You know what’s my favorite thing about Mad Men? Even when it’s dead serious or surreal it’s not above brilliant jokes. I want to hit on the lighter moments first, because this episode was very dark and violent.
Moment numero uno has to be the scene with Peggy and Sterling. It’s just perfect to see how far Sterling has fallen that he can threaten to fire all he wants, but he can’t intimidate Peggy (or Harry, for that matter). She has his number and she gets her reward while being super cheeky and super funny. I could watch her count cash for hours.
What else? Well, Ginsberg was particularly hilarious in the post-meeting bar. I think it’s telling that I agree with him when he asserted that he wasn’t as close to being fired as Ken thinks he was. Yes, Don means what he says, but I still think Ginsberg’s confidence is well-placed.
Speaking of Ginsberg (and segueing into more serious topics), I think it’s telling that his reluctance to be a crime voyeur and his shaming of his peers was very interestingly juxtaposed with his pitch. I mean, the Speck murders were lurid, violent, sick, twisted, and meaningless, but his pitch…that was stalking and sexual violence, but presented in the sanitized way that horror movies are. I know it’s ridiculous to call a horror movie sanitized, but they are clearly about sexual violence a lot of the time. There’s that erotic tension in there that is personified by your virginal main character trope, for example, or the fact that most protagonists are female while the monsters are male. It’s what makes Alien so subversive.
While we’re on the subject of sexual violence, how about that (kind of annoying) fever dream that Don had? Look, we all knew it was a dream and that it was a little cheesy, but for it to incorporate elements of the Speck murder (women under the bed) and the almost horror-movie ability that Andrea had to appear back in Don’s bedroom…I mean it’s clearly intentional. Like I said, I knew it was a dream, but there was a part of me that was worried that Mad Men might go the way of Friday Night Lights Season 2 until it was officially confirmed a dream. While the symbolism was a little clumsy and obvious, it was an interesting moment to see Don symbolically murdering his adulterous nature. Will it stay dead? It was gone in the morning, but was it because it had survived? Whatever the case, Matt Weiner is doing a stand-up job proving to us that Don and Megan truly care for each other and that Don is at least mostly invested in the relationship. If his adultery count stays at 0 + i (as in one imaginary fling) I wouldn’t be surprised, based on the way he’s being characterized this season.
Peggy and Dawn got to interact after Peggy discovered that Dawn was stuck in the office because she’s black (subways are too dangerous, cops around everywhere, cabbies refuse to take her past 96th…). I thought it was a very telling line that what Peggy was most worried about was the “white person problem” (not really a WPP, but it was also not the racially charged problem) of the Speck murder while Dawn is clearly referencing the race riots erupting in various parts of the country. Despite how much Peggy wants to connect the dots between the feminist and race movements, she ultimately commits a faux pas with the purse gaff at the end of the night and she feels terrible for it. It was a very awkward moment that I thought was beautifully shot and captured. It’s funny how a whole night of, well, one-sided drunken sharing can be erased by a lingering glance.
Sally and Pauline’s scenes together were all captivating as well. I mean, how much sense does it make that Pauline’s father just kicked her to put the fear of him into her. That kind of random violence is precisely in line with the violence of the Speck murders and the terror that women on the whole must feel. There’s a strong undercurrent of fear that men don’t really understand. We tend to be physically larger and we are most commonly the aggressors in society so we don’t understand what it’s like to watch your back or feel threatened when alone among men, but Pauline doesn’t know which direction to take it with Sally. She repeatedly chastises her and treats her like a child while simultaneously asking why she doesn’t act more like a grown-up. Pauline wants Sally to understand what it is to be a woman and she overshares details about the murders and the psychological fear of men with her, but then she grants her the power of temporary ignorance with sleeping pills. Of all the characters on the show, Sally is the one who I fear for the most. What is her life going to be like?
