Tag Archives: Walking Dead

Feb22

February 21, 2016 — The Dead Walk & the Wives Throw Shade

Posted on by
Standard

What I Watched Today
(rambling, random thoughts & recaps from today’s real time TV watching)

The Walking Dead

Carl certainly seems to have recovered well from his eyeball mishap. All seems to be copacetic in Alexandria as well.

Denise gives Daryl a list of things needed as he’s going on a supply run with Rick. She also wants some soda and candy for a couple of the others. Ha-ha-ha! She calls soda “pop” and has to explain that to Daryl, saying she’s from Ohio. Me too, and it took me forever to start calling it “soda.”

Eugene gives Daryl a list of agricultural needs. Daryl and Rick drive off. Rick thinks today is the day they’ll find food and people. They haven’t seen anyone for weeks. Rick puts in a CD, while Daryl begs him not to. I assume they have different musical tastes.

Michonne is on guard duty. She sees Spencer going into the woods with a shovel.

Maggie asks Enid where she’s been. She says nowhere and Maggie thinks there are better places for her to be. Maggie tells her if she needs to talk to come to her.

Daryl and Rick find a feed store out in the middle of nowhere. (Is that where Enid has been?) No zombies inside, so they’re good. They find a truck and Rick suggests using it for the rest of their trip. They take the truck to a filling station, which I would doubt has any gas. They use the truck to flip over a vending machine, but instead of soda, a guy with a bandana over his nose and mouth pops out.

Dude says he was just running from the dead. Daryl asks how many and where. He says more than 10 and they probably have about 10 minutes to get out of there. He says his name is Paul, but his friends used to call him Jesus. Rick starts to ask him the three questions, but Paul-Jesus says he’s in a hurry and runs off.

Rick tells Daryl he noticed that Paul was clean with a trimmed beard, which means he’s been doing okay, and is contemplating picking him up later. They hear some gun shots and run around the other side of the station. It’s only firecrackers. Firecrackers put there by Paul who steals the truck. What would Jesus do? I’m not sure, but what he wouldn’t do is steal your truck.

Michonne follows Spencer. He’s about to whack a zombie and she does it for him. She asks why he’s there and he says he walks in between his shifts, but she’s the first one who’s noticed. She wants to walk with him, but he wants to go it alone. She says his mom told her to figure out what she wants for her life, but right now she’s trying to figure out why he’s walking around in the woods with a shovel.

Carl and Enid are also on a walk in the woods. They find a note in a plastic bag, but it’s wet, so they can’t read it. She says it doesn’t look very old and that means they’re not alone. Enid asks why they’re walking and Carl says that’s what kids do. Enid says she’s not a kid.

Rick and Daryl try chasing after the truck on foot, and come across the vending machine in the road, totally perplexing me. Daryl takes out a couple of cans for Denise. They have a drink and keep running.

Commercial break. Hey, it’s GH’s Obrecht back with Fear 462. And it looks like she’s been bitten. Or scratched. Or something.

Enid and Carl are sitting under a tree, having a snack and reading, when they see Michonne and Spencer. They don’t notice Carl and Enid. Enid says she doesn’t want to come out there anymore. Carl says okay and starts walking away, leaving her to carry everything. Nice.

They see a zombie and while Enid wants to ignore it, Carl is concerned about Michonne. He makes a sound so the zombie changes course. For whatever reason, he isn’t killing it and Enid wants to either kill it or leave. Carl knocks the zombie down and tells her if she doesn’t want to be there, to go home. So she leaves. I would too. He’s getting a little kooky.

Daryl and Rick continue to follow the truck’s trail until they finally see Paul. The truck is stopped and he’s messing around in the back. Rick grabs him from behind, but apparently Paul knows martial arts. Paul slips though and they draw their guns. Rick tells him he wants the keys. Paul says he’s not a bad guy and Rick says Paul doesn’t know what they are.

Rick gets the keys and they tie Paul up. Daryl says the knots aren’t that tight and he should be able to get loose when they’re gone. He throws Paul a can of soda and they take off, Daryl saying good-by with his middle finger.

Rick tells Daryl today is still the day. Well, they did see one person. They realize something is on the roof and stop short. Paul drops to the ground. Daryl jumps out of the moving truck and chases him. Rick stupidly stops the truck to help, which allows Paul to get back in the cab while Rick is dealing with the surrounding zombies. Paul grabs Daryl’s gun and tells Daryl to duck. He shoots a zombie coming up behind Daryl and Daryl knocks Paul out with a punch. All that has resulted from this is the truck sliding backwards and sinking into the nearby lake.

Daryl tells Rick they should go look at cars. Rick says what about unconscious Paul, since he did help Daryl. Daryl says fine, they’ll put him in a tree.

Michonne continues to follow Spencer. He tells her he’s fine, but he needs to take care of something. Or at least try. Michonne asks him to let her help, but he says she can’t. They see Carl in the distance being followed by a zombie.

Spencer says he thought he “saw her that night.” It’s Deanna. I thought they shot her that night. Spencer and Michonne put a hold on her and Spencer puts her out of her misery. So that’s why he was trolling the woods. The scene is brief, but sad.

Spencer and Michonne bury Deanna. He says she left him a note saying he knows his way, but he doesn’t think he does. Michonne says he loved his family and he still has a home in Alexandria. They head back.

Rick and Daryl have still unconscious Paul in the new truck. Rick says Paul must have a hard head, but Denise needs to take a look at him when they get back.

Carl is rocking Baby Judith on the porch. Michonne tells him she saw him with Deanna and that he should have left her or killed her. He says that’s stupid. She says what’s stupid is him being out there and Carl says he couldn’t leave her out there like that and he couldn’t kill her. She asks him if he was playing some kind of game. He says he thought someone who loved her should be the one to end her existence and Michonne would have done the same thing.

Daryl and Carl get back to Alexandria. Paul is still out and they carry him to Denise’s house. Or office. Whatever. They leave Paul on a mattress with a glass of water and a note. We don’t see what the note says.

Rick tries to get some shut-eye on the couch and Michonne tells him to move over. They watch Judith on a monitor. Michonne asks where Daryl is and Rick says he’s watching over a guy. Michonne is like, a guy? and asks him if he wants to talk about it. He says no, but what about her day? She says same thing and Rick asks if she found a guy too. He gives her some mints and says he had toothpaste per her request, but it’s at the bottom of the lake now.

All of a sudden, they realize they’re holding hands. They kiss. Dammit! I want her with Daryl. They move on to more than kissing.

We don’t see what happens next (nor do I want to), but in the next scene they’re nakey and in bed sleeping. Someone tells Rick to wake up. Paul is there. Now I’m wondering where Daryl is.

Next week, I have no idea what happens. Either they didn’t show it or I missed it somehow.

The Real Housewives of Atlanta

The ladies are talking about Sheree having Googled Kim’s husband and tell Kim what had been discussed about him, throwing Kenya under the bus. Kenya says when Kim isn’t around, they all have something to say about Chris, but now it’s a different story. I agree. Kenya was not the only one talking about him in a negative way, but now he’s the most wonderful guy ever.

When Kim leaves, Kenya says what’s up with them not saying to her face what they said behind her back. Kenya says the rumors about Chris being gay have been around for years, so it’s not like she’s talking out of turn.

Kim and Nene meet for brunch. Nene feels badly about what happened in regard to Chris. Kim says she’s felt like a target and Nene says she should address it and not be passive.

Phaedra joins them and Nene fills her in. Both Nene and Phaedra say they’ve been Kenya’s targets in the past. Kim says she’s not going to lower herself. Nene says she has to do something, and Phaedra says it’s not necessary to lower herself. They role play to give Kim a reading lesson. They totally make fun of Kenya, which I guess is okay with Kim who finds it hysterically funny. Oddly enough, I think she just did lower herself.

Kandi and Todd go to meet with a potential chef for their restaurant. Todd says everyone is on board with it except Aunt Bertha. The aunts and Mama Joyce have been invited to check out the tasting menu. The chef comes out with the food and says if they don’t like it, he didn’t make it. Ha-ha!

The food looks phenomenal and everyone loves it except Aunt Bertha. She’s only okay with the ribs, which she says are off the chain. Everyone is also good with the restaurant idea except Aunt Bertha. Apparently, Aunt Bertha is a real pita.

Kim says while she appreciates Nene and Phaedra’s advice, reading isn’t her style. She calls Chris and tells him about the ladies Googling his sexual preferences. Chris isn’t bothered, but he mentions that there’s plenty on Google about all of them, like mug shots. Kim says she’d rather play grown than play dirty. Um, Kim, you weren’t playing grown in that restaurant.

Peter takes the group on the river walk that he calls the Jamaican Six Flags. The place is beautiful, but right away Nene is all I can’t do it. She waits while the others go. Kenya and Matt are at the top before anyone else. Cynthia says everything isn’t a competition and it could have been a bonding experience. Nene says she doesn’t like how Kenya is isolating herself. At least she did the activity and didn’t sit it out on the side.

Afterward, the group goes to a jerk place. I don’t mean the people are jerks, appropriate though it may be for this group; I mean the way the meat is smoked. Phaedra makes a face like she smelled something bad while she’s eating. The guys start bugging Matt about the age difference between him and Kenya, which I guess is also okay.

Nene talks about the brunch with Phaedra and Kim, and says they talked about Kenya. She says Kim doesn’t understand what the problem between them is, and suggests they discuss it. Kim says she feels Kenya crossed a line and disrespected her. She wants either no conversation or cordial conversation, but no more talk about her family. Kenya congratulates her on speaking for herself. Cynthia interrupts and says that Kim wasn’t throwing shade and Kenya was disrespectful. Kenya asks not to be interrupted, since she didn’t interrupt Kim. She says she doesn’t hate Kim but she’s indifferent.

Cynthia brings up how Kenya pulled Kim’s chair during an altercation. She says things like that can make an argument turn physical and she owes Kim an apology. Kenya thanks her for her honesty. Kim says it should hae been handled a different way. Kenya apologizes for the chair thing. Kim says if there’s mutual respect, they can get along and agree to disagree.

Cynthia thinks there’s a deeper issue than Kim and Kenya, and that she and Kenya need to address some things. Nene leaves and Peter suggests they have a shot. Frankly, I think that often leads to problems with these people too.

Sheree, Nene and Cynthia go to some ice cream place where I want one of everything. Cynthia seems to think the conversation with Kenya was productive. She also says Nene has come a long way. Really? Cynthia brought a list of things she wants to go over with Kenya and goes over it with the other two. Because it’s okay to throw shade when it’s you.

It’s the last night and Cynthia says despite the problems, she thinks everyone had a good time. They gather for cocktails at a gazebo near the water. Phaedra says Peter looks good enough to bury and Porsha asks if he’s “casket sharp.” Phaedra says when you look good enough to meet Jesus, you’re looking pretty good. She means the real Jesus, not the new Walking Dead guy. Cynthia says that this is the Peter she fell in love with.

It’s dinner time and Kenya still hasn’t shown up. Peter starts talking about how great the trip was, going over everything they’ve done so we can see flashbacks. Kenya and Matt arrive. Sheree’s ex, Bob, who came on the trip is hoping to get back together with her. They all make funny comments about Kenya and Matt. Matt used the word “love” in his conversation with the guys, so that gets some attention.

They talk about the commercial and Cynthia says the only thing missing for her was Kenya. Kenya says she wasn’t given the opportunity to present her concepts and it was hurtful. We flash back to all that mess. Cynthia says even though she chose Kim to direct, she’d wanted Kenya to play opposite her as the best friend. Kenya jokes that was before Nene came back. Nene says she’s always going to be around. Interesting, since the last season we heard from her, she couldn’t stand working with any of them. I guess the big world of acting wasn’t as easy as she thought.

Peter says Kenya was her first choice. Kenya says that when she felt everyone was against her, Cynthia was the one who stood up for her. She says she was in her feelings and behaved like a jerk (this time meaning as in a person). She says she’s sorry she let Cynthia down. Cynthia says it was important to her and sometimes friends have to do what they don’t feel like doing. She accepts the apology, but I think that was an unnecessary comment.

Phaedra, being the cretin she is, says that she thinks it’s just more bad acting form Kenya. I like this woman less and less every episode.

They have a final toast.

Next week, the ladies have a lingerie photo shoot, Matt wants a wife, and Phaedra’s kids visit their dad in prison.

The Real Housewives of Potomac

Is the season over yet?

I notice Ashley’s voice goes up a notch when she gets excited. This isn’t a good look when doing business.

Karen and her daughter, Raven, are taking a self-defense class. Karen wants her daughter to learn to defend herself since she’s going off to college. About a year prior, Karen was mugged and had her diamond necklace stolen. She says she kept her ring though, since she took it off and slid it into “Never Never Land.” I don’t even want to think about what that means, but I am wondering how she accomplished that during the mugging.

Karen says the job of a parent is never done, so she also bought Raven a hot pink stun gun.

Ashley and Michael are opening a restaurant geared toward Australian fare. She’s looking for an assistant and conducting interviews. When they get to asking the candidates about their knowledge of Australia, it’s pretty much a blank slate across the board. After the interviews, Ashley and Michael discuss the interviewees and they both are leaning toward Jasmine.

Robyn comes to visit Charrisse. Since Charrisse gets “NBA life” (whatever that means), Robyn says she shares a bond with her that she doesn’t with the others. They have some food and wine. Robyn tells Charrisse that her ex-husband might have to take out-of-state work. Charrisse asks if she’s still in love with him. Even though she lives with him, they share a bed and have sex, Robyn says they’re not in a relationship. Okay. Robyn says she thinks she’s going to stay in Potomac if he goes, but if she misses him, that might change.

Charrisse says she’s on the fence about her marriage. She says her husband is a great father, but a lousy husband. She’s feeling she’s at the point where something drastic has to happen. She basically blew him off in a text to which he never responded. She says wants a divorce, and Robyn tells her if he won’t do it, she’ll have to.

Gizelle is having a girls’ night with Karen, who’s hoping to gossip with her instead of about her. Is this the level of etiquette she’s so proud of? They talk about how Ashley had a cash bar at her birthday party, which I have to admit is a bit crass. Gizelle said she walked out without paying because she didn’t know. I’ll have to remember that one for next time. Karen says she wants to school Ashley in how to entertain.

Karen is having a couples dinner. She says it’s BYOM — Bring Your Own Man. Gizelle wonders about the ladies whose husbands work away from home. They discuss Katie making out like crazy with her boyfriend at the birthday party and seem to think she’s “on something.” They sound like my grandmother or Archie Bunker. A storm starts outside and thunder happens every time they try to talk shade. I think God is trying to tell them something.

Ashley’s mom and brother come over. They play a game of pool and she tells them about the other Potomac ladies. Ashley’s mom was a single mother and they’re very close. She recently had to file bankruptcy and I wonder why Ashley didn’t help her out. Oh, okay, it seems like her mother doesn’t want her helping out.

Katie is waiting for Karen at a restaurant and talking to her boyfriend on the phone. She’s nervous because she wants to get her on the host committee for her foundation.

Karen arrives. Karen says something about the PDA at Ashley’s event and Katie apologizes. She asks what Karen thought about the cat theme and Karen says she’s a little old for all that nonsense, and calls it a teeny-bopper party. Karen approaches her about the Rost Foundation. She says she has a month to get a casino night together and needs Karen’s help. She’s looking for donations in the amount of 100K, and asks Karen if she’ll be on the committee, but Karen says she’s booked. And she won’t give up her Rolodex either. Do people still use those? Probably only people who use phrases like teeny-bopper.

