Before tonight, I was unaware The Bachelorette is a two-hour commitment every week. This means I’ll spend more time watching this show in a month than I have spent being on physical dates so far this year.

Host Chris Harrison starts out this episode by telling the guys how it works. I won’t insult your intelligence by recounting this, because if you’re reading I’m going to assume you’ve watched the show before (unlike myself, until last week). He advises the men to take advantage of whatever time they get with Emily, since they won’t all get to go on individual dates each week. This should make for some interesting and awkward television, because all of the guys will undoubtedly take this advice and do some really ridiculous things to get Emily to like them. I cannot wait.

Actually, I lied: The show didn’t start out with this. It started out with Emily and some of her friends sitting on park benches talking while their daughters play around. But all you got out of that was that one of her friends is going to take Ricki to soccer practice while her mom engages in the most surreal version of spee dating to ever exist.

Ryan (personal trainer) gets picked to go on the first date, and then we cut to a bunch of guys shirtless, drinking beers and broin’ out by the pool. Emily comes to pick him up, and, shockingly, she says Ryan makes her “nervous.” It is her favorite word. She brings Ryan to her house to bring in groceries and cook cookies with her. For her to take to her daughter’s soccer game. Ryan is going to be the most muscular and good looking man to ever get friend-zoned.

So, after the cookies are made, Emily drives Ryan to the park to drop off the cookies. She’s not ready for Ricki to meet him yet, so she leaves him in the car while the kids munch down. Because nothing makes young children more comfortable than a grown man they do not know sitting alone in a car and watching them eat treats.

She comes back and brings him a juice box, which is nice.

Emily picks Ryan up in an Aston Martin. She is dressed like a stone cold fox. They go into a restaurant and Emily exclaims that she is, of course, nervous. Then she starts talking about how she doesn’t want people to see this show as a competition, that she doesn’t want to be part of a game. Allow that to sink in.

Alejandro, Nate, Alessandro, Tony, Michael, John, Jef, Charlie, Kyle, Chris, Aaron, Stevie and Kalon are selected for a group date. Because nothing will dispels the competitive nature of a thing than going on a date that will have more participants than Arcade Fire has band members.

Ryan scores himself a rose. Goes in for a kiss on the cheek while I sit on my couch alone, shaking my head and pouring my first drink of the night. Then he and Emily engage in this strange southern drawl-filled conversation about chasing and being chased, and somehow running factors into this because one of them got too literal.

Emily provides a crazy twist at the end of the date, taking Ryan out the back door where a crowd and band are waiting. They play a pop country love song while they dance. (I bet this makes Emily nervous.)

The 13-man, one woman date begins at a theatre, where the men are told they will be doing some performing. They’re also going to be raising money for her deceased husband’s charity. Finally: Muppets are involved. Missy Piggy starts hitting on the bachelors, which is kind of funny, especially when the cameras interview the Muppets like they’re real people, and not immortal gods.

Charlie is a bit worried about performing in front of people. I can really empathize with him here, because getting up there and doing that has to be legitimately difficult. And, he’s the guy who was severely injured a little more than a year ago, and a lingering speech problem has resulted. I really hope he tells Emily he’s nervous. That would, I think, go far for him. He doesn’t, but he does go into her dressing room and speak to her about it. Smart move on his part; she does seem very understanding, and now I’m pulling for him to get a rose. If he doesn’t, people will be all, “Man, Emily is a dick.”

Kermit, Emily and Miss Piggy do a skit where the frog helps zip up the human’s dress and the swine gets all hacked off.

The dance portion of the performance goes surprisingly well. The comedy, not so much. Next up is a Miss Piggy Live sort of variety show, where Aaron has to recite a love poem, Jeff has to propose to her and Charlie has to say what he would to impress a woman. They all do well, especially Charlie which I think makes everybody feel great.

Toward the end of the show, Kermit is about to make out with Emily but that stupid pig cock blocks him.

THEN RICKI COMES OUT TO SING WITH HER MOM AND THE MUPPETS AND OH MY GOD I AM SO JEALOUS. And more than $20,000 was raised for charity. That’s a nice thing, if you are able to forget about all of the money that must be spent to pull off a television show like this one.

Chris is the first to get in some alone time (if you don’t count Charlie) out of this date, and Emily tells him he’s like, so good looking. Then, they cut to a Jef/Emily one-on-one and she is clearly wigged out that Jeff isn’t falling all over her. Dude is playing it well, I think, because she cannot handle his nonchalance.

Meanwhile, Joe gets picked for the next one-on-one date.

Stevie gets his turn during the group date, and uses it to do a little bit of dancing. Kalon (the guy who flew in last episode on a chopper and has a butt chin) steps in to get some face time, which Stevie does not savor. Aaron comes up almost immediately after, Kalon asks for two minutes and Aaron vetoes that deal. Takes Emily away, like a boss.

Kalon and Stevie start jawing at each other. Stevie calls him a douche, and tells him he doesn’t like him. Kalon sort of owns him in a verbal sparring match that leaves Stevie saying “uh-huh, yeah, okay,” repeatedly like he is Puff Daddy singing “Come With Me” from the Godzilla soundtrack.

JEF GETS THE ROSE. Thus proving everything I never wanted to believe about getting women to like you. It does explain a lot, though: I’ve found the ones you try the hardest for are the ones that tend not to work out. This show is making me get so philosophical.

Emily and Joe’s date begins at an airport, where she reveals they will be flying to her home state, West Virginia. He’s probably pissed he didn’t just get to bake cookies at her house and drink juice boxes in the car. (What if they’d nixed the cash needed to fly a private jet to WV and instead paid that to charity?)

The guys back at the house are talking about Emily’s having a child. Natch, it gets heated. Kalon says some stuff to Doug (who is a father) that implies he is neglecting his fatherly duties by coming on this TV dating show. Doug does not like this, as you may expect.

(Here’s a fun fact: A girl just Tweeted at me that this guy I have been calling Jeff is actually Jef. In fact, she is correcting every single person on Twitter who has made this mistake. It’s impressive. So I just had to go back and switch all my Jeffs to Jefs. I hope his parents feel really cool for being trendy. And I wonder why Jef isn’t always spelled that way.)

