24 – Day 8: 8:00pm – 9:00pm

his weekend has been the perfect storm of awesome. On Sunday, my Indianapolis Colts busted their way into the Super Bowl. Then, the New Orleans Saints, the team from my favorite town in the world, clinched the other spot. This evening, the Lady Purdue Boilermakers beat No. 4-ranked Ohio State in basketball. Now, we have an excellent episode of “24.” Let’s get rolling on this review.

Debrief

• After the threat on his life by his brother, Hassan is arresting militants in his home country. Farhad contends that, once he has the uranium, it will not matter. He will have the uranium when he gets payment to Sergei in four hours.

• After Renee cuts off Zia’s thumb, Jack wants to stop the operation, but Renee is confident (aka nuts) that she can get Vladimir to buy into her cover. When she was undercover previously, Valdimir attempted to rape her and was obsessed with her. His suspicions about her still exist and, after killing Zia and almost killing Renee, he buys into her cover.

• Kevin calls Dana and demands she come home. It turns out that Dana is an ex-convict and went to prison as an accessory to murder. Kevin says he will leave Dana alone if she gets him some sort of lucrative information out of CTU.

• The peace treaty is falling apart, since Hassan is arresting people in his homeland. Taylor says she cannot support Hassan if it continues. Later, Hassan’s wife leaves the UN, scorned by her husband’s affair.

• Josef Bashaev, Sergei’s son, is taking his brother to a doctor to cure his uranium poisoning. They have the doctor’s family in sight and will kill them if he cannot save Josef’s brother.

Agent Philboy’s Assesment

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. First of all, I was relieved to only write a review for one hour of real time. I know it may sound silly, but there’s just way too much ground to cover in these two-hour blocks. It made everything move quickly tonight.

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24 – Day 8: 4:00 – 6:00pm

And so it begins. Another day of Jack Bauer’s life. Another day of intrigue, action, and everything else that comes with the territory. I hope that you all enjoy these reviews over the course of the season as much as I enjoy writing them every week. Let’s get started!

Debrief

• Jack Bauer has healed from the events from last season and is ready to go back to LA with Kim, her husband and daughter.

• Victor, a former informant for Jack, shows up and has been shot. He tells Jack that he knows about a plot to assassinate President Hassan, who is brokering a peace treaty with President Taylor. Jack will transport him to CTU NY, then go to California.

• At CTU, Chloe is struggling to fit in to the new way things work. Director Hastings isn’t giving her much slack. Analyst Dana Walsh is a little more forgiving and her fiancée, Cole Ortiz, is heading up the team to pick up Jack and Victor.

• President Hassan’s brother, Farad, is less hospitable to the Americans than he. Also, he is concerned about the President’s relationship with a reporter, Meredith Reed.

• CTU’s helicopter is bombed and Victor dies after he tells Jack that the assassin has someone close to Hassan on the inside. This leads CTU to arresting Meredith Reed. Chloe, in her formidable way, disagrees with this decision. The person working with the assassin is Hassan’s brother, however.

• The assassin was working undercover with the NYPD who police the UN and has taken a fellow officer and his wife hostage so that he can be on duty at the UN today.

• Dana Walsh apparently has a past life as Jenny whatever and her old husband (?) is looking for her. I tried to care, but just didn’t.

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DEXTER: Hello, Dexter Morgan

There has been disparate view from many reviewers and critics of “Dexter”,  but I don’t think this season has been as inconsistent as seasons past. Sure, every series and every season will have episodes that are better than others. But, this season’s story has progressed at a nice rate and, even though I’ve complained about some of the secondary storylines being dropped, you can tell that the creative team behind the show definitely had next week’s finale in mind while planning the season.

There were, however, a lot of things wrong with this episode. It’s forgivable, though, since the second to last episode of every season of Dexter has been merely a connector episode to get us to the finale.

First of all, I still don’t understand the point of the Rita quasi-affair. Was the sole purpose of all of the build up and the weeks since just so that Dexter cared? I mean, the significance of the event was not lost on me, I assure you. In fact, the juxtaposition of the violent act and the sweetness behind it and in Rita’s reaction was very moving. But, I feel that there would be less trite ways of achieving that end. Perhaps I’m wrong. Obviously, without knowing where things are going in the finale, I easily could be.

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DEXTER: Lost Boys

It hasn’t been until the past few years that I realized that TV could be scary. Is that weird? I hate horror/slasher movies, so I’m not a fan of the genre, but I don’t mind being scared. Different things scare me though. The two scariest shows on TV right now, in my opinion, are “Dexter” and “Criminal Minds.” Psychopaths, nut jobs, child molesters and all that freak the crap out of me. That made this episode especially creepy for me.

So, Christine is Arthur’s daughter from some sort of other relationship that he wanted to keep secret. Deb’s hunches were right, much to the disappointment of Quinn. I have a feeling that Det. Morgan is going to be interrogating Ms. Hill as to the history of her father, Arthur Mitchell, over the next couple episodes, which could get pretty interesting.

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DEXTER: Hungry Man

Wow. Really? Didn’t see that one coming! The last couple of seconds of this episode will have to be explained next week, but it certainly raises a lot of questions. I’ll go through a quick recap and then we’ll handle all of the turkey day festivities.

Dexter snuck into Arthur’s for Thanksgiving after he talked to Jonah. As the day progressed, we gwe saw how utterly nutty the entire Mitchell family actually is. Sally is terrified and in denial. Rebecca wants to get out so badly that she is willing to give Dexter “whatever he wants.” Yikes. Arthur breaks Jonah’s fingers because he can. Everything comes to a head when no one is thankful for Arthur. Jonah is almost killed by Arthur, who, in turn, is almost killed by Dexter.

Back at the Morgan household, the neighbor guy hits on Rita and Masuka watches it all go down. He wants to bolt, but Deb needs him there to keep her mind off Frank. While there, Deb has two epiphanies. 1) Trinity is planning his kills around some sort of school schedule, and 2) Christine Hill, the reporter, had to know more than she was privy to about Frank’s death.

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DEXTER: Road Kill

I’m starting to wonder if they’ll wait until the end of the season to kill Arthur or spring it on us early. By my estimate, there are about four episodes left this season. That seems like a long time for Dexter to realistically wait to kill him. I mean, I seriously doubted he would just let him fall of the building, since the true ending to all this will be a Dexter-style killing. But, I can’t help but fear that at least one of the next four episodes will have to be carried by a secondary storyline, most likely Rita’s pending affair.

I’m also wondering the purpose of Rita having an affair. Dexter needs to have the relationship there to keep the conflict of the show going, right? When Dexter has an affair, it’s just another thing that we get to watch him juggle. When Rita has an affair, it’s like intimating that Dexter is going to die or stop killing. It would take a crucial part of the show away, and its crucial enough that it wouldn’t be going anywhere without major structural changes in the show. I just don’t believe it, so the storyline seems like a waste of time to me. It seems as if the writers said, “Well, we have to have her there. We haven’t done much with her. Throw her into an affair, that should work.” Hint: It rarely does.

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DEXTER: Slack Tide

The creative team behind DEXTER have always sought out ways, in varying degrees of success, to bring the audience inside the mind of Dex. It’s not always meaningful, but most of the time we get a peek at something truly fascinating. This week was full of those threads, with the last moments marking a significant event in the “Dexter” universe.

Dexter had too much to learn from Trinity to kill him this week. Therefore Arthur Mitchell’s spot on the table was taken by a photographer who was raping and killing young, undocumented models. After making some nasty comments to Deb on her first day back, the photog moved to the top of Dex’s list. Conveniently, Dex had to work late at night, on his mission to be a better father.

One thing we haven’t seen yet is how Harry feels about Dexter making Arthur this almost surrogate father figure. At least that’s how I’m seeing it. Dexter looked to Arthur for advice on how to be a father. This week, that advice was to push the kids out into the world, in part to give Dexter time for his “recreational activities.” I can’t help but think what Harry, a la Dexter, would say about this. Sure, Harry wasn’t the best father. Deb learned that all to well this week. But he was still a nurturing figure in both their lives and now he has been replaced by another serial killer. It’s an odd situation, but it works somehow.

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DEXTER: If I Had a Hammer

When I took this position, I vowed to blog to you in sickness or in health. So, tonight, I write to you in the midst of some sort of sickness. Therefore, if some of my thoughts are rambling, you can blame the fever. However, this doesn’t explain my rambling in any other post.

The writers have gone to great lengths to differentiate Trinity from another season-long killer arc by making him so much like Dexter. As with the Ice Truck Killer, we see that Dexter has the same sense of adoration for Trinity,  but with the former killer, the private life didn’t so closely mirror his own, even though it was his own brother. Trinity is much more than the man Dexter will have to kill by the end of the season. He’s a almost a role model for Dexter. A template for how he wants to live his life.

This week we didn’t have a death by the hands of Dexter, but we got deep into the private life of Arthur Mitchell, whom we’ve known until now as the Trinity Killer. He has a wife, a couple kids and is the perfect family man, even a Deacon at church. He helps to build houses for the homeless…then uses the houses to kill in. Through his research, Dexter found that, with the three killings, Dexter is emulating the deaths of the three people who were closest to him. His mother drowned in a bathtub. His sister jumped off a bridge. His father was bludgeoned to death in an alley. That’s the cycle.

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DEXTER: Dirty Harry

Before we get started, can anyone figure out the connection between the title and the episode? Sometimes it’s really blatant, sometimes it isn’t, but usually I can come up with it. Maybe I’m just being a little dense on this one. Anyway…

Is it me, or are the writers doing a better job at giving us a bit of a gut punch at the end of each episode? I want to save the ending for later, but it was a real gut punch to me and, I think, somewhat of a game changer. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

This week, we jumped right into Dexter finding out about Lundy’s death and Deb’s gunshot wounds. It turns out that Deb’s one gunshot went right through, so she would be okay, at least physically. Lundy isn’t so lucky though, as he had three gunshot wounds. It was deliberate. It was Trinity.
Needless to say, Dex is the only person who can see this. Everyone else goes tracking down the man believed to be the Vacation Killer, since the MO in Lundy’s shooting was the same. Angel uses our favorite Miami reporter to leak some information out and the suspect’s meth head girlfriend ends up taking him out. I guess we’re assuming he’s the Vacation Killer and that this storyline is wrapped up for the most part, because there’s much more going on.

Deb is messed up (well, more messed up than usual) after the shooting. Losing Lundy sends her over the edge, understandably. Everything that Deb touches seems to end up broken and I fear what is coming for her in future episodes. Most of the time, Deb is lost until something or someone provides something for her to latch on to. I feel like this is going to be another one of those times, but it could be dangerous for her and everyone around her.

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DEXTER: Blinded by the Light

While we didn’t have a Dexter-caused death this week, we definitely dealt a lot with Dex’s personal life and how the edges of it might be cracking in certain spots.

This week we were introduced to a lot of the members of Dexter and Rita’s community. Apparently, there’s been a vandal in the area, and, what do you know he comes to hit Dexter’s home. Dexter’s paranoia comes in the form of Harry, who doesn’t want Dexter having any questions raised about him. It’s a good point, I suppose, but it seems to be the behavior of someone with something to hide…which Dexter is, so my entire point is both valid and invalid at the same time.

Anyway, I was very interested to see the tug of war that is taking place between the Vacation and Trinity Killers right now. LaGuerta is getting pressure to solve the Vacation Murders quickly, but Deb is stubborn and won’t let Trinity, and Lundy, go. I like the character of Anton, so I hate to see him get pushed to the side by Deb, but Lundy and the Trinity case are so intriguing, it just might be worth it.

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DEXTER: Remains to Be Seen

Get it? It’s called “Remains to Be Seen?” Funny, right?

Anyway, this week we had the “Dexter” version of “Memento,” as Dexter tried to go back in time and remember what he did with Benny’s body. The car crash was really the device that got us into a lot of issues this week, mainly through Harry’s watchful guidance. I’m comforted by the fact that Harry is still present in Dexter’s life, since he sort of swore off the code last season for a time. But, Harry was back in numerous forms, giving Dexter the clues all along to find the body. I have to admit, I was very happy with the clever way the reveal was done and how it signified a return to the Code.

But, along the way, and since this season has began, Harry (read: Dexter’s conscious) has been questioning whether Dex can do it all. Can he have the family, the job and keep the Dark Passenger (that term is starting to grow on me this season, as long as they don’t overuse it.) satisfied? Only time will tell, but this week’s ordeal pointed to both yes and no.

On the positive side, he not only figured out where the body was hidden, but he also broke the Vacation Murderer and prompted Lundy to bring Deb in on the Trinity Killer. On the other hand, he lied to his wife, left a body to decompose in an abandoned boxing ring for hours, and almost died in the first place. This storyline is going to keep coming up and, unless something drastic happens (Rita leaves him, Harrison dies, etc.) I don’t see it changing anytime soon.

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DEXTER Season Premiere: Living the Dream

Welcome back to Miami. It’s time once again to drop in and get a glimpse into the life of America’s favorite serial killer, Dexter Morgan. It seems like yesterday that I was writing my first ever post for GMMR about last season’s premiere, so to think it was a year ago is insane. So much has happened since then, so let’s get started.

Dexter and Rita had a bouncing baby boy, Harrison. Cody became infatuated with Marco Polo (and, really, when you think back to your childhood can you blame him?) and Astor is jonesing for an iPod to listen to her emo music on. Angel and LaGuerta are going the workplace affair thing, Deb and Anton are all lovey dovey, and Masuka is still telling crappy jokes.

Oh, and Dexter hasn’t killed anyone in a while. Which, you know, never really ends well.

The ball really got rolling this episode when Dexter botched a testimony for Quinn and let a killer go free. But, as anyone who has ever watched the show before knows, that person will not be free for long.

But, before we can tackle Dexter’s shenanigans, we must introduce ourselves to the baddest bad guy on the block, the Trinity Killer, played by an extremely naked John Lithgow. He kills in very ritualistic groups of three, or so we hear from Fmr. Spec. Agent Frank Lundy, who returns to Miami retired, with a hobby for catching fish and the one serial killer who alluded him in his career. Dexter redeems himself from his early snafu by catching on to the fact that the Trinity Killer has been killing for decades, making him the most successful serial killer who never got caught…YET!

Sorry. It had to be done.

One of the big themes this season is going to be how Dexter is going to balance what used to be a façade and what is truly inside him. He is committed to being a better father than the one he believes Harry was, but he also isn’t easily settled sitting at home and being a family man every night. He has to kill, it’s in his blood (no pun intended) and he must find the time and the means to do it.

I think all of the major characters will be dealing with conflicts of self-identity this season. Is Deb devoted to the freewheeling spirit of Anton or the cop dedication of Lundy? Who is more important in Deb’s mind: the Harry that was or the Harry she thought she knew? Is LaGuerta an administrator or lover? Does Rita really believe in the dream she claims to love? This is where the beauty of “Dexter” comes into fruition: Dexter isn’t the only nut job on the show. He just shows it in the most creative way.

The team behind “Dexter” has always done a wonderful job of mixing in humor to the show. If there weren’t bits of levity here and there, it would become daunting and depressing. Usually, those laughs come from Masuka or Dexter’s inner monologue, but the biggest laughs of the night, for me, came from the redux of the opening theme. To see everything that is done with precision done sloppily was fantastic.

A lot of other ideas were started tonight and they will continue to unravel throughout the course of the season. Some will have to be resolved quicker than others. After Dexter’s car crash at the end of this episode, body parts are somewhere…if only Dexter could remember where. This can’t last for too many episodes, as it will become increasingly unrealistic for evidence to be sitting somewhere with no one stumbling on it. Also, any “Grey’s Anatomy”-esque office relationships need to either stay completely separated from the work, or just disappear altogether.

What we WILL have to look forward to is the hunt for two different killers, or so it looks at this moment. On one hand, we have the Vacation Killer, someone killing tourists. On the other, much less official hand, we have the Trinity Killer, someone who has been doing this for more than thirty years, we can assume.

This hour of television flew by for me, which is a good thing. I’m really looking forward to watching the rest of the season and discussing it with all of you fine readers.

What’s your favorite new storyline of the season? Trinity? Vacation Killer? Dexter the family man?

Philboy is a Midwesterner who spends his days doing PR for a small Catholic university. His can’t miss shows are “24”, “HIMYM” and “Dexter”. His thoughts for the week are, “COLTS WIN!” and “Where could those bags of body parts be?”

TRUE BLOOD Season Finale: Beyond Here Lies Nothin’

My apologies to Philboy and TRUE BLOOD fans. With all my traveling yesterday, I wasn’t able to post Philboy’s take on the TRUE BLOOD finale until now. I actually just got around to watching it myself, and WOW! Dan and I will be talking about it on the next podcast. But check out Phil’s take and share your thoughts in the comments below.

I went through the widest array of emotions in this episode. Boredom, happiness, sadness, interest, hilarity, unbridled joy and shock, all in the span of an hour. Let’s go through it and reflect on the season that was.

We open back up our cast of characters to learn that Maryann is starting to plan the wedding where she will offer her vessel, Sam, up to Dionysus and be reunited with him. Sookie, being not human and all, is forced to be the maid of honor. I loved the exchanges between Sookie and Maryann. Sookie had to ride a fine line, since she despised the woman for what she had done to her town, friends and home; but she also needed to find out more about what she IS, and Maryann held that information. As we saw at the end, we still aren’t quite sure, but…we’ll get to that in a bit.

The wedding is, honestly, cut and dried. There’s an effigy, and the ostrich egg, a symbol of purity, to complete it. Bill shows up with Sam and Sookie is all upset. Eggs kills Sam, upon Maryann’s request; Sookie starts to destroy everything, upon Sam’s request. Maryann chases Sookie and meets up with Dionysus, who is really Sam, who kills her. This changes everyone back to the way they were, not knowing why they’re all at some sort of wedding with a “statue of meat.” This, along with the finale, obviously, will be the jumping point for next season.

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TRUE BLOOD: Frenzy

This week, we had everything: a little sex, a little blood, a little blackmail and, most importantly, a little bit of information on how Maryann might be taken down. Before we get started, a quick reminder that the season finale won’t be for a couple of weeks. Take the week off, rest up, and make sure you feed before the big Yahtzee game…I mean the big season finale.

To the Queen’s credit, Yahtzee can be very exhausting.

First off, we started things by seeing the Queen (Evan Rachel Wood) in her always sunny, Gatsby-like estate. I couldn’t help but thinking of Fitzgerald’s classic and of the Queen as the title character. Gatsby built this grand illusion for himself and couldn’t survive without it, nor can the Queen, with her constantly tropical landscape keeping the drama and danger of the real world, especially Bon Temps, at bay. Wood did an excellent job as, what I thought at first was stilted acting, was actually living in ignorant bliss, truly not knowing or caring about the Maryann situation. It wasn’t until Bill was going to leave and Eric was there to entertain her that she gave him any information at all.

As I said, I was at first a little worried about Evan Rachel Wood as the Queen. She’s beautiful and has the classic looks to carry the role, but her delivery was off at the beginning, in my opinion. It wasn’t until later I learned that this was, at least seemingly, intentional. Now, I’m really looking forward to seeing more of her.

But, we couldn’t spend all episode lounging by the pool and feeding. There was stuff going on back in Bon Temps. One thing I’m finding is that this season’s theme is finally forming in my mind. Last season, aside from setting up the ever-changing parameters under which everyone must operate, “True Blood” told a tale of outsiders trying to make it in the world and coming up against all sorts of hurdles. This season, with Jason’s journey in and out of the Fellowship and Maryann’s manipulation of people, we are seeing a look at how belief in anything greater than ourselves can help or harm us. Maybe it’s the film major and philosophy geek in me, but that’s is what is redeeming to me about the whole Maryann storyline.

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TRUE BLOOD: New World in My View

This week’s episode of TRUE BLOOD turned the campiness up a bit, calling back scenes from “The Evil Dead” and other classic zombie movies. There was no attempt at subtly when it came to the camp this week. They went there in a big way. But when you’re dealing with a town of possessed people trying to kill one of their own, a little camp is ok. Let’s get started! Does anyone know where I put my chainsaw?

I was really glad the opening scene with Erik and Sookie was a dream. I’m really not ready for a love triangle yet, as there is too much urgency in the action and defeating Maryann and all of her zombie minions. That being said, it’s going to be very interesting how Erik will play into everything here at the end of the Maryann saga. Will he have a role? Will he be the one to defeat Maryann? Something Bill wasn’t capable of.

Jason Stackhouse might have done one the first intelligent things in his life by posing as the Horned God. It was an interesting evolution to see Jason leave Bon Temps as a weak, selfish soul and then have him return using what he learned at the Fellowship, to save his town. The chainsaw, the nail gun, the rambo’esque approach to freeing Sam were all great, but when he stood on top of that car posing as a God? Hilarious! It was a perfect nod to everyone watching that said, “We know this is ridiculous. Just roll with it. It will all be awesome in the end.” The writers know they’re being campy and kind of silly, but that has always been part of the joy of the show. It’s the mixture of the drama and the absurd that makes TRUE BLOOD unlike anything else on television.

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