Harper's Island - Season 1, Episode 5
Previously on Harper's Island: DEATH! MAYBE!
The morning after her drunken evening followed by her almost drowning, Trish walks around in a meltdown on the inn's lawn. I can't decide whether I'm relieved or miffed that we didn't see Trish wake up in a meltdown, shower in a meltdown, get dressed in a meltdown, and wander outside in a meltdown. Henry finds her, and beseeches her to calm down and take some time for herself. She says there's far too much to do with the wedding, but Sinister Dad appears and convinces her to hang out with him for a while. MEANWHILE, Abby wakes up in her clothes at Jimmy's place. She wakes up in her clothes a lot. Did she even pack pajamas? There's a knock at the door, and it turns out to be her father, who has breakfast plans with Jimmy. There's a lot of awkward avoidance of whether Abby and Jimmy knocked boots last night or not. I get that they're not anxious to talk about it, but it'd have been nice to let us in on a little information.
MEANWHILE, Trish and her dad take a leisurely bike ride through the woods. They chat about how little quality time they spend together, until that conversation is thankfully interrupted by Lucy's purse dog, whom Trish spots out of the corner of her eye. There's some very odd conversation about how they thought Lucy had left the island. Wait, why do they think that? Did someone send another fake text message? Wouldn't it strike them as weird that Lucy would leave before the wedding without even talking to someone face-to-face? Is this just a clumsily inserted line of dialogue to cover the fact that it's ridiculous that nobody's wondered where Lucy is for two days?
They decide to follow the purse dog, and are in a fairly jolly mood. Well, they are until their bikes set off a trip wire that springs a giant log trap. This murderer must have loved The Goonies. The log swings lower than you'd think, and smashes the bikes at wheel-level, rather than at human-head-level. It's enough to send Trish and her Sinister Dad sprawling to the ground. They're knocked out for a while, and are a bit banged up -- Trish has come down with a case of Twisted Ankle Cliche -- but manage to pull themselves together. Trish's cell phone has been smashed to bits, and Sinister Dad helps her hobble back towards the inn, notably passing a "NO TRESPASSING" sign.
MEANWHILE, Madison approaches JD and asks why he has "pictures" all over him. She declares them creepy, and JD tells her she's the one who's creepy. YES! Thank you! Someone finally said it! The two of them hatch a plot to set off a bunch of fireworks for attention. So JD is heavily inked, does drugs, and sets off explosives for attention. That nasty case of Cliche that Trish has come down with seems to be catching. Maggie corners Henry with pointless questions about tablecloths and napkin rings until they're startled by the fireworks exploding at their feet. Henry is upset, though you'd think he'd be grateful to escape the tedium of niggling wedding details. Also, I refuse to believe that Trish wouldn't have selected all of that stuff before-hand. What? Nitpicking tiny little plot holes is fun! Try it sometime!
MEANWHILE, Malcolm has unsettling dreams about Booth's death. He awakens to find forest detritus by his bed, clothes on Booth's bed, and the shower running in his bathroom. He creeps into the bathroom and rips the curtain back to find...nobody. Weird. He's surprised by Token Black (hereafter known as Danny), who has come in to ask about breakfast. Danny wonders where Booth has gotten to. Malcolm acts suspicious, and kicks the satchel of money further under his bed. Good hiding place, dude. Nobody would ever think to look there.
MEANWHILE, Abby, Jimmy, and the sheriff have a leisurely breakfast, giggling over the fact that the sheriff hated Jimmy back when he was dating Abby. He tells Abby he's got some of her stuff and some of her late mother's back at the house, so if she has time, she's welcome to come over and go through it. She waffles.
MEANWHILE, the groomsmen decide to look for Booth. Malcolm plays along. Madison stops by JD's room to see if he's up for more mayhem (for someone claiming to have spirits as friends, you'd think the creepy brat could come up with something better than the floating-candy-bar-in-the-pool gag). He blows her off, but not before they bond over the fact that both of their families have issues.
MEANWHILE, Trish and Sinister Dad hobble through the woods. Since they're alone, and have got nothing but time, they finally have it out over the fact that Sinister Dad doesn't like Henry. Sinister Dad says it comes down to him not trusting Henry, so Trish spills the beans about Katherine and Richard having an affair, though she tactfully leaves out all the sadomasochistic sex parts.
MEANWHILE, Henry is still under Maggie's thumb concerning the wedding details. Abby stops by long enough to recap everything we just saw at breakfast, but runs away before she can get pulled into selecting salad forks. Smart girl. Maggie hasn't been able to contact the reverend about the wedding rehearsal(for obvious reasons), so Henry says he'll go down to the church and take care of it. He leaves a message for Trish, hoping she'll get back soon, but soon has a more pressing concern. He arrives at the church to find a raccoon carcass on the altar, split down the middle and crawling with bugs. Ew.
MEANWHILE, Sinister Dad is moping that the affair makes him feel like a cliche. Oh, no! This Cliche Disease is spreading faster than Swine Flu! Just as Sinister Dad is about to explain the complications of his relationship with Katherine, Trish spots a figure in the woods. It doesn't look like anyone we've met. They call to him, asking if they can use his phone, and his response is to sic his attack dog on them. They hobble away as fast as they can, and manage to take cover in an abandoned truck. They are having a terrible morning. I'm glad Trish isn't the superstitious type, or this wedding would be so off.
MEANWHILE, Henry has summoned the sheriff to the church. They've finally figured out that the reverend is missing (lots of mail stacked up and unanswered messages), so the sheriff sends the deputy to check his house while he and Henry attend to the raccoon carcass. Malcolm is also in the woods, swearing to Booth's grave that he'll give Booth's share of the money to his mother and that he won't let Booth take any blame for what's happened. Oh, I guess Booth really is dead. Never mind all of my jabbering last week. Abby is also out and about, stopping by the sheriff's house. She leaves him a message, and lets herself in. Henry tells the sheriff about the deer in the bathtub, and admits his suspicions of Shane. Shane couldn't have pulled the raccoon trick, though, because he's still locked up for that whole attempting-to-murder-JD thing. They have a heart-to-heart about JD's issues, and about how happy the sheriff is that Henry decided to have the wedding on Harper's Island, since it's given him the chance to reconnect with Abby. Henry says it'll just take some time for Abby to get over her bad memories, including the ones the sheriff gave her. Ouch. Henry attempts a graceful exit by going to get the box of trashbags by the altar, and discovers a spent firecracker. Rut roh!
MEANWHILE, Sinister Dad and Trish hope they've out-waited the attack dog, and attempt to leave the truck. Sinister Dad arms himself with a convenient broken bottle, and climbs out. The dog is waiting on the roof of the truck, and immediately attacks. Sinister Dad stabs it to death with the bottle.
MEANWHILE, Abby has been wending her way through her dad's house, looking at pictures of her mom (who looks so much like Valerie Harper, that it may as well be Valerie Harper), digging through boxes of fugly sweaters, and eventually, climbing up into the attic, where she discovers a genuine Wall of Crazy. It seems the sheriff is obsessed not only with the Wakefield murders, but other similar murder sprees. When she hears her father return home, she hightails it out of the attic, but jars a file cabinet open in her haste. She manages to get downstairs in time to meet her father, who apologizes for the way he treated her seven years ago. She's far too distracted by his Wall of Crazy to care, and leaves to go blab about the whole thing to Jimmy.
MEANWHILE, Sinister Dad and Trish are being far too blase about the day they've had. They agree to table the whole Katherine/Richard thing until after the wedding. The purse dog comes to take stock of the dead attack dog, as does the creepy guy from the woods. Half of his face is covered in burn scars.
MEANWHILE, the groomsmen contend with the possibility that either Booth stole the money, or that whoever killed the guy on the boat found Booth, too. It's about time they started giving actual weight to the whole dead-body-on-a-boat thing. Malcolm breaks his promise and pretends to consider that Booth took the money and went to his mother's house. They all agree to table the matter until after the wedding. There's a lot of tabling going around. Maybe it's a side-effect of the Cliche Disease.
MEANWHILE, Trish and Henry reunite. The sheriff finds the open file cabinet, but is interrupted by a phone call from the deputy, who has found the reverend's hearing aid. Henry goes to ask Madison where JD is. She creepily brats something about having "lots of friends" on the island, and lies that she hasn't seen JD all day. Creepy brat. Henry berates her into telling him where JD is, which turns out to be...JD's room. Did Henry not think to look there? What a dink. Henry tells JD that he got the message at the church. JD says he doesn't know what Henry's talking about, which I believe. Too easy. Henry doesn't buy it, and tells JD that the two of them are finished, and he doesn't want to see JD again. JD doesn't have much of a problem with that, and smiles that he's got one more surprise for Henry that he thinks he'll really like. Yeeks.
MEANWHILE, the sheriff and deputy follow some tracks from the site of the hearing aid. Back at the Church of Awkwardness, Katherine is telling Sinister Dad she wishes they'd had a big church wedding (*wince*), the groomsmen are concocting a story to cover for the missing Booth (*wince*), and Blond Tool admits to Henry that he once tried to score with Trish, but got shot down (*wince*). Everyone else arrives, and Maggie takes over rehearsal duties for the reverend. The sheriff finds a line that leads into the water. At the Church of Awkwardness, people finally notice that others are missing. Lucy is still expected tomorrow (??), but the news of Booth's "family emergency" and Chloe's non-appearance are puzzling (*wince*). I guess they just didn't want to pay the actress who plays Chloe for sixty seconds of screentime this week. Shea talks to Trish about how happy her wedding day was (*wince*). Henry assures her that their relationship will be different than Shea and Richard's. One would hope. Leather whips and creepy children are expensive.
MEANWHILE, the sheriff begins tugging at the line. I clutch LabRat's arm, fully expecting something grosser to pop out of the water than the catfish the deputy suggests. The rehearsal begins. Madison comes down the aisle. At the back, Sinister Dad wishes Trish every happiness. Aw, he's gotten over his dislike of Henry! How nice of him to redeem himself before... Well...
The sheriff tugs the line. The wedding party assembles at the altar. Maggie summons Abby forward at the point where she'd do her Bible reading. Abby walks right in between Trish and Henry, which there's no way someone would do at a wedding. I'll let it go at the rehearsal. And speaking of letting things go...
The sheriff tugs the line. Body parts begin to emerge from the water. Maggie calls for Sinister Dad to approach and light the Unity candle. The sheriff pulls the reverend's head out of the water, complete with a fish-hook through the eye. Bleh. He attempts to call Abby (why she'd be first on the list is a mystery), but she turns her phone off in deference to the wedding rehearsal. Maggie asks for someone to turn off the lights. Since when do you hit the lights for the Unity candle? And speaking of hitting...
Abby runs to the back of the church to get the light switch. When she flips the switch, some gears begin to grind. We get a good look at the sharpened spade in the center of the chandelier hanging over the altar. So does Sinister Dad. Right before it splits him in the forehead.
Next week on Harper's Island: DEATH! THAT THE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY KNOW ABOUT!
Overall Grade: B
Monday, May 11, 2009
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Shot in the Dark
Harper's Island - Season 1, Episode 4
Previously on Harper's Island: DEATH! Not to mention, a move to a DEATHLY timeslot on Saturdays.
Shea and Madison approach a psychic who's setting up to entertain the ladies at Trish's bachelorette party. Madison, who never passes up an opportunity to be a creepy brat, gets the job done. Shea slips the psychic a list of names and birthdays for horoscopal purposes. I can't wait to trademark "horoscopal". Madison hovers over the creepy cards in the deck, fortunately skipping over the cliche "Death" and heading straight for "The Tower". Well played, show. They talk about spirits and death and blah blah blah.
MEANWHILE, Abby is at the bar again, getting a recipe from Nikki to paste into a scrapbook as a wedding present. Thanks a lot, cheapskate. You make enough money to subsist as a writer in Los Angeles and you can't get an actual wedding present? No wonder a serial killer is after you. Jimmy enters, and flirts with Abby via the time-tested method of joking about how he has an STD. Hot.
MEANWHILE, Henry is somehow surprised to find Trish naked (save her diamond earrings, of course), even though the two of them have been having sex like clockwork since they arrived on the island. I mean, it's nice to see two people in love, but come up for air, guys. Some banter is exchanged about Henry's bachelor party, and then they have sex again. Enjoy it while you can! Bodies have to start surfacing at some point, and I doubt that'll put anyone but Chloe in a romantic mood.
MEANWHILE, Shea and Madison take their leave of the psychic, and Madison is yet again a creepy brat, prattling on about spirits and cradling the stolen Tower card in her hands. How is the psychic supposed to tell accurate fortunes now, brat? I suppose that's the last thing on the psychic's mind, because as she scans the list of female guests, she sees Abby's name, and immediately begins to drip blood from her nose. Funny how she didn't have a psychic reaction to Lucy, whose charred corpse is rotting in a pit somewhere.
MEANWHILE, Jimmy has a heart-to-heart with Abby, apologizing on behalf of Shane, expressing sympathy over Kelly's death, and hoping that Abby can still have a good time while she's on the island. Abby's hot for Jimmy, so she's more receptive to the whole "Woo! Fun on the island!" idea than a normal person would be after Kelly's murder and nearly getting filleted in Shane's shack.
MEANWHILE, Blond Tool describes his ideas for Henry's bachelor party to Token Black and Nerd (hereafter known as Booth). He says he's found a stripper for later, but she's a townie, so he hopes she'll have some actual teeth in her head. Henry shows up, and discovers that the guys have also planned to take him fishing, which he loves. This destination wedding is getting lamer by the second. Come, spend a week with us! We'll offer skeet-shooting and fishing! I think I'd rather save the vacation days. And hey, as an added bonus, I wouldn't be murdered! Blond Tool whips out the additional guest invited to the fishing party: An inflatable doll named Muffin. I guess if the stripper isn't hot, it's nice to have a Plan B. Malcolm (the other groomsman, who was awesome in that one episode of Dead Like Me, and will thus have brownie points with me forever) is inside, pitching his idea for a beer company to Sinister Dad and Richard. He asks for $100,000 in start-up costs to get the suds flowing.
MEANWHILE, Shea surprises Trish by unpacking their dead mother's tea set, and the two of them get to bonding over how they'll have a nice tea party as part of the bachelorette activities. Madison, who can spoil a moment like no other child, creepily brats her way into shattering one of the teacups. She insists she didn't do it. That will probably turn out to be true in some dumb, it-was-the-spirits kind of way. And yet... Shut the fuck up, Madison.
MEANWHILE, the groomsmen and Muffin are out fishing. Malcolm is depressed, because Richard vetoed the idea to loan him start-up money. Token Black spots some gulls hanging out at a certain patch of water, which signals lot of fish, so they head over. I'm skipping yet another Abby/Jimmy flirt scene. Consider their flirting understood now. They need to have sex or get in a fight or be murdered because this storyline is getting milked more than the Octomom. Henry gets a bite in the new fishing spot, and though I was convinced they were going to bring up Cousin Ben's head, it's actually a big ol' fish. For some odd reason, Blond Tool reacts as if it were Cousin Ben's head. He freaks out and jumps into the water, using Muffin as a flotation device. Handy. That pointlessness dealt with, the groomsmen spot Hunter's boat. And then, the weirdness, in which none of these people act like actual people would in real life.