Emily likes Joe. She says he makes her feel comfortable, and looks like McConaughey (spelled that correctly on the first try). Things are going well for him. He trips up a little bit on her “Where do you see yourself in five years?” question, because it is clear he does not know and dances around it by saying he “wants to be happy.” Who in the fuck is like, “I hope I’m really goddamn miserable in five years,” except for maybe Bruce Wayne? But then he kind of bounces it back on her and it’s clear she doesn’t know much about what she wants either, except to have a bunch of kids.

Later in the date, they hit this thing up called a love clock. You write down little love wishes/notes you put inside the clock. Joe’s is that he’ll get to come back to West Virginia (it’s almost heaven) sometime with Emily and Ricki to meet the rest of the clan. This makes her cry good tears; and it seemed like he scored some big points with it.

But, Emily wasn’t feeling it. Maybe those were not good tears. She starts crying a little bit and talking about how she takes this whole thing seriously. She isn’t able to picture where she and her daughter fit in in his life. Seems to me like it’s something a little bit melodramatic, what she’s doing, given she met this dude like two days ago. But also, why would you get a wholly rational person to be the main character in a show like this?

After she sends Joe on her way, fireworks begin shooting off and she watches them with that fake, almost martyr-like sadness people like to exude after a break-up they aren’t really upset about at all.

I just realized Alejandro is a mushroom farmer. He’s gonna lose.

Emily tells the guys when she shows up for a cocktail party that Joe was funny and stuff, but that she is looking for more than that. I suppose he didn’t look as much like McConaughey as she had initially thought from afar.

Emily gets some one-on-one time with Arie. They just sit on a bench and cut the bull for a few minutes. She says multiple times he makes her feel nervous. I’m as surprised as you are.

Ryan, who already has a rose, gets Emily alone again. The other guys are, of course, very pissed about that. Tony rushes in to try and get some time, but before leaving her Ryan gives Emily a handwritten letter. She reads it, out loud, while tony stands there awkwardly. This is no short letter, either. The dude busted out his composition book and got weird with it. He skipped at least three or four recess sessions to put that together. It clocks in at seven pages. This guy is killing it.

Tony finally gets some time with Emily, and begins talking about his son. He says he’s the greatest kid ever, which I’m sure Emily and Ricki both disagree with. Tony is using his child as a tool, saying he just misses him so much etc. etc.

Kalon is lamenting on being painted as the outcast among the men before he snags Emily for a few more moments of exclusive hangout. Sean says he gets the impression Kalon “uses his vocabulary” to display his dominance over the household. He clearly knows nothing about how men establish dominance. And by dominance I mean also his assertiveness and powerfulness.

THE ROSE CEREMONY

Accepters: Ryan, Jef, Kalon (damnit), Arie, Michael, Nate (My dude, the silent assassin if assassins bed blonde women instead of killing them), Sean, Chris, Doug, Travis, Tony, John, Alessandro, Charlie (she better have), Alejandro and Stevie.

I think next week I might start a “Nervous Count.”

You don’t need a Jaguar, Don. You’re happy.

Gosh, this has been a snail’s-pace season, hasn’t it? Not that that’s bad. It’s a slow-burner, embodying the character’s self-deception, which can be entertaining, if you’re into that kind of thing. It’s that year in life when you’ve achieved what you always wanted, only to stand around and wonder if this is all there is?

Joan was happily married — it caved, leading to a pretty appropriate outburst when she was served with divorce papers this week. Similarly, Don has a feisty young wife that he loves — she expects him to not be a closed-book husband, demanding that he learn some new tricks in a second marriage.  These are personal character moments that they overcome week to week, but we haven’t seen any earth-altering events yet. There are race-riots (in the premiere), toxic fume alerts (last week), and the Cold War (this week) lurking in the background while the characters toil on in the obscurity that we get to observe. It makes it feel slow, but then you get those times when Don stares down the empty elevator shaft. These kinds of moments leave the Sword of Damocles hanging over the characters, suggesting that the entire season is build-up to something big, rewarding viewers that take note of small ticks and flaws.

This week, it was revealed that Lane is in trouble for tax evasion from the British government. He was forced to get his line of credit extended by lying about Harry’s projections from the media department, a white lie at the episode’s opening that turns into a blizzard. More on that in a moment.

First, Harry Crane, how the heck are ya? It’s been a while! Didn’t you have a best bud back at Sterling Cooper that didn’t get brought over when the new firm was formed? He had a beard and was into the bizarre sub-cultures that were popping up. What was his name? Kinsey! Whatever happened to him? Oh, right, he became a Hari Krishna! Oh. Well, that makes sense.

It’s not terribly surprising that Kinsey got into this stuff — he wasn’t enough of a psychotic shark at Sterling Cooper, and he fell down the ladder of agencies, as Harry and Peggy mentioned. At the bottom, you apparently find Krishnas and end up watching Star Trek through the window of a local pizza joint. The fact that Kinsey remains a really good recruiter for Krishnas was kind of cool though. That account-closing skill never left him. He hasn’t suddenly become a great writer though, given how terrible his Star Trek script-treatment was.

Which brings us to Lakshme. Lakshme is the crush Kinsey is nursing in his Krishna group, confiding in Harry that he wants to leave and start a life with her. Poor dude. He doesn’t realize that Lakshme is a bat-shit loco devotee to the cause that wants to keep Kinsey in the fold for the sake of his recruiting skills, and she would fuck Harry in his office in order to keep him from persuading his friend from leaving. Add Harry’s encounter with Lakshme to the list of moments this season where you’re describing it to somebody, and then it ends with: “And then he banged her.” It does seem to be happening with increased frequency this season. At least Harry did the honorable thing and paid for Kinsey to get out of town, handing him $500 to go to LA to become a writer and away from Lakshme’s junkie-styled psychosis. The fact that Kinsey admitted that Harry helping him out was the first thing that anybody had actually done to help since he’d hit rock bottom was sad and warming. Bros don’t let bros become Krishnas.

“Do you know how lucky we are?” Harry asks Peggy, showing her Kinsey’s terrible Star Trek script (given the description of the white-slavery planet they’d land on, it’s not all that abnormal for The Original Series — they did a whole episode where Kirk seduced a specifically Halloween-themed sorceress).

