The Strange World of Thomas P. Coombe

LOST: Native Tongue

  Feeling a little worn out tonight, so rather than write about tonight's Lost in one big chunk, I'm going with the quick-and-easy bullet points style. I'm not saving a lot of spoilers for the bottom, so if you haven't watched yet, this is a good time to stop reading. Here we go:

•  Not much was going to top last week's Richard Alpert epic, but "The Package" was still a really solid hour. It moved things forward, gave pretty much everyone in the cast something to do, most notably Jin and Sun, who have been background characters for a lot of the season.
• But tonight, they were the stars. It's great that in this final stretch, Lost is giving nearly all its characters one final chance to really own an episode. And even though Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim have to share the episode, they make the most of the time they have, whether it's Daniel's face when he sees his daughter for the first time, or Yunjin's frustration and rage, expressed in dual languages.
• At first, it seemed like a bad decision to follow Sideways Jin and Sun in the early part of their trip, before Jin get taken prisoner in the restaurant. Then Sun opened the hotel door to find Keamy and his evil grin, and everything changed. Very tense stuff, as we learn just how much trouble the couple is in, even after Sayid shows up and -- indirectly -- saves Jin. It may too late for Sideways Sun, however, as she takes a bullet during Jin's fight with Mikhail (!), who -- like his island counterpart, dies and loses an eye.
• This being a sideways story, we get a shot of Sun looking into the mirror just before she answers the door. Moments later, we cut back to her on the island, and she's waking up, having lost her ability to speak English thanks to a Flocke-related head injury. It's called "aphasia," Jack tells everyone. 
• Speaking of Jack, his redemption is just about complete. Him bringing Sun the "stubborn" tomato from her old vegetable garden is the type of thing Season 1 Locke would've done.

Damages: Family Business

 Damages has held onto its established MO -- show the end result of a crime, then fill in the gaps along the way -- for so long that when the show does something different for a little while, those episodes feel like failures.

 And yeah, last week's installment -- which just about jettisoned much of the season's main story to focus on subplots and interesting yet inessential characters like Arthur Frobisher -- felt irresponsible this late in the game.

 But this week, despite being free of any flashbacks or forwards (unless you count Ellen's dream about her childhood), helped move things forward a good deal, adding new wrinkles to the story, a series of unexpected betrayals and new ways of looking at crucial characters.

Breaking Bad: For Whom the Bell Tolls

  "Everyone's on your side," Walter White's son tells him midway through the most recent episode of Breaking Bad.

 Of course, that's not really true. Walter Jr. might be in his dad's corner (he's even dropped the "Flynn" nickname, either as a show of support for Walter, Sr., or as a way to needle his mom), but he's just a kid going through a divorce, and one who's not getting any real answers from his parents.

Hank sort of sympathizes with him -- at the very least, he thinks Skyler not letting Walt see the kids is going too far -- while Marie is still suspicious. (If Walt was just having an affair, she reasons, Skyler would have told her.)

 He and Skyler's split grows more acrimonious with each passing day. He wants his family back, but she feels nothing but loathing. He shows up with a pizza -- noting, in a moment that's both pathetic and hilarious, that he also brought "dipping sticks" -- but she shuts the door in his face. (Walt responds by tossing the pizza onto the roof of the garage, a shot that had to be seen to be believed.)

 And Saul, his PI, and Gus may be watching out for him, but only because -- as Saul puts it -- there's a "problem with White" and they need to protect their investment.

 No wonder Walt's a just a ball of barely -- or should that be "rarely"?-- suppressed rage. As the episode opens, he's cruising along the highway, listening and singing along to "Horse With No Name." By the end of the episode, he'll be pepper sprayed, jailed, humiliated, and will have -- unwittingly -- avoided a narrow brush with a grisly death.

Clash of the Neesons

 Two interesting moments from the lengthy Clash of the Titans ad I saw at the movies this weekend.

1. Sam Worthington says "Most people remember Medusa from the original Clash of the Titans..."

I would suspect most people know her from actual Greek mythology. (Or if you're me, the God of War video games.)

2. Cast member Alexa Davalos notes that it's a "fact" that "no one can kill the Krakken." Was that a Jacques Cousteau special that never aired?

"We tried to kill zee Krakken, but it is impossible!"

For what it's worth, I do plan to see this movie, which will hopefully at least entertain me more than Chloe which had an interesting concept, but had cast the wrong actress in the pivotal title role. Amanda Seyfried wouldn't be my first pick to play a call girl. Or maybe I'm just biased by four season of Big Love; during one of her sex scenes, I half expected Bill Henrickson to burst in and chastise her for not living the "principle." 

 For what it's worth, Chloe also featured Liam Neeson, who will play Zeus in COTT.

The Thursday Night Comedies: Buddy Cops, Old Men, Date Nights

This is the last time -- at least this year -- that I'll lump all the NBC Thursday comedies into one post. Fringe returns next week, and I'll go back to watching that at 9 PM and writing about it soon after.   

