A Journey Through Archer's Past

Archer, S04E06

Archer's snakebite caused him to have a dream where he was ushered through his memories by James Mason.  While Roy and Cyril were trying their best to get to safety and get him an antidote, Archer drew closer and closer to uncovering the mystery of who his father was.  Back at ISIS, Lana kept pestering Mallory about her being left out of the mission the boys were on.  Lana was taken back when Carol accurately diagnosed the reason why Lana chooses to stay with ISIS, despite all of her moral issues with their missions.

With the way Archer had prepared for their mission, like wanting to use the map as toilet paper and leaving behind a compass, I don't think that they would have succeeded even if Archer hadn't gotten bit by a snake.  It was sort of poetic justice that he did because he kept doing things to screw over Cyril and Ray at every turn, while not doing anything to improve their situation.  The snake's poison just did what his teammates were thinking every second they were with him.

It's interesting to note that Archer has killing Cyril on his bucket list of things.  Of all things he wants to do before he dies, his second most wanted thing is to see Cyril end his life.  I didn't know that he hated him so much.  Cyril and Archer might not be besties, but does he really have to wish him dead?  I wonder if it's just about how he came between him and Lana (not really because Archer screwed that up pretty badly himself).

The dream that Archer experienced while slowly heading toward death was the most interesting part of the story.  He met James Mason in this smoky place that seemed to be limbo, essentially, and he showed Archer a pivotal point in his life where a stalker shot him and cost him his future as a college lacrosse player.  That was a pretty disturbing scene seeing Archer getting shot by this demented woman.  It was really unexplainable and looked traumatic.  I wonder if there was ever a moment in Archer's life that was pleasant.  No wonder he didn't want Mason to show him anything about himself.

What I really loved was when Archer had to relive the moment where he was shot as teenager and he reminded Mason that he hadn't signed up for this journey through his past:

Yeah, so, I don't know if you're deaf or an asshole or both, but I'm pretty sure I said I didn't want to see this.

I liked that Mason didn't seem to listen to any of Archer's objections, nor really be listening to him in general.  I really wonder what part of Archer's mind created him as a guide.

I also liked when Archer saw himself as a little boy, who still loved alligators (that's a little shocking).  He was alone on his birthday and a strange man brought him a stuffed alligator.  Apparently it was his father!  We didn't get to see his face, nor did Archer remember him once he awoke, but it brought us closer to that mystery than we have been before.  Archer might be able to rack his brain and recall that memory once again.  After all, he has to have it somewhere in his subconscious.

Besides Archer's death visions, I liked when Cyril was trying to communicate that Archer had been bitten by a snake.  However, the word for "snake" was the same for a few other words that the soldiers (or whatever they were) kept mistaking it for.  Ray's frustration at this gave me a good laugh:

How's it the same word for bread and snake and Friday and that damn dog?!

Sounds like a pretty damn confusing language, if you ask me.  Then again, if you learn any language long enough, you'll find something that doesn't quite make sense to you.

I didn't really like what was going on back at ISIS.  I felt kind of bad that Carol (or whatever her name is) could see right through Lana like that.  And what she saw was pretty depressing.  I can't disagree with her analysis, though.  Lana does raise a lot of objections, but she ends up doing things she doesn't agree with all the time.  I think that her love for espionage will tether her to ISIS no matter what sort of horrible things they get involved with.  Lana will hate herself for it, but she won't be able to walk away either.  That's just like Carol to see the darkest part of someone's soul.  She's so damn twisted.

This was a pretty good episode.  I really like seeing into Archer's past, even though it wasn't anything pleasant.  I don't ever expect to see anything good concerning how he became the Archer he is today, anyway.  There's no way he could have had a great childhood with the way his mother is and how he turned out to be.  I just wonder if he'll try to figure out who his father is again, knowing that he had that memory in his head.  I don't know how important that still is to Archer.  As far as Lana is concerned, I wonder if she'll try to find something beyond her job to fill her life.  It'd be really sad if she ended up in such a depressing fate as Carol had predicted.

Save Santa! ...Or Else!

Big Bang Theory, S06E11

The guys played a holiday-themed Dungeons and Dragons quest, excluding the girls.  Raj joined the girls to the bar after he had been too quick to get himself killed in the game.

