When I recommend that people watch Veronica Mars, I always tell them to start with the Season One DVD. It's very difficult to explain for somebody who hasn't lived through the experience, but the final three or four episodes pull together so many parts of the mystery and bring forth so many different emotions, it becomes more than just a TV show; it's an experience. Laugh at me if you want to, because I did the same thing last year, but it really is true. I was lucky to have it on DVD because the only thing interrupting my need for more Veronica Mars was sleep and hygiene, and it is KILLING me to have to wait an entire week to get my fix. If I haven't gushed enough already, you can probably tell that I loved this episode. Mystery, romance, intrigue, antibiotics; this episode had something for everybody. And since things are really getting complicated, I have to warn you that the recap is long, but oh was this episode worth it.

So, did you ever hear the one about Veronica Mars and Chlamydia? It goes like this. There was this girl named Veronica Mars. She went to the doctor. The doctor said she had Chlamydia.

OK, so maybe that wasn't funny, but it's true. Veronica's doctor told her about the diagnosis, and being told you have an STD is bad enough, but for Veronica, who hasn't really had any sort of love life besides the kind you find in the top drawer, it's has to be even worse. If you get an STD when you're sexually active, at least you can say that you had some fun getting in trouble. Unfortunately, since the symptoms may not show up for months, if at all, Veronica has no clue how she might have contracted the disease, especially since she said she and Duncan always used protection. Besides, Duncan wouldn't cheat on her, would he?

As Veronica said, the saying goes "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade", but she can't figure out anything to make if life gives you Chlamydia. But as bad as Veronica's problems may be, Mac is the one living the nightmare. She is stuck going to the prom with Butters. Being the principal's son is difficult enough when you are cool, but when your biggest claim to fame is a radio show of declining quality, life can be hell. Is one cell phone interceptor worth all of that trouble? The prom is one thing, but dinner on a replica pirate ship? That is a whole different ballgame.

Is there any hope for Mac? Well, aside from suggesting Medieval Times instead of a pirate ship, there isn't much she can do to get out of this. Luckily her classmates have decided to help her out, although in an indirect way. There were so many alcohol violations during the senior class trip to Magic Mountain that they administration has decided to cancel the prom.

Keith got a phone call to come to the Camelot Hotel, scene of many Veronica Mars greatest moments, starting with the opening shot of the entire series. And who could forget that forbidden, steamy first kiss between Veronica and Logan[NOT Duncan, thanks Mark. sorry, i still mix up the names]? There have been plenty of low moments as well, like when Veronica realized her mom had some relations there with Jake Kane. This time around, the person having extra-marital relations was none other than Woody Goodman. Keith got there to find Woody in his underwear, and a woman who was not his wife passed out on the bed.

At least she's not dead

As a private investigator, Keith is not exactly scared to use methods that aren't entirely legal to get the job done, as witnessed by his breaking and entering into Kendall's house last week, but he always uses his discretion. Woody hired him to save Terrence Cook's name, so when Woody asks Keith to take the girl to the hospital to avoid the scandal, Keith balks at first. Woody assures Keith that he is only doing this because he wants to save the incorporation bid, and so Keith agrees to drop this woman off at the hospital.

Woody wasn't the only Goodman asking a member of the Mars family for advice. Gia was having a problem with a stalker and wanted some help from Veronica. She did a karaoke and dedicated the song to what she thought was a table of cute guys. She sang "Can't Get You Out of My Head", and ironically, it looks like somebody is having that same problem with Gia. As an aside, I have always hated Gia's style in clothing, so let me be the first to congratulate her on picking something that doesn't make her look like a big Olive Oyl doll.

Veronica agrees to help out with Gia's problem and heads to her dad's office to pick up some equipment. While she's there, Kendall Casablancas shows up and demands her hard drive back, or she'll press charges. Keith is ready to call her bluff because she, you know, sent somebody in to kill him. I am not sure what is so important on that hard drive that Kendall needs. She has to realize that Keith probably already went through all the files or even made copies, so there has to be something hidden that Kendall thinks only she has access to. Seeing that Keith is not going to back down, Kendall decides to leave, but is giving Keith until Friday before she escalates things.

Keith asks Veronica about her doctor's appointment, and although they are very close, she isn't about to tell him that she has an STD. Besides, he was keeping such close tabs on her and Duncan, he probably knows more than she does. Veronica grabs a couple of remote cameras and then wait in her room with Gia Goodman until the man Gia says is following her pulls up in his car. Veronica zooms in on the plates, checks the registration, and it belongs to none other than Leo D'Amato,

You remember Leo, don't you? He and Veronica had a thing and then they didn't. He was last seen getting fired from the Neptune Sheriff’s department for stealing evidence. What was he doing stalking Gia Goodman? Veronica does the only honorable thing and asks Leo out on a date for a little interrogation. I wasn't sure how I felt about Leo stalking Gia, but I felt bad for him because he thought Veronica called and was interested in him and his career in private security. Instead, Gia ambushes him and asks him why he was following her, but Leo had a pretty good reason - her dad has paid private security to follow her. He's not sure what it involves some sort of threat, but he didn't really bother asking too many questions about it.

Gia isn't, as my grandfather would say, the sharpest tool in the shed, so it's no surprise that she has no clue what the threat might be, but figures that it might be related to something having to do with Keith. How would she know that? Well, that little incident that Keith was trying to cover up is all in the papers, and it looks like Woody Goodman is in full denial mode because he is basically accusing Keith of all the wrongdoing. In the article, Woody said that Keith was investigated to check leaks among his campaign staff, but they didn't know he was using alcohol to get witnesses to talk.

There's a reason that doesn't seem familiar, because, well, that's not how it went. Keith goes to Woody's office to clarify a few things, but Woody only has more excuses. Apparently, the hotel manager had a camera, which surprised Woody, but shouldn't have surprised any of us. During the "One Angry Veronica" episode when she was on the jury, we saw that there was video footage from the motel. Anyway, Woody says that there is too much riding on this incorporation vote and he didn't want to risk anything with this scandal. It's at this point that Keith has to break the bad news that he wouldn't be voting for incorporation. Keith decides to talk to his reporter friend at the Neptune Register to figure out exactly what is going on. As we suspect, Woody is trying to lay the blame on Keith. There is one person who could clear all of this up, and that is Jennifer Stansfield, the staffer in question. Unfortunately, she left the hospital AMA before being treated and is nowhere to be found.

Gia also had a few words with her dad about the security detail, basically saying that they creeped her out and she doesn't want them around. Woody assured his daughter that they were just normal pre-election precautions and that they would end soon, but when Gia returned home, she found a DVD. She brought it over to Veronica's house and the video was from Gia's brother's soccer game. Now obviously this is related to the DVD Woody got at his office, but who is sending these videos? Veronica notices on Gia's DVD there is a woman on the sidelines that is recording the game. If Gia can get the video from that woman, they might find that their stalker is in the background.

Back at school, kids are lamenting the fact that the prom has been cancelled. Wallace and Jackie, who have been closer together than the vicodin and xanax in Paula Abdul's bathroom, are trying to figure out their options. Wallace believes that he has a great idea. What if the two of them were to go to some batting cages; it's like so super casual, it's romantic. Jackie says that it's not romantic; it's just male wishful thinking, which really made me laugh. Hey, I always thought that taking a date to some sort of sporting event was fun. I guess it never occurred to me that my companion would be bored out of their minds. For that, I'm sorry.

Anyway, Veronica has the low down on an alternative celebration. She had asked Logan some questions about Duncan's love life because she wanted to narrow down whom she might have received Chlamydia from. My first guess? Probably Logan Echolls. Since the producers glossed over most of that summer, we have no clue how serious the physical relationship was, but I am willing to bet that they did enough to transmit the bacteria. Logan sort of wondered why Veronica would ask about Duncan's sex life, but the truth is that Duncan didn't talk about it very much himself.

Their little meeting did give Logan a chance to invite Veronica to Alterna-Prom. Logan and some of his friends were throwing a party in his penthouse. Isn't that just like the 09ers? Get drunk on the senior trip and ruin the prom for everybody else, then throw a private prom where the people you screwed over can't go. Veronica didn't think that it was a great idea, but Logan really wanted her to go, and even said she could invite Wallace if she wanted to.

Why the sudden change of heart with Logan? Well, he realized that Veronica is going to move on with her life after high school. It's obvious that there is something between these two. Logan has never wanted to admit that he was hurt when she went back with Duncan, and Veronica never wanted to admit that maybe she was wrong for calling it all off in the first place. I think two things could solve all this. First, they both need to be open and honest with each other, admit their mistakes, and try and treat each other like people. The other thing they need to do is go to Logan's apartment and THROW OUT THE STUPID HOODED SHIRTS. And while they're at it, they can throw out his entire argyle selection as well. It may leave Logan with only like three shirts, but it would save my sanity. Can I get a second anybody? Can we take a vote?

If you have put two and two together by now, you have probably figured out that Veronica told Wallace and Jackie about the alterna-prom, which is great news, but a few other kids overheard it. How many Neptune students can you pack in an elevator to the penthouse? I guess we were going to find out.

Although Jackie was worried that she would only have five weeks left with Wallace, things in her life are going pretty well. Yes, people have been repossessing things from her house, but for the first time in her life, she feels like she is getting closer to her father. It might suck that her father is in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound, but those are the breaks. Jackie has been visiting her father every day, and while some may consider reading your hospitalized father articles from Sports Illustrated not the ideal father-daughter bonding exercise, it really is kind of cute. You could tell that this episode was filmed before baseball season because it said that Met's manager Willie Randolph was not happy. In reality, he can't be too pissed about his team being five games up this early in the season. And yes, I have filled my "talk about the Mets" quotient for the next five years, but I just wanted to rub it in that the Mets are doing so great under the tutelage of a lifetime Yankee. Neener. Neener.

And they won their 26th championship and everybody lived happily ever after

What was I talking about? That's right. Terrence Cook. After learning that Woody was after him, Keith decided that maybe he was investigating the wrong person. He decided to visit Terrence Cook to ask him about the shooting incident. Terrence said he broke into the house because the journalism teacher was working on a story that would have exposed his gambling. He wanted to find her notes before anybody could do anything with it. Obviously, he was unsuccessful, but he swore that he was not the guy they were looking for.

Gia was able to get the video from the woman at the soccer game and just as expected, there was the person that was filming her family. He was wearing a Neptune letterman jacket, which means that it should narrow the search a little bit more. Although he wasn't on screen for long and the camera obscured his face, Veronica was able to determine that he was driving a red truck. Find that truck, and you've got your stalker.

Although Logan has tried to keep a lid on his alterna-prom, he knows that it's probably not going to be as exclusive as he wants after the stoner kid Corny asked about the big bash and said he would bring the brownies. This was funny because Corny said that the secret to his special brownies was "in the butter". Not that I would now anything about this, but if you were to make marijuana brownies, the way you get the pot in the pot brownies is to mix it in the butter you would use in the recipe. Alternatively, you could use oil. The idea is that the you heat it up and the THC gets spread out evenly, for a more mellow taste, not that I would know if that was the case or not. Once again, the writers of Veronica Mars know exactly what they are talking about, and now you can share with all of your friends what was so funny about that butter joke.

Veronica searched the registration of all of the kids at school, but none of the had a red pickup. As soon as I saw that none of the kids at school had a pickup, I immediately thought of that kid Lucky. They mentioned that he was always trying to relive his glory days in high school by buying beer, and nothing says I've outgrown my glory days than wearing your letterman jacket years after you have graduated. Originally, I thought that Lucky was involved in this episode in another way. Keith had a bunch of mug shots of the person who paid the hooker to take Cliff's briefcase a few weeks back and wanted Veronica to help out with the mailings. I saw the gross soul patch he had going on and thought it had to be Lucky, but taking a look at it, the guy in the mug shot was way too thick to be him. Later, the story got stranger. Veronica was folding the pictures and putting them into envelopes during study hall, when Logan noticed and said that he recognized that dude. It was his dad's cellmate. Hmm, it looks like Aaron Echolls was using somebody else besides Kendall to help his case along.

When Veronica went to update Gia about the truck, but to tell her she would keep searching, Gia wasn't interested. Keith Mars told the truth about what happened with Woody in the papers. Learning that the person who is supposed to be mayor of your newly incorporated town has been using campaign funds to pay for escorts isn't necessarily that surprising, but it still doesn't instill a lot of confidence in the electorate. As a result, the ballot measure was defeated.

Keith and Veronica are watching news of the ballot measure when Veronica asks him for a little help. Her father is glad to be of any assistance unless it requires that he possess knowledge of math, physics, chemistry, English, or, well, anything other than P.E. Sort of hard to think that Veronica got all her brains from her mom, and she surely didn't get her looks from her dad, so maybe we can thank him for giving her all of that spunk and sass. Veronica has a question about the Gia Goodman case, and so she pops in a DVD. Keith hears DVD, sees creepy stalking type recording, and hears that the Goodman's are involved, and right away ties it together with the other DVD Woody received. He knows that this is going to be more than a case of some obsessed school kid, so he tells Veronica that she should just stay away from the case.

Veronica decides that she will stay away from the case, but still thinks she needs to warn Gia. She sticks around after school hoping to catch Ms. Goodman leaving after she finishes writing her human interest story on the lunch lady who tap dances or whatever, but Gia wants to avoid Veronica even more. Besides, the alterna-prom is that evening and Veronica decides she might want to go. However, leaving the school, she notices the red truck. It is parked in the space labeled "maintenance", meaning it belongs to a janitor, meaning it is Lucky that was stalking Gia.

Her dad told her to stay away, so Veronica calls him first, but after fifteen minutes she decides that her taser is enough to protect her. She hears voices in the school and sees that Lucky is talking to Gia. Veronica desperately tries to get Gia's attention, but she is preoccupied with Lucky and all of the scars from combat his is showing her. When Veronica does get her attention, stupid Gia isn't very discreet, and soon Veronica is the janitor's closet with Gia, Lucky, and a huge knife. Just when you think there aren't enough psychopaths in this town, we find another one.

I don't usually freak out about television shows, but I really started to worry when Lucky pulled his knife out. Veronica is not going to die, or else there isn't much point to the show, but that doesn't mean I can't be worried about her safety. Just as I am about to wonder when Veronica is going to pull out her taser, Keith Mars comes flying through the door, and takes out Lucky. He is strapping the handcuffs on him just as Sheriff Lamb and his boys are walking in. This is unfortunate because Keith still wanted answers to why Lucky was stalking Woody. When Lamb tells Keith to stop the questioning, Keith cuffs himself to Lucky, and then throws away the key.

Whenever Lucky is on screen, I can only think Slingblade

I know that was probably enough excitement for most of you, but we still had the Alterna-Prom to deal with. Think about how Logan and Dick would envision the perfect party, and that's basically what you have. Corny was there, sans brownies, but he was wearing one of those t-shirts with a tuxedo graphic on the front that I have always wanted to buy. Mac was there and looked very cute, even though Butters looked like he had bought his tux at Zorro Outfitters. I mean seriously, did that thing say "The Gay Blade" or what? We of course had Dick, who was drinking straight from the party keg on his shoulder, although I prefer to call it a pony keg because it sounds funnier. And there was Logan, and I should have guessed that he would be the douchebag that wore the white tuxedo jacket.

So, who was the smoothest guy at the party? Well, it wasn't Dick, who seemed to have tapped out every girl in school and had worked his way back to the top of the order and was hitting on Madison Sinclair. When Veronica saw these two together, she immediately made a series of sheriff, law, and lamb jokes in front of Madison. Speaking of Madison, she tried to pull the old "trip to the dentist" trick with Gia[not Mac, thanks KiwiwKerry4eva], but Veronica intervened there as well. There was no surprise that Butters wasn't very smooth. Nobody was wowed about his space elevator talk, but you have to feel for the guy. He told Mac that he knows it is weird to be forced to the prom, especially with him, but he wanted to be true to himself. He was a weird guy and he hoped that Mac would understand because she is kind of weird as well, which was supposed to be taken as a compliment. When Butters says it that way, you almost think they would make a good couple. Unfortunately, Mac is still hung up on Cassidy, so this poor bastard has no chance.

Logan was pretty smooth. The thought of growing further apart from Veronica after graduation bothered him enough that he decided to do something about it. He sees Veronica, and she wonders why he is alone. It's his penthouse, and he can have the pick of any bimbo he wants, right? Well, Logan says he was over bimbos ever since his heart was broken. Veronica thinks he is talking about Hannah, but it's not a joke, and he's not talking about Hannah.

That revelation kind of took Veronica by surprise, but Logan wasn't done yet. He told Veronica that he had always imagined that their story would be epic. Maybe they wouldn't have a fairy tale romance where everything went right all the time, but their story would be one to remember. Personally, I have always believer in "opposites attract" rather than "birds of a feather", and while I don't agree that these two are meant for each other, whatever they have between them is going to last for a long time. As the music plays and they are staring at each other, I am just waiting for them to start kissing. Would Veronica get it on with Logan when she has Chlamydia? Just another chapter in the epic tale, I guess.

Sorry kids, maybe next year

Well, Logan and Veronica didn't kiss. They got close enough that I am sure all of you Logan and Veronica forever fans were ready to pull out your hair when Veronica left. She said she was sorry about last summer, and he said that if he could do it all over again....but then she left. Perhaps a few months ago we might have said that she still had feelings for Duncan, but I don't think that is the case. So many people Veronica has loved have hurt her, but I think she would take the chance with Logan. The problem is that her brain has always told her that she needs to get away from Neptune and become a part of the bigger world, but you can see that her heart is saying that perhaps she is right where she belongs. In any case, it was too much for her to think about and she went home.

So, the smoothest guy probably had to be, well, Wallace. He and Jackie really look made for each other. Wallace does a poor job of acting like a player, so I'm glad that he is back with one woman. For a while we thought Jackie was stringing him along, but she is as into him as he is into her. Perhaps they feel so good about each other because they are trying to salvage their time together before Jackie moves away, but I think there is something bigger there. More of modern day fairy tale than what Veronica and Logan have going for each other. These two are like peas in a pod at this point.

Jackie talked to her dad about Wallace, and like any father, he was worried that she was going to fast. Her response was that she learned about the birds and the bees the hard way, so I wonder if she was already pregnant at one point in time, or she walked in on her parents having sex. For her sanity, let's hope it's the former. Wallace went all out for the prom, and from experience I can tell it's much easier to be yourself with a girl when you know her father won't shoot you. Since Jackie's father was shot and in the hospital, it was going to be a little while before he came after Wallace for anything, not that Wallace would have anything but honorable intentions for his time with Jackie.

OK, who am I kidding. Jackie is a babe, Wallace is a hottie. When they got back from the prom, they could barely keep their hands off each other. Logan and Hannah were pretty hot a few weeks back, but Wallace and Jackie looked like they were about to film an episode of Red Shoe diaries. Bown-chicka-bown-bown. Oh yeaaahhh!

The next morning Keith sees that Veronica is up fairly early, so he makes a joke saying that it couldn't have been a good party. But what about Keith? What was he doing last night? Well, Lamb couldn't find any keys that would fit his cuffs, so Keith spent a lot of time with Lucky. It looked like Lucky was going to keep his mouth shut, but eventually, he spoke up a little bit. He said that people think of Woody as a great guy, but that's not really how he is.

Lucky was just about to tell Keith all about it when Lamb came in with the key. Good old Deputy Sachs fished for the key in the sink, and Lucky was being let go. The Mannings, who had a soft spot for the way he would quote the bible and wanted to set him up with Meg before she up and died on them. By the way, I know this wouldn't happen, but what if Meg was actually cheating on Duncan with Lucky (or he forced himself onto her)? Maybe it was Lucky's baby, but she said it was Duncan's because she knew he would be a better father. I know, it's a little too farfetched, but you know nothing is impossible with Veronica Mars.

Veronica didn't have much to say. She needed to head over to Logan's hotel room. She was able to sort out her feelings and if Logan was willing to open himself up to her, she was willing to open up a little bit more herself. When Logan answers the door, Veronica apologizes for leaving last night. She says she doesn't want to lose him from her life, but she isn't ready to start anything either. Veronica says that they should make a point of seeing each other, and take it from there.

Many of you may have been giddy at the thought of Logan and Veronica getting back together, but some of you were paying attention to Logan's eyes when Veronica told him all of this. Earlier, the two of them had been joking about not being able to read each other's expressions, and this time it was Veronica who was clueless, because Logan was giving her the "I was drunk last night and have no clue what you are talking about" face, but it's not like Veronica had to guess for much longer, because soon after, Kendall came to the door.

How many second chances does this guy deserve?

I can't totally rip Logan because I think that I can be completely lucid when I am really drunk. One of my friends told me I gave her great advice one night, and I couldn't remember the conversation because I was blacked out. When Veronica first left Logan at the party, she did so because she was wondering to herself if love she be so hard like it was between Logan and Veronica. Blame it on his childhood as much as you want, but Logan is going to have to get some professional help, and well I am so goddamned mad right now, I can barely get my thoughts together. Only way to sum up Logan? PENIS HEAD.

I don't know if Logan was being truthful about his broken heart, but I know that it's going to take a long time for Veronica to recover from that moment.

He doesn't deserve her anyway

This was another AMAZING episode. Seriously, what the hell am I going to do when this shit is over during the summer? I think that the thing with Lucky means we have been very close on our speculation with Woody Goodman. I forgot who first said linked Cassidy with Woody, but it might be spot on. Woody is obviously not over his sexual indiscretions and has been doing a lot to cover them up, but I just don't know if the writers would make it that obvious. Then there's Kendall and Aaron Echolls' cellmate, and, WOW, the scenarios put my head in a tizzy. And to top it all off, the previews for next week show Lucky with a gun, perhaps shooting or killing a student. I'm probably not going to sleep for another two weeks.

What did you think of this episode? Is this THE END for Logan and Veronica? Is the bus crash all Woody, or does Kendall have a say in this?

Posted by at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

TVgasm recently celebrated our 2000th post and I’d guess that about 1600 of them are recaps. Of those 1600, I am going to whip my balls out onto the table and state that I believe the latest episode of Prison Break is one of the most complex and difficult shows ever recapped here. Wait - why did I just pull my sack out? I hope no one saw that. I don't mean to whine or make excuses but seriously, it's like the writers took a bunch of speed before their writing session. "Shit was crazy," as they say.

And the craziest shit seems to keep happening to Lincoln Burroughs - most recently a giant truck slammed into him in order to (finally) kill him. He was thrown from the prison van and was left moaning and groaning on the side of the road. The first passerby was Paul Kellerman - though I think after last week he's now just Owen Kravecki - because he was knowledgeable of the crash plot to kill Lincoln. Like all evil bad guys, Kellerman confidently and slowly w-a-l-k-e-d 100 yards to the nearly dead inmate. And, of course, like only the best bad guys, Kellerman proceeded to give Linc a little dramatic speech about life and death and political conspiracy before doing the deed. The Joker, Dr. No, The Penguin, Goldfinger, The Green Goblin, Donald Rumsfeld...

Kellerman then proceeded to smother dear Linc with a hanky - his gun apparently forgotten that morning. However, as Kellerman was waxing poetic, another passerby arrived and leapt to Linc's assistance. Kellerman begged the Good Samaritan off as he was clearly succeeding with his hands-to-mouth resuscitation. But this guy really wanted to help and - it's Daddy Burroughs! *WHACK!* He knocked Kellerman out and rescued his beleaguered son. Anyone else think that, at this point, Lincoln was like, "Let me die for f**k's sake?"

A few miles away at Fox River Prison, Sucre was free from the SHU and the escapers all rejoiced. "We can all sign each other's yearbooks later," quipped T-Bag. The writers are really messing with us now, making us laugh along with the evil Bagger. Michael now had the missing map and all he needed now was one key to a door up in the infirmary - once secured, the escape was a "Go!"

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," breathed a stunned Westmoreland. Nah, just Jesus apparently, as it was Abruzzi - resurrected after 3 days from the dead! His would-be murderer, T-Bag, wasn't exactly happy about the Messiah's return and immediately set out to get himself a murder weapon. Make that a re-murder weapon.

Michael immediately glommed onto his mafia buddy and was a bit taken aback by his apparent Born Again Christian status. Abruzzi, always a close-talker, had stepped it up and was now a hugger. Um, like, Eww, okay? At least he didn't make Michael touch his neck scar. (Anyone else ever see the other movie called "Crash" with James Spader and Holly Hunter? Don't.)

Anyway, Abruzzi assured Michael that the plane would be in place for the escape, everyone was dead in the van crash but Lincoln, and oh - Lincoln had disappeared with his father to a nearby junkyard. Bellick, for some odd reason, was taking personal responsibility for what was for all intents and purposes an accident and convinced Warden Pope to keep the story away from the media for the time being. Why? I didn't get that.

A quick check in on the storyline I don't like, Nick and Veronica were busy going through Quinn's phone records still. Michael has been diagnosed schizophrenic, treated and released and Sucre has been caught outside his cell, punished and released, all in the time that these two lawyers have sifted through a couple pages of phone numbers. Yet another example of lawyers being lawyers; getting paid by the hour. Pricks.

Back out to the rural crash scene, Bellick was on point to reign in any leaks. The one obvious "leak" was the guy who arrived first on-scene and could ID the getaway car. That's right, PaulOwen KellermanKravecki. Kellerman explained his presence by saying he was on a business trip out to Aurora (Schwing!) and didn't want to be bothered with all this policey stuff. Bellick demanded to know Kellerman's name, which he gave as Roy Huggins.

Need another reminder why you read TVgasm? Here you are: On a hunch, I just Googled "Roy Huggins." Pretty freaking cool, huh? Touché, "Break" writers, touché. And to think, I ended last week's recap with, "I'll save my "Search every farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse" references for next week, which looks particularly exciting. "

PaulOwenRoy KellermanKraveckiHuggins was inexplicably allowed to walk away from the scene and leave. Oh that Bellick - Mr. Thorough. Of course Kellerman had a police scanner sitting on his passenger seat in full view, which he turned on with an evil grin and awaited information on his elusive quarry.

Romantic Interlude # 1: Michael was up with Dr. Tancredi and after he was able to determine which key was necessary to open the door he needed to open, sat down and awaited the good doctor... To play doctor. [Cue porn soundtrack] Out of nowhere (lots of that this episode), Michael made his move and planted one firmly on Tancredi's lips. Not some weak little smooch either - a real full kiss. "I need you to do something for me, Sarah." [End porn soundtrack] Goddamnit, you see how we hot tall dark and handsome men are - there's always a catch with us. He pleaded for her to "wait for him" but she said no, you're a convicted felon and all that, blah blah blah. Dude, just go straight for The Shocker, enough talk! You're in prison!

Romantic Interlude # 2: Tweener went back "home" to his cell with the ginormous rapist Avocado, who demanded to be addressed as, "Mr. Balls Johnson." Damn, that's not a good sign. [Cue gay porn soundtrack], The "privacy sheet" was lowered and *gulp* it was time to get gulping for the young prison bitch. [End gay porn soundtrack] Poor Tweener. Later, out in the yard, with Avocado lounging languidly and looking on, Tweener solicited help from Michael. Michael needed Tweener to use his skills to swipe the key from Tancredi and Tweener needed Avocado dead. [Cue Lifetime music] Tweener than blathered on about why he was in the pokey getting poked in the first place, wah, wah, waaaaah.

[Cue X-Files music] In the junkyard, hidden from plain view, Lincoln was undergoing his rapid healing process. God, there's like, 5 Highlanders on this show - Abruzzi, Michael, Nick, Kellerman, and now Lincoln. Daddy Burroughs rattled off the whole deal to Linc. Something about how he would make Lincoln disappear to protect him from "them" because he used to work for "them." "They" are a multinational firm called, "The Company" and they control everything - from who gets appointed judges, to what wars to fight, to what laws get passed, on and on and on. Since Pops Burroughs left "The Company," with all their nefarious secrets, they were out to shut him up by executing this convoluted conspiracy against poor, pitiful Lincoln. I suppose just bumping off Daddy would have been too easy - instead they've now killed like 7 innocent people and ruined many more lives. Typical bureaucracy, I suppose.

Oh hey, look; Veronica deduced that a bunch of calls from around the world were going to the 406 area code, in remote Blackfoot, Montana. Good work, Veronica and Nick - meanwhile phones have become obsolete as we all now communicate via telekinesis. Sheesh. We were then whisked off to Blackfoot where a decidedly creepy Terrance Steadman talked with his sister the US Vice President - and he was pissed. Pissed about the whole "crapstorm" this Lincoln Burroughs thing had become. He even offered his surprise that The Company hadn't killed off the VP yet. Montana is boring, what's going on in the prison?

Abruzzi was milling about and approached T-Bag with a truce offering. Of course, T was worried about retaliation, but Abruzzi's transformation to "Good Christian" seemed genuine so he extended his weaponless hand. T-Bag did the same and the two were now fast friends. Huzzah! Pope was yelling at Bellick for failing to turn up Burroughs, but Bellick was able to buy a little more time. And for the third little storyline going on concurrently at the prison, I think my handwritten note from the show says it best: "Av [Avocado] gets about raping, move to upper bunk, Tw [Tweener] slices dick off." Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

Earlier, Michael had called his wife, Nika, to ask her for some more help. She initially refused, even though he got her her green card, but apparently reconsidered. Nika approached Dr. Tancredi in the parking lot and convinced her to grab some coffee. If my Roy Huggins bombshell didn't float your boat, maybe this will. Think Nika is hot? Wanna give her a call? Go ahead - Michael's tattoo said the number was 312-909-3529. I'm not kidding... You can look at this picture when calling. (And why not email LJ while you're at it? LJ@ign.com)

In the coffee shop, Nika spilled the beans about her sham marriage and how Michael had saved her from sexual slavery or whatever. Dr. Tancredi was getting a bit teary eyed as she stared at the stripper. [Cue porno soundtrack] Oh how I wish. Nika jumped up, bumped into Tancredi, and ran out the door - apparently she had had enough.

Lincoln apparently hadn't (had enough), as his proud papa was still droning on about this crazy conspiracy. Steadman's company, Ecofield, was going to do something The Company didn't like so they faked his death for some reason and he now lives toothlessly in Blackfoot, Montana. Daddy explained how they "have a cause" that indeed is saving millions of lives and that even sparing his own son to execution was somehow worth it. Listen, I'm a smart guy and I love this show. But even I didn't get all that and I'm not afraid to admit it. The dad even knows about the tragedy of Michael, LJ, and LJ's mom (among others). And only NOW is he trying to "Make it right." Well, he better hurry up because the junkyard owner spotted them and alerted the cops!

Breathe deeply, cause it's gonna go fast from here on out.

C-Note stopped T-Bag from killing Abruzzi. End scene. Dr. Tancredi can't find her keys. End scene. Nika visits Michael, gives him the stolen keys, and leaves. End scene. The cops descended on the junkyard and chased after Dad Burroughs and Lincoln who was now running like Marty Feldman's Igor (EE-gor!) behind Gene Wilder's Dr. Frankenstein (Frahnk-ensteen). Kellerman had spotted Linc and trained his gun on his head. With no escape and Bellick getting near, Lincoln gave up finally and was wrapped up by the guard, who let the father AND Kellerman escape into the ether of the junkyard somehow.

Breathe again, because it didn't stop there.

Michael made his plastic replica key while Sucre alerted him to Tweener's Lorena Bobbitt impression. (By the way, if you want to throw up, check out "John Wayne Bobbitt" on Wikipedia. I refuse to link it here... For the children. Everything I do is for the children.) Tancredi then put two and two together and realized that Nika, Michael's wife, had stolen her keys. Abruzzi cornered Michael and begged to know where Fibonacci was again - to "atone" for his past sins and make things right. Michael, however, isn't retarded and refused to help Abruzzi out. Want more random Abruzzi info?

Okay, how about how he called Nick of Nick and Veronica fame and told him that he was "officially on standby now and to have it there. Have that bitch there ready and waiting." Say what? How the... Who the... What the... Huh?

Michael, in a fit of compassion for Tweener, told him about the escape plan. I take back that part about him not being retarded. (I know, I know, I'm sure it'll make sense next week.) Michael then made his way up to Tancredi again only to find a locksmith changing the door lock - the one he'd worked so hard to get the key for. Tancredi knew Michael had the key and coldly stared him down while telling the locksmith to continue the work - even though she now had her keys back. Michael tried one last weak flirtation but she wasn't having it anymore. Hey, what about yesterday?! Prison love is so fleeting.

(Almost there! Read the following in a staccato voice.)

Pope was pissed at Lincoln, who had suffered the same injury to his face that Michael had on his shoulder blade, apparently. Pope declared Linc be put in solitary under 24-hour guard until his death. Tweener ran straight to Bellick and told him about the escape plan! Bellick summarily ran to the guardroom and smashed through the brittle floor, which exposed the escape tunnel! Aaahaahahahahhh.

[Cue The Doors music*]

"Break on Through" OR "The End," take your pick.

Posted by at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

The Blackberry WoodPro 5000, as seen on Survivor

After seeing Shane tinker with his brand new wooden Blackberry on Survivor last night, we decided that we wanted one too; so we called up Blackberry and asked if we could maybe work something out. Well, not only did Blackberry send us our very own wooden model, but they gave us a tour of the factory. It was a dream come true.

Exclusive photos after the jump!

Update: We've decided to auction away our wooden Blackberry on eBay. Check it out here!

We were so excited to get our new Blackberry. Check out the user interface.

That's our friend, Ferbs. He couldn't believe how easy it was to use the wooden Blackberry.

Our first email...

Checkmark! Success!

Hey, don't waste power! Turn it off when you're done!

The phone reception is crystal clear.

You can't see it, but I'm smiling!

(We're talking to Shane)

Look! My inbox is already filling up!

So J-Unit and I then went on a tour of the Blackberry factory. Let's just say that our minds were blown. Not only did Blackberries come in wood, but also stone!

Can you believe it? They had a whole basket of Blackberries just sitting around!

And look at these Blackberries. They just toss 'em in a pile. Amazing!

Blackberry heaven!

What a great day!

This is what they make Blackberries from.

OMG! They come in brick too!!

So many Blackberries...

More raw materials. They better not show us too much. We might make our own! (Just kidding, Blackberry!)

The wave of the future: Blackberry Minis.

J-Unit has a Blackberrygasm.

Oops! Looks like those Blackberry Minis left a mark!

These Blackberries are ready to ship! Get ready, America!

Seriously, at this factory, there were Blackberries everywhere. This one was just lying on the ground.

J-Unit tries to steal his own Blackberry.

In the gift shop, they had a stack of oversized novelty Blackberries. It was awesome. Thanks for the great day, Blackberry. And Shane -- keep in touch!

Posted by at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)

The last time we saw our favorite seven people we don't care about, they were preparing for their very own 10 minute talk shows. VH1 made us wait a WHOLE WEEK to see the finalized efforts of the Surreal Life gang. I don't know about you, but I had a rough time sleeping leading up to this week's show.

(And to think... I made YOU wait almost another whole week to read the recap. And yet, my inbox ain't exactly full of complaints.)

Would Maven and Steve pull their show off with no preparation?! Would CC overcome his nerves and be able to avoid alcohol before his "show?!" Would Sherman Hemsley stay awake long enough to get through his 10 minutes?! Would Tawny Kitaen bitchslap the kindly elder Carol Brady for no apparent reason?! If a tree fell on the Surreal Life house and killed all these people, would it make a noise in the media?

The first "show" was the joint effort of Maven "UFC" Huffman and Steve "Smashmouth" Harwell. Florence Henderson, apparently not hip enough to be down with Oscar Award winning Three 6 Mafia's, "Poppin My Collar," prepped Maven by poppin' down his collar. She then proceeded to put dust on his shoulder. The two of them took the stage and went through a little warm-up routine that included Steve calling Maven, "Mr. Mocha" and asking the audience who was single. Upon receiving no crowd reaction, Steve suggested they all masturbate. Oh yeah, we were off to a good start.

Their guest was Jeff Lee the animal trainer. Wackiness ensued when his binturong started climbing around the set. (A binturong is a bearcat. Or something. According to George Jefferson offstage, "That ain't a bear. A bearcat? It stink." Then he ate a donut and fell asleep (George, not the animal.) Ok, wow, that was exciting, who was up next?

Why it was none other than George Jefferson himself with his oddly titled, "Welcome to the Future" show. Remember he tried to corner his former "Jeffersons" foil Marla Gibbs but she had better things to do - like, oh I don't know, clean windows? (See, kids, she was the maid on that old show.) In lieu of Marla, George trotted out some guy with a giant mustache. Um. Okay. (If I sound bitter towards Mustache Man, it's because he was wearing a Dallass Cowboy jersey. I have standards.)

This is what a real audience for fake talk shows on a bad reality show looks like
Actually, before the mustache man appeared, George again danced around like a fool and sang some unintelligible "song" as his monologue - imagine what we "Surreal Life" viewers didn't get to see! Upon introducing the giant mustache guy, George lied, "Looks good brotherman" and then... What the?!

Marla Gibbs appeared! That is, Marla Gibbs and some completely random woman who trailed behind her. She took the stage and the crowd went wild! Amazingly, George suddenly sprung to life and became totally coherent in his insulting of the "Florence the Maid." It was an amazing thing to watch - kinda like idiot savants who sit around staring motionless all day long and then -BAM- put them in front of a piano and they go wild. Hmmm, I think I'm on to something here.

Marla and Mr. Jefferson did a cute little routine and off she went, with random attendant in tow. So the question remains - who was that woman (she appeared later, still silent at Marla's side, in the "backstage" scenes). Was she a) a nurse of some sort there to aid the aging Ms. Gibbs, b) a Make-A-Wish Foundation "winner" who simply never passed away and submitted her wish in 1975, or c) a stealth bodyguard there to protect Marla from the creepy giant mustache guy, ostensibly the only mustachioed guy who doesn't offer "Free mustache rides." I must know.

Next up was fair Andrea Lowell and her show, "TMI." Andrea has talk show experience on the Playboy Channel, so this would be a snap for her. Or more aptly, an "un"snap for her! (*Rimshot*) The audience was mostly women, so Andrea was upset that they would undoubtedly judge her negatively - especially when her guest was porn "star" Bridget the Midget. (Why are all porn actors dubbed "stars?")

Bridget waddled out to the set and climbed up onto the bed to talk. Bridget is hopelessly homely and, well, she's a freaking dwarf for Christ's sake. I can't imagine watching her in a porno but Andrea assured us that George Jefferson himself claims that "every man's fantasy" is to be with a midget. Oh how I wish that tidbit was captured on videotape.

Anyway, Bridget explained how she broke into porn - no, not "My dad left us and my mom was a junkie," but rather, "I was on a set once and they wanted someone to do something really gross with an egg and sticking it up..." We were left to our imaginations after that. Oddly, I found myself thinking it was odd that Bridget was a fertility surgeon in the past. Huh, who knew? Then Bridget whipped out her midget boobs to a disapproving crowd. And gee, since she looked like a fat 4th grade boy covered in Bazooka Joe tattoos getting ready to go for a dip, I can't imagine why.

CC was up next and was feeling nauseous. Of course, so was I after Bridget’s little display (pun intended) but CC was sickened for different reasons. He was terribly nervous about his show and "needed a drink." Surprisingly, desperate Surreal Life producers didn't toss him a bottle of JD, and before he knew it, he was on stage. He took the stage like a pro and seemed like a natural.

His guest was some really old guy who is in shape. I'm not sure why that's interesting, but apparently it is as the crowd went wild for Jonny Jay Holliday. Backstage, Alexis Arquette asked, "Whoa! You're allowed to show scrotum on television? Oh, that's his face!" Zing! If he came up with that all by himself, I'll call him a she from here on out. The old guy put on an impressive display of pull-ups and CC survived. I chuckled to myself thinking, "Ha, if you think that's tough, try watching the whole season of "The Surreal Life."

Alexis was up next with his show. George Jefferson had to explain the mess to Marla Gibbs and Random Woman; "David Arquette? That's his brother or sister or whatever." I'll go with "Whatever." Less identifiable was his guest, "Pepe the King Prawn." Note the irony here: Alexis is on the show because he is from a famous Hollywood family and yet, his guest is a sock. An unfunny sock at that. Maybe Pepe has a following somewhere, but I'm not aware of it. I'm sure they're the same people who are still trying to convince my that Spongebob is worth my while.

Alexis solicited audience questions for the prawn to respond to and sadly, got none. He chalked this, of course, up to the audience's homophobia and discomfort with a transwhatever. Sigh... Dude you had a puppet as a guest your jokes were again all based on your transwhateverality and sex. Here's a hint: stop focusing on your unique sexuality and start having normal conversations. It's pretty simple, really. But at least Alexis's show wouldn't be the worst mess of the night - Tawny was still to come!

Yes, Tawny Kitaen and her, "Throwin' it Down with Tawny" nonsense. She was revved up and determined to "bring down" the lovely lady who brought up three very lovely girls. For shame, Tawny, for shame. Before she got to her insane personal vendetta, she warmed the crowd up with her monologue. Last week, I wrote out her strange, racist, unfunny joke about Asian drivers and sports. I called out the writer who I thought had written that terrible joke for her. Well, I can vouch that the "joke" in question was straight from the addled brain of Ms. Kitaen. The only question then was whether or not she'd actually use it...

