Privileged, 1x06, “All About Appearances”

Episode Title: All About Appearances
Writer: Christopher Fife
Director: Janice Cooke-Leonard
Originally Aired: 10/21/2008
Grade: A

Marco was awesome, as usual. I love that he's very concerned and helpful with people he likes, but it's also very clear that he's not just a bleeding heart who will let himself be taken advantage of, nor is he so generous with everyone. Him bringing Megan that yummy snack really showed how much he cares for her—I highly doubt he would've done the same for Laurel or the twins. The same goes for him giving Charlie a talking to. He did it partly because he cares for Megan, but he also likes Charlie enough to point out to him how badly he's fucking up.

The Jacob thing came completely out of left field. And for some reason, I almost wanted to applaud his ex when she came out all mussed up and said, "What? She said it was over." It was just so unexpected, and now Megan will never wonder whether she overreacted.

As for Megan and Charlie… For starters, he wasn’t actually that mean to her when she visited him the first time at the Crab Shack. He’s no more harsh with her than Marco is, and he actually gave her good advice to “stop sabotaging” her relationship with Jacob and tell Laurel and the twins about it. He’s always been a little snarky with her, it was just warmer in the past.

Also, Megan's relationship with Charlie thus far has been very needy and selfish and one-sided, with lots of him bending over backwards to listen to her problems and even help her with them, and him not getting much in return. And by "much in return," I don't mean romance, I mean exactly what he said to her: she never asks about him. And not only does she not ask about him, she takes advantage of him and generally treats him like a convenience rather than a friend. We saw in the last episode that she's been there for three months—that's a pretty long time to be yammering about yourself constantly and never asking what's going on in your friend's life. We also saw her start babbling about herself to pretty much every other character on the show in this episode, and hell, she got the job in the first place because she babbled about her personal life to her boss in the Pilot. It's definitely one of her character flaws, and it's sad that she does a better job of trying to overcome it with the people she works for than she does with her best friend.

I’m not exaggerating about her being a crappy friend, either. Let’s take a look at Megan’s treatment of Charlie over the season thus far:

-She asked him not to tell Lily and her dad that she’s back in town, even though he sees them all over the place.

-She asked Charlie to get Lily to leave the party.

-She not only bailed on their surfing date, she essentially told him that there would never be another one because she hates the ocean.

-Charlie came over to watch the game, and Megan insisted that she’d told him she had a date and blew him off without an apology.

-Megan blew off Charlie about the White Stripes tickets, forgot he was on hold, and forgot to call him back. And at this point, Charlie actually came over to the house to ask Megan face-to-face if he’d done something to make her angry.

So yeah, I’m kind of siding with Charlie in general, although it would've come off much better if they'd had this “You only care about yourself” argument before he had his big epiphany about her never seeing him as more than a friend. It's one thing to be pissed because your friend is self-absorbed, but it's another thing entirely to be pissed because she doesn't have romantic feelings for you.

I don't think that's actually why he's pissed, I just think it's coming off that way right now because it's all very recent. I don't think he regrets being her friend because he'll never be with her romantically. I think he's irritated with her for being self-centered, and he's probably even more angry with himself for not standing up to her because he has feelings for her. He feels like a pathetic moron who let himself get pushed around by a very pushy person. Everything that Marco said to him was right, though. Megan deserves better—it's incredibly unfair to stomp around being mean to someone and not even be willing to tell them why. I can understand his desire to get a little distance from her so he can calm down and get some perspective, though. She's the last person he wants to see right now, and she's suddenly all over him. And while Megan deserves an explanation, their friendship is more likely to survive if he can get a little breathing room, rather than confess all of this to her while his feelings are still in turmoil.

I actually laughed at the end when he started to ask what happened with Jacob and caught himself. It was humorous to see him thinking "Dammit, my timing SUCKS!" But him holding back also says a lot about his character, and about the fact that he's upset with himself and is trying to get it together emotionally and regain some of his self-respect.

I actually do like Megan a lot, I just think self-absorbed babbling is one of her character flaws. I think she also just assumes that if there's something important going on in other people's lives that they want to talk about, then they will. Because that's what she does. But not everyone works like that, as she's learning.

Laurel, by the way, barely even registers with me. I hate her character, and I doubt that's going to change any time soon.

Chuck, 2x04, “Chuck vs. the Cougars”

Episode Title: Chuck vs. the Cougars
Writer: Allison Adler
Director: Patrick Norris
Originally Aired: 10/20/2008
Grade: A-

I loved the little role reversal between Chuck and Sarah in this episode, with him being the reassuring and protective one and her the anxious and insecure one. It wasn't too over-the-top or patronizing, but rather just enough to make me go "Awww." He was quite dapper at the reunion, too—I like Chuck pretty much any way he's served up, but his confidence here was quite appealing.