The best part of the guys playing their role playing game was Sheldon's seemingly hatred of Christmas, yet signs that he might be fighting the holiday spirit for some reason.  Being a know-it-all, it wasn't too surprising he could sing a song no one else knew (in its entirety), but him talking of the details of snowmen and drinking eggnog made me really wonder if he wasn't just bitter about something.  We found out as Sheldon took the quest to a grim end for Santa that as a child Sheldon had asked Santa in the mall to bring back his Pop-Pop, but of course, Santa never did.  You sort of wanted to console him, knowing that Christmas had been ruined for him ever since the only person who encouraged his scientific endeavors had died, but at the same time he was pretending that he was leaving Santa for dead in an ogre cave.  It invoked a little less sympathy because Sheldon is well old enough to realize that he's only playing a game and not really getting revenge on Santa Claus.  I wanted to concentrate on the fondness he had for his grandpa, but it was hard to think of it with his psychotic actions.  However, it made a pretty interesting end to the game, even if he ruined it for the others.

I didn't expect anything else to come out of that game, but Sheldon's dream provided a bonus conclusion.  I loved that Santa came not to just apologize, but get his own revenge for Sheldon leaving him for dead with the ogres!  Woah!  And he brought a canon, of all things, to take care of him--nice!  Sheldon has the weirdest dreams, but they are usually pretty good ones.  I hope that dream made an impact on the grudge he's kept on old Kris Kringle.

 

The second funny thing about their game was Raj's short participation.  Before he got killed by his rash actions, Stuart kept calling him out on the suggestively gay things he was saying.  The first time, he was simply excited to start killing some enemies:

Oh, man, the first monster I see, I’m gonna sneak up behind him, whip out my wand, and shoot my magic all over his ass.

I think someone could have let that go if he didn't make a similarly bad comment about a rod a few minutes later:

Wait, d-doesn’t anyone have a… a rod of resurrection?  Because if you’ve got one, I need it bad.  Get in here with your rod and give it to me.

Poor Raj.  He has a natural talent for saying things people could misunderstand.  But at least he has colorful language and is cute.  He's not like dirty or anything intentionally.

I felt bad that he had gotten killed so easily until Penny allowed him to go out with the girls.  I was even happier with this turn of events when the girls decided to help Raj get a girl.  Yay!  However, he got shot down pretty quickly by a girl who gave him a fake email.  I was pretty disappointed that the focus soon shifted from trying again to find a girl who could just chat with Raj to how Raj didn't find Amy attractive like he had Bernadette and Penny.  I wanted to yell, "Who cares--what about hooking Raj up??" but it did make me notice that Amy and Raj had some similarities.  Still, Raj has similarities with a lot of his intellectual friends--they've all had problems attracting the opposite sex easily.   Once Raj had started to like Amy, they left the bar and there was no more talk of trying to help him.  Dang.  They got my hopes up.  I know Raj probably isn't going to find the girl of his dreams in a bar, but he could have gotten somewhere at least.  Come on, already with this.  Raj needs some love.  He's getting weirder by the second.  Haha.

This was a pretty good story.  I liked the quest about Santa being kidnapped by ogres.  That was an original Christmas story for TV.  And it was made even better by Santa getting revenge on Sheldon with a canon in his dream. I liked some of Raj's jokes, but I wish that he had been able to have a successful night out with the ladies.  It's getting too sad to see him just hanging around Stuart all day.

Emma, The Bad Boy Magnet

Once Upon A Time, S02E06

Emma volunteered to go up the beanstalk with Hook, and they worked together to find the compass in the giant's belongings.  Emma's sorted past was revealed, where she committed petty crimes with Henry's father.

I want to start with Emma's past.  I really didn't want to see a flashback about her, even if it did shed some light on Henry's father, until I saw that her first love (I'm assuming) was played by the same guy who played Renee on True Blood!  Wow.  I couldn't help but think of him as that character throughout the episode, especially since I failed to catch his name on OUAT and had to look it up.  Besides being entertained by Neal's actor, I was engaged in her flashback when August made an appearance and became the reason that the two split.  I was further surprised that Emma only spent 11 months in a minimum-security correction facility and that was where Henry was born (although, it might have already been mentioned that he was a prison baby).  No wonder Emma has so many walls up when she spent time in jail, lost her love, and lost her baby all in a short period of time.  She sort of has August to blame for that, but if Emma wasn't already stealing cars in the first place, she would have never met Neal.  She did get a car out of it, but that's hardly a compensation.  I'm surprised that she still wanted to use it after all the pain he probably put her through.