She did. It went over like a racist unfunny joke should. VH1 helped out by editing in a disappointed looking Asian man in the audience - thanks! She followed that "joke" with another about her arrest for beating up her second husband - spousal abuse is always funny, dontcha know. She was apparently offended that the news reports stated she beat Chuck Finley with a "$70 pair of 'hooker shoes.' I assure you, if I really did that, it would be with a $700 pair of Manolo Blahniks!" I blow my nose funnier than Tawny's standup.

This "joke" led into a bust on Florence Henderson, stating that her entire shoe collection was worth less than $60. Way to endear yourself to the crowd, Tawny. Backstage Alexis gasped, "Oh, it's about to get SAVAGE!" Oh, dear Alexis, how I wish this whole show was SAVAGE!" Imagine if we had SAVAGE wreaking his SAVAGE Hershey-squirting skidmarked SAVAGERY in the house all the time!? Sigh.

Tawny began her "gotcha" interview by unwittingly embarrassing herself by saying, "Flo, I've read your biography and I gotta be honest with you... The 'DaVinci Code' was thinner and easier to read!" In other words, Dan Brown is Tawny's Dostoevsky. But even worse was Tawny's random snipe that Flo's mother was a liar for no reason. And Wilmer Valderrama wasn't even there.

The housemates were stunned at the accusation and the studio audience was incredulous. How DARE anyone impugn dear, aging Carol Brady! The silence quickly turned to boisterous boos when Tawny said that Flo, "Could be a royal pain in the ass" and, "Pushy." Tawny went on to dredge up the rumor about Flo dating Greg Brady on-set which the grand dame deflected with aplomb. In fact, Mrs. Brady was a champ through the whole ridiculous ordeal and it thankfully ended quickly enough.

Once offstage, the other cast mates castigated Tawny. When Steve politely suggested that the interview was a bit harsh, he was deemed a, "Mrs. Brady Lover." On what planet is that an insult? Who doesn't love Mrs. Brady? Cripes, she made the mullet hot and let her eldest daughter wear micro miniskirts. I'll go on record - I'm a "Mrs. Brady Lover." Even at 72 years old, I'd still be happy to play ball in her house, ifyouknowwhatI'msayin.'

CC consoled Flo by putting his arm around her and saying, "I'm sure you've been called a lot worse by a lot better people." Flo countered, "I've NEVER been called a lot worse, no. Never." Wow, 72 years, many of them spent in the evil den of Hollywood, and Mrs. Brady had never been upbraided worse in her life than on "The Surreal Life" by a cracked out has-been named Tawny Kitaen. This is history in the making, folks!

The biggest laugh of the show came when Tawny defended herself saying, "I'm a hard-hitting journalist!" You see goddamnit, this is what Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity hath wrought - every Tom, Dick, and Tawny thinks they are now a "journalist" simply by being an asshole. Hell, by that logic, I've been a "journalist" since 2nd grade. Then things got weird. Not quite Chyna Doll Surreal Life 4 weird, but weird enough.

Tawny became overwhelmed by the animosity towards her after her snow job. She feigned illness and looked for sympathy from those who had condemned her. No dice sister - everyone knew she was full of crap and they weren't afraid to tell her. She'd go between bouts of, "Oww, my stomach hurts," to full-on feeding frenzies. As viewers, we can only hope this behavior is leading up to - FINALLY - an explosive moment. Especially since the show ended with Tawny stuffing her face with a handful (literally) of various pills. Sleep tight, biatch, and please - for the love of god - go crazier tomorrow!

Addendum: CC "won" the audience vote and will host the final episode of "The Surreal Life" this year. And while we're at it, the Zip Code in Bentonville, IN is 47322 and Spruce Knob is the highest point in West Virginia. I figure those three facts are equally important to you all.

Posted by at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

Survivor, 4/28/06, CBS
Click to play (Quicktime 7 Required)

And now a little crazy for your weekend. The clip explains itself...

Posted by at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Because one can never have enough rivalries at any time, 50 Cent has picked another fight, and this time, he's chosen a large target: Oprah. In an interview with the Associated Press, 50 makes such scalding accusations as "I think she caters to older white women" and "Oprah's audience is my audience's parents." Yes, BOMBSHELL REVELATIONS!

But in the end, 50 says it's fine that he and Oprah aren't the best of buds. "I'm actually better off having friction with her," he says, and let's face it: the best way for any rapper to gain street cred is by drawing Oprah's ire. Well, done 50! In other news, 50 Cent plans to start feuds with Marissa Tomei, Marc Summers, and that old lady he met at the bake sale. 50 don't like snickerdoodles, BITCH!

For more, check out the article here.

Posted by at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Remember that show Dr. 90210 that no one was watching about a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon/aspiring actor/model who umm.. I’m not really sure what it was about other than an arrogant guy with a god complex kickboxing while his pregger wife shopped. No? Well don't tel Carl's Jr advertising executives that, as they have oh so cleverly used him in their current campaign for chicken breast sandwiches... you can already see where this brilliance is heading.

Thanks to TVgasm reader Zack for catching this... or maybe I should say the blame is on TVgasm reader Zack for catching this.

Get it? Breast and breast? Oh so clever and original—not anything like the Hooters joke, which is in its 20th year of laughter.

Posted by madeyoulaugh at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

If the FCC should fine anything, it should be these flagrant eye-olations of good taste and family standards.

Which one is banging you harder right now?

Inpsired by current TVgasm live chat.....if you're not in it, you're really missing out.

Posted by madeyoulaugh at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Just wanted to give a little reminder to everybody that we will be having a livechat today at 2PM EST, 11 AM PST. I think a bunch of the writers will be joining us, so it should be a lot of fun. I haven't used the software much, so we'll see how things go, but we hope to see you there. Click here to enter the chat room. Use any username, and no password is required at this time. I tried to turn off the sounds, but if they still annoy you, you can make changes using the options. Although there are three rooms, we'll all be in the "TVgasm Lounge". Hope you can make it!

Posted by at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

WOW. Another excellent episode of Survivor. Coming off last week's wonderful tour de force, these back to back shows have been some of the best in ages. So why am I so excited? Because for weeks, seasons even, I've been imploring people on Survivor to scheme. Not just make deals, not just lurk in the background, but actually scheme -- play two sides against each other. We haven't seen much of it honestly since Amazon and Rob Cesternino, but finally, FINALLY a master schemer emerged tonight and possibly turned the game on its head -- or enough on its head where the ramifications will certainly be felt down the line. I couldn't have been more thrilled. I loved the scheme. I loved the result. I loved everything. Oh, and there was more classic Shane craziness to boot. Excellent.

The hour started off on a rather mundane note: the Gitanos tribe was hungry, and they were running out of food. Fishing was proving to be an exercise in futility (thanks again for losing that spear, Sally), and with morale low, it seemed like the castaways might be stuck on a steady diet of rice and beans until the end of the game. Of course, hunger is the perfect catalyst for all sorts of shifty behavior on Survivor, and Terry was ready to capitalize on that. Or I should say, Terry was ready to TRY to capitalize on that. Again. Yes, Terry's attempts at scheming have all been major failures, but he was still ready to try again. "It's really imperative to try to make some allies," he told us. Hey, why start now?

Elsewhere on the tribe, Shane was walking around with the sort of expression that seemed to say, "I'm about to go real crazy on y'all in about two seconds." Sure enough, his mental state was in total decay, and when Cirie said, "Uh oh. Shane's going on his thinking rock with his Blackberry," I knew we'd be in for a treat.

Yes, Shane had gone from "We call him crazy, but deep down, we know he's not really crazy" to "Okay, he needs to be committed." Apparently he had found a small piece of wood that had reminded him of his own cuddly PDA back at home. "I was like 'Wow! Blackberry!' It reminded me of my Blackberry!" Except it's a piece of WOOD. You know, when most people project images onto inanimate objects, it's usually something supernatural or highly religious: the Virgin Mary, Jesus, a ghost, a lost relative. With Shane, it's a freakin' Blackberry. I'm surprised he didn't pick up a rock and say, "Oh my god!! This is just like my optical mouse!!! And this branch: it reminds me of the padlock I use at the gym. The memories!"

Anyway, after discovering this divine piece of wood, Shane said, "So, I grabbed it, and I've just been playing with it." Yes, he's been playing with his giant wood chip. Pretending it was a real Blackberry. Really makes you respect the sophistication of Wilson the Volleyball.

Courtney, meanwhile, looked at Shane's "Blackberry" and said, "Cute." Wow, when even Courtney is politely humoring you, you know you've really gone off the deep end. Nevertheless, Shane was totally won over by his Blackberry. "It's got texting, email, phone, web browser. It's got everything." Yes, except again it's a PIECE OF WOOD!

Oh, but it gets better. Shane then informed us that he wasn't just playing with the "Blackberry," he was actually using it too. "I'm communicating with people not on this island!" he happily revealed. No, you're communicating with people not in reality. Still, he was totally convinced that his wood chip was the real deal, and we even witnessed him "sending" an email. "Check mark. All good!" he proudly announced. Seriously. He's lost it.

"He's nuts," Danielle said. Yeah, what she said.

Shane and his limited edition, all wood Blackberry.

Later, after we had ogled Shane's deteriorating mental state long enough, we went to the Reward Challenge which was your garden variety obstacle course with a twist. The tribe would be split into two teams of three, with each grouping being attached to a rope that would run the length of the obstacle course. The teams would have to navigate down the rope, and at the final platform, they'd unclip and race across a "lily pad run." Sounds dainty, yes? Kind of like some game that children play during afternoon tea in London. "Mummy, can we go on our lily pad run now?" "Yes, but only after you've finished your scone, love." Sorry, tangent.

Anyway, after the lily pad run, players then had to dive into the water, get a bag from a chest, and then go all the way back to the beach via the same obstacle course all over again. The winners would get a barbecue at a private island (Exile Island, perhaps?), and the losers? Well, they'd just be stuck with nothing.

With that said, Jeff split the teams randomly into Terry, Danielle, and Courtney vs. Cirie, Aras, and Shane. The challenge began, and from the getgo, Cirie's team was already having problems. Okay, basically it was just Cirie. Let's put it this way: she's not the best physical prototype for this kind of a game. She struggled with the very first obstacle, forcing Aras and Shane to lift her up and literally fling her over a small hurdle. And let me tell you something, you haven't seen flinging until you've seen Cirie gettin' flung.

Later, the guys had to essentially roll Cirie onto a platform, and then moments later, all three wound up all tangled in their ropes, ultimately putting the kibotch on any hopes of staying in the competition. The other team, however, was doing just fine. They were already at the lily pad run ("'Allo, Mum!" Sorry, I'll have to make a British sound every time I say "Lily pad run") and quickly pulling away from their competition. Eh, tangle or no tangle, Cirie's team would still be behind. Honestly, I love Cirie but can you seriously imagine her doing the lily pad run ("Guv'nah!")?

If there's one person who doesn't like to see a blowout, it's Probst, and he immediately adopted his asshole gym teacher persona as he browbeat Cirie's team. "You need to get movin'! You are taking too much time!" Jeff yelled. Oh, simmer down. Take a second to enjoy the finer things in life: like Cirie's breastsesses floating in the water like two conjoined buoys.

Nevertheless, this Reward Challenge quickly became quite silly, seeing how Cirie's team was hardly even trying to untangle itself anymore. Jeff definitely was not happy as he yelled, "Get your asses out of that water! Let's go!!" Gosh, relax! I'd hate to see him at a Little League game. He'd totally be that parent who stands in the bleachers and yells at the ump. Phil Keoghan, on the other hand, he'd be great at Little League games. But you know he'd have his kids taking art classes instead; so it wouldn't even be an issue.

Well, no surprise here. Despite a last minute scramble by Shane to grab one of the submerged bags, Terry, Danielle, and Courtney easily won this challenge. Oh, and they got to send someone to Exile Island. Sorry, Aras. That person would be you. And with that, the three losers retreated back to their depressing lives while the winners braced for a wonderful BBQ.

But first! We weren't done with the Reward Challenge just yet. Probst revealed to the winners that the three of them would now be duking it out for... (in my Rod Roddy voice) A NEW CAR! Ah yes, that most beloved and most reviled or rewards. According to Survivor legend, whoever wins the car never wins the big jackpot. But still, who can deny a new car? Especially a big, roomy one like the GMC Yukon that was up for grabs this time around. Well, for this part of the challenge, Danielle, Courtney, and Terry had to aim sling shots at tiles. The first to break a set of three would win the car. I'll spare the details of this event, which seemed rather quaint following that whole big, elaborate obstacle course. This whole challenge was just a lot of sling shot action with occasional glimpses of Danielle's armpit hair thrown in for variety. At one point, Courtney and Terry were tied with only one tile left each, but guess who won? That's right. Terry. Gosh, I'm sick of him winning things. But on the other side, if the curse keeps up, this means that he'll lose the big prize, and that would be awesome. (Oddly enough, I just went to the CBS website, and Terry is the most popular with viewers by crazy amounts. Why, people? Why?)

Anyway, we cut to commercial, and when we returned, we found Aras doing yoga on Exile Island. It was cool, but nothing compared to Bruce's awesome ka-rah-tay exercises. Those were the bestest. Aras then babbled a little bit about why Exile Island sort of sucked now, but since we didn't really care, we just headed back to the reward victors and their wonderful afternoon. "We were airplaned off to a far island," Terry told us. I never knew "airplane" could be used as a verb, but hey, learn something new (and incorrect) every day.

Well, Terry, Danielle, and Courtney flew to some other island, and as they landed in a lush, verdant meadow, Courtney exclaimed, "Oh, it's gorgeous!" I assumed she was talking about her surroundings, but no, she was talking about the GMC Yukon. Gotta love the blatant shilling. I'm surprised Courtney didn't then tell us, "Seeing that powerful vehicle sitting there in the field made me realize how no one's life can ever be complete without a sensible and reliable GMC Yukon."

Of course, Terry lurved his new car. "It was righteous, man!" he cooed. Totally gnarly! (Hey, at least he didn't say "bling bling.")

Once the Yukon love-fest had run its course, the three started up their BBQ and had a delightful time. However, it wouldn't be a reward without a little scheming, and so Terry chatted up Courtney to get an idea of what she wanted to do for the final three. "I would do anything to get us to the final three," Terry told her, playing up this new bond that he supposedly had with her and Danielle. Ever the impressionable girl, Courtney said she was ALL for it. Apparently she'd had her eye on Terry for quite a while. He was the only one she had a chance at beating, she felt. Now, with an alliance forming, Courtney revealed that she wanted to vote off Aras and then Shane next. For once, it seemed like Terry was actually accomplishing something with his terrible scheming. Mazel-Tov.

The two then presented the idea of going final three to Danielle, and at first she seemed to go along with it, but she was suspicious of Terry. Obviously he'd want to align with all the girls because he could beat them all in challenges. And so Danielle agreed to the Terry/Courtney plan but warned us, "I'm not going to make this so easy for him to win." i.e. -- she wasn't going to settle for third place.

Back at camp, other schemes were brewing. Cirie told us that she wanted to get rid of Courtney because in her eyes, she was a very dangerous player. Lots of people would want to go against her in the final two, including Cirie's sometimes ally Shane. If Cirie wanted to do any better than third place, she'd need to knock out her biggest competition. And as we saw way back in the first episode, Cirie certainly knows how to take out the top dog, especially if she's a bit nutty (bye, Tina!).

Anyway, enough scheming. Time for food. Cirie announced that was gonna go fishing. "How hard can it be?" she asked us. Well, apparently VERY HARD. It seemed like this whole fishing adventure was destined for failure right from the start. Cirie didn't even have the heart to kill a snail with a rock, but after a few screams and screeches, she bashed the escargot and turned it into a juicy bit of fish bait. Then the miracle happened. She actually caught something. And she caught something that wasn't a puffer fish. This then led to general euphoria as Cirie squealed with delight, occasionally letting out a yelp of fear whenever the fish twitched on the line. She may have been psyched about catching a big fish, but Cirie certainly wasn't going to touch it. Remember, this is the woman who once professed to a fear of LEAVES. And so she brought her bounty back to camp, dragging it behind her in the sand, lest it come anywhere near her person.

Shane was super excited about this catch, especially since it was apparently his birthday. What a wonderful gift. I'm surprised he didn't text the good news to his son. You know, with that sweet Blackberry that he found. Actually, I was more surprised that Shane didn't then enter into a conversation with the dead fish. You'd think at this point he'd be talking to anything with a mouth, and that includes smiley faces drawn in the sand.

Not long after, the three reward winners came back to camp, and I know Cirie was excited to show off her fish, but I hope to hell that she didn't share that thing. If those guys ate any of it, that would be totally obnoxious. We never found out what the fate of that fish was because we then got right back into the scheming. Danielle pressed Terry about the final three, asking him if he'd take her to the final two. Unfortunately, the former Navy man couldn't commit to anything, and his general hesitation sent red flags up in Danielle's head. She did not want to go home third. That wasn't good enough for her. And bravo to her for realizing this. I get so sick of people who blindly float along with alliances and then act shocked when they're out fourth. It's about anticipation, people.

Sensing that Danielle was not happy, Terry then came up with a silly arrangement whereas whoever came in first and second in the final immunity challenge would then go to the final two. It seemed like a fair-and-square, let's-all-hold-hands sort of plan, but Courtney was not for it. You see, she was banking on Terry taking her to the final two. If she now had to work for that top spot, it would totally harsh her buzz, man! But Danielle insisted that it would be better to work for the top two because it's not really fair if someone just gets carried to the top. WELL. Courtney did not like the insinuation that she was worthless, and soon mild bickering broke out. Ladies, ladies, ladies. Don't you see what's happening? Terry's playing you like a fiddle! This was the time when Courtney, Danielle, and Cirie should have joined forces and simply cut Terry out of the equation (assuming he lost immunity at some point).

Well, Cirie had a better idea. She overheard the whole spat and realized that Terry was angling to take Courtney to the final two, thus reinforcing her fear that Courtney was a dangerous player to have around. Screw an all women final three. Cirie needed to get rid of Courtney now, and her best move would be to play up Danielle's paranoia of being stuck in third place. This was very high level scheming. We here at the TVgasm offices were more than impressed.

"You can't let [Terry] dictate what y'all should do," Cirie told Danielle. She then told her that Terry had fed her a line -- he was totally going to screw her over and take Courtney to the finals, despite the outcome of the immunity challenge. Oooh. Well played, Cirie. This totally took Danielle aback, and we could tell this game was about to get a whole lot trickier very soon. Me? I felt like a McDonald's commercial: I'm lovin' it!

We then headed out to the Immunity Challenge, which was another painful endurance test. This time, the survivors had to kneel at the end of a long plank and hold onto a rope in each hand. Attached to the ropes were weights -- 20% of each player's body weight, to be specific. The survivors had to hold on for as long as possible. If they were to let go, their platform would buckle, they'd topple into some water, and they'd be eliminated from the game. Oh, and every fifteen minutes, more weight would be added to the ropes. Doesn't sound painful at all!

I had to admit. I was a little miffed at CBS. All week long, they'd been showing promos that showed Terry buckling into the water. Clearly he wasn't going to win. It seemed like quite the poor form. Nevertheless, we then sat and watched these poor souls strain their arms and burn their palms as they held on for dear life. It should be noted that this was not the best challenge for Danielle's underarms. Her pit hair was proudly on display, and man, was it out of control. Probably could have used a nice pixelation for this scene.

Sorry, I had to post a photo.

Anyway, Shane was the first to let go, thus setting off a Rube Goldberg chain of events culminating with his unceremonious ejection into the water. Fifteen minutes later, Probst added more weight to everyone, and I'll tell you this: those survivors weren't the only ones getting a workout. Jeff was rocking a large swatch of tummy sweat on his shirt. Even the best need to perspire.

Well, Cirie was next out, and she had quite the ungraceful tumble into the water. I would have let out a big guffaw, but before I knew it, we were back on Danielle's pit hair, and a general sense of nausea had overcome my body. Thankfully, Danielle dropped next, followed by Aras, leaving just Terry and Courtney. Well, thanks to that dumb commercial, we knew what was going to happen: Terry was going to let go first... although, to be honest, I couldn't see that happening. Courtney had such a tenuous grip on her ropes, I couldn't imagine that she'd actually be able to outlast the former Navy stud. Sure enough, Courtney let go, and Terry won immunity AGAIN! Yes, the commercial was misdirection! Color me fooled!

Afterwards, it was time for some good old fashioned pre-Tribal Council scheming. Aras was totally screwed. Courtney was planning for her, Cirie, Terry, and Danielle to vote out the yoga instructor, and as far as we could tell, all systems were go. Shane, on the other hand, had the mistaken notion that everyone would be voting out Danielle. Oh man. He was totally gonna get screwed over. I'm sure we can look forward to plenty of angry rants next week.

"I'm going to be dealing with the wrath of Shane for sure tonight," Courtney told us. To be fair, if she were to merely kick a pebble, she'd be dealing with the wrath of Shane. Hey, maybe she'll get lucky. Maybe he'll be too preoccupied searching for Internet porn on his Blackberry.

Well, Shane then took inventory of his alliance and made sure that Aras, Cirie, and Courtney were all on board to vote off Danielle. Cirie lied and said that yes, Danielle was most definitely out. Things were looking quite bad for Aras, but something didn't feel right. We didn't spend all episode talking about Aras and how important it was for him to be kicked out. I just didn't feel like the voting spotlight was really going to fall on him. My Survivordar just wasn't going off.

And then Cirie decided to take the game into her own hands. With everyone focusing on Aras and Danielle, no one was worried about Courtney. No one, but Cirie. She knew that both Terry and Shane wanted to take the fire dancer to the finals. She also knew that Shane and Terry were calling all the shots. It was time to shake things up.

At this point, J-Unit and I pretty much paused the Tivo every two seconds to talk about all the great opportunities before Cirie. We decided that the best bet would be for her to convince Aras and Danielle to vote against Courtney. Their three votes would trump Shane's one vote against Danielle and Courtney and Terry's two votes against Aras. Plus, it would totally turn the tables on everyone. It seemed like a foolproof plan, but J-Unit and I always tend to pause the Tivo around this time and discuss all sorts of great strategies, only to see them never come to fruition. We weren't about to get our hopes up again, even if Cirie showed great scheming promise earlier.

Well, God bless Cirie. She had the exact same plan that we had. But would she be able to execute it? The excitement in the TVgasm offices was through the roof. Cirie pulled Aras over and explained everything. He seemed to be on board. Yes! But what about Danielle? She seemed a bit reticent to commit, but she was certainly interested. And let's face it, she's wanted to turn the tables on someone for a few weeks now. Oh, this was great. All the pieces were coming together. Everyone just had to stay calm and stick with the plan. And yes, it looked like Danielle was gonna vote against Courtney! Yes! Yes! Yes! It's not that I dislike Courtney or anything. I rather enjoy her kooky contributions to camp life. But I was so excited about this scheme that I had no choice but to cheer her potential ouster.

By the time Tribal Council came around, my heart was beating. This was Survivor at its best. Think about it: the levels of deception at this Tribal Council were amazing. Cirie and Danielle were pretending they were in Terry's alliance pretending to be in Shane's alliance. Plus, there were two power players -- Shane and Terry -- who were about to get taken down several pegs, but they didn't know. They each thought they were about to turn the tables on each other, not realizing an entire third party was ready to pull the rug out from under them. Am I mixing metaphors yet? I will be soon. That's the way the cookie grows greener on the other side. Blast!

Anyway, our plucky jury entered with biiig smiles. Especially Austin who had the bashful look of an eight year old who just won a ribbon at some science fair. The great news was that Bruce was back on the jury, and he received a warm round of applause. Glad to see the guy was okay. I mean, we knew he was fine because we saw him on the Early Show last week. But still. You know what I mean.

Okay. Down to business. The lies and deceit came on strong and fast right from the beginning. Even when talking about his reward, Terry lied and said that no one really talked about strategy. Probst then asked Cirie, "Do you buy that?" To which she replied, "NO. Please..." You better slow yo' roll, Probst! Can't pull a fast one on Cirie (seriously. Not even the fish can get away from her now).

Anyway, Probst continued to grill the players, and everyone had to carefully choose their words, lest they reveal any of the hidden allegiances that were lurking under the surface. Shane, meanwhile, was his normal crazy self as he told Probst, "Tonight, we have to EAT one of our own." Literally, he was planning on eating someone. They really should get him some help.

Shane then noted, "Sounds dramatic, but it's gonna be dramatic." Oh, he had no idea. Mwhahaha. Actually, to be fair, it's not that it sounded dramatic. It's more like it sounded "psychotic." But there's me and my semantics again.

There were a few more questions, and I don't really remember the responses because I was studying Courtney's potted plant of hair atop her head. Finally, it was time to vote. Would Danielle be sticking to the plan? Or was this going to wind up like so many other boring episodes: a routine elimination of someone like Aras?

The first person up to vote was Cirie, and she wrote down Courtney's name on the parchment. This was a good sign. If the plan wasn't all there, chances are she would have stuck with the majority and voted out Aras. I was very optimistic that Cirie's scheme was gonna work.

Anyway, Terry then voted for Aras, and next was Shane who scrawled down Danielle's name and said, "You get to eat as much as you want, and I will never know you again." You mean you're not going to keep Danielle's contact info in your Blackberry? Very cruel.

Courtney then wrote down her vote for Aras and then said "You're so beautiful, brother." Yes, like a dead sea tortoise on a beach.

Well, time to read the votes. As anticipated, Jeff read the names that Shane and Terry expected to hear. First vote: Aras. Then Danielle. Then Aras again. But then Jeff read Courtney's name. Twice! We then cut to Shane who did a blatant "Wha-whaaaa?" double-take. Yes, he was shocked. The only thing worse would be if his Blackberry was suddenly eaten by a bunch of termites.

"Whatchu talkin' about, Probst?"

Anyway, time for the last vote. Would it be Aras or Courtney? Danielle kept to the plan, and Courtney was voted out! YES YES YES!! It worked! "That was a shocker," Courtney mumbled as she gathered her items. Yup. It was. And the looks on Shane and Terry's faces confirmed that. Hahaha. SUCKERS! I guess that would be scheme #437 of Terry's that's completely failed. Bravo!

"The dead tortoise didn't tell me THIS would happen!"

"Shit."

"Wait. Am I being Punk'd? I am, aren't I!"

Well, Jeff snuffed out Courtney's torch, and as she walked off into the night, she looked back as if to say, "Did you seriously just vote me off? You bitches!" This was then followed by Jeff doing his obligatory salt-in-the-wounds remark. "I don't think that there is any doubt that this is an individual game," he said. Yeah, I'm sure Shane and Terry really appreciated that.

And so ended this great episode. We saw a glimpse of Courtney's surprisingly bland parents in the Febreeze Family moment, and then in her farewell, she simply registered total shock, but ultimately shrugged it all off, which was a good attitude to take. Well done, Courtney. Sorry we couldn't see more antics with you and Shane, but I guess we'll always have the memories.

What did you think about this episode? Were you as crazy into it as we were? Or are we just a bit off our rockers?

Posted by at 1:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (71)

Is it me, or are Paula Abdul and Michael Jackson looking more and more alike? To prove the point, we did some very simple cutting and pasting to show how interchangeable they were. Photos after the jump...

First we just put Michael's eyes on Paula. Shockingly, she looks almost exactly the same (except for the glasses).

Then we put Paula's eyes on Michael. And yes, he looks the same.

Now a little MJ chin on Paula...

And some Paula on MJ. Disturbed yet?

Finally, we just mixed and matched their heads. THEY'RE THE SAME!

Posted by at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

There was more crazy fun in Florida last night as the seven roomies of The Real World headed to the mainland to avoid the breezy wrath of Hurricane Rita. On the upside, they were safe and sound from gale-force winds and airborne debris. On the downside, the group had to cram into one hotel room as if they were a bunch of rabbits in a burrow. If there's anything reality TV has taught us, it's that close quarters breed high tension, and this precarious situation was no exception. Faster than you can say "claustrophobia," the roomies were already tossing drinks at each other. Oh, did I say, "claustrophobia?" I meant, "homophobia." Mild difference.

The show opened up with dark and brooding images of the storm approaching. There's a hurricane a-comin'! Take shelter! Find safety! Get drunk as soon as possible! Yes, Mother Nature was breathing down the neck of our roommates, but they sidestepped a waterlogged fate as they checked into the not-so-swanky West Palm Beach Marriot. As I mentioned earlier, they all stuffed themselves into one oppressive suite where they had to brave the storm and each other. Everything seemed fine at first. There was a tingle of adventure in this little trip (and let's hope for their sake that this didn't count as their "vacation"). Tyler and Jose trekked down to the hotel bar to check out the weather, and guess what? Rita was now officially a hurricane. Dunh Dunh DUNH! Oh Rita. You devilish storm! I have to say, I had a hard time summoning much dread for this hurricane. Let's face it. Rita's always been the Jan to Katrina's Marcia. You know that if we'd all just ignored Hurricane Rita, she probably would have run away. Of course, then we'd have to all get in the station wagon and patrol the neighborhood for her, and who wants to do that? Wait, what am I talking about again? Oh yeah. The Real World.

Anyway, after we'd had enough of Tyler and Jose's fascinating experience with the Weather Channel, we then saw footage of the ocean, and yup, the surf was raging. A storm was brewin'! And speaking of storms, we then found ourselves with Paula, who proudly told Svetlana, "I can eat anything. Anyplace we go, I can find something to eat." Not to be cruel, but it's not so much about the eating but the digesting, if you catch my drift. Nevertheless, Paula found a large salad to chomp on and then returned to the subject du jour: John. For those of you who may have forgotten, Paula and John got into a 'uge fight last week when she cockblocked one too many of his girls. Insults were exchanged, tears were shed, and sexual orientations were questioned. Unfortunately, the roomies didn't kiss and make up, and now they were stuck in the same room together, courtesy of Hurricane Rita. Thanks, MOTHER NATURE.

Well, Paula was very frustrated with John, and she told Svetlana, "No matter what is in his head, this whole thing is my fault." Seriously, John needs to get over it. It's not her fault that she cockblocked John. Why should she be held accountable for her own actions? Clearly it was HIS fault for not stopping her. A real man would have beaten her, nay, put her in the hospital! Somebody get Keith!

Nevertheless, Paula then insisted, "I wasn't drunk. I had three beers!" Three beers? She weighs less than two beers. A swig of Listerine in the morning, and she's dancing on tables, singing "Tub Thumping" at the top of her lungs. Three beers + one anorexic girl = total inebriation.

Anyway, Paula noted how according to John, she was now a lesbian. Yes, just something else for the therapist to deal with (assuming she ever gets one). Svetlana then decided to crack a funny by saying, "That is a full-time job: bulimic, anorexic, and lesbian." She then realized she was talking about full-time jobs and immediately offered to be the manager of Paula's bulimia, anorexia, and lesbianism, but oddly enough, the job was already promised to Zach. He really is very enterprising.

Speaking of Zach, he had now joined Jose at Mission Control (a.k.a. the Marriot bar), and the two sat transfixed by the Doppler radar on the TV. As fascinating as it is to watch weather reports from six months ago, I still found myself less than enthralled. Luckily, the scene ended very quickly; although, not before some philosophical ramblings by Zach on how weather reports can be so much more meaningful when they actually apply to you. Uh, yeah. That's sort of why people from Colorado don't check out the weather in Bulgaria.

Night soon fell on West Palm Beach, and since this was The Real World, what else were the roomies to do but hit the bars? Yay! Time for some bumpin' and grindin' and throwin' drinks! The gang went out to a hoppin' club where Paula immediately made a new buddy. His name was Alex, and he had the privilege of being labeled "Paula's friend." I wasn't sure if he was a West Palm Beach local or a fellow hurricane refugee finding sweet asylum in the sweaty confines of this club, but either way, Alex and Paula had an instant rapport. I guess that'll happen when the first thing you say to a girl is "Oh my god. You're so cute!" By the way, gaydar -- kind of going off, which would be appropriate. God forbid Paula meet a nice guy who's actually attracted to her.

And speaking of gaydar, Janelle's was going off like crazy. Once again proving to be little more than a faithful hag, Janelle quickly pointed out that some guy kept on giving Tyler furtive glances from across the room. This man, it turned out, was named Bobby. Ahem, I mean "Bobby, Tyler's admirer." I'm sure that's on all his business cards too. Anyway, Tyler (who seems to be getting shorter and shorter every episode) waltzed up to his potentially amorous suitor and began flirting with him. This amused John to no end, and in a typically loud and brash way, he walked up to both guys and blared out, "Uh oh! Tyler met a nice young female!" Uh oh. Don't tell Paula! Anyway, this effectively killed the budding romance (looks like John was paying the cockblock forward), and next thing we knew, Tyler told us that he had tossed a drink at John. Of course, we didn't get to see this. Instead, we saw the camera zooming into John's face in slow-motion, which I guess was supposed to represent the shock and awe of a flying libation. We then cut to Tyler whose shirt was covered in liquid as well. Don't these guys know anything? If you're going to hurl cocktails, wait until the camera man is back from the toilet! So frustrating.

Anyway, apparently John threw a drink back in retaliation (maturity oozing all over this scene), and then suddenly we found Tyler marching out of the bar, admirably removing himself from the situation before it got violent. Poor guy. He seemed to be having such a fun time with BOBBY, TYLER'S ADMIRER. But it wasn't meant to be. As we cut to commercial, we then observed Tyler quietly waiting for an elevator to scoop him up, and gosh, in the bright light, we could really see how wet he was. Did John empty a pitcher on him? The guy was soaked.

After the break, we returned to West Palm Beach and more images of stormy weather. Oh, so metaphorical. It's almost like a symbolic Hurricane Rita has been brewing amongst the roommates! I finally get it! Somebody give me a gold star! Well, a few hours had passed since the dreaded Drink Toss Olympics, and now the roommates were all returning to the suite. Everyone seemed to be happy and doing well -- everyone but Tyler. Amazingly, he wasn't gearing up for a full scale catfight -- he reserves those for when Svetlana does something really bad (like breathing). Instead, he quietly told Jose, "I'm not going to compete for attention right now." Well, that's a first. But I won't really rag on him because honestly, he had a right to be mad. He was pissed at John, but in an effort to remain mature and rational, he explained that he was more pissed at himself because he had never really set limits about gay jokes and whatnot. You see, he didn't want to be the sensitive gay guy (no reservations about being the prissy gay guy though).

Well, Zach joined the conversation, and ever the mediator, he told Tyler that if he were to confront John, "I'll always have your back." Pun INTENDED! Grrrrowl! Oh, sorry. I forgot -- now's not the time for gay jokes.

Anyhoo, John then entered the room, and since everyone was clearly talking about him, he exasperatedly said that if Tyler had something to say, please tell him. But no, John. This wasn't about you. This was about Tyler. He was mad at himself, remember? And so Tyler said they would talk -- just not right then. Maybe tomorrow. We then cut to the next morning where we found rescue crews clearing away debris on all the streets. Ah, the symbolism -- so rampant! It's as if Mother Nature consulted with the producers. Somebody get her a credit. Surely I thought this would segue into a Very Special Tyler and John scene, but no. We instead found John talking to Zach and Jose, also known as JewFro and Señor Silent. The three discussed the previous night's activities, with John doing the whole "Next thing I know, there's champagne on me" act. Zach tried to explain where Tyler was coming from, but he spent so much time trying to carefully phrase his words that he sounded more like a corporate supervisor than a friend. As you can imagine, little was accomplished.

We then cut to images of dolphins in the ocean, and... no, sorry... I don't know what it represented. I think MTV just showed the dolphins because they were pretty. Hey, not everything can be imbued with meaning. Anyway, that night, John and Tyler finally had their talk, and at the end of the day because they're fairly reasonable people (at least as far as Real World stars go), the two made up with a minimum amount of drama. They hugged, and John immediately joked, "I think Tyler got an erection." Have you learned nothing, John?? You don't make a gay joke after you've JUST finished an argument about gay jokes. Hey, I said he was reasonable, not sharp.

With the Tyler fiasco behind us, we could focus on other fun things: namely, Paula. We went right back to the club that night where Paula was chatting with her ambiguously gay friend Alex. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe another drink would be thrown. Two in one show would certainly be spectacular, especially if one of them wound up on camera for once. Anyway, Paula, Alex, and Svetlana were all sitting at the bar together. Alex and Fitz decided to talk about how awesome Paula was, and then suddenly, Svetty announced that she just couldn't compete with Paula's beauty, so she was going to step away. It was kind of her friendly way of leaving the two possibly lovebirds (depending on that whole gay thing -- on both their parts) alone, but nothing's ever that easy with Paula. As Svetlana went off and danced with some guys, Paula shot daggers at her and then told us, "Svetlana's the type of girl who wants to be the center of attention and wants to be the only girl that every guy likes." Well, it wouldn't be an episode of The Real World: Key West without a transparently jealous rant from Paula. We'll just pretend to ignore that it's in fact Paula who flips out when she doesn't get the proper attention at a bar. Luckily, this evening, she had plenty of attention, courtesy of Alex. He doted on her as she began to cry right there in the bar. Yes, she was crying. Over literally nothing. All that had happened was that Svetlana had walked away and danced with girls.

"You think that I like Svetlana just because she is prettier than you are?" Alex then asked. Uh, that's probably not the right thing to say to Paula. Oh wait, it was just a hypothetical question. Alex then made good by saying, "You are 10 times more gorgeous than she is and have 100 times more personality." Of course, what Paula heard was "You are the ugliest girl here, you stupid ugly girl."

Paula then said, "People look at Svetlana and are like 'Oh my god.' And I'm second best." But seriously, it's Svetlana who has the problem wanting to be the girl that all the guys like. I did feel badly for Paula. I mean, she was so consumed with this jealousy, she was incapable of hearing Alex say why she was so much better than Svetlana. Then again, maybe that's also because Alex kept calling her "Lana," not "Svetlana." I think it's time for Alex to just go away now.

Later, Paula confided in Alex that her ex-boyfriend / perfect gentleman Keith beat her up so badly, she had to go to the hospital. And speak of the devil, over in the hotel, Mr. Keith called up to speak with Paula. God, STALKER! Luckily, by this time, Svetlana was already back in the room, and she quickly cockblocked Keith's call away from Paula. I'm just waiting for the day when Svetlana answers Keith's call drunk and tells him off. That will actually be pretty sweet. If it happens. Then again, it just means forty more lashings for Paula when she gets out of the house. I hate Keith.

Paula then returned to the suite acting perfectly normal -- as if she hadn't just had a tearful, jealous meltdown of insecurity. No problems here! Just smiles and sweetness! Ah, the wonders of repression. Meanwhile, she then talked to us about Keith, saying, "He is my problem, but he helps make me happy and get me back to a good place." Uh, Paula, the hospital is not a good place. Luckily, she did concede, "Unfortunately, he's the reason I'm in a bad place." Hmmm... Maybe if you stay away from him, he won't put you in a bad place that he then needs to take you out of. You know what that's called? An abusive relationship. And how do you know when you're in an abusive relationship? When your boyfriend puts you in the hospital... LIKE KEITH DID.

Well, showing all sorts of restraint and class, Alex then gossiped to the roommates about Paula, revealing that Keith had once put her in the hospital. And by the way, what did Jose do when he learned this? He laughed! What the? He must not have been listening. Maybe he was distracted by the random, unexplained hoochie hanging off his arm. Who was that?

Anyway, time for an epiphany. Paula suddenly realized that she has been trying to protect every woman from men for fear that they might go through what she's gone through. Hence her flagrant cockblockage of John. Well done, Paula. I'm sure Dr. Phil would be proud of your pop-psych analysis.

The next morning, the kids all packed up (and in the case of Tyler, walked around naked) and returned to Key West. The streets were sort of messy and whatnot, but overall, everything seemed intact. As they walked in the front door, one of them flicked the light switch, but nothing happened! OH MY GOD! "Where are the lights?" someone asked. Clearly, the concept of a blackout was a bit more than they could handle.

We then were treated to a little "Cleanin' up after Rita" montage, and with the house back up and running, it was time to return to the perils of Paula. She and Jose had a neat little heart to heart in the pool room, and honestly, I don't remember what they talked about. I'll just assume Keith or abuse or John or whatever. Next up, Paula pulled John outside for a talk. She wanted to finally clear the air about last week's cockblock argument and explain where she was coming from (Looneytown is my guess). Paula kept doing the "It's not you, it's me" gambit, which John was happy to hear, but he wasn't going to be happy until he understood what the hell was driving her to act so crazy. For about the twelfth time, Paula explained that Keith put her in the hospital, and then she had the line of the night: "It's not that I don't like men, but I HATE THEM!" Oh. Makes perfect sense.

Well, after some more babbling, John told Paula that she didn't have to worry about who she used to be or what people thought of her. She could start with a clean slate in this house. For some reason, this really resonated with Paula, and she told us that she felt so much better once John said that. Yay! She's cured! And all it took was a random cliché from John!

One warm hug later, and the show was over. How long before Paula reverts to her crazy ways? Five seconds? Seven? What did you think?

