Harper's Island - Season 1, Episode 3
Previously on Harper's Island: DEATH!
We open this week's episode on members of the wedding party frolicking in the inn's swimming pool. Trish, Henry, Trish's Sinister Dad, and Richard (Shea's husband) pass the time skeet shooting. Some random bridesmaid named Beth says she's going to spend the day in the spa. Jeez, this inn really is all-inclusive. Henry chats with Richard about how much Trish's family sucks. That's not what he says, but it's what he means. Madison continues being a creepy brat. Sinister Dad's wife cougars around in the background. Someone slips Henry a note that spills the fact that Hunter Jennings is in town and staying at a local motel.
MEANWHILE, the sheriff and coroner are examining Kelly's body. The sheriff, seemingly suspicious already, wants the coroner to check thoroughly into whether it was suicide or not. They pry Kelly's eyelids open to see that her eyes are literally covered in red liquid, ostensibly blood. Ew. The coroner tuts-tuts about kids these days and tattoos, and why don't you just offer us all a Werther's Original Butterscotch, grandpa? We return from the commercial just in time to see him take a sample of the red liquid with a needle. Eeeeeew. He confirms that Kelly had sex shortly before she died, but there's not much mystery there.
MEANWHILE, back at the pool, the groomsmen talk about the loud sex Cal and Chloe had all night. Dude, Cal was hanging upside down for hours. And that was before the sex. Ba dum bump! He's in no condition to pork his girlfriend. The Blond Tool (Sully, but I'm going to stick with Blond Tool for now), can't believe that Chloe is actually into her boyfriend, despite the fact that she shot down his oh-so-smooth graveyard pickup line, and the fact that she's been having monkey sex with Cal all night. Pick up the hint, ass. He doesn't. Instead, he swims over to the couple and offers an insincere apology to Cal for abandoning him in the forest. Cal ignores him.
MEANWHILE, the sheriff talks to Abby about Kelly. They agree that she wasn't suicidal, but given that it's them, they can't even agree without getting into a pointless fight. The sheriff asks if Abby knows of anyone else that was hanging around Kelly, and although Abby clearly saw JD wandering around in Kelly's place, she lies and says she doesn't know anything.
MEANWHILE, Hunter nags Trish some more. She's still unreceptive. Thus concludes the four-hundredth time we've seen this same exact conversation. On the plus side, we at least get a tiny bit of additional information in that Trish accidentally reveals to Hunter that her Sinister Dad is double-crossing him.
MEANWHILE, Abby goes to JD's room to tell him about Kelly's death. His response? "That's weird." I guess Henry's plea for JD to be less of a depressive Froot Loop didn't take. He does open up enough to tell Abby he doesn't know what could have happened to Kelly, and that she seemed in good spirits when they were fucking. Always a plus. MEANWHILE, Richard and Cougar Stepmother have sadomasochistic sex. Kinky! MEANWHILE, Beth and Shea are admiring Trish in her wedding dress. Shouldn't Beth be at the spa? And shouldn't someone be wondering where Lucy is? Beth intercepts a message from Hunter on Trish's phone. She's got to stop leaving that thing lying around. Beth snarks that back in college, Trish may have said she wanted Hunter gone, but her body gave out other signals. Trish says she's dealing with it. This plotline bores me. Will someone kill one of the principal members of it, please?
MEANWHILE, Richard and Cal talk about how weird it is that someone as wimpy and wan as Cal landed someone like Chloe. This is how we know this takes place in TV Land, because Cal's perfectly fine-looking, and Chloe isn't all that. Cal worriedly watches Blond Tool attempt to chat Chloe up yet again. He and Hunter should start a Take The Hint, Dumbass - She's Not Interested club. Shouldn't Richard be having nasty sex with Cougar Stepmom right now? These characters sure like to teleport.
MEANWHILE, Henry stops by Hunter's motel, and charms the desk lady into handing over a key to Hunter's room. He searches it, and finds out that Sinister Dad has been paying for Hunter's oh-so-intricate Nag Trish Into Calling Off the Wedding plan. Hunter returns to the room, and Henry hides in the closet until it's safe to make his escape. MEANWHILE, in the spa, Blond Tool allows the attendant to cover him with sticky goo while Chloe watches. They flirt with each other. This scene is fucked up in about a hundred ways. And where's Beth? The attendant puts cucumber slices on Blond Tool's eyes, which allows Cal to sneak in and dump pillow feathers all over him. This island is certainly full of mysteries. Like where someone got their hands on a down-filled pillow, which haven't been around since the days of Donna Reed. Blond Tool jumps up and chases Cal out, past a giggling Chloe, who was in on the prank. The guys run past the other groomsmen (and Sinister Dad), who are...waiting for their turn to be covered in goo? What is going ON on this island? Murderer? A little help, please?
MEANWHILE, someone runs down JD with a red truck. Now, who do we know who owns one of those? Abby stops by the sheriff's office. He's got a picture of her on his desk. She's not smiling. Couldn't he have picked a shot that makes him a little happier? Maybe one from the good old days before his wife got slaughtered? The two talk, and once again agree that Kelly probably didn't commit suicide. Abby snaps at him for not investigating more, and if she's so het up about justice being served, maybe she shouldn't have lied to him about not seeing anyone hanging around her the day of her death. Shane's name comes up, because Kelly used to date him, broke his heart, and because Shane's name should always come up when something horrible happens.
