New Girl - 1x18 - Fancyman Part 2

Hey, we get out first two part episode! That's what "Part 2" means, right? Cause apart from a shared guest star, these two eps have like nothing in common. I mean, yeah, they're both about "growing up", but half of all episodes (everywhere!) are about growing up.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good ep. And what we do get is classic New Girl: relatable Jess, adorable Cece/Schmidt, screamy-drunk Nick, Winston doing ... good work...out there by himself. Unfortunately most of those arcs are largely suffer, perhaps unfairly, from the fact they don't build on almost any of their counterparts from last week. Especially Nick's. That dude had an earth shattering revelation about himself, on top of finally letting go of the woman he loves (likes? kinda crushes on?) and there's absolutely no follow-up. Considering the abrupt way Part 1 ended, it's especially maddening.

Alright, enough bad stuff though. Let's focus on the good.

New Girl - 1x17 - Fancyman Part 1

It's an episode full of surprises. Jess is thrown into a tizzy when she's unexpectedly wooed by a more sophisticated, older man. Meanwhile, Nick comes to a shocking revelation about himself when confronted with the reality of Jess' new suitor. And Winston and Shelby get closer with a little help from Schmidt, which is, unfortunately  oddly enough, not as dirty as it sounds.

All put together, it's one of the more fun episodes in a run of a great ones. It doles out the deep character insights that we've come to expect from a lot of episodes in the second half of this season, but without the bittersweet overtones that have typically pervaded them.

New Girl - 1x16 - Control

Last week we spent an evening helping Nick sort out his existential crises (again), so it's only fair this week we get an overdue trip into Schmidt's Dark Night of the Soul.

Despite a silly premise that's kind of ludicrous on its face, this episode delivers some solid laughs and a much deeper insight into Schmidt than one would've thought. Certainly deeper than what we got in The Story of the 50, though it compliments it nicely. It's also the rare episode of New Girl that could do with more explicit emotional denouements, what with certain folks motivations remaining a mystery all the way through the very end. 

New Girl - 1x15 - Injured

Nick grapples with mortality in his trademark rabid pitbull-esque way while gang try their best to be there for him in their typical manner: baffling outbursts of emotion, inappropriate nudity, and the sweet dulcet tones of freestyle rapping.

Injured showcases everything that this show does great while deftly hiding all it's usual flaws. We get a Jess that's quirky but not annoying, and even sympathetic. We get to run through the whole emotional gamut of Nick-freakouts. We have Schmidt being hilariously douchey and vulnerable. Winston gets a decent subplot and even takes part in the main story line. Cece pulls some awesome out of nowhere, as usual. Foremost though, the story rings emotionally true, skillfully weaving conversational humor and sight gags with familiar quarter-life crises, along with a great guest star or two. This is what New Girl does best.

Rory Williams Cries...

...LIKE A BOSS

Rory Williams Buckles Swash...

...LIKE A BOSS

Rory Williams Can Have A Threesome...With Only His Wife...

...LIKE A BOSS

Rory Williams Politely Asks for Directions...

...LIKE A BOSS

Rory Williams Fights Nazis...

...LIKE A BOSS

New Girl - 1x14 - Bully

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!


Julia's gone! Lizzie's left! Where is the justice in the world? I give up on TV! Forever.


Okay I don't. But that's only because I'm weak.

New Girl - 1x13 - Valentine's Day

Lizzie's Back!

That's all that really matters. Review over. Get out of here, we need some time alone.

I guess some other stuff happened too. Jess enlists Schmidt and Cece to help her get her groove on (not in that way...mostly), and despite some questionable plot contrivances, it's actually pretty hilarious. (It doesn't exactly hurt that Cece and Schmidt bring their A-game to the plot.) Winston suffers through a girl's night in to reconnect with Shelby. And Nick and Julia's plan for an awesomely cliche Valentine's Day are waylaid by work.

Rory Williams Makes An Entrance...

...LIKE A BOSS

New Girl - 1x12 - The Landlord

...what just happened?