Posted by at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (36)

America's Next Top Model, 4/26/06, UPN
Click on the picture to play (QuickTime 7 required)

Today's afternoon edition of Clipgasm is courtesy of America's Next Top Model contestant Jade. Although I think she is a bitch, I have to say that I identify with her a little bit. We're both about the same age, we both come from biracial parentage, and we both have very high opinions of ourselves. I don't think I am quite as crazy as she is, although some of my friends may disagree. That being said, Jade is not a top model and has got to go. Maybe she'll do better on the second season of American Inventor

Posted by at 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

I turned on the TV just now, and what was on? 227. It's a sign, I tell you. A sign...

Posted by at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Hope y'all enjoyed the Third World because The Amazing Race made a quick beeline back into Western Civilization as it fled Oman for the sunny confines of Western Australia. Yes, in what may be the first non-Africa season yet (although, it's too early to tell), the racers had the distinct joy of both frolicking on the beach and toiling in a prison underbelly. Kind of like all my family vacations. I can't say that this latest episode was my favorite, but it was enjoyable enough. And yes, as each week passes, I certainly miss the presence of Lake and Michelle more and more. Dang gummit!

This week's show began in Oman where Phil talked about the Pit Stop and its "imposing turrets and sprawling courtyards." He then added, "MUCH LIKE MY HOUSE." Okay, maybe not. But you know he's at least got an alligator-infested moat circling his domicile. Incidentally, if I were ever to classify Phil as some sort of architectural feature, it most certainly would be "imposing turret."

Phil then asked his usual questions to pique our interest: "Will BJ and Tyler's friendly way with people pay off when they need it most?" And more importantly, will any kind soul buy these two a stick of deodorant? Or will their pungent funk pervade every nook and corner of the globe? As AR6's Rebecca would say, so many questions.

Anyway, Fran and Barry were first to leave the Pit Stop (and no, they somehow did not get lost amidst the imposing turrets and sprawling courtyards). I thought for sure they'd be heading to another exotic location like Myanmar or Mozambique or any other country starting with "M," but no. They were off to lovely Perth, Australia. Not that I'm complaining. I'll gladly take the lush imagery of those sparkling blue beaches any day. I'm just saying that I expected more Developing Nation fun.

Well, the old fogeys went trotting over to their car, but not before depositing some cash in the Bank of BJ. Yes, for those of you who may have forgotten, the Hippies arrived last on a non-elimination leg, which meant they had no cash whatsoever. Apparently, they had asked teams to leave a donation in their car, and whoever didn't pass it forward might get slapped with a Yield. Ouch. That's not a very Hippie-ish mentality. Wait? What's that you say? These aren't real Hippies? Pshah. Now I've heard everything.

Anyway, Frankenberry happily dropped some money off for BJ (no, not for a BJ. That would be gross), but Mojo weren't as kind. Monica and Joseph decided that they would walk up to the car and pretend like they were giving money, but not actually do it. That would make a lot of sense... if people were watching you. Seriously, why the elaborate display?

Turns out the reason why Mojo wasn't feeling very charitable was because they didn't take too kindly to the Hippies' Yield threat. "It's not hte smartest thing in the world telling everybody that you're going to Yield the Mojo," Monica said. And let's be honest, she IS the authority on the smartest things in the world. Monica then pointed out the window and said "Look Joseph! Cotton balls in the sky!" No, Monica. Those are clouds.

Okay, okay, the cloud thing didn't happen (at least, not on camera). Meanwhile, up ahead, Frankenberry found themselves in a massive traffic jam. The only route to the airport had been closed down. Why? Because the King was in town. Man, what a royal pain in the ass. RIMSHOT!!! Oh, that was wonderful. Patting myself on the back.

Next out of the gate were Ray and Yolanda who spent the last episode bickering about cussing and whatnot. Apparently all the stress had really begun to take its toll on this long-distance couple. "We went from zero to 120 kilometers in no time," Yolanda explained. And by the way, props to her for converting her metaphor into metric. That was very global.

Jeremy and Eric waltzed out of the Pit Stop next, and they didn't leave any money for their Hippie rivals, but they did leave an IOU. I personally shocked that they didn't misspell that. Jeric wasn't too concerned for BJ and Tyler. After all, they were resourceful Hippies. They'd probably make gas out of trees or something, they reasoned. Besides, this was a competition. "It's like trying to get in a girl's pants," Eric noted. "You know, lie, cheat, steal, you know, whatever you can." Incidentally, that's how he met Jeremy.

Up ahead, Monica and Joseph were now stuck in the King's traffic jam, and sure enough, this led to plenty of complaining. "We've wasted so much time," Monica whined. Yeah, why don't you just go and tell the King. I'm sure he'll understand...

Finally, the Hippies left the Pit Stop, and in typical fashion, they managed to make even the most simple task incredibly annoying. Case in point, they opened up the clue with their teeth. Ah, that's the sort of spontaneity that only plenty of rehearsal can provide!

Worst version of Lady and the Tramp ever!

Anyway, the good news was that when BJ and Tyler read that one team would have no money, they somehow resisted the urge to joke, "Wonder who that is???" I always love it when teams do that. So original. Instead, they skipped off to their car, with Tyler saying, "Let's go put another prawn on the barbie!" It's shrimp. Shrimp on the barbie, jerk.

Elsewhere in Oman, the King finally got to wherever he was going, and the teams could now reach the airport. Not much intrigue this episode as there was really only one flight everyone could take. The only question was whether or not BJ and Tyler would make it to the airport on time. Well, the airport seemed like the last thing on the Hippies' minds at that time. They were more concerned with picking up strangers on the side of the road. Yes, BJ and Tyler decided to fulfill some strange fantasy and picked up a Bedouin hitchhiker just for shits and giggles. Luckily, they didn't wind up with a psychotic nomad with murderous intentions. Instead, they got an affable guy named Abdul Hamid who seemed absolutely delighted to be along for the ride. At one point, the Hippies ran out of gas, but the kindly Abdul Hamid helped out and fronted the bill, which was probably like thirty cents in Oman. Nevertheless, the spirit of sharing really impressed BJ.

"Our friend, Abdul Hamid, he is a Bedouin, and Tyler and I are like American Bedouins," he said. Oh shut up. But he continued: "Somehow, he understands that, and he is hooking us up with mango juice, gas, and candy bars." Uh, I don't think Abdul Hamid is sensing any sort of Bedouin kinship. It's more like you gave him a ride, and he's paying you back. Get over it.

Well, all the teams filed onto their flight where they all discussed the odds of BJ and Tyler making it on the plane. Nada, said master prognosticator Monica, and so Jeremy concluded that based on this expert opinion, the Hippies would not make it on board. Of course, we could sniff out this misdirection a mile away, and sure enough, BJ and Tyler made it on the flight by the hair on their chinny chin chin (and in their case, that is quite a lot of hair). The two entered the cabin in a flurry of loud noise that would have absolutely pissed me off had I been unlucky enough to be on board. I totally would have been shooting passive-aggressive stares.

"How annoying," seethed Monica, and for once, I agreed with her.

"I hate the Hippies," Joseph then added. To be fair, there's not much that he doesn't hate (except boobies. Why else would he be with Monica?).

Anyway, the teams all flew to Perth where they'd have to go to King's Park. We then were treated to a general montage of the couples jockeying for position en route to the park, and at one point, Monica joked that Jeremy and Eric had a stench. Well, at least they still didn't smell like SWORDFISH! I know she didn't smell like swordfish at that point, but she'd probably get all self-conscious about it if you told her. Forty years from now, you could say "Do you smell swordfish?" near her and she'd probably whine "See Joseph? I still smell like swordfish from Sicily!!!"

As usual, Jeric, despite their stench (a stench that I call "homoerotic lust") arrived at the next clue first, and they were so excited, Jeremy actually slapped Eric's ass multiple times. Gosh. Had Jeremy been any more amped, he would have simply yanked down Eric's shorts and sodomized him right there. Anyway, the clue told the guys that they'd have to take a ferry to Rottnest Island. What a lovely name: Rottnest. Only bested by SnotCrab Cove and FecalTrash Beach.

Turns out the ferry to Rottnest left from Fremantle, which was kind of far away. There was some mild drama with some teams opting to take a bus to the ferry instead of a costly cab, but in the end, it didn't matter. The next boat didn't leave until 7:30 AM the next morning anyway. Wah wah wah. And so the teams all had to go find lodgings for the night, and for some, that meant heading to the local hostile. Jeric quickly took a private room, and as they bounded into their dark hole in the wall, we heard Eric happily yell, "Nice! I got bottom!" Indeed. INDEED!

And speaking of sexual innuendoes, Fran and Barry wound up in a room called, "The Pleasure Dome." Before we could even begin squirming uncomfortably, Barry said, "This race has ruined our sex life. I'll tell you that." To which Fran replied, "That's for DAMN SURE!"

GROSS!!!

Never again, Fran and Barry! Never again! I hate the Pleasure Dome!

Well, we never found out what happened in the Pleasure Dome that night (the room was shared with other unseen backpackers). Hopefully it didn't devolve into a drug-induced people pile of orgiastic proportions. All I could imagine were Fran and Barry, lots of leather, some Australian transients, a few joints, and a French tickler.

Now that I've put that disturbing image in your mind, let's move on. The next morning, all the teams boarded the ferry, and once on Rottnest Island, they had to hop onto tandem bikes and trek up to a light house. As usual, Jeric took the early lead, and the oldsters found themselves at the back of the pack. Still, that didn't deter Fran and Barry's can-do spirit. As they hopped on their bike, Fran yelled, "Coming through!" That probably would have been really helpful had there been anyone around. Actually, there was a little girl on like a tricycle or something, but it's not like she was blocking the path in any major way. I can just imagine Fran telling Barry, "Little boy, Big Wheel, 10 o'clock. BEWARE!"

Hey little girl, get out of the MOTHERF@*#KIN' WAY!

Elsewhere on the bike route, the Hippies provided us with some Jeric-quality dialogue. "Push hard! Push hard!" Tyler yelled.

"I'm pushing!" BJ yelled back. Gosh, sounds like the Pleasure Dome all over again.

Anyway, Jeremy and Eric arrived at the lighthouse first, and guess what? Detour time! Yay! This week's choice: "Sand" or "Sea."

In "Sand," teams had to find a pile of forty large branches, drag them across a beach, and leave them on a sand dune. Phil told us, this was called, "Brushing the beach." I personally call it "Pain in the ass."

In "Sea," teams had to dive into the ocean and search through fifty crayfish traps. Each team member would have to retrieve a crayfish and bring it to a guy on the beach. One catch (no pun intended): only a few of the traps had crayfish in them. So tricky...

Anyway, as Jeremy and Eric pedaled on over to the Detour site, Monica and Joseph were passed by the Hippies. "They're sleazeballs," Mojo complained. Now, the Hippies may be a lot of things -- smelly, sort of annoying, not really Hippies at all -- but c'mon. They're not sleazeballs. And at least they don't smell like SWORDFISH (cut to Monica sniffing her shirt as she reads this).

Down at the beach, Jeremy and Eric decided to go diving for crawfish (which happens to be their code phrase for "69ing"). As part of this challenge, they had to change into wee Speedos, which as we all know, shouldn't have been a problem for these guys. "I hope you guys want to see some ass!" Eric said. Don't act like you don't love it:

Pleasure Dome!

The Hippies arrived soon after, and they opted to drag those damn branches around. I really thought it would be easier than the crayfish, but I was completely wrong. Watching the Hippies sweat and toil made me want to vicarious jump in that ocean right then and there. Also overheating were Mojo, who were having some issues with their tandem bicycle. I don't remember exactly what the problem was, but it caused Joseph to suddenly yell at his girlfriend, "Don't GRIPE!!!" Oh, c'mon now. That's like asking her not to breathe.

Well, Monica said that Joseph should pay more attention, and he snapped back, "I AM paying attention! I'm drinking water! I can't stop!" To me, those seemed like three independent thoughts crushed into one rant. Was he saying that he couldn't stop drinking water? Or he couldn't stop the bike because he was drinking water? Or the fact that he was drinking water therefore proved that he was paying attention? I was confused. I really shouldn't apply to much mental energy to Mojo.

Having a happier time were Jeremy and Eric, who were positively giddy to be in their native garb: Speedos. "If there were chicks, we'd be hooking up with them," Jeremy said, then adding, "But there aren't any chicks around. So what do you say, Eric? Will you be mine?"

Okay, he didn't say that, but he did express fear of shriveling as he plunged into the surf. Apparently there would be some penis-length challenge coming up. Wouldn't want to screw that up!

Mojo showed up next and opted to swim, while the next team, Fran and Barry, joined the Hippies as they dragged those branches around. Eventually, Jeric grabbed their crayfish and returned to shore. "This is a Baywatch moment," Jeremy said. Yes, a really, really lame Baywatch moment. From the lost "Crayfish Emergency!" episode. Actually, come to think of it, I'd totally watch that.

Jeremy and Eric received their next clue which said they'd have to take a Ferry back to Fremantle and then find the local prison. If there was anyone who was psyched about going to prison, I'm sure it was these two. Just saying. Oz in Oz? A dream come true!

As the frat boys marched out of the Detour area, they saw the Hippies pulling the branches and laughed. "I thought those guys went to Harvard and Stanford. They're out there doing menial labor!" Jeremy the valet noted. Uh, it's not their jobs. Just because they went to elite schools doesn't mean they're above pulling a few branches around. Besides, they're American Bedouins, man! Pulling branches is their calling!

Over in the ocean, Joseph managed to grab a crayfish, and with that, the team retreated to the shore. You see, Monica said that they only needed one fish for their group -- which was wrong. Oh, Joseph was so gonna flip out on her! Believe it or not, when the crayfish collector sent the two back into the water, Joseph was fairly calm. "We've got the crappiest luck," he said. It's not luck. It's being able to READ.

Anyway, it was Monica's time to grab a crayfish, and we all know how she does with seafood (not well). First she dove down and poked around in the trap, but sadly, she couldn't find anything in there. Never mind that a giant crustacean was sitting inside. Monica just could not see it. Maybe she should have opened her eyes. Anyway, she dove down again, and this time she saw her crayfish, or "lobster" as she called it. Even though she had a giant protective glove on, Monica returned to the surface and whined, "I'm scared! I'm scared! I'm scared!" Yeah, probably not as much as that poor crayfish. When Joseph rolled his eyes at his idiot girlfriend, she replied, "I have every right to be scared of him!" Yeah? Try being boiled ALIVE!!

Back on the beach, Ray and Yolanda were hauling some branches now, and elsewhere on the island, Jeremy and Eric were boarding the 9:15 AM ferry back to Fremantle. They were the only team on board, and just like old times, these idiot savants had a commanding lead once again. The Hippies, meanwhile, just barely missed the boat; so they took another ferry to a place called Hilarys, and from there, they were going to cab it over to the prison. As for the old folks? They decided to wait for the Fremantle boat, and in the meantime, they made use of the nearby visitors center and had a guy call them a cab that would be waiting for them once the ferry arrived. Very smart, Frankenberry!

Well, at 10 AM, the next ferry arrived, and by then, all the remaining teams had finished their Detours. Everyone got on the boat and began their journey to Fremantle. Meanwhile, Jeremy and Eric arrived at the abandoned prison where they encountered the next Roadblock. "Who's ready for a great escape?" the clue asked. Sounds intriguing. And it was. In one of the more elaborate Roadblocks of the season, one member from each team had to search for one of several cells within "Division 4" for some Duracell Batteries (Product placement! Yay!) and a flashlight. Then that person would have to go underground and search through tunnels to find the next clue. Oh yeah, there were two types of tunnels: wet and dry.

Anyway, Jeremy volunteered to do the challenge, and it only took him about three seconds before he was totally confused. He couldn't find Division 4 for the life of him. Here's a hint: trying going inside the prison. That's usually where CELLS ARE.

"Are there like big number numbers that I'm missing?" Jeremy then asked. YES. INSIDE. Finally, Jeremy managed to infiltrate the prison (ie. he walked in a door), and after more hopeless wandering, he finally found Division 4 and his Duracell batteries. Next step: find those tunnels. Easier said than done. Jeremy ran around and around the prison, searching nearly every door in the process. At one point, he even looked inside a hut, but oops, "That's an outhouse," he said. Chances are I wouldn't have searched for underground tunnels in a tiny little shack, but then again, you never do know.

Meanwhile, the 10 AM ferry arrived, and while Monica and Joseph had a cab waiting for them (they too had called ahead), Fran and Barry's hack was nowhere to be found. And even worse, there weren't any spare taxis hanging around. Yes, they were screwed. "Have you ever seen a town without taxis?" Fran asked. Actually, uh, yes. Not such a crazy phenomenon.

Back at the Roadblock, Jeremy still couldn't find the tunnels. If only there were some fresh promise of manmeat in those catacombs. Then he'd be able to sniff out the tunnels in no time. After what seemed like ages, Jeremy finally figured out where the hell he was supposed to go, squandering his team's lead in the process. Mojo soon showed up, followed by the Hippies who managed to lose a good deal of time on their side jaunt to Hilarys. In the jail, Tyler was totally confused, and he kept on asking Joseph for help, but the Mojo man gave him the cold shoulder, acting as if he didn't know where the hell anything was -- even as he quickly scooped up the batteries and flashlight. You'd think that Tyler would get the hint, but no. He kept asking. "Is this all Division 4?" he asked at one point while standing under a Division 4 sign. God, when did he turn into Fran and Barry?

Where ever could that Division 4 be?

Speaking of which, the oldsters finally caught a bus to the prison, which meant that they arrived at the Roadblock last. The two opened up the clue and read, "Who's ready for a great escape?" Barry turned to his wife and said, "You are. You're good at it." Huh? Is Fran some sort of expert at prison breaks? Or is she merely an amateur Houdini fanatic?

Anyway, down under the prison, Jeremy was rowing through the wet tunnels but to no avail. He couldn't find a clue for the life of him, and so he tried his hand at the dry tunnels, and wouldn't you know it? He found one right off the bat. He then climbed out of the tunnels, and as he passed Joseph in the hallway, he told him to use the canoe. Oh, so very tricky. I hope Joseph spends three hours rowing under the prison.

With the clue in hand, Jeremy and Eric learned that they'd be heading to the Pit Stop next. We then cut to the Fremantle Sailing Club where Phil perilously balanced atop some rocks near the ocean. Again, the threat of a PhilSplash™ was heavy in the air.

Well, the Pit Stop was a mile and a half away, and when Jeremy and Eric tried to steal Mojo's cab, the driver said they didn't even need a car. They could just run there. And being the silly guys that they are, Jeric said okay and began to hoof it over to Phil. Unfortunately, running a mile and a half with heavy bags and no sense of where to go isn't the most efficient way to get to the Pit Stop. Even though they were in no danger of elimination, the last thing I wanted was for Mojo to earn any sort of prize.

Meanwhile, Joseph followed Jeremy's advice and searched the wet tunnels for the clue. Unlike the frat boy, however, Joseph found it fairly easily, which kind of rendered Jeremy's evil plan useless. In no time, Mojo was in their cab, taking a quick two minute ride over to the sailing club. By the time they arrived, Jeremy and Eric were just showing up, and so began one of the few foot races of the season. Who would be first? Mojo or Jeric? We then cut to Phil who stood alongside some guy in a green and yellow shirt that I think I saw at a yard sale over the weekend. Ultimately, Jeremy and Eric arrived first, just mere feet in front of Monica and Joseph. Haha. SUCKERS. Phil checked them in and gave them yet another Travelocity vacation. Mojo then stepped up to the mat and get this: they playfully pushed Jeric out of the way! It was HILARIOUS! Classic Mojo brilliance!

Phil totally forgot his 1977 shirt.

And speaking of hilarity, Tyler finally found his clue -- also in the wet tunnels (how did Jeremy miss all these?) -- and soon the Hippies were en route to a date with Phil. This meant it was down to Fran (dry tunnels) and Yolanda (wet tunnels). Yo-yo found her clue first, proudly proclaiming, "I'm a badass bitch!" She then realized that she had just cussed at herself and spent the next thirty minutes bickering. With herself.

According to the editing, Fran found her clue just moments after Yolanda, but I had a bad feeling about this. By the time she emerged from the tunnels, Raylonda had long since left for the Pit Stop. I didn't know how these old folks were going to rebound. Who would have thought one unreliable cabbie could be so detrimental?

Anyway, BJ and Tyler checked in third place with their usual goofy antics, and then it was back to Raylanda vs. Frankenberry. The first dose of misdirection we got came from Yolanda who was scared that her cab didn't know where to go. I wasn't going to fall for it though. I mean, the sailing club was just a mile and a half away -- in suburban streets. This wasn't like navigating through the backwoods of Moscow.

I then expected that we'd see Fran and Barry making excellent time in their cab, but no, they were saddled with endless red lights, thus dashing any hope I had of them pulling into fourth place. We then saw Ray and Yolanda arrive at the Fremantle Sailing Club, but wait! They somehow managed to get lost in the club! Maybe Fran and Barry could exploit this! Maybe they could move ahead! Maybe they could -- oh, who am I kidding? There's no way. Sure enough, Raylonda arrived in fourth place, causing Phil to raise his eyebrow as if to say, "Well played, my friends. Well played."

"You find love for each other again?" Phil then asked. Yolanda smiled and stroked Ray's cheek. "Yes!" she said. Ray smiled, but I could kind of sense he was thinking, "I'm dropping this crazy bitch as soon as we get back to America."

Anyway, Frankenberry finally showed up in last place, and poor Fran was on the verge of losing it. Nay, she was losing it. She kept saying how she didn't want to cry, which is always so hilarious to hear because people who say that are invariably already crying. Seriously, it's like the most redundant phrase out there. Well, bad news. The old folks were eliminated. Barry had a giant smile on his face, but then when he began talking about his wife, he too broke into tears. It was very sweet. Fran then said something about how when she sees little old people holding hands, she thinks that might be them in thirty years. Okay, this is too much. Somebody hand me a tissue.

So now we only have four teams left. Next week will probably be another non-elimination round. I have to pick a new favorite team. I like Raylonda, but they have yet to really come to life for me. Mojo is annoying, and the Hippies, well, I can't stand their sense of humor. Granted, they are smart guys, and I always like intelligent reality stars, but I think I'm going to have to throw my support behind Jeric. Yeah, they're dumb, and yeah, they're the odds-on favorite to win (although, this whole season could be misdirection), but I like their affably good-natured spirit, and I have to admit, Jeremy's deadpan humor is really funny. Besides, it's about time that such brazen homoeroticism be rewarded on reality TV, right?

What do you think? Sad to see Fran and Barry go? Or were you happy?

Posted by at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (32)

I meant to announce this yesterday, but TVgasm will have a live chat tomorrow, Friday, April 28th at 2PM EST, 11AM PST.(not May 28th, thanks whoislain) I want to test out this new chat software on our server and see if it will can use it for actual liveblogging. You won't need an account to sign in, and I haven't played with the look of it all, but if you have some time tomorrow, feel free to pop in. If you want to enter the chat room now, click here. Enter anything for the username, no password required.

Posted by at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

America's Next Top Model is now down to the final six, and that means that it is time to send the girls overseas to another exotic location. Last week we got rid of Brooke, the busted model that nobody could fix. The only model that Tyra was able to fix was Joanie, who got a new set of porcelain veneers that fixed the only thing that was really holding her back, which was the jacked teeth. The judges have always put a priority on girls who have shown that they can improve, and Joanie sure has that ability. She's risen so far, I think we can call her the favorite. Then again, leaving Los Angeles is a whole different world, or continent as the case may be, so you never know what kind of surprises Tyra and crew are going to have waiting for us.

At the beginning of the episode, Jade, Nnenna, and Furonda are imagining themselves as the final three. That final thee being the winner, the runner-up, and Tyra. I thought that it was a little odd that Jade chose herself to be Tyra, but maybe that's because she was the oldest one there. Actually, I am surprised that Jade even invited Furonda and Nnenna to join. OK, I guess Nnenna makes sense since the two of them are BFF, although if I were Nnenna and Jade had brought that slack-jawed yokel she calls a boyfriend to my house, we would be enemies forever.

A lot of people got upset with Tyra for criticizing Danielle's teeth, but for the love of me, I wish that somebody would criticize Furonda. I freely admit that Furonda has been taking great pictures, and her personality isn't all that bad, but just watching her walk made me want to hire a private investigator and FedEx her whopper or at least some rice or something. Reading through my posts on various topics, you probably have realized that I am more of an ass man, but it is preferable that the boobs at least exist. All I'm asking for is an A-cup here folks, perhaps some evidence of puberty; I’m not looking for a miracle.

The first task this week was a visit to MPRM Public Relations where they got to sit and chat with Rachel McCalister. When these girls win, they are going to be the face of Cover Girl, and will get a lot of press; therefore, they should get a taste of what it's going to be like. Rachel McCalister, who is about as exciting as that half-empty bottle of water you've left lying on your desk all afternoon, is not quite up to the task, so they bring in George Wayne from Vanity Fair to do some fake interviews. Actually, Rachel did get Nnenna to squirm when she mentioned cheating on her boyfriend, but it was a complete accident, so I don't count it.

This task could have been very interesting if I hadn't seen it LAST WEEK. Yes, I know that the actor last week was not trying to be a reporter, but it was essentially the same task. The main difference is that in this setting, the girls didn't think they were in a job interview, so the answers were slightly different. Other than that, George was trying to make them flustered, and they were trying to keep their composure. On the intimidation scale, George was able to surpass Rachel McCalister and reach almost "Hello Kitty" levels. In other words, I was fairly bored. I mean, who asks a model to spell out a word? Did he think they were worried they might not make it into the cast of Akeelah and the Bee 2: The Silent K?

OK, who left Nolé Merron out in the sun again?

Still, I am going to give George some props for making fun of Jade and her stupid scarves, and also telling her that a little humility goes a long way. You know I have never really liked that saying. If a little humility goes a long way people need a lot of humility might not understand how much they have to change to stop sucking. And it's a little too ambiguous with what a lot of humility does. Does it go a long way? longer way? short way? Does it go a short way and then catch a bus or taxi for the rest of the trip? It just makes no sense.

Anyway, Nnenna won the challenge, which I thought was strange because George called her snobbish, but I guess it makes sense for a model to be hot and snobbish. Nnenna picked Jade to share in her prize, which was a special spa treatment, and as an added bonus, the girls who didn't win would be the ones that would be servicing them.

Although the PR thing was plenty of drama, Danielle was still struggling with her decision last week to leave the gap, and the way the judges reprimanded her for not getting it taken care of. There was a lot of gap vs. anti-gap talk in the comments last week, but it really comes down to one thing. The girl who wins gets a Cover Girl contract and I'm sorry, but the gap does not work for Cover Girl. That being said, you can understand where Danielle is coming from. The gap has been part of her and it took her a long time to get comfortable with it, but is that part of her identity enough to risk a potential modeling career?

Danielle decides to call her mom to get a little advice, and I have to say, it's really nice to see somebody other than Nnenna talking on the phone for once. Danielle's mom says that she should "remember that girl from Texas" who was sent home because she didn't listen to the judges. That girl, as you may remember, was Cassandra, who wasn't quite down with the whole Rosemary's baby look that Tyra envisioned for her. Mollie Sue proved this year that you could rock that look with the right attitude, but I don't want to send myself into a frenzy talking about how she was robbed, so I'll stop now. Danielle's mom didn't push her in either direction, but said that it was up to her to make the decision what to do.

In the end, Danielle decided that it wasn't worth the risk of losing the competition just to keep her jank teeth. She heads to the dentists office, and to fix it completely, they probably needed to add some veneers like Joanie received, but since that took so much time, the dentist decided to try a different method. He grafted a couple of porcelain pieces to the inside parts of he front teeth to close the gap. Unfortunately, the gap couldn't be closed all the way or else it would look like the had taped Chiclets to her gum. When it was all done, the gap was narrower, but still quite noticeable to tell you the truth. It might have been perfect for Danielle because the judges can't complain about it now, but there is enough of the gap left for her to feel like she didn't completely sell out.

The girls went to dinner in what Nnenna described as a very cultural place. I think she meant to say very ethnic, but basically it looked like they were in some sort of fancy Indian restaurant. When they were seated, some sort of drag queen came in. It was their makeup artist Two Tone, and the girls all started screaming because he was dressed up to be like Tyra. I would consider myself as in love with Tyra as any of these girls and I am for sure that I would barely be able to handle myself should we be in the same room, but I definitely wouldn't be all aflutter over Two Tone, especially if there wasn't any drink specials. Soon my questions were answered when Tyra came in, and Tyra and Ty-ra started arguing about who was the real Tyra. It was all just a big excuse for the two of them to say "Ty" back and forth. Why?

Because they are all going to Ty-land! Oh, I mean Thailand. Danielle expressed the feeling in the room perfectly. Anything the girls were worried about, they could leave behind. "Forget the gap sucker, I'm going to Thailand!" Now, I never knew that Thailand was known for high fashion, but then again, I still have trouble matching my socks in the morning (that's why I like to wear sandals), so my fashion knowledge shouldn't be considered "all encompassing".

The girls pack their bags and then head for LAX and the Tom Bradley international terminal. I hate to be a xenophobe, but I can't stand that terminal because it is the smelliest in the whole airport. I guess I shouldn't be so harsh because most of the people coming in have been on planes for fifteen hours or more, and many of them haven't been shamed into adopting Western hygiene standards. Two cycles ago, they gave us a nice little graphic to illustrate to all of us how far South Africa was from Los Angeles. I guess last cycle they didn't think it was necessary with London. The plane graphic returns, and was I the only one who noticed how their pictures were bopping up and down during the flight? I don't know, but it made me laugh.

Click on the picture to play

When they went to Tokyo for Cycle Three, I thought that was a nice place, but the hotels in South Africa and London were not all that great. When the girls got to their place in Thailand, it was absolutely gorgeous, although I couldn't say the same thing about their transportation. I thought the huge ANTM Excursion limousine that they drove around last cycle was kind of gaudy, but it was nowhere near to being as awful looking as the pink van the girls were going to be riding in. It is so ugly, I have dubbed it the Whore-ient Express.

The next day it was spa time. Nnenna and Jade would be getting the traditional Thai massage that consists of a bath and then a session with a masseuse. The other girls were not exactly thrilled to be helping Jade and Nnenna, except perhaps for Joanie, who was taking things very seriously. She was very conscious to try and learn how to do things the correct way and be mindful of differences in the cultures. Meanwhile, Danielle was reprimanded for not being careful enough when she was placing the flower petals into the bath. She was sort of sprinkling them all around, but was told that she has to put them in one by one. It took only a few minutes for Danielle to get bored with that and simply throw the entire collection of petals into the bath and walk away.

As disinterested as Danielle was, Furonda was even more out of it. She said that she was a model, and not a masseuse, and her job was to help and rub down Nnenna, but it's hard to give somebody a massage with only one finger, don't you think? I guess Furonda was too busy thinking how she was going to spend all of the money she had. She was so excited earlier when she learned that she had about 3000 baht to spend and started learning some basic phrases in Thai. What she should have started with is the exchange rate, because 3000 baht is only about $75, which is probably enough to feed an average Thai family for a month, but does nothing for you if you are looking to get into a pair of Jimmy Choos. Furonda may laugh at the customs, but remember that tea ceremony that took out our darling Norelle in Japan.

I was wondering what sort of local flavor Tyra and friends would bring to the first photo shoot, and we learned that whatever was happening, they would probably be strung out when they were finished. OK, actually, they were really going to be strung up. The photo shoot had the girls pretending that they were mermaids that were trapped in a fishing net and were being pulled out of the water. They were going to be attached to a harness that would hang them upside down, and to make it realistic, they would have dead fish in the net with them.

Oh, and did anybody else think it was funny that the sponsor was Banana Boat? I guess they didn't count on half of the of the contestants having almost no need for any of their products. And I'm not an advertising executive, but if I sold tanning products, I would probably hold out for a photo shoot on the beach before shelling out my money. Jay had almost no way to relate the product to the shoot, but what was he going to say? "Three out of five mermaids prefer the waterproof protection of Banana Boat!" I don't think that's going to sell very many bottles.

The shoot was original, and it had a high degree of difficulty, but I have to say that I really didn't like a lot of the pictures that came out of it. The shots were from such a wide angle and there was so much going on in the background, that it was hard for the models to stand out. Some of the close-ups were nicer, but I thought they could have done better.

Danielle was really worried as the photo shoot started because she was afraid that perhaps there was a piranha that might be caught in the fishing net with her, and she said the thought of it made her throw up a little bit in her mouth. I've started to notice that sometimes Danielle uses the same look in her photographs, but like Jay said, she always knows her angles, and she seems to always know what to do with her body. I think she also gets some of the best make up week in and week out as well.

A lot of the girls got sick with Nnenna early on because she was winning everything, and they are still a little upset that she gets all of the attention, but none of them seem to be intimidated by her anymore, and they all believe they can win. Nnenna can take a great picture, but if there is something that is even the least bit difficult, she kind of caves in. Her face was once again strong, but she had trouble with her body. Eventually she is going to have to start standing out once again, instead of just coasting through.

I knew Jade would feel right at home in Bangkok. She could make a lot of money from all of the tourists that come and pay to have sex with men that dressed up as women. That being said, her picture was pretty good and she had good body control. Jay praised her for finally bringing a softer look to her shoot, but I have to say that I didn't really note that huge of a difference.

Sara had lots of problems with this shoot, starting with her hair, which made her look like Jase Wirey from Big Brother. She has been getting upset lately that people are questioning her desire, but she has improved a little bit during the shoots. I still think she has a great face and would really kill on the runway if she could get any diva attitude.

I'm not exactly rooting against Furonda, but I am really struggling to figure out why she is still here. Then I take a look at her photographs, and she has been doing very well. She was complaining a lot and seemed to be in a lot of pain. Jay said she looked like fish bait, but she pulled it together for a decent shot at the end.

Joanie had my favorite picture from this week. Her face is great, and she was sexy without being slutty, which was difficult because she does have the biggest boobs of the remaining models, and her girls were threatening to free themselves all the time. She almost sabotaged her shoot by drinking a bunch of coffee right before, which is not smart when you are going to be hanging upside down. It sounds cheesy, but I really like watching Joanie as her confidence grows a little bit every week.

As we all know, becoming America's Next Top Model takes more than just great pictures, and over the next few weeks there will be a lot of situations where the models will be tested on their personality. This week, the judging test had the girls attempt to sell their persona.

The two girls who are the best speakers are Nnenna and Sara, but they suffer from the same problem, which is that they both seemed rehearsed and they don't look like they are enjoying themselves when they are in front of you. Sara is intelligent, and I almost feel bad that she thinks intelligence is what is going to set her apart in the industry. Nnenna is definitely smart and speaks well, but is so very robotic. The judges were absolutely bored with her two minutes into her little speech, but she continued on and on, obvious that nobody is going to give her a job because her goal is to be recognized in the Nigerian embassy.

I think by far the most natural girl and the one most comfortable with herself and everything about her is Danielle. You can see that she is having fun and doesn't take herself too seriously. If there was somebody that you just wanted to kick back with, I think Danielle would be the choice. There's just more energy in the room when she's talking. Jade might not be the best personality in person, but she has no trouble selling herself, and that is what you need to be able to do in modeling. She may be a bitch, but it doesn't seem forced and it's definitely not an act. You may love her or hate her, but at least you have an opinion. Twiggy, who was having a ton of fun for some reason, loved that she caught Jade in a contradiction. Jade said that "what you see is what you get", but that "you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover", which was almost as bad as when she said she fits all of the modeling molds that she wants to break. Neither of them was as funny as hearing her say that her body was "proportionable". Also proportionable: Jades vocabulary and her intelligence.

Joanie had a hard time with this judging task as well. It seemed like she knew what she wanted to say, but just couldn't find the right words to say it, and instead relied on a bunch of clichés to get her point across, which made her sound completely unoriginal. The judges warned that she doesn't want to be known as the bumper sticker model, which I guess is bad, but is really better than being known as snaggletooth and people making elephant noises when you open your mouth. At the bottom of this challenge was Furonda. She wants to model, but had no clue what she was talking about. The only thing the judges noticed was her awfully gaudy dress, which must have been made by somebody who though Furonda was going out on the town with Prince...in 1987.

I have to admit that I was a little surprised at how the judging went. Danielle's name was called first, and you could tell she wowed everybody with her personality. Nigel gushed about how she was the one to beat, and the judges liked how she mentioned that her (now smaller) gap was her signature. As for the pictures, they marveled at how there was very little strain in her face, but plenty of strength in her eyes.

After Danielle came Jade, which surprised me because I didn't think her picture was that awesome, but I guess the judges liked her personality, even as crazy as it was. The big surprise was when they called out Sara's name after Jade. Sara's picture wasn't outstanding but maybe the judges believed that she showed enough potential to put her ahead. Joanie came next, and the only reason why she was not the top is that the judges still don't think she is enough of a model in person. She is starting to remind me a lot of Kahlen, who had great confidence and was really fierce in the photo shoots, but could never open up enough to impress the judges.

That left Nnenna and Furonda. Nnenna's big problem was that the judges called her safe, which is the kiss of death in this competition. Twiggy said she sinking fast and Miss J. said he only heard crickets whenever she was in front of them. It wasn't that funny, but was really enhanced when he brought out a toy box of fake crickets, which wasn't that funny, except that Twiggy had the funniest laugh that was one part Nelson, one part Mrs. Krabapple, and one part Bart Simpson. I swear I played it at least 15 times in a row. Furonda was in the bottom two because the judges finally realized that she is just not a model in person. At the beginning, Furonda was overconfident, people saw through it, and she worked hard to do better. Now, she sees herself on top and is doing a lot of complaining during the shoots.

The choices are always tough when there are this few left, but I thought there was no chance that they would send Nnenna home. Putting her into the bottom two was just to scare her, right? Not quite. The judges actually sent Nnenna home, which I understand, but thought it was a mistake. How ironic that both of these girls were practicing being in the final two, and they were actually in the bottom two this week? I guess they should have been practicing something other than acceptance speeches.

Although Nnenna's ouster is the biggest upset since, well, Mollie Sue, but as long as she leaves Houston and her clingy boyfriend, I think she could have a modeling career. Of the girls left, I have to say that Joanie and Danielle are the favorites to win. I think Sara has an outside shot because she is so tall, and I think her face is more suited to Cover Girl than any of the rest. I would say that Jade is going to be the next to go because despite what the judges say, she looks old in her pictures.

What did you think of this episode? Did Nnenna deserve to go home?

Posted by at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (36)

I don't know what's going on this week, but 227 stars are popping up everywhere. The Surreal Life had a cameo from the one and only Marla Gibbs, and a few days prior, Everybody Hates Chris had Jackée Harry AND Stoney Jackson (a.k.a. Travis, the dude that lived downstairs during the last season. Don't ask me how I know this). Plus, this weekend, VH1 will be airing the 20 Greatest Celebreality Moments, which could mean a little Countess Vaughn/Celebrity Fit Club 3 action too. (Yes, she was on 227. What? I'm not allowed to read the IMDb?) I don't know why 227 stars have been taking over the airwaves, but I think it's probably just a passive-aggressive way to pressure NBC into organizing a reunion. If you see any other 227 stars, let me know -- even if it is the ever prolific Regina "Brenda" King. And don't bother looking out for Helen Martin (Pearl) or Paul Winfield (Julian). They're both dead.

Posted by at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

South Park, 4/26/06, Comedy Central
Click on the picture to play (QuickTime 7 required)

Obviously, we are having fun with this Clipgasm thing. I am sure that we'll have another one in the afternoon, but for your morning pleasure, I had to share a little bit of what happened on South Park last night.

And if you are having that ActiveX control window pop up, I've got a solution after the jump.

A lot of people are receiving a message that says "Click to run an ActiveX control on this webpage". The problem is that there is that some company sued Microsoft, so they had to change the way they handle plug-ins. You can change the behavior back to the way it used to be by following these instructions. Again, we are probably going to do all our video using Macromedia Flash in the future because we want as many people to be able to view as possible, but for now please bear with us.

Posted by at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

• Lost star Michelle Rodriguez has chosen five days in jail over 240 hours of community service as the sentence for her DUI. Hell, give her 20 to life—it's not like they need her for shooting any new episodes since apparently they DON'T MAKE THEM ANYMORE. [AP]
• Britney Spears has had a rough week. First she fired her nanny. Now she's depressed after a fight with Kevin Federline out back of the trailer. So what's the answer to a nannyless, depressive, domestically turbulent existence? Getting yourself knocked up AGAIN, apparently. [TMZ]

• You know, if Teri Hatcher doesn't like what she sees in the mirror, there are better ways to deal with it than, say, BLINDING HERSELF WITH LIGHTBULB SHARDS. [MSNBC]
• And People magazine has picked its annual 50 Most Beautiful list, and of course Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are right up there at the top. Whatever, Zahara is like ten times hotter than either of those honkies. [AP]

Posted by at 6:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

With each passing week, it's getting harder and harder to predict who will be going home on American Idol. With the Aces, Buckys, and Kevins of the world eliminated, we now have to turn our attention towards the good singers. Time to chip away at the talent. Suddenly, Taylor and Katharine and Chris (well, not Chris) are more vulnerable than ever, but don't worry. As of 9 PM EST, Kellie Pickler was still hanging around. Would America finally excise this last member of the JV squad? Or would we be in for an upset? A McUpset?