Gizelle meets her date, Herman. She’s getting back into the dating pool, and I’m thinking she can do better than this. It’s her second date and I guess his credentials are impressive. They make a toast with water and he gets a little forward. The raw oysters come and Herman made the mistake of thinking they were fried. Although I like them now, I made this same mistake in a restaurant when I was 12. I was totally grossed out once I put the oyster in my mouth. I didn’t want to swallow it, but I didn’t want to spit it out in a restaurant full of people, so I just sat there with it in my mouth until I couldn’t deal anymore and chugged it down.

Gizelle thinks Herman needs a little more pizzazz. I could have told her that. She invites him to the couple’s dinner. He starts talking about it being a third date, but she says it doesn’t count. On top of it he makes the horrible mistake of calling the oysters “clams.” I’m not saying it’s horrible — I do it all the time — but Gizelle seems put off by it.

Katie and Andrew meet Ashley and her husband for a round of golf. Katie says she doesn’t really like the game, but she likes the outfits and driving the cart. Ashley hits the dirt the first time out, but manages to hit the ball on the second try.

The girls have a drink while the guys continue on with the game. Katie tells Ashley about Karen not being able to be on the committee. She tells Ashley that Karen thought the birthday party was for a younger crowd and Ashley says that was kind of ageist. Katie says she likes hanging out with Ashley rather than the old biddies, who aren’t really that old, but act like it.

Karen had matriarchs of the community to help her when she first was getting the hang of big society, and she feels responsible to help Ashley the same way.

Robyn is playing a game of basketball with her ex, Juan, and their kids. She says they’re technically not a couple (seriously, I’d like to know just what they are), so she doesn’t think she wants to bring him to the dinner because they have enough pressure.

Ashley and Michael arrive first for the dinner, then Gizelle with Herman. The rest trickle in. They’re on a docked yacht. Say that three times real fast.

Karen’s husband Ray makes a toast. Michael suggests they go swimming and Ray is all for it, but Karen puts the kibosh on that idea. There’s a lot of cocktail chatter, none of it interesting. Katie tells Gizelle about Karen calling her out about the PDA. Gizelle says it really wasn’t cool, and Katie says she’s sorry and that she’d had too much to drink. I’d be drinking a lot too, if I was around these people. Gizelle says she’ll help with the casino night.

Michael wants to go swimming, and begins to take his shoes and pants off, and Gizelle discourages it. Karen is all like, “we” don’t do this. Is that the royal “we” or is she pregnant? She says she loves what he’s trying to do, but not here. Ashley invites all the ladies to their beach house for a girls’ weekend.

Next week, Gizelle doesn’t have a bed at the beach house, Katie is called out again because no one can drop it, the ladies turn it out at a gay club, and Karen is done with Ashley.

Nov30

November 29, 2015 — The Dead Walk, the Wives Squawk & Dark Clouds Stalk

Posted on by
Standard

What I Watched Today

(random, rambling thoughts on today’s TV)

 

The Walking Dead

Ok, it’s creepy already. We’re going down a hallway while Tiny Tim’s Tiptoe Through the Tulips plays in the background. Jessie’s son, Sam, is drawing weird pictures in crayon. A bunch of ants crawl down the frame of his window to the plate of uneaten food next to the bed. WTF?

Moving on. Last week, the church tower fell, opening the walls of Alexandria to the zombie horde. This is not good news. The zombies are getting pretty gross too. Rick gets it together quickly and tells everyone to get inside.  Very intense stuff.  Deanna comes out shooting, but she’s a bad shot so not much help.

This really sucks. Even Carol is falling all over the place, she’s so startled. Rick drags Deanna’s ass inside. Maggie is having a tough time of it, but manages to climb a ladder. Since she’s climbing for two, she’s pretty motivated. The ladder falls out from under her, but she pulls herself up there. Geez, I’m tired now.

The green balloons are still floating in the sky. Eugene is somehow remaining unobtrusive, but is still outside, and Tara and the girl whose name I don’t know, save him. I’m sure someone must have gotten eaten here, but all the main characters get to safety, such as it is, while the zombie horde roams the streets of Alexandria.

Commercial break. Dammit! Why does Krampus have to be PG-13? It looks so good, but I can’t deal with a room full of kids and their cell phones.

From a distance, Glenn and Enid can see what’s going on at Alexandria. Glenn says people are still alive, but Enid says this is how it happens and it always happens. Glenn says they’re still alive and why lose people before they’re even gone? Very good point.

Jessie’s son is acting very freaky. Jessie comes busting in with Rick and a bunch of people and this kid is on his last nerve. Jessie tells him to pretend like it’s all good, but he’s petrified and not functioning. He needs to turn off that music.

Carol and Morgan are stuck together. Carol says she doesn’t trust him, but she doesn’t think he’s a liar either. She asks how it is outside and he says they’re still in the streets. Did they think the zombies would be gone by now? Carol is hurt and Morgan tells her she needs to sit down before she falls down.

Somehow Denise got stuck with the Wolf that Morgan captured. He’s like, it’s cool to talk, and she says she should be out helping people. She says he’s killed people, and he says they were freed. Denise says Morgan doesn’t want to let him go until he knows he won’t kill again. The Wolf says he has an infection from cutting himself on a rusty bumper. Denise takes a look at it and tells him he can change. Let’s hope that wound is what he’s saying it is and he doesn’t change into a zombie. He looks at Denise like he has a crush on her. Or maybe he wants to eat her. I’ve looked at cakes that way.

Michonne is checking out Deanna’s would. Are those teeth marks?

Yep, I guess so. Rick says she doesn’t have much time. He says he’s going to try and get a vehicle and get the zombies out of there.

Michonne tries to distract Deanna by discussing the plans she gave them for the new Alexandria. Deanna says that she got to do what she wanted up until the end and asks Michonne what she wants for herself. Michonne says she doesn’t know and Deanna says she’d better. She probably knows she doesn’t want to turn into a zombie.

Ron whines to Carl that they’re all dead and tells him his dad’s a killer. Carl says so is his, and that gives Ron pause for thought. Ron locks the door and attacks Carl. Then he busts open a window like a freakin’ jerk. The zombies are all focused on getting in now. Idiot! They should throw Ron out there with them.

Now everyone has to run like crazy to get away and they can barely hold the door shut with a couch. Rick asks Carl what the blip happened. This probably isn’t the time to have some big discussion. Ron goes upstairs and Carol follows. Carl draws his gun and tells Ron to give him his gun. Carl takes the gun from him. Carl says he gets that his dad killed Ron’s dad, but Ron needs to get that his dad was an a-hole. His word, although I concur.

Commercial break. Episode of Fear 462. The first passenger turns into a zombie.

Great. Baby Judith is crying and attracting zombies. Uh-oh. Deanna is gone. Rick opens the door and finds her over the crib and almost chops her in the head with an ax, but she’s like, hold on there, I’m still alive. Rick says from now on someone needs to be with her. And it can’t be Judith. Oh wow. Rick made a funny. She gives him something from Spencer to Maggie and Rick says he’ll make sure she gets it. Deanna tells him she didn’t run out to help him because she liked him, or a bunch of other reasons, but because he’s one of them. They are all his people.

Girl whose name I don’t know asks Tara if she thinks it’s curtains for Alexandria. Tara says no. For some reason Girlfriend says she thinks Abraham is dead. Tara is like, is not. Girlfriend wants to spread out from the area of the building they’re in, and Eugene says lock picking is within his skill set.

Morgan asks Carol if she’s all right and she says she’s just resting her eyes. That’s what my dad used to say when he was falling asleep in the recliner. Morgan is looking around and doesn’t see Carol. She pops out and grabs some keys from him and takes off. What?

Rick and company are having a hell of a time and the zombies have gotten totally into the house. Damn! They block the staircase with the couch.

Denise is tending to the Wolf’s wound and Carol comes in with a knife saying get away from him. Denise says he’s tied up, but she moves. I would too if Carol had a knife in my face. Morgan is right behind her with his stick. WTF, Carol?

Rick and Michonne pick off a couple of zombies and drag them upstairs. The plan is to gut the zombies, put the guts on bed sheets, and get to the armory. Rick says anyone who stays will die. Will someone please turn that record off?

Morgan says they can be better than the Wolfs; they don’t have to kill. Carol says she doesn’t want to have to kill Morgan too. I have a bad feeling about this, Beavis.

Deanna asks Michonne what’s going on. She’s not looking too good. She says it’s her life from start to finish. She has a gun and says she’s not ready yet, but she will be. She tells Michonne to go. Michonne thanks her for believing in them. Deanna tells her to figure out what she wants. Probably surviving is at the top of the list.

DAMMIT! TURN THAT RECORD OFF! Jessie tells Sam that he has to pretend to be brave and they have to go.

Carol says she’s going to kill Morgan to kill the Wolf because she doesn’t want anyone else to die. This makes perfect sense, said no one ever.The Wolf says they should kill him, but they’re all going to die anyway. Morgan knocks the knife (scissors, whatever it is) out of her hand with the stick, and they tussle. Carol gets knocked out and the Wolf gets free and grabs the knife.

Rick and company put the gut covered sheets on. Stupid Father Gabriel claims that he won’t turn back no matter what happens. We’ll see.

Denise begs the Wolf not to kill them. She says he claimed they were dead anyway. He frees himself, and comes after her with the knife and she tells him he’s full of sh*t. Eugene, Tara and Girlfriend come in, but the Wolf puts the knife to Denise’s throat, so they lower their weapons.  He takes one of the guns and walks past them, holding the gun to Denise’s head. Why he wants to leave is beyond me.

Rick and the others are ready to leave the house. Hopefully, it doesn’t rain this time. This looks so disgusting, I can almost smell it. The crowd of zombies in the house reminds me of some NYC parties I’ve been to. Glenn and Enid see them come out of the house from a tree.

Deanna is about to shoot herself, but shoots a few zombies first. You go, girl!

I can understand not moving fast, but this group should probably get off the porch. That stupid freaking kid! He starts going, “Mom…mom…mom…” Shut the blip up!

Next week, Daryl and company can’t catch a break.

Oh, and thanks for the earworm, Walking Dead.

The Real Housewives of Atlanta

Kenya “stops by” Sheree’s house. It does look like kind of a mess, but really just a work in progress. Kenya says it’s at least 15 to 20,000 square feet. Yep, it’s big. Kenya talks about how she had her entire house gutted and it sounds like a headache. Kenya invites Sheree to a party on a yacht. She wants to give Cynthia a good time since she got stuck with that cretin, Peter, as a partner in life.

Phaedra is out shopping with Porsha, who’s looking for some cute, trashy close for Facetime with her boyfriend.

Peter is in Charlotte (good, stay there) and Cynthia invites Kandi over. Kandi tells her that she has some pregnancy issues, but she feels she’s taking it easy enough. She talks about the restaurant she and Todd want to open. Cynthia makes excuses for Peter like she usually does, but she also admits their relationship isn’t working. Please, get rid of him already.

Kim is talking to Phaedra about an event she went to with “too much boobage” and Phaedra says that she might be in with the wrong crowd here. She says she doesn’t really have a huge social life, it mostly revolves around her husband and kids.  She tears up, realizing she’s lost herself somewhere in there.

Porsha dresses up like a porn star for her chat with her boyfriend. She keeps checking herself in the mirror while eons go by and she can’t get ahold of him. An hour goes by. She calls Phaedra to complain about having to wait on Duke. Phaedra says the thrill is gone and it’s run its course. Geez, it didn’t take much.

Kenya picks up Cynthia and her friend, Tammy. Kandi picks up Kim in what looks like an airport limousine. She says she needs a lot of room because of the pregnancy. Kim says she admires Kandi’s entrepreneurship. They talk about sex toys, as Kandi has a line of them. Kim says this is very different from her normal carpool experience.

Oh this should be good. Tammy’s best friend is Sheree’s ex-husband. She let’s fly that Sheree was a gold digger.

Kandi picks up Porsha and some friend of hers that we don’t get introduced to. Kim expresses concern that Kenya will bedriving the boat, but they have a legitimate captain. And some hunky bartenders. Kenya greets the rest of the guests, indicating that she didn’t invite Shemia, who is the tagalong friend. She was also at Kenya’s launch party. Kenya has to explain to Porsha that not all parties include a plus one.

Tammy acts all fangirl with Kandi having been in Xscape.  Kenya makes an announcement that the party is all about Cynthia. Sheree comes on board and they shove off.

Tammy talks to Kandi about her son’s rap song and says she wants to get him in the studio with Kandi. Tammy says Sheree’s ex is producing him. Kandi is evasive and rightly so. This is no place to be bugging her about work stuff and Kandi says in her individual interview that she doesn’t want to hear about anything without a budget. Tammy says her husband is “Nazi white.” What is this girl on?

Kim pulls out a book, which is probably what I would do, and Kenya throws it overboard. Everyone is drinking heavily, except for Kandi and Kim. Now they’re going to get in the water. Brilliant. They’re wearing life jackets, but still.

Kenya says thanks to everybody for being supportive at her event despite the heat. She says the only one who threw shade was Shemia, and next thing we know, Kenya is looking to have this uninvited guest escorted off the boat. Portia uses the term “bitch” in reference to Cynthia and even though they’ve been using this word toward each other all day, Cynthia isn’t liking it. In her individual interview.  Porsha says she didn’t mean it in an insulting way and suggests that the last shot must have turned her into Peter.

Kenya has to explain that Porsha should just apologize and let it go. Porsha goes to find Cynthia, who has gone to the other side of the boat with Kim. Cynthia claims that Porsha was being disrespectful. Porsha says she’s sorry, but she doesn’t feel like she did anything wrong, which isn’t exactly an apology. They get into a finger-in-your-face shouting match that ends (at least for tonight) with Porsha jumping up and onto Cynthia. I flashback to when she did the same thing to Kenya on the reunion. This girl has no self-control. They tend to throw the term “ghetto” around too, but I think this is actually it.

Next week – the fight continues and Porsha ends up flailing about on the floor again.

Once Upon A Time

I’m putting this show last, even though I watched it first. I thought if somebody new reads this and it’s the first thing they read, they’ll think I’m high or something. It’s not me, it’s the show. I’m sure my writing is as hard to follow as it is for me to follow the program. If this was the 80s, I’d swear the writers are on crack.

Hook throws the dreamcatcher in Dark Emma’s face and those black stringy things go all over, roping him in. He remembers coming to the dark side and emerges out of the forest sewer cap in the hoodie required to be in the dark one club. Rumpel is waiting for him.

Rumpel says he can get his revenge for him.  And then he’ll be capable of doing what he’s always wanted to do – killing Rumpel.

Regina tells Dark Emma thanks a lot for turning Hook dark. Snow tells Dark Emma to give back their memories. David says the dreamcatchers are gone.

Hook goes to Mr. Gold’s shop and says he wants to savor killing him. He reminds Gold/Rumpel of how he came to be dark in the first place. Hook says all Rumpel has to do is get Excalibur from him and asks if they should finish what they started.

Rumpel says they have to find out more about the first dark one to stop Hook. Dark Emma says she can help, but she needs the cuff that’s holding her back to be taken off. She pleads with Henry to believe she’ll behave herself, but Henry is like, oh no, you’ve lied one too many times and you just want your dark magic back so you can be bad all over the place. Emma is bummed because they don’t trust her, but what did she expect? Trust has to be earned, dark one.

Everyone goes to the forest sewer cap, but it’s shut and they can’t get down there.  Snow thinks Lancelot’s mother, the Lady of the Lake, can help. Lancelot leaves to find her. Hook asks why dark ones must dress like monks. Ha-ha! Rumpel finds him wandering about the forest whining about how he’s stuck in Camelot. Dark Emma joins the both of them. She says she wants a future with Hook, and he has to want it too. He says he does and Rumpel disappears. Emma says they can get rid of the darkness in themselves by bonding with their loved ones, and I’d swear it was Iowa from all the corn.

