John's Top 10 TV Shows of 2008

It’s the middle of February, so it’s naturally the perfect time for my top 10 TV shows of 2008!

If you didn’t already know I was a slacker, I know you’d be disappointed in me for turning this in so embarrassingly late (seriously, a lot of my entries are going to sound WAY outdated), but better (two months) late than never, right?

I flirted with the idea of skipping this list since no one will see it, but, as you may have guessed, I love watching TV so not putting my list of favorites out there felt a bit wrong.

Once again, if one of your favorite shows is not on here, I either don’t have time to watch it or it’s garbage. (Wait, the latter can’t be true, because I thoroughly enjoy certain garbage.)

Anyway, let’s give out some preliminary awards.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Nip/Tuck: Still one of the most fun and outrageous hours on TV, but is not really taking advantage of its new Hollywood setting, especially with the return of most of its original (and annoying characters.

Ugly Betty: Has some of the funniest one-liners in television, thanks to its stellar supporting cast (including Ana Ortiz, Michael Urie and Becki Newton), but it’s probably not a good sign that the title character is often the most annoying person on the show. Also Justin (Mark Indelicato) and Claire Meade (Judith Light) spend way too much time on the sidelines (though axing Rebecca Romijn’s Alexis Meade was a good move). It might be time to streamline.

Secret Diary of a Call Girl: The Showtime dramedy has an engaging lead in Billie Piper and stylish, London-based production values. The fact that the lead character is a prostitute because she likes it (and not because she has kids to support or an abusive past) puts her in a unique class of TV characters who actually LIKE their jobs.

REALITY SHOW STOCK UP

American Idol: Cook/Archuleta was only a slightly less-heated debate than Obama/McCain last year. Last year also reminds us how lame this season looks so far.

REALITY SHOW STOCK DOWN

Project Runway: It’s probably not a good sign when people accuse a network of tanking a season of its signature show (“Runway” is supposed to move from Bravo to Lifetime) and no one says it’s crazy. I couldn’t even remember who won until I looked it up (and neither could you — it was Leann) and the season was also responsible for Kenley. Ugh!

(DIS)HONORABLE MENTIONS

Heroes: Still bad, but at least it knows that it’s not a serious drama anymore.

Grey’s Anatomy: Worst than ever AND has no idea that it’s not a serious drama.

NOT ELIGIBLE FOR THIS LIST BUT WORTH MENTIONING

Flight of the Conchords: I know the first season aired on HBO in 2007, but I just discovered this show late last year and it’s fantastic. Of course, the first season is basically loose storylines built around Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement’s songs, but the inclusion of Rhys Darby as the sweetest, most inept band manager and Kristen Schaal as an obsessed fan turn this into gold.

Friday Night Lights: Ok, this one’s kind of eligible for the list, but I just never got around to watching season 3 last year because I don’t have DirectTV. Hopefully, I’ll be able to include this show on my favorite TV of ’09 list next February.

Scrubs: I’m writing this here, because I don’t see this show making it to my best of ’09 list. I LOVE “Scrubs” and I’ve seen every episode (most of them many, many times), but it’s really time to end the show at the end of its current run.

The new season on ABC got off to a promising start this year, but the show literally has nothing new to offer anymore. ABC’s been showing episodes out of order thinking I won’t notice, and for the first time in the show’s run important characters like Turk, Carla and Elliott are missing from entire episodes. I’m also not interested in the show’s not-so-subtle efforts to introduce “Scrubs: The New Class.” The show is like Dr. Kelso hanging around in the cafeteria —it had a good, long-run, and now it’s just lingering there with nothing better to do, repeating the same (muffin) joke and nowhere else to go. Just end it already, and end it strong!

THE TOP 10

10. House: I liked the reality competition aspect of season 4 and I like the newbies House eventually chose. However, complaints that the show gets too 13-centric at times at the expense of other, more interesting characters definitely have their merits. Also, the fact that Chase and Cameron are now glorified extras is just wrong.

9. Desperate Housewives: It sneaks onto this list because of the strong finish to season 4 (Dana Delaney really DID help save this show) and for the inspired five-year leap into the future, which gave the show a jolt in the first half of season 5. If I were including episodes from this year, it wouldn’t be in the top 10.

8. American Idol: Yes, the audition episodes are still incredibly tedious, but season 7 of the show captured the country’s attention like no other TV show. Whether you were one the Cougars for Cook or an Arch Angel, or you loved or loathed the musical stylings of Jason Castro, you were watching.

7. Weeds: Moving away from suburbia could’ve been a disaster or “Weeds”, but instead the show’s fourth season kicked things up a notch for Nancy Botwin (going from weed to hard drugs and human trafficking) and for the show creatively.

6. 30 Rock: Still good for some of the best laugh-out-loud moments on TV, but has taken to relying on too many guest stars with varying results and moving away from being a comedy show about a comedy show. Alec Baldwin is still absolutely terrific and able to carry the show on his own, while Tina Fey continues to improve as an actress. Unfortunately, both of those things (and the guest stars) are coming at the expense of the show’s funny supporting players.

5. The Wire: I realize some people were down on the final, newspaper-centric season of this masterpiece, but I loved it (and not just because I work in a newspaper and find that stuff fascinating). The show checked in with each of its wonderful characters before saying goodbye in its typical thoughtful, uncompromising and satisfying way.

4. The Office: I know I’m relatively young, and a bit biased because this my favorite show on TV, but I’ve never EVER seen better dramatic acting on a sitcom. Ever. The cast makes me care about these people because, despite what they say, they care about each other. The wonderful addition of Amy Ryan as the love of Michael Scott’s life needs to also be mentioned.

3. Lost: It was natural to assume the show’s happy ending would come when everyone got rescued. However, season 4 was a sort of “be careful what you ask for” as it pertained to wanting to leave the Island. The show still explored its usual themes of redemption, fate and other big ideas. It also succeeded (for the first time?) in seamlessly introducing new characters (the freighter folk) into the fold while mostly leaving enough for our regular castaways to do.

2. Mad Men: I absolutely devoured a marathon of the first season, and the show’s second season became an obsession. As soon as an episode ended Sunday night I was totally bummed that I had to wait another week. Not bad for an often gloomy show that stubbornly refuses to let its characters have “big moments” and deals with isolation and changing gender roles in the 1960’s. It helps that it’s one of the best acted shows on TV and certainly the most stylish.

1. The Shield: For a second I thought I was giving it the number one spot because it ended its wonderful and frighteningly consistent seven-season run this past year and I’d never get a chance to put it on this list again. Then I realized that wasn’t such a bad thing. In fact, in delivering a satisfying, uncompromising ending “The Shield” probably gave us its best season since it first exploded on the scene earlier this decade. Then I thought about it some more and realized that the excellent acting (Michael Chiklis, Walton Goggins, CCH Pounder, Michele Hicks), writing and directing were all good enough to land this show on the top of the list on their own merits.

Milk Review

My mad dash to see all of this year’s Best Picture nominees before the Oscars this Sunday continued on Valentine’s Day when I just happened to find myself five minutes away from one about three theatres in the Tampa area still showing “Milk” and the movie starting in five minutes.