The show begins with Ryan nearly stumbling down some steps as he happily waves to the audience and welcomes America back to the cheesiest talent show on Earth. He seems extra bubbly tonight, which may explain why he's unfazed by his little misstep. It may also explain why his tie is crooked too (then again, knowing Seacrest's penchant for over-anticipating fashion trends, he probably thinks it's cool to have the knot off center). Anyway, our beanpole host tells us that the show registered over 47 million votes last night, more than any other non-finale episode ever. To put that in perspective, Big Brother only culled about five million votes last summer, and that was their record (and yes, that included internet voting too).

Once we're done marveling on all the votes (about .36 seconds later), we take a glimpse at our idols. Everyone looks pretty good. Katharine has slipped out of her banana peel dress and into the more casual blouse and jeans ensemble. Elliot also has traded out his designer duds for a dorky shirt that makes his arms look skinny strange. And Taylor, I don't know what's up with him. His hair looks whiter than ever. It's like someone sifted flour on it about ten seconds prior.

Ryan then asks the judges about the previous night's show, and in a rare move, Simon takes back his harsh criticism of Katharine. He says that upon further review, he was way too hard on her. She sounded different and better on tape, and it was unfair the way he came down on her. Randy also chimes in that he agrees. Aw, that's nice guys, and I'm sure Katharine will really appreciate that if she gets voted off tonight. Thanks!

By the way, Paula doesn't retract any statements. Why? "I've never been harsh!" she says from under a pile of dark beads she has draped around her neck. She kind of looks like a fortune teller. A fortune teller on Vicodin. Simon then interrupts Paula's babble to create the awkward moment of the night. Yes, he asks if Paula and Ryan ARE TALKING TO EACH OTHER! Ryan gulps and nervously says yeah, yeah, yeah. He then tries to recover by smiling and tossing to the recap of last night. Good save!

We watch as the kids meet Andrea Bocelli all over again, and in the background, one of his songs plays, making the entire montage seem like an olive oil commercial. Eventually, I simply fast forward through the recap until the judges return to the screen. Ryan stands behind them and says they're just one big dysfunctional family. Dysfunctional is an understatement when you've got Looney Tunes Abdul sitting at the table. Nevertheless, Paula happily reads Ryan's cue card, clearly stating, "The results after the break!" It's the first phrase in over three years that she hasn't slurred and stuttered through. Bravo! I like to think this moment of lucidity is just the eye in her hurricane of craziness.

"Pretty hands!"

"Pretty pretty hands!"

"Yay!"

After the break, it's time for our favorite segment: the cheese-o-rama Ford music video. This week's song? "Call Me" by Blondie. The video follows the idols as they search for a missing dog throughout a city (or the Paramount studios New York set, to be specific). Eventually, they find their mutt, and guess what? The little guy has led them right to a Ford Fusion. Oh, and apparently this dog has gotten busy with a bitch -- there's a box of puppies next to the car. Aw, so cute. Still, there's something oddly disturbing yet appropriate about how American Idol takes a song about prostitution and makes it about puppies. Can't wait for their artistic interpretation of "Private Dancer." It'll center around kittens and merry-go-rounds.

When the video ends, Ryan introduces tonight's very special guests: David Foster and Andrea Bocelli. Yay? Seacrest asks a few perfunctory questions, and I can't help noticing how Bocelli answers everything as if he has some Italian-sounding computer box speaking for him. If Stephen Hawking and Super Mario Brothers had a lovechild....

Finally, the two guests perform for the crowd. Foster is on piano, Bocelli on vocals. It's terrible. That's not to say that the two men aren't talented. They're both excellent in their crafts. The song, however, is shit. When I hear it, I feel like I'm in some mattress store in Hackensack, NJ. The sort of place where everything has a gold trim and women named Angela and Bernice roam around in pleather pants.

Anyway, this schlocky, Vegas-worthy song comes to an end, and when we return from the commercial break, it's finally time for the results. Oops -- not before checking in with former Idol / present eyebrow enthusiast Lisa Tucker. She sits in the audience and banters with Ryan for about three seconds. In case you didn't know, she'll be on The OC this Thursday. Yeah, I don't care either.

Ryan then announces he'll be splitting the six singers into three groups of two. First up, Katharine. She's banished to the far side of the stage. Next is Elliot, who is assigned the middle. And Pickler? She gets the near side. Just a hunch: y'all probably want to stay away from her group tonight.

Paris is up next, and ouch, she's stuck in Kellie's group. That can't be a good thing. But hey, maybe Kellie now has someone to "play pottery" with. Taylor is sent to Elliot's section, and Chris joins Katharine on the far side of the stage, thus making the most photogenic couple of the night. They have to be safe. If those two are in the bottom, there will be hell to pay. As Chris saunters over to The McFar side of the stage, the audience cheers extra loud. I can't tell if it's because everyone really likes Chris or if everyone's just relieved that Katharine most likely will be safe now. Anyway, Ryan dismisses Elliot and Taylor, which means of the remaining two groups, one has the highest number of votes, and one has the lowest. Unless there was some strange glitch in the voting system, there's no way that the über-annoying duo of Pickler and Paris could have the highest number of votes. Sure enough, Chris and Katharine are told to take a McSeat, thus leaving the other two girls to duke it out for last place. Paris looks tremendously nervous, despite her smile, and Kellie, well, she seems resigned to her fate. Enjoy these moments while you can, Pickler. You've only got about three minutes left in the spotlight.

Well, Ryan doesn't even try to prolong the moment. He tells Kellie that it's all over, which is expected. We then see Paris's boisterous family breathe a sigh of relief. You know they'll be a mess when she finally goes. Anyway, Ryan directs Kellie to look at the big screen, and thus begins this week's Daniel Powter montage. To change things up, the producers use a flaccid, acoustic arrangement of "Bad Day," which manages to take an annoying song and make it even worse.

Afterwards, Kellie thanks everyone under the sun, and at one point says, "I know i won't be here much longer because a commercial's coming." Or worse: the cruel truncation of my Tivo. Yes, my DVR cuts Kellie off mid-ramble, and I decide that's a good thing. Sorry to see you go, Pickler. You seem like a sweet, friendly girl. Dumb, but sweet. You were a bit out of your league, but darnit if I wasn't won over by your idiotic charm. Good luck, and may the future present you with all sorts of fascinating new vocab words -- ones with three syllables, too!

What did you think? Happy with the results? Did everything go as expected?

Posted by at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (75)

This week, not only did MTV give us a great episode of 8th and Ocean, they also put the entire episode on Overdrive, their broadband site. So, thanks to the miracle of AlGore's Internets, I was able to watch the show, write my recap, drink beer and make screengrabs all at the same time, thus cementing my position as the laziest recapper on the TVgasm staff, bar none. Now if I could just get my insurance to cover a colostomy, I'd be in like Flynn. Without all that nasty pedophilia, of course.

And boy, what an episode it was. Seriously, this one had it all: Drama. Intrigue. Backstabbery. Even murder, if you count Vinci's continued butchering of the English language. Mostly it centered on Kelly and Sabrina, but the producers were kind enough to give us a nice dose of Vinci as well. Unfortunately, that made it hard for me to decide which characters to focus on: the Blunder Twins or their pet monkey, Gleek. Hopefully, I reached a nice balance between the two. Except for the title, of course. That had to go to Gleek Vinci.

Tonight's episode starts off with Sabrina talking to Suzy about how well her Laundry shoot went. Suzy tells her this could turn into a regular gig, which is exactly what Sabrina is looking for. Sabrina's also looking for a way to get Kelly off her dick, as she's been acting a bit jealous lately over Sabrina's recent success.

Later, Kelly drops by the agency to talk with Irene Marie, who's made the appointment for Kelly's boob job. Kelly doesn't seem nearly as excited about her new fun bags as I am, though. She tells Irene she didn't expect it to be this soon. "It's like a rush, but I don't want it to be a rush," she says. Irene says she must have misunderstood Kelly, because she thought Kelly wanted to move forward with her new chesticles. Kelly's just not ready yet, though, and decides to put it off a while longer. "Sweetheart, it's in your hands," Irene tells her. "It's in nobody's hands but yours." Well, hers and Irene's freaky doctor, who's probably fondling her future sweater puppets as I type.

Irene seems a little frustrated with Kelly, since this isn't how she acted last time at all. But she agrees to cancel the operation. For now. After Kelly leaves, we hear Irene talking to herself: "Chump don't want no help, chump don't get no help." Actually, she just says, "We don't know what we want, so we waste everybody's time." Irene and Suzy are wondering if Kelly's putting off the operation because Sabrina's doing so well now. No, she wouldn’t be that petty, would she…?

Back at the model apartment, Vinci is telling Britt she looks different today. Maybe it's her hair. Is it lighter? More blonde? Nope, she's still the same old Bride of Jesus she's always been. Vinci tells everyone he's really excited about winning an award for the last fashion show he did. His prize? MVP: Most Valuable Model. Ahh, Gleek is so cute when he tries to speak. Actually, he won one of the most expensive champagnes in the world, although he says he'd rather have a won a trophy. "I like trophies, no? Like I have all these trophies all around my bedroom." Whatev.

Meanwhile, Kelly and Sabrina are in the kitchen cooking when Kelly gets a call from Suzy about a casting. It's a pretty big client, and she tells Kelly to wear a bikini. And she needs to tell Sabrina to come too. No problem, Kelly says. Wait, there is a problem, because she doesn't tell Sabrina. "These are done," she says about a random piece of food. "And so's your career, bitch!" Okay, maybe she just thought that last part.

The next day Kelly shows up at the office for the casting, sans twin. Everyone is flabbergasted that Sabrina would blow off such an important casting. Kelly just says she doesn't know why Sabrina isn't there. Since she's already late, Suzy sends Kelly on by herself. Brigitte is pissed that Sabrina didn't bother to show up, as it's going to be another year before this client comes back. Speaking of which, when the client asks her where her twin is, Kelly says she's not at the casting, but she is in Miami. Passive aggressive much, KELLY?!

Later, Brigitte calls Sabrina to ask why she wasn't at the casting. Kelly was there, but she wasn't. Brigitte is so mad, there's almost a hint of color in her cheeks. Almost. Sabrina says she hates to rely on Kelly to tell her about castings, but since most of their castings are together, it usually works out okay. Sabrina is upset she missed it, especially since she's just sitting in the apartment doing nothing. Since Brigitte's skin can't be exposed to direct sunlight, she tells Sabrina to come in to the office: she's got some serious 'splaining to do!

Tracie asks Sabrina what happened. She tells Tracie that Kelly didn't tell her about that morning's casting, and now everyone at the agency's mad at her. Sabrina hates it when people are upset with her, because she's a very responsible person. But sometimes her sister gets in the way and ruins that for her, and it makes her look bad. And that really makes her angry, which isn't good at all. "You won't like me when I'm angry," she warns nobody in particular.

Enough of the twins. It's Vinci time! Vinci's shopping! At his secret spot! He's really excited about this store, especially since the saleslady says she remembers his size. Or does she? Because the first shirt he tries on is a little too small. Fortunately, the next one is just right. Suddenly, Vinci's cell phone rings. And wouldn't you know, it's the agency. Damn them! "I'm doing shopping now," he tells Mia, while trying to find a pen. Tonight he's working for the Julian Chang runway show, and he has to be there at 7:00. "You will arrive on time," Mia tells him. Maybe not, as even the mere thought of arriving on time sends Vinci into eye-rolling conniptions. "Okay, I go shave and all that," Vinci tells Mia. "I promise, I do the right thing." Ahhh. Vinci's charm even gets a smile out of Mia. If only she knew that as soon as he hung up with her, he went right back to doing shopping. Oh, Vinci…

Cut to 45 minutes before showtime, and Aba, a fashion producer, is running around looking for Vinci. Which makes me realize how much I miss Tim Gunn. "Where's Vinci? Has anyone seen Vinci? Should I check the Red Lobster?" Briana and Talesha are also in the show, and since they work with Vinci, everyone expects them to know where he is. With 15 minutes left, Vinci finally shows up, and Talesha asks why he's always lost in action. Why? I'll tell you why. Because he's Vinci, dammit! Vinci says he's been busy "just doing his stuff". Which as near as I can tell involves walking the streets smoking cigarettes.

Vinci's girlfriend calls while he's getting his makeup done. Wait a minute, Vinci has a girlfriend? Does Heide know? He tells the makeup artist he can powder him later, which sounds like code for something less than hetero, but the makeup guy says he has to do Vinci now, because he's due on stage in just a few minutes.

Speaking of which, with two minutes to go, Vinci has disappeared again. Wait, no he hasn't. He's backstage sharing his iPod with another male model! Now he's playing with a random doggie! Now he's standing next to a clothes rack having a smoke and an energy drink! Now it's commercial time! What?!

After the break, we join Sabrina at the agency as she tries to explain her actions from yesterday. You know, when she missed the casting Kelly neglected to tell her about? Yeah, those actions. Suzy and Brigitte both give her dirty looks, then Suzy wags her finger and simply says, "Shame." Suzy is such a bitch. Sabrina reiterates that she didn't know about the casting. "Kelly sometimes doesn't tell me what's going on."

Unfortunately, Brigitte can't smell what the Sabs is cooking, and tells Sabrina it sounds like she needs to drink a tall glass of shut the fuck up, before reminding her she's been told more than once to check in herself. Evidently, Brigitte isn't going to let Sabrina blame Kelly for not showing up, and wants her to take responsibility for her actions. Come on , Brigitte. Maybe that "personal responsibility" crap went over back in Transylvania, but this is America, dammit! And we take responsibility for nothing! I bet Brigitte wouldn't even sue her parents for making her albino.

Sean, Teddy and Adrian are playing pool. "Yo, what's the deal with Vinci?" Sean asks. "The man has a thing about not giving a rat's ass about work." Other things Vinci doesn't give a rat's ass about: Sean. Sean says he's not hating or anything, but maybe things just come too easy for Vinci. He just doesn't care. Of course he doesn't care: he's Vinci! Adrian wonders how Irene feels about it, since it's her image too. Irene makes a lot of money off a lot of different models, Sean says, so maybe she should just kick Vinci to the curb. Adrian thinks Vinci's a good guy, but sometimes he just wants to smack him around. That I'd like to see. Maybe they could have a walk-off. I wonder if David Bowie's available to judge… Teddy says Vinci thinks he can do what he wants with no consequences. "Eventually he's either going to get his ass beat, or he's going to get kicked out of this industry," he says. Judging by the way Teddy acted last week, I'm betting it won't be him administering the beat-down.

Meanwhile, back at the agency, Irene is on the phone apologizing for an "inconvenience". At first I think she's talking about Sabrina's no-show, but when she summons Tino to her office, I know it's about Vinci. You don't bring in Tino to handle a cat-fight. Irene tells Tino she just got a call about Vinci's behavior at the Julian Chang show. He showed up late and was acting very unprofessional backstage. In other words, he was just being Vinci. They just don't know what to do with him. Judging by Irene's new Cruella DeVille hair, I'd suggest she skin him and make a Vinci coat. Tino says he'll take care of it.

Later that night, he and Vinci are outside having a serious conversation. Tino wants to talk to Vinci about next season. "This season you've been lost, and a little bit unprofessional," he tells Vinci, before going through the laundry list of problems the bookers are having with him. Next, he asks Vinci if he's been going out at night a lot. Is he kidding? That's like asking the Pope if he shits in the woods a lot. "You know Miami. It's everything to do at Monday to Sunday," Vinci says. I think that means yes.

Tino says all he ever hears at the agency is "Vinci, Vinci, Vinci." Vinci says that's because "everyone is looking for Vinci Vinci Vinci. And Vinci doesn't want to know nothing about nobody. He wants to be alone." Vinci's growing Kurt Cobain complex frustrates Tino, who reminds Vinci that he was the only one who believed in Vinci a year ago. He says maybe people will start to spread some rumors, and say not to book Vinci because he's unprofessional. Maybe people will start to spread rumors? If that's supposed to be intimidating, Tino's got a lot to learn about intimidation. Next time, maybe he should try to emulate someone besides Fredo. Vinci's response? "Aw come on, I haven't missed a job never. Maybe you got the wrong information." After nearly swallowing his tongue, Tino says that's impossible, leading Vinci to wonder if he should get another agency or something…

Back at the apartment, Sabrina is telling Kelly about her meeting that morning. Sabrina is upset about how missing the casting made her look. Plus she feels bad about having to blame Kelly for missing it. "I shouldn't be blamed," Kelly snaps back. Sabrina says it's Kelly's fault she missed the casting. Kelly says she's not Sabrina's booker. "You're my sister!" Sabrina yells. Kelly says she just forgot. "Can you not realize that I forgot to tell you?" Kelly says she's not Sabrina's mother, and she's not supposed to write down when her castings are and personally take her there. At that, Sabrina storms off, saying she doesn't understand what Kelly's problem is. I do. She's a bitch.

In her bedroom Sabrina is telling Briana, Talesha and Tracie that she has to get away from Kelly. Hey, isn't this the same thing Kelly was saying about her a few weeks ago? I'm beginning to think we may have to split these two up. Sabrina says that even last season she caught Kelly not telling her about castings. Sabrina just doesn't like that Kelly can't admit when she's wrong. "I'm not wrong," Kelly says, busting in from the hallway. Sabrina tells Kelly that she needs help. "I have told you Sabrina, and I'm not going to get loud, I'm not going to get angry, but my heart's starting to pound really fast..." "Good, I'm so glad," Sabrina interrupts in her best Chloe voice, which isn't really very good. "I just forgot," Kelly says. It's not like she purposefully didn't want Sabrina to go. I don't know why Kelly insists on lying about it, especially considering MTV has it all on tape. Oh yeah, she's a model. Guess I do know why she insists on lying.

Next, they start arguing in their secret twin language. It was hard to understand, but I think I captured the gist of what they were saying.
Sabrina: "You're full of shit."
Kelly: "You're full of shit."
Sabrina: "You really are."
Kelly: "You're full of shit."
Like I said, twin language is hard to follow.

Finally, Sabrina tells Kelly that everyone in her life sees what's going on. Hey, Sabs, want to know why Kelly acts like this? "Because you're such a bitch," that's why. "You sit there like you're some prissy little bitch all the time and act like I'm always wrong and I'm not. You're just mean." Kelly says Sabrina is making it sound like Kelly knew and chose not to tell her. Yeah, I'd say that's exactly what she's making it sound like, Kelly. "Get off my ass," Kelly says. "Will you please just get the fuck off my ass?" And then she slams the door and walks off, leaving Sabs in the room with the other models trying to figure out what the hell just happened…

So, what the hell do you think just happened?

Posted by at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (48)

American Idol, 4/26/06, FOX
Click to play (Quicktime 7 required)

What's there to say? It's Paula Abdul.

Posted by at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

ABC has brought us plenty of talent: George Lopez, Jim Belushi, Freddie Prinze Jr., and now... Mick Jagger? Yes, the legendary Rolling Stones dinosaur has signed on to an ABC sitcom pilot tentatively called Let's Rob Mick Jagger. The show centers around a down-and-out janitor played by Donal Logue (groan) who decides to gather a bunch of friends and, well, rob Mick Jagger. I know it sounds a bit ridiculous, but there is promise, despite the Donal Logue-ness of the project. The pilot actually comes from David Letterman's old producer, Rob Burnett, and it used to be called Let's Rob Jeff Goldblum; so it can't be that bad, right? Okay, don't answer that. Burnett tells the New York Times that it's his ambition to make a serialized version of Lost or 24 (isn't that kind of what Arrested Development was?), and while I hope this bizarre pilot works, I'm sure ABC will have many other opportunities for Mick should it tank. Our ideas after the jump...

Mick & Faith:

Finally. The sitcom we've all been waiting for. Mick Jagger, Kelly Ripa, and Ted McGinley? It's a masterpiece waiting to happen. Originally, executives were thinking of having Mick and Kelly play siblings, but then they realized, "What if they're not just siblings -- they're sisters!" And so the brainchild was born. Watch as Mick and Kelly do such hilarious things as get into food fights! Break eggs on their heads! Toss flour in their faces! And get into more food fights! It's a comedy that everyone can mildly smile at!

Perfect Jaggers:

Execs have been looking for an excuse to bring back Perfect Strangers, and now they finally have it. Meet Larry Appleton's latest wacky cousin: Mick Jagger! The Rolling Stones front man moves into the same cramped apartment with Larry and Balki where the three pass the time by getting in over their head with wonderfully goofy schemes. Every episode ends with the cousins sitting on the couch as Larry concedes that he should have listened to the other two all along. Then Mick walks across the hall and has a threesome with Jennifer and Mary Anne. Classic TGIF!

Hangin' with Mr. Jagger:

We've all been waiting for Mick Jagger and Raven Symone to collaborate. The wait is over. The two unite with Holly Robinson Peete to do what we love most: playing basketball and crackin' jokes! Unfortunately, the last piece of this puzzle, Nell Carter, has since passed, as has her heir apparent, Shirley Hemphill. So who better to fill in than Mo'Nique? The way she and Mick spar is worth the price of admission! And let's not overlook the sexual chemistry!

Strut by Strut:

Mick Jagger? Suzanne Somers? Need we say anything more?

Jagger's Anatomy:

Mick plays a medical intern in Seattle who winds up in a torrid affair with dreamy Patrick Dempsey. In the process, he Botoxes his face beyond recognition and occasionally makes sappy observations about the world around him. His badinage with Sandra Oh is priceless. This series is not to be confused with Mick's Anatomy. That's just a show about his penis.

Posted by at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

It was an emotional roller coaster on tonight's American Idol. The big story tonight was that Elliot sang so well he made Paula cry. It was either that or whatever painkiller cocktail she'd imbibed before the show. Yes, Elliot shone brightly tonight (as did Chris), but when it came to duds, it was all about Pickler. Kellie was absolutely painful to watch. Her best moment came before her video clip even rolled -- and from there, it was all downhill. As for the rest of the gang? Blah. A big ole blah. Hope everyone enjoyed last week's magic because it sure as hell wasn't caught in a bottle.

This week's theme was "love" -- as in, we ever so "love" when random popera singers drop in and offer advice that's only barely more helpful than "sing that better." Yes, Andrea Bocelli swung by to help the kids sing love songs, and since it was evident that he could offer little in the way of constructive criticism, the Idol producers roped in über music producer David Foster to help out. Actually, he probably would have been there anyway since apparently Foster and Bocelli have an album "dropping" any day now. Ah yes. Blatant product placement. Where would Idol be without it? (Excuse me while I sip a Coca Cola.)

The show begins with Ryan back to his clean-shaven, beardless look. I rejoice that for now, I no longer have to stare at his feeble attempts at Moses-like greatness. I have a feeling that this episode can't be nearly as good as last week's stroll through the Standards, a premonition that's only strengthened by the startling image of Stevie Scott smiling at the camera. I swear, she's like the little girl from The Ring all growns up. Nothing good can come from this.

Ryan then reveals that all the singers will have two numbers tonight, "so there's no excuse for not voting." Actually, there is an excuse: DIGNITY. Okay, okay, it's become normal in society to vote for Idol, but I have yet to cross that boundary. Maybe for the final two, I'll take the plunge...

Next, it's time to meet our guest star, Andrea Bocelli. We immediately cut to Celine Dion -- another harbinger of all things evil. Seriously, all this show needs are a flock of crows to fly by and maybe a black cat to cross the stage. This night is cursed.

Anyway, Celine Dion says, "If God would have a singing voice, he must sound a lot like Andrea Bocelli." Is Celine implying that God isn't as good Andrea Bocelli? That's a bold move, Celine. Sounds like the gauntlet's been thrown. Time for a sing-off: Andrea Bocelli vs. God. Best two out of three songs.

For those of you who don't know, Andrea Bocelli is a (so-called) opera singer who has found success by merging classical sounds with modern pop. In this way, he has opened the door for such schlock acts as Sarah Brightman, Il Divo, and (barfing a little) Josh Groban. Oh, and he's also blind. Ryan says, "Bocelli has bridged the gap between classical and pop." Yes, he has. And that bridge SUCKS. And if anyone doubts me, feel free to give a listen to Bocelli's popera version of "Can't Help Falling In Love."

We then spend some time with David Foster, formerly of The Princes of Malibu, and we learn that when it comes to music, he's a hardass. Wait? So you're saying that Simon's not the only jerk in the music business? This is absurd! I thought they were all such friendly people!

Finally, it's time for the singing. Katharine McPhee is up next, and uh oh -- she's singing "I Have Nothing," the song that has slain many an Idol contestant. Would she be able to tackle it? Well, after singing a little duet with Andrea, she takes the Idol stage. She looks particularly Catherine Zeta-Jonesish tonight, and in her bright yellow dress, she's certainly an eyeful.

If Catherine Zeta-Jones and a banana had a lovechild...

McBoobies!

McPASSION!

At first, I think Katharine's a little off, but I'm still firmly caught in the grips of McPheever from last week, so I don't really care. When she hits the big key change, she heads straight into va-va-voom territory as her voice powers over the stage, and yup, there's Daddy McPhee tearing up. Congrats, dude. You're the official crier of the season. Suddenly, Katharine goes stomping across the stage, revealing a giant slit that goes right up to her, well, rhymes with slit. We have a near vag-slip, but alas, the cameras cut away at just the right moment, leaving the audience free from scandal.

I see London, I see France...

I see Katharine's underpants! Tee hee!

Katharine receives thunderous applause as usual, and look! There's Olympic failure Sasha Cohen! How's that Project Runway outfit treating you? Anyway, Randy says the song is too big for Katharine, and I'm a bit surprised. I really liked it! But then again, I forget: McPheever. It screws with you. Messes up your senses.

For sure, I think Paula will praise Katharine, but instead, she gives the kiss of death: "As usual, you are stunning." Ouch. Whenever Paula opens with a fashion compliment, it's always bad news. Believe it or not, Paula actually gives actual, coherent constructive criticism -- saying something about not pushing her voice too hard and avoiding flat notes or whatever. Of course, this is Paula, so she quickly veers back into nonsense as she utters something about money in the back pocket. It doesn't help that her microphone is completely screwed up too. Simon then echoes the other two and says that Katharine chose the wrong song. She tried to fill Whitney Houston's shoes and failed. Very harsh. But at least Ryan has something nice to say: "For those that don't have their volume on, I'm sure you'll get a lot of votes." Wow, he just kind of slammed her singing in a big way. And at the same time, he sort of came onto her too. Stop, Ryan.

Next up is Elliot, who has to suffer through one of Ryan's pre-video clip interviews. Our host asks Mr. Yamin why he's singing a Donny Hathaway song, causing Elliot to stammer and stutter through a long, rambling response. God, just go to the clip already. He's gonna start sweating soon. Amusingly enough, Elliot says that he wants to honor Donny Hathaway's music and bring it to the forefront. The audience then applauds enthusiastically. Oh, c'mon. Like any of you teenyboppers EVEN KNOW WHO HE IS! I don't know who he is. I'm not gonna lie. Did I just expose myself as a musical idiot?

We then saw some of Elliot's practice sessions with David Foster who says, "He used a lot of Donnie's licks, and that's why I was trying to get him to like go off the Donnie licks and create his own lick there at that moment." Please, stop saying "lick." Anyway, Foster has to work with Elliot over and over and over again to hit this one note, and just when I think fisticuffs of frustration might break out, Elliot hits it. But can he nail it on the big stage? The answer: yes. Elliot is on top of his game tonight. He has total control and sounds wonderful. Everyone loves it, even Kevin Nealon, and if that's not a seal of approval, I don't know what is.

Randy says that hated the arrangement but loved Elliot. And then we move to Paula. Oh Paula. Yes, she's crying. I can't even imagine what will follow. "You move me. You celebrate what this competition is about," she says. After some more tearful babling, she then says, "You are an American Idol. You are!" I feel sort of embarrassed because Paula talks about how the song made her reflect on how far these kids have come, and well, that's exactly what I was thinking of during the song too. Yes, Paula and I were on the same wavelength tonight. I've never felt more shame in my life.

Anyway, Simon also praises Elliot, saying, "Tonight in parts, that was like a vocal masterclass. It was superb." Wow. Now watch Elliot get stuck in the bottom three.

Commercial time. I'm unlucky enough to stop the Tivo during an American Idol board game. It's bad enough that midway through the spot, a perky girl yells "Constantine Maroulis!" but then, at the very end, William Hung appears and tells a girl that she sounded pretty good, dawg. Please, boycott this game. Now.

And in other ridiculous news, I see a promo for this week's OC which will be featuring a Korean popstar AND Lisa Tucker at the prom. Wow. Sweeps is really coming early this year. Did anyone tell Josh Schwartz that Lisa Tucker isn't "indie"? He might lose all his cred! Bring back Rooney!!!

Well, from the highs of Elliot we then move to the twangy vocal nether-world of Kellie Pickler. Ryan asks her if she'll be singing her love song to anyone in particular. She frowns and says no and then launches into some very Pickler-esque commentary about Ghost. She seems to really love the famed pottery scene, but alas, "I don't have anybody to play pottery with," she bemoans. Hey, I'm surprised she even knows what pottery is. By the way, I wasn't aware that people could "play pottery." I learn something new every day!

During her rehearsals with Foster and Bocelli, Kellie learns all about her hidden falsetto, which isn't half bad. She works hard to use it, and I think that she might even be able to rebound from last week. Foster seems to do all the work, but Bocelli has some helpful words: "She's very happy, and I like her," he says. Okay, maybe "helpful" is the wrong word. Later, Foster asks Bocelli what color hair he thinks Kellie has. Bocelli accurately answer "Blonde," totally blowing Foster's mind in the process. C'mon now. How could she not be blonde? Has he even heard her speak?

Poor Pickler. She sounds bad out of the gate, and it just gets worse. And worse. And worse. Seriously, it's painful. Somebody find a cane and yank her off the stage. I can't describe how awkward this is. You can see the fear in her eyes. Plus, she clearly has no emotional connection with the song, making the experience all the more trying. The good news: she does hit her falsetto, but that's about it. Afterwards, we cut to the audience where Sela Ward is clapping with her kids. I can't be positive, but I think she just rolled out of bed.

As expected, the judges absolutely ream Kellie. Paula says that she's not raising the bar every week. "At this point, it's about greatness, and I don't feel that from you," she then adds. Wow. Coming from Paula, that's the equivalent of saying, "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! You're ugly and nasty and smelly and your family sucks and I hope you die!" Simon also bashes Kellie, and to give you an idea of how bad she sounded, the audience doesn't even react. Not even one sympathy boo. I'd like to think she'll be gone tomorrow, but for some reason, I think she'll still be around.

Young Paris Bennett is next, and she tells us that she'll be singing "The Way We Were." Why? Because she's only seventeen, and she doesn't have "love thoughts" but she does have memories. Uh, it's still a ridiculous song for a 17 year old to sing. What exactly will "The Way We Were" apply to in her life? Her friends in the sandbox? Her juicebox?

Anyway, Paris takes the stage, and if last week's look was "secretary," this week's is "secretary goin' out on the town!" She still looks dowdy, but now she's tried to add a bit of sass. It's the kind of look you see when women dress up for a big night at Downtown Disney. Her song is fairly forgettable and blah. But hey, at least Joely Fisher liked it! That's gotta count for something, right? No? Okay, never mind. The judges say Paris is okay, but none of them are blown away. Neither are we. Yawn.

Taylor is next, and he sings "Just Once." I'm instantly transported to my dentist's office as he drones through a rather bland version of this already bland song. Again, blah. Just about the only noteworthy part of the performance is when we see Tori Spelling clapping in the crowd, her toilet-seat-shaped breasts happily glistening in the spotlight. Again, the judges are nonplussed. Randy does one of his "I don't know what's going on tonight" remarks. He actually digs in with a rather harsh criticism when he says, "It wasn't half as good as the original." Paula also says she wasn't a total fan, and Simon labels it with the old "hotel lounge" insult. It seems like Taylor's not gonna get any love, that is, until Paula stands up and yells, "WE LOVE YOU!" Seriously, what exactly did she put into her Coco Puffs today?

"I'm NOT going to pay a lot for this muffler!"

Last up is Chris who says he'll be singing Bryan Adams. This has me already groaning, but embarrassing confession time: I actually really like the Bryan Adams song he'll be singing. It was lovely in Don Juan De Marco! So sue me! Anyway, in the clip, Foster tells Bocelli, "I feel like he's singing from here, not here." Yes, I'm sure the blind guy could really understand the differences between the two "here's".

Foster then says that he once recorded an entire album with Bocelli lying on the ground. Cut to Andrea Bocelli on the floor, belting out a song. Odd. Then it's time for Chris to sing on the ground, and he does a swell job. But, uh, is he going to have to sing like that on stage?

Chris floors us. (Yuk yuk yuk)

Ultimately, Foster tells us that "If [Chris] delivers the performance of his life, he'll do amazing." His lips then read "BUT," but the audio drops away, and we never learn what the caveat is to this. Doesn't matter. Chris is awesome. From the first two notes, you can just tell that he has total command over this song. Sure enough, he nails it (well, except for one pesky high note). Plus, it seems like this song is one of the few songs tonight that is actually romantic. With time running out on the show, the judges are rushed through their responses, but that's okay. They're all the same: they love it. Paula manages to say "love" about five times in a row, and Simon calls it a "very sexy song."

Seacrest then rushes us into the show recap, and amusingly, the judges mics are still on, so we can hear their voices over all the phone numbers. Unfortunately, we can't quite discern what they're saying. Oh well. Overall, a mediocre show. What did you think? Who was best? Who was worst? Who's bottom three? And who's going home?

Posted by at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (86)

As far as this weeks Sopranos goes I have good news and bad news. The bad news is the Vito storyline that everyone has gotten so wrapped up in this season is nowhere to be found. In fact Vito doesn’t even make an appearance. Instead the main focus of the episode is that lifelong loser Artie Bucco, the owner of the local Italian restaurant that is the hangout of Tony and his crew.

The good news however is the subplot, featuring Christopher flying off to Hollywood to take a meeting with Sir Ben Kingsley, is some of the best stuff I’ve seen all year. In fact it created one of the greatest moments in the history of the show in my humble opinion. Not since Paulie Walnuts told Christopher to “Stop being c*nty” when they were lost in the woods in season 3 have I laughed so hard. What was it that had me in tears of joy? Lauren Bacall getting cold-cocked right in the face. And if there’s one thing 12 years of marriage to Humphrey Bogart taught her, it’s how to take a punch.

The show starts with Christopher’s heroin thug meeting up with the Italian outsourced whackers they are bringing in to whack Rusty, a member of Johnny Sacks crew. Meanwhile the two crews from Jersey and NY are having a nice dinner at Nuovo Vesuvio to honor something or other. Who knows. It's the Italian Mafia, they are always at a dinner table of some sort. During the toasting and multiple salutes, Phil Leotardo gets up to do his own take on the toast whereby he immediately starts talking about the Vito, the "faggot ass cornholing cocksucker that married my cousin. He should f*cking die.” The Italian culture is so rich. After the toasts the conversation soon turns to the fact that the food is taking too long to get there. When the owner/chef Artie Bucco comes out to talk, they ask him if he’s been to the new Italian restaurant “Da Giovanni”. It’s all the rage. It's like trucker hats only more intense. Apparently they bring you eggplant parms in less than an hour. Oooh. I went there.

After dinner Tony and Chris are talking about the “La cage aux fag” otherwise known as Vito. Tony’s plan is that if he shows up he shows up, if not then they wont worry about it. I doubt this plan will hold. Christopher then tells Tony that he wants to go out to LA this week for a meeting with Ben Kingsley about his crappy horror movie. Tony is a little reluctant at first since this is the week of the Notre Dame-Michigan game. Well that’s easy. Since Michigan is a bunch of, to borrow a phrase from Phil Leotardo, “faggot ass cornholing cocksuckers” it’s obvious that Notre Dame will win. Also, go Buckeyes.

You fargin icehole!

The next day we see the hit on Rusty goes off without a hitch much to my surprise. The two Italians pull the cliché “lock the car and ask for directions while the other one comes up from behind and whacks him” routine. Which is the second most used style of whacking behind the ever-classic “tell the guy that your sister's husband is beating your sister and then when you get in a car to go beat the crap out of him get cut off at a toll booth and riddled with bullets.” But that one is so forties.

Later that night we see Artie Bucco at his restaurant acting like the douchebag that he is. Annoying customers, making excuses for having no business, etc. At the bar Christopher and his friends are sitting having a drink. They notice Artie’s new Albanian hostess, a hottie named Martina. Clearly Artie wants to get into her pants. Hopefully he’d wash his hands afterwards cuz the last thing you need is a veal parm with the scent of an Albanian quickie. Thankfully Martina is only interested in Benny Fazio, the munchkin Mafioso as I like to call him. Seriously, he’s so cute. Even when you see him shaking down a store owner for protection money you just want to throw some leotards on him and make him sing "The Lollipop Guild."

Over at Da Giovanni, Tony and Carmela are there having lunch to celebrate Phil Leotardo’s faggot ass cornholing cocksucker kid's holy confirmation. Neither of them can believe how amazing the food really is. When Phil stops by to talk to Tony he thanks him for the successful hit on Rusty. Tony pretends like he doesn’t know anything about it. Tony didn’t get where he is without brains.

Back at Nuovo Vesuvio Artie is presiding over another night with empty tables. His night goes form bad to worse when he sees Martina stroking the leg of little Benny at the bar. And I do mean little. He's like that freaky midget that sat next to Marlon Brando in The Island of Dr. Moreau . Oh, he's just a doll! In retaliation, he pulls Martina aside and tells her that the guy he was going to have help her get her green card suddenly can’t do it. Aww. Poor Artie can’t bang his hostess.

Artie then goes off to the Bada Bing to drown his sorrows and we are treated to some more fantastic HBO nudity. The Bada Bing sure has some quality ladies. When Tony shows up Artie complains about how “guys like him” can only hope to blow in their pants after a quick backroom rubdown I realize the double-edged sword being uncensored can be. Now I had to deal with that image in my head for a split second. Artie then continues his bitchy attitude by whining about Tony going to Da Giovanni. After Artie leaves in a huff he goes home and has to deal with his wife talking about how they are having trouble getting the good meat. A problem I never have to deal with, if ya know what I mean. Wait, taht sounded gay. I emant, I have no problem with meat cuz my meat is. Oh never mind. Then Artie's wife talks about how Artie's talking to the customers is hurting business because he’s a bore. Artie doesn't want to hear any of it.

The next night Artie continues his bitchy streak by continuing to give Martina a hard time. When Little Benny tries to talk to him about it, Artie then makes a big mistake and gives Benny mouth. Benny may be a midget, but he’s a mafia enforcer midget. Like in that movie Bugsy Malone with Jodie Foster, where the mafia guys were all kids and they shot pie guns. Thankfully Artie’s wife intercedes in time so things don’t spiral out of control.

Speaking of spiraling out of control out in LA, Christopher, who’s in AA, is making himself busy with a nice hooker and some blow. The blow I have a problem with, but after getting a nice long look at the hooker's fantastic milk fountains, even I question my longstanding “no hooker” policy.

Back at Nuovo Vesuvio, Arties whine fest continues unabated. When Tony stops in for dinner he starts bitching about the business and how its down 40% from last year. When Tony mentions maybe he can start using two for one coupons, Artie gets even more offended and even brings up the fact that Tony doesn’t pay his tab. Of course what isn’t mentioned is that the reason Tony doesn’t pay his tab is because Tony intervened a few seasons ago and kept Artie from getting into some serious trouble on an outstanding debt. Things go from bad to worse, or from worse to worser, depending on how you look at it, when American Express shows up and tells them that they are shutting down all Amex purchases while they open an investigation into stolen cards that they traced to the restaurant.

In LA we see the fantastic Sir Ben Kingsley (go rent Sexy Beast now) taking a meeting with Little Carmine and Christopher. The meeting doesn’t go well from the start, especially when Christopher gloats that their writer’s big credentials are Nash Bridges and Hooperman. Awesome. The meeting is then interrupted when Lauren Bacall stops by to visit. For a woman who was married to Humphrey Bogart, a man who died literally a half century ago, she looks pretty damn good. And this is HBO, so seeing her topless isn’t necessarily out of the question. And don’t tell me you're not curious.

Sir Ben then calls the meeting short since he has to go to the “luxury lounge” at 2. For those who aren’t aware, when celebrities to big events they are literally handed thousands of dollars in expensive merchandise for free. It’s a ploy used to attract big-name stars to their events and also a way for the product companies to get the possibility of celebrity X getting his or her picture in US Weekly wearing one of their watches or designer bags or whatever, which only helps to increase the demand. I know this since as a member of the TVgasm writing staff I am not unfamiliar with the practice. In fact only yesterday did I get an email from MTV about requests for press credentials at the upcoming MTV Movie awards. To quote directly from the email “Please note there is no standard main press room. In its place, there will be a viewing room to watch the show and access multbox show feeds. No talent will be present.” See that? We get to hang out in a room with a bunch of TVs knowing that the real celebrities are technically in the very same building. I even heard we get complimentary Doritos. Ahh, the perks of the job… Once Christopher gets a look at the luxury suite, where Ben Kingsley, oh excuse me, Sir Ben Kingsley (cuz if the queen is attacked by a dragon that means he'll be called into action or something) is handed thousands of dollars worth of shwag by hot supermodels, his jaw drops.