The sheriff teleports over to Shane's place. Shane is typically unhelpful, and when the sheriff leaves, we see that Shane has JD bound and gagged in his truck. Abby, following in her father's footsteps, teleports over to talk to Nikki, the bar manager who discovered Kelly's body. They talk about Kelly and Shane's bad breakup, and they wonder why Kelly never got a restraining order against him. Because nothing on the island is 500 feet from anything else? And yet there are still two and a half bodies, two heads, and a purse dog lying around undiscovered.
MEANWHILE, Hunter confronts Sinister Dad about being sold out to Trish. Sinister Dad says that he had to lie to avoid both of them being discovered. Hunter, perhaps finally realizing that his plan to cajole Trish into dumping her fiancee isn't working, says he'll leave Trish alone and take off for good if Sinister Dad forks over another $50,000. Yeah, blackmailing someone sinister on Murder Island is pretty much in line with Hunter's intellect. MEANWHILE, someone slips Trish a note purporting to be from Hunter, and asking her to come to one of the inn's rooms to work things out. Yawn. Why isn't anyone dying?
MEANWHILE, Abby is really Nancy Drewing her way around this episode. Where's her lesbian friend with the fat, blond cousin? Abby teleports over to Shane's place, and discovers JD, still gagged, and with a noose around his neck, standing on a chair. Shane catches her, of course. He brandishes a knife in her direction. MEANWHILE, Trish timidly makes her way to the room that the note summoned her to. At the last minute, she reconsiders her engagement ring, and doesn't enter. Good thing for her, because it is Henry, not Hunter, who waits within. MEANWHILE, Abby babbles to Shane about John Wakefield and swears that Kelly didn't commit suicide so he won't kill her (or JD, whom I guess he blames for the "suicide"). Shane actually uses the word "daft", which I refuse to believe he'd ever say. Their insane conversation gives the sheriff enough time to bust in, though I don't think Abby knew he was there. A surprised Shane drops the knife and accidentally knocks JD off the chair. Whoops. He begins to choke, but Abby grabs the knife and cuts him down.
Later that night, there's some sort of special dinner. I can't imagine it's the rehearsal dinner, because the priest would have to be at the rehearsal, and... Well, you know. And really, someone ought to have missed Lucy by this point. Henry confronts Sinister Dad (that's happening a lot tonight - poor Sinister Dad), saying that he knows what he and Hunter planned, and that it's not going to work. Abby and her dad finally make some headway into not bickering every time they speak. MEANWHILE, Cal offers an insincere apology to Blond Tool, who gets all mad (especially when the rest of the groomsmen make fun of him), but is held in check by Henry, who points out that he and Cal are even now. Hunter walks directly into the party. Isn't his presence on the island supposed to be a secret to everyone but Trish and her Sinister Dad (and now Henry)? What is he doing walking right into the party? He's there to send a threatening text message to Sinister Dad about the blackmail money, but he could have done that from anywhere. Why blow his cover? Oh, because he's Hunter, and Hunter is indescribably stupid.
Henry makes a toast which sounds rather charming, but is really a veiled challenge to Sinister Dad. Sinister Dad has more pressing things on his mind, as he walks outside and hands a check to Hunter, warning him to never talk to Trish again. Hunter hops in a speedboat and gets ready to leave. MEANWHILE, the sheriff is exploring Kelly's place. With a flashlight, of course, because God forbid someone on television ever turn the goddamned lights on. He discovers a very creepy figure of a bear, with eyes as red as Kelly's were. MEANWHILE, Hunter finds a satchel in the boat. It's crammed with money and a gun. MEANWHILE, the coroner calls the sheriff, and reports that the substance found in Kelly's eyes was not blood, but red ink. The sheriff is disturbed, especially when he finds a newspaper clipping that has a picture of him, with the eyes colored in red. A note is scrawled across it that reads "YOU FOUND HER, NOW FIND ME". Yeeks. MEANWHILE, Hunter's boat dies. Guess who's not far behind? Yes, when Hunter yanks open the engine compartment, a double-barreled shotgun -- in fact, one of the very skeet-shooting weapons we saw at the beginning of the episode -- pops up and blows him away. Yaaaaaaaaay! No more tedious "Trish, whyyyyyyyy don't you leeeeeeeave Henry for meeeeeeeee?" scenes! Thank you, murderer!
Next week on Harper's Island: DEATH!
Overall Grade: C+
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Fire Island
Harper's Island - Season 1, Episode 2
Previously on Harper's Island: DEATH!
Abby wakes up, and having been through the trauma of coming home to the island where half a dozen people were slaughtered, getting into a bar fight, and being taunted with her mother's death by an unknown prankster, she decides the best thing to do is go jogging alone through the woods where she found her mother's corpse. Seriously, Abby. Sleep in. Order up an omelette. She spots a deer, and is so enchanted, she stops to gawk at it. I guess that comes from her living in Los Angeles for a while, because seeing a deer isn't exactly that unheard of, especially on an island covered by forests. She's startled by Jimmy and his asshole brother (Shane), who are hunting the deer. She objects to this, and when Jimmy and Shane explain that they're culling the weak ones that will starve come winter anyway, Abby stalks off, muttering that she'd rather not actually be present for said culling, thank you.
