Gossip Girl: More Holiday Drama

Gossip Girl: "The Magnificent Archibalds"

So, if last week Gossip Girl achieved a Nabokovian real tower by bringing Clueless' Mr. Hall into the already fantastic Waldorf family, it was ten times awesomer this week to have sitting around Blair's dining room table: Mr. Hall (Wallace Shawn/Cyrus), Lisa Wiseman (Margaret Colin/Eleanor), and Lois & Clark's Lex Luthor a.k.a. John Shea (to whom I wrote a fan letter a couple of lifetimes ago and received a very nice signed photo back from). Blair Waldorf might not always realize it, but she's got one crazy-awesome family.

Unlike poor Nate, who has a ridiculously horrible family. His dad was trying to con him and his mom into going away with him so he could extort Nate's grandparents for ransom money?! Oy vey! I guess we shouldn't be surprised by anything Mr. Archibald comes up with at this point, and it figures that the guy can't even hide in the Caribbean without messing it up. Finally, finally, finally, however, Nate did find a way to coerce his dear old dad into doing the honorable thing and turning himself into the FBI. Congrats go out to Nathanial on that impressive achievement, and I wish him a hearty welcome back to his old, swanky life.

Other holiday highlights:

• Why would you (Serena) want to introduce a guy who is dating you and several other people to your family?
• Eric is condoning Jenny's emancipation scheme?! Come now, that boy has more sense than this.
• Ahh, Nate's prodigal father returns...
• Uh oh, I get nervous when Gossip Girl goes radio silent (blog silent) during the holidays, and I don't have her to guide me through the treacherous world of the Upper East Side!
• Mr. Archibald has been living in a house on the beach in the Caribbean all this time while his wife and his son were floundering? This guy just keeps getting better and better.
• I like Serena's hair flat ironed like this. It's nice. And more proof that she's way too good for this artsy punk.
• Bart knows that Eric's Jonathan is cheating on him?! That is creepy.
• Chuck found the "most amazing photos of Gina," his Italian au pair, in Bart's vault ;-)
• Geez, even the stupid artsy punk's sweater is a disaster.
• Gasp, Cyrus is eating Blair's pie!!
• Blair (to Darota): "Who do you work for?!"
• Oh, Dan, how do you manage to work in all of Serena's character flaws into one random conversation in the supermarket?
• Vanessa is working on paperwork at the gallery on Thanksgiving?!?! (The guy who writes EW.com's recaps is going to have a field day with this one...) Could this girl be any more pathetic?!
• Umm, no, Nate you didn't already alienate Chuck. He tried to talk to you yesterday, and you blew him off (again). If you're so bummed that you alienated him, how 'bout you talk to him nicely for a change, and you'll find that you haven't alienated him! It's that easy.
• Geez, how short is that skirt Serena's wearing?! I know I should be used to it by now, but I'm not. My sister said, "Serena's outfit is ridiculous. Looks like she belongs in Moulin Rouge."
• Chuck: "You have my word, whatever that's worth."
• 8/7/69: Chuck's mom's birthday. As in, were she alive, she'd be 39 years old. And have an 17-year-old son. You'd think they could have stretched the generation gap a little more between her and Chuck since she's dead and they don't have to cast her and embroil her into steamy love triangles. Especially since Bart is clearly not 39. So he was marrying younger women even back then. I mean, this means the poor lady died when she was only 22.
• Darota's ring tone for Eleanor is "I'm a Slave 4 U." Hahahahaha, that's classic.
• Blair: "If we have to wander the Upper East Side like outcasts in a Jane Austen novel, so be it!"
• Did Dan really think he'd be welcome in the Bass home after the stunt he just pulled on Bart?
• Ha ha, I kind of enjoyed watching Dan get called a liar even if it wasn't true.
• "The annual van der Woodsen diner family dinner."
• Lily was in an institution when she was 19?! How does that figure into her already jam-packed back story? That lady lived a pretty darned packed life before the age of, what, 22 when she had Serena. There was her relationship with Rufus that lasted for awhile, hanging out in the back of the Nine Inch Nails tour bus, getting blackmailed into dumping Rufus by her mom, finding and marrying Serena's (never mentioned) father, and now a stay in an institution?! Maybe she just checked in because she was tired and need a rest.
  
