About Last Night: Monday

MiniCaps of The Walking Dead, Boardwalk Empire, and Desperate Housewives

I know this should be a pic of zombies, but this somehow seemed to fit.

The Walking Dead: Saint Claire of Assisi

It’s the final episode of Season One of The Walking Dead, the characters just reached a safe haven in the CDC, and this week starts with…the hospital where Rick was recovering from the gunshot wounds.  The shit is in the process of hitting the fan outside his hospital room, and then Shane arrives.  He has to sneak his way around the hospital hallway because apparently SWAT teams are roving the building shooting anything that moves, but eventually Shane finds Rick and gets inside.  And has no idea what to do.  He, uh, forgot Rick would be hooked up to a bunch of medical machines.  So he freezes in his tracks.  Then the power goes out, shutting off all of Rick’s lifelines.  Then Shane listens for a heartbeat and hears none.  On his way out Shane maaaaay have seen Rick stirring in his coma, but it’s not clear.

Either way, bo-ring.  We’re getting this flashback so we know for sure that Shane really did try to save Rick, and really did think Rick was dead, and thus had some sort of justification for moving in on Lori?  Of all the routes possible, sure enough, they took the most boring one.  Way to go, Walking Dead.

We’re also getting this flashback at just this moment because…well, you’ll see shortly.  Back where last week left off, the gang all makes their way inside the CDC and meet Jenner.  They’re grateful.  At first Jenner is wary of them.  He makes them all submit to blood tests before doing anything else, and Andrea, suspiciously, resists the most.  But eventually she submits, too.  Then Jenner shows them around.  We meet “Bi”, the talking super-computer with a female voice.  Everyone realizes Jenner is the only person left at the CDC, so they want to know what happened.  When things started to get bad, a lot of CDC people left to be with their families.  More employees left when the CDC was overrun.  Still more just killed themselves.  Jenner starts to seem pretty defeatist about the whole thing, and it rubs off on Andrea.

Later that night, Shane corners Lori in the library.  He’s liquored up and has something to say.  Basically…he still loves her, and can’t believe she’s still treating him this way.  She accuses him of lying about Rick, which we now know isn’t strictly true. (Good thing we just had that flashback.  See how exciting that was?)  To get out of the scene and keep Shane unlikeable, they have him try to rape her, but she puts some deep scratches across his face and he sulks away.

Oh, and the blood tests didn’t show anything unusual.  Oh well. 

The next day the gang presses Jenner for more answers, this time on what Wildfire is and how it works.  He introduces them to some x-ray footage of Test Subject 19, (TS-19, if you saw the title this week).  TS-19 was bitten and volunteered to have the entire progress of the disease recorded as it worked its way through his or her brain.  Jenner shows us the first stage of the disease, which is total brain death, and the second, which is reanimation of the brain stem only, so while you’re alive, none of your personality remains.  All standard zombie stuff.  Jenner has no idea what Wildfire is, though.  Could be microbial, viral, fungal, or even just God doing it.  Then, Dale notices a huge digital clock on the wall counting down from an hour.  What’s that?  Oh, it’s just the countdown clock for when the CDC completely runs out of fuel and the countermeasures go off and kill everyone inside.  Jenner forgot to tell them about that one.

Everyone runs around trying to assess the situation and figure a way out.  Jenner’s sealed them all inside the inner control center.  He’s accepted death.  Most everyone around the world has given up, except for the French, who stayed in their labs until the end and may have developed a cure that will be helpful in future seasons of this show.  Jenner describes how the countermeasures are going to kill them: the air will be set on fire, 6,000 degrees hot, and it’ll be an instant death.  Hilariously, he tries to sell them on that aspect of it, while they remind him, what the eff, he didn’t even give them a choice in the matter.

With the clock counting down to zero, the gang gets desperate, and Shane sticks a shotgun in Jenner’s face.  Rick holds him back–even now, that’s no way to behave.  Rick tries some cunning instead.  If life is so pointless, why did Jenner stay at the CDC while all his coworkers fled?  Turns out TS-19 was Jenner’s wife and he made a promise to her to fight until the end, etc etc.  Jenner rethinks his position now, and if the gang would prefer a drawn-out agonizing death outside the CDC, they can have it.  He opens the doors.