I'm not sure I like Sarah's backstory, though... It felt like they wrote it to be kind of shallow and campy, and Yvonne managed to give it some pathos anyway. I really wish they hadn't made her so ridiculously dorky, because it kind of undermined her character for me somehow. Usually this show can twist a cliché into something cool, but it just didn't work for me in this instance. I understand that the bit at the end where we find out that Jenny Burton was herself an alias for whoever _____ Lisa _____ really is was their attempt at subverting the cliché, and it does add another layer to Sarah. Still, I ended up feeling like they took too long getting there so they could have their campy fun. I did laugh, and I loved the moment where Chuck first saw her high school portrait, but part of me was thinking, "Great, so we know she had braces and frizzy hair and liked Chumbawumba. How fascinating." And even those aspects could've been, if it wasn't played in quite a such a silly way, but they were counting on the end reveal too much to even bother with saving the other part. The execution was just off, at least for me personally. (And it wasn't Yvonne, because I think she did even more with it than was probably expected.)

Honestly, it will probably grow on me, because I do see the potential, and I see what they were trying to do. It makes her more relatable to the audience, and it makes her affection for Chuck make even more sense, because alias or not, she was still an awkward outcast and it obviously had a negative impact on her. Also, they didn’t really hit on it, but it sort of relates back to Sarah and Bryce. For one thing, it’s easy to see how she fell for him the way she did, after being awkward and ostracized as a teen. I’d also venture that Bryce has never seen that high school photo.

I can get over my issues with her backstory, but the mystery of Sarah needs to get unraveled a little bit more, for the audience, if not for Chuck. If we can see Casey sitting down to his can of tuna or trimming his bonsai, I think we can see a little more of what Sarah does when she's alone. It would also work to have her and Chuck build a friendship where they occasionally do normal stuff like watch TV together. Yvonne is lovely and talented, but I don't think Sarah can remain such a mysterious (but highly emotional!) blank for the entire series, and I'm not sure this episode accomplished much in terms of getting to know who she is now. Chuck may know some of her idiosyncrasies, and he may "get" her in a big-picture way, but he needs to get to know her in a more grounded, down-to-earth way, and so do we (or I, at least).

Nicole Ritchie wasn't perfect, but I thought she was far better than Pita Girl from last season. Also, Levi’s delivery of “Whatever…” to Sarah’s admonishments early in the episode is why he makes the big bucks. He’s so perfect for this role.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, 2x06, “The Tower is Tall but the Fall Is Short”

Episode Title: The Tower is Tall but the Fall Is Short
Writer: Denise Thé
Director: Tawnia McKiernan
Originally Aired: 10/20/2008
Grade: A+

This was one heavy episode. Pretty much everything John-related was fabulous. I don’t think he tried to kill himself, but I’m glad we saw the possibility, and the theme in general, addressed. Dekker was awesome—John walks a pretty fine line as far as how likable his character is, but I really felt for him.

John trying to teach Savannah how to tie her shoes was quite sweet. He seems to have a compulsion about helping people who are on equal or lesser terms with him power-wise, like kids and peers. Often when he sees that someone doesn’t have a useful skill that he knows about, he’ll try to teach them. He did this with SPORTS with the kid at the military school, with Savannah and her shoelaces, and he’s even done it with Cameron, especially in Season 1.

Cameron’s reaction to events was also fascinating, and it makes it even more difficult for me to question her loyalty to John. There’s definitely something funky going on with her, but her reading the suicide literature, connecting it to John, telling Sarah, and then pointing out that John might actually need psychological help… I’m just not sure how any of that would hurt John or benefit SkyNet. She seemed as genuinely concerned as it’s possible for her to be. She certainly has an ulterior motive, but damaging John doesn’t seem to be it. Cameron connecting the suicide pamphlet with the self-destruct chip felt quite ominous, too, as if they’re setting up Cam to sacrifice herself for John. (I will so cry if that happens…)

I wasn’t surprised that John killed Sarkissian. I always found Sarah’s conversation with Derek about it in the premiere to be suspicious, for some reason. Even then, it felt like she was covering for John. I can think of at least two reasons why. What I thought up until this point was that she did it out of respect for John, because she knew he wouldn’t want anyone to know (even in this episode, he couldn’t tell the doctor the truth about what happened). It’s also occurred to me that she might have kept it from Derek because she was afraid that it would bring Derek and John closer together. Then again, it’s probably a little of both, because I think these characters are that complex. (Bravo, writers!)

I really enjoyed Shirley Manson as Weaver in this episode. Usually when I re-watch episodes, I fast-forward through her bits, but I don’t think I will be doing that with this one. She's no Cameron for me, but Weaver is definitely starting to intrigue me beyond her role in the plot. Her stories with Savannah and The Turk were interesting in their own right, but they also added so much emotional texture to what was going on with everyone else. This almost felt like an episode of Mad Men, with so many undercurrents and things left unsaid.

I hope this show gives us some answers about what's made Cameron and Weaver so different from the Terminator norm. I wonder if Weaver’s "memory" of Catherine’s younger days with her father was a memory ala Cam and Allison, or something she completely made up to try to emulate human behavior and put Sherman at lease.

I can’t even speculate on why the other T came after Sherman or what side she’s on, but it’s worth noting that even the Connors recognized that the bot could have been there to kill him or protect him, and Cameron seemed to agree. The entire scenario is odd, because Cam obviously recognized her as a T when they rode the elevator the first time, but didn’t go into attack mode until she realized the other bot was after Sherman. Cameron is non-aggressive toward other Ts unless she feels they’re at cross-purposes? Kind of reminds me of Battlestar Galactica, where even some of the “good” Cylons who hang out with humans are reluctant to kill other “bad” Cylons or interfere with their plans.