• Lily: "How did you get so wise?"
  Eric: "The nanny."
• Poor Jenny doesn't even have a coat. She just keeps getting more and more pathetic. Aww, Eleanor gave Jenny her wrap! That was so sweet! (Except now Jenny really looks homeless.)
• Wow, so it turns out Eleanor is a better mother than Lily after all. Lily lets train wreck Jenny stay at her house and hide from Rufus for days while she flounders around about what to do, but Eleanor takes one look at Little J and drives her straight home where she belongs. Thank you! Finally someone with some sense.
• Harold! Yea!!!
• How can Serena even lie down in that skirt without displaying her entire butt?
• Eeeeew, Aaron's hair is even worse when he's not wearing a hat or whatever he normally has on to cover it up! It's really awful, and should not be exposed to the world.
• Lily calls Eric "E"? That's just silly.
• Oh, that Nate's such a pretty little liar: he sent Jenny a letter to the effect of: "I don't know how to stay away from you, but I have to. I don't know what to do; I really care about you." I have to admit that despite the creepiness factor, I like Nate/Jenny better than Nate/Vanessa.
• So, is Lily's stay in the institution in anyway correlated to her pathetic parenting skills (a hidden mental illness)? And if poor parenting is a sign of a concealed mental illness, when is Rufus going to check in to the Ostroff Center.

I'm including not just one, but two promo pics for this episode in the post. The first one made it because I love John Shea. The second made it because I wanted to provide proof of just how short Serena's skirt was.

Headband Monday: I've forgotten to document my headbands from the last few weeks, but I have been wearing them. Today I wore a headband that is a row of faux pearls.

(photos: cwtv.com)

Premiere Watch '07: Chuck

Well, Chuck was the second Josh Schwartz pilot to debut this fall (read my take on Gossip Girl here), and--not surprisingly--it was pretty darn good too. Chuck is certainly less likely of the two to garner comparisons to The OC, but, for the record, there were several fights, a party, and a trip to a Bait Shop-esque club.

Anyway, Chuck was delightful. Namely because of, well, Chuck. What's not to love about a character who is a little bit Seth Cohen, a little bit Jim Halpert, and a little bit Ed Stevens? That's a pretty unbeatable combination in my book (see? I still subconsciously quote The OC).

But, here again, Josh has created another "nerd" or "outsider" that is just too darn adorable to be a nerd or outsider (just like Dan from Gossip Girl). I was beside myself to understand why Chuck doesn't have women lined up around the block to go out with him--his date behavior was so cute. I suppose the secret to Chuck's isolation is that he never puts himself out in the world, as he still hasn't recovered from his college girlfriend dumping him for his roommate Bryce. (Speaking of the college girlfriend, can that please be who Rachel Bilson is going to play when she shows up for a multi-episode arc? That would be fantastic!)

Of course, the premise of the show is that Chuck accidentally absorbs all of the government's intelligence secrets into his head and unwittingly finds himself caught up in the dangerous world of spies and secret agents. The spy stuff turned out to be a lot of fun too. I loved how when Bryce was trying to escape, he did everything in the most complicated way possible (sliding under the table, going through the window above the door, etc.) ...because, seriously, how many times did Sydney Bristow make things harder on herself than she needed to? The ridiculousness continued when Sarah showed up dressed in black and was able to throw Chuck's computer in the air, beat everyone up, and still easily catch the computer. I guess the CIA has begun to recruit rhythmic gymnasts.

Another way Chuck spoofed previous spy shows was in having all the intelligence people speak in as many hard-boiled cliches as possible. This was really funny at first, but my concern is that the agents may have been a little too cliched. It looks like Sarah is well on her way to sprouting more of a personality (since we saw that Bryce was her boyfriend), and I hope that at least some of the other intel people become a bit more multifaceted.