I did like that this episode explained who the hell that guy was in the season premiere that I didn't recognize as the actor from TB at the time.  It was Neal and he had finally gotten the postcard from August that the curse was broken and he could he could return to Emma's side.  I guess.  I doubt she would take him back very easily.  That could add some drama along the way if Emma ever makes it back to Storybrooke.

But I wonder what it was that August showed Neal in that box to make him believe in magic.  Because whatever it was, how come that didn't work on Emma?  Or was it the same as her not being able to see August turning into wood thing--because she didn't want to believe, she couldn't see the magic right in front of her.  I hope they will let us know what he had in that box (unless it's something we've already been shown and I've just forgotten).

In the present, I was glad to see Emma and Hook climb the beanstalk together because they were kinda of funny.  I mean, he was telling her that he knew her because he had experiences with the Lost Boys, who had the same look as she did.  Emma didn't care for that, nor for him openly flirting with her.  This was funny, but also a little creepy because I know that Hook has to be kinda old (he's been preserved thanks to his time in Neverland).  Anyone who knew Rump before he became the Dark One, has to be a little long in the tooth.  But Hook might have just been teasing her to get her guard down and sort of gain her trust.  I liked that they managed to take the giant down together (and that the giant was played by Lost's Jorge Garcia--cool), but ultimately when the giant was free it was Emma that got shit done and got the compass in her hand.  I loved that although Hook thought they were buddies at the end, she cuffed him and left him up there so she could get a head start.

Well, Emma and the rest have half of what they need to get home, but I don't know how they'll manage to get that wardrobe dust from Cora without suffering some damage.  Plus, I don't think that Hook will be so eager to work with them again with Emma sort of betraying him (even though she had a lot of reason not to trust him).

And what's up with that red room that Aurora and Henry were dreaming about?  It sounds really creepy and makes it sound like they are connected in some way.  Their dreams did differ slightly with Aurora seeing a man looking at her, and Henry seeing a woman (were they seeing each other?).  I can't guess what kind of disaster those dreams are foretelling.

I have to admit that I missed Rump in this episode.  Every episode can't be about him, but even with these guest stars and Hook sleezing on Emma, I wasn't so focused on this week's story that I didn't wonder what was up with the rest of Storybrooke at that time.  I'm really anxious to get back to a Storybrooke-centric story.  Emma's love story was okay, but I don't think I'll be okay to see more of her story next time.  Save that for maybe five more episodes later.  Haha.

All Of Marks Dreams Come True...For Randall

Ugly Americans, S03E02

I have to say that this show is pretty disgusting most of the time, but I enjoy the unique concept of it.  You have to love Mark trying his best at the Department of Integration with all of these wacko monster and alien-like people.  What made this episode different from most was that he wasn't spending most of his time trying to fix someone else's problem, but rather was trying to stop Randall from achieving everything he wanted in life, including becoming Senior Social Service Coordinator and being the star of his own football team.  In other stories, Callie pimps out Leonard so she can raise enough money for a new car, and Twaine reveals his gambling problem.

Mark is by no means my favorite character on the show, but I appreciate his tolerant demeanor and ability to see good in all of the miscreants that has to reform so they are suitable members of society.  That being said, I hate that Randall takes no heed of what kind of consequence his actions have upon his roommate and best friend, and this time was no exception.  No wonder when Randall's newly equipped arm encouraged Twaine to make him a ringer for Mark's team and he got Mark's dream job that Mark started digressed into a possibly alcoholic and suicidal maniac who was desperate enough to steal football plays and join Grime's team.  I feel like when Mark was juiced up on steroids for a while he managed to get a little revenge on Randall, but not enough before he returned to his senses.  Mark needed to beat the crap out of him, really, but I guess even with his body pumped full of drugs, he's not going to get that far.  Pity.  At least Randall lost his arm in the end.

Speaking of his arm and the crappy work done on it, that Croatian guy is lucky he didn't get arrested for practicing medicine with no American-based license.  Whenever Mark can walk again, he should drive both legs into that guy's chest.  Can believe he tried to fix Mark's leg with a saw and some mustard.  Eww.  I shudder to think about the infection and the misshapen bone regrowth.

In Twaine's story, I'm reminded of how he's almost like a child in the way that he is so stupid about how the world works.  He has all this money in his desk and other places, which I wonder if it's all for bets or if it's just always there because he's the boss.  Either way, he lost all of it, I'm sure, while ignoring all the signs that he was going to lose from his bookie.  I loved that his bookie became a sort of therapist for him, saying that his need for friendship was causing him to gamble so much.  He even agreed to be Twaine's friend, but he was still going to take the money from him.  The bookie, unlike Twaine, was no dummy when it came to getting paid.  My favorite conversation between him and Twaine was after the bookie explained to him the horrible odds against the bet Twaine wanted to make with a million dollars:

[Bookie] As a bookie I'm compelled to take your bet.