Rory Williams Punches Hitler...

...LIKE A BOSS

Introducing "Rory Williams...Like A Boss" Week!

June 17th is Arthur Darvill's birthday, and what better way to celebrate the day he was yanked headfirst out of his mother's vagina than by highlighting Rory William's greatest achievements in the most perfunctory and Internet-lazy way possible. 

Okay, Let's Try This Again

It's a good thing nobody was reading this (except for you weird-spam-bots-with-the-most-frightening-referral-URL's. Seriously, what is your deal?) because a six month gap in regular updates is just craptastic. The whole point of this was to see if I could keep to a schedule. Apparently I can. For a few months at a time. And then I just stop. Would anyone believe I was abducted by crazed hillbillies? Carried off by bedbugs? No? Why the fuck not?


To be honest, I really missed writing, and I need something to look forward to, so it's high-time to give this another shot.

Up All Night - 1x13 - Rivals

Betrayal! Infidelity! Morbidly Obese People! A not-completely-annoying Megan Mullaly! Join me as I try in vain to find something to say about a perfectly enjoyable episode of a very sweet show that I otherwise have nothing to say about. Also, I may have discovered a new fetish.

Up All Night - 1x12 - New Years Eve

So yeah, it's not really a secret I'm behind. It gets a little harder to hide when the episode in question is "New Years Eve" and we've just rung in April. Ninety-nine percent of the problem is pure laziness, admittedly. But the remaining one percent is that it's hard to figure out what to write about shows I actually like. Shows with very few problems have no hooks, no obvious places to start going off on a rant. It's hard to get excited about writing.

Anyway, New Years Eve is a perfectly cute episode. It's full of exactly what we love about these characters, while all the stuff we hate is rightfully called out. We get some more Kevin and Ava, which I'm always a big fan of. And we even learn more about Missy! We learn she's batshit insane, but is that really a surprise? I love that girl.

2 Broke Girls - 1x16 - And the Broken Hearts

So, once again, I'm choosing to only focus on the good points of this show because it's really, truly depressing to just keep writing "the jokes suck" for 1,500 words. But luckily, if you ignore the first 15 minutes in the diner, there's a lot to enjoy here.

Earl has a heart attack. Max basically freaks out and goes into hyper-protective mama-bear mode. Or daughter-bear mode? Or Morgan-Freeman's-Step-Granddaughter-Bear mode, considering all the super icky fake flirting that's happened in the past. Ew, she also claimed he was Morgan Freeman in order to get him preferential treatment at the hospital. I don't want to follow this analogy anymore, it makes me feel dirty in my inside.

2 Broke Girls - 1x15 - And the Blind Spot

I've decided that if I'm going to stick with this show, I'm going to choose to just focus on the good parts and not obsess on the many, many, many faults. Even I've run out of long winded ways to say "these jokes SUCK". So, grading on such a steep, steep curve this episode wasn't actually that bad.

It wisely chooses to lean on what this show actually does really well (and probably the only reason I'm still sticking with it); the genuinely touching thread of watching Max and Caroline learn to trust and rely on each other implicitly. (I swear with just a hint of any kind sexual tension between the leads, and a gallon of guts, this show could be a really touching lesbian rom-com.) Of course it does this by continuing the new year's perplexing arc of showing Caroline act like the spoiled bitch she spent the first 10 episodes proving she's not, but at least it's somewhat entertaining.

How I Met Your Mother - 7x16 - The Drunk Train

...wait, what? What the hell is going on here? No, really. I can't tell anymore. Are we bravely forging forward to daring new story lines, or cynically sliding backwards into tired tropes? After the Rebound Girl/Symphony backsies, I can't really work up the effort to try and figure it out. So, I guess I'm just along for the ride from now on. No longer getting my hopes up, but still utterly, helplessly confused. I knew if I did this long enough, my sex life and my TV viewing would start to intermingle...