  Once again, we'll go in order.

 COMMUNITY

 What I liked best about this April Fool's themed episode was the way it tied pretty much all the characters together: Britta wants to prove she's not the group's buzz-kill, and her lame, harmless prank ends up causing a major act of campus vandalism...which is the investigated by Annie and Shirley, neither of whom can agree on who plays what role in the buy-the-book/loose cannon police equation. Abed watches it all unfold, directing his own personal buddy cop movie. And Jeff and Troy convince Pierce to wear an outfit that makes him look like "the Cookie Crisp wizard."

  Of course, it all goes horribly, bizarrely wrong, and that's one of the reasons this show has grown on me so much recently: it can take an April Fools episode and have it end in tears. Hilarious tears.

 PARKS AND RECREATION

 Does it surprise anyone that Leslie Knope sees lunch with all the former park directors as a gathering on the same level as a summit of the ex-presidents?

 Or that the ex-park directors would instead offer up not wisdom, but ignorance, cynicism and their own petty agendas? 

 It didn't surprise me, but that didn't keep me from enjoying the episode, even though it wasn't on the same level as some of the season's earlier hours. I like anything that allows Leslie and Ron to be friends -- as in their breakfast for dinner scene, or them playing darts with a picture of the former parks directors as their target.

 And the episode contained at least one laugh out loud moment for me: Leslie saying "We really made love to the pooch" after the disastrous meeting, then -- after Ron pointing out that the expression is "screwed the pooch" -- arguing that the regular version is "too vulgar."

 THE OFFICE

 At first, this felt like The Office I know and love, from the silly opening scene to the way Dwight seemed less like a cartoon. Nice move, giving him a love interest who's as odd as he is. Bad move, giving Michael a (potential) love interest without ever explaining why she'd be interested in him when she -- and we -- were seeing him at his most obnoxious. 

 For him to overcompensate after thinking he was on a date* would've been fine; that's what we expect from the character, just as we almost expect him to have his own separate character for this sort of situation. (Dating Mike, a transformation symbolized by him donning one of those hats Samuel L. Jackson always wears.) For him to abandon his "date" after embarrassing her -- and himself -- was unforgivable.

 (*Strange how both this and 30 Rock had Steve Carrell and Tina Fey out on "dates" on a night when ads were promoing their Date Night movie, which looks pretty unfunny.)

 It's too bad, really, because everything else in that episode was pretty charming, or at least amusing: Daryl telling Oscar "You can be gay for Mack, just be straight with me"; Phyllis and Bob Vance's (Vance Refrigeration) weird bar game; Andy and Erin; Creed being a master of Dance Dance Revolution.

 (The only character who bothered me was Kevin, who I really go back and forth on. Sometimes he's funny, other times, wayyy to juvenile. Tonight was the latter.)

 Watching all these different couples have their night out was kind of enjoyable, and in the end, I found myself wishing, like Jim and Pam probably did, that Michael had just stayed home.

 30 ROCK

This was probably my favorite 30 Rock in some time. No high profile guest stars, nothing too over-the-top. For once, Liz Lemon had a romantic problem we could actually relate to (as opposed to say, meeting someone when whacked out on anesthesia, or dating a sex offender.) 

 It hurts to learn an ex-girlfriend/boyfriend in a happy new relationship, and hurts even more to have reminders of that relationship thrown in your face, or in Liz's case, happening outside your window.

 Floyd (Jason Sudekis) had always been Liz's most likable romantic partner -- even Jon Hamm revealed a cruel side when Liz burst his handsomeness "bubble" -- but here, he got to play sort of mean as well, accidentally getting drunk on alcohol-based sauce and comparing his new girlfriend (a deer) to Liz (a badger): "Why are you still single? There's plenty of guys out there for you to poison and yell at."

 Even if Liz did make things right, it was kind of heavy...at least by 30 Rock standards. Fortunately, you had Frank, Twofer and Lutz around to keep things light, getting into a prank war with Jack and Danny. (Jack clearly had the edge here, convincing the three "Pranksmen" that a "Cloverfield" type monster had attacked New York, then sending Frank a video from his mother's bedroom).

 The Tracy/Jenna plotline didn't work for me other than seeing their reactions (from under the plaster) to Kenneth's endless stories, but I welcome anything that gives Pete screentime.

 Other thoughts/questions/lines I liked:

•  Shirley: "Tell that to whatever our equivalent of a judge is."
• Loved the coonskin cap gag that opened Parks & Rec, as well as Tom's lame pick up lines while wearing it: "Animal on the head...manimal in the bed."
• Another good Tom moment: trying to act Mad Mennish while showing off his photos for the catalogue.
• Was that Michael Gross as the pro-pot parks director?
• Oscar, talking about Stanley doing 26 push-ups so he could go home early: "Essentially what we have here is the story where the mother lifts her car to save her baby."
• Pam's friend, amazed at how laid back Michael is: "He doesn't act like a boss. If I had a boss like that we'd never get anything done."
• Dwight got good at "Whack-a-Mole"...by actually whacking moles. Notice that the "Scranton Strangler" -- referenced on the unfortunate "Day You Were Born" newspaper Andy gave to Jim and Pam -- makes another appearance.
• As much as I didn't like Tracy and Jenna's Elm Street story, I like how Tracy started calling his dreams "Kenmares."
• Where's Dot-Com been? I know Grizz has health issues, but does the show want them to appear together? And for that matter, where's Cerie been?

