I think I’ve got all the research done that I need to start writing my essay. I want to finish it up by the weekend so I can get to work on that book thing I’m supposed to do.
Hot as blazes. Again.
Got caught up on TV shows over the weekend. Haven was interesting. They keep finding ways to toss in little things that King fans might notice. The garbage disposal this week made me think of Firestarter and the weird, moving house conjured up Black House in my mind. Or the Lodge from Twin Peaks. And the overall story of inanimate objects coming to life and conspiring against people was an obvious nod to “Trucks” and Maximum Overdrive. The propeller shot was about as graphic as anything they’ve done on the show. Shades of Dawn of the Dead. The shot of Nate with the nails in his back was pretty cool, too.
They found an interesting way to handle Audrey #2’s duplicate memories by essentially wiping her clean. At one point, Audrey #1 says, “My memories are your life.” No more. However, it seemed to imply that Audrey #1 isn’t sure she actually lived things. That she’s an artificial construct of some sort. She never learned to play the piano, and yet she can now. I got a kick out of the Red Lobster commercial during the episode that played off Haven, too. Clever.
Charlotte from Lost was the guest star on Covert Affairs last week. She played a flight attendant who falls for Auggie and gets swept up in his off-the-books mission to track down the man responsible for his blindness. While it was an action-filled adventure of an episode, he seemed too quick to trust the woman and reveal who he was, sort of. Funny line: when he wants to plant a microphone on her, he fumbles with her blouse. “Probably not best for the blind man to be in charge of hiding the bug,” he says eventually.
Getting a guy to deliberately set fire to his own house is a sign of a good sting, which is exactly what they did on Burn Notice. Then they set him up for attempted murder. Good developments with the new Agent Pearce (a definite upgrade from her predecessor) and the plan to burn Michael for murder. My favorite exchange came after they identified the guy who doubled for Michael buying the burner phone. Sam says, “Good looking fellow. Doesn’t quite have your chin, though.” Michael responds, “That means a lot, coming from you.”
When the going gets tough, Marie goes klepto on Breaking Bad. I was wondering why she was shopping for a new house under an assumed name, spinning wild stories about kids or no kids or kids with serious illnesses. Seems the stress has driven her back to her old ways. She had the gumption to stand up to the realtor who caught her in a lie, but the ensuing tug of war spilled her spoils and got her arrested. Fortunately, Hank still has some juice with the department and got her released. Meant he owed the guy a favor, though, and the favor was to look at Gale’s lab notebook. Hank isn’t terribly motivated these days. “What am I? Ironsides?” (Wonder how many people caught that reference.) He watches porn when Marie’s out stealing stuff and bowling when she isn’t. However, he eventually became so bored (“I’m lying here like third base”) he picked up the file. I wonder what he’s going to pick up.
Meanwhile, Walt is ranting about the new security measures at work and Skyler is proving that she can be a strong negotiator. The scenes with Saul, the shady lawyer, are always good for a chuckle. She can’t be budged from her plan to use the car wash as a money laundering business and not just any car wash, but the one where the guy insulted Walt. However, she has many limits to how far she’s willing to go to accomplish this and finally comes up with a plan to send a fake pollution tester to shut the guy down for contaminating the surrounding area with his filtration system. She’s feeding the guy statutes, chapter and verse. Then she plays hardball when the guy calls up to renegotiate the offer. I loved the momentary look of uncertainty on her face between the two phone calls, seen only by us, not even by Walt.
Hard to figure out exactly what’s going on with Jesse. The party is getting wilder and rougher, but he doesn’t seem to be paying attention. His place has basically turned into a crack house, with people fighting. He creates a feeding frenzy by throwing a handful of cash into the middle of the room. He seems to be functional when he gets to work, but he’s got a boatload of nervous energy to burn off, and I don’t think the Go-Kart track is going to do the trick.
