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Monday, January 16, 2012

The Finder "An Orphan Walks Into A Bar": AKA: My First Crack at the Midseaon Show


This past Thursday marked the first official episode of FOX's new series The Finder. Having been a Bones fan since the beginning, ever since I heard they were doing a spin off of Bones was doing a spin off I was excited to see what Hart Hanson had in store. I'm not going to lie and say that the fact that the pilot was guest starring, Brett Davern, Awkward's Jake, didn't make me even more excited to see it.

The show had what is called a backdoor pilot, that ran last year as an episode of Bones, it wasn't perfect, but it definitely had potential.The show has been tweaked since that first episode, getting rid of Saffron Burrow's character of Ike Latulipp, who didn't get a great response from fans. Instead she was replaced with the characters of  Willa Monday, epic name by the way, and Deputy U.S. Marshal Isabel Zambada.

Isabel seems to have been added to give Walter, played by the gorgeous Geoff Stults, a verbal sparring partner/love interest, to sort of fill the gap that would be created by removing Ike. Making her a Deputy U.S. Marshal gives Walter an inside with proper authorities.

 The addition of Willa adds a whole other dimension to the show, a younger perspective. Having her being from a home of thieves and sent to Walter and Leo, played by the ever amazing Michael Clarke Duncan, against her will in an attempt to reform her is a really interesting twist, sort of a will she won't she type thing. While I would say her reforming is more than likely, you never know I definitely didn't see Vincent's death coming on Bones, by the way, I am still not over that. Willa's questionable state also lead to my favorite quote of the show:

"She's redeemable" 
"Like a coupon!"

Brett Daven did an amazing job as Cooper Allison, a future military man searching for his father, who's plane had gone down. It was pretty awesome watching him kick ass as opposed to his usual nice guy demeanor. Sure, Cooper was still a nice guy, but a nice guy who could take you down if need be. I can't wait to see how his character returns.


All and all The Finder's first official episode was a pretty good effort, and I'm looking forward to seeing what's next.



Sunday, January 15, 2012

Revenge "Infamy": AKA: Return of the Weekly Take Down

First of all, yeay for a good old fashion take down. I mean it's fabulous that they have strayed from the "take down of the week" format of the first few episodes in order to go for some more complex plot lines, but I have to admit I was glad for the throw back.

 So this week Emily is pitted up against Leo/Mason, does anyone use there real name on this show, Tredwell, played by the awesomely talented Roger Bart, the author of a book which basically confirmed her father's guilt. side note, while most of you know who Roger Bart is from his turn as George Williams on Wysteria Lane, I personally fell in love with him when he portrayed Snoopy in the 1999 Broadway revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. So he will forever be Snoopy to me, though his Revenge wardrobe was more reminiscent of his costumes in the 1995 Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying  where he played Bud Frump, and wore a lot of bow ties.

But I digress, anyway so Mason is back in town writing his memoirs and by the invitation of the Queen of the Hamptons herself, Ms. Victoria Grayson, who of course has her own motives for his visit. Our darling Emily uses this golden opportunity to not only get back at Mason, but lay the groundwork in getting rid of the little Amanda Clarke problem. Which could NOT happen soon enough.

Am I the only one who can not stand her? I mean if she was such a great friend to Emily, which she claims to be, then how could she keep  listening to the things Jack says about his love for Amanda and not tell Emily about it, or at the very least feel guilty? Nope, all she does is feel jealousy. She is under the belief that there is something going on with Emily and Jack, even though Emily has only ever, at least publicly, expressed interest in Daniel. Her Coyote Ugly shenanigans did nothing to endear her to me either, if anything it made me feel bad for Jack. Poor Jack, seriously if him and Emily do not end up together, at some point, there is no justice.

Another reason I dislike Amanda so strongly is I feel as though her dating/living with the Porters, keeps Nolan at bay.  Some of my favorite moments on Revenge are when Nolan gets to hang out with the Porter boys. Seriously, especially after finding out that Nolan did fall for Tyler's games, I feel more and more that he could use a friend.  An actual friend, you know not Emily. 