That doesn't mean I can't appreciate the intermittent courage that seeps through. If anything it's obvious that, for some reason, TPTB are have decided this is the year to throw crazy shit at the wall and see what sticks. Perhaps not coincidentally, it seems this is also The Season of Robin, for better and worse (that is to say, better for us, worse for her). Almost every major emotional high and low point (mostly low) is her, and this ep is no exception.

How I Met Your Mother - 7x15 - The Burning Beekeeper

Another filler episode whose only redeeming characteristic is some awesome, but brief Martin Short-istry and a great visual gag, but is otherwise pretty unimpressive. You would think the show's long-standing tradition of an unreliable narrator would make it easy for them to try their hand at Rashoman-as-sitcom, but even if Coupling hadn't already done it far better, the entire excercise falls surprisingly flat. None of the threads they dangle are particularly intriguing, the payoffs to them are fairly boring, their intersections are plotted awkwardly, and most of the drama in between isn't the least bit engaging.

New Girl - 1x11 - Jess and Julia

Someone finally calls Jess out on her hyper annoying twee bullshit. And it's none other than Lizzy's new character, Julia. Which is why it's kind of a shame the premise of this episode isn't nearly as satisfying as it would've been a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it happens now, about three episodes after said hyper annoying bullshit got toned way the fuck down, so it just comes off like petty cattiness on Julia's part. Despite that though, we actually get another pretty great episode. Caplan's great as always, Jess is not only tolerable, but sympathetic, and even socially saavy to a degree we haven't seen before. Winston, honest-to-god-this-time, gets something to do. And of course, Schmidt douches it up hilariously, once again.

New Girl - 1x10 - The Story of the 50

Lizzy Caplan (!!!!) joins us on what's hopefully the beginning of a long, long guest stint. And she couldn't have picked a better episode to hop on, because this week, we get a little bit of everything that makes this show work, and nothing of what's made it so frustrating in the past.

We get a hilariously douchey, but ultimately loveable Schmidt (and his d-bag Schmiddy friends). We get a neurotic, curmuddgeonly, screamy Nick. We even get an legitimately enjoyable Jess! A Jess who's quirky and sweet, but doesn't make you wonder why they don't make her wear a helmet when she leaves the house. We get a Winston that's...there. And we get a potential game changer I legitimately didn't see coming.

2 Broke Girls - 1x14 - And the Upstairs Neighbor

Yeah so...not bad, I guess? I don't really remember much about this. I really should write these posts right after the episode. I guess if I don't remember much about it, it couldn't have been that bad. It also wasn't that good either, I suppose.

How I Met Your Mother - 7x14 - 46 Minutes

Alright, I think about a month since Symphony of Illumination, with Tailgate tossed in between, has calmed me down a little. I'm not so angry. I even kind of liked this episode, with very few reservations. It kind of hearkened back to Season 1, with wild drunken adventures, veering off in random directions, ending up with a legendary night. We got the return of Stripper Lily (always welcome). We even got acknowledgement that Long Island is a long fucking way off from the city, even though I have a feeling we'll still be seeing Lily and Marshall at the bar just as often.

New Girl - 1x09 - The 23rd

Now this was a much better episode. I liked this a lot. Jess is quirky, but believeable, with a legitimate problem that she handles maturely though not perfectly. The guys continue to be the high point of this show, and even Winston gets something awesome to do. And most importantly, cause I'm a huge damn wussy dork, we get more of the awesome Cece/Schmidt. Overall, pretty damn cool.

New Girl - 1x08 - Bad in Bed

Yeah I'm not buying this. I didn't buy this in the Pilot, I didn't buy it in Kryptonite or Thanksgiving or basically any of this show. So please, for the sake of this show, stop trying to convince us that Zooey Deschanel is ...whatever kind of incompetent you're trying to portray her as. It really just immediately sucks any enjoyment out of the show. What you're doing is not making her seem like an approachable, wacky girl we'd all love to meet. You're making her look like one of those damaged children that were lost in the woods or locked in a psych experiment for 23 years, and have only recently become acquainted with other people.