Best thing about the night might have to be Joan finally acknowledging that evil that Pauline alludes to in Greg and his rape of Joan in S2. When she finally says out loud what she already knows, that Greg is a nobody who needs to assert his power to feel strong. That he is a bad man…that is the big moment we’ve all been waiting for since that ugly moment in Season 2. Joan’s scenes play out predictably and I’m glad that the show never let Greg off the hook by killing him off in Vietnam. It was a powerful scene and a powerful moment for Joan who, one would hope, will not rekindle her relationship with Roger, but move on to something healthier. I mean, who doesn’t love Joan? She’s among the most tragic of a cast of many tragic cases and we all want to see better things come to her.
Baseball is BACK! The (Miami) Marlins are headed to Philadelphia for their second/third series of the year.
Baseball. It signals the end of winter. Guess what, guys? Winter is GONE! The Marlins are off to a rocky start (1-3), but they’re still looking pretty good and, in the past two games, playing pretty well too. I really hope this season is better than the last, but, either way, at least baseball has returned.
Movies
The Muppets – It weirdly acknowledges that it’s a movie heightened reality world. What a real nostalgia-fest. Man, this movie moved me to tears once or twice. The Rolf story was awesome, but the actual “show” part of the movie was less fun.
TV
Mad Men – Last week’s episode was not as bombastic as the premiere, what with fat-suit Betty and all that, but this season is still looking promising. Dawn/Don jokes might get old someday, but I’m digging them now.
Happy Endings – Happy Endings has turned into a rapid-fire joke delivery system. I mean, JOKESJOKESJOKESJOKES! It’s pretty awesome. Sleeper hit of the 2011-2012 season for sure!
Community – Holy cow, what an awesome format for an episode! The PBS/Ken Burns style documentary seems like it couldn’t work for a comedy, but it was just perfectly executed. Loved it.
Cupcake Wars – What could be more rock and roll than cupcakes? EVERYTHING. Seriously. “Lightning bolts and flames are so rock and roll.” No…no they’re not.
Chopped – Seems like a short-form Iron Chef. I can see why people dig it over the juggernaut that is Iron Chef, but it’s not as good to me. At least you get more variety from round/course to round/course.
Iron Chef – Canned tuna is a weird ingredient for the competition. Didn’t see how it all turned out, but if there wasn’t tuna ice cream I’m disappointed.
BASEBALL! – So much baseball. Love it.
Music
Jasper Byrne’s Lone Survivor has a chilling and awesome soundtrack. Below is the embed for the album.
<a href="http://spacerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/lone-survivor-original-soundtrack">Lone Survivor – Original Soundtrack by Jasper Byrne</a>
Books
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – FINALLY DONE! YES! It’s self-indulgent, wish-fulfilling fiction taken to its most boring extremes.
Video Games
Rayman: Origins – More speed trophies. Min and I have great teamwork even though we sometimes die very stupidly.
Pro Yakyu Spirits 2012 – Only got one match in, but it’s the same great game I love every year and I blanked the Dragons 2-0. Good times.
Not every episode can be a bombastic “Zou Bisou”, can it?
A lot of people don’t like Betty, but this episode featured centered around her in a truly bizarre fat suit. Betty has a little bit of a health scare related to a lump found on her thyroid which sends ripples through the Francis and Draper households.
The scene with Henry and Don talking on the phone was pretty interesting in how threatened he seemed by the fact that Betty shared her health scare with Don too. Betty’s scenes in the show (minus the cheesy medium one) were pretty great at illustrating the complications of being her. She’s always been profoundly sad and unable to cope with her life and the cancer scare actually seemed to give her a spark and some meaning. It’s like she doesn’t know how to be and having that made her somewhat special. Her immediate response at finding out it was benign was to dwell on her getting fat instead. More negatives. She’s truly got a sad existence.
Don and Megan’s relationship continues to perplex me. They have scenes that make you think they’re terrible for each other and scenes where they seem to work and click well. I’m interested in seeing where they go, but it was interesting to see Don show restraint at the rock concert and actually act paternal instead of like a skeezy old man.
Harry continues to be funny and useless. He’s the Blankenship of this season so far.
Don’s new secretary Dawn will continue to provide funny word jokes.
Michael Ginsberg as a new character is an interesting one. Able to be insane and self-centered, but also able to reign it in. Will his success threaten Peggy? She seems resilient to changes in the dynamic, but it’s always threatening to have new guys come in when you’re a woman in the 60s.