(This is the part of the blog where I pause to thank my wonderful girlfriend Erica for not just being eternally tolerant of my movie geekdom, but for actually genuinely enjoying herself after being taken to see “Milk” on Valentine’s Day, which is a great film, but not exactly a romantic epic.)

“Milk” tells the true life story of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), the former San Francisco city supervisor and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. The film follows Harvey’s various campaigns in the 1970’s and the enormous influence he had on his neighborhood of Castro Street, his city and, eventually, the state. The movie also takes a little bit of time to show the toll his political ambitions and activism had on Milk’s personal life in the form of his relationships with Scott Smith (James Franco) and the more unstable Jack Lira (Diego Luna).

What this movie does incredibly well (through a combination of great skill and luck) is something “Frost/Nixon” also accomplished: it’s made subject matter that appears to be very specific to a certain period of American history and made it super-relevant to today’s audiences.

And I’m not just talking about the overt homosexual themes.

Sure, there’s an obvious line to be drawn between Milk and his team’s battle against Proposition 6 — which would prohibit gays or suspected homosexuals from teaching at California public schools — led by jeer-worthy State Senator John Briggs (Denis O’Hare) and the recent passage of Proposition 8 in California, which eliminated same-sex couples’ right to marry. However, the movie does a wonderful job of not just being about gay-themes, while not ever feeling like its shying away from its same-sex subject matter.

In my opinion, the movie is just as relevant for the way it showed that with years of hard work, an indomitable spirit in the face of repeated failures and an honest belief in the power of change, almost anything’s possible.

All of that being said, director Gus Van Sant (who’s been trying to get this movie made for 15 years), screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (a relative newbie who finally made the necessary breakthrough with the script) and Sean Penn don’t make the guy out to be a saint.

Sean Penn does some of the best work in his stellar career as Milk, capturing (what I imagine to be) the man’s fierce charisma. Penn is equally effective in the scenes where he’s addressing thousands of people in a crowd as he is when he’s “recruiting” people to his cause one-on-one, like his initial scene with street hustler Cleve Jones (a terrific Emile Hirsch).

However, once he is elected city supervisor, he finds an interesting frenemy in fellow supervisor Dan White (an incredibly Josh Brolin). White seems to be the polar opposite of Milk, but also appears to have more in common with and admire Milk more than he would care to admit. And Brolin delivers a creepy, unsettling and, ultimately, sad performance. In case you don’t think he can also bring the funny, Brolin also does the best job of playing drunk I’ve seen in a long time during a scene at Milk’s birthday party.

Penn’s Milk is also caring toward his damaged lovers, but there just don’t appear to be enough hours in the day to make his relationships with Scott (Franco does alluring, but annoyed dependability well) or Jack (Luna is a great, unpredictable little fiend) work. Both of those characters may have been a smidge underdeveloped, but Franco and Luna helped make Scott and Jack, respectively, come alive. Also, with the movie clocking in at just a little over two hours, I’ll gladly sacrifice a little character development for secondary characters, in the interest of keeping the film moving along.

Sure, you can accuse Van Sant and Black of skimming through certain periods in time, not presenting a balanced perspective and not really delving too deeply into who Harvey Milk or his associates really were.

Still, the director stages the movie with such great style and energy while doing a really good job of incorporating real-life footage, and Black makes the wise decision of focusing on Harvey and his team’s immense efforts and the way they inspired people, that it doesn’t really matter who these people were. All that matters is that they were strong and persistent enough to fight for what they believed in at the time.

At the risk of sounding like a pretentious movie critic on a poster, I’d say that “Milk” is one of the most “important” and “moving” films of the year. While it may bear its lead character’s name, “Milk” is really about anyone who’s ever stopped doing nothing and stood up against something they believed to be wrong.

Milk...A

Desperate Housewives: The Brat Pack

There was a lot of bratty behavior on Wisteria Lane last night.

Sure, it was no big surprise to see a few of the adults on this show acting like children, but, in a shocking turn of events, Susan was NOT the biggest brat on the block.

Of course, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

With her new job as an assistant art teacher taking her away from her son for the first time, Susan had to rely on Mike to watch their son M.J. Or rather she ended up relying on Mike’s new girlfriend Katherine, and her magical land of black jack, homemade brownies and paninis, after Mike kept getting called for an unusually high number of plumbing jobs. Was anyone out there REALLY surprised when Susan eventually flipped out and banished M.J. from seeing Katherine? Sure, you can’t blame her for being freaked out after the kid had a serious enough craving for one of those paninis that he wandered out of his house while Susan was in the shower, but the truly bold and shocking thing to do with this storyline (or any storyline involving Teri Hatcher these days) would’ve been to have her act like a mature adult.

Banning M.J. from Katherine’s house is going to be tricky since Mike is moving in. (Getting rid of his house should free up some of Mike’s money for M.J. right?) I can understand feeling insecure about how her mothering skills stack up against Katherine’s. However, the real problem (other than Mike acting oddly jerky as well) is that Susan was accusing Katherine of deliberately trying to turn Susan’s son against her, whereas I believed Katherine when she said that she was simply “being nice to her boyfriend’s son.” Maybe last season’s Katherine would do something devious like that, but this season’s Katherine is “good”, right? (Unless Susan keeps getting in her face.)

None of this will matter if Dave Williams is able to carry out his plan to make Mike “feel the pain he’s felt.” Unfortunately, the only people feeling the pain lately in this storyline are the audience. I started out the season as a big Dave fan, but the thing has been ridiculously dragged out. All of the Dave/Edie scenes seemed to be part of a different (more boring) show last night. We’ve known what his plan is for a month (which is almost as long as his dead doctor has been communicating with his secretary via text thanks to Dave). It’s time for him to take his shot already. It looks like it’ll happen during that camping trip next episode with Katherine, Mike and Edie. Yes, I said Edie. I know she backed out of the icky camping trip at the last second, but my gut says she’ll show up anyway. (That feeling may or may not have to do with reports that Nicolette Sheridan is leaving the show.)

Other than Susan, Gabby was being her usual, (more appealing) bratty self by whining that she couldn’t get the bracelet she wanted after Carlos’ bonus got suspended. All of that got turned around when he caught Carlos’ boss Brad with another woman and renegotiated a $30,000 bonus. I know that Gabby has always been the materialistic one, but I couldn’t entirely get behind this storyline since Gabby was basically whining about not being able to get a bracelet. It’s one thing when the Solises were struggling to get back on their feet, but am I really supposed to care if Gabby can’t afford yet another accessory.

Also, while it was kinda great to watch Gabby make the cheating boss squirm, her and Carlos had their now-predictable change of heart moment toward the end. The couple felt guilty about keeping the secret from Brad’s wife because she credited them with being good people and asked them to be godparents. I get that Gabby is now a changed (and improved) person with a conscience, but just once I’d like to see a storyline with this formerly-edgy couple where one of them doesn’t turn into a saint by the end of the episode. I realize Carlos and Gabby didn’t say anything last night, but you know they will by the christening. Just take the bonus money and keep your mouths shut — that’s how blackmail works, right?