[Twain] Is there a second half to that sentence? 

[Bookie] No, that's it.

The Callie story was good too.  I thought she might have had more of a problem getting Leonard to earn her enough money for her car, but she got it as fast as Leonard seemed to adapt to the prostitute lifestyle.  Her pimp walk was excellent and so was her general skills soliciting another person for profit.  I liked when she scared off the other pimp trying to recruit Leonard from her.  I was surprised that she ripped up his contract as soon as she got what she wanted and didn't milk him for all that he had.  She may be a conniving devil, but at least she's all business.

On a sort of random side note, I just have to saw how I love Doug.  He's kind of useless, but he is a cute koala man.  I liked when he said his dream was to fly, and Randall helped him achieve it by giving him a sky glider.  Although he is more or less a person, I still think he might be better suited for a zoo.

Very glad to see this show up for a third season, even though I have to cringe a lot when I watch it.  I like that they keep adding different and strange characters for Mark to add to his reform group, so it keeps things from being too predictable.  I think if you can get around the disgusting things, a lot of people would enjoy it. I know I do, and I hope it will make it to their fourth season next year too.

Into The Dreams Of Homer

The Simpsons, S23E16

I wasn't sure where this story was going this time at first.  I had heard last week that they were going to do a sort of Inception spoof, but I didn't remember that until well after Dr. Fink had sent the family into Homer's dreams.  I don't think this was the best parody of that movie, but for this show at its current state, it was a fair try.

At the beginning, Homer gets everyone to steal some supplies after Smithers leaves the door slightly open.  I like that he encourages his co-workers to take things that they could easily afford themselves.  I can relate to that because I've taken my share of computer paper, pens, and folders from my office.  I have no idea why it's so tempting to take something you really could buy yourself and at a better quality.

I thought it was kinda gross that Homer was wetting the bed out of some guilt, which even from the beginning I didn't think that it was due to him throwing his friends under the bus for the office supply theft, but I didn't think it would be tied to Bart and Homer fishing on his "earned" day off.  While Homer was chastising his brain for not controlling his bladder better, he reveals that he enjoys watching Chloe and Lamar.  So even Homer has hopped on the Kardashian bandwagon.  Wow.

Besides the heart pinata inside of the Homer pinata, my favorite thing about Homer throwing a "Pardon Me" party for his friends to appease karma was that it didn't solve his bed-wetting problem.  In the words of Homer:

I did the right thing for nothing!

Ah, Homer.  He's always good for quotes like that.  Basically never admitting that the right thing is good within itself.  I miss these kinds of Homer lines that I would be nodding my head to back at my house.

 The best things about them going into the dream world were when Frink said that they would die if they died in the dream because he neglected to update Adobe Acrobat (God, I don't know why I refuse to update it until it gets in the way of me doing something) and that one dream that sent them back to early 90s-style Simpsons.  They didn't go as fantastical as they could have with the dreams (skiing, Shakespearean-like theater, food land), but I appreciate a shout out to the classic episodes of this show.  They weren't the best, but the contrast between their initial character (and voice) design is so interesting.

Mona Simpson (I guess I forgot Glenn Close was guest-starring) made an appearance this time, but since it was technically a dream, I won't be too outraged that she was back for a third time.  The first time she appeared was such a beautifully sweet episode that I'm annoyed whenever they cheapen that episode with other ones with Homer's mom coming back.  I sort of liked that they connected Homer peeing the bed with his guilt about his parents splitting up.  It wasn't an intensely brilliant explanation, but it worked fine enough.

After the episode ended, I heard Glenn Close and I guess Dan Castellaneta singing a song at the end.  That was a bit nice, though I wonder if many fans were still watching at that point.  Their guest star didn't have much screen time (which I didn't mind because they really need to stop with the "stars"), so I guess they gave her a little song so her time wasn't wasted?

I think I can put this episode in the decent pile for this season.  I'm not going to expect anything stellar, so if I can enjoy a Homer quote and see a parody that references something I know or have seen, I think it can be considered "good."  Next time, let's see if they can keep this trend going and not backtrack to their usual pattern of crap this season.