Mr. Gold tells Belle that if he survives the duel with Hook, he’s going to be the man she wants him to be. He’s run from battles his whole life and isn’t running from this one.

Zelena tries to come into the hospital to get her baby, but her daughter is gone. Regina says they needed to protect the child from her. Regina says the only reason she has the baby is because she killed Marion and deceived Robin.

Merida is guarding Dark Storybrooke Emma. Hook startles her and she almost shoots him. Dark Emma says the reason Hook is there is because he still has feelings for her. Hook says he’s free now, and no one can stop him. Dark Emma says the darkness is just using him; it doesn’t care about what he wants. He says she’s so afraid of losing the people she loves, she pushes them away. He says she doesn’t need the darkness, she does fine on her own. He says he wants to hurt her like she hurt him. Even when you’re a dark one, you can’t escape middle school.

In Camelot, however, Dark Emma and Hook are making out in the woods. Hook goes to get water (can’t he just conjure some up?) and he gets a headache. Rumpel appears and says it’s the sound of the dagger. He says Dark Emma must have it and she’s lying to him. Dark Emma comes looking for Hook and he asks if she knows where Excalibur is. She says something unrelated like, “How about them Mets?” to deflect the question. He asks if she used its magic on him. He’s pretty pissed that she turned him dark. He says he stopped Regina from using it on her because she should make her own decisions and she should have let him make his. Then he’s gone, poof! in a puff of red smoke. Burgundy really.

Rumpel is in the shop practicing with the sword and gets interrupted by Dark Emma. She wants Hook to last long enough in the duel for her to steal back the dreamcatchers and suggests he use magic. Rumpel says he wants to win with honor. She’s like, good luck with that.

Regina brings Zelina to her house where Robin and the baby are, reminding Zelena that she has her powers back too. Zelena says,  “Once you go green, you never go queen,” referring to her tryst with Robin. Regina says she’s spent years doing terrible things beyond Zelena’s imagination, but having a child changed things. She hopes that kind of love does the Jessiee for Zelena. Robin says although he and Zelena can never be a family, she can have supervised visits with the baby. Does this baby have a name yet?

Belle, David, Henry & Snow are at the library doing research. How come they’re not using a computer? Dark Emma ambushes Henry. She asks for help with the dreamcatchers and Henry agrees.

Dark Emma searches for Hook with no luck. She summons him with Excalibur. He says it wasn’t cool for her to make him feel out of control. She says she called him because she does believe he should control his own fate. She gives him Excalibur and says let’s do this together. She says she loves him. He returns the sentiment and they make out in a field of flowers.

Mr. Gold shows up at Hook’s ship. Hook says it has to be a fair fight (that’s good of him) and heals Rumpel’s leg. They duel with swords.

Commercial break. Galavan is coming back! I liked that show & I also forgot about it. It was so weird, I didn’t think it would come back. Certainly not after all this time.

Hook and Dark Emma hook (ha-ha!) back up with the others. Merlin is staring into a bubbling caldron. Hook walks in on him and steals his heart. Rumpel says be careful, it’s pretty old. Nimue also pops in. (Every time I hear her name, that song The Lion Sleeps Tonight plays in my head.) She says she’s always loved Merlin. Hook says she lives in all dark ones, so when he crushes Merlin’s heart, so will she.

Hook and Rumpel continue to fight. Rumpel loses his sword and Hook has him at a disadvantage.

Henry, who has brought stuff to make a new dreamcatcher, takes the cuff off of Dark Emma.

Dark Emma finds Hook with Merlin’s heart. She’s pretty pissed because he tricked her. She asks Nimue what she wants and she says Dark Emma wants it too. Dark Emma gets the feels and tells Hook revenge isn’t his happy ending and if he destroys Merlin’s heart, he’ll destroy his happy ending. He says the happy ending died when she turned him into a dark one and he crushes Merlin’s heart.  Whoa. That’s cold.

Hook prattles on and magic forest Rumpel pops in asking what’s the delay. When Hook looks at him, Mr. Gold/Rumpel turns the tables. I don’t think he kills him though. Belle meets Rumpel in the woods, but they don’t make out. She tells him he’s broken her heart too many times. He says, but wait a minute, I won the battle, my heart is pure now, so let’s make out. Belle basically says she has to go find herself and needs to protect her heart. There you go. After all that.

Dark Emma makes Merlin’s body go poof! in a cloud of grey smoke. She tells Hook she’ll never abandon him, not even now, makes a hand gesture (not that one) and he keels over. She brings out a dreamcatcher. She makes everyone go to sleep. She uses the dreamcatcher to erase the memories of her turning Hook dark.

Rumpel tells her no good is going to come of this. Lots and lots and lots of blue smoke envelops everything.

All of a sudden, Excalibur is back at Camelot and Arthur’s eyes bug out of his head. From the tower window, Arthur and Guinevere see the humongous cloud of smoke coming their way too. Arthur tells Guinevere that it’s dark magic coming.

Everyone gets dreamcatchers like they’re party favors. Emma says she remembers and she knows what they’re doing, meaning Hook and Rumpel.

Hook and Rumpel are at some creepy pond. Hook dips his hook into the pond. A ghost ship appears! Well, more like a gondola. There are a bunch of hooded dudes in it and one comes across the pond, walking on the water. It’s Nimue and she says she’s hear to do what dark ones do best, snuff out the light. Hook says welcome to Storybrooke. And I thought those snuffers all lived in my town.

The winter finale – whatever that is – an excuse to take a break – is next week.

Nov16

November 15, 2015 — Once Upon the Dead in Atlanta

Posted on by
Standard

What I Watched Today

(random, rambling thoughts on today’s TV)

Once Upon A Time

I’m really thrilled that they decided to make this 2 hours tonight, since it totally screws up my TV watching schedule.

David asks Arthur why he tried to burn the crimson crown mushroom. He wants to know who Nimue is and when he asks, Arthur table flips like he was on Real Housewives and runs.  Hook goes after him and ends up getting tripped up, but before Arthur can run a sword through him, Dark Emma stops him with Excalibur. Hook tells her that she’s not entirely dark, and the part that saved him was the real Emma. He asks why she needs Excalibur. She says she’s doing it for him and disappears poof! in a cloud of dark smoke.

Outside Camelot (3 weeks earlier), Emma and Henry meet at the diner, and wonder where Merlin is. Everyone but Emma is freeze framed and Merlin appears. Arthur has Regina, Snow, Hook and David tied to trees. Arthur wants Excalibur and the flame to forge it back together, in exchange for her family’s lives. Merlin tells her not to seek vengeance or they’ll never be able to put everything back together.

Hook wants to know why Arthur destroyed Merlin’s message (i.e. the mushroom). David tells him to lay off, but Hook says they need it to save Emma from her dark self. Regina says there might not be a real Emma anymore. Hook wants to find out how all this happened in the first place.

Rumpel is busy staring at a snow globe. Belle and Hook come to the shop. Hook wants to know what’s going on in Emma’s head, since she says she’s doing it for him, but he’s not buying it. Rumpel says he told himself the same thing about doing things for his son, but he was kidding himself and that road goes nowhere.

Emma is staring at the spark. Rumpel says he wouldn’t try to ignite it, as it will cause more harm than good. Rumpel disappears and Henry shows up. Emma says she needs to use the darkness one last time and then she’ll use Excalibur to rid herself of it.

She goes to where her family is being held hostage, and she says she’ll give Arthur the dagger and the spark if he lets her family go. Arthur says he’ll unleash Merlin. Merlin says he doesn’t want to fight her, but Zelena says she will.

Parallel Zelena, still in the hospital, goes into labor. She says dark magic caused it.

Hook looks for Dark Emma, and decides to jump off a roof so she’ll save him. She does and he says he wants to know what happened in Camelot. She says it’s complicated and he tells her that every ring he wears has a sad story of someone he killed. She produces a ring he thought he lost and he says that’s the saddest story of all. He tells her he loves her and she asks if he really wants to know what happened. He does and she says she has something to show him. They go to the house they were going to move in to.

Dark Emma says the truth is tricky and you have to look for it. Hook looks through a telescope at the ocean. She says she knows it calms him and everything she’s done is to keep their future alive. She says if he knew what she was doing, he would stop her. She hugs him and he goes unconscious.

Parallel Zelena is about to deliver.

Zelena asks who she should destroy first, and Emma says she can have thespark. Crazy snakes jump out and hold Zelena back. Merlin tells Emma this is a battle she can’t win and they throw lightning bolts at each other. Arthur tells Merlin to kill Snow. A tree branch starts to strangle her, but Merlin fights the darkness, despite Arthur’s protests.

In the meantime, Hook has broken free, and Arthur runs like the big baby he is, telling Zelena to get them out of there. They both disappear poof! in a puff of green smoke.

Now Emma has the sword, the dagger and the spark. They all reconvene at the diner. Emma takes the spark outside to meditate on it. Regina asks her if she needs a light. Ha-ha! Emma says that Rumpel told her she’s not ready to get rid of the darkness. Regina says if she’s clinging to the darkness, there must be a good reason. She takes the dagger and commands her to say why she wants to hang on to the darkness. Emma says to protect her family, but Regina says there’s more to it than that. Hook comes out and takes the dagger away before she can get to the truth.

Zelena has a baby girl. Everyone moons over the new baby and Dark Emma shows up. They’re afraid she wants to take the baby, but she says that’s not the baby she’s after.

Hook wakes up in chains. He sees Zelena with him and she says Dark Emma sped up her pregnancy and separated her from her baby. Dark Emma appears and tells Hook that he would have stopped her. The darkness needs a vessel and she wants Zelena’s baby for that. He keeps asking her what really happened that she’s not saying.

Hook finds Emma staring at the spark. She says she knows why she doesn’t want to let go of the darkness. She says she can only admit her true feelings if she thinks she’s going to lose someone. She says the minute the darkness is gone, their future begins and she’s afraid of that. They kiss and the spark ignites. That’s not a euphemism. The spark really ignites.

Regina says she’s going to hunt down Dark Emma and show her what dark magic is really like. Sounds like a plan. Regina says the reason she has the dagger is that she’s the only one who can do what needs to be done.

Hook says his hook has magic left over and he releases Zelena. Poof! she changes her outfit into something more stylish. That’s definitely what I’d do first.

Dark Emma says she doesn’t need saving and that Regina will be better off without Zelena. Regina is like, knock it off, and Dark Emma freeze frames everyone.

Zelena and Hook go to the house. Zelena tells him good luck with the Emma thing and leaves. Hook rifles through some drawers and then takes a painting off the wall. Dark Emma enters and he zaps her into dropping the sword and freezes her feet. Zelena comes back and stabs Hook. WTF? She’s brought the dreamcatcher and wants to return the memories Dark Emma stole.

Back at the diner, Merlin says it’s time to destroy the darkness once and for all. Emma brings out the flame and they put Excalibur back together. Almost. Hook falls down bleeding. Emma says he’d had a small cut from Excalibur but it was just a scratch. Apparently not. Merlin says there’s nothing they can do, but Emma doesn’t believe it, and spirits Hook away to a field of flowers. He says she has to let him go. He says he doesn’t think he can fight the darkness another time. He expires and I’m annoyed because I really liked him.

All kinds of weird black thingies come out of Merlin and then out of the still broken Excalibur. They also come out of the sewer cap to the underworld and form a hooded figure. It’s Hook.

Emma says that the only way to destroy the darkness was to kill Zelena. Hook is pissed off and Zelena asks if he’s ready to be all dark. He says first they need to take care of Dark Emma, who I’m not sure is dark or not at this point.

Arthur pops back into Camelot and Zelena is waiting in a cool, sparkly witch’s outfit. He says there’s something that can help them in another land, DunBroch, which just happens to be where Merida is.

Merida is at her father’s grave and says she’s finally proved to the clans that she’s fit to be their queen, but the hard part comes in ruling over them. Her mother approaches and says she misses him too, but it’s time for the coronation.

Earlier in DunBroch, King Fergus is in a witch’s cabin. He says he needs some magic to lead the clans in victory over the invaders. As Rumpel has told us repeatedly, magic always comes with a price. The witch says she doesn’t need anything right now but she’ll take an IOU. And we know how that always turns out.

She does that whole eye of newt thing, her cauldron bubbles, and a helmet emerges. She says if he wears the helmet into battle, he’ll get exactly what he wants. That’s a little vague, which usually causes a problem later too.

At Merida’s coronation, before the crown can be put on her head, the witch shows up with the IOU. What did I just say? She says that the king died before he could pay her and she wants either lots of gold or the helmet back. Merida says she doesn’t have either and the witch says if she doesn’t find it by tomorrow, she’s turning everyone into bears. What’s up with that bear thing?

Merida says whoever killed her father has the helmet.

Earlier in DunBroch. Merida is on the battlefield with her father. King Fergus gives her his first bow to carry into battle. He’s also hired a soldier to teach her the art of war. She says she doesn’t need one and then proceeds to get trounced. The soldier removes “his” helmet & it’s Mulan. She says the one thing you need is honor.

Fast forwarding. Merida hunts down Mulan who has just knocked off a couple of good-for-nothings. Merida says she needs her help and gives her all the gold she has, as Mulan is all mercenary now.

Cool! Arthur and Zelena are at the witch’s cabin and a wolf comes after them. Zelena zaps the wolf. The witch says that was her pet and she doesn’t have the helmet. Zelena says no one out witches her and asks where the helmet is. The witch says Merida has it.

Merida and Mulan find an arrow that Merida recognizes and says the cloth on it will lead them to whoever killed her father. Mulan wants to get moving and Merida asks what happened to her to make her so cold. She says that a warrior never lets anything hurt them, which tells us she’s been hurt.

In old DunBroch, Mulan gives Merida lessons in fighting. One of the guys makes fun of her and Merida says she can kick his ass, but Mulan tells her fear is no way to rule.

Zelena and Arthur show up in the forest and Zelena says they need the helmet. He tells her the helmet forces people to listen to you and fight despite of fear. Zelena takes Merida’s bow from her (the one her father gave her) and says she can use a locator spell to find the helmet.

Merida says that her father used dark magic to lead and she doesn’t want to do that. She rides off, leaving Mulan to ponder her own changed self.

In past DunBroch, Merida asks King Fergus how he inspires men to lead him into battle. He tells her the only way is to show them that you’re willing to die first. Of course he neglects to tell her about the helmet.

Mulan takes the cloth from the arrow to the witch’s cabin. The wolf backs her out the door. Mulan says she’s not really a wolf and needs help remember who she is. A cauldron gets knocked over and the wolf turns into a woman. She introduces herself as Ruby, but her friends call her Red. Red explains that she knows of Mulan from her friends in other realms. Mulan asks how she ended up at the witch’s cabin.

In past Storybrooke, Snow has just given birth to Prince Neil and gives a big announcement at the diner. Red is outside the door and Snow asks what’s wrong. Red wants to go back to the enchanted forest. Snow says she’s gotta do what she’s gotta do.

Mulan asks if she found what she was looking for, but Red says she couldn’t find her people. She went to the witch for help and got turned into a wolf. Mulan says she was hoping the witch would help her hunt down who killed King Fergus. Red says she doesn’t need magic for that.

Mulan goes back to Merida and says Red can sniff out the culprit.