Back at Nuovo Vesuvio, the pathetic existence of Artie continues when we see him blowing up at the help after he tells them that one of them is stealing credit card numbers from the customers. Afterwards a panicked Martina calls Benny telling him that their credit card scheme is found out.

Later, Artie is leaving early for the night because of his “investing club at the Learning Annex”. I love this show. Even their throwaway lines are great. A loser like Artie is the exact kind of guy that would consider an “investing club at the Learning Annex” worthwhile. When he goes to Martina saying he wants to ask her a question she immediately breaks down and admits that she and Benny were behind the whole thing. Artie then continues his downward spiral by immediately going to confront Benny and ends up beating the shit out of him. Bad mistake.

The next day while he is out with Tony on his boat (the Stugots II, natch), Tony lays into him for beating up one of his guys and not going to him first. Tony is then forced to clean up after Artie’s outburst. He lays into Benny about pulling his scam at Nuovo Vesuvio. “You don’t shit where you eat. And you really don’t shit where I eat.” Another handy saying is “You don’t shit where you sleep” but that one no one ever tells you. You have to learn it the hard way.

Back in beautiful downtown Los Angeles, Christopher tries to get Sir Ben to get him into one of those luxury suites. When that doesn’t work he decides to take matters into his own hands. That night after the ShoWest awards show when Lauren Bacall is walking to her limo with her giant gift basket, Chris runs up with a ski mask on and grabs it. When Bacall tells him to get the F away from him, Christopher cold-cocks her right in the face. Bacall goes down. She goes down hard. I laugh my ass off. I’m sure all of you have seen the clip J-Unit put up earlier, but it's worth showing again. The final “my f*cking arm” line is what really brings it all together.

That night at Vesuvio’s, Benny is there with his family for his parents' anniversary party (Tony insisted he hold it there as punishment). Artie, not willing to leave well enough alone, comes by the table and makes a thinly veiled reference to Benny banging the hostess. This brings down all the wrath that a 4’ 6” thug can muster and he storms into the kitchen, shoves him against the wall and shoves his hand in the scalding hot sauce thus rendering it inedible until they fish out the dead skin.

The next night, when Tony and Carmela come by the restaurant, Tony pulls him aside to have a talk with him. Tony tries to talk some sense into him, telling him to stop walking around feeling sorry for himself, but it just gets Artie more defensive and acting more douchebaggerishly.

Once you think things are lost for Artie a couple shows up at the end of the night when the kitchen is closed. Artie at first doesn't want to cook for them, but then after he reluctantly agrees, he goes and pulls out his special worn-out cookbook and decides to cook for them a meal to end all meals. Unfortunately it’s a freaking rabbit that he shot in his garden and skinned himself, which is just gross.

So what did everyone else think? Will Vito sleep with the male fishes? Will we get to see even more boobs next week?

Posted by EdHIll at 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Remember back in January when I announced a Laguna Beach giveaway? No? Well, I did. I wanted readers to submit proof that they were the ultimate Laguna Beach fans, and in return, they'd win a free copy of Laguna Beach: Life Inside the Bubble from Simon & Schuster. Several months have passed without any news of a winner since then, and that's pretty much my fault. I know -- that's like totally standard. I guess when you're no longer paying attention to the daily struggles in The 'Guna, life can seem empty and directionless. Simple things like contest results no longer have the same urgency. Well, fear not! At long last, I have finally buckled down and decided upon our winners. The wait is finally dunzo.

Winners after the jump...

Winner #1

The first winner is TVgasm reader Courtney, who devised a drinking game based on Laguna Beach. Granted, the rules tend to focus more on season one, but I'm sure she'd have no trouble adapting and updating the game for season two. The game could probably use a few J-Wahl and Jessica rules thrown in for good measure. And Casey too. And Alex M. And Roz. Okay, so there's a lot of room for growth. But I liked the effort Courtney put into actually creating a game that we could all enjoy.

Courtney displays the rules...

The Rules:

1. Each player chooses a different character.  When that character's name is said, the player must drink.

Drink when:

2. Kristen and LC say they hate each other.

3. Kristen complains about something.

4. Stephen and Kristen argue.

5. LC makes "googly eyes" at Stephen.

6. Lo talks in a high-pitched voice.

7. Kristen says "Stee-phaaaan!"

8. Someone is shown surfing.

9. Someone is shown shopping.

10. A corny word or phrase is used: aka "dunzo", "stoked", etc.

Winner #2

Okay, this is some pretty impressive dedication. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Matt and his sidekick Gaby. I'm calling Gaby the sidekick because Matt was the one who actually submitted these photos. The truth is that these two clearly have a passion for both Laguna Beach AND TVgasm, as evidenced by their intense love of Roz (a.k.a. Alex H. for you newbies. I could explain the derivation of "Roz," but it's just too complicated. Check out the Laguna archives). Not only did these guys create a Roz collage, but they actually met the champion sidekick and took pictures with her. Plus, they also took some fun potshots at our favorite Mormon chipmunk, Morgan. How can we deny that? Well done, guys.

Matt, Roz, Gaby.

(clockwise from top left) Matt, random girl, Roz, Alex M., Gaby, Jessica, Taylor, and Morgan.

So true...

I would have pegged her for more the Grimace type...

The one and only Roz.

Roz as art...

and the pièce-de-resistance...

Roz Collage!

Thanks to all who participated. Hopefully there will be many more Laguna contests to come!

Posted by at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

The Sopranos, 4/13/06, HBO
Click on the picture to play (QuickTime 7 required)

EdHill has graciously taken over recapping The Sopranos for us, but for those of you who may not watch the show, I thought I would share a little clip from this past week's episode. The recap is still coming, and I don't want to give away any of the plot, but I think you'll see that in this clip, Lauren Bacall (nee Betty Joan Perske) discovers just how tough Hollywood really is (or Beverly Hills if you are to take it literally). Still, looking pretty good at 81!

Posted by at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Oh joyful day. Not only was The Apprentice back this week, but we had a full family reunion as The Donald recruited his loyal spawn, Ivanka and Donald Jr. to help decide the fate of one unlucky candidate. I must admit, Ivanka's waxen visage has grown on me as she's proven herself to be fairly articulate and somewhat vicious. Donald Jr. -- well, he still needs some work. It's encouraging to see that his hair is no better than his father's, but chances are we'd probably like him a bit more if he took a few diction classes from time to time and maybe even saw an orthodontist. Nevertheless, having the whole fam around made for fun times, but we must always remember one thing: no one, absolutely no one, can replace George and Carolyn.

With it being two weeks since the last Apprentice, memories of the last Boardroom were somewhat hazy for me. Luckily, the show began in said Boardroom with Leslie and Lee going at it in front of Trump. That's right. It's all coming back to me now: Lee's nonstop blabbing, Leslie's exasperation, those damn P'Eatzzas. The whole thing just made for gastrointestinal malaise. Come to think of it, I bet if we really investigate Bruce's intestinal blockage on Survivor, we'd find an old P'Eatzza stuck in his colon. Feeling sick now? Good. That's how my recaps are best read.

Anyway, with Leslie and Lee snarling at each other in the Boardroom, we then cut to Charmaine up in the suite who was trying to predict the outcome of this showdown. "Maybe I'm just DUMB, but I kind of feel like Leslie's coming back," she told one of her roommates. Bad news, Charmaine. You're dumb. Leslie was fired, and in case we forgot, she was canned on her birthday. I felt bad for her two weeks ago the first time we saw this, but now we saw that her buddies had planned a whole celebration for her. They'd even baked her a birthday cake, complete with marbleized frosting. But alas, Trump's finger gun is a mighty force, and no Duncan Hines creation can fight it. Therefore, Leslie went home without even participating in her own birthday bonanza -- just proving that you can't have your cake and eat it too. Or actually, you just can't have your cake at all.

Well, Lee returned to the suite, and almost everyone gave him superficial hugs and smiles. Everyone but Charmaine, that is. She simply sneered, "Shit!" and walked away. Maybe she was mad because she didn't have a cake prepared for him as well. She does love having a cake handy at all times.

Okay, I'm making things up. Charmaine was pissed, but that's only because she just really didn't like Lee. And after the cocky little stunt he then pulled at dinner, I could see why. You see, Lee was talking about the Boardroom experience with Leslie when he remarked, "She probably fought the hardest out of all the people I fired." Yes, he said "I fired." Man, talk about ego. He was making Tarek seem like the Dalai Lama.

Anyway, for those of you who may have forgotten, in the last Boardroom, Charmaine told Trump that Leslie should not be fired, implying that the axe should fall on Lee. Well, that night, as they continued to eat dinner, Lee insisted that he wasn't even mad at Charmaine. Not at all. Riiight. We'll see how long this latest self-delusional lie lasts.

Nevertheless, this opening sequence ended with Lee insisting that he had to be the next Project Manager. His butt was on the line, and if he screwed up one more time, he'd be sent packing. And with that, we cut to the opening credits, which were eventually followed by news that viewers could win $10,000 by texting who they thought would be fired that night. Sounded like fun! FOR MORONS. (Meanwhile, one of those morons is $10,000 richer, and I'm still here nitpicking about marbleized frosting on birthday cakes.)

We then cut to footage of the next morning where a veritable Day After Tomorrow rain storm was besieging New York City. Why, there was a goose wading through water! And a dog running from the thunder! And gutters overflowing! And of course, umbrellas blowing out of control -- like untamed beasts yearning to escape their human overlords! It was bedlam, I tell you! Harrowing, tempestuous bedlam!

Somehow, our plucky candidates survived the deluge and met up with Trump, who introduced everyone to Donald Jr. and Ivanka, also known as the two most puckered siblings of Manhattan. They were joined by a third man -- an executive from Ameriquest who sported an unfortunate midlife crisis goatee of some sort. If someone were to create a hybrid of sandpaper and a Brillo pad, that's what this guy had growing on his chin.

Ameriquest: Proud Sponsor of the American Goatee.

Anyway, this executive was clearly the third wheel -- or fourth wheel, as it were -- since today was all about the Trump family. I'm surprised Melania wasn't lingering around too. "Today, we'll be working with my true apprenti," Trump joked, and again, I must remind the world, "apprenti" is NOT A WORD. Neologisms be damned. No one was going to rain on this family reunion (except, of course, for the rain that was raining on it, but that's neither here nor there.) Trump then turned to his children and said, "You know who to report to, right?" This was followed by polite laughter from all in attendance, and then Trump bellowed out, "REPORTING TO YOUR FATHER IS A THIRTY BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY!"

"Oh look. Poor people."

"We get to be judged by kids. Yay."

Okay, maybe he didn't say that, but what he did do was explain this week's task. Trump began babbling about Ellis Island, and for a minute, I thought he might reveal his own high-class version called Trumpllis Island -- which would be pretty much the same, except it would feature three golf courses and gold-trimmed INS booths. Anyway, Trump talked a bit about the history of Ellis Island and how people came there with an American Dream. Oh, and speaking of American Dreams, a company that has an American Dream is, you guessed it, Ameriquest! This seemed like a bit of a stretch to me, but then again, Trump reminded us that Ameriquest is the Proud Sponsor of the American Dream (which means that if you're ever denied by Ameriquest, you clearly have a very Un-American Dream, Commie).

For this week's task, teams had to go to Ellis Island, take some photos, and then create a limited edition souvenir tourist program. Then the next day, they'd have to go out and sell these items, and whichever team earned the most would win. All proceeds would go to the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island Foundation, FYI. Trump then turned to Gold Rush and gave them the sort of morale boost that can really motivate a team: "I hope you people start doing well," he said. You people? They're human beings!!! Trump is racist! Racist against losers!

And so the teams headed off on their latest corporate journeys, and we cut to patriotic images of American flags and what not. Just in case we weren't sure if we should be feeling jingoistic, Mark Burnett then piped in a few bars from the National Anthem. Overkill? Just a tad. Luckily, this random Rah-Rah-Rah America moment passed, and we soon found ourselves with Gold Rush as Lee delegated work out to his minions. Michael and Tarek were going to take pictures at Ellis Island while Lee and Charmaine were going to hang back and try to sell, sell, sell. Charmaine came up with the idea of bulk selling to hotels and whatnot, but as big as the idea was, she pretty much failed at every turn. I don't think it was really her fault. There just simply was not a high demand for dumb souvenir programs in the hotels of Manhattan. I personally would have tried specialty and travel bookstores or museums, but hey, to each his own.

Over at Synergy, Keebler Elf wannabe Allie had stepped up to be Project Manager, and she really felt this was an important task for her because three of her four grandparents came over to American via Ellis Island. That's great. Where did they come from? SMURF VILLAGE? Okay, that was cruel. Anyway, Allie and her faithful lapdog Tammy decided to go on a tour of Ellis Island to get some background info on the place, you know, for the brochure, and guess who wasn't happy about this? ANDREA. Yes, the soft-spoken queen biatch felt they were wasting time, and she was not afraid to passive aggressively communicate that through a series of rolled-eyes and mumbled comments. Eventually, Andrea cornered Allie and pressured her to come up with a plan, a confrontation that really only led to the usual Allie nodding in a typically patronizing way. Sorry Andrea, you may be a passive-aggressive bitch, but Allie's a superficial passive-aggressive bitch. Can't beat that.

Well, with all the information gathered, Synergy headed back to the Circle Line ferry, but oops! Tammy left all her precious notes at Ellis Island! And worse, the boat was about to leave port! What to do? Hint: it's called THE INTERNET. Alas, Tammy and Allie had apparently never heard of "Wikipedia" and so they ran off the boat in search of the missing notebook. Bad move. While the two girls were gone, the foghorn sounded and the boat left, leaving poor Allie and Tammy behind. Hahahaha. Suckers. I mean, we knew it wouldn't be the end of the world -- the ship's captain even said another ferry was coming in -- but it still was fairly awesome. And so our perky Project Manager was separated from the group. It was like An American Tail ALL OVER AGAIN! Just remember, Allie. There are no cats in America. Just massive bitches named Andrea.

We then cut to commercial, and when we returned, Trump was babbling about his lesson of the week: "All in the Family," he said. I was then hoping I'd see him and Melania at a piano, croaking out "Boy the way Glenn Miller played! Songs that made the hit parade! Guys like us we had it made. Those were the days!" And you know they totally do that on the weekends.

But instead of Trump going all Archie Bunker on us, we instead saw him chatting with daughter Ivanka in his office. "Little different than college, right?" he asked.

"A little different. A little more real world experience, I'd say," she responded. Well, that would make sense, seeing how you're not in college but the real world now. Anyway, we then cut to Gold Rush where Lee was overseeing the graphic design element of the program. And when I say that Lee was overseeing, I really meant to say that Lee was nodding while Tarek basically ran the task. Yes, our MENSA man was finally having a moment of greatness as he took charge of the whole endeavor. And don't think that people didn't notice. Ivanka surely caught on to what was up, and Charmaine, well, she was just pissed because if they won, Lee would get all the credit for Tarek's work.

Behold! The floating head of CHARMAINE!!

Meanwhile, over at Synergy, Allie and Tammy were still stuck on Ellis Island (truly living out the immigration experience), and so Andrea had become the new de facto leader of the team. You see, she's had plenty of experience with graphic design, and therefore, she was a no-brainer to lead up the program design. At least, according to her. And so this praying mantis of a woman put together a schlocky brochure that featured such silly images as the Statue of Liberty superimposed on Ellis Island. Needless to say, when Allie finally returned, she was not happy with Andrea's work. And guess what? Andrea was unhappy with Allie's unhappiness.

"This is really important; so I appreciate your deep sighs," Andrea snipped. Oh Allie! Your deep sigh is so BUSTED! Well, the Project Manager denied having a deep sigh, but Andrea totally heard it. "She deep sighed. Right there. I heard it," she insisted. To be fair, Andrea has a wonderful ear for deep sighs.

The next morning, Gold Rush woke up at 5 AM to stake out the best location to sell the brochures. Sure enough, they hit the motherlode at Battery Park where hundreds of tourists had lined up to take the ferry. The team blanketed the captive audience with their dumb brochures, and by the time Synergy had arrived -- a few hours later, no less -- nearly all the tourists had procured their extra special tchotchke programs. Yes, Gold Rush had essentially cut Synergy out of the running, something that Sean could not believe. He was so exasperated that he indulged his inner British comic impulses and went on a whole fussy rant about the situation. I think it was supposed to be funny, but, well, there's a reason why John Cleese is John Cleese and Sean is Sean. On the plus side, I did actually laugh at Sean, but that was more because of the stupid patriotic garb he had adorning his body (New York hat, stars-and-stripes tie -- all he was missing was an Uncle Sam hat and some sparklers). To be fair, all the dumb Synergy people were wearing this outfit, which really didn't make it any better. Hey Andrea, did you hear that? It was a deep sigh... FROM ME.

Someone punch him.

Seriously. Punch him.

Nevertheless, Synergy kept trying to sell their brochures, but it probably didn't help that poor Roxanne looked like a homeless woman as she dragged a suitcase behind her. Adding to the stress of the situation was Donald Trump Jr. who suddenly emerged from the crowd looking typically smug. I couldn't be quite sure, but in the past five minutes, I think he had either kicked a pigeon, stolen money from some kids, or eaten a really good hot dog. Possibly all three. I was also amused by Donald Jr.'s unwieldy 'do. It was as if he had taken the worst elements from his father and Tarek's coifs and combined them into one truly awful hybrid of hair and styling gel. The occasional gust of wind did not help matters either.

Brushing your hair is a THIRTY BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY!

Anyway, Synergy finally threw in the Battery Park towel and headed across the water to Ellis Island where they attempted to increase their sales at the museum. Unfortunately, it's hard to boost revenue when everyone in the museum has already been approached by Gold Rush. And let's not forget Andrea and her robo-sales skills. Her big strategy was to approach tourists, quietly ask if they'd like a brochure, and then about halfway through, walk away, and, you guessed it, DEEP SIGH. I think a psychiatrist would have an easier time prescribing Paxil to Tom Cruise.

Back on the mainland, Gold Rush received wonderful news. One of the millions of people Charmaine had contacted about bulk purchases had actually called her back! It's a Christmas miracle! She ultimately managed to sell a hundred programs for $85 to this woman, which wasn't exactly the pinnacle of giant deals, but I guess it was worth something. Lee certainly was excited. "This is exactly what I'm talking about. Thinking differently. Thinking smart," he said. Hey Lee, it wasn't your idea. Someone really needs to shove a P'Eatzza in his face.

Over at Synergy, with only a short amount of time left, Andrea approached Allie and mentioned that oh yeah, she's great with bulk sales. Maybe they should do that instead? Uh, a little late... DEEP SIGH. While Allie certainly appreciated the idea, it was the eleventh hour, and she was totally annoyed as to why Andrea didn't come forward with her bulk sales expertise earlier. Technically, Andrea had mentioned it, but no one heard because everyone was DEEP SIGHING.

We then cut to commercial, and dammit, NBC, NO ONE WANTS TO GET RICH WITH TRUMP! Do we have to see these promos every break for every show for the rest of the season? Please, just stop. When we returned, the teams all filed into the Boardroom where Trump asked his children how they enjoyed playing with the other kids. Donald Jr. said he had a blast, and Ivanka, a seasoned pro by now, said, "It was fun with my brother this time as well." This was then followed by a little Donald Jr. smirk, and I'm sure half of America recoiled as incestuous scenarios all played through our heads (let's not forget The Donald's icky comment on The View that he'd date Ivanka if she weren't his daughter. Yech.)

Anyway, Trump then asked Allie how she thought her team did, and surprisingly, the diminutive Project Manager said she wasn't feeling very confident. When asked who the weakest link was, she quickly ratted out Andrea, completely shocking Trump in the process. He always thought she was a star, he claimed. But no. Not so much. Everyone on Synergy pretty much shook their head at Trump and did the "Yeah... not really. Sawry," groan. Andrea meanwhile just rolled her eyes (that's her way of deep sighing. Unfortunately, her lungs can't take in the proper amounts of oxygen needed for the deep sigh, on account of her skeletal frame).

Well, enough stalling. Results time! Synergy raked in a solid $843.40, but Gold Rush spanked them with a whopping $1,548.68. Wow. Kind of makes that bulk deal seem irrelevant now, huh? Anyway, Trump then told them that their reward would be so good that even HE was going to come along. What could possibly pique The Donald's interest so? Why, a little man I like to call Mr. Vijay Singh. Yes, the gang would be playing golf with Vijay, a wonderful fella that Trump absolutely loved. "The only thing I don't like about Vijay: he makes me realize what a bad golfer I am," he said. He then added, "Realizing you're a bad golfer is a THIRTY BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY!!!"

Before we went to the big reward, we then moved back to the suite where Andrea once again confronted Allie. "It's stupid of you to lie!" she sneered, apparently offended for being labeled a bad saleswoman. Later, Andrea sulked away, bristling, "Those bitches lied about me." Yeah, it's not so much fun when you're the new Brent, huh? What goes around, comes around, bitch.

The next morning, Gold Rush went out to Trump National Golf Course where Lee told us, "I'm the Project Manager. I look amazing!" Oh, shut up, Lee. You're making Tarek seem way too sympathetic. Lee then explained how he had been feeling terrible all these weeks being on the losing team, but now, after one victory, he was sky high. He even unveiled a new mantra: "Winning. Best remedy for feeling like crap." So eloquent. Somebody get this man a page in Bartlett's!

Anyway, Vijay soon showed his face and gave everyone some tips on how to hit the ball. I was most amused when Tarek hit a sweet shot, causing Vijay to giggle like a little girl. Seriously, he was out of control. But then it was time for Vijay to step up and make everyone feel lame. Sure enough, the PGA champion hit a birdie, causing Trump to crow, "That's great, Veej." Yeah, way to go, VEEJ.

"Hey Veej, check out my hat!"

Back at the suite, Synergy was now strategizing. And by that, I mean, they were acting like a clique. And by that, I mean they were being their normal selves. Allie, Roxanne, Tammy, and Sean all gossiped about how terrible Andrea was, but what they didn't realize was that the she-devil was standing on the other side of the wall, keenly listening in. If I were her, I would have just stood there and listened for hours on end, but instead, she eventually did the whole "I can hear everything you're saying," effectively killing all the good banter. Later, as Andrea tried to curry favor from Sean, Allie told her girls that Andrea was going to be fired. No doubt about it. This, of course, led me to believe that she would not be fired. Classic misdirection. Oh, we're onto you, Mark Burnett.

Allie then promised to get vicious with Andrea. She seethed, "There will be blood on the walls. There will be blood on the walls. There will be f*ckin' BLOOD EVERYWHERE!" She then plunged her hand into Tammy's chest and removed her heart, shrieking violently and smearing the organ all over the walls, occasionally stopping to beat her chest and hiss at anyone who dared approach her. Okay, maybe she didn't do that, but she certainly revealed that angry, bitter, nasty dark side that we always knew she had.

Finally, it was time for the Boardroom, and right out of the gate, Allie was bashing Andrea. She said she was to blame for pretty much everything, and what did Andrea say in response? Not much. She merely rolled her eyes (natch) and quietly rebuked everyone by saying "That's not true" and similar phrases of that ilk. Roxanne soon jumped on board the anti-Andrea train by saying that the spindly sticker company exec just gave quit at the graphic design, but that's not really case. Andrea actually moved over so that Allie could take over since clearly Allie was so unhappy with the work. Nevertheless, it was an all out war against Andrea, but suddenly Trump asked Sean what he thought, and the ever-so-charming Brit broke rank and said that Allie should be the one who gets fired. Wha-wha-whaaa? Oh, he's so out of the clique now!

Nevertheless, Allie was undeterred by this, and she continued to attack, attack, attack. Not so fast, little one. First you gotta get by Ivanka. Donald's daughter busted Allie about not being there to oversee the brochure's creation, and inexplicably, no one mentioned that Tammi and Allie had gone missing because they'd missed the Circle Line ferry. Surely I thought Andrea was going to talk about that over and over again, but it wasn't brought up -- not even once!

Anyway, Allie went on the offensive again, bashing Andrea's so-called graphic-design experience, but Ivanka countered by saying that the real problem was the location. Soon Donald Jr. jumped into the fray, also bashing Allie for the location and the brochure, and when Allie retorted that the program was bad because of Andrea, DT Jr. reminded her that she was in fact the one who had sat down and redesigned the whole thing. Ouch. Busted by Donald Jr. That's gotta be humiliating.

Well, soon Tammy, Allie, and Roxanne were all working in tandem to railroad Andrea, but they were momentarily paused by Trump who told Roxanne, "You're a very good speaker... have you been told that before? Because I would like to have you representing me in court." Is he even paying attention?

As the Boardroom continued, Donald Jr. then began grilling Andrea about her reticence to reveal her capabilities with bulk sales, and again, I was confused as to why Andrea wasn't defending herself more. I mean, Andrea's a major bitch, but was she really to blame for this task? It was Allie who was slow to secure a location. It was Allie who missed the boat and couldn't oversee the graphic design. And it was Allie who nearly lit the whole tree on fire when she was making her latest batch of E.L. Fudge Sandwich Cookies!

Nevertheless, Andrea proved to be a near mute in the Boardroom, and so Trump bought into the hype. He accused her of ruining team chemistry and not working well with others. Plus, he didn't like her contributions or lack thereof to this task. And so Andrea was fired without even the benefit of coming back alone with Allie and whoever else. I was a little disappointed that Trump didn't ask Allie to bring two people back with her because I think that probably would have exposed the cronyism going on in this team. But whatever. It was still a solid Boardroom.

Afterwards, as Andrea marched to her cab of shame, Trump reclined back in his seat and said, "Good job, kids!" Thanks, dad! Now bring back George and Carolyn.

And with that, the episode drew to a close. We watched as Andrea's taxi drove away, and just as we were getting into that rousing "Dunh dunh, DUNH DUNH, DA-DA-DA DUNH DUNH!" music, a creepy-voiced narrator suddenly said, "Congratulations to Martha Arzate." Apparently, she had won the $10,000 prize. Do we really need this to be announced like it was the trailer for Silent Hill? Just scroll the info across the bottom of the screen and stop annoying us with your shameless gimmicks to improve the ratings. ENOUGH.

What did you think about this episode?

Posted by at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (38)

I really enjoy the entire season of 24 from the four hours in two days premiere to the finale, and all of the hard perimeters and sockets in between. There is something special about these last four or five hours, however. The show already has plenty of suspense, but the producers know we are on edge and seem to turn it up a notch. Just when we think we have a handle on how things may play out, we are thrown a new villain, some unlikely hero arises from all the confusion, and JAck will inevitably be thrown into some impossible situation. And I don't know if you are anything like me, but I am clutching my pillow, waiting for somebody we've all been pulling for to get shot unexpectedly. I'm out of breath just thinking about it.

Last week was not a good one for Jack Bauer, so hopefully these next sixty minutes will be a little easier for him. Things start off pretty well when we learn that Henderson did not completely sever Audrey's brachial artery. Now personally, I would think that Jack would be more worried about loss of blood. I was waiting for Audrey to say, "No, it's just a scratch, really! Just reach into my bag. I have a suture kit". Still, you know the Intrigue Coat has stain guard, so if Audrey knows a dry cleaner who can get a couple of pints of blood out of cashmere, it might not be a total loss.

By now, Heller has left the presidential compound, and he's decided to place a call into his security team to make sure things are OK. When Jack answers the phone instead of his bodyguard, Heller knows that something is wrong. He tells Jack that he was about to get the President's resignation when Logan got a call and called the entire thing off. Jack then explains that Henderson was able to get the recording and immediately Heller asks if anything happened to Audrey. Jack lies and says that Audrey is OK, and Heller says that if there is anything he can do to help, he wants to do it. Oh, I don't know, you could start by maybe not getting in the way when Jack is trying to save the country? Jack says that he was betrayed last time, and besides, he needs access to satellite imagery so he'll need to call CTU.

Don't worry, I used ScotchGuard

Jack calls Buchanan because he wasn't able to reach Chloe earlier. Conveniently, Chloe decided to head to Buchanan's house after she escaped from CTU, knowing that she would be able to access her laptop as long as she had a remote node. Jack then tells Chloe that they need to be able to track Henderson's location, and at first, Chloe is worried that she won't be able to do any of this without being traced. Then Chloe thinks about, realizes that she only needs to recite a few words from the techno-babble dictionary, and all will be fine. This time Chloe decides she will slip in through the subnet and set up a VPN pathway, so you know that she is really serious.

Chloe shouldn't have any trouble getting this done, but she is a little upset at what she has to work with. She only brought her laptop, but she gets to work to work networking it with Buchanan's computer, even though it is "kind of pathetic". She also realizes that Buchanan has a plasma screen nearby, and although that is about fifty less than she could use when she was at CTU, she has him get to work, but apologizes that she is bossing him around, but since technically he's not her boss, she says she doesn't need to apologize. Well, technically, she never would have cared even if he was her boss, but is funny to watch her make Buchanan plug in all of the computer cables like he is some lackey at Best Buy.

Jack decides that the best thing to do is to chase Henderson down himself and try and get the tape. Luckily, Chloe has connected to CTU and was able to get Henderson's preliminary direction. That will have to do for now, and so Jack decides to pile Audrey into the police cruiser and chase after Henderson. At this point I am wondering a couple of things. First of all, WHERE IS CURTIS? Did he head to the Spearmint Rhino for a lapdance or something? Second, WHY IS AUDREY NOT IN SHOCK? She shouldn't be able to lift her arm, let alone walk around like she's only got the flu or something.

While I was wondering about stuff like that, the producers decided to fill us in on some other details, like why Henderson wouldn't just destroy the tape. I hadn't thought about that, but now that you mention it, they do bring up a good point. Jack speculated that Henderson would need an insurance policy, and he was correct. President Pussy called up Henderson wondering if Bauer is dead and whether he has destroyed the tape. Henderson replies that Jack is not dead and he does have the tape, but he's not going to destroy it. Henderson remembered what happened to Walt Cummings, and he's not about to let it happen to him. He assures the president that it's in a safe place, but nobody will hear about it unless Henderson dies an untimely death.

Now Henderson had a ten-minute lead on Jack, but after only about two minutes worth of driving, Jack has already caught up with him. Henderson might be a killer, but he obeys all the speed laws, I guess. Jack turns off his lights so Henderson won't notice he is coming, and then proceeds to screech around corners like the Dukes of Hazzard. You would think that Henderson is smart enough to hear another engine barreling down on him, but maybe he was listening to music and didn't hear it coming. Just imagine:

"If you want to, I can save you.
I can take you away from....SCREEEEEEEECH!"

You're Everywhere to me!

The screech that interrupted Henderson from his Michelle Branch (oh come on, you know he is one of those guys who appears tough on the outside, but has her hidden somewhere on his iPod and can never bring himself to skip to the next song whenever it comes up, not that I know anybody like that or anything), was Jack running his car off the road. Henderson lost control and then crashed into a barn on the other side of the road.

Finally! Jack should just shoot Henderson for all of the shit he has done, take the recording and be on his way, right? Well, not exactly. Henderson tells Jack to let him go, because if he doesn't Secretary Heller will be killed. I'm not sure if Audrey was taking steroids or something, but she managed to get up out of the car and walk over to where Jack had secured Henderson. This is very convenient, because now Jack doesn't have to explain anything that is going on, and his voice is already hoarse enough as it is.

Jack has Chloe patch him into Secretary Heller because I guess Audrey doesn't have her father's cell phone number or is too delirious to remember. Henderson warned that some of his men were following Heller in a helicopter, and if Henderson didn't call every fifteen minutes, Heller would be dead. When Heller answered, he confirmed that there was a helicopter following him, and before you know it, there is a laser sight pointed at his chest. Either that or some ketchup dribbled off a French fry onto his shirt; one of the two.

Heller only has minutes left, and you would think that he would do some defensive driving or something. Turn around, stop short, get off onto a side road, or SOMETHING. Well, Heller does decide to do something. He ruined Jack's first chance to put Henderson and the President away, and he's not going to let Henderson use him as a pawn. Yeah, that's fine, but what are you going to do about it? It's not like you have Curtis in the back seat or an ejector seat or anything. I think Heller must have been a fan of Speed. Why? Well, you know that scene where Keanu Reeves and Jeff Daniels and they say the best thing to do in a hostage situation is to take out the hostage? Well, Heller takes out the hostage, by driving his car off the road, down a cliff and into a lake!

HOLY SHIT!

Listen, I know Heller didn't want to be a problem, but Jack caught up with Henderson once, he could probably do it again in another thirty minutes. Oh well. The last words Heller said were to make sure the recording gets into the right hands, and to tell Audrey that he loves her. At this point, I really thought that Jack would just shoot Henderson right there. First Palmer, and Michelle Dessler, and Tony Almeida, and now Secretary Heller. If there were any time that you could imagine that Jack would rip a guy's arm out and then beat him to death with it, give him a blood transfusion, rip off his other arm, and then beat him to death again, this would be the time.

Click on Secretary Heller to play

Luckily, Jack has more self-control than that, and just punches him in the face and decides to leave with the recording. The trouble with that plan is that Henderson doesn't have the recording. Ahh, it makes so much sense now. That's the reason Jack was able to catch up with Henderson so quickly. He calls Chloe and has her re-check the satellite images to see if there was some sort of handoff or something.

President Logan assured Henderson that he didn't have any plans to pull a Walt Cummings on him, but we soon learn that isn't true. Logan puts a call into Grimm, played by Paul McCrane, best known for his work as super asshole Dr. Robert Romano on ER, and tells him to cancel the "action" against Henderson immediately. Shit, how many masterminds can one season take? First there was Erwich, then there was Cummings, then there was Nathanson, then there was Bierko, then there was President Pussy, and now we have Grimm? And I thought government bureaucracy was bad; I guess the terrorists can't do any better either.

While Grimm is upset that Henderson may be a loose end, he is more worried about another person in the White House that has been asking questions. He's heard that Agent Aaron Pierce knows a little more than he should, and the President assures him that he has taken steps to deal with Agent Pierce. Oh, that doesn't sound good, especially when we saw he was without his cell phone last week.

With Aaron out of the way, the only person around that knows more than he should is, well, he's a she; Martha Logan. Grimm says that the President needs to handle her, which I guess means there is a trip to Vermont in her future. The President has a couple of Secret Service personnel lock her up in a room. The phones are all disconnected, so she has nothing left do except bang on the walls and ripping off her blouse isn't going to save her now.

Chloe and Buchanan were able to track the car that met with Henderson after going back to the satellite footage. Oddly enough, the car was headed back towards the Van Nuys airport. Chloe can see that there is a plane that is servicing for takeoff. Jack needs to get to that plane, but he can't just continue to drag Audrey around. Then he asks "Where is Curtis?" THANK YOU! I was wondering when the hell Curtis would get back. Finally, we would figure out where Curtis was. My best guess was going to be the Shakey's on Sepulveda, but he was actually with a tactical team about 25 miles Northwest of Jack's location.

Jack decides to leave, but he leaves Audrey with a gun and instructions not to make any phone calls because it can be traced. He kisses her, which is more action than he's had in like well, I guess only five or six hours now, and then leaves. Curtis can be trusted, and he is only 25 miles away, but something crazy has to happen. Will two Hellers die in one episode? We can only wait.

Back at CTU, Miles is busy congratulating Karen Hayes on a job well done. Bierko is now conscious, all of the protocol shifts have taken place. Man, Homeland Security is running this bitch much better than Division ever could! Now, now, Miles, slow down there turbo. Bad news can come at any time, like maybe somebody is missing from one of your isolation cells. That's right, it took almost an hour, but finally somebody realized that Chloe was missing. Not so easy keeping everything together, is it Miles?

Karen has become more and more skeptical over the president's actions, and when she brings up Shari to ask her why she let Chloe go, Shari first tried to explain that Chloe had intimidated her, but realized that didn't make much sense. Eventually, she confessed that Chloe had threatened to recommend her for psychiatric evaluation using a new Pot Calling Kettle Black protocol Chloe had been cooking up. Karen asked if Shari got a sense as to why Chloe was helping Jack, and Shari said that Chloe is convinced that Jack is innocent and President Logan is trying to frame him. You can just see the look on Karen's face that she wants to do the right thing, but she doesn't want to ruin her pension or GEICO discount rate by going against the President.

President Logan decided to have a nice sit down with his wife. You have to give it to Logan. If he's learned nothing today, at least he's learned that you can't lie to your wife and hope to get away with it. He sits down with the First Lady and tells her the truth; the guy who killed David Palmer works for him. It's not like he ordered David Palmer killed, and it's a little complicated, and she appreciates honesty right? Well, this is a little bit more than Martha can take, or at least that's what I thought. I didn't think she would just shut up and not make a fuss, but I guess she is just out of energy, or maybe she knows that whatever happened to Aaron can happen to her. Mrs. Logan says that he broke her hate, she can't stand looking at him, but she'll keep her mouth shut. He may deserve to suffer, but the American people do not deserve to.

This gives us a perfect segue to look at our new mastermind Grimm. Listen, I know that being an evil genius is sort of fun, but don't ANY of these guys get sick of the dress code? These dudes with Grimm all look like they shop at the same place. You know how stores have "Bed in a Bag" for the schmuck's that can't coordinate their sheets, pillowcases, and comforter? Do you think there is some special JC Penney or Target or Macy's that has "Terrorist in a Bag" outfits, just in case one of these guys can't match their grey or black pants with their gray or black turtleneck and their grey or black blazer? Buy two, and they include a very sinister looking Bluetooth headset. Nothing says "I'm about to put an action out on you" like a Bluetooth headset. Anyway, the President calls Grimm to let him know Martha is taken care of. And seriously, who is this guy Grimm that the President cares about so much? Lobbyist? Oil company executive? Ventriloquist? Something is not right here.

I said THIN CRUST!

So, by this time, Henderson is awake and trying to convince Audrey that she still has time to save her father. You know, whenever something happens to somebody on the show, I like to pretend that I am right there with them. I don't know about you, but I would have died trying to hold my breath for as long as Jack did in CTU. I did, however, manage to finish off as many vodka shots in my coffee mug as Tony Almeida did last season. Anyway, I tried the brachial artery thing, and had to call 9-1-1 after like two minutes, which I guess is OK, because I went to Prada and couldn't find a coat like Audrey's in my size anyway. Point being, I don't know how Audrey has lasted this long, but maybe her house keeper doesn't get as mad as mine when I spill two pints of blood on the rug or.

Where were we? Oh yes. Henderson. He's telling Audrey that there is still time to save her father. If his windows were closed, he can have a pocket of air that might last thirty minutes. There is still time to get him help! Audrey's not that stupid, she knows not to use the phone, but still, would Henderson's men get to them before Curtis could? You never know. Maybe they saw the "Fresh Donuts" sign in front of that Krispy Kreme on Van Nuys Boulevard and decided to stop. Plus, he hasn't had to do anything for like four hours, so maybe he is a little sluggish.

Jack has made it to the airport, and it appears that the flight that is preparing to take off is some diplomatic charter. Man, if only these people were around an hour ago when Henderson was killing people and severing brachial arteries, maybe some of this could have been avoided. He gets a message from Chloe stating that there is a helicopter closing in on Audrey. Looks like Curtis was too late, and so Jack calls Audrey to tell her to get out of there.

Audrey was fine with letting Henderson live when she thought they both were going back to CTU, but now that he might get off free, she doesn't want to let him go. She sits there with the gun pointed at him, and you can hear the helicopter about to land, but she is just standing there. GOD DAMN! Shoot him in the leg or in the balls or something! Just don't stand there and get yourself caught! Ugh.

The helicopter lands and Audrey doesn't have it in her to shoot Henderson. She tries to escape, but whatever. She could have had a chance if she had a head start, but Henderson doesn't leave loose ends. OK, well, he failed to kill Jack at Omichron, and then he got captured, and then he let Evelyn go, and totally botched the bank thing, and he should have killed Audrey or Jack at the airport, but this time there will really be no loose ends.

Audrey is sneaking around the corner and somebody grabs her. Uh oh. It's....CURTIS! YES! Wow, that was close. If Curtis is there, that means that the whole tactical team is there. Curtis' team takes out the terrorist, and he checks to make sure Audrey is OK. "Well, uh, I don't know how my arm is still attached, and I've got one hell of a dry cleaning bill ahead of me, but other than that, we're cool." To tell you the truth, even after all of that, I was worried that some lone terrorist would find there way over and Curtis would get in the way of a bullet meant for Audrey, but that never happened. Which is good, because I would have thrown my TV out the balcony had they taken Curtis away from us so soon after he came back.

Now that Audrey is safe and Henderson is in custody, the only thing left to do is for Jack to get on board the plane. He wants Chloe to get a passenger manifest and tells Buchanan to try and slow down the departure somehow. There is security all around, so Jack can't just walk up to the plane and pretend he is the pilot or anything, so he jumps on the top of a fuel truck, and then jumps from the top of that truck to a baggage truck nearby. It wasn't that funny of a moment, but it made me laugh hysterically nonetheless. I need to come up with a name for Jack's shoes when he pulls off moves like that, but I can't come up with anything now. On top of the other truck, Jack gets a phone call from Buchanan (ever try VIBRATE Jack?) who says he can't delay the plane, but Chloe is working on the passenger list, she just needs to hack into a state department database first.

