mankind after the aliens all move into the neighborhood. Death was the better option, it seems. And when the aliens move into the neighborhood, they move into the neighborhood, even bringing along their somewhat crispy planet. I was wondering how they were going to get a couple of billion people into that little plain in Asia.
I very much enjoyed the scene where President Martinez finally got to tell it like it is concerning that slimeball Jarvis. Jarvis sputtered and stammered, but he was cooked like the proverbial goose. However, the most satisfying moment for me was when Martinez’s wife looked up at the new planet on the block and called it “home.” That clever alien. Pulled the wool over all of our eyes. Alas, unless some heroic channel comes along and picks up the series, the mystery of what is written on those old scrolls will die with last night’s closing credits.
I’m afraid that by watching the Danish version of The Killing, I have somewhat ruined my enjoyment of the AMC version. I keep thinking: that’s not how they did it in the original or, worse, they did it better in the original. I’m no longer able to judge it purely on its own merits. Sarah Lund was a more intriguing character than Sarah Linden, and I liked her sorta-partner better, too. Hell, I even liked the mayor’s rival in the election better. But I do have to say that the beating at the end of this week’s episode seemed more brutal. Is the series taking the Memorial Day weekend off? That would be a drag.