They see the large spatters of blood first, so Booth horks over the side of the boat, as this is naturally the role of the Hypochondriac Nerd. Then, Malcolm sees the body and the satchel full of money. That's enough to lure him onto the other boat, where he reaches into the satchel and picks up the gun. Seriously, people. You come across a grisly death scene and intentionally spread your fingerprints all over a weapon there? He wants to swipe the money, and all anyone can think about is whether to take the money or report the crime. At not one single point do they wonder who the dead body is. I'm going to be extremely generous, and assume that the gun blast rendered Hunter unrecognizable, because otherwise, this is asinine. Still, they should at least be curious about who it is and what happened here. Henry moves to call the harbor-master, and Malcolm shoots a hole in the bottom of Hunter's boat, which causes Henry to change his mind and allow Malcolm to take the money instead. Huh? Huh?!?!
MEANWHILE, Trish approaches Sinister Dad and Madison, who are playing cards, and are no doubt having a rousing conversation about how to be as off-putting as possible. She wonders where Cougar Stepmom (hereafter known as Katherine) has wandered off to. Madison thinks she may be by the pool, which leads Trish to walk to the...basement? Wine cellar? I don't know, but it's certainly not a swimming pool. She hears a female voice whimpering, and follows it until she sees Katherine chained to the ceiling. She panics for a second until it becomes clear that this is more sadomasochistic sex between Katherine and Richard. Rut roh! Trish runs off. Hey, how did Richard and Katherine know that there was chain-people-to-the-ceiling equipment in the basement? Was it in the brochure?
MEANWHILE, I'm skipping yet another Jimmy/Abby flirt scene. Let's rejoin the groomsmen, who run into Cal on their way back into the inn. He babbles a bit about how much about fish he knows, and is clearly feeling a bit left out of the festivities. The groomsmen, understandably nervous, blow him off and head to the privacy of a room, where they dump their fish in the bathtub. Geez, these bathtubs are seeing a lot of non-bath action. I hope they're well-cleaned after all these people are dead. The groomsmen stare at the pile of money, a lot of which is extremely bloody. Good luck spending that. "Oh, this? Cut myself shaving. In the jugular vein." It adds up to $250,000, which works out to $50,000 per groomsman, assuming they don't turn the money in. Malcolm pulls Henry aside to basically beg for his share, saying he's completely broke. Henry promises to think about it. In fact, all of the groomsmen, rather than doing anything an actual person would do (take the money and hide it, turn it in, fight about what to do, etc.), decide to just table the matter and go enjoy the bachelor party. No, really. "Let's leave this bloody pile of cash behind and go have some beer!" HUH?!?!
MEANWHILE, Abby stops by the local paper to pick up a copy of an article about Henry catching a fish to paste in her lame scrapbook. At first, I was surprised that Harper's Island, which is apparently about the size of koi pond, needs its own local paper, but then I remembered that people are murdered regularly here, so it's probably necessary to keep abreast of everything. While she waits for her article, Abby sees a stack of articles about John Wakefield on the counter. The girl working there says that somebody requested all the information the paper had about him, but she isn't sure who. Abby takes her article and wanders out in a daze, almost getting run over by the psychic. She drops her lame scrapbook into a puddle, and it's pretty much ruined.
MEANWHILE, Trish runs to Henry and blubbers "Katherine and Richard..." before pulling him into a comforting hug. If I were Henry, I'd be like "Katherine and Richard what? Want to talk to me? Are hurt? Got into an argument? Are having sadomasochistic sex in the basement?" Henry, as with the bloody money, is completely disinterested, and content to just stand there and hug her. The ladies then gather for some bachelorette activity. Nobody gives a solitary thought to where Lucy might be. Not a one. Are there any humans on this island? Will the twist be that this is all an imaginary play in Madison's mind or some shit? Act like people! Katherine hands out pink hoodies with "Henry and Trish" embroidered on them, saying she had black ones made for the guys. Katherine has been watching too much Grease. The perky lady we see for all of three seconds in every episode (hereafter known as Maggie), interrupts Trish's pouting to pull her and Shea into the adjoining room, where they discover that someone has completely destroyed the rest of their mother's tea set. Aw. Shea is no fool, and immediately asks where Madison is. Yeah, no kidding, lady. Abby, still wearing her Pink Lady jacket, says she'll look for her, and soon finds her sitting with some of the smashed china, being her usual creepy, bratty self. She says that the spirits told her she's not going to get to be a flower girl. Unfortunately, we cut to commercial before someone can slap the shit out of her and send her to her room.
MEANWHILE, the groomsmen are finally realizing that whoops, they've tampered with a crime scene and taken a bunch of money that probably belongs to some unsavory characters. Welcome to Duuuuuuuuuuuuuhsville, gentlemen. And yet, they still manage to make dumb jokes about prison sex. When two burly guys with guns come into the bar, the groomsmen panic and dash out to the patio for a conference. Funny, my first thought on seeing the two burly guys was "Yum." But then, I haven't stolen anything from them. Henry and the groomsmen decide to hide the money until they figure out how to turn it in without being killed or arrested. Helpful thoughts to have. Two hours ago. They draw straws to determine who has to hide the cash, and after a stupid false start thanks to Blond Tool, it winds up being Booth.
MEANWHILE, the psychic is telling Trish's fortune. Trish is trashed, because every time someone says "Henry", they have to drink. Putting aside the fact that the fortunes would be off thanks to a missing card, Madison, the psychic tells Trish that she is going to be betrayed. Trish makes a veiled dig at Katherine, but the psychic intimates that the betrayer will be male, and oddly enough, also be Trish's savior.
MEANWHILE, as Booth wanders through the woods, because God forbid he hide the money in the inn itself, the guys (and Muffin) hang out at the local bar. They're there enough to have their names engraved on the stools. Blond Tool and Token Black chat about Malcolm, and how he's now calm enough to put aside his feelings about the money, and will soon join them to help Henry enjoy his party. Are you panicked or are you in party mode, freaks? Pick a mode, because you can't be in both. Cal dances dorkily by the jukebox. Richard mopes alone at a table. Henry approaches him, and tells him that Trish spilled the beans about the sadomasochistic sex in the basement. Richard is undisturbed, daring Henry to tell on him. It looks like he knows something we don't. Ooh, maybe he's being pimped out!
MEANWHILE, it's Abby's turn with the psychic. She hands over her mother's necklace, and Trish mists over about her own dead mother. Still no mention of Lucy, by the way. The psychic takes Abby's necklace, promptly freaks out, and flees the room. Trish takes this as an opportunity to get drunker. And speaking of drunk, Blond Tool is hanging over Henry talking about what a great day it's been. Yeah, awesome, what with the blood and gunshots and all. The two burly guys enter, looking for Blond Tool. Blond Tool pawns them off on Henry. I can see why he's best man; he's such a caring friend. The two burly guys ask Henry about the money. Not THE money. The money for the stripper. Because they're bouncers. Why the stripper can't collect her own money is beyond me. I guess because then we wouldn't have had scary guys with guns to suspect of shady dealings. We've already got those, and they're in the wedding party.
MEANWHILE, and speaking of which, Booth wanders through the woods. He hears someone approaching, and pulls the gun. It turns out to be Malcolm, who is "watching his back". Watching the greenback, is more like it. Booth lowers the gun in relief, and...accidentally shoots himself in the leg. This is why you don't give firearms to hypochondriac nerds. Actually, it isn't clear that that's what just happened. Someone could have shot him from the woods. He's in shock, and isn't even in pain, but is losing a lot of blood. That's another odd thing. That shit would hurt. Malcolm wants to run and get help, but Booth doesn't want to be left alone. Malcolm cradles him as blood spurts out of his leg.
MEANWHILE, the stripper strips. It turns out that Henry knew her when she was little. That's a fascinating story. After her pseudo-naughty-because-this-is-network-TV dance, she flirts with Cal, which makes Blond Tool jealous. Malcolm enters, and though he is visibly upset, lies about having seen Booth. Curious. Oh, and elsewhere, the psychic is accosting Abby and telling her to get her ass off the island, tout de suite. So Abby goes over to Jimmy's place for a nice hug. Yeah, that makes everything better.
MEANWHILE, Malcolm is back at the inn. He's got the satchel of money, but is a good enough guy to at least be sad about his dead friend, whose body is still lying in the woods, for all we know. I'm not sensing a long lifespan for Malcolm. Too bad. Chris Gauthier is a good actor. And what the hell is up with Booth, anyway? Is he dead or alive? Who shot him, if anyone? Could this be a fakeout? Nobody suspects the hypochondriac nerd, after all.
MEANWHILE, a drunken Trish spots Muffin floating in the pool, and falls in trying to pull her out. Alcohol and night swimming - it's a winning combination! She enjoys the refreshing water, until she notices that the automatic cover is closing. She nearly drowns, but is rescued at the last moment by Richard, who is able to revive her with CPR. One could almost call him her savior, no?
Next week on Harper's Island: DEATH!
Overall Grade: B-
Previously on Harper's Island: DEATH! Not to mention, a move to a DEATHLY timeslot on Saturdays.
Shea and Madison approach a psychic who's setting up to entertain the ladies at Trish's bachelorette party. Madison, who never passes up an opportunity to be a creepy brat, gets the job done. Shea slips the psychic a list of names and birthdays for horoscopal purposes. I can't wait to trademark "horoscopal". Madison hovers over the creepy cards in the deck, fortunately skipping over the cliche "Death" and heading straight for "The Tower". Well played, show. They talk about spirits and death and blah blah blah.
MEANWHILE, Abby is at the bar again, getting a recipe from Nikki to paste into a scrapbook as a wedding present. Thanks a lot, cheapskate. You make enough money to subsist as a writer in Los Angeles and you can't get an actual wedding present? No wonder a serial killer is after you. Jimmy enters, and flirts with Abby via the time-tested method of joking about how he has an STD. Hot.
MEANWHILE, Henry is somehow surprised to find Trish naked (save her diamond earrings, of course), even though the two of them have been having sex like clockwork since they arrived on the island. I mean, it's nice to see two people in love, but come up for air, guys. Some banter is exchanged about Henry's bachelor party, and then they have sex again. Enjoy it while you can! Bodies have to start surfacing at some point, and I doubt that'll put anyone but Chloe in a romantic mood.
MEANWHILE, Shea and Madison take their leave of the psychic, and Madison is yet again a creepy brat, prattling on about spirits and cradling the stolen Tower card in her hands. How is the psychic supposed to tell accurate fortunes now, brat? I suppose that's the last thing on the psychic's mind, because as she scans the list of female guests, she sees Abby's name, and immediately begins to drip blood from her nose. Funny how she didn't have a psychic reaction to Lucy, whose charred corpse is rotting in a pit somewhere.
MEANWHILE, Jimmy has a heart-to-heart with Abby, apologizing on behalf of Shane, expressing sympathy over Kelly's death, and hoping that Abby can still have a good time while she's on the island. Abby's hot for Jimmy, so she's more receptive to the whole "Woo! Fun on the island!" idea than a normal person would be after Kelly's murder and nearly getting filleted in Shane's shack.
MEANWHILE, Blond Tool describes his ideas for Henry's bachelor party to Token Black and Nerd (hereafter known as Booth). He says he's found a stripper for later, but she's a townie, so he hopes she'll have some actual teeth in her head. Henry shows up, and discovers that the guys have also planned to take him fishing, which he loves. This destination wedding is getting lamer by the second. Come, spend a week with us! We'll offer skeet-shooting and fishing! I think I'd rather save the vacation days. And hey, as an added bonus, I wouldn't be murdered! Blond Tool whips out the additional guest invited to the fishing party: An inflatable doll named Muffin. I guess if the stripper isn't hot, it's nice to have a Plan B. Malcolm (the other groomsman, who was awesome in that one episode of Dead Like Me, and will thus have brownie points with me forever) is inside, pitching his idea for a beer company to Sinister Dad and Richard. He asks for $100,000 in start-up costs to get the suds flowing.
MEANWHILE, Shea surprises Trish by unpacking their dead mother's tea set, and the two of them get to bonding over how they'll have a nice tea party as part of the bachelorette activities. Madison, who can spoil a moment like no other child, creepily brats her way into shattering one of the teacups. She insists she didn't do it. That will probably turn out to be true in some dumb, it-was-the-spirits kind of way. And yet... Shut the fuck up, Madison.
MEANWHILE, the groomsmen and Muffin are out fishing. Malcolm is depressed, because Richard vetoed the idea to loan him start-up money. Token Black spots some gulls hanging out at a certain patch of water, which signals lot of fish, so they head over. I'm skipping yet another Abby/Jimmy flirt scene. Consider their flirting understood now. They need to have sex or get in a fight or be murdered because this storyline is getting milked more than the Octomom. Henry gets a bite in the new fishing spot, and though I was convinced they were going to bring up Cousin Ben's head, it's actually a big ol' fish. For some odd reason, Blond Tool reacts as if it were Cousin Ben's head. He freaks out and jumps into the water, using Muffin as a flotation device. Handy. That pointlessness dealt with, the groomsmen spot Hunter's boat. And then, the weirdness, in which none of these people act like actual people would in real life.
They see the large spatters of blood first, so Booth horks over the side of the boat, as this is naturally the role of the Hypochondriac Nerd. Then, Malcolm sees the body and the satchel full of money. That's enough to lure him onto the other boat, where he reaches into the satchel and picks up the gun. Seriously, people. You come across a grisly death scene and intentionally spread your fingerprints all over a weapon there? He wants to swipe the money, and all anyone can think about is whether to take the money or report the crime. At not one single point do they wonder who the dead body is. I'm going to be extremely generous, and assume that the gun blast rendered Hunter unrecognizable, because otherwise, this is asinine. Still, they should at least be curious about who it is and what happened here. Henry moves to call the harbor-master, and Malcolm shoots a hole in the bottom of Hunter's boat, which causes Henry to change his mind and allow Malcolm to take the money instead. Huh? Huh?!?!
MEANWHILE, Trish approaches Sinister Dad and Madison, who are playing cards, and are no doubt having a rousing conversation about how to be as off-putting as possible. She wonders where Cougar Stepmom (hereafter known as Katherine) has wandered off to. Madison thinks she may be by the pool, which leads Trish to walk to the...basement? Wine cellar? I don't know, but it's certainly not a swimming pool. She hears a female voice whimpering, and follows it until she sees Katherine chained to the ceiling. She panics for a second until it becomes clear that this is more sadomasochistic sex between Katherine and Richard. Rut roh! Trish runs off. Hey, how did Richard and Katherine know that there was chain-people-to-the-ceiling equipment in the basement? Was it in the brochure?