Miles really hates that Chloe is smarter than him, so he is very excited when he gets a fix on her. He machine coded a matrix and yada, yada, yada, she's at Bill Buchanan's house. He tells Karen that a tactical team is nearby and gives them orders to bring back Chloe. Karen is fine with that, but now she really has some misgivings. Something has smelled funny all day, and it's not the half-eaten burrito Edgar left at his desk or, you know, the nerve gas that might be lingering. Karen decides to call Mike for some clarification.

We know that Mike Novick is no stranger to intrigue, having orchestrated the cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment to get rid of Palmer back in season two. How much does Mike know, and when did he know it? He seemingly disappeared for a few hours, but what was he doing? Anyway, Karen calls Mike for some clarification because she wants to know why the President called her two hours ago to apprehend Jack Bauer, and then when they had a location on Jack, said that the army would take care of the rest. Mike can't explain anything that is going on, because not only is he out of the loop, there is no loop. The President is doing things without counsel, which seems as strange to Karen and Mike as it did to the rest of us when we first discovered he was the new mastermind.

Karen hangs up with Mike and decides to call Bill Buchanan. She has had enough. There have been enough strange happenings going down that she is becoming unsure of their entire presence there. When Bill answers, he acts like Chloe isn't there, but Karen assures him that there is not a lot of time and Chloe has to leave immediately. You know, if Karen wasn't married, I would say that she and Bill are perfect for each other. You know, if Bill doesn't decide he likes Chloe ordering him around and declines to be her sissyboy after the lights go down and all the sockets are closed.

Without Chloe able to give him more help, Jack knows that it is now or never. He flips up the Slightly Faded But Nevertheless Useful Extreme Hoodie of Infiltration, which is like twice as tough as kevlar, and breathes better too, and walks right onto the plane with anybody noticing him.

Wow. Jack's balls are so big, they probably tie him to a crane to knock down buildings.

It's Jack, his hoodie, and his messenger bag vs. a bunch of diplomats, some of them French, and at least one terrorist. Man, that's not even a fair fight. There's got to be some killer bees or a pregnant woman or something, no?

If you squint, you can see Jack in his camouflage

Anyway, this was a great episode. Audrey is safe from Henderson, and she can now face her toughest challenge: surviving the CTU infirmary. I think there is going to be a Miles vs. Karen Hayes showdown at some point as well, which should be great. You KNOW that's a great slap fight waiting to happen. I do have to wonder about Aaron, and I think that he is probably going to save Mrs. Logan and die in the process. The only thing that is kind of out there are these new bad guys with their Bluetooth headsets and how they fit into everything. Next week should be good. I won't ruin the previews for people who still need some suspense, but if this plane takes off and Jack finds the guy with the audio recording, he is going to have to get the plane back on the ground somehow. The possibilities are endless.

What did you think of this episode? Is Audrey safe? Will Curtis actually get to kill a few more people before the season is done? What's left for Henderson, Logan, and Grimm?

Posted by at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (29)

Last week on House: lesbians! Whooo!!!! Oh, wait. They never even once wear lingerie. Well, on with the recap then. We open on a woman lying in bed, completely awake and tortured by the sound of the faucet, the heater, the clock, you name it. Her girlfriend lies next to her completely asleep until Hannah jumps up. Hannah says she’s going to get a glass of wine, but the next morning her girlfriend discovers her banging her head on the wall in the kitchen, an empty bottle of sleeping pills by her side.

Oh, irony of ironies, House is passed out in an exam room, a magazine over his face. Apparently Wilson is ruining his sleep schedule. Ahem. Cuddy suggests kicking Wilson out, but House isn’t hearing it. Ahem again. Cuddy has brought Hannah’s case to his attention, and House, ever so shockingly, doesn’t believe that Hannah hasn’t slept in ten days. Without REM your brain starts shutting down. I think Cuddy would know that. House is finally convinced when Cuddy reports that even an entire bottle of sleeping pills couldn’t make Hannah sleep. “I know what gets you off!” she says. I’ll bet you do, Cuddy. I’ll bet you do.

Oooh, trouble amongst the Outhouses! Cameron is accusing Foreman of stealing her article, something she was writing up for a medical journal about the little girl with cancer they had a while back. Cameron doesn’t give a shit about the patient; she is on a roll with her righteous fury. She does volunteer to give Hannah an optic test, though. Foreman comes in an asks if she needs any help, with just leads to more bickering. It’s tedious enough that Hannah actually falls asleep! Only for about 10 seconds, but it’s in the REM stage, which explains why she hasn’t gone crazy or died yet, if she’s having these 10 second naps occasionally.

Foreman and House discuss the case in the cafeteria as House sprinkles his drugs on his sandwich, which is Reuben. Nice callback to House’s earlier scenes with sandwiches. House decides Hannah needs to be kept awake so that she’ll display more symptoms and they can fix her up. Foreman gets bored of gently waking Hannah, so he sticks a needle in her foot. You know, Cameron is insufferable, but Foreman is kind of a meanie. Shortly thereafter, Hannah starts bleeding from her butt. Between this episode and the last, I think the writers may have some sort of anal fixation.

The Outhouses walk in and report that “we’ve got rectal bleeding.” “What, all of you?” asks House. Nice one, buddy. House orders a colonoscopy – without sedation. Man, he makes you love him with the humor and the snark, and then pushes you away with the extreme cruelty. Hannah is clearly suffering while Chase does the procedure. Cameron may come across as a bleeding heart, but I think here we have proof that she’s actually a self-obsessed troll. She has no concept of Hannah on the table; she’s too focused on her own anus. It takes massive quantities of blood pouring out of Hannah’s nose to get Cameron’s attention.

In the meeting room, House tries the oldest trick for getting a guy and a girl to stop fighting: saying they lurve each other. It doesn’t work, so Hose makes inappropriate comments re: Cameron and anal sex. Speaking of which, he heads into the clinic for our “sex is evil” portion of the evening, where a young girl is helping her non-English-speaking mother obtain birth control pills. Well, she’s really helping herself and using her mother’s cold as a front. House sees right through it, of course. Cameron is waiting for House outside the exam room, and jumps on him for approving Foreman’s article before hers. He’s not really making any bones about it – he approved Foreman’s because Cameron’s annoying but Foreman’s actually scary and liable to “bust a cap in my ass” if angered. As Cameron strides off, House also calls her out of her Pollyanna-ness that makes her so surprised by human nature all the time.

Chase and Foreman are examining Hannah when her eyes start moving back and forth just like REM. Her eyes are open, though. In the meeting room, House doesn’t think it was REM, and goes through a windy path that leads up to an adopted dog that was quickly given up and Hannah wanting to leave her girlfriend. Hannah’s girlfriend gave her a dog for her birthday, but Hannah claimed allergies. This would have been impossible since Hannah was on steroids for her “poison oak” rash at the time. As Cameron performs a scratch test to see if Hannah has any other allergies, she pushes the issue until Hannah admits that she is indeed planning on leaving her girlfriend. See, House does understand lesbians!

Foreman comes in with rather startling news – her liver is completely dead, and she’s only got about six hours left. House knows that Hannah and her girlfriend have the same blood type, so he wants her to donate half her liver to Hannah. Cameron is outraged at the idea, the very idea! House tries a little subterfuge by explaining to Hannah that she’s going to die, because there’s no time for a diagnosis, which leads to her girlfriend begging to donate her own liver. House seems taken aback by the whole idea, but finally “relents.” Cheeky!

Cameron is completely up in arms, of course, and wants Hannah’s girlfriend Max to know that her half-a-liver self is going to get dumped. House argues that letting Hannah die is also immoral. Cameron is weird. The battles she chooses don’t fit with earthling logic. House orders a round of tests and adds “anyone says anything to Max, they’re fired.” He does want Cuddy to become Max’s doctor, though, so that he can clear himself of any ethical quandaries regarding Max and Hannah’s somewhat opposing interests.

Cameron is being a HUGE bitch in Hannah’s room, shoving a tube down her throat into her stomach and berating her at the same time. Hannah wonders pointedly if Cameron herself would be willing to die in the name of honesty.

Cameron puts Max and Hannah together before the surgery. It looks like Hannah is about to come clean with Max when House barges in and starts Hannah’s sedation. He give Cameron what-for, telling her that she can’t always expect people to do the right thing. This is why she was screwed over by Foreman, because she didn’t expect anyone else to write the same article.

As Cuddy watches the surgery, she asks Cameron what the deal is between Max and Hannah. “Did you read Foreman’s article?” responds Cameron. Damn, woman. Get a hobby. Cuddy basically laughs at Cameron’s pain and tells her to write another article. Once again, I love Cuddy.

Aaaaannnd, this is where my TV dropped out for about a minute, so next thing I know Foreman is telling Hannah that they have to take her off all her drugs because they’re suppressing the cause of her illness. I guess things are getting too heavy because House heads back to the clinic, where the girl and her mother are back, the mother complaining of tender breasts now. Because the girl gave the birth control to her mom and the decongestant to herself. That is too stupid for words. I’m actually not even sure it’s possible to be that stupid. In other news, House speaks Mandarin!

On the flip side, I’m not sure it’s possible to be as smart as House is supposed to be. After much medical jargon, House asks where the dog Hannah owned briefly was from. A place called Blue Barrel Kennels, reports Cameron. House instantly know that Blue Barrel is a type of cactus, so the dog must have come from out of state. See? That’s too much knowledge for one head.

They head over to Hannah, where House acts weird for a bit and then finds some sores on Hannah’s underarm. He takes a sample from one and the fluid is black like tar. Ugh, gross. She has the black plague! Weird! Apparently fleas in the southwest don’t differentiate between domestic dogs and prairie dogs, so they traveled on Hannah’s dog and made her sick. Just last week there was a woman in L.A. who was diagnosed with the plague, which is either a weird coincidence or a genius marketing campaign for this show.

Cameron chats with Max and quickly learns that she knows Hannah wants to dump her. “She can’t leave me now,” smirks Max. Ai, they had the wrong girlfriend pegged as a creep.

Cameron approaches Foreman in the hopes of putting their argument behind them. She thinks they should apologize to each other. “We’re not friends, we’re colleagues,” says Foreman. “And I don’t have anything to apologize for.” Yikes, what a meanie! In the next room, House is dead asleep. I don’t know if that’s a bit of humor or if it’s a hint that House himself is sick. What do you think?

Posted by Kat at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

When I started TVgasm with B-side almost two years ago, I had always promised myself that I would never post about Will and Grace. There are many reasons, but basically it's just not funny any more. Since there are only four episodes left in the series, you would think that I would be able to hold out and not talk about the show, but after seeing this promo for the final episodes, I just couldn't resist. People make fun of Will and Grace because the show depends on obvious and unoriginal gay jokes for all of its laughs, but when I saw this promo, I started chuckling myself. From the looks of the previews, the last episode has Will, Grace, Jack, and Karen all going prison. Next time try the soap on a rope.

Posted by at 8:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

Congrats, Kim Raver! You look silly!

Posted by at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Ellen, 4/24/06, Syndicated
Click to play (Quicktime 7 Required)

We don't often like to double up our Clipgasms, but this was too good to keep on hold for tomorrow. What is it? Ace Young on Ellen. A performance so bad, it'll have all the neighborhood cats coming to your door. Note how Ellen refuses to clap along or the way the energy in the room seems to die out like a balloon slowly deflating. And check out the nonplussed guy in the front row (not to mention the lovestruck girl a few seats down). Whatever you do, just keep the volume LOW.

Posted by at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Celebrity Cooking Showdown, 4/22/06, NBC
Click to play (Quicktime 7 required)

It takes a lot to make Ashley Parker Angel look like the brightest guy in the room, but never underestimate the powers of Alan Thicke. Let's just say, he might want to bone up on his Spanish a little...

Posted by at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

A few weeks ago, Smallville featured a show that was basically a ripoff of Flatliners and I thought that perhaps the writers had given up on all originality knowing that their new network would probably want them anyway. Last week, I was surprised that the episode seemed fairly original and very creepy, despite Tom Welling having directed it. This week, I am back to thinking that the show has jumped the shark, as the episode is basically a one-hour network safe version of Saw. The episode was very painful to watch but since I want to get a few plot developments out of the way, i'll make the recap short and sweet.

Lionel Luthor is riding in his limo when it stops on the train tracks. He wonders if his driver has gone crazy, but the driver runs out of the car and away from the scene. Moments later, and random guy with a strange mask appears on his screen (sound familiar?) and says he is going to play a little game. If Lionel wins the game, he lives. If he loses, well, I am sure that you can take a guess.

The first game is hangman, and the strange guy says that it is a lesson that he learned from Lionel. The lesson? NO MERCY. Lionel solves the riddle and escapes his limo just before a freight train comes crashing through.

Naturally, Lionel thinks that Lex is behind this sick little game, but Lex has no idea what he is saying and basically says that his father is worth more to him alive because he has brought the company millions. It's not like Luthorcorp was hurting and eventually you bump into the law of diminishing returns, meaning that the longer you keep Lionel around, the less he is going to be able to help you. That being said, this didn't look like it was the work of Lex.

Obviously Lionel had a problem, so he had his office checked for bugs. After the technician left and said there was nothing wrong, the masked man came back, this time on Lionel's computer screen. Obviously this meant that the guys sweeping for bugs was this crazy killer. But why?

We didn't get the answer to that question, but an earlier question was answered, namely "What happened to Lionel's driver Alex?" Lionel woke up in a room with a charred body. His challenge, should he choose to accept it, was to balance two buckets of flammable liquid, and put it on a hook. If it was unbalanced, the flames coming up from the floor would set him aflame like it did for his poor limo driver Alex.

Now I thought there was a little suspense, because I do believe that they would kill off Lionel, but obviously he wasn't going to die twenty minutes into the episode, so it wasn't a surprise when he beat the first challenge. It was a little bit more of a surprise when he got to his second challenge and it involved Martha Kent. Yes, Mrs. Kent was included because she was a friend of Lionel's and the man with the mask believed she had sold her influence to him.

Matha was in a plexiglass container and water was rapidly filling that container, threatening to drown Martha. Lionel had to solve a word puzzle to save her, which he did, and together they went to the third challenge, which was in an elevator.While Martha and Lionel were doing that, Clark and Lex were looking for their parents. Clark got a call that his mother wasn't at a fundraiser, and since he recently told his mother that Lionel knew his secret, he asked Lex where they could be. Strangely enough, Lex found out his father was missing from the same fundraiser, and so they started looking around the room for clues.

Clark noticed an imperfection on a statue of Lionel's and Lex, knowing his father would only deal with a flawless specimen, smashed it open to reveal a camera. Immediately, Chloe surmised that it was high res and had a wireless carrier. She started throwing around some techno jargon like piggy back transmission, hacking sequences and terminating points, but was able to narrow the location down to a house not far away.

Now that Lex was involved, Clark was a little upset. He has to be wary of protecting his identity, so he couldn't just run off and save his mom, but he's not too worried yet, so he agrees to follow Lex. When the two of them get to the location, the only thing they find is a television with their parents on the screen, about to play the third game.

Martha and Lionel got into the elevator and after reaching the top, they were give a gun with one bullet. One person in the elevator had to die or the killer would blow the charges on the elevator lift, and both would fall to their deaths. Lionel was willing to sacrifice himself, but Martha couldn't pull the trigger. Lionel took it upon himself and pointed the gun to the bottom of his chin and pulled the trigger.

But nothing happened.

That's right, there was no bullet. The killer came out and said he only wanted to see Lionel suffer. That's when Lionel realizes this killer is going to kill them anyway. Lionely is correct, and the killer blows the charges, sending the elevator tumbling down.

Clark had been at the abandoned house playing dumb while Lex's people searched through things when he got a call from Chloe. She picked up second signal that she thought was the true origin. It was far away and she didn't know the exact spot, so she told Clark to start in that general direction and as she got closer to the trace, she would update him. Although he knew he might be sacrificing his identity by leaving, Clark didn't want to take the chance on losing his mom just so Lex could chase down the signal in his Porsche.

Clark gets to the new location, which is an abandoned warehouse this time, and uses his x-ray vision to detect that an elevator is falling. He sets himself at the bottom of the shaft and braces himself for impact. Cark catches the elevator knowing that he is saving his mom, and Lionel Luthor as well, who wakes up, looks through the grated floor and is amazed at just how "special" Clark really is.

Now we have a bit of a dilemma. There is obviously no going back from this point, and Clark doesn't know what to do. He wants to protect his mother, but he can't trust Lionel, can he? I was wondering the same thing. We have gone back and forth with Lionel being alternately ruthless and sort of caring for a few seasons now. Which one is he? Well, when Lex asks him about what happened in the elevator, Lionel doesn't mention anything about Clark. Later, Clark comes to visit him and we learn that Lionel has known about Clark ever since that third stone put him in a coma. Lionel says he is not Clark's enemy, wouldn't do anything to hurt his mother, and that he is not there to change his destiny.

Despite all the kind words, Clark isn't convinced. He tells Lionel to stay away from his mother and, more importantly, stop calling him son, which got me to thinking. Lionel said he started the Apex takeover of Luthorcorp because he wanted to keep his son from getting too much power. He has also gone to great lengths to keep Clark's secret. Could Jor-El be calling some of the shots for Lionel?

I am sorry if this recap shows my lack of effort, but I really didn't want to waste time on something that was really very unoriginal. Smallville has always borrowed characters from the comics, which doesn't bother me, but all of these story lines that borrow from other movies, especially the Flatliners and Saw episodes really take me out of the show. I only hope that with the Professor Fine story line coming back, some of the show's excitement returns as well.

What did you think of the episode?

Posted by at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

You may have noticed that we haven't had a Desperate Housewives recap in a few weeks. That's because our intrepid writer, EdHill, threatened to shoot twelve nails into his head if he had to cover one more silly event on Wisteria Lane. Well, we like EdHill a lot and only let him plunge two nails into his cranium before we said it was okay to drop Housewives. The good news: he's on Sopranos duty now. The bad news: we still need somebody to cover Desperate Housewives. Plus, in an effort to explore the wonderful world of daytime TV, we're also looking for Passions fans. No, not because we love to say PASSION! It's because we want somebody to cover the Passions beat for us. Ideally, it would be someone who could write a daily recap, but since that is super demanding, we're also open to a weekly summary. So if you're a Desperate Housewives or Passions fan and want to take a stab at TVgasm, write a sample and send it to me at bside@tvgasm.com. Try to avoid simple plot description. If we like you, we'll let you know.

Posted by at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

It's Monday. I have nothing to do. No lingering recaps I need to address. No noteworthy news items to write up. No random celebrity sightings to report. So what better way to pass the time than by watching TV? It's as honorable a past time as any other activity, right? It'll be like flying JetBlue -- except instead of being on a plane, I'll be sitting at my desk, quietly wishing some random stewardess would come by and offer me chocolate chip biscotti. Hey, it could happen.

12:03 PM
The Maury Povitch Show. Some angry woman is complaining that her boyfriend Darwin has been cheating on her. For three years, she's been finding condoms, lipstick, and other damning pieces of evidence all over the place. Oh, and one time, she found Darwin in a hotel room after a friend tipped her off. And now she's saying that one time, he left the house to go to the store and came back four days later. Oh no he di'int! Girlfriend, you better find a better man! But seriously, you're a complete idiot if you're still hanging around this guy.

12:07 PM
Darwin comes on stage and reveals that those condoms in his car were from the "clinic." Well, that proves it! Total fidelity!

12:08 PM
My brain has suddenly rotted away to half its size after watching just eight minutes of Maury Povitch. Must... change... channel...

12:09 PM
Yay! Wilfred Brimley! He's talking about Liberty Medical. And he's alive! Who knew?

12:13 PM
Oxygen has Grace Under Fire on. Did people ever watch this show? How did it get on the air? Oh, I forgot. Brett Butler is a comedic GENIUS. Clearly.

12:14 PM
Moving into other women's television territory, I find myself at Lifetime which is showcasing seminal thriller, Stranger in My Bed. According to the DirecTV description, this cinematic masterpiece is about a woman who endangers her life when she fakes her own death to leave her abusive and jealous husband. Because we've never seen that on Lifetime. I wonder if this heroine ultimately finds peace and tranquility -- and yet a sense of purpose and empowerment. Only time will tell!

12:23 PM
Ah yes. My favorite news channel produced by the local high school A/V Club: Current TV! Presently we're witnessing a wild exposé about Texas. "What does Cowboy Up mean?" asks the vapid girl posing as a journalist. This is only the first of many hard-hitting questions such as "Where is 'Down yonder'?" and "So how many people does 'y'all' encompass?" Our intrepid journalist is also amazed by such wacky language as "You betcha" and "You're doggone right." Congratulations, Al Gore. You've made a news channel of IDIOTS.

12:29 PM
"You gotta respect a state that makes a cheesecake in its own image," says idiot reporter girl as she bites into a slice of cheesecake that looks like, you guessed it, Texas. You know what else you gotta respect? PEOPLE WHO AREN'T IDIOTS.

12:31 PM
The Texas story is finally over. Now we're seeing the top ten most clicked-on headlines on Google. Great. "Tom, Katie, and Suri Doing 'Beautifully'" is #2. Wow, I feel so informed. I'm going to walk around and tell people that. I'm sure people will be really fascinated.

12:38 PM
Oooh! Channel 18 has a movie called Bad Housewife on. This should be exciting.

12:38 PM
Just my luck. Bad Housewife is in Mandarin. And yet, it's sort of awesome all the same. From what I can tell, a woman -- possibly the bad housewife in question -- is facing a panel of men. She's rubbing her hands and... oh, scene is over. Now some guy is eating rice at a restaurant. A matronly woman/waitress is bantering with him. I think she just kicked him out of the restaurant. Bad housewife? How about BAD WAITRESS.

12:40 PM
By the way, Bad Housewife is amazing. I've never seen a guy look so forlorn to be cut out of a restaurant. He literally just walked the streets in slow motion, occasionally looking up to the heavens as if to ask, "WHYYY???" Sounds like somebody didn't get his fortune cookie.

12:41 PM
A guy and his wife are watching TV. Well, actually, he's watching TV. She's babbling on the phone. They should rename this Chatty Housewife. Zing!

12:42 PM
Husband and wife are fighting! Husband is so mad, he has to leave and go to a bar. I kid you not, the Asian version of Weird Al Yankovic is the bartender. The Asian male perm is a many splendored thing.

12:46 PM
Random mambo music comes on, and we cut to commercial. I immediately have an epileptic seizure. Seriously, you should see this shit. Pausing to get screen captures...

CRAZY. Yet awesome.

12:54 PM
I can't be sure exactly of what the hell is going on here in Bad Housewife, but the housewife in question is super happy! So happy that she's scooped up her child and spun her around. Doesn't she know that's dangerous? Bad Housewife indeed!

12:56 PM
Gross! I just changed the channel and stumbled upon a commercial. This sweet, affable lady in her late thirties walks through some white draperies and says, "I love being clean!" Naturally, I assume this is a commercial for Downy or Tide. But no. This is what she actually says: "I love being clean; so I use Super Colon Cleanse to keep me regular every day. Super Colon Cleanse: feel clean from the inside out!" Super Colon Cleanse? Well, at least it's better than Rectum-Be-Free.

1:15 PM
Phone call. Of course. And right when I was about to liveblog Paula's Home Cooking. Oh well. Now it's time for lunch. More liveblogging in a bit...

2:27 PM
Okay, back from lunch. For all those wondering -- Quiznos. I tried that prime rib sandwich they've been trying to push recently. All I have to say: delicious. I highly recommend it for all you Quiznos fans out there. Anyhoo, back to TV.

2:29 PM
Ah yes. My favorite grand dame of the Food Network: Ina Garten of The Barefoot Contessa. She's just revealed to us that the parsley she just chopped was in fact much easier than the mint she had chopped just seconds before. Another fascinating glimpse into the world of Ina.

2:30 PM
Damnit, Ina's done. Now Sandra Lee is on TV. She says that her sister is going off on a second honeymoon, which means she'll be in charge of her nephews for a whole week. Way to go, sis. Nothing says "Social Services" like leaving your children with Aunt Sandy and her pitcher of "Beer Margaritas."

2:34 PM
Passions. Seriously, what is with this show?

2:35 PM
Now on Montel. A woman talks about how she was sexually molested by her cousin for two years. Hilarious!

2:36 PM
I've now stumbled onto a British educational show called Crash! Bang! Splat!, and no, it doesn't focus on the career arc of the Spice Girls (rimshot). Two British kids are doing some weird arts and crafts exercise. I'm not really sure what they're supposed to be learning, but I think we can safely assume it has nothing to do with dental care.

2:40 PM
A little kid is now instructing us to cut up a sponge, spread some waterproof petroleum jelly on it, and then add water. Sadly, this is actually a popular British lunch treat.

2:56 PM
The Travel Channel boldly heads into Dollywood -- also known as the most embarrassing theme park of all time. I mean, there's nothing wrong with Dollywood, per se, but seriously, could you in good faith walk into your office and announce that you just went to Dollywood over the weekend and expect no one to laugh at you?

3:17 PM
Had to pause to write up the Desperate Housewives/Passions post. Now I'm back to TV. Reader Jumpcut has suggested I head over to KDOC-TV for a Mission Impossible rerun, but sadly, I don't have that channel. Plus, do I really need to feed the Mission Impossible publicity frenzy any further? Instead, I decide to indulge my masochistic urges by turning to That's So Raven. It's official: any parent that lets their kids watch this dreck should be smacked upside the head with a corn husker. I'm sorry. That's so mean. Nay, that's so RAVEN.

3:22 PM
Okay, so here's the Raven situation. For whatever reason, she's been chasing a wheel of cheese through her school's ventilation system. Unfortunately, during a so very Raven impasse, she loses this nefarious cheese wheel, which is horrible because who wants to lose a cheese wheel in a metal duct? Like totally! Anyway, Raven eventually finds her cheese, but by then, it's too late. It has rolled into a warm area and is now melting and bubbling, emitting a fowl odor that is certainly NOT very Raven. Well, Raven has to get rid of that cheese. What to do? There's only one thing that Raven Simone can do: EAT. And so she gulps down the wheel of cheese in a display that's probably not very different from her various late night snack binges. This is supposed to be a hilarious moment for Raven fans, but I find it amusingly tragic.

That really is so Raven.

Yes, it has come to this.

3:52 PM
Alas, real work beckons. I must end this liveblog. It's been fun, and hopefully, I'll be back doing it again next Monday. Adios...

Posted by at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

Every now and again a gem appears where you would least expect it. This time around, it was found in the crap factory that is Vh1.

Vh1 recently began airing Cant Get A Date which I assumed was going to be their venture into Elimidate or 5th Wheel territory. What it actually turns out to be is a very cool show shot in the style of a hybrid of the old "Encyclopedia Britannica Kid" commercials (which is so sad I remember) and those Apple Switch commercials featuring people who are socially awkward or have little luck dating and through a fairly guidance in a non-queer-eye-dr-phil-make-over-type-of-advice find ways around their social ineptitudes and while they don't necessarily "find their mate" they certainly learn a little bit about dating and being more comfortable with who they are.

What’s more, they are re-running it online so in the event your boss isn’t around you can check out the first two or three episodes online here. Then you can come back to TVgasm and tell me how right I am. Also, maybe someone can explain to me why this show is so compelling? All I have been able to figure is I reeeeeeaaaaaaally like the style in which it’s shot.

Posted by madeyoulaugh at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)

• Got a thing for hookers? Gambling? Hot 12-year-old-on-12-year-old action? You and Charlie Sheen could be best buds! The salacious allegations appeared in Denise Richards's divorce court filings at the end of last week—just in time for the debut of Mr. Sheen's children's clothing line (lo, how I wish I were joking). [TMZ]
• In May, ABC will debut a new Lost interactive online game. Uh, maybe quit wasting resources on games and come out with a new episode more often than ONCE EVERY FULL MOON. [AP]
• And Tom Cruise apparently loves getting down and dirty with his new spawn. "I change diapers all the time. I have to tell you I love it." Great, so not only is he creepy and insane to begin with, he's also into scat play. [CNN]

Posted by at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Just a little something to keep you equally as distracted during tonight’s episode of 24 as I have been for the past 4 1/2 seasons...Jack is always out of breath. Last week, J-Unit came by to watch 24 on my sexy new HD flat screen, which makes me cool. During the show I mentioned to him the Jack Bauer breathing problem, assuming everyone had noticed, but he never had. I thought I'd pass on this tidbit to you guys to see if I was the only person who's noticed that Jack can be standing still in a hallway, sitting on a chair, or simply driving a car and for some reason, 80% of the time, he is totally out of breath. He has the breathing cadence of Edgar Styles after a box of ring dings. This may seem like a random post right now, but tonight when you watch, it will echo in your mind and make complete sense.

Enhancing your television viewing since 2004.

MYL

Posted by madeyoulaugh at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Media executives have been trying to harness the power of the internet for a long time, but when most people still had a dial up modem the experience for these crossover promotional campaigns was less than ideal. Now that most of the country can get broadband for $20 or less, people are once again starting to get a little more creative. Recently, the creators of Smallville, along with AOL, launched The Project Mercury Blog, which reveals details of one of the plot lines before they are revealed on the internet. Fans of the show can follow along as details are revealed about Professor Fine (James Marsters) as he crosses the globe in order to start some sort of armageddon that Clark Kent will have to stop.

ABC and the producers of Lost take a different approach by launching an interactive game that does not involve a story line that is featured on the show, but is supposed to be geared towards people who have watched every episode as well as people like me, who think that you people who watch every episode and talk about it all the time should just shut the hell up and let the rest of us live in peace. Details are little more than press releases at this point, but there will be new characters (as if you didn't have enough trouble keeping track of everybody now) and Ana Lucia is revealed as a cyborg and she blows up and kills all of The Others. Just kidding on that last one. I like making up spoilers about the show and watching fans of the show stare into space and wonder if I am telling the truth. Since the writers make things up as they go, this works all the time. Try it yourself someday. Anyway, if you would like to play along, the first clue will be revealed during the episode on May 3rd.

Posted by at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Iron Chef America returns next week, and according to the promos, Bobby Flay will be battling Ralph Pagano, the culinary genius from Hell's Kitchen who once awed America with his revolutionary steak and white peach masterpiece. Is this really fair? Normally, Bobby Flay battles renowned chefs from such fine establishments as Le Bernadin or The French Laundry. But the lowly runner-up to an amateur cooking show? This will be the easiest battle Bobby Flay's ever participated in. His only challenge will be avoiding Ralph's huge boner.

I've actually been lucky enough to sample some of Ralph's cooking -- I dined in his "Frank and Lulu's" restaurant during the Hell's Kitchen season finale. Let me tell you something: a line cook at Applebees could beat this guy in Kitchen Stadium. If the Food Network really wants to ramp up the reality star factor, they would swap out Ralph for celebrity chef / narcissistic dumbass Rocco DiSpirito. Or better yet, Gordon Ramsey. I think it's about time someone yelled "YOU CALL THIS BLOODY RISOTTO?" and then threw a plate at Alton Brown.

Who would you like to see on Iron Chef?

Posted by at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)

This week's episode of The OC promised to provide us with a lot of answers. For years, the writers sort of neglected the fact that Theresa lied about her miscarriage. Most of us never really believed that Ryan was the father because Theresa wasn't exactly the most chaste woman at the time, but the Ryan baby story line became a glaring example of problems that have been plaguing this writing staff ever since those magical first six episodes when we all believed that this show was going to be the best thing on television for a long time. Now that the show is not the pop culture darling it used to be and FOX has several hour long dramas that fans and critics like a lot more, I think the writing staff have realized some of the old practices aren't going to work. But I don't write these recaps to lecture the producers, and the writers do seem to be getting better this year, so I'll just jump into the recaps. Scroll to the end if all you care about is who fathered Theresa's baby.

I understand that the college application process is different on the west coast. If you grew up in the east coast, every town with a gas station seems to have a small liberal arts college as well. Therefore, there was probably a good chance that you actually visited a college before you applied there. That being said, my first year college roommate was from California (Orange County to be exact), and so I consider myself to possess at least average knowledge of how things go.

Unfortunately, The OC got a lot of things wrong; chief among them is that we are supposed to believe that all of these kids are geniuses. Just because Sandy and Kirsten went to Berkeley doesn't mean that Ryan has to go especially when we Marissa has to go to the same school to make things awkward. Just because she "got all A's" two years ago as she would later tell somebody at Berkeley doesn't mean that she will automatically be accepted at the best college in the University of California system. It would have been much easier and just as awkward to accept UCLA, and just imagine all of the possibilities of Kaitlin Cooper mischief if they had went to Santa Barbara! But again, I am not looking to lecture, so really, I'll get on with it now.

Anyway, just like every college sent acceptance letters so everybody in Newport Beach would know where they got into college at the same time, the institutes of higher education all across the land conveniently conspired to have their prospective freshman weekend all on the same date. I mean, seriously, did Taylor fly to France for the Sorbonne pre-frosh weekend? I can imagine it now. "Zis weekend you will sit at zee cafe and complain about zee Americans and bash zee Euro" Oh, and I should call it pre-frosh, although more technically, it should be called profro. These are prospective students, meaning that they haven't yet enrolled, and hence they are profros. When they officially enroll, some schools will have a pre-frosh weekend for those students. Oh shit, there I go with the lecture again, but you get the point.

Seth sort of wondered why Ryan was packing so many things, or technically, how he could pack so many things, since we've only seen Ryan wear a wife beater and like two hoodies. Seth is clearly confusing Ryan's "run away from Newport" packing with Ryan's "vacation from Newport" packing. Besides, being somebody who tends to over-pack whether the stay is one day or one week, I can completely understand. You don't want to be miles away from home without a wardrobe for every occasion, plus six or seven extra sets of boxers and socks should something happen to you. Some people have emergency rations, but I have emergency underwear. If the apocalypse ever comes, I may die of starvation, but I will have clean boxer briefs.

As much as Seth is making fun of Ryan, he is just avoiding the obvious. Seth has to get into Brown, and although we left them last week trying to come up with another crazy scheme, all they have is this:

1. Seth flies to Providence
2. ????????
3. Seth gets into Brown!

In other words, they have had much better plans. That being said, Brown is the land of "pasty Jewish kids", so Seth feels he'll have no trouble fitting in and when Seth has confidence, there is no telling what could happen.

Kirsten takes the boys to the airport (Sandy couldn't make it because of work), and I'll definitely give a shoutout to Kelly Rowan for looking hot in that designer denim. She says goodbye to Seth, and then gives Ryan a few words of encouragement. One thing I have always thought that they do a bad job of portraying is Ryan's insecurity. I am not sure if it is the writers or Ben McKenzie, but I just don't see how this guy will chase down somebody's uncle for child support payments one week, chase down his long lost mother a few weeks later, and then all of a sudden be scared of heading to Berkeley.

As Ryan leaves for his departing flight, Kirsten sees Theresa, which is strange because the last time she heard Theresa was still living full-time in Atlanta. But even stranger than that is that when Theresa comes home, somebody hands her a baby, and Theresa appears to be the mother.

It's sort of nice to see Marissa back. We liked it when she was a bad girl, but there is a difference when you are a bad girl doing drugs and sleeping with water polo players and when you are a bad girl doing drugs and sleeping with "almost homeless dudes" as Summer described Volchok. Summer, besides worrying about whether the people in Providence will accept her and her sparkly scarves, is worried that Marissa is going to have makeup sex with Volchok if Marissa goes to his apartment, so she is happy when Marissa decides to meet him at the diner. When she gets there, Volchok doesn't have the stuff he said Marissa left there, but does want an explanation as to why Marissa left.

When Kaitlin was back, we learned that the Cooper family had a love affair with The Sound of Music. Marissa tells Volchok that she always pictured herself as Liesl von Trapp and when she sat and thought about it, she is not yet ready to give up that dream, which is good because the opposite of Liesl von Trapp would be a horse-faced Nazi sympathizer. And while I make fun of Mischa Barton's head, she definitely doesn't have a horse face. Point being is that the two girls leave and Volchok is left to find some other pretty rich girl to make himself feel superior to his friends that have to use GHB for even the poor chicks to sleep with them.

By now, Ryan is at the Berkeley campus (is it just me, or did they use a CTU watch to calculate all of the travel times for this episode), and it is raining. When his freshman buddy, Wes, asks Ryan about Newport and whether he plays water polo, Ryan starts to feel insecure and mentions that he is actually from Chino. I think Ryan was expecting Wes to make a big deal of the fact that Ryan is poor, but Wes kind of shrugs it off, saying he has one roommate from Bangladesh and another roommate from Kansas. Ryan almost doesn't know what to do. He's been sheltered for so long in Newport, he's almost forgotten that perhaps there are other people out there who might feel more strange enrolling in Berkeley than he does.

Later on, Ryan learns that Seth is now at Brown, having taken that awesome three hour flight Orange County to Providence, which sounds even more impressive when you realize that includes the layover in Chattanooga that Seth planned so he wouldn’t' t bump into Summer. Ryan is amazed that he is actually on a college campus, making Berkeley sound like it is some sort of Xanadu or something. I know he is poor, but even Chino has a few colleges. And it's not like college campuses have security that shoots any non-affiliated townies that dare set foot on the grass. Well, at least those colleges not located in New Haven won't do that.

Seth is simply amazed at Brown. He sees ivy, and is amazed that it is actually growing on the buildings, just like they said it would in the brochure. It's so perfect and everything he imagined; he only needs to find a way to un-reject himself and he'll be one happy camper. As Seth is talking with Ryan, he hears "COHEN!" in the background, which probably means that his plan on keeping all of this a secret from summer is ruined, but when he turns around to see who shouted his name, he sees another face.

ANNA STERN!

Speaking of characters that disappeared years ago only to never be heard from again, Anna is perhaps the most beloved ex-member of The OC. In the great battle over Seth, Summer beat out Anna, and the producers shipped her away to Pittsburgh because it was much easier than trying to figure out a way for her to exist in Newport. Thankfully, the producers have now realized that sometimes when you have a good character you can't just ship her to the Midwest and believe we'll never remember. Therefore, Taylor Townsend is still making cameos even after she failed to win Seth away from Summer.

It was great to see Ms. Stern back on the show, and Anna and Seth were almost as excited to see each other. The two of them have always had great banter, and they are right back to making fun of the sun, surf, and surgery of Newport just like before. I did love seeing Anna back, but I thought Samaire Armstrong looked kind of horrible. We can blame the stylist for making her look like a leukemia patient with bad hair extensions, but when you look at her face, you wonder if she has spent some time on the Nicole Richie diet.

Anna's return also made for some obvious product placement. Anna said that she saw his comic, and had some notes on her character, Punky Spitfire, and the VCAST is HILARIOUS! What is VCAST you say? Well, now that you mention it, Seth was wondering the same thing. Luckily, Anna had her phone to show Seth part of the Atomic County VCAST episode. The producers were probably charging too much for them to say "Verizon" on air, but VCAST is part of Verizon if you have the right phone. I have Cingular Video, which I would love to review sometime, especially if I were to say, get the media package for free. (HINT HINT)

After the little product placement, Seth explains to Anna that he traded away the rights to Atomic boy in order to keep summer, and, oh yeah, he didn't get into Brown. Seth cringed when her first reaction was to scream "YOU DIDN'T GET IN!!" at the top of her lungs, but he knows that Anna is smart and they have always been good friends; why not recruit her into his little scheme. We now have the makings of an actual plan.

1. Seth flies to Providence
2. Seth meets the Dean of Admissions at a faculty reception
3. ????????
4. Seth gets into Brown!

When Julie learned all of the kids would be going away, she thought it would be a perfect time to spend a little time alone with her husband to be. When Dr. Roberts tells Julie that he has to go to a retirement dinner for a colleague, Julie is discouraged. She might be back on top, so to speak, but that is not going to stop any of the gossip. Luckily, she has her ace in the hole - she can always talk to Kirsten. Julie tells Kirsten that she needs some help facing the Newpsies, and Sandy can come and mingle with all the doctors that will populate that new hospital. Kirsten's last wish was to help Sandy do even more work, but she doesn't want to say no to Julie and agrees.

Back up North, Ryan is learning that there are a lot more issues he can relate to with people at Berkeley. Wes even introduces him to his friend Miguel, who has more family members in prison than Ryan does. Their little lunch is interrupted when Wes notices a hot piece of tail looking lost. That piece of tail is Marissa, and her freshman buddy boycotted the meal because she is vegan. She only goes to the dining halls that have organic fruits and free-range tofu.

Ryan and Marissa share some small talk that is, you guessed it, very awkward, and so Marissa walks off, and with Ryan's blessing, Wes follows her. If they are going to the same school, he better get used to her being with other guys, and there is no better time to get started than right now, right?

At the Brown faculty reception, Seth is trying to work up the courage to speak with Dr. Ogilvy. Meanwhile, Summer is just trying to fit in with the other students. She may be smart according to the College Board, but there is still a lot of catching up to do when you haven't heard a major news story in your life that wasn't covered in US Weekly or Glamour. For instance, when some students are talking about the cultural jihad of the west, and Summer asks, "What is a jihad", because she really wants to know what it means. The other two students look at her with a strange look and then thinking Summer's question was rhetorical say "Way to reframe the question!”