Yeah, they are pretty lucky. Don got to knock off at noon to test-drive a Jaguar with Joan after her post-divorce model-plane-smashing (Joan, smash). Then they went and got drunk to air their grievances about failed marriages, making Don late for dinner at home. Yeah, I’d say you guys are pretty lucky. However, after Megan smashes her dinner plate (another event in the Great American Marriage Decathlon), she manages to ask him a very poignant comment:

“You used to love your work.”

It’s kinda true. He used to like using advertising to subtly persuade people that things were alright. He’s been doing it his entire career and he’s been working that persuasion on himself all season. Now the shine is coming off the American apple, as is evidenced by plays like American Hurrah, smearing advertisers’ faces with plastic masks and letting their tailored suits do the talking. All his truths are lies, but at least they’re the lies he knows and can manipulate to do his bidding.

“I don’t understand the car,” Don remarked about the two-seater Jaguar he and Joan tested.

“You’re happy. You don’t need it,” is her response. Don is happy – or as happy as a guy ought to be. He doesn’t need to persuade himself of that anymore with idealistic reassurances and crafted pitch-lines that he’s made a career of writing.

Yay! Don, you’re happy. You have a wife that gets upset with you if you show up late and drunk for dinner. You’ve got it nailed. And now you’re happy, you’ve got nowhere to go but down, and as I mentioned earlier, trouble as a-brewing.

Lane forges Don’s signature on a company check that would eventually act as Lane’s Christmas bonus, which he needed early to pay off his accountant to keep from being arrested for tax evasion. Don doesn’t need to be examined for tax evasion or check forgery, given his rich history of identity-theft, and to make matters worse, because of the airline strike, their Mohawk deal fell through for the time being, meaning no Christmas bonuses will go to the partners like Lane and Don — the rest of the staff gets bonuses though as a sign of good faith.

So while Lane was writing forged checks with money he didn’t have right out the company checkbook, Don was making an impassioned speech, likely inspired by Megan’s challenge that he doesn’t enjoy his work anymore, detailing how they’re going to land Jaguar because that’s how Madison Avenue agencies show that they’ve arrived.

This can’t end well.

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Still bored? Read my recap for Person of Interest‘s finale and my recent piece on the 9 Things That New College Graduates Need To Know over on GhostLittle.com – and as always, you can keep up with my thoughts on Twitter. Til next week!

We’re six weeks into Girls now and I can safely say this is becoming one of my favorite shows on television this summer.  I expressed some serious doubts about the pilot, namely with the longevity of the show and its ability to expand, but its been getting better and better by the week.   I’m not afraid to admit I legitimately laugh out loud at this show on a regular basis at this point.  It’s only going  to go up from here too, since Girls has not only been renewed for season 2, but Donald Glover of Community has signed on for the second season.

The main character Hannah (Lena Dunham), is still pretty unlikable, but I’m not sure that’s the intent here.  She’s deeply flawed and she’s meant to be relatable for people my age.  Guess what? She succeeds in that respect, more often than not.  Right now in the show, Hannah is struggling to pay her rent to Marnie, her roommate, who recently tried to get back with her probably-gay boyfriend, and admitted to herself she didn’t want to be with him anymore.

I’m not too familiar with the bohemian New York 20-something beatnik life style, but these characters actually feel like real people for the most part.  Their problems are real.  The things they do (other than Hannah sexually challenging her boss) seem like natural things people would do.  Hannah is probably the least likeable out of all of them though, since all of the girls are now well established and have their own side-plots fleshed out.  Someone commented on one of my scathing Veep recaps “It focuses on an older woman in Washington DC of course you don’t like it.”  Contrast this (while not the true reason I dislike Veep) to Girls, which I do like, which centers on hip young, attractive people in New York.  It’s a sucker’s game and I think I may have taken the bait.  But that’s okay, because this show is well directed, funny, and realistically paced.  When the characters argue, I know what they’re talking about.

This week’s episode was a weird one, even for this show.  Hannah goes back home to try and secure rent money from her parents since she quit her internship as a result of sexual harassment.  She gets a date on her first day home and bails on her parents at their anniversary dinner.  Then we’re treated to seeing both Hannah and her parents fully nude.  It’s a little grotesque, and a lot unnecessary.  Someone on Twitter said we’ve seen enough of Lena Dunham’s boobs by now, and while I love the girl’s work I have to agree. I like the gritty and raw angle of the show that leaves nothing to the glamorous or to the imagination, but I think that much is clear at this point.

The episode ends with Hannah returning to New York to her psychotic lover-boy Adam, who’s consistently also naked, and consistently the funniest character in the ensemble.  As a guy, when I look at a character like this, I can’t help but chuckle thinking “this is how girls think weird boys act.”  It might not be, but it’s funny and it’s how they act in Girls.

North of the Wall freshly captured prisoner Jon Snow discovers that Night’s Watch ranger Halfhand has also been snatched up, while the rest of their party was murdered by the wildlings. The watchmen went back to search for Snow when the wildlings found them, which of course compounds Snow’s tricky mix of self-loathing/pity and introverted fury. The wildling party is led by the Lord of Bones, a gruff warrior with a mask, armor, accessories and bangles all made of bones. I first glimpsed this guy in some of the season 2 trailers, and was really excited for some cannibalistic badass, but his debut underwhelmed.

Over at the Stark war camp, Robb gets word that his mother Catelyn let Jaime Lannister go in the hope that returning him to King’s Landing would prompt a trade for her children. Robb is furious; he sees his mother’s act as naive, impetuous, and most of all, a treachery. He orders her to be guarded day and night, and storms out of her tent. We then get a brief scene with Brienne of Tarth serving as Jaime’s escort back to King’s Landing. Jaime’s malicious wisecracking certainly has an easy target with Brienne: dense, impassive, and charmless, the female juggernaut is primed to take a barrage of verbal abuse from the Kingslayer.