Back in old DunBroch, as Mulan is giving Merida lessons, Merida hears the invaders in the distance. She realizes the lessons were just a ruse to get her away from the fighting. King Fergus has his lucky helmet on and jazzes the soldiers up to fight. There’s a big battle with lots of sword fighting. Merida watches from a distance. A knight comes up behind her father and Merida draws her bow. She misses the knight and her father gets killed. The knight steals the helmet. Mulan keeps Merida from going down to the field. The knight turns out to be Arthur.

Zelena finds the helmet in a lake, but before Arthur can take it, Merida and Mulan show up. Merida wants to kill Arthur, but Mulan says it’s not about revenge; it’s about saving her people. Merida asks why Arthur didn’t have the helmet, and Arthur says the helmet he took wasn’t the magic one. Merida realizes that King Fergus threw the helmet into the lake before the battle and had led his people without magic.

Merida fights with Arthur. Mulan tells Zelena to stay out of it. Since she won’t, Red doses her with some sleeping powder. Arthur tells Merida if she reaches for the helmet, he’ll kill her like he did her father. The clan guys show up, and Zelena and Arthur (who seems to be best at running from his problems) disappear, poof! in a puff of green smoke. Merida asks if the clan dudes still want her to be queen. The head clan dude says they’ve seen her bravery and if she’s not fit to be the leader, no one is.

Merida is crowned queen and the witch shows up. The witch says if she doesn’t hand over the helmet, she’ll be leading a bunch of bears. She says she’ll destroy the helmet before handing it over. The witch says it was just a test. Her father had asked for magic to lead the clans, and she gave it to him. I think this is one of those “it was really inside you all the time” lessons.The witch gives her some magic to summon a dead spirit so she can again speak to her father.

Merida thanks Red and Mulan. Mulan gives her back the gold, and says she was just trying to get over a broken heart. She wanted to tell someone how she felt about them, and when she did, it was too late. Red says she ate the only boyfriend she ever had, but she still might be able to help. Merida says good-by to them.

Merida summons the spirit of her father. She apologizes for losing faith in him and he says he lost faith in himself and that’s why he sought magic. He says she was the one who changed his mind when she asked what it took to lead men into battle. They hug and I get teary eyed because it’s a sweet father/daughter moment and I miss my dad.

King Fergus disappears, and Merida says, “Arthur, you have no idea what’s coming to you.”

The next episode is 2 weeks from now. Good, because this episode was a rough one.

The Real Housewives of Atlanta

Cynthia questions why Peter couldn’t be bothered to support her when she made her entrance to her sunglasses event. True to form, he walks away since he was called on his BS.

Tootie is here! Kenya comes to her studio. She also directs now and Kenya gives her props on her career moves. She tells Kim about her Life Twirls On pilot and asks her to take a look at it and maybe come on as a director. Kim is a little hesitant. Kenya asks why she never sees Kim out and about. She says she’s more focused on family. Kenya gives Kim the DVD of her pilot.

Cynthia confers via SKYPE with her business partner, Tiffany. They decide to do a launch party in Miami. Peter left for Charlotte (where his side honey is) before Cynthia got home. She tells Tiffany about the issues she’s having with Peter. She says it’s exhausting pretending everything is okay in public. She says she consumes herself with work and when she thinks about the personal stuff, it’s overwhelming. Tiffany tells her she has to deal with it.

Porsha (who spells her name wrong, so I’ve been spelling it wrong) thinks she’s going to build a brand that rivals several Jessicas (Simpson, Biel, Alba, all of them). She wants to throw a “sip and see” for her new boyfriend. What?  Is she dating an infant?

Phaedra goes to a tea shop and meets Cynthia there. While they’d had an altercation last season, Phaedra says she’s going to let bygones be bygones because that’s what I good Christian woman does. I’m eating dinner late and I choke on my spaghetti. Phaedra asks what’s up with Peter and Cynthia gets cagey. Phaedra says everyone attacked her when she was down about Apollo. Not down with, about. Cynthia says she’s sorry for her part in anything. In her individual interview, Phaedra says she’s committed to supporting Cynthia, but she’s not going to forget the things she said.

Sheree is showing Kandi her clothing operation. Sheree asks what’s up with Kenya. Kandi says Kenya took some getting used to, but she’s okay with Kenya now. They move on to talking about Cynthia and Peter and the sunglasses event.

Kim says she loves being a wife and mother, and queen of her castle. She says red carpet stuff was never a big deal to her and she didn’t even show up if she wasn’t in the film. She’s also launching a maternity line. She’s setting up an intro to her website. After a few thousand takes, she hears the kids upstairs and has to take a break, and then gets it down.

Todd and Kandi get together with Kandi’s employees and a plate of bacon to discuss future plans. Kandi talks about opening a restaurant. The closing of the building is close to her due date, so she says she’ll have to depend on Todd to deal with a lot of it. Then they discuss the baby shower, because rich people who can afford baby stuff always have one for every kid. Todd wants to know if Phaedra is coming because she owes him money for working on the video that never happened.

Thank God Porsha abandons the idea of a sip and see, and is having a going away party for her football playing boyfriend, doubling as an introduction party. Her sister Lauren is pregnant, and when she says she’s 13 weeks, Porsha needs to be told how many months that is because she never passed third grade.

Apparently Porsha hasn’t known this guy too long and is already married to him in her head. Everyone gathers for the party. Kandi says she and Phaedra need to deal with their issues, but in the meantime, they’re being cordial. Entrée Duke, the new boyfriend. Everything is football themed, including Porsha. If Duke Williams and 27 mean something to you, then you know who this guy is. Cynthia says Porsha should follow her heart, but take your brain with her. I guess she assumes Porsha has a brain, but so far there hasn’t been much evidence.

Oooh, there has been tabloid fodder about Duke hooking up with a transvestite prostitute. These two seem to be planning to move in together, which sounds like a terrible idea. Porsha takes a mic and starts blabbing about how great they are together and that she’s making him her trophy man and hands him an award. (“Dude looks scared,” Kandi says when Porsha starts talking. Ha-ha!)

Phaedra gets together with Kandi at her office lounge.  Kandi says they have to talk to get their friendship back to the way it was. She says that Phaedra acted all nice to her face, but it was a different story behind her back. We flash to Phaedra talking about Kandi to Nene. Phaedra says she heard from a third party that Todd and Kandi were hanging on to Apollo’s motorcycle, and the government was coming after her to seize his assets. This sounds like an excuse. Phaedra also didn’t like that Kandi said Apollo should see his kids. She says he’s in Kentucky, and it’s an expensive hassle. Kandi brings up Phaedra still owing Todd 8 grand for the video. What this sounds like is the both of them have been talking to other people when they should have been talking to one another, the balance weighing more heavily on Phaedra. Phaedra says she couldn’t help the way she felt, and Kandi says just talk to her next time. Phaedra promises to talk to Todd as well. Hugs happen.

Kandi’s assistant asks if World War IV is over. He’s not buying Phaedra’s sincerity. Me neither really.

The Walking Dead

I came in late. Daryl has been captured by a band of not so merry men. Actually a guy and two girls. They go to a fenced in area where zombies are wandering around what look like gas tanks. Daryl gets away, taking a duffel bag, and runs into the woods. He gets free of his bonds, radios Abe and Sasha, and narrowly misses getting eaten by a zombie while trying to get his crossbow out of the duffle bag.

Either the car broke down or they’re taking a break. Sasha and Abe enter a building. Abe sees a garment bag with a dress uniform in it.  Sasha is sitting in the reception area of an office, where a zombie is scratching at the locked glass doors. Why they don’t put this poor thing out of its misery, I don’t know. The last place I’d want to be a zombie is in an office. I already put in my time being a zombie there. Abe wants to name him. Sasha gives Abe a speech about being accountable for choices. It sounds like she’s telling him he hasn’t made some good ones.

Daryl doubles back with his crossbow and takes the gun from the guy who was holding him hostage. He also takes a carving the guy had in his pocket. I have no idea why. He throws the duffel bag at them, which I guess has supplies. Daryl hides behind a tree and a huge truck comes in. They demand whatever supplies the people have. They say they earned them and the truck guy says rules are rules. One of the women says the rules are crap. After the truck guys take the duffel bag, Daryl gathers up the people and they hide.

One of the truck guys comes looking for them and gets a bite to the arm from a zombie for his trouble. He kills the zombie and truck guy #2 comes along and chops off his arm. Very efficient. The truck guys leave and the guy who kidnapped Daryl asks why Daryl came back after what they did to him.

While Abe is wandering around, he sees a zombie stuck on a pole off of a bridge, flailing around. Abe opens a nearby car trunk to find weapons and cigars. Wonder what the Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms would think about that. For whatever idiotic reason, he taunts the zombie up close. It’s a military guy and I think Abe has issues with this. He lights up a cigar and watches as the zombie’s movements finally cause him to fall, leaving the RPG strapped to him behind.

Abe returns to Sasha. He says they have everything they need there. He says he likes the way she calls him on his BS and wants to get to know her better. She says he has some stuff to take care of and he agrees. Yeah, maybe they want to take care of that zombie that’s staring at them from behind the glass.

Daryl and company come across a burned down house. For whatever reason (there are a lot of unanswered questions in this one), one of the girls says it’s their fault this happened. She enters what’s left of the house and is about to put flowers the two dead bodies. Already you know what’s going to happen here. She gets bitten and the next thing you know, a grave is being dug. Daryl asks the guy Rick’s usual  questions – how many walkers have you killed and how many people have you killed? The guy says none because then there’s no going back. Daryl then invites them back to Alexandria. He wants to find his bike and then get Sasha and Abe to bring them back. Oh, man. Dude pulls a gun on him again and asks for the crossbow. No good deed goes unpunished. The couple steal his bike and throw him a knife. The woman says “Sorry,” and Daryl says, “Gonna be.” Well, if anyone can make it in the zombie infested wilderness, it’s Daryl.

Daryl almost immediately finds a fuel truck. What did I say? He picks up Sasha and Abe, who is now wearing a dress military blazer. Daryl tries to radio Rick. We hear the word “help” come through.

Nov9

November 8, 2015 – Once Upon the Dead in Atlanta

Posted on by
Standard

What I Watched Today

(random, rambling thoughts on today’s TV)

 

Once Upon A Time

Dark Emma brings the dagger to the rest of Excalibur. Rumpelstiltskin pops out, acting all merry, and puts some fairy dust or whatever on the sword.

Merlin is running through a desert with some guy and they see a chalice with water in it. The guy is like, I’ll go first because I’m thirstier than you, but when he touches it, he disappears, poof! in a cloud of smoke. Merlin is more humble in his approach and is able to quench his thirst. Everything around him turns green and he knows the chalice is the magical Holy Grail.

In Storybrooke, everyone is hanging out at the diner in Medieval wear. Merlin asks them to get the sword. He says blah-blah-blah about love and suddenly we’re back 200 years ago. A girl is there to see him. Her name is Nimue, and she’s seeking revenge on an evil being who ransacked her town. She’d seen him coming and she ran. She’s brought some seeds and says her best revenge would be to plant some flowers that grow only in her town, and for the flowers to live on. This is the stupidest revenge plot I’ve ever heard of. She plants the seeds in a container, Merlin goes bibbidy-bobbidy-boo and the flowers spring up.

Nowadays Merlin tells Emma they need some kind of spark and he wants her to help him get it. This isn’t a euphemism for anything. They really need to hunt down a literal spark. He says he sees two paths for their journey, in one she resists darkness and they’re successful; in the other, she succumbs to darkness and he dies.

There’s some mushy stuff between Emma and Hook, but I miss most of it because I was out of the room. I guess Nimue stuck around because Merlin is telling her all about how he found the Holy Grail. Any mention of holy and grail in the same sentence always makes me think of Monty Python, and ever since the Camelotites landed, I’ve been waiting for the Knights Who Say Ni to show up. Merlin wants to refashion the grail into a sword. Nimue is impressed that he doesn’t want to use the grail for his own gain, so Merlin makes a ring out of a leaf for her. Okay, all this magic and a Holy Grail and everything, and he gives her a ring made out of a leaf? Cheapskate.

Back in the diner, Zelena offers a trade. She knows how to get to the sword if she can have her magic back. She leads them to a crypt. Or it could be a fancy root cellar. Regina says if they get in and out with the sword, they’ll talk about the magic thing.

Arthur is stirring a cauldron and acting like a paranoid weirdo. He pours something from the cauldron over a helmet and it dissolves. He tells his lackeys to go pour it over everyone. Nice. If I were Gwinivere, I’d be looking for the nearest exit.

Merlin asks Emma if she’s embraced her powers and she says she’s done some dark things lately. But she figures if she’s questioning it, she must still have a conscience.

Merlin and Nimue go back to where her village was. He thinks she has survivor’s remorse, but she says she’s just angry. She says if she had his magic, she’d be all over the place doling out vigilante justice. Whoa. What happened to planting the flowers being enough? Merlin sees someone bad headed for his village and Nimue tells him to just hit the bad dude with a lightning bolt. He says he can’t because darkness might overtake him. What’s the point in having magic if you can’t zap people once in a while? For the greater good of course.

Zelena ugly cries about her sister being the favorite and how she’s worried about her baby. Enough to cause Snow concern, but once she gets close, Zelena kicks her across the lawn and escapes.

Merlin takes the grail to a fireplace in the middle of the woods. The fire consumes the grail, Merlin goes hocus pocus and it turns into Excalibur. Some creepy dude comes up behind them and wants the sword. Creepy Dude grabs Nimue and stabs her. She dies in Merlin’s arms.

Merlin tells Emma that Creepy Dude stole the flame that consumed the grail. She’s supposed to take the dagger and ask to communicate with the first dark one. The ancient dark one pops in and it’s not a dude, it’s a dudette. It’s Nimue! Back in the day while Creepy Dude is yapping at Merlin, Nimue (not really dead) steals his heart. (That phrase is always meant literally when used in regard to this show.) Oooh, she crushes it to dust. All righty then. She turns into the first dark one and breaks the sword.

Nimue is like, cool, the first and most recent dark ones, together on stage for the first time. Nimue zaps Merlin. She says any threat must be destroyed and that includes him. She tells Emma she has to kill Merlin. Emma is like no way, and uses the dagger to get the better of Nimue, who says she’ll always be inside Emma & disappears, poof! No smoke though. Merlin explains to Emma that he was able to put the sword in the stone and Nimue’s soul in the dagger.

Regina and the gang head to the round table, where Arthur is messing around with the sword. Regina puts him in freeze frame and says to get the sword. David is worried about a protection spell, but Regina says Arthur has no magic. Cue Zelena, who has Snow captive. Arthur uses the sword to summon Merlin. Merlin and Arthur have a pissing contest with words. Merlin tells Arthur the future is in his hands and to hand over the sword so they can use it for good. Arthur is like nuh-uh, and makes everyone else leave.

Nimue has hooked up with Rumpel, and they encourage Dark Emma to put the sword back together. There is a crowd of minions chanting. Not those little yellow guys, but creepy hooded figures. Dark Emma gets the sword back together using magic chewing gum., but she hears Merlin’s voice telling her not to do it back when she was a little girl. The minions tell her to take the power. She looks the sword over.

Oh good, next week Merida’s back. I’ve never seen Brave, but I kind of missed her.

The Walking Dead

Deanna climbs to a rooftop and watches the Alexandria clean up. She seems pretty freaked out, probably because she really didn’t know the first thing about being a post-apocalyptic leader. She sees Rick running toward the gate with loads and loads of zombies behind him. How she gets to street level as fast as she does, I will never know. Is this a daydream?

Nope. Rick is inside and already giving a lecture. He always has to scold everyone before he gives instructions. He says the others on the quarry mission know what they’re doing and the Alexandrians have to do their part and keep real freaking quiet so the zombies go away. Aaron goes on all about how Rick is a loser, then admits that he – Aaron, not Rick — is the jerk who led the Wolfs to Alexandria. I have no idea what he’s trying to say here. They’re all screw ups?