MEANWHILE, Hunter again tries to cajole Trish out of marrying Henry. She doesn't want to hear it. Man, if the only tricks Hunter has up his sleeve are "charm" and nagging, this is a very ill thought-out plan. I think Trish has been wearing that pearl necklace for the entirety of her screen-time. Jeez, lady. I know you're well-heeled and everything, but give it a rest.
MEANWHILE, someone has broken into the local maritime museum and stolen some sort of sharpened spade. The only reason this is shown is because that sharpened spade will naturally be showing up momentarily in a rather nasty way. Apparently, we the audience are so stupid, we would have seen the murder and thought "Hey, where did that sharpened spade come from? How could a serial killer possibly have lain his or her hands on such an array of weapons?"
Jimmy and Shane come back to Shane's truck to discover the deer, dead and splayed across the hood, with "PSYCHO" scrawled across the windshield in blood. They're consternated, I imagine because this could have been done by anyone who's ever met Shane. MEANWHILE, Henry continues his habit of talking to JD through closed doors. He asks JD to maybe try to be less of a depressive Froot Loop this week after last night's bar fight with Shane, and JD's like "It's not my fault Shane's a douche." Point. Oh, and he's frantically washing copious amounts of blood off of his hands.
Trish dashes from her meeting with Hunter to join Henry and the wedding party on the patio, where Henry has been explaining the extended scavenger hunt he and Trish are sending the rest of them on. Wait, wait, wait. Henry has clearly been hanging out with everyone for quite some time, and this is after his heart-to-door with JD. How long has Hunter been whining to Trish? Didn't that conversation only last a few minutes? Where has Trish been? Very curious. P.S. - Spending a week doing things like wedding-themed scavenger hunts would have me throwing myself out of the hotel window long before any murderer got to me. Some tooly, blond groomsman talks Cal into switching teams. Not like that, perv. He just switches scavenger hunt teams so that he can hit on Cal's girlfriend. Class-ay. Chloe's disappointed that she and Cal aren't on the same team. I guess she's not mad anymore about that whole dunking thing.
We see the same perky lady we saw for all of three seconds last week for all of three seconds this week as she drops some scavenger hunt supplies off at the church. The priest thanks her. MEANWHILE, Trish and Henry essentially have sex on their wedding cake. So much for those separate rooms, huh? The priest we just met goes wandering through the woods, where he steps into one of those hunting snares that loops around the ankle and suspends him upside down. The murderer steps up and lops off his head with that sharpened spade. Thank goodness they showed its theft from the maritime museum! I'd be completely lost, otherwise! Still, I think it was casually mentioned that Trish used to work at that museum. Just sayin'.
MEANWHILE, Abby and the rest of her scavenger hunt team hang out at the local bar. It's, like, ten in the morning, alkies. Abby runs into a creepy girl named Kelly, whose mother was also murdered by Wakefield. Haunted as Abby is, she doesn't have half the case of cuckoos Kelly has. Abby reveals that her father sent her away after the murders. Oh, I was under the impression she had abandoned her father. Oopsie! Anyhoo, Shane enters and is douchey some more. We get it. They wander outside where Jimmy waits, and Shane suggests that Abby might be responsible for the message on his windshield. Sure. She doesn't want to watch you kill a deer, but she killed one with her bare hands, then smeared a bloody message on your ride. Good thinking, douche. Abby and Jimmy chat, at one point saying that the island isn't very big. You'd think someone would have stumbled across Uncle Marty's body by this point, especially since everyone's tromping all over this place this episode.
Speaking of which, Chloe is at a graveyard with the rest of her scavenger hunt team. Fun! She finds Wakefield's grave, which makes her feel all thrilled and spooked, so the blond tool decides there couldn't be a better time to hit on her. The dudes on this island have no game. MEANWHILE, Trish and Lucy (she of the purse dog) have the exact same conversation Trish and Shea had last week about Hunter. The cake sex wasn't marriage-affirming enough? MEANWHILE, Kelly catches up with Abby to ask if she can come to Los Angeles and live with her. The deer-in-the-headlights look Abby gives her is enough to strike enough sanity into Kelly that she takes it back. JD wanders around in the background. MEANWHILE, Henry talks to Jimmy, and suggests that maybe he could convince Shane not to be such a douchebag. The odds aren't good. Henry is nice enough to invite both of them to the bonfire on the beach that night.
So, I guess the scavenger hunt is off? Cal wanders through the woods and steps into another one of those snare traps. He's hoisted into the air and hangs upside-down. MEANWHILE, Henry finds a puddle of blood in his room that leads to the bathroom, where he finds a severed deer head in his bathtub. Man, the deer on this island aren't having a good week. MEANWHILE, Trish walks in on her sinister father talking with Hunter, only catching the end of the conversation. Her sinister father is able to lie his way out by pretending that he was sending Hunter away on Trish's behalf. The blond tool stumbles across Cal hanging in the woods. He snags Cal's map, lying on the ground, and abandons him, promising to send help back. Well, what do you want? He's a tool.