In Harrenhal Tywin and his war cabinet are discussing Stannis’s imminent siege of King’s Landing. Tywin sees the world with knife-like precision, and has no illusions: he knows Stannis will seize the castle. Still, he insists that Joffrey and Cersei not flee, believing that a king must stand his ground if he is to remain on the Iron Throne. He decides to take his men and ride out for Robb Stark’s army. Arya, who’s fiddling around the table pouring water and such this whole time, is suddenly alarmed. After the meeting adjourns, she races out to find Jaqen H’gar and make her last death wish. She presumably wants to kill Tywin, but H’gar tells her that her orders cannot always be carried out immediately. But because the Lannister patriarch is riding out to attack Robb right at that moment, a death sentence in the indeterminate future does her no good. Then Arya comes out with a stroke of genius. She says the assassin’s own name, Jaqen H’gar. H’gar is, in his subtle, guile-y way, shocked and petrified at this order. He eventually begs her to retract his name. She says she’ll spare him only if he helps her escape Harrenhal. He’s visibly pissed, but complies, telling her to walk to the gates that night. Later in the episode, Arya, Gendry, and their fat worthless friend walk towards the gate and find that all the guards have been slaughtered and they’re free to go. Impressive. H’gar is like a mother of three who has a great full-time job, dominates the PTA, and turns heads at New York Sports Club: the only way you can really react to them is to say, “I don’t know how (s)he does it…” with bemused awe.

Later in King’s Landing Tyrion and Bron are debating war tactics over a heap of literature on the subject. Varys strolls in in his silk robe and casual arrogance, almost reminding us of Hugh Hefner. But wait, he has no dick. Knew that analogy seemed off. Still, Varys continues to impress me with his seen-it-all, halcyon demeanor. You could make the argument that he’s the most fascinating character on the show, actually. Ernest Hemingway once said that a protagonist must have desires; a character with no desire consequently lacks motivation, is infernally boring, and cannot thrust the narrative forward. All true. But Varys provides an intriguing counterpoint to that argument, as well as every other character on the show. Game of Thrones is chock-full of characters with galvanic desires, desires noble, selfish, megalomaniacal, and carnal; Varys, however, is a character with no discernible wants. He has plenty of power, but does not seem to desire more of it. He has no lust to satisfy, no family to protect or sacrifice for. This allows him to maintain incredible calm in the face of any Westeros storm. Simply, he doesn’t care.

During a dinner scene between Tyrion and Cersei, the Queen Regent reveals that she’s captured Tyrion’s beloved whore and will murder her if her son Joffrey is hurt in battle. But when she wheels out the prisoner, it’s the wrong whore! Tyrion feigns melodrama, pretending that it’s his prostitute and that he’ll avenge himself against Cersei if anything happens to her.

Back in Robb’s camp, the beautiful medic Talisa stops by his tent. They share their fears and struggles, then start making out. Within ten seconds Talisa is naked, save for her boots. I’m happy for Robb, he deserves this.

On one of Stannis’s war ships, the curt claimant is talking to Davos. He tells him that when he captures the Iron Throne, he will make Davos his Hand of the King. To call Stannis stoic would be a gross understatement. He’s so matter-of-fact he’s practically a history textbook, except there’s a raging indignation beneath his brooding calm. He explains to Davos how he’s been overlooked all his life: first by his Baratheon brethren and now by the greater Seven Kingdoms. He’s not charismatic and convivial like his brother Robert (obviously), nor is he affable like Renly. But here’s the point: both those brothers are dead, felled arguably by the unchecked slack created by those likable traits.  Stannis is cold as bitter ice to human voice and touch, and is downright brusque even to his best friend. Oh yea, and he cut the guy’s fingers off in pre-season 1 Thrones mythology. Like Cersei, Stannis will prove difficult to kill because he is focused, cruel, and disciplined.

We then get a very brief stop in Qarth, where Dany and Ser Jorah are discussing their next move. Jorah thinks going after the dragons in the House of the Undying is too risky, as it will be exactly what Pyat Pree expects. But Dany refuses to acquiesce; she tells Jorah that the dragons are her children, the only children she’ll ever have. As she strokes his face, Jorah telegraphs his staggering love for her. He complies, thereby setting up a mind-blowing showdown in the House of Sand, Fog, Illusions, Human Duplication and Generally Mind-Exploding Psychedelic Mesmerization.

The episode ends where it began, in Winterfell. Many viewers’ suspicions are confirmed, as we see Osha bringing bread down to none other than the Stark children Bran and Rickon, who are hiding in the underground crypts beneath Winterfell.

This was the ultimate stage-setting episode. Individual narratives arced just short of their climaxes, all of which will presumably take off next week: The massive battle at King’s Landing, Tywin flanking Robb’s army, and Daenerys and Ser Jorah venturing into the warlock’s lair. I don’t think I need to tell you which of these bombshells I’m most excited for. I expect my viewer’s trip into the House of the Undying to be like dropping acid on the set of a Terry Gilliam film being shot in an opium den in Qatar run by a bunch of mystical blood-drinking gypsies.

We’re a few weeks into Veep now, and despite some high praise in some high places, guess what?  I still don’t really enjoy it.  I’m not the harshest critic out there, and it’s true, the show has the trappings of something I’d enjoy from the titular casting of a Seinfeld alumnus to Buster Bluth waiting in the wings with her hand sanitizer.  As you might expect by the way, Buster, or Tony Hale as he’s actually called, is the best part of the show as Gary.  He’s Selena’s handmaiden essentially, waiting on her every gracelessly delivered whim.  Such whims include but are not limited to the command “Get me something” for which Gary instantly knows what to get her.

The problem with Veep was best summarized by a writer of the incredibly-funny ABC show, Happy Endings on twitter when he said the show was “talky.”  It will talk at you until you’re the one who’s blue in the face and you don’t know which end is up as Selena struts through another doorway cursing under her breath.  There’s a lot going on in this show all the time.  The mise-en-scène is a constant flurry of people throwing paperwork at each other, people running up to Selena with coffees and handshakes, and the trill of talk bout “clean jobs” which is essentially meaningless to the viewer.  There’s a whole lot of arguing and babbling between Selena and her staff, but despite her acting (which isn’t half bad), it still sounds like she doesn’t know what she’s talking about—and not in the way the show intends.

I might be going out on a limb here, but sometimes when you go see an improv comedy troupe, and they’re given a situation, they’ll argue back and forth at each other trying to escalate said situation for the sake of comedy.  When one person doesn’t know what to say, they deflect back on the other person by continuing to question them all the while raising their voice because they can’t think of the next logical place to go.  It’s an internal nervousness that reeks of un-professionalism, and somehow I get this sense watching Veep.  There’s prattle aplenty, but I don’t think even the actors know what it’s about or where it leaves the narrative.  This makes Veep seems scantily plotted, and exhausting, even though it clocks in at only 26 minutes long.