Jessie is digging graves when Rick tells her they don’t bury killers inside the walls. So they’ll just leave the bodies sit and stink until the zombies finally go away? Not a plan.

A small crowd is gathered by the food supply area. They don’t want to ration because they figure they’re dead anyway. They want to whoop it up on those canned peaches and green beans. Spencer gives them a what-do-you-think-you’re-doing? talk, and makes it okay again.

A few of the Alexandrians are making a memorial wall. Aaron sees Glenn’s name on it, and sees Maggie off and running. She’s gearing up for a rescue mission and Aaron says he’s going to help.

Deanna is pondering her wedding ring. She starts making a plan for a garden and some expansion, but maybe there’s more to it than that. Upstairs, she hears Spencer break a glass. He’s been hitting a bottle of liquor he swiped from the pantry, saying that he deserves it after stopping a run on the food. He blames Deanna for the position they’re in, saying she didn’t know what she was doing and made them into wimps.

Carl asks Ron if he’s seen Enid. He wants Ron’s help to climb over the wall and go find her. Ron says that he told her not to go out there, and he’s not going to let Carl go. I have to agree that now is probably not the best time with 10,000 zombies out there. Carl punches Ron out, but Ron says nyah-nyah, he’s going to tell.

Jessie goes to the door of a house and a zombie scares the ever-lovin’ hell out of all of us. She opens the door and stabs it in the eye. She tells the small group who has gathered, that this is the way it goes now and if they don’t fight, they die. The new normal.

Aaron shows Maggie a way to go under the wall. They go through a sewer tunnel and a couple of sewage zombies come out of nowhere. One almost eats Maggie and Aaron dispatches them. Maggie tells him he should go back because a cut on his head needs stitches, but he’s all like, it’s nothing, pay no attention to that blood dripping down my face.

Shrink turned medical doctor, Denise, is trying to help a bite victim. She has a eureka-I-found-it moment.

Rick can’t get ahold of any of the others who were on the quarry mission. Ron tells Rick about stopping Carl from leaving. Rick wants to check on Carl, and Ron says he’ll watch for the others while Rick is gone. He also wants to learn to shoot and RIck hands him a gun and says, practice now.

Tara asks how the bitten guy is and Denise responds by giving her a big kiss on the mouth, singing It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), and saying it sucks. I have no clue what the kiss was all about, if anything, I have even less of a clue about what happened in the infirmary.

Maggie and Aaron get to the end of the pipe where there’s a gate. There are zombies outside, and Aaron wants to chance it, but Maggie makes a stink, drawing the zombies’ attention. She says it’s over and that if she’d gone with Glenn, she might have been able to save him; but if he was alive, she thinks he would have let her know by now. Really? How? I believe he’s dead, but for argument’s sake, if he wasn’t, how is he supposed to call?

Amy’s son, Sam, won’t come downstairs for cookies, so something is definitely wrong. He says that the world didn’t change upstairs. That’s a very poignant point.

Deanna is on her way somewhere with tray of glass bottles, gets a zombie surprise and drops the tray. Picking up a broken bottle, she attacks the zombie like a contestant on Bad Girls Club. Rick comes along and tells her she can stop now and she says she wants to live and learn how to cut a zombie bitch.

Maggie takes Glenn’s name off the wall. Aaron tells her that Aaron can be a girl’s name too, depending on how it’s spelled. Apparently, Maggie is pregnant, but I blinked and missed that part. Spencer gets props for something brave he did and contemplates his new bad assness. Rick says something to Jessie about not wanting to bury the bodies because the others are still out there somewhere and I don’t get the connection. He and Jessie get romantic and I gag.

Deanna is getting awfully close to the fence and taunting the zombies. Bad zombies!

We end with seeing blood dripping down on the inside of one of the walls.

Do the actors on this show go home all depressed or do they just head straight for the bar?

The Real Housewives of Atlanta

Kandi is pregnant. Excitement abounds for the Burusses!

Portia comes by to visit Phaedra, and they’re both wearing outfits from the late 70s. Phaedra says they’re bestest friends now because Portia has been “a rock” for her. More like Portia has rocks in her head and we’ll see how long this lasts. Phaedra says she and Apollo are “cordial,” which I assume means she’s going to divorce him any minute now. Portia is dating a 24-year-old, which is about 10 years older than her age mentally, but there are laws to consider.

Cynthia says since the new opening of whatever venture Peter is getting into now, they only spend 3 days a week together. That’s 3 days a week more than I’d want to spend with him. Some kind of inappropriate something from Peter comes through on Phaedra’s phone.

It’s a video of Peter copping a feel that’s making the rounds. Cynthia tells Peter he’s embarrassing her and he doesn’t care. Did she really think he would? He’s saying it’s not what it looks like (ugh! thanks for being cliché) and tries to end the conversation, but Cynthia isn’t having it. She tells him he needs to think about what he’s done and puts him in time out with a bottle of wine.

Portia’s new squeeze, Duke, has flown in from Buffalo where he plays football. Portia says he’s really into her and wants to get to know her. If she wants to keep him, she probably shouldn’t let that happen. She feeds him chocolate covered strawberries and it’s one of the least romantic things I’ve ever seen. She wants him to meet her parents. Let’s just review, shall we? This is the same woman whose grandfather was a big name in the Civil Rights Movement, but thought the Underground Railroad was a real train. Unless you want to spend endless time pampering a pseudo princess who has no IQ whatsoever, Portia is not for you.

Commercial break. Brooks Ayers interview by Andy. Thursday at 9. Be there or be square. Unless, unlike me, you have a life.

Kenya is showing Cynthia her new home in Atlanta. Sheree Whitfield (is she still using that last name?) is one of her neighbors and back on the show. They drive past her house, which looks like an amazing little castle, but not quite finished. Kenya’s house looks like some kind of dilapidated fortress. She got it at foreclosure and it needs a lot of work. The property is gorgeous though. The Million Dollar Listing guys would definitely call this a tear down. What happened to Gone with the Wind fabulous?

Phaedra says Apollo has a lot of time to get on her nerves – even from prison. Ha-ha! I’ll bet. Kandi and Todd have been storing his stuff. Todd says that Apollo claims to have not seen the kids since he went into the slammer, which isn’t how Phaedra has been presenting things. My guess is that Phaedra makes it up as she goes along. Something is so off about her. She was supposed to release a workout DVD that Todd produced, and so far, no DVD and no paycheck either. Todd wants Kandi to discuss it with her and neither Kandi nor I think that’s appropriate.

Phaedra’s mother kisses her angel daughter’s behind and says everything’s good because it’s peaceful without jerkface Apollo. Mom is pushing her to get a divorce. I don’t know why she hasn’t gotten one already. She checked out of that marriage the second she knew he was going to prison.

Cynthia has a new eyewear line going on, and Portia is hoping to score free shades. She says she likes when a woman has a business to focus on because then she’s not in your business. That’s actually pretty clever, so I figure she read it on a cereal box. Phaedra calls the group “the shady bunch.” I’d never accuse her of not being witty or lacking intelligence, but I’d never, ever trust her with anything.

That weird Marlo chick is there and hoping to score a free pair of sunglasses in every design. Kenya and Marlo are talking about Sheree’s unfinished house, which has been unfinished for 3 years. The neighbors are starting to complain. I laugh, thinking about how long it takes real estate projects to be completed where I live. That’s nothing.

Peter finally shows up. Blech. I just don’t like him. Kenya seems to think he has something on the side. I don’t know about that, but he definitely has himself on the side, and every other angle, since that’s all he cares about. He and Kenya exchange words about his guilty ways. The worst thing about him is how he gets so involved with the gossip like he’s one of the Wives, but I don’t see him holding a peach in the group shots. He also tends to get right in their faces, which is not cool for a man to do.

Everyone’s wondering where Cynthia is, when she makes a grand entrance in a Cleopatra-type outfit and a pair of the glasses. I am a sunglasses freak and totally support this endeavor. Cynthia is looking for Peter (why?).

Sheree makes an appearance. She’s all good friends with Marlo, which makes Phaedra and I wonder what happened, since that wasn’t the case the last time they crossed paths. Kenya asks Sheree what’s up with her house, and tells her that the neighbors have been complaining about how long it’s taking to complete. Again, if that’s really the case, they should live here for a while. They go back and forth, and Cynthia is like, stop it, this night is about me. Sheree gets louder and starts attracting attention. Cynthia tells her, enough already….

And it’s to be continued.

Tootie arrives next week!

Nov2

November 1, 2015 — A Giant Bear, a Backstory & Vicki in the Hot Seat

Posted on by
Standard

What I Watched Today

(random, rambling thoughts on today’s TV)

 

Once Upon A Time

Lance and Merida are imprisoned, and Merlin takes David, Hook and Belle to free them. Merida says Arthur took her wisps and she needs them to save her brothers. Merlin says that her brothers will have to wait, as they have more urgent business.

In Storybrooke (that I’ve been spelling wrong), Belle suggests that instead of wasting time finding Merlin, they should ask Rumpelstiltskin for help. Rumpel is in the woods mooning over his teacup. He smashes it to get something to cut his rope bonds. Dark Emma and Merida see that he’s gone. Dark Emma tells Merida to kill Belle in order to get Rumpel to fight for something. I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work, but okay.

In the parallel world, Merida bops Belle in the head to get her to help with some magic. Belle says that she could have just asked, and Merida says she’s a bop you in the head first and ask questions later kind of lass. They go to a cute witch’s cabin when the witch is out at the mall or something, and borrow the use of her cauldron. Merida sees her brothers. They are about to be executed because Merida won’t marry some guy.

In Storybrooke, Belle finds Rumpel hiding. He tells her that if it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t even be alive. I’m not sure if he’s talking about the teacup or something else. He tells Belle that Dark Emma is after her because she wants Rumpel to defend her.

Wicked Witch, Zelena, has also been imprisoned, in a hospital by Regina. She’s reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting, because she is. A nurse brings her a tray with food. Zelena is hoping for onion rings, but the nurse says she’s only supposed to have locally grown produce and shows her a yummy plate of broccoli and carrots. She tells the nurse to take a hike. Dark Emma pops in and spirits Zelena away and gives her onion rings. Zelena asks what Dark Emma wants.  Emma wants her help in exchange for her freedom. Zelena says forget you and disappears poof! in a cloud of smoke. I don’t know if she took herself back to the hospital or somewhere else.

Belle tells Rumpel to forget about the stupid teacup, and that she’s always seen that he’s a hero underneath. They go to Mr. Gold’s (nee Rumpel’s) shop and Merida shows up. She says she couldn’t resist Emma and now Belle’s fate rests in Rumpel’s hands.

Parallel world Merida says her father taught her everything she knows and that if she remembers what she’s fighting for, she’ll never miss her target. She’s given Belle a recipe for a potion to change her (Merida) into a bear, so that she can fight the clan who has her brothers.

Storybrooke Arthur says he’ll help Regina get Merlin back, but he has to be alone with the magic mushroom to do it. (That’s what they all say.) The second he’s by himself, he throws it into the fire. I didn’t think he was really there to help. He tells them some story to cover up what he did.

Merida is about to shoot Belle with an arrow, and tells Rumpel to be the man they need. He says, sorry he can’t, and while Merida is taking aim, Belle pulls the rug out from under her. Literally.

Parallel Merida tells Belle that her father died because of her. She tried to protect him and missed the target. She says the clans lost faith in her. They didn’t believe she could rule alone and wanted her to marry. Belle gives her the bear potion.

Rumpel and Belle drive out of Storybrooke. Belle tells him running never made anyone a hero and makes him stop the car. He tells her about how he injured himself to avoid combat, that he’s a coward and it’s not going to change. She walks away back toward Storybrooke and runs right into Merida. Merida says Dark Emma isn’t taking chances and is making her drink the bear potion. She turns into a bear the size of the Empire State Building.

Just has the clans are celebrating their victory in capturing Merida’s brothers, Merida shows up and drinks the bear potion. Nothing happens and Belle tells her that she switched bottles because Merida needs to defend herself as their queen, otherwise they’ll never respect her. Just as arrows are let fly toward her brothers, Merida shoots her own arrows that stop theirs.  The clans are so impressed they kneel before their queen and release her brothers. She tells the dude who wanted to marry her that he’s lucky she knows the meaning of mercy.

The gigantic bear chases Belle through the woods. This thing is freaking massive and she tumbles down a cliff. Belle and the bear are face to face, and Rumpel shows up. Belle tells him to run, but he says he’s not running this time. The bear cracks him one and he goes flying. He tells the bear to do her worst, and then throws a bag of magic whatever in her mouth and the bear changes back to Merida. Belle asks how he knew it would work and he says he didn’t. Mushy stuff with Belle and Rumpel, while Merida lies there on the ground feeling like an idiot.

Merida thanks parallel Belle for helping her get her kingdom back, and Belle leaves to go to Rumpel.

Storeybrooke Merlin tells Emma that he’s always wanted to try a certain candy bar, and Emma remembers him being an usher in a movie theater where she saw The Sword in the Stone as a girl. He had told her that one day she’d be in a position to remove Excalibur, but he tells her now not to do it.

Rumpel wants to make a deal with Dark Emma. He says he’ll remove Excalibur if she gives Merida her heart back. After balking for 5 seconds, Dark Emma puts Merida’s heart back where it belongs. Rumpel tells Belle that if things don’t work out, he’s sorry for everything. He removes Excalibur and cuts off Dark Emma’s head. Just kidding. He says a deal’s a deal, and gives her the sword. He tells Dark Emma that she’s made a mistake in turning him into a hero. She says Storybrooke is loaded with heroes and none of them have been able to stop her. He says that’s because none of them are him.

David finds the burned mushroom and says they obviously can’t trust Arthur. Regina says Henry can help them since he’s the author of the story. Henry puts the mushroom into a bubbling cauldron, and Hologram Merlin rises out of it. He starts telling them something, but then says the dark one has found him and disappears.

The Walking Dead

We begin with Morgan talking to someone we don’t see. He says they’ve wanted everything from him and he’s going to give it to them. The word “Then” is shown and Morgan is in what looks like some kind of cell with a blackboard. He’s yelling at someone while a lantern on the floor looks like it’s going to burn the place down. This is a confusing episode start, but they like to do that.

Now Morgan is in the woods picking off some zombies. He puts them in a pile, covers them with dried leaves and sets them on fire. Way to start a forest fire. Where is Smokey the Bear when you need him? Oops! One of those zombies wasn’t quite dead and gives a whole new meaning to the term burning man festival. Satisfied with his day’s work, Morgan has a beer.

Two guys who are not zombies come running through the woods. Morgan gets one in the throat with a sharpened stick and strangles the other. He burns them too. I have no clue what’s going on here, except that Morgan is a firebug.

Morgan is talking to himself, saying, “You know what it is,” and does some clumsy ballet moves with the stick. He sees a house with a goat tied out front. He’s about to steal the goat when a voice tells him to leave the goat alone. The voice tells him to put the gun down and come inside for some falafel. I’m not even making that up. He comes closer to the cabin and the voice tells him it’s his last chance to put the gun down. When he doesn’t, he gets whacked in the head from behind by a guy who looks like Friar Tuck.

Morgan comes to in a cell. There’s a lot of that going around. The friar has changed into work clothes, and tells Morgan he should be more careful. Morgan yells “Kill me,” a couple of times. He tosses Morgan a book on The Art of Peace. The watch goat sounds an alarm and the guy runs out and intercepts a zombie. He gives Morgan some food.