Abby must have scented blood, and didn't want to miss an opportunity to be in the middle of the action, because she comes into Henry and Trish's room for no reason other than to discover Henry cleaning up after the Bambi incident. Abby tells him that Jimmy and Shane were hunting deer earlier, and he freaks out. She manages to keep him from dashing off to kick Shane's ass, promising to talk to Jimmy. Henry probably didn't take this to mean she'd run off and flirt with her old flame some more, which is what happens. She then teleports over to Kelly's place to let her know that it's just peachy if Kelly moves in with her. Abby loves her some drama. JD wanders in the background some more, this time in considerably less clothing. After Abby leaves to teleport somewhere else, Kelly sexes JD up, saying that this is the best day of her life. Uh, oh.
That night, the bonfire kicks into high gear. Then, a whole bunch of shit goes down, which will give my poor MEANWHILE quite a workout. Someone sends a text to Henry purporting to be Uncle Marty, who has, ahem, stepped away from the festivities to woo a young lady. Henry buys it, so I guess nobody will be looking for Uncle Marty for a while. What about the duo of heads rolling around the island? MEANWHILE, Jimmy and Shane arrive, and Henry immediately punches Shane in the face. A fight miraculously doesn't break out, and Shane just stalks off. Lucy drops her purse dog, who darts into the woods past Hunter who has obviously not departed. Planning to whine to Trish some more, are we? MEANWHILE, Chloe wonders where Cal is, which prompts Blond Tool to remember that he was supposed to send someone to cut Cal down. A mini-search party goes off to find him. MEANWHILE, the police...hey! They actually find a body! Finally! Someone has hanged poor Kelly, who really shouldn't have said anything about this being the best day ever. Hey, murderer? Perhaps you could lay off the incidental characters like Priest and Kelly and maybe whittle down the main cast a bit? There's still a lot of them!
MEANWHILE, Lucy wanders through the woods. There's a lot of that going around. She looks for her purse dog, but finds a Burmese tiger trap instead. You know, those pits dug in the ground and covered with leaves and dirt. She plunges to the bottom. MEANWHILE, the search party finds Cal. He's fine. Lucy sits dazed in the pit, calling for help. Her purse dog stands shivering at the top, but isn't able to lend much help when the murderer steps up and douses Lucy with gasoline. Like Uncle Marty last week, she's considerably less panicked than she should be, seeming miffed at most. That changes when the murderer lights a match and drops it on her. Hey, where did he or she find a box of matches and some gasoline? We didn't see them stolen from anywhere! Lucy flails around in the pit, roasting to death. See, if she had had a dog of respectable size, this wouldn't have happened.
Next week on Harper's Island: DEATH!
Overall Grade: B
Previously on Harper's Island: DEATH!
Abby wakes up, and having been through the trauma of coming home to the island where half a dozen people were slaughtered, getting into a bar fight, and being taunted with her mother's death by an unknown prankster, she decides the best thing to do is go jogging alone through the woods where she found her mother's corpse. Seriously, Abby. Sleep in. Order up an omelette. She spots a deer, and is so enchanted, she stops to gawk at it. I guess that comes from her living in Los Angeles for a while, because seeing a deer isn't exactly that unheard of, especially on an island covered by forests. She's startled by Jimmy and his asshole brother (Shane), who are hunting the deer. She objects to this, and when Jimmy and Shane explain that they're culling the weak ones that will starve come winter anyway, Abby stalks off, muttering that she'd rather not actually be present for said culling, thank you.
MEANWHILE, Hunter again tries to cajole Trish out of marrying Henry. She doesn't want to hear it. Man, if the only tricks Hunter has up his sleeve are "charm" and nagging, this is a very ill thought-out plan. I think Trish has been wearing that pearl necklace for the entirety of her screen-time. Jeez, lady. I know you're well-heeled and everything, but give it a rest.
MEANWHILE, someone has broken into the local maritime museum and stolen some sort of sharpened spade. The only reason this is shown is because that sharpened spade will naturally be showing up momentarily in a rather nasty way. Apparently, we the audience are so stupid, we would have seen the murder and thought "Hey, where did that sharpened spade come from? How could a serial killer possibly have lain his or her hands on such an array of weapons?"
Jimmy and Shane come back to Shane's truck to discover the deer, dead and splayed across the hood, with "PSYCHO" scrawled across the windshield in blood. They're consternated, I imagine because this could have been done by anyone who's ever met Shane. MEANWHILE, Henry continues his habit of talking to JD through closed doors. He asks JD to maybe try to be less of a depressive Froot Loop this week after last night's bar fight with Shane, and JD's like "It's not my fault Shane's a douche." Point. Oh, and he's frantically washing copious amounts of blood off of his hands.
Trish dashes from her meeting with Hunter to join Henry and the wedding party on the patio, where Henry has been explaining the extended scavenger hunt he and Trish are sending the rest of them on. Wait, wait, wait. Henry has clearly been hanging out with everyone for quite some time, and this is after his heart-to-door with JD. How long has Hunter been whining to Trish? Didn't that conversation only last a few minutes? Where has Trish been? Very curious. P.S. - Spending a week doing things like wedding-themed scavenger hunts would have me throwing myself out of the hotel window long before any murderer got to me. Some tooly, blond groomsman talks Cal into switching teams. Not like that, perv. He just switches scavenger hunt teams so that he can hit on Cal's girlfriend. Class-ay. Chloe's disappointed that she and Cal aren't on the same team. I guess she's not mad anymore about that whole dunking thing.