Random question: do NSA agents really run around killing CIA agents willy-nilly? That seems kind of wrong. And is Sarah even allowed to be doing any of this spy stuff in the U.S. because my understanding was the the CIA can only operate outside of our borders? And why did Bryce clandestinely download his own government's secrets? Didn't the CIA already know that stuff? Ok, I realize that hardcore fans will tolerate some loose-ends when watching spy shows (see Rambaldi's "endgame"), but Chuck should maybe make more of an effort to not lose us all right off the bat.

Like The OC, much of the charm of Chuck is in the little witty comments, such as:

• Chuck: "Pedal safe!"
• Harry: "Do you know what 5 minutes is in Buy More dollars?"
  Chuck: "I didn't know we had our own currency."
• Chuck to the 'ninji' robbing his house: "Please, not the computer!"
• Chuck's coworker hypothesizing that the break in might be some sort of "ninji vendetta" and Chuck's response: "That's super. Thanks for thinking outside of the box on that one."
• Chuck asking the LargeMart employee to get "the guy at the front who's checking receipts" to come help. (I hate it when they do that at Circuit City!)
• CIA guy: "Nice guys aren't sent government secrets."
• NSA guy: "Don't puke on the C4."

And my other favorite parts and random observations:

• Was that the clip of Ryan carrying Marissa after her overdose in Tijuana in there amongst the other pictures encoded with government secrets? It sure looked like them. Does that mean that we were absorbing dangerous secrets while watching The OC? Because if it does, I'm in trouble.
• I loved that Chuck calls his sister's boyfriend "Captain Awesome."
• Is Agent Scardino (from Lois & Clark) Josh Schwartz's new best friend or something? First he showed up in The OC finale, and now he's the dad who didn't tape his daughter's ballet recital on Chuck. He's become the Greg Grunberg to Josh's J.J. Abrams!
• How smart was Chuck to use the porn site virus to crash the computer hooked up to the bomb! See, nerds make good CIA agents.
• The episode featured some good music: "Cobrastyle" by the Teddybears and then The Shins.

Premiere Rating: 8.0 / 10

(image from nbc.com)

Kyle XY: Hallucinating, Keclan, and skinny pants

Kyle XY:

Hmm, you can tell we're approaching the end of Kyle XY's summer season because things are getting intense and Kyle's striking out on his own to save the world for the good of the Tragers. I guess there weren't a whole lot of new revelations emerging in this episode, but it was interesting to see Kyle's inner battle about whether he owes Jessi his help. But, first things first:

Kyle's pants were really skinny tonight! When did Kyle get so trendy?

I liked how Kyle told Amanda that there wasn't anything physical going on between him and Jessi and she just decided to believe him without asking the obvious question, "Then why in the heck were the two of you lifting up your shirts in front of each other when I walked in the room?" Seems to me that she deserved some sort of explanation for that strange behavior.

Speaking of the lifting up of shirts and such things: I like Josh and Andy together, but watching them making out and groping each other was just awkward and kinda gross. Especially because Kyle and Amanda have been in love with each other for over a year and we've only seen them kiss like twice!

Speaking of Kyle and Amanda not kissing: Amanda is having a hard time deciding whether to go away to school or stay with Kyle and she decides to play the piano to help figure it out. Umm, how about you make out with your gorgeous boyfriend for awhile? I know kissing Kyle would sure help my decision-making process...

Speaking of illogical strategies: Lori's goal for her big revenge on Jessi is to ruin Jessi's reputation? Like, how could you make Jessi's reputation any worse? Everyone already thinks she's weird and creepy.

Speaking of weird and creepy: Back to Josh and Andy. I'm pretty sure he said that it was the last time he could touch "them boobs." Was that ridiculous grammatical error not worthy of doing another take on that scene?

Cool that Kyle now has the power to hallucinate himself having philosophical conversations with anyone he wants. Or, um, he's becoming schizophrenic. Unfortunately, all Dream Adam can do is ask questions and restate what we already know, which is not super helpful.

While Kyle clearly is more in control of his special abilities, I've noticed that Jessi has certainly surpassed him in the ability to express human emotion. This episode really did a lot for turning her fairly unsympathetic character into someone you really felt sorry for.