The next day, he tells Morgan his name is Eastman and that he rehabilitated prisoners before the apocalypse. He asks Morgan what he does or did. Morgan says kill anyone who gets near him. Nice. When Eastman is out on his morning constitutional, Morgan works the zipper pull of his jacket and tries cutting around one of the window bars. When Eastman comes back in, he says he believes Morgan must be suffering from PTSD. Morgan tells him about killing the two guys. Eastman asks if Morgan has saved anyone. He says he saw a wedding ring, so Morgan must have had someone in his life. He supposes Morgan saw them get zombiefied. Morgan says he has to kill him because he was born to “clear,” whatever that means. Eastman says that he’s only met one truly evil person, that it’s usually some kind of trauma that causes people to do bad things. It turns out the cell door was open the whole time. I’m sure this is all very philosophical and Morgan wrecked his jacket for nothing. Eastman tells him he can go or stay, but he won’t allow Morgan to kill him. Morgan opens the cell door, acts like he’s leaving and then attacks Eastman with his stick.

Eastman gets the better of him, but then Morgan gets the better of Eastman. It reverses again, but in the end Eastman pins Morgan to the ground until he gets ahold of himself, like you would with a kid having a tantrum. Morgan asks Eastman to kill him again, which is getting old, but Eastman says he gave Morgan two choices and that wasn’t one of them. Morgan goes back to the cell and closes the door. Eastman opens it and Morgan kicks it shut again.

Later, Eastman tells him that it was aikido he was using to kick Morgan’s ass. He tells Morgan about how his daughter found him crying in the garage after work. She gave him her rabbit’s foot and told him it will make things better. He discovered aikido the next day. Eastman says they’re going on a trip. He has no idea where, but he doesn’t want to go by himself.

Eastman is also on a mission to learn how to make goat cheese. He tells Morgan he has a lot of supplies, but wants to scavenge some things for the trip. He asks Morgan to watch the goat while he’s gone. I swear, if Morgan touches that goat, I’ll kill him myself. He picks up the book and reads that the basic creed of aikido is to not kill, even if it’s the most evil person. He hears the goat making warning sounds and knocks off a couple of zombies.

I hope his attitude changes by the end of this episode, because he’s annoying the crap out of me. He finds a makeshift graveyard and is burying the zombies when Eastman comes back. Eastman thanks him for saving the goat and checks the zombies’ pockets for ID so that he can make grave markers. I am having such a bad feeling here that this is going to end in some depressing way.

Commercial break. The Talking Dead is having 2 surprise cast members tonight. That’s not good.

Eastman wants to teach Morgan aikido. He says you’re to care about the welfare of your opponent and that all life is precious, not just yours. Morgan gets aikido lessons and reads the book. At dinner, Morgan asks what’s up with the cell in his living room. Eastman tells him that back in the day, he interviewed prisoners up for parole and there was a guy who said and did all the right things, but he could see the guy was a psychopath. The prisoner discovered that he knew, dropped the facade and was going to kill Eastman because he knew Eastman would make sure he’d never get out of prison. I would say that’s not the best solution, but he got out anyway and killed Eastman’s family. (Here I would say this is pretty far-fetched, but I was friends with Richie Adan who was murdered by Jack Henry Abbott after Norman Mailer had helped him get released.) Eastman built the cell because he was going to put this guy in it, but he came to believe all life is precious.  I just know this episode is going to break my heart somehow.

Eastman asks Morgan who he lost and what were their names. Morgan wants to have a pity party, but Eastman says no, we’re doing some aikido instead. While they’re doing a drill, a zombie comes out of the woods. It’s one of the guys Morgan killed and Morgan becomes paralyzed. Eastman intervenes and gets bitten. My prediction was correct. Morgan is furious. Eastman says let’s go home, that Morgan “made it out,” and can’t go back. They fight with the aikido sticks and once again Morgan goes back to the “kill me” business.

Commercial break. An “episode” of Fear 462. One of the characters used to be on All My Children a really long time ago. So long, I don’t remember what her name is or her character’s name. Julie rings a bell, but I’m not positive.

This is just dismal now. Morgan is on a hunt for zombies in the woods. He kills one and there are two hikers that had been frozen in their tracks. The girl takes a can of beans and a bullet out of her bag, puts them down as an offering to Morgan and says, thank you. I’m glad he didn’t kill them.

Oh my heart. I can’t take this. Morgan comes home to find the goat being eaten by a zombie. Eastman is a beat behind him and says she must have figured out the door wasn’t locked and gotten out. I want to cry.

Eastman finishes the story about the prisoner. He did accomplish his mission and when the prisoner was eventually released, he kidnapped him. He put him in the cell and let him starve to death. It took 47 days. He says he was like Morgan was, but it gave him no peace. He found peace when he decided to never kill anything again. I guess this cabin is pretty remote, because when he went to turn himself in, he found out about the apocalypse.

Eastman isn’t looking too good. He says he’s ready to go and he has a gun locked away. He gives Morgan his rabbit’s foot and says he hopes it’s lucky for Morgan too. This whole thing is very painful and I’m glad they’re not showing the suicide. Morgan is truly alone once again.

Morgan leaves the cabin, walking past Eastman’s grave marker. He sees the sign and map for Terminus, smiles, and heads down the train tracks. And we all know how that ended up.

We’re back to now, and Morgan is with a Wolf that he’d abducted, to whom he’d been telling the story. The Wolf asks if Morgan thinks there’s hope for him and Morgan says yes. The Wolf shows Morgan that he has a bite mark. He says he knows he’s probably going die, that if he doesn’t, he’ll have to kill everyone there. All righty then.

Morgan leaves and locks the door. And I still don’t know what was going on with that fire in the beginning.

The Real Housewives of the OC – Reunion Part 3

I love Heather’s dress and earrings! We dive right into the Brooks thing, even showing an ancient clip with an ex-Housewife Laurie. Tamra tells some old story too. Shannon asks if Vicki thinks Brooks really has cancer and she says yes. Briana says early on, Brooks had said he had pancreatic cancer, but it was really pancreatitis.

They cut to a one-on-one interview by Andy with Brooks, who “couldn’t be there.” I’ll bet. I wouldn’t want to be there either with that bunch of women ganging up on me. He talks about the Newport Imaging PET scan. Brooks says that he went to Hogue for the test, but his oncologist practices at both places and the results were dictated at Newport.  Andy brings up the pancreatitis thing. He says he never talked to Briana directly about it, that it was Vicki who passed along the wrong info. Briana makes a bunch of faces in a little box in the corner of the screen.

Vicki says she doesn’t have proof if he has cancer or not and everyone yells at her for “protecting” Brooks. Shannon says she has proof. She took a screen shot of the report and compared it with a test she had taken there. She whips out a copy of one of their reports and gives us all kinds of information about how they do stuff there. She says the mess that his report was isn’t even comparable. Vicki heaves a huge sigh. Back at the Brooks interview, Andy points out the inconsistencies between what Vicki and Brooks have said. Brooks says she misspeaks quite a bit. Andy asks if he has anything to say to Meghan, and he says F-off. Now tell us how you really feel. Andy asks why he doesn’t show Heather’s husband Terry the report, and he says he wishes he had and that he will. Heather says it hasn’t happened yet. Vicki admits to fabricating a story about Terry’s involvement because she wanted people to have compassion. The women go nuts on her and at least Andy comes to her defense for telling the truth.

Andy says Meghan went to great lengths to disprove Brooks’s cancer. Meghan starts crying about the dinner party where Vicki went off on her and her husband’s ex-wife just dying from cancer. Vicki says she still believes Brooks has cancer and she had even gone to chemo with him once. Heather says Vicki is too smart for this and Tamra asks what does Brooks have on her to make her lie? Andy asks if Vicki is scared of Brooks and she kind of nods. She says he was more verbally abusive. Briana says that she’s seem him be physically abusive. She says she saw Brooks shake Vicki and it was in front of a room full of people, so what does he do behind closed doors? I’m wondering why nobody in that room full of people, including Briana, say something?

Vicki says that no one seemed to care when Brooks was diagnosed, and Shannon gets pretty upset. We flash back to just about every interaction with Shannon and Vicki last season. We also see the bit where Tamra said Vicki might be going to hell for lying. All the women agree. I wonder where on earth the Christians in the bunch get this stuff, and consider writing to Tamra’s “pasture” again.

Shannon goes nuts, talking about how she was loyal to Vicki. Vicki talks about her mother passing away and Meghan idiotically says that shouldn’t affect the other areas of her life. Vicki admits that her gut reaction is that Brooks doesn’t have cancer. Andy says Vicki seems disconnected and outs Vicki for taking some Xanax. Geez, nothing is sacred. She says nobody wants to feel duped, and she feels sad, but relieved to not be with him any longer. However, she sticks with the fact that she never had definitive proof that he does or doesn’t have cancer. Briana talks about how she’s been back home and has her old room back. There’s something about her that I just don’t like. Maybe it’s that she claims to be so independent, yet I get the feeling she’s very dependent.They take a break and Tamra, Briana and Vicki discuss the whole thing. Tamra says she’s heartbroken and wants the old Vicki back.

I think my problem with this bunch is, although they might be coming from a good place (I’m not so sure about Meghan – I think that one has a screw loose), they’re loud and relentless. They never once gave Vicki a break when her mother had just passed away. And yes, Meghan, something like that can affect other areas of your life. It was like they were torturing this poor woman instead of helping the situation. Honestly, sometimes they come off like they’ve had no life experience whatsoever, and certainly can’t seem to walk in anyone else’s shoes.

Awww, it’s our final moments of the reunion. Andy asks Meghan how her experience was, and I don’t care. He points out that Vicki copped to her culpability in the Brooks business, but says it wasn’t enough to satisfy the other wives. Shannon says blah-blah-blah about her marriage and that she’s disappointed in her friendship with Vicki. Tamra gets all choked up about being grateful and says she hopes her friendship with Vicki can be mended. Vicki says she’s not in a good place, that she’s sad, but she also feels refreshed.

Andy passes out fireball shots and I wish I’d had several while watching this.

Oct26

October 25, 2015 — A Freed Wizard, a Zombie Herd & Checking In

Posted on by
Standard

What I Watched Today

(random, rambling thoughts on today’s TV)

Once Upon A Time

Old Camelot. Some knight dude has the dagger and comes across the hooded figure from the Scream movies. Okay, not quite, but that could probably happen in this show. He says something about “the destroyer” and “the only woman he ever loved,” and the hooded figure turns him into a tree. Ok, he must be Merlin.

Because Snow and David got fairy dusted or whatever last week, they tell Regina that Arthur is cool and she should give him the dagger. Emma freeze frames them and tells Regina that Arthur is bad news, and the dagger needs to go back from whence it came, and free Merlin.

In Storybrook, Guinevere wants to have a ball to lift the stuck Camelot people’s spirits. Not a good time kind of ball, but a dance kind of ball. Not that you can’t have a ball at a ball. Ha-ha! Henry also wants to ask out Violet, who has already learned texting.

Mr. Gold tells Dark Emma that he always convinced himself that he was using magic for a higher purpose, but it always leads to losing the ones you love. She tells Merida, whose heart she has stolen (literally), to take Gold out to the woods and teach him how to be a man. No, not that way. She wants him to be able to remove Excalibur. Then she starts weeping over a dreamcatcher in some room that looks like it’s decorated by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre guys. Except prettier.

Regina tells Storybrook Emma that a spell can be like venom – sometimes you need some of the poison to make the antidote. She thinks they can counteract the spell that put Merlin in the tree with another spell.

Henry and Violet are in the stables. While Violet leaves for a minute, Henry goofs around with some swords, manages to almost hurt himself and break one of the stall walls. Violet’s father, Sir Morgan, comes in and tells him he’s not good enough for his daughter.

Merida tries to teach Gold some swordsmanship, but he fails miserably. He tells her she has the wrong person for the task. She knocks him down and says she’ll have to do it herself then. She doesn’t really say that, but she might as well, considering what she has to work with.

In Storybrook, Dark Emma and Henry talk about old times. I’m not sure how many Emmas there are now. So far I’ve counted 2 dark and 1 light. Violet has lost her horse, and Henry has said he’d help find it. The horse is notorious for liking pumpkins, so they drive to Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater’s patch. Yep, he’s there.

In Camelot, Henry wants to learn how to use a sword to impress Violet and her father, but Emma tells him he’s a mysterious stranger from an exotic land, and that should be good enough.

We flash back to young Regina and her mother, Barbara Hershey. As a girl, Regina was going to run off with her first love, but her mother killed him. While remembering, when Regina starts to cry, Emma captures a teardrop to use for their anti-spell. She wonders how a mother could do such a thing to her child, and Regina says her mother thought she was doing what was best.

Henry concocts a pre-dance rendezvous for him and Violet at the diner. He pours her a soda and she thinks it’s magic, “like a carnival in a can.” Boy, is she easy to impress. Ugh! She says she just wants to be friends. I see some things always stay the same no matter what dimension you’re in. He thinks it has something to do with her father, but I think not because she looks surprised when he says that. At least she doesn’t say, it’s not you, it’s me. That’s right. Sometimes it is you.

Merida breaks into Gold’s shop and starts checking out the goods.

Hook, Belle, Regina and Robin Hood check out Excalibur. A dreamcatcher comes in the mail and Regina says they can be pretty powerful when imbued with magic.

Regina and Emma try concocting a spell using the tear, but other than a cloud of smoke, nothing happens. Emma says it’s because Regina has moved on from those days, and although she’s still heartbroken, there have been things that have eclipsed it now. In a moment of convenience, Henry comes by, and sheds a tear about Violet. Regina captures it.

Arthur arrives with a posse. He’s really pissed and wants the dagger now, but instead Emma gets that tear into the spell pronto. A load of gigantic black and white Silly String flies everywhere. Whatever she did worked, because Merlin appears. Like Hook before him, Merlin ain’t your momma’s Merlin. He’s far from an old guy with a beard in a pointy hat. Not even close.

Merlin tells Arthur he’s a disappointment and Arthur whines that Merlin ruined his life. Arthur says it’s not finished, but takes his marbles and goes home.

Instead of a ball, they’ve decided to have a carnival. Arthur says that put back together, the sword can do just about anything, but in the wrong hands, it could destroy everything. What else is new? Henry brings the horse back to Sir Morgan and Violet. Morgan changes his tune and says Henry will make a fine knight one day.

Merida says her father told her that if you want a lad to fight, you have to give him something to fight for. Apparently, she’s stolen his favorite tea cup and wants him to fight her for it. He makes a good start, but she says they have a long way to go before he can defeat Dark Emma.

Regina and Robin look into the dreamcatcher and see Violet’s memories. They see Emma take Violet’s heart, promising to bring it back once she’s broken Henry’s heart and Emma can get a tear for the spell. Unfortunately, Henry walks in while they’re eavesdropping or eaveslooking or whatever.

David says he expected Merlin to be older, and Merlin says being a tree can be good for your skin. Who knew? Merlin asks Emma if her heart is truly ready to be free from darkness.

Regina asks Dark Emma why she’s taken their memories and Mr. Gold. She tells Dark Emma that Henry saw what she did. Emma says she did it to protect Henry, and Regina says that’s what Barbra Hershey told her too, and that she’s only trying to justify being evil. Dark Emma goes off into the night.

Next week: A giant bear! A really giant bear.

The Walking Dead

Another damn alarm is going off, and half the zombies from the herd are headed for Alexandria. Rick tells Daryl to keep doing what he’s doing with his half, while the rest of them try to get the zombies moving in the right direction. One guy starts whining to Michonne that Rick is a screw up who wants them to die, and she tells him to shut up and keep moving. Oops, too late. Dude got eaten by a zombie. Michonne is more than happy to give him a sword to the head.

