About Last Night: Monday

Mini caps of Sarah Palin’s Alaska and Desperate Housewives

Sarah Palin’s Alaska: IceQueen

So. This is the end. The finale of Sarah Palin’s Alaska aired last night, and according to the internets the show was NOT picked up for a second season! Prayer works, people! Last night we had a double-header. When TLC announced the finale would be two hours long, I thought there’d be some sort of grand exit. But no, it was just two separate episodes, played back-to-back. The show limped across the finish line; sore, tired, sad, with bloody nipples. They finished it, but there was no victory celebration at the finish line. The crowd had already gone home.

So in the first episode, entitled “Gold Mining & Oil,” the Palins go gold mining and look at an oil pipeline. Seriously, it was an episode full of surprises. Sarah, her dad, her youngest daughter Piper, Sarah’s brother, and his son go to a gold mining camp. They hope to prospect enough to make a 50th anniversary present for Sarah’s mom, Sally. The prospectors show them how to dig up sand and put it in a machine that will help them sift out the gold. They find some, but not enough for the precious, precious jewels they seek. So Sarah and her brother go aboard some floating hunk of junk out on the water where they vacuum gold up off the ocean floor. Finally, they have enough to make some ticky tacky jewelry for their parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. The ring they design is truly, truly awful and looks like something some mafia don would wear on his pinky. Sally seems pretty excited, though, so nice job. After 50 years of putting up with a husband who keeps insisting on dragging animal carcasses into the house, she gets a tiny, homemade gold ring. She doesn’t even wear gold! It clashes with her skin tone…

For the oil part of the episode, some of the Palins go kayaking in Valdez, where the transnational pipeline ends. While they’re there, Sarah talks about all of the wonderful things that oil does for Alaska and points to some sea lions sunning themselves on a buoy as proof that animals don’t mind human intrusion. She also tells her little nephew that she has a sealskin purse, endearing herself to people the world over. Do you ever wonder if the antichrist might take the form of a human woman? I don’t ask for any particular reason. The thought just came to mind….

The second episode is just Sarah Palin talking about her favorite moments of the season with us. They’re as boring the second time around as the first. I was almost not going to watch the end of the episode and lie and tell you I did. You guys would never know. Anyway, her fave episode was, of course, the one where she shot the caribou. There’s some never-before-seen footage of her mounting the tiny, baby reindeer antlers so that she can put them on the wall in her cavernous, tacky house. Willow’s favorite thing about the season was when she got to crash the stock car. Piper liked seeing the bears fighting in the water. Sarah’s dad had fun with the Gosselin kids. Todd’s got nothing to say, as usual.

And there you have it. The show is done forever! I hope TLC never airs another episode again, but I’m sure it will be re-run heavily because they must have spent a lot of money on it. It was, after all, the world’s most expensive political campaign ever.

Desperate Housewives: Hypnotoad

In a vast improvement over last week’s diarrhea of an episode, this week the gals from Wisteria Lane get into some more shenanigans. Since Lynette has heard about Tom’s affair with Renee 20 years ago, she handles things the mature way — pranks intended to embarrass, humiliate, and possibly kill Tom. Aw, true love. So sweet. And oddly, I didn’t hate Lynette in this episode as much as I thought I would. I know.

Continuing this season’s apparent goal of making us hate Gabby, she’s still moping about Grace, and just when you thought we’d heard the last of last week’s Li’l Miss Replace My Real Daughter Doll, she’s back. I know. So, we’re treated to more creepy scenes with Gabby and the doll as she . . . strokes it . . . And we head back to Miss Charlotte’s House of Dolls That Have Backstories. Seriously. Even the Full House writers are like, “Damn, this Gabby plot is just so lame.”

Luckily, to make this episode 100 times better, we have Susan and . . . Julie! And . . . Susan’s mom! Both of which are like a breath of fresh air upon a field of cow patties. Julie wants to give Susan a kidney (Awwww!) but Susan refuses (Boo!). Susan wants her mom to give her one of her kidneys (Awwww!) but Susan’s mom refuses (Boo!). But are there extenuating circumstances? Is there a reason Susan’s mom is being so stingy with her internal organs? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. And yes, totally.

Bree’s priest convinces her to take Beth under her wing, and socialize with her more, because if Jesus were alive today he’d totally invite Beth over for coffee and cranberry scones with lemon curd. (It’s in the New Testament. Look it up.) So, Bree sucks it up and does her best to convince Beth that everyone’s going to love her, even though she married someone who was falsely accused (but totally did it, for reals) of murder and caused a riot that left one person without a kidney and many others (probably) mentally scarred for life. Bree even sets up a little get-together with the other ladies. But things don’t always turn out as planned on Wisteria Lane . . .