And back to the mythology... It was nice that Nicole and Steven finally realized that something is still going on with Kyle. I'm a little confused though why Foss can withstand the brain scan thing but the general consensus is that Kyle wouldn't be able to take it? I guess they're going to use it at a higher power, maybe.

Good quotes:

Amanda: "Kyle, usually the whole multiple question thing is cute, but I'm really struggling here."

Hilary: "The intensity of the Kyle/Declan friendship--we'll call it 'Keclan'--helped ruin the Lori/Declan relationship."

Declan: "You really want to run this metaphor into the ground, don't you?"

Lori: "It's what I do."

and boy is that the truth....

Greek:

I enjoyed Dale IMing Rusty while they were both in the same room, because the IMing-your-roommate-while-you're-both-in-the-room thing definitely does happen sometimes.

Other highlights were Clark Duke singing (rather well), the band name "Darwin Lied," Rusty asking what in the hell kind of show they were putting on (because I was also confused about that), and this rather astute observation about the strippers and their money:

Rusty: "Look where she's putting those bills!"

Other guy: "Which will be put right back in to circulation. By the end of the week it could be under some kid's pillow."

Yuck.

My Boys:

This episode was all right. It lost major points from me though with it's handling of the Mary Lou Retton leotard. Although I'm a hardcore gymnastics fan, I do enjoy a good gymnastics joke... but this scenario didn't result in any. They did do a good job of making fun of Brendan's behavior though (ex. calling him "Seacrest"). I thought it was kind of weird that they spent a good portion of the episode skewering Sex and the City, seeing as that's the show that comes on right after My Boys on TBS. I suppose that was the 'in-joke.' Some of the SATC spoof was pretty funny, especially how P.J. thought all of those women were horrible.

Oh, and didn't P.J. do the "player gets called up to the majors" metaphor before? Like, at least five other times? I've said it before: the voice over has got to go, folks.

But, the big news: Michael Landes is in next week's ep! Yea! I love Lois & Clark's original Jimmy Olsen! First Jeremy Sisto and now this! Score!

Ann's Favorite Series Finales Ever

In honor of the Gilmore Girls series finale tonight (sniff, sniff), I've compiled a list of my favorite series finales ever:

• The OC: I still get sad thinking about this show being gone. Thankfully, one of my favorite shows of all time ended with one of my favorites finales of all time. The finale 15 or so minutes of this ep especially were fantastic. Ryan standing in the Cohen house remembering the early days was so touching. And I'm such a sucker for the shot of Marissa standing in the sun while Ryan drives by. I was bawling. Also awesome were the flash forward clips: Seth and Summer getting married, Julie graduating college, MiniCoop excelling in school, Sandy teaching at Berkley Law, Ryan working as an architect and helping kids. It was so nice to see that our favorite characters (minus Marissa, of course) all getting happy endings.
• Alias: This was another show that was hard to say goodbye to. Sydney, Sark, Vaughn, Jack, Sloane, Marshall, Will, Francie, Irina and Dixon all meant so much to me. The episode was complicated, of course, what with Irina falling through a skylight, Sloane becoming immortal, Jack trapping immortal Sloane in a tomb/cave, etc. Loved Sydney and Vaughn living happily-ever-after on the beach with their kids...while Sydney still goes on the occasional mission to take down Sark. Sydney and Sark forever!
• Arrested Development: George Michael and Maebe aren't related after all!
• Full House: Michelle gets amnesia...but then remembers everyone. Phew. In even better news, Steve takes D.J. to the prom and Steph is the Juliet to a cute boy's Romeo.
• Angel: I didn't even really watch this show, but I loved this episode. Fade out on Angel and friends taking on thousands of evil demon things. ("Personally, I'd like to slay the dragon."--so cool)

And, just for the heck of it, bad series finales:

• Lois & Clark: A mysterious baby shows up in their freaking house when they find out that Clark can't have kids (Earth kids, at least). Lois was so sappy. Ugh.
• Due South: The flash-forward scenes were so discouraging!
• Three's Company: Jack and Janet did not end up together. Enough said.

Now only a few hours until we find out where the Gilmore finale will rank on this list :-(