Over at Scavo’s Pizzeria, it wasn’t exactly a shocker to see Tom act like a little kid. The pizza place was struggling (I still don’t buy the premise that a low-cost pizzeria would be hit THAT hard by the recession — fancier places, maybe) and Tom resorted to having his employees pretend to be customers. While I agreed with his premise that an occupied pizzeria was more inviting to customers, having his employees pretend to be laughing whenever anyone walked by was stupid — and kinda hilarious. To keep costs down, Tom had his (not-at-all) Brilliant Idea #2: enlisting (without paying) his kids to work at the pizzeria. I’m honestly hard-pressed to think of a worse idea from Tom. (As Erica pointed out, why not keep 2 or 3 waiters, instead of the 15 waiters from the start of the episode and leave your family out of this?)

The experiment, predictably, was a disaster (who ordered band-aid with their pizza?) culminating in Tom throwing Porter (or was it Preston) against a wall after the twins threatened to walk out when their schoolmates walked in. While this blog does NOT condone child abuse, I actually LOVED that Tom got into Preston (or was it Porter’s) face a little bit because, let’s be honest: those bratty kids needed to be pushed against a wall a LONG time ago. Eventually, Tom realized his experiment was not going to work and agreed to get rid of the pizzeria. While Tom undoubtedly acts like a fool 75% of the time, this was still sad because the guy was losing his dream.

Another said thing was the story of Orson (pictured, left) last night — just not sad in an “aww” way, but sad in a pathetic way. He was undoubtedly the night’s biggest baby.

After a visit to Andrew and Alex’s place he realized they had a few too many fancy decorations in their apartment and learned Andrew had gotten a raise. He did some amusing detective work. He needed the name of Bree’s childhood pet to get access to her financial records leading to a classic Bree quote of “I don’t have time to think about my hypothetical career in the adult film industry” after he asked her what her porn star name would be.

Eventually, he found out Andrew made twice as much as he did. That’s actually fair when you realize that Andrew appears to be, at least, twice as good at his job as Orson is. I get that Orson is frustrated that he can’t get work, but he really should be thankful that his wife pays him for not doing that much at all. Well, apparently he’s not since it looks like he’s embarking on a career as a petty thief after swiping Andrew’s pen.

So what’d you think of this episode? Who’s Dave going to kill next week (if anyone)? Whose side are you on? Susan or Katherine’s? Finally, what’s your snack of choice? Panini or peanut butter sandwich? (I didn’t grow up in this country, so I’m one of the 20 or so people who think peanut butter is gross!)

Revolutionary Road Review

So I snuck over to my local movie theatre Thursday night after “The Office” and “30 Rock” to catch a showing of “Revolutionary Road” before it went away for good the next day. (The theatre decided it was a good idea to dedicate two screens to “The Uninvited”, but “Milk” and “Revolutionary Road” just had to go away.)

I’d heard “Road” was a solid, but depressing drama. So after seeing it, I was surprised by two things: 1.) I really thought my girlfriend Erica and I would be the only two people there because, honestly, who the hell goes out to see “Revolutionary Road” on a Thursday night? There was one other couple there and they ruined my continuing quest to one day see a movie in an empty theatre. 2.) The movie isn’t so much depressing as it is surprisingly intense. Except for ***SPOILER ALERT*** the ending — which IS hella depressing.*** END OF SPOILER ALERT***

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet star as Frank and April Wheeler a young, seemingly-golden couple living in the suburbs in mid 1950’s Connecticut. The project also marks the reunion of “Titanic” co-stars DiCaprio and Kathy Bates (who plays perky neighbor Helen), though my research uncovered the fact that Winslet was also in that previous movie.

Seriously though, DiCaprio and Winslet made the shrewd decision to not even try to make anything that could resemble “Titanic 2.” “Revolutionary Road,” based on the Richard Yates novel, is not an epic, feel-good, super-romantic love story — it’s a tough, often brutal drama that examines issues a lot of people (not just couples) have, but don’t always want to talk about because they’re so unpleasant. These issues include whether to accept or rail against conformity, and how something can be incredibly ugly and difficult while looking great on the outside. The fact that DiCaprio and Winslet look so great together (and ARE so great together) makes the casting even better.

I’ll flat out say it — Leonardo DiCaprio deserved an Oscar nomination for this movie. Since I don’t like to say someone got snubbed without suggesting which actual nominee I’d take out, I’ll just say that I’d happily replace Brad Pitt with DiCaprio in the Best Actor slot. It’s the natural choice because DiCaprio’s good looks work for him in this role just as well as Pitt’s looks work for “Benjamin Button.”

Frank LOOKS like he has everything — the beautiful wife, adoring kids, pretty house, decent-paying job — but DiCaprio does a great job of conveying the character’s frustration with his job (who can’t relate?) without ever having him come off whiny. Just by looking at DiCaprio we can see how he’s gotten all he has, so we can sympathize with the character’s fear about losing it all while still yearning for more.

Winslet, on the other hand, plays the unhappy stay-at-home housewife who is eager to escape the rut she’s stuck in. It could be very easy for the audience to look at the character of April and ask “what’s her problem” or “what more does she want”, but Winslet, in a brilliant performance, makes her misery, desperation and frustration palpable. (Almost unspoken, but definitely conveyed is how much harder it was for April to try and follow her dream as a woman in the 1950’s.) Winslet’s performance during the breakfast scene near the end is devastating.

At first, I thought I spotted some overacting during their various blowups, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized they were dealing with some big emotions and their performances were appropriate (though I’d certainly understand if somebody else wanted to say they were overacting).

If anyone’s to blame, I’d actually say it’s director (and Kate Winslet’s husband) Sam Mendes, who brings a nice eye to 1950’s detail to this movie, but almost none of the stylish flair he showed in “American Beauty”, “Road to Perdition” or even “Jarhead.” In fact, a few sequences are surprisingly static for such an interesting visual director. However, I DID like how Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe showed us a happy Frank and April meeting very briefly at the beginning, before quickly taking us to their current miserable state. It’s like, they were really happy and in-love in the beginning, but that period of time was over faster than they even realized it.

My favorite thing in the movie is scene-stealer (and Oscar nominee) Michael Shannon as Helen’s hyper-perceptive, but mentally-unstable son John. John swoops in for only a couple of scenes and is what would count as the movie’s comic relief. The joke (as was the case in “Michael Clayton” with Tom Wilkinson’s character) is that the only person who can see through bs and is not afraid to tell it like it is, is the crazy guy. The main difference is that Shannon brings a real element of danger, which makes his performance slightly less appealing, but a LOT more exciting.

And “exciting” is not a word I expected to use when describing “Revolutionary Road” based on what I’d read and heard. It’s a powerful, well-made film that especially comes alive when Shannon shows up and is worth seeing, if only because it deals with familiar to you or that couple you know who everyone thinks is perfect.

Revolutionary Road...A-

Lost: French in Action

Don’t we all like to think that when we die, our last words will be something slightly more profound than “I’m not supposed to have chocolate before dinner”?