MEANWHILE, I'm skipping yet another Jimmy/Abby flirt scene. Let's rejoin the groomsmen, who run into Cal on their way back into the inn. He babbles a bit about how much about fish he knows, and is clearly feeling a bit left out of the festivities. The groomsmen, understandably nervous, blow him off and head to the privacy of a room, where they dump their fish in the bathtub. Geez, these bathtubs are seeing a lot of non-bath action. I hope they're well-cleaned after all these people are dead. The groomsmen stare at the pile of money, a lot of which is extremely bloody. Good luck spending that. "Oh, this? Cut myself shaving. In the jugular vein." It adds up to $250,000, which works out to $50,000 per groomsman, assuming they don't turn the money in. Malcolm pulls Henry aside to basically beg for his share, saying he's completely broke. Henry promises to think about it. In fact, all of the groomsmen, rather than doing anything an actual person would do (take the money and hide it, turn it in, fight about what to do, etc.), decide to just table the matter and go enjoy the bachelor party. No, really. "Let's leave this bloody pile of cash behind and go have some beer!" HUH?!?!
MEANWHILE, Abby stops by the local paper to pick up a copy of an article about Henry catching a fish to paste in her lame scrapbook. At first, I was surprised that Harper's Island, which is apparently about the size of koi pond, needs its own local paper, but then I remembered that people are murdered regularly here, so it's probably necessary to keep abreast of everything. While she waits for her article, Abby sees a stack of articles about John Wakefield on the counter. The girl working there says that somebody requested all the information the paper had about him, but she isn't sure who. Abby takes her article and wanders out in a daze, almost getting run over by the psychic. She drops her lame scrapbook into a puddle, and it's pretty much ruined.
MEANWHILE, Trish runs to Henry and blubbers "Katherine and Richard..." before pulling him into a comforting hug. If I were Henry, I'd be like "Katherine and Richard what? Want to talk to me? Are hurt? Got into an argument? Are having sadomasochistic sex in the basement?" Henry, as with the bloody money, is completely disinterested, and content to just stand there and hug her. The ladies then gather for some bachelorette activity. Nobody gives a solitary thought to where Lucy might be. Not a one. Are there any humans on this island? Will the twist be that this is all an imaginary play in Madison's mind or some shit? Act like people! Katherine hands out pink hoodies with "Henry and Trish" embroidered on them, saying she had black ones made for the guys. Katherine has been watching too much Grease. The perky lady we see for all of three seconds in every episode (hereafter known as Maggie), interrupts Trish's pouting to pull her and Shea into the adjoining room, where they discover that someone has completely destroyed the rest of their mother's tea set. Aw. Shea is no fool, and immediately asks where Madison is. Yeah, no kidding, lady. Abby, still wearing her Pink Lady jacket, says she'll look for her, and soon finds her sitting with some of the smashed china, being her usual creepy, bratty self. She says that the spirits told her she's not going to get to be a flower girl. Unfortunately, we cut to commercial before someone can slap the shit out of her and send her to her room.
MEANWHILE, the groomsmen are finally realizing that whoops, they've tampered with a crime scene and taken a bunch of money that probably belongs to some unsavory characters. Welcome to Duuuuuuuuuuuuuhsville, gentlemen. And yet, they still manage to make dumb jokes about prison sex. When two burly guys with guns come into the bar, the groomsmen panic and dash out to the patio for a conference. Funny, my first thought on seeing the two burly guys was "Yum." But then, I haven't stolen anything from them. Henry and the groomsmen decide to hide the money until they figure out how to turn it in without being killed or arrested. Helpful thoughts to have. Two hours ago. They draw straws to determine who has to hide the cash, and after a stupid false start thanks to Blond Tool, it winds up being Booth.
MEANWHILE, the psychic is telling Trish's fortune. Trish is trashed, because every time someone says "Henry", they have to drink. Putting aside the fact that the fortunes would be off thanks to a missing card, Madison, the psychic tells Trish that she is going to be betrayed. Trish makes a veiled dig at Katherine, but the psychic intimates that the betrayer will be male, and oddly enough, also be Trish's savior.
MEANWHILE, as Booth wanders through the woods, because God forbid he hide the money in the inn itself, the guys (and Muffin) hang out at the local bar. They're there enough to have their names engraved on the stools. Blond Tool and Token Black chat about Malcolm, and how he's now calm enough to put aside his feelings about the money, and will soon join them to help Henry enjoy his party. Are you panicked or are you in party mode, freaks? Pick a mode, because you can't be in both. Cal dances dorkily by the jukebox. Richard mopes alone at a table. Henry approaches him, and tells him that Trish spilled the beans about the sadomasochistic sex in the basement. Richard is undisturbed, daring Henry to tell on him. It looks like he knows something we don't. Ooh, maybe he's being pimped out!
MEANWHILE, it's Abby's turn with the psychic. She hands over her mother's necklace, and Trish mists over about her own dead mother. Still no mention of Lucy, by the way. The psychic takes Abby's necklace, promptly freaks out, and flees the room. Trish takes this as an opportunity to get drunker. And speaking of drunk, Blond Tool is hanging over Henry talking about what a great day it's been. Yeah, awesome, what with the blood and gunshots and all. The two burly guys enter, looking for Blond Tool. Blond Tool pawns them off on Henry. I can see why he's best man; he's such a caring friend. The two burly guys ask Henry about the money. Not THE money. The money for the stripper. Because they're bouncers. Why the stripper can't collect her own money is beyond me. I guess because then we wouldn't have had scary guys with guns to suspect of shady dealings. We've already got those, and they're in the wedding party.
MEANWHILE, and speaking of which, Booth wanders through the woods. He hears someone approaching, and pulls the gun. It turns out to be Malcolm, who is "watching his back". Watching the greenback, is more like it. Booth lowers the gun in relief, and...accidentally shoots himself in the leg. This is why you don't give firearms to hypochondriac nerds. Actually, it isn't clear that that's what just happened. Someone could have shot him from the woods. He's in shock, and isn't even in pain, but is losing a lot of blood. That's another odd thing. That shit would hurt. Malcolm wants to run and get help, but Booth doesn't want to be left alone. Malcolm cradles him as blood spurts out of his leg.
MEANWHILE, the stripper strips. It turns out that Henry knew her when she was little. That's a fascinating story. After her pseudo-naughty-because-this-is-network-TV dance, she flirts with Cal, which makes Blond Tool jealous. Malcolm enters, and though he is visibly upset, lies about having seen Booth. Curious. Oh, and elsewhere, the psychic is accosting Abby and telling her to get her ass off the island, tout de suite. So Abby goes over to Jimmy's place for a nice hug. Yeah, that makes everything better.
MEANWHILE, Malcolm is back at the inn. He's got the satchel of money, but is a good enough guy to at least be sad about his dead friend, whose body is still lying in the woods, for all we know. I'm not sensing a long lifespan for Malcolm. Too bad. Chris Gauthier is a good actor. And what the hell is up with Booth, anyway? Is he dead or alive? Who shot him, if anyone? Could this be a fakeout? Nobody suspects the hypochondriac nerd, after all.
MEANWHILE, a drunken Trish spots Muffin floating in the pool, and falls in trying to pull her out. Alcohol and night swimming - it's a winning combination! She enjoys the refreshing water, until she notices that the automatic cover is closing. She nearly drowns, but is rescued at the last moment by Richard, who is able to revive her with CPR. One could almost call him her savior, no?
Next week on Harper's Island: DEATH!
Overall Grade: B-
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Hunter Becomes the Hunted
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+
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 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+
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Jane on Hiatus
Hectic holidays + Exhausting work schedule + Helping a convalescing parent + Death in the family = No time or mental energy.
I'll still be watching Top Chef, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a break from writing about it. Check out the quality links at Blogging Top Chef - there are some funny people out there.
I'll still be watching Top Chef, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a break from writing about it. Check out the quality links at Blogging Top Chef - there are some funny people out there.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Eleven Chefs A Suckin'
Top Chef - Season 5, Episode 6
Happy Holidays from the cast and crew of Top Chef, all of whom do their best to whip up the Christmas spirit in August. Hanukkah doesn't rate a mention, which Hosea Rosenberg and Leah Cohen don't seem to mind.
The Quickfire is to create a quick holiday meal in one pot. Everyone manages the one-pot rule, though the holiday theme is quickly forgotten by everyone, including Padma and guest judge Martha Stewart. Jeff, Eugene, and Fabio fall to the bottom, but keep their gripes to interview, lest they draw the wrath of the convicted felon. Hosea, Jamie, and Ariane take the top three. Ariane wins yet another challenge, much to Jamie's consternation. She's sick of being second-best, though if she knew what the rest of the episode held, I think she'd be happy to remain there.
The Elimination Challenge involves making hors d'oeuvres for a large charity ball, hosted by guest judge Natasha Richardson. I guess Martha had to check in with her parole officer. The chefs pull knives to see which verse of The Twelve Days of Christmas must inspire their dish. Shopping and cooking ensues, but when the chefs come in the next day to do their final preparations, they discover that an overstuffed fridge has swung open, ruining Hosea and Radhika's food. There are a tense few minutes before a magical cornucopia of replacement food appears and a magical time extension gives Hosea and Radhika a chance to whip up something new. All the other chefs pitch in to help them get things done, which was nice to see.
The judges aren't especially impressed with anyone's food, though they manage to choose Hosea, Radhika, Stefan, and Jeff as the top contenders. Hosea wins the challenge, but he and Radhika make sure to spread the credit around. Also nice to see. Some of these people certainly have the potential to be assy, but look at this crew, and then think back to Season 2. Yeah. Jamie, Melissa, and Eugene fall to the bottom three. After the judges deliberate for a while, Ptom comes back to the Kitchen, rips everyone for making lackluster food, then announces that as a Christmas gift for all the goodwill the chefs have shown, nobody's getting eliminated. That, or eliminating someone after a challenge goes awry would be a breach of contract and would open them up to a lawsuit. Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays from the cast and crew of Top Chef, all of whom do their best to whip up the Christmas spirit in August. Hanukkah doesn't rate a mention, which Hosea Rosenberg and Leah Cohen don't seem to mind.
The Quickfire is to create a quick holiday meal in one pot. Everyone manages the one-pot rule, though the holiday theme is quickly forgotten by everyone, including Padma and guest judge Martha Stewart. Jeff, Eugene, and Fabio fall to the bottom, but keep their gripes to interview, lest they draw the wrath of the convicted felon. Hosea, Jamie, and Ariane take the top three. Ariane wins yet another challenge, much to Jamie's consternation. She's sick of being second-best, though if she knew what the rest of the episode held, I think she'd be happy to remain there.
The Elimination Challenge involves making hors d'oeuvres for a large charity ball, hosted by guest judge Natasha Richardson. I guess Martha had to check in with her parole officer. The chefs pull knives to see which verse of The Twelve Days of Christmas must inspire their dish. Shopping and cooking ensues, but when the chefs come in the next day to do their final preparations, they discover that an overstuffed fridge has swung open, ruining Hosea and Radhika's food. There are a tense few minutes before a magical cornucopia of replacement food appears and a magical time extension gives Hosea and Radhika a chance to whip up something new. All the other chefs pitch in to help them get things done, which was nice to see.
The judges aren't especially impressed with anyone's food, though they manage to choose Hosea, Radhika, Stefan, and Jeff as the top contenders. Hosea wins the challenge, but he and Radhika make sure to spread the credit around. Also nice to see. Some of these people certainly have the potential to be assy, but look at this crew, and then think back to Season 2. Yeah. Jamie, Melissa, and Eugene fall to the bottom three. After the judges deliberate for a while, Ptom comes back to the Kitchen, rips everyone for making lackluster food, then announces that as a Christmas gift for all the goodwill the chefs have shown, nobody's getting eliminated. That, or eliminating someone after a challenge goes awry would be a breach of contract and would open them up to a lawsuit. Happy Holidays!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Italian. Wedding. Soup.
Top Chef - Season 5, Episode 5
Ah, what could be better than being joined with your soulmate in wedded bliss? How about having a bridal shower and having your bosses pick up the tab? That shrewd Gail Simmons parlays her judge status into a free party by agreeing to have the chefs cater her bridal shower.
First, in the Quickfire, the chefs compete tournament style to see who can identify the most sauce ingredients. It's a very cool challenge, and Hosea emerges victorious.
Then, the chefs are split into four teams for the bridal shower challenge, and are tasked with finding inspiration in Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, or Something Blue. That old chestnut is tonight's theme. Well, actually, the theme is how assy Stefan is, as Jamie, Hosea, Jeff, Leah, Stefan's twice-ex-wife, or the editors would be happy to tell you. But the poem is the secondary theme, and it throws more than one contestant for a loop.
Teams Old (Jeff/Stefan/Hosea) and Borrowed (Jamie/Ariane/Radhika) ultimately land in the top two, with Ariane scoring a surprise and seemingly undeserved win, much to Jamie's chagrin. Teams New (Eugene/Daniel/Carla) and Blue (Melissa/Leah/Fabio) sink to the bottom. The former's dish is just a complete mess from top to bottom. Eugene makes conceptual mistakes and gunks up his rice, Daniel screws up Carla's portion of the dish, and Carla refuses to attack her teammates. Ptom considers all three of these things unforgivable, though I'll bet you can spot the one that doesn't belong. In the end, Daniel takes a walk for just not getting it, and tortures us with a never-ending sports metaphor on his way out.
Ah, what could be better than being joined with your soulmate in wedded bliss? How about having a bridal shower and having your bosses pick up the tab? That shrewd Gail Simmons parlays her judge status into a free party by agreeing to have the chefs cater her bridal shower.
First, in the Quickfire, the chefs compete tournament style to see who can identify the most sauce ingredients. It's a very cool challenge, and Hosea emerges victorious.
Then, the chefs are split into four teams for the bridal shower challenge, and are tasked with finding inspiration in Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, or Something Blue. That old chestnut is tonight's theme. Well, actually, the theme is how assy Stefan is, as Jamie, Hosea, Jeff, Leah, Stefan's twice-ex-wife, or the editors would be happy to tell you. But the poem is the secondary theme, and it throws more than one contestant for a loop.
Teams Old (Jeff/Stefan/Hosea) and Borrowed (Jamie/Ariane/Radhika) ultimately land in the top two, with Ariane scoring a surprise and seemingly undeserved win, much to Jamie's chagrin. Teams New (Eugene/Daniel/Carla) and Blue (Melissa/Leah/Fabio) sink to the bottom. The former's dish is just a complete mess from top to bottom. Eugene makes conceptual mistakes and gunks up his rice, Daniel screws up Carla's portion of the dish, and Carla refuses to attack her teammates. Ptom considers all three of these things unforgivable, though I'll bet you can spot the one that doesn't belong. In the end, Daniel takes a walk for just not getting it, and tortures us with a never-ending sports metaphor on his way out.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
TV Dinner
Top Chef - Season 5, Episode 4
Previously on Top Chef: Team Rainbow came out, came together, and were blown apart in the span of about five seconds. The chefs made Thanksgiving dinner for the Foo Fighters. Ariane redeemed herself with a wonderful turkey, while Richard's goopy banana s'mores got him sent on his teary way. Thirteen chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?
Opening credits. Drinking Game Rule #4: Take a drink every time Radhika makes an Indian-style dish.