The gang begins to leave, but Jenner delays Rick a second to whisper some secret to him that will surely come back next season.  Jacqui and Andrea have decided to stay inside the CDC and die.  They’ve had enough.  That prompts Dale to stay behind as well.  Andrea can’t just enter people’s lives and make them care about her and then check out when it’s convenient. (Dale gives way less of a shit about Jacqui, I suppose).  Out in the lobby, Rick and co. realize the outer doors are locked and bulletproof and can’t be broken through, until Carol remembers the grenade she found when she first washed Rick’s clothes, (the grenade Rick took from the tank back in the first episode).  He blows out a window, they all run to their cars, Andrea and Dale suddenly emerge together, and behind them, the CDC blows up.  End of season one.

Boarwalk Empire Season Finale: Alejandra

Much like the show itself, this episode was a little bit of everything.  It was part political intrigue, part gangster conspiracy, part tragic love story, part triumphant love story…  It was a patchwork of developing storylines, only some of which come to resolution.  Of fucking course because it’s an HBO series and it’ll be 18 months before we see new episodes, so the viewers need extra incentive to return.

Nucky and Margaret have a civil meeting in which the truth about Nucky’s wife and  his late son come to light.  They part on good terms, but agree to end their relationship.  Margaret’s staying with Nan in the interim, though, and after a week in Harding’s mistress’ presence Margaret’s ready to run back to Nucky with a vengeance.

Aside from Margaret, Nucky’s trying to win over the AC vote as the Mayoral and Sheriff’s elections come to a head.  Bader wins, with the help of 100% of the African American vote purchased at a steep price from Chalky White, and so does Halloran.  Halloran’s victory is short-lived, though, as Bader accepts his resignation and resinstates Eli as soon as the results are in.  Eli is surprised, mostly because he’s started plotting with the commodore to bring down Nucky.  And Jimmy joins their sick little club.  Whaaaat?

Jimmy and Angela agree to try and work out their problems (in a really sweet scene that made me like Jimmy a whole lot more than I did), but she gets a postcard from Mary that totally fucks with her head.  So she cuts her hair, invents the bob and repulses Jimmy.  It looks like she’s sticking around for the time being, though.  Jimmy

And in a few addendums (that’s maybe not a word). Rothstein makes up with Nucky, and the D’Alessio brothers are assassinated by Al, Jimmy, and Richard alike to seal the deal. And Nelson has some sort of storyline.

But it’s a storyline that becomes totally irrelevant in the the last ten minutes of the show when Lucy shows up at the post office office to tell him that he made her pregnant.  CALLED IT!!!!!

Desperate Housewives: Hypnotoad

After a two week break, the bitches are back in full force.  Tom and Lynette fight about Tom’s penis.  And by “penis” I really mean “penis.”  Boner.  Wang. Weenie.  Seriously.  Apparently, Tom also feels emasculated by Lynette.  Guh! Buh!  Chuh!  That came out of nowhere!  Except it totally didn’t, since Lynette’s emasculation of Tom began in season 1.  Episode 1.

Susan — who is probably my favorite in this episode, which has resulted in the collapse of my own personal universe — takes Renee out to help her feel better about getting older and being single.  Thing is, Renee’s totally hot shiz and she knows it.  No, Renee’s problems stem from a guy she fell in love with a long time ago.  A guy she let get away.  The guy who you’re thinking about right now.  No, not Daniel Craig, silly.  A guy from Desperate Housewives.

Gabby makes us hate her even more, if that’s possible, as she considers calling immigration to have Carmen (Grace’s mom) deported, just so she can have Grace all to herself.  And ten bucks says she’d probably throw Juanita and The Other One on the bus back to Mexico, shouting, “Here!  Take these too!  Chubby latina girls don’t belong on American television!”

Bree and David Silver continue their boring courtship, and Daddy David Silver ruins their fun by hanging out around the house, going to dinner with them, and just being a big ole buzzkill.

But what about Paul? you ask.  Oh, there’s stuff about Paul in this episode. There’s stuff about Paul, indeed.  And it is good.  Ish. Good-ish.  Okay, it’s not that great.  But we do get to find out more about his diabolical real estate vendetta!  Ooooh, suspense . . . less . . . ness.