You're doing bad, is what I'm saying.

New Girl - 1x07 - Bells

A surprisingly pretty sweet ep considering the cliche-sounding plot. Jess helps a group of wayward kids, Winston finds a way to reclaim his self-esteem and learns an important lesson about being competitive, and Nick and Schmidt hash out money issues. And yet, we end up with the best screaming matches this side of Philadelphia, and a few awesome bell recitals (Eye of the Tiger for fuck's sake!). Seriously I can really barely remember anything except for bells. I didn't know you could play bells that awesome. Is this what I miss when I don't have ESPN? Is there a US Bell Ringing Championship? Playoffs? Is this a thing?

Oh, apparently it is

Up All Night - 1x11 - First Christmas

A mostly forgettable episode, though not bad or anything. It never came close to the lows of Cool Neighbors, but it also didn't have anything hilarious or memorable in it like First Night Away. Ava sinks to a new low in her relationship with Kevin, but we've seen her sink so much lower, and she manages to maintain much more dignity than usual. We do get Blythe Danner back as Reagan's overbeating/intellectual mom, but she doesn't really do anything but be borderline bitchy, without any of the great over the top moments or anecdotes of Parents. So overall, eh.

2 Broke Girls - 1x11 to 1x13 - Quick Thoughts

Listen...I just can't. I'm sticking with this show till the end of the season, but between being super behind and it...just being this show, I can't bring myself to do full recaps on the last three eps. So hit the jump for a quick overview of the three episodes I've missed so far...

How I Met Your Mother - 7x13 - Tailgate

Listen, show, this was a pretty okay episode. Any other season, it might even have been a pretty good episode, MAYBE even great. But I'm still disappointed in you, after the blatant backpedaling last ep. I know, I know, I shouldn't have expected so much from you, you can't help what you are. But it hurts me to see you satisfied with these minor accomplishments, when I can see you're not living up to your true potential. This isn't bad, show. It's pretty good. But you can be better.

How I Met Your Mother - 7x12 - Symphony of Illumination

Game Reset.

Seriously, what the fuck? That was...low. Truth be told, I only had myself to blame for getting my hopes up. It's not like I'm NEW to formulaic television and sitcoms. Why WOULD this show take a daring risk to reinvent itself or even reaffirm it's principal conceit, when it could just hit the reset button, paper over any real consequences with some sad faces and mournful eyes that last all of one episode, and stick to the same formula of stubborn attrition that's worked for them so well over the past seven years. But did they have to do it so cruelly? Did they really have to change the entire shows narrative framing device (for the very first time), just to pull an extended gotcha! The outcome may have been expected, but that doesn't make it less frustrating or disappointing. I mean, for fuck's sake, at this stage in the game, even Friends was shaking up it's formula more than HIMYM is. That's just tragic, right there.

My Boys - 1x01 to 1x03

I only really discovered this show about two years ago, right before the final season aired. I was just moving into my new place, and TBS was the only channel that was coming in on my TV at the time, and they were *really* pushing it. Commercials, bumpers, cute promos, the whole shebang. I'd heard of it before, but everything I'd seen made it look like a stupid "Oh ho ho, I'm a girl and I have guy friends, isn't that wacky??" kind of thing. But it had good reviews, and the promos were actually semi-amusing, and like I said, only channel that showed up. So I gave that last season (and a smattering of reruns) a shot, and it actually turned out to be pretty awesome.

Imagine my surprise (or don't, it's really underwhelming) when I find My Boys suddenly available on Netflix streaming. Now, in order to allay my guilt about splurge-watching a six year old series when I have so many other current shows stacking up on my hard drive, I decided it might be nice to do a little retrospective as I go along. I keep meaning to write about more than the three or four deeply flawed sitcoms I seem to be trapped with, but I can't quite seem to get on the ball as far as hour-long dramas are concerned. So maybe this can be a compromise.

Instead of a post per episode, I'm going to be doing a light overview of groups of episodes at a time. This'll either make things a little easier for me, or a lot harder.