Monday Morning Quarterback Session. Ariane feels better about herself. Richard has left an emotional letter behind for his roommate Alex, who feels sad and alone now. Alex is getting married in a month, but promises to concentrate on cooking. Ah, the focus is shifting to a cast member who's been roundly ignored up to this episode. Guess what that means, kids? Jamie is bummed to lose her queer peers, but shrugs it off.
Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma and Rocco DiSpirito, who Fabio gently derides for being a phony Italian chef. Hehehe. The table is laden with breakfast items, which fills Jamie with dread, as she is not a breakfast person. Doesn't cook it, doesn't eat it. I rarely have time to eat breakfast, but if I did, and if someone else woke up early to cook it, I'd want it every morning. Today's Quickfire is to create a breakfast amuse-bouche. The chefs have half an hour, and Rocco mentions that bacon is always welcome. Well, sure. Ready? Go!
Stefan has a neat tool which cuts a perfect circle off the top of an eggshell. Jeff wants to throw all of his good breakfast ideas into this challenge, even though everyone is theoretically aiming for a single-bite dish. Daniel combines corn flakes and zucchini flowers. Weird. Ariane works on a stuffed French toast that is popular with her kids, while Fabio disdains American breakfasts altogether, opting instead for brioche and cappuccino. Leah wants to make sure her bacon, egg, and cheese flavors all make it onto the fork. Melissa ruins an egg. Time runs out, catching Carla by surprise. Whoops! Rocco and Padma go down the line.
To save time, let's just hit the highlights and lowlights. Stefan's huevos rancheros are overshadowed by the nifty way he's served them in the egg shells. I'd be concerned with the raw egg still clinging to the inside. Daniel has crusted his zucchini flowers with corn flakes, and stuffed them with a hash of potato, bacon, mushroom, and egg. It's still weird, but I'd be curious to try it. Ariane's French toast gets a favorable response, and she's visibly relieved that her success with the turkey wasn't a one-off. Jamie has put together bacon, lettuce, and tomato grilled bread, and topped it off with balsamic syrup.
Leah's a bit peeved that other chefs are getting away with two-bite or bigger dishes, when an amuse-bouche is supposed to just be one. She hopes that adhering to the challenge parameters will help her out. I almost have to rewind to make sure that a chef on this show realizes that ignoring challenge parameters can bite you in the ass. Uncanny! Her bite is bacon, quail egg, fried sage, and cheese on grilled bread. Yum. Fabio's brioche is topped with bruleed banana, and there's a big, honking glass of espresso cream on the side. He says that breakfast shouldn't be too heavy, and Padma points out that his espresso is so rich as to almost be pudding. Jeff has, like, three things lined up in a row, which would've been nice if the challenge had been to create an amuse-amuse-amuse bouche.
Results. The bottom two are Daniel, whose corn flakes overwhelmed the entire bite, and Fabio, whom Rocco wants to punish for having the nerve to be authentically Italian. Fabio grouses in interview that he should have listened to Rocco's hint about bacon, and next time, he'll just plop some bacon and "bullshit eggs" on toast, and he'll probably win. Heh. Fabio's really growing on me. Stefan had a great container. That's seriously why he's in the top three. Leah had a great arrangement of flavors. Jamie's dislike of breakfast doesn't hold her back, and she rounds out the top three. Rocco has a hard time choosing between her and Leah, but ultimately picks Leah, who scoops up her second consecutive Quickfire win. Along with immunity, she also wins a copy of Rocco's new book, which she accepts with a tight-lipped smile. I get the feeling that's getting tossed in a cardboard box in the basement when she gets home. She gives the Standard Speech. Meanwhile, Jamie is pissed, either at herself for coming close to a Quickfire win without getting it for the second time (which is fine), or at Leah for having the audacity to take two in a row (which is shitty). I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.
Elimination Challenge. Padma tells the chefs that it's super-duper important to have a high public profile as a chef. More people knowing about you means that more people will "seek out your restaurants, buy your books, and try your food". I love how "buy your books" comes before "try your food". This, combined with Rocco giving his book away as a challenge prize, makes this episode sort of sadly hilarious. I don't know whether to laugh or cry over the attitude that being a successful chef is about everything except making good food. As long as you're sufficiently pretty, or assy, or fight with your mother on television, or write books about how kitchens are akin to the TRENCHES OF WAR, or are the Southern equivalent of a black minstrel show, you'll be fine. Don't know rigatoni from radicchio? No problem, as long as you've got a nice rack that jiggles fetchingly as you whisk egg whites!
Anyhow, the Elimination Challenge is to create a dish that can be shown as a two-and-a-half-minute demonstration for a live television presentation. Despite my grouse just now, I think that's a really good idea. For a reality show challenge, that is. Not as a benchmark to determine who's a more talented chef. Adding to the hilarity that is this episode, several chefs immediately become jittery and nervous, because they don't want anything to do with live television. These people... People who cheerfully and willingly signed up to be followed by cameras 24/7 for weeks, taped as they brush their teeth, edited into a story arc that may not be particularly complimentary, have their every move and word eviscerated by sarcastic bloggers (ahem), and so forth... Are quaking in their boots at the thought of explaining food for 150 seconds. Awesome. Rocco explains that the recipe should be simple enough to follow at home. Not only is that more incentive for people to make something, but a more complicated recipe is all too easy to screw up as you demonstrate it. Presentation will figure into the judging, as well as the food. Fabio is not thrilled about having to cook and present something while chattering in perfect English.
The chefs go shopping for half an hour with a budget of $100. Fabio, Eugene, and Hosea all harass the fish guy about chopping and slicing their own fish, and he lets them have at it. Alex says he's the only guy who has enough guts to attempt dessert with a rose-infused creme brulee. Maybe the other chefs aren't spineless; they're just staying away from Alex's ideas this week because they've heard what's coming, too.
Back at the Kitchen, the chefs get an hour of cooking prep [I just mistyped that as coking prep, which would have been something to see]. Jeff works on something that sounds complicated, but will work out to be simpler than it appears. That's a good idea. I always like to feel like I've accomplished something when I try a new recipe. Fabio tells us that there is no way Alex can mix, cook, rest, and cool a creme brulee in one hour. Jamie is confident, as she's made her frisee salad with duck egg on live television before. She says her main concern is making sure the egg is cooked within the two-and-a-half minute time limit.
Leah is happy to have immunity for what she considers a very tough challenge. She works on seared duck breast with corn and blueberries, which she allows is an odd combination, but swears it works. I'll buy it; I once ordered calf liver in onion/blueberry sauce on a whim, and it turned out to be quite good. Radhika wants to "bring out [her] personality" with a spicy/sweet shrimp. I'm not sure if this particular preparation is Indian or not. Let's pretend it is. DRINK! Carla says her psyche will be destroyed if she winds up on the bottom. Ariane works on a beefsteak tomato salad with watermelon, feta, and other odd ingredients. Daniel says he's quite comfortable cooking in front of the camera, which somehow leads into an ambition to be in a movie. Time winds down, and the judges enter.
A small demonstration table is set up with a television camera pointed at it. Ptom, Gail, Padma, and Rocco all crowd around the person cooking and ask questions, which I would find a lot more disconcerting than just chatting to myself in front of a camera. Ariane's up first, and cruises through with no problem. Jamie, who has live television experience and has been kicking ass in challenges lately, is just a wee bit overconfident going in. Her ass is soon bitten when the egg doesn't have time to cook all the way. She doesn't know which is worse: Running out of time or plating undercooked food. She decides to plate the egg, but knows she's screwed up. She crosses her arms defensively and gets a sour look on her face. Alex says he's not much of a public speaker, and runs out of time before he's through explaining his creme brulee. Of course, he may have finished on time if Padma hadn't been pestering him with questions, but that's neither here nor there.
Jeff makes a malfouf (stuffed cabbage) roll with shrimp and muhammara (hot pepper) sauce. He does a good job, and his food appears to impress the judges. Fabio makes a good point, though, in that for the casual viewer at home (AKA his mother), "malfouf" and "muhammara" mean nothing, and all she wants to hear about is things like tuna, carrots, and asparagus. Hehehe. Fabio puts his charm to good use, and keeps the chefs entertained as he prepares his tuna salad. Daniel's skirt steak puts out a lot of smoke, but Padma says it's delicious. Stefan has the intelligence to make a completed pot of minestrone to swap in at the end of his demo, but he also has the personality of a mackerel.
Hosea sings the praises of wasabi peas. Eugene can't satisfactorily explain the difference between sashimi and sushi, which sends me off on an internet hunt (sushi is slices of raw fish, vegetables, or egg mixed with special rice; sashimi is simply the raw fish by itself). Melissa makes blackened habanero shrimp that are so spicy, Ptom has to go spit it out. Carla runs out of time. Radhika runs out of time. Leah runs out of time. She shrugs that she doesn't ever think she wants to do live television, and Padma and Ptom smarm simultaneously that she may have to. That's right, if you're a chef, there will be no hiding in the kitchen for you. You think all you have to do is prepare food that people will then purchase and eat? No. If you do not seek out television exposure voluntarily, you will be MARCHED ONTO A SET AT GUNPOINT.
Deliberations, Part I. Jamie's duck egg was raw. Leah had no confidence, but has immunity. Attempting to make creme brulee in an hour was unwise of Alex. Carla had a nervous energy that put Rocco off, and didn't make it through the demo, but her tortilla soup was good. Daniel had a lot of personality, almost to the point of mugging. His food was good, but the preparation was frenetic and messy. Stefan had a smart idea, but is as much fun to be around as mustard gas. Melissa's shrimp was beyond spicy. Jeff had a lot to work with but made it through with confidence and aplomb. Fabio is a dream guest for a talk show. Ariane hit it out of the park. Padma comes back to the fret 'n' sweat room and announces the bottom three, which are Melissa, Alex, and Jamie. The top three are Jeff, Fabio, and Ariane. Judges' Table will be the next day, and everyone is dismissed.
The chefs go home. Jamie cries herself to sleep. Alex crabs that he could have pussied out and made a salad, but wanted to do something more impressive. Ariane takes this as a shot at her, and points out that two-and-a-half minutes is not a lot of time, so she's not about to go out there and start sauteeing duck. Good for her, I say. Making a salad is pussying out when there are tons of other options. When you've got less than a commercial break to prepare something? Go for it. Leah tells Alex that he seems like he doesn't really care if he gets eliminated, because he's looking forward to his impending wedding. He admits that the competition is not the be-all, end-all of his world. Later, out on the patio, Leah tells Melissa that she's got to stand up for herself at Judges' Table, because nobody else is going to do it for her. Melissa tells us that hell yeah, she'll fight for her spot, now that somebody has told her to.
At 2AM, Ptom comes in and rouses Jeff, Ariane, and Fabio. Once they're all sufficiently alert, he tells them that the hosts of the Today show will be trying their dishes on-air and selecting a winner. That perks Fabio and Ariane right up. Jeff, on the other hand, is not super-happy to be serving a spicy, Middle Eastern dish to a bunch of ladies with unsophisticated palates at 6:30 AM. OK, I'll buy the not-wanting-Middle-Eastern-food-at-6:30AM argument, but "unsophisticated palates"? I'll give him Kathie Lee Gifford, because come on. But I have to think that Meredith Viera has eaten at some high-end places, you know? The chefs re-prepare their dishes. Meanwhile, the other chefs are assembled in front of a television at their apartment. The top three wait in the green room as their food goes out to the hostesses. Jeff is bemused by how many people are milling around outside a television studio in Manhattan on a weekday. Now who's unsophisticated? I kind of feel him, though. I went out for brunch in New York on a Friday afternoon, and was like "What's with all the kids? Go to school!"
Ptom explains to the hostesses how they'll be picking the challenge winner. They begin by sampling Ariane's beefsteak tomato salad. Meredith skips the watermelon, but all four make yummy noises. Fabio's food is eaten without much reaction one way or the other. Jeff's is met by confused faces before Kathie Lee makes a big production out of spitting it out. Why is she still on television, by the way? Who still likes her? The chefs back at the apartment make "Oh No She Di'int!" faces. Fabio says it's bad news when someone spits your food out, but again, it's Kathie Lee Gifford. I doubt many of us are anxious to emulate her or her tastes. The hostesses huddle up to choose a winner, and pick Ariane. She jumps up and down in jubilation backstage. Jeff and Fabio give her high-fives. Carla cheers for her back at the apartment. I'm still loving Carla these days. LabRat pointed out that she's that rare person on television who actually appears genuine, and isn't putting on some giant front for the cameras. Meredith comes back to congratulate Ariane (and the other two as well), and Ariane interviews that after this challenge and the Thanksgiving one, she's been pulled out of her Whirlpool of Despair. Good, because watching that was no fun.
Judges' Table. The top three come out to be congratulated one final time. Rocco gets to present Ariane with a special gift as challenge winner, and says that "nothing makes [him] happier than tools". He gives her a kit with about twenty-four kitchen implements in it.
LabRat: "I don't think those are the kind of 'tool' Rocco likes."
Ariane is also told that as winner, she'll be presenting a dish live on the Today show the morning after this episode of Top Chef airs. I'm not a morning person, so with all due respect to Ariane, I skipped it, deeming some extra Z's before having to get up for work far more appealing. She's very happy and excited.
Odd Asian music. Gong. Melissa, Jamie, and Alex come out to face the judges. Melissa likes spicy food, but understands that it may have been too hot for the judges. They don't even believe her statement that she tasted it, as the sheer heat rendered the judges nearly comatose. Gail says that Melissa shouldn't have used habanero, as it's a pepper too hot to be played around with by people at home. I bit into a habanero-stuffed olive once by accident, and oh my God. I like spicy food, but I was ready to dunk my head in a bucket of ice water. Jamie admits she got frazzled by the time limit. Ptom tells her that flipping the egg would have helped cook it faster. Jamie nods and says she's learned from her mistakes. Rocco points out how grim and angry she looked when she didn't do well, and she explains that she was angry at herself, not the judges.
Alex wanted to stand out by doing something different and to push himself. He says that's the whole point of the competition, and Ptom smarms (he's certainly full of that tonight, isn't he?) that the whole point of the competition is to win. Sure, Ptom, because you've never torn into someone for playing things too safe. I must be imagining those twenty episodes. Still, Alex should have known better than to prepare a dish that couldn't be made within the hour time limit, and he says that he didn't know what he was thinking, and set himself up for failure. He kicks himself for trying something so risky when the challenge called for something simple. It seems to me like he's hinting to the judges that he'd be okay with elimination, but I don't know that for sure.
Padma asks if anyone's got anything else to add, and Melissa remembers that she was supposed to stick up for herself, and intimate to the judges that she has more ambition than Alex. Unfortunately, Melissa's too meek to do something that venomous, so she just tells the judges that she really wants to be there. Then she repeats it about four times. The judges even give her an opening, asking if she thinks that means someone else doesn't want to remain in the competition, but she doesn't take the opportunity. Not that I think she should; that'd be supremely douchey. It's just that "I really want to be here. Really. A lot. Really." is not what I'd call standing up for yourself. Alex admits again that he messed the challenge up, and when asked why he should stay, says that he's a lot better than what he's shown so far. The chefs are dismissed.