Sterling and Pete continue to have that simmering conflict. This will have to be resolved this season for sure.
Mad Men is back, y’all, and it’s better than ever! Season four flirted with perfection, but that was somewhere around 17 months ago. Now it’s time for something new.
I think it’s fair to guess that season five is probably going to deal with the civil rights issue that its protagonists have mostly dodged for four seasons now. The bookends to the episode involving Y&R and SCDP’s various pranks at least promise to make it an important issue for at least two episodes, but I’m betting we see it take greater importance as the season wears on.
The bigger issue at hand is the obvious one: Don and Megan. We were left feeling gobsmacked and surprised at the end of S4 since we had no clue who this French Canadian secretary was outside of a few scenes. Matthew Weiner did a fantastic job of setting up why Don chose her over Faye, what with all the scenes with Sally and his children peppered throughout the season, but now’s our chance to understand what marriage between her and Don is like and…it’s interesting.
Make no mistake, a relationship rooted in boss/subordinate and old man/young woman will always have power issues and “A Little Kiss” brings that to the forefront with many a barbed insult traded between Don and Megan, their deviancy in the office, and with the explosive domination sex at the end of the episode. There are clearly problems brewing in SCDP too as Don regards Megan’s work there as something for her to do while he’s at work. It’s evidenced by him calling her away in the middle of meetings or projects or even in the fact that she shows up habitually late with him at her side. It seems like she wants to be taken seriously, but she’s constantly undermined by Don who, himself, is not taking his work very seriously.
That’s the most alarming thing by far. A Don Draper who cares very little about his work is a Don Draper we’ve rarely seen. His work habits have deteriorated to when he was drinking far too much last season (or worse). Last season we saw him fall and fall and then turn it around. Will we have a similar arc or will he continue to coast?
And then there’s the party:
We know that Don doesn’t let anyone in on his life, but here he is with people in his home despite Peggy warning Megan not to throw this party. It makes sense that he’s mad, especially with the way that they’re both treated at work following the party. Sterling can’t restrain himself from teasing Don now that he’s not the only buffoon. Megan is suffering from ridicule by her peers. It’s tense and I loved every part of it.
I don’t know what Weiner has planned for those two, but I don’t necessarily see the implosion (or explosion) that people have been predicting. She does know about Dick Whitman, after all. No, I think that they will remain together, if not a little strained at points. Maybe Megan does truly get Don/Dick. Nothing about their behavior screamed out to me that their relationship was doomed, just that it was maybe ill conceived. What’s more worrisome is the way that Roger and Jane now interact. After their silly stupid soiree in the third season (this show is calling back/referencing all kinds of old things a lot) I’m sure that this all looks like the mistakes they used to make. They’re nowhere near as playful as they were before.
Speaking of call backs, how great was it to see Pete on the train from the suburbs. He’s clearly hurting to get back to the city that he loves so dearly, but now he’s got precisely what he wanted from Don in season one. Like Don warned him though, no one seems to treat him with much respect, save perhaps Lane, because no one really likes him. Sterling continually tries to undermine his every effort to get the recognition and status that he ambitiously demands. It’s interesting stuff to watch.
I’m also a fan of the Trudy/Peter relationship. Despite Pete’s sociopathic tendencies (or perhaps because of), he and Trudy are the most conscious of manners and what’s actually going on around them. Their commentary at the party along with their style of dress shows that they’re perhaps the most clued into the 60s of anyone in the senior levels of SCDP and it’s awesome.
Joan’s plot about being terribly bored at home rings perfectly true to her character and her acidic mother makes it very clear why Joan is the way that she is. Her horribly tragic heart-to-heart with Lane was heartbreaking as it made clear how out of sorts she was to be alone with her baby and I was particularly touched by the detail that no one went to visit her. It seems odd that she’d be out of sight, out of mind so quickly, but considering the staff at SCDP and their multitude of issues in the past eight months I suppose it makes sense. The big question will definitely be what Greg will want of her when he gets home.