In this weeks episode, Selena is dismayed to find out her schedule is empty.  Later that night she has a “Firemen’s dinner” (purpose unclear) so she and her crack-team get on the speech writing.  Selena doesn’t want any self-deprecating jokes this time around, but she’s dismayed to find out that people have all sorts of derogatory nicknames for her online.  She has her team bombard her with the negative, from possible spin on her soon-to-be-given, horrible speech to all of her awful nicknames, though Gary is quick to inform her that “VPILF” is actually a positive term meaning “Vice President I’d Like to do it with.”

Maybe Veep just isn’t my type of show.  And that might be because I have honestly no clue what type of show it is.  It’s a pseudo-mockumentary centered around an extremely unlikeable character.  We’re not given any reason to like Selena.  She’s cold, she’s bossy, she’s arrogant and on top of all that it’s been hinted that she comes from a family of means.  These are hard things to sympathize with, but that might even be the point.  Sometimes I get the feeling that Veep is trying to provide viewers with a look behind the curtain into white house micro-management.  It’s trying to give them a look at how bumbling, silly, secretly-unpopular and unsure of themselves these elected officials can be.  It’s attempting to seem like a stressful comedy of errors about the blind leading the blind.  I get that much.  Sadly while watching it, as a viewer I feel like I’m trying to help an entire pack of blind people cross the street at once and I’m the one getting thrown under a bus.

For the first time in eighteen months, Watson revisits his therapist. But why now? He’s barely able to speak the words: Sherlock Holmes is dead. How? Cue flashback.

Holmes has become a tabloid darling after a string of high-profile cases, particularly his career-defining recovery of a stolen Turner painting, “The Falls Of Reichenbach.” Worried that the tabloids will soon turn against Sherlock, Watson advises him to lower his profile. That becomes impossible when Moriarty engineers simultaneous break-ins at the Tower of London, Bank of England, and Pentonville Prison, all from an application on his mobile phone.

Sherlock is called as an expert witness in Moriarty’s trial, while Watson coaches him to avoid showing off by playing the smartass. Before the trial, a female “fan” named Kitty Riley approaches Sherlock in the restroom, but Sherlock correctly guesses that Kitty is actually a journalist. She thinks she can help Holmes with his public image, but Holmes deduces facts about her from her appearance and criticizes her witheringly. After showing off his intellect in court, Holmes gets thrown in a cell for contempt. Watson bails him out, but he must remain at Baker Street while Watson attends the next day of court.

Moriarty offers no defense, but having successfully threatened every member of the jury he manages a “not guilty” verdict. Upon receiving the news from Watson, Holmes immediately prepares for a visit from Moriarty, who comes to gloat about how he has developed a few lines of computer code that demolish any security and privacy measures, making him the most powerful man in the underworld. He leaves Holmes with a riddle: what is the “Final Problem?” And he cryptically suggests, “I owe you a fall.”

Two months later, Mycroft advises Watson that Kitty Riley is doing an exposé on Sherlock for the Sun. Furthermore, he warns John that four top international assassins have moved into apartments on Baker street. When Watson arrives home, he finds Lestrade and Sergeant Donovan at Baker street, working with Holmes on a case. The son and daughter of the British ambassador to the US have been kidnapped. Following a trail of impossibly obscure clues, based on chemical traces of dust, plant matter, and chocolate found in the culprit’s footprints, Holmes manages to find the children in an abandoned chocolate factory, but when the girl sees Sherlock’s face she cannot stop screaming.

This leads Sergeant Donovan, who has long despised Sherlock, to suspect that he engineered the kidnapping himself. At the urging of the Chief Superintendent, who is furious that Lestrade came to rely on an amateur who is now a suspect, Lestrade has to arrest Sherlock. Sherlock comes quietly at first, but then escapes, using John as a hostage. Not only are they pursued by the police, but also by their neighborhood assassins. Sherlock manages to confront one of them, who says that Moriarty gave Sherlock the security-defeating computer code, which is why they need him alive.

Sherlock and John break into Kitty Riley’s house, where they find Kitty and Moriarty, who is going under the identity of “Richard Brook.” He claims that he is an actor hired by Holmes to portray Moriarty, a character invented by Holmes along with every case he’s ever done. With a seemingly legitimate resume and list of credits, Brook’s story almost leads Watson to doubt Sherlock. Sherlock leaves to visit Molly Hooper at the hospital, asking her for help, while John goes to visit Mycroft and accuses him of providing information about Sherlock to Moriarty. Mycroft admits that while interrogating Moriarty, the only way he was able to get any information out of him was to give him information out of Sherlock in return.

Later at the hospital, Sherlock arranges a meeting with Moriarty. Watson receives a call informing him that Mrs. Hudson has been shot, and rushes back to Baker Street, but Sherlock refuses to go to her, meeting with Moriarty on the rooftop instead. There, Moriarty reveals that there was no security-breaking code: he simply bribed people who worked in the bank, tower and prison. Moriarty gloats that Sherlock will now jump off the hospital roof and die in disgrace. If he does not, then assassins will kill Mrs. Hudson, John, and Lestrade. However, Sherlock realizes that Moriarty must have some way to call off the assassins, some recall code, and gloats in return that Moriarty will call the assassins off. After all, Sherlock reasons, Moriarty should realize that Sherlock will go to any lengths to get that code.

Moriarty realizes that as long as he is alive, Sherlock has a hope of saving his friends, and so he shoots himself in the head. With Moriarty dead and no access to the code, Sherlock calls John (who has just returned to the hospital after realizing that Mrs. Hudson has not in fact been shot) and tells him that everything Richard Brook said is true: the great detective is a fraud, and this call is his suicide note.

Watson watches from the street as Holmes throws himself off the hospital roof. Rushing to the scene of the fallen body, Watson is knocked over by a cyclist, injuring his head. Disoriented, he just barely manages to ascertain that, yes, the crumpled form on the ground is Sherlock, and yes, he is dead. As the paramedics take the unconscious Watson away, Moriarty’s assassins stand down. The next day, Mycroft reads in the Sun a story about the suicide of the fake genius Sherlock Holmes.