Of course, when most of us die, it won’t be because an increasingly unstable and time-travelling Island pureed our brains until we didn’t know where (or when) we were. Still, the death of Charlotte Lewis was both a surprise and a surprise to no one.

We kinda knew she was a goner since her first nosebleed, so that part of it wasn’t exactly a shocker. The death itself was surprisingly sweet when you think about it — it appears Charlotte believed she was a young girl again in what were presumably happier times. At least happier than being shot at with arrows and threatened with rifle fire. What was also surprising was the amount of information Charlotte imparted to her boyfriend(?) Faraday before her death regarding her history on the Island (she grew up there) and her encounter with a creepy-looking guy who looks just like Faraday.

Then I realize there are only about 30 episodes of “Lost” left before the end of the show, so we’re probably going to get more episodes like “This Place is Death” (the best episode so far of the show’s most ambitious season) which addresses past “mysteries” while continuing to move the show toward its end.

Last night, we got a good look at what happened to Rousseau (pictured, left) and her crew (including husband Robert and sexist jerk Montand) about sixteen years before the castaways arrival on the Island. The group was heading to the antenna to send a distress signal (the one Rousseau eventually records) with a still majorly disoriented Jin. (Not only is the dude travelling through time without realizing it, but he JUST recently became proficient in English — and instantly runs into a French-speaking crew.)

Unfortunately, their trip was interrupted by the Smoke Monster, who ate up and spat out a female member of their group and set its sights on Montand. As Jin and Co. tried to save him from being taken underground, the Smoke Monster pulled extra hard with its tentacles and yanked Montand underground, minus the arm his friends were still holding. Eww. Robert and the rest of his friends went underground to help Montand (or the monster doing a great Montand impression) and Jin skipped off to the hellacious period in the Island’s history right after the “sickness” had afflicted Robert and led to Rousseau killing him with her rifle after he tried to take a shot at her.

There were lots of interesting details and possibilities from this sequence. We got to see the Temple (featuring conspicuous hieroglyphics) which Ben has referenced before and under which the Smoke Monster apparently lives (draw your own hell parallels). This is also a previously uncharted area of the Island which apparently houses some ancient artifacts (four-toed statue anyone?) I was also intrigued by Robert’s behavior before he got killed. He called the Smoke Monster a security system (the monster DOES tend to sound like a machine at times) and it just seems like we’re getting closer to finding out what the monster is. Still, I’m more curious about what exactly happened to him (and his friends) that would make him want to shoot his wife. Was it an actual disease? Brainwashing?

After that Jin found himself with the rest of the time travelers (still not quite sure how that worked out), leading to a nice reunion with an openly thrilled Sawyer (it almost seems quaint how anti-social he used to be). The plan was still to go to the Orchid and get Locke off the Island so they could save everyone.

On the way, the Island started going crazy, leading Charlotte to collapse and apparently start cycling through her life. In between rambling, she helpfully told Locke that he could take the well down to the Orchid and she warned Jin NOT to bring Sun back to the Island (shades of Claire yelling at Kate “don’t you dare bring him back!”) Charlotte revealed that her parents were part of the Dharma Initiative, but her father became increasingly unstable and her mother moved her to London. She was told the Island was a fairy tale, but she dedicated her life to finding it again. It also seems pretty clear that the Dharma-era Faraday we saw in the season’s opening sequence is probably the one to warn Charlotte not to come back. (By the way, kudos to Rebecca Mader for a pretty terrific performance in this episode.)

Jin took Charlotte’s (Korean) words to heart and convinced Locke to tell Sun that he was dead so she wouldn’t come back for him (interesting that Locke apparently goes on to break this promise). Locke giddily descended down the rope, though the giddiness subsided when the sky light up again and he fell, breaking his leg. The visual of Sawyer holding the rope that went into the ground was kinda awesome, but Locke CANNOT catch a break with leg injuries. It’s going to be a pain when he wakes up with that leg injury in the desert, right? (Remember, when Ben moved the Island he still had the scratch in his arm.)

He DID catch a break courtesy of the helpful ghost(? spirit?) of Christian Shephard who reminded Locke about the terms of Jacob’s instructions (HE had to be the one to move the Island) and helped embolden him to make his sacrifice.

Meanwhile, Ben’s plan to return the Oceanic 6 back to the Island seemed to go to hell after Kate walked out with Aaron and Sayid gently threatened Ben and Jack if they ever tried to find him again. The only reason Sun stuck around and didn’t shoot Ben was because he told her he could prove Jin was alive.

So off they went for a wonderfully tense drive in which Jack apologized to Sun for leaving Jin behind and she coolly brushed him off (I was right that she’s still pissed at him, but wrong that she was pissed enough to take a shot at him.) The argument was brought to a half by a frustrated Ben who railed at the two and swore that if they had any idea what he’d done to keep them and their friends alive, they’d never stop thanking him.

I LOVED this for many reasons. Ben is such a smooth, manipulative operator, that it was startling to see him lose his cool. Also, if you recall, Juliet made a point of thanking Locke for his sacrifice before he went down in the well, which goes to show that Others are just more polite than the regular folks. Finally, after Locke’s adventure in the time travel wheel room, we saw that the wheel was out of whack after Ben turned it. Do we think he did this intentionally to facilitate his return to the Island or did he really screw things up royally leading to the frustration he’s currently feeling?

We know that Ben knows a lot, but we also know he’s not infallible and all-knowing. For example, he seemed genuinely surprised when Desmond turned up looking for Faraday’s mom, whom he simply knew as Eloise Hawking. In fact, he looked almost as surprised as Desmond looked when he saw Faraday’s mom was the creepy woman from the jewelry store. Ben’s travel buddies were not ideal for Ms. Hawking, but they’ll have to do. (Mostly, I’m glad that Desmond told Penny to stay on the boat, keeping her away from Ben, who probably has a shoot-on-sight attitude toward her.)

So what’d you think of this episode? What was grosser? Severed arm or bone sticking out of Locke’s leg? I’m going with the bone (that’s what she said.) How adorable is Ji Yeon? What do you think eventually makes the room with the time travel wheel frozen? Finally, is this in the top 10 best episodes of “Lost” or top 5? (I’m going with top 10 — I don’t believe an episode could be top 5 with absolutely no Hurley.)

American Idol: American I-Duels

I don’t usually do recaps for “American Idol” result shows and, let’s face it: the final Hollywood Week episode where we find out who advances to the semifinal round is really just a glorified results show, featuring an elevator and with 1,000 percent more tears.

However, Wednesday night’s episode threw in enough wrinkles to keep me interested most of the time, despite the fact that I’ve said repeatedly that no reality show needs to be two hours long (especially a results show).

I’m too lazy to type out the name of all 36 semifinalists (since you’re probably not as lazy as I am, you can find them almost anywhere on the web). There were no major shockers as far as who got through. I wish I’d been shocked that Tatianna del Toro and Norman Gentle made it through. The only elimination that really surprised me (and all the shocked singers who were gathered) was Jamar Rogers, who I’d take any day over blind Scot MacIntyre, who’s a nice guy, but just not good enough. Let’s just go ahead and do a rundown of the highlights and lowlights of last night’s episode.