Deliberations, Part II. All three of the losing chefs delivered inedible dishes. Jamie's egg was close to being good, but the execution was way off. Plus, her presentation sucked. Melissa was defensive of the amount of spice she put in, but Rocco says that it wasn't acceptable by any standard. Meanwhile, Melissa is talking to Fabio and Hosea, pretending she delivered some sort of Clarence Darrow defense of herself and some stunning indictment of Alex. Um, not. She was so mousy, even Alex isn't sure if she was trying to "throw him under the bus" or not. DRINK! Jamie points out that even if she is, it's too late for her now. He still thinks it's a fucked up thing to do, using the bus metaphor again. DRINK! The judges are saying that there's no way Alex could have made the dish work, given the time limit. They reach a decision.
Hey, remember that exceedingly weird two-second segment where Leah and Hosea flirted, and then it inexplicably went back to commercial? Welcome to the sequel. At least in this one, Carla makes an encouraging naughty face, like, "Get it, girl!" Heh.
Elimination. Melissa's food was just far too hot. Alex couldn't complete the task as given. Jamie presented a raw egg and a poor performance. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chop. Alex, please pack your knives and go. The foghorn never lies! Naturally, Carla is the first to give him a good-bye hug. I'm telling you, she's awesome. There's no way in hell she'll win the season, as Ptom has no use for nice people, but I'll enjoy her while I can. Alex regrets taking such a big risk, but looks forward to heading home to be with his fiancee. So, he's fairly happy to go, and the other chefs are fairly happy to stay. Everyone wins!
Overall Grade: B+
Previously on Top Chef: Team Rainbow came out, came together, and were blown apart in the span of about five seconds. The chefs made Thanksgiving dinner for the Foo Fighters. Ariane redeemed herself with a wonderful turkey, while Richard's goopy banana s'mores got him sent on his teary way. Thirteen chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?
Opening credits. Drinking Game Rule #4: Take a drink every time Radhika makes an Indian-style dish.
Monday Morning Quarterback Session. Ariane feels better about herself. Richard has left an emotional letter behind for his roommate Alex, who feels sad and alone now. Alex is getting married in a month, but promises to concentrate on cooking. Ah, the focus is shifting to a cast member who's been roundly ignored up to this episode. Guess what that means, kids? Jamie is bummed to lose her queer peers, but shrugs it off.
Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma and Rocco DiSpirito, who Fabio gently derides for being a phony Italian chef. Hehehe. The table is laden with breakfast items, which fills Jamie with dread, as she is not a breakfast person. Doesn't cook it, doesn't eat it. I rarely have time to eat breakfast, but if I did, and if someone else woke up early to cook it, I'd want it every morning. Today's Quickfire is to create a breakfast amuse-bouche. The chefs have half an hour, and Rocco mentions that bacon is always welcome. Well, sure. Ready? Go!
Stefan has a neat tool which cuts a perfect circle off the top of an eggshell. Jeff wants to throw all of his good breakfast ideas into this challenge, even though everyone is theoretically aiming for a single-bite dish. Daniel combines corn flakes and zucchini flowers. Weird. Ariane works on a stuffed French toast that is popular with her kids, while Fabio disdains American breakfasts altogether, opting instead for brioche and cappuccino. Leah wants to make sure her bacon, egg, and cheese flavors all make it onto the fork. Melissa ruins an egg. Time runs out, catching Carla by surprise. Whoops! Rocco and Padma go down the line.
To save time, let's just hit the highlights and lowlights. Stefan's huevos rancheros are overshadowed by the nifty way he's served them in the egg shells. I'd be concerned with the raw egg still clinging to the inside. Daniel has crusted his zucchini flowers with corn flakes, and stuffed them with a hash of potato, bacon, mushroom, and egg. It's still weird, but I'd be curious to try it. Ariane's French toast gets a favorable response, and she's visibly relieved that her success with the turkey wasn't a one-off. Jamie has put together bacon, lettuce, and tomato grilled bread, and topped it off with balsamic syrup.
Leah's a bit peeved that other chefs are getting away with two-bite or bigger dishes, when an amuse-bouche is supposed to just be one. She hopes that adhering to the challenge parameters will help her out. I almost have to rewind to make sure that a chef on this show realizes that ignoring challenge parameters can bite you in the ass. Uncanny! Her bite is bacon, quail egg, fried sage, and cheese on grilled bread. Yum. Fabio's brioche is topped with bruleed banana, and there's a big, honking glass of espresso cream on the side. He says that breakfast shouldn't be too heavy, and Padma points out that his espresso is so rich as to almost be pudding. Jeff has, like, three things lined up in a row, which would've been nice if the challenge had been to create an amuse-amuse-amuse bouche.
Results. The bottom two are Daniel, whose corn flakes overwhelmed the entire bite, and Fabio, whom Rocco wants to punish for having the nerve to be authentically Italian. Fabio grouses in interview that he should have listened to Rocco's hint about bacon, and next time, he'll just plop some bacon and "bullshit eggs" on toast, and he'll probably win. Heh. Fabio's really growing on me. Stefan had a great container. That's seriously why he's in the top three. Leah had a great arrangement of flavors. Jamie's dislike of breakfast doesn't hold her back, and she rounds out the top three. Rocco has a hard time choosing between her and Leah, but ultimately picks Leah, who scoops up her second consecutive Quickfire win. Along with immunity, she also wins a copy of Rocco's new book, which she accepts with a tight-lipped smile. I get the feeling that's getting tossed in a cardboard box in the basement when she gets home. She gives the Standard Speech. Meanwhile, Jamie is pissed, either at herself for coming close to a Quickfire win without getting it for the second time (which is fine), or at Leah for having the audacity to take two in a row (which is shitty). I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.
Elimination Challenge. Padma tells the chefs that it's super-duper important to have a high public profile as a chef. More people knowing about you means that more people will "seek out your restaurants, buy your books, and try your food". I love how "buy your books" comes before "try your food". This, combined with Rocco giving his book away as a challenge prize, makes this episode sort of sadly hilarious. I don't know whether to laugh or cry over the attitude that being a successful chef is about everything except making good food. As long as you're sufficiently pretty, or assy, or fight with your mother on television, or write books about how kitchens are akin to the TRENCHES OF WAR, or are the Southern equivalent of a black minstrel show, you'll be fine. Don't know rigatoni from radicchio? No problem, as long as you've got a nice rack that jiggles fetchingly as you whisk egg whites!
Anyhow, the Elimination Challenge is to create a dish that can be shown as a two-and-a-half-minute demonstration for a live television presentation. Despite my grouse just now, I think that's a really good idea. For a reality show challenge, that is. Not as a benchmark to determine who's a more talented chef. Adding to the hilarity that is this episode, several chefs immediately become jittery and nervous, because they don't want anything to do with live television. These people... People who cheerfully and willingly signed up to be followed by cameras 24/7 for weeks, taped as they brush their teeth, edited into a story arc that may not be particularly complimentary, have their every move and word eviscerated by sarcastic bloggers (ahem), and so forth... Are quaking in their boots at the thought of explaining food for 150 seconds. Awesome. Rocco explains that the recipe should be simple enough to follow at home. Not only is that more incentive for people to make something, but a more complicated recipe is all too easy to screw up as you demonstrate it. Presentation will figure into the judging, as well as the food. Fabio is not thrilled about having to cook and present something while chattering in perfect English.
The chefs go shopping for half an hour with a budget of $100. Fabio, Eugene, and Hosea all harass the fish guy about chopping and slicing their own fish, and he lets them have at it. Alex says he's the only guy who has enough guts to attempt dessert with a rose-infused creme brulee. Maybe the other chefs aren't spineless; they're just staying away from Alex's ideas this week because they've heard what's coming, too.
Back at the Kitchen, the chefs get an hour of cooking prep [I just mistyped that as coking prep, which would have been something to see]. Jeff works on something that sounds complicated, but will work out to be simpler than it appears. That's a good idea. I always like to feel like I've accomplished something when I try a new recipe. Fabio tells us that there is no way Alex can mix, cook, rest, and cool a creme brulee in one hour. Jamie is confident, as she's made her frisee salad with duck egg on live television before. She says her main concern is making sure the egg is cooked within the two-and-a-half minute time limit.
Leah is happy to have immunity for what she considers a very tough challenge. She works on seared duck breast with corn and blueberries, which she allows is an odd combination, but swears it works. I'll buy it; I once ordered calf liver in onion/blueberry sauce on a whim, and it turned out to be quite good. Radhika wants to "bring out [her] personality" with a spicy/sweet shrimp. I'm not sure if this particular preparation is Indian or not. Let's pretend it is. DRINK! Carla says her psyche will be destroyed if she winds up on the bottom. Ariane works on a beefsteak tomato salad with watermelon, feta, and other odd ingredients. Daniel says he's quite comfortable cooking in front of the camera, which somehow leads into an ambition to be in a movie. Time winds down, and the judges enter.
A small demonstration table is set up with a television camera pointed at it. Ptom, Gail, Padma, and Rocco all crowd around the person cooking and ask questions, which I would find a lot more disconcerting than just chatting to myself in front of a camera. Ariane's up first, and cruises through with no problem. Jamie, who has live television experience and has been kicking ass in challenges lately, is just a wee bit overconfident going in. Her ass is soon bitten when the egg doesn't have time to cook all the way. She doesn't know which is worse: Running out of time or plating undercooked food. She decides to plate the egg, but knows she's screwed up. She crosses her arms defensively and gets a sour look on her face. Alex says he's not much of a public speaker, and runs out of time before he's through explaining his creme brulee. Of course, he may have finished on time if Padma hadn't been pestering him with questions, but that's neither here nor there.
Jeff makes a malfouf (stuffed cabbage) roll with shrimp and muhammara (hot pepper) sauce. He does a good job, and his food appears to impress the judges. Fabio makes a good point, though, in that for the casual viewer at home (AKA his mother), "malfouf" and "muhammara" mean nothing, and all she wants to hear about is things like tuna, carrots, and asparagus. Hehehe. Fabio puts his charm to good use, and keeps the chefs entertained as he prepares his tuna salad. Daniel's skirt steak puts out a lot of smoke, but Padma says it's delicious. Stefan has the intelligence to make a completed pot of minestrone to swap in at the end of his demo, but he also has the personality of a mackerel.
Hosea sings the praises of wasabi peas. Eugene can't satisfactorily explain the difference between sashimi and sushi, which sends me off on an internet hunt (sushi is slices of raw fish, vegetables, or egg mixed with special rice; sashimi is simply the raw fish by itself). Melissa makes blackened habanero shrimp that are so spicy, Ptom has to go spit it out. Carla runs out of time. Radhika runs out of time. Leah runs out of time. She shrugs that she doesn't ever think she wants to do live television, and Padma and Ptom smarm simultaneously that she may have to. That's right, if you're a chef, there will be no hiding in the kitchen for you. You think all you have to do is prepare food that people will then purchase and eat? No. If you do not seek out television exposure voluntarily, you will be MARCHED ONTO A SET AT GUNPOINT.
Deliberations, Part I. Jamie's duck egg was raw. Leah had no confidence, but has immunity. Attempting to make creme brulee in an hour was unwise of Alex. Carla had a nervous energy that put Rocco off, and didn't make it through the demo, but her tortilla soup was good. Daniel had a lot of personality, almost to the point of mugging. His food was good, but the preparation was frenetic and messy. Stefan had a smart idea, but is as much fun to be around as mustard gas. Melissa's shrimp was beyond spicy. Jeff had a lot to work with but made it through with confidence and aplomb. Fabio is a dream guest for a talk show. Ariane hit it out of the park. Padma comes back to the fret 'n' sweat room and announces the bottom three, which are Melissa, Alex, and Jamie. The top three are Jeff, Fabio, and Ariane. Judges' Table will be the next day, and everyone is dismissed.
The chefs go home. Jamie cries herself to sleep. Alex crabs that he could have pussied out and made a salad, but wanted to do something more impressive. Ariane takes this as a shot at her, and points out that two-and-a-half minutes is not a lot of time, so she's not about to go out there and start sauteeing duck. Good for her, I say. Making a salad is pussying out when there are tons of other options. When you've got less than a commercial break to prepare something? Go for it. Leah tells Alex that he seems like he doesn't really care if he gets eliminated, because he's looking forward to his impending wedding. He admits that the competition is not the be-all, end-all of his world. Later, out on the patio, Leah tells Melissa that she's got to stand up for herself at Judges' Table, because nobody else is going to do it for her. Melissa tells us that hell yeah, she'll fight for her spot, now that somebody has told her to.
At 2AM, Ptom comes in and rouses Jeff, Ariane, and Fabio. Once they're all sufficiently alert, he tells them that the hosts of the Today show will be trying their dishes on-air and selecting a winner. That perks Fabio and Ariane right up. Jeff, on the other hand, is not super-happy to be serving a spicy, Middle Eastern dish to a bunch of ladies with unsophisticated palates at 6:30 AM. OK, I'll buy the not-wanting-Middle-Eastern-food-at-6:30AM argument, but "unsophisticated palates"? I'll give him Kathie Lee Gifford, because come on. But I have to think that Meredith Viera has eaten at some high-end places, you know? The chefs re-prepare their dishes. Meanwhile, the other chefs are assembled in front of a television at their apartment. The top three wait in the green room as their food goes out to the hostesses. Jeff is bemused by how many people are milling around outside a television studio in Manhattan on a weekday. Now who's unsophisticated? I kind of feel him, though. I went out for brunch in New York on a Friday afternoon, and was like "What's with all the kids? Go to school!"
Ptom explains to the hostesses how they'll be picking the challenge winner. They begin by sampling Ariane's beefsteak tomato salad. Meredith skips the watermelon, but all four make yummy noises. Fabio's food is eaten without much reaction one way or the other. Jeff's is met by confused faces before Kathie Lee makes a big production out of spitting it out. Why is she still on television, by the way? Who still likes her? The chefs back at the apartment make "Oh No She Di'int!" faces. Fabio says it's bad news when someone spits your food out, but again, it's Kathie Lee Gifford. I doubt many of us are anxious to emulate her or her tastes. The hostesses huddle up to choose a winner, and pick Ariane. She jumps up and down in jubilation backstage. Jeff and Fabio give her high-fives. Carla cheers for her back at the apartment. I'm still loving Carla these days. LabRat pointed out that she's that rare person on television who actually appears genuine, and isn't putting on some giant front for the cameras. Meredith comes back to congratulate Ariane (and the other two as well), and Ariane interviews that after this challenge and the Thanksgiving one, she's been pulled out of her Whirlpool of Despair. Good, because watching that was no fun.
Judges' Table. The top three come out to be congratulated one final time. Rocco gets to present Ariane with a special gift as challenge winner, and says that "nothing makes [him] happier than tools". He gives her a kit with about twenty-four kitchen implements in it.
LabRat: "I don't think those are the kind of 'tool' Rocco likes."