The last big story I want to talk about is Peggy. Still the shining creative light at SCDP, she’s becoming increasingly frustrated with a blissful Don Draper. The fighting spirit that Don seemed to have for their entire working relationship seems to have vanished and, while she’s increasingly capable of doing her work without Don’s input, it most certainly greases wheels for its acceptance. It was telling to me that her frustrations with Megan seem to be more frustration with Don over his lack of focus rather than resentment of her place on the staff. There’s no outward hostility directed specifically at her, despite the way she interprets Peggy’s drunk/high mini-row with Don, but there is a sense of frustration in that he is proving too much of a distraction for her to get work done. On a separate note, I did like the scene with her, Pete, and Joan’s baby. Great work by the Mad Men crew to give us a few seconds that spoke volumes almost completely non-verbally.
Minor Points:
- Harry is the closest thing to a whipping boy this show has. He was able to make a complete fool of himself over the entire two hour episode and it was hilarious.
- The prank war between Pete and Roger that sent him to Staten Island was great! More of Pete usurping Roger please!
- Cooper’s marginalization continues. I’m not bothered by it. He won’t have a Blankenship-ian joke end, but I could conceive of his death in this season.
- Sally didn’t seem hostile toward Megan. I was shocked by that, but then again her psychologist probably helped her deal with these kinds of feelings toward Henry.
- New actor for Bobby!
- Didn’t really care for the Lane/wallet story, but it was alright. I liked that his politeness kept throwing people off and I liked how innocent-seeming his attempts at lewdness were. Still kind of an aimless story to me, but it might bear fruit later.
- If the old receptionist is still there next week I’ll be surprised. Bringing in the gag gift from Y&R was a huge mistake and I could see them letting her go to help cover the new secretary.
- Lots of secretary placement subtle comedy and a close to over the top moment with Pete tripping into the pillar in his office.
- Ken’s wife is Alex Mack!
Seann William Scott is so innocently dumb in this movie, but it's actually quite good. (Picture courtesy nxusco)
Guys, Goon was really good. More later, but you should check it out. This week was a real scattershot weekend as I tried to play a bunch of games I didn’t give much time to before.
Martha Marcy May Marlene – The cult in the movie is an interesting contrast to the fundamentalist Christian society in Higher Ground and the hippie commune of Wanderlust. This movie really ratchets up the tension of not knowing what’s real and what’s not. Ideally they would have made Patrick a scarier presence, but the movie is still on pretty solid ground with what it accomplishes. Congrats on the fantastic part, Elizabeth Olsen. Keep it up!
Goon – This is a mostly sweet movie about a guy who had no place in life other than to fight on the ice. It’s done pretty well and it’s funny and it’ll definitely win you over. Alison Pill, who played Kim Pine in Scott Pilgrim, is great as a Canadian hockey girl and Seann William Scott is endearing. The violence of hockey and hockey fights is really the thing that might put you off the movie. It gets pretty brutal if you don’t like it.
Mad Men – Last week’s premiere was amazing and I totally loved it. Can’t wait to see yesterday’s episode tonight!
Breaking Bad – Finished the first season. The six episode arc they had to work with never went anywhere with any definitive statement, but I think they’re playing the long game for all the seasons. Doesn’t mean that it was bad, just that I’m used to a more dramatic season arc. The progression of Walter White from teacher to meth cooker has definitely been interesting as is the seething anger that lurks beneath hsi outside personality.
Happy Endings – A great tribute to all the sitcom tropes of old. Some really good jokes in there that helped keep it from being too hack-y (like it was when the episode started). Elisha Cuthbert’s Ellen was hilarious.
New Girl – I liked the episode, but I’m rather chilly on New Girl at the moment. It’s not bad, but it’s not amazing either.
Justified – Another table setter. The final two episodes of this season are going to be bananas. I’d like for Limehouse to continue to be a force in S4, but we’ll see if he survives the next two eps first.
Community – It’s entirely possible that this episode contained the first “boner” joke I’ve laughed at since I was 13. The Subway corpo-humanoid is the highlight of the ep. Also a highlight: “Put it in a letter, Jane Austen!”. Alison Brie is so awesome.