Highlight: The sing-offs between two contestants the judges weren’t sure about.
I liked the idea of having borderline contestants “sing for their lives” because I imagine there really were a number of singers the judges were on the fence about and what better way to see if they could deal with the Idol pressure cooker than putting them on the spot, with a place in the semifinals on the line.

Also, the slightly sadistic side of me enjoyed watching someone else struggle to come up with the perfect song and deliver a worthy performance to keep their dream alive. I thought it had the potential for excellent drama.

Lowlight: The execution of the sing-offs.
I say “potential” because based on what we saw last night the sing-off concept was mostly botched.

The way it worked is that the judges would summon two singers, speak to one person first and have them perform their song, tell that person to leave, have the second person perform, deliberate and then announce their choice. The problem was that this presented an unfair advantage to the person who sang second. They had more time to calm their nerves, and, perhaps, come up with a better song choice. I don’t think it was an accident that, in every sing-off we saw last night, the person who went second won every time. Ok, the one time the second person didn’t win was in the Matt Breitzk/Michael Sarver tie, which Sarver (pictured, right) CLEARLY won, but the judges called a tie because they like Matt (pictured, left). And so do I.

Highlight: It looks like a wide open field.
I’ll let you decide if it’s parity or mediocrity. Personally, I kinda like that there’s no clear-cut favorite (the closest person is Danny Gokey who seemed confident last night, but not yet arrogant) and that should make for an interesting competition. I think there’s still great potential for someone to come out of nowhere and wow us. Then again, that speaks to how lackluster the talent has looked so far.

Lowlight: Tatianna del Toro and Norman Gentle.
I made my thoughts on Norman clear in my last recap, so allow me to address Tatianna briefly.

In my last column, I suggested that she wasn’t as bad as contrived Norman because she was legitimately crazy. However, there was a moment in last night’s episode after Tatianna advanced to the semifinals where she was walking normally, glanced at the camera for a second and then started “acting” crazy. Before she was just annoying — now I find out she’s being annoying on purpose and being rewarded for it. She represents the worst of Idol this season.

Highlight: The idea behind the judges’ mansion.
When they announced it last week, I pictured the judges actually living in the mansion and getting into arguments like it was the Real World. I pictured eliminated contestants being escorted out of the grounds by a butler. At the very least I imagined some stereotypical classical music whenever they cut to exterior shots of the mansion.

Lowlight: The reality of the judges’ mansion.
I mean, it wasn’t BAD or anything, they just didn’t really take advantage of the mansion setting, in my opinion (other than the comfy-looking thrones the judges sat in). Then again, as my girlfriend Erica pointed out, it just seems irresponsible to rent out an entire mansion in this economy when a crappy elevator and a menacingly-long room will do.

Highlight: The lineup for next week’s semi-final episode.
The show’s bringing back the wild card for its semifinals this year. Three different groups of 12 semifinalists will perform over the next three weeks with the public voting on their performances. Each week, the top male and female will advance, as will the next highest vote-getter (guy or girl). The judges will then select three additional wild card recipients and that’ll be our top 12. Should make things pretty interesting.

Especially since next week will give us likable and talented people like Danny Gokey, Annop Desai, Anne Marie Boskovich, Michael Sarver, Stephen Fowler, and Jackie Tohn (and Tatianna del Toro will be there too!) Only three of them can make it through on their own next week. Can’t wait to see who it is.

Lowlight: Simon.
I realize that Simon is what makes the judges tolerable about 85 percent of the time, but he can really be a (to quote Alec Baldwin) rude thoughtless pig.

I mean, let’s take the “rude thoughtless” part first. Did he actually think he was being kind to Frankie Jordan when he said “If it’s any consolation, you wouldn’t have won anyway”? If he genuinely thought that would console her, then he’s thoughtless, if he just said it to be a dick, then he’s being incredibly rude. And what happened to the semi-famous clip of him saying “forget the lyrics, you’re out.” I guess he meant, unless you’re Stephen Fowler, Casey Carlson or Joanna Pacitti. (Well, if you’re Joanna Pacitti, you’re out of the competition anyway for undisclosed reasons.)

Now, let’s talk about the pig part. You’ve probably read that Simon ended his long-term relationship not that long ago and, apparently, he feels like that’s given him license to be more openly and disgustingly lecherous than ever. We saw it with Bikini Girl, and we saw it in the showdown between Kristen McNamara and Jenn Korbee.

Jenn sounded ok on “Not Ready to Make Nice”, but Kristen blew her away vocally with her “I Will Always Love You.” Of course, in Simon’s mind, the decision came down between “the attractive blonde” or “the other one.” I’m not entirely naïve. I know that Simon and Co. are looking for someone who looks like a star in addition to sounding like one (and I realize Kristen looked like a white hot mess last night, going from two to three-toned hair), but I still find comments like that inappropriate from someone who’s in a position of authority and I just find them personally distasteful. Simon’s proved that he’s smarter than that.

So what’d you think of this episode? Who were you disappointed to see miss the cut? Finally, who are you most looking forward to seeing in the semifinals?

Nip/Tuck/Thoughts: Model Parents

We all know this show is outrageous, but I was still pleasantly surprised at all the laugh-out-loud moments in last night’s episode.

Most of them featured Bradley Cooper, reprising his role as (over)actor Aidan Stone and one of the doctors’ most interesting cases in a while. Unfortunately that meant some of the dramatic elements took a hit, but let’s focus on the good stuff first.

I thought Cooper was hilarious as Aidan last year and I loved pretty much everything about his appearance last night. I loved that he’s washed up now (after the Eden sex tape scandal) and trying to make it back to the big time by going “Costner” and writing, directing and acting his own movie. I loved that he thought pulling a “Costner” is a good idea today (in 1990 yes, not so much today).

Most of all, I loved EVERYTHING about his script, “The Deadly Tightrope”, starring Aidan as plastic surgeon/spy Sean, Morgan Fairchild as a hotter version of psycho agent Colleen, and a fat, bald, dead guy as Christian. From Cooper overacting as Sean during a drunken bender to the script concluding with Sean defusing a nuclear bomb, it was all fantastic. Also, for the first time in a while, the show distinguished its new-ish Hollywood setting. (A lot of these episodes feel like they could still be taking place in Miami)Basically, "The Deadly Tightrope" was everything the Hot Coco/ “Yo Stink” music video from a few weeks ago WANTED to be.

Aidan was also fascinated by Manny Skerritt, the well-endowed patient of the week, who was a yoga instructor and wanted a penis reduction because he spent all his time pleasuring himself. The opening consult with Skerritt matter-of-factly telling the doctors about his condition had me cracking up.

Of course, Aidan eventually became fascinated with Manny’s case and even broke his neck trying to taste his own “sweet nectar” (yikes!) and not, as he claimed, hitting an “ice patch” in his “Maserati” with “Patrick Dempsey.” Everything Cooper did last night in his few scenes was 10 times funnier than his hour and a half appearance on Saturday Night Live this past weekend.