Flash forward to Watson in therapy. His therapist advises that he visit Sherlock’s grave, where he will have the opportunity to say all the things he never could. Watson reiterates to Holmes’s grave that, no matter what Holmes says and what the world believes, he will never believe that Sherlock was a fraud, and begs Sherlock to do one last thing for him: don’t be dead.

A dejected Watson leaves the cemetery, but he is watched by a mysterious figure with a dark collar, curly hair, and ridiculous cheekbones. Could it be? Yes! It is! Sherlock Holmes, alive? But how could this be?

We’ll have to wait until next series to find out, it seems. Back when this second series of Sherlock aired on BBC1, Moffat, Gatiss and company managed to be pretty sneaky about this finale, hinting that the second season may well be the last. But mere minutes after the end credits rolled on this episode, Moffatt revealed we’d all been had: not only had a third series been commissioned, but in fact it had always been commissioned, as part of the same deal that got us this second series.

But with the third series having been in doubt before, I had wondered whether maybe, just maybe, Moffat and Gatiss intended to do what Arthur Conan Doyle never could, and just leave the most famous detective in all of fiction dead. After all, with both Cumberbatch and Freeman about to become big movie stars in the next couple of years, they might just be too busy to continue with the series. But we needn’t have feared. Sherlock will be back.

But how? While the Conan Doyle story which inspired this one, “The Final Problem,” gave Holmes an incredibly easy way out with no body discovered and no witnesses to the demise of Holmes and Moriarty, Moffatt, Gatiss, and Steve Thompson have made things much more difficult for their hero. Still, there are a few clues which might lead to a way out: Watson’s momentary distraction and subsequent disorientation because of the cyclist, or Holmes’s asking Molly Hooper for assistance both suggest possible outs, and there’s one theory on the Internet that the squash ball we see Holmes idly bouncing in the hospital could be used to give the appearance of a stopped pulse.

Whatever the case, it’s a great puzzler of an ending, but let’s not let that distract from the other eighty-five minutes of the episode, which are equally accomplished. Andrew Scott’s Moriarty proves a fascinating nemesis for Sherlock, and while I was skeptical about his loopy portrayal in the first series, this one has brought me fully around to loving this version of the character. And the script by Stephen Thompson was quite a wonderful surprise–having not been impressed by his previous scripts for Doctor Who and Sherlock, I now think he just needed the chance to work on some material that’s a bit less thankless.

In my recap of “A Scandal in Belgravia,” I compared Moffat’s version of Sherlock to his version of the Doctor in Doctor Who. Moffatt sees each of these characters as the man at the center of everything, the hero of the epic story around whom everything revolves. It’s interesting to note that in both cases, he’s taken the hero’s legend so far that it’s backfired in his face, to the point where a faked death was necessary to escape under the crushing weight of the heroic destiny.

Will the hero’s apparent demise really solve the problems he’s created for himself? For Doctor Who, we’ll find out later this year, but for Sherlock, we’ll likely have to wait longer. The third series isn’t even going to begin production until 2013, at which point production will have finished on The Hobbit (starring Freeman) and the next “Star Trek” film (starring Cumberbatch). That’s kind of excruciating. It’s a long wait between series for just three episodes. But we had to endure a comparable break to see this series, and these three episodes proved to be well worth the wait. For a lesser series, fans might just forget, lose interest, and move on. But I know I’ll be champing at the bit for the next batch, the moment they’re available to me.

Although Michael is now certain that Detective Ed Hawkins ran his car off the road on the night of that fateful “accident,” both of his therapists are skeptical. And he knows he hasn’t got shred of evidence to take to his colleagues. So in both the red and green worlds, Michael’s preparing to take Hawkins down, and he asks his wife and son to get out of town so they won’t be in the line of fire.

In the green world, Michael’s been calling in sick and won’t return Bird’s calls, so Bird goes around his house to see what’s up. Through the garage window he sees Michael’s collection of evidence about Hawkins, which freaks him out. Bird talks to Dr. Evans, who only makes him more worried that Michael is going to do something drastic.

Meanwhile, Michael is doing just that. He’s broken into Hawkins’ home and shot him in the leg. After further threats, Hawkins confesses to everything: he was involved in selling off confiscated narcotics, and they were being sold through Westfield. When Michael got too close to the truth, Hawkins tried to kill him. Hawkins tells Michael the evidence is on his laptop, but the file is password protected. While Michael’s distracted, Hawkins attacks him, and Michael retaliates, shooting and killing Hawkins. When Bird arrives on the scene and sees Hawkins dead, Michael demands his gun and essentially takes him hostage. While driving away, Bird claims that he’ll lead Michael to a hacker he knows, who can unlock the file, but Bird attacks Michael and knocks him out.

MIchael wakes up in the red world, where he asks that version of Bird to meet him, but not to tell Hawkins about it. Bird does so, but Hawkins is clearly suspicious. Michael tells Bird about everything, and Bird is skeptical, but Michael asks him to get the file from Hawkins’ laptop. Meanwhile, their meeting is observed by Hawkins, who can’t hear but knows something’s up. He reports to Harper and Carl. Carl thinks both Michael and Bird need to die, and plans to set it up so it looks like Michael killed Bird. Harper is on board, but clearly conflicted.

Bird manages to get the file and send it to Michael, who goes to their hacker friend for help. It turns out that the password is “tulip”, and file is a lease agreement for a storage space co-signed by Ed Hawkins and Carl Kessel, the chief at that precinct. The lease was signed the day after Westfield closed–the day of Michael’s accident. So they had moved the heroin there. The two arrange to meet after work to check out the facility and prove Hawkins is up to no good. But when Michael arrives at Bird’s house, he’s too late. Hawkins has killed Bird, and shoots Michael. As a wounded Michael flees, Harper tells his colleagues that Michael killed Bird and is on the run. She reacts furiously to Vega’s skepticism. Meanwhile, Michael just manages to elude Hawkins before passing out in an alley.