Up All Night – This show is kind of meh to me too. At least it’s enjoyable meh. I’d rather watch New Girl because Zooey Deschanel is cute, but this is the better show.
The Wire – Finally finished S1 and the commentary of S1. Can’t wait to get moving through S2 because S3 is amazing. I love the attention to detail in The Wire and the devastating verisimilitude of it all.
“Heaven” is one of the best tracks on the Persona 4 soundtrack, but it’s also pretty awesome to listen to any time. Don’t believe me?
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – I’ve got like 10 pages left. So tired of this book.
Ghost Trick – Weird ending to this game. Just plot twist upon plot twist. Still one of the better story games I’ve ever played and excellent practice for my Spanish.
Devil Survivor 2 – Still haven’t caught the entire breadth of this story, but I do dig it. Interested in seeing where it goes, but my major play time will probably come when Min and I go to Vegas (he’ll probably sleep through the flight)
Mass Effect 2 – Slowly tearing through this a few missions at a time. For some reason I can’t stomach playing it for long periods of time. I think it’s because ME3 is clearly better and they’re so similar.
Poker Night at the Inventory – Put in a few mins to get some achievements and just play some poker. Still fun.
Jamestown – Was feeling like finally putting some time into the weird quasi-historical/quasi-sci-fi version of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia. Fighting the Spanish conquistadors and the Martians is weird, but fun. I like all the different ship types.
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 1 – I played and beat this many moons ago, but I wanted to play ep. 2 and that required playing this. Decent RPG and pretty funny still.
Sine Mora – Tried it out on XBL. I might pick it up when I finish a few other games. Seems interesting.
Pac-Man CE DX – Um…best game on my Xbox. Period. This game is so good I had to force msyelf to stop to play…
Galaga Legions DX – I was tired of only having like two achievements in this so I went and got to 11/12. Might not get the last one (more annoying than tough), but I’ll probably cave and just do it. Not as good as Pac-Man at all, but still fun.
Shadow Complex – Cave Story + made me think the same thing this game does: Why don’t game companies make more Metroidvania-style games? They’re really addictive and fun. Weird. Also weird: Nolan North in a half-tuck role that’s NOT NATHAN DRAKE! I think the shooting is a little awkward with the right stick because they added the whole 3D aspect to it, but otherwise fun.
Season 5, y'all! (Photo courtesy Roman Skrada)
Mad Men is BACK…but shhhh! I haven’t seen the premiere yet. Trying to finish S4 first and I’ve got about three episodes to burn through. I’ll get it tonight. Don’t worry.
Was supposed to watch one, but…didn’t get around to it.
Persona 4: The Animation – This show continues to be awesome. The Nanako stuff was really emotionally tough to watch, wow.
Archer – Oh man, the space stuff was so great. This show is so zany and awesome.
New Girl – I haven’t been able to enjoy this show as much since I started watching Happy Endings. That show just seems to do the same thing a lot better.
Fashion Police – My girlfriend makes me watch this. It was great when it was a half hour…now it’s always an hour long. At least Joan Rivers is kind of funny.
Community – Back to weird for Community. The impersonator stuff was hilariously odd. I wonder what they’re setting up with all the Dark Abed and Chang stuff.
Happy Endings – This week’s episode was weaker, but I went through the whole series with Min again. Can’t wait to catch the first half of S2 because the show is a lot better in S2. Not that it was bad in S1, but they’re a lot crazier and funnier in S2.
Justified – the old lady with the milkshake was awesome. The animosity toward the outsiders is pretty amazing. The standoff between Quarles and Raylan was great. Loved when the bartender got into it too.
Up All Night – The Chris on the show thing was pretty obvious, but it had its funny moments.
Mad Men – S4 was pretty great, wasn’t it? Just saw “The Beautiful Girls”. An astounding episode. The scene in “The Summer Man” where Joan tells off the men with respect to Vietnam gives me chills every time.
La Vida Boheme – Check it out.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – If I don’t finish this book this week I’m burning it.
Mass Effect 3 – Still enjoying the multiplayer, but I want to unlock some Krogans and Asari already!
New Super Mario Bros. Wii – Still pretty brilliant. The Yoshi level was fun since Min and I were antagonizing each other a bit.