Ariane is also told that as winner, she'll be presenting a dish live on the Today show the morning after this episode of Top Chef airs. I'm not a morning person, so with all due respect to Ariane, I skipped it, deeming some extra Z's before having to get up for work far more appealing. She's very happy and excited.
Odd Asian music. Gong. Melissa, Jamie, and Alex come out to face the judges. Melissa likes spicy food, but understands that it may have been too hot for the judges. They don't even believe her statement that she tasted it, as the sheer heat rendered the judges nearly comatose. Gail says that Melissa shouldn't have used habanero, as it's a pepper too hot to be played around with by people at home. I bit into a habanero-stuffed olive once by accident, and oh my God. I like spicy food, but I was ready to dunk my head in a bucket of ice water. Jamie admits she got frazzled by the time limit. Ptom tells her that flipping the egg would have helped cook it faster. Jamie nods and says she's learned from her mistakes. Rocco points out how grim and angry she looked when she didn't do well, and she explains that she was angry at herself, not the judges.
Alex wanted to stand out by doing something different and to push himself. He says that's the whole point of the competition, and Ptom smarms (he's certainly full of that tonight, isn't he?) that the whole point of the competition is to win. Sure, Ptom, because you've never torn into someone for playing things too safe. I must be imagining those twenty episodes. Still, Alex should have known better than to prepare a dish that couldn't be made within the hour time limit, and he says that he didn't know what he was thinking, and set himself up for failure. He kicks himself for trying something so risky when the challenge called for something simple. It seems to me like he's hinting to the judges that he'd be okay with elimination, but I don't know that for sure.
Padma asks if anyone's got anything else to add, and Melissa remembers that she was supposed to stick up for herself, and intimate to the judges that she has more ambition than Alex. Unfortunately, Melissa's too meek to do something that venomous, so she just tells the judges that she really wants to be there. Then she repeats it about four times. The judges even give her an opening, asking if she thinks that means someone else doesn't want to remain in the competition, but she doesn't take the opportunity. Not that I think she should; that'd be supremely douchey. It's just that "I really want to be here. Really. A lot. Really." is not what I'd call standing up for yourself. Alex admits again that he messed the challenge up, and when asked why he should stay, says that he's a lot better than what he's shown so far. The chefs are dismissed.
Deliberations, Part II. All three of the losing chefs delivered inedible dishes. Jamie's egg was close to being good, but the execution was way off. Plus, her presentation sucked. Melissa was defensive of the amount of spice she put in, but Rocco says that it wasn't acceptable by any standard. Meanwhile, Melissa is talking to Fabio and Hosea, pretending she delivered some sort of Clarence Darrow defense of herself and some stunning indictment of Alex. Um, not. She was so mousy, even Alex isn't sure if she was trying to "throw him under the bus" or not. DRINK! Jamie points out that even if she is, it's too late for her now. He still thinks it's a fucked up thing to do, using the bus metaphor again. DRINK! The judges are saying that there's no way Alex could have made the dish work, given the time limit. They reach a decision.
Hey, remember that exceedingly weird two-second segment where Leah and Hosea flirted, and then it inexplicably went back to commercial? Welcome to the sequel. At least in this one, Carla makes an encouraging naughty face, like, "Get it, girl!" Heh.
Elimination. Melissa's food was just far too hot. Alex couldn't complete the task as given. Jamie presented a raw egg and a poor performance. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chop. Alex, please pack your knives and go. The foghorn never lies! Naturally, Carla is the first to give him a good-bye hug. I'm telling you, she's awesome. There's no way in hell she'll win the season, as Ptom has no use for nice people, but I'll enjoy her while I can. Alex regrets taking such a big risk, but looks forward to heading home to be with his fiancee. So, he's fairly happy to go, and the other chefs are fairly happy to stay. Everyone wins!
Overall Grade: B+
You Look Like Peter Pan
The Amazing Race - Season 13, Episode 11
Previously on The Amazing Race: The only boring season in the history of this show. Thank goodness we can wrap this shit up and hope for a better crop of tasks and contestants next time.
The final three teams make their way from Russia to Portland, Oregon, which appears to be a very pretty city. Lots of trees. Once there, a Detour requires teams to choose between climbing a tree and doing a balance beam walk across a suspended log, or simply running across a lashed series of logs on the water. For some odd reason, everyone opts for the former, including Tina, who reminds Ken (and us) about a gazillion more times how scared of heights she is. Gee, if only there had been an option where climbing a tree wasn't necessary. Say, the other Detour choice? Dan and Andrew get a crappy cab driver on their way there and fall behind. I'd feel bad for them if they had any business being in the final three.
After the Detour, teams take a 2000-foot zip line across a river from a bridge, which Tina suddenly has no issue with. Weirdo. At the bottom waits one of those wonderful mental tasks I love so, as it neatly shuffles dumb people out of contention. Teams must think back to each of the previous legs, and find a picture that corresponds to either some Route Info, the Detour, the Roadblock, or the Pitstop for that particular leg. Ken and Tina get a good jump on the task, but are eventually overtaken by Nick and Starr. After two pointless intervening tasks in which they find a dinosaur statue and a donut shop, teams race for the finish line, where Phil and all the eliminated teams wait. Everyone except Toni and Dallas, who were still stuck without passports in Russia.
Nick and Starr become the first family team to win (except for the Season That Shall Not Be Named, obviously), which is nice to see, as is the fact that it's always nice to see the team that raced the smartest win. Ken and Tina come in second, whereupon Ken re-proposes to Tina. Have your heart warmed if you must. Dan and Andrew, who the cameras stopped paying attention to after the Detour, manage to finally check in, which must mean that they weren't required to do the memory task. Otherwise, the teams would still be waiting at the finish line now.
Nick and Starr are pleased as punch with their win and with each other, proving that it doesn't matter if you're dating or related or gay or intense or laid-back. The real key to winning The Amazing Race is being young and muscly.
Overall Grade: B
Overall Season Grade: The blandest C possible.
Previously on The Amazing Race: The only boring season in the history of this show. Thank goodness we can wrap this shit up and hope for a better crop of tasks and contestants next time.
The final three teams make their way from Russia to Portland, Oregon, which appears to be a very pretty city. Lots of trees. Once there, a Detour requires teams to choose between climbing a tree and doing a balance beam walk across a suspended log, or simply running across a lashed series of logs on the water. For some odd reason, everyone opts for the former, including Tina, who reminds Ken (and us) about a gazillion more times how scared of heights she is. Gee, if only there had been an option where climbing a tree wasn't necessary. Say, the other Detour choice? Dan and Andrew get a crappy cab driver on their way there and fall behind. I'd feel bad for them if they had any business being in the final three.
After the Detour, teams take a 2000-foot zip line across a river from a bridge, which Tina suddenly has no issue with. Weirdo. At the bottom waits one of those wonderful mental tasks I love so, as it neatly shuffles dumb people out of contention. Teams must think back to each of the previous legs, and find a picture that corresponds to either some Route Info, the Detour, the Roadblock, or the Pitstop for that particular leg. Ken and Tina get a good jump on the task, but are eventually overtaken by Nick and Starr. After two pointless intervening tasks in which they find a dinosaur statue and a donut shop, teams race for the finish line, where Phil and all the eliminated teams wait. Everyone except Toni and Dallas, who were still stuck without passports in Russia.
Nick and Starr become the first family team to win (except for the Season That Shall Not Be Named, obviously), which is nice to see, as is the fact that it's always nice to see the team that raced the smartest win. Ken and Tina come in second, whereupon Ken re-proposes to Tina. Have your heart warmed if you must. Dan and Andrew, who the cameras stopped paying attention to after the Detour, manage to finally check in, which must mean that they weren't required to do the memory task. Otherwise, the teams would still be waiting at the finish line now.
Nick and Starr are pleased as punch with their win and with each other, proving that it doesn't matter if you're dating or related or gay or intense or laid-back. The real key to winning The Amazing Race is being young and muscly.
Overall Grade: B
Overall Season Grade: The blandest C possible.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Foo Foo Platter
Top Chef - Season 5, Episode 3
Previously on Top Chef: The contestants cooked lunch for people who aren't telegenic or sassy enough to be successful chefs. Jill made an ostrich egg taste like glue, while Ariane's dessert made Padma seize in disgust. Fabio won the challenge, Jill's incomprehensible rambling at Judges' Table got her chopped, and Ariane was pulled further into her whirlpool of despair. Fourteen chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?
Opening credits. Drinking Game Rule #3: Take a drink any time a contestant reacts to a judges' criticism by sneering that they just don't get it.
Monday Morning Quarterback Session. Fabio - happy. Ariane - unhappy. Richard - King of Unnecessary Exposition. No big changes there. That dispensed with, the chefs head out for the day.
Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma and guest judge Grant Achatz. Padma wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving. The fact that they always give warm, holiday greetings in what is probably the dead of August never stops being funny. Hosea is heartened to see a guest judge who has successfully battled cancer, as his father has just been diagnosed with it. Let's send a mind-melded batch of Get Well Soon his way. The chefs step forward to draw knives, each of which has a number on it. Those numbers turn out to correspond to page numbers in the Top Chef cookbook, which must not be selling well if they have to plug it like this. The chefs have an hour to put their own, personal spin on the recipe found on their chosen page number. Ready? Go!
Jeff has gotten a recipe of Howie's, though they neglected to include massive flop sweat on the ingredients list. Leah has gotten one of Hung's many tuna tartare dishes, which includes white asparagus. Shortly into the challenge, Padma re-enters, and almost hysterically yells for the chefs to stop what they're doing. Daniel recaps this in interview, which is a good chance to note how wildly his facial hair varies across this episode. It's clean-shaven, but for a soul patch! Now, it's scruffy! Now, it's that negative-space mustache again! Padma tells the chefs that the challenge is changing; now they must take the ingredients they've already started working with, and make a soup out of them. Product-placed broth has been provided. Leah, who was quite confident before this happened, now has to pull a raw tuna soup out of her ass, and do it using white asparagus, which she loathes. Ouch. Carla brings her special brand of kooky to her soup. I must admit that Carla, even with her spirit guides and those wacky interviews with her eyes bugging out of her head, is starting to worm her way into my heart.
Jamie, who knows her soups, doesn't think she'll have any trouble working with a recipe of Miguel's. Well, sure. I mean, it's Miguel. The best picture they could find to put in the cookbook makes him look like he wears a helmet to school. Padma comes in to give the five-minute warning. Chaotic cooking montage, followed by chaotic plating montage. It's a bit improbable to refer to filling bowls of soup as "plating", but I guess "bowling" is out, for obvious reasons. Pity. Padma and Grant go down the line. Stefan has made a scallop/shrimp burger into a Thai green curry with scallop dumplings on the side. Makes sense. Ariane, who had Dale's (that's adorable Dale, not obnoxious Dale) rack of lamb, which you'd think would be pretty easy to turn into some sort of stew. Ariane has combined diced lamb with eggplant, red pepper, and couscous. Grant finds it overcooked, and Ariane shakes her head, like "Well, someone hates my food. What else is new?". That doesn't count for the drinking game, though, so put those glasses down.
Daniel has thrown together a ham and egg soup, which sounds difficult. He's included mushrooms, corn, and cheese. Padma, who sounds stoned out of her gourd, says she's never had ham and egg soup before, but is able to slur that she likes it. Daniel is pleased in interview. Perhaps he's pleased that he's been able to grow a full beard in three seconds. Richard has a black bean and roasted pasilla pepper soup with rice. Grant says it needs acid, which Richard was going to include, but ran out of time. Melissa has made her version of an Italian wedding soup, which looks nothing like Italian wedding soup. But it's her version! She still needs to work on her version of a haircut.
Fabio got a recipe of Michael's, and if they included him in the cookbook, it's no wonder nobody's buying. I can't imagine there were too many people salivating for the chance to emulate the guy who made Cheeto shitbombs. This more successful recipe is a duo of salmon and trout, which Fabio has put into a mushroom and asparagus soup. Grant finds it flat. Carla had Lia's poached shrimp, which she's turned into shrimp, tomato, and coriander soup. Sounds good. Grant backs me up. Leah has made a chilled asparagus soup with tuna. Jamie has naturally turned Miguel's deconstructed falafel into chickpea soup. Padma and Grant love it.
Results. Perhaps in the spirit of the season, there are no challenge losers named. The top three are Jamie's chickpea soup, Leah's ability to work with the hated white asparagus, and Daniel's inventive ham and egg soup. Grant selects Leah as the winner. Her response is rather muted, but she perks up when she's reminded that she's immune from elimination in the next challenge. Speaking of which...
Elimination Challenge. The challenge will be to make Thanksgiving dinner for some very special clients. The chefs will be split into two teams, and as winner of the Quickfire, Leah gets to choose her team. She unsurprisingly selects Jamie, Hosea, Fabio, Stefan, Radhika, and Melissa. Padma plays a video message from the clients, who turn out to be the Foo Fighters. Hey, celebrity guests that I like! I don't think that's happened since Jennifer Coolidge. They claim to be big Top Chef fans, which I have trouble believing for some reason. The chefs will cook for the band and its entourage at their next venue. They've passed along a copy of their "rider" to make sure the chefs have plenty of traps to fall into. Padma outlines some examples of what they'll find, such as the band's love of chocolate-covered frozen bananas. Yeah, I think that was one of the things Squanto introduced to the Pilgrims. There will be eighteen vegetarians in the horde of diners, which Hosea thinks is no problem. He's from Colorado, which is apparently bursting with picky eaters. The winning team gets to attend the show, while the members of the losing one are not only ripe for elimination, but must clean up after the feast. Gordon Ramsay is already halfway to court to file a claim of copyright infringement.
Later, the chefs are driven out to an arena in Rochester, where they're met by a roadie. Fabio asks to see where the kitchen is (subtitled...DRINK!), and the roadie leads them...outside. Not only is it outside, but the only cooking equipment available is one burner and a bunch of microwaves and toasters. The chefs get fifteen minutes to try and think their way through this. Stefan is confident, while Jamie snaps over and over that they only have one burner, so a lot of grandiose ideas, like two gravys (gravies?) are implausible. Meanwhile, Jeff is putting his mad phat organizational skillz to work. Ariane is put in charge of the turkey, and she complains in interview that nobody on her team thinks she can handle it, simply because she's sucked in every challenge so far. She may have left that last clause off. In semi-accordance with the "rider", Richard will be making banana s'mores. Everyone heads out to shop for supplies.
At the store, we're given the team names. Leah's team has been christened Team Sexy Pants, which is dumb, but which will have delightful consequences. The other team is Team Cougar, named in part for Ariane's woman-of-a-certain-age hotness. Perhaps fortunately, she's not really sure what the term is all about. Everyone stocks up. Turkeys are piled into carts. Carla calls out a "Happy Thanksgiving!", no doubt confusing the hell out of all the other patrons who are buying watermelon for the weekend barbeque.