Aidan eventually semi-blackmailed into granting him the rights to “The Deadly Tightrope” after telling Manny that Sean and new anesthesiologist Teddy Lowe had taken a picture of Manny’s “Namaste” during the operation.

Teddy is the replacement Sean hired after Liz’s departure and, while I like Katee Sackoff I didn’t care too much for this storyline.

Everything about it was completely predictable from the start. As soon as Sean took over hiring duties from Christian out of fear that Christian would hire someone inappropriate, we knew Sean would end up thinking with the wrong head in his hiring process. We also knew the picture they took of Manny would come back to haunt him (though the fallout was surprisingly minor). Most importantly, we knew the two would end up hooking up.

Besides being predictable, the whole “Sean dates someone dangerous who makes him ‘cut loose’, but is really just a bad influence” has been done. In fact, it was done earlier this season when Sean dated Eden and started doing ecstasy. While Teddy is more age-appropriate, it’s really the same thing, no?

Less predictable was the outcome of the Christian/Kimber (pictured, right) storyline, though I probably should’ve seen it coming.

Kimber (what did Kelly Carlson do to the writers to make them decide that Kimber will apparently never be likable again?) insisted that Christian inject his granddaughter Jenna so that she could get more high-end modeling work and rectify her “thin, villainous lips.” At first, Christian was as horrified at the thought as (I hope) most people in the audience were, but after meeting with top talent agents “the Steves” and enduring a cattle call casting session (where the casting director just happened to use “thin, villainous lips” as well) he had a change of heart.

Except that he apparently chickened out at the last second, leaving Kimber alone in the room with Jenna and the collagen shots. We were led to believe that Kimber had injected the baby by herself, but a flashback revealed that she had only done half the job. Christian stepped in and fixed her lopsided work by injecting the baby herself.

Personally, I was let down on several levels. First, I was disappointed in Christian, who (for some reason) I continue to believe is at least 5 percent good (maybe it’s closer to 2 percent). Then, when it was revealed that Kimber didn’t inject Jenna by herself, I was disappointed in the writers’ decision to not go all the way and have Christian be the one who injected Jenna. We’d seen Christian’s disgust during the casting call, and he’s not above taking short cuts, so it should’ve made sense. Kimber was right when she said that “everyone thinks she’s a horrible mother.” Well doesn’t everyone pretty much think Christian is a horrible person too? (And what is the deal with Jenna being with Kimber? I was pretty sure that one of the terms of Kimber leaving Matt was that Jenna would have to be turned over to Christian? I probably missed the part where they explained this, so someone please enlighten me.)

Giving him the out of “I was just fixing Kimber’s work” felt like a cop out in a show that hardly ever cops out.

So what’d you think of this episode? “What does the title “The Deadly Tightrope” even mean? Gentlemen, have you ever thought of doing a “Manny Skerritt”? (I’d be lying if I said I never thought about it.) Would you ever allow your baby to have cosmetic surgery? (That’s a double “no” for me.) Has Matt done anything more douche-y than stabbing Christian in the arm with that needle? (I say it instantly goes in the top 5). Finally, are you looking forward to seeing Liz next week or do you kinda wish they’d have kept her away for a bit longer? (I like Liz a lot, but even I think this return is a bit fast.)

American Idol: Let's Hear It For the Boys

Wasn’t it nice of last night’s episode of “American Idol” to make the bold and controversial decision to (mostly) forsake drama and train wrecks in favor of showing us (gasp!) good singers.

Of course, that ratio will never be 100 percent in favor of legitimate singers as long as the Tatianna del Toros and Norman Gentles of the world are still around, but Tuesday’s night’s Hollywood Round episode was definitely a step in the right direction.

And this is coming from someone who was actually amused by the drama last week. My take was that if you’re going to put the clowns through, might as well have them (try to) make us laugh. However, as we approach the semifinal round (only one more episode to go) and the real competition begins, it’s time to get down to business.

Fortunately, the best development from last night’s episode is something that hardcore fans of this show have known all along — watching good singers take their one shot at glory (and often collapse under the pressure) is every bit as dramatic and compelling as who’s fighting with who at 3 a.m. I mean, wasn’t it absolutely wrenching to watch people like the likable Stephen Fowler and semi-pro Joanna Pacitti blank on their lyrics, go down in flames and walk off the stage completely dejected. (I guess it would’ve been a little more wrenching if either had actually been eliminated.)

I’m still not exactly seeing anyone with superduperstar potential yet — unless you include the people clearly WANTS us to think are superstars-in-training.

The closest is Danny Gokey, who continued his solid streak of performances with a rapsy rendition of “I Hope You Dance”, the song that was locked in a tight battle with “Before He Cheats” last night to see which one could get run into the ground faster. Oddly enough, I thought last night’s was Danny’s weakest performance out of him so far, and I actually preferred his BFF Jamar Rogers’ unconventional take on “Hey There, Delilah” (which was in the JV race with “Distubia” for “Most Overplayed Song”). I figured these two were being set up to be split up on Wednesday night for sure, but now, for the first time, I feel like Jamar is strong enough to make it on his own.

Another pleasant surprise was Ju’not Joyner, who missed the cut during last year’s Hollywood Week. This year he added an apostrophe to his name and delivered his own lovely rendition of “Hey There, Delilah.” The only problem is that I kind of agree with Randy in that Ju’not is a bit lacking in the star quality department. Maybe next time he performs, he can do so without a hat that covers 60 percent of his face.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the work of Anoop Desai (pictured, right, giving the absolute best rendition of “My Prerogative” by an Indian guy I’ve ever heard — seriously though, dude is funky), Nathaniel Marshall (who knew an acoustic “Disburbia” could be compelling?), and Matt Giraud (pictured, left). The dueling piano player impressed me again with a super strong rendition of “Georgia on my Mind.” Not surprisingly, he seemed 10 times more comfortable (and charismatic) behind the keyboard. If he makes it to the top 12, I wonder if he’d pull out the keyboard every week and risk making it stale or try to perform some weeks without it and risk not being as interesting.

You may have noticed that I’ve only mentioned male singers so far. Well that’s because I kind of think they were overwhelmingly better than the women last night.

Maybe I’ve just heard “Before He Cheats”, “I Hope You Dance” and “If I Ain’t Got You” one too many times, but few of them really stood out, a lot of them were screamy and I mostly felt like I was watching pale imitations of Carrie Underwood, Leann Womack and Alicia Keys.

Out of the ladies last night, I was pleasantly surprised by Kristin McNamara, who was last seen during the group round being yelled at by Nancy Wilson (no not her) for daring to rest her voice. I actually liked Ryan’s fake out that Nancy was behind her as much as I liked her not-at-all embarrassing or substandard “Before He Cheats.” My favorite female performer last night was Anne Marie Boskovich. She has a nice, appealing tone and she doesn’t necessarily try to copy the artist she’s covering or blow the roof off the place (take notes, Lil’ Rounds and Adam Lambert who SOUNDS like a girl 70 percent of the time) every time she sings. And THAT makes her stand out among the ladies.