We see the same perky lady we saw for all of three seconds last week for all of three seconds this week as she drops some scavenger hunt supplies off at the church. The priest thanks her. MEANWHILE, Trish and Henry essentially have sex on their wedding cake. So much for those separate rooms, huh? The priest we just met goes wandering through the woods, where he steps into one of those hunting snares that loops around the ankle and suspends him upside down. The murderer steps up and lops off his head with that sharpened spade. Thank goodness they showed its theft from the maritime museum! I'd be completely lost, otherwise! Still, I think it was casually mentioned that Trish used to work at that museum. Just sayin'.
MEANWHILE, Abby and the rest of her scavenger hunt team hang out at the local bar. It's, like, ten in the morning, alkies. Abby runs into a creepy girl named Kelly, whose mother was also murdered by Wakefield. Haunted as Abby is, she doesn't have half the case of cuckoos Kelly has. Abby reveals that her father sent her away after the murders. Oh, I was under the impression she had abandoned her father. Oopsie! Anyhoo, Shane enters and is douchey some more. We get it. They wander outside where Jimmy waits, and Shane suggests that Abby might be responsible for the message on his windshield. Sure. She doesn't want to watch you kill a deer, but she killed one with her bare hands, then smeared a bloody message on your ride. Good thinking, douche. Abby and Jimmy chat, at one point saying that the island isn't very big. You'd think someone would have stumbled across Uncle Marty's body by this point, especially since everyone's tromping all over this place this episode.
Speaking of which, Chloe is at a graveyard with the rest of her scavenger hunt team. Fun! She finds Wakefield's grave, which makes her feel all thrilled and spooked, so the blond tool decides there couldn't be a better time to hit on her. The dudes on this island have no game. MEANWHILE, Trish and Lucy (she of the purse dog) have the exact same conversation Trish and Shea had last week about Hunter. The cake sex wasn't marriage-affirming enough? MEANWHILE, Kelly catches up with Abby to ask if she can come to Los Angeles and live with her. The deer-in-the-headlights look Abby gives her is enough to strike enough sanity into Kelly that she takes it back. JD wanders around in the background. MEANWHILE, Henry talks to Jimmy, and suggests that maybe he could convince Shane not to be such a douchebag. The odds aren't good. Henry is nice enough to invite both of them to the bonfire on the beach that night.
So, I guess the scavenger hunt is off? Cal wanders through the woods and steps into another one of those snare traps. He's hoisted into the air and hangs upside-down. MEANWHILE, Henry finds a puddle of blood in his room that leads to the bathroom, where he finds a severed deer head in his bathtub. Man, the deer on this island aren't having a good week. MEANWHILE, Trish walks in on her sinister father talking with Hunter, only catching the end of the conversation. Her sinister father is able to lie his way out by pretending that he was sending Hunter away on Trish's behalf. The blond tool stumbles across Cal hanging in the woods. He snags Cal's map, lying on the ground, and abandons him, promising to send help back. Well, what do you want? He's a tool.
Abby must have scented blood, and didn't want to miss an opportunity to be in the middle of the action, because she comes into Henry and Trish's room for no reason other than to discover Henry cleaning up after the Bambi incident. Abby tells him that Jimmy and Shane were hunting deer earlier, and he freaks out. She manages to keep him from dashing off to kick Shane's ass, promising to talk to Jimmy. Henry probably didn't take this to mean she'd run off and flirt with her old flame some more, which is what happens. She then teleports over to Kelly's place to let her know that it's just peachy if Kelly moves in with her. Abby loves her some drama. JD wanders in the background some more, this time in considerably less clothing. After Abby leaves to teleport somewhere else, Kelly sexes JD up, saying that this is the best day of her life. Uh, oh.
That night, the bonfire kicks into high gear. Then, a whole bunch of shit goes down, which will give my poor MEANWHILE quite a workout. Someone sends a text to Henry purporting to be Uncle Marty, who has, ahem, stepped away from the festivities to woo a young lady. Henry buys it, so I guess nobody will be looking for Uncle Marty for a while. What about the duo of heads rolling around the island? MEANWHILE, Jimmy and Shane arrive, and Henry immediately punches Shane in the face. A fight miraculously doesn't break out, and Shane just stalks off. Lucy drops her purse dog, who darts into the woods past Hunter who has obviously not departed. Planning to whine to Trish some more, are we? MEANWHILE, Chloe wonders where Cal is, which prompts Blond Tool to remember that he was supposed to send someone to cut Cal down. A mini-search party goes off to find him. MEANWHILE, the police...hey! They actually find a body! Finally! Someone has hanged poor Kelly, who really shouldn't have said anything about this being the best day ever. Hey, murderer? Perhaps you could lay off the incidental characters like Priest and Kelly and maybe whittle down the main cast a bit? There's still a lot of them!
