True Blood, 1x07, “Burning House of Love”

Episode Title: Burning House of Love
Writer: Chris Offutt
Director: Marcos Siega
Originally Aired: 10/19/2008
Grade: A-

Sookie being molested by Uncle Bartlett could have come off as a cheap, easy way of forcing the audience to empathize with Sookie, but it actually makes perfect sense with her characterization thus far. We already knew she was still a virgin in her 20s, which is fairly uncommon in my experience, so it didn’t come out of nowhere. Sookie’s talking to Bill about her difficulty with sex and the reason why showcased her endearing honesty and vulnerability. I also loved it when Bill tried to comfort her by saying it wasn’t her fault, and she responded very firmly with, “I know that.”

Also, I know Sookie sends out signals that basically say, “Don’t baby me, don’t try to help me, don’t treat me like I’m weak or stupid,” but I don’t think we saw enough of Sookie feeling sad by herself or of people actually letting Sookie know they were still concerned about her in the wake of her grandmother’s death. I mean, she actually said, “Can’t I just be in a good mood without it being a big deal? It’s a pretty night outside, and I’m glad to be enjoying it with my friends!” Really, Sookie? Maybe I’ve just never seen anyone try to project “I’m not wallowing in my grief” quite as strongly as that, but it was somewhat off-putting. There’s good sex and trying to be strong, and then there’s fucking psychosis, girl.

As far as her being all giggly and glowy at Merlotte’s, again, not sure what’s up with that, because it makes her seem fourteen rather than the twenty-five she actually is. I’m just going to have to write it off as being related to her drinking Bill’s blood when they made love, even though we didn’t see that happen, and even though Jason doesn’t act like he’s on X when he does V (wow, that came out unintentionally silly). Paquin’s acting may also be to blame, because I think toning it down A LOT would’ve done a better job of getting across that Sookie’s in a weird place because of the juxtaposition of Gran’s death and the loss of her virginity.

Sam yanking off Sookie’s handkerchief to reveal her bite marks in front of the whole bar was appalling considering that there’s a murderer in town who is preying on women who have relations with vamps. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to even take that. I’d wonder if it was poor characterization for the sake of allowing the murderer to be sure that Sookie is “tainted,” but Sookie was already a target, so while Sam’s actions certainly didn’t help matters, that doesn’t really work. Were the writers genuinely intending for Sam to come off as selfish, impulsive, and stupid? It’s great that all of these characters are flawed, but that’s taking it a bit too far. And of course, Sookie played her own part in that fiasco by flipping moods in an instant and bitchily announcing her sex life to the entire bar, but that still doesn’t excuse Sam’s initial action.

Tara watching her mother try to suck spilled coffee + booze out of her clothing was… god, there are no words for that. I can completely understand why Tara came up with the money to get her mother an “exorcism.” As for Jeanette and the exorcism itself, I’m not sure if she actually did something magical to Lettie Mae, or if she’s just a really good performer. Either way, poor possum, and keep your hands off Tara, crazy hoodoo lady, because I like her fine the way she is.

Bill murdering Uncle Bartlett—right or wrong? Is that question even worth asking, or should we just be asking what his motivation was and how Sookie would feel about it if she knew? It could be seen as him avenging her honor, which makes sense with his old-fashioned persona, but he also hasn’t told her yet, so Bill’s the only one who actually got anything out of it. Bill killing Bartlett didn’t do squat for Sookie.

Amy… Amy reminds me of the past behavior of a friend of mine, so much so that it’s almost painful to watch. The way she saved Jason at Fangtasia doesn’t strike me as being something she did just to be nice; she saw some kind of opportunity there. And the way she started rambling about how awesome his truck was and how “unselfconscious” his house was, trying to get on his good side, to force a connection… she makes my skin crawl already. Still, Lizzy Caplan is great in the role, although I’m not sure how I feel about her very-likely-fake boobs. Fake boobs on characters where it doesn’t make sense for that character to have them is one of my pet peeves because it just pulls me out of the show and forces me to fanwank. I guess I could fanwank that because Amy’s family is well off, she probably could have found a way to afford it before they cut her off and before she got into this hippy Gaia spirituality crap (which certainly doesn’t jive with plastic boobies). But I hate having to make shit up to justify it in the first place. Then again, like I said, Caplan is great in the role, so I’m willing to try to overlook it. It’ll help if she keeps her shirt on more often than not…

I still love Terry.