Super Street Fighter IV – Min and I fought for a long while. Lots of fun playing one of the sharpest fighting games out there. Reminded me how out of practice I was.
They are a group of six friends evenly split among men and women. Haven't seen this formula before! (Photo courtesy Screened.com)
I’ll get into it more later, but despite it being pretty standard fare for a sitcom, Happy Endings is actually hilarious and kind of awesome. I blew through season 1 this weekend (half on Netflix, then I bought the entire season on DVD).
Just catching any TV is impressive considering that I haven’t watched a second of it since Mass Effect 3 came out. Now that I’ve beaten that I had a chance to catch up on all the TV I’d missed.
The Descendants – Picked up the movie at Best Buy this weekend too. Great flick. I think Tiffany liked it despite its Oscar film plot meanderings.
Community – Oh god, so glad it’s back! So glad! This week’s episode was pretty solid work for Community. Everyone showed up and was great. Even the Britta stuff was hilarious. I loved that she was a wizard with domestic stuff and wedding planning. Then of course she Brittas the entire thing by getting too drunk with Jeff.
Archer – Space! Pretty excellent episode of Archer. Can’t wait for the finale next week
New Girl – “Did you just Fredo kiss me?” The singing part was kind of “eh”. “Are those cannons on your back”. After watching a lot of Happy Endings later on in the weekend, I think that New Girl is a less good version of that. Bummer. Still, it’s coming into its own and I dig it. Max Greenfield’s Schmidt is hilarious.
Parks and Recreation – The Ron stuff was great. I guess I’m pretty tired of the Ann and Tom stuff too.
Bob’s Burgers – Kristen Schaal and Eugene Mirman are HILARIOUS! Footloose warehouse dancing is great! “No more lick foot”. “If guys had uteruses they’d be called duderuses” Great episode.
Justified – The show knows how to make things seem real bad. “I found the gun.” “Did you touch it?” “What am I, an asshole?” I think Winona’s great! Is she gone for good? Good to see Ava returning to prominence. I like her too. Boyd’s got a real firebrand preacher streak and that’s always fun to see. This season is about to get more real quick and I love it!
Up All Night – Maya Rudolph is great. Spitting the scotch back out was pretty hilarious. The stinger with “gift” and “seed” was the best part. I kept wanting to use that as a line, but it’s so gross.
Happy Endings – Not too bad. Wow. Extra Hot Great turned me on to this show and I spent all weekend watching as much of it as I could. I thought it was pretty hilarious. It’s got a modern Friends vibe, but with the jokes pace of a Community, 30 Rock, or Arrested Development. Just BAM! BAM! BAM! Jokes, jokes, jokes. I really enjoyed it. If you know me I hope you don’t mind me making you watch it.
Just listen to more Rhythm Heaven music, guys!
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Ok, Martin Vanger is dead already. Why does this book still have like 100 pages left?!
Mass Effect 3 – Finally finished this sci-fi epic and…I loved it. Naysayers out there will tell you that the ending is terrible. They’re kind of right, but that doesn’t mean the game isn’t fantastic.
Ghost Trick – This is another one like Dragon Tattoo that I’m getting closer and closer to beating and I just need to put time in to finish.
Mass Effect 2 – Coming back to this after 3 is rough. Combat is slower, the engine is not optimized for PC, it’s trying too hard to be edgy…Still good, but I like 3 and 1 better.
I think a standardized set of rules regarding spoilers would do the world a lot of good. All of these fine actors agree.
Floating holo displays are awesome. (Photo courtesy gamesweasel)
Smoke alarms! They notify us about fires, but they also incessantly beep when their batteries are low. It’s tough to sleep when that happens and you don’t have 9V batteries laying around.
Oh, yeah, also Mass Effect 3 came out this week and obliterated my TV watching.
Wanderlust – Sharing a lot of the DNA from Wet Hot American Summer, Wanderlust was appropriately strange, but also pretty darn funny. I’d put it at 3.5 or 4 stars of five.
Baseball: The Tenth Inning – Rewatched about 75% of this fantastic baseball documentary with Greg. Good times and good prep for the season. Can’t wait!