MEANWHILE, Lucy wanders through the woods. There's a lot of that going around. She looks for her purse dog, but finds a Burmese tiger trap instead. You know, those pits dug in the ground and covered with leaves and dirt. She plunges to the bottom. MEANWHILE, the search party finds Cal. He's fine. Lucy sits dazed in the pit, calling for help. Her purse dog stands shivering at the top, but isn't able to lend much help when the murderer steps up and douses Lucy with gasoline. Like Uncle Marty last week, she's considerably less panicked than she should be, seeming miffed at most. That changes when the murderer lights a match and drops it on her. Hey, where did he or she find a box of matches and some gasoline? We didn't see them stolen from anywhere! Lucy flails around in the pit, roasting to death. See, if she had had a dog of respectable size, this wouldn't have happened.
Next week on Harper's Island: DEATH!
Overall Grade: B
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Lots and Lots and Lots of Indians Went Out to Dine
Harper's Island - Season 1, Episode 1
Did you ever read And Then There Were None, and think to yourself: "Well, this is pretty good, but I wish they'd more than double the amount of characters. And maybe make it a little grosser. And have fewer self-righteous British people." Well, your wish has been granted! CBS has given us a murder mystery show, a genre I find difficult to resist. So, let's jump in with both feet, shall we? I don't know half these people's names or their relation to the plot, but let's not let that stop us.
It seems we've all been invited to the wedding of the season. Good thing they've got all of us as guests, as most of the characters seem to be members of the actual wedding party. Doesn't leave a lot of folks to fill out the pews. The wedding is part of a week-long party on Harper's Island, off the coast of Seattle. A week-long party? Don't any of these characters have jobs? Oh, sorry. They have names like Shea and Cal and Hunter, so of course they don't. We begin with a champagne party on the ferry in Seattle. The day is bright and sunny and nobody's wearing flannel or drinking coffee, so perhaps this is some other Seattle. After all, we didn't get any shots of the Space Needle; it's probably Seattle, Florida.
Our blushing bride, Trish gazes lovingly at her frog-faced groom, Henry. Trish's dad is vaguely sinister. MEANWHILE, Henry's friends are boozy, frat types, so you know they won't last long. MEANWHILE, Henry's lecherous uncle Marty arrives with a mariachi band (don't ask), and flirts with a blonde named Chloe, much to her British beau Cal's consternation. Hey, I thought we specifically requested fewer self-righteous Brits! I guess one's not too bad. Uncle Marty also takes a moment to adjourn to the restroom and shove a gun down the back of his pants. Couldn't he have done that before he left home? MEANWHILE, Trish's sister Shea wanders around, carping at her daughter, a creepy little brat named Madison. Oh, please make her the first victim. There's a swarm of other people, too, but none as important as Abby, who dithers in her cab.
Abby was childhood friends with Henry on Harper's Island, and is nervous about going back, as her mother was brutally murdered there several years back, along with several other people. Um, yeah. I know he's your friend, Abby, but maybe just send a card and a nice toaster. She ignores me, and boards the boat. MEANWHILE, some generic bridesmaids (one of whom has an honest-to-goodness purse dog) discuss the previous murders on Harper's Island, committed by a man named Wakefield. A dive-bombing bird interrupts their conversation, which I wish would happen more in real life. MEANWHILE, despite the fact that the most recent guests boarded, like, four seconds ago, Trish decides that they simply can't wait any longer for Cousin Ben to show up, and signals for the ferry to leave. MEANWHILE, we see what none of the guests can - Cousin Ben tied to the underside of the boat, a respirator in his mouth so he can breathe and observe his impending doom. The boat starts, the propeller whirls toward Ben, and one of those big blood bubbles comes up and bursts on the surface like a really gnarly zit. Ick. Good-bye, Cousin Ben! I'll never forget you!
The boat arrives at Harper's Island, where Abby runs into her old boyfriend, Jimmy the fishmonger. The guests head for the inn where they'll be the sole occupants for the week. Nobody carries any luggage. It must have been brought up by a fleet of servants a la Gosford Park or something. MEANWHILE, Abby thinks it'd be a swell idea to take a stroll through the woods and find the tree where she discovered her mother's corpse hanging from a branch. I'll bet Abby wrote a lot of bad poetry in eighth grade. She's surprised by Henry, who has followed her into the woods for no discernible reason. MEANWHILE, an unobserved shadowy figure watches them.
MEANWHILE, Cal, despite being a straight adult male, takes a bubble bath. He ponders an engagement ring, waffling over whether or not to pop the question to Chloe. He does not, preferring to pop some bubbles instead. Chloe's hair bothers me. MEANWHILE, Madison continues being a creepy brat by using a magnifying glass to torture a snail. Seriously. I know she's a minor, and thus off-limits, but think how much water cooler buzz this show would generate if they killed off the kid. Not to mention sparing us all a lot of irritation. Think about it, CBS. MEANWHILE, Jimmy bickers gently with his friend, and goes to help unstick the ferry's propeller, pulling a cord out, but nobody notices that detaching the cord also detaches Cousin Ben's head. Ew.
Trish keeps getting text messages from someone named Hunter Jennings, and MEANWHILE, Hunter is also busily sending e-mails to her sinister father. At a party that evening, Henry teleports around, simultaneously dancing with Trish, bonding with Abby, and pleading with his loser brother JD through JD's locked door. MEANWHILE, Hunter lures Trish out of the party and comes on to her, seeming surprised that she's pretty gung ho about this whole marriage thing. MEANWHILE, Uncle Marty is also kept busy, dancing with Chloe, then magically appearing outside in time to overhear Trish's sinister father plotting to bust up the wedding with Hunter. Uncle Marty vaguely threatens Trish's sinister father while they both smoke cigars, and why don't you just whip them out, already?