 Tom Coombe

LOST: The Prisoner

 When word got out earlier this season that Lost would devote a whole episode to ageless Richard Alpert, it was natural to think that we'd get a travelogue of island mythology: "Here he is meeting Jacob. Here's the day the Others arrived. Here they are building the temple."

 But rather than giving us a decades-long story of how "Ricardo" became "Ricardus" and how "Ricardus" became "Richard," "Ab Aeterno" took a much bolder approach. 

 The episode basically unfolded as one long, unbroken flashback, asking us to follow and sympathize with a character we've barely gotten to know. A good chunk of the story took place before Richard even got to the island, and once he arrived, it played out over the course of days, not years. And rather than answering a lot of smaller questions, it addressed a big one, possibly the biggest and oldest mystery Lost has.

Damages: Ms. Hewes, Tear Down This Wall...

  I guess someone at Damages decided "We need to be a character-driven show this week."

 Rather than devote a lot of time with, say, its rather dense murder/fraud conspiracy storyline, the show chose to spend most of its ninth -- out of a total 13 -- week dealing with things like Arthur Frobisher trying to make his movie, Patty's personal life/renovations* and Ellen's sister and her drug addiction. 

 *We get it Damages: Every time the Keith Carradine guy talks about there being something valuable below the surface, he's talking about Patty.

 None of these things did much to really further the plot -- other than maybe Ellen getting closer to Patty by having to ask her for a favor -- but rather served as a reminder that everything comes back to Patty, the spider at the center of this awful web.

 And as much as I like Ted Danson as Frobisher, this week and last week, I wanted more of the Tobins and their world. 

 This week, Joe was absent entirely, we got one scene with Marilyn and her quasi-granddaughter Tessa, and spent most of our time with dull, depressed Carol.

Whenever someone on "Chuck" asks him if he wants to be a "real spy," my mind goes to babysitting with my girlfriend, and us telling her niece that if she wants to be a "big girl," she'll finish her dinner.

Breaking Bad Season Premiere: The Survivor

  Early in Breaking Bad's second season, there's a scene where Hank and his partner watch grainy security footage of Walt stealing an oil drum full of a chemical used to make meth.

 Hank obviously has no clue it's his brother-in-law committing the theft, and offers a moment of lop-sided pity for the inept-looking crook: "They better pray it's us who catches up to them and not those cartel boys from Juarez."

 That statement -- coupled with flashforward scenes of some sort of carnage of the White's house and present day scenes of actual cartel butchery (hello Mr. Tortoise) -- hung like a black cloud over last season.

 Of course, the cartel never arrived at Walt's house -- the flashforwards were a clever piece of misdirection -- but the danger is still there, burning a path to his door, even as he tries to forget his past.

The Thursday Night Comedies: Sailing, Mugging, Searching, Settling

 Wow, much better. Last week, only some of the four NBC sitcoms really hit the mark. This week...well, they weren't perfect, but they got a lot of things right. Let's take them in order.

 Community

 In college, my roommate and I needed a physical education course in order to graduate, so we took badminton. "How hard could it be?" we argued. "It's badminton! People play it in their backyards at family reunions."

 Plenty hard, as it turned out. And I sucked at badminton, the way I suck at all sports that aren't bowling or miniature golf.

 I'm telling this story because I sort of identified with Jeff's plight tonight on Community, a show that's growing on me every week.  

 Maybe the badminton class didn't have a cool lady-killer guy, but I know what it's like to take a class that seems like it'll be easy, only to find out how bad you are at it. (And we weren't graded on participation. We actually had to write a paper. A paper on badminton.)

 We also didn't have Tony Hale as our teacher. He shows up tonight as the latest addition to Greendale's menagerie of bizarre instructors, with his quirk being that no one in the pottery class can reenact the famous scene from Ghost.

 But as weird as that was, it didn't compare to the rest of the crew turning into, well, an actual crew, taking a sailing course on a ship that never left the school parking lot. Chevy Chase had a lot of good moments with this stuff, including his attempts to "christen" the ship, and his assertion that he once captained "a jet ski through an electrical storm, and only lost one person." (The joke would've worked better without Troy pointing out the obvious flaw in Pierce's argument.)

 Really weird, really funny stuff, and as shows like The Office and 30 Rock show their age, it's nice to have it around.

 For more on those shows, and Parks and Recreation, read on.