So Emily uses Nolan, yet again, to bait Mason into thinking that he wanted Nolan wants him to write his biography for him. Of course the idea of writing a multimillionaire's  biography is too good to resisit and so while Nolan takes Mason out to dinner to disscuss terms, Emily pays his cottage a visit.  Where Mason stores all his tapes of his David Clarke interviews and the ONLY copy of his manuscript, after stealing the tapes for herself, Emily uses Amanda's lighter, which she made sure Mason saw her using, to light a cigarette and burn the cottage, manuscript and all to the ground.

 So on to the big reveal of the episode, which, not to brag but I called exactly two months to the day, don't believe me check it out here . Charlotte is Emily's half sister! Which makes perfect sense, it explains why dispite the rift between them that Victoria so desperately wants custudy of her daughter. She is a reminder of her lost love. I do believe that Victoria loved David Clarke, and that her going along with the plot against him was purely an attempt to keep her son. Think about it, if Conrad was capable of not only financing terrorism but setting up a trusted employee as his fall guy, who knows what else he could be capable of? Further more, Daniel seems to have, at least now that he have reformed, turned into a pretty decent human being, imagine how he would have turned out if he'd been raised solely by Conrad. I am in no way saying that I condone her actions, but I may understand them, at least a little.


The major questions now are, who was shot on the beach, and who did the shooting? I fully believe that when the pilot was written the writers had every intention of the victim being Daniel. However, as evidenced before, with the Tyler storyline, the writers are ever evolving their plots. I would be surprised if they some home made is so it wasn't Daniel out on the beach, despite having both Charlotte and Victoria screaming on the beach during the discovery.

As for the shooter, while it still could be Tyler, depending on whether or not he can escape police custudy, and Amanda, in all her jealousy is also a good suspect, but I would like to add one or two more people to the suspect pool.

Satoshi Takeda - Emily's Japanese mentor. He seemed none too pleased with Emily's budding feelings for Daniel. What better way to get her  back on track then to kill off her biggest distraction?

Conrad Grayson - I know, I know, he's Daniel's father, but he's not the most upstanding citizen. Let's face it Daniel has already declaired his alliance to Victoria. If he goes through with the marriage Victoria will own a majority of the company. Do you really think Conrad will go down with out a fight?


Last week they filmed Fire and Ice, the episode where were are finally given some answers. I can not wait to see where they are headed.



Also the Feburary  issue of Glamor has a feature on Revenge  with some AMAZING photos.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Revenge "Duress": AKA: Tyler the Bad Ass

So in prep for tonight's Revenge let's take a moment to discuss last week's explosive episode.

We finally got what we all, or at least I, have been waiting for since that very first episode he showed up, Tyler's EPIC meltdown. Major props need to go out to Ashton Holmes by the way for creating a character I almost loved to hate. I love Ashton Holmes and so for him to be able to make me have a vehemenet hatred of one of his roles is a testament to his insane talent. I really hope to see him on my tv again soon.

 His psychotic break couldn't have worked out better for Emily though, it gave her the perfect opportunity to close ip loose ends on the Frank murder. Sure she'd layed the ground work to frame Victoria/Conrad but let's face it Tyler makes a far better patsy, especially after his preformace at Daniel's birthday. Seriously the guy is a dangerous sociopath who's been off his meds, even if he denies it, who's going to believe anything he says?

Though a major plot bunny that was driving me crazy was, were was Nolan's security guy? I realize he got him because of Frank's attack, and now that Frank is dead he may have no longer seen a need for him, but I was pretty sure the guy was around for awhile after Frank's death. So why wasn't he there when Tyler went all stabby on Nolan? Poor Nolan, the whole Revenge plot is Emily's grand plan and yet while her consiquence seems to be that she gets to sleep with the yummy Daniel Grayson, Nolan gets the crap beaten out of him on several occasions. Not cool.

Also I am dissapointed that the had Nolan admit to of haven "fallen" for Tyler, as opposed to have just slept with him to blackmail him later, which is truely a testiment to just how lonely he is. The one good thing to come of this whole mess however, seems to be the fact that Ashley and Nolan seemed to bond, for at least a moment, over their awful taste in men. I really hope they end up becoming friends, because let's face it, they could both use some. Currently their only friends seem to be Emily, and well, she's not the greatest at relationships.