Rick tells Michonne and Glenn to keep going with the others, while he goes off to do…something. The group moves forward, killing zombies along the way. A couple of these guys aren’t too swift. One takes off running, which will no doubt cause a problem later. How that idiot, Nicholas, who got Noah killed last season, is still standing is beyond me.

Daryl wants to leave his zombie leading position, but Sasha and Abe tell him he’ll be putting them in bad way if he does.

Commercial break. It’s Obrecht from GH playing stewardess in Fear 462 again!

Michonne keeps a wounded dude occupied by asking about how he met his wife. He says finding her in all this has made it worth it, but I’m not so sure about that. Let’s see, zombie apocalypse or staying single for a while… They look for a car near where Noah was killed. A million cars on the street, but they can’t find one that works. Nicholas say’s “That’s Sturgis’s hat,” the guy who ran off. Oops! There’s hatless Sturgis, who is now zombie lunch Sturgis. The group enters a pet store. My first thought is, say no to puppy mills, but I guess we don’t have to worry about that now.

Glenn thinks he can distract the zombies long enough for the others to get away and set fire to a feed store. Michonne doesn’t want to leave him, but he’s insistent. For some ungodly reason, he tells Nicholas to come with him, and to lead the way. I wouldn’t trust this guy to be a movie usher and lead people to their seats, much less lead anything here.

Rick is running down an empty road and kills a couple of zombies in his way, taking a few supplies off the bodies.

Michonne wraps the wounded’s injuries. Like this is going to matter. One guy says that they should be left behind, but both Michonne and Heath are against that. Michonne asks Heath what his problem is with her. He heard Rick tell her that if anyone can’t make it, to leave them behind. She says sometimes there’s no choice and that Heath doesn’t understand that because he’s never been in that position. She asks him if he’s ever been covered in so much blood, that he doesn’t know if it’s his, the walkers’ or his friends’? That would be a no, so he finally shuts up.

Nicholas and Glenn see some have squished zombie that was a friend of Nicholas’s. Glenn has Nicholas put him out of his misery. (I mean the zombie, not Glenn.) They hear shots coming from somewhere and it’s drawing the zombies near the pet shop. Michonne says as soon as it’s clear, they’re to head to the feed store.

Rick’s running like he’s in Marathon Man, and gets in an RV. It has balloons tied on to it, so either it’s part of the plan or it’s someone’s birthday.

Back at the pet shop, a few zombies are starting to trickle in, so the group’s cover is blown. It doesn’t look too good for going outside. They go anyway, and all hell is breaking loose. The girl with them becomes a casualty. I don’t know about you, but I’ll bet I could run pretty damn fast if there was a crowd of zombies chasing me. Glenn and Nicholas get blocked by the zombie horde, while the others are trying to climb a fence. Glenn and Nicholas get trapped by zombies on both sides. Michonne and Heath make it over the fence, but wounded guy doesn’t. Does it really matter? Michonne, Heath & last other guy stand watching as wounded dude gets eaten. Hello? Either shoot him or move on. Nicholas and Glen are now trapped on top of a dumpster, surrounded by zombies. Nicholas is totally freaked and Glenn tries to get him to snap out of it. Where is Cher when you need her? Instead of doing the right thing, Nicholas shoots himself, and Glenn ends up falling into the zombies. No good deed goes unpunished.

THANKS, NICHOLAS, YOU STUPID WRETCH!

Commercial break. The host of The Talking Dead, Chris Hardwick, doesn’t know what to say and neither do I. At least Nicholas was no great loss.

Michonne, Heath and Last Dude are traveling through the woods, and see smoke in the distance. They find a creek and travel walking in it. Heath catches a glimpse of his blood-covered reflection. Some initiation.

Rick is in place in the RV, and gets on the walkie-talkie. Sasha answers him from the car, but it looks like Daryl is going off to find himself on his motorcycle. Where the gunfire is coming from, we still don’t know. A couple of armed guys bust into the RV, which wakes Daryl up from his trance and causes him to turn around. Who these guys are and what they want, we don’t know, but Rick finds a jar of baby food in one of their pockets.  Rick sees someone outside the RV and starts shooting wildly.

Great. Now the RV won’t start and zombies are coming from everywhere.

The Real Housewives of New Jersey: Teresa Checks In

The Gorgas go with Joe Giudice to his late father’s home in the Catskills.  We get the lowdown that when Joe Guidice wet his pants as a kid, his mother hit him in the head with a shoe. This might explain a lot.

Teresa calls. We get way to much information about how certain “toys” are made in prison and I can’t get Teresa off the phone fast enough.

The house has an awesome outside brick oven, and they make pizzas. Rosie and Teresa’s girls have arrived to join them. In her individual interview, Melissa says she hopes they can put the past behind them and be a family again. Teresa’s brother has finally gotten the visitation okay. Joe Giudice says it’s a real hassle. He started with only being able to visit once a month, and is now up to twice. I’m almost surprised that they let him visit, since he’ll be doing time next, but I guess they make exceptions for family.

Melissa says it feels weird without Teresa, and husband Joe says he can’t wait to see her. They hadn’t exactly been getting along that well, and he’s hoping that “the old Teresa” comes out.

Joe Giudice and the girls go to a little chapel built nearby. The younger ones have difficulty reciting The Lord’s Prayer and it makes me wonder what kind of Sunday school class they attend. Teresa hunts them down even in the chapel. She’s surprised they don’t know basic prayers and says they have to start going to church every week (are these people sure they’re Italian Catholics?). It’s kind of sweet because Teresa says she’s learned in prison that you can just talk directly to God. And as I’m typing this, I’m wondering if she realizes the youngest has been told she’s at work. Maybe they told her Teresa works in the prison doing research for her next book.

Back home, Gia snaps at Joe and they have a discussion. I have to say, Joe seems like a pretty easy-going dad considering. Joe says it’s an overwhelming situation, that they have to stay strong, and he appreciates how much Gia has stepped up. They talk about things without really talking about them and I think that’s how the family has basically functioned, even before Teresa went to prison.

The next-to-youngest is shaving Joe’s back, which I assume is normally Teresa’s job. He tells her that her working for him makes her a tax deduction. That Joe! What a card! I’d be really careful with those deductions from now on if I was him.

Joe meets Teresa’s lawyer at the restaurant where she flipped the table way back in season one. The lawyer tells him they’re “chipping away” at the restitution. Meaning that the Giudice’s paychecks are garnisheed to pay back the money they stole. When Teresa gets home, she’ll be on something called “home confinement.” It’s not the same as house arrest, but there are rules as to where she can go. The lawyer asks Joe if he’s learned anything from this experience. What is this? Will there be multiple choice questions next? Yeah, he learned not to commit fraud. My guess is that whoever steered him in that direction gave him some song and dance that “everybody does it.” He claims he didn’t really know what he was doing was wrong, and I’m not so sure I totally believe that, but I do think he believed it was no harm, no foul. And I don’t think Teresa knew what was going on at all. I think he said, “Here, sign this,” and she did. I don’t think they’re bad people, just excessively ignorant.

Joe Gorga seems totally freaked about visiting Teresa. He says his body is numb and he doesn’t know how to think or feel. It’s highly unlikely I’ll ever be visiting my sister in prison, so I’ll take his word for it. Melissa says she feels badly that she can’t get on the visitation list yet. I don’t suppose we’ll be able to go along either.

You can’t wear shorts and you can’t bring in phones. Gia tells about how somebody snuck one in the prison to take a picture of Teresa and got in a heap of trouble. Teresa’s mom says “you can’t trust nobody.” Gia says the visit is probably going to be difficult for her Uncle Joe. He says they were brought up not to cry, but he spent the first hour of the visit crying. He’s tearing up now, and I feel for him. The reality has hit him pretty hard.

Everyone is pretty bummed out in the car on the way home. Joe Gorga says that if they feel that way, imagine how she must feel.

After one last check in, we see the family photo taken at the prison. Teresa is expected to be released on December 23, and Joe will begin his sentence in March of 2016.

Oct19

October 18, 2015 — A Sword, Some Wolfs & Two Joes

Posted on by
Standard

What I Watched Today

(random, rambling thoughts on today’s TV)

 

Once Upon A Time

In old Camelot, young Arthur tells young Guinevere that Merlin (who is trapped inside a tree) gave him a prophecy that he would pull a sword from a stone and they would become king and queen.  Fast forward to Arthur as an adult. When he takes the sword from the stone, the bottom of it is gone, taken to make Dark Emma’s dagger. Arthur hides it in a sheath when he returns to the people, acting like nothing is wrong.  Arthur tells David he can re-forge the sword so that it will again be able to defeat the powers of darkness.

Rumpelstiltskin tells Emma since she’s the savior, she needs to save herself before it’s too late. Good point.

David wants to take the dagger and use it to put the sword back together. Snow doesn’t trust Arthur, and even though David thinks it will save Emma, she wants to wait. David approaches Arthur and tells him Lancelot is alive. Guinevere overhears and tells David he doesn’t know the whole story of her and Lance. David goes into his bag to get the dagger, but it’s gone.

In old Camelot, it’s Guinevere’s birthday party. Arthur is late and Lancelot dances with the queen. Guinevere has taken a magic gauntlet that she believes will help find the missing piece of the sword. Lancelot joins her in the quest and the gauntlet leads them to a weird circle that looks like a giant sewer cap with mystical symbols on it. When it opens, there’s a staircase to a place that looks kind of like a mine. All kinds of black crazy stuff comes out of nowhere and surrounds Lancelot. Guinevere makes it go away and they kiss. She says it won’t happen again, but I dunno about that.

Henry takes Emma and Hook to a stable where he wants to show them something, but they’re interrupted by Henry’s crush, Violet. Emma and Hook hide, and Henry and Violet go riding.

Lance and Gwen come to a forest where the dagger is on display. When they try to take it, they’re thrown back and Rumpel appears.  Rumpel offers them a compromise – a pinch of enchanted sand will fix the sword without the dagger. He asks for the gauntlet in exchange for a vial of it. He tells Gwen that when a woman’s heart is torn between duty and desire, it never ends well. She agrees to the exchange, and he adds that she needs to worry about a broken heart more than a broken sword.

Lance and Snow go underground and on to the forest. Snow says she’s seen this place in a vision before, and Dark Emma crushed her heart there. Arthur has followed them. He’s led David on a wild goose chase to look for Snow, and says that if Snow knows what’s good for her, she’ll hand over the dagger.

Gwen gets back to Camelot and tells Arthur about the sand that will make something broken seem whole again. Maybe she should use it on their relationship. He still wants the dagger, but she tells him that if he doesn’t get with the program, she’s leaving him for Lance. Bizarrely, Arthur takes my advice and throws some of the sand at Gwen. It makes her cool with Arthur going on his quest for the dagger, and he tosses a load of the sand out of the tower window and over the kingdom.

Arthur says he’ll kill Lance if Snow doesn’t give him the dagger and she hands it over. He says he can now command Dark Emma to put the sword back together and free Merlin. He orders her to appear and nothing happens. Snow tells him the dagger isn’t real and voila! here’s David. He says he knew something was up with Arthur who “tried to trick [him] with a catchy title and a comfy chair.” (Another Monty Python reference.)

Hook tells Emma to quit talking to Rumpel in her head and get on the horse. They ride off, but Emma is still seeing Rumpel watching them.

Arthur looks like someone took his last piece of Halloween candy, and Snow thinks he’s unusually quiet. That’s because Gwen and a whole lot of knights show up to set him free. Gwen, still under the sand’s spell, tells the knights to take Lance to the dungeon, and uses the last of the sand on Snow and David. Meanwhile, Merida from Brave shows up at Lance’s cell.

Snow and David tell Regina to bring the dagger out of hiding and give it to Arthur, as it’s their best chance to help Emma. Emma and Hook frolic in the forest, and Rumpel is nowhere to be seen, even by Emma. Nice crane shot of Hook and Emma embracing in a field of roses.

Dark Emma has Mr. Gold (Storybrook Rumpel) held prisoner. She also has Merida handcuffed to a Volkswagen. (Didn’t seem all that weird up until now, right?) Dark Emma steals Merida’s heart and tells her to take her bow and make Mr. Gold the brave guy she needs.

The Walking Dead

We begin by seeing how Enid got to Alexandra. We see her in a car, writing “JSS” on the window; escaping to a forest, where she writes “JSS” in the dirt; and then eating a turtle. I’m not kidding, I’m watching her eat a turtle right now. She makes another “JSS” out of its bones. She gets to the gate at Alexandria, writes it in the dirt on the back of her hand, someone opens the gate, and she enters. Okay, I give up already. (BTW, no turtles were harmed in the making of this episode – it didn’t just taste like chicken, it was chicken.)

Maggie wants Deanna to help plant a garden in the safe zone and finish the wall. Eugene and Tara meet the new doctor, Denise, who is really a psychiatrist and scared out of her wits. Tara says she’s been feeling dizzy, so Denise takes a look at her for an easy start to her new profession.

Carl (where’s he been?) is pushing baby Judith in a stroller. Father Gabriel interrupts his walk, telling him that he was wrong and wants to learn how to fight the zombies. Carl tells him to come by later and they’ll start with the machete.

Carol is busy cooking, and probably cooking something up in her head, when she sees Shelly having a smoke out on the lawn. Suddenly, a guy comes out of nowhere and kills Shelly with a machete. Is Carl prophetic? Maggie and Deanna see that part of the wall is on fire and someone is climbing over it to the outside. They come across a body that’s been set on fire. A load of crazies start to wreak havoc, chopping people up and writing “W” (for Wolf) on their foreheads in the blood. I don’t know what’s going on. Civil unrest or something else? A gigantic truck drives right into the church and if that truck horn doesn’t stop in about 5 seconds, I’m going out of my mind and joining the Wolfs. Thank you, Morgan, for poking that zombie in the head who’s leaning on the horn.

Chaos is everywhere in Alexandria. A guy who looks like he’s from Deliverance tries to attack Morgan with an axe, but Carol comes from behind and gets him first. She puts a “W” on her forehead too, and disguises herself as one of them.

Holly has been badly injured, but Denise is afraid to try and operate on her. Eugene tells her she doesn’t want to be a coward. And he oughtta know. Denise bucks up and asks for the supplies she needs. Ron is almost attacked by a Wolf, but Carl shoots him (the guy, not Ron). The guy acts all feeble, but when Carl gets closer, he tries to grab Carl’s gun. Bad move because Carl is a serious badass and finishes him off. A Wolf gets into Jessie’s house and knocks her down, but not out. Jessie stabs the sh*t out of her with a pair of scissors as Ron walks in. If he’s not traumatized for life and beyond by now, he never will be.

A Wolf, who obviously knows Gabriel, tries to kill him, but Morgan intervenes. Carol gets to the armory and grabs as many weapons as she can. She also finds Lydia hiding in a closet and tells her to arm herself. Just as the dude who knows Gabriel is about to explain things, Carol shoots him in the head. Thanks, Carol, since it might have been a good idea to find out what’s going on.

Some Wolfs surround Morgan and he fends every one of them off with a stick. I’d definitely want him on my team. He seems to understand more than he’s letting on. Certainly more than I do. He tells the remaining Wolf that if he keeps choosing this kind of life, he’ll end up dead, and the Wolf says he has no choice and takes off.

Commercial break. Into the Badlands looks awesome!

Carol sits on the steps, pondering a pack of cigarettes. I’m pondering if we’re ever going to find out what was up with that truckload of top-half zombies from last season. Aaron takes a pack of photos off the body of a Wolf and it looks like pictures of the Alexandria wall.