MEANWHILE, Trish whines to Shea that she doesn't know what to do, despite being madly in love with Henry. Shea duhs that maybe Trish might want to come clean with the man she plans to spend the rest of her life with, which makes Trish all pissy, because she's still warm for Hunter's form. MEANWHILE, Henry sends Abby into town to look for JD, somehow knowing that he's wandered off, despite not seeing him all evening. Abby heads for the local bar, which is in a small town, and thus is required by law to break out into a bar fight within three minutes. Abby barely has time to reconnect with old friends and flirt with Jimmy some more before said fight breaks out between JD and some yokel. The fight is broken up by the local sheriff, who turns out to be Abby's father. The two haven't spoken in some time, which is kind of assy of Abby.
MEANWHILE, Cal and Chloe wander down to the beach, where Chloe decides to be sexy by stripping off and running into the water. When Cal follows, Chloe screams and hides underwater so Cal will think she's drowned. I actually thought she had discovered Cousin Ben's head, but I guess she's just being "funny". Then when Cal doesn't find that trick adorable, and dunks her in retaliation, she becomes furious. Bitch. She runs back to the shore and tosses Cal's clothes into the water, where the engagement ring falls out of his pants pocket. He wails in despair, even though the past forty seconds should have made him want to ditch that ring as quickly as possible.
MEANWHILE, Trish and Henry have sex. After they're done, she goes to the bathroom, just in time for Henry to see an incoming message from Hunter on her phone. Trish suggests getting separate rooms until the wedding, to perpetuate the ridiculous myth that either of them is virginal or pure. Henry agrees, looking froggier than ever. MEANWHILE, Madison becomes even brattier and creepier, destroying Cousin Ben's unclaimed gift bag and standing over her sleeping mother, only to do her best twins-from-Shining impersonation when Shea wakes up. MEANWHILE, Uncle Marty wanders through the woods for no reason, and falls through a wooden bridge, getting stuck halfway. Someone approaches him from underneath, but doesn't respond to his calls for help. Instead, we hear some nasty metallic swiping sounds, and Uncle Marty cries out in pain (though not to any great extent, given what we're about to see). He manages to pull the gun out of his pants and fire downwards through the bridge, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. The metallic swipes continue and Uncle Marty eventually collapses. The camera pulls back to reveal that he's been bisected. Ewwwwwwwwww. You can't show a hard dick in an R-rated movie, but a human body cut in half on network television is peachy.
MEANWHILE, Abby discovers a newspaper clipping describing her mother's murder taped to her mirror. She is not pleased to find it.
Next week on Harper's Island: Someone dies. That's the point, isn't it? The promos promise that anyone can be a victim, showing shots of the other characters, including the purse dog. Fifi, no!
Overall Grade: B+
Did you ever read And Then There Were None, and think to yourself: "Well, this is pretty good, but I wish they'd more than double the amount of characters. And maybe make it a little grosser. And have fewer self-righteous British people." Well, your wish has been granted! CBS has given us a murder mystery show, a genre I find difficult to resist. So, let's jump in with both feet, shall we? I don't know half these people's names or their relation to the plot, but let's not let that stop us.
It seems we've all been invited to the wedding of the season. Good thing they've got all of us as guests, as most of the characters seem to be members of the actual wedding party. Doesn't leave a lot of folks to fill out the pews. The wedding is part of a week-long party on Harper's Island, off the coast of Seattle. A week-long party? Don't any of these characters have jobs? Oh, sorry. They have names like Shea and Cal and Hunter, so of course they don't. We begin with a champagne party on the ferry in Seattle. The day is bright and sunny and nobody's wearing flannel or drinking coffee, so perhaps this is some other Seattle. After all, we didn't get any shots of the Space Needle; it's probably Seattle, Florida.
Our blushing bride, Trish gazes lovingly at her frog-faced groom, Henry. Trish's dad is vaguely sinister. MEANWHILE, Henry's friends are boozy, frat types, so you know they won't last long. MEANWHILE, Henry's lecherous uncle Marty arrives with a mariachi band (don't ask), and flirts with a blonde named Chloe, much to her British beau Cal's consternation. Hey, I thought we specifically requested fewer self-righteous Brits! I guess one's not too bad. Uncle Marty also takes a moment to adjourn to the restroom and shove a gun down the back of his pants. Couldn't he have done that before he left home? MEANWHILE, Trish's sister Shea wanders around, carping at her daughter, a creepy little brat named Madison. Oh, please make her the first victim. There's a swarm of other people, too, but none as important as Abby, who dithers in her cab.