Back at whatever patio the poor chefs have been exiled to, Eugene shows us how with a chafing dish and some charcoal, he's built a little smoker to provide some extra cooking equipment. Genius! We get a peek at the menus, though with the Reliably Shitty Titles Department, it's anyone's guess what will actually show up on the plate. As you might expect, they're full of turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and desserts, though there is a curious lack of green vegetables. Jeff talks about making a pumpkin mousse, and we're forced to pause the show, as his title of chef at the "Dilido Beach Club" looks like something else. Something VERY else.
Tiffany: "He works at the Dildo Beach Club?"
Limecrete: "And all they serve is phallic-shaped food, with maybe some asses for variety."
LabRat: "I dunno. Getting in might be difficult."
Team Cougar harangues Ariane about making sure the turkey's cooking. She gets exasperated, which would be understandable if she hadn't been such an underperforming sad-sack since the word "go". Apparently, cooking outdoors with budget and menu constraints wasn't enough of a curveball, because Nature decides to get in on the act by raining. Panicky production assistants try to protect the food with flimsy patio tents, which works about as well as you'd expect. Fabio complains that there's no way he's going home because it's raining in his tiramisu. I always enjoy sentences that nobody will ever have use for ever again. Daniel gripes about getting the "goddamn" potatoes done, and I'm surprised, because I don't think I've ever heard that uttered on primetime basic cable without the "God" part bleeped. Not that I care that he said it; it's just interesting for cultural footnote purposes. The chefs realize that time is running out, and if the food's not on the tables inside when the clock stops, they can't serve it. A lot of mad dashes ensue. Carla wants to show that the kids that didn't get picked for kickball can win the challenge. Eugene says they got everything finished by the "skin of our ass". Nice. I'll have to steal that phrase.
The judges, Foos, and other diners enter and line up for service. Daniel tells us as much in interview (negative-space mustache) before dishing up his potatoes (stubble with soul patch). Team Cougar also starts off with spoonbread stuffing (with figs/cranberries/walnuts/onion), five-cheese mac and cheese with bacon (mmmm), roasted turkey with mushroom gravy, and maple-smoked pork loin. Jeff's stuffing isn't a big hit, as the Foos aren't into a lot of bells and whistles like the figs in their stuffing. Grant says that sometimes, you just have to execute the classics, as if the chefs wouldn't have been slammed for playing too safe if they had done just that. Alex's mac and cheese is popular, but Daniel's potatoes are undercooked. Both meats do well. Eugene gets points for MacGyvering out on the pork smoker, while Ariane's turkey earns her some much-needed redemption.
On to Team Sexy Pants' dinner. Turkey, vegan cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes, and roasted corn salad. Fabio charms the pants off Padma. At least she wishes he would. The vegetables are lauded. The vegan stuffing was far better than the other team's, and Dave Grohl gives high praise for the burned marshmallows on the yams, as "you GOTTA burn the marshmallows, man". I have to agree. The turkey, on the other hand, does not compare to Ariane's. Everyone decides to move on to dessert. Richard flames. He also torches his s'mores. Zing! The judges' approach surprises Ariane, who's in the middle of a huge mouthful of food, which Jeff chides her over. Oh, let the woman wolf down a few bites. Fabio presents his roasted pumpkin/honey/cinnamon tiramisu and Hosea's peach and blueberry crisp with cinnamon cream. Ah yes, when I think of autumnal harvest flavors, peach and blueberry immediately spring to mind.
The judges also load up on Team Cougar's desserts. Jeff was expecting them to eat Team Sexy Pants' dessert and then come back, so things that were supposed to be hot had to be served lukewarm. He's disconcerted. Carla serves a peach and cherry cobbler (more autumnal goodness!), Jeff serves his pumpkin mousse tossed with fresh fruit, and Richard serves his banana s'mores with vanilla cream and chocolate ganache. The judges go back to the table to eat, and it is here that Team Sexy Pants' name comes in handy, as that is how all the austere judges must now refer to them. Fabio's tiramisu is popular, and Ptom likes that he merged an American tradition with his knowledge of Italian food. Sexy Pants gets a hearty thumbs up on dessert. Team Cougar gets off to a bad start with Jeff's pumpkin mousse. The Foos make an astute point in that combining things you chew (the fruit) with things you simply swallow (the mousse) can be irritating. It's true. That's why suspending things in Jello is against God and Nature. The s'mores also draw criticism, as the cream on top resembles a big wad of spit.
Deliberations, Part I. It's generally agreed upon that neither team blew the other out of the water. Team Cougar's turkey was much better, while Team Sexy Pants ruled dessert. Team Sexy Pants also had the vegan stuffing, but the Foo drummer says that more of Team Cougar's entrees were better, and that desserts aren't the most important part of the meal. In general, I'd agree. If I go out to eat and have a terrific dinner followed by a disappointing dessert, I'm still satisfied. If, on the other hand, dinner is awful and there's a delectable dessert, I'd be kind of pissed off. Still, dessert carries more weight at Thanksgiving dinner. Ever taken a bite of a truly wretched pumpkin pie? It's not fun. The judges and Foos approach the teams to render their decision.
Team Sexy Pants takes the challenge. They celebrate. Eugene grouses, while Carla offers Team Sexy Pants congratulations. The winning chefs attend the show, while the losing ones despondently clean up and go through a lot of rationalizing and anxiety. Richard hopes that Team Cougar won't resort to throwing each other under the bus. DRINK! Back at the Kitchen, the teams are reunited. Melissa shows she's just as good at being a gracious winner as she is at styling her bangs by breezing in and declaring how awesome the show was. Daniel flicks her off. Classless, yes. Undeserved, no.
The Cougars go in to face Judges' Table. Jeff says he's surprised the team lost. He thought they put out a good meal, given the curveballs the challenge contained. Ptom points out that the other team had the same obstacles. Asked if there was a team leader, Alex says that while they didn't assign one, Jeff emerged as one. Lest you think that means Jeff is being sold out, Alex and Richard go to great lengths to clarify that Jeff's organizational skills were tremendously handy, and if the team lost, it was on execution, which is everyone's responsibility. Nice. Ptom tells Jeff that he looks pretty pissed off, and if he's hoping to spark a tantrum, he'll be disappointed. Jeff simply says that he's upset that they lost, because everyone on the team was great, and he wouldn't trade any of them for anyone on the other team. It'd have been better if he'd stopped there, and not added the Baseball Movie Cliche of "they gotta lotta heart, sir" on the end, but I admire the sentiment.
Ptom says that Team Sexy Pants didn't clobber them by any means, and Gail jumps in to tell Ariane that her turkey was perfect, and much better than the other team's. Ariane grins in relief. She had to be thinking she was going home. Jeff's spoonbread was too dry. Daniel claims responsibility for the potatoes and the vegetarian stuffed mushrooms, about which we haven't heard a peep. Gail mentions that the potatoes were undercooked, and Daniel says that it was a time issue, so he combined the roasted potatoes with the cooked ones. I guess the latter were boiled? Ptom asks why he didn't just leave the undercooked ones out of the dish, and Daniel says that there wouldn't have been enough to serve. That's a reasonable response.
Team Cougar's real problem was dessert. Carla's cobbler was a fine concept, but was off in execution. Jeff's pumpkin mousse was imbalanced. Richard's s'mores weren't s'mores. There was no burnt sugar, and not enough chocolate to be classified as a s'more. I only wish Food Taxonomy had been offered at my university. Richard says that he wanted to offer chocolate-dipped frozen bananas, but obviously the challenge parameters put an end to that. He tried to do what he could to feature the banana over the chocolate. Another reasonable response. Gail says that the foamy cream on top wasn't suited to a catering environment, in that it just fell flat. True enough. The spit comment is brought up. The chefs are dismissed.
Deliberations, Part II. Grant would like to narrow the losers to the dessert-makers, but Ptom and Gail want to toss in Daniel's sloppily-executed potatoes as well. That leaves a pass for one of the dessert-makers, and happily, Carla claims it. Her cobbler wasn't outstanding, but it wasn't terrible. Jeff has natural leadership abilities, which is good, but the time he spent on organizing the team caused him to fall flat in his cooking, which is bad. The pumpkin mousse was a bad idea, but the spoonbread would have been fine if it hadn't been overcooked. Richard's s'mores didn't taste good, didn't look good, and weren't a good concept to begin with. Ouch. Ptom snipes that the chefs needn't have followed every instruction on the "rider", and before I can fully gear up to gripe that the chefs would have been reamed if they had ignored it, he deflates me by saying there were plenty of other things Richard could have done with bananas. Oh. That's true. The judges reach a decision.
As they sweat 'n' fret, Daniel and Jamie get into a pointless fight about peanut butter on the floor or some such idiocy. Jamie, the concert's over. You can take off that hippy-dippy headband now, okay, Princess Patchouli? Daniel makes a caveman comment about how Jamie must be on the rag or something, which prompts Panny to tell us how she got a memo at her new job about how the ladies of her company generally bake cookies for the guys at Christmas. Wow, her commute must be terrible. It takes a long time to drive to 1955.
Elimination. Eugene's pork was a high point of the entire meal. He's dismissed. Alex is still middle-of-the-road competent. So much so that I forget he exists when he's not on-screen. He's dismissed. Hey, who was that guy? Carla's dessert was the best of the three. She's dismissed. Ariane's turkey was excellent. She's dismissed. That leaves Jeff, Daniel, and Richard in the bottom three. Daniel's potatoes sucked. Jeff bit off more than he could chew. Richard's s'mores were a mess from top to bottom. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chop. Richard. Please pack your knives and go. Aw. I don't disagree; he didn't make a single dish you wouldn't see at a Dierbergs Saturday Afternoon Cooking Class, but "aw" just the same. He cries in his final interview, and says he busted his ass for three seasons trying to get on the show. Well, look at the bright side, Richard. You made it on. He heads out the door, and Team Rainbow gets whittled down to Member Rainbow. No pressure, Jamie.
Overall Grade: B-
Previously on Top Chef: The contestants cooked lunch for people who aren't telegenic or sassy enough to be successful chefs. Jill made an ostrich egg taste like glue, while Ariane's dessert made Padma seize in disgust. Fabio won the challenge, Jill's incomprehensible rambling at Judges' Table got her chopped, and Ariane was pulled further into her whirlpool of despair. Fourteen chefs remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?
Opening credits. Drinking Game Rule #3: Take a drink any time a contestant reacts to a judges' criticism by sneering that they just don't get it.
Monday Morning Quarterback Session. Fabio - happy. Ariane - unhappy. Richard - King of Unnecessary Exposition. No big changes there. That dispensed with, the chefs head out for the day.
Quickfire Challenge. The chefs are met in the Kitchen by Padma and guest judge Grant Achatz. Padma wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving. The fact that they always give warm, holiday greetings in what is probably the dead of August never stops being funny. Hosea is heartened to see a guest judge who has successfully battled cancer, as his father has just been diagnosed with it. Let's send a mind-melded batch of Get Well Soon his way. The chefs step forward to draw knives, each of which has a number on it. Those numbers turn out to correspond to page numbers in the Top Chef cookbook, which must not be selling well if they have to plug it like this. The chefs have an hour to put their own, personal spin on the recipe found on their chosen page number. Ready? Go!
Jeff has gotten a recipe of Howie's, though they neglected to include massive flop sweat on the ingredients list. Leah has gotten one of Hung's many tuna tartare dishes, which includes white asparagus. Shortly into the challenge, Padma re-enters, and almost hysterically yells for the chefs to stop what they're doing. Daniel recaps this in interview, which is a good chance to note how wildly his facial hair varies across this episode. It's clean-shaven, but for a soul patch! Now, it's scruffy! Now, it's that negative-space mustache again! Padma tells the chefs that the challenge is changing; now they must take the ingredients they've already started working with, and make a soup out of them. Product-placed broth has been provided. Leah, who was quite confident before this happened, now has to pull a raw tuna soup out of her ass, and do it using white asparagus, which she loathes. Ouch. Carla brings her special brand of kooky to her soup. I must admit that Carla, even with her spirit guides and those wacky interviews with her eyes bugging out of her head, is starting to worm her way into my heart.
Jamie, who knows her soups, doesn't think she'll have any trouble working with a recipe of Miguel's. Well, sure. I mean, it's Miguel. The best picture they could find to put in the cookbook makes him look like he wears a helmet to school. Padma comes in to give the five-minute warning. Chaotic cooking montage, followed by chaotic plating montage. It's a bit improbable to refer to filling bowls of soup as "plating", but I guess "bowling" is out, for obvious reasons. Pity. Padma and Grant go down the line. Stefan has made a scallop/shrimp burger into a Thai green curry with scallop dumplings on the side. Makes sense. Ariane, who had Dale's (that's adorable Dale, not obnoxious Dale) rack of lamb, which you'd think would be pretty easy to turn into some sort of stew. Ariane has combined diced lamb with eggplant, red pepper, and couscous. Grant finds it overcooked, and Ariane shakes her head, like "Well, someone hates my food. What else is new?". That doesn't count for the drinking game, though, so put those glasses down.
Daniel has thrown together a ham and egg soup, which sounds difficult. He's included mushrooms, corn, and cheese. Padma, who sounds stoned out of her gourd, says she's never had ham and egg soup before, but is able to slur that she likes it. Daniel is pleased in interview. Perhaps he's pleased that he's been able to grow a full beard in three seconds. Richard has a black bean and roasted pasilla pepper soup with rice. Grant says it needs acid, which Richard was going to include, but ran out of time. Melissa has made her version of an Italian wedding soup, which looks nothing like Italian wedding soup. But it's her version! She still needs to work on her version of a haircut.
Fabio got a recipe of Michael's, and if they included him in the cookbook, it's no wonder nobody's buying. I can't imagine there were too many people salivating for the chance to emulate the guy who made Cheeto shitbombs. This more successful recipe is a duo of salmon and trout, which Fabio has put into a mushroom and asparagus soup. Grant finds it flat. Carla had Lia's poached shrimp, which she's turned into shrimp, tomato, and coriander soup. Sounds good. Grant backs me up. Leah has made a chilled asparagus soup with tuna. Jamie has naturally turned Miguel's deconstructed falafel into chickpea soup. Padma and Grant love it.
Results. Perhaps in the spirit of the season, there are no challenge losers named. The top three are Jamie's chickpea soup, Leah's ability to work with the hated white asparagus, and Daniel's inventive ham and egg soup. Grant selects Leah as the winner. Her response is rather muted, but she perks up when she's reminded that she's immune from elimination in the next challenge. Speaking of which...
Elimination Challenge. The challenge will be to make Thanksgiving dinner for some very special clients. The chefs will be split into two teams, and as winner of the Quickfire, Leah gets to choose her team. She unsurprisingly selects Jamie, Hosea, Fabio, Stefan, Radhika, and Melissa. Padma plays a video message from the clients, who turn out to be the Foo Fighters. Hey, celebrity guests that I like! I don't think that's happened since Jennifer Coolidge. They claim to be big Top Chef fans, which I have trouble believing for some reason. The chefs will cook for the band and its entourage at their next venue. They've passed along a copy of their "rider" to make sure the chefs have plenty of traps to fall into. Padma outlines some examples of what they'll find, such as the band's love of chocolate-covered frozen bananas. Yeah, I think that was one of the things Squanto introduced to the Pilgrims. There will be eighteen vegetarians in the horde of diners, which Hosea thinks is no problem. He's from Colorado, which is apparently bursting with picky eaters. The winning team gets to attend the show, while the members of the losing one are not only ripe for elimination, but must clean up after the feast. Gordon Ramsay is already halfway to court to file a claim of copyright infringement.