I always laugh when I see scenes like this because in my college experience, students rarely bumped into each other and talked about random current events. I remember there was one kid in this religion class I took freshman year. He started to throw about words like causality and duality and threw in some Locke and Descartes in this rambling comment he made about our first day reading assignments. The professor struggled to figure out how to respond, but thankfully one girl just blurted out "What does that even mean", which got a nice chuckle from the class and that kid switched out the next day. Ah yes, peer pressure, mockery, and embarrassment are ways of life that follow you wherever you go.

It still bothers me that Seth would pursue Brown when she never wanted to go there. If she was only going to go because of Seth, why take up the space of a student who has dreamed of going there? Just go to Arizona State or something and fulfill your destiny. Instead, she comes to Brown, and if she wasn't feeling bad enough, she sees Seth. She then sees Anna. Suddenly it all makes sense.

After Kristen saw Theresa and the baby at the airport, she told her husband, and she thought that they should tell Ryan. The reason they have been able to get Ryan to trust them and consider himself part of the family was by being honest. Sandy wanted to wait for the honesty until Ryan got home, and I agree. There were already plenty of things for Ryan to think about on his college visit. However, when Ryan calls the house to let them know he is OK, Kirsten can't tell a lie and tells Ryan about Theresa and the baby.

Ryan found a flight back home right away, and the next morning, he bumps into Kirsten. He starts to lament again about his life. Just when things are going great, something like this happens. Oh boohoo Ryan. Get over yourself. Theresa is not the first unwed mother in the country, and you won't be the first deadbeat dad. If she lied about the miscarriage, obviously she doesn't want you n her life, and if she hasn't come knocking in two years, maybe she doesn't need you now.

Back East, Seth convinced the Dean of Admissions to have five minutes with him, but Anna recognized that he needs to tell the truth to Summer if that relationship will ever work. Now the plan is:

1. Seth flies to Providence
2. Seth spends free time telling Summer the truth about what happened
3. Seth meets the Dean of Admissions at a faculty reception for a meeting to explain why he should get into Brown
4. Seth reads speech to Dean of Admissions that he wrote with the help of Anna
5. Seth gets into Brown!
6. Seth and Summer live happily ever after!

Not too shabby if you ask me, but then again, this is Seth. He tries to interrupt Summer on her walking tour by posing as the Hinjew, Kumar Zimmerman. I would have thought it funnier if the nametag said "Fidel" and Seth said that he was a Jewban, but maybe that's just me. As hard as Kumar tries, Summer doesn't believe his explanation. Seth wanted to go to college to date smart women, and she doesn't need much more explanation than that.

Meanwhile, back in Newport, Kirsten and Sandy are arguing about what Kirsten said to Ryan. I can see both sides of the story. First of all, we don't know who the father is and Theresa has not asked for anything. On the other hand, being a father is more than five minutes of exercise and a cigarette. Kirsten reminds Sandy that there used to be a time when he thought being a family was important. Sandy would love to discuss all of this, but he has to go to the office before dinner. Didn't this jerk ever hear of a VPN or a Blackberry? Shouldn't his assistant be working all of these hours?

Ryan did go to Theresa's apartment. Kirsten looked her up on the internet and was able to find her address. When he gets to the door, a woman who appears to be the nanny answers and says that Ms. Diaz isn't home. Ryan sees the baby Daniel, notices it looks a little bit like him, but just leaves a message for Theresa to get back to him.

Back at Berkeley, Wes is showing Marissa that she has a lot to learn as well and it if your mind is still in the gutter, it has nothing to do with any sexual positions or drug cocktails. Besides, the night before Marissa said Wes reminded her of her father, which should have been enough to kill any of the sexual chemistry between them. No, Marissa learned that Wes wasn't the model freshman he appeared to be. In fact, he was doing this whole freshman year thing a second time, having failed out the first time.

Marissa explained the Sound of Music to Volchok only to find it fell on, uh, deaf ears, so she tried to explain things a little better for Wes. There was a point when she thought she belonged at Berkeley, back when she was riding he sister's pony and winning ribbons and having sex with polo players. Now she's just can't remember when she stopped being the girl that belonged in college, or belonged anywhere for that matter.

So, how did Seth do with the Dean of Admissions? About as well as Kumar Zimmerman did with Summer Roberts. Seth gave it his best try, but after the Dean learned that Seth wasn't actually admitted, there wasn't much he could do. In the end, he just didn't go for the quick quips and pop culture bromides that have enchanted us for so many years. Luckily, Anna Stern had a backup plan.

RISD.

That’s right, RISD. The Rhode Island School of Design. Originally, I thought that RISD would be perfect should Summer need to be close to Brown, but as my pen pal Margot reminded me, Seth actually has the better RISD resume having already penned his own graphic novel. Although Seth is worried of facing rejection, Anna convinces him to apply. Finally! I knew Anna would be good for this show. Not even the writers could mess up her innate sense of logic. Providence would have worked as would the University of Rhode Island, but let's cheer the small miracles.

Marissa had heard that Ryan left early from Berkeley, so she decided she should leave early as well. Why? Because despite what both of them say, they are still very close and want to help each other with their problems. Ryan ends up telling her about Theresa and the baby, and Marissa wonders how he knows that he is the father and not Eddy. Ryan says that it felt like he was living somebody else's life at Berkeley. Yeah Ryan, that strange vibe you felt was the inner teenager in you trying to combat the forces of middle-aged self-righteousness. Then Marissa says "But when you were at Berkeley, it felt right" because she could "see it in his eyes". No, actually he said that he felt like he was living somebody else's life, but now we know why we love it when the two of you break up. NO ONSCREEN CHEMISTRY AT ALL.

At the big dinner party, Sandy is busy giving a toast. He keeps on talking about being able to help out a lot of people by building this hospital, but all I've seen is the possibility that he'll make a lot of doctors and developers rich. If he wants to feel good about himself, why not, I don't know, become a lawyer and defend people? The Newport Group seems to be out of financial trouble. Judging by the way corporate America does things, that should be worth $100 million or so worth of golden parachute, plus some stock options. Why schmooze all of these doctors all the time?

Sandy gives a speech, and you can tell that Kirsten is just seething. BTW, he got a pretty good seat at this retirement banquet considering it's not his retirement, don't you think? If I was retiring, I wouldn't want some jerk salesman making toasts on my day. Much better to have Jim from accounting and Peggy from HR tell mildly amusing office jokes and leave with my commemorative knock-off Rolex in peace. Kirsten is asked to give a little speech herself, and says, "they say when you grow up, you marry your father". Actually, I think the saying goes slightly differently, but you get the point. Sandy has always tried to conduct himself as the anti-Caleb Nichol, and now he became just like him.

Kirsten is so disgusted, she goes outside, and WOAH! She has a wineglass in her hand, and she chugs it down. How ironic if her father AND her husband die alone because of her drinking? Seriously though, it's sad to see Kirsten fall this far. She's tried hard with the AA, but without her job at Newport Group and without Julie helping her run NewMatch Singles, she has really become isolated. I just hope Sandy isn't so naive to miss the signs this time around and gets her help before things fall too far.

Summer is now heading home from Brown. She is on the phone with Marissa about Seth, and Marissa is telling her that she shouldn't assume anything unless she has heard what Seth has to say. The good news is that Seth can say that the RISD guy was impressed. The bad news is that Summer may never want to hear it, because as she is leaving, she sees Anna giving Seth a hug and hears her saying "call me". Summer might have been able to go to Brown without Seth, and might have even gone to Brown with Seth there and broken up, but to think he broke his heart for Anna, I am not sure if she even wants to think about Brown at this point.

All that we have left is the BIG question of the hour.

Is Daniel Ryan's baby?

Eddie's the father

Oh, that was kind of anti-climactic. I thought we would get some sort of palpable crescendo of emotion, but Theresa just nipped it in the bud. She doesn't know how he found her, as if she had moved to some Eastern European country and joined "Yuri's Traveling Circus" as a sideshow performer or something. She was still living in Orange County, didn't exactly use covert means of travel, and WORKED AT A HOTEL. The only question was why it took so long.

So, Eddie is the father like we predicted. Theresa is doing well for herself. Having moved from unwed mother living with her mother to hotel businesswoman in less than two years is no small accomplishment you know. BTW, high school kids, if you see this show and see people getting jobs as Bar Managers, construction workers, and hotel managers before you are 18 or even have a high school diploma, it doesn't always work out that way.

Theresa says she didn't want to ruin Ryan's life in Newport, so she lied. She would like to someday catch up with him about the baby, but we are running out of show time and this is already a little too boring, so let's end the episode.

There you have it. Like I said, kind of anti-climactic. I thought this was an average episode, but I think they mailed in a few too many details. I though Anna's return was better, but she just she looked kind of like a mummy, so it was distracting. Marissa is back with Volchok after feeling uncomfortable at Berkeley. It was nice that he rented to Sound of Music to get an understanding about Marissa, but is she really going to stick around with his rapist friends? That being said, I do think they have set up a good final three episodes and it will be interesting to see what they are going to use as a cliffhanger. My guess is that none of the kids go to those far away colleges and all decide to stay close to home, but who knows.

What did you think of the episode?

"Hey!" Count: Episode - 16, Season - 453

Posted by at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Although I have enjoyed the last couple of weeks, I was starting to get worried about Veronica Mars. It has been as funny and clever as ever, but some things were troubling, and they go far beyond my dread at having to hear all the gushing should Logan and Veronica get together. No, I was starting to wonder if perhaps the writers didn't have a plan. You know, perhaps, they were too busy putting a bunch of twists and "gotchas" into the episodes that the wonderful mystery of all the conspiracies would come tumbling down because there wasn't enough to keep them all going at once. Oh how very wrong I was. It looks like the writers had a great plan, and the only thing I am worried about now is whether I'll feel worse having to wait three more episodes for it all to wrap up, or the fact that after those three episodes, I will have to wait another four or five months for them to get started again. But enough about that because I have already taken too much away from this week's episode, which was, as I used to say when I was a kid (and to be honest still do), so f-ing dope.

At the beginning of the episode, Veronica is giving a deposition in the relating to the Aaron Echolls murder case. Being a big fan of Basic Instinct, I liked the little shout out they gave to that very famous interrogation scene. Veronica was being asked to describe what she saw on tape between Lilly Kane and Aaron Echolls. For those of us who have watched Season 1 (and if you haven't, go out and get the DVD - you can thank me later), it was not hard to see that Aaron Echolls having sex with her or had discovered an accurate way to tell body temperature with his penis. Although Aaron's lawyer attempted to question Veronica's ability to judge a sex act without actually seeing copulation, she assured him that she had not only passed Sex Ed, but watched enough Animal Planet to know what sex looked like.

The only thing really difficult about the deposition was when the lawyer asked if she was still keeping in touch with Duncan Kane. Veronica didn't have to answer, of course, but it did seem to ruffle her up a little bit.

Returning home, Veronica learned that her father discovered something that would really blow her mind. For the last month, we have been fed a lot of clues that Woody Goodman was involved in the crash. Last week, we learned of a few more scenarios that were possible, some including Woody, but others that fingered the Fitzpatricks and even Weevil. This week, we learn that Richard Casablancas was using the life insurance policies of his sons as a tax shelter, but more interesting than that was the payout. If both children died at the same time, Kendall Casablancas would be the beneficiary. Now the only thing left to prove is that Kendall Casablancas was smart enough to pull this off and not get caught.

The next day at school, Clemmons is doing one of those "random locker searches" in order to catch all sorts of various paraphernalia considered dangerous or disruptive at school. Unfortunately, Mac was a victim of one of the searches. She had purchased a cell phone interceptor so she could listen on Cassidy Casablancas' phone conversations, putting her a few dangerous steps closer to official crazy ex-girlfriend psycho bitch territory.

Veronica is more than happy to help her friend, but quickly learns that Clemmons has changed his locks. This means Veronica is going to have to act a little more creative, and so she asks Clemmons' son Butters whether he will help her out. Butters agrees, but only because he needs a prom date. This was perhaps a little bit more than Veronica wanted to sacrifice to help out her friend, but when she learns that Butters wants to go with Mac, she agrees to the deal. Unfortunately, Veronica neglects to tell this to Mac, leaving her very confused as they are in Clemmons office and Butters is telling her that he is a good dancer. When he asks what sort of dress she is wearing because he doesn't want to look like an idiot and buy the wrong corsage, Mac figures is out. By that time, Veronica had found Mac's cell phone interceptor, and decides that it is best to leave before Mac stars asking Butters questions like, "Can you please shut up about the prom?" or "Do you want me to kick you in the nuts?"/

Smell It Bitch!

Among the items confiscated, a few caught Veronica's eye, like the fake vomit and an ironic t-shirt, although I am not sure how it is ironic. Oh, and the Anarchist's Cookbook, which was found in Weevil's locker, but confiscated many years ago. For those of you too young to remember, the Anarchist's Cookbook is a real document that contains instructions on various methods to get back at the government for various wrongs they may have committed. Some methods include making explosives to get back at the evil capitalist pigs that run the government, while others include making drugs which you would take to make yourself to debilitated to fight for the capitalist pigs or too wasted to get jobs and make money for the capitalist pigs. With the advent of the Internet, the cookbook got a little more traction because it became more widely available, and there are still places where it is banned. The only problem is that it was written in the 1970s, so many of it's method probably aren't useful, especially since most of the drug recipes are for substances kids no longer take to piss of their parents.

But enough with the history lesson. Veronica knows that Weevil likes rats, as evidenced by how much he enjoyed feed her homeroom's pet snake, and the cookbook might give him enough knowledge to pull off the bus crash like her imaginary friend Cervando told her in her dreams last week. Without pulling any punches, Veronica basically accuses Weevil of causing the bus crash. She says that he and Cervando wanted to take out the limo full of rich kids, but didn't know that Dick had given his goodie bag to Betina. When Weevil says it wouldn't have been worth the effort, Veronica reminds him that Logan Echolls was supposed to be on the bus at the time, and if the incident with Thumper is any indication, he was willing to go to great lengths to get the guy who killed Felix.

On top of all of this, a fellow student, Harry Greene, asks Veronica if she can help find his dog. A few years back, Veronica busted up a ring of dog thieves, but this student's dog wasn't dognapped, it was run over by a car. The car actually came up over the curb, but by the time Harry was outside, the car was gone. He couldn't see the license plate, but remembered what it looked like. With Veronica's help, Harry identified it as a Plymouth Barracuda, but since no green Barracudas were registered in Neptune, Veronica was going to have to be a little more creative in her search. Strangely enough a green muscle car plays an important role in the story line of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which makes me wonder if Veronica will later use a double-ended dildo to kill off corrupt cops, but for some reason, I don't think that will happen.

Harry has some anger issues

Keith Mars, who has been on and off about this bus crash investigation, is really starting to get into it now. He tells Veronica that Kendall made three calls to Logan on the day of the crash, which is surprising to him until Veronica lets him know that Kendall and Logan were having a little "coitus sordidus" several times a week. Keith asks Veronica if she can find out if Logan was with Kendall at the time of the accident, and so she reluctantly agrees to do so the next day. After trading their normal barbs with each other, Veronica finds out that Kendall kicked him out early that day, and, oh, he made a townie girl moan without using his hands. I am a little confused about this because technically, he is a townie guy, depending on who you ask, but maybe that's what Logan calls the poor girls. Second, when I heard her tell the story she said "I faked an orgasm with this penis head 09er and then he told all of his friends".

With no alibi, maybe Kendall did have more to do with this than we imagined, even though Logan, who admittedly spent a lot of time with her, doesn't think she has the intellectual muscle to pull such a scheme off. But then Veronica hears the strangest news of the day; Gia Goodman has seen that green Barracuda before. When she got no leads with the DMV, Veronica put an ad in the student newspaper. Gia saw that car, because she noticed that somebody from that car mooned the rich kids limo moments before the bus crash. She remember because her father called to ask her where she was a short time before that because he needed her to pick up her brother from a piano lesson.

Obviously, the hints on the bus crash are coming fast and furious, and now the plot thickens once more regarding Kendall Schiflitt. Keith dug up some of her old high school yearbooks and found that Kendall Schiflitt was blonde and had a thing for perms back in 1994. The person we actually thought was Kendall is actually named Priscilla Banks, and her name change may have something to do with her criminal record. She spent six months in jail for wire fraud, which might not have kept her out of the Laker Girls (my ex-NBA dancer friend tells me that as part-time employees, the cheerleaders and dance teams don't always warrant background checks) but it probably would have put a few more hundred pages into that pre-nup she signed when she married Richard Casablancas.

As interesting as all of that may have been, Veronica believed that she was much closer to the mystery of the bus crash. If somebody needed to be close to the bus to set off the explosion, the owner of that green Barracuda fit the description. An anonymous source gave Veronica the location of the car although I'm not sure how great her plan was. Walking up to the house and saying something like "Hey, did you blow up a bus full of kids" isn't going to get you far, but she's the precocious high school investigator and I am but a lowly blogger, so I'll let her call the shots.

When Veronica gets to the house, the person inside admits to owing a green barracuda, but there is not much chance that this person could have been the person who crashed the bus. First, the person in question is an old woman, and while you don't know how crazy she was, Gia mentioned that one of the people in the car gave a pressed ham, i.e. mooned them and pressed their ass against the window. It's one of the greatest tricks in the books, but I doubt grandma would have taken all that trouble to drop her Depends; she might have broken a hip or something. And she couldn't have been the driver because she was, you know, blind from cataracts.

The lady was upset and insinuated that the car was her late husband's and it will never leave her garage until she is in a pine box. Veronica left her to her Pat and Vanna, but wondered how the blind got enjoyment out of Wheel of Fortune. Well, maybe the same way they get enjoyment out of baseball and the biathalon Veronica. She didn't ask you personal questions!

Alas, Veronica knew that somebody was probably taking advantage of this disabled woman, who probably wouldn't notice if somebody took her car while she wasn't looking. Veronica goes into the garage, and there is the green Barracuda. She uses some chalk line dust and finds the imprint of a decal. Gia mentioned that she thought they were college kids because of some mascot decal on the side of their car, but what college where they from? I thought the imprint looked like an outline of a pirate logo, but if it was a pirate, wouldn't Gia have recognized her own school mascot? More importantly, what were these kids doing with a gun in the glove box?

Veronica placed a tracking device in the car and went back to her father's office (speaking of father's office, Father's Office has some great burgers if you are ever in Santa Monica, not to mention a kick-ass microbrew collection). Not long after she got there, Weevil came in and asked a favor. Hector came to Weevil's uncle's shop begging for him to help the PCH. Without Thumper, they were increasingly being abused by the Fitzpatrick's. Arturo, who Weevil wouldn't let in the gang, but found his way in after that string of pizza delivery boy robberies, even got a lighter to the face. Weevil didn't want to go back, but he hated the Fitzpatrick's more than he was hurt that his old hermanos betrayed him.

When he fingered Thumper for the robbery of the school carnival (I *really* hope they actually go to Magic Mountain), Weevil noticed that Thumper had a paddle with a bunch of numbers on it. He figured that they were license plate numbers of some influential customers that Thumper made as sort of an insurance policy. He knows Veronica has access to Clemmons' office, so he wants to get in and get the paddle. Veronica's key doesn't work, but that doesn't mean that she can't use it to get some answers from Weevil, like why he was following the bus. The answer was easy enough. Cervando was book smart, but street stupid and was telling everybody how he had duped Liam Fitzpatrick. Like I said last week, we all know how much Liam hates when people talk, and so did Weevil. He heard that Liam was out to get Cervando, and wanted to watch his back.

Hmm, I guess that theory is out the window. Veronica gives Weevil the key, tells him that it doesn't work anymore, but isn't cruel enough to hold back the copies that she made of the paddle. He wants to run some of those numbers and figure out exactly who was buying from the Fitzpatricks.

Veronica got a signal that the Barracuda was on the move while she was doing a shift at Java the Hutt. Fortunately, Jackie was there to cover for her. Yes, you heard me right, Jackie, as in Jackie Cook. She needed a job and asked Veronica to vouch for her because she had no other experience and needed some income since her father's assets were all frozen. Veronica didn't really want to vouch for her and was taking a little risk, especially when the manager said if Jackie sucks, Veronica would have to fire her. The gamble paid off and Jackie's ballet lessons paid off into some real grace working all of those tables.

Having a job at the Hutt meant Jackie was easier to find, and Wallace was still pursuing her. He knew she didn't want to be seen as a bitch, but Jane already had a date to prom, and it had been two weeks, an eternity in high school time. One problem hampering their reconciliation was when Wallace told Jackie that she shouldn't worry about her reputation because it can't get any worse than your dad blew up a school bus. Sounds kind of harsh, but the words came out a bit wrong. Wallace gets a table in Jackie's section, and when she comes over, tells her that he hopes she can work through the issues she has with her reputation, but he doesn't care about that. He has feelings for her, but if she says she doesn't have feelings for him, he'll back off. Jackie says that is just the opposite, but she just got accepted tot he Sorbonne (I wonder if she knows Taylor Townsend) and she leaves right after graduation. She doesn't want to get attached only to find out their or no happy endings out there for them. If she can't find a happy ending, maybe she just needs to spend more time in Koreatown. Ha! I've been waiting to use that one for a long time folks.

Veronica gets into the LeBaron and follows the Barracuda until it stops in front of a house. Using a listening device, Veronica hears a woman's voice. She tells whoever is in the car that there is somebody inside, and the guy in the car asks for his gun. Veronica calls her dad to let him know that something bad is about to go down and gives him the location. Keith tells Veronica to wait outside and if anybody other than him comes outside, to drive off as fast as she can. But wait? That means that...Keith is inside of the house?!

Keith is a damn good investigator, and it looks like he is going to be able to get out except some noisy floorboard ruins his plans. He turns around and comes face to face with Liam Fitzpatrick, who happens to be pointing a gun at his face. It just so happens to be a nightmare scenario for Keith. He is another person's home, essentially breaking and entering, so although Liam doesn't exactly have just cause, it will be much easier to argue self-defense. I am not familiar with California gun law, but if he were to argue self-defense, he would probably need to be in immediate danger. Entering the house when you know somebody is in there, especially if it's not your own, probably voids that immediate danger thing

It probably would have done Keith no good to explain any of that, so instead he tries to plead with Liam that he has a daughter. Liam is unapologetic and now I am wondering how in the hell Keith is going to get out of this. Liam pulls the trigger, but the gun is empty. Phew! The two of them begin fighting, crash through the front window, and Keith is able to get away. He runs into the car with Veronica, who at the time was wondering what Kendall Casablancas was doing with Liam Fitzpatrick, but didn't wait to find out. As they sped Away, Kendall asked Liam what Keith Mars was doing in there. Liam said that he didn't know, which Kendall said was bad, but said it would be worse if Liam were to track him down. I knew that Kendall was more than just a pretty face; she's got a great set of boobs as well. Just kidding, she is more than just boobs; she has a great ass as well. OK, OK, this joke is old. She is more than just T&A, she obviously knew a lot more than she let on, and I started going through the past episodes in my head, Usual Suspects style, trying to figure out what it could be.

Anyway, Veronica saved Keith, but how did she know? For one, it might not be a bad idea to remove bullets from any loaded gun she sees, but apart from that, there were a few hints that it might have been a Fitzpatrick car. Obviously, it's green, but if you go back and look at that decal impression on the window, doesn't it look a light like the Fighting Irish logo? Like close enough that a character in a TV show could figure out what it was, but not close enough for the producers to get sued?

Close? or no cigar?

Keith was a little banged up, but he did get a nice little piece of information, namely Kendall's hard drive. Mac came over, and although she was still mad at Veronica because of the whole Butters/prom thing (he asked if he should get a hotel room for after the prom), she had no problem helping Keith. She did a little repair on the hard drive and ten printed out ever document that was on it, including e-mails.

Losing a fight to a balding, middle-aged, pudgy private investigator must have really pissed off Liam, and so when he went to collect from the PCH, you knew he wasn't going to be in the mood for any excuses. Hector told him that they don't have a lot of money because there wasn't enough of demand. Liam told them that they were told to "push it" for a reason, and not because they liked Salt and Pepa (and don't forget Spinderella!). To emphasize his point, he hung one of them up on a chain and told his boys to beat him up until the rest of the crew emptied their pockets and made up what was missing from the weekly drop.

Things were looking bleak, but soon, another man in a green vintage car came to the rescue. Yes, it was Weevil, and he told Liam that the PCH won't work for the Fitzpatricks any more? His leverage? That list of license plates turned up a lot of famous people, who probably wouldn't like it if their dealer exposed them. Weevil gave Liam the list, and said he made copies. Just in case something should happen to Weevil, the story would still get out. Liam backs down, and Weevil's entire gang is chanting his name, but instead of becoming the prodigal thug that returned to run his crew, Weevil said he didn't want back into the PCH. A mild surprise, and one that makes you wonder what gave Weevil this change of heart.

But really, we should think about Kendall, and for reasons other than she makes it a party in my pants. The old woman, Mary McDonald, was Liam's maternal grandmother, so she probably didn't have anything to do with it. Veronica best guess was to go on what Weevil said. The Fitzpatricks really wanted to get back at Cervando, but that doesn't tie any of them to Kendall.

Keith has been doing the PI thing a little longer than Veronica, and although he doesn't have all the answers, he is getting close. He found 65 e-mails from Kendall to Cormick Fitzpatrick, older brother to Liam. They were drifters that worked the long con. Keith thinks that Kendall did that time to prevent Cormick from having that third strike that would send him to prison for life. To a crime family, that prison time would be a badge of honor, and Liam could have easily followed the bus for Kendall. Oh my, oh my. That's pretty good, and you know we still have three more episodes for the writers to drop bombs on us.

Veronica only had one more thing to do. When she went over to Harry's house before, he had been taking target practice on a deer and I'm sure she could only imagine what would happen if Harry knew who killed his do. Once again, Harry's younger brother Billy answered the door. He was a little beaten up before, but he really had his face smashed in this time. Veronica [not Tyra, thanks zoobabe] noticed that he had a motorcycle in the front yard, and if you were paying attention, he was the one the Fitzpatricks strung up the night before and were beating senseless until Weevil showed. Liam probably killed the dog because Billy was late on his payments, and Billy was too scared to tell his brother.

Billy pleaded with Veronica to not tell his brother about Liam, because he didn't want him to get hurt, not because of what the Fitzpatricks might do, but because his brother would be sent to jail for killing Liam with a razor tipped arrow to the neck. All he would need is a grassy knoll. As Veronica walked upstairs, she had a tough choice. She could effectively get rid of the person that tried to kill her father and all she would need to do is tell the truth, or she could hold back some information and save at least one distraught person from making another mistake that would throw their life away. Veronica chooses the latter and tells Harry that she could never track down the owner of the car. He looks disappointed, but fifty or sixty hours of paintball should cheer him up right away.

I thought this was a great episode. We had enough misdirection with Weevil, and we were obviously about to reveal some more crazy shit with Kendall and the Fitzpatricks down the road. I like that Mac apparently has to beat off the guys with a stick now and I'm really glad that Wallace pulled his head out of his ass. He told Jackie that if they only have five weeks, it should be the best five weeks of their lives.

Still, the crazy shit is with Kendall. I normally don't like to talk about what happens during the previews for next week, but it looks like Woody is having an affair with Kendall, which could say some very interesting things for his involvement in the bus crash. Did he blow up the bus to help out Kendall? Or did he warn Gia only after he heard what Kendall was planning? Maybe Kendall found out he likes young boys or girls and forced him to do something? Too many theories to talk about, so please be sure to share your own in the comments section.

And let me not forget to mention another little thing. The murder weapon in the Lilly Kane murder case was found. I know what you're thinking, "But they already had the ash tray!". Well, when the new residents of the Kane house were digging up their pool, they found Aaron Echolls oscar statue. It had Lilly's blood on it, but also Duncan's hair. Wow. This whole time I thought Kendall placed something in Duncan's shower, but she was obviously taking hair samples out in order to plant evidence. This was supposed to make her money, but I don't know how they are going to use it, or if it will be Veronica who exposes it, or if it even exposed this year. Who knows, if Kendall needed some leverage with the DA, saying you fabricated evidence for Aaron Echolls might get you a deal if it gets them a conviction. Not that it matters because he'll still be in jail for three counts of assault and two for attempted murder, right?

What did you think of this episode? What is Kendall's involvement in the crime? Was she playing Logan as well as Richard Casablancas? Why wouldn't Weevil get back with the PCH? Will Aaron Echolls go free?

Posted by at 8:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Well its been quite a trying time for Tony Soprano lately. He’s been shot, forced into a really odd overlong dream sequence with Buddhists and Steve Buscemi, and had to have a giant hole in his stomach. But in the last few episodes of The Sopranos he’s starting to get back to his old self again. Squeezing people for cash, even ordering to get someone whacked.

And then of course we have Johnny Sack, the de facto head of the New York crime family ever since Carmine Sr. died of a stroke. After last episode where he was seen crying like a little girl with skinned knee at his daughters wedding some of his captains, like Phil Leotardo, are questioning his role as boss, thinking he might be better suited to being the boss of the New York Chapter of the Clay Aiken fan club instead of the New York Mafia.

But things aren’t all peaches and cream for Tony S. Before Johnny Sack pulled the waterworks at the wedding he agreed to take care of something for him. Rusty, one of his captains, is “a cancer” and needs to be dealt with, but Johnny Sack couldn’t do it himself. He enlisted Tony Soprano to take care of it for him. Tony reluctantly agreed but decided to get someone from the mother country to come in and do it so it wouldn’t leave any fingerprints to point to him. Rusty is played by the plastic surgery ravaged Franki Valli. That’s right, Tony Soprano is going to whack the man responsible for bringing us the theme song to Grease. Now he is definitely going to hell.

And if you’re wondering that all this sounds somewhat convoluted you are right. It is a very complex show that is made even worse by that fact that we are forced to wait a year and a half between seasons. It makes all my bitching about Lost seem inconsequential. But still, all complaints go out the window when you realize that this season is as brilliantly written as anything on television. And if you’re really that confused the HBO website is a good resource to bring you up to speed.

The show opens with Tony relaxing out in his back yard. Ever since his new lease on life he’s been on a nature kick. His rest is interrupted with the rattling of the pool heater so Tony goes over and whacks it. Get it? Whacks it? Oh man, I am too much. Vito is also relaxing at his summer home. He’s hiding out hoping that the word doesn’t leak about his sexuality. His Goomah s there with him and isn’t too thrilled because, well she’s a woman goomah and Vito just ain’t interested. Now if he was a nice nubile Ralph MAcchio Goomah, that would be a different story. And after the abrasive Rosie Perez attitude of his goomah where she bitches about everything, it makes me wonder if she’s the woman responsible for turning Vito gay. Also, I like saying Goomah.

Goomah.

Back at Satriale’s Tony is filling in Christopher about the plans for the Rusty hit. When Tony sees Perry Annunziata, his new muscle head bodyguard he apologizes for beating the crap out of him at the end of last episode. He had to do it to reassert his authority with his crew. They can’t see any weakness. I am the same way when I play my family at scrabble.

That night Christopher is at an AA meeting and meets a friend of a friend (but not a friend of ours, if ya know what I mean) who tells him about how Vito was spotted at a gay bar in full leather ass chaps. Bing close minded people they automatically assume taht that means he is gay. I mean, a guy can want to go to a bar with leather ass chaps but is forced not to because society will brand him "gay". Maybe I just like leather ass chaps? Anyways, Christopher immediately runs over to the Bada Bing to tell everyone the news. I always love scenes at the Bada Bing. It lets HBO do what it does best. Gratuitous nudity. After the initial shock Tony says that they need to get confirmation first. They try to call Vito but his cell phone goes straight to voicemail and no one has seen him in a few days. Another clue, Vito sings his voicemail message to Over the Rainbow. Silvio says one of the bar girls knows his goomah so he’ll try and fond out what he can.

Meadow Soprano meanwhile is continuing her long streak of being the Soprano child that you can be proud of, as opposed to the royal F up that is Tony Jr. She is volunteering at a law center in the Bronx helping Muslim families that are getting harassed by the government. Her passionate defense of civil liberties causes some friction in the house especially when Carmela reveals herself to be a proud Bush voter. This doesn’t surprise me at all.

The conversation however gets Tony thinking so he asks Christopher about some local Muslims that he has been supplying drugs and guns to if they might be some of them “al queda’s”. Chris says he doesn’t think so, since one of them, among other things “has a Springer spaniel”. This show kills me.

At Vito’s beach house he is greeted outside by some of Tony’s crew looking at him suspiciously. They say that Tony wants to see him right away and he hasn't been answering his phone. Vito knows the jig is up (I’ve been waiting months to use that phrase in a recap) so he speeds off in his car. A Cadillac, natch.

Later that Night Christopher is meeting with the contact he is using to work with the Italians coming in for the hit on Rusty. When we see him paying the guy in heroin it just makes me think that this is all gonna blow up in his face. Christopher you see, is kind of an idiot. Having a herion junkie deal with a sensitive situation where discretion is required doesn’t strike me as the way to go, but hey, what do I know. I’ve only been involved in petty crime and racketeering. I’m no capo de tutti capo.

When Vito gets back to his house he sees his hot lolitaesque babysitter sitting on the couch watching TV. He doesn’t even pause to look at her, proving that he really is gay. He goes and gets some cash stashed away, grabs some family photos, kisses his sleeping kids goodnight, and takes off. As he is driving in the pouring rain and downing some ribs (diets off) he gets a call on his call from Phil Leotardo and instead of answering it chucks it out the window. A few minutes later his car hits some branches and he is stranded. He finds his way to a B&B to hide out for the night and get his car towed. When he wakes the next morning Vito finds out that he has stumbled into a town that is a veritable gay heaven. Nothing but antique stores and friendly gay people walking the streets. Its like Pleasantville only, well, gayer. As if that’s possible.

Things aren’t well back at the homestead. Silvio is talking with Vito’s wife about where he is and how things are “in the romance department” as well as asking about his “unexplained powders”. She says she doesn’t know anything about it, but does know about his goomah. Still, she insists, he’s a good father and a good husband. Where do they hide these women?

At Dr Melfi’s Tony is talking about Vito. He’s upset because Vito is one of his best earners and most focused captains. When Melfi asks him about what the real issue is Tony says, “He’s a faaaag!” This show kills me. Melfi asks why he is so upset and Tony fills her in on how in his circles being gay is a death sentence. People won’t want to be seen with you, and it could cost the family millions. When Melfi asks Tony how he feels about it personally he says ultimately he doesn’t really care but he still agrees with that “Senator Sanatorium”, that you cant let that stuff go too far. Melfi then asks about what happens when some of his people go to jail for years and get involved in some prison salad tossing and rusty trombones. “They get a pass for that” Tony says. Tony then talks about his new outlook on life and how when he stops to smell the roses “Regular life has got a way of picking away at it.” Which goes back to the opening scene with Tony trying to enjoy nature and getting interrupted by the pool heater. See? That’s layered symbolism. That’s why it takes two years to write an episode.

When he gets home Carmela asks Tony about the building inspection for her spec house. It never ends! But then Carmela makes it up by rubbing lotion in his belly scar to help it fade. Has anyone else noticed how amazingly fat James Gandolfini has gotten in the last few years? He must be at least 30 pounds heavier than he was at the start of the show. Those Satriale veal parms must be worth it.

The next morning Rosie Aprile is talking with Carmela about Vito. The story is now all over the place. When Meadow comes down and asks them “What about Vito?” she says that she can probably guess. She then tells both of them about how her boyfriend Vince saw him giving a guy a blowjob in a parking lot (this happened last season and was one of the best WTF? moments of the year). Whether or not he swallowed was not discussed. Man, why did I have to go there? Once she says this Tony comes downstairs and Carmela then tells Meadow to tell her what she just said.

The next thing we see is Vincent himself being brought in the back room of Satriale’s to tell everyone about what he heard so that there can be no more speculation. This rocks our little Jersey mafia world. Paulie Walnuts, god bless him, is ready to kill him. I say god bless not for the whole wanting to kill someone because he is gay thing, more just because I love his character. That and his weird hair reminds me of that dinosaur in Jurassic park that spit all over Newman from Seinfeld. When everyone else agrees with Paulie's appraisal of the situation Tony then brings up the fact that he has kids that will need taking care of. They didn't do anything wrong. The whole thing is quite the dilemma.

Meanwhile Vito’s wife, who also happens to be the cousin to NY mafia captain Phil Leotardo, is devastated. When Phil comes over to visit her he talks about how there has been “confirmation through the grapevine”. Phil says that Vito has made a mockery of their whole marriage. I mean, a goomah is one thing, murdering his own cousin in cold blood sure, but this!? It’s also worth mentioning that the production design on this show is beyond excellent. Vito’s living room is the epitome of cheesy Italian jersey decor. I used to date a jersey girl and man they have the whole thing down perfectly.

When Carmela goes to visit Angie Bumpansero at her car dealership, which used to be her husbands Big Pussies (tee hee), until he had to go sleep with the fishes for being a rat. She walks in on her talking with two of Tony’s men. Later when Carmela is talking with Rosie about what she saw, Rosie says that Angie is “putting money on the street”. I think this means she is starting to get involved in the family business, if ya know what I mean. Rosie says that she was always one of us, but know its like she is “one of them”. Well, since she has also probably given construction workers BJ’s in a parking lot she is a lot like on of them. At least one in particular that is.

At the Bada Bing club Tony is promoting Carlo to take over for Vito in charge of the construction business. After he does this Carlo lets him now that the guys in Vito’s crew refuse to work with him if he does return. He says that Vito should be “put down” for the honor of the family. Tony tries to defend him saying that Vito, through sheer determination, turned himself onto the best earners in his crew. And that, to be frank, he wasn’t the first one to be gay, if ya know what I mean. After Carlo leaves Silvio mentions to Tony that if he lets Vito come back it could mean that he loses respect. It would be just the excuse people need to start withholding serious money from him.

That night Meadow is in the guesthouse smoking dope with her boyfriend with the oversized and gross looking nipples. When Meadow starts talking about Johnny Sack and the wedding imbroglio, Vincent is not as sympathetic as she expects. Vito comes back with a pretty convincing argument that her dad Tony Soprano is a MOB BOSS, and that Vito is going to be met with his own form of justice just because he is gay. So she can get off her high horse about civil rights. Meadows response to this is saying “this is untenable”. Using untenable in a conversation. That’s almost as annoying about being a champion of civil rights while knowingly having a mob boss as a father. Meadow is making Tony Jr. and his job at Blockbuster look better and better with each passing day.

Over in the gay Pleasantville Vito is having a fantastic day. Wearing a beautiful blue jumpsuit he spends the day wandering the quaint little town contemplating life. He eventually finds his way to a nice little antique shop where he notices a license plate out the window with New Hampshire’s state motto :Live free or dike”. Per haps this will give Vito the courage tolive the life he always wanted. Thank god he wasn’t hiding out in Michigan since the state motto of "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you" doesn’t really speak to him as much.

So what does everyone else think? Isn’t this show having another great season? Whos gonna get whacked next?

Posted by EdHIll at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (32)

FOX is doing viewers a disservice by airing Prison Break and "24" back to back. They are creating a Zombie Nation; that is, watching these two shows makes viewers so frantic and frazzled, no one is able to get to sleep until 2 or 3 AM every Monday night. If and when these guys ever get out of prison, they're going to be so bored with the real world that they'll yearn for the excitement, socialization, and danger of prison life again. They certainly seem to have it better than I do these days - exciting poker games, art classes, loads of recess time, sex on demand (albeit freaky tranny sex, but still...)

Okay, so maybe our hero Michael doesn't have it so good at the moment - stuck in the psycho ward trying to have a meaningful conversation with ol' Haywire. The problem was that Haywire was so hopped up on goofballs that he couldn't think straight, let alone remember his former cell mate - yes, the 4 month hiatus FOX forced on us seemed to have affected Haywire too. Like, who the hell remembers that Michael stole his toothpaste to use the tube to store his corrosive agent that he squirted into the infirmary's drainage pipe?

Uh-oh, Haywire just remembered that! And he was about to kiss Michael, full on the lips (see pic)! And without toothpaste for such a long while, how would Michael react to the bad breath? Answer, after the jump.

Ah, Haywire wasn't trying to kiss dear Michael; he was only getting up in his grill because that's what all the prisoners at Fox River seem to do to each other. Their little tête-à-tête was broken up by Nurse Ratched and her pills. Michael, not actually being insane, refused his meds. This brought the wrath of the giant nurse/guard enforcer guy who forced Michael to take his meds. But giant nurse/guard enforcer guy missed his final exam at Nurse/Guard Enforcer University since he failed to check under Michael's tongue, a rookie mistake if I've ever seen one! As a result, Michael spit out his jagged little pill and continued badgering Haywire.

Across the yard in Gen Pop, Bellick and his pasty sidekick Geary were rubbing their hands in greedy glee at the prospect of auctioning off Michael's old cell. With Sucre in the SHU and Michael gone batty, their cell would be a hot commodity what with its view of the whole block and relative cleanliness. Location, location, location. Geary immediately had a taker for 200 bucks - but he reneged when he noticed the - GASP - leaky toilet.