Abby was childhood friends with Henry on Harper's Island, and is nervous about going back, as her mother was brutally murdered there several years back, along with several other people. Um, yeah. I know he's your friend, Abby, but maybe just send a card and a nice toaster. She ignores me, and boards the boat. MEANWHILE, some generic bridesmaids (one of whom has an honest-to-goodness purse dog) discuss the previous murders on Harper's Island, committed by a man named Wakefield. A dive-bombing bird interrupts their conversation, which I wish would happen more in real life. MEANWHILE, despite the fact that the most recent guests boarded, like, four seconds ago, Trish decides that they simply can't wait any longer for Cousin Ben to show up, and signals for the ferry to leave. MEANWHILE, we see what none of the guests can - Cousin Ben tied to the underside of the boat, a respirator in his mouth so he can breathe and observe his impending doom. The boat starts, the propeller whirls toward Ben, and one of those big blood bubbles comes up and bursts on the surface like a really gnarly zit. Ick. Good-bye, Cousin Ben! I'll never forget you!
The boat arrives at Harper's Island, where Abby runs into her old boyfriend, Jimmy the fishmonger. The guests head for the inn where they'll be the sole occupants for the week. Nobody carries any luggage. It must have been brought up by a fleet of servants a la Gosford Park or something. MEANWHILE, Abby thinks it'd be a swell idea to take a stroll through the woods and find the tree where she discovered her mother's corpse hanging from a branch. I'll bet Abby wrote a lot of bad poetry in eighth grade. She's surprised by Henry, who has followed her into the woods for no discernible reason. MEANWHILE, an unobserved shadowy figure watches them.
MEANWHILE, Cal, despite being a straight adult male, takes a bubble bath. He ponders an engagement ring, waffling over whether or not to pop the question to Chloe. He does not, preferring to pop some bubbles instead. Chloe's hair bothers me. MEANWHILE, Madison continues being a creepy brat by using a magnifying glass to torture a snail. Seriously. I know she's a minor, and thus off-limits, but think how much water cooler buzz this show would generate if they killed off the kid. Not to mention sparing us all a lot of irritation. Think about it, CBS. MEANWHILE, Jimmy bickers gently with his friend, and goes to help unstick the ferry's propeller, pulling a cord out, but nobody notices that detaching the cord also detaches Cousin Ben's head. Ew.
Trish keeps getting text messages from someone named Hunter Jennings, and MEANWHILE, Hunter is also busily sending e-mails to her sinister father. At a party that evening, Henry teleports around, simultaneously dancing with Trish, bonding with Abby, and pleading with his loser brother JD through JD's locked door. MEANWHILE, Hunter lures Trish out of the party and comes on to her, seeming surprised that she's pretty gung ho about this whole marriage thing. MEANWHILE, Uncle Marty is also kept busy, dancing with Chloe, then magically appearing outside in time to overhear Trish's sinister father plotting to bust up the wedding with Hunter. Uncle Marty vaguely threatens Trish's sinister father while they both smoke cigars, and why don't you just whip them out, already?
MEANWHILE, Trish whines to Shea that she doesn't know what to do, despite being madly in love with Henry. Shea duhs that maybe Trish might want to come clean with the man she plans to spend the rest of her life with, which makes Trish all pissy, because she's still warm for Hunter's form. MEANWHILE, Henry sends Abby into town to look for JD, somehow knowing that he's wandered off, despite not seeing him all evening. Abby heads for the local bar, which is in a small town, and thus is required by law to break out into a bar fight within three minutes. Abby barely has time to reconnect with old friends and flirt with Jimmy some more before said fight breaks out between JD and some yokel. The fight is broken up by the local sheriff, who turns out to be Abby's father. The two haven't spoken in some time, which is kind of assy of Abby.
MEANWHILE, Cal and Chloe wander down to the beach, where Chloe decides to be sexy by stripping off and running into the water. When Cal follows, Chloe screams and hides underwater so Cal will think she's drowned. I actually thought she had discovered Cousin Ben's head, but I guess she's just being "funny". Then when Cal doesn't find that trick adorable, and dunks her in retaliation, she becomes furious. Bitch. She runs back to the shore and tosses Cal's clothes into the water, where the engagement ring falls out of his pants pocket. He wails in despair, even though the past forty seconds should have made him want to ditch that ring as quickly as possible.
MEANWHILE, Trish and Henry have sex. After they're done, she goes to the bathroom, just in time for Henry to see an incoming message from Hunter on her phone. Trish suggests getting separate rooms until the wedding, to perpetuate the ridiculous myth that either of them is virginal or pure. Henry agrees, looking froggier than ever. MEANWHILE, Madison becomes even brattier and creepier, destroying Cousin Ben's unclaimed gift bag and standing over her sleeping mother, only to do her best twins-from-Shining impersonation when Shea wakes up. MEANWHILE, Uncle Marty wanders through the woods for no reason, and falls through a wooden bridge, getting stuck halfway. Someone approaches him from underneath, but doesn't respond to his calls for help. Instead, we hear some nasty metallic swiping sounds, and Uncle Marty cries out in pain (though not to any great extent, given what we're about to see). He manages to pull the gun out of his pants and fire downwards through the bridge, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. The metallic swipes continue and Uncle Marty eventually collapses. The camera pulls back to reveal that he's been bisected. Ewwwwwwwwww. You can't show a hard dick in an R-rated movie, but a human body cut in half on network television is peachy.
MEANWHILE, Abby discovers a newspaper clipping describing her mother's murder taped to her mirror. She is not pleased to find it.
Next week on Harper's Island: Someone dies. That's the point, isn't it? The promos promise that anyone can be a victim, showing shots of the other characters, including the purse dog. Fifi, no!
Overall Grade: B+
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