Later, the chefs are driven out to an arena in Rochester, where they're met by a roadie. Fabio asks to see where the kitchen is (subtitled...DRINK!), and the roadie leads them...outside. Not only is it outside, but the only cooking equipment available is one burner and a bunch of microwaves and toasters. The chefs get fifteen minutes to try and think their way through this. Stefan is confident, while Jamie snaps over and over that they only have one burner, so a lot of grandiose ideas, like two gravys (gravies?) are implausible. Meanwhile, Jeff is putting his mad phat organizational skillz to work. Ariane is put in charge of the turkey, and she complains in interview that nobody on her team thinks she can handle it, simply because she's sucked in every challenge so far. She may have left that last clause off. In semi-accordance with the "rider", Richard will be making banana s'mores. Everyone heads out to shop for supplies.
At the store, we're given the team names. Leah's team has been christened Team Sexy Pants, which is dumb, but which will have delightful consequences. The other team is Team Cougar, named in part for Ariane's woman-of-a-certain-age hotness. Perhaps fortunately, she's not really sure what the term is all about. Everyone stocks up. Turkeys are piled into carts. Carla calls out a "Happy Thanksgiving!", no doubt confusing the hell out of all the other patrons who are buying watermelon for the weekend barbeque.
Back at whatever patio the poor chefs have been exiled to, Eugene shows us how with a chafing dish and some charcoal, he's built a little smoker to provide some extra cooking equipment. Genius! We get a peek at the menus, though with the Reliably Shitty Titles Department, it's anyone's guess what will actually show up on the plate. As you might expect, they're full of turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and desserts, though there is a curious lack of green vegetables. Jeff talks about making a pumpkin mousse, and we're forced to pause the show, as his title of chef at the "Dilido Beach Club" looks like something else. Something VERY else.
Tiffany: "He works at the Dildo Beach Club?"
Limecrete: "And all they serve is phallic-shaped food, with maybe some asses for variety."
LabRat: "I dunno. Getting in might be difficult."
Team Cougar harangues Ariane about making sure the turkey's cooking. She gets exasperated, which would be understandable if she hadn't been such an underperforming sad-sack since the word "go". Apparently, cooking outdoors with budget and menu constraints wasn't enough of a curveball, because Nature decides to get in on the act by raining. Panicky production assistants try to protect the food with flimsy patio tents, which works about as well as you'd expect. Fabio complains that there's no way he's going home because it's raining in his tiramisu. I always enjoy sentences that nobody will ever have use for ever again. Daniel gripes about getting the "goddamn" potatoes done, and I'm surprised, because I don't think I've ever heard that uttered on primetime basic cable without the "God" part bleeped. Not that I care that he said it; it's just interesting for cultural footnote purposes. The chefs realize that time is running out, and if the food's not on the tables inside when the clock stops, they can't serve it. A lot of mad dashes ensue. Carla wants to show that the kids that didn't get picked for kickball can win the challenge. Eugene says they got everything finished by the "skin of our ass". Nice. I'll have to steal that phrase.
The judges, Foos, and other diners enter and line up for service. Daniel tells us as much in interview (negative-space mustache) before dishing up his potatoes (stubble with soul patch). Team Cougar also starts off with spoonbread stuffing (with figs/cranberries/walnuts/onion), five-cheese mac and cheese with bacon (mmmm), roasted turkey with mushroom gravy, and maple-smoked pork loin. Jeff's stuffing isn't a big hit, as the Foos aren't into a lot of bells and whistles like the figs in their stuffing. Grant says that sometimes, you just have to execute the classics, as if the chefs wouldn't have been slammed for playing too safe if they had done just that. Alex's mac and cheese is popular, but Daniel's potatoes are undercooked. Both meats do well. Eugene gets points for MacGyvering out on the pork smoker, while Ariane's turkey earns her some much-needed redemption.
On to Team Sexy Pants' dinner. Turkey, vegan cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes, and roasted corn salad. Fabio charms the pants off Padma. At least she wishes he would. The vegetables are lauded. The vegan stuffing was far better than the other team's, and Dave Grohl gives high praise for the burned marshmallows on the yams, as "you GOTTA burn the marshmallows, man". I have to agree. The turkey, on the other hand, does not compare to Ariane's. Everyone decides to move on to dessert. Richard flames. He also torches his s'mores. Zing! The judges' approach surprises Ariane, who's in the middle of a huge mouthful of food, which Jeff chides her over. Oh, let the woman wolf down a few bites. Fabio presents his roasted pumpkin/honey/cinnamon tiramisu and Hosea's peach and blueberry crisp with cinnamon cream. Ah yes, when I think of autumnal harvest flavors, peach and blueberry immediately spring to mind.
The judges also load up on Team Cougar's desserts. Jeff was expecting them to eat Team Sexy Pants' dessert and then come back, so things that were supposed to be hot had to be served lukewarm. He's disconcerted. Carla serves a peach and cherry cobbler (more autumnal goodness!), Jeff serves his pumpkin mousse tossed with fresh fruit, and Richard serves his banana s'mores with vanilla cream and chocolate ganache. The judges go back to the table to eat, and it is here that Team Sexy Pants' name comes in handy, as that is how all the austere judges must now refer to them. Fabio's tiramisu is popular, and Ptom likes that he merged an American tradition with his knowledge of Italian food. Sexy Pants gets a hearty thumbs up on dessert. Team Cougar gets off to a bad start with Jeff's pumpkin mousse. The Foos make an astute point in that combining things you chew (the fruit) with things you simply swallow (the mousse) can be irritating. It's true. That's why suspending things in Jello is against God and Nature. The s'mores also draw criticism, as the cream on top resembles a big wad of spit.
Deliberations, Part I. It's generally agreed upon that neither team blew the other out of the water. Team Cougar's turkey was much better, while Team Sexy Pants ruled dessert. Team Sexy Pants also had the vegan stuffing, but the Foo drummer says that more of Team Cougar's entrees were better, and that desserts aren't the most important part of the meal. In general, I'd agree. If I go out to eat and have a terrific dinner followed by a disappointing dessert, I'm still satisfied. If, on the other hand, dinner is awful and there's a delectable dessert, I'd be kind of pissed off. Still, dessert carries more weight at Thanksgiving dinner. Ever taken a bite of a truly wretched pumpkin pie? It's not fun. The judges and Foos approach the teams to render their decision.
Team Sexy Pants takes the challenge. They celebrate. Eugene grouses, while Carla offers Team Sexy Pants congratulations. The winning chefs attend the show, while the losing ones despondently clean up and go through a lot of rationalizing and anxiety. Richard hopes that Team Cougar won't resort to throwing each other under the bus. DRINK! Back at the Kitchen, the teams are reunited. Melissa shows she's just as good at being a gracious winner as she is at styling her bangs by breezing in and declaring how awesome the show was. Daniel flicks her off. Classless, yes. Undeserved, no.
The Cougars go in to face Judges' Table. Jeff says he's surprised the team lost. He thought they put out a good meal, given the curveballs the challenge contained. Ptom points out that the other team had the same obstacles. Asked if there was a team leader, Alex says that while they didn't assign one, Jeff emerged as one. Lest you think that means Jeff is being sold out, Alex and Richard go to great lengths to clarify that Jeff's organizational skills were tremendously handy, and if the team lost, it was on execution, which is everyone's responsibility. Nice. Ptom tells Jeff that he looks pretty pissed off, and if he's hoping to spark a tantrum, he'll be disappointed. Jeff simply says that he's upset that they lost, because everyone on the team was great, and he wouldn't trade any of them for anyone on the other team. It'd have been better if he'd stopped there, and not added the Baseball Movie Cliche of "they gotta lotta heart, sir" on the end, but I admire the sentiment.
Ptom says that Team Sexy Pants didn't clobber them by any means, and Gail jumps in to tell Ariane that her turkey was perfect, and much better than the other team's. Ariane grins in relief. She had to be thinking she was going home. Jeff's spoonbread was too dry. Daniel claims responsibility for the potatoes and the vegetarian stuffed mushrooms, about which we haven't heard a peep. Gail mentions that the potatoes were undercooked, and Daniel says that it was a time issue, so he combined the roasted potatoes with the cooked ones. I guess the latter were boiled? Ptom asks why he didn't just leave the undercooked ones out of the dish, and Daniel says that there wouldn't have been enough to serve. That's a reasonable response.
Team Cougar's real problem was dessert. Carla's cobbler was a fine concept, but was off in execution. Jeff's pumpkin mousse was imbalanced. Richard's s'mores weren't s'mores. There was no burnt sugar, and not enough chocolate to be classified as a s'more. I only wish Food Taxonomy had been offered at my university. Richard says that he wanted to offer chocolate-dipped frozen bananas, but obviously the challenge parameters put an end to that. He tried to do what he could to feature the banana over the chocolate. Another reasonable response. Gail says that the foamy cream on top wasn't suited to a catering environment, in that it just fell flat. True enough. The spit comment is brought up. The chefs are dismissed.
Deliberations, Part II. Grant would like to narrow the losers to the dessert-makers, but Ptom and Gail want to toss in Daniel's sloppily-executed potatoes as well. That leaves a pass for one of the dessert-makers, and happily, Carla claims it. Her cobbler wasn't outstanding, but it wasn't terrible. Jeff has natural leadership abilities, which is good, but the time he spent on organizing the team caused him to fall flat in his cooking, which is bad. The pumpkin mousse was a bad idea, but the spoonbread would have been fine if it hadn't been overcooked. Richard's s'mores didn't taste good, didn't look good, and weren't a good concept to begin with. Ouch. Ptom snipes that the chefs needn't have followed every instruction on the "rider", and before I can fully gear up to gripe that the chefs would have been reamed if they had ignored it, he deflates me by saying there were plenty of other things Richard could have done with bananas. Oh. That's true. The judges reach a decision.
As they sweat 'n' fret, Daniel and Jamie get into a pointless fight about peanut butter on the floor or some such idiocy. Jamie, the concert's over. You can take off that hippy-dippy headband now, okay, Princess Patchouli? Daniel makes a caveman comment about how Jamie must be on the rag or something, which prompts Panny to tell us how she got a memo at her new job about how the ladies of her company generally bake cookies for the guys at Christmas. Wow, her commute must be terrible. It takes a long time to drive to 1955.
Elimination. Eugene's pork was a high point of the entire meal. He's dismissed. Alex is still middle-of-the-road competent. So much so that I forget he exists when he's not on-screen. He's dismissed. Hey, who was that guy? Carla's dessert was the best of the three. She's dismissed. Ariane's turkey was excellent. She's dismissed. That leaves Jeff, Daniel, and Richard in the bottom three. Daniel's potatoes sucked. Jeff bit off more than he could chew. Richard's s'mores were a mess from top to bottom. Ptom throws it over to Padma for the chop. Richard. Please pack your knives and go. Aw. I don't disagree; he didn't make a single dish you wouldn't see at a Dierbergs Saturday Afternoon Cooking Class, but "aw" just the same. He cries in his final interview, and says he busted his ass for three seasons trying to get on the show. Well, look at the bright side, Richard. You made it on. He heads out the door, and Team Rainbow gets whittled down to Member Rainbow. No pressure, Jamie.
Overall Grade: B-
Sunday, November 30, 2008
You're Gonna Get Me Killed
The Amazing Race - Season 13, Episode 10
Figures. We finally get an episode with worthwhile tasks, and it ends like that. The teams stick to Moscow, first heading to a submarine sonar room to pick up a clue from a movie extra. OK, that's not what I meant by "worthwhile tasks". The clue directs teams to a park with leftover monuments to leaders of Russia's past, because like my dad, Russia never wants to throw anything away. Once there, a Roadblock forces the chosen team member to count statues of both Lenin and Stalin, then combine the number to give to a bookseller, who directs them to an address where the next clue awaits. Tricky! It trips up everyone but Nick, who powers through this and the rest of the leg with ruthless efficiency.
Upon getting the right answer, Tina passes it along to Dallas, which doesn't make Ken too happy when he hears about it. He needn't have worried, though, because upon arriving at the final address, Dallas leaves all the money and passports in his cab. That mistake is compounded when he and Toni deliberately disregard the clue's instruction to take a taxi because metro fare will be easier to beg for. They get sent back to take a taxi, which allows Andrew and Dan all the time they need to complete their Speed Bump, which involves dancing.
The Detour sends teams on either a complicated series of stops via metro, or a slightly less complicated series of stops via trolley bus. Nick and Starr choose the metro, and zoom through with no problem whatsoever. Tina/Ken/Andrew/Dan choose the trolley, and they have some initial issues, but work it out fairly quickly.
Toni and Dallas? Sigh. They just inch from stop to stop, begging for the necessary fare each time. In the end, Phil doesn't even wait for them to get to the mat, but just tracks them down and eliminates them where they stand. So the Fratties become the most incompetent team ever to stumble their way into the final three, and I officially don't give a good goddamn who wins this chore of a season. Hooray for everything!
Overall Grade: C
Figures. We finally get an episode with worthwhile tasks, and it ends like that. The teams stick to Moscow, first heading to a submarine sonar room to pick up a clue from a movie extra. OK, that's not what I meant by "worthwhile tasks". The clue directs teams to a park with leftover monuments to leaders of Russia's past, because like my dad, Russia never wants to throw anything away. Once there, a Roadblock forces the chosen team member to count statues of both Lenin and Stalin, then combine the number to give to a bookseller, who directs them to an address where the next clue awaits. Tricky! It trips up everyone but Nick, who powers through this and the rest of the leg with ruthless efficiency.
Upon getting the right answer, Tina passes it along to Dallas, which doesn't make Ken too happy when he hears about it. He needn't have worried, though, because upon arriving at the final address, Dallas leaves all the money and passports in his cab. That mistake is compounded when he and Toni deliberately disregard the clue's instruction to take a taxi because metro fare will be easier to beg for. They get sent back to take a taxi, which allows Andrew and Dan all the time they need to complete their Speed Bump, which involves dancing.
The Detour sends teams on either a complicated series of stops via metro, or a slightly less complicated series of stops via trolley bus. Nick and Starr choose the metro, and zoom through with no problem whatsoever. Tina/Ken/Andrew/Dan choose the trolley, and they have some initial issues, but work it out fairly quickly.
Toni and Dallas? Sigh. They just inch from stop to stop, begging for the necessary fare each time. In the end, Phil doesn't even wait for them to get to the mat, but just tracks them down and eliminates them where they stand. So the Fratties become the most incompetent team ever to stumble their way into the final three, and I officially don't give a good goddamn who wins this chore of a season. Hooray for everything!
Overall Grade: C
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