Westmoreland and C-Note got wind of the "auction" and sprung into action - they needed to "win" the cell and keep the toilet truth under wraps. C-Note promised to get 500 bucks, no problem, and set about collecting from some of his boys in the yard. While C-Note was forcing people to cough up money, Michael was alone with Haywire forcing him to cough up his meds. Michael tricked Haywire into opening his mouth and then - HIYAA! - he jammed his fingers down the psychotic man's throat, forcing him to vomit. Which we got a nice view of on the floor.

Without the pills, Haywire started coming around to reality a bit more and began to remember Michael's tattoo. "It's a path," he muttered, bringing the first smile to Michael's face in quite a while. His brother Lincoln, however, was certainly not smiling when his dumbass son called to say that he was in juvie after having stolen a gun and shooting a buffalo jerky salesman in the neck. So now poor Lincoln was dealing with a brother that went crazy and a son who was being held for 2 murders he didn't commit and 1 attempted murder he did. What could be worse? Oh, yeah... That whole gonna-be-executed-for-a-murder-he-didn't-commit-thing. Damn, Linc, your life, fleeting as it is, really sucks.

Secret Service agent Paul Kellerman's life wasn't faring much better at the time. Still on the mend from his gunshot wound, he was surrounded and set upon in the middle of a Chicago street. It was apparently one of those special downtown Chi-Town streets with no traffic whatsoever on it. In all my visits to the windy city, I've yet to find that street. Kellerman was accosted by Brinker and her cronies who essentially admitted the whole conspiracy was far greater than he and that he was now to roll over and simply be Owen Kravecki, jerky jerk. Hmmm, Brinker, I know a well at a remote cabin that's got your name written all over it...

C-Note sauntered up to his boys to collect the 500 bucks he requested and was offered a cup of tea. "One lump or two?" C-Note smiled and responded, "Oooh, three or four..." Whap, whomp, bam, smack - his "boys" beat they ever livin' crap out of C-Note because of his perceived friendship with white supremacist (etc) T-Bag. A fair beatdown contextually speaking, I do believe. Needless to say, Mr. Note did not get a dime and the escape cell was still up for grabs.

Later, when T-Bag saw the result of the beating and C-Note's empty pockets he lamented, "Looks like the Bank of Africa wasn't allowing any withdrawals today." For all his numerous faults (mass murder, rape, pedophilia, lying, stabbing, ugly, racist), T-Bag is quite witty. And now he'd have to use all his wit, because the onus was falling on him and his poker skills to come up with the cash for the cell. He would get a seat in the "Kitchen game" and cheat the house out of the money because, according to him, "Only 5 people in the United States can sleeve cards as well as I do."

Over in the wack shack, Michael was still banking on Haywire's recall abilities. He was now vomiting up his pills on his own (Wait, was Haywire the inspiration for "A Million Little Pieces" or what? And what does Oprah's minge have to say about that?) and beginning to remember the tattoo details. "It's a pathway to HELL!" Michael assured him it was just the opposite and Haywire admitted that he did remember the missing tattoo part.

He was still totally nuts, mind you, but as long as he could draw the missing piece Michael didn't care. "You can't break a path - then it goes nowhere, there's the pilgrim, pointing the way..." It was perfect, "Crazy guy" dialogue. He continued, "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." Hoo boy, Michael had a real loony bird on his hands.

While Haywire was sketching out the "pathway," Sucre's cousin passed by and noticed Michael's burnt shoulder blade. Even though he looks like Horatio Sanz, he's not as dumb and put two and two together - Michael was wearing the prison guard shirt when it got burned!

When Haywire finished the sketch, he attacked Michael, strangling him. His other memories of his short time with Michael and his tattoo flooded back - like the one where Michael set him up and had him punished to get rid of him. He made Michael tell him what was up with the escape and promise to never screw him over again and that was that. So now Michael had a fat Horatio Sanz and a crazy Haywire joining the escape team. Before we know it, the whole freaking prison is going to go be in on the plan.

Then it happened. The show took a turn that I'm afraid I may end up hating. But I really, really hope not. Lawyer Nick was in a cell phone store trying to find the proper battery charger for Quinn's phone. Then, in the store, some random authoritative looking guy appeared threatened Nick and reminded him of why he was to, "Keep an eye on Veronica." Sigh. This show has no need for moles or double agents or any of that cheap hooey. I hope I misread the scene. Later, when the phone was charged, Nick seemed very out-of-it and didn't even seem to care. Hmmmmm, plus the 322 numbers in Quinn's phone were all dead ends now anyway.

Also "Playing the numbers" were T-Bag and C-Note. They had secured places at the Kitchen Poker game (Coming to the Travel Channel soon) with the multi-racial kitchen crew. T was dealing C palmed cards so he could win large pots, in order to get the $500 needed to win Michael's cell. The game was also a chance for T-Bag to bust out some good old racist humor. When C-Note dawdled, T-Bag quickly quipped, "Hurry up, we ain't on CPT here." Didn't catch that one? Then you don't know about "Colored People Time," and you are probably a better person than I.

Despite his hesitation, C-Note came through with a full house prompting T-Bag to goad, "A full house! Oh, there's a concept you Mexicans are familiar with, eh Jesus?" Ok, that was a pretty good one. He followed that one up by calling the Asian guy, "Ping Pong," but didn't go so far as to suggest that his mom shot them out of her choocha like they do in Bangkok.

I said "Bang Kok"

T-Bag then screwed up and misdealt a card face up. So much for being one of the top 6 cheat-dealers in the country, tough guy. After a short confrontation, house rules stated that the card had to be placed back on the bottom of the deck which caused C-Note to show the worst poker face I've ever seen. The gig, it appeared for the 148th time, was up.

We were then bounced around locales, first to Kellerman whining to the Vice President that the whole Lincoln Burroughs scam was a set up and that The Company was using them. THAT upsets him but killing 5.5 people in cold blood by my count (the bishop, Leticia, LJ's mom, LJ's step father, agent Pussy, and complicit in Quinn's death) didn't cause him to bat an eyelash?

Lincoln was magically granted a 1 hour visit with his son, outside the prison walls - an unprecedented occurrence according to Warden Pope. It was almost like "someone" high up wanted him outside the prison... And over in the wack shack, Haywire decided he would just go and escape. In a somewhat humorous scene (if you find mental illness humorous), he meandered down the hallway and tried to open the first door he came to. Too bad he forgot that he was in a prison - alarms rang out and he was quickly taken away while yelling, "He set me up! He has a pathway out! He's trying to escape!" Note to self: Never trust a nutjob. Especially when you meet her at a bar at college and she says she's on the pill. And that those are "razor bumps" down there.

Back to the Kitchen Game. Jesus went all in and C-Note was sweating bullets. He knew he had a likely loser hand but simplyh couldn't lose the money he'd won. So he raised him! (I don't know shit about poker, nor do I ever want to, so I have no idea how realistic this scene was.) Jesus couldn't match the raise and C-Note bluffed his way to the win. He took his winnings and got the hell out of there with T-Bag.

C-Note immediate went up to Geary and handed over the 500 bucks - the cell was his! Except it wasn't because Geary is a douchebag. He took the money and considered it a down payment, mentioning that the price was now $700. So C-Note convinced Westmoreland to give up his keepsake watch to cover the extra 200 bucks. Geary took it and walked away laughing at C-Note because someone else had already "won" the cell. Wow, this Geary guy was proving to be a bigger dick than Bellick. It was almost like the show was forcing us to hate him for some reason...

Romantic Interlude: Dr. Tancredi visited Michael and he gave her an ashtray. Awww, though he had a point; most recovering junkies do substitute one addiction for another, so maybe she was a smoker. She sure is smoking, I'll give her that. She told him he was fine to go back to genpop, but that he had to give up the guard who burnt him. Quick scene change to...

The cafeteria, where Horatio Sanz approached Westmoreland, C-Note, and T-Bag. He sat with them and mentioned the plan to escape which brought on a minor beat-down. After convincing the three that he'd spoken with Lincoln and Sucre over in the SHU, a plan was hatched. Cue the "Mission Impossible" Music!

*Dooot dooot doot doot doooooot dooot* Sanz was in the laundry room with a guard shirt, looking suspicious. *Doot doot doot doo* He then wheeled the laundry cart down the hall, passed Westmoreland who was on guard room janitorial duty. *Doot doot doot doo* Westmoreland surreptitiously got the guard shirt from Sanz and entered the guard room. *Doot doot doot doo* He placed the shirt in a locker when no one was looking. *Dootle loooo! Dootle loooo!* Michael was in with Pope and fingered Geary as the abuser! *Dootle loooo! Dootle loooo!* Pope immediately made his way to the guard room and rifled through Geary's shit. *Dootle loooo! Dootle loooo!* In it, he found Westmoreland's pocket watch, the fat wad of money, and... (quieter) *Dooot dooot doot doot doooooot dooot* A guard shirt with burnt cuffs! This paragraph will self destruct in 20 seconds.

On his walk of shame out of the prison and down to the unemployment line, Geary seethed at Bellick, "You're as crooked as scoliosis." Oh, snap! Bellick retorted, "Yeah, but I don't get caught." Oh, BURN! Get it? BURN?! Oh man, that's like a double-meaning snap pun - the best kind.

Michael got his old hole-in-the-wall cell back and Lincoln was on his way to see his felonious son. La-Di-Dah, rolling along the rural Illinois countryside, nothing could go wrong, la-di-AAAAHHH! A huge truck broadsided the prison van, sending everyone flying in a bloody mess.

I'll save my "Search every farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse" references for next week, which looks particularly exciting. Since FOX prefaced it, I don't mind saying it - King Close talker, "Mr. V-Dub" himself Abruzzi's coming back! Michael and Tancredi kiss! And Lincoln is on the run!

And so ends my attempt at the "Corny segue record," currently held by 3 time champion, Dave Barry. Go ahead, count up mine and let him know.

Posted by at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Tiara Girls, MTV 4/19/06
Click to play (Quicktime 7 required)

MTV has done such a good job profiling spoiled girls and gay boys on My Super Sweet Sixteen, it was only a matter of time before they entered the world of beauty pageants. In the series premiere of Tiara Girls, we meet Jamie, a future contestant in the Miss Florida Teen USA contest. As we see over the course of the show, she will do whatever it takes to win that tiara, even if it means co-mingling with a bunch of lesbians...

Posted by at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

By The Qwertz

Hello, my dear readers. First, I must apologize for having missed the recap of last week's episode. The world of corporate law has wrought pain on my ass, and combined with traveling coast to coast (like our goldenboy Jason), it has left me unable to even WATCH television, let alone recap. In my hotel I saw three minutes of last week's episode where Jonathan lost it with the product packaging design guy, and try as I may, I still haven't had time to watch that spectacular blowup. Alas...back on solid ground this week I found myself confronted with one of the few episodes I actually liked. Yay! Will this signal a return of Blowout to its former glory? Only weeks will tell.

We open to some highlights from last episode where Jonathan evidently was stressing people out at QVC, and his appearance on air actually drove down sales of product at one point. Booo, I always miss the good stuff! Anywho, we are back in LA. AHHHH! This show turned into a horror movie as we see a partially dressed, bare-chested Cro-Magnon man, Jonathan, rushing to be dressed and be gone. Oh, but he lets us in on a secret he carries around in his pocket. Yes, a small penis as we suspected. I JUS KEEEDING! It's really a small tube of his next latest and greatest product in development: Jonathan Silky Dirt. Yeah, I'm just as excited as you.

He applies it, checks himself out and exclaims "BANG-ladesh, how u doin, CHUNK, FUNK." Poor Asher is going to have such a bizarre vocabulary when he finally does start speaking. Well, this rush is all because Jonathan is running late for his first client, but that's ok, he doesn't like cutting hair when he's unhurried. On his way out he reminds us "you always want to carry silky dirt with you" which sounds oddly gross. Like I keep thinking he's saying you always want to carry lube around with you because as he says "you either want to be dirty or you want to be silky or you want to be silk and dirty at the same time." Eww, he had to have sex with a woman to have that child.

Finally he's in his $130k car and is expanding on how he's excited to get into the studio, and FINALLY he mentions he's curious if anyone in his salon watched him on QVC. Ok, he's already been on Good Morning America and he didn't care if people watched, but QVC? Oh puh-lease. I think the last time I watched QVC was a year ago for three minutes when I was with my grandmother and I had to fight her for the remote to keep her from buying more of the Joan Rivers Jewelry Collection -- or is it the Jewry Collection? I don't know French. Walking in the Beverly Hills Salon saying wassup to his people, some sucking up occurs "we missed you boss" and Jonathan lays it out: So Kiara, did you watch QVC? HA, so busted. Drop those extensions girl because you 'bout to be bitched at.

Before Kiara can be annoyed any further, Jonathan is distracted by a shiny object moving in the corner. Yes, it is SCOTT. SCOTT is inexplicably standing in the corner by the sinks, like just standing there. I feel like he's terrified of Jonathan. Also, I am sorry to disappoint you readers, but SCOTT has oddly warmed to me. Call me crazy, but he is kinda cute in the pocket-gay sort of way, and he seems nicer than a generic Banana Republic denim way. So as long as I can read his subtitles, I think we'll be aces.

Jonathan says he wants to take SCOTT into the backroom. SCOTT is like "in the backroom??" Oh please, like SCOTT doesn't love a dark backroom. SCOTT is complimented on his glasses by Jonathan who tells SCOTT he looks "professional" which is code for "not as stupid as before." I know from experience...sigh. Anyhow, Jonathan explains Clarissa will be indisposed, and so SCOTT will need to step in for a day. SCOTT says he's excited because he and Jonathan had fun last time "don't you remember?" Jonathan, ever so wise shakes his head in disbelief "I don't remember having fun." OOH, here I thought SCOTT would win in a bitch-off for, you know, obvious reasons.

A new client arrives for Jonathan, and she wants a trim but NOT SHORT. So Jonathan keeps making lame jokes with SCOTT as his sidekick. Very weird and NOT FUNNY. Whilst SCOTT washes the client's hair, we hear a scary voiceover of SCOTT explaining how he's excited to showcase his skillz to the boss. Well, so long as he doesn't talk, he should be set.

Now is it me or do some of these women after the cuts have all this hair forward of their shoulders? It oddly reminds me of my old cocker spaniel. Maybe it's just me.

Up in the office, Jonathan gets a call from a corporate type who wants to hire him to do the hair for the Bacardi Limón shoot which will feature the same girl with three vastly different hair styles representing Miami, New York and Los Angeles. Sounds interesting, but I'm sure Jonathan will find some way to fray relations with the spirit maker. Good thing he held on to his friend the fresh maker. Because you know Mentos are fresh and full of life!

Oh good lord, Jonathan tells us when he hears of a great hair opportunity, its like the Bat Signal but only the Hair Signal! Please, what does he think when he find a hair in his food? MUST STYLE WAITRESS....MUST BLOW OUT DISH WASHER...

Rob, Jonathan's biz manager is trying to arrange another calamitous meeting with Scott from Zorbit who is responsible for packaging the next Jonathan Product. Now, if you watched last season, you know there was no hot water and Jonathan took a shower with bottled water (I know, because it is so much warmer than normal cold water). Afterwards Jonathan couldn't believe how great his hair felt, so he had his product whores Beth Ann and Tina create a showerhead that would filter out minerals and impurities as though you were showering in bottled water. And now that's the packaging they are trying to create here.

Scott and Jonathan have a long history of fighting, and Jonathan sits down and assures Rob that he wont talk and he is reminded to remain open minded. As if on cue, Scott enters in carrying an old shoebox. You can see Jonathan is not happy...oh but I am! Before Scott can even explain, Jonathan is up out of his chair and its too funny not to reproduce verbatim:

"It's a fu*king shoebox...what are you? Jerking me off? I'm done."

"It's a concept and now you're not even letting me explain."

"Open the box and show him there is something inside."

Jonathan sees that as if it has never been done before-Scott was simply using the shoebox to carry the prototype inside! Ahhhh! WHAT AN IDIOT. Can you imagine when Asher has to make an igloo diorama when he's in 1st grade? "Sorry son, we don't have any perfectly sized rectangular boxes for your use...all we have are shoeboxes."

The packaging is well-executed and done so well that Jonathan starts crying. To make amends, he hugs Scott who offers to let Jonathan carry out the prototype in the shoebox even! Aww, innovative packaging AND a damn good prototype, it's a Festivus Miracle!

Back at le salon, Jonathan has Rosie change up the class schedule. Every once in a while, the salon has a styling class after hours. Tonight, Jonathan plans on teaching the class and administering the final exam for SCOTT and Clarissa, but they don't know it, you know, even after a year and a half of being an assistant. OOOOH, devious. Clarissa is automatically nervous-and she rarely shows any semblance of discomfort, so you know SCOTT is going to be in a tizzy. Over at the other salon, SCOTT is informed of the most dire of circumstances that have befallen him that evening-Jonathan teaching! As expected, SCOTT is insta-stressed, and you can see the nerves building.

Back downstairs in WeHo, Jonathan cuts some girl's hair and she finishes with the cocker-spaniel ears. She may even be the same girl from earlier. Who cares. Up in the office Jonathan is fumbling with his mobile and asks Rosie how to get golf scores on his phone...because remember two weeks ago we learned you could get Pussycat Dolls ring tones...and because this is all about product placement. After that charming placement, Jonathan makes his exit and harasses Rosie, spraying her with excessive amounts of hairspray and going all Edward Scissorhands on her. DIE.

Later that evening, Jonathan arrives to start teaching that evening's cutting class. He explains the whole cocker-spaniel thing as the Jonathan Salon Signature Long Layered Cut. Ahh, that explains a lot. Next he drops the big bombshell that SCOTT and Clarissa will have to do the cuts this evening on the models because it is their final exam. Duh DUH DUHHH. SCOTT looks horrified and Clarissa says she is, but I cannot tell because even though she is a cute adorable girl, she seems botoxed and has very few facial expressions.

Clarissa and SCOTT are given their moment to prove they know how to cut but they nerves are on edge with Jonathan hovering over each cut. Part way through Jonathan has all the stylists surround them, you know, like in fight club. Next he has them switch scissors saying its like playing in the US Open with someone else's equipment. I could insert the obvious I'd like to play with Andy Roddick's equipment here but...oh wait. Anyhow, the analogy surprisingly makes sense. Added to the pressure cooker is a time limit and I think SCOTT is uncomfortable because he keeps appearing on screen, but with my Bose Noise Cancelling Headsets on, his voice is inexplicably blocked out.

Closely examining the cuts, Jonathan critiques each of them and has them finish up/blow out the models. The class is over and Jonathan pulls the old fake out with SCOTT saying he has to talk to him all serioso. Then Jonathan is all I JUS KEEEDING and provides SCOTT and Clarissa with their own legit business cards as hair stylists. AWWW, this is very cute and even I can partially be content and happy with the success these two had, especially when having had to endure under a Stalinist hair regime under Jonathan.

The next day, or week, who the hell knows...Jonathan is on his way to the "Bacardi Lyman" shoot. HA, I don't see his lack of product knowledge being an issue, do you? Well, on set, Jonathan is introduced to the Bacardi execs who are all dressed in white white white suits. Like all of them-its almost as thou Celio, Claudia y Maria are fresh from the Panama Jack sample sale. What no yellow to promote the Bacardi Lyman brand?

Well there is some small talk bantering going on, the execs are excited, Jonathan is read to rock the hair. It has been settled as Claudia is all about the Miami style, the hair has to be like the chica is hanging by the pool at the Raleigh. In New York City its all about sophistication and glamour, and in LA its about what? Homeless actresses? Oh, about fun, glam 40's babe hair. Why is it that in this show or Project Runway when designers are given liberty to select their own style everyone goes back to the 1940s glam period? Well except for Kara Janx who opted for the 20's and "all that jazz."

Anyhow, in this initial meeting Jonathan the tard cannot say limón, but keeps saying "lyman." Jonathan gets all RUDEy Huxtable on the execs and asks if he rock out the hair, can he say Lyman? Surprisingly the execs are good-natured and are excited about what Jonathan can provide in such a time crunch. Up in wardrobe, we meet some stylist famoso named Charlie Altuna (no doubt from Schenectady) that Jonathan has been working with for decades. Its boring as they sit there and rehash old times. I tune out...where's SCOTT?

Finally Jonathan sees the clothes and is discussing how Bacardi Lyman is best served. Well the brand rep standing to the side simply wont have it. Granted she's a bit too fu*king uptight and leans in with an unwarranted air of superiority in saying "Limón, Limón." I miss Gordon Ramsay who would be all "SHUT IT DOWN."

Out on set the photog is yelling at the model "get that drink in there bitch" haha, as the more important female model is doing her thing by the pool. The hair for this "Miami" shoot looks a bit messy, but the model is hot so who cares. Back up in staging, with such short timing, Jonathan is stressing about the New York look. Getting into a debate with yet another brand rep, they argue about what defines New York. Well hey from my experience in the city last week, have a few glasses of champagne and it all looks good. I lead by example: I told you all how my past stylist at Arrojo Studio was the best, but she moved home to Ohio and I took a chance moving over to the Robert Kree Salon which was a blast (really just because that's where Julianne Moore evidently goes, and I was hoping to you know, accidentally stalk her), and I was pretty blasted from the free wine they kept providing before and during my cut so by the time I was done I could have been bald and totally loving the new cut. Luckily in the light of day I was complimented at the TVGasm meetings of how hot my new textured cut was.

Where was I? Ah yes, self-promotion. So Jonathan is all "I don't think so, fine if you want it that way, here's the [hair] iron, do it yourself." Granted the editing was total crap here because it was never an acrimonious situation and Jonathan was mocking the woman but was left to his own devices and under the crunch of time came up with a pretty impressive evening at the hot bar 'do for the model that I couldn't really describe but she had these wide ribbons of hair coming down the middle down the back. Very odd, but very hot. It was "BANG la DESH bro."

Finally for the third look it was the 40s Hollywood babe cut. Lots of curls, Jonathan does a finger curl 'do in about 15 minutes which is evidently a challenge. It looked great and Jonathan didn't even stick around for the end results since he had to run to the airport to catch his flight to Hawaii that no one would shut up about for the entire episode. I don't get it since a quick look at the OAG Flight Guide shows the last flights departing at around 8pm. Change your flight or shut up about being rushed! Admittedly though the three different styles did really make the model look drastically different in each photo, and his work is quite impressive-when asked to expand beyond the typical cocker spaniel thing.

Well in the car, Jonathan decompresses about the crazy day, how thankful he is for the job with Bacardi Lyman and how its on to Hawaii. Oh joy, Jonathan forced to embrace the Spirit of Aloha!

So who will he offend in the Isles of Aloha? What did you think of his efforts in the shoot, impressive no?

Posted by at 3:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)

It may be hard to believe, but this post -- this very one you're reading -- is our 2000th TVgasm post. We can't believe that we've churned out so many entries, and we want to thank everyone for reading, writing, and commenting over the past two years (anniversary in May). Hopefully you'll stay with us for the next two thousand.

Gosh, 1,999 posts all leading up to one pithy, self-congratulatory paragraph. Sort of anticlimactic, yes?

Posted by at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (24)

Kevin Covais and Jack Bauer? This show has really jumped the shark.

Posted by at 8:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

How awesome was tonight's Survivor? Granted, nothing really happened -- at least, in terms of the game -- but the time we spent with the characters was invaluable. The great, explosive lunacy of Casaya that has lain dormant for the past few weeks returned in a mighty way, and with Terry stuck on Exile Island for most of the episode, we were able to savor this ridiculousness without pausing every five seconds to complain about his scheming. Plus, add to all this a much ballyhooed medical emergency that turned out to be more gripping and emotional than any tribal council in the past few weeks. Yes, tonight was an excellent, albeit unorthodox episode, and I'm confident that from here on out, this season is going to be a turbulent, insane roller coaster ride.

The big episode opened up not with the usual images of waves crashing on rocks and sun shining over the sea. Instead, we had intensely creepy music setting the stage for buzzing flies and hungry vultures. Oh, so ominous. Surely this would harken the return to Casaya's previous near-homicidal state. For those of you who may not remember the pre-NCAA tourney days, there once was a great time when every time the cameras turned on at Casaya, all hell would break loose. Mostly it was because of Shane and his psycho ways, but he can't shoulder all the blame. There was Bobby and the wine. Bruce and the wine. Courtney and the, well, anything really. Point is, this was a crazy tribe that was ready to cannibalize itself -- both figuratively and I'd say literally. But once La Mina came over in the merge, they managed to unite against a common enemy (at least, from what we saw through the editing), and for the past few weeks, this tribe has somehow kept all its lunatic impulses on the back burner. I blame La Mina for not being able to pry out the rifts and psychosis, and I specifically blame Terry for being so smug that all these nutballs could spend their time focusing on him rather than their own screwed up tribe.

Well, that being said, we soon found Mr. Terry futzing with some ashes, trying to guestimate his next move. "I still have a huge target on my back," he told us. Yeah, well, whose fault was that? The best way to get rid of a target? Stop pissing everyone off with your cocky attitude.

And speaking of cocky, Shane sidled up to one of his allies and said, "We're still gonna be the first tribe to ever stick together all the way to the end." Ah yes, famous last words. We'll see how long your tribe stays together. It might be hard to keep that bond considering you're all CRAZY! By the way, I'm pretty sure that the Chuay Gahn tribe from Thailand was the first to stay together all the way, even though they too hated each other. Hmmm... maybe that's the key to success. In order to stay intact, tribes must have deep-seeded hatred and anger. That's sort of how we run things here at TVgasm. Oh I KID!

Anyway, Terry then babbled to us about his gameplan: he'd have to win the next three immunities to get to the final four, and then he'd be able to use the idol to get to the final three. One problem: the idol can't be used once the tribe gets down to four people. I so hope no one tells Terry that. If he gets kicked off because his idol's expired, that would be wonderful.

Of course, with only Terry left hanging around camp, Casaya could stop worrying so much about the pesky La Mina situation and instead get back to the Casaya way of life. And by that, I mean "senseless bickering." Our first eruption occurred when a boiling pot of water fell into the fire. Courtney tried to get people to help, and in her panic, she very, very mildly raised her voice. Well, in Casaya-speak, that's the same as thwacking someone with a tire-iron. Danielle immediately snapped back at Courtney, telling her to stop yelling. Ah yes. The good times were back. Let the cat fights begin.

Someone who wasn't experiencing good times was Bruce. We knew this would be a tough episode for him because last week, we saw him doubled over in pain. Would tonight finally be the episode where we'd see someone taken away by stretcher? Probably, especially after Bruce said that his stomach really hurt. "I feel really constipated and sick to my stomach," he told us. Being that I'm a professional doctor, I immediately diagnosed him with a hernia (and having been a hernia sufferer, I definitely know what Bruce was going through). Well, as Bruce talked to Shane about being a bit, uh, backed up, Courtney then decided to share a lovely memory. "I remember being so constipated I thought I was having a..." she said, pausing to find the right word.

"A child?" Danielle suggested. Pssst, Danielle, kids don't come out of the ass.

Well, we all knew Bruce was in pain and in bad shape, but we had NO idea. He revealed to us that he hadn't gone to the bathroom since before the village feast reward, and yes, that was before the merge. Probably two weeks prior. Holy shit. No pun intended. Okay, maybe just a tad.

Later, several giant boxes arrived with the tree-mail. I thought they were coffins, and I was kind of right. They were more like doll coffins. Indeed, inside each box was a giant voodoo doll that each player had to take and makeover in their likeness. It was sort of like a rustic episode of Big Brother. Well, the arts and crafts soon began, and Cirie spent a good amount of effort stuffing her doll's shirt with twigs -- you know, to give the doll some curves. Let me tell you something, Cirie. That doll will need a whole hell of a lot of curves. What? She has huge breasts! Aras, meanwhile, created a little twig faux-hawk on his doll. Yes, it was a faux-faux-hawk, or as I like to call it, a meta-faux-hawk. It was terrible.

Boobs.

The Meta-Faux-Hawk

Luckily, I wouldn't have to stare at the meta-faux-hawk for long. These dolls were soon placed in a reward challenge where most of them would be destroyed mercilessly, much like many unlucky gnomes, pigs, and dummies in the Big Brother house. Before we could get to the challenge, however, there was some business to tend to. Jeff told the gang to fill out the answers to various questions that had been written out for them. These questions were about the tribemates, and as we later found out, they were quite evil. The contestant all separated to fill out the survey in private, and suddenly, we saw the random image of a cleaver thwacking down on a stump. Didn't know why that was there, but I was thinking that somebody might be losing a toe by the end of the challenge.

After everyone had scrawled their answers, Probst then said he would be asking the questions out loud, and the survivors would all have to answer who they thought the majority of people chose on their questionnaires. Again, very Big-Brother-Head-of-Household-competition-ish. I almost expected Julie Chen to emerge from the wilderness in a safari outfit and begin drilling the players. "Shane, I need an answer. I need an answer now. Shane. Shane. Shane. SHANE." Can't wait for the summer.

Anyway, remember those voodoo dolls? Well they were all hanging from a contraption, and associated with them were three torches and... okay, I won't go into specifics. Basically, each doll had three ropes, and once they were all cut, the doll would be incinerated with flames and the person being burned in effigy would be eliminated from the challenge. And how does one cut these ropes? Well, everyone who answered Jeff's questions correctly could take a chop with that cleaver. You see, it all makes sense now. Right?

Well, whoever's doll was the last one standing would win the challenge. That person would take a helicopter ride somewhere and feast on all sorts of good food. The winner would also get to choose who's going to Exile Island. Okay, enough expository information. Let's play!

Just as we had hoped, Jeff's questions were quite divisive, and right off the bat, they were going for the jugular. "Who does the least for the tribe?" Probst asked. The correct answer (a.k.a. what the majority of people wrote in their questionnaires) was Danielle. Severally people got it right, and soon the chopping began. Within about two seconds, Terry's doll was en fuego, and even though cocky pilot was then out of commission, he did manage to chop one of his opponents' ropes. "This game's gettin' real interesting," Probst said, in a desperate attempt to hype this up. Honestly, it really wasn't that interesting. Everyone knew Terry would be first.

Oh, but I should know better than to question Probst's commentary. This game was about to get quite quite interesting. "Who never shuts up?" Probst asked. Answer: Courtney. Somewhere, a dead tortoise is saying, "I KNOW! Thank you!!!"

Next Probst asked, "Who mistakenly believes they are running the game?" The answer: SHANE! Ha, you just know that totally screwed with his mind. At the very least, it screwed with his syntax: "I am not perceived to think I am running this game," he mumbled. This was followed by Courtney chopping one of his ropes. When Probst said that it had been a tough round for him, Cirie hunched over and busted out in laughter. ShaneRage building... building...

We then had a few uninteresting questions: everyone trusts Cirie with their lives, no one trusts Terry, etc. But then it was back to the venomous fun. "Who is the biggest poser?" Jeff asked. Between Aras, Courtney, and Shane, this would be a tough one. Courtney, meanwhile, had no idea what the question even meant. "What is a poser?" she asked, to which Jeff replied, "The answer to 'What is a poser' is YOU. Courtney is the right answer!" OH SNAP! Jeff just totally dissed her! Man, that was harsh. I'd been wondering where persnickety Probst had been all season, and BAM! He returned with a vengeance. Suck it up, Courtney. Jeff Probst just called you a poser on national TV.

Later, after correctly answer some other question, Courtney severed a second one of Shane's ropes, causing him to grumble, "You're the only one that's hit me twice. Your life is changing."

"Except that for the fact that you aren't really running the game," Jeff suddenly interjected. OH SNAP AGAIN!! Jeff is on FIRE! I just want to see him go down a long line of people and insult them in creative ways. You know he can do it.

Anyway, Shane continued to gripe about Courtney's actions, saying he would make her life miserable around camp. She responded with rolled eyes and a reminder that this was just a game, but that wasn't good enough. "Why would you hit me twice?" asked the increasingly paranoid Shane, and soon general bickering ensued. Finally Aras told everyone to simmer down by optimistically saying, "Guys, guys, can we rise above it?... It's meant to splinter us."

Then Terry inexplicably smiled broadly and sarcastically mocked, "Yeah, it's meant to splinter you guys." Shut up, Terry. At least someone's doing it. For two weeks you couldn't drive the simplest wedge in this group. The producers had to devise a game to do it for you. And by the way, that sort of smug attitude is just the sort of thing that will totally nullify these "splinters" as everyone will unite to kick you out.

Back to the questions, Probst then asked, "Who is the most annoying person out here?" The answer? No surprise here: Courtney. I did kind of feel badly for her. She'd now bore the brunt of several of these questions, and it was starting to take a toll on her. "Obviously, you're surprised," Probst said in response to her general crestfallen face.

"By being the answer to everything? Yeah," Courtney replied. You'd think everyone would maybe try to cheer her up or console her, but instead, the only emotional support she received came from Cirie, who again burst out into uncontrollable laughter. I love Casaya.

Eventually, the challenge came down to Cirie vs. Shane and Aras. Each one of the guys had one rope left, and Cirie had to make the Sophie's Choice of which man to cut free. As you can imagine, Shane was begging for mercy. The man just wanted to eat. I swear, he must have a worm. He's ravenous about two hours after any big meal (of which he's had many). Well, Shane may have wanted the food, and he may have had a special relationship with Cirie, but she had already made a pact with Aras. She cut Shane free, unleashing the sort of dust-kicking hissy fit we hadn't seen since before the merge. "I'm just having an emotional reaction!" he said in the understatement of the hour. Soon his anger transformed into childish whining as he said, "I just wanna go on a jet and fly and eat a sandwich." Other things he wanted: a juice box, his toys, and for his mom to never speak to him EVER AGAIN! HE HATES YOU!!! He then found a door in the middle of the forest and slammed it.

Well, eventually, Cirie won the reward (Aras totally threw it), and again, Shane pleaded for her to take him with her, but she instead picked Aras and Danielle. As for Exile Island, she sent Terry, who passive aggressively sulked, "I come to expect all bad things for right now, Jeff, until something changes." Shut up, asshole. You're the only reason you're where you're at. Stop acting like a victim.

As the winners headed off to their helicopter, Probst then told the rest of the gang, "Rough afternoon. I got nothing to make it better." Well, at the very least, could you give Bruce a laxative? The guy's more backed up than Star Jones's toilet.

We then cut to a commercial, and when we returned, it was time to ooh and ahh at the wonderful reward. Yay helicopter ride! Yay food! Yay not being around stinky Shane! As the trio gobbled down some sweet looking food (I'm instantly hungry just thinking about it), they all gossiped about the challenge and how deflated Courtney seemed. "You should have seen her face," Danielle said. Uh, actually, they were all there. They did see her face. Hence the conversation.

Speaking of Courtney, we found her back at camp commiserating with Shane. She was understandably pissed and sad about being the most annoying, the most poseurish, the most worst of everything in the camp. "I have to live with this for the rest of my life," she said dramatically. C'mon now. I tend to think between now and old age, there will be larger dilemmas to occupy your mind. Nevertheless, Shane explained the situation to us. "She takes a lot of stuff personally," he said. This coming from the man who threatened to kill Courtney for chopping his ropes in the reward challenge.

Anyway, we then cut to some nasty dead fish in the water with a complimentary roving crab on top, free of charge. Such a rancid image could be a harbinger for one thing: intestinal woe! Yes, Bruce still could rustle his bowels into any movement, and we soon found him hobbling over to Shane. "Couldn't pass a deuce," he announced. Poor guy. I really felt badly for him. He then went to take a nap, but this turned into a groaning session and he struggled to get comfortable. Poor, poor guy. We then saw Shane and his blurred out pubic region. Gross. Poor us.

Well, we soon went from moans of anguish to moans of ecstasy as we headed back to the reward challenge where Cirie, Aras, and Danielle were receiving mud massages. The contrast between them and Bruce was borderline cruel. I loved it. You're a sick bastard, Mark Burnett. Anyway, we saw some random footage of a masseur handling Danielle's foot as if it were silly putty, and then later, as the gang sat around in bathrobes and gorged themselves on dinner, they talked about their fellow comrades. Their theory was that Courtney had a crush on Shane. Ooh! Fascinating. If those two ever hooked up, or worse, procreated, I think the human race would be in big trouble.

Back at camp, things had gone from bad to beyond worse for Bruce. He was in inscrutable agony, and if he was hurting, then you knew it was bad. After all, this is the guy who took a machete to the face with nary a complaint. Well, he was seriously in pain, but luckily, he had the soothing presence of Courtney to help him through the ordeal.

"If I sing you a song, will that help?" she asked (me: cackling).

"No," Bruce replied tersely. And she wonders why she's the most annoying on the tribe. Well, Bruce be damned. She was going to sing, and believe you me, the dulcet tones of her Siren-like voice would lull that pain away! But a few bars into her indecipherable tune, Bruce merely grunted and said, "Don't." Man. It was bad enough that Bruce was in the worst pain of his life. But to only have nutball Courtney and pyscho Shane as his bedside attendants? This was literally like the worst possible scenario of all time. Death row convicts are probably like, "Shit, that sucks."

Eventually, Bruce could hold out no more. He called out for the medics, and after what looked to be about twenty or thirty minutes, the doc finally arrived. Question: why didn't nurse Cirie help out with Bruce's bowels over the past few days. I mean, she's already dealt with Shane's penis rash. I think she could handle some pooper problems. Anyway, as the medic assessed the situation, Bruce seemed to decline at a rapid rate. He probably knew he didn't have to be so tough anymore and simply gave over to the pain. I really felt badly for the guy. I was practically yelling "MORPHINE! MORPHINE" at the screen. Luckily, the medic shoved a nice ol' needle in his arm, and while normally that's enough to make most people squirm, my concern for Bruce's relief overpowered any icky feelings I may have had (to be honest, I'm not that grossed out by needles anyway. Eyeballs? That's a different story).

The medic finally concluded that Bruce needed to be taken to a hospital (way to go, Doc. I'm sure the random hermit crab on the beach could have figured that one out), but guess what? This guy had arrived alone. That meant that Shane and Courtney had to help carry the stretcher. Tops on my list of people I don't want carrying me in a stretcher: SHANE AND COURTNEY. "Do we have to do this right this second?" Shane asked. No, you idiot. Maybe in a few days, you know, after he's DIED.

Amidst all the commotion, Shane then announced he was naked, thus making this scene the most simultaneously surreal, hilarious, scary, sad, compelling, and dramatic moment in reality TV history. Shane continued to describe his bare state by saying that he can't sleep with wet pants. He too has a medical malady: diaper rash of the penis. I loved how he was explaining this when there was a guy literally dying at his feet. It's like me bragging about my 2nd grade wiffleball skills to Albert Pujols. Kind of unimpressive.

Well, the gang with the help of a random Survivor staffer, finally rolled Bruce onto the stretcher. Just when we were again losing ourselves in the urgency of the moment, we then saw a giant blurry box around Bruce's groin, thus highlighting the ridiculousness of the entire situation. Couldn't he have put on his pants for like two seconds? Two seconds!

Anyway, Bruce was loaded onto the boat and ferreted away, hopefully to some place with a giant supply of morphine. The next morning, we found Terry doing stretches on Exile Island, totally oblivious to any of the drama back at the Gitanos camp. He said that he was enjoying his time on the island because it gave him more time to think about strategy. And as we all know, Terry is a master strategist. I wonder what his next wonderful scheme will be? Maybe he'll guarantee someone a spot on the jury! Or maybe he'll just promise someone the purdiest seashell he can find (knowing Courtney, that would actually work on her).

Back at camp, Courtney and Shane solidified their alliance by saying they'd look out for each other. Unfortunately, word choice is of the essence, and Courtney accidentally made an offer for anal sex: "You know I want to be on your backside, and I would like you to be on mine," she said. Oddly enough, this didn't faze Shane at all. Once the two agreed that they'd be faithful to each other, Shane did what he always does: threatened certain homicidal retribution should he be screwed over. Specifically, he said, "I'll drive up, and I'll kill you in your little apartment, and I'll drive over to my club, and that will be it." Yikes.

"That was really nice," Courtney replied sarcastically. She then added (for real), "I don't have a shitty apartment." Threatening to murder her? Whatever. But calling her apartment small? BLOODY SHAME ON YOU!

Suddenly, Shane absolutely exploded and yelled, "Well, obviously, dude, I've never been in your APARTMENT! I DON'T KNOW IF IT WAS SHITTY OR NOT! IT WAS AN ADJECTIVE! DON'T TAKE EVERYTHING SO PERSONAL!!!" Technically, I think it was Shane who was taking things "personal" by yelling at Courtney's defense of her apartment, but that's neither here nor there. Point is that Shane is cah-RAY-zee. I know, I know -- these two had smiles on their faces the entire time, but that doesn't diminish the fact that they should both be put on meds as soon as possible. Shane then told us, "She's a lunatic, man." Yes. She's a lunatic. Read this and other laughable statements from the book, My Life with the Kettle: A Pot's Story.

Shane then explained that his strategy was to take Courtney to the final two. She was so nuts, he'd be able to win over her easily. Suddenly it occurred to me: these two would make an awesome final two. Could you even imagine Shane replying to jury questions? While I want Cirie to win this whole thing, I can't deny my now rampant desire to see the catastrophe that would be Shane and Courtney battling it out for votes at the end.

Wel