Supernatural, 4x05, “Monster Movie”

Episode Title: Monster Movie
Writer: Ben Edlund
Director: Robert Singer
Originally Aired: 10/16/2008
Grade: A-

Ah, the season’s first filler episode. This one definitely interrupted the momentum of the main story arc a bit, but it could have been much worse. For one thing, this is actually a decent stand-alone episode. I wasn’t terribly engaged with the story here, but I can still recognize that it was a well-written and executed episode.

It was interesting to note that Dean’s body has been healed of all previous scars and such, though I was disgusted by his insistence that he’d been “re-hymenated.” If you don’t have a hymen, you can’t be re-hymenated, and I know Dean’s not that fucking dumb.

On a more positive note, Jamie was a rarity—a female character that I actually enjoyed on this show! I didn’t even think she was particularly attractive at first, let alone likable, but she grew on me in both respects. In the hands of a different actress, Jamie could’ve been just as blah as most of the other female persons-in-peril, but Melinda Sward imbued her with some intelligence and competence, and she didn’t play up the sass to the point where the character became an annoying “hot kick-ass chick” cliché.

Chuck, 2x03, “Chuck vs. the Break-Up”

Episode Title: Chuck vs. the Break-Up
Writer: Scott Rosenbaum
Director: Robert Duncan McNeill
Originally Aired: 10/13/2008
Grade: A+

I loved vs. the Break Up, but I have to say, my least favorite moment in this episode (aside from every moment of Bryce playing puppetmaster with everyone else's lives) was Chuck dropping the $1000 bottle of wine. There's no reason for Chuck to have to act like THAT much of emotional loose cannon/idiot except a) to get him noticed by the silly Brit, which could have happened in several ways, and b) to get him kicked out of the party, and that didn't even seem necessary to the plot (it had consequences, but those could have come about through some other means). I would've liked it much better if we just saw him tighten his grip on the bottle and place his other hand under it, to make sure he didn't drop it. Same effect—we can tell the Sarah/Bryce hotness bothers him--but he comes off like much less of an incompetent moron. Most of the time, I love that Chuck is ruled by his emotions, but this was not one of those times.

Bryce still bugs me, and I think the “Kid?! We were born in the same year!” exchange pretty much sums up why. I don’t doubt Bryce’s good intentions, I don’t doubt that he cares for Chuck, and I don’t doubt that he’s the guy who sacrifices his own happiness and his own moral code for the safety of others. But I still think he’s an ass for making huge, huge decisions about Chuck’s life (and he did the same for Sarah in this episode by talking to Chuck about her, twice). He’s not Chuck’s father, he’s not his big brother, he’s not his life partner—he’s his college buddy. I am fully aware that Chuck is probably alive because of Bryce, and I adore Chuck, which means that my extreme hatred of Bryce’s decision-making is illogical. I can accept that.

As for the implication that Sarah suddenly sucks as an agent because of her feelings for Chuck, I’m a bit torn. For one thing, the shots that Sarah had to line up were physically different—the setup with Bryce at the beginning was much more close-range than the shot she was expected to make at the end with Chuck possibly in the line of fire. Her hesitation to shoot with Chuck therefore makes perfect sense, even without taking her feelings for him into account. On the more emotional side of the issue, I can understand that she would have a lot of personal reservations about getting involved with a spy partner again after Bryce. I think Sarah is the kind of person who values self-respect, and I think she might lose a little piece of it if she started dating Chuck while they’re working together. She would always have a nagging feeling that she not only has a huge personal and professional flaw, but also that she allows herself to indulge it. That’s an interesting inner conflict to me, but it’s not the same thing as her suddenly, and quite literally, being incompetent at her job because she has feelings for Chuck. It’s not like the feelings are new, so I’m not sure why they’re suddenly causing such a huge problem. I’m not sure if the writers are being clueless here, or just too subtle.

Also, I am of the opinion that Sarah does do a good job at protecting Chuck (though she can definitely be overprotective), and she sucks at the other parts of her missions because of this. And as I said, I love Chuck, so I’m clearly biased. I have a hard time seeing the woman wanting to protect something that I myself find highly desirable as a bad thing.

I was also simultaneously intrigued and confused by the opening Bryce/Sarah scene, and Bryce’s later statement to Chuck that they have to think and act like Fulcrum because anything else will get them killed. On the one hand, maybe this was an older, wiser Bryce who had already realized how much danger he and Sarah put themselves in with their prior relationship (which one would think didn’t count as “thinking like Fulcrum”). On the other hand, maybe what it really says is that Sarah and Bryce’s relationship was never “real” but was just the two of them fooling themselves and finding some comfort in one another. It wasn’t dangerous because they weren’t as invested as they pretended to be.