Holly flatlines. Tara tells Denise she tried, but Denise is pretty dejected. She wants everyone to leave, and Tara tells her not to forget to give Holly mercy. No, wait, that’s the other show. She tells Denise to make sure to stab Holly in the brain.

Now everyone is pondering what the blip just happened.

Enid has left Carl a note that says “just survive somehow.” JSS, which is coincidentally the name of tonight’s episode. Carol’s kitchen timer goes off and Carl takes the brownies out of the oven. Morgan seems to be on clean-up detail, and is finding straggling Wolfs who are now un-dead.  Oh no! Another Deliverance Guy is hiding and attacks Morgan He says “You can’t, can you? You should have.” Whatever that means. Apparently, he’s wrong about it though, and Morgan finishes him off. He does, however, apologize first.

Morgan and Carol pass like ships in the night. The streets are clear and quiet. Geez, Rick can’t leave these people alone for five minutes.

The Real Housewives of New Jersey: Teresa Checks In

Teresa controls the Giudice family from the inside like a mob boss, but Joe is definitely stepping up as Mr. Mom.

Melissa picks up the kids for a girl’s day out, while the two Joes get together for a guy’s day. I don’t know if it’s going to be GTL (gym, tan, laundry), but it’s definitely G.  We see the girls getting mani/pedis, while the guys work out. Melissa tells Gia that if she needs a woman to talk to about anything, she’s there for her. In her individual interview, Melissa says that Gia is most like Teresa. She also says God never gives you more than you can handle. Although sometimes I wonder about that one. Joe and Joe give us TMI about what Joe is doing at night without Teresa. ♫ LA-LA-LA! ♫

Joe has had his license suspended for two years (this guy is really bad at breaking the law), and this is a real hassle right now. Teresa’s lawyer brings her diary. Teresa wants Joe to read it, and also the girls when they’re old enough. Teresa sounds like a real broad, breaking up prison fights and such. You go, girl! If you can’t beat the system, boss it around.

Teresa’s parents, along with Melissa and Joe Gorga, come by for Teresa’s phone call. I feel badly for her parents, who are probably mortified over this whole thing and no doubt want to throttle their son-in-law. Gia says Teresa actually looks better now.  I understand she’s gotten into yoga, so that’s probably a big factor. After the call, the family sits down to dinner and discusses plans for the 4th of July. Both Melissa and Joe Gorga have applied to be visitors at the prison, but apparently, this is a pretty long process. It’s taken Joe six months, and Melissa has yet to be approved. The thought crosses my mind that maybe Teresa doesn’t want her approved.

Teresa’s lawyer (who is getting a lot of air time) comes by to discuss Joe’s possible deportation. It seems outrageous. He’s lived here for 44 years and his parents are citizens for Pete’s sake.  He does say that Teresa and the girls would go with him should that happen. I know there are plenty of people who are like, good, but IMO, that would be tremendous overkill. The Giudices might be a pair of idiots, but I certainly don’t think they’re evil, and they probably didn’t do anything a million other people haven’t. Their real crime was getting caught.

This show should be subtitled “Teresa Checks In Repeatedly.” She says that there’s more drama in prison than on The Real Housewives. She also had to change up her gym routine because low flying planes kept coming by trying to take her picture. That is seriously crazy.

The family is going “down the shore” for the 4th. The girls go in Melissa’s car and the two Joes go together. Joe Gorga asks Joe Giudice if he thinks about the time when he has to take his turn in prison. He says he just doesn’t think about that stuff because it’s not happening yet. That’s one thing I admire about him and Teresa, their ability to not think about something. I will never have this talent as long as I live.

Gia is an amazingly mature kid. She seems more like a young adult than a moody teenager. Everybody is bugging her about future dating and she’s taking it in stride. Teresa checks in yet again while they’re at the shore house, but she gets cut off because her minutes ran out. A small discussion happens between Joe and the girls about daddy having to “go to work” when mommy gets home. While Gia has said that Milania knows what’s going on, Audriana is too young yet.

Milania makes some coffee for herself, but Joe says that’s a no. Teresa checks in one more time. The girls pass the phone down, each say a little something, and when it gets to Joe, Teresa asks him to take the phone into another room. Because Gia sent out a tweet for her, Teresa’s room got shaken down. They thought she might have a cell phone and they even checked in places that most people can’t put a cell phone. Thug life!

Joe’s gotten pretty good on his bicycle. Who knows? Maybe he’ll get in shape yet. He bikes over to Angelo’s, a restaurant managed by cousin Reno. Some guy, probably another cousin, talks about going to prison himself for running numbers or something. Joe says he had that opportunity, chose not to do it, but is still going to jail. Ah, the little ironies of life. Numbers Guy talks about what it’s like on the inside. He said the hard part for him was after he got out and came home to nothing. Oh Lord. He just said the old adage that whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Then how come I’m not dead or bench pressing 500 pounds? Angelo. The guy’s name is Angelo. I guess he owns the restaurant. You could probably yell, “Hey, Angelo!” in that restaurant and half the heads would turn.

The text at the end tells us that two months later, the shore house was repossessed.

I’m not what you would call a softie, but I feel sorry for this whole family. They ripped off a bank. Banks have been ripping us off for years. I honestly think they’re being made an example of because they’re reality “stars” and it just doesn’t seem right to me. They were certainly stupid, but if stupidity were a crime, we’d all be in the slammer. I hope Teresa makes a million bucks from her book just for spite.

Oct12

October 11, 2015 — Once Upon the Dead in New Jersey

Posted on by
Standard

What I Watched Today

(random, rambling thoughts on today’s TV)

 

Once Upon A Time

The dwarfs, who are really just short guys with names like Leroy, are whistling while they work and Dark Emma steals one of their pickaxes. They report it at the police department where Prince Charming, otherwise known as David, works as sheriff.  King Arthur arrives next. Apparently his magic beans have gone missing.

Dark Emma tries to remove Excalibur from the stone by hitting it with the ax, which sounds more ridiculous than the previous paragraph. Of course it doesn’t work and Rumpelstiltskin has to explain things to her all over again.

Back in Camelot, Regina is working on some magic to release Merlin, the Wicked Witch of the West is working on being an annoyance, and Prince Charming is checking out the round table. Contrary to the original Camelot story, King Arthur got back together with Guinevere after the Lancelot scandal. David tells him that he and Snow had met Lancelot, but alas, Lance is dead. A page delivers a chest with “the eternal flame” in it, but in Storybrook, the chest has been pilfered. Captain Hook and Robin Hood are chatting in the diner. When Hook’s takeout order comes, there’s a note from Dark Emma attached to it, asking him to meet her on his ship.

Magic comes in handy, as Dark Emma sets the table for lunch in under a second. She also makes herself appear like Good Emma, so Hook is more comfortable. She tells him he can trust her, which really means he’d better keep his mouth shut about everything.

The prince and the king go to Rumpel’s pawn shop where Belle is behind the desk. Rumpel is ill and she needs one more thing for a healing spell. The prince buys a chalice left over from Doc’s birthday party and passes it off as the Chalice of Something-or-Other to the Camelot people who are stuck in Storybrook. He tells them if they drink from it, it will reveal the thief. A guy In a Red Riding Hood cape takes off like a rocket. In the real Camelot, it makes me think of Monty Python again when the prince and king have a sword fight with a couple of phantom knights.

Dark Emma says “trust me” to Hook again, so you know now he definitely shouldn’t trust her. She claims she’s a better Emma now and wants to move forward with their relationship. Hook isn’t having any, and wants to know what it is she’s really after. Dark Emma disappears, poof! in a puff of dark smoke.

David and Arthur catch up to the thief, who claims there were no magic beans in the chest. They do find a magic mushroom (no, not that kind) that Regina thinks can help Merlin. In the real Camelot, David is knighted by Arthur and given Lancelot’s old chair. It has something hanging off of it that looks like this thing we had to wear over our robes at my high school graduation. Whoops! Lancelot isn’t dead after all and approaches Snow on the castle porch. He tells her there’s a villain in town, and Snow thinks he’s talking about Dark Emma, but he tells her it’s Arthur.

Commercial break. Why does there have to be so much good TV? Blood & Oil looks great, but it’s on during The Walking Dead time slot.

Guinevere, dazzling in an incredible dress and jewelry, ponders the magic mushroom with Arthur. In Storybrook, the thief is in jail, but it turns out he was working for Arthur and there were never any magic beans. Arthur made It up to get his people stuck in Storybrook, to trust him. Although I don’t know how that was supposed to work. He gives the thief some poison to drink because he’s afraid the non-magic beans will be spilled. He says it’s for the greater good, the thief drinks it, and poof! he disappears in a puff of green smoke.

Storybrook Rumpel has vanished and is with Fantasyland Rumple and Dark Emma. She tells him he’s not dark or light; he’s nothing. Ouch! Because his heart is a “blank slate,” she says he’ll be useful and she has a job for him. I don’t suppose it’s pulling out Excalibur either.

The Walking Dead

While I’m glad to see this show back again, it’s really good of them to make it an hour and a half tonight, so that it messes up my schedule.

When we last left Rick and company, they were in Alexandria and Rick was going bonkers after questionably shooting one of the residents. Outside of the town, a zombie horde is growing in a canyon. Some of the zombies are looking mighty raggedy since they’ve been wandering around for six seasons now.

Daryl!

Morgan admits he was an idiot and that Rick was right. Rick, Daryl and Morgan make a plan to take care of the zombie horde. Apparently, in order to confuse me, half of this episode is in flashbacks and also in black and white. I thought there was something wrong with my TV.

Of all people, Eugene is guarding the gate at Alexandria. Oh, okay, he’s doing it while the real guard is taking a pee or something. A guy named Heath shows up with a group of people and says they live in Alexandria, but they’ve been away on a run. Morgan and Rick are burying the guy Rick shot last season in the woods when they get a load of the zombie horde from the top of a cliff. It’s a seriously freaking huge amount of zombies. Ron (the son of the guy they’re burying) followed them and is being chased by some zombies. Just as he’s about to run off the cliff, Rick shoves him aside and in an uncharacteristically funny moment, the zombies who were chasing him keep going and fall off the cliff. Rick tells Morgan that the reason Alexandria doesn’t have too many zombies showing up is because they’re all in this canyon.

Glenn (who looks like he had a nose job) and Heath go with another guy to a tractor supply place where there are a bunch of zombies inside

Commercial break. OMG, it’s Obrecht from GH in an ad for…I don’t know what. Dammit! The one commercial I want to see again and they’ll probably never rerun it. This was followed by the best anti-smoking commercial yet, focused on the monetary expense. I guess Better Call Saul got renewed too. I kind of lost track of it after the first few episodes, but it was a lot better, and funnier, than I expected it to be.

There’s a big meeting about how they’re going to deal with the zombies. I guess Rick is in charge now because Deanna keeps saying he’s right about everything. Father Gabriel offers to help and Rick be like, no way, padre. That gets my vote too. That guy cannot be trusted. I don’t trust Carter either, who questions everything Rick says.

Daryl leads the horde to where there’s a makeshift wall made out of metal. Maybe they won’t have to do anything since the zombies are banging their own heads against it and stepping all over each other. Kind of like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. I guess the black and white thing is to differentiate between the flashbacks and what’s happening now. I would have titled this episode “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore,” but it’s titled “First Time Again.”

Glenn, Heath and Other Guy kill all the zombies at the tractor place. Abraham, in a car with Sasha, notices some walkers who are off track and jumps out to point them in the right direction. He’s covered with blood when he gets back in the car, talking about the possibility of brains getting in his ear, and I’m wondering if he’s going to be the “surprise” guest on The Talking Dead.

Rick tells Deanna that they need to train and arm everyone inside Alexandria. I think they’d better train someone in the art of bullet making before they run out. It’s not like they can drive over to Walmart.

Carter is making plans to get rid of Rick, and Eugene overhears him. Carter is thisclose to shooting Eugene, but Rick comes in just in time. He spares Carter after giving him a mini lecture. Rick tells Morgan he wanted to kill Carter, but figures Carter is stupid enough to get killed on his own.

And he’s right! Carter gets bit in the face when he veers from the zombie horde plan. Now I figure he’s the surprise guest. Rick also gets his wish, and breaks Carter’s neck. Shouldn’t somebody shoot him in the head?

Commercial break. They showed another installment of the Obrecht ad. It’s a web series companion to Fear the Walking Dead called Flight 462. I’ll have to check that out. Jurassic World is also coming out on blue ray. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Just make sure to forget anything you know about real dinosaurs or science while you’re watching it.

WTF? Something that sounds like a fog horn is going off and the zombies are changing course. Carter is dead, so what idiot is doing this? Gabriel? It wouldn’t be the first time someone named Gabriel blew a horn. Ha-ha! Great. Ten billion zombies are now headed to Alexandria.

The Real Housewives of New Jersey

This episode revolves around the Guidice family and how they’re coping with Teresa in prison. Joe’s father has passed away and Gia, who is turning out to be a beautiful young lady, has a big dance coming up. The latter might not seem like a huge deal, but it’s one of those times where she’s going to miss her mom.

Teresa gets 300 minutes a month for phone calls, but can send unlimited emails. The inmates don’t have access to the internet, so I’m guessing it must go into a “waiting to be sent” file until it can be approved.

During one of Teresa’s phone calls home, her parents are there as well. I wonder how hard it is for them not to wring Joe’s neck. It’s tough for Gia to talk to her mom without crying and this upsets her grandfather greatly. The whole thing is really sad. I know Joe and Teresa aren’t the brightest or nicest bulbs in the box, and they did commit a crime (although I roll my eyes at the level of it), but I honestly think the judge wanted to make an example out of them because they’re C-list celebrities. That rubs me the wrong way. After spending so many years with them too, I feel the same way I’d feel about annoying cousins that you have to invite to Thanksgiving. You love them, but at a distance.

The youngest daughter was told that Teresa is working, which Gia says isn’t totally a lie because she’s keeping a diary that she’ll turn into a book later. I’ll definitely want to read that. What’s really funny is that Teresa is still running the show at home by giving everyone instructions. I hope she realizes that, although she doesn’t get any preferential treatment, the prison in Danbury isn’t considered all that bad. I have a friend who’s been in federal prison in New Jersey, and it’s a nasty place to be.

Joe says something about how it’s part of a father’s job to embarrass their teenage daughter and that reminds me of my father. Don’t get me wrong, he was the greatest man on the planet, but if I let him know something was embarrassing, he’d work harder at it.

Gia looks absolutely gorgeous and has almost ruined her makeup ten times because she wants to cry.

Joe and his brother visit their father’s grave site and it makes me want to cry. Despite Joe being an idiot, I know what he’s feeling.

Rosie comes over! I love Rosie. They joke about Joe getting a boyfriend in prison, but that’s not really very funny. He’s only allowed to visit Teresa every other weekend because he’s a felon. She’ll be getting out before Christmas and in March it’s his turn. Joe and Rosie laugh a lot, and I have to hand it to Joe for being able to laugh at all.

Next it’s Gia’s graduation from 8th grade and a family party afterward. In her individual interview, Melissa talks about the stupid fights they’ve all had and how this has brought them all closer together as a family. Joe Gorga says pretty much the same thing, but also that it’s humbled Joe Guidice. I think so too.

Aww, Joe sleeps on the couch because he doesn’t want to be in the bed without her.

In the preview for next week, the subject of Joe’s possible deportation comes up. I hope that doesn’t happen. It just wouldn’t be right. It’s not like he’s a serial killer and his children are American citizens. It would be awful for them to either lose their father or be forced to leave their mother country.