The rest of the singers ranged from “meh” to “can’t really make a decent judgment based on what we saw last night.” In the “meh” category, I have to put Kai Kalama (the appealing afro’d dude who takes care of his mom), Jorge Nunez (the show’s lone, underwhelming stab at a Latin star this season) Michael Sarver (I’m not feeling the love for the roughneck — he’s just aight for me and I think people are just mostly impressed that he’s a “roughneck” who sings) and Scott McIntyre. Of course, we all want Scott to do well, and he DID look more comfortable behind the keyboard, but his voice is just not that strong (certainly not as strong as a lot of his male competition).

Then there’s Tatianna del Toro and Norman Gentle, who I’m lumping into the same paragraph because they’re not that different. Both are actually decent singers, who probably wouldn’t make it as far as they have if they didn’t act like lunatics.

The difference is that Nick Mitchell realizes he’s not very interesting when he’s not Norman Gentle and doesn’t have the guts to perform as himself (I couldn’t have been less surprised when he came out as “Norman.”) This isn’t a Beyonce/Sasha Fierce alter ego situation — Nick flat out knows (or is convinced) that he can’t cut it as himself. The problem is that the joke is old now. The guy literally wears the same outfit and does the same shtick every time.

Tatianna, on the other hand, appears to be legitimately loony. She appears to have no awareness of how annoying and deluded she seems to everyone else. The only reason I was invested in her room-swapping saga was to see if she’d be put out of her misery. Of course, she wasn’t since there’s still one more Hollywood Round episode that needs spicing up.

So what’d you think of this episode? Who’s more annoying to you? Apparently clueless Tatianna or the cowardly Norman Gentle? Could Paula be more of a bad actress when she tries to look somber as she walks into a room with people who’ve advanced? Did you miss getting the judges’ input after each performance? (I surprised myself by not missing it at all.) Finally, which eliminated contestant will you miss the most? (I liked young, spunky Leneshe Young — maybe she’ll be back next year.)

Heroes: Just Plane Silly

“Previously on ‘Heroes’, a hell of a lot of people were shot with tasers.” Seriously though, how (intentionally?) funny was that episode-opening recap of our heroes getting rounded up last week?

Stuff like that confirms my suspicion that the writers and producers behind “Heroes” are no longer pretending this is a serious drama. Another clue was last night’s thoroughly silly (yet mostly enjoyable) episode.

Exhibit A is the continuing Sylar “daddy issues” storyline. There’s really no reason why this should work or be as engaging as it is, since (the captured Agt. Simmons notwithstanding) it appears to have little to do with the season’s main storyline.

Most of the credit, of course, goes to Zachary Quinto, who, more than anyone in the cast has really cut loose and decided to have fun. Sure, he sometimes (often) crosses over into cartoon villain territory, but he’s also the most fun thing on the show by far.

Last night he visited Mary and Luke Campbell — who live down the street from his dad — and terrorized them to make Agt. Simmons talk. Since Simmons had no link to the Campbells and appeared to be a trained military man, I don’t really understand how this was supposed to make them talk, but whatever. Not surprisingly, we found out that Luke (who’d gotten in a fight at school, hates his mom and pacemakers, and had an obvious mean streak) has the ability to shot microwave rays. When Simmons was about to get the jump on Sylar, Luke nuked him.

I’m totally willing to accept the guards couldn’t hear Claire on that cargo plane last week, but I’m NOT buying that Sylar didn’t hear Simmons fidgeting around (the screwdriver binding him fell to the ground!). As I mentioned, the show had already done a decent job at hinting that Luke had a dark side, so having him melt Simmons was a bit of overkill. That the show often hits its audience over the head with its lack of subtlety is one of the more frustrating things about “Heroes,” but I’ll let it go because I’m liking the Luke/Sylar mentor-protégé pairing so far. It’s already yielded at least one great line from Sylar — “I spared your life. That’s kind of a big thing for me.”

The rest of the characters’ storylines didn’t grab me quite as well.

(This is the part where try I overlook the completely unnecessary “Nathan is the narrator of the episode’s action, despite the fact that he couldn’t have known what happened in the scenes that didn’t feature him” conceit.) Sorry, but I can’t do it! It’s just sloppy storytelling. And why were we told it was 43 hours later (why the hell was it 43 out of all numbers!)? Also, who cares that he was talking to his mom the entire time? Not exactly a major reveal there (though it’s always good to see Cristine Rose). The one thing I did enjoy was the apparent revelation that Nathan isn’t quite as capital E Evil as last week’s premiere suggested. I’m looking forward to finding out exactly what his (and H.R.G.’s) motivation is.

I know the volume is called “Fugitives”, but are we sure these people understand the word? When I think of the word fugitive, the first thing that comes to mind (after Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones) is running and hiding (at least they got the “hiding” part right). I realize the show manufactured some reasons for almost everyone to stay near the plane crash site, but the whole thing came off as more contrived than anything.

After knocking out a couple of the Hunter’s men (we learned last night his name is Danko) Tracy decided she didn’t want to run and felt that she could reason with Nathan since they both think alike. She also had something he wanted — Peter. (That came out slightly creepier than it actually was.) Anyway, as Tracy considered double crossing Peter and really turning him in, she should’ve realized that Nathan would also be thinking double cross. Danko’s men caught her, but Peter absorbed Nathan’s flying power and took off before H.R.G. could no longer credibly pretend he didn’t have a shot.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the show has now decided that Peter can only have one power at once? Either way, I like the change A LOT — Peter had grown too powerful, and this change give the character some limitations (apparently he has to touch people too and can no longer simply absorb powers). I’ll just chalk it up to a side effect of Peter’s power coming from the formula.

As for the rest of the heroes, Parkman, Hiro and Mohinder found refuge in a trailer. And by “refuge” I mean tacky T-shirts and paper and pencil for Matt to draw up the future. I kinda wish the show would dump this over done device, but it looks like the team will be heading to India at some point.

Another drawing also predicted that Daphne would be shot near the wreckage. She’d teamed up with Ando and come to Matt’s rescue. Unfortunately, Danko’s men shot and apparently killed her (I guess they were out of taser darts). The move appears to confirm my other major suspicion about the show — they’re trying to pretend Volumes 2 and 3 never happened. (Seriously, you can count in one hand the number of characters introduced in those volumes that are still around — I’ve got Usutu and even HE’S dead.)

I liked watching Matt indulge his dark side and rage a little bit after Daphne’s “death” by having Danko’s men shoot one another, but of course, the episode cut away from this and merely had Nathan describe it as “a bloodbath.” Thanks for shielding us from something that could’ve been interesting.

Matt was still in angry, revenge mode when he, Peter, Ando, Hiro and Mohinder decided they were going to bring the fight to Nathan and Co. I liked this scene a lot because I’ve wanted the characters to team up and kick ass since their wish for a relatively normal life is not realistic as long as the current threat is out there.

Of course, “Heroes” had to trip over itself once again. Around the time Matt was saying “We’re going to bring the fight to them with everything we’ve got”, some pseudo-Vertical Horizon/Three Doors Down, mid-tempo rock music kicked in and took me out of the scene completely.