Michael wakes up in the green world, in the back of Bird’s car. Bird is ready to take him into custody, but Michael tells him the password to Hawkins’ file. Although Bird is confused about how he could know this, the file confirms everything Michael says. Bird brings Michael in handcuffs into Harper’s office, explaining the situation. Harper seems very skeptical, but allows Bird to investigate the storage facility. Meanwhile, she keeps Michael in a holding cell, because after all, he did shoot a fellow officer.

After months of dancing around this conspiracy, we’re finally getting to the bottom of everything, and at least these plot threads are starting to pay off. While the storyline hasn’t really been all that successful all season, it certainly made for a great episode this week. Watching Michael go through two parallel versions of the same case–his own–proved fascinating to watch.

But I wonder whether the two cases are really so similar at all. While the conspiracies seem to match up to one another, this episode is the first time we’ve gotten any indication of the conspiracy in this world. The broad outline seems to be quite similar, but might the details be quite different? For one thing, we’ve never seen anything in the green world to suggest that Harper has gone dirty in the way her red world counterpart has. And even though she seems a little harsh on Britten this week, that hasn’t necessarily changed. I wonder if the writers are hiding a little twist there.

And then there’s the bigger question: does this conspiracy have something to do with Michael’s two-world situation? Common sense suggests it would: after all, it all started with the accident, and Hawkins was the man responsible for the accident. But what we know about the conspiracy seems a lot more down to earth: it’s really just a case of police corruption with nothing supernatural, metaphysical, or otherworldly to it. There’s one more week to find out, and I’m very interested to see what this is all leading toward.

This is a show about a man in a suit — it’s a great disguise if nobody knows your face. It’s stunning how much identity-profiling this show does, using the Machine to suggest that human beings can be clinically-analyzed and then be unerringly labeled and judged. Carrying out the execution on that judgment is up to men and women though — that’s where all that data-gathering can be thrown out the window by free will. It’s still a choice. Person of Interest‘s season finale toyed with how people analyze each other and whether or not it’s crazy to feel paranoid. The approach wasn’t subtle, letting the comparison take root thanks to this week’s target being a highly-specific psychologist played by the liquid-hotrogen Amy Acker of Dollhouse fame (I think of her as Whiskey, but she’s more recognizable for her time spent in other corners of the Whedonverse). The premise might have been formulaic, but the Person of Interest formula has become potent indeed, so there will always be a twist that warps the episode’s thesis.

As season finales should, past guest-stars were popping back up like weeds this week, so that means Zoey is back to dig up dirt on Whiskey The Psychiatrist, and Alicia continued her deranged stalking of Finch. It’s funny how there were multiple moments in the episode where one character didn’t recognize another, or was suddenly told something that had been common knowledge for the audience for so long. Finch not really knowing Alicia made sense, since she had been his old partner Nathan’s handler and he had concealed Finch’s real identity by only introducing him with a blase attitude in all those flashbacks where they were building the Machine. Is Nathan really dead? Considering Reese’s old partner survived an AC-130 gunship attack of CoD-proportions, all bets are off.

Likewise, it was goofy to see Carter and Lionel finally realize that they’ve both been working with Reese and Finch but not knowing that the other was as well. No more awkward stares across the desk. Or maybe more of them? Perhaps, perhaps. At least they both have sane people to confide in now.

That circles back to the episode’s main theme — the assumption that most everything about a person can be discovered by observing them. It’s how the Machine works and it’s how Whiskey The Psychiatrist works, taking powerful members of the New York elite as clients and maybe learning a little bit too much as they confide in her. That’s why the NYPD’s “HR” department wanted her dead (or a client of theirs did). She functions mechanically, if softly, sizing up Reese when he comes in to do the same to her. Things escalated quickly when the FBI and the corrupt cops “HR” close in on Reese and Whiskey, respectively. This threat was diffused when Finch managed to hack all the cell towers of lower Manhattan, paralyzing the cops and the feds communications. They were damn-confused and unable to function, demonstrating their total dependence on their technology — and perhaps showing the individual officers and agents to think for themselves. It was a bit heavy-handed, with the show shouting: “Don’t be a tool! Don’t be a MACHINE!” right in the viewer’s face. But it was at the bad guys’ expense, so it was justifiable.

The scene of Reese escaping the hotel as Carter shot him warnings via text as she watched the CCTV cams was reminiscent of The Matrix. What’s eerie though is that it isn’t all that implausible. Person of Interest is soft sci-fi, but it’s conceptually-grounded in reality. Oh, how far we’ve come (and that wasn’t the last Matrix shout-out of the episode either)!

• Sidebar: was it funny to anybody else that there was REAL TIME CRIME CENTER plastered at the top of the FBI HQ’s big screen? What 14 year-old intern is designing the Bureau’s software these days? Person of Interest, you can be a silly goose sometimes. Or, a lot of the time.

Reese gets saved from the corrupt cops by the newly-minted Team Carter/Lionel. Then their meager getaway car chase became a fantastic car chase when Reese blows up their pursuers’ car with a bomb he planted. And Carter and Lionel are all, “Aww, man, you kept us in the dark.” And Reese was all, “Yeah, I have trust issues, but we should hang out sometime. Happy Explosion Day.” And he gets out of the car and doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the season. Actually, that’s not true, he says one more thing, but we’ll get to that in a sec.

First Finch gets ambushed by crazy-noid Alicia *GASP*, who tells him: ”You created God. Now you’re going to help me shut it down.” Then Whiskey shows up and shoots Alicia, revealing that she’s the hacker named Root from earlier in the season *DOUBLE-GASP!* Whiskey, you are always so many people. And Amy Acker makes the character look so comfortable and crazy. She’ll make for a dangerous foe. We’ve seen what the Machine can do in the hands of a social introvert like Finch, and we know that the Machine’s true power is tangible knowledge — pushing the button and executing on that knowledge is still up to the operator. If that operator was Root, then she could cause some real chaos.

Root absconds with Finch, leaving us wondering what will become of him. I’m wondering if Amy Acker will start showing up with greater frequency? I don’t believe she’s a regular on any other shows, save her occasional appearances on Once Upon A Time as the Pink Fairy (I still miss Stealthy). Her character has the makings of a pretty good Big Bad, which the show could benefit from — a Moriarty to Finch’s Holmes, lurking in the background and causing all the mischief in the world.