George & Jonathan – I was turned on to Beautiful Lifestyle by The Besties podcast (“Little Marcus” is their opening/closing track). Great chiptune disc with a lot of variety. Reminds me of Sonic the Hedgehog music a lot of the time.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Bloomqvist is captured by Martin and there’s still so much book left! WTF!
Final Fantasy XIII-2 – The Sazh DLC can kiss my ass. Hours of playing poker to unlock Sazh? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Devil Survivor 2 – I love how brutal these games can get. Atlus isn’t messing around. When demons invade there’s no sugarcoating.
Ghost Trick – So very close to being done and plot twists are just appearing and stacking up like crazy.
Mass Effect 3 – Badassfully: Blasto 6 is the funniest part of this game by far! Here’s a tip for any of you who don’t already know: Anytime you complete a mission you should walk around and talk to everyone. They have funny/interesting things to say. Javik, in particular, has an interesting perspective being a Prothean and all. Look for impressions soon.
I don’t think it’s possible for you all to understand how pumped I am for baseball to come back this year. It’s been a long, hard offseason, but spring training is off the ground and I’m super pumped.
Higher Ground – Vera Farmiga (and her sister Taissa) stars in this intelligent movie about a woman constantly seeking religion, but unable to arrive at the faith and two-way relationship she so desperately craves. It’s beautiful and slow and it’s fantastic work by Farmiga.
What’s Your Number – Oh, the things we do for love. Seeking something to watch together, Tiffany and I stumbled upon Anna Faris’ ill-received romantic comedy that is simultaneously all about slut shaming and also about finding love before your friends continue to slut shame you. I’m injecting way more importance into this light, breezy romantic comedy than it deserves. As far as these types of movies go, you could find worse. It’s alright.
The Walking Dead – So tired of the non-zombie plots. “Waaah waah, I’m suicidal! Waaah.” Pretty sure they’re setting up a mega-swarm headed to the farm. Not sure.
Life’s Too Short – The tumor stuff was predictable, but funny. I don’t think the Johnny Depp stuff was half as good as the Liam Neeson stuff from last week.
Parks and Recreation – Ginuwine jokes, haha. Oh man, the part where he read out the image URL for Leslie’s campaign poster! The water fountain visual gag was also hilarious.
Up All Night – The stuff with the godparents reminds me of David since Eric just had his baby. Steven Pasquale was pretty hilarious in his Army vet role.
Justified – Not every episode has to be super exciting/awesome. Still some good acting in this episode, but not as sharp as the rest of the season has been.
Archer – “You make me sound like some kind of chubacabra, but for dicks.” Pretty good ep.
Portlandia – The Eddie Vedder tattoo stuff was brilliant. About 1/3 of the Battlestar Galactica sketch (featuring James Callis, Edward James Olmos, and (the real) Ronald D. Moore) was excellent as well, but it strongly relies on you knowing what Ronald D. Moore looks like (Hint: He’s not the guy who played Adama or Baltar and he’s not the guy with his name.)
Houston Astros at Washington Nationals – Stephen Strasburg’s curveball looked sharp. It was missing a little bit of placement, but otherwise looking great. Too bad Tom Gorzelanny came in and stunk up the joint. Still, baseball! Spring training!
Rhythm Heaven Games – Go out there and get your hands on Rhythm Heaven soundtracks. The music from these games is super catchy and fun and I’m pretty sure they include perfect versions of the songs that have all of the sound effects in them.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – I swear I’m making progress, guys. I really am! He’s actually working with Lisbeth now. It took half the book to get them there!
Devil Survivor 2 – Devil Survivor was one of the best DS TRPGs (or normal RPG or games) out there and DS2 is more of the same. New characters, broader setting…I dig it. So much so that it’s supplanted…
Ghost Trick – Used to have a steady slot in my DS, but I’ve sidelined it for a little DS2 action. Gotta finish it because I’m nearly done, but DS2 is sooo fun.
The Old Republic – Nothing like getting a little Bounty Hunting in, but the stupid TOR people haven’t announced the legacy stuff so I’m at a stalemate with getting more playtime in with Min.