As for the pivotal scene between Chuck and Sarah, there’s a lot of potential in that conversation that I hope to see played out over the rest of the season. Chuck’s use of the word “normal” gave me pause as I was watching, because since when would Chuck not want Sarah because she isn’t “normal”? Then I realized that what Chuck told Sarah was at least partially a lie—he was saying something that he knew she would believe, in order to protect her. Telling her he didn’t want her was pretty much the only way he could make a clean break, because she just wouldn’t believe that he didn’t love her, and he couldn’t say “Let’s break up” because she’d just dodge with “It’s not a real relationship, so what’s there to break up?”

So basically, Chuck broke both of their hearts in order to protect her. Which I’m not sure I am entirely okay with, because Chuck’s actions were based largely on the advice and wishes of Bryce Larkin, who is nothing if not patronizing and meddlesome. Not only has Bryce made decisions about Chuck’s life, he managed to convince Chuck to make decisions about Sarah’s life. Kind of not cool, Chuck. Sarah is a grown woman and deserves to be spoken to like one, as opposed to having someone make decisions “for her own good” without even talking to her about the issue at hand. Chuck should have sat down with her and been completely honest about what happened, about the fact that Sarah’s feelings for him are dangerous to her. It’s not like Sarah has to actually acknowledge those feelings in order to get the message. But I doubt the writers even see this angle, so whatever, I’ll go with it for now.

The other important facet of this scene for Chuck was that it seems to hold at least some element of Chuck truly realizing that Sarah is more fantasy than reality to him (as evidenced by the extended music video entrance last week… and the week before that… see, they had a purpose!). Romantically-speaking, I think that taking a step back and realizing that his feelings for Sarah are based partially on fantasy is a big step, and I hope it’s one of those things that we see carried forward from here, rather than something he learns in this episode and forgets by the next.

I adore Sarah, but neither Chuck nor the viewing audience knows much about her. I always loved how the writers would point this out deliberately early on, with her not really having taste in music, “My middle name is Lisa,” and so on. It was always poignant to me that she was so busy serving her country that she didn’t have to time to develop preferences and tastes the way most people do (even Casey has done a better job of that). I think the writers need to go back to that territory a bit, and then start to build her up from there. I’m sure the girl has some likes and dislikes. I’d love to see Sarah and Chuck get closer as friends and have him start to get to know her beyond her distaste for olives and love of gardenias. Don't get me wrong, I think he knows her a little better than that, but it's in this big-picture, soulful way, and he needs to get to know her in a more down-to-earth way.

As for Sarah, Chuck’s speech was definitely a bit of a nail-through-the-heart for her, and I don’t think she saw it coming. I felt like going on a date with him in the premiere was at least a little bit her letting herself indulge in her Chuck relationship fantasy—she knew she was going to get reassigned, but she figured why not, she'd probably spend a long time regretting it if she didn't go. All these times she's been telling Chuck he can have everything he wants, a little part of her has been thinking, "And maybe I can, too." And he just dashed all her hopes. What I'm curious about is whether Chuck knew about Sarah’s own longing for normalcy and used it against her deliberately, or just sort of accidentally hit the nail on the head there. It seems entirely possible that he knew, because he does make an effort to understand her as much as he can from what he sees.

Given how much I had to say about it, that was clearly a nicely written and acted scene. I bought into it enough to feel like their relationship got at least some temporary closure, so I will be better able to accept it when they inevitably start dating other people. And yet, the little spark between them is still there, waiting to flare up again.

Yet another (possibly unintentional) thread running through this episode is that pretty much everyone in Chuck’s life seems to want to instinctively protect him. Ellie, Awesome, Bryce, and Sarah all tried to protect Chuck in one way or another in this episode. (The only people I can think of that don't try to protect him work at the Buy More.) I can understand why these people want to protect him—hell, I want to punch people for being mean to him sometimes—but it's not healthy, and besides that, he actually is capable of standing up for himself, as we've seen many times throughout the series. We need to see Chuck finally catch on to this (very obvious) trend and say "thanks, but no thanks."

Also, I noticed something cute upon re-watch. In the scene where they're all getting ready in Sarah's apartment, Chuck notices that Bryce is actually tying a real bow tie, while Chuck was given a clip-on. It's likely that the waiter uniform just came standard with a clip-on tie, but it's obvious that Chuck is mildly insulted, as if someone, possibly Casey, thinks he's incapable of tying a bow tie. I love these little easy-to-miss moments.

Oh yeah, and I LOVED that they re-used Bryce’s slide under the table move from the Pilot episode. It’s like it’s his signature move now.