The very end also had strong echoes of The Matrix, as if the episode needed more reiterations about the importance of free will and man versus machine. Reese, wearing black, ignoring passersby on the street, stares up at a camera, knowing that the Machine is watching. Then he answers a ringing payphone and we smash to black.

The only other clue we’re left with was the Machine’s POV looking back at Reese, displaying: “Error: Continuity of operations compromised. Evaluating options.” Has Root seized control? Can the Machine be controlled, or is “aimed” the better word? Is the Machine sentient enough to be self-preserving and side with Reese like he told the camera? Speculate. Enjoy your summer — new episodes will start up again in the fall!

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Still bored? Read my recap for last Sunday’s Mad Men and my recent piece on the 9 Things That New College Graduates Need To Know over on GhostLittle.com – and as always, you can keep up with my thoughts on Twitter. See you on Sunday!

This is it: the finale of Community’s third season. I can safely say, that this has been my favorite season of any TV show I’ve ever watched. It’s been so weird, so unique, and so brilliant, that it’s almost hard to fathom how a show like this can even exist. How do you cap off a season where entire episodes have been spent in war documentary format, horror movie parodies and even alternate timelines? You deliver the most heart-warming, crowd-pleasing send off to ever air on television.

The main plot of this episode is almost inconsequential to the emotional current running throughout. The stakes are even higher than they were in the paintball finale of last year, especially for Troy, who’s defected to the Air Conditioning Repair School to save Greendale.  Now he’s at the mercy of Vice-Dean Laybourne (John Goodman). In a twist, Laybourne dies in a gas eruption, and Troy suspects foul play on the part of the new Vice-Dean. Meanwhile, Shirley and Pierce go to court over who has the title deed to “Shirley’s Sandwiches.” Jeff represents Shirley in fake-court (over which the Dean presides) and Jeff’s old lawyer nemesis Alan represents Pierce. In a third plot, Abed has fully embraced his dark-side, despite Britta’s attempts to council him. Now Evil Abed roams the hallways of Greendale popping balloons and smoking cigarettes all while wearing a felt goatee.His mission?Bring the darkest timeline to everyone else by making them unhappy…and also cut off Jeff Winger’s arm.

I didn’t expect the breath-taking emotional sucker punch that is this episode. In his closing remarks to the court, Jeff delivers one of his best speeches to date, knowing fully well that losing to Alan means he won’t have a firm to return to upon his graduation from Greendale. Simultaneously, Troy wins out against the new head of the AC repair school in a duel to the death (of fixing air conditioners) but saves his opponent’s life. Upon hearing Jeff’s speech and hearing Pierce drop his case against Shirley, Abed returns to normal as well, and gives up on cutting Jeff’s arm off.

The episode ends with a montage of things returning to normal that’s literally the greatest thing I’ve ever seen on TV. I’m not making this up or trying to be overly sappy about this, but as I was watching this, my brain could barely process what I was seeing. Every loose end from the season, every plot line, was all simultaneously tied up in true Greendale fashion, set to the main theme song. There’s a shot of Britta and Troy moving in together to a room that USED to be The Dreamatorium. There’s a shot of Dean Spreck of City College poising his tanks at Greendale for another assault (a possible direction of season 4), as Chang watches from the air vents. There’s a shot of Shirley and Pierce’s Sandwich shop opening, a shot of Jeff searching for his father on the Internet and even a shot of Starburns being revealed to still be alive. The last shot of the season (not counting the end-tag featuring Leonard reviewing a bag of chips on Youtube) is Abed secretly assembling a makeshift mini-Dreamatorium, and blasting off into it as the screen fades to white with the phrase “#Sixseasonsandamovie” on it. It’s a big thank you to the fans, and a truly emotional moment seeing the show come this far.

You can tell that as they made the ending montage, they weren’t entirely sure they were going to get a fourth season. I’ve tossed and turned for two years now wondering how a show as perfect as Community could ever end. That wasn’t quite good enough to end the series, but the fact that the penultimate season finale was this amazing gives me complete faith that no matter how the show ends, it will be touching and it will be appropriate. You can’t end the best show of all time with anything short of perfection, and I have faith Dan Harmon will do nothing but that. He cares about the show.It’s his baby. Regardless of rumors that he might not return for a fourth season, I have faith that he’ll be involved in some capacity.

It’s been a true pleasure to watch this show this year, and I don’t think I’ve ever been as involved in a TV fandom or so actively campaigned to keep something on the air. We worked for it because it deserves to be seen through. It’s special and it’s unique and there’s literally no other show like this one. It’s hard to go back to watching regular television after a season finale like this, but I’m going to have to try to waste the summer until we can be given some more time in a dream.

More Community Recaps:

(Season 3, Episode 21): “The First Chang Dynasty”

(Season 3, Episode 20): “Digital Estate Planning”

The storyline I was most looking forward to this season in Community was the Rise of Chang storyline, which ended tonight.  It’s been a slow burn in terms of pacing this story out over the season, and actually less centric in the episodes than I might have guessed based on the trailers we saw during the hiatus.  I’m pleased to say this conclusion was everything I’d hoped for though, and an overall well–balanced and well-directed episode.

The study group decides they need to do an “elaborate heist” to get back into Greendale and rescue the Dean, whose been captured by Chang and replaced with an imposter.  To do this, they have to infiltrate Chang’s birthday party in disguises.  Troy and Abed dress as plumbers, Jeff and Britta as sexy magicians, Shirley as a bearded chef, Pierce as a Swami, and Annie as a child security guard.  And then there’s Chang…Ken Jeong in his most obnoxious glory—decked out in fake-medals-of-honor and sporting a tacky Napoleon costume.  I love it when Chang fills a villain role, and he did that better than he ever has tonight.

Troy has to “sacrifice” himself into joining the Air Conditioning Repair School to save Greendale from being set fire to by Chang, who’s trying to eliminate any record of himself replacing the Dean with a “Doppledeaner.” Chang is eventually exposed as a fraud and flees the school, and the true Dean is re-instated.

This episode is above all else, funny.  There’s some downright hilarious bits with Jim Rash when he confesses that he turned the school into a place where Raves are held at night.  As great as this episode was (one of my favorites of the season actually), it was totally overshadowed by the season finale, which just might have been my favorite episode ever.