The moment was awesomely, entertainingly bad — which is pretty much what “Heroes” is now. And I’m ok with that, as long as the show’s not just plain “bad.”

So what’d you think of this episode? Will Hayden Panettiere ever stop over-acting? Was I the only one who thought the scene with her weirdly-out-of-focus mom was odd? (It’s like they weren’t even in the same room.) What are they doing to Tracy? Do you think we already know the “rebel” who texted Claire or will it be someone entirely new? (It’s probably Angela [old people text now], but I’d like for it to be someone like technology-manipulating Micah.) Finally, do rednecks really make better lovers?

24: Car Jacked

I didn’t even realize that Jack (pictured, right) hadn’t been kicking THAT much ass until last night’s episode.

In the latest hour of “24,” he unleashed the “Bauer yell” a few times (“GET AN AMBULANCE!!!”), had some great one-liners (his entire conversation with Moss at the Capitol pool) and took out anonymous henchmen and rouge secret service agents with equal efficiency and badassery (which may or may not be a word).

Just when Matobo was rescued and we thought Bauer (and the audience) would be able to take an episode to somewhat relax, Jack and his mini-me Renee had to run around D.C. to rescue First Gentleman Henry Taylor, who’d been brought to Dubaku’s underground convenience store lair by Evil Secret Service Agent Vossler.

Dubaku told Henry that we were about to find out whether his wife loved him enough to call off the attack invasion of Sangala. Henry should just be glad that Matobo didn’t ask the general viewing audience whether WE cared enough for him to spare his life, because I have a feeling the response would’ve been a half-hearted shrug. It’s not really Colm Feore’s fault — it’s just that it’s been damn near impossible to get behind Henry’s storyline since A.) There was never any doubt that his son was murdered and B.) We didn’t even SEE his son get murdered. (And if you didn’t watch “Redemption”, you never saw his son at all.)

So far, Henry is the new Kim Bauer — the character who only exists to get in peril. If he lives, I hope he stays away from cougar traps.

The phone call from Dubaku to President Taylor informing her about her husband’s kidnapping kickstarted the first awesome scene of the night. Jack, Renee and Bill had brought Matobo to the White House (did ANYONE else get worried when Matobo was taken away by that anonymous Secret Service Agent?) and had some ‘splaining to do.

Jack and Bill explain about the corruption in the White House and in the FBI and the president was sort of buying it. (She fully bought it once the carnage at Samantha Roth’s apartment was discovered.) Then the call came from Dubaku and Cherry Jones showed what a good actress she is by making me believe that ANYONE could care about Henry Taylor. They were going to kill Henry by the end of the hour unless she surrendered Matobo and backed out of Sangala. The president made the tough (and correct) decision to not be a hypocrite and showed she was willing to sacrifice someone close to her.

Of course, there was option C standing right in front of her. Jack asked her to pretend to comply with Dubaku’s demands while he tried to find Henry and save his life. When Taylor seemed skeptical and asked about his loyalties, Jack shot back with “With all due respect, Madame President — ask around.” (Translation: “Clearly you’ve never seen this show before.”)

Before they could head out, Renee insisted on contacting Moss for help. She insisted he could be trusted because they knew each other pretty well. Moss has been dropping hints all this time, but now Renee too? We get it — these two probably hooked up some time ago. Unless their connection is something more un-obvious, stop bringing it up!

Moss met with them and informed them that Evil Secret Service Agent Brian had been in touch with Evil Secret Service Agent #2 Vossler. Jack enlisted Moss’ help to find Vossler, while instructing Renee to go to Vossler’s home and use his wife and kid as leverage.

Renee was hesitant, but Jack pointed out that she’d already tortured a sniper (I guess she adheres to the “no women, no children” credo). The increasingly-impatient Jack then went on a mini-rant about how the silly FBI agents don’t realize the terrorist are NOT playing by their rules. He eventually guilted Renee into helping him, but Moss wasn’t letting up. He told Jack that he’s lost everything and he won’t let him do the same to Renee, and that the rules were what made them better. Jack responded with an ice cold “Not today.”

Don’t get me wrong, I think Kiefer Sutherland (and Jeffrey “We bring suspects in, not murder them!” Nordling) gave a great performance during this scene. If this were a slower-paced show, you might even say his impatience was a way of speaking for the fans. I just hope there aren’t TOO many scenes like this one last night, that make Jack too much of a cartoon action hero from an 80’s movie and turn this show into “Walker Texas Ranger” minus the slow motion. (I feel that if the show didn’t have to adhere to the real-time format, we would’ve gotten some slow motion action by now.)

Either way, Bauer went down a one-way street and intercepted Vossler, subdued him and called Renee who was threatening his family. Eventually, he gave Jack the location where Henry was being held, but used poor judgment when he decided to try to fight Jack hand-to-hand after Jack was momentarily distracted. This earned him a knife to the stomach.

At the other end of the phone line, Renee had a mini-meltdown after realizing she’d almost resorted to harming a child. I get that the show is trying to show the toll Jack’s actions can take on a human being (except for Jack). However, in my opinion, Renee didn’t come off looking compassionate — she came off kind of weak. In this particular instance, couldn’t she just have pretended that she was going to hurt the baby instead of looking like she actually felt she had to do it? I don’t know if that says more about the “get it down” attitude the show has established and encouraged or if Annie Wersching just didn’t sell the character’s conflict.

In the end, Jack and Renee reached the convenience store, knocked out the counter guy (“I’m not even supposed to be here today!”) and engaged in a firefight with Dubaku’s men after figuring out the president was wasting his time with that Matobo double and decided to waste them with a rocket. (Wasn’t Dubaku a little hasty here? I mean, they never even got a look at the Matobo double — what if he’d really been in there?)

Jack and Renee dispatched most of Dubaku’s henchmen. Unfortunately, the one guy they missed got off a shot and hit Henry in the stomach before Jack killed him. Fortunately for us, Jack killed him in an awesome way (sliding into a wall) resulting in the show’s coolest moment since he drove the car off that parking garage.

So now First Gentleman Taylor’s life hangs in the balance. The only thing I care about less (especially since it’s pretty obvious he’s going to live) is the subplot with Dubaku, his girlfriend Marika and Marika’s nosy sister Rosa. Last week, I said this subplot was “outta-left field”, but this thing is SO far out there that it’s WAY past left field. It’s more like “outta-the nosebleed seats overlooking left field.”

Right now, it just looks like an overly contrived way to create conflict for Dubaku (and to get him out of his lair before Jack got there). Here’s hoping this either gets better or that Dubaku takes Rosa out quickly. (And, yes, I just openly rooted for a terrorist to take out a defenseless woman in a wheelchair.)

So what’d you think of this episode? Could it be more obvious that Homeland Tim is the mole at the White House (Ethan knew about the Matobo plan this week and it wasn’t affected) and that Erika is the mole at the FBI? Finally, your thoughts on Renee — rightly conflicted and compelling character or unconvincing junior badass?