I guess it was nice to see that Emily has actually fallen for Daniel, though I admit I was a little surprised/annoyed by, at least how it appears in the preview, that Daniel decides to propose in order to gain access to his trust fund...Seriously Daniel...I thought better of you.

It wouldn't be a full discussion if I didn't mention my intense dislike of Fauxmanda and her trapping of Jack. Seriously, it kills me a little inside that  Emily never gets to hear the things that Jack thinks he is telling her. He's been waiting for her practically his whole life, it's so sweet and endearing, the fact that Fauxmanda is exploiting it make me sick. Ok, maybe that's a bit much but still. It's no wonder she seems so jealous of Emily talking to Jack, after all even though he doesn't know it, all those sweet words were meant for her. I can not wait to see how Emily takes her down.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Throw Back: Boy Meets World and Other Classic Tv & Film Love Moments...

So all the back and forth between Ben Savage and the ladies of Awkward (Greer Grammer, Jillian Rose Reed and Jessica Lu) on twitter, which all lead to THIS, got me reminiscing about Boy Meets World, the younger years of course. The years when Topanga was still weird, Eric wasn't a complete idiot and his best friend was Jason Marsden (you know "That Guy",  the one who was on like EVERY tv show back in the early 90's), Minkus still existed and Rider Strong was my huge fangirl crush.  It was a simpler time...and because everything  in my world seems to link back to one another that all got me thinking about this:





Heart Strings by Find Vienna. Seriously one of my fave songs at the moment, and the love montage video is just amazing! I can't even count all the awesomeness, Singing in the Rain, Moulin Rouge, I Love Lucy, Mickey & Minnie, The Sound of Music, Grease, Titanic, Boy Meets World, Mary Poppins, the list goes on. I even forgive them for the Twilight moment, because there are so many great movies/tv shows in there.

(If you're interested the Cory/Topanga moment comes at 2:44)

Monday, January 2, 2012

Champagne Revelations

Sitting on my couch with The Boy, champagne glass in hand, watching A League of Their Own, which is by far my favorite movie ever. I mean there are lots of movies I love, but A League of Their Own is the "saw it in theatres, must watch every time it is on tv despite owning it, actually got me to play an entire season of softball, I can quote every line in my sleep" favorite movie.

Of course I already knew most of the trivia/lore, how much Madonna hated filming, how all the injueries were real, and that one bruise lasted for over a year, but having been some time since I last watched it there were a few things I never pieced together.

Tonight's revelations:

Evelyn was played by Bitty Schram who more recently played Sharona on Monk. While I never truly "watched" Monk, my parents did and so I deffinately was aware of it's existance and have seen several episodes.



Mr. Lowenstein was played by David Strathairn aka Dr. Rosen on Alphas. I always thoght his voice sounded familiar on Alphas but never made the connection as to how I knew him till tonight.

Sometimes it is just really awesome to watch a favorite movie/show and have new realizations and make new connections.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

It's Gonna Be a Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! Hope everyone had a fabulous night ringing in the New Year. The Boy and I went down to a friend's house in South Jersey to celebrate with a mix of old friends and new which was nice.Some times, though not always, I find it really fun to just hang around with a bunch of new people, especially at friend's parties, because then you know they are preaproved.

So here would be where I should list resolutions for this year I suppose, honestly I haven't given it all that much thought. 2011 was a rough year so I'm really glad for the fresh start.

I always do the "get healthier" resolution, and the "get more put together" one as well. Do they ever come to fruition? Hardly, but that doesn't mean i am going to stop trying. So we'll go with those two for the moment, hopefully this year they will stick.

I also really want to work more on my writing, both on the countless stories I have started working on and keeping up this blog. I'd like to continue to be able to post frequently, and maybe even get to the point where there is a following, right now I kinda feel as though I'm sending stuff into the ether, and then maybe, I'd love to get some contests and giveaways going on this thing.

